Muggles Bereaved

by Vernon C Moyse

  Lim, Jim and Tracy avoided the etch of boredom thanks to the internet and gaming access which was at first available. But the shapeshifter flooded the phones and iPads with spam and phishes and malware of every kind. It appeared that there was no way of shutting out his influence. The silicene cloak did not block his electronic interventions and nor did a Faraday cage. The Companions now all thought of The Needful One as a ‘he’, baleful and demonic. It was difficult to comprehend that evil could seep and still have a purpose and an effect.

  Lim gave these matters some thought and went away to commune with Newton. He had to use a secure, copper landline to get through. When he did, Newton was enthusiastic about the capture of The Needful One and was very keen to come and see that entity for himself. But it was clear that if no-one could get out of the silo, no-one could get in.

  “Professor,” said Lim, “I am hoping we can get away from looking at The Needful One as some sort of person. This anthropomorphising is rife down here in this silo simply because he looks like a prophet. But you and I know that ‘it’ is some form of dark matter. Is there anything that can be done to force it to coalesce with matter and so annihilate itself?”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” said Newton, “but I am just about to be presented with a million dollar cheque, so I will need to get back to you. I suspect we need to enclose matter and dark matter in some kind of tank and then cause a powerful implosion. Much akin to a crude nuclear weapon. I will need to do some calculations to see what energy might be needed or released. Must go.”

  When Lim returned, Jim was very much on point, “Well, what did old moneybags come up with?” he growled.

  “He’s thinking about it.”

  “Aren’t we all,” said Tracy, “and I do not think we have much time.”

  Then Louis poked his head around the door. “You’d better come,” he said, “there’s been a change.”

  They entered the cabin that was The Needful One’s prison with some trepidation. The shapeshifter had assumed the appearance of a kneeling, emaciated prophet, the Jesus Christ of a painting by Grunewald. This had alarmed the guard posted by the American base commander, who assumed that The Needful One was in distress owing to lack of food and water. Then, when Louis and the others arrived and as if sensing an audience, the shapeshifter morphed through images based on the works of Titian, Bosch and other renowned artists. The effect was totally counter to what might have been ‘intention’, if The Needful One was capable of a believable ‘ploy’. When it writhed into the shapes depicted in the Batlló Majesty and then by Picasso, the moment was entirely lost and drew a guffaw of laughter from all present and a snot bubble from an embarrassed Tracy. Surely, The Needful One was betraying a reason for an angel to have been ejected from heaven. The reason? A reliance on inappropriate comedic slide shows. Expelled and dismissed from an institution after failing to observe instruction from a Headmaster.

  The Needful One relapsed into the Grunewald depiction and curled down , gathering all the loose material of the silicene cloak to its Renaissance bosom.

  “Pathetic,” said Jim, emboldened enough to walk forward and pick up a loose fold of the cloak, intending to drop it over the Prophet’s head. He acted before anyone could stop him, though none present envisaged what next transpired. The cloak, in contact with its creator, began to ravel back into the palm of the holder. Everyone was frozen in disbelief. In seconds, The Needful One was free of his prison. Metamorphosing into a Bengal tiger, panting and exhausted. It looked at Jim and then slunk away to a wall where it partly dissociated to a gaseous, ghostly image and, with a struggle, passed out of the room. It was odd that it took a whole 20 seconds to complete this manoeuvre, dragging its tail through after it as if through an orifice far too tight for its passage.

  “Bloody, ‘ell,” said Jim, “I never meant...”

  Louis was already on his way to the adjacent room where the part dissociated tiger was waddling through another wall. This effort took an age, but the tiger finally emerged into the mess room beyond, causing chaos and consternation. Louis, following close behind, noted that the far wall was all that separated the tiger and the silo from the soil of St Louis. He dragged Jim forward, “we need another cloak, pronto,” he hissed.

  Jim, already alarmed enough to cloak, threw forward his palm and expressed his biggest cloak yet. It settled over the tiger which managed to dissociate further so that the cloak descended onto a dazzling gold and black scintillation of particles of anti-matter. Only half a tiger was cloaked and, without much thought, Jim drew the cloak back towards himself with the captured anti-atoms. The Needful One was diminished but still loose. It managed to reform into a semblance of Grunewald’s stricken Christ and sat down one one of the chairs still upright at a mess table. It glared at Jim who now clutched a silicene bag of part-Prophet. He made, I’m-not-too-happy-noises with faces to match. The trapped anti-atoms associated into a ginger kitten which lay in the silicene bag rolling onto its back in distress and clearly gasping for air. Despite the distress, the kitten kept one wary eye open.

  “Shall I let it go?” asked Jim forlornly.

  “No!” shouted everyone else, half reaching out towards Jim.

  “It’s not a kitten,” said Tracy firmly, “The Needful One has just picked things out of what you call a brain and chanced upon ‘ginger’ and ‘kittens’ as most likely to create empathy in you.” Tracy was still angry that Jim had released The Needful One in the first place.

  “Yes, Jim,” said Louis, “hold on to that bag, because we have no idea what that does to The Needful One as an entity. Maybe he, or it, is incomplete without those anti-atoms, who knows. I just wish Newton was here. Certainly, the old demon doesn’t look too good.”

  The Needful One was indeed seemingly diminished. Though recognisably a Grunewald Christ, it was a fainter more diaphonous image.

  “Let’s hope,” said Louis, “whatever it is, it doesn’t procreate by division like some damned plant.”

  Chapter Sixteen – An Occasional Lucasian is Located

  “Sir, base commander requests your presence at the upper silo door”

  “Ok, you guys stay and watch The Needful One, I’ll go up top,”

  ordered Louis.

  “Guess who’s boss man,” said Tracy.

  “No,” said Louis, “its you guys who know about the dark arts more than me.” Tracy grinned sheepishly and looked at her feet.

  “I’m coming with you,” said Lim, noting the imperceptible nod from Louis.

  Left alone with 5 non-communicating US army types, Tracy and Jim stood looking at each other.

  “Nice handbag,” said Tracy pointing impishly at the kitten in the silicene bag attached to Jim.

  “A goldfish would have been better,” said Jim, “but a bloody ginger kitten about the same colour as my hair, bugger! That’s an accessory!” He swung the bag from side to side watching the kitten brace against the movement. “Y’know, I think I can do something else with this little bag of tricks, watch.”

  Before Tracy could stop him, Jim reached out his hand and with a grimace shrank the bag so that the kitten appeared to be shrink wrapped inside.

  “That would be cruel if,,,,” giggled Tracy, scarcely believing Jim’s next trick. With the grimace of a man struggling with extreme constipation, Jim, intending to shrink the bag to the size of a signet ring, drew the entire bag and kitten back in side him. He made a strange, loud gulping noise like someone swallowing a whole egg.

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Tracy, “what have you done?”

  “Never fear,” said Jim, “I am pretty sure I can re-exude the bag.” He made more expressive, exuding grimaces and threw forward his hand. An huge silken cloak shot out and enveloped the seated, simulacrum of Jesus Christ, seated and still glaring from a mess room table. In a flash, Jim had closed the trap and the Prophet was back in the bag. A bag firmly attached to Jim.

  “But where’s the kitten,” said Tracy anxiously, “where is it.”

>   “Bloody hell,” said Jim, it must be inside me, “I hope its still shrink-wrapped in there.” He rubbed his belly experimentally.

  The soldiers, alarmed by the method of recapture of the Prophet, now ringed Tracy and Jim and their weapons were pointed in Jim’s direction.

  “Ber-loody hell!” said Jim.

  “For once,” said Tracy, “I concur.”

  Up on the first level, Louis and Lim were escorted out of the lift and across to the main door. A surprise greeted them when the door viewer was activated. Outside stood Isaac Newton and the besieging mobs had retreated a hundred yards and formed a huge semicircle of men, women, but most evidently weaponry, carried, mounted and wheeled.

  Newton held up a large box with several red and amber flashing lights. “It’s heavy,” he said and they,” he nodded a chin the direction of the circling mob, “they think I am threatening you with a fuel-air bomb. And these boyos know what a fuel-air bomb can do.”

  “What do you want us to do,” asked Louis.

  “I am going to set this make-believe bomb down,” said Newton, “then make a great show of triggering it, whereupon I will start to run away and shout for them to do the same,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder again indicating the assembly of redneck warriors. ”when I start to run away, I want you to open the small door here so that I can run back and get inside the silo. Bit of an adventure for us.”

  Newton did not wait for an answer but bent down to engage the “bomb” with considerable agitation among the distant circle of The Needful One’s disciples. Some stood and raise one arm as if to shield their faces, others took a step back and some just ran for the hills.

  The base commander ordered the door to be unsealed and this was done with much clanking of great titanium door wheels. This was itself a show and a hangover from the dark days of yore. The door latches were themselves activated electronically under a two key system.

  Newton bobbed up again, gave a thumbs up and started to run. Behind him the rednecks were in full flight. The silo lower door was flung open and Newton turned and ran back slipping sideways in through the still opening door. He helped pull it quickly shut. Outside, the bomb made a loud “pfff” noise such as once essayed by Jean Paul Juncker and directed at a British Prime Minister. The bomb blew a large smoke ring skyward, propelled higher and illuminated by a laser beam that shone on the circumference of the smoke ring. The show gave the hesitating mobs pause for more thought.

  The occupants of the silo did not stop to watch the reaction of the crowd outside. They did hear the renewed twanging and pinging of incoming projectiles, and left Louis wondering who was using such a small calibre weapon against tiberyllium and graphene coated doors. The rednecks obviously had a youth wing, he decided, a primary ring of kids dressed as Davey Crockett attended by mini-Barbie cheerleaders. The bullets were, however, at least 50mm calibre.

  “Gosh, “ said Newton, “take me to the leader!” Mad Lucasian laughter issued from the professor.

  “I presume you mean the captive Needful One,” said Louis. “Who is only half-captured,” he continued, not knowing that even this was already out of date. He explained events to Newton, though aware that the great man was vindictive to failed lesser mortals and would be scathing about the role of Jim.

  “Oh good,” said Newton, “ we can use the Prophet-in-the-bag for experimental purposes. For freezing, boiling or bombarding with neutrons in an accelerator, which is my favourite way of cooking little devils.”

  “Positively Inquisitorial of you,” said Louis, noting that Newton was on a high, doubtless the product of million dollar injections of cash and exorbitant amounts of praise.

  “Ahhh,” said Newton, who was pretty much au fait with comedic references, “No-one expects the Inquisition!”

  Most of this went over the head of the American base commander and his soldiers. They were generally more down to earth than comedic, and though they regarded Brits as comic in a derogatory sense, they were aware that this bunch were pretty exceptional. Anyone with a ‘Sir’ in front of his name was to be treated as a Hollywood star, no less. This was the only explanation that Americans understood and was in a West Point handbook. So it was gospel. Sirs and Lords are like George Clooney or that Benign Cumbersome, the English actor who played Dr Strange. Some of the weak chinned wonders known to Angle-land were covered too and weakened the appeal of British ‘royalty’.

  “Just let us know what you need, Sir Newton,” said the base commander, wishing to be polite but misunderstanding the way to address a knight of the realm. He would have been on firmer ground with the appellation ‘Professor’.

  “Nothing more at the moment,” said Newton, “but you’ve done an excellent job here - as I told the Secretary of Defence just before I left him upstairs.” Flattery, of course. Newton had learned the useful technique from Hooke’s aide, Uriah Hieronymous ‘Mise en’ Bouche, the Flemish engineer who had also helped Newton with any brass and glass constructs. That was in better times, when Newton and Hooke were buddies. In truth, Newton should have been kinder to Hooke whose greatest achievements resided in rebounding from the suicide of his curate father, John. Hooke. Hooke had been able to combat the effects of becoming orphaned at an early age, including irregular schooling and emotional scaring. His rise to a Professorship was based on merit alone. But, as is a matter of record, Newton set little store by family affections and despised people who felt oppressed by circumstance or were martyrs to depression..

  It was impossible for the base commander to detect Newton’s flattery, any more than he could detect Newton’s preference for the spelling “Defence” from the spoken word. ‘Defence’ sounded like the good American word ‘Defense’. He just enjoyed that he had been mentioned to the Secretary for Defense in a complimentary way. That no such mention had been made was only revealed years later when, as a three star general, he referred to the “incident of the silo” in conversation with the same, retired Secretary of Defense. But standing before Newton, he was was too busy wrestling with a sense of gratification at a sort of mention in dispatches. Newton clinically observed the disabling effect of flattery on the lower orders, a verbal, though virtual stun gun. He would later refer to it in a treatise on psychiatry, entitled Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia de Insania. But that work was given its title when he was very, very tired. After a long and arduous stretch with a bottle of Louis XIII brandy.

  When they arrived in the main mess hall, a strange scene greeted them. Jim and Tracy stood, surrounded by a circle of armed soldiers and Jim had attached to him a silicene bag with the anguished figure of a Grunewald Christ with the oil and charcoal face from Marcus Reichart’s Crucifixion VII. As they looked on, the figure gently and reverently morphed into the one-eyed, pale blue Christ of Picasso’s 1930 depiction. As we have already noted, The Needful One did not comprehend passion, empathy, sorrow or sympathy. It borrowed what it thought were apposite images. How could it understand that Picasso’s ‘art’ was now regarded as a long hand way of writing cheques to be cashed by the rich and stupid. Though it has to be said that ‘the stupid’ were in a pyramid selling exercise that brought them great gains for their gambles. The Needful One’s lack of understanding showed, big time when it morphed into Kazuya Akimoto’s blue crucifixion which translated into 3D like nothing more than a big, blue lump of Murano glass. It educed not the slightest sympathy.

  “Perhaps it’s feeling blue,” said Tracy, “but how can we tell it that its performance is not gaining a bit of sympathy or compassion?”

  “Better still,” said Jim, wearily shaking the silicene bag, “how can we tell it to disappear up its own....”

  “My goodness,” said Newton, interrupting the rudery.

  “Where’s the kitten,” asked Louis, “is there some reason why these guys are pointing their weapons at you Jim?

  “He swallowed it,” said a soldier.

  “Well, no,” said Tracy, “he accidentally drew the cloak and kitten back into himself, so that’
s where the kitten now is. Inside Jim. He’s such a helpless case...” she reached for a handkerchief.

  “He swallowed it,” repeated the stubborn soldier.

  “Tell me, Jim,” said Lim.

  “well, I was shrinking the cloak to tighten the silicene around the kitten and I sorta slipped. We had it down to shrink-wrap size and then, well I overdid it. The kitten went into me with the cloak.” He brightened, “I tried to eject it again but made an entirely new cloak which trapped the other half of The Needful One, The Jesus Christ half.” He shook the silicene bag attached to his hand and the Lovis Corinth Christ within rolled around like a very confused liquid jigsaw.

  “Half a Prophet?” queried Newton.

  “Yes,” said Lim, “when the Prophet escaped in the form of a tiger and we tried to recapture it or him, he or she, tried to dissociate into gas and we captured half of him – which was the kitten. The other half was somehow weakened or waiting and assumed various shapes of Christ crucified....”