The teacher felt her knuckles tightening up. "Well, I don"t think that"s a very sensible thing to do, dear. Now..."
"My dad says he doesn"t trust banks. He says if he put his money in the bank, Mummy would see the statements and know how much money he"s got. What"s a statement, miss?"
"A bank," said the teacher firmly. "And then the bank would lend money to people so that they could start up businesses, and so the money was all put to work, and the country prospered. But then something very peculiar started to happen. Now, does anyone know what that was?"
Silence again. This time, the teacher decided, just tell them. Then we"ll all be home in time for tea.
"What happened," she said, therefore, "was that all the magic in the coins in the bank started leaking out - " She said it well. Several of the more nervous and imaginative children went quite pale. "- leaking all over the place. It got so bad that the rooms in the bank where they kept all the coins stopped being square and became round."
Several hands shot up, but she ignored them. She didn"t want to explain; it wasn"t very nice to think about. When she"d been a student, she"d had to read the description of it by a clerk who"d got trapped in the vault overnight. The bit where he described what the gold ingots did to each other when they thought n.o.body was looking still made her feel ill to this day.
"Quite round," she said. "And that wasn"t all, not by a long way. So the wise elders of Atlantis decided that they"d have to do something about it. Now, does anyone . . .?"
A mistake. But it was too late by then.
"Please, miss."
"Yes, Hippolyta."
Hippolyta cleared her throat. "The Atlanteans founded the Central Research Inst.i.tute (AD477), whose princ.i.p.al objects were research into the relationship between the gold"s powerful anti-magnetic field and the rest of the world, which is of course attuned to positive magnetism, miss. Their researches revealed that if too much anti-magnetic material was released into the outside world, it would have drastic effects on the stability of the planet, miss. They..."
My G.o.d, thought the teacher, that girl will probably 6e Chief Cashier one day. She shuddered.
"Very good, Hippolyta," she said. "In other words, if array more gold left Atlantis, it would be very bad indeed. So the gold had to stay where it was, buried underground, and all the gold they"d dug up and made into coins had to be put back. Alcibiades, what are you doing with that mouse, bring it here immediately!"
The mouse safely locked in her desk, the teacher pulled herself together and hurried through the rest of the lesson . . .
How the Atlanteans realised that the unique relationship between their gold deposit and the similar deposit on the moon would be jeopardised by further gold exports . . .
How this was a problem, because the entire civilization of Atlantis was now based on the exploitation of money. How the Atlanteans thought about it, and came up with a way of trading in money which didn"t actually involve the money ever leaving the earth"s crust; a way of getting lots of money in but never paying any money out . . .
How they renamed the gold "capital" and invented financial services...
"Now then," said the teacher, and looked at her watch. In exactly five seconds, the bell would go, the children would run out into the playground to play football, swing on the swings and form mouse-holding syndicates, and she would retreat to the Common Room for a cigarette and a large sherry.
"Any questions?" she said.
For maybe twenty seconds, which is a long time, n.o.body said anything. Eventually, Turquine closed his eyes, shook his head and laughed.
"Come on," he said, "this is a wind-up, isn"t it? You always were a b.l.o.o.d.y comedian, Trev, like the time you got that girl on your reception to swear blind you"d ordered a deep pan Cheese Banquet with double pepperoni and..."
It was Diomedes" turn to look bewildered. He frowned, as if someone had just suggested to him that the sun was a huge practical joke.
"Are you saying you think I"ve made all that up?" he asked.
"Well," said Turquine, still smiling jovially, "you have, haven"t you? All that cod about the moon being made out of gold. . ."
"It is not," said Diomedes coldly, "cod."
"I mean," Turquine went on, oblivious to the danger signals, "if you"d said made of silver, or maybe if you"d said it was the sun that"s made of gold, yes, you might have had me going there for a minute. But..."
Turquine"s voice did roughly the same thing as a pint of water might do if spilt in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. "Trev?" he asked.
"I must ask you," said Diomedes, "not to call me Trev."
Turquine bristled. "Why not?" he demanded. "It"s your name, isn"t it?"
"Was."
"b.l.o.o.d.y good name, too," Turquine went on. "If ever I saw a born Trev, that"s you. All young men with big noses and ties like road accidents who work in building societies are called Trev; it"s a well-known fact. Like all dogs are called Rover," he added sagely.
"Please ..." said Diomedes. Tiny red spots appeared behind the lines of his mouth, and Bedevere came to the conclusion that it was time he intervened. Idiots are all very well in their place, but one mustn"t let things get out of hand.
"We"re just a little - well, taken aback," he therefore said. "I mean, it"s a bit of a shock, finding out all of a sudden that the world revolves because of money on the moon, and ..." Something occurred to him. "Mind you, it explains things, though, doesn"t it? Are interest rates linked to the tides, or something? And what about inflation?"
Diomedes sighed. "Look . . ." he said.
He got no further; because Bedevere, having drawn him oil" guard with his questions, now chose what was, after all, the perfect moment to hit him very hard with the base of the anglepoise lamp. Diomedes made a little gurgling noise, and fell forward across the desk.
"You see," Bedevere said calmly, standing up and reaching across the table for a bunch of keys he"d spotted some time earlier, "it"s all a matter of finesse. Sure, we thump the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. But we use our heads, too."
Turquine grunted. "Speak for yourself," he replied. "Tried it a couple of times, had a headache for weeks, cut my forehead. Look, you can still see the scar." He pointed. "Mind you," he conceded, "one of the little perishers was wearing a helmet at the time." He pushed the stunned Atlantean away from the desk, rolling his swivel chair aside, and started to go through the desk drawers.
"Calculator," he said, "another calculator, another calculator . . . Hey, what"s this?"
"What?" Bedevere was looking through Diomedes" briefcase. "Oh, that. It"s a small solar-powered calculator that looks like a credit card." He frowned. "Hold on, you don"t even know what we"re looking for yet."
"Yes I do," replied Turquine. "We"re looking for the Personal Organiser of-"
"It"s not going to be here, is it?" said Bedevere impatiently.
Turquine scowled at him. "And why not?" he said. "It"s in Atlantis, young Snotty said as much. This is Atlantis. Ergo . . ."
Bedevere was surprised. "Where d"you learn expressions like ergo, Turkey?" he asked.
"There was a radio in the van," Turquine replied. "What are we looking for, then?"
"Food," Bedevere replied. "I"m starving."
When they got out into the corridor, unfed and disguised as dangerous fugitive knights, they heard the PA yelling, "Warning! Warning! Unauthorised intruders! Accept no cheques without a banker"s card!" This worried them until they found that the noise stopped if you ripped the speakers off the wall and jumped on them.
Actually, that was Turquine"s idea. One of his better efforts.
"We"re not really making ourselves popular around here, are we?" Bedevere muttered, as they ran along yet another identical pa.s.sageway.
"b.l.o.o.d.y touchy, this lot," Turquine agreed. "You were right saying we should try the softly-softly approach."
He paused to bang together the heads of two pa.s.sing actuaries, and then added, "Mind you, it doesn"t seem to be working."
"True," Bedevere replied, and he kicked a third actuary in the groin. "You know, I have this feeling we"re going about this in the wrong way."
Bedevere nodded. "I vote we-"
But he was interrupted. A hidden door opened in the wall, and a face materialised and grinned at them.
"This way," it said. "Quick."
Turquine hesitated for a split second. "Why?" he said.
"Why not?" the face replied. "Come on."
The two knights looked at each other.
"That"s the best reason I"ve heard for anything since we got here," said Bedevere. "After you."
It was dark, and cold. The walls were bare stone. In the shadows, water dripped and a rat scuttled.
"This is more like it," said Turquine enthusiastically. "You know, that place was starting to give me the creeps. All that carpet..."
The owner of the face beckoned, and they followed.
"Really bad for the nerves," Turquine went on, "all that carpet. You get to thinking, My G.o.d, if all the sheep that got sheared just to make this lot were lined up nose to tail, they"d probably reach from" - he made a wide gesture with his arms - "Paddington to Euston. But this, it"s more like, well, homely." He stopped to admire a skeleton hanging from chains on the wall. "My Dad had one of those," he said. "Bought it at a wagon boot sale. Said it made him feel all baronial."
Bedevere quickened his step and drew alongside their guide.
"Where is this?" he asked. The guide chuckled, and the sound echoed away into the darkness, where something probably ate it. "We"re just pa.s.sing under the main bourse complex," he said, "midway between the Old Exchange and the Rialto. We"re about five hundred feet beneath cash level. Are you having trouble breathing?"
"No," Bedevere replied.
The guide shrugged. "Well," he said, "it takes all sorts. This way."
He disappeared through a low archway; the sort of opening Jerry the mouse might have built if he"d had access to explosives. Turquine, who was too busy looking about him and sighing happily to look where he was going, banged his head and swore.
"Along here," the guide was saying, "we"re going directly under the registered office itself, so watch where you"re going. Reality can be a bit iffy. . ."
As he spoke, the floor and ceiling vanished. When it came back again a few seconds later, Bedevere had the distinct impression that everything had moved about a yard to the right.
"It does that," the guide explained. "It"s because of the registered office"s main relocation matrix."
"Ah," said Bedevere, "of course."
The guide grinned at him. "Which works like this," he said. "Because, you see, Atlantis is what you might call an offsh.o.r.e tax haven. In fact, the offsh.o.r.e tax haven."
"Gosh."
"Quite true. Now," said the guide, "I expect you"ve often thought that one day, what with one thing and another, all the money in the world is gradually going to get sifted and slipped offsh.o.r.e, till there"s nothing actually left to spend. Right? Thought so. Well, that already happened. A long time ago."
Um.
"In fact," the guide was saying, "that"s what Atlantis is all about. You see, Atlantis is where money started..."
"Um, yes," Bedevere said. "Someone just told us."
"I wouldn"t be at all surprised," said the guide. "They love telling you all about it, don"t they? Mind your head, it"s off again.
In the two or three seconds when all the dimensions were up for grabs, Turquine yelled and said something very vulgar. This was because he hadn"t ducked, but the world had. They were now four and a half metres lower than they had been.
"The registered office," the guide was saying, "is not only offsh.o.r.e, it keeps dodging about. Brilliant, really. How can they ever a.s.sess you to tax if you never stay still for more than thirty seconds running?"
"Absolutely," Bedevere agreed. "Look, are we nearly out of that bit, because . . ."
The guide laughed. "Depends, doesn"t it?" he said. "You never know. I"ve known days when the registered office just sort of follows you about. Ah, that"s better, we"re clear of it now."
They had come out under a broad dome; the sort of thing Justinian would have put on Saint Sophia if he"d had peculiar dreams and lots of money. Far above them was a tiny point of light.
"That"s the blowhole," the guide explained. "What with all the magical money directly underneath us, and the registered office darting about like a mouse in a maze, there"s got to be some way the excess pressure can find its way out. It"s the only point where Atlantis is open to the sky. We tend to like it in here."
"Pardon me asking," Bedevere asked, "but who"s we?"
The guide smirked at him. "Thought you"d never ask," he said. "We"re the hackers. The Atlantis underground, so to speak."
"Right," said Turquine. "So you hate the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds too, do you?"
"Right on," said the hacker. "That"s why we"re helping you." Turquine extended a ma.s.sive paw. "Put it there," he said. "Right, let"s get the little . . ."
The hacker smiled sadly. "Good idea," he said, "but not practical. Instead, we just try and get as far up their noses as we possibly can."
Turquine shrugged. "So why are you called hackers?" he asked.
"Partly," the hacker replied, "because we live by tapping into the natural energy discharges of the money reserves and turning them into food. Partly because if ever we catch any of the Topsiders down here, we hack their-"
"Fine," Bedevere interrupted, "point taken. You were explaining."
"Was I?"
Bedevere glanced quickly at Turquine, on whom all this talk of hacking was probably having a bad effect. "Yes," he said firmly. "So how does it all work?" he went on. "How come Atlantis can"t be found from the outside?"
The hacker beckoned. "This way," he said. "It"s very simple, really. Atlantis is a corporation, right? And the address of a corporation is its registered office. That"s where all its official letters and faxes are sent to, that"s where its books of record are kept, and the place where the registered office is decides which tax jurisdiction it falls under. Follow?"
"I think so."
"Well," said the hacker, "the registered office of Atlantis moves every thirty seconds, so it follows that Atlantis isn"t anywhere, or at least not anywhere in particular. It"s mobile. It"s flicking backwards and forwards all over the place. It therefore has no geographical reality; just a fax number. That"s how you got here, isn"t it?"
They were looking at a huge steel column which ran up from the ground into the roof. It was humming slightly, and when Turquine tried touching it he pulled his hand away quickly, yelped and sucked his fingers.
"That," said the hacker, "is the main matrix coil. It controls the movement of the registered office; sort of generates the field which bobs it around. If we could only cut through that . . "Yes?" said Turquine, enthusiastically.
"But we can"t," continued the guide. "n.o.body can. That thing"s driven down into a five-kilometre-thick layer of molten Gold 337, and it sort of pipes magic up into a network of conductors that runs through the whole structure. We"ve tried dynamite, we"ve tried diamond-tipped drills, we"ve tried walloping it with big hammers, but all we manage to do is have a really good time and break a few tools. It"s magic, you see. Can"t touch it without magic of your own."