Michael Moorcock: A Cure for Cancer

The sweet music of a thousand hidden radio transmitters filled the countryside and brought heavenly sound to the pastoral landscape. Such harmony, thought Jerry contentedly, that only the Beatles could achieve; such a perfect combination. From the circle of U. S. and Russian Navy radio ships surrounding and protecting Britain, the same synchronized record played to all the people everywhere. Was there ever such a Utopia? he wondered as he left the subsidiary road and hit the main drag, joining the racing rainbow stream of cars on the multilane highway.

Overhead, like birds of paradise, swarmed the flying machines, the little helicopters, gliders, rocket chairs, pediplanes, air taxis, light aircraft of all varieties, belonging to the comfortably off (and who was not in these delightful Home Counties?), all flowing towards London where gleaming towers of all colours could be seen in the distance.

Was it fair, Cornelius asked himself, relaxing for a moment, to scheme the destruction of so much of this life, happiness and colour? It was a shame that his mission in life conflicted with it; but he was a man of will and integrity, not without a marked moral sensibility, and his first loyalty was to his organization. He was a total convert and he couldn't afford to relax until there were a few more around.

And his adventures were really only about to begin:

Beale, claws together under his chin, eyed Jerry Cornelius only for a moment then moved suddenly, rising and falling across the room on his flamingo legs, the woollen frock-coat, which was Burton's latest autumn offer, rumpling and floating.

The room was long, lined with books, the ceiling so large and heavy that it seemed about to fall with a thud. Cornelius glanced upwards and settled warily into the swivel armchair, knowing that, if the ceiling did fall, even he would not have a chance of surviving.

'Which book? We have fifty thousand.' Beale's sibilant voice took a long time to reach Jerry.

'The names,' murmured Jerry, ready to slip hand to vibragun if the situation demanded.

'London, the city of dolorous mist,' hissed Beale. 'The names, Mr Cornelius, yes; the confidential names. You say he's called S?'

'According to Okharna.'

'Nothing else?'

'Something in code about a mouse strangler of Munich, I'm told. But that could be a reference to an anagram of Mephis-tophilis...'

'Catching, Mr Aserinsky, hmph,' Beale said, as if in reply to a question, and began to cough.

'Not in my book, general. It's oh, oh, five and wild skidoo.'

'Unused — unusual...' Beale began, puzzled, as well he might be.

It was only a ruse on Jerry's part to get into the library, but he could not move yet, could not be certain that the ceiling would not fall; and he suspected the chair.

He got up. Beale gasped, hastily reaching for a book.

Jerry knew it was now or never.

He drew the chromium-plated vibragun from its silken holster and pointed it at Beale who fell on his knees and began to shake.

When Beale had shaken to pieces, Jerry slid the warm gun back in place, stepped over the corpse, checked doors and the many windows, and got to work, pulling the books from their shelves until every last one was on the floor. Wading through this rubble, he picked up a volume at random and opened it. As he expected it contained six months' issues of the Sunday Times Colour Supplement. It would do to start with.

From his pocket he extracted matches and a tin of lighter fluid, squirted the fluid over the book and lit it. The rest of the fluid he squirted at random over the piles of books.

Someone was coming.

He ran to the door and drew the bolts; ran, stumbling to the doors at the far end of the gallery and bolted those too. The fire was beginning to take hold. It was getting warm. He drew his vibragun and gave the huge central window a touch of ultrasonics so that it shattered instantly and he was through it, peering down into the misty street.

Swinging himself onto the ledge, he began to slide down the drainpipe, scraping the heel of his right hand quite nastily, and reached the ground where his Phantom VI, its motor turning over, waited for him.

Two or three streets away, he stopped for a moment and looked back and upwards to where he could see the white stone of the library building and the orange flames and rich, black smoke that whipped and boiled from the window he had broken.

Sabotage was only a sideline with Jerry Cornelius, but he prided himself that he was good at it.

'What do you achieve,' a girl had once asked him, stroking the muscles of his stomach, 'what do you achieve by the destruction of the odd library? There are so many. How much can one man do?'

'What he can,' Cornelius had told her, rolling on her.

Jerry glanced at the huge green-dialled watch on his left wrist .14.41.

He sent the Phantom VI racing forward, heading away from the City, his headlamps changing the colour of the mist rather than piercing it. Muscles and silk rippled together as he raised one jet-black hand to smooth his white hair from the jet-black forehead. He swung the wheel suddenly to avoid the back of a bus, hooted his horn as he passed on into the mist, finger-tips on wheel. Tower Bridge was ahead, open to traffic, and he raced over it, made the Elephant and Castle roundabout, whisked round it and reached eighty miles an hour as he passed over Waterloo Bridge where the mist was thinner, and the West End, whose great, jewelled towers were the city's distinctive feature, was ahead of him.

'Oh, psychedelic!' he murmured.

He had to be in Greek Street in five minutes. He would make it easily now.

He had to meet Spiro Koutrouboussis, his chief contact with the organization.

Koutrouboussis, one of a number of handsome young Greek millionaires who belonged to the organization, was dark-haired and slender, from Petrai originally, but now a refugee, a nationalized Israeli subject, proving just how far-sighted he was.

Leaving the thrumming Rolls in the street outside the Mercury Club, Koutrouboussis's favourite meeting place, Jerry stepped over the mist-silvered pavement and entered the warm, neon-lit club where he was greeted with some enthusiasm by the doorman who gratefully received the twenty-dollar tip.

Cornelius ignored the dining part of the club, where people sat in red plush seats and ate off golden plates the finest French cuisine available anywhere in the world.

He took the stairs two at a time and bumped into Koutrou- boussis who was waiting there. Koutrouboussis rubbed his side, his eyes looking rapidly from Jerry's right foot to his left and back again.

'The same old shoes, I see,' he said spitefully, and wheeled about to lead Cornelius into the private room he had on permanent hire.

'How did you manage to get through this,' Koutrouboussis asked, burying himself in the shadows of a leather armchair by the fire while a sequined girl poured them Pernod from a gleaming decanter on her hip, 'time?'

Jerry stroked his glass. They thought I was a visiting disc jockey from France. It worked well enough and long enough.' There were few long-range aircraft and, to its joy, the nation was blockaded by the radio ships. Jerry downed the yellow drink and held out his glass. The girl was an organization convert and very successful and very happy; she smiled sweetly at Cornelius as she filled his glass; she had once been a clerk in a bank, had worn a green overall and counted money. Her place had been taken by another convert who had originally worked as a hostess just around the corner. The organization was very neat, on the whole.