by Jay Martel
He decided to take Alistair’s advice and rewrite this ending. He visualised himself with Amanda, in the house he had owned before his screenplays stopped selling. It was a beautiful house, a modernist three-bedroom, high in the Hollywood Hills, with a swimming pool on a terrace that seemed to defy gravity. He and Amanda were kissing, out there on the terrace, and a child ran up, a little boy. Perry picked him up and hugged him. The child showed him a toy, a wind-up animal, and did something with it that he and Amanda thought was cute and they laughed together. He pretended to push Amanda into the pool and then Amanda really did push him. He did a comical stutter step and fell into the water, laughing, and plunged to the bottom – but then something strange happened. When he paddled, his hands and feet passed through the water with no effect. He couldn’t get off the bottom of the pool, couldn’t tell anyone up above what was happening – they couldn’t even see him down there. He was drowning, dying...
And then he wasn’t. He was back upright, coughing. The buckles around him were being unclasped. The Gardener gazed down at him, her full flaccid face a picture of distress. ‘Are you all right?’ she said. ‘I am so sorry.’
It was then that Perry realised that there was a newcomer in the room. He wore a full military uniform with ribbons and shiny medals. He had a clipped moustache and a distinct air of authority that belied his youthful appearance.
‘The lieutenant here says there’s been a mistake,’ the Gardener said. ‘He’s here to take you home immediately.’
The lieutenant gave Perry a warm smile and took him under one elbow. ‘Come on, Perry, let’s get you out of here,’ he said. In a daze, Perry shuffled alongside him into the hallway. The guards followed but the lieutenant waved them off. ‘I can handle this,’ he said. The guards nodded and walked in the opposite direction. The lieutenant steered Perry around a corner.
‘Thank you,’ Perry managed to gasp. ‘I thought I was—’
The lieutenant pushed him against the rock wall and pressed the cold steel barrel of a pistol against his forehead.
‘I’ve been given the honour of killing you,’ he said, ‘and I will. But I’ve also been asked to tell you why. I’m only going to say it once before I kill you, so listen closely.’
Perry was all ears.
‘This is why,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Because your plan has failed.’ With that, he took a sharp breath and cocked the gun.
‘What?’ Perry yelped. ‘That’s the reason?’
‘Quiet!’ The lieutenant scanned the hallway.
‘I don’t even know what that means. What plan?’
‘That’s all I was told to tell you.’
The gun’s muzzle dug into the flesh of Perry’s forehead. ‘Then I have no idea why you’re killing me.’
The lieutenant sighed. While keeping Perry pinned to the wall with one arm, he reached up with the hand holding the gun and pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal a fresh tattoo: a cupcake with a red slash across it. ‘No one gets the cupcake,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Got it?’
Perry shook his head. The lieutenant’s eyes widened with impatience. ‘You wrote that letter telling the President how to save the world,’ he hissed. ‘Three weeks ago in a park in Los Angeles, before the aliens reached down and took him away from us, the Buddy prophesied that the aliens would destroy Earth. And that’s exactly what they’re going to do. No false prophet is going to try and stop them. Now do you understand?’
Perry had a terrible realisation: like the blue-clad demonstrators he’d seen in front of the White House, the lieutenant was a misguided follower of the religion he’d inadvertently created when he told the homeless about Channel Blue. But it seemed that since his brief stay in St Jude’s Park, the religion had metastasised from a benign, slightly bananas belief system into a deadly doomsday cult.
‘Listen to me,’ Perry said, as calmly as he could manage with a gun to his head. ‘There has been a huge misunderstanding. My name is Perry Bunt–’
‘I know who you are!’ the lieutenant barked impatiently.
‘I was the guy at the park in Los Angeles who was trying to get everyone to be nicer to each other so the aliens wouldn’t kill us.’
The lieutenant’s face scrunched up in disbelief. ‘You’re not the Buddy!’ He fished in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a laminated card that showed what appeared to be Jesus in a blue tracksuit, his arms outstretched in supplication, levitating over a crowd of adoring followers. ‘That’s the Buddy!’
Perry shook his head. ‘I never said I was the Buddy or even Buddy, for that matter. This homeless guy Ralph called everyone “Buddy” and that’s what started it—’
‘Brother Ralph? Are you claiming to know Brother Ralph?’
‘I don’t know about Brother Ralph. I’m talking about Ralph, this homeless guy in Los Angeles who hangs out at this one convenience store—’
The gun smacked across Perry’s jaw and he tumbled to the ground.
‘Brother Ralph is our prophet on Earth since the Buddy was taken away by the aliens,’ the lieutenant said. ‘He is only second to the Buddy in divineness.’
That explains a lot, Perry thought. He rubbed his jaw and tried to sit up, no easy trick in shackles and handcuffs. ‘Listen to me: no one ever said aliens have to destroy the Earth. The whole point is to help each other so the aliens won’t destroy Earth. And if you help me get out of here right now, there might be enough time. There’s still a chance. If I can get above ground or at least somewhere there’s a few flies, we could save our lives and everyone else’s. Do you understand? We could still save the world!’
‘Don’t try to seduce me with your lies!’ The Lieutenant kicked Perry in the side, sending him back down to the ground. ‘Everyone knows that the world has to end!’
Perry tried to sit up again but the pain was too much. ‘Why?’
‘That’s the Word of the Buddy. When the world ends, his prophecy will be revealed to all as the one true Word.’
Perry knew he shouldn’t act annoyed at someone with a gun pointed at his head, but he could no longer help himself. ‘Are you listening to what you’re saying? If the world ends, what’s the difference? No one will be here!’
The lieutenant’s face turned strangely ecstatic, the eyes opening wide, the mouth smiling broadly. ‘Oh yes. I’ll be here. And so will thousands of others. The Buddy will come down in his spaceship and save all who believed in his Word.’
‘No, he won’t! The Buddy doesn’t have a spaceship! He doesn’t even have a fucking pair of pants right now!’
‘Enough of your falsehoods, blasphemer!’ The lieutenant knelt down so he could once more place the muzzle of his gun against Perry’s forehead. ‘Prepare to die.’
‘Lieutenant?’ A voice came from around the corner. The lieutenant stood and holstered his pistol. A soldier appeared and saw the lieutenant standing over Perry. ‘Is something wrong, sir?’
‘This detainee was being difficult. What do you want?’
‘We have orders for the detainee, sir.’
The lieutenant frowned. ‘This one?’
‘Yes. Perry Bunt. I checked in Room 6 but was told you’d taken him.’
‘Yes,’ the lieutenant replied. ‘My mistake. Wrong detainee. Please.’ The lieutenant motioned to the guard, who helped Perry to his feet. ‘Just a moment, private.’ The lieutenant took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and pressed it to Perry’s swelling jaw. ‘There we go,’ he said, then leaned into Perry and whispered. ‘If they don’t finish you off, I will.’
The guard ushered Perry away. In minutes, Perry, dressed again in the suit he wore to the White House, stood in an office before Drummond Nash. The elderly spymaster now wore a red-plaid hunting cap on his bald head to complement his hunting jacket. A shotgun lay across his desk. Next to him stood a man in a suit who the old man introduced as Dan Whittaker of the State Department.
‘Mr Whittaker here will be taking you back to Washington,’ he said. ‘Today is your lucky da
y. It seems that the President wants a word with you.’ Perry’s heart raced. Amanda’s plan had worked. It had taken longer than they’d thought, but he was actually going to be able to talk to the President.
‘Apparently, he saw your name on a list of detainees,’ Drummond Nash continued. ‘Why, with all hell breaking loose in the Middle East, he feels the need to interfere with our vital work is not readily apparent.’ Dan Whittaker glared at him and the old man realised he’d let his emotions get the better of him. Releasing detainees was something he wasn’t comfortable with – understandable because he’d never done it before. He took a deep breath. ‘I am bound by the Constitution to obey the President’s orders.’ He returned his focus to Perry. ‘You will be escorted by a security detail throughout the trip, and they will bring you back here as soon as the President is satisfied.’
Drummond picked up his shotgun and began polishing it with a rag. It was obviously his signal that the conversation was over. But Perry wasn’t through.
‘I want my letter back,’ he said.
The old man stared at him, his eyes small and intense. ‘We, of course, need the original for your case file, but I’ll have a copy brought out to the helicopter,’ he said, then turned back to his gun.
Perry nodded. Then he, Dan Whittaker and two guards left the office and entered an elevator. The car rapidly ascended for what seemed like several minutes. Then its doors opened on the enormous wood-panelled lobby. Large heads of dead animals adorned walls under huge rough-hewn wooden beams. A fire roared in a room-sized fireplace. One of the guards slipped a hood over Perry’s head. Dan Whittaker pulled it off.
‘I’ll take responsibility,’ he said. The guard nodded uneasily and pocketed the hood. Perry was led out of the hunting lodge where, among Aspen pines, a Marine One helicopter idled.
‘Where are we?’ Perry asked.
‘I can’t tell you,’ Whittaker said.
They boarded the helicopter. The cabin resembled that of a luxurious private jet. Perry was given a row of large leather seats to himself while his guards took up the two rows in front of him and Whittaker rode in the cockpit with the pilot. The aircraft roared to life and lifted into the air.
Perry peered out the window at spectacular snow-covered mountains. He hoped that Alistair would someday find out how far off the mark he was. The two guards promptly nodded off.
He pushed back his seat and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep before his meeting with the President so he would seem as cogent as possible, but his nerves wouldn’t stop jangling.
‘Would you like a coffee or a cold beverage?’ a woman’s voice spoke.
Perry opened his eyes. Amanda Mundo stood in the aisle.
CHANNEL 31
THE FINAL EPISODE
After leaving Perry at the White House, Amanda had returned to their suite at the Willard-Intercontinental Hotel. There she whiled away an hour watching TV, which had the same fascination to her that watching smoke signals might to a tourist at an Indian reservation. She was about to change out of her evening dress when there was a loud rap on the door. She opened it. Two serious-looking men in suits stood on the threshold. ‘Amanda Mundo?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes?’
‘Were you at the White House earlier today?’
‘Yes,’ Amanda replied, careful not to betray a scintilla of the concern welling up inside her.
‘Would you please come with us? We have some questions about your visit.’
Amanda smiled warmly. ‘I would love to,’ she said. ‘That place was so incredible. I had the time of my life. And meeting the President! What an experience it was—’ She went on like this for several minutes, making sure that she maintained direct eye contact with both of the men. One minute into her mindless rant, she had both of them smiling despite themselves. Amanda had taught herself flirting while watching Channel Blue as a teenager and rarely had an opportunity to use it.
Finally, one of the men, very apologetically, interrupted her and said that they really needed to get going. Amanda made a big show out of being upset in an insubstantial, Earthle girl way – ‘Oh my goodness! I haven’t even changed my dress since I met the President!’ – and wouldn’t the men please please, please let her just go to the bathroom and change super, super fast? ‘It’ll take one second!’ One of the men vaguely nodded. She grabbed her purse and was in the bathroom locking the door before they realised what they’d agreed to. She slid the bathroom window open, climbed out and shimmied along a narrow ledge ten storeys above the traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue to the next window over. It was locked. She slipped off one of her heels, smashed it through the glass, slid open the window, pulled herself inside, and walked through the bathroom to a bedroom where Noah Overton lay sleeping off his night-long Earth-saving labours.
Amanda shook Noah awake. ‘Perry’s in trouble. We have to go.’ She spotted his wallet, phone and laptop on the bureau, collected them under her arm and pulled Noah, still blinking groggily, wearing only boxer shorts and a T-shirt, into the hallway.
Another man in a suit stood in the hallway. He saw Amanda, pulled a gun from a holster inside his jacket and shouted loudly for her to stay where she was. Amanda pretended not to hear him and walked towards the elevators, pulling Noah, who was now protesting loudly, with her. The man warned that he would shoot if they didn’t stop. Amanda pushed Noah face-first into the ground and pivoted quickly to face the man, who aimed the gun at Amanda’s right shoulder and fired. The bullet deflected off Amanda’s meteorite shield and ricocheted around the hallway before lodging in the ceiling.
Amanda took seven quick steps towards the stunned man and kicked the gun from his outstretched hand. She picked it up and held it on him while she backed up to the elevator, pulling Noah with her. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Noah whimpered.
Amanda pushed the down button. The man in the suit held his hands out to his sides. ‘Don’t do this,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Noah agreed. ‘Listen to him. Don’t do this.’
A chime sounded and the elevator doors opened. An elderly couple stood inside with a bellhop and a rolling suit rack. Amanda pushed Noah into the car and stepped in. The doors began to close and the man in the suit charged towards them. When it appeared he might make it into the car before the doors shut completely, Amanda flung the gun through the narrowing gap, smacking him in the forehead. The elevator’s occupants saw the man fall backwards onto the carpet before the doors closed completely.
Amanda smiled at the other passengers, who stared straight ahead in shock. She perused the rack of clothes, took a man’s suit off a hanger and held it up to Noah. ‘I think this is about your size,’ she said. When the doors opened, she pulled Noah through the busy lobby of the hotel and out the front entrance, where a line of cabs waited.
They climbed into the back of the first taxi in the queue.
‘Jefferson Memorial,’ Amanda told the driver. ‘And we’re going to miss our tour if we don’t get there in five minutes.’ She took a twenty out of Noah’s wallet and set it down on the armrest of the driver, who smiled and punched the gas pedal. The taxi squealed out of the driveway, thrusting Amanda and Noah against the back seat.
‘This is insane!’ Noah yelled. ‘We have to go back! You’re a crazy woman!’
Amanda calmly and quietly told Noah that if they had any hope of saving Perry and the world, they had to stay out of prison. Noah should try to relax and put on the suit she’d stolen for him. ‘You have your wallet, your phone and your computer. Did anything else have your name on it?’ Noah shook his head. ‘Then you’ll be fine.’
Noah sobbed softly while pulling on the pants. ‘This is really screwed up, man.’
The taxi stopped at a red light on Fourteenth Street and, just before the light turned green, Amanda flung her door open and jumped out, tugging at Noah, half in the stolen suit jacket, to follow her. They trotted down C Street and entered a department store, passed through it and emerged onto D Street. They crossed it, turn
ed a corner and approached a building crowned with large blue letters that read: GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT.
Amanda led Noah into the small café next door to the building. She took his laptop from him and, while he ordered two coffees, sat at a table next to the wall closest to Galaxy Entertainment. By the time Noah arrived at the table, two coffees in his shaking hands, she had hacked into Channel Blue’s feeds and was scrolling back through hours of footage. Within minutes she was able to follow unconscious Perry from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington to a C5 cargo plane flying to Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado. Amanda delved into her memory and reviewed everything she knew about US intelligence operations. ‘Drummond Nash,’ she said aloud.
‘What?’ Noah said.
‘A former spy chief. He basically runs his own CIA counter-terrorism unit out of some old ICBM caverns in Colorado. That’s where they took Perry.’ Before Noah could react, Amanda snapped the laptop shut, tossed the coffees into the trash and led him through an emergency exit into an alleyway. They quickly made their way back to Fourteenth Street and flagged down a cab for Dulles Airport.
At the departures terminal, Amanda bought a ticket to Telluride with a transfer in Denver. She saw Noah to the gate of his flight back to Los Angeles and wished him luck. ‘Thanks for all the help,’ she said.
‘Please don’t ever contact me again,’ Noah said.
‘I’m sorry it got a little hectic.’
‘I’m serious. You and Perry are insane. Leave me alone.’ Amanda smiled and waved goodbye as Noah boarded his plane.
It was late at night when Amanda arrived in Telluride. She rented a jeep with GPS and drove north for two hours before leaving the freeway. She couldn’t remember the exact coordinates of Drummond Nash’s hunting lodge, and she ran over dozens of miles of dirt track before arriving at a trailhead guarded by a locked metal gate and a sign that ‘prohibited trespassers beyond this point by order of the US Military’. She parked the jeep and caught an hour of sleep before sunlight peaked over the mountaintops.