by John Scalzi
“Right,” I said, and looked back to Carl. “How many people know about the Yherajk?”
“Including you and me?” Carl said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Two,” Carl said. “Well, and a couple thousand Yherajk orbiting the planet. But among humans, it’s just you and me.”
“Wow,” I said.
“It’s not that hard to believe,” Joshua said. “If you run out of here and say that you’ve just met an alien that looks like gelatin and smells like a cat in heat, who’s going to believe you? All the really believable aliens have spines.”
I ignored this. “Carl, why me?”
Carl tilted his head at me, and regarded me like a favored child. Which, perhaps, I was. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, I’m flattered that you picked me to help you to do …” I waved my hands around, “whatever it is that we’re going to be doing here. But I don’t know why you picked me.”
“Well, it’s like I said,” Carl said. “I need someone who’s smart and that I can trust.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “But Carl, you don’t even know me. I’ve worked here for five years, and every other time we’ve spoken, it was in meetings, about our clients and how we were going to package them. And that wasn’t that often.”
“Do you feel neglected?” Carl asked. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for that.”
“No, that’s not it,” I said. “It’s never bothered me. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is that I don’t know why you feel you can trust me, or why you think I’m smart. You can, and I am, but I wouldn’t have thought I’d be an obvious choice. I’m surprised you even thought of me.”
Carl smirked, looked off for a second, as if communicating to an unseen audience, and then turned back to me. “Tom,” he said, “give me some credit for knowing something about the people who I employ.”
I straightened up slightly. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Carl.”
“You haven’t,” he said. “My point here is simply that I’ve been aware of you and your work for this company. Your work speaks quite a bit as to the person you are, and as for the rest of it …” he shrugged. “Sometimes you take a chance.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Also, to be blunt,” Carl continued, “you’re just a junior agent here. You’re flying under the radar. If any of the senior agents suddenly divested himself of his clients and started sneaking around, it would be noticed. There would be gossip. In-fighting. Stories in Variety and the Times. No one’s going to notice or care if you do the same thing.”
It was my turn to smirk. “Well, my mother might be concerned.”
“Does she write for the Times?” Carl said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “She lives in Arizona.”
“Well, then,” Carl said. “That’s fine with me.”
“I’m still confused as to why you need me,” I said. “Certainly you don’t need me to put something together.”
“But I do,” Carl said. “Because I can’t.”
“Tom,” Joshua said, “If it would throw the company in turmoil if one of the senior agents here dropped what they’re doing to start working on a secret project, how much more suspicious is it going to look if Carl did it?”
“I can’t even take a vacation without someone here attempting a palace coup,” Carl said. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to stop running this place to look after this. No, someone else has to deal with this thing. You’ve got the job.”
“Carl, I don’t even know what the job is,” I said.
“Make me beautiful,” Joshua said. “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.”
“The Job,” Carl said, implying the capital J with his voice, “is to find some way to prepare the planet for the presence of the Yherajk. They’re ready to show themselves to humanity, Tom. You have to make humanity ready for them.”
The words hung out there in the air for a minute, not unlike, I suppose, the fragrance of a Yherajk conversation—invisible, but very hard to ignore.
“I’m just guessing here,” Joshua said, “but I’m thinking this is probably where you say ‘Holy shit’ again, Tom.”
CHAPTER Four
Miranda was being monopolized by Ben Fleck, another junior agent, when I returned. She glanced at me pointedly as I walked by. The glance had a double meaning. The first was What the hell happened in there? The second was Rescue me. Ben was a first-class jerk who had been trying for eighteen months to get into Miranda’s pants; it would have constituted sexual harassment except that Ben was so obviously inept at it.
“Miranda,” I said. “Could you please come to my office?”
“Hey,” Ben said. “I’m discussing a client with Miranda at the moment.”
“That client is in your pants, Ben,” I said. “And he’s never going to get the job. Miranda?” I held the door open for her as she took her notepad and walked by me into my office.
“Thank you,” she said, as I closed the door behind us. “Though you shouldn’t be so rough on Ben. He’s sort of sweet, in his own lecherous, oafish way.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “I’m not going to let him get away with anything I’m not allowed to get away with.”
“But Tom,” Miranda said, “you’re neither lecherous nor oafish.”
“Thanks, Miranda,” I said, and leaned against my desk.
“I’ll put that on my gravestone. ‘Here lies Thomas Stein. He was neither lecherous nor oafish.’”
“Enough chitchat,” Miranda said. “Do you still have a job, or are you just putting on a brave face for your devoted staff?”
“Miranda, did anyone pay attention to where we were going when we went to the meeting?”
Miranda sat in the chair in front of my desk and thought for a moment. “Not that I could tell. You nodded to Drew Roberts as we walked past him, but I don’t think he noticed. You’re a junior agent. You don’t rate a nod back.”
“Good,” I said. “Did anyone ask where I was?”
“In the office? No. Michelle called again,” Miranda crossed her eyes slightly at the word Michelle, indicating in her own subtle way that she believed Michelle to be less intelligent than the average protozoan, “but I just told her you were in a meeting. Other than that, my attention was monopolized by Ben, who loathes you and would not ask about you even if he could get a promotion out of it. Why?”
“If anyone asks, I was just out to get a bagel, okay?”
“You’re killing me,” Miranda said. “I don’t normally threaten my bosses, but if you don’t tell me what happened in there, I may have to hurt you.”
“I can’t, Miranda. You know if I could tell anyone, I would tell you.” I gave her my best I’m-utterly-helpless look. “I just can’t. Just trust me for now, please, and just forget that meeting ever took place?”
Miranda looked at me for a minute. “Okay, Tom,” she said, finally. “But if we’re not going to talk about the meeting that didn’t take place, why did you call me in here?”
“I need you to get my files on everyone I represent. Also, give me the names of the latest agents up from the mailroom, and their client lists, if you can.”
Miranda jotted on her notepad. “All right,” she said. “Anything in particular I should look for in the new agents?”
“I want someone who is so new that he still could do his mail route with his eyes closed. Someone who doesn’t know anything. Me, about three years ago.”
“Young and naive. Got it, Tom. Actually, I know just the person.”
“Great. Give me about an hour with my files and then have them come for a visit.”
“Fine. Anything else?”
“Yes. I’m going to need one of those watercooler bottles. And a dolly.”
Miranda looked up from her notepad. “A watercooler bottle?”
“Yeah. One of those Arrowhead Water bottles. The five gallon ones.”
“And a dolly.”
“If you can
find one. They have them in the mailroom, I think. You can have the new agent retrieve it.”
I could see Miranda debating with herself whether or not she wanted to ask what the water bottle was for. She finally decided against it. What a pro. “Do you want the water bottle empty or full?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
“It does to me,” she said. “I have to lug the damn thing to your office.”
“Empty, please.”
She stopped writing. “Okay,” she said. “You’ll have your files in just a minute.” She stood up and walked over the two steps to where I was. I stopped leaning on the desk and stood up. “Tom,” she said, “you can trust me; I’ll never speak of that meeting in front of anyone. But whatever happened in that meeting, congratulations.” She reached over and tousled my hair. It was an old-fashioned and matronly move from someone who was my assistant, and a year younger than I was. It made me grin like an idiot.
Miranda dropped the files on my desk. It was now time to play everybody’s favorite game: ditch the clients.
“This thing is going to take up all of your time from now on,” Carl had warned, right after I had signed up for the ride. “You’re going to have to formulate a plan and execute it. You’re going to have to be an aide to Joshua, as well. Which reminds me: he needs to stay at your place.”
“What?” I said. Visions of slug slime coating my upholstery leapt, unbidden, into my mind.
“Tom,” Joshua said, “it’s not exactly an easy commute between here and the ship.”
“We can work out the details later,” Carl said, getting back on track. “But what you need to do now, Tom, is go through your client list and as quietly as possible, offload as many as you can. Joshua is your full-time job now.”
I stared at the files and had a weird tingling in my head. On one hand, this was an agent’s dream—get rid of the truly annoying clients! Cut the dead weight! Unload the ballast! Every agent who was not running an agency had clients they’d rather be without—and here I was being told to eject them. On the other hand, as an agent, you’re only as good as your client list. Better bad clients than none at all. I was understanding intellectually that my new “client” was an opportunity that comes along—well, that’s never come along before, now that I thought of it. Emotionally, however, it still felt like I was taking the ascending 747 that was my agentorial career and aiming it into the Pacific, while all the passengers, my clients, were screaming in the coach seats, their little emergency plastic airmasks waving in the turbulence.
Enough thinking, I decided. I grabbed the first file.
Tony Baltz. Gone. He was on his way down anyway, since he was too proud to take the roles that had made him famous in the first place.
Rashaad Creek. Keep. I could work through his mother, who was doing most of the heavy lifting in that partnership, anyway. The unsettling Oedipal overtones to Rashaad’s situation had always disturbed me, but now I could finally use them to my advantage.
Elliot Young. Keep. Elliot, bless his heart, was not the brightest of studs. I could sit down with him one afternoon and convince him that by buckling down on the series for a season, it would make the transition to films much more profitable in the long run. Who knows, it might even be the truth.
Tea Reader. Gone. Thank the Lord almighty.
Michelle Beck. Keep. Of course. Michelle Beck was my cover: when a client can rake in twelve million per film, an agent can’t be faulted for wanting to spend more time concentrating on that client. Also, flying under the radar or not, dropping Michelle after today’s paycheck would be noticed by someone. Michelle and I were bound together for life, or until she pulled a hissy fit and got new representation. If I didn’t have her, I would be, as my father liked to say, walking through a thick shag carpet of shit. The ambivalence I felt about this fact was staggering in its depth.
The undercard folks were all toast. It didn’t really matter who agented them, anyway.
I was finishing up my client triage when Miranda buzzed me. “Mr. Stein,” she said. I could count the times she called me Mr. Stein on one hand, without having to use my thumb or index finger. “Amanda Hewson is here.”
“Accompany her in, please, Ms. Escalon,” I called Miranda Ms. Escalon even less than she called me Mr. Stein.
Miranda walked in, followed by a gawky blonde who looked like she wasn’t old enough to see R-rated films without accompaniment. Amanda Hewson had graduated from the mailroom just over a month before. Her two clients were a former Mexican soap opera star who wanted to make it big in Hollywood, but didn’t want to learn the English language, and an actor who administered first aid to her after she fainted on mile four of the LA Marathon. She represented him, apparently, largely out of gratitude.
She was perfect.
“Amanda,” I said, motioning to the chair in front of my desk. “Please sit down.” She did. I regarded her the same way Carl regarded me earlier today. It’s fair; the distance, career-wise, was not dissimilar.
Amanda was looking around. “Nice office,” she said.
My office is a dump.
“It is, isn’t it?” I said. “Amanda, do you know why I asked you here?”
“Not really,” Amanda confessed. “Ms. Escalon”—Unseen by Amanda, Miranda crossed her eyes; she didn’t appear to cotton to all this formalness—“said that it was important but didn’t say what it was.”
I did some more regarding. It was making Amanda nervous. She looked behind her briefly to see if I was actually looking at something behind her, then turned back, tittered nervously. Her hands, restless in her lap, spasmed lightly.
I looked at Miranda. “You think she’s the one?” I asked.
Now it was Miranda’s turn to regard Amanda. I have to admit, she did a much scarier regarding. Amanda looked about to wet her pants. “I think so,” Miranda said. “At least, she’s much better than the other possibles.”
I had no idea what Miranda was talking about. Then again, she didn’t know what I was talking about either. We were making this up as we went along.
“So, Amanda,” I said. “Where’d you go to school?”
“UCLA,” she said. “In Westwood,” she added. After she said that I could see the thought travel through her head: Moron! We’re in LA! He KNOWS where UCLA is! God! I’m an idiot! Panic can be truly endearing when it’s done right.
“Really,” I said. “I’m a Bruin myself. How’s the high-speed life of an agent treating you these days?”
“Well, really well,” she said, with obvious fervor. “I mean, I’m just getting started, so it’s a little rough. I think it’ll be a few more months before I really get my legs.” She smiled brightly. She was so new that she didn’t realize that admitting weakness was a mortal sin among agents. I wondered how she got past the screening process. Beside me, I could feel waves of pity emanate from Miranda. Now I knew why she had suggested Amanda—she was trying to keep this clearly noncynical young woman from having the stuffing kicked out of her by her more vicious compatriots.
“Well, I hope your legs are ready now, Amanda,” I said. “The officers of this corporation”—I always thought that phrase sounded dramatic, and I was right—“have instructed me to inaugurate a pilot mentor project for our newest agents, a sort of helping hand to get them up to speed more quickly. Now, I have to emphasize that this is just a pilot program, and highly experimental. In fact, it’s a secret—”
Amanda’s eyes actually widened. If I were just ten percent less jaded, I think I might have fallen in love.
“—so you’ll have to keep it that way. It’s officially unofficial. Understand?”
“Sure, Mr. Stein.”
“Call me Tom,” I said. “Amanda, what do you think of Tea Reader?”
Her eyes got even wider. Make that five percent less jaded.
Two hours and a Starbucks latte each later, the Officially Unofficial Mentor Project was underway. Under my “supervision,” Amanda would take over the day-to-day representat
ion needs of Tea Reader, Tony Baltz, and my undercard clients. For the first month, Amanda would make detailed weekly reports on “our” clients, which I would read and comment on. That would decrease to twice monthly the second month, and monthly thereafter. During this time, any money made from representing these clients would be split between mentor and student. After six months, pending mentor approval, Amanda could represent up to six of these clients full-time, with all commissions and fees going to her from that point forward. To myself, I figured that any clients she didn’t want to keep after six months I would drop in any event.
Amanda was happy because even with a reduced commission rate, she stood to make far more money over the next six months than she could have off her own clients, and would get an automatically expanded client list at the end of it. Plus, of course, my invaluable mentoring services. I was happy because I off-loaded my clients. The only one who might not be entirely happy with it was Miranda, because she knew that the reports I was supposed to read and comment on were actually going to be read and commented on by her. But she didn’t say anything about it. I was going to have to get her a raise soon.
Amanda went off in a haze of blissfulness and promises to “get right on it.” She was like a Mouseketeer on “Let’s Represent Someone” day. I could almost see her skip to her pod. I hoped her first experience with Tea Reader would not send her too much into shock.
“That was a dirty trick,” Miranda said to me.
“What do you mean?” I said. “Look at her. What are her chances of getting a decent client list on her own?”
“Not to her,” Miranda said. “To me. Now I’m going to have to add babysitting to my list of things to do.”
“She’ll be fine,” I said. “And anyway, I thought you liked her.”
“I do like her,” Miranda said. “And she will be fine. Eventually.” She put her face closer to mine. “But in the short term, I might as well be a crossing guard, for all the hand-holding I’m going to do. Now, I’m off to get your water bottle.” She walked out of the office.
I was going to have to get her a raise very soon.
