One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

He looked at me and buzzed for a moment. “Would that be a compassionate act on your behalf, ma’am?”

“I suppose so. Only one of us need die.”

Sprockett thought about this for a moment. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I may have to politely decline your offer. A butler never leaves his position and is loyal until death.”

I made a grab for the access panel on the back of his left shoulder, but he caught my hand with surprising speed.

“In this matter, ma’am,” he said firmly, “my cogs are made up.”

I relented, and Sprockett let go of my arm as several mimes improvised a trampoline routine on the back bumper.

“Okay,” I said as a sudden thought struck me, “here’s the plan: I need you to act like a robot.”

“How do I do that?”

“You tell me. You’re the robot, after all.”

“Agreed. But the whole point of the Duplex series is that we act human in order to function more seamlessly with our masters. ‘More human than the dumbest human’ is the Duplex Corporation’s motto. I don’t know the first thing about actually being a robot.”

“You’re going to have to give it your best shot.”

Sprockett raised his eyebrow as a shower of broken glass erupted from the rear window. The mimes had become markedly more aggressive when we weren’t laughing and applauding hard enough during a not-very-amusing routine where they pretend to sculpt a statue out of clay.

“Very well,” said Sprockett. He opened the car door and stepped out. His gait was sporadic and clumsy, and at the end of each movement there seemed to be a slight “spring” to his actions that gave the impression of increased mass. The effect upon the mimes was instantaneous and dramatic. They all took a step back and gazed in wide-eyed astonishment as Sprockett lumbered from the car with me close behind. A few of them dropped to their knees, and others fell into paroxysms of exaggerated crying.

“What do I do?” whispered Sprockett. “I can’t keep this up for long.”

“Head back towards the road.”

So he did, and I followed him. The mimes stayed with us, their grief and sadness changing to anger and surprise. Sprockett continued his overblown movements, but it wasn’t working. The mimes closed in, and just when their white gloves were upon us, they suddenly paused and exhibited the sort of mock surprise you can feign by opening your mouth wide and placing both hands on your cheeks.

The reason for this was soon apparent. One of their number had started to copy Sprockett in a series of similar robotic moves. Uncertain at first, the moves soon gained fluidity until his gestures exactly matched Sprockett’s. Within a few seconds, the “robot” idea had spread amongst them like a virus, and the field was full of five hundred or so mimes acting like robots. As soon as they were all distracted in this fashion, I yelled “Run!” and we sprinted back to the road.

“Well,” said Sprockett, stretching the barbed-quip wire back across the hole in the fence to keep the five hundred or so mimes from escaping, “I think that was a close-run thing, ma’am. Might I congratulate you on your quick thinking?”

“Let’s just say it was a team effort.”

He bowed politely, and I sat on a rock by the side of the road to regain my composure. I looked around. The dusty track was empty in both directions, and aside from the books drifting silently overhead and the now-robotic mimes, the only signs of life were corralled Jokes of Questionable Taste sitting silently in fenced-off areas a little way distant.

“Did you get a good look at that car that passed us?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I believe it was a 1949 Buick Roadmaster.”

“Men in Plaid?”

“So it would appear. Their capacity for causing us harm and annoyance seems not to be abating.”

I saw it simpler: They had just tried to kill us. The only question that remained was, Why? And more worryingly, How much longer before they succeeded?

Just then a rattly pickup stopped opposite us. The bearded driver was staring at us with an amused twinkle in his eye. He was a Funnster, one of a hardy breed of crusty old men and women who spent their days trapping gags and taking them to market.

“Have an accident?” he asked.

It was the height of bad manners in Comedy to decline a feed line when offered, so I had to think quickly.

“No thanks,” I replied, “I’ve already had one.”

The Funnster laughed, took off his hat and mopped the sweat from his brow. He looked awhile at the mimes, who had evolved their new robot idea into robots going downstairs, robots canoeing, robots getting stuck inside glass cubes and robots walking against the wind.