How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (17 page)

The studio audience burst into cheers.  Then after a few moments the cheers progressed into thunderous clapping, which then in turn progressed into chants of ‘Kel!  Kel!  Kel!’

Brinna smiled smugly at Sylon as if to say, ‘I told you so.’  Sylon stuck to his role and placed an embarrassed expression on his face.  Secretly though, he was feeling anything but embarrassed.  He was feeling absolutely delighted.  The show was running exactly to plan.  Of the three contestants left in the final of Star Maker, Kel Minky was the one who had the potential to be the biggest star.  Which in turn meant that she was also the one who had the potential to make Sylon the most money.  And Sylon loved money.  So he couldn’t risk letting either Kib Lomack or Salu Ortsbo take the crown.  Kel Minky was currently the bookies clear favourite, but Sylon had had his fingers burnt the previous year when the hot favourite had been beaten at the final post against the odds.  Last year Slik Tamsin had been the hot favourite with the public, but the public knew this and therefore most people thought to themselves, ‘He’s totally popular so he’s definitely going to win anyway, so I don’t need to bother voting for him cos loads of other people will vote cos he’s so popular.’

Unfortunately this ‘other people will do it’ attitude was shared by a considerable chunk of Slik’s fans, so in the end hardly anyone ended up voting for him which allowed Plastic Folie to sneak in and steal the title from Slik’s grasp.

Sylon estimated that this error has cost him in the region of two hundred million Femling credits
[31]
, in terms of reduced ticket sales and reduced performance revenue generated by Plastic, due to his inferior popularity.  Admittedly, this was an amount that would hardly cause a ripple to Sylon’s credit account, but that wasn’t the point.  The point was Sylon gained his pleasure in life from making as much cash as he possibly could from every opportunity and on that occasion he had failed to do so.  So he swore to himself that he would never make the same mistake again.

And so that was why he had decided, even before Kel had sang her performance, that he was going to play the bad guy.  Acknowledge Kel’s excellence but still throw in a sly unjust criticism somewhere along the line.  Because in doing so he knew the general public would be sat in their homes screaming at their screens that Sylon was an absolute fool.  He knew that criticising Kel Minky, especially when that criticism was totally unjust, would fire up anger in all of her fans and ensure that there was no repeat of the apathy of last year’s final.  After delivering his
unjust criticisms all of Kel’s many fans would be sat in their homes telling themselves that Sylon was an idiot who wouldn’t recognise talent if it came up and bit him on the nose, and to prove to him what an idiot he was they were going to vote for Kel ten times to ensure she won by a landslide margin.

Meanwhile, Marnie Servet, one of the millions of Star Maker fans from around the planet Fem, was currently sat in her home screaming at the screen, “Hey, that Sylon is a total and utter fool!  He wouldn’t know talent if it came up and bit him on the nose!”  As you can see, things were running exactly to Sylon’s plan.

“It’s just a pantomime,” Yisk Bansin, Marnie’s co-viewer and friend, remarked.  “Don’t take it too seriously.”  Star Maker was a show that polarised the viewing audience into two camps.  Those that loved it and planned their lives around the TV schedules, and those that ranked its significance just below that of watching paint dry.  Yisk fell firmly into the second category.

“And how
can he compare Kib and Salu to Kel!?” Marnie exclaimed.  “They’re just not in the same league!”

“They sounded like decent singers to me,” Jax Weeta, Marnie’s other non-fanatical friend, remarked.

“They can sing,” Marnie acknowledged, “but like Sylon says, being able to sing isn’t enough at this stage of the competition.”  Neither Yisk nor Jax bothered to point out that only seconds earlier Marnie had been referring to Sylon as if he was the spawn of the devil, and yet now she was quoting him as an authority of good judgement.  “You need more than just being a good singer.  Kel’s the complete package.  Kib and Salu aren’t.  In fact I don’t even know how Kib and Salu made it to the final, if I’m honest,” Marnie continued.  “People only vote for Kib cos his brother’s in hospital from that crash and Salu has only made it this far cos of that campaign by her local radio station to get people to vote for ‘the local girl.’”  So clearly Marnie
did
in fact know how Kib and Salu had made it to the final.  “It should just be about the talent,” Marnie continued, seemingly going back on her previous endorsement of Sylon’s suggestion that it was about more than just talent at this stage of the competition.  “People shouldn’t vote out of sympathy or because they live near one of the singers.”

Meanwhile, back in the studio the pleasantly likeable host, Keyla Lordim, was announcing to the viewing public that the phone lines were now open and they could now vote for their favourite contestant to decide who would be crowned the champion of this year’s Star Maker.

Back in her flat, Marnie was already reaching for her phone.  And around the planet Fem, millions more viewers were doing likewise.

And back in the studio, Sylon’s smile was growing as big as his credit account.

Eric was pleasantly surprised to discover that, ironically
[32]
, sabotaging the central telecommunications processor turned out to be the easy part of their plan.  Jixyl and Azleev were mates with a student who studied Intergalactic Transmission Physics, so sabotaging the telecommunications system proved to be a piece of cake.

The hard part was getting NBC Universal, the company that produced The Jerry Springer Show, to reveal the details of the abductee.

“Look, this Hank dude’s not gonna mind,” Eric insisted, referring to Hank Truman, the dude that had appeared on The Jerry Springer Show to recall his alien abduction.  “In fact he’ll be chuffed.  If he went on telly to tell everyone about him getting abducted and everyone was laughing at him and he still didn’t mind, then he’s obviously gonna jump at the chance to talk to someone who actually wants to hear what he has to say, rather than just laugh.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the very officious receptionist at the NBC Universal head office replied.  “It’s company policy not to reveal our guests’ personal details.”

“But d’you not see what I’m saying?” Eric persisted.  “This Hank dude isn’t gonna object … so what’s the problem?”

“The problem, sir, is that it’s company policy not to divulge that information,” the receptionist responded.

“It’s alright.  You don’t have to call uz ‘sir,’” Eric remarked.

“I’m just being polite, sir,” the receptionist replied.

“Well I’d rather you were helpful than polite,” Eric answered.

“Sorry, sir.  I’d love to be helpful, but in this situation it’s…”

“…company policy,” Eric interrupted.  “Aye, I know.  You said.”

Jixyl and Azleev had until now been quietly observing Eric’s attempts at acquiring Hank Truman’s contact details, but they realised he was going to have little success with his current approach and so decided a new approach was needed.

“Look, we understand that you have to respect your guests’ privacy,” Azleev accepted.  “That’s a commendable attitude.  So how about
you
contact Hank and let
him
decide if he wants to meet us?  How about you give Hank a call and let him know that a few students would like to interview him for a project we’re doing regarding alien abductees?  Then leave it to him to decide if he wants to meet us.  If he says he’s not interested then fine, we’ll go on our way, but if he wants to meet us then the onus is on him to make the first move.  And that way your company policy remains intact but at the same time the abductee gets the opportunity to decide if he’d like to tell his story.”

‘Hmm, ‘onus.’  That’s quite an intelligent word for me,’ Eric thought to himself.  Technically, Azleev had been the one who used it, but given that the G.O.T. had drawn the word from Eric’s brain he consequently felt quite impressed with his apparent expansive vocabulary.

The receptionist considered Azleev’s words for a moment.  “Yes, I think that would be acceptable, sir,” she eventually decided, and she began looking up Hank’s details on her computer.

“Ar, class!” Eric exclaimed.  He had been starting to worry that all of their efforts at decommissioning the central telecommunications processor were g
oing to go to waste.  However, Eric’s newly acquired hope was soon crushed when the receptionist rang the abductee only to get his answering machine.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she apologised, “but he isn’t picking up right now.”

“Well could you keep trying,” Eric suggested.

“I’m sorry sir, but I have other work besides…”

“That’s okay,” Azleev interrupted.  “We’ve already imposed upon your time more than is polite.”

“Yeah, thanks for your help,” Jixyl agreed, “but we’ll be on our way now.”

“Eh?  What are yous on about, man?” Eric questioned, confused by their lack of persistence.  “Just try one more time.”

“No, really.  That’s fine,” Azleev
smiled, and he began walking out of the reception.

“Come on, Eric.  We haven’t got time to waste,” Jixyl remarked, cajoling Eric to follow him.

“I know.  That’s why I’m trying to…”  He suddenly realised that Jixyl and Azleev’s behaviour was slightly strange and therefore suspected that there was something they weren’t telling him.  His curiosity soon got the better of him and so he followed the pair of them outside.  “So how come you don’t want to contact this abducted dude any more?” he asked.

“We do,” Azleev explained.  He began typing a number into his mobile phone.  “That’s what I’m doing now.”

“Eh?  How d’you know his number, like?” Eric inquired.

“Well the woman typed it out right in front of us,” Jixyl shrugged.  “Did you not see her?”

“Well, yeah,” Eric acknowledged.  “But his number’ll be, like, about eleven digits long, like.”

Jixyl looked at Eric as if this information was totally irrelevant.  “And?” he shrugged.

Eric suddenly realised that Jixyl and Azleev possibly had far superior short term memories than humans.  “So can you remember eleven digits easily, can you?”

“Well of course,” Jixyl confirmed.  “Can you not, like?”

Eric was about to answer when Azleev gave them an update on his call to Hank Truman.

“He’s still not answering,” he revealed.

“Leave a message on his voicemail, then,” Eric suggested.  “And we’ll have to hope he checks his voicemail before they get the central telecommunications processor up and running again.”

“No need,” Azleev remarked.  “We can just follow the signal.  It’ll lead us to his phone and hopefully to Hank.”

“Hey, your phones are class, like,” Eric praised.  The more he learnt about Jixyl and Azleev’s planet and technology and way of life, the more he sort of half told himself that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if mankind
did
get destroyed.  Well obviously
literally
it would be the end of the world, but metaphorically he wouldn’t be too bothered.  Well actually, no, he would be totally gutted for everyone if they all got killed, but on the other hand, every cloud has a silver lining…

“It’s coming from Las Vegas,” Azleev revealed.

“So Las Vegas here we come,” Jixyl announced.

“Ar, class!  Vegas!” Eric exclaimed.  “I’ve always wanted to go to Vegas!”

“It’s not a sight-seeing trip,” Azleev reminded him.

“Ar, I know,” Eric acknowledged.  “I just meant it’s good cos … well, you know, like … Vegas is in the middle of the desert so it should be easy to find a landing spot for the spaceship.”

Jixyl and Azleev weren’t convinced by Eric’s quickly concocted explanation for his enthusiasm, but they weren’t in the mood to discuss the point further and so they headed straight to their spaceship and then set a course for the city that never sleeps.

Eric sat in the alien spaceship pondering on what to do regarding the text message he had received from Jeemia.  The one about ‘shagging a black guy.’  When he had first read it he had to admit that he didn’t feel too much sympathy for Jixyl, what with his probable intentions to destroy mankind and all that, but since then his opinion of Jixyl and Azleev had changed dramatically.  Even before he had seen the video of the Grand Emperor of Fem delivering his ’Quality Of Life’ speech, he had been starting to trust them, but since seeing the video he was virtually convinced that they were telling the truth.

Which meant he should probably tell Jixyl that his girlfriend was cheating on him.  Eric’s main concern though, was ‘shoot the messenger’ syndrome, i.e. he suspected that if he told Jixyl about his two-timing girlfriend then Jixyl might then decide to take out his anger on Eric.

So to avoid this possibility Eric convinced himself that it was therefore okay to withhold the information from Jixyl for a little longer.  Just until a suitable opportunity to discuss it presented itself.

In anticipation of this suitable opportunity presenting itself, Eric decided it was a good idea to subtly quiz Jixyl and asses his psychological characteristics in order to allow him to break the bad news in a way that Jixyl would find most palatable.