Vurt

by Jeff Noon

  The Cat had said no. That was good enough for me. And the Beetle would be real mad if he found me going in alone. He would beat me. The Cat and the Beetle said no, and that was good enough for me.

  Anyway maybe the Thing came from a yellow feather. They are the highest feathers; you can’t jerk out of them, you can only win the game. Or die. I really didn’t want to chance that.

  I licked at the Vurt flesh, and then took a small bite…

  I’m being smothered by flesh. I can’t breathe any more. There is no space in the world, only flesh. It has a sweet aroma, as it presses up against my face. I can’t do anything, I can’t even struggle, the flesh is that powerful. The sweet smell stirs a memory in me. There is no way out now, this is my life; to be slowly smothered by thick sweet-smelling lard! I can’t even scream. When I try to, the flesh just comes into my mouth, filling me with its aroma. My world is clogged. I know that smell from somewhere. I am drowning in the flesh. These are my last seconds alive. The sweet stench is overpowering me. I know that smell! I have smelt it all my life. This is my life. No! Before then. I have smelt that stench before now. In some other…

  Christ!

  I’m getting the Haunting!

  The flesh enveloping me. All of my openings filled with the meat. I’m being killed by Vurt flesh.

  Vurt! I’m in a Vurt. Which one? Let me do a jerkout!

  The flesh of the Thing wrapping me in fat I’ve got no breath left. These are my last seconds…

  The Thing! Christ! Hope it’s not a Yellow.

  Jerkout!

  I’m lying across the Thing, right in front of the fire. The Thing has got its tentacles around me, squeezing. I can hardly breathe. Let me tell you; hardly is enough. At least it’s stale, unhealthy Stash Rider pad air that I’m breathing. That is enough. That is beautiful. I slide out of the Thing’s sleepy embraces, falling onto the pad floor.

  The carpet is most welcome, a real haven of bliss.

  Above me the ceiling dances with pictures. Desdemona had painted them there; images of dragons and snakes, all writhing around a sharpened blade. That was her mind. And I was part of it.

  Let us concentrate on the days to come, all the good things to come. Stash Riders finding English Voodoo, for instance. Riders getting the Thing back to his home planet. Swapping him over, for Desdemona. Riders getting out of this junk palace, getting a good life. Bridget finding a better love than the Beetle. The Beetle finding something, something to cling to.

  All the things that we had to get done.

  And the petals falling from the clock.

  Just then the telephone rang. It sounded harsh and ill against the murmurings of love, and I could tell it had bad news to give, because that phone had been cut off, unpaid, some six months ago. No way could it be ringing! I jumped up from the floor, and reached it on what seemed like the last ring—

  ‘Scribble!’

  The voice.

  ‘Desdemona!’

  ‘Scribble…’

  ‘Is that you, Desdemona?’

  ‘Scribble. Help me.’

  Oh Jesus, Desdemona…

  ‘Help me, Scribble.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Find me! It hurts. The razor…’

  ‘Where are you, Des?’

  ‘A curious…’ Her voice was drifting off, into the Vurt spaces.

  ‘Curious? Curious what? Des?’

  No answer. Just the waves of static coming through, wave against wave, yellow on yellow; I could hear the colours!

  ‘Talk to me, Des! For fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Find a door…a curious house…’

  ‘What?’

  The voice just a whisper. ‘Find a door…’

  ‘Where? Where to?’ I was shouting now.

  ‘Get to me, Scribble…get to me…’

  The way through was dying in my hands.

  ‘Des! Talk to me! Talk to me…’

  Silence.

  Oh Desdemona. Sister, oh sister. Where are you going?

  I had my ear pressed up hard against the phone, but there was nothing. Nothing there. Just a bad buzz on the line. And the silence in the room.

  And the petals falling, falling, from the face of the clock, making a carpet of flowers, where I would lay myself down, forgetting all my troubles.

  All my troubles…

  GAME CAT

  It has been calculated, by the calculators, that one night can hold SIX DREAMS only. There is a colour for each, a feather for each. BLUE is the colour of safe desires, legal dreaming. BLACK is the colour of bootleg Vurt, feathers of tenderness and pain, one sliver beyond the law. PINK is the colour of Pornovurts, doorways to bliss. CREAM is the colour of a used-up feather, one that has been drained of dreams. Only blue, black, and pink feathers go cream. The makers build this property in to the flights, just to make sure you come back for more. You only get one trip per journey. SILVER is the colour of the operators; those who work the feathers—making them, filming them, doing the remixes, opening doors. They are the toolkit feathers, and the Game Cat has a collection worth dying for. YELLOW is the colour of death, and should be avoided at all costs. They are not for the weak. Yellows have no jerkout facilities. Be careful. Be very, very careful. If you die in a yellow dream, you die in real life. The only way out is to finish the game.

  DAY 2

  ‘Good dreams of bad things.’

  WEARING

  DANGEROUS

  SMILES

  I was watching the world through tears.

  Mandy and the Beetle had emerged, two o’clock in the afternoon, from a damp bed, and were now taking late breakfast at the table. Mandy’s cheeks were glowing like an ad. You know the kind of thing—SEX IS GOOD FOR YOU—DO IT EVERY DAY. THIS HAS BEEN A GOVERNMENT INFORMATION MESSAGE. Beetle was his usual self; hair gelled slick-back with Vaz, his Peter England shirt hot-pressed to the limit. He was shaved to the edge, and the tangy aroma of Showbiz arose from his skin like the smell of celebrities at a first night party. Both of them looked fruity from the afterglow of sex, and I just couldn’t take it, couldn’t take the fresh love. The Beetle was cleaning his gun at the table, smearing Vaz into the chambers. I guess he was doing it to impress the new girl. It worked.

  ‘Is that real, Bee?’ she asked. ‘Neat!’

  Oh like, wow.

  The Beetle’s gun was a joke really. He’d bought it off some old acquaintance, a real bargain, he’d said, and that—what with the city turning the way it was—you could never be too careful. Of course he’d never fired it, never had need to, and after two weeks of carrying it everywhere, he’d slipped it into some hideaway, and that was that. Now it was out again, getting the full Vaz treatment, all for the sake of some tough new street girl.

  I wouldn’t mind, but Mandy was my discovery. I’d found her hanging around the Bloodvurt stalls in the underground market, her eyes full of buzz and spark as she stroked the feathers, trying some on, just to the lips, falling under spells of violence and pain. And me falling under the spell of her. So I’d asked her to join, become a Stash Rider. She made fun of the name, but still, I could see the need in her eyes. Maybe I was just trying to replace Des the easy way. Maybe. Maybe we all get a little desperate at times. Maybe there are no easy ways.

  ‘You heard about Icarus, Bee?’ I said, keeping it cool.

  He didn’t even bother replying, too busy drawing in lungfuls of first-thing Haze. Its pungent odour was giving me half-glimpses of the dream and the things that I saw there made me shiver. ‘Icarus Wing? Didn’t Mandy tell you about him?’ I glanced over at Mandy. She was shovelling spoonfuls of JFK flakes into the gap between her smeared lips, her eyes dead to my need. ‘She told me that Icarus Wing was bringing in some Voodoo today.’ Still no response from the Beetle. ‘You know this Icarus guy, Bee?’

  ‘No.’ His voice coming slow and easy, from the Haze.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘You know everybody, Bee! Everybody!’


  ‘What are you saying?’ His voice growing sharper.

  ‘You’re holding out on me? I—’

  ‘Fuck you, Scribble!’

  ‘Bee—’

  ‘You don’t know who’s helping you? Is that your problem? Is it?’

  His eyes were cold and steely, through the smoke of his joint.

  ‘You two have a good night?’ Don’t know why I said it. Just came out. They looked at each other. They smiled at each other. ‘You think Bridget’s going to like that?’ I asked, knowing full well that Brid would take a nail file to Mandy’s eyes. God knows what she’d do to Beetle. Maybe she’d pour all her smoke into his head, working his brain up, into a frenzy. They called it a Shadow-fuck. It was like doing Skull Shit, with the lights on.

  ‘Bridget will have to live with it,’ The Beetle said.

  ‘Where is the shadowgirl, anyway?’ Mandy asked. She made the word shadow sound like some kind of bad disease.

  ‘She slept in my room.’

  ‘Whoo, whoo, whoo!’ shouted Mandy, full of rude life.

  ‘Nice one, Stephen!’

  ‘It’s not like that, Bee.’

  ‘Stephen? Is that Scribble’s real name?’ laughed Mandy. ‘Aw, how cute!’

  ‘That’s the way with Stevie baby, Mandy,’ the Beetle said, knowing full well he was getting to me. ‘It’s never like that. Not with women.’

  ‘Piss off, Bee.’ My best reply. ‘And the name’s Scribble.’

  ‘He’s very sensitive this morning,’ Mandy said.

  ‘Maybe we should sell some bits off the Thing,’ the Beetle said. This was just to get me going even more. I wasn’t having it.

  ‘No way, Beetle. No fucking way!’

  ‘Just bits off him. The Stash Rider wallet is empty. I can’t wait till the next dripfeed. Come on, Scribble! Just an arm, or a leg. A chunk off that fat stomach.’

  ‘We need him! All of him!’ I had hold of Beetle’s arm. My voice was straining; ‘You know why, Bee! Desdemona…she…’

  ‘Big Thing’ll grow them back, anyway. What’s the loss?’

  ‘I’m getting desperate, Bee…I…I think Des is reaching out. She…’

  ‘What is it, Scribble?’ asked Mandy, around a last mouthful of flakes.

  I looked from her, and then back to Beetle. How much could I tell them? Should I tell them about the telephone? Christ! Beetle thought I was crazy anyway; he was certain that Desdemona was dead by now. The phone call would just finish off the tale of Scribble’s madness. Shit! Maybe I was mad! Maybe Desdemona was just living on, inside of me? No, no. Don’t even think that!

  ‘She’s alive, Beetle.’ I did my best to keep the voice calm. ‘I know it.’

  A warm light came to the Beetle’s eyes. ‘Sure thing, Scribb. She’s alive. We’ll find her. Right, Mandy?’

  ‘You bet.’

  They were just being good to me. I could live with that.

  ‘Shall we go see Tristan? Would that suit you, Scribble?’ asked the Beetle.

  ‘Tristan?’

  ‘An old friend of mine. He’s a spot-on guy. Sold me this gun. Knows all the stuff I’ve forgotten. And then some.’

  ‘He’ll have English Voodoo?’

  ‘He doesn’t do Vurt any more. He might know where to find some.’

  ‘He might know about Icarus Wing?’ I was getting some kind of hope back. At least we were moving. I just wanted to keep moving, keep the faith going. ‘You reckon, Bee?’

  ‘We could try,’ the Beetle smiled. That old Beetle smile. ‘And we can check out this Seb friend of Mandy’s first. Does that plan grab you, Scribb?’

  I was falling for him again; the Beetle was in command and the world was looking rosier.

  Something always has to spoil the day.

  That bad something was somebody knocking on the door. Not the bell, ringing from far away, from the ground floor. No…this was a close-up attack. And the noise was powder to the Beetle’s trigger. There was something human out there. No one did that any more. The flat was rigged up to the in-house system, and only bona fide inhabitants could find a way past the doorcam. Bypassing that system was a beauty, and only a cop could have managed it. A way-up cop.

  Beetle activated into jam mode, moving like a land speed record. First thing he did was slip the gun into his pocket, then turning to us, he whispered; ‘Get that fucker out of here!’

  That fucker was the Thing-from-Outer-Space, who was still deep in feather-dreams next to the fire. Mandy and I took each end of him, like veterans, and bundled him into the store cupboard. I got back to hear the Beetle talking to some presence through a one-inch gap in the door. ‘Certainly, Officer,’ he was saying. ‘No problem. Please come in. Feel free.’

  The Beetle sounded super-confident, and no doubt had cleaned the floor of all incriminating evidence, but how did they find us? Maybe the Vurt-U-Want cop had flashed a better than usual message. Maybe the Platt Fields’ cop had seen the alien in our arms.

  A real life cop walked into the living room. Not the shadow kind. This cop was flesh and blood; collector’s item. She had a curly perm. Yeah, that collectable.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

  There was a moment of silence. Over by the door stood the shecop’s partner, some mealy mouthed fleshcop from hell.

  ‘Nothing much,’ replied the Beetle.

  The two cops were wearing dangerous smiles.

  ‘Nice pad,’ said the boss. ‘I’d like to look around.’

  ‘Any time. You got a warrant?’

  ‘Do I need one? Mr…?’

  ‘Beetle. And I have this thing about privacy.’

  ‘We have reason to believe that you are harbouring an alien presence.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A Vurt being. A live drug.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You know that’s totally illicit?’

  ‘Is it?’ Beetle was playing it cool.

  ‘Just checking,’ said the cop woman, eyes all over the unused Blues and the played-out Creams that littered the floor.

  ‘Nothing but the best,’ the Beetle told her. ‘Strictly legal.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Nothing but.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Mandy, from nowhere.

  The cop woman looked directly into Mandy’s eyes. ‘I don’t need to tell you that.’

  Mandy gave her the bad eye, the best Bloodvurt kind. I’d seen that look before; it made you fearful. The cop took it like a feather’s glance. No sweat. Cop was cool.

  ‘Well, it has been pleasant,’ said Beetle.

  The shecop was looking all around the room, searching for clues. ‘I’m just warning you. Don’t go upsetting the neighbours.’

  There you go. Nosey bitch from the next floor down.

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ the Beetle told the cop.

  ‘Listen good, kid. I’m not easily satisfied.’

  ‘Well I can see that.’

  ‘You got a job?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  ‘I have this thing about dripfeeders; they really get on my case.’

  ‘We can’t all be in sugar.’

  There were some intense moments passing by, as Beetle tried his best sex charms on the woman. She was having none of it. She just stared right back, her eyes full up of hard metal. Beetle meets his match!

  It was the dumbo partner that broke the spell; ‘Let’s split, Murdoch. Just a bunch of wasted kids.’

  Murdoch didn’t look back at him. She just jabbed a long finger at Beetle, like a weapon. ‘I’m coming back for you. You got that?’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ replied the Bee, cool as fuck.

  The door went shuck behind them, closing with a comfort fix. Beetle was out of the cool in an instant; he popped two Jammers and went straight for me and Mandy.

  ‘What’s this about the neighbour shit?’ he demanded. His face was full up of anger. One long streak of hair had escaped from the grip of Vaz, and was swinging around against his powdered face li
ke a black plant creeper. ‘Well what the fuck’s going on?’ he shouted, and Mandy and I couldn’t even look at each other any more.

  ‘It was my fault,’ Mandy said.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Beetle.

  ‘We got caught on the landing, carrying the Thing,’ I added.

  ‘Oh, brilliant.’

  ‘Some woman on the second floor,’ said Mandy.

  ‘Didn’t you cover it?’

  Mandy looked nervous. Her eyes turned to mine.

  ‘You know that we didn’t, Bee,’ I offered, praying to the God of Vurt to take me right out of that room and up to the theatre of heaven, where the angels play.

  No such luck.

  The Beetle hit me. Across the face. Felt like a hammer. The real kind, mind. Hardened steel, with a hard wood handle.

  I took my hand away from my nose, and there was blood on the fingers and the palm.

  That guy is gonna suffer one day.

  And he would. But not at my hand.

  JAM MODE

  We were in Jam mode, screaming down the back roads, all rattling around in the van. Me, the Thing, Brid and Mandy. Beetle at the wheel, jammed up to the nines. The scenes of south Manchester sped past the black windows like a bad foreign movie. The Beetle had popped so many Jammers, fear was just a bad memory. The man was on a demon trip, and he was taking us with him.

  Brid was wide awake for once. It had been my job to wake her. Which was like waking up a stone, some dead lump of inanimate matter. Man, she had screamed at me, and then, whilst the half-dead world came rushing back, she had called for Beetle’s blood, promising slow tortures.

  I’d had to slap her.

  She slapped me back.

  Which hurt.

  Which hurt the both of us.

  Then I’d half-kicked her down the stairs, into the van. And then back for the Thing-from-Outer-Space. He was just coming round from the night of feathers. I’d give him about an hour or so, and then he’d be screaming out for more memories of the homeland. Christ! Who’d want to live there? It was Mandy and I, of course, left with the task of carrying the Thing. This time we covered him in a blanket, and the journey down the stairs went like a dream, until Twinkle showed up.