Okay; it mattered what the explanation was. But at least one thing had been proved: Fat might be clinically crazy but he was locked into reality -- a reality of some kind, although certainly not the normal one.

Ancient Rome -- apostolic times and early Christians -- breaking through into the modern world. And breaking through with a purpose. To unseat Ferris F. Fremount, who was Richard Nixon.

They had achieved their purpose, and had gone back home.

Maybe the Empire had ended after all.

Now himself somewhat persuaded, Kevin began to comb through the two apocalyptic books of the Bible for clues. He came across a part of the Book of Daniel which he believed depicted Nixon.

"In the last days of those kingdoms,

When their sin is at its height,

A king shall appear, harsh and grim, a master of stratagem.

His power shall be great, he shall work havoc untold;

He shall work havoc among great nations and upon a holy people.

His mind shall be ever active,

And he shall succeed in his crafty designs;

He shall conjure up great plans.

And, when they least expect it, work havoc on many.

He shall challenge even the Prince of princes

And be broken, but not by human hands."

Now Kevin had become a Bible scholar, to Fat's amusement; the cynic had become devout, albeit for a particular purpose.

But on a far more fundamental level Fat felt fear at the turn of events. Perhaps he had always felt reassured to think that his March 1974 encounter with God emanated from mere insanity; viewing it that way he did not necessarily have to take it as real. Now he did. We all did. Something which did not yield up an explanation had happened to Fat, an experience which pointed to a melting of the physical world itself, and to the ontological categories which defined it: space and time.

"Shit, Phil," he said to me that night. "What if the world doesn't exist? If it doesn't, then what does?"

"I don't know," I said, and then I said, quoting, "You're the authority."

Fat glared at me. "It's not funny. Some force or entity melted the reality around me as if everything was a hologram! An interference with our hologram!"

"But in your tractate," I said, "that's exactly what you stipulate reality is: a two-source hologram."

"But intellectually thinking it is one thing," Fat said, "and finding out it's true is another!"

"There's no use getting sore at me," I said.

David, our Catholic friend, and his teeny-bopper underage girlfriend Jan went to see Valis, on our recommendation. David came out of it pleased. He saw the hand of God squeezing the world like an orange.

"Yeah, well we're in the juice," Fat said.

"But that's the way it should be," David said.

"You're willing to dispense with the whole world as a real thing, then," Fat said.

"Whatever God believes in is real," David said.

Kevin, irked, said, "Can he create a person so gullible that hell believe nothing exists? Because if nothing exists, what is meant by the word 'nothing'? How is one 'nothing' which exists defined in comparison to another 'nothing' which doesn't exist?"

We, as usual, had gotten caught in the crossfire between David and Kevin, but under altered circumstances.

"What exists," David said, "is God and the Will of God."

"I hope I'm in his will," Kevin said. "I hope he left me more than one dollar."

"All creatures are in his will," David said, not batting an eye; he never let Kevin get to him.

Concern had now, by gradual increments, overcome our little group. We were no longer friends comforting and propping up a deranged member; we were collectively in deep trouble. A total reversal had in fact taken place: instead of mollifying Fat we now had to turn to him for advice. Fat was our link with that entity, VALIS or Zebra, which appeared to have power over all of us, if the Mother Goose film were to be believed.

"Not only does it fire information to us but when it wants to it can take control. It can override us."

That expressed it perfectly. At any moment a beam of pink light could strike us, blind us, and when we regained our sight (if we ever did) we could know everything or nothing and be in Brazil four thousand years ago; space and time, for VALIS, meant nothing.

A common worry unified all of us, the fear that we knew or had figured out too much. We knew that apostolic Christians armed with stunningly sophisticated technology had broken through the space-time barrier into our world, and, with the aid of a vast information-processing instrument had basically deflected human history. The species of creature which stumbles onto such knowledge may not show up too well on the longevity tables.

Most ominous of all, we knew -- or suspected -- that the original apostolic Christians who had known Christ, who had been alive to receive the direct oral teachings before the Romans wiped those teachings out, were immortal. They had acquired immortality through the plasmate which Fat had discussed in his tractate. Although the original apostolic Christians had been murdered, the plasmate had gone into hiding at Nag Hammadi and was again loose in our world, and as angry as a motherfucker, if you'll excuse the expression. It thirsted for vengence. And apparently it had begun to score that vengence, against the modern-day manifestation of the Empire, the imperial United States Presidency.

I hoped the plasmate considered us its friends. I hoped it didn't think we were snitches.

"Where do we hide," Kevin said, "when an immortal plasmate which knows everything and is consuming the world by transubstantiation is looking for you?"

"It's a good thing Sherri isn't alive to hear about all this," Fat said, surprising us. "I mean, it would shake her faith."

We all laughed. Faith shaken by the discovery that the entity believed in actually existed -- the paradox of piety. Sherri's theology had congealed; there would have been no room in it for the growth, the expansion and evolution, necessary to encompass our revelations. No wonder Fat and she weren't able to live together.

The question was, How did we go about making contact with Eric Lampton and Linda Lampton and the composer of Synchronicity Music, Mini? Obviously through me and my friendship -- if that's what it was -- with Jamison.

"It's up to you, Phil," Kevin said. "Get off the pot and onto the stick. Call Jamison and tell him -- whatever. You're full of it; you'll think of something. Say you've written a hot-property screenplay and you want Lampton to read it."

"Call it Zebra,"Fat said.

"Okay," I said, "I'll call it Zebra or Horse's Ass or anything you want. You know, of course, that this is going to shoot down my professional probity."

"What probity?" Kevin said, characteristically. "Your probity is like Fat's. It never got off the ground in the first place."

"What you have to do," Fat said, "is show knowledge of the gnosis disclosed to me by Zebra over and above, which is to say beyond, what appears in Valis. That will intrigue him. I'll write down a few statements I've received directly from Zebra."

Presently he had a list for me.

#18. Real time ceased in 70 c.e. with the fall of the temple at Jerusalem. It began again in 1974 c.e. The intervening period was a perfect spurious interpolation aping the creation of the Mind. "The Empire never ended," but in 1974 a cypher was sent out as a signal that the Age of Iron was over; the cypher consisted of two words: KING FELIX, which refers to the Happy (or Rightful) King.

#19. The two-word cypher signal KING FELIX was not intended for human beings but for the descendents of Ikhnaton, the three-eyed race which, in secret, exists with us.