‘Oh, I think we’ll be able to tell,’ Kyle says as he puts the car in reverse. ‘Shit,’ he adds, and I look over my shoulder. More of the little bastards have blocked the road behind us.
‘Should I drive through them?’ he says.
‘What? No, fuck, Kyle, they’re like eleven-year-olds.’
Kyle shrugs. ‘Well OK then, Mr Conscience, what do we do?’
‘We get out and talk to them. They’re kids. Even if their juice bottles have been dosed, we should be able to convince them that they’re being conned. They’re not really going to try to kill me.’
I get out, holding my hands up, a smile plastered across my face. The line of pre-teens move forward like troops on the front line. I notice that most of them are holding placards with pictures of pubescent males with coiffed hair: Heart System, the latest teen boy-band sensation.
BAXTER MADE HEART SYSTEM CRY, one of the placards reads; another says BAXTER WANTS TO HURT HEART SYSTEM.
‘Hi,’ I shout, making my voice as friendly as possible. ‘Um, that’s not true, you know? I didn’t make anyone cry.’
The posse of girls, all in Heart System T-shirts, their faces painted with glitter hearts, move forward. I have seen and fought some seriously diabolical creatures. Never before have I felt such terror as looking into their dewy, evil eyes.
‘THERE HE IS!’ screams their leader, a freckly red-headed girl. ‘KILL BAXTER.’
I turn and run, drawing Legba. Kyle sees me sprinting and turns to run too. The look in their eyes has ignited a primordial fear in my brain stem of being prey. So I run like I’ve never run before.
We take an alleyway between two buildings and sprint to the end. The hysterical screeching behind us has reached a terrifying peak and we don’t even stop to catch our breath. I grab Kyle by the shirt and pull him towards a bunch of large recycling bins. We clamber inside one of them and I put a finger to my lips. Kyle nods.
The pitter-patter of tiny ballet pumps grows in volume and then dissipates as the posse disappears into the night.
‘We’re going to have to regroup with MK6,’ I say.
‘And try not to get killed by boy-band groupies,’ Kyle replies.
‘Exactly.’
We peek out of the recycling bin. The streets are empty except for a group of cyclists taking a night ride.
‘Well that was close,’ I say.
‘Um, Bax?’
‘Fuck, I never, ever thought I’d be hunted down by a bunch of boy-band groupies. Can you think of anything more ri-goddamn-diculous than being assassinated by tweens?’
‘Yeah,’ Kyle says softly. ‘I can. Cyclists.’
I look up and see that we have been encircled, hemmed in, laid siege to by the group of Lycra-clad cyclists. Along with their dorky helmets and water bottles, they have kitchen knives and garden implements.
‘We saw you driving earlier,’ a guy in lime-green Lycra says as he adjusts his tight shorts around his crotch area. ‘You definitely weren’t Thinking Bike.’
There’s an angry murmur of agreement from the group.
‘Is it really so difficult?’ green Lycra says. ‘You drivers are all the same.’ He shakes his head. ‘Some people just never learn. We’re going to have to teach you.’
He pushes off from the pavement and pedals towards me. I lift my arms just in time to fend off a vicious blow from his bicycle pump. It glances off my forearm and a white-hot bolt of pain shoots up my arm.
‘Arrgh!’ I scream. ‘Fucking hell!’
Kyle grabs me by the collar and pulls me out of the way as another cyclists whooshes past and narrowly misses braining me with her helmet.
‘Time to get out of here,’ I say, and Kyle nods enthusiastically. I draw Anatole and hand it to him. ‘Here.’
‘You’re letting me use your sword?’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘You’re my friend. You always will be.’
‘Hell, yeah.’ He swings it wildly. ‘Let’s Braveheart us some cyclists!’
‘Don’t celebrate yet,’ I gasp, as we hop over a small wall and on to a large cobbled plaza filled with benches.
I can hear the whizzing of bicycle wheels in unison behind us. Overall, things are not looking positive. The cyclists are like pack animals hunting us as a finely tuned unit. Like sharks they flow through the night and neatly cut off our avenues of escape. They’re in formation, a lethal peloton of knives, machetes, spades and hammers. We run again, but this time they have the advantage of speed. As they whizz past us, a cruelly serrated cheese knife cuts a gash across my face.
I aim a punch at a cyclist in purple Lycra, but he dips his head and my hand bounces off his massive helmet. Kyle picks up half a brick and hoists it at a rider in pink and orange with a bulbous mushroom helmet. It sails through the air, bounces off the oversize protective headgear and knocks him off his bike. Kyle blocks a hammer strike with Anatole and then jams the sword through the spikes of a bike. The rider is catapulted forward and lands on the tar with a wet thud.
‘Climb!’ I scream.
We scramble up a fire escape and look back to see that the cyclists aren’t following. When we get to the third floor, Kyle unzips and pisses down on them. I grab his arm. ‘We need to go.’
We break a window and make our way through a deserted office block. ‘Let’s try the back entrance,’ I say.
We get out through a fire exit and run for as long as we can before stopping and taking some deep, gulping breaths. No cyclists have followed us.
‘Nom, Katinka?’ I say into my mike. Still nothing. ‘We’re going to have to find the Muti Man’s lair ourselves.’
‘Well, your …’ Kyle waves his hands around his head, ‘special powers or whatever should come in handy.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We’re close to the community centre. If I can get Harold to let us in and lock the doors, I’ll have enough time to do some Dreamwalking.’
‘Cool,’ Kyle says. ‘You think you can find him?’
‘If I can find my True Self, it should be a cinch.’
He shrugs. ‘Good enough for me.’
We keep to the shadows. We’re almost there. Almost home free. But a crunch of boots on gravel up ahead stops us, and a group steps out of the darkness: many guys in Spock outfits, a healthy chunk of people in Jedi knight robes, a few Lara Crofts, several Thundercats, a handful of Aragorns, a smattering of Wolverines, twelve or so Jokers.
‘Fandom,’ Kyle says. ‘He’s infected fandom. Bax, I can’t fight my own people.’
‘If we get to the community centre we can lock them out. That’s all we need to do.’
Kyle breathes in. ‘You won’t make it to the community centre unless I draw them away.’
‘Dude,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘I’ve made up my mind. I may not have any special powers. No magic, no super sight. But I can do this. You’re not going to stop me, Bax.’
I nod. ‘OK. But listen to me first.’
He cocks an eyebrow.
‘I’m sorry I made you feel like you didn’t belong in this new world of mine. You’re my best friend, you’ll always be my best friend. No amount of magic, or lack of it, is going to change that. You understand that, you dumbass beanpole?’
Kyle smiles. ‘You four-eyed jerkoff.’ He hugs me again. ‘I’m sorry for being such a dick. The death of the Spider hit me really hard and I guess I was just hurting.’
I smile. ‘Yeah, I get that. Sorry I didn’t see it sooner.’
‘OK, let’s do this.’
He emits a string of guttural yells. He’s insulting them in Klingon. My Klingon has only ever been functional, but I recognise some pretty choice phrases. He switches to Black Speech and Sindarin and then back to Klingon, and then sprints off into the night. The assembled mass of geeks quivers with rage. One of the Thundercats raises an arm and they storm after Kyle whooping unintelligible battle cries.
I set off at a jog in the direction of the community centre. I make it through the remaining streets an
d alleyways without incident, but as I bang on the door, a whoop behind me spins me around.
Cyclists and Heart System groupies have joined forces like cavalry and infantry and move towards me methodically.
‘Harold!’ I scream. ‘HAROLD!’
He opens the door. ‘Baxter! I didn’t realise you were back in town. Have you come to drop in on the meeting? The Fallen would love to see you!’
‘Um, Harold,’ I say, glancing over my shoulder. ‘I’m in trouble. A lot of trouble.’
Harold grips the zodiac sign pendant around his neck tightly, looks at the growing crowd of armed cyclists and groupies, looks at me, and nods. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It appears that you are. You had better come in.’
The Fallen are sitting around on their plastic chairs doing arts and crafts. They wave to me as I enter.
‘What is happening, Baxter?’ Harold puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Those people outside seem very angry.’
‘There’s sort of a group mind that is being created by magic. It’s turning people insane.’
The doors to the community centre begin to rattle and the Fallen turn to look at them.
‘Well, don’t we all sometimes feel like the world is insane?’ Harold begins.
‘Harold,’ I say. ‘This is not a metaphor. The world, or most of Cape Town at least, has gone crazy. I need time to … well, basically I need to Dreamwalk across my own psyche. As far as I can tell, it’s the only thing that’s going to save us from certain annihilation.’
All credit to Harold, he takes this in his stride. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘New creative project for the Fallen today. Please would everyone proceed in orderly fashion to the sports cupboard and arm themselves with whatever equipment they feel most comfortable fighting a melee battle with.’
The Fallen look at each other and shrug, and Darryl leads them to the sports cupboard. Sissy grabs a hockey stick and hefts it experimentally. Darryl picks up a couple of squash racquets and spins them in his hands. The rest of the group kit themselves out with helmets, cricket bats, croquet mallets and metal poles from volleyball nets. Harold stands in front of them wearing a hockey goalie’s chest protector. He has a glass bottle in one hand and an aluminium softball bat in the other.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘We have all come here, to this group, for different reasons. I commanded listeners. I was in the society pages. But that life was not to be. I hate those people outside.’ He gestures with the bottle to the door, which is in the process of being kicked off its hinges by a bunch of cyclists. ‘With their slacktivism, their moral outrage, their snide comments, their little jokes, their useless symbolic war against anything and everything.’ He punctuates the last point by smashing the bottle on the floor. It shatters like dreams, ambitions and careers.
‘They post their remixes and their memes and their jokes on the Internet.’ Harold smiles. ‘But now it’s our turn. You are my people,’ he roars. ‘The forgotten, the fallen, the kicked-to-the-kerb, the addicted, the flawed. Are you with me?’
The group of weirdos roar back and raise their sporting paraphernalia in the air as the community centre door explodes inwards and cyclists and teenage groupies stream in.
‘Rally to me!’ Harold screams as the two sides clash bloodily. Eyes on fire, he swings the bat with clinical precision.
I run to the back of the building and lock myself in a supply cupboard. I’d better get this done quick. I retrieve my beads from my mojo bag, take a deep breath and weave them between my fingers into a suitable arrangement. The world shimmers, and I slip into the dream state.
‘Hey, daddio,’ Tyrone says. ‘Where have you been? We’ve been sitting around like a game on pause waiting for you.’
‘Guys.’ The members of Psychosexual Development crowd around me. ‘I need to find my True Self. Now. I’m in a lot of trouble.’
‘No problem, honey,’ Junebug says. ‘Look where we are!’
I glance up and see the huge ornate pagoda rising into the lavender clouds. It is covered with carvings of tigers and dragons, and two ugly pig statues guard the entrance.
‘We’re here? OK, great. Let’s find my True Self. Come on.’
‘Tell him about the id,’ Junebug says. She puts her hands on her hips and looks at Tyrone. ‘He needs to know about the id.’
I shake my head. ‘I’ll deal with whatever comes along when I get to it. Come on, I don’t have any time.’
I stride into the entrance of the pagoda and stop. A giant boar stands in the middle of the room, spilling a pool of dark congealed saliva on the floor. It has plaque-encrusted teeth and yellow tusks, and it smells like the morning of a hangover.
‘Yeah.’ Tyrone is standing next to me. ‘Your id. Pure, undisciplined, instinctual urge. Killing you will plunge the psyche into total freefall. The id doesn’t care. It’ll kill you and eat your corpse if you let it, and you can’t kill it or the same thing happens.’
I turn to look at him. ‘So what am I supposed to do? Another song together?’
‘No, daddio. We can’t help you with this one. We’re part of the same psychic system as the id. Nothing we do can stop it. All our groovy, funky psychosexual energy just won’t work. It’ll probably make it more angry. Don’t you have some other kind of artistic skill?’
The id stands up on its hind legs and scratches itself, then defecates on the floor. It chews its own tongue until it bleeds and spits the magenta fluid at me. ‘YOU,’ it growls. ‘KILL YOU.’
‘I don’t have any creative talents,’ I whisper, stepping back.
‘There must be something,’ Tyrone says. ‘Otherwise we’re all going to die.’
I sigh. I have a terrible secret. The very thought makes me burn with shame. I did interpretive dance when I was a kid. My mom took me on the advice of one of her hippie friends. I did interpretive dance and I actually enjoyed it. There. I’ve said it. I’ve tried to bury this fact deep in my psyche, but now it’s come floating back to the surface.
‘Become a tree and sway with the wind,’ I say, swirling my arms above me. ‘I’m a tiger,’ I whisper, holding my hands in front of me like claws. ‘Rrrr.’
The id stops and looks at me quizzically, turning its oversized head from side to side.
‘Keep going,’ Tyrone says softly. ‘It likes it.’
I kneel on the ground. ‘A sunflower opening up to the rays of a new day.’
The id begins to growl, a long, low rumble that I can feel vibrating in my chest.
‘Go back to the tiger, it liked that,’ Tyrone says.
I jump to my feet, put my hands out like claws and pretend to lick them.
‘Rrrrrr,’ the id says.
‘I’m a sleepy cloud.’ I yawn. ‘A sleepy, sleepy cloud that is drifting deeper and deeper into a cosy, warm, soft sleep …’
The id puts its vast head down on the floor of the pagoda and snuggles against it.
Sleepy cloud,’ I say. ‘The sleepiest sleepy cloud in the whole sleepy world.’
The id begins to snore, a churning earthquake of sound that makes the floor shudder.
‘Good job,’ Tyrone whispers. He steps carefully around the id and gestures for the rest of the band to follow. We’re almost past when Chester decides to sniff at the sleeping beast.
‘Chester,’ I hiss. ‘Chester. Get back here.’
The little bow-tied dog pauses, wrinkles his nose and then comes trotting after us. We breathe a collective sigh of relief and make our way up the stairs.
We climb right to the top of the pagoda. With each step the sense of anticipation grows. I’m excited to meet my True Self, True Will, or whatever other names it goes by. It is, after all, the fundamental core of my existence, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to rank pretty high up there in celebrity meetings.
Will it be impressive, like a giant flaming ball of consciousness? Or maybe something more staid, like a wise old man with eyes that stretch into eternity? Either way it’s going to be incredible. I comb my hair to one side with my fingers and b
low into my hands to check my breath.
I’m so excited that when I step out on to the top floor of the pagoda and see the middle-aged guy in a beige jumper playing with a model train set, I don’t even think of the obvious.
‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for my True Self.’
He looks up, bewildered. He has one green eye and one blue. ‘Um, and you are …?’
‘Well, I know myself as Baxter … I mean, I realise that we’re all Baxter in here.’ I give him the kind of we’re-all-in-this-together look that you give people in queues. ‘But I’m the Conscious Self. And this is Psychosexual Development.’
He frowns. ‘Oh yes, right, right. Sorry. I’ve been working on getting my replica perfect.’ He stands back and admires the little blue train. ‘She’s a beaut, isn’t she?’
‘Yeah, lovely,’ I say. ‘Listen, I don’t mean to rush you or anything, but a Crow shaman has created a group mind and put a bounty on my head, and accessing my True Self so that I can break through whatever enchantments he’s used is the only thing that’s going to save us. So could you show me to the ultimate source of power? Then you can go back to your train.’
‘Certainly,’ he says, picking at lint on his jersey. ‘You’re looking at him.’
I smile. ‘No, misunderstanding, sorry. I’m looking for my fundamental essence, the burning core of my soul, the—’
‘Yes, I understand,’ the man says. ‘I am all of that. But you can call me Norris.’
‘You’re … my True Self.’
‘I’m your True Self.’ He nods. ‘You look disappointed.’
My True Will isn’t a giant flaming condor. Or a pulsating ball of sentient light. My True Will is a middle-aged man in a lumpy jersey playing with toy trains.
‘Model trains,’ he corrects primly.
‘I … didn’t say anything.’
‘He still hasn’t grasped the fact that we are him,’ Tyrone says, with an apologetic look. ‘He’s your True Will,’ he whispers to me. ‘He knows what you’re thinking.’
Of course, as soon as he says this, I reflexively think of every embarrassing thing possible.
Norris blushes a deep red and backs away from me. ‘I don’t think that’s physically feasible,’ he says with a horrified look. ‘Or at all hygienic.’
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