Only Human by Tom Holt Page B

in the corner. ‘This is a right mess and no mistake, young Kevin,’ she said. ‘You know what you’ve gone and done, don’t you?’
    â€˜No. That’s what’s so horrible; it wouldn’t tell me. Said I didn’t have the right clearance.’
    Martha tutted. ‘I’ll have a few things to say to this box of tricks before I’ve finished,’ she muttered darkly. ‘What you’ve done is, you’ve been messing about with psychomorphic waveband stabilisers, that’s what.’
    â€˜Oh.’ Kevin looked blank, like a man who’s come to collect his car from the garage and is having explained to him exactly why a new fan belt is going to cost him two hundred and fifty pounds. ‘Is that bad?’
    Martha clicked her tongue. ‘It’s not good,’ she replied. ‘What it means is that some people have been whisked out of their bodies and put into things.’
    â€˜Gosh.’
    â€˜And versy-visa,’ Martha added. ‘The things have been put into the people, if you see what I’m getting at. There’s people’s bodies walking about with things’ minds in ’em, and things sitting there thinking they’re people. Well, not so much of the thinking, either. It’s a bit of a banjax, I’m afraid.’
    Kevin considered this information. ‘When you say things,’ he asked, ‘are we talking about, you know, things , like in the horror movies? Aliens from another galaxy, that sort of . . .?’
    â€˜Things,’ Martha repeated. ‘Like in vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers, tumble driers. And animals too, probably. And maybe even statues and the like.’
    â€˜Ah.’
    â€˜Not to mention,’ Martha said with distaste, ‘spirits and stuff. You know,’ she added nervously. ‘Angels and . . . wassnames. Doesn’t bear thinking about, really.’
    â€˜No,’ Kevin agreed, his throat uncomfortably dry, ‘I can see that. Awkward.’
    Martha nodded. ‘Awkward’s right. I mean, what if one of ’em were to take it into his head to die? Right palaver there’d be. You’d have answering machines eligible for eternal salvation, and people going in the big squashers down the scrapyard. Your Father . . .’
    â€˜Don’t,’ Kevin interrupted. ‘I don’t want to think about that.’
    â€˜He’ll have to know sooner or later,’ Martha admonished. ‘Your best bet is to get the phones fixed soon as you can and let Him know so’s He can come and sort it all out. Otherwise; well, I shudder to think.’
    Kevin nodded slowly. ‘You don’t think,’ he said slowly, ‘that if we found some way of putting it all right, then at least we could say it wasn’t a problem any more. I mean, There was a bit of a flap but we fixed it sounds a bit less feeble than Help help, Dad, I bust the cosmos.’
    â€˜Kevin! Haven’t you done enough damage already?’
    Kevin hung his head, embarrassed, while Martha prodded a few more keys and tutted, sounding like a busy turnstile. ‘Mind you,’ she said after a long while, ‘there must be an easy way to turn it all round. You know, send ’em back where they came from. Now if only I could . . . Computer.’
    >SORRY.
    â€˜So I should think. Now then, which of these keys . . .?’
    >SORRY, MEANING NO I WON’T TELL YOU. MORE
THAN MY FUSE IS WORTH.
    For a moment, everything seemed to stop. In the blue corner, so to speak, was Martha, the only person in the history of Existence to tell the Boss that his desk needed tidying. In the red corner, Mainframe, the only sentient entity in all twelve dimensions that could truly say it’s forgotten more than His Omniscience would ever know. There was enough static electricity in the air to allow Dr Frankenstein to set up a production line.
    â€˜All right,’ Martha grumbled eventually.