http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szz0TouzhLA&feature=related
The Boy in the High Castle—Chapter Three
Spencer Abendsen
Spencer Abendsen
Captain Wegner looked at the surveillance screen—the woman Juliana Frink was already knocking at Abendsen’s door.
Spencer Abendsen opened the door—it was Juliana Frink. She stood there on the porch—looking at him through the screen-door. She was a beautiful dark-haired young woman—Spencer immediately felt attracted to her. She saw a boy, tousled, about sixteen—wearing a T-shirt with a Sony logo and jeans.
“I’m Juliana Frink,” she said.
“I know,” said Spencer.
He looked at Juliana’s face and saw the worried look. He could read her mind—she was on the run from Denver. She’d cut the throat of a hired Nazi thug—she’d driven all the way fast to Cheyenne. She’d stayed that night in a motel—she was in contact with the Oracle.
He nodded to Juliana to come in the house—closing the door behind them. Spencer was already six-feet tall—gangly and awkward. Juliana wasn’t like the other guests—none of them were killers. None of them thought hexagramically—like she did. The little cocktail party was going on nicely—he wanted her for himself. He motioned for her to follow him—to his father’s den. He locked the door behind them—that’s where Caroline found them later making love. On the leather sofa—with the patio doors open. Juliana was a killer—she was killing Spencer slowly. But all that was later on…
“Tell me something,” said Juliana.
Her voice suddenly startled Spencer out of his sex-fantasy. His eidetic imagination was extremely strong—that’s how he did his mind-meld overlay. Usually it worked every time—but Juliana was a telepath too. She interrupted his adolescent fantasy-rape scenario—sensing fairly quickly the kid’s problem right away.
A typical young sociopathic sex-maniac—like many typical teenage boys. Extremely confident for a sixteen-year-old—parts of his body much more mature than the rest. Gangly yet already knowing too much—awkward in a way that made him the ultimate high-maintenance bitch. His lovers had always been older men or women—seduced by his seemingly innocent young male virginity. They fell for his big innocent bedroom eyes—and shyness once they got into bed. They always ended up mothering him—like those Mary K stories about bored school teachers falling in love with their young Polynesian male students.
Spencer stood in the den in the dark—leaning close to her and smelling her black hair. He imagined her pubes—how black and shiny her bush would be in the pool with the underwater lights on. They’d take a swim before sex—before the guests had gone. But he didn’t have time to mind-meld with her—Juliana’s mind was like a Chinese puzzle-box. He kept getting lost inside her weird labyrinthine mind—she was leading him on a wild goose-chase.
Even as she slipped his shirt off and then his jeans—he couldn’t get a decent hold on her mind. She was too quick for him. She slipped her hands down his waist—sliding her hands back to grab his tight flexing ass. He got weak in the knees—as she felt him up. She liked his nice ass—squeezing each smooth lean lamp-chop like she was starved for it. She was the kind of woman who liked chicken—cute hung lawn boys to mow her lawn. Spencer was right up her alley—he could clean her gutters too. She wasn’t shy—she could be a Desperate Housewife too.
Another minute or two she would have been his. The fantasy would have clicked into place—Tailspin Tommy taking a nose dive. Or rather he would have been hers—that’s how he preferred sex. Oral sex with older women—his arms and legs handcuffed to the bed. Smoking a Rising Sun cigarette—watching porno on the flat-screen. Listening to some music on his earphones—letting Juliana do him. He tried again to project his Nebenwelt powers over her—Juliana’s will was more elusive than his and full of Yin.
Spencer fucked her slowly—between her tight lips. Guiding her mouth—holding her ears tight like the pair of handlebars on his Suzuki bike. She liked giving head—Tailspin Tommy did somersaults overhead in the robin-blue sky. He kept thinking about the Denver Autobahn—riding fast at night on his other motorbike. A sleek fast BMW—a gift from Göring. Not a bad deal at all—a test-tube of sperm for the fastest motorcycle in existence. The Suzuki was different—they hadn’t asked for anything yet.
Der Dicke (the Fat One) was into genetic engineering—he needed Luftwaffe supermen for his new Air Force. Dr. Seyss-Inquart and Fritz Sacher were giving him what he wanted—young supermen with super-sex-drives was what was needed. It was the only way to keep them alive—through light-years of tube-time and dream-sleep deep into the Nebenwelt.
The Nebenwelt star-drive depended on interstellar masturbation and simulate-blowjobs—delicate robotic lips doing their thing in the cockpit. The android masseurs were programmed for pleasure—with access to a vast starship library of 3-D tape-loops and other subliminal deep-space pornographic entertainments. Homoerotics was programmed for special Nazi star troopers—they were Heydrich’s commandos of the future.
Like Seyss-Inquart and Sacher—Heydrich had his own twisted version of the Master Race. Himmler was totally mad and impossibly elitist—his postwar SS knights in armor mythology were now outdated. His renovated 17th century Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia was funded and tolerated by the Fourth Reich. Bormann indulged Himmler in his gothic fantasy—successfully keeping him out of Berlin and out of his hair.
The Fourth Reich needed strong bureaucrats like Bormann—not Nazi mystics like Himmler or Hess. Running a Nazi Planet took time and organization—the rest of the planet would be theirs soon enough. Operation Dandelion—along with the Bomb—would see to that. The anti-missile shield of the Inner Islands—along with the mighty Sony Corporation protecting the Rising Sun for now.
But sooner or later—the computer hackers in Berlin would crack the Japanese code. And then the sky would rain with V-4 missiles—and the Luftwaffe in orbit would unleash their beam-weapons vaporizing the Trans-Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere to nothingness.
In the meantime Himmler played his beloved little Wewelsburg Project game—disguised on the surface as the Reich School for SS Leaders. It had an officer’s college for ideological education—managed by the Race and Settlement Office. SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg helped with the curriculum of Nazi spiritual training and meditation exercises. The goal of Himmler’s grandiose plans was to absorb the nearby village of Wewelsburg and create essentially an SS City—lorded over by his looming modern Fortress of Fear.
Heydrich was more practical—shedding Himmler’s superstitious stage-setting and archaic play-acting. Heydrich had his personal SD Genetic Engineering Laboratory in Marseilles busy creating his own version of the Future Klone Reich. Not satisfied with Hitlerjungend results from the SS Fuck Farms—Heydrich wanted a brand new Master Race program. His genetic engineers were far ahead of Himmler—the race to control the chromosome power of the race was Heydrich’s obsession. He was interested in stem-cell genetic engineering—modeling the future Master Race in his Laboratory of Fear. Heydrich skipped the racial mythology—his dream was mastering the Master Race by fondling and playing with the Germanic family jewels.
Reichsführer Himmler’s outdated version called for twelve young Nazi male superman—resurrected Nazi knights from the ruins there at the Saxon stronghold of his Weser Renaissance-style castle. Himmler had queenly Mary Wollenscraft Shelley pretensions of grandeur—he wanted to create the Master Race out of some outdated Victorian fantasy.
Himmler as a Nazi Hollywood version of Herr Doktor Praetorius—creating a Master Race by joining the Bride of Frankenstein with Blond Goons and Monstrous Nazi Youth in unholy matrimony. The spawn of such obscene intercourse—would continue the Lebenswelt Push for more living-space for the Reich all the way to the Rings of Saturn and beyond.
It was all so bourgeois and schmaltzy—once the Nazi Knights settled down they became couch-potatoes and landed fascist gentry. It was hard to control genetics in the Reich Provinces—racial purity devolved quickly within the blink of an eye. So much for the Master Race—so much for Hitler’s dream of The Thousand Year Reich. Only a pure race born of genetic steel could survive that long—lording over the solar system from the Great Fortress of Fear on the Planet of Death.
The Fortress of Fear was a castle built in 1603-1609 as a second residence for the Bishop of Paderborn. Neo-Nazi archeologists had discovered a Stone Age burial pit containing dozens of sacrificed human remains in the foundations of the castle. It was an ancient burial pit—with nearby digs uncovering even more frightening things like primitive animal-like Neanderthal skulls. Strange Bronze Age jewellery with swastika crosses were found amidst the ruins. Records kept by monks annotated strange midnight encounters with futurist-looking solders with death-head insignia and Luger-like ray-guns. A recurring image in many of the illustrated manuscripts was a nude youth with a winged helmet and winged sandals—holding what looked like a shield of steel-blue invisibility.
Spencer was always playing Superboy—it came easily to him with his huge Superman penis. The local Wyoming women—especially the lonely rancher wives—had been Spencer Abendsen’s favorites. They needed it even worse than he did. Mr. Tagomi didn’t hide his affection for young hung Spencer either—nor did the SS sex-doctors always looking for young virile sexual abnormalities.
The more blonde, primitive and hung you were—the more they wanted to experiment and play doctor. A kid like Spencer—had lots of Equus Energy. That’s what one SS scientist from Berlin called it—he was a queer German endocrinologist who looked like Ernest Thesiger. Spencer had a tremendous sex-drive—for some reason he was genetically endowed with it. So was his father Hawthorne—it seemed to run in the family. An inherited genetic trait—a throwback to something rural and primitive. Or was it futuristic?
The Abendsen Family Tree had big thick roots—they sank deep into the Gaia Zeitgeist. Gaia women turned him on—he liked the young Earth Mother types. Was it a Freudian slip when he came down Juliana’s throat—burying his face sideways in the pillow? “Oh Mother fucker—take it baby, take my baby all the way.”
Leni Riefensthal got some exquisite footage out of him—all twelve inches of him. She was really into Triumph of the Will—soon she’d be in forbidden Cheyenne filming for the New Olympics. Already they’d cloned a dozen doubles of Spencer Abendsen—all the Nazi warlords were acquiring Nexus 9 models for bodyguards. Especially in the wilder realms of Argentina and Paraguay—to help suppress the troublesome native revolts against crypto-nazi mining demagoguery.
But there was also a long waiting list—of aging gay Nazi party-members. Waiting for professional Master Race escort services and even rejuvenation surgery with new penis-transplantation technology—based on Spencer Abendsen’s fine avatar tool. It was like robbing the cradle blind—cloning so many fine virgin thuggish tools for the Fourth Reich from Spencer’s young tender manhood.
That was Spencer’s big secret—although there were other secrets more important and much more secret than erotic ones. Spencer was much more endowed than his father Hawthorne—Spencer’s moody manhood was a precocious twelve inches. It was flat, thick and uncut—like a water moccasin coiled up in a swamp of dark curly pubes. Wild West domestic Americana was highly prized by the Nazi elite—the Abendsen T-bone was a rare delicacy in the jaded Reich.
A part of the PSA settlement agreement with the Nazi powers—permitted an occasional medical checkup for blood tests and sperm samples. Fresh sperm was needed for Heydrich’s Race Lab in Marseilles—the pale lily-white fingers of matronly Munich nurses had been milking Spencer since pube-less puberty. Hawthorne and Caroline didn’t know about it—they didn’t want to know. They knew Spencer was a growing boy—who had special abilities and intuitions advanced for his years. But beyond that they were in denial—they just wanted to be normal Cheyenne suburbanites.
That’s when the precognition started—that’s when Spencer’s adolescent Nebenwelt sexuality began flowing through him. There were already a dozen doubles of him cloned out there in the world—most of them still in deep-sleep limbo ready for transplant surgery. Hearts, lungs, kidneys—but especially sex organs. That’s what Trans-Organ Inc was all about—the Joy of New Nazi Meat!!!
As the aging postwar Nazi potentates gradually began fading out—they began trying desperately to continue their run of good luck. Göring was cynical—he already was a barrel of transplanted vital organs. His face-lift was smooth as a baby’s ass—that’s exactly what it was.
Herr Doktor Goebbels was no saint—he quickly replaced his gimpy leg with a young healthy one. He liked it so well—he ordered a much needed new phallus-transplant with the much talked-about Abendsen clone. Within weeks the Little Doktor was back in circulation—driving his favorite secretaries up to the Eagle’s Nest in his sleek Mercedes. Letting them admire his new Luger love-tool in the backseat—almost popping his stitches with too many premature ejaculations near the summit.
One could conquer half a planet—but what good would it be without a strong healthy sex-drive? Unknown to Hawthorne and Caroline—their son’s precocious endowment was already copyrighted and highly prized by the Japanese as primitive P. T. Barnum & Bailey Gent Americana at its best. The authentic thing—like Billy the Kid’s or Jesse James’s unfortunately weren’t available anymore. Germans paid for Spencer’s daily services video updates hwith an umbrella of electronic protection—while the Nazi Knights negotiated the new PSA contract.
But Spencer could sense more—more than just sex stuff telepathically. After all there was such a thing as transplant clone-memory—and Spencer’s organ gift was out there creating all sorts of young manly memoirs. He could feel it when it happened—like the needle on an earthquake meter jiggling back & forth. He was in touch with the dozen or so transplants out there—especially during those intimate moments. For some strange reason Spencer was telepathically wired to them—it made him weak in the knees when they shot their brains out.
At first he thought he was going crazy—caught up in some kind of vortex of phantom pleasure and pain. Phantom orgasms were happening to him—when he least expected it. He’d get big boners suddenly out of the blue—his penis was always oozing with baby-paste running down his leg. Both the Japanese and German doctors just shrugged—telling him it was just growing pains. But pretty soon he figured it out—the Oracle called it Hexagram Lust. The Creative—the Male.
The ancient adolescent primeval male—was there such a thing? An otherworldly juvenile delinquent sexuality—bleeding into the usual somewhat boring bourgeois weltanschauung. Where was it coming from—the Nebenwelt? It took more than just JD mythology to create the ridiculously alpha-male Nazi façade that the Germans were pushing. Just like it took more than an abnormally narcissistic skin-head teenage psychosexuality to keep the Japanese thug façade going. Spencer was confused…
Whether Spencer was hardwired telepathically with Nebenwelt or not didn’t matter to Nazi potentates—it was the sheer unadulterated size and energy of his succulent sausage that counted for those creeps. Sometimes Spencer floated in the backyard pool—feeling his twelve other doppelgangers with two legs walking around out there around the world. Six of them in Berlin—the others enjoying themselves in Paris, Poughkeepsie, Pleasantville, St. Petersburg and Petaluma.
The guests left early and Hawthorne retreated to his bedroom. He closed the door and stood there—taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. The guests had all gone home early—sensing Hawthorne and Caroline needed to be alone. How long could he keep up the façade—that he was the author of the book? The book they were all interested in—TPTB in Berlin and Tokyo?
The news about Miami had been heavy news to take—the Grasshopper text had given no warning. Or if it did—he’d missed it. Hawthorne wasn’t telepathic like his son—but he could sense attention turning toward them from TPTB. It was exhausting—all the scrutiny. Then new worries about the book—The Grasshopper Is Heavy. But it wasn’t “his” book—that was the biggest secret worry of all.
Then Caroline was by Hawthorne’s side in their bedroom.
“Hawthorne—you did the right thing. It wasn’t any of her business—knowing about The Grasshopper. Why should Juliana Frink have to know anything?”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” Hawthorne said. “She already knew everything anyway.”
Caroline shook her head. “That’s ridiculous, honey—how could she know everything. Anymore than our guests—or the neighbors?”
“She’s psychic—she would have found out sooner or later.”
“No, Hawthorne. She isn’t psychic—she’s just an impetuous young woman. Juliana Frink only knows what she reads in The Grasshopper. That’s all—nothing more or nothing less.”
But Caroline knew Hawthorne didn’t believe her.
“She’s found out,” Hawthorne finally said. “What now?”
Hawthorne Abendsen looked at his wife. Then he shrugged—the worst had happened. Caroline could sense the inevitableness in him again—the disconcertingly superstitious side of him that always scared her. It used to be that way when they were young and made love—she was so scared all she could do was hold on tight to him. Then when he lost it—all that scary energy was hers. His long lanky cowboy legs were all hers—along with the family jewels and everything else.
But usually Hawthorne concealed it—behind the calm facade of being a writer. But he wasn’t a writer—that was just a Lie. He hadn’t written The Grasshopper Is Heavy—not a word of it. Each line of the novel—there were thousands of them. None of them were his. The parallel world thing—the Nebenwelt. Along with the characters—the incredible parallel-world Plot. It all took a year to write—but Hawthorne Abendsen wasn’t the author.
“Where is Spencer?” Abendsen nonchalantly asked.
“In the library as usual,” Caroline said. “Playing video games.”
Hawthorne nodded—knowing she was lying. He kept sitting on the bed thinking about what to do next. They’d have to move—the High Castle was no longer safe. It wasn’t just the SD thugs he was worried about though—or the Japanese tutors tuning in.
He was worried about the Oracle now. The Oracle had written The Grasshopper for a reason—it was coming back to haunt him. He was never good with things like the so-called “Inner Truth”—especially when it came to his own. The Book of Changes didn’t care about authors—it was more concerned with authorcraft. And the authorcraft of hexagrams was hundred times more dangerous—than the Ministry of Fear or the Fortress of Tokyo could ever be.
The Oracle had entered his life again—despite his desperate attempts at hiding it behind a Chinese folding-screen. The Oracle had its own fictive elegance in China—it was much more ancient than the finest Nazi Orientalists in Berlin thought. The divinatory bones, the pottery patterns, the eidetic imagery—it was all Nebenwelt. It had always been that way—beyond the bamboo mat and curtains in the evening. The monsoon rain—the palace beneath the sea. The drunken ship—the color of vowels.
Suddenly nothing seemed authentic anymore—Hawthorne and Caroline sensed it. They found themselves in their bedroom—but it wasn’t a bedroom anymore. It had never really been a bedroom. It had always been something else—a suburban shield for protection. A moat deep with time—a perimeter of fear.
It was the only thing Hawthorne could do—to protect Caroline and Spencer. But now what could he do—the Oracle had come knocking at his door. A strange young woman had saved his life in a motel room ahead of time—he even felt attracted to Juliana Frink himself. He felt confused and out of touch with himself—Caroline felt jealous. Who knows how Spencer felt—Spencer was always living in his own world. Ahead of them—ahead of time.
The Man in the High Castle didn’t exist—Hawthorne didn’t write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Nothing had been written by Hawthorne—not a single fucking word. Not by this aloof resigned reclusive writer—sitting next to his wife. Caroline knew it—she broke down crying.
“It had to happen,” Hawthorne said gently. “Sooner than later.” He held Caroline closer than he’d held her in a long time. He felt closer to her now than he’d felt toward his wife in years—as if some kind of burden had been lifted from them. A hidden burden they had both carried for a long time—it had been lifted off their shoulders in the mere blink of an eye. All it took was a doorbell—why did Tagomi and Tedeki allow it to happen? They controlled the streets, the gated community, the tunnels underground and the flyby-zone over their neighborhood.
They both looked at each other and smiled. A bit of satori—but still there wasn’t much time to waste. There was usually a scheme—they’d been through it before. Each scheme a game of illusion—giving them a little more time. Time to be with each other—time to skate some more over thin ice. Giving the boy—some more time.
Time for what? Another Grasshopper novel? No way Jose—Hawthorne said to himself. That’s what got them in trouble in the first place—Spencer’s Grasshopper novel on the Internet. First half-a-dozen blogs—then The LA Times. The New Swastika Night—wrestling with the Rising Sun. In between Nazi Night and Midnight Sun—Black Leather, Pink Lips, Teenage Tattoos & His Pierced Erect Nipples.
“There—that’s better,” she said brushing back his hair out of his eyes. After all things had worked pretty well so far—long enough to give them some breathing room inside the glass, chrome and steel study. Here in Cheyenne—between PSA and New Berlin.
Time slowed down to an inch at a time—especially for Spencer. Juliana got him off twice—his lizard reminding her of The Monster from the Black Lagoon. How could a dumb little white kid—own something so thick and Jurassic? How could anything so primitive-looking—ever have been a virgin piece of white trash? Whatever it was—she wanted to get pregnant with it. A step ahead of the mob—moiling around him.
Spencer was sleeping in the den—curled up in one of the huge overstuffed antique leather chairs. He had a black silk kimono on—the gift of kind Mr. Tagomi. Mr. Tagomi was a rather generous but mysterious businessman who worked in the Nippon Times Building in San Francisco. Obviously a man connected with the Home Islands—somebody to both fear and appreciate. Tagomi had taken the Abendsen family under his wing—protecting them from Nazi intrusion and SD threats.
Without Tagomi—and General Tedeki in the dark wings—Hawthorne, Caroline and Spencer would have been dead by now. The malignant ones—the Sicherheitsdienst—would have had them a long time ago. The Cheyenne Kempetai guarded them now—the Imperial marines surrounding them for blocks in the underground complex beneath them. That much was true—it was a High Castle protected by PSA and the Nippon Times.
Tagomi insisted on the best distance-learning electronics—and made sure Spencer got the latest Sony computers. After all, it was Japanese computer technology—that countered the Nazi bomb. Delivery systems were constantly being improved—yet Japanese technology was the only source for reliable Sony deadly expertise.
Operation Dandelion was actually just another arms race—similar to the one on the Nebenwelt side. It seems to happen on every planet sooner or later—they call it the Krell Effect. It’s an Exo-Politics Thing—sooner or later the Monsters of the Id come out of hiding in every species. Once the typical alpha-male genetically-engineered sequence begins—then the Krell Effect clicks into place. Nothing can stop it—it’s an Altair-4 nova-express.
Reichsführer SS Reinhardt Heydrich already had android Waffen-SS troops guarding him around the clock—especially now that the Little Doktor was in power. Baldur von Scherach, the head of the Hitler Youth, had been arrested on Goebbels’ order. Heydrich knew he was next—even Canaris wasn’t safe in New York either. The Little Doktor was vindictive—he was making up for lost time.
Heydrich’s android Waffen-SS troops had been genetically engineered by Dr. Seyss-Inquart with only one purpose in mind—to be the ultimate Nazi Praetorian guard. To guard and protect Heydrich blindly and fanatically at all costs—to do it even better than Sepp Dietrich and the Leibstandarte Division.
Heydrich’s clone bodyguards were all incredibly handsome blonde blue-eyed young Supermen—they were the prototypes of the feared Nexus 6 warrior class that revolted on Mars and took over the gold-mining operations on Saturn’s rings. Strangely enough Heinlein already foreseen this neo-noir action—in mid-twentieth century pulp fiction sci-fi magazines & Ace Double novels. The Clone wars.
Seyss-Inquart foresaw clearly the future of stem-cell research and genetic engineering—the implications for racial theories and ethics. They had plenty of racial theories—but had no ethics. But then Nazis never do—the means justify the ends. They think they do—but they are blinded by the Krell Effect. They inevitably fall in love with their own monsters of the Id technology—or somebody else’s. Genetic engineering requires computer modeling—Nazi spyware technology was constantly trying to penetrate and catch up with the Japanese companies on the coast.
Mr. Tagomi and the Nippon Times Building were at the center of the computer espionage network—SD agents were always skulking around San Francisco looking for trade and pirated code. Distance learning was for the Abendsen boy’s safety—Spencer had never gone to a public school. The laptops and huge flat-screen on the wall—electronic gifts of Mr. Tagomi for Hawthorne’s precocious son. And all the exquisite electronic accoutrement—a young writer could need. A young reclusive writer—who could be had.
It was all fugitive and fake now—the Oracle had found him out. No matter how perfectly they’d hid him—the Oracle had found out where the kid was. It had walked right through his front door in their Cheyenne suburban home—posing as Juliana Frink after preempt-saving Hawthorne’s life in Denver. It had finally happened—somebody had penetrated Hawthorne’s High Castle. Somebody who sensed the “Inner Truth”—it was bound to happen sooner or later.
If it wasn’t Juliana Frink—it would have been somebody else. The brass coins Juliana tossed—those Chinese coins had told the truth. The Book of Changes spoke through her—the answer had been Chung Fu. The Book had actually spoken through Juliana—when she asked the questions: “Oracle, why did you write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy? What are we supposed to learn?”
The minute Juliana asked the question—Hawthorne knew the game was up. The Oracle had written The Grasshopper—no mere human could have done it and it certainly wasn’t Hawthorne Abendsen who wrote it. The Inner Truth of the moment had become known then—it was only a matter of time before Juliana sensed the complete truth. She already was terribly close—when she asked the question. The truth was out of the closet—the Oracle had come home to roost. It drove from Denver—to rendezvous with Spencer Abendsen in the den. But how did Spencer know ahead of time—that this was going to happen?
Spencer Abendsen opened the door—it was Juliana Frink. She stood there on the porch—looking at him through the screen-door. She was a beautiful dark-haired young woman—Spencer immediately felt attracted to her. She saw a boy, tousled, about sixteen—wearing a T-shirt with a Sony logo and jeans.
“I’m Juliana Frink,” she said.
“I know,” said Spencer.
He looked at Juliana’s face and saw the worried look. He could read her mind—she was on the run from Denver. She’d cut the throat of a hired Nazi thug—she’d driven all the way fast to Cheyenne. She’d stayed that night in a motel—she was in contact with the Oracle.
He nodded to Juliana to come in the house—closing the door behind them. Spencer was already six-feet tall—gangly and awkward. Juliana wasn’t like the other guests—none of them were killers. None of them thought hexagramically—like she did. The little cocktail party was going on nicely—he wanted her for himself. He motioned for her to follow him—to his father’s den. He locked the door behind them—that’s where Caroline found them later making love. On the leather sofa—with the patio doors open. Juliana was a killer—she was killing Spencer slowly. But all that was later on…
“Tell me something,” said Juliana.
Her voice suddenly startled Spencer out of his sex-fantasy. His eidetic imagination was extremely strong—that’s how he did his mind-meld overlay. Usually it worked every time—but Juliana was a telepath too. She interrupted his adolescent fantasy-rape scenario—sensing fairly quickly the kid’s problem right away.
A typical young sociopathic sex-maniac—like many typical teenage boys. Extremely confident for a sixteen-year-old—parts of his body much more mature than the rest. Gangly yet already knowing too much—awkward in a way that made him the ultimate high-maintenance bitch. His lovers had always been older men or women—seduced by his seemingly innocent young male virginity. They fell for his big innocent bedroom eyes—and shyness once they got into bed. They always ended up mothering him—like those Mary K stories about bored school teachers falling in love with their young Polynesian male students.
Spencer stood in the den in the dark—leaning close to her and smelling her black hair. He imagined her pubes—how black and shiny her bush would be in the pool with the underwater lights on. They’d take a swim before sex—before the guests had gone. But he didn’t have time to mind-meld with her—Juliana’s mind was like a Chinese puzzle-box. He kept getting lost inside her weird labyrinthine mind—she was leading him on a wild goose-chase.
Even as she slipped his shirt off and then his jeans—he couldn’t get a decent hold on her mind. She was too quick for him. She slipped her hands down his waist—sliding her hands back to grab his tight flexing ass. He got weak in the knees—as she felt him up. She liked his nice ass—squeezing each smooth lean lamp-chop like she was starved for it. She was the kind of woman who liked chicken—cute hung lawn boys to mow her lawn. Spencer was right up her alley—he could clean her gutters too. She wasn’t shy—she could be a Desperate Housewife too.
Another minute or two she would have been his. The fantasy would have clicked into place—Tailspin Tommy taking a nose dive. Or rather he would have been hers—that’s how he preferred sex. Oral sex with older women—his arms and legs handcuffed to the bed. Smoking a Rising Sun cigarette—watching porno on the flat-screen. Listening to some music on his earphones—letting Juliana do him. He tried again to project his Nebenwelt powers over her—Juliana’s will was more elusive than his and full of Yin.
Spencer fucked her slowly—between her tight lips. Guiding her mouth—holding her ears tight like the pair of handlebars on his Suzuki bike. She liked giving head—Tailspin Tommy did somersaults overhead in the robin-blue sky. He kept thinking about the Denver Autobahn—riding fast at night on his other motorbike. A sleek fast BMW—a gift from Göring. Not a bad deal at all—a test-tube of sperm for the fastest motorcycle in existence. The Suzuki was different—they hadn’t asked for anything yet.
Der Dicke (the Fat One) was into genetic engineering—he needed Luftwaffe supermen for his new Air Force. Dr. Seyss-Inquart and Fritz Sacher were giving him what he wanted—young supermen with super-sex-drives was what was needed. It was the only way to keep them alive—through light-years of tube-time and dream-sleep deep into the Nebenwelt.
The Nebenwelt star-drive depended on interstellar masturbation and simulate-blowjobs—delicate robotic lips doing their thing in the cockpit. The android masseurs were programmed for pleasure—with access to a vast starship library of 3-D tape-loops and other subliminal deep-space pornographic entertainments. Homoerotics was programmed for special Nazi star troopers—they were Heydrich’s commandos of the future.
Like Seyss-Inquart and Sacher—Heydrich had his own twisted version of the Master Race. Himmler was totally mad and impossibly elitist—his postwar SS knights in armor mythology were now outdated. His renovated 17th century Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia was funded and tolerated by the Fourth Reich. Bormann indulged Himmler in his gothic fantasy—successfully keeping him out of Berlin and out of his hair.
The Fourth Reich needed strong bureaucrats like Bormann—not Nazi mystics like Himmler or Hess. Running a Nazi Planet took time and organization—the rest of the planet would be theirs soon enough. Operation Dandelion—along with the Bomb—would see to that. The anti-missile shield of the Inner Islands—along with the mighty Sony Corporation protecting the Rising Sun for now.
But sooner or later—the computer hackers in Berlin would crack the Japanese code. And then the sky would rain with V-4 missiles—and the Luftwaffe in orbit would unleash their beam-weapons vaporizing the Trans-Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere to nothingness.
In the meantime Himmler played his beloved little Wewelsburg Project game—disguised on the surface as the Reich School for SS Leaders. It had an officer’s college for ideological education—managed by the Race and Settlement Office. SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg helped with the curriculum of Nazi spiritual training and meditation exercises. The goal of Himmler’s grandiose plans was to absorb the nearby village of Wewelsburg and create essentially an SS City—lorded over by his looming modern Fortress of Fear.
Heydrich was more practical—shedding Himmler’s superstitious stage-setting and archaic play-acting. Heydrich had his personal SD Genetic Engineering Laboratory in Marseilles busy creating his own version of the Future Klone Reich. Not satisfied with Hitlerjungend results from the SS Fuck Farms—Heydrich wanted a brand new Master Race program. His genetic engineers were far ahead of Himmler—the race to control the chromosome power of the race was Heydrich’s obsession. He was interested in stem-cell genetic engineering—modeling the future Master Race in his Laboratory of Fear. Heydrich skipped the racial mythology—his dream was mastering the Master Race by fondling and playing with the Germanic family jewels.
Reichsführer Himmler’s outdated version called for twelve young Nazi male superman—resurrected Nazi knights from the ruins there at the Saxon stronghold of his Weser Renaissance-style castle. Himmler had queenly Mary Wollenscraft Shelley pretensions of grandeur—he wanted to create the Master Race out of some outdated Victorian fantasy.
Himmler as a Nazi Hollywood version of Herr Doktor Praetorius—creating a Master Race by joining the Bride of Frankenstein with Blond Goons and Monstrous Nazi Youth in unholy matrimony. The spawn of such obscene intercourse—would continue the Lebenswelt Push for more living-space for the Reich all the way to the Rings of Saturn and beyond.
It was all so bourgeois and schmaltzy—once the Nazi Knights settled down they became couch-potatoes and landed fascist gentry. It was hard to control genetics in the Reich Provinces—racial purity devolved quickly within the blink of an eye. So much for the Master Race—so much for Hitler’s dream of The Thousand Year Reich. Only a pure race born of genetic steel could survive that long—lording over the solar system from the Great Fortress of Fear on the Planet of Death.
The Fortress of Fear was a castle built in 1603-1609 as a second residence for the Bishop of Paderborn. Neo-Nazi archeologists had discovered a Stone Age burial pit containing dozens of sacrificed human remains in the foundations of the castle. It was an ancient burial pit—with nearby digs uncovering even more frightening things like primitive animal-like Neanderthal skulls. Strange Bronze Age jewellery with swastika crosses were found amidst the ruins. Records kept by monks annotated strange midnight encounters with futurist-looking solders with death-head insignia and Luger-like ray-guns. A recurring image in many of the illustrated manuscripts was a nude youth with a winged helmet and winged sandals—holding what looked like a shield of steel-blue invisibility.
Spencer was always playing Superboy—it came easily to him with his huge Superman penis. The local Wyoming women—especially the lonely rancher wives—had been Spencer Abendsen’s favorites. They needed it even worse than he did. Mr. Tagomi didn’t hide his affection for young hung Spencer either—nor did the SS sex-doctors always looking for young virile sexual abnormalities.
The more blonde, primitive and hung you were—the more they wanted to experiment and play doctor. A kid like Spencer—had lots of Equus Energy. That’s what one SS scientist from Berlin called it—he was a queer German endocrinologist who looked like Ernest Thesiger. Spencer had a tremendous sex-drive—for some reason he was genetically endowed with it. So was his father Hawthorne—it seemed to run in the family. An inherited genetic trait—a throwback to something rural and primitive. Or was it futuristic?
The Abendsen Family Tree had big thick roots—they sank deep into the Gaia Zeitgeist. Gaia women turned him on—he liked the young Earth Mother types. Was it a Freudian slip when he came down Juliana’s throat—burying his face sideways in the pillow? “Oh Mother fucker—take it baby, take my baby all the way.”
Leni Riefensthal got some exquisite footage out of him—all twelve inches of him. She was really into Triumph of the Will—soon she’d be in forbidden Cheyenne filming for the New Olympics. Already they’d cloned a dozen doubles of Spencer Abendsen—all the Nazi warlords were acquiring Nexus 9 models for bodyguards. Especially in the wilder realms of Argentina and Paraguay—to help suppress the troublesome native revolts against crypto-nazi mining demagoguery.
But there was also a long waiting list—of aging gay Nazi party-members. Waiting for professional Master Race escort services and even rejuvenation surgery with new penis-transplantation technology—based on Spencer Abendsen’s fine avatar tool. It was like robbing the cradle blind—cloning so many fine virgin thuggish tools for the Fourth Reich from Spencer’s young tender manhood.
That was Spencer’s big secret—although there were other secrets more important and much more secret than erotic ones. Spencer was much more endowed than his father Hawthorne—Spencer’s moody manhood was a precocious twelve inches. It was flat, thick and uncut—like a water moccasin coiled up in a swamp of dark curly pubes. Wild West domestic Americana was highly prized by the Nazi elite—the Abendsen T-bone was a rare delicacy in the jaded Reich.
A part of the PSA settlement agreement with the Nazi powers—permitted an occasional medical checkup for blood tests and sperm samples. Fresh sperm was needed for Heydrich’s Race Lab in Marseilles—the pale lily-white fingers of matronly Munich nurses had been milking Spencer since pube-less puberty. Hawthorne and Caroline didn’t know about it—they didn’t want to know. They knew Spencer was a growing boy—who had special abilities and intuitions advanced for his years. But beyond that they were in denial—they just wanted to be normal Cheyenne suburbanites.
That’s when the precognition started—that’s when Spencer’s adolescent Nebenwelt sexuality began flowing through him. There were already a dozen doubles of him cloned out there in the world—most of them still in deep-sleep limbo ready for transplant surgery. Hearts, lungs, kidneys—but especially sex organs. That’s what Trans-Organ Inc was all about—the Joy of New Nazi Meat!!!
As the aging postwar Nazi potentates gradually began fading out—they began trying desperately to continue their run of good luck. Göring was cynical—he already was a barrel of transplanted vital organs. His face-lift was smooth as a baby’s ass—that’s exactly what it was.
Herr Doktor Goebbels was no saint—he quickly replaced his gimpy leg with a young healthy one. He liked it so well—he ordered a much needed new phallus-transplant with the much talked-about Abendsen clone. Within weeks the Little Doktor was back in circulation—driving his favorite secretaries up to the Eagle’s Nest in his sleek Mercedes. Letting them admire his new Luger love-tool in the backseat—almost popping his stitches with too many premature ejaculations near the summit.
One could conquer half a planet—but what good would it be without a strong healthy sex-drive? Unknown to Hawthorne and Caroline—their son’s precocious endowment was already copyrighted and highly prized by the Japanese as primitive P. T. Barnum & Bailey Gent Americana at its best. The authentic thing—like Billy the Kid’s or Jesse James’s unfortunately weren’t available anymore. Germans paid for Spencer’s daily services video updates hwith an umbrella of electronic protection—while the Nazi Knights negotiated the new PSA contract.
But Spencer could sense more—more than just sex stuff telepathically. After all there was such a thing as transplant clone-memory—and Spencer’s organ gift was out there creating all sorts of young manly memoirs. He could feel it when it happened—like the needle on an earthquake meter jiggling back & forth. He was in touch with the dozen or so transplants out there—especially during those intimate moments. For some strange reason Spencer was telepathically wired to them—it made him weak in the knees when they shot their brains out.
At first he thought he was going crazy—caught up in some kind of vortex of phantom pleasure and pain. Phantom orgasms were happening to him—when he least expected it. He’d get big boners suddenly out of the blue—his penis was always oozing with baby-paste running down his leg. Both the Japanese and German doctors just shrugged—telling him it was just growing pains. But pretty soon he figured it out—the Oracle called it Hexagram Lust. The Creative—the Male.
The ancient adolescent primeval male—was there such a thing? An otherworldly juvenile delinquent sexuality—bleeding into the usual somewhat boring bourgeois weltanschauung. Where was it coming from—the Nebenwelt? It took more than just JD mythology to create the ridiculously alpha-male Nazi façade that the Germans were pushing. Just like it took more than an abnormally narcissistic skin-head teenage psychosexuality to keep the Japanese thug façade going. Spencer was confused…
Whether Spencer was hardwired telepathically with Nebenwelt or not didn’t matter to Nazi potentates—it was the sheer unadulterated size and energy of his succulent sausage that counted for those creeps. Sometimes Spencer floated in the backyard pool—feeling his twelve other doppelgangers with two legs walking around out there around the world. Six of them in Berlin—the others enjoying themselves in Paris, Poughkeepsie, Pleasantville, St. Petersburg and Petaluma.
The guests left early and Hawthorne retreated to his bedroom. He closed the door and stood there—taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. The guests had all gone home early—sensing Hawthorne and Caroline needed to be alone. How long could he keep up the façade—that he was the author of the book? The book they were all interested in—TPTB in Berlin and Tokyo?
The news about Miami had been heavy news to take—the Grasshopper text had given no warning. Or if it did—he’d missed it. Hawthorne wasn’t telepathic like his son—but he could sense attention turning toward them from TPTB. It was exhausting—all the scrutiny. Then new worries about the book—The Grasshopper Is Heavy. But it wasn’t “his” book—that was the biggest secret worry of all.
Then Caroline was by Hawthorne’s side in their bedroom.
“Hawthorne—you did the right thing. It wasn’t any of her business—knowing about The Grasshopper. Why should Juliana Frink have to know anything?”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” Hawthorne said. “She already knew everything anyway.”
Caroline shook her head. “That’s ridiculous, honey—how could she know everything. Anymore than our guests—or the neighbors?”
“She’s psychic—she would have found out sooner or later.”
“No, Hawthorne. She isn’t psychic—she’s just an impetuous young woman. Juliana Frink only knows what she reads in The Grasshopper. That’s all—nothing more or nothing less.”
But Caroline knew Hawthorne didn’t believe her.
“She’s found out,” Hawthorne finally said. “What now?”
Hawthorne Abendsen looked at his wife. Then he shrugged—the worst had happened. Caroline could sense the inevitableness in him again—the disconcertingly superstitious side of him that always scared her. It used to be that way when they were young and made love—she was so scared all she could do was hold on tight to him. Then when he lost it—all that scary energy was hers. His long lanky cowboy legs were all hers—along with the family jewels and everything else.
But usually Hawthorne concealed it—behind the calm facade of being a writer. But he wasn’t a writer—that was just a Lie. He hadn’t written The Grasshopper Is Heavy—not a word of it. Each line of the novel—there were thousands of them. None of them were his. The parallel world thing—the Nebenwelt. Along with the characters—the incredible parallel-world Plot. It all took a year to write—but Hawthorne Abendsen wasn’t the author.
“Where is Spencer?” Abendsen nonchalantly asked.
“In the library as usual,” Caroline said. “Playing video games.”
Hawthorne nodded—knowing she was lying. He kept sitting on the bed thinking about what to do next. They’d have to move—the High Castle was no longer safe. It wasn’t just the SD thugs he was worried about though—or the Japanese tutors tuning in.
He was worried about the Oracle now. The Oracle had written The Grasshopper for a reason—it was coming back to haunt him. He was never good with things like the so-called “Inner Truth”—especially when it came to his own. The Book of Changes didn’t care about authors—it was more concerned with authorcraft. And the authorcraft of hexagrams was hundred times more dangerous—than the Ministry of Fear or the Fortress of Tokyo could ever be.
The Oracle had entered his life again—despite his desperate attempts at hiding it behind a Chinese folding-screen. The Oracle had its own fictive elegance in China—it was much more ancient than the finest Nazi Orientalists in Berlin thought. The divinatory bones, the pottery patterns, the eidetic imagery—it was all Nebenwelt. It had always been that way—beyond the bamboo mat and curtains in the evening. The monsoon rain—the palace beneath the sea. The drunken ship—the color of vowels.
Suddenly nothing seemed authentic anymore—Hawthorne and Caroline sensed it. They found themselves in their bedroom—but it wasn’t a bedroom anymore. It had never really been a bedroom. It had always been something else—a suburban shield for protection. A moat deep with time—a perimeter of fear.
It was the only thing Hawthorne could do—to protect Caroline and Spencer. But now what could he do—the Oracle had come knocking at his door. A strange young woman had saved his life in a motel room ahead of time—he even felt attracted to Juliana Frink himself. He felt confused and out of touch with himself—Caroline felt jealous. Who knows how Spencer felt—Spencer was always living in his own world. Ahead of them—ahead of time.
The Man in the High Castle didn’t exist—Hawthorne didn’t write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Nothing had been written by Hawthorne—not a single fucking word. Not by this aloof resigned reclusive writer—sitting next to his wife. Caroline knew it—she broke down crying.
“It had to happen,” Hawthorne said gently. “Sooner than later.” He held Caroline closer than he’d held her in a long time. He felt closer to her now than he’d felt toward his wife in years—as if some kind of burden had been lifted from them. A hidden burden they had both carried for a long time—it had been lifted off their shoulders in the mere blink of an eye. All it took was a doorbell—why did Tagomi and Tedeki allow it to happen? They controlled the streets, the gated community, the tunnels underground and the flyby-zone over their neighborhood.
They both looked at each other and smiled. A bit of satori—but still there wasn’t much time to waste. There was usually a scheme—they’d been through it before. Each scheme a game of illusion—giving them a little more time. Time to be with each other—time to skate some more over thin ice. Giving the boy—some more time.
Time for what? Another Grasshopper novel? No way Jose—Hawthorne said to himself. That’s what got them in trouble in the first place—Spencer’s Grasshopper novel on the Internet. First half-a-dozen blogs—then The LA Times. The New Swastika Night—wrestling with the Rising Sun. In between Nazi Night and Midnight Sun—Black Leather, Pink Lips, Teenage Tattoos & His Pierced Erect Nipples.
“There—that’s better,” she said brushing back his hair out of his eyes. After all things had worked pretty well so far—long enough to give them some breathing room inside the glass, chrome and steel study. Here in Cheyenne—between PSA and New Berlin.
Time slowed down to an inch at a time—especially for Spencer. Juliana got him off twice—his lizard reminding her of The Monster from the Black Lagoon. How could a dumb little white kid—own something so thick and Jurassic? How could anything so primitive-looking—ever have been a virgin piece of white trash? Whatever it was—she wanted to get pregnant with it. A step ahead of the mob—moiling around him.
Spencer was sleeping in the den—curled up in one of the huge overstuffed antique leather chairs. He had a black silk kimono on—the gift of kind Mr. Tagomi. Mr. Tagomi was a rather generous but mysterious businessman who worked in the Nippon Times Building in San Francisco. Obviously a man connected with the Home Islands—somebody to both fear and appreciate. Tagomi had taken the Abendsen family under his wing—protecting them from Nazi intrusion and SD threats.
Without Tagomi—and General Tedeki in the dark wings—Hawthorne, Caroline and Spencer would have been dead by now. The malignant ones—the Sicherheitsdienst—would have had them a long time ago. The Cheyenne Kempetai guarded them now—the Imperial marines surrounding them for blocks in the underground complex beneath them. That much was true—it was a High Castle protected by PSA and the Nippon Times.
Tagomi insisted on the best distance-learning electronics—and made sure Spencer got the latest Sony computers. After all, it was Japanese computer technology—that countered the Nazi bomb. Delivery systems were constantly being improved—yet Japanese technology was the only source for reliable Sony deadly expertise.
Operation Dandelion was actually just another arms race—similar to the one on the Nebenwelt side. It seems to happen on every planet sooner or later—they call it the Krell Effect. It’s an Exo-Politics Thing—sooner or later the Monsters of the Id come out of hiding in every species. Once the typical alpha-male genetically-engineered sequence begins—then the Krell Effect clicks into place. Nothing can stop it—it’s an Altair-4 nova-express.
Reichsführer SS Reinhardt Heydrich already had android Waffen-SS troops guarding him around the clock—especially now that the Little Doktor was in power. Baldur von Scherach, the head of the Hitler Youth, had been arrested on Goebbels’ order. Heydrich knew he was next—even Canaris wasn’t safe in New York either. The Little Doktor was vindictive—he was making up for lost time.
Heydrich’s android Waffen-SS troops had been genetically engineered by Dr. Seyss-Inquart with only one purpose in mind—to be the ultimate Nazi Praetorian guard. To guard and protect Heydrich blindly and fanatically at all costs—to do it even better than Sepp Dietrich and the Leibstandarte Division.
Heydrich’s clone bodyguards were all incredibly handsome blonde blue-eyed young Supermen—they were the prototypes of the feared Nexus 6 warrior class that revolted on Mars and took over the gold-mining operations on Saturn’s rings. Strangely enough Heinlein already foreseen this neo-noir action—in mid-twentieth century pulp fiction sci-fi magazines & Ace Double novels. The Clone wars.
Seyss-Inquart foresaw clearly the future of stem-cell research and genetic engineering—the implications for racial theories and ethics. They had plenty of racial theories—but had no ethics. But then Nazis never do—the means justify the ends. They think they do—but they are blinded by the Krell Effect. They inevitably fall in love with their own monsters of the Id technology—or somebody else’s. Genetic engineering requires computer modeling—Nazi spyware technology was constantly trying to penetrate and catch up with the Japanese companies on the coast.
Mr. Tagomi and the Nippon Times Building were at the center of the computer espionage network—SD agents were always skulking around San Francisco looking for trade and pirated code. Distance learning was for the Abendsen boy’s safety—Spencer had never gone to a public school. The laptops and huge flat-screen on the wall—electronic gifts of Mr. Tagomi for Hawthorne’s precocious son. And all the exquisite electronic accoutrement—a young writer could need. A young reclusive writer—who could be had.
It was all fugitive and fake now—the Oracle had found him out. No matter how perfectly they’d hid him—the Oracle had found out where the kid was. It had walked right through his front door in their Cheyenne suburban home—posing as Juliana Frink after preempt-saving Hawthorne’s life in Denver. It had finally happened—somebody had penetrated Hawthorne’s High Castle. Somebody who sensed the “Inner Truth”—it was bound to happen sooner or later.
If it wasn’t Juliana Frink—it would have been somebody else. The brass coins Juliana tossed—those Chinese coins had told the truth. The Book of Changes spoke through her—the answer had been Chung Fu. The Book had actually spoken through Juliana—when she asked the questions: “Oracle, why did you write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy? What are we supposed to learn?”
The minute Juliana asked the question—Hawthorne knew the game was up. The Oracle had written The Grasshopper—no mere human could have done it and it certainly wasn’t Hawthorne Abendsen who wrote it. The Inner Truth of the moment had become known then—it was only a matter of time before Juliana sensed the complete truth. She already was terribly close—when she asked the question. The truth was out of the closet—the Oracle had come home to roost. It drove from Denver—to rendezvous with Spencer Abendsen in the den. But how did Spencer know ahead of time—that this was going to happen?
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