By the coming of the new dawn, Soap had formed a plan of action. Determined as he was to discover exactly what was going on and how history could have changed while he’d been belooooow, he was equally determined to remain at liberty and out of the clutches of the Virgin police.
Nine-thirty of the morning clock found Soap upon the steps of the Memorial Library. Hardly an action-packed kind of a place, you might think, but appearances can be deceptive.
Soap’s appearance this morning, for example, was one that he hoped might deceive.
Soap no longer wore his broad-brimmed coal-black hat, his coal-black coat and boots of coaly blackness. Instead, Soap sported a Hawaiian shirt, a dove-grey zoot suit and a pair of white winkle-picker boots. He had acquired these during the night, but from where was anyone’s guess. Soap cut a dashing figure in this get-up and one that he hoped would allow him to move about the borough unrecognized by those who viewed through street surveillance cameras.
When the Keeper of the Borough’s Books made the ceremonial opening up of the door, Soap hurried into the library, marched across the marble-panelled vestibule and presented his similarly acquired credentials at the desk.
The clerk on duty looked over the credentials and then the clerk on duty looked at Soap.
“This library ticket is out of date, Mr Omally,” said the clerk.
“Then kindly furnish me with a new one.”
“These things take time. If you’ll call back in a week or two.”
Soap Distant took to the shaking of his head. “It is time for action,” he said. “Kindly direct me to the reference section.”
“Oooooooh,” went the clerk. “The reference section. Are you sure you can handle it?”
“Just lead me to it,” said Soap.
“Well, then, it’s through that door over there.”
“That door?” said Soap.
“No, that door,” said the clerk.
“Aren’t they both the same door?” asked Soap.
“It depends what you mean by ‘the same’, I suppose.”
“I suppose it does,” Soap agreed.
The reference section came as a bit of a shock to Soap. It didn’t have any books. All there was now was a neat row of desks, each of which held up a television jobbie attached to a typewriter keyboard. Soap sat down upon a chair at the nearest and stared at the TV screen.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE
To access please touch any key.
Soap sought the key marked “any”.
“Assistance, please,” called Soap.
The clerk from the desk came bustling in. “What do you want?”
“I want action,” said Soap. “And I want it now. Where are all the books, please?”
“All the books are now on the Web.”
Soap’s thoughts returned to the offices of the Brentford Mercury and the woman who was worrying at wires. She had mentioned the Web, and she had mentioned it proudly.
“What exactly is the Web?” asked Soap.
The clerk explained all about it.
Now it doesn’t take long to explain about the Web, and the average person can grasp all the essentials and gain a good working knowledge in less than a lifespan. Soap listened patiently for at least five minutes.
“So I just touch any key,” he said.
“Yes,” said the clerk and departed.
And so Soap Distant, voyager to the realms belooooow, became a surfer of the Web. The Web, the Web, the wonderful Web, from which all knowledge flows.
It’s all there on the Web, you know. The whole wide world and then some.
Of course, you do have to know where to look.
Soap had no idea, but he got straight down to the action.
He typed in QUEEN ELIZABETH II and was quite amazed by what flashed up before him. And then he typed in ASSASSINATION OF.
And then he sat right back and stared.
According to the Web, Queen Elizabeth had been shot dead while on stage during a Beatles concert at Wembley Stadium in nineteen eighty.
“A Beatles concert in nineteen eighty?” Soap called up THE BEATLES.
And according to the Web it was true. The Beatles had played Wembley in nineteen eighty. The show had been organized by John Lennon, who had apparently become something of a royalist after receiving a visit from Prince Charles while he lay in hospital recovering from the shooting incident.
“Shooting incident?” said Soap. “But Lennon should be dead.”
Soap called up JOHN LENNON: SHOOTING and learned to his amazement how the great one’s life had been saved by a mystery man who never came forward to claim the fortune Lennon offered him. All that was known of the mystery man was that he wore a black T-shirt and shorts.
“Oh ho,” said Soap. “Oh ho.”
But as “oh ho” didn’t help a lot, Soap continued his search.
He backtracked to the Wembley gig and boggled at the list of support bands. Not only had The Doors played there. But also the Jimi Hendrix Experience. And Janis Joplin.
“Methinks I see a pattern here,” said Soap.
“Would you please keep the noise down,” said the clerk, poking a clerkish head around the door.
“I’m sorry,” said Soap. “But could you help me here?”
The clerk sighed and plodded over. “What is the trouble now? I do have things to be doing.”
“All the bands listed here,” said Soap. “They all really played at Wembley in nineteen eighty, did they?”
The clerk perused the list. “Yes. It was a legendary gig. The video of that gig has outsold any other.”
“Really?” said Soap. “And this would be a Virgin video, would it?”
“What other make of video is there?” asked the clerk.
“Just checking,” said Soap. “Now go away, please.”
“Well, really!” said the clerk and went away.
Soap surfed the Web until lunchtime. It was all action stuff. Well, at least it was sometimes. Well, perhaps it wasn’t really, to be honest. No, in fact, actually, it wasn’t all action at all. It was just sitting at a TV screen and typing at a keyboard, and although there are ways of putting a spin on that kind of thing and making it sound really interesting—
IT ISN’T!
IT’S CRAP!!!
GET A LIFE!!!!!!!
By lunchtime Soap had had his fill of the Web. He had learned from it all he could learn from it. This hadn’t been all that he’d wanted to learn, but he had learned the Web’s evil secret.
And the evil secret of the Web is this, my friends.
That all you can ever learn
from The Web is what the
people who put the stuff onto
it want you to learn.
“Right,” said Soap. “Well, that’s quite enough of that. Time for a bit of action, I think.”
And right on cue (for there is no other way) came that good old police loudhailer voice.
“John Omally,” it called. “John Omally, this is the Virgin Police Service. We know you’re in there. Come out with your hands held high.”
“Oh,” said Soap, to no one but himself. “John Omally, what?”
“You have been positively identified from a frame of surveillance footage as the man aiding Soap Distant to assist a wanted criminal in his escape from justice. To whit, one David Carson, also known as the Cannibal Chef and Brentford’s Most Wanted Man.”
“Oh,” said Soap once again to himself. “But how?”
“In case you’re wondering how we know you’re in there, our police crime computer is linked into every other national computer and it has just registered your library ticket being fed into the Memorial Library system for renewal.”
“Some of a gun,” mumbled Soap. “That’s clever.”
“Well, actually,” the loudhailer voice continued, “in case you were thinking how clever that was, I have to own up that it’s not how we tracked you down. You see, the clerk at the library desk just telephoned us to say that you have a library book outstanding on your card. How to Play the Stratocaster. And you should have returned it fifteen years ago. There’s a two-thousand-pound fine to pay.”