Agent to the Stars (17 page)

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Authors: John Scalzi

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“Nuts,” Gwedif said. “Can you give us something else?”
I could. “Jesus” is the Latinized version of “Joshua”—a name that's still in use, of course, and without the same religious overtones. It was also the name of my father, and, incidentally, of the baby that Sarah was carrying when she died—we found out it was a boy the month before. Elise and I aren't planning to have children, Tom. So this Yherajk, which was only the smallest fraction of me, and only of my thoughts at that, was nevertheless the only “child” I was likely to have. The name “Joshua” had long been with me, and I was happy to finally
give it a new home. Joshua was happy with it, too. Of course he would be—he would know what it means to me.
After I had named Joshua, Uake excused himself to attend to ship's duties. As we shook “hands,” I managed a glance at my watch. It was 11:30 in the morning.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “I have to go.”
“You haven't had a tour of the ship,” Gwedif said.
“Don't bother,” Joshua said. “These people just do
not
know how to decorate.”
“I'd love to, but I'm late,” I said. “I already missed a day yesterday. By now my assistant Marcella has called my house looking for me. If I don't show up at the office today, she's going to file a missing persons report.”
“Well, there's a problem,” Gwedif said. “It's daytime now. We can't really risk being seen doing a drop.”
“So don't do a drop,” Joshua said. “Make it a one-way trip.”
“We could do that,” Gwedif said. “But there's a problem with that, too.”
“What's that?” I asked.
“It depends,” Joshua said. “How well can you control your sphincter muscles?”
Gwedif explained it as we headed to the hangar. They could build an unmanned cube the size of the pickup, launch it, and have it land near where we had departed. But, as with the “meteor” and the black cube, it would have to arrive full-speed to avoid being picked up on radar for any length of time. Another thing: the cube would have to be transparent.
“Why?” I asked.
“Black cubes in the daytime sky are suspicious,” Gwedif said. “Red pickups in the daytime sky are merely unbelievable. Even if
someone saw it, no one would know what to think of it. And that's not a bad thing.”
“Good thing you haven't had anything to eat in a while,” Joshua said.
A few minutes later, as I prepared to get behind the wheel of my pickup, I said my good-byes to Gwedif and Joshua. I asked Gwedif when or if I would see him again.
“Probably not for a while,” Gwedif said. “When we send someone again, it will be Joshua. But even he will stay here for a few months, to benefit us with your knowledge—now his—as to how to approach humanity. We probably won't see each other until the day our race makes its debut. But I look forward to that day, Carl. I will be happy when it arrives. We'll finally take that stroll through the tivis gallery.”
“I can't wait,” I said, and then turned to Joshua. “I look forward to seeing you again, then.”
“Thanks, Pop,” Joshua said. “It'll be soon. Get a better car by then.”
I got into the pickup; immediately a cube began to grow around the truck. It indeed took longer to make a cube than to break it down, but not by much; within five minutes I was entirely enclosed. Then the cube became totally transparent, and it was as if it wasn't there at all. I looked at Gwedif and Joshua and waved. They waved back.
Suddenly I was flung into space, the
Ionar
receding behind me like a fastball thrown by a titan. The large blue plate that was the planet Earth began to grow at a distressing rate.
It didn't get bad until the last minute, as the pickup showed no signs of slowing down and the surface of the planet became ever more sharply defined. The last five seconds I couldn't even watch—I covered my eyes and sobbed out the Lord's Prayer.
And then I was just off the unmarked road I and Gwedif were picked up from. I didn't feel the landing, but when I opened my eyes, dust was swirling around and there was cracked earth underneath my pickup that matched the cracked earth on the other side of the road.
I started the pickup and went home. Then I went to work. Marcella said that if I hadn't arrived in those last ten minutes, she had been planning to call the FBI.
Carl
looked at his watch. “Damn,” he said. “I've missed my 4:00.”
“The
Call of the Damned
premiere was four months ago, Carl,” I said. “What have they been doing between now and then?”
“Grilling Joshua, I'd imagine,” Carl said. “Remember, he's got my memories—it's better than having me there, really, since I don't know that I'd be up for a daily brain-sucking. It's with Joshua that the Yherajk came up with the idea of using us to be their agents.”
“I don't get that,” I said. “If they have all your knowledge, I don't see why they would need you or me to do anything for them.”
“Well, they
are
still gelatinous cubes,” Carl said, “which does limit their ability to blend in. But I think there's something else
to it. I think they have a plan already, but they wanted to see what I, and now you, would come up with. For them, it's not simply a matter of the most efficient way of doing something, otherwise Joshua would be addressing the UN right now. But there's that notion the Yherajk have of surrendering to the crucial moment, burned right down into their reproductive strategies. I think that once again, they're surrendering the moment to us—they're saying, here, we trust you to take this, the most important moment in the history of both our races, and make it work.”
“That's a lot of trust,” I said.
“Yes, well, frankly it's also annoying,” Carl said. “I'm not saying that we should refuse the responsibility, not at all. But we're carrying the entire load—if it gets messed up, the failure is entirely on our shoulders. All the pressure is on us. On you, actually, Tom, since I foisted it on you. Have you, since we started this,
really
thought on what we're doing here?”
“I've tried to avoid doing that,” I said. “It just makes me sort of dizzy. I try to concentrate on the smaller things, like hoping that Joshua will turn up sometime today.”
“That's probably the right attitude to have,” Carl said. “Now,
I
think about it quite a bit. It's monumental and exhilarating—and I wish it were already done with.”
“It's going to work out fine, Carl. Don't worry about it,” I said. I was taken aback by Carl's comment—it didn't sound like the Carl Lupo we all knew and feared.
Carl must have realized it, because he suddenly gave a wolflike grin, true to his name. “I can tell you these things, Tom, because we're both in on the biggest secret anyone's ever had—no one else would believe me. Or you. Who else are we going to tell these things to?”
“That's funny,” I said. “Joshua once said the very same thing.”
“Like father, like son,” Carl said, and stood up. “Now, come on, Tom. We have to head back. I can't keep Rupert waiting much longer. He gets testy when he's stood up.”
 
“
Three
and a half hours for lunch?” Miranda said, as she followed me into the office. “Even by Hollywood standards, that's a little extravagant. Your boss would kill you, if it weren't for the fact you had lunch with him.”
“Sorry, Mom,” I said. “I'll do all of my homework before I go out tonight.”
“Don't get fresh,” Miranda said, “or you'll get no dessert. Would you like to hear your messages, or do you want to give me more lip?”
“Oh, I'd like messages, pretty please,” I said, sitting.
“That's better,” Miranda said. “You have six, count them, six messages from Jim Van Doren. In one two hour-period before your lunch. I think that qualifies as stalking by California law.”
“I should be so lucky,” I said. “What does he want?”
“Didn't say. Didn't sound particularly happy, however. I suspect if he hasn't been raked over the coals by his editors at
The Biz,
he may be in the process of being torched right now. Carl called me this morning to get some information on the mentor program of yours. He mentioned that he was planning to rip Van Doren and
The Biz
new assholes in the
Times
. Not promising for either of them, if you ask me.”
“God,” I said. “That's just going to make them both more annoying. Anyone else?”
“Michelle called. She's apparently having some sort of difficulty
with the
Earth Resurrected
folks. She said something about a latex mask. It didn't make much sense to me. She also said that Ellen Merlow is definitely out of
Hard Memories
, and that she now felt she was up to the role, because she read ‘Iceman in Jerusalem.'” Miranda looked up at me, confused. “She can't possibly mean
Eichmann in Jerusalem.
”
“Give her a break, Miranda,” I said. “She got two-thirds of the title.”
Miranda snorted. “Yeah, well, and I bet she's averaging that for the rest of the words, too. Anyway, she'll be calling back later. Last message, from your mysterious friend Joshua. He says he's fine now, and not to call, he's busy at the moment but he'll be there when you get there, whatever that means. Dealing with shady characters again, Tom?”
“You have no idea,” I said. Why wasn't I supposed to call? Despite Joshua's reassurance, I was worried. I fought the urge to grab the phone right off. I decided to think about another entirely futile task instead. “Miranda, could you get Roland Lanois on the horn for me?”
“Absolutely. Who is he?”
“Miranda,” I said, pretending shock. “You're so low-class. He's the director and producer of the Academy Award–nominated motion picture
The Green Fields,
and also of the upcoming
Hard Memories.
His production company is on the Paramount lot, I believe.”
“What?” Miranda said. “Tom, you can't be serious. You're not really going to try to get Michelle that part.”
“Why not?” I said. “It's not totally outside the realm of possibility that she could get the role, you know.”
Miranda rolled her eyes and looked up, with upturned palms. “Take me now, Jesus. I don't want to live here no more.”
“Oh, stop it, and get Roland for me.”
“Tom, the gods of common decency implore me to stop you from making this call.”
“There's a ten percent raise in it for you if you get Roland on the phone for me, right now.”
Miranda blinked. “Really?”
“Got it approved by Carl at lunch. So you have a choice. Common decency or a raise. Your call.”
“Well, I've done my part for humanity for today,” Miranda said. “Time to cash in.”
“That's what I love about you, Miranda,” I said. “Your firm bedrock of moral values.”
Miranda did a little step as she exited the office. I smiled. Then I grabbed the phone and made a quick call to Joshua's cell phone.
No answer.
 
Roland
was in a meeting but his assistant said that he'd be happy to chat if I wouldn't mind dropping by the offices in an hour. “Roland hates talking business over the phone,” the assistant said. “He says he likes to have people within stabbing distance.” It was already past 4:30; if I was going to make it to the Paramount lot in an hour, I'd have to leave at that moment. I left instructions with Miranda to call me immediately if Joshua called, and then headed out.
About halfway there, on Melrose, I realized that I was actually being tailed. A decrepit white Escort three cars behind me remained three cars behind me constantly; whenever one of the cars between us changed lanes, the Escort would swerve dangerously into another lane, let another car pass, and then swerve dangerously back into the lane, properly spaced. The
constant honking that these maneuvers caused were what brought the car to my attention in the first place. In a way it was a relief—if it had been the government, or Mafia hit men, they wouldn't have been so inept.
I was coming up at a light; I purposely slowed down to miss the yellow—the first time that I could recall ever doing
that
—and when the light turned red I took the car out of gear, set the parking brake, popped the trunk, switched on my hazard lights and got out of the car. I reached into the trunk just as the driver behind me, in a rusted-out Monte Carlo, started yelling at me in Spanish. He stopped when he realized I pulled out an aluminum softball bat, left over from last season.
The guy in the white Escort didn't even see me coming; as I walked down the road, he was furtively talking into a cellular phone. The guy's white, pudgy features became recognizable as I got closer. It was Van Doren, of course.
I stopped at the driver-side window, flipped the bat around so I was holding the thick end, and rapped hard on the window with the handle end. Van Doren jumped at the noise and looked around, confused. It took him about five seconds to realize exactly who it was banging at his door. He spent another three seconds trying to figure out how to make a break for it before he realized he was boxed in. Finally, he smiled sheepishly and rolled down the window.
“Tom,” he said, “isn't this a small world.”
“Get out of your car, Jim,” I said.
Van Doren's eyes made a beeline for the bat. “Why?”
“As long as you're following me, you're a danger to other motorists,” I said. “I can't have anyone's death but yours on my conscience.”
“I think I'll stay in my car,” Van Doren said.
“Jim,” I said. “If you don't get out of the car in exactly three seconds, I'm going to take this bat to your windshield.”
“You wouldn't dare,” Van Doren said. “You've got a whole street full of witnesses. With cameras on their phones.”
“This is LA, Jim,” I said. “No one's going to whip out their phones unless I'm wearing a badge. One. Two.”
Van Doren hastily opened his door and undid his seat belt.
“All right,” I said, once he had gotten out of his car. “Let's go. We'll take my car.”
“What about my car?” Van Doren said. “I can't just leave it here.”
“Sure you can,” I said. “The police will come by any minute now to pick it up.”
“Please,” Van Doren said. “I
can't
. It's a company car.”
“Should've thought of that earlier. Come on, Jim. Less talk. More walk. The light's changed already.” I nudged him with my bat. He went. We got in my car and made it through the tail end of the next yellow, thus restoring my traffic karmic balance.
Van Doren watched as his Escort faded in the distance. “I want you know, this qualifies as kidnapping,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “There I was, at a light, minding my own business, when you open my passenger side door and plop yourself into my car. You started asking me harassing questions. A real pain in the ass. But, of course, you've done this before. You left six messages at my office just today, in fact. I'm driving you around just to humor you. After all, you
are
acting erratic. If anyone's in danger here, Jim, it's me.”
“You're forgetting the witnesses again,” Van Doren said.
“Oh, come
on
,” I said, getting into a left turn lane. “Anyone who
was
there has now gotten out from behind your car
and driven off into the sunset. The only thing anyone's going to see is a deserted car in the middle of a major traffic artery. If I were you, Jim, I'd start making up a cover story right about now. Normally, I'd suggest saying you were carjacked, but no one's going to believe that. You were driving an
Escort
.”
Van Doren stared at me for a few seconds, then buckled himself in, almost as an afterthought. “I think I was right,” he said. “You
are
completely off your rocker.”
I sighed and turned north. “No, Jim, but I
am
tired of you. Your story about me was a tissue of lies from start to finish. It caused two of my most important clients to bolt. There's not a single thing in it that's true, and you caused my career a lot of damage. I could probably sue you and
The Biz
for libel and get away with it.”
“You'd have a hard time proving malice,” Jim said.
“I don't think so,” I said. “After all, you did come looking to profile me, and then, after I refused, this thing came out. Given the amount of utter bullshit that floats to the surface of your magazine each week, I think a good lawyer could probably convince a jury you were gunning for me. Bet our lawyers are better than your lawyers.”
“Why are you threatening me?”
“Simple. I want you to leave me alone. I haven't ever done anything to you, or anything other than try to be the best agent for my clients. I don't use crack cocaine. I don't have sex with little boys. I don't cut up animals for fun. There's no story, Jim. Just leave me alone.”

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