Un Lun Dun
Page 34
Brokkenbroll stood, and glowered.
“Congratulations, Deeba Resham,” he whispered. “You’ve managed to turn yourself into rather a pain. And now I learn you’ve poisoned I-don’t-know-how-many UnLondoners against me.”
Deeba, Lectern, and Curdle backed down the hall. Brokkenbroll made a hand motion, and unbrellas swept by them and opened, blocking their retreat. Only Curdle was small enough to squeeze through. Deeba heard it bounce off down the hall.
“I have worked, and worked, and worked at this,” Brokkenbroll said. “Didn’t I help? Didn’t I persuade my associate to leave your friend alone? There was no reason for you to come back. Everyone was happy.”
“Everyone except all the UnLondoners,” said Deeba.
“They’d have been fine! Holding out against an enemy! Under my careful guidance! Everyone happy!”
“You was lying just to take control!”
Brokkenbroll made yak-yak-yak-you-talk-too-much with his hands.
“I tried to treat you right,” he said. “But you threw it back in my face. You are so ungrateful.” He raised an unbrella high.
“Brokkenbroll, listen,” said Deeba desperately. “The Smog’s your enemy too.”
He paused.
“What nonsense are you on about?” he said.
“Think about it!” Deeba felt the canopies of the unbrellas, some torn, some with metal poking through, pressed against her back. She pointed at the window. “Why’s it showing its troops? That tells everyone Unstible’s not on their side! They’ll know not to trust him, and that means not to trust you. The Smog’s sabotaging your plans!”
Brokkenbroll stared at her. For a second, Deeba saw his doubt in his eyes.
“You…bad girl!” he said. “I don’t know how all this mess started, or what’s been spreading such malicious thought in the abcity. But blaming my partner…you really are a disgrace.”
He raised his unbrella again. Deeba reached for her UnGun.
It wasn’t there.
Deeba panicked so hard she dropped the book. “Ow!” it said as it landed.
Deeba patted her waistband frantically, rummaged in her pockets.
Lectern was holding the UnGun. She must have taken it from Deeba’s waistband. She was aiming it at Brokkenbroll.
He hesitated, staring at it.
“That’s right,” said Deeba. “We’ve got you covered. Don’t move. Well done, Lectern. Now give me it.”
The Propheseer looked at her with wide, dazed eyes, then down at the big pistol. Her mouth opened and closed. Brokkenbroll looked at her.
“Do you want to live?” he said. “You know you haven’t got a chance. Give me that now and I won’t kill you.”
“Shut up!” said Deeba. “You don’t scare us!”
Lectern stepped forward.
“Yes, he does,” she said. She turned the UnGun around and offered it, handle-first, to the Unbrellissimo.
“Are you crazy?” screamed Deeba, and leapt forward to try to grab it. She was too late. Brokkenbroll had it in his hand.
“There’s only one bullet left,” Lectern said. She was speaking very quickly. “I heard her talking about it. They know the Smog’s scared of it, but she’s only got one last shot. Her friends are downstairs. They beat the Hex with some utterlings. She doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do. She’s following the smell of the Smog…”
Her voice petered out. Deeba stared at her, speechless with outrage.
“Sorry Deeba,” said Lectern. She stood next to Brokkenbroll, and nodded her head in his direction. “But look at him. We haven’t got a hope. I don’t want to die.”
Deeba lurched forward to grab her; but Brokkenbroll made a tiny motion, and unbrella handles grabbed Deeba from behind, held her still.
“Excellent choice, Propheseer,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll find something for you to do in the new government. One shot left, you say? Do be quiet, Miss Resham.”
An unbrella clamped into her mouth. Brokkenbroll examined the UnGun curiously while Deeba struggled in the unbrellas’ grasp.
“I don’t have to listen to your unpleasant, troublemaking lies,” Brokkenbroll said. “I will have a little word with my partner, however. I’ll clarify exactly what has gone wrong, and what we can do about it. Nothing is unfixable.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, looking decidedly wild for a moment. “But first—I’m not going to let you get in my way again.
“It might surprise you to hear that I can be extremely insecure. Particularly when someone seems intent on undermining my plans. Out of pure malice.” He shook his head and looked wounded. “Well, since we had our last little altercation, I’ve kept something with me. To remind me that no matter how much trouble you’ve managed to make yourself, I still win.”
He beckoned. From behind Deeba’s back, one of the broken umbrellas came dancing forward. It was red, with a design of crawling lizards. Its canopy was torn, and flapped along the rip.
“Ass ngine,” Deeba said through her gag.
“It is indeed yours,” Brokkenbroll said. “Or, it was. One split, and it was mine. Do you want to see how very mine?”
He made a little motion. He turned and walked towards the door.
What had once been Deeba’s umbrella leapt up, put its handle around her neck, and began to squeeze.
Deeba couldn’t breathe.
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“Sir?” she heard Lectern say anxiously. “Do you have to? Couldn’t you…send her home or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Now, I have to have words with my colleague.”
But as Deeba ached and fought to get air into her lungs, the Smog wisps around her thickened. It regarded her, with globs of smoke like eyes on stalks. She heard a scraping voice.
“Brokkenbroll,” it said. “Stop. The girl…is intriguing. I want to breathe her. And I want her breathing while I do.”
“Ah,” said Brokkenbroll, uncomfortably. “Good.” He was looking at the fumes about him. “Have you been listening, then?”
Deeba’s ears were starting to sing.
“The girl,” said the voice.
Brokkenbroll snapped his fingers, and the unbrella released her neck. Deeba wheezed and gasped. The unbrella leapt down and hooked her ankles together instead. Another unbrella did the same to her wrists.
“Fine, there, it’s done,” Brokkenbroll said. “Now, I need to talk to you about what’s going on.”
He glanced irritably at Deeba. She was immobilized, unbrellas shackling her ankles and wrists.
“Bring the weapon,” the voice said. “I want to see what’s so special about it. I don’t like having something so…threatening floating around. I’ll breathe it later. Then I’ll learn it. All the prophecies are…unclear.”
“What do you mean you’ll breathe it?” It was another voice coming from behind the door. A tremulous old man’s. Deeba recognized it. “Who are you talking to, Unstible?” It was Mortar.
“Hush,” the Unstible-Smog said. “Quiet. Brokkenbroll…come.”
Brokkenbroll entered the laboratory, and with a last miserable look at Deeba, Lectern followed him. The Smog in the air around Deeba withdrew like a film of a fire run backwards, sucking back through the doorway, leaving the air cold, thin, and clean.
“Unstible,” Deeba heard Brokkenbroll say. “Things aren’t going according to the plan we made. What’s happening? That awful girl was making all sorts of accusations—”
“Lectern…?” Mortar said. “You’ve come to join us? And is that you, book? So…are we winning? Against the Smog?”
“Oh Mortar,” Deeba heard Lectern say sadly. “Smell the air.”
Deeba struggled.
The unbrellas’ grip was unrelenting. She could shift her arms a little one way and the other, but she could not pull them, or her ankles, apart, or free.
There was a snuffling at her feet.
“Curdle,” she whispered. The little milk carton crept through the
immobile unbrellas and rolled into her lap, wheezing air in and out happily. “Oh, Curdle.”
Deeba struggled again, but the unbrellas were too strong. Deeba sighed. She bit her lip.
“Put the UnGun down,” the grating voice said.
“There’s only one bullet left, apparently,” she heard Brokkenbroll say.
“Where did you get that?” Mortar said, in a heartbreakingly feeble voice. “Might we be able to use it?”
“Brokkenbroll, UnLondoners are getting uppity. Things are going wrong. Hence change of plan. Need some more help. We’re not ready yet. Take the elevator—find Murgatroyd. Or Rawley. Take the woman and go.”
“You think?” said the Unbrellissimo. “I doubt Murgatroyd or his boss’ll be willing to part with any more police, or come down themselves. They were doing us a favor in the first place.”
“Worth a try.” The Unstible-thing’s voice was loud and angry, and Brokkenbroll was silent. “Put the UnGun down, put the book down, and go.”
“Very well,” Brokkenbroll said. “Of course. It’s a good idea…I’ll…go and ask…”
“And leave an unbrella to help me.”
There was a pause.
“I will not,” said Brokkenbroll nervously. “I think you forget we’re partners. The unbrellas are my servants.”
Deeba heard the clank of metal, a gate slid into place. There was a receding mechanical grind.
“Oh well,” the voice muttered. “Never thought I’d get rid of him.”
“Oh my lord…” muttered Mortar. “What have I done?”
“Sleep.” There was a whoosh like wind, and Mortar’s voice petered out to nothing.
I need to get these things off me, Deeba thought, and wriggled her wrists again. Curdle grabbed the unbrella with its cardboard spout. Deeba heard the book.
“Brokkenbroll’ll realize you’re double-crossing him,” it said. “Probably does already.”
“Silly unbrella man,” Unstible-Smog said. “It’s too late for him now.”
“When he realizes and joins us, you know—”
“Book.” The voice was heavy. “I am very busy. Last experiments. Chemistry. Working on this a long time. Breathed a lot of books. Very helpful, those librarians. Provided me a lot of fuel. Now I need to focus. I would rather not deal with you or ’Broll or the stupid old Propheseer. But make me pay attention to you and I will. In fact,” it said with sudden greed, “not got any chemistry chapters in you…?”
“No,” said the book hurriedly. “Nothing but geography. And half of that’s wrong. Shtum, me.”
There was the sound of tearing, and a quick cry.
Deeba strained again, but it was hopeless. She slumped and closed her eyes.
It’s no good, she thought. I’ve come so far, I got so near what we had to do, and it’s going to finish like this. I can’t get out. Brokkenbroll controls the broken umbrellas completely.
“Wait,” she said aloud. Her eyes snapped open. The broken ones…
She examined her old umbrella. Its shaft and folded-up canopy lay flat beneath her, its crook around her legs. She examined the long gash in the canopy, which tore straight through several of the lizards.
Deeba frowned. There was an idea swimming somewhere in her head, and she strained to catch it.
“Curdle,” she whispered. “I need you to fetch something. In my bag. See? The pouch! Fetch!”
The little carton followed her frantic nods eagerly. One by one, it began to drag things out of the bag.
“No,” she said, “not the socks. Not the notebook. Not the…not my keys, no. The little black thing. No. No. No. Yes!”
With her hands gripped together, it wasn’t easy to open her sewing kit, but eventually Deeba did so, and drew out a needle and thread. It was even harder to bend down to the unbrella holding her feet, with the other one around her wrists, but slowly and carefully Deeba managed it. She used one of the needles that Obaday had given her, and she would have sworn it seemed to help her, dipping and stitching with simple metal enthusiasm. Curdle hopped excitedly around her.
With crude, ugly loops of thread, all she could manage with her two hands working together, Deeba began to repair her umbrella. She listened to the murmurs of the Unstible-thing behind the door, trying to work out what it was doing. And as she did so, she clumsily sewed up the split that had ruined her umbrella’s canopy.
The instant Deeba had put the last stitch into the unbrella, and closed the tear, it quivered. It trembled, and something changed.
The red-and-lizard thing shook itself like an animal waking up. Deeba held her breath. It moved fitfully, then slowly unhooked from her ankles and turned on its handle, opening and stretching its fabric in what could have been a yawn.
It turned, and the eyes of the biggest lizard faced Deeba.
“Yes,” whispered Deeba. “I did it!” She bit her lip to stop herself shouting in delight. She watched what had once been her umbrella hopping around the corridor, bending to examine things around it.
“Hey,” she whispered, and it turned to her. “Do you remember me? From a long time ago.”
It paused for several seconds, then nodded its tip uncertainly up and down.
“Do you remember a minute ago you were gripping me?”
It nodded. Vehemently.
“But you don’t want to hold my legs?” She gesticulated at her ankles. The unbrella bent to look at them. It raised its canopy a tiny bit and lowered it again. An umbrella-shrug. Then it shook it no.
“You had to. You were ordered. And now you don’t have to obey.”
It nodded and jumped and spun, and cartwheeled, and bounced from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. It opened and closed and flew in little jerks.
It’s free! It doesn’t have to do what Brokkenbroll says! Deeba thought.
It’s not an unbrella at all, anymore. It’s something else. When it was an umbrella, it was completely for one thing. When it was broken, it didn’t do that anymore, so it was something else, and that’s when it was Brokkenbroll’s. His slave.
But if it’s fixed…It’s not unbroken—then it would be an umbrella, just a dumb tool again. But now it’s not broken either, so it’s not his anymore.
It’s something new. It’s not an umbrella, and it’s not an unbrella. It’s…
“What are you?” muttered Deeba. “A rebrella?” Whatever it is, she thought, it’s its own thing, now.
“You like being free,” she said. The rebrella nodded enthusiastically. “In return…would you help me?”
The floor was littered with glass, and splintered wood from the window frames. There were little metal rods, too, a few inches long, that had secured the windows closed.
Curdle and the rebrella picked up random broken bits and brought them each to Deeba.
“No, not the glass,” she said. “The rod. Yeah, that’s it.”
The unbrella that held her wrists was bent in the middle of its shaft. It took a lot of effort, but with the help of the rebrella—and the enthusiastic unhelpful participation of Curdle—Deeba held it firmly. The rebrella forced it open, and Deeba held a rod flush with the unbrella’s shaft. Between them they managed to unbend it and wrap sticking-tape around and around her captor and the metal rod, binding them together, bracing the unbrella straight.
And suddenly, fixed like that, it wasn’t an unbrella at all. It sprang away from Deeba’s hands and did a dance of delight, like the first rebrella had.
With her hands and legs free, Deeba was able to get hold of the remaining unbrellas in turn. They didn’t fight—their orders had been to hold still.
Two were so broken Deeba couldn’t fix them. The others she patched up quickly. None of them looked good, but very soon Deeba was surrounded by four delighted rebrellas, jumping with the pleasure of no longer being Brokkenbroll’s to control. They were like animals playing.
Her mind raced. She was painfully conscious of how time was passing, that her friends were waiting, and that she had only one last chanc
e to stop the Smog.
“Will you help me?” she said. She had to say it a few times before the rebrellas lined up, seemingly eager. The exception was the red-and-lizard rebrella, which was quicker. Perhaps because it was mine for ages, she thought, it understands me.
“Here’s what I need you to do,” she said. “When I say ‘Attack!’ do this.” She made exaggerated hitting motions.
She knew the Unstible-thing was very strong, but the rebrellas had been un- brellas, all treated with the chemical goo that rendered them invulnerable to the Smog’s attacks. There was poetic justice, she thought—the props the Smog had made to help it take over the city with Brokkenbroll would now be turned against it.
There was a blue rebrella she had sewed up, a yellow one the shaft of which she had straightened, and a black one that had been the easiest to fix: it had just been inverted, and she had snapped it back the right way around.
“There’s no way we’ll be able to sneak in. There’s one chance. I need you to help me,” she said to the red rebrella.
For a moment, she remembered playing with it in the yards of her estate, twirling it like a sword. She wondered what those memories were like for it—for it, two whole lives ago. Perhaps they were like dreams.
“While these three are attacking,” she said, “I need you to fetch something.”
When she had done explaining, Deeba hesitated. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, she knew things were coming to an end.
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Deeba yanked open the door, and the rebrellas swirled inside.
As she entered, everything went slow. Deeba took everything in, in an instant.
The illumination in the workshop shifted. The room was full of the crawling and sluggishly flying lightbulb insects. A huge fire burnt in the fireplace. The big vat was still there on its swiveling stand. It was full of a vividly glowing, bubbling green liquid. Blue gas jets hissed below it.
Around the room, the benches and stands were the same amazing mess of chemicals in beakers, bubbling test tubes, and coils of glass that she remembered.