by Kim Newman
She had made a fist and pressed it under her breasts, close to her heart. Her nails indented her palm.
One blow. A blow for Neil. For all the footsoldiers. Against the Quorum.
She did not strike.
When he turned back, she felt nothing. She gave him money and told him to go home.
Then she left.
You’re good at that, Mummy, the familiar voice said inside her head. Leaving.
6
12 JANUARY, 1993
‘It is not permitted to sleep in the lobby.’
Mickey jerked awake. A Mormon in a blue blazer was shaking him vigorously. He coughed and swallowed phlegm. Even after three throat-stretching yawns, the pressure in his ears wouldn’t equalise.
‘Sir, I must request that you leave.’
He didn’t understand. The pain in his head was exploding. The grip on his arm suggested years with a muscle-building squeezeball. Mickey was firmly eased upright. His ears popped; something warm seeped inside his skull.
‘Are you awaiting a guest?’
‘What time is it?’
‘Five minutes shy of one in the a.m., sir. I repeat, are you awaiting...’
‘I am a guest, sunshine.’
The Mormon’s tanned face didn’t register surprise, embarrassment or interest.
‘In that case, perhaps the best course of action would be to sleep in your room.’
‘Good point, john,’ Mickey barked. ‘I’d be in my room if I could get in, but the fuckin’ card won’t go in the slot.’
‘There has been some malfunction?’
The Mormon’s eyebrow-raise was copied from Mr Spock. Also his deferential, sly way of talking to people as if they were arsehole human beings and the sentient universe would be better off without them.
‘Too right.’
Mickey dug out his gold cardkey and handed it over. Morman looked at it with one serious eye. Now the Mormon knew he was in the Apex Suite, he should transform instantly into Johnny Smarm and lay down a carpet of tongue to be walked over. Without comment, the Mormon put the cardkey in his top pocket.
‘If you would remain here, I’ll see to this immediately,’ he said.
‘I won’t go anywhere.’
The Mormon walked off, footfalls padded by thick carpet. There were pools of light in the lobby, but beyond the glass doors the streets were dark. Mickey had slept the evening away. An empty hunger bit in his stomach. His head still buzzed.
No one else was in sight. He felt as if he were recovering from a bad bout of flu, having been through the gallons-running-out-of-the-nose stage and entered the sinus-plugged-with-drying-concrete phase. He shook his brain and wondered what had happened.
* * *
In his head, there was another silent thundercrack. Mickey felt a frisson as if an invisible jet had just passed. An abandoned newspaper whisked off the couch and was tugged across the lobby as if hooked by a fishing line. His vision was fuzzy; he thought he saw a streak of smoking footprints on the carpet.
* * *
The Mormon didn’t come back. A Nevergone Void had opened up and swallowed him from history.
After an unreasonable passage of time, Mickey trekked the hundred yards. Two burnished copper half-cones protruded from the wall either side of the front desk, which was lit up like a mirage. A toothy young woman in a blazer, a perfect Marie to the vanisher’s Donny, looked up. Her name-tag identified her as Shirley.
‘What happened about the Apex cardkey?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Your mate said he’d get it sorted.’
‘I’m unmarried, sir.’
He wasn’t surprised.
‘The bloke who was here just now took my cardkey. Handsome guy if you like the type. My cardkey wasn’t working.’
‘That’s not likely, sir.’
‘Likely or not, that’s the way it is.’
‘If you say so, sir.’
It was like talking to a faulty cash dispenser. The responses didn’t correspond with the inputs.
‘Can you get me another key, love?’
‘Not without authorisation from my supervisor, Mr Candy.’
‘In that case, I suggest you trouble yourself a jot and get authorisation.’
‘No need to be testy, sir. Mr Candy comes on duty at seven a.m.’
‘What am I supposed to do till then?’
She had no answer.
‘Can I check into another room?’ He had a wad of cash in his wallet. ZC were picking up his bills and would recompense him.
Shirley tapped a few keys on a discreet computer terminal and told him ‘We’re fully booked, sir.’
‘Even the Presidential Suite? I reckoned Bill Clinton would be busy in Washington this month, what with the inauguration and all that hoop-la.’
Her eyes were downcast.
‘I’m not authorised to access information on the Presidential Suite, sir. It’s a matter of national security.’
‘Go on, love,’ he cooed, making irresistible eyes.
‘That would be a federal offence, sir.’
He thought of another tack.
‘Can I use this?’ he asked, reaching for a slimline telephone. Her hand, as strong as the Mormon’s, descended.
‘The telephone is for the use of staff and residents only.’
‘I’m a resident.’
‘Of course. May I see your cardkey, sir?’
It was hard to keep his temper. ‘I gave my key to your mate.’
‘As I said, sir...’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could you make a call for me. To Miss Wilding. Heather Wilding. She’s on the nineteenth floor.’
Shirley’s eyes narrowed. To her, this was highly irregular. Just now, he understood how serial killers felt about women. If he were drawing Choke Hold over again, the Strangler’s victims would look like her.
‘Ms Wilding?’
He nodded. She tapped more keys. He stretched but could not see her screen from his side of the desk.
‘Ah, yes, a Ms H. Wilding is registered. Is she, ah, your fiancée?’
He was infuriated.
‘No, Miss Wilding is not my fiancée. She happens to be a gorgeous hag I’ve been thoroughly shagging for the last three days, if you must know. I’ve taken enormous delight in porking her up against walls, in the bath, on floors, even in beds.’
He heard himself and realised he was losing it. Aches in his ribs reminded him of the alloyed pleasure he’d shared with Heather when she got out her fancy-dress and whip.
Shirley reddened. ‘Sir, you misunderstand me. Your private affairs, and Ms Wilding’s, are entirely your own and not the concern of this hotel. However, Ms Wilding has left instructions that no calls be put through before her 6.30 wake-up unless they are from her fiancé. Do you wish to leave a message?’
‘Fuck me,’ he breathed.
She wrote it down.
‘How do you want that signed, sir?’
* * *
While he talked with Shirley, discreet security guards appeared from their holes. Two of them: brown uniforms stretched over superhero pecs, matching mirrorshades. They made no threatening gestures but it was clear he was required to leave the lobby.
‘Why would anyone wear sunglasses at two in the morning?’ he asked.
‘It’s so you can’t see their eyes, sir,’ Shirley helpfully explained. ‘It’s supposed to be intimidating.’
Two sets of thin lips bent almost imperceptibly into sneery smiles. Mickey could have drawn the expression with a contemptuous pencil-flick. It was a subtlety reserved for those so powerful they didn’t need to make a show of violence.
He moved involuntarily towards the doors. The guards deliberately advanced on him. Doors automatically hissed open. Night air reached in like an ice hand. A distant police siren whined, the inescapable sound effect of Urban America. Cars with searchlight headlamps prowled past. There was nothing for it but to find an all-night bar. He stumbled into a velvet dark punctured
by pools of lost light.
* * *
Within seconds, he understood the secret meaning of cold. Turning up the collar of his leather jacket didn’t help. A layer of ice formed between his skin and his clothes. Wind cut his face like a flail.
He walked a block and, in an instant, everything shifted. A gust of crosswind slashed his face and he shut his eyes.
He opened them again and was blinded by daylight. A warm breeze blew. His body still shivered but his mind adjusted. It was an early summer day. The streets were thickly populated. People noise crashed in on him. Car horns beeped. Everything was unnaturally bright and shining. A shop-front caught the sun and flashed back unbearable light. He shut his eyes and felt the warmth ooze about him. He was jostled and shoved against the glass.
This time, he opened his eyes slowly, blinking. A big red truck was passing. Its red was solid and arresting, the reddest red imaginable. Fire engine red. He looked up. The sky was seaside blue, with perfect scuds of cloud in the distance. High up, birds flew. They looked like the eyebrow curves children drew in holiday pictures.
Mickey walked on, cautious and dazed. The city had no shades, just blocks of primary colour.
At an intersection, a twelve-year-old in an oversized flat cap hawked newspapers.
‘Extry, extry,’ he yelled. ‘Max Multiple Convicted!’
The news vendor was holding up the Coastal City Mercury.
Mickey looked at the simple, clean-lined passersby. The men wore hats and had square jaws, the women had perfect helmets of hair and tiny waists.
‘Look,’ someone said nearby, pointing up. ‘Faster than sound, faster than light, faster than time...’
Mickey’s eyes were drawn skyward. Above the buildings, in the clear blue, a white streak shot across the sky.
Mickey looked again. The Streak was gone. With a lurch, blue turned black and he was in New York.
Hours had passed. Dawn was close. Mickey worried he’d been slipped a new drug. He couldn’t remember anything like this from his acid days.
A police car, armoured like something out of City Hammer, cruised by. A burst of rap music escaped through a crack in the windows, and he saw two black officers nodding heads to the rhythm of the rant.
Instinctively guilty, he cringed into a shadow. The covering dark disappeared...
Chaos in Coastal City. Traffic jammed streets, automobiles abandoned. Chunks of fallen masonry dotted sidewalks. People ran, men losing hats, women trotting on heels. In the near distance, gunfire chattered. The ground shook.
Without provocation, a fleeing citizen turned to Mickey, who was shoved into an alcove between stores, and explained ‘Streak and Vindicator are fighting Dead Thing and Mr Bones in the Plaza!’
The ground rocked again, a minor earthquake. He slipped, concrete shifting beneath him.
Fuckin’ heroes!
A nearby explosion lifted three or four cars out of the pack. He saw a panicked child’s face behind a windscreen, then a blossom of unreal flame. His ears were assaulted by the boom. A distinct wall of fire cut across the road.
A seven-foot manshape walked out of the curtain of conflagration, flames licking charred overalls. His long-dead face was impassive. His heavy bootfalls were cannonshots.
Something shot out of the fire, so swift as to seem invisible. It wheeled in the air and struck the zombie in the chest, driving him back into the inferno. Mickey recognised Dead Thing and the Streak. He’d redesigned DT himself, ditching his faintly campy green leotard in favour of a raggedy-man outfit.
The Streak hugged a child in one arm. Slowing to visibility, he gently set down the kid he’d rescued from the exploding car. Then he returned to the fray.
Mickey watched a fight he’d drawn several times. If he fixed his eyes on the action, he could see the Streak as a succession of unblurred still pictures, dynamically posed. It was hard to get DT’s snarl right, and the zombie’s face shifted from one frozen expression to the next.
‘This could be The End,’ an innocent bystander shrieked.
* * *
It was mid-morning in New York and he could still hear explosions in Coastal City. He felt the heat of the fire on his face.
He had to get help.
He was outside the bookstore he’d been in yesterday. A flow of people carried him in. Without thinking, he made his way to the comics section. They had new stock in. Crowds of young people in bad clothes fought towards the racks, bearing off bagged goodies.
The next issue of The Nevergone Void was due out. Perhaps it had arrived here early. He needed to hold something of his own. It would anchor him to his reality. He eased through the fanboy throng.
Up on the wall, where there’d been a poster for The Nevergone Void was a new one-sheet. Amazon Queen, not fading but vivid, stood over the Coastal City skyline, costume redesigned for the nineties, tougher look drawn on her face. A lightning stroke lashed behind her. ‘I am Woman,’ read a caption, ‘Feel My Power!’
Mickey’s ribs twinged. Had Heather cracked one yesterday?
A strip under the poster proclaimed: ‘Amazon Queen: Born Anew!, a NEW monthly series by Farhad Z-Rowe, debuts from ZC February.’ This AQ looked like Heather down to the speckles in her cleavage.
There was an excitement among the comic buyers. They clamoured for Born Anew.
But Amazon Queen was dead. No, Amazon Queen had never existed. The Nevergonners had taken back her life, sucked her out of the ZC Universe. Mickey had revoked her entire career.
He checked his watch. It was the 12th of January. Everything was speeding up. It was impossible for ZC to commission and publish a new title overnight. It must have been planned for months. Timmy Chin should have kept him informed. The Nevergone Void wasn’t even concluded and its plot developments were already compromised.
The February debut of Amazon Queen was already on sale, stocked in depth. A special rack was given over to variant editions, sealed in plastic bags for collectors. Mickey looked for The Nevergone Void or Choke Hold. No luck. Edged out by the sudden explosion of Farhad Z-Rowe, it was as if he had never existed.
* * *
He made it on foot to Pyramid Plaza, without suffering the Effect again. Competing furies boiled.
It was a long while since he’d walked anywhere. His feet hurt inside his boots. The streets felt different from outside a limousine. People got in the way, shouting at him about the imminent arrival of a prophet, offering suspiciously generous terms on the instant purchase of video equipment or doing choreographed solo begging routines as they held out McDonald’s cups for small change.
Finally, he achieved the Plaza. He paused for breath by the fountains and felt faint spray. Inside was safety and a raft of explanation. The chanting of the Queer Nation protesters was somehow comforting. He walked through the crowd and made it to the front doors just as riot police appeared from nowhere and let off teargas. White bursts disgorged clouds of stinging smoke.
Coughing from his lungs, he collided with the revolving door, went round twice, and was shot out into the foyer. Water streaming from his eyes and slime from his nose, he was received by guards and wrestled down to the parquet.
He tried to tell them he wasn’t a protesting shirt-lifter.
‘My constitutional rights have been abridged,’ shouted a strident youth in a lemon-yellow T-shirt. ‘I claim my lawful right of assembly...’
There were scuffles throughout the lobby. Transvestites in Brazilian carnival costumes jammed into the revolving doors. Plumage pressed against the glass, orange and red frills squashing flat.
Mickey, still choking, tried to explain who he was. Mercifully, a receptionist recognised him and called off the goons.
‘Mr Yo, we deeply regret this mistake,’ she explained.
‘Yeo,’ he gasped.
‘Thank you, sir.’
His nostrils stung as if packed with nettles. She handed him a fistful of paper tissues and he unslimed his face. He saw through tears as if through a rain-lashed window.
The revolving door burst open and gorgeously coloured creatures invaded the Plaza, shrieking like angry parrots, laying about with placards.
The Effect struck...
* * *
The mural, a Mexican desertscape, exploded as melon-sized bullet-holes stitched across the wall. Fragments of coloured pottery pattered like hailstones around the reception area.
Mickey was barricaded behind an overturned desk.
The Vindicator, snarling scarred hate, hefted a complicated weapon which fit over his entire arm. A belt of ammo was sucked into a slot; bullets spurted out of the barrel.
Mr Bones, an elegant skull-face above perfect evening dress, conjured a flock of bats. They swirled and clustered around the cyborg, nipping at the joins between flesh and machine.
Mickey’s ears burst in agony with each shot. The Vindicator was firing at the ceiling now. Clouds of dust and clods of brickwork fell. The sprinkler system was set off...
* * *
Indoor rain drenched the transvestites, turning them into bedraggled hags, make-up running in streams.
The receptionist manoeuvered Mickey into the safety of the elevator.
‘You’re my heroine,’ he told her as the doors shuttered.
The elevator cage, a comforting coffin, rose.
* * *
It ground to a sudden halt. Mickey stumbled over his aching feet and sat down on the deep-pile carpet. It had happened again.
The doors were wrenched open by chubby fingers. The cage had stopped about three feet short of a floor. Instead of hauling Mickey out, the door-opener popped into the elevator.
‘Phew,’ he said, face flushed red.
The boy was an American Billy Bunter: a round-cheeked, big-bellied mid-teenager with a crew-cut, thick glasses and freckles. He wore a bow tie and a high school jacket like something out of Archie.
‘Don’t tell anyone about this, mister,’ the boy said timidly, whipping off his glasses to reveal unusually determined eyes.
Mickey was confused.
The boy had two pinky rings, each with a Greek letter. He rubbed them together and muttered magic words. A painful violet light surrounded him and he transformed, his clothes shrunk into a skintight costume with a ‘BB’ chest motif. His body swelled, becoming almost spherical, and glowed with purple power.