Part Twelve

'You're playing chess at a time like this?!?' said an enraged Norman.

William Gospot carried on playing chess with a grey bearded and blue-and-white robed Story Teller without looking at Norman. Instead he focussed on the board. 'Yes, my good man. I am playing chess. I find it relaxes my mind.'

'But… but…' he tried to force the words out through his rage. 'Why now? We'll all be dead if we don't find this Terry Horowitz.'

'Hmm, I've been thinking about him. What was his name? Oh you said didn't you - Terry Horowitz,' said Gospot as he moved his next piece.

Norman's face turned an even brighter shade of red. 'I should damn well hope that you're thinking about him! I have as little to do with our employers as possible, thank you very much. I don't particularly want to be killed by them!'

'What I mean my friend, if you'll calm down for just a moment, is that I have been thinking about what Mr Horowitz actually means to these employers of ours.'

'Well?' said Norman harshly. 'What exactly have you been thinking about that?'

The Story Teller moved his knight to put Gospot's king in check. 'Well', continued Gospot, 'doesn't it seem a little odd that we have thousands, maybe millions, of mind-washed visitors every day, who come into our "activity rooms", where you put them through torture - and our employers don't care. Yet one "unconditioned" man, who doesn't show the slightest bit of interest in hearing the Story, is apparently given an extremely simple task and our employers are breathing down our throats when he goes missing.'

Norman shrugged his shoulders.

'Do you actually know anything about our employers? Or the story?' enquired Gospot.

'Erm, not as such, no. Other than that they saved me from my ex-wife.', murmured Norman.

Gospot considered this for a moment. 'Well then', Gospot said as he moved out of check, 'let me inform you of some of the information I have managed to gather. They're not Human. It’s rumoured they're not even from the same dimension as us. I hear they are often referred to as the Scavengers. That’s how they got the rights to the story. You do know about the story don't you?'

Norman shrugged his shoulders again. 'Not really. I didn't think it was that important.'

Gospot looked away from the game for a moment and stared at Norman in disbelief, and then looked back and moved his queen out of a potentially dangerous position. 'It's in a universe-wide ranking system. The Scavengers "bought" the rights to it many years ago off an ancient trader who had entered it in the Universe wide ranking system. When they bought it, it was at position 168. They were hoping to make a profit off it, by getting it up the charts. But oddly enough it didn't budge. That’s where we come in.

'You see, when it didn't budge they thought that if they forced enough people to read it then it would shoot up the ranking system. It didn't, and they don't know why. You run only a small part of this operation, in which I help you considerably…'

Norman was about to protest, but stopped as he had no grounds to differ, and so just went even redder. He furrowed his brow a bit more and fumed.

Gospot continued. '…but we seem to have been caught in the middle of something huge. We have come across this Terry Horowitz, and I think they believe that he holds the key to solving their problem. But the questions are: How can he solve their problem?; and Why is getting the book up some fairly inconspicuous listing of stories so important to our employers?' Gospot moved his rook to put the Story Teller's king in check.

Norman could no longer contain something that had been annoying him since Gospot had started talking. 'That’s all I do?!!!', said Norman, 'I'm a lackey for a bloody book promoter!'

Gospot looked up again, and made a mental note to lower his opinion of Norman even further. 'Do you understand what I've just said?'

Norman continued his rant, ignoring Gospot. 'I thought I was some sort of gang boss of a major crime syndicate. I thought I was somebody. I thought I was living my dream to be a mobster. I loved those 20th century films when I was a kid. But now, what am I? Stuck in the middle of limbo, surrounded by no-bodies in a flippin' book shop!'

'You don't ask many questions of your employers do you Norman? And what did you think the Story Telling bit at the end was?'

Norman stopped for a moment. 'I thought it was a cunning ruse to steal money off people.'

'Did you ever get the Story Tellers to steal anything off them?'

'No. But I guessed when we sent them back through those traveller doors that there was someone on the other side to mug them,' said Norman sadly.

Gospot shook his head, and turned his attention away from the chess game. 'Can we just get back to my point for a moment, please?'

Norman shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. 'Go on. What does it matter now, I'm going to be killed by librarians anyway.'

Gospot sighed. 'Well anyway, I've been thinking and I think I know how we can make a bit of money out of all this.'

Norman's eyes lit up. 'Money? How?'

'Well…' Gospot stopped for a moment as he noticed the Story Teller was listening intently. 'Can you leave us alone for a moment, Barry? Don't worry, I won’t cheat.' he smiled. Barry the Story Teller nodded, and went behind a nearby door where he hoped he could eavesdrop.

'Well', said Gospot quietly when he felt they were alone. 'The Callack organisation have got Mr Horowitz at the moment haven't they?'

'Yes…' said Norman thoughtfully.

'Well, each member of the Callack organisation has got a substantial bounty on their heads. And assuming our contact has got the right location of Terry Horowitz, then whereever he is there will be Callack organisation members. Right?'

'Right… I think I'm following you.'

'Well, if when we find Terry Horowitz we inform the correct people where the Callack Organisation is, then we could be in for a substantial bounty my friend.'

'Great! But how will we lure them out?'

'I thought you would have thought about that, given you are the one hoping to lure Terry Horowitz out in the first place!'

'Well yeah, of course I have,' said Norman when he clearly hadn't, 'but I thought you might have a better solution.'

Gospot rolled his eyes. 'Right, well the obvious thing to do is this: Tommy, who works in the waiting room, seems to have had dealings with them before in the past. Perhaps if he rekindled some of these connections, they would be drawn out. But we could perhaps come up with some reason that Terry Horowitz is required as part of the bargain.'

'But what would make them want to hand over this Horowitz guy?' Norman said, entranced by the thought of the amount of money that could be involved.

'We'll simply say that the Scavengers are willing to pay a substantial sum for him. But we'll fix it so that we don't have to hand over the money, by getting the people who are after them to take them out, while we get both Terry and the bounty.'

'Sounds great! I knew I'd think of something,' announced Norman triumphantly.

'Of course, Norman,' sighed Gospot.

'Right, I'll see how our alcoholic contact is sobering up.’ Norman felt as though he was on top of the world again. He had a purpose, he had a niggling feeling that he wasn't really in control - and he still didn't like Gospot, but it was all going right again. He dashed out of the room, to force Terry’s location out of the all-important contact.

None of this boded well for Terry of course. Who was about to have the shock of his life. Which was really saying something.

The 168th Greatest Story in the Universe - A Tribute (Archive)

Vercingetorix

29.05.03 Front Page

Back Issue Page