The Machine That Goes Ping
Part 2
We eventually found a way to protect against the rain. In a park in
America they worked it out when someone left a cake out in the rain,
and while the table was turned into nougat the cake remained untouched. Careful
experimentation produced the result that currently protects my bus:
sheets of waterproof icing glued to the roof of every bus, car and house.
By this method they managed to collect some of the water and analyse it, but
apart from a high sugar content (which may have been from the method of
collection) it appeared to be normal rain. Rain that awas turning houses to
gingerbread, rocks to toffee and glaceing every fruit it touched.
Food is, obviously, going to become a problem. Even if we were able to
protect the wheat from being turned into candy-sticks (More sheets of
icing? We’re going to make the sugar industry rich) most of the water
supplies are slowly being sweetened. We have to stop this.
And yes, that is now we. Yesterday I started my work with the DXO.
I never thought the idea of “Research folklore” would ever develop
beyond reading books and talking to old people, but if what we are
facing is fictional it must have come from somewhere, so they are
picking my brain. Today I have a meeting with the department heads
so they can tell me how they reached the “fictional” conclusion
I mentioned yesterday.
I mentioned the Gingerbread Men yesterday also, briefly. Doctor
Sampire is one of them now, got caught out in the rain a couple
of weeks ago. It’s incredible. To all intents and purposes he is
a two dimentional man made of biscuit, talking though a mouth made
of a line of icing, looking at you though dotted eyes. They’ve
soaked him in some kind of plastic resin to protect him from water
and other dangers to his new form. Fortunately most of the pigeons
melted in the first few weeks. There’s a worry that the resin is
going to make any eventual transformation back more difficult (if
not impossible), but as Sampire says, without it he would have been
crumbs by now. He appears to be coping well – unlike some of the other
transformees who resorted to canabalism – although there is a slight
manic edge to his humour at times. Miss Harrows – who acts as his
secretary – describes him as “a sweet man”, but only when she isn’t
paying attention.
After that, the fictional thing seems a logical jump. This can’t
be anything real, after all.
Are we allowed to be terrified yet? The first reports of all this
sounded like some kind of surreal terrorist attack, but now…
To be honest, it scares me. I don’t want my world turned into
shortcake, and if they need my help, they’ve got it.
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