Superheroes by John Varley (ed.)

Author:John Varley (ed.) [Varley, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Anthology, Superheroes
ISBN: 0441001378
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1995-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

God Save the King

P. J. BEESE and TODD CAMERON HAMILTON

Fate is the most common culprit when it comes to making heroes of ordinary people. Some people think fate is overrated.

* * *

The Parliament Tower clock, colloquially and incorrectly known as “Big Ben,” arguably the most famous (or at least the most recognizable) clock in the world, was spinning its hands. The real Big Ben, one of the bells hung in the Tower, was striking a resounding 26, 27, 28…

Inside the tower, the clock wardens scrambled about madly, inspecting gears, springs, and cogs in an attempt to diagnose the cause of their baby’s infirmity.

, 30, 31…

On the street outside Parliament Tower, passersby were, for the most part, amused by the false alarms.

, 33, 34…

At or about stroke 300, people within earshot began to find the constant peal annoying. By ring 500, annoyance had turned to anger. On the 795th ring the clockmaster received a message by courier from the Prime Minister. It was only four words long. “Pull the bloody plug!”

The bell finally stopped at ring 800.

The silence that followed was so loud that the crowd outside was forced to cheer in order to drown it out. One person in that crowd was a beautiful young woman with lush, fully developed breasts that seemed to defy gravity. She stared at her Rolex incredulously.

“800 o’clock? 800! I could have sworn it was no later than two or two-thirty!”

She approached a middle-aged businessman, one of those perfectly turned-out types with a pin-striped suit and a black umbrella.

“Excuse me. Have you got the correct time?”

“Certainly,” he answered, reaching into his silk vest pocket to pull out his antique pocket watch. “I’ve got two twenty-seven.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head covered with short blonde curls. “That can’t be right. I’ve got eight hundred.” She held out her arm to show her own watch to the stranger. The sun glinting on the diamond bezel made it rather hard to see, but the red LED’s did indeed read an unchanging “800:00.”

Stiffening his upper lip, the proper stranger asked, “Is this some kind of joke?”

“A joke? A joke, he asks. Oh, sir, I assure you this is no joke. There is nothing funny about this at all!” Her green eyes glittered almost as much as the diamonds had. “Nothing! Nada! Zero! Zilch! Zip!” She grabbed the man by his pinstriped lapels and pulled his face in close to hers. “I think this is the end of the world!” She sighed heavily, and he wrinkled his nose at the mixture of alcohol and tobacco on her breath. “Well, maybe not quite that bad. But it’s definitely worse than anything you could possibly imagine.” She smiled, kissed him on the end of his still-wrinkled nose, then released his lapels, smoothing them down before she stalked off, muttering, “I didn’t realize it was so late. I’ve got to find him! ‘There’s so much time and so little to do. Strike that! Reverse it.’ I need a drink.”

When Mavis St. George returned to her flat in the Mews, she was greeted with derision, as usual, by her puffin, Archimedes.

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