Seeing the flicker of a reflection on the screen, Zyra jumped to one side.
With a loud, unexpected bang, the television exploded. Boxes fell in an avalanche sending the three scurrying from their path.
Standing in the doorway was a middle-aged man with greying hair, a large gut hanging down over his trousers, and an enormous double-barrelled elephant gun.
‘Get the hell out of my shop,’ he demanded, waving the ugly mouth of his gun from one person to the next in an agitated manner.
Zyra waited till he pointed the gun at the princeling then sprang forward leading with her foot. The gun went off as it was kicked from the man's hands. A chunk of ceiling plaster and dust cascaded down over the princeling.
The shopkeeper fell, scrambled to his feet and ran back into the main part of the shop. A bell tinkled and a door slammed.
The princeling looked angrily at Zyra through the gently settling plaster dust, but before he could say anything an old-fashioned, black Bakelite telephone rang erratically. It morphed in and out of reality as it balanced on the edge of a box.
Zyra reached out and picked up the receiver. It felt insubstantial in her hand and it dropped with a muted clatter to the ground. It was as if it had passed right through her fingers. She tried again, more carefully. It stopped shimmering and she was able to pick it up, but had trouble lifting it to her ear.
She was greeted by the sound of heavy breathing.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘My, my, my, but you and your associate are proving to be somewhat irksome.’
‘But … but, we killed you!’
‘You seem to have overestimated your own abilities, whilst drastically underestimating mine.’ The Fat Man's laughter boomed through the earpiece. ‘I'm afraid that I'm not that easy to kill. Granted, you did set me back. And you almost succeeded. But not quite. I began to exit just as my starfighter exploded. And I was dispersed. Left adrift in the system behind Designers Paradise, with no physical presence. It took a little getting used to, but I've discovered that I can exert so much more control as part of the system itself than as a player. So, it seems that you have done me a great service. You have given me the capacity to control everything!’
‘But ya is not controllin’ anythin’,’ Zyra yelled into the phone. ‘All ya is doin’ is destroyin’.’
‘Well, as the saying goes, you can't bake a cake without breaking a few eggs.’
‘Wot does ya mean?’
‘I am destroying Designers Paradise.’
The Fat Man's voice echoed through the room. It had lost its humorous edge and become very serious — deadly serious.
Zyra dropped the telephone. It was shimmering again.
‘No more multiple environments with different rules and different games,’ the Fat Man continued. ‘There will be only one world, with one set of rules. My world! My rules!’ He paused to catch his breath. ‘The reign of the Designers is at an end. The whole of creation will bow to me.’
Princeling Galbrath retrieved the elephant gun and aimed it at the telephone. He waited for the shimmering to stop then pulled the trigger. The telephone and the box it was sitting on blew apart, showering everyone in shredded comics.
‘You do realise that he's completely insane,’ said the princeling, checking the gun. ‘Out of ammunition.’ He tossed the gun to one side and sighed. ‘What I don't understand is why the Designers are letting the Fat Man get away with this. Why don't they stop him?’
‘Maybe we should ask ’em,’ said Tark. ‘We's gots ta find a weakness and gets through to them.’
‘We did finds a weakness,’ said Zyra, glaring at the princeling. ‘But ’e just shot it.’
‘Wot?’ said Tark.
‘The phone,’ said Zyra. ‘Didn't ya sees the way it wuz shimmerin’? I couldn't gets a proper hold on it. It must ’ave been a weakness.’
‘But a trifle small for us to get through,’ said the princeling.
‘Yeah,’ Zyra agreed, grudgingly.
‘How is we gonna find a bigger one?’ asked Tark.
Zyra's face brightened. ‘We looks for somethin’ that don'ts belong ’ere. Somethin’ the Fat Man's sending after us. Somethin’ big!’
‘Likes wot?’ asked Tark.
From outside came a horrible screeching sound, followed by crashing and screaming.
‘Why do I get the sinking feeling that the something we're looking for has just arrived?’ said the princeling.
Zyra led the charge to the front of the shop. They peered through the broken window, just in time to see a giant metal spider step on a policeman. The mechanical beast was the size of an average suburban house, and it towered menacingly over the terrified people trying to escape it.
‘That'll do,’ said Zyra, opening the door and heading out onto the street.
Tark and the princeling followed.
‘Looks at it!’ breathed Zyra, oblivious to the hysterical crowd shoving past them.
‘I'd rather not,’ said the princeling.
‘Looks at the way it kinda shimmers and blurs,’ said Zyra, fixated.
‘Yes,’ agreed the princeling. ‘I can see. But it's not doing it all the time. Just like the phone, sometimes it looks completely solid. Remember what the portal said: find a stable one.’
‘Yeah, well. Bit risky,’ said Zyra. ‘But it's all we's gots.’
‘I guess ya is rights,’ agreed Tark. ‘We is gotta go through that.’
‘Oh, and how do you propose to do that?’ asked the princeling.
Zyra looked to Tark and shared a grin. Then as Zyra nodded, they both took off at a run, directly for the spider. The princeling hesitated a moment, weighed up his choices, then gave chase.
As they approached the spider, it reared on its back four legs, opened its mouth and released a piercing screech. Then it jumped forward, its gaping maw opening wider still, swallowing Tark and Zyra.
Princeling Galbrath ground to a halt, but too late. The spider lunged forward and snapped him up.
21: The Designers’ Legacy
Fizzling, crackling grey static. They were in the Designers Paradise interface. But this time it was different. The static was more substantial. It felt as if they were submerged in water. And floating through it were insubstantial images, ghosts of suburbia, of the World from which they came, of unknown and inexplicable environments comprising spaceships, robots, dark-skinned natives with clubs, giant sailing ships, bizarre-looking animals and things to which they couldn't even put names.
‘Now what?’ shouted the princeling.
A spear flew through the static and pierced the hem of the princeling's coat. ‘We must do something, NOW!’ he shouted, flailing about and floating off through the static.
‘Stays togetha,’ called Zyra, as she grabbed onto Tark's hand.
The princeling stopped his thrashing. Another spear passed through the static narrowly missing them.
Suddenly a Roman centurion pushed his arm through what looked like a shimmering tear in the static. His arm solidified while the rest of him remained an insubstantial ghost.
‘This ain'ts good!’ said Zyra. ‘He's pushing through a weakness. He's after us.’
‘The keys!’ suggested Tark. ‘Coulds we use ’em?’
A piercing screech reverberated through the static. They stared in horror as the insubstantial robotic spider they had encountered on the suburban street appeared before them. The spider screeched again, reared on its back legs and thrust its two front legs forward. A small tear appeared in the static, blurred and shimmering at the edges. Beyond it, the spider seemed solid enough. It forced a leg through the tear, pushing and pulling at the edges,
