To Fergus Shaman’s credit, it must be said that he was as nimble of foot as he was of mind. Fergus saw the hand of Garstang as it delved into the unscorched pocket. Saw the madness in his eyes and was already ducking for cover as the firing button went critical. The electric pulse knifed the air, passed through one of Fergus’s raised shoulder pads and took Mungo Madoc’s left ear off as cleanly as a surgeon’s scalpel.
There was another momentous moment. Two in a single day!
Mungo raised his left hand and felt at his blank head-side. Fergus flung himself under the table and scrambled towards the door. Lavinius Wisten quietly filled his elegant jodhpurs. Diogenes Darbo, an old contemptible, and no coward he, swung his briefcase into the face of Garstang. Other board members did other things, but in the ensuing chaos it was hard to make out what. And very few, if any, distinguished themselves in any manner whatsoever. Typical.
Green ichor flowed profusely from Mungo’s wounded head, a smell of stale cabbage filled the air. The modified readout on his wrist belled straight down to the company medics. Fergus came up from beneath the table just in time to see Garstang, vacant of eye and green of nose, turn his weapon upon Diogenes Darbo, sending that gallant fellow off upon the final journey, from which none, with the possible exception of the Dalai Lama, ever return. Fergus grabbed hold of Mungo and bundled him through a doorway, a move which had suddenly become all the rage.
As they passed through it, Mungo, down but by no means out, put his fist through the emergency seal. To the raised voice of squealing alarms the door shut with a resounding thud.
The Dalai Lama’s face exploded into a holocaust of trailing ribbons. Shards of blistering glass struck Rex fiercely from behind. Had he not still been wearing his radiation suit, his buttocks would now have required major surgery. ‘Bother,’ came the voice of Deathblade Eric through the smoke and flame. ‘A little left of centre, do you think?’
‘If at first you don’t succeed and all that kind of thing.’
Rex was torn between white flag waving and the keeping of the ever-legendary low profile. He settled wisely for the latter.
‘Behind the chair, Eric.’
‘Okey dokey.’ Eric shot the head off the gilded cherub. ‘Spot on.’
‘Kindly give me the pistol, Eric, you are making a complete pig’s earhole out of the entire affair.’
‘I have had half my head blown away,’ Eric complained. Rambo soothed his companion with a touching little shoulder hug. ‘Although this makes you an ideal candidate for a station head, I concede that it might impair your marksmanship. Kindly give me the gun.’
‘Oh figs,’ grumbled the Deathblade, parting with the smoking pistol.
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ crooned Rambo.
Rex weighed up his chances. The scales were down heavily on the ‘none whatever’ side. Clinging to the chair’s arms Rex began to edge toward the bathroom. To what exact purpose he wasn’t as yet certain. The fetid wash-hole didn’t number a window amongst the few points in its favour.
‘Can’t see a blooming thing.’ The voice was Rambo’s. ‘Eric, go and worm the little blighter out. There’s a good fellow.’
‘You have the equaliser, you go and worm him out.’
‘Oh really, Eric.’
‘Oh really yourself.’
‘Eric,’ said Rambo.
‘Rambo?’ said Eric.
‘Eric, it is a well known and easily verifiable fact, that the man who holds the gun issues the orders.’
‘But I held the gun a minute ago.’
‘But you don’t now, do you?’
‘But I . . .’
‘Eric, I have a gun and you have half a brain. Now, should the situation be reserved, which one of us would you expect to do the ordering and which the worming out?’
‘Sounds like a trick question to me.’
‘Eric, worm the blighter out or I shoot you dead.’
‘Come out, come out wherever you are,’ called Eric, fanning at the smoke and kicking variously about. Rex closed the bathroom door as quietly as possible. Needless to say, the door didn’t possess a lock. He leant back upon it breathing heavily. He was in serious trouble here, and no mistake about it.
‘Fergus,’ said Mungo. This is a most regrettable business.’ Fergus made with the thoughtful nods and winced as Mungo’s medics worried at the raw meat. They were now in the medical unit of Earthers Inc. It looked for all the world like nothing on earth.
‘He’s holding Lavinius Wisten hostage,’ said Mungo. Fergus nodded once more. ‘And also my ear.’
‘Wisten is perhaps expendable,’ Fergus ventured.
‘But not my ear.’
‘Oh, certainly not, sir.’
‘Fergus, please don’t take this the wrong way. But I sincerely feel that I should hold you at least partially responsible for all this.’
‘Have no fear, sir,’ Fergus replied. ‘The day will yet be saved. I have a plan.’
A plan, thought Rex, if I only had a plan. He scrutinized the loathsome little cell in search of inspiration. By the crepuscular glow of the neon mirror-light, he could see all there was to see. The room was tiled from floor to ceiling. The ceramics crazed, smeared with generations of filth. The grout supported a flourishing moss garden. Above the chipped enamel shower-tray a single hosepipe thrust obscenely from the wall, beneath a rusted turncock. The lack-lustre mirror above the leaky grey basin reflected Rex’s thoughts. The room spelt gloom and doom which rhymed appropriately enough with tomb.
Rex cast an eye over his collection of lice repellents and skin toners racked beneath the mirror. Hardly bomb-making equipment. A fist went thud on the door. ‘There’s another room through here,’ came the voice of Eric the half-a-brain.
‘Then in you go, Eric, wormy wormy.’
Rex heard Eric put forward, what were, to his mind, several very plausible reasons regarding the inadvisability of sudden entry. He also heard a clunk, which he rightly assumed to be the sound of a pistol butt striking the load-bearing side of Eric’s skull. ‘Ouch,’ went Eric in ready response.
Rex snatched up a can of Peachy Face Pock Filler and brandished it in a menacing fashion. The futility of this wasn’t slow in the dawning. Rex swung it at the neon tube, plunging the bathroom into darkness. He climbed into the shower-tray and assumed the foetal position beneath the flaccid hosepipe.
Eric kicked open the door. Rex’s terminal was now well ablaze and through the fire and smoke Eric didn’t look as pretty as a picture, lit from his bad side by the conflagration. Rex cowered as Rambo joined his chum in the doorway. Firelight danced on the barrel of the .44 Magnum as it nosed into the bathroom, sniffing him out. For Rex it was the dry throat and the loosened bowel of the condemned prisoner. So this was it. The end. Death was always a squalid affair, but Rex, like all men, had laboured under the cosy misconception that his would have some dignity about it. It’s funny just how wrong you can be some times. Time to die,’ said Rambo Bloodaxe. Then time for lunch.’
‘Your plan, Fergus, you will kindly favour me with it.’
‘Well. . .’ Fergus wracked braincells; he was sure that somewhere in his head there was just bound to be a plan. ‘The way I see it . . .’
His words were, however, cut off by the timely arrival of Jason Morgawr, who had somehow managed to put himself in charge of security. ‘We have a problem,’ said he, addressing himself to Mungo’s single ear. ‘Garstang is making demands.’
The modified Mungo, who now had the capacity to witness an entire planet’s destruction, with scarcely the bat of an eyelid, yet who still harboured a certain resentment regarding the loss of his ear, said, ‘Oh yes?’
‘He says he wants the captive and a safe passage down to the research labs or he will . . .’ Jason leant low to Mungo’s ear to relay the sordid details of what fate held for Lavinius Wisten.
‘And to what end do you suppose, and hang about, what captive?’
Thought so, thought Fergus, he knows nothi
ng. Jason shook his head and feigned ignorance. Fergus put his finger to his lips. ‘Elvis Presley,’ he whispered. ‘Garstang has, for reasons better known to himself, brought Presley here to Phnaargos.’
‘Here? I mean here, yes in the heat of the moment it had slipped my mind. Your thoughts, Fergus?’
‘My thoughts no doubt mirror your own, sir. Garstang obviously hopes to evade justice by escaping through time, taking Presley along for security. He’s somewhat more important to us than Wisten, after all. Several more Time Sprouts even now ripen in the research labs.’
‘You confirm my own worst fears. Your thoughts yet again.’
‘The employment of a soporific gas introduced into the ecosystem of the boardroom might prove advantageous at this time.’
‘Uncanny,’ said Mungo.
Jason Morgawr bounced before them. ‘Further developments. Garstang has locked the boardroom televisual system into broadcast, and he’s threatening to make his feelings felt before the viewing public.’
‘Then close him down.’
‘No can do, sir. The broadcast system in the boardroom overrides all the others. A little innovation of yours, if you recall.’
‘But of course. Fergus?’
‘My thoughts? The gas, and now.’
Morgawr made with the head-shakes. ‘He’s already on to that. He’s blocked the eco duct, with Diogenes Darbo, I understand. He says that if his demands aren’t met within the next five minutes he will expose the entire Earthers series as having been engineered by the company. Dirty laundry will be aired, names will be named.’
‘Fergus? Fergus? Stop that man somebody.’
Fergus Shaman found the ward door barred to him. ‘Now,’ said he, as he was hauled back to Mungo, ‘is the kind of occasion when I offer up my thanks to the Deity for having blessed us with a station head such as yourself, whom alone is capable of solving a problem, which to we lesser mortals appears quite insoluble. In fact I was just on my way to the company chapel to offer up these very thanks when you called me back. Did you want anything in particular, sir?’
The entire medical crew turned towards Mungo.
‘Ah,’ said that man. ‘Ah yes, indeed.’
Rex pressed back against the clammy tiles. Rambo cocked the trigger. Rex screwed up his eyes. ‘Hosepipe,’ came a voice at his right ear.
‘What?’
‘Hosepipe.’
He knew that voice, the voice of the Goddess, the voice of Christeen. And he knew the time too. That brief five minutes of the day when the heating went on at Odeon Towers. So timed that most of its residents would be out working. Bath time. ‘And it’s goodbye from him,’ chuckled Rambo. Rex reached up for the rusted turncock. Wrenched it around. Miraculously it spun, as if newly greased. Rex clutched the perished hosepipe. The jet of superheated water was fast and furious. It struck Rambo full face, blasting him from his feet into the arms of his dithering henchman. Acting Fireman Mundi trained the jet upon them both, laughing like a lunatic. The jet faltered, trickled and died. Rex’s water ration for the day was all used up. ‘Ooooooooooooh!’ Rex leapt to his feet. Rambo was staggering about groaning terribly and feeling for his gun. Rex kicked him viciously between the legs. As he doubled up, the steely toecap of Rex’s workaday boot caught him squarely in the sinking chin. Rex snatched up the fallen weapon and leap-frogged over the toppled Devianti. Eric made a half-hearted swing in his direction, but Rex bludgeoned him down with the pistol butt.
Really it was all a most excruciating display of gratuitous violence. But once cut together from the various viewpoints afforded from the televisual moss and lichen in Rex’s apartment and beamed out across Phnaargos, it went down very big with the growing audience of some fourteen billion.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mungo Madoc once again.
Fergus watched the face of the station chief as it ran through its full repertoire of thoughtful expression. This man is barren of ideas, thought he. ‘Perhaps you should go up and speak to him yourself, sir.’
‘Perhaps I should go up and speak to him myself,’ mused Mungo.
Fergus turned his eyes towards the ceiling. He’d cared little enough for the old Mungo Madoc, but this new one didn’t do much for him either. ‘Perhaps you should.’ Fergus agreed.
‘So be it.’ Mungo rose ponderously from the surgical couch and pulled aside his gown. His wonderful suit was in ruination, but he simply sighed it away. Like the warriors of old, Mungo Madoc girded up his loins and went forth to do battle.
There was a lot of effing and blinding coming from the boardroom. A knot of special service men crouched about the doorway, weapons at the ready. One of them rose to salute Mr Madoc as he arrived. ‘Ranting away in there like a stone bonker,’ was the considered opinion on the matter.
Mungo pressed him aside and addressed the board-room door. ‘Garstang,’ he shouted. ‘This is Mungo Madoc.’ There was a snap, a crackle and a pop. An electric pulse seared through the door. Something pale and fleshy bounced on to the corridor floor.
The now earless Mungo Madoc turned to Fergus Shaman. ‘Your thoughts on this?’ he asked.
17
Let’s get serious, no let’s don’t, let’s mime the hard bits.
Frank Zappa
Rex didn’t pause long in his burning apartment. He snatched up his weather-dome and tore away a small section of flooring. From the hidey-hole revealed he drew his most valuable possession, The Suburban Book of the Dead. He thrust the book into a pocket of his radiation suit and made off at the hurry up. Up the iron ladder went Rex, through the hatch and on to the roof. The air car stood awaiting his whim. Smoke began to rise through the roof hatch.
Rex bundled into the air car, slammed shut the canopy, confirmed identity and put the thing into gear. The engine coughed and died.
‘No,’ cried Rex, ‘not now.’ Two fearful figures climbed out through the roof hatch. A sheet of flame billowed up behind them. ‘Please,’ begged Rex. ‘Please start.’ The spectres loped across the roof towards him. Rex bashed at the dashboard with his fist. The engine chugged, the air car stalled again. Rambo snatched up a length of metal piping and swung it at the windscreen. The plexiglass shattered, Rex covered his eyes, Rambo and Eric clawed at him. The motor engaged. The car lifted. The two Devianti fell away howling bitterly. Rex took to the sky.
Gloria Mundi never paced, she rode upon friction-free bearings housed within her hips. This she did now in the Dalai’s sanctum sanctorum. Dan watched her at it. He studied every fold of yielding poli-synthicate as it creased about the exquisite contours of her body. What a waste, thought Dalai Dan.
Gloria turned upon him. ‘You should be so lucky.’
Dan cast her an upward gaze, levelling out at the piercing green eyes. ‘Your brother intrigues me,’ he said.
‘It might have been polite of you to mention that he was still in one piece as soon as you knew.’
‘So sorry,’ Dan replied. ‘An intriguing young man.’
‘His idea of feeding the iris patterns of your Mr SUN into MOTHER to seek his location does display a certain degree of animal cunning, I suppose.’
‘I consider it most enterprising. Sadly time ran out for him. The scan will of course be maintained. We will track down SUN.’
Gloria threw up her hands. ‘But to what end? You catch up with him. You kill him. Can one man really be such a threat to you?’
‘This is no ordinary man. Do you know what I represent, Gloria?’
I’m sure you can read my thoughts on this matter.’
‘I represent stability. The status quo. I represent safety. To threaten me is to threaten the very fabric of society.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’
Dan sipped his cocktail. ‘You have no idea of what I’m talking about. Your mind, although open to me, is closed to reason.’
‘And what plans do you now have for my brother?’
‘I will keep him on the SUN case. I like the way he thinks.’
‘He’s an un
couth lout.’
‘Please Gloria. We each must play our part. You understand the economics of the thing and also the mechanics. Society is no longer self-perpetuating. The unions run me ragged with their outrageous demands, production is, as ever, down. Soon the syntha-food plants will run themselves dry. You know this. I know this. We have maintained the protective cloud cover for a decade to allow the ozone layer to reform. This is science, Gloria. When mankind re-establishes itself once more upon the face of the planet there must be no further mistakes. Each must play his or her part, as now.’
‘With you running the show, I suppose.’
‘And who better?’
‘Perhaps Hubbard or Pope Joan?’
‘Only me, Gloria.’
‘Ha, dreams of the hashish eater.’
‘Not a bit of it.’ Dan thumbed a remote control. A hologram of the planet formed before them. He prodded into it. ‘Cities all laid waste. But here, here, here, vast tracts of arable land. All over, radiation-free, ripe for cultivation. Countless miles, more than in the middle ages. This time we do it right.’
Gloria gazed at the image and then at the man. Could he actually be sincere?’
‘Mr Mundi is here,’ purred the intercom.
‘Send him in,’ said the Dalai Lama. The hologram faded and was gone.
The two Phnaargs returned to the medical centre. Mungo clutching his latest wound, Fergus carrying the amputated ear before him at arm’s length. As the medics sutured and stitched, tinkered and bandaged, Jason spoke hurriedly into the unsullied ear of Fergus Shaman.
‘We have less than two minutes; he’s preparing to go on the air.’
‘Just do what he says then,’ Fergus replied. ‘But get him out of that boardroom, as you value your future.’
‘Nuff said.’ Jason spoke rapid words into a headset. Garstang’s manic face appeared on a nearby bio-screen. ‘Will you do it, or should I?’ Jason asked.
Armageddon: The Musical (Armageddon Trilogy) Page 13
