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'No!' cried the older Catherine, who had crawled across to us and was trying
to clasp Heathcliff's head in her hands. 'Heathcliff, don't leave me!'
'I have no intention of doing any such thing,' he said in a muffled voice,
nose pressed hard into the flags by myself and Havisham's combined weight.
'Havisham, I hope you remember your orders.'
'Send out Heathcliff and we will spare you and your apprentice!' yelled the
bullhorn again. 'Stand in our way and you'll both be terminated!'
'Do they mean it?' I asked.
'Oh, yes,' replied Havisham grimly. 'A group of ProCaths attempted to hijack
Madame Bovary last year to force the Council to relinquish Heathcliff.'
'What happened?'
'The ones who survived were reduced to text,' replied Havisham, 'but it hasn't
stopped the ProCath movement. Do you think you can get to the footnoterphone?'
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'Sure  I mean, yes, Miss Havisham.'
I crawled towards the kitchen.
'We'll give you two minutes,' said the voice on the bullhorn again. 'After
that, we're coming in.'
'I have a better deal,' yelled Havisham.
There was pause.
'And that is?' spoke the bullhorn.
'Leave now and I will be merciful when I find you.'
'I think,' replied the voice on the bullhorn, 'that we'll stick to my plan.
You have one minute forty-five seconds.'
I reached the doorway of the kitchen, which was as devastated as the living
room. Flour and beans from broken storage jars were strewn across the floor
and a flurry of snowflakes were blowing in through the windows. I found the
footnoterphone; it had been riddled with machine-gun fire. I cursed and
crawled rapidly back towards the living room. I caught Havisham's eye and
shook my head. She signalled for me to look out the back way and I did, going
into the darkness of the pantry to peer out. I could see two of them, sitting
in the snow, weapons ready. I dashed back to Havisham.
'How does it look?'
'Two at the back that I can see.'
'And at least three at the front,' she added. 'I'm open to suggestions.'
'How about giving them Heathcliff?' came a chorus of voices.
'
Other than that?'
'I can try and get behind them,' I muttered, 'if you keep them pinned down '
I was interrupted by an unearthly cry of terror from outside, followed by a
sort of crunching noise, then another cry and sporadic machine-gun fire. There
was a large thump and another shot, then a cry, then the
ProCaths at the back started to open fire, too; but not at the house  at some
unseen menace. Havisham and I exchanged looks and shrugged as a man came
running into the house in panic; he was still holding his pistol, and because
of that, his fate was sealed. Havisham fired two shots into him and he fell
stone dead next to us, a look of abject terror on his face. There were a few
more gunshots, another agonised cry, then silence. I shivered, and got up to
peer cautiously from the door. There was nothing outside except the soft snow,
disturbed occasionally by foot marks.
We found only one body, tossed on to the roof of the barn, but there was a
great deal of blood, and what looked like the paw tracks of something very
large and feline. I was staring at the dinner-plate-sized footprint slowly
being obscured by the falling snow when Havisham laid her hand on my shoulder.
'Big Martin,' she said softly. 'He must have been following you.'
'Is he still?' I asked, understandably concerned.
'Who knows?' replied Miss Havisham. 'Big Martin is a law unto himself. Come
back inside.'
We returned to where the cast were dusting themselves down. Joseph was
muttering to himself and trying to block the windows up with blankets.
'Well,' said Miss Havisham, clapping her hands together, 'that was an exciting
session, wasn't it?'
'I am still leaving this appalling book,' retorted Heathcliff, who was back on
full obnoxious form again.
'No you're not
,' replied Havisham.
'You just try and stop '
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Miss Havisham, who was fed up with pussyfooting around and hated men like
Heathcliff with a vengeance, grasped him by the collar and pinned his head to
the table with a well-placed gun barrel pressed painfully into his neck.
'Listen here,' she said, her voice quavering with anger, 'to me, you are
worthless scum. Thank your lucky stars I am loyal to Jurisfiction. Many others
in my place would have handed you over. I could kill you now and no one would
be any the wiser.'
Heathcliff looked at me imploringly.
'I was outside when I heard the shot,' I told him.
'So were we!' exclaimed the rest of the cast eagerly, excepting Catherine
Earnshaw, who simply scowled.
'Perhaps I
should do it!' growled Havisham again. 'Perhaps it would be a mercy. I could
make it look like an accident !'
'No!' cried Heathcliff in a contrite tone. 'I've changed my mind. I'm going to
stay right here and just be plain old Mr Heathcliff for ever and ever.'
Havisham stared at him and slowly released her grasp.
'Right,' she said, switching her pistol to safe and regaining her breath, 'I
think that pretty much concludes this session of Jurisfiction Rage
Counselling. What did we learn?'
The co-characters all stared at her, dumbstruck.
'Good. Same time next week, everyone?'
14
Educating the Generics
'Generics were the chameleons of the Well. In general they were trained to do
specific jobs but could be upgraded if the need arose. Occasionally a Generic
would jump up spontaneously within the grade, but to jump from one grade to
another without external help, they said, was impossible. From what I would
learn, "impossible" was a word that should not be bandied about the Well [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]