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Synopsis of "Beyond The Zero", Episode 2

Episode 2 of Beyond The Zero is set on Monday December 18, 1944 in London, England at the maisonette of Pirate Prentice and Teddy Bloat, "not far from the Chelsea Embankment."¹

Captain Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice is hosting one of his famed "Banana Breakfasts" which consists of frying bananas, pulping them in milk, oven baking them and various other methods of preparation, served with coffee. Teddy Bloat enters the room, slipping over on a banana skin as he does so. Pirate and Bloat proceed to discuss the launch of the V-2 rocket that Pirate saw. It is at this point that the V-2 is first referred to as the "A-4" (Aggregat 4), its correct technical name, V-2 being a more colloquial name standing for "Vergeltungswaffe 2" (Vengeance Weapon 2). The pair remark that it is strange that they have not heard the V-2's explosion as it is over ten minutes since the firing.

Pirate makes a phone call to his employers at the Special Operations Executive, based at Stanmore (a borough of London), who tell him that they did indeed detect the rocket's launch but that they are considering it a 'premature Brennschluss'² and that they believe the rocket has fallen far short. Bloat remarks that they should be cheerful for, 'there'll be more'² and Pirate realises that he is right; there will be more rockets launched with exactly the same probability of striking him.

Osbie Feel is standing in the balcony where Bloat had earlier fallen from and, with a banana protruding from his fly, which he is rhythmically stroking he sings the first of the novel's songs; this song being about going to war. Before Feel can sing the second verse he is attacked by Bartley Gobbitch, DeCoverly Pox, Maurice ("Saxophone") Reed and several others who evidently took offence at his singing, if not the contents of the song. Several members of the group continue to prepare the Banana Breakfast whilst DeCoverly Pox and Joaquin Stick observe a scale model of the Jungfrau Mountain which is too large to remove from the house. The mountain's slopes are covered with hot water bottles full of ice that are pulverised and used in the Banana Breakfasts. Meanwhile, other characters begin to wake up around the house and get dressed in preparation for the breakfast.

The smell of the breakfast fills the air, weaving its way through the house as genetic traits weave their way down generations of people. Pirate's companions gather round the table which is described as though an island from one of Corydon Throsp's 'mediaeval fantasies'³. The breakfast's presentation is spectacular; bananas have been moulded into various shapes and even squeezed into a shape to form the words 'c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre'³ (it's great, but it isn't war), words apparently uttered by an observer at the Charge of the Light Brigade and now appropriated by Pirate as his motto.

At this point Pirate receives an almost expected telephone call which is from his employers. Moaning about having to answer a call so early in the morning Pirate reluctantly takes the phone from Bloat, who had answered the call, and is informed that there is a message addressed to him at Greenwich. He is also told that the message arrived in an unconventional fashion and it dawns on Pirate that the message must have been delivered by the V-2 that he saw launched, reminding him of the now double meaning of the phrase "incoming mail"⁴ which he earlier used to describe the rocket.

Pirate is driven to the crash site by Corporal Wayne and on their way they pass a group of American engineers who sing a song about how cold the weather is. Pirate believes that they are pretending to be Narodniks (Russian Revolutionaries) but that they are actually from Iasi in Romania and working for Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a Romanian revolutionary leader and founder of an anti-Semitic movement known as "The Legion of the Archangel Michael" and that this group is very loyal to him and kill on his behalf. We are told that Pirate believes this because he has 'a strange talent [...] for getting inside the fantasies of others'⁵ and that in this case he is enacting the fantasy of an "exiled Rumanian royalist" who has paranoid fears of Codreanu's men. This paranormal ability is apparently something that "the Firm" finds very useful as military leaders can merely offload their fantasies (of any nature, including sexual fantasies and fears) onto Pirate and he will manage them on their behalves. Pirate remembers the words of Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, a British scientist, who said that 'you can't run a war on gusts of emotion'⁵, Pirate's function being to remove the war leader's emotions. Another song follows here where Pirate laments his talent and its use in the war effort. After a couple more other peoples' fantasies we are told of the first time that Pirate experienced his unique ability when he encountered a tramp harassing two Girl Guides and using language which Pirate had "dreamed" only the day before. We are also shown the first instance where Pirate experienced the phenomenon whilst awake, all previous instances having occurred in dreams. The fantasy belonged to an acquaintance of Pirate's named Loaf, a man who causes offence almost everywhere he goes, in which Pirate played John the Baptist to Loaf's fictional Jesus, being forced to evangelise for him. When Pirate asks Loaf if he really had this fantasy it is reported to 'the Firm'⁶ who subsequently test Pirate's abilities and then employ him in his current role.

One of the strangest fantasies that Pirate has to deal with for 'the Firm' is one concerning a 'lymphatic monster'⁶, The Adenoid which is as big as St. Paul's cathedral and threatens to engulf London! We learn that the Adenoid was once lodged in the nose of Lord Blatherard Osmo, possibly invoking a satire of upper class British accents, and that it is his fantasy whom Pirate is now inside. It is here also that "The Eastern Question" is first raised and we are told that Osmo occupied 'the Novi Pazar'⁶ desk at the British Foreign Office. Novi Pazar was a tiny province on whose shoulders a burden of worldwide importance rested when the Austrian-Hungarian Empire attempted to build a railway across it, which would have thereby encircled Serbia. This is related via another song for Pirate in which he envisages the never-completed railway. Meanwhile, the fantastical Adenoid continues its journey through London assimilating everything in its path, apparently not at random but with a 'master plan'⁷, assimilating only people it thinks will further its rampage. The Adenoid is eventually cornered on Hampstead Heath but attempts to kill the Adenoid fail and it only digests more people who die, not screaming, 'but actually laughing, enjoying themselves.'⁷ This fantasy has grown so overwhelming for Osmo that Pirate is called in to take over from Osmo's daily meetings with the Adenoid (with whom he must discuss matters of strategy) so that Osmo can continue to work on the Novi Pazar problem.

Pirate is in charge of managing this fantasy for two and a half years, developing a way of communicating with the Adenoid in a form of pigeon-English, as he is not 'nasally equipped'⁸ to reproduce the sounds of an upper class accent. Pirate's success at allowing Osmo to continue his work without the horror of this fantasy plaguing him means that his work load increases significantly as his services become more in demand. Meanwhile we learn that Osmo eventually ends up dead in 1939 having 'mysteriously suffocated in a bathtub full of tapioca pudding'⁸ at the home of a Certain Viscountess, with some people suspecting that he was murdered by the Firm. However, at least we know that Pirate helped prevent the Novi Pazar crisis from escalating into a Balkan Armageddon on the scale of The Adenoid.

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