Inside, Ian found about a dozen life forms scattered about the bar and various tables. They appeared to be regulars by the relaxed air they gave off and the way they seemed settled into their accustomed places. Ian strode over to the bar and sat down, grateful that a pleasant-looking alien bartender with seven slender arms quickly approached to take his order.
“How about that ambassadorial race?” she asked conversationally, inclining her head toward a large holovision projection over the bar. Ian glanced briefly at the picture, which showed some news correspondent prattling about polling results, and he simply replied with a noncommittal grunt. This seemed to satisfy the bartender just fine. “What can I getcha?” she asked.
Ian was never great at ordering drinks even back on Earth, where he had the advantage of experience and the helpful guidance of countless alcoholic beverage commercials to help him make up his mind. He never knew if he should try the local microbrew beer (which might be horrid), something manly like a whiskey (which he detested, and it made him gag), or some form of fruity drink that tasted great but inevitably caused women to snicker at him. Here, as Ian peered at various multicolored bottles lining the shelves behind the bar, he was at a loss.
Fortunately, the Twiller stepped in to save Ian from making yet another blunder in a lifetime filled with them, zipping over to one of the bottles and indicating it to the bartender by hovering nearby and bouncing excitedly up and down. The bartender reached out one long arm to grab the bottle from the shelf, a second to pick up a glass from under the bar, and a third to scoop ice into the glass. With practiced efficiency, she poured the hypnotic blue liquid into Ian’s glass and used a fourth arm to fill a tiny thimble, then placed the glass and thimble on the bar in front of Ian and the Twiller, respectively.
Ian inclined his head in thanks as the bartender nodded and sidled away. He turned to the Twiller and raised his glass to his friend, carefully sipping the exotic beverage. It was excellent, going down easy without being overly sweet, and it clearly had enough alcohol to give it a nice kick without violently rupturing Ian’s insides as the Supernova had. Ian relaxed noticeably and settled more comfortably onto his stool.
“Nice work, my man,” he complimented the Twiller, continuing to sip his drink and absently staring at the holovision. It had gone to commercial, and the sound, which had been comfortably muted, went up several decibels.
“Voter Resolution 945,” intoned a pleasant voice from hidden speakers as similar text scrolled across the holographic projection. “The most important, least controversial, and most beneficial resolution in at least a thousand years. Resolution 945 will provide disease-curing nutrients in our water supply, will eliminate all harmful industrial emissions overnight, will feed the hungry, provide homes for all citizens, provide free health care and immortality treatments to all, and save this small newborn wigglewurt.” Here, the screen showed an image of the cutest, most fluffy and cuddly creature Ian had ever laid eyes upon, some sort of cartoonish cross between a baby unicorn and a cotton ball, with seductive purple eyes that moved Ian to tears. “And Resolution 945 will do all this—that’s okay, little wigglewurt, these good voters will save you—without raising taxes or costing us a single buck. In fact, benevolent god-like beings from a parallel universe have promised to reward us with an infinite monetary supply if our voters are kindhearted enough to pass this resolution. So vote yes on Resolution 945, and solve all problems on this planet—forever.” The music here crescendoed into a tune so inspiring and uplifting that Ian was determined to find a way to register to vote, just to throw his support behind such a worthy cause.
Ian wiped a tear from his eye and took a long sip from his drink. “That was so—”
Ian’s thought was interrupted by a deep voice rumbling from the holovision, which had somehow been ratcheted up even louder than before. “Citizens of WMD,” it commanded alongside an ominous musical score, “we must implore you to stand united against the gravest threat our world has ever known. A voter resolution so heinous, so incontrovertibly evil, we barely need to tell you to vote against it—but we must, because the consequences would be so dire we can’t afford to take the chance.” Here, the holovision showed an image of another baby wigglewurt, or perhaps it was the same one, Ian couldn’t be sure. But this one was clearly frightened, whimpering and cowering, alone in the center of the screen. Suddenly, with a loud splurch, large, block letters that read ‘RESOLUTION 945’ slammed down on the helpless creature and flattened it into goo. Ian gasped and spilled his drink on the bar in shock.
“Resolution 945,” continued the voice, which sounded like James Earl Jones using a high-powered amplified megaphone from the center of a resonating chamber, “must be stopped at all costs. It seeks to raise our tax rates to 99.8%, throw expectant mothers out on the street without food or access to health care, cancel all schools and police services, provide escaped mental patients with antimatter warheads, and fund insidious scientific research to invent pollutants capable of killing all life on this planet. Voting no on this vile resolution is the single most important thing you will do in your entire lives. If we fail to defeat it,” the voice paused dramatically, “it will be the last election of your life.” The holovision dimmed to black. A few moments later, the newscaster reappeared, chattering away about the day’s weather, traffic, and the close election for the District 29 assistant water cooler re-filler position.
Ian looked around the bar, stunned by the contradictory proclamations he had just witnessed. The bar’s patrons continued to ignore the holovision, sipping their drinks in contented ignorance.
The bartender expertly reappeared and wiped Ian’s spilled drink with a damp rag while refilling his glass for him. Ian shook his head to clear it and took a long sip of the beverage simply because it tasted very, very good.
“Excuse me, miss,” he asked the bartender before she ambled away again, “but did you just see that commercial?”
“Which one?” she asked casually. “Was it about resolution … ?”
“Resolution 945,” Ian supplied helpfully. “Yes, that’s the one. Or, two, I should say.” He scratched at his temple fitfully.
“What about them?” she shrugged.
“Well, I mean, didn’t you hear what they said? One commercial claiming it solved all of life’s problems and then the next telling us it would end all life on the planet!”
“Yeah,” the bartender agreed, “they pretty much all say that. I mean, whoever has the most money to spend on advertisements pretty much says whatever they want.”
“But, how are voters possibly supposed to make a decision?”
“Oh, I just vote for whatever the GalactiTavern Corporation tells us to. There’s a helpful quiz we have to take each week to unlock our paychecks and transfer the funds to our accounts.”
Ian shook his head again. “Well, where do you come down on Resolution 945?”
“Lemme think,” she said, placing three hands on her chin in a posture that would have put Rodin to shame. “We’re for that one, I think.”
“But, what does it actually do?” Ian asked.
“Beats the heck out of me,” she admitted cheerfully, sauntering over to attend to another customer at the far end of the bar.
Ian looked to the Twiller for help, but his little friend just shrugged and turned to its thimble. Ian supposed his buddy had the right idea. Banishing the commercials from his mind, Ian resolved not to think any more about it, and went back to his drinking with renewed vigor.
That night, however, Ian dreamed about wigglewurts.
* * * * *
Part XI
Ian awoke in his hotel bed refreshed, and without any trace of hangover. He thought back to the night before and, once he had learned to steadfastly ignore the warring commercials on the holovision, he vaguely remembered having a wonderful evening at the bar with the Twiller and his new favorite drink. Sure, some of his memories were a bit fuzzy, like how he had gotten a hotel room and so forth, and he did cring
e more than a little as he remembered that not only was he no longer on Earth, but that he still was on WMD. But, he checked to find that he had been alert enough to deposit a Bible into the drawer in the nightstand and he felt alive and refreshed. The Twiller seemed equally chipper, and it appeared to be typing something in on its tiny cell phone, which had once again miraculously reappeared.
“What are you doing over there?” Ian asked.
“Twill twill,” his yellow friend quickly replied, and the cell phone winked out of existence.
“That’s a neat trick,” Ian said as he languidly rose from the bed and stretched. Out of instinct, he reached for the remote to turn on the room’s holovision set and catch the morning news, but he quickly reconsidered, and locked the remote away in the room’s safe instead.
Feeling a sudden pang of hunger, Ian grabbed the phone off the nightstand and called for room service. “Hello, I’d like to order breakfast, please.”
“Certainly. What would you like, sir?”
“Hmmm,” Ian scratched absently at his chin, picking off a few stray hairs of white fur. “What do I want to eat? Let me think. I used to like waffles for breakfast, but then I changed my mind. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Perhaps I can suggest our specials,” replied the voice on the other end of the line. “Today we are featuring the Capitol Omelette, which is brought to you by Sparko Auberdine, candidate for chief food safety regulator. We also proudly serve Wosh Mington Waffles, smothered in cherry sauce and brought to you by Senator Boomfrazzle, who is seeking your support for a third term in office. Finally, we offer the Partisan Pancakes, one blueberry and one strawberry, brought to you by the SuperStuff Food Corporation.”
Ian was torn, but was also pretty sick of the advertisements, so he quickly settled on the waffles, in spite of his doubts. He was only moderately surprised when they arrived at his door, actually brought to him by Senator Boomfrazzle. Ian tipped him, promised his vote, and shooed the senator away.
Ian ate quickly, sharing some of his meal with the Twiller, then showered and dressed, exchanging his old dirty white terry cloth robe for a new one. Feeling refreshed but annoyed at the shower’s TV screen that he couldn’t turn off, he sauntered down to the lobby, where he sat on a comfortably sculpted couch while he pondered his next move.
Looking around, Ian winced as he saw a holovision set nearby (they seemed to be inescapable on the planet), but fortunately, the volume on this set was lowered to unobtrusive levels so as not to ruin the lobby’s sense of serene luxury. Ian found himself watching in spite of himself.
“Just a few moments ago,” began an attractive news anchor, “the trial of Robbie McRobberson concluded here in the courthouse behind me, and we are expecting the Chief Prosecutor, who is up for re-election next week, to give a statement any moment.” Just then, a team of well-dressed amphibians—or perhaps they were simply moist reptiles, Ian really had no way of knowing—emerged from the building and strode up to a podium filled with recording devices far too small for Ian to see. “Here he comes now,” added the newswoman helpfully. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
The largest and greasiest of the creatures leaned forward and addressed the assembled crowd. “We come to announce the historic verdict that was just handed down,” began the prosecutor in oily tones, “in the case of the single largest swindle of taxpayer money this planet has ever seen. As you are no doubt aware, Mr. McRobberson perpetrated a scheme so nefarious, so underhanded and vile, that it was almost assured that he would win a Senate seat. In the process, he violated countless financial regulations and committed fraud, perjury, the occasional murder, and vote tampering.” This last assertion elicited an angry grumbling from the spectators that had gathered. Ian supposed that a planet based almost entirely on elections would take such a charge pretty seriously.
“During the course of his illegal schemes, Mr. McRobberson defrauded private individuals, large corporations, and the government alike. As a result, he has made so much money that we have a team of mathematicians and linguists working tirelessly to come up with a name for the number, but we’re pretty sure it’s a Graham-something or a something-plex or some such thing. Anyway, it’s a whole lot of money, enough even to not only afford a meal for two plus appetizer at Chef Spiro’s Infinity Plus ultra-restaurant (so named due to the size of the bill), a pleasure cruise on the Impossible Dream mega-liner (cruises on which are so unaffordable, it has never left space dock), and a night with the incomparable Fertignyian triplets (who have harnessed their psychic powers to enable direct cortical stimulation), but also to have enough change left over to pay off the planet-wide debt and purchase everything on the planet twelve times over.”
Ian, engrossed despite himself, was suitably impressed by the vastness of the number.
“With his blatant disregard for consequences, this guy did so much damage, he nearly ruined our economy. He created the worst depression since the last Big Crunch, caused billions to lose their jobs, and even forced the cancellation of the basketball playoffs. The company that he managed made obscene profits as it flouted the rules, then went bankrupt and defaulted so utterly that it couldn’t even pay out more than two-thirds of its executive bonuses.” The prosecutor shook its head ruefully for the cameras.
“Well, citizens, I am very pleased to announce—and I believe now would be a great time to mention my re-election campaign, please donate generously and remember to vote next Thursday—that, through the tireless efforts of my office, we have brought this criminal to justice!”
There was a spotty cheer from the assembled spectators, although their hearts really didn’t seem in it.
“The verdict handed down a moment ago was strict, the very maximum punishment allowable by law. That’s right, my constituents, Mr. McRobberson was sentenced to pay back almost every buck he carried with him in cash!”
The cheer this time was quite definitely less than enthusiastic, perfunctory even.
“Of course,” the prosecutor said automatically, “we couldn’t go after his off-world accounts, or his sheltered on-planet accounts, or those he set up under false names, or in the names of dummy corporations. We also couldn’t touch any of the money he transferred to his father, the notorious Baron von Robberson. And we couldn’t reclaim most of his assets, since he is of course allowed to maintain his private residence, which now spans almost the entire continent of Jefferson, along with a few assorted personal effects and sports stadiums.” At this, a small alarm bell tingled somewhere in the back of Ian’s brain, but he ignored it, enraptured. “But we were able to confiscate 713 bucks he had in his personal possession, along with a fairly expensive watch and two tickets to the opera for this evening. We only left him with barely enough cash for a couple of meals and a cab ride home,” he added softly, almost as an afterthought.
“So,” he said, brightening, “I think it’s safe to say we sure taught him a lesson! We hit him where it hurts—his pocketbook—to ensure that not only does he never repeat his schemes, but to serve as a lesson to any out there who might be tempted to follow down the same path to ruin!”
Just then, the doors to the courthouse opened, and a well-dressed alien aristocrat emerged, flanked by bodyguards and svelte alien women, and he strode briskly down the courthouse steps. He waved away the cameramen and hastily got into a waiting limousine that appeared to be made of pure gold, which quickly rose off the ground and sped away. To be fair, he did appear to be mildly annoyed at the loss of his watch.
“Well,” said the news anchor as the crowds dispersed, “there you have it. Justice has been served, and once again our elected officials have ensured that the system works, and that crime doesn’t pay. I mean, doesn’t pay all that well. Or, not as much as it could have paid if he wasn’t caught and fined. Anyway, reporting from the downtown courthouse, I’m Fembot Mark VII for Channel 14 News.”
Ian shook his head again and resolved to drink more and watch less holovision.
. . . . .
Walking out of the hotel into the bright noontime suns of WMD, Ian began to wander more or less at random, as he had no clue where the nearest pub was or how to get back to the one from the previous evening. He walked by the ever-present campaign rallies as well as a few nutball protestors ranting about fiscal irresponsibility and government corruption and something called “moral hazard.” Ian doubted that any of it pertained to him, and he walked on.
Ian paused as a bus hovered past, and the large ad on the side caught his eye, mainly because it was the first ad he had seen that was not for some candidate or other. It showed a white marble building called the Library of Congress. Remembering how peaceful and informative the library on Bez Erkeley had turned out to be, Ian flagged down a passing presidential candidate and asked for directions to the library. After promising his vote for the answer, Ian was directed to walk a few blocks to the east and handed a campaign flier, which he used to clean underneath his fingernails.
He followed the candidate’s directions, and was not surprised to find that they were technically accurate but rather misleading, and it took him almost an hour to find the building. It was a majestic, inspiring structure, and it seemed to Ian that it beckoned to him with the promise of some critical clue locked away within its walls. Ian strode inside with authority.
Ian entered the lavishly appointed building and gazed up at the high, arched ceilings, expensively marbled walls, and elegant chandeliers. Though impressive and obviously well-maintained, the great building appeared to be empty, save for a single bored attendant behind an onyx desk.
The guard looked at Ian expectantly as he approached, and the Twiller helpfully zoomed in front of a small sign on the desk that read, “Library Materials for the Use of Elected Officials Only.” Ian straightened up, and, in a fit of daring, waved at the security guard behind the desk in his best impersonation of a politician. “Good day, my good constituent. I’m Senator Hurstbottom, please remember to vote for me next week. My platform is free money-printing machines for everyone.”
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