Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked, and they whispered back in unison, like a lispy echo: ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Simple Simone says,’ I said slowly, ‘“Put your hands on your head”.’

They all obediently put their hands on their head.

‘Simple Simone says: “Put your hands by your side”.’

They all put them down again.

‘Stand on one leg.’

They ignored the order. Simple Simone hadn’t told them to, see. I smiled, for the first time in a while.

‘Simple Simone says: “Tell me your name”.’

They answered as one, but each with their own. I only heard a few in the mass of different words. Rubik’s Cube Girl was Rebecca and Glitzy Tiara, positioned off to her right, was Betty, who now had tears rolling softly down her cheeks.

‘How are you feeling right now?’ I asked, and there followed a mix of responses – frustrated, trapped, lost, adrift.

They stood there for a moment longer, but then the magic faded, and they moved out of the trance and drifted off down the corridor, as vacant as ever. I had no idea of the meaning of Don Hector’s words on the cylinder, but whatever it was, it had an effect on nightwalkers. The recording might not retrieve the nightwalkers, but it was a step in the right direction.

I went into the kitchenette, mixed some muesli with long-life milk and a large spoonful of peanut butter and walked to the window. I could hear the wind whipping around the building outside, rattling the shutters and trying to find a chink in the building’s Winter armour. I needed a plan, and after some careful thought figured one out: I’d go and see Hugo Foulnap, who was on duty at the museum. The reason was simple. Aurora had suggested he was Campaign for Real Sleep and if this was true and he was hiding as Danny Pockets in Sector Twelve, then I could make two assumptions: that there was an ongoing RealSleep operation and he, Jonesy, Toccata and the shambling occupants of the Cambrensis were a big part of it.

I found some fresh warm clothes in the wardrobe, replaced the flashcube on the camera so I was armed with more flashes, then cautiously opened the apartment door and peered out into the empty corridor. I crept back upstairs without being molested, found a heavy parka, pulled on some snow boots, shoved the camera in my bag and consulted the fixed line schematic that was screwed to the wall between the inner and outer doors of the Cambrensis . The museum was on the other side of the road and about a quarter of a mile away. In daylight and without weather, about a five-minute stroll. I would have to do it in less than thirty and not lose my way if I wanted to keep all my fingers and toes.

I took a deep breath, then opened the outer door.

If I thought the weather had been bad before it was twice as bad now. The icy wind was howling past the door, the view a mass of angry swirling snow. I fired up the lamp with the last thermalite, then clipped myself onto the fixed line. I paused to tell myself that this was the best course of action, Gronk or no Gronk, and set off into the storm. My lantern afforded me really only moral support but by staying close to the wall I could minimise the buffeting from the wind, and although the snow was now almost three feet deep in drifts and the going slow, I made progress. Within ten minutes I was at the bridge, from where I would have to cross the road without the fixed line. I was less cautious than perhaps I should have been; after leaving the line and taking two paces towards the opposite parapet, the full force of the wind lifted me off my feet.

I think I remember tumbling for a while, then being wedged head first in the snow. To make matters worse the snow guard inside my parka then ripped, and the wind-blown snow rushed up inside the back of my coat and wrapped itself around my neck and chest. I momentarily stopped breathing with the sudden chill and could actually feel myself begin to lose core temperature. It started with an uncontrollable shiver, then a chattering of teeth, then a sense of calm mixed with resignation, loss and waste. I wanted badly to dream, to be back on the beach in the Gower, beneath the orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour with Birgitta being Birgitta and me being Charles. But I couldn’t, and slowly, with an annoying drab certainty, I felt myself slipping away.

But I didn’t die. Not yet.

‘What kind of dopey halfwit goes out in weather like this?’

It was Hugo Foulnap. He was staring at me with the same sort of look you afford someone who has been repeatedly told not to play with lighter fuel and matches, and who has just set themselves on fire. He was out of the shock-suit – probably because invasion during the storm was unlikely – and was staring at me with a sense of curious fascination. We were in a white-tiled warmroom, presumably within the museum, although according to my last memory I had yet to even get to the wrought-iron gates. I was completely naked and immersed in a roll-top bath filled with warm water.

‘This kind of dopey halfwit,’ I said, pointing at myself.

‘Run into a spot of bother?’

He indicated my body, which was covered with all the bruises, scratches and tooth marks I’d gained when I was nearly nightwalker lunch, all now stained by dabs of iodine on my pale wintercoat, which made me look a little like a purple Dalmatian. I pointed to the bite mark on my face.

‘See that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Carmen Miranda.’

‘Is that how she does autographs these days?’

‘Pretty much. She was at the Cambrensis .’

‘Ah,’ said Foulnap. ‘Cold in there? Empty and shuttered?’

‘No,’ I said after a pause, ‘no, it’s not.’

We stared at one another for a while.

‘How are the toes?’ he asked, and I stared at them uneasily. They had a marzipanish look to them and were hurting badly, so I thought probably not that good.

‘I may lose one or two.’

‘To match your finger?’

I looked down and noticed for the first time that my right pinky had vanished below the knuckle, the wound hardly bleeding and the exposed fleshy part looking like a cut of uncooked silverside. I felt underwhelmed as I stared at the loss – it was as though this were somehow inevitable. I thought for a moment. Outside, in the snowdrift, upside down, as I was slipping away, I’d heard the laugh of a young girl.

‘Where did you find me?’

‘I heard a thump on the outer door,’ replied Foulnap, ‘and there you were. Your finger must have caught in the wire when you fell. They come off surprisingly easily in the cold.’

‘It was the Gronk.’

‘Yes; assisted by unicorns, the tooth fairy and the ghost of Owain Glyndwr, I shouldn’t wonder. Here.’

He handed me a large mug of tea laced with condensed milk and Nutella. [60] Ferrero Rocher tried to market this drink in the Summer as Teatella , but it never caught on. If you’d offered it to me in the Summer I’d only have drunk it as a dare, but right here and now I thought it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. Within half an hour I was warm enough to climb out of the bath and get dressed.

‘The Open Network has been chattering constantly for the past hour,’ said Foulnap, hanging up my damp towel. ‘We heard you’d been harbouring Birgitta, Jonesy was bumped off by a mystery girl from HiberTech who was then herself killed – and you’d been taken off to HiberTech. Is that anywhere near correct?’