Nostradamus Ate My Hamster (11 page)

The old man broke down once more into a fit of coughing.

The priest wanted to call for a nurse, but the old man stopped him.

“He said it was built to last. Built to out-last. To continue. Then he told me to take off my clothes and climb in. Step into the future.

“I knew this was wrong, father. I knew it. You can’t cheat death. You have only your own time. But I made that wrong decision, I tore off my clothes and climbed into the back of this new self. I put my head up inside its head, like a mask, you see, put my arms inside the arms, my hands into the hands, like gloves, legs inside the legs. And then he shut the little doors at the back, snapped them shut and clicked the catches. And there was this terrible pulling, this shrinking as that new skin shrank around me, embracing me, clinging to me.

“My neck tightened, this awful compression and he said, ‘I must take your spine now. The exchange must be made.’ I struggled, but he took hold of me and he had this instrument, like a pump, polished brass, very old-looking and he put it against the small of my back and he –”

“Nurse!”
called the priest.

“No!” cried the old man. “No, let me speak, let me finish. What he did to me. The pain. I woke up in a doss house and when I woke up I screamed. And I looked around and I laughed then, and I thought, oh no, it was a dream. A nightmare, drunk probably, oh how I laughed. But then, but then, as I sat up on that wretched bed, I knew it had all been true and I felt at my neck and I could feel the flap and the button and I knew that that other self was now
inside me
, I wasn’t inside
it
. The backs of my arms, hard under the skin, like wood and my legs, my back, rigid and I was numb. I couldn’t smell anything, even there in that stinking doss house, not a thing and I no longer had a sense of taste. I got up and I was like a robot, an automaton, I was not a person any more, like a doll, not a person.

“I walked about and I looked at people, but they weren’t like people any more, they seemed like animals, or some remote species. But it wasn’t
them
, it was
me
.
I
wasn’t one of
them
. I was something different. And now they meant nothing to me. I was remote from them, aloof. I couldn’t feel them any more. Emotionally, I couldn’t feel them emotionally. I had
no
feelings. No love, no hate. Nothing, just a great emptiness inside.”

There was a moment of silence and then the priest said, “I am afraid, my son. You have made me afraid.”

“I am afraid, father. Afraid of what I have done.”

“Will you tell me more?”

“I will tell you all. I knew that I was afraid then. But I could not feel it. I knew that I was angry, very angry, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t remember how those things felt. But I knew one thing and that was that I could not go through five hundred years of this. Of this emptiness and solitude. This apart-ness. I wanted my self back, wretched thing that it was, but it
was
me.

“I returned to that chapel to seek out the man who had taken my spine. But he was gone, the chapel was all boarded over, the door chained shut. I did not know where he might have gone to, I couldn’t know where. But I knew I had to find him, to reclaim my self. And so I searched. I walked, father. I walked across England. And I didn’t need to eat - I felt no hunger - or sleep - I never felt tired. I walked and walked from town to town until the shoes wore off my feet and then I begged for more. I searched through the pages of every local newspaper.

“I walked, father, for fifty years I walked.”

The priest caught his breath. “For fifty years?” he whispered.

“For fifty years. But I found him. I finally found him, right here, right here in Brighton. Another small advert in the local paper, another chapel just like the first. And there he was, up upon the dais. Same man, same suit, exactly the same. He hadn’t aged by a day. I kept to the rear of the hall, in the shadows and I watched and I listened. It was all the very same. And I watched his audience. The same audience, father, the same people, even after fifty years I recognized them all, sitting there, straight-backed.

“He spoke, a newer speech now, of micro-technology and silicone chips, but he was selling the same thing. The five hundred years. And as he spoke the other folk drifted out, leaving only me, hiding at the back and one lone downtrodden-looking man at the front, and after he had spoken he led this man away.

“I crept after them. I had a gun and I could feel no fear. I stood at the door of another little back room, listening. I knew he would be removing his shirt. I had waited so long for this, but I was like a sleepwalker, so distant. I turned the handle and pushed open the door. He stood there, half naked. I shouted at him, raised my gun, the young man saw the gun and he ran away. He was safe, he would be spared my torment.

“The man in black slipped on his shirt, he was cool, I knew that he could feel nothing. Or
what
did I know? He did this to other people, yet
he
knew what it was like. I had many questions. Fifty years of questions.

“‘So, said he. ‘This is most unexpected.’

“‘Give me back my spine,’ I told him. ‘Give me back my self.’

“And he laughed. Laughed in my face. ‘After fifty years?’ he said. ‘It is gone. It is dust.’

“My hand that held the gun now shook. Of course it was dust. Of course after all this time. After all these years.

“‘But you go on,’ he said. ‘You go on into the future. Look at you, still young, still fit.’

“‘No!’ I cried. ‘No. I will not be like this. Not what you have made me. I will kill myself, but first I will kill you. You will do to no more folk what you have done to me.’

“He shook his head. He smiled. ‘You fail to grasp any of this,’ he said. ‘I am just one, there are many like me. Like
us
. Our number grows daily. Soon, soon now,
all
will be as we are. You will achieve nothing by killing me.’

“‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘Why do you do this?’

“‘A new order of life,’ he said. ‘A new stage in development. A world freed of emotion, without sickness or hatred.’

“‘Without love,’ I said and he laughed again.

“‘Put aside your gun,’ he said, ‘and I will show you why this must be and then you will understand.’

“I put aside my gun. I
would
kill him, I knew this. And I would kill myself. But I had to know, to understand.

“‘Follow me,’ he waved his hand and led me from the room. Along a dirty corridor we went and down a flight of steps towards the boiler house below. Here he switched on a light and I saw heaps of ancient baggage, old portmanteaus, Gladstone bags. ‘All mine,’ he said, and opening a musty case he took out an ancient daguerreotype in a silver frame. He held it up to me and I looked at the portraiture. A gaunt young man in early Victorian garb.

“‘It is you,’ I said.

“He inclined his head. ‘I was the first. I opened up the way for Him and He gave this life to me.’

“‘For
Him
?’ I asked.

“‘I am His guardian, until all are converted. It is conversion, you see, real conversion.’

“‘Who is this person?’

“‘Oh, He’s not a person.’ The man in black stepped back from me. There was a old red velvet curtain strung across a corner of the room, he took hold of it and flung it aside. And I saw Him. I saw the thing. It sat there on a sort of throne, hideously grinning. It was like a monstrous insect. Bright red, a complicated face with a black V for a mouth and glossy slanting eyes. And this face, it seemed to be composed of other things, of people and moving images, moving, everything moving. Shifting from one form to another. I cannot explain exactly what I saw, but I knew that it was wrong. That it was wrong and it was evil. That it shouldn’t be here. That it was not allowed to be here. He had brought it here, this tall gaunt man, he was its guardian. All he was and all he did was for the service of this creature.

“‘Meet your maker,’ said the man in black. ‘Meet your God.’

“‘No!’ I fumbled for my gun, but I no longer had it, the man in black had somehow stolen it from me. I wanted to attack this thing. I felt no fear, you see. I couldn’t fear. But the sight of this thing was such that I
knew
, simply knew, that I must destroy it. I raised my hands to strike it down, but the gaunt man held me back.

“‘You must kneel,’ he cried, ‘kneel before your God.’

“I fought, but he forced me before it. It glared down at me and it spoke. The voice was like a thousand voices. Like a stadium chant. ‘You wanted more time,’ it said.

“‘But I have
your
time, your
real
time. The time you had to come. And now I will have all your time. You have seen me and so I must have
all
of your time.’

“And it opened its horrible mouth. Wide, huge and it sucked in. And I knew it was sucking me in. Sucking in my time. All the time I’d already had, all my
life
. That’s what it did, you see, father. From the spines. It had my real future time and now it was sucking in my past. It was taking all the time I’d had before. The time of my childhood, my youth. It was taking all that. And it wasn’t fair, father. It wasn’t fair.”

“It wasn’t fair, my son.” The priest was weeping now. “It isn’t fair.”

“It took my time, it took
all
my time.”

The pub had gone rather quiet. As Sean had been telling this tale to me more and more folk had been gathering around to listen. And they were listening intently, as if somehow they knew the truth of this tale. Or had heard something similar. Or knew of someone who had told such a tale to someone else.

“Is that it?” I asked Sean, when finally I found my voice.

“Not quite,” Sean took a pull upon the pint of beer that had grown quite warm, while the listeners’ hearts had chilled. “The priest was weeping, crying like a child and he ran out of the cubicle. He ran right past me, he looked terrified. And I sat there, I could hear the old man wheezing, he was dying. He had told his awful tale and now he was dying. He had lost all his time and now he was going to die alone. Utterly alone.

“I sat there and I thought, I can’t let this old man die like that, it’s so wrong. Someone should be there with him, to hold his hand.
I
should be there with him.
I
heard his tale too.

“So I got down from my bed and I limped around to his cubicle. My ankle didn’t hurt because of the injection, but even if it had hurt, I wouldn’t have cared. I pushed back the curtain and I went inside. He was lying there on the bed and he smelled really bad. The smell of death. I smelled that on my Gran when I was a child. The man was about to die.

“He was all covered up, except for his head and his face looked old. Like
really
old. Like a hundred years old. It made me afraid just to look at him. I pulled down the cover so I could get at his hand, he was pretty much out of it by then, he probably didn’t even know I was there. But I pulled down the blanket and I took hold of his hand.

“But it wasn’t a man’s hand. It was a child’s hand. A little child and when I pulled the blanket right back I could see his body. It was a baby’s body. This old man’s head on top of a baby’s body. And as I took hold of the hand, this little hand, it was shrinking. Shrinking and shrinking. His time had been stolen, you see, his previous time, his past time. The thing had stolen it all from him and he was going back and back until he wouldn’t exist at all, would never exist at all. I tried to hold the hand, but I couldn’t. It just got smaller and smaller. All of him, smaller and smaller, his head was the size of a grape and I saw the eyes look up at me and the mouth move. And he spoke.”

“And what did he say?” I asked Sean.

“He said, ‘help me, help me,’ and then he just vanished.”

Three months have passed since Russell parted with his life’s savings, thus depriving his poor mother of the stair-lift for her bungalow. Three months that have seen great activity in Hangar 18. Russell, who had never actually watched a movie being made, would have loved to have stood quietly by and done so. But he did not.

Russell’s days of standing quietly by were gone for ever. Russell had to find more money.
Much
more money.

And he’d done just that. Because, as has been said (to the point of teeth-grating tedium), Russell was a hard worker and when he was given a job to do, he did it. And he did it to the best of his abilities. And so if he was producer, then he
would
produce.

Armed with a carrier-bag full of videos (the ones he and Bobby Boy had made) he’d set off “up town”, which is to say “towards the West End”, which is to say, London. And there he’d made appointments, shown his videos and eaten many lunches. And being what is known as “an innocent abroad”, he had signed a number of rapidly drawn-up contracts and been “done up like a kipper”, which is to say, “taken to the cleaners”, which is to say, swindled.

It became clear to Russell at an early stage, that the backers (or “Angels” as they preferred to be called), were far more interested in acquiring a share of the Cyberstar technology than Mr Fudgepacker’s movie. And
that
wasn’t Russell’s to sell.

But he sold it anyway. Many times over. Reasoning, that if the movie was the great success he was sure it would be, he could just pay everybody back what they’d lent and a bit of a cash bonus on top and all would be happy.

Oh dear.

So he had raised a considerable sum. More than sufficient to finance all the great activity in Hangar 18 that he would have loved to have watched, but could not.

They kept him at it from morning till midnight. Mr Fudgepacker shot the movie during the day, while Russell was out doing the business, then he locked away all the test videos and technology and what-nots in his big safe before Russell got back to spend the evening trying to figure out the accounts. It just wasn’t fair.

And so now, at the end of a particularly tiring day, Russell sat all alone in Bobby Boy’s suitably grim office, that was now Russell’s suitably grim office, with his head in his hands, in a state of stress.

A state of stress and one of worry.

Russell worried about everything. He worried (not without good cause) about all the deals he’d made, but that was the least of his worries.

Russell worried a lot about the
Flügelrad
. For one thing, where was it now? Bobby Boy had shifted it out of Hangar 18 before anyone else got a look at it. But he wouldn’t tell Russell where he’d shifted it to. All he said was that it was in a very safe place and that Russell should remember he was sworn to secrecy about it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bobby Boy told him. “It is no longer important.”

But it did matter and it
was
important. That thing had brought Adolf Hitler into the present day. And where was Adolf now? Lurking somewhere close at hand? Plotting and planning? Committing unspeakable acts? It didn’t bear thinking about. But Russell thought about it all the time.

And what about the future? That Nazi future Bobby Boy claimed to have seen? And what about the beautiful Julie? She had somehow come back from that future to give Russell the programmer, kiss him and tell him she loved him. How had
that
come about? She’d vanished with two evil clanking things in pursuit. Things that had followed her from the future. And neither she nor the clanking things were travelling in
Flügelrads
. What did
that
mean?

Was time travel commonplace in the future? Did folk from the future come back and tamper with the past?

Russell raised his head from his hands and gave it a dismal shake. And what about the movie? If it was made using technology stolen from the future and was a great success, then copies of it would exist in the future. Therefore someone in the future would be able to trace where and when the movie was originally made and dispatch a couple of evil clankers to reclaim the technology and therefore stop it being made. But of course if they did that and the movie didn’t get made, then copies of it could not exist in the future, so someone wouldn’t be able to trace where and when it was made and send back the clankers. But what if –

“Aaaaaaaaagh!” Russell reached into the desk drawer and brought out a bottle of Glen Boleskine. He was drinking now on a regular basis and it really wasn’t good for him. But all of this was all too much and what made it worse was that Russell was the only one doing any worrying about it.

Old Ernest wasn’t worried. He was back behind the camera reliving his golden days. And Bobby Boy wasn’t worried, he’d passed all the responsibility on to Russell and he was fulfilling his dream to become a movie star. And Frank wasn’t worried. And Julie wasn’t worried. And Morgan probably didn’t even know how to worry. Only Russell worried. And it wasn’t fair.

It just wasn’t fair.

Russell tasted Scotch and glared at the papers on his desk. Piles of them and many the fault of Frank. Frank just loved paperwork and now he was a prop man again he could give his love full head (so to speak). Frank was currently employed by
Fudgepacker Films
as well as
Fudgepacker’s Emporium
. Which put him in the marvellous position of being able to send paperwork to himself. Every time something hired from the Emporium got broken on the film set, the Emporium charged the film company. The film company then borrowed back its own money, bought a replacement item, leased it to the Emporium which then rehired it to the film company. Frank had never been happier.

Russell pushed Frank’s paperwork aside and glared at some of Mr Fudgepacker’s. The ancient film maker had told Russell this very day that the shooting was now all but over, so they would soon be into “post production” and post production would require even more money. Could Russell have a word with the Emporium, who Mr Fudgepacker felt were overcharging his film company for breakages on the set?

Ludicrous. And all in the cause of a movie that Russell had not seen one single minute of. And
he
was the producer.

“It just isn’t fair.” Russell made the sulkiest of faces. “I’m sure everyone’s been working very hard, but it’s me who does all the worrying and takes all the responsibility. They might have shown me some of it.”

Russell huffed and puffed and glared through the partition window to the studio floor beyond. Bare now, but for a few tables and director’s chairs and the video monitor on its stand.

Russell’s glare moved back into the office and returned to an area where it spent a good deal of its time these recent evenings: the area filled by Mr Fudgepacker’s safe. Mr Fudgepacker’s mighty
INVINCIBLE
, brought over from the Emporium and lowered through the roof by crane (at great cost, Russell recalled). Several tons of worthy steel containing …

Russell glared at the safe. Only Mr Fudgepacker knew the combination. Only he and nobody else.

Well …

This was not altogether true. Russell did a bit of thoughtful lip-chewing as he poured himself another Scotch. There was one other person who knew the combination. And that person was he, Russell.

He’d discovered it quite by accident many months ago. It had been lunch-time and there’d been no-one around and so Russell thought that now would be a good time to do a bit of cleaning. Have a go at Mr Fudgepacker’s safe, the old boy would like that. But Mr Fudgepacker hadn’t liked that. He’d returned unexpectedly to find Russell worrying away at one of the big brass bosses and he’d thrown a real wobbly. Russell had thought he was going to snuff it. Baffled by Mr F’s over-reaction, Russell had returned later with a magnifying glass to examine the big brass boss. And yes, there they were, a little row of scratched-on numbers. And it didn’t take the brain of an Einstein to work out what they were.

Of course, Russell would not have dreamed of opening the safe. That would have been a terrible thing to do. Russell felt guilty about the whole thing for ages.

But he didn’t feel quite so guilty now.

It wouldn’t hurt if he took a look at one or two of the test videos, would it? Just run them through the monitor and then put them back. What harm could that do?

Russell’s brow became a knitted brow. To open the safe might be a crime in itself. Breaking and entering, without the breaking. Or the entering. But it could be trespass and it was definitely a breach of trust. But then he did have a
right
to see the movie. He was responsible for the movie. And what if? And this was a big, what if? A “what if?” that also worried Russell and worried him greatly. What if the movie was a load of old rubbish? All ultra violence and hard-core pornography? A movie that would never be given a certificate by the censors?

It could well be. Fudgepacker loved his gore and with Bobby Boy having a hand in the script and the starring role, Marilyn Monroe would be sure to be getting her kit off.

And what about Julie?

“I’ll kill him,” said Russell. “If he’s persuaded Julie to … I’ll kill him. I will.”

Russell glared once more at the mighty
INVINCIBLE
. And then he reached into his desk drawer and brought out his magnifying glass. He looked at it and he made a guilty face. He could not pretend he hadn’t been planning this.

“Oh sod it,” said Russell. “It can’t hurt. I’m doing the right thing. I know I am.” And with that said, Russell got up from his desk, went over to the safe, examined the numbers on the brass boss, twiddled the combination lock and swung open the beefy metal door.

And there it all was. The precious Cyberstar equipment. The rented camera. Cans of exposed footage. Stacks of video cassettes in neat white numbered boxes. Russell did shifty over-the-shoulder glances. But there was no-one about, he was all alone in Hangar 18. He’d locked himself in.

“Right,” said Russell, pulling out a stack of videos.

On the studio floor Russell settled himself in for a private viewing. He plugged in the monitor, slotted the first video, poured himself another Scotch, took up the remote controller and parked his bottom on Mr Fudgepacker’s personal chair.

“Right,” said Russell once more. “Roll them old cameras. Let there be movie.”

Russell sat there and pressed “play”.

The monitor screen popped with static and then a clapperboard appeared. On this were scrawled the words NOSTRADAMUS ATE MY HAMSTER. Act one. Scene one. Take one.

Russell hmmphed. “I don’t think much of that for a title,” he said.

“You know, I don’t think much of this for a title,” said the voice of Bobby Boy.

“Just clap the bloody clapperboard,” said the voice of Mr Fudgepacker. Clap went the clapperboard.

Act one, scene one, was the interior of a public house. A gentleman in a white shirt and dicky bow stood behind the bar counter. His surroundings were in colour, but he was in black and white.

“Oh,” said Russell, “it’s David Niven. I like David Niven, but why is he in black and white?”

This question was echoed by the voice of Mr Fudgepacker. Although he phrased it in a manner which included the use of words such as “bloody” and “bastard”.

The screen blacked and there were raised voices off. Then the clapperboard returned with the words “take two” written on it. Now Charlton Heston stood behind the bar, he was in full colour. And a toga.

The screen blacked again and the voices off were raised to greater heights. Russell shook his head and took another taste of Scotch. The clapperboard returned once more. It was time for “take three”.

Tony Curtis replaced Charlton Heston. Tony wore a smart evening suit. He smiled towards the camera, raised his right hand in a curious fashion and then strode, ghost-like through the bar counter.

“Cut!” shouted Mr Fudgepacker. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“It’s tricky,” Bobby Boy’s voice had a certain edge to it. “He’s a hologram. He can’t lift up the counter flap. We’ll have to rig some strings, or something.”

Russell gave his head another shake and fast-forwarded. By “take eighteen” Bobby Boy had managed to steer Tony from behind the counter and nearly halfway across the bar floor. Tony was carrying a Christmas tree fairy. Or rather, Tony was
not
carrying it. The fairy was dangling on a length of fishing line and it was rarely to be found in the same place as Tony’s outstretched hand.

“Oh dear,” said Russell, “it’s not very convincing, is it? But fair dos, I can see how difficult it is. They’ve certainly been working hard.”

Russell fast-forwarded once more. After many unsuccessful attempts, Mr Curtis finally managed to hang the fairy on the top of a Christmas tree. And then the tape ran out.

“That would be about ten seconds in the can,” said Russell, who had picked up all kinds of movie-speak. “Not much for a full day’s shooting. Perhaps I’ll go straight on to tape number five.”

Russell went straight on to tape number five and now it was party time in the pub. And quite a Cyberstar-studded occasion it was.

Humphrey Bogart was there and Lauren Bacall and Orson Welles and Ramon Navarro, and even Rondo Hatton, who was one of Russell’s very favourites. But they weren’t doing very much. In fact, they weren’t doing anything at all. They were just standing there like statues, with dangling glasses going in and out of their hands.

“Ah,” said Russell. “I see the problem here. The machine can project their images, but there’s only one programmer, so you can only work one at a time. Pity.”

Bobby Boy made his first on-screen appearance. Dressed in his usual black, he walked carefully and awkwardly between the holograms. “A pint of Large please, Neville,” he told Tony Curtis and then, “You’ll have to work him, Ernie. Waggle the joy stick.”

“You can’t talk to me while you’re acting, you bloody fool.
Cut
!”

Russell did further head shaking. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he sighed. And then he said, “Hang about,” and he fast-forwarded the tape.