The Final Programme

  Someone began to giggle, and Jerry looked back.

  Mr Powys had his arms high and was shaking all over, just as if someone were tickling his armpits. Every so often he would stretch out his arms in front of him and make pushing motions at wisps of gas.

  Then he began to skip about.

  Mouths thin and firm now that they had seen the example of Mr Powys, Mr Smiles and Mr Crookshank stepped in, striving to hold him still.

  Jerry signed for the expedition to stop, unhooked the rope from his belt, and went back to hit Mr Powys on the back of the neck with his pistol barrel.

  Mr Powys relaxed, and Mr Smiles and Mr Crookshank hefted him up between them.

  In silence they walked on through the faintly yellowish gas that clouded the air of the maze. Those who had absorbed a little of it thought they saw shapes in the writhing stuff: malevolent faces, grotesque figures, beautiful designs. Everyone was sweating, particularly Mr Smiles and Mr Crookshank, who carried Mr Powys who would soon have breathed enough LSD to kill him.

  At a junction Jerry hesitated, his judgement slightly impaired. Then he was off again, taking the gang down the tunnel that branched off to the right.

  They moved on, the silence sometimes interrupted by the sound of a rifle shooting out a camera.

  It was a little ironic, he thought, that his father should have become so obsessed with the problem of the increasing incidence of neurotic disorders in the world that he himself had gone round the bend towards the end.

  Now Jerry rounded the last bend and the door of the control chamber was ahead of him. He was quite surprised that so far there had been only two casualties and only one of those actually dead.

  About fifteen yards before they got to the door Jerry gave a signal, and a bazooka was passed down the line to him. Leaving Jerry and his loader, the remainder of the party retreated down the passage a short way and stood in a disorderly knot waiting.

  Jerry got the bazooka comfortably onto his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The rocket bomb whooshed straight through the door and exploded in the control room itself.

  A booted foot came sailing out and hit Jerry in the face. He kicked it to one side, his mouth still tightly shut, and waved the others on.

  The explosion had wrecked the control panel, but the opposite door was still intact. Since it would open only to the thermal code of someone it knew, they could either blast through into the library or wait for someone to blast through to them. Jerry knew that armed men would definitely be waiting in the library.

  The other members of the expedition were unhooking their ropes and dropping them to the floor. It was unlikely they would be leaving by the same route, and therefore they wouldn’t need the ropes again. Jerry pondered the problem as Miss Brunner squeezed into the room and studied the wreckage of the panel.

  Her big eyes looked up at him quizzically. “A nice little board; and this is only a minor control panel?”

  “Yes. There’s a large roomful in the cellars—the main console. That’s got to be our objective, as I told you.”

  “You did. What now?”

  Jerry smoothed the hair at the side of his face. “There’s an alternative to waiting for them. We could try the bazooka. But there’s another door behind this one, and I doubt if a rocket would go through them both. If it didn’t, we’d get the worst of the explosion. They must be waiting there—probably with a grenade thrower or a big Bren or something. It’s stalemate for the moment.”

  “You should have anticipated this.” Miss Brunner frowned.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t think of it,” Jerry said with a sigh.

  “Someone else should have.” She turned to look accusingly at the others.

  Dimitri was kneeling beside Mr Powys, trying to revive him. “You, too,” he said. “Looks as if poor old Mr Powys has had it.”

  “I thought it had been too easy,” said Mr Smiles.

  “Not for Mr Powys,” said Mr Crookshank, unable to restrain a slight smile. “The LSD always gets you in the end, eh?”

  “I’ve got it.” Jerry looked up. Over the door was a metal panel, secured by wing nuts. He pointed to it. “Air conditioning. A grenade thrower, a single neurade and a good eye should do the trick if the grille at the other end isn’t closed.”

  He put his hand on the arm of a big South African. “You’ll do. I’ll stand on your shoulders. Hang on to my legs when the recoil comes. Who’s got a grenade attachment?”

  One of the Belgians handed him the attachment. He fitted it to the automatic rifle and detached the ammunition clip. The Belgian handed him a different clip. He fitted this to the rifle, too. Then he took a neurade out of his pocket and popped it into the thrower’s basket.

  “Someone give me a hand up,” he said. One of the British mercenaries helped him climb onto the South African’s broad shoulders. He pushed back the metal panel and began to bash in the wire grille with the gun butt. He could see down the pipe to where the lights of the library shone. He heard muted voices.

  Shoving the rifle into the pipe, he put it on his shoulder. The space between the fan blades was just big enough. Now if the neurade wasn’t deflected by the grille at the other end, which wasn’t likely, they’d have a chance of getting the guards there in silence and have time to blast open the doors with small charges of explosive before anyone realised that the detachment in the library was out of action.

  He squeezed the trigger. The neurade shot down the pipe, was missed by the fan blades, and burst through the grille.

  He smiled as voices at the other end shouted in surprise. He heard dull thumps and knew that the neurade had exploded. Then he started to lose his footing on the South African; half-jumped, half-fell to the ground; and handed the Belgian’s gun back to him.

  “Okay, let’s get these doors open. Hurry. And keep your mouths closed again.”

  The charges burst both locks, and they were through. On the floor of the library beside an overturned machine gun three Germans jerked limply, mouths in rictus grins, eyes full of tears, muscles and limbs contorted as the gas worked on their nerves. It seemed a mercy to bayonet them; so they did.

  They tumbled out of the library and into the ground-floor hall as the ceiling suddenly rose and the walls widened out, light glaring like magnesium, blinding them for a moment. Jerry fished goggles from his pocket and put them on, noticing that the others were doing the same.

  They could now see shapes flickering around them, like a colour-film negative. Traceries of deep red and luminous blue veined the walls.

  Then the lights went out and they were in pitch-blackness.

  One wall became transparent all at once. Behind it a huge black-and-white disc began to whirl, and a rhythmic boom swam up the decibel scale, almost to pain level. It seemed that the enlarged room swayed like a ship as they staggered after Jerry, who was none too steady on his pins himself, heading straight for the disc.

  Jerry grabbed a gun from one of the dazed, mesmerised mercenaries, switched it to full automatic, and fired an entire magazine into the wall. Plastic cracked, but the disc continued to whirl. As he turned to take another gun, Jerry saw that all of them were now transfixed by the disc.

  Another burst and the plastic shattered. The bullets struck the disc, and it began to slow down.

  Behind them the far wall slid upwards, and half a dozen of Frank’s guards stood there.

  Jerry ignored them as he kicked a larger hole in the wall and smashed at the big disc with his gun butt until it crumpled.

  “Throw down your arms!” ordered the chief guard.

  Jerry flung himself through the hole. Aiming between Miss Brunner and Dimitri, who were beginning to blink back into wakefulness, he killed the chief guard.

  The shot seemed to be enough to bring the others round quickly. Almost before Jerry knew it Miss Brunner had jumped through the hole, her high heels catching him on his buttocks.

  Firing broke out generally, but
Mr Smiles, Dimitri and Mr Crookshank all got through safely, although several of the mercenaries, including the big South African, died.

  They fought back until they had killed all Frank’s guards. It was fairly easy from their cover.

  They were in a small room, now bathed in a soft red light, a sound like the swish of the sea in their ears.

  Something dropped from the ceiling and bounced on the floor until its sides opened up.

  “Nerve bomb!” Jerry yelled. “Cover your mouths!”

  He knew there was an exit somewhere to the right of the smashed disc. He edged in that direction and found it, using his gun to prise it open. If they didn’t get out shortly, their nose filters wouldn’t help them.

  He went through the doorway, and they followed him.

  The next room was yellow, full of soothing murmurs. A remote-control camera panned around close to the roof. One of the mercenaries shot it. A normal door, unlocked, opened onto a flight of stairs leading upward.

  There wasn’t another door. They ascended the stairs. At the top three men waited for them.

  “Frank’s spreading his guards thin,” said Jerry.

  Their first burst missed him but shot the head of one of the Belgians to bits. Feeling panicky, Jerry hugged the wall, raising his needle gun and shooting a guard in the throat.

  Behind him the leading mercenaries opened up. One guard fell at once, blood spurting from his stomach. The second fired down the stairwell and got two more mercenaries, including one of the Britons.

  Jerry, rapidly repressuring his gun, shot him, too.

  On the first-floor landing everything was silent, and Jerry relaxed his pursed lips. The mercenaries, with the civilians behind them, moved up onto the landing and looked at him questioningly.

  “My brother’s almost certainly in the main control room,” Jerry said. “That’s two floors down now, and there’ll be extra guards turning up at any moment.” Jerry pointed at a television camera near the ceiling. “Don’t shoot it. He isn’t using it at the moment for some reason, and if we put it out he’ll know we’re here.”

  “He must have guessed, surely,” said Miss Brunner.

  “You’d think so. Also, he would have sent some reinforcements here by now. He could have a trap waiting somewhere for us—wants us to relax a little. This landing’s equipped with a Schizomat in a panel in that wall. My father’s crowning achievement, he always thought.”

  “And Frank isn’t using it.” Miss Brunner tidied her long red hair.

  “I had to leave Mr Powys behind, I’m afraid.” Dimitri leaned on a wall. “This house certainly is full of colourful surprises, Mr Cornelius.”

  “He’ll be dead by now,” said Jerry.

  “What could your brother be planning?” Miss Brunner asked.

  “Something funny. He’s got a rich sense of humour. He may have cooked up a new ploy, but it’s not like Frank to be subtle at a time like this. It’s just possible that he’s run away.”

  “And all our efforts have been wasted,” she said sourly. “I hope not.”

  “Oh, so do I, Miss Brunner.”

  He walked along the landing, with them following him. Jerry led them through the quiet house until they reached a point where they looked down, through what was evidently a two-way mirror, into the partitioned hall where the nerve bomb had exploded. Stairs led down alongside the far wall.

  “These stairs normally lead to the basement,” Jerry told them. “We might as well go back the way we came now. There’s no obvious danger as far as I can see.”

  They began to descend.

  “There are steel gates further down,” he said. “They can shut off any part of the stairs. Remember what I told you: use your guns to wedge them, stop them fully closing.”

  “No rifle’s going to stop steel,” Mr Crookshank said doubtfully.

  “True—but the door mechanism’s delicate. It’ll work.”

  They passed openings in the walls where the steel gates were housed, but none of them closed.

  They reached the ground floor and entered a curiously narrow passage, obviously created by the widening of the hall walls earlier. At the far end Mr Powys suddenly appeared and came staggering towards them.

  “He should be dead!” exclaimed Mr Smiles, offended.

  “It’s haunted! It’s haunted!” moaned Mr Powys.

  Jerry couldn’t work out how he’d got there. Neither could he guess how Mr Powys had survived the LSD, not to mention everything else.

  “It’s haunted! It’s haunted!” Mr Powys repeated.

  Jerry grabbed him. “Mr Powys! Pull yourself together.”

  Mr Powys gave Jerry an intelligent look that was suddenly sardonic. He raised his thick eyebrows. “Too late for that, I’m afraid, Mr Cornelius. This house—it’s like a giant head. Do you know what I mean? Or is it my skull? If it is, what am I?”

  “I know whose bloody head this house is,” Jerry said, shaking him. “I know, you bastard!”

  “Mine.”

  “No!”

  “What’s the matter, Mr Powys?” Dimitri slid up. “Can I help?”

  “It’s haunted. It’s my mind haunted by me, I think. That can’t really be right, Dimitri. You are Dimitri. I’d always thought… It must be my mind haunting me. That must be it. Oh, dear!” He rocked his poor head in his hands.

  Dimitri looked at Jerry Cornelius. “What do we do with him?”

  “He needs a converter.” Jerry Cornelius smiled at Mr Powys, raised his gun and shot him in the eye.

  The party stopped.

  5

  “It was for the best,” Jerry said. “His brain was already badly damaged, and we couldn’t have him running around.”

  “Aren’t you being exceptionally ruthless, Mr Cornelius?” Mr Smiles took a very deep breath.

  “Oh, now, now, Mr Smiles.”

  They pressed on until they reached a big metal door in the basement. “This is where he should be,” said Jerry. “But I can’t help thinking he’s cooked up a big surprise.” He signalled to the surviving Briton and a couple of Belgians. They saluted smartly.

  “Have a go at that door, will you?”

  “Any particular method, sir?” asked the Briton.

  “No. Just get it down. We’ll be round the corner.”

  They retreated while the soldiers got to work fixing things to the door.

  There came a loud and unexpectedly violent explosion (obviously far bigger than the soldiers had planned). When the smoke cleared, Jerry saw blood all over the walls, but very little of the soldiers.

  “Great lads,” he laughed. “What a good thing, their thing about orders.” And then they were all stumbling backward as a sub-machine gun began to bang rapidly from within the room.

  Peering through the smoke from behind the cover of a South African, Jerry saw that Frank was in there, apparently alone, with the machine gun cradled in his arms, firing steadily.

  Mr Crookshank got in the path of one of the bursts, making a ludicrous attempt to duck the bullets even as they danced into his chest. Two soldiers collapsed on top of him.

  Frank chuckled away as he fired.

  “I think he’s gone barmy,” said Mr Smiles. “This poses a problem, Mr Cornelius.”

  Jerry nodded. “Stop this nonsense, Frank!” he shouted, trying to make his tone firm. “What about a truce?”

  “Jerry!

  “Jerry!

  “Jerry!” sang Frank from the room, firing more sporadically. “What do you want, Jerry? A Time Fix? Deep…

  “Tempodex is my remedy for everyone. It’ll turn you on lovely, sport—can’t you feel those millions of years just waiting in your spine—waiting to move up into your back-brain—”

  The gun stopped altogether and they began to move cautiously forward. Then Frank stooped to pick up an identical, fully loaded weapon. He began emptying it.

  “—your mid-brain, your fore-brain—all your many brains, Jerry—when the tempodex starts opening them up?”

&
nbsp; “He is in a jolly mood,” said Miss Brunner from somewhere well behind the front line.

  Jerry just didn’t feel like doing anything except duck bullets at that moment. He felt very tired. Another couple of mercenaries piled themselves up neatly. They were running out of help, Jerry thought.

  “Can’t we throw something at him? Isn’t there any more gas?” Miss Brunner sounded vexed.

  “Well, look here, he’s got to run out of bullets sooner or later.” Mr Smiles believed that if you waited long enough, the right situation always presented itself. A thought struck him, and he turned angrily to the mercenaries. “Why aren’t you retaliating?”

  They began retaliating.

  Mr Smiles quickly realised his mistake and shouted: “Stop! We want him alive!”

  They stopped.

  Frank sang and kept his finger on the trigger.

  “He’ll get an overheated barrel if he’s not careful,” said Mr Smiles, remembering his mythology. “I hope he doesn’t blow himself up.”

  Miss Brunner was picking her nose. She discarded the filters. “I don’t care if there is any more gas,” she said, “I’m not having the filthy things up there any longer.”

  “Well, look,” said Jerry, “I’ve got one neurade left, but it could kill him, the state he’s in.”

  “It wouldn’t do me much good now. You might have warned me.” Miss Brunner scanned the floor.

  Another mercenary groaned and went down.

  The sub-machine gun stopped. The last bullet ricocheted off the wall. There came the sound of sobbing.

  Jerry peered round the corner. Among his guns, Frank sat weeping with his head in his hands.

  “He’s all yours.” Jerry walked towards the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Miss Brunner took a step after him.

  “I’ve done my bit of group effort, Miss Brunner. Now there’s something else I’ve got to do. Goodbye.”

  Jerry went up to the ground floor and found the front door. He still felt nervous and realised that not all Frank’s guards had been accounted for. He opened the door and peered out of the house. There didn’t seem to be anyone about.