Year Zero

by Rob Reid

  “So you sent me down to negotiate for more time with Paulie,” Pugwash continued, moving in for the kill. “And let’s see—what did I have to bargain with? Oh, that’s right—nothing. Except for this one piece of information that I knew he’d find valuable. The details of your pathetic little plan for throwing him off of his perch. That was the one thing I had to bargain with. And while I was at it, I also needed to come off as being believable somehow.”

  “So in order to be believable, you sold out humanity’s future in exchange for a commission?” I asked.

  “Of course!”

  Paulie nodded. “Smart,” he said to me. “I mean, you gotta admit. No way he’d’a been believable as a do-gooder.”

  “Exactly,” Pugwash said, beaming smugly.

  “And this way, he saves the world and gets that two percent if things work out,” Paulie added.

  “Exactly,” Pugwash said, beaming even more.

  “And safe passage outta here and a Guild pension for life if everything blows up instead.”

  “That was the, uh … other provision,” Pugwash stammered.

  I glared at him.

  “Oh come on, Nick—it would be over already if I hadn’t gotten us that extra time. Admit it.”

  I considered this, then nodded grudgingly. He hadn’t done it with a shred of class or dignity. But if you really wanted to get all hair-splitting about it, my cousin had, in theory, saved the stupid, goddamn, motherfucking, worldwide world. Technically. For a few hours. Maybe.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, turning to Paulie. “So let’s get this in gear. I already have the ball rolling with the biggest music company on the planet.” I pulled The Munk’s note from my pocket and held it up to the force-field boundary for him to see. “And I’ll get a lot closer with the rest of the rights-holders over the next twelve hours. But I’ll probably fall a little short. So what do you say we check in ten hours from now? I’ll make enough progress by then that I’ll be close to clinching the deal. So hopefully you’ll be willing to give me a small extension at that point.” Of course, it would probably take decades of global martial law with me as Maximum Leader to get all of the sign-offs and approvals necessary to fully reverse the debt. But I was just playing for time. And every hour I could scrape up would give us that much more leeway to somehow get an audience with the Guardian Council.

  Paulie’s eyes narrowed. “Not a chance. This is startin’ to feel like a goddamn setup. So no way do you get even an extra minute to pull somethin’ on me. I want the Guild’s money in twelve hours. Or the Earth gets it.”

  “O-kayyy. Well, in order to get anything done, I need to get Judy back.”

  “You need to get what?”

  “Judy. My boss. The woman you Dislocated an hour ago. She’s the one who knows everyone at the labels and in the government. I can’t get anything done without her. So where’d you put her?”

  “Put who?” Paulie sputtered. “I don’t even know the broad.” He didn’t seem to be faking this. He gave Pugwash a deadly look. “This is smellin’ more and more like a setup. Get me my money, now. Without no help from no imaginary friend. Or this whole planet’s goin’ up in a—”

  Puff of smoke.

  No, he didn’t say those words. Judy suddenly appeared in one. She was on our side of the force field, but practically eyeball to eyeball with Paulie.

  “Goddamn disco effect,” she said, waving a hand at the haze in front of her face. “With all this technology, you’d think they’d come up with something clever.”

  “Who the hell’re you?” Paulie demanded.

  “I’m Judy Sherman, bitch. And you’re in infinitely deep shit.” She turned and scanned our side of the force field, zeroing in on the saucy nun. “And you must be Carly. Manda here tells me you’re a hopeless slut.”

  Carly turned to Manda and gave her a shocked look. “How did you know?” she demanded.

  Judy turned back to Paulie. “And where do you suppose I just came from, seed muncher?”

  “I do not eat no goddamn seeds. I’m from the dark planet of Doopipoopibippyfoo. A cold, brutal, heartless world … of carnivores!”

  “To answer my own question—I just came from the Guardian Council,” Judy continued. “Where I talked the members through a barrage of evidence that astroslut here sent to them in hopes of scoring a meeting.”

  “How’d you end up at the Guardian Council?” I asked.

  “I was subpoenaed,” Judy answered. She held up my ZZ Top key chain. “Or strictly speaking—you were subpoenaed. But you gave me your Foiler. So when the Guardian Council tried to haul your ass in, they got my ass instead. A lucky break for humankind, wouldn’t you say?”

  “But … I thought Foilers are supposed to stop people from hauling you in,” I said.

  “Right. They’ll stop anyone. Except for the Guardian Council operating under a formal subpoena.”

  “Oh right,” I said, recalling that Guardian 1138 had said something along these lines. “So it wasn’t Paulie who snatched you, after all.”

  “That’s what I been tryin’a tell ya,” Paulie said reproachfully. “I don’t even know this broad.”

  “But I know you, cracker whore,” Judy sneered.

  “I don’t eat no goddamn crackers. I eat meat—raw meat!”

  “Oh, I’m sure. Well, eat this—the Guardian Council has reviewed Carly’s evidence. They’ve heard my testimony. And they’re now officially serving you with an Entreaty to Please Kindly Back Down.” She held up a seal-encrusted document that was utterly gorgeous.2 “A Most Heartfelt Entreaty—bitch.”

  I shot her an incredulous look. A “Most Heartfelt Entreaty” sounded like something that a brainy ninth grader would issue to a mousy girl in hopes of getting a homecoming date.

  Judy caught my eye and flashed a gesture that I’d seen her make many times at work. It roughly translates to “this is the best I could get out of these hopeless pansies.”

  “Fuggedaboutit,” Paulie snapped. “I’m on this side of the force field. And you? You’re on that side. And the Council can entreat my feathered ass. Gimme the Guild’s goddamn money. Or it’s curtains for your planet.”

  Judy looked at him in astonishment. “You know something? That’s … exactly what I’d say in your position.”

  Paulie beamed at the unexpected praise. “And that’s—that’s exactly what I did say!”

  “Boy, did you,” Judy said, dropping the Most Heartfelt Entreaty onto the cavern’s floor and fixing him with an admiring gaze. “You’re something. I’ve never seen so much backbone in someone. You’re like a … Viking bird.”

  “I—I think Vikings are great,” Paulie said. “Norwegian pirates! Pining for the fjords or somethin’, right?”

  Judy nodded. “And they tell me you can sing,” she purred, pivoting straight to the Milk Bone strategy. “You know, Willow Smith needs a talented parrot for her next video. And her manager owes his job to me.”

  Go, Judy! I thought.

  But her spell was broken when Pugwash let off one of his monstrous sneezes. I instinctively reached out to the force-field boundary, hoping it had been shattered. No dice.

  “Aright, dammit,” Paulie said, coming to his senses. “I’m about to push this metallicam out. Only one thing can stop me. Our money.”

  And that’s when it hit me. Pugwash and his cold. And me and my lack of a cold. I had the answer. I turned to Judy. “Take me up to the Guardian Council. I can fix it.” I turned to Paulie. “I can get you your money. All of it.” Then I caught myself, and recalled the lessons that my life among lawyers had drilled into me. “Minus … ten percent. Deal?”

  “But I’m already giving your damn cousin two percent!” he snapped.

  “And I’m sure he’ll relinquish that in order to get the deal done and save the human race,” I said, glowering at Pugwash. “Right?”

  “Yeah, fine,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  I turned to Paulie. “So—ten percent, total. You get the rest. De
al?”

  “Deal,” he barked. “But get it done.”

  I looked at Judy. “I’ve seriously figured it out,” I said. “Take us up.”

  She nodded, mystified, but approving. “Stand by me, my apprentice,” she said. And we were gone.

  * * *

  1. His mom, my aunt—who was a student radical for several weekends in the early seventies—insisted on this nomenclature. She also spent half of Pugwash’s childhood trying to say “Nicaragua” with a Sandinista accent. So yes, that’s where he gets it from.

  2. Parchmentry is one of the Hundred Lesser Arts, and of course, Refined Leaguers kick ass at it.

  TWENTY-THREE

  TO THE CORE

  The Guardian Council meets in an immense spherical chamber called The Core. It floats over a perfectly conical volcano that towers fifty miles above the magnetic north pole of their world. The planet’s interior is rigged up with a sort of pulmonary system that spews massive jets of plasma and flaming gas out of the volcano around the clock. The force of this suspends The Core about a mile above the volcano’s spigot, while spinning it in a brain-meltingly complex, hyperdimensional manner. The spin creates a local gravitational field that pulls The Core’s occupants outward—away from its center. This makes walking around The Core’s interior as natural as walking on the surface of a planet. The only difference is that you’re on the inside of a sphere, rather than the outside of one (kind of like an ant exploring the interior of a beach ball).

  Despite the steady tug of gravity, the place is hopelessly disorienting—and humbling. The reason is that wherever you are in The Core, gravity tells you that the point beneath your feet is down. This makes it feel like you’re always right at the base of a vast, spherical room—one whose floor slopes uphill in every direction, until it all arches above you and meets at a point high overhead. As a result, everyone else in The Core always seems to be peering down on you from on high (particularly the folks on the far side of the chamber, who seem to be stuck to the ceiling). Being largely transparent, The Core is also illuminated by the hellish volcanic flames that bathe its exterior.1

  “I’m back, Your Illustriousness,” Judy announced right after we materialized in this strange place. I noticed that she was gazing at her feet, so I looked down. Our two-dimensional patron, Guardian 1138, was flitting about the floor.

  “I sense that you have company, Judy,” he said.

  “Yes, Your Illustriousness,” I said. “It’s me, Nick Carter. Thank you for bringing us here.”

  “Bringing you was the easy part. Moving the Council to action is … well, it doesn’t happen often. But this Judy of yours is quite the force of nature.”

  As he said this, it started getting very bright in our immediate area. I looked left, right, and upward at the dizzying ranks of exotic faces, and saw that the lights were dimming on everyone else. We were on.

  “The human has returned with a compatriot,” boomed an amplified voice that sounded like the British guy who narrates all those nature documentaries. “And as Speaker of the Council, I hereby call this session to order. Ms. Sherman—were you able to deliver our Entreaty to the Guild member?”

  “Yes, Your Illustriousness,” Judy said.

  “And did it have its intended effect?”

  “No, Your Illustriousness. He is determined to proceed with his plans.”

  A low murmur arose throughout The Core in countless alien tongues.

  “I see,” the Speaker said after some contemplation. “You didn’t happen to tell him that it was a … Most Heartfelt Entreaty, did you?”

  “Yes, Your Illustriousness. I pointed that out quite firmly. But he’s now holed up inside a metallicam-powered force field. And he intends to proceed with his villainous plot, unless the Guild recovers its assets within twelve hours.”

  A somewhat louder murmur arose.

  “To be candid, Your Illustriousness,” Judy continued, “I believe that your Entreaty lacks something in the … teeth department.”

  A still-louder murmur followed this, but was quickly overwhelmed by an impossibly deep and gravelly voice that thundered down from somewhere high above us. “That’s what I’ve been saying all along!”

  Everyone else fell silent, and I struggled to catch my breath. This terrifying roar was like a physical presence that had slapped me bodily, knocking the wind from my gut.

  “We must respond to the Guild in the most ruthless way available to us!” the new voice demanded. “We must set an example that will chill the hearts of the wicked—until the very stars go cold! Fellow Guardians. I move that we enact …” It paused dramatically. Then, in a tone so deep that it skirted the bottom range of human hearing, “the Dark Contingency.”

  At that, a rumbling enveloped us from all directions. I squinted into the bright lights and saw that many of the Guardians had started pounding the floor in apparent agreement.

  “I like the way you’re thinking,” Judy said after the pounding subsided. “Tell me more.”

  “A great regional athletic festival is scheduled to be held on the rogue parrot’s home planet, scarcely three centuries hence,” Deep Throat growled in a muted, conspiratorial tone. “The Dark Contingency is a callous, and cunning plan …” Another dramatic pause. Then finally, at an agonizing volume, “TO BOYCOTT THE OPENING CEREMONIES!”

  The entire Council maintained an eager, agitated silence as Judy considered this. Milking the moment, she let the seconds tick by, then finally looked up and said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “Why—why, no,” Deep Throat stammered. “Isn’t that how Carter got the Russians out of Afghanistan?”

  Judy shook her head in disgust, and made like she was packing up her papers to call it a day. The rumbling resumed, the Guardians now pounding the floor in apparent dismay.

  “Enough, enough,” the Speaker of the Council’s cultivated, Bond-like voice demanded. “Stop that pounding this instant—or I’ll have you all incinerated!”

  The Core immediately fell into total silence.

  “Now that’s more like it,” Judy said brightly. “And you know what, Mr. Speaker? Incineration would be a great topic to raise in a revised version of that Entreaty of yours. You know—something to get that damned bird’s attention. And maybe we can drop some of that ‘please kindly back down’ crap while we’re at it. I mean, what’s up with that?”

  “It’s … a bit embarrassing,” the Speaker said. “But we don’t actually—have the means to enforce our will anywhere outside of our own planet. So when things go badly out there, we tend to … entreat.”

  “And express dismay,” a high-pitched, foppish voice added. “That has been highly effective on several occasions.”

  “And that seriously keeps the whole universe in line?” Judy asked.

  “Oh, absolutely,” the Speaker said. “Any faintly aggressive species is sure to self-destruct long before it can even escape its own solar system. This means that the surviving races that we preside over are basically a bunch of sissies. Just look at how they name their planets.”

  “But if you can’t enforce your will anywhere, why is the entire universe convinced that there are horrible consequences for harming a Guardian? Or for destroying a primitive society? Or for disobeying you in general?”

  “Well, those are very useful rumors from our perspective, aren’t they?” the Speaker said. “They make our Entreaties work. And from the general population’s standpoint, they’re rather fun rumors. They take our monotonously safe, just, and peaceful universe, and give it just a tiny bit of edge. Rumors that are useful to the powerful and fun for the rabble always spread quickly, and are widely believed. It’s an iron law of physics.”

  “But has anyone ever called your bluff?” Judy asked.

  “Until now, no,” the Speaker said. “So I’m afraid you’re finding us in a new, and rather awkward, situation.”

  Judy nodded slowly, then abruptly turned to me. “Well, luckily, Nick here has come up with an awes
ome little fix for you guys—haven’t you, Nick? Take it away, kid.”

  The light on Judy dimmed, and the space around me brightened like the sun. I felt an unfamiliar stab of stage fright as I realized that I was about to pair my long-standing superpower with some of that “original thinking” stuff that Judy deemed me incapable of. Then I calmed right down, and focused on giving good meeting.

  “Your Illustriousnesses,” I began. “Let me start out by confirming a few facts. First, the Indigenous Arts Doctrine forms the absolute legal, moral, and economic foundation of your entire confederation of societies, correct?”

  “It does,” the Speaker said. “It’s so deeply ingrained in everything that our entire civilization would unravel if it were ignored, or even suspended briefly.”

  “And this Doctrine defines a ‘Collective Patrimony’ species as being one that has always treated its artistic output as the jointly owned property of every member of its society.”

  “That is correct,” the Speaker said. “And when such a species becomes Refined and joins us, its artworks become jointly owned by every individual citizen of the Refined League. Legally, it’s as if we all become coequal shareholders in that work.”

  “I see. And what about independent, primitive civilizations? If the artwork of a society like mine ends up in one of your societies, does the Indigenous Arts Doctrine apply to it?”

  “Of course it does. That’s precisely why we find ourselves in the current situation, duh.”

  “Of course. And what about within my society? Does the Indigenous Arts Doctrine also apply inside of primitive societies like mine?”

  “Certainly not,” the Speaker said indignantly. “Primitive societies live by their own laws and traditions. For us to impose our beliefs upon them would be imperialistic, specist, and ethnocentric.”

  “I see. In light of that, if a work of art that originated in a Refined society were somehow published in a primitive society—what copyright rules would apply to that artwork within the primitive society itself? Those of the Refined League? Or those of the primitive society?”