Willful Child: Wrath of Betty

by Steven Erikson

  “Polaski, sir,” explained Sin-Dour, “has a vital function. If not him upon whom we can vent our frustrations, why, there would be chaos. Indeed, anarchy. Vicious arguments and knives in the back.”

  Hadrian frowned. “Speaking of which, where did Tighe go, anyway?”

  Sin-Dour sniffed. “Knowing her, she’s now in your stateroom, lying naked on your bed. Awaiting your arrival.”

  “Was I planning on heading down there? Okay, a badly worded query under the circumstances. I mean … oh, never mind.” He turned to the viewscreen. The alien vessel looked intent on establishing an orbit around Wallykrappe. He squinted at the grayish planet’s surface, barely visible in the brown dwarf’s meager light. “Twice a solar year,” he said musingly, “half the civilian population of the Affiliation descends on Wallykrappe during the Mondo Galaxy Nadir Sale. Hundreds of thousands die in a mindless purchasing frenzy. Trampled, stabbed, shot, eyes plucked out, hair torn from heads. Babies are roasted, puppies tortured, cats ignored … all in all, a modern manifestation of Biblical Hell.”

  Sin-Dour moved up alongside him. “More or less the same in this universe, sir.”

  “Right, but, 2IC, take a look at that planet. Anything strike you as odd about it?”

  “Well, sir, it’s hard to make out through all the orbiting billboards with their blinking lights, strobes, lasers, and inflated waving cacti.”

  “Keep looking.”

  “Hmm, no Mall-Glow…”

  “Right. The whole planet should be glowing that irritating orange tungsten glow from all the ship-stall parkades.”

  “Sir,” said Jocelyn Sticks, “another ship has appeared from the other side of the planet. Registry … oh, it’s a vessel from the Wallykrappe Monitoring Fleet … uhm, the Best Buys of Humanity, sir.”

  The officer at Comms, whom Hadrian did not know, now said, “Captain, the Best Buys of Humanity is hailing us.”

  “Onscreen, Comms.”

  The bridge of the Wallykrappe ship appeared, hazy with smoke, sparks spitting from consoles, wires hanging down. No bridge officers were present behind the battered and bruised captain, who sat in obvious pain in her command chair. “Can you hear me?” the woman demanded. “Can you see me? My screen’s out, everything’s red-lining or systems-down! You there? Dammit, is anyone hearing me?”

  “I hear you just fine,” Hadrian replied. “This is Captain Hadrian Sawback of the, uh, the AFS Woeful Child. Who are you?”

  “At least we got audio! Thank crap for that! Hadrian, is it? That’s not right—you’re supposed to be a woman! What have Spacefleet and the Affiliation come to these days? Next it’ll be a man as Galactic President! Never mind, what the fuck do I care? Listen—that alien vessel—it’s back! My ship’s the only one left from our Defense Fleet! That horrible alien ship ate all the rest of them! Beware its maw, Captain! When it opens up, Dear Darwin, the horror, the horror!”

  “What’s your name?” Hadrian asked again.

  “Me? Me? Babble. Georgina Babble—”

  “What is the condition of the planet, Captain Babble?”

  The woman’s face twisted. “Cleaned out! Every Continental Aisle! Top to bottom, and then they took the shelves!”

  “And the employees?”

  “What? Oh, you mean the Ilulds?”

  “The what?”

  “Indentured Labor Units Legally Designated as Sub-human, of course. They got bought up, too! There’s not a damned thing left on that planet!”

  “So,” said Hadrian, “just your normal Mondo Galaxy Nadir Sale, then.”

  Babble tore at her hair with both hands, framing eyes so wide the whites showed on all sides. “That starts tomorrow!”

  “Holy Darwin!” whispered Sin-Dour. “Captain, when half the Affiliation descends on this planet tomorrow … millions will die in a global maelstrom of thwarted acquisitiveness. All those self-esteems denied the artificial validation they so desperately require … they’ll go mad, or, rather, madder than normal.”

  Hadrian rubbed at his jaw. “Yes but might that not break the habit?”

  “At a cost of tens of millions of dead shoppers!”

  “Yes but … they’re Wallykrappe shoppers!” Seeing the look of shock on her face, he sighed. “Oh of course you’re right, 2IC. Some strange surge of endorphins got me all caught up in, as you say, horrifying possibilities. Oh dear.”

  Sin-Dour patted his arm. “It’s just your silly little man’s brain, I suppose.”

  “And now that ship’s back!” shrieked Babble from the screen.

  “Captain Babble, do calm down,” said Hadrian. “Have you been in contact with WallyVault Central?”

  Babble leaned forward, drool dangling from her lower lip. “They took that too!”

  “What? Are you saying the Vault was breached? Are you saying that Joebang Wallykrappe, owner and Chief Executive Officer, is now inside that giant alien ship?”

  “Lady Jillian Wallykrappe in this universe, her nineteen cloned children, her harem of three thousand seventy-two husbands, her entire Personal Security Force of Ten Thousand Reconstituted Spartans, all of them, Captain Sawback, gone! Devoured, like so many caramel-coated peanuts!”

  Sin-Dour said, “WallyVault was said to be the most secure and impregnable Rich Woman Fortress in all the Affiliation. Buried a kilometer beneath the planet’s bedrock. Sir, if Jillian proved vulnerable, no one is safe!”

  “Captain,” said Jocelyn Sticks, “there are strange energy readings now coming from the alien vessel.”

  “On the viewscreen, Sticks!”

  The enormous, misshapen ship was now no longer moon-shaped, but stretched out, and the end facing them had opened to reveal a vast, cavernous maw from which raging light poured forth.

  Babble’s voice screamed, “They want more! But there’s nothing left! They’ve already crashed the economy of the entire Affiliation! Stock markets are reeling, manufacturers are closing shop, shortages everywhere, the Ilulds in revolt! Slaughter in the aisles has spilled out into the streets! Cities are burning, planets dying!”

  “Oh be quiet, Babble!” snapped Hadrian, eyes narrowing on the alien vessel as it drew closer. “And get your ship out of here—where’s your crew, by the way?”

  “My crew? My crew? We tried stopping the thing, but it was no use! The ship was crippled! We were in its path! I dropped them down onto the second planet—Mass Displacement of everyone but me!”

  Hadrian frowned. “Captain, there is no second planet in this system. Never has been.”

  “Oh sure, I know that now! Sensor malfunction! Not my fault!”

  “So where is your crew?” Hadrian demanded.

  “Brown Dwarfs look a lot like planets, you know! You can’t blame me—I went to Wallykrappe College—we don’t do science!”

  Hadrian rubbed at his face. “You displaced your crew to the surface of a star?”

  “It’s a brown dwarf. All brownish! Can’t be that hot, can it? Only, they didn’t answer my hails. Nothing but static. Horrible, horrible static!”

  Joss Sticks twisted in her chair. “Captain, the Best Buys of Humanity has hit its afterburners and is heading straight for the alien vessel!”

  “Captain Babble, what are you doing? Turn that thing around!”

  “No! I’m taking it down! I got the T-Drive on Infinite Oxyom Compiler! The Irridiculum Crystals are cycling up to Eternal Expansion in an Explosive Manner! One last sale, Captain! And out with a bang! Everything must go! Hahahahahahaha—”

  Hadrian turned to Sin-Dour. “We’re in a Full Multiverse Displacement Event, in an altered Infinite Causality Paradigm through All-Dimensional Wave-Fronts.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m not sure–”

  “And it’s pretty damn likely that my universe’s counterpart—your captain Hadriana—is even now facing the same situation, and that she has my Willful Child here, too.”

  “No doubt, but—”

  “And who knows how many other iterations in the multiverses have all converged h
ere at this point at this time.” Hadrian faced the screen again, on which he could now see the Best Buys of Humanity racing toward the gaping maw of the alien vessel. “If we all experience a Sublimated Expansion of the Irridiculum Crystals, across all Dimensions, we could bring about the end of not just this universe, but every universe!”

  “Sir, are you sure?”

  “No, of course I’m not sure, 2IC! And with Merle Haggard trapped in a squawk-box of madness…” He spun to face his Chief Engineer. “Buck! Can you—”

  DeFrank suddenly started bawling. “At least you c-c-coulda—” he sobbed.

  “I coulda what?”

  “Y-y-you coulda said mmm b-b-buh said something like, ‘nice dress’ … at least once!”

  Hadrian stared at his Chief Engineer. “Okay,” he said, “nice dress. Now, we need some equations—”

  “Too late!” shrieked DeFrank. “I’m never helping you ever again!” And he ran from the bridge, swirly fabric skirling in his wake.

  “Well,” said Sin-Dour, “he had a point.”

  “He what? Oh let me guess, false compliments to a hairy man in a dress are essential to bridge harmony?”

  Sin-Dour’s eyes flashed and she straightened. “He’s your Chief Engineer, so yes, they are quite necessary!”

  “Wait! What about Spunk? In my universe, my robot guard dog possesses an advanced Neutratronic Processor coupled with a Dimwit Special Vocader—” and he ran to the cupboard where Spunk was stored.

  “Sir, wait!”

  But he had the tiny robot dog out and hit the on switch.

  “Mistress! Bad hair day? So sorry! Lap now! Spunk wants lap! Lap! Lap! Now! Now! Lap!”

  “Not now, Spunk! Activate your Neutratronic Override De—”

  “Lap! Lap! Lap! Lap lap lap lap! Or yap! Yap yap yap yap yap—”

  “No! Look—get off humping my friggin’ leg, damn you!”

  “Yap yap lap lap yap yap lap lap yap—”

  “Stop! Sit!”

  “Shit!”

  Everyone on the bridge moaned.

  Hadrian kicked the robot dog, sending the Shitzer, trailing a sausage string of poop, flying into the far wall, where both broke into numerous pieces.

  In the shocked silence that followed, he swung back to face the screen. “Well,” he said calmly, “this one’s out of my hands.”

  “S-sir?”

  “It’s down to your Hadriana now, 2IC, back in my universe, with a functioning rogue AI and a genius robot guard dog.” He settled into the command chair. “Oh, best brace for impact. This could be a wild ride here. Who knows, maybe nonexistence and oblivion isn’t so bad.”

  “Sorry sir,” said Sin-Dour. “It seems that we have all failed you.”

  “No kidding,” replied Hadrian, then he brightened. “But you know, a hand-job would go a long way toward—”

  * * *

  “—offending absolutely everybody,” Hadriana finished.

  “Par for the course,” the chicken commented. “Now, I suggest a Reverse Polarity beam on wide dispersal against the Selling Humanity By The Pound, which will affect an Inverse Phased Implosion to counter the Infinite Expansion of the Irrididculum Crystals, thus negating the Multiverse Oxyom Negation Effect. Oh, and we need to do that sometime in the next eleven seconds.…”

  Hadriana pursed her luscious lips—she knew they were luscious, no point in being modest about it—then said, “Spark? Do you concur?”

  “Yes, Haddie!”

  “Very well then. Galk! Target Selling Humanity By The Pound with a wide-dispersal Reverse Polarity beam and fire. Immediately!”

  The ship rocked as the beam lanced out.

  Startled, Hadriana gripped the arms of the command chair. “What was that?”

  “Oh,” said Tammy, “that was just me. For effect.”

  Hadriana eyed the chicken. “How does he stand you?” she asked.

  “Sir!” cried Jocelyn Sticks, “the Wallykrappe ship is about to enter the Maw!”

  All eyes fixed on the scene on the vast viewscreen. In the instant the ship slipped into the enormous hole, the Selling Humanity By The Pound glowed bright white, then green, and then winked out.

  * * *

  Eyes closed as he leaned back in the command chair, Hadrian waited for her soft, warm hand to slip down into his lap—he tugged his trousers farther down to facilitate matters. “I’m ready,” he said.

  “In your dreams,” Tammy Wynette replied.

  Hadrian’s eyes snapped open and he quickly sat up. “Oh, crap, I’m back. I swear, this and every other universe is out to get me—or, rather, keep me from–”

  “Sir,” said Sin-Dour, “you might want to pull up your trousers.”

  “Huh? Oh, right.” He quickly yanked his black stretchy polyester slacks back up around his deflating anticipation. Looking around as he did so, he added, “Hey, it was a Bonoboverse!”

  “We know, sir,” said Sin-Dour.

  “Besides, the universe was about to end!”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Joss Sticks had twisted round in her chair. “It’s, like, all right, like, sir. We had Hadriana, after all, not that I, like, had her or anything, though she wanted me to, well, I was … well, whatever, like, she’s my captain and all, and before you knew it all our clothes were off, only then Commander Sin-Dour came back to the bridge and it was, Oh! Dear me! And that was sweet, you know? And then—”

  “Stop now,” begged Hadrian in a weak tone, “please stop now. Please.”

  “Captain!” cut in a Comms officer Hadrian didn’t recognize, “the Unknown Alien Vessel is hailing us!”

  “Is it now? Well then, whoever you are, onscreen.”

  The bridge that appeared on the viewer was a solid mass of discounted sales items, fleshy body parts, mangled shopping carts, crumpled cardboard and reams of plastic wrap.

  Leaning forward, Hadrian could make out a single eye blinking at them from the center of the image. Then a female voice spoke. “We were Plog. We were once the Collected. Now we are Bag, and we are the Collectibles. We recognize you, Captain Hadrian Sawback, AFS Willful Child. You once contributed an eyelid, a very nice eyelid, by the way, to the Plog Collected. We deem you Friend and therefore Not To Be Purchased. All else in this Galaxy must be Purchased. This is Prime Imperative.”

  “Oh,” said Hadrian, “you again. Only different. Hold on, I thought you were from another galaxy?”

  “Purchased.”

  “I see. And now you’re here to purchase this one.”

  “Consume is essential to satisfy Prime Imperative. Must Consume. Consume or Die.”

  “Hey, that’s humanity’s credo, too!”

  “You will now surrender all other personnel on your ship, offered at a One-Time Discount of … not $59.95, folks … not $49.95, people, no! Not even $39.95! On this One Day and One Day Only, for all you out there (meaning us), a Rock-Bottom Bargain, a Mind-Blowing Extravaganza of a Deal … that’s right! Going for This Day Only … $19.95! Line ’em up! Ship ’em out! Going fast! You heard me—not a misprint, not a typo, not a garbled transmission! $19.95!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Hadrian, “but I need my crew, for the proper functioning of this ship. If you bought them from me, even at the Rock-Bottom Bargain of $19.95, why, I wouldn’t be able to be your Friend anymore.”

  The single eye blinked rapidly. “What? Not Friend?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Besides, Bag, you’re looking pretty full up in there. I doubt they’d even fit.”

  “We bought everything available on planet below. We bought everything available on Shopping Channel, including commemorative plates at a One-Time Purchase Price of $17.99. Suggested Retail Price? $299.99! We Saved $282.00 on each commemorative plate. If you want to buy back our thirty-nine million commemorative plates, which are commemorative plates that commemorate everything that has ever happened, you have to pay the Full Price. Not that we’re selling.”

  “Too rich for my wallet,” said Hadrian. “Any
way, the question remains, how do you fit it all in?”

  “This is Destabilizing Dilemma, we admit. Bag is Full. Crammed Full. Packed to the Rafter Full.”

  “That’s what happens when you have a Prime Imperative to buy, well, everything. I mean, where do you put it all? You’d need a whole—why, you’d need a whole galaxy to fit in everything in the galaxy! Wouldn’t you? I humbly suggest you reinitiate your basic terms of definition, and consider each and every galaxy as simply one giant bag. True, not crammed full, but plenty full compared to the vast nothingness between galaxies.”

  “Then what shall be our Designation?”

  “I don’t know—wait, how about we call you The Purse?”

  “The Purse? The Purse. We are The Purse.”

  “Right,” said Hadrian. “That’s a fine name.”

  “What is function of The Purse?”

  “Why, to collect loose change. There’s got to be plenty of that floating around, on planets, in space, in asteroid belts.”

  “We are The Purse. We Collect Loose Change. It is Prime Imperative, to Scrimp and Save, to Count Pennies so that the Dollars take Care of Themselves.”

  “You really bought into that Shopping Channel, didn’t you?”

  “The Language of Consumer Culture is most colorful. At last count, this language possesses twenty-nine thousand four hundred fifty-six words and phrases to replace and deflect the immoral concept of ‘greed.’ It possesses Four Volumes of Rationalizations, Nine Volumes of Justifications, and a Handy Quick-Chart of Suitable False Definitions of the concept of ‘need,’ an essential resource to be used at the Moment of Indecision in Conjunction with Mouth-Watering Pupil-Dilating Desire. We have purchased the publisher, and, this one time only, we offer you the two-hundred-eleven-volume Language of Consumer Culture for just $39.95 a month.”*

  “Or,” said Hadrian, “I could just listen to the Shopping Channel.”

  “Purchased. See enclosed leaflet for New and Improved Changes to Subscription Rate, meaning you now pay more for less but feel better about it so long as you don’t actually think about Declining Services as a symbol of Progress because between you and me, we both know that declining services means your civilization is falling to pieces. But hey, just don’t think about it, and buy this!”