On the run-up to the event, both congressmen spent a great deal of time and money building up their respective base's confidence, and pumping them with round after round of empty catch-phrases, meaningless sound-bites, and ready responses to the other side's arguments. Because the subject was the proper role of government, the media predicted that each of the men would go into the debate emotionally prepared to tear into the other without regard for the consequences. The radio and television outlets that were planning to broadcast the event live had billed it as the political fight of the decade, and were pricing ad time accordingly.
Gina Heuff arranged to have time away from her regular duties so that she could focus on preparing Katzmarek for what he'd likely experience, and for what he might have to do if the crowd engaged as strongly, and were as evenly matched, as they hoped.
"Since you've read the Lovecraft," she said, "we can make use of some of the imagery in it. When Randolph Carter passed through the gates, he encountered a guide. By this time, of course, Carter had transcended what he'd thought to be the only reality, and found that he had neither substance nor a fixed position within his own life. That was what I experienced that day, the incomprehensible void that the meltdown mob found itself in at first, but without a guide."
He swallowed hard. "Good god. Why didn't you go mad, like the rest of them?"
"Meditation," she said, as if it was as obvious as day. "It wasn't all that different from the state I try to achieve when I'm in need of some perspective."
"You gain perspective by losing it?"
"In a way, yes. For them, though, it was a nightmare, and it may turn out to be one for you as well. Nevertheless, since we're the only ones who will be prepared to experience this, we will have to serve as guides for anyone else who slips into the chasm that separates sane self-awareness from the madness of a mob mind."
Katzmarek's eyes widened. "A guide? You expect me to be calm enough to guide someone else? I'll be a wreck!"
"Maybe so, Bernard, but you'll be a damn sight better at keeping it together than they will. They have no idea what they're in for, and you do. So, when you start to feel their thoughts --."
"When I what?"
"This is the flip side of a mob, remember? Only in the usual kind, people give in to the over-mind. Here, it's more like a mental Internet chat room. No boundaries. The whole group intermingled. That's the loss of individuality. Lovecraft wrote about it, and if all goes well, we'll experience it."
He sat in dazed astonishment for a moment. "But... but what about those reports of feeling god-like? That was the core of the blasphemy, after all."
"Oh, that."
"'Oh that'?" he parroted. "I ask about the single most devastating part the nightmare all those people lived through, and all you can say is 'oh, that'?"
"Well, yeah," she said lightly. "it's silly, when you think about it."
"Silly?"
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