Videodrome: Days of O'Blivion (14 page)

“But what about
Spectrometer himself?” Mister Crucial asked. “His psychological
profile suggests he will not accept this course for his work.”

“What is your opinion,
Barry? You’ve been friends for a long time and I appreciate that
this could be emotionally uncomfortable for you. What do you think
Brian will do when you close the side project? How will he respond
knowing we’re weaponising his invention?”

Barry looked to Cue
Ball for guidance, a signal of some kind, but Cue Ball sat
unmoving. “My opinion… I understand Brian… He won’t sit still and
be quiet. He’s liable to make noise.”

“A liability?” Mister
Crucial asked.

Barry took a very deep
breath. Cue Ball’s words went through his head again. ‘This is a do
or die world we live in, Barry… You’re a doer… don’t be the one who
dies… don’t be the weak link.’ He swallowed hard and forced the
words out of his mouth. “Yes, he’s a liability and a potential
problem. Knowing him as I do, I would say that although his precise
future behaviour is hard to predict, I do not believe his behaviour
would be aligned with Consec’s aims.”

----- X -----

The meeting ended and
Barry headed out quickly. He had to call. He had to telephone Brian
quickly and warn him. Consec Leader followed him out. “Barry, can I
have a moment.”

“Sure.”

Leader held out his
hand again to shake. “From when I first met you, I felt that you
were made of the right stuff, but it’s so rare that I get a chance
to see someone step up and put the needs of a continent so
forthrightly before their own considerations.”

“Thank you. If you’ll
forgive me. I’m still human and I’m feeling some strong emotions
right now. I’d like to go and have some alone time.”

Leader smiled and
walked him to the door with a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, you are,
Barry. You are still human.” He opened the door for him. There were
now four helicopters parked outside. Barry began walking to the one
he thought he’d arrived in. “Hey, Barry…”

“Yeah?” he asked
calling back over his shoulder.

“This happens
sometimes. Just think of it as a statistic. It’s just a number,
nothing more.”

Barry nodded. He waved
and turned back towards the helicopter.

Jesus Fucking Christ. A
statistic… a fucking statistic? He was talking about Brian Olivier,
the greatest friend and business partner a man could ever have.
They’d done it all and done it together. They’d got drunk at
college together. Invented things together. Made money and lost
money together. Always together. Always as friends.

Ahead of him he heard
the helicopter turbine begin to wind up. Navigation lights came on
and the rotors began to move as the chopper prepared for take-off.
Barry climbed into the back. “Get me back to Toronto. Fast!”

The helicopter rose
into the air. Barry realised Consec Leader was still standing
watch, taking an extra minute out of his day to give Barry a wave
goodbye. Barry returned the wave as the helicopter banked to the
side and climbed into the night.

They flew for less than
ten minutes.

“Hey, I need you to
land on the street down there,” he called as they passed over the
first bit of town.

“No, Sir, that’s not
possible,” the pilot said. “I can’t land on a residential street,
there could be overhead cables and it’s against aviation
rules.”

“I need to make a phone
call,” Barry said. “It’s desperate. I need to get to a payphone
quickly.”

“Err… roger that… give
me a moment.” The pilot began scouring the ground around him,
dropping altitude. “Sir, there is a gas station over to the right
by the freeway, do you see it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to try and
set down a hundred yards beyond it on the open ground.”

“Good. Wait for me. I’m
going to make one call and come back.”

The helicopter landed
and Barry jumped out into cold soft mud. He ran hard and fast with
his head ducked low towards the gas station. It was a long time
since he’d run a hundred yards and he was out of breath quickly.
“I’m not going to be responsible for his murder. I’m not going to
be responsible for his murder.” The words came as a mantra, huffed
and puffed with his exertion.

He burst into the gas
station. “Payphone,” he yelled. “Where’s your phone?”

----- X -----

Bianca answered the
phone. “Hello?”

“Bianca, it’s Barry. Is
your father there? It’s urgent.”

She passed the phone
over. “Barry, for you. He said it’s urgent.” Brian took the
telephone.

“Brian, thank God.
You’ve got to get out of there. Consec have turned ugly and they
see you as a threat. I’ve just been at a meeting where they decided
to murder you. Drop everything now and get out. Just run. Get away
from there now. Go now!”

Bianca was stood close
by and could hear the muffled voice. She picked out enough words to
know they were in danger. She moved to the window and moved the
curtain. A man in the street looked up at her, he was holding a…
was it a gun? Oh, Jesus… “Father, there’s a man outside with a
gun.” She looked again to see this man crossing to the front door
of the mission, a second man followed but jogged past the first,
heading around the building.

The telephone line went
dead in Brian’s hand. Barry was still talking but the phone line
cut out. “Turn off the lights,” he said to Bianca. Think, he had to
think. “What did you see outside?”

“Two men. One went to
the front door…” There was a bang from downstairs as the front door
kicked in.

Covered in darkness,
Brian edged to the balcony. The mission was formerly a church and
Bianca’s living quarters and office were on a galleried ledge that
looked down into the main hall. It was covered in curtain which
Brian eased open. There was a man in the darkness inside the hall.
He was looking around, surveying the surroundings but not moving.
Then came another loud bang and a shattering of glass. Brian held
his breath as he watched the second man move into the hall. They
both held pistols.

Bianca was waiting for
instruction. “Turn on the televisions,” Brian whispered. She moved
to the patch bay and threw a few switches as the men began walking
past the TV sets. Suddenly the room came to life with cathode ray
static. Brian went to the patch bay and pointed Bianca to the
curtains. "Keep watching them. Tell me where they are.”

Bianca moved to the
balcony and held the curtain only an inch apart to look into the
hall. “They’re checking the doors at the far end,” she whispered.
Brian plugged in the colour bar test generator. “All the TV’s have
changed to a test pattern. They’ve stopped. They’re looking
around.”

Brian connected the
Viper-Sig module. "Cover your eyes, Bianca. Don’t look at the
screens." She stepped back from the curtain as Brian turned the
signal to one hundred percent. He grabbed a copy of the clean
Pittsburgh cassette, the Double Interracial tape. He played it.
Viper-Sig at one hundred percent with Double Interracial played out
across sixty televisions. From within the hall came the grunts and
screams of the Videodrome torture. The black man and white woman
locked in a double collar cried out and echoed from sixty
televisions. Brian and Bianca were behind the curtain and shielded,
but the two assassins amongst the screens were exposed. He let the
whole tape play out then connected the video camera and turned on
the desk lamp to illuminate himself. He switched the output to the
sixty TV’s to the live view from the camera, still embedded with
Viper-Sig. He took a seat in front of the camera. “I’m talking to
the men who have just entered the Cathode Ray Mission. Take a seat
in front of a television. I have something to give you.”

Brian and Bianca both
listened carefully. They heard the sound of chairs moving in the
hall.

“Will it make them do
what they’re told?” Bianca asked.

“I think so. I’m going
to turn off the signal for a second,” Brian whispered. “When I do,
look out quickly and tell me what you see.” He placed his hand on
the Viper-Sig controller. “Now, look now.”

Bianca peeked behind
the curtain and came back a second later. “They’re sitting down,
watching you on the screen.”

Brian turned the
Viper-Sig module back on and whispered to Bianca, “It’s going to be
okay. I have a plan.”

He did have a plan, but
more than that he had rage, he had understated fury coursing
through his veins. Consec had sent men to kill him… To murder… To
kill Bianca too, probably.

Bastards… Fucking son’s
of bitches…

They’d robbed him of
his work, of his choices, of his health and of his very
identity.

His identity was gone.
The old Brian Olivier was gone. Erased.

Violence is the outcome
of a man stripped of his identity.

Violence is the outcome
of a man stripped of his identity.

Violence is the outcome
of a man stripped of his identity.

They had picked a fight
with the wrong man. They picked a fight with a weaponised man. A
dying man with nothing to lose. A man stripped of his very identity
and purpose in life; and a man who had the means to send them into
oblivion.

----- X -----

The assassins called
for helicopter support to take them back to Home Base. “The
Spectrometer partnership is dissolved,” they said. “But we have
something from him that must go directly to Consec Leader. We’re
bringing it in now.”

The helicopter picked
them up at the business park and brought them in. Cue Ball was
there to meet them. “This is for Consec Leader only,” they said.
One of them held a video cassette. The label read, ‘From the office
of Professor Brian O’Blivion.’

Cue Ball reached for
it. “I’ll take it.”

“I’m sorry, Sir. This
is too sensitive, it’s for Consec Leader eyes only.”

Cue Ball took a step
back and scrutinised the assassin. Company Men like these were
renowned for their loyalty and ability, typically they were twenty
year veterans with impeccable credentials. He knew better than to
question. He made the call. "Consec Leader, this is Cue Ball. The
Company Men have returned from the Spectrometer assignment. The
partnership was dissolved but they have a package for you and you
only.”

They waited three
minutes.

The elevator pinged on
arrival.

“What do you have?”
Leader asked the assassins.

It was Cue Ball who
answered. “They have a video cassette that is too sensitive even
for me, Sir.”

“What is it?” He asked
again.

The assassins looked to
one another, then one of them said, “Before he died, Spectrometer
gave me this and said it was his confession of what he has done
with the technology… You need to see it.”

“Spectrometer said
Consec is in danger,” the other assassin added. “Grave danger.”

Leader took the
cassette.

Cue Ball had as much
apprehension written on his face as he held in his voice. “Sir, I
would advise against watching any video that came from
Spectrometer.”

Leader smiled and gave
him a wink. “I have Veraceo detectors on my screens upstairs. Don’t
worry. I’m not that foolish.” To the assassins he said, “I want you
two men to remain here whilst I watch this. I may have some
questions for you.”

Leader walked to the
elevator and took the cassette back to his pure white apartment. He
sat down at his bank of televisions and positioned his two Veraceo
detectors ahead of the central screen. As the cassette started he
had his hand raised to shield the screen whilst watching the
detectors.

Spectrometer came on
the screen, underneath him was the legend ‘Professor Brian
O’Blivion’.

"Consec Leader,” Brian
said, “you are seeing this tape because Brian Spectrometer is
dead.” Leader looked to his two Veraceo detectors, both of them had
the green light of a clean signal; he lowered his hand to watch the
screen. “But you can’t really kill something of the television age.
Copies are made. Duplications of the video. I understand now the
title of your programme, Videodrome. The video arena. An arena in
which to battle for the mind of North America. I understand
Consec’s philosophy of wishing to control people. Your desire is
not just to control one corner of the globe, but to have authority
across all people and with Veraceo you had the perfect tool.
Except, you didn’t. There is a mistake you made in your relentless
drive for destruction. Your mistake is blowback. You showed me the
depths of your madness. A desire to commit mass murder by
television to improve GDP per capita. A truly destructive plan.
With your Videodrome programme you could have aimed for the stars,
yet your appetite was simply for Armageddon. Your quest was for
violence. So, I have set out to destroy Consec and Videodrome and I
can do so from beyond death.”

Leader glanced back at
the Veraceo detectors, still showing the green light of a clean
signal. To the screen he whispered, “I don’t think so,
Spectrometer.”

On screen Brian
O’Blivion grinned. “Before I tell you why you’re really watching
this, I need to preface my confession with a philosophy; and I’m
going to tell you about violence. Not the sort of violence that you
were seeking, but the violence that you have brought upon yourself.
All forms of violence are a quest for personal identity. When a man
has no identity, when he is a nobody, he gets very tough and he
must prove that he is somebody; and so he becomes very violent.
Identity is always accompanied by violence. Ordinary people become
violent as they lose their identity. The threat to people’s
identity makes people violent. Terrorists and hijackers, these are
people minus identity. They are determined to make it somehow, to
get coverage and to get noticed. Do you notice me? Do you see me
now, Consec Leader?”