The Fourth Wall

by Williams, Walter Jon

  When I get to my dressing room I unholster my handheld, access the login page for Escape to Earth, and check the privacy policy. It’s short and simple:

  Information is for internal use only and will not be sold, given, or otherwise conveyed to any person or entity outside the Great Big Idea network.

  Well, that’s pretty definite…but even assuming they aren’t lying through their teeth, it still leaves them a certain amount of wiggle room. It is not clear what the “Great Big Idea network” is, and there is no guarantee that the network doesn’t include all of Sri’s vast interests throughout the world.

  So that, I think, answers the question of why Sri became a movie producer—he intends to exploit the information that he is getting from his hundreds of millions of subscribers. This will provide the windfall that justifies the whole project.

  So Sri hasn’t turned entirely from Asian tiger to Hollywood pussycat, from entrepreneur to selfless benefactor. Maybe his devotion to good works was a pose, or maybe he just got bored or frustrated with trying to improve the world, and invented a new and ruthless scheme for making money.

  Not that I have a real objection. If Sri wants to massage that data, he is welcome to whatever money he can make from it. This isn’t anything that other companies haven’t done, and aren’t doing.

  Besides, he is sharing the wealth with me, and making me famous.

  I can’t see anything wrong with that at all.

  EXT. PARMENTER CANYON—DAY

  I’m tired. I’m covered in fake dust and real dust, and fake sweat and real sweat, and there’s sticky fake blood all over my face, and every time I think we’ve finally got the take something happens. The hot August sun has turned the landscape into the Anvil of God. Wind blows over one of the reflectors beaming light at me, the sound system goes out, the Steadicam turns spastic and decides to point at the sun, or Roger blows a line. Sometimes he blows a line just to amuse himself—or to tick me off.

  Whatever you might think an African name might be, chances are it isn’t Roger Cedric Johnston III—that’s the name of the kid I’m playing against in the final two installments of Escape to Earth. Roger’s an upper-middle-class kid from Cape Town, smart and smug as they come. The character he’s playing is named Khabane, and the reason he has a name like Khabane is that the audience will know he’s African without having to think about it.

  Roger is the one kid I haven’t managed to get along with, or even like. He thinks I’m a plaything to be tortured for his amusement; and I think he’s a stuck-up, annoying, supercilious brat who needs a punch in the nose.

  Roger thinks he’s a star. He was probably born knowing he was a star. It’s not something he ever thought he needed to work for, or study for, or practice for. He’s just a star, no question, and all others are born to worship him.

  It would amuse me to see Roger and Nataliya in the same room, each trying to lord it over the other until someone’s spleen exploded in frustration.

  We are far up in Parmenter Canyon, a location said to resemble Swaziland, where the action takes place. The climactic scene of the film is supposed to take place near Execution Rock, which is a knob from which the ancient Swazis, or whatever they were called, tossed their criminals. Naturally, because of the cinematic rule that big climaxes have to take place near famous monuments, Roheen’s people put one of their Tellurian Gates there, and it’s the last one Roheen knows about and the last chance for E.T. to go home.

  This is where he makes one last brave effort, and where he’s wounded by the Steene and defeated. This is the scene where he realizes that he’s trapped on our Earth, and he surrenders the hope of returning to his nation. He’ll be an exile forever, hunted by the Steene, supported only by his little cohort of underage sidekicks.

  So now I’m dragging my ass around this rough terrain with the fake blood spattered all over me, and during the action I have to lose hope, and then despair, and then ultimately resolve to carry on regardless. My attempts to embody hopelessness and despair are only enhanced by the coincidence that, in order to get to the location, we had to travel past the place where Timmi died.

  I’ve avoided Parmenter Canyon since the accident. At least this time I wasn’t driving: I could close my eyes as Simon drove past the corner, and try to ignore the terror and desperation that were clamoring in my head.

  I’ve made it, I thought at Timmi’s ghost. I’m back on top and I’m going to do good work and I’ll spend the rest of my life making you proud.

  It occurs to me that, given my interactions with Doug Fairbanks and James Dean earlier, I seem to be spending a lot of time pleading with dead people.

  I heard nothing in response, nothing but the song of the tires over the asphalt.

  It was the desperation, maybe, that finally got through to Roger. I was staring at him during the take while I thought about taking a knife and flaying his face off, and maybe he sensed what I was thinking, and he decided not to blow his take—and elsewhere on the set nothing fell over, and nobody dropped anything, and the camera and the sound system worked, and Joey finally said, “Cut.”

  I fucking hate this location. I remember how gorgeous the green screen work was on the early installments of the movie, and during a break I complain to Joey that I don’t know why a location is necessary now.

  “Because in this scene the background is organic,” Joey explains to me. Organic seems to be his favorite word these days.

  “In the other bits of the movie the scenery was incidental,” he says. “Roheen just happens to be in D.C. or Peru or wherever. It’s like wallpaper. But in this scene you’re not just walking past the scenery, you’re fighting on it, you’re crawling on it, you’re bleeding onto it. I don’t want to trust that CGI is going to look good a hundred percent of the time in a scene this crucial.”

  And so he’s condemned us to drive past the corner where his wife died for four or five days this week. I wonder if he thought of that when he insisted on a location shoot.

  While they set up the next scene I walk off to my chair and settle into it with a bottle of water. I only rinse the dust out of my mouth and spit, because I don’t dare drink it. If I have liquids I might have to pee, and that means taking off the costume; and besides my hands are heavily made up, so I can’t even take off my own costume or hold my own penis. I’d have to get someone to do that for me. I can just imagine how popular I’d be if I called for volunteers.

  Roger Cedric Johnston III, I believe, has someone who will hold his penis for him, or anything else that might need holding. She’s a mournful-looking young woman who’s supposed to be his auntie, and who has been sent by his family to look after him while he’s in California. I can’t imagine anyone treating a blood relative as badly as he does, though, ordering her around in Xhosa and yelling at her when she’s not quick enough to anticipate his wishes. I think she’s probably some hired woman who was passed off as a relative to make it easier to get her into the country.

  Or maybe his relatives actually treat him as if he were a little god. I suppose that’s possible.

  I think about conducting some really vicious practical joke just to let Roger know how everyone feels about him. A bag of dog doo dropped on his head. A slug of laxative slipped into his drink just before the next premiere. Itching powder dumped down his collar just before an interview. Maybe all three.

  “Waiting on gaffers!” Clarke calls.

  I see Carter-Ann in conference with her assistant and with Professor Mthunzi, her advisor on South African matters, so I heave myself up and walk over to them.

  “Dr. Dixon?” I say. She turns to me. “You’re a psychiatrist, right?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Can you fix Roger?” I ask. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to set him on fire or something.”

  This gets her attention. She turns to me, eyes fixed on mine, hands clasped in front of her.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “He keeps blowing takes.”

&
nbsp; She hesitates. “I realize he’s not the most experienced actor…”

  “It’s not a matter of experience,” I say. “He knows his lines. He blows takes deliberately because he thinks it’s amusing to piss people off. And we can’t waste time, because he’s a juvenile and under the law he’s only allowed to work a certain number of hours per day.”

  Carter-Ann looks at Mthunzi, then at me. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  As I start to return to my chair, I see Jean-Marc, Clarke, and Sawicki the line producer in a huddle. Sawicki’s on the phone. I know this can’t mean anything good, so I join them.

  “Fuck no,” Sawicki is saying. He’s dapper as always in flannel trousers and a sleeveless tartan sweater and a tie. His lipless mouth droops beneath his John Waters mustache. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask. Clarke hisses at me for silence. Jean-Marc watches intently, with a burrito wrapped in aluminum foil in one hand. He absently peels the foil away and takes a bite.

  “Fuck,” Sawicki says again. “Yeah, okay. Okay. Check. Meeting with Dagmar at nine o’clock. Call me if anything changes.”

  He lowers his phone slowly and looks at us, a stunned look in his pouchy eyes.

  “Nataliya’s been killed,” he says.

  “Hit and run?” I ask. I don’t intend to say anything, the words just pop out.

  Sawicki nods. “Last night. In the driveway of her beach house on the PCH.”

  “That’s four,” Jean-Marc says. “Four deaths.” His shoulders are slumped, and he looks like death himself. He’s chewing his burrito mechanically. I doubt he’s even tasting it.

  “The car just hit a glancing blow,” says Sawicki. “She got up and started to run, so the driver had to chase her down and finish her off, with—with a club or a crowbar or something…” He gives a hopeless shrug. “Jesus. This is crazy.”

  “Did anyone get a look at the car?” Clarke asks.

  “Yeah. Someone saw it pulling out.”

  “A black SUV,” I say.

  “No.” Sawicki looks up at me. “A white SUV.”

  I’m surprised, but surprise doesn’t stop my mind from racing, and I put my finger on what I suspect is the most important question.

  “How did he get her alone?” I ask. “She’s always surrounded by her claque. What was she doing on the Pacific Coast Highway all by herself?”

  They don’t have any answers. I look up, past Sawicki, and I see Joey standing there less than five feet away. He’s been listening, but he’s not engaged with what he’s hearing: I see only his profile as he stares off into the arid landscape, his eyes hidden behind wraparound shades.

  Whoever got Nataliya alone, I thought, would have to be someone who could promise her something. A movie, a recording contract, a free trip to Cannes, something she’d want. “I don’t want to be distracted by your posse,” he might say. “I just want to look at you, sweetheart.”

  Which meant that the killer was a powerful person in the industry. Someone who could say, “You know, I just looked at the monologue of yours, and I thought it was brilliant. Let’s talk about developing a project, just for you.”

  Which would mean a chance to redefine herself—maybe that would mean she’d be taken seriously as a dramatic actress, or a writer, or whatever her current fantasy might be.

  You didn’t offer Nataliya worship—she took the worship for granted. If you wanted her attention, you offered her opportunities. That was how you got Nataliya Hogan alone, standing in the driveway of a house to welcome the person who drove right off the highway to run her down.

  And as I’m thinking this Joey turns to me, and looks at me from behind the wraparound shades.

  “Gaffers are done,” he says. “Let’s get the shot before we lose the light.” He gives me a smile. “Let’s go, champ.”

  A chill runs up my spine as I see myself reflected in his shades, like a target in a gun sight. I go to my chair, take another swig of water, rinse my mouth, and spit. And as I walk back over the dusty ground to stretch out before the cameras covered in fake blood, I think about how I’m going to have to be driven back down Parmenter Canyon tonight to get to my hotel, and how I’m going to see Timmi’s ghost standing there, her finger pointed at me as if to say, You’re next.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Our Reality Network

  Live Feed

  Hanseatic says:

  I assume that the Trishula problem is distinct from The Call of Tempest Royal, or whatever we’re going to call the online game.

  LadyDayFan says:

  It is never wise to assume these things in Our Reality. But if Trishula is connected to the game, then unmasking him will help us in the ARG. If he is unconnected, then we’ll be doing a public service.

  Hippolyte says:

  As we do, from time to time.

  Ballistic Bunny says:

  We are one with Clark Kent, we are.

  HexenHase says:

  Trishula is hiding behind a Tor-type distributed network. These were originally created in order to help citizens avoid the restrictions of totalitarian regimes, but of course they provide anonymity to criminals, terrorists, and crazies as well.

  Ballistic Bunny says:

  Information wants to be free!

  Corporal Carrot says:

  And code wants to be wrong.

  HexenHase says:

  Trishula posts in places other than Sean Makin’s blog, mostly Babaji sites and other sites devoted to spiritual topics. We could try seeding one of these with a comment that includes a .pdf or a link to a video or a sound file, and hope he clicks on it. I could manipulate the appropriate plugin to maybe give up an IP address.

  Ballistic Bunny says:

  Worth trying!

  HexenHase says:

  If I can get a cookie on his browser, I'm going to totally pwn the guy.

  Corporal Carrot says:

  I decided to try another approach. A number of Trishula’s posts are long and didactic, so I did a search on key words and phrases drawn from Mr. T’s posts. Bingo! A number of them are word for word the same as posts by someone named Debashish, which means that Trishula and Debashish are one and the same—or that Trishula loves plagiarizing Debashish and not plagiarizing anyone else.

  Debashish is the web monkey of Babaji’s ashram in Covina, California, which is apparently a rather distant part of Greater L.A.

  Hippolyte says:

  I think I’ll try to contact him. Not wanting my car to explode at any point, I think I’ll use an anonymous remailer for email, and if that doesn’t work a prepaid burner phone for the telephone.

  Ballistic Bunny says:

  Let’s ALL try to contact him!

  INT. JOLI BLON CLUB—EVENING

  I have to say that Dagmar totally steps up. Because the NoHo is too small, she moves anyone crucial to the production to the Lang Towers Hotel, in Burbank, and puts us under guard. We have floors reserved only for The Life of Chester A. Arthur, with guards standing at polite attention at the elevators. My room is a tasteful but characterless composition in aquamarine and hunter green. We travel to the studio or to the set in cars or in buses with guards on board. Families move into the hotel along with the crew, so I can never use the hotel pool because it’s always full of screaming children. But they’ll never drown—they’re the safest children ever to play in a swimming pool, because highly trained, heavily armed guards are present at every minute.

  Room, food, transportation, all paid for by Dagmar. Everything except alcohol. She really has a bug up her ass about the drink.

  From the top floor of the Lang Towers, where I have my new suite, I can walk to the end of the hall and see the Warner Brothers lot and Disney Studios. From my balcony I can look down at the green park of the great cemetery of Forest Lawn, where Nataliya Hogan is going to be buried on Saturday. I don’t care much for the view.

  This must be what it was like living in a small village in the Middle
Ages. We all have our work in common. We all know each other. We’re all up in one another’s business. And we’re all paranoid as hell, because we know the Vikings, or their modern equivalent, could be coming over the hill any second with blood in their eyes and the sun glinting on their steel.

  The suspicion that I may have been locked up in the hotel with a killer haunts my mind.

  I’m surrounded by guards, but I don’t feel safe at all. I figure this must be what it’s like to be dictator of some miserable Third World country.

  I try watching television to get some relief, but when the news isn’t about Nataliya, it’s about the Thai-Burmese War. I never thought a foreign war would be less depressing than my life.

  I get repeated calls from reporters asking for quotes about Nataliya. I tell them that I didn’t know her well but that she was terrific to work with—prompt, professional, and talented. I talk about how she’s going to be missed. I say that it’s a tragedy she’s gone.

  I don’t mention that I’m afraid I might be next. I don’t even mention it to the police, who interview me. I tell them what I can. I also tell them about the black Ford that tried to run me down, and about Trishula who’s threatening me on the Internet. I probably come off as a paranoid lunatic, but they’re very professional and keep their opinions to themselves.

  I’m on location for two more hideous days, driving up and down Parmenter Canyon, working under Joey’s flat gaze, and then that’s over. I’ve got one more scene in the studio, and then I’ll probably need to go into the sound studio and loop some dialogue, and then my part will be over.

  The fear will continue.

  At least Roger turns well-behaved. He’s no longer blowing takes deliberately, or acting badly on the set. I don’t know if Carter-Ann succeeded in getting through to him, or if the sudden appearance of a host of armed men intimidated him. Maybe he’s figured he isn’t the top badass on the set after all.