Part 22 (1/2)

'Oh, just chill out,' said Lady Silk.

'Calm down, dear.' Albert put a hand on his wife's arm. He still held the gun steadily in his other hand.

'There's no need for bloodshed, man,' said Ray. 'That's just primitive.'

'But like the equations and the pa.s.sion and the synchronicity, maybe it's all part of the mix,' said Lady Silk. 'Maybe the blood is necessary. That's what Lee would say. Wouldn't you, Lee?'

Ace looked up to see a group of men coming into the room. They were all dressed similarly in s.h.i.+ny, garish baggy suits, with ludicrously long key chains dangling from the pockets, and wide-brimmed hats. Under the shadows of their hat brims, their faces were all impa.s.sive, oriental and disdainful. Their leader seemed to be the tall man in an electric blue suit.

'Yes, I'd certainly say that,' said the man in a soft voice.

'Folks,' said Lady Silk, 'meet Imperial Lee.'

'If I may say so,' said the Doctor, 'that's a ludicrous sobriquet.'

'Not as bad as Stanley Wainwright, which is what he's called back home,'

said Silk, and the man shot her a look of annoyance.

'I've left all that behind, Silk,' said the man softly. 'Like the boys here,'

he nodded at the trio of men, who remained standing a respectful distance behind him. 'We're all proud imperial j.a.panese warriors and we have adopted new names for our new roles.'

'You don't sound j.a.panese,' said Ace.

'j.a.panese-American, like me,' said Silk. 'If you want to be pedantic.'

'No longer American,' said Imperial Lee. 'We have been reborn as sacred kamikaze soldiers for the cause.'

'Kamikaze,' whispered Ace to the Doctor. 'I don't like the sound of that.'

'And what exactly is your cause?' said the Doctor. He asked the question as if genuinely interested, as if he could take a detached view of what was going on around him. To Ace he seemed maddeningly calm.

143.'To bring the j.a.panese Empire to its proper and natural state of supremacy.

To replace ignominious defeat with glorious victory.' Imperial Lee issued these p.r.o.nouncements in a casual, conversational voice, as though they were familiar and reasonable facts that any sensible person should already be acquainted with. 'Above all, to eradicate the b.l.o.o.d.y stain of the atrocity perpetrated by America with its atomic bombs on the sacred islands.'

'So you're trying to sabotage the atom bomb project at Los Alamos,' said Ace. 'That's why you brought Ray here. To stop them building the bomb.'

'Oh no,' said Lady Silk, lighting a cigarette. 'The scope of our ambitions are considerably wider than that. You tell her, Lee.'

Imperial Lee took off his hat and studied it as he spoke. He seemed modest, diffident. 'We don't want to stop them building the bomb. We want them to build the bomb and successfully detonate it.' He suddenly looked up from his hat, straight into Ace's eyes, and she was jolted by the fanatical ferocity of that gaze. 'But we want to alter the outcome using Cosmic Ray over there.'

Ray turned away, as if trying to shelter himself from Lee's words. 'With the help of his equations we are going to alter the fabric of reality and amplify the effect of the bomb. Once it detonates, the explosion won't stop. In fact it will propagate itself.'

'Propagate itself?' said Ace. She looked at the Doctor. 'Like Teller's chain reaction? They're going to blow up the Earth?'

Imperial Lee shook his head. 'Not just the Earth. But this entire universe.'

'Uh oh,' said Ace.

'You realise you are insane,' said the Doctor.

'You think so?' said Lady Silk. 'I think he's kind of cute.' She blew a cloud of smoke.

'Even supposing you could do such a thing,' said the Doctor, 'in the process you will wipe out the j.a.panese people who live in this dimension.'

'Like ourselves, they shall be kamikazes,' said Imperial Lee. 'It is an honour.

Sacred commandos sacrificing themselves for the cause.'

'I see,' said the Doctor. 'And what cause is that exactly?'

'I told you,' said Lee patiently. 'The victory of the j.a.panese Empire.'

The Doctor tilted his head thoughtfully to one side as though he was standing in an art gallery, trying to make out a complex and baffling abstract painting. 'I'm confused,' he said.

'We're going to create a ripple effect,' said Lady Silk.

'I see. A ripple effect. Throughout the multiverse, you mean.'

'That's right,' said Imperial Lee. 'The energy liberated by the destruction of this universe will cause a wave of change to sweep the multiverse so that j.a.pan will be swept to victory in every other dimension. It will alter history wherever it needs to be altered. In no scenario will the Empire be a beaten, 144cowed underdog. She will be triumphant, supreme and serene and beautiful throughout every level of existence.'

'It's a bit ambitious,' said Silk, picking a flake of tobacco off her lips. 'But we think we can pull it off.'

'You're both insane,' said Ace, looking from her to Imperial Lee and back again.

'No,' said the Doctor. 'She's not. She's just along for the ride.'

'What makes you say that?' said Lady Silk.

The Doctor smiled at her. 'Do you intend to stay here when the atom bomb detonates? Are you one of the kamikaze commandos?'

Imperial Lee stepped beside Silk, as if to protect her from the Doctor's scepticism. 'She is a woman. She is not required to make the ultimate sacrifice.

She will be returned just before the explosion at Trinity. Back in our home world she will find a new order, a better existence under the imperial j.a.panese flag as reality reshapes itself.' He kissed Silk on the cheek. It looked to Ace as if she merely suffered the kiss. 'She will return home safe and sound to a better world.'

'I get to go back, too,' said Ray quickly. 'That was the deal. I go back home just before Trinity.'

'Of course,' said Silk in a comforting voice. 'You go back home with me.'

'And I get to take my records with me,' said Ray, holding tightly to the bag slung over his shoulder.

'Of course.'

'Your records records!' said Ace, her voice thick with disdain.

'Please, man,' begged Ray. 'Don't be like that. Don't look at me like that.'

'How do you expect us to be?' said the Doctor. 'How do you expect us to look at you, other than with contempt? You did all this so you could fill the gaps in your record collection.'