“Do you think we should tell them?” she had said, “you know, about these guys, like, kicking our asses an’ all?”
He had looked at the ground as he thought.
“I don’t see the point.” He said eventually. “What happens? They all get frightened, they tell others, there’s a panic. I think we leave it to Guntrick and the guys from The Afternet and hope they can stop it happening.”
She had grasped his hand.
“Will you protect me, Jenkin?”
“If it comes to you needing me to protect you,” he said, laughing, “we are all in bigger trouble than we thought.”
In the Afternet Control room, the team had spent the entire day watching the screens, a number of which constantly flicked between different views of areas of the afterworld, though the selected view was not in their control. This meant that although they wanted to focus on the area surrounding the crowds at the Afterworld Cup, in the hope of finding the missing troop of attackers, instead they had to stay glued to the screens just in case any of them showed pictures of a pertinent area, at which point they could hold that view. They were more likely, though, to be treated to a shot of a circle of aged Venezuelans chanting incantations, a lone hermit sitting on a rock waiting for enlightenment, or the arguments, embraces, and confusion of any number of wanderers.
As the day drew to a close, and they finished the last of Justin’s takeaways (apart from the ones he had hidden for exclusive consumption), their eyes were itching with tiredness and heads pounding from the concentration. Apart from Geoffrey, that is, whose viewing habits were such that this was a mere bagatelle. In fact he had managed to monitor a couple of screens all day and later simultaneously turned his gaze to a showing of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’
The sweetly uncomplicated plot was for him a minefield, and the others were battered with swathes of questions. Justin hadn’t seen it, didn’t want to see it, and refused to get involved. Marcel hadn’t seen it, didn’t want to see it, and was worn down by years of the Cumbrian’s inability to discern reality from fiction. Which left Mary, who had seen it at least twenty times and therefore was able, to some extent, to answer his stream of queries, at least those concerning the plot, without actually taking her eyes from the monitors. Other lines of enquiry wandered into more esoteric areas.
“Why doesn’t he just report Potter to the police for keeping the money?”
“He can’t prove it, Geoff.”
“Just show him the film. It’s all there.”
“That’s the point, Geoffrey. It’s a film.”
“Clarence could vouch for him.”
“Clarence isn’t real.”
“Why is he in the film then?”
Mary sighed, still unused to existential discussions with a man in a panda suit. Her eyes remained glued to an old man somewhere in the hinterland trying to swim to shore from his home made boat. Her computer pinged to tell of an incoming mail, and she glanced at it, and then as if a sudden decision had come to her, stood and grabbed a coat.
Marcel looked up but didn’t say anything, aware that he was still well into the cold shoulder zone. Justin did it for him, anyway.
“Where are you going?”
“I just need to see someone. I won’t be long.” She wasn’t being deliberately mysterious. She was just wearied by the interminable peering at the screens, the banality of the everyday existences being lived out before her eyes.
She left the room with purpose, and marched through the corridors until she came to a nondescript door. She knocked and walked in. The occupant, tall and strongly built, was wearing what looked like Marlon Brando’s outfit from The Wild One, barring the questionable leather cap. He seemed surprised to see her, and sauntered from behind his desk then leaned back on it, half-sitting. Behind him on the wall was an enormous map of the world dotted with pins of various colours.
“Hello stranger,” he said with the confidence of one who assumes that this appearance was only a matter of time.
“Hello War,” she said, “how are things?”
He gestured a leather-clad arm towards the map.
“Busy busy busy. I’m in more demand than ever, which,” he leaned forward and smiled winningly, “is why you’re here, I guess.”
“Kind of.” She hesitated. “Look, I really appreciate the attention and everything, but I don’t think this is going to work.”
“This?
“Us.”
He looked amazed. “Is it something I’ve done?”
What, apart from being behind the extraordinary spread of human conflict the dotted map displayed?
“It’s not you, it’s me.” War didn’t look surprised that this was the case, so she decided to continue.
“I’m not ready for a relationship.” She dug deep into the lifetime of clichés she had both received and doled out. “I need some space.”
He sniffed as if to show how little this bothered him.
“Yeah, well. I’ve got a lot on my plate anyway.” He walked back around the desk, sat down, and began to nonchalantly sift through some papers. She decided that she didn’t need to spout any more insincere drivel and changed tack as a prelude to making her escape. It had all been a lot easier than she had anticipated.
“I suppose, being you, you know about this trouble going on tomorrow?”
He looked up with an expression of indifference.
“Oh, er, yep. It’s not really my area, though, since no-one will actually get killed, technically.”
“We’ve been looking for the attackers. Found them all except for one lot we can’t spot for love nor money.”
Again he glanced up, deadpan.
“In my experience,” he said, “which is considerable, if you don’t know where they are, it’s a panto play.”
“Panto?”
“Yep. They’re behind you.”
When she got back to the Control Room, she threw her coat in the corner.
“Successful trip?” asked Marcel. She gave him a look but didn’t immediately reply, scooting over to her computer and throwing herself into a chair.
“What’s at the back of that Committee Room that Ron had built? What’s behind there?”
“It’s nasty.” Said Justin. “I wandered off up there and it just turns to mountains and rock. Cold too.”
“But if anyone came from there, they’d be attacking downhill, right? And to where it looks like the leaders are, what with the shed and everything?”
“Blimey!” said Justin, “Who did you go to see, Montgomery?”
“Better than that, actually. War. He says if you don’t know where they are, they’re usually behind you.”
“Oh War,” said Marcel, sneering. “well that sorts everything out, doesn’t it?”
“Oh grow up Marcel!” she snapped.
Justin had been deeply amused by the touchy stand off between Mary and Marcel since they had come back and this latest exchange was particularly enjoyable.
“Look,” he said, failing to conceal a smile, “ it makes sense, though I don’t know how they would have got there. I think we need to check it out.”
They agreed to head to the arena first thing in the morning to recce the area behind the Committee Room, and returned to the tedious task of monitoring the screens, in case, by some long-odds chance, they could be saved the journey.
As it happened, it was at that very moment that Benito Mussolini finally led his rag-tag troupe to the crag of a mountain, the final ascent on their arduous march. It was getting dark, and in the thin air, the heavily armed bandits shivered as they looked down towards the arena, where they could see the flickering lights of campfires.
The Italian couldn’t figure why his band had been chosen to perform the most arduous of all of the positioning tasks, but they were there now, exhausted but in place. They set themselves to lighting their own fires and erecting rudimentary shelters, and he marched with two of his lieutenants to an outcrop from which they could make out the descent and
in the light of flaming torches the vague distant forms of people moving around.
Tomorrow would be the day that he would prove that he should be standing on the hilltops with the Commanders. He had led his army on the hardest of all the marches and tomorrow they would take out the leadership of the opposition. He, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini would take his rightful place in the Axis of Evil.
Twenty Six
And so, that tomorrow. In the early morning, the pitch, lying at the bottom of the valley, was hidden in a wispy mist, but up on the hillside the sleeping souls were being awakened by the sunlight glinting through the trees, and began to rise and stretch.
Guntrick and his men had a feeling they had not had for centuries, the raw anticipation of the day of the fight. The feeling was widespread, through Yankee and Confederate, Sioux and Masai, and out beyond the trees and fields and up into the mountains where the invaders were struggling from sleep.
Mary and the others had already sprung from the door near the Afternet Café, and wound their way through the slumbering thousands. They skirted the goalmouth at the end of the pitch, up the hillside and past the Committee Room, where Ron still snored happily, his coloured team sheet grasped tightly to his steering wheel. To avoid being observed, they had veered off to the left and followed the line of the trees, until there were no more, and then on into the chilly sunlight, keeping a ridge between them and the mountain crags above.
They were rewarded for their effort much later, when the crowds below were beginning to think about lunch and the kick-off only a few hours away. First they saw smoke rising, and then began to spot the fleeting outlines of people moving amongst the rocks. Eventually, they peered from behind a mound of scree and saw the camp of the interlopers. The enemy were busy, cleaning weapons, sitting in groups gesturing their plans, a massive cauldron (which had caused much argument when dragged up the unforgiving slopes) steaming away in the middle of the camp.
An overweight man in a military uniform, with shiny leather boots, strode around the camp with an aura of ownership. They turned away from the sight and sat with their backs to the shale.
It was a pair of Mexican drug cartel foot soldiers who first spotted the strange beast, as it flitted between two boulders. They would have thought it was the effect of mescaline had they been able to get hold of any, because in general there weren’t many animals running around. They nudged each other and stood, walking warily towards where they thought the animal may be. Just when they were about to believe that they had both been mistaken, its head popped up and seemed to look them straight in the eyes.
It had a reddish-brown head and little round ears, but its face was strangely human, strangely pale, as though it had spent a lot of time indoors, perhaps staring at a computer screen or something. They both cried out in surprise, and more curious brigands came to see what was happening.
The Mexicans pointed to the rocks where they had seen it, and other eyes scanned the area for more signs.
There was a cry behind them, which sounded surprisingly like ‘Yoohoo!” and the crowd whipped around. There it was, on its hind legs, performing an elementary caper, and then it turned and in a flash was gone again.
“What is it? A bear?” asked on of the Mexicans.
“Not big enough for a bear. Looks like a panda. Only red. And a bit thin.” This from a young Chinese man with scars on both cheeks.
“Why has it got a face?”
“Everything’s got a face, hasn’t it?”
“No. I mean a face. Like my face. A person face.” There was much muttering while this was discussed, without any definitive opinion being formed, but the general view that animals here may not have to be like animals in life.
“Let’s go and get it!” One said excitedly, as though he were suggesting hunting the snark. The troops, even though they knew a major battle was to come, welcomed the diversion from the waiting, and with cries and trumpeting they ran off towards where they had last seen the mysterious beast. When they rounded a mound of rocks, it was perhaps fifty yards distant, capering, and, though this could have been an illusion, waggling its fingers in its ears and poking out its tongue. As one, they charged off.
Benito Mussolini was seated beneath a canvas shelter, polishing his riding boots. He had heard the yells and smiled to himself with the thought that his troops were getting themselves in the mood. In the clearing outside, a man in a sharp suit was emptying the contents of a number of bags into the cauldron, giving the bubbling contents a hearty stir before walking briskly back towards a scree hill.
“What a waste.” He said to the woman and another man who were waiting for him behind the hill.
“It’s for a good cause, Marcel.” Said Mary. “Besides, I’m not sure we really needed a dope fiend hanging around the control room. We’d better go and rescue Geoffrey.”
The bait was beginning to feel the effects of his lack of exercise, and as he ran from rock to rock to keep a few steps ahead of his pursuers, he was perspiring heavily under the Kigu suit. He had looped back towards the camp, and was wondering whether the masturbatory gestures he had made towards them might have pushed the taunting a touch too far.
Luckily, many of the chasing crowd were also not in their athletic prime, but he would almost certainly have been caught, and to their surprise, the attackers would have found that in this world animals could be skinned by the simple expedient of lowering a zip.
His comrades, though, having sneaked into the camp to doctor the food, now let loose a volley of bloodcurdling screams. Mussolini sighed and put down his gleaming boots, emerging from the shelter to check what could be causing the kerfuffle. He was astonished to discover that the camp was deserted, and that the previously omnipresent aroma of unwashed bandit had been replaced with a pungent, sweet smell, which hung heavy in the thin air.
His shouts to his company coincided with Marcel and Justin locating a hyperventilating Geoffrey and bearing him at a trot, his feet barely touching the ground, behind a bluff and out of sight of the pursuing mob. Initially, they seemed reluctant to give up the chase, but after a few moments of peering in vain for a glimpse of the strange beast, the cries from their leader became more insistent and in small groups they began to slink back to base.
“Where the hell have you been?” demanded Benito when the Mexicans ambled back into the clearing at the head of a series of muttering groups.
“We were chasing a panda.” Mussolini stared at the pockmarked face of the speaker.
“A panda?”
“A red one. With a man’s face.”
“He did this.” Said the other, mimicking Geoffrey’s last taunt.
Mussolini opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. Bad enough that his troops had convinced themselves they had seen a half-human, half-panda wanking on a mountain top, without entering into a dialogue about it.
He gestured towards the cauldron, which was belching sweet-smelling smoke.
“Get the men fed.” He said. “We march in two hours. And bring me a big portion. I’m starving.” The Mexicans took in the Generalissimo’s corpulence and wondered how that could be, but nodded, and wandered off to carry out the order.
As the hour of the Final approached, the excitement was palpable. The crowd was a riot of colour. Faces were painted; banners were waved; and the VIP grandstand was filled to overflowing.
The South American deities had come disguised as a Mariachi band and were belting out a series of up-tempo numbers punctuated by the odd lament. Whilst this musical troupe, in their pearl trimmed waistcoats, certainly added to the gaiety of the occasion, they were being eyed with some distaste by a coalition of Northern European Gods in lederhosen and feathered caps. A fair proportion of the crowd were dancing and clapping to the band’s rhythms, but leather thighs remained unslapped, and more than one of the Nordics were wondering how long it would be before some sombrero shoving might be in order.
Satan arrived with his retinue. He had adopted the guise of a Mahar
ishi, in white flowing robes, barefoot, and with a straggly greying beard. His acolytes wore orange and skittered around him chanting and tapping finger cymbals and generally annoying everyone in the path who wasn’t looking for deep inner peace. He nodded to Iron-Crutch Li as he swept serenely into the stand, and benignly shoved everyone out of his way to take up the highest viewing position, the better to watch the match and the mayhem he was so much looking forward to.
Those confident of supplying the chaos and disorder were in position. At all points of the compass, bands of armed malcontents were gathered, champing at the bit to launch their attacks. Their leaders, in the fine tradition of generals throughout the ages, were satisfied that the cannon fodder was deployed, and had gathered on a bluff that gave a panoramic view. From there, they could see the entire amphitheatre. The unsuspecting crowd, as many as half a million people, were ranged around the bowl looking down on the pitch; the plain-clothed Gods occupying the stand which looked like a matchbox from this distance.
On the hill opposite they could just make out the small shack that housed Ron and Ethel, who these despots had taken to be the leaders and therefore a target. Surrounding the arena they could also make out the gatherings of their troops, ready to make their assault. Mussolini’s company, deputed to take out the occupants of the Committee Room, were hidden from their view at the top of the craggy mountains opposite.
Pol Pot and his Gold Members had their needs tended to by a group of flunkies selected for their ability with silver tongues and cooking utensils, and they were relaxing in the sunlight as they waited for the imminent commencement of the fun. Each had their own followers, and didn’t pay much attention to those who fawned upon their fellow leaders, so they couldn’t know that the sharp-suited Frenchman who appeared in their midst wasn’t a lackey of one of the others.
A pair of aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, and his hair, thick and dark, was slicked back. Ivan The Terrible, seated cross-legged and picking at a rather well-spiced lamb dish, had to look up into the sunlight when the Frenchman coughed politely to attract his attention.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 57
