John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

It had been impossible to conceal that Larry was a Fed—“Dad, you’d have better luck trying to pass yourself off as Sasquatch”—so their story was that Debbie had converted him to Gaia’s Dawn while they were both being held by the Blue Morning People, and then the two of them had escaped during the Federal raid.

Tonight he would see The Play of Daybreak , the last part of what she wanted him to witness. The tribe performed it every Thursday; this was to be the 483rd performance by the People of Gaia’s Dawn.

“But—,” he started to say, and shut his mouth, angry with himself for that microbreak in cover.

“Yeah, I know, it’s a lot of work, but it’s really important,” Debbie said, giving him cover. The fast-calculation part of his brain had been about to object that that would have had the first performance on April 28, 2016—more than eight years before Daybreak day, and of course the People of Gaia’s Dawn were much newer than that. So even though they’ve only been here since mid-February, when Debbie was a Founder, they’re already claiming a much longer pedigree.

Debbie’s hand found his under the table and squeezed,

u wil c

smile n stay very cool

while she explained, “ The Play of Daybreak is set up so the whole tribe have parts in it—you’ll have a part next week—but there’s only a few on stage at a time, and while we’re not in it, we watch. Since I’ve only been back for one day, my part has three simple lines, and they’ll steer me through it. Otherwise you and I can watch together.”

The communal evening meal was a small chunk of unidentified meat and a fist-sized pile of wild greens with some roots and berries. With their current level of survival skills, he guessed around a third of the tribe might make it through the winter, and they’d lose all the kids under five.

At full dark, two big fires burned brightly on each end of the playing area, a flat grassless space backed by a low, crumbling rock cliff. The tribe’s dozen slaves carried out full-length mirrors and set them up on lashed-stick frames to mask the fires and reflect the light into the sandy playing area. The reflected firelight did not quite reach the cliffs except when a fire flared up; players spoke before a dark space where rocks or bushes occasionally swam briefly into being, like a world striving to be created out of chaos.

Larry expected something like a small-town Founder’s Pageant or a high-school production of Our Town . In the first few minutes, he realized he’d underestimated the power of conviction.

The story began with the Seven Misters: Mister Clock, Mister Gun, Mister Electron, Mister Atom, Mister Chemical, Mister Medicine, and the dark god who ruled them all, Mister Smart. Each of the actors, his face and chest painted to represent the power he spoke for, boasted that he feasted on the innocent creatures of the forest, the beautiful body of Mother Gaia, and human flesh, and finished by declaring, “But Mister Smart is smarter than all of us!”

Mister Medicine finished roaring that he would cut off everyone’s body parts and poison all their blood, and finally Mister Smart moved into the light.

Mister Smart’s head was a gigantic papier-mâché skull which extended a foot above his real head and reached down onto his chest. It was nearly all brain case with a tiny bespectacled and goateed face underneath. The body was naked except for a four-foot-long pink penis, probably a cardboard shipping tube, from which dangled two deflated basketballs. Mister Smart chanted on and on about his plan to rape Mother Gaia to death.

Jesus, that’s parodized from an old 50 Cent hip-hop piece I must’ve heard back when W was president, Larry thought. Too bad 50 Cent can’t sue him for plagiarism or defamation or something.

In the next scene, Gaia despaired and the six Mizzes vowed to die defending her. Larry thought Miz Ocean was pretty cute but Miz Desert had the best voice. The six Mizzes plotted to seduce the human, temporal servants of the Misters. Each Mister apparently had a human being who was his Number One Guy; the Mizzes were going to take them all out for “fun in the bushes,” as Miz Prairie declared, “before the Misters exterminate all vegetation.” That must have been the comic relief because people laughed.

The next dance and song was, in Larry’s lowbrow opinion, the fun part of the evening. I’m sure that movie critic I used to date would use words like primal , erotic , transgressive , and body-positive , but I’m just a lowly Fed so I would say this is one great dirty show. If I had to live out in the woods pretending to be an Indian or a hippie, this would definitely be the high point of my week.

Each of the six human servants awoke the morning after the seduction to the weeping of the Miz, who then took the man or woman to meet Mother Gaia, before whom the servant fell down in adoration. When all six were in full adoration, Mother Gaia raised them up to form Daybreak, and her lover, Brother Sun, came to teach them how to make weapons for the Daybreak to come.

The servants of Mister Chemical, Mister Clock, Mister Gun, and Mister Electron danced with each other and copulated with various Mizzes to bring forth the Nanoswarm, a chorus of men costumed in lumpy gray and white rags. Mister Chemical’s servant teamed up with Mister Medicine’s servant to bring forth the thousand-headed Biotes, a chorus of women sharing one vast blanket-garment, with just their green-painted faces poking out. Debbie was one, and Larry thought it was her best work since The Three Billy Goats Gruff in second grade.

The Biotes vowed to kill the petroleum and all that came from it, the Whole Plaztatic World, by revealing its true nature and making it rot away into filth, and change it to nourishing food for all of Mother Gaia’s children.

Hunh. Well, I guess if you’re planning that your grandchildren will be cavemen, that’ll explain biotes to them.

Finally, Mister Atom’s servant came forward and proclaimed himself the protector of all. He would hurl eight mighty nuclear blows against the centers of the Plaztatic World. The first two would go amiss and leave California, the heart and center of Plaztatic World, as a broken and wounded place, but not destroy it to its utmost atoms, because so many good people lived there.

Holy crap, Larry thought. That’s why they backdated the tribe’s origins and claimed performances started so much earlier; in a few years this’ll be a successful prophecy.

Then, Mister Atom’s servant proclaimed, the next five nuclear weapons would be overwhelming and would smash down the Plaztatic World, but then in her compassion, Mother Gaia would choose to spare people of color in the Southern Hemisphere, so the fizzling of the Buenos Aires bomb would be a sign that she would never wholly sweep the face of the Earth again. The rainbow in the Noah story, Larry thought. “I love you so much that you really better not piss me off.”

The actors and the crowd went into a frenzied chant of so it was foretold, so it was to be, so it was, so we shall tell it , over and over, as the drums built up to a mighty crescendo and the dancers formed a circle around the Servant of Mister Atom.

If they win, soon no one will know that they made the “prophecy” up after the event. Anyone can clearly see California isn’t in great shape but it wasn’t completely destroyed; five huge bombs did go off; and the one in Buenos Aires fizzled, leaving Argentina basically okay. Just because Mother Gaia was such a sweet chick. Or maybe she just loved to tango.