A JOHNNY MAXWELL Story
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
Chapter 1: The Hero With A Thousand Extra Lives
Chapter 2: Operate Controls To Play Game
Chapter 3: Cereal Killers
Chapter 4: 'No one Really Dies'
Chapter 5: If Not You, Who Else?
Chapter 6: Chicken Lumps In Space
Chapter 7: The Dark Tower
Chapter 8: Peace Talks, Peace Shouts
Chapter 9: On Earth, No one Can Hear You Say 'Um'
Chapter 10: In Space, no one Is Listening Anyway
Chapter 11: Humans!
Chapter 12: Just Like The Real Thing
Read On
About the Author
Also by Terry Pratchett
Copyright
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 407 042749
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2014
Text copyright © Terry and Lyn Pratchett, 1992
Cover illustrations copyright © Paul Kidby, 2013
Extract from JOHNNY AND THE DEAD copyright © Terry and Lyn Pratchett, 1993
Chapter head decorations copyright © www.hen.uk.com, 2004
First Published in Great Britain by Doubleday, 1992
The right of Terry Pratchett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Yet another one
for Rhianna
The Discworld® Series
1. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC
2. THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
3. EQUAL RITES
4. MORT
5. SOURCERY
6. WYRD SISTERS
7. PYRAMIDS
8. GUARDS! GUARDS!
9. ERIC
(illustrated by Josh Kirby)
10. MOVING PICTURES
11. REAPER MAN
12. WITCHES ABROAD
13. SMALL GODS
14. LORDS AND LADIES
15. MEN AT ARMS
16. SOUL MUSIC
17. INTERESTING TIMES
18. MASKERADE
19. FEET OF CLAY
20. HOGFATHER
21. JINGO
22. THE LAST CONTINENT
23. CARPE JUGULUM
24. THE FIFTH ELEPHANT
25. THE TRUTH
26. THIEF OF TIME
27. THE LAST HERO
(illustrated by Josh Kirby)
28. THE AMAZING MAURICE &
HIS EDUCATED RODENTS (for young adults)
29. NIGHT WATCH
30. THE WEE FREE MEN (for young adults)
31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT
32. A HAT FULL OF SKY (for young adults)
33. GOING POSTAL
34. THUD!
35. WINTERSMITH (for young adults)
36. MAKING MONEY
37. UNSEEN ACADEMICALS
38. I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT (for young adults)
39. SNUFF
40. RAISING STEAM
Other books about Discworld
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III: DARWIN’S WATCH
TURTLE RECALL: THE DISCWORLD COMPANION . . . SO FAR
(with Stephen Briggs)
NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK
(with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and Paul Kidby)
THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO
(with Paul Kidby)
THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK
(with Bernard Pearson)
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK
(with Alan Batley and Bernard Pearson)
WHERE’S MY COW?
(illustrated by Melvyn Grant)
THE ART OF DISCWORLD
(with Paul Kidby)
THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD
(compiled by Stephen Briggs)
THE FOLKLORE OF DISCWORLD
(with Jacqueline Simpson)
THE WORLD OF POO
(with the Discworld Emporium)
THE COMPLEAT ANKH-MORPORK
(with the Discworld Emporium)
THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK
(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)
THE DISCWORLD MAPP
(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)
A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE – A DISCWORLD MAPP
(with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)
DEATH’S DOMAIN (with Paul Kidby)
A complete list of Terry Pratchett ebooks and audio books as well as other books based on the Discworld series – illustrated screenplays, graphic novels, comics and plays – can be found on www.terrypratchett.co.uk
Shorter Writing
A BLINK OF THE SCREEN
Non-Discworld books
THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN
STRATA
THE UNADULTERATED CAT (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)
GOOD OMENS (with Neil Gaiman)
THE LONG EARTH (with Stephen Baxter)
THE LONG WAR (with Stephen Baxter)
Non-Discworld novels for young adults
THE CARPET PEOPLE
TRUCKERS
DIGGERS
WINGS
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND
JOHNNY AND THE DEAD
JOHNNY AND THE BOMB
NATION
DODGER
DODGER’S GUIDE TO LONDON
Should an author change a book that was published years ago? It’s not usual; a book’s a done and finished thing, a sort of picture of the time in which it was written. No one expects Tom Sawyer to have a skateboard (sigh... but I expect he’ll be given one, one day...) So I haven’t made very many alterations to this book. There’s no point in giving your dad a pair of New Rocks, pushing him into the mosh pit and trying to pretend he’s 14.1
But maybe there are one or two things I should point out. Only You Can Save Mankind was written during the Gulf War – not the one we had in 2003, which was the sequel, but the one more than ten years before. I hope no one intends to make it a trilogy.
Computers were just getting powerful enough to run realistic-looking games. At the same time, people were watching the first ‘video war’. Every night the news showed the views from bomb-sight cameras, in what looked like live action, often presented by General ‘Storming Norman’ Schwartzkopf, who was in charge.
On your computer: games that looked like war. On your TV: a war that looked like a game. If you weren’t careful, you could get confused...
Oh, and mobile phones weren’t that common, at least for kids. If you were away from home you had to use a phone attached by a wire to the wall. It was terrible.
Terry Pratchett
2004, updated 2013
1 For anyone reading this in 2024: New Rocks were a cool boot that was a cross between footwear and an armoured car, cool in 2004 (and maybe they still are); the mosh pit was that bit right up close to the stage at a punk or heavy metal concert where all the stomping goes on. Heavy metal was... oh, go and look it up...
The Mighty ScreeWeeTM EmpireTM is poised to attack Earth!
Our battleships have been destroyed in a sneak raid!
Nothing can stand between Earth and the terrible vengeance of the ScreeWeeTM!
But there is one starship left . . . and out of the mists of time comes one warrior, one fighter who is the Last Hope of Civilization!
YOU!
YOU are the Saviour of Civilization. You are all that stands between your world and Certain Oblivion. You are the Last Hope.
Only You Can Save Mankind!TM
Action-Packed with New Features! Just like the Real Thing! Full-Color Sound and Slam-VectorTM Graphics!
Suitable for IBM PC, Atari, Amiga, Pineapple, Amstrad, Nintendo. Actual games shots taken from a version you haven’t bought.
Copyright 1992 Gobi Software, 17834 W., Agharta Drive, Shambala, Tibet. All Rights Reserved. All company names and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies.
The names ScreeWee, Empire and Mankind are trademarks of Gobi Software 1992.
Johnny bit his lip, and concentrated.
Right. Come in quick, let a missile target itself – beep beep beep beebeebeebeeb – on the first fighter, fire the missile – thwump – empty the guns at the fighter – fplat fplat fplat fplat – hit fighter No.2 and take out its shields with the laser – bwizzle – while the missile –pwwosh – takes out fighter No.1, dive, switch guns, rake fighter No.3 as it turns – fplat fplat fplat – pick up fighter No.2 in the sights again up the upcurve, let go a missile – thwump – and rake it with –
Fwit fwit fwit.
Fighter No.4! It always came in last, but if you went after it first the others would have time to turn and you’d end up in the sights of three of them.
He’d died six times already. And it was only five o’clock.
His hands flew over the keyboard. Stars roared past as he accelerated out of the mêlée. It’d leave him short of fuel, but by the time they caught up the shields would be back and he’d be ready, and two of them would already have taken damage, and . . . here they come . . . missiles away, wow, lucky hit on the first one, die die die!, red fireball – swsssh – take shield loss while concentrating fire on the next one – swsssh – and now the last one was running, but he could outrun it, hit the accelerator – ggrrRRRSSHHH – and just keep it in his sights while he poured shot after shot into – swssh.
Ah!
The huge bulk of their capital ship was in the corner of the screen. Level 10, here we come . . . careful, careful . . . there were no more ships now, so all he had to do was keep out of its range and then sweep in and We wish to talk.
Johnny blinked at the message on the screen.
We wish to talk.
The ship roared by – eeeyooowwwnn. He reached out for the throttle key and slowed himself down, and then turned and got the big red shape in his sights again.
We wish to talk.
His finger hovered on the Fire button. Then, without really looking, he moved it over to the keyboard and pressed Pause.
Then he read the manual.
Only You Can Save Mankind, it said on the cover. ‘Full Sound and Graphics. The Ultimate Game.’
A ScreeWee heavy cruiser, it said on page 17, could be taken out with seventy-six laser shots. Once you’d cleared the fighter escort and found a handy spot where the Scree Wee’s guns couldn’t get you, it was just a matter of time.
We wish to talk.
Even with the Pause on, the message still flashed on the screen.
There was nothing in the manual about messages. Johnny riffled through the pages. It must be one of the New Features the game was Packed With.
He put down the book, put his hands on the keys and cautiously tapped out: Die, alein scum/
No! We do not wish to die! We wish to talk!
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it?
Wobbler Johnson, who’d given him the disc and photocopied the manual on his dad’s copier, had said that once you’d completed level 10 you got given an extra 10,000 points and the Scroll of Valour and moved on to the Arcturus Sector, where there were different ships and more of them.
Johnny wanted the Scroll of Valour.
Johnny fired the laser one more time. Swsssh. He didn’t really know why. It was just because you had the joystick and there was the Fire button and that was what it was for.
After all, there wasn’t a Don’t Fire button.
We Surrender! PLEASE!
He reached over and, very carefully, pressed the Save Game button. The computer whirred and clicked, and then was silent.
He didn’t play again the whole evening. He did his homework.
It was Geography. You had to colour in Great Britain and put a dot on the map of the world where you thought it was.
The ScreeWee captain thumped her desk with one of her forelegs.
‘What?’
The First Officer swallowed, and tried to keep her tail held at a respectful angle.
‘He just vanished again, ma’am,’ she said.
‘But did he accept?’
‘No, ma’am.’
The Captain drummed the fingers of three hands on the table. She looked slightly like a newt but mainly like an alligator.
‘But we didn’t fire on him!’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘And you sent my message?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And every time we’ve killed him, he comes back . . .’
He caught up with Wobbler in Break.
Wobbler was the kind of boy who’s always picked last when you had to pick teams, although that was all right at the moment as the PE teacher didn’t believe in teams because they encouraged competition.
He wobbled. It was glandular, he said. He wobbled especially when he ran. Bits of Wobbler headed in various directions; it was only on average that he was running in any particular direction.
But he was good at games. They just weren’t the ones that people thought you ought to be good at. If ever there was an Inter-Schools First-One-To-Break-The-Unbreakable-Copy-Protection-on-Galactic-Thrusters, Wobbler wouldn’t just be in the team, he’d be picking the team.
‘Yo, Wobbler,’ said Johnny.
‘It’s not cool to say Yo any more,’ said Wobbler.
‘Is it rad to say cool?’ said Johnny.
‘Cool’s always cool. And no one says rad any more, either.’
Wobbler looked around conspiratorially and then fished a package from his bag.
‘This is cool. Have a go at this.’
‘What is it?’ said Johnny.
‘I cracked Fighter Star TeraBomber,’ said Wobbler. ‘Only don’t tell anyone, right? Just type FSB. It’s not much good, really. The space bar drops the bombs, and . . . well . . . just press the keys, you’ll see what they do . . .’
‘Listen . . . you know Only You Can Save Mankind?’
‘Still playing that, are you?’
‘You didn’t, you know, do anything to it, did you? Um? Before you gave me a copy?’
‘No. It wasn’t even protected. Didn’t have to do anything except copy the manual. Why?’
‘You did play it, didn’t you?’
‘A bit.’ Wobbler only played games once. Wobbler could watch a game for a couple of minutes, and then pick up the joystick and get top score. And then never play it again.
‘Nothing . . . funny . . . happened?’
‘Like what?’ said Wobbler.
‘Like . . .’ Johnny hesitated. He could tell Wobbler, and then Wobbler would laugh, or not believe him, or say it was just some bug or something, some kind of trick. Or a virus. Wobbler had discs full of computer viruses. He didn’t do anything with them. He just collected them, like stamps or something.
He could tell Wobbler, and then somehow it wouldn’t be real.
‘Oh, you know . . . funny.’
‘Like what?’
‘Weird. Um. Lifelike, I suppose.’
‘It’s sposed to be. Just like the real thing, it says. I hope you’ve read the manual properly. My dad spent a whole coffee break copying that.’
Johnny gave a sickly grin.
‘Yes. Right. Better read it, then. Thanks for Star Fighter Pilot—’
‘TeraBomber. My dad brought me back Alabama Smith and the Jewels of Fate from the States. You can have a copy if you give me the disc back.’
‘Right,’ said Johnny.
‘It’s OK.’
‘Right,’ said Johnny.
He never had the heart to tell Wobbler that he didn’t play half the games Wobbler passed on. You couldn’t. Not if you wanted time to sleep and eat meals. But that was all right because Wobbler never asked. As far as Wobbler was concerned, computer games weren’t there for playing. They were for breaking into, rewriting so that you got extra lives or whatever, and then copying and giving away to everyone.
Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy, and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was in front.
‘Did you do my History?’ said Wobbler.
‘Here,’ said Johnny. ‘ “What it was like to be a peasant during the English Civil War.” Three pages.’
‘Thanks,’ said Wobbler. ‘That was quick.’
‘Oh, in Geog last term we had to do one about What it’s like being a peasant in Bolivia. I just got rid of the llamas and put in stuff about kings having their heads chopped off. You have to bung in that kind of stuff, and then you just have to keep complaining about the weather and the crops and you can’t go wrong, in peasant essays.’
Johnny lay on his bed reading Only You Can Save Mankind.
He could just about remember the days when you could still get games where the instructions consisted of something that said, ‘Press < for left and > for right and Fire for fire.’
But now you had to read a whole little book which was all about the game. It was really the manual, but they called it ‘The Novel’.
Partly it was an anti-Wobbler thing. Someone in America or somewhere thought it was dead clever to make the game ask you little questions, like ‘What’s the first word on line 23 on page 19 of the manual?’ and then reset the machine if you didn’t answer them right, so they’d obviously never heard of Wobbler’s dad’s office’s photocopier.
So there was this book. The ScreeWee had turned up out of nowhere and bombed some planets with humans on them. Nearly all the starships had been blown up. So there was only this one left, the experimental one. It was all that stood against the ScreeWee hordes. And only you . . . that is to say John Maxwell, aged twelve, in between the time you get home from school and get something to eat and do your homework . . . can save mankind.
Nowhere did it say what you were supposed to do if the ScreeWee hordes didn’t want to fight.
He switched on the computer, and pressed the Load Game key.
There was the ship again, right in the middle of his sights.
He picked up the joystick thoughtfully.
There was an immediate message on the screen. Well, not exactly a message. More a picture. Half a dozen little egg-shaped blobs, with tails. They didn’t move.
What kind of message is that? he thought.
Perhaps there was a special message he ought to send. ‘Die, Creep’ didn’t seem to fit properly at the moment.
He typed: Whats hpaening?
Immediately a reply appeared on the screen, in yellow letters.
We surrender. Do not shoot. See, we show you pictures of our children.
He typed: Is this a trick WObbler?
It took a little while before the reply came.
Am not trick wobbler. We give in. No more war.
Johnny thought for a while, and then typed: Youre not supoosed to give ni.
Want to go home.
Johnny typed: It says in the book you blue up a lot of planets.
Lies!
Johnny stared at the screen. What he wanted to type was: No, I mean, this cant happen, youre Aliens, you cant not want to be shot at, no other game aliens have ever stopped aliening across the screen, they never said We DonT Want to Go.
And then he thought: they never had the chance. They couldn’t.
But games are a lot better now.
They never made things like the old MegaZoids seem real, with stories about them and Full-Colour Graphics.
This is probably that Virtual Reality they’re always talking about on the television.
He typed: It is only a game, after all.
What is a game?
He typed: Who ARE you?
The screen flickered. Something a bit like a newt but more like an alligator looked back at him.
I am the Captain, said the yellow letters. Do not shoot!
Johnny typed: I shoot at you and you shoto at me. That is the game.
But we die.
Johnny typed: Sometimes I die. I die a lot.
But YOU live again.
Johnny stared at the words for a moment. Then he typed: Dont you?
No. How could this be? When we die, we die. For ever.
Johnny typed desperately: No, thats not right because, in the first mission, theres three ships you have to blow up before the first planet. I@ve played it lots of times and there@s always three ships there—
Different ships.
Johnny thought for a while and then typed: What happens if I switch of tthe machine?
We do not understand the question.
This is daft, thought Johnny. It’s just a very unusual game. It’s a special mission or something.
He typed: Why should I trust you?
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
Johnny sat bolt upright in his chair. Then he let himself swivel around, very cautiously.
Of course, there was no one there. Why should there be anyone there? It was a game.
The newt face had disappeared from the screen, leaving the familiar picture of the inside of the starfighter. And there was the radar screen—
– covered in yellow dots.
Yellow for the enemy.
Johnny picked up the joystick and turned the starfighter around. The entire ScreeWee fleet was there. Ship after ship was hanging in space behind him.
Little fighters, big cruisers, massive battleships.
If they all had him in their sights, and if they fired . . .
He didn’t want to die.
Hang on, hang on. You don’t die. You just play the game again.
This was nuts. It was time to stop it.
He typed: All right what happens now?
We want to go home.
He typed: All right no problem.
You give us safe conduct.
He typed: OK yes.
The screen went blank.
And that was it? No music? No ‘Congratulations, You’ve Got the Highest Score’?
Just the little prompt, flashing on and off.
What did safe conduct mean, anyway?
You never said to your parents, ‘Hey, I really need a computer because that way I can play Megasteroids.’
No, you said, ‘I really need a computer because of school.’
It’s educational.
Anyway, there had to be a good side to the Trying Times everyone was going through in this house. If you hung around in your room and generally kept your head down, stuff like computers sort of happened. It made everyone feel better.
And it was quite useful for school sometimes. Johnny had written ‘What it felt like to be different sorts of peasants’ on it, and printed them out on the printer, although he had to rewrite them in his handwriting because although the school taught Keyboard Skills and New Technology you got into trouble if you used keyboard skills and new technology actually to do anything.
Funnily enough, it wasn’t much good for maths. He’d always had trouble with algebra, because they wouldn’t let you get away with ‘What it feels like to be x2’. But he had an arrangement with Bigmac about that, because Bigmac got the same feeling when he looked at an essay project as Johnny did when he was faced with a quadratic equation. Anyway, it didn’t matter that much. If you kept your head down, they were generally so grateful that you were not, e.g., causing policemen to come to the school, or actually nailing a teacher to anything, that you got left alone.
But mainly the computer was good for games. If you turned the volume control up, you didn’t have to hear the shouting.
The ScreeWee mother ship was in uproar. There was still a haze of smoke in the air from the last bombardment, and indistinct figures pattered back and forth, trying to fix things up well enough to survive the journey.
The Captain sat back in her chair on the huge, shadowy bridge. She was yellow under the eyes, a sure sign of lack of sleep. So much to be done . . . half the fighters were damaged, and the main ships were in none too good condition, and there was hardly any room and certainly no food for all the survivors they were taking on board.
She looked up. There was the Gunnery Officer.
‘This is not a wise move,’ he said.
‘It is the only one I have,’ said the Captain wearily.
‘No! We must fight on!’
‘And then we die,’ said the Captain. ‘We fight, and then we die. That’s how it goes.’
‘Then we die gloriously!’
‘There’s an important word in that sentence,’ said the Captain. ‘And it’s not the word “gloriously”.’
The Gunnery Officer went light green with rage.
‘He’s attacked hundreds of our ships!’
‘And then he stopped.’
‘None of the others have,’ said the Gunnery Officer. ‘They’re humans! You can’t trust a human. They shoot everything.’
The Captain rested her snout on one hand.
‘He doesn’t,’ she said. ‘He listened. He talked. None of the others did. He may be the One.’
The Gunnery Officer placed his upper two front hands on the desk and glared at her.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve talked to the other officers. I don’t believe in legends. When the full enormity of what you have done is understood, you will be relieved of your command!’
She turned tired eyes towards him.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘But right now, I am Captain. I am responsible. Do you understand? Have you got the faintest idea of what that means? Now . . . go!’
He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t disobey. I can have him shot, she thought. It’d be a good idea. Bound to save trouble later on. It’ll be No.235 on the list of Things to Do . . .
She turned back to continue staring at the stars outside, on the huge screen that filled one wall.
The enemy ship still hung there.
What kind of person is it? she thought. Despicable though they are, there’s so few of them. But they keep coming back! What’s their secret?
But you can be sure of one thing. They surely only send their bravest and their best.
The advantage of the Trying Times was that helping yourself from the fridge was OK. There didn’t seem to be any proper mealtimes any more in any case. Or any real cooking.
Johnny made himseff spaghetti and baked beans. There was no sound from the living room, although the TV was on.