Retromancer

  ‘There, that’s better now,’ said the kindly voice.

  And I looked into a kindly face. It was an old and grizzled face, but it had kindly ways about it, and although the mouth lacked for a vital tooth or two, its corners were turned up into a smile. And it was a kindly smile.

  ‘It is you,’ I said to this kindly personage. ‘Diogenes, THE HERMIT. My holy guardian angel.’

  ‘I have been called many things in my time,’ said he of the kindly visage, ‘but rarely anything quite so touching as that. By the by, I should have mentioned when last we met, in the Gents of the Purple Princess, that you did very well in taking my heed regarding the matter of the number twenty-seven.’

  ‘A bus,’ I said. ‘With a bomb on board.’

  ‘Yes, of course, and the bomb placed upon it by Count Otto Black.’ Diogenes, or whomever he was, was helping up Hugo Rune. ‘I get glimpses, you know. Sometimes they are very odd. I have one in my head at present about a gigantic rugby ball floating in the sky, making a terrible screaming noise and pouring down fire on the world.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘That must mean—’

  But Hugo Rune sssshed me to silence. ‘Sir,’ said he to the kindly one. ‘We have not been introduced. I am Rune, whose senses keen to the vibrations of the cosmos. Whose third eye perceives the ethereality beyond aesthesia. Whose midnight growler—’

  ‘Yes, yes, oh my, to be sure. Of course I know who you are, Mr Rune - you might say that I am your greatest fan. I have all the books of your exploits.’ And now this kindly personage took himself over to a cluttered bookcase and ran a long and wrinkled finger along the leathern spines of a row of books. ‘The Brightonomicon, Retromancer, The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived - or perhaps that last one is for the future. But I am a fan. Do you think that I might have your autograph?’ He plucked a book from the bookshelf and offered it to Hugo Rune.

  ‘The Book of Ultimate Truths,’ said the Magus, and approvingly. ‘Bound in the skin of a scallywag, I see. Surely that is the forearm tattoo of Count Otto Black.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said and turned my face away.

  ‘I thought it might amuse you.’ The kindly fellow handed the Magus a silver fountain pen.

  ‘Who shall I make it out to?’ asked Himself.

  ‘Oh, I think just a simple dedication. “To Hugo from Hugo” would suffice.’

  And then I saw something that I had scarcely seen before. I saw the hand of Hugo Rune go suddenly all of a-quiver. And I saw him raise his eyes and stare into the eyes of our curious host. And I saw his mouth open and utter the words:

  ‘You are me.’

  I recall next that we sat at a table upon a balcony that overlooked a most wonderful city. It was everything that a proper city of the future should be. There were flying taxicabs and glassy tubes connecting cloud-piercing buildings one to another. And far overhead flew spaceships, and far below was the ground.

  The future Hugo Rune, for so this fellow would have us believe that he was, poured drinks for us. And it occurred to me then, as perhaps it had done upon previous occasions, that no matter how weird and wonderful were my adventures with Hugo Rune, I never went thirsty.

  ‘You are me?’ said the Magus again, raising a futuristic drinking glass of the Tupperware persuasion to his lips and taking a sip from its electric-blue contents. ‘You resemble me hardly at all.’

  ‘I am one possible you, I suppose. One who turned his back upon the finer things of life. One who dedicated himself to science, rather than magic.’

  Hugo Rune sighed and I sensed a great tiredness and a great sorrow as well.

  ‘What year is this?’ he asked his elder self.

  ‘Nineteen ninety-nine,’ said the other. ‘Is it how you would have expected it to be?’

  Hugo Rune shook his shaven head. But I nodded my hairy one.

  ‘It is certainly what I had hoped for,’ I said. ‘I will be getting on towards fifty in nineteen ninety-nine. And it is exactly what I would have hoped for. There are jet packs and robot butlers, are there not?’

  ‘Of course there are,’ said the ancient Mr Rune. ‘And first contact has been made with alien races and folk can teleport to other planets and—’

  ‘Why have you brought us here?’ asked my Hugo Rune.

  ‘It is a delicate matter. Perhaps your acolyte here might wish to leave us whilst we talk. Go and watch some 3-D television, or something.’

  ‘3-D television?’ I said. ‘Oh yes please.’

  ‘I think not,’ said my Mr Rune. ‘What you have to say to me, you can say to him. I have no secrets from Rizla.’

  Now this I did not believe to be altogether true, but I sat and listened to what was said and so never got to see Futurama in 3-D.

  ‘All this,’ said the ancient and slender Mr Rune, ‘all that you see, this future - all of this hinges upon your decision, on what choices you make.’

  The Magus looked out at the futuristic cityscape. It glinted and gleamed in the noonday sun. The air was pure as crystal. This was surely utopia.

  ‘All of this depends upon the outcome of the Second World War,’ the old one continued. ‘And you have a most powerful part to play in this outcome.’

  ‘I am on a mission,’ said my Mr Rune. ‘And I will set matters to right.’

  ‘That is what I am afraid of.’

  ‘Afraid of? I do not understand.’ My Mr Rune raised a hairless eyebrow.

  ‘It is complex, yet it is simple. All of this can only come to pass if the Allies lose the war. That is why I have brought you here to show you this future.’

  ‘All of this?’ And Hugo Rune shook his head. ‘But there are scientific wonders here beyond what might ever reasonably be imagined. Are you telling me that such things can only occur if Germany wins the war?’

  ‘Precisely. As you are already aware, the Tesla field generator can be calibrated to project matter through time. The one in Brentford brought back goods from the future that were to be sold across the counter of The Four Horsemen. You wisely destroyed these goods. A bonfire, I recall, in our back garden.’

  I recalled that bonfire also. Mr Rune had made me destroy all that wonderful stuff that I had humped to his house from The Four Horsemen on the afternoon when I first met my father.

  ‘When America is destroyed and the Allies capitulate, there will be a meeting of minds across the scientific community. The sharing of technology. Technology that will include the Tesla field generator. And with the aid of further technology acquired from the future, this future will come to be. And the you that I speak to now will become the me that you speak to now.’

  ‘But only if the Allies lose?’

  ‘If the Allies lose, a man will walk upon the Moon by nineteen fifty-five.’

  ‘And plant there a swastika flag?’

  ‘A new world, Hugo. A brave new world. You know that you are a man out of time. That the day of the magician is over. The future is forged from steel and glass and silicone, not from nostrums and incantations. And your name is known here, in this time. The Book of Ultimate Truths is as near to a Bible as there is.’

  ‘And what of Wotan and the worship of Him?’

  ‘A computer possessed by the spirit of a God? Did you really believe that to be true? But of course you did, for I am you now, as I was you then, and I remember. Magical thinking, Hugo Rune. Attributing the fantastic with the power to influence the mundane. Does Man really hear the voices of angels? Or are these voices simply the symptoms of mental illness that might be wafted away by carefully prescribed medication? You will find no Gods or magic here, my young self. We have moved beyond that now. Mankind is free of the shackles of religion and faith in the fantastic. This is a world of scientific reality. And you can play your part in bringing this world into being.’

  The ancient Hugo Rune leaned back in his futuristic chair, which hovered as such a chair should, several inches above the balcony floor. And he regarded his younger self with a quizzical expression.

  His younger
self gazed back at him and there was a leaden silence.

  ‘The choice is yours,’ said the ancient one at length. ‘Embrace the future, or continue to live in the past. You are the Retromancer. The choice is yours to make.’

  And then there was a whoosh and a flash and a crash-tinkle-tinkle and the city of the future faded and was gone and we were back in the bar of Hotel Jericho.

  60

  ‘What just happened?’ asked Fangio. ‘I’m sure I just missed something. ’

  I looked up at Hugo Rune. The Magus seemed to stare, but not to see.

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Rune?’ I asked him. ‘Was that really you that we met?’

  ‘A possible me in a possible future.’ Hugo Rune shook his head.

  ‘But a real future, surely?’ I said. ‘Because that was the you who appeared to me during our first case and warned me to beware of the number twenty-seven.’

  ‘And that is what concerns me,’ said Himself. ‘Without that future me warning you, we would surely be dead. But for that future me to exist, we must abandon our mission and let Germany win the war.’

  ‘And you abandon magic and embrace modern science?’

  ‘A paradox,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But as my old pupil Wittgenstein was so fond of saying, “the laws of nature are not subject to the laws of nature”.’

  ‘I am not quite sure how that helps,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Fangio. ‘It’s not déjà vu if it really has happened before.’

  ‘And that does not help at all,’ I said to Fangio. ‘In fact, what was the point of you actually saying it?’

  ‘Because you had that same conversation yesterday when you came in here. After those two blokes in trenchcoats appeared out of nowhere and spirited you away.’

  ‘Yesterday?’ I now said. ‘That does not make any sense. We just came in here this afternoon.’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon,’ said Fangio. ‘And you have just come in again and it’s morning now.’

  And I looked at Hugo Rune.

  And he looked at me.

  And then, as one we looked to the wall clock that hung above the bar.

  ‘Eleven o’ clock,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Which means that we have but a single hour.’

  ‘Would this be just an hour left to destroy that jet-powered invisible Zeppelin that is going to drop the atomic bomb on New York?’ asked Fangio. ‘Like you mentioned yesterday?’

  And very loudly he asked this question. So loudly in fact that it silenced all conversation in the bar. And there had been much conversation and jolly conversation too, with GIs chatting to fashionable ladies and a ragtime jazz band pumping out a syncopated version of the ever popular ‘I Took My Horse to Water But I Couldn’t Get It Drunk’. In four-four time.

  ‘What did you say, guy?’ asked a GI of Fangio.

  ‘My name isn’t Guy,’ replied the barman.

  ‘Oh, a wise guy, is it?’

  And Fangio looked puzzled.

  And then the GI hit him with a hot pastrami on rye.

  And then, for no reason that I could see, other than it appeared to be some fashionable motif of the day, the leader of the jazz band punched the drummer’s lights out. And then the fists and fur began to fly.

  ‘I think we should be making tracks,’ I said to Hugo Rune. The Magus smote a sailor with his stout stick and then agreed that we should.

  Now the taxi drivers in New York City are not as those in dear old London Town. Firstly you just cannot get at them. They cower behind (or rather in front of) a cage of steel, through a small slot in which you pass your payment for the trip. In advance.

  ‘In advance!’ cried Hugo Rune, raising his stout stick, before becoming painfully aware that he had no head to bring it down upon. ‘IN ADVANCE?’

  ‘There’s a war on, buddy,’ the taxi driver replied. ‘Even if you Limeys hadn’t noticed. But don’t worry yourselves about that, we’ll dig you out of the ****, just like we did in the sixteen-seventeen war.’

  And I had never seen such whiteness on Mr Rune’s knuckles before. Positively Arctic became those stick-gripping knucks.

  ‘Money, Rizla!’ cried the Magus. ‘Pay this oaf and fast.’

  ‘I do not have any money,’ I said. ‘And if I did have any money it would be English money and I do not think these colonials understand English currency.’

  ‘Then give him your wristlet watch. Anything.’

  ‘I will tell you what,’ I said. ‘Here, Mr Cabby, do you see this? Take us as fast as you can to the Empire State Building.’

  And the cabby perused what I held in my hand. For I had poked it through the little money slot in the cage of steel. And he said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And he put his foot down. Hard.

  Mr Rune smiled fondly upon me and said, ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Oh, this?’ I said, glancing down at the revolver, whose snout I had poked through that little money slot and which I was now holding, trigger cocked, upon the cabby. ‘I found this in the glovebox of the cab that we chased Count Otto Black down the Mall in. I have kept it on me ever since. But I have never had the opportunity to get it out and point it at somebody until now.’

  Hugo Rune now did shakings of the head. ‘But we were searched when we were captured by the US Marines. I do not recall them finding a pistol upon your person.’

  ‘If you are going to be picky,’ I said, ‘then yes, there are many flaws in this, continuity-wise. But let us not be picky, because time is running out.’

  ‘Excellent, Rizla, excellent.’ Hugo Rune leaned back in his seat. And sighed. ‘And no in-cab cocktail bar. A jolly poor show indeed.’

  We raced across New York and I really did not have time to take in all of its wonder. And I know that I should have tried, because if Mr Rune failed in our mission, then within one short hour all of this would cease to be. And I did want to grab some moment in time, have something to cling to and remember, but my thoughts were whirling and my brain was all a-fog, because I just did not know what lay ahead.

  For what did lie ahead?

  Certainly we were heading for the Empire State Building. Where, if Mr Rune’s theories were correct, the Tesla field generator would be positioned upon its uppermost pinnacle. But then what?

  Did Mr Rune actually want now to halt the progress of the invisible Zeppelin? Knowing what potential the future held, should Germany win the war? And having met his elderly self, an elderly self who had saved our lives, who might not exist if Germany did not win the war. Had he actually reached a decision?

  My head was really spinning. What was Mr Rune going to do? And what would be the result of his so doing?

  ‘The Empire State Building, you **********,’ said the cabby, employing a term of profanity that was certainly new to me.

  I thanked the cabby and in the company of Mr Rune I took my leave.

  ‘And no tip?’ The driver bawled after us. ‘******* **** and ******!’ But we let those pass and hurried onwards.

  To be met by locked doors and a big CLOSED sign.

  ‘Closed!’ cried Hugo Rune. ‘Closed! The Empire State Building cannot be closed.’

  A shabby type who was ‘pushing broom’ came mooching over to us. ‘You can’t go in there, fella,’ he said. ‘The bulls evacuated the building. There was a bomb warning, everybody had to leave.’

  I looked at Hugo Rune.

  And he in return looked at me.

  ‘Count Otto Black,’ we agreed.

  ‘Who has the key to this building?’ asked Hugo Rune.

  ‘You’d have to ask at City Hall, fella.’

  ‘Are there people inside this building? Bomb-disposal people?’

  ‘But there’s a bomb in there,’ said the shabby type. ‘If bomb-disposal people went in there, surely they’d get blown up if it went off.’

  ‘He has a point there,’ I said to Hugo Rune.

  ‘He has what!?’ And I turned away my face as the stout stick rose and fell. And then I had to do keeping-a-lookout whilst Hugo
Rune applied this same stout stick to the beautiful etched glass doors of the Empire State Building, prior to us hurrying inside.

  ‘I do not know what the point was of me keeping a lookout,’ I said to Mr Rune, as we scurried across the concourse. ‘Loads of people saw you breaking the glass.’

  ‘Yes, but they are New Yorkers, they will pretend that nothing happened.’

  ‘Then what was the point of me—’ I threw up my hands as I scurried. ‘Well,’ I continued, ‘I think that is a rather cynical view of New Yorkers. They would not like you very much if they heard you say that.’

  ‘Perhaps they will take to me just a trifle if I save their city from nuclear destruction, then.’

  ‘Yes, well . . . Where are we going? Should we not be going to the lift?’

  ‘We have to pick up certain items of our baggage that I had dispatched here to be placed in a left-luggage locker.’

  ‘I do not recall you doing that!’ I said.

  ‘I do not recall getting too picky regarding the matter of the unlikely revolver that you held upon the cabby. Best not get too picky over this, wouldn’t you agree?’

  And I agreed.

  ‘You are planning to stop the bomb dropping?’ I said. ‘No matter what it does to the future?’

  ‘I am perhaps risking my very existence in doing so,’ replied the Magus, and, as we had reached the left-luggage lockers, fishing out a key from his waistcoat and applying it to a lock. ‘But I must do what I know in my heart to be right. It is what I am, Rizla. What I might be is something else entirely.’

  ‘So what do you have stored in the locker?’ I asked.

  ‘Let me whisper,’ said Himself.

  But his whispers were drowned by a terrible sound that came from the heavens above. A screaming sound as of millions of souls in horrible horrible torment. A great shadow darkened the concourse and a chill ran through my heart.

  I cupped my hands over my ears and shouted, ‘What is that? What is that?’