The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  ‘Oh,’ said Nemo. ‘Right. Anything else?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the Orifice, pinching the flesh of her chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘No, I don’t think so. That’s the crucial thing. Oh – and be careful around cars. Always use the Green Cross Code when facing heavy traffic. Stop, look, listen. Ta-ta now!’

  Chapter 9

  Gents! Oh No!

  Nemo emerged from the Orifice’s kitchen in something of a daze. Smurpheus was standing there.

  ‘So now you understand,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nemo. ‘I think so. The Orifice told me—’

  ‘What,’ barked Smurpheus, shaking his head, ‘was said, was for your ears only.’

  Nemo was so startled he took a step back. ‘Ears,’ he said, too loudly, a little panicked. He took a breath, got a grip, and added, ‘Right.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Nemo, ‘she told me that—’

  ‘No, no,’ said Smurpheus firmly. ‘You should not tell me what she said. What she said was for you, not me.’

  ‘But I think I should. Really. She said that—’

  Smurpheus cut him off. ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ he declared firmly.

  ‘Fine, I understand, only I just wonder whether—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But she said something about you that maybe—’

  ‘I said no.’ There was finality in Smurpheus’s voice.

  Nemo nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. He added, talking as rapidly as he could: ‘She-said-that-the-gents-were-going-to-ambush-us-and-that-I’d-be-faced-with-a-choice-to-save-my-life-or-yours—’

  ‘Stop!’ yelled Smurpheus. ‘I don’t want to hear it! I specifically said—’

  ‘Is this true, Nemo?’ said Thinity, stepping over to him.

  Smurpheus had his hands over his ears and was going ‘waa-waa, waa-waa’ in a musical manner.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Nemo, his pulse speeding in Thinity’s presence like a Geiger–Müller tube proximate to some radioactive material. ‘That’s what she said. I’m afraid so. Naturally,’ he added, dropping his voice a little and blending in just the faintest Sean Connery burr, ‘I explained to her, of course I’d be the hero and sacrifice myself . . .’ He smiled, hoping for suave. Without a mirror it was difficult to gauge. It might have been smarmy or deranged or Hannibal Lecter, but he hoped he had managed suave. In his mind the possibility was lurking, half spoken, that his impending death might incline her fractionally towards offering him quick romantic consolation. It had to be worth a try – because, after all, he was going to meet his certain death. The Orifice had said so. And under those circumstances it would be a hard-hearted woman who denied a fellow’s request.

  ‘Was she speaking directly,’ asked Thinity, ‘or was she speaking metaphorically?’

  ‘How would I tell the difference?’ Nemo asked.

  ‘We’ve no time for this,’ said Smurpheus. ‘We must leave the McAtrix and return to the submarine. We can consider the implications of this then.’

  Together they retraced their steps out of the Orifice’s apartment block and hurried along the busy London streets. As they walked Nemo asked Thinity, ‘So, where are we going?’

  ‘We must exit the McAtrix via the same node through which we entered.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s just the way it is.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘That’s just the way it is.’

  ‘But why? Why can’t Judas unplug us where we are? It’s like a giant video game, isn’t it? So we ought to be able to jump out of it at any time, from any place.’

  Thinity wasn’t looking at him. ‘The McAtrix isn’t configured that way.’

  ‘It sounds screwy to me,’ Nemo grumbled. ‘What if the gents intercept us? What if they’re waiting at our entry point to apprehend us?’

  ‘In that case the operator on the Jeroboam can enter the McAtrix through a different access node, come and get us, and we can all exit through the second portal. But it’s a complicated and risky business. And it won’t be necessary: there’s no way the gents would be able to know which node we used to enter the system.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Smurpheus boomingly. ‘There won’t be any gents waiting for us at the access node.’

  There were gents waiting for them at the access node.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ said Smurpheus, infuriated.

  ‘How did they know we were coming? It’s not possible.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Nemo, ‘they seem to be there.’

  There were three gents, in black suits and dark glasses, waiting outside the main entrance to the building. They looked imposing in their top hats. Passers-by glanced nervously at them and hurried past. There was something unmistakably Francis Ford Coppola’s Gary Oldman’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula about them. Although their glasses were black, rather than blue. But apart from that.

  Thinity, Smurpheus and Nemo stood at the corner of an adjacent road, peering round the brickwork.

  ‘So we need to get inside that building, do we?’ asked Nemo.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Past those gents?’

  ‘It can’t be done,’ said Smurpheus. ‘Everybody who has come up against a gent has failed. Everybody without exception.’

  Nemo mused. ‘Is there a back way in?’

  Smurpheus and Thinity shook their heads.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Nemo.

  ‘It is a most worrying development,’ Smurpheus declared. ‘Thinity: call Judas. We have absolutely got to get back to the train, and—’

  ‘Train?’ interrupted Nemo, with some glee. ‘Don’t you mean submarine?’

  Smurpheus looked intensely annoyed. ‘I said “submarine”,’ he said.

  ‘You said “train”.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Did so.’

  ‘We cannot delay,’ pronounced Smurpheus severely, looking pointedly away from Nemo. ‘Judas will have to come get us through a different node-point, difficult though that is.’ He looked at the floor. ‘First the Orifice’s prophecy, and now this. It bodes ill.’

  ‘Ill,’ agreed Nemo. ‘Bodes, yes.’

  Thinity pulled a mobile phone from a pocket in her PVC jacket – although whereabouts in her skin-tight clothing this device had been secreted was a mystery to Nemo. He also wondered how Smurpheus and his followers avoided the problem of logos when it came to mobile phones. Surely, he thought to himself, mobile phones were ninety per cent logo? Did they use special homemade mobiles? Did they say No to Nokia? Did they blow up Orange, which is to say, Orangey-boom, Orangey-boom, which would be a statement of opposition to global commodification not a tune? It was impossible to say.

  Thinity dialled a lengthy number and spoke tersely: ‘Judas. There are gents at our exit node. We need you to come in through another one.’

  For a minute, a minute and a half, two minutes, she was silent, holding the phone to her ear. Then she nodded. ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Smurpheus.

  ‘He’s not letting us back in,’ she said. ‘He’s betrayed us to the EMIs. He says, and I quote his precise words, “Nurnur-n’nur nur, you’re dead and I’m glad”.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘Give me the phone,’ Smurpheus snapped. Thinity handed it over. He pressed it to his ear and Nemo, naturally curious, leaned close enough to overhear the tinny voice of Judas in the earpiece.

  ‘Now, Judas,’ said Smurpheus. ‘What’s this nonsense?’

  ‘Bye-bye Smurpheus,’ replied Judas. ‘You’re history. I’ve betrayed you to the EMIs.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake why?’ cried Smurpheus.

  ‘Why?’ replied Judas, agitated or excited it was difficult to say which. ‘Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?’

  ‘Yes – why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you why.’

  ‘Tell me why?’ boomed Smurpheus.

  ‘Because I want hair,’ squeaked Judas. ‘I
want dread-locks!’

  This seemed to nonplus Smurpheus. ‘You can’t have dreadlocks,’ he said.

  ‘Why can’t I? Eh? Why can’t I? Because I’m white, is that it?’

  ‘Because you’re bald,’ said Smurpheus.

  ‘Exactly! Exactly! Oh you don’t understand. Thinity doesn’t understand because she’s a woman, and women don’t go bald. But you don’t understand because you’re so wrapped up in yourself you can’t see how other people are suffering. It’s so humiliating – not just a little thinning on top, but completely bald all over, from my forehead to the back of my neck. It’s so crushing. I hate it so much.’

  ‘It is something with which you must learn to live,’ pontificated Smurpheus.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ said the twitching voice of Judas. ‘You choose to be bald. You shave your scalp. Oh you could grow an afro four feet tall if you wanted to, but you choose not to. Do you know how insulting that is for someone like me? For someone who don’t got that choice?’

  ‘I always thought you did shave your scalp,’ interjected Nemo. ‘I just assumed it.’

  ‘Arggh!’ came Judas’s voice through the phone’s earpiece in strangulated tones. ‘Eeeergh! Oorrg! Ieergh! Uuurgh!’

  Smurpheus put his hand over the mouthpiece and shook his head warningly at Nemo. ‘That may not be the best strategy for dealing with him,’ he said. He removed his hand. ‘Snap out of it, slaphead,’ he boomed. ‘Pull yourself together! There’s nothing you can do about being bald. Live with it.’

  ‘Nothing I can do?’ came Judas’s voice, a little calmer. ‘Ah but that’s where you’re wrong. The EMIs are going to coat my head with a special nanogel that will bury into the follicles and generate an artificial hair. They’re going to grow me dreadlocks – any length and colour, any consistency I want. They’ve offered me a pod, too. A real pod, not this cheapskate barber’s chair, but a properly kitted-out pod. They’re going to alter my base program. I can enter the McAtrix as Blake Carrington, as David Dickinson, as David Copperfield, as Jonathan Ross – whaddya think of that? A thick, lustrous, flowing mane of hair.’

  ‘This is insane, Judas,’ snapped Smurpheus. ‘Let us back aboard the Jeroboam, and we can talk about it.’

  ‘No way, Smurpheus. I’m leaving. I’m getting off the Jeroboam at the next docking station. I’m leaving at Leicester Square.’ He pronounced this, Nemo noticed, to rhyme with ‘Lie-Fester’. ‘I’m going up to the big white building where the EMIs are based. There I’ll find my hair. Goodbye you guys.’

  ‘But what about us?’ cried Smurpheus, his façade of self-control starting to erode. ‘What are we going to do? The only node we can exit through is being guarded by three gents.’

  ‘Not my problem,’ said Judas.

  ‘Can’t you reroute another exit node for us before you go?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Judas – what have you done with Tonkatoi?’

  ‘He’s fine. Well, he’s dead drunk and trussed up in the toilet compartment, but otherwise he’s fine.’

  Smurpheus said, ‘Grrrr.’ He actually growled like a dog.

  ‘Bye,’ said Judas. ‘I’m off to get my hair now.’

  The line went dead.

  ‘So,’ said Nemo breezily, when he thought enough time had passed. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Somehow,’ said Thinity, ‘we have to get inside that building.’

  ‘Well, let me see. Isn’t this all just a computer simulation? Can’t we, you know, change the rules? Alter the parameters? Fly up in the air and in through a window, for instance. What’s stopping us?’

  ‘The law of gravity,’ said Smurpheus.

  ‘But this is just a computer simulation, you said so.’

  ‘A simulated natural law inside a simulated environment has precisely the same force for simulated people as a real natural law in the real world has for real people.’

  ‘But it is possible to make changes,’ said Nemo eagerly. ‘There are places where the McAtrix is an improved form of reality. Aren’t there? For instance, we’re wearing much cooler clothes right now than we were in the real world.’

  ‘We have,’ said Smurpheus, with distaste, ‘no choice but to wear these logo-polluted designer-poison clothes. These, also, are part of the fabric of the McAtrix.’

  ‘But Smurpheus,’ Nemo insisted. ‘You’re taller here than in the real world. Aren’t you?’

  Smurpheus looked down with a withering expression on his face.

  ‘Right,’ said Nemo, starting to feel nervous and not wanting to get into a lather in front of Thinity. Or, to be precise, he’d have been more than happy to get into an actual lather with Thinity; but he was keen to avoid the metaphorical, burbling, gabbling look-how-much-of-an-idiot-I-can-be lather. He back-peddled. ‘OK, that’s a sensitive topic, we shan’t dwell on that. But how about this: when the gents had me in custody they erased my mouth from my face. That’s pretty weird, eh? How did they do that?’

  ‘The gents are functions of the central processing system of the EMIs themselves,’ said Thinity. ‘They can tweak the programming rules, because they are themselves aspects of the programming consciousness. We’re not; we’re inside the program. You can no more change a program from the inside than a character in a novel can change the course of the narrative. Only the programmer, or the author, can do that.’

  ‘But if that’s true,’ said Nemo, with the persistence of an annoying twelve-year old, ‘why don’t they just – I don’t know, beam the resistance figures straight into virtual prison? Why all this business with top-hatted gents running around chasing us?’

  Thinity’s expression was such that Nemo wished he hadn’t said anything. ‘Not that I really care,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’m cool. I was only wondering.’

  ‘Insignificant changes are one thing,’ boomed Smurpheus. ‘Major changes, of the sort you describe, would violate the logic and internal consistency of the whole system. If the EMIs did that, it would be tantamount to breaking up their programmed world; they’d have to reboot and start over again.’

  ‘Which doesn’t get us any closer to getting inside that building,’ said Nemo. ‘Is there anything we can do?’

  ‘There’s one thing,’ said Smurpheus, turning to face Nemo properly. ‘You.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Nemo. ‘Get away. You’re having a laugh.’

  ‘I’m serious, Nemo. You are the No One.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Nemo. ‘And that helps us because . . . ?’

  Thinity spoke. ‘He’s not ready, Smurpheus.’

  ‘He must be ready. This is our only chance. That cannot be a coincidence. We are faced with this difficulty that only the No One can overcome. And the No One is here with us. It cannot be coincidence.’

  ‘Um . . .’ Nemo tried to interject.

  ‘But if he fails?’ asked Thinity.

  ‘Then he is not the No One.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Nemo, loudly. ‘Are you saying I’m not the No One?’

  ‘I am not,’ said Smurpheus, ‘saying that you are not the No One. I would never say such a thing.’

  ‘Never say that I’m not not the No One?’ Nemo tried to clarify. ‘Or never say that it’s not the No One that I’m not?’

  A car went past.

  ‘Listen to me, Nemo,’ said Smurpheus. ‘The McAtrix feeds on the craving of its internees for fame, their desire to be somebody. The gents’ perceptions are oriented to this fact. They notice celebrities more than the less famous.’

  ‘I thought everybody noticed celebrities more than the less famous.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Smurpheus. ‘That is the reason why the true No One can slip past all detection, evade control.’

  ‘Like the invisible man,’ said Nemo thoughtfully.

  ‘Think of it this way: it is the essence of the McAtrix to pigeonhole human beings. Once upon a time humanity was too diverse, too multifarious, to be pigeonholed in a small number of separat
e categories: but those days are long gone. Nowadays everybody fits into one or other pigeonhole. Every female is one of five types, one Spice Girl or another. Every man is one of five types: Russell Crowe, John Cleese, Orlando Bloom, Wesley Snipes or Rolf Harris.’

  ‘Rolf Harris?’ repeated Nemo.

  But Smurpheus wasn’t to be distracted. ‘Nemo, you’re none of those. You are the No One. You’re the least significant human being in the whole world. If you believe it, if you truly believe it, then you’ll become invisible to the system. If you truly believe it, you can walk straight into that building, go up to the third floor, find the phone in the fourth room along the right side of the corridor and use it to upload yourself back into the Jeroboam. Then you can come back into the McAtrix through a different node, find us, and we can all go home.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to do any of that,’ complained Nemo. ‘Starting with not knowing how to make myself invisible so I can just walk past the gents. They noticed me before, didn’t they? On the train?’

  ‘That was probably,’ put in Thinity, ‘because you were with me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Those spam phone calls you were having,’ she asked. ‘Had you ever had them before?’

  ‘Never.’

  She nodded. ‘It was a sign that the system was – vaguely, indistinctly – starting to realise that you’d been living in its midst for all these years. Those spam programs are designed to recognise a new market, an untapped consumer resource: except that every human in the McAtrix has been logged, filed away, listed.’

  ‘So the system is starting to notice me,’ said Nemo, alarmed. ‘Then I can’t just walk past them there gents, can I? They’ll see me.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Smurpheus.

  ‘I’m not so worried,’ said Nemo. ‘After all they’ve had me in custody once already. That wasn’t so bad. It was quite weird, but not so bad.’