Figment - Jace Cameron (книги полностью .TXT) 📗

"Where is he, so I can stop him?"

"He is in Uxbridge in London, inside the Cadbury factory, stirring some hot chocolate and pouring pepper into it."

"Wait a minute. Something isn't right." Uxbridge shouldn't be far from here. I just don't understand why the Cheshire wants me to kill the monster he created himself. "Why are you doing all of this? You're tricking me."

"It's simple, really." He pulls out the Bandersnatch tooth and hurls it away. "I planned this mess from the beginning only to send you a message. By you, I mean the Pillar, Fabiola, and the whole world."

"Which is?"

"I showed you an example of a man crushed so hard by society he flipped back with anger against it." He is proud of it. "It's a textbook on how to create a terrorist or criminal. Crush him with society's cruelness, take his poor soul to a madman like me, and infest his brain with revengeful thoughts so powerful that he only sees humans as bridges to his cause. Then you've got yourself a first-class nuthead killing for reasons that make no sense."

I stare at him speechlessly.

"What?"

"I just haven't seen anyone sicker than you," I admit. "What are you? What drives your hate to humanity so much?"

"Humans, of course." He spreads his hands wide. "They made me what I am. The same way I made the Muffin Man. I am a reflex to human cruelty and madness; only you weren't prepared for such a powerful reflex like me. And guess what? I am just showing the Pillar and Fabiola how weak human souls are, how I can use most of them against them in the coming Wonderland War. You know how many mistreated men and women walk the streets every that I could take advantage of?"

"Somehow, I don't think this enough reason to want me to kill the Muffin Man," I argue.

"I want to see if you can do it." He steps forward, his dead eyes gleaming with life. "I'm still am curious about you." He throws the yo-yo away. "Either you won’t be able to do it and go permanently insane so I'll stop thinking about you, or you'll kill him, and prove you're the one and only Alice that Lewis trusted so much."

"Then what happens?"

"If you are her?" he asks. "Oh, baby. That's a new ballgame on its own."

I am not sure I want to risk being pushed to further madness. I'd risk waking up crippled in my cell again.

"But I don't think you could shoot the Muffin Man," the Cheshire dares. "You're too weakened by what you've seen in Wonderland. Deep inside, you think he had been a good man mistreated by the grumpy Queen of Hearts, who killed his children."

"We're not sure about that," I object. "Lewis went to save them. He might have—"

"No, he didn't." He grins. "Doesn't it show already? If Lewis had saved Gorgon's kids, he wouldn't be still doing this now. What? You thought you could change the past? The Pillar used you as an experiment to see if the Einstein Blackboard works. Gorgon Ramstein's kids were found dead, their hands scraping at the locked door of their mushroom house, trying to reach for a handle that wasn't going to budge anyway."

I am holding on to the umbrella as strongly as I can. If that really happened, I can't picture it in my mind. Is the Muffin Man supposed to pay for the cruelty of the world, or is he supposed to be killed to save those who, some of them, had been cruel to him?

"I can't believe such a thing happened to the Muffin Man." My jaw aches when I speak. I'm fighting both vomit and tears. But like the Pillar said, I can't keep on whining about the insane world. I have to be stronger, although I don't know the recipe for that. "What happened to Lewis when he saw them?" I am angered I have to get my information from the Cheshire, but I can't imagine how Lewis reacted to this. I know how much he loves children.

"Well for one, he st-t-tuttered f-for a-a while." The Cheshire mocks Lewis's shortcomings with a meaty smile from his fatty lips. I barely keep myself from shooting him again. "But then, after he gathered himself, the mathematician priest had an epiphany of a lifetime."

"What do you mean?"

"Lewis Carroll finally knew what could save the poor children of Victorian times," the Cheshire says, mockery underlining every word. "He decided if children could not get clothes, friends, and goods in real life, he was going to give it to them lavishly in a book. A book full of oversized mushrooms, cakes that make you taller, marshmallows, tarts, and more. All free, but only in the figments of imagination of the poor children."

"You mean..."

"I mean the Muffin Man's story is actually the inception of the Alice Underground books. He actually believed that if Gorgon's kids had such a book they might have not starved so quickly. A 'food for the soul' thing, if you know what I mean." He rolls his eyes, obviously envious of everything Lewis did.

"My God."

"Yes? How can I help you?" The Cheshire tilts his head and raises his eyebrows. "Just kidding. Come on, let's see if you can pull the trigger, so-called Alice." The Cheshire shows me his latest grin. He disappears, evacuating boy's head and torso so they fall down to the ground.

Chapter 6 4

Cadbury factory, Uxbridge, London

The Pillar takes care of getting me into the factory. It isn't that hard, now that it's abandoned. Who wants to make chocolate for a world withering away half an hour from now?

In the elevator to the factory's manufacturing floor, the Pillar pushes the stop button.

"You can do it," he says.

"I know I have to," I reply with my umbrella in my hand. "But I am afraid to hesitate, knowing what I know about what happened to the Muffin Man's children."

"If we consider every Bin Laden-like terrorist's miserable childhood and make excuses for him, the world will end up perished in a few days," he says. "Everyone is responsible for themselves. You can't blame the world for what happened to you." He stops for a breath and asks me, "Now, do you want to know who Jack really is before you do this?"

"I am not sure."

"It's all up to you. I am only reminding you in case you don't come back alive," he says. "Who knows what might happen up there?"

"I think I know who Jack is." I finally falter under the pressure. Why should I deny it? I woke up crippled in a world that seemed to be the real world, while all of this, although it feels real, simply can't be real, because it doesn't make any sense. "Jack is just a figment of my imagination."

"Go on..."

"I made him up to compensate for his absence after I killed him in the school bus for reasons I can't remember..."

"And?"

"He just pops up whenever I am in great danger because it feels better thinking he came to save me." I am crying already. "I made him up so I don't feel guilty about him. Sometimes I think people see him, but I could have made that up as well."

"Is that all?"

I crane my head up at the Pillar. "I am ready to admit that, but I want him to stay near. Please, don't make him disappear," I say to the Pillar, throwing myself in his arms. It has been so long since I needed to let these words out.

"I can't make him disappear, Alice." The Pillar doesn't put his arms around me. He just lets me do whatever I want, but doesn't show his sympathy.