For two years he carried bags of water up the walls of a gorge somewhere a long way west of London, deep in old woods. From the top of the gorge they then had to carry the bags even higher, up a concrete water tower that was an heirloom of the Public Era. In the summer, the cliffs of the gorge baked them alive and the mosquitoes ate them alive. In the winter, the winding path was lethal with frozen streams. They worked in pairs, bearing a hundredweight of water in a canvas bag slung from a pole between them, gasping step by step upwards until the river was just a winding ribbon in the shadows far below. Six days a week, twelve hours a day in three shifts with five minutes’ rest per hour. The monotony of it was crucifying. Every couple of days, someone threw themselves to their death, or provoked an ultra to kill them.
One evening in late March, Mirror-Face managed to escape. It happened on the steps of the water tower. A couple of carriers overbalanced backwards and set off an avalanche of exhausted men all tumbling down in a heap at the base of the steps. The ultras were running around in a screaming rage about failing the quota. In the gloom, Mirror-Face and several others vanished into the forest. So far as he could tell, the ultras never bothered to chase them. Three of them spent days fighting a way through snarls of fallen trees and bushes, clambering down into ravines and climbing the cliffs of escarpments without seeing a trace of habitation. They repeatedly found themselves amongst the shells of old houses broken apart by the thrust of trees, or simply wrapped deep inside the folds of trunks. These were original suburban houses from the Public Era. The extent of them was astounding. They once struggled all day through unending, gloomy ruins, so pointlessly similar that the three of them were awed at the banality of Public Era culture. Everything in the history books was true: the Fatted Masses really were conditioned to live like insects in vast suburban hives.
Thirst, hunger and cold harangued them. They had nothing to collect rainwater in, nor had they any tools with which to fashion weapons, nor was there much to eat even if they had. Every morning they heard the birds calling far above in the sunshine of the canopy and occasionally they came across droppings, probably left by wild boar. That was the sum-total evidence of fauna. One of his companions started raving they were doomed to wander these woods forever. In the morning, he had vanished. Mirror-Face carried on with his remaining companion. That afternoon, they stepped out of the forest onto a wide public drain running roughly east-west. They turned east. Mirror-Face was pretty sure it was the Great West Drain. In the evening they joined a large camp. Almost all of it was surplus flow heading the other way—west—in blind hope. Through begging and doing some errands, they got water and a little to eat. Next day, they kept going east, making good progress on the open drain, despite being hungry and thirsty again by the afternoon and enduring a miserable, drizzly night in the open. The next day, Mirror-Face finally recognised a landmark called Snag Junction, a tangle of sweeping ramps where another public drain crossed over. This proved they were indeed on the Great West Drain close to the town of Reading. A good friend of his from officer training had been posted to the Reading Garrison. They decided to risk going into the town to find his friend. After crossing several miles of ruined Public Era suburbs, they arrived at an obstacle: the toll gate of a turnpike. It was defended by a squad of ultramarines with two big, black armoured cars. Like most towns of the south-east, the old core of Reading was protected from surplus flow by turnpikes, which required payment of a toll. This ensured only surplus with funds got into the town. Mirror-Face and his friend were so tired that they decided to try and wheedle their way in by offering to do some odd jobs in lieu of the toll.
That was the second stupid thing Mirror-Face did in his life. The ultras had mug-shots of foggers known to be on the run in the area. Escapes from Night and Fog were rare, since the great majority were only doing stretches of up to three years and would go back to their glory trusts afterwards. With his six-foot-four height and actor’s looks, Mirror-Face was not a challenging identification.
And so in some corner of the Ultramarine Guild, a deal was done and The Captain gained Mirror-Face for life.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself. There’s not one of us that wasn’t fucked over. That system out there—” Spiderman jutted his chin to indicate the outside world far beyond the marshes. “—just chews common people up. The sovereigns probably don’t even know half of what goes on—and they don’t care about the either half, the bastards don’t care about anything except keeping their gold.”
“Amen to that,” Lawrence said. He was thinking about how Mirror-Face has been recaptured. It was a fundamental point that escapes from Night and Fog were rare. Being on the run would be a tough life—even if he got clear of the marshes.
De Stulna led off with the soaring tones of their nyckelharpa, a beautiful instrument with chords as clean as a choirboy’s. Everybody clapped in time. Gamers linked arm in arm and swung their partners. Some of the ‘sitters’, the heterosexual value, lurched to their feet and whirled their drinking buddies around and around, colliding and flying apart to cause pile-ups of swearing bodies. Scuffles broke out. It was getting to that time of the evening when the grudges of the week started to erupt. Through the clapping hands and the flying fists, Lawrence spotted giant Zeta728, that is Pezzini, sitting with his usual poker face. Since their last brief encounter weeks ago after the display of Gnevik’s remains, Lawrence had not spoken to Pezzini. Generally, the spay kept himself to himself, ate alone and worked in silence in the gang. Several value had pestered him to get a feel of his tits and sex. In the end, Pezzini swiped them with his great hands, after which there was no more pestering. He had acquired the moniker Big Lil, after a well-endowed trapeze artiste in one of the London troupes.
Lawrence manoeuvred his way to where Pezzini was sitting at a table of spays: Sniper, Lanky, Benny, Sharply Dressed and others. Lawrence had got to know most of the spays at least a bit. They were steady types, loyal to one another and to men who treated them respectfully. He nodded and took a place on the bench beside the big eunuch. Pezzini was one of the few people Lawrence had to look up at.
He asked: “How are things, Big Lil?”
“I am fine, Zeta729.”
“You can call me Big Stak. Are you settling in? Making new friends?”
“This is not school.”
“It’s boarding school with guns and bodies.”
“Those are important differences.”
“You grew up in Brent Cross, didn’t you?”
“I left when I was twelve, after I won a scholarship in the Talent Court of Krossington,” Pezzini said.
“Do you think being spayed helped?”
“It may well have done at the time. After Tom Krossington became head of the clan, the Talent Court accepted no more spays, but I was a few years before that.”
Lawrence paused to inspect Pezzini more closely. TK had been head of clan for thirty-three years, which meant Pezzini must have reached at least the mid-forties. With his smooth brown skin he only looked about thirty. Maybe it went with being a spay. What kind of escape-partner would a middle-aged spay make? Lawrence could only shrug to himself—he had to work with what was available.
“Did you know that spaying originally applied only to females?” Lawrence said. “The term for males was ‘castration’.”
“Yes, I think most of us are aware of that.”
On the contrary, Lawrence had never met anyone who was aware of it and doubted Pezzini had been either until a few seconds ago.
“Do you know why the meaning changed?”
Pezzini merely let his eyes drift away. He was evidently neither accustomed to, nor appreciative of, his ignorance being probed.
“It rhymes with ‘paid’—as in ‘get spayed and get paid’,” Lawrence said. “Whereas ‘castrate’ is too honest a word, it’s too expressive of the reality, and it doesn’t rhyme with anything useful to propagandists. I was amazed to learn that castrating boys was unheard-of in the Public Er
a, except in the most fringe societies.”
“I cannot understand why this would amaze you,” Pezzini said. “Overpopulation was the downfall of the Public Era, since its leaders would not execute the measures required to solve the problem.”
“Oh, I agree, I’ve never been able to understand why they just watched their world disappear before their eyes like dumb sheep watching the tide rise. At least our times are ruled by strong people.”
“So why are you still a man?”
Lawrence pulled a face.
“Not a chance. I value my nuts.”
“Here? They are of no use to you. Get rid of them!”
Pezzini rocked back booming, attracting others nearby to catch the joke. So, Pezzini had a sense of humour after all, well, sort of. Lawrence just smiled a sad, wan smile.
“I knew a girl who grew up near Brent Cross, in North Kensington basin,” he said.
“They are not really that close.”
“She was blonde. Good-looking.” He added sadly, “So very good-looking.”
Since Pezzini did not reply, he rambled on.
“She won a scholarship in the Talent Court of Krossington when it passed through Brent Cross, just as you did. She started as a clerk at Oban Castle. That was how I met her—”
“What was her name?”
Lawrence paused, thinking of Spiderman’s warning. He would do well to heed the advice of those who had lasted. That said, he knew of no regulation that forbade mention of real names of people outside the Value System. No one nearby was paying attention anyway.
“Sarah-Kelly Newman.”
Pezzini frowned, twisting his head, straining his memory.
“I met her on the Neptune,” he said. “I was travelling north with TK, some new staff were on board.”
“You’re giving me the bullshit, right?”
“Not in the least. I recall quite a hefty girl—”
“She was a big girl—no way was she hefty,” Lawrence retorted.
“—and too clever for her station. Heading for trouble in my view. Flashing a smart mind is not wise when one is lowly. That is why she stuck in my mind.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
Pezzini the statistician just had to jump at the chance of talking numbers.
“It is not such a remarkable coincidence. The population of this island dropped by 90% in the Glorious Resolution. In excess of sixty million people died of starvation, disease, or violence. Virtually nothing of them remains, just as virtually nothing of death remains in the wild, for the same reason; what the individual no longer needs is returned to the community of life. Gangsters, vultures, dogs, rats and flies all profit from death. I have read of flies swirling like thick smoke over cadavers stacked in the parks of London before the great surplus flows to the countryside. Rats gushed in the lanes and packs of dogs swept the streets. Then they too vanished. For years, the gangsters sold bone meal to the sovereign lands. Everything was consumed. The Nameless Gone vanished as if they never were.”
“Your point being?” Lawrence said.
“Society is no longer a vast, teeming ocean, as it was in the Public Era. The entire sovereign caste does not amount to more than ten thousand head and its élite is exclusive in the extreme. Seven great clans rule half the productive land of this island. The Krossingtons employ around four thousand head of staff, including the households inferior like Oban. So, it is far from unlikely that two members would meet.”
Lawrence took his chance.
“You and I are bound together. We shared the same hold for days on end, we shared the same jeering from The Captain. We’re bound by fate. We need to discuss our future.”
Pezzini blinked. “If you are suggesting I become your passive homosexual partner, then—”
“No! I mean escape. The world cannot ignore testimonies from a cost-centre lieutenant and a chief demographer, least of all from the staff of the Krossingtons.”
“You are fantasising. It is not possible to escape from here.”
“How hard has anyone tried? The escapes are mad dashes into the night, not planned over months. No prison is completely secure. I have specialist knowledge of the fens. I know the land.”
“I have no interest in escape. Despite what you say, I still firmly believe that Tom Krossington will get me out of here.”
Lawrence felt a heaviness in his head, his neck sagged, his palms collapsed flat on the table. He never expected recruitment to be the stumbling block. The narcotic excitement of his ‘great plan’ deserted him. Gloom pulled, as gravity pulls at the hulk of a stricken ship.
He passed hours drifting from table to table and on into oblivion. Everything was swirling about. He fled to the cold drizzle of the Yard, stumbling about until he head-butted a brick wall, down which he vomited his load in one, two, three rushes and slumped down, forehead drying on the cobbles. More time passed.
“Let’s rape the bitch.”
Hands grabbed him, dragging him up. He stood swaying and laughing. Some blokes were close around him. He recognised the voice of Tricky Fingers. The short guy with the big round head was Buttons. The third sounded from his wheezing like Gnasher.
“Get ‘em off, Big Stak. We want some fun,” Buttons said.
The spear of terror that lanced across Lawrence’s chest transformed into a blind rage. His knee pistoned up under Buttons’ mini skirt with enough force to lift him off his feet. The moon-head screamed and buckled around his groin, writhing and whimpering. The other two jumped him, their sheer weight forcing him down to the cobbles. Lawrence spun around and around under them, foiling their grasping hands. He felt a nose smack flat under the heel of his hand. Whoever it was, they fell away on their back and lost interest entirely. A kick in the kidney knocked his guts up his throat. The last of the bastards was on his feet and the next kick got Lawrence over the heart. He lunged, arms curled over his head in a classic Jiu-Jitsu strike, got the man’s chest in a clamp and with the momentum of a rugby tackle bowled him over on his back. From the blasts of bad breath and sheer bulk it could only be Tricky Fingers, winded by Lawrence’s attack. Lawrence followed up a hand-strike that spun Tricky Fingers’ head and banged it off the cobbles. A head-butt delivered the coup de grâce.
Lawrence struggled to his feet, leaving Tricky Fingers on the deck groaning and bubbling blood through mashed lips. The butt had impacted a couple of inches too low, hitting teeth rather the nose. Lawrence waited. The three stayed down, grinding their teeth in private worlds of pain.
“I’ll kill you if you try that again, Tricky Fingers.”
This was not an idle threat. Lawrence had a sharpened knife out in the plantation, retrievable at night through a sequence of counted paces. He hacked Tricky Fingers twice in the body. He would have kicked him to death but for being so exhausted from drinking, puking and fighting. When he pushed back into the heat and noise of the Dining Hall, it was obvious he had been in a fight from the blood trickling down around his nose from a cut forehead. A few glanced twice, most ignored him. Fights were ten-a-penny.
“You Okay?”
It was Spiderman, his genuine air of alarm refreshing Lawrence.
“I got jumped outside. Tricky Fingers, Gnasher and Buttons.”
“What happened?”
“I beat them up.”
“I knew those pricks would try something sooner or later. I’ll get Mirror-Face. He simply despises the gamers, though he has to keep quiet about it, seeing as they run things. We three are going to stick together.”
They found Mirror-Face out cold under a table towards the back of the Dining Hall. Spiderman badgered him until he came around. It was bed time. They would all go up together. As the two of them carried Mirror-Face across the Yard between them, Lawrence sensed the Value System was thickening around him to form the matrix of comradeship and hatred that eventually crystallized over every value and fixed them in its lattice until they died.
Chapter 10
/>
The pitiless bells of the seven o’clock alarm cut inside drink-sodden minds. Groans and belches, zomboid forms crawled from bunks towards the revitalisation of head dunked in searing frigid water for half a minute. The gamers drifted about like ghosts, lipstick smeared up their cheeks, tights hanging in tatters.
Lawrence got back from the toilets with cold water still draining off his face, ready to fight. There were no takers. Buttons was flat out in his bunk with little Pig Tit on his chest. Gnasher was bowed over, head in his hands. Tricky Fingers was on his feet, naked, apart from orange tights hanging in ribbons from his sturdy legs. He swayed, squinting through barely open eyes at Lawrence whilst rubbing the two fat bloody slugs that formed his mouth. His tag must have got yanked in the fight, as there was dried blood on his neck.
“You must have had a hell of a bang last night, Gang Leader,” Lawrence said. He strolled out laughing.
*
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 2 Page 9