by Jeff Noon
Jaz hated the fact that the Whoomphies owned the space inside his computer. Information should be free. He had his own special devices to carve out a secret plot. A ghost in the machine, fighting the enemy, and teaching his latest copyblurb the knowledge of the streets. Jazir made it through in flying colours, only to find Miss Sayer waiting for him.
Jazir Malik first shook the joystick back in 1994, at a kids’ arcade on Oxford Street, Central Manchester. He was only twelve years old. In those days, playing games was a clumsy affair, moving your image slowly through the mechanisms. So frustrating. But by the age of thirteen he was the Number One All-Asian Champion of Ganga Jal: Space Trooper, a dream of a game in which the participant battled against the white imperialists on the planet Bhangra. The whites had colonized the planet in order to mine for ultragarlic, a bulbous drug that could easily control the universe in the wrong hands, making the dream too real. What else could the Roganites do, after 100 years of servitude, but finally fight back? It was all an illusion, of course, but Jazir found himself hooked to a winning dream, in which he could always regain his independence. Hooked enough to win the championship.
Two years later he found an intruder in one game, a little inserted face that kept puzzling him. Eventually he pressed on the insert to let it come large.
The intruder’s name was Miss Sayer; she called to Jazir from far away, in typescript, ‘Grab the Wings’, and then disappeared.
Jazir answered, as only he could, because he had heard rumours of these mystical intruders—Game Cat being the most famous—that popped up to bring the player to the next stage.
It took him a whole week and a whole other load of game-won nanopunies to find the games mistress again. All the time and expenses in the world were just a feather in the wind when Jazir finally bowed down at the great teacher’s inset. ‘Most revered Miss Sayer,’ he stated, ‘if it pleases you, I have travelled many games in order to prostrate myself thus. I am your most pitiful subject.’
The great teacher was seventy-seven years old, made young by the computer. ‘My child,’ she type-whispered, ‘I understand your journey, for I myself once made the same sacrifice. Is it the knowledge that you seek?’
‘I am too pitiful for such a gift,’ said Jazir.
‘But only the most pitiful shall interest the wise, and I am growing old. Soon I shall die, and my knowledge with me, unless I take on a pupil. I believe you have an inkling of the numbers involved.’
‘The tiniest of inklings, great mistress. I am most unworthy.’
‘Your journey has only just begun. You must grab the dream by the wings.’
Jazir heard the message.
Present days, Miss Sayer was waiting for him on the computer screen. ‘Time is nearly,’ she whispered from nowhere. ‘Come grab. Find a wing.’
This virus had been visiting him ever since way back. Turning up at random, like some unwanted hippy-death Game Cat mag cheatmode. And at every appearance her voice becoming more limited, more painful.
Whatever, Jazir closed down the inset, undocked the new blurb’s flight path from the computer’s mouth. The pseudoblurb itself was still lying on his workbench, its belly wide open. Jaz slotted the new flight-path disk into the blurb’s stomach. Now it was complete. He slid the completed creature into one of the Golden Samosa’s takeaway trays and crimped down the soft aluminium holdings. Jazaways he called them, these nice little earners. Enough work for one night. Deliver this one tomorrow morning. Of course, it would crash in a few days or so, being only a pseudofly. But that was money in the bank, five lonely punies a fly. More bones, more bones! If he could only find a way to make a real fly! How much would he earn? How many bones could he buy? And always, in these moments of rest, Jazir’s mind went back to Daisy, the sweet and innocent Miss Daisy Love. Her sweet voice calling to him, dismissing him. If he could only persuade her of his faithful intentions.
Three o’clock found Sweet Benny climbing out of Joe’s bed, carefully. He went outside and climbed the wall opposite into the Southern Cemetery, his favourite place. It wasn’t so peaceful these days, since the AnnoDomino had opened their headquarters near by. Couldn’t he ever escape the twin demands? Hackle’s sweet home and the bone pavilion, both of them calling. The House of Chances dominated everything, of course: with the giant domilith flashing its mutant dots in the forecourt, the securiblurbs patrolling the ground, singing go-away songs; the swarms of adverts flying over the cemetery, either heading hivewards with old messages, or outwards with new. Flashes of wing-beat, a whispering million. Sweet Benny shuddered.
As Daisy Love, cold at heart, headed back to her flat. To sleep a thousand miles, unconscious. As the city dozed in its losing bones.
Manchester sleeping. Daisy and Jaz and Benny, finally, and Celia and Joe and Dopejack. Even the winners of the half-blank were asleep; no harm came to them, by the way, except that they all dreamed the same dream, of a skeleton chasing them through some misty landscape, all rattling bones and clattering teeth. They all woke up at precisely four in the morning, covered in sweat.
Somewhere else, somebody else was still dancing. The very final person awake that night, holding tight to a living chance, the magical four-and-a-blank combination. His name has no importance, only the winning bone that he couldn’t quite believe. Domino! The master! The 10 million lovelies of a domino’s kiss, delivered by the good Cookie Luck herself. The queen of numbers, coming out of television.
Somewhere else, maybe somebody was taking a hammer to a dead bone, swinging it again and again to break the domino. Believe me, the hammer would break first.
Somewhere else, another person lay dead in a car park, killed by petty human jealousy. That’s the way it is with the game, winners and losers.
As the blurbflies circled in the air. Singing, so singing.
Game 42
Domination Day, lucky old Bonechester. The naked populace, making foreplay to the domiviz, bone-eyed and numberfucked as the opening credits came in a shower of pips. Tumbling jig of dominoes, watch them dance now, forever chancing zero. Jig that sexy jumble! Even the air had a hard-on, bulging with mathematics. Turning the blurbflies into a nympho-swarm, liquid streets alive with perverts. Play to win! Play to love! And all over the city that hot and juicy evening, three hours from midnight and shrouded, gangs of punters were plaguing the city, stroking their bones on napkins and trousers, blouses and dresses, breasts and groins. Voyeurs of probability. Gazing, full-on, as some fractal dots pulsated to the theme song.
Game 42. The year dot. Mr Million, the King Bone had deemed it so.
In factories and bathrooms, abattoirs and dog kennels; all-night shopping toilets, non-stop cemeteries; swimming pools and sauna pits; anywhere there was a private TV or a radio or a public screen, all the Mancunians were lubeing their wishes with winning-juice, hoping for a Cookie Luck kiss.
Go on, go on! Chance a puny. Chance a fucking puny! Why not have a go! Go on, roll them bones! Look at the kids even, running through their dreams, playing with their Dominic Domino dolls. See them squeeze that bone! Singing aloud and learning how to play. Learn to win! Learn to win!
Play, play, play! Make yourself 10 million lovelies!
Ignore Daisy Love and Jazir Malik for the moment. Let them go through the usual rigmarole ritual. They’re only going to lose again, anyway. And then Jazir’s gonna ask Daisy to the Snake Lounge, Saturday night. He’s gonna tell her that the ultracool Frank Scenario is singing again tomorrow night at the club, but she’s still going to refuse. Assignments, assignments.
Also, try your best to ignore the scents of Aloo Josh and Tandoori Murghi, drifting ever upwards from the curry house.
Forget Dopejack and Sweet Benny and Old Joe Crocus, all in a car somewhere. Let them all lose. Because when Cookie Luck dances to a standstill that Friday night at nine, her costume is a map of sad chances. A pip on each breast. Pips on each hip, a pip on each thigh, another in the groin. The way the cookie crumbles, sadly.
A two. A five. A
two-and-a-five, the lonely winning bone. A seven combination and an extra prize for the winner, another million lovelies.
Instead, focus on the kid, Little Miss Celia…
Look at that girl fly! Running through the dark streets of the city, her little domino in her little hand, with a tribe of big old dirty beggars chasing after her. The once proud and faithful family of tramps, chasing Celia along Market Street where the bombed-out Monstermarket lay dark for renovation. Along Tib Street where the nocturnal joke shops sold their ‘pink and steamy adult toys’, a left turn on to Swan Street, where the Snake Lounge club lay waiting with its posters about Saturday’s gig by Frank Scenario and DJ Dopejack. Also upon this street, Celia’s chosen and secret homeless house, out of bounds with the pack of tramps sniffing for her winnings. And where in the hell was Big Eddie Irwell when Little Miss Celia needed him the most?
Without his protection and so scared.
From Swan Street, another left on to Shudehill, where the pornomarts did the dirties, selling filthiness to the all-night self-abusers. Along streets where discarded loser bones lay in piles of cream, this young girl with a feather in her hair. See how she runs. In her tightly clenched fist a desperate bone; one of the few still half alive that night. Dotted with a one-and-a-five combination; the one gone to cream, but the five alive and black and lovely and pulsing…
Celia had won a second half-match! Yes! A glorious five for a fistful of punies, just waiting to be clenched. She had wished and wished to be a winner and now her strong wishes had come up half true. If she could just outrun this drunken mob of loser tramps; if she could only find Eddie in time for the prize-giving.
Way past midnight, and Celia has to present her half-bone at the winners’ enclosure before the following midnight. That was the ruling. Piccadilly Gardens, the deadline for collection. Only the purchaser could collect the winnings, so she would have to find Eddie Irwell, whilst still dodging the tramps that wanted to steal her prize. What was happening to the brethren? Blame it on the bones.
But 100 punies! A way out of the begging, at last, if she could only find Big Eddie and then stop him from claiming the prize as his own. So much work to do. Running loose on street knowledge.
Little Miss Celia, escaping, finally sleeping, in a chosen doorway, next to an air vent, of course, but still shivering cold, her newsprint overcoat wrapped tight around her. Only the half-winning bone in her fingers. The pulsing five-spot. Dreaming of home. Where the hell was home? Celia had woken up one day with nowhere else to go, that was the truth.
Home was where you laid your bone, and another three people died that night; half-casters, killed out of jealousy, winnings stolen.
Jazir woke at eight the next morning. Skipped breakfast, skipped dressing. Fallen asleep in yesterday’s clothes, he walked along Oxford Road to the university.
Early morning blurbs, all around his head. All the companies of Manchester, playing out their messages. Blurbs for the burgercops: Arrest to win! Blurbs for the whoomphies: Eat to win! Blurbs for the dominoes: Play to win! Blurbs for the tinker: Sell to win! Blurbs for the tailor: Stitch to win! Blurbs for the soldier: Fight to win! Blurbs for the sailor: Float to win! Blurbs for the rich man: Steal to win! Blurbs for the poor man: Steal to win! Blurbs for the beggar man: Plead to win! Blurbs for the thief: Steal to win!
Every company had a corporate message to fly, as long as they paid the subscription to AnnoDomino.
Steal to win, steal to win, steal to win!
But Jazir offered an alternative route.
His first client was waiting at the gate, as prearranged. “What’s happening, Jaz?’ Benny Fenton asked. ‘Did you get what I asked for?’
‘It’s done.’
‘I need that message.’
‘Here’s your take-off, Benjamin.’
Benny looked deep into the polythene bag, eyed the crimped-up silver box within, heavy with the stench of something hot. The bag was faintly pulsing in his hands. ‘Thank you, very much,’ he said. ‘Is it programmed?’
‘It’s done.’
‘What’s the cost?’
‘No cost, Benny. Just a future favour.’
‘Already granted, whatever it takes. Cheers, Jaz.’
Benny went off happy, and Jazir entered the university. Just outside the library doors he met his second customer: a fellow Asian boy, a first-year Chemistry student called Baljit Pandit. Jaz handed over a takeaway tray with a nice fresh pseudoblurb inside. ‘That should get you laid.’ Jazir accepted the payment in return, a card of infinite depth.
The university’s library was open between half-eight and twelve on a Saturday, in order for the diligent students to partake of the knowledge in peace. Only one librarian was on duty, because hardly any students were ever that keen to get up so early after the Friday-night revels.
The lone librarian was a Miss Denise Crimson, spinster of the parish.
At 8.35 precisely a certain student presented himself at Miss Crimson’s desk, asking to be allowed access to the computers. ‘My, you’re eager this morning,’ the librarian said. ‘Your name, please?’ She made it her duty to know the faces of all the keenest students, but this was a stranger to her books, a dusky stranger…
‘Pandit, Baljit,’ answered Jaz Malik, knowing the librarian would appreciate this reversal of the names. He then pulled his payment from his shoulder bag: a student’s ID card. Gold dust! Jaz kept it moving as he flashed his best smile at the spinster.
Miss Crimson saw a lovely Asian boy, plus a lovely Asian photograph on the card. The man and his card, eager to learn. ‘Study hard, Student Pandit,’ said with lonely love.
The one good thing about being an Asian boy in Britain was that the white girls thought you all looked the same.
Jazir walked through the bookshelves, freely.
On the way he had to bat a blurbfly out of his vision. Not just any old blurbfly, mind; a University of Manchester blurbfly. A blurb full of educational messages: ‘Study hard, my students,’ it sang. ‘Stack your knowing bones for a good life. Learn to win! Win to learn!’ The blurb was a Saturday-morning loner, supplied by AnnoDomino, as all the legit madverts were. Working overtime for the chance of being upgraded.
Fat chance.
Jazir sat himself down at one of the ugly but powerful computers the university had bought a few months ago with a sponsorship grant. He pushed the borrowed card into a hungry slot and had to wait a whole two minutes whilst an animated Whoomphy burger floated around the screen, proclaiming the health-giving benefits of a regular intake of special beef. All the boundless joys of corporate logos to sit through, until, finally, the burger actually asked for the diner’s name. Jazir tapped in Pandit’s name, to make a general enquiry menu appear. Punched on an item called Motherlode, got back a ‘Password please?’ message. This was expected. Jazir then reached into his shoulder bag, pulled out a disk of his own making. He looked all around as he fed the disk into the computer’s mouth. Nobody was there, nobody watching. Jaz’s disk caused a wave of animated curry sauce to form on the screen, and a rogue window to open up, called ‘Chef’s Special Recipe’. A box within the recipe demanded ingredients, so Jaz dragged the ‘Password please?’ icon across the screen, dropped it into the chef’s karahi pan. A whir and a click, and then a ‘Currently Cooking’ message came along, to apologize.
Minutes going by…
INFO JOSH
Ginger, garlic and water. Put them all into a karahi. Add chunks of information to brown. Cardamom, bay leaves, cloves. Peppercorns and cinnamon. Sliced onions. Stir and fry. Add the secret curry paste. Coriander and cumin, paprika and cayenne. Mix some yoghurt with dish. Stir and fry. Add some more water. Bring to the boil. Cover and cook for an hour or so. Boil away the liquid. Sprinkle with garam masala. Stir and serve. The wanted knowledge will be revealed.
Heat Rating: red hot
The library’s blurb landed on the screen, as though trying to eat the image of curry sauce. Jazir knocked it aside, angrily.
&
nbsp; Jazir tried to be patient, he really did. The Chef’s Special had never failed him before. It could surely give up the university’s password. ‘Come on, Father,’ Jaz whispered to the screen, ‘cook me a hot one, please.’ That’s right, he called the intruder program after his father. Well, wasn’t his father the best chef in all of Rusholme’s curry corridor? Wasn’t his father the guardian of the secret spice mixtures? You bet your last dancing domino he was! Father Saeed Malik cooked up the spices; Jaz, the son, cooked up the info. Mutual engineering. That was the way of the world, if only his father would one day see it.
Five whole minutes of cooking it took, until the father finally delivered the goods to the son: ‘Kind sir, the recipe you have ordered is called “Maximus”. Enjoy your meal’. Excellent service! Give my compliments to the chef.
Jazir tapped ‘Maximus’ into the ‘Password please?’ box. The screen went dark for half a second, and then came back to life with a new menu:
ADMINISTRATION
SPONSORS
SUBJECTS
STUDENTS
BURGERNET
Jaz pressed on STUDENTS, got the next window…
OLD
CURRENT
Pressed on CURRENT, got the name? enquiry. Jaz tapped the words ‘Love, Daisy’ into the name box, waited for the file to download…
Love, Daisy Marigold
First year, Mathematics
Date of Birth; 13/2/80
Marigold? Daisy Marigold Love? Jaz could only think her parents must have been raving, fucking neo-hippies-a-gogo! And it was Daisy’s nineteenth birthday today! The chances of chances, most very excellent!
