Destination Alpha Four - Chapter 2

2 - Pizza for Raj Patel
"You know, sir, we really don't get too many visitors from the Really Old Country", said the guard to the older man. The guard was tanned and shaven-headed, and perspiration was dripping off him in the heat, making him look like a cocktail sausage in uniform. He had a gyrojet pistol holstered at his belt, and a baton slung at his other hip.
"The Really Old Country being Britain, I take it", said the older man, mopping his brow. He was clearly suffering even in the shade of the transit bus as it rumbled down the parched gravel road. Shards of volcanic glass poked out of the gravel, searching for rubber tyres to penetrate. The transit bus's sand tracks crunched them back into the road surface.
Next to the older man, his dog, a massive alsatian, sat unmoving, not even panting in the heat, its mouth weirdly closed, its gaze set dead ahead.
"That's a real fine dog you got there", said the guard. "Don't know Earth fauna too good, mind. It's a dog, though, ain't it?"
"It certainly looks like one", agreed the older man.
"Yeah, the Really Old Place must be really somethin", said the guard. "All them bluebirds."
"Ah yes", nodded the older man. "Over the White Cliffs of Dover."
"And those dark satanic mills", said the guard wistfully. "Me an Maribelle, we're fixin to retire back to the Old Country one day an go see them mills."
"They're a sight to be seen", agreed the older man, looking back over the contents of the bus. Human beings, mostly men, looking back desolately or defiantly from behind bars, their hands and feet shackled. All wore the same white uniform with black crosses, the brightness of the fabric burning after-images on the eyes whenever the sun fell on it.
"Yes sir", said the guard, "you're lookin at the worst space got to offer right here. Subversives, deviants an Communists, the lot of em. That wun over there", he said, gesturing with his baton at a sunken-eyed old man who looked as if he might be about to cry, "edited a noosepaper that said bad stuff about the President of the Yoonited States."
"Gracious", said the older man, apparently hugely shocked.
"Yessir", said the guard, patting the gun in the holster at his belt, "you need the best protection democracy and free enterprise can provide dealing with this sort of human jetsam." He spat on the bus's metal floor. "Takin your life in your hands, comin out here unarmed, take it from me, sir."
The older man patted the dog's head gently; the head bowed slightly under the weight, then bounced back up like a spring. The dog hardly reacted otherwise. "Of course. You're absolutely right."
The dog opened its mouth.
"BAAAAAA", said the dog.
"Course, England's got to wait till after we do the Old Country", said the guard. "The Yoonited States, God bless it an keep it."
The older man couldn't help himself. "So, you'll be visiting Gotham City, Metropolis and the Big Rock Candy Mountains."
"We will sure enough. Can't wait to get a picture of me an Maribelle standin in front of the Daily Planet offices." The bus began to turn on its tracks in the sand; once it had turned through one hundred and eighty degrees, it began backing up, and dropped down a previously unseen incline in the desert floor. Dark concrete walls rose around the windows, blotting out the light.
"Of course", said the older man, "you'll need to get a visa if you want to go to Disneyland. US-Disneyland relations have soured in recent months."
The guard nodded knowledgeably. "Seen it on television. Leastways, the television we get here. We got us a four point three year delay from Earth; takes TV transmissions that long to get here." He wagged a finger at the older man. "Don't you go tellin us what the endin to Friends is, now."
"They all contract horrible diseases and die", said the older man without hesitating.
A soothing female voice began saying "VEHICLE IS WITHIN GUIDES. CONTINUE TO REVERSE. VEHICLE IS WITHIN GUIDES. CONTINUE TO REVERSE. VEHICLE IS WITHIN -"
There was a metallic CLANG as the bus backed into something heavy. There was a hiss of pneumatics, and the whole vehicle shook as if giant jaws had hold of it. Then, rapidly, the whole rear of the bus, the section beyond the cage that separated guards from prisoners, hinged open. Electric light, pathetically dim by comparison with the punishing sun of the desert outside, burned in the dark beyond. Other guards stood there in two rows, batons in hand, hands on gyrojet holsters, eyes on the prisoners.
The head guard in the bus rose to his feet. "OKAY, LADIES, TIME FOR NEW MEAT TO BE ON ITS FEET AN HIT THE STREET."
Wordlessly, the prisoners rose and obeyed.
"Got to lay down the law hard with these folks", said the guard to the other man. "They ain't used to livin by no rules."
"I can see that", said the older man. "They look like hardened criminals."
One of the hardened criminals' legs buckled underneath him; he had to be helped back to his feet by the two men on either side of him.
"Them three won't last long", observed the guard. "Guy gets to know these things, after he's been here a while. The one in the middle's weak, an the other two make 'emselves weaker helpin him. That's how it works in nature. The strong survive, the weak die off. That's why America ain't run by tree-huggin injuns an lily-livered limeys, no offence intended, sir."
"None taken", said the older man.
The prisoners were now all gone; the guard took a key card hanging from a chain at his throat and swiped it through the lock on the cagework door that separated the prisoner compartment from the crew. The door opened.
"What is it you're doin here for the limey government, sir? We don't hardly get no limeys out here. Matter of fact, I don't believe I've ever seen one; you're my first. Course, I seen em on your British TV. That Benny Hill, he is a hoot an a holler. I was kind of expectin you to be shorter an more obsessed with chasin womenfolk. Pardon me if the work you're doin here is a big old secret, need to know basis an all."
"It's delicate", said the older man. "I am looking for a very dangerous enemy of the British and American states. We've received unconfirmed intelligence that one of the prisoners here on Alpha is in actual fact not who he has claimed to be under interrogation, but actually Richard Turpin."
The guard looked alarmed. "The Highwayman? Here, in my prison? With respect, I think I'd know that, sir. The Highwayman's a devil, an I been brung up to know the devil when I see him."
"Of course. But you understand, I have to check out such a potentially vital source of intelligence."
The guard nodded. "That's understood, Mr. - what did you say your name was?"
"I didn't, but it's no state secret. My name is Alastair Drague, and this is my dog, Flossie. Say hello, Flossie."
Upon command, the dog opened its mouth and went "BAAAAAAAA" again. Somehow, it managed to make the "BAAAAAAA" sound menacing.
The guard looked at the dog in puzzlement. "Uh, sir, did your dog just make a BAAA sound? I was kind of led to believe by schoolbooks that dogs went WOOF, BOW or WOW."
"Really?" Mr. Drague looked genuinely surprised. "Which specific text was this?"
The guard coloured. "I think it was called OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM."
"Ah yes, I know it well; a timeless classic of Old Earth literature. Well, you see, Abner - may I call you Abner?"
The guard fidgeted in confusion. "Uh - you can, sir, though it ain't my name."
"- well, Abner, Flossie is an Old English sheepdog, and the Old English sheepdog is so named because its bark does indeed sound uncannily like the BAAA of a sheep. In nature, the sheepdog cunningly imitates the sound of the sheep to draw sheep to it, at which point it mercilessly attacks. Nature red in tooth and claw."
"Well, I'll be", said the guard, without bothering to specify exactly what he'd be. "Well, Mr. Drague, this is the end of the line for us good guys too. We go in the same way they did." He gestured through the open cage door.
Mr. Drague stepped down out of the van into merciful coolness, and sighed despite himself.
"Feels good, don't it", said the guard. "It's close on seventy degrees cooler down here, only a yard or so under the surface. Whole complex is down here, pretty much invisible from orbit. Prisoners can go up to thirty miles out from here to the nearest ore faces on mine trains underground. They work fifteen, sixteen hours, then get drove back here an sleep, then get up an do it all over again. Sundays we let em rest, unless the governor's got a hard target he wants hit."
"And that would be Mr. Brookbanks", said Mr. Drague.
"Fine man, the governor", said the guard. "He got hisself all kinda fancy titles from them Ivy League business colleges. He taught us all about how there's no 'i' in 'team'. Though there is", continued the guard proudly, "a T, an E, an A, an an M."
"Well remembered", said Drague. "Why do you still use surface crawlers?"
"In case a prisoner steals a saucer", said the guard. "Can't get as far in a crawler. Takes a good few hours to get here from the landin field, an no saucer puts down there but long enough to de-saucer her prisoners." They were now in a claustrophobic set of concrete tunnels. The guard unlocked a side door labelled LATRINE: OFFICERS AND TRUSTIES ONLY.
"I take it a Trusty is a prisoner you trust well enough to let them supervise the other prisoners", said Mr. Drague.
"Got that nailed right there first time", said the guard. "Thought you might want to freshen up in here after the trip. Most folks do after an hour on the surface, though us old hands just stew in our own juices an pay no heed to the stink. There ain't no escape from Plain Ease, believe you me. Temperature up top is a hunnerd twenny in the shade, the sandstorms'll blow your eyelids off, the cold at night'll half kill you, an there's things that live in the sand that'll finish the job. Some big as trucks, some smalleren the inside of your nostril. This place ain't built for human habitation, no sir."
He ushered Mr. Drague in to the latrine, and closed the door politely behind him. Drague's dog had followed him in; it sat down on the latrine tiling, not moving, panting or indeed breathing in any way. There was a single undecorated mirror on one wall, above the single hand basin. Drague put both hands on the cold metal basin and sagged against it. His hands began to shake. He looked up at the mirror; an old man's ashen face stared out at him.
"Father", he said bleakly, "what have I let myself become?"
***
The building was massive and imposing - huge fluted pillars, Egyptian symbols and gigantic staring black statues of cats, bigger than people, flanking the entrance. It was completely out of place in central London. Across the front of the building was the mysterious word: CARRERAS.
"It's supposed to be the headquarters of a fashion company", said Harjit as they watched from the safety of the café window, "but I can't remember ever seeing one of their shops on the high street."
"It's obviously a front for a more sinister purpose", said Narinder.
"I ent seen no wun go in for the last half hour", said Armand.
"They come in to the building through the Queen Matilda Line", said Harjit. "It's a secret underground railway originally created to allow the Royal Family to leave London quickly in the event of nuclear attack. Captain Yancy and Commodore Drummond say there's a station deep under the basement."
Armand considered this quietly to himself.
"As per the plan, you are going to be a pizza delivery boy", said Harjit. "You will shortly go and change into your pizza delivering clothes in the toilet, after which your own mother will not recognize you. Then you will march up to the front of the building, walk into Reception and say you are delivering a pizza for Raj Patel. There will be at least one Raj Patel in the building. There is a Raj Patel in every large building in Britain."
"Is there?" said Cubic Zirc. "Is he employed by the Council, loike?"
"No, Zirc, I mean Raj Patel is a very common name. But not quite as obvious as John Smith would be."
"Then what?" said Narinder.
"Then Armand takes advantage of the security guard's distracted attention to slip further into the building, find Alastair Drague's office, and duct tape his mobe to the desk."
"What distracted attention?" said Sukhbir.
Harjit, interrupted in mid-stream, narrowed her eyes at Sukhbir. "Pardon?"
"What distracts the security guard?"
"Oh, I don't know - Armand, try flapping your arms about like a chicken or something."
"But that distracts the security guard's attention onto him", said Sukhbir.
Harjit rapped her knuckles to her temples to hold in her fragile thoughts. "Enough with the pressure! I cannot create under pressure!"
"Maybe if we ad two pizza delivery men", said Cubic Zirc. "Both deliverin a pizza to Alastair Drague at the same time, loike."
"That assumes Alastair Drague really likes pizza", said Sukhbir.
"What if, what if, what if", said Narinder in sudden excitement, "one of us disguised herself to look exactly like the security guard. It would be like looking into a mirror, only not like looking into a mirror, because your reflection's left hand side wouldn't be on its right hand side. It would blow the security guard's mind, and in his confused state it would be easy to slip past him."
Harjit looked at her sister for longer than it was taking for Porsh to polish off the complimentary nanobiscuit that had come with her espresso, which was a very long time.
"You always shoot down everything I say!" complained Narinder. "Like, like this morning when I said we could get into the Shadow Ministry by learning to jump, like, a hundred buses at once on a motorcycle, and then we could line the buses up outside the Ministry and claim we were going for the absolute world record in motorcycle bus jumping, and then we could, like discreetly jump by motorcycle through a side window in the Shadow Ministry instead, and all of the rest of us could be, like, Oh My God, That Poor Lady Motorcyclist May Be Hurt, Into That Building, Get Her Out To An Ambulance Quick, and in the ensuing confusion Armand could run into the building disguised as a Guinness Book of Records world motorcycle bus jumping record measuring expert or something."
Cubic Zirc's eyebrows were actually trying to migrate to opposite sides of her face in confusion.
"What does wun o them look loike, then?"
"Well, like an ordinary man, only with a Guinness Book of Records and a tape measure and a very sad life. He'd have to know what the current world motorcycle jumping record was, so he'd need a Guinness Book of World Records, obviously -"
"And a really long tape measure", said Sukhbir.
"Yeah", said Porsh suddenly. "In case sumwun tried to cheat by usin really narrow buses."
"Or a really long motorbike", said Cubic Zirc.
“QUIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!"
Everyone was quiet. Harjit gulped in air. A little old lady two tables away frowned at Harjit and said:
"Oh, I say."
"Beautiful, beautiful silence!" sighed Harjit. "This allows my creative juices to flow and deliver to your puny minds my genius for tactical planning." She punched herself in the skull with both fists to make her brain work faster. "Yes. Yes. Team - I now have an infallible plan which cannot fail. The security guard will be distracted."
"What is it?" said Narinder.
"It is on a need to know basis, is what it is", said Harjit, draining the froth off her latte.
"Where do they get on?" said Armand suddenly. "I know where they get off, but where do they get on?"
Narinder, Harjit, and Cubic Zirc looked at Armand blankly.
"The folks what work in the Ministry", said Armand. "They get off a train in the basement, but where do they get on?"
Harjit shrugged. "There must be another secret station somewhere."
"How about I just shoot the security guard?" said Armand, pulling out the Mark Two Orgonizer, a weapon the size of a lady's hairdryer which could, depending on the setting the wheel on top of it was turned to, make whoever was shot with it HAPPY, SAD, ANGRY, FRIT, or SEXY.
"PUT THAT AWAY", hissed Harjit. "There are almost certainly cameras trained on us at this very moment."
Jaws dropped all around the table.
Narinder and Sukhbir looked everywhere for the cameras; Armand ducked under the coffee table in fear and flicked the Orgonizer expertly to the SEXY setting. Porsh hurriedly took out a compact mirror and began adjusting her lipstick. Zirc, meanwhile, looked out at the rows of windows over the road, coolly blew out a pink bubble of gum, and burst it.
Harjit prodded Armand with a boot. “Into the Gents’, tiger. Time to get into the Clothes of Shame.”
***
Armand no longer looked like Armand. His shoplifted designer sports gear and trainers were gone. In a bright yellow baseball cap, bright blue shirt with bright yellow buttons, regulation shiny blue shoes, and bright yellow trousers, he looked like a fugitive from the Toytown jail. His bright shiny badge, however, announced him to be an employee of PRONTO PIZZA (THE PIZZA THAT’SA SOLDA BY THE MEATA).
“Wow, you’ve been a bad goblin, Armand”, said Narinder.
“I ent bin a goblin nothin”, protested Armand.
“You took the chocolate stereo out of Noddy’s little car and made him cry little wooden tears”, said Sukhbir.
“I do not understand your company’s frankly ungrammatical slogan”, said Narinder.
“Iss not my uniform”, said Armand. “Iss my mate’s. I got to geddit back to im for the weekend, loike. Otherwise e loses is liveliood.”
Sukhbir pressed a massive, warm pizza box into Armand’s hands. “Now, be careful with this, Agent Jeffries; it has extra toppings and soaked up most of the equipment funds for this mission.” She flipped up the pizza box lid. “If you are pursued by an enemy, try rubbing the red chillies into their eyes. They are especially hot and this may give you time to run away. My, those olives look good -“
Harjit slapped away Sukhbir’s hand from the olives. “My, don’t you look smart. I could well go for you in this.”
Armand brightened. “Really?”
“Of course not; you look like a tube. I was only raising your morale.” She opened the café door for Armand. “Consider your morale raised. Get in there and knock ‘em dead. Or, you know, vice versa.”
“What do I say?”
“What we talked about at great length. ‘ONE IMPERATORE CARNIVORE CON QUESO FOR A MR. ALEXANDER DRAGUE’.”
“I kent remember all that.”
“Okay, then tell him he has a big pizza covered in cheese.”
“I can remember that.”
“Good. Fly, my pretty! Fly!”
***
The lobby of the Shadow Ministry looked the same as the lobby in any big office building - expensive fake pot plants, a reception desk, elevators, comfy chairs for people to wait in while big important people were far too big and important to see them straight away. The single security guard manning Reception had a suspiciously big bulge on one side of his jacket; he pressed a button on the desk as Armand entered.
“Hello”, said the security guard. He didn’t look old and slow like most security guards. He looked young and fit. He had a very short haircut, as if he had either been in prison or the Army. He was blond and handsome, and had a craggy jaw. Armand disliked him on principle.
“Godda pizza”, mumbled Armand.
“Imperatore Carnivore con Queso for Mr. Drague?” said the guard.
“Thass roight”, said Armand. “You must be psychic.”
“Something like that”, said the security guard, grinning.
“You got more teeth than I can count”, said Armand.
“Almost certainly”, grinned the guard. “I’ll make sure Mr. Drague gets his pizza.” He held one hand out for the box.
“E’s godda soign for it hisself”, said Armand. “To cut down on pizza delivery fraud, loike.”
“Mr. Drague is busy”, said the security guard. “He is out of the office. You really have no idea how far out of the office.”
“E weren’t too busy to phone for a pizza”, said Armand.
The security guard’s right hand was beginning to creep towards the left breast of his jacket, despite the fact that Armand knew the security guard knew Armand could see this happening.
“Om amazed you knew what pizza I ad in this box”, said Armand.
“We know all sorts of amazing things”, smiled the guard.
The pizza box flared green and purple. The guard smiled even wider. Drool began coming out of the side of his mouth.
“You didn’t know om not quite as darft as I look”, said Armand. He pulled out the cheese-covered Orgonizer, its selector turned to HAPPY, from the box, pulled out the Imperatore Carnivore Con Queso with his other hand, and bit into it.
“Om eatin your boss’s pizza”, he said to no-one in particular. “What you gunna do about it?”
As if on cue, two lift doors at either end of the hallway burst open, and two more security guards burst in, both already holding pistols of the big, heavy sort carried by the Shadow Ministry’s Special Operations section. Armand hesitated. In order to shoot one of them, he would have to turn his back on the other.
Suddenly, the glass window of the Reception area starred from floor to ceiling. It didn’t break, but something had been thrown at it hard enough to splinter bulletproof glass. Both the security guards whipped their heads round, taken completely by surprise. This didn’t work to Armand’s advantage; he was just as surprised as they were.
Harjit ran into Reception through the glass door she’d just failed to break; she had to use the handle provided to open it.
“EQUAL RIGHTS FOR SHORT DUMPY UGLY SUPERMODELS!” she yelled, still hefting one half of a brick. “FREE NORWAY!”
The security guards stared dumbly at her. Armand used the moment of confusion to back away towards the elevators and hit a lift button behind him with the heel of his palm.
“END COW SLAVERY NOW!” yelled Harjit, one fist in the air. “MILK IS MURDER! RIGHT ON! YEAH!”
Behind Armand, the lift door whirred silently open; he stepped back into it and selected a floor at random. A bell sounded and the door began to close.
“HEY, WAIT -“ yelled one of the security guards, and dived for the elevator door. Armand hit him with a well-timed Orgonizer shot thumbed to ANGRY, then flattened himself against the side of the elevator as ten poorly-aimed rocket bullets tore through the closing lift door in quick succession, followed by the weight of the security guard cannoning into the metal, fingernails and teeth scraping and grinding on the steel. He actually heard the guard growling. Then he heard the weight release from the other side of the door, and heard the second guard’s voice say: “Kev? Kev, why are you looking at me like that?” The rest of the conversation was cut off by an animal howl and a human shriek of pain. From far away, he heard Harjit’s voice say: “Righto, I’ll be leaving now, then.”
The elevator was headed for the second-from-highest floor. There were two sets of lights showing floors, however, and one set didn’t have buttons Armand could press. On this second set, a second elevator seemed to be gaining on Armand’s. He remembered that there had been two sets of lift doors in the lobby. As he watched the lights, every single one of them went red and started flashing, and a klaxon began to sound. A screen lit up on the wall of the elevator with a lady’s face. The lady was very pretty, even if she was dressed in a smart tweed business suit.
“ATTENTION”, said the woman in a prim upper-class voice. “THERE IS AN INTRUDER IN THE MINISTRY. THE INTRUDER IS BELIEVED TO BE IN -“ there was a pause at this point, and then a completely different woman’s voice with a thick Brummie accent said: “STAFF ELEVATOR TWO, FIRST FLOOR, GOING UPWARDS.” Then the voice became posh again and said: “THE INTRUDER IS BELIEVED TO BE”; then, the woman from Birmingham said, in a voice that didn’t quite match the lips of the lady on the screen, “OF MEDIUM BUILD, OF MIXED RACE, AND UGLY.”
“Oo you callin ugly”, said Armand, and shot the screen with the Orgonizer. The picture flickered slightly.
“THE INTRUDER IS BELIEVED TO BE IN ELEVATOR TWO, SECOND FLOOR GOING UPWARDS”, said the screen.
Armand hit the Alarm button. The elevator stopped dead. He wrenched at the lift door; it slid aside to reveal a concrete-sided shaft, and the bottom half of an outer door. He scrabbled at the second door, and it, too, came open, giving him a bathroom-window-sized hole to squirm through. Knowing the lift could cut him in half if it started moving again, he squirmed quickly through the gap into a corridor beyond.
“THE INTRUDER IS BELIEVED TO BE IN THE SECOND FLOOR ELEVATOR CORRIDOR”, said the two women’s voices from the walls. Armand looked up into the lens of a security camera. Taking a fistful of cheese from the Imperatore Carnivore Con Queso, he smeared it all over the camera.
“THE INTRUDER IS ASSUMED TO STILL BE IN THE SECOND FLOOR ELEVATOR CORRIDOR”, said the two women’s voices.
“Dat’s better”, said Armand, dived back into the elevator, flattened himself against the wall underneath the camera in the elevator, and hit the button for the top floor. The elevator began to move again. On the other list of floors, he saw the second elevator stop at the second floor. They still thought he was there.
The elevator door whirred open at the top floor. Two armed security guards were standing chatting while they loaded their pistols. Armand shot them both with the Orgonizer, making them FRIT. They turned to look at each other, then threw down their weapons and ran away screaming down the corridor in opposite directions.
Armand poked his head out into the top floor corridor, taking time to locate the corridor’s camera. When he’d found it, he sidled up to it and smeared it with cheese before moving down the line of office doors that opened off the office. English, A., Extra-Atmospheric Assets - no; Anthony, D., Very Long Range Logistics - no; Wilbraham, P., Diplomacy Continuation - no; Drague, A., Special Operations - BINGO.
He took what he needed to take out of his pizza box, opened the door a crack, rolled into the room under the field of view of the camera. The office was spotlessly neat and tidy, with not a scrap of paper left on any surface; Armand was hugely disappointed. He had expected confidential documents with titles like PROJECT DOOM - NOT TO BE LEFT ON DESK. There was a desk, though - a single huge wooden one with claw-and-ball feet, topped in scarred green leather. There was also a document safe that unfortunately looked solid enough to survive being dropped from orbit. There was a window that looked down on Hampstead Road from a dizzy altitude.
The desk, however, had drawers. Armand's heart stood still in case it made a noise and alerted security. Stalking the desk on hands and knees across the office like a tribal hunter gatherer, he slid under its knee-hole, slithered a hand up to the right hand drawer, pulled it by the knob, and felt it move. No alarms seemed to go off that weren't already going off. Hoping the drawer didn't contain a venomous hairy spider, he slipped his hand into it, and his fingers closed around heavy cardboard. He drew his hand back out with difficulty; in it was a green card folder helpfully labelled ABOVE ABSOLUTE TOP SECRET.
He opened the folder and pulled out the top sheet. it bore the Special Operations crest - Britannia wearing a space helmet and holding a Gyrolite rifle, with the motto NEMO INTELLEGET QUOD HIC SCRIPSI underneath. Beneath that, the cover sheet said:
PROJECT PROTERON - SHADOW ADMIRALTY EYES ONLY
Armand closed the folder again and listened for movement in the hall. Hearing nothing, he reached into his pizza box, carefully selected one item of its contents, and slapped it under the kneehole of the massive writing desk. Then, sliding back across the office under the eye of the camera, he poked his head out into the hall.
Almost at the same time, a man in a smart business suit and tie poked his own head out into the hall from the office next door. Seeing Armand, he yelled a challenge and jumped out into the corridor, reaching for a Gyrojet pistol in a shoulder holster.
Casually, Armand raised the Orgonizer and squeezed the trigger. There was a BANG, sparks, and a smell of burning insulation. The man in the business suit was still there, tugging triumphantly at his holster.
Armand's eyes widened - he dived across the corridor around a corner. Behind him, he heard a voice yelling "FOUND HIM, THIRD FLOOR HALLWAY". Immediately, the posh lady's face appeared on screens all the way down the corridor, saying "SUBJECT IS NOW BELIEVED TO BE IN THE THIRD FLOOR HALLWAY".
A white-haired little old tea lady pushing a trolley of cakes confronted Armand as he turned another corner. She looked up at him, scowled, produced a Gyrojet of her own from inside a tea turn, and began yelling his position into her ID badge.
He ducked sideways through a doorway; it took him into a stairwell. He straightened up against the wall on the other side of the door and waited. The white-haired lady stormed through the door; Armand filled her face with a twenty-one-inch deep pan chilli pizza. Screeching vengeance through the hot mozzarella, the dear little old thing span round firing her gyrojet at random, chipping blue asbestos from the walls. Armand sprinted down the stairs, his one remaining pizza slice in hand, stopping to nibble from it occasionally. After two more flights, he stopped to lay the slice carefully on a step, turned and halted. The man in the suit and tie pelted down the stairwell after him, taking careful aim at Armand, then flew cartwheeling into the far wall as his foot came down on the slippery slice. There was a hideous CRUNCH as his head whacked the steps like a cricket ball being hit into the next county.
Armand continued to hurtle down the stairs, completely weaponless now, having lost both gun and pizza. All he had now was a useless broken Orgonizer in his back pocket, and the envelope containing the top secret folder in his hand.
There's a branch of the Queen Matilda line in the basement -
He left the steps and let himself drop another storey down before grabbing a concrete lintel to try and slow his fall. Bullets ricocheted past him up and down the stairwell. The floor hit him like an express train; he shook his head to clear it, reminded himself which way was up and pushed himself to his feet in that direction. His legs weren't cooperating any longer; every step was red tearing agony.
A matt grey metal tunnel descended down into the dark, signposted helpfully. Bizarrely, he was at the top of a London Underground escalator, with one set of steps going up and one down, separated by a shiny ramp of burnished aluminium. As if it knew he was there, the downward set of steps lurched into motion to receive him. He bowled himself down the ramp in the middle, trying to slow himself using NO SMOKING signs that occasionally shot past. The world flashed past, and the floor cannoned into him again, now covered in shiny white tiling. His mouth was bleeding as he crawled across the tiles, and gunfire was sparkling off the ceramic all around him. He was crawling towards a sliding glass door beyond which he could see red, white and blue sofas bearing the Queen's crest. Still keeping the vital folder clutched to his chest, he pulled himself through the sliding doors, onto a red, white and blue polyester carpet. Red, white and blue doors hissed shut behind him, and the room he was in began to move. "THIS TRAIN TERMINATES AT", said the posh lady's voice, and then the Brummie lady's voice finished "41 BUCKINGHAM PALACE ROAD."
He heaved himself up onto a seat and watched men carrying guns running out onto the platform, staring murderously at Armand sitting on the train as it rumbled away.
His ribs and teeth hurt as he laughed. By grabbing hold of the hanging straps, he was able to haul himself to his feet. The compartment was cleaner than any Underground car he had ever seen. It had a picture of the Queen on one wall, tastefully positioned over a bowl of flowers. The flowers, of course, were plastic. They were red, white and blue. Opposite him, he could see a tube map displaying a list of stations. The station he had come from, he was almost certain, would be the one called MINISTRY. There were other stations on the list called PINDAR, PALACE, and Q. The line seemed to end at PALACE.
A screen lit up on the other side of the carriage. The posh lady informed him of his current position. She really was very helpful.
The train swept through two stations without stopping, maybe because no-one was waiting on the platforms. Finally, it rumbled into a spotlessly neat and tidy station where an elderly man in a smart red uniform was brushing the floor. His uniform dripped with so many medals that Armand was surprised he wasn't leaning heavily to the left.
Armand stepped out of the Underground carriage and saluted. The old man had so many medals that it seemed appropriate. Surprised but apparently touched, the floor cleaner drew his heels together, stood ramrod-straight, and saluted in turn.
"Wherejoo get all that chest bling from, then?" said Armand.
The old man looked down at his medals. "Italy, mostly", he said. He held one between finger and thumb. "This big shiny feller ere, though, that were Korea. And this second row's North Africa. Gawd, it were ot. Got it by a shell”, he said. “Took a lump o shrapnel out me ead, big as yer finger.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Got no sense of smell."
"None of them from Alpha Centauri, then", said Armand warily.
"No. No, I weren't in the Royal Terrenes." The old man coughed. "I didn't pass the medical."
Armand looked up and down the station platform. It was decorated with more plastic flowers, and black flags with Union Jacks in one corner.
"Did sumwun die?" said Armand.
"No", said the old man. "That's the Dark Ensign. Like the White Ensign from the Royal Wet Navy, but, you know - dark. The black symbolizes the awesome orrible void of Outer Space." He peered more closely at Armand. "You ain't sposed to be ere, I'm guessin."
"You're guessin roight", said Armand.
The old man nodded. "Well", he said, "they ain't give me no gun, on account of budget cuts, so I spose I can't do naffink to stop you." He saluted again. "Mind ow you go. The top step's a smidgeon igher than the others. Folks trips over it."
"Thanks", said Armand.
"Don't mention it", said the old man, and went back to sweeping the floor.
Up at the top of the steps out of the station was an elevator hall with a massive royal coat of arms on one wall. There was one button on the wall between the elevators; Armand pressed it. The elevator door opened instantly. Armand stepped in. Stirring martial music played, the door closed, and the lift rose. The posh lady's face appeared on a wall screen and told Armand exactly where he was.
The elevator door slid open in a quiet, red-carpeted corridor lit, not by electricity, but by the good wholesome light of the Earth's sun.
Armand stepped out of the lift. The corridor had huge, ceiling-high windows and statues and paintings of really boring-looking old people. At one end of the corridor was an uncrossable knee-high barrier of scarlet rope. On the other side of the rope was a lady in a blue business suit being followed by a hundred Japanese people with cameras.
"Excuse me", said the lady in the blue business suit. "You're not supposed to be in there."
"I were deliverin a pizza", said Armand.
"I hardly think that's likely", said the lady in the suit. "We have kitchen staff for pizzas."
"I got lost", said Armand. He turned round to look at the door he had stepped out of. There was no door to be seen. Instead, behind him, there was a ten-foot painting of a man on a horse, waving a sword in the air while looking directly at the artist with an expression of easy contempt Armand recognized from headmasters and probation officers.
"Let me issue you with directions. We can't have you wandering around in the main house. There's no telling who you might bump into."
"Roight you are", said Armand. He stepped over to the other side of the rope and started walking away.
"The exit", said the lady in the suit frigidly, "is the other way." She pointed in case Armand could not figure out which way the Other Way was.
"Roight you are", said Armand, and tipped his cap politely. A Japanese man took a photo of him.
The exit was crowded, but not on Armand’s side; there seemed to be massive queues to get in to the building; Armand could see men in suits standing to one side of the queues, watching everyone who left with x-ray eyes. By the turnstiles, he could see thick stacks of leaflets saying BUCKINGHAM PALACE: 164 YEARS OF MONARCHY.
"SMART", breathed Armand, loudly enough for one of the ladies manning the turnstiles to take a sharp interest in him. Rapidly, he drew back behind an ornamental angel. Looking back along the corridor he had just come through, he saw a small, ungilded, normal-human-being-sized door with no unicorns or lions carved into it. Taking that door, he found himself in a stairwell, and walking down one flight, he found himself at an open door to a courtyard. In the yard, a woman in a chambermaid's uniform was standing trying to light a cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter. On seeing Armand, she nearly swallowed her cigarette.
"You nearly gimme a eart attack", she said. "Don't tell Housekeeper I was on a fag break. I'm sposed to be muckin out the Deputy Prime Minister."
Armand nodded. On an impulse, he dived into his pocket and came out with a petrol lighter.
"Ooh, thank you", said the chambermaid, leaning greedily towards the flame.
"Dun't mention it", said Armand. "Om tryin to foind me way out”, he said. “Through the Tradesman’s Entrance. I kent goo out the same way as the General Public.”
“Why not?” said the chambermaid, looking his uniform up and down suspiciously. “What sort of tradesman are you?”
“Om deliverin pizza”, said Armand proudly. “For”, and here he lowered his voice and looked round for paparazzi before continuing, “You Know Oo.”
“No”, breathed the chambermaid.
“Yep”, said Armand. “She just kent get enough of our Imperatory Carnivore Con Kwezo, the ole twenny wun inches, scoffs the lot. Gets fed up of swans an caviar, I imagine. Dun’t tell no wun. The General Public would lose faith in their monarchy if they thought the Ead of State was, you know, stuffin deep pan cheese feast down er gob loike there was no tomorrow.”
The chambermaid nodded.
Armand was acutely aware that the yard was overlooked by massive sets of windows on all four sides. At least one of those sets of windows had two men in very nice business suits hurrying along it, talking into their top pockets, looking behind every vase and statue they passed.
“So”, said Armand, “is there a Tradesman’s Entrance?”
“You came in the Tradesman’s Entrance, didn’t you?” said the chambermaid, looking at him oddly.
“Oh yeah, yeah”, said Armand, “That Tradesman’s Entrance. I kent foind my way back to it. Parked me moped there an all. Dunt want them paparazzis takin photos of it, loike.”
The chambermaid pointed back into the building, up the stairs. “Up there, turn left, up the Grand Staircase, up the Red Corridor, down the Blue Corridor, through the Chinese Luncheon Room, hang a right into the Informal Throne Room -“
“The Informal Throne Room”, said Armand.
“- that’s what we call the toilets - then into the Belgian suite, through the Ambassador’s Entrance, an into the Guyanan Drawin’ Room, you can’t miss it, it’s full of glass cases with stuffed Amazon Indians in ‘em in natural poses. There’s a fire door at the back there they always leave open so they can plug the steam cleaner in when they scrub the chewing gum off the courtyard.”
“Thanks”, said Armand, and ducked back up the staircase, making sure the men in very nice suits were already walking in the opposite direction. He passed the lady in the blue business suit again, ignored her as she called out to stop him, jumped over a scarlet rope and started to run.