by Jeff Noon
Some things just seem bound.
And she opened her mouth, my sister, waiting for the feathering. She was too full up of love to resist, so I stroked her there, deep in the mouth, and then myself, and this is how we lost the sister. Desdemona was taking it, all to heart.
Tristan uncorked a new jar and reached inside, with wide open fingers. And when he pulled his hand back out, it was covered in thick green slime, like hairvaz, but living. Nanosham! Read about it in the Cat, but never seen it before. Those minuscule machines were dribbling from between his fingers.
‘Watch this,’ he said. And with a broad and sexy sweep, he set those tiny machines working on his and Suze’s hair. You could almost hear them feeding on the dirt and grease. Nanosham was a jelly base containing hundreds of baby computers. They turned dirt into data, processing hair clean, giving the people droidlocks; the ultimate crusty accessory.
‘My darling,’ whispered Tristan to his love. ‘This is the sweetest pleasure.’
Suze turned to me, holding out a clutch of the nanoes. ‘You want to try some?’ she asked. Her eyes knew all my secrets. I felt her there, inside my body, and it was like she was caressing me. Maybe Suze was a shadowgirl. But no, it wasn’t that, it felt different. Felt like she was becoming me.
‘Young man’s got no hair anyway,’ Tristan said.
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even shake my head. All of the air had turned into smoke. Maybe the herb brew was giving me visions. I saw a thick snake of hair writhing between the heads of a man and a woman. And voices drifting through like mist patches, like waves of knowledge. I didn’t know where I was…
The people were talking all around me, about me, but none of them made sense; all I could feel was Suze’s body inside mine, touching all parts of me. I was getting a hard-on! What was this? The voices…
‘You should.’
‘Little boy.’
‘Saves on shampoo.’
‘He’s got no hair.’
‘Call that a haircut?’
‘It’s a crew job.’
Who was saying what? And when? And to whom?
I felt a sudden, clammy hand stroking my short blond hair. Okay, it’s short. Well who gives a fuck! Some of us look like shit with long hair. This the beautiful people will never understand. I’m just trying to look good, you know, my best. Some kind of best. And I shivered as I felt those fingers stroking my head. Get the fuck off me! Until I realised it was my own hand. It was my own hand stroking me; through the fog it had come, in order to stroke.
‘Aw! Look at the baby.’
‘He’s shaking.’
‘He’s stroking his hair.’
‘He’s nervous.’
‘He just doesn’t know any more.’
All those voices calling to me, through the mist…
The world was a haze. ‘What’s she doing to me!’ I shouted. ‘Stop her!’
And the voices falling to silence and all those eyes on me now, as Tristan told Suze to stop playing with me. Suze said that I had the dream within me, but I was well gone, and the feeling of bliss fading as Suze removed herself from my body.
What was that woman?
‘Tell the story, Scribb.’ Beetle’s voice.
The last drop fell away and I was myself again, with only a lonely space left in my soul, and a story to tell…
Last time I saw my sister, for real, she was sitting opposite me, across an apple jam-smeared table, with a feather in her mouth, expecting to fly. It was me, the brother, holding the feather there, turning it all around inside of her mouth. And then moving it to my own mouth, and Desdemona’s eyes were glazed already by the Vurt, as I twisted the feather deep, to follow her down. Wherever she was going, I was going too. I really believed that.
We went down together, sister and brother, falling into Vurt, watching the credits roll; WELCOME TO ENGLISH VOODOO. EXPECT TO FEEL PLEASURE. KNOWLEDGE IS SEXY. EXPECT TO FEEL PAIN. KNOWLEDGE IS TORTURE.
Last time I saw my sister, close up, intimate, in the Vurt world, she was falling through a hole in a garden, clutched at by yellow weeds, cut by thorns, screaming my name out loud. A small yellow feather was fluttering at her lips.
I told her not to go through that door. It was a NO GO door. She went anyway.
I told her not to. She went anyway.
‘I want to go there, Scribble. I want you to come with me. Will you come?’ My sister’s last real words to me, before the yellow feather kicked in, and she was falling, screaming my name.
Some of us die, not in the living world, but in the dream world. Amounts to the same thing. Death is always the same. There are some dreams you never wake up from.
Desdemona…
The room, in silence.
Later that day. Hours of smoke uncounted, but now the mist was drifting apart, revealing tiny fragments of the real world. These little glimpses stung the eyes like needles. I could no longer tell the tale; its telling was too much for me. I was shaking from the memories; Desdemona was aching in my heart.
Tristan broke the mood. ‘You found another feather in there?’ he asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
I just nodded.
Through the tears I saw that Suze was sitting at a small table, consulting the oracle. She was shaking a can of bones around, and then dropping them onto the table. On the baize lay a spread of picture cards. She took note of which cards were touched by which shape of bone, and then threw the bones once more. Karli the robodog was licking my face, like she loved me, or something. Her tongue was long and wet, slick with nanoes. I swear I could feel them cleaning my face for me, cleaning all the salt tears away.
‘It was a yellow feather?’ Tristan asked.
‘Yes. Small and yellow. Totally yellow,’ I managed. ‘It was beautiful.’
‘You want to tell how you found it? Or what happened?’
I didn’t. Tristan just nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said.
Did he?
‘I’ve been there,’ he added.
‘What?’
‘I’ve been inside English Voodoo.’
‘Tell me.’ I was desperate for knowledge.
Tristan looked over to where Suze was working the cards and the bones. Then he looked back at me. ‘You lost your sister there?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And got what in return?’
‘I don’t know what it is. Some kind of Vurt alien. We call him the Thing.’
My mind dragged me back. Me waking up from the English Voodoo feather, covered by the weight of slime. The Thing writhing about on top of me. Me screaming at it, pushing with all my strength to get out from under, tears falling from my eyes, a cry rising in my throat. The sister gone forever, replaced by this lump of stuff.
Tristan nodded. The rates of exchange are complex. Nobody really knows how they work. Only that a constant balance has to be kept, between this world and the Vurt world. Both worlds must always contain the same worth.
‘The Thing can’t be as worthy as Des. Just can’t be…’
‘In his own world, that Thing is loved just as much. Everything adds up. The Game Cat tells you this. Believe me, the Game Cat knows.’
‘What do you know?’ I asked.
Tristan looked over at Suze once more before answering. ‘Your sister took Curious Yellow.’
Oh Christ!
Even the Beetle was aroused, out of Haze slumber. ‘Curious Yellow!’ he shouted. ‘Holy shit! We’re fucked, Scribble, baby!’
‘Most probably,’ Tristan said. ‘Curious Yellow lives inside English Voodoo. It’s a meta-feather.’
Curious Yellow was often talked about, never seen, never felt. It was up there in the higher echelons, where the demons and the gods lived. Nobody pure could ever touch it, but Desdemona had touched it, tasted it, and now she was no more of this world, and the chances of getting her back were falling rapidly to zero.
‘What is Curious Yellow?’ I asked. ‘How can I find it?’
‘It can’t
be found, Scribble,’ Tristan replied. ‘It can only be earned. Or stolen.’
‘Desdemona’s in there. I know she is!’
‘Most probably she’s dead.’
His words cut me, but I wasn’t giving up; ‘No. She talks to me. She’s alive! She’s in there, somewhere. She’s calling to me. What can I do, Tristan?’
‘Give up.’
‘Is that what you did?’ I asked, and I could tell that I’d got to him. He’d lost somebody! He’d been there, in the Voodoo, lost somebody to the Curious. I could see the pain in his eyes, like a mirror.
‘There’s no hope,’ he answered. ‘Believe me. I’ve tried.’
‘So you won’t help us?’ the Beetle asked.
Tristan stared at Beetle. Then he turned away, towards Suze. He was running his hands through their joint hair, almost like he was testing just to see if she was still there, attached, safe. Suze picked up a card from the table, and held it out to me.
‘This is your card, Scribble,’ she said.
‘No. No, it’s not.’
‘You just don’t know it yet.’
The first drifts of darkness showed through the flat’s windows, and I was thinking about Bridget and the Thing, and how I should get back there, see how they were doing. And how everything was over, and another night without love.
‘Well, cheers, mate,’ said the Beetle, with bitterness in his voice.
I guess the guy was looking out for me.
‘Karli will see you home,’ said Tristan.
‘You won’t get scared without the pooch?’ asked Beetle.
Tristan opened a door in the wall and I smelt turds and bad breath, meat and piss.
I looked into a dark place. The walls were covered in scratches and bites. In the shadows were darker shadows. Sleeping shadows, moving and breathing to a slow pulse. A low growling started up as Tristan turned on a sad little light and I saw the dogs there, a fur-lined duo. Great beasts. All plastic bones and synthetics.
‘Robohounds,’ Tristan whispered. ‘Karli’s mum and dad. Be careful. They bite.’ And I could see something in Tristan then, some trace of something dog-like.
‘These are the beauties that keep us safe,’ he said.
‘Christ!’
‘Indeed. Bow down to the dogs.’
TORCHERS
Walking along a gangway, like on a tall ship, concrete ship, miles above the sea of glass. Me, Beetle, Mandy, Tristan, and Suze. Oh yeah, and the dog. Karli. Great slavering fur-metal beast, stretched out taut at the end of Suze’s leash. Tristan carrying his gun, just for show really. Who’s going to touch him? Because they know what would be coming then. And two robodogs left back in the flat, looking after the homestead. Night coming down. No one talking much, just walking the high-rise, hung up on private things. Each still strung out on wisps of herb, just enough to make the world seem kind of beautiful, even this place. The emptiness inside of me reflected in the glass fragments. So I was a thousand times sad, with each footstep. Sometimes even broken glass, cracked cement, sad lives; well they seem like the good dreams of bad things.
And I was thinking well perhaps all is well, and Brid and the Thing will be glad to greet us and we don’t need this old crusty anyway. We were the Stash Riders, and Desdemona was one of us, and we would be back together, just as soon as I got my act together. Shit, man, it was easy! All I had to do was find some English Voodoo feather, go inside, taking the Thing with me. Find some meta-feather in there, some Curious Yellow, the most famous feather in the world, go inside. Find Desdemona in there, swap her back for the Thing, breaking all the known rules of Vurt, find our way back out. Shit, man, it was a piece of cake. Shit cake.
Now we were descending the stairwell.
‘Sorry about not being much help,’ Tristan was saying to the Beetle.
The Beetle just shrugged.
‘I’m just trying to warn you, my friend.’ There was an edge of sadness to Tristan’s voice, but I wasn’t paying much attention.
‘You had a good night, though?’ Suze asked.
‘Great night,’ said the Beetle. Maybe he meant it.
We’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and we could smell fire in the air. Dogs were howling all through the Bottletown night.
‘What’s that?’ asked Mandy.
‘Some jokers,’ answered Suze. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Happens every night,’ added Tristan.
‘They love to burn things.’
‘They call themselves the Torchers,’ said Tristan. ‘Crazy tribe.’
‘Oh fuck.’ That was me.
‘It’ll be some waste-bin,’ said Suze.
But I knew. But I fucking knew it!
We turned the corner of a dead liftshaft, into the car-park, and there was our lovely Stashmobile in a shroud of flames. Burning. Burning.
‘Shit!’ The Beetle’s voice. The van a forest of fire. No one could live through that. No one. Low-level shadowgirl and an alien from Vurt. Gone to the flames.
The five of us, and the dog, all of us transfixed. As the van burned, and the glass told the story a thousand times. Then I was running into the flames, scorching my hands on the door handle.
Oh shit. Oh the Thing and Brid!
And all the hope drifting away from my life, all the hope of an exchanging the Thing for the sister.
All the hopes of my life…
Karli had slipped her leash, she was running around the van, barking at the flames. Beetle had joined me, to help pull open the doors, but instead he was pulling me back, and I was suffering, the smoke bringing tears to my eyes, and the loss, all the losses, bringing tears.
Midnight. A drift of smoke. The van a pile of metal bones, blistered leatherette, melted rubber. My mind burnt. Just sitting there, on a vandalised bench, watching the van’s corpse slowly fading. The stench of fire in my head, the glow of embers. A bunch of onlookers, Bottletown dwellers, come to watch the flames. Some of them were laughing. I was too far gone to care. The night was orange.
Tristan and Suze had rushed back to their flat for an extinguisher, but their hair had slowed them down, it just wasn’t possible. And anyway, it didn’t matter. There was nothing to save.
Karli Dog was nuzzling up to me, offering loads of comfort licks. I kept pushing her away, but she just kept on coming back anyway. So I let that long tongue carry on. It did some good, truth be known.
Tristan and Suze had come back with the foam-gun, but it was like pouring water on Hell. That van was going to burn, until everything was cinders. Until flesh was bone.
It just didn’t matter anyway.
The Beetle had smeared his driving gloves with a full tube of Vaz. Then he’d gone up close to the dying flames, grabbed the back door handle, wrenched it loose. The door swung open, letting out a thick cloud of smoke. I’d watched the Beetle brave the smoke and the heat, thinking what a good guy he was. Then he turned away from the van, and walked towards me. His face was soot-blackened.
‘They’re not there, Scribble.’ His words.
I’d just looked at him.
‘They’re not there. It’s empty.’
Bottletown kids laughing and dancing in the orange night, and me just sitting on a broken down car-park bench, thinking about the world, and getting licked to fuck by a mixed-up pile of dog flesh and plastic, name of Karli.
Shards of glass under my feet, the colours of dreams.
In Bottletown, even our tears flicker like jewels.
DAY 3
‘We’re all out there, somewhere, waiting to happen.’
BLUE LULLABY
I woke up, inside of a dream. There was wool all around me, a total comfort fix. I was slow-drifting through the heavy layers of murmurs and soft touch, with five lovely angels singing to me, lullabies. And it felt nice.
Like a dream.
Five angels stroking me with azure blue feathers.
One of the angels had blonde hair and a dragon tattoo on her left upper arm. Her name was Desdemona. Another
had black hair and black eyes rimmed with black liner and falling eyelids, with smoke rising from her body. Her name was Bridget. The third had six arms, all the better to stroke me with. His name was the Thing. The fourth had teeth like jewels, soft paws, and a long wet tongue of bliss. Her name was Karli Dog. The last of the angels was fat, but wearing it well, with two sets of eyes, one set red, the other white. Its name was the Van.
All five had feathers in their hands, and each a different technique of stroking. Their soft flutterings played all over my skin. I was naked. Unashamed, mind. Not like me at all. But I was just loving the feelings; the voices of the angels, the warm clutch of the dream.
Was this just a dream?
I reached out for the first angel. Desdemona. Blood had started to dribble from tiny punctures in her skin. She had my fingers in her mouth and she was licking at them. Then she bit down on one of them, hard, so that the skin broke, and she was licking at the blood. ‘You ever gonna find me, Scribble?’ she said. I had no good answers to give my sister except to reach out to embrace her. We fell into a kiss—
‘Scribble! Get that fucking feather out of there!’
That was the Beetle’s voice, coming into the dream. And somebody forcing my mouth open.
‘You know I don’t allow that. No one goes in alone!’
My eyes opened. Forced open. Beetle’s eyes staring down at me, from close range. His hands messing about inside my mouth, like a fucking dentist. ‘Stop biting on it!’ he said. Biting on what? He reached deep inside my mouth, pulling on something soft and fluttering that had lodged there. ‘Gotcha!’ announced the Beetle, pulling a blue feather from deep down inside of my throat. He held it aloft like a treasure, whilst I retched and convulsed, gasping for new breath.
‘Sorry,’ I gasped out ‘I was dreaming…dreaming…’
‘You weren’t dreaming, saddo!’ said the Beetle. ‘You were going in alone. Nobody does that.’
‘Sorry, Bee…I…’
‘Fuck off. Fuck off and die if you want to. Just don’t do it on the premises.’
I looked at the blue feather he’d pulled out of my mouth. ‘What was I doing?’