Valhalla, p.25
Valhalla, page 25
It had been quite a turning point. Instead of being a weedy little guy fantasising about being a great and fearless warrior, he was now a finely honed fighting machine, who’d learned the tricks of the trade the hard way and who now feared death about as much as the feathers between a duck’s shoulders feared the rain. Death, after all, was the least of one’s problems in Valhalla.
In that puddle, he’d seen clearly the message that had been eluding him all the time he’d been here, a message so obvious that only a complete and utter loser (like Howard #1) could possibly fail to see it. Eliminate the fear of death, the message ran, and all your wildest dreams become attainable. It helped, of course, that there were no cream doughnuts, televisions, soft warm beds or deep, comfortable sofas here to lure a man off the path of physical and mental fitness. But the important thing had been that moment of total and sudden insight when he realised that, thanks to this unique environment, he’d finally become the thing he’d always daydreamed of being: the perfect bare-essentials warrior. That simple but vital lesson learned, he could slough off his dead-weight mortal self and get down to enjoying himself. All due credit to him, of course, for being able to appreciate a revelation when he saw one. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, encountering Truth on the road to Damascus, jump out and start peering anxiously at their dented bumpers or demanding the name of God’s insurers.
And now here he was, having the time of his life. Valhalla, he’d come to appreciate, was many different things, but more than anything else it was fun. It was the great playground that his mundane, self-conscious childhood had missed out on, the supreme game of cowboys and Indians, every little boy’s dream of a game of soldiers where nobody actually got hurt but all the bombs and bullets were real; as real as his skills, his muscles and his enjoyment of it all. It was the greatest shoot’em-up game of all time (and to think that he’d once sincerely believed that Doom II was the ultimate in cool!) And it was his to play for ever. Unreal!
Howard pulled the soap out of his pocket, looked at it and smiled.
Needless to say, he’d quickly grown tired of the beginner’s level; the one where you fought with guns and grenades and rocket launchers and other cissy stuff. For a week or so, he’d kept himself entertained by limiting himself to a knife, but that was still pretty damn easy - two or three hours, four at the most, and he’d killed everybody there was to kill; nothing else to do all day except wander round looking for a landmine to tread on so as to reset the game - so he’d abandoned the cold steel and taken to throttling his opponents with a bit of nylon rope instead. But Howard #2 and fourteen inches of cord soon proved to be more than a match for the feeble, slow-witted opposition and so he moved on to level four, limiting his offensive arsenal to small, innocuous household articles no more than six inches in length. So far he’d smothered his victims with absorbent paper tissues, ruptured their windpipes with the handles of spoons, cracked their skulls with walnuts fired from a sling improvised from a humble sock, slit their throats with the sharpened edges of ten-pence pieces after blinding them with pepper, strangled them with garrottes made from tightly twisted tea towels, splintered their bones with papier-mâché clubs constructed out of pulped-down copies of the Independent On Sunday (as if they weren’t deadly enough already), shot them down in droves with straightened paper clips dipped in ingeniously derived spice-rack poisons and shot from a blowpipe fashioned from Sellotape and the cardboard cores of toilet rolls . . . How can there be such a thing as a weapon, he’d learned, when anything can be adapted to the simple job of taking life? He’d hoped that at least soap might test his ingenuity and present some sort of a challenge, but it had turned out just as he’d expected: all the heavy metal in the world was no match for a bar of Imperial Leather in the hands of a man who was prepared to use it.
He who makes a weapon of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Or words to that effect. Howard sauntered round the block and climbed the rickety ladder up the side of the old factory chimney, calculating as he went the skull-crunching terminal velocity of a bar of soap dropped from the very top.
After he’d successfully completed his experiment and cleaned the mess off what remained of the bar of soap, there wasn’t a lot to do until 08:55, when it would be time to make another soap-slide and take out the St Nicholas’s spire sniper on his way to work. He chose a well-appointed shell-hole, put his feet up on a chunk of shattered masonry and relaxed, turning over in his mind what he was going to do tomorrow. He’d just devised the six hundred and ninety-third way of killing someone with a tube of toothpaste when he became aware of a shadow falling across him.
‘It’s all right,’ a voice said, before even Howard’s superb reflexes could cut in, ‘it’s only me.’
Howard relaxed. ‘Odin,’ he said. ‘How’s things? Haven’t seen you around for a day or so.’
Odin sat down beside him and screwed the top off his thermos flask. ‘I’ve been catching up on the admin,’ he replied. ‘Paperwork. Red tape.’
Howard nodded. ‘Red tape’s pretty cool stuff,’ he murmured sleepily, for the sun was warm. ‘And not just as a garrotte. You can use it for tripwires, or twist it tightly to power a catapult. And as for paper - hey, don’t get me started on paper. Give me a hundred sheets of A4 and I could take out half of Birmingham.’
Odin poured tea into the lid of the flask and handed it across. ‘You’re starting to get a feel for this, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘You bet.’ Howard took a sip of the tea. ‘I guess this is what I was born to do. And to think, before I met you I’d never in my wildest dreams have imagined I had all this untapped potential inside me. I could have wasted my entire life and never known.’
‘There now.’ Odin smiled. ‘And yet, when you first came here—’
Howard pulled a wry face. ‘Don’t remind me,’ he said. ‘Talk about gift-horses’ teeth. Shows what a dumb, ungrateful little jerk I used to be, I suppose. Anyway, that was then, this is now.’
‘Always pleased to hear from a satisfied client,’ Odin said. ‘Of course, there’s some as would say the changes in you haven’t all been improvements. For example, all this killing people and stuff. It could be argued it’s a bit antisocial.’
Howard waved his hand dismissively. ‘Balls,’ he said. ‘People have been killing each other for as long as there’s been people to kill. It’s—well, it’s one of the chief ways we define our humanity.’
‘Gosh,’ Odin said. ‘That’s a good one, I must remember that. You don’t mind if I quote you on that, do you?’
‘Be my guest,’ Howard replied indulgently. ‘Mostly, though, I guess, it’s finally finding that there’s something I’m really good at, you know? I mean, really good at, like Olympic standard. I’d say I was Olympic standard, wouldn’t you?’
‘Gold medal standard, Howard, definitely gold medal standard. After all - soap. Now that’s really something.’
Howard shrugged modestly. ‘Soap,’ he said, ‘whatever. Next month I’m going to stop using things altogether, just rely on my bare hands. And teeth, of course. At least to begin with.’
‘Ah,’ Odin said. ‘You’re turning into quite a purist in your old age.’
‘Minimalist, at any rate.’
‘That’s good,’ Odin said approvingly. ‘I like to see someone who’s dedicated to improving himself.’
Howard grinned. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘And it’s more fun than the Open University; you don’t have to write essays or go on study weekends.’
Odin emptied the last few drops out of the flask-lid and screwed it back. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘all this killing, it’s a bit—well, morbid, don’t you think? And there’s something at the back of my mind about Thou Shalt Not. Ring any bells with you?’
Howard shook his head. ‘Strictly for wimps,’ he replied. ‘Wimps and losers. If it’s neat quotations you’re looking for, I suggest you pop round to your local library and ask if they’ve got anything by Charles Darwin. Now there was someone who knew about what happens to wimps and losers.’
‘Really?’ Odin stood up. ‘Tell me what happens to them, Howard.’
Howard shrugged. ‘They get what’s coming to them,’ he said. ‘The snuff. The big zappo. Because the rule is, the guy who’s left standing when the whistle blows is the winner. No silver medal in a knife-fight, Odin; that’s what Charlie’ll tell you.’
‘I see,’ Odin replied. ‘I was under the impression it was all about evolving into higher, less primitive forms of existence. I guess I must have been confusing it with something else.’
‘Probably. Sounds more like bad science fiction to me.’
‘You may be right.’ Odin put his flask back in his coat pocket. ‘Actually, you might know the answer to this, since you’re obviously well up on the subject. What’s the opposite of evolution?’
Howard thought for a moment. ‘It’s not devolution,’ he said, ‘that’s Scottish Assemblies and letting the Welsh have their own Channel Four. I dunno. Degradation? Decadence. De-something, at any rate. Can’t say I’ve given it much thought, to be honest.’
‘Oh well,’ Odin said, ‘I thought I’d ask. By the way.’
‘Mmm?’
‘You’re sitting on a landmine. Have a nice day.’
‘Wha—?’
One involuntary wriggle, and all that was left was a damp red patch in the mud where Howard had been sitting. Odin looked at it for a while and smiled. Then he felt in his pocket, took out a referee’s whistle and blew it.
‘Still standing,’ he said, and walked away.
Howard, of course, didn’t hear him, since he was in something of a state of flux, and an annoyed one at that. Somehow he got the feeling that he’d been made a fool of, though exactly how he wasn’t quite sure. Grumpily, he settled down to wait for his body to piece itself back together again. Toothpaste, he thought—
—And found himself sitting on a bench.
It was a hard stone bench, in some sort of theatre or stadium. There were rows and rows of them, forming the shape of half a funnel, and sitting on them were thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people, all perfectly still and quiet, staring at a stage or podium far away in the distance.
Howard blinked and tried to focus. Hell, it was just a wall; a plain, blank wall with a sign on it saying Caution - wet paint. What on earth was he doing here? This wasn’t Smethwick. More to the point, it wasn’t Valhalla.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘what’s the big idea? Where am I?’
A hundred thousand voices shushed him; but he didn’t care. The old, unregenerate Howard would have curled up into a ball and dematerialised out of sheer embarrassment, but not Howard the Slayer. Any more of that out of them and they’d end up looking down the business end of a tube of Colgate.
‘I said,’ he shouted, ‘what’s the big idea? Where am I? This isn’t Valhalla.’
The man next to him, whose face seemed oddly familiar (grey uniform, shiny black boots, funny little moustache) turned his head and gave him a contemptuous smile.
‘Want to bet?’ he said.
Lin, you’re breaking up, this is a truly awful line. Lin?
‘More kerosene,’ barked Lin Kortright, ‘quickly.’
Lin? Are you still there? Look, why don’t you just send me a fax instead, because I’m kinda busy right now, and . . .
Frantically, Kortright grabbed the can from the other Kortright (#36, if anybody’s interested) and sloshed kerosene on the fire. The flame jumped up.
‘No, I’m here,’ he shouted, ‘don’t hang up. Say, Merc, how’d you like to do an old buddy a fav—?’
As suddenly as it had spurted up, the flame died back, leaving the small potted fern only slightly singed. That had been #29’s idea; wet the leaves first, then dowse it with kerosene. The oil burns on top of the water, the leaves underneath don’t get scorched - voilà, burning bush; and toll-free during off-peak hours.
(‘Though I say it’s damn cheapskate of the guy not to have an 0800 number,’ objected #16. ‘A regular god’s gotta have a toll-free phone line.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ #7 pointed out. ‘I read the other day where Quetzalcoatl has one of those numbers like the porno companies have, where he gets a buck a minute clear profit. And I always wondered why his invocations were so damn long-winded.’)
Still here, Lin. Lin? Jesus, Lin, what’s the matter with this line?
Lin Kortright (LK#1) sluiced the plant with more kerosene and snapped his lighter. It was out of gas.
‘Here, mine’s a Zippo,’ said #32. ‘Hey, since when did Lin Kortright carry anything but a Zippo?’
The fern ignited with an eyebrow-erasing whoosh! ‘Is that better, Merc? I can hear you just fine.’
Yes, that’s cool. Now then, what can I do for you?
‘Merc,’ Kortright said, ‘just a quick favour, won’t take more than a minute of your time. I died.’
Lin, I’m so sorry. Did it hurt? Hey, is this some sneaky way of telling me you haven’t chased up those merchandising rights like I asked you?
‘The deal’s in the can, Merc, the Disney people said “Yes” and we’re ready to roll. Now then, like I just said, I died. I was wondering, could you do something about that for me?’
There was a brief silence. Do you mean died as in, like, ceased living?
‘Exactly right, Merc.’
Unreal. Hey, what’s the angle? No, don’t tell me, it’s a corporate law thing, right? Someone in your organisation’s trying to squeeze you out, so you die, inherit your own shares and bingo! Am I right?
‘There or thereabouts, Merc. More thereabouts than there, but—’
Ah, I get you, it’s that anti-trust thing, you know, the one where you set up a dummy corporation based in that transdimensional temporal anomaly out the other side of the Belisarius nebula—
Unbidden, #44 applied more kerosene, just in the nick of time. The sprinklers cut in, drenching the forty-nine Lin Kortrights who weren’t sitting under a table with water.
‘You got it, Merc,’ said Lin Kortright, lying for the sake of a quiet death. ‘Unfortunately, there’s complications. Like, I can’t get back. And I was just wondering . . .’
Way to go, Lin. I knew you’d find a way round that statute somehow. Maybe it’s kind of a crazy thing to give your life for, but if it’s what you sincerely believe in—
For some reason, that line gave Lin Kortright goose-bumps. ‘I was just wondering,’ he repeated, ‘since I got you that gig as conductor of the souls of the dead to and from the underworld, maybe you could see your way clear to getting me out of here. If it’s no bother, that is.’
Long silence. Lin, you know I respect you a whole lot—
(‘Oh shit,’ muttered #27.)
—But you know better than anybody, I got too much at stake now, especially if this Disney thing comes off, I gotta be squeakierclean than squeaky-clean, and bodysnatching—
‘Would you call it bodysnatching?’ Kortright asked mildly. ‘I don’t see it in quite that light myself, Merc. I see it more as—’ He turned his head away from the fern, which was starting to pop and crackle as the kerosene burnt down. ‘Quickly, guys,’ he hissed. ‘What the fuck do I see it as?’
‘Social conscience,’ whispered #37 immediately. ‘Taking a stand on significant moral issues.’
‘—Basic, fundamental profile-raising,’ Kortright continued seamlessly. ‘If you wanna play with the big boys, Merc, you gotta do causes and issues and all that shit, you gotta show you care. And let’s face it, all the really cool issues got snapped up years ago. I told you back in ’29, you shoulda done like I told you. Didn’t I get you the ex officio chair of Save The Dinosaurs? Didn’t I make it so you could have had Deities Against The Ice Age and Ban Catapult Testing Now, just by snapping your goddamn fingers? But no, you had to know best, and guess what, you missed out. Again. Your image is dirt, Merc, and we’ve got to do something about it now, unless you wanna be a glorified postal worker the rest of your career.’
I hear what you’re saying, Lin. But how’s helping dead guys escape from wherever the hell it is you’ve ended up going to make me look caring and concerned?
‘Merc,’ Kortright sighed, ‘don’t argue. I’m your agent, Merc, you’re supposed to have faith in my judgement. You do trust me, don’t you, Merc?’
The longest silence so far, during which #44 poured out the last of the kerosene.
Of course I trust you, Lin. Who else can I trust if I don’t trust you? All right, you just tell me where you are and I’ll come and get you.
Kortright just had time to tell him before the flame finally sputtered away, leaving the fern looking like a used-matchstick tree. ‘Deus ex machina, huh?’ said #39, breathing out slowly through his nose. ‘I always liked deus ex machina. High profile, good money and they only need you for the last week of filming, so it doesn’t bitch up the schedules.’
Lin Kortright let his breath out in a rush. ‘We did it,’ he said.
#41 nodded. ‘Assuming we can trust the little bastard,’ he added. ‘Me, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could sneeze him out of a blocked nose.’
‘It’s not as if we have a choice,’ Kortright replied soberly. ‘Oh sure, left to myself I wouldn’t trust any god to tell me the time if I was standing under the clock at Grand Central. But you know what they say; when you’re drowning in boiling shit and a guy throws you a rope, does it really matter if he’s a lawyer?’
#41 shook his head. ‘Oh, I’d trust Mercury not to double-cross me,’ he said. ‘I just don’t trust him to be able to find the place on his own, is all. Remember that time he had to go warn the people of Atlantis that their island was about to sink, and instead he went and caused that panic in Georgia?’
Against all the odds, however, Mercury did show up just under an hour later—
‘No way,’ he said.
