Year Zero: A Novel Read online

  Year Zero is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Rob Reid

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House

  Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Reid, Robert.

  Year zero : a novel / Rob Reid.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-53448-4

  I. Title.

  PS3618.E5474Y33 2012

  813′.6—dc23

  2012010001

  www.delreybooks.com

  Jacket design and illustration: Base Art Co.

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  ZERO

  ONE ASTLEY

  TWO PIECES OF EIGHT

  THREE STRAY CAT STRUT

  FOUR METALLICAM (ME)

  FIVE MOVING IN STEREOPTICON

  SIX SHERMAN’S SPAWN

  SEVEN AVATARD

  EIGHT IN THE WHITE ROOM

  NINE FOOL FOR THE CITY

  TEN FREE FALLING

  ELEVEN BŌNŌ

  TWELVE pluhhhs

  THIRTEEN THIS IS THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

  FIFTEEN THUD!

  SIXTEEN PAUUUUULIE

  SEVENTEEN DECAPALOOZA

  EIGHTEEN AVATARDIER

  NINETEEN PLAN B

  TWENTY SHOCK & AWE

  TWENTY-ONE STREET FIGHTING MAN

  TWENTY-TWO WELCOME BACK, SHERMAN

  TWENTY-THREE TO THE CORE

  EPILOGUE THE GREAT DECELERATOR

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ZERO

  Aliens suck at music. And it’s not for a lack of trying. They’ve been at it for eons, but have yet to produce even a faintly decent tune. If they had, we’d have detected them ages ago. We’ve been scanning the skies for signs of intelligent life for generations, after all. And we’ve actually picked up thousands of alien anthems, slow dances, and ballads. But the music’s so awful that it’s always mistaken for the death rattle of a distant star. It’s seriously that bad.

  Or more accurately—we’re that good. In fact, humanity creates the universe’s best music, by far. We owe this to a freakish set of lucky breaks. For instance, the combined gravitational pulls of the various bodies in our solar system tug the fluids of our inner ears in juuuuust the right way to give us an exquisite sense of rhythm. Certain deeply bewitching tonal patterns are meanwhile wired right into our brain stems, because they map to the sounds that our distant ancestors’ ancient prey once made. These two, and several other long-shot rarities combine to give us musical superpowers that no other civilization can match.

  The irony is that in every other artistic form that matters to the rest of the cosmos, we’re the dullards. In sculpture, fashion, and synchronized swimming, we rank in the bottom percentile, universe-wide. Découpage and pyrotechnics aren’t even considered to be high expressive forms here, grotesquely stunting our development in those fields. And while we did manage to get off to a decent start in stained glass, we lost all interest in it just a century before LEDs and nanopigments would have taken it to radical new levels. Meanwhile, the plays, dramatic series, and films that we make are in the “so bad, it’s good” category, with our crowning achievements providing ironic late-night amusement to smirking hipsters on countless planets.

  All of this is according to the standards of the Refined League—an obnoxiously brilliant and peaceful confederation of alien societies that spans the universe. To join it, primitives like us first have to attain a certain middling mastery of science. Pull that off, and we’ll be promoted to the Refined ranks. We’ll then be handed all of the technological secrets that we haven’t yet cracked for ourselves, as a sort of cosmic graduation gift. And that will free us up to spend the rest of eternity creating and consuming great art—just like every other Refined species.

  The bad news is that most societies destroy themselves with nuclear, biological, or nanoweapons long before achieving Refined status. And when this happens, Refined observers do nothing to stop the annihilation. This may sound heartless. But it’s actually a prudent form of self-defense—since any society that’s violent and stupid enough to self-destruct on H-bombs might easily destroy the entire universe if it survives long enough to invent something with real firepower.

  Humanity first drew attention to itself back when the Pioneer 10 probe crossed a certain threshold out beyond the orbit of Jupiter. When a planet lobs something that far into space, it tends to mean that intelligence has arisen on it. And so the Refined League’s equivalent of an admissions office—which was already dimly aware of the Earth’s existence1—decided to check in to see if we had any artistic potential (as well as to see if we planned to keep throwing crap into space, because at some point, we might hit something). A scouting craft soon entered our solar system. It detected several broadcast signals, and routed the strongest one (WABC-TV in New York) to a distant team of anthropologists—who then found themselves watching a first-run episode of the hit sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (the one in which Arnold Horshack joins a zany youth cult).

  Before I get into what happened next, I should mention that music is the most cherished of the forty so-called Noble Arts that Refined beings revere and dedicate their lives to. It is indeed viewed as being many times Nobler than the other thirty-nine Arts combined. And remember—their music sucks.

  The first alien Kotter watchers initially doubted that we had music at all, because everything about the show screamed that we were cultural and aesthetic dunderheads. Primitive sight gags made them groan. Sloppy editing made them chuckle. Wardrobe choices practically made them wretch.

  And then, it happened.

  The show ended. The credits rolled, and the theme music began. And suddenly, the brainless brutes that they’d been pitying were beaming out the greatest creative achievement that the wider universe had ever witnessed.

  Welcome back, Welcome back, Welcome back. On Earth, these lyrics were a humble cue to hit the bathroom before What’s Happening!! came on. But everywhere else, they were the core of an opus so sublime that the Refined League reset its calendars to start counting time from the moment it was first detected. And so, October 13, 1977; 8:29 p.m. EST became the dawning moment of Year Zero to the rest of the universe.

  Countless Refined beings perished before the new era was even a minute old. The delight triggered by the Kotter song released so much endorphin-like goo in their brains that they hemorrhaged, bringing on immediate, ecstatic death. Welcome back, Welcome back, Welcome back! Others died from neglecting sleep, meals, or bathroom breaks as they obsessively replayed the Kotter theme over the ensuing weeks.

  The period following the “Kotter Moment” (as it’s known) passed in a haze. Everyone was so stunned that it was months before they thought to scan our TV spectrum more deeply. Once they did, more waves of rhapsodic joy swept the cosmos. Good Times. Happy Days. Sanford and Son. Each new theme song added to the ecstasy—and to the casualties. Soon they discovered the Top 4
0 stations of the AM spectrum. They listened to “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees, “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks, and the immortal “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by A Taste of Honey. More rhapsodic joy. More hemorrhaging brains.

  But with every deadly new discovery, the survivors got a bit hardier. Kotter was like an inoculation that toughened everyone up for Olivia Newton-John, who in turn prepared the cosmos for Billy Joel. So as the music got marginally less awful, the mortality rate paradoxically dropped. And by the time they started exploring the FM frequencies, most Refined beings were ready for what they found. By then it was mid-1978. The FM dial was jammed with what we now call Classic Rock, and some stations occasionally played entire albums from start to finish. The last big die-off occurred when WPLJ broadcast both sides of Led Zeppelin IV. And anyone who survived that had what it took to safely listen to even the most stellar rock ’n’ roll.

  Decades later, the exaltation inspired by our works had barely diminished. But the universe had ignored its inboxes, errands, and to-do lists for decades. And so, everyone reluctantly started returning to business. Politicians started governing again. Accountants started accounting again. Most significantly, alien anthropologists began studying other aspects of human society.

  And that’s when it hit them. They owed us an ungodly amount of money.

  * * *

  1. Our planet was previously visited by some kids on a joy ride during a time geologists call the Cryogenian period. The kids were looking for fun—but the only cool thing about the Cryogenian was that its name could be rearranged to spell things like Organic Yen, Coy Grannie, and Canine Orgy. The Earth itself was nowhere near that fun back then, being barren, rocky, and home only to some microbes. So the kids took off. But they dutifully logged our planet’s coordinates with the appropriate authorities, who in turn set up the tripwire that Pioneer 10 hit eons later.

  ONE

  ASTLEY

  Even if she’d realized that my visitors were aliens who had come to our office to initiate contact with humanity, Barbara Ann would have resented their timing. Assistants at our law firm clear out at five-thirty, regardless—and that was almost a minute ago.

  “I don’t have anyone scheduled,” I said, when she called to grouse about the late arrival. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, Nick. They weren’t announced.”

  “You mean they just sort of … turned up at your desk?” I stifled a sneeze as I said this. I’d been fighting a beast of a cold all week.

  “Pretty much.”

  This was odd. Reception is two key-card-protected floors above us, and no one gets through unaccompanied, much less unannounced. “What do they look like?” I asked.

  “Strange.”

  “Lady Gaga strange?” Carter, Geller & Marks has some weird-looking clients, and Gaga flirts with the outer fringe, when she’s really gussied up.

  “No—kind of stranger than that. In a way. I mean, they look like they’re from … maybe a couple of cults.”

  From what? “Which ones?”

  “One definitely looks Catholic,” Barbara Ann said. “Like a … priestess? And the other one looks … kind of Talibanny. You know—robes and stuff?”

  “And they won’t say where they’re from?”

  “They can’t. They’re deaf.”

  I was about to ask her to maybe try miming some information out of them, but thought better of it. The day was technically over. And like most of her peers, Barbara Ann has a French postal worker’s sense of divine entitlement when it comes to her hours. This results from there being just one junior assistant for every four junior lawyers, which makes them monopoly providers of answered phones, FedEx runs, and other secretarial essentials to some truly desperate customers. So as usual, I caved. “Okay, send ’em in.”

  The first one through the door had dark eyes and a bushy beard. He wore a white robe, a black turban, and a diver’s watch the size of a small bagel. Apart from the watch, he looked like the Hollywood ideal of a fatwa-shrieking cleric—until I noticed a shock of bright red hair protruding from under his turban. This made him look faintly Irish, so I silently christened him O’Sama. His partner was dressed like a nun—although in a tight habit that betrayed the curves of a lap dancer. She had a gorgeous tan and bright blue eyes and was young enough to get carded anywhere.

  O’Sama gazed at me with a sort of childlike amazement, while the sister kept it cool. She tried to catch his eye—but he kept right on staring. So she tapped him on the shoulder, pointing at her head. At this, they both stuck their fingers under their headdresses to adjust something. “Now we can hear,” the nun announced, straightening out a big, medieval-looking crucifix that hung around her neck.

  This odd statement aside, I thought I knew what was happening. My birthday had passed a few days back without a call from any of my older brothers. It would be typical of them to forget—but even more typical of them to pretend to forget, and then ambush me with a wildly inappropriate birthday greeting at my stodgy New York law office. So I figured I had about two seconds before O’Sama started beatboxing and the nun began to strip. Since you never know when some partner’s going to barge through your door, I almost begged them to leave. But then I remembered that I was probably getting canned soon anyway. So why not gun for YouTube glory, and capture the fun on my cellphone?

  As I considered this, the nun fixed me with a solemn gaze. “Mr. Carter. We are visitors from a distant star.”

  That settled it. “Then I better record this for NASA.” I reached across the desk for my iPhone.

  “Not a chance.” She extended a finger and the phone leapt from the desk and darted toward her. Then it stopped abruptly, emitted a bright green flash, and collapsed into a glittering pile of dust on the floor.

  “What the …?” I basically talk for a living, but this was all I could manage.

  “We’re camera shy.” The nun retracted her finger as if sheathing a weapon. “And as I mentioned, we’re also visitors from a distant star.”

  I nodded mutely. That iPhone trick had made a believer out of me.

  “And we want you to represent us,” O’Sama added. “The reputation of Carter, Geller & Marks extends to the farthest reaches of the universe.”

  The absurdity of this flipped me right back to thinking “prank”—albeit one featuring some awesome sleight of hand. “Then you know I’ll sue your asses if I don’t get my iPhone back within the next two parsecs,” I growled, trying to suppress the wimpy, nasal edge that my cold had injected into my voice. I had no idea what a parsec was, but remembered the term from Star Wars.

  “Oh, up your nose with a rubber hose,” the nun hissed. As I was puzzling over this odd phrase, she pointed at the dust pile on the floor. It glowed green again, then erupted into a tornado-like form, complete with thunderbolts and lightning. This rose a few feet off the ground before reconstituting itself into my phone, which then resettled gently onto my desk. That refuted the prank theory nicely—putting me right back into the alien-believer camp.

  “Thank you very kindly,” I said, determined not to annoy Xena Warrior Fingers ever, ever again.

  “Don’t mention it. Anyway, as my colleague was saying, the reputation of Carter, Geller & Marks extends to the farthest corner of the universe, and we’d like to retain your services.”

  Now that I was buying the space alien bit, this hit me in a very different way. The farthest corner of the universe is a long way for fame to travel, even for assholes like us. I mean, global fame, sure—to the extent that law firms specializing in copyright and patents actually get famous. We’re the ones who almost got a country booted from the UN over its lax enforcement of DVD copyrights. We’re even more renowned for our many jihads against the Internet.1 And we’re downright notorious for virtually shutting down American automobile production over a patent claim that was simply preposterous.2 So yes, Earthly fame I was aware of. But I couldn’t imagine why they’d be hearing about us way out on Zørkan 5, or wherever these two wer
e from.

  “So, what area of the law do you need help in?” I asked in a relaxed, almost bored tone. Feigning calm believably is a survival tactic that I perfected as the youngest of four boys (or of seven, if you count our cousins, who lived three doors down. I sure did). It made me boring to pick on—and useless as a prank victim, because I’d treat the damnedest events and circumstances as being mundane, and entirely expected. It had also helped me immensely as a lawyer (although by itself, it had not been enough to make me a successful one).

  Sister Venus gave me a cagey look. “It’s sort of … an intellectual property thing.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Is it media? Patents? Trademark?”

  “It’s kind of a … music thing.” She and O’Sama exchanged a furtive look.

  “I see. Is it related to royalty payments? Piracy?”

  Now O’Sama jumped into the action. And I mean that literally—he leapt to his feet, and practically screamed in my face. “Who said anything about piracy?”

  The nun hit him with a lethal glare. “Zip it,” she hissed. He plunked right back into his chair, giving her a hurt, sullen, but obedient look. Impressive, I thought. It was like seeing that dog whisperer guy make a pit bull back down.

  “I do have an extensive background in music law,” I said, clenching my nose to stop the sneeze molecules from breaking out.

  Sister Venus rolled her eyes. “No duh, Mr. Carter. We’ve done our homework.”

  Well, yes, up to a point. True, they’d chosen a fine law firm from an impressive distance. But I was beginning to suspect that they had mistaken me for the Carter in Carter, Geller & Marks, rather than a lowly associate who happened to have the same last name as the founding partner. And did she seriously just say no duh?

  “Also,” O’Sama added breathlessly, “we simply adore ‘Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely,’ and every one of your other songs.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  But I knew exactly what he was talking about. And if you’re a woman born between the years 1984 and 1988, you probably do, too. Otherwise, you’re hopefully only faintly aware of the Backstreet Boys—the vilest confection ever to emerge from a “boy band” factory. Like me, one of their alleged singers is named Nick Carter. He’s two years my junior, so I was here first. And I got as far as age twenty-one with a wonderfully anonymous name. Then Nick and the boys unleashed an abomination called Millennium that sold more than forty million copies. I still get about a dozen Backstreet Boys jokes per week.