by Jenn Thorson
“And where’s the—” Bertram paused and frowned. “Berglat Smiggett, seriously?”
She shrugged.
“Much as I hate to interrupt,” Rollie called from the pilot’s chair in the adjacent room, “we’re heading for touch-down. All those interested in getting personal with the ceiling, by all means, don’t fasten your harness.”
“It’s just a shame we don’t have a camera with a live feed,” continued Bertram.
“Who says we don’t?” Rollie glanced in the ICV equivalent of the rear-view mirror and scowled at what he saw. “Harnesses! Fragging harnesses. Bleeding Karnax, you people are such low-functioning life-forms sometimes.”
By now, Bertram was wobbling his way into the cockpit and stumbled into the copilot’s chair. “We have a camera?” he asked hopefully. “And it actually works?” At Rollie’s dagger glare he harnessed himself into the seat.
“O’ course it works.” Rollie hooked his crooked thumb into the room behind them. “You’ve met.”
“What, you mean …” He peered over the harness into the other room. He didn’t see anything there except for the seats, the smudgy paneled walls, the smudgy paneled ceiling, the built-in Uninet terminal, Xylith and … “O’wun?”
“Oh no,” responded O’wun promptly. “No. You are not dragging me into this. Isn’t it enough you wrecked my life back home? Now you want to get me on the bad side of GCU law? What, is this some kind of elaborate campaign to see me dismantled into my smallest, most intimate nanotechnologies?”
“O’wun was the best video correspondent the Feegar Rebellion ever saw,” Rollie told Bertram proudly. “Most of the war footage archived on the Uninet was his doing.”
Impressed, Bertram struggled to peer into the room behind. “Hey, that’s pretty cool, O’wun,” he called. “So do you think you could—?”
“No.”
“But don’t you want to—?”
“No.”
“Okay, but just why can’t you—?”
“No.”
“And that’s why Tryfe is the ideal place for thrill-seekers looking for that vacation spot off the beaten path.” Musca Mij clasped two sets of hands together in front of him and didn’t bother to control the pleased little buzz of his wings. “In summary, topographically, Tryfe has it all. Deserts, oceans, mountains, jungles, and rivers, all with an oxygen-based atmosphere.
“But what it needs is a serious Do-Over. Clean up the Tryfling infestation using our patented three-step Fumigation, Sanitation and Rejuvenation process. Then, using the talents of MetamorfaSys Inc.’s Planetary Transformation Consultants, we will renovate the property into an edgy, thrill-a-minute, mind-blowing exploration planet that appeals to the modern GCU adventurer who thought, until now, he’d done it all.” Here were 3-D renderings of GCU tourists hoverboarding over the Grand Canyon … Hypersailing the Sahara … ICV-bungeeing over the Alps … and dining in weather-proofed ice hotels on the Arctic tundras. “Our plan offers the kind of High Intensity, Supervised Adrenaline-Based Vacation Experience and Completely Orchestrated Fun you expect from a MetamorfaSys planet.” A montage of these newly-crafted wonders swirled in the globe above him. “Thank you.”
Musca Mij exited the stage as Zenith Skytreg stepped back onto it. “I can barely talk, my breath is so taken away,” exclaimed Skytreg, all evidence to the contrary. “Thank you, Musca Mij, for that high intensity presentation of yours. Extreme enjoyment on my part! And next up, we have Spectra Pollux, the creative mind behind the CapClub, ready to tell us all about her plans for Tryfe. Spectra?”
Rozz was already sweating, and it was soaking her temples and trickled under that stupid tracking headband. She tugged at the collar of her sticky-hot LibLounge barista shirt for relief. Throughout Mij’s presentation, nausea had washed across her in waves. And the more she heard about Mij’s plan for her people, the more she found it almost impossible to sit still in her chair. It was panic, pure and fierce, and it caused a fearful energy to rise up within her. Her trembling legs wanted only to run, run from Skorbig Stadium and just keep running.
Yes, Mij was planning to wipe out everybody on Tryfe, just so some asshat E.T.s could sip Martian Mai Tais from the skulls of the human race and hover-surf over the blood of millions of Earth people.
Not, literally, of course. That would be gross. But to Rozz’s mind, it solidified the decision she made now.
She gave one last glance to the skies for signs of her fellow Tryfling, but cloud formations smothered her hopes. Bertram Ludlow, his “Life for Tryfe” team and the media were not coming, and she chided herself for wasting so much valuable time working to trigger a plan that wasn’t entirely self-determined.
Yes, Plan 4B was all up to her, and it always had been. But now in an ironic twist that brought the nausea again, it also involved helping Spectra Pollux win this stupid bid simply so Musca Mij wouldn’t. After the planet was awarded, well, Rozz would figure out how to extract her people from a lifetime of minimum wage milkshake work. But at least they’d live like minimum wage men and not die like mootaabs.
For this moment, she would give it her Best Her.
Rozz followed Spectra to the stage, the way they’d rehearsed it, calm and efficient.
“Thank you, Mr. Skytreg,” said Spectra, her strong motherly voice projecting to the farthest seat in the stadium. “So far today we’ve heard much about the planet Tryfe. But now, you’re going to hear something a little different. Ours is a tale of life-forms. Of heart. Of life-forms with hearts, in different parts of the body than we might expect, but which beat equally to ours in their desire to succeed. I’m talking about the people of Tryfe,” she said.
In support, the scoreboard displayed images of all the Tryflings her creative staff had grabbed from satellite TV transmissions.
Rozz snickered when clips of Mussolini giving a speech popped up, sandwiched between universally-beloved children’s TV host, Grampa Cardigan, and an early Shirley Temple talkie.
“I’m talking about people like my Tryfling friend Rozz here,” Spectra went on, her voice warm and authoritative. She motioned to Rozz as Exhibit A. “People who have too long been disconnected from the GCU and who deserve a chance to make their way in the competitive cosmic landscape around them. I believe that with the right infopill education and rigorous training, these primitive Tryfe people can be nurtured into ideal, reliable employees, eager to assist in LibLounges across the CGU. As Rozz will demonstrate now … Rozz,” she commanded, “make our audience some mini-mootaab milkshakes and tell us all about the latest CapClub recommendations, won’t you, dear?”
Rozz put on her best CapClub Leader smile and fired up the portable milkshake machine she’d packed. “Today’s Featured CapClub Feature-of-the-Day is One Word Poems, by Jet Antlia. In this eye-opening chapbook of insightful one-word verse, Antlia chooses select terms from the Universal vocabulary to stand alone on each page, thereby transforming simple, little-thought-about ordinary language into the breathtaking poetry of the new GCU. With no context, additional support text, illustration or even, in some cases, proper spelling—what do you think the author might be trying to say through his work’s sparsity and seemingly sloppy randomness? … Anyone?”
Chapter 25
“There it is!” shouted Bertram, pointing at the red-and-purple peeling construct ahead on the horizon. “There!”
“I see it, Ludlow. I see,” Rollie grumbled. “I have flown before.”
“Then how come we taxied halfway over the planet to get here?” Xylith teased from the other room.
“Aw, that’s not me. It’s this thing, innit?” Rollie flicked one of the gauges. “It’s fragged. Outputting bad data. Got no precision.”
“What’s with the flags?” Bertram observed the bright flapping fabrics among the stadium’s nose-bleed seats as they swept in from the south. They seemed to bear writing but were too far to read.
“Flags?” Xylith asked, craning to see.
Rollie squinted, turned a few dials, and t
he front window zoomed in on them, magnifying the logos into view.
“DiversiDine,” Bertram affirmed aloud, “MetamorfaSys Inc., too … I don’t recognize the third one.”
Rollie gave a bitter laugh. “LibLounge CapClub. Looks like someone wants you and CapClub management to meet pretty blasted badly, Ludlow.”
Bertram frowned at him around his harness. “Why do you say that?”
“Breakfast with Bertram at Skorbig Stadium for Independence Day as the Featured CapClub Feature-of-the-Day?” Rollie prompted. “Either you got one big fan in Spectra Pollux and this is a blasted funny way of getting an intro, or someone’s desperate to set her up as your next target.”
“If she’s planning to buy my planet, then she is my next target,” Bertram responded. “Anyway, what would she do with Earth? Tempt us with 12 free infopills for a yoonie and then hook us all into lifetime CapClub subscriptions with outrageous shipping and handling fees?” He watched as their ship descended, now hovering over the ICV lot. “Hey, don’t land so close; they’ll see you come in.”
“Already cloaked,” said Rollie. “And I’ll park where I fragging like. I have flown before.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The pre-recorded music composed by Dumbbell Nebula reached even the cheap seats, while the video scoreboard treated the audience to a spell-binding 3-D celebrity chorus projected out over the stadium tiers. Holding hands, flippers, and other publicly-acceptable appendages, the slick promotion video sang of hope and Tryfling advancement through gainful GCU employment in the LibLounges. Spectra Pollux had arranged for famed friends of every species to ring out her grand finale message:
GCU for Me
GCU for You
GCU for Everyone,
’Cause the CapClub makes it true
GCU for Him
GCU for Her
GCU for Tryflings,
In a LibLounge anywhere
Rozz had heard this a million times now, and the lyrics never got any better. Contrived sentimentality, easy rhyme, predictable plotline … She figured it would be a lock to break Number One on the GCU music charts.
The singers had poured syrup over two stanzas of lyrics before Stella Cygnus took over, doing dramatic interpretive dance moves and warbling her sincere solo. She was surrounded by Bibluciat orphans trying desperately to blend in with the production stage and avoid all the attention.
If you’ll only step
From that empty Tryfling world
I’ll be here and gladly reach out
For that frothy-fresh beverage
You made with your own two hands …
GROUP: (Two hands!)
Well-known faces from all four quadrants of the Greater Communicating Universe swayed and sang in unity.
GCU for Me
GCU for You
GCU for all of Tryfe,
’Cause Spectra Pollux tells us to
Foobaz Frabblagundger—who had managed to extend his Resilience Curve by an unheard-of 29.1 hours through his rumored involvement in a Spectra Pollux initiative—played a rousing stanza of instrumentation upon his nose. It culminated in a round-style singing extravaganza, interspersed with samples of Jet Antlia’s cutting edge one-word poetry.
GCU for You (“tandem”)
CGU for Me (“expatiate”)
CGU cures Tryfling strife
Just the way it ought to be (“globule”)
The musical promo ended on the digitally-altered images of the Tryfling footage they’d shown earlier. Thanks to the wonders of GCU graphics manipulation technology, these individuals now smiled under a Spectra Pollux logo banner, shining tears of joy in their eyes. They were wearing LibLounge barista uniforms.
Rozz felt that while the jaunty LibLounge visor looked pretty dashing on ol’ Grampa Cardigan, tangerine really wasn’t Mussolini’s color.
When the music faded, and the lights went up, a pause of several silent seconds stilled the room, before the place exploded in applause. Much of it showered from Spectra’s own staff, true, but Skytreg’s people “woo-ed” shrilly and with real enthusiasm. Even Musca Mij clapped with several sets of hands, showing his professional respect.
Rozz exhaled. Spectra took a bow and then motioned Rozz to collect everyone’s empty milkshake glasses. When she returned to her seat, Rozz noticed Spectra Pollux’s suit was all blushing optimism.
Pollux apparently hadn’t spied what Rozz had seen when they were on stage. Or if she did, she didn’t note its significance. Not far away, Rozz had caught a strange stir of wind behind the stadium, in the ICV lot. Roosting ergowohms had exploded from the surrounding brush. Leaves had whirled upward in a sudden rush. A hum, even and persistent, underlay Spectra’s own presentation soundtrack. It was as if something unseen and mechanical had arrived and planted itself firmly on their doorstep.
It had made Rozz give an honest, for-real, human smile. She had a sneaking suspicion it had been no natural anomaly that sent the leaves twisting, the air humming, and the ergowohms heading for safer ground.
No, she was sure it was Bertram Ludlow’s sweet ride, cloaked and ready-for-business. It just had to be.
Things, she thought, were about to get hot.
“We have this saying on Tryfe that the eyes are the window to the soul,” Bertram said, peering around at the open panel in the back of O’wun’s head. It was encrusted with a startling number of tiny technologies. So many that it looked like a miniature Manhattan cityscape had been tucked inside the guy’s cranium and Bertram had an aerial view.
With a little pointed tool, Rollie was carefully triggering a yellow inset button located somewhere around Central Park South. O’wun’s eyes gave three horizontal rolls and stabilized. His view appeared on the pocket vis-u Bertram held before him. The footage was sharp and appeared to be uploading properly to the Uninet site they’d set-up earlier. “I guess O’wun’s soul gets the GCU equivalent of high-def picture quality and surround sound.”
Rollie closed the back of O’wun’s skull, leaving the flap of hair that had been kicked up in the process. It was like a shag area rug in dire need of carpet tape. “All right, O’wun?”
O’wun smoothed it down and Bertram thought he heard it click into place. “Clear,” O’wun said.
Rollie gave a crisp nod. “Stellar.” He pulled a laser from an inner coat pocket and handed it to O’wun. “Here. In case.”
“An XQ-40,” said O’wun holding it up admiringly. “Very nice.”
Rollie had pulled a second hand-laser from his coat and handed that to O’wun, too. “In case, in case.”
“Um, Rollie,” Bertram frowned, “I was thinking we’d go with more words than weaponry.”
But the Hyphiz Deltan had withdrawn a third and fourth hand-laser, as if GCU outerwear had clown car capabilities, and he held them out for Xylith. “Careful with these now. They’ve got—”
“No need to trouble yourself, my star.” And Xylith lifted a pantleg to withdraw a slim metallic lavender rectangle from her silvery boot. At the press of a button, the rectangle unfolded—click! click! click!—into an impressive example of stylish fragmentation and stun power. “A girl flying solo should always have a little something on hand, don’t you think?” she told him with a double-wink.
Mumbling and trying to look unimpressed, Rollie regifted one of the weapons to Bertram.
Bertram had seen this coming. And while the idea of wielding unfathomable alien firepower was enticing on some basic male evolutionary level—a deep-rooted childhood holdover from long summer nights playing Slikk Slaughter: RoboTrooper on the PC—the cognitive psychologist in him still wished he had more time to think through their moves. “Look, Rollie, I don’t know, I—”
“It’s very easy.” The Hyphizite held up a hand. “Press this, it’s on. Grip that, it fires.”
“And what seals up the holes in me when the bidders’ bodyguards think I’m on an assassination mission and try to take me out?” Bertram asked.
“Different gadget,”
explained Rollie, pulling one from his coat and handing it to him.
“Oh.” It was the hole-mending-thingie he’d used to seal the cut Bertram had given him back when he was dead. It also sort of wiped away 75% of Bertram’s objections. Rollie reached to retrieve it, but Bertram stuffed it quickly into his own pocket. “I’m just concerned this path we’re on is going to end with everyone demolecularized and no one growing back.”
“Ah,” said Rollie, bright with interest. “Well, to that I’ll share with you the advice my own Paternal Archetype imparted the day he passed that hand-laser on to me.”
Bertram waited.
“Plant. Your. Feet,” Rollie told him. “Plant your feet.” Clapping Bertram on a shoulder, Tsmorlood returned the second pistol to his jacket, opened the hatch, turned, and stalked down the ramp to Skorbig.
“My dad told me ‘always remember to floss’,” Bertram said to Xylith as they walked down the ramp. “We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”
The Skorbig concession stand held the residue of years, and its menu-board was long-blank. Dried leaves from local vegetation stuck to the counter, nestled in empty shelves, and crunched underfoot. From here, they had a clear view into the stadium. A figure paced the stage before a broad video screen, and his voice bounced through the stands.
“DiversiDine Entertainment Systems and Aeroponics is the GCU’s total amusement experience, from the programming we produce and the vis-us we develop, to the beloved snacks that become tasty habits with every can’t-miss moment …” The presenter was Eudicot T’murp, Bertram realized. CEO and president of DiversiDine, in the flesh.