Everything You Need: Short Stories (22 page)

He turned away suddenly, tilting his head toward the speaker hanging above us, out of shot. He barked something angrily at it and now his voice didn’t sound like it had before. It didn’t sound like he was from the South. It sounded like a large bucket of nuts and bolts dropped down an old drain pipe. Then he made another sound, even louder. The force of the utterance caused a whole strip of skin to fall off one side of his face, revealing something that looked like a piece of steak that had being lying in a parking lot for a couple weeks.

‘Okay,’ I said, into the silence. ‘So I’m guessing maybe you’re not from East Texas after all?’

The voice from the speaker spoke once again.

‘No, he is not,’ it said, ‘And his polish belongs to us. In reality it is a foodstuff. And we are running perilously low. It must be returned.’

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Back up. Who’s “us”? Who am I talking to?’

All around me, cameramen and production assistants and random techs were frozen like statues. No-one was doing anything any more. They were just staring up at the speaker from which the voice was coming, and all looked like they’d never move again, as if their minds so wanted to be somewhere else that their bodies had been left to their own devices for a while.

But I’m different. I’m used to the challenges of going live. And a godamned professional, too.

‘We are from a planet you do not have a name for,’ the voice said. ‘In our tongue it is called...’ And he made a sound I’m not even going to try to describe. You wouldn’t want to hear it outside your house late at night, that’s for sure. ‘The being you call “Rusty” is one of us. We are allowed to leave the ship every now and then on a strict rotation basis. But he has outstayed his leave. And he is selling what belongs to us alone.’

‘Wait there a second,’ I said, holding my hand up. ‘Ship? What kind of ship?’

‘A scout ship.’

‘From where? Okay, right, the unpronounceable place.’ I turned to the being that I had previously been introduced to as Rusty. ‘But what are you
doing
here?’

‘We have been experiencing some technical difficulties,’ Rusty/it muttered, his voice now halfway between Southern drawl and hacking flu-cough. ‘Because the captain is a complete...’

And then suddenly he/it vanished.

The thing that had been Rusty was gone, leaving only a small pile of clothes, two vivid blue contact lenses and a head and beard wig, lying on the floor.

And over the speaker came the sound of something very bad and physical and permanent happening.

Suddenly there
was
movement amongst the assembled people in the studio. Some running, a little shrieking, a lot of men and women crying out. But it didn’t amount to much. I heard someone in back shouting that all the doors had mysteriously become locked. I glanced over at the window to the control booth once more and saw everyone in there was standing frozen, watching me through the glass. I think Rod was still shouting things in my ear, too, but I wasn’t listening. He was never any help.

‘If you’re some kind of scout ship,’ I said, talking directly to the disembodied voice again, ‘How come you can’t just phone home? Contact the mothership or whatever, tell them you’ve got issues and to send help?’

There was a pause, then something that sounded a little like a human cough.

‘We’re not supposed to be here,’ the voice said.

‘Why?’

‘Long story,’ the voice said.

‘You got lost?’

‘No,’ the voice said, irritably, as if I’d opened a big can of worms. ‘We were going to invade. But there was some last-minute discussion onboard about the ethics of the thing. Your world is protected, theoretically, and there was some... heated discussion. A small amount of equipment damage ensued. The remote control for the radial neo-transponder matrix got stepped on, and without it the ship doesn’t work.’

‘So you’re
stuck
?’

‘Yes.’

‘For how long?’

There was something like a sigh, a sound that reverberated through the studio like a gust of wind wandering alone through the Grand Canyon, in the dead of night.

‘Eleven point five thousand of your years.’

‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘That’s quite a layover.’

‘Yes. To be honest, the time’s beginning to drag.’

‘I’m not surprised. Holy cow. Where are you, exactly?’

‘In a mountain.’

‘In a...’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘And you’re completely alone here?’

‘There’s a crew down in Key West. But not our kind. They’re spindly. And assholes, actually. And they won’t help.’

‘Have you tried changing the batteries?’

There was a pause. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘this radial neo-transponder matrix widget or whatever sounds like the kind of thing that’s going to need some juice, right? Couldn’t it just be the batteries went flat? Have you checked?’

There was a long, long pause. I mean — really,
really
long. Another cough. Then a further pause.

Finally: ‘I don’t believe our technicians have explicitly evaluated that possibility, no.’

‘You think maybe they... should?’

‘Even if your suggestion had merit, the batteries of our kind are completely different from yours. Actually... do you say different “from” or different “to”?’

‘Whichever,’ I said. ‘You’re the boss.’

‘They are both different from and different to your batteries. They are transquantum piso-structures one mile square in five dimensions. And not available here.’

‘Have you tried a universal remote?’

‘Universal remote?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘In fact... wait here.’

I ran out of the studio, back into the green room, and searched through the various piles of crap spread all over it. Spare jackets and ties, bits and pieces left from other random segments, free samples from previous Special hours. After a minute — thank god — I found what I was looking for and which I
thought
I’d remembered seeing a couple nights before.

Then I strode back out into the studio, already talking direct to camera as I hit the floor.

‘Do
you
suffer from ‘remote proliferation’?’ I asked. ‘Is
your
den deluged under a pile of remotes, your sitting room swamped with switches and kitchen ka-flumped with kontrols, each one designed to work with only one piece of equipment? Do you have one for the television, one for the cable, one for DVD, CD... maybe even one for the cat? You do, right? So do I. Or I
did
, that is, until I discovered the Relco Universal OmniRemote.’

I triumphantly held up the remote I’d found. It caught one of the big lights overhead, and glittered like a chalice.

‘Truly, my friends, this is a leap forward in both technology and tidiness, a breakthrough in convenience and style. I’ll tell you right now — and regular viewers know I don’t say this often — I’ve even got one of these babies myself at home. I’d have two, but...’ — and here I paused for a trademark winsome smile to camera: I was back in the zone — ‘... you’ll only ever
need
one, right?’

‘We don’t have a den,’ said the voice over the speaker. ‘This is a space ship.’

‘I get that,’ I said, ‘My point is you could maybe use one of these things. Reprogram it to work a radial neo-transponder monkey, or whatever it is you said.’

‘Hmm,’ said the voice. ‘Hold on a minute.’

There was a brief humming sound, followed by utter silence. Then the voice came back.

‘Put it in the middle of the floor.’

‘What?’

‘The device of which you speak. Put it in the middle of the floor with a minimum of two Trajelian Nippits of clear space all around it. That’s approximately a ‘yard’, in your currency.’

I walked out from behind the counter and placed the remote carefully in the middle of the floor. Then I stepped back, shooing the cameramen and production flunkies away, so there was a lot of space around it.

‘You got it,’ I said. ‘Now what?’

There was a sudden rushing sound, followed by a brief whirr. Both sounded as if they came from inside my own head. Then a simple and very loud
ping
.

And the remote on the floor had disappeared.

And everything was silent.

There was not a sound in the studio. Everyone stood, waiting. It was as if the world outside had disappeared.

Then, from over the speaker, came a noise that sounded like distant and somewhat relieved cheering.

Everyone in the studio looked at each other.

‘Well, who knew,’ said the rough, liquid voice, coming back. ‘So the monkey-people finally came up with something useful. Point to you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘So now you’re free to go?’

‘Our engines are coming up to speed as we speak. We are going to need that tin of ‘polish’ on the counter there, though. Leave no man behind. Or evidence, I mean.’

I picked up the tin of Supa Shine and went around to put it in the cleared space in the floor. Wind/whirr/ping — and it was gone.

‘Remain right where you are,’ the voice said.

I stayed put, frozen in the middle of the floor.

‘You have been helpful, people of Earth. We are grateful. Now... we’re going to have to destroy you all.’

‘
What
?’

‘You know too much.’

‘We know
shit
,’ I protested. ‘Really. Zip. Nada. Especially me.’

‘Sorry,’ the voice said. ‘Health and safety.’

People began to break down in earnest then. They knew this was the end. They understood suddenly that this was irrevocable, that no argument, however cogent, well-argued or frankly even
right
, would ever make a difference once the twin godhead of health and safety had been invoked.

‘Well, look, Christ,’ I spluttered, regardless, knowing I had to keep talking until the very end. ‘That seems kind of harsh, you know? We fixed your, you know, that thing that was broken. We helped you out, right?’

‘No,’ the voice said. ‘
You
did. Say good bye.’

I looked around the studio, at the people all terrified and flinching, the tear-running faces and trembling shoulders. I glanced at Max and Clive and Jeff, the camera and lights crew, not looking so tough now. At Mandy from make-up, and Trix and Pinky the PA girls, and finally through the window at Rod and his open-mouthed producers and other familiars: at these people, my colleagues and acquaintances, the people I had worked with, these fellow-toilers at the sharp end of retail.

These humans. Every single one of them remains burned into my mind. They’re the last ones I ever saw.

‘Goodby...’ was all I got out.

Then my mind went white, and there was the sound of wind, and then a whir, and then a ping.

T
he viewers
at home never saw me vanish, or what happened to Rusty. They never even heard the strange voice over the speakers — all they saw was a whacky few seconds where James Richard seemed to be going very seriously off message... before the Home Mall signal went fuzzy for a couple minutes.

Then the channel abruptly left the air forever, as the studio, warehouse and surrounding city block was vaporized — by what was later explained, I gather, as an unexpected meteorite. I guess the CIA or NSA or some other bunch of spooks covered the whole thing up somehow. Clearly
someone
back at home knows where Earth stands in the bigger picture — since I’ve been away I discovered there’s even a secret website at www... oh, I guess I shouldn’t say. But that’s how I know the official US government classification for what happened to me: a close encounter of the seventeenth kind, one involving ‘a commercial transaction conducted over some form of mass telecommunication (including but not limited to television, radio or particle net sub-rotation) and involving individual items valued at one hundred dollars or less’. It’s kind of rare. In fact I think I may have been the first. To survive, anyhow.

So — there’s the scoop on how I came to be here, like you asked. Edit as you see fit, of course — I know it’s kind of long for a press release. I’m sure my new agent will want some tweaks too: the stuff about my name won’t mean a lot to a guy called fLKccHL±±sgdo273-fx2, I guess.

Anyhoo. Got to go, bro. The bright lights call, the roar of the greasepaint and the emall of the crowd. I’m five minutes away from a two-hour pan-galactic Special for a massive consignment of mesquite-roasted Alpha Centaurian pengulnuts and their associated serving dishes and cookware. Yum yum. The buying public awaits eagerly, always, and James Richard is their friend, adviser and honest guide through the retail jungle...

... whatever damned planet they’re from.

T
he first thing
I was unhappy about was the dark. I do not like the dark very much. It is not the worst thing in the world but it is not the best thing in the world, either. When I was very smaller I used to wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and be scared when I woke up because it was so dark. I went to bed with my light on, the light that turns round and round on the drawers by the side of my bed. It has animals on it and it turns around and it makes shapes and patterns on the ceiling and it is pretty and my mummy’s friend Jeanette gave it to me. It is not too bright but it is bright enough and you can see what is what. But then it started that when I woke up in the middle of the night the light would not be on any more and it would be completely dark instead and it would make me sad. I didn’t understand this but one night when I’d woken up and cried a lot my mummy told me that she came in every night and turned off the light after I was asleep, so it didn’t wake me up. But I said that wasn’t any good, because if I
did
wake up in the night and the light wasn’t on, then I might be scared, and cry. She said it seemed that I was waking up every night at the moment, and she and Daddy had worked out that it might be the light that woke me, and after I was awake I’d get up and go into their room and see what was up with them, which meant she got no sleep any night ever and it was driving her completely nuts.

So we made a deal, and the deal said I could have the light on all night
but
I promised that I would not go into their room in the night unless it was
really
important, and it is a good deal and so I’m allowed to have my light on again now, which is why the first thing I noticed when I woke up, was that it was dark. The light was off.

Mummy had broken the deal.

I was cross about this but I was also very sleepy and so wasn’t sure if I was going to shout about it or not.

Then I noticed it was cold.

Before I go to bed, Mummy puts a heater on while I am having my bath, and also I have two blankets on top of my duvet, and so I am a warm little bunny and it is fine. Sometimes if I wake in the middle of the night it feels a bit cold but if I snuggle down again it’s okay.

But this felt really cold.

My light was not on and I was cold.

I put my hand out to put my light on, which was the first thing to do. There is a switch on a white wire that comes from the light and I can turn it on myself — I can even find it in the dark when there is no light.

I tried to do that but I could not find the wire with my hand. So I sat up and tried again, but still I could not find it, and I wondered if Mummy had moved it, and I thought I might go and ask her, but I could not see the door. It had been so long since I had been in my room in the night without my light being on that I had forgotten how dark it gets. It’s
really
dark.

I knew it would be hard to find the door if I could not see it, so I did it a clever way.

I used my imagination.

I sat still for a moment and remembered what my bedroom is like. It is like a rectangle and has some drawers by the top of my bed where my head goes. My light is on the drawers, usually. My room also has a table where my coloring books go and some small toys, and two more sets of drawers, and windows down the other end. They have curtains so the street lights do not keep me awake, and because in summer it gets bright too early in the morning and so I wake everybody up when they should still be asleep because they have work to do and they need some sleep. And there is a big chair but it is always covered in toys and it is not important.

I turned to the side so my legs hung off the bed and down onto the floor. In my imagination I could see that if I stood up and walked straight in front of me, I would nearly be at my bedroom door, but that I would have to go a little way... left, too.

So I stood up and did the walking.

It was funny doing it in the dark. I stepped on something soft with one of my feet, I think it was a toy that had fallen off the chair. Then I touched one of the other drawers with my hand, and I knew I was close to the door, so I turned left and walked that way a bit.

I reached out with my hands then and tried to find my dressing gown. I was trying to find it because I was cold, but also because it hangs off the back of my bedroom door on a little hook and so when I found the dressing gown I would know I had got to the right place to open the door.

But I could not find the dressing gown. Sometimes my mummy takes things downstairs and washes them in the washing machine in the kitchen and then dries them in another machine that makes them dry, so maybe that was where it was. I was quite awake now and very cold so I decided not to keep trying to find the gown and just go wake Mummy and Daddy and tell them that I was awake.

But I couldn’t find my doorknob.

I knew I must be where the door is, because it is in the corner where the two walls of my room come together. I reached out with my hands and could feel the two sides of the corner, but I could not find the doorknob, even though I moved my hands all over where it should be. When I was smaller the doorknob came off once, and Mummy was very scared because she thought if it happened again I would be trapped in my bedroom and I wouldn’t be able to get out, so she shouted at Daddy until he fixed it with a different screw. But it had never come off again so I did not know where it could be now. I wondered if I had got off my bed in the wrong way because it was dark and I had got it mixed up in my imagination, and maybe I should go back to my bed and start again.

Then a voice said: ‘Maddy, what are you
doing
?’

I was so surprised I made a scared sound, and jumped. I trod on something, and the same voice said ‘Ow!’ I heard someone moving and sitting up. Even though it was in the dark I knew it was my Mummy.

‘Mummy?’ I said. ‘Where are you?’

‘Maddy, I’ve
told
you about coming into our room.’

‘I’m not.’

‘It’s just not
fair
. Mummy has to go to work and Daddy has to go to work and you have to go to school and we
all
need our sleep. We made a
deal
, remember?’

‘But
you
broke the deal. You took away my light.’

‘I haven’t touched your light.’

‘You did!’

‘Maddy, don’t
lie
. We’ve talked about lying.’

‘You took my light!’

‘I haven’t taken your light and I didn’t turn it off.’

‘But it’s not turned on.’

She made a sighing sound. ‘Maybe the bulb went.’

‘Went to where?’

‘I mean, got broken.’

‘No, my whole
light
is not there.’

‘Maddy...’

‘It’s not! I put my hand out and I couldn’t find it!’

My mummy made a sound like she was very cross or very tired, I don’t know which. Sometimes they sound the same. She didn’t say anything for a little minute.

‘Look,’ she said then, and she did not sound very cross now, just very sleepy and as if she loved me, but wished I was still asleep. ‘It’s the middle of the night and everyone should be in bed. Their
own
bed.’

‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’

‘That’s okay.’ I heard her standing up. ‘Come on. Let’s go back to your room.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘Back to your room. Now. I’ll tuck you in, and then we can all go back to sleep.’

‘I
am
in my room.’

‘Maddy — don’t start.’

‘I
am
in my room!’

‘Maddy, this is just silly. Why would you... Why is it so dark in here?’

‘Because my light is off. I told you.’

‘Maddy, your light is in
your
room. Don’t—’

She stopped talking suddenly. I heard her fingers moving against something, the wall, maybe. ‘What the hell?’

Her voice sounded different.

‘”Hell” is a naughty word.’ I told her.

‘Shush.’

I heard her fingers swishing over the wall again. She had been asleep on the floor, right next to the wall. I heard her feet moving on the carpet and then there was a banging sound and she said a naughty word again, but she did not sound angry but like she did not understand something. It was like a question mark sound.

‘For the love of
Christ
.’

That was not my mummy talking. She said: ‘Dan?’

‘Who the hell else? Any chance you’ll just take her back to bed? Or I can do it. I don’t mind. But let’s one of us do it. It’s the middle of the fucking night.’

‘Dan!’

‘Fucking is a
very
naughty—’

‘Yes, yes, I’m terribly sorry,’ my daddy said. He sounded as if he was only half not in a dream. ‘But we have
talked
about you coming into our room in the middle of the night, Maddy. Talked about it endlessly. And—’

‘Dan,’ my mummy said, starting to talk when he was still talking, which is not good and can be rude. ‘Where
are
you?’

‘I’m right
here
,’ he said. ‘For god’s
sake
. I’m... Did you put up new curtains or something?’

‘No,’ Mummy said.

‘It’s not normally this dark in here, is it?’

‘My light has gone,’ I said. ‘That’s why it is so dark.’

‘Your light is in
your
room,’ Daddy said.

I could hear him sitting up. I could hear his hands, too. They were not right next to Mummy, but at the other end of my room. I could hear them moving around on the carpet.

‘Am I on the floor?’ he asked. ‘What the hell am I doing
on the floor
?’

I heard him stand up. I did not tell him ’hell ’ is a naughty word. I did not think that he would like it.

I heard him move around a little more, his hands knocking into things.

‘Maddy,’ Mummy said, ‘where do you think you are?’

‘I’m in my
room
,’ I said.

‘Dan?’ she said, to Daddy. My daddy’s other name is “Dan.” It is like “dad” but has a nuh-sound at the end instead of a duh-sound. ‘
Is
this Maddy’s room?’

I heard him moving around again, as if he was checking things with his hands.

‘What are we doing in here?’ he said, sounding as if was not certain. ‘Is this her room?’

‘Yes, it’s
my room
,’ I said.

I was beginning to think Daddy or Mummy could not hear properly because I kept saying things over and over but they did not listen. I told them again. ‘I woke up, and my light was off, and this is my room.’

‘Have you tried the switch by the door?’ Daddy asked Mummy.

I heard Mummy move to the door, and her fingers swishing on the wall, swishing and patting. ‘It’s not there.’

‘What do you mean it’s not there?’

‘What do you think I mean?’

‘For Christ’s sake.’

I heard Daddy walking carefully across the room to where Mummy was.

Mummy said: ‘Satisfied?’

‘How
can
it not be there? Maddy — can you turn the light by your bed on, please?’ Daddy sounded cross now.

‘She says it isn’t there.’

‘What do you mean, not there?’

‘It’s not
there
,’ I said. ‘I already told Mummy, fourteen times. I was coming into your room to tell you, and then Mummy woke up and she was on the floor.’

‘Are the street lamps out?’

This was Mummy asking. I heard Daddy go away from the door and go back to the other end of the room, where he had woken up from. He knocked into the table as he was moving and made a cross sound but kept on moving again.

‘Dan? Is that why it’s so dark? Is it a power cut?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I... can’t find the curtains.’

‘Can’t find the gap, you mean?’

‘No. Can’t find the
curtains
. They’re not here.’

‘You’re sure you’re in the right—’

‘Of course I’m in the right place. They’re not here. I can’t feel them. It’s just wall.’

‘It is just wall where my door is too,’ I said. I was happy that Daddy had found the same thing as me, because if he had found it too then it could not be wrong.

I heard Mummy check the wall near us with her hands. She was breathing a little quickly.

‘She’s right. It’s just wall,’ she said, so now we all knew the same thing. ‘It’s just wall, everywhere.’

But Mummy’s voice sounded quiet and a bit scared and so it did not make me so happy when she said it.

‘Okay, this is ridiculous,’ Daddy said. ‘Stay where you are. Don’t move.’

I could hear what he was doing. He was going along the sides of the room, with his fingers on the walls. He went around the drawers near the window, then past where my calendar hangs, where I put what day it is in the mornings, then along my bed.

‘She’s right,’ he said. ‘The lamp isn’t here.’

‘I’m really cold,’ Mummy said.

Daddy went past me and into the corner where Mummy had been sleeping, where I had trod on her when I was trying to find the door.

But he couldn’t find the door either.

He said the door had gone, and the windows, and all the walls felt like they were made of stone. Mummy tried to find the curtains but she couldn’t. They tried to find the door and the window for a long time but they still couldn’t find them and then my mummy started crying.

Daddy said crying would not help, which he says to me sometimes, and he kept on looking in the dark for some more time, trying to find the door.

But in the end he stopped, and he came and sat down with us. I don’t now how long ago that was. It’s hard to remember in the dark. But I think it was quite long ago.

S
ometimes we sleep
, but later we wake up and everything is still the same. I do not get hungry but it is always dark and it is always very cold.

Mummy and Daddy had ideas and used their imaginations. Mummy thought there was maybe a fire, and it burned all our house down. Daddy says we think we are in my room because I woke up first, but he says really we are in a small place made of stone, near a church somewhere.