by Jeff Noon
‘Kracker’s the master,’ Zero was saying. ‘He’s the boss. And there’s more important things on his files. Xcabs are complaining about Gumbo YaYa again, about how he keeps breaking into the map-data. Kracker wants me on that trail.’
‘You think I’m worried about some old hippy, Zero?’
‘Who just happens to be breaking the law.’
‘I’ve got some strong feelings about this case, Zero.’
‘Keep them to yourself, and stop calling me Zero.’ He couldn’t stop scratching at the jumping nano-fleas.
‘Give me one run at it, please. Let’s track down that map number. Are you going to help me?’
‘I came here with you, didn’t I? Shit. It’s a good job nobody fancies you, Smokey. They’d have a hell of a time keeping up.’
I didn’t answer.
Later that day, Zero drove out with me, North, to the dead places. There were flowers growing from the tarmac as we travelled through the city of Manchester, and tribes of dogs gathering at our heels. The air was heavy with pollen messages. Zero was sneezing and scratching as he stuffed a blue phone-feather into his jaws. He called up the number listed on Coyote’s wall-map, and then told me that only static cracklings were answering him. And then he sneezed once again, and cursed the hayfever. This journey had caused some arguments, especially when I asked for a three-car patrol: one in front, one behind. And a heavy gun presence. All of which had met with refusal. Zero was playing it strong, saying that no Zombie fucker was going to mess with him. But I could see the fear in his eyes, especially as we moved through the mutant tribes of North Manchester. ‘Jesus-Dog!’ he said to me. ‘What’s up with the world these days? Nobody’s just themselves anymore. Jesus, will you look at that! You see that creature there, Smokey? What the hell is that? Fucking mutant!’ This last shouted through the window.
‘You know what, Zero?’ I answered. ‘They say that some of them have even got Dog inside them.’
‘Yeah, well…that’s a cheap shot, Smokey. Dog-Christ! It makes you wonder just how bad Zombies are.’
Then we came to the northern gate of the city, outgoing, a giant shell of a building where sparks flew from lightning rods, and the monster trucks were washed down for Zombie travellers. We nudged the car into a waiting line behind an International Vaz transporter. Its back wheels loomed larger than the Fiery Comet, and City Guardsmen shone lasers under the truck’s carriage for illegal goods. Behind a wire fence I could see over to the incoming door, where tankers were being sprayed with anti-Zombie juice.
The truck in front of us moved forward, and whilst Zero was feeding his cop-code to the guardian, a snarling came from the incoming side, and something banged against the wires.
Zombie hitcher sprayed down from the incoming vehicle.
Legs and arms thrashing against the wire.
Zero shouted to some dumb customs attendant, ‘Jesus-Dog! Do we have to put up with this?’ The incoming Zombie worked his slithering arms through the mesh until he was almost scratching at our car with his talons. Sizzling grease splashed against our windscreen. Zero pulled out his gun. ‘I’m gonna take that fucker.’ He wound down the window. I told him to cool down, but once the dog was up in Clegg, there was no stopping him. The guardsmen got to the Zombie first, stabbing at the creature with their lightning rods. Then, a terrible howling that even Zero backed away from, and the smell of burning half-dead flesh in the air. The Zombie was shrivelled to a crisp. It made me think about my sweet, illicit Jewel, left all alone in his bedroom back at my flat. How could I protect him?
We made our way through the checkpoint, left the main road, and then scudded along a dirt track, past crashed cars and a burnt out train carriage in the middle of the moors, miles from any rail-track.
Limboland.
A large, withered oak tree we found there, bent by the wind, its branches forming a web of connections. Beyond that a final telegraph pole was etched against the trembling sky.
Exact co-ordinates. Blackstone Edge.
There was nothing but dead grass and dry winds. Zero was sneezing crazy, his gun-hand twitching constantly at his holster as he scanned the moorlands for Zombies. ‘You know there’s holes out here, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Holes from the Vurt.’
I walked further out into the moors. Off the telegraph pole a long wire dangled from one of the connectors; tuberous roots sprouting from the end of it disappeared into the wet suck of the earth.
To the south of the city, just beyond the realms of the map, before the vast moorlands of Limbo take over, there is an Xcab parked under an overhang of rock. It was safe here, no cops to deal with. The road dropped away into nothingness just beyond Alderley Edge. The driver had travelled just far enough to disengage Columbus.
It had been a lonely path out to this rock, courtesy of an A–Z book. Boda had paid a tidy sum to a sullen perimeter-being in order to find a hidden track. Last night she had slept in the cab, with the brush of leaves against the windows, and the moanings of Zombies from the outlying moors. She had activated all the defence systems, and Charrie had promised her he would keep his eyes open, but still her sleep had been fitful, disturbed by the heavy rumblings of Vaz wagons as they thundered by and by the pain that travelled her wounded road. And, more deeply, by the thoughts of Coyote. She couldn’t get rid of the thought that she’d killed him; it was her fault. Her mind had played at this for hours in the darkness. If only Roberman hadn’t passed that Limbo fare to her. If only she hadn’t given Coyote that same fare. If only Coyote hadn’t called that number. If only she’d loved him more, and earlier. If only, if only, if only…there are too many if onlys in her life. And what was Columbus up to now? What had she done wrong to bring on the boss’s wrath? Boda had reached into her shoulder bag then, to pull out her address book. In it she had jotted down the number that Coyote had rung. Limbo number. She could maybe ring that number? Find some clue that way about the killer of the taxi-dog. Does she want to find his killer? Yes, because that would redeem her for giving him the number. But how can she get to a phone without going back on to the map? Eventually she had drifted into sleep, woken up with the same problem. She’s been sitting in the cab for hours now, getting hungry and frustrated. It’s the second day of her new world, getting towards dark again, Zombie time, and the girl is feeling scared.
There are lights playing above the horizon, deep into Limboland. She doesn’t want to think about what may be out there. She has heard so many rumours. Boda is safe here, for the moment, caught between authority and chaos, as long as she can keep the Zombies at bay. But the idea of stasis does not appeal. Another Vaz wagon speeds along the Limbo road. Charrie rocks with the vibrations. DO I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS DISTURBANCE? he says.
‘What choice do we have?’ Boda asks. ‘And how come I’m still hearing your voice? You should be dead to my ears.’
I WOULDN’T MIND SOMETHING TO EAT, ACTUALLY.
‘Eat?’
PETROL, DEAR.
‘Me too,’ Boda replies. ‘Food, that is.’ A second Vaz wagon thunders by, like an ocean liner lit by fire. Boda starts up Charrie’s engine and pulls on to the road in the wake of the wagon, speeding down to where the lights are dancing in deep Limbo.
Twenty minutes later they pull on to the forecourt of an isolated petrol station and cafe. The building is bleak as a ruin, standing alone amidst the wastes of Limbo. A ramshackle neon sign reads COUNTRY JOE’S FOOD AND FUEL SALOON. TAX-FREE PETROL. LAST STOP BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD, ROOMS VACANT. From lasers mounted on the roof of the cafe, lights are playing in the sky. Boda pays for some petrol and then asks the young dogkid on the pump if a room is available. He just gives a nod towards the illuminated sign and growls, ‘Can’t you read, Shadowbitch? Ask for Joanna.’
What does he mean, Shadowbitch? Is that what I am now? It throws her for a second, as she makes her way towards the swing doors of the saloon. Country and Western music can be heard from the inside, a woman’s voice singing, and the sound of men joining in
with ribald whoops of delight.
Boda stands outside, looking in over the top of the batwing doors…
Directly opposite, on a wooden stage designed to represent a hillbilly-style ranch house, the woman is singing to her own acoustic guitar accompaniment. The singer is a ravaged blond affair, done up in cowgirl clothing: Stetson, bootlace tie and a frilly gingham skirt.
‘…As some good steer makes a run for open ground, Joe makes a loop to pull that maverick down.’
Then she goes into the chorus, something about having ‘maverick tendencies’ in her heart. The crowd of rough-hewn truckers join in lustily, a bellowing of cheers and a blast of sneezing. Also, a stranger noise, a kind of wet humming, comes from the farther side of the room. Dark shapes move there. The song ends and the singer makes her way over to the bar, fighting off the advances of the crowd with a firm hand and a delighted smile.
Boda steps into the room.
Silence greets her. A single throaty whistle pierces the air. Then a terrifying sneeze. About half of the truckers are wearing improvised pollen masks, coloured bandannas covering their mouths and noses. One of the truckers slaps his knee, an invitation for Boda to take a seat there.
Boda refuses, politely.
The truckers are fine—Boda can take that, having spent nine years on the road herself—but as she walks further into the bar the dark shapes in the corner start to move towards her.
Zombies! Shit!
The creatures are looking at her through a haze of smoke and sweat. The truckers are seated down one side of the room, the Zombies down the other. Between them rides a shimmering breath of thick air, like a curtain pulled across something distasteful. The singer is smiling at her from behind the bar. An impressive range of Wild West regalia is mounted on the wall, including five or six revolvers and a rifle. The truckers and the Zombies are staring at Boda’s naked skull-map. Boda drags the woollen hat out of her shoulder bag, pulls it down over her head, and then asks the singer, ‘You got any Boomer juice?’
Laughter from the trucker side of the room. More sneezes.
‘Ain’t much call for Boomer around these parts,’ the singer replies. ‘Got some nice Jack Daniels bourbon. That do you?’
Boda nods, pays for the fire-water, drinks half of it. Two feet away from her the trembling curtain of air separates her from a big Zombie man, seven feet tall, who seems almost human. Sure, he’s greasy and bits of his body are kind of loose, but compared to his drinking companions, a ragged pack of whom are now lined up against the invisible dividing wall, this lumpen guy is like some kind of Vurt star. He seems to know this. A bright yellow Stetson hat is jammed down onto his skull. The barmaid steps through the curtain of air, serves the big Zombie, and then steps back into the truckers’ side.
Boda says to the barmaid, ‘Are you Joanna?’
‘Depends what day it is,’ the big Zombie grunts.
Christ, they can speak?
‘Don’t mind Bonanza,’ the barmaid says. ‘He’s just a big ox.’
‘I was instructing this child,’ Bonanza replies. ‘I was just instructing.’
Boda ignores him, amazed at her ease. Weren’t Zombies supposed to be vicious? ‘You got a room for the night?’ she asks the barmaid.
‘You can share mine, honey,’ one of the truckers shouts.
‘Got plenty,’ Joanna tells her. ‘Comes with a meal. I can bring it up to your room. You don’t want to eat with these old boys.’
‘Thanks. Is there a telephone?’
‘Over by the Napalm machine.’
Boda tries the number, gets back an ACCESS DENIED response. She walks back to the bar. ‘That’s a featherphone,’ she says. ‘You got a real phone? One that takes money?’
The barmaid looks deep into the new girl’s eyes and then says, ‘Follow me. Got one in the back room.’
They go through and the barmaid introduces herself as Joanna, the sister of Country Joe, who’s out of Frontier Town just now.
‘What is this place?’ Boda asks. ‘I didn’t know there was a town out here.’
‘Well then, you don’t know fuck,’ Joanna replies. ‘It’s not so much a town, more a way of mind.’
‘I liked your song.’
‘Why, thank you.’
‘What’s a maverick?’
‘You don’t know? Well, you should do. It’s an old cowboy term. It’s a cow that won’t run with the herd during a cattle drive.’
They are in some kind of living room now. Mounted cow horns on the walls. Gumbo YaYa is playing, weakly, from an antique radio set. A collection of acoustic guitars is resting against the woodwork, and an ancient hand-wound telephone sits on a rickety table. ‘I can’t take the feathers, you see,’ Joanna adds, ‘I’m a Dodo. I guess you’re the same, coming in here and asking for a money-phone?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Have you been sneezing lately?’
‘Not at all. I’ve tried to a few times. But nothing comes out.’
‘Thought not. Same here.’
‘What about it?’
‘The only truckers I know that aren’t sneezing are also Dodos. You’re not getting strange urges?’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh I don’t know. A restlessness, I suppose. I know I am. The Dodo truckers also. You know…the need to escape? I’m feeling us Dodos are being called.’
What can Boda say to this? ‘How come all those Zombies are in your bar? Don’t they cause problems?’
‘You sure are innocent, young lady. I make my living out of problems. Frontier Town is a fuzzy kingdom. You get to know the people.’
‘People?’
‘Sure, Zombies are people. This is the last gasp of the city before Limbo, and we have to make allowances. Country Joe’s is a broad church. You saw the Wonderwall in the bar? The Wonderwall is Joe’s invention.’
‘Keeps the Zombies out?’
‘Keeps the Zombies separate.’
‘Would I be able to walk through it?’
‘I wouldn’t advise it.’
‘You can do it?’
‘I’m kind of special. What’s your name?’
‘Boda.’
‘You’re on the run, Boda, I suppose?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Let me see your head.’
Boda pulls off her woollen hat. Joanna whistles. ‘Phew. That’s one hell of a range. Oh…have you been hit?’
Boda’s hand goes up to her wound. ‘It’s nothing. Just a graze.’
‘Rubbish. Here…let me…oh dear. That’s nasty. Let me put something on that.’
‘No, really. It’s nothing.’
‘Stay right there.’
Joanna vanishes into the kitchen, comes back carrying a cloth and a bottle of lotion. She makes Boda bend down as she applies the lotion to the scar. ‘You should go to a doctor.’
‘No.’
‘At least let me put a bandage on it.’
‘No bandages.’
‘Okay.’
Boda gets up from Joanna’s ministrations and pulls her address book from her shoulder bag. She looks up the number she wants—the fare-call that Roberman had given her, and that she’d passed on to Coyote. It was all that she had, no address, no names, just the number to ring. Now she’s waiting for that call to be put through once more, her thoughts racing. This has to be it. This number killed Coyote. Something to do with the girl called Persephone. The sounds of electric passage, and then…
Somewhere out on the dark moors to the north of the city, a last telegraph pole. From that pole a single line falls, bootlegged into the fields. The line creeps through the undergrowth, turning green as it travels, turning from wire to vegetable shoot. Now it is a runner through clay and peat, a plant-line.
Boda is standing in Joanna’s living room, listening to whispers over the telephone. Explosions, unfoldings. Voices of darkness. Plant-life. A subterranean storm. She is listening to the popping of seeds, the creaking of growing roots, the slithering of worm
s, the cracking of flowers.
The emptiness at the end of the line is too much for her to bear. Her one and only clue has led to nothing, to a noise she cannot understand. She replaces the phone in its cradle, gently, severing the connection. No path to follow any more.
Boda climbs up to her damp room. This is what it’s come to: a bed and a chest of drawers. A small table. Nothing much.
Coyote…
She can’t help but think about Coyote. About how he had promised to take her to the Vurtball semi-final, second leg, this coming Thursday evening. Manchester City. About how the point of life is to be on the outside, not the inside. Coyote had said this to her, four days ago in the Nightingale cafe. Was it really only four days ago?
Xcabs was the inside. Coyote was the outside.
He died because of me. This is what she thinks.
Later, whilst eating her meal—two eggs, one sausage, hash browns and baked beans—Boda can hear the sound of Joanna singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? from downstairs, and the soft whisperings of Limbo in the darkness beyond her room. A long way to go before home, Whalley Range. If she ever gets back there. If she ever wants to get back there. What is there to go back for? Her head is feeling better already; a scab has formed over Kingsway. Maybe she should just travel further, deeper into the real Limbo. She could scrape at life out there in the darkness and the dry wind. The prospect was starting to appeal. There is a time to stay put, a time to escape. Tomorrow she would drive Charrie into the deadliest moors. She was finished with Manchester.
Boda climbs into the creaking bed. Despite her resolution, she can’t help but miss the wrap-around comforts of the Xcab map. She allows herself some sleepy thoughts about those silky tendrils that were once her whole life and motion. And Roberman’s instructions. That loving touch. She can remember the rides she had taken with him, age of nine and a half; when she had first joined the Xcabs. She had been his pupil for three years, sitting in the passenger seat, learning the good Knowledge from that robodog. At the age of twelve her first menstrual blood had appeared, and then Columbus had stated that it was time for her to take her own cab into the map. Boda had sailed through the initiation ceremony with no problems despite the fiery demons she had met there, and she had accepted her new name, Boadicea, and her new identity with supreme alacrity.
