Dream London

by Tony Ballantyne

  I waved to them through the glass front of the tower. They glared back at me.

  I guessed the Daddio’s power didn’t extend into Angel Tower.

  I rode the lift up to the 839th floor.

  THE SIGN HANGING outside the Writing Floor was written in a particularly curly font. It read:

  “ . , .”

  I pushed my way through the door and found myself in something like an old fashioned library. Books were laid out on the shelves, piled up on the floor. Posters decorated the walls, travel posters, posters for art galleries.

  An old man sat behind a desk by the door.

  “Word of the day?” he asked.

  “Lobsters,” I replied.

  “May I ask what business brings you here?”

  “My name is Captain Wedderburn. I’ve been moved up here from the 829th floor.”

  “Oh, I didn’t hear anything about it.” He frowned. “Then again, I never do.” He looked over my shoulder.

  “Miss Merchant! Miss Merchant, I have a Captain Wedderburn here. Says he’s been moved up here from the Numbers Floor.”

  A young woman in a severe suit with an even more severe expression hurried up.

  “Captain Wedderburn?” she said. She consulted the clipboard she held in her left arm. “Ah yes, here you are. I have your desk ready. If you’ll come this way...”

  “Thank you, Miss Merchant,” I replied, hiding my surprise.

  I followed her into the room, threading between the shelves and stacks of books. She wore a tight skirt, and she rolled her backside as she walked, fully aware, I’m sure, that I was watching it. She took me to a desk covered in scraps of paper. Leaflets, old tickets, ripped pages from notebooks: it looked as if someone had emptied a wastepaper basket onto the desk.

  “Take your seat, Captain Wedderburn,” she said.

  “You were expecting me?”

  “Of course,” said Miss Merchant. “Your name is on the list.”

  She showed me the clipboard, and there, sure enough, was my name: Captain James Wedderburn.

  I sat down in the big leather chair, so much more comfortable than my workstation yesterday. Miss Merchant perched herself on a stool at the side of my desk. She picked up a notepad and pencil and sat there, poised, waiting for me to begin.

  “What do I do?” I said.

  “Pick up a piece of paper and start reading.”

  I picked up one of the scraps of paper on the desk. It was a flyer for a concert.

  “The Hot Tramps. Live at the Embassy, Thursday 12th March. Tickets £8 on the door.”

  I looked at Miss Merchant.

  “No changes?” she suggested.

  “No changes.”

  She looked at a waste bin on the floor by the desk, and I dropped the flier into it.

  I picked up a piece of pink card, an old underground ticket.

  “Travelcard, Zones 1-4,” I read. And then, just like yesterday, down on the Numbers Floor, reality changed in my mind. “Dream London Omnibus,” I said. “2d.”

  Miss Merchant scribbled on her pad, and I watched as the letters changed on the ticket.

  “What now?” I asked

  “Drop it in the bin,” she said.

  “The same one?”

  “Of course.”

  All around me I saw a similar scene playing out. Men sat at desks reading books and leaflets, all of them with an attractive young secretary at their side.

  “What happens to all this?” I asked.

  “It gets burned,” said Miss Merchant. “It doesn’t matter, does it? It’s the message, not the medium. Now, come on. Keep reading. We’re writing Dream London here.”

  “Ah,” I said, and I began to understand. “Like on the Numbers Floor...”

  “No,” said Miss Merchant, with a look of faint scorn. “The people on the Numbers Floor are working at a level below us, both literally and figuratively. They are making reality pliable. It’s the people on this floor who are the real creatives, reshaping Dream London into a more suitable form.”

  “Ah yes,” I said. “The real creatives. I know a lot about them.” I had seen one only this morning, playing the guitar in the café.

  Miss Merchant picked up another piece of paper from my desk, showing me an ample scoop of cleavage as she did so.

  “Oh,” she said, looking at the lines and tiny writing of a plan of a building. “This is a blueprint. We’ll need to take this to Architecture.”

  She pulled out another scrap of paper and handed it to me.

  “Milk, bread, mushrooms, bacon, spaghetti, bolognese sauce...” I read out loud. “Bolognese sauce doesn’t sound right, does it?” I said. “Nor does spaghetti.” The words tickled in my mind, they shimmered and changed. “Make that potatoes and haddock.”

  The shopping list changed to reflect the new reality. Was this how it worked, I wondered? Was reality so pliable on the Writing Floor that a man could simply walk up here and announce he worked here and his name was written on a clipboard, a desk was prepared for him? Rudolf Donati had realised that. Of course he had. Rudolf Donati had gone through life reshaping reality with a wave of his pencil.

  “Do you know who I am, Miss Merchant?”

  “Of course. You’re Captain Wedderburn.”

  “I know that. But I mean, do you know anything else about me?”

  “Well, let’s take a look, shall we?”

  She looked down at her clipboard.

  “You’re one of the changers,” she said. “One of the leaders. You’re the opposite of most people in Dream London in that you tell reality how it’s going to be, and it reshapes itself around you.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose I do,” I said, pleased to be described as such.

  “You’re a queen.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She smiled.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just reading what it says here. What I mean is, people support you. Their life’s work revolves around making you more comfortable.”

  “I don’t think so!” I laughed, thinking of Honey Peppers waiting for me downstairs.

  “Oh, I think it’s true,” said Miss Merchant. “Look at Belltower End. All those whores working for you, and you sitting at the top of the heap like Queen Bee.”

  “They don’t work for me, they work for themselves!”

  “They pay their cut to you. You’re too modest, Captain Wedderburn. You are the master manipulator. You get people to do what you want. Those women don’t become whores by accident!”

  “No, they do it because they need the money.”

  Miss Merchant smiled.

  “Partly. But you break them down. You don’t tell them the other choices, you gradually draw them into the game.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I treat my girls well!”

  “Oh yes, I know that you do. You give them candy every day if they behave themselves.”

  I relaxed back into my chair at that.

  “Well, good.” I said. “I’m pleased that you know that.”

  “Of course. They’re more profitable if they’re happy, aren’t they?”

  I sat back up again.

  “I am not a manipulator!”

  “If you say so, Captain.”

  She crossed her legs, her skirt riding up on her thighs.

  I changed the subject.

  “Look, is this how the contracts are rewritten?

  “Which contracts?”

  “The ones that says who owns everything in Dream London.”

  “The contracts? You can’t rewrite contracts, Captain Wedderburn. Not the ones that count.”

  “The ones that count?”

  “The ones that anchor Dream London in place. Surely you knew that? That’s axiomatic.”

  “Axiomatic,” I repeated. “Of course.”

  Miss Merchant gave me a knowing look and her skirt rode a little higher. I caught a glance of the bare thigh above her stocking tops. She saw where I was looking.

  “Perk of the job,” she said. />
  Looking around the room I saw so many secretaries perched on desks, all good looking, all being eyed up by their bosses. It was worse than the Executive Dining Room.

  “Where are the contracts?” I asked.

  “On the Contract Floor, of course. You couldn’t keep them here. Things are mutable on this floor. On the Contract Floor, what is now shalt forever be.”

  I got to my feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To have a look around,” I said.

  “You can’t. You have to stay here.” She leant forward, giving me another view of her generous cleavage. “Stay here and I’ll take care of you...”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, and I rose to my feet. “I’m getting fed up with all of this.”

  And I was off, Miss Merchant calling to me to come back. No one took any notice of either of us. The rest of the workers were too busy writing or gazing at their secretaries.

  I left the main writing room with its leaflets and library atmosphere and found myself in a clean white space filled with rows of drawing tables. Draughtsmen and women sat before clean sheets of paper, tee squares and set squares pressed against the boards, all busy ruling lines and turning compasses. I moved to take a closer look at the nearest.

  “What are you drawing?” I asked.

  “Redesigns for flats 1-32 on the Mumford Estate, South Wapping,” replied the young draughtswoman.

  I examined the drawings. The new flats were taller and thinner, like everything else in Dream London. The windows had stretched to look like eyes.

  “How do you know to draw them like this?” I asked.

  “I don’t. I’m just guessing at what looks right. Trying to make them more in the correct style.”

  The young woman blushed as she spoke, clearly embarrassed by what she was saying.

  “More in the style of Dream London,” I said. There was a scroll-like pattern around the doors and the window frames. “How can you do this? How do you do it?”

  “I just draw the drawings. It’s the Numbers Floor that makes the universe more mutable. They pass us the handles to the universe, and we use those handles to change things around.”

  “I’ve been to the Numbers Floor,” I said.

  “Then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Everything is different down there, and nothing makes sense.”

  Miss Merchant bustled into the room at that point. She was flanked by two large men in dark uniforms that reminded me more than a little of the Quantifiers.

  “Captain Wedderburn! You are to return to your desk at once!”

  “Certainly not,” I said, and, without further hesitation, I ran. The two men were too big for pursuit in such a place and I quickly lost them by dodging down another corridor. I emerged into a room that looked like a large lounge. It was filled with grey-haired ladies and dark young men, all busy writing on scrolls with quill pens. I knew where I was as soon as saw the place.

  “This is where you write the fortunes, isn’t it?” I said.

  The old lady nearest me looked up. She had a cup of tea on a little table by her side.

  “I write fortunes, yes,” she said. “What do you want to know? When you’ll meet the girl?”

  “I’ve already met plenty of girls.”

  “Ah, but I’m talking about the one who will save you.”

  “But how do you know?” I asked. “How do you know what’s going to happen? You just make it all up, don’t you?”

  “Make it up?” said the old lady, indignantly. “This is the way things should be!”

  “Says who?”

  The old woman fixed me with a stare.

  “Young man, are you saying that I should write that you will not meet the girl? Is that what you want?”

  “Well, maybe, yes, that is what I want.”

  “Then all I can say is, it’s a good job that you’re not writing the fortunes, isn’t it?”

  She nodded her head and turned back to her work. I wasn’t finished.

  “What happens to them?” I asked, waving a hand at a pile of scrolls.

  She sighed and looked back up at me. “You’re an inquisitive young man, aren’t you? Once they’re completed they’re sent up to the Contract Floor so that they can’t be changed.”

  “Which way is the Contract Floor?”

  “I don’t know. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my work. There’s a young lady out there who’s going to meet the man of her dreams in just three weeks time...”

  “Captain Wedderburn!”

  Miss Merchant shouted at me from the end of the room and I set off again. Why did she shout? Why do people do that? Why not creep up on me and catch hold of my arm before I ran off?

  The next section looked like the original room I had been taken to, but rather than resembling a modern library containing leaflets and games and magazines, this place was more like a traditional library in that it actually contained some books.

  People sat at typewriters whilst the librarians brought them books from the shelves. They patiently worked typing manuscripts onto yellow paper.

  A typist near me fed a sheet of yellow paper into a machine and began to tap at the keys.

  It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking twelve.

  “That makes more sense!” said the worker with some satisfaction.

  A hand dropped on my shoulder.

  “Captain Wedderburn, I do believe! I think you need to come this way.”

  For a big man, the security guard was awfully quiet. I looked up at him. I could have taken him bare-handed, I suppose, but why waste energy? I reached into my inside pocket.

  “Look at this,” I said, pulling out the pistol.

  “It’s a pistol,” said the guard, unnecessarily.

  “Very good,” I replied. “Now, I’ve had enough of this place. I’m leaving. Don’t try and stop me.”

  The man stepped back.

  “I can’t help thinking you’re taking this a bit too far,” he said.

  “Step back.”

  He did as he was told.

  “And now, which way to the lifts?”

  “Down there,” he said.

  “Don’t try and follow me,” I said.

  He didn’t.

  I walked from the typing room and into another that was a pornographic dream. Centrefolds lay spread on every surface. Pictures of women and men were stuck to the walls, the whole room was pink and chocolate and yellow with flesh. The men who worked in this room all wore little round glasses through which they peered short-sightedly at the pictures.

  I didn’t stop to look, I’d seen it all before. I headed on to the reception. The old man at the desk looked up at me.

  “Leaving so soon, Captain Wedderburn?”

  I pressed the button. The lift door opened straight away and I stepped inside. I didn’t know for sure where I was going, but I had had enough of Angel Tower for the moment.

  I hated the Writing Floor. I hated what it represented. All this time living in Dream London and I had wondered what was happening, but now I had my worst suspicions confirmed. Dream London was being made by people who were too frightened, or more often, too lazy to figure out how the universe works. All they did was write down what they wanted and it came true.

  You know what the trouble with that is? All you ever get is what’s in your own imagination, and I’m telling you, until it’s been stretched by the Universe, the human imagination isn’t very big.

  SEVEN

  THE BOYS IN TAUPE

  I EMERGED INTO the great cathedral of the entrance hall. The hole in the ceiling, high above me, seemed to be calling for my attention. I ignored it. What was at the top of Angel Tower? Was it watching me now?

  “There he is!”

  I recognised the piping voice of Honey Peppers. At the same time I saw the large shape of a Quantifier pushing through the crowd towards me. I guessed I was wrong when I assumed that the Daddio had no power here in Angel Tower. M
en in dark suits tumbled across the floor, scattered like skittles, bowled over by the huge mass of the Quantifier. For the umpteenth time that day I didn’t bother to argue, I simply turned and ran for the huge revolving door. I spun through it and found my way out into the daylight.

  “Captain Wedderburn!”

  Miss Elizabeth Baines was waiting outside in a blue gingham dress. She waved a hand at me.

  “Later!” I called, and I ran off up the street, heading towards the railway station. Never let it be said the Captain James Wedderburn couldn’t outrun a six-year-old girl, a love-lorn woman and a thirty-five-stone man.

  Another Quantifier was waiting by the steps of the railway station. He began to lumber towards me and I turned and made to run on up the street, only to find still more people blocking my way.

  “Everything all right here, sir?”

  I found myself face to face with Dream London’s finest: the Boys in Taupe.

  “Excuse me, officers!” I said. Behind them, the first Quantifier paused and stepped back into the crowd. The Daddio’s men obviously didn’t feel quite so confident on this territory.

  “Why, it’s Captain James Wedderburn!” said one of the browncoats. His long tunic was decorated in silver and contained many, many pockets for accepting the numerous bribes and gifts that enable Dream London justice to function.

  “Hello there, er... Officer Morrison, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right, sir!” He turned to his companion. “Captain Wedderburn here runs a little business over on my old beat. You might remember me talking about it?”

  “Captain Wedderburn of Belltower End!” said the other officer, grinning the grin of one who shortly expects to be on the receiving end of someone’s largesse. “Who doesn’t know Captain Wedderburn?”

  Who didn’t, I wondered? I was beginning to think all of Dream London knew who I was better than I did. The serifs on Rudolf Donati’s words seemed to have broken off underneath my skin... Nonetheless, I affected a careless bonhomie, all the harder given the look Honey Peppers was giving me in the distance.

  “I was just heading back there now as it happens, officers. Perhaps you’d like to accompany me? The girls at Belltower End always appreciate the attention of the Boys in Taupe. It makes them feel so much more secure.”