The Toyminator

22

Down went the elevator, down and down. Down and down in the dark. And up rushed the ground, it seemed, in the dark. Up and up and up.

And then there was a sickening sound that echoed all around and about.

Eddie heard something and felt something, too.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” replied his other self, taking up his beer between his paw’s and draining much of it away. “These paws are a real pain at times, aren’t they? No opposable thumbs –”

“I had hands with those once,” said Eddie sadly. “But tell me, what did you do?”

“Just switched off the elevator. Don’t go getting yourself upset.”

Eddie rocked gently upon his paw pads. He felt upset, he felt unsettled, he felt altogether wrong.

“You look a little shaky,” said his other self. “But never mind, it will pass. Everything will pass. But it is a great shame about the hands. They were very nice hands you had. I can’t understand why everyone thought them so creepy.”

“What?” went Eddie, raising a now droopy head. “How did you know about me having hands? I don’t understand.”

“I know all about you,” said his other self. “It is my job to know all about you. Learn every subtle nuance, as it were. Be you, in fact. I told you, we kept a careful eye on you when you were mayor.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Eddie Bear, “I really hate sighing, you know. Sighing gets me down. I have a normally cheerful disposition, but once in a while I really feel the need for a sigh. And this is one of those times.” And so Eddie sighed. And a deep and heartfelt sigh it was, and it set the other Jack laughing.

“And so why sigh you, Eddie Bear?” asked his other self.

“Because,” said Eddie, “I don’t understand. I consider myself to be more than competent when it comes to the matter of private detective work. I pride myself upon my competence. But for the life that is in me, I do not understand what is going on around here. I don’t understand why you’ve done what you’ve done, what you intend to do next, nor why you look just like me, and why this gormster –” Eddie gestured towards the other Jack “– looks like my best friend Jack.”

“And so you would like a full and thorough explanation, couched in terms readily understandable to even the simplest soul?”

Eddie sighed once more. “Please feel free to be condescending,” he said. “I’ve never been very good with subtle.”

“Nice touch of irony.” Eddie’s other self finished his beer and set his bottle aside. “All right, it is only fair. I will tell you all. Jack, you may leave us now.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“I think so, Jack. Take your leave at once.”

“But he’ll go for you, sir – he’s a vicious little bastard.”

“Language,” said Eddie’s other self. “Eddie needs to know and it is right that he should know. Bears have a code of honour, don’t they, Eddie?”

“Noted for it,” said Eddie. “Along with their sexual prowess. And their bravery, of course. Bears are as noble as. Everyone knows that.”

“And so if I ask you to swear upon all that means anything to you that you will make no attempt to harm me during the time that I am explaining everything to you, I can rely on you to honour this oath?”

“Absolutely,” said Eddie Bear.

“Because you see, Jack,” said the other Eddie, “bears can’t cross their fingers behind their backs, so when they swear they have to stick to what they’ve sworn.”

The other Jack made non-committal sounds.

“So clear off,” the other Eddie told him.

And, grumbling somewhat, that is what he did.

“Care to take a little trip?” asked Eddie’s other self.

Eddie Bear did shruggings. “Is my Jack all right?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about your Jack. Would you care to take a little trip?”

“It depends where to.”

“I could just kill you,” said Eddie’s other self.

“I’d love to take a little trip,” said Eddie. “Teddy bears’ picnic, is it?”

“In a manner of speaking. Step a little closer to the desk, that’s it. Now, let me join you.” And Eddie and his other self now stood next to each other. “And if I just press this.”

And then.

The horrible chicken-poo-carpeted floor fell away.

Eddie and his other self hovered in the air, borne by a silver disc that, it seemed, shunned the force of gravity.

And this disc, with these two standing upon it, slowly drifted downwards.

Eddie peered fearfully over the rim of the disc. “What is happening here?” he asked in a rather shaky voice.

“Fear not, my friend, fear not. I am going to take you on a tour of this establishment. You will see how everything works and why it does. We shall chat along the way.”

“Hm,” went Eddie. And that was all.

And the slim disc drifted down.

“The technology that drives this,” explained the other Eddie, “is years ahead, centuries ahead, of the technology that exists upon this particular world. And the denizens of this particular world will never catch up with such technology. That will not be allowed to happen.”

“The chickens from space,” said Eddie Bear.

“Well, hardly from space, but in a way you’re right. There are many, many worlds, Eddie Bear, many, many inhabited worlds. But they are not out in space somewhere. They are all here, all next to each other, as the world of Toy City is next to the world of Hollywood, separated by a curtain, as it were, that only those in the know are capable of penetrating.”

The flying disc dropped low now, over a vast industrial complex, great machines attended to by many, many workers.

“And what is this?” asked Eddie.

“Chicken production,” his other self explained. “Humankind has this thing about eating chickens. But as logic would dictate to anyone who sat down and thought about it for five minutes, it is simply impossible to produce the vast quantity of chickens required for human consumption every day. It would require chicken-breeding farms covering approximately a quarter of this world’s surface. So all the chickens that are eaten in the USA are produced here. They are artificial, Eddie, cloned from a single chicken. The pilot of a chicken scout ship that crashed here ten years ago. Soulless clones – they are not real chickens.”

“From space?”

“No, not from space. Do try to pay attention. Recall if you will the various religions that predominate in Toy City. You have The Church of Mechanology, followed by clockwork toys who believe that the universe is powered by a clockwork motor. The cult of Big Box Fella, He Come, a Jack-in-the-Box cult that believes that the universe is a big box containing numerous other boxes. There is more than a hint of truth to their beliefs. But what I am saying is this: all these religions have a tiny piece of the cosmic jigsaw puzzle. The chickens just happen to have a far larger piece.”

“Yes, well,” said Eddie, “everyone is entitled to believe whatever they want to believe, in my opinion, as long as it causes no hurt to others. I happen to be an elder in an exclusive teddy bear sect, The Midnight Growlers.”

“You are its one and only member,” said the other Eddie as the flying disc flew on over the seemingly endless faux-chicken production plant. “My point is this. All religions are correct in one or other respect. All religions possess a little part of the whole. The followers of Big Box Fella are about the closest. All life in the entire Universe exists right here, upon this planet. But this planet is not, as such, a planet. It is the centre of everything. The centre of production, as it were. There are countless worlds, all next to each other, each unaware of the existence of the world next door. Sometimes beings from one world become capable of penetrating to the world next door. And do you know what happens when they do?”

“Bad things,” said Eddie. “That would be my guess.”

“Well, there have been some bad things, I grant you. But I will tell you what the beings from the world next door discover when they enter a new world. They discover that, but for a few subtle differences of belief and appearance, things are exactly the same. There are the many who toil and the privileged few who control their toiling and profit from their toil. This is a universal truth.”

“And so you and whoever or whatever you represent are going to do something about this injustice?” asked Eddie.

“You are seeking to be ironic, I suppose?”

“Very much so,” said Eddie.

“And not without good cause. It is not possible to change the status quo with anything less than force of arms. You tried, Eddie, when you were mayor. You tried to put your world to rights. And what came of your good intentions?”

“Bad things,” said Eddie, sadly. “Hence the loss of my hands.”

“Exactly. You tried, but you failed. But it was the fact that you were trying that drew our attention to you. One of our craft penetrated the world Beyond The Second Big O. To your side of it. And we observed your efforts. And we thought to ourselves, things could work out in this world. Things could be better. And so I was created, to replace you, so that smoothly and without incident I could be substituted for you and run your world for our own ends.”

“You thorough-going swine,” said Eddie. “And I mean that offensively, as some of my best friends are pigs.”

“But after all the effort of creating the perfect facsimile of you, what happened? As I was on the point of eliminating you in order to take your place, you made such a foul-up of being mayor, because in your naivety you thought that things could be changed in a nice way, that you were kicked out of office. Leaving me redundant.”

“Poor old you,” said Eddie.

“It was touch and go,” said his other self. “They were all for melting me down, me and the Jack they’d created to substitute for your Jack. But I had a plan.”

“I often have a plan,” said Eddie, sadly.

“Of course you do, which is one of the things I like about you – we have so much in common.” And the other Eddie patted Eddie on the shoulder.

And Eddie considered just how easy it would be to push him right off the flying disc.

But then there just might be a problem getting off that disc himself.

And there was the matter of the bears’ code of honour.

“So I came up with this plan,” said Eddie’s other self. “Why not clear out Toy City? It could become a decent environment, with a lick of paint and a bit of rebuilding. And what with the ever-expanding population of Chicken World –”

“Chicken World?” said Eddie. “There really is a Chicken World?”

“Of course. And one with no natural predators. And you would be surprised at just how many chickens a single rooster can, how shall I put this, ‘get through’ in a single day. The chickens are looking to expand – to your world, to this one. Once all the indigenous inhabitants have been, how shall I put this?”

“Murdered?” Eddie suggested.

“That’s probably the word. Or a least subdued. So I took an overview of the denizens of Toy City. In this world, the young, and indeed the old, just love toys. Especially special toys. Collectables. They just love them. And so, I thought, why not have the toys of Toy City work for us, to aid us in our plans for expansion.”

“You sick, and how shall I put this? Bastards!” said Eddie.

“Tut, tut, tut. It’s business – and survival, of course. Imagine, if you will, travelling to another world and discovering that its inhabitants feasted upon your kind. Bred them, slaughtered them and ate them. That is what the pilots of the first chicken craft, the one that crashed here in the desert near Roswell in nineteen forty-seven, discovered. One lone survivor was brought here to this establishment. Happily he was able to communicate, to make deals in order to ensure his survival. And when he offered an alternative to all the eating of his own kind that went on here, by demonstrating that it was possible, using advanced chicken technology, to mass-produce ersatz chickens and eggs at a fraction of the cost of real ones, the humans went for it. Fools that they are. And there you have it.”

“No,” said Eddie. “That’s not fair. I assume that you intend to have me killed. Am I correct in this assumption?”

The other Eddie shook his head.

“No?” said Eddie Bear.

“No,” said his other self. “You will die – and shortly, too – but not at my hands. Your kind cannot survive in this world. There is a certain, how shall I put this, magic to your kind. We remain unable to discover just how the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker imbues toys with life. But toys cannot live here. Surely you noticed when you arrived here – your companion’s watch ceased to work, then his weaponry.”

“You saw that?”

“We see all. Remember, you and Jack were abducted and implanted with homing beacons up your bums. We’ve known where you were from the start. Jack’s watch soon failed, then his weaponry and then that calculating pocket of his –”

“Wallah,” said Eddie. “He nicked it from Tinto. I should have known. That’s how he figured out about the Opera House.”

“Wallah is dead and you will soon die,” said the other Eddie. “Sad but true. So I suppose it will do no harm to explain the rest. By channelling the very essence, the very soul-stuff of those toys, the monkeys, the band, the orchestra, and soon all of your kind, by drawing out their essence and funnelling it into free giveaways to promote the sale of our special chicken, we eliminate all competition. No real chickens will be eaten on this world again. And within one year, after the release of the movie, when the Golden Chicken chain goes global and every chicken that is eaten is one of our special chickens, this world will be ours.”

“I don’t quite follow how,” said Eddie.

“Because,” said Eddie’s other self, “our special chicken has rather special qualities. It is, for one thing, highly addictive. The more you eat, the more you want to eat. The population of this world will grow fatter and fatter and they will also grow more and more aggressive as we up the dosages of certain hormones. By the turn of the next century this country, so well known for its love of democracy and justice, will begin to invade Middle Eastern states. And here, the religion of this world, well, at least one of them, which prophesies something called Armageddon, will prove correct in its prophecy. The world of men will wipe itself out. There will be no more men. And then the chicken population, having already expanded into your world, will take over this one as well. There’s plenty of room here for a long time yet.”

“And when there isn’t?” Eddie asked.

“Then the chickens will continue onwards.”

“Well, bravo to the chickens,” said Eddie Bear.

“What?” said Eddie’s other self.

“I said, bravo. What else can I say? I suppose that whoever is at the top of, how shall I put this, the ‘food chain’ wins the race for survival. And why would I expect chickens to respect my kind? Men do not respect my kind. The men of Toy City, the P.P.P.s, have no respect for toys. Bravo the chickens, I say.”

“You are taking this very well, considering.”

“Considering what? That I am soon to die? I’m resigned to it now, I suppose. How long do I have, by the way?”

“A few hours, perhaps.”

“I thought so,” said Eddie. “I’ve been growing weirder ever since I got here. I’m not inside myself for much of the time. But then what can I say? I’ve had a good life, really, a long life, and I’ve done interesting things. Dying won’t be so bad. I suppose.”

“I find that really quite moving,” said Eddie’s other self.

“It comes to us all,” said Eddie. “It will come to you too, eventually.”

Eddie’s other self gave Eddie Bear another shoulder pat.

“Could I have a bit of a hug?” asked Eddie.

“Yes, indeed you can.” And Eddie’s other self gave a big hug to Eddie.

“And could I ask you just one little favour?”

“Go on then, just ask.”

“Well,” said Eddie, “I know that Jack shot down one of the chickens’ flying saucers. But I personally didn’t have any part in that, so I was wondering, do you think I could meet to one of the chickens before I die? Just to say hello, just to try to understand. The King of all the chickens, perhaps.”

“It’s the Queen, actually.”

“Then do you think I could meet her, perhaps? Is she here, in this complex?”

The other Eddie grinned from ear to furry ear.

“She is,” said Eddie. “She is here, isn’t she?”

The other Eddie nodded his grinning head. “Oh yes she is,” he said.

“And do you think she might grant me an audience?”

“Well, she might. But I’m not quite certain why she would. You see, she’s a little busy at the moment.”

“I wouldn’t take up much of her time,” said Eddie. “Because I don’t have much time, do I?”

“No, that’s true. But she is very busy, coordinating the final phase of the Toy City project.”

“The final phase?” asked Eddie.

“Tonight – well, within the hour – the task force will fly from here, through The Second Big O of the Hollywood sign, into your world and gather up the remaining denizens of Toy City. To be franchised.”

“All of them?” said Eddie.

“So you see, she is rather busy.”

“Well, it was just a thought.”

The other Eddie looked hard at Eddie Bear. “You really are taking this very well,” he said.

And Eddie Bear shrugged.

And then a sound was to be heard. A terrible sound, as of sirens.

“What was that?” asked Eddie.

“A breach of security.”

“Jack?”

“Not Jack. I will have to take us aloft.”

“Do what you have to,” said Eddie.

And through some means that Eddie did not understand, but which evidently involved the application of advanced chicken technology, Eddie’s other self took the flying disc aloft and soon they were back in the chicken-poo-splattered room.

And the other Eddie was back behind his desk and viewing TV screens.

“Most inconvenient,” he said. “It would seem that we have a heavy police presence above.”

“Really?” said Eddie. “Why?”

“Well, that,” and the other Eddie pointed to a screen that displayed the sweating face of a large and bandaged black man who was struggling from a grounded helicopter, “is LA Police Chief Samuel J. Maggott. He arrested your chum Jack, who later escaped from police custody and found his way to the Haley’s Comet Lounge. It was from there that your chum was directed to come here.”

“I don’t quite understand that,” said Eddie. “In fact, I don’t understand it at all.”

“Mister Haley is in our employ. As are many others. However, it appears that Mister Haley overstepped the mark and reported your chum to the police. Mister Haley is what is known as a hick. He’s as dumb as a dancing dingbat.”

“So what do you intend to do?” Eddie asked.

“I am not altogether sure.” The other Eddie pressed buttons on his desk. Other TV screens lit up to display many black and white police cars, all within the confines of the wire-fenced compound, and many armed officers climbing from these cars.

“Tricky,” said the other Eddie.

“Very,” said Eddie. “And at such a difficult time for you. Do you think I might make a suggestion?”

“Well, you might – go on.”

“Well,” said Eddie, “my end is near. I understand that and I have come to terms with it. Would I be correct in assuming that my Jack plunged to his death in that elevator?”

“Well …” said the other Eddie.

“I thought so,” said Eddie. “But no hard feelings. You were doing what had to be done. I understand that.”

“You really are a most understanding little bear.”

“Most,” said Eddie. “So, the police have come for Jack, haven’t they? So why not give them what they’ve come for?”

“Give them his body. That’s a good idea.”

“No,” said Eddie. “That’s a bad idea. That would attract much suspicion. Questions would be asked. Policemen would hang around the crime scene. Bad idea, don’t do it.”

“No,” said the other Eddie. “You’re right. Then what?”

“I’ll tell you what.” And Eddie Bear smiled. And it was a broad one. It was an ear-to-ear.

The other Eddie pressed another button. He had so many buttons on his poo-flecked desk. “Jack,” he called into an intercom. “Jack, are you there?”

“Yes,” said the voice of the other Jack. “I’m here, boss – what do you want? Does that bear need further roughing-up?”

“No, Jack, no. But we have a bit of trouble upstairs. A lot of policemen have arrived. Would you mind going up to speak to them?”

“What do you want me to say to them, sir?”

“Well, you’ll find a big sweaty black one puffing away next to a helicopter. Go up to him and say these words: ‘I give myself up.’ Do you think you can remember that?”

“Well, of course, sir, but I don’t quite understand.”

“All will become clear. Just do it, please – it is a matter of the utmost importance. And a direct order. Do you understand that?”

The voice of Jack said, “Yes, boss.”

The other Eddie switched off the intercom. “I suppose you’d like to watch this on the TV screen,” he said to Eddie. Eddie Bear nodded.

“Could we watch it on all the screens?” he asked.

And Eddie Bear did enjoy the screenings. He enjoyed watching the other Jack shambling over to Police Chief Samuel J. Maggott. He enjoyed the look of surprise and shock on the face of the other Jack, which the other Eddie brought into close-up, when the other Jack found himself surrounded by so many armed policemen. And although he couldn’t actually hear the remonstrations, he enjoyed the shouting faces. And then the truncheonings down and the police boots going in. Eddie did enjoy those boots going in.

Very much indeed.

“Now you see,” said the other Eddie, clearly enjoying it, too, “that makes me laugh. In fact, that is the first time that my comedy sidekick Jack has made me laugh.”

“I’m so pleased that I could be of assistance,” said Eddie, and he rocked somewhat as he said it.

“Oh,” said the other Eddie. “You’re all but gone, aren’t you?”

“All but so,” said Eddie Bear.

“And do you know,” said the other Eddie, “I do feel for you. Somehow. I do, really.”

“Thanks,” said Eddie Bear.

“And look.” The other Eddie pointed to the TV screens. “They’re leaving. All the police are leaving.”

“Glad to be of assistance. Like I said.”

“You’re as genuine as a golden guinea,” said the other Eddie. “I’ll tell you what. As you haven’t much time, I will let you meet Her Majesty. In fact, I will take you to her now. It’s only fair – I owe you. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Eddie. “Thanks.”

“Come on then,” said the other Eddie. “Let’s do it.”

And he pressed yet another button on his desk.

And they did.