Nymphomation(94)
The Dark Fractals? Jazir Malik and Daisy and her father and Celia and Joe?
Allow them play.
Nigel Zuze and DJ Dopejack and Sweet Benny and Georgie Horn and Big Eddie Irwell, and all the rest of the dead? And the Joker Bone and Professor Hackle? It’s the things we miss that make us wish…
Allow them play. Allow them ghosts.
All the underachievers, the desperate and the wild; the users, the losers, the self-abusers; the closet queens, the wardrobe kings; the mix-masters, the fixers, the mix ‘n’ matchers; dead- enders, big spenders, low-enders, pretenders to the bone; the pros and the knows and the job-blows; the drunks and the skunks and the hunks; the survivors, the suiciders; the morticians, the mathematicians; bimbos and criminals; rich men, poor men, beggar men, thieves; the nameless and the gameless…
All the citizens, good and bad.
Allow them play. Allow them numbers.
Play to win
The game began at midnight previous for the Dark Fractals. The night, the early morning, long hours spent in planning and research. Everything they had learned in their individual ways was shared. Miss Sayer was consulted time and again, but her appearance only came at random, and then she seemed to be constricted, as though something was blocking her progress. Only a few words – wings, help, me, grab, come, find, maze – were allowed play upon her broken tongue. Jazir had explained to Jimmy how the teacher had chosen him, nurtured him over years. ‘That’s my girl,’ agreed Jimmy. They were both keen to enter the House of Chances, however difficult it proved; one to rescue the teacher, the other to confront Mister Million. Only Jazir had a chance to gain entrance. It was agreed, therefore, that Jimmy would lead the maze-play.
They slept, each of the Fractals fitfully, except for Little Celia, who dreamed herself happy along dangerous streets, with a smile on her lips and a laugh, a winning bone and Big Eddie Irwell at her side. At seven in the morning, Joe called Hackle’s house again. No answer. He had called repeatedly through the night, always no answer, no answer. He drove the team over there, because Miss Sayer and Jimmy demanded it, but he was scared inside. He still had the key. The house was empty, they made sure of that, even the cellar. But the presence of the Joker Bone was palpable; the entire place was in ruins, with clothes and books and papers strewn everywhere.
Poor Max…
‘If only I’d seen it earlier,’ Joe said, ‘in Benny, and then in Max, I could have done something.’
‘Where is he?’ asked Daisy.
‘Out hunting.’
They spent the day in preparation, with Joe helping Jimmy in the cellar. The equipment had been well used over the last few days, that was evident. Jimmy surmised that Hackle had got the maze going, and had conducted his own experiments. Trouble was, he’d only patched it together roughly. There were lots of blind spots in the Hackle Maze that no amount of fiddling would fix. Miss Sayer came on-line to help. She pulled up a new maze behind her.
‘OK, we’re on target,’ said Jimmy.
‘Is that it?’ Joe asked.
‘The inside of the House of Chances. Now, let’s see…’ Jimmy worked a few keys, and the two mazes merged into one. ‘OK, we’re connected.’
Jimmy pulled down a menu, and pressed on THESEUS. A new window opened, and floating within it, a tiny icon, a ball of twine, a sword.
That’s what I load?’ asked Joe. ‘How does it work?’
Jimmy nodded. ‘Theseus was the Greek hero who killed the Minotaur in the labyrinth of—’
‘Come on. I’ve been to school.’
‘Max and I worked on this. It was a way to seal a Hackle Maze, should it go wrong. Sometimes the wanderers would become too mutated, too powerful, they would bleed into the hard disk, crashing the whole thing. The Theseus equation was designed to prevent this; it feeds a bad gene into the nymphomation, creating sterility. The only problem is…’
‘Don’t tell me, you never got it to work.’
‘We tried. I activated it that night, with Georgie… tried to save him… hopeless. We’ve tried to improve it since, but…’
‘Hopeless.’
‘Jazir has fed the Theseus to one of his blurbs, and that’s another unknown. I’ve looked at the system, it could go down at any second. Miss Sayer has done all she can, but she’s weak, she may not be able to keep it open for long. And remember who owns the net. They’re gonna realize, eventually, that someone’s breaking in. They’ll shut us down, God knows what else. You’ll be in charge of the computer. Don’t activate the Theseus till I say. The last moment. Got that? Nine o’clock. When they’re busiest.’