POPCORN

by Victor Gischler

  With all that Stamp-tweakery now, it were well into the gloaming, London's lights striking up a sea of gold below, beyond the dark of trees as the Heath rolled down to, a glimmer of gaslights hazed by fog. So as Joey Picaroni ganders down on it, there's a call from Trude.

  “Grub's up!”

  Joey turns back to the campfire, takes the bowl Yapper reaches him. Only... Squirlet takes it right from his hand, don't she?

  “No, says she”

  Them Scruffians, they'll bounce back to starving, see, as they was Fixed, but if Joey's to pass for a workhouse boy...

  So poor Joey has to sit and watch them Scruffians tuck in while's his belly rumbles, Yapper mouthing sorry, Flashjack scarfing his nosh with gusto, proclaiming it the tastiest ever.

  Joey minds it a little less, right enough, when he sees Vermintrude adding schnozzle salt, as she calls it, to hers - ick! Still, it's a fucker to go to bed on an empty tummy, eh? But Joey took it with the stubbornest scofflaw's grit, so when's they snuggled down that night, why, bugger me if Whelp didn't curl in cosy between Joey and Yapper, like as Picaroni were already pack.

  9

  Befores even the crack of dawn, they wakes the next morn, Squirlet poking ribs with her boot, Jake already up and about, harnessing one of the landau's horses to a cart, earning a snorty head toss from a beast as reckons this beneath his station.

  Flashjack whistles music hall ditties - so chipper as makes Joey mutter murderous grump - but it's Squirlet what Vermintrude wipes the bogies from her eyes to watch, Squirlet studying a blanket of tools and weapons, picking one up every now and then to... just vanish it.

  It's a trick as don't grow old. Like us, eh?

  Finally, Eleasar Jinkalock climbs up to the front of the cart, whiles Flashjack and Joey lifts Vermintrude and Squirlet up into the back, then hops up themselves.

  Down in the dirt, Yapper crouches to Whelp, tells him sit, stay, not to follow em, but wait here with these nice folks till Yapper come back for him, and not to bite none of em neither, 'specially not the throats.

  Well, that's what he tells him in English, anyways. What he tells Whelp in Dog don't nobody know but Yapper and Whelp, and them tinker's dogs what's all peeping from their tents.

  Then with a jump to catch a hand, Yapper's heaved up and in by Flashjack, the five's all settled down in back, cross-legged, and Mister Eleasor Jinkalock gives a hie, then they's off, the dobbin plodding slow with his solitary burden.

  Ain't hardly a bird begun to tweet all the way in, nor a milk dray delivering to the Lord Mucks of Marylebone round Regent's Park.

  Ain't till they reaches Baker Street in the dawn's pale piss-light, the city's first stirrings begin.

  Hyde Park, Constitution Hill, Buck House.

  Into the valley of death rides the six hungry.

  Into the City of Westminster, they rides, down by where's the fuckers now has their memorial to Ripper Vicky, golden Victory with her switch, standing proud on a globe, Trade and Conquest kissing her tootsies, one with compass, t'other with club.

  Round Wellington Barracks and onto Petty France, they rides, towards the pompous pile of Queen Anne's Mansions. Down Palmer Street, they rides, over the railway, and left onto Caxton, past the grand gated courtyard entrance of an hulking red brick monster, left and left again. Into the lane round back. Into the scrufftrader's entry.

  Into the Insititute they goes.

  PART THREE

  1

  Through an arch they goes, into a back court grim as slaughterhouse yard, with loading plinths at doors, stickmen sentrying the entrance Eleasor points his Scruffians at, whacking em off the cart and into single file with his cane: Joey; Yapper; Squirlet; Vermintrude; Flashjack. He marches em to it, flourishing papers, spieling fabbles.

  The boss guard eyes the certificates given, then Joey, crooks a finger.

  “Open yer shirt.”

  Joey opens his shirt, edgy as the guard brings out a pocketknife.

  “Hand.”

  He gives his palm to be grabbed, nicked, held and watched as it bleeds.

  “Go.”

  In he's waved.

  “Next.”

  Yapper steps forward now, opens his shirt. As he stands there, in his nerves, he almost tugs at the neckerchief, by crikey, almost shows his stitches.

  “Hand,”

  “Good God, man! explodes Jinkalock. There's a reason I'm here at this hour!”

  And oh how he blusters, bullies: such squandery of his time! for a child as patently has no Stamp! does the fool not know the name of Jinkalock?

  And the fool, he does, for Rake Jake Scallion don't do any of his guises by half. So now it's begging yer pardon, sir, and perhaps - yes, sir - very well, sir.

  Squirlet next then, scowling at the stickman's gaze as she unbuttons her dress, Jinkalock interrupting, erupting again, at the man's impertinence, such impropriety with his property: would he leer at the girl? strip her bare? and the child? hark at her! hark!

  For Trude she's busted loose now too, bawling bloody murder, shrieks as splits everyone's ears! Why, the chaos, the cacophony - by the time it's Flashjack stepping up, them stickmen just wants these brats in others' hands, into the breaking cells.

  Course, there's the fierce grin Flashjack give em besides.

  “Go, go, says they. Take em in, sir, please!”

  Inside, it's like the front of a plod-house, benches round walls, a front desk where's the duty clerk studies them indenture papers, adds his stamps, and scritches everything down in his logbook, peering at em, one by one. Squirlet makes like a sister shushing Trude, takes her hand, meets his snooty look.

  “She's not got her curse on, sir? Don't want her Fixed in flow.”

  “Certainly not”, sniffs Jinkalock.

  Now. The arrangements for collection? First thing Tuesday? Bully!

  At the door, Jake stops a moment, looks back. Tips a wink.

  The duty clerk taps his brass bell:

  Ting!

  2

  And it's Hup to it! Shift! as two orderlies hustle the scruffs away, down corridors, tiled, to an enormous cage elevator as rattles em down, down, down toward the dungeons.

  All pressed in tight, they cowers in terror of the brutes, so it seems, as one fakes a swipe at em, hoho!

  All pressed in tight, and each of em feels a nudge from Squirlet, things pressed into their hands. A penknife. Letter-opener. Straight razor.

  You know... the usual.

  Buggered if I knows, mate.

  She's still doing that trick today and still don't nobody know where she keeps em.

  Oh, but them orderlies is having a right old laugh now, one of em joking how's maybe they should steer the waifs by the cell with Himself's pet scruff, show em what's waiting if they gets uppity.

  Why, the damage they heard done to that uppity punk, while's they was in and out with all of yesterday's fresh meat. How that scruff squealed to be clipped!

  “Yeah, but he'll have grown em back, won't he?” says one.

  “Just have to snip em off again”, says t'other. “And again and again”

  “And again?” says Flashjack. Cause if yer starting a collection...

  Then it's BAM! as Flashjack's bonce smacks the fucker's nose, and POW! as Joey jinks sharp, a roundhouse sucker-punch for the second guard.

  And Flashjack's hand claps his man's gob, while's Joey's arm locks the other's throat.

  And here's Squirlet and Yapper on a truncheon hand each, straight razors at tendons, blood spraying everywheres! Trude with a penknife in each fist for pitons, clawing up thighs, up belly, up chest, to throat!

  It's Flashjack's frenzied spike in a crotch, a blur! It's muffled screams, wild eyes, and something gruesome slithering down a trouserleg!

  It's fucking Scruffian fucking vengeance, mate.

  I won't say as they made mincemeat of them orderlies, but it weren't far off. Why, them Scruffians was bloodier than bonesaws, wiping weapons and hands on any scrap of tog as wasn't asplatter.


  Well... OK, Vermintrude being Vermintrude, she were just poking the stinky guts... but yer catches me drift.

  Anyways, they's at the dungeons now, so Flashjack hops a corpse, grabs the handle what controls the elevator.

  “Take us up”, says Squirlet.

  But he don't. What he does is heave the door open. Give her a look.

  “Flashjack, says Squirlet. “Jack, what...?”

  “Puckerscruff”, says he.

  Then he's offsky.

  3

  So, yeah, as yer can imagine, what come out of Squirlet's mouth then is what yer calls colourful, but there ain't no time to go chasing the scallywag, she reckons.

  Bugger it, let the hellion raise hell down here, see if he can spring his sweetheart, while's they do the actual job.

  So, it's up they go now, Squirlet pulling out a ticker from fuck knows where to check the hour. Hoping Foxtrot's got his runners out, spread the word.

  Never mind Flashjack; right now every Scruffian in the city should be raising hell, drawing the stickmen out. Fingers crossed.

  Sure enough, it's a quiet floor they comes out in. Well, relatively quiet.

  They was doing experiments by them days, in them labs round the vault, so there was bedlam shrieks to curdle yer very blood, but it were quiet in terms of stickman sentries, like.

  And Scruffians is sneaky bastards, all's the more so when they's led by one as could hide an elephant behind an hanky.

  So, slowly but surely, they works their way in, to the heart of the Institute, and they ain't rumbled, they ain't nabbed.

  Whassat? Too easy? Well, I suppose yer might think that.

  Now, I ain't gonna milk it like them movies. Weren't no Whassat?! then Phew! It's just a cat! But there were one event to tell.

  For here's this orderly in his office, see, ears perked to a sobbing. Out he steps into the corridor: Where's that coming from? He follows the creepy crying, round this corner, round that, until why, there's Vermintrude in the middle of the corridor, a bloody spectre. Hand to his truncheon, he steps forward and...

  SSHHEEOOWWHH! Yapper and Squirlet zips behind him, razors slashing hamstrings, and he's down on his knees, Joey at his neck - SNAP!

  So it weren't like they just waltzed in, mate. No, they left bodies in their wake, stuffed in closets and jiggered elevators. And Joey he were guised up in orderly's whites by the time as they got deep, peachy for ruses as the one they pulls now.

  “Aaargh!” Joey cries, staggering into the vault's antechamber, clutching his bloody breast. For I am foully murdered!

  And he's down, and they runs to him, and Joey grasps em, gasps as they leans over him, pulls em in close...

  “Scruffians...” he hisses. STAMP!

  And three Scruffians come belting in, blades swishing, slicing... slaughtering.

  4

  Meanwhiles, of course, Flashjack he's been making his way through the dungeons, melting the wires as runs along the ceiling for the ringing of alarm bells, and more.

  They says the Devil has a red right hand? Well, Flashjack's, his is white - white hot.

  It ain't a trick as he can fingersnap for fun, but put his darling in a situation, and that hellion's thermite palm will turn an iron lock to liquid, broil a man's balls in his grip, clamp round yer throat and squeeze yer head right off its blooming shoulders.

  Till he stands afore his Puckerscruff's prison.

  Course, Flashjack's fiery faculties might have come in handy here, Squirlet's reckoning right then, as she stands before the great steel safe door of the Stamp's vault.

  If that hand of glory didn't just sputter to a candle flame, or accidentally blow the whole melty door in, destroying everything.

  See? Even Flashjack says it's a fair cop.

  That's why it weren't the plan anyways. That's why it were Vermintrude up now, scrambling a pile of bodies to reach the lock, a combination lock schemed by the same crafty Kraut what invented such shenanigans... for Tiffany's, no less.

  Too easy? Ha!

  As Vermintrude were putting her ear to this door, elsewheres Flashjack were putting his hand to another - which yer has to picture being just one door in an whole long corridor, and that corridor just one passage in an whole horrible warren, and all's the way through it to where's Flashjack stood, a trail of bodies and burning. And chanting's coming from them cells now:

  “Orphans, foundlings, latchkey kids! Urchins, changelings, live-by-wits!”

  Cause them cells was full of Scruffians scrobbled for Scrubbing, smelling their liberation.

  “Rascals, scallywags, ruffians, scamps! Scoundrels, hellions, Scruffians STAMP!”

  And Flashjack's hand flames white.

  And upstairs, in a hushed room, Vermintrude with her ear pressed to cold steel hears a last little click of a tumbler falling into place - she's only done it!

  “Bingo!” she cries, and: “In! Your! Face!”

  And down she hops from the pile of corpses, what's dragged away now, Joey hauling this one by his arms, Squirlet and Yapper tugging that one by his legs, till's the vault door's clear.

  Joey grabs the spinny handle, slams it down, whirls it loose. He heaves back with all his might, and that door swings wide.

  But the vault's bleedin empty, innit!

  5

  Oh, there's the pedestal what they keeps the Stamp on, alright, bang in the centre of this marble chamber.

  There's the pedestal stood there as a font in a chapel, a white stone pillar with its capital cushioned in swankiest velvet, red as a postbox or omnibus, red as royal robes, red as blood - yours, mine, or any purple-pissing porphyriac posh cunt's blood, for all's they call it blue.

  There's even the dent in the cushion where's the Stamp were sat like St Edward's Crown. But there ain't no Stamp there now, not a hide nor hair of it.

  All's there is, they sees as they enters, Squirlet first, Joey behind her, then Yapper and Vermintrude, is marble-clad floors and walls with alcoves left, right and ahead, a statue skulking in each nook to make yer Templar's Baphomet seem loverly as a music hall cherub.

  A bull-head this side holds a babe above a brazier. An eagle-head thataways holds its moneybags above a babe. Moloch and Mammon.

  There's a lion-head on the last, as holds keys in its mitts, a chained child at its feet...

  Mithras, what them Romans switched for Scruffian Christ.

  Dog's honest truth, mate. Fixed at twelve to build them pyramids. It weren't no Flight into Egypt, mate.

  Think on his savvy as a nipper. And how else could yer crucify him, and he'd still bounce back?

  His message were right Scruffian too, till em Imperial eagles gets their talons in it, twists it to sin and sacrifice, half-buries it in their own spy's bollocks.

  And why else is Christmas on their soldier boy's birthday? Oh, that Empire done a right number on his message. Twisted it to justify the very crimes as he cursed, and in his name.

  So Squirlet and Joey, Yapper and Vermintrude, they's looking round em in horror, partly to see as how their mission's gone tits-up, partly to see the terrible truth - that the Institute ain't just a business growed with the British Empire, but a monstrous Order as stretches back... fuck knows... forever? The Children's Crusade. The Colosseum. The Pyramids.

  “We have to leave”, says Squirlet. “Now.”

  But that's when there's an horrible rattling clatter and CLANG! as a grate come slamming down in the doorway behind them, and they finds themselves stood there, in this dread vault of diabolical idols, trapped.

  6

  “They'll be fine”, Flashjack is saying that very instant, funny enough. “Squirlet's well savvy”, says he, and Trude is “ow!”

  To the dead-arm punch, Puckerscruff adds a flail of slapping for good measure, a lot less grateful to be rescued than Flashjack imagined.

  “You had one thing to do”, says he. “One thing!”

  He shoves Flashjack into the stairwell.

  “The other prisoners...?” says Fl
ashjack.

  “The Stamp”, says Puckerscruff. “That's all that matters. And you, our hellion firepower, left one scrag, two scamps and...”

  He trails off to an exasperated huff.

  - Come on, he says. Maybe they ain't Scrubbed yet.

  So they takes the stairs fast as Puckerscruff's pins can go, legging it for the vault what Flashjack miraculously atcherly remembers the location of.

  But there's stickmen on the landings, in every corridor, round every corner.

  Ain't nothing that pair can't carve through with fire and spike, but it don't exactly improve Puckerscruff's mood.

  “Didn't Foxtrot sort diversionary strikes?” he snarls as he pops an eyeball with elbow spike.

  “He was s'posed to”, shrugs Flashjack as he melts a face.

  “Cuntflaps!” snaps Puckerscruff.

  Flashjack... thinks better of saying how pretty Puck's hair looks, tweaked green by a torturing scalpel's nick.

  But at last:

  “This way!” shouts Flashjack, and they's round the final corner, into an hallway stretching before em all the way to “fuck!”