This catalog of psychological cancers forms what I call the “base sicks,” the bombed-out foundation of every human being which is the source of all adult misery and the terror of every “inner child.” Because these base sicks are buried at the deepest-level programming of any group’s origin, they’re as invisible to the individuals they’re poisoning as a rainbow is to Dog Man.
It’s Easier to Change One’s Uniform Than One’s Mind-Set
Emerging from the changing room, Power Grrrl stumbled, falling into me. I helped her along while she regained her “reality legs,” noting the extraordinary change in her appearance. Gone was the black and silver Sensosilk Event Tunic, replaced by one of her more restrained uniforms: a dazzle of sequins, a lace vest with garters, and thigh-high leather boots whose skyscaper heels had no doubt contributed to her tumble.
“Like, Eva,” she asked me, “could we have, like, died or something in that simulation? Because I am totally not cool with that?”
Behind us, Iron Lass ground her teeth so loudly that for a moment I thought she was chewing ice.
“No, Syndi, not to worry,” I said, intercepting the Valkyrie’s objection. “The release form you signed cleared me of any liability in the unlikely event of your mental incapacitation, grievous bodily harm, or life-cessation, but while you could experience the illusion of pain inside the Id-Smasher®, your bodies couldn’t be killed, even if your somatic simulations could be.”
“It’s precisely that kind of cowardice,” grumbled the man waiting for us inside the Verbalarium, “that’s destroyed this organization.”
Sitting already in the ring of chairs, the Flying Squirrel almost glowed from the sunlight streaming onto him, the fur of his world-famous mask gleaming with its oversized animal ears, snub nose, long white whiskers, and giant, pink-rimmed black eyes. With his Olympic build, tight skin, and laserlike stare, he looked more like a young Brian Dennehy than the seventy-year-old he was. But no one could mistake the power throbbing inside his clawed and furry gloves for that of anyone else.
“Cowardice, contempt for chain of command, lack of discipline,” sneered the Flying Squirrel, “and a hundred other maladies of character forming a toxic cocktail that has shaken, not stirred, everything that Hawk King spent decades building. If he’d seen how you invalids performed in there today—”
“O-kay, we get it?” said Power Grrrl, snapping her bubble gum. “You know Hawk King, you, like, worked with Hawk King, you used to fetch coffee for Hawk King—I got it the, like, first thousand times?”
“Aw, man, Squirrelly,” said André. “Brotherfly say girly-girl just put the Bzzzt! on you—”
“Quiet, you,” said Festus Piltdown III. He paused to scrub Power Grrrl with his glance. “And as for you, your juvenile blandishments which reduce every statement to an interrogative don’t erase the simple fact that your performance was subfarcical!”
“Oh, now jess tether yer ponies a sec, Festy,” said Omnipotent Man, making a “whoa” gesture with his hands. “I’ont think we was all s’bad in there. We set ’er up, an you an th’X-Man knocked ’er down. That’s the hokey-pokey, right?” He grinned and winked at the ravenish woman in the winged helmet. Iron Lass’s ivory faced flushed. He sang, “Now we turn ourselves around…that’s what it’s all about!”
“Ah, poor, pathetic, possum-fried Wally,” said the Flying Squirrel, shaking his head minutely. “Would you be giving that moonshine-and-stained-overalls assessment if Hawk King were here? Did you happen to notice that your so-called settin’ ’er up amounted to virtually zero role in the mission’s success?”
The X-Man spat, “ ‘Success’?”
All faces turned to Kareem Edgerton, HKA the X-Man, before flitting toward my hand, which I kept poised above my whistle, like a gunfighter fingering his Colt.
Kareem leaned back in his seat, letting out a breath while reconsidering his tone. “If today’s ‘combat’ had been real, there would’ve been a hundred thousand people lined up outside of hospitals looking like bleeding pincushions from the flying glass. ‘Success’?” he repeated, catching his voice just as it spiked. He glanced toward my whistle, looked down, loosened his fists, and stage-whispered, “You call that success…. I’d hate to see failure.”
The Utility of Aggression-Aversion Therapy
Festus Piltdown said, “If you’d been in this business as long as I have, Edgerton, you’d know that sometimes tough decisions—executive decisions—are required when the professionals take on the hard jobs no one else is qualified for—”
“Professionals?” said the X-Man, extravagantly sweeping invisible lint from his black blazer and pants. “Mr. Squirrel here said ‘professionals’ like that’s something to be proud of. But there’re professional killers, too. And those two”—he wagged his chin across the circle, first to Omnipotent Man and then to Iron Lass—“were willing to professionally liquidate everyone in Langston-Douglas to protect the borough of Bird Island. Don’t the people in Stun-Glas have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of not being blown to kot-tam hell?”
I moved my whistle toward my lips.
“Excuse me, Doc,” said Kareem, “blown to golly-gee-whiz-gol-dang heck. Or was it just that not enough ‘professionals’ live over in mainland Los Ditkos?”
Hnossi Icegaard shifted in her chair. “It vuss only a simulation, Kareem,” she sighed, adjusting her gleaming silver-gold breastplate and black-feather cloak. “No actual human beingks vut haff been harmedt. Just like in ze moofies.”
“So why not—!” Kareem stopped, lowered his volume and tempo. “Why not…just let CycloTron hit the island, then? When we were inside the simulation we all believed it was real. And yet you and Wally had no hesitation to sacrifice how many of us to save how few of you?”
“Oh, Kareem!” snapped Power Grrrl. “That’s, like, not even—”
“That didn’t take long, did it?” said Festus. “Have we gone to simulated Las Vegas now? Because once again Kareem is playing his race cards!”
“You know, in my experience,” said Kareem, caging his fingers and drawing out his words, “the jokers…who talk the most about ‘playing the race card’…are
