by Tom Holt
Get a grip, he ordered himself. Today is Saturday, when I can laze around all day, do things at my own pace, without being at someone’s beck and call every moment; when I can watch TV or read a book, go out for a coffee or a nose round the shops. More realistically, based on my usual behaviour patterns, I can laze around contemplating reading, going out or nosing round shops but never actually get round to any of it. And then he thought, Yes, but that’s basically what I do all week, and I get paid for it.
In which case (he tipped himself out of bed, like someone emptying a trash can) on Saturday I ought to get out and do something. Define something. Rock climbing. White-water rafting. Paragliding. Fair enough, none of the above. But how about cultural activities: galleries, theatre, gigs, the whole vibrant scene that’s going on all around me? Quite. Even so. There’s got to be more to life than sloughing around in a dressing gown all day. I could, um… I could improve myself: take up something, join a society—
He winced. There are two categories of people who join things: nerds, and men who want to meet girls. He toyed with the possibility that he might be both, then decided not to think about it anymore. Instead, he’d, let’s see, he’d, well now, he’d—
Go out. That had to be the starting point, because nothing that could happen in this flat could possibly broaden his mind, enrich his soul or electrify him with fascinating new possibilities. In fact, he was getting heartily sick of his little home. Dragons materialised inside it, valued friends vanished from it, and the rest of the time he sat around in it slowly devolving into an amoeba. Out.
He asked himself, as he walked down the street, if this sudden access of vitality was connected with his new job, and came to the surprised and reluctant conclusion that it had to be. It was, by any objective criteria, a rotten job, though actually the money (which he’d forgotten to ask about at the interview, for some reason, but which had come as a pleasant surprise when a packet of paperwork had appeared on the sub-basement floor on Friday morning) was rather more than he’d been getting at Overthwarts, and the holiday was a week more. It wasn’t about the money, though, not even the joyful thought that before long he’d be able to pay George what he owed him and thereby redeem the mortgage on his soul. It was (he stopped dead, because this wasn’t something you could think about and walk at the same time) the most strange and unaccountable sense of belonging, of being in the right place. I once was lost and now I’m found. Crazy as a passionfruit-and-mynah-bird milkshake, but there you go.
He’d reached the end of the street. That way, the convenience store and the DVD rental. This way, the Tube station, gateway to the world. He hesitated.
“Excuse me.”
He looked round. There were two women facing him. His first thought was, either market researchers or Jehovah’s Witnesses; in either of which cases, his suddenly woken glands told him, yes I’ll buy it, or yes, I want to be saved. But they had no clipboards or pamphlets. One of them was about thirty-five, dark, classically beautiful in a severe grey suit; the other was probably just too young for him, in T-shirt and jeans, with a cascading waterfall of white-blonde hair that made him wish he was a salmon.
“Um?”
“Allow us to introduce ourselves,” the dark one said. “I’m Duty, and this is my colleague, Fun.”
“Hi there,” said Fun, with a smile and a tiny fluttering wave of her fingers.
“Though you don’t know it,” said Duty, “you’re about to make a choice that will fundamentally affect not just your life, but the lives of untold millions. So, before you commit yourself one way or the other, we thought we’d like to take this opportunity, assuming you can spare us a minute or so of your time, to discuss the issues with you and maybe offer a few thoughts which might guide you in making your momentous decision. Would that be all right, do you think?”
There was only one thing he could say. He said it. “Um.”
Fun was looping a strand of hair round her index finger. He found it ever so difficult not to look. “Of course,” Duty went on (and he was so preoccupied with not watching what Fun was doing with her hair that he realised he’d been staring at Duty’s awesomely perfect mouth for three long seconds) “we are precluded from applying any undue influence whatsoever. We’re not here to lobby for our particular viewpoints, simply to explain and advise. I trust that’s perfectly clear.”
“Oh yes.”
Duty’s eyes were a sort of deep, glowing green. You could die of eyes like that and probably not even notice. “Specifically,” she said, “it’s incumbent on us to point out that although we appear to you as attractive, urgently desirable human women we are, in fact, abstract concepts entirely devoid of physical substance; therefore, you should entirely disregard any physiological responses that our apparent appearance may trigger in you. If you wish, you can close your eyes at this point.”
“Um, no, that’s fine.”
“Very well.” Duty paused and glanced at Fun, who nodded. “With my colleague’s permission, I’ll go first. Duty, Mr Katz. May I ask you what you understand by the concept of Duty?”
“Um.”
“I invite you to consider—” She’d lowered her voice just a little, and Maurice could feel a buzz running the length of his nervous system. If he’d been a wine glass at this point, he’d most likely have shattered. “Excuse me, are you listening to me?”
“What? Oh, right. Yes.”
“You appear to be in some discomfort.”
“No, I’m fine, really.”
“Very well. I invite you to consider the purpose of your existence. Are you here simply to exist, like lichen or seaweed or plankton, to feed, aimlessly reproduce, ultimately take your place in the food chain as prey to some higher species? I ask you, Mr Katz, are you merely Darwin’s cannon fodder, or is there possibly more to you than that?”
“Um.”
“If so,” she went on, and for an abstract concept she had the most amazing scent; like vanilla-flavoured woodsmoke mixed with brandy. “If so, if you are to elevate yourself above the meaninglessness of the genome, the template, the helical bars of the prison of your DNA, it can only be through the selfless, implacable pursuit of me. Of Duty,” she clarified, as Maurice nearly swallowed his Adam’s apple. “You must embrace me, submit to me, allow yourself to be consumed by and utterly joined with me in a union that transcends the flesh and the individual will. Only through me can you break free from the fetters of Schopenhauerian nihilism. You do want that,” she whispered hoarsely, “don’t you?”
“Oh yes.”
“Very well. In that case, you must be sure to do the right thing. Do you understand?”
“Um. No.”
She frowned at him, and the thought he might have offended or disappointed her made him want to cry. “You do know the difference between right and wrong, don’t you?”
“Yes. Well. I think so.”
“There you are, then. Do the right thing.” She gave him a look you could’ve smelted iron ore in. “You wouldn’t ever knowingly do the wrong thing, would you?”
“Me? Gosh, no.”
“You are, of course, firmly and implacably opposed to evil in any form.”
“You bet.”
“You agree that the sole justification for your existence is to improve the lot of your fellow human beings and make the world a better place.”
“Sure.” A tiny thought struck him. “Although—”
“Altruism in its highest form is, and should be, your sole motivating—”
“Du,” Fun interrupted quietly, “I think he wants to say something.”
“What?” Duty frowned. “Oh, very well. What is it?”
Maurice blushed. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “Only, it did just occur to me, when you were saying all that—”
“Well?”
“It’s just,” Maurice gabbled, “if all everyone did was spend their time doing things to help other people—”
“Yes?”
He shook his head. “Well, that�
��s silly, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a bit like everyone doing each other’s ironing. I spend all my life doing things for you, you spend all your life doing things for her, she spends her life doing things for me—” At that point, Fun giggled, which made him lose his thread completely for a moment. “What I mean is, wouldn’t it all be much simpler and less messy if we spent at least some of the time doing things for ourselves, so other people wouldn’t have to do them for us? Just a thought,” he added quickly, as Duty gave him a terrible look. “Stupid, really, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Duty waited about three seconds, then said, “Have you finished?”
“Um, yes.”
“Good, I’ll continue with what I was saying. Duty,” she said, lifting her head magnificently, “is the meaning of the Earth. If, as has been argued in some quarters, in the beginning was the Word, that word was Duty, and I put it to you that it’s inconceivable that, once you’ve been made aware of this, you could possibly choose any other path. Well?”
Maurice looked furtively to either side. To the right, the kerb. To the left, Alphamax Heel Bar & Shoe Repairs, Keys Cut. “Um,” he said.
“You keep saying that.”
“Sorry.”
She clicked her tongue. The sound made him think of a firing squad disengaging their safety catches at dawn on a cold winter morning. “Well,” she said, “that’s my pitch. I imagine my colleague would now like to say a few words.”
Fun smiled. “A few,” she said. “Not nearly as many as you.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
Fun’s eyes – pale blue, they reminded him of Stephanie – were fixed on him. “It’s pretty simple, don’t you think?” she said. “I mean, don’t you want to have me? Fun, I mean? All the fun in the world, for ever and ever. If you think you can handle it.”
“And if you say Um,” Duty interrupted, “I’ll personally brain you.”
“Can’t, you’re an abstract concept,” purred Fun.
“It’s an expression,” Duty snapped. “Well? Is that it?”
“I think that’s all I’ve got to say,” Fun said quietly. “Less is more, right?”
Maurice’s mouth was open and moving; he managed to choke back Um at the very last moment. Duty might be an abstract concept, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“He can say Um if he wants to,” Fun said. “That’s the trouble with you; you’re always bossing people around.”
“People don’t always know what’s good for them,” Duty said firmly. “I do.”
“Whatever.” Fun was smiling again. “Well? Made your mind up yet?”
Maurice thought for a moment. “This choice.”
“Yes?”
“It’s whether I turn right or left at the end of the road, isn’t it?”
Duty frowned. “That information is classified,” she said, but Fun just nodded.
“Fine,” Maurice said. “So what’d happen if I turned right round and went back the way I just came?”
“You’d die,” Fun said sadly.
“Excuse me?”
“She’s quite right,” Duty said. “A car would run you over, or a wall would collapse on you, or you’d be killed by an exploding gas main. Sorry, but that’s how it’s been set up.”
Maurice had gone quite pale. “Oh.”
“It’s important, you see,” Fun said. “You really do have to choose.”
“Right or left?”
“That’s it.”
“OK. So, which is which?”
Neither of them spoke, though Fun blew him a little kiss.
“Oh come on,” Maurice said. “How can I choose if I don’t know?”
Duty looked mildly embarrassed. “Heroic intuition,” she said. “As a hero, your instincts should – will you stop that right now?”
Fun was nudging her head sideways, pointing left. Duty closed her eyes and sighed. “You do realise,” she said, “you may have ruined this whole exercise? In which case, the destiny of millions yet unborn—”
“I never said a word.”
“Yes, but you—”
“I had a crick in my neck,” Fun protested. “From standing here while you made your very long speech. I was just wiggling it a bit.”
“I must ask you,” Duty said grimly, “to disregard any apparent attempts by my colleague to suggest or imply anything, and make your choice on the basis of your instinctive reaction prior to her entirely misguided and ill-advised fit of wiggling. Otherwise – Stop! Where do you think you’re going?”
Maurice had sprung sideways, in through the door of Alphamax Heel Bar & Shoe Repairs, Keys Cut. He turned and looked back. Through the glass he could see the two of them, arguing with each other. Then, quite abruptly, they vanished.
He breathed a long sigh of relief. Just for once, he told himself, I’ve outsmarted the weirdness. They thought they could force me to play along, but—
“But instead,” said the old man behind the counter, “upon being asked to choose between duty and pleasure, you instead opted to follow the path of budget footwear maintenance. You know what? I wouldn’t want to be you when them upstairs catch up with you.”
Maurice winced and turned slowly to face him. “Wouldn’t want to be in my shoes, you mean.”
“Exactly.” The man smiled evilly. “But when that dreadful moment comes,” he said brightly, “you can at least face it with a brand new heel and crisply stitched seams. Now get out of here while you’re still able.”
“And if I don’t?”
“This building will collapse, and we’ll be squashed so flat, they’ll take us down the morgue in envelopes.”
Fair enough. “Sorry,” Maurice said, and left the shop.
So: right or left? Microwave pizza and a DVD, or adventure and infinite possibilities? Put like that, there could only be one choice.
In the end, he opted for a deep-pan Meat Feast with extra salami, though he was sorely tempted by a slightly out-of-date Margarita reduced to just 79 pence. But his heroic intuition seemed to be telling him that this was a situation that called for a heavy protein boost, where mere mozzarella and tomatoes just weren’t going to get the job done. The DVD dilemma was rather more broadly based; in the end, he went with Harry Potter 8, on the grounds that any film based on the premise that magic is only real in an escapist fantasy world was all right by him. In any event, it was just something to have on while he did the ironing.
Bearing in mind what Duty had said about the perils of retracing his steps, he went home the long way, just in case the supernatural bureaucracy that handled these things was as efficient as its real-life counterpart. He was just about to cross the road when a motorcade of armoured Land Rovers with motorcycle outriders roared across his path. He stopped to let them go by, and realised that they were escorting a single cyclist, in T-shirt, spandex shorts and an Imperial Stormtrooper crash helmet. Also, they’d slowed down and stopped. The cyclist climbed off his bike, lifted his helmet onto the back of his head and yelled, “Maurice!”
He blinked. “George?”
“There you are.” He handed the bike to a black-clad paramilitary and stalked over to join Maurice on the pavement. “Where the hell have you been? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“It hasn’t rung.”
“What? Oh hell.” He snapped his fingers, and a stormtrooper handed him a latest-model LoganBerry Vector. He held it out and pointed to a string of figures on the screen. “That’s your number, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Oh.” George frowned. “But that’s the number I’ve been ringing.”
“Yes, well—”
“It’s the number they’ve got in your MoD file.”
Maurice made an impromptu gurgling noise. “There’s a file on me at the Ministry of Defence?”
“Sure, why not? Oh well, mystery solved. Pity they couldn’t have got a simple thing like a phone number right; it’d have saved me dragging out all this way just to see you.”
Maurice was contemplating the motorcade, which was filling twenty-five yards of the road, engines purring softly, like angry lions. It was well known that George bicycled everywhere, because of his carbon footprint. “Um, what did you want to—?”
“Message for you,” George said. “From Steve. She’s been trying to get hold of you too, but you aren’t there during the day.”
“No. Well, I wouldn’t be. I, um, got a job.”
“Congratulations.” George slammed him on the back, not quite rupturing his spleen. Maurice jerked convulsively forward, his hand inadvertently brushing his jacket pocket. Thirty security people stiffened, but George signalled that it was OK. “That’s brilliant. Well done.”
He made it sound like Maurice had just swum the Atlantic. “Thanks,” he muttered. “George, what was the—?”
“So, tell me all about it.”
“Sorry?”
“The job. What field are you in? Marketing? IT? Manufacturing?”
“Data retrieval.”
George nodded sagely. “Good choice,” he said. “We’re looking for a bigger presence there ourselves. We must talk sometime. What’s that you’ve got there?”
“What?”
“That sort of disc thing.”
Maurice looked at him. “It’s a frozen pizza.”
“Do you actually eat that stuff?” George shook his head sadly. “I didn’t think anyone ate that junk anymore.”
“I do.”
“You should be eating locally sourced, sustainably packaged organic produce. That sort of thing’s not just killing you, you know, it’s killing the planet.” He took hold of the DVD and tilted the box so he could read the title. “Haven’t you seen it yet? I caught a preview at the studio with Dan and his people. Of course, it’s much darker than the—”
“George,” Maurice said patiently. “What was the message?”
“Excuse me?”
“From Stephanie.”
“Steve.” A traffic jam about a hundred yards long had built up behind the motorcade. Nobody was revving their engines or leaning on the horn. Presumably they thought it must be a foreign president or something. “Right, yes. She wants you to know she’s perfectly all right and she’ll call you sometime.”