Robert Rankin - The Brightonomicon

'Magnificent,' said Mr Rune, gazing through his open window. 'This architecture predates all of the great cathedrals. It is the work of a hand older than Man's.' 'I do not find that encouraging,' I said.

'Well, you can always look on the bright side – our pursuers no longer pursue.' 'And do you know where we are?' 'Within the labyrinth.' 'And the Chronovision is here? Somewhere?'

'Undoubtedly. I kick myself for not having reasoned this out earlier. If it were hidden within the realm of Man, I would surely have found it already. It is all so obvious now.'

'Hm,' I said. 'I think you will find that you are all alone in that opinion. Are we safe here, by the way?' 'For now,' said Mr Rune.

'Then do you mind if I get my head down for,, a few hours? Eight will do, then I will be all perky again.' 'No time for sleep,' said Mr Rune. 'Drive on.'

'We are three-feet deep in Biros here. I do not think the cab will move.' 'Then we'll have to walk. Bring the torch.' 'What torch?' "The one that cabbies always keep beneath the dashboard. Beside their pistols. Bring the pistol also.' 'Pistol?' 'Bring the pistol.'

It was a rather odd pistol of a design that I had never seen before. But as all this was so unlikely anyway, I did not care. I just brought the pistol, and felt more comforted bringing it.

Mr Rune and I struggled to open the cab doors, then we waded through Biros. We waded through Biros, and yellow-handled screwdrivers, and house keys and car keys and penknives and spanners and tickets. Tickets! There were thousands of tickets. Tens of thousands of tickets. Millions and billions and trillions of tickets. Cloakroom tickets, bus tickets, train tickets, concert tickets. 'Now you know where they all go to,' said Mr Rune. 'Yes,' I said. 'But why?

'Control,' said Mr Rune. 'It is as simple as that. Or as complicated. A man's life appears to travel in a straight line from birth to death. He does this and that along the way, of his own free will, he thinks. But in truth, he is constantly thwarted, constantly made to do that which he does not wish to do, guided – pushed, more like – into other things. Free will? Plah!' went Hugo Rune. 'You will find that what a man does is not a product of his own free will. It is the product of what he loses*

Mr Rune plucked up a single ticket from the countless numbers that lay in great swathes about us. 'What do we have here? Ah, a ticket to see The Who, a popular rhythm combo, at the Hanwell Community Centre, last February. Let us suppose this. The buyer of this ticket was really looking forward to the concert. He queued up, but when his time to enter came, he could not find his ticket and so was sent upon his way. Miffed and angry, he wandered into the nearest alehouse and there, as seeming chance would have it, he met the woman who would later become his wife. And bear him a child who would later invent a space-drive system based upon the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter. None of this would have occurred had his ticket to see The Who not gone unaccountably missing.'

'But surely that is a good thing. I thought the Forbidden Zones were run by baddies. Who is in charge of the Forbidden Zones, by the way? Or is anyone – or anything – actually in charge? Or does this stuff just happen?'

Mr Rune ignored my questions. 'Shortly,' he said, 'when all this is at an end, you will recover your memory and know once more who you really are. And when you do, you will recall that the only reason that you came to Brighton was because something unaccountably went missing. This seemingly trivial event changed the course of your life.' 'I doubt that very much,' I said. But I was wrong to doubt. And I began to yawn once more, for I was really all in.

'Pacey-pacey, Rizla,' said Mr Rune. 'The man of destiny knows better than to linger long beneath the lifted leg of serendipity's spaniel.' And of course I would not have argued with that! And so we pressed on for a goodly way and then we came to the tellies. I shone my torch up at them and its light did not reach very much of the way up the pile. And my, oh my, oh my. They were the Great Pyramid of Televisions. There were so many of them, I did not dare to consider their number.

'You do not lose TVs,' I said. 'Not like Biros or car keys.'

'Or dry cleaning?' said Mr Rune. 'Or suitcases on air flights?' Or aeroplanes themselves – do you recall Amy Johnson? Or ships? Have you ever heard of the Bermuda Triangle? What now of Whitehawk's evil reputation? This is where all the "stolen" items really go.' 'I am scared now,' I said. 'And I want to go.'

'And we will, when we have acquired that which we have come here to find.' 'What does it look like?' I asked.

Mr Rune gazed up at the countless TVs. 'Like one of those,' he said.

We shared a special moment. And also the contents of Mr Rune's hip flask, for which I was grateful.

'You must scale the peak,' said Mr Rune, 'and find the Chronovision.'

'I must? But how will I know it, when I find it? So to speak.'

'Hm,' said Hugo Rune. 'Well, let us put ourselves in Father Ernetti's place. He is a Benedictine monk and he constructs a television set, which is a window into past events. What would it look like?'

'A bit gothic,' I said. 'About twenty feet high, all covered with carved cherubs and such like, with lots of gilded bits and bobs and a big crucifix on the top.'

'Perhaps you'd better wait here while I search,' said Mr Rune. 'Good idea,' I agreed. 'Then I could have a little sleep.' 'Setde yourself down, then, Rizla. I will search alone.'

'Oh no,' I said. 'That is not fair. We have come this far together. Let us both search.'

'You will know it, if you find it,' said Mr Rune. And he and I began our search. Now I could, of course, drag this out for a bit, and possibly make it exciting. But there would not be much point, and it was not exciting.

Mr Rune had not climbed more than two levels up the pyramid of TVs before he cried, 'Eureka!' 'You have found it?' I said. 'I have,' said he. 'Pray give me a hand to get it down.' I did as I was bid and we struggled it down together. And when we had done so, I gazed upon it. 'And that is it?' I said. 'It is,' said Hugo Rune. 'Father Ernetti's Chronovision.' 'But it looks just like a nineteen-fifties Bakelite TV. 'There are subtle differences.'

'Well, they are lost upon me. But bravo to you, Mister Rune. Our search is over. Now let us smash it to bits.'

'Excuse me?' said Mr Rune and he raised one of those hairless eyebrows of his.

'Well, that is what we came here to do. That is what our quest has all been about – seek and destroy. Well, we did the seeking, now we have found it, so let us get on with the destroying.'

Mr Rune held the Chronovision in his great hands and clasped it to his great chest. 'Not as yet,' said he. 'Not as yet?' I said to him. 'But you told me that this is the most dangerous device on all of God's Earth. That the man who has it within his control can view all of the past -the past of any living man. That the secrets of any living man can be shown upon the screen. And so the man who owns the Chronovision can become the most powerful man on Earth, because no man can have secrets, no matter how dark, from him. Am I correct?'

'You are,' said Mr Rune, 'which is why Count Otto seeks it.'

'And why it must be destroyed. Put it down and I will stamp upon it.' 'No,' said Mr Rune. 'This cannot be.'

'Oh no,' I said. 'Do not tell me this. You mean to keep the Chronovision for yourself. After all we have been through. You have tricked me throughout – you had no intention of destroying the thing. You just wanted to get your own hands upon it.'

Mr Rune put down the Chronovision and it floated there upon that sea of tickets. 'Do you trust me, Rizla?' he asked.

'I did,' I said. 'Absolutely. But now I am having my doubts.' 'Such a pity.' And Mr Rune swung his stout stick. And struck me down with it.