83.
  “That sounds like La Marseillaise!”, exclaimed Claudia. We cautiously worked our way through the darkness until we found a hell of a sight, three giant mummies singing the French national anthem. Their heads were so out of proportion with the rest of their bodies, they could have been forty-foot infants. They were propped up against a wall in a fetal position with their arms and legs clasped close to their bodies. They fell silent when we approached. 

   Then one of them spoke. “What are you seeking, children?”
   “The truth.”, I answered.
   Another let loose an arm from its body. It clattered down at our feet. Its hand opened. “Welcome, travelers. We have been alone for a long time.”
   The third turned towards us. Its skull balanced precariously on its withered neck. “We are wise men who have been seeking the truth throughout the ages. Time and time again we have found it and brought it forth into the world, but we have been defeated.” Lies keep us here, lies that hide torture and death, lies that grow stronger every day, lies that may overcome the truth everywhere forever. You must see for yourself what kills the truth in the world.”
   “I see something moving over there I don’t like!”, Pat warned.
   Claudia squinted into the darkness. “There is something moving over there.”, she whispered. 

   The mummies raised their arms all at once. A haunting purple light rose out of the rocks and crawled up the walls of the cave.

84.
   A mob of pulsating forms rose up in front of us. They looked like hanging tripe with teeth, like worn out neon signs over a liquor store in a ghetto, like the jittery forms in a drop of swamp water under a microscope. “Behold the Mighty Wurlitzer!”, said a mummy, its voice thick with fear. “With this, The CIA and its corporate masters poison the world.”
   Another mummy joined in. “When the CIA wants to overthrow a government, the Mighty Wurlitzer is the beginning, the middle and the end. The airwaves are taken over, the newspapers bought, and the Mighty Wurlitzer spreads its lies. The population is divided and turned against itself, rightists against leftists, communists against the military and the oligarchy. The CIA assassinates a general and the organs of the Mighty Wurlitzer report that he has been castrated and cannibalized by communists. Lists of thousands of the innocents to be sacrificed are provided and the blood-lust begins.”

   The dancing images moved closer as if they could see us in the shimmering light. A humming sound, quiet at first grew louder. The forms within forms spun faster. The lights within lights winked and sputtered and smoked.
   The mummies spoke together now, chanting like a Greek chorus. “You have seen what the Mighty Wurlitzer has done to the people of South America, but the main target of this poisonous machine is you, Oliver, you and the American people. The boisterous dialogue of your people has been turned into a cat fight, right against left, blue collar against white, black against brown against white against yellow, gay against straight, catholic against protestant against Muslim against Jew. While you bicker and squabble -”

85.
   The mummies were interrupted by a rustling sound coming from the darkness behind us. It grew louder. We turned around to see an enormous centipede shaking with fury rising over us. Its antennae coiled around its jaws. Its dozens of legs flailed wildly. “What in the hell are you punks doing down here? Do you know what I do with nosey little twits like you? I eat them for lunch. If you’re so interested in what these carcasses have to say about torture and death, then maybe it’s time for a little demonstration!”

   Pat and Nanette froze with fear. Claudia grabbed my arm. Christ, no magic dogs, no magic balloon. It looked like this was it. “Aren’t you in the least bit interested in why we are here?”, I asked in desperation. “Do you think we are the only ones looking under rocks to find the real face of history?”
   It worked, at least for a moment. The centipede paused. A sadistic grin expanded across its round head. “So, Nancy Drew has uncovered a mystery, has she? You’ve uncovered a couple of banana republic coups. So what? What are you going to do, tell everyone?” A sharp cackle escaped its jaws. “Do you really think anyone gives a shit about a couple of coups in South America? Do you think anyone gives a flying fuck about a hundred coups in a hundred countries? Even if they’re not as fat and sassy as they used to be, even if they’re not fat and sassy at all, they’re either too proud or too ignorant or too scared to care about anybody but themselves. What will you do when you turn over the rock that hides the real face of history, the rock that covers the pathway to hell? Even when you or a million others like you find that rock, nothing will change. What is justice? What is freedom? What is democracy? Tiny candles on the shit cake of humanity, there for distraction, there for decoration, nothing more. But enough of this. I’m hungry.”

86.
  The centipede’s eyes flashed with arrogance. “I want to savor this.”, it drooled. “Four heroic creatures who’ve lived a good life and just wanted to give something to the world, four little centurions who marched off to war to make might right and evil good are tragically cut down and swallowed into the belly of the beast. No one will know what happened to them. No one will ever know their hopes, their dreams, their loves. No one will ever know of their horrible deaths. The world will go on in its stone cold, arbitrary way without them. Goodbye cruel world.”

   Suddenly a piercing light shot into the cave. The pulsing, quivering machine above us shrunk away into the darkness. A huge yellow hand grabbed hold of the four of us. It held us tight but did not hurt us. I put my hands on one of the fingers wrapped around my waist and they sunk into it as if it were made of the light that emanated from it. The light filled the cave and lit up its endless stalactites. It lit up the eyes of the mummies who were almost smiling.
   “Crawl back into the darkness where you belong, insect!”, a thunderous voice boomed.
   The centipede was knocked on its back snarling and cursing. It rolled to the feet of the mummies. One of the mummies hands fell away from its body and onto the centipede. The centipede swung around and angrily bit at it. Another hand fell on it then another. Hands clutched. Limbs straightened. Feet stomped. For an instant the centipede looked up at the mummies. Then they tore it to pieces.
   “Come back into the light where you belong, children.”, rumbled the voice. We were pulled from the cave through the darkness and into the starlight.

87.
   The Giant of the Atacama glowed like a lava pit in the night. He held us in his hand high above the desert floor. “What we have here, a handful of bugs? So whataya got?”

   “We’re friends of Boris!”, I stammered desperately. 
   “He sent us here to see you!”, Claudia exclaimed. 
   “Well, whatcha doin’ down that hole?”
   “We had a map!”, I blurted.
   “Sounds like as good of an excuse as any.”, boomed the giant. “Did ya get lost?” 
   “We saw the Mighty Wurlitzer!”, proclaimed Nanette.
   “We saw a bunch of morons floating in a river of shit!”, shouted Pat.
   “And giant mummies.”, I added looking at the giant skeptically.
   “And a giant centipede.”, Claudia finished quietly.
   “Giants to the right of ya, giants to the left of ya.”, smiled the giant.
   “We saw agony scrawled on the walls.”, I murmured.
   “And heard it echoing in the sounds of silence, no doubt.”, chuckled the giant. “And by the way, that river of shit those morons were floating in is a river of lies, kids and you’re floatin’ in it too. That stinkin’ tinker box, the Mighty Wurlitzer is drownin’ ya in bullshit, bullshit like 'We live in the greatest country in the world.’? The greatest country in the world ranks 38th in life expectancy, 33rd in child mortality, 21st in secondary education, 9th in freedom of the press and # 1 in people behind bars.”
   “We learned that the CIA bankrolled itself selling drugs.”, I offered.

88.
   The giant playfully tossed us from hand to hand. “And most guests in the gray bar hotel are there on drug charges. All you idiots swallow the War On Drugs horseshit like the pabulum it is. There’s too much gold in keeping drugs illegal. Ask Al Capone, or better yet, ask the major banks of the world who do very well for themselves launderin’ all that dirty money and if any of them are stupid enough to get caught, does any one  ever go to jail? Of course not. They just pay a fine that’s already factored into the cost of doin’ business. Oh, and by the way, now that you’re privatizing your prisons, money can be made comin’ an' goin’. With private prison labor at twenty-five cents an hour, why do you think the prison industry is lobbyin’ congress for longer prison sentences? Hell, at that price they can compete with China. What’s not patriotic about bringin’ American manufacturing home again?” He paused and looked down at us. “What did ya think of those three anorexic bimbos? Did they tell ya their sad story?”   

   “They told us that their wisdom has been shut away.”, I frowned.

   “Yadda, yadda, yadda.”, scoffed the giant. “What’s wisdom gonna do for a bunch of retards? When some of your less dimmer bulbs worried that the invasion of Iraq would be a repeat of Viet Nam, the rest of ya couldn’t even find Iraq on the map. The greatest country in the world marches off to war all hot and bothered without even knowing where the hell it’s goin’.” The giant sighed. “Ya know, I don’t have anythin’ against morons who let themselves be run over. It’s the morons who run them over I worry about.They always make such a mess of things and they're havin’ the time of their lives right now. It seems that no matter how many thousands of God damned years ya have, ya just can’t seem to get it into

 your God damned thick skulls that life just doesn’t take care of itself.” 

89.
   The giant looked down at the four of us shaking with fear in the palm of his hand. He suddenly dropped us next to the balloon, leapt on to the nearby hills and raised himself to his full height. The light flickered and crawled and danced around his body. He lifted his arms to the sky. “This makes me so damned mad I could scream!!”, he screamed. “The Mighty Wurlitzer was just a cog in the Red Menace propaganda machine that worked for decades. The McCarthy witch hunts took your country to the edge of tyranny. The whole damned opera of Evil Communism was a cruel joke. The communist countries that threatened you were dictatorships. Dictators threatened you, not Communism. Where did the idea of Communism come from in the first place? It was an attempt to answer the horrors of capitalism run amuck and the only time it threatened the great seat of capitalism in the good ol’ USA was during the great depression which was brought on by capitalism run amuck. Then your masters had the fear of God rammed up their asses. It was enough for them to allow real unions and a real living wage and a real middle class and for a few years most you had a decent life, retirement, education, healthcare and the fantasy of the American Dream. Do you remember that time? It’s gone now, back to where it belongs as far as your masters are concerned, nothing more than a pipe dream in the mind of some long-gone troublemaker.”

   I had had enough. I was sick of all this bullying. “Just candles on the shit cake of humanity? You’re no better than that God damned centipede!”