by John Scalzi
“Which do you like better, movies with evil aliens or movies with good aliens?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t really ever given it much thought.”
“Please do so now,” Carl said. “Indulge me, if you don’t mind.”
Carl could have said Please disembowel yourself and sauté your intestines with mushrooms. Indulge me, if you don’t mind and anyone in the agency would have done it. It’s disgusting what sycophancy can do.
“I guess if I had to make the choice, I’d go with the evil aliens,” I said. “They just make for better films. Put in a bad alien and you get the Alien films, Independence Day, Predator, Stargate, Starship Troopers. Good aliens get you, what? *Batteries Not Included? No contest.”
“Well,” Carl said, “There is E.T. And Close Encounters.”
“I’ll give you E.T.,” I said. “But I don’t buy Close Encounters. Those aliens were cute, sure, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t evil. Once they got out of the solar system, Richard Dreyfuss was probably penned up like a veal. Anyway, no one really knows what’s going on in that movie. Spielberg must have been downing peyote frosties when he thought that one up.”
“The Star Trek movies have good aliens. So do the Star Wars movies.”
“The Star Trek movies have bad aliens too, like the Klingons and those guys with the wires in their heads.”
“The Borg,” Carl said.
“Right,” I said. “And in Star Wars, no one was from Earth, so technically everybody was an alien.”
“Interesting,” Carl said. He was steepling his fingers together. Apparently the revelation that everyone in Star Wars had a passport from some other planet had transfixed him like a particularly troublesome Zen koan.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Carl,” I said, “Why are we talking about this? Are we putting together a package for a science fiction movie? Other than Earth Resurrected, I mean.”
“Not exactly,” Carl said, unsteepling his fingers, and placing them, flat out, on the desk. “I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about this and I wanted to get another opinion on it. Your opinion on the matter is like his, by the way. He’s pretty much of the opinion that people are more comfortable with aliens as a hostile ‘other’ rather than a group that would have friendly intentions.”
“Well, I don’t think most people really think of aliens one way or the other,” I said. “I mean, we’re talking about movies, here. As much as I like the movies, it’s not the same thing.”
“Really?” The fingersteeple was suddenly back. “So if real aliens dropped from the sky, people might accept that they’d be friendly?”
I was back to staring again. I remembered having a conversation like this, once before in my life. The difference was that that conversation was back in my deeply stoned college freshman days, in a room strung with Christmas lights and tin foil, lying on a beanbag. The conversation I was having now was with one of the few men on the planet who could have the president of the United States return his call. Within ten minutes (they roomed together at Yale). Having this conversation with Carl was profoundly incongruous, right up there with listening to your grandfather talk about the merits of the hottest new sports kayak.
“Maybe,” I ventured. When in doubt, equivocate.
“Hmmmm.” Carl said. “So, Tom. Tell me about your clients.”
I have a little man in the back of my brain. He likes to panic in situations like these. He was looking around nervously. I kicked him back into his hole and started down the list.
First and foremost, obviously, was Michelle: beautiful, in demand, and not nearly smart enough to realize the dumbest thing she could do at this point in her life is not take the money and run. I blamed myself.
Next up was Elliot Young, hunky young star of ABC’s Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim was second in its Wednesday 9 p.m. time slot and sixty-third overall for the year. But thanks to Elliot’s tight, volleyball-player ass and ABC’s willingness to have him drop his shorts to solve crime at least once per episode, it was cleaning up in the 18–34 female viewers category. ABC was selling a lot of ad time to yeast infection treatments and feminine products with “wings.” Everyone was happy. Elliot’s looking to expand into film, but then, of course, who isn’t.
Rashaad Creek, urban comic, originally from the mean streets of Marin County, where they’ll busta cap in your ass for serving red wine with fish. Rashaad wasn’t nearly as neurotic as most comedians, which means on his own he’s generally not as funny. Nevertheless, thanks to some nice packaging work, we’d sold his pilot Workin’ Out! to Comedy Central. Rashaad’s budding career was watched over like a hawk by his overbearing manager, who also happened to be his mother. We pause for a shudder here.
The unfortunately named Tea Reader (pronounced tee-a), singer-turned-actress who I inherited from my old podmate after his forebrain sucked inward. Tea, from what I can figure, contributed a good half of his stress—notoriously difficult and given to tantrums far out of proportion to her track record (three singles from one album, peaking at #9, #13 and #24, respectively, a second female lead in a Vince Vaughn flick, and a series of ads for Mentos). She was just this side (she insisted) of thirty, which made her a perfect candidate to host her own talk show or infomercial. Tea called about once a week and threatened to get other representation. I wish.
Tony Baltz, a character actor who was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar a decade ago, and had since refused to consider anything that’s not a lead role. Which was a shame, since the lead role market for fifty-something chunky, bald guys was pretty much already sewn up by James Gandolfini. We managed to get him the occasional Lifetime movie.
The rest of my clients were a collection of has-beens, never-weres, near-misses, and not-there-yets, the sorts of folks that fill out the bottom half of every junior agent’s dance card. Someone has to play the second spear-carrier on the left, and someone has to represent them. Be that as it may, going over the list with Carl, I realized that if it wasn’t for the presence of Michelle, my client roster was of the sort that makes for a lifetime of junior agenthood. I decided not to bring it up.
“So, to recap,” Carl said, after I had finished, “One superstar, two average-to-mediocres, two marginals, and a bunch of filler.”
I thought about trying to sweeten up that assessment, but then realized there wasn’t a point. I shrugged. “I suppose so, Carl. It’s no worse than any other junior agent’s client list here.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t criticizing,” Carl said. “You’re a good agent, Tom. You look out for your people and you get them work—and, as today proves, you can get them what they’re worth and then some. You’re a sharp kid. You’re going to do well in this business.”
“Thanks, Carl,” I said.
“Sure,” he said. He pushed back his chair a bit and plopped his legs on the table. “Tom, how many of your clients do you think you can afford to lose?”
“What?”
“How many can you lose?” Carl waved his hand. “You know, farm out to other agents, drop entirely, whatever.”
The little man in my head had escaped from his hole and was running around frantically, as if on fire. “None!” I said. “I mean, with all due respect, Carl, I can’t lose any of them. It’s not fair to them, for one thing, but for another thing, I need them. Michelle’s doing well now, but believe me, that’s not going to last forever. You can’t ask me to cut myself off at the knees.”
I pushed back slightly from the table. “Jesus, Carl,” I said. “What’s going on here? First the science fiction, now with my clients—none of this is making much sense to me at the moment. I’m getting a little nervous, here. If you’ve got some bad news for me, stop twisting me and just get to it.”
Carl stared at me for the fifteen longest seconds in my life. Then he put his feet down, and moved his chair closer to me.
“You’re right, Tom,” he said. “I’m not handling this very well. I apologize. Let me try this again.” He c
losed his eyes, took a breath, and looked straight at me. I thought my spine was going to liquefy.
“Tom,” he said. “I have a client. It’s a very important client, Tom, probably the most important client we as an agency will ever have. At least I can’t imagine any other client being more important than this one. This client feels that he has a very serious image problem, and I’d have to say that I agree with him there. He has a special project that he wants to put together, something that needs the most delicate handling imaginable.
“I need someone to help me get this project off the ground, someone that I can trust. Someone who can handle the job for me without my constant supervision, and who can keep his ego in check for the sake of the project.
“I’m hoping you’ll be that someone for me, Tom. If you say no, it won’t affect your role at the agency in the slightest—you can walk out of this office and this meeting that we’ve had simply won’t have happened. But if you do say yes, it means you’re committed, whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. Will you help me?”
The little man in my head was now pounding on the backsides of my eyeballs. Say NO, the little man was saying. Say no and then let’s go to TGI Fridays and get really, really drunk.
“Sure,” I said. The little man in my head started weeping openly.
Carl reached over, covered my hand like it was his computer mouse, and shook it vigorously. “I knew I could count on you,” he said. “Thanks. I think you’re going to enjoy this.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I’m in for the long haul. So who is the client? Is it Tony?” Antonio Marantz had been caught fondling a sixteen-year-old extra on the set of the latest Morocco Joe film. It was a bad situation made worse by the fact that the sixteen-year-old that People’s “Most Eligible Bachelor” was fooling around with happened to be a boy, and the son of the director. After the director’s fingers were pried from Tony’s throat, everything was hushed up. The director got a million dollar raise. The boy got a Director’s Guild “internship” on the Admiral Cook biopic that was filming in Greenland for the next six months. Tony got a stern lecture about the effect that cavorting with underage boys would have on the asking price of his next role. The crew got lesser but still fairly rich favors. Everyone stayed bought; it didn’t make the gossip sites. But you never know. These things spring leaks.
“No, it’s not Tony,” Carl said. “Our client is here.”
“In the building?”
“No,” Carl said, tapping the aquarium that was between us. “Here.”
“I’m not following you, Carl,” I said. “You’re talking about an aquarium.”
“Look in the aquarium,” Carl said.
For the first time since I entered the room, I took a good look at the aquarium. It was rectangular and neither especially big nor small—about the size of the usual aquarium you’d see in any home. The only thing notable about it was the absence of fish, rocks, bubbling filters, or little plastic treasure chests. It was filled entirely with a liquid that was clear but slightly cloudy, as if the aquarium water hadn’t been changed in about a month. I stood up, looked over the top of the aquarium, and got a closer look. And smell. I looked over the aquarium at him.
“What is this, tuna Jell-O?”
“Not exactly,” Carl said, and then addressed the aquarium. “Joshua, please say hello to Tom.”
The stuff in the aquarium vibrated.
“Hi, Tom,” the aquarium gunk said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
CHAPTER Three
“How do you do that?” I asked Carl.
“Do what?” Carl asked.
“Make it speak,” I said. “That’s a really neat trick.”
“I’m not making it speak, Tom.” Carl said.
“No, I know that. I realize it’s not a ventriloquist thing,” I said. “What I’m asking is, How does sound come out of it at all? Jell-O doesn’t strike me as the most efficient medium for sound.”
“I’m not really sure about the physics of it, Tom,” Carl said. “I’m an agent, not a scientist.”
“This is very cool technology,” I said, touching the surface of the gunk. It was sticky, and resisted my fingertips a little. “I mean, I’m not going to rush out and buy Jell-O speakers, but it’s still very cool. What is it? Something from a science fiction movie? Is our client doing a film about gelatinous aliens or something?”
“Tom,” Carl said. “It’s not about a movie. That,” he pointed to the aquarium, “is our client.”
I stopped playing around with the gunk and looked over at Carl. “I’m not following you,” I said.
“It’s alive, Tom,” Carl said.
The stuff wriggled slightly under my fingers. I pulled them back so quickly I felt a seam on my suit jacket rip. An inside seam. Near the shoulder. I had paid $1,200 for the jacket, and it let me down in the first moment of crisis. I focused all my mental energy on considering that jacket seam, because the only other thing to think about at the moment was that thing in the tank. The jacket seam, that I could handle.
Finally, after a few minutes, the words came, something that, I think, covered the enormity of the situation and what I was experiencing in my head.
“Holy shit,” I said.
“That’s a new one on me,” said the aquarium gunk.
“It’s just an expression,” Carl said.
“Holy Christ on a pony,” I said.
“So’s that,” Carl noted.
“Ah,” said the gunk. “Listen, do you mind if I get out of this box now? I’ve been in it all day. The right angles are killing me.”
“Please,” Carl said.
“Thank you,” said the gunk. A tendril formed off the surface of the gunk and arched towards the conference table, touching down close to the center of the table. The tendril wobbled slightly for a second, then thickened tremendously as the gunk transferred itself out of the aquarium through the tendril. When the transfer was over, the tendril reabsorbed into the main body, which now sat, globular, on the conference table.
“That’s much better,” the gunk said.
“Carl,” I said. I was keeping my distance from the gunk. “You’d really better catch me up on what’s going on here.”
Carl had put his feet back on the table. They rested not too far off from where the gunk was piled. That seemed a bad idea to me. “Do you want the long or short version?” He asked.
“Give me the short version for now, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“Fine,” he said. “Tom, have a seat, please. I promise Joshua won’t leap on you and suck out your brains.”
“I won’t,” the gunk that was apparently called Joshua agreed. “I’m a good alien, not like those bad aliens that make for such good movies. Please, Tom, sit down.”
I didn’t know which was more fundamentally disturbing: that Jell-O was talking to me, that it had a sense of humor, or that it had better manners than I did. My body sat down in my seat; the man in my brain readied himself for a sprint to the door.
“Thank you,” Carl said. “Here’s the short version: About four months ago, the Yherajk, of which my friend Joshua is a member, contacted me. The Yherajk have been watching us here on Earth for a while, and they decided recently that, after several years of observation, it was time to make themselves known to humanity. But they have concerns.”
“We look like snot,” Joshua said. “And we smell like dead fish.”
Carl nodded in Joshua’s direction. “The Yherajk are worried that their physical appearance will present problems.”
“We have seen The Blob, and it is us,” Joshua intoned.
Another nod from Carl. “The Yherajk have decided that before they can appear to humanity, some arrangements have to be made—a way has to be made for them not to appear so ugly from the outset.”
“We need an agent to get us the role of the friendly aliens,” Joshua said.
“That’s the short version,” Carl said.
I sat there for a second, trying to pr
ocess the information. “Can I ask a question?” I said.
“Shoot,” said Joshua.
I looked at Joshua and for a moment I was frozen. I didn’t know what part of it to address. It all looked the same. I dealt with it by looking straight at its center. “Dumb question first: Why didn’t you just drop on the lawn of the White House? I mean, in the movies, that’s pretty much how it was done.”
“We thought about it,” Joshua said. “Then we caught the presidential debates. The people you folks elect are sort of scary. And you Americans are the folks that do it the best on this entire planet. Besides, your president only speaks for Americans. American movies speak for your world. Who hasn’t seen Wizard of Oz? Or Jaws? Or Star Wars? We’ve seen them, and we’re not even from this planet.” Joshua sprouted a tendril and tapped the table. “If you want to introduce yourself to the planet, this is the place to start.”
“Okay,” I said. I looked over at Carl. “The … Earjack—”
“Yherajk,” Carl said, pronouncing it yee-heer-aahg-k.
“It’s not our real name,” Joshua said, “but you couldn’t pronounce what we’re actually called.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, it’s a smell,” Joshua said. “Would you like to smell it?”
I glanced at Carl. He shrugged. “Sure,” I said.
The room filled with a stench that resembled the offspring of a rotted sneaker and Velveeta. I gagged involuntarily.
“God, that’s horrible,” I said, and immediately regretted it. “I’m very sorry,” I said. “That was probably the first-ever insult to an extraterrestrial. I apologize.”
“No offense taken,” Joshua said, mildly. “You should come to a Yherajk get-together. It’s like a convention of farts.”
“I believe there was a question at the beginning of all this,” Carl said.
