Thief of Time

The Auditors around her shook their heads. “IGNORE THIS NOTICE” had produced too much confusion.

“Then someone is coming down!” said Miss Tangerine. “They are out of place! They must be stopped!”

“We must discuss—” an Auditor began.

“Do what I say, you organic organ!”

“It's a matter of personalities,” said Lady LeJean, as Susan pushed open a door in the roof and stepped out onto the leads.

“Yes?” said Susan, looking around at the silent city. “I thought you didn't have them.”

“They will have them now,” said Lady LeJean, climbing out behind her. “And personalities define themselves in terms of other personalities.”

Susan, prowling along the parapet, considered this strange sentence.

“You mean there will be flaming rows?” she said.

“Yes. We have never had egos before.”

“Well, you seem to be managing.”

“Only by becoming completely and utterly insane,” said her ladyship.

Susan turned. Lady LeJean's hat and dress had become even more tattered, and she was shedding sequins. And then there was the matter of the face. An exquisite mask on a bone structure like fine china had been made up by a clown. Probably a blind clown. And one who was wearing boxing gloves. In a fog. Lady LeJean looked at the world through panda eyes and her lipstick touched her mouth only by accident.

“You don't look insane,” lied Susan. “As such.”

“Thank you. But sanity is defined by the majority, I am afraid. Do you know the saying ‘The whole is greater than the sum of the parts’?”

“Of course.” Susan scanned the rooftops for a way down. She did not need this. The… thing seemed to want to talk. Or, rather, to chatter aimlessly.

“It is an insane statement. It is a nonsense. But now I believe that it is true.”

“Good. That elevator should be getting down about… now.”

Slivers of blue light, like trout slipping through a stream, danced around the elevator door.

The Auditors gathered. They had been learning. Many of them had acquired weapons. And a number of them had taken care not to communicate to the others that gripping something offensive in the hand seemed a very natural thing to do. It spoke to something right down in the back of the brain.

It was therefore unfortunate that when a couple of them pulled open the elevator door it was to reveal, slightly melting in the middle of the floor, a cherry liqueur chocolate.

The scent wafted.

There was only one survivor and, when Miss Tangerine ate the chocolate, there wasn't even that.

“One of life's little certainties,” said Susan, standing on the edge of the museum's parapet, “is that there is generally a last chocolate hidden in all those empty wrappers.”

Then she reached down and grabbed the top of a drainpipe.

She wasn't certain how this would work. If she fell… but would she fall? There was no time to fall. She had her own personal time. In theory, if anything so definite as a theory existed in a case like this, that meant she could just drift down to the ground. But the time to test a theory like that was when you had no other choice. A theory was just an idea, but a drainpipe was a fact.

The blue light flickered around her hands.

“Lobsang?” she said quietly. “It is you, isn't it?”

That name is as good as any for us. The voice was as faint as a breath.

“This may seem a stupid question, but where are you?”

We are just a memory. And I am weak.

“Oh.” Susan slid a little further.

But I will grow strong. Get to the clock.

“What's the point? There was nothing we could do!”

Times have changed.

Susan reached the ground. Lady LeJean followed, moving clumsily. Her evening dress had acquired several more tears.

“Can I offer a fashion tip?” said Susan.

“It would be welcomed,” said her ladyship politely.

“Long cerise bloomers with that dress? Not a good idea.”

“No? They are very colourful, and quite warm. What should I have chosen instead?”

“With that cut? Practically nothing.”

“That would have been acceptable?”

“Er…” Susan blanched at unfolding the complex laws of lingerie to someone who wasn't even, she felt, anybody. “To anyone likely to find out, yes,” she finished. “It would take too long to explain.”

Lady LeJean sighed. “All of it does,” she said. “Even clothing. Skin-substitutes to preserve body heat? So simple. So easy to say. But there are so many rules and exceptions, impossible to understand.”

Susan looked along Broad Way. It was thick with silent traffic, but there was no sign of an Auditor.

“We'll run into more of them,” she said aloud.

“Yes. There will be hundreds, at least,” said Lady LeJean.

“Why?”

“Because we have always wondered what life is like.”

“Then let's get up into Zephire Street,” said Susan.

“What is there for us?”

“Wienrich and Boettcher.”

“Who are they?”

“I think the original Herr Wienrich and Frau Boettcher died a long time ago. But the shop still does very good business,” said Susan, darting across the street. “We need ammunition.”

Lady LeJean caught up. “Oh. They make chocolate?” she said.