55 Nerys in the Real World

Chapter 55 Nerys in the Real World Nerys started rubbing out one of the two remaining doors left on the wall. Gold RAZERs 005 and 006,' she barked, 'get Peanut Jones out of the cage and bring her to me. I need to show her something. Oh, and make sure she's restrained. Two robots whizzed over to the cage. One unlocked the cell door, wrapped their extendable metal arms around Peanut and pulled her out, while the other relocked the door behind them. Rockwell and Little-Bit both tried to grab Peanut's hand, but it was no use. The RAZERs moved too quickly. As they zoomed past with Peanut, Alan had to jump

behind the control desk, otherwise they would have knocked him over. Again, he caught the girl's eye, his eyebrows raised. A curious notion suddenly entered her head. Maybe Alan was trying to tell her something. Could he be trying to. help them?! He had been well and truly done over by Nerys, after all. 'Tidy,' said Nerys once the RAZERs were next to her. OK,' said Peanut, shooting a curious glance at Alan. 'Shall I ask the obvious question? Why are you rubbing out these doors?' 'Two reasons,' replied Nerys. ' First, I have no need for these portals anymore. And second, because I need to make room for the big one that I'm about to draw.' 'Why are you drawing a new one?' 'You'll see,' said Nerys as she erased the final hinge on the final door. 'By the way, would you like to hear about the beautiful coincidence in this whole fascinating story? It really is quite incredible.' 'Not really,' said Peanut. 'But I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway.

'Yes, lovely, I am. When I wasn't running for high office in Chroma, I was spending my time in the real world working admin jobs at various boring accountancy firms. I needed to earn a bit of money after all. As she spoke, she started to draw a huge arch on the wall with Little Tail. I ended up in London,' continued Nerys, 'at a very whizz-bang firm called—you've guessed it—Blood, Stone & Partners. The work was as dull as ever, but at least the offices were pretty close to the National Portrait Gallery. Handy for my regular trips to Chroma. I had been elected mayor by this point and my masterplan was well under way. And that's when you met Mum,' said Peanut. 'Indeed,' said Nerys. 'I was working for one of the directors, a slimy toad of a man called Stone who was habitually rude to everybody. So I was relieved when your mum joined and I was asked to be her assistant too. It made my annoying job slightly less annoying. 'Mum always talked fondly about you, said Peanut sadly 'How could you be so two-faced?' 'Ha!' said Nerys. 'Literally! I have two faces, Nerys's and Mr White's. Your mum is a nice lady, I must admit. Although she did have a tendency to bang on about her home life.'

A loud sobbing sound came from the hatch in the floor where Mum, Dad, Leo and Doodle were trapped. It sounded like Mum. I can't tell you how many times I heard how proud she was of her children,' continued Nerys. 'Or how lovely her husband was. It was just so much blah blah blah.' Peanut and Little-Bit looked at each other and shared a small smile. Alan, meanwhile, subtly edged a few centimetres closer to the hatch. One of her saving graces, however,' continued Nerys, was the fact that her husband was a failing artist. He didn't seem to be able to sell any of his paintings. As you can imagine, this filled me with happiness. I'd pretend to be all sympathetic when Tracey was telling me how worried she was, but inside I always danced a little celebratory jig. I love hearing about other people not doing well. It always makes me feel better about my own... shortcomings.' And, as we know, there are plenty of those,' said Rockwell, wryly. 'Meanwhile, back in Chroma,' continued Nerys, who, by now, had almost finished drawing a wonky, but impressive, ornamented arched doorway on the wall, 'I became aware that a Resistance movement was developing. We found out that a group of citizens, led by the Markmakers, had banded together in an attempt to put a stop to my plans. Laughable,

really. But, nevertheless, it was something I kept an eye on. By this point, I had persuaded Josephine Engelberger to make me an army of robots, a shoal of flying mechanical fish, and the beginnings of a fleet of Big X vehicles that would help with the mono-ing of the city. With an army that size, I had spies everywhere. Imagine my surprise when we discovered that one of the leading operatives in the Resistance was a man called Gary Jones, and that he was married to my boss back in London! You see? A beautiful coincidence!' 'Not sure beautiful is the word I'd use,' said Peanut, under her breath. 'So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, pardon the pun,' continued Nerys. 'Since I knew where Gary lived and had a pretty good idea of his movements, thanks to his wife's constant jabbering, I decided to take him prisoner. I waited until I knew he would be alone in the house and then despatched Alan to kidnap him and stick him in the Spire, which I had turned into a prison. For once, Alan was very effective. Peanut thought she saw a flash of anger cross the henchman's face. 'I personally wrote a little goodbye note, in Gary's handwriting, and instructed Alan to leave it in your house. Then I backed it up a few days later with a postcard supposedly sent from Gary while overseas. It was all pretty convincing, I thought.