The VMR Theory (v1.1) (20 page)

He smiled slowly and his cold, cold, horizontal eyes caught my attention—they looked like they had been dead for a long, long time. “Call me Smith,” he said in a pleasant voice. “Gregorio Smith.”

“The sotweed factor. That means the tobacco industry is behind this little conspiracy to overthrow truth and justice in the universe.”

“Why not? We’ve done everything else.”

I shook my head, which was one of the few things I could move, and looked at Wipo. “So you decided to let organized crime get its hooks into Alt Bauernhof.”

“We are always looking for ways to improve tee efficiency of our government,” Wipo explained smugly.

I asked Smith, “So why are you trying to help these two take over the universe? Lust for power? Revenge on a society that cast you out?”

He shrugged. “The money is good, and the Institute has a great pension plan.”

“For peddling death?”

“I like to think of it as the South’s revenge on pissant Yankeedom. But you’ve got to admit that the criticism we get is unfair. Tobacco is really the last all-natural product around.”

“Ever try making it into a pill and selling it in health food stores?”

“Oh, yeah—health food nuts will buy anything—but the FDA was down on us like ugly on a hound dog.”

“Beneath that warm, caring exterior you’re utterly heartless, aren’t you, Gregorio?”

Smith grinned, sharing a private joke. “I could show you my voter registration card to prove it.”

I stared at the older Macdonald in the feather headdress. “Well, that’s two out of three. So who are you, Chicken Man?”

Wipo bowed with a flourish. “May I present tee chairperson of our board of ephors. You may call him Lord Fowl.”

“Impudent creature!” The befeathered Fowl looked me up and down. “Tee loat’some disease you are infested wit’ is emblematic of tee spiritual degeneracy of tee Confederation.”

“Yeah, yeah, and your mother wears army boots. So what is this wonderful plot the three of you have cooked up?”

Mordred waved his hand airily. “May I tell him?”

“Suit yourself,” Fowl replied.

Mordred polished off another flower and licked his fingers. “Despite your unspeakable meddling, everything is finally coming up roses—cute turn of phrase, that. Shortly after you become a crispy critter, my darling demi-brother, Bucky, will have a rude surprise when a Klo’klotixag warfleet returns me to !Plixxi*, where I will reclaim my rightful inheritance and rally my loyal supporters to assist my Klo’klotixag shock troops in chopping my numerous enemies into chutney.”

“I seem to recall that the last time Bucky did the handshake circuit, your loyal supporters faded into the woodwork.”

“Ah, but this time will be different! At first, everyone on my planet welcomed my demi-brother with open arms, but can you imagine how infernally dull life is on IPlixxi* these days—no political skulduggery, no corruption on a grand scale, no lusty wenches pulling each other’s fur out in the palace halls? By now my loyal subjects-to-be are eagerly awaiting my return.”

Smith smiled coldly. “As we see it, Cheeves is the brains behind Bucky’s throne and you’re the muscle.”

“I didn’t like the way you said that.”

“Once we polish you off, Cheeves will take a tour of the harbor with an old refrigerator, and Bucky, as they say, becomes history.”

“I hope you realize that you’ll never get away with this,” I interjected at what seemed to be a timely moment.

The four of them guffawed. “After I expose tee Confederation’s role in tee plot to bomb our capitol building, I will grudgingly accept tee Confederation’s cringingly abject apologies,” Fowl declared. “Tee Confederation will not dare to interfere when we move on Plixxi.” Mordred’s whiskers twitched. “After Fowl’s invincible legions assist me in deposing that goody-two-shoes sibling of mine—I think I’ll use him to upholster a footstool—we revert back to the plan you messed up before. We base a few warships on iPlixxi* to force the Confederation Navy to divide its strength, and then the Macdonald Navy launches a surprise all-out assault while everybody’s watching the Super Bowl.”

I shook my head as fast as it would go. “The Super Bowl Sunday punch, that’s got to be the oldest trick in the book! Well, maybe not the oldest trick—telling people that your opponent is going to raise taxes and cut social security benefits is the oldest trick—but you know what I mean.”

“A time-honored trick, but an effective one,” Smith gloated. “Then we move on to really interesting things, like discounting the dangers of secondhand smoke.”

“Yeah. Right. Sure.”

“Hey! We got scientific studies that
prove
our case! Who’re you going to believe, us or the government?”

I conceded the point. “Earth hasn’t grown tobacco for twenty years. What makes you think you can rebuild your empire?”

Smith’s yellow eyes glowed with an unholy light. “On Earth, I have an army of tobacco farmers on government subsidies poised to begin planting at my command.”

I gave up on Smith and turned my attention back to Mordred. “From the letters I’ve been getting, it doesn’t sound like being Poobah is a bowl of brussels sprouts. Are you sure you want the job?”

“It is a matter of principle. Can you imagine how demoralizing it was to be defeated in a succession war by Bucky? I don’t believe the little wimp even fornicates. I was depressed for months.” Mordred blinked a few times. “To this day I don’t know where we went wrong with him. As a child he seemed so normal. If only our dear, deceased father were alive to see our family name dragged so low.”

“Ah, well,” I said, “I suppose that every family has its white sheep.”

“White sheep?” Mordred’s nose quivered. “I don’t believe I understand.”

“It’s a metaphor,” I said limply, hanging limply.

“What is a metaphor?” Mordred asked.

I pondered my response. Catarina once told me that it was a good place for grazing cattle.

“A metaphor is a poetic device whereby humans allege similarities between unlike objects,” Smith interjected smoothly. “It may interest you to learn, Mr. MacKay, that in order to avoid a repetition of events on Plixxi, I have persuaded Lord Fowl to ban ‘The Bucky Beaver Show’ before that particular cancer has a chance to spread.”

“We have had a few scattered reports of rioting and individuals flaunting Bucky Beaver T-shirts,” Wipo exclaimed, “but because of tee timely warning, my government was able to foil your plot to infect my people wit’ tee foul execration of morality.” He paused. “Why are you looking from side to side like t’at?”

“I’m looking for cows.”

“What do you mean, looking for cows?”

“The manure in here is getting pretty deep.”

Smith patted me on the cheek. “Where I grew up, we used to perform surgery on persons who made comments like that—on body parts that guys are attached to, you know?”

I gathered that he was talking about making it possible for me to host Tupperware parties.

“Come up with a better threat,” I sneered. “My ex-wife used to use that one.”

“Threatening him is fun, but it’s almost prime time,” Mordred observed. “What is that line in the play that Piglet uses, ‘To be or not to be’?”

“That’s
Hamlet
,” I said, clenching my teeth. “Whatever. In your case you are not to be. Although when I saw the play, it seemed as though Hamlet went to an awful lot of trouble just to usurp his uncle’s throne and marry his mother.” Mordred tugged at his whiskers. “Perhaps some of the finer nuances escaped me.”

“It is time to leave you,” Fowl said, “but understand t’at by implicating yourself in tee bombing attempt, you have served us, whom you revile and despise. You have given us tee staff by which we will break tee Confederation and turn your former victories against you, falsified by your arrogance and selfishness. And so die a deat’ wit’out meaning, bereft even of tee bare dignity of solitude, betrayed by folly and broken dreams. Your existence will end in desolation wit’out comprehension and blame wit’out pity.”

I coughed. “Excuse me, aren’t we drifting into the realm of fantasy here.”

Mordred tilted his head. “Good night then, sweet count. In your final seconds, console yourself with the thought that I shall not turn coward again. I shall conquer !Plixxi* or perish!”

I made one final effort. “Okay, let me get this straight—Mordred here doesn’t want to be a coward, Smith is heartless, and Fowl, I can guess your problem. Well, I want to be in Kansas. Now, I’ve got this wizard friend—”

Mordred’s nose quivered. “Oh, I see what you’re getting at! But you know, I’ve always believed that
The Wizard of Oz
represents the American political process between 1870 and 2011. The Tin Woodsman is the Republican Party, the Scarecrow is a Democrat, and the Cowardly Lion is the perennial third-party challenge; while Dorothy and Toto, with their touching belief in fiscal legerdemain, symbolize the voting public. Now—”

Wipo, Fowl, and Smith were already on their way up the ladder with their ears stopped up. I sighed deeply. “Can we get on with executing me?”

“Well, ta-ta, then!” Mordred’s beady eyes glistened. “We’ll be watching. Be sure and have a good fry!”

Wipo’s guards hauled me off wrapped in chains, and we took an uncomfortable ride up to the space station, where they welded me into my seat in the mailship and stuck my guitar in beside me, although, as usual, there was a clown who had to play an air guitar riff with it when he thought the cameras weren’t looking. As Wipo gratuitously pointed out, the controls had been removed so that even if I figured out how to get loose, I couldn’t change course. As added insurance, they’d replaced the oxygen circulation system with a large chia pet. All they left me, apart from a TV camera so that the folks back on Klo’klotixa got their money’s worth, was a viewscreen so that I could watch my own demise, and Swervin’ Irvin’s personality center for company.

Irvin, of course, was a babbling idiot. “This is interference with the public mail!” he fulminated as several Macdonalds in pocket protectors finished bolting me down and slammed the hatch shut. “When I tell the Postal Service about this, they’ll cut off TV service to these bozos for fifty years!”

I felt the acceleration as the mailship broke free of the station. “Irvin, I don’t know how to break this to you, but we’re about to die.”

Irvin considered this. “What do you mean by ‘die’?” he asked about twenty minutes later.

“Discorporate.” It occurred to me that this might not help Irvin. “Cease to exist. Have our tapes erased.” The sun began growing in my viewscreen.

“You mean, like, not be anymore? Ever again?”

“Right. Die.”

“You mean, like, no more TV or music videos— ever?”

“Only if you’ve led a blameless life.”

Irvin paused to consider this. “Ken?”

“What?”

“What happens to people when they die?”

“Well, generally, they put your body in a cemetery, except in parts of New Jersey where landfills are still popular.”

“But I don’t have a body! What’s going to happen to me?”

Politely ignoring the question, I tried to summon up a surge of McLendon-induced hysterical strength to break myself free and come up with something resembling a plan for what to do next. Unfortunately, it seemed to be my week for rolling boxcars. As time passed, the solar orb in the viewscreen grew steadily larger.

“Ken?” Irvin whispered plaintively.

“What!”

“What’s a soul?”

This is how I always wanted to go out, spending my last remaining minutes explaining eschatology to an artificial personality. “Look, Irvin, we’re on TV. There are about fifty million Macdonalds watching us, so try and conduct yourself accordingly.”

This was a mistake. Like any other television-trained personality, Irvin automatically whispered shyly, “Hi, Mom!”

Twenty minutes later Alt Bauernhof’s primary completely filled the viewscreen, and all I had for my efforts was a cramp in my right leg. It really was shaping up as one of those weeks.

“Ken?”

“What?”

“Do you want to watch a movie?”

“No!”

“That’s good. Being disconnected like this, I couldn’t turn one on anyway, but my audio circuits are still hooked up.” He paused. “You know, Ken, I’ve been thinking— life is like a merry-go-round: sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and periodically everything stops and you have to fork over some money.”

“Sure.” Just what I needed—homespun philosophy from a bucket of bolts. “Did Wipo leave anything else hooked up?”

“Nope,” Irvin sniffed. “I feel so helpless.”

I tried clicking my heels together three times and whispering, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” but it didn’t work.

A horrible sound filled every cranny of the tiny mail-ship. I tried to turn my head. “What’s that noise?!”

“What noise?” Irvin asked.

“Can’t you hear it? That hideous whining noise!”

“It’s
Classics of Koto,”
Irvin said defensively. “It’s my favorite tape. It includes all-time favorites like ‘Rokudan,’ ‘Chidori,’ and, of course, ‘Haru-No-Kyoku.’ It calms my nerves.”

“You don’t have nerves, Irvin. You’re a hunk of tin.” It was the wrong thing to say. “Aw, come on, Irvin, don’t cry! I didn’t mean it.”

“I can’t help it,” he bawled. “We’re about to be burned, seared, and disintegrated into our component atoms, and—and—you don’t like my music!”

To add to the psychological torment, Wipo and his pals hadn’t bothered letting me go to the bathroom before we left.

A moment or two later Irvin stopped whimpering. “Ken!” he said excitedly. “There’s a spaceship matching speeds with us. Who could it be?”

“We’re saved—it’s Catarina.” I thought for a moment. “Either that, or those kids who sell stuff door-to-door to earn scholarships.”

“We’re saved?”

“Only if it’s Catarina, unless you brought money.”

“Hey, they’re using cutting torches on my outer panels to disconnect the drive! Tell them to stop, Ken!”

“Consider the alternatives.”

“Oh,” Irvin said sheepishly. A moment later he said, “They’re taking us aboard.”

The hatch popped open and Catarina’s head appeared. “Boy, am I glad to see you,” I exclaimed. “Another minute or two and I’d need fresh underwear.” My second-favorite movie is
It’s a Wonderful Life,
and I figure my guardian angel is Clarence’s idiot brother.