Only Human Read Online Free PDF

it’s not one of ours.
    Artofel sat back in his chair, his mouth open. Other gremlins, from somewhere else. Somewhere outside. Although he wasn’t superstitious, he shuddered and made the sign of the pitchfork. The very thought of it gave him the shivers.
    Oh Christmas, the working files . . . If he was quick, there might just be time to make a hard copy, that was assuming the printers were free and he could access the backup utilities. He swung his chair round, barking his knee on the edge of the desk, and stabbed at a few keys like a hung-over woodpecker. The screen cleared -
    - and went green on him. Spiffing, he muttered under his breath, now I’ve gone and killed the wretched thing. Could’ve saved them upstairs the bother.
    No, he hadn’t; because the screen cleared and a personnel file scrolled up. Artofel’s brow furrowed like an old-fashioned roll-top desk; not a file he was familiar with. Not, in fact, a Flipside file at all. More like a Topsider, as far as he could tell from the brief CV.
    Jeepers, a mortal! What’s more, a One of Them; a sky-pilot, a God-botherer, a back-to-front-collar merchant. The V word. What the Flip was his file doing down here?
    Mistake, obviously; gremlins in Mainframe. Whatever the reason, it could only mean trouble, so the obvious thing to do was get rid of it and pretend it’d never happened. Press CLEAR/ENTER and hope nobody’d noticed.
    Claws trembling slightly, he tapped the keys—
    Flashing green lights. Lots of bleeping.
    What the—?
    Dukes of Hell aren’t supposed to panic; after all, what could possibly happen to them to justify it? Accordingly, it took Artofel some time to recognise the unfamiliar and thoroughly disconcerting sensation he was experiencing. When his mind cleared, he found he was no longer sitting at his desk; more than that, he wasn’t in his office. He wasn’t even Flipside any more. Not Topside either. Which only left one place he could be.
    Hello? Hello, can anybody hear me?
    It was then that he became aware of all the people looking at him.
    Rows and rows of them, with eyes fixed on him like so many cats watching a mouse; mortals, at a guess, although since he’d never met a mortal in the flesh he had no way of knowing. They were sitting in a sort of auditorium, and he was standing in a wooden box at the top of a short flight of stairs. And he was wearing a sort of dressing-gown thing with wide sleeves, and a shirt without a collar—
    Correction. There was a collar, but it was the wrong way round—
    EEEEEK!
    Â 
    â€˜Mainframe?’
    >THAT WAS EITHER A GHASTLY COINCIDENCE OR A
JOKE IN VERY POOR TASTE.
    Kevin closes his eyes. ‘That does it,’ he groans. ‘Where’s that number? I’m going to phone Dad.’
    >GOOD IDEA.
    â€˜That’s what I thought. Will you give me the number, or have I got to go back to my room and get it?’
    >BUT NOT, SADLY, POSSIBLE.
    â€˜ What?’
    >ALL TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS NON-OPERATIONAL
OWING TO SUBSTANTIAL SYSTEMS
MALFUNCTION. ATTEMPTING TO PATCH INTO BACKUPS . . .
    â€˜Attempting? Don’t talk soft, Mainframe, when did you ever attempt anything? You’re Mainframe, for pity’s sake.’
    >YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE.
    â€˜But . . .’ Mickey Mouse, he reflects, be blowed; all he’d had to deal with was a certain amount of surplus water. A few ruined carpets, tidemarks on the wallpaper, nothing the insurance wouldn’t cover. He hadn’t started something that was capable of crippling the Mind of Heaven. And he at least had some vague idea of what it was he’d actually done.
    >BACKUPS OVERLOADED. COMMUNICATIONS IMPOSSIBLE
AT THIS TIME.
    â€˜Mainframe, there is no time in Heaven, you know that . . . Mainframe? Oh no, what’s happening to you? Mainframe?’
    Frantically he taps - tapped - at the keys; but nothing happened. The screen was frozen, with that last awful message