Errata: Eleventh Episode - Deadlock On Doomsday Eve

The Conference Room was electric with hate as the Thirteen (less one) convened around a huge horseshoe-shaped table's polished swerve. Each in his or her assigned chair, the assembled ran from left to right:

Raoul One
Drake Two
Monique Three
Samson Four
[CHAIR EMPTY]
Memenko Six
Eliza Seven
Reynard Eight
Jaffrey Nine
Helena Ten
Grace 'Legs' Eleven
Delphine Twelve
Pablo Thirteen

Cameras sat clenched in nooks like weird glassy spiders, whirr-zooming on the dozen-strong tribe of bickering Councillors below. After straightening her stiff cuffs, Delphine Twelve pushed back her chair and stood.

'People.' She held out a gloved palm like someone attempting a psionic ward. 'Noble people, please¦ Let's behave with the decorum appropriate to our station.'

A pause, then the room erupted with hearty laughter. Delphine bowed to scattergun applause and cracked open a can of soda.

'But seriously,' she went on, decanting the soda into a highball glass, 'we got problem. Lights.' She took a sip from her glass and as twenty hemispherical bulbs dimmed her teeth shone with caustic phosphorescence. Above the open end of the horseshoe table, a screen dropped from a slit in the ceiling. A slide projector set into the far wall ka-chunked through empty frames to its first picture ' a large white question mark against a cola-black background. 'As explained in your briefing notes, this evening I picked up a stray transphasic cell phone conservation over the comm system, the subject of which was the apparent capture of Klaus Firework.' Gasps and spat coffee blossomed in the darkness. 'From your responses, I take it,' Delphine wielded a scrunched sheaf of documents, 'that no one has read their briefing notes.'

'I did!' sang Helena Ten, waving her long skinny arm like a length of rubber hose.

'Oh cram it you peg-toothed apple polisher!' Reynard Eight slurred. 'Some of us have crushing booze-induced depressions to nurse without poring over thousands of pages of memoranda every day!'

Drake Two let out a squeak of indignation. 'Now, that's uh, now¦' His raised index finger quivered as he gulped back rage. 'Keeping uh, uh, abreast of administrative minutiae is essential if one is to fulfil one's duty as-'

'Have you read the briefing notes, Drake?' purred Grace Eleven.

'Well, I, uh¦' He dabbed at his brow with a crimson handkerchief, perspiration and brocaded monogram glistering with equal lustre. 'I've been terribly out of sorts, lately. No state to¦ oh my¦ I¦ I'm sorry¦' And he began sobbing into wadded silk.

'For the love of Jenkins!' Reynard clawed at his fine, nicotine-yellow hair. 'Can we just get on with this before someone else dies?'

Monique Three was thin-lipped. 'At least it'd break the deadlock.'

'Don't say that!' gasped Samson Four. 'You'll jinx the lot of us you silly tart!'

'People please!' Delphine slammed her palms against the table. 'Let's focus on the situation at hand.' The next slide clicked into register. It depicted a roped Steinway dangling from a pulley with ominous ripeness; below, a jaunty cartoon fellow was sauntering into its shadow, hands in his pockets and his lips pursed in a whistle, a speechbubbled minim emanating from his mouth. The oblivious gent wore an oversized hat which read: ERRATA; written across the Steinway's lid were the words: MYSTERIOUS PROPHECY. 'This, noble people, is what we're up against.'

Councillors shuffled mute and confused.

'It's tomorrow's political cartoon in the Tribune,' she said. More silence, dust motes bright and aquatic.

'I don't get it,' said Helena.

Delphine slurped her soda. 'Well, quite. None of us do. Kismet-Shaman W,' the next slide showed a blubbery cyclops clad in harlequin leathers and bell-festooned sombrero, 'sent a messenger to our Governor, complete with crappy riddle. Something about Errata being set to end rather sooner than we'd anticipated. Now, this revelation just happened to jibe with the conversation I stumbled across¦' She squinted into the gloom. 'Tape!' A hiss like spume over shale rose from recessed table-speakers, the volume building for a full ten seconds of white noise before:

'-pect me to furnish you with an audience. You have served your meagre purpose, leading my assistant to the Phase Vault, providing the relevant codes, and now, quite frankly, I can no longer be arsed to tolerate your dearth of elocution.' And the sound cut.

'I think we have to assume,' Delphine told the room, 'that our interlocutor is after the Key.'

'Now now,' said Jaffrey Nine. 'When you "assume you make an "ass out of "u and "me.'

'Don't go giving yourself airs, Jaffrey!' drawled Reynard. 'You'll never achieve the dizzy heights of asshood!'

Delphine exhaled through her nostrils. 'I've set the Barracks pumping out half a k's worth of Peace, ready to mount an assault.'

'Assault?!' Samson spluttered, grey-black eyebrows arching like a pair of feral cats locked in standoff. 'On whom?'

Monique rolled her kohl-rimmed eyes. 'Who d'you think? It'll be whoever the scheming bastard on the tape is.'

'From the exchanges I heard,' said Delphine, 'he appears to be a small-fry Fleshbroker by the name of Jones. We don't have his full details or his precise location-'

'Well that's it then!' Pablo Thirteen shivered bruised and weasel-esque in his seat. 'We're stuffed! We'll all ping out of commission like cheap light bulbs!'

Eliza Seven wafted her cheeks with a steel fan. 'Do hush, shorty.'

'But our Diviners are hard at work,' Delphine finished. 'We'll smoke the bugger out then pull him in twain like a dirty great wishbone.'

'Ah, one, small issue,' said Drake, wiping his tear-streaked jowls. 'Any operation on that level requires a Council vote.'

The room sagged under a collective groan.

'Jenkins preserve us,' said Samson.

Reynard shook his head. 'Brilliant. Just brilliant. We're impotent as an egg.'

Helena glanced about in chipper bafflement. 'What? Don't we get to vote?'

The puckered scar in Samson's left eye socket flexed and reddened. 'Of course we can vote! It's just that there's no point in voting, you daffy cow! We can't reach a decision without a majority, and every time it comes for a show of hands we end up split fifty-fifty! What do you think's been going on for the past five weeks? Surely, I mean¦' His hand dropped palm up onto the table as he grasped for words equal to his incredulity. 'You¦ you can't be this stupid, woman. You've been at every meeting. You know all this. It's a ruse, isn't it?'

Helena beamed like a painted jug. 'What is?'

'Your world-trumping idiocy!'

'Samson, darling,' said Eliza, smoke leaking through her grin, 'take a good long gawp at the girl's fizzy-eyed blandness. Poor Helena has been offsetting her boredom via vast drifts of Principality Dust. Her skull's no more than a packet of damp pop rocks, frankly.'

'I dance in a palace!' Helena giggled, and a finger of claret oozed from her left nostril.

'Given the circumstances,' Delphine said, spreading her arms in an effort to draw attention, 'I was hoping we might reel in our differences and vote unanimously. After all, this is about putting the wind up some cocky fucker who fancies he can tarmac over our sandpit with us still playing in it.'

Raoul One frowned and clucked his glottis. 'Hmm¦ Funny how you're keen to quash all dissenting voices now that it's one of your proposals up for consideration.'

'Raoul, Raoul, Raoul¦' Eliza shook her head in a slow palsy of derision. 'Must you raise a tombstone for every dunderheaded motion you fail to hustle through? You parade your grievances like old war wounds, when really they're closer to botched tattoos.'

'Eff off,' said Reynard. 'Raoul's right for once in that sorry theatre of disgust he calls his life. This is fear mongering.'

'I agree!' squawked Pablo. 'That's why I'm pitching my yurt firmly in the "aye camp.'
Reynard let out a rasp. 'Well of course you are, you widgety little rodent!'

'This isn't about being scared. It's about grasping the nettle.' Delphine bunched her right hand into a fist. 'Then throttling the bugger till it breathes its last.'

Monique flicked back her chestnut bangs, lips drawstringed. 'If self-preservation's the name of the game wouldn't we be best advised to circle the wagons? I mean if somebody really is out to bring down Errata wouldn't the Governor be the obvious target of choice?'

'Damn right!' Samson thumped the table. 'What are we doing sending valuable grunts hither and thither when our own security remains unaccounted for?'

'Fishy as a trout farm, if you ask me,' grizzled Reynard. 'Dispatching the Peace on some sudden crusade just when City Hall is at its most vulnerable.'

'What?' Delphine recoiled, incredulous. 'You didn't even know a threat existed until I told you!'

'Yes, yes¦' Reynard mimed a flapping beak with his liver-spotted hand. 'Talk as much as you like, deary ' all I hear is the honking that presages yet another wild goose chase. If we acquiesce we're playing right into your work-coarsened lesbo mitts. I propose that we use these new troops to defend the Council and City Hall.'

'Seconded,' said Samson.

'Thirded,' said Raoul.

Monique's nose was smooth and perfect as a dolphin sand sculpture. She wrinkled it imperiously, eyeing the room through dust-pocked contraflows.

'Seems you guys have already called shotgun on this bandwagon.' She squinted at Delphine. 'I've changed my mind. I'm with you, Twelve.'

Eliza chuckled from behind her fan. 'That's three plays three. Who's next?'

Grace Eleven cleared her throat. 'I have a question.'

'For me?' Delphine touched her fingertips to her cleavage.

'Naturally. You said that our Divining Squad is hard at work, trying to locate this mystery eschatological scoundrel.'

Delphine nodded. 'That's correct.'

'Hmm¦' Grace affected a smirking frown. 'Apologies if I'm stray as a ravenous weasel in a neonatal ward, but I was under the impression that all our Diviners were tied up trying to locate the next Five. Have I erred, my dear?'

Murmurs escalated towards outraged hollers.

'You!' Samson rose tremor-wracked from his chair like an ancient temple emerging from the desert. 'I knew it!' He jabbed the quarter-stub of an index finger at Delphine. 'This is all a scheme to prolong the Deadlock, isn't it? You don't want us to find our new member!'

'Please, Samson.' Drake touched two juddering fingers to the side of his head. 'Now, sit down. You know there are rules to be uh, followed.'

'Yes, come on you old poop,' said Eliza. 'Apoplectic tirades are all part of the fun but you must at least try to bridle them with protocol.'

'Bridle?' Samson clutched at his scar-ridged pate. 'Bridle? It's all we ever do in this Jenkins-forsaken talking shop! We've snaffle, reins and blinkers galore; what I want to know is, where's the fucking horse?' With that, his shovel hands dropped to his sides and he fell back into his chair, dust whumphing up like a distant firework epiphany.

Helena glanced about with the blinky wariness of a disinterred mole. 'I had a pony, once. She melted.'

Delphine's throat pulsed like a late-stage cocoon as she gulped down the last of her soda. Wiping her lips on the back of her glove, she shivered.

'Look,' she began.

'Twelve.' Grace held up a palm. 'By all means mount a sterling defence of your increasingly shaky position, but don't do so on my account. I'm voting with Reynard et al ' let's feather our own machine gun nests.'

'Ah ' if I may.' Jaffrey leaned forward in his chair, his moustache a narrow, parsimonious affair waxed into two long strands and weighted at either end with beads of polished jade. 'Now I don't wish to offend anyone-'

'Nonsense!' Reynard snorted. 'Nobody with such an unconscionably grotesque countenance would appear in the company of others unless he wished to cause grievous and protracted affront. Can't you wear a hood or something?'

Jaffrey laughed with practiced musicality. 'Oh Reynard! You really are a card! A trump! An ace, even!'

'Whereas you, my friend, are incontrovertibly a deuce.'

'Aha, yes, thank you. Now if I may.' Jaffrey cleared his throat. 'I'm not entirely clear why we ought to trust this, uh¦ "W chap.'

'Quite so,' said Raoul. 'We've no shortage of self-appointed sages in Errata, grim prognostications toddling behind them like a row of ducklings. Cursed ducklings, I mean.'

'Yes yes yes.' Delphine was reaching for the soda can holstered under her seat. 'But W has form.'

Grace nodded. 'I can't deny that Kismet-Shaman W commands an unrivalled respect amongst seers. It's not his ability, but his honesty ' and yours, Twelve ' which I find myself unconvinced of. He may have all sorts of reasons for assailing City Hall with doomy portents ' I'm not about to let the tail wag the dog, no matter how fine the pedigree ascribed to said rear appendage.'

'But what if he's right?' said Delphine. 'What if his motive's simple self-preservation?'

'What if he's wrong? What if you stoop to pick up a penny and your spine breaks like a breadstick? What if the universe is a wild, headless place where anything might happen and the best divination is just dumb luck? If I had a dollar for every hypothetical scenario I could imagine¦'

'Okay, okay.' Jaffrey smiled and nodded, his moustache jouncing. 'I've heard enough. I'm voting for self-defence. Let's bring the Peace here.'

Reynard chuckled in arid, accordion wheezes. 'That's five-three, Delphine. Looks like we might see a result after all.'

'I'm afraid I'm going to have to throw my lot in with Reynard as well,' said Drake. 'The City Peace and Divining Squad serve the Council ' their operational status can only be altered by a majority vote. Much as the Shaman's warning discomfits me, I can't abide those who ride roughshod over due process and expect my support at the end of it. Let's bring the Peace home.'

'What? No!' Delphine Twelve threw a mixed deck of glares, gapes and wounded glances about the room, shaking her soda can like a dead maraca. 'Don't you get it? Don't you see how important this is? Dammit!' She gavelled the can against the table. 'What kind of defence is five hundred grunts against someone with their finger on the button? If Jones activates the Key there'll be no city, let alone a City Hall!'

'How would he know what to look for?' said Raoul. 'I mean the Key¦ it's not an actual key, y'know?'

'Oh shush, shush! Shut up!' Reynard drummed his fingers. 'This is all academic. Delphine ' you've got six against. Your proposal can't possibly pass. It's been decided. The five hundred new Peace will return h-'

'Now Reynard that's bollocks and you know it!' Drake's face was set in a grimace of ill-suppressed rage. 'There ' are ' rules!' He punctuated each word with a crash of his fist. 'There are twelve of us here, so for a majority you need one more vote or an abstention.'

Reynard exhaled heavily through the splintered boardwalk of his wooden teeth. 'Okay, fine. Let's recap ' we've got myself, Samson, Raoul, Grace, Jaffrey and Drake. That's six. Delphine, Pablo and Monique are the only ones who've voted in favour of this imbecilic manhunt. So that leaves, uh¦' He scanned the table. 'Helena Ten, Eliza Seven, and Memenko Six. So, ladies?'

'What's that?' Helena chirruped.

'Sending the City Peace after a bad man,' said Delphine, stooping to Helena's eye level. 'Heaps of brutality and wrongful arrests.'

Helena grinned. 'SafeStaves up jacksies and that sort of thing?'

'Oh, absolutely. Nothing like a few scorched colons to grease the wheels of justice. What do you think? Are you in favour?'

'Yes!' She applauded with sea lion enthusiasm then tittered, remembering herself. 'Sorry,' she said, shielding her smirk, 'I mean ' "aye.'

Reynard growled. 'Humph. We've no need to court the lunatic fringe anyway. Now, Eliza¦ you're bright as a button. What's your take on this debacle?'

Eliza Seven took a final drag on her filterless cigarette, blew a geometrically perfect smoke-hoop then flicked the glowing dog-end cartwheeling through its centre. The butt extinguished with a hiss as it landed in Pablo Thirteen's decaff coffee, Helena Ten whooping like a puppy.

'It seems to me that any voting system that insists I support one of two mutually exclusive propositions is flawed to its marrow.'

'But you needn't,' said Drake. 'You can abstain.'

'True,' said Eliza, 'but at this stage an abstention would grant the "defence camp an unassailable six-vote majority ' it would, in effect, be identical to my voting "aye to Reynard's proposal, symbolic value notwithstanding.'

Grace shrugged. 'Just because something lacks absolute worth, it doesn't follow that it's worthless. Relative value is still value.'

Eliza flashed a stiletto-sharp smile. 'Grace darling, I've survived this long without your cod philosophy ' let's not squander useful oxygen stoking our mutual enmity. I'm uniquely well-placed to know my own mind, thank you. Now¦ as it happens, I agree with Reynard, Raoul, Samson, etcetera that Kismet-Shaman W is as motivated by self-interest as every other myopic swine in this city, yet I also concur with Delphine's point that not being extinguished along with the rest of Errata more than satisfies the criteria for said self-interest. So¦' She sucked in air, straightened her back. 'What do we do? Neither choice placed before me appears apposite. Either we tear Underspace asunder in a clattering cack-handed search for our alleged assailant, or we obligingly circle the wagons, leaving our nemesis free reign to take possession of the Key, retreat to a safe distance and then activate it. Both sound effective as a yak-hair bomb shelter; yet more proof ' as if t'were needed ' that as long as the Deadlock trundles onward, the Council sits in neutered ignominy.'

'So abstain, Jenkins blast you!' Reynard bunched his fists. 'That way the Diving Squad can return to finding the replacement Five and we can finally return to full potency!'

'And what would you know of potency, Reynard?' Eliza swatted away the giggles her comment elicited. 'Don't you think discovering who this would-be World Eater is and calling him to account ' if only for his impudence ' ought to take priority over our petty succession gripes? Don't you suspect that passing the latest Malfeasance Bill may take on a somewhat futile cast when the sirens begin to wail and Errata ends in a domino run of mushrooming explosions?'

'I think we've all made our positions clear as vodka, Seven,' said Grace. 'Now come on you little prick-tease ' how will you vote?'

'Aye,' Eliza said.

Raoul jerked forward. 'In whose favour?'

'In no one's, I fear.' Eliza let out a sigh. 'Not even my own. My vote's with Twelve.'

Massed groans.

'That means the final decision comes down to¦' Delphine Twelve scanned the darkness. 'Memenko?' The seat was empty.

'Asses!' Silhouetted in the plum-hued gloom, Memenko Six stood at just over four foot tall atop the conference table, stamping her wooden-clogged feet and gesticulating at a furious clip. 'Blockheads! Boobies! Cretins! Dumbbells! Dunces! Halfwits! Morons! Nincompoops! Ninnies! You know-nothing pleasure-raddled greed-addicted twits! You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid politicians! You think this is about us? You think this is just about saving the city?' She heel-stomped out a syncopated snap-crash tattoo. 'You can't blow out a house's foundations then go living merrily in the attic! Kill the head and the body will die!' Her fist pounded her breastbone. 'Whoever seeks the Key is massively deluded as to Errata's nature! The City does not exist outside of Underspace ' we're written right through it like an expletive in a stick of rock! Destroy Errata and you destroy everything.'

She paused, glanced round until she found a camera.

'Did you hear me? You destroy everything.'