An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(31)

“It’s bigger than we thought, the AP is already out in front of us.”

It’s almost better to be first than best, but being best is much more work, so I was frustrated. I wanted my tweets to be as viral as my first video. I wanted to be in control of the story. The numbers were clicking up fast, but not as fast as if I’d broken the news. Reporters would start calling soon, so at least I would be part of the story, but it wouldn’t be my story, and so I wasn’t going to get all the value out of it I could have gotten if I’d just started tweeting instead of running after the hand.

I figured that the news of Hollywood Carl’s hand running off would spread quickly, of course, but if all sixty-four Carl hands had suddenly started roaming around sixty-four metropolises on six different continents, this was already a huge story! And we were behind. I was so scared and frustrated and I didn’t even know what I was chasing.

“Andy, get out your camera, let’s film an outro and upload now. Robin, can you find us someplace nearby with fast internet?”

“No,” Robin said.

“What?” I replied, shocked at the thought that Robin was incapable of something . . . anything, really.

“You don’t need to do that. Write an outro, film it tonight, but don’t upload tonight. Let the press freak out. If you upload now, you’ll be drowned out. You have big news in that camera, but the news has news for today. Tomorrow or the day after . . .”

“They’ll be jonesing again,” Miranda said.

“Yes, exactly,” said Robin.

“But I already tweeted about it,” I said, now unsure whether I’d posted too early or too late.

“Then you’ll be getting lots of media requests, and we will ignore them until the video goes up and it will just make everyone more excited to see it,” Robin said.

Andy added, “This is a good plan because also it means I can not freak out for, like, as many as four whole hours. I can edit on the plane and I can sleep now.” And then he added, in a bored voice, “Chauffeur, take me to my place of unconsciousness and away from this ridiculous woman.” Then he leaned back up against the window.

“Andy, we are at the crux of history,” I said, leaning over the front seat to look at Andy while doing my best American Hermione Granger impression.

“April, I am at the crux of violence.” He didn’t open his eyes.

“What is the crux, anyway?” Miranda asked.

“It’s, like, the center of the cross maybe? Definitely something to do with a cross,” Robin guessed.

“You guys, we did that,” I said. “And we’re doing this.”

We all looked around the car at each other. None of us older than twenty-five years old, cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard, planning our press strategy for the announcement of First Contact with a space alien.

We were all a little punch-drunk, so someone began giggling. Within a few seconds it was everyone. Laughing at the absurdity of it all, of that night, of these weeks, of the fact that it was us. We had no right to play this role, but here we were playing it. There was whooping and recapping and fist-pumping, and Andy roused from his grogginess long enough to let a smile take over his face.

Once everybody’s cheeks hurt and we had rehashed the whole night one more time, I opened my notes app and started writing a script, which I recorded on that car ride to our hotel while Andy and Miranda slept, Miranda’s head lolling on Andy’s shoulder.

“We chased Hollywood Carl’s hand down Orange and into the Magic Castle, a club for magicians, where we were denied entrance. Staff there, however, reported seeing the hand enter the establishment. It would appear that our interpretation of the Freddie Mercury Sequence was correct, and that presenting Carl with americium or iodine or both either caused or allowed Carl’s hand to disconnect and move independently around Los Angeles. We do not know where the hand is now. It’s now evident that every Carl on every continent has lost his right hand, but while Hollywood Carl’s hand was observed running away, multiple videos show other Carls’ hands simply vanishing at the exact same time. We don’t know what this means and, honestly, we don’t know what we’ve done. But they asked us for materials, and we provided them. It occurs to me now”—this had only taken so long to occur to me because I had actively prevented myself from thinking about it—“that we took a number of actions today on behalf of all humanity and maybe should have asked for some kind of permission first . . . or let the government decide if this was the correct course of action. I did not do that. I did not think that the result of our experiment would be so substantial or significant. I have no reason to think, however, that the Carls are anything but friendly at this point . . . Well, maybe they are also very, very odd.”

And that’s how I ended that video. I looked into the back seat. Miranda’s head was resting on Andy’s shoulder. It looked like the right thing to do, so for the last five minutes before we got to our hotel, I went to sleep, and that was the first time I had the Dream.



* * *



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I am in the lobby of a fancy office. Shiny and bright and brand-new. Light comes from everywhere, but there are no windows, just wood-paneled walls and gray carpeted floors. There’s music playing, but I don’t recognize it. No one is around except, at a checkin desk, there’s a small robot. Well, not small, human-sized. It looks smoother and sleeker than Carl, blue and white and no chrome at all. It’s approachable, so I approach it.