One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde [54]
After another five minutes of this odd posturing, the cabbie couldn’t take it anymore. He flung open his door and made a run for it. We watched with growing horror as the unfortunate taxi driver was suddenly copied in his every movement and expression. Two mimes walked close behind him, while another engaged in some curiously expressive banter. Within half a minute, it was all over, and the cabbie’s tattered clothes were all that remained upon the ground.
I looked at Sprockett, whose eyebrow flicked up to “Doubtful,” which meant he was out of ideas. Now that they had been blooded, the mood of the mimes seemed to have changed. A minute ago their features had been ridiculously smiley, but now they wore doleful expressions of exaggerated sadness. They also seemed to be approaching the car. Once they got in, it would be all over. Or at least it would be for me.
“Lean forward.”
“Might I inquire as to why, ma’am?”
“I’m going to press your emergency spring release,” I said.
“You’ll be nothing but an inert box of cogs to them—they’ll not touch you. Someone will chance across you in a few months, and you can be rewound. You can tell them what happened.”
He looked at me and buzzed for a moment. “Would that be a compassionate act on your behalf, ma’am?”
“I suppose so. Only one of us need die.”
Sprockett thought about this for a moment. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I may have to politely decline your offer. A butler never leaves his position and is loyal until death.”
I made a grab for the access panel on the back of his left shoulder, but he caught my hand with surprising speed.
“In this matter, ma’am,” he said firmly, “my cogs are made up.”
I relented, and Sprockett let go of my arm as several mimes improvised a trampoline routine on the back bumper.
“Okay,” I said as a sudden thought struck me, “here’s the plan: I need you to act like a robot.”
“How do I do that?”
“You tell me. You’re the robot, after all.”
“Agreed. But the whole point of the Duplex series is that we act human in order to function more seamlessly with our masters. ‘More human than the dumbest human’ is the Duplex Corporation’s motto. I don’t know the first thing about actually being a robot.”
“You’re going to have to give it your best shot.”
Sprockett raised his eyebrow as a shower of broken glass erupted from the rear window. The mimes had become markedly more aggressive when we weren’t laughing and applauding hard enough during a not-very-amusing routine where they pretend to sculpt a statue out of clay.
“Very well,” said Sprockett. He opened the car door and stepped out. His gait was sporadic and clumsy, and at the end of each movement there seemed to be a slight “spring” to his actions that gave the impression of increased mass. The effect upon the mimes was instantaneous and dramatic. They all took a step back and gazed in wide-eyed astonishment as Sprockett lumbered from the car with me close behind. A few of them dropped to their knees, and others fell into paroxysms of exaggerated crying.
“What do I do?” whispered Sprockett. “I can’t keep this up for long.”
“Head back towards the road.”
So he did, and I followed him. The mimes stayed with us, their grief and sadness changing to anger and surprise. Sprockett continued his overblown movements, but it wasn’t working. The mimes closed in, and just when their white gloves were upon us, they suddenly paused and exhibited the sort of mock surprise you can feign by opening your mouth wide and placing both hands on your cheeks.
The reason for this was soon apparent. One of their number had started to copy Sprockett in a series of similar robotic moves. Uncertain at first,