by Pollock, Tom
The remnants of her precious last breath puffed her cheeks out, straining to escape her mouth. She struggled to swallow it back, but a fat round bubble slipped treacherously between her lips.
It zoomed downwards – away past her feet.
Understanding was a white spark in her oxygen-starved brain.
Of course: it’s a mirror! Up is down and down is bloody up!
Little stars exploded behind her eyes, leaving tiny black holes. She stopped struggling and sculled her hands, flipping herself over. She let the invisible force seize her and drag her sharply through the water. She screwed up her eyelids and exhaled hard.
CHAPTER TEN
Noise crashed back into Pen’s ears as she surfaced. The air was full of shouts and the shriek of sirens, but she was too exhausted to care. She snorted water out of her burning sinuses and spread her limbs like a starfish. She floated on her back, dragging in breath after ragged breath, revelling in the miracle of buoyancy. She turned her head a little and realised she’d drifted out towards the middle of the river. She could see dark-uniformed figures hurrying agitatedly back and forth on the embankment and pointing at her. The crackle of radios whispered to her through the air.
A splashing sound disturbed the water and the sirens and uniforms clicked into place in Pen’s brain. She was being rescued. The people on the dock and the swimmer must be cops. They thought she was drowning.
‘I’m okay,’ she tried to say to the swimmer, but all that came out was a croak.
She struggled to get her feet under her, patting at the Thames’ choppy surface as she dragged her head up under her soaking hijab.
‘I’m oka—’ she tried again, but the words died on her lips. The man swimming towards her didn’t look like any paramedic Pen had ever seen. He was toothpick-thin, and the soaking clothes that clung to his shape were ragged. His pale, knobbly elbows poked through holes in his sleeves as he windmilled his arms in a frantic front crawl. His hoodie, his hair and his wild, matted beard were soaked black and crusted with silt.
And his eyes …
They bulged wide with effort, or maybe it was fear. He was dragging himself through the water with panicky, inefficient strokes. When his gaze fell on Pen his whole face went slack with shock.
Behind him on the embankment, the uniformed figures had stopped rushing around. A barked command crackled on their radios and two of them raised rifles to their shoulders.
The swimmer stretched out a hand towards Pen. His fingers were like white twigs and his nails were blue with cold.
‘Help …’ He choked the word as water splashed into his mouth.
A rifle shot fractured the air.
The swimmer hissed sharply. Red spray blossomed from his shoulder. Pen felt warm mist on her face. The swimmer jerked and struggled, cried out and swallowed water. Pen kicked towards him on instinct. She got her arms under his, but his legs churned the river under them, tangling with hers. He was too heavy. Freezing water closed over her and she swallowed the Thames, tasted metallic blood in it. Struggling, kicking, her legs came free and she fought for the air only an inch from her face. Her ears popped as she broke surface, she heard the growl of a boat motor, a propeller chopping. She still couldn’t breathe. Wet fabric clogged her mouth. She’d surfaced into her floating hijab. It covered her face like a shroud. Panicking, she tried to wrestle a hand from the swimmer to claw it away.
But the motor was loud now, close, and as it cut out strong arms seized her under her armpits. Pen went limp as she was dragged clear. Still blinded by the headscarf, she slumped in the boat. The motor sputtered and roared to life again. After a moment the boat bumped against something and moments later she was dumped bodily onto dry land.
‘Down.’ The voice was muffled and distorted, its instruction rendered unnecessary by the shove that drove Pen onto her knees on the wet flagstones. On her right, someone – she thought it was the swimmer – was emitting an agonised keening noise. There was a meaty crunch and the noise cut off, leaving only sharp staccato breaths. The sharp ammonia tang of urine stung Pen’s nostrils. She still couldn’t see, her drenched hijab clung to the top half of her face like a demented octopus. She tried to raise her hands to move it but they were wrestled behind her. There was a zipping sound and something plastic cut into her wrists, binding them. She could hear boots scraping over flagstones.
A cold circle of metal was pressed to Pen’s neck, and she froze. There was a ratcheting click exactly like the sound a gun makes being cocked in the movies, only much closer and more horribly personal.
‘Faceless filth.’ The voice buzzed in her ear; weirdly electronic. ‘I could execute you right now, you know that? I want you to know that. I want you to know I could blow your half-reflected scumbag head right off your shoulders and no one would say a word.’
Pen’s jaw was rigid with terror, but she fought to work it loose: ‘I … I d-d-don—’
‘Shut up.’ The gun barrel pressed harder into her neck, and Pen bit her lip. ‘I don’t want to hear you deny it. We caught you red-handed. Even if you weren’t concealing your endowment it’d be obvious you’re one of ’em.’
Concealing what? One of who? But the horrible cold pressure on her neck stopped her from saying it aloud. She could feel the man behind her bend over her.
‘I bloody loved that girl. My bloody kids loved that girl. You people are sick—’
‘Mennett,’ another voice interrupted, ‘are the hostiles secure?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ the man behind Pen said smartly.
‘Then do you think we could get on and arrest them sometime this week?’ The captain’s voice had that same machine-like buzz, but was dry, almost bored. ‘I’d like to be indoors before the weatherturn.’
Pen felt her captor straighten up behind her.
‘Lesser reflected,’ he addressed her in his chilly voice, ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of membership of a terrorist organisation, conspiracy to commit anti-aesthetic acts and the kidnapping of a member of the Mirrorstocracy.’ He paused. ‘And not just any member of the mirrorstocracy neither,’ he added, his voice thick with disgust. He prodded her with a boot like she was something vile. ‘But Lady Parva bloody Khan.’
Pen’s involuntary jerk of surprise drew shouts from those around her.
‘DON’T MOVE! DON’T FUCKING MOVE!’
Something slim but solid cracked across her cheek. The world went white for a split second and she slumped sideways. She tongued a loose tooth and the taste of blood filled her mouth. She was dazed, her head throbbed and she wanted to shake it clear.
‘Pleathe—’ It was only when she tried to speak that she realised she’d bitten her tongue when they hit her. ‘Pleathe, thake off my hithjab—’
‘Shut up,’ Mennett snarled.
‘The thcarf,’ Pen mumbled, ‘pleathe, jutht look at my fathe—’
‘Go ahead, Sergeant.’ The captain sounded amused. ‘I’m not suggesting we get into the habit of taking orders from terrorists, but it is, after all, the law—’
‘Move and I’ll blow your head off,’ Mennett said again, presumably in case Pen had forgotten in the last eight seconds. Fingers snared the clinging fabric and swept it clear of her face.
Pen couldn’t see much beyond a circle of heavy black boots, but she could feel the atmosphere change.
There was a long silence.
‘Mother Mirror merciful be,’ Mennett whispered.
Pen turned her head to look at him. He and the four other figures around him were wearing body armour. It looked much heavier than even riot police wore at home, almost like a mediaeval knight’s, only made of black Kevlar and carbon fibre rather than steel. The visors in their helmets were black holes of matte glass. Despite their anonymous outfits, Mennett’s shape spoke of horrified embarrassment, as if he’d made a racist joke and then turned around to find Mike Tyson standing behind him. His head was turned towards his gun barrel, as though he could blame the weapon for the way he’d smacked her around
the jaw with it.
Slowly and deliberately, Pen sucked her teeth and spat on the ground. Mennett flinched as the bloody mucus splattered onto the stones.
‘Sergeant.’ The commanding officer’s voice was harpwire taut. ‘Do you think you could cut the cuffs off the countess? And help her up?’
‘Of course of course,’ Mennett gabbled. ‘I’m so sorry, Milady – I didn’t— I didn’t mean to – it’s just you’d covered your face – I couldn’t see your endowment. I thought you were an insurgent—’ He gently lifted Pen onto her feet. He busied himself at her wrists for a second and the bindings fell away.
All of the black-armoured figures were facing her. She couldn’t be sure, because of the visors, but it felt like they were staring.
One of them had shoulder-guards patterned with silver chevrons. He shook himself and pulled a radio from his belt. ‘This is Corbin. We’ve found Lady Khan. Repeat: we have found Lady Khan. The suspect led us right to her. She’s unharmed, but she has been in the river and has – er … sustained minor impact damage. We’re taking her to St Janus’ for medical assessment. Over.’
Pen clearly heard the answer crackle from the radio: ‘Negative, Captain. Deliver the countess to the palace for immediate debriefing.’
The captain sounded startled by the contradiction, but all he said was, ‘Confirmed, proceeding directly to palace. Out.’
Pen rubbed feeling back into her wrists. Her mind was racing, desperately trying to keep up.
The guys with the guns thought she was her mirror-sister, that much was obvious, and since that appeared to be the only reason they were no longer pointing those guns at her, she wasn’t in any hurry to set them straight. But Lady Khan? Countess? Palace? Who was Parva in this place?
Pen looked up. The buildings clustered above on the embankment were like fun-house reflections of those she knew from home. She recognised the art deco horses of the Unilever building over her, and the old power station that housed the Tate Modern on the opposite bank, but they were taller here, and their shapes rippled as they rose into the sky, their familiar outlines bent by strange accretions of brick and stone.
They look exactly like they look reflected in the river at home, Pen marvelled. Here, that’s how they actually are.
A hacking sound dragged her gaze back to the pavement. The ragged swimmer lay flat on his back, his eyes lolling, and flecks of bloody saliva erupted from his mouth as he coughed. A medical pad had been slapped on his shoulder, tape peeling half off, but a fat bruise was blossoming on his left cheek. He’d taken a heavier pistol whipping than Pen had, and she flinched at how painful it looked. His head slumped sideways, revealing another bruise on his right cheek.
Pen went cold.
That bruise was identical to the first, with precisely the same patterning of yellow and purple on the man’s white skin. In fact, she now saw that the whole of the right-hand side of his face was the same as the left, even down to the direction of the curl in the hairs of his beard. He was exactly symmetrical.
Something on his face glinted in the sharp morning light. Bisecting his face from hairline to chin along the bridge of his nose was a dotted silver line, a fine thread stitched in and out of the skin like the anti-counterfeit strip on a bank note, marking the axis of his symmetry like the edge of a mirror.
Sergeant Mennett caught her staring. ‘Are you all right, ma’am? Did the miserable terrorist bastard hurt you? Want to kick him a couple of times?’
‘What? No!’ Pen didn’t take her eyes off the eerily symmetrical man at her feet. ‘He didn’t touch me – I’ve never seen him before just now.’
Captain Corbin turned to Pen. ‘I’m sorry, My Lady, but are you saying you don’t recognise this man? But—’ He left it hanging.
‘But what?’ Pen stared at him.
Mennett’s next question came out careful and nervous. ‘Ma’am, if he didn’t force you in, how did you get in the water?’
‘I— I …’ Pen looked from one armoured figure to the next, but none provided any help. She seized on the simplest lie in the world. ‘I don’t remember.’
The captain spoke back into his radio. ‘Command, Lady Khan appears to have sustained some loss of memory. Concern over possible head injury, over.’
‘Oh, frag,’ Mennett muttered fervently.
‘Confirmed. Medical staff will be waiting upon your arrival at palace. Bring her in now, Captain. Orders from Senator Case’s office, over.’
‘Confirmed.’ The captain stepped forward. ‘Please come with us, My Lady. You’re safe now.’
Pen didn’t know what else to do but nod. Black gauntlets took her elbows and she was ushered gently towards the embankment. Sergeant Mennett’s touch was so timid she barely felt it. As they guided her up the steps, she looked back at the scrawny figure lying prone on the flagstones. Blood trickled into his beard from cuts in the centre of his bruises, the red droplets progressing on identical paths down his cheeks.
Pen decided to take a chance. ‘Sergeant,’ she said quietly. Her tongue still felt huge in her mouth.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘That man,’ she said. ‘He didn’t hurt me. Make sure you don’t hurt him.’
‘My Lady, I—’ he began.
‘Sergeant.’ She leaned on the rank. ‘I believe I made myself clear. I wouldn’t want to have to make an issue of this’ – she touched her jaw, where her own bruise was rising – ‘at the palace. Make sure he’s looked after. Now.’
The black-armoured figure stiffened. ‘Yes, ma’am. I’ll … I’ll try.’ Something in his voice suggested he didn’t think much of his chances, but he let go of her elbow and went back down the steps two at a time.
A train rattled the railway bridge as the captain led her underneath it. A black SUV with tinted windows waited for them in front of the stuccoed edifice of the City of London School. Two police horses whickered next to the vehicle – at least, Pen assumed they were horses. They were horse-shaped and horse-scented and rigged with saddles and blinkers, but every inch of them, hoof-to-ears, was wrapped tight in black cloth. They were like horse-mummies, all bandaged up, except for the dark holes of their gaping nostrils. They snorted and tossed their heads and stamped. Both vehicle and animals were marked with the same emblem: a white coat of arms featuring a stylised chess knight with the letters GC reversed – mirror-writing – printed underneath.
The captain lifted off his black helmet to reveal a head of dense, closely cropped hair. His broad face was almost as symmetrical as the swimmer’s, and like the swimmer, a row of metal stitches glinted down the centre of it. The only difference between his left and right sides was that while his left eyebrow was brown, the right one was grey and had another ring of tiny stitches around it. The skin around the right brow was different too, wrinkled and liver-spotted. It looked like it had been transplanted from a much older man.
‘My name’s Corbin, ma’am’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened with your last protection detail, but there won’t be any funny business with a Glass Chevalier escort. Scylla and I’ll look after you.’ He patted one of the horses fondly before opening the back door of the SUV.
‘If you’ll just climb in, we’ll be off.’
Pen was barely listening. She was staring over his shoulder, back towards the south end of the railway bridge. There was a billboard there, hoisted against the side of a brutalist slab of concrete apartments. At the bottom of the advert, elegant silver reversed script on a black background read: – MAKE YOUR CHANCE, she realised – and listed a website: gl.yrettolssalggnikool.www –
Above those words was an image, a photograph of a girl.
Pen barely felt the loosening of her jaw, or the cold air that swept into her lungs as she inhaled.
Fifty feet high, every pore blown up to the size of a dinner plate, immaculate dark makeup making her eyes luminous and picking out each individual scar: Pen’s own face smiled back at her from the billboard canvas.
II
A CUT
ABOVE
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pen rested her forehead on the window and watched the city drift by under stony clouds. Men and women filled the pavements, hustling or strolling, laughing into mobile phones, shovelling sandwiches and fried chicken into their mouths from takeaway cartons or simply walking with their heads down and hands thrust into their pockets, lost in themselves. They could almost have been Londoners, had it not been for the eerie symmetry of their bisected faces. Where they passed windows, they cast no reflections. It was like being in a city full of vampires. They paid no attention to the Londoners who moved through the city caught in their mirrors, the city Pen called home.
Most of the pedestrians weren’t exactly symmetrical though. Like Captain Corbin, they had stitched-in differences on one or other side, a scrap of lighter or darker skin, a mole or a scar, always quarantined from the neighbouring features with a border of silver thread. A few had several such patches, and Pen thought they walked a little taller than the others, a little more confidently. Behind the car, Captain Corbin plodded along on his cloth-swathed mount, the clatter-clop of horseshoes just audible through the glass.
The buildings that loomed over them were all stretched and warped: distorted reflections of those back home. The old Blackfriar pub spiked up like a gothic nightmare; the Gherkin was elongated to a glass teardrop. Pen shivered. It was as though the London she knew had run in the rain.
There were supermarkets and cafés Pen recognised, their signs displaying London-Under-Glass’ reverse script, but nestled amongst this unfamiliar familiarity were other shops she hadn’t seen before. There was a boutique with silver-on-black signage displaying a disembodied smile. She worked to translate the backwards sign: Fulcrum and Scroutt: Beauty Brokers. The windows displayed photographs of women in glittering jewellery with crooked noses or big pink birthmarks on their cheeks. The centrepiece of the display was a miniature treasure chest, and nestled against the plush velvet lining were three elegantly arranged human right ears, all in different shades of skin.