[fanfic] [KPFK:Hour 25] city-of-the-angels

Disclaimer: The names and personalities of the nominally-public figures used in this story are their own natural property. This story is a work of fiction, and its depictions of living persons are extrapolations from existing circumstance and should not be construed as having any basis whatsoever in fact.

There is a bare precedent for this story: Harlan Ellison's "The Hour That Stretches". Due to unavoidable circumstances, though, including the death of one of the public personalities herein depicted, this story uses Hour-25 names and personalities without their knowledge or permission, unlike Ellison's work, for which such permission was obtained. If there is objection raised by any of these people or their heirs or estates, this story will be retracted from public view; see the email address below. This story has no connection whatsoever with any works of Harlan Ellison, other than the circumstantial parallel of the use of Hour-25 names, personalities and situations which is the sole reason for mention here.

This is fan-fiction: an open fan-letter in prose.

Well, at last I know what happened in '86. There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle yet to be filled in, but the main story is there. That's what I'm going to talk about.

If I seem excessively informal in the style of this report, I hope that its content will explain why. It will have to; this will be the last report of any sort that you will get from me. As of your receipt of this tape and the one with it, I am resigning from the Agency. If you attempt, as you probably will, to find me and bring me in for summary debriefing, that will be the last mistake you make. Study this report carefully, chief, before you take any action. This is the best chance I can give you.

What you're looking for is three or four people, maybe a few others. Their names are Mike Hodel, Mel Gilden, Burt Handelsman and Terry Hodel. You won't find them. I know. For the first two months of this assignment, I traced every clue, looking for them. It can't be done, I know now, but I can't tell you why. You wouldn't believe me anyway. It has something to do with The Force, and I know what you think of cult religions.

What these people did was to put on a radio program called "Hour 25", about science fiction, Star Trek (space ships, not SDI), that kind of thing. They just got it back on the air. I haven't had time to listen to it but once yet; it's not bad. What I've heard is a massive collection of tapes of it, up to and including The Night, recorded off the air by Eric Foss. I mentioned him in my last report. I found him.

The program is broadcast on Friday nights, for two hours, just like before. They usually have an interview with some big-shot science-fiction writer. Usually that's Harlan Ellison. On this particular Friday night it was Arthur C. Clarke. He was hopping mad at the U. S. Air Force putting thermonuclear lasers into orbit, and he was going to talk about how science-fiction fans should get together to do something about it.

First they did an introduction to the program, as usual. Usually that's a few announcements, then a cute thing that sounds like it came from some old monster movie. Then they start the program proper, and they talk about little things that only matter to science fiction fans.

This night was different.

Foss recalls that Handelsman, the broadcast engineer, led off with what he says were the usual announcements. The first announcement, though, he says, was anything but normal, and prompted him to start recording with his backup recorder, a battery-powered boom-box portable, so that he wouldn't lose anything. It was a good move, he says; the power went out fifteen minutes later and the power-line spikes wiped out the first machine and messed up the tape on it. The final announcements on the surviving tape are these:

"...not already done so, may I remind you to redeem your pledge. KPFK needs your support.

"Now, put down whatever you're doing and pay attention.

"If you are listening to us in your car, please pull over and set your parking brake if at all possible. If you can't pull over, please tune out for the next half hour. Do so immediately.

"Please listen through headphones. If at all possible, do so in stereo. Please sit down, relax, make yourself comfortable. We will now go right into Hour 25."

The sound which follows on the tape is very hard to describe. It's on the other tape in this package. Don't listen to it until you've finished this one, or you have only yourself to blame. I've listened through it all with headphones, perhaps fifty times. It still puts chills up my spine, and I've changed a lot in four months.

It starts with low-level pink noise. Then the noise starts to develop tones, in a low-level kind of way-- you have to listen to hear the tones in the noise. The tones sound like they're filtered rather than generated, or produced with a phlanger. They get steadily more complex, almost like drawing you in to a pattern that they're developing. Then the patterns start rotating around you.

The channel-to-channel phasing must've been computer- controlled or -generated on this. That rotation effect is perfect dummy-head stuff, but this isn't real-world sound. Somebody must've spent a fortune on reverse-Fourier synthesis processing to come up with this. It spirals the sound around you, under you, above you; then it starts sweeping through you. Then it starts to pile up into standing-wave patterns with you at one end, going out forever in front of you.

The cool, calm voice of Terry Hodel joins the sound, whispering up out of the wavetrain, resolving into the same voice she has on Foss's other tapes.

"Members of the Group Mind-- participating Libertarian adjuncts-- prepare for link."

That's when the sound starts to develop actual tones, with little snatches of stuff buried in there. I swear I can pick out pieces of Jefferson Airplane, Star Wars, Star Trek, Peter H. Knight, Forbidden Planet, Jim Stanley, Aolius, a few national anthems, and speeches by the President. There's a lot more that got by me. The sound is so hypnotic that you're too busy feeling it to hear it. Then the sound builds into a basket pattern around your ears, and she's talking to you inside your head.

"On ten, you are into link.

"One... You are reaching outside time and space, each of you... You there, you are doing this with us, come... Reach.

"Two... You are turning your attention away from the things around you, to reach beyond them to what you really want. Look.

"Three... You are touching others who are touching you as you touch them... Touch.

"Four... You feel others around you, you feel them feel you. You feel the universe and beyond. Feel it feel you. Feel.

"Five... Your will expands to the outer limits and beyond. Feel your will find the Force, feel the force join your will... Force.

"Six... Your will balances its force into tune with the Force, in tune with the will of those who touch you. Your will is in tune with the Force. Your will is in tune with all the others who are in tune with the Force... Balance.

"Seven... You are stepping out into that balanced force, you are joining with all of us who are in balance with the will of the Force, you step past the threshold into the Force... Step.

"Eight... Your border is the border of us all, it is everywhere. We are beyond and within time and space. Ward.

"Nine... You are solid, those you touch are solid, you are linked to all you touch. Group Mind members -- Libertarian warders --you are in link. You ARE in link.

"Ten... Warders, define your borders. Members, enclose your warders. We are of purpose. We are one composed of many: e pluribus unum. Group Mind, ACTIVATE."

At that point, chief, I break down and cry, dammit, I cry, because there's no one there, I'm listening to a goddam tape-recorder, not something that's happening, I've missed it and I'm out there all alone, there's nobody there, nobody, and I'm so-- goddam-- alone...

The first time it happened, I had a seizure... That's what Foss told me, anyway, and then the paramedics had to put me under to get me into the ambulance, I was so determined to get hold of some kind of weapon to end the loneliness.

Every time I've listened to the tape since then, I stop the tape and cry. I'm a grown man, dammit, I've seen massacres, I've killed thirty people, I've been tortured twice... but when I get to that point on the tape I stop it and I cry.

Okay. What goes on after that is this:

That hypnotic sound-weaving goes on, gets more regular. If you're in the right mood, it feels like you're on a bobsled, going faster all the time, already faster than you can see. Through it, her voice is pointing out things to you, asking you why you should allow the existence of something that has no purpose but to kill you.

Foss helped me listen to that part. He was listening the first time, with headphones, when it all happened, and he took part in it. The one time I've really been able to listen to this part, he and I were wearing headphones, listening to the tape, and he let me share what went through his mind at the time. That's the only time I've ever listened to somebody else's mind. It was incredible.

The voice goes on, asking you why you should put up with that kind of thing... nuclear weapons, military satellites with weapons in them, submarines creeping around the ocean with death hiding inside them, the agents in our Hotrod division walking around with satchels of annihilation... and she asks you, who gave those people the right to kill you? Nobody. What're you going to do about it, then? Everybody join hands and make them stop being able to kill you. Make them stop NOW. NOW. NOW. Now now nownownownow...

What went through his mind then was the memory of feeling his anger harden into something sharp, then jabbing things repeatedly with it.

You wouldn't think there'd be that many people listening to a dinky little noncommercial FM station on a Friday night, especially one that bugs you for money four times a year. Since then, a lot more people have gotten interested, and by now maybe ninety percent of Los Angeles has heard the tape. I guess the people who were listening at the time were the ones who counted, because we all know what happened everywhere else in the world.

Every silo, stockpile, submarine and bomber is full of half-melted birds, with a payload of dirty gold and platinum. The most dangerous thing about those ICBMs now is the leaky fuel from twisted engines. Even our killersats don't respond to commands; Ivan's don't either. They can't hurt anybody unless they fall right on 'em. In five minutes, the only fissionables left were those in reactor cores and in unrefined ores.

Now I know why there was such precision to it, why not a single life was lost even when all the weapons-grade uranium and plutonium was being transmuted to stable elements and inerts, why personnel were treated for blisters but not for radiation burns. These people just don't like death and destruction, chief, it's as simple as that. They hate war and they hate killing.

It's still going on, too. They never dissolved the link, they seem to be able to live with it. I just found out about a warning they sent to PG&E that the Diablo Canyon reactor is about to go dead. With that plant's safety record, I can see why... those who are behind this, really behind this, have been picking and choosing what reactors are safe enough to keep running. So far they've only approved Navy piles and a few research facilities. I hear they shut down Brownsville; NRC probably didn't tell you.

Chief... there are no traffic accidents in L.A. anymore, except between cars with out-of-state registration. The smog is half as bad as it was, because everybody's car- pooling, in spite of those blackouts we heard about, blackouts that've brought every major computer center down. They just find somebody to ride with. I guess you've figured out how, like I have.

The Los Angelenos I meet now aren't like the dip-heads I used to put up with. They're still dreamy, but now they know a lot more about what's going on than I do. This town has changed, for the good and probably for good.

Not everybody can handle it. Every day they find a few more people dead in their beds, or in the streets, or floating in the surf, people who don't belong here. Most of 'em have tapes of that broadcast. A lot of 'em turn out to be KGB. A few of 'em have been from the Agency. Nice to know I had company.

Thanks for not warning me what I was going into, by the way. I know you did it out of contempt for a disposable tool, but it helped me get through this on my own with no fatal preconceptions. If I'd gone into this with the idea that there was something that made operatives commit suicide, I would've been alone the first time I listened to the tape, and Foss couldn't have kept me alive.

It would've been easy, too. They sell copies of the tape in all the SF bookstores, and they went like hotcakes until everybody had one. Tourists still buy them. This thing is spreading, and I'm not sorry.

I've found out for you what it was that annihilated the threat of nuclear war, like you sent me in to find out. I'm not going to help you find out how to turn it into a weapon, though. I'm sick of the Agency, I'm sick of the dirty war, I'm sick of you. I've found someplace to come in from the cold. They know what I am, what I've done,-- if you think about a secret too long here, it's not a secret anymore -- and they respect me for what humanity I have left. I know when I'm onto a good thing, and I'm not going to help you ruin it.

Tomorrow they're going to take me to see Gilden. He's got the original tape, the one they played at the beginning of the broadcast, and if I can survive it without help they'll let me stay in L A; I'll be in the link. If not, they'll send me back to Bakersfield to recover, and I'll stay solo.

I can tell you this much, because it would be suicide for you to try to make something of it... Foss is one of the warders, chief, he stays out in Bakersfield where he's got room to breathe, but he's linked in like the rest. If you make the Las Vegas facility launch a psionic assault on him, you'll lose the team, probably the facility as well. He's got the full power of Los Angeles behind him, and the personality to make good use of it; that's why he's a warder.

I'll tell you what kind of power he's got behind him, too. KPFK is a Pacifica station, remember? Yeah, I know what you think of socialists, and you know what I think of leftists, period. I've been all over this place in the last two months, talked to everybody who knows what's going on, and everybody says I'll always be just an adjunct. If that's how it shakes down, it suits me just fine.

Anyway, the night they did this broadcast is the night somebody decided to do to KPFK what they did to the Houston Pacifica station. They blew up the transmitter, took out everything on the mountain with it,-- business, amateur, radio, TV,-- the works. It went up ten minutes after that lady said "activate". I think you have a pretty damn good idea who did it, too... was that your project? Or Ivan's?

Everybody else went off the air, of course. No transmitter, so no transmitted signal.

Foss recorded the whole program on tape in his living room in Bakersfield, interview with Clarke and all; Clarke started talking about grassroots lobbying. It gets scratchy for a moment, then goes on, with no intermod from the other stations, clean and strong. I've listened to it from end to end, chief. The carrier drops clean away the moment Hodel and Gilden say "good night", and not a moment before. Aside from disarming us and everybody else, chief, the Group Mind had enough left over for at least fifty thousand watts of RF power for a two-hour radio broadcast, just so Foss could tape it. Take a hint, chief-- don't mess with L A. You need them more than they need you, and they're more fully human and American than you or I will ever be, though as soon as I've stopped this tape and put it in the mail I'm going to try.

C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org

If this story has piqued your interest in the real Hour 25, please browse the following links.
The Hour 25 Archives Home Page
Mike Hodel's Hour 25 Home Page