There Goes the Galaxy Page 12

  “Oh,” Mimsi said, trying to disguise her surprise. Eudicot T’murp’s earlier enthusiasm for the Tryfe people had put her somewhat off her game. “Of course, absolutely! Easily done. Then, I suppose you won’t need to see any of the inhabitants …? That’s fine. We can head back, if you feel you’ve seen enough.”

  “Look, do whatever you had planned,” said Musca Mij cheerfully, “I’m game. You arranged a little pitstop or something?”

  “Just a brief one.”

  “No problem,” he said. “It’ll give me a chance to stretch my legs and wings.”

  “It’s equity, Stephanie, equity,” insisted Justin Van deKampf as he directed the Lexus along the golf course, toward the Mapletop Gardens Apartment Complex on the other side of town.

  “I just don’t see owning an apartment building as Us, Justin,” she said, tucking a lock of raven hair behind her ear. “Do you realize those people have no homes of their own?”

  “Yes, Stephanie, that’s why they rent.”

  Stephanie didn’t care for Justin’s condescending tone and gave him a sour expression. “You know what I meant, Justin. Renting? It’s one step away from being … gypsies, really.” Justin opened his mouth to speak but she wasn’t finished. “They have nowhere to go. They can’t afford their own places. And that either demonstrates—One: a complete lack of ambition or Two: poor fiscal planning.” She removed a small tube of sea-sponge-infused cream from her purse and began to apply it to her hands. “So how can we be assured their inadequate financial situations and personal underachievement won’t, in time, directly affect us?”

  “There are contracts. We’d check references. We’d require first and last month’s rent up-front. It’s done all the time, Bun-Bun.”

  She popped the lotion back in her purse gingerly, careful not to smear her bag. “And you do realize this would make us … landlords.” She didn’t even like the way that word rolled around in her mouth. It had a gritty feel to it. It made her wish she had hand-cream for her tongue.

  “Property management, Bun-Bun,” Justin corrected. “That’s the terminology now. Property management. It’s very entrepreneurial.”

  “Hm,” said Stephanie, doubtfully. She didn’t think anything could be too entrepreneurial if it involved roaches and background checks and toilet plungers. But typical Justin, once he became enthused about something, they would simply have to agree to disagree.

  It was just as they were going past the ninth green, that the car started making a strange whumm-whumm-whumping noise that actually wasn’t anything to do with the critically-acclaimed industrial experimental artist on the stereo system. “Justin, didn’t you have your guy look at the car just last week? What are we paying him for, anyway?”

  “I did, Bun-Bun,” Justin responded, pulling the Lexus to the side of the road. “But it sounds like we have a flat.”

  “I see.” Stephanie drew her phone from her purse. “Calling AAA.”

  “Oh, don’t bother. I’ll change the tire,” said Justin.

  Stephanie gave him a good hard look. Justin, change a tire himself? Justin wasn’t mechanical. He’d had so many problems with the expresso maker that eventually they’d resigned themselves to spending eight dollars apiece daily for pressed coffee shots from the Little Box of Beans on Oakside.

  “Sometimes I think I don’t even know you anymore,” she said.

  “I’m a man of layers, Stephanie,” Justin responded.

  Stephanie got out of the car and leaned against the door, arms folded, while Justin began fooling around in the trunk, trying to figure out where the spare tire was without looking like he hadn’t a clue. The man of layers, she determined, would be there all day. But perhaps they’d miss their appointment to see the apartment complex.

  One could only hope.

  Mimsi Grabbitz found just what she was looking for along an area of rolling green fields and settled the ICV down in a level spot along a road. “You can see, the land here is very lush,” she told Musca Mij, releasing her safety harness. “Not to say that all of Tryfe is this way, but there are a surprising number of areas just like this all over the planet. Unfortunately, there seems to be some sort of white spherical creatures indigenous to these places. They make holes in the earth and can really mess up the terrain.” She chuckled. “The few times I’ve passed by here, I’ve seen the Tryfe-humans swatting at the things with sticks, chasing after them in small land vehicles and cursing. Such a brutal, primitive way to dispatch them, but it seems to keep them under control. Have you ever seen such thick grass?”

  “Maybe a good pesticide’ll take care of ’em,” Mij suggested.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Mimsi said.

  They both filed out onto the green lawns of Tryfe.

  “Ahhh! After a long flight, it’s always so good to get out and stretch the ol’ wings,” Musca Mij proclaimed, elongating and fluttering his shimmering appendages, and surveying the area through those opalescent eyes of his.

  There before them were the Tryfe humans Mimsi had spotted from the air.

  “Well, look here!” exclaimed Mimsi, trying to sound spontaneous. “Just what I’d hoped for! Here we have a male and female Tryfe human.”

  The female Tryfe human was eyeing them suspiciously, arms folded before her. “You can’t park that there. The helipad for the club? It’s that way.” She pointed across the rolling field to a large white building, then resumed her folded-armed stance.

  “Who are you talking to, Bun-Bun?” came the male’s voice from inside the back of his vehicle.

  “These people who’ve completely missed the helipad.” She addressed them again. “I’m telling you, you’re going to want to lift off and get closer to the club. You’re not allowed to walk across the greens unless you’re playing. And, anyway, it’s a hike. You’ll ruin your costumes.”

  “Costumes?” echoed the man’s voice from under a panel and carpeting.

  “Someone at the club must be hosting a benefit,” she explained to him. “Remember that one last year, when Judge Stanford went as a restraining order?”

  “Ha, yes. I never saw a court-issued document with a toupée before.” Lifting a wheel from the back of the vehicle, and laughing to himself, he glanced at Mimsi and her client. “Oh, yes—very nice! Let me guess. Gregor?”

  “Does he think he knows you?” Mimsi asked.

  Musca Mij shook his head. “I’ll say this for the Tryflings: they’re friendly.”

  “That’s why I was thinking you might want to see them in person,” Mimsi told him. “I mean, I hear they’re very high-quality. It occurred to me you could export them and use them for entertainment on one of your cruises. Or as labor for your newscapsule factories. Or perhaps they could just assist you with your project here?”

  Mij considered it a moment, two hands stroking his mandibles introspectively. “Yeah, but ya know … I leave ’em here and then—what—all of a sudden I’d be their permanent landlord?” He shuddered at the thought of it. “Not my style. I enjoy the in-and-out turnover we get with hotels and timeshares. I don’t do residential. Anyway, look around you. The place is gorgeous! The Tryflings would completely ruin the view.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Mimsi agreed. “Ready to go then?”

  “Ready when you are, Mimsi!”

  And with that, they got back in her ICV and lifted off.

  “Out-of-towners,” sighed Stephanie, rolling her eyes.

  Excerpt from:

  How To Gain Pals and Sway Life-forms in Cosmic Commerce

  Chapter Twelve

  With permission from the

  Eddisun Center for Ideas, Interceptive Marketing and Cliché Prevention

  MetamorfaSys Inc. and the Buzz on Musca Mij: Mathekite Marketer to the Masses

  Overview

  Infomercials, timeshares, hotels, all-you-can-digest intergalactic cruises, and sizzling, up-to-the-nanosecond celebrity gossip: Musca Mij, lead creative mind behind the mighty MetamorfaSys Inc., digs up the de
epest, darkest emotions of the masses. Desire, jealousy, hunger, insecurity, fear, avarice, and nausea are each his special domain. And within their crevasses, he injects them with the marketing messages that wriggle deep under consumers’ skins, itching them to action.

  Critics have described Mij’s work as: “pandering to the lowest common denominator if that denominator were in the negative numbers and also in the basement of subterranean cavern” (NewsMillenium); “The products you watch from the corner of your eye, then order when you’re alone” (Rational GeoGalactic); and “excess served with overindulgence, slathered in glut” (The Quad Two Epicurean). But while MetamorfaSys Inc. may not always earn noticable intergalactic applause, eight of ten life-forms surveyed indicate they have purchased or used at least one MetamorfaSys product or service in the last Universal year. The other two of ten being consumer advocacy representatives who have also bought MetamorfaSys products and services, but just really don’t want to talk about it.

  So what is it about Musca Mij’s entrancing strategy that encourages the masses to succumb to their yearnings, ignoring their better judgment in favor of the items he markets? How does Musca Mij pinpoint the soul’s most unspeakable longings, cravings, and needs, package them, and then charge for shipping and handling?

  In this chapter, we’ll take a look at the Mathekite behind MetamorfaSys Inc. and see how his products and services have slipped under the barriers of critical good taste to infect the hearts and minds of the masses.

  Hatching into a Household Name

  Musca Mij grew up as one of 536 larvae in a small, 80-chamber flat in Mathek’s capital city, Bintopia. Yet even with so many siblings vying for attention, it was not long before the young Musca stood out from the crowd. “The other progeny would see a pile of used fruit peels and say, ‘Look: dinner,’ but Musca, he could always find the art in them,” said Dipterra Mij, Musca’s mother. “That’s what Musca brings to everything he touches. Art. And I think it’s wonderful the way he shares his visions with the Greater Communicating Universe.” (Musca Mij: Trash to Treasure. Musca Mij. RP: 29.)

  “It’s about hunger,” Mij explained. “It’s recognizing that life-forms in the universe are hungry for so many things they never talk about. My work has always been about taking the empty stomach of Consumerism and filling it up with just as much as it’ll hold, and then adding a little more, and a little more, right until it yaks. Then I know my work is done.” (“More is Never Enough: An Interview with Musca Mij.” Heavy Meddler. Zaph Chantseree. Newscapsule vol. 39,045,149.)

  Mij started his career trying to fill that hunger by making a series of independent films. Crafted on an atom-thin budget and relying on friends, siblings and puppets made of refuse for his acting talent, Mij created strange, fascinating, yet repellant worlds, showcasing the greasy, deranged underbelly of universal desires and fears. Sole is about the detailed fantasy life of a limbless, wingless Mathekite with a sock fetish. Go-Go Gooligans of Uvula-9—the tale of exotic dancing, adrenaline junkies, and unnecessary dentistry—is what Mij now calls an “exercise in an experimental medium.” And Backspace Hermaphroditic Food Service Employees Do the Daegon System, Mij indicates, was designed to test his characters’ emotional range. The films were sold by Mij’s equally home-grown infomercials during late night Uninet broadcasts, targeting as many markets as Mij could afford on the wages of his daytime food service job. (Musca Mij: Trash to Treasure. Musca Mij. RP: 86.)

  Upon release, B-movie critics panned the films, one calling them “the most singularly dreadful examples of filmmaking, acting and cinematography since single-celled organisms slunk from the ooze and decided to make a documentary about it.” (MovieMeteor entertainment newscapsule vol. 15,296.)

  Naturally, Mij’s pictures have developed a strong cult following.

  But Mij left his indy film days behind, without so much as a backward glance. He explains, “While high visual art in the film medium had its rewards, I discovered I could reach a lot more people through mainstream advertising and journalism.” So using his film background, and forging a partnership with inventors from the Popeelie religious sect, Mij went on to create the string of highly popular infomercial ads for the group’s products. Favorites like Cloak-in-a-Can®, Pocket Pulpit® and the latest offering, Jerky Divine®, the GCU’s first non-perishable food product created from the regenerated and cloned cells of deceased Popeelie prophet, Chawtu Champs. “You can’t get any closer to your religion than this,” stated Mij. “Plus, it’s got a great smoked taste!” (Musca Mij: Trash to Treasure. Musca Mij. RP: 187.)

  With new capital from his Popeelie product marketing rolling in, Mij next tapped into the cult of personality with the Heavy Meddler newscapsule. Today, the Heavy Meddler has innumerable subscribers across the GCU, with trillions of delivery stations across various solar systems. “Life-forms want to know that celebrities are just regular folks like them—only richer, better looking and available for more embarrassing photos if you stalk them long enough. The Meddler has managed to turn something as simple as an unexpected expression of nasal mucus into the headline story everyone’s talking about. I’m proud of that.” (Musca Mij: Trash to Treasure. Musca Mij. RP: 217.)

  And time-shares on MetamorfaSys-owned planets are also increasing in demand. Mij is quick to mention his company not only redevelops the resort planets but does the time-share advertising.

  “Who’d even heard of Blumdec, until we gave it a facelift and started buying up ad time on the Uninet? But with our ads running every 37 universal seconds on at least 600,000 channels, repeated in eight-time loops, now Blumdec’s one of the hottest vacation destinations in Quad Three. Tourists don’t even have time to pack for home before we’ve got the next set of ’em peering in the windows of the beach house, steaming up the glass with their breath. We’ve finally gotten the exposure we needed.” (Musca Mij: Trash to Treasure. Musca Mij. RP: 243.)

  Now corporations pound on Mij’s door, begging for the MetamorfaSys branding treatment. Most-recently, Musca Mij was buzzed by the Galactic Festival Cruises, looking to aid flagging guest numbers. Mij recounted their initial talks. “I told them, I said, ‘What’s the incentive for people to go here? What do you have for them to do once they get on your giant ICV that they can’t already do at home?’ ‘Up the buffet count,’ I told ’em, ‘Tailor it specifically to your nervous eaters, bored eaters, picky eaters, overeaters, maneaters and bulimics. You advertise it to life-forms who want to eat every minute of the Universal day, and market it. You won’t be sorry.’” And so, the Galati-Gorgefest® cruiseline was reborn. (Musca Mij: Trash to Treasure. Musca Mij. RP: 310.)

  So what does the future hold for Mij and MetamorfaSys Inc.? Today, it looks like as much as possible, then a little more.

  Messages from Mij’s Marketing Mastery

  Want to discover your finess through marketing excess? Try some of these proven Mij tactics:

  —Anything worth selling is worth selling loud. Mij turns up the volume on each of his timeshare ads to 300 decibels louder than the programming around it. “Being hearing impaired is no excuse for not buying my products. Plus shouting shows you really believe in what you’re selling. It promotes trust.”

  —Repetition gets sales repetition gets sales repetition gets sales. Mij shows each infomercial no less than five times in succession and up to a record 65 times, depending on airtime availability. While some critics call the looped messaging “overkill,” “obnoxious,” and “seizure-inducing,” studies show that with so much audio and visual stimuli coming at consumers every moment, it takes at least five sequential runs for messaging to receive conscious recognition. Additionally, surveys show that many life-forms have actually purchased products in MetamorfaSys ads just to make the ads stop.

  —Lies shouldn’t hold back a snappy commercial. Musca Mij is master of finding the hidden benefits in any product and richly magnifying the challenges they solve. Who doesn’t remember the commercial where Popeelie worshippers risked spontaneous combustion
from the sun’s harmful rays, until they got Cloak-in-a-Can? Interestingly, current research shows that only one Popeelie in the religion’s long history has ever died due to spontaneous combustion—and that case has not directly been linked to sun exposure. But the Spontaneous Combustion Scare of Glat-b5 increased Cloak-in-a-Can® sales by 500% in under a week. Mij knows how to create need.

  Chapter 9

  “It’s not an Vernjoolsian mollusk!” Bertram shouted, leaping back from the violently swinging tentacles of the 3-D creature on the screen and comparing it unfavorably in an instant to the Yellow Thing around his neck.

  The mollusks were yellow, yes, and their shells a general star-ish shape. But adult mollusks grew to twice the size of small ICVs and were known to overtake spacecrafts, crack them open and slurp out the insides. This included the fuel tanks, fluids and any unlucky passengers. The hyper-realistic projection imagery here showed the creature not to scale, but in more vivid detail than Bertram’s nervous system expected. “Not a Vernjoolsian mollusk,” Bertram repeated, hand to his pounding heart.

  From across the room, Rollie put down his book. “I coulda told you that. Hear tell, a Vernjoolsian mollusk once got hold of Backs’ ship. Never knew what hit ’im, he said.” The alien’s features took on a reflective expression. “Come to think of it, I don’t recall hearing how Backs survived that.” He pondered it a bit longer and shrugged. “Thing probably just didn’t like the flavor.”

  “Maybe a little dry,” Bertram suggested.

  Heart rate now returning to a more normal pace, Bertram drew a few deep breaths and turned back to the Uninet version of P.K. Flutterbitt’s Virtual Encyclopedia of Verified Fauna Across the Greater Communicating Universe and Its Habitats. 536th Edition.