Almost from nowhere a car shot past us at speed and, as it did so, swerved violently. The cabbie attempted to avoid a collision and spun the wheel hard to the left. He overcorrected, slewed sideways and hit the fence at the side of the road. There was a crunch as splintered wood flew everywhere, the windscreen crazed, and the taxi thumped down the short embankment, ran across some rough ground and came to rest with a clatter and a hiss against a tree.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Sprockett nodded, even though I could see he had a crack in his porcelain face. The cabbie looked a bit shocked and was about to open his door when I placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Wait. Don’t anyone move. . . . I think we’ve driven into a mimefield.”
15.
The Mimefield
Books’ moving from Nonfiction to Fiction was uncommon, but it did happen. The most recent immigrant was I Got Beaten Every Day for Eight Years by My Drunken Father from Misery Memoirs, when it was discovered the author had made most of it up. By all accounts Eight Years had to leave in disgrace, tail between bruised legs, but I think secretly delighted. There is nowhere more depressing than Misery Memoirs, and the few visitors it has are usually characters-in-training who have a tricky scene to do in Human Drama and need some inspiration.
Sprockett and the cabbie looked outside. Surrounding the car were five hundred or so mimes, all dressed uniformly in tight black slacks, a stripy top, white greasepaint and a large hat with a flower stuck in the crown. They were miming in the most terrifying fashion, their hideous faces contorted with exaggerated expressions, their bodies moving in a frighteningly sinuous movement that defied written description. The cabbie panicked and started the engine. It burst into life, and he popped the car into reverse.
“Hold it,” I said, looking out the rear window. “You can’t go backwards—there’s a mime stuck inside a pretend glass cube just behind you. Wait—he’s out. No, hang on, there’s another, bigger pretend glass cube outside the smaller one.”
The cabbie started to sob.
“Calm down,” I said. “Panic is the mind killer. We can get out of this alive if we keep our heads straight. Turn the engine off.”
We glanced around as the mimes, now curious, moved closer. I almost cried out as one peered into the car while doing a routine with a balloon that was heavy, then light, then immovable.
“What are they doing?” asked the cabbie, his voice tremulous with rising fear. “I don’t understand.”
Comedy was one of those genres that while appearing quite jolly was actually highly dangerous. In order to generate new jokes, the custodians of the genre had tried to use nonwritten and nonverbal comedy as a growing medium. Mimes had no real home in a written or spoken canon, but some of their movements and actions could cross-pollinate with others that did. Slapstick was used for the same effect, as was as a well-timed look, a comical pause and silly expressions, voices and walks.
“Don’t move,” said Sprockett. “Mimes don’t generally attack unless they are threatened.”
“How do you threaten a mime?”
“By sighing during a performance, looking away, rolling your eyes—that sort of thing. Mimes hate being ignored or having their performance interrupted. In that respect they’re almost as touchy as poets.”
We did as I suggested and watched as the mimes continued their strange movements, and we laughed and applauded at the right moments. Some of the mimes appeared hardly to move at all and adopted poses like statues, and others seemed to be walking against the wind. There was also a lot of going in and out of doors that weren’t there, canoeing and pretending to walk up and down stairs. It was all very mystifying. Mind you, I was worried just how long we could laugh and applaud. Every moment we paused, they became dangerously aggressive once more.
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.