Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘Where are we?’ I asked Mr Rune, in a whispery kind of a voice.

‘I think,’ the Magus replied, ‘that the question might be better framed as when are we?’

‘Shut up, the two of you,’ went one or other of the trenchcoated weirdos, ‘and bend your knees before the Nifty One.’

I shrugged and Hugo Rune shrugged, but the two fellows held their Lugers upon us, and so we bent our knees. I heard the sound of a great gong being struck and then the word ‘depart’. The two fellows backed their way from the room, leaving us kneeling and baffled.

‘Up you get now,’ came a kindly voice. ‘We can’t have you kneeling there on the cold marble floor. You might get all kinds of aches and pains. Up now, if you will.’ And a hand reached down and helped me up and I climbed to my feet.

‘There, that’s better now,’ said the kindly voice.

And I looked into a kindly face. It was an old and grizzled face, but it had kindly ways about it, and although the mouth lacked for a vital tooth or two, its corners were turned up into a smile. And it was a kindly smile.

‘It is you,’ I said to this kindly personage. ‘Diogenes, THE HERMIT. My holy guardian angel.’

‘I have been called many things in my time,’ said he of the kindly visage, ‘but rarely anything quite so touching as that. By the by, I should have mentioned when last we met, in the Gents of the Purple Princess, that you did very well in taking my heed regarding the matter of the number twenty-seven.’

‘A bus,’ I said. ‘With a bomb on board.’

‘Yes, of course, and the bomb placed upon it by Count Otto Black.’ Diogenes, or whomever he was, was helping up Hugo Rune. ‘I get glimpses, you know. Sometimes they are very odd. I have one in my head at present about a gigantic rugby ball floating in the sky, making a terrible screaming noise and pouring down fire on the world.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘That must mean-’

But Hugo Rune sssshed me to silence. ‘Sir,’ said he to the kindly one. ‘We have not been introduced. I am Rune, whose senses keen to the vibrations of the cosmos. Whose third eye perceives the ethereality beyond aesthesia. Whose midnight growler-’

‘Yes, yes, oh my, to be sure. Of course I know who you are, Mr Rune – you might say that I am your greatest fan. I have all the books of your exploits.’ And now this kindly personage took himself over to a cluttered bookcase and ran a long and wrinkled finger along the leathern spines of a row of books. ‘The Brightonomicon, Retromancer, The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived – or perhaps that last one is for the future. But I am a fan. Do you think that I might have your autograph?’ He plucked a book from the bookshelf and offered it to Hugo Rune.

‘The Book of Ultimate Truths,’ said the Magus, and approvingly. ‘Bound in the skin of a scallywag, I see. Surely that is the forearm tattoo of Count Otto Black.’

‘Oh my God,’ I said and turned my face away.

‘I thought it might amuse you.’ The kindly fellow handed the Magus a silver fountain pen.

‘Who shall I make it out to?’ asked Himself.

‘Oh, I think just a simple dedication. “To Hugo from Hugo” would suffice.’

And then I saw something that I had scarcely seen before. I saw the hand of Hugo Rune go suddenly all of a-quiver. And I saw him raise his eyes and stare into the eyes of our curious host. And I saw his mouth open and utter the words:

‘You are me.’

I recall next that we sat at a table upon a balcony that overlooked a most wonderful city. It was everything that a proper city of the future should be. There were flying taxicabs and glassy tubes connecting cloud-piercing buildings one to another. And far overhead flew spaceships, and far below was the ground.

The future Hugo Rune, for so this fellow would have us believe that he was, poured drinks for us. And it occurred to me then, as perhaps it had done upon previous occasions, that no matter how weird and wonderful were my adventures with Hugo Rune, I never went thirsty.

‘You are me?’ said the Magus again, raising a futuristic drinking glass of the Tupperware persuasion to his lips and taking a sip from its electric-blue contents. ‘You resemble me hardly at all.’

‘I am one possible you, I suppose. One who turned his back upon the finer things of life. One who dedicated himself to science, rather than magic.’

Hugo Rune sighed and I sensed a great tiredness and a great sorrow as well.

‘What year is this?’ he asked his elder self.

‘Nineteen ninety-nine,’ said the other. ‘Is it how you would have expected it to be?’

Hugo Rune shook his shaven head. But I nodded my hairy one.

‘It is certainly what I had hoped for,’ I said. ‘I will be getting on towards fifty in nineteen ninety-nine. And it is exactly what I would have hoped for. There are jet packs and robot butlers, are there not?’

‘Of course there are,’ said the ancient Mr Rune. ‘And first contact has been made with alien races and folk can teleport to other planets and-’

‘Why have you brought us here?’ asked my Hugo Rune.

‘It is a delicate matter. Perhaps your acolyte here might wish to leave us whilst we talk. Go and watch some 3-D television, or something.’

‘3-D television?’ I said. ‘Oh yes please.’

‘I think not,’ said my Mr Rune. ‘What you have to say to me, you can say to him. I have no secrets from Rizla.’

Now this I did not believe to be altogether true, but I sat and listened to what was said and so never got to see Futurama in 3-D.

‘All this,’ said the ancient and slender Mr Rune, ‘all that you see, this future – all of this hinges upon your decision, on what choices you make.’

The Magus looked out at the futuristic cityscape. It glinted and gleamed in the noonday sun. The air was pure as crystal. This was surely utopia.

‘All of this depends upon the outcome of the Second World War,’ the old one continued. ‘And you have a most powerful part to play in this outcome.’

‘I am on a mission,’ said my Mr Rune. ‘And I will set matters to right.’

‘That is what I am afraid of.’

‘Afraid of? I do not understand.’ My Mr Rune raised a hairless eyebrow.

‘It is complex, yet it is simple. All of this can only come to pass if the Allies lose the war. That is why I have brought you here to show you this future.’

‘All of this?’ And Hugo Rune shook his head. ‘But there are scientific wonders here beyond what might ever reasonably be imagined. Are you telling me that such things can only occur if Germany wins the war?’

‘Precisely. As you are already aware, the Tesla field generator can be calibrated to project matter through time. The one in Brentford brought back goods from the future that were to be sold across the counter of The Four Horsemen. You wisely destroyed these goods. A bonfire, I recall, in our back garden.’

I recalled that bonfire also. Mr Rune had made me destroy all that wonderful stuff that I had humped to his house from The Four Horsemen on the afternoon when I first met my father.

‘When America is destroyed and the Allies capitulate, there will be a meeting of minds across the scientific community. The sharing of technology. Technology that will include the Tesla field generator. And with the aid of further technology acquired from the future, this future will come to be. And the you that I speak to now will become the me that you speak to now.’

‘But only if the Allies lose?’

‘If the Allies lose, a man will walk upon the Moon by nineteen fifty-five.’

‘And plant there a swastika flag?’

‘A new world, Hugo. A brave new world. You know that you are a man out of time. That the day of the magician is over. The future is forged from steel and glass and silicone, not from nostrums and incantations. And your name is known here, in this time. The Book of Ultimate Truths is as near to a Bible as there is.’