Pollen

by Jeff Noon

  ‘The master has ordered me to kill you. The both of you.’

  ‘You okay, Belinda?’ I asked. No answer from my daughter. ‘Clegg, see through this please.’ I was trying to keep my voice cool, because the dogcop’s Shadow was so very edgy, I feared that he might jump at any moment. ‘Kracker is playing with you. He’s playing with everyone. The master has got another agenda.’ The gun tightened on my daughter. ‘Clegg! Listen to me. Kracker is using you.’

  ‘His master’s voice, Jones. I’m being a good dog.’

  Heavy pollen was rising still, from my struggle with the daughter. It couldn’t find a home in us, so it settled for Zero. He sneezed with it.

  A​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​c​c​c​c​c​h​h​h​h​h​o​o​o​o​o​s​s​s​s​h​h​h​h​h​h!!!!!

  Zero wavered, his gun trembling. I made a move to stand up.

  ‘Jones! Keep still. You’re making me angry.’

  I stopped moving.

  ‘Please don’t make me angry. I’m trying not to follow Kracker. I really am.’ Zero’s brow, above the mask, was covered in sweat. ‘But you know how it is, Sibyl…it’s you against him. And the master is stronger than you. He’s calling to me. All I have to do is kill you both. It’s simple.’

  ‘Won’t you consider the cause of it?’ I said. ‘Kracker is no longer a cop.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s aiming to break the law. I think he’s tied up with the Flowers case, Zero—’

  ‘Stop calling me that! My name is not Zero.’ Gun tightening.

  ‘Okay…Zulu.’

  His eyes closed for a second, and when he opened them again, Belinda had stepped into his mind. I could feel her stepping there, over the Shadow. She forced his hand to move, so that the gun was pointed at me. Zero was trembling with fear, his head expanded from the Shadow’s intrusion. ‘Sibyl, she’s making me shoot you…’

  And then Belinda pulled a gun out of her shoulder bag. I call it a gun, really it was some kind of antique. A Colt .45? It looked like a toy. Where did she get that?

  A hard look in my daughter’s eyes. ‘Belinda, don’t be silly…’ It sounded weak, but what could I do? Belinda looked at me, just a tiny movement, as though the name had got through to her.

  Belinda shot Zero.

  I have the impression it was her very first shot of a gun.

  Zero cried out. He fell down, clutching his arm. Belinda started to run into the surrounding bushes. ‘Belinda, Belinda…’ My voice following into the woods.

  ‘Sibyl,’ cried Zero. ‘Please…please help me…’

  I had to make a decision then, go after my daughter, or else look after the badly wounded Clegg, that stupid, master-bound victim…

  It didn’t take long, cop-rules making me weak.

  I knelt down beside the dogcop, resting his head against my breasts. ‘That’s okay, Zero,’ I whispered. ‘We’ll get through this.’ Zero was whimpering and sneezing, telling me heartfelt excuses for his behaviour. I told him to keep quiet, rocking his warm body back and forth, back and forth under twilight branches.

  The shapes in the leaves where my daughter had escaped. Not a single word had she spoken to me.

  And then, some time later, Boda pushing her way through flowers which are tightly packed and bursting with primal colours, even in the gloom. All alone in Southern Cemetery. Night has covered her traces. The black wig has gone the way of all hair, but her blond hair is now safely back in place. Her bristling skull is sweaty. Had she killed that big dogcop that her mother had dragged along? Was that really her mother? It certainly smelled like her mother’s long-forgotten Shadow. What was that name she called me?

  Belinda?

  It was too much to think about.

  This place of death is too wild for people these days. Too many blooms, too much pollen in the air. The people prefer to keep themselves hidden behind doors and curtains, masks and lotions. They really think this will do some good. Boda can see the grains floating through the yellow night air of the cemetery, plant to plant, carried by the wind, or else taking a free cab-ride on the body of some insect. The bees are getting fat on nectar. Everything is accelerating, but Boda’s nose is a barred gate to tiny life.

  Alone with Coyote.

  She comes up close to the grave. The dog-people have clubbed together to purchase a tomb statue. Unfortunately the carver didn’t have a Dalmatian in stock at such short notice, so a creamed Labrador stands sentinel over Coyote’s grave. The sculpture is smothered in vines and flowers. The engraved snout rising out of the blooms and the black leaves seem to form a pattern of spots over the Labrador’s stone body. Coyote Dog, still trying to ride the waves.

  Boda pushes her face into the flowers that cover the taxi-dog’s tomb. She breathes deeply of the pollen there, hoping for some kind of reaction. Anything to get herself back onboard. Her life is getting broken.

  That was my mother with her arms around me.

  Nothing happens. No sneezing, no tears.

  Maybe I’m dead to everything?

  Only questions now, keeping only alive.

  Did Columbus have Coyote killed? Was he allowing the fever to come through from the Vurt world? Were Coyote’s death and the fever connected? The cops and the cabs were working together on this?

  Through the overgrowth she can just about make out a carved eye, a taxi-dog’s eye, looking at her through the stone. Boda takes off the blond wig, runs a hand over her skull. Bristles growing out of a map. It’s her birthday in three days’ time. Nineteen she’ll be, and maybe getting too old for such an outlandish display. And anyway, who needs a map on their head when all they’re doing is riding fast-tracks, and the combined forces of Xcabs and the cops are on their traces? Not to mention Gumbo YaYa. Or even her own mother. Boda can’t even sign on for Dripfeed, because then her name and whereabouts would be in the info-banks. Her money has been squandered on fast-track fares, all of which lead to nowhere. This young woman standing in a night-fallen cemetery, before the grave of a dogboy she had written songs for, and sent love poems to, but whom she’d hardly even known, not really.

  The world is on my shoulders now, forcing me down to the soil’s grip. I will not give in. I will not give in to their desires.

  Boda’s mind is plagued by these twisting thoughts as she pulls up flowers by the root from Coyote’s grave. Her fingers are bloody from the clutch of thorns, and her Shadow is dancing through the undergrowth, ridden by weeds. Coyote stands in front of her, an impassive statue, a rider of dead roads. Boda pulls loose a clump of vines from the taxi-dog’s tombstone. They pull back against her effort, blossoming and turning until the stone is entangled once again.

  She places a lone orchid on the grave’s soil.

  Friday

  5 May

  The road was a carpet of soft blooms that my wheels crawled through. The traffic lights at Oxford and Whitworth were entangled by vines. It was difficult to see the lights change, red to yellow to green; everything was green stems, red and yellow flowers. It didn’t matter; mine was one of the few cars left on the street. The fever was taking its time with me. All I could think about was Jewel, back in the flat, suffering. I had even bought him a Gumbo YaYa pollen mask. I had smeared Sneeza Freeza on his nostrils. I had lined his room with Gumbo YaYa’s Very Own Protective Seal. All for nothing; my child was dying. I knew this now. The fever had made a flourishing desert out of my city. It was a Mancunian paradise that nobody wanted, not even the dogs, who had finally run for cover from the pollen. Maybe they were just building up to a big showdown, conserving their resources. Friday morning. Here and there a few street-cops were wandering, robos in the main, but totally masked, up to the eyeballs. No one was safe. The cops weren’t there to stop crime any more, they were more like protectors, keeping people off the streets, away from the pollen. Above the doors of the Palace of Vurt Theatre, a laser-sign pulsed out the following message—HIS MAJESTY’S HEALTH WARNING: THE POLLEN COUNT IS RISING. SNIFFING FLOWER
S IS DEADLY. All along Oxford Street columbines, japonicas, mimosas and a thousand other varieties of flowers were growing from the cracks in the pavement, dragging at my wheels. Sixty-five per cent of the population were now suffering from severe hayfever. The number of known fatalities was now well into double figures, not including the initial murders. The towers of Manchester were being suffocated by flora. It was a jungle that I had to drive through. So many people dead, and still no clear cop-path to an answer. No leads to the flower girl called Persephone. Chief Kracker had put out an all-points bulletin on my ‘miscreant behaviour’ and cops city-wide were on the lookout for my traces. I had, of course, vanished myself from the station, whereabouts unknown, since yesterday’s debacle with Clegg and Belinda. I was AWOL and stunted in the case, even whilst the city was growing crazy from the seeds. The pollen count had risen alarmingly in the last few hours, 1200 and growing stronger, almost as though the flowers were growing impatient. Bad times on planet Earth. The city was weeping. If Manchester went under the spell of flowers, then the whole world could suffer likewise, all the cities following, one by one. The Authorities had put blocks on the four gates in order to stop the Vaz truckers spreading the fever. Maybe it was too late. The people were blaming the cops for the danger, led on by that Gumbo YaYa’s pirate voice.

  I passed a street sign on the Rochdale Road that read Welcome to Namchester. Ahead of me the seven towers of Nam stood in silence, stark against the heated sun. Ten years ago this area had been desolated by the High-rise Wars, now the towers were home to the well-done and the well-to-do. Zero greeted me at the gates to Fortress One, which was a moist block of cement enwrapped with flowers. Zero led me up to his rooms, his face covered by the latest ‘entirely newly improved’ pollen mask. The wound in his shoulder had been sealed by robo-Skinner. His flat was richly appointed in all the human comforts, no hint of the Dog World. A young man was sitting on the pumped-up sofa-bed holding an armoured specimen box like it was a live rat with bad blood. He was a pure-hearted loner. His Shadow was wreathed by weakness. Zero introduced him as Jay Ligule, from the Manchester University Botany Department. Ligule had brought evidence with him, some micro-feathers.

  The Alexandra Park incident had finished Zero with Kracker. Zero Clegg was a lone dog now, slipping the noose. I could feel his spirit running wild through his Shadow. He was free from the vanished master.

  From now on we would be riding unofficially.

  Jay Ligule was waving the micro-feather at me, like I should be able to taste those things. I told him that feathers meant nothing to me. But Zero had worked out the scenario. He’d ‘borrowed’ a feather-translator from the cop station. Ligule had transposed the info onto antique video. ‘This is the little culprit,’ Ligule said, as a moving display came up on the screen. ‘Amaranthus Caudatus. Or at least, some kind of variant. A tropical plant, usually blooms in high summer, and then only in the South of England.’

  ‘The South, you say?’ Zero hated the South.

  ‘Yes. Amaranthus…it comes from a Greek word. Meaning an imaginary plant, one that never fades. Commonly known as Love-lies-bleeding.’

  ‘I reckon I’ve cracked this case, Smokey,’ Zero said. ‘I reckon we’re looking for a mad botanist with a poetic streak. I reckon we catch this bugger, shove him in Strangeways Feather? What do you say?’

  Strangeways Feather was where they put prisoners in those days, storing their bodies in racks whilst their dreams drifted through tiny cells in the Vurt. It was cheap and nasty, but it worked.

  Jay Ligule looked up from the video screen. ‘Take a look.’

  …tiny life swimming there…pieces of stuff…minuscule monsters…fronds were twitching…knots of blackness here and there…moments of recognition, drifting into mystery…

  ‘You see the darker spots?’ Ligule said. ‘These are the human element.’

  ‘Human?’ I asked.

  ‘Basically what we have got here is a new kind of hybrid. Human and plant. Those dark spots you saw were human genes lodged inside plant cells. We have never seen anything like this before. Kirkpatrick was shocked by it.’

  ‘Kirkpatrick?’

  ‘Glasgow University. She’s the leader of the field in plant reproduction.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be a mad botanist, by any chance?’ asked Zero. ‘Maybe with a poetic streak?’

  ‘She called this specimen a monster. We have a serious problem here, she said. Humans and flowers are having sex.’

  Zero sneezed.

  ‘Hayfever is caused by sex,’ Ligule continued. ‘You know that? It is the outcome of flowers trying to love one another. And failing. The fever is the outcome of bad plant sex.’

  ‘Kinky,’ Zero said. ‘You want to explain?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Ligule began. ‘Pollen is produced by the anther of a flower, the male organ. From there it is carried by the wind or by insects, until it reaches the stigma of another plant. Or even the same plant. The stigma is the female organ. The stigma is moist and covered in fine hairs. It clutches at the pollen, making it feel at home, so that it can release its proteins. These proteins dig their way into the stigma, searching for the egg inside. This is the way of love for flowers. Sometimes a human comes in between.’

  Zero: ‘This causes hayfever?’

  ‘The pollen lodges in the human’s nostrils. It finds a moist and hairy place there, and thinks “this is the stigma. This is where I must bury myself.” The grain releases its proteins, causing a breach in the nasal cavity. Of course the human body registers this as an attack and therefore activates its immune system. We try to expel the invader, through our nose and our eyes, with snot or tears. Hayfever is a defence mechanism.’

  ‘You’re saying that humans and plants are having sex?’ Zero asked, making a sneeze from behind his latest mask. ‘Jesus! You pay a week’s salary for these things…doesn’t do anything.’

  Ligule joined him in the sneeze and then continued. ‘The body is no longer rejecting the pollen grain. It is treating it like a lover. The immune system is trying to fight this impulse, but the reproductive system is fighting against it. And winning. The body is accepting the plant sperm. Kirkpatrick has examined some of the corpses. The pollen has made its way down to the womb. It is fusing with the human egg, as though it were a plant egg. Kirkpatrick reckons it to be the next step.’

  ‘What step would that be?’ I asked.

  ‘The next phase of evolution, given that the country as a whole is increasingly drawn to interbreeding.’

  ‘Jesus-Fever!’ Zero was breathing deeply through his mask, making a sound like a victim. I could only feel for him, but at the same time Ligule’s theories were appealing.

  ‘Has Kirkpatrick any idea where these grains are coming from?’ I asked.

  ‘We think it goes back to Fecundity 10,’ Ligule said. ‘We think that Casanova has stepped into the plant kingdom.’

  ‘What are you telling us?’ Zero asked.

  ‘Floraphilia, Kirkpatrick is calling it.’

  ‘She means by that?’ Zero again.

  ‘We are saying that somebody has fucked a flower, and this hayfever is the baby of that union.’

  ‘Dog-Christ!’ wheezed Zero.

  ‘We must burn all the bodies,’ Ligule added. ‘As a precaution. They mustn’t be buried.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘It would be like burying a seed.’

  Fifteen minutes later, after telling us all he knew and gathering up his specimens, Ligule left Zero and me alone. I made to follow the botanist down the stairs but Zero grabbed a hold of me. ‘Don’t go, Sibyl.’ I could not bear to be alone with him; memories of the park played over and over in my smoke. ‘Please, Sibyl. Let me explain. Look, I’ll cook you a meal. What do you say?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘That’s a yes, then?’

  We ate the food in silence. It was a fine meal. Totally human it was, that repast, no hint of raw meat in there. Green shoots, scarlet beans, thic
k and juicy sauce, burning chillies and golden corn. It was a hayfever meal. Zero called it his attempt to ‘take this bitch on board,’ and then fell silent. He kept clutching at his wounded arm whilst he was eating, as though ashamed at having been wounded by such a young girl, and when he finally spoke once more, his voice was sour. ‘You know what I’m doing, Smokey? I’m trying to get well.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m trying my best.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So you won’t help me?’

  ‘You lied to me, Zero,’ I answered. ‘You were working behind my back. You were programmed to kill me. My daughter. Have you any idea how much that hurts?’

  ‘What could I do? Kracker was the master.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘The master is gone.’

  ‘He’s involved in this fever case. You know that now? He’ll do everything he can to break us.’

  ‘Yes. I know. Shall we put this behind us? I’d like that.’

  ‘It’s not that easy to forget.’

  ‘I’ll tell you everything.’ Zero’s eyes were staring at me through his mask’s filters. He was crying, like rain against glass. ‘I’ll give you everything. All the clues. Sibyl, I’m trying to make amends. Won’t you help me?’

  I turned away from his stare. Clouds of golden pollen were moving through the air outside the high-up window.

  ‘Sibyl…you’re my only hope.’

  I looked back at him. ‘How could you do this to me?’

  ‘I had no choice. Shit, there’s too much dog in me, I guess.’ This was a real confession and it made me wonder. ‘Kracker controlled me. You humans don’t know what it’s like. The dog in my veins is a slave to love. Kracker was my owner. Please…what more can I say?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You’re on my side?’

  ‘Tell me everything.’

  ‘It might be bad for you.’

  ‘Tell me anyway.’

  ‘You fancy getting some air?’ Zero got up from the table and moved to the windows. He opened them up and then stepped out onto the balcony. I followed him out there. Out on that edge, Zero took me into a close-hold. A panic ruffled my Shadow into waves of turbulence; there was too much dog around me. But his breath was dying…dying. I could hear it drifting away through the golden air.