Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

13 Accidental Movements of The Gods

Three months have passed since Russell parted with his life’s savings, thus depriving his poor mother of the stair-lift for her bungalow. Three months that have seen great activity in Hangar 18. Russell, who had never actually watched a movie being made, would have loved to have stood quietly by and done so. But he did not.

Russell’s days of standing quietly by were gone for ever. Russell had to find more money. Much more money.

And he’d done just that. Because, as has been said (to the point of teeth-grating tedium), Russell was a hard worker and when he was given a job to do, he did it. And he did it to the best of his abilities. And so if he was producer, then he would produce.

Armed with a carrier-bag full of videos (the ones he and Bobby Boy had made) he’d set off “up town”, which is to say “towards the West End”, which is to say, London. And there he’d made appointments, shown his videos and eaten many lunches. And being what is known as “an innocent abroad”, he had signed a number of rapidly drawn-up contracts and been “done up like a kipper”, which is to say, “taken to the cleaners”, which is to say, swindled.

It became clear to Russell at an early stage, that the backers (or “Angels” as they preferred to be called), were far more interested in acquiring a share of the Cyberstar technology than Mr Fudgepacker’s movie. And that wasn’t Russell’s to sell.

But he sold it anyway. Many times over. Reasoning, that if the movie was the great success he was sure it would be, he could just pay everybody back what they’d lent and a bit of a cash bonus on top and all would be happy.

Oh dear.

So he had raised a considerable sum. More than sufficient to finance all the great activity in Hangar 18 that he would have loved to have watched, but could not.

They kept him at it from morning till midnight. Mr Fudgepacker shot the movie during the day, while Russell was out doing the business, then he locked away all the test videos and technology and what-nots in his big safe before Russell got back to spend the evening trying to figure out the accounts. It just wasn’t fair.

And so now, at the end of a particularly tiring day, Russell sat all alone in Bobby Boy’s suitably grim office, that was now Russell’s suitably grim office, with his head in his hands, in a state of stress.

A state of stress and one of worry.

Russell worried about everything. He worried (not without good cause) about all the deals he’d made, but that was the least of his worries.

Russell worried a lot about the Flügelrad. For one thing, where was it now? Bobby Boy had shifted it out of Hangar 18 before anyone else got a look at it. But he wouldn’t tell Russell where he’d shifted it to. All he said was that it was in a very safe place and that Russell should remember he was sworn to secrecy about it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bobby Boy told him. “It is no longer important.”

But it did matter and it was important. That thing had brought Adolf Hitler into the present day. And where was Adolf now? Lurking somewhere close at hand? Plotting and planning? Committing unspeakable acts? It didn’t bear thinking about. But Russell thought about it all the time.

And what about the future? That Nazi future Bobby Boy claimed to have seen? And what about the beautiful Julie? She had somehow come back from that future to give Russell the programmer, kiss him and tell him she loved him. How had that come about? She’d vanished with two evil clanking things in pursuit. Things that had followed her from the future. And neither she nor the clanking things were travelling in Flügelrads. What did that mean?

Was time travel commonplace in the future? Did folk from the future come back and tamper with the past?

Russell raised his head from his hands and gave it a dismal shake. And what about the movie? If it was made using technology stolen from the future and was a great success, then copies of it would exist in the future. Therefore someone in the future would be able to trace where and when the movie was originally made and dispatch a couple of evil clankers to reclaim the technology and therefore stop it being made. But of course if they did that and the movie didn’t get made, then copies of it could not exist in the future, so someone wouldn’t be able to trace where and when it was made and send back the clankers. But what if –

“Aaaaaaaaagh!” Russell reached into the desk drawer and brought out a bottle of Glen Boleskine. He was drinking now on a regular basis and it really wasn’t good for him. But all of this was all too much and what made it worse was that Russell was the only one doing any worrying about it.

Old Ernest wasn’t worried. He was back behind the camera reliving his golden days. And Bobby Boy wasn’t worried, he’d passed all the responsibility on to Russell and he was fulfilling his dream to become a movie star. And Frank wasn’t worried. And Julie wasn’t worried. And Morgan probably didn’t even know how to worry. Only Russell worried. And it wasn’t fair.

It just wasn’t fair.

Russell tasted Scotch and glared at the papers on his desk. Piles of them and many the fault of Frank. Frank just loved paperwork and now he was a prop man again he could give his love full head (so to speak). Frank was currently employed by Fudgepacker Films as well as Fudgepacker’s Emporium. Which put him in the marvellous position of being able to send paperwork to himself. Every time something hired from the Emporium got broken on the film set, the Emporium charged the film company. The film company then borrowed back its own money, bought a replacement item, leased it to the Emporium which then rehired it to the film company. Frank had never been happier.

Russell pushed Frank’s paperwork aside and glared at some of Mr Fudgepacker’s. The ancient film maker had told Russell this very day that the shooting was now all but over, so they would soon be into “post production” and post production would require even more money. Could Russell have a word with the Emporium, who Mr Fudgepacker felt were overcharging his film company for breakages on the set?

Ludicrous. And all in the cause of a movie that Russell had not seen one single minute of. And he was the producer.

“It just isn’t fair.” Russell made the sulkiest of faces. “I’m sure everyone’s been working very hard, but it’s me who does all the worrying and takes all the responsibility. They might have shown me some of it.”

Russell huffed and puffed and glared through the partition window to the studio floor beyond. Bare now, but for a few tables and director’s chairs and the video monitor on its stand.

Russell’s glare moved back into the office and returned to an area where it spent a good deal of its time these recent evenings: the area filled by Mr Fudgepacker’s safe. Mr Fudgepacker’s mighty INVINCIBLE, brought over from the Emporium and lowered through the roof by crane (at great cost, Russell recalled). Several tons of worthy steel containing …

Russell glared at the safe. Only Mr Fudgepacker knew the combination. Only he and nobody else.

Well …

This was not altogether true. Russell did a bit of thoughtful lip-chewing as he poured himself another Scotch. There was one other person who knew the combination. And that person was he, Russell.

He’d discovered it quite by accident many months ago. It had been lunch-time and there’d been no-one around and so Russell thought that now would be a good time to do a bit of cleaning. Have a go at Mr Fudgepacker’s safe, the old boy would like that. But Mr Fudgepacker hadn’t liked that. He’d returned unexpectedly to find Russell worrying away at one of the big brass bosses and he’d thrown a real wobbly. Russell had thought he was going to snuff it. Baffled by Mr F’s over-reaction, Russell had returned later with a magnifying glass to examine the big brass boss. And yes, there they were, a little row of scratched-on numbers. And it didn’t take the brain of an Einstein to work out what they were.

Of course, Russell would not have dreamed of opening the safe. That would have been a terrible thing to do. Russell felt guilty about the whole thing for ages.

But he didn’t feel quite so guilty now.

It wouldn’t hurt if he took a look at one or two of the test videos, would it? Just run them through the monitor and then put them back. What harm could that do?

Russell’s brow became a knitted brow. To open the safe might be a crime in itself. Breaking and entering, without the breaking. Or the entering. But it could be trespass and it was definitely a breach of trust. But then he did have a right to see the movie. He was responsible for the movie. And what if? And this was a big, what if? A “what if?” that also worried Russell and worried him greatly. What if the movie was a load of old rubbish? All ultra violence and hard-core pornography? A movie that would never be given a certificate by the censors?

It could well be. Fudgepacker loved his gore and with Bobby Boy having a hand in the script and the starring role, Marilyn Monroe would be sure to be getting her kit off.

And what about Julie?

“I’ll kill him,” said Russell. “If he’s persuaded Julie to … I’ll kill him. I will.”

Russell glared once more at the mighty INVINCIBLE. And then he reached into his desk drawer and brought out his magnifying glass. He looked at it and he made a guilty face. He could not pretend he hadn’t been planning this.

“Oh sod it,” said Russell. “It can’t hurt. I’m doing the right thing. I know I am.” And with that said, Russell got up from his desk, went over to the safe, examined the numbers on the brass boss, twiddled the combination lock and swung open the beefy metal door.

And there it all was. The precious Cyberstar equipment. The rented camera. Cans of exposed footage. Stacks of video cassettes in neat white numbered boxes. Russell did shifty over-the-shoulder glances. But there was no-one about, he was all alone in Hangar 18. He’d locked himself in.

“Right,” said Russell, pulling out a stack of videos.

On the studio floor Russell settled himself in for a private viewing. He plugged in the monitor, slotted the first video, poured himself another Scotch, took up the remote controller and parked his bottom on Mr Fudgepacker’s personal chair.

“Right,” said Russell once more. “Roll them old cameras. Let there be movie.”

Russell sat there and pressed “play”.

The monitor screen popped with static and then a clapperboard appeared. On this were scrawled the words NOSTRADAMUS ATE MY HAMSTER. Act one. Scene one. Take one.

Russell hmmphed. “I don’t think much of that for a title,” he said.

“You know, I don’t think much of this for a title,” said the voice of Bobby Boy.

“Just clap the bloody clapperboard,” said the voice of Mr Fudgepacker. Clap went the clapperboard.

Act one, scene one, was the interior of a public house. A gentleman in a white shirt and dicky bow stood behind the bar counter. His surroundings were in colour, but he was in black and white.

“Oh,” said Russell, “it’s David Niven. I like David Niven, but why is he in black and white?”

This question was echoed by the voice of Mr Fudgepacker. Although he phrased it in a manner which included the use of words such as “bloody” and “bastard”.

The screen blacked and there were raised voices off. Then the clapperboard returned with the words “take two” written on it. Now Charlton Heston stood behind the bar, he was in full colour. And a toga.

The screen blacked again and the voices off were raised to greater heights. Russell shook his head and took another taste of Scotch. The clapperboard returned once more. It was time for “take three”.

Tony Curtis replaced Charlton Heston. Tony wore a smart evening suit. He smiled towards the camera, raised his right hand in a curious fashion and then strode, ghost-like through the bar counter.

“Cut!” shouted Mr Fudgepacker. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“It’s tricky,” Bobby Boy’s voice had a certain edge to it. “He’s a hologram. He can’t lift up the counter flap. We’ll have to rig some strings, or something.”

Russell gave his head another shake and fast-forwarded. By “take eighteen” Bobby Boy had managed to steer Tony from behind the counter and nearly halfway across the bar floor. Tony was carrying a Christmas tree fairy. Or rather, Tony was not carrying it. The fairy was dangling on a length of fishing line and it was rarely to be found in the same place as Tony’s outstretched hand.

“Oh dear,” said Russell, “it’s not very convincing, is it? But fair dos, I can see how difficult it is. They’ve certainly been working hard.”

Russell fast-forwarded once more. After many unsuccessful attempts, Mr Curtis finally managed to hang the fairy on the top of a Christmas tree. And then the tape ran out.

“That would be about ten seconds in the can,” said Russell, who had picked up all kinds of movie-speak. “Not much for a full day’s shooting. Perhaps I’ll go straight on to tape number five.”

Russell went straight on to tape number five and now it was party time in the pub. And quite a Cyberstar-studded occasion it was.

Humphrey Bogart was there and Lauren Bacall and Orson Welles and Ramon Navarro, and even Rondo Hatton, who was one of Russell’s very favourites. But they weren’t doing very much. In fact, they weren’t doing anything at all. They were just standing there like statues, with dangling glasses going in and out of their hands.

“Ah,” said Russell. “I see the problem here. The machine can project their images, but there’s only one programmer, so you can only work one at a time. Pity.”

Bobby Boy made his first on-screen appearance. Dressed in his usual black, he walked carefully and awkwardly between the holograms. “A pint of Large please, Neville,” he told Tony Curtis and then, “You’ll have to work him, Ernie. Waggle the joy stick.”

“You can’t talk to me while you’re acting, you bloody fool. Cut!”

Russell did further head shaking. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he sighed. And then he said, “Hang about,” and he fast-forwarded the tape.

“I’m the Johnny G Band, sir,” said Elvis Presley.

“What?” went Russell, as tape number five ran out.

Russell rushed back to the safe and returned with an armful of video cassettes. Out of the monitor came number five and in went number ten.

“It’s the Ark of the Covenant,” said Norman Wisdom. “I dug it up the other week on my allotment.”

“What?” Russell put on the freeze-frame. Norman’s now legendary grin lit up the screen. It didn’t light up Russell.

“That’s the story Morgan told me,” he mumbled. “About Pooley and Omally and The Flying Swan. The story that started all this off. But they can’t film that. Surely that came out of a book. We don’t hold the copyright; we’ll get sued for it. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Russell ejected tape number ten and slotted in tape number fifteen. An outside shot this time. A little yard.

“Location footage,” said Russell. “I thought they were going to shoot it all here in the hangar.”

Someone crept across the little yard. It was Bobby Boy and it had to be said, Bobby Boy could not act. He moved like something out of a Hal Roach silent comedy, knees going high, shoulders hunched. He turned to face the camera and put his finger to his lips.

“Cut,” said Russell, but Mr Fudgepacker didn’t.

Bobby Boy crept across the little yard to a clap-board shed with an open window and ducked down beneath it. Russell looked on, that shed and that window seemed rather familiar.

The camera tracked forward, passed the croaching ham actor and panned up towards the open window. Sounds of ranting came from that window. Ranting in German.

“Oh no!” gasped Russell. But it was “Oh yes!” Through the window moved the camera, like that really clever bit in Citizen Kane and there, seated at a table, with two SS types standing before him was –

“Alec bloody Guinness,” whispered Russell. “And he’s playing –”

“Herr Führer,” went Anton Diffring[23], one of the SS types.

“Bloody Hell!” Russell thumbed the fast-forward and sent Bobby Boy scurrying through The Bricklayer’s Arms and off up the Ealing Road “What’s going on here? He’s playing me. Why is he playing me? Morgan! Morgan must have told them what I told him. But why put it in a movie? This doesn’t make any sense.”

Russell ejected the tape and put it carefully to one side. He would be having stern words to say about this. No-one had asked his permission to do this. It was invasion of privacy, or something. He could sue over this. Sue the producer of the picture.

“Hm,” went Russell, who could see a bit of a flaw in that.

“Right then.” Russell rooted through further cassettes. Two were in black boxes. 23A and 23B. Russell slotted 23A into the monitor.

Black and white this time. A street scene set in the nineteen fifties. It looked very authentic.

“Old stock footage?” Russell asked. “Oh no, here he comes again.”

This time Bobby Boy was dressed as a policeman. He was camping it up with exaggerated knee bends and thumbs in top pockets.

“Well, at least he’s not playing me this time. So what’s all this about?” Russell fast-forwarded, stopping here and there to see what was on the go. Sid James was in this one, and Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. But this wasn’t a remake of Carry on Constable, anything but.

Russell viewed a final scene. It was set in a police station. A man was being held down on a table by a number of soldiers. The cast of Cockleshell Heroes, the great David Lodge amongst them.

But what were they doing? They were tearing at the man. They were pulling him to pieces.

Russell slammed the off button and rammed a knuckle into his mouth. “A snuff movie,” he gagged. “They’ve made a snuff movie. Oh dear God, no.”

Russell tore tape 23A from the monitor, held it a moment in his hand and then threw it down in horror and disgust. This was bad. This was very bad. What did they think they were up to? What else had they done? Russell steeled himself with further Scotch and took to pacing up and down. There were loads more tapes. He’d have to view them all. He didn’t want to, but he knew he’d have to.

Russell made fists. “Right,” he said.

In went a tape at random. Russell settled back nervously in Mr Fudgepacker’s chair.

Colour again and more location stuff, filmed this time in one of those super-duper shopping malls. Very flash and ultra modern. Russell didn’t recognize the place, or the extras - handsome young men with blond hair, wearing black uniforms and fabulous women in gold-scaled dresses. They walked about, looking in the windows and talking amongst themselves. They were not Cyberstars. But there was something odd about them. The way they moved, very stiff and straight-backed, almost as if they wore suits of armour under their clothes. Strange that.

Russell shrugged and looked on.

Out of a shop doorway came Bobby Boy. And Julie was with him. And she was wearing that dress, that golden dress. The one she’d worn when she appeared to Russell in The Ape of Thoth.

Russell sat up and took notice.

“They’ll kill you,” said Julie. “If you stay here in the future, you’ll die.”

“I can’t leave yet,” said Bobby Boy. “Not with Him here. Not if there’s a chance to destroy Him.”

“I won’t go back alone. I won’t.”

“You must. Take the programmer. Go back to the date I told you and the time. I’ll be in the pub with Morgan. Give me the programmer there. Leave the rest to me.”

“But the you-back-then won’t know what’s going to happen. The you-back-then won’t know how to stop it.”

“I’m not an idiot,” said Bobby Boy. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll make them do the right thing and stop all this from ever happening. Trust me, I can do it.”

“Bloody hell,” said Russell.

“I love you,” said Julie, taking the thin man in her arms and kissing him passionately.

“Tell that to the me-back-then. Now hurry, go on, we don’t have time. There is no time.”

Julie kissed him again and then she touched something on her belt and vanished. Terrible clanking sounds echoed in the shopping mall, Bobby Boy turned and stared and then he ran. And then the picture on the screen slewed to one side as the tape got snarled up in the monitor.

“Oh shit! Oh shit!” cried Russell, leaping from the chair. “Don’t do that, I have to see what happens.”

Russell fought the cassette from the monitor. The tape was chewed to pieces, Russell tried to wind it in, but it broke. “Oh no, oh dear.” Russell snatched up another cassette and rammed it into the monitor. “Work,” he pleaded. “Just work.”

The screen lit up to another interior. It was Fudgepacker’s Emporium. Russell recalled Frank’s paperwork for this scene, the hire of half the props in the place, plus the rental for location. It ran to many hundreds of pages. But that really wasn’t important now. It hadn’t been important then, actually, as Russell had binned the lot.

The camera’s eye took in the aisles and iron walkways, moving slowly and lingering here upon a nail-studded Congolese power figure and there upon a mummified mermaid. Then on.

Two figures were approaching. One was the inevitable Bobby Boy. The other was Peter Cushing. Peter wore thick-lensed horn-rimmed glasses. He was evidently playing the part of Mr Fudgepacker.

“Do not look directly upon Him,” said Peter Cushing. “And never, never into His eyes. Just keep your head bowed and kneel when I tell you.”

“How long?” asked Bobby Boy. “How long has He been with you?”

“For many years. I am His guardian. All this, all this in the Emporium is His. Time captured, you see, in the taxidermy, in the religious relics and the pickled parts. That is how He likes it. How it must be.”

“Now what is all this about?” Russell asked.

“Will He know me?” asked Bobby Boy. “Will He know why I’m here? What I want?”

“He knows all. He knows that you want more time. More time to correct the mistake you made. The mistake that changed the future.”

Russell put his hands to his face. “What did I do? Or what didn’t I do? This is bad. This is really bad. And who is this He?”

The figures on screen approached a small Gothic door at the end of the aisle.

“There’s no door there,” said Russell. “How did they do that?”

Bobby Boy pressed open the door and the two men passed through the narrow opening.

The camera followed them down a flight of steps and into a boiler room.

“And there’s no boiler room,” said Russell. “Or at least I don’t think there’s one.”

“This way,” Peter led Bobby Boy between piles of ancient luggage, old portmanteaus, Gladstone bags, towards a curtained-off corner of the room.

“Part the curtain,” said Peter, “and avert your gaze.”

Bobby Boy drew the curtain aside.

Russell looked on.

Something moved in the semi-darkness, an indistinct form.

Russell squinted at the screen.

Something lifted itself into the light.

Russell gaped in horror.

The terrible thing sat upon a throne-like chair, its grinning insect face a vivid red. A face that moved and swam with many forms. The black maw of a mouth turned upwards in a V-shaped leer. The fathomless eyes blinked open.

“Aaaaaaaaaagh!” screamed Russell, falling backwards off the chair.

The face gazed out from the screen. Tiny naked human figures writhed upon its skin, drifting in and out of focus.

Russell scrambled up and stared. “Holy God,” he whispered.

The eyes bulged from the screen. “I am your God,” cried the one voice which was many. “Kneel before your God and I will give you more time.”

“No,” went Russell. “No no no.” He snatched up the remote control and pressed the eject button. The cassette slid out from beneath the screen. But the face stared on.

“No,” went Russell, pushing the “off” button.

“Yes,” went the dreadful voice, and the leering face stared on.

“Oh my God.” Russell snatched at the cable, wrapped his fingers around it and tore the plug from the wall socket.

“You have deviated,” boomed the voice, and the eyes that bulged from the screen stared into Russell’s. “You have deviated from the script. You must be rewritten.”

“You can go to Hell.” Russell took the monitor in both hands raised it high above his head and dashed it down to the floor.

Sparks and crackles.

Silence.

Bobby Boy’s voice broke that silence. “You shouldn’t have done that, Russell,” it said.

Russell swung around to gawp at the long thin fellow. He stood beside the sliding door of the hangar. Mr Fudgepacker was with him.

“Very expensive SFX,” said the old boy. “That will have to come out of your wages.”

“What wages? I mean, my God, what have you two done? What was that creature? What is this movie? Why is it about me? Why …?”

Bobby Boy shrugged his high narrow shoulders. “So many questions. And you really shouldn’t be asking them. You’re the star player in all this. You started it. But you have to follow your script. You’ve deviated from the plot. You weren’t supposed to do this.”

“We could write it in,” said Mr Fudgepacker, scratching at his baldy head and sending little flecks of skin about the place. “It might make an interesting sequence.”

“No,” the thin man shook his head. “I think we should just write Russell out. As of now.”

“What?” went Russell. “What are you talking about?”

Bobby Boy sidled over. “You don’t get it anyway,” he sneered. “But then, you were never supposed to.”

Russell had a good old shake on. He reached for the Scotch bottle.

“And drinking my booze.” Mr Fudgepacker threw up his wrinkled hands. “That’s definitely not in the script. I’d never have put that in the script.”

“What script?” asked Russell. “The script of this abomination? I don’t want to be in your script.”

“But you’re already in it. You’ve watched the videos. You’ve seen what you do, what you’re going to do.”

“You’re mad,” said Russell. “This is all insane.”

“Sit down,” said Bobby Boy.

“Stuff you.”

“Quite out of character,” said Mr Fudgepacker.

“Sit down, Russell,” said Bobby Boy.

Russell sat down. And then he jumped up again.

“Sit down and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Russell sat down again.

Bobby Boy took the Scotch bottle from his hand. He hoisted himself onto a table and dangled his long thin legs[24]. “Are you sitting comfortably?” he asked.

“No.”

“Well never mind,” Bobby Boy put the Scotch bottle to his tricky little mouth and took a big swig.

“Oi,” croaked Mr Fudgepacker. “My booze.”

“Shut it old man.”

“Well, really.”

“Tell me, Russell,” said Bobby Boy, wiping his slender chin, “what do you remember?”

“About what?”

“About your childhood, say.”

“Mind your own business.”

“Come on now. What school did you go to?”

“Huh?” said Russell.

“Come on, tell me. I’ll give you a nip of this Scotch if you tell me.”

“I can take the bottle from you whenever I want.”

Bobby Boy produced a gun from his coat pocket. “I’ll bet you can’t,” he said.

“Come off it.” Russell put up his hands.

“Tell me which school you went to.”

“I …” Russell thought about this. “I …”

“Slipped your mind?”

“I …”

“Tell me your earliest memory, then.”

Russell knotted his fists.

“Careful.”

“All right. My earliest memory, all right. It’s … it’s …” Russell screwed up his face. “It’s …”

“Come on, spit it out.”

Russell spat it out. “It’s Morgan,” he said. “Morgan telling me about The Flying Swan.”

“And nothing before that?”

Russell scratched at his head of hair. Before that? There had to have been something before that. But what had it been?

“No?” asked Bobby Boy. “Lost your memory?”

“I’m drunk,” said Russell. “I don’t feel very well.”

“There’s nothing before it, Russell. You didn’t exist before that. You were called into being, Russell. So that you could fulfil a particular role, play a certain part. And you were playing it well, before you started to deviate. Opening the safe? An honest fellow like you, quite out of character.”

“I am not a bloody character,” said Russell. “What are you implying? That I’m just a made-up character in a book?”

“Character in a book?” Bobby Boy laughed his grating laugh. “Now that really is absurd. No, Russell. But you’re not a real person. You’re a construct. A bit of this person, a bit of that.”

“Crap,” said Russell. “And so what does that make you?”

“Oh, I know what I am. I’m a tricky lying villain. And Mr Fudgepacker here is a clapped-out old pornographer.”

“How dare you!” gasped the old one. “I am a maker of Art House movies.”

“A clapped-out pornographer who has sold his soul to –”

“Don’t say His name.” Mr Fudgepacker began to totter. Russell leapt up and guided him into his chair.

“Thank you, Russell,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “You’re such a nice young man.”

“Well, you’d know,” said Bobby Boy. “You made him up.”

“Bollocks,” said Russell.

“Just tell him, Bobby Boy.” Mr Fudgepacker scratched at a bubo on his wrist. “I want to get home and rub some pig fat on my scrofula.”

“OK. Russell, you have been brought into existence to achieve a great end: to aid the changing of the world. You see everyone’s confused. What am I here for? What does it all mean? Have you ever asked yourself those questions?”

“No,” said Russell. “I don’t think I have.”

“We wrote it out,” said Mr F. “It was very slow and it didn’t say anything new.”

“Accidental movements of the gods,” said Bobby Boy. “Everything that goes on on Earth. We dance to the tunes the gods don’t even know they’re playing.”

“Strangely enough, I don’t understand a word of that.”

“People aren’t important,” said Bobby Boy. “Not singly. It’s what they do en masse that matters, the direction mankind goes in as a whole. Mankind is really a vast multi-cellular organism, spread across the face of the planet. Or like billions of tiny silicone chips that when all wired together would form this single planetary brain. That’s the way forward, you see. That’s the ultimate purpose of it all.”

“Well,” said Russell, “at last I’ve met the man who has the answer to the meaning of life. This is a privilege.”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“No, I thought you were giving it away.”

“In the beginning the way was clear. All men spoke the same language. All the little chips were wired together. Remember the story of the Tower of Babel?”

Russell wondered whether he did.

“You do,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “You’ve got Christianity programmed into you.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.”

“All spoke the same language and so they could function as a mass mind. But the gods weren’t too chuffed with that, so they knocked down the tower, which was really this huge transmitting device to communicate with other worlds, and they scrambled the language. Mankind has been fighting amongst itself ever since.”

“Very interesting,” said Russell. “So just where do I fit into all this?”

“Your job was to raise the money for the movie.”

“There isn’t going to be any movie,” said Russell. “I’m going to put a stop to the movie. The movie is evil. You’ve done something evil and I’m going to stop it.”

“You can’t stop it now. The movie will be shown and all who see it will be converted. It’s not the plot of the movie that matters, Russell, it’s what’s in the movie.”

“And what’s that going to be?”

“Have you ever heard of subliminal cuts?”

“I’ve heard of them, but that’s like Satanic back masking. It’s rubbish. It doesn’t work.”

“Ours will work. But then ours came straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Or rather, straight from the mouth of God.”

“That thing?” said Russell. “That thing on the screen?”

“You shouldn’t call your God a thing, Russell.”

“That’s no God of mine.”

“It’s the only one you’ve got. The others are gone, long gone. They tired of playing games with man. Once in a while they think of us in passing and their accidental thoughts, their accidental movements of thought, cause waves on the planet. Religious fervour. Holy wars. But they play no active part. All but one of them, that is. He likes the place. He sticks around. He has the time for us.”

“No,” said Russell. “You don’t know what you’re saying. That thing’s the devil. You shouldn’t worship that.”

“There’s no devil, only rival gods.”

“You’re barking mad. I’ll stop all this.”

“Enough,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “Quite enough. All who see the movie will be converted. A new order of life, Russell. A new order of being, freed from all worry. You should appreciate that. To be free of all worry and care, all hatred, all doubt. Free to merge into the whole. A new future, Russell. Sadly you will not be here to see it.”

“Because we’re writing you out,” said Bobby Boy.

“Oh no you’re not.” Russell launched himself at the thin man on the table. But the thin man ducked aside and he hit Russell hard on the top of the head. And then things went very dark for Russell.