Free Modem Times 2.0 by Michael Moorcock Page A

done a lot better for yourself than anyone would have guessed a few years ago.”
    Jerry ignored him.
    “Hewwo, Jewwy,” lisped Violet Elizabeth, rather grotesquely coy for her age. “Wovely to see you.”
    Jerry scowled. He was already regretting his decision but he opened the gate and began to walk up the surprisingly overgrown path. The Browns clearly hadn’t kept their gardener on. Things had deteriorated rather a lot since 1978. The front door of the double fronted Tudor-style detached house could do with a lick of paint. The brass needed a polish, too. He lifted the knocker.
    The door was opened by a woman in uniform.
    “Mr. ‘Cornelius’?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Mr. Brown said you were coming. He’s upstairs. I’m the District Nurse. I hung on specially. This way.”
    She moved her full lips in a thin, professional smile and took him straight upstairs. The house smelled familiar and the wallpaper hadn’t changed since his last visit. Mrs. Brown had been alive then. The older children, Ethel and Robert, had been home from America and Australia respectively.
    “They’re expected any time,” said the nurse when he asked. She opened the bedroom door. Now the medicinal smell overwhelmed everything else. Old Mr. Brown was completely bald. His face was much thinner. Jerry no longer had any idea of his age. He looked a hundred.
    “Hello, boy.” Mr. Brown’s voice was surprisingly vibrant. “Nice of you to drop in.” His smile broadened. “Hoping for a tip, were you?”
    “Crumbs!” said Jerry.
7. A GAME OF PATIENCE
    The new centre-right government in UK unveiled on Tuesday the first of its series of measures to curb immigration, saying Indians must now pass English tests if they wanted to marry a British citizen.
    —The Times of India
, June 9, 2010
    B ANNING BEHIND HIM , Mo put the Humvee in gear and set off across a desert which reminded him of Marilyn Monroe, Charles Manson and Clark Gable. Tumbleweed, red dust, the occasional cactus, yucca, jasper trees. He was heading west and south, trying to avoid the highways. Eventually he saw mountains.
    A couple of days later, he woke Jerry who had been asleep in the back since Banning.
    “Here we are, Mr. C.”
    Jerry stretched out on the old rug covering the floor of the vehicle. “Christmas should be Christmas now we’ve presents.” He blinked out of the window at a butte. There were faces in every rock. This was the Southwest as he preferred it.
    Mo was dragging his gun behind him as he squeezed into a narrow fissure, one of several in the massive rockface. According to legend, a hunted Indian army had made this its last retreat. Somewhere within, there was water, grass, even corn. The countless variegated shades of red and brown offered some hint of logic, at least symmetry, swirling across the outcrops and natural walls as if painted by a New York expressionist. They reminded Jerry of those ochre Barsoomian Dead Sea bottoms he had loved in his youth. He had been born in London, but he had been raised on Mars. He could imagine the steady movement of waves overhead. He looked up.
    Zuni knifewings had been carved at intervals around the entrance of the canyon; between each pair was a swastika.
    “I wonder what they had against the Jews,” said Mo. He paused to take a swig from his canteen.
    Jerry shrugged. “You’d have thought there was a lot in common.”
    Now Mo disappeared into the fissure. His voice echoed. “It’s huge in here. Amazing. I’ll start placing the charges, shall I?”
    Jerry began to have second thoughts. “This doesn’t feel like Christmas anymore.”
    Behind them, on the horizon, a Diné or Apaché warband sat on ponies so still they might have been carved from the same ancient rock.
    Jerry sighed. “Or bloody Kansas!” He started to set up his Banning. He was getting tired of this. It had turned out to be much harder work than they’d suggested.
8. A CITY SLICKER EMAILED IN THE STICKS
    Tony Blair claims that one of