"Please," Confry whispered. "Let them go."
Hunter shook his head. "There's something I didn't tell you. The threat about never being safe from all of us, well, that's an appeal to logic, and people simply aren't logical. You might get a notion that your life is worth risking to capture a few of us, or you might think the government could hide you under a new identity. You might even decide we could do for your sales what the Ayatollah did for Rushdie's."
"I wouldn't. Honest."
"I know that. But the rest of the folks here don't. Neat Freak?"
Karl-with-a-K came back with a plastic box. Hunter said, "Battery recharger, jumper cables, miscellaneous clamps. Glue. A hacksaw. Dishwashing gloves and condoms for those who like to play safe. It's wonderful how much fun can be had in the average home."
Fan Man spread a plastic tarp on stage, then rolled the Nice Young Couple onto it.
Karl-with-a-K reached his free hand into the trousers of his fatigue pants and drew out a black commando knife. As he handed it to Confry, he said, "Careful, Mr. Confry. It's sharp."
Confry glanced at Hunter, who nodded. "Okay. First I'll cut them free, then--"
Hunter shook his head.
The breathing of a hundred or more people seemed very loud in the absence of other sound. The Nice Young Couple breathed loudest of all. What was the sound of a dog's breath as it ran before an oncoming car? Confry could not remember. He looked at the couple, and then at the dark blade in his hand, and then at Hunter. "What do you want?"
Hunter smiled. "You get to choose. Be one of us." He shrugged and jerked a finger at the Nice Young Couple. "Or one of them."
Karl-with-a-K drew a Luger and pointed it at Confry's knee. "I'll always think you're the very best writer, no matter what."
SEVEN NIGHTS IN SLUMBERLAND
George Alec Effinger
George Alec Effinger lives in New Orleans. He has written many novels and many short stories and won many awards, and he can recommend a strange-but-wonderful restaurant with the very best of them.
Winsor McCay has been dead for many years. He was drawing comics ninety years ago that are stranger, more inventive, and more innovative than anything you'll see today.
Effinger builds something more than a simple pastiche. It's the literary equivalent of a Winsor McCay comic. But, as you'll see, it's more than that.
The First Night:
The year was 1905,Little Nemo was six years oW, and he was having trouble falling asleep. He wore a long white nightshirt, and he lay between stiffly starched and ironed muslin sheets in his wooden bed with the high headboard. He said, "I hope I can get to the palace in Slumberland tonight. I do so want to meet the Princess again. Yes! I hope I don't wake up before I get there."
The lonesome Princess had sent many of her servants and subjects to lead Nemo to the royal palace of her father, the King of Slumberland, but almost every night some accident or adventure caused the boy to waken before he arrived. Every night Nemo's papa and mama were roused by the sound of his tumbling from his bed in the throes of his dream struggles. Every morning they wondered what ailed the boy, and determined that he should never again be allowed to eat cheese toast at bedtime.
On this night, the Princess of Slumberland had sent a special courier with wonderful news to Nemo. The courier's name was Lopopo, and he was a tall, thin man with a tuft of red hair and a wide, friendly grin. He was wearing a fine purple coat with wide lapels, green tights, and green boots, and he had a very nigh green hat that came to a point. "Oh, Nemo," he said politely, "the Princess herself has sent me with this invitation. It is for you, yes!"
Nemo took an envelope from Lopopo and opened it. Inside were a pasteboard ticket and a brief note from the Royal Box Office of Slumberland. "This is for me?" the boy asked.
"Yes, yes. There is to be a special base-ball game played for the entertainment of the Princess. That ticket is for you. You will join the Princess at the stadium, and after the game I will present you to His Majesty."
"A base-ball game! Oh, I am excited!"
Lopopo led Nemo down a flight of stairs that had never before existed in the boy's bedroom. "Yes, it will be a thrilling contest, I have no doubt, a game between the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates. They are the two best teams in the National League."
Nemo was so pleased that he clapped his hands. "The New York Giants are Papa's favorite! He will wish that he had come with me. Oh!"
At the bottom of the stairs, Nemo discovered that they were in a low-ceilinged tunnel. Torches mounted along the sides of the tunnel gave a smoky light, and it glittered on the facets of many colored gems that decorated the walls.
"This cavern will lead us to Slumberland, all right," Lopopo said. "It is only about a thousand miles long. Then it is but another five hundred miles through the King's realm to the Slumberland Stadium. We will be there soon, ha!"
They walked for a very long time, and Nemo was surprised by all the bizarre and wonderful sights to be seen in Slumberland and its outlying reaches. He was beginning to grow tired, though, and he stopped and stretched. "Will we ever get there?" he asked.
Lopopo laughed. "Come along, Nemo! You do not wish to disappoint the Princess, no! Everyone in Slumberland knows how much she has missed her playmate."
They walked another hundred miles, and then another. At last they climbed a very long, very broad set of marble stairs, from the underground cavern up into the fresh, flower-scented air of Slumberland.
"Hurry, Nemo!" Lopopo urged. "We have five hundred miles more to walk, and we have only a few minutes!"
"Oh, I am walking as fast as I can!" Nemo said.
They hurried through wide, tree-lined boulevards, where crowds of Slumberland's citizens cheered the boy who had become their beloved Princess's new friend. They passed by grand, imposing buildings in which the affairs of Slumberland were debated and ordered. After a while, Lopopo pointed. "There! Nemo! The Slumberland Stadium!"
"Good," Nemo said. "I do not think I could walk another hundred miles."
"Now, you have not lost your ticket, have you, Nemo?"
The boy held up the envelope. "I have it right here."
"Then give it to the man in the blue uniform and we will go right in. It is almost time for the base-ball game to start!"
The Slumberland Stadium was the biggest Nemo had ever seen. He and Lopopo began walking up the marble ramps toward the special box of seats reserved for the King of Slumberland, his daughter, and their guests. At last they emerged, and Nemo could look down at the base-ball diamond laid out below.
"Oh! It is so beautiful!" he said. "I have never seen grass so green!"
"This way, Nemo," Lopopo said, directing him to his seat beside the Princess.
"Oh, come to me!" the Princess said. "I have missed you! You will enjoy the base-ball game. It will be grand!"
Nemo bowed to the Princess, then sat beside her. He looked down at the field again, where the game was about to begin. "Oh, it is 'Matty'!" he said. "Mathewson is pitching for the Giants! 'Matty' is Papa's favorite player. He will wish he'd come, gracious!"
The Princess looked through her field glasses. "And now it is Honus Wagner batting for the Pittsburgh fellows," she said.
"He is a very good hitter," Nemo said. " 'Matty' will have to be careful."
Mathewson pitched a hard fast ball and Wagner swung at it. He hit a foul ball that sped like a rocket toward Nemo and the Princess.
"Aha," Nemo said. " 'Dutch' Wagner is sending us a souvenir!"
"Oh, I'm afraid it will hit us!" the Princess said.
"I will catch it," Nemo said. The ball began as a little white speck down on the playing field, and as it came nearer it grew larger and larger and larger. Soon the ball seemed the size of a melon, then it was as big as a house, and then Nemo could see nothing at all except the gigantic base-ball that was screaming toward him.
"Oh!" he said. "It will crush us! Help!"
And the next thing N
emo knew, he was tangled up in his bedclothes on the floor of his room. His papa had come to see what was making the boy shout aloud in his sleep.
"Pshaw!" Nemo said. "I wish I'd seen the rest of that game!"
"Go back to sleep, Nemo," his papa said. "And stop that dreaming!"
The Second Night:
Nemo was fast asleep in his bed when a noise made him sit up in astonishment. Once again he saw a strange man in his room. This fellow was dressed as a clown, with a white face and a broad red grin painted around his mouth. He wore a tiny cone-shaped hat on his smooth white head, and a baggy clown suit decorated with purple, yellow, and green circles. He held his right hand out before him, and a small bird perched on his forefinger.
"Have you come from Slumberland?" Nemo asked.
"Yes," the clown said. "I am Doopsie the Chief of Clowns. The Princess sent me to fetch you. She has a special surprise planned, you see! You will meet the Spirit of Heart's Desire."
"It is such a long walk," Nemo said, yawning. "I am always so tired before I get there."
"Do not worry, no!" Doopsie said. "We will not need to walk tonight." He knelt down and let the bird hop onto the floor of the bedroom.
"Oh!" Nemo said. "It is Budgie, Mama's pet!"
"Yes, and he will carry us both quite safely to Slumberland."
As Nemo watched, the little bird began to grow. In a moment he was so big that his feathered head brushed the room's ceiling.
"Oh, mercy!" Nemo said. "He will never get back into his cage now! I hope Mama will not be too unhappy, no!"
Doopsie mounted the giant bird's back and held out a hand for Nemo. The boy climbed up behind the clown, and Budgie spread his huge wings. Then they soared upward, smashing through the ceiling, flying through the upstairs room where Angelus the Negro maid slept, and then breaking through the roof of the house into the cool, sweet, moonlit sky.
"Papa will not be pleased with the hole in the roof, I guess," Nemo said. He clutched Doopsie around the waist.
"It is a long way down, but don't be afraid, Nemo," the clown said.
They circled over Nemo's house, then flew away across the city. Nemo laughed when he recognized his school, the church, and his friends' houses far below. "Wheeo! This is much better than walking, yes!" he said.
"Hold on tight," Doopsie said. "We will be in Slumberland soon."
As good as his word, the clown steered Budgie up into the clouds, toward the shining spires of Slumberland. In a few minutes the bird descended, and at last came to a gentle landing in the courtyard of the Princess of Slumberland's palace.
"Yes, we are here, Nemo," Doopsie said. He jumped down and lifted the boy from Budgie's back. The bird began to shrink again immediately. When it was its normal size once more, it flew back into the air and disappeared.
"I hope he goes back to Mama," Nemo said.
"Look, Nemo," Doopsie said. "It is your dear friend, the Princess."
"Yes," Nemo said, "but oh! who is that with her?"
Doopsie said, "That is the Spirit of Heart's Desire. I am sure the Princess will introduce you." The clown made a low bow to the Princess and another to Nemo, and then he backed quickly away.
The Princess smiled. "I am so happy to see you again, Nemo!" she said.
"I am glad I did not fall off that bird's back."
"I want you to meet the Spirit of Heart's Desire," Princess said. "Desire is the most beautiful of all in Slumberland. Don't you think so, Nemo? Yes?"
The dark-haired Princess was herself very beautiful, and Nemo was about to tell her so when he was interrupted by a sudden commotion. Someone had burst into the very palace of the Princess. "Heart's Desire, pshaw!" the ill-mannered intruder said. "I can not even tell if it's a beautiful girl or a beautiful boy! What sort of a game is that?"
"Oh!" the Princess cried. "It's Flip! If my father hears of this, he will be very angry!"
Flip was a sour, unhappy person with a green face and a huge cigar stuck in a corner of his mouth. He wore a long black tailcoat, green trousers, and a very high stovepipe hat with a broad hatband. Written on it were the words "Wake up!" He was jealous of Nemo; he always did his best to interfere with anything the boy and the Princess had planned.
"If you cause trouble, Flip," Nemo said, "then you and I are for it, and you will have to take a lickin'!"
Flip glared at Nemo. "I don't care two shucks for that. I may call my uncle, the Dawn Guard, to bring on the sun and melt all of Slumberland into daylight! Just see if I won't."
The Princess looked unhappy. "Oh, Nemo, we will pretend he is not even here. Now listen, because the Spirit of Heart's Desire must ask something of you."
Desire gave Nemo a charming smile. "You see, Nemo, it is this. I have lost something very valuable to me, and the Princess said only you could find it. Will you help me? Yes?"
Looking into Desire's golden eyes, Nemo was glad to be of service. "I will do anything I can for you," he said.
Desire smiled again. "Yes, I know you will." The Spirit's voice was sweet and melodious.
"So what are we looking for?" Flip asked. "I am coming along, too. It is no use leaving me out of this."
Desire glanced at Flip, then turned again to Nemo. "I hope you will find my golden bottle. It has a stopper carved from a beautiful diamond. It is a small thing, and Slumberland is a very big place."
"I will search everywhere," Nemo said. "What is in the bottle?"
"It is dream dust," Desire said. "King Morpheus himself gave it to me."
"Come along then, Flip," Nemo said. "We won't come back until we have found it."
"Oh, Nemo, good luck! Yes!" the Princess said.
"You will have a special reward when you find it," Desire said.
Nemo and Flip left the palace and began their quest for the golden bottle of dream dust. "I guess I am stumped, kiddo," Flip said. "Where will we look first? The jungle? The desert? The frozen north?"
They turned down a narrow street between two great domed buildings. "Gracious," Nemo said, "this may take all the rest of the night."
"Well, ehem, what is this?" Flip said. He had lifted the lid of a metal trash can and was peering inside.
"Come along, we don't have much time, no!"
Flip reached down and lifted something from the trash can. "I guess it is a golden bottle with a diamond stopper! I guess it is!"
"Oh my!" Nemo said, astonished.
Flip was very pleased with himself. "They say it is always in the last place you look, but not this time, eh?"
"Now we can take it back to the Spirit of Heart's Desire. We will get our reward, sure!"
"Oh," Flip said, "I will keep this for myself. I found it. Yes."
Nemo tried to pull the golden bottle away from the green-faced rascal. Flip would not let go, and they wrestled for a while until Flip called out to his uncle. "Uncle Aurora, help me! Bring on the sun and send this kid back where he belongs!"
Suddenly, all of Slumberland was flooded with bright sunlight. "Oh no!" Nemo cried. "I am falling sound awake!"
And then he turned over in his bed. His mama had come into the room and was shaking him by the shoulder. "Come along, Nemo," she said. "It is nearly time for Sunday school, yes!"
The Third Night:
Dressed now in a pale blue coat with brass buttons, blue breeches, shiny black leather boots, and a peaked military cap with a black visor, Little Nemo wondered where the Princess of Slumberland's city had gone.
The palace had completely vanished. The maze of streets, the carefully tended parks, the vaulting marble edifices had all disappeared like the cool morning haze. Nemo stared in astonishment. There was nothing to see except a grass-covered plain. Not even a tree stood between him and the distant horizon.
"Oh, dear!" Nemo said. "This is all Flip's doing! When I find him, I will make him sorry! Yes!"
"You know," a young woman's voice said, "what happens sometimes is there are just some people you ca
n't make sorry. Um, like my brother. One of my brothers. At least one."
Nemo turned and saw her. She was not much taller than he, and she looked a little bewildered, and he decided that he liked her even though she was the most unusual-looking person he had ever seen, even in Slumberland. She had skin as white as bone, and wild hair that was long in places and cropped short in others; sometimes the hair was blond and sometimes it was pink or purple or orange. She wore earrings--little white skulls--but she also had a ring through one nostril and another in her upper lip, like savages in Mama's picture-books. She didn't look like a savage, though; she looked nice. She wore a jacket made of heavy black leather, and a short black skirt. She had one blue eye and one green eye and she was staring over Nemo's head at absolutely nothing.
"Excuse me, ma'am," Nemo said, "but I am looking--"
"He called me 'ma'am'," the young woman said. "The last time anyone called me that--um, I forget."
Nemo tried again. "I am looking--"
"You're looking for a golden bottle with a diamond stopper."
Nemo raised his hat and scratched his head. "How did you know that?"
"I don't know how I know, I just know," she said. "Don't you know when you know?"
"Don't I know what?" Nemo asked.
The young woman gazed at him for a moment. "Here," she said at last. "I can help you find what you're looking for. We'll use my cards."
"Mama and Papa like to play cards."
"Let's sit down on this nice red grass," she said. "Now, shuffle."
Nemo sat beside her, but he didn't say anything, because there was only one single card, and he didn't know how to shuffle one card.
"That's good enough," she said. "Now turn it over." She touched the grass, and tiny fire-breathing dragons in many bright colors began to crawl around.
Nemo watched for a moment, then he turned the card. It was the four of hearts.
"Ah," she said. She smiled. "The six of pentacles. A nice card. Urn."
"What does it say?" Nemo asked.
"How can a card say? I can tell you what it means. A card can mean. Um, wait a minute. It means that this is a really, really good time to help somebody. So that's why I'm helping you."
"Thank you, yes!" Nemo said. "I must find that bottle!"
"Now shuffle again."
Nemo turned the four of hearts over so the back of the card faced up--it was from a deck of Delta Airlines playing cards. Then he turned it over again. Now, somehow, it was the jack of spades.
"Oh, wow," she said. "It's the Little Nell card. That's a horrible card. It means lots of grief and suffering and sometimes as much as you want to help someone, you just can't, you know?" She stared over Nemo's head again. "Well, urn," she said, standing up, "in that case, good-bye."
"Oh! Oh!" Nemo cried. "Please don't leave! No!"
The young woman sat down beside him again. "Okay, we'll try it again. Turn the card over; but if it comes up Hiroshima or the King of Anchors or something, I'm gone."