Michael Coney - Grim Reaper

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MICHAEL CONEY

BULLDOG DRUMMOND AND THE GRIM REAPER

BOBBIE AXFORD AND THE raccoon eyed each other, separated by the thickness of

her

office window.

There was an uncanny glint in the raccoon's eyes.

It was a cunning glint, a knowing glint, a glint that stripped her naked. It

was

the kind of glint she used to see in the eyes of her ex-partner, ex-lover

Bill,

the treacherous rat.

"Get the hell off that ledge!" she shouted. She smacked at the glass with a

rolled-up paper. The animal stood its ground, sure-footed, hairy,

blackish-gray,

hump-backed. The office was six floors up. In the old days she'd have been

able

to open the window, and with one quick shove the disgusting brute would have

been history. But city windows didn't open nowadays.

Odd that the raccoon should have climbed up all this way. Curiosity? Death

wish?

The ceaseless quest for sexual fulfillment? Well, he wouldn't find much of the

latter up here. The huge Axford Proximation Building contained many unusual

things, but nothing resembling a female raccoon.

Funny that she should assume the thing was male. It was the eyes that did it.

That lecherous gleam.

Enough of speculation. Time was of the essence, with the Harrods Christmas

promotion coming up. Axford Proximation had rented a lot of space and she

needed

to develop a new and excitingproximation quest to wow the consumers. Casting a

final suspicious glance at the raccoon, she returned to the business of

guiding

Ted through the Drummond scenario.

The robot was the latest in a long line of Teds. His predecessors had all met

their doom in the giant construct that occupied most of the Axford Proximation

building, which in turn sprawled over ten city blocks. Bobbie's staff primed

the

construct with perils, aids to survival and prizes, the computer set the

parameters for the quest, and she led Ted through the construct's multiplicity

of alternate pathways, checking out the quest's viability and recording the

results on the master. The construct was known to the staff as the Grim

Reaper.

Death lurked around every corner.

At this moment the monitor showed Ted, currently playing the role of Captain

Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, standing in a tiny chamber. His rechargeable

flashlight

was playing over bright and featureless metallic walls, ceiling and floor.

There

was no obvious way out, but then there never was. It looked as though Carl

Peterson, diabolical mastermind, had beaten him at last.

Ted, who was nothing if not sophisticated, felt a flicker of fear. Bobbie

checked that the fear had been successfully recorded onto the master.

Vicarious

emotion was a recent achievement in proximation, and was going to be a big

selling feature at Harrods.

Next, she considered Ted's alternatives. The tiny oxygen vial could be useful;

the chamber might shortly be filled with gas, water or whatever. Forget the

plastic explosive; certainly it would blow a hole in those walls, but it would

do the same to Ted.

She had to come to a decision soon, otherwise Ted would do it himself. And

Ted,

though sophisticated, did not always decide right.

And that reminded her of Bill Kilpatrick, who could never come to a decision

about anything, except for the day he walked out on her and Axford

Proximation.

Bill was a vacillating ninny and she was better off without him.

Somewhere beyond the chamber walls came a muffled whir, and a terrified

screaming from Ted recalled her to the task. She'd have to edit that out;

Drummond would never have screamed in that cowardly manner. The robot's

flashlight showed that the chamber was getting smaller. The walls were closing

in, slowly but relentlessly. Neat idea. Now, what would a man like Drummond do

in such a situation? She took a mental inventory of available aids to

survival.

Meanwhile Ted had drawn his laser pistol, a bad mistake. His first shot

criss-crossed the chamber with deadly reflections, finally striking Ted

himself,

fortunately at much reduced power.

"You all right, Bobbie?" It was Rupert, her personal assistant, smoothing down

his hair. Rupert was a good-looking bastard and knew it. He'd actually used a

hologram of himself as a prize for a female quest. It had sold depressingly

well. "I thought I heard someone screaming," said Rupert.

"That was Ted. He's in a jam. He's a good screamer."

"Did you know there's a raccoon outside the window?"

She turned to consider the creature thoughtfully, all business. "Think we can

use him? Are raccoons, uh, deadly in any way?"

"They can carry rabies, I believe."

"Have we used rabies?"

"We have rabid bats and rabid dogs in the Reaper. Raccoons, I don't think so.

I'll check it out." He stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders and

sliding

downward.

"Stop that," murmured Bobbie. "The raccoon will see."

"The hell with the raccoon."

"No, listen, I feel uncomfortable. There's something . . . human about the way

that animal looks. It reminds me of Bill. Do me a favor, Rupert. Have one of

the

staff shoot it off, will you?"

"I'll shoot it off myself. Who needs it, huh? As if the pigeons aren't

enough."

Rupert sensed rejection and his tone had turned sullen. "How is Bill, by the

way?" he asked pointedly.

"I haven't seen that weird guy in months and I don't want to." Bobbie swung

round in her chair. "Why do you ask?" She eyed him closely. There was

something

about Rupert she didn't quite trust. Were his eyes actually shifty or did they

simply dart about alertly, the way a good personal assistant's should?

"I happened to run into his manager Slim Ferris yesterday. Business at Mindset

Visions is brisk, he told me. They've rented space at Harrods too. Ironic,

isn't

it?" Rupert's eyes shifted, or darted.

"What's ironic?

"You and Bill, I mean. You used to be partners here, now you're running rival

businesses."

"We're not rivals." Angrily, Bobbie swung back to face the screen. What in

God's

name was Ted doing with that spray can in there? "Mindset Visions is in an

entirely different line of business."

"Yet their sales go up as ours go down."

"Lots of things go up as our sales go down." But she was worried. Was

proximation going out of style? Were people tiring of armchair adventures?

"Tastes change," said Rupert, echoing her thoughts. "People change, too.

Remember 'Calves' Stilton?"

Bobbie remembered all too well. H.K. "Calves" Stilton was a legend at Axford

Proximation. A man of mighty physique, he'd been their most inventive

programmer

until, working on a difficult detail of the Drummond quest, he'd gone berserk.

"The hell with all this pretense," he'd reportedly shouted, "life's too

short!"

And he'd shattered the screen of his monitor with one kick of his oaken legs,

hauled open the steel door normally used only by Ted, and stridden into the

Grim

Reaper personally.

They'd followed his progress on the monitors for a while, as he overcame peril

after peril with muscular expertise and lightning reactions, until they lost

him

in a new scenario where eyespies had not yet been installed. When Bobbie left

the office that evening, "Calves" was still in there, presumably battling Carl

Peterson, the diabolical mastermind.

The story was taken up by Bill Kilpatrick, working late. Apparently "Calves"

had

emerged triumphant from the Reaper in the small hours, handed in his notice

and

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Michael Coney - Grim Reaper

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