Figment - Jace Cameron (книги полностью .TXT) 📗

"Not at all," he says. "I don't give a Jub Jub about the world." He summons a buff man walking by, trying to shade himself from the rain. "Do I look like I give a Jub Jub about the world?"

"Jub Jub this." The man shows him the finger and walks.

"You asked me about the Muffin Man and why he kills. I am just telling you, Alice." The Pillar turns to me, his eyes catching too many people staring at their phones at the same time. The activity makes me suspicious as well. But I have a conversation to finish.

"Prove it, then." I step forward. "Prove that all you just told me is true!"

"I don't need to," the Pillar says as he pulls his phone from his pocket. At the same time, my phone buzzes.

What's going on?

I click a link sent to me in a message. I am transferred to a video. I click it to open it. It's a live-stream, the same one everyone else, including the Pillar, is watching now.

It's the Muffin Man, aka the cook, aka the watermelon killer is live online, talking to the world.

Chapter 49

The Muffin Man's presence on TV puts everyone to silence. The people on the street are watching their phone screens with the utmost attention.

The Muffin Man heartlessly streams a photo montage of the killings: the head in the football in Stamford Bridge, children's heads discovered by the police inside watermelons, the sneezing crowd in the Theatre Royal. The carnage is streamed worldwide.

The camera then shows a headshot of the Muffin Man. He is sitting in what looks like a huge Victorian kitchen with an oversized fireplace behind him. The scene is surreal. The uniqueness of the kitchen suggests he is almost broadcasting from the past. It can't be. There must be another explanation.

The Muffin Man still wears the cook's uniform; his double-breasted coat is turned to show the straitjacket's side. On his head, he wears a French toque. His hair, like strands of a bending palm tree, covers his face, all but his scarred lips. Next to him, two glinting kitchen knives are visible.

"Good day, citizens of Britain," are his first words. He talks slowly, confidently yet carelessly, and inhumanly. "I would like to make this short and to the point." He clears his throat. "Like my friend, the Cheshire, warned you before..." People around me shriek at the mention of the Cheshire Killer. "Any interfering by any of your 'authorities' will be annihilated immediately. I ask you to stay away, as this is a matter of the Wonderland Wars."

In any other scenario—in another, saner world, maybe—this would be a laughable phrase.

A matter of Wonderland Wars?

But it isn't. This the real life, as insane as it's exposed to be.

"I am not a ruthless serial killer," he begins to read from a paper. "I am what you'd think of as a 'wake-up call.' My so-called 'killings' have a greater purpose," he confesses. "I kill children..." Britain gasps in one breath. "Fat children," he elaborates. "Fat children who aren't supposed to be as overweight and unhealthy as they are today." He stops and holds one hand up to stop himself from sneezing. It makes him look a little vulnerable. Just for a fraction of a second. He must be immune to the pepper or has unprecedented control of his sneeze. "You filthy, ungrateful caricature of a society," he continues as a strand of hair shifts, briefly giving way to one of his eyes. Or should I say the vacancy of one of his eyes, and a darkly hollow socket instead.

He surely doesn't look vulnerable now. A woman faints on the street next to me.

"Here are a few facts you should know to understand why I do what I do," he reads on. "One person in every four British people is overweight." He takes a short breath. "The average person in Britain is nearly three stones heavier than they were twenty years ago. Your children are a generation of overweight and unhealthy lads who have the highest rate in history for being diabetic and seriously sick at the age of ten."

The Pillar folds his hands next to an old woman and whispers, "I don't care. I'm on the Dr. Oz diet. Not the wizard, the doctor."

The woman dismisses him, her eyes glued to her phone.

"The food industry is as imposing a threat as the cigarette industry." The Muffin Man sounds far more educated than a Victorian cook for the Duchess. "The food industry is slowly murdering our nation. I know you are worried about an apocalypse, but believe me, you won't even live long enough to see it if you keeping eating their food." He reaches for a glass of water, sips slowly, and clears his throat. The way he holds the glass of water suggests a man of a different caliber than what I thought he'd be. Who are you, Muffin Man? I feel I should know but can't put it together. "The companies spend millions of pounds on marketing their products. They make triple that money by seducing our children to force their parents to buy it. The child grows up and gets sick. The medical industry profits from the same person, now a patient. Then doctors prescribe us medicine that promises to make us better—and never does—so we spend even more money. It's a vicious circle that never ends."

"That's a Catch-22!" The Pillar clicks his fingers together. A few people shoot him piercing looks. He puts his fingers back in his pocket. "Sorry, I should've known finger-clicking is rude."

"You have to ask yourself who benefits from this." The Muffin Man faces the camera, abandoning the paper. "People wake up and ask how they became this fat and sick and penniless, and if it ever was their fault."

"Of course it's their faults," the Pillar says. "No one forced them to eat that much."

People eye him again. The Pillar pantomimes zipping his mouth shut.

"We live in the age of 'buy one, get one, get one free,'" the Muffin Man says. "Nothing in this world is for free."

"This Muffin Man rather reminds me of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The Pillar can't help himself. "He used to scare the panty pants out of my oranges."

No one eyes him this time. I think they can't even hear him. The Muffin Man's message demands attention whether they believe in his theories or not.

"Now that I have your attention, here is what I want," the Muffin Man says. "First, the easy part." The killer makes the rules now. "I want a personal apology from the Queen of England and Parliament toward the people of Britain for allowing the food industry to manipulate us and deteriorating our children's health." He pauses. "The second part is that I want a thorough investigation about the food industry, backed up with Professor Gorgon Ramstein's research, and have those responsible thrown in jail. I demand their profits divided among the poor citizens of Britain equally."

"Pretty noble demands from a man who stuffs children's heads in watermelons," the Pillar muses. "Would he be kind enough to show us how he actually stuffs heads in watermelons?"

The Pillar is mostly talking to himself.

"If these demands aren't met by five o'clock tomorrow," the Muffin Man announces, "I will poison most of Britain's children with the same candy that made them fat." This time his pause is longer, as if he is contemplating what he is going to say next.

I look around me. Everyone is holding their breath. They know they are about to see something they aren't ready for, but are forced to experience.