Little Green Men (16 page)

"Ban-ion! Ban-ion!"

For the First time he could remember. Banion felt a twinge of nervousness before a speech. .

As it happened, someone else present was also nervous about Banion's speech. A dozen rows back, Nathan Scrubbs sat miserably between two large, unshowered devotees, one of whom was clutching Linda Moulton Howe's expensive, glossy, new coffee table book. Until now Scrubbs had never rubbed so closely up against this world that he had helped to create, and he was not Finding it much to his liking.

He had come because it was the only thing he could think to do. And because this was probably the last place where they would think to look for him.

His superiors at MJ-12 - whoever they were - were upset with Scrubbs, very upset. When he'd shown up for work the day after Banion's Palm Springs abduction, he'd found everything normal in his basement office in the Social Security Administration building - except for his computers. When he keyed in his password, the screen lit up with a voluminous listing of disability benefits paid to retirees in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Delaware.

At first he assumed it must be a glitch.

Two days later, after tapping his fingers on the keyboard so repeatedly that he got digital neuropathy and only more pension, disability, and Medicare records, he came inevitably to the conclusion that he had fallen into disfavor with his anonymous masters.

The trouble was, there was no one to call. After all these years in the organization, he still didn't know the name of a single other human being in Majestic Twelve. That was the organization's genius, its infinite compartmentability.

Then something else happened to make his liver quiver. In the midst of his feverish tappings, a Social Security Administration security guard opened the door. Scrubbs bolted out of his chair like an electrified lab frog.

"Didn't mean to disturb you. sir."

In all his years in this office, no guard had ever ventured in. And there was something about the guard - he seemed a little too crisp and businesslike and physically trim, somewhat different from the uniformed somnambulants he routinely passed in the corridors on his way to his subterranean lair. Being a security guard at Social Security was arguably the least exciting job in law enforcement. Why. then, did the one who had stuck his head in look like a stand-in for Clint Eastwood?

That evening, back in his apartment. Scrubbs got out his laptop computer. He entered the first two passwords. Halfway through entering the third and final password that converted the computer into a secure MJ-12 communicator, something made him pause. His brain went clammy.

He considered: surely the protocols that deactivated the explosive booby trap within the computer could - in theory - be reprogrammed remotely to do the exact opposite: blow it up.

Slowly. Scrubbs closed the laptop's lid. He spent the next few hours staring at the machine.

He did not sleep. Finally, around four in the morning, he carefully wrapped the laptop in cellophane. He drove to Theodore Roosevelt
Island in the Potomac, across from the Kennedy Center, parked, crossed the footbridge, and buried it. behind a granite slab engraved with a TR exhortation to live the manly life and not to take any shit from anyone.

Back home, he slept fitfully. The larger problem remained - what now?

One by one, Scrubbs had eliminated possibilities, and so he had arrived at his present situation, wedged between malodorous UFO believers, trying not to breathe through his nose, about to hear a keynote speech by the Frankenstein monster that he had, in a moment of weakness, created
ex nihilo
out of pixels on a television screen. On the whole, he would rather have been in Philadelphia.

"Ban-ion! Ban-ion!"

At the podium, Dr. Falopian. who had implied that he was Banion's sole mentor - occasioning a pouting lower lip from Colonel Murfletit -was finally coming to the end of his triumphant introduction. (Dr. Falopian was not one quickly to yield a microphone.) He congratulated Banion on his courage for coming forward, when more timorous souls would have clung for dear life to the concealing shadows.

The crowd were on their feet again. They began to clap in unison, like Mediterraneans at a soccer match.

Give us what we came for! Give us Banion! We want Banion!

Banion had never heard anything like it, other than the single Rolling Stones concert he had been forced to endure when he took a godson - the son of a U.S. president. He could feel the blood pumping through his temples, and for some reason a mischievous synapse in his brain kept repeating, "Deeper, oh God, deeper!" as he walked to the podium.

It took nearly five minutes to get the crowd to sit down and be quiet.

On the spur, Banion decided to chuck his prepared text. "UFO's and U.S. Cold War Policy." Tonight he would wing it. Tonight, he would speak from the heart.

"My name," he began, "is John O
. Banion . . ."

Roaring, applauding, stomping the floor. Only Scrubbs remained sitting, drawing scornful looks from his mephitic neighbors. Dr. Falopian gaveled them to order. Banion waited for them to be totally quiet.

".
..
and I
am an abductee."

Rhetorically, it was a cross between an Alcoholics Anonymous declaration and John F. Kennedy's
Ich bin ein Berliner.
The media marked the similarity. The headline in one tabloid newspaper the next day declared:
ich bin ein kook.

But here, there was no derision. The crowd, overcome by emotion, poured forth from their seats and began to surge toward the stage.

Colonel Murfletit squeaked orders to his crew-cut hearties to hold the line. Some in the audience managed to gain the stage, climb up, and hurl themselves at Banion. His glasses were knocked askew and taken for souvenirs. His boyish mop of hair was violently tousled by a large-breasted, prehensile woman from Oklahoma named Viola, who later breathlessly told CNN that she had seen a "shimmering like heat waves coming off his head." Barnett, the CNN producer, was trampled by the adoring, pachydermal herd and had two fingers broken. The thing had taken on an untidy, religious aspect.

Finally order was restored by Dr. Falopian, who himself got knocked about in the fracas. Sternly, he warned the crowd that if this continued he would call down the ultimate authority - the fire marshals. They quieted and let their new champion speak.

Even those mainstream observers who had already concluded that John 0. Banion had gone stark, staring cuckoo, admitted afterwards that it was a stirring speech he gave that evening. He had always spoken well in public, but now he spoke with something that he had, up to now, lacked - passion.

He described his ordeals on the golf course and in Palm Springs, glossing over certain intimate details. He was nothing special, he told them. After all, how many others in this very room had undergone similar trauma?

Loud murmuring, hands raised. Yes, they too!

Now, he said, listen to me, people. He held no animosity toward the U.S. government.

What was this? But the government
was
the enemy. The government was in cahoots with the extraterrestrial swine! What was he talking about?

This government, he said, is for the most part run by decent, hardworking, able people, who do not get large limousines, Air Force jets, and unlimited cellular phone service. They are in it for the simple, honest satisfaction of public service.

Groans. Disappointed looks. The crowd had not come for
this.

And yet, said Banion. And . .
.yet. . .

Pin-drop silence.

. . . and
yet . . .
certain . . .
quarters
within this government, unelected, unaccountable,
unresponsive
quarters, had determined, somewhere along the line, that the people of the United States could not be
trusted . . .
Stirrings, rumblings.
...
were not
worthy.
Rumble, rumble.

These
elements
within the government were like the high priests of the ancient religions. They wanted to keep the knowledge to
themselves.

Now he was talking.
This
was more like it. The crowd purred.

Sightings! Encounters! Abductions! Every
day
we see them with our own eyes, endure them with our own bodies. And yet these
priests,
these techno-shamans tell us, Oh no, that was nothing, just a bit of

swamp gas,
a bit of light reflecting off a lenticular cloud. Go back to your lives. Tend to the machinery of production.
Don't worry your pretty little heads!

They were on their feet again now, but eerily silent.

People! Do you know what we are?

Tell us! We want to know! What are we, anyway?

Mushrooms!

From the sea of perplexed looks, it was clear that Banion's metaphor was not immediately apparent.

You know what you do with mushrooms, don't you? Stick 'em in the dark! Feed 'em a lot of shit!

Ah! Yes, now we get it! It's a metaphor!

Mushrooms! That's all we are to them!

Right!

Are you
happy,
being kept in the dark and fed a lot of shit?

No! Let us out! Light, we want light! And we won't be fed any more shit! For one thing it tastes like shit!

So began what was dubbed by the media the Revolt of the Mushrooms.

The whole room was shaking now.

Looking out on the crowd, Banion realized that he had total power over them. He could order them to march right off the bat bridge into the lake. How did the saying go? "When Aeschines speaks, the people say, 'How well he speaks!' But when Demosthenes speaks, they say, 'Let us march!'"

He held up his arms for quiet.

Are we not a democracy?

Yes!

Are the people not sovereign? Yes!

Will we be lied to anymore?

No way! Open the files! Yes!

Unlock the files! Yes!

In 1812, did the United States not declare war on Great Britain because its citizens were being abducted on the high seas?

Yes! We sort of remember that from high school!

And are not U.S. citizens - our very selves - once again being abducted and pressed into durance vile?

We're not sure what that last part means, but yes! Anything you say is okay by us!

Are we not being taken, against our will, aboard foreign vessels, and submitted to horrible, personal violations?

Yes! Though some of us kind of enjoy the probing part!

Banion lowered his voice: And what is our government
doing
about

it!

Nothing! The lying, miserable, bureaucratic bastards! String them up!

Not only are they keeping us in the dark and telling us lies
but they are handing us over to the enemy for unspeakable purposes
¹
.
As breeding stock for Short Uglies! Or Tall Nordics, if we're
lucky.

Hang the government bastards! Shoot them! Do something terrible to them! Campaign finance reform!

Even our cows, our poor, defenseless, stupid cows, are not safe from their ghastly depredations! Slaughtered, gutted, and served up as gruesome canapes! Alien sushi!

The man standing next to Scrubbs clutched his cow mutilation book and began rocking back and forth, humming in a way that made Scrubbs feel distinctly nervous.

No more! No more! To the castle, with our pitchforks and torches!

Now, said Banion, two great countries, the United States and

Russia, both of them possessors of alien technology, the new fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, stand poised on the verge of Armageddon.

Armageddon! Sounds great!

The crowd hushed. All that could be heard was the click of camera shutters.

Banion stood aloft, supreme, haloed by spotlight.

If these two powers clash and use their secret weapons against each other, what dire forces will they unleash? What terrible genii will be loosed upon the cosmos?

No! We don't want that! We can't have that!

Can we allow this to happen?

No
way!

Is not the Congress of the United States servant of the people?

Right! We definitely remember that from high school!

Now it must
serve
the people!

Absolutely! Whatever you're driving at is fine by us!

I call upon the Congress of the United States to come clean, to open the UFO files, to hold hearings - open hearings -
now

Now is too late! We want hearings yesterday!

I call upon Sen. Hank Gracklesen to hold abduction hearings now!