Omally applied his boot to the face of a pursuer as it loomed up from a stairwell. “Onward and upward, Jimmy.”

The two men struggled in an unreal twilight world. Below, Neville’s great warcries and the dull thuds of falling, broken bodies mingled with the unholy screechings of the monstrous obscenities pouring up from the pit. The siren had ceased its banshee wail but voices issued from the computer’s mainframe, sighing and gasping from the circuitry, whispering in a thousand tongues, few ever those of man. A hand fastened about Pooley’s ankle, drawing him down. Omally turned, sensing rather than seeing his friend’s plight. He wrenched out a drawer-load of circuits and swung it like an axe, severing the clinging hand at the wrist. The thing remained in its deathlock about Jim’s ankle, but the hero clambered on.

They were by now high upon the computer’s great face. The air was thin but sulphurous. John clutched at his chest and strained to draw breath. Pooley leant upon his shoulder, coughing and gasping. “We’re running out of stairs,” he croaked. Above them now was nothing but darkness. They stood engulfed in it, breathing it. The sounds of battle echoed below but nought could now be seen of the conflict. “You don’t happen to see any daylight lurking above?” Jim asked. “Fast running out of wind this man.”

“I can see sod all. Get off there.” A hand had John by the trouser cuff. He squinted down in horror to see no other face than his own, leering up. Without thought or feeling he tore out another section of circuitry and thrust it down into the snapping mouth which sought his leg. Sparks blistered the visage, and the thing sank away into the darkness.

Pooley clung to a further staircase, his energy, such as it ever was, all but gone. “About making me a Cardinal?” he gasped.

The Pope followed him up. “Bless you, my son. Popes and Cardinals first. Press on.”

The two thrust blindly onward; there was nothing left to do but climb. The metal handrails were like ice and their hands were raw from the clinging cold which tore at the flesh. Their attackers poured at them in an unceasing horde. They called to them in voices which were their own, jibing and threatening, crying out explicit details of the fate which they intended for them.

“I’m gone,” said Jim. “I can climb no more, leave me to die.”

Omally fumbled about with numb and bleeding fingers. “I will join you,” said he. “There are no more stairs.” Pressed back against the icy metal of the mainframe the two men stood, alone and trapped. The mob surged up beneath them, swarming over the catwalks and gantries. There was finally nowhere left to run.

“I don’t want to die here,” said Pooley, his voice that of pitiful defeat. “I’m not supposed to be here, amongst all of this. This isn’t true, this isn’t right.”

Omally clung to the cold hard wall. They were neither of them supposed to be here. They were alone, two men, leaning now as in a time long past, upon the parapet of the canal bridge, above the oiled water of the old Grand Union. They looked down into their own reflections and those of the old stars. The stars always had much to say to drunken men, although none of their counsel and advice was ever heeded upon the cold, cruel, hangover-morning. But the truths lay there. For ordinary men, the truths always lay there upon that very moment before falling over. It was there at that instant a man was truly himself. The truth lay in that netherworld between drunkenness and oblivion, and dwelt where no sober man could ever grasp it. Only the drunken taste reality, and that for an all-too-fleeting moment. Removed from all sensible thought they made their own laws and moulded futures unthinkable at sunrise. Ah yes, John and Jim had tasted the truth upon many many an occasion.

“I see the light,” shouted Omally.

Jim craned his head. Above them a torch beam shone down.

“Get a move on lads,” called a voice. “You’re late as usual.”

“Norman,” called Jim, squinting up at the flashlight. “Is that you?”

“Sorry, were you expecting someone else?” Norman stretched down an arm towards them. “A stitch in time never won fair lady you know. Get a move on will you.”

“At the hurry-up.”

Omally shouldered Jim, who took Norman’s hand and struggled up through the rooftop opening. The screaming swarm beneath were hard upon the Irishman’s heel, he stretched up his hand towards Jim and Pooley leant down, fingers straining to reach. Their fingers met, but with a cry of horror Omally was gone. The screams of the mob welled up and the shouts of Omally as he battered down at the creatures engulfing him were nothing if not ungodly. Their fingers met again and Jim drew him up through the opening.

“That was quite close,” said John, dusting down his trousers. “But where now?”

Norman’s impossible machine was parked near at hand. An icy wind screamed over the rooftop, howling and moaning. “This way,” cried Norman. With tears flying from their eyes, they followed the shopkeeper. Pooley shielded his face and moved with difficulty, the gale near tearing him from his feet.

The sky above was black and starless. The blank vista of the rooftop seemed to stretch towards impossible extremes in every direction. Beyond, in the vertical seas which girded the borough, strange images burst and sparkled projecting themselves as if on three vast screens. But the panorama was shrinking, the streets still dimly visible below were diminishing. The building was shuddering beneath them, rising like a lift in a shaft. Its distant edges were becoming ever more distant. The building was duplicating itself. Time had run out, Holmes had not been successful, the Professor’s programme had failed.

“The Millennium!” cried Norman, as he forced himself into the driving seat. “Hurry!”

Pooley clung to the handrail of the time machine. The duplicates were pouring through the roof opening, a screaming mass tumbling towards them through the smashing firmament.

“This helicopter will never fly,” Jim told the shopkeeper.

“You have lost the last of your marbles.”

“All aboard now.” Omally did just that, as the satanic horde engulfed them.

Norman turned the ignition key and engaged reverse.

32

Neville, the new part-time barman, pushed the two brimming pints of Large across the polished counter-top and chalked the difference on to Pooley’s slate, a mistake he would soon, through experience, come to rectify. He studied the two men who now sat before him. The sudden change in them was dramatic, it was as if they had aged by twenty years, literally overnight. And the state of them, their clothes hung in ribbons. Evidently they had taken work in the building profession and experienced a hard morning’s graft.

The two men stared beyond his crisp right shoulder as if not noticing him. Their eyes seemed glued to the brewery calendar which hung unobtrusively amongst the Spanish souvenirs. Yet there was nothing strange to be seen in it. A simple cardboard rectangle with the brewery’s name surmounting an out of register colour print of Constable’s “Haywain” and the hanging tab: June 6 1969. What could they see in it?

As if suddenly aware of the barman’s scrutiny, the two men drew themselves away to a side-table, glasses in hand.

Omally studied his pint. “And so, what do you propose we do now?” he asked.

Pooley sucked beer froth from his upper lip and made smacking sounds. It really did taste better back in those days. He tapped at his nose. “I have a plan,” said he.

“Oh yes?” Omally’s voice lacked enthusiasm.

“Indeed. Don’t you understand? We’ve been given another chance to stop it all. At this moment, the Professor toils amongst his books and Holmes lies sleeping in his mausoleum. Norman chats, no doubt, with Leonardo da Vinci. Or has. I can’t be certain exactly how it all works.”