John Scalzi - Agent to the Stars

"I don't even want to do this Murdered Earth sequel," Michelle said, sullenly. "Any way I can get out of it?"

"Afraid not," I said. "We've gone beyond the oral agreement stage. Besides, you've got twelve million plus back end. You're unbelievably rich now. Enjoy it."

Michelle poked at her food. "The only reason I got the first film was because Brad wanted to screw me."

"There was more to it than that, Michelle," I said, and that much was true — at the time, she had also been cheap to hire. "But look at it this way: now you get to screw him. To the tune of 12 mil."

Michelle shrugged and looked down at her plate. "All I'm saying is sometime soon I'd like to get to do something where the reason I got it wasn't because someone wanted to get in my pants."

I remembered why I had started representing Michelle. I felt unbelievably filthy.

"You ready to go?" I said.

She looked up at me. "What?"

"Let's go," I said. I pulled out my wallet and set down a couple of twenties.

"I haven't ordered dessert yet," Michelle said.

"I believe that you would have eaten it," I said. "Now I want you to come with me. I have an idea."

Across the strip mall from the Mondo Chicken was a Crown SuperStore. We went in.

"What are we doing?" Michelle asked.

"Getting research materials," I said, and sat her down in on one of the store's benches while I went shopping. I picked up Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi, Elie Wisel and Simon Wiesenthal. I grabbed Hitler's Willing Executioners, Denying the Holocaust, Shoah and Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? I went to the graphic novel area and fished through costumed superheroes until I found Maus . On the way through the fiction I spotted Sophie's Choice. I grabbed it. Couldn't hurt.

I had no illusions — These books were enough to confuse graduate students, let alone Michelle, who was, at the very best, a middleweight in the intelligence arena. I couldn't even imagine what she was going to make of the concept of "The Banality of Evil". But we had eaten at Mondo Chicken, and that meant something. She'd kill herself slogging through all these. And who knows. It could take. Stranger things have happened.

Twenty minutes later, we stood at the checkstand while the overawed cashier rang up our purchases.

"You want me to read all of these?" Michelle asked.

"Try," I said. "Start with Maus or Sophie's Choice. Convince me that you're serious by reading some of these and I'll do everything I can to get you that part. Fair enough?"

Michelle squealed like the cheerleader she was and gave me a bearhug and a smack on the cheek. The cashier nearly fainted with envy.

"When I said I wanted to get out of the house, this wasn't what I was thinking of," Joshua said.

Joshua, Ralph and I were at the edge of the Big Dalton Canyon reservoir, a tiny, out-of-the-way clot of water in the foothills. It was a weekday, so no one was likely to be around during the day. I had a fishing rod. I didn't know if the reservoir had been stocked with fish, but I figured today was a good a day as any to find out.

"What were you thinking of, Joshua?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. He had a pseudopod half-in, half-out of the water, as if testing how cold the water was. "I was thinking maybe a drive-in movie."

"There's a drive-in over in Azusa," I said. "I don't know if they still show movies, though. I think it's all a flea market now."

Joshua finally slid all the way into the water, and floated on the top like an oil slick. "Well, let's try it, anyway. Get a big tub of popcorn, too. Get really sick on the artificial butter flavoring."

I zinged the fishing line into the reservoir. "As if you know anything about artificial butter flavoring."

"Hey," Joshua said. "I'm open to the experience. I've never vomited. It could be fun. So can we go?"

"Sure," I said. "We'll have to go after it's already dark, though. I don't want anyone to see you."

"If I understand it correctly, people don't actually go to drive-in movies to watch the movies," Joshua said. "If they're not watching the movies, what's the chance they're going be to watching us?"

Ralph, who had been pacing the edge of the water, barked towards Joshua. Joshua quivered for a second, then shot an arc of water at Ralph, who took it broadside on the flank. He reared up slightly, barked again, and then charged into the water after Joshua. They splashed around with each other for several minutes. It was the happiest I'd seen Ralph be in years.

Ralph and Joshua became friends earlier in the week. The day I had taken a sledgehammer to Tea, I had come home and opened the front door to find Joshua and Ralph having a tug-of-war with one of my dress shirts in the front corridor. Ralph was winning due to the fact that he had both teeth and paws; Joshua, lacking much in the way of traction on the waxed hardwood floor, was skidding around like a large gelatin fruit cup. Ralph was about to take off out the door, Joshua in tow. I shut the door quickly.

"What are you doing with my shirt?" I had said.

"I'm sorry," Joshua had said. "It wasn't your favorite, was it? We were just playing."

"How did Ralph get in?" I had asked.

"I went out back, and then he showed up and followed me in," Joshua had said. "Can we keep him?"

Ralph, winded, barked once and collapsed happily on the wood.

I sent Ralph home later that night but he came back almost immediately, and went looking for Joshua. It was kind of a cute scene: a dog and his gelatinous boy. When Esteban came to get him again, I told him I wouldn't mind looking after Ralph for a few days. Esteban went away, looking palpably relieved. I hadn't seen him since. I had the vague suspicion I had just assumed ownership of a dog.

Personally I would have assumed that the sight of a mobile lump of goo would have blown Ralph's little doggie mind, but watching him goof with Joshua in the water, it was clear he was handling it pretty well, better than most humans would. I mentioned that to Joshua.

"That's because Ralph and I speak the same language," Joshua said, oozing back towards the shore with Ralph.

"What do you mean?" I said. "I'm not hearing any barking coming out of you."

"I'm talking about smells," he said. "Ralph's wired for that sort of information, you know. He's a retriever. It took me about an hour to figure out what smells he pays attention to. Now we've got a pretty good working vocabulary."

"So you can actually talk to Ralph?" I said.

"Of course not," Joshua said. "He's a dog , Tom."

"But you just said you had a working vocabulary with him."

"Sure, but so do you. I've heard you talk to him. He understands a few of those words. Doesn't mean you're talking nuclear physics. But I do speak better to him than you do. He understands smells better than words. And since that's the way I usually talk anyway, it's easier for me to speak to him than it is to you — isn't that right, Ralph?"

Ralph, back on shore, barked.

"What's that you say, Ralph? Little Timmy's fallen down a well and needs help?"

Ralph barked again.

"Good boy!" Joshua said. "Hand him a snack, Tom."

"Right away, oh globulous one," I said. I rummaged through the cooler next to me and fished out one of the sandwiches I had made, and gave Ralph a piece of the ham inside. Ralph accepted it gravely and then lay down next to me.

Joshua slid over and held up a tentacle. "Hey, look," he said. "I found me a frog." Inside the tentacle a terrified amphibian kicked, slowly, through the gunk that was Joshua.

"Jesus, Joshua," I said. "You're killing that thing. Give it some air."

Joshua created an air pocket and slid it up the tendril to the frog, who now sat inside it. It hopped a couple of times, trying to escape, before settling down and sitting there placidly. Joshua showed the frog to Ralph, who sniffed at the proffered tendril politely before laying his head down for a nap.