“A trick!” Lectern said.
“They know they can’t get on from either end,” said Mortar, “but now it can’t shake them off…they’ve snared the middle. Quick!”
Tumbling like acrobats, the dozen binja ran to fend off the intruders. But even as they reached the little maze of desks and cupboards, dark and horrifying figures were clambering over the bridge’s side.
The intruders outnumbered the binja. They wore dirty jumpsuits, rubber boots, and gloves. They aimed hoses like guns. What chilled Zanna’s and Deeba’s blood were their masks.
They wore bags of canvas or leather over their entire heads. Their eyes were smoked glass circles. The masks dangled rubber tubes like elephant trunks, stretching to cylinders like divers’ tanks on their backs, covered with oil and dirt, and stenciled with biohazard and danger signs.
“Oh my God!” hissed Zanna. “What are they?”
Lectern had gone pale.
“Lord help us,” she whispered. “Stink-junkies.”
25
The Addicted Enemy
The stink-junkies were people the Smog had caught and, horribly, forced to breathe it. It synthesized powerful mind-altering drugs with its chemicals, shoved them into its captives’ lungs, and took them over. If they were conscious it was in a deep dream. They would do anything the Smog made them do, while they breathed it. The stink-junkies were the Smog’s addict-slaves.
The binja came at them. Perhaps because the stink-junkies were such tragic figures, victims themselves, even the ruthless binja didn’t use their weapons. They attacked with chops, punches, and spinning kicks, their metal bodies twirling too fast to follow. They tried to subdue their enemies without hurting them permanently, but the Smog made the stink-junkies strong.
They were not so restrained. Their hoses sprayed oily fire. The binja dived between jets of flaming Smog.
“Quick!” said Mortar, hustling Zanna and Deeba away. Propheseers were scurrying frantically. “Lectern! We have to get the book and the Shwazzy out of here!”
“You what?” wailed Deeba.
A binja was caught in a blaze. It slammed down its lid to protect its eyes, and retracted its arms and legs. The flame licked harmlessly over its metal body.
“Where are we going?” Lectern shouted.
“Anywhere,” Mortar said. The stink-junkies were getting closer. “Let’s go!”
“Where?” said Zanna. Everyone looked around at the sound of her voice. “That’s Smog, in their tanks?” Mortar nodded. “It keeps finding me! How’m I going to get away?”
She turned, her fists clenched; she stamped, looking halfway between petulant and impressive. She grabbed a slat from one of the broken chairs and raised it like a club.
“Just leave me alone!” she shouted, and ran towards the fight.
“Zann!” shouted Deeba. “No!”
“Wait!” said Mortar, as Deeba and several Propheseers stepped forward to intercept Zanna. Mortar’s voice was resonant with tense triumph. “‘She shall prevail in her first encounter…’”
“Leave me alone!” Zanna shouted, and waving her stick, she hurtled into the battle, Deeba running to catch her.
“It’s time,” Mortar said.
Zanna crooked her fingers. Wind whirled unnaturally about her.
“Feel it rising, Shwazzy,” Mortar shouted. The Propheseers stared.
“What you doing?” shouted Deeba.
“What she was born to do,” Mortar said.
The stink-junkies came close. Deeba clutched Curdle. Air streamed around Zanna.
She raised her right hand, with its club-wand-splinter, and a wave of wind swept through the fight, and made the stink-junkies stagger. The binja leapt to Zanna’s side. She turned her head, caught Deeba’s eye. For a moment, she seemed to glow. Deeba stared.
“Zann,” Deeba whispered. “Shwazz…”
A stink-junkie shoved through the cordon of binja and smacked Zanna on the back of the head.
Instantly, Zanna collapsed.
“Zann!” screamed Deeba.
“What…?” shouted Mortar.
Zanna lay motionless. The wind that she had seemed to conduct blew suddenly random.
The binja surrounded her, trying to shove back the attacker. It raised its arms.
“Stop it!” Deeba shouted. “It’s going to kill her! What’s happening?” Deeba grabbed Mortar’s lapels.
“I…I…I…” he gabbled, staring at the unconscious Shwazzy. “Book?”
“I don’t know,” the book whimpered. Lectern was flicking through it rapidly, her expression appalled. “That…wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Help her,” Deeba said.
The stink-junkies outnumbered the binja. Despite the dustbins’ heroism, the attackers were closing in, stamping towards Zanna, their massive boots pounding.
26
Folders and Unfolders
There was a frantic sound like wings. Dark flapping shapes suddenly raced through the air around the bridge.
“Cut the hoses!” a voice came from below. “And let me in!”
“It’s Brokkenbroll!” said Lectern. “What do we do?”
“Uh…” Mortar said. He stared at the supine Zanna, and at the approaching stink-junkies.
“Let me in,” Brokkenbroll called.
“I…I’ll connect the bridge near him,” Mortar said. He clenched his jaw, and concentrated.
A tall, spindly man in a dark suit came running up the Pons, his trench coat billowing around him. The Unbrellissimo. Flying around him with little squirts of air, opening and closing like squid-bat hybrids in a hundred colors, were broken umbrellas, doing his bidding.
Some were bent, some were ripped, some had no handles, but all moved fast and aggressive. They swirled around the stink-junkies. They were like fighting crows, poking at goggles with their jags, hooking breathing-tubes and flamethrowers with curved handles.
One big, tenacious unbrella with bent spokes yanked the pipe from Zanna’s attacker’s hood. It came with a pop and a jet of filthy smoke.
The stink-junkie screamed. It scrabbled for the hose, which flailed like a snake, gushing Smog. The unbrellas opened and closed vigorously. Deeba saw several binja unfold iron fans and wave them ferociously at the smoke.
“Tessenjutsu,” Lectern said, crouching by Deeba. “The art of the war-fan. It’s been indispensable against the Smog.”
“We have to get Zanna,” Deeba said.
“Cut the hoses!” Brokkenbroll shouted again. Ducking under flames, the binja went back into the fray. This time they knew what to do. One by one the Smog’s addict-troops went down, sucking at their torn or cut pipework. They sucked desperately for their poisoned smoke, then were still.
The hiss of escaping Smog continued for several seconds. Layers of stomach-turningly foul smoke hung in the air, and crawled against the air currents as the binja and the unbrellas dissipated it.
With Mortar and Lectern behind her, Deeba ran to Zanna, wincing at the sight of the blood and bruising on her friend’s head.
“Book,” she heard Mortar say. “What is going on?”
As she knelt by Zanna, she saw a clot of Smog crawl like a malevolent slug into her nose and mouth.
“It’s gone in her!” she shouted. “Help!”
“She breathed it?” said Lectern. “Book?”
“I, I’ve got nothing,” the book said. “Page seventy-six? Page five-twenty?” Lectern flicked hurriedly through its pages. “This isn’t what’s written.”
Mortar listened at Zanna’s chest. Even unconscious, Zanna wheezed and coughed as she breathed. “I don’t think it’s enough to kill her,” Mortar said. “But it’s not doing her any good.” Deeba could see confusion and terror in his eyes.
With a visible effort, he tried to exercise some control. “Lectern,” he said, and indicated the stink-junkies.
Lectern nodded. “We’ll see what we can do,” she said. “Some may not be too far gone to save.”
“But
what about Zanna?” Deeba shouted.
“Propheseers.” Mr. Brokkenbroll approached them, escorted by unbrellas.
“Unbrellissimo,” Mortar said, shaking his hand. “We’re indebted to you. Forgive the chaos. We find things going…not according to plan…”
“What’s happening?” Deeba said to the book in Lectern’s arms.
“I’ve been watching for attacks like this, Propheseer,” Brokkenbroll said to Mortar. He spoke in a dry, quiet voice, only a little above a whisper. “And I heard you were looking for me. It looks like I got here just in time. Do you know what they were after?” He eyed Deeba.
“Of course. The Shwazzy.”
“What?” The Unbrellissimo looked stunned. “I…had no idea the Shwazzy was here. There were rumors, of course, but I thought…they couldn’t possibly be right. So, Shwazzy…” He stared at Deeba. She looked back miserably.
“Ah, no,” Mortar said. “An easy mistake, Brokkenbroll. This isn’t the Shwazzy. This young lady is Deeba Resham. She’s in the book, too, I think you’ll find, but not as the Shwazzy.”
“What good’s it being in the book?” Deeba said. “The book’s wrong.”
“How dare you!” the book said.
“Well?” she said, pointing at Zanna. There was shocked silence.
“That,” said Mortar, “is the Shwazzy.”
“Ah,” said Brokkenbroll. “I see.” He looked down at her. “She is blond,” he said gently. “I thought I’d heard that. Is she…”
“No,” said Mortar quickly. “We chased off most of the Smog. Only a very little got in.”
“But enough to…cause difficulty?” Brokkenbroll said quietly. Mortar nodded.
“Oh my,” the book said suddenly. Its voice was hollow and horrified. “She’s right. It’s wrong. The stuff in here. In me. It’s wrong.”
“Things aren’t very clear right now…” Mortar said to Brokkenbroll.
“What’s the point?” the book whispered. “What is the point?”
“Book, please,” Mortar said, and swallowed. “What we’d thought we knew…turns out there were a few surprises. And yes, we wanted to speak to you, to understand what’s been happening. Maybe you can make sense of some things…”
“Why you calling umbrellas down from London?” Deeba said, in tearful rage. “Why did you send one to watch my friend’s house? It’s because of that we came down here. What did you do?”
“Ah,” said Brokkenbroll slowly. “At long last, things begin to make a bit of sense.”
“So explain,” Deeba said. “And then we can do something about Zanna, and…” She pointed at her friend, and her voice suddenly dried.
The pall of dirt-colored smoke that had gushed out of all the stink-junkies’ tubes, that the unbrellas and the binja had tried to waft away, had been quietly coagulating again. It hung over the scene of the fight, a concentrated smudge, creeping closer to Zanna’s body.
“A smoggler!” Mortar said. “A separate nugget. Keep it from the Shwazzy! We have to stop it joining the main mass of itself. If the Smog finds its way onto the bridge we’re finished!”
It was a dense cloud, three or four meters across. It coiled and darkened like a baleful pygmy storm. From deep in its innards came a grinding, like teeth.
The cloud seemed to gather itself. Then with a rattling like a machine gun, it spat a rain of stones and coal and bullets, straight at Deeba.
27
A Wall of Cloth and Steel
So fast he was a blur, Brokkenbroll leapt in front of Deeba. In each of his hands was an open unbrella.
The Unbrellissimo twirled as if he were dancing. He spun the bent unbrellas in his hands, holding them like shields. Impossibly, with a pud-pud-pud, the smoggler’s missiles bounced off the canvas.
Brokkenbroll swung the unbrellas so quickly they looked like a shimmering wall of colored cloth and thin metal fingers. He shouted an order. The other unbrellas flapped up, opened, and spun and joined in blocking the Smog’s attack. Some were torn, some bent, some inverted into bowl-shapes. But each made itself a shield.
The onslaught slowed as the smoggler depleted. As its bullets ricocheted away, they dissolved in puffs of smoke, and drifted back towards the Smog. But the unbrellas didn’t give it a chance to regroup. With frantic opening and closing, they made a wind.
The smoggler sent out smog tendrils, groping, trying to hold on to the bridge. But the unbrellas were remorseless against the nasty little miasma. They blew it in clots off the bridge and into the wind.
It was too small to hold firm. It grew paler, and see-through, and then was just a stain in the air, and then was gone.
Deeba and the Propheseers stood in the thick light of the setting UnSun and watched the unbrellas drop, one by one, as if exhausted, beside Zanna.
“Those were bullets,” Lectern said. “And darts. Your unbrellas are canvas.”
“So,” said Mortar to the Unbrellissimo. “How in the name of bleeding bricks did you do that?”
“I wasn’t sure when to tell you,” Brokkenbroll said. “I hadn’t yet done a final test. But events, as you see, forced my hand. At least now we know everything works. Instead of trying to explain, it would be easier if I could show you.
“You can get from the Pons Absconditus to anywhere, can’t you?”
“Of course,” said Mortar. “So long as it’s somewhere. That’s what bridges are for—getting to somewhere. Where do you want to go?”
“Please come with me,” Brokkenbroll said. “And…” He looked thoughtful, and was silent for several seconds. “Yes. You too, young Miss Resham. I think you deserve an explanation. A little while back, I found something. Where to? Set course. We’re going to Ben Hue Unstible’s workshop.”
“What?” said Mortar.
“I’m not leaving Zanna,” Deeba said. “Look at her.”
Zanna lay on a sofa, tended by Propheseers. Her eyes were closed. She was sweating, and pale, and with every breath her lungs made an ugly sound.
“I didn’t know,” the book whispered.
“You can’t help her,” Brokkenbroll said. “Not here. Not yet. But come with me, and I’ll show you how you may be able to.”
“She won’t be safe,” Deeba said.
“She will,” said Lectern. “We can keep the bridge moving.”
“The main mass of the Smog doesn’t know what’s happened,” Brokkenbroll said. “Eventually, a few wisps of this battle may reach it, but there’s time.”
“I just want to go home,” said Deeba, “and take Zanna with me.”
“Of course,” said Brokkenbroll. “That’s what I’d like to facilitate. Believe me.”
Mortar, Lectern and the book, Deeba and Curdle, the Unbrellissimo, and his obedient unbrellas walked down the curve of the bridge.
“Even when the Smog does find out what happened,” Brokkenbroll said, “I think the course of events might put some fear into it.
“It knows that we’re approaching a big fight,” he said. “It’s been preparing for years. Now it’s started. That’s why it attacked the Shwazzy,” he said to Deeba gently. “It was scared of her. It wanted her out of the way before the war. It’s going to attack UnLondon soon.
“But now we’ve given it something to think about. I’ll explain everything.”
They were near the end of the bridge. Mortar and Lectern focused thoughtfully on the streets ahead.
“Let’s go…” Mortar said, and stepped off the end.
“Don’t worry,” Lectern said to Deeba, and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I know you want to take care of your friend. We’ll make sure everything’s okay.” She beckoned, and followed Mortar, Deeba only a few steps behind.
She took several steps before realizing that the buildings beside her didn’t look much like they had a few seconds before. They were unfamiliar charcoal-colored edifices in the light of the early-evening loon.
There was no bridge behind her.
She walked past some of UnLondon’s odd
buildings. A house like a fruit with windows, one in the shape of the letter S and another like a Y, a house in a giant hollowed-out ball of string. It made the building that Brokkenbroll took them towards stand out all the more.
“I remember this place,” Mortar said. “Used to get supplies round the back, by canal…”
It was a perfectly ordinary-looking brick factory. It was several floors high, with a tall chimney-cum-clocktower rising from its heart.
28
The Laboratory
The Unbrellissimo led them through the building in absolute darkness.
They stumbled through corridors and rooms and up flights of stairs, following his voice.
“What if there are traps?” Lectern said.
“Shut up,” the book said urgently. “I want to hear this. I need to know what’s going on.”
“It’s been obvious for a while that the Smog’s been preparing something,” Brokkenbroll said. “The Smog’s always hidden, set the odd fire, rushed out and drunk it, disappeared again. Lurking in deserted buildings or under the ground. But things have been changing.
“People have been wondering for months now if the Shwazzy’s due. I think that’s what’s got the Smog so nervous. It must think it’s quest season.
“It was obvious that Unstible was worried, though. I don’t think…” Brokkenbroll looked momentarily at the book, then away, seemingly embarrassed. “I’m not sure he ever quite believed the prophecies were true.” (“Might have been sensible,” the book said morosely.) “When I heard he’d gone, it made me think. Perhaps he was right. Just in case the Shwazzy didn’t come…I thought Unstible was onto something. UnLondon needs a backup plan.”
They kept on through the building’s windowless, unlit innards. Deeba heard Curdle sniff its way.
“Something occurred to me,” the Unbrellissimo said. “The bullets that the Smog fires: they’re rain. An aggressive kind of rain, but rain all the same. The Smog’s a cloud. And clouds have one natural enemy. The unbrella.”
Un Lun Dun Page 10