Chapter 349: I'm Surrounded by Idiots

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Just because the interview had been in progress didn't stop the rest of the world from responding, especially because some of the news teams had been able to get live feeds set up in time. Those that hadn't still had the angel's email to rave over, with either excited breathlessness or cool skepticism, depending on which attitude the producers or network executives thought would be the most profitable. All the networks had plenty of material about Mark Anderson dating back to our big lawsuit, so summaries of my life were aired, like an obituary but in reverse. Overhead helicopters had added top-down shots, until our security guards threatened their networks with a news boycott unless the choppers left the area.

When we ended the interview and headed back inside, Julia checked her phone and there was a message for her to call Alexis back, "no matter what time it is."

Julia checked it was fine with me, which it was, so she made the call, a few seconds later telling Alexis, "Yes, it's really Mark. He still looks like Ron, but that's supposed to change over a few weeks. Do you want to talk him."

I took the phone and said, "Hello Spanky."

"Are you really Mark?"

"At the moment. It's a bit like musical chairs with bodies around here. So have you been a good girl while I've been away?"

"Fuck that! Can I come over?"

Julia was listening in, and she appeared fine with it. It wasn't as if Julia and I had just been reunited after fifteen months apart. I was fine with it too, so I said, "Things are going to get very chaotic around here soon, but if you don't mind that crap, you can certainly come. Bring your pajamas if you want to stay."

"Cool. See you soon." {Click}. Phone conversations with Alexis tend to be quite short - she's not a typical female.

I let the gate guards know to let Alexis Joseph in.

It was very late, but the parents had a few calls too, although they didn't invite anyone to come over in their pajamas.

When everyone was off their phones, we told our security staff that we'd be in a Faraday cage for a while.

We started comparing notes about the interview, which mostly meant asking why I'd said various things, suggesting improvements and ideas for future interviews - there were bound to be MANY of those - and quite often congratulating me for doing so well.

One point is worth recording here. I said, "I'm pretty sure there was a UAV - that's an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; a remote-controlled spy plane like the Predators you see on TV sometimes - over our home during the interview. It's probably still up there now. I'm almost certain it's part of the FBI's surveillance because it started about the same time as the FBI's other surveillance methods. They can stay up for more than 24 hours and presumably don't take long to refuel, so it'll probably be overhead almost continuously for the next few days.

^-- "Our getting lots of photographs of it overhead at all hours of the day, for day after day, could be used to give the Government some grief. The photographs will have to be taken through a good-sized hobby telescope as UAVs are much smaller than normal planes and they fly pretty high, but I think telescopes with cameras are readily available. It shouldn't be set up in our property because that'd be noticed, but on a rooftop in town somewhere would be fine."

Mom was first to respond, "Don't Predators have big missiles on them?"

I shouldn't have said that. The last time I'd detected the presumed-UAV had been late-April, shortly after the FBI surveillance van was exposed and at the same time as I'd discovered the several FBI agents around our property and their attic camera. I'd mentioned all these to my family but I'd not said "Predator" and Mom hadn't reacted to "UAV" the way she was reacting to "Predator" now. That was a much scarier word, and I'd been foolish to use it.

"They can have small ones, Mom, but what's above us isn't necessarily a Predator. Most UAVs can't carry missiles, and even if the one above us could, it doesn't increase our risk of being fired on because there are probably a thousand different ways the Government could do that to us if they wanted to. The helicopters that attacked our Peoria Road home, for instance. The UAV's presence doesn't mean we're about to be fired on because it's already been up there for hours. It's just doing surveillance. If we get a telescope we'll soon find out whether it's armed. If it is, we'll publicize it much more quickly."

Mom was in favor of getting a telescope very quickly.

Dad was Paul's direct boss, so tomorrow morning - actually this morning, because it was so late already - Dad would get Paul onto it. He'd have to be vague about the source of our suspicions, but Paul was our employee so we didn't have to explain ourselves to him. Most of Paul's guys are tech-savvy so he'd easily be able to find someone to manage that little project.

When Alexis arrived, I moved to give her a hug, then at the last moment surprised her by bending down to hoist her up over my shoulder, giving her bottom a smack as I headed for the bedroom.

"It's really you, Mark?"

"Yep. Cross my heart and hope to die again."

#14: <We should've used that line in the interview.>

#19: <I'm sure we'll have other opportunities.>

"Wow. That's amazing!"

"I think the correct word is 'miracle'. Have you ever made out with a dead guy before?"

"Does 'dead drunk' count? Umm ... Do you think we should?"

"I definitely think we should; probably five or six times. What makes you ask?"

"God may not like you doing ... you know."

"Fucking like a horny rabbit who's excited about being free again?"

"Yeah, that. You're not worried?"

"I don't know whether you noticed or not, but I used to have quite a lot of sex. I'm surprised I have to tell you that because I could've sworn I saw your legs waving in the air fairly often. Anyway, there were millions of less sexually active people God could have chosen to resurrect, but He chose me, so it's obvious that He doesn't have a problem with sex. It's stupid to believe He would, considering how fundamental and important it is. It'd be like saying God objected to our eating or breathing."

Ava added, "I think He resurrected you because he wants to watch you have more sex."

"I think that's an EXCELLENT theory, Ava! We should give Him a good show before He hits my ass with a lightning bolt to hurry me up."

That ended the conversation for what should have been a few hours, but only a minute later Alexis suddenly exclaimed, "Hey Mark! You're making out with Carol! I don't think God would approve of THAT! Haha."

None of the thirty five of us - Julia, Carol, Ava or my thirty two minds - had thought of that. We were so used to going to bed together that we did so out of habit. Everyone froze, while we wondered what to do.

What I wanted to do was keep having sex with Carol, right now and in the future. Having to avoid Carol every time some other girl was around would be a pain, especially given how often we would be doing things with the second-tier girls. Alexis is - to understate her attitude - fairly accepting of sex. She wasn't horrified now, merely surprised and amused. She'd be cool with it.

I said, "Wow, that's weird. My head is full of so many of Ron's memories of his making love with Carol that doing it seemed normal to me. Better than normal, because Ron's memories are VERY good ones. Hmm ... the idea doesn't put me off at all; I find it rather sexy. What do you say, Carol, shall we become lovers?"

Carol had thought what to say, "It's easy to forget you're Mark. I liked sleeping with Ron, Julia and Ava every night, and I liked the sex we had, and I think I'd like to keep doing that with you. Can we try it and see how it feels, please?"

Carol had asked nicely, and it did feel great for both of us, so we decided to enthusiastically continue the experiment, at least for another few decades.

For the next fifteen minutes, Carol and I were the center of attention. Including when I made Alexis hold my cock and line it up with Carol's pussy as my hips descended, so, "It's officially all your fault now, Alexis."

"Cool! I can't wait to see you doing it when you look like Mark. That's going to look SO kinky. Neither of you feel yucky?"

Carol answered, "I feel great. I've always loved Mark and now I can get used to loving him even more while his looks slowly change from Ron's to his own."

I said, "I've certainly always loved Carol too, but the biggest factor is that this feels totally natural and good. Ron has many dozens - probably hundreds - of memories of his making love with Carol. Those are part of me now, so this feels like Carol and I are having sex for the 151st time. There's absolutely no 'yuck-factor' at all; totally the reverse.

^-- "Intellectually I know it's our first time, and that most people will think we shouldn't do it, but I don't care about them. I like the idea of being closer to Carol and this feels too good to stop. By the way, how come no one told me before how sexy Carol is? Someone should've talked me into this ages ago."

"That's Julia's fault," volunteered Ava. "She was in charge of getting new girlfriends for you, but I think she wanted to keep the Carol for herself. Shall I punish her for you?"

"Good idea. I'm too busy to do it myself now."

Ava mercilessly attacked one part of Julia.

#2: <Pat, Claire and Diana stand out as girls I expect not to have any problem with Carol and us doing the nasty together. I don't think we should tell Katelin. The other second-tier girls I'm not sure about.>

#13: <Janice and Carina are probably okay.> (Janice is one of the later pipeline girls, not individually discussed before.)

#2: <We probably need to be more sure than "probably".>

#13: <True, although I think it's a much less threatening issue than it used to be a year ago. We've got a stupid amount of money and the Guardian Angel now, we can use Ron's memories as a large mitigating factor, and I think our situation is so unique we can probably get away with stuff that no one else could. But I agree that it's not worth the risk. Janice or Carina rarely stay overnight, so working around them will be easy. Ditto for the "not probably okay" girls.>

I'd already consciously changed my sex style to be Mark-like rather than Ron-like. From kissing differently, through to showing a great deal more vigor and endurance than Ron ever did, and roughness with Alexis. That meant the sex session lasted quite a long time, but that was a price I was willing to pay. My efforts were rewarded, when Alexis exclaimed, "Oh my God {pant}, you ARE Mark!"

I gave her another, even more vigorous celebratory fuck, just to drive the point home.

In our post-coital conversation, for Alexis' education, I described in more detail our bullshit about God's leaving Ron's memories for me, including that they appeared when I looked at my cock, and that God chose to leave many dozens of memories of Ron and Carol having sex. "That obviously proves that God is cool with sex, and cool with Carol and me having it."

Alexis was convinced. She even added more ammunition, talking about how Archangel Michael's cock had been so easy to see and awesome, proving that God wasn't a prude. Then she spent five minutes drooling over how she would've liked to jump the Archangel's bones. We had fun teasing her for her obvious lust and ambitious idea of her body's capabilities.

We weren't the only people having a busy night; Paul, the Chief of Police, the Mayor, and their staffs, were busy too. The public was already starting to congregate outside our walls, and it was safe to assume that it was going to get far worse when America woke up and caught the morning news. There was a lot of planning going on, gathering of resources, and trying to work out how crazy things could get, etc. From minor tasks like making sure our entire supply of walkie-talkies were fully charged, through to getting a fire truck parked inside our front gate so its water hose could be used to discourage the crowd if it became too unruly. The National Guard was informally warned they might need to be activated, and an email sent to the Governor's office bringing him up to date and warning him that a state of emergency might become necessary.

[Although our guards called them "hand-helds", I call them "walkie-talkies" because it's both logically correct and humorously silly at the same time, and you can't create a name much better than that. They are mounted on the guards' belts, with a cord that runs up their backs under their shirts, to microphones that clip onto their collars and earpieces. Press a button on the mic to talk, and everyone with an earpiece can hear it. They are encrypted, which probably means that the Government can easily eavesdrop but few others can.]

The tapes of the interview started playing in the wee small hours, so had little effect around Corvallis. The first broadcasts caught the early risers on the East Coast though, so Paul, the Chief and Mayor got some indication of what things could be like by seeing how the East Coasters reacted.

I was awake too, and had gotten out of bed so I could watch TV. Without a sound blob I couldn't usefully watch TV from bed as we'd never bothered getting remote headphones for it.

[By the way, it's now very easy for me to get out of bed without disturbing my bedmates. I can use a slight nudge plus EKP to get them to let go and give me room, then NP pulls me up and out easily. I make it look like I'm doing it myself just in case someone has found a way to see what's going on in our bedroom because we don't sleep with the Faraday cage activated as it's as close to airtight as makes no difference.]

The network commentators' opinions were all over the map, so God knows how far the religious nutcases' opinions would spread. The so-called "Resurrection" looked like a pathetically incompetent con job or joke. Ron Fisher claimed to have Mark Anderson's mind and soul inside him, but the only 'proof' was the Andersons' and Williams' saying so, which was far from convincing. On the other hand, Archangel Michael had been spectacularly capable, but his last appearance had been over a month ago. None of the network commentators wanted to say that they believed the resurrection was real or that it was fake. Even the experts were more noncommittal than their normal highly opinionated selves.

The religious community was confused too. Never individually confused from what I could see on TV, but collectively confused because the individuals were totally sure of every possible interpretation. It was quite funny. One of the commentators commentated (as they do) about the confusion, saying, "The angels did say they wanted to us to have freewill over believing or not believing. They've achieved that."

[I was particularly proud of that aspect of my plan. It would've been impossible for me to pull off a totally convincing "I'm an angel from God" act as I didn't have nearly enough religious knowledge and no desire to spend years trying to acquire it, so I negated that weakness by refusing to play any "Prove You're An Angel" games.]

There were the usual religious nutcases who claimed I was the Devil. They were especially strident this time - even MORE than normal! - because too many other religious nutcases were claiming that I was Jesus Christ. Because Jesus was the last person to be resurrected, many people thought I must be him again. Have I mentioned that religious people don't seem to have a particularly good grasp on logic? Or on reality either, come to that. Archangel Michael had specifically said that whoever was resurrected wouldn't be divine in any way, but that had been completely forgotten, which added "don't seem to have a particularly good memory either" to the list of religious people's faults. It's a wonder they can tie their own shoestrings, given their many mental deficiencies. (If you'd listened to all the religious crap I had recently, you'd have the same low opinion of religious people.)

My being Black was clearly an issue to quite a few of the nutcases, some of whom were so confident of their devoutness and/or bigotry that they didn't hesitate to claim my Blackness proved that I must be from the Devil.

I saw one of the interviewers enjoy asking, "But Mark Anderson is white. If Ron's body transforms into Mark's, what will you think then?"

That bigoted nutcase was clearly EXTREMELY uncomfortable with that prospect, and declared it impossible because it was so ungodly. He spewed some biblical verses; I think to prove that Blacks were evil, although it was hard to tell because most of the verses didn't make sense or have any relevance to anything that I could work out.

One aspect pleased me: that most people thought the resurrection was a fake. Hopefully lots of doubtful people would mean less of a circus outside our home. "He obviously wants to be famous, as you can see by how much he enjoyed talking to the cameras." The last point had some merit, as I had no trouble performing for the cameras. I didn't enjoy the media's crap, but I did enjoy using them as part of my plan. I had long since gotten over being nervous in front of cameras, and if I had been nervous I could've turned it off. Nor, with thirty two minds, was I ever tongue-tied; I usually had far too many choices for what to say.

[While I remember to mention it, back when I'd had two, four or even eight minds, we would usually discuss among ourselves who was going to talk next. With thirty two minds, internal discussions could take far too long. Unless one of us had been allocated the mouth for a particular reason, we usually just let whoever took control of it speak. That was far less chaotic than you might imagine, as the winner was the person most motivated, and he usually had the most worthwhile thing to say. Because we all have much the same judgment, upon hearing what he said, the rest of us usually agreed that his comment had been best. I would occasionally wonder how terribly chaotic it'd be to have multiple different minds in my head, and I'd give thanks that my minds were all so similar.]

Entertaining Alexis the night before prompted me to make some phone calls fairly early in the morning. I called all of my - as Mark - old girlfriends. Ron hadn't been active with some of them, which made my calling those ones even more appropriate. The conversations were highly repetitive and got tedious, but I still thought it was a good thing for me to do. Once they got their heads around the situation - the fake situation that my Angel Plan had created - and the world accepted it better, they'd get a HUGE buzz out of the world-famous resurrected guy ringing them so soon after he returned. Doing anything more than ringing them, such as depraving them, would have to wait for the chaos to calm down, because the scene outside our gates was rapidly getting too wild to risk inviting anyone to come here.

By midmorning, I was thanking God that I hadn't been more convincing! The street outside our property was PACKED with idiots:

• Christian zealots wanting to worship at my feet.

• Other Christian zealots wanting to burn me at the stake, feet and all.

• Sick people wanting me to cure them.

• The merely curious. I assumed that's what they were. They weren't waving placards so it was hard to tell.

• Plus some weird groups: UFO-nuts, Enviro-nuts, etc. There were even a couple of placards saying "Bring Back Elvis". I like to think they were having a joke, but I feared they might have been serious. (The "feared" wasn't for my safety, but for my plummeting opinion of humanity.)

• The media, encouraging it all.

I was amused to note that the two groups of Christian zealots were particularly aggressive toward each other. Apparently "turn the other cheek" wasn't in either of their versions of the Bible. I was hoping they'd largely eliminate each other, preferably with the "burn him at the stake" faction losing. I was also hopeful that some of the "feet worshipers" had big tits, in which case I'd redirect their aim somewhat higher.

I was impressed by some entrepreneurial non-idiots selling "Official Resurrection Souvenirs". They were making a killing.

Our security guards were NOT amused. They were being run ragged by people climbing over our walls. We'd learned from our mistake around our Peoria Road property, and had a 13-foot high wall around this one. Without a ladder or other wall-climbing tools, it wasn't easy for people to get over the wall, but a lot of them still managed it. With a property as large as ours, we didn't have nearly enough staff to cover the perimeter fully. Fortunately, between the wall's sensors and the gardeners acting as spotters, our guards could be directed to each incursion.

The trespassers were quickly and roughly downed - by hand, baton or taser, depending on the trespasser's degree of non-cooperation - plastic cuffed, and the tractor called to collect them. Usually the guards had to run off to another incursion almost immediately. The tractor, with trailer attached, was doing circuits of our property, collecting loads of trespassers and taking them to a holding area where a chain was passed through their cuffs to hold them while a couple of overworked cops processed them. It was going to take many hours before their situation improved from being chained to a stake in the ground.

The cops were being run ragged too, even with the reinforcements they were getting from other towns. They were mostly on the outside of our walls trying to deal with the accumulating thousands of highly excited people. That wasn't easy because the mob had left their brains at home. I'm charitably giving them credit for possessing brains in the first place. Most of them were highly religious, so that's doubtful.

Contributing to the noise level were far too many helicopters and planes passing overhead - a midair collision seemed more likely than not - and a dozen megaphone-equipped preachers exhorting feet-worshiping, stake-burning, and pretty much every other extreme view that you could think of. No "Free Love" though, unfortunately.

Our eastern neighbor is a mega-church, "The Church of The Horsemen of Christ". My nickname for them is "The Galloping Ninnies". They're nutcases even for religious people, believing in the literal truth of the Bible and other absurdities. God knows how they reconcile the Bible's direct contradictions, but I'm sure the illogic of their beliefs doesn't cross their minds, even given the much shorter than normal crossing distances involved. Thousands of them were gathering in their recently built church.

^

[I'd read their website not long after I heard about them being our neighbor, and I had no doubt that my "Philosophy of God" - whether espoused by me as Ron, Mark or Archangel Michael - wouldn't have been or is to their liking, so their attitude to me now wouldn't be of the feet worshipping variety. Gems among their espoused beliefs were:

• "The Bible is the only inspired, infallible, inerrant, and authoritative word of God."

• "The Scriptures and Holy Spirit supply us with all we need that pertains to life and godliness."

• "Man in his essential being is sinful, depraved, and unfit for God's favor."

They got the "Man is depraved" bit right, as I'm eagerly looking forward to a life filled with a great deal of depravity with pretty girls and beautiful women, but otherwise they're telling their followers: "Don't think for yourselves because you're flawed. Do what we tell you the must-be-obeyed Bible means." They were really overdoing the point about the Bible's perfection, as "infallible", "inerrant", and "authoritative" all mean exactly the same thing, and "inspired" isn't too far off that meaning either. I guessed they were aware that their followers were so stupid that they'd be impressed by repeated variations of the same word. Maybe doing that would counter all the silliness in the Bible, such as its repeatedly treating unicorns as real creatures (and to think that millions of people think science should be taught out of the Bible).

I was astonished at how transparent their control game was, but despite the transparency, it's clearly very successful since the Ninnies is a MEGA-church. It's huge and growing huger all the time; that's why they'd had to build a much bigger church than what they'd used previously, and why they could afford so much good land. It's very sad that so many thousands of people are willing to surrender their intelligence in order to get the comfort they so desperately need from such an arrogant organization.

And what do their followers get for their reward? Judging from...

• "Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, lived a life without sin, willingly died a sacrificial death for the sins of the world, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and to establish God's realm of righteousness and peace on the earth."

... well-behaved followers get "righteousness and peace on [lower-case] earth." I can't say that prize would motivate me much, but I've got thirty two minds of my own, which is about 31.9 minds more than I'd need to avoid falling for their control game. What astonishes me is that the control game is so blatant yet thousands of people flock to it. What does it tell you about people that the bosses of that church know and openly exploit people's willingness to give up responsibility for thinking about something that is meant to be as important as their soul and the everlasting life they claim they'll have after this one?

I've occasionally wondered - VERY occasionally - why Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified. After reading the above, I understood why: after thirty-odd years of living a life without once enjoying any of the sins that Christianity rails against, I'd be begging for crucifixion too.

While I'm in the area, what is it with religious people and virginity? What does virginity have to do with having well-developed spiritual beliefs, being a good person, and a valued member of society? How is Jesus' wisdom going to be improved by his mother having a narrow life? If his mother had traveled the world, seen many peoples and cultures, been with several amazing men, and had a very impressive life full of amazing accomplishments, then I'd be much more likely to believe that she'd imparted some useful wisdom to Jesus while she was bringing him up. Instead, Christians value her solely for having an inexperienced life. It's a pretty sick religion that praises repressed rather than expanded lives. I'm obviously only talking about female virginity, as religious people never question that men can achieve the feat of being simultaneously moral and non-virginal. Why men can do that but women can't escapes me, especially because men are FAR more immoral than women when it comes to sex.

On a related note about the Virgin Mary, I've got two rather obvious questions:

1. If God was going to provide a miracle, wouldn't it have been much better to make it about getting the baby out rather than putting it in. In other words, what sort of god deprives the mother of the pleasure of conception but lets her suffer the painful and, at the time, dangerous birth? But that's obviously not the way Christians think. Seriously, it's not. They're misogynistic and sadistic; not a good combination if you're a Christian woman because Christian males have got all their justifications lined up, thanks to the "inspired, infallible, inerrant, and authoritative" Bible.

2. How did the baby Jesus get out past his virgin mother's hymen? Must've taken the back stairs, I guess. If you laughed at the absurdity of that, then congratulations for having avoided Christian brainwashing. If you found it even slightly offensive, then even if you believe Jesus really existed, you don't actually think that his mother was a virgin at the time of his birth, do you? Feel free to answer anyway you like, because the Catholic Church has been forced to stop its centuries-long practice of burning people at the stake for denying Mary's virginity.]

^

So far the mega-church's sheeple were only listening to their preacher, but I doubted that'd remain the case for much longer. Devout Christians have an overwhelming need to stick their noses into other people's business and then tell them that they're wrong, so the Galloping Ninnies wouldn't stay where they were.

Their church was too far away from the center of action at our gates, so they needed to move in order to give everyone else the benefit of their wisdom. They would either march around the property to our front gate, which could cause a great deal of trouble, or they'd come over our wall, which would cause a GREAT deal of trouble! The construction of their main church building is finished, but there are still several minor construction jobs going on around their property, so there's ample material available to make ladders or ramps over our wall. We could have two or three thousand of them in our property with very little warning. A couple of our gardeners were stationed where they could keep a constant eye on that threat. I don't know what Paul's plan was in that case, but I knew what my plan was: the Guardian Angel was going to make a highly effective entrance, and there'd soon be Christians being tossed hither and yon. Mostly yon, because the ground was harder in that direction.