An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

by Hank Green

  I lifted up my finger to her. “E.T.?”

  She lifted her finger up to mine. “Phoooone hoooome.”

  We laughed and she blushed and I reached my hand out to grab hers as if that were a natural thing to do when sharing a laugh with a friend. Just a little extra physical touch. She tilted her head down and looked up at me, her smile gone, her face flushing red. I dropped her hand and put mine on her shoulder. As soon as my hand hit the fabric, she leaned into me with a kiss that was, ultimately, a bit of a mess.

  I didn’t mind.

  * * *

  —

  About an hour later (sorry for leaving out the fun bits—Miranda is a pretty private person) we were under the covers together, Miranda nestled in the crook of my arm. It was a little sweaty and sticky, but it was too nice to mind.

  “I am a fool for saying this, but I can’t believe I just hooked up with April May.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, a little worried.

  “Oh, I know that we’re friends and that you’re just a normal person. I think I’ve actually gotten to know you pretty well”—there was a hint of pride in her voice—“but you’re still April May, y’know. Champion of our alien visitors, initiator of First Contact, initiator of the Dream.”

  “We did that last one together,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, April, we’re all just satellites in your orbit.”

  That made me very uncomfortable.

  “That’s ridiculous, Miranda,” I said seriously. “You’re a genius. I can’t believe I just hooked up with Miranda Beckwith.”

  That made her smile a whole lot.

  “OH! I almost forgot.” She raised up on her elbow, holding the sheets to her chest in modesty. “The most likely of everything is another code. There’s an alternate numerical system that this looks like, actually, in which bars represent fives and dots represent ones. So one bar and one dot would be six. It’s the Mayan numerical system.”

  “Mayan?” I asked, feeling a little light-headed. Suddenly I felt like I was cheating, though whether on Maya or Miranda I couldn’t tell.

  “Yeah, like the Maya, the Mesoamerican civilization?”

  “Weird . . . ,” I managed. “That seems like the strongest lead.”

  “Absolutely.” And then she fell into explaining the intricacies of Mayan numerals to me. If she noticed my weirdness, she made no sign. I tried my best to pay attention as I stroked her hair and she explained how the Maya represented numbers in the hundreds and thousands.

  July 12

  @AprilMaybeNot: This thing is happening. I’ll be on CNN at 8 PM eastern.

  There it is, the date you’ve been dreading. Don’t worry, me too. There’s been enough written about this to fill a thousand books, so I’m going to focus on the things that were part of my direct experience. You’ll notice I haven’t talked about international relations or even much of what was happening in my own country during all this. This is my story because, otherwise, it would be a forty-five-hour-long Ken Burns documentary.

  At this point in the story, every Dream Sequence has been solved except for a secret one that only I have access to. People are working their butts off to try to make the hex code into something useful, but it just spits out random squiggles that clearly mean nothing. A group of people think that we’re missing a key, a bit of code that might just be a few characters long that unlocks the whole thing. No one knows where that key might be except for me and my team. People remain in the Dream, searching fruitlessly. The Defenders’ attempts to control the sequences have failed miserably, but they’re doing OK at controlling the narrative. Petrawicki has a knack for diminishing the credibility of everyone who publicly disagrees with him. Most of his feed is half-baked conspiracy theories about anyone who has indicated that maybe things aren’t terrible. Whenever I watch his videos or see him on TV, he seems delighted.

  And me, I’m miserable. I can’t solve the 767 Sequence, but I also can’t bring myself to share that it exists. I’m rich and famous and suddenly I feel like I have no friends. The Som is somehow more popular than ever. People are rerunning every sequence in the Dream looking for clues to the key, and that’s keeping everyone so busy it doesn’t feel like we ever just hang out anymore. I’ve made everything weird with Miranda, Andy seems suddenly distant and frustrated but I don’t want to ask why, and Maya and I were never going to be anything but rocky. Robin is the only one of the group who hasn’t gotten weird with me. At the same time, though, he works for me, so I’m not sure if his friendship counts. If I stopped paying him, would he still be there?

  All this frustration I have turned outward onto the Defenders. I spend most of my waking time reading their threads, countering their arguments, making videos, and fighting them on social media.

  Jennifer Putnam convinced me, in my rage (and greed, but mostly rage), to go on TV and have it out in a one-on-one debate with Peter Petrawicki. This sounded like a terrible idea to me. He was better at talking than me, and when you put us side by side, I always looked like a kid.

  But Putnam said that even if he scored some points, people who were bound to be on my side but didn’t know about my side would join up. It was about reaching the most people with the message, and doing something the press could sell was the best way to do that. Eventually, my hatred of Peter and my belief in Putnam (her advice had, after all, gotten me this far) got the best of me.

  This is now mostly forgotten, but it was a huge deal then. We had established ourselves as the two sides of the argument, which had split roughly (very roughly) down established political lines.

  We each had our little armies, and they really hated each other. My frustration with the entire idea that the Carls should be treated like a menace and an excuse for militarization fueled that rage on my side. On Peter’s side, the rage was fueled by similar indignation with a healthy dose of fear on top.

  We met on the most neutral ground we could find, CNN. It was a respectable show, as cable news goes, but still they spent a full week beforehand promo-ing our “head-to-head” as if it were a frickin’ presidential debate. We both traveled to the studio in New York, where we sat at a fancy glass table in front of an extremely fancy wall and looked out at the lights and the cameras and the steel-beamed warehouse beyond.

  TRANSCRIPT

  Presenter: The sixty-four largest metropolitan areas in the world are being visited by alien technology, possibly alien life. But their intentions remain a mystery.

  April May, the discoverer of New York Carl, and Peter Petrawicki, author of Invaded, have both been guests here on the show, but never together. The question is pretty simple: Are the Carls dangerous?

  April, you clearly have never felt threatened by Carl, initially believing him to be some kind of modern sculpture.

  With that nonquestion it was clear that it was my turn to talk, so I did the thing that everyone on these shows always did and ignored the prompt and said what I wanted to say: “If the Carls or their creators wanted to harm us, they would have no trouble doing so. They seem to be, by their very nature, passive.” By this point I was surprised that I hadn’t been interrupted, so I wasn’t sure what else to say but was loath to cede the floor, so I continued. “They’re so technologically advanced that we couldn’t catch up in a thousand years.”

  That’s when Petrawicki broke in. “Cheryl, you say the question is, ‘Are the Carls dangerous?’ I don’t think that’s the question at all. For me, the question is, ‘Might the Carls be dangerous?’ I’m simply saying that I don’t know the answer to that question. I also don’t know how hard it would be to fight them if we had to. I just think it’s wise to not just sit back and assume the best of this technology that is not just passive. It’s inside our minds and it’s somewhere running loose in America.”

  This was a reference to the fact that Hollywood Carl’s hand had still not been seen since it dropped off in front
of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. None of the Carl hands in other countries (or in the US for that matter) had dropped off and run away; it was clear that all the rest of them had simply vanished. This was just another freaky mystery to puzzle scientists and scare Defenders.

  In any case, the fact that Peter Petrawicki, who, when on the internet, never stopped shouting fake alarmist nonsense, seemed calm and reasonable threw me off guard. This wasn’t the conversation I’d prepped for.

  Cheryl, the anchor, took back over.

  “There is a certain reasonableness to that, April?”

  “I’m fine with practicing care, but the hatred and animosity that comes out of the Defenders movement—”

  “You’re fine with practicing care?” Peter shot back, interrupting forcefully. “You are the reason Carl woke up. You might have caused this invasion into our minds with your meddling. It’s clear to me, April. You said it yourself that you shouldn’t have done that, that you should have let someone qualified make that call, but you didn’t. You and your followers are just blindly tumbling forward without any regard for the safety of the people of this country.”

  Why was it always “this country” with this guy, as if the whole world wasn’t in this one together? But I had already realized my misstep, so I got back on message.

  “Here’s what it comes down to. I think we have a visitor knocking on our front door and you want to point a gun at it.”

  “They didn’t knock, dear, they walked straight inside without a word, and if that’s a home invasion, then this is an invasion as well.”

  This was going badly. The presenter took back the reins. “Peter, April brings up a good point. What can we do, really, when faced with a technology that is so clearly superior to our own?”

  “Figuring that out is not my job, that’s the job of the commander in chief. All I want is for us to consider the threat, and not roll over at the first sign of a dominant life-form. Have we learned nothing from history? What happens when a dominant group meets an inferior group? Every single time, they’re slaughtered and everything they have is taken away from them.”

  I actually found enough anger to interrupt here. “And you just assume because humans are terrible that other species are terrible too?”

  “April, I don’t think humans are terrible—”

  I broke in, “You just—”

  He cut me off in return. “If you’d let me finish . . . I don’t think humans are terrible, I think we are strong and resourceful and if anyone can fight this fight and survive it, it’s us.”

  April: There is no fight to fight! You’re inventing it, I don’t even know why! Why do you spend your time scaring all these people?

  Peter: You really do think we’re afraid. It’s like you and I live in different countries, April May.”

  April: Of course you’re afraid, that’s all you ever talk about, you—

  Peter: All we’re asking for is a little common sense, and you come out and attack me! It’s the same story over and over, regular people ask to slow down and exercise care and then suddenly we’re “xenophobic” or “exophobic” or whatever other word you invented last week to help sell books.

  I’d heard all this before, but I also knew that this line of argument worked. If you tell people that they’re being attacked for their beliefs, then suddenly they want to defend their beliefs, even if they didn’t really believe them before. It’s pretty amazing, really.

  I had a thought for defusing the situation that I wanted to try. It was vital that I didn’t get sucked into defending myself from his last little quip and, instead, go for the root of what he was getting at, which was that there is a clear logical perspective and that it was his.

  April: Peter, you invoke the common sense of regular people, but there are lots of regular people who disagree with you, and they also think they’re invoking common sense. We’re all regular people, when it comes down to it.

  Peter: Not with your lifestyle.

  I wasn’t ready for that at all. I’d offered an olive branch and he just whacked me with it.

  April: What?

  Peter: April, I don’t think it’s any secret that the life you lead isn’t a common lifestyle.

  April: I mean, nor you, right? We have weird lives, we’re on TV, there are millions of people watching. None of this is normal.

  Peter: Well, if you’re going to be intentionally obtuse.

  April: Are you talking about the fact that I’m a lesbian?

  Peter: You say that, but you seem to only be a lesbian sometimes. Other times, not so much.

  April: What? Why is this a topic of conversation?

  The presenter, who was equally baffled, finally stepped in, “I have to agree . . .”

  And then, thinking that I would have to do this at some point anyway, I did the dumbest thing possible. I stayed on Peter Petrawicki’s talking point instead of moving to my own.

  April: No, it’s fine, he’s right. This has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation, but I’m bisexual and that’s just as regular as being gay or straight. A person’s gender has never been a thing that influences whether I’m attracted to them and that’s just as regular as being gay or straight.

  Peter: Then why have you been lying about it for the last year?

  The extent to which I had lost control of this conversation baffled me. Here are a list of thoughts I had in the space of five seconds:

  Sexuality is complicated and fluid (deeply off topic)

  Being bi is normal, but . . . you know . . . (they don’t know)

  I lied because people like you are terrible! (accusatory)

  It’s only been six months, not a year! (not useful)

  I lied because it was better for my career? (bad)

  My agent told me to lie, it wasn’t my idea! (only a little better)

  But by far the most overwhelming thought, the one that kept me from mounting any useful reply was: You walked right the fuck into his trap, you damned idiot.

  There were so many things that I might say, that I wanted to say, and then there was the overwhelming knowledge that I had fucked up almost comically, and all those things competing for my attention were like a flash-bang going off in my brain. It was so overwhelming that, to the outside observer, I appeared almost catatonic.

  The most forgiving perspective—which, to be fair, lots of people had—was that I was a kid who had gotten in way over her head and that a bully had used that opportunity to take me down several notches. That outlook didn’t make Peter look good, but it didn’t really make me look great either. I wasn’t on TV to gather sympathy; I was here to impress and change minds. Instead, my greatest victory of the day is that I didn’t break down crying right then and there. I might have, but I was too shocked by my own incompetence.

  The presenter mercifully pushed us to a commercial break, during which I walked out of the building without talking to a single person. I made it to the sidewalk before I started to cry, which was a feat of marvelous strength.

  That interview aired on July 12, so I guess we all know what the next chapter’s going to be about. Though I’ve got a juicy detail about that day that I’ve never told anyone, so if you’re thinking of skipping, rethink.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I try not to regret any of what has happened to me in the last few years. I don’t know if I’d be happier or if the world would be a better place if I hadn’t involved myself (or the universe hadn’t involved me), but that’s OK. What I do regret is how I engaged with the Defenders. In the weeks and months before July 13, I distilled a diverse group of individuals down to a few of their beliefs. Those beliefs were based on fear, and so all my arguments began and ended with the same thought: You’re all cowards. I didn’t say those exact words out loud, but they heard them anyway. The people who supported Carl and sup
ported me heard it too, and they loved it. They wanted me to say it all the time. Reasoned, caring conversations that considered the complexity of other perspectives didn’t get views. Rants did. Outrage did. Simplicity did. So, simple, outraged rants is what I gave people.

  Putnam couldn’t have been happier, though of course she acted like she was miserable that I’d been dragged through the mud on cable TV. She told me that in the end it was good for me, because it created sympathy and made PP, as it was easier to think of him, look like a bully. No one else tried to spin the interview, though. Robin, Andy, Miranda, even my parents just told me that they loved me and that they agreed it was awful and that I would be OK and to just let them know if I wanted foot rubs or giant sugary coffee drinks.

  But I didn’t want love; I wanted to tear the Defenders apart. When I look back on that period before that abbreviated “debate” with Peter (if you could even call it that), I see a trajectory that, thank god, the universe did not allow me to follow. But I can imagine a reality in which the rest of this book never happened and I spent my whole life (or at least the next few years of my life) as a bitter, angry pundit arguing professionally with professional arguers.

  Not that I wasn’t also having fun. Ripping the Defenders’ arguments to shreds and then reading all the comments agreeing passionately with me and electronically patting me on my cybershoulders was thrilling. It’s so much harder to actually define yourself and work to imagine the best possible future than it is to tear down others’ ideas. So I defined myself and my vision of Carl in opposition to the Defenders’. My path forward was the opposite of theirs and theirs was the opposite of mine. It distilled itself down until all that was left was the argument. And maybe, lurking just beneath that, the hatred.