by Jeff Noon
‘Tell me, please.’
Hackle stood up with an effort. ‘Let’s walk some more…’
Along corridors, round corners. More stairs, further down. Corners, corridors, another clearing. This one dark. ‘Turn on the lights, please,’ said Daisy.
‘There aren’t any,’ replied the professor. ‘Not here. This is the centre of the maze. I have a torch…’
Click!
A beam of diffuse light, seeping into damp walls, the scurrying of a mouse or a rat. Daisy shivering with it, the sudden cold spot. A place of ghosts. Hackle playing the beam over the walls to where a wooden table rested. On it, an array of electrical equipment, an old computer, all covered with dust and cobwebs, mouse-droppings.
‘Haven’t been down here…not since…’
‘It feels haunted,’ said Daisy. Hackle turned the beam on her. She could no longer see his face behind the shaking light. ‘Professor…’
‘You don’t know the meaning of it, Daisy…perhaps you never will…even after I’ve told you…’
Hackle walked over to the workbench, placed the torch down on it so that the beam now illuminated the room in general. From the light available, Daisy could see that the place was roughly circular, with three separate entrances, and only a small pallet bed resting in the centre. ‘This is where Georgie would…’
‘Yes?’
‘Sleep, whilst visiting the dream-maze. One time I came down early, I found him masturbating, furiously, on the bed. Pardon my language, please. He didn’t even notice me come in. On the screen, over there, the wanderers were going crazy with his adopted lust. The brainwaves, during sexual dreams, Daisy…are quite different from the usual kind. Did you know that?’
Daisy was suddenly worried by the turn of the conversation. For the first time she began to doubt the professor’s motives. She’d always thought of him as being an essentially asexual creature, witness her own crush on him. But hadn’t Celia told her she’d seen him kissing Joe before? He wasn’t such an old man, and not so innocent.
‘You must have noticed, Daisy…’ Hackle continued, ‘the effect that watching the blurb-info can have upon the human physiology?’
‘No…I…’
‘Oh come on…your relationship with Jazir…where did that come from?’
‘We were…’
‘You were quite, quite cold, Daisy, for the whole first term. Coming to university is a time of throwing off the shackles; freshers are known for their availability among the older students. I do not condone this activity, but nor can I deny the immense sexuality that crawls the corridors during the first months. But you Daisy…not a whisper of passion have I noticed. Until now…’
‘I would like to go back upstairs now, please.’
‘Even I have been affected by it. Which surprised me, having put all such things behind me.’
‘Benny knows.’
Hackle went silent for a moment. ‘He does? Well…I cannot be blamed, now can I…any more than…’
‘Upstairs, please.’
‘As you wish. I shall remain here for a while.’
Daisy looked around, nervously. She couldn’t even remember through which of the three doors they had entered the circle.
‘It’s not easy, is it? Escaping?’ Hackle was now standing over the bed in the centre. ‘Would you like to sit down?’
‘No. Please. Take me back upstairs. I insist.’
‘But this has always been a house of love. I have always allowed my guests the ultimate expression. We came from the Sixties, what else can be said? And the equations of mathemagica contain certain rituals, shall we say, of a sexual nature. In this room,’ he gestured to the darkness, the air, the walls, and finally, the bed…‘In this room, we performed them.’
‘You’re scaring me…’
‘He who is not scared, shall never understand. Georgie was scared, he understood far better than all us mathematicians. It was he who insisted upon the ritual being performed. Here! Upon this bed, he would make love for the first time, and we would capture his initiation upon the screen. His passion would roam the labyrinth, increasing the knowledge, the nymphomation.’
‘This is sick.’
‘Only to a nice girl. To the chosen ones, it was an act of supreme beauty and humanity. We would cross the borderline, between numbers and reality. We would become one with the information.’
‘You found a woman to…perform…this?’
‘We had a woman already.’
‘Susan Prentice?’
‘Yes. Prentice. She was also wired to the maze. I was monitoring the operation.’
‘My father? What was he doing?’
‘He was…merely an observer, Daisy. He has no blame for what followed.’
‘What happened?’
‘They laid together on this bed, Georgie and Susan. We had candles for them, and music and diagrams, and the best, most heady wine. It was so beautiful…’
‘Something went wrong?’
Hackle breathed in heavily. The sound of it, to Daisy, the room itself was breathing, and then closing in, tighter, tighter…
‘Yes. Paul had insisted upon going in as well, to witness the initiation from the inside, as he said. I could see no problem with this. None at all…I should have known otherwise.’
‘Go on.’
‘I recall the maze exploded with numbers as the act was performed. Susan was screaming with pleasure. Georgie had a unique talent indeed. The wanderers were fired by it, becoming an orgy. Imagine, Daisy! An orgy of information, mating with itself, incessantly, powerfully. I was overwhelmed by the results, so much so that I didn’t notice what was really happening.’
‘Let me guess. Malthorpe joined in, from the inside?’
‘How could he resist? Maybe he was jealous of the effect the ritual was having. I cannot tell. I don’t like to think of it. I can remember looking up from the equipment one time, and seeing them there, Georgie and the woman, caught in the most rigorous copulation I have ever encountered. It was like a two-person orgy, if such a thing is possible. I had the strangest feeling, watching them, that a third person was involved, in some invisible way. A ghost at the feast, if you will. I turned back to the monitor. The wanderers were participating in the pleasure, one especially: the double-six creature. Malthorpe. Seducer, Chancer, Backslider…Warrior. He was rampaging around the maze, attacking the double-zero. When I turned around again, Malthorpe was there…on the bed with them. No ghost. Real.’
‘He killed George? This is what happened?’
Hackle moved away from the bed. All the dark sexuality seemed to have drained away from his body, returning the man to his frailty. ‘I don’t know,’ he was whispering. ‘I still don’t know. He was using Georgie’s belt…’
‘Hitting him?’
‘Strangling him. Shouting out, “Play to win! Play to win!” It was a sexual thing. You know about such practices?’
Daisy shook her head, slowly, feeling sick.
‘The tightening of the windpipe, at the moment of orgasm…it can lead to the most intense of pleasures. It was a quirk of Malthorpe’s. The pleasure…the pain…this is what we fed into the system at that moment. Sex and death…the oldest equation.’ Suddenly, Hackle was laughing wildly, his parched voice echoing around the circle.
‘Malthorpe killed him?’
‘We all did. We all killed him. This is what broke the group.’
‘You’re mad!’ cried Daisy. ‘I can’t…I can’t believe this. I can’t.’
‘Believe it. I beg you. Georgie found the centre.’
Hackle picked up the torch. He shone it directly on to the bed.
‘A winner, not a loser.’
A small pallet bed, covered with a dirty, torn woollen blanket, broken wires trailing from it to the dead computer on the workbench.
A ghost of numbers.
A car, somewhere on a road leading out of Manchester. In the car, a man. We don’t know his name, not yet. The winner of the prize, the double-
blank. He had thrown the domino into a ditch somewhere, hoping to lead the Joker Bone astray, but knowing inside that all was hopeless. The car was stolen, another ruse to escape. Hopeless case. There was no escape. Even his personal blurbfly had deserted him.
Night. Rain hitting the windscreen. The moors. Shapes in the night. Whisperings. Wipers, back and forth, back and forth. The man, wiping his eyes, trying to stay awake. Never wanting to dream, not ever again, but growing more and more tired. He should pull over, rest awhile. There was no rest.
A figure appears by the side of the road, thumbing a lift. A thin, skeletal figure, bleached white by the rain. As white as bone. A lone blurbfly, nested on his jutting shoulder.
The driver, slowly, slowly, against his wishes…brings the car to a halt.
A midnight fugue. The Dark Fractals, in their various beds. Joe Crocus alone, for instance. He had got back to the room. His keys gone from the desk and, looking out of the window, his car gone with them. Now, in bed alone, thinking of where Benny was, and what was troubling him. Maybe he knew about Hackle. Joe could explain, he could use his charm, if he wanted to. Did he want to? This thing with Hackle, where had it come from? The whole house had turned sexy, vicious even since they’d started on this AnnoDomino assignment. Joe was losing his famed control over the disciples. First Dopejack running off, now Benny. Was it worth it, the struggle? With the genetic calculus inside his body running down towards infinity, what was he struggling for? What could he possibly win? He would need to talk to Hackle. Was this the right time to visit his bed, with Benny away? No.
In their separate beds, elsewhere in the house: Max Hackle, Jimmy Love, Little Celia. Only Little Celia fast asleep at this point, dreaming of Eddie and her winning the ultimate prize. Hackle, unable to rest so easy, knowing the Joker Bone was out there somewhere, searching the city for its victim. Was it all his fault? And what could he do about it? And knowing that he had lied to Daisy. Sure, mostly the truth about that day, but one particular fact that could not be mentioned. Not yet. It wasn’t his job, was it? Not his job. Jimmy’s job. This Jimmy Love that was lying awake in the next bedroom, wondering just how much Hackle had told his daughter. Imagining how she must be feeling now, knowing her father had been involved in a murder. Hating him, no doubt. Which would be nothing, that hate, when he told her the real truth. It was his job, wasn’t it? His fault…
Another house, another bed, DJ Dopejack. Drifting into and out of sleep, excited by his findings about the dominoes, laughing at Hackle’s imagined reaction upon reading his message. So close now, he was sure of it. Tomorrow, more work, unravel the connections…
Above a restaurant in Rusholme Village, Daisy Love in her bed. How could she sleep? So much to think about. Well, she would wait until Jazir knocked gently on her door at half-past. She would tell him everything. Jazir would know what to do. Jazir down below, working quickly to tidy up, to get upstairs to Daisy, no idea what was happening.
Not in his bed, Sweet Benny Fenton was still driving around Manchester in Joe’s car. Where had he been? He couldn’t remember. Around in circles, wondering whether he should go back home. But what for? With Joe and Hackle…Christ! Working on his rage. Maybe it was a time to jump ship. Become single again, live a little. Yeah, Joe could go fuck himself! When he’d finished fucking Hackle, that is. Forget about them…
Another car, heading back into Manchester. This one driven by the winner of the baddest prize. We still don’t know his name, not yet. Yeah, he’d stopped to pick up that hitch-hiker, out there on the moors. He’d expected pain, and there was, but only a tiny amount, a mere biteful. Then it was his turn. He never expected the prize, no matter how bad, would involve him dispensing the pain. But now he felt good, the winner. Fucking good! Suffused with knowledge. Before, he would have classed himself an expert only on rugby tactics and medical procedures, with maybe a touch of advanced beer and curry consumption thrown in.
But now, he was full of a new knowledge. All the inner workings of the game, for instance, were his to peruse. He even knew who Mr Million really was, and wasn’t that a surprise? He never would have guessed. Winning the double-blank wasn’t losing, winning was winning. The best prize of all. And he was hungry, so much to do, so much he didn’t yet know. So much knowledge out there in the maze of Manchester, just waiting for his gift. With a new blurbfly all his own, named Horny George, to give directions.
So many he could chose from; all the losers of the city. Watch them. Watch them sleeping, or dancing still and celebrating at having lost the Joker Bone. And all those people holding half-blank bones, so scared of dreaming that night, having heard so many rumours of skeletal nightmares? Rest easy, innocents; the prize is claimed. The bone is travelling in another man’s body, in a stolen car, with a nasty, horny blurb, on the rain-washed streets, in the gambling capital of England, the UK, Planet Earth.
As Jazir came to Daisy’s bed. ‘Make love to me,’ she said.
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ he answered.
‘Make love to me. Proper.’
‘Proper? This is proper, isn’t it?’
‘Properly. All night long.’
‘All night? What about my…’
‘Forget your father. Stay with me.’
To which urgent instructions he tried his best shot, with the liberal application of trusty vaz! And afterwards they talked of maybe running away together. ‘You want out?’ asked Jazir, exhausted.
‘I think so.’
‘What about your course? And breaking into the dominoes? Hackle…’
‘Forget them.’
But Daisy couldn’t, not really and not so easily. Instead, she told Jazir everything, everything in the dark. How the Number Gumbos had together murdered Georgie Horn, how her father was involved in this killing, in ways she didn’t yet understand. It wasn’t just Malthorpe’s fault, she was certain of that much. As a blurbfly knocked against the window, sensing Jazir was there.
A knock on a window in the night? Sure, let’s listen to one, that same precise moment, with DJ Dopejack being pulled rudely from his sleep by the incessant knocking. Turning over, pulling the sheets up over his head, willing them to go away. Blurbs against glass. In the end he had to get up, move to the window, peep through a crack…
A blue and cream rugby shirt? Zuze! Fuck! What was he doing here? Hasn’t he done enough? With a fucking blurbfly, this time. Shit! Really scared now, not another beating, please. Nigel Zuze moving back from the doorway, looking up and down the street. God, he looked bad, what had happened to all the beef? He looked like…
Suddenly, Zuze looked right up at the window, with the blurb buzzing! Dopejack jerked back, knocking over a chair. He had to get to the phone, ring the police…
The door being pounded down below, like a hammer blow.
DJ struggling with the phone, struggling to get some clothes on, find a weapon…
The door smashing in. Oh God! The sound of it. Please, no…
With Daisy and Jazir safe and warm in their cozy bed. Blurbflies outside the window. Play to lose, play to lose! Daisy had told him what Hackle had told her later, about Miss Sayer. About Malthorpe having an affair with her. How it all tied in, and what could they do about it? It was too dangerous.
‘I know Miss Sayer’s involved.’ A slow voice in the dark.
‘Did Hackle tell you already?’
‘No. She visits me.’ Idly stroking her naked thigh…
Daisy shifting her weight, rolling over to face him. ‘What?’
‘Miss Sayer, she visits me.’ Jazir, so calm.
‘When?’
‘When I’m using the computer.’
‘Jaz?’
‘It’s true. She appears on screen. She talks to me. It’s her.’
‘Why is everybody going mad?’
‘No, this was from before the project. I was young, just playing arcade games. She came to me then. Has done ever since. Lately…’
Daisy was sitting up in bed by now. ‘You’re ki
dding me, aren’t you?’
‘Lately…in my dreams.’
‘Right.’
‘Listen to me! She’s asking for help, I think. Something’s gone wrong. She won’t let me tell anyone. I think she’s scared, can’t trust anybody. Only me.’
‘Why you?’
Jazir shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t know. Oh God, Daisy…things are happening to me, aren’t they? What should I do? Lately…’
Daisy held him tight as he spoke. ‘Lately I’ve been seeing things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Images, from the city.’
Images from the city? Here’s one Jazir is missing: DJ Dopejack back at his computer, bloodstained fingers travelling rapid-fire over sticky keys, making a mess of words…
‘Images from the city,’ said Jazir. ‘It’s like I’m…don’t laugh at me…’
‘I’m not.’
‘It’s since I got bitten. Like I’m looking through a blurb’s eyes.’
Looking through a blurb’s eyes? Here’s one, flying over a street in Whalley Range. The houses below, the rain in your eyes. A car travelling along below you. Float down, keep apace. Look inside and what do you see? A young man, night black, mad eyed and speeding to the house where Dopejack lives, to throw his lot in with the DJ. To get back at Hackle and Joe for betraying him. Betraying the love and the trust and the years of pain gone to waste. Yeah, Sweet Benny and the DJ, cracking the bone-code together, hitting the big prize. It was late, but so what? He’d knock Dopejack up. What was the time now, only a series of moments, bringing him closer…closer…
With Daisy saying, ‘OK. What can you see now?’
With Jazir replying, ‘Nothing. Only you. It doesn’t happen at will. It just…’
‘It just happens, don’t tell me.’
‘I saw you and Celia at the grave of Eddie.’
‘Jaz! You imagined it.’
‘Maybe so, but lately I’ve been trying to fly.’
Daisy actually got up at this point. ‘No. I’m not putting up with this.’
