by Jeff Noon
Except of course, some few just can’t stop having sex. Which gives birth to the FOURTH LEVEL, of which there are only five modes, each missing only one element, and their names are; Flake, Dunce, Squid, Spanner, and Float. Hey, what did you want? More big mouthfuls. Fourth level beings are deep beauties, and I should know, because the Cat is one. Which kind? Hey, what is this, gift week? You’ll be asking who Hobart is next. I know, I’m a tease. That’s how I make my living.
Beyond all this lies the FIFTH LEVEL. Fifth level beings have a thousand names, but Robomandogshadowvurt isn’t one of them. They have a thousand names because everybody calls them something different. Call them what you like—you’re never going to meet one. Fifth level beings are way up the scale of knowledge and they don’t like to mingle. Maybe they don’t even exist.
The Cat? He calls the Fifth level Alice. Because that was my mother’s name, and it’s the thing we all spring from, and try to get back to.
You got a problem with that name, reader?
So make up your own!
ASHES TO ASHES,
FEATHERS TO
HAIR
Cinders was still asleep when I came down.
I stroked her soft and green hair for a few seconds as I checked the flower clock on the wall. Only five petals had fallen. Seemed like I’d been in the Silver for an hour or more, but that’s the Vurt for you; it does strange things to time.
I leaned over to kiss Cinder’s face, and then went into The Beetle’s room. He was struggling against his chains, desperate to get out of there. But still too fleshy, too human. He couldn’t quite make it.
Not without my help.
I guess I’d always wanted him in this position, dependent upon me, but now it brought no pleasure.
‘Time come, Scribb?’ he asked.
‘Definitely,’ I answered.
‘If you let me loose, Scribble, I’ll be your friend for life.’
‘I don’t think you’ve got much life left, Beetle.’
‘I feel beautiful,’ he said.
‘That’s good. Could you do some last things for me?’
‘What’s that, baby?’
‘Steal and drive a van for me.’
‘I thought you were the expert these days.’
‘I want to go bareback. No Vurt.’
‘Crazy mother.’
‘Damn right. You wanna go for it?’
The shining colours in his eyes lit up even brighter as he smiled, ‘Let’s go ride some stash!’
His voice was singing.
I led the Beetle down along the canalside, towards the last archway. That old clapped out ice-cream van was still there, like a tin corpse. Icarus’s face had appeared at the door, boasting a bad look of fear. So I just waved the gun around a little, just to keep him inside, whilst the Beetle breached the van. He didn’t use Vaz, beyond that now, and the hood seemed to open up for him, like a slow seduction. He reached inside and I saw some colours shining. They flowed from his fingers, touching the wires inside, and then the engine choked into a small life.
‘You know what, brother?’ he said. ‘I really feel some juice tonight.’
So we used that juice to drive out to the moors again, me and Twinkle and Mandy, and the Beetle up front, just like it should be.
‘Where are we going, Mister Scribble?’ asked Twinkle.
‘On a picnic. We’re going to sell some ice cream.’
‘It’s a bit dark for ice cream,’ she answered.
It was nine o’clock on the Sunday night, and the trees were fading into silver.
‘I like this van,’ the Twinkle said. ‘It’s the best van yet. I always wanted to ride in an ice-cream van.’
‘I saw you with that Lucinda woman, Scribble,’ Mandy said.
‘Do you have to bring this up?’
‘Why not? You’re quite the lover, aren’t you?’
‘What’s happening?’ asked Twinkle.
‘Scribble got himself a—’
‘Mandy!’
‘What is it? What is it?’ Twinkle shouting.
‘Nothing!’
‘Scribble got himself a woman.’
‘Scribble!’
‘It’s not…’
‘Scribble, how could you?’ Twinkle’s eyes were staring. ‘What will Desdemona say?’
That left me empty.
‘Good question,’ said Mandy, with a smile.
I looked from the young woman, to the young girl, and then out through the ice-cream van’s hatch window, watching the fields go by.
Desdemona. Forgive me.
Beetle rode the van along the same tire tracks of the morning’s ride, coming to a perfect stop some ten feet away from the grave.
I stepped out alone, telling the crew to keep the engine turning.
The mound of soil.
My hands digging into the soil, bringing up clumps of mud; scraping the mud onto the earth, moving on, sod by sod, until my fingernails were black and fragile and the world was opening up beneath me.
Found her body there. Suze’s.
Strands of hair mixed in with the soil. Her sweet face rising out of the dirt as I brushed the traces of earth away from her, my hand hitting against hard wood. The little wooden box.
Waiting…
It was lodged against Suze’s neck, hidden amongst Tristan’s hair. And Suze’s hair had fallen over his, so that the box was entangled within.
Waiting…
I pushed my hands into the thick mat of hair.
Suze’s eyes were closed and her body warm from the earth. She’s just sleeping. That’s all. I’m just making a steal from a sleeping woman’s body. That’s all…
Christ! This was getting to me.
The complex folds of the hair, the sweat felling from my brow to my hands, the feet that I could hear the van door opening, Twinkle calling to me, the look on the dead woman’s face; all these things conspiring against me, until I was tearing at the hair, cursing. Twinkle’s voice from behind me, asking me what I was doing? But I had to get this box loose, you see, I just had to do it!
‘What’s going on, Mister Scribble?’
Then I had it.
Waiting…Desdemona…
The last few strands of hair fell away and the box was in my hands. It was hand-carved from mahogany, the top etched into the shape of a howling dog. No lock, just a small brass clasp. I clicked aside the clasp, and then lifted the lid…
Yellow!
A glint of yellow amidst the darkness.
Yellow! The Yellow feather! It was small and neat, just like I remembered, its golden flights enwrapping me, burnishing the air with colours and dreams.
Twinkle came round to see, and I guess her eyes must have seen the look in mine as I gazed at the feather, because all I heard was her sharp breath.
Curious Yellow.
I have you!
Waiting for me…
COMING IN
COLOURS
We were. We were that. Coming in colours. Beetle up front, just like the old days, but this was something new, something else altogether. Felt like I was riding home, riding home in the back of a clapped-out Mr Whipping van, with a golden feather in one hand, Beetle’s gun in the other, two bullets left.
Beetle was working the wheel with a hot touch. His spectrum was widening, his skin crumbling at the edges. I’d persuaded him to wear his black frock-coat, and to pull his hat down real tight. Mandy had wrapped a large scarf around his face. Cinders had given us the scarf and hat, along with a pair of neat sunglasses. The Beetle had these on as well. And his leather gloves. ‘He looks like the Invisible Man!’ Twinkle had cried. The Beetle just shrugged. Flashes of colour were seeping through the gaps in his clothing, but it would do.
We were speeding the Wilmslow Road at a Jammer pace, back towards Manchester and the address in my pocket. Except the Beetle wasn’t on Jammers any more; he didn’t need that shit, not with the bullet in him.
‘We going after Brid and the Thing now, Scrib
ble?’ asked Twinkle.
‘That’s the score, kidder,’ I answered.
‘Oh good.’
That kid should be having a good life, not being thrown about in the back of a stolen ice-cream van. And it was me leading her there, into a dark place, just because I needed her help. What kind of behaviour is that?
Yeah, I know. Like shit.
We came onto the Fallowfield crossroads. The Slithy Tove restaurant went by on the left and got me to thinking about Barnie, and his wife. Cinders. Her green hair wet with sweat.
Lose that picture. Lose it!
We were driving up the Fallowfield hill now and I saw a phone booth coming up close on the right, outside the student residences.
‘Beetle!’ I shouted. ‘Stop right here. I need to make a call.’ He pressed down on the brakes like a Sumovurt, throwing us all over the Mr Whipping equipment.
Like I really need this battering, my man. Know what I’m saying?
The phone booth had been vandalised recently, but a drop of Vaz in the slot sorted that out. I had a blue Mercury Vurt, almost gone to cream, but the phone’s mouth took the feather gratefully. Then I pulled the feather out, and placed it between my own lips. Ten units of value glowed in the phone’s eyes.
Jesus. That was low.
POLICE. YOU NEED HELP? the floating head asked.
Yes. Yes I did.
POLICE. CAN WE HELP? repeated the voice, growing impatient. I was finding it hard to speak, and I knew just why. This was the first time, in all my life, that I’d actually called the cops.
‘I was just wondering…,’ I managed.
YOU HAVE AN ENQUIRY, SIR? LET ME PUT YOU THROUGH.
Noises in the wave wires like the kissing of the sea. The eyes telling me I had only seven units of call left.
DATA. CAN I HELP? A man’s head replacing the woman’s.
‘Yes, please,’ I said. ‘I would like to know the situation regarding a Mr Tristan Catterick. He was arrested yesterday. Could you tell me please?’
HOLD THE LINE, SIR. I’LL GET THE RELEVANT FILE.
‘I’ve only got four units left,’ I said, but the line was playing the national anthem, whilst the head smiled benignly.
So I waited.
The voice cut in again. WE ARE RETRIEVING THE FILES, SIR. WE’LL GET RIGHT BACK TO YOU.
‘I’ve got two units left!’
No response.
One unit.
HOLD THE LINE, SIR.
The music playing, and then the eyes glowing from cream to blue again as the units came back on. Two units. Flicker. Four units. Flicker. And then upwards until I had ten units left. Somebody was feeding units in, and it wasn’t me. Must be coming from the other side, from the cops, trying not to get me cut off.
They had a tracer on!
A glimpse of Takshaka’s tongue flickering over the wires.
I pulled the feather out, doing a bad jerkout job. Shit! Time to move.
We rode down Fallowfield hill like demons, down into Rusholme, past the Platt Fields, towards the curry chute. Every car that we passed had flags waving from the windows. Pakistani flags. Inside each car, families of Asians were laughing and shouting, and the cars were sounding their horns.
What the fuck was going on?
Now the traffic was slowing down, and we came up close to the old flat, the Rusholme Gardens. It gave me a bad feeling, seeing where we had come from, and how far, and I thought the Beetle was feeling the same because I could hear him cursing. Except it wasn’t from nostalgia. It was from the cops. I’d clambered up to sit next to him, and I could see them there; working the road, diverting the cars down Platt Lane.
A real heavy cop presence.
‘Stay tucked up, Bee.’
‘I’m boiling, Scribb.’
‘You’re a shining example to us all, Beetle, but right now I reckon you should keep it tight.’ I slipped the gun and the feather into my pockets. A shadowcop flickered onto our number-plate, but that’s okay; that old ice-cream van was innocent. The Beetle kept himself well back in the shadows of the cab. A traffic cop waved us through, left onto Platt, taking it slower now, jammed between the Asian cars. Mandy came forward, poking her head between us.
‘What’s happening, Mandy?’ I asked.
‘Eid, baby,’ she answered.
Oh right. What a night to pick.
‘It’s the end of Ramadan. The end of fasting. The people go a bit crazy, and sometimes it kicks off. That’s why the cops are here. They seal the curry chute off, but it just spills over.’
Gangs of Asian kids were lining the pavements, cheering the cars and the flags, so Beetle found the button that worked the van’s music. The kids really freaked out then. They waved us on like we were some kind of ice-cream chariot of the gods, dancing to the tune of Popeye the Sailor Man, played at fever pitch.
We got through okay, and then a slow right onto the Yew Tree Road. Cops were out of it by now, the roads were quiet. Right from Yew Tree, onto Claremont Road. I told the Beetle to slow it even more. He did so, with a sure hand, taking us to a gentle crawl, between the rows of terraces. Way ahead, at the top of Claremont, you could see where the cops had sealed off Wilmslow Road. Hundreds of Asians moving beyond the roadblocks.
‘Kill that Popeye shit as well,’ I added.
Silence coming in as the music faded.
‘What number we after, Scribb?’ asked Mandy.
‘There’s the one,’ I said.
The van came to a smooth stop.
Karli started to whine.
Here we are. Sunday evening, the 1st of June. Ten thirty on the night of Eid.
The road was pretty much our own now. The house was three storeys tall, over the top of a junkshop called Cosmic Debris. A tight alley opened up between this house and the next, barred by a wooden gate, topped with wire. Dogfluff fluttered on the barbs.
Karli was really howling now, feeling something.
The house was dark but for the weak spluttering of a candle in a top floor window. ‘Bad dogs, real bad dogs,’ said Mandy, ‘they don’t like the light.’
This is it. This is where we come to.
‘You want to try the back, Bee?’ I said. Because who would invite this shining man into their household?
‘Love to,’ he answered.
‘We go in first. Got that? No heroics.’
‘What, me?’ His colours were very beautiful. They always are, just before the death.
‘You’re doing fine, Bee.’ I said.
‘I do feel good.’ Maybe he knew it. The ending. He wasn’t letting on.
‘I just wanted to say…’ I started. But the words wouldn’t come.
‘Don’t bother,’ the Beetle replied. Cool as ever, right to the end.
‘I’m proud of you, Beetle.’ Managed it.
‘Me too,’ said Mandy.
Beetle took off the sunglasses. He looked at me, smiled, then over to Mandy.
He kissed her. It was sweet, and it lasted.
Then he turned back to the house. ‘I haven’t got all night. Let’s do it.’
Oh. Beetle.
‘Are we really here, Scribble?’ asked Twinkle from the back of the van.
I looked back to find her, but all I saw was Karli.
The robobitch was down on her stomach, rubbing the van floor like a snake. Her forelegs were stretched out flat, her hindlegs were raised up tall, tail aloft, her arse on view, pink and pouting. ‘I think she’s smelling something,’ whispered Twinkle. ‘I think she’s on heat.’
Yes. We’re here. And we’re all on heat.
TURDSVILLE
Twinkle and Karli went to the door first. There was a kind of alcove, with the door to the shop on one side, and the door to the upstairs flat on the back. Above the door someone had pinned a printed notice saying PURE FREE ZONE. Below that was tacked a piece of paper with the words—you not got dog, fuck off!—scrawled in thick clumsy letters. Above the letterbox was an ornate iron scrollwork sign that said CHEZ CHIEN in a
Gothic script. Below the box someone had felt-tipped the message—Turdsville. Watch where you tread. It was written in a human hand. Just to the left of the bell was a sticker, a photo of an Alsatian on it, and the words—Go ahead, make my day! Somebody had glued two blue human eyes over the dog’s.
Twinkle pressed the bell.
You couldn’t hear the bell, so you just had to believe it was working.
No response to that.
Mandy was standing behind Twinkle, and I was behind her. The Beetle was still sitting in the van, watching us through the window. The gun felt hot in my pocket, but that didn’t stop the fear. I just couldn’t stop shaking. Twinkle pressed the bell again, keeping her finger down this time.
Still no answer.
‘Maybe they’re not in,’ said Mandy.
‘Keep pressing, Twink,’ I said.
Twinkle pressed.
No answer, so she lifted the letterbox and shouted through, ‘Anyone at home?’
Nothing.
Until the door came open a little, held back by a heavy chain. Two dark, wet eyes stared out at us. ‘What want?’ the deep voice growled. ‘What want?’
You could see the slaver dripping as he spoke.
Twinkle rose up like a true star to the occasion. ‘We’ve got a young bitch,’ she said. ‘You want to buy some?’
There was a pause. The dog’s eyes flicked up to stare at me. I smiled back.
‘Let hear some,’ barked the voice.
So Twinkle pressed the Karli up close to the door gap and let her sound off there. That bitch howled like a sex goddess, like a Pornovurt; like Cinders on an Oscar-winning bed scene. The doordog was whining back, full up of heat and want. He vanished for a second, and then the chain hung loose and the door yawned open, on a breath of rank air. You could hear the locks getting wet and slippery. That’s when the smell hit us. The overpowering stench of dogs.
We went on through. The doordog had us trapped now, in a tight dark space. Behind him a set of stairs faded into the darkness. The stench was thick, almost physical, and the dogman’s eyes were glinting in front of mine. Karli set off up the stairs, Twinkle down hard on the lead, pulling that bitch to a howling halt on the middle step.