Vurt

by Jeff Noon

  This is your final warning.

  AN ENGLISH GARDEN

  Beetle poured his Vaz into another lock, and we drove a cheap bust-up Ford back to base. We were feeling pretty high, what with the afterglow of the sex shimmy, and the Voodoo feather held tight in my fingers. There was laughter and craziness in the car, and every streetlamp brought a dazzle to the Knowledge Feather; it was black, pink, and gold in my hands, and the gold was the most beautiful. We rode into the Rusholme Gardens like warriors. Twinkle was waiting for us. She’d got into the flat somehow, through the tight security, and Beetle wanted to know how.

  ‘I don’t know, Bee,’ I said.

  ‘You give her a key?’

  ‘Me?’

  Twinkle was sitting on the couch, supercool, chewing on a Choc-U-Fat.

  ‘Scribble, get that baby out of here.’

  I tried, but failed miserably. The kid wasn’t budging. ‘She’s not moving, Bee,’ I said, pulling on her arms. It was like someone had smeared her arse with anti-Vaz.

  ‘I’m in the gang now,’ Twinkle said. ‘I’ve swapped with Bridget.’

  ‘Has the kid gone yet?’ asked Beetle.

  ‘Not yet. No.’

  ‘What you doing, giving keys away?’

  ‘She’s lonely, Bee. Got a terrible homelife—’

  Mandy started to laugh. ‘Let’s do it, Bee!’ she said. And then the Beetle was moving to the table, stroking Vaz into the flights of the Voodoo feather. I could see the yellow glints shining and they were opening doors in my mind, onto a yellow haze where my sister was waiting for me. Beetle was popping some Jammers, like he was expecting a hard trip and tickling Mandy’s face with the feather, the same time. ‘Try this for size,’ he said, and he stroked it into Mandy’s mouth. ‘Oh god, I’m melting,’ she said, taking it like a robopro. Then the Beetle moved over towards Twinkle.

  ‘Beetle! It’s too high for her!’

  ‘She wants in, Scribble, she gets in.’

  ‘She’s underage, Bee—’

  ‘We’re all underage,’ he replied, and Twinkle’s mouth was open, ready to accept the gift. Beetle stroked the young girl. I could see him getting off on it. I’ll bet he was getting hard on it, still charged up from the Pink shimmy.

  ‘You ever done this before?’ asked Mandy, from the slow depths of Vurt.

  ‘Course I have. Loads of times!’ Twinkle answered.

  ‘Well swallow this then,’ said The Beetle.

  ‘Go easy, Beetle,’ I said. ‘Mandy, help me…’

  But Mandy was gone, riding the feather.

  And then the Twinkle was gone, the same trip.

  Just me and the Bee left.

  ‘Beetle?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think we’re doing this badly. Let’s slow it down some.’

  ‘Yeah? For why?’

  ‘Voodoo’s dangerous. You don’t know, Bee. I’ve been there. It’s—’

  ‘Suck on this, baby! We lost Brid and the Thing, just to please you. Now fucking well take it! Let’s go find the sister.’

  My lips were parted to speak in protest, except that he pushed the feather between them, and I was riding it as well, riding good, down to the wet source, and I could feel the credits rolling, just like all that time ago, with Desdemona at my side, and then I was gone…

  WELCOME TO ENGLISH VOODOO. EXPECT TO FEEL PLEASURE. KNOWLEDGE IS SEXY. EXPECT TO FEEL PAIN. KNOWLEDGE IS TORTURE.

  …falling towards the garden.

  The garden was serene and beautiful, quintessentially English, just like I remembered, with burbling fountains and a mass of flowers growing wild, overflowing their beds. It was enclosed by a circular wall, but that was miles away, and I wasn’t interested in what lay out there. I wanted the garden; its heady perfume was caressing my senses, and a burst of pleasure was choking me, like every drop of blood in my veins had taken a sap-ride to my cock. Felt like exploding some, into the goddess of earth, the witch of dirt. I felt like digging a hole in the soil and just doing it, but something was keeping me back; knowledge of the mission. I was inside the Vurt, and I knew that I was, but I wasn’t getting the Haunting! I felt control flood through me, like I’d been seeded with something, some new knowledge. I was in the garden of English Voodoo, looking for the Curious Yellow feather, where Desdemona lay waiting, living in pain. The Beetle and Mandy were walking hand in hand through the flowers, the way that young lovers do. Twinkle was breaking off a flower head, bringing it to her nostrils. She was smiling, feeling the perfume stroking her. Karli Dog was chasing butterflies through the briar patches, getting covered in petals. Shit! Beetle had stroked the robodog too, a feather inside a dog’s mouth. No matter. We were all there, having a good time. Knowledge was seeping from the flowers, like the breath of pollen. The Beetle raised his hand, waved at me, lazy-like, and I answered him the same. The world was blissful. I was falling into a haze of peace and it took all that I had just to keep from drifting away. I was looking for the gardeners. The ones Desdemona and I had joined the last time. Or the bird in the trees. But the garden was empty. Just us Stash Riders in there, wandering amongst the flowers.

  The garden was empty.

  It didn’t feel right.

  ‘Beetle!’ I called. He turned his slow face to me, smiling. ‘There’s something wrong,’ I said to him. Beetle just smiled.

  ‘Everything’s dandy, Scribb,’ he answered, with a soft voice. He clutched Mandy closer to him, revelling in her feel.

  It didn’t feel right, somehow.

  A movement in the grass, down at my feet. Maybe it was the yellow bird, searching for food. I looked down.

  A violet and green slithering there, amongst the grasses and the stalks.

  Dreamsnake!

  Even in the garden of bliss, those slimy creatures find a way through.

  Stepping back…

  ‘Beetle!’

  Too late.

  The snake rising up from the grass, filling the garden with his whiplash body. Snake-eyes staring at me.

  Oh shit!

  How did that get in here?

  ‘Beetle!’ I shouted. ‘There’s a Viper in here! Feather’s not real. It’s a pirate!’

  Beetle was too far gone to care. And the snake was laughing at me.

  THERE’S SOME VIPER IN YOUR SYSTEM, LITTLE ONE.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  Viper was Viral Implant; germs in the Vurt system; ways to make you suffer.

  YOU’RE INSIDE A THEATRE. IT’S CALLED ENGLISH VOODOO. IT’S A PIRATE KNOWLEDGE VURT. TOTALLY ILLEGAL. NONE OF THIS IS REAL

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s worse than real. You’re under arrest, kid. That real enough for you?’

  I pulled away from that vicious face, looking for the Beetle and Mandy, and Twinkle and Karli. All I saw were four wavering shapes, as they jerked out together, and then I was following them, jerking back, and the garden fading to a patch of weed blackness…

  The shecop Murdoch was smiling down at me. Her dumbfuck partner was standing two feet off, near the bathroom door, obscuring my Madonna poster. A shadowcop was writhing around the room-space, straight out of the garden, a violet and green undulation. The partner was broadcasting the shadow from a portable unit and the snake was beaming onto us. Never seen one like this before. It was the snake from the garden; he had followed us through into the real world. Snake must have some Vurt in him—robo, shadow, Vurt—all mixed up in a five-foot length of thick smoke, eyes of orange flashing inpho all over us, and a voice of yellow slitherings:

  WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS AN ILLEGAL GAMEPLAY.

  ‘No. I…it’s…it’s just…’

  I was back in my favorite armchair, struggling with the words. I just couldn’t find the right ones.

  PLEASE EXPLAIN THE VEHICLE IN THE FORECOURT.

  I couldn’t explain. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t raise a finger in battle.

  PLEASE EXPLAIN THE VIOLATION.

  ‘I…I can’t.’

&nb
sp; My lips were the only moving parts, and then only just I was mumbling excuses, weak excuses.

  Mandy and the Beetle were lying on the settee together, all wrapped up from the garden still. I could see their bodies were still jerking from the dream, but they weren’t showing their faces. The young girl, Twinkle, was standing by the fire, her eyes full of life. She had Murdoch in her sights. Don’t try it, kid. She’ll just beat you to a pulp. Karli the robodog was by Twinkle’s side, the plastic bones shaking under her fur.

  SAID VEHICLE IS NOT REGISTERED IN YOUR NAME.

  Twinkle started to move forwards, towards the shecop.

  ALSO SUSPECTED PURCHASE AND USE OF VARIOUS OTHER ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES, AS FOLLOWS…

  ‘That’s enough, Shaka,’ said Murdoch.

  These things had names!? These smoky wraiths? I never knew that.

  THEY ARE ENTITLED TO THEIR RIGHTS, AS STATED UNDER DECREE FIVE.

  ‘Of course they are,’ replied Murdoch. ‘It’s just that I’m taking over.’

  Twinkle was two feet away from Murdoch. Beetle and Mandy were still in a close embrace, still shivering but coming down, slowly, ever so slowly.

  ALSO SUSPECTED HARBOURING OF A VURT ALIEN. A LIVE DRUG. DECREE FIFTEEN QUITE PLAINLY STATES—

  ‘Okay!’ shouted Murdoch. ‘This is my score. I’m bringing you down for this. Harbouring, possession, bootlegging. The whole shit. You’re getting it.’ She pulled a flame gun from her waist band.

  The chair was clutching at me, and I could still feel the garden’s touch on my fingers.

  ‘Game over. Partner, cuff them.’

  The fleshcop started to move, wallowing side to side under his fat middle. Mandy had awoken now, and was rolling over towards the action. Her eyes were fear-shot. The Beetle wasn’t moving. Not yet. He was all folded up on the settee, shaking from the jerkout and Vurtlag.

  ‘Out of the way, girl,’ said Murdoch, not even looking at Mandy as she said it. Mandy got up off the settee, cool and deadly. Murdoch had the gun pointed straight at the Beetle’s head. ‘Okay, boss man, this is your alarm call.’

  Beetle didn’t move.

  Me neither. Felt like time was slowing down, and I was just a caught fly in its embrace, wings in honey.

  THIS IS NOT THE STANDARD PROCEDURE said the shadowcop.

  ‘You want to file a complaint, Shaka?’

  NO, MA’AM. I DO NOT.

  Karli and Twinkle made a move towards Murdoch. The dog’s paws were scratching at the carpet.

  ‘Call them off, little boy. You know it’s the end.’

  I tried to, but my lips were parched and stuck, and my tongue was dead.

  Twinkle and the dog were inches away from the cop.

  ‘Call the fuckers off.’ Murdoch screamed, the gun locked between her fingers, aimed with a raging full-on, dead set on the back of Beetle’s head.

  This is where he is, the hero, when you need him the most. Fast asleep on an old worm-hive settee, bought for a fiver down a Junk-U-Don’t-Want.

  ‘I got one cuffed, Murdoch.’ It was the partner speaking, his words flabby with heavy breaths. My eyes made a quick glance. There was Mandy, all cuffed up to one of the fatso cop’s wrists. He was looking pretty pleased with himself. Most probably he’d never met a girl like Mandy before.

  Guy was gonna find out.

  The shadowcop was firing inphos all over the room, looking for clues. I’M GETTING SOMETHING, he said.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Murdoch.

  INSUFFICIENT INPHO AS OF YET.

  ‘Thanks for the inpho, Shaka, but I think you’re getting on my nerves, just a little bit.’

  UNDERSTOOD. Shaka’s eyes were flaring with bright orange, like he was working up to a flame beam.

  ‘Let’s keep this under control, people.’ Murdoch was putting on a good show, but I could see the sweat on her face. ‘That includes you, Shaka! Keep those beams cool. No one gets hurt.’ And the shadowsnake’s eyes went from hot to cold. You could see the disappointment all the way through his swirling body.

  Twinkle and the dog were close to the moment now, except they didn’t know what to do, how to handle it. Twinkle was reaching out with one hand, almost as if she was going to say, ‘Please don’t hurt my friends, Mrs Shecop,’ and I wouldn’t put it past her. The dog was making a low growl.

  ‘Back off, Twinkle,’ I said. My tongue felt like a slug nested in my throat. And she did, the youngster, this being my sad little power over her. Her hand dropped slowly to her dirty dress, where it fiddled and twirled in the folds.

  ‘Back off, Karli.’ My voice again. And the dog obeyed, so maybe there was more to Suze than I thought. She’d given me the power over the dog, passed it on, all in secret. Karli moved back slightly but her eyes were still clenched and full of damage.

  ‘Okay. Everybody’s happy,’ breathed Murdoch, the gun still on a straight run to Beetle’s brain. ‘Cuff the other one,’ she added, nodding her head towards me. The partner came towards my chair, dragging Mandy behind. In his free hand he held a new set of cuffs.

  ‘I’m running out of hands, Murdoch,’ he said.

  ‘Just fucking do it!’ was her reply. ‘To the chair!’ So the fat cop made a move towards me, fumbling with the key and the cuffs. This guy was a loser, I know that now, but he still had a few seconds of dominance left in him. He waved the cuffs in front of my slow eyes.

  ‘Take it easy, young man,’ he said to me.

  I couldn’t move my body, but I could move my mouth, having already proved that. ‘Take a running fuck, fatso.’ I said, not even knowing I had those words within me.

  ‘It’s all over, big guy,’ Murdoch said to the Beetle’s sleeping shape. He moved slightly then, stirring from his deep pit.

  ‘I know it,’ he said, his voice full of thick juice from the game. ‘I know when I’m beaten.’

  That’s not like you, Beetle. Where’s the fire?

  The fat partner had one of my wrists in his free hand, and he was trying gamely to cuff me to the chair. I was struggling against him but the Vurtlag was still heavy in my brain, and I was a slow dream, waiting for the dawn. The cuffs were clunking in a half-bite, missing the hole in the sweat and the fear. The cop was dropping beads of sweat on to my trousers. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Do it!’ More to the cuffs than to me, I think.

  ‘I thought I told you already,’ I told him. ‘Go and take a running one.’

  He looked at me like I was a bad dream he couldn’t wake up from. Oh good. I’m glad.

  ‘Come up slowly, Beetle man,’ said Murdoch.

  ‘I’m coming up like a slow train,’ said the Beetle, turning around on the settee. ‘You win, Murdoch. Game over.’

  Fat cop had forgotten all about Mandy in his struggles. Shadowcop hadn’t though: I DO BELIEVE, SIR, THAT’S SHE’S GOING TO—

  Did no good.

  Mandy had twisted around behind the cop, and now she had her free arm around his neck, pulling back, until he started to cry out. I felt my mind zooming to focus as the last of the Vurt peeled away, and then my hands were moving fast, faster than snakes, until they reached his free hand, which he was using to prise away Mandy’s fingers. My fingers clamped around his knuckles.

  ‘I said leave off, pigshit.’

  Murdoch could see the trouble going down so she had moved her gun away from the Beetle slightly, trying to get a new fix. The Beetle rolled over, and then up, until he was sitting on the edge of the couch, and his hand was already inside of his coat.

  MURDOCH! I’M GETTING SOMETHING!

  But Murdoch had already seen what was happening. She was turning back to the Beetle, but too late, way too late, the Beetle had pulled his hand out again, into the open, and a gun was clenched tight in his fingers. The Beetle’s gun. In use at last.

  ‘It’s that time of day, Murdoch,’ he said.

  ‘Shaka!’ Murdoch’s call sent the shadowsnake into action. His beams swung in from every corner until they pulled in a tight focus on the Beetle’s gun.

 
FLAME PISTOL. 0.38. FULLY LOADED. SIX BULLETS.

  The partner cop was struggling between Mandy and me but we had him tight yet. ‘Wooh!’ shouted Mandy. ‘We’re happening!’

  ‘Don’t go silly on me,’ Murdoch said to Beetle.

  ‘Kill, Karli!’ I shouted. ‘Destroy!’

  Young dog went for it.

  Murdoch’s gun roared and flashed, but the dog was there first, knocking her off her feet. The shecop was on the floor, Karli on top of her, biting at her face. The bullet lodged in the wall, knocking petals off the clock, and Shaka was beaming everywhere, panic-struck. Twinkle was coming towards me and the fat partner, her tiny fingers bunched into fists. The gun in Beetle’s hand waved in the air, and there was a look of pure Jam in his eyes.

  The fleshcop made a big push with his bulbous gut, shoving me back into the chair. Then he took off towards the Beetle, pulling Mandy along behind him, still cuffed. She was beating on his back and shouting at him, calling him all the names of the famous fuckers, but he was reaching down to the floor anyway, to where Murdoch’s gun lay waiting.

  Sometimes we just go too far, partner.

  Beetle shot him.

  Beetle shot him! And all these miles and days away, I’m still listening to that shot of flame.

  Murdoch was screaming under the dog Karli, holding those jaws back with fists of pain. Dog was eating at her fingers. And the fleshcop’s blood splattered all over the walls and the floor. It made a beautiful mess, like a garden of scarlet wounds, and I was gladdened by the sight of it. My life was just a few seconds adrift in those moments.

  ‘Shaka!’ screamed Murdoch, her face bloody from the dog’s teeth. ‘Shaka, call up! Call up!’

  Petals were falling all over, drifting down in waves from the severed clock-face, and Shaka was calling up the station, beaming through the petals. Except that the beams were hot! Petals bursting into flames as the snakehead came whipping around the small room, aiming for a total burn-out. A line of fire along the back of the settee, heading towards Beetle. So Beetle shot the snake. Of course nobody can shoot a Shadow. The Beetle had put a hole in the shadowcop’s aerial box. Shaka was a wounded ghost then. And then just a wraith, a thin wraith, fighting for life. His beams went dark. His face was a silent cry and holes were opening up in the body of smoke. He was fading to black, the deep emptiness, which is Shadow-death.