Pure Dead Magic (17 page)

There was no applause, no spectacular blast of smoke. There was just a profound absence of Pandora.

There was a huge muffin-scented gale, sweeping her up, tumbling her over and over. There were spinning colors, a kaleidoscopic whirlpool, and then … black. There was pain all over as she crashed and bumped into unknown things in the modem. But mainly, there was fear. Something breathed in there. More than one thing, in fact.

Pandora had never felt so afraid in her life. What if …? No, don’t. Titus called me a wuss. Titus doesn’t know the half of it.
Give me a couple of lengths with Tock any day. Pull yourself together, girl, somewhere out there are your father, your baby sister, and your favorite spi—

“TaranTELLA!” shrieked Pandora.

“ShhhHH!
Quiet,
” hissed the spider, clamping a hairy leg over Pandora’s mouth. “You’ll wake the baby, and
believe
me, you don’t want to do that.” Tarantella shuddered and released Pandora. “Who ever would have thought that such a hairless little wrinkly could make such a din.”

“Oh, Tarantella, well DONE. You
found
her.” Pandora reached out to stroke Damp’s face and stumbled. In front of her, a black void opened up.

“Whoa. Careful,” warned Tarantella, snatching Pandora back to safety. “Fall into that and you could end up
anywhere,
” she said, opening her eyes wide for emphasis.
“Anywhere.”

Above their heads, blue flashes of electricity crackled. Each flash illuminated the industrial landscape that surrounded them. Giant lentils on spindly legs alternated with vast stripy cylinders poised on metal scaffolds. Towering skyscrapers perched on a landscape crosshatched with gleaming metal runways. It was bleak, it was ugly, and it was utterly devoid of life.

“Where is this?” whispered Pandora.

“This is the printed circuit board,” intoned Tarantella, dropping her voice to a whisper and adding, “that black tunnel into which you so nearly fell, that … that is the void, the portal.”

Pandora peered at the spider in the gloom. Tarantella’s eyes glowed.

“That’s the way in, d’you mean?”

“Dear child, think of it as an entry ramp leading onto a great
motorway … or perhaps a trickling brook that turns into a great river and eventually rushes into the sea … or perhaps—”

“Tarantella,” interrupted Pandora, “how do I hitch a lift on an outgoing e-mail?”

“You simply stand in front of one, just like you’d stand in front of a speeding tractor-trailer.
Just
like, believe me. Hits you like a ten-ton truck, whizzes you off into the Web, and seconds later, SPLAT, you’ve arrived.” Seeing Pandora’s horrified expression, Tarantella expanded further. “I imagine it’s similar to what flies feel when they’re spread across a windshield. One minute buzz, buzz … and the next thing that goes through their minds is their bottom.”

Pandora groaned. Her Rescue Dad Plan appeared to have a serious drawback. But, she thought, hang on a minute.… “How come you’re not dead? And Damp? You’re not both windshield smears, are you?”

Tarantella arranged herself for a cozy chat. “What you’ve failed to grasp, O leggily challenged one, is that this is
virtual
travel. Not
real
travel.
Not
the same thing at all.”

Oh heck, thought Pandora. Do NOT Pass Go until the spider has delivered an interminable lecture.…

“Look, hairless one, when you send an e-mail, you’re not sending a bit of paper with a letter written on it, are you?”

“No … but,” said Pandora, propping her chin on her knees and trying to look interested.

“Nor does your e-mail travel only on cables and wires, does it?”

“Nhuh?” said Pandora, beginning to lose the plot.

“Sometimes it’s bounced through space via satellite, or zapped out by microwave …”

“Duh,” agreed Pandora. It was warm in the modem. Warm and cozy. She leaned back into Tarantella’s furry body and watched Damp’s eyes roll behind her eyelids.

“…  so you see it’s utterly painless,” droned the spider. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.”

In the vast spaces beyond the confines of the modem, Titus brought his fingers thudding down on the keyboard. Spotting an opportunity to demonstrate the wonders of Web travel, Tarantella acted swiftly. “Look, here comes one now. Hang on tight.…”

Holding Pandora and Damp snug against her abdomen, Tarantella leapt in front of Titus’s outgoing message to [email protected].

Endgame

D
eath was horribly slow in coming, thought Signor Strega-Borgia. The air in the computer room stank of melting plastic as one by one the banks of computers surrounding him overheated, sent out onscreen warnings of system errors, and, with small puffs of black smoke, went down.

This must be what lobsters feel like as they boil alive, he thought. Droplets of sweat dripped off his nose and hissed as they landed on the floor. The air burned his throat with each breath he took. Forget lobsters, he thought, more like barbecued chicken. To distract himself from his imminent extinction, Signor Strega-Borgia loaded
Revenge IV
into the last working computer. He huddled on a chair, curled in a ball, waiting for the game to run.

Onscreen came a menu: CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON.

“Oh very good,” groaned Signor Strega-Borgia as the last choice scrolled past him: flamethrower.

He armed himself and clicked onto the main menu:

Signor Strega-Borgia sighed. For some reason, this game was failing to hold his attention. He gazed blankly at the screen, where little figures armed with nail-studded clubs were invading the fish counter in a busy supermarket. A message box appeared:
YOU HAVE MAIL
.

Signor Strega-Borgia stared at the message. He wondered who on earth it was from as his fingers slid across the keyboard. He found the Open Mail command and pressed ENT and ER. Maybe he could ask for help. Maybe it was the local fire station e-mailing the palazzo, to inquire why it was belching smoke and flames all over the rural Italian countryside. Maybe it was one of his evil half brother’s associates, checking that he’d melted. He glared at the screen, willing it to hurry up and download this unknown message. Another box appeared onscreen:

“
What
message?” wailed Signor Strega-Borgia. “There’s nothing there. It’s empty. It’s BLANK!”

Over the crackle and hiss of the encroaching inferno came a tiny squeaking sound. “Not the rats,” moaned Signor Strega-Borgia. “Burned to a crisp in the company of several roasted rodents is
not
a nice way to go.”

The Internet journey to the palazzo was swift and brutal. Pandora’s eyelids were dragged back into her skull and her eyes streamed. It was
exactly
like being a bug stuck to the windshield of a speeding tractor-trailer. Space whooshed past her, deafening, blinding, and utterly terrifying. In the midst of the technological maelstrom, she caught a brief flash of something strangely familiar.… Several somethings, in fact.

Heading on a collision course toward Tarantella, Damp, and Pandora were the missing rat babies, their yellow teeth bared in the airflow, their tails streaming out behind them. Just as it seemed inevitable that the two parties of e-travelers should collide, the ratlets veered off to the left and vanished. Almost immediately, with an excruciatingly jarring impact, Pandora, Damp, and Tarantella arrived at the portal. The spider nimbly dragged her cargo onto a ledge, from where they could look down in safety onto the endless rush of traffic below.

“There,”
said Tarantella, “now you know. Just give me a minute to powder my nose and I’ll take you back home.”

“Where are we now?” groaned Pandora, checking herself for breakages.

“Does it matter?” said the spider, producing a tiny mirror
from a hidden pouch and peering at her reflection. “Let’s return this baby to where she belongs
before
she wakes up.…”

“I can’t go back yet,” whispered Pandora. “I have to find Dad.”

“You’ve lost your father?” Tarantella muttered through a mouthful of lipstick. She puckered up at her reflection with a kissing sound and continued, “How very careless of you.… I ate mine.”

Pandora shuddered. “Where’s the way out?” she said.

“Up thataway,” said the spider, indicating a steep tunnel leading away from their ledge.

Pandora stood up and hugged Tarantella. “Awwwk. My lipstick …,” moaned the spider. “What was
that
for?”

“Look after Damp till I return,” said Pandora, “and if I’m not back in twenty minutes, go home without me.”

“Now hang
on
a minute,” the spider said, her eyes growing saucer-like with alarm. “You’re
not
leaving me with this baby. No way. It might leak, it might smell, it might … WAKE UP AGAIN. No, no, NO. Wherever you go, I’ll be right behind you.”