“Over the dead bodies of every fucking one of them.”
“That will soon no longer be in your power.”
“You think so?”
“Like it or not.”
“I like it not.”
“Terminé. Hoopla!”
Adrian/Mrs Mulverhill glances over Madame d’Ortolan at the girl in the white towelling robe. “Goodbye, Theodora,” she makes Adrian say, and lets go of the woman’s wrists, pushing her gently away while the crowd surges all around them.
Bisquitine, tired with it all, says, “Ach, then get ye gone, all ye.”
And, in a blink, go they did, to the scattered realities she flung them to; every remaining Concern consciousness on Earth – save for two – just disappearing, plucked and hurled away to their various fates, a few part-chosen by themselves – where those being thrown had the time and the wit to grasp what was happening and were allowed to exercise some control over their cross-reality trajectory by Bisquitine – but many with no understanding and no control permitted, tumbling into wherever they happened to have been directed, some more pointedly than others.
The one who thought of herself as Madame d’Ortolan was heaved away with particularly enthusiastic gusto but also with a kind of ruthless disregard, with no control allowed over her own destination but also with no exceptional care taken by Bisquitine over where d’Ortolan landed or what her precise fate would be. Let her know that control was not everything and that she had been dismissed, discarded; judged by the abused freak as being unworthy of any singular treatment. That would hurt more than any contrived tormenting.
All that mattered was that they were gone and they could control her no longer; she was finally free of them. They had let her grow too strong because they’d thought they were so clever and she was so stupid, only she wasn’t so stupid after all, no matter how clever they might think they were, and they had never really understood what she could do and what she had kept hidden from them. That was because there was a core inside her, a steely soul of rage they’d never really glimpsed in her because she’d kept it concealed from them for all that time, unafraid, and only finally unleashed it now, when they’d thought to use her and she had used them instead. So there!
The people who had been taken over were suddenly back again, staggering, looking round, astonished, nonplussed, wondering what had happened, where the day had gone. The woman in the orange velour jumpsuit looked around her, not really registering the man in the tan jacket standing a couple of paces ahead of her. She turned round, frowned at the strange-looking woman dressed in what looked like a hotel dressing gown, then pushed past her and wandered off to be consumed by the swarming crowd.
But he didn’t go, Bisquitine noticed. The man in the tan jacket who’d been waiting at the exact centre of the bridge, the one who’d given the box to the man who’d walked away (who had then disappeared all by himself), the one who’d held on to the bossy orange woman and had looked over her head at her; when all the rest were gone, that man was still there.
She looked at him, frowning, lips pursed, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. She thrust her jaw out, briefly bit her bottom lip. “Say, you’re from outa town.”
“You can stop now,” he said to her, gently. She thought he seemed very gentle altogether.
“That’s not very funny, Sidney. That’s not very sunny, Fidney.”
“Can I ask you your name? It’s Bisquitine, is that right?”
She stood at attention, made a salute. “Right as rain, left as lightning. Straight on till wottevah. Innit.”
“Do you remember me, Bisquitine? Last time I saw you they were calling you Subject Seven. We talked. Do you remember?”
Bisquitine shook her head. “Disblamer: cannot be held responsible for acts carried out by the previous administrators. Now under old management.”
“You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
“Wide asleep, fast awake. Lost yer bandana, ave you? I et one of them once; was yeller, not grey.”
“Ah-hah.” The man smiled at her. (She saw, now. She’d thought he’d seemed familiar. The woman was inside the man. That was a bit tupsy-torvy!) “So,” the man-woman said. “Are you all right now?”
“We apologise for any convenience caused.”
“Listen, Seven, Bisquitine; I’m going to have to go soon. Is there anything I can do for you before that?”
“Yo, you cookin wit gas, now, hep cat. Cool. Hot properly.”
“Why don’t you come down this way? We’ll find a café, sit down, maybe have something to eat. What do you say?”
“Shiver me timbres, matey-boy. About flipping time, me old teapot!”
“I’m going to take your hand, is that all right?”
“Better men than you have tried, Thruckley. Leave me here. I’ll only slow you down. That’s an order, mister. Let’s get outa here. Pesky kids.”
“It’s okay. There. Come on. We’ll sit down. You’ll be okay. I’ll get somebody to come for you.”
“Lummy. There’ll be no going back, mind. Not on my escapement.”
“They’ll be my people, not the others. You’ll be okay. I swear.”
“This isn’t about you, it’s me.”
“Let’s get that gown closed, okay? There you go.”
“I take full responsibility.”
“That’s better.”
“Funny old life, sport.”
“Okay?”
“Random.”
This is how it ends: he comes into my room. He is dressed in black and is wearing gloves. It is dark in here, just a night light on, but he can identify me, lying on the hospital bed, propped up at a slight angle, one or two remaining tubes and wires attaching me to various pieces of medical equipment. He ignores these; the nurse who would hear any alarm is lying trussed and taped down the hall, the monitor in front of him switched off. The man shuts the door, darkening the room still further. He walks quietly to my bedside, though I am unlikely to wake as I am sedated, lightly drugged to aid a good night’s sleep. He looks at my bed. Even in the dim light he can see that it is tightly made; I am constricted within this envelope of sheets and blanket. Reassured by this confinement, he takes the spare pillow from the side of my head and places it – gently at first – over my face, then quickly bears down on me, forcing his hands down on either side of my head, pinning my arms under the covers with his elbows, placing most of his weight on his arms and his chest, his feet rising from the floor until only the tips of his shoes are still in contact with it.
I don’t even struggle at first. When I do he simply smiles. My feeble attempts to bring my hands up and to use my legs to kick myself free come to nothing. Wound amongst these sheets, even a fit man would have stood little chance of fighting his way from beneath such suffocating weight. Finally, in one last hopeless convulsion, I try to arch my back. He rides this throe easily and in a moment or two I fall back, and all movement ceases.
He is no fool; he has anticipated that I might merely be playing dead.
So he lies quite calmly on me for a while, as unmoving as me, checking his watch now and again as the minutes tick by, to make sure I am gone.
… But there has been no intensifying beeping noise from the machine that monitors my heart, its signal quickening as I expire. No alarm has sounded at all. He was expecting that one would, so this troubles him a little. I expect he glances at his wristwatch. From this he would see that he has been lying on me for over two minutes since my last movement. He frowns (I imagine). He presses down ever harder, feet rising entirely off the polished vinyl floor with a squeak. He has the same grasp of physiological limits as I do and so he knows that after four minutes brain death must be complete. He waits until that time is up.