The Machine That Goes Ping
Part 9
Posted Tues, Sep 6 2005 6:32 pm
The next exciting episode is the finale. Lummy.
You don’t think I’m actually going to finish a multi-part AFPosted story, do you? Talk about revolutionary.
A note on completion, for completists. Cambridge, much of Hertfordshire and various other places are, in this fictional tangent of our own universe, now decimated in the traditional sense of the word. 10% – at least – of the city centre has been turned into gingerbread and disolved. The narrative could have done with a little more emphasis on the destruction and havock the storms have caused, but in light of recent events this side of the looking glass, I couldn’t bring myself to write them. We seek your forgiveness, and attempt to get on with the plot.
Our trinity met outside a Cambridge college. Me, General Simon Darque of
the DOX Special Operations detail, Aragon Bond of the fairies, and Rose
Red representing fiction. Bond was explaining a great deal about the
relationship between the world we know as real and the recently discovered
fictional world. How everything imagined here happens there in some form
or another, similer thoughts retold often collate to stories and eventually
explained how they started to exist outside the thoughts of the creators.
Fiction is not a place of greyscales. You are Good, and therefore Good things
happen to you and you remain Good, or you are Evil and Evil is done upon you,
you will always be evil and that is the way of the world. The world changes.
Where once vengance was seen as the right of a slighted man, now the world
saw little justification for the death of anyone. Fiction, as a reflection
of the thoughts of the real world, finds itself stretched and twisted as the
old stories warp around new sensibilities. Some stories cannot warp far enough
and run the risk of breaking entirely. Hansel and Gretel is one of these.
Hansel kill their captor, who is blind. There is no way around this, it is
how the story happens. The abandonment, capture, feeding up and escape are
all Good actions, but in the new, moral universe the act of killing (and
worse, cooking) even the worst of evil villians is Evil. The story is broken,
the pieces running free.
We found Gretel – or rather Rose did – in an abandoned house just outside
the devestated area where the first Confectionary storm hit, imposssibly
three weeks ago. Bond applied his sword as a kind of ultimate skeleton key
and we broke in and found her. To describe Gretel as large is to do a serious
disservice to the english language as a whole. It is, in retrospect, not
a suprise. Trapped with a witch feeding you cakes and sweets to bulk you
up is going to spoil even the most careful diet, and Gretel had been trapped
for months. She was dressed, for values of dressed, in the remains of an old
white sheet.
“Come on” said Rose, “We’re taking you home.”
“No. You’re not.” replied Gretel in a german accent.
“She’ll kill me. I’m staying right here”.
“No.” Bond answered, “She can’t change what happens. You will defeat her,
you’re destined to. I’ll help, if needs be”.
She apraised Aragon Bond. Bond was slightly taller than my own six foot
frame, and obviously far better at this mythical “Gym” thing I’ve heard
talk about. His wings were currently folded back behind him – as light
and delicate as a katana blade – and an imposing sword hung from his
belt to his right. If I was in a fight, I’d want him on my side. Trouble is,
in this case I wasn’t quite sure.
Bond hadn’t explained much since we stopped the war beyond metafictions.
He said that his group had been charged with maintaining the fictional world,
and it’s links with our own though our imaginations. He explained that
resolution of these things was part of his remit, and that he would be coming
with us. I spoke briefly to DOX control – who were notably less surised by
this set of circumstances than I was – and they agreed.
It is very, very difficult to move 500 pounds of stropy teenager when she
doesn’t want to go, but Aragon convinced her of his protective ability,
and we slowly made our way out.
We were going, at Bond’s insistance, to a large field behind what was
once the bus station, Gretel complaining and whining every single step
of the way. The field had been the centre of the worst of the storms,
and the building surrounding it were wreckages of brick and gingerbread,
the Narnian lamp-post that once had been a focal point turned to toffee and
bent completely over. We could immediatly see why we were here, and not just
by the flickering light of the bent over lamp post.
There was a patch of sunshine just north of the centre where the lamp-post was.
At 3am on a November morning, sunshine belonged nowhere near the field, but
there it was. Above the sunshine lit grass the sky was blue with not
a cloud in it. As we watched a rabbit hoped gleefully into the circle
of light, and then vanished back out into the darkness.
“She’s already made the hole, but can’t come though yet.” said Bond.
“How do you know?”
“She would already be here if she could”.
“I can”.
With a scream, the figure in front of us – dressed entirely in black,
hidden in the night – leapt at Gretel with a knife. Bond drew his sword
and knocked the blade away into the patch of daylight in one swift motion,
and the witch – you could tell by the pointed hat now she was in the light – cursed, drew another blade from her belt and went at him.
Years of training on Bond’s part were almost equally matched by the insane
frenzy of the Witch’s attacks, all the while screaming curses at Bond and
Gretel in roughly equal measure. These were not your standard “Damn you”
curses either. Every one was a hex crafted to distract or destroy the fairy.
Back and forth they went, as me and Rose tried to stay as far back as possible.
“Don’t waste your breath” said Bond, wasting his. “Your curses don’t work
in this world.”
Minutes went on, each dualist visably tiring – Bond slightly more so with
less fanatasism to draw on – the swings, slices and parries getting closer
and closer as minutes went by. Then, with a final burst of effort, Bond
went for a final attack, beating the Witch back by sheer energy until finally
she stepped back, and uttered the only true curse of the entire match.
“Bugger” she said.
She had stepped into the circle of daylight.
With suprising speed, Gretel whipped out a small black stick, pointed
it at the witch and spoke:
“Have a cadaver”
The witch pitched forward like a dropped spear. Dead as rock.
“You stole her wand?” said Bond.
“It was the only way I could escape. I watched her every day, watched how
she did the little cantrips like lifting a saucepan lid, lighting the fire,
everything. Then I lifted the key, escaped my cage, got the vand and ran.
I fell into a lake, and ended up here.”
“I knew the lake wasn’t hidden enough. Time to take you back, you’ve got
a witch to burn.”
“I have to burn her?”
“Like the story says.”
“What happens to us?” I asked. “What about all this?”
“Oh, we can fix all this. Put the world back as if it never happened.
Don’t worry about it. In fact, you won’t. You’ll never remember
any of this ever happened.”
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