Diaspora Ad Astra (12 page)

“Wait, you’re going to holodeck? Then that means you’ll be learning that too?”

“Yeah. Well I really have to go now.”

“Oh, sorry. See you later,” Jeremy watched Lena as she walked away. He was torn between wanting to find out where this weird dance was coming from and wanting to
talk to her. He got to talk to girls so rarely; most of them were busy with other boys or busy avoiding him. And it was so rare for him to talk to such a pretty and popular girl like Lena. He
called out with his mind,
Wait Lena, don’t go yet
, but his neural band sealed his mind off from the rest of the world.

***

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Santos asked as soon as he saw Jeremy peeking into the holodeck. Mr. Santos was one of the teachers who had petitioned to keep Jeremy
out of the holodeck classes. Despite his dislike for Jeremy he was one of the few teachers who used the neural bands that Jeremy had made.

“I just wanted to know what this new dance is about. It’s kinda nasty, you know, I saw my sister dancing it and it was so—”

“Oh, so now you’re criticizing what’s being taught in here? Just because you read all those books in the library doesn’t mean your opinion is more
important than anyone else’s. You think you’re so smart.” The class kept quiet. Normally, if this had been any other subject or any other teacher, the class would have jeered,
made jokes, laughed, or called him weird while the teacher chewed him out. But when Mr. Santos locked onto a target, no matter who it was, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the person.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just—”

“Oh, what now? You’re trying to show off here? Ooh, I’m so smart because I spend all my time in the library so I should have a say in what the teachers teach
on this ship. I know so much more than them. Huh? Is that the attitude you bring when you come around here?”

“I don’t think that way. I just wanted to know where—”

“Oh, it’s like that. Talking back because I’m not your teacher anymore? Where’s the discipline? Where’s the respect? You spend all that time
reading those books and you don’t have any time to learn manners. That’s why we had to ban you from the holodeck.”

Jeremy was tired of hearing these things every time he ran into Mr. Santos, he’d just come to ask a question, he thought to himself. Why did he have to get this?
“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Santos.”

Jeremy left the holodeck and headed to the library. He logged onto the computer archives. Once in, he hacked through the security network and observed the class.

On the ship, there were cameras everywhere, and if someone were to break into the system, then he could be a Peeping Tom with a view to every single room. For that reason only
the security force had access to the cameras. They had to have a reason that would be logged by the computer to activate cameras in private areas. But Jeremy, thanks to some old books on computer
hacking, had learned how to work his way around the security systems. He could observe any room for five minutes, which was how long he had before the shield he set up lapsed.

From his terminal he watched as the class began.

“Class, you see what happens to people who want to be too smart? People who know too much for their own good?”

“Yes, Mr. Santos.”

“Good. Let that serve as a lesson to you.”

“Yes, Mr. Santos.”

“Okay, good. Now remember the homework I gave yesterday? Please submit it. We won’t discuss it for now, because we’ve just received something that the
officials have decided should be shared by all. The ship received it this morning.”

Mr. Santos walked to the back of the holodeck and said, “Holodeck, activate Sexbomb video.”

The holodeck produced a two-dimensional image of a scene from
Eat Bulaga
. It was a shot of the Sexbomb dancers dancing behind contestants who were being quizzed.

Abruptly, the dancers yelped, “Ow,” and the music stopped as the contestants were asked a question. Jeremy not only recognized the “Ow,” but also the
skimpy clothes and seductive moves. He shivered to think that his sister was trying to imitate those steps and those girls.

“Holodeck, jump to dance segment.” The holodeck displayed a different scene, where the dancers were doing their thing.

“Isolate humanoid figures, eliminate background.” The flat images of the Sexbomb dancers moved in the air.

“3-D enhance images. Repair pixilation. Repair and enhance sound.” In all their glory the Sexbomb dancers gyrated and swayed, called out to the boys with wicked,
seductive taunts of their hips and breasts. Eyelids opened up so wide that the boys could have stuck their tongues into them. Their tongues too, were hanging out. Most of them had made out with the
girls on the ship, at least mentally. And a few of them had even been able to sneak their girls to secluded parts of the ship. But this, this was something else altogether. And this dance, these
moves, this music—

The girls were shown something they too had never seen. The girls suddenly wanted to be this sexy, this seductive. They wanted to be icons, symbols of sexuality; they wanted to
be Sexbomb dancers. They wanted it, this dance, these moves, this music—

The Sexbomb dancers displayed their moves, their universal appeal. They were pretty, but not as pretty as models. They were reachable. They were the every-woman for the
every-man. They danced dances that imitated actions like washing clothes. They were seductive, yet sweet.

Jeremy too was mesmerized. So mesmerized he almost got caught. The computer buzzed at him, warning him that his shield would be down in fifteen seconds. He logged off the
system with just three seconds left. He breathed a sigh of relief and put his tongue back in his mouth. Then he noticed that a pool of drool had dripped down his jaw and onto his shirt.

***

Where did they come from? Jeremy thought to himself. I’ve got to know, got to find out. He had watched the recording again, this time from the main server, so not only
was he on an authorized channel, but he had a clearer view of the recording.

He was alone in the library, alone to see those 3-D images dance before him as if they were real. He could almost touch them. They were perfectly spaced, and Jeremy could weave
his way between these images, get so close to them that he could almost believe that they were dancing for him. And he did a few other things in that library. Let’s just say that he enjoyed
himself.

He slumped back against one of the library walls, exhausted. He was zipping himself up and he wiped his brow. He couldn’t get to the sweat beneath the neural band, so he
took it off.

That’s when it hit him.

It wasn’t like a mental conversation. It was something more subtle, yet more powerful. It was the dance, the moves, the music, and he could feel them invading his brain.
It wasn’t like a catchy tune that gave you Last Song Syndrome; it was like a computer virus that comes in as software, unsuspected yet filled with the potential for destruction, and begins to
eat away at your hardware. It eats away at your hardware until your computer is nothing but a heap of metal that needs to be reformatted or replaced. But you can’t reformat or replace your
brain. And it seemed that this virus didn’t destroy; rather, this dance, these moves, this music, they took control.

As it flowed through his brain, it felt like it was wrapping itself around Jeremy’s consciousness; he wanted nothing more than this dance, this music; he was content, he
was happy, and that euphoria was sweet. It was almost like his brain was being dipped into a vat of caramel, his mind becoming sugar-coated, and he could feel that sweetness seeping into the deeper
recesses of his brain.

But suddenly, Jeremy’s brain resisted. It pushed back the sugary sweetness that was so tempting to succumb to—those figures, that music, the feelings that it all
gave him. Jeremy’s brain, because of the way he’d developed it over the years in the library, and his inventing and wearing of the neural band, had become more sensitive to threats.
Though his conscious mind had succumbed to the lure of the Sexbomb dancers, his subconscious had interrupted the flow of the message’s entry.

Snapped out of the trance, Jeremy rushed to put the neural band back on. He might be the only one who was aware of what was going on. He had to take action before the whole
ship fell under the spell of the Sexbomb dancers.

He whipped the neural band back on his forehead, but in his rushed movement he’d forgotten he was holding his zipper in the other hand. He fell to the floor, the signals
from the Sexbomb dancers shut out of his brain, writhing and trying to get himself unstuck from the zipper.

***

Anyone who’s been circumcised can tell you, there’s no worse time than those weeks of recovery. The actual act of circumcision can’t compare to the walking
around holding everything away from your lower body, praying to God that nothing touches it. Even air blown by an electric fan at the lowest settings or a mild breeze pressing against the penis can
bring tears of pain to the eyes.

The cruelest thing that you can do to someone who has just been circumcised is to give them an erection. Come up to them and flash a lingerie calendar (preferably
Victoria’s Secret), and the victim will scream out in pain, because they’d just been stitched up. Wounds will be stretched out and all that healing the victim had been trying to do will
be for naught as the erection pushes the stitches out. Think of it this way: Imagine putting on a crown of thorns. Then, inflate your head to three times its size. Consider also that your skull is
made of bone, so it wouldn’t hurt as much as something made of muscle and nerve.

Jeremy was somewhere near this kind of pain. He knew he had to get up, he had to warn people about the subliminal messages being sent off by the Sexbomb recordings. But each
time that he tried to work, tried to think, the Sexbomb dancers would pop into his head and he’d pitch a tent. The wound he’d inflicted on himself from the quick zip would rub up
against his jeans and shoot pain straight up to his brain, sending Jeremy to his knees.

He focused, tried to get them out of his head. What do I do? he kept asking himself. No one would believe him if he told people to turn it off. He had come to the conclusion
that the reason why no one else was sensing the messages was that the older folks didn’t have mental powers developed enough to detect them, and that kids his age and younger didn’t
have the sensitivity built up by wearing a neural band to detect the difference between mental conversations and subliminal messages. Or if they did, their minds weren’t developed enough to
fight the messages back.

He wasn’t sure what effect it would have on people. For him it was just that euphoric trance that actually wasn’t all that bad. It was peace and surrender to the
Sexbomb dancers, which on second thought, didn’t seem so bad, thought Jeremy. If it could keep people happy, then what could be so bad about it?

Maybe I’m just being paranoid, he thought. Jeremy decided to take a look outside and see how people were reacting to it. Maybe he was just resisting it because he was
weird and it would be alright if people listened to it and danced it, dreamed of being with and being the Sexbomb dancers.

Jeremy moved to the library door and walked out to the hall outside the holodeck. He saw all the kids in a trance. The girls had ripped off parts of their shirts and pants,
leaving them scantily clad and dancing “Laban o Bawi” turned up full blast in the hallway. The boys stood with their mouths open, swaying to the music, drooling over the girls and
groping occasionally. When the girls would be groped they’d leave formation and dance with the boy who’d groped them. Then, after a long dance, the girl would get back into
formation.

The girls saw him, then began to move towards him, but still in rhythm with the song. They sang as a group, yelled “Ow” simultaneously, and their movements were in
perfect coordination.

Jeremy’s eyes widened. He saw all these girls that he’d been lusting over, now stripped down and moving towards him. There didn’t have to be any subliminal
messages floating around; the sight alone put him into a trance.

Then he felt the shot of pain rising up from his pants. On any other day this would have been a dream come true, but he knew the way the messages worked, and now he’d
seen the effects. They turned into Sexbomb zombies.

He tried to run, but then the wound rubbed against his zipper and he lost his balance. He took a few shaky steps more before going down on one knee. The girls, even though they
were dancing to the rhythm, were steadily gaining on him.

He held his pants away from him with one hand and began to limp steadily down the hall, back to the library. There, he had full control of the computer systems, which would
keep him relatively safe.

He was limping, and the girls were gaining.

“Ow!”

Jeremy limped, sweat trickling down his forehead, popping up all over his body. Just a few more steps he thought.

Then he heard it, “Ow!” They were right behind him. Just a few more steps and one of the girls would have her hands on him. He wondered how bad it would be to
succumb to these girls. He saw Lena, and she, like all the other girls, was reaching out to him, as if to accept him.

He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and singing almost straight into his ear, “Laban-Laban, o Bawi-Bawi.”

He panicked. It was just a few steps away and he lunged into the library. He was at the foot of the door, and though it hurt like Hell, the adrenaline helped to deaden the pain
and he rolled into the library.

What Jeremy didn’t notice was the hand and voice belonged to Lena, and that when he’d lunged for the library, he’d dragged her in with him.

***

Jeremy couldn’t see with the tears in his eyes. “Computer, seal doors.” He heard the doors close and for a second he felt safe. He tried to stand up, but the
wound stung again and he fell to a knee.

Then he heard the footsteps on the library floor, footfalls coming in rhythm. Coming closer. “Ow!”