‘What?’
‘Domino.’
‘No…’
‘Four moves’ time.’
‘No…you can’t…not with the random bones…it’s…’
‘Domino!’
1 need to win, Daisy. I need to! It’s the only way…’
Daisy shrugged. ‘Your turn.’
Maze time: indivisible. ‘Will you, won’t you, will you come feed me?’ The figure gazed into the still-hidden pit. ‘Some years ago, following his desire, Paul Malthorpe came back into my life. He was looking for funding, to “carry on the good work of Miss Sayer”. Those were his words, but I had known him too well as a restless child. I had a small fortune, thanks to my burgeoning recording career, so I asked for evidence of a future profit. He told me of your experiments, Max, and how they had gone wrong, but could now be put right. He had the new technology, and more expertise. And a certain number of computer disks, which made most interesting viewing. It was like seeing dear Georgie Horn all over again, alive in the knowledge. Expanding upon your own discoveries, we created this game, you see, the world’s most powerful Hackle Maze, full of love.’
‘Where’s Malthorpe?’
‘Oh…quite close. I had a little trouble, you see, because he had brought old Miss Sayer along. A hag, a monstrous, overpowering hag who had claimed me ordinary. They were in love. Touching, isn’t it? The power of the nymphomation. Quite an aphrodisiac, when let loose. Come see…’
The figure was gesturing towards the hole. Max stepped forward until he could see over the rim…
Real time: 8.59.25. Daisy played another effortless random bone, making her father knock again. He was sweating now, causing sparks to fly from the connections. ‘Don’t do this to me!’
‘Play…’
Maze time: indecipherable. Max looked down into the pit, and immediately felt his legs go weak. The pit was roughly 10 feet in diameter, maybe 6 feet deep. On two opposite sides, large matching portals fed the pit and drained it of the thick, greasy liquid that slopped across the bottom. From these portals crawled a slew of matted blurbflies, all tangled and wet from their travels. They gathered here from all the skies of the city to deposit old dreams, collect new ones. Beached in the centre of the pit lay the hideous creature upon which the blurbs fed. The sight of it made Max heave and almost stumble with dizziness. At the last moment Frank Scenario reached out a firm hand to grab the professor by his hair.
‘Careful, my friend. It is feeding time.’
The figure dragged Max backwards, where he screamed at the pain in his head and the sight of his lost friends and what had become of them.
‘Max, darling. Are you shocked. Surely…it’s all your own work. I just let it run, Max. That’s all. I let your brilliance reach its conclusion. This is your baby, Max. The AnnoDomino beast. You sadden me with this display of petty temperament. The progress of science, Max. Wasn’t that your mistress?’ He threw Max down, so that his head and shoulders were dangling over the pit. ‘Look upon your works, and weep for them…’
…Almost through Jazir can feel the presence the feeding will be ripe feeding good winning good centre hive one blurb one bone all blurb all bone from the one king queen of domino…
Real time: 8.59.32. The game, playing to an end…
Maze time: indescribable. Max closing his eyes to what he saw, but the vision burning him with clear sight.
Blurb time…Coming through now king queen almost feeding feeding…
The creature was large, almost as large as the pit that held it. It was a mass of black flesh, dripping with juice that shone in tiny rivers down wrinkles of fat. A net of electrical wires connected it to the pit’s sides, and within this web the thing squirmed like a beetle. Here and there on the gross body, tiny dots of white mapped a hopeless camouflage. A large gaping orifice slathered from its belly, with a thick, tongue-like protuberance poking through like a blind flesh snake.
‘Hermaphrodite, Max. Isn’t it beautiful?’
Every second or so the tongue stump would push a still slippy ever-changing domino bone through the opening (POP!), which was immediately grabbed by a passing blurbfly and gone, through the pit and out of the exit portal to the world.
‘Once upon a time there was the Mata Data, and then the Dada Data, and together they made the Baba Data. And such perfect babies, Max! Your spotty children. Nearly time for the big one, the prize bone.’
The body of the beast tapered to a pair of opposite necks or appendages that waved blindly in the stew of grease. Each long thin tube of flesh ended in a bloated head with glued eyes and a dripping, toothless mouth. Blurbflies fluttered at these two orifices, feeding there for new messages or else depositing used-up adverts.
Max could only swing his head from one side to the other, trying to force himself up. But Frank was strong, he held the professor tight and goaded him.
‘Won’t you speak to your child, Max? So rude of you.’
‘Paul…’
Immediately one of the creature’s heads shot a blinded glance at Max’s voice. ‘Maximus…’ Its voice was thick with guttural sounds. ‘Two-Blank! Help me!’
Paul Malthorpe’s face was reaching up towards Max, supported by its uncoiling neck, eyes cracking open. On the other side of the Domino Beast, the head of Miss Sayer, old as the numbers of the world, came upwards to implore him. ‘Help me! Help me!’
‘I do believe, Max, that it remembers you. How touching.’
Frank was laughing now, as he turned Max over roughly. The face of famous cool loomed over Max, as the two hands that strummed a nation’s heartstrings slowly closed around the throat. The head was pulled up, higher, so that Max’s lips were nestled—surprising, gently—against Frank’s neck.
‘You know the Joker can’t resist me. Give in, Max. Give us a kiss. Only peace awaits you.’
‘So it does.’
Max put his own hands in turn around the figure’s yellow-collared throat, and squeezed and rolled and fought back.
‘Wha…!’
The figure was shocked. ‘Nah…Joker! No!’
It took all Max’s strength to resist the Joker inside, to fight back, to keep on fighting, not biting…but killing. Go manual. Not dying, but living. He and the figure rolled over once again, so that Max was underneath, one more push and…
…feedmebreedmeneedmeseedme…
‘Come to me, my Joker!’ shouted Frank, as he and Max rolled over and into the pit as…
…kingqueen!
‘Jazir’s through!’ shouted Joe.
As Daisy played her second to last: ‘Six-three!’ to which Jimmy could only knock and draw, knock and draw.
…as Jazir rode Masala down the wave to the opening and squelch! hit the beast at a pace, thundering with a hundred gathered blurbflies. Over Max and Frank they squirmed, Jazir a heavy cargo squashed now against Miss Sayer’s tearful face and Frank Scenario’s scream of denial. With one kick he had Frank off guard. ‘Cool fucker!’
Frank was slipping on the grease of the game. ‘Paul! Miss Sayer! Help me! I command you!’
‘Max! This is Theseus. Where?’ shouted Jazir.
Max pointed to where the ever-changing dominoes were popping forth.
‘No!’ Frank was trying to get up, but a swarm of blurbflies held him back. Malthorpe’s head had tightened its long neck around the singer’s thin body.
‘Too late, Frankie baby. Thanks for the songs.’
Jazir had Masala Chicken Tikka Theseus Curry Blurb in both hands now. ‘You want this?’
‘Please!’ answered the head of Miss Sayer.
He rammed it home, into the orifice of the beast, feather and all.
Miss Sayer breathed, settled. Paul Malthorpe breathed, settled, died. Frank Scenario slithered under the pit of blurbflies.
Real time: 8.59.53. ‘Hit it!’ shouted Jimmy.
Joe banged down the key that let the Theseus equation loose, along a path of dominoes, carried by info-blurb to real blurb that flew straight to the h
eart of the game and detonated…
The body of the beast twitched, a final spasm…
Maze time, real time, coinciding time.
Daisy had one domino left.
A final bone was born that day as nine o’clock struck, a winning bone that would never change again. Frank’s head floundered to the surface of the pit for a second. He screamed as he saw the domino being born, and was then engulfed again and carried along by the blurbflies to the out portal.
There’s only one domino. You just have to know how to play it.
Daisy played it. The double-six she asked for, the double-six she got.
‘Domino.’
As Jimmy’s face froze. As Lady Luck’s costume froze on the city’s screens. A six, a six. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. As Little Celia sprang up and down, shouting and screaming, showing her bone. ‘I got it! I got the double-six! I’m a winner! I’m the new Mr Million!’
As Joe worked the computer. ‘OK, we’re back on board. I’ve got blurbflies everywhere like crazy. I’ve got Jazir and Max still moving. I think we did it, folks.’ Then he went crazy too. ‘A fucking million! A million fucking lovelies!’
‘Like I said, Dad,’ whispered Daisy. ‘It’s domino time.’
Her father slumped down, face to the scattered playing area.
‘Do you want to tell me how I did that?’
PLAY THE RULES
13a.
In the event of a double-six, AnnoDomino will allow the winning player to become the new Mr (or Mrs or Ms) Million.
13b.
The winning player may reorganize the game, following his or her wishes, in accordance with the Government’s rulings.
13c.
The new Manager of Chances shall remain anonymous, in accordance with ruling 4d.
13d.
The winning player may not refuse this prize.
13e.
The game is sacrosanct.
Jazir was helping Max around the outer perimeter of the House of Chances. Lights were flashing madly along the ceiling and a siren could be heard shrieking from a hundred speakers. Employees and blurbflies alike were going crazy to escape the chaos of the big win. ‘Oh shit!’ said Jazir. ‘Celia will kill me. Stay right there, Max. I forgot something.’ He went back into the circle, and right up to the pit. Crawl and Tumbler and Cookie, and a few other desolate operatives, were standing around, some gazing into the pit, some not daring to.
‘What you after?’ said Crawl. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’
‘Not quite.’
Jazir jumped down. Miss Sayer and her pupil Malthorpe were lying in a knotted coil on their shared belly. All was still. Had he really done his work? Was this what the teacher wanted? Was she free now?
Let us hope so.
Jazir walked over to the dead beast, parted the central lips, and stuck his arm inside. He was up to the shoulder in grease before he found what he was after. A mighty tug dislodged the splattered remains of the Masala blurbfly. ‘Good innings, our kid,’ said Jazir, as he plucked the dripping feather from its lips. ‘It shouldn’t happen to a vert.’
At the main doorway, the large domino gate was swung open, jammed for ever on the double-six pattern, as the beams projected the result to the air. It was a result never expected. Access all areas, all hail the new Mr Million! Executive Crawl had followed them down, and was now standing on the grass forecourt, looking suitably dazed. At his feet lay the battered, lifeless form of Frank Scenario, dropped from a great height. But Crawl’s eyes, like all the eyes of Manchester, were firmly on the skies.
Jazir had to smile. ‘Who would have thought it,’ he said to the faithless executive, ‘the dominoes were eggs.’
And all over Manchester now, those eggs were splitting in two, lucky bones opening at last, to release their babies…
And out of every cracked-open domino rose a new blurbfly. Across the skies, see them now, still winging it. A migration of adverts, taking the dream elsewhere, out of Manchester. The heavens were V-shaped for weeks after the game, and alive with the new message.
Dream to win! A time to use my own voice.
I managed to get Max back to the old house. Joe and Celia were dancing around in the living room, throwing the winning bone hand to hand. ‘Shall we go collect it now, Jaz?’ cried Celia. ‘Shall we? Shall we now!’
‘Not yet, little ’un.’
‘When then? When?’
‘Yeah…when, Jazir?’ asked Joe.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them. How could I? They’ll find out.
‘Look, Celia. I brought your feather back.’
‘Ooh! Was it lucky for you?’
‘You betcha.’
‘Urgh! It’s all sticky. Jaz! What’s this stuff all over it? Where have you been putting this?’
‘I dropped it in a barrel of lucky juice.’
‘Lucky juice! What’s that?’
‘Just don’t lose it, kid. OK?’
‘Yeah! Lucky juice! Well done, Whippoorwill!’
Well, there are some things a kid of eight just doesn’t need to know, don’t you think?
‘Is he all right?’ asked Joe, pointing at Max.
‘Max is fine. Aren’t you, Max?’
The professor nodded.
I left Celia and Joe to their wasted celebrations, and took Max through into the library. This wasn’t going to be easy, and I was shaking suddenly, as the force of adventure left my body cold and uncovered. We talked a little about what had happened to us, but eventually I had to make my point.
‘You know what you’ve got to do, Max. Finish it.’
He nodded.
‘You want help?’
He shook his head. I left him to it, by whatever means, then went in search of Daisy. I found her in the cellar, arguing with her father. It looked like a family affair, so I went back upstairs. When she was ready, she would come for me. And I was thinking about my own father anyway, and the whole family business…
What day was it? I was still having trouble with the time.
Of course, still Friday. I looked at my watch, but the hands were moving backwards and forwards at speed. I still wasn’t down yet, perhaps I never would be. Anyway, I rang my dad at the restaurant and told him I was coming home. He shouted and raved, but I was cool about it, I kept my tongue curled and put down the phone at the earliest.
Back in the living room, Joe was saying he was going to collect the prize right now, and Celia had better give him the bone. Celia was saying that it wasn’t his, that she’d thrown his away. No way, he was saying, I paid good money for that bone and give it here right now, squirt.
‘Give it to him, Celia,’ I said. ‘Go on…’
‘No. It’s mine.’
‘Trust me…’
She did. She did, and it felt good.
‘Open all channels,’ said Joe, as he left the room. ‘Connect to everything.’
Yeah, I suppose so. That’s the last we saw of him.
Daisy came up from the cellar a few minutes later. She was white in the face, like a ghost had set up house inside her eyes. I asked what was wrong.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.
‘Sure thing. What about your dad?’
‘No.’
I gathered together what we needed, and then led Daisy and Celia out of the front door. People were in the streets by now, and a million dances had turned to outrage and shock and then despair and then anger, and finally resignation. The streets, as we walked them, were already covered with a rich, useless carpet of winning bones; all dancing forever in the glorious double-six.
‘This means that nobody gets to be Mr Million,’ I told Celia. ‘Do you understand?’
‘No, no!’ she cried. ‘It means that everybody does! Everybody everywhere, we’re all Mr Million now!’
Maybe she’s right. I’m still waiting for the feeling.
We were walking down Burton Road, and the people were turning their joint winnings into a reason for celeb
ration; God had played a joke on the city, and they might as well laugh it off. Already some of the discarded bones had started to hatch, a new swarm of blurbflies getting ready for flight. I had this intense desire to follow them, to spread my wings and take off, maybe to London, maybe elsewhere, maybe just as far as my family’s house. In the end Celia persuaded me to take the bus. The bus was strangely empty, as though nobody had anywhere to go, even on a Friday night.
We sat upstairs, and Daisy started to talk at last. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘I’ve just realized. Why Benny was so desperate to get my DNA. It was for Hackle. He wanted to test me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘My father…he told me everything…’
Marigold Green was a secretary at the bank where Jimmy Love worked. They were married in 1977, and spent most of the next three years trying to make a child happen, without any success. Eventually they were tested at the hospital and Jimmy was found wanting. Being sterile didn’t bother him that much, and so they talked about adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate fathers, quite openly. Jimmy persuaded his wife that the experiment he had in mind was really just another form of the latter process.
Apparently Hackle had lied to Daisy about Susan Prentice’s involvement in the ritual; the woman had refused to take part in the experiment. In other words, she’d said no to fucking Georgie Horn, even if it was for the betterment of science. Luckily they had a more willing accomplice, and if it has taken Daisy’s father so many years finally to admit these facts to her, well who can blame him?
She was keen, Jimmy’s wife, let’s put it like that, and an excellent participant. Daisy was the outcome of the experiment, the child of Marigold Love and Georgie Horn. Conceived at the moment of her father’s death, as the full flood of the nymphomation entered his body, how could she not be special? A genetic miracle. Like Georgie and Celia, Daisy was a natural player, a wild card. Unknowing, scared maybe, she had kept her wildness in check for years. Hiding in rules and equations. That’s my Daisy.
‘You just missed your stop, Daisy,’ I said, as we sailed past the neon-lit Golden Samosa.