Dick Longg: Sexual Saviour of the Universe (6 page)

‘But what about digital cameras?’, asked Dick.

Edward looked at him blankly.

Dick elaborated. ‘You know, where you can see the images you’ve taken immediately, and you can save them electronically or print them yourself’.

Edward looked at Dick even more blankly than before.

‘They might have been common-place in your era but the Party made sure they were all withdrawn from use and has not allowed the technology to re-surface’, explained Taylor adding, ‘Except for their own use’.

‘What about video cameras? I know you’ve got these’, continued Dick. ‘
Alice
showed me a short film of this time’.

‘Those images were taken on such a device stolen from a Party office‘,
Taylor
explained. ‘The Resistance member who made the recording did so at an immense personal risk. He had to replace the camera immediately afterwards’. With a serious expression
Taylor
continued, ‘If the Party discovered it was missing there would have been a huge security clampdown, mass interrogations and the eventual discovery of the “mole” within their organisation and their probable execution. The Party will go to extreme lengths to stop equipment like this falling into the wrong hands’.

‘
Our
hands’, Susan added, although Dick had already realised this.

Dick anticipated the answer to the next question before it left his lips, but asked it anyway. ‘But you have the Internet, don’t you?’

By now Edward’s expression was so blank that Dick instinctively wanted to grab a marker pen and draw two eyes, a nose and a mouth on it – and possibly a little pointy beard for good measure.

‘I don’t think so’,
Taylor
said. ‘What does it do?’

‘Well, you can send jokes, buy and sell shit you don’t need and search for information and pictures on any subject, especially sex’. Dick thought that was a pretty thorough explanation but added for good measure, ‘It’s a sort of network which links all the computers in the world’.

More blank looks.

Dick became slightly more worried. ‘You do have computers, don’t you?’, he enquired nervously.

Taylor
saw the panic in Dick’s eyes. ‘Yes, we have computers’, he explained. ‘But from what I know, they are very rudimentary compared to those in your time. It’s another case I’m afraid of the Party controlling and restricting the technology’.

‘OK, you have computers, but no Internet?’

 
‘It sounds like we have something similar whereby people can access data from a large central memory bank’,
Taylor
advised.

‘That’s great!’ Dick exclaimed.

‘It’s good in principle’,
Taylor
agreed, but then looked sullen. ‘But not in practice. For a start, the Party heavily censors all the data. You can only access what they deem as being suitable. By controlling the information they control the balance of power’.

Dick was astounded. ‘That’s incredible. I knew you guys had it bad but to deny you online porn is denying you the most basic of human rights. It’s what the Internet was invented for!’ The more Dick learned about the future, the more it sounded less like a Brave New World and more like a Shit New World.

‘I can’t believe you live like this’, he exclaimed. ‘Progress has been replaced by, well, you know…’ Dick struggled for a few seconds to find the right words, ‘…the opposite of progress’.

‘And that is the very reason, Mr. Longg, that the resistance movement exists’.
Taylor
consulted his pocket watch. ‘Look, it’s
nine o’clock
so I suggest you take a well-earned rest after your journey here. Tomorrow we can tell you more about our world and your mission’.

‘My mission, yeah’, replied Dick. ‘Sure, and after I’ve kicked some Party butt I can leave you a better world and then go back to mine’.

Taylor
looked confused, ‘What do you mean, “go back”?

‘You know.’, Dick said, ‘”Go back” as in “go back”’.

Taylor
frowned. ‘You can’t go back. The Temporal Bracelets that you and Alice wore were also stolen from the Party. The original New Victorians brought them; it’s how they transported themselves to the future. There were only four functioning bracelets left and we managed to steal two. For reasons no one understands they can each only be used for one journey back in time and one forward. After that they cease to function.

Dick looked down at his wrist and noticed for the first time that the lights that had once pulsated had now dimmed. What had previously been a Temporal Bracelet was now just a bracelet, and a particularly unattractive one.

‘So you’re saying that I’m stuck here?’ Dick asked.

‘Yes’, said
Taylor
, matter-of-factly before adding, ‘Didn’t
Alice
warn you about that?’

‘No!’ Dick exclaimed.

‘Oh. Well it probably just slipped her mind’.

‘Slipped her mind? Slipped her fucking mind!’, Dick exclaimed. ‘Forgetting to buy milk when you’re out shopping... forgetting to set the video timer when you leave the house... They’re the things that “slip your mind”, not forgetting to tell someone that they’re going to be trapped in the fucking future!’ Dick was incensed. ‘She brought me here under false pretences!’

‘I’m sorry Mr. Longg. She did have rather a lot to think about’.

Dick was confused, angry, frustrated and bewildered all in rapid succession but then settled on just being angry. When he had calmed down enough to speak he said rather aggressively, ‘Now I don’t know if I want to help you. You’ve misled me. What happens if I want to leave here right now? Is anyone going to stop me? Well, are they?’

Taylor
sympathised, ‘Mr. Longg. We are all peaceful here. We save our anger for the Party and its policies. The last thing we want is to keep someone here against their will. You are quite free to go if you decide you don’t like being here and don’t want to help us’.

‘You mean it?’ asked Dick, surprised by this response.
Taylor
nodded. ‘So I can just walk out of here?’

‘Of course’,
Taylor
replied. ‘You obviously can’t go back to your own time but I’m sure you’ll manage to find a way to blend in with our society on your own. Naturally, without having an implanted biometric identity chip like every citizen has, it probably won’t be long before you’re picked-up by the security forces and thoroughly examined and interrogated’. Dick listened intently as
Taylor
continued. ‘I’m sure that they’ll find your over-size endowment something of a novelty and might even deem it “unconstitutional”. In fact, I wager it won’t be long before it’s removed on the grounds of medical research’.

Dick didn’t like the sound of that. Not one little bit. Living in a world without sex was one thing but living in a world without a sex organ was something else. He considered his options which didn’t take long because he really only had one.

‘OK I’ll help’, he said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

- o O o -

Dick was lead down yet another corridor and shown to his quarters, a sparsely decorated room housing a bed, a desk and a chair, with a toilet, shower and sink in one corner. He removed the bracelet and disdainfully threw it into a bin before taking a cold shower (
Taylor
had previously explained that the resistance headquarters could only offer some home comforts, and a satisfactory supply of hot water was obviously not one of them). Dick dried himself, put on the pyjama bottoms that had been left out for him and climbed wearily into the bed. Although he was anxious, worried and a bit scared by recent events he was surprised to find that sleep came easy. Very soon he was dozing like a baby. Albeit a baby that had travelled over a hundred and forty years into the future.

Dick’s deep sleep lasted only for two or three hours; any thoughts of a long and refreshing rest were rudely interrupted by a series of muffled noises that gradually increased in volume. At first these sounds remained rooted firmly in Dick’s subconscious but as they became progressively louder they made that sneaky and unwelcome move into his consciousness, which is when Dick woke up. Initially he thought he’d been woken by the sound of a car backfiring but soon realised that this probably wasn’t the case. He was pretty certain that hovercars didn’t backfire and even if they did, then he was even more certain that there wasn’t a hovercar lurking in the corridor right outside his room.

Then the realisation dawned that the ‘popping’ sound belonged to something far more dramatic and dangerous than a vehicle loose in the building. The sound Dick heard was actually the muffled sound of gunfire and this was swiftly followed by the not very muffled sound of his door being broken down. The wooden panels splintered easily under the onslaught of constant kicking. Soon, enough of the panels had been broken away to reveal the perpetrators, two top-hatted figures; the very same men that had tried to kill him on the film set. As the door continued to disintegrate in front of him Dick wiped the sleep from his eyes and swung himself out of bed. He instinctively knew he had to find something to defend himself with and his eyes quickly darted around the small room. Dick realised that his only chance of survival would be to improvise a weapon. Then he saw it; the soap dispenser right next to his wash basin. The perfect means of attack.

Two forceful, well-aimed kicks later and the door was no more. Stumbling over the shattered timber the two assailants stumbled into Dick’s room, guns raised. If all had gone according to plan Dick would have sent a stream of stinging liquid soap into his attackers’ eyes, temporarily blinding them while he ran passed them and raised the alarm.

Unfortunately, as often happens in situations like this, all did not go according to plan. All that actually happened was the dispenser emitting a squirty, farty sound followed by a tiny bit of soap bubbling at the nozzle, and very little else. This was the exact point that Dick expected to be dead but astonishingly the two attackers didn’t seem to want to kill him, or if they did, then they were being very relaxed and casual about the whole thing. They stood facing him, their weapons still raised but seemingly rather amused by his pathetic escape attempt. Dick shouted out for assistance. To
Taylor
. To
Alice
. To Edward, Susan or Grace. To anyone who could hear his pleas. The two men didn’t try and stop Dick as he pushed past them. Edward was the first person he bumped into. Well, not so much bumped into, as fell over. Edward was lying prone on the floor. Dead. And if not dead, then the large hole in his forehead would certainly cause him severe problems in later life.

Dick ran into the lounge. His newfound friends were all there, and all equally incapacitated due to additional holes in their anatomy. Faced by this carnage Dick felt sickened and stunned. As he looked forlornly at the bodies, considering just how much danger he was in, for example was it ‘extreme’ or just ‘severe’, one of the two men lifted some sort of syringe to his arm.
 
Dick immediately went limp. He knew this was never a good state to be in whatever the circumstances, and now was no different.

Dick drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like several days. In moments of lucidity he recognised that he was in some sort of secure hospital, being interrogated and examined by doctors. He wasn’t aware of being tortured however his captors seemed extremely interested and concerned about his penis and Dick lost count of the number of times he was poked, prodded, measured, photographed, scanned and X-rayed. He even recalled being fondled but not in a nice way. It was by a man standing behind a glass screen using one of those mechanical claw devices more commonly used to handle dangerous plutonium fuel rods.