Year Zero (26 page)

“And have we always been this bad at software?”

“That’s the odd thing. You were actually pretty good early on. I mean, the PDP-11 was an elegantly balanced package of hardware and software, for its day. But then it was like someone lobotomized your entire population of digital engineers. It’s strange. But I’m an Intake Guardian—not an anthropologist. So I can’t begin to guess at what went wrong. What I can tell you is that humanity falls drastically short of our promotion standards. And we can’t relax them for any species—not even yours.”

With that, the Guardian fell silent, and the lights circulating in his innards briefly sped up. “Oh crap,” he said.

“What is it?” Carly asked, suddenly anxious.

“The hospitality union just filed a grievance against you. They say you killed one of their best greeters right after
you Wrinkled in. Line of duty, distraught widow and orphans, blah, blah, blah …”

“One of their
greeters
?” I said. “But he wasn’t trying to greet us—he was trying to kill us!”

“Well, duh. Don’t you have euphemisms where you come from?”

“Trespassers are commonly executed at Guardian facilities,” Carly confirmed. “I knew that before we came. My miscalculation was in not realizing they’d have a celebrity greeter that Frampton and I couldn’t incapacitate.”

With that, there was a thunderous knock at the door. It sounded more like a battering ram than a friendly request for access.

“That would be security,” the Guardian said. “Our facilities are run by strict and precise rules. I’m not required to open the door for them. But if I don’t, they can let themselves in after a short interval. So … I’m afraid you have just under three minutes to live.”

“But you have to stop them, Your Illustriousness,” I blurted. “This is all part of a Guild plot to destroy humanity!”

“Oh please—don’t tell me you’re one of those conspiracy nuts,” His Illustriousness snorted. “I’ll admit, I’m no fan of the Guild. But I can’t imagine they’re hatching some diabolical
plot
against your species.”

“But—” Carly said.

“And no, the Guild wasn’t behind nine/eleven, or the weird murals at the Denver airport.”

“But—” she tried again.

“And whatever the tinfoil-hat crowd says about alien involvement, I can assure you that NASA faked the lunar landings entirely on its own,” the Guardian added smugly. “We’ve looked into that one carefully.”

“But Nick is right, Your Illustriousness,” Carly finally managed. “The Guild has definitely positioned two operatives in Manhattan. And they clearly intend to destroy Earth.”

There was another surly thud at the door.

“That’s an interesting claim,” the Guardian said in a more thoughtful tone. He was silent for a moment. “I don’t actually believe it, because harming a primitive species is strictly forbidden—and I also don’t think the Guild is quite
that
awful. But I’ve just filed an urgent request to Wrinkle your tetrahedral asses out of here. Wrinkle connections are wide open to everywhere, so I can send you right to your respective home planets. But it takes a few minutes to formerly process a Wrinkle request.”

Now the pounding was coming in persistent, frenetic waves.

“So you will have to fight them off, at least briefly,” the Guardian continued, after apparently consulting some data source. “They’ll be entering in just over ninety seconds. And it looks like I can’t Wrinkle you away for three and a half minutes.”

“So we’ll have to survive for two minutes after they get in here,” I said grimly.

Frampton turned to me. “Did you seriously just figure that out in your head?”

The pounding got louder and more insistent. It sounded like a vengeful tribe smelling enemy blood.

“Are they from the same race as the greeter that we already fought off?” Carly asked.

“I’m afraid not. They’re photophobes.” As the Guardian said this, the exterior windows that made up seven sides of the room started turning opaque, one by one. It was suddenly getting very dark in there.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Photophobes are highly allergic to light,” Carly said. “They navigate by sonar, like bats. And they only enter pitch-dark places.” The third window went dark.

“It was clever of the Guild to send them,” the Guardian said. “My office is designed to darken whenever a photophobe arrives, since I can’t see into your dimension anyway. So when they enter, you’ll be blinded, and they won’t be.” The fourth window blackened.

“But what about the fame field?” I asked. “Are they all celebrities out there or something?”

“That’s why they’re sending photophobes,” Carly explained as the fifth window darkened. “I’m sure they don’t know who they’re arresting. And since they’ll have no way of recognizing us, our fame fields won’t act on them.”

“Then I’ll sing to them!” I said, starting to panic as the sixth window blotted out.

“I’m afraid these beings can only hear ultrasonic sounds,” the Guardian said. “Give us ‘I Am Woman’ at six octaves over High C, and you’ll have them. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your breath.” With that, the last window went dark. This left only a faint ambient glow coming from the floor, which itself started to dim. Moments before it faded into darkness, a brilliant light ignited to my left, and the whole room was suddenly brighter than daylight. I looked over and saw that Frampton was using his stereopticon to beam white light in all directions.

“Great thinking,” I said. I had just enough time to get this out before the light cut out and we were plunged into utter blackness.

“Exahertz disruption field,” the Guardian explained. “The guards are using one to shut off all Refined technology
in here. No device running on molecular valves will work within these walls as long as it’s on.”

“But that’s
every
thing,” Frampton said.

“Not quite,” said the Guardian. “Human technology is premolecular valve. Got a cellphone, Nick?”

“Yes!” I yanked my iPhone from my pocket and clicked at it desperately, but nothing happened. “It’s—not working.”

“Hmm,” the Guardian said. “I guess they have terahertz, gigahertz, and megahertz disruption fields as well. That knocks out modern human technology. Very thorough of them. You don’t have a couple of sticks to rub together, do you?”

I just let off a panicked whimper.

“All right, then go fetal,” the Guardian said. “Tuck your face into your chest, roll yourself into a ball, and be still.”

“Why?” I asked, as we all collapsed to the floor and followed his instructions.

“They don’t know that you’re about to Wrinkle out. That’s your only advantage. If you’re boring and unthreatening, they might be in less of a rush to kill you. You only need to last for two minutes.”

I squeezed myself into the tightest and most boring ball I could manage. Figuring my hands would be my most captivating feature in the dark, I tucked them deep into my suit jacket’s inner pockets.

“They’ll be entering in five seconds,” the Guardian said. “Four, three, two, one.”

After all the pounding, I expected our pursuers to enter the room with an explosion of noise. But the door slid open soundlessly, and I heard only the faintest drumming of tiny feet as they fanned out into the octagon. Whatever they were, there were dozens, even hundreds of them.

“I can hear their vocal range clearly,” the Guardian said. “But they can’t hear mine, so I can give you a running commentary. Thus far, they find you terribly boring. Keep up the good work.”

Several of them were running over my body by then. One trotted across the exposed part of my neck. It was furry and weighed about a half pound. I pictured a putrid ratlike creature with venomous fangs and a black licorice tail, and almost vomited from revulsion.
¹

“They don’t know who or what you are, but they’re very upset about having to kill you. They’re following orders reluctantly, because their pensions are on the line. A minute thirty to go. This might just work.”

I heard more pitter-patters. Then the tip of something that felt like a hypodermic needle was positioned against my neck. I recoiled, plunging my hands ever deeper into my innermost jacket pocket and—
what the hell was that?
My fingers had just brushed a mysterious plastic lump.

“They’re going to have a Parcheesi tournament to console themselves when this is over. They’ll eat food that’s not unlike popcorn and gingerbread cookies. Somebody just converted the new Melinda Doolittle album into an octave they can hear, and they’re eager to listen to it. And—wait a second.” The Guardian fell silent for a moment. “They … they’re gossiping about one of the Guild operatives who was sent to New York. He hates to be called … Dyson?”

I ran my hand over the base of the unidentified foreign object in my pocket as the needle’s tip pressed harder into my neck, almost breaking my skin.

“They—they think this New York team has been dispatched
to do something awful to humanity. I’m very sorry that I doubted you. It seems that your story is true.”

I racked my brains to recall what I’d put in my pocket.

“Terrible news. They’ve agreed that they should just get this over with. Lethal injection. And we still have almost forty-five seconds to kill, if you’ll kindly forgive the pun. And now the photophobes are weeping. They feel terrible about what fate has forced them to do. I’m … afraid we’re out of time.”

Then it hit me. I’d been so exhausted that morning that I’d blearily put on the same suit for the second day in a row. Which meant that this was the jacket I’d worn last night, at Eatiary. I yanked the device from my pocket, flicking desperately with my thumb. A faint glimmer filled the room as the bulbous Paraguayan cigarette lighter cast indigenous, carbon-sequestering photons in all directions. I remained in my fetal position, with my eyes shut tight, as a sickening splattering sound came from all directions. Then I detected a faint gleam through my scrunched eyelids as the floor’s ambient light returned, and the windows cleared.

“Well done,” the Guardian said. “I’m not sure what you did. But there are no more living photophobes in the room.”

I could hear Carly and Frampton getting slowly to their feet, but I stayed on the floor with my eyes shut tight. This was worse than killing the jailer. Once again, it had been a life-or-death situation, and someone had to die. But this time I had massacred a small army of beings. Ones who were into Parcheesi, gingerbread cookies, and
Melinda Doolittle
! Who no doubt loved their families, and who truly wished us no harm. Can anyone really commit mass murder in self-defense?

“Get up. Stand up, Nick,” Carly said. “You’re safe. And
we’re Wrinkling out of here any second now, so we need to make plans.”

I climbed unsteadily to my feet with my eyes still shut, praying that I’d find myself surrounded by the universe’s most vile and noxious-looking corpses. It wouldn’t change anything, but it might make me feel just a little bit better.

Carly snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. “Jesus, Nick. Rise and shine.”

I opened them slowly and saw that we were surrounded by … 
slaughtered teddy bears
. The cutest, fuzziest, and most gentle-looking critters that I could imagine existing anywhere, they made Ewoks look like giant maggots. Some were clutching tiny blankets in their lifeless paws. Others were wearing clip-on bow ties. Several had eensy helium balloons tied around their little arms. From their expressions and contorted postures, they had clearly died agonizing deaths. Major arteries had ruptured on all of them, dousing the entire scene in gallons of crimson blood. The only faintly good thing in all of this was that the nearest pool of gore had narrowly missed my clothes and shoes.

“Get over it already,” Carly said, seeing how upset I was. “Live and let die—it was us or them.” She turned toward the Guardian’s flickering form. “How many seconds ’til we’re out of here, Your Illustriousness?”

“Actually, since there’s no longer any reason to rush, I’ve put your Wrinkles on a temporary hold. I’d like to discuss the Guild situation some more.”

“By all means,” I said unsteadily, as I tried to decide if I had just become a war criminal.

The little lights inside the Guardian were now pulsing at a furious pace. “The Guild is cunning, and cautious,” he said. “And since they know how illegal it is to destroy a primitive
species, I just don’t see them doing it. So what are they up to?”

“Actually, their plot has to do with humanity
self
-destructing,” I said.

“But that doesn’t explain anything, nor would it break any rules. Self-destruction is what primitive societies
do
, after all. Fewer than one in a thousand survive long enough to master the Thirteen Disciplines. Hell, half of them don’t even get past longbows. If humanity self-destructs and the Guild applauds from the sidelines, it would be horribly crass of them—but not illegal.”

“The Guild is actually planning to
expedite
humanity’s self-destruction,” Carly broke in.

The Guardian considered this. “I suppose that makes slightly more sense. But how do you know this?”

“It’s a bit embarrassing, Your Illustriousness,” Carly said. “But it seems that they plagiarized their plans from the scripts of a show that I’m featured in. And the expedited self-destruction was … kind of our scriptwriters’ idea.”

“You’ve
got
to be kidding,” I groaned. Could Carly and her fameball family have
possibly
screwed us over any more?

“Then tell me how the story line in question ends,” the Guardian said, ignoring me.

“We never wrote a sequel to the episode in which the broad idea was introduced. So they’re on their own to figure out the details.”

The Guardian considered this. “Well, it won’t be easy for them. You see, they’ll have to manipulate human society into heading down an obviously self-destructive path. And they’ll want the rest of the universe to witness this, via its ongoing monitoring of Earth’s media.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because if we just … explode out of the blue, it won’t look like self-destruction or something?”

“Exactly,” the Guardian said. “Whereas if CNN presents breathless coverage of your final hours, it will look quite authentic.”