Channel Blue (26 page)

What the hell?
Perry thought.
The audience is out there, waiting. Give ’em what they want.

Perry raised the jar up to his face. The flies immediately ceased their fidgeting and pivoted so that Perry stared straight into their compound eyes. He cleared his throat and smiled.

‘Hello, alien masters, and welcome back to
Bunt to the Rescue
,’ he intoned, adopting a deep announcer’s voice. ‘Here’s what you missed while Perry Bunt was fornicating with Amanda Mundo under the freeway. Yes, that’s right. A dirty, lowly, stupid Earthle sexing up his producer. Sorry you missed it? I’m sure you are. Because you love the fornication, don’t you? Almost as much as you love the killing. Because your pathetic sterile civilisation has wiped out anything that was vaguely pleasurable about being alive.’

Perry knocked a cigarette out of the pack of Camel Lights, lit it on a gas burner and took a deep drag. Damn, it felt good. Why had he ever stopped smoking?

‘Anyway, Amanda and I fornicated. Did I mention that already? And it was fantastic. And after we fornicated fantastically, there occurred something that we call in the screenwriting business a “major reversal”. I learned that this whole planet is nothing more than a glass bowl stocked with insane goldfish for your amusement. You might have trouble understanding this, seeing how you’ve always thought of me as something less than human, but I found this news very disturbing. For many reasons. Not the least of which was the fact I thought I was in love with a woman who believes this depraved experiment is justified.’

He took another drag on the cigarette. ‘But I digress. Where was I? Right. After the fornication and the discovery of this disturbing news, Amanda and I had an argument – no physical violence, so I don’t think you would’ve been interested – and I quit the show. That’s right. I will no longer be rescuing your—’ Perry took another drag, recalling the exact words. ‘Entertainment And Recreational Terrestrial Habitat. So go ahead and blow it up. In fact, if I could, I’d do it for you, as long as I could take every one of you with me.’

Perry hunched in close to the jar, cigarette smoke fogging the glass. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw the flies take tiny steps backward. ‘Because if there were any justice to this universe, you would each die a horrible, painful, lingering death. Nick Pythagorus, if you’re watching, thank you for the plaque, but you should be playing with toys, not planets. Nine years old or not, I’d love to kick you in your smirky little face right now. Marty Firth, you no-talent brown-nosing hack, I’ll kill myself on the air if you let me take your Orbys and shove them one at a time up your ass. You’re the real parasite – that white thing in your ear should have
you
removed. Elvis, I was happier when you were dead, you fat freak. You don’t cancel me, OK? I’m cancelling you! And I never got a chance to tell you: I hate your music. You sound like a drunk hillbilly with the hiccups. As for your entire so-called “advanced civilisation”—’ Perry glanced down at the flies.

They lay on their backs, legs in the air.

He’d been officially pre-empted.

Perry unscrewed the lid and poked at the motionless flies with a chopstick, but they were unquestionably victims of dead air. He poured them down the garbage disposal and made his way to the bathroom, where he peeled off his filthy suit and took a shower, moaning as the water came into contact with his battered body. He dried off, put on whatever clean clothes he could find, ate another bag of chips and collapsed onto the fold-out bed.

He woke the next morning to the sound of his ringing phone. It took him a while to realise that he was back home. His first sensation was relief. This lasted for about two seconds before he remembered what Earth stood for. The ringing continued. He groaned and put a pillow over his head until it stopped. Unable to fall back asleep, he slowly sat up, feeling every bruise. The phone began ringing again. Exasperated, he picked it up.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘Perry,’ a female voice said. ‘Perry, do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get a hold of you?’

‘Who is this?’

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line, the silence of someone completely unused to their voice being unrecognised. ‘It’s Dana. Fulcher.’

‘Oh.’ Perry hadn’t recognised his agent’s voice simply because she never called him directly. The irony that it took the end of the world for his agent to call him was not lost on Perry. ‘What do you want?’

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Busy.’

‘We didn’t know what happened to you. We thought you might have run off and joined Buddy.’

Perry was sure he’d misheard. ‘Who?’

‘Buddy. The leader of the new cult all the crazies are joining? It’s all over the internet.’

‘I haven’t been on-line lately.’

‘Perry, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. Are you with another agency?’

‘No.’

‘Then why haven’t you taken my calls?’

‘Because I don’t have the time.’

‘I’ve got an offer for your pitch.’

‘My pitch?’

‘
The Last Day of School
.’

Perry couldn’t help laughing. He couldn’t believe he’d ever made a living thinking up such dumb ideas. ‘Thank you, but I’m not interested.’

For a rare moment, Dana Fulcher was stunned into silence. ‘Not interested?’

‘No. You were right. It was desperate.’

Perry could almost hear the gears turning as his agent tried to comprehend words she’d never heard from a writer’s lips. ‘Well, I have some other news:
Dead Tweet
is back.’

Perry frowned. ‘
Dead Tweet
is dead. Del Waddle killed it.’

‘Del Waddle’s the one who’s dead. Car crash. They found him off Mulholland Drive.’ Perry’s mind whirled. The bullet that bounced off of Amanda’s force field must have killed him. And since no one would’ve wanted to explain how the billionaire shot himself while trying to kill two of his party guests, they faked up a crash.

‘Huh,’ Perry said.

‘Very tragic, of course. But with every ending is a new beginning, circle of life, you know,
hakuna matata
and all that.’ Dana paused for maximum dramatic effect. ‘I’m putting
Tweet
back in play.’ When Perry didn’t respond, she continued confidently, ‘Del was the only one standing in its way – everyone else over there
loved
the project. I’m getting you in the room with the VP of Development tomorrow.’

‘Don’t bother,’ Perry said.

Dana emitted a guffaw of disbelief. ‘Perry, I’ve been literally killing myself to make this happen.’

Normally, Perry would’ve let his agent have her ‘literally’. But today was different. ‘No, you haven’t.’

‘What?’

‘If you were literally killing yourself, you’d be dead.’

Dana Fulcher clucked her tongue. ‘Perry, I know what “literally” means.’

‘No. You literally don’t. But I’ll give you an example: I am literally hanging up.’ He hung up the phone and, with one smooth jerk, yanked the cord out of the wall. It felt so good he couldn’t believe he hadn’t done it years ago. His cell phone began ringing, vibrating itself across the kitchen counter. Perry picked it up, walked out to his balcony, and threw it as hard as he could. He thought maybe he heard it shatter on the roof of the house below, but he couldn’t be sure.

Since his kitchen was nearly empty and he was famished, he drove the Festiva to his local diner and gorged himself on eggs, bacon, pancakes and black coffee. A few dozen other descendants of criminals and lunatics were packed into the booths and tables around him. A television in the corner had the sound turned off, and showed the grim visage of the anchor of the evening news. You knew something was seriously fucked up when the evening guy was on in the morning. Sure enough, the chyron below him read: ‘Middle East Peace Talks Cancelled’. Perry sipped his coffee. Channel Blue’s producers had called off the computer virus, thus putting the conflict that would thankfully never be known as ‘The Stripper Pen War’ back on track. It would never be known as that, of course, because no one on Earth would be left alive to write about it.

How did he want to spend his last couple of weeks alive? Perry considered this question. By different paths, he kept arriving back at the same answer: with Amanda. Despite everything, he couldn’t escape the memory of holding her on the floor of the cable service van. And the tears in her eyes when he’d left.
Dear God
, he thought.
I’m like a Jew in love with Eva Braun
. He shook his head. It could be worse. If the world wasn’t ending, he’d torture himself like this for years.

He was signalling the waiter for his bill when a beautiful, blue-eyed brunette approached his table. Though stylishly dressed, her eyes were swollen as if she’d been crying and there was a red welt on the right side of her jaw. ‘Perry Bunt?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Hi. You probably don’t remember me.’

Perry stared at her. ‘I’m sure that I would.’

‘We met at a premiere party for a film I produced a couple years ago. I’m Cheyenne Ross.’ She extended her hand. Perry stood and shook it. ‘Just wanted to say hello. I mean, you seemed like a nice guy then and—’ She smiled, embarrassed. ‘Wow. This is awkward.’

Perry, having no memory of this woman, was at a loss as to what to say. ‘No, it’s fine,’ he finally said, feeling incredibly lame.

Cheyenne stared at him and her considerable lips began trembling. Tears welled up in her eyes and she smeared them across her chiselled cheekbones with one hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

Perry stood frozen. How had he become the guy that made beautiful women cry? He picked up a napkin from the table and handed it to her. ‘Are you OK?’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘I just had a huge fight in the parking lot with my boyfriend,’ she sobbed. ‘He hit me.’

‘Jesus,’ Perry said.

‘I don’t know where to go,’ she said. ‘I came in here and saw you. I just know I don’t want to be out there.’ She wept openly. Diners at the other tables glanced over.

Perry put a hand on her back. ‘Please, sit down,’ he said. He guided her into his booth. ‘Do you want me to call the police?’

Cheyenne shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Is your car parked on the street?’

Perry nodded.

‘Could you give me a ride home?’

‘Of course.’

Cheyenne broke into a breathtaking smile and took one of Perry’s hands in both of hers. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘My hero.’

Perry’s smile faded away. He suddenly turned Cheyenne’s left hand to one side and pushed up the sleeve of her suit jacket. A blue fly tattoo peeked out from behind her cuff. He released her hand. ‘You’re a producer, all right,’ he said.

Classic move
, Perry thought. Entertainment executives look upon creative enterprise as nothing more than machinery  – a collection of interchangeable parts that, when assembled properly, generated money. So it followed that the overseers of Channel Blue had assumed that all they needed to do was replace one pretty producer sidekick with a new one and
Bunt to the Rescue
could pick up where it had left off.

Cheyenne stared steadily back at Perry, her tears gone. ‘What gave me away?’

‘You had me until the hero line. That was terrible. Amanda didn’t feed you that, did she?’

Cheyenne shook her head. ‘Amanda’s not on the show anymore.’

Perry did his best to appear uninterested. Cheyenne moved closer to him – which Perry, despite himself, found titillating – and whispered with sweet warm breath into his ear. ‘Come on. Why not play along for a bit?’

Perry shook his head. ‘Forget it.’

Cheyenne smiled. ‘You can’t blame us for trying, can you?
Bunt to the Rescue
is huge.’

‘I’ll say this one more time,’ Perry said in a low, even voice. ‘I’m not rescuing you, or the Earth, or anyone else for the entertainment of a bunch of monsters out in space.’ He suddenly became aware that the other diners were glaring at him. He picked up the bill and started towards the till. Cheyenne put one hand on his arm.

‘They want you. They want to watch you help people and save the planet. Why turn your back on that?’

Perry considered this. It wasn’t a bad question. ‘I guess maybe because none of it’s real.’

‘Real?’ Cheyenne laughed. ‘Are you serious? You’re a writer. Since when did you care about reality?’

‘Since I realised how hard it is to come by.’

‘Please.’ Cheyenne brushed back hair from her forehead and froze Perry with her piercing blue eyes. ‘I want to work with you, Mr Bunt. Give it another chance. Let’s save the world and have some fun.’ She gave a sly smile that fluttered his heart. ‘Hey, we could even fornicate a little, if that’s what you want. Kissing, I don’t know, we can talk about it. But I guarantee we’ll have a great time.’

‘Yeah,’ Perry said. ‘Until we don’t and your bosses send out some more stripper pens. Leave me alone.’

But Cheyenne wasn’t done. Before Perry could reach the door, she turned to the other patrons and called out, ‘He’s Buddy!’ At first, there was little or no reaction. A few diners gawked at Perry, muttering among themselves. Then, before he knew what was happening, several had jumped to their feet and were striding towards him. Perry dashed into the parking lot, started up the Festiva and gunned it into the street as they poured out of the diner.

When he returned to his apartment, he found Noah Overton waiting at the front door, pale and trembling. Noah apologised adamantly for thinking that Perry was insane and told him that he’d had a vision the night before in which the three men he admired the most – Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Dr Albert Schweitzer – had appeared at the foot of his bed and told him that the Earth was indeed in grave danger and if it was going to be saved, Noah needed to join forces with Perry Bunt.

‘I know it sounds weird,’ Noah said. ‘But it was so real.’

Perry explained to Noah that it hadn’t been a vision and that visions didn’t really exist; they were all special effects produced by alien producers to elicit specific types of behaviour from people living on Earth. Gandhi, King and Schweitzer were actually facsimilons, shape-shifting extra-terrestrials that can adapt to any shape or form.