by Rob Reid
If Flat Stacey knows how to travel in the third dimension, she can now pop in on her family even faster than she can cross the street. And when she leaves Flat Earthland, she’ll experience something like my own short, strange trip through the Wrinkle. First, she’ll start moving at right angles to every normal dimension of her daily life. Floating above Flat Dubai, she’ll be able to see into closed rooms, and behold the innards of objects that she normally just sees the surfaces of. And much as I had zipped across the universe, she’ll be able to travel to the farthest corner of Flat Earthland in moments if it’s folded over, and practically touching her starting point.
“I hope that makes sense to you, because we really need to get back to saving humanity,” Carly said after describing all of this.
“Oh … right.” I was so giddy from my journey that this little issue had slipped my mind. “So, you said that someone’s trying to destroy Earth. But I thought you’d come to save us from self-destruction?”
Carly nodded. “The two are related. To be more precise, we believe that someone intends to help you to self-destruct.”
“You mean like … assisted suicide?”
Frampton shook his head. “More like involuntary assisted suicide.”
“Which sounds like an antiseptic term for murder,” I said.
“What say we go with genocide?” Carly suggested breezily. “There’s quite a few of you, after all.”
“Well, whatever we call it, who’s behind it?” I asked.
“We’re not sure,” Carly said. “One of several organizations that are dismayed to be losing all their wealth to you.”
“But that could be anyone with any money at all, right?”
She shook her head. “Actually, virtually no one in the Refined League harbors any violent intentions toward humanity. We’re Refined, after all.”
“You’re also incredibly loved,” Frampton added. “We’re all way, way happier than we ever were before, and it’s because of your music.”
Carly nodded. “And most people’s lives won’t change anytime soon anyway, because individuals will retain full access to their possessions and savings as long as humanity’s wealth remains in escrow. Things are different for organizations. Our banking laws have already severely restricted what they can do with their former wealth.”
“Got it. And when will everything be … transferred to humanity?”
“Not until your civilization is advanced enough to qualify as Refined itself,” Carly said.
“If that ever happens,” Frampton added.
Carly nodded. “An overwhelming majority of species self-destruct long before becoming Refined.”
“With or without ‘assistance’?” I asked.
“Always without,” Carly said. “It’s a huge crime to interfere with a primitive society. And like I said—most societies do themselves in anyway. Humanity is actually very lucky so far. You’ve made great strides against hunger, disease, and extreme poverty. You also did a masterful job of fending off a modern ice age with your CO2 production. And you’ve survived for several decades with nuclear weapons. Few get this far. But you’re now on the verge of creating a host of highly destructive nano, bio, and olfactory weapons, and you’ll have to learn to live with them, too. Only one society in four gets through the final phase of development that you now face.”
I considered this. “And the organizations that you mentioned want us to be one of the three out of four that doesn’t make it, because that way, they’ll get their money back, right?”
“Actually, I’d say that certain brutal factions within the top leadership of the organizations want you to self-destruct,” Carly said. “I’m sure you’re adored among the rank and file.”
“So in Warcraft, you said there’s been a dangerous new development. What is it?”
She looked at me grimly, clearly preparing to share the most jarring news yet. “Shortly after we returned from Earth yesterday, we were notified that another alien party had crossed the Townshend Line after us. We don’t know who they are, or where they came from. But we fear the worst.”
“Oh, you mean Paulie and Özzÿ?” It was weirdly satisfying to have my own bombshell to drop on these two for a change. “Sure—they swung by right after you left.”
Now that led to an awkward silence.
“Did you … happen to notice what they looked like?” Frampton finally asked.
“Paulie looks like a parrot. And Özzÿ looks like a vacuum cleaner. Only with hands.” It turns out that I had to say this out loud to appreciate how truly stupid it sounded.
“Are you sure it wasn’t swamp gas? Or maybe ball lightning?” Frampton asked, twirling a finger around his temple as he shot Carly a skeptical look. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. But the so-called UFO sightings on your planet always turn out to have simple, natural explanations.”
“Oh, I’m sure about this one. I have another witness. Two, if you count the cat.”
“Then why did you wait until now to tell me this?” Carly demanded.
“Wait until now? I’ve been here for like five minutes! And when we were in Warcraft, it was your turn to do the talking—given that you were asking me to take an eight-billion-light-year leap of faith!”
Carly didn’t even hear this. “Seriously! Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me anything?”
“I promise, I’ll tell you everything, starting now,” I said as soothingly as I could. “Paulie showed up first. He met me in a restaurant, about an hour after you left. He’s a nasty little hoodlum with a bright yellow plumage. And he tawks like he’s from Brooklyn, maybe thirty or forty years ago.”
Carly and Frampton swapped an alarmed glance. “You mean he talks like Vinnie Barbarino,” Frampton said quietly.
I shot him a blank look.
“John Travolta’s character on Welcome Back, Kotter?” Carly said, like a teacher chiding me for not having read Chaucer. “Kotter was our first exposure to English, obviously. And for a while, everyone spoke it like Vinnie Barbarino. Until we started digging up some of your other shows about six months later.”
“That’s when I started speaking like Tattoo on Fantasy Island,” Frampton said. “Zee plane! Zee plane!”
Carly rolled her eyes. “He didn’t stop until yesterday. I told him he wasn’t coming to Earth talking like that.”
“Zee plane! Zee plane!”
“Stifle,” Carly snapped.
Frampton stifled.
“Anyway, a few groups kept up with the Barbarino thing. Strictly thugs, because we learned that Brooklyn had a rough history. So this isn’t good. What else do you know about him?”
“I think his full name is Paulie Stardust. Ring any bells?”
They both shook their heads. “Although that’s probably his Exalted name,” Frampton said.
Carly nodded. “After the Kotter Moment, everyone took on an Exalted name in the Absolute Universal Language that had just been adopted.”
“You mean … English?”
Carly nodded again. “American English. As spoken in sitcoms and on AM radio at the time. Anyway, most people usually go by their original names. So if this Paulie guy is famous, we probably know him by the name he grew up with.”
“If it helps, he said his organization recently lost something insane like a third of the assets in the universe.”
At this, Carly and Frampton exchanged a truly horrified look, and Frampton said something that sounded like “A big ape.”
“Huh?”
“It’s an acronym,” he said. “It stands for the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Intergalactic, Galactic, and Planetary Employees. But we usually just say ‘the Guild’ for short.”
“What is it?”
“The leading union of government employees,” Carly said. “And until recently, they were the wealthiest organization in the universe. But now you have all the money. And I suppose they want it back. Tell us more.”
I gave them the lowdown on my meetings with Özzÿ and the parr
ot.
“This is incredibly bad,” Frampton said when I finished. He started looking furtively around the empty, featureless room, as if for a hiding place.
“How bad?” I asked.
He turned to Carly.
She folded her arms and shook her head.
“Dad bad,” he said, looking at her almost sternly.
I was wondering if this was an intergalactic supervillain with a superlame name when Carly sniffed, “He’s saying we should run off and beg our daddy to fix all of this for us.”
Our daddy? I hadn’t pegged these two for brother and sister. But it kind of made sense.
“We have to go to Dad,” Frampton said, suddenly showing something like a backbone. “He’s the only one who can fix this.”
Carly folded her arms tighter and stamped her foot. “But I haven’t even tried yet. And what can Dad do that I can’t?”
“He can keep the Secret from being revealed, for one thing,” Frampton said. Somehow, I could hear that capital S in there.
“Well duh-hickey, the Secret doesn’t matter anymore,” Carly said. “The Guild has obviously figured it out somehow. They’re already on Earth.”
“But there’re a dozen other groups like them that don’t know yet,” Frampton said. “And if the Secret breaks, we’ll have to deal with all of them.”
Carly glared at him.
“Look, what’s more important to you,” he asked. “Proving that you’re as good as Dad? Or actually saving the human race?”
Carly just glared some more. Which pretty much answered that question.
“So, uh,” I ventured. “We’re about to get to the part where you tell me about the Secret, right?”
Frampton nodded. “It’s about the Townshend Line.”
“What about it?”
“It sucks,” Carly spat. “It turns out that it’s like ninety-nine percent marketing. But no one actually tries to cross it, because nobody knows how crappy it is.”
Frampton nodded. “This is probably the best-kept secret in the universe. But it’s about to get out.”
“And when it does, so many Who fans will show up that the Earth will collapse into a black hole?” I guessed.
Carly shook her head. “That was a heat-of-the moment thing. Everyone’s gotten used to living with your music since then. Which I guess is why they never made the Townshend Line really robust. People must have been less interested in bum-rushing the Earth once they all caught their breath. Until this debt thing happened.”
“Got it,” I said. “And, uh … how exactly are you in on the biggest secret in the universe?”
“We’re part of a very powerful … program that has a rather large research staff,” Carly said evasively. “They’re good at ferreting out secrets.”
“Is it some creepy KGB-like thing?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s much creepier than that,” Carly said. “And our father runs it.”
“And what does your program do?”
“We’ll get to that later,” Carly snipped.
Oh please. My entire species was allegedly on the line, I was risking my life to save it, and she wouldn’t even tell me what she did for a living. “Well,” I said, “I think it would be appropriate to at least—”
“I said we’ll get to that later!”
I had a brief flashback of my iPhone disintegrating in Carly’s telekinetic hands, and backed right down.
“For now we’re going to Dad,” Frampton said, looking at his sister. “Please?”
There was a grumpy silence. Then, finally, “Oh, all right.”
Frampton immediately lit up, and turned to me. “Oh—and you should come!” he said.
Carly was already shaking her head. “We can’t take him to see Dad without taking him out there,” she said, pointing vaguely at the wall.
“You mean I can’t leave this room?” I asked.
Carly shook her head. “It would be dangerous.”
“Why? Because I’d … choke on the air?”
“No. Zinkiwu is identical to Earth in terms of its atmosphere, size, and gravitational field. By design. The problem is that while humans are hugely advanced in music, you’re desperately primitive in every other art. That includes decor, textile design, architecture, cuisine, and scented-candle craft.”
“Which means?”
“Which means you could find the sights, smells, and textures of a Refined home as enthralling as the rest of the universe found the Kotter song.”
“You mean my brain could explode?”
Carly shook her head. “The human aesthetic sense is far too dull to engender such a cultivated response. But you could end up in a useless trance for hours.”
“But Nick could help talk Dad into keeping a lid on things,” Frampton pleaded. “He’s a lawyer—and he’s from Earth. Dad will have to listen to him!”
Carly considered this. “You may be right. But what happens when he sees my apartment?”
“Oh, he’ll be fine. Didn’t you see his office? He has no aesthetic sense whatsoever.”
“True,” she allowed. “But still, I just updated the lighting, and it’s simply gorgeous out there. I don’t know if he can handle it.”
“We can shut it off. It’s still daytime, and your apartment gets sunlight.”
“But what about my layout? It’s so stunning it makes my head spin. What’ll it do to him?”
“I could go out there first and rearrange the furniture,” Frampton offered. “Make it look really crappy?”
Carly considered this, then nodded. “And hide all the art. And open the windows to dissipate the scents. Cover up whatever walls you can. And if there’s any food out there, for God’s sake, vaporize it. Otherwise he’ll be like a panther with a bushel of catnip.”
“I’ll turn it into a sensory deprivation tank.” As Frampton slipped out the door, I shut my eyes so that a stray glimpse of Carly’s dangerously brilliant layout wouldn’t cripple me. Moments later, we could hear him banging around outside.
“We put these rags back on for you, for the same reason,” Carly grumbled, looking at her robes.
“Afraid that your own fashions would overwhelm me?”
“Yes. They’re too tasteful for your mind to process comfortably.” She was entirely serious.
“Hey, some of our clothes are amazing, too—you should see the girls in Rio and St. Tropez.3 And why do you dress like a pair of religious kooks anyway? You’re not exactly scaling the heights of our fashion—lame as you find it.”
“We know how important religion is on Earth. So we thought we might get more respect from people this way. Was it a bad choice?”
“Bad? It was abysmal!” It felt good to be the expert for once. “You look like a couple of nut jobs. A nun and a mullah walking through midtown stand out as much as—I don’t know, as much as a Wookiee and a Klingon.” That was something of a zinger. By then, I knew that our films were viewed with smug derision everywhere, with our depictions of alien life being particularly mocked.
I was about to follow this up with a truly cutting jab when Frampton opened the door to the living room, changing my life forever.
* * *
1. Rhymes with “pinky-boo.” And by the way, wimpy planet names like Zinkiwu turn out to be way more common than cool sci-fi names like Alderaan. Yeah, it sucks.
2. This in honor of the English mathematician Edwin Abbott, who first depicted this sort of scenario in his 1884 novella Flatland, as well as Charles Johnson, who led the unrelated Flat Earth Society without a trace of irony until his death in 2001.
3. I should see them, too, by the way, as I’ve never been to either place.
NINE
FOOL FOR THE CITY
The colors Of Carly’s living room were lucid in ways I didn’t know were possible. It was like I’d spent my life watching some ghastly Nixon-era TV mounted in a huge wooden console, then was suddenly plunked down in front of a hundred-inch plasma screen in James Cameron’s house. Nothing was gaudy, it
was all just very … present. The blues had immense gravity—like they’d been pulled from the depths of an ocean that was distantly illuminated by a thousand suns. The reds actively smoldered—as if a master enamelist had taken the truest red in nature, distilled away its slightest impurities, and then applied a nuclear infusion to give it a deep, plutonium glow. And the dark touches looked like they were carved from black holes—accents of perfect opacity that made the rest of the room look phosphorescent by comparison.
Each color would be a museum-worthy marvel on its own. But the shades of the textiles, the furniture, and the walls wove together in an immaculately balanced tapestry. It was like a color symphony sustaining the perfect chord—one with both an infinite, fractal complexity and the pure simplicity of a low integer. Lush primary splashes offset fields of bewitchingly deep tones, all bracketed by those impossibly perfect blacks. And everything—textures, reflections, contours—stood in perfect counterpoise. As for the furniture, Carly’s humblest footstool could single-handedly transform the lowest Staten Island squat into the swankest bachelor pad in New York. Meanwhile, the carpets were not only gorgeous beyond words, but they caressed and coddled my feet in almost pornographic ways. When I bent down and touched one, I found that it was softer than eiderdown, and deliciously squishy—kind of how a chinchilla blanket might feel if you were on one of those drugs that can make even asphalt feel satiny.
“Oh my God!” Carly murmured as we both took in the room. I assumed its familiar splendor was dazzling even her. Then, “It looks like absolute crap without the lights on.” She took in the furniture arrangement. “You totally trashed the superasymmetry, too. And who knew this place would look so dowdy without the artwork showing. Frampton, you’re a genius.”