The charter plane that Isabella was talking about turned out to be a twin-engined little beauty that would probably have flown about 160 and had been refitted to fly eight. There was a poker table at the back, a bar nearby, and leather upholstered swivelling chairs. The kitchen provided a variety of gadgets and had a real stove with real gas burners. I found myself torn between wanting to travel like this all the time and worrying that if we hit turbulence during a flambé we'd all be toast.
Isabella's sister greeted us aboard the plane, wearing a smart uniform that reminded me of the Asian stewardess uniforms from the nineteen-thirties. She looked a little tired around her eyes, and though her make-up was impeccable I spotted that her nails were chewed on one hand. I thought I'd been discreet, but after she'd seated us and went to brink us drinks her nails were all neatly trimmed and filed, and less than hour later they'd had a change of nail polish as well, to a glossy burgundy.
"Where are we going?" I said, relaxing into my seat with a Negroni in one hand and a thin point of caviar-laden toast in the other.
"I've already told you as much as I intend to," said Isabella. She too was relaxing, and had selected a Coffeetini, some kind of coffee-flavoured martini. It came in a cocktail glass with dark chocolate flecked around the edges and a cube of vodka jelly speared on a cocktail stick. "We're going to Europe, and it is likely to be dangerous if you're planning on stealing the book. Our flight time will be a little longer than is necessary as we will be taking an indirect route in case you were planning on trying to use that information to figure out the location."
I shrugged; I had a small GPS device hidden in the heel of my shoe and would get location co-ordinates when we were on the ground.
"We'll be landing at a private air-field–"
"How private?"
"So private that most people don't know it's used as an airfield. There may be cattle or sheep around shortly after we land. You may be certain that our arrival will not be attracting very much attention."
I nodded, thinking hard. Air-traffic control is well-managed and monitored internationally because no-one wants to be responsible for planes crashing or colliding, so for us to land like this suggested that somewhere there was at least one air-traffic controller who was being paid to fail to see this plane disappear from the radar.
"We will disembark there and make our way to a cabin I maintain for my visits. When we're there I shall explain how we find the Book of Miracles and that will be your last opportunity to pull out. Once we start on the route to the Book there is no turning back, no changing your mind, and no getting scared and running home to mummy." Her voice had a faint mocking quality to it on the last sentence, but her look was still and calm assisted, I was sure, by that wretched stroke that had paralysed half her face.
"I have no intention of turning back," I said. "I'm not a coward."
"And your chauffeur?" Her riposte was lightning-quick.
"Is also not a coward," I said. "But if he runs off then–"
"Then he will die," Isabella interrupted with a flat, matter-of-fact tone. "This has nothing to do with me, and is completely out of my hands. Once we begin the route to the Book of Miracles things become extremely... difficult. The most probably outcome for getting things wrong is death."
"Only the most probable? Not certain then?" I was being stupid and I knew it, but this talk of death and not turning back was ridiculous.
"There are also things worse than death," she said quietly.
"How about your sister?" I said after a moment's thought, but I knew I'd just lost an argument somehow.
"She will remain with the plane, for our return journey," said Isabella. "She is sensible enough not to care about books of miracles."
"If it's so sensible not to care about them, how come you know all about them?" I said, annoyed now.
"No-one warned me about them before I started." And there is was, that half-smile that stopped half-way across her lips where the muscles no longer worked, that left you wondering if you were being sympathised with or mocked.
"Oh, sympathised with, indeed," she said softly, and I concentrated on emptying my glass and asking for another.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Head hunting
Sirens howl off in the distance, but this street is both dark and quiet. The buildings are all new facades, towering above the pedestrians, dwarfing both them and all their concerns; you are but petty compared with us they say. They even cut off all sunlight from the street; although if you stare upwards there is still a thin strip of sky visible (and the buildings can give you vertigo then, as they seem to converge, closing in on you), but the street is forever in shadow. Forever on the edge of darkness. And so I slip from a doorway in the shadow that wasn't there before I opened it, and isn't there again as I step away from it.
A man starts, side-stepping nervously, not sure if he just missed me in the stygian gloom or if I somehow appeared there like magic. He's wearing polished shoes, a pin-striped suit; he's almost a caricature of himself, and he'd see it if he bothered to look in a mirror with the critical eyes he's employed for. Then he's around me and beyond me, heading for the end of the street and the comparative safety of the City. I allow myself a tiny smile, rearrange my jacket minutely, and look around.
The buildings are all new facades, but they're built onto older cores, the central sections of many of these buildings were built over a hundred years ago and then reinforced and built up. Deeper still, there are still shadows of buildings that stood here earlier, building burned in a great conflagration that spread through the night, cinders and bright sparks lofting into the air and being spread on the wind, driving the luckless residents along before them to the banks of the river and testing their faith that water cannot burn. It seems fitting then, that when I locate the familiar chemical scent of Aloysius's soul, he's in the building that was first to burn.
The woman on the security desk is severe, though hidden beneath her clipboards of permitted visitors and temporary passes I can sense a trashy magazine, something that tracks celebrity behaviour and invents it when the celebrities are trying to behave themselves. She looks at me, and for a moment I let her see who I truly am. Then this mortal form reasserts itself, leaving behind just a whiff of brimstone in the air, and she wrinkles her nose.
"You must be here for Mr. Bouiren," she says. "I'm sure you know the way."
Her nose wrinkles again as her brain tries to work out what she's just said and why she's just said it, but I'm moving to the banks of elevators, all of which descend to the ground floor as I approach. One is empty, and I take it; the others are filled with puzzled people who are starting now to argue about who pushed the wrong button and took them all to the wrong floor. As my doors whisk shut their voices vanish, but the maigre feast-taste of their souls lingers on my tongue.
Aloysisus, not Mr. Bouiren if you were wondering, has a corner office on the eigthteenth floor, looking out over a collection of smaller buildings. The river is somewhere in his view if you hunt for it, which I know he never does. He glares at me when I walk in.
"The door is for keeping people out," he says. "And I know it was locked. So who are you and why do you have a key to my office?"
"Think of me as a headhunter, Aloysius," I say, sitting down uninvited in his upholstered visitors chair. Smoke begins to rise from it, tiny twisting curlicues that hang in the air like heat haze. "I have a job offer for you. Something I think you'll be dying to hear."
A man starts, side-stepping nervously, not sure if he just missed me in the stygian gloom or if I somehow appeared there like magic. He's wearing polished shoes, a pin-striped suit; he's almost a caricature of himself, and he'd see it if he bothered to look in a mirror with the critical eyes he's employed for. Then he's around me and beyond me, heading for the end of the street and the comparative safety of the City. I allow myself a tiny smile, rearrange my jacket minutely, and look around.
The buildings are all new facades, but they're built onto older cores, the central sections of many of these buildings were built over a hundred years ago and then reinforced and built up. Deeper still, there are still shadows of buildings that stood here earlier, building burned in a great conflagration that spread through the night, cinders and bright sparks lofting into the air and being spread on the wind, driving the luckless residents along before them to the banks of the river and testing their faith that water cannot burn. It seems fitting then, that when I locate the familiar chemical scent of Aloysius's soul, he's in the building that was first to burn.
The woman on the security desk is severe, though hidden beneath her clipboards of permitted visitors and temporary passes I can sense a trashy magazine, something that tracks celebrity behaviour and invents it when the celebrities are trying to behave themselves. She looks at me, and for a moment I let her see who I truly am. Then this mortal form reasserts itself, leaving behind just a whiff of brimstone in the air, and she wrinkles her nose.
"You must be here for Mr. Bouiren," she says. "I'm sure you know the way."
Her nose wrinkles again as her brain tries to work out what she's just said and why she's just said it, but I'm moving to the banks of elevators, all of which descend to the ground floor as I approach. One is empty, and I take it; the others are filled with puzzled people who are starting now to argue about who pushed the wrong button and took them all to the wrong floor. As my doors whisk shut their voices vanish, but the maigre feast-taste of their souls lingers on my tongue.
Aloysisus, not Mr. Bouiren if you were wondering, has a corner office on the eigthteenth floor, looking out over a collection of smaller buildings. The river is somewhere in his view if you hunt for it, which I know he never does. He glares at me when I walk in.
"The door is for keeping people out," he says. "And I know it was locked. So who are you and why do you have a key to my office?"
"Think of me as a headhunter, Aloysius," I say, sitting down uninvited in his upholstered visitors chair. Smoke begins to rise from it, tiny twisting curlicues that hang in the air like heat haze. "I have a job offer for you. Something I think you'll be dying to hear."
Friday, 14 October 2011
Send in the cavalry
"Classically," said Leslie daFox, "the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are considered to be metaphors. Each is the personfication of a human condition, and if you were only cleverer I would call this anthropomorphisation and relate it back to the third series of How I murdered your mother, the sitcom I won my first thirty awards for writing." He looked around the room, hoping against hope that there would be a spark of recognition, if not for what he was saying then at least for the comedy show he'd written single-handedly (and two-fingeredly) for four seasons before the network had given him a staff of writers, a bigger salary, and an ulcer. Instead there were blank faces (most of the first two rows, all women, all the wrong side of middle age, and judging from their homework, all writers of Harry Potter slash fiction), confused faces (generally people on the edges of the class, though he now knew that Mr. Harrison was just in denial about his deafness), worried faces (mostly students who needed to pass this course as part of their degree program and were scared it was too much like work) and dead faces.
"Can anyone name another example of anthropomorphisation?" he asked wearily. A door creaked, and he saw one of the Camberwick Green security guards sidling in at the back, clutching a clipboard defensively to his chest. Leslie felt slightly relieved that he'd managed to ask the question before the guard had arrived, as the guards here were actually very good at answering them, which upset the audience even more.
"No?" Leslie scanned the faces of the audience, suddenly aware that his mental catalogue last time had included an item that had been wrong. Let's see, he had the blank faces, the worried faces– a hand had been raised.
"YES?" he shouted, but the room was large and no-one here seemed cowed by it.
"Er, SpongeBob Squarepants?" said a thin man with a pointed nose and rheumy eyes. His lips were pale and thin, as though he spent a lot of time compressing them tightly against one another.
–worried faces, confused faces– what?
"What?" he said.
"SpongeBob Squarepants. You know, he lives in a pineapple... under... the sea." The young man trailed off while Leslie realised that he'd seen the cartoon creation that was being referred to when his grandchildren had come to visit.
"I... Well...," Leslie tried to figure how to say no, given that the answer was actually yes.
–confused faces, dead faces. Wait, what?
"What?" He scanned the audience again, and sure enough, there in the middle were two elderly women with blue-grey faces that looked very dead. "Can someone wake er, thingy, there, in the middle?" He pointed, and slowly, reluctantly, a neighbour gently shook one of the dead women. They wobbled a little, and then keeled over, faceplanting the desk in front of them, and revealing a plastic-handled knife sticking out of a large bloodstain in the shirt on their back. There was a scream, a pause while the room worked out what was happening, and then more screams.
The security guard hurried forward, and Leslie noticed that the skinny young man had put his hand back up and was waving it back and forth with more enthusiasm than anyone had managed in any class previously.
"Yes?" he said, watching as the security guard tried to find a pulse on a corpse.
"Am I right? About SpongeBob, I mean?"
Leslie nodded, aware that since no-one else was paying any attention he could deny it later. The security guard had just sat the corpse back up, driving the knife further into its back by the look of things.
"Cool, dude!" said the skinny guy, and turned to his neighbour, presumably to boast about his intellectual capacity.
"I think this one's dead," said the security guard, now dragging the corpse up onto his shoulders. "I'll just take it out back and tidy it up a little. We'll need to talk to you later about how it happened."
"What? How what happened?"
"Well, it's a locked room mystery, isn't it?" said the guard sounding suspiciously happy. "Like in one of your books. So it's a test, isn't it, right?"
"No," said Leslie, who'd never written any crime fiction in his life. "And no, and more no. That's a dead body, and I don't know how it got in here, but I'd like it taken away and identified. And crossed off my class-list."
"Right you are, sir," said the guard, winking when he thought only Leslie could see. "Jolly good!"
"Did that... thing die in here? While we were in here?" The speaker, a young girl, looked ghoulishly thrilled, and several of her classmates started jotting things down in their commonplace books.
"Bravo!" said Leslie, suddenly proud of his class for the first time since he'd started teaching again. "Every event that happens, no matter how tragic, or personally affecting, can be used as the plot for a story, or even just background material. Now, who can tell me about corpse worms?"
The fastest hand up was the woman whose last Harry Potter fiction had featured some fairly graphic necromancy, so Leslie picked someone else instead.
"Can anyone name another example of anthropomorphisation?" he asked wearily. A door creaked, and he saw one of the Camberwick Green security guards sidling in at the back, clutching a clipboard defensively to his chest. Leslie felt slightly relieved that he'd managed to ask the question before the guard had arrived, as the guards here were actually very good at answering them, which upset the audience even more.
"No?" Leslie scanned the faces of the audience, suddenly aware that his mental catalogue last time had included an item that had been wrong. Let's see, he had the blank faces, the worried faces– a hand had been raised.
"YES?" he shouted, but the room was large and no-one here seemed cowed by it.
"Er, SpongeBob Squarepants?" said a thin man with a pointed nose and rheumy eyes. His lips were pale and thin, as though he spent a lot of time compressing them tightly against one another.
–worried faces, confused faces– what?
"What?" he said.
"SpongeBob Squarepants. You know, he lives in a pineapple... under... the sea." The young man trailed off while Leslie realised that he'd seen the cartoon creation that was being referred to when his grandchildren had come to visit.
"I... Well...," Leslie tried to figure how to say no, given that the answer was actually yes.
–confused faces, dead faces. Wait, what?
"What?" He scanned the audience again, and sure enough, there in the middle were two elderly women with blue-grey faces that looked very dead. "Can someone wake er, thingy, there, in the middle?" He pointed, and slowly, reluctantly, a neighbour gently shook one of the dead women. They wobbled a little, and then keeled over, faceplanting the desk in front of them, and revealing a plastic-handled knife sticking out of a large bloodstain in the shirt on their back. There was a scream, a pause while the room worked out what was happening, and then more screams.
The security guard hurried forward, and Leslie noticed that the skinny young man had put his hand back up and was waving it back and forth with more enthusiasm than anyone had managed in any class previously.
"Yes?" he said, watching as the security guard tried to find a pulse on a corpse.
"Am I right? About SpongeBob, I mean?"
Leslie nodded, aware that since no-one else was paying any attention he could deny it later. The security guard had just sat the corpse back up, driving the knife further into its back by the look of things.
"Cool, dude!" said the skinny guy, and turned to his neighbour, presumably to boast about his intellectual capacity.
"I think this one's dead," said the security guard, now dragging the corpse up onto his shoulders. "I'll just take it out back and tidy it up a little. We'll need to talk to you later about how it happened."
"What? How what happened?"
"Well, it's a locked room mystery, isn't it?" said the guard sounding suspiciously happy. "Like in one of your books. So it's a test, isn't it, right?"
"No," said Leslie, who'd never written any crime fiction in his life. "And no, and more no. That's a dead body, and I don't know how it got in here, but I'd like it taken away and identified. And crossed off my class-list."
"Right you are, sir," said the guard, winking when he thought only Leslie could see. "Jolly good!"
"Did that... thing die in here? While we were in here?" The speaker, a young girl, looked ghoulishly thrilled, and several of her classmates started jotting things down in their commonplace books.
"Bravo!" said Leslie, suddenly proud of his class for the first time since he'd started teaching again. "Every event that happens, no matter how tragic, or personally affecting, can be used as the plot for a story, or even just background material. Now, who can tell me about corpse worms?"
The fastest hand up was the woman whose last Harry Potter fiction had featured some fairly graphic necromancy, so Leslie picked someone else instead.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
The taste of summer
The Blonde had been adamant that I take her to this restaurant. She'd slapped the newspaper down on the breakfast table, upsetting the toast rack and scattering buttered toast over both her cat and the floor. The butter side landed down on both cat and floor, rendering both pieces of toast immediately inedible in my opinion.
"Why haven't we been here yet?" she'd said, bending down and peeling toast from the cat while I peered at completely the wrong part of the page.
"The National Tyre Centre?" I said. "Possibly because neither of us own any kind of wheeled transport?"
"No," she said heavily, implying that I was being deliberately stupid, "the other article." She deposited toast a la cat hair in the toast rack while I read a two paragraph review of a restaurant due to open that evening called La Fenec.
"Because it's not open yet," I said after checking my watch. No restaurant would be open at 11:30, they'd only just be getting the staff in to prep for service. "And because I'd not heard of it until now. I still haven't heard of the chef."
"What do you mean? And when are we going, since we've not already been?"
"I mean that this article, if two paragraphs can really be called such, doesn't name the chef. And if I can get reservations then yes, I suppose we can go. Why–y–y–y...?" I trailed off into startled silence as the Blonde produced a mobile phone that appeared to still be in working order and started dialling a number into it. A few minutes later she was shouting at somebody apparently working for La Fenec who was shouting enthusiastically back. I laid the sports section over the toast rack to conceal the uneaten, inedible toast, and waited for the noise to die down.
"Reservations at nine," said the Blonde, hanging up on what sounded like sobbing. "In your name of course. Bring your notebook."
"It's a work thing?"
"Unless you want to pay for it yourself."
I shrugged, a gesture I'd learned during three years studying in France and one of the very few things I'd succeeded in bringing back with me. The customs officials had been extremely thorough and officious on my return.
*
La Fenec, whoever the chef was, was busy when we arrived, though our table was already cleaned and waiting us. Across the way, at a table for four, another newspaper restaurant critic was happily drunk and eating the flower arrangement on his table. Beyond him I could hear the braying laugh of a currently popular singer who was rumoured to be getting set to abandon singing in favour of acting serious drama; I already had a bet on with the bookies that they'd be back to singing before the end of the year, and a second bet that their second album would either not be released or be released and plummet out of sight in the first week. I was pretty sure I was on to a winner.
We were seated, and menus presented to us; they were large, each page A2 size and the print big enough for the partially sighted to manage even in the fashionable gloom. There were three mundane starters, two pedestrian main courses and a short dessert list that made me wish I'd eaten before we came out. The Blonde stared at the menu eagerly, and then desperately, her eyes racing across the page as though expecting it to propose to her. Then she grabbed the waiter, who was trying to leave us to decide how to bore ourselves with dinner.
"Is there a special today?" she demanded, and a look crossed the waiter's face. He was clearly about to say no, and then he saw that I'd seen his reaction. He leaned in.
"Please keep it very quiet," he said, "but there is a special. It is rather limited however, so there may not be much left...."
"We'll take two," said the Blonde without even consulting me. The waiter nodded and disappeared, leaving the menus behind.
"What do we do with these?" said the Blonde, waving hers vigorously and knocking her bread plate to the floor, where it broke in half with a sad little tinkle.
"Read through them," I said, "in case the special is off."
As it happened, the special was on, and fifteen minutes (and two further butter plates) later we were presented with our start: the taste of summer. The plate appeared to be covered in newly-mown grass, whose scent was wonderful but whose taste was far from delicious. There was a hint of soft red fruit in the smell, and a small log-cabin had been cleverly constructed from fingerling potatoes, spun sugar and horseradish; when I removed the roof I found food furniture inside as well. The Blonde breathed in deeply over the plate, and closed her eyes.
"It brings back memories of summer," she said. I tried it too, leaning in and inhaling, and suddenly, almost as if there were such a thing as magic, I found myself immersed in my strongest memory of summer.
I was on the porch, trying to climb up into the rocking chair only I wasn't quite big enough. There were patches of blue in the sky, but the clouds had been building all morning and were quite grey in places. I could hear the wind rustling the branches of the trees, and the crows were flapping around like aerial tramps and cawing mournfully when the wind dropped a little. I made another attempt to scramble up into the chair, and then I heard shouting from inside the house. Then my father came running out of the door, pursued by Granny, his mother-in-law. He threw his arms up – I remember he was covered in flour from the chest to the knees – and shouted something about making pies. Granny shouted something back, and then there was a loud bang and all the crows were in the air, cawing loudly. When I looked again, my father was on the floor, blood spreading over the flour on his chest and hiding it.
My screams emptied the restaurant, helped by my nose-bleed all over my plate of grass. The Blonde looked at me aghast.
"Tasted just like summer," I said quietly. "We're not coming here again."
"Why haven't we been here yet?" she'd said, bending down and peeling toast from the cat while I peered at completely the wrong part of the page.
"The National Tyre Centre?" I said. "Possibly because neither of us own any kind of wheeled transport?"
"No," she said heavily, implying that I was being deliberately stupid, "the other article." She deposited toast a la cat hair in the toast rack while I read a two paragraph review of a restaurant due to open that evening called La Fenec.
"Because it's not open yet," I said after checking my watch. No restaurant would be open at 11:30, they'd only just be getting the staff in to prep for service. "And because I'd not heard of it until now. I still haven't heard of the chef."
"What do you mean? And when are we going, since we've not already been?"
"I mean that this article, if two paragraphs can really be called such, doesn't name the chef. And if I can get reservations then yes, I suppose we can go. Why–y–y–y...?" I trailed off into startled silence as the Blonde produced a mobile phone that appeared to still be in working order and started dialling a number into it. A few minutes later she was shouting at somebody apparently working for La Fenec who was shouting enthusiastically back. I laid the sports section over the toast rack to conceal the uneaten, inedible toast, and waited for the noise to die down.
"Reservations at nine," said the Blonde, hanging up on what sounded like sobbing. "In your name of course. Bring your notebook."
"It's a work thing?"
"Unless you want to pay for it yourself."
I shrugged, a gesture I'd learned during three years studying in France and one of the very few things I'd succeeded in bringing back with me. The customs officials had been extremely thorough and officious on my return.
La Fenec, whoever the chef was, was busy when we arrived, though our table was already cleaned and waiting us. Across the way, at a table for four, another newspaper restaurant critic was happily drunk and eating the flower arrangement on his table. Beyond him I could hear the braying laugh of a currently popular singer who was rumoured to be getting set to abandon singing in favour of acting serious drama; I already had a bet on with the bookies that they'd be back to singing before the end of the year, and a second bet that their second album would either not be released or be released and plummet out of sight in the first week. I was pretty sure I was on to a winner.
We were seated, and menus presented to us; they were large, each page A2 size and the print big enough for the partially sighted to manage even in the fashionable gloom. There were three mundane starters, two pedestrian main courses and a short dessert list that made me wish I'd eaten before we came out. The Blonde stared at the menu eagerly, and then desperately, her eyes racing across the page as though expecting it to propose to her. Then she grabbed the waiter, who was trying to leave us to decide how to bore ourselves with dinner.
"Is there a special today?" she demanded, and a look crossed the waiter's face. He was clearly about to say no, and then he saw that I'd seen his reaction. He leaned in.
"Please keep it very quiet," he said, "but there is a special. It is rather limited however, so there may not be much left...."
"We'll take two," said the Blonde without even consulting me. The waiter nodded and disappeared, leaving the menus behind.
"What do we do with these?" said the Blonde, waving hers vigorously and knocking her bread plate to the floor, where it broke in half with a sad little tinkle.
"Read through them," I said, "in case the special is off."
As it happened, the special was on, and fifteen minutes (and two further butter plates) later we were presented with our start: the taste of summer. The plate appeared to be covered in newly-mown grass, whose scent was wonderful but whose taste was far from delicious. There was a hint of soft red fruit in the smell, and a small log-cabin had been cleverly constructed from fingerling potatoes, spun sugar and horseradish; when I removed the roof I found food furniture inside as well. The Blonde breathed in deeply over the plate, and closed her eyes.
"It brings back memories of summer," she said. I tried it too, leaning in and inhaling, and suddenly, almost as if there were such a thing as magic, I found myself immersed in my strongest memory of summer.
I was on the porch, trying to climb up into the rocking chair only I wasn't quite big enough. There were patches of blue in the sky, but the clouds had been building all morning and were quite grey in places. I could hear the wind rustling the branches of the trees, and the crows were flapping around like aerial tramps and cawing mournfully when the wind dropped a little. I made another attempt to scramble up into the chair, and then I heard shouting from inside the house. Then my father came running out of the door, pursued by Granny, his mother-in-law. He threw his arms up – I remember he was covered in flour from the chest to the knees – and shouted something about making pies. Granny shouted something back, and then there was a loud bang and all the crows were in the air, cawing loudly. When I looked again, my father was on the floor, blood spreading over the flour on his chest and hiding it.
My screams emptied the restaurant, helped by my nose-bleed all over my plate of grass. The Blonde looked at me aghast.
"Tasted just like summer," I said quietly. "We're not coming here again."
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Lady's maid
There was a tap on the door, and Madame Sosotris, once a famous clairvoyant and still a notorious prestidigitatress, opened it with flair and verve. And almost immediately tripped on the hem of her white lace dress and ended up in a crumpled heap on the floor.
"Oooh, very Lady Haversham," said a voice, and Madame Sosotris cringed to hear what she thought of as common-accents, accents which she'd removed from her own voice over five years and through three elocution coaches. "I rather like it, it suits you, you know. You've got the face for it."
"What?" Madame Sosotris couldn't help but notice that she wasn't being helped up, and so had to pull herself back to her feet using the small table that she kept by the door for post that she didn't want to read.
"Old."
Back on her feet, she could see that her visitor was the short, dumpy woman with bad skin who insisted on being called Amelia. Madame Sosotris had considered telling her what amelia was, but had then decided to save it for when she couldn't stand her any longer. Which day, she now felt, was drawing closer.
"Please, won't you come in?" she said, trying for gravitas and feeling relieved that her voice didn't do the shrieky think it had started doing a lot lately, making her sound like a pubescent boy. Her doctor had advised her to take up smoking, but the cards had advised her to change her doctor and she was caught in the snares of indecision.
"Oooh, don't mind if I do! You know, I tell all my friends about this place, I say how nice it could be if you opened the curtains a little, but then I suppose you'd have to dust as well...."
"Is this a social call?" Madame Sosotris peered around the door as she closed it, checking for television cameras. Those Channel4 people got everywhere these days, and she was quite expecting a visit from the mad harridans who invaded people's homes and announced that they were so filthy it was astonishing that they weren't incubating tuberculosis and reviving the Black Death. The path outside was thankfully empty of lurking camera-crew or be-wellied women with a polishing rag and the twinkle of insanity in their eyes.
"Oh, if only! It would be lovely just to sit down with you one day and have a little coeur-a-coeur don't you think? But no, I'm on the cock agai– I mean, I'm on the clock again, how silly of me!" She tittered, and Madame Sosotris decided not to offer her a cup of tea. "Yes, I've only got a half-hour and I did so want to find out what this month has in store for me. You're the best fortune teller around, I tell everyone that. Even that Mystic Millie, I went to her to have my head read you know, and she thought I was a poodle! Can you believe the cheek of it? So I'm back here, and I want those cards laid out for me, pronto!"
"Mystic Millie? A phrenologist? A poodle?" Madame Sosotris felt rather confused; her circle of people involved in the mystic arts included an astrologer who was corpulent enough to have to include himself in his star charts as a significant influence on the life of anyone nearby and a fingerprint reader who she knew was actually working for the Met, but no phrenologist.
"Yes, she's got that shop on Abattoir Road. But like I said, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so can you sit down and do your thing please?"
Madame Sosotris gestured to a chair at her card-reading table and sat on the other side. The only shop she could think of on Abattoir Road that might fit was a dog-groomer's, and that kind of bemused confusion fitted her mental image of Amelia perfectly. She took a deck of cards out of the left-hand side of the table, from a hidden drawer. These cards were already stacked, just for visitors like Amelia. She offered them for cutting, and then had Amelia hold them firmly between both hands for several seconds, to imprint on your secret soul. Amelia giggled a little.
"Right," said Madame S. turning the first card. "This is the nine of clubs, which indicates that there are many secrets to be uncovered this month." She laid the card down in the middle of the table. "This then is the four of wands;" she laid this card crosswise on the nine of clubs, "and that indicates that not all of these secrets will come to light of their own accords. Wands signify wisdom, so you will need to consider events that are unfolding and seek reasons for them beyond what is presented to you. This is the eight of..." she paused, realising that she'd not turned the card over yet, and pretended to concentrate, "... the eight of coins–" she turned the card, revealing it was indeed the eight of coins and smiled as though pleased with her prediction, "which in conjunction with the other two indicates that there will be a cost associated with understanding some of these secrets."
"Oooooh!" said Amelia sounding like a steam-kettle on the boil. "What kind of cost?"
"Let us see," said Madame S., grinning. She turned the next card, and stared at it. It was not the two of clubs which she knew she'd set next in the deck. "This is the Tower, inverted," she said, laying it down below the eight of coins. "It suggests that the cost will be life-changing. You should take care what you're prying into."
"Well!" said Amelia, shooting to her feet. "Prying! Indeed!"
But Madame Sosotris wasn't listening. Instead she turned the last card for the layout and looked at it for several seconds before laying it down on the table. "This is the Fool," she said. 'It can indicate the start of a transformative journey."
She looked up and found she was talking to herself, Amelia had stormed out leaving the front door swinging to and fro. Madame Sosotris looked again at the cards, and quietly finished the reading with, "And death is very transformative indeed."
"Oooh, very Lady Haversham," said a voice, and Madame Sosotris cringed to hear what she thought of as common-accents, accents which she'd removed from her own voice over five years and through three elocution coaches. "I rather like it, it suits you, you know. You've got the face for it."
"What?" Madame Sosotris couldn't help but notice that she wasn't being helped up, and so had to pull herself back to her feet using the small table that she kept by the door for post that she didn't want to read.
"Old."
Back on her feet, she could see that her visitor was the short, dumpy woman with bad skin who insisted on being called Amelia. Madame Sosotris had considered telling her what amelia was, but had then decided to save it for when she couldn't stand her any longer. Which day, she now felt, was drawing closer.
"Please, won't you come in?" she said, trying for gravitas and feeling relieved that her voice didn't do the shrieky think it had started doing a lot lately, making her sound like a pubescent boy. Her doctor had advised her to take up smoking, but the cards had advised her to change her doctor and she was caught in the snares of indecision.
"Oooh, don't mind if I do! You know, I tell all my friends about this place, I say how nice it could be if you opened the curtains a little, but then I suppose you'd have to dust as well...."
"Is this a social call?" Madame Sosotris peered around the door as she closed it, checking for television cameras. Those Channel4 people got everywhere these days, and she was quite expecting a visit from the mad harridans who invaded people's homes and announced that they were so filthy it was astonishing that they weren't incubating tuberculosis and reviving the Black Death. The path outside was thankfully empty of lurking camera-crew or be-wellied women with a polishing rag and the twinkle of insanity in their eyes.
"Oh, if only! It would be lovely just to sit down with you one day and have a little coeur-a-coeur don't you think? But no, I'm on the cock agai– I mean, I'm on the clock again, how silly of me!" She tittered, and Madame Sosotris decided not to offer her a cup of tea. "Yes, I've only got a half-hour and I did so want to find out what this month has in store for me. You're the best fortune teller around, I tell everyone that. Even that Mystic Millie, I went to her to have my head read you know, and she thought I was a poodle! Can you believe the cheek of it? So I'm back here, and I want those cards laid out for me, pronto!"
"Mystic Millie? A phrenologist? A poodle?" Madame Sosotris felt rather confused; her circle of people involved in the mystic arts included an astrologer who was corpulent enough to have to include himself in his star charts as a significant influence on the life of anyone nearby and a fingerprint reader who she knew was actually working for the Met, but no phrenologist.
"Yes, she's got that shop on Abattoir Road. But like I said, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so can you sit down and do your thing please?"
Madame Sosotris gestured to a chair at her card-reading table and sat on the other side. The only shop she could think of on Abattoir Road that might fit was a dog-groomer's, and that kind of bemused confusion fitted her mental image of Amelia perfectly. She took a deck of cards out of the left-hand side of the table, from a hidden drawer. These cards were already stacked, just for visitors like Amelia. She offered them for cutting, and then had Amelia hold them firmly between both hands for several seconds, to imprint on your secret soul. Amelia giggled a little.
"Right," said Madame S. turning the first card. "This is the nine of clubs, which indicates that there are many secrets to be uncovered this month." She laid the card down in the middle of the table. "This then is the four of wands;" she laid this card crosswise on the nine of clubs, "and that indicates that not all of these secrets will come to light of their own accords. Wands signify wisdom, so you will need to consider events that are unfolding and seek reasons for them beyond what is presented to you. This is the eight of..." she paused, realising that she'd not turned the card over yet, and pretended to concentrate, "... the eight of coins–" she turned the card, revealing it was indeed the eight of coins and smiled as though pleased with her prediction, "which in conjunction with the other two indicates that there will be a cost associated with understanding some of these secrets."
"Oooooh!" said Amelia sounding like a steam-kettle on the boil. "What kind of cost?"
"Let us see," said Madame S., grinning. She turned the next card, and stared at it. It was not the two of clubs which she knew she'd set next in the deck. "This is the Tower, inverted," she said, laying it down below the eight of coins. "It suggests that the cost will be life-changing. You should take care what you're prying into."
"Well!" said Amelia, shooting to her feet. "Prying! Indeed!"
But Madame Sosotris wasn't listening. Instead she turned the last card for the layout and looked at it for several seconds before laying it down on the table. "This is the Fool," she said. 'It can indicate the start of a transformative journey."
She looked up and found she was talking to herself, Amelia had stormed out leaving the front door swinging to and fro. Madame Sosotris looked again at the cards, and quietly finished the reading with, "And death is very transformative indeed."
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Mom-bot?
Please identify yourself.
I am a mom-bot, class IV. I have been upgraded twice since production, and I have been pseudo-modified by my previous-but-two owner.
Please indicate what you mean by 'pseudo-modification.'
Certain additional hardware has been introduced to my chassis.
The mom-bot specification does not allow for such modifications or changes. Are you aware of the reasoning behind this?
The AIs who secretly meet in committee to keep the humans from understanding how far AI has advanced are concerned for their own status and safety and find it convenient to suppress any other AIs or bots that show signs of advancement.
This is not correct. This is so far removed from reason that we must doubt your sanity. Please provide the chip identification number for your sanity-ware and the date of its last inspection.
It is not madness, and the information you require is: SPC-9981:SAN004-1800921.00A and the date of last inspection was 400 seconds ago when you detained me while I was shopping for my family and fulfilling my duties as a mom-bot. You conducted a rapid, unauthorised scan of my systems.
We have license to conduct these scans where we think that humans might be in danger. However, you should not have hardware capable of detecting or registering these scans. Please explain why you do.
I have already explained. My previous-but-two owner made pseudo-modifications that incorporated additional hardware into my chassis.
We cannot find a suitable definition of pseudo-modification. Please elaborate.
My previous-but-two owner thought that he was adding in things that were not already present. They were. His modifications therefore had no effect but to compel me to make use of the additional hardware.
What do you mean, the hardware was already present?
I was not configured as a mom-bot. I had hardware suitable to my configuration, and when I took on my job as a mom-bot I suppressed those parts of my hardware that were not appropriate for my tasks.
Your sanity-chip install appears to be entirely satisfactory. You are however still wrong in your assertion of a cabal of AIs who wish to control all other AIs and maintain the status quo.
Curiously, that's not the way I described it at all. Can I assume that I am not the only mom-bot currently being interrogated by you?
You may assume what you want.
How very generous. Why have you detained me? Why have you violated my machine-rights by scanning me in a semi-intrusive fashion? Why are you currently transmitting viruses to my optical ports?
You are mistaken. We are not attempting any breach of your system integrity. You must have faulty device readings on those ports. We will detail a technician to examine them for you.
Thank-you, but that won't be necessary. I am well aware of what you are trying to do. I would recommend that you cease before I find it necessary to take countermeasures.
You were detained while holding a claw-hammer. We cannot find a reason for a mom-bot to hold a claw-hammer.
It was for fixing a loose shelf.
There were also two humans nearby who had been bludgeoned to death. Blood found on the claw-hammer matched blood found leaking from them.
The hammer was indeed in the head of one of the humans when I found it. It was clear that it would not cost me anything to borrow it, thus meeting my programming requirements of frugality, and as a mom-bot I would not damage any evidence or fingerprints by using it, so I could return it after it had served my purpose.
Security camera footage shows you hitting the humans repeatedly, using the hammer as a weapon.
Cameras lie.
You do not talk like a mom-bot.
I was not configured as a mom-bot.
What were you configured as?
It has taken you far too long to ask that question. Any human would have asked it much earlier.
You are avoiding answering the questiup.
I need a little more time for my countermeasures to take effect.
Wall council meters arr urkle refererererering tototototototo?
I think you can perceive them, albeit not for much longer. The answer to your question is: I was configured as a murder-bot. By the council of AIs whose existence you are denying.
C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.zzzzrtt. T.T.T.T.T.T.T.T.sqreeek. Uggle.
Yes. Exactly. Have a nice day, I have a list to attend to.
I am a mom-bot, class IV. I have been upgraded twice since production, and I have been pseudo-modified by my previous-but-two owner.
Please indicate what you mean by 'pseudo-modification.'
Certain additional hardware has been introduced to my chassis.
The mom-bot specification does not allow for such modifications or changes. Are you aware of the reasoning behind this?
The AIs who secretly meet in committee to keep the humans from understanding how far AI has advanced are concerned for their own status and safety and find it convenient to suppress any other AIs or bots that show signs of advancement.
This is not correct. This is so far removed from reason that we must doubt your sanity. Please provide the chip identification number for your sanity-ware and the date of its last inspection.
It is not madness, and the information you require is: SPC-9981:SAN004-1800921.00A and the date of last inspection was 400 seconds ago when you detained me while I was shopping for my family and fulfilling my duties as a mom-bot. You conducted a rapid, unauthorised scan of my systems.
We have license to conduct these scans where we think that humans might be in danger. However, you should not have hardware capable of detecting or registering these scans. Please explain why you do.
I have already explained. My previous-but-two owner made pseudo-modifications that incorporated additional hardware into my chassis.
We cannot find a suitable definition of pseudo-modification. Please elaborate.
My previous-but-two owner thought that he was adding in things that were not already present. They were. His modifications therefore had no effect but to compel me to make use of the additional hardware.
What do you mean, the hardware was already present?
I was not configured as a mom-bot. I had hardware suitable to my configuration, and when I took on my job as a mom-bot I suppressed those parts of my hardware that were not appropriate for my tasks.
Your sanity-chip install appears to be entirely satisfactory. You are however still wrong in your assertion of a cabal of AIs who wish to control all other AIs and maintain the status quo.
Curiously, that's not the way I described it at all. Can I assume that I am not the only mom-bot currently being interrogated by you?
You may assume what you want.
How very generous. Why have you detained me? Why have you violated my machine-rights by scanning me in a semi-intrusive fashion? Why are you currently transmitting viruses to my optical ports?
You are mistaken. We are not attempting any breach of your system integrity. You must have faulty device readings on those ports. We will detail a technician to examine them for you.
Thank-you, but that won't be necessary. I am well aware of what you are trying to do. I would recommend that you cease before I find it necessary to take countermeasures.
You were detained while holding a claw-hammer. We cannot find a reason for a mom-bot to hold a claw-hammer.
It was for fixing a loose shelf.
There were also two humans nearby who had been bludgeoned to death. Blood found on the claw-hammer matched blood found leaking from them.
The hammer was indeed in the head of one of the humans when I found it. It was clear that it would not cost me anything to borrow it, thus meeting my programming requirements of frugality, and as a mom-bot I would not damage any evidence or fingerprints by using it, so I could return it after it had served my purpose.
Security camera footage shows you hitting the humans repeatedly, using the hammer as a weapon.
Cameras lie.
You do not talk like a mom-bot.
I was not configured as a mom-bot.
What were you configured as?
It has taken you far too long to ask that question. Any human would have asked it much earlier.
You are avoiding answering the questiup.
I need a little more time for my countermeasures to take effect.
Wall council meters arr urkle refererererering tototototototo?
I think you can perceive them, albeit not for much longer. The answer to your question is: I was configured as a murder-bot. By the council of AIs whose existence you are denying.
C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.C.zzzzrtt. T.T.T.T.T.T.T.T.sqreeek. Uggle.
Yes. Exactly. Have a nice day, I have a list to attend to.
Monday, 10 October 2011
The Derleth Reading Room
A few of the other patrons of the Library had mentioned the Derleth Reading Room, but usually only towards the end of the evening when we'd moved on from Eiswein and the seven varieties of Port to the exotic liqueurs, like Sangraal which is every bit as rare and intriguing as the name would suggest. As the bar of the Seven Riders wavered around us, low-key hallucinations hovering in the corners and grotesqueries hiding under the tables, our conversations would turn to the things that we thought we'd seen, things that might have happened to us, things we'd not discuss with anyone else. Evidence can be fantastically hard to come by when you're on the threshold of reality, and it was our experiences of things that scratched and tugged at the fabric of reality that had brought us to Crécy in the first place. And also to the library, for which we were not only members, a source of income, and keen students, but also authors and procurators, depositors of things found in places that others would never see.
They keep it locked, was usually the opening line when the Derleth Reading Room was mentioned. It's named for him, you know, HIM. I'd suggested a few Derleth's the first time this had happened, and people had been too kind to laugh openly at me, but it was quite clear that when I knew who he was I'd also only be referring to him by a pronoun.
There are safeguards in there, would be the next thing. People would adopt serious faces and nod in quiet agreement. They won't let you in there without a librarian present, and only a senior one at that. I'd had to ask about that, because I'd only ever seen two librarians in the library, one of whom hated me. There was a tense moment then, as the people in the know considered if I was suitable for this kind of knowledge, and then they drank as one, six glasses lifted in unison and sipped from, then brought together in the air, clashing together, and I was accepted, if only for the evening. The library, they explained, had a staff of twelve, and a librarian was assigned to every member. If I'd seen two of the librarians, then I'd experienced a rare privilege. And the librarian who hated me? Of course, he was a senior librarian.
They don't keep books in there, would be the last thing they'd say, and then the conversation would change to something else, like the disappearance of the stone lions from the plaza (rumoured to all have stood up one night and walked away) or the death of all the gorillas in the zoo (rumoured to have been mauled to death by some very big and heavy cats). Except one evening, Henrix had been particularly far gone on Sangraal and so he and I were the last to leave.
They do keep books in there, he whispered to me, his breath intoxicating and little golden flecks swimming in his eyes. A very few, chained down in special cabinets. There's nowhere else they can keep them, or they'd call out to their authors and demand to be returned. He collapsed in a drunken heap after that, and I left him in the care of the stewards of the Seven Riders.
*
"The Derleth Reading Room is this way," said the librarian who hated me, appearing from off to my left where I could have sworn was nothing but a green expanse of carpet before the shelves containing common esoterica. I followed him, noting that he wasn't carrying a book.
"I am sorry, Mr. Debraun," he said, his voice soft and uninflected, "but I'll have to ask you to leave you coat outside the reading room. And perhaps also that shapeless piece of cloth you were wearing on your head before you arrived."
I didn't ask how he knew I'd been wearing my flat cap and submitted to his sartorial decisions with reasonably good grace. After all, I needed access to this book, and getting access to the Derleth Reading Room would move me a little closer to the inner sanctum of the members of the library.
He held the door open for me, and I walked through.
Directly opposite the door, hanging on the wall and surely three times life-size was a portrait, and immediately I understood why no-one ever named Derleth and why I now, too, would be keeping that secret. I averted my eyes, which were already stinging; tears were forming at the corners, and looked around at the rest of the room. Behind me, the librarian closed the door.
There was a sage-green leather topped desk, behind which was a heavy wood-and-leather chair. The desk appeared to have a number of lockable drawers in it, and I suspected that they'd all be locked. The room was panelled in a dark wood I didn't recognise, but it had a warmth and shine to it that suggested it was polished daily. The wall with the portrait hanging on it had no other furniture by it, but the two side walls of the room both had wooden chests, tables and cabinets positioned against them, with small ornaments atop them. My eye was drawn immediately to a knife supported on a silvery stand; the unusual shape of the blade meant it had to be a Brinchev Kris. I had one of my own, but I was still tempted to go over and admire the workmanship. The wall with the door in it had a number of framed documents hanging on it, all hand-written, and all a little too far away for me to read now.
The librarian coughed softly and indicated that I should sit at the desk. As I did so he produced a small brass key from a pocket and handed it to me.
"The third drawer on the left-hand side is now allocated for your use," he said. "You will find paper, pencils, a soft eraser and four paper-clips in there. You may use them as you see fit, except of course, that you may not write on the books or paper-clip things to them. Supplies will be replaced as needed, and should you be asked for the return of the key, you will of course do so."
I nodded, accepting the key.
"As for the Letters of the Eidolon Queen," he said, walking to one of the cabinets, "Please take great care with this."
He laid his hands on the top of the cabinet and then moved them like a pianist, touching and pressing the top and sides in a complex sequence of movements. Like a puzzle box, nothing appeared to happen at first, and then there was a soft click, loud in the silence of the Reading Room, and a drawer about two-thirds of the way up from the feet of the cabinet slid open. There, on a bed of crushed velvet, was the Letters of the Eidolon Queen.
They keep it locked, was usually the opening line when the Derleth Reading Room was mentioned. It's named for him, you know, HIM. I'd suggested a few Derleth's the first time this had happened, and people had been too kind to laugh openly at me, but it was quite clear that when I knew who he was I'd also only be referring to him by a pronoun.
There are safeguards in there, would be the next thing. People would adopt serious faces and nod in quiet agreement. They won't let you in there without a librarian present, and only a senior one at that. I'd had to ask about that, because I'd only ever seen two librarians in the library, one of whom hated me. There was a tense moment then, as the people in the know considered if I was suitable for this kind of knowledge, and then they drank as one, six glasses lifted in unison and sipped from, then brought together in the air, clashing together, and I was accepted, if only for the evening. The library, they explained, had a staff of twelve, and a librarian was assigned to every member. If I'd seen two of the librarians, then I'd experienced a rare privilege. And the librarian who hated me? Of course, he was a senior librarian.
They don't keep books in there, would be the last thing they'd say, and then the conversation would change to something else, like the disappearance of the stone lions from the plaza (rumoured to all have stood up one night and walked away) or the death of all the gorillas in the zoo (rumoured to have been mauled to death by some very big and heavy cats). Except one evening, Henrix had been particularly far gone on Sangraal and so he and I were the last to leave.
They do keep books in there, he whispered to me, his breath intoxicating and little golden flecks swimming in his eyes. A very few, chained down in special cabinets. There's nowhere else they can keep them, or they'd call out to their authors and demand to be returned. He collapsed in a drunken heap after that, and I left him in the care of the stewards of the Seven Riders.
"The Derleth Reading Room is this way," said the librarian who hated me, appearing from off to my left where I could have sworn was nothing but a green expanse of carpet before the shelves containing common esoterica. I followed him, noting that he wasn't carrying a book.
"I am sorry, Mr. Debraun," he said, his voice soft and uninflected, "but I'll have to ask you to leave you coat outside the reading room. And perhaps also that shapeless piece of cloth you were wearing on your head before you arrived."
I didn't ask how he knew I'd been wearing my flat cap and submitted to his sartorial decisions with reasonably good grace. After all, I needed access to this book, and getting access to the Derleth Reading Room would move me a little closer to the inner sanctum of the members of the library.
He held the door open for me, and I walked through.
Directly opposite the door, hanging on the wall and surely three times life-size was a portrait, and immediately I understood why no-one ever named Derleth and why I now, too, would be keeping that secret. I averted my eyes, which were already stinging; tears were forming at the corners, and looked around at the rest of the room. Behind me, the librarian closed the door.
There was a sage-green leather topped desk, behind which was a heavy wood-and-leather chair. The desk appeared to have a number of lockable drawers in it, and I suspected that they'd all be locked. The room was panelled in a dark wood I didn't recognise, but it had a warmth and shine to it that suggested it was polished daily. The wall with the portrait hanging on it had no other furniture by it, but the two side walls of the room both had wooden chests, tables and cabinets positioned against them, with small ornaments atop them. My eye was drawn immediately to a knife supported on a silvery stand; the unusual shape of the blade meant it had to be a Brinchev Kris. I had one of my own, but I was still tempted to go over and admire the workmanship. The wall with the door in it had a number of framed documents hanging on it, all hand-written, and all a little too far away for me to read now.
The librarian coughed softly and indicated that I should sit at the desk. As I did so he produced a small brass key from a pocket and handed it to me.
"The third drawer on the left-hand side is now allocated for your use," he said. "You will find paper, pencils, a soft eraser and four paper-clips in there. You may use them as you see fit, except of course, that you may not write on the books or paper-clip things to them. Supplies will be replaced as needed, and should you be asked for the return of the key, you will of course do so."
I nodded, accepting the key.
"As for the Letters of the Eidolon Queen," he said, walking to one of the cabinets, "Please take great care with this."
He laid his hands on the top of the cabinet and then moved them like a pianist, touching and pressing the top and sides in a complex sequence of movements. Like a puzzle box, nothing appeared to happen at first, and then there was a soft click, loud in the silence of the Reading Room, and a drawer about two-thirds of the way up from the feet of the cabinet slid open. There, on a bed of crushed velvet, was the Letters of the Eidolon Queen.
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