by Tom Pollock
‘A “ little deal ”,’ Johnny Naphtha said eventually. ‘Hmmph. Your sskillss in undersstatement are unparallelled.’ He sighed and straightened his oil-soaked tie. ‘I’m ssorry, old sstonesskin, I ssincerely am, but to battle Reach? You ssimply couldn’t afford our price.’
Petris started to argue, but Johnny Naphtha held up a hand. ‘The rissks in ssiding against the Crane King are conssiderable, as you are cognissant, and to be ssuccint, your ssuppliess of what interestss uss are already ssapped-’
‘What interests you?’ Petris interrupted desperately. ‘Johnny, you’ll commodify anything. Surely-’
‘Sssome ssecuritiess are more interessting than others,’ Johnny Naphtha cut him off without raising his voice. ‘A deal on thiss ssubject could not ssimultaneoussly sserve both of our interessstss. ’
It was brisk, blunt and brutal. The Chemical Synod were discreet to the point of deception, but they never lied. Their contracts were constructed so neatly that there was neither the need nor opportunity to cheat.
Petris stared at him in disgust, feeling exposed and humiliated. His stone felt a hundred times heavier as he turned and strode away, faster than he could really spare the energy for. His granite feet sank ankle-deep in the mud.
I’m sorry, Filius…
‘Let me know if you need anything elsse a little lesss exspenssive,’ Johnny Naphtha called brightly. ‘For the price of an eyeball, or a few happy memoriess, sssay… We have sservicess to ssuit all ssituationss.’
And then there was silence, except for the snap of his lighter and the swish as he started to swing again.
CHAPTER 19
How many crazy tramp-God-kids does it take to change a lightbulb? Beth mused as she watched Fil argue with the glowing man. She sighed. More than one, I guess.
The cobbled courtyard behind Carnaby Street was filled with glass men all pulsing with snowy-white inner light, the same hue as the posh pure tungsten lamps that lit the richer streets in Central London.
Apparently they’d turned up in the middle of marketnight. A shifting inkblot of shadows flooded the walls as the figures ambled about, bartering for lengths of wire and batteries, dabbing their wrists with bottled shades in semi-visible wavelengths as subtle as scents. One figure lay flat on a doorstep while another crouched over him, working his glazed-skin with a buzzing tattoo needle plugged into his own heart. Fine lines of red light followed the blade of the needle, like blood. The etched man’s shoulder became frosted, opaque, outlining a shining dragon on the skin that remained clear. All around them, gossip was swapped in rapid semaphores.
After the past few days, it had been a relief for Beth to see something even half-familiar.
‘Oh, right,’ she’d said as they’d rounded the corner, ‘it’s more of your girlfriend’s lot. Only paler.’
His head had jerked in alarm and he’d muttered, ‘She’s not my girlfriend. And don’t mention Electra.’
‘Gotta say, though,’ Beth was eyeing their glass forms critically, ‘they look a bit fragile to stand up in a fight against a bunch of cranes, not to mention — what was it you said? A barbed-wire monster?’
‘Don’t mention that either.’
‘Is there anything I can mention?’ she’d asked testily.
‘Good point.’ He’d patted her on the shoulder. ‘You’d probably better leave the talking to me.’
‘Why?’ Beth’d felt a twinge of wounded pride. ‘We made a good team with the Mirror-toffs.’
‘We did, yeah,’ he’d admitted, ‘but this lot won’t listen to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they… um, they don’t really think that much of girls.’ He’d had the good grace to wince.
Beth had looked back at the glass men. They were, she’d noticed then, all men — fat men, thin men, heavily muscled men: moving nude glass statues with white-hot metal veins.
‘Well,’ she’d said flatly, ‘now I just want to hug them.’
All commerce had ceased when they walked into the cobbled square. The glowing men were eying them suspiciously and Beth thought one, a bulky one, looked positively scared of her.
A tall, rangy man with tightly curled fibre-optic chest hair stood up.
‘ Crap,’ Fil hissed.
‘What?’
‘It’s Lucien, one of the Blankleit Elders. He doesn’t like me.’
‘Why not?’
‘I locked him inside a bulb once.’ He caught Beth’s startled look. ‘ What? Didn’t do him any harm. He was at the treaty talks with Glas a couple of years back — we weren’t making any headway, and he wouldn’t shut up. ’
Beth snorted as Fil cracked his knuckles and said grandly, ‘Leave the negotiation to me.’
She didn’t need to understand the semaphore language to realise that the ‘negotiation’ had instantly become an argument, which had slowly dissolved into a row, and the row simmered into a fine stew of personal abuse and sarcasm, seasoned with a light dusting of gamesmanship.
Beth was able to follow the diplomatic disaster with the help of a bearded homeless man who’d apparently bedded down in the square. He’d come over, introduced himself as Victor and appointed himself her translator. He huddled beside her, leaning against a shop wall, wrapped in a worn sleeping-bag. A faded woollen hat with a hammer and sickle logo covered about a tenth of his copious hair. He watched the glass man’s semaphores carefully and then loudly called out the English, which turned out to be doubly helpful because the street prince, as it turned out, didn’t speak the white Lamppeople’s language very well himself.
The Lampman drew himself up and flared off a sentence.
‘We will not leave the purity of our districts,’ Victor croaked in his thick Black Sea accent, and Fil rolled his eyes.
Beth leaned over to Victor. He smelled of wet dog and pee. ‘Hey, Victor?’ she started, ‘how’s it you speak their language when even he doesn’t?’ She pointed to the skinny boy, who’d thrown his spear down on the cobbles like a pissed-off tennis player.
Eyes puddled in rheumy lids rolled upwards. ‘Blankleit lingo is simple. Anyone can learn.’ He produced a bottle of clear liquid from his sleeping-bag and opened it. The fumes from it peeled the moisture off Beth’s throat.
‘I come here from St Petersburg, you know? Had to learn English — you learn English, you can learn anything,’ he tutted. ‘English is crazy language. Nothing make sense.’
In the square, Fil was trying to be nice. He dropped a friendly arm on Lucien’s shoulder, muttering rapidly, but the glass man gave a single emphatic flash and turned away with his arms crossed.
‘You need I translate that, my friend?’ Victor called out.
‘I think I got that one, thanks.’ He sighed.
Victor nodded amiably and settled back into his sleepingbag. He offered Beth his bottle and she peered at it, wondering what sort of motor engines it was designed to clean.
‘Ta, but no,’ she said. ‘Victor, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but you’re not… special, are you?’
Victor frowned. He flexed a brawny, tattooed forearm. ‘Da. In Leningrad I could deadlift two hundred kilo for Soviet Olympic team,’ he offered. ‘Is pretty special, no?’
‘Yeah, well cool — two hundred, no kidding? But I mean, you’re human, right? You’re a regular bloke?’
He nodded, and relief flooded through her. It was a little guarantee of her sanity. ‘So — don’t you think this is weird? Mute, man-shaped walking glassware? I mean, haven’t you ever been tempted to tell anyone?’
Victor shrugged. ‘Tell anyone what? Is none of this real: either I am drunk or crazy. My father died in insane asylum for protest against Kruschev. Do I want follow him? Niet, I do not, so me, I make sure I am drunk all of time. Drink enough of this, you can explain to see anything.’ He raised his bottle in a toast. ‘ Za tvojo zdorov’je’. ’
‘ I’m real,’ Beth protested.
‘You, maybe, but you see this also, so you drunk or crazy, too. ’ He
grinned and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Which no mean I not like you. I like you as much as I like much prettier sane girl.’
In the middle of the square, Fil spun back towards Lucien and said triumphantly, ‘Don’t forget, it was me who negotiated that treaty for you, me and Gutterglass. You owe me. If weren’t for me, these streets would all be Amber by now.’
The Blankleit Elder’s face set into a sneer, visible even through the light coming off his glass brain. He folded his arms and flashed his reply.
‘He say,’ Victor called out, ‘that deal you are talking about is oppressing to him and to his nation. Is affront to dignity of Whitelight race. Traps them in crappy little ghetto in middle of town.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Beth was incredulous. ‘A minute ago this “crappy little ghetto” was the sanctum of his purity!’
‘Apparently it can be both,’ muttered Fil. He shot her a look which said, Good point. You’re not helping. Please for the love of God shut up.
‘Ghetto is shameful to them,’ Victor announced as Lucien strobed on, ‘white lights who can trace their lineage from Holy Gaslamps themselves.’
‘ Blood-in-the-River! You’re NOT gaslamps!’ Fil shouted at Lucien. ‘There’s not a bloody one of you has got an ounce of spirit-vapour in your blood. Just ’cause you’re half a shade paler, you think you’re holy? Thames! You’re metal and glass and sparks, same as the Sodiumites…’ He tailed off, eyes wide. He knew he’d said something stupid.
Lucien pounced, his expression haughtily offended. ‘How dare you compare us to Ambers, filthy bulbstealers!’ Victor translated as he strobed furiously. ‘Of course, we all know how fond you are of them — how you fraternise with their little princess.’
‘Just ’cause you never fraternised with anything but your own right hand,’ Beth said under her breath.
Everyone froze, and then looked right at her: a dozen glowing faces, and Fil, his shocked eyes two pale islands in the filth of his face. That was when Beth realised the Lamppeople were deaf; even though Fil was shouting, they’d been reading the words off his lips. And everyone in the square could see her — and that meant they all knew what she’d just said.
Beth licked her cracked lips. Her throat was dry and she flushed with embarrassment. Lucien was looking sneeringly at her, and she felt dislike for the tedious glass bureaucrat coming off her like steam.
Lucien made some patronising hand-gestures and Victor winced as he translated the flashes for her: ‘Come on then, little fleshgirl. If you have something to say-’
The look Fil gave her could have bored through brick, but Beth would drink her own paints before she let someone talk to her like that.
She stood up and straightened her hoodie. ‘All right then,’ she muttered and marched into the middle of the square. Blankleits shied away as she passed them. ‘Don’t worry,’ she muttered, ‘I’m not gonna to get girl on you. I’m just gonna talk a bit.’
She came to stand in the centre of the courtyard. Fil was looking at her like she was a live cable. She put her hands on her hips. She had an idea of what she was going to say — it was a bit mental, but if they wouldn’t listen to him because they thought he was partisan, maybe, just maybe, they’d listen to an outsider. Even if she was just a little fleshgirl.
‘You lot can all understand me, right?’ she called out. ‘You can all read my lips?’
A paparazzi-attack of flashes responded.
‘They say da,’ Victor said unnecessarily, but taking his role seriously.
She fixed Lucien with a look. She focused on how satisfying it would be to introduce her kneecap to his glass testicles and, miraculously, her nerves subsided. She licked her dry lips and started, ‘You know, we got people like you where I come from, old men — always old — you see ’em on the telly, all they ever do is shout about the “good old days” and how grand they used to be, and how they got screwed over, and now they reckon that means they’re owed.’
She smiled humourlessly. ‘But not one of them bickering, whining old bastards ever made a difference to the world.’
She started walking into the Blankleit crowd and they parted, making way for her, until, once in their midst, she deliberately turned her back on Lucien, blinding him to her lips, cutting him out. It was about as blatant a gesture of disrespect she could think of on the fly. The glass men had stopped fidgeting now, and every glowing eye was fixed on her.
‘The one we’re fighting controls them.’ She pointed to the horizon and the cranes. ‘And he doesn’t give a crap what you think you’re entitled to. Reach is clearing the city, tearing it up block by block. You think your pure sanctum, your crappy ghetto or whatever you want to call it — you think it can survive the Demolition God? You think you’ll hold out any better than your yellow cousins?’
It was deliberate provocation. The Blankleits stirred angrily at the word ‘cousins’ and one or two of them flashed something, but Victor shouted angrily, ‘ Niet! Not for lady!’ and the strobing died away.
Beth stared them down, and she could sense their shock in that. She knew she still had their attention. ‘You’re proud of your history, I get that,’ she said, ‘but Reach won’t care who your ancestors are, who you used to be. He’s going to kill who you are now. And he won’t hesitate. So if you want a future, boys,’ she said quietly, ‘you’ve gotta let go of the past.’
That was it, her pitch. She fell silent, her heart pounding. The bright glow of the Lampmen felt a lot more threatening now it was spilling over her.
Fil stole up to her side. ‘That was incredibly stupid,’ he murmured, ‘but incredible.’
She blushed.
‘The way you talk about Reach-’
‘He scares the crap out of me…’
‘He does? Thank the River! I was starting to think you were too daft to be scared of anything.’
Lucien was stalking around in circles, all lit up and waving his arms frantically. He looked like he was signalling an aeroplane in to land.
‘He say you full of something I not translate for nice lady,’ Victor called.
Beth swallowed hard, but one of the other Blankleits, a short man with a softly glowing belly, had pulled out of the crowd. After a shamefaced look back at the infuriated Elder he walked hesitantly towards Beth. When he reached her he semaphored, and even Victor sounded surprised as he translated, ‘He will follow. He says he will fight.’
Beth gasped and her heart felt like a balloon, inflated to dangerous levels with euphoria. A sudden raw awareness hit her: everyone was watching her. They were still looking at her as an outsider, but no longer as an interloper. God, she thought dazedly, they know what I’m saying is right.
Under their bravado, their denial, the Blankleits were deeply afraid. What had Fil said? The stronger Reach got, the scareder people became…
I guess it’s not hard to become a leader, she thought. All you have to do is step forward while everyone else’s looking for a place to run to.
At this point, Beth thought wryly, they’d probably follow a sock-puppet if it offered them a way out — as long as it wasn’t known for fraternising with their Amberglow enemies.
One by one, other glowing men drifted from the crowd towards them. Lucien kept protesting, flashing brighter and brighter, but Beth saw the mistake he was making: by shouting, he was taking her seriously, and that gave the others permission to take her seriously too.
A tall, muscular Blankleit and a lanky, sharp-eyed one took each other’s shoulders. They whispered to each other in soft flickers, then nodded and embraced. They walked over to the humans and each shook first Fil’s and then Beth’s hand. Apparently they came as a pair.
‘So,’ Beth barely moved her lips as she whispered, ‘can I do the talking next time?’
CHAPTER 20
Tower blocks reared up around the St Paul’s Demolition Fields, black against the City’s incomplete darkness. They formed a perimeter of sorts around Reach’s stronghold, with a crooked crane looming over every all
ey or lane that led in.
Electra paced back and forth along the roof of a corner shop, blazing her heart out against the night. She felt trapped, like the entire city was her cage, and only the acre of land that surrounded the Cathedral was freedom — the acre sitting tauntingly beyond her, in the palm of the Crane King’s hand, where the Wire Mistress and her bleeding prey had slunk off to.
Reach’s servant had led her a harum-scarum chase across London. She’d hurled herself bodily after it with her hands and fields and feet, scrambling over rotten garden fences, leaving scorched footprints on neatly tended lawns. They’d climbed to the rooftops under the moon. The Wire Mistress’ barbs made it surer on the tiles and it squeezed more and more speed from its host. The fleshgirl wept and made shapeless moans with her punctured tongue, and she obeyed.
Lec had chased it mile after mile, fuelled by a hundred thousand volts of hatred, and only when the cranes had appeared suddenly over the rooftops had she skidded to a stop. Now she raged and spat sparks. For one insane moment she thought she might leap from the roof and charge, cranes or no cranes, but even in her anger she knew exactly how that would end: with Reach’s metal claw turning, the chain hissing over pulleys, the rusting hook swinging in fast, bringing pain and blood, and then nothing at all.
If the Crane King kills you, she glimmered to herself, phrasing the light as simply and carefully as though she were talking to an infant, the Wire Mistress escapes.
She felt the last warmth of her momentum leave her and in its wake, a chill crept in that didn’t belong to the night. Lec hunkered down on the tiles, staring into space with tear-scorched eyes. There was a sensation in her stomach of standing on a precipice, as if one step forward would bring an endless fall into darkness. She’d felt something like it before, she realised, although with her sisters dead, comparing it to anything felt like a betrayal.
The feeling dredged up a memory: standing outside the Stepney warehouse on the very last night of the Spectrum War, her hand flat against the wood of the door. She was barely more than a kindling, but the Tel-Nox clan blooded its children early. She was just a scared little girl trying desperately to remember the steps of her barely practised war-waltz, her gut heavy with the knowledge that if she stumbled, she was dead, and not just her, but the other girls behind her too.