by Jeff Noon
Mother: Love, Marigold. (née Green). Deceased.
Father: Love, James. Deceased.
Personal tutor and guardian: Hackle, Maximus.
OK, so Daisy got the middle name from her mother. Both her mother and father dead, as expected. But Maximus Hackle? That was more interesting. Jazir knew, from his contacts, that Max Hackle was the big guy at the university. Max Hackle was Daisy’s personal tutor, OK, but also her guardian? Jaz had often heard Daisy talking about the professor, but never for a moment had he considered what the Max stood for. But Maximus? Which, of course, was the password into the Motherlode. So Max Hackle must have programmed the university’s defence system. It made sense: Max Hackle was the best mathematician for miles around. And Jaz was suddenly smiling, because his own invention, his Chef’s Special Recipe, had managed to break through the defences of the greatest mathematician. Back to the screen, pressing the mouse. A new menu, unfolding on the Love, Daisy…
EXAM RESULTS
PERSONAL HISTORY
WORK TO DATE
WHOOMPHY’S
Whoomphy’s? thought Jaz. Why should there be a Whoomphy’s listing in a student’s file? Jaz pressed on it, only to find out that student Love, Daisy had consumed a grand total of only nine Whoomphy burgers since she had joined the university last September. Sad total. What was wrong with her? The burgers were listed, with dates of consumption and the type of burger consumed. Jaz was astounded to find this knowledge; it meant that part of the Whoomphy’s sponsorship deal was to collect marketing data from all of the university’s students. Like, the burgers were getting everywhere these days!
Jaz went back to the main menu. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for. Just some info on the love of his life maybe. Something, anything, everything. Whatever it took to make Daisy come out to play. He pressed on her personal history file, only to get back yet another ‘Password please?’ message. Sighing, Jaz typed in the Maximus code and got back another message, saying this time, ‘Password unacceptable’.
Jaz couldn’t see why a second level of security was necessary for a student’s personal history. What was so very bad about Daisy’s history that the authorities were keeping it hidden? Jaz dragged the password message over into his Chef’s Special window and pressed on enter.
It took fifteen minutes to cook it out; fifteen minutes in which Jaz sent off the library fly another seventeen times. Finally, the chef came back to him: ‘Kind sir, the recipe you have ordered is called Labyrinth’.
‘About fucking time, Father!’ Jazir typed the new password into the personal history file. He got a whole load of stuff unrolling, from the mighty Max Hackle himself; stuff about Daisy’s first term, her genetic love of numbers, her worrying addiction to the bone game, stuff about how she had already been punished for late-arriving assignments. Boring stuff, not good enough. What’s to hide? Jazir pressed on—into a private note from Hackle, for nobody else’s eyes. ‘Miss Daisy Love is a most excellent student,’ it began. ‘She has an acute grasp of mathematics. However, her family history leaves something to desire. I have gone along with Daisy’s wishes, only because of her rare talents, but her denial of her father only brings me pain. How can I persuade her otherwise? To call your father dead, when he’s very much alive, is a crime against humanity.’
‘What?’ Jazir moved closer to the screen.
‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
Another student had sat himself down at an adjacent computer. ‘A nice day for it, don’t you agree?’ this fellow chirped. ‘A nice day for working early.’
‘Fuck you, sucker.’ Jazir raised his glasses for a tiny second, long enough to give the bad eye to the intruder student. ‘Like, get the fuck out of here.’
The student slipped away, like a hurt lamb. Jazir turned back to the screen, only to find that the blurb had landed to feed upon pixel juice. ‘Tikkashit! What do I have to do these days?’ ‘Play to learn, my student,’ sang the fly. ‘Learn to play. Study hard for the University of Manchester. Courtesy of AnnoDomino Co. Play to win!’ Jazir was just about to swipe the creature away when Miss Sayer’s little face appeared in an inset, smiling. Intrigued, Jazir pressed on the icon, letting the teacher’s face fill the screen. The blurb was disturbed for a second, brittle wings all fluttering, but then landed again to crawl all over Miss Sayer’s image as she spoke. ‘Time to move. Grab the wings.’ Before disappearing as simply as she had come. The vital data on Daisy also vanished with the virus. The screen went blank. The blurbfly, meanwhile, was still crawling over the dead computer, obviously confused, all whispering drowsy and user-friendly.
RULES TO FLY
8a.
The blurbs are the property of the AnnoDomino Co., invented to perpetuate their messages of luck and hope beyond the normal channels.
8b.
Blurbflies are allowed to travel the streets, buzzing their adverts alive and direct to the punters.
8c.
Blurbs shall stand for Bio-Logical-Ultra-Robotic-Broadcasting-System.
8d.
Only the Company may manufacture the blurbs. Other businesses or individuals may purchase blurbs from the Company, pre-loaded with messages and armed to the teeth, for the appropriate price.
8e.
None but the Company shall know the insides of a blurb.
8f.
None but the Company shall capture a blurb.
8g.
If captured, a blurb may take the necessary steps to escape.
A sudden idea came to Jazir. Well, yes, a new specimen…how about that? A domino-sponsored fly; what dreams it could reveal. A million messages, flying around the city. You didn’t have to pay for them, no more cheap replacements. All you had to do was reach up, just like this, grab the blurb, spicy-hot and drunk.
He squeezed the advert into a slow submission, smuggled it into his shoulder bag, wings flapping weakly now to make an escape. Game over, my buzzing beauty! Jazir turned off the computer, quite calmly, retrieved his Chef’s Special from the input slot, and then left the library.
A bag of winnings.
Every Saturday daytime Daisy worked part time in a bookshop. There was no one in the begging hole this morning. Most puzzling. Daisy almost always threw a little something to the young girl. The young girl with the feather in her hair. These last few Saturdays Daisy had thrown a whole pair of punies down into the hole, ill afforded. But so guilty about her own wasting of good money on the bones, what else could she do?
And every week the kid was waiting, eager in the hole, clutching her little card, ‘Hungry and dreamless, please help’. But this week she wasn’t, she wasn’t there to ask for help. Strange. A begging hole was never empty.
Daisy didn’t even know the girl’s name, but felt an affinity with her; another young runaway, no doubt. Because Daisy had made the same escape.
Never mind, time to toil. A gruelling nine-hour shift in the Games and Puzzles Department, which had taken over more than half the shop since Manchester had won the right to test the dominoes. Daisy was tired from lack of sleep, her mind flickering with random images. Last night’s assignments had been more than difficult, as though Professor Hackle was trying to defeat her with probabilities.
And then so many hours in the bookshop, in which she sold over fifty copies of How to Win the Domino Game, and nearly 100 copies of Making Love to Lady Luck. Even a kiddie’s disk called Dominic Domino, Numbernaut. An animated bestseller.
Bone manuals. Books about the chancing at life.
Daisy was kept busy, working on empty, earning just enough for herself to pay for a week’s worth of poppadoms and chutney. Maybe just enough to throw some punies away to the beggars? Sure. And maybe just enough for another domino? Sure, just a little one, maybe.
A big scarlet W, fluttering over a doorway, imagine. Daisy spent her Saturday’s well-earned lunch hour at the local Whoomphy bar, where she shared a meal of jeezburger and econofries with another student employee at the b
ookshop, the young black boy who called himself Sweet Benny Fenton. Plus two enola colas. Daisy felt quite safe in Benny’s company, even though he was a second-yearer. Maybe this had something to do with Benny’s gay abandon and the diamond in his nose; maybe something more to do with how the boy had quite willingly bought her the meal and the juice.
‘How’s your love life?’ he asked of her, by way of conversation.
‘Oh…well…’
‘Oh well? That’s all?’
‘Oh well, I’m too busy for love, maybe.’
‘I like that maybe on the end. Look, Daisy, maybe I should do your Genetic Calculus? Maybe I’ll pinpoint the little fucker who keeps you so lonely? Go on, Daze. Just a little slice is all it takes. One sliver of pain.’
‘Maybe next week, OK?’
‘Please yourself.’ Benny shovelled another mouthful. ‘What about that two-and-a-five winning last night? Fucking bastard, eh? Somebody’s won an extra million.’
An in-house blurb, passed as pure by the health authorities, fluttered above the heads of the diners, singing the menu. ‘The Big Whoomph! It certainly packs one! Eat to win!’ Street gossip had it that the big scarlet W actually contained a pheromone message, making the viewer feel hungry.
Eat and eat and eat!
Benny gave the fly the V sign, and then washed down a chunk of meat with a gulp of cola. ‘You coming to see Dopejack play tonight, Daze?’ he asked. ‘Frank Scenario’s on the lyrics. His last gig in town. Should be a honey.’
‘Not tonight, Benny. Can’t afford it.’
‘I can get you on the guest list, no problem. Joe Crocus will be there.’
Daisy Love had heard a thousand rumours about the third-yearer who called himself Joe Crocus: how he was the new surfer of the latest numbers, the self-proclaimed wizard of the Black Math ritual.
‘Tonight I’m busy, studying. Professor Hackle is really testing me, lately. Sorry. Maybe next week.’
Maybe next week. Maybe next Saturday. Maybe all the next days of Daisy’s life will be filled up with wanting; lonely wanting and patient numbers and forever the dominoes…
‘Maybe next week the world ends,’ said Benny. ‘You know, Joe Crocus let me unravel his DNA for him. That man has got no qualms, I swear to God. And you know what came up in the numbers? A fucking cancer gene, that’s what.’
‘Jesus. You told him?’
‘Of course I told him. That’s what he wanted. “Joe,” I said, “Joe, you’ve got six years at top, before the bastard comes calling. The old Joker Bone, deep down in the marrow.” You know what the man said back to me? He said, “Good.” Good! Just like that. “Good, because my father died of the same. Now I know what I’ve got to do.” Can you believe the man, Daisy? “To do what, Joe?” I asked. “To squeeze all the juice from life,” he answered. All the life, all the juice. Shit! I’m sorry…’
‘That’s OK,’ said Daisy. ‘No apologies. Here, take my handkerchief.’
‘Thank you. I don’t know why I’m crying, really I don’t. I’ve done hundreds of unravellings. I’ve found goodness in there, inside the DNA; long lives, sweet innings, good dreams. Like I know I’m gonna live forever; it’s in my genes. Unless the chance-god comes calling, early. OK, the gay gene is in there, but I knew that from the age of seven, when I went behind the garages with Alan Bradshaw. But every so often, a really bad gene turns up in a reading. Usually I keep quiet about it. Usually I do. But how could I keep such deep knowledge from Joe Crocus? How could I? He means too much to me. Too fucking much. And the man accepts it, like he’s won a fucking double-six domino! The man’s a saint, I tell you. A fucking saint.’
Benny blew his nose then.
‘Here’s your handkerchief back,’ he said, ‘slightly stained, I’m afraid.’
‘It’s all right. You keep it.’
‘Don’t worry, Daze. I haven’t got any nasty diseases. I’ve tested myself.’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘Cheers. It’s nice. You sure you don’t want a reading done?’
‘Thanks for the offer. It’s just that I don’t feel ready yet, to know my future.’
The whole of life is a game of dominoes,’ said Benny, chewing on a piece of meat, ‘and the winning numbers are hidden in your genes, alongside the losers. Some can improve their lives by knowing the ending, others just go all weak. It’s your choice, babe. Really it is.’
Daisy chewed on her own meat for a moment. ‘So you don’t mind having the gay gene?’
‘Mind? Why in the hell should I mind about it? Oh, I know it’s against the law, but it’s my love destiny, OK? Straights are straight, and gays are gay. And the gays have more fun. Ain’t that the truth? Why do you think I got this?’ Benny was touching the diamond in his nose.
‘How would I know?’
‘Because it matches the one in my tongue. Good for secret stuff. You know a diamond is a fractal surface?’
‘So?’
‘So they vibrate with energy. Yum yum. Like feathers, leaves, wounds and coastlines. It’s a mystical vibration. Good for licking.’ He stuck his tongue out to prove it.
This is Joe Crocus talking, right?’ said Daisy. ‘The Black Math stuff?’
‘OK, so he’s weird. Why do you think I love him so much?’
Benny produced a small package from his gentleman’s shoulder bag. It was an aluminium box, tightly crimped. A takeaway curry box that Benny opened up to show Daisy.
‘Shit, Benny. You bought a blurb?’
That I did, only this morning. Isn’t he a beauty?’
Certainly, a beauty; folded there on a bed of silver, with wings all a tremble, even whilst sleeping…
‘How do you know it’s a he?’ asked Daisy.
‘Well I’ve checked, haven’t I? Males are more aggressive, don’t you know?’
‘Yes. But they’re expensive.’
‘I got it cheap. From your lovely Jazir himself.’
‘It’s a bootleg! Surely you’re not trusting Jaz to deliver you? Don’t you know his blurbs go crazy? Nothing like the real thing. Just cheap copies. They crash.’
‘Nah. It’s been programmed. No troubles. Scooter’s a beauty.’
‘Scooter? You’ve given your advert a name?’
‘Of course I have. Aren’t you a little beauty, my lovely Scooter?’ Benny was actually talking to the folded-up specimen in its box, tickling its throbbing thorax. ‘He’s going to sing my praises from now on, Daisy, and also protect me from the slur wars. Isn’t that right. Scooter?’ Benny took a chunk out of his burger, pushed a half of it into his sticky mouth, and then fed the rest of it to his blurb.
‘Benny…put the lid back on,’ said Daisy, ‘the waiter’s looking over.’
‘This fly is gonna travel wide! He’s gonna send my message of gay love all over Manchester.’ Benny’s lips were smeared with wild ketchup.
‘Put the fucking lid back on!’ It wasn’t often that Daisy swore.
‘Homo almighty!’ spat out Benny, suddenly. ‘This big beef tastes like shit. I’m sure they shovel cow dung into the vats. Why do we keep on eating this crap? Can you tell me, please?’
‘Because there’s nothing else, except for curries?’
‘Right. Chicken spicy, or beef processed. That’s our lot, until the good bones come up.’ He said this around a piece of gristle, which he then spat out in a rain of spittle. ‘Urghhh! What the fuck is this I’m eating?’ Benny’s voice was a snarl of disgust as he watched the ejected chunk of meat scuttle across the table. ‘Jesus Burger! I’ve been eating something still alive!’ He raised his fork to catch the miscreant, nudging aside the blurb box, even as Daisy made a move to escape the monster meat. And that’s how Sweet Benny managed to stab his fork into Daisy Love’s forearm.
‘Ouch!’ squealed Daisy.
‘Oh fuck, I’m sorry,’ said Benny, jerking the fork free of her flesh. He wiped her arm with the borrowed handkerchief.
‘That’s OK,’ apologized Daisy in the English manner.
> Meanwhile, the lump of meat slid down the table’s leg to the floor. A waiter came running with a net to catch the wild gristle, by which time Benny’s blurb had risen from its bed of aluminium. Now the fly was hovering and buzzing, and starting to flutter its message to the world. ‘Sweet Benny Fenton, he’s the gayest gypsy of your genes. Let Sweet Benny unravel your destiny for a single puny. Gay to win! Gay to win!’
The diners were screaming and climbing onto the tables, as the lump of Whoomphy fat slithered away from the net. Legal additive No. 27459 making a dash for freedom. Benny’s blurb dive-bombing all the customers with its advert for camp pride, which caused the Whoomphy’s burgerfly to go into battle.
At which point the burgercops came storming the pavement outside in their battle-scarred meatwagon, emblazoned with the scarlet W of their sponsor, writ large. Some tight-hearted diner must’ve given them the tip-off on the walkie-phone, all about the gay blurb’s presence. Maybe it was one of Zuze’s crew, taking a small revenge for a beating. ‘Time to make an exit, my dear,’ whispered Sweet Benny Fenton, coming close, holding up the bloodstained handkerchief. ‘Something to remember you by.’ And then he was away, calling the blurb home to his shoulder, slipping out through the back door of the café.
Daisy was left alone to face the cops as they burst into the place. They had their instruments with them, their probing instruments, and they were demanding the whereabouts of the rampant gay blurb, which had violated all the regulations of health and vitality. Some nanonerd raised up his piping voice: ‘The homo black boy, he went that-a-way…’
The burgercops followed the direction of the thinnest of all fingers.
A small aside for social historians. Burgercops are the warriors of orthodoxy. They had given in to the tightening of state budgets and allowed themselves to be sponsored. Whoomphy Burgers won the franchise on the law, ordering the cops to wear, at all times, the logo of the company. Which made the cops one easy target for assassins; all the killers had to do was focus the crosshairs on the illuminated scarlet W.