SAOS: Chapter Twenty Six: The Story Of A Ghost Who Wasn't

      Chas and Spud heard the tapping of dog nails on the floor before they saw him. Chas stood out in the middle of the hall and called out:

      "Here Sam! Here doggy doggy doggy!"

      Sam growled and ran at him, teeth bared. He came within snapping distance of Chas' leg when Spud rugby tackled him and bore him fiercely to the ground.

      "Now pay attention to me, you horrible traitorous fleabag. You're going to show us where Nics is, and you're going to help us get out of here. Or, I swear on my granny's motorbike, I'll snap your neck like a dry twig."

      The threats must have worked, because Sam whined, and cringed.

      "Where is Nics?" Chas asked him.

      "W-w-w-with Mr Cuckoo, o-o-of course," came a familiar voice from behind him.

      The sound of a gun being cocked echoed in the bare corridor.

      "T-t-t-turn around very slowly, please," said Jeremy. "And let go of Sam."

      Both men did so, holding their hands up in the air. Sam slunk over to Jeremy's side.

      "D-d-don't you know that it's not nice to be cruel to animals," Jeremy asked them reproachfully.

      "He betrayed us," said Chas simply.

      "He played us for fools," Spud elaborated. "Makes friends with us, helps rescue us from a very sticky situation indeed, only to turn around and hand us over to a complete and utter raving psychopath!"

      "Don't talk about Mr Cuckoo that way!" exploded Jeremy, his hands shaking.

      Sam looked up at him, and barked softly.

      "Y-y-y-you're right, you're right," said Jeremy, lowering his voice. "T-t-they're trying to make me angry, s-so they can gain advantage. Well, it won't happen."

      "Was that what we were doing," Spud asked Chas, who shrugged. "I thought we were just telling the truth."

      "W-w-where's the second disk?" asked Jeremy.

      "I hid it," said Chas. "If you want it, get your mutt to sniff it out."

      Sam growled, and Jeremy placed his free hand on Sam's head to comfort him.

      "N-n-now, that's not very polite. It's not Sam's fault, you know."

      "What," said Spud. "Did the devil make him do it then?"

      Jeremy grinned humourlessly.

      "Not quite. Walk with me."

      He waved the gun at the two men, pointing them towards the far end of the corridor. As they walked, he talked.

      "T-t-there's a certain twisted s-s-symmetry to the whole thing. It's all about a ghost who isn't.

      "T-t-t-that b-bloody woman, the one who killed my grandfather, w-well, she had a partner. A Mr. J. Bradford. An agent, like her. But one who was a little looser when it came to l-looking the other way while vital security information was suddenly miraculously turned into cold, hard cash.

      "She found out, just after the mission where she s-s-stole the second disk. And she was going to expose him. S-so he did her in. But he couldn't get the disk, it was lost.

      "S-she didn't go down easily, s-she cost him his eyes. A-and later on, when he got older, he slipped quietly into a coma, where he's been ever since.

      "Or that's what people think..." Jeremy finished smugly.

      "So, the devil didn't make Sam do it," said Spud. "His master's spirit did."

      "W-well done," smirked Jeremy. "You're not as stupid as you look."

      "I get that a lot," mumbled Spud.

      Chas broke in. "And in return for the disk, and us, Mr J. Bradford (not entirely deceased) gets a brand new shiny clockwork body, am I right?"

      Jeremy grinned even wider.

      "Excuse me for asking," said Chas. "But what is it you get out of all of this anyway? When you're the only non-clockwork thing on the face of the planet, isn't it going to make life a bit awkward?"

      Jeremy's face closed down like a trap.

      "Enough chitchat!" he shouted at them as Sam growled. "I'll get everything that I could ever want when this plan is complete! I'll get my revenge!!"

      He waved the gun at them again, and directed them through the double doors at the end of the corridor, into the main room of the laboratory.

      The set-up inside hadn't changed. The machine with the big red button and the LED display still stood off to one side, the two beds with their padded restraints still stood in the middle. Nics sat on one of them, kicking her legs and looking very glum. The gold collar was snug around her neck, though from the look of the red skin around it, she'd been trying to pull it off.

      A single row of golden clockwork dragons ringed the beds, all their red jewelled eyes were watching her unblinking. She looked up when she heard the footsteps.

      "Oh, Chas," she said, despairing. "Why did you come back? You at least could have been safe!"

      "Hush, babes," he told her. "Couldn't leave my best bird behind, now could I?"

      She smiled at him, with a hefty dose of sorrow. Jeremy snapped an order, and the ring of dragons opened up. Chas and Spud were ushered into the ring, another order, and the line of dragons closed ranks again.

      Jeremy and Sam then disappeared behind one of the arcane machines, leaving the three friends alone, except for the dragons.

      Just then a cardboard pizza box on a parachute came floating through the air to land neatly on Spud's lap. A waft of steam came from it, bringing the tantalising smell of fresh pizza.

      "Brilliant," he said. "I'm starving!"

      He opened up the pizza box and offered some to the other two.

      "Just pick off the bits of banana if you don't want them," he told them, before shoving one particularly large piece into his mouth.

      Nics declined, looking slightly ill, but Chas accepted with gusto. In no time at all the two lads had devoured the pizza, leaving only the greasy box behind.

      "Right," said Spud, wiping the pizza grease and some of his face paint off on the back on his hand. "Orders received and understood. I know what to do now."

      "Brilliant," said Chas. "What are you going to do then?"

      "Stop Mr Cuckoo and save the world of course," Spud told him.

      "And how exactly are you going to do that then?" asked Chas.

      "Um... well, that's the bit they didn't exactly give a lot of detail on..." trailed off Spud.

      Chas rolled his eyes, and put one comforting arm around Nics. She looked up at him and smiled, accepting his touch.

      "You're still alright?" she asked him.

      "Yeah," he said. "Well, except for the whole being taken prisoner by an evil genius thing."

      "You're not upset about... you know... clockwork?"

      He looked her straight in the eyes for a moment, then gently but firmly pulled her chin up and kissed her, very thoroughly.

      They didn't come up for air for several minutes. Spud looked embarrassed. He probably blushed, but it was hard to tell underneath all the makeup.

      "Jeez... get a room..." he mumbled after a minute.

      The couple unlocked their lips and glared at him.

      "Sorry..." he mumbled, even lower.

      Chas cuffed him affectionately on the arm.

      "Let's get our heads together and plan a way out of this mess," he said.

      And so they did.

SAOS: Chapter Twenty Five: The Theatre Of The Absurd

      The woman led them to the stage door of a nearby theatre.

      "At least you're already in costume," she told Spud.

      Backstage all was chaos. The woman in the white dress with the red boots was joined by a woman in a red dress with white boots. Together they strong-armed Spud to the edge of the stage, keeping him waiting in the wings for his cue.

      Spud clutched the banana, and cast pleading looks at Chas, but Chas was lost in thought and paying no attention to what was going on around him.

      "Remember... April..." he muttered to himself.

      The entire stage was lit only by a single spotlight, centred on a very large table, with very large chairs, on which was laid a very large tea set. All of the props were made of foam, painted in lurid and fluorescent colours.

      There was a man on stage, dressed in a fluorescent green pin striped suit making his bows to rapturous applause from the audience.

      "What does he do?" Spud asked the two women holding him tight.

      "He's the first man in the world to swallow a watermelon whole," the woman in red replied.

      "Damn, I missed it!" Spud pouted as the man came offstage.

      He was replaced by two actors, a man and a woman, both dressed in outlandish costumes of the raided-a-scrap yard variety. They both wore elaborate clown makeup, and were talking quite normally about their trip to the supermarket, and their day at the office.

      As far as Spud could tell, there was absolutely nothing funny at all about what they were saying; in fact it sounded incredibly dull to him. But the unseen audience, out behind the stage lights, were laughing uproariously, and applauding every second word.

      After five minutes or so, the two actors simply got up and walked off stage. With a shove, the two women pushed Spud, still clutching the banana, out onto the stage, straight into the glare of the spotlight.

      Silence from the audience greeted him. He raised one hand to shield his eyes, the better to be able to peer into the gloom beyond the stage and see who was there. But it didn't help.

      He turned on his heel and tried to walk offstage. But the two women were waiting for him, and just shoved him back on again.

      "Chas!" he called out to the wings. But Chas was staring into space, turning the mother-of-pearl disk over and over in his hands.

      "Chas!!" yelled Spud again, a tinge of hysteria creeping into his voice. "Help!"

      The theatre was deathly silent.

      "Fuck," said Chas softly, and put the disk back into his pocket. Ignoring the audience, and ignoring the actors clustered around in the wings, he strode directly onto the stage.

      With one dramatic movement he swept the table clean of crockery, and with another he flung it across the stage. Underneath the table was a design set into the wood of the stage, an enormous cogwheel. He knelt down at the very centre of the wheel and pulled.

      Smoothly a trapdoor came up, letting a shaft of brilliant white light into the gloom of the theatre. Chas disappeared down into it.

      Spud gawped a minute, then followed him. The sound of rapturous applause followed him, cut off abruptly by the slam of the closing trapdoor.

      They were in Mr Cuckoo's lair once more.

      "Right," said Spud. "Now what?"

      Chas smiled grimly, and started walking.

SAOS: Chapter Twenty Four: Mimes Do It In Silence

      "Thanks mate," Chas said to the mouse as he ran easily along the corridors of Mr Cuckoo's secret base. "So, he thinks there's nothing we can do, does he? We'll show him!"

      The mouse squeaked in agreement, and waving a paw, indicated a turning. They passed through a very ordinary door indeed and suddenly they were out and into the ground floor of what looked like an art gallery.

      Chas turned to look at the door behind him. It was painted blue with a brass door knocker, which was engraved with cogwheels. It was also completely surrounded by a gilt picture frame.

      A man dressed all in black with a silly little beard and holding a champagne flute stared at him. Beside him was a woman with peacock's feathers in her hair and an air of terminal boredom.

      "'Scuse me," said Chas to them. "Is this the way to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party?"

      The man and woman turned quickly on their heels and studiously admired the painting behind them of a giant light switch. Chas grinned, and shut the door.

      They found Spud down the road from the gallery. He was dressed in a black and white mime's costume, with the full white face paint. Spud looked like he was yelling something, and was pounding on an invisible wall in front of him. Up against the wall a few feet away was a little black box that looked like a transistor radio. A floppy black beret with a few coins in it lay on the path.

      Spud waved frantically when he saw Chas, his mouth moving like he was talking a mile a minute. He kept pounding on the invisible wall but not a sound could be heard from him. Chas looked at the scene, thought a minute and walked over to the transistor radio, giving it a hefty kick.

      The radio bounced off the wall and shattered, spilling wires and electronic bits all over the ground.

      "... the hell out of here!!" Spud yelled, then yelped as his fist met no resistance, and he fell forward.

      He staggered a few steps, and caught himself.

      "That," he said, looking at Chas, "was truly horrible."

      A passer-by, a woman with long hair, and a white flower tucked behind one ear looked at them curiously.

      "I'm not a fucking mime!" Spud yelled after her, as she hurried down the corridor. He pulled up the edges of the black polo neck he was wearing, and tried to wipe the thick greasepaint off his face. It didn't move a fraction of an inch.

      "Come on," said Chas, "we don't have a lot of time. Nics is still in there, and there's about two hours left before Cuckoo's plan kills all life on Earth."

      "Right," said Spud, striding off down the tunnel, then stopping. "Um... where exactly?"

      "Follow me," said Chas.

      As they walked hurriedly back to the art gallery, Chas filled Spud in on the situation. The mouse still sat in Chas' breast pocket, front legs over the edge of it, looking out.

      "Woah," said Spud. "So he's going to destroy all life on earth and replace it with his horrible clockwork things?"

      "Yup."

      "And we've no idea how exactly this plan is going to happen, only that there's a machine with a big red button that talks to you involved?"

      "Nope, and yup. Except the machine talks, not the big red button."

      Spud stopped suddenly and looked all around. They were on a relatively quiet street, with cabs and the occasional pedestrian walking past.

      "What the hell are you doing?!" snapped Chas. "Nics is still in there, remember?"

      "I'm looking for the fucking film cameras!" Spud yelled back. "This is just too fucked up to be anything other than a sick joke!"

      "Hey, you're the secret agent!" Chas retorted. "You should be used to this sort of shit!"

      "Not me, not Mrs. Molloy's little boy - I was way low down in the secret agent business. Hell, they couldn't even trust me to tie my own bloody shoelaces!"

      "And now the truth comes out," hissed Chas, fuming.

      "I think we should cut our losses and run," said Spud. "Get in touch with the Agency, they'll know what to do."

      Chas stared at him for one long moment, then quick as a flash grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shoved him up against the crumbling brickwork of an old wall.

      "You listen to me, you miserable piece of shit, and you listen good. Nics is still in there, and I'm not leaving her. And you're going to help me, understand?"

      The mouse squeaked in a worried tone. Spud nodded weakly, and Chas let him go.

      A man walking a rat on the end of a lead gave them both a funny look.

      "What?" Chas challenged him. "You didn't know that it was national beat up a mime day today?"

      From behind him, Spud snorted and burst out laughing. Chas looked at him incredulously for a moment, then he too started to snigger.

      "Come on," said Spud, starting to walk down the road again. "Time's a wasting..."

      Chas' long legs only took a stride or two to catch up with him.

      "Dude, I can't believe it though," said Spud. "You're girlfriend's an android!"

      And he reached out one fist and punched Chas in a friendly way on his cast.

      The cast broke neatly in two and fell onto the pavement. So did the mother-of-pearl disk, but Chas grabbed it as quickly as he could, looking at it anxiously for any signs of damage. There were none, he quickly stuffed it into his jeans pocket.

      Spud picked up the two halves of the cast and looked at them. Inside one half was the word "REMEMBER", inside the second was the word "APRIL".

      "Remember April," he said. "What the hell does that all mean?"

      "Figure it out later," said Chas, scratching the back of his hand with an expression of bliss on his face. "God, that feels good!"

      The art gallery was still open, and still full of pretentious gits. Chas and Spud walked quickly through the main door to find themselves in the midst of a new show.

      Spud shot dirty looks at the members of the art critic scene who insisted on stopping him to ask if he was part of some new performance art piece. Unfortunately, the makeup didn't help to make this meaning clear.

      One of the men was smoking. "Scuse me, mate," Spud asked him. "You got a lighter I can borrow?"

      The critics, like a flock of blackbirds took their opportunity to swarm around him, firing so many questions that he never heard the man's reply.

      "Look, I'm a bit busy now," he told them. "The world's going to end, so if you'll just excuse me..."

      He ran after Chas, ignoring the murmurs of "simply wonderful", "outstandingly new", "such a charming post-modern take on the whole traditional oeuvre of the street performer".

       

      Chas stood in front of the door in the picture frame, hands on the door handle, shaking it.

      "It's locked tight," he said.

      "Kick it in," suggested Spud. So Chas tried. No joy. Spud glanced up and down the section of gallery. People were watching them with the expression of critics judging a new piece of performance art.

      "Together then," Spud said. "On three."

      The two boys took several steps backwards and were about to charge the door when a frantic squeaking came from the mouse in Chas' breast pocket.

      Chas looked down.

      "Sorry, mate, here," and he offered the mouse a hand down to the ground.

      The mouse retreated to a safe distance.

      "Ready?" asked Spud. "One... two... three..."

      And with a roar the two men charged the door, only to bounce off it in a rather painful manner. The mouse winced, and covered its eye with its paws. The door remained as it was, undented, and maybe even a little bit smug.

      "Fuck," said Spud. "Guess that's not going to work."

      Chas ignored him, and went back to pounding on the door until a bouncer came up and politely but firmly ejected them both.

      They landed in the gutter outside the art gallery, the mouse running along to squeak at them urgently.

      "I know, I know," Chas told it as he picked himself and the mouse up. The mouse settled back into his pocket.

      "You know," mumbled Spud, his face still down in the gutter. "I don't like this modern art stuff."

      He raised his head up.

     

      "I mean, what's the point of it? I'm pretty sure I saw a photo of paint drying in there. How pointless is that?"

      He trailed off as he spotted a pair of feet standing in front of his face. Normal sized feet, but clad in the most outlandish pair of bright red thigh high platform boots with silver buckles. Spud looked up to see the owner of said boots, and looked into the face of a woman.

      Perhaps it would be more precise to say he looked into the mask that was being worn by a woman. It was made out of duck feathers. She also wore a very tight dress that was made out of an ice-white fabric that glowed.

      She held out one hand to him. It had a fingerless glove on it, of the sort you'd wear in winter, made of unravelling pink wool.

      "You're late," she told him as she helped him to his feet. "The director's fit to be tied, and you're on in five minutes."

      "What? Where? What?" Spud gaped at her.

      She handed him a double sized banana made out of Styrofoam and painted in fluorescent paint.

      "Come on!" she told him, urgently, and strode off without looking to see if they were following. She had a very attractive walk.

      Spud looked at Chas, who shrugged.

      "Might as well," Chas said. His brow was furrowed, as if he was trying to remember something.

SAOS: Chapter Twenty Three: Friends in Low Places

      "How does it feel, my dear?" asked Mr Cuckoo solicitously as he clipped the collar around Nics' neck.

      "A bit tight," she said, her voice rough. "But I don't feel any different."

      "Not yet, my dear..." he said.

      Jeremy stared at Nics, at the flesh of her neck that was encased in the gold collar. He shuffled over to Mr Cuckoo, and whispered something in his ear.

      Mr Cuckoo smiled at him indulgently.

      "Of course," he said. "You are welcome to her. Once I've finished my experiments."

      Jeremy smiled, and shuffled away again.

      Mr Cuckoo slowly undid Nics’ restraints, and stood back.

      "You may go and do whatever you wish now, my dear," he said. "None of us will stop you. Will we?"

      All at once the hundred and one gold dragons nodded, as did Barbra and Jeremy, and Barbra's clockwork pets.

      Nics didn't stop to question, she was off the bed and straight to Chas' side, fumbling at the thick straps to release him.

      "Thanks, babes," he said, helping her with the straps on his legs. "Don't know what they're playing at, but let's get the hell out of here."

      He swung his legs off the bed, and they both were off, running to the exit.

      "Thanks for calling!" called Mr Cuckoo cheerfully. "Please come back again soon!"

      Nics had just touched the door handle when the red stone on her necklace flashed.

      "Nicola, stop," ordered Mr Cuckoo.

      She stopped as abruptly as if she had been flash frozen, and no amount of Chas pulling at her would make her move again.

      Her eyes pleaded with him:

      "Help me," she mouthed, but no sound came from her terrified throat.

      "Bring the boy to me," ordered Mr Cuckoo, as the ruby flashed again.

      Nics reached out and grabbed Chas firmly with both hands. With surprising strength she dragged him across the floor, back to the beds.

      Mr Cuckoo was rubbing his hands in glee.

      "Drop him on the floor."

      Nics did so, wincing as Chas hit the ground with a thud. He sat up immediately, got into a crouch as if preparing to sprint away.

      "You can still speak, can't you?" Mr Cuckoo asked her.

      "Yes," she said, tears in her eyes. "You bastard."

      "Now, now," Barbra scolded, "don't address Mr Cuckoo like that, he doesn't like it."

      "I think, Barbra," Mr Cuckoo said grandly, "that from now I should like very much to be called Master."

      She bowed. "As you wish, Master."

      "Now, Nicola," he said. "If I were to tell you that the big red button on my machine over there is the button to press to set off the whole nefarious chain of events that I have planned to exterminate all life on Earth, would you push it?"

      "No way!" she cried. "Never!"

      Jeremy's brow furrowed in puzzlement.

      "Even if I were to kill your boyfriend in front of your eyes?" Mr Cuckoo asked, in an inquiring tone of voice, like someone discussing the possibility of later rain.

      Chas stood up, and took a step towards her. She looked at him, and he gazed back at her, steel in his expression.

      "I'm not worth the world, Nics," he told her. "You wouldn't do it."

      Biting her lip, she turned back to Mr Cuckoo.

      "No," she told him, firmly.

      "E-e-excuse me," interjected Jeremy. "All life on Earth?"

      "Except yours, of course, my dear boy," back-pedalled Mr Cuckoo smoothly.

      Sam barked. Mr Cuckoo turned to him.

      "Yes, I am well aware of our arrangement," Mr Cuckoo told him in an exasperated tone of voice. "But you're not exactly alive at the moment anyway."

      Sam whined, and slunk dejectedly off to hide behind some machinery.

      "So," said Mr Cuckoo, turning back to Nics. "We've established that you would not press that button of your own free will - correct?"

      "Yes," she said, looking straight at him.

      "The button is set to give a three hour countdown. Nicola, go press the button."

      The jewel flashed. Nics swore at him, fighting the movement of her own body as it walked towards the machine. Chas grabbed her arm, trying to hold it back, but he could no more stop her from going than he could have stopped a steam train.

      Nics reached out and pressed the big red button. A male voice came from the machine.

      "Thank you for pressing the big red button. The end of the world will happen in three hours from the tone."

      The machine beeped, and the red LED display started counting the seconds down.

      "Oh God, what have I done?" cried Nics.

      "Only part of what has to be done," Mr Cuckoo told her. "Now take the second disk from your boyfriend, using force."

      Nics pulled her right arm back, ready to deliver a blow to Chas' face.

      "I'm sorry!" she cried, and swung at him.

      Chas ducked and rolled, and she missed completely. There followed a few seconds of frantic running around the laboratory, Nics chasing Chas, while all the while a manically laughing Mr Cuckoo looked on.

      Nics finally caught Chas, just by the exit. But just as she was about to slug him in the jaw, a mouse ran up the front of his shirt, put its little face up to her nose, opened its mouth wide, stuck its tongue out at her and made a loud squeaking sound.

      Nics jumped back, dropping Chas. The mouse did a flying leap across to her shirt and bit her sharply on the end of her nose.

      She went into total hysterics as the mouse jumped back onto Chas. Chas didn’t waste any time in taking the opportunity to make a break for the door.

      The door swung shut, just as he heard Mr Cuckoo say:

      “Oh, let the boy go. He'll be back to save his girlfriend. And what can he do in two hours and fifty six minutes anyway?"

SAOS:Chapter Twenty Two: A Musical Interlude, or, Cuckoo By Name, Cuckoo By Nature

      Mr Cuckoo's laboratory lay at the end of a very long, very white, very tunnel-like hall. The laboratory itself was wide open, white, and the size of an aircraft hangar, with the ceiling rising at least 40 metres above the floor. There were no windows, the entire room was lit with a uniform white glow by massive fluorescent tubes hanging on white painted chains from the ceiling.

      If it hadn't been for all the junk laying around inside it, one look would have convinced you that you'd gone blind.

      And what a marvellous array of junk there was too. There were lab benches covered in mysterious glassware, with bubbling beakers and flames that flared different colours. There were stacks of cog wheels of all sizes and descriptions, piled of hydraulic thingummy-bobs, and vast heaps of nuts, screws and bolts. There were three vast robotic arms, like the sort you'd see in a car factory, lined up against one side wall. Another wall was lined with more arcane and strangely clean and shiny looking machinery.

      The centre of the room was a large open space. Mr Cuckoo stood there, next to a pair of tables that could have been taken from any psychiatric hospital in the first world. Both had heavy, thick padded restraints attached to thick iron bars. Arrayed neatly around his steel and brass body were the gold dragons from the dining room. They sat in ten columns, ten deep, awaiting their master's command. One, slightly larger than all the others, stood in front of the columns, in the position normally taken by the commanding officer.

      Sam sat next to the commander dragon, his tongue hanging out.

      The scene at the centre of the room didn't dominate the whole view though. What did that was a glass case high up on the wall opposite the door. Inside, like a parody of Snow White, was the body of a young man, motionless.

      Something moved in the corner of his eye. Chas turned to look, and caught a very quick glimpse of a man in a bright yellow shiny zoot suit scurrying behind a piece of machinery. He had been carrying a muted trumpet.

      "Excellent," said Mr Cuckoo, as his two prisoners were firmly encouraged onto the two hospital beds, and more firmly strapped in. The ends of the beds were raised, so that Chas and Nics ended up in a sitting position. Chas pulled at the restraints, testing them. They didn't even give a tiny bit.

      A single note came from somewhere behind the scenes, played with the nasal quality of an oboe.

      "Jeremy, the collar," ordered Mr Cuckoo.

      Jeremy swallowed and shuffled off to a workbench, returning with a large velvet covered jewellery box, of the sort that a very large, very precious necklace would be kept in. The box was covered in dust.

      "I spent a very long time working on this," said Mr Cuckoo, taking the box from the nervous young man. "Back when my thoughts were dominated by revenge."

      He took a deep breath, and blew the dust from the top lid.

      Chas and Nics both sneezed, one after the other. The gold tarantula that sat on Chas's shoulder slipped and fell, straight down to the hard concrete floor. From behind the pair a spring in some machine went "b-doinggg" as it broke.

      Quicker than a normal human could move, Barbra grabbed the tarantula, and transferred it back onto her shoulder. Nics looked at her strangely - was there a hint of worry in her expression there?

      The same note sounded again, echoing through the room, but this time played on many instruments. It lasted a few seconds, enough time for Mr Cuckoo to flip open the lid of the jewellery box.

      Inside was a heavy ornate gold collar, suitable for a lady to wear out to a very posh ball. Instead of being a chain it was a line of linked cogwheels of various sizes, all fitting together in a circle. The wheels were ornate with diamonds, and the whole thing was dominated by a large cut ruby, right in the centre of the collar.

      Mr Cuckoo looked at it fondly as the hidden orchestra began its overture.

      "Such beautiful workmanship, even if I do say so myself. And to think, I finally will get to test it."

      He nodded to Barbra, and she came around to stand behind Chas, her very hot hands holding his face and head firm. Chas flinched at her touch, but he couldn't move a millimetre.

      Taking the collar from the box, Mr Cuckoo carefully placed it around Chas' neck, moving with surprising gentleness. Chas skin crawled. There was a quiet 'snick' as the collar snapped shut.

      A trumpet fanfare blared out, making Nics twitch in her restraints. No one else did, Chas because he couldn't, and everyone else not seeming to care.

      Jeremy watched the installation of the necklace with avid eyes, licking his lips laviciously.

      "Now," said Mr Cuckoo, standing back from Chas. "You will give me the locket."

      "Go to hell," said Chas in a low, furious voice.

      "Good..." said Mr Cuckoo, pleased.

      Jeremy's face fell. "Wh-wh-wh-what do you me-mean, g-good?" he stuttered, outraged. "It doesn't work!"

      Mr Cuckoo rounded on him furiously. "Of course it doesn't work, you bloody fool! It's not supposed to work on real humans!!"

      Jeremy took a step back, terrified, hands up to shield himself. Chas seized the opportunity:

      "So that's your plan, is it? Make a load of synthetic humans, control them perfectly and take over the world? It's never going to work!"

      Mr Cuckoo turned back to him and laughed, loud, long and hysterically.

      All the lights went off, leaving the scene in the centre of the room the only area still lit.

      The orchestra swelled to a crescendo, then stopped. A single trumpet played one note, pa-pa-pa-pa.

      "You don't understand," sang Mr Cuckoo into the quiet.

      "That's not my plan,

      It may have been, years ago.

      But the day I was shot,

      made me rethink the whole lot.

      My plans have changed

      And wouldn't you like to know..."

      The orchestra picked up again, a cheerful ragtime rhythm.

      "If I was an evil overlord

      like the ones in James Bond

      I'd have my an army, nay a horde

      ready at my command

      "I'd have a strange Doomsday device

      with a big red button on it

      to tell the world to treat me nice

      and make me ruler of it

      "If I was a genius, evil,

      like in those crap pulp novels

      I'd tell you all my plans in detail

      so you could stop them, no problem"

      A pause, the tempo slowed.

      "But I'm not, so I won't

      and you can't taunt me into it

      Your time is marked, you don't have long

      So enjoy it, while you can!"

      He stopped, arms out flung, holding the final note.

      The snare drum tapped a funky little dance rhythm. A snap of Mr Cuckoo's metallic fingers rang out like a gunshot, and he started tap dancing, the same rhythm coming from his metal feet on the floor.

      The snare drum tapped another rhythm, and he replied. This carried on for several bars, each time the call and response rhythm getting more and more complicated, building up into a big crescendo.

      The hundred and one golden dragons wheeled into a chorus line, tapping away with their claws in rhythm with Mr Cuckoo, high kicking and waving their front legs above their heads. They turned, and went into an incredibly elaborate set move, looking like giant cogs turning from above, before returning to their neat little line.

      Mr Cuckoo watched them in indulgent fascination, waving at them like a conductor.

      "Barbra," he called, "Fetch the machine!"

      She dropped her hands from around Chas's head, and skipped off, as light on her feet as a ballerina into the shadows. Chas and Nics exchanged terrified looks.

      The tap dance routine ended, the music slowing once more to a dreamy ballad. Jeremy stepped forward, and some trick of the light made him look like he was standing under a spotlight.

      "This is my revenge," he sang softly

      "Against the Agency, who cheated me,

      of the only father I knew

      the only father who was true to me,

      and loved me.

      "You can't know what it's like

      when your parents go off to war

      without even saying what they're fighting for

      without even saying good-bye

      "My grandfather raised me as his own

      taught me everything that I know

      And made me believe I could be

      Anything I wanted to be

      anything I thought I could be

      anything I dreamed I could be

      And the Agency, took that dream from me..."

      Mr Cuckoo took a step forward into the light, laying his hand paternalistically on Jeremy's shoulder.

      "So that's when you came to me," he sang.

     

      "That's why you came to me

      Your grandfather's partner, his dearest friend

      I took you home and I helped you mend

      your broken heart and we are dear friends

      my boy..."

      "More!" sang Jeremy, staring into Mr Cuckoo's dead metal eyes

      "So much more than that,

      You are the father I never knew

      the friend who was always true to me

      the person who showed me that I could be

      anything I wanted to be..."

      "Anything you thought you could be," sang Mr Cuckoo.

      "Anything I dreamed I could be," sang Jeremy, turning to look across the room, into space.

     

      "So I dreamed of revenge...

      On the Agency...

      Who stole my grandfather...

      Away... from... me..."

      The orchestra swung into a march beat, and Barbra Allen returned to centre stage, her lion and tarantula marching ahead of her. She pulled a very large red ribbon, at the end of which was attached a big metal box with a big red button and a red LED countdown display.

      Mr Cuckoo patted Jeremy fondly on the shoulder, and stepped over towards the machine.

      "This is it," he sang.

      "My great machine

      The use of which

      I will explain

      This button I'll press

      to make again

      the world that is broken

      and the source of pain.

      "Of course, I'll have to destroy the world before I can

      remake it

      But what does it matter when it'll be more perfect when I'm done

      remaking it."

      Reaching out fondly he was about to press the big red button, when:

      "Nooo!" cried Nics. "You can't! You won't!"

      "Oh, believe me," said Mr Cuckoo, "I will."

      He walked over to her, ran one finger down her cheek, down her neck in a way that was both caressing and horribly repulsive. He sang:

      "You're perfect, so you can't understand

      What it is to die by inches

      I die by only inches

      every second of every day."

      He dropped his hand before it reached the curve of her shoulder and turned to face his audience.

      "Jeremy understands, and so does Sam,

      what it's like to die by inches

      time lost in little pinches,

      every second of every day

      "I will spit in the Grim Reaper's eye

      I'll make a world where nothing can die

      I choose to do this, and it's no lie

      I'm sick of death by inches."

      Mr Cuckoo turned back to Nics. He stroked her hair gently, and she flinched.

      "You my dear, are perfect," he sang

      "But I can't have your free will

      If I'm to make the world anew

      You must submit, or be killed."

      The sounds of the orchestra faded away on a harsh and eerie note. The lights came back up, and the far corners of the lab could be seen again.

      "Now," said Mr Cuckoo, "Let's see if this control collar works as it's intended..."

      And he snapped the collar from Chas' neck, and laid it against Nics throat.