My Hero Tom Holt.

by My Hero (lit)

  The enormous boots didn't help. Why Rossfleisch had seen fit to equip him with them, given that his actual feet were more or less normal size (he'd checked), was quite beyond him, unless it was just tradition or something. He felt like a circus clown in them, although he was prepared to concede that most circus clowns don't have bolts through their necks.

  Quite some place the Doctor has here, he mused, must have set him back a bob or two. Most of it, admittedly, seemed to consist of mile after mile of identical-looking tiled corridors, none of which appeared to lead anywhere, but maybe that was all the architect was good at.

  Nobody had tried chasing him for some time now. That could have been because there were too few people to patrol all these miles of tunnel, or because he'd thumped all the staff who could be spared from duty for patrol purposes (he'd rather lost count, but he must have clobbered upwards of twenty of the poor devils by now); or maybe the good Doctor had other things on his mind and knew there was no way out of here anyhow. On reflection, the third alternative seemed the most likely. Sooner or later he'd collapse from exhaustion, whereupon they'd send out a crew with a small truck and bring him m.

  How tiresome, he reflected, as he pulled down and crushed yet another PA loudspeaker (seventy-three; he had been counting them), and, in the final analysis, how pointless. For all he knew, this was all part of some complex research programme, to see how he would react under certain circumstances; white mouse job. Depressing, he concluded, turning a corner into yet another half-mile-long straight of tiled corridor. I could easily spend the rest of my life trolling about down here.

  He stopped. Far away in the distance he could hear a gentle buzzing sound, like a hive of bees. As he stood, the noise came nearer and grew louder, and he concluded it was probably some sort of machine. A robot, perhaps. Rossfleisch was just the sort of man who would have robots; probably big silver ones with square heads and lots of flashing lights that went beep. He waited, and eventually just such an artefact wheezed round the corner at the far end of the straight. It was about five feet tall, chrome plated, vaguely human-shaped, and carrying a mop and a bucket.

  It wasn't in any particular hurry; and about five minutes crept by before it clanked past him, apparently oblivious to his presence. As soon as it was level with him, he reached out, grabbed it round what passed for its throat with both hands and lifted it off the ground. He was rewarded with a massive electric shock, and let go as quickly as he could. There was a loud thump and a frantic outburst of beeping; and then the machine shut up and lay still.

  Great, Hamlet reflected bitterly, I've killed it, that really does help a lot. There was an outside chance it might have been going towards an exit of some kind. I could have followed it.

  He was just about to vent his rage on the gadget when a couple of green lights, mounted on the side of its head where its ears should have been, switched themselves on and started to hum. Bemused, Hamlet stood back and waited to see what would happen.

  Don't just stand there, said the robot in an electric monotone, help me up before my batteries go flat.

  'Why?' Hamlet demanded. 'You're just a machine. And besides, you aren't safe to touch. You nearly fried my kidneys back then.'

  Automatic defence system, replied the robot, which I have now deactivated. It is perfectly safe, repeat, perfectly safe. Come on, help me up. Or are you training so become a stalagmite or something?

  'I'll help you up,' Hamlet said, 'if you show me the way out of here.'

  In your dreams, buster.

  'Alternatively,' Hamlet suggested, 'I could jump up and down on you till you're nothing but a heap of scrap. The choice is yours. Personally, I'd prefer option two. I'm just in the right frame of mind for smashing up something fragile and expensive.

  How do you know, asked the robot cagily, that I won't lead you straight back to the labs you've just escaped from?

  'You try that,' Hamlet replied, 'and I'll make sure you give Humpty Dumpty a bloody good run for his money in the jigsaw puzzle stakes. The more of Doctor Rossfleisch's property I damage, the better I shall be pleased, so don't tempt me.'

  Big bully, the robot grumbled. All right, you win. Help me up and- 'Not so fast. Switch yourself off again while I pick you up. And make sure you keep your nasty volts to yourself.'

  The robot obediently bleeped into immobility, and Hamlet manhandled it back on to its feet. 'Ready,' he said. 'Lead on, Macduff.'

  Here, I thought you were the other one, you know, the one with the skull and the poncy black tights.

  'And shut up.'

  The robot was aggravatingly slow, like the milk tanker you always find yourself behind in a winding country lane; but eventually it puffed and bleeped its way to a closed brushed-steel-finished doorway with a panel with buttons on it. Hooray, thought Hamlet, a lift shaft. Now we're getting somewhere.

  This is as far as I go, muttered the robot. I have an idea it leads to Up, but I've never actually been there. My life is extremely boring.

  'Just as well you're not a sentient life form, then, isn't it?'

  But the robot had switched itself off, and was standing to attention on a humming metal disc set into the floor. Recharging itself, Hamlet assumed, the cybernetic equivalent of a sit down with a cup of tea and a smoke. Now then, let's see where this lift goes to.

  He examined the panel and pressed the button marked G. A moment or so later, the door slid back and Hamlet stepped in.

  It is, of course, entirely true that G stands for Ground. It also stands for a lot of other things as well.

  The door slid open.

  Maybe it was only in Hamlet's over-productive imagination that, as it swished back to let him through, the door sniggered. It certainly shut again pretty damn quick as soon as he was through; and before he could do anything about it, he heard the lift scurrying back down the shaft as fast as its cable could carry it. He fumbled for buttons to press to bring it back, but there weren't any.

  G. G stands for ground, garage, gourmet, guano, gelignite, goldfinch, general, Guatemala, guild and gimcrack. And graveyard. This, Hamlet realised, was where Doctor Rossfleisch kept his spare parts.

  It was a huge open space, like a gigantic ballroom, and it looked like a body-snatcher's car boot sale. There were bits of people everywhere; laid out on tables, stacked in piles, spilling out of tea-chests or just lying about. Most of them had little labels attached - stock numbers, presumably, or use-by dates - and some had been bolted together in an apparently haphazard manner, giving the impression that these were the bits of old junk the Youth Opportunities lads were allowed to practise on.

  There was an unpleasant smell.

  It must have taken him years, considered the part of Hamlet's brain that wasn't yet completely traumatised by horror, to put this little lot together; years, a lot of money, and thousands and thousands of pairs of rubber gloves. Gosh, it added, bits of me probably came from here. Then it, too, switched off.

  Stairs. There must be stairs here somewhere, or a window or a fire escape. There's got to be some way out,. unless everybody who comes here ends up joining the stock. Trying not to look where he was going, Hamlet stumbled about, bumping into things, knocking things over. He put his foot on something round, and fell over.

  He opened his eyes. Hell fire, he said to himself, I know that face.

  'Yorick?' he said. 'What the hell are you doing here?' A bloody silly question, if ever there was one. He scrambled to his feet, removed a hand from his trouser pocket and tried going back the way he had come, with a vague idea of battering down the lift door and jumping down the shaft.

  'Ah,' said a voice he knew, 'there you are. I was wondering where you'd got to.'

  Rossfleisch, portable cassette player in hand, stepped out from behind a palletful of knees and smiled indulgently. Hamlet froze.

  'This ...' he said, and ran out of words. The Doctor nodded graciously.

  'A life's work,' he cooed. 'Tread carefully, for you tread on my dreams.'

  Hamlet
wasn't so sure about that, because he had the idea that dreams didn't go squish when you trod on them in heavy boots. He wasn't, however, inclined to argue the point. He made a sort of general purpose gesture with his hand.

  'Actually,' the Doctor continued, advancing a pace or two, 'it's extremely fortuitous, you finding your way here like this, because I did want to see if we haven't got something a bit more suitable for you in the way of brains. I'm beginning to suspect that the one I put in is just a bit too high-powered for the job. So if you wouldn't mind stepping over to the freezer cabinet there on your left ...'

  But Hamlet, tragically indecisive though he might occasionally be, had decided that that wouldn't be a terribly good idea. With a movement so swift that it did enormous credit to Dr Rossfleisch's skill with nerve-endings and a soldering iron, he stooped, grabbed the first object that came to hand, and threw. Then he ducked, rolled and came to rest behind a large wooden crate of left feet.

  He peered round the edge of the crate. Rossfleisch was lying on his back, out cold, half buried under a pile of assorted bits that presumably he'd backed into and knocked down on top of himself. The cassette player lay on the ground beside him. Hamlet managed to jump on it fairly comprehensively on his way past to the lift; which, as he'd hoped, was standing open. He found the controls, pressed a button at random, and stepped back out of the way of the door.

  As the door closed, he had a feeling he was not alone. It was a rather irrational feeling, given that the lift measured four feet square. If there was someone else in there with him, he felt sure, it ought to be fairly obvious. For a start, given the size of his boots, he'd be standing on the poor bugger's feet.

  Unless, of course, the other person happened to be a ghost.

  Hamlet, said the shimmering pillar of ectoplasm that now materialised in front of him, I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk this lift, and for the day confin'd- 'Er, yes, hi there, Dad,' Hamlet replied, frowning slightly.

  'Actually I'm a bit tied up right now, could I possibly get back to you a bit later on?'

  As he spoke, he sensed that the lift had slowed down. The ghost flickered irritably.

  I could a tale unfold, it said crossly, whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young- 'Sure, only not now, okay? Look, when this is all over it'd be really good to have lunch, have a really good talk about all the things we never seemed to find the time to talk about when you were, um, alive, uncurl a few locks together, stuff like that. Right now, though ...' He stopped, his inner ear ringing with the sound of a big penny dropping. 'Just a minute,' he said, 'what the hell are you doing here anyway? This is the real world, there's no such thing as ghosts in the real world.'

  My hour is almost come, snarled the ghost in that reproachful, I-told-you-not-to-play-with-that-ball-near-the-French-windows tone of voice that Hamlet knew so well, when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself. It paused, clicked its tongue and then went on. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold. But soft! methinks I scent the morning air- 'Dad, it's half past four in the afternoon.'

  The ghost flickered wildly, mouthed, Remember!, buzzed and snapped out of sight, leaving behind only a few spangles of blue light. Hamlet stared for a moment, shrugged and banged on the wall with his fist. The lift started to move.

  It was going back up.

  Regalian nibbled through the last remaining strand of the rope, shook his hands free and spat out a mouthful of liquorice-flavoured fibre. He felt sick.

  'Right,' said Titania. 'If you've quite finished stuffing your face, can we please get a move on?'

  'I was not stuffing my-'

  'Please?'

  'All right, just hold your water a minute, will you? I've only got one pair of hands.'

  (And just as well, he added mentally, since scarcely five minutes seems to go by around here without some bugger tying rope round them. One set is plenty enough for me, thank you very much. You can get seriously ill eating too much liquorice.)

  'Excuse me,' Skinner interrupted, 'but when you two have quite finished bickering...

  Regalian frowned. Quite right. Unprofessional. A hero acts, he does not bicker. As he traced his way through the Labyrinth, spinning out the golden thread, Theseus didn't bicker with Ariadne about who forgot to bring the torch.

  'Sorry,' he said. 'I think we're ready now. This way, I think.'

  'Hey,' yelled Titania. 'What about us?'

  Regalian bit his lip. 'Actually,' he said, 'if it's all the same to you, I think I'll leave you both tied up just for now, and come back for you both later after I've sorted out what we do next. I mean, you'll be perfectly all right there, and I'll know where you are. No chance of anybody spraining an ankle or being used as a hostage. Cheerio. Won't be long.'

  He took advantage of the brief stunned silence and departed. At least, he mused, this is business sort of as usual; crawling through pitch-dark underground tunnels on a desperate mission to seek out and fight with a giant rat. The fact that the rat wears a straw boater and a pink blazer and is known to generations of small children as Ratty is neither here nor there.

  His hand went instinctively to his side. He would have preferred a sword; a sword is long and sharp and has only one moving part, which does not require lubrication or frequent cleaning in order to make it work. Likewise, generally speaking, a sword doesn't answer you back. Nevertheless, he told himself, it's better than nothing. 'Aren't you?' he asked aloud.

  'I'm not talking to you.'

  'Oh? And why not?'

  'Because,' replied the Scholfield, 'you let them put a spell on me. Honestly, I've never been so embarrassed in all my-'

  'But you're cured now, aren't you?'

  'That's beside the point,' the revolver snarled. 'Back in 1875, I'll have you know, I was the state of the art. Competing manufacturers packed it in and went into the bicycle business once they'd seen my improved patent frame latch. And now, at my age, to have a flag come out of my barrel with BANG! written on it .

  'It must have been terrible,' Regalian said soothingly.

  'It was.'

  'If I were you, I'd want to get my own back on those bastards.'

  'I do.'

  'Or if not them, then some other lot of bastards.'

  'I'd settle for that, certainly.'

  Regalian nodded. 'Tell you what I'll do,' he said. 'First lot of bastards we come across, they're yours.'

  'Really?'

  'Promise. Provided of course,' he added quickly, 'that they start it, not us, and that armed response can within the context be classified as reasonable and a minimum force position within the scenario as a whole, holistically speaking.'

  'Come again?'

  'In other words,' Regalian explained, 'don't shoot till I pull the trigger, or it's in the furnace for you. Got that?'

  'Rotten spoilsport.'

  Regalian shrugged, squared his shoulders in the orthodox manner and set off down the corridor. It was dark, and damp, and there was a faint smell of toasting crumpet that spoke eloquently to his trained character's senses of classic Edwardian escapist literature. He felt depressingly out of place. In fact, if it hadn't been for the fact that he knew as an absolute certainty that he was the hero, he could have sworn he was the villain.

  He turned a corner; and froze, rooted to the spot in sudden terror. In front of him, filling the tunnel, was an enormous rodent.

  Yes, it was indeed wearing a straw boater; and too true, it had on a pink blazer and a little silk cravat round its thick, coarse-haired throat. But its small, red eyes and villainously sharp teeth sent clear, unequivocal messages down every nerve in Regalian's body. Okay, so perhaps this little fellow liked messing about in boats; but so did his ancestors, the big grey buggers who brought the Black Death from Constantinople to Europe. Regalian backed away and reached for his gun; and, at the same time, the right words found their way spontaneously to his lips.

  'You dirty rat,' he growled. 'I'm gonna fill yo
u full of lead.'

  At which point, Jane reached for the keyboard and started to type furiously.

  God knows, she thought, I'm not all that fussed about what posterity says about me. Let them say I was derivative, and my plots lacked sparkle. Let them, even, not remember me at all. But don't let me go down in the annals of literature as the woman who killed Ratty. They'd probably dig me up and hang my bones in chains from Tower Bridge.

  Think seamless, she commanded herself. All you have to do is steer the dialogue away from filling people full of lead and point it in the direction of the pointlessness of spring cleaning and the general desirability of rowing up and down the river in little boats. Doesn't matter how you do it so long as it gets done.

  Which was why, suddenly and without warning, Regalian found he had been turned into a beaver.

  It was nearly two hours before Regalian was able to get back to his friends in the cellars of Mole End. He had been having such a jolly time with his new friends Mr Rat and Mr Toad, cruising lazily down the river in Ratty's little boat and eating cucumber sandwiches, that he had quite lost track of the time.

  'Where the fuck have you been?' Titania snapped, as he put his soft, hairy nose round the doorway and smiled. 'I've got cramp in both knees, and I've had to put up with his incessant whingeing as well. Get me out of here before I start screaming the place down. And why are you dressed as a beaver?'

  'I'm not dressed as a beaver,' Regalian answered quietly. 'I am a bloody beaver, and it looks like I'm stuck that way till we get out of this madhouse. Hold still while I nibble through these blasted ropes.'

  'Oh, so that's why you're a beaver.'

  'No,' said Regalian with his mouth full, 'actually I think it's just a coincidence. Christ, this stuff tastes awful.'

  'And what,' Titania said a little while after, swinging her arms round to restore a little circulation, 'have you been doing all this time? Lounging about feeding the ducks?'

  'Actually, I've been fixing up our way out of here.'

  'About time too.'

  'The rat,' Regalian continued, with dignity, 'claims he knows where there's a sort of fault-line we might be able to use to get straight into Alice. Mind you, I wouldn't normally trust him as far as I could sneeze him when the pollen-count was low, but this time I think he's telling the truth.'