‘Be careful.’
‘Careful?’ Ms Vrillium marched from the lift, the martial clicks of her steel heels losing themselves in the rich pile of the carpet.
‘Can’t you feel him?’ Gloria was suddenly afraid.
‘I can smell that filthy musk he pomaded himself with. But nothing more. Come on dear, first night nerves is all.’
With faltering steps Gloria entered the apartment. She had seen it all before. The fine hangings. The quilted sofas, their covers woven from the feathers of birds a century dead. The high-domed display cases, clustered with enigmatic antiques. The kilims and curios. Seen it all before. But somehow never really seen it. Never in depth, in clarity. Seen what it represented. What He represented.
‘Permanence,’ Dan had said. ‘Safety, the status quo. I am part of all this, a metaphor, a symbol. A whatnot.’
Ms Vrillium rattled the neck of a Venetian decanter into a silvered goblet. ‘We’ll have that out of here for a kick off.’ She addressed her words to a full-length portrait of the lad himself.
‘His painting?’ The voice was half gone in Gloria’s throat.
‘Painting nothing. That dear is what they call a patch-work quilt and it is patched from human skins.’
Gloria felt very sick indeed.
The ongoing situation currently ongoing between the Fundamentalists and the Jesuits was stepping up apace. Although the weaponry involved was somewhat cob-webby and of dubious serviceability, the protagonists went about their respective businesses with a will. For when both parties have God on their side, both can be equally assured of winning.
There had already been several unfortunate incidents involving certain ‘Smart’ weapons systems. Having had five decades to meditate upon their own smartness, these appeared to have reached states of enlightenment which put them above the whim of mortal man.
Thus, few, if any, ever found their allotted targets.
Then, there was the matter of the anti-missile missiles, the anti-missile-missile missiles, the holographically-projected decoy missiles, the holographically-projected decoy confusion missiles, the jamming systems, the anti-jamming rejamming systems and the systems which did nothing in particular but were still exciting for all of that. Adding to this were the systems which failed immediately, those which reserved their malfunctionings until the vital moment and those, which included most of the foregoing, and which required the skilled hand of the highly-trained expert. A breed now long gone to dust.
One further point is worthy of note. Both the edifices now currently under bombardment had withstood the now legendary Nuclear Holocaust Event, a time when men really knew how to chuck the sophisticated widow-making hardware about. The bumps and grinds now currently on the go appeared to pose but little threat in the ‘laying-waste-to’ department.
L. Ron Hubbard the twenty-third, sensing that Dan’s tragic demise might well afford him the opportunity to elevate himself from the role of two-dimensional character with hardly a sub-plot to call his own to that of major protagonist, paced the war-room floor unaided. The Hubbards never got wherever they got by thinking small.
‘Ma many great times granpappy would have known how to kick ass with these no-count low-lifes,’ he drawled southernly. ‘All fair game to great times grampah.’ The sharp young men with the far-away stares bent low over their instrument panels and said nothing. One didn’t take liberties with the mighty L. Ron. Not any liberties. Not no how.
‘All this bin a long time coming,’ quoth the great man, as his personal stenographers keyed up their shorthand computers, eager to take down his each and every holy word. ‘In a world gone all to hell with avarice and greed and never a hint of a takeaway tandoori or a Colonel Sanders ™ Chicken Nugget, a world of heartache and gloom, where few other than me ever glimpse the higher truths, such a world as this, my friends, and such a time as this, and did I ever tell you about the time my great times granpapa once sailed a ship halfway around the world and stopped off at this little island where the natives prepare a special brand of lobster which they take in a sauce of . . .’ And it went on much in the same fashion, as it always did and no doubt always would, which probably explained why L. Ron really didn’t merit a more prominent part. And why his forthcoming assassination at the hands of a jealous drug-crazed continuity girl over a love-triangle incident, would go for the most part unrecorded, but for a brief mention of the sickening squelch made by his lifeless body as it struck the floor.
Pope Joan had always envisaged her role in the film version being played by Meryl Streep. Or if Meryl wasn’t available, then at the very least by that fine character actor Mr Michael O’Hagan. Now she knelt in silent prayer. Joan hadn’t had much to say as yet, and sadly for her she wouldn’t have much more, as it happened. But, as she had always believed, it was in the way in which lines were spoken that turned the words into an art-form. In the connotation rather than the denotation. She considered language a means to convey, rather than an end in itself. And though the song is ended, the melody lingers on. And so forth.
‘Although I have the body of a weak and frail woman,’ she began.
Back in Aunty Norma’s bunker imponderables were being pondered. Four men were huddled in the furthest corner from the bomb-bunged door. They comprised possibly the most unlikely quartet in history. Being: a risen-from-the-ranks bunker-boy, whose prospects of promotion had never looked grimmer; a visitor from another star, who really wished he wasn’t; his divine unholiness the Dalai Lama, now unemployed; and a time-travelling Elvis Presley with a sprout in his head.
And they say that nothing is new, thought Rex. Bah, humbug!
‘The way I see it, Barry,’ said Elvis, addressing the Time Sprout. ‘This could be a very dynamite show.’
Inside the King’s cerebellum Barry (he had chosen the name himself) nodded thoughtfully. ‘This is, I think, chief, where Rex really comes into his own,’ he said.
‘Oh yes?’ Rex, who had been silently fulminating upon life in general, and his own in particular, turned sulkily at the mention of his name. ‘And how might that be?’
‘Deductive reasoning,’ said friend sprout. ‘You surely don’t think that sheer chance led us here?’
‘Cruel fate, more like.’
‘Lighten up, chief. There is a purpose behind everything. Once one has divined the purpose, crystallized one’s ideas, weighed up the pros and cons, taken the bull by the horns, surmounted the seemingly insurmountable, maximized one’s options . . .’
Rex shook his head so violently that it made his eyes pop. ‘My role so far in this has been one of exemplary stoicism. I’m presently resigned to the conclusion that life makes no sense whatsoever. I shall now, I think, go it alone.’
‘And which way might you go, chief?’
Rex glanced over at the Sneaky Reekie, which was now making determined tick tock noises. ‘I am cogitating,’ he replied.
‘Rex is probably cogitating upon the secret trapdoor,’ said Fergus Shaman, casually. Three pairs of eyes turned simultaneously upon him.
‘Trapdoor,’ Fergus reiterated, pre-empting the obvious joint response. ‘It’s definitely on file, I recall it from when we first set up the Rex scenari . . . oh.’ His glance met that of Rex.
‘Rex scenario,’ said that man, very slowly.
‘A star must always have options, as long as they are logical of course. A star . . .’ But unfortunately the word star was already suffering from the law of diminishing returns. Rex Mundi punched Fergus Shaman on the nose.
‘Easy there, big fella,’ Elvis stepped forward to restrain Rex from further demonstrations of displeasure. ‘If the alien dude says there’s a trapdoor, let’s not punch his lights out for it.’
Rex shook him off. Fergus nursed his beak whilst Dan sniggered silently. Bloodied noses seemed to have become something of a vogue lately, he considered.
‘It’s just possible,’ said Rex in a tone which implied supreme unlikelihood, ‘that I might even become more furious than I am now
. I have been callously manipulated, at the very least, by everyone in this bunker and possibly, for all I know, others beyond number. I will have no more of it. I shall stay here and die like a man. Better it is to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees.’
‘Ah,’ said the Sneaky Reekie, ‘I think I have ironed out the problem. A bit of oil in the carburettor. That’s better, now where was I? Oh yes, ten, nine, eight. . .’
‘To the trapdoor,’ cried Rex.
29
... the underground, yes, it was very much that. Amongst the network of metro-links, service tunnels, ventilation shafts, disused military installations, cellars, basements and vaults, the inner councils met. Plotted and planned. Started off, I guess, with NHE survivors trapped down there. They managed to tap into the syntha-food pipes leading from the plants far below and the power lines. So once you have food and power you are up and running. The word of the Book gave hope. From the few remaining town planners’ blueprints we burrowed up to what bunkers we could. Came across a lot of dead folk back then. But we had our successes. Just kept passing the word along.
The Suburban Book of the Dead
‘So you see, Rex.’ Fergus Shaman edged along in the near darkness, beyond the punishing range of Rex’s fist. ‘Your uncle was something of a revolutionary himself.’
‘But what exactly did he want?’
‘Same as all revolutionaries want. The genuine ones anyway. Create Utopia, destroy tyranny, win freedom, that kind of thing.’
‘So you are telling me that there is an entire revolutionary army down here awaiting mobilization?’ Rex found a sudden spring creeping into his step.
‘Well, actually no.’ Fergus lightened his own footsteps. ‘Regretfully no.’
‘Go on then, tell me the worst.’
‘Someone got to them. We don’t know who, perhaps it was a what. But something wiped them all out.
‘I don’t like the sound of no what.’ Elvis cuffed Dan in the ear to place an accent upon his words. ‘I’ll settle for a who. Some stooly sold them out to the Feds.’ Cuff, cuff.
‘Possibly so,’ Fergus shrugged. ‘We could never get a foothold down here, so we may never know for certain.’
‘So they could all still be here.’ Rex’s optimism surprised even himself.
‘They’re not,’ said Fergus.
You’re damned right they’re not, thought Dan, ‘You’ll get yours pal,’ he told Elvis.
Back in Aunty Norma’s bunker, the Sneaky Reekie appeared to have become a graduate of the Deathblade Eric School of Discorporate Numerics. ‘Seven ... six ... eight, no, seven . . .eight . . . nine, no, nine seven, oh bloody Hell,’ swore the frustrated killing machine. ‘Zero and . . .’
A violent shock rocked the passage and sent the odd quartet reeling. Something big and bad had just gone boom somewhere above them. But on this occasion as upon the last, it wasn’t the Sneaky Reekie.
Rex struggled to his feet. ‘Things are becoming very dangerous indeed,’ he complained. ‘The unrecycled excrement seems to have made contact with the rotating segment of the atmospheric circulator, to coin a popular phrase.’
‘Something like.’ Elvis agreed. ‘Anyone know where we are?’
‘You’re in deep shit,’ said Dan. His outspokenness was rewarded in summary fashion. ‘Ouch,’ he added.
‘I still find it hard to believe that my uncle was a revolutionary.’ Rex made as to dust himself down, but the futility of the action was not slow in the dawning. He could no longer see the point. Nor could he see very much else as he felt his way along in the gloom. And what he could see, he knew to be illuminated by the generations of active fallout which had soaked down into the passages. It wasn’t all that encouraging no matter how you viewed it. ‘He was certainly an idealist, my uncle, for whatever that got him.’
‘He taught you the trick with the eyes, though.’
‘Trick with the eyes?’ Dan voiced a sudden interest.
‘Taught Rex how to sleep with his eyes open. Fool the EYESPI, clock up credits without having to suffer the rubbish on-screen.’
‘Did he now?’ Dan sensed rather than saw the swing Elvis took at his ear, and nimbly side-stepped it. ‘Smart trick.’
Rex turned suddenly upon Dan. ‘That why you killed him?’
Dan stared him eye to eye. ‘You’d best keep your options open, Rex. You never know when you might need them.’ Rex heard that, but no-one else did. Not even the telepathic sprout.
Mungo Madoc inhabited his boardroom chair. The boardroom board watched him and shared feelings of unease. Like the Magi of old, they were awaiting a sign. A star in the heavens, perhaps? Or perhaps not. A simple nod of the head or twitch of the forefinger might well have alleviated the tension somewhat. But Mungo did nothing. He sat and he stared and he stared. Mungo was communing with the backers. The switchboard girls had pulled the plugs and made their strategic withdrawal to the staff canteen, secure in the knowledge that unruly mobs were unlikely to besiege the building, seeking heads. Nothing was going to drag the population away from their television sets. For the first time ever these were now actually showing The Earthers in its full, unedited glory. Dan, Rex and Elvis might be lacking, but the violent spectacle of two of Earth’s largest religious organizations blasting seven bells of bog-droppings out of each other was far too good to miss. And with Dan gone, and Gloria still an unknown quantity, allegiances were already starting to shift.
Mungo lurched suddenly forward, loosening the weaker bladders.
‘Right,’ said he. ‘I have been in lengthy communication with the backers and you will be pleased to hear that they are willing to sanction Morgawr’s Armageddon scenario. With one or two minor changes which need not concern any of you here. Now let us be one hundred per cent clear on the situation as it now stands. The series as we know it, is shortly to be brought to an end.’ He put up his hands against the outcry. ‘A great deal of thought has gone into this, I can assure you. But this series, like any other, had only a limited budget and the backers are not prepared to extend it any longer. No backing, no budget, no series.
‘Morgawr, stop that man . . .’
‘Too late.’ Morgawr gazed down from the open win-dow, the falling body diminished and was gone.
Mungo shook his head and snuffled at a lapel flower, savouring the heavily narcotized scent. ‘Now, before any more of you make such an ill-considered move, I suggest that you just hear me out.’ The board members settled themselves down, loosening leafy ties and gulping water. ‘We have all tried to keep this series going as long as possible. And the Nose alone knows how many radical proposals and outrageous interventions there have been. But the big boys upstairs will have no more of it. They are adamant. The series must go out on a high note. Well, at least on a spectacular one. And cheap. Which will leave the way clear for something entirely new.’
‘.Earth Two, The Sequel?’ Morgawr suggested.
‘Sadly, no. We must play by the rules this time, I’m afraid. There will be no more tampering with scripts, no more improvisations. This is something altogether different and on a much larger scale. I can’t tell you about it now, but if I say the words “substantial salary increases”, then I hope they will be sufficient to put your minds at rest.’
The board rose as a single Phnaarg, cast metaphysical hats toward the sky and engulfed Mungo in a sea of hearty handclaps.
An entire aeon of human history was drawing to a close. A planet was about to be wiped from the heavens. All memories, thoughts and dreams, all hopes. Mankind was to be blotted out as if it had never needed to exist. But these lads were fine. They were getting a pay rise!
30
Doubt everything and find your own light.
Buddha
‘I really can’t see the point in dragging him along. Why don’t we simply kill him and have done?’
Elvis appeared to be stuck for a reply to this, but not so Fergus Shaman. ‘You cannot kill the Dalai Lama, Rex. It simply isn’t done.’
‘But the man is a mass murderer. Only about two at a time, mind, but it adds up. He deserves execution, at the very least.’
‘That may well be. But not by you. You’ve never actually killed anyone, have you?’
Rex made a thinking face. ‘No,’ said he. ‘I’m sure that I haven’t.’
‘Nor have you.’ Fergus peered toward the man in the white sequined number.
‘Two or three.’ Elvis did shoulder swaggers. ‘In self defence, of course.’
‘No, you haven’t.’ Fergus grinned. ‘You’re the good guys. You escape death by the skin of your teeth and fight for justice. Even, if like Rex, you don’t even know why you do it most of the time. But you don’t actually ever kill anyone.’
‘Om,’ said Dan. ‘This being the case I will now take my leave.’
Elvis kicked him in the ankle. ‘Never trust an alien,’ he told the hopping holyman.
With Dan now muttering in muted tones that collectively, or one at a time, his persecutors would ‘get theirs’, the four continued along no particular passage, bound it seemed, for no particular destination. Or so it seemed.
‘Holy rolly moley,’ cried Elvis Presley. ‘Would you look at that?’
Now there have been rooms and there have been rooms. And this one was a bedroom as it happened. Of its furnishings and decor, it could be fairly stated that they were of the eclectic persuasion. A kidney-shaped dressing table with a crazed Formica top hob-nobbed with a gilded torchere which had once shed light upon Count Cagliostro. A faux-bamboo wall-case displayed the spines of rare and priceless books. The works of Crispin, Scott’s Phallic Worship, The Brentford Octology, The Complete Dave Carson Portfolio and, The Mechanical Messiah and other Marvels of the Modern Age. Kaffe Fassett cushions bulged upon a settee designed by Salvador Dali. And at the room’s heart rose a Gothic four-poster covered with a candlewick bedspread. Upon this, and creating the room’s immediate centre of interest, lay a voluptuous blonde woman wearing nought but a welcoming smile.
Armageddon: The Musical (Armageddon Trilogy) Page 22
