Lemuel is a troubled teen exhibiting classic troubled teen behaviors like arson and animal cruelty, and after he attacks a teacher with a knife his father promptly takes him to the psychiatric hospital. The sympathetic psychiatrist Dr. North recognizes Lemuel is a “perfect paranoid” (aka sociopath?), and Lemuel explains and demonstrates to the doctor his Null-O philosophy in which all of the world’s objects need to be obliterated. This impresses Dr. North for some reason, and he puts Lemuel in touch with another collection of Null-Os, in this case a group of scientists who want to destroy the universe.
The Null-Os begin their grand scheme to detonate a progression of larger and larger bombs. Their country annihilating bombs are a success, but before they can detonate the earth bomb some pesky humans who have managed to survive attack them. In the melee Lemuel is shot. The other Null-Os escape in a spacecraft, and Lemuel, even as he is about to be killed by the humans, is at peace knowing the Null-Os will still complete their plan.
Presumably “Null-O” is some sort of satire of A.E. van Vogt’s stilted novel The World of Null-A which was quite a success (in spite of being bad) when it was published at the end of the 40s.
Cast of characters
- Lemuel Jorgenson – our Null-O protagonist
- Ralph Jorgenson – Lemuel’s father
- Jean Jorgenson – Lemuel’s mother
- Dr. James North – Lemuel’s psychiatrist
- Dr. Jacob Weller, Dr. Frisch – part of a group of Null-Os hoping to destroy the entire universe