#Zero. Neil McCormick

       Approaching singularity, mathematical clarity

       Can’t see what’s up ahead, can’t see what’s round the bend

      Radiation sickness, call Jehovah’s witness

      Hope they spell my name right in the Big Black Book

      Pick a number, any number, odds or evens, dumb or dumber

      Wake me from my slumber, cut me from the hook

      Rich man, poor man, load up your camel

      You bring the silver spoon, I’ll bring the needle

      But you’ll never get to heaven in a fuel-injection car

      You’ve got to come … to where you are!

      Beasley came to my rescue, raising one arm as if to wind up applause while moving deftly in front of the table so I could put my hand on his shoulder and stand there grinning like this was perfectly normal behaviour for a rock-and-roll superstar, which, after all, it was.

      ‘Listen up, people,’ said Beasley. ‘Zero’s right …’ (I am?) ‘… this weekend in New York is crucial …’ (It is?) ‘… it is what we have been working towards all year …’ (Did I say that?) ‘… tour kicks off Monday, album drops in all formats Friday and with our partners at Mount Olympus we’ve got what is shaping up to be the blockbuster movie of the summer. The single is number one, for which you should all give yourself a round of applause …’ (They do, of course.) ‘…This year, together, we have the chance to make Zero not just the biggest artist in the world right now but one of the biggest stars in entertainment history …’ (More applause, they are really getting into it now.) ‘… and we’re counting on each and every one of you …’ (This is just such crap. Where were these kiss-asses when I was holed up in my bedroom studio, carving out the hits?) ‘… to put all your resources behind the final push…’ (I’d been working on this my whole life, we’d been on the Year Zero campaign trail for weeks already and we all knew there was no such thing as a final push, just another push, and then another, and then another.) ‘… there is still everything to play for, the world’s media is here, they’re watching, so let’s do our jobs and make this a weekend New York will never forget.’

      The applause was ridiculous, which was par for the course. They were an easy crowd. Probably thinking about their bonuses. But I accepted it on Beasley’s behalf, seizing the opportunity to step down from the table. Beasley and Kilo formed a phalanx around me, with Tiny Tony Mahoney, my diminutive head of security (small but lethal, apparently) leading the way towards the door, one of his oversized grunts taking up the rear, while various apparatchiks fell in behind, and the webcrew revolved around, shooting it all. The same thing happened every time I moved from one spot to another: instant entourage. If I got taken short in a public place, there would be a line of my own employees forming behind me at the urinal before I could get my dick out.

      Nodding and smiling, kissing a cheek here, patting an elbow there, I worked the room, even though these were my people, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t have to impress them, they were here for me, me, me, me. Everything is fucking me. We picked up more security at the door, into the lift (ejecting a hapless hotel guest, whose indignation was bought off with a quick autograph for his daughter), through the lobby (security fending off a sudden rush of lurking Zeromaniacs), slipping on some evil logo shades courtesy of Linzi before stepping onto the street where a swarm of stalkerazzi called my name, flashbulbs popping, camera motors whirring, click click clickety click. How many fucking photographs do they actually need? What do they do with all these identical frames of me stunting on sidewalks? How can they even tell one shot from another? Then a voice sliced through my dreaminess: ‘Hey, Zero, what do you think of the pics of Penelope and Troy?’ Flash. I knew in my sinking heart that was the one they’d use, the rabbit in the headlights shot, as the limo door swung open and I escaped into the soft leather and walnut cocoon, flopping out on the couch, invisible behind the presidential tints.

      3

      Beasley and Kilo slid in before I pulled the door shut, cutting off the webcrew. Security would ride up front, the rest of my entourage could take the minivan convoy, I needed a moment.

      ‘What fucking pictures of Penelope and that squarejaw cunt are they talking about?’ I snapped.

      Kilo glanced nervously at Beasley. ‘Just the usual gutter provocation,’ Beasley shrugged. ‘You should know better.’

      ‘Well, I don’t know anything, that’s the whole fucking problem,’ I snapped back, hating the sound of my whining brat voice while Beasley played Big Daddy. I turned my attention to Kilo instead. At least him I could bully. ‘Did you get hold of Penelope?’

      He started making excuses about time zones, jungle locations, the unreliability of satphones, blah de fucking blah, but I wasn’t buying any of it. If illegal loggers and coke barons could run profitable businesses in the rainforest, nobody was going to convince me a Hollywood studio couldn’t get a line out for one of their most prized assets. I’ve seen National Geographic. Mobile phones come just after ploughs and chickens on the must-have accessory list of the modern peasant farmer. Even the Discovery channel has given up pixilating iPhones out of shots of the Bushmen of the Kalahari. I bet there’s an Internet cafe in every shanty town in the third world. Meanwhile, it had been a week since I had heard from Penelope, a fucking cinematic icon, and even that was a broken-up, digitally stuttering, incomprehensible cackle, the underlying theme of which had been the nobility of suffering for your art. She claimed to be living on location in a tent but Penelope’s idea of camping bore little relation to the waterproof sheets we used to crawl inside for respite from pissing rain on so-called seaside holidays in the west of Ireland. Our tents didn’t have built-in toilet facilities with hot running water. If you wanted a piss you braved the elements or went in your sleeping bag for extra warmth. I got Kilo to look up Penelope’s location one night on Earthmap. It was a fucking Bedouin city. Her so-called tent was built like a wedding marquee. She had a fucking walk-in wardrobe, for fuck’s sake.

      And less of the fucking language, as my old man would say. I always did have a bit of a Parental Advisory sticker mouth. My English teacher, Ms Pruitt, wrote in my report that I had a flair for language but all of it was bad. When my old man read that he went thermonuclear and he had a flair for language that would have made Ms Pruitt’s ears melt. But I mean, sometimes nothing hits the spot like a true blue fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

      Beasley broke into Kilo’s excuses, holding his right index finger aloft, six inches from the end of my nose. ‘Is this going to be an issue? You’ve got to focus.’ He took some training from a hypnotist once and always used the same tricks to assert authority.

      ‘I’m focused, I’m focused, fuck’s sake, I’m fucking focused,’ I whined. ‘Why the fuck aren’t we moving?’

      My unflappable PR, Flavia Sharpe, had broken through the scrum and was rapping a bony knuckle on our tinted windows.

      ‘The world is watching,’ Beasley reminded me as he opened the door and flashes popped.

      And then the limo earned its stretch, filling up with people, my people, so many of my fucking people that I relented and waved Spooks McGrath and his crew in. The world was always fucking watching. That was the whole point. One of these days it was going to watch me taking a dump, get an anal probe and shove it up my sphincter, check out if there was any truth in the rumour that I had Penelope’s name tattooed on my liver.

      ‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ I declared, magnanimously. ‘There’s champagne on ice if anyone’s got the stomach – at this time of the morning. H₂O for the wetwipes among us – I’ll have one of those, thank you…’ (At this point I had to fend off offers of mineral water, selecting a bottle proffered by a smiling woman I didn’t recognise, looking impishly dishevelled in a two-sizes-too-small dress topped off by a shock of unkempt hair dyed a near reflective blond) ‘…And in case you’ve missed breakfast, I think you will find I have been supplied with an excellent bunch of bananas, though I’ve no