She leant closer. “But the special ones, the ones like you and me, we get to choose. We become who we want to be. It’s up to us. You have the pen, and you have the piece of paper. Simply write down who you want to be.”
“Write down who I want to be?”
“Exactly. Do you want to be brave, or a better fighter, or a great womanizer? Just write it down.”
“But I’m already all of those things.”
“But you’re not happy, are you? You have the Cartel on your back, the Daddio in your mouth and monkey semen in your arse. Things could be better, couldn’t they?”
“They certainly could.”
“Then write down the new Captain Wedderburn. The one you want to be...”
I gripped the pen again, but as I did so, more words appeared on the contract.
The cost of a new personality is an old one. Not your own, but that of your friend. The cost of your contract will be the soul of your best and truest friend.
I only had one true friend. He had chosen me to be so. Mister Monagan.
My one true friend. The one I was going to betray. Just like it said in my fortune.
INDIGO
THE 854TH FLOOR
MISS MERCHANT HAD a body built for sex. Her golden hair was pinned up above her head, but strands of it fell to her shoulders, threads of gold that curved in anticipation of those deeper milk white curves below. She wore a plain silk blouse, a tight dark skirt and charcoal stockings and managed to look completely naked beneath her clothes. She had sold her soul for her body. No doubt she was hoping I would do the same.
“I think it’s time for you to write your personality, Captain Wedderburn.”
“I don’t think I want to.”
“Think about it. Either Angel Tower or the Daddio is going to own you. Look what we have to offer you. What will the Daddio give you? Nothing but the chance to wail. Sign it.”
“I’ll tear it up.”
“This is the Contract Floor. Nothing changes here.”
Of course not. This was the power of Dream London.
I thought about Mister Monagan. I thought about Bill, about all the whores back in Belltower End. I never thought myself a bad person before. But Angel Tower obviously did. It thought I would have no compunctions in signing away another man’s soul. And up until yesterday, I think it might have been correct.
“Sign it,” said Miss Merchant. “You’ll have done worse in the past.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. But she was right. I had done worse. But was that an excuse not to bother any more?
“I’d think about your situation,” said Miss Merchant. “You’re standing nearly at the top of Angel Tower. There are hundreds of people below you. Do you want to fight them all? Even if by some miracle you did manage to escape this place, you’d be on the streets with a Wailer in your tongue and the Daddio looking for you. You have to betray someone. Do you really want that person to be yourself?”
I stared at her. As I did, the morning sun peeped over the edge of the windows and sheets of lemon light reflected from the glass faces of the cabinets of the Contract Floor. I sat there, waist deep in a kaleidoscope pool. Around me, the dark wood of the cabinets flashed in ruby textures.
And I remembered something.
“Do you have a mirror?” I asked.
“A mirror?”
“To powder your nose. A compact. Something like that.”
She produced one from the pocket of her jacket.
“What do you want a mirror for?”
I took the mirror and poked out my tongue. Two slits looked at me.
“Let me take one last look at the dawn,” I said. “Let’s see what we can see.”
We walked across to the windows and looked out.
For the first time, I was able to look across Dream London.
I saw part of the emerald spiral of the Thames, and I noted the way it coiled itself around the tower. I saw the patterns in the city below, fields of red brick and white china, bands of grey concrete. I saw the shadows streaming towards me from the smaller towers further east.
I tilted the mirror into the sun and flashed a message to the sky.
“What did you say?” asked Miss Merchant. She seemed more curious than upset at what I’d done.
“Just saying where I was.”
“No you weren’t. You said Contracts. I know a little Morse. What did you say?”
“You’ll see soon enough...”
Miss Merchant stared at me for a moment, and then shrugged.
“Whatever. Are you going to sign now?” she asked.
“In a moment. Let me take a look around. I might never be up here again.”
I walked around the windows, following the loops of the Thames. I saw the wide channel of the River Roding, heading off north to other lands. I saw the plains of windmills to the north-west.
I carried on round the tower, coming to the west, facing out to the centre of Dream London.
There I saw the wide parkland at the centre of the city. It was so green, and so regular compared to the twisted chaos of the streets. The lines of trees, the geometric precision of the footpaths were obvious even at this distance.
“What’s it for?” I asked.
“That will be the direct route to the other worlds,” said Miss Merchant. “Starting tonight. The workhouses of Dream London are filled with the disenfranchised. They’ll be marched through the parks and put to more profitable work elsewhere.”
“Oh.”
A cross appeared in the distance, where it hung just above the horizon. A handful of crosses, now, bobbing in the blue. I walked around the windows, completing the circuit back to the east. There were crosses all around us, and they were growing bigger.
“Can you see them too?” asked Miss Merchant, frowning.
“I think they’re missiles,” I said. “Cruise missiles. The Americans must have got my signal. I imagine there are bombs falling towards us, too.”
“It won’t work,” said Miss Merchant.
Sure enough, as we watched the crosses began to diffuse and then fade into yellow petals. Clouds of pale blossom puffed across the sky.
“I told you it wouldn’t work,” said Miss Merchant.
More blossom, white, this time, fluttering down around the tower. It fell like snow. Below us the streets of Dream London were covered in a blanket of yellow and white.
“Those were the bombs,” I said. “They were supposed to destroy everything here.”
“And so it ends,” said Miss Merchant. “Will you come to the table now?”
“I will,” I said.
I sat down and looked at the contract.
“Will you sign?” she said.
“I don’t want to,” I said. “I’ve had enough of Captain James Wedderburn.”
“Then your luck has run out.”
“I’ll take all my luck in one last shot,” I said, and I began to write.
I hereby resolve to give up my individuality and to work to the best of my ability to better the lot of the people of Dream London. I sacrifice myself for the greater good.
“Why do that?” asked Miss Merchant.
“Because ants fight as teams. Angel Tower is removing that ability from humans. I want to regain it.”
“It’ll do you no good,” said Miss Merchant.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I feel much better for putting that on paper. Let me finish writing now...”
I hereby resign my commission as Captain James Wedderburn. I am now James Wedderburn, the repentant man.
Miss Merchant looked at me.
“That seems a poor choice of personality to me,” she said. “Just think what you could have instead.”
“I don’t care.”
She bit her lip. Then she placed one hand on my cheek, rubbed the stubble there.
“I don’t like to see such a good looking man make a mess of his life. There are so many better things you could be doing.”
“Like what?
I’m not going to go on using people.”
“Hmmm.”
She pulled her hand away.
“Before you sign that,” she said, “let me show you something...”
She turned and walked to the lift.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’re on the 853rd floor. Do you know how many floors there are in Angel Tower?”
I did. I had seen the numbers in the lift
“1204,” I said.
“1206 now. The tower grows a floor every day. Don’t you wonder what’s on the floors above us?”
I didn’t answer. Of course I’d wondered.
“It’s them,” said Miss Merchant. “The ants. The ones who bought their way into this world. Wouldn’t you like to come and see them?”
She had pressed the button. Already the lift doors were sliding open.
“Do I have a choice?” I said.
“The choice is yours, James. But would you come all this way without seeing the rulers of Dream London?”
She laughed.
“Oh, and I wouldn’t bother about reaching for whatever you’ve got hidden in that jacket. Weapons will be of absolutely no use to you against them.”
Outside of the windows yellow and white blossom blew in the wind.
WE CLIMBED INTO the lift and rode up one level to the 854th floor.
“Here we are,” said Miss Merchant as the doors slid open. I looked out in wonder.
There was a city in the top of Angel Tower. A city within the city. A city of convoluted mounds made from paper and mud and jewels. A termite mound grown to impossible size, swarming with millions upon millions of insects. The jewelled motion of them dazzled the mind as they scuttled back and forth.
“Can I go out there?” I said.
“A little way,” said Miss Merchant. “They won’t really care about you unless you wander too close to an egg bank or a nursery, in which case they’ll cut you to pieces.”
I stepped from the lift onto the mud and paper floor. It gave a little beneath my feet, and I bent down to touch it.
“Where does the mud come from?”
“I don’t know. Not from this city, I should think.”
I didn’t think so, either. The mud was a pale orange colour that reminded me of Mr Monagan. As for the paper of the mound, it felt like expensive writing paper, the best quality linen finish, thick and substantial. It was woven in thick ropes that spiralled in op-art patterns out from where I stood.
As I stood there an ant came scuttling towards me. Then another, then five more.
“Don’t move,” said Miss Merchant.
One ant ran across my hand. It ran up my arm. Another joined it, and another. The creatures were quite large, about the length of the last joint of my little finger. And they sparkled in metallic colours, golds and yellows and blues and reds, magentas.
All around me, the top floors of Angel Tower shone like Christmas, the richness of the colours, the sparkle and flash against the velvet darkness.
I felt the brush of antennae on my face, and I did my best not to flinch. Another brush, and then the ants seemed to lose interest. They dropped to the floor and scuttled away.
I watched them go, and then my eye was drawn back and up and I followed the mounds over which the insects swarmed as they rose up higher and higher, up into the heavens of the enclosed space. Waves of vertigo swept over me.
“How tall...?” I asked.
“Nearly four hundred floors,” said Miss Merchant. “All the way to the top.”
I stared around the space. There were patterns to the movements of the ants. Indigo rivers of movement that splashed down from the highest points like mountain streams. Slow throbbing waves of magenta ants that lapped the base of the mound like waves.
Just above the level of the magenta waves, lines of emeralds and rubies studded the walls, like windows.
“What are the jewels for?” I asked.
“Trade,” said Miss Merchant. “There are treasure vaults at the heart of the mound, or so I’ve heard.”
“What do the ants trade for?” I asked, but I knew the answer right away.
“Land,” said Miss Merchant. “That’s how they bought up London.”
“You make them sound intelligent.”
“They’re not intelligent, James. They just exploit other species. There are slavemaker ants here on Earth that use pheromones to enslave other species of ants. These ants enslave other species, but they don’t use pheromones. They use money. They buy other species.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it? What would you do for them if they offered you gold? Or property? How about the leasehold to Belltower End?” She smiled at that. “What if they used a third party to broker the contract? You’d have worked for ants and never even known it.”
“But they don’t understand what they’re doing!”
“Do you, James? Do you really know how your actions affect the world? Do you really understand what effect your little business has on the wider world?”
“No, but...”
“I wonder how it happened, James? Somehow or other the ants found themselves in possession of a property in old London. And from that possession revenue began to flow into their nest. Rent. All of a sudden, Angel Tower found itself with a toehold in this world. And with that money, Angel Tower found it had the capability of buying more property. Soon, revenue was flowing in from all over London...”
“And where the ants came, others followed,” I said. Of course they did. The ants had opened up a new market.
“Now this world is ripe for exploitation and anyone who is anyone is looking to the opportunities that are opening up in this little corner of England. The City beneath the Spiral is coming. Daddio Clarke is here. Even the flowers are trying to take over. The wind blows their pollen down the river: they’re using sex to shape us.”
I looked around the vast space once more.
“Ants,” I said. “Surely we could take on a load of ants?”
“Of course we could,” said Miss Merchant. “If we were to all work together. But that’s not happening. You said it yourself. They work as a hive, the humans are all acting as individuals. The ants have shaped us that way.”
She was right, of course. Anna had said the same. Dream London messed with geography, it turned everyone into individuals. The ants had their own defence mechanisms. They didn’t care about people, or individuality, or sex or truth or anything. All they cared about was the nest. That’s why they would defeat us.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said. “Take me back down.”
“You can walk around to the other side,” said Miss Merchant. “Stay close to the wall and you’ll be okay.”
“I said I’d seen enough.”
I walked back into the lift.
WE RETURNED TO the Contract Floor. I wandered to the windows and looked out to the west, to the green space of the parks.
“What will come through the parks?” I asked.
“More of the same,” said Miss Merchant. “More trade. More people seeking to exploit Dream London.”
“What about the ants?”
“What will the ants care? As long as the hive thrives, they’ll continue as they have done.”
She took me by the arm and gently led me back to the middle of the room. We waded through slow time. The ants had built their nest on stillness, she had said. I could feel it in the floor. I could see it in the middle of the room, that column of stillness, that stalk to which the nest was attached.
She led me back to the little desk by the grandfather clock. The parchment still sat on its surface, covered in calligraphic script.
“Now,” she said. “Why don’t we tear up this contract and write one up anew?”
“Can we do that? I thought things were unchanging here.”
“It’s not signed yet, is it?” She placed her hand on my arm. “You’re too good a man to waste. If you work for Angel Tower you’ll thrive. If you d
on’t, you’ll be just one of the hoi-polloi, lost in the city.”
“Or one of the Daddio’s pawns.”
“Would that be any better? Do you know what the Daddio is? Nothing more than a pool of water writhing with leeches, somewhere down the river. The leeches attach themselves to animals’ tongues and that way the Daddio’s influence spreads.”
A look of distaste crossed her face as she spoke.
I looked at the desk. I looked at Miss Merchant. Captain Wedderburn would have flung her across the desk and fucked her there and then.
“I’m not Captain Wedderburn anymore,” I said. “I don’t know why. Dream London has defused me.”
I strode to the desk, and before I could change my mind, I signed the piece of paper.
“There, contract all done and dusted. I’m a good man now. It says so on this piece of paper.”
Miss Merchant seemed to lose interest in me.
“So,” I said. “I’m ready for the fight.”
Miss Merchant was busy rolling the contract up. She patted the end, straightening it.
“What fight?” she asked.
“Now that I’ve refused to join Angel Tower,” I said, though with less confidence than before. “Bring it on.”
“Bring what on?” asked Miss Merchant. “Mr Wedderburn, you are no longer of any interest to Angel Tower. You know where the lift is. Perhaps you could leave the building without a fuss?”
I snatched the roll of parchment from her hands and made to tear it. I couldn’t.
“This is the Contract Floor,” said Miss Merchant, in a patient voice. “Once a contracts is signed, nothing can change it whilst it remains in here.”
“Then I shall carry the contracts outside and burn them.”
“You’d never get them out of the room, Mr Wedderburn. Trust me on this. Now, don’t let me detain you any longer.”
She took the contract back from me.
I looked at her. I didn’t know what else to do.
“Still here, Mr Wedderburn?”
Captain Wedderburn would have hit her. James Wedderburn just felt a terrible emptiness.
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