East of Ealing by Robert Rankin

Author:Robert Rankin [Rankin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: prose_contemporary, Fiction, General, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780552138437
Publisher: Transworld Publishers
Published: 1992-12-15T07:17:03+00:00

17

The conversation wore long into the night. John and Jim were anxious to know exactly what plans the Professor had formulated, but the old man was obstinately vague in his replies. It was either that he was as yet uncertain as to what had to be done, or that he had already set certain wheels in motion and feared the two men might, out of their eagerness to pitch in for the cause, confound them. Whatever the case, Jim at length returned to his rooms and fell into a most uneasy sleep beset with ghastly dreams of mechanical monsters and bogey men who loomed up from every darkened corner. Omally, as ever, slept the sleep of the just, which was quite unjust of him, considering he had no right to do it.

At around eleven the next morning, the two men met up outside the Flying Swan. Pooley emptied what pennies remained to him into the outspread palm of his fellow. “He won’t take my cash any more, simply runs his damn little wand over my hand. It gives me little pleasure.”

“If there is a word of truth to anything the Professor told us, then at least we have a vague idea what’s going on.”

“Vague would be your man, John, this is well out of my league.”

“That is a nice suit you have on there,” Omally observed as Jim strode on before him into the Swan. “If a little tight across the shoulders perhaps.”

The pale young man in the headphones stood as ever behind the jump. Nothing had been heard of Neville since he had been whisked away in the ambulance. The Sisters of Mercy said that he had been moved to another hospital but seemed uncertain where. The fact that ownership of the brewery had changed hands suggested that Brentford had seen the last of the part-time barman. “Replacement,” the Professor had said; it was a more than unsettling business. And the thought that duplicates were even now being created to replace each living individual in Brentford was no laughing matter.

“Usual please,” said Jim, extending his palm.

The man in the headset ran his electronic pen across the outstretched appendage and cleared his throat with a curiously mechanical coughing sound. “Great day for the race,” he said.

“Yours or mine?” muttered Jim beneath his breath.

Omally bought his own. “It’s just not the same any more,” he sighed, as he bore his pint over to the table Jim now occupied. “I miss the thrill of the chase.”

“I don’t think anything is ever going to be the same again,” said Pooley unhappily. “All is finished here. If only we had legged it away in time we would never be sitting here trapped like rats, waiting to be replaced by piles of diodes.”

John shook his head. “It is a bad one to be sure. No doubt the walls will expand to finally engulf the whole world, but the Professor never did explain why it all started right here.”

“Well, I suppose it had to start somewhere and Brentford, although worse than some, is, as the world knows, better than most.

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