Superior Saturday Read Free Page A

stranger by the day—not least because the appearance of Denizens and Nithlings from the House had a bad effect upon the Secondary Realms like Earth, disrupting the environment on many different levels, including the spontaneous generation of new and deadly viruses.
    Arthur thought about that as he watched the sleepers march, occasionally intervening to keep them moving. His presence now with the Fifth Key would undoubtedly destabilise something on Earth, maybe even create something really bad like the Sleepy Plague. He would not be able to linger, and perhaps should not even stay long enough to go home and check up on his family. But he desperately wanted to see if his sister Michaeli and brother Eric were all right, and also to find some clue to where his mother, Emily, might be, or who might have taken her, if Sneezer was correct and she was no longer on Earth at all.
    A ringing phone interrupted his thoughts. It got louder and louder, closer and closer. Arthur scowled. He didn’t have a mobile phone, but the old-fashioned ringtone was coming from the pocket of his paper suit ...
    He sighed, put the Fifth Key in his pocket, and rummaged around to see what else was in there. When his fingers closed on a small, cold tube he knew hadn’t been there before, he pulled it out and found a full-size, antique candlestick-style phone with a separate earpiece that could neither have fitted into his pocket in the first place nor come out of it if it had. It was, in other words, a perfectly normal manifestation of a House telephone, behaving according to its own magical rules.
    ‘Yes?’ said Arthur.
    ‘Stand by,’ said a voice that sounded much more like a human telephone operator than a Denizen. ‘Thruconnecting now, sir.’
    ‘Who’s that?’ asked someone else. A familiar, masculine voice—again not a Denizen.
    ‘Erazmuz?’ asked Arthur in surprise. Erazmuz was his oldest brother, a major in the army. How could he be calling on a House telephone?
    ‘Arthur? How come the screen’s off? Never mind. Is Emily home?’
    ‘Uh, no,’ said Arthur. ‘I’m not—’
    ‘Eric? Michaeli?’
    Erazmuz was talking really fast, not letting Arthur get a word in, so he couldn’t tell him that he wasn’t home, even if it was the number that Erazmuz had dialled.
    ‘No, they’re not—’
    ‘That’s ...’
    Erazmus’s voice trailed away for a second, then he came back, talking faster than ever.
    ‘Okay ... you’ve got to grab any bottled water and food like cans or packaged stuff and an opener, get warm clothes, and head down to the cellar as soon as you can, but no more than ten minutes from now, ten minutes maximum, okay? Shut it up tight and stay down there. Do you know where Emily and the others are?’
    ‘No! What’s going on?’
    ‘General Pravuil has just flown in, and he’s ordered the launch of four micronukes at what’s left of East Area Hospital at 12:01. If you get to the cellar, you should be okay, just don’t come out till I get there. I’ll be with the cleanup—’
    ‘What!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘Nukes! I can’t believe you—the army—is going to nuke part of the city! There must be thousands of people—’
    ‘Arthur! I shouldn’t even be talking to you! Don’t waste time!’ There was a clear sound of desperation in Erazmuz’s voice. ‘We can’t stop it, the general’s got every clearance – the hospital’s been declared a viral plague nexus under the Creighton Act. Get water and food and some blankets and get down to the cellar now !’
    The line went dead. The phone started to fade in Arthur’s hand, becoming insubstantial, its sharp edges turning foggy and cold.
    ‘Hold on,’ ordered Arthur. He tightened his grip. ‘I want to make a call.’
    The telephone solidified again. There was a sound like a distant choir singing, followed by some indistinct shouting. Then a light, silvery voice said, ‘Oh, get off, do. This is our exchange—we don’t care what Saturday says. Operator