Jeff Noon - Automated Alice

If Alice was suddenly expecting to be transported back to 1860, she was to be bitterly disappointed. "Oh Whippoorwill!" she exclaimed. "The chrownons in this radish haven't worked! I fear that we're trapped in the future forever!"

But then the door to the old house opened up with a creaking sigh, and Celia the Automated Alice stepped onto the porch. "Fear not, my little sister," stated the doll, calmly, "we are almost home." Celia was looking so much like Alice by this time, that Alice really did think she was seeing herself walk towards herself!

"Celia!" cried Alice. "So you managed to reach our Great Aunt's house before me? And you managed to escape the snakes!"

"Not quite yet," answered Celia, "for isn't that Mrs Minus creeping through the gravestones towards us, with her fangs glinting in the sun?"

Alice looked over her shoulder; there indeed was the evil Civil Serpent, and her fangs were glinting! "But why aren't Inspector Jack Russell and the other policedogmen trying to help Mrs Minus arrest me?" asked Alice.

"Professor Chrowdingler had posted her evidence of the Serpent's Newmonia crime to the police yesterday," said Celia, "and the Inspector received that evidence a mere thirty minutes ago."

"So the police are now on our side?"

"It would seem so."

"So why won't they arrest Mrs Minus?"

"The police are scared of her."

Alice looked around at the approaching shape of Mrs Minus. The Snakewoman had become even more of a snake than a woman, and she had drawn out an evil-looking pistol.

"Well I'm scared of her as well!" said Alice.

"So am I!" squawked Whippoorwill, as he fluttered into the house.

"And so am I!" copied Celia. "Alice, come into the house quickly!"

It started to rain again (and quite viciously this time, with some streaks of lightning!), as Alice ran into the antique house after her sister.

Once inside the house, they locked the front door behind them and ran towards the breakfast room from which Alice had long ago vanished. There, still, was the ancient grandfather clock and the empty birdcage, and there, still, the uncompleted jigsaw puzzle upon the breakfast table. Nothing had changed except for the thick dust which settled in waves over the decaying furniture. The rain was still lashing against the window, and the cemetery was still brooding in the downpour, and the lightning was still flashing. The clock was tick-tocking away at five minutes to two (even though it was now covered in horrible cobwebs).

Alice quickly removed the eleven jigsaw pieces from her pinafore pocket, then proceeded to slot them into place in the mouldy old jigsaw puzzle of London Zoo: the termite into the Insect House; the badger in the Badger House; the snake in the Reptile House; the chicken into the Hen House; the zebra into the Mammal House; the snail into the Gastropod House; the cat into the Feline House; the fish into the Aquarium; the crow into the Aviary; the spider into the Arachnid House; the parrot also into the Aviary. At the adding of that piece, Whippoorwill fluttered back into his cage. Eleven creatures were now feeling quite at home, but still the twelfth jigsaw piece was missing.

"Oh where can that final elusive piece be?" Alice cried whilst searching all over the room for it. "It must be here somewhere! Help me find it, Celia!"

Celia had her head stuck in the clock's case, saying, "I'm doing my best, Alice." Then she popped back out: "But all I've found up to now is this." She was clutching the very first feather that Whippoorwill had dropped in his flight to the future.

"That's no use," replied Alice. "Quickly! Keep searching."

"Four minutes to two, Alice," whispered the clock.

"Oh dear!" cried Alice. "The jigsaw piece must be somewhere! Perhaps it's fallen down the sofa cushions?" Imagine her surprise to find that three identical old and wizened women were sitting on the sofa! So covered in dust and cobwebs they were, and so ancient and withered, that Alice had thought them merely part of the furniture until then! "And who are you three"?" she demanded.

"We are the tripletted daughters of Ermintrude..." they answered all of a piece.

"My name is Dorothy..." the first woman said.

"My name also is Dorothy..." the second added.

"My name also and also is Dorothy..." completed the third.

"So you're the answer to my two o'clock writing lesson!" said Alice. "You three are the Dot and the Dot and the Dot of an ellipsis!"

"That is correct..." answered the three Dots all together. "We are the Ellipsisters... and you must be Alice..." But they were talking to Celia!

"I'm Alice!" corrected Alice. "That is Celia."

"We didn't realize you had a twin sister, Alice..." the three women said.

"And I didn't realize that you three Dorothys would still be here," replied Alice. "Why have you let this house get into such a state?"

"Time slowed to a standstill for us since you vanished, Alice... We never married, you know..."

"Three minutes to two, Alice," whispered the clock, and then there was a sudden, furious banging on the front door!

"Oh no!" screamed Alice. "It's Mrs Minus trying to get in!" added Celia.

It was all too much for Alice. "I'll never find the final jigsaw piece now!" she snuffled.

"But dear Alice," the three Dorothys tripletted in tandem, "you are the final jigsaw piece..."

"But that's impossible!" Alice sobbed. "I'm a girl, not a piece in a puzzle!"

"I think they might be right, Alice," said Celia.

Alice ran to the breakfast table. There was the dusty old jigsaw picture with its little crooked hole where the last piece was missing. Alice saw that the hole wasn't actually inside one of the various animal cages; it was actually a hole in the pathways between the cages; the pathways where the visitors could wander. In fact the hole was missing from a young girl's head! And the girl had on a red pinafore! "Well I suppose that might be me," said Alice, "but I would never fit in such a tiny opening! Especially with Celia!"

"I'm not coming with you, Alice," said Celia.

"Of course you're coming with me!" said Alice.

"I'm afraid I didn't eat the radishes, Alice. But the truth is... I rather like living in the future." Celia stuck Whippoorwill's lost feather in her hair, as she said this. "The future is my proper home."

"Celia!" cried Alice, as the clock whispered, "Two minutes to two, Alice!"

"Alice!" shouted Mrs Minus as she whipped her scaly tail at the front door of the house. Everything was happening all at once!

Celia suddenly said to Alice, "Shall we open the cupboard in my left-hand-side thigh?"

"The one TO BE OPENED IN AN EXTREME EMERGENCY ONLY?"

"That's the one, Alice."

So Alice opened up the tiny door in Celia's thigh: inside, she found only a small lead ball labelled with the words SHOOT ME. "Shoot me from what?" asked Alice. At which question, Celia unbuttoned her pinafore.

"One minute to two, Alice!" tick-tocked the clock, gaining a frightful pace!

The front door was being smashed down into firewood! "Mrs Minus has broken through!" cried Alice.

"Stay calm, my sister. Open me up, please." Celia had revealed her bare, porcelain stomach, in the middle of which nestled another small door. Alice opened this cupboard; a flintlock pistol was lodged within Celia's inner workings. FIRE ME said its label.

"I can't use that," said Alice.

"Pablo Ogden has built this gun into my body for a purpose," answered Celia. "Hand me the shot."

Alice gave the lead ball to Celia. Just then, Mrs Minus burst into the breakfast room! She had by now turned more or less fully into a giant snake! Only a single human hand extended from her reptilian body, and within its grip rested her own pistol. Mrs Minus aimed the pistol directly at Alice's heart. "You will pay for your treachery, my young girl!" she hissed, whilst beginning to squeeze on the trigger.