The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [115]
“That’s right, Mis’s Next.”
Schitt smiled & tapped the cover with the back of his hand.
“In he’re the Pla’sma Rifle work’s perf&ectly. All we ha’ve to do is open’ the book with the Pros’e Portal, bring out the we’apons & is’sue them. It’ ”s the ultimate weapon, Mis’s’ Next.”
But he wasn’t referring to the plasma rifle. He was pointing to the Prose Portal. The bookworms responded by belching out large quantities of unnecessary capitalizations.
“Any’thing That The Hu’man Imag’ination Can Think Up, We Can Reproduce. I Look At The Port’al as Les’s Of A Gateway To A Million World’s, But More Like A Three Dim’ensional P’hotocopier. With It We Can Ma’ke Anything We Want; Even Another Portal—a H&held Version. Chri’stmas Every Day, Miss Next.”
“More Death In The Cr’imea; I Ho’pe You Can Sleep W’ell At Night, Schitt.”
“On The Co’ntrary, Miss’ Next. Russia Will Roll Over & Piss’ Over Itself When It Witnesse’s The Power Of Stonk. The Czar Will Permanently Cede The Peninsula To England; a New Riviera, Won’t That be nice?”
“Nice? Sun Lounger’s & High-Rise Hotel’s? Built On L& That Will Be Dem&ed Back Half a Century From Now? You’re Not S’olving Anything, Schitt, Merely Delaying It. When The Russian’s Have a Plasma Rifle Of Their Own, Then What?”
Jack Schitt was unrepentant.
“Oh, Don’t Worry About That, Miss Next, I’ll Charge The’m Twice What I’ll Charge The Eng’lish Gov’ernment!”
“Hear, Hear!” put in Hades, who was deeply impressed by Schitt’s total absence of scruples so far.
“A Hundred Million’ Dollars Fo’r The Portal, Thursday,” added Hades excitedly, “& a 50% Cut On Every’thing That’ Comes Out Of It!”
“A Lackey For The Goliath Corpor’ation, Acheron? That Doesn’t Sound Like You At All.”
Hades’ cheek quivered but he fought it, answering:
“Out Of Small Acorn’s, Thur’sday . . .”
Schitt looked at him suspiciously. He nodded to one of his men, who levelled a small anti-tank gun at Hades.
“Hade’s, The Instructio’n Manual.”
“Please!” pleaded Mycroft. “You’re Upsetting The Wor’ms! They’re Starting to hy-phe-nate!”
“Shut-up, My-croft,” snapped Schitt. “Ha-de’s, please, The In-Struc-tion Man-ual.”
“Man-ual, My De’ar Chap?”
“Yes, Mr. Hade’s. Ev-en You Will Not be Im-Pervious To My Associate’s Small Artill-ery Piece. You Have My-croft’s Manual For The Por-tal & The Po-em In Which You Have Im-pris-oned Mrs. Next. Give-Them-To-Me.”
“No, Mr. Schitt. Give Me The Gun—”
But Schitt didn’t flicker; the power that had stolen Snood and countless other people’s reason had no effect on Schitt’s dark soul. Hades’ face fell. He had not come across someone like Schitt before; not since the first Felix, anyhow. He laughed.
“You Dare To Dou-ble—Cross-Me?”
“Sure I Do. If I Did-n’t You’d Have No Res’-pect From Me & That’s No Basis’ For A Work-able Part-ner-ship.”
Hades dodged in front of the Prose Portal.
“& To Think We Were All Get-ti’ng A-long So Well, Too—!” he exclaimed, placing the original manuscript of Jane Eyre back into the machine and adding the bookworms, who settled down, stopped farting, belching and hyphenating and got to work.
“Really!” continued Hades. “I expected better from you, I must say. I almost thought I had found someone who could be a partner.”
“But you’d want it all, Hades,” replied Schitt. “Sooner or later and most probably sooner.”
“True, very true.”
Hades nodded to Felix8 who immediately started shooting. Bowden and I were directly in his line of fire; there was no way he could miss. My heart leaped but strangely the first bullet slowed and stopped in midair three inches from my chest. It was the initial volley of a deadly procession that snaked lazily all the way back to Felix8’s weapon, its muzzle now a frozen chrysanthemum of fire. I looked across at Bowden, who was also in line for a slug; the shiny bullet had stopped a foot from his head. But he was not stirring. Indeed, the whole room was not stirring. My father, for once,