People Park (30 page)

The air smells of water. Nothing is getting closer: there is no nearing shore, just the endless bridge which slopes gently to an apex beyond which it seems to slope down, though Calum is perennially on the upslope, the apex always just beyond reach, he feels himself chasing a wave as it rolls steadily away.

It feels, Calum thinks, like being on some enormous treadmill. The girders and beams and lampposts he passes indicate momentum, yet they are the same, the same, the same. He seems to be a character, he thinks, in a piece of cheap amateur cinema with the scenery cranked around and around on an endlessly repeating scroll.

And if this is a film then Calum’s body is just an illusion, he thinks, a mirage fidgeting in and out of existence, and if the
projector breaks or stops Calum will shudder for a moment and
then
fade and cease to even be. Like something dreamed and destroyed
upon waking. And so to exist he must keep moving, toward the bridge’s peak, toward nothing, just on along the bridge and forever and ever on.

THE TRAY PUNCHED
through the slot, a jeering tongue. Sam approached
cautiously. Upon it was an applecore nibbled into an hourglass and already browning. He peered through the peephole. The armoire was empty.

You ate the apple Raven, said Sam, so I know you’re in there Raven.

He shifted his ear to the peephole, listened.

Outside a sprinkler spat arcs of water over the roominghouse lawn.

I can’t even let you out if I wanted to okay. I don’t even have the combination of this lock. There’s a way I guess of getting it open, a boy showed me how from your book. But I don’t know how. I don’t remember. I never knew.

Sam removed the applecore, pushed the tray in square with the door. From underground there was no sign of time’s machine starting up again. The floor didn’t judder or vibrate, the silence down there felt booming and hollow. And his third watch was still stopped. Now the end would be like a train barrelling headlong to a precipice, the tracks running out, and the whole thing hurtling over the edge.

You have to help us, said Sam. You have to okay. I’ve done all the work and —

From inside the armoire came the sound of a book opened in a windstorm, pages flapping madly. Sam peeked in. Something ragged and panicked fretted through the dim light: a bird. It bumped against the ceiling, flung itself against the door, settled. A few feathers puffed through the crack, drifted to the carpet.

I can’t let you out okay, said Sam, even if I wanted to.

The armoire shuddered with another collision, the bird squawked, hit the door again, beak and claws ticking.

Please stop.

It seemed to listen. Stillness prevailed. From beyond the basement the sprinkler sputtered and hissed.

Sam stepped hesitantly toward the armoire.

The tray slid out of the door. Upon it was the bird — a dove — lying on its side, motionless and serene, eyes glazed, freshly dead, and served up as a dish.

ON CINECITY’
s bigscreen appeared another title card. It explained that before that afternoon’s premiere of
All in Together Now
the theatre would screen a Best of We-
TV
countdown. This began with
Lakeside Drives
, an utterly unwatched show that consisted of a single tracking shot of the eponymous thoroughfare’s centreline, inch by inch of yellow paint striping black bitumen, from one end of the island to the other, and back — meant, Adine guessed, to be experimental, but without explanation only boring and bad. Everyone booed.

Next: the island’s community theatre troupe. Strange and solemn music played while shadowy figures in black undulated around a royal banquet, and just as the King opened his mouth to speak he was replaced with grainy film of a
Y’s Classic
, all that maroon and white thronging in the stands as time wound down toward a championship, and that became two matronly looking women poaching themselves in a hot tub and reciting highlights from their daughters’ diaries, and that in turn transformed into something else, and then something else, and so on.

It was weird to be
watching
TV
again, thought Adine. And while this was exactly how she’d always navigated channels at home — relentless flipping — experiencing it at Cinecity, on this scale, in a roomful of strangers, was much more disorienting. With the images so enormous and the sound stereophonic and everywhere, her senses were overcome. She felt trapped on some endless babbling stream, forced to leap from stone to stone before
each one flooded: establishing a foothold then plunging ahead to the next, just hopping along without a purpose or destination.

But more than that, the swift flicking through all those lives seemed deeply sinister. Each fleeting glimpse of existence suggested not only mortality but the expendability of people too. This was made even more tragic when shouts of recognition rang out in the theatre (Hey it’s me! — Hey it’s you! — I know that person, hey!). People delighted in seeing themselves or someone they knew up there, gigantic and famous, each a bit more popular than the last. But celebrations were brief before each station was supplanted with something better.

Listening to voices exclaim and rejoice and awkwardly fade, Adine forced her mind to cloud over, to abstract the people and places onscreen into shapes, shadows, patterns of colour. Wasn’t that more honest? Those weren’t people up there but pictures, illusions of life. So she let them be that — just light — and let the sound also blur into formless noise. Every so often this reset, nonsense hiccupped into more nonsense, the rhythm soporific, lulling Adine into a dreamy stupor.

She sank into her chair. The theatre faded. She felt removed from everything. If time in Cinecity had become an abstraction
now so was space. She had only a peripheral awareness of having
a body. Her mind was a whitewalled room. And then into the emptiness stabbed a voice. And though it was hushed the words were clear:
I don’t think I can take much more of this.

Adine blinked. Up there onscreen was Faye Rowan-Morganson.

It’s just too much
, she said, twisting a lock of black hair around a finger.
I know no one’s watching
, she said, and paused.

Adine sat up, moved to the edge of her seat.

No one at all.

Faye Rowan-Morganson was younger than she’d had imagined, the cheekbones a little more drastic, and darker, and she wore makeup. But that was not the biggest surprise — most startlingly, she was naked. Or at least appeared to be, visible only from the shoulders up, the camera in tight, the background blurred. Even so, Adine felt she was meeting a long-lost childhood friend, now an adult — not an exact equivalent of the version in her mind, but the essence matched: mournful, fatigued, unmistakably her.

No one in the theatre spoke up, no one seemed to know Cinecity’s latest star. Or if they did, like Adine they didn’t say.

Well
, Faye Rowan-Morganson told the camera,
tomorrow’s Thursday.
Her tone was one of resignation.
As I’ve been saying, that’ll be it for me, and by the time you see this
—

The channel flipped: a woman in a yellow bandana and a heavily bearded man, cross-legged, bongos in their laps, were providing heartfelt tips on how best to transmit the Essential Soul through percussion. Their eyes were intense. You have to be one with the drum, advised the woman. I snuggle mine, said her husband. Yes, she said, nodding sagely, it’s a very good idea to snuggle your drum.

IV

Y MIDDAY ALL
that was left of the flats was a puddle of grease, and Magurk — still shirtless, distended belly resembling a lightly furred, bulbous gourd — had popped the top button of his khakis. Since her fall the Mayor had retreated into an almost barometric silence that loomed at the edge of the conversation in a grey solemn wall. She sat pushed away from the table with her arms crossed while Griggs outlined the
NFLM
’s plans and Noodles presided behind tented fingers — nodding, always nodding.

We’ll open Island Amusements at six, Griggs explained, and channel all the traffic up the Throughline into the parking lot. He dispatched Bean to oversee the operation of rides and concessions. Silentium, Logica, Securitatem, Prudentia, advised Griggs.

Good lookin out, said Bean, puffed his inhaler, and hurtled eagerly up the ramp.

The next order of business was the
ICTS
. Power was out only in
UOT
, Blackacres, and Whitehall, but because no trains could turn around in the Barns the whole Yellowline was frozen. Walters and Reed and their moustaches were sent to figure this out.

You see? said Griggs, sealing the portal from his control panel. We’re on it. This is how we do, Mrs. Mayor — we run the city so you don’t have to.

Primly she brushed flat crumbs from her jacket.

The final issue: communications. While the
NFLM
’s internal radios were working fine, both the phonelines and We-
TV
’s closed circuit were out. Which actually isn’t such a bad thing, explained Wagstaffe, since it likely means we’ll get better crowds at Cinecity. To, you know, distract people a bit. From what’s going on, I mean. And with that Wagstaffe excused himself to oversee the film’s final cut.

Around the table only halfnaked Magurk, enigmatic Noodles, incontinent (probably) Favours, Griggs, the Mayor, and her mute and crippled aide, Diamond-Wood, remained. The adjoining room had gone silent since Magurk’s last visit.

And the final order of business, said Griggs: Raven.

The Mayor sighed. And?

A trapped animal, murmured Magurk, is a dangerous animal.

What? said the Mayor. What does that even mean?

Special Professor,
please
.

So? said the Mayor. What’s the plan?

Noodles held up both index fingers.

The Imperial Master has some thoughts, said Griggs.

Oh, good old Noodles, said the Mayor. Cuddle me up to a whole forest of green.

And yet Noodles’ thoughts are his own, explained Griggs.

Oh, said the Mayor. Of course.

Noodles nodded, twice. And sat back, having said nothing. The room felt like the inside of a steadily deflating balloon.

Anything else? said Griggs.

The Mayor shifted into a stern, authoritarian pose, leaning forward — but before she could speak an alarm went squawking throughout the Temple.

Code 42! said Magurk, jumping to his feet.

Favours whipped to attention, eyes full of fire. Code 42! he cried in a phlegmy warble.

Code 42? said the Mayor.

A breach, muttered Griggs. From the main floor came thumps and shouts, a crash. Footsteps pounded back and forth. The alarm howled, the stomping thickened into rumbling, a mob of dozens, crashes and whoops.

In the corner of the room, Favours had never seemed so alert, eyes darting around the room, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. They’ve come, he chortled. Code 42, Code 42! They’ve come!

The Mayor looked from Favours to Diamond-Wood to Griggs to Magurk to Noodles, who returned her bewilderment with a curt, officious nod.

Magurk rose, knuckling up. Those fuggin animals, he sneered.

They’ve come, sung Favours. Oh my yes Code 42 they’ve come!

Who’s come, old man? demanded the Mayor.

Kicking his feet in their stirrups and cackling, Favours threw back
his head to reveal a rubbery yellow neck laced with purple veins.

For fug’s sake, growled the Mayor, what kind of loony clubhouse is this?

Application forms are upstairs, said Griggs coolly. He pressed a button on the console. The alarm died, the lights in the basement extinguished. After a moment of total darkness, a generator stirred to life somewhere within the Chambers, and the lights returned, though duller, tinting everyone beige.

The noises above weakened into a faint scuffling.

Griggs lifted the phone to his ear. His face sagged. He tapped
the console, once, twice — then hung up, sat back, and rapped his
fingers on the table.

Did they cut the line? screamed Magurk, and then he stamped off to the adjoining room yelling, Is someone here for you, you fat sack of squatter trash? Who the fug is it?

If there was a reply to this, it was drowned out by a gentle explosion from the Great Hall. The conference chamber shuddered. From upstairs came another rush of footsteps.

There must be a hundred of them, said Griggs.

Favours howled.

Who’s
them
? hollered the Mayor. Who are
they
?

A smoky odour began seeping into the basement, acrid and sharp.

Magurk reappeared drawing a sword, long and parabolic, with a slippery shink of metal. Slicing through the air, he shrieked a feral battle cry.

Oh come now, please, said Griggs. With the portal closed there’s no way anyone can get down here. Sheathe your weapon, you’re embarrassing everyone.

Griggs, said the Mayor, tell me right now: who’s attacking you?

Oh, it could be anyone, said Griggs, almost sadly. There are just so many people, he sighed, so many people it could be.

WHAT DO THEY EXPECT?
said Starx. That we’ll get out and check every site?

Maybe we should have told them we don’t even know what — Olpert checked their notes from Residents’ Control —
Gip Bode
looks like.

And what? Also tell the
HG
’s we didn’t even watch the show? Terrific idea, Bailie. Crazy Magurk’d cut our fuggin eyelids off.

Ha, said Olpert — though this time Starx didn’t seem to be joking.

They drove at a crawl through fog-soaked Lakeview Campground. Around every bend the Citywagon’s highbeams appeared
as twin dabs of yellow paint on a blank canvas, illuminating nothing,
while the wipers scrubbed lethargically back and forth, smearing the scant snowfall into wet streaks across the windscreen.

Starx steered them into a Scenic Vista at the edge of the poplars. Though the vista was of fog. Above the treetops this bled into a grey cloudcover in parts tinged bluish. Around the Citywagon the fog churned, coiling and uncoiling, a thicket of pale snakes or the fingers, thought Olpert, of many many searching hands.

Know what I think?

Okay? said Olpert.

I think this guy, Raven — know what he’s doing? He’s hanging
out somewhere right now, maybe in his hotel room, having a laugh at all of us.

You think?

Starx tapped the walkie-talkie: just a dull drone, not even static. Weird, he said.

So do we go to the Grand Saloon?

No, it’s not our job to look for him. They’ll have dozens of guys doing that. We’re supposed to find the kid, right, but how can we? I’m not a fuggin detective. Are you?

Starx put a hand over Olpert’s mouth. That was rhetorical, you scrotal pleat.

He let go. A taste of soup lingered.

Tell you what. Let’s get a cider.

Starx! We haven’t had lunch yet!

Fine, you get lunch, I’ll get a cider. Though if you don’t drink then you have to drive.

Oh, said Olpert uneasily.

The Golden Barrel it is, said Starx, firing up the ignition. On the dash dials spun into place, the Citywagon’s headlights splashed onto the fog. Starx pointed at the dashboard clock. See? It’s nine o’clock, Bailie. Perfect time for a drink.

Starx, wait, said Olpert, pointing through the windshield. Look.

Something was happening in the headlights, mist swirled into phantasmal forms.

Pictures? said Starx.

They’re moving, said Olpert.

What is it? said Starx. Can you tell?

A series of indistinguishable images played holographically out of the highbeams, skipping one to the next — a slideshow of strange shadows marbled with light, just figurative enough to suggest people maybe, or animals. The pace quickened, then the figures began to sputter into motion, invoking those halted jerky images from the advent of cinema. But quickly they sharpened, the animation smoothed, and a scene took shape
. . .

Is that? said Starx.

I think so, whispered Olpert.

And —

It can’t be!

But —

Oh god, said Starx. Oh no, oh god.

Olpert’s face had gone the colour of the fog.

No, said Starx. Bailie, no.

The two men watched, rapt. The film’s refracted light danced over the Citywagon’s hood. Neither spoke, neither blinked, neither budged a muscle. The film blazed into a final searing swath of white, and in an instant everything was gone. The highbeams left a yellow stain on the wall of fog.

What was that? said Olpert. What did we just watch? Starx?

Starx shook his head as if to dislodge something from it, slung an arm around the passengerside headrest, put the gearshift into reverse, and floored the gas. Olpert lurched forward, the seatbelt sliced into his neck, gravel shrapnelled up the sides of the Citywagon, and they went screeching out onto Lakeside Drive.

At the roundabout a Helper lowered his traffic batons and leaned in the window.

Nothing on my radio, he said. Your guys’s dead too?

Starx nodded so slightly that Olpert felt the need to pipe up: Yes, ours too.

Where you headed?

Special mission, said Olpert.

Special mission, repeated Starx, and fixed the Helper with a blazing, wild look. Going to let us through, brother? B-Squad’s got places to be!

The Helper removed himself from the car, called, Good lookin out, and waved them through the barricade, around the traffic jam up the Throughline, and out of People Park.

IN THIS MOVIE
or is it a dream the bridge has been empty, that sort of huge and booming emptiness that could never have been anything but empty, who else could be out here and where would they come from. But there it is bobbing at the horizon, a fleck, what might be just a spot in Calum’s vision or a reflection or a trick of light. From this distance it could be anything small, a mote or mite or flea, maybe not a person at all, this little blip of matter exactly at the point where the bridge narrows and vanishes. Amid all that emptiness here is this
thing
, whatever it might be, a blot or a mistake, a puncture or a speck, now visible and now not, flickering. It seems less present than projected or imagined. It is a dot, a period, the end.

Calum keeps walking and holds up his hand to gauge perspective: the shape has curled into a comma half the length of his thumbnail. Some indefinite amount of time later it has fractured into a top and bottom, a semicolon, twice as big. Calum seems to be closing the distance at a rate incommensurate with the speed he’s walking. He squints but doesn’t pause. The shape bobs on the horizon. It is moving. It is growing. It is, he realizes, approaching.