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as the grille of a 1955 Pontiac. I asked the elder woman to respond, but when she said nothing, I pushed further. “Hnossi, am I missing something? You’re Hnossi, daughter of Odin and Frigg, the royal family of—”

“Oh, Eva,” sighed Syndi, “I thought you had a better builtin BS detector—I can’t believe you fell for Hnossi’s ‘royalty’ shit.”

“Vatch your langvidge!”

“Watch this,” said Syndi, cupping her pudenda.

“Ach, Kvasir’s bowl! Vhere’s your vhistle now, Frau Doktor? I shouldn’t haff to stand here unt take ziss—”

“Please, ladies—let’s deal with this properly. Syndi? You said I fell for an untruth. So what is the truth?”

“Like, there’s more than one Frigg in the Norse pantheon, Eva? People always think that the other Frigg, also known as Freyja, is Frigg, the wife of Odin. And Iron Lassy there just lets ’em think that. Like, isn’t that deceit or something? Doesn’t that violate some sort of Aesir honor code-thingy or something?”

“So, Hnossi, you’re not related to Frigg, wife of Odin?”

Iron Lass: “…Nein.”

“So why have you let people believe—”

“If people make ziss mistake on zeir own, am I suppost to take all my time to correct zeir misconzeptions? I have a life, Doktor, of teachink claasses, gradink papers, providink guidance in ze F*O*O*J—”

“Lying…”

“Syndi, please. All right, Hnossi. We can get back to family of origin later. Let’s see here…you became a Valkyrie, correct?”

“Ja.”

“Why’d you join?”

Her eyes were like switchblades, swinging their glinting tips between Syndi and me. When she spoke, the indignation of her words grated like the fingernails of the damned on a blackboard in hell.

“I vaanted,” she said, “to be part of sumsing devoted to ze greater goot. Vhere honor vut alvays vanquish self-indulchence. Vhere clarity uff vision decisively defeatedt ze false promises uff moral relativism.”

Syndi rustled in the scrub grass, about to interrupt. I intervened.

“And you felt you weren’t getting that at home?”

Syndi laughed, snidely enough to spoil yogurt. “I bet that wasn’t the only thing she wasn’t getting at home.”

“You’re a disgraceful lout!” said Hnossi. She looked furious enough to knock down the buttes around us. “Everysing for you is sex, sex, sex! Do you have a sinkle uzzer sought in your headt? I’ve devotedt my entire life to—”

Syndi mouthed the words along with Iron Lass. “Justice, honor, diknity!”

“Yes, zat’s right, little girl. Mock me all you vaant! But for centuries vimmen haff looked up to me as an example—unt now, sanks to people like you, I look aroundt unt find a generation of tarts more devotedt to diamond tongue studts unt causink media scantals zan achieving power in politics, in ze vurkplace—”

“Your problem, Hnossi, is that you not only don’t like men, you don’t like women, either! You liked being the only woman in the F*O*O*J! How long was it after Lady Liberty, like, died that the F*O*O*J got its third heroine? Twenty-five years? And that was only after a lawsuit? What walls were you breaking down then? Oh, almost forgot—you were too busy getting ready to break down your marriage!”

“You know nussink about ziss! You’re a disgraceful, disrespectful—you’d be better off viss a little more Germaine Greer unt a lot less Camille Paglia, young lady!”

“And you’d be better off with a little less Ayn Rand and a little more Frigg! The real Frigg, like, your mother?”

“You’re only in ze FOOCH to milk it for marketing, for synergy tovard your next album, your next product line, your next Grrrl Guide on Tantric Flute Playink or vutever, or to launch a movie career! You haff no more devotion to ziss organization zan a tapevurm hass to a stomach! You need to straighten out your priorities! You need to chainch your life! You need to—”

“You need to remember you’re not my mother!”

Both women fell silent.

A hot breeze blew through the neuroscape, tugging at each woman’s hair, and the dust grew thick enough to choke on.

Syndi’s simple statement of fact seemed to have sliced through the argument like a dull ax through a forehead. And it was the last sentence I could wrangle from either of them for the rest of the morning.

CHAPTER FOUR

Iconoclastic Means “I Can!”

SUNDAY, JULY 2, 1:45 P.M.

Iconversion: Art for Heart’s Sake

Your task,” I told Hnossi, Syndi, Kareem, and Mr. Piltdown inside the Aesthetics Laboratory of the Hyper-Potentiality Clinic, “is to construct with the materials in this room a three-dimensional model of your own personal icon.”

“Good God, ‘Doctor,’ ” said Mr. Piltdown, “is there any floor past which you cannot sink? The finest flame of the Age of Heroism has just been extinguished, and meanwhile you want us to pretend we’re in grammar school so we can drawr pitchers?”

“Art therapy, Mr. Piltdown, is a highly reputable and effective means through which the subconscious mind can release its repressed fears, anxieties, grief, and yearnings. And during the psychemotional turbulence of having lost a figure of such importance to you all, to the country—”

“So the answer is yes, then,” said the brawny septuagenarian billionaire. “This is pointless. And if I’m to be subjected to this pointless inanity, why aren’t Wally and that dung-crawling tap dancer here to be punished alongside us?”

“Festus, please,” sighed Hnossi. “Let’s just get ziss over viss. Can ve do zat?”

He paused, finally nodding to her. “For your sake, Hnossi.”

“Sank you. Continue, Frau Doktor.”

“Thank you, Hnossi. To answer your question, Mr. Piltdown, André isn’t feeling well—”

“Either a hangover, or a ho-over,” muttered Kareem, possibly louder than he thought (or possibly not), “number seven hundred and thirty-eight.”

“—and Wally said he’d be here, so I’m sure he’s just running behind.”

Flying Squirrel: “Running something, I’d wager.”

I looked to Mr. Piltdown, expecting him to elucidate. He said nothing.

I continued. “You have all afternoon. Look around the Aesthetics Laboratory. Use anything, from felts and crayons to swatches to minerals to industrial cast-offs, and employ whatever powers, skills, or talents you wish. All I want you to do is to evoke through art what moves you most about the person, group, or place that embodies your highest ideals. The point here, especially during