My Hero (17 page)

‘Don't tell me,' Regalian sighed. ‘A looking glass. As in
Through The
. No, thank you very much. I've had enough to put up with as it is.'

‘Look . . .'

‘And the same goes,' he added savagely, ‘for wardrobes. Got that?'

Titania wriggled angrily against the ropes. ‘Well, that attitude's really going to help, isn't it?'

‘Helps me,' Regalian replied. ‘Surly truculence. Can't beat it, in my experience.'

‘Nuts,' Titania replied. ‘Instead of just sitting there making comments, you ought to be doing something. I mean,' she added scornfully, ‘I had assumed you were meant to be the
hero
.'

‘You're expecting me to gnaw through ropes, aren't you?'

Titania considered. ‘It's a thought,' she said. ‘It'd be better than lounging about practising your repartee.'

‘You people have no idea,' Regalian snapped. ‘Did you know that there's more cholesterol in six inches of rope than four cream doughnuts?'

‘Spit it out, then. Honestly, if all you're going to do is complain—'

‘And,' Regalian went on, ‘there's my teeth to consider. A fine hero I'd be, mumbling my way through the rest of the trilogy in a dental plate.'

‘Shut up and chew.'

‘Yuk,' said Regalian, with his mouth full. ‘Liquorice again. I can't be doing with bloody liquorice.'

Hamlet had been walking for hours, and his feet hurt.

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 in.

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 to become a stalagmite or something?

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

‘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.'

‘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?'