I knocked on the conference room door. It was unoccupied. I entered the conference room with the water bottle and the dolly, closed the door, and locked it behind me.
“You have got to be kidding,” Joshua said.
Joshua had slipped back into the aquarium, which stayed in the conference room after our meeting was done. My job had been to find an unobtrusive way to get him from the conference room to my place. Carl wouldn’t tell me how he had gotten Joshua into the building unnoticed, and he wasn’t giving me any tips on how to get him out. Think of it as your first challenge, he said. Were I palming off the first known extraterrestrial on a subordinate to take care of, I think I’d be a little more concerned.
“We give you three hours to come up with something, and this is the best you can do,” Joshua said. “I’m not scared yet, but I’m getting there.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had to improvise.” I wheeled the bottle over and sat it next to the tank. I had figured that a five-gallon water bottle would be big enough to fit Joshua in. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Neither was he. He extended a tendril out of the aquarium and sent it down into the bottle and waved it around, as if to check it for roominess. “How long will it take to get to your place?” he said.
“Probably an hour, maybe more,” I said. “I live in La Canada. The 405 will be jammed up, but once we get over to the 210, it should be pretty quick. Is it going to be a problem?”
“Not at all,” Joshua said. “Who doesn’t enjoy being crammed into a five-gallon plastic bottle for an hour?”
“You don’t have to stay in the bottle once we get to the car,” I said. “Once we’re out of here, you can spread out.” This wrinkle in the plan was as new to me as it was to him. I had assumed he’d stay in the bottle the whole trip. But my car upholstery was a small price to pay for interplanetary peace. I’d just have to remember to get one of those little pine tree air fresheners.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Joshua said. “The conversation where you try to explain to a highway patrolman why you have forty pounds of gelatin in your passenger seat is one I think we’d both rather avoid.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sort of amazed you know what a highway patrolman is.”
“Why?” Joshua said. “You’ve been beaming CHiPs into space for decades.” He wiggled his tendril again, and then sighed. He must have picked that up purely as a sonic affectation because he had no lungs from which to exhale. “All right, here I go,” he said, and started putting himself into the bottle.
He came dangerously close to filling up the bottle. In the last few seconds, a thought popped into my skull: I’m going to need another bottle. It didn’t occur to me to question the logic of that thought. He was gelatinous, he should be able to divide up. It became academic when he topped out about three millimeters from the top of the mouth of the bottle.
“Comfortable?” I asked.
“Remind me to stuff you into a medium-sized suitcase and ask you that same question,” Joshua said. His voice was diminished and tinny, no doubt due to the relatively tiny amount of surface area he had to vibrate.
“Sorry,” I said. “Listen, do you need this open? I’m thinking it might be better if I put the top back on this thing.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Joshua said. “Keep it open.”
“Okay,” I said. “I didn’t know. I suppose you need to breathe.”
“It’s not that,” Joshua said. “I’m claustrophobic.”
“Really?”
“Look,” Joshua said. “Just because I come from a highly advanced alien species doesn’t mean I can’t be intensely neurotic. Can we go now? I already feel like I want to scream.”
I hiked the dolly up on its wheels, wheeled over to the door, unlocked it, and headed out into the hallway. It was still early enough in the day that the office was still busy. I was worried that someone might ask me why I was wheeling a five-gallon water bottle around until I remembered that I was on the second floor, the land of senior agents. A senior agent would naturally assume it was my job to wheel water bottles around. I was probably safe until I hit the lobby.
Which is in fact where I got noticed. As I passed the receptionist’s desk on the way to the parking lot, some guy at the desk turned around. “Tom Stein?” he asked.
The Just Keep Moving command left my brain a tenth of a second after the Look Around reflex kicked in. By then, of course, it was too late; I had already stopped and looked back. “Yes?”
The man jogged the short distance over and extended his hand. “Glad I caught you,” he said, as we shook. “Your assistant said you had already left.”
“I had,” I said. “I just had to stop elsewhere and pick something up.”
“I can see that,” he said, glancing down at the water bottle. “I guess you’ve gone past office supplies.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Jim Van Doren. I write for The Biz.”
The Biz was a magazine written in a snide, knowing sort of tone that implied the folks who slapped together The Biz were just coming from lunch with movie company heads, who couldn’t wait to slip them the latest gossip. Neither I nor anyone I knew knew anyone who had ever actually spoken to anyone at the magazine. No one knew how the magazine got written. No one knew anyone who would actually pay to read it. Blogs should have killed it by now, but it just kept going.
Van Doren himself was about my age, blond and balding, sort of pudgy. He looked like what happened to former USC frat boys about three months after they realize that their college days were never, ever coming back.
“Van Doren,” I said. “No relation to Charles, I assume.”
“The guy from Quiz Show? I wish,” Van Doren said. “His dad won a Pulitzer Prize, you know. Wouldn’t mind getting one of those myself.”
“You’d probably have to work for a magazine that didn’t devote six pages to an illustrated article about fake porn on the Internet,” I said. “You remember, the one where big stars’ heads were Photoshopped on to pictures of women having sex with dogs and glass bottles? The one that just about every movie studio in the city sued you over.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that story,” he said.
“That’s good,” I said. “Michelle Beck is my client. She was rather unamused by the picture that had her taking it up the back door from George Clooney while eating out Lindsay Lohan. As her agent, I’d be required to break your nose on her behalf. Of course, I’d take my ten percent, too.” I started walking towards the lobby door.
Van Doren, who was not taking the hint, followed. “Actually, Tom, I knew you were Michelle Beck’s agent. It’s sort of why I came here. Heard that you got her twelve and a half for Earth Resurrected. That’s not bad.”
I opened the lobby door with one hand and propped it open with my foot as I maneuvered the dolly through the entryway. “The agency hasn’t made an announcement about that to the press, much less The Biz,” I said. “Where did you hear about it?”
Van Doren grabbed the door and held it for me. “I got it from Brad Turnow’s office,” he said. “They faxed out an announcement to the press, and I got the figure from his receptionist when I called to follow up.”
I made a mental note to have Brad fire his receptionist. “I can’t comment about my client’s affairs,” I said. “If you’re looking for something, I’m not going to give it to you.”
“I’m not here to do anything on Michelle Beck,” Van Doren said. “I’m hoping to do a story on you.”
“On me?” I said. “Really, Van Doren. I’m not that interesting. And there are no pictures of me on the Net having sex with anyone.”
“Look, we know we lost a lot of goodwill on that story,” Van Doren said. This statement was on the same level as the captain of the Titanic saying, I guess we’ve taken on a little water. “We’re trying to get away from that sort of thing now. Do some real journalism. The story I’m doing, for example,
is ‘The Ten Hottest Young Agents in Hollywood.’”
“You getting ten agents to talk to you?” I wheeled over to my car, a Honda Prelude.
“I’ve got six so far,” he said, “including one of your guys here—Ben Fleck. You know him?”
“I do,” I said. “I wouldn’t call him one of the ten hottest young agents in Hollywood.”
Van Doren grimaced. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Frankly, none of the really good young agents want to talk. That’s why I’m really hoping to do something on you. I mean, twelve and a half million! I’d say that makes you the hottest agent in Hollywood at the moment, period. You’re the money guy, in all senses of the term. This is cover story material, Tom. You need help getting that in the trunk?” he gestured to the water bottle.
I just did not want this guy here.
“No thanks,” I said. “It’s going up front.”
“Well, here,” he said, stepping around to the dolly. “I’ll hold this while you get the door open.”
What could I do? I gave him the dolly and went to open the passenger side door. As I opened the door, I realized I was on the wrong side of it; Van Doren would have to put the bottle in. I felt a mild stirring of panic.
Van Doren realized this as well. “I’ll get it,” he said, and walked around to pick it up. “I don’t suppose you have a cap for this—if you hit a bump, you’re going to get it all over your interior.”
“Nope,” I said.
Van Doren shrugged. “Your car.” He reached down and picked up the bottle, wobbled it slightly, provoking a spike of fear to my mild stirring of panic, turned and maneuvered it onto the passenger seat. As he stood up, his face was red and blotchy. “Out of shape,” he said. “Tom, don’t take this wrong, but that water smells a little off. You’re not planning to drink it, I hope.”
“No,” I said. “It’s from a sulfur spring one of our agents just got back from. You heat it up and soak in it. Good for the skin. But stinky.”
“No kidding,” Van Doren said. He leaned against the door, effectively blocking my ability to shut it. “So, Tom, how about it? I think you’d make a great profile. In fact, if everything goes well, I might be able to persuade my editors to drop the other nine hottest young agents out of the story. A cover story, Tom.”
On a normal day of my life, I would have wanted to be on the cover of The Biz about as much as I wanted to run my tongue over a cheese grater. Today, with an alien in my passenger seat and no clue as to my future in the agency, I wanted to be on the cover of The Biz even less than that.
“Thanks, but I’m going to pass,” I said. “I’m not much one for the limelight. I save that for my clients.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Van Doren said. “You talk in perfect pull quote nuggets. Come on.”
I decided to lie. “I’m late for dinner with my parents,” I said, nodding to the door.
He reluctantly backed away. “And concerned about family, too. You’re screaming to be made famous, Tom.”
I smiled, thought about saying something, thought better of it. “I don’t think so, Van Doren. Make Ben famous instead.” I closed the door and walked over to the driver side.
“Think about it, Tom,” Van Doren said, as I got in the car. “I’ll be around when you want to talk.”
Is that a promise or a threat? I wondered. I waved, started the Prelude, and got the hell out of there.
I got a ticket from the California Highway Patrol, for speeding on the 210.
“That cop was not at all what I expected,” Joshua said. “Neither Ponch nor John had breasts. I’m going to have to revise my expectations.”
No kidding.
CHAPTER Five
“All right,” I said. “Question and answer time.”
“Gasp,” Joshua said. “Torture me all you want. But I’ll never tell you the location of the rebel base.”
Joshua and I were sitting at my dining room table. More accurately, I was sitting at the table; Joshua was sitting on it. Between us was a Pizza Hut carton and the remnants of a large pepperoni pizza. Joshua had eaten four slices. They lay, haphazardly, near the center of his being. I could see the slices slowly disintegrating in an osmotic haze. It was vaguely disturbing.
“You going to eat that last piece?” Joshua said.
“No,” I said, turning the carton towards him. “Please.”
“Great,” Joshua said. A pseudopod extended, folded around the crust edge, and withdrew back into his body. The slice was surrounded and joined its brethren. “Thanks. I haven’t had anything all day. Carl thought it might be upsetting to you to see food rotting away in the middle of something that looked like dried glue.”
“He was right,” I said.
“That’s why he’s the boss,” Joshua said. “Okay. Here’s the rules for the question and answer period: you ask a question, then I ask a question.”
“You have questions?” I asked.
“Of course I have questions,” Joshua said. “From my point of view, you’re the alien.”
“All right.”
“No lying and no evading,” Joshua said. “I think we can be pretty safe with each others’ secrets, because, really, who are we going to tell? Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Good,” Joshua said. “You go first.”
“What are you?” Might as well get the big one out first.
“A fine question. I’m a highly advanced and organized colony of single-celled organisms that work together on a macrocellular level.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Wait your turn,” Joshua said. “How did you get this place? These are nice digs.”
He was right. They were nice digs. Far better than I could have afforded on my own (until today, that is)—a four-bedroom ranch on three-quarters of an acre, overlooking the valley and abutting Angeles National Forest in the back. Occasionally I woke up and went out back to find a deer in the yard or a coyote digging through the trash. That passes for nature here in LA. It was just above the smog layer, too. Such are the advantages of having prosperous parents. My mother left it to me after my father died and she retired to Scottsdale, to be closer to her mother’s nursing home.
The only thing that could be held against it was that it was in the wrong valley—San Gabriel, where the “real” people (read: not in the movie business) lived. Every once in a while one of the other agents would mock me about that. I would smile sweetly and ask them what the rent was on their one-bedroom condo in Van Nuys.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” I said. “My mom gave me the house when she moved. What does ‘highly advanced and organized colony of single-celled organisms’ mean?”
“It means that each of the cells in my body is a self-contained, unspecialized organism,” Joshua said. “How did you decide to become an agent?”
“My dad was an agent—a literary agent,” I said. “When I was a kid, he’d bring his clients over for dinner. They were weird but fun people. I thought it was cool that my dad knew such weird people, so I decided I wanted to be an agent. I must have been about five. I had no idea what an agent really did. If you’re actually a bunch of smaller creatures, how do you get them all to move and act the way you want them to?”
“I don’t know,” Joshua said. “Do you know how you make your heart beat?”
“Sure,” I said. “My brain sends a message to my heart to keep beating.”
“Right,” Joshua said. “But you don’t know the exact process.”
“No,” I said.
“Neither do I,” Joshua said. “Do you have a game console?”
“What? No,” I said. “I had a Nintendo when I was younger, but that was a long time ago. Do you have any organs, like a heart or a brain?”
“Not exactly,” Joshua said. “The cells take turns performing functions, based on need. Right now, for example, the cells on my surface are collecting sensory information. Other cells not otherwise occupied are performing cognitive functi
ons. The cells around the pizza are digesting it. Like I said, I don’t think about doing these things, they just get done. What about cable?”
“Basic plus HBO and Playboy Network.”
“Naughty boy.”
“I wanted Showtime. They screwed it up. I never got around to fixing it.”
“I believe you,” Joshua said. “Really I do.”
“Are you male or female?” I asked.
“I’m neither,” Joshua said. “My cells reproduce asexually. Spice Channel will do nothing for me. Do you have a computer with an Internet connection?”
“I have a Mac and DSL,” I said. “Why are you asking about these things?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a gelatinous cube,” Joshua said. “It’s not like I’m going to be getting out of the house much. The neighbors would talk. So I want to make sure I’m going to be able to keep myself amused. Got any pets?”
“I had a cat, but he ran away about two years ago. I say ‘ran away,’ but I think he was hit by a car or eaten by coyotes. The Escobedos next door have a retriever, Ralph, that will occasionally get out of the yard and come over for a visit. I don’t think you need to worry about Ralph, though. He’s fifteen years old. He might be able to gum you, but that’s about it. Anyway, he never comes in the house. So, if your species reproduces asexually, that means you’re a clone of some other Yherajk, right?”
“Eeeeeeeh …” Joshua sounded suspiciously like he was trying to evade the question. “Not exactly,” he said, finally. “Our cells are asexual but we have a way of creating new … ‘souls’ is probably the best word for it. I’d have a really difficult time explaining it to you.”
“Why?”
“You’re out of turn.”
“You’re evading.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, let’s say it’s a sort of societal taboo. Asking me to talk about it would be sort of like me asking you to describe in graphic detail the sexual encounter between your parents that resulted in your conception.”
“It was during their honeymoon in Cancun,” I said.