Chris Patterson - Going Postal

‘I'd rather have them than a dozen watchmen,' said Jim happily.

The coach rattled on, leaving the outlying suburbs behind. The road under the wheels became rougher, but the coach swung and danced along on its steel springs.

‘When you've dropped me off you can rein them in a bit. No need to rush, Jim,' said Moist, after a while.

In the light of the coach lamps Moist saw Jim's red face glow with guile.

‘It's your Plan, eh, sir?'

‘It's a wonderful plan, Jim!' said Moist. And I shall have to make sure it doesn't work.

The lights of the coach disappeared, leaving Moist in chilly darkness. In the distance the faintly glowing smokes of Ankh-Morpork made a great trailing mushroom of cloud that blotted out the stars. Things rustled in the bushes, and a breeze wafted the scent of cabbages over the endless fields.

Moist waited until he got some night vision. The tower appeared, a column of night without stars. All he had to do was find his way through the dense, brambly, root-knotted woodland—

He made a noise like an owl. Since Moist was no ornithologist, he did this by saying ‘woo woo'.

The woodland exploded with owl hoots, except that these were owls that roosted in the old wizarding tower, which drove you mad in a day. It had no obvious effect on them except that the noises they made resembled every possible sound that could be made by a living or even dying creature. There was definitely some elephant in there, and possibly some hyena, too, with a hint of bedspring.

When the din had died down a voice from a few feet away whispered: ‘All right, Mr Lipwig. It's me, Adrian. Grab my hand and let's go before the others start fighting again.'

‘Fighting? What about?'

‘They drive each other up the wall! Feel this rope? Can you feel it? Right. You can move fast. We scouted out a trail and strung the rope—'

They hurried through the trees. You had to be really close to the tower to see the glow coming through the ruined doorway at the base. Undecided Adrian had fixed some of his little cold lights up the inner wall. Stones moved under Moist's feet as he scrambled to the summit. He paid them no attention, but ran up the spiral stair so fast that when he reached the top he spun.

Mad Al caught him by the shoulders. ‘No rush,' he said cheerfully. ‘We've got ten minutes to go.'

‘We'd have been ready twenty minutes ago if somebody hadn't lost the hammer,' muttered Sane Alex, tightening a wire.

‘What? I put it in the tool box, didn't I?' said Mad Al.

‘In the spanner drawer!'

‘So?'

‘Who in their right mind would look for a hammer in the spanner drawer?'

Down below, the owls started up again.

‘Look,' said Moist quickly, ‘that's not important, is it? Right now?'

‘This man,' said Sane Alex, pointing an accusing wrench, ‘this man is mad!'

‘Not as mad as someone who keeps his screws neatly by size in jam jars,' said Mad Al.

‘That counts as sane!' said Alex hotly.

‘But everyone knows rummaging is half the fun! Besides—'

‘It's done,' said Undecided Adrian.

Moist looked up. The Gnu's clacks machine rose up into the night, just as it had done on the Post Office roof. Behind it, in the direction of the city, an H-shaped structure climbed even further. It looked a little like a ship's mast, an effect maybe caused by the wires that steadied it. They rattled in the faint breeze.

‘You must have upset someone,' Adrian went on, while the other two settled down a bit. ‘A message was sent through twenty minutes ago, from Gilt himself. He said the big one will go through duplex, great care must be taken not to change it in any way, there is to be no other traffic at all until there's a restart message from Gilt, and he'll personally sack the entire staff of any tower that does not strictly follow those instructions.'

‘It just goes to show, the Grand Trunk is a people company,' said Moist.

Undecided Adrian and Mad Al walked over to the big frame and began to unwind some ropes from their cleats.

Oh well, thought Moist, now for it...

‘There's just one alteration to the plan,' he said, and took a breath. ‘We're not sending the Woodpecker.'

‘What do you mean?' said Adrian, dropping his rope. ‘That was the plan!'

‘It'll destroy the Trunk,' said Moist.

‘Yes, that was the plan, sure enough,' said Al. ‘Gilt's as good as painted "kick me" on his pants! Look, it's falling down of its own accord anyway, okay? It was an experiment in the first place! We can rebuild it faster and better!'

‘How?' said Moist. ‘Where will the money come from? I know a way to destroy the company but leave the towers standing. They were stolen from the Dearhearts and their partners. I can give them back! But the only way to build a better line of towers is to leave the old ones intact. The Trunk's got to earn!'

‘That's the sort of thing Gilt would say!' snapped Al.

‘And it's true,' said Moist. ‘Alex, you're sane, tell the man! Keep the Trunk operating, replace one tower at a time, never dropping any code!' He waved a hand towards the darkness. ‘The people out on the towers, they want to be proud of what they do, yes? It's tough work and they don't get paid enough but they live to shift code, right? The company's running them into the ground but they still shift code!'

Adrian tugged at his rope. ‘Hey, the canvas is stuck,' he announced to the tower in general. ‘It must have been caught up when we furled it...'

‘Oh, I'm sure the Woodpecker will work,' said Moist, plunging on. ‘It might even damage enough towers for long enough. But Gilt will twist his way out of it. Do you understand? He'll shout about sabotage!'

‘So what?' said Mad Al. ‘We'll have this lot back on the cart in an hour and no one will know we were ever here!'

‘I'll climb up and free it, shall I?' said Undecided Adrian, shaking the canvas.

‘I said it won't work ? said Moist, waving him away. ‘Look, Mr Al, this isn't going to be settled by fire. It's going to be settled with words. We'll tell the world what happened to the Trunk.'

‘You've been talking to Killer about that?' said Alex.

‘Yes,' said Moist.

‘But you can't prove anything,' said Alex. ‘We heard it was all legal.'

‘I doubt it,' said Moist. ‘But that doesn't matter. I don't have to prove anything. I said this is about words, and how you can twist them, and how you can spin them in people's heads so that they think the way you want them to. We'll send a message of our own, and do you know what? The boys in the towers will want to send it, and when people know what it says they'll want to believe it, because they'll want to live in a world where it's true. It's my words against Gilt's, and I'm better at them than he is. I can take him down with a sentence, Mr Mad, and leave every tower standing. And no one will ever know how it was done—'

There was a brief exclamation behind them, and the sound of canvas unrolling quite fast.

‘Trust me,' said Moist.

‘We'll never get another chance like this,' said Mad Al.

‘Exactly!' said Moist.

‘One man has died for every three towers standing,' said Mad Al. ‘Did you know that?'

‘You know they'll never really die while the Trunk is alive,' said Moist. It was a wild shot, but it hit something, he sensed it. He rushed on: ‘It lives while the code is shifted, and they live with it, always Going Home. Will you stop that? You can't stop it! I won't stop it! But I can stop Gilt! Trust me !'

The canvas hung like a sail, if as someone intended to launch the tower. It was eighty feet high and thirty feet wide and moved a little in the wind.

‘Where's Adrian?' said Moist.