by Rob Reid
Carly gave him an imploring look. “But … but the episode will at least say that the bad guys are Guild people, right? Because then they can’t destroy humanity. Because everyone’ll know it’s them, right? Right?”
Sonny shook his head. “Carly, are you nuts? We don’t actually have proof that it’s the Guild down there. They’d sue us for eons! And even if we did have proof, do you think I want their Enforcement Brigade on my ass?” He shook his head again. “No. The episode just depicts us worrying about some unknown bad guys. That’s how we shot it, and I’d be bonkers to change it.”
He started toward the pod door, which was still closed.
“Well dammit, Daddy,” his daughter hissed. “There’s more to life than ratings.”
Sonny stopped and turned, cocking an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Like justice.” Carly suddenly sounded very tired.
Sonny paused and considered this for a moment. “You know, I really liked that,” he said. “But I think we both need to sell it a bit more.”
Carly nodded obediently. Then Sonny started toward the door again and she shrieked, “Well dammit, Daddy. There’s more! To life! Than RATINGS!”
He wheeled around and stared at her for a long, tense moment, then whispered, “Like what?”
“Like … justice.” She crammed this through bitterly gritted teeth. With that, Sonny turned on a heel. The pod door flew open, and he stomped off. An instant later the door shut, and we rocketed skyward. The walls became transparent as soon as we were a couple thousand feet up. By now the sun had risen over the performance canyon, and the audience had gone.
I really wanted to let Carly have it at that point. And it would have been a great release to vent about her dad for an hour or three. Oh—and to unleash a primal scream to mourn my species’ awful fate. But our team needed to stay united if humanity was to have even a tiny chance of surviving, and Carly needed to remain calm. This made her toxic family dynamics a great subject to avoid. There was meanwhile a much safer topic that was baffling me, which also seemed important.
“So,” I ventured, “I couldn’t help but notice that you guys kind of … re-shot a couple of scenes—even though the cameras weren’t on you.”
“Cameras?” Frampton giggled.
“Nick, the great big things with the lenses down there are called ‘props,’ ” Carly explained, in the voice of a mommy who had brought her special-needs preschooler to work for the day. “And the people operating them are ‘actors,’ who play ‘production crew members’ in our ‘reality show.’ ”
Apparently. One dumb question from me was all it took to bring Carly right back to normal. “They’re actors?” I confirmed.
“Well, more like extras,” Frampton said. “That’s why they all look kind of half human.”
“We want the show to look like it’s completely staffed with Perfuffinites, because that makes it more glamorous,” Carly added.
Frampton nodded. “But real Perfuffinites are expensive. So we hire our extras from these near-miss species.”
“And as for our actual cameras, stereopticons can record everything that happens in their presence from every conceivable angle simultaneously. And they do it in such a rich format that when you play a segment back, you can zoom in on anything, or move your de facto camera position to almost any point in the room. It’s all in the self-organizing light.” Carly touched her chunky medieval crucifix. It oozed into its compact, translucent form, and she held it up to me. “These are the real cameras. By wearing mine around my neck, I can record in three hundred and sixty degrees.”
“And does your audience really believe you’re making the show with that big crew, and all that old-school equipment?”
Carly shrugged. “I’m sure some folks do. And others have fun suspending their disbelief, and playing along. Pretending to use the same sort of gear that was used to create The Osbournes is one of our gimmicks. Since reality shows are a human art form, it’s seen as virtuous to create them using only human technology. But part of the art form is deceiving viewers into believing that fake things are real. So Dad decided that it’s fine to use Refined equipment when we pretend not to.”
“He’s … very committed to the show,” I said.
“You mean because he’s willing to humiliate his only daughter just to boost his ratings?”
“Yeah. And to—you know, destroy humanity. Assuming he’s actually serious about that.”
“Oh, he’s serious,” Carly said. “You can bet he plans to air that episode tomorrow morning at nine fifty-eight. But there’s really nothing to worry about.”
“Why not?”
Carly clutched my right hand with both of hers, went down on one knee, and fixed me with a freakishly intense gaze. “Because … I have a vow to make, Nick. Right now. In front of you, and in front of my brother.”
And in front of your stereopticon, I thought. But I just nodded and let her continue.
“No matter how great the risks. No matter how terrible the odds.” She paused dramatically. “I am not going to let Dad embarrass me.”
“Yeah, I … wouldn’t let him get away with that.” There were nobler vows that she could have made at that point. But humanity needed all the allies it could get—and if this was the credo that would keep her fighting, I was all for it. “So now what?”
“We go to see pluhhhs,” Frampton said. He’d been off on the far side of the pod for the past little bit, working on something with his stereopticon. “I sent them an emergency signal, and they’re bringing us straight out to their planet.”
Carly gave her brother an amazed look. “That’s actually kind of smart, Frampton.”
He beamed.
“We’re going to see who?” I asked.
“pluhhhs,” Carly said. “They control the Townshend Line. They’re the ones who let us through it yesterday. And they’re the ones who notified us that someone else crossed it right after we returned—although at that point, they didn’t know who the trespassers were. By now, I’m sure they know it was Guild guys, and have probably figured out how they got through. And if anyone can bounce those bastards out, and never let them anywhere near Earth again, it’s pluhhhs.”
“Sounds fantastic,” I said, wishing we had gone straight to these badasses instead of wasting our time with Daddy.
“And because of the needs of the Townshend Line operation, their planet lies right on a Wrinkle Vertex,” Carly added. “Which means it can usually connect to most points in the universe almost immediately.”
“Great, so we don’t have to wait half a day to see them. When does our Wrinkle leave, then?” I asked.
“Now,” Frampton said.
This time I remembered to crouch down to the floor before everything got weird.
* * *
1. It turns out that only the singers are actual Perfuffinites in Zinkiwu performances. The bands consist of several near-miss species that can pass for humans from a distance but not close-up. Everyone on stage wears sound-blocking gear, which is hidden beneath a hat or an out-sized hairstyle.
2. This is really taking authenticity seriously, given how our fashion sense revolts the Refined. It would be like pumping sewage odors into a movie theater to heighten the realism of a film set in a Calcutta slum.
3. But unlike their father, Carly and Frampton never adopted the names of their human doppelgängers. The reason was that they were already established as performers before Simply Red and the Divinyls (Chrissy Amphlett’s band) swept the universe—because like every other Perfuffinite, they had taken on the names of random human pop stars, and launched lip sync careers shortly after the Kotter Moment. Incidentally, since all of the Perfuffinites rebranded themselves at once, the celebrity names of the Kotter era still dominate their society. Manilow is almost as common among Perfuffinite men as Mohammad is among Muslims—followed by KC, Cat, Donny, Orlando, Mangione, Mercury, Frampton, Sly, and Boz. Meanwhile, Dolly, Carly, and Agnetha top the charts among Perfuffinite wome
n.
4. Sonny turns out to be a passable practitioner of a Noble Art called “Combat Dance.” In its gentlest form, this involves the ingenious manipulation of pressure points—something that I first experienced when Carly twirled me into the omnicab while it was perched above the abyss beside her apartment.
TWELVE
pluhhhs
My second Wrinkle started out like the first one. But it ended in an eerie ultraviolet haze that seemed to go on infinitely, in all directions. I felt paralyzed and half mad, and I lost all sense of time—unable to tell if seconds or centuries were ticking by. Then it was over, and we were in our pod, high above a topaz landscape that was covered with an intricate network of serpentine rivers and tiny lakes.
“What was that?” I asked, relieved to be out of there.
“We passed through the penumbra of a gamma ray burst,” Carly said. “It happens every so often. Gamma ray bursts are the most violent events in the universe, and they severely warp the fabric of space and time.” She looked at Frampton. “How long were we in there?”
He consulted a display from his stereopticon. “About five hours.”
“Wow,” I whispered, unsure if I was surprised at how long or how brief this was.
“We got lucky,” Carly said. “Sometimes it’s days. And we don’t have days.”
“Right,” I said, alarmed. “The episode airs around ten tomorrow morning, doesn’t it? What time is it now?”
“Not quite seven at night on the East Coast,” Frampton said. “And we’re five minutes from the Townshend Line’s headquarters.”
“Got it,” I said, shaking my head to clear it out. “Well, while we’re heading over there, why don’t you tell me more about the Pluhhhs. They sound like total badasses.”
This put both Frampton and Carly into stitches.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“First of all, it’s not the pluhhhs, it’s just pluhhhs,” Carly managed through her giggles. “And second, pluhhhs are anything but badasses. In fact, they’re the most tedious, irrelevant, and forgettable species in the entire cosmos.”
“Which is why they took on the job of quarantining your planet,” Frampton said.
Carly nodded. “Back when every Refined being in the universe wanted to storm the Earth to catch some live music, the team responsible for keeping them all out was guaranteed to become the least popular group of beings in existence. So only the folks who already were the least popular beings in existence would take the job. Enter pluhhhs.”
They’re called pluhhhs, she explained, and not Pluhhhs, pluhhh’s, nor (certainly) the pluhhhs because they’re too boring and inconsequential to merit any capitalization, punctuation mark, or definite article.1 They hail from a planet that spawned ten different intelligent species deep in its evolutionary past. The other nine were all hulking, violent, venomous carnivores. In the local schools (which everyone attended together, due to a well-meaning but ultimately disastrous court ruling), gang activity and interspecies strife pushed annual homicide rates into the double digits—and any faintly interesting or charismatic pluhhh was taunted, wedgied, and devoured long before it could reach reproductive age. Under this evolutionary pressure, pluhhhs gradually became a stunningly monotonous and unassertive species. Eventually they were so bland, passive, and inoffensive that their population was able to explode and dominate the planet. This caused its other intelligent inhabitants to become so lethally bored and disengaged from the world that they lost all interest in life, and gradually died out.
“But pathetic, drab, and trivial as they are, pluhhhs should be able to shed some light on what’s happening with the Townshend Line,” Carly said.
“They also have access to the Wrinkle Queue,” Frampton added.
Carly nodded. “It displays all the Wrinkles that are booked throughout the universe at any given time. It’ll let us see if Paulie’s arranging to bring anything to Earth.”
“Like metallicam?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
I shuddered. “Well, it sounds like it’s a good thing we came. Is there anything else that we should get from the Pluhhhs while we’re here?”
“pluhhhs!” they corrected me.2
“And yes, there is one other thing,” Carly said. “Özzÿ told you that he and Paulie are staying at ‘the local base.’ I’m sure this is the music collection and copying facility under Grand Central, because it’s a Guild operation, and there’s no other Refined outpost anywhere near Earth. pluhhhs know all about this facility, because it uses the Townshend Line’s infrastructure to transmit music out of New York. So they can probably tell us how to access the base from the city’s surface.”
“Interesting,” I said. “But what would we do there?”
“The species that runs the New York operation is gentle and friendly. So I doubt they know a thing about what their uppermost bosses are planning for Earth. If you tell them what’s happening, you may be able to drive a wedge between them and Paulie.”
As she said this, my jacket pocket started to hum with a familiar buzzing.
“What the hell,” I said, pulling out my phone.
“Text messages?” Carly guessed.
I nodded. About a dozen had queued up since I’d left Earth, and they were all coming in now.
“While it’s relaying all that music out of New York, the Townshend Line infrastructure picks up other electromagnetic signals, too,” she explained. “I guess your SMS frequencies are among them.3 But don’t even think about replying—it’s a one-way thing.”
I looked back at my screen. There were five increasingly shrill texts from Judy demanding to know where the hell I was, and how far I’d gotten in procuring some Milk Bone for Fido. She’d sent the last one about an hour before. It simply said GUESS I WAS WRONG WHEN I DECIDED I WAS WRONG ABOUT YOU.
Dammit! Judy’s outrage was understandable, as it’s unheard of for an associate to go AWOL on a senior partner right before a key meeting. Of course, the terminal career ramifications of this would be entirely moot if I didn’t derail the metallicam plot. But on that far more important front, I needed to recruit Judy as an ally. She might then help me recruit Fido, or the CEO of the giant music label that we were also supposed to meet with tomorrow. If anyone could arrange the sweeping licenses that we needed, it would be the three of them, working together. But that wasn’t going to happen if Judy cut me off.
There was also a series of texts from Manda. It began with some updates on her exploration of the stereopticon’s feature set. Once she mastered the voice mode, she tried her hand at rendering objects in ways that made them seem physically present. Around 2:00, she’d sent me an image of herself posing with a cartoonish baby elephant in front of my couch. By the way, where tf are you she added in text. An hour later, she sent a shot of an entirely real-looking baby elephant winding up to smash its trunk through my plasma screen. DUmbo’s getting really worried about you, CALL DAMMIT or the tv gets it. A couple hours later, she sent a photorealistic rendering of Judy popping out of a giant layered birthday cake in my kitchen. Judy promises a raise and a piece of cake if youd call. OK fine the cake is a lie but seriously WHERE R YOU am really starting to panic.
As I was processing all of this, the omnicab started dropping rapidly toward the ground. Seeing two messages from Pugwash in the queue, I decided that whatever he was pestering me about would have to wait.
The omnicab touched down beside a structure that looked like a small adobe hut. Its sole feature was an ornate door etched with arabesque patterns that were so beautiful they made my eyes ache. “One more thing before we go in,” Carly said. “While it’s easy enough to grasp the concept of pluhhhs, you’ll find that it’s very difficult to maintain awareness of an actual pluhhh individual. They’re just too tiresome to merit the slightest bit of attention. So you’ll have to concentrate very hard whenever you interact with one.”
We exited the omnicab and the glorious door slid up. It opened directly onto a platform that was
perched at the pinnacle of a soaring chamber of cathedral height. As soon as we all stepped onto it, the platform swooshed us soundlessly downward.
The chamber’s floor was staffed by a teeny receptionist. Heeding Carly’s instructions, I locked my eyes on her and focused intently. She looked like a gray, bedraggled lemur, with hunched shoulders and patchy fur. As we approached, she glanced up and froze in place. With that, her body lifted off her chair, twisting violently at the torso. It completed a full circle, then dropped to the floor where it sprawled, arms and legs pointing upward at obtuse angles. With that, her retinas ignited.
Eccentric as this greeting was, it almost put me to sleep. “What was that all about?” I yawned.
“Fame differential,” Frampton whispered. “It affects almost everybody we meet—but no one as badly as pluhhhs.”
I looked to Carly for help. “Fame is a by-product of Conscious Attention,” she explained, “which itself is one of the six fundamental forces of nature as organized under String Reality.4 As such, it creates measurable fields that can impact the physical world.”
Frampton nodded. “Kind of like a magnet.”
“Fame stores up in a sort of battery that’s attached to your body in the fifth dimension,” Carly continued.5 “Whenever you, or something you’ve created, draws attention, a charge builds up in that battery. Then when you encounter another conscious being who recognizes you and knows of your works, your fame fields interact. If there’s a very large difference between them, the being with the weaker field is impacted in some way.”6
“Usually they just act really, really stupid, and do whatever we tell them to,” Frampton said.