Jeff Noon - Automated Alice

"The proper name for a horseless carriage is an automated horse," Celia coldly responded, whilst rubbing at Alice's arm with her porcelain fingers. "But in these yet-to-come days, the people are far too busy to use the full name for things, so they call their transportations auto-horses. Which they sometimes even further shorten to simply autos."

"Well, that may be so," Alice replied (wincingly, on account of her pain), "but in our day, we called a horse a horse and a carriage a carriage, and there was no such thing as a horseless carriage, because a carriage could not move unless it had a horse in front of it!"

"Alice, won't you please admit that we're trapped in the future now. We must learn the latest lessons. Believe me, my dear, we are currently facing a drive of auto-horses."

"I hate lessons," sulked Alice as she nursed her injured elbow, "but at least I know that the collective noun for horses is a herd." (How proud Alice was, to have pointed this out to Celia.)

"I think you'll find, my somewhat pale human companion," Celia gently suggested, "that you can have a herd of cattle, a herd of bison, or even a herd of elephants. But you cannot have a herd of horses. You may, however, have a drove of horses. But when the horses are automated, they become a drive. And we are still facing a galloping drive of autos."

"Oh, Celia! You think you know every single thing."

"Well, one doesn't like to boast, but you must concede that the name auto-horses perfectly suits these carriages. Why, one need only examine their legs..." Alice did examine their legs (having completely missed Celia's correct usage of the ellipsis) and she had to admit to herself (because she didn't want Celia to think she was right all the time) that they certainly looked more than a little like an automated horse's legs. "To my terbot-mind," Celia added, proudly, "the people of the future have wedded the horse to the carriage; these are horsey carriages."

"Oh but look, Celia!" Alice interrupted, shrugging off Celia's healing hands. "The autos have snakes wriggling above their eyes!"

"Don't you worry, Alice," replied Celia, "those snakes are there in case it rains; they're called windscreen vipers."

There was no possible way to cross the road. The auto-horses were riding along, nose to tail, tail to nose; a constant creaking and neighing of metal and noise. "If they're not careful," Celia announced finally, "these riders are going to cause a horse-crash. We need to find a zebra crossing."

"Whatever's a zebra crossing?" Alice asked.

"A place in the road where even a zebra can cross. It's one of the Civil Serpents' better rulings --"

"There's one!" cried Alice. And indeed there was: there was a zebra crossing the road a long, long way away from Alice and Celia. "Follow that zebra!" Alice called out.

"He's a piebald, actually!" Celia added. Alice didn't bother to ask what a bald pie was doing in the conversation, she was far too busy running along towards where the zebra was crossing the road.

"Look at that, Celia!" she called out as the pair of them reached the spot, "Whippoorwill is perched on the zebra's shoulder!"

The parrot was perched on the zebra's shoulder. And, by that stripy transport, he was working his way towards the other side of the road. (Alice never thought to ask herself why the parrot simply didn't fly across the road, she was far too used to his wayward nature by now.) And indeed, just then Whippoorwill fluttered his green-and-yellow wings in quite a shameless display and twisted his head around through 180 degrees in order to squawk at Alice, "Why did the Catgirl cross the road?" Alice felt sure that the parrot was laughing at her, so she didn't even attempt an answer to this latest riddle. The zebra was looking rather scared during his passage between the parted ranks of the auto-horses (and wouldn't you, if you were a horse's relative in a horseless society?). It wasn't a real zebra of course; Alice had learnt enough about this future Manchester to know that nothing was really real any more. Oh no, following the effects of the Newmonia (if Pablo Ogden was to be believed), Whippoorwill was riding upon the shoulder of a Zebraman: a black-and-white-striped combination of the human and the zebra. This Zebraman had by now almost succeeded in crossing, so Alice nervously stepped into the road after him. The riders of the auto-horses shouted all manner of curses at Alice, the worst of which came from a sweating fat Pigboy: "What in the mud-bath is that?!" he snorted. "Some kind of a girl crossing the road!"

"Where are we?" Alice asked of Celia, whilst only a little less than halfway across (and doing her very best to ignore the insults).

"We are currently crossing a thoroughfare called Wilmslow Road", Celia replied, "in a place called Rusholme: a small village some few miles away from the centre of Manchester." Ahead of them now could be seen a large building with the words PALACE OF CHIMERA written large and golden across its frontage, and underneath these, FLUTTERING TODAY: FLIPPETY FLOPPETY COMES UNSTUCK!

"Why do they call this village Rush Home?" asked Alice, a little further along in the crossing. "It seems to me that the people of Manchester are rushing away from their homes."

"Exactly so, Alice. And in eight hours' time they will commence to rush home after finishing their day's work. They call these twin times the rush-hours."

The Zebraman had by now managed to cross the road completely. The auto-horses started up a snarling and braying, as though they wanted to eat Alice and Celia alive, and then sprang forwards in a rapid burst of metallic clankings! Celia Doll firmly grabbed hold of Alice's hand and started to walk faster than anybody had ever walked before! Alice felt she was flying, so quickly did Celia move. "Celia!" Alice cried. "Where in the future did you learn to walk so quickly?" But her words were lost to the frightening wind that Celia created in her rush to get away from the accelerating auto-horses. "Oh well," said Alice to herself, "I suppose if I were an Automated Alice I also would be able to walk as quickly." Just then the screaming drive of horsey carriages fairly pounced upon the pair of them, aiming to squash!

Alice and Celia did manage to cross the road of course, if only by the hairs on their smallest toenails. (And a good job too, otherwise this fable would be a very sorry story indeed. Why, I'm not even half-way through Alice's adventures in the future yet. No, no; it would not do to have my principal actors quite so easily squashed by metal hooves!)

Upon gaining the safety of the opposite pavement, Alice lunged forwards to grab at Whippoorwill, but all she managed to grab hold of was a single green-and-yellow tail feather, which she plucked clean from the bird! Whippoorwill himself, despite lacking a tail feather, flew off quite easily from the Zebraman's shoulder, disappearing over the roof of the Palace of Chimera and into a hive of houses. The Zebraman trotted off in the same direction, leaving Alice to clutch desperately at the parrot's lonely feather. "Do you think, Celia," Alice then asked, "that Great Aunt Ermintrude will be satisfied with a single feather from her lost parrot?"

"I think not, Alice," Celia replied. "But look at this!" Celia had bent down to pick up a little piece of something from the ground. "The Zebraman must have dropped this in his hurry to get away." It was a wooden piece from a jigsaw, portraying a rippling pattern of black-and-white stripes. Celia handed it to Alice.

"This is yet another missing piece from my jigsaw of London Zoo," Alice proclaimed. "This belongs in the zebra house." Alice took the piece and placed it in the pocket of her pinafore, with the other four she had already gathered. "Are we anywhere near Didsbury, Celia?" she then asked.