Chapter 47
The Garden of the MonstersMonitor and his friend, Bearded Man, stood on a rectangle in a corner of the monitor's chamber. Monitor bent down and pressed the secret spring; thus, both sank 100 meters until they reached the mouth of the tunnel that led, among many other places, to the "Garden of the Monsters." It stopped on enormous elastic devices. After a moment of absolute motion, slowly, but with increasing speed, the rectangle began to move through a fork in the main tunnel. After a journey of seven kilometers, it entered a uniformly delayed motion until it came to a complete stop. Finally, upward. Seconds later, Monitor and Bearded Man emerged from the rectangle, which now constituted another enormous slab in the checkered pavement of their rest house, in the "Garden of the Monsters," located on the outskirts of Monitoria, Central Technocracy.
They walked through long corridors with glass roofs, through which illuminated aquariums filled with octopuses could be seen. The passageways sometimes led to sunny areas planted with tropical plants; they contained, among other things, all varieties of carnivorous plants, many of these specimens obtained by mutation. Soldiers appeared everywhere. As the Monitor passed, they saluted quickly and stiffly.
The Head of State and Bearded Man went outside. Lots of sun and plants. Several paths opened up through the forest, like a labyrinth of passageways, all leading to the same place. Every so often, the thicket opened into clearings with stone terraces, statues, fountains, altars to unknown gods, and sphinxes. Monitor led his friend down an avenue of seated giants, which led to a sort of natural amphitheater. The Monster showed the other four things that, from a distance, looked like statues with small guitars. They were stuck on a kind of stage platform measuring thirty centimeters high, three meters long, and four meters wide. As he got closer, Bearded Man realized with amazement that they were men with masks on, carrying tiny electric guitars, tiny drum kits, etc., as if they were a beat band. The heavy hand of rock. The whole cubicle, crazy. They had nailed their feet to the wood so they wouldn't fall. Their mouths were open in twitching, yellowish teeth visible beneath their glassy eyes.
The Bearded Man, laughing:
—How sinister. Only the Monitor could have come up with such a wicked idea.
The Monitor replied:
—You're wrong. Soria Soriator could have too. —Then he continued, putting on an innocent face—: Why do you say that... as if I were cruel? Don't you see that I even put a little knitted sweater on him so he wouldn't get cold?
They both frowned and, opening their mouths, laughed with refined cruelty.
Bearded Man opined:
---This is more than square rock, cubic rock.
---Yes, the whole cubic. Punks are pale bourgeois boys next to me.
But suddenly, like something grafted, positve, the following sentence crystallized in Bearded Man's mind: "Sure. But what he did to them now, he can do to me later. Guys who are too powerful get carried away. One moment of tiredness or boredom and the Monitor, no matter how much of a confidant he may be now, will have me killed to join his collection." The bearded man, completely surprised by these thoughts, which bordered on betrayal, quickly looked at his friend, fearing he had been overheard. How was it possible that he had disloyal thoughts so quickly? But soon, with a mighty effort, he stopped thinking about such nonsense and noticed something he hadn't noticed until then:
--------Wait, I think I know this guy... But it's Yogurt! Of course, now I get it. With that face like aged ivory, I didn't recognize him at first. Comrade Yogurt, who betrayed his worldview (among many other things). Comrade Yogurt, who betrayed his worldview (among many other things). Comrade Yogurt, who betrayed his worldview (among many other things). Comrade Yogurt, who betrayed his worldview (among many other things). And I think I know the others too. They all used to go to the Gueno bar.
----Yes----commented the Monitor----. Yogurt is now experiencing his last psychedelic trip. An eternal acid trip. But wait. You haven't seen everything yet.
And the Monitor moved a lever hidden on the side of the platform. Twist and Shout, sung by the Beatles, began to play. The corpses—as if under the spell of a zombie maker and, quite obviously, articulated by a special mechanism—began to sway stiffly; in such a way, they seemed to be playing the drums and little guitars. Yogurt stood out in particular: he brought his beard-covered mouth close to a disconnected microphone on the stage, opening and closing it spasmodically, imitating the act of singing. The technocratic technique had achieved perfect stereophony in this case: the drum sounds seemed to be actually coming from the "drummer," etc.
And so,Yogurt was the center of that panoply of pink swords. Two of the breasts, in the back, weakly echoed it.
The Bearded Man contemplated everything, fascinated. The Monitor said, observing his reactions:
—I wanted to give myself this Hittite-style pleasure. Every time I press the lever—and I always do when I visit this section of the "Garden of Monsters"—they play the same thing over and over again.
The Bearded Man simply smiled, nodding his head approvingly. The Monitor continued:
—Yes. Men have the gods they deserve. And now they have Prince Yen.
To the Bearded Man—just as the technocrat uttered the previous sentence—surprisingly, the same thing happened to him again as a little while before. He thought: "I can already see myself up there on the platform: embalmed, naked, and wearing a little knitted vest. That way the quartet will turn into a quintet." And immediately, before he had time to suppress it: "Yogurt was his friend too, and you see how that ended." He was so furious at himself for harboring those treacherous and stupid thoughts that he couldn't fully understand the Monitor's last sentence. He asked, bewildered:
"Who is Prince Yen?"
The Monitor was surprised:
"The one who presides over the Chinese hell. The librarian robot, the one we had to destroy, read it to us. Don't you remember? What's wrong with you, are you distracted?"
"But what's wrong with you?"
Passing a hand over his forehead:
"Nothing, nothing."
"Are you feeling unwell? You give the impression of being agitated."
Barbudo pondered for a moment. What was really wrong with him? What were all these intrusive thoughts? "They're not intrusive thoughts. They're premonitions. Something inside me is warning me that the Monitor is a bastard. I have to distrust him," he heard himself think. Then he said aloud:
—Distrust him? Hell no.
The other man looked at him in surprise:
—Distrust who?
Barbudo, realizing he had spoken aloud, blushed. It was like being caught red-handed. The little voice, insistent and nagging, said: "Yes, yes. That's because you're a trusting idiot. This, in any case, is true: the Monitor is a megalomaniac and a madman."
—Nobody. Don't pay attention to me.
—Something's going on with you.
The other one felt as if he were thinking: "Something's going on! As if I wouldn't notice, being next to a highly cruel and sinister guy who delights in killing. And oh, I'm not killing these guys because they're sons of bitches. The fact that they were bad is just the excuse. The truth is, the Monitor has wanted to have some embalmed guys in the garden for a while now. When he gets tired of the quartet and wants to move on to the quintet..." "Enough!" the Bearded Man's true mental voice roared like a cannon blast. And the parasitic thoughts disappeared for a while. But then they would return. And again, and again and again.
Four days later, the Bearded Man went to the Language Department to perform a task the supervisor had entrusted to him. Among the employees, he noticed a very pretty girl typing something. He felt an emotion he hadn't felt for a woman in a long time. He needed to talk to her, but he didn't know what to say. It was all so absurd. For several days now, strange things, completely out of character for him, had been happening. He stood there, staring at her like an idiot. This was too much. He looked at her closely, trying to figure out why he liked her so much. He had slept with at least one hundred and fifty women just like her. She was attractive, but not that attractive. She did have nice curves, though. Her face showed intelligence and concentration. Suddenly, she looked up and met his eyes, as if she had known he was watching her. She smiled with an expression that was very difficult to categorize. It was a mixture of irony and something indecipherable, mysterious. The Bearded Man thought, "What the hell is going on here?" And then, this thought that seemed to be his own: "Now is the most important moment of my life. I think she's the woman I've always been looking for." He weakly rejected the idea, so obviously absurd, worthy only of a dreamer who had never had a woman. "But what if it were true?"
The girl took the sheet of paper from the machine, then proceeded to place it on the table. Then, slowly, she got up and walked towards him. A meter away from him, she stopped, preparing to say warmly: "I was waiting for you. I always knew you would come." She parted her lips, about to utter the phrase.
Monitor ordered his mages to find out the reasons why the library robot had rebelled. After a thorough investigation, they discovered that it was the remnants of a magical attack intended to kill the head of state. That malevolent energy, behaving in some ways like a living being, filled with hatred for its failure, only had enough power to gain control of the robot.
But De Gaula was not satisfied with that answer. He also wanted to identify the esoteric group responsible. He not only managed to detect them but, by reviewing the Akashic records of previous days, he saw the Soria mages in the astral plane breaking the blockade, spying on Monitor and the Bearded One, and finally, talking among themselves:
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. . . I think that in this sense, with the Bearded One, rather than killing him—which is always risky—what we should do is give him a little push starting at level 4, and from there go up to 18 or more, until we possess him. We have to contaminate his astral body little by little, so that the Monitor doesn't catch on and can't help him. We're going to instill a little bit of selfishness in him each day; to almost imperceptibly diminish his generosity. Make him jealous of the other's greatness: "If I were the Monitor, I would do it much better!" etc. And he will believe that all these thoughts are his own; although at first, ashamed, he will want to repress them. But if we bombard him day and night with these things: jealousy, suspicion, in the end he will give in.
The others, convinced, approved: "Good, good."
The Soria continued:
—We can even control an anti-Mozart woman, suitable for the job, without her knowing, and make her fall in love with the Bearded One. We're going to empower her so that she has brilliant and Mozart-like behaviors and responses; just the way they like it. At first, just to hook him. And since he's a loner at heart, despite having had thousands of women, he gets completely hooked. Then, at some point, she'll also sleep with the Monitor. We'll take the opportunity to blame the Monitor: that she's actually in love with the Bearded Guy but blah blah blah. She's willing to break up with the Super provided he also tells him to go to hell. Immediately afterwards comes the big fight between the Bearded Guy and the Monitor. And we'll be laughing our asses off. Huh? What do you think of my plan?
Soria 1:
----Brilliant
Soria II:
Brilliant, brilliant.
Gaula's next step was to find out who the woman was. He soon spotted her in the Language Monitoring room. He caught her just as she was beginning to charm the Bearded Man. So, while she was smiling and approaching the Monitor's friend, within the same astral plane the magician struck her with a powerful blow, weakening her and severing the thread of energy that connected her to the sorcerers.
He had slept with at least one hundred and fifty women just like her. She was attractive, but not exceptionally so. She did have lovely curves, though. Her face showed intelligence and concentration. Suddenly, she looked up and met his gaze, as if she had known he was watching her. She smiled with an intention that was very difficult to categorize. It was a mixture of irony and something indecipherable, mysterious. Barbudo thought: "What the hell is going on here?" And then, this thought that seemed to be his own: "This is the most important moment of my life. I think she's the woman I've always been looking for." He weakly rejected the idea, obviously absurd, worthy only of a dreamer who had never had a woman. "But what if it were true?"
The girl took the sheet of paper from the typewriter and placed it on the table. Then, slowly, she stood up and walked toward him. A meter away, she stopped, preparing to say warmly, "I was waiting for you. I always knew you'd come." She parted her lips slightly, about to utter the words. But, just as the tip of her tongue touched her teeth to begin articulating the first word, "You," something strange happened. She froze, her eyes wide. Just like a zombie who'd been unplugged. The fascination of her face vanished. She stammered some incoherent babble, something like, "Excuse me... pardon me..." Her face completely gray, she turned away and sat down again at the typewriter. She put in a new sheet of paper. Suddenly, she was just another employee. The Bearded Man lost all sense of the magical encounter he'd had until a moment ago. How was it possible that, just a moment before, he'd been on the verge of considering a woman with such a stupid face the woman of his dreams? What had happened to him? Was he going crazy? Or what?
In any case, from that moment on, he no longer had any strange thoughts or exotic encounters. However, for up to two months after the incident, every now and then, in the presence of the monitor, things like, "What if this guy, who seems like such a friend of mine..." would occur to him? The dog, now completely weak, found it very easy to block out these thoughts. After the two months were over, he no longer felt any discomfort whatsoever.
Others, poor unfortunate souls, were not so lucky. Deprived of help and a teacher, they became easy prey for any esoteric society.
He had slept with at least one hundred and fifty women just like her. She was attractive, but not exceptionally so. She did have lovely curves, though. Her face showed intelligence and concentration. Suddenly, she looked up and met his gaze, as if she had known he was watching her. She smiled with an intention that was very difficult to categorize. It was a mixture of irony and something indecipherable, mysterious. Barbudo thought: "What the hell is going on here?" And then, this thought that seemed to be his own: "This is the most important moment of my life. I think she's the woman I've always been looking for." He weakly rejected the idea, obviously absurd, worthy only of a dreamer who had never had a woman. "But what if it were true?"
The girl took the sheet of paper from the typewriter and placed it on the table. Then, slowly, she stood up and walked toward him. A meter away, she stopped, preparing to say warmly, "I was waiting for you. I always knew you'd come." She parted her lips slightly, about to utter the words. But, just as the tip of her tongue touched her teeth to begin articulating the first word, "You," something strange happened. She froze, her eyes wide. Just like a zombie who'd been unplugged. The fascination of her face vanished. She stammered some incoherent babble, something like, "Excuse me... pardon me..." Her face completely gray, she turned away and sat down again at the typewriter. She put in a new sheet of paper. Suddenly, she was just another employee. The Bearded Man lost all sense of the magical encounter he'd had until a moment ago. How was it possible that, just a moment before, he'd been on the verge of considering a woman with such a stupid face the woman of his dreams? What had happened to him? Was he going crazy? Or what?
In any case, from that moment on, he no longer had any strange thoughts or exotic encounters. However, for up to two months after the incident, every now and then, in the presence of the monitor, things like, "What if this guy, who seems like such a friend of mine..." would occur to him? The dog, now completely weak, found it very easy to block out these thoughts. After the two months were over, he no longer felt any discomfort whatsoever.
Others, poor unfortunate souls, were not so lucky. Deprived of help and a teacher, they became easy prey for any esoteric society.
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