Free Vurt 3 - Automated Alice by Jeff Noon Page A

adventures in the future yet. No, no; it would not do to have my principal actors quite so easily squashed by metal hooves!)
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    Upon gaining the safety of the opposite pavement, Alice lunged forwards to grab at Whippoorwill, but all she managed to grab hold of was a single green-and-yellow tail feather, which she plucked clean from the bird! Whippoorwill himself, despite lacking a tail feather, flew off quite easily from the Zebraman's shoulder, disappearing over the roof of the Palace of Chimera and into a hive of houses. The Zebraman trotted off in the same direction, leaving Alice to clutch desperately at the parrot's lonely feather. “Do you think, Celia,” Alice then asked, “that Great Aunt Ermintrude will be satisfied with a single feather from her lost parrot?”
    “I think not, Alice,” Celia replied. “But look at this!” Celia had bent down to pick up a little piece of something from the ground. “The Zebraman must have dropped this in his hurry to get away.” It was a wooden piece from a jigsaw, portraying a rippling pattern of black-and-white stripes. Celia handed it to Alice.
    “This is yet another missing piece from my jigsaw of London Zoo,” Alice proclaimed. “This belongs in the zebra house.” Alice took the piece and placed it in the pocket of her pinafore, with the other four she had already gathered. “Are we anywhere near Didsbury, Celia?” she then asked.
    “We are,” the doll replied, “but we are going in the opposite direction. Why do you ask?”
    “Because that is where my Great Aunt lives, or should I say once lived, and we have to find our way back there.”
    “But not just now, dear Alice.”
    “For once, dear Celia, I entirely agree with you.”
    The pair of them set off in pursuit of Whippoorwill, entering the hive of houses. They very quickly found themselves lost again, of course. The trouble was this: every house was identical, and every street was identical. And every street was tightly knotted around every other street. The whole world it seemed was identically identical and twisted around itself. It was yet another knotty problem for Alice to unravel. But the lights were flashing into the glistening morning sky and the siren-calls and the whistlings came trumpeting from the hidden streets. In the end, it was only by relying on Celia's superior judgement that Alice managed to find the place where the noises and the lights were coming from.
    Imagine this scene, if you will, dear reader. . .
    A drive of police-autos (horseless carriages belonging to the police) were parked inside the centre of these all-too-identical houses. A crowd of animal-people was clogging up the street: Goatboys and Sheepgirls, Elephantmen and Batwomen. Alice nudged her way through the strange zoo of spectators. “Can you please tell me what is happening here?” she asked of the nearest policeman.
    “A second Jigsaw Murder has taken place,” the policeman gravely replied, his furry body full of trembles. “A Catgirl this time.”
    It was only when Alice noticed the policeman's fur trembling that she realized that this policeman was really a policedog; or rather a policedogman. Yet another victim of the Newmonia, of course. Alice tried to push her way past the policedogman to where a lumpy something on the ground was lying quite still and morbid, under a white bedsheet. Only a single gingery furred cat's paw and claw protruded free, to rest, lifelessly, on the pavement.
    “How sad,” whispered Alice, in horror. (For Alice had a pet kitten of her own, far away in the distant past. Sweet, sweet Dinah of forgotten years!)
    Just then another policedogman came loping towards Alice. This dogman was growling at the other dogmen, telling them all to get a move on, and at the double-quick! He was obviously in charge. Alice