Mica's Brain

Book excerpt: When a magician [Blust-O] tries to hypnotize a woman [Mica] on stage, giving her the power to fly, she enters a floating world that takes her to the past, the future…and away from the present where she is taken hostage in a theatre by terrorists. The three Micas (present/future/past) live in different historical times…And perhaps in the same brain…with the same passion for truth, the same pulse of sexual energy. Part I / The Present / NYC 35 year-old Mica Paradis thinks her lover, Richard is betraying her. Distraught, she attends a fund-raising event and impulsively volunteers to be hypnotized on-stage by Blust-O, an other-worldly creature with peculiar proclivities and perversities. When gun-wielding terrorists take the entire audience hostage, Mica is still entranced…There is nothing the hypnotist can do to bring her back--except to follow her into the floating world with a strange box strapped to his back. The sand-coloured box contains a gift that is both mythic and erotic. Part II / The Future / Tokyo When a manga artist, Hiro Mitaguri, creates Mica, the Miracle Girl, she surprises him by taking over the story. Inviting him into the plot, she seduces him into writing himself into the story as a character: the Animator. Flying back into his version of the narrative, she battles the evil ACCETES who will stop at nothing to capture her memories and use them to destroy the world. Her quest is to vanquish ACCETES, retrieve the Golden Box from the Theatre of Surprises…and keep control of her brain. And rather than being just a sidekick, the Animator is a sinister voyeur, watching his own creation, a cyborg, become human and more and more sensual. Action shifts back and forth between graphic sequential art episodes (manga)…to even more terrifying natural and unnatural disasters let loose on the planet. In the future---as in the present---fears, hopes and urgencies that confront everyday citizens are ignored by those in power. Part III / 1777 / Vienna When Anton Mesmer demonstrates the miraculous powers of Animal Magnetism, 5-year-old Mica is in the audience watching him bring sight to a blind girl. A bizarre system of fluids and the curative power of light streaming from his fingers disturbs Mica and disrupts her sight. Now she sees beyond the surface of things, and apprehends the future--without understanding the unfolding images in her brain…or the folding and enfolding Universe in which she travels. Mother flirts with Herr Burger and maybe more is going on…Father, sadly, finds the truth. Mother resists Mesmer's powers to cure her of somnambulism by imbuing the Tree of Life plant in her garden with vital fluids that can curtail nightly wanderings. At first the blind girl's father agrees to her further treatments…but then accuses Mesmer of being a charlatan, and causes an uproar