Analog SFF, September 2010 (13 page)

"Of course not.” His editor was competent enough, but nowhere nearly as bright as the editor-in-chief. “But the scam was so good that even smart people fell for it.” Smart or not, there was no point not buttering him up a bit.

William's mind was still churning. “We need a spaghetti tree."

"Huh?"

"A scam of our own. Something to make them change their minds and leave us alone."

"You want to run a fake news story?"

"Yes."

"What about?"

William sipped his wine. “I don't know yet."

"We'll be laughing stocks."

"Only if we play it wrong. We might also save the world."

His editor leaned back. He might not be the brightest bulb on the planet, but he'd come up the way most senior editors did: through news and editorial. If you wanted to be read by millions, you went into sports or features. But news writers, however hard-bitten they might claim to be, didn't just want people to read their stories. They harbored a secret desire to change the world.

"Okay,” his editor said. “I'll have to convince the publisher, and we'll need something that will give us deniability if too many people freak out. But go ahead and run with it for the moment. Too bad April Fool's Day has passed."

Actually, William realized, that was precisely when the aliens had landed. They must have found that inordinately funny. It was also amazingly arrogant. But then, William realized, he'd always been that way himself.

For three interminable days, William read about practical jokes. He found a way to make a saltshaker blow its lid the first time someone tried to use it. He found ways to make people vomit, and to give their bodily fluids bright, exotic colors. There was even a formula for glow-in-the-dark semen.

Meanwhile, word from his off-the-record sources was that the White House was getting very nervous. The current theory was that the alien baby had reached a stage where its nutritional needs were changing, and its caretakers were seeking advice from every trade association that had ever put a dime in the president's coffers. The Apiary Institute suggested honey. “All that pollen in it is good for you,” a representative said. “It's got lots and lots of phytochemicals.” The Confectioners of America lobbied for chocolate. Enologists United urged red wine. “Just because alcohol isn't recommended for human babies doesn't mean it's bad for aliens."

William sighed. Time was running short, and the White House was obsessed with micronutrients. Potato skins. Whole grains. Broccoli. Spinach. Citrus peels. There was an expert for everything.

It was the citrus peels that did it.

The aliens looked like limes. They were even kind of bulby around their joints. He could do something with that. Years ago, he'd written a story about some trade dispute involving Key limes. It had involved subsidies, tariffs, and a bunch of posturing between governments, but what really mattered was that he'd learned more than any reasonable person ever wanted to know about limes. Not to mention that lime growers are a small industry. If he was going to get the
Western Times
sued, better by them than someone bigger, like the spinach, broccoli, or Christmas tree folks.

It's amazing how easy it is to write when you don't have to worry about truth. The hardest part was finding a picture of a frog whose natural color was nearly indistinguishable from the aliens.

The headline was also a challenge. It needed to catch attention, without looking too much like that's what it wanted to do. Eventually William settled on a combination of techno-babble and scare words: Prion Blamed for Rapid Spread of ‘Green Cancer'—Mad-cow-like disease kills frogs and fruit, but officials say no cause for alarm.

The last bit was the best. Nothing produces panic better than bureaucrats saying “no problem.” The photo was good too. Not only was it the most vividly colored amphibian William had ever seen, but its neck, back, and limbs were covered with tumors that looked like chartreuse raisins. A memorable mix with your morning coffee and Danish. Who cared if the frog died twenty years ago, probably due to dioxin or something like that. Within hours of publication, that photo was going to be everywhere.

Once he knew what he was doing, the article practically wrote itself. “A new plague, sometimes called the ‘green cancer,’ has escaped from a Mexican hothouse and is sweeping toward the U.S.,” he began:

A representative of the Baja Citrus Institute, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that the plague appears to have originated in a clandestine biotechnology laboratory where scientists were seeking to strengthen the color of Key limes.

Key limes draw their name from the Florida Keys but are widely grown in other parts of the world.

"They turn yellow when they ripen,” the official said. “Customers sometimes confuse them with lemons."

Also, she said, market research has shown that people who've never eaten Key lime pie before expect it to be green, not yellow. “Strengthening the color would increase sales, especially to first-time customers,” she said.

To green up the fruits, the researchers developed a subcellular particle called a prion.

Prions are deformed proteins that cause similar biomolecules to deform as well. “Some people think they're the simplest form of life,” said Siti Medeski, a virologist at the Moldavian Centre for Advanced Epigenetic Studies. “They reproduce, mutate, and spread like wildfire. They're also damn near impossible to eradicate."

This particular prion causes green pigments to reproduce themselves. It worked well in limes, but nobody expected it to affect frogs.

"Unfortunately, the prion wasn't color-blind,” the Citrus Institute official said. “Even though frogs have different green pigments than plants, it saw them the same way."

In fact, the reaction in frogs is even stronger than in limes.

Xander Hollyfield is a herpetological biochemist, currently on sabbatical at the University of Central Jamaica. “The prion causes the pigments to duplicate themselves very rapidly,” he said by satellite phone from a remote research station. “That makes them run rampant as they attempt to turn the entire frog into nothing but themselves."

Infected frogs can live for days. “By the time they die, they're nothing but hopping, flopping balls of greenness,” Hollyfield said. “It's like mad cow disease, but only if you're green."

Getting the story approved took longer than writing it. First, his editor had to pass it up the line to the editor-in-chief, and from there to the publisher. Then the publisher wanted to see what the company's attorney had to say about it, which meant yet another delay. Meanwhile, William cobbled together websites for as many of his “sources” as he could manage, especially the elusive Xander Hollyfield. That way, he could field inquiries from other news outlets, once the story got moving. Practical joking had never been for the lazy.

Finally, though, he found himself in a conference room overlooking Farragut Square.

"You have got to be kidding,” the attorney said. Not that this was a surprise. Farragut Square was named for the admiral who cried, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” but if attorneys had their way, no news outlet would write about anything more controversial than the best new dessert recipes. Even then they'd be afraid of being sued by someone's grandmother.

"That's kind of the idea—” William started, but his editor-in-chief cut him off.

"Will our insurance cover it?"

"Sure. But they're guaranteed to raise your rates. If you're determined to run the thing, why not make it more obvious it's a joke?"

"That won't work,” the editor-in-chief said.

"Why not?"

The editor-in-chief hesitated, and for a moment William thought he was going to explain about Kemrit, turtles, and the looming
spludge
. But nobody trusts lawyers. They have even less of a sense of humor than politicians. “It's probably better you don't know."

Thanks to all the delays, the story didn't make it out until the evening blogfeed. But maybe that was for the better. The slow start meant it simmered overnight and by morning half the news outlets on the planet had it, elaborating as they went. One even had two Nobel laureates and a bestselling author commenting on how this proved why biotechnology needed greater regulatory controls. “Someday they'll turn the whole world into green goo,” the author said, “and not just the frogs."

But nobody seemed to be connecting it with the aliens. That day's baby exchange proceeded as planned, and this time William didn't need to ask if it had shrunk. Compared to pictures from only a few days before, it was not only thinner, but shorter.

Briefly, William wondered if he was too late. Or worse, had played into the aliens’ hands. After all, he was giving them an example of human carelessness they could use in accusing us of mishandling the baby. But that made no sense. The turtle joke was intended to make us squirm over something that wasn't our fault. Besides, the frog in the picture was deformed, not shrunken.

Not that William had much time to think about Kemrit. He was too busy both fanning the flames of his story and putting out unexpected fires.

The first problem was that Americans, who'd never been all that fond of vegetables, were reverting to French fries and onion rings. Anything that wasn't green. To counter that, he trucked out another imaginary source, Guy Herrero, a “pigmentologist” at the Pacific Rim Research Fund's division of advanced botanical studies.

"The disease affects only green pigments,” William had Herrero say. “Humans can't get it."

Nor was the entire biosphere about to be destroyed. “Only the limiest green of lime-green organisms are involved,” he quoted the reliable Xander Hollyfield as saying, still from the seclusion of rural Jamaica. “Unless you're the color of that frog or a Key lime, you could roll in the stuff and nothing much would happen."

By this time, the story was taking on a life of its own. At first, it was mostly environmental and anti-biotech groups whose blogs and tweets were alive with hand-wringing about how human meddling was wrecking yet one more element of Gaian Earth. But there was also an announcement from the World Federation of Circus Clowns that, just to be on the safe side, green face paint would no longer be used until it could be certified prion-safe.

By the third day, the aliens finally seemed to be taking note. The baby exchange was perfunctory, with no bouncing, few words, and an apparent reluctance to touch the returning baby.

It was time to administer the coup de grace. Green Prion Goes Airborne, William wrote the following day:

Green cancer is spreading far faster than a frog can hop.
Although the disease is still confined to remote regions, it appears to be moving through the American Southwest along the path of the prevailing winds, and is expected to reach the Eastern Seaboard by the end of the week.
Zoos and aquariums are already taking precautions to protect their greenest specimens. Lime growers have nothing to fear except a possible increase in the market value of their crop, offset, perhaps, by an increase in insect pests once eaten by frogs.

Accompanying the story was a weather map, showing the likely spread of the prion, with one plume headed straight at D.C. As an aside, he added a second plume, originating from a second laboratory, in the Seychelles Islands, where monsoon winds would soon send it toward India.

The next morning, the aliens didn't emerge from their spaceships. Two hours later, both vessels powered up and rose into the sky.

William and his editor watched in silence. “What about the baby?” the editor asked.

William shrugged. “I told you, it's not a baby."

Then, right on cue, the television feed was interrupted by a green face. “We sorry we must leave so soon,” it said. Male or female was hard to tell in the close-up. “Keep Kemrit, a gift from our species to yours. If he not grow bumpy, maybe we return with other gifts.” Then with a half-hearted nano-nano, the alien went off the air. Moments later the spaceship vanished.

William was still trying both to catch up on sleep and convince people to eat their vegetables again, when a message was forwarded from several of his fake websites.
Help needed (URGENT),
read the subject line. With an addendum:
And yes, I know it was a hoax
.

William's stomach clenched as he opened it. But it wasn't an accusation. “You're story's obviously phony,” the email began. “I'd know that guy Hollyfield if he really existed. But how the hell did you know that a color prion could jump species like that? We've been working with fresh-blanched broccoli, trying to preserve that super-green color, and we're starting to see some weird things out on the lawn . . ."

William reached for the keyboard, then drew back.
How do you beat a practical joker?
Was he talking to humans or aliens? Reprisal or ecological disaster?

Suddenly he felt very tired. The fate of the world might depend on him getting this one right. He reached for the keys again, then again changed his mind. Practical jokes really weren't for the lazy.

Copyright © 2010 Richard A. Lovett

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A little knowledge . . .

Graduation rehearsal—middle of the afternoon on the final Monday of the final week of school. The graduating seniors at Barack Obama High School gather in the gymnasium, get the wrapped packages with their robes (ordered long ago), their mortarboards, and their blue and white tassels. The tassels attract the most attention—everyone wants to know which side of the mortarboard to wear it on, and which side to move it to.

The future hovers, less than a week away, filled with possibilities.

Possibilities about to be limited, because it's also Red Letter Day.

I stand on the platform, near the steps, not too far from the exit. I'm wearing my best business casual skirt today and a blouse that I no longer care about. I learned to wear something I didn't like years ago; too many kids will cry on me by the end of the day, covering the blouse with slobber and makeup and aftershave.