But either way, if the Earth was to be saved then the Femlings had to die. And Eric was the one that held that responsibility. And as he jumped off the podium and headed along to The Desert he realised it was a responsibility he was finding it very hard to cope with.
In fact if he was totally honest with himself, he was seriously beginning to doubt whether he could actually go through with his mission at all.
Chapter Six – Don’t Be An Ostrich
The following morning Eric logged into his A.T.S. account and sent Monty and Garth the following message:
‘I don’t know if I can do it.
I had the chance to score last night (like, as in a blatant chance, rather than just a half-chance) but I bottled it.
And I didn’t ‘hormonally’ bottle it like I normally do. This time it was the responsibility that I bottled. Like, I suddenly realised that it was me personally that could potentially be responsible for the deaths of eight billion Femlings. And that seemed like such a high number. Like, I worked it out and it’s, like, a hundred and fifty thousand St James’ Parks. Like … flip! That’s purely millions! Actually, it’s billions, not millions. Hence the expression … eight billion.
Anyway, I don’t know if I can cope with such a high number.
I don’t think I can do it.’
Garth sent the following reply back:
‘Ar, no worries. Don’t worry about your mates on Earth. We’ll just die so that the evil Femlings can live and you don’t have to deal with the responsibility.
You just be an ostrich. Stick your head in the ground and pretend everything’s okay. No worries. Don’t stress about it.’
Monty’s reply was as follows:
‘Look Eric, I see what you’re saying but you’ve just got to dig deep and find the courage.
Fair enough, you don’t want the responsibility of killing eight billion Femlings, but would you rather have the responsibility of letting seven billion people on Earth die? And the Femlings are evil mentalists whereas the people on Earth that you’d be letting die are all sound innocent people.
Well … mebbees not all innocent. Admittedly there’s some crap people on Earth who it’d be no great loss to see the back of, but the majority – say about ninety percent – of people on Earth are totally sound. Not to mention the deaths of all the other species on Earth.
Ask yourself which responsibility would be the hardest to live with? The responsibility for eight billion ‘evil mentalist’ deaths or the responsibility for 6.3 billion ‘totally sound’ deaths plus 0.7 billion ‘no great loss’ deaths?
You know what you have to do.’
Eric’s reply was as follows:
‘I tell you what’s canny weird, I thought mebbees Monty would be the one to write a totally sarky reply and Garth would be the one to send, like, a totally sensible logical reply, but it turns out I’ve got yous the wrong way round.
Anyway, don’t worry. You don’t have to stress. I don’t mean ‘I can’t do it’ as in ‘I literally can’t do it.’ I just mean ‘I can’t do it’ as in ‘I obviously can do it, and I blatantly am gonna do it, but I just want to have a bit of a whinge about it first.’
Cos, like, it’s seriously a massive thing to do, like. I realise it has to be done, and don’t worry I am definitely gonna do it, but honestly, it’s a really, really hard thing to do, like.
Like, if you imagine a scale of difficulty from one to a hundred then killing everyone on an entire planet would register about four and a half thousand on the scale.
Nar, actually I’m talking like a daft footballer, aren’t I, when they go on about giving ‘one hundred and ten percent.’ Obviously you can’t give a hundred and ten percent cos by definition one hundred percent is the maximum you can give. Footballers aren’t very good at maths. So soz, I’ll stop talking like a footballer and start talking like a mathematician. On a scale of difficulty from one to a hundred this would be a hundred. I can’t think of anything harder.
Actually, nar … killing a planet full of innocent people would be harder. I physically couldn’t kill a planet full of innocent people. No non-mental person could. So this isn’t one hundred on the scale. This is probably about…
In fact, actually … what am I stressing about? Compared to killing a planet full of innocent people this is an absolute doddle. This is probably only about a ten.
Aye, actually this is totally easy. Flip! What was I getting in such a stress for? Like, imagine if I had to kill a planet full of innocent people. Flip! That’d be just totally solid to do.
But I don’t. I just have to kill a load of crazy deluded planetocidal maniacs. Fair enough, most of them would be sound if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re crazy deluded planetocidal maniacs, but nevertheless … that’s what they are. Crazy deluded planetocidal maniacs.
So, ar aye. No worries. Aye, I’ll do this no bother now, like.’
Eric clicked send and a few moments later his message arrived in Monty and Garth’s inboxes.
And at precisely two hours and eleven minutes after that a big smile appeared on Azleev’s face as he logged into Eric’s A.T.S. account and perused his sent messages folder.
Chapter Seven – ‘I Can Now Reveal…’
Several Weeks Earlier:
The Planet Fem,
The Star Maker TV Studio…
A hushed anticipation filled the studio as Keyla Lordim walked on stage with the envelope in her hand. She took a deep theatrical breath and slowly began to open it. Then she removed the sheet of paper from the envelope[65] and glanced down at the sheet, all the time maintaining her perfect poker face.
After a few dramatic seconds she began to speak. “I can now announce that this year’s phone vote has broken all previous records with more votes registered than any other show in the history of reality TV.” The crowd erupted into cheers. “And thankfully, despite this record number of votes there’s been no repeat of the recent ‘Fly On The Wall’ fiasco.” Prior to landing the plum job of Star Maker host, Keyla had been the presenter of Fly On The Wall, before being unceremoniously dumped for flavour of the month Lank Milody. So not surprisingly, she happily jumped at the chance to remind the viewers of the problems Fly On The Wall had encountered when their servers had failed to cope with the enormous number of telephone votes during their final telephone vote decider.
“Yes, you see we place a great deal of importance on the opinions of you the viewers and therefore feel it absolutely essential that we have the systems in place to cope with your votes, however numerous they might be,” Keyla continued, taking the opportunity to rub the noses of the Fly On The Wall producers right in it. “Yes, we run a very professional ship over here at Star Maker. And our very professional ship has now produced a winner.” The camera zoomed in on the nervous faces of Kel Minky, Kib Lomack and Salu Ortsbo, who were holding hands in a fake show of camaraderie. In reality each of the finalists would gladly have wished seven plagues upon their opponents if it meant they got to be crowned champion of this year’s Star Maker.
Keyla stared at the blank sheet of paper she held in her hand. Then she stared at the camera. Then she stared back at her blank sheet of paper. Then she stared back at the camera and began to speak. “I can now reveal that the winner of this year’s Star Maker, with more votes recorded than on any other reality TV show in history, is…” She paused long enough to allow the director to cut quickly between the nervous faces of Kel, Kib and Salu, then a quick shot of Sylon’s smug face, then back to Keyla, then quickly back to Kel Minky just as Keyla announced, “…Kel Minky!”
The studio audience burst into rapturous applause. Kel placed a surprised expression on her face then quickly followed this up by placing her hands over her open mouth. Sylon Remell tilted his head slightly to one side and placed a neutral contemplative expression on his face, to indicate that he was digesting this piece of information. Brinna Lopco rose from her chair and began enthusiastically clapping. Morse Gralik, the third judge, quickly followed
suit. Keyla Lordim placed a sweet innocent expression of joy on her face and began clapping as Kel began walking towards her, her hands still over her mouth, her face still looking surprised as if to humbly say, ‘Gosh! Me?’
Then just as she was almost at centre-stage Kel glanced back at her two fellow finalists with a concerned sympathetic look on her face to check that they were okay. Kib and Salu looked back with expressions on their faces that seemed to say, ‘Don’t worry about us. Just enjoy your moment of glory,’ which was quite fortunate cos as it turned out that was exactly what Kel intended to do. She had no intention of worrying about her fellow finalists. And she fully intended to enjoy her moment of glory. But at the same time she obviously didn’t want to appear cocky or arrogant and wanted to maintain a sympathetic persona and therefore deemed it appropriate to at least pretend to be concerned for her two competitors.
“How does it feel?” Keyla asked the victorious Kel, once the thunderous applause from the studio audience had finally died down.
“I just… I just can’t believe it,” Kel stuttered.
“And with more votes than on any other reality TV show on record,” Keyla congratulated. The studio audience once again broke out into deafening spontaneous approval.
“I’m stunned,” Kel replied, shaking her head.
“Is there anyone you’d like to thank?” Keyla asked.
“There’s so many people,” Kel replied. “My family and friends who have believed in me right from the start. All the people at home who voted for me…”
“In record numbers,” Keyla interrupted.
“Yeah,” Kel beamed. “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head once again to highlight her disbelief. “And also the judges for all the valuable advice they’ve given me along the way.” Kel secretly didn’t actually think that highly of the judges’ advice, and therefore wasn’t actually that grateful to them. Furthermore, she realised that sucking up to them wasn’t really that important anymore now that she had actually won the competition, but she just got carried away in the moment. “And I’d also like to thank you Keyla on behalf of all the contestants for being so supportive at every step of the competition. It’s quite an emotional roller-coaster being part of this amazing programme and it’s great to have someone there for you through the highs and lows, not just when the cameras are rolling but also backstage and off-camera.”
This was actually true gratitude. Keyla was the perfect big sister type figure to be there to comfort the contestants when they were feeling down, or to share in their joy when they were on a high.
Keyla looked quite choked by Kel’s speech so she quickly moved on to one last final pre-planned dig at her ex-employers. “And perhaps you’d also like to thank the technical boffins behind the scenes for ensuring that the systems were in place to cope with the record number of votes you received and that the voting system didn’t crash like on certain other programmes we could mention?” Even at such an emotional moment Keyla couldn’t resist getting in another jibe at her former employers.
“Yeah, them as well,” Kel smiled.
And so, thanks to the record number of viewers that voted for her, and just as importantly, as Keyla had already pointed out several times already, thanks to the technical boffins behind the scenes that ensured everything ran smoothly and that all the phone votes were registered successfully[66], Kel was crowned the Star Maker champion.
Chapter Eight – Five Fingered Freaks
Planet Fyra,
Jixyl’s student quarters…
Jixyl answered the door to be greeted by a smug looking Azleev.
“What are you looking so happy about?” Jixyl asked. Jixyl was right. Azleev did indeed look happy. Extremely happy.
“The success of the mission,” Azleev proudly declared, as he strolled into Jixyl’s sitting room and sat himself down.
“You mean… Eric’s finally…?” Jixyl quizzed, hopefully.
“Yep,” Azleev nodded.
“Yes!!!” Jixyl exclaimed in a burst of delight. “Yes!!!” he repeated, as he punched the air in celebration. “Get in! We’ve done it! Yes! We’ve finally done it!”
Azleev placed his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and let out a contented sigh of satisfaction.
“So how many lasses has he snogged, then?” Jixyl inquired. “Is it just the one for now, is it?”
“Ar … he hasn’t actually done any snogging yet,” Azleev confessed.
Jixyl looked a little confused. “So in what context exactly were you talking about ‘the success of the mission’? Were you talking in the sense of ‘not success at all,’ were you?”
“No, but…” Azleev tried to explain.
“Ar, hang on. I think I know where the confusion’s arisen,” Jixyl interrupted. “You see, I was using the word ‘success’ to mean ‘success,’ whereas you were using the word ‘success’ to mean ‘failure.’ Aye, that’s where we’ve got our wires crossed. It’s an easy mistake to make.”
“If you let uz finish,” Azleev remonstrated, “instead of interrupting like a sarky nowt, I would have explained that he’s sent Monty and Garth an A.T.S. message saying he’s finally come to terms with the whole ‘Oh, I don’t want to be responsible for the deaths of eight billion people’ thing. He’s totally focussed and confident now. It’s only a matter of time now. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he snogs about five lasses tonight.
Here, look. Read his message.”
So Jixyl read Eric’s message and he begrudgingly had to admit that he could understand Azleev’s optimism. “Aye, I suppose I have to admit that sounds quite promising,” he shrugged.
“You see. I was using the word ‘success’ to mean ‘success,’” Azleev remarked.
“Well, potential success,” Jixyl nit-picked.
“Probable success,” Azleev opined. “Very probable success. In fact almost inevitable now, I’d say.”
“Well, yeah … probably,” Jixyl admitted, before then switching to a more self-promoting mood. “You see, I told you Eric was the right choice,” he boasted. “You wanted to go with that Martin Thistlewaite.”
“Yeah … in the very beginning,” Azleev countered, “but not once we’d done our recon work. At the end I wanted to use that Doug Simonson dude. If we’d used him he’d have snogged at least twenty lasses by now.”
“Maybe,” Jixyl admitted, “but he’d probably have cottoned on to our scam by now. It had to be someone gullible and foolish like Eric. That was the number one priority.”
“Yeah, anyway. Whatever,” Azleev shrugged. “That doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that all our hard work is finally about to pay off.” A big self-satisfied grin appeared on his face. Moments later a very similar expression appeared on Jixyl’s face.
“Yep. Those five fingered freaks are finally gonna get what they deserve,” Jixyl beamed.
“Yeah, it’s finally going to happen,” Azleev nodded, before adding, “Anyway, what do you say to a few quiet beers to celebrate?”
“That sounds like a quality plan,” Jixyl agreed, with almost as much enthusiasm for this ‘few celebratory beers’ plan as he had for their ‘let’s kill all eight billion Femlings’ plan. So they headed into town and true to their word began enjoying a few celebratory beers.
“It’s just a pity Stymer is away for the weekend,” Jixyl remarked, as he took a gulp of his fifth 0.87641739 of a pint. “It would’ve been nice if he’d been here to celebrate as well.”
“Yeah … to Stymer!” Azleev toasted, as he raised his drink.
“To Stymer!” Jixyl repeated, as he clinked his glass against Azleev’s. “And to me.”
“To you?” Azleev questioned.
“Aye, to me,” Jixyl repeated. “I mean, good on Stymer and all that. He’s been excellent and we obviously couldn’t have done it without him … but I’m just as excellent, like.”
“Well, yeah,” Azleev acknowledged. “We’ve all been excellent. But it’s not normally traditional to toas
t yourself.”
“I think in this case we’ve achieved such a high level of excellence that it’s okay to break with tradition,” Jixyl argued.
“Good point,” Azleev agreed. “To you … and to me.”
“To you,” Jixyl endorsed, and another round of glass-chinking ensued. Once the mutual back-patting was out of the way, Jixyl suggested another round of beers. Azleev, however, wasn’t so keen.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” he remarked. “A couple of quiet beers was fine but we don’t want to get too drunk.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jixyl joked. Actually, given Jixyl’s fondness for booze it was probably highly unlikely that he was joking.
“No, I just mean we don’t want to get too drunk in case we start blabbing to someone,” Azleev explained. “After all, that was why we came up with the whole ‘diquintenol’ story with Eric.[67] To ensure he doesn’t get drunk and start blabbing.”
“Well, that was part of the reason,” Jixyl acknowledged, “but the main reason was cos al…”
“Anyway, I’m not having any more booze,” Azleev interrupted. “It’s not worth the risk of drunkenly blabbing to someone.”
“Look, booze might be Eric’s one big weakness, but it’s not mine,” Jixyl boasted. “Eric might be a gormless fool, but I’m a highly intelligent genius, so it’s okay if I get totally drunk. Seriously, I don’t know why you’re so paranoid. We’re not as stupid as Eric. We’re not gonna start blabbing as soon as we get drunk. We won’t make that mistake.”
“I still think it’s best to be on the safe side,” Azleev cautioned.
“Here, man. Even if we did tell someone what we’ve done they’d probably be just as chuffed as we are,” Jixyl proclaimed. “Half the people on Fyra hate the Femlings just as much as we do.”
How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy Page 27