by M T McGuire
“Please don’t kill me,” he begged wringing his tied hands, “please ...” He wondered whether he should go the whole hog and kiss Big Merv’s boots.
“Will you shut up, you toerag, I’m thinking,” shouted Merv. “You might be a great wuss, but against my better judgement, I like your idea.”
The Pan had hoped he might. Big Merv was ambitious, and being able to carry out successful bank robberies would boost his organisation’s prestige as well as its coffers, giving it a powerful advantage over its competitors. Who knew, once he had accrued enough funds, he might even gain an edge over the Resistance.
“If we’re gonna do this you can’t tell no-one. Your identity as my driver will be your deepest, darkest secret.”
The Pan nodded.
“Has to be that way, mate. To protect you from outside influences. It would be a pity if you grassed me up, now, wouldn’t it?” A horrible sinister edge to the voice there which made The Pan shudder but at the same time, a suggestion Big Merv might be about to take the bait. If this was going to work, Big Merv would want his getaway driver to be somebody insignificant, and Arnold above, The Pan knew he fitted the bill.
It would also be handy if the driver was somebody who owed Big Merv and who could therefore be controlled.
The Pan knew he ticked that box, too.
In a nutshell, from Big Merv’s point of view, the driver would have to be the kind of person nobody would suspect, somebody, well ... a bit spineless and irrelevant, frankly.
Excellent. Another box ticked, then.
The Pan was under no illusions about his personality, he’d always been a coward. But he knew he could drive, and being a getaway man was little more than glorified running. It wasn’t the most attractive career option but it had to be better than the concrete alternative.
No worries about appearing genuine; he was trembling so much it was obvious he was scared. But now there was something in his heart besides the fear – hope. As long as his driving measured up to Big Merv’s expectations, he might yet live to see another day. By the Holy Prophet, please let that be so.
“You’re a class one tool-bit but you’re bright and you’re devilish hard to catch,” said Merv with a brief glower in Frank and Harry’s direction. “’S down to whether you can handle a snurd like Hal, an’ I’m gonna see if you can. You said you had wheels?”
The Pan nodded again.
“Good coz yer not goin’ near mine. You’ve just bought yerself half an hour. Get him outta there.” There was a squelch as Frank and Harry pulled The Pan out of the thickening concrete and unceremoniously dumped him on his feet, both of which had gone to sleep. Before he had a chance to fall over, Big Merv grabbed him by the lapels. “You’re going to take us for a little drive,” he said. “You’d better be able to back this up. Any monkey business and you’ll go the same way in a few hours, only we’ll make sure you suffer first, d’you get my drift?”
“Oh yes. Thank you,” said The Pan as another attack of shivering came on. He coughed experimentally and, while Frank untied him, tried to ascertain if he had caught his death of cold or whether the shivering was merely due to abject fear.
Chapter 13
With freezing hands The Pan fumbled with his keyring.
‘Snurd,’ it said on it.
There was a button, which he pressed and after a few minutes a sound similar to a light aircraft engine drifted across the water. A small dot appeared in the dawn sky. Snurds do look like cars and they are used for getting around but that’s where the similarity ends. They run on water for a start (the engine splits off the H2 and discards the O). In addition, this one had a revolving number plate, a submarine conversion option, machine guns behind its lights, wings and a number of other handy bolt-on extras. The wings and submarine conversion option were normal; the machine guns were legal so long as they only fired blanks (they didn’t, but The Pan had never used them); the dodgy part was the revolving number plate, which had saved his life several times so far.
“Don’t tell me a two-bit piece of plankton like you has a snurd with a homing button?” exclaimed Big Merv.
“Er, yes.” He was proud of his snurd. It was running well; it was in good condition considering the price he paid, and it had been a bargain.
“Is this it?” asked Smasher Harry in disgust, as it dipped low over a row of derelict buildings opposite and landed in front of them. It was small, two-tone in shades of light and dark silver, and somewhere, in another version of the universe, it was a variant of a late nineteen sixties Lotus Elan. In K’Barth it was merely a Snurd SE2. “You’re having us on. You can’t outrun the Grongle police in that!”
“Yes I can,” said The Pan as it folded its wings away. He hoped it hadn’t heard. For a supposedly inanimate object it was surprisingly sensitive and easily upset.
“Don’t make me laugh. It’s a hairdresser’s snurd. You won’t last two minutes in it,” said Frank.
“I’m a full-on GBI and I’ve lasted four years so far,” replied The Pan smugly. “Surviving a police chase isn’t about straight-line speed, it’s about manoeuvrability and cornering,” he winked, “and a bit of low cunning.”
“Alright, don’t push it, son,” said Big Merv, “I hear you, you’re a survivor. But I weren’t born yesterday so I know that no-one lasts four years on the blacklist.”
“I have,” said The Pan.
“Lying little smecker,” Frank muttered, while in all likelihood, Smasher Harry only allowed this piece of insubordination to go unpunished because he’d been forced to hand his pickaxe handle to Frank when Big Merv had handed him the second umbrella. Big Merv looked The Pan up and down.
“Yeh? I don’t think so,” he jabbed a finger at Harry and Frank. “You two, wait here. This ain’t gonna take long. With any luck I’ll be back soon enough for us to finish ’im off before it sets.”
The snurd obligingly opened its doors and sank significantly as Big Merv climbed sullenly inside. His nickname did him justice; there wasn’t much room once he had made himself comfortable and The Pan squeezed into the driver’s seat as best he could.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Home for some dry togs,” ordered Merv, “I’ll show you. An’ you can do it on the road, none of this airborne cobblers. We’re not drawing attention to ourselves. Once I’m set, we’ll go to a nice outta the way spot I know and you can show me what you’re made of.”
The Pan nodded, pressed the starter, and they bunny-hopped away into the night.
****
“I said we shoulda dumped him in the river,” muttered Harry as he and Frank watched from under their umbrellas.
****
“Stop!” shouted Big Merv.
“No. No,” begged The Pan. “Please, it hasn’t warmed up yet.” He hadn’t warmed up yet either.
“Alright. Drive, you scab.”
The Pan could tell Big Merv was uncomfortable – The Big Thing was famed for his dislike of travelling – but it seemed he’d also decided to give him a second chance and everybody knew that once Big Merv made a decision, he liked to bide his time while he saw it through.
It was early morning by this time, and following Merv’s directions, The Pan drove through the gradually building rush-hour traffic without mishap to the centre of the city. As they stopped at a set of traffic lights a police vehicle pulled up alongside them.
Not ideal at all.
“Don’t look at them, keep your eyes on the road ahead,” he said.
“What?” asked Merv menacingly.
Arnold’s pants! He’d just said that out loud, hadn’t he?
“Sorry, talking to myself.”
“You’d better be you little squirt, coz no-one orders me around.”
Sensing the hostile stares from the snurd next to him, The Pan kept his eyes glued fixedly to the lights in front but it was to no avail. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Grongles in the patrol snurd talking earnestly to each other and breaking off occasionally to st
are out of the window at him. He knew what that meant, they were running a check through their on-board computer. They must have seen him on a poster somewhere and recognised him.
Big Merv might be a bank robber but as a high-status gangster he would have bribed the right people and cultivated the right contacts to ensure his record remained spotlessly clean, even of the most innocuous traffic offence. On the other hand, The Pan’s criminal record, or at least, the list of enquiries with which the police required his help, was long enough to dwarf War and Peace. It was all petty crime, usually stealing essential items like food, clothes, toothpaste or soap but unfortunately, that made no difference and what with being on the blacklist and still at large, the police wanted him quite badly. The officer in the passenger seat climbed out of his vehicle and walked over to the SE2.
“Oh marvellous,” muttered The Pan, “here we go.”
“Shut it, you spigot,” growled Merv as the officer leaned down and knocked on the window.
Oh, didn’t life suck?
With a resigned sigh, The Pan wound it down. Well, it wasn’t as if things could get any worse.
Chapter 14
With his most contrite expression in place, The Pan looked up at the being towering over him which, like all Grongles, was green and about six foot six. It had red eyes, too, except that instead of round pupils they had slits in, like a cat’s. In the hope of getting into his good books, The Pan addressed him in halting Grongolian. He thought he was going to be sick.
“Good morning, officer, how can I be of service?”
“I have reason to believe this snurd is stolen.”
Oh dear. The Pan stared up at him. He felt his mouth drop open and closed it again.
“No, I paid for it myself.”
Were it possible, the Grongle’s attitude became even more hostile. Ah yes, he had dared to contradict the word of the law and he’d forgotten the ‘Sir’. Bad start, that.
“When?” asked the Grongle.
“Five years ago,” said The Pan. The Grongle laughed humourlessly.
“But your name was added to the government blacklist four years ago. Everything you own belongs to the state, including goods you purchased before you were allocated with your current status. You may have paid double for this heap of junk for all I care, but it doesn’t change the law. This snurd is government property and your failure to surrender it to the proper authorities is theft.”
The Pan wanted to argue but when he opened his mouth to speak, what actually came out was a small squeaking noise that sounded like a mouse being strangled.
“What was that, vermin?”
“Er ... nothing, officer, sir,” replied The Pan, smiling ingratiatingly while trying, as subtly as possible, to engage first gear.
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
To try and impress the officer The Pan clasped both hands round the wheel and looked up in his most innocent manner. The Grongle gave the impression he had never seen anyone so seedy. Probably true.
The Pan failed to disguise the way his gaze slid leftwards to check the colour of the traffic lights or his dismay when he noted they were still green, which in K’Barth is at the top and means stop.
“You have been brawling,” said the Grongle, noticing the black eye Big Merv had given him. “Fighting is forbidden amongst natives.”
“N-no ...” stammered The Pan, “I haven’t been fighting, I walked into a door.”
“Get out of the vehicle, please,” said the Grongle, who had that special knack of making the word ‘please’ sound ruder than outright abuse. He leant down and stared past The Pan, into the passenger seat. Big Merv stared back. “Both of you,” he added. He straightened up, returned to the squad snurd and leaned through the window to speak to his colleague.
The Pan glanced, nervously, at K’Barth’s most celebrated ex-bank robber sitting next to him.
“Do what he says,” glowered Big Merv. “The river’ll still be there when he’s finished.” He nodded in the Grongle’s direction and smiled unpleasantly. “If he don’t take care of you first, I will.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” asked The Pan. Big Merv fixed him with a steely glare causing him to wilt, visibly.
“What’s the alternative?”
“I could drive off, um, fast.”
“You think you’re gonna get out of this?”
“Yes.”
Merv guffawed mirthlessly at him.
“Yeh? Now that I would like to see.”
“Just say the word.” The Pan couldn’t keep the smugness out of his voice. This was one of the few things he knew he could do.
Merv shook his head. “Don’t make me laugh.”
Very seriously The Pan said: “That wasn’t my intention.”
For all his cynicism, Merv must have noticed how confident The Pan was. Not only confident but calm. All the more striking in one whose default was a state of barely controlled panic.
“You’re very cocky all of a sudden,” he said, “you’re either very good or very stupid. My vote’s with stupid.”
“You heard him. Four years,” said The Pan. “I’ve been four years on the blacklist and I’m not dead. How d’you think I did that? Come to think of it, how many other people do you know who can say they’ve been blacklisted for four years?”
A shrug.
“’S a few.”
“Really? Name one.” Sarcasm? Probably going a bit far. The Pan glanced at the policeman. He seemed to be coming to the end of his conversation. No. Probably not going far enough. He had to hurry this up.
“You’re too insignificant for ’em to care.”
“Then how come I’m significant enough to blacklist?”
A pause, another shrug.
“OK. ’S a fair point.”
For all his outward calm The Pan was close to panic. Big Merv was taking too long to make up his mind. Time to lay it on with a trowel, then.
The Grongle was still talking with his colleague in the patrol vehicle. Good. This would only take a moment. He took a deep breath.
“Listen, you can see I’m not popular with our rulers, but the thing is, after tonight you won’t be either. If we hang about much longer they’ll find out all about you and blacklist you too.
“Even if your record comes up clean, they’ll do it because you’re here with me. They’ll take everything you own and then they’ll put everyone you care for on the blacklist and if they don’t kill them, they’ll take everything they own, too. You spared my life and now, maybe, if we act fast enough, I can save yours. They haven’t had a good look at you yet so they won’t have confirmed your ID. It’s me they’re discussing. I’ve done this before, remember? Except that without you here I’d be running already. So, do we stay or go? It’s your call, Big Merv, sir, but you have to make it, now.”
The Grongle returned and leaned into the window again.
“Did I not ask you to get out of the vehicle?”
“Yes,” said The Pan except it was more of a croak. Damn. He hated the way fear did that.
“Then I suggest you would be wise to do as you are told.” A pause. “In your own time, K’Barthan scum.” He reached for his gun.
Chapter 15
The Pan was allergic to guns, especially when they were being pointed at him, and he wasn’t going to let anything, not even his fear of Big Merv, expose him to one. He took his foot off the clutch and burned away through the green light. As he saw the wall of traffic approaching from their left he swung the snurd violently round to the right and sped off up the street.
“What are you doing?” shouted Big Merv as a fleet of police snurds appeared from nowhere and began to pursue them. “We’ll end up in the salt mines! Pull over!” But it was too late. Any capacity in The Pan for objective thought had been clouded by a single aim, escape. A road block loomed up ahead. It was approaching rapidly.
“Will you pull over NOW you little squirt?” shouted Merv who was approaching fury at esc
ape velocity. The Pan ignored him and pressed a switch underneath the dash. It slid away, revealing the optional extras. He regarded the shiny buttons in front of him. There were a few seconds of awestruck silence in the snurd. Big Merv knew a deluxe model when he saw one, however manky. What he didn’t know, of course, was that most of the buttons were for show and not, strictly speaking, connected to anything.
Praying that his temperamental vehicle’s wings would unfold, The Pan plumped for aviator mode. There was a whirring sound and a clunk as the mechanism engaged followed by a short whine, and silence.
Half wings.
Arnold’s toe jam! This was going to be close. The pursuit vehicles would catch them in seconds.
He slammed on the brakes and pulled a hammer from under the seat.
“Would you ...?” he asked as the snurd’s bonnet dipped and their speed slowed to a crawl.
Merv snatched it from him, wound down the window and hit the outside of the passenger door with a smack.
More whirring, a second clunk and the wings fully extended.
Phew.
“Metamorphosis is complete,” said a husky female voice, in case they hadn’t noticed the transformation. The Pan smiled to himself as they speeded up again. The on-board computer had what he considered to be the ultimate in sexy female voices; it was one of the things that had attracted him to this particular vehicle in the first place.
“Thank you,” he told the snurd.
“What are you doing, you tool-bit?” shouted Big Merv. “It’s a machine. It ain’t alive.”
“Sometimes I’m not so sure. Better to be safe than sorry, no?”
“No. You insane twonk! An’ I dunno why you’re even botherin’ to get this rust bucket airborne. They’re gonna blow us to pieces. Arnold! I wish I’d never agreed to this.”
“A bit late now.”
“Why, you cheeky little—”
Merv was thrown backwards into his seat as the snurd accelerated sharply towards the roadblock. Seconds before ploughing into the first police vehicle, The Pan pulled the wheel towards him, they left the ground and disappeared over the houses.
