by Jeff Noon
‘What’s your name?’ Boda says, pushing down the feelings.
‘Blush is my name,’ the girl replies. ‘I’m twelve years old. What’s yours?’
‘My age?’
‘Name, stupid.’
‘Belinda.’ Boda says the first name that comes into her mind, protecting her identity.
‘Belinda? Oh…’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I was expecting Boda to be here.’
Boda looks at the brass band playing upon the emerald pitch for a few seconds. ‘Why did you expect that?’
‘I’m going to be famous one day,’ Blush says. ‘Do you know that?’
‘Really?’
‘I’m going to be a famous Vurtress. I’ve got the Vurt inside me, you see? I’m in Comatose Road next week. Maybe you’ll catch me? Just an itsy part, but I’m out to make an impression, you know? Anyway, soaps are all right, but I’ve got my feathers set on some bigger dreams. Like crazy dreams, you know? Well, perhaps not. Perhaps you don’t know. And, maybe, after all, you won’t be catching me next week.’
‘Well, I could watch on television.’
‘That’s sad. Crazy! Who does television any more? Only a Dodo, right? Coyote talked about Boda a lot.’
‘Did he?’
‘Oh for sure. Like crazy, he was, for that Xcabber. He told me about how he had bought her a ticket for this match. He called her his new choice.’
His new choice. This is what Coyote called you, Boda. Isn’t that strange? Strange and good?
‘Why did he call her that?’ she asks.
‘You have to ask?’ the girl says. ‘Crazy Dodo.’
Well, yes. Crazy Dodo. For having to ask. For feeling your powerful Shadow shrivelling to darkness. And for having a crazy doubt in your mind.
‘How come you’re here, Blush?’
‘Coyote bought me a ticket as well. And one for Karletta. He said I should meet this Boda girl. He said she was important. I guess that’s his seat, right there…’
Blush is looking at the empty seat beside her, her eyes glittering with juice.
‘I didn’t think this Boda would turn up, not really,’ Blush says, sneezing. ‘Not after the death of Coyote. And not after hearing that Gumbo YaYa was after her traces. I was right, wasn’t I?’
Silence, except for the crowd panting. Blasts of snot speeding through the air.
Finally…‘I used to be Boda.’
‘Oh. What are you now?’
‘I don’t know. Boda was my Xcab name. I don’t know my real name.’
‘It’s you? Crazy!’
‘You said Coyote talked about me?’
‘For sure. Coyote said that I’d like Boda. He said that I could tell you stuff. He said that I could explain everything. I don’t know where to start.’
‘Tell me about yourself.’
‘I’m Blush. I’m out of Desdemona and Scribble. You’ve heard of Scribble?’
‘No.’
‘Crazy. Well anyway, Scribble was my father. I’ve never met him. He’s lost in the Vurt just now. But, you know, I reckon he’s going to be famous one day, just like me. He’s going to come back to us. And Desdemona is my mum. She used to go visit Scribble in the Vurt, but lately he’s not been accessible. Maybe he’s working on some big scene. Like how to get back to us, you know? Well anyway, Des is only one of my mothers.’
‘You’ve got more than one?’
‘Sure. I’ve got two mums. Scribble made me out of two mothers. The other one’s called Cinders. Cinders O’Juniper. You’ve heard of her?’
‘No.’
‘Crazy. She’s a world famous Porno-Vurtress. That’s where I got the feathery blood from, from Cinders. Anyway, Des is my real mum. She lives with us. We all live in Bottletown. Des and myself, and Twinkle and Karletta. It’s a man-free zone. Maybe you’d like to come visit? Here, let me give you our number. And don’t worry about Twinkle’s reaction. She’s sound. Oh, but maybe you’re jealous yourself? Don’t be, I beg you. Life is too short.’
How the hell would you know, young girl? This is what Boda thinks, but she doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t send that message over the Shadow. Boda keeps herself to herself.
‘Anyway, there we all are, just waiting, you know?’ Blush says. ‘Waiting for a flame to come strike us. Coyote came back to our love.’
‘Who’s Twinkle?’
‘Coyote’s wife.’
‘Coyote was married to Twinkle?’
‘Well yes, once upon a time. Then they got divorced. But he would come round to talk to Karletta here, and to give her some toys and feathers. He can talk to her you see, the doggy tongue? None of the rest of us can manage it. Coyote was the only male we allowed in that house. So Coyote’s talking to Karletta in one tongue, and he’s talking to me in another. Human-like, you get the drift? And he tells me about you. He tells me crazy stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you’re the best thing since green Heaven Feathers and Vazzed-up bread. Like you’re something special. Well I hope so. You broke away from Xcabs, right? That must have been exciting?’
‘Well…’ And then considering the gleam in Blush’s eyes: ‘Yeah. It was exciting.’
‘Crazy. The cops have still got Coyote’s black cab. What do you think will happen to that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’ll go to Karletta, or to the wife. What was her name?’
‘Ex-wife. Twinkle.’
‘Whatever.’
The teams have come back on the pitch for the second half. The crowd raises a loud cheer. Blush pushes the blue-and-white feather marked with the number 9 back into Karletta’s mouth, and then closes her eyes to feel the pitch better. Boda, you are surrounded by strong songs, but all you can think about is the meaning of Coyote’s words, channelled through this young girl’s mind. And the girldog herself, Coyote’s daughter, sitting on the seat next to you, saying nothing, incapable of words, but speaking volumes. She’s dog-girl beautiful in her silence, but with a sadness to her. You can feel it through the dog-shadow. Like Coyote was still talking to you, doggy-style. Whiskers and tongue. This is who he wanted me to meet. Your thoughts. He wanted to tell you all about his family, all about his child called Karletta. Get it over and done with, and then…maybe a new game? With yourself in the starring role?
Coyote never made it to the game.
Boda says to Blush, ‘I’m innocent. I didn’t kill him.’
Blush drags her eyes away from the pitch for one second. ‘I know that, silly. Shush now…it’s a penalty!’
City push in the penalty. 4–3. ‘Oh yes!’ Blush screams. ‘Two more and we’re there. We’re in the final. We are going to be famous.’ She turns to Boda. ‘Coyote chose you, rogue driver. Kindred spirits, and all that guff. He chose well.’
‘Thanks. So who wanted him dead?’
‘Nobody wanted Coyote dead. He was well-loved on the streets. Except for…maybe…’
‘Yes?’
‘Well…Xcabs…’
‘I know.’
‘Xcabs would have loved that rider taken out. Your boss…’
‘Columbus, yes.’
‘So why don’t you ask him about it?’
‘Columbus keeps himself secret. He’s slippery.’
City score another. Equaliser. The fans go sneezing wild. Vaz is dribbling from their mouths.
‘Great goal,’ Blush shouts. ‘Did you feel that shot, Boda? Of course you didn’t. Dodos, crazy! What can we do about them?’
Karletta sneezes. Blush strokes her neck, tenderly. ‘Poor Karletta. What do you think about this hayfever, Boda? They say it’s gonna get worse, before it gets better. You know where it’s coming from, don’t you, this fever?’
Boda says that she hasn’t a clue.
‘It’s coming from a Heaven Feather.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Crazy. You don’t know? Course you don’t. It’s from a Heaven Feather. It’s called Juniper Suction. I was travelling thr
ough Black Mercury the other day. You know about the Black Mercury feather?’
‘Of course I do. But I thought Columbus destroyed all the copies years ago?’
‘Of course he did. Just like you can’t do Deep Throat feather any more. Listen up, lady…if the people want to travel, then the people will travel. And the dirtier the journey, the sweeter the route.’
‘You’re too old for your age, Blush.’
‘Like fuck. Can I help it if the feather lives inside me, and that I was brought up in a manless home environment? I don’t make the rules, I just break them.’
‘Where did you find the Black Mercury?’ Boda asks. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You don’t need the feathers.’
‘That’s right. In most cases. But some dreams are just too deep to access. They have locks on them, you know? Like condom locks? I guess Columbus himself must have sealed it.’
Black Mercury was an early version of the Xcab map that Columbus had used in the initial set-up. His hand-picked team of Vurt designers had produced it, and Columbus had then used that Vurtprint to persuade the Authorities to let him set up the real Hive-mind. A few bootleg copies had found their way onto the streets. According to Blush, Columbus had put in a sealing device that restricted direct access to the demo-map. This was to stop people like Blush, Vurt-people, from driving an illegal random cab around the map. But those bootleg feathers were available for a price, and with them anybody could ride the map, even if it was this ramshackle, early version. In the first days of Xcab life these intruders had caused havoc to the system, so Columbus had sent out a Vurtcab complete with a feather-seeker input. This feathery driver had very quickly spotted all illegal entries to the map, and had then eliminated them from the system. The users were left with useless cream feathers and a pain in the head that lasted for seven days. Black Mercury just didn’t exist any more.
‘Even I can’t ride that one naked,’ Blush is saying. ‘I need the feather to do it, and Coyote very kindly gave me a copy. It was my birthday present.’
‘Coyote had Black Mercury?’
‘Sure he did. How else do you think he made such an easy ride out of the roads? You know what the Hive-map is, don’t you?’
‘I was a driver.’
‘Sure. But really? It’s no normal map. It’s like a living map. In many ways, it’s more alive than the real roads. So, anyway, I was driving through Black Mercury feather, right, just the other day? It’s a vicious dream, that is. The Game Cat calls it a badass feather in his magazine, but I was just like, uh, crazy curious, you know? So I took it anyway. And I was playing the part of Mike Mercury, driving the Supercab. He’s the baddest Xcabber in the Black Mercury world, but I guess you know that already? So I was trying to make this fare-drop in Demo Bottletown, without getting caught by the Fast-track Furies. I had the Hive-map up and running through my dreaming head. I had the full defences on. What could go wrong? Mike Mercury could drive his cab through the gaps between a honeymooning couple’s breaths. All I had to do was deliver the passenger to Pineapple Crescent, number 666. Everything was dandy until Mike started to sneeze. Crazy, can you imagine? He sneezes so badly that the wheel starts to slip under my fingers. I zoomed into the Xcab map, and called up Demo Columbus for help. But this blinding hole was opening up at the centre of the map. There’s a wall, you know, between the various worlds. It can get pretty skinny at times, especially these days. Anyway, there was all this yellow stuff coming through that hole into Black Mercury. It was like grains of stuff. I don’t know. It was really getting up my nostrils. I caught a glimpse of this other world through the hole in the map. Juniper Suction world. Crazy shit. Read about it in the Game Cat mag. It’s a Heaven Feather. The place where the rich people go when they die. The Outer Limits, baby. And when I got back down to the real space, this yellow shit was still up my nose. I was sneezing like crazy. It sure was potent. That’s why I reckon the fever’s coming through from Juniper Suction, via the cab-map.’ Blush sneezes then, as though to emphasise the point, and Karletta sneezes along with her.
Karletta…
That could have been my child.
Boda thinks this, and then feels so angry that the daughter of Coyote is suffering from the fever. Boda can’t escape from being so stupid. It’s irrational, it’s pathetic. She understands all the things that her mind is feeling, but still, here they are.
‘My theory is that Columbus is letting the fever through on purpose,’ says Blush. ‘He’s making holes appear between the worlds.’
Boda stands up.
‘You going?’ Blush asks. ‘Didn’t you like my story? I thought I was helping you. Coyote said that I should. Don’t you like being so near a Vurt-girl? Are you afraid?’
No, it’s not that. Not just that. Boda has caught a trace of intruder-Shadow in her own. Strong and forceful. It smells like…
Shit!
Memories stirring. Pre-cabian…
The smoke of her long-ago mother. Who was my mother?
Karletta’s eyes are looking at Boda, that intense gaze that only a dog can maintain. A constant wetness.
Blush won’t give up on the asking: ‘You going to call that good Gumbo, Boda? Prove your innocence to him. Maybe he can tell you how to reach Columbus…’
Boda is apologizing to a blue-and-white supporter as she squeezes past, desperate to get away from the questions and this trace of mother-Shadow.
‘You’ll miss the final score, Boda. Coyote wanted you here. He really loved you.’ The voice of Blush following her…
But Boda is gone already. The time is 8.56 p.m. She’s pushing through snot and feathers. Towards the turnstiles, the Maine Road exit.
I called up Zero on the walkie-talkie. I told him that my daughter was leaving right now, and that she had a ‘long blond wig on her head. Bolero jacket. Gingham skirt. You can’t miss her.’ Then I made my way through the crowds towards the same exit.
Following, as always…
On the way to the exit Boda takes off her blond wig, replaces it with a black one. Another steal from Country Joe. She can feel her mother’s presence still, in her Shadow. At the exit she passes a big dogman. He looks her directly in the face. Boda can feel him recognising her over his Shadow. He smells like bad cop-smoke. The strangest thing…he lets her pass on.
When I got to the outside, Zero was just standing there, looking nonplussed and feverish. Dog-lonely. ‘Where is she?’ I asked.
‘Nobody blond came out,’ he answered.
‘You let her get away?’
Zero started to weep and sneeze then, and I couldn’t comfort him. That dog had gone too far down for me. What was wrong with him? A black-haired girl was running through the alleyways that led away from the stadium. She disappeared into the maze-like streets of Moss Side.
Maybe she had more than one wig.
I urged Zero into the Fiery Comet.
Boda running from the mother-Shadow. She heads onto Maine Road itself, and from there to a tiny side street. This is a bad part of town and scratching dogboys are barking at her from behind dustbins. She doesn’t know where she’s going. Darkness is falling, slowly. The world is turning into a labyrinth of closed-up shops and derelict houses. Her black wig, her second wig, falls off. Behind her, somewhere, she can hear a car pulling up at a too-small entrance.
Just how fucking far have I got to travel?
Boda comes out onto a new street, somewhere called Broadfield Road. Without the Xcab map she’s good and lost. Ahead of her a tribe of half-caste dogboys are slouching against the body of a Rasta-wagon. Hard-core dogga music is pounding from the wagon’s system. Boda can feel her Shadow curling up at the presence of them. They can see the map on her head now, even though she has been letting her hair grow in these last few days. They know Boda for what she is: potential dog-voider. A white girl. Gumbo has spoken to them over the waves. They gather around her in a half-circle.
The sound of a car then, coming fast down Broadfield. It screeches to a halt and a voice from t
he inside, amplified: ‘Okay. This is the cops. Leave her alone.’
Her mother’s remembered voice and Shadow.
The dogboys make a run for it. Boda runs as well, away into the twisting alleyways. Away from her mother.
Claremont Road. Suddenly, she knows where she is. Ahead of her the overgrown paradise of Alexandra Park. Where all of this started. Across Princess Road, into the park, the cop-car following as far as the gate. Boda glances back; two cops are chasing her through the verdant flowers. Her mother and another. Shadow and Dog following. Boda falling. A tangle of roots. Her legs caught in them. The wet smell of grass as her face presses into the ground. Mother Earth.
This game is over.
Zero and I moved in on the fallen figure. Zero was sneezing badly from the over-abundance of flowers in the park. He had his gun out, but I was weaponless. This was my daughter.
I went there. Close. Reached out. Touched her.
Belinda snarled and spat. She bit me. Our Shadows clash and tangle. But I’m stronger than her, more experienced in the Smoke. I’m making her will bend to mine, even as her fingernails scratch at my cheeks. Jesus, this is like she was seven years old again, and I’m having to punish her for some naughtiness. We’re both down on the ground now, crushing the flowers. A rain of petals falling. Belinda was screaming and cursing at me over the Shadow, and then I felt something cold and hard…
Blackout.
A blow to the back of my head.
I came to on the grass. Prone. My head alive with ache. Through slitted eyes I could see my daughter and Zero standing off from each other. Zero had his cop-gun pointed straight at her chest. Belinda’s Shadow was pulsing with anger and fear. Zero’s Shadow overlaid on that, bristling with flea-jumps and bad bones. All of the humanity had left him. Zero had gone total dog.
I managed some words. ‘Clegg, what are you doing?’
He didn’t answer. Cop-gun pointed. The sun was dropping down behind the canopy of trees, burning the flowers of the park into crimson waves. Zero’s face was hidden behind the pollen mask, but I could just feel his righteousness. Again I asked him what he was doing.
‘Following orders,’ he answered.
‘Kracker told you to do this?’