An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (An Absolutely Remarkable Thing #1)(34)

I’m talking about all this now like I understood it then. I did not. All I knew was that, after that first missed call, I found it more and more impossible to imagine the conversation we’d have once we finally had one. And I’m telling you this because I want you not to hate me. You’re probably going to hate me in a couple of pages, and I’m giving you a well-rounded understanding of my psychological turbulence so that you will hate me less.



* * *



—

Our apartment was clean when I got home. Cleaner than I’d seen it in a while.

“Whoa, did you go all mom on me?” I shouted to the empty living room, knowing Maya was somewhere in the apartment.

“APRIL! Oh god, it’s good to see you. I’ve been worried!” she said as she came out of her bedroom. She was in a Wonder Woman tank top and plaid sleeping pants.

“Worried? You did go all mom on me.” I smirked like it was a joke, but also a little bit like it wasn’t.

“You haven’t texted me since you told me you had some stuff you wanted to tell me. You might imagine that could cause a girl some anxiety.” And she did look anxious, even more than I’d expected.

Two things occurred to me simultaneously. First, that she might have already been expecting a breakup. Second, that it would in fact be a breakup, a real breakup, bigger than any I’d ever had before. How did I let it get this far?

Panic.

“Well, there are some things we need to talk about.” This did not lessen her anxiety, and I realized we were already off on the wrong track. I continued. “My trip to LA was very eventful.”

“Did you hear that all of the Carls’ right hands have vanished?”

I had to laugh. “Yes, well, no, not quite.” I’d just watched a video on Twitter that showed a tourist gasping in shock as Tokyo Carl’s hand vanished. It didn’t drop off and run like Hollywood Carl’s hand, it just disappeared. Other videos from other Carls showed that the hands didn’t run away, they disappeared. All except Hollywood Carl. I explained this all to Maya, though I was a little astounded that she hadn’t been following me on Twitter or Facebook.

And then I told her that I was there when Hollywood Carl’s hand ran away.

“Oh lord, of course you were!” Her eyes were lighting up.

“Maya, a lot has happened. Um . . .” This was not easy. “Carl is very probably from outer space and Andy and I have—”

“Carl is WHAT?”

“Probably from outer space. Like, a not-of-this-earth, ‘E.T. phone home’ space alien.” I waited to see if this was going to need more explanation, and when apparently she required none, I started back up. “We’ve already filmed—”

She interrupted again, “Please continue with the space alien thing!”

“Uh, well, right, we solved the sequence. Rather, Miranda did.”

“Who’s Miranda?”

“She’s a graduate student from Berkeley who emailed me about Carl’s physical properties. I told her the sequence and she solved it in like six minutes—it was pretty amazing.”

Maya was looking uncomfortable with this news. I broke it down for her step by step, hoping to make it seem a little less like I had a new girlfriend.

“The stuff Carl is made of, the way it behaves, how it interacts with its surroundings, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not possible. Carl is not a possible thing, and yet there he is, guarding the Chipotle, leading people to conclude that he was not created by humans.”

“And?”

“And Miranda figured out that Carl was asking for chemical elements. I, Am, U . . . iodine, americium, and uranium.”

“URANIUM?!”

“Yes, that is the reaction most people have. Anyway, we gave Carl some iodine and americium, and his hand detached and it ran away and, good lord, why am I telling you this story and not just showing you the video? Andy is going to make it live any minute now.”

I logged into the YouTube account and showed her the video, which was about to be the third public video on the channel. When it was done, she turned to me and said, “She’s pretty cute, huh.”

Well, that didn’t take long. I searched for something negative but also true that I could say about Miranda to make Maya feel less threatened.

“Yeah, she’s a weirdo,” was the best I could do.

There was a long silence during which I hoped we were going to get back to the more stable ground of discussing how I had found a literal space alien on the streets of New York City, made some videos with him, and become the de facto ambassador to outer space.

“And you’re going to make this video public soon?”

“Yeah! No one else has footage of the hand moving independently, it’s just us! And we’re the only ones who have any idea how or why this happened! No one even knows about the sequence yet! It’s just like you said: Now I’m not just the person who uncovered the sequence, I’m the person who solved it!”

She had gotten what she asked for, so at least there’s that bit of blame I could properly lay at her feet.

“And you know what happens if you do this?” Her face was like stone.

“I get a platform? I get to communicate simple, positive messages at a time when people need them? It’s not that different from advertising, and Andy knows everything there is to know about social media.”