by Jeff Noon
'Stuff.' And she smiled again.
'What's your name, girl?' I asked.
'Lucy. What's yours?'
'Never mind that. You'll have to come with me, I'm afraid.'
'Smashing. Will I get to be a commcop, please?'
So I sent Gumball on his way, clocked off with HQ on the bleeper, and then offered to buy the jetgirl some breakfast. This she readily agreed to; not prawns, just coffee and biscuits would do. She sat there, slurping away. I took a look at her; quite good-looking, incredibly slim, like I could pick her up like a feather. And well-dressed like all the jets were. Compared to the flots of course, who were trash personified. I asked her why she'd left home, and she said that home was for the lonely, and I could connect to that. I was a commcop, wasn't I?
'I can look at adverts,' she said, with a crunch of biscuit. 'Bet you can't.'
I remembered, then, that she'd been hanging round real close to the action this morning, and maybe she had seen a glimpse of it, I couldn't be sure.
'I've got the mask, haven't I?' I said back at her.
'I don't need a mask, me, so don't think that's why I want to join up, just to get a mask and a gun, cause I don't need 'em, well, the gun would be nice, but just for kicks like. Why do you think I don't want prawns? Adverts mean nothing to me.'
Now I knew there were a few people out there that were immune to the messages. The marketing men called them the Blind Consumers, the Unresponsive 6 Per Cent. And I knew that Brendel would love to get her hands on this girl, this Lucy, subject her to a million lab tests, extract all the scattering out of her. I wasn't keen on the procedure, because I'd seen what the extraction did to the immune. It made them go hollow.
'What should I have told my partner about the mask?' I asked her.
'You took it off, didn't you? When you saw the stairway advert. Am I right?'
'No. I mean ... I wanted to ... it was ...'
'It was trying to make you, right?'
'Yes ... I started to ... started to lift up the mask ... I couldn't...'
'How much?'
'What?'
'How much?'
'Just a bit, a sliver, not at all.'
'You haven't told anyone?'
'Look, what is this? Nothing happened.'
'And now you're scared. Scared that they'll take you off the streets. Am I right?'
I looked away. The flotboys had all left now, and another bunch of diners had taken their place. Maybe these were people with real hunger, maybe they were artificially induced, there was no way of telling, not without the proper equipment.
'You've seen it, haven't you?' I said to the girl.
She was quiet for a time, and then she started to cry. Not tears of pain, or anger or frustration even. She nodded ,her head, said nothing. Just cried.
They were tears of loss, I'm sure they were.
Later on, when really I should've been home and in bed, I took Lucy out to the commcop station. She got over the tears as soon as she got in the van, and the journey through the streets had her smiling, especially when I turned the siren on, just for her. Anything to take her mind off what was happening, because I wasn't sure about what I was about to do; I had no way of knowing the reactions that I would get. Luckily, Brendel was off duty as well, and the high-security cells weren't her natural habitat anyway. I signed in with the guard down in the cellar, put a tick next to 'Officer in Attendance' and another against 'Family/Acquaintance' and got Lucy to sign against that.
'It's breakfast time, anyway,' said the guard. '1 was going to take this in.' He was holding a plateful of mush and a spoon. 'You want to do it?'
I nodded. Took the plate and spoon - plastic plate, plastic spoon — and then waited as the guard unlocked the door. 'Be careful in there,' he says.
The occupant of cell 945 was asleep as we came in. At least, I thought he was. It was dark, and the faint light from the door fell only on a bulky shape lying on the bed. I put my fingers to my lips, but Lucy was quiet anyway, and too nervous even to breathe out loud. I felt the same, and when I put on the small and well-protected overhead light, and the figure on the bed stirred slightly, it felt as though I was waking the dead. There was a draw of breath at last, and a gasp as Lucy saw what Parker had become.
Become.
Reduced.
Victim to.
It was the first time I'd come to visit. Maybe guilt had kept me away, or just the sense of helplessness. He was tied to the small bed. Strapped down. I hadn't expected this. It must've been bad. Still bad. Shit. I could hardly think of anything at all, and when his eyes opened, and it took him a good long moment to recognize me, well, I was on the edge of turning away.
Parker's head was propped up slightly on a pillow, and this was the only bit of him that could move at all. The bastard only smiles at me, doesn't he? Then he says, 'Muldoon, you came. Is it breakfast time already?' I come forward with the bowl, and I scoop some of the mush out of it with the spoon. I place it against his lips, he opens them, chews the stuff, swallows. After about six of these mouthfuls, he shakes his head for no more please.
'You caught it yet?' he asks.
I shake my head.
'Keep working,' he says. 'Don't worry about me.'
I can't believe how peaceful he sounds.
'Muldoon?'
'Yes?'
'A favour, please.'
'Anything, Parker. Anything.'
'Undo these straps. Just the ones on my arms. Just my right arm will do. I want to eat my own food. I can't stand being fed like a baby. Will you do that?'
I look around the cell. Then at the door. Lucy's standing there, and she nods at me.
'Come on, Muldoon,' says Parker. 'What am I going to do?'
I lean over his body, to get to the strap. It comes loose with a strong tug, and Parker's hand strokes my face, just for a second. 'Thank you,' he says. 'Thank you.' Then he picks up the plastic spoon, and starts to feed himself.
'Who's this?' he asks.
'Her name's Lucy,' I reply.
'I can answer,' says the girl. She comes closer to Parker, but stops a few steps away from him. 'My name is Lucy Bell. I'm ten years old, nearly. Adverts mean nothing to me. And I've seen the stairway.'
Parker stops eating. 'You've seen it?'
'Yes. It came up on a game I was playing. I was alone, luckily. I've seen a million ads in my time, you know what I mean, and nothing gets me frozen. Sometimes I think I'm the unlucky one, because it must be nice to be really affected by something. Usually I just move to another machine when the screen freezes, but this was different I could tell, but I couldn't tell why. Something about the stairway, the way it goes on for ever...'
'Yes,' said Parker. 'For ever...'
'And it made me really sad to watch it going upwards like that, with nobody on it.'
'Yes. Sad.'
It made me put my hand out. I couldn't help myself. I put my hand against the screen. It was cold, the screen, like the machine had broken down. But it was nice, just to let my fingers rest against the steps. I felt like I was walking up it just by touching. And I was so sad, I started to cry. I don't know why, so don't ask me.'
'I know,' said Parker. 'I know.'
'And ever since, this sadness ... it won't leave me alone. I feel like I've missed out on something. Inspector Muldoon tells me you were brave, that you saved a flot by giving her your scattermask.'
'No, it wasn't brave. The staircase made me take the mask off. I could see the girl hadn't seen it yet, she was doing her best to look away. I only gave her the mask because I didn't need it any more.'
'Well, I still think it was brave. And I was thinking, maybe I should volunteer for being tested, or something. Because surely there's something inside me, something strange that adverts don't like. And I know all the normal stuff, the spoiler drugs and all that, I know they don't work on this stairway thing. Maybe I should-—'
'No.' Parker came up as far as he could. 'I've heard what happens to people when the
y extract it. It's not good. Not good. You just work with Inspector Muldoon here. Maybe you can find out where the adverts are coming from, eh? Working together?'
'I'd like that. I'd like to be a commcop one day.'
'You will be, kid. You will be.'
I was watching all this from one corner. I wasn't sure what I was aiming at, bringing these two people together. This young girl, barely out of childhood, and having already witnessed and survived what amounted to a murder attempt; and this poor young man, this rookie cop, who had become just another victim. A young man strapped to a bed, and with a plastic spoon in his hand. They seemed happy together, at least. Parker then called over to me, 'You keep Brendel away from this girl, OK?'
'I'm doing that already.'
'Good. Now leave me, please.'
He pushed Lucy towards me, his face suddenly hardened into a frown. 'I'll get you strapped up again,' I said. But Lucy was in the way, and I was walking around her when a sudden choking noise frightened me into stillness. It was Parker. Right in front of me, he had stuck the plastic spoon down his throat. He was jamming it, again and again, deeper and deeper into his mouth. For a good few seconds I couldn't move; the look in his eyes, the sheer pleasure of submission that played there, it rooted me to the spot. Coming out of the freeze, I simultaneously called for the guard, pushed Lucy aside, and rushed over to the bed. With one hand on his face, and the other forcing his mouth open, I tried to make him breathe, to breathe, to breathe again. His right hand had squeezed around my throat. Where the fuck was that guard ? Behind me, somewhere behind me, and far, far away, Lucy was screaming.
I got home at eleven, dead beat and frazzled. Lucy was with me. She was showing all the tagging skills of a jetgirl. I shoved her down on the sofa. 'You sleep there,' I said. 'Don't think I'm giving up my bed for you.'
'I don't want to sleep,' she answered. 'It's the daytime. Will Parker be all right?'
'What's all right? We're keeping him alive against his wishes. Is that all right?'
'Maybe we should let him ... you know?'
'Don't even think that, right? I mean it, girl.'
I took off my gun and mask, and it seemed like I was taking off my skin, so long had I worn them.
'OK,' said the girl. 'This is a nice place. Wow, you've got a TV.' She said it like she'd never seen one before.
'It's off limits,' I told her. 'And I've got the password.'
'Sure. You live here alone?'
'Yes.'
'No husband?'
'I'm going to bed.'
'No boyfriend? Girlfriend?'
'Bye.'
I carried the mask and gun into my bedroom, stripped naked, fell slowly, blissfully into bed. I don't know what I dreamed of. It had been a long, bad night and morning, and I wish I could leave it at that, the night and the black sleep and the end of the story.
Some things you just can't wish for.
I woke up feeling worse than when I'd gone to sleep. I don't know what time it was. I had to shift through several layers of reality until I got the noise fixed in my head, the sound of a television far off in the distance. At first I thought I was fighting some killer ad along the shining pavilions of a golden arcade, Parker at my side; then I was thinking it was all a dream, and how glad I was at that realization; then I heard the sound of my spoiler gun firing in a long continuous burst of static, and I was back in the arcade once again, but only for a second as I caught the last thread of reality. The noise was coming from the living room, chased by a terrible howling.
The blind sight of my mask was staring at me from where I'd left it hooked to the wall, but the gun was gone. That stupid girl...
I burst the door open, naked.
That stupid fucking girl was just sitting there, right in front of the TV. She had the gun in her hands, and was still firing it at the screen. The howl had gone from her now, replaced by a whimpering cry. I don't know how she broke the password on the set; that girl always was a mystery. And still she fired. Fired and fired at the golden stairway that travelled ever upwards, unrolling on the screen like an escalator to the sky.
Just kept on unrolling, right through everything the girl could hope to spoil it with.
Yeah. I saw it. I was naked, straight from bed. And the mask was still hanging from the hook in the bedroom.
'Don't look! Don't look at it!'
Those were the last words I heard, and they seemed to freeze on the air like drops of ice. Everything froze. Everything froze for me.
'I'm sorry,' said Lucy. 'I tried to ...' 'What?'
'Come back to me, please!'
Moving through slow ice that melted, I came alive with my eyes tight on the screen, where a dancing elephant played gaily. There was no sign of the stairway. Everything seemed normal, perfectly normal. Me, a young girl, a television set. Almost a family. There were no feelings inside me, nothing I could touch.
'Oh God, I'm sorry.'
That's fine.'
'I was trying to kill it.'
'I said it's fine.'
I realized that I was naked in front of the kid. Walking slowly back into my room, all I could think about was getting dressed. I even put on the mask, I don't know why. I put it on first, as though it could still protect me. I went back into the living room, took the gun from Lucy's clutched hands, just as my bleeper went off.
'Muldoon, that you?'
'Yes.'
'You heard?'
It was Gumball, and I could hear his voice clearly, no sticky chewing sounds. I knew it was bad then. 'It's Parker?'
'Yeah. He found a way. You'll want the details, right?'
'No. No details.'
'Right. Look . . . erm . . . shit, I'm no good at this stuff. I'm sorry. Oh shit. Look, they got a partial trace on the killer trans, it's coming from the Ancoats area. We're doing a house-to-house. You up for it?'
'No. I'm going to the arcade.'
'The arcade? You're not on tonight. Are you all right, Muldoon?'
'Fine. I'm fine. Goodbye.'
I broke the connection, just ripped the bleeper off my belt, wires dangling. Lucy was looking at me scared, as I took up the spoiler gun, reversed it, and with the reinforced butt smashed in the TV's screen, killing that stupid poor innocent elephant dead. 'Come on,' I said, grabbing the girl by a skinny little forearm.
'But where?'
'Shut up.'
I wasn't sure when it would kick in, the suicide impulse. Some cases had taken at least a week for the urge to strike, others felt it in seconds. So time was everything, making me drive like a madwoman, swerving the jeep, a crazy snake through the traffic. I wasn't even sure why I was going to the arcade, but it was my natural hunting ground, after all. I had this intense feeling that I was needed there.
'I thought we were going to the commcop station,' said Lucy.
'Not yet.'
'But miss, what if you... ?' She couldn't finish the sentence.
This is between you and me, kid,' I said to her. 'You understand?'
'It's a secret?'
'Yeah. A secret.'
'OK.'
I looked at the girl; she was small and slight, making herself even smaller by pressing back into the seat. Her eyes were blank, fixed on the badly lit road ahead, the arcade that loomed suddenly over us now, all twelve storeys of it almost bending down to receive me.
I drove into the service entrance, through to the underground park. Another commcop car was there, and Gumball was leaning against it. He called out my name, but I just swerved away from him, heading for the up-chute. I could hear his starter engine growl and echo in the hollow space, the screech of tyres.
First storey. Second. Now he'd turned his siren on, as though I should care any more. Third storey, fourth, fifth. I was burning the curves of the building. Six, seven, and Lucy was screaming at me to slow down, to stop, to just please stop now please. I couldn't. The storeys were unfolding, upwards, upwards. Eight, nine, ten. I think I lost Gumball around there. I lost everybody. There was
just me and the girl and the stairway leading me on. I had to get to the top. If I could only get to the top, I'd be OK then. Something good was waiting for me there. Eleven, twelve. I jammed the car against a barrier, smashing the bonnet flat. Electrical sparks rose from the engine and the girl was crying now as I bundled her from the vehicle.
'Please! Don't—'
I didn't have anything to say in reply. Grabbing her by both wrists, I dragged her to the metal door that led to the roof. With a kick I released the locking bar, banged it open, pulled the girl through behind me.
Release! I came to, out of some dumb freeze. Felt like I was breathing, for the first time in hours. The whole trip upwards, a superzoom of quick fire. But how fine everything was now, standing on top of Manchester. All this was mine — the black spaces, the glittering lights. Chill breath of air, first spots of rain, the child at my side, barely struggling.
'Let me go,' she said.
'Not yet,' I answered, throwing the gun to the ground. 'I need you still.' And tearing off the scattermask, throwing it down as well. So much spent trash in my life. A glimmer to my right turned me around. There, oh there! The stairway continued, ever upwards, made but of cloud. It was simple, and so clean, and all I needed to do was carry on climbing. There the pleasure awaited me. There it waited, and what else was there to do? With a violence that shocked me, I gathered the girl off her feet, lifted her up into my arms.
'Please. What are you doing? Stop it, please. Please stop it!'
She had a weight, but it was nothing really, a mere shadow. And the words of the shadow were but textures in the night. Only the staircase mattered, only the golden way. I started to walk towards it, towards the edge of the building. I took a few steps, and the girl was struggling, but nothing I couldn't handle. Within moments, out of another freeze, there I was, balanced on the tip of the night. Below me, and all around, the silent, pained city lay so distant it barely shimmered.
'Muldoon!'
A voice from behind, the clang of a metal door.
'Muldoon! It's me, it's Gumball. What's going on?'
'Stay away.'
'It's the stairway!' cried the girl in my arms. 'She's seen the stairway!'
'Come away, Muldoon. Come away from the edge. We're moving in on the trans. Muldoon, we've got a trace.'