They all went up to the downloading suite in a very swish glass elevator.
‘I would strongly advise against this,’ said Henry.
‘Why?’ Billy asked.
‘Because you put yourself at personal risk.’
‘No,’ said Billy. ‘At no risk whatsoever. A virtual facsimile of myself enters a virtual world. No harm can come to the real me out here.’
‘Your adversary has been in the Necronet for ten years. He might have developed a trick or two.’
‘Indeed,’ said Billy. ‘He will no doubt try to blow me up. That’s what I’d do if I were him.’
‘If it’s that kind of foolishness,’ said Henry Doors, ‘then you certainly have no need to worry.’
‘I am not worried.’ Billy smiled. ‘In fact I confess to a thrill of anticipation. I’d quite forgotten what it feels like to be opposed. For someone to say no instead of yes. And it will be great fun to experience the Necronet first-hand. And greater fun to administer the kicking. And even greater fun to supervise the execution when I’ve returned and uploaded him.’
Henry Doors now smiled. ‘So thorough in your work,’ he said. ‘Always the consummate professional.’
‘Thank you,’ said Billy. ‘I do my best to please.’
The downloading suite was all-over black. Black and macho and miniaturized. It’s a male thing, black, when it comes to matters electrical. Your white goods are for women, dishwashers, tumbledryers, fridges, freezers, toasters, steam-irons, all that kind of business. But black is toys-for-boys. CD players, mobile phones, TVs and videos. Check it out next time you’re in a store.
And have you ever asked yourself why it is that all the telephone answering machines which have little voices that say things like ‘You have six calls’ have women’s voices, rather than men’s? Yet the speaking clock is now a man? Something to do with subservience and authority? Hm?
Henry Doors looked upon all that he had made and found it pleasing. There were a number of leather couches (black). ‘Settle yourself down on one of those,’ said Henry. ‘And have your chauffeur dump what’s left of your adversary onto another. I’ll link you both up to the mother computer and set the controls for fifteen minutes. Time moves differently in there, but I want you out again in fifteen minutes real time.’
Billy grinned that grin of his and settled himself onto a couch. A male technician helped him on with a sleek black headset.
On the couch next to Billy’s, his chauffeur struggled to position the living remains of something scarcely human. A second technician placed a similar headset over the twisted tortured face.
Henry Doors seated himself before a control panel of a night-time hue, touched panels and engaged circuitry. ‘All set, Billy?’ he asked.
‘All set,’ came a muffled reply from beneath the headset.
‘Subject’s whereabouts have been located. I shall beam you down, as it were.’
‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ said Roger.
‘What is your problem?’ I asked.
‘Only the small matter of what we’re doing up here.’
‘It’s a rooftop,’ I said. ‘For the final rooftop confrontation.’
‘Why a rooftop, for pity’s sake? Why not a fortress or the middle of a minefield, or something?’
‘Because Lazlo Woodbine always bested the villain on a rooftop. He worked just the four locations. His office where his clients came, the bar where he talked a load of old toot, the alley where he got into sticky situations, and the rooftop where he had the final confrontation. In one hundred and fifty-eight thrilling adventures Woodbine never deviated from this award-winning format.’
‘But I thought you’d agreed that you were rubbish at playing Woodbine.’
‘I was. But if I have to have a final confrontation with Billy Barnes, this is where I’m going to have it.’
Roger shook his head. ‘The trench coat suits you,’ he said.
‘Thanks, I appreciate that. Now, you’ve done everything I asked you to do, haven’t you? The plan is in place?’
‘It is a good plan,’ said Roger. ‘I will admit that it is a good plan. If it works, of course.’
‘It will work,’ I said, in a tone designed to inspire great confidence.
‘You don’t sound very convinced,’ said Roger.
‘Oh.’
‘So shall I just sort of mooch off somewhere until you’re finished?’
‘I think that would probably be for the best. I’ll give you a shout if I need you.’
‘And I’ll come running up with the big gun then, shall I?’
‘The General Electric mini-gun, yes.’
‘Like the one Blaine used in Predator?’
‘It’s a blinder of a gun, you have to confess.’
Roger nodded. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ he said.
We shook hands.
‘I’ll get us out,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘No,’ Roger smiled, ‘you just get yourself out. I can’t go anywhere, I have no body to go back to. Billy Barnes killed me and dumped me in the river. I have to stay here for ever. But I can be with my fiancée now when she dreams. You’ve given me that. I’m grateful.’
We shook hands again and Roger walked away.
I took a deep breath, adjusted the brim of my fedora just so, and patted the bulge in my trench coat. The bulge of the trusty Smith and Wesson.
‘OK, you son-of-a-b*****!’ I shouted at the white sky overhead. ‘I’m waiting for you. Come and get me, Barnes, you piece of sh—’
Whatever hit me, hit me like a train.
I didn’t see it coming, but I felt it arrive.
I flew back across the rooftop, struck one of those ventilator chimney things with the revolving tops that always look so good in Ridley Scott movies, and came to rest inverted and confused.
‘What hit me? Who? Where?’
‘Here,’ came the voice of Billy Barnes, and my left kneecap took a whacking.
‘Here!’ and my right knee evened the pain in a most alarming fashion.
‘I can’t see you, you coward,’ I cried (real tears). ‘Where are you? Come out and fight like a man.’
‘Get real, please.’
I was hauled to my feet by the invisible force and flung once more across the rooftop.
‘Better call for the mini-gun,’ said Billy. ‘Because the predator’s here.’
I opened my mouth to do just that and received a kick in the teeth. As Billy turned my face to the rooftop and began to grind it back and forwards, I felt that now might well be the time to engage my digital memory and re-run the closing moments of Predator.
And this I did.
The sky clouded over and the rain came down in bathtubs.
Billy lurched up as the electrical circuitry of the alien’s invisibility suit began to pop and fizzle. I rolled away to watch his materialization.
Billy appeared and stumbled around in the rain, tearing off bits of smouldering costume and flinging them aside. I thought myself unscathed and reinvigorated, dreamed up an umbrella, climbed to my feet and stood under it.
‘Good suit,’ I called to Billy. ‘I’m impressed that you made it work. I couldn’t get a car to go in here. Never learned how the internal combustion engine functioned.’
‘That’s because you’re a prat,’ said Billy, now standing, well dressed in a sharp black suit beneath an umbrella that was bigger than mine. ‘You are simply not as clever as me.’
‘Look out behind you,’ I said.
‘Don’t be absurd!’
I stepped out of the path of the charging rhinoceros. Billy, however, did not.
I thought away the rain and took a stroll over to view the damage. ‘You’ve got a big footprint on your head,’ I said.
And then I went, ‘Aaaaaaagh!’ as the grand piano fell on me.
‘Childish, I know,’ said Billy, smiling down. ‘But after the banana skin, the falling grand piano is the number one cartoon classic.’
And the
n Billy slipped on the banana skin. And I stuffed the big red stick of dynamite down his trousers.
‘You forgot this one,’ I said, as I ran for cover.
The explosion was really quite impressive. Colourful it was, with the word BOOM in 3D lettering.
Billy staggered up, his face black and his clothes in tatters.
‘Most amusing,’ he said. ‘But we have somewhat wandered away from the target. I have come here to give you a severe kicking before uploading you into your body for public execution, and I don’t have time to waste.’
‘Watch out for the falling safe,’ I said.
Billy side-stepped it and it plunged through the rooftop.
‘No,’ said Billy, waggling a finger. ‘No, no, no.’
‘No?’ I said.
‘No.’ Billy plucked from the pocket of his born-again sharp suit a small black toys-for-boys-type contrivance. ‘I brought this,’ he said.
‘Mobile phone?’ I asked.
‘Remote control,’ said Billy. ‘Digital memory eraser.’
Click went the button.
‘Oh, ****,’ I said.
Billy grinned. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Dream up another safe. Impress me.’
I knitted my brow and thought very hard. I squinted at Billy, and then at the sky. But the big weight with 15 TONS printed on it failed to materialize.
‘Stuffed,’ said Billy. ‘You’re stuffed, matey.’
‘Come on, Billy,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk about this.’ I raised a calming hand. Well, tried to raise one, but I couldn’t. I gaped down in horror at myself. My feet were now encased in concrete and I was all trussed in a straitjacket.
‘Now,’ said Billy. ‘What shall it be? Power drill in the eyeballs? Red hot poker up the jacksy?’
‘No, Billy, no, I...umph!’ The gaffer tape that suddenly smothered my mouth stifled all further conversation.
‘Electric cattle prod,’ said Billy, thinking one into his hand. ‘Necrosoft used to produce these for the police as part of the urban pacification programme. No longer necessary now, of course, no need for such crude measures.’
‘Grmph, mmph,’ I said, meaning, ‘Please have mercy.’
‘What was that you said? “Please stick it down my throat”? Okay then, if that’s what you fancy.’
Billy advanced upon me.
I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. Something cold and steely clamped my head. He faced me, eye to eye. ‘You can’t stop me,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot be stopped.’
And then he tore the gaffer tape away and raised the cattle prod.
‘No Billy, don’t.’
My eyes were shut and I never saw her appear. I heard her voice and when I looked, there she was.
Billy no longer held the prod to my face. He had dropped it on the rooftop. He stood and stared at her too.
Because she was truly something to stare at. She must have been more than seven feet in height. Willow slim and ebony black. Her cheek-bones seemed carved, her slanted eyes showing only the whites. Her mouth was broad, the lips full and passionate. Her hair was arranged in complicated coils that rose to spires and seemed to vanish into air. Of the clothes that covered her slender frame I had an impression of colour but not of fabric. Darting colours that weaved and moved and flowed and drifted. Her right hand weighed heavy with golden rings.
In her left she held a handbag.
‘Maîtresse,’ Billy whispered. ‘Maîtresse Ezilée.’
‘I am displeased with you,’ said the goddess.
‘No,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve not displeased you. I have kept the faith, maintained the vigil. Venerated the icon.’
‘My bag?’ Maîtresse Ezilée raised the handbag. I saw the skulls and I saw again Golgotha. The thousand million bones of the angry dead. ‘You have brought torment to the mind of God,’ said Maîtresse Elizée. ‘You have brought torment to the world of men. You must be punished for your sins.’
‘No,’ said Billy. ‘You’ll not punish me. I serve one who is greater than you. I serve Ogoun Badagris.’
Now I remembered this name, and I did so without the aid of my digital memory. Billy’s mother had mentioned this name when she’d spoken to me in my shed of the voodoo pantheon. There was Damballo Oueddo, the wisest and most powerful, whose symbol is the serpent; Agoué, god of the sea; Loco, god of the forest; and Maîtresse Ezilée, incarnation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
And there was Ogoun Badagris, the dreadful and bloody one.
An ideal choice for Billy, I supposed.
‘Ogoun Badagris walks the earth,’ said Billy. ‘His time is now.’
‘Our time is always now,’ said Maîtresse Ezilée.
‘Our time?’
‘Our time, Billy.’ And the goddess opened her handbag.
And they stepped out.
Grew into form.
The gods. A pair of gods.
‘Agoué, god of the sea.’ And I looked and it was the old boy. The ancient mariner. And it was my father. It really was.
‘Loco, god of the forest.’ It was Roger Vulpes. Stealth fox/dog/ horse/human hybrid. A god of the forest, indeed.
‘And Damballo Oueddo?’ asked Billy. ‘Where is he?’
‘He is all around you, Billy. You are inside the mind of the great one, Damballo Oueddo.’
‘A mind now addled,’ Billy said. ‘Ogoun told me how we should inflict the jabbering masses upon Damballo. Possess his mind and drive him insane.’
Maîtresse Ezilée laughed. ‘You fool Billy. Damballo gathers all souls to himself. Here in this world of thought. This world of dreams and inspiration from whence spring all ideas we choose to offer mankind.’
Maîtresse Ezilée turned to me. ‘Arthur Thickett told you all about this, didn’t he?’ she said.
‘Yes. He said that he thought the gods reincarnate. Renew themselves and choose new locations for their renewal.’
‘As is written,’ said Maîtresse Ezilée. ‘The cycles of the gods are shown in the symbol of the serpent with its tail in its mouth.’
‘And so Ogoun is—’.
‘He is Satan. Shaitan. Ebilis. Lucifer. Billy knows him as Henry Doors, god of the new religion: science.’
‘I’ve never got on much with computers,’ I said.
‘Enough,’ said Billy. ‘I’m not interested. I shall be out of here in a minute. And when I go I’m taking this prat with me. And you lot, you can go on dreaming. No-one worships you any more. You’re yesterday’s news.’
‘If I might just have a word,’ said Agoué.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I said.
‘Hi, son,’ said my dad. ‘Now, Billy,’ he continued, ‘I know you’re going to be leaving us in...’ My dad looked at his watch. It was a Rolex. I used to have a watch like that. An image thing, I don’t want to dwell on it. Well, actually perhaps I do. I never really had a Rolex at all. I just make this stuff up. I can’t help it. I don’t know why I do it, but I do. It’s the tall-story thing, I know it is. ‘...about thirty seconds. But as Henry Doors told you and my son has learned to his cost, time moves differently here. Usually much faster, but we have the power to shift it about somewhat. We can make your last ten seconds an eternity in hell.’
‘You can,’ said Billy. ‘But remember, I know the secret.’
‘What secret?’
‘The secret of the voodoo handbag.’
‘What secret is that?’ I asked.
‘That it is the transitus tessera, the ticket of passage. That it allows beings to move from one world to the next.’
‘I knew that,’ I said. ‘Your mum told me.’
‘But she didn’t tell you that the beings were the gods. That it’s the only way by which they can physically enter the world of men. Men can meet the gods in dreams and visions, and receive the ideas and prophecies they are offered. But the voodoo handbag is the portal by which the gods can enter the physical world of men. The Virgin Mary never gave birth, she merely opened her handbag.’
‘But what about the sku
lls, all those demonic skulls?’
‘Guardians,’ said Billy, ‘to prevent men reaching this world, the world of the gods. Ogoun Badagris chooses who will guard and places them on the bag. He’ll choose you, I think, once I have done with you.’
‘Off to hell with this shirtbag,’ I said.
‘It’s a fair cop,’ said Billy. ‘But let me say one more thing before you despatch me.’
‘What is that?’ asked Maîtresse Ezilée.
‘Time’s up,’ said Billy.
And he vanished, just like that.
Black Projections
He cursed the black projections as they grew,
He knew it wasn’t quite the thing to do.
But the natives from the town
Turned their backs upon his gown
That he’d won off some old Hindustan guru.
He cursed the black projections that he found,
He ripped them off and flung them to the ground.
But the natives played at jacks,
With their hands behind their backs,
And sold little bags of white stuff by the pound.
He cursed the black projections on his arm,
When he saw them there he cried out in alarm.
But the natives turned away,
They were not inclined to stay,
And they went and got new jobs upon the farm.
And when the black projections had control,
He found it very difficult to bowl.
But the natives in the slips,
Stood with hands upon their hips,
And dined on cottage tea and Dover sole.
I thank you.
23
Everything has to be somewhere and nothing can ever be anywhere other than where it is.
HUGO RUNE
The doctor said I was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn’t actually say it. But we knew he was thinking it.
‘Tell me about the Necronet,’ the doctor said.
‘It’s a paradise. A world of bliss,’ I said.
‘A world of bliss?’ The doctor viewed me through his bifocals. I had never worn glasses like those. An image thing. I’m very conscious of my image.
The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag Page 23