He leans in and his third eye leers at me, awaiting me to make my statement. A bead of sweat drips down the side of his forehead.
So this is it.
“I, Edward Bikaver, give you, Froward Moroni all the rights to that book in your hand unconditionally.”
He smiles wide. “Wise move.”
He begins to wipe the dust off the cover, relishing every moment. “We shall begin implementing your new virtual existence shortly, as soon as you fill out more….” He scrutinizes the book cover he has just wiped all the dust and dirt off of. “What is this?!”
The cover of the book says “My Little Book of Life Cycles1.”
It’s a reference book for pre-school children that follows life cycles, stages of frogs, butterflies, sunflowers, sharks, chickens, and bees through photos and simple explanations:
How do sunflowers begin?
When do tadpoles become frogs?
It has nothing to do specifically with my own existence.
I do not, nor have ever had any publishing rights to that book. I just found this copy in the desert and gave it to Moroni. I never stated which book it was.
“I am inside the moon. I am inside the moon. I am inside the moon,” I say into the watch strapped around my wrist.
Moroni is quite perturbed. “I know you are. I brought you here.” He attempts to collect himself by fixing his bow tie. “Where is your ‘Book of Life’?”
At this point, I begin to finish the book, Planet Fever, aloud, and jot it down with the pencil:
“I’m now tri-located. I’m in the moon, at the space where the Interrogator is Moroni. He’s asking for the book, believing that will wrap up ownership of my life, as well as ownership of the past, present and future of the Universe. He doesn’t know that I have taken a timed-released time capsule and that I’m experiencing this in present tense even though it will have been past tense by the time all is said and done.” I turn to Moroni. “Hah, I gave you a partially false narrative. You want to know why this pencil is worn down? Because Mona and I have been planning this all along, with EZ joining in. I just never included that part about Mona in my story, except that she was ‘doodling’ in my notebook. And she played her role well.”
Moroni’s third eye blinks in confusion.
“For the record: I’m finishing the book, and have given all the rights to it—past, present and future to the original author—who goes by the names of Peter Stier, Jr. and Atoz Al Ways. Good luck finding him, because he exists outside our known space-time-word continuum. Within that book in your hand, as well as this watch, Mr. Moroni, is a high-powered tracking beacon notifying my friend EZ Buckminster the location of this operation base. He has jacked your uplink and is currently sending up EMP pulses he has been working on from the sub-station you had at Fillono’s utopia. This entire time I was being ’interrogated’ by you was just a ruse for time so Buck could do his work. The artificial reality projection and hypnotic control you’ve been casting from here onto the earth’s populace will momentarily be over. How does that float your boat?”
Moroni’s third eye twitches. He takes in a deep breath and attempts to smile. “You could rescue the entire human race from being obliterated by twenty-five asteroids smashing into the planet, and most of them will shush you because you are interrupting their TV show.”
“I’m not doing this for the accolades.”
“Bikaver, you are bluffing. If you comprehend this, then you understand that the EMP will crash the entire system. The de-cloaking will pull all holographic realities, as well as accompanying mind-control parameters, off-line. You will see six billion people go utterly crazy, not knowing what to do because their entire existence has been controlled from the beginning. Imagine six billion zoo animals being set free, or six billion people coming off of heroin, nicotine and booze simultaneously and seeing thousands of three-eyed beings walking around among them and seeing the moon as a strange spaceship looming above? You are going to witness bedlam on a spectacular scale. Or, they won’t do anything. They won’t care, because you humans never cared. Either way, you lose Bikaver. We control reality.”
“Nah, you just control illusions and pass them off as reality.”
Moroni is visibly sweating. “Mr. Bikaver—if this station is compromised, its habitat stabilization system will desist operations. We will be able to survive, but you—sans gravity, oxygen, and such—will cease to exist.”
“I had a nice run.” I close my eyes.
I hear Moroni mutter some cuss words and his footsteps exit.
With the final lead in the worn-down pencil, I write down the words Thanks for the memories.
That’s the way the story goes.
* * *
1 My Little Book of Life Cycles, Camilla de la Bedoyere (QED Publishing)
“HAPPINESS: OH, poor Eddie. How can he be happy when he’s given fake versions of what others think he should call ‘happy?’ He thinks he is happy, but he is wrong, because he is dead and enslaved. But will he ever be happy? Free? Alive? We’ll see, won’t we—and that shall be the story….”
-Froward Morfoni
I CLIMBED up the stairs and unlocked the door to my apartment. I walked in and set the groceries on the counter.
“Hi there,” Mona said, from behind her easel.
“I remember you!” I joked. I always said this to Mona when coming home.
“I remember you, too!” Mona winked.
“Damn, it’s hot!” I opened the fridge, grabbed a pitcher of lemonade, poured a glass and gulped it back.
Mona peered out from behind her painting and smiled. “That’s why I’m painting something cool.”
I walked over to Mona, massaged her shoulders and checked out her painting: a picture from the point of view of a female, her bare legs extending out onto a lounge chair. She is holding hands with a male in a lounge chair next to her, facing a swimming pool that is located on the surface of the moon. The sky is black and they are watching the marvelous earth in the background like an oceanic sunset.
I gave her a thumbs-up and kissed her on the head.
“Colonel West called,” she said.
“What the hell did that weirdo want?”
“He just said, ‘Tell Eddie Bikaver he is a hero.’”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Then he hung up.”
I shrugged and briefly contemplated what kind of psychological operation that asshole was trying to pull on me.
“Oh, and some guy stopped by. He dropped off one of your notebooks. He said you left it in his ‘rig’.” She gestured over to the coffee table.
I looked and there was one of my red notebooks, with a sticky-note on the cover that read, “You’re welcome.”
“And EZ and Lisa called. Dinner and a movie?” Mona asked.
“Sure.” I opened the notebook and a torn-out page from a newspaper fell out. It was the movie section. On it was highlighted (in green) a movie; a classic: The Rescuers.
Thanks, Woods.
PETER STIER JR. is a mammal and glad the other mammals on the planet have not invented atomic weaponry—he thinks one species per planet might be enough. He is a video editor by trade and has learned to appreciate lifting heavy objects repetitively in the same building with other people doing the same, as well as riding bikes that go nowhere, running up fake stairs and exerting considerable effort on other such contraptions. He lives in Los Angeles and loves his wife and dog.
If you enjoyed Planet Fever, be sure to leave a review on Amazon. People like those. And I’ll be much obliged.
To receive updates on new releases, inane blog posts and random non sequiturs, follow Pete on Twitter @peterstierjr or mindwashfollies.blogspot.com/
MOM, DAD, Simone, Winnie, friends, family, and Joshua Messiah – not sure why you did what you did for us but I thank you for doing it.
Table of Contents
Planet Fever
A Telepathic Prologue
Chapter 1
&n
bsp; Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
The Following is the rest of Planet Fever
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Pre-Epilogue
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Planet Fever Page 22