Pirgh did not recognize the land. Giant red trees and black jagged boulders surrounded him as he held the torch firmly in his right hand. A gray fog had snuck into the valley and stole away the cold morning light. The natural surroundings amazed Pirgh because he had never before experienced valleys, boulders, trees, or fog. He was born and raised on the Darius Station and had never touched a planetary surface. Yet here he was standing in the middle of the forest.
He heard approaching voices, yells mostly, hidden in the fog. Then suddenly like some tornado the mob appeared, sucking everything, including Pirgh, in its path. Something was cutting through the moving mob. It was a horse-drawn cart, and tied to a post in the cart was a black man, naked and bleeding. His eyes were puffed and his body was bruised. The stormy men and women surrounding Pirgh threw small objects at the man and yelled at him.
The mob stopped as the cart came to a large post in the ground. The small man who drove the cart strung the black man to the post while the crowd continued to taunt him. The man looked across the crowd until his cold blue eyes rested onto Pirgh’s. The man watched Pirgh. Pirgh wanted to look away as several men began a slow disembowellment of the black man. Chants of death sounded like a demon chorus from the crowd, and then as quickly as he had appeared the strange man died. Then Pirgh awoke.
While the dream faded from memory, Pirgh stared at the hologram by his alarm clock. His deceased grandfather Jesse wrapped his arm around Pirgh’s mother, who in turn hugged Pirgh in front of her. A tiny red and blue label on Jesse Peins’ shirt read, "Accomodations, Inc." It was the company Jesse created, the company that was bought out by corporate raiders after Jesse’s death so that Pirgh’s mother received almost nothing despite the company’s exponential growth. It was the company Pirgh now worked for on Darius.
Pirgh Peins went to work after taking a cold recycled water shower.
Sibuna and several other employees sat next to Pirgh in the Accomodations cafeteria, secretly located in the heart of Darius. Secret because of the services Accomodations provided for its clients.
Sibuna had an import, a cybernetic left eye. It was obvious only when Sibuna blinked because his left eyelid blinked slower than the right. "Hey, Pirgh, did you hear about Larrich Jameld? He got layed off yesterday." Magically, at the sound of the words "layed off," the other employees at the table huddled closer to Sibuna, and Pirgh heard the low murmurings as the word "merger" flew from their lips.
"That’s too bad, Sibuna," Pirgh said as nonchalantly as possible.
"Hey, Pirgh," Sibuna elbowed Pirgh in the side, "do you think we’ll lose our jobs as well?" Pirgh grumbled as he carted his tray away. He had an early meeting.
His name was Tibrin, and he wore five shades of confusion on his face. From experience Pirgh knew the correct reaction. "Tibrin, it is 2187. Times have changed, and war has changed. No longer do we hurl information bombs across the nets and germ warfare has faded from reality and into the realm of history books and science fiction, but biological warfare is not dead. It survived, and Accomodations provides the most advanced biological warfare in the galaxy.
"After intense studies, research, and screenings, Accomodations selects its clients and informs them of an unbelievable offer and a guarantee that you will win your war because we provide a leader for your movement. Its a simple process. You pick the leader you want, then that leader is genetically engineererd and shipped to you in less than three weeks. When the war is over, the war hero rides off into the proverbial sunset and dies. You can do no better than to have one of our lines of "Disposable Heroes."
"There are over three hundred models from which to choose, gropued into three major categories: 1. (Pirgh lifted his fingers as he counted them) military leaders, 2. political leaders, and 3. religious leaders. And you can choose any one of several combinations at thirty percent off. Now the most advanced models are religious leaders, especially in the Christ series 2100. However, models that advanced can perform miracles, which means you purchase a special effects team to provide your religious leader with the proper miracles.
"Listen, I can see the apprehension in your eyes, Tibrin. But for a moment, just think about the possibilities that Accomodations can provide for you. Hitler? Caesar? Guevera? Mandela? Ghandi? All famous men who used their leadership to guide nations into history. You can have the leader who will instill in you and your comrades all the courage, honor, and pride that a movement needs. Consider this: what would have happened to the U. S. A. without George Washington? Where would Camelot be without Arthur? And what of Tibrin and his home Chinook? You need an icon that your people will follow into death, and then once you have won the war, and I guarantee you will win the war because Accomodations has a ninety-eight percent success rate, your hero will disappear. It’s disposable."
"How will I recognize this Disposable Hero when it walks into the camps, Pirgh? I may shoot it."
"Well, each one is tattooed on the back of its neck. A skull and corssbones for the military disposables, Justice’s scales for political disposables, and a lightning bolt for religious disposables. That way you will know that it is yours and yours alone."
"I need some time, Pirgh. Please. You ask a lot of money and a leap of faith for this saviour."
"Hey, was Rome built on a dollar? It takes investment to win a war."
"I will contact you tomorrow. Please, give me twenty-four hours."
"Listen, Tibrin, you take all the time you need to make this decision, but remember that the more time you spend without a Disposable Hero, the more opportunities the Elnars will have to destroy Chinook."
As Tibrin’s videogram dematerialized, Pirgh pushed up from his desk and sighed. He should have done more research on Tibrin. Pirgh hoped the man was from Chinook. The lack of research reflected his sales, which were not so good lately. There was an added pressure in the plethora of rumors he heard every day about lay-offs and mergers. "But if anybody would be the first to know, it would be me," Pirgh thought. "After all, it was my grandfather who created this corporation." There was an incoming message beeping on his terminal.
It was his supervisor. He seemed so arrogant with his thin upturned nose. "How’s the conflict on Chinook coming, Pirgh?" he asked in his tight voice.
"Oh, I think that Tibrin will come through for us. He just needs some time to consider possibilities before he commits to anything. Once some of his people are slaughtered in the war, maybe a massacre or two, then he will come begging for a Disposable."
"I hope so," the supervisor said, "Your sales have dipped lately." Pirgh wanted to ask about the merger and lay-offs and job security, but the words vaporized in his throat. Something about his supervisor always made him hesitate. Instead what came from his mouth was, "I’m doing my best, sir."
The videogram shut off after the supervisor tossed a disapproving glare towards Pirgh. Pirgh sat in his reclinable chair and stared at the dark blue wall. Then his hands found something quite without Pirgh’s knowledge. They stumbled upon a little chain holding an old bag. Pirgh fondled the bag between his thumb and his forefinger, and he began to remember.
Pirgh stood amidst a group of children playing rocketball throughout the Aztlan Space Station corridors. Innocently they tossed the liquid ball along the corridors, chasing it with the fervor only employed by excited children. As a child caught the liquid ball in his photo-cup, he bounced it off the walls and the chase began anew. It was a carefree day, the kind of moment most children remember for the rest of their lives as "lost childhood." But Pirgh bounced the ball incorrectly, and instead of pinging and ponging down the navy blue corridors like some science fiction pinball machine, the liquid ball accidentally ricocheted into the throng of children and crashed into Ijint Lelkin’s nose, causing the bone to break and blood to spill. Immediately the child began to cry, and some of the children started laughing, including Pirgh. It was a silly situation, and the children meant no harm toward Ijint.
"Man, you took a beating, Fish." They all called Ijint Fish because of his peculiar lips. They patted him on the back and helped Fish to stand, but Fish was embarrassed by his public weakness, and since Fish was not the sort of boy to let by-gones be by-gones, he shouted out, "Well, at least I’m not a bastard like Pirgh!"
"Yes, that’s what I said," Fish announced to his shocked audience, "I heard my mother saying it. Pirgh don’t have a father. He’s a bastard child!"
The children started taunting Pirgh as ardently as they had harrassed Fish, and like Fish Pirgh felt deeply wounded. He did not follow the ball when the children returned to the game.
"I never knew what a bastard was, until I found it in the computer dictionary," he whispered silently in his office. Pirgh had not realized that he was speaking out loud. He stared at the medicine bag around his neck. Before she had died, she had sent it to him.
"I want you to have this, Pirgh. It belonged to your father," she had said.
"What’s in it, mother?"
"A little of everything that was important to your father, Pirgh, including you. It is a medicine bag, and before he left," she paused to wipe a tear from her eye, "he wanted you to have it. He said it would protect you from evil spirits."
Pirgh could not remember what his father looked like, except that he was tall and comfortably tanned, and Pirgh remembered his mother sitting at the kitchen table, a worried look covering her face, and Pirgh’s father pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Then his father kissed her and left.
Pirgh sighed. Having lost his mother to old age and having never really known his father, all Pirgh had in this world was his position at his grandfather’s business. He placed the medicine bag underneath his shirt.
The office door slid open and Sibuna stepped inside. "How’d it go, Pirgh?"
"You want some coffee?" Pirgh asked, not wanting to answer the question.
"Listen, you look like you could use some exercise. Why don’t we go to the gym?"
Pirgh sat in the exercise room, a large padded room covered in panels. A single long extension cord lowered from the ceiling, and there was a helmet attached to it. Pirgh put the helmet on, and entered the V.R. workout chamber. There were several choices available, and he chose the track running. For setting Pirgh selected forest drive. He felt the small sting of the V.R. interlink with his mind, and then he relaxed, letting the machine take control.
The V.R. Exercise Chamber was one of the few inventions Pirgh really liked. As he dreamed of a soothing jog through the countryside, the machine controlled his endorphin levels and neural system so that he did not realize that the machine was exercising his muscles. It was like sleeping, only his body was controlled into exercise. A long time ago a famous scientist discovered that the problem with exercise was that everybody suffered while they exercised. This man, however, cut off the link between brain and body. This way muscles could be pushed to new levels and humans would not suffer during the workout.
Oddly, it was this type of research that led Pirgh’s grandfather into his chosen field. He, too, discovered that image was what mattered, and with the proper images humans could be brought to their limits and wars could be won.
In the forest everything was beautiful, and the trees were blooming and flowers were blossoming. Pirgh had no idea what types of plants he saw in the chamber; he had never experienced wild plants. He sighed contentedly, but then his heart skipped a beat as he saw the martyr ablaze in the forest, suffering patiently as the mob threw food at him. The martyr watched Pirgh with vacant blue eyes.
Pirgh rended the helmet from his head and fell to his knees vomiting as his brain suffered the unbearable recognition that its body was performing a maddeningly fast-tempo aerobic workout. Eventually Pirgh stood up, his body sore from the workout and the violent wresting of the V.R. mindlink. He showered slowly and stared at his face in the mirror.
Something moved behind him. Pirgh turned, but saw no one. He looked back at the mirror, and saw the martyr staring back at him coldly. Pirgh ran out of the room. He had to find Sibuna and tell him everything. They had been friends for three years, and Pirgh trusted him. Sibuna could help purge the demons inside him.
But Sibuna was in none of the chambers, nor was he in the dressing room, so Pirgh decided to return to his office. Maybe he could do some research on Chinook.
Somebody was in his office. Pirgh could hear a discussion from outside. The voices sounded familiar, but he could not determine the subject, so he barged into his office, still wearing his work-out clothes.
It was Sibuna, and he was speaking to Tibrin, who was smiling. Sibuna’s face grew pale. "Uh, why don’t we discuss the exact terms of the agreement later, Senator Tibrin. Thank yo ufor your business."
Pirgh’s face metamorphised into a bright red mask full of frowns and furrows. "You cut throat," he accused, venom dripping from his lips, "You set me up and steal my client. Get out. Get out!"
"Get out? You didn’t even know that he was a senator, did you Pirgh? You were trying to sale a miltary or religious leader, and all the man needed was a small political leader to help run the floor!"
"I don’t care. You had no right to do what you did."
"I had every right, Pirgh. You couldn’t close the deal, but I could. And I don’t want to be lost in the merger."
"Damn the merger!" Pirgh saw the martyr in his mind, and he saw his parents sorrowful in the kitchen. Pirgh was supposed to be asleep.
At that moment the supervisor trotted through the sliding door. He was smiling at Sibuna. "We just received news that you won the account, Sibuna. Good for you."
"But it wasn’t even his account!" Pirgh growled.
"That doesn’t matter, Pirgh. Sibuna won us the account. That’s all that matters. Besides, you haven’t closed an account in months. I have something for you." The supervisor with the upturned nose straightened up as if he were about to make a great speech, then he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a letterhead. He handed it to Pirgh, who grabbed it and stared at Sibuna. Sibuna seemed sad. Of course they all knew what the letter meant. There was only one thing the letter could mean.
That night Pirgh sat on the floor with a bottle of vodka and a knife, which he used to tear open the letterhead.
"Dear Pirgh Raleigh Peins ,
Accomodations, Inc. is sorry to announce your termination , on this, 05/01/37 . You must vacate the premises within twenty four hours or all your possessions will become property of Accomodations, Inc. Thank you for your service, and good luck to you in the future.
Signed,
Harrison Donaldson, Sales Supervisor
Pirgh crumpled the envelope and swallowed another swig of the bottle. The videogram alarm was going off, and Pirgh knew the caller. A videogram appeared. It was Sibuna, and his eyes were red, like he had been crying, too. Agony tainted his voice. "I’m sorry, Pirgh. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but the Supervisor came down on me hard. Said if Ididn’t want to be layed off, I needed to make the deal. I can’t be layed off. I have two children to raise. Call me, please." Sibuna’s teary-eyed face disappeared as Pirgh hurled a bottle at it. The bottle passed unbroken through the videogram and into the blue wall.
Now everything was lost. His mother, his father, even the company that was his by birthright but stolen by green-eyed lawyers. Pirgh did not know he was crying. He was not fully aware of his decision, either, as the knife cut through his left wrist, and blood spilled out over the carpet. Life faded.
Pirgh was in his room the night his father left him. His father entered the room and kissed him gently on the cheek and wished him good luck. "Good luck, son. Remember to take care of your mother."
His father left, and Pirgh waited for a few moments before following. He hid behind the sofa and watched his mother and father in the kitchen.
She was crying. "You don’t have to do this. We can have the process removed. Please don’t leave us. We need you." Her voice was shaken and she had trouble speaking.
"There is nothing I can do about this, Maria. Your father hates us. He hates me. And as long as he is holding the buttons, he is my puppetmaster, and there is nothing I can do to change that." Father was pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
"You’ll be killed!" Pirgh’s mother wailed. She held a kleenex in her hand, and her face fell down onto the table in a fit of sobs. The father reached down and put his arms around her. "Fight it!" she commanded him, over and over again. "Fight this, honey, fight it. For me, for Pirgh, fight this monster inside you."
He was crying too, now. His entire body was shaking violently. Pirgh wondered if his father was epileptic, but he was not. Through gritted teeth his father said, "Give this to Pirgh. Tell him I want him to have it. Tell him it will protect him against evil spirits." As Pirgh’s mother took the medicine bag in her hand, the tremors that wrecked his father’s body suddenly stopped, and Pirgh’s mother looked up into his eyes. The eyes were cold and callous. They were soulless. They were the same eyes as the forest martyr. She began to cry again. As he turned to leave, Pirgh saw the lightning bolt emblazoned on the back of his father’s neck, and he understood who the martyr was, and he realized why the children called him a bastard. He knew, too, why neither he nor his mother could ever own Accomodations, and it had nothing to do with lawyers or mergers.
The knife poised above the soft flesh, exposing twisted rivers of blue veins. Pirgh put the knife down.
Bio: Doug Goodman is a book critic, editor, and writer. Disposable Heroes is his fourth publication. He has also won an honorable mention in the Temple of Luna Amateur Writing Contest.
E-mail: z979394@wheat.farm.niu.edu
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