WESTMINSTER PALACE
I nside, the receptionist tries to contact Margaret Kent to confirm our meeting, but my continued vomiting of marshmallows forces them to give us space. The Pillar shows them our fake IDs, and they let us into the nearest bathroom—which we detour from, of course.
The Pillar wheels me into the nearest elevator and tells me he knows exactly where to find the Duchess. He pulls out a hookah hose he had hidden inside the wheelchair and flashes a smile like a four-year-old. I grimace when I see him pull small parts from the hookah inside my wheelchair, too. He starts connecting them together, like Legos.
"Killers usually put together a gun in this part of the movie," I mock him, wondering why we're so compatible when it comes to lunacy.
"They don't call me 'Pilla da Killa' for nothing, Alice," he says, fitting the last part in. "I advise you to suspend disbelief because everything you'll see right now is going to be beyond crazy." I watch the elevator's counter rising until the elevator finally stops. "Smile," the Pillar says. "It's showtime." He wheels me into the corridors against all kinds of guards, who've been told about us coming in. A guard points his gun at us, but the Pillar whips him with his hose, blood spattering on the wall. Things start to get messy.
"You didn't have to hurt him," I protest.
"Put your morals in your back pocket please, and get them out later." He puffs smoke from his hookah and then breathes it back into the hall in great amounts. The smoke spreads all over the corridors. "I have a job to do," he pants.
People start coughing at first, some already fainting because of his wondrous smoke. A little later, smoke puts a couple of guards to sleep instantly, the rest start laughing hysterically. Instead of attacking us, they can't stop laughing till their stomachs hurt.
"Is that laughing gas?" I say.
The Pillar doesn't answer me, and high-fives a happy guard instead, right before he kicks him to the ground.
"Why am I not affected by the smoke?" I ask. I feel like a spoiled kid rolled into a crazy funhouse.
"It's the marshmallows I fed you, baby doll." The Pillar kicks Margaret's door open and wheels me in. "It's an antidote."
I am not sure how to feel about being wheeled around by a killer. Am I really doing this to save a girl, or am I just a mad girl giving myself all the excuses in the world? The Pillar doesn't kill anyone with his surreal weapons. He wounds and sedates them on our way to Margaret. I do believe the Cheshire now, saying this Wonderland War is larger than anyone thinks. I don't even know what the war is about. All my thoughts are messed up again.
The Pillar doesn't stop puffing or hitting guards with his hose. I am wheeling myself next to him by now.
"Can we just not hurt everyone we meet?" I plead as I pant, wheeling the chair—I am so caught up in the moment that I forget I can walk and leave the chair behind.
"The Real Alice wouldn't say that," the ruthless Pillar says, hitting numbers on a pad near a golden double door. "You think those are innocent people?" The door opens, and he wheels me in.