Channel Blue (22 page)

‘You set him up,’ Amanda muttered, pushing her way past well-heeled guests who stared at the glamorous woman in the sunglasses talking to herself.

Marty and Vermy shrugged in her right lens. ‘We knew that it might be explosive, I’m not going to lie to you.’

‘You already have,’ Amanda said. ‘He could die in there. What happens to the show then?’

‘Anything could happen. But that’s the way it is with Blue. Anyway, it’s all been approved.’

This brought Amanda to a sudden halt. ‘Since when?’ she asked.

Marty licked his coffee stirrer. ‘
Bunt to the Rescue
is a mini-series, not a franchise.’

‘You have no right to make that call.’

‘I get paid to make that call, and right now, you’re the only producer in the galaxy who thinks it has legs.’

Amanda stood still, fuming. Laughing party guests strolled by her.

Marty adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘I’m sorry. I would’ve told you, but I didn’t have time to deal with artistic differences.’

Amanda resumed walking towards the house. She pulled off her sunglasses, dropped them to the lawn and crushed them under one high heel. She pulled off one of her earrings and prepared to deal it the same fate.

‘Don’t do this, Manda,’ the earring squawked in her hand. Marty’s voice had an urgency she’d never heard, and she stopped inches from the entrance into which Del had led Perry. ‘Seriously. You’re a great kid with a lot of potential. If you go in there right now, it
will
be over. Not just the show, Channel Blue, and Earth – I’m talking about your entire career. Don’t do it, honey. Don’t throw everything away like this.’

* * *

Perry had been beaten up a few times since becoming a star on Channel Blue, but he now realised that those rough drubbings at the hands of street toughs, prisoners and the LAPD were completely amateurish compared to what was happening to him right now in Del’s den. Perry did his best to run and dodge the blows Del rained down on him, but Del tracked him down mercilessly, cutting him off before he could get to the door or crawl under a table and beating him backwards. It seemed that everywhere he turned fists and feet rained down on him.

‘Amanda!’ he shouted. ‘Amanda, I need some help here!’

This amused Del. ‘Amanda, whoever she is, can’t help you, Perry,’ he said, landing another right hook that sent Perry sprawling over a water purifier. ‘Nor can anyone else.’

Del had always pushed himself to excel in every field of endeavour. Since acquiring his first billion, he had devoted himself to a monk-like study of kicking ass. He’d flown to Thailand and lived in a hut in the jungle to train with masters of Muay Thai. He’d spent seven months in Brazil sleeping on the floor of a one-room concrete bungalow with a dozen swarthy men to learn the discipline of
ju-jitsu,
which inspired Ultimate Fighting. He regularly sparred with the greatest fighters in the world, flying them in and paying them thousands of dollars an hour to beat him – though, truth be told, not very hard. All these hours of training were now culminating in this magnificent moment, when such brutality, in Del’s mind, was not only fully justified, but the only solution to the insult posed by Perry.

Between punches and kicks, Del embarked upon a running monologue to explain, in case there were any doubts, why Perry deserved this treatment. ‘You come to my home and question my generosity? In front of my guests? In front of my
daughter
? And
grab my arm
?’

Perry tried to say ‘I’m sorry,’ but even these two short words did not seem to fit between blows.

‘I am now showing you what having forty billion dollars means,’ Del said. ‘Do you know what it means?’ Reeling from the last few punches to his head, it took Perry a moment to realise that his tormentor was awaiting a response. Del snapped a quick punch to Perry’s jaw that sent sparks of pain down to his toes. ‘I’m asking you: do you know what it means?’ Perry shook his head. ‘It means that later tonight, when you’re found dead in a car at the bottom of a ravine off Mulholland Drive, no one will ask any questions.’

Perry moaned and clutched his jaw. Was this really part of the show? They couldn’t have known. Why would they have set him up for this? Wasn’t he the star of the show that was saving Earth? On the other hand, didn’t they know everything? And hadn’t Nick Pythagorus tried to warn him about something like this? What had he said? Perry’s addled brain couldn’t focus. ‘Amanda!’ he yelled.

The door opened and Perry turned hopefully. But the huge man in the dinner jacket who appeared in the doorway seemed to have no immediate interest in interrupting the proceedings. He stood impassively by the door until Del, catching his breath after another few punches, glanced over at him. ‘Well?’

The man consulted a piece of paper that looked like a note card in his massive hand. ‘Single,’ he said. ‘No connections with anyone important. Works part-time teaching at Encino Community College. Otherwise, he’s an unemployed screenwriter.’

Del turned back to Perry and smiled. ‘Even better,’ he said. ‘I might get a medal for killing you.’ He pulled back a fist and advanced on Perry, who staggered backwards into a wall and sank against it, raising his arms over his face in what he recognised as a futile gesture. He closed his eyes, waiting for the blow to fall. Typical – here he was on his first hit show and it was already time for a Very Special Episode.

But no punch came.

Or... the punch had been so lethal, Perry hadn’t felt it and was already dead. He opened his eyes and peeked around his upraised arms. Del still stood in front of him, but now his face was frozen in a terrible grimace. Standing behind the billionaire – and appearing strangely serene – was Amanda Mundo. She was pulling his arm straight back while planting one of her high-heeled shoes against the small of his back. Del suddenly howled with pain and collapsed onto the floor, where he lay motionless.

The dinner-jacketed man grabbed Amanda around the neck with an arm the size of a log – for a moment, she looked like a doll being toyed with by a giant. Her calm expression, however, didn’t change. With blinding speed, she swung her right fist back and punched him square in the Adam’s apple. He made a choking, gurgling sound and grabbed at his neck. She slipped from his grasp, bent her arm and lunged towards him in a precise, seemingly effortless movement, jamming her elbow into the centre of his ribs. His knees buckled and he sprawled onto the floor, moaning.

Perry still sat with his back against the wall. ‘Remind me not to piss you off,’ he said, slowly lowering his arms. Amanda saw his face and gasped. She pulled a handkerchief from the jacket pocket of the guard, who continued to writhe on the floor, like a fish flopping on a dock, and stepped over him to Perry. Dabbing some of the blood from his face, she leaned into him and whispered in his ear: ‘Follow my lead.’

Unlike Marty Firth, Amanda believed that saving Perry’s life wasn’t inconsistent with keeping
Bunt to the Rescue
on the air. She had a plan that would accomplish both. She wiped Perry’s nose and said, in her regular voice, ‘I recognised you at the party. You’re Buddy, aren’t you?’

Perry stared at her, mystified. Unfortunately for Amanda and her plan, she had whispered into the ear Del Waddle had boxed moments before with a deafening blow. All Perry could hear in that ear was a loud ringing sound.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I knew I had to save you,’ Amanda continued, doing her best to prompt Perry with her eyes. ‘I was at the park. I heard your teachings.’

Perry felt like his head might explode. ‘Amanda, will you please tell me what’s going on?’

Amanda gave him a low, swift kick in the shin. ‘How do you know my name? We’ve never met before. You’re Buddy and I’m one of your followers.’

Perry rubbed his shin as tears welled up in his eyes. ‘Is this what’s happening now? You’re going to beat me up, too? Have you stopped producing the show? For the love of God, please tell me what’s going on!’ He whimpered pathetically.

Amanda sighed. ‘I was pretending to be your follower,’ she told him, dropping the ruse.

Perry was both relieved and confused. ‘Why?’

‘So the viewers wouldn’t know who I was.’

Perry nodded, understanding at last. ‘Are they still watching?’

‘I hope so. But now, thanks to you, they know I’m a producer.’

‘And that’s bad?’

‘Well, it’s not good. The whole thing looks like a set-up. And our audiences hate set-ups.’ Amanda smoothed back her hair, considering their options. From the floor, Del Waddle moaned in pain.

‘Well, if we still have a show,’ Perry said, ‘I’d like you to teach me to fight.’

Amanda distractedly shook her head. ‘No. Your inability to defend yourself is a huge part of your appeal.’

‘How did you learn to do that?’

‘We don’t have any violence in our culture, which gives us an advantage in any sort of physical combat with Earthles. We can contain our emotions in order to apply the right technique at the right time. It’s basically physics.’ Perry’s nose had begun bleeding again. Amanda handed him the guard’s handkerchief. ‘Are you OK, Mr Bunt?’

‘I was much better five minutes ago. What took you so long?’

Amanda helped Perry to his feet. ‘I had to make a very tough call. You know the parameters we’re working with—’

‘Screw your parameters! He was going to fucking kill me!’

‘Maybe. But I just broke every rule in the Producers’ Code by walking in here. We may not even have a show anymore.’

‘I don’t give a shit!’ Perry flipped off the ceiling with both hands. ‘Fuck you, you sick alien motherfuckers!’ He gave Amanda the same benediction. ‘And you too, for that matter.’ He took a step towards her and nearly teetered over.

Amanda steadied him against the wall. ‘I had no idea that Del was going to try to kill you.’

Perry regarded her sceptically. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘That runt Nick Pythagorous tried to warn me, but you had no idea. What kind of producer are you?’

A brief flush of irritation passed across Amanda’s face. She took a bottle of water off a nearby table and noticed that the guard, groaning softly, had nearly succeeded in using the table to pull himself up off the floor. Amanda deftly plonked him over the head with the bottle, sending him back down. This time he lay in an inert state next to Del, who also showed no sign of consciousness. Amanda cracked open the water and handed it to Perry. ‘Nick didn’t know anything about this.’

‘Really? Well, he also told me you weren’t being completely honest with me, and based on the last few minutes, I’m inclined to agree.’

‘Drink,’ Amanda said. Once Perry had placed the water bottle to his bloodied lips, she continued. ‘This may be hard for you to understand, but there are forces working against us, forces that will do anything to keep us from producing content. Nick has aligned himself with a renegade producer by the name of Leslie Satan. Satan heads up a group that exists to destabilise productions all over the galaxy called The Movement.’

Perry couldn’t help laughing, even though it hurt in four different places. ‘The Movement? Somebody named themselves The Movement? Satan’s movement? Is that what we’re talking about here? Let me guess: is it hot and evil?’

Amanda rolled her eyes. ‘We don’t have the concept of Satan that you have here on Earth. Or movements, for that matter.’

Perry stared at her. ‘I almost died just now and instead of explaining to me what the fuck is going on, you’re babbling gobbledygook about Satan and movements and—’ The motion of Perry’s lips suddenly ceased when Amanda strode forward and placed hers firmly on top of his. Because she was an inexperienced kisser, having experienced only two kisses previous to this one, this was much more awkward than she’d intended, and for a moment she found herself sucking on one of Perry’s bloody nostrils before getting the correct lip-to-lip alignment.

Amanda would have preferred not to kiss Perry, but at this moment she felt like she had no choice. She knew that Marty Firth was right: as soon as she walked into Del’s den, she was introducing a significant new element to
Bunt to the Rescue,
one that could destroy it. Even though Earthles were regularly manipulated by the producers of Channel Blue, the viewers didn’t want to know about it. Like meat-eaters horrified by the spectre of the slaughterhouse, they wanted the illusion that their entertainment was pure and pristine, free of any real consequence or calculation.

Amanda knew that when she came to Perry’s rescue, Marty would probably cut away to a car chase or dwarf-tossing or some other staple of the channel’s programming. She also knew that Perry would ask a lot of questions that she couldn’t adequately answer. Her only hope was to shock Marty and the channel’s viewers into watching more and Perry into talking less. Thus, the kiss.

It was as unpleasant as she remembered: the bizarre mouth-on-mouth sensation, the unavoidable exchange of saliva, the breathing issue, the primordial ooze of darting tongues like single-celled sea creatures bumping in the dark. She did notice, however, that it was decidedly different being the kisser than the kissee. Just as grotesque, definitely, maybe even more so, but also more raw and – there was no other word to describe it –
fascinating
.

When she pulled back from him, Perry was stunned, his anger completely dissipated as if she’d sucked it right out of him.

‘That’s the third kiss,’ he said.

‘So?’

Perry smiled, but it hurt his cracked lips so he stopped. ‘Earthle custom. You don’t kiss someone three times that you’re not serious about. The third kiss means you’re going to do something more.’

‘Earthle customs,’ Amanda mused. ‘I also enjoy how you shake hands to show each other you’re not carrying swords. And call the thirteenth floor the fourteenth floor. And say “Bless you” because an evil spirit might have crawled into your head when you sneezed.’

‘Now you’re just making us sound crazier than we are.’

‘That would be impossible.’

The crackle of walkie-talkies came down the hallway. Amanda drew back the curtains from a picture window, picked up a footstool and shattered the large pane in an explosion of glass. She stepped casually over the jagged splinters into the backyard, turning back to Perry.