by Sam Gayton
[Crown where is? Tribute now. Give great precious shiny. Only Queen can has.]
‘I shall show it to you first...’ On her next bow, Pia whispers to Threedeep: ‘Turn on your numinous lamp and light me up.’
Threedeep’s node swivels, and suddenly a beam of silver-violet white shines blindingly in Pia’s face. The Rekkers gasp around her, and she knows that Hum’s halo is sparkling above her head.
‘Woah!’ says someone. From all the shrieking sounds coming from the hummingdragons, she guesses they’re just as impressed.
[Very great shiny!] breathes Queen Yrekk’n. [I take!]
Her ruby-coloured royal guard rush above Pia’s head, then utter hisses of confusion. Their claws just snatch at empty air.
‘Quick, turn off the numinous,’ Pia tells Threedeep. ‘That ought to be enough to tempt her.’
The numinous lamp winks off, and Queen Yrekk’n lets out a tiny squeak of a howl.
[Crown where is? There but not. See now gone.]
‘A thousand pardons, great Queen.’ Pia tries to keep the grin off her face and is mostly successful. ‘But we need our genie Blom, inside the lamp one of your loyal subjects took. Only then can we make the crown real, and make it fit your head.’
Queen Yrekk’n reads the translation on Threedeep’s screen. She turns round to her ruby guard and barks out a series of fireballs.
‘So,’ Ishan murmurs to Pia as the ruby guard go to find Blom’s lamp. ‘What, you’re a saint now?’
It takes Pia a moment to realise he is talking about the halo. ‘Hum gave it to me,’ she mutters back. ‘Before he died.’
‘Like inheritance?’
‘I guess. I only just found out about it.’
‘Does it let you do miracles? Maybe it’ll let you do miracles.’
‘I dunno. Let me see if I can magically get you to drop the subject without asking you directly.’
‘Celestials.’ He shakes his head. ‘So. Weird.’
29
DEVIL CHAT
Five minutes later, Weevis has Blom back in his hands. By that time, the whole group is prepped, and the crowning ceremony goes off without a hitch. Blom and Weevis make a load of impressive fireworks to dazzle the onlooking hummingdragons whilst Wilma digs her tiny nose ring out from her pocket and slips it to Pia, who pretends to find it on top of her head, ‘magically shrunk’.
With much bowing and ceremony, she presents it to Queen Yrekk’n. The tiny golden ring fits perfectly atop her scaled head.
The little queen is delighted. She immediately announces a parade around her hive, to show off her new crown. Away she flies, with her ruby royal guard puffing fireball fanfares around her.
The Rekkers watch her go. Then they turn to Pia.
‘That was... impressive,’ Weevis admits grudgingly.
‘P-nomenal,’ says Wilma.
‘Pia-fection,’ says Gowpen.
‘P’s on earth, and goodwill to all hummingdragons,’ says Zugzwang.
‘We’re all doing puns?’ Ishan looks around. ‘I’m no good at puns.’
Ishan: impossible, chats Threedeep.
‘Stop droning on,’ says Pia, grinning madly.
Yrekk’n I should stop?
‘Yeah, you’re nanabuggin me.’
Weevis huffs irritably. ‘Can we get going, please? This is really starting to drag on.’
They all looked at him, dumbstruck. Then everyone except Zugzwang cheers.
‘What’s so – oh,’ he says. ‘I get it. Dragon.’
For the first time for a long time, Pia feels like she’s done something right. Fixed something instead of broken it. For a moment, it is almost possible to believe that the zoo might finally have stopped falling apart.
‘On to the celestial ark then, I guess,’ Ishan says.
That kills their smiles. Because now everyone remembers what they have to do next. Getting Blom back is just the start of it. Stopping Bagrin, now that’s the challenge.
Weevis goes off to form the wish-script with Blom. The rest of them sit around, listening to Ishan spout theories about what is happening and why the zoo is falling apart.
‘Maybe it’s like when you cut yourself and your immune system fights any infection that comes in,’ he says. ‘Because the Seam is a wound in reality, right? So maybe reality is getting rid of all the voilà that come in.’
‘And making the grown-ups crazy too?’ Wilma makes a pfft sound. ‘Next!’
‘Or it might be the timefrogs? They could be hopping from now to the future, and kidnapping the voilà as they go.’
‘Have you ever seen a timefrog, Ish?’ Pia holds up her hand. ‘How does a little slimy thing as big as my palm carry off a megabunny?’
‘And make all the grown-ups crazy too,’ Wilma repeats.
‘Or it could just be a poacher? A really really good poacher?’
‘I’m just gonna keep on saying all grown-ups crazy until I go mad too, OK?’
That gives Pia a thought. ‘How exactly are we going to stop all these crazy grown-ups freeing Bagrin?’ she asks.
‘Go shut the lead door you were talking about,’ Wilma says. ‘It’ll block Bagrin from controlling Urette. Without her leading them, the doomers will back off. We win. Boom.’
Pia shook her head. ‘Too dangerous. I made a deal with Bagrin to keep the lead door open for a whole night – but then we don’t know what sort of deal he made with Urette. It could be linked to my deal.’
Wilma shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So you have to keep your side of the bargain with a devil. I know that sounds stupid, but deals are the only way to get a devil to do anything. Bagrin’s only staying in the infernal prism because of a deal. And he’s clever. If he made sure there was some kind of link with my deal in his deal with Urette, and I break the agreement, he can break his. Shutting that lead door would be as good as freeing him.’
‘Oh.’ Wilma frowns. ‘So we actually have to fight the doomers then?’
‘Wait, what?’ Gowpen goes pale.
Ishan scrunches up his face. ‘How the null are we supposed to—’
Then Blom says, ‘And so the wish is granted.’
And they zephyr to the celestial ark.
• • •
Everything is really dead, Threedeep chats. Then she underlines really.
Pia slips her breather on and grimaces, looking out on the deck of the celestial ark. There’s almost nothing left of the garden, just some withered brown stuff that used to be grass and a faint glow from the remains of the angels’ house.
‘Let’s hope that’s not a sign of things to come,’ Wilma says with a nervous laugh.
Ishan points. ‘There!’ The quarantine ship has appeared round the island’s rocky western shore, a couple of miles away.
It won’t be long.
What do they do?
Oh Seamstress, they are all looking at her again, like she is some sort of leader. After her stunt back at the hummingdragon hive, she guesses she kind of is.
‘Can I remind you,’ she tells them all, ‘that my nickname is Catastro-P.’
‘Yeah, but you also have an invisible glowing halo hanging over your head,’ Ishan points out.
Pia has no answer to that. She has no answers at all, in fact. She just flounders, and all the time the Quark gets nearer, churning up the ocean to foam as it comes.
‘We need to buy ourselves more time.’ Weevis steps forward. ‘Get Threedeep to see if she can ping the ark’s autopilot and get us moving away from the quarantine ship.’
I can do that, Threedeep says, and gives a ping.
‘Scrip,’ says Weevis to Pia. She just stares at him dumbly. ‘Scrip! Give me some!’
‘Uh,’ she says. ‘In my cabin?’
He rushes in and comes out again with a fistful of pi
nk zookeeper scrip and a pencil. ‘Below deck!’ Weevis yells.
The Rekkers look at each other. It isn’t like anyone else has a plan.
They follow him down into the ark’s corridors, feet slapping and squeaking across the shiny floors. Pia, lugging Threedeep, can’t keep up. The drone’s sharp corners bash her as she runs. She loses sight of the others as they hurtle down the first flight of stairs. The sounds of their running fade away.
And in the silence, her cheek grows warm.
Ah, it’s Pia.
How nice to see you before we leave.
She grits her teeth and ignores the whisper.
All this time, you’ve been saying there’s a monster loose in the zoo, says Bagrin. And now you think it’s Bagrin.
‘I know it’s you,’ she pants as she runs. Her arms ache and her head feels dizzy. She stumbles down the first flight of steps. A peeling poster of Dibsy grins at her at the bottom of the stairwell.
We have never done anything that a human being has not put their name to and signed, Pia.
Think about that.
And now tell me who the real monsters are.
We think you know.
They’re the ones on the quarantine ship.
The ones coming to get you.
Cold fury burns in her. ‘You’ve made them into monsters.’
Who are you talking to? chats Threedeep, which Pia ignores. She swings another door shut behind her and locks it. Another and another.
You think we did this? Bagrin sounds quite flattered. They’re sick, Pia. Sick with the zoo’s newest voilà. I think you know its name, don’t you?
‘The worm,’ she says between lungfuls of air. ‘Its name is the worm.’
That’s right, it is. You suspected it was here, but no one believed you because they couldn’t see it. Of course they can’t. No one can see the worm. You can only see its symptoms.
Pia knows she ought to shut Bagrin’s voice out. But the devil’s words are too seductive. Not because they are lies, but because they are a mix of lies and truth.
Thou art sick, Hum said.
The picture of the worm in Threedeep’s dream.
The way it spread so fast through the crowd.
The worm is a virus.
A virus that transmits doomsickness.
That’s right, says Bagrin. You wondered what could wound an angel? Angels aren’t just made of light. Part of them is hope. Pure hope. And doomsickness is a kind of despair. It killed your little angel’s hope. With a wound like that, it’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.
Killing hope.
Very clever.
We wish we’d thought of it first.
There has to be a reason he is telling her all this. Stalling for time, perhaps? Distracting her? She ploughs on. Ahead of her, the others have stopped, somewhere near the Sunset Pagoda. Weevis is barking out orders like a general.
We’re honoured you thought Bagrin powerful enough to create such a voilà, the devil continues. Of course, if we could do such a thing, we would’ve escaped this prism years ago. We’re just taking advantage of fortuitous circumstances. Unlike Gotrob, we have been patient.
Pia stumbles down the last few corridors. The Sunset Pagoda is just ahead. And beyond that, Bagrin himself.
Look.
Believe us or don’t believe us, but we didn’t make the worm. If we did, we wouldn’t have made children immune. Strange that, don’t you think? That only children haven’t caught this contagious virus?
It’s almost as if the worm’s creator didn’t want to be infected...
‘We’re done here,’ Pia manages to gasp. ‘Go away.’
We haven’t made all the voilà vanish, either.
‘I don’t believe you.’
Very well.
Your loss.
Must dash. My little minions are almost aboard.
Oh, one last thing.
Did you know there are already viruses called worms? They’re a type of cybernism. There was a very famous one called Megalolz. You might have heard of it.
Yes, they’re very common in computing.
Isn’t that interesting?
Why don’t you ask a gogglehead about it?
You know one of those, don’t you?
30
OUROBOROUS
By the time Pia reaches Weevis and the others, they have already built a small barricade out of old dib$ crates. Blom zephyrs them up from the hold, one after another, each square block dropping into place with a wompf and a smack.
Zugzwang grins. ‘Like minecraft, bro!’
No one gets the reference, except for Ishan.
Ishan.
Pia just stares at him. Trying to tell. Is it true? Has he made the worm? This virus that kills hope, that killed her angels? And not just the angels, but probably the Seamstress and maybe some voilà, and definitely some zookeepers?
She feels sick. Her skin crawls.
Her friend.
Her best friend.
She remembers that night again. The words he said. The world’s already dead, and we’re just the worms on its corpse.
‘Get this side, P!’ Wilma holds out her hand and nods at the corridor. ‘It’s long, well lit, straight... They’ll have to charge us. We’re building a barricade. Weevis says we can pick them off before they reach us.’
Dumbly, Pia takes Wilma’s hand and clambers over the crates. She plonks Threedeep down to one side. ‘What are we supposed to fight with?’ she asks. She can’t think straight. Bagrin has gotten into her head and stirred up all her thoughts.
‘Hothothothot!’ Gowpen comes rushing out of the Sunset Pagoda to their left with his arms piled up with lamps. He drops them like they are hot coals. Two aluminium cans, an old tuna tin, a rusty bike bell, an aerosol and an i-era smartphone clatter over the corridor floor.
‘We’re fighting with genies?’ Pia watches the others pull their sleeves over their hands and scoop up the lamps and rub them. ‘Guys, this won’t—’
Before she can rubbish the plan, Solomon and Bertoldo shoot out in spouts of lilac- and lime-coloured flame. They immediately start gabbling with Threedeep, their ‘very good friend’.
‘Good beard lengths,’ Weevis looks up briefly from the wish-scripts he is scribbling. ‘This might work.’
The other genies make less of an entrance. Zugzwang takes up the smartphone, of course, but it sends out nothing but a shower of sparks. He throws it down and rummages through a dib$ crate for a weapon instead. Finds himself a novelty gun that fires rolled-up Christmas T-shirts.
Ishan takes up the old tuna tin that is Hokapoka’s lamp. It burps out a puff of smoke, but nothing else.
‘Um?’ Ishan looks around. ‘Did I do something wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pia says abruptly, staring at him hard. ‘Did you?’
He gives her a confused look. She decides just to come out with it. To just ask him straight.
‘Who made the worm, Ishan?’
The ark judders. A groan runs through the whole ship. The corridor shakes. Pia falls over, obviously.
Threedeep pings. The autopilot informs me that the quarantine ship is alongside us.
‘They’ll be boarding,’ Weevis says. ‘We don’t have long.’ He holds out the pink paper scrip. ‘Choose your weapon—’
‘Wait!’ Pia yells, and everyone freezes. She fixes Ishan with a stare. Raises her eyebrows up, as if to say, well?
‘Pia, what’s going on?’ Ishan scrunches up his face. ‘The worm?’
‘The worm, the virus, the voilà, whatever you call it!’ Her anger is making her voice tremble. ‘Did you send them all doomsick, Ishan?’
Ishan just blinks at her. Then he sneezes.
‘Oh Seamstress.’ Pia presses the balls of her palms to her eyes
. ‘You’re not denying it.’
‘P, what is going on?’ says Wilma.
‘Could we not do this after we stop the doomers?’ Gowpen pleads.
‘No!’ Pia is so angry she slobbers a bit. No one laughs. ‘He said the world’s dead, and we’re just the worms on it.’
Ishan is trying to speak, but she is shouting over him.
‘I should have known from all your doomsay. Facepalmit, you even monologued at me! Like a pantomime villain! It’s so obvious now.’ She turns to the others. ‘He said the name for a group of humans ought to be a problem. Well, he just created something to take that problem away! He made a doomvirus – a virus to bring about the end of the world – and look what it’s doing to people—’
‘Wait a second,’ interrupts Wilma. ‘A problem of humans? Ishan didn’t say that.’
Before Pia can react, Gowpen frowns. ‘Hey, where’s Zugzwang going?’
Pia stops yelling and looks around. Zugzwang has leaped the barricade and is running away from them, full pelt down the corridor, carrying his T-shirt cannon with him.
Zugzwang.
The zoo’s joint-number-one gogglehead with Ishan, who is also a Seamer, running away from a discussion about who made the worm virus.
Pia feels a terrible sinking feeling. Oh Seamstress, she’s messed up. Why couldn’t she keep her stupid mouth shut? Ishan didn’t make the worm – it was Zugzwang. The kid with the anger issues, with the jealousy issues, with the dad issues. The kid who hacks security systems, the kid who watches who-knows-what all day long on his goggles, the kid they all feel sorry for and mostly ignore.
The kid who never really does anything.
Except now, he has.
He’s made a monster.
‘Why?’ Pia yells after him. ‘Why did you do it?’
Now she knows why Bagrin told her. To distract. To divide. Now they aren’t ready. Now they are one less. And Ishan is looking at her, his confusion turning to hurt.
‘Zugz?’ Gowpen calls, but no one chases over the barrier after him.
Wilma shushes them. ‘Hear that?’ They all go very still, and crane their heads upwards.
Footsteps on the floor above them.