Michael Moorcock - A Cure for Cancer

He was, as ever, impressed by the efficiency of the strike. By tomorrow, London should be completely Triple A Clean. His brother, with his liking for systems and his knowledge of London, had probably had a lot to do with the planning.

As the mist thinned a little he looked up, recognizing the hazy silhouettes of a squadron of General Dynamics F-111As lumbering across the sky followed by McDonnell F-4B Phantom 11s, F-4C Phantom 11s, RF-4 Phantom 11s, F-101B Voodoos, F-101iC Voodoos, Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs, Ling-Temco-Vought (Chance Vought) F-8U Crusaders, Convair F-106 Delta Darts, Lockheed F-104 Starfighters, Convair F-102 Delta Daggers, Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighters, Ling-Temco-Vought A-7A Corsair 11s, North American F-100 Super Sabres, North American FJ Furies, Douglas F-6A Skyrays, Grumman F11A Tigers, McDonnell M-3B Demons, Northrop F-89 Scorpions, North American F-86D Sabres and, very much behind the others, Republic F-84F Thunderstreaks doing their best to keep up.

The planes passed and the helicopters chattered by. As far as Jerry could make out they were all heading due north, which meant that Derry and Toms, if it so far missed the strike, would probably be okay for a little while.

He took a bearing off the Albert Memorial and bumped over the dying grass until he splashed into the Round Pond by accident and had to operate the screws for an instant as he crossed tne pond and at last got to The Broad Walk near the London Museum, drove down The Broad Walk and came out on to a Kensington Road that was red with reflected firelight, but seemed as yet undamaged, though clouds of sodium cacodylate mixed with free cacodylic acid, water and sodium chloride drifted in the streets.

Elsewhere Jerry recognized n-butyl ester, isobutyl ester, tri-isopropanolamine, salt picloram and other chemicals and he knew that the park had got everything — Orange, Purple, White and Blue.

'Better safe than sorry.' He pulled up outside Deny and Toms.

Business appeared to have fallen off badly in the last few hours, though it was relatively peaceful here. In the distance Jerry heard the sound of falling buildings, the scream of rockets, the boom of the bombs, the shouts of the dying.

A boy and a girl ran out of the smoke, hand in hand, as he entered the store; they were on fire, making for the drinking fountain on the corner of Kensington Church Street.

The fire would probably help cope with the plague.

There was nothing like the chance of a fresh start.

Although the defoliants hadn't yet reached the roof garden, there was a strong chemical smell as Jerry used his vibragun to shake down the door of an emergency exit and emerge into the Tudor Garden.

He wondered at first if the machine's batteries had started to leak. They had been manufactured hastily, for the machine had originally been intended only as a prototype. It was Jerry's fault that he had tried it out in the Shifter and had lost it in the ensuing confusion.

Jerry placed the odour at last. It was Dettol.

The disinfectant had been used to hide another smell which he now recognized as the smell of corruption. It would have been good for the garden, of course, if things had been left alone. He wondered who had been here recently.

Everything was tidy and there wasn't a trace of an old lady. Jerry noticed with disappointment that the ducks had flown.

He wandered across to the Spanish Garden, watching as the blue heaven gradually filled with black smoke, and climbed the wall to look at the burning city and the insane jets wheeling about the sky in their dance of death. Napalm fell. Rockets raced.

'Out of time, out of touch,' murmured Jerry. It was what his father had always taught him. He didn't often feel this complacent. 'Good-bye, America.'

'Europe,' said a voice with a thick Russian resonance, 'can become the ultimate possibility pool. You're slowing down, Comrade Cornelius.'

Jerry shifted his position on the wall and looked down at the little man standing among the flowering ferns and dwarf palms, tugging at his goatee. 'You've been taking speech training.'

The man looked embarrassed and removed his rimless glasses. 'I can't stay long.'

Is my machine here?'

'That's what I came to tell you about, comrade. I didn't think it was safe. I gave it to a friend of yours to look after. She was here until recently.'

'Captain Hargreaves?'

'I didn't realize, until she put on her uniform, that she was with the defenders.'

'Do you know where she is?'

'Presumably with the rest of her comrades, wherever that may be.'

'You've never been able to do anything right, have you, you old softie.' Jerry jumped down from the wall. 'Ah, well. It was nice of you to tell me.'

'I'm sure everything will work out all right. Won't it?'

'Keep your fingers crossed, comrade.'

The little man extended his hand. 'Well, if I don't see you again.' He vanished.

Jerry yawned. He was getting behind in his sleep. He left the roof garden as the first wave of planes arrived in Sector D-7, leapt down the stairs as the building began to shake, and reached the street as spluttering napalm flooded through the store.

He drove down Kensington High Street as fast as he could. He hoped Koutrouboussis and the rest were okay. If they'd been able to get out they should be safe enough at the Sunny-dale Reclamation Centre.

He didn't feel particularly disappointed. After all, things had gone very easily up to now.

He made for Milton Keynes.

Jerry left the burning city behind and headed up the Mi. It was a wide, lonely road, through the hushed countryside.

He turned on the radio and tuned it to Radio Potemkin. It was playing The Yardbirds, The Moquettes, The Zephyrs, Mickie Most, The Downliners Sect, Key Anton and The Peppermint Men, The Syndicats, The Cheynes, The Cherokees, Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers. Unable to bear either the nostalgia or the quality, Jerry switched over to Radio John Paul Jones which was in the middle of putting over The Vibrating Ether Proves The Cosmic Vortex, the latest hit by Orniroffa, the Nip Nightingale. All art, thought Jerry, aspired to the condition of Muzak. What would William Morris have thought?

It was at times like this that the brain needed balming. He turned to his taper and selected Schoenberg's Quartet No .2, left the Mi and took a winding lane towards Oxford.

Soon he could see the white shell of the city shining in the distance. The concrete roof was good for anything except the H-Bomb.

He slowed as he reached the opening of the tunnel and drove through to emerge in the shadowy darkness of Magdalen Bridge.

The dim light from the central lamp at the highest part of the roof was reflected by the spires of the city. Power was failing, but Oxford survived.

Jerry felt the cold. The High was full of a strange, sticky dampness and black-cloaked figures crept miserably along be-side the walls, while every so often hollow, echoing shouts and clatterings broke the stillness. The hissing noise of his own car seemed menacing.

Stopping the Phantom VI in the car park of the Randolph Hotel he walked to the Ashmolean Museum, pushed open the heavy wooden doors and paused. A few candles in brackets on the walls lit a sinister avenue of Tompion and Knibb longcase clocks which had all stopped at a quarter past twelve. He began to walk.