Fairyland

by Paul J McAuley

  Two left. Alex is beginning to wonder just what these things do when one crosses the path of an edge glider which has a piggyback riding it—and the new bugoid eats the edge glider and its parasite, turns red, and splits in two.

  After Alex has watched for half an hour, turning back and forth in his swivel chair to survey the whole world, he’s pretty sure that he knows how the new bugoids operate. They can only eat edge gliders which have been weakened by infection with piggyback parasites. Otherwise, they can be eaten by anything else, and because the new bugoids are strongly tropic for the edge of the virtual map, where edge gliders are the dominant predators, they are most likely to fall prey to healthy edge gliders. Already, the population of new bugoids is increasing at the expense of parasitized edge gliders, and Alex is pretty sure that a balance will be reached, with numbers of edge gliders, piggybacks and the new bugoids oscillating around a strange attractor in a complex but dynamically stable interaction.

  Alex strips off his goggles and sends a message to the Web address that was hidden in the a-life codes. He’s hardly finished typing when the phone rings. He answers, and the little girl says, ‘It’s about time.’

  10 – Leroy

  Leroy’s shebeen is almost empty. Business only picks up once the pubs have shut, and it’s not yet ten. On the far side of the dimly lit basement room, a few old men hover at the billiard table, their faces dipping in and out of the glow of the light hung above the table’s brilliant green rectangle. Two other customers are playing dominoes at one of the square formica-topped tables; the clicks of their pieces are louder than the mumble of the TV over the bar.

  Leroy Edwards is behind the counter, and when he sees Alex coming down the stairs he shakes a bottle of tomato juice, flips off its cap and pours the juice into a shot glass without being asked.

  ‘Your mother be along later,’ Leroy says.

  Alex says, ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  The tang of the tomato juice, spiced with Worcester sauce, cuts through the taste of blood from his split lip. His jaw tenderly aches.

  Leroy says, with a teasing twinkle and an exaggerated islands accent, ‘What you want, white bwoy? Come down here to buy some blow? I always got Dutch Dragon, but for you I could maybe fetch up some righteous ’igh Mountain Jah-maican ’erb. You look like you be steppin’ out tonight. Is that a new shirt?’

  ‘Yeah, well I’ve kind of got a date later on.’

  ‘But first you come and see your old uncle Leroy. What’s the problem? I see someone popped you on the mouth. About time.’

  Leroy is in his early sixties, almost as fat as Alex, but still strong and alert, still something of a local hero. He has rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt high on his biceps. There are blurry blue jail tattoos on his forearms, done with biro ink and a sewing needle. His grey hair is cut short, nappy on his skull, and his nose is so flattened that his nostrils are scarcely more than creases. Someone did that with a cricket bat, and Leroy, bleeding and roaring like a stuck pig, took the bat away from the guy and broke both his arms. Alex knows that story and a hundred others; Leroy and Lexis were friends before Alex was born, which, if it wasn’t for his red hair and cave-dweller’s pallor, would make Alex wonder.

  Lexis first worked for Leroy when he owned a pub on the Brixton Road. The Commercial Arms, a utilitarian brick palace built in the fifties, with a knocked-through bar, bare wood floors and white tile walls. Leroy ran a soundsystem before he became a publican, and still has a box of 12 inch vinyl 45 rpm singles of his one hit, a toast with a Lover’s Rock style lilting backbeat that made Number 26 in the charts in 1983. Leroy used the royalties from that to buy the Commercial Arms.

  The pub was a big punk and ska venue in the seventies and early eighties—the Clash and the Specials played some of their early gigs there—but it lost its music licence just before Leroy became the landlord. In the mid-eighties, it was at the centre of a riot when National Front boneheads tried to hold a march through Brixton. There was another riot in the late nineties, after a protest against armed policing was broken up, five thousand police against ten thousand marchers. That was the time when British National Party supporters had the habit of driving through Brixton in stolen cars and taking random shots at passers-by. The pub was shot up twice, and someone tried to burn it down during the Millennial celebrations, one of more than ten thousand arson attacks in London that night, an end-of-century fever which came close to recreating the Great Fire.

  Leroy held on to the pub through thick and thin for twenty years. His father came over in the fifties, when Jamaicans were actively recruited to remedy post-war labour shortages, and he worked on the Underground until it was privatized two years short of his retirement. Leroy’s father knew all about hard work and persistence, but his pension was privatized along with the rest, and quickly dwindled into a derisory lump sum. Then his wife died, and like many Jamaicans at that time, sickened by a tide of overt racism, Leroy’s father took the ticket back.

  Leroy stayed. He knows something about persistence, too. When things started to go downhill he found it harder and harder to pay insurance money demanded by the Triad New Families, after they moved into South London when the People’s Republic of China took back Hong Kong. In the end the Triads did what the Millennial firebug failed to do, and had the pub torched one crowded Saturday night. Five people died then, and Leroy went to prison for a while.

  For as long as Alex has known him, Leroy has sworn that one day he’d retire to the islands. But here he is, sixty-two next birthday and only out of London twice in his life: once when he was moved to Leeds jail after the Scrubs was burned down; once when he went to Jamaica for his father’s funeral.

  Now Lexis works for Leroy in the shebeen, an unlicensed drinking den which has had three addresses in the last five years. With each move, Leroy has taken with him the heavy slate-topped billiard table, the two one-armed bandits and the old-fashioned purple neon CD jukebox. His clientele are mostly middle-class second and third generation Brixton Jamaicans who run small businesses—minicab franchises, doming or electronics shops, garages, off-licences. There’s even a doctor, and a solicitor or two. They treat the shebeen as a private club, help keep Leroy straight with the police. Alex has known most of them most of his life.

  Leroy pours Alex another tomato juice and says, ‘Tell me about the smack on the mouth there, white boy. Who did it? Don’t tell me you ran into the fridge door, because I can see the mark his ring made. You give him reason?’

  ‘They were trying to frighten me. Give me some of those crisps, the prawn-flavoured ones? You’re the only person I know who still sells them.’

  ‘Your busted mouth to do with some busted deal? Alex, Alex, I thought you were making easy money fucking up the heads of the rich clubbers. I thought you had the sense to stay out of trouble. You’ll break your poor mother’s heart.’

  ‘Actually, it’s Lexis I came to see you about.’

  Reluctantly, Alex tells Leroy about Doggy Dog’s threat.

  Leroy reacts angrily. ‘You surely fucked up this time, bringing this shit on your own mother’s doorstep.’

  ‘I didn’t go looking for it,’ Alex says, knowing it sounds weak. ‘I thought maybe she could stay with you for a few days. It will be over by then, I swear.’

  ‘You said you would keep on the right side of the law. I distinctly remember it because the day you said it was the day you came out of prison.’

  Alex stuffs a handful of crisps into his mouth and says around them, ‘It isn’t illegal. I can tell you that. You know that nothing I’ve been doing has been strictly illegal.’

  ‘I remember when blow used to be illegal,’ Leroy says.

  ‘Yeah, but the stuff I make isn’t a drug. It just stimulates cells in your brain as if they’ve been hit by a drug. Besides, when was the last time you paid tax?’

  ‘Don’t get smart, little white boy. I’m not too old to tan your fat arse.’

  Alex dredges the last fragments of crisps
from the bottom of the packet, licks grease from his fingers, wipes his fingers on his shirt. ‘Smart is what I am. That’s what I’ve been all my life. It got me where l am.’

  ‘With a bruise swelling up your lower lip, and someone threatening your mother? Days like these I’m glad I’m dumb.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I’d call you, Leroy.’

  ‘Blow, now, it’s a natural high. It’s an ’erb, something God Himself made for us to use. The stuff you make, Alex, it’s devil work. It’s the way the world got fucked up.’

  ‘Come off it, Leroy. The world was fucked up before I was born. Psychoactive viruses just make cells do what they do normally, only in a more coordinated way. What’s more natural than that? Here you are, selling alcohol, and you know why? Because microorganisms in your gut produce alcohol as a byproduct of their metabolic activities, and as a consequence we’ve evolved the ability to metabolize the stuff. Our brains are built to process psychoactive drugs because they need naturally produced psychoactive chemicals to function properly. There’s a theory that intelligence and language evolved because when our apeman ancestors were grubbing up food on the African plains they’d get stoned from eating mushrooms growing in herbivore shit. They got smart because that was the only way they could relate to the hallucinations the mushrooms gave them. My viruses don’t do anything unnatural. They just enhance what’s already there.’

  ‘I don’t know about any of that,’ Leroy says stubbornly. ‘All I know is that you’re a smart boy with a smart mouth, and you’re not making the world better. No one is in this country. Maybe it’s time I—’

  ‘—retired to the islands. Maybe one day, Leroy, I’ll make a difference.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Leroy says. ‘You’re dumb for a clever boy, Alex. Always were. You think you can take what you want and never owe. You’re a clever white boy, and you think you know the street because you hang out with a few gangsters. You think you can play at God, but this is the real world, it’ll always smack you in the chops if you don’t look out for yourself. The world doesn’t work on dreams.’

  ‘Not yet. Will you look after Lexis, make sure she’s OK?’

  ‘She can stay at my place. Long as she leaves her boyfriend behind.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw him.’

  ‘Something in him reminded me of you, white boy.’

  ‘Hey,’ Alex says, hurt.

  Leroy levels a finger, fixes his gaze on Alex’s face. He has his stern and unforgiving prophet-in-the-wilderness look. He says, ‘I’ll watch out for her, but I can’t watch out for you. You get hurt and it’ll break your mother’s heart. You don’t know how hard it was for her when you were doing time.’

  Alex finishes his tomato juice. ‘I have to get somewhere. Listen, don’t worry. And don’t worry Lexis, OK? I told you I’m doing nothing illegal. Trust me, Leroy.’

  ‘I did that once,’ the old man calls after him.

  Leroy is still angry, but Alex knows he’ll cool down. Leroy just hasn’t changed with the world, Alex thinks, which is why he’s so angry all the time. Which is why he hides away down in the basement, where every night is the same, and time might have looped back to the old days of the Brixton Road, the old century not yet worn out and Leroy a respectable landlord, not a jailbird down for double manslaughter.

  What Leroy did after the Commercial Arms was fire-bombed, the thing that turned him into a local hero, was track down the two Yardies who were paid to do it, knock them unconscious, lock them in their silver Mercedes SL500 and set it on fire. Leroy has a righteous, biblical sense of justice.

  11 – Dr Luther

  Now all Alex has to do is follow instructions. The little girl, a.k.a. Alfred Russel Wallace, gave him no choice in the matter. It is almost eleven, and there’s a queue at the security barrier at the exit of Charing Cross tube station, where a couple of bored guards in Kevlar vests over short-sleeved shirts check IDs. A third stands behind the wire mesh with a neat little automatic rifle slung under his arm.

  Alex, in his squarejohn costume of loose cotton trousers and a shirt with big prints of birds on it, gives the security guards one of his false IDs (tonight he’s Evan Hunter) and looks as bored as they do while they check it and then wave him through. Saturday, and the secured section of the Strand is busy, brilliant with flickering neon. People swirl in and out of the electronics emporia. The smell of fried food is heavy in the hot, humid air. Clouds of mosquitoes whirl and topple around luminous signs. Most of the shops sport the violet glow of insect-o-cutors above their doors; the continual, almost subliminal sizzle of flash-frying bugs undercuts the noise of the crowd and the pulsing beat of soundsystems that spills from shop doorways.

  Alex skirts the back of St Martin-in-the-Fields and plunges across Charing Cross Road into Leicester Square. Fairy lights are strung from the sycamore trees in the little park. People queue to pass through metal detectors into cinemas and clubs. Big video screens play snatches of the latest movies between blocks of advertisements. Groups of salarymen shout and whoop as they reel past prostitutes of all five sexes. A heavy bald man in a pinstripe suit is on his knees in the gutter, being noisily sick.

  Private security guards go by, patrolling two by two, with fat stickyfoam pistols holstered at their hips. It is even hotter here, under cascades of gold and white and pink neon, the heat ripe with the stink of garbage spilling from black plastic bags. A group of screeching secretaries half-heartedly pursue a gorgeous transvestite clubber, who’s six foot six in stiletto heels. He turns, lifts his dress and waggles his dick at them before diving through a cinema queue after his friends. A helicopter thumps overhead, and its spotlight sweeps across the crowded square like the finger of an unforgiving God. Leroy, patient and judgemental behind his bar. Despite what he says, he’s not in the world, not like Alex.

  At the corner of Gerrard Street, beneath the red lattice gateway at the entrance to Chinatown, a crowd has gathered around two barechested men who are fighting it out with knives. One is already badly cut; blood mixed with sweat streams down his belly. He feints sluggishly, and his opponent, stepping back from the jabbing blade, seems equally weary: it is as if both are half-asleep in the fuggy heat.

  A pair of security guards are watching from the back of the crowd, and Alex ducks his head when one glances at him incuriously. He’s suddenly acutely aware of the cameras and microphones mounted on the walls of buildings, atop the poles of traffic signs. It’s said that the Triads tap into the security network, use an AI to pull specific faces from the crowds. And here he is, heading into the symbolic heart of their territory at the bidding of a little girl he doesn’t even know.

  The little girl told him to meet her in the Dean Street branch of Pizza Express, an upmarket place favoured by media types. Although it’s half empty, Alex is stuck with a small table near the kitchen. A party of suits, their jackets hung on the backs of their chairs, their ties askew, are making a lot of noise at the long table by the big picture window. Alex orders a bottle of white wine and works his way through two portions of blueberry cheesecake. He’s just looking around for the waiter when, suddenly, she’s there, slipping into the chair opposite him.

  She looks older than she did on the phone. She is wearing knee-length green shorts, and a white T-shirt that leaves her thin arms bare. Her eyes, under heavy eyebrows that make a single line across her brow, are so dark that they look black. Mediterranean genes in there, Alex thinks. She has woven her thick black hair into a French braid. She seems quite at ease, ordering a pizza for both of them and a Pepsi for herself, then sitting back and giving Alex a level, appraising look.

  Alex asks what to call her. Alfred Russel Wallace doesn’t seem appropriate. She tells him that Milena will do, and when he asks her if that’s her real name, she smiles and says, ‘It’s as good as anything.’

  Alex, figuring he has nothing to lose, tells her about the threats that Doggy Dog made, and she tells him not to worry about it.

  ‘The boy is charming in a rough sort
of way, but he isn’t important. There are thousands like him. In my opinion, Mr Billy Rock should be better advised in his choice of personnel.’

  Alex’s curiosity wins out over his caution. He wants to know. He wants to understand. ‘The kid and Delbert, you’re running them, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I?’

  Milena looks over her shoulder at a burst of laughter from the party of suits, looks back at Alex with a teasing smile. A naughty little girl out past her bedtime, flirting with a strange man.

  Alex sticks to his point. ‘Delbert and Doggy Dog are too dumb to have thought of using dolls that way, and you’re…not.’ He realizes that he doesn’t know anything about her. He says, ‘That house—you live with your parents?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Milena says calmly. ‘I don’t have parents. I have a company.’

  ‘I see,’ Alex says, although he doesn’t.

  The pizza arrives and Alex eats most of it while the little girl, Milena, nibbles delicately at a single slice and sips her Pepsi. Alex smokes a cigarette, drinks the last glass of the chalky Chardonnay.

  At last, Milena blots her lips with her napkin and says, ‘You’re cross with me.’

  ‘I want to know what’s going on. That’s why I’m here.’ Alex stubs out his cigarette. ‘I can cause trouble if I want to.’

  ‘I expect you can, but you’re too smart to try. That’s why I chose you.’

  ‘You chose me? Why do you even need me?’

  ‘Because I’m not allowed to work in the area you work in. I need a gene hacker. My own specialty is nanoware. Did you ever get zapped?’

  ‘You mean by those things? Fembots?’

  ‘That’s what they call them now. For the same reason that people call vacuum cleaners hoovers. You should be interested in fembots, Alex. They do what your viruses do, only it’s purer, very intense and very precise. I made the first strain. It gives you a vision of the Madonna—the Mother of God, not the pop star. I let it loose, and the hackers took over. There are fifty-eight strains I know of, now, all developed inside a year. Some reveal Elvis Presley or Princess Di, others God Herself in clouds of glory, or LGM.’