Jeff Noon - Automated Alice

The police auto-horse eventually drew to a standstill at the police station, opposite the Town Hall.

Five minutes later Alice found herself being locked up inside a minuscule gaol cell in the cellar below the police station. "This is not fair!" she shouted to Inspector Jack Russell as he forced her into the cell. "I'm innocent! Let me free!"

"The Over Assistant Civil Serpent will be along shortly," Jack Russell briefly replied. "You may plead your case to her."

Inspector Jack Russell left the cell and clanged the door shut behind him.

Alice could hear the key turning in the lock, just so that she now knew she was completely alone.

A long, long time passed and nobody at all came to visit her, not even a Civil Serpent. Hours and hours must have passed. Alice was feeling very lonely and unwanted -- very much unloved. The gaol cell contained no furniture other than a rude bed and no windows other than a tiny, barred hole set high up on the wall, through which Alice could catch only a glint of distant raintight. Alice was so very hungry, not having eaten since lunchtime. That's lunchtime, 1860, by the way. Alice was left to her own devices. Of course, Alice's devices amounted to nothing more than Whippoorwill's plucked-out tail feather, and five small pieces from a jigsaw of London Zoo, which offered hardly any comfort at all (especially to the stomach).

Alice quickly became bored of doing nothing at all, so she decided to play with her feather and her jigsaw pieces.

First of all she placed the feather on the bed's rough blanket. Then she dug deep into her pinafore pocket to find the five jigsaw pieces she had collected in her travels so far: the termite, the badger, the snake, the chicken and the zebra. She laid these pieces face-up in a circle surrounding the green-and-yellow feather.

"Now then," Alice said to herself, "what game shall I play with you? Shall I play Feather-Escape-the-Zoo? Or shall I play Zoo-Catch-a-Feather?"

Alice moved the jigsaw pieces around the feather, and then the feather amongst the jigsaw pieces, and then she threw the whole lot of them to the floor!

"Oh! What difference does it make?" she cried. "I don't know the rules to either game and even if I did, what fun is it to play with myself? If only Automated Alice were here! She would certainly know the rules to both the games. In fact, Automated Alice would know the rules so well, she would beat me in every single game! And I couldn't be doing with that at all! But still, it would be nice to have somebody to talk to. And also something to eat!"

Just then the key turned again in the lock and the door to the cell banged open. Inspector Jack Russell stepped into the room, carrying a plate of food. "I thought you might be hungry, Alice," he growled, setting the plate down on her bed.

"I am hungry," stated Alice, "but I shan't be eating that!" (It was a plateful of boiled radishes!)

"Very well," Jack Russell replied, "I shall take it away then."

"Where is Captain Ramshackle?" Alice asked.

"The Badgerman is being questioned by the Over Assistant at this very moment, and the Lady of Snakes will be interrogating you presently."

"But I'm innocent, I tell you!"

"That's for the Serpents to decide, meanwhile, I'm giving you a cell-companion..."

A slug was then dogmanhandled into Alice's cell. A rather large slug, at that! And the door clanged shut on them both. Imagine, Alice the sweet girl and a greasily enormous slug shut up tightly in a mere pigeonhole of a space? (Although, truth be known, even a pigeon would find that space rather too encroaching for comfort, let alone a young girl and a giant slug!) The slug wasn't just a slug, of course; he was also a man -- a Slugman. He was dressed in a suit of silky, shiny cloth, with a jacket and tie and trousers of glitter. On his black and glutinous head rested a large twirled hat of spirals, below which his pair of twitching horns moved slowly through the dank air. In his human hands he held a golden trumpet of finely polished brass.

"Who are you?" asked Alice, nervously.

"I... am... Long... Distance... Davis..." the Slugman sluggishly replied, putting an age between each word. "And... who... are... you?"

"I'm Alice," replied Alice, "and you're a slug!"

"I... am... not... a... slug..." Long Distance Davis replied, just as slowly as before. "I... am... a... snail..."

"So where is your shell?" (Alice knew just enough about gastropodology to understand that a snail had a shell, whereas a slug did not.)

"Wherever... I... lay... my... hat... is... my... shell..." With this utterance the Snailman lay down on the dirt floor and then started to smooth his body into his hat. Around and around the spirals he went, until he had almost vanished, in fact, only his golden trumpet remained in sight. "Please don't go home to your shell, Mister Snailman!" Alice pleaded. "Please talk to me."

"What's... to... talk... about?" was Long Distance Davis's slovenly reply, from within the depths of his shell hat: "I... am... under... my... hat... and... also... under... arrest..."

"For what crime?" asked Alice.

"For... the... crime... of... playing... music..."

"Is it a crime to play music in the future?"

"I... was... playing... too... slowly..."

"I'm getting awfully confused, Mister Snailman; why should slowness be against the law?"

"The... Civil... Serpents... hate... waiting..."

"And what is it exactly that you're waiting for?" demanded Alice.

"I'm... waiting... for... the... next... note... to... escape... from... my... trumpet."

"Will you play me a tune right now, Mister Long Distance?" asked Alice politely. "It would surely pass the time."

"I... shall... play... you... my... latest... composition..." Upon these torpid words the Snailman slid completely free of his shell, so that it once again resembled a hat. "This... tune... is... entitled... 'Miles... Behind'..." He then raised his shining trumpet to his greasy lips and blew out a single note:

"Parp!" went the trumpet. Long Distance Davis then lowered the instrument.

"Is that it?" asked Alice (having noticed that a jigsaw piece rested in the bell of the trumpet).

"That... is... the... beginning... of... the... piece..." Long Distance drawled.

"But why are you talking so slowly, Mister Snailman?" asked Alice (stealing the jigsaw piece from the Snailman's trumpet whilst he was looking off into the far distance). "Aren't you very good at English?"

"I... don't... speak... Anguish..."

"I didn't say Anguish, I said English."

"Well... it... certainly... seems... like... you're... very... anguished..."

"What language do you speak then?" Alice was becoming quite exasperated at the Snailman's sluggishness. (Or should that be snailiness? I can't make my mind up, can you?)

"I... speak... in... Languish..." the Snailman eventually replied.

"And what is Languish?" asked Alice.

"Languish... is... the... lazy... language..."

The Snailman then raised his trumpet to his lips and once again blew into it, fully two notes this time. (During this musical passage Alice managed a quick glance at her latest jigsaw piece; it showed only a black and greasy patch of wet skin. Alice knew that the piece was for the snail missing from her gastropod house at London Zoo. She silently slipped it into her pinafore pocket.)

"Parp, parp!" went the trumpet, before it was lowered once again.

"Is this still the tune called 'Miles Behind'?" Alice asked.

"Miles... and... miles... behind..."

"This must be why they call you Long Distance Davis, because you take so very long to do hardly anything at all!"