by Jeff Noon
Easy game. The real cops protested, of course, but the forces of the market held true. It was laser-etched into the contract: ‘No police officer shall fight the war against crime without proudly carrying the corporate symbol.’
The game goes on.
Daisy left her burger half uneaten and walked back to the bookshop on Deansgate. The begging hole was still empty. But now a dozen scowling vagabonds were clustered around the pit, as though expecting a dotfall. ‘Celia, Celia!’ they were chanting, each to each. Daisy pushed through them to get inside the shop, rubbing at the wound on her arm.
Whilst Jaz Malik, upon that same afternoon, was upstairs in his parents’ home. Hat and shades off, computer on, dissecting the squishy body of a blurbfly. A stolen blurb full of university education: ‘Learn to win! This message brought to you courtesy of AnnoDomino Co’.
At last, a real-life blurbfly!
Of course, he could’ve purchased such a creature from AnnoDomino itself, sure thing, if he had 1,000 lovelies to spare. But this little bugger had cost him nothing. He had it clamped in the vice on his desk. The thing was struggling for flight, but Jazir was gonna tame the monster. He had a range of copyblurb disks lying on his desk, just waiting for a personal message.
‘Jazir Malik! Gadgets of love! Order to win!’
He stabbed a knife into the real blurb’s thorax, some evil-smelling gunk spurted out of the wound, purple it was…
(Fuck! It burns!)
…and now the fly had twisted around in the vice, somehow constricting its body. Its little teeth had sunk into Jazir’s hand.
Thunderloo!
Jazir felt the pain, clutched his hand, and went dizzy for a second. The blurb was almost free of the vice. The knife dug deep until Jazir breathed again, wiped the gunk off his face and looked at the wound in his hand, then at the blurb. Wasn’t there supposed to be some coding that stopped them from biting humans? Play to win, play to win…an insect dying into a gasp of air.
He spliced the thing open. Inside he found only more of the evil-smelling gloop, some wires, but no mechanism of any kind. No clues as to how it flew or where it kept its message, or even how it broadcast the message. Jazir was shocked to discover himself in awe; the thing was totally organic. That’s when he started to fall in love with the AnnoDomino Co. Because how the hell did they make such a wonder?
Jaz cut deeper. Muscle and wire and message-juice. Such rich meat. Maybe Jaz should introduce it into a curry one night? Maybe make a Rogan Blurb curry out of the fly? Fried with special sauce, a new meal for his father’s limited curryverse? How would the punters love that?
ROGAN BLURB
Ginger, garlic and ghee; put them all into a karahi. Add chunks of blurbfly, until they brown. Cardamom, bay leaves, seven cloves and a peppercorn. Cinnamon and sinnerman. Add the slogans, the secret curry paste, coriander and cumin. Add water. Bring to a boil. Cover and publicize for an hour or so. Boil away the liquid. Sprinkle with garam masala. Sprinkle with logo. Stir and serve to the public.
Heat Rating: media hot
Psychedelia Smith! The punters would love it dearly. And his father the same, maybe at last admitting Jazir to his world. Jaz poured some of the gloop into a test tube and put a cork in place. He had it now, the real inner workings of a domino fly. All he needed was good analysis. Some of the gunk had splashed over a pile of computer disks. He tried to wipe off most of it, but the stuff was actually sinking into the casing. Out of curiosity, just to see if the disks could cope, he slipped one of them into his computer. It went in nice and cool, even easier than usual, like a Frank Scenario ballad number.
Meanwhile, waiting for love, a young, homeless girl was trawling St Anne’s Square, hoping to make contact with a certain Eddie Irwell, in order to cash in her domino. But the big Eddie was nowhere to be seen. His begging hole was filled up tightly instead with a rather bulbous secondary specimen.
‘Is Eddie not here today?’ the girl asked of the fat tramp.
‘Eddie can go fuck himself,’ the tramp replied. ‘This is my hole now.’
‘What do you call yourself, fellow traveller?’
‘I’m calling myself Fats Domino.’
‘Ain’t that a shame.’
‘What you calling yourself, smart-arse girl?’
‘Can you tell me where Eddie is, please?’
‘Eddie didn’t turn up today. Hard cheese. This is my hole now.’
‘I think you should get out of there, fatty.’
‘Aren’t you that famous winner of a half-bone I’ve heard about? Please, let me relieve you of the burden.’
‘You can’t claim my winnings without Eddie. No way!’
‘Little Miss Celia…’
Another voice this time, and when Celia looked round the square, she saw that all the beggars had come over from Deansgate to surround her. ‘Little Celia…we’ve got your Eddie safe and tight in bondage.’
A crusty old woman speaks up, glistening with road-juice for all to see. ‘Now all we want is the half-cast bone. Surely you’re not going to disappoint us? Play to win, baby. Isn’t that the ruling?’
And as the tramps close in…
PLAY THE RULES
9a.
The Company must always ensure that the game is played according to the rules.
9b.
No purchase price will be refunded, unless rule 9a is broken.
9c.
The penalty for breaking rule 9a is a private matter between the Company and its ruling bodies.
9d.
No player may use artificial means to win the game.
9e.
The penalty for breaking rule 9d is public humiliation, a hefty fine and a lifetime ban from playing this or any other game.
Daisy Love found herself battling against a customer who wanted a loser’s discount. Every Saturday it was the same: some sad-hearted failure would arrive with the latest guide to winning the bones under their sweaty elbow. He or she would bang the manual down hard on the counter, declaim, ‘I’ve lost!’ and, ‘This book, right, this book’s a pile of shit! I followed all the advice, didn’t win a fucking bean!’ or even, ‘It shouldn’t be allowed, selling such rubbish!’ Then they would invariably demand their money back, in the loudest tones possible, so that all the other customers could hear. The complainer, this time, was a leopard-skinned posh woman, of passing years, complete with matching handbag and hairdo. ‘Well, young lady,’ she howled at Daisy, ‘are you, or are you not, going to refund my purchase price? Because if you’re not, well…I shall have to have words with your manager.’
The customer was not to know, of course, that she had chosen the wrong girl to shout at, at the wrong time of the month, on the wrong day of the year, and with the worst kind of cut on her arm. Luckily, the manager himself then came drawling over the checkout desk. ‘Can I be of assistance, madam?’ he slurred.
‘Are you the manager of this establishment?’
‘The very same. Is there a problem?’
‘Most certainly there is! This book…this pathetic tome!’ The woman nudged the book into the manager’s pink and startled face.
‘It is the policy of the company…’
‘Company policy! Don’t talk to me about company policy! I demand my consumer rights.’
‘…never to give refunds, except for faulty goods. Is the book faulty in any way? Are the pages printed backwards, for instance?’
‘Oh, they’re printed forwards, all right! It’s the advice that’s backwards. I was guaranteed a winning by this book. I staked a whole twelve punies on this book’s advice. Lost every single specimen! Every single one! Is there no recompense for that kind of loss? Well, is there?’
‘What is the book in question, madam?’ asked the manager. ‘Oh yes, In for a Puny, In for a Lovely. I see it now. As written down by the noble Sir Godfrey Arrow. I do seem to recall that this particular writer did, once upon a few months ago, win the first prize in the domino game. Surely that entitles him to write a gam
bling manual?’
‘He ought to be locked up for fraud. Now then, are you going to give me a refund, or am I going to complain to the Standards Committee?’
A gaggle of consumers was gathered around the checkout, so the manager decided it was time to cut his losses. ‘Very well, under the circumstances, madam…would twelve punies be a suitable recompense?’
‘Plus the cost of the book, of course,’ said the lady.
‘Very well…let’s call it sixteen punies. No, let’s say a round and comfortable twenty. Daisy…would you please make this refund?’
‘You’re not really going to do this, boss?’ asked Daisy Love.
‘Certainly I am.’
‘But the woman’s a fucking nightmare!’
‘Well I never!’ said the woman.
‘Daisy…language, please,’ said the boss, ‘on the shop floor.’
‘She’s a con-artist! Too posh even to care a jot about money.’
‘Daisy!’
‘Just because she lost yesterday, she’s blaming us. I lost yesterday, you lost yesterday, the whole of Manchester lost yesterday! What makes this bitch so different that she has to claim back her purchasing price? Domino shit! Maybe I should start some reclaiming?’
‘Daisy! Will you please make this refund!’
‘No! She can go fuck herself to death in Poshtown!’
Like it was said: the wrong girl, the wrong time.
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ cried the customer.
‘Because you deserve it.’
‘Outrageous! I shall be calling my lawyers!’
The other customers had now reached riot point and it was the manager himself who jumped into the till, scooped out the cash and presented it to the woman. ‘My apologies are fulsome,’ he spluttered. ‘I can only hope that the kind madam will revisit our establishment at another date? Yes?’ And how his tongue lolled, outwards and upwards, to lick his greasy forelock.
‘May your books rot in hell!’ The woman turned to leave, only to be suddenly sent flying by a small explosion of wild hair and screaming oaths. It was a young kid, a girl, running into the bookshop, out of breath and luck, in equal measures. The kid pushed the posh woman aside, bounded up to the counter, grabbed at Daisy’s jacket. ‘Please! Please save me!’
And with her came her companions: filthy, evil-smelling tramps, like a nightmare in germs and tatters and matted hair. A whole troop of beggars, hustlers, whores and vagabonds; they pushed aside the consumers, to form a furry circle around the checkout desk.
Daisy recognized the feather in the hair, the young beggar girl from the Deansgate pit. ‘What’s wrong, girl?’ she asked the child.
‘They want to kill me!’
‘Is this true?’ asked Daisy of the tramps.
‘Nonsense,’ one of them replied. ‘It’s only a game. We just want a little bone she’s carrying.’
‘Daisy,’ asked the manager, ‘are these people friends of yours?’ He had already pressed the discreet cop-button.
‘We’re friends with everybody,’ the tramp said.
‘Save me from them!’ shouted Little Celia. ‘Please, save me!’ She had now clutched herself tightly around Daisy’s waist.
‘Come on, Little Celia,’ another of the tramps said. ‘We only want the half-cast bone. Nobody need get hurt…’
‘Keep away from me!’ screamed the girl. ‘You killed Eddie Irwell! He was my champion.’
‘Irwell’s not dead. He’s just resting.’
‘Get out of here,’ shouted the manager to the tramps. ‘And that includes you!’ to the girl. ‘The burgercops are on their way.’ His words prompted a response from the homeless; more than anything, even more than going hungry, the homeless hated the cops. Begging could only be done from an officially paid-for hole; this was a strict law, the breaking of which delivered a full nineteen weeks in prison.
Five seconds later the cop sirens could be heard, a raucous calling from the street. The tramps scattered, fleeing by the exits. Some of them got away, and some others got arrested, but the girl calling herself Little Celia was still clinging tight to Daisy. Daisy that didn’t know what to do, how to move, how to love. ‘What’s your name, girl?’ she asked of the last vagabond.
‘Hobart, Celia, Miss,’ the girl replied, backwards like an ID card. And then slipped out of Daisy’s grasp, even as the manager turned on Daisy. ‘Given your swearing at a most prized consumer,’ he sneered, ‘and given your most obvious celebration of the beggar’s culture, I can only dismiss you.’
Daisy had no words, no snappy rebuttal. Her eyes were lost on the runaway.
And then, finally, Daisy said to the manager, ‘Go stuff your job.’
Can you guess who won?
Well, can you?
Old Joe Crocus and Sweet Benny Fenton were performing their latest Black Math ritual. Joe Crocus was the focus. Sweet Benny the bait for a demon. The lights were out, curtains drawn. They had the seven candles arranged and smoking, the deep red wine poured, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Opus 4 on the stereo system. The carpet was pulled back to reveal the floorboards. Benny was chalking out the mathemagical diagram on the floor, large scale: the circle, the triangle, the pentagram, following Crocus’s whispered instructions. Benny’s newly personal blurbfly asleep on his shoulder, talon-deep and dreaming like a vulture.
Around and around, the geometry of luck.
Benny was nervous, as always; not that it might go wrong, rather that mad old Joe would get it right for once, that he might just summon up some rabid number he couldn’t fully control. Black Math was a dangerous undertaking, a dark secret merely hinted at in the official histories of numberlore.
‘Stop shaking, Benny!’ hissed Joe. ‘You’re spoiling the equations.’
‘Sorry, master.’
‘And must we put up with that fucking fly?’
‘Sorry, master. His name is Scooter, by the way.’
‘Scooter? Well fuck me! Such a lovely creature.’
‘Scooter’s my new image, master.’
‘Is it Scooter’s fault that you didn’t turn up for work, this afternoon?’
‘No…’
‘No? Exactly no! Can’t you show me anything else but surrender?’
The truth was that Sweet Benny Fenton thought this whole ritual a waste of time, a joke, an embarrassment to a brother’s soul, especially with these long, tacky black cloaks they both had to wear. Sweet Benny only joined in the game because he wanted to keep Joe Crocus sweet on his love, and now…
Finally the geometry was complete: all the vectors correctly aligned to their proper angles, all the shapes containing each other, all the numbers cascading inwards to the infinity symbol that lay at the centre of the diagram. Two teardrops kissing. Benny stepped into the right-hand loop of the symbol. In the other loop he carefully placed a pile of new dominoes. Seven bones in number, bought that same evening. Six bones for Joe, a lonely single one for Benny.
Joe Crocus was outside the diagram, studying his sacred tome, the leather-bound Mathematica Magica. From within its rich pages he chanted a number spell. ‘Oh my Lord of Infinite Numbers, come down to us now. Grace us, your pitiful calculators, with your generous presence. Oh my master, oh my Dominus of Chaos. Come down to bless these, my simple bones of offering, my humblest of chances. Oh my Darkest Fractal, may these my pitiful tokens be forever graced with your winning spirit. Open all channels. Connect to everything…’
Benny’s blurbfly decided then to hover aloft from the shoulder, the naughty little pet, broadcasting its message to the bedroom. ‘Sweet Benny Fenton, he’s the gypsy of your genes. Gay to win!’
‘Will you please control that advert of yours,’ cried Joe. ‘The ritual!’
‘I’m trying my best,’ replied Benny. ‘I’ve haven’t quite got the hang of the user’s manual yet. Sorry, master.’
‘Stop apologizing!’ Joe Crocus shot out a hand, caught the blurb in mid-flight, squeezed at it until the exoskeleton cracked
and the insides ran free. But there was nothing in there, no gloop, only some papier-mâché and a few bits and pieces; a disk and a toy engine and a motherboard.
‘Master! What have you done? You have killed my Scooter…’
‘You bought a fake! Wait! Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘Benny! The ritual…’
Out. Southern Cemetery, the refuge. He always came here to escape the master’s wrath. One of these days, for sure…
No matter. He wandered for a time or so, just enjoying the marbled names, the birthdays and deathdays, and the intense glow of the domino factory in the distance. Why was everything always in the distance?
He took out Daisy’s handkerchief, looked at the stain of blood on it, sniffed at it. He smiled. Did he really want to go dancing that night? Sure he did.
Saturday evening, Platt Fields. Amid these bare trees and along this boating lake, surrounded by screaming kids, Daisy wandered. And as the sky grew darker with the threat of renewed rain, she found herself thinking about the beggar girl. Celia? Was that her name? And the rain fell, at last, in thin dregs.
A pair of blurbs were fighting in mid-flight in the chilly air. It was a vicious mating ritual, the crunch of mandibles, because Daisy knew that blurbs passed on their messages by biting the lover. A domino fly with a curry fly; what mutated advert would these two produce? Chicken Tikka Bones? Domino Madras?
No job. No punies for leisure. Only the shrivelled-up student sponsorship. Only mathematics. An assignment to complete for Monday morning, but no desire to finish it. The numbers suddenly went cold, too difficult. The cut on her arm. And it was her birthday, for crying out loud, with not a single present—the downfall of being hooked on loneliness. Some ducks quacked, a flap of owl dusted the air, the trees shivered their wet branches. Daisy reached into her pocket for her handkerchief, to wipe away the tears, you understand, but found no welcoming cloth. She had bequeathed it to Sweet Benny. It had her blood on it. ‘Something to remember you by.’ Shit! He could do a DNA analysis from that. And digging deeper, just for comfort, her fingers knocked against something hard and warm. Puzzled to pieces, she pulled out the intruder. It was a domino bone, one half of which was a dead and creamy one-spot; the other half a still black and vibrant five-pip. Pulsing with a winning half-life.
