Dave Trellis and the Allotments of Doom (35 page)

‘Then I need a
good publicist,’ said Fergus.

Boadicea
laughed, ‘And a deed to boast about.’

‘Don’t worry
I’ll think of something. In the meantime, don’t you reckon we’ve
mapped enough today? We could head back early.’

Boadicea smiled
at Fergus’s enthusiasm and nodded.

Dave landed
hands first on what felt like concrete and skidded a few feet on
his face. It was utterly dark. He lay there for a few moments to
orientate himself before struggling to his feet.

‘How bloody
delightful,’ said Dave.

‘Don’t move,’
said a familiar female voice.

‘Maeve?’ said
Dave.

‘Yes. Don’t
move. Shut up.’

Dave complied.
He tried to see beyond the purple blotches, nothing. He heard a low
hum.

Something
brushed his shin and he reached down and grabbed a furry animal by
the scruff. It struggled and screeched. It felt like a ten pound
rat.

‘Maeve, I
caught something.’

‘Oh well done.
Don’t let go, they have a nasty bite and a poisonous spur on their
leg.

‘What the hell
it is?’

‘I call them
platy rats. They’re rather aggressive and attack if they see you.
Hold on.’

Suddenly Dave
was blinded by light. When he re-opened his eyes, he was standing
in a workshop with rows of work benches. Along the walls were
machines, many recognisable as milling machines and lathes, and
others were strange robotic affairs with many arms. He could see
what he was holding. It was black, with smooth fur and an otter
like face. It was cute as a bag of puppies.

‘Please kill
it,’ said Maeve.

‘Hold hard a
minute. This is an innocent creature.’

‘If it wasn’t
Disney-cute would you hesitate?’

Dave sniffed
and reached into this pocket. He pulled out a vacuum pack of
Heckmondwike Curry Pastilles and deftly popped one out of the
packaging. He offered it to the platy rat, which recoiled from the
pungent offering and jerked around as if in pain.

‘Thought as
much; these things are a gnat’s from contravening the Geneva
Convention.’ He dropped the platy rat and it scurried away under a
large metalwork table. Dave bent down and lodged the curry pastille
in the side of his brogue shoe.

‘Come here
lass.’

Maeve stepped
closer and Dave pushed a curry pastille into the top of her calf
length combat boots. It felt rather intimate. He coughed and stood
up.

‘It’s lovely to
see you lass, despite circumstances. And…’ Dave suddenly grabbed
Maeve and swung her round.

‘Abbey is
alive!’

‘What? How?’
said Maeve and kissed Dave. It turned into a passionate clinch.
Eventually Dave pulled away, held Maeve at arm’s length and stared
into her eyes.

‘I cannot tell
you how happy I am to see you at last love.’

‘Me too. Now
tell me about Abbey. How is she?’

Dave sat down
and told Maeve all about the battle and the discovery of Abbey
lodged in the machine’s buffer. He noticed she was crying and
reached over and gave her a hug. She sniffed and wiped her
eyes.

‘Such wonderful
news, I must see her immediately. However, we have a
situation.’

‘Nothing we
can’t handle.’

‘Well, if we
can find a manual or engineering drawings or something.’

‘You pressed
something didn’t you’ accused Dave.

‘May have.’

‘Want to tell
me about it?’

Maeve sighed.
‘I was trying to switch the portal to each way. I thought I was
doing fine, the whole thing is icon based, and I thought I
understood the symbols.’

‘And?’

‘Well, I
pressed one button and a box popped up, it looked like a warning,
but I ignored it. After that lots and lots of boxes popped up and a
gauge appeared on the display.’

‘Let me guess,
it was steadily rising and changing from green to yellow?’

‘Initially.’

‘So what colour
is it now?’

‘Red heading
for purple.’

‘Ok, so do you
know a way out of here?’

‘Easy, there’s
a step ladder over there.’

Dave moved as
fast as he could along the ventilation duct, his Harris Tweed
suffered minor damage, but his knees were wrecked. They clambered
out of the vent and were soon in the clean, bright corridor.

‘So what’s the
plan?’

‘We have a
Noggin with us.’

‘Well that’s
lovely, but how will that help.’

‘Noggins can
read anything. So at least we’ll know what is happening. Anyhow,
this one worked here once. So I am hoping it can sort out the mess
you started.’

‘Oh so it’s my
mess now is it?’

‘Aye, there was
no-one else there for you to blame.’

‘What!’

‘Oh get over
yourself woman, it’s not like nobody else never made a mistake’

Maeve eyed Dave
and then decided to let it lie. They jogged back to the main
corridor, following the arrows and they were in luck. In the far
distance he could see two tiny figures. Dave yelled as loud as he
could and whistled so loudly that it hurt his ears. Abbey and the
Noggin didn’t notice.

‘Hang on a
minute,’ said Dave, ‘I’ve an idea.’

He took off his
brogues, removed the laces, and then tied them together. He reached
into his pocket, pulled out the vacuum-packed Heckmondwike Curry
Pastels, and tied them on the end. Dave started swinging the whole
contraption around his head. Faster and faster. Then it started. A
low thrumming noise.

Dave whirled it
faster, then slower and the bass thrum became an oscillating roar
that filled the corridor. In the far distance, the tiny figures
started waving.

‘My, you are
resourceful Mr Trellis.’

‘Bullroarer.’

‘No I mean it;
most impressive.’

‘It’s called a
Bullroarer. Aborigine thing the lads showed me when we were out and
about in the jungle up there.’

‘That’s handy,’
said Maeve and Dave turned round to see a little golf cart speeding
towards them.

Dave, Maeve,
Abbey, and the Noggin stood looking at the massive display. There
were hundreds of cascaded messages on the screen, like a game of
patience, and one big gauge, now violet.

The Noggin
stood examining the screen for what seemed an age. Dave was
beginning to fret. He scrawled on a notepad.

‘Can you sort
it out?’

The Noggin
glanced at the message and shook its head. Its hand reached out and
pressed the display. The message boxes disappeared and the gauge
reversed its direction. The Noggin scrawled a note and passed it to
Dave.

‘Sewage tank
pressure returned to normal. Not the big problem.’

Dave scrawled a
response.

‘What’s the big
problem?’

The Noggin
scrawled another note.

‘Power source
overload. Everything shutting down.’

Dave sighed and
showed the two notes to the others.

‘So we remain
at square one. Or perhaps do not pass go, do not collect 200
pounds. No power, no light, no heating.’

‘No refectory
dispenser. No tea,’ said Abbey.

‘What!’ said
Dave, ‘Have we finally come to this?’

‘Cowboy up
cupcake,’ said Maeve.

‘A Noggin? Well
played Trellis,’ said a loud, familiar voice from the other side of
the control room.

‘Engineer. You
patronising, egotistical fart. How unpleasant to see your ugly face
again,’ said Dave.

‘Such gratitude
Trellis. I did save your daughter and re-unite you with your
charming wife. Only their own ineptitude placed them thus.’

Dave glared at
Engineer, who ignored him and swept over to the control console.
They all watched as his arms and fingers flew around, pressing,
typing, swiping, and conducting the system at great pace.

‘There. System
restored and locked. Portals shut. No more tiresome interlopers or
inept users. Come, all of you,’ said Engineer and waved his hand.
Everyone disappeared, leaving Dave standing in a deserted control
room.

‘Well at least
it left the lights on,’ said Dave and was immediately plunged into
darkness.

‘Bugger.’

Fergus and
Boadicea stood in a naked embrace a little apart from Maeve, Abbey
and the Noggin in the central courtyard of St Catherine’s
allotments, further away sat the bemused Australians.

‘Strewth, a
naked Sheila,’ said Hungry Joe and pointed at Boadicea.

‘It’s alright
love, he’s never seen a real woman before,’ said Trev with a
smirk.

‘Damn it all,’
said Boadicea, breaking away from Fergus and shouted into the air.
‘Where’s my armour, you idiot.’

There was a
series of small thumps and piles of personal possessions drop from
thin air on to the stone flags.

‘Thank you very
much,’ said Boadicea stomping over to one pile, and pulled out a
silk body stocking. Fergus and the Australians were silent as they
tried to both surreptitiously watch and ignore Boadicea
dressing.

Maeve sighed
and stomped over to the Australians.

‘Come on get
up. We’ve a shed load of things to get on with. You there! The one
with a grin on his face.’

‘What me?’
asked Trev.

‘You’ll do. Get
up. Find someone with money, there’s a bus station in the middle of
town. The Australian Consulate is in London. Look for a large
building with flags on it.’

‘Hang on a
minute. We just got here,’ said Trev, ‘From what you poms are
always banging on about this here should be paradise on earth. We
want to spend a little time getting to know the place.’

‘Fine. Just do
it elsewhere.’

‘Who set fire
to your knickers love? If this here is the Allotments, Dave said
they always welcomed visitors. We be friendly and house trained,
all we need is a little space and a regular supply of beer.’

Maeve stared at
Trev for a moment and whistled long and hard. A barking pack of
dogs came bounding over the allotments and charging out of the
catacombs. There were a few moments of pandemonium, and a great
deal of mutual sniffing of Noggin and dog, then Maeve barked
something and the pack formed up and surrounded the Aussies.

The Australians
all stood and bowed low to the dogs. Trev reached into his breech
cloth and pulled out a small vacuum packed strip of curry pastilles
and started handing them out. The dogs enthusiastically accepted
the bribe and ignoring the stormy look on Maeve’s face went to mob
Abbey.

‘Nice one Dave,
where ever you are,’ said Trev and smiled at Maeve.

‘Don’t get
smug,’ said Maeve, ‘The dogs are fickle and keep out of my way.’
She stalked off across the courtyard and climbed the steps to the
first level, heading for the pavilion.

‘Well, what do
we do now?’ asked Boadicea.

‘We could
finish what we started,’ said Fergus. Boadicea smiled and gently
shook her head.

‘We’re still on
a mission to rescue Dave,’ said Abbey.

‘That’s
scuppered now,’ said Fergus, ‘We can’t get back into the
Workshops.’

‘There has to
be a way,’ said Abbey.

Fergus
scratched his head. ‘Well if there is, we will probably find out
about it in the Library.’

‘Good idea,’
said Abbey. ‘Give me a little while to get ready.’

‘No,’ said
Fergus and held up his hand, ‘This job is one man wide. You girls
stay here and keep Maeve company.’ Abbey and Boadicea both
frowned.

‘Don’t worry
love,’ said Fergus smiling at Boadicea, ‘It’s all going to work out
just grand.’

‘You hope,’
said Boadicea.

‘Hope? Nah, I
have a plan.’

‘A cunning
plan?’

‘So cunning you
could use the left overs to make puzzles for foxes.’

Later that day,
Fergus and the Noggin mounted the tandem, complete with
intransigent dog sat in the front basket, and unsteadily headed
into the catacombs. The Australians wanted to come too, but Fergus
persuaded them that National Express coaches were an essential part
of the British experience for the Australian abroad. Abbey and
Maeve watched them depart and Boadicea gave a little wave and blew
a kiss, causing a momentary lapse of tandem control as Fergus
return the gesture over his shoulder.

With shouts of
‘Get off’ and ‘Not the face’ Fergus and the Noggin passed the Roof
spiders and entered the catacombs proper, heading for the M7, the
Dark Library and all possible places in-between.

Sat in a small
glow of green light Dave considered his options. The workshops were
sealed. The control console locked; he’d tried repeatedly to no
avail. His small, helpless plan was to hide in a shipment until
delivery, but that relied on knowing what was shipping soon,
otherwise he could wait, sat on a pallet, until Sunless Sea froze
over.

If only it was
a human construction, thought Dave, there would be access doors all
over the place, each liable to gentle persuasion with an axe.

Why did a vast
intellect like Engineer want some tiny piece of petty vengeance?
What’s the point? I saved its arse and the planet too. All I get in
return is my wife back, my daughter back and a mildly dangerous
adventure in the world’s largest manufacturing facility. Hang on;
hold hard one minute. Dave cast his mind back.

‘Interest,
intrigue, excitement. Have you any idea how long I have swum in the
Sunless Sea? How dull it is to watch over a machine that never
fails? I may sleep for many years, but I still have to wake. Do you
humans not keep pets?’

There. That was
it. Now I have plan. A bloody stupid plan with frightening
consequences for failure, but I’m buggered if I’m going to sit here
on my tod, without a decent whiskey, company or even a cup of
tea.

The Noggin
pounded on Fergus’s back as they freewheeled down the smooth path
to the M7. It passed him a note.

‘Stop’