by Jeff Noon
‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled.
‘This is a black feather.’
‘Never seen that feather before. Don’t know who put it there.’
It was a well-known fact that wardens sometimes changed the feathers in prisoners’ mouths, from the official blue and gentle flights into dark and deadly ones. They did this with child molesters, cop-murderers, anti-authoritarian figures and any other serious reprobates. They swapped the blue for a black, which meant that the inmates would be suffering eternal nightmares in their prison-sleep. Tom Dove put on a suitable look of familial concern, and I added to that my best show of senior cop-knowledge.
Clutch went scuttling off in search of a pleasant blue to replace the black, and whilst he was gone I asked Tom Dove if he was up to it, the feather-search. But he was already letting his eyes glaze, as though he was making that Vurt trip already. ‘Hang on, Tom,’ I said to him. ‘Let’s make this as legal as possible.’ So he came back down, and then waited until Clutch came running back with a sweet blue feather and many apologies for this mishap. Clutch handed the feather to ‘Tommy Veil’ who sucked it into his mouth and then out again, so that the warden could lodge it in the prisoner’s mouth. Benny Veil’s face melted into a smile as the new feather took hold, and by then Tom Dove himself was already floating down and dreaming the same dream as the prisoner. I was by then a seasoned expert in sharing my Smoke with the dream, so we went down into that cell together, Tom and I, Vurt and Shadow, searching for clues…
…falling into bliss and numbers…numbers and bliss…the numbers overriding the bliss so that the whole world seemed like a mathematical formula…the bliss was the new feather recently lodged…full of a slow ecstasy it was, a long, drawn-out parade of tenderness…the numbers were a mask over certain parts of the dream’s terrain…locks on feathery doors…Tom dragging me down into the numbers, trying for a breakthrough…the numbers ganging up on us like a street tribe, blocking our flight…a veil of numbers that we couldn’t travel through…Tom Dove was finding the going hard, but I shoved my Shadow into the formula, stroking smoke through the symbols…I used everything I had…all my resources…I felt weak and abused, until a small gap appeared between a number one and a number seven, and through that gap I darted my fingers of smoke…Benny Veil’s face came up lumbering and cursing…Who the fuck are you?…
It’s the cops…
Fuck, this is against the law…
So is murder, Benny…
Get the fuck off my dream…
You enjoying this dream just now, Benny?
Sure is better than that last sentence. That was one black downer. Jesus! Felt like I was being prised apart and stitched back up again. That shit was gonna last until eternity. Sure is kind of you cops to sort that warden out for me. Hey, this blue feather is nice…
You can have the bad dream back, Benny…any time…
Lady cop, please…
Listen close, we’re here after the address of Gumbo YaYa…
He’d kill me if I gave that away…
What can he do to you now?…
It was at his word that I killed, you know, and then he put this condom rose of numbers all around me, so that I couldn’t name him…
What can he do now? You’re safe from him here. Think about it…
Silence then from Benny Veil as he considered his options…
Okay, I’m up for it, only if you guarantee my freedom from that black feather. Let me sleep in peace…
Peace is yours…
Okay, here it is. Slavery House, Strawberry Fields.
That’s it?
All I know.
I could feel Tom Dove making for a pull-out.
Wait a second, Tom. I can still feel something.
Sibyl, we’ve got what we want.
Not yet. He’s still got some secrets.
Diving back into Benny Veil’s numbers, following the curves down to the root. Kracker’s name listed there, amongst the algebra. A catalogue of crimes that Benny had committed for the Chief of Cops, and then covered up with black meshes.
Sad fucker.
Tom and I came back down to the Strangeways with the whereabouts of Gumbo, and with Kracker’s guilt confirmed. We told Bob Clutch that he should keep that official blue feather in Benny’s mouth forever, or else we’d be notifying the Authorities. Clutch gathered all of his small options together, found them all wanting, and then broke into a rain of tears and snot as the fever took him over.
Once we were back in the Comet, Tom Dove plugged into the Xcab map and got a no-no answer regarding Strawberry Fields. No such street known.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
Ahead of us a cop-car was cruising. Tom asked me to activate the siren. The cop-car pulled over to the kerb. Tom got out of the Comet and walked over to the cop-car. He flashed his cop-code. ‘What’s your name, constable?’
‘PC Brethington,’ the driver answered.
‘Let me borrow your feather.’
‘Sure thing, Officer Dove,’ the road-cop answered. ‘What you doing out on the street? The Vurt world wearing you down?’ He laughed.
Tom ignored him. He shoved the cop-feather into his throat and called up Columbus over the map-wave.
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?
Columbus sounded pissed off about something and this made Tom smile. ‘Erm…real sorry for disturbing you, Columbus,’ he said, coding his voice deep.
WHAT DO YOU WANT, PC…PC BRETHINGTON, ISN’T IT?
‘It surely is, Columbus. I was hoping for some locationing.’
YOU’RE STILL TALKING TO ME?
‘Sure I am. You’re the King of the Cabs.’
YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO GUMBO YAYA?
‘I don’t tune in to no pirate shit.’
HE’S SPREADING SOME TERRIBLE RUMOURS ABOUT ME.
‘He’s swallowing his own piss. Columbus, baby, you got a location for me? Strawberry Fields? There’s some shit going down over there and I can’t recall whether to turn left or right.’
THERE AIN’T NO SUCH ROAD AS STRAWBERRY FIELDS.
‘Hot dog, must be another crank call.’
HANG ON, PC BRETHINGTON. RINGS A DISTANT BELL LET ME ACCESS THE MAP…GOT IT. STRAWBERRY FIELDS IS A NEW ROAD.
‘How new?’
NINE YEARS NEW.
‘Nine years. That’s not very new.’
IT ISN’T, IS IT? There was a wavering tone in Columbus’s voice, a quiver of doubt.
‘Is there a Slavery House on Strawberry Fields?’
LET ME ACCESS…NO, NOT AT ALL. NO SUCH HOUSE.
‘What exactly is on Strawberry Fields?’
LET ME ACCESS…THERE ARE NO BUILDINGS ON STRAWBERRY FIELDS.
‘Anything on Slavery House?’
LET ME…YES, I’VE GOT A SLAVERY HOUSE REGISTERED IN ARDWICK INDUSTRIAL ESTATE…NOTHING TO DO WITH STRAWBERRY FIELDS, AND NOBODY REGISTERED AS LIVING THERE. WHAT’S THE GAME HERE, PC BRETHINGTON?
‘I guess we bought a bad clue, Columbus. Maybe some juicer’s got a hard-on for my ticket.’
Tom closed the wave down and then walked back to my car. ‘Let’s go, Jones. Ardwick Estate.’
‘You think that was wise, Tom?’
‘I reckon we’ve got a few minutes.’
I started up the Fiery Comet.
Belinda is floating on underground water, her naked flesh entirely covered with tattooed streets. Only her face is free from the map. She’s just finished shaving her head and her pudendum back to their former pristine states. A tube of Shaving Vaz and a Jillette Ladyblade lie on the pool’s side. Beside them a glass she has carried from Gumbo’s kitchen specially, recently filled with Orange Chrism, now empty, and her shoulder bag; within its folds the bottle of Boomer taken from Country Joe. Belinda is a swimming map now, as she drifts herself into ever deeper waves of despair. Last night, Wanita-Wanita had driven her over to Alderley Edge in the Magic Bus. There she had picked up Charrie, looking a little scratched and ragged from his Black Mercu
ry adventure. Belinda had felt numb at the wheel, driving him back over the boundary, but Gumbo’s downloading of the Shaky Path had proved good; Belinda was totally ignored by the numerous Xcabs that she had driven past. They didn’t even register her presence. She was a hidden rider. Gumbo was angry with her for the firing of the gun at Columbus. He said that those bullets could one day prove costly. At the same time he was in a state of amazement at Belinda’s story of the paradise in the Vurt. ‘Science discovers Eden!’ he had shouted. Belinda is due to make her next broadcast at 7.00 a.m. How can she resist? She’s not a captive of the Gumbo; Belinda is a captive of herself. And she is tired. Tired of wondering and wandering; tired of never getting anywhere. She had found out Coyote’s killer, but there was nothing she could do about it. Gumbo had searched all the various waves of the city for a trace of some young girl called Persephone, found nothing. And even bullets had proved impotent in the face of the Vurt. How can a young good-for-nothing Dodo girl possibly fight the dream? The thought of floating on the edge came to Belinda then. The idea of actually floating off the edge, of falling into a dream from which there was no awakening.
Kracker is driving towards the secret home of the Gumbo Hippy. Persephone has found it through the flower map, drawing him along streets of green. He’s got his mission now. Persephone has named Belinda Jones as a victim. This girl he must uproot. He failed at the first attempt, but now his orders are written in bright flowers. This girl he must kill.
Spasmodically the fingers of his left hand play at the handle of the cop-gun nestling inside his jacket pocket, his right hand controlling the steering.
5.30 a.m. Somewhere along the Hyde Road.
Kracker turns right onto a greasy, overgrown path towards the Ardwick Industrial Estate. He parks his car on some place called Wigley Street. In front of him a deserted web of railway sidings rusting under a blood-red morning sun. Beyond the tracks lie the packed-tight buildings of Ardwick Estate. An air of loneliness drifts over the ruined factories and the ghostly warehouses. His shoes are sticking to the pavement. One of his prize flowers is pinned to his lapel. He has plucked this bloom from Persephone’s skin, and he imagines that its scent is drawing him forth; Persephone is in the flower, she is directing him. The cop-gun in his pocket, his mind blasting itself to pieces on the imagined bullet. The vast bulk of Slavery House stands in front of him, its walls and windows entirely covered by the queen of all flowers in her infinite beauty. There are no ways into this building, every door is super-sealed. He can hear noises from beyond the alleyway he is standing in. He walks the length of the building towards a courtyard at the front. In this open space a tribal camp of dog-gypsies are gathered, predator-like. Kracker gets the distinct impression that they won’t take kindly to visiting cops. This job is turning out to be a monster. He feels the pull, then, of Persephone in his soul; one part of the Chief of the Cops was always open to the petal-girl’s caresses. The flower on his lapel is dripping with moisture, leading him on. Persephone brings him by this method to a locked-tight door in the alleyway.
Here Kracker waits.
Columbus has the city spread out all around him, radiating from the centre of his brain. This is the Hive of Manchester, but these last few hours Columbus has been having problems. First of all there was that reality bullet from Belinda lodged in his heart. It was just an irritant, nothing more, but he didn’t need the distraction just now. Anything that weakened him, weakened the map. And also, because of that Gumbo bastard the whole of the city seemed to be turning against him. Of course the Xcabbers had remained loyal to the last, it’s just that people didn’t seem to want to travel any more. Well, all that would change when the new map came through; they would be forced to travel then, and Columbus would make a killing. Scanning the map, he can see Kracker the Chief of Cops moving through Ardwick, his cop-wave turned to mask-mode. What was that loser up to now? He was supposed to be in charge of Persephone. He was supposed to be bringing the rogue cab back on line. Columbus can’t act until that cab is back. He can also see on the map the Vurtcop calling himself Tom Dove. He is accompanied by the Shadowcop Jones, the woman who poked her head into his business yesterday. What was wrong with Kracker, couldn’t he control his players? Was the chief being unfaithful to the vision? Jones and Dove are sharing the same vehicle, driving towards Ardwick. What was going on over there? Columbus computes the combined trajectories of Kracker and Dove, and comes up with their mutual destination: Slavery House. That cop, what was his name now, PC Brethington, he’d been asking about Slavery House some minutes earlier. And that new road called Strawberry Fields. Why should the Council build a new street into the system nine years ago, and then leave it empty? No houses on there, no utilities, no nothing. Because of these doubts, Columbus is now making a zooming run over the Strawberry Fields. Nothing comes up; that street is a desert. Columbus calls up the Authorities over the wave, gets put through to one David Gledders in the Town Planning section. Gledders is hesitant to acknowledge Columbus at first, moaning about all the bad stuff he has been hearing. Columbus sends a scorching wave down the feather towards the Town Hall.
‘Shit! What are you doing?’ Gledders screams. ‘That hurt.’
IT CAN ONLY GET WORSE, MY DEAR.
‘What do you want?’
Columbus asks David to check on a new street built nine years ago, name of Strawberry Fields.
‘Like in the Beatles, you mean? I love the Beatles!’
WHAT’S THE FUCKING PICTURE, MOPHEAD?
Dave comes back with a no-no on the picture; no such street ever listed. Columbus thanks him and then zooms into Strawberry Fields again. Something is nagging at the edges of the map. He can’t make it out. He calls up all the new streets developed since Strawberry, gets back that all of them are by now clustered with housing and businesses. The only other one still free was Shaky Path, declared only yesterday. Then he goes back to Strawberry and makes for a super close-up zoom; it takes some memory away from the Xcab system, but the drivers will just have to put up with this. Strawberry Fields comes up close to his Hive-mind. Columbus is now living inside the very numbers that make up the street. There is a shadow falling over him, a cold dawning at the edges of the formulae. He can travel the whole of that empty street in his mind, but a small portion of numbers has a slight fuzziness around it. Columbus goes in closer, again drawing power from the Xcab system, and finds a minuscule area of darkness on the map. He zooms in even closer, but the nodule refuses to give itself up to him; there appears to be some kind of condom barrier around the darkness. Columbus cannot break through to the Knowledge. This unnerves him dearly; previous to this moment he had thought the entire map his own. He tries again to break the barrier. Nothing. Emptiness. Darkness. Meanwhile the cabs are screaming at him for more power. The Switch tells them to keep on steady hold for a while as he tries to work it out. He zooms back into Strawberry again. He chooses the nearest free cab, which was registered under the name Golden Hind, and sends it on an imaginary pick-up in Strawberry Fields. It takes fifteen seconds for the cab to get there, and to report back, ‘There’s nothing here, Switch. It’s just fields around here. There ain’t no such road. What you sending me on?’ Columbus tells the driver to stay put, as he zooms in once more. Strawberry Fields is registered on the map as an offshoot of Moor Road, which is in Ramsbottom, a godforsaken village on the Northern limits. Columbus gives the driver the exact co-ordinates for Strawberry Fields, and then tells him to drive along there. ‘It’s just grass, I’m telling you,’ the driver replies. ‘You’re expecting me to drive on grass?’ JUST DO IT, Columbus replies, and then watches the map as the Xcab makes a slow path onto the non-existent street called Strawberry Fields. The cab goes so far, reaches the dark shadow where the numbers start to go fuzzy, and then vanishes. Columbus panics, calls up the driver over the wave, gets no answer. Columbus is still wondering what to do, when the cab appears again, the other side of the fuzziness, with the driver’s voice bristling over the system: ‘Jesus, Switc
h! What happened then? Everything went black. I was calling you up, but you weren’t there. The whole fucking map wasn’t there!’ Columbus tells the driver to stay calm, and then to reverse into the darkness again. The driver complains about this, but the Switch reminds him of the Xcabs’ Code of Faith: to journey wherever the map shall take them. AND THIS TIME, Columbus says, FIRE ALL GUNS. ‘What?’ JUST DO IT. The cab backs into the dark area on the map again, and Columbus can only wait for nervous seconds, until flames start to emerge from the dark nodule. The Switch starts to compute each trajectory as it emerges, and each of them is diverted slightly from its true path. Columbus moves through the formulae, feeding back the true path into the false one. The numbers start to break up. GOT YOU! Columbus asks for the name of the Xcab at that location, and gets back this message, GOMALDGICEN HIBUNDS. Columbus puts a filter on the name, takes out the words Golden Hind, comes up with what’s left. Magic Bus. Jesus-Cab! That was the name of Gumbo YaYa’s vehicle, the one he often mentioned over the air. And the Magic Bus was eating the Switch’s Knowledge, he could feel it now. Waves of the Hive-system were seeping into the trespasser’s shapes. Columbus selects the empty street and presses the Erase button in his head. To his amazement the street doesn’t vanish, it actually starts to move over the map until it reaches the Ardwick Industrial Estate. Once there, the road settles down beside the very-popular-all-of-a-sudden Slavery House, and then vanishes. The Magic Bus is now parked outside Slavery House, the very house that the cops had asked about earlier. THIS IS WHERE GUMBO YAYA LIVES. The Switch then travels through the map until he finds Shaky Path, the latest addition to the network. He finds another dark nodule there. Columbus calls up David at the Town Hall, gets a ‘no-such down-load’ answer, and then goes in search of whatever he can find behind this illegal condom. It takes him only five seconds, this time, to bring the name Chariot onto the system. He does the same Select-and-Erase motion he did on Strawberry, and then watches as the Shaky Path wanders over the map until it drops down beside Slavery House. Chariot is parked beside the Magic Bus. I HAVE YOU NOW, ROGUE CAB!
