Moving Pictures

picture-throwing room. When that got no answer he kicked it down.
    Bezam was staring intently at the screen through a small square hole cut in the wall. The picture-thrower was clicking away happily by itself. No one was turning the handle. At least, Victor corrected himself, no one he could see.
    There was a distant rumble, and the ground shook.
    He stared at the screen. He recognized this bit. It was just before the Burning of Ankh-Morpork scene.
    His mind raced. What was it they said about the gods? They wouldn’t exist if there weren’t people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality was what went on inside people’s heads. And in front of him were hundreds of people really believing what they were seeing…
    Victor scrabbled among the rubbish on Bezam’s bench for some scissors or a knife, and found neither. The machine whirred on, winding reality from the future to the past.
    In the background, he could hear Gaspode saying, “I expect I’ve saved the day, right?”
    The brain normally echoes with the shouts of various inconsequential thoughts seeking attention. It takes a real emergency to get them to shut up. It was happening now. One clear thought that had been trying to make itself heard for a long time rang out in the silence.
    Supposing there was somewhere reality was a little thinner than usual? And supposing you did something there that weakened reality even more. Books wouldn’t do it. Even ordinary theater wouldn’t do it, because in your heart you knew it was just people in funny clothes on a stage. But Holy Wood went straight from the eye into the brain. In your heart you thought it was real. The clicks would do it.
    That was what was under Holy Wood Hill. The people of the old city had used the hole in reality for entertainment . And then the Things had found them.
    And now people were doing it again. It was like learning to juggle lighted torches in a firework factory. And the Things had been waiting…
    But why was it still happening? He’d stopped Ginger.
    The film clicked on. There seemed to be a fog around the picture throwing box, blurring its outline.
    He snatched at the spinning handle. It resisted for a moment, and then broke. He gently pushed Bezam off his chair, picked it up and hit the throwing box with it. The chair exploded into splinters. He opened the cage at the back and took out the salamanders, and still the film danced on the distant screen.
    The building shook again.
    You only get one chance, he thought, and then you die.
    He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand. Then he reached out for the flashing line of the film itself, and gripped it.
    It snapped. The box jerked backward. Film went on unreeling in glittering coils which lunged at him briefly and then slithered down to the floor.
    Clickaclick…a…click.
    The reels spun to a halt.
    Victor cautiously stirred the heap of film with his foot. He’d been half expecting it to attack him like a snake.
    “Have we saved the day?” prompted Gaspode. “I’d appreciate knowing.”
    Victor looked at the screen.
    “No,” he said.
    There were still images there. They weren’t very clear, but he could still make out the vague shapes of himself and Ginger, hanging onto existence. And the screen itself was moving. It bulged here and there, like ripples of a pool of dull mercury. It looked unpleasantly familiar.
    “They’ve found us,” he said.
    “Who have?” said Gaspode.
    “You know those ghastly creatures you were talking about?”
    Gaspode’s brow furrowed. “The ones from before the dawnatime?”
    “Where they come from, there is no time,” said Victor. The audience was stirring.
    “We must get everyone out of here,” he said. “But without panicking—”
    There was a chorus of screams. The audience was waking up.
    The screen Ginger was climbing out. She was three times normal size and flickered visibly. She was also vaguely transparent, but she had weight, because the floor buckled and splintered under her feet.
    The audience was climbing over itself to get away. Victor fought his way down the aisle just as Poons’ wheelchair went past backward in the flow of people, its occupant flailing desperately and shouting, “Hey! Hey! It’s just getting good!”
    The Chair grabbed Victor’s arm urgently.
    “Is it meant to do this?” he demanded.
    “No!”
    “It’s not some sort of special kinematographic effect, then?” said the Chair hopefully.
    “Not unless they’ve