The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived (38 page)

The
controller caught it from behind.

Up the
behind.

Right
up.

‘Ooooooow!’
he shrieked, leaping high and falling low. Fist down on the big, blood-red
button.

‘Zap
him, sonny, zap him.’

Jack
gave the prod a vicious thrust. In and up.

The
large controller’s mouth screamed open. Steam blew from his ears. His body
quivered and shook. Jack leapt back as sparks began to fly.

Old
Claude suddenly dived down his hands between his legs and did to the Rune that
held him, what the other Rune had done to Boris.

This
Rune took to the shrieking and the leaping high.

Old
Claude struggled to the Karmascope. ‘We’ve got to switch it off, sonny. Switch
it off.’

‘You
won’t,’ screamed the Rune with the internally worn cattle prod. ‘I’ve fixed it
so you can’t.’

And
then there was an appropriately Hellish bang as this Rune exploded into a
trillion twinkling, star-shaped shreddings and vanished into absolutely
nothing.

Clunk!
went the cattle prod falling onto the floor.

‘Got to
switch it off.’ Old Claude battered away at the Karmascope. The other Rune felt
this an appropriate time to slip away.

‘Don’t
let him do it,’ Old Claude told Jack. ‘Give him one up the chocolate speedway
with the prod. You know the form.’

‘I do,’
said Jack, advancing.

‘No,
please,’ said this Rune,
backing
away.

‘Don’t
like to rain on your march past,’ said Chunky. ‘But something’s going on in
the sky.’

And
something truly was.

A blue
light was swelling from the nose of the big sky nozzle. Fanning out.

Encompassing
the heavens.

And
such like.

About
the sun, in a glittering ellipse, which followed the path of Earth’s orbit,
they sparkled. Millions and billions and trillions.

Tiny
points of life. Basking in the light of sol.

Being
cosmic.

Blue
waves spread amongst them. Touched them. Jostled them.

Moved
them. Hurt them.

‘Ouch,’
they began to go. And ‘Oh!’ and ‘Help!’

‘Give
the bally thing a clout!’ bawled Chunky. ‘Out of the way, man, scrap’s my
business.’

‘No,’
cried Rune, turning to run.

‘Yes,’
cried Jack, wading in with the cattle prod.

‘Up,’ shouted the Rune on
Earth. ‘Get this thing into the sky.’

‘I’m
trying, but something’s interfering with the electric field.’

‘Ouch.
Oh and Help!’ wailed Norman, clinging to the saucer’s run. ‘Something
horrible’s happening to me.

Munch, went the
bolt-cutter of Cornelius Murphy.

Brum, Brum, went Tuppe’s
bulldozer, yards from the radio mast.

Rumble and roar, went the
tidal wave. Rushing forward. Big tall wave. Plenty of height.

Scream and flee, went the
townsfolk scrambling up Druid’s Tor.

‘Aaagh!’ went the zillions
of souls, as the blue light swept amongst them, shot around the sun in a
pulsating rush and tore down towards the Earth.

‘No!’ cried the Rune.

‘Yes,’
cried Jack.

Zap!
went the cattle prod.

Munch! went the
bolt-cutter.

Brum, went the bulldozer,
less than two yards in it now.

Rumble, rush and roar. The
tidal wave broke over the pier ends, and tore on towards the promenade.

‘Up!’ cried Rune to Boris.

‘Stuff
this,’ cried Norman, leaping at the transparent dome and yanking it open.

‘What?’
Rune looked up. But couldn’t see a thing. Norman
looked down. ‘Surprise,’ said he, dropping in the hand-grenade. ‘Oh, hello,
Boris.’

‘Oh,’
shrieked Boris as the hand-grenade fell into his lap. ‘Not another bomb.’

And then the mighty flash.
Two lines of electric-blue light searing down.

‘I had
best jump clear,’ said Tuppe. ‘But my trouser leg seems to be caught.’

‘I had
best climb down,’ said Cornelius. ‘But a tidal wave’s going to hit.’

‘I’d
best be out of here,’ said Boris, switching on his flying boots and shooting up
into the sky.

Well,
one out of three’s not bad.

But
it’s not very good either.

Down
came the blue light, engulfing the radio masts. Energy tore along the power
lines towards the piers.

Tuppe’s
bulldozer struck home.

The
Murphy bolt-cutter bit through the cable.

The
saucer containing Rune lurched to one side and smashed into a pylon.

But
nothing now could stop it.

Nothing
on the face of the Earth.

The
electrical discharge engulfed the power lines and pylons and hit the piers.

The
tidal wave hit Skelington Bay.

39

‘You’re overloading the
system,’ said an engineer in a vest and underpants.

‘You’ll
burn out all the fuses,’ said his companion, similarly clad.

‘Who
are you?’ asked Old Claude.

‘We’re
the two engineers your mate Norman dropped down the lift shaft. But due to a
continuity error we never got mentioned again.’

Kick,
Kick, Kick, Kick, went Chunky at the Karmascope.

‘He’ll
damage that unit,’ said the first engineer. ‘And it’s the only one we’ve
managed to keep working. Can’t get the parts, see. Put in chitties for them,
but does anyone listen?’

‘No,’
said his companion. ‘Last week I put in for a tube of flux, I had a two-micron
downgrade on my interositor.’

‘Turn
it off!’ yelled Old Claude. ‘If you know how to, turn it off!’

‘Blue
button,’ said the first engineer.

‘Blue
button?’

‘Blue
button.’

The
second engineer shrugged. ‘Half these fan belts want replacing,’ he told Jack
Bradshaw.

‘Really?’
said Jack.

‘Blue
button? Blue button?’

‘Oil
seals are going on a lot of the crank-cases too,’ said the first engineer.

‘Blue
button?’
shrieked Claude.

The
second engineer reached past him and pressed the blue button.

‘Oil’s
the big issue with these old engines,’ he told Jack. ‘Keep your engine well
lubricated and you won’t go wrong.

‘I’ll
remember that,’ said Jack.

‘Is
it off?’
Old Claude flailed his arms about. ‘Have
you switched it off? Has it stopped?’

‘Of
course it’s stopped. And you shouldn’t have been playing with it. It’s not a
toy. Who are you anyway?’

‘I’,
said Claude, with fire in his eyes, ‘am the real controller.
I
am Claude
Buttocks.’

The
engineers looked at one another.

‘Claude
Buttocks,’ said the first one. ‘Not as in—’

40

The old sun rose above
Druid’s Tot. It sparkled on the dew-damp hedgerows, glittered on the grass. The
sky was blue, the storm clouds gone. It looked like being a beautiful day.

The old
sun looked down with some wonder. It had seen sights before. Sights a-plenty.
But a sight such as this?

Not as
such.

There
were thousands of folk on the Tor.

Thousands.

They
stood, staring down at the town.

Exhausted.
Arms about one another’s shoulders. Hands holding hands. Some wept. Others
wrung their fingers, shook their heads and sighed.

For
what the old sun saw and these people saw was something awesome, unique.

A town
of two wrecked piers, fallen pylons, mangled cars and burnt-out buildings.
Abandoned military vehicles. Tom-up pavements. Smashed houses. Fallen shops.

A town
to inspire pity.

But
then, now, a town to inspire something more.

Because
here. This town. Skelington Bay. Here. Now.

Everything.
All. In its smallest detail. From pebbled sandy beach to loose roof slate.

Everything.

All.

The
entire town.

Was now
gold-plated.

Shining
like a fire in the sun.

And
that’s
something you don’t see every day.

41

‘Where am I?’ asked Tuppe.

‘You’re
with me.’

‘Oh
Cornelius, it’s you.’

‘It’s
me.

‘What
happened to us?’

‘I
don’t like to think. But I think I know.’

‘Then
we re— ‘Dead,’ said Norman, smiling from the desk in the room full of cabinets
and box files. ‘But look on the bright side. You may be dead, but at least
you’re in full-time, regular employment.’

42

Thelma and Louise looked
down upon the golden town.

‘They
didn’t make it,’ said Thelma.

‘No.’
Louise shook her head sadly. ‘But perhaps they stopped it. It all stopped.’

‘And
all the townsfolk survived. Which is something. But not enough.’

‘We’re
going to miss them,’ said Louise. ‘Miss them very much.’ Thelma sniffed away a
tear. She wasn’t into sentiment. But sometimes. Sometimes. When you really do
care.

Thelma
put her arm about the shoulder of Louise.

And
they both wept.

But the
sun shone higher. And around it, only slightly chaffed and feeling all cosmic
again, the zillions of souls hung in space.

Waiting.

43

‘Come on, guys,’ said
Norman. ‘It’s not as bad as you think. Well, it is, but you’ll get used to it.
The controller’s given me Jack Bradshaw’s job. And now everyone’s not going to
die, well, it’s a happy ending. Everyone likes a happy ending.’

‘I
don’t feel dead,’ said Tuppe. ‘But I do feel hungry.’

‘I’ll
show you the canteen. I’m sure there is a canteen, although I’ve not seen it
myself.’

‘I
assume all the Runes are dead and gone,’ said Cornelius.

‘I
assume so, although I lost count.’

‘God
will sort it out,’ said Tuppe.

‘Hugo
Rune was my dad,’ said Cornelius. ‘I still can’t believe what he did.’

‘My dad
fell out of the sky and snuffed me,’ said Norman. ‘Dads are not always to be
trusted.’

‘I
never thought they were.’

‘If we
have to work here,’ said Tuppe. ‘How long for? You said it was all to do with
the extension to Heaven getting completed, when is that going to happen?’

‘Not
long.

‘How
long?’

‘Well—’

‘Stop
it, Norman.’ Old Claude appeared at the door. He looked somewhat changed:
haircut, shaved chin, nice new suit. A white suit. ‘That’s quite enough.’

‘I was
going to tell them about the five-aside football,’ said Norman.

‘Quite
enough.’

‘What
is this?’ Cornelius asked.

‘He
knows,’ said Claude, winking at Norman. ‘Tell them.’

Norman
smiled. ‘You can go,’ said he. ‘I was only kidding, you don’t have to stay.

‘Say
again.’

‘I had
a word with the Big Figure,’ said Claude. ‘Told Him everything. About Rune and
Norman and you and Tuppe. He’s an all-right kind of guy, the Big Figure. Says
it’s bollocks on the inside the next time He creates a race.

‘I
don’t think I understand,’ said Tuppe.

‘You
don’t have to be dead any more,’ said Norman. ‘God says you can come back to
life. As a favour, seeing as what you did.’

‘You’re
joking? He didn’t?’

‘He
did,’ said Claude. ‘Out the door, turn left, take the lift down.’

‘No?’
said Cornelius. ‘I mean, thanks.’

‘Thank
Him,’
said Claude.