Un Lun Dun (38 page)

77

Fruit

Deeba had forgotten she was carrying the UnGun. She didn’t realize she was pointing it at the smoglodytes, or that she pulled the trigger.

There was an almighty
BANG!
and an explosion of smoke.

Deeba went flying backwards, sailing over the table, still holding the pistol, her hand stinging and her ears ringing, as something shot from the barrel of the UnGun with a little stab of flame.

Instantly, there was rumbling. The buildings shook.

A plant roared up from below the pavement, splintering the concrete and sending it flying.

Others leapt out of nothing beside it and beyond it, in a thicket and then a copse and suddenly in rows, clambering the sides of buildings and bollards and corkscrewing around lamps.

Deeba stared, her mouth open. In less than a second, the street ran with roots and stems moving so fast they looked like molten wax, setting in exaggerated gnarls. Trees hauled themselves vigorously out of nothing, shook off dust and debris, and were suddenly tall and thick and very there, filling the street and square. Fruit hung from them.

The UnLondoners who moments before had been running for their lives stood still, staring in shock. Deeba got to her feet and stared at the UnGun. She stumbled towards the vines.

“Deeba!” said Jones. “Careful!”

“It’s alright,” she said. “Look.”

The vines had twisted themselves into position and grown in an instant around the smoglodytes.

Wrapped around with coils of stems so thickly they were almost mummified, the smoglodytes were immobilized. There must have been more than a hundred of them, frozen in the positions they had taken when Deeba fired.

She saw the squid-goat thing. It eyed her as she approached. She was sure it was straining against its bonds, but it could do no more than make the grapes hanging from its chin tremble.

Behind it, where the smoglodytes were closer to each other, the vines had grown together, connecting overhead from creature to trapped creature. They grew into fantastic shapes, stretching over the monsters. Their leaves and fruit shook as the smoglodytes struggled, but that was all.

Deeba boldly entered the new green-lined walkways.

“Deeba!” shouted Obaday, but she walked for a little distance between trapped smoglodytes, which watched her from beneath leaves. She plucked a bunch of grapes hanging from the horn of a thing staring at her with rage.

“It looks as if it’s been an arbor for years,” said the book in wonder, from under Obaday’s arm. “Whole new meaning to the word
grapeshot…
”

Eddying around them, the Smog seemed confused and panicked. It thrust out smoke stalks like snails’ eyes, swept down out of the air, and examined the vines that trapped its inhabitants. It coiled into a column and raced around the gathered UnLondoners, stopping in front of Deeba.

Deeba could tell it was hesitating. Slowly and ostentatiously, she raised the UnGun and aimed at it.

The Smog coalesced, poured out of sight down into a backstreet, and was gone.

“Oh, my, lord,” whispered Hemi. Skool pointed at Deeba, at the Smog, at her again.

“You
scared it off
!” said Obaday Fing.

Deeba looked at the UnGun. There was still smoke rising from its barrel. Deeba sniffed it. It smelt of grapes.

Tentatively, UnLondoners explored the new groves.

“I’d stay out of them,” Jones called. “You don’t know how long until the vines disappear.”

“They look pretty solid to me,” Deeba said. “And if they do disappear, I’ll bet the smoglodytes won’t hang around. Not without the Smog.”

Curious people in nightclothes were approaching. “Is that…?” they said, and, “Are you…?” Deeba ignored them.

“It still won’t open?” she said as Jones fiddled with the UnGun. He shook his head and handed it back to her.

“Are you sure you can’t remember what went in?” he said. “In what order? Remember, it turns counterclockwise.”

“Not really,” Deeba said. “I think it’s my hair in the next one. Unless it’s the salt…I thought it was sugar, you see…There was some other stuff, too…”

Jones smiled and shook his head.

“Well, if we’d known,” he said, “we might have tried to plan it. But I don’t know if we could’ve done, or if it’d make much difference. We know the Smog
is
scared of that thing, and no wonder…”

“You should use it,” Deeba said suddenly, and held it out to him. He flung himself to the floor.

“Don’t point it like that!” he shouted. “Is the safety catch on?”

Deeba held it awkwardly, twisting the little lever he indicated. Jones rose.

“You know how to use it,” she said. “My hand still hurts. I don’t know what to do with it. You take it.”

“I do not know how to use it. I’m a close-quarters fighter. I’ll twang a bow if I have to, but that’s all. I’m no gunslinger. Each time you fire it—if you have to fire it again—it’ll hurt less. This is
your
UnGun, Deeba. There’s no way I’m taking it from you.”

“Listen to you!” She stamped her foot. “You’re acting like I’m the Shwazzy. I’m not. It’s just a gun, and you should use it.”

“The thing is…” Hemi said hesitantly. Deeba saw that he and the others were standing behind her.

“Skool,” Deeba said. “You know how to fight.” She held the UnGun to him, handle-first. Skool raised a glove and wagged a finger
no.

“The thing is,” Hemi said, “we all sort of think you’ll do best with it.”

Deeba looked helplessly at the pistol. From the growing crowd of onlookers, she heard a few whispered phrases.

“…scared off the Smog…” she heard, and “…Shwazzy…”

“No,” she said immediately, and turned to them. She tucked the UnGun into her belt. “I’m
not
the Shwazzy. I’m completely unchosen.”

“There’s no way this’ll stay quiet,” the book said.

“I know,” said Deeba. “We have to go
now,
even though it’s the middle of the night.” In fact, she didn’t feel nearly as tired as she had.

“You’re right,” said Jones. “We need to start traveling covertly. We couldn’t take the bus now…even if any of us could drive it…” He looked up, stricken, at the vehicle bobbing overhead.

They kept their voices down as curious locals came closer.

“Where to now?” Hemi said.

“We’ve got the UnGun…time to move on the Smog,” said Deeba.

There was sudden quiet. The travelers looked at each other.

“Just…like that?” said Hemi.

“Just like that,” Deeba said. “That smoggler’s going to find its way to the rest of itself. It won’t be more than a day or two before the whole Smog knows. And it’s going to figure out that we’re coming for it. And that might make it move.

“Do you remember what it was saying, Hemi? When it had us? It’s been trying to gather strength. That’s what it’s been waiting for, but I don’t think it’s going to wait anymore. And neither are we.”

She looked at her companions.

“Look,” she said. “I
have
to go. It wants me dead. It’s hunting me. You…” She hesitated. “You don’t have to come…” Her voice petered out.

Jones looked calm; Obaday scared; Hemi excited and scared. It was harder to tell how Skool, Cauldron, and Bling felt, but all of them, she was suddenly sure, were determined. Even Curdle circled like a dog that’d seen a cat.

“I think I speak for all of us,” said Hemi, “when I say do shut up with that.”

Deeba smiled with relief and delight. She was proud of them, and of herself.

“Anyway you still owe me money,” Hemi added.

“Alright then,” she said. “Let’s go. Back to Unstible’s factory. Hands up, Smog.”

“Bishops,” Deeba said. “Can we ask a favor?”

“Of course, dear girl,” said Bon.

“Anything,” said Bastor.

“We need to make sure we’re not followed. And also…When people hear about this, they’re going to ask questions. Businesspeople with plans—the Concern. And…the Propheseers. And I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell them nothing.”

Deeba was anxious. The Propheseers were the most powerful body of magicians and scholars in the abcity, with reputations built on generations of study and protection. But neither of the bishops acted even slightly surprised.

“Absolutely,” said Bon, making a little locking motion by his lips with the featherkey.

“Don’t look so shocked, my dear,” said Bastor.

“Anyone who can outsmart the Black Windows is damn clever. But anyone who fights off the Smog is…well…”

“A friend of ours.”

“No questions asked.”

Deeba nodded, weak with gratitude.

“There’s one more thing,” she said. “Maybe this is the first time the Smog’s not got a neighborhood it wanted. People are going to be excited. Tell them to enjoy the grapes.” She grinned. “But if the Smog comes back…people
shouldn’t use their unbrellas.
They should find other ways.

“I know they won’t want to give them up, ’cause they work and all that. Really though, it’ll be safer. They can’t trust those things, or their boss. People round here know you two. It’ll be hard to persuade them, but the more you do, the better. I promise.”

There was a long pause.

“Funnily enough—” said Bon.

“—we believe you,” said Bastor.

“We’ll see what we can do.”

78

Night Eyes

Deeba and her companions traveled through strange quarters in the orange illumination of streetlights and the glow of the fat loon.

They took backstreets, climbing over walls, and through holes in fences, and empty houses. They stayed out of sight, avoiding the few night-walking UnLondoners. To Deeba’s frustration, they had to pause periodically, to let Skool catch up, heavy boots swinging with impressive quiet, but that was made up for by the times Skool pushed away some ridiculously heavy thing blocking their path. Once Jones led Deeba through what she thought for a moment were tree trunks, then realized were enormous skinny legs that supported houses, jostling each other gently.

“Come on!” whispered Jones. “Before any of them sit down.”

When the first loop of the UnSun appeared over the horizon like a sea serpent’s hump, Deeba had to admit even she needed to stop, and they found a building full of nothing but door lintels, and slept.

When they emerged that evening, the loon was a perfect circle.

“Look at it,” said Hemi.

“Let’s not go,” said Obaday.

“Are you mad?” said Deeba. “Come on!”

“We’ve no choice, Fing,” said Jones. “We’ll just be careful. Shouldn’t really travel when the loon’s full,” he explained to Deeba.

“Why not?”

“Things come out.”

They passed a moil building made entirely of vinyl records. There was a glass tank the size of a house, full of earth tunneled by rodents. At the top of a steep rise they looked over the abcity, which was speckled with glimmering colors. Deeba could see for miles, to the lights of the November Tree and the UnLondon-I, the high towers of Manifest Station.

Here and there, miles apart, the night was broken with the lights of houses on fire.

“The Smog,” said Jones.

“You reckon the Smog’s setting all of them?” Deeba said. “Some are them aren’t even near smogmires.”

“Could be the Concern,” said Jones. “Smog’s allies.”

“It’s growing itself,” Deeba said. “Setting fires to suck up smoke. It’s trying to get stronger, ’cause it knows it’s time for war.”

Even where the conflagrations were extinguished, the remains poured off black smoke for a long time.

“They have to put them out,” Deeb said, “but then they feed the Smog.”

Something flitted above them. They tensed, but the sky was clear. The sound came again.

“What is that?” said the book. Jones drew his copper club.

“I don’t see any Smog,” Hemi whispered. “But something’s after us.”

They ran down a narrow avenue of house-things. It was an empty zone of UnLondon, and their footsteps rang hollowly in unlit streets. The strange noises kept coming.

They bolted down a side street, hurrying Skool along between them, twisting as fast as they could into narrow, convoluted roads. Flitting, hunting presences gusted overhead. They beeped and whirred faintly behind them, but suddenly seemed to circle confusingly, and sound ahead.

Deeba turned a corner, and stopped in astonishment. Above her in the night sky, a flock of winking green lights approached. They eddied and swirled like fish.

“Back! Back!” she said to her companions, but more of the lights turned the corner behind them.

As they neared her, Deeba could see what they were. CCTV cameras, racing through the air like little planes. They surrounded the travelers, every dark lens turned towards them. Deeba heard the faint mechanical wheeze of them adjusting.

The travelers turned down a tiny alley. The cameras stared mercilessly at the little group of explorers. Especially at Deeba.

Deeba and her friends ran hard, but it was too late. The cameras had locked onto them, and couldn’t be shaken off.

“Who are they?” Deeba shouted as they ran.

“Might be Propheseers,” said Jones. He swore. They had reached an empty space between warehouses, with only one way in or out, and too open to hide in. He stared up at the sky for airships or gyrocopters.

“I don’t reckon so,” said Hemi.

There was a rumbling. The ground shook. Everyone cried out, and stumbled.

In the corner of the empty yard, the concrete vibrated and cracked, then exploded up, sending huge chunks and shards flying. Something massive and pointed burst from beneath it, whining.

It was a spinning corkscrew drill, the size of a steeple. Behind it was a big cylindrical craft, sliding out of the tunnel it had carved.

It flashed with blue lights. It rose out of the earth with a familiar
nee-naw-nee-naw
sound, and emblazoned on its side Deeba saw the symbol of the Metropolitan Police.

The burrowing thing cut off the way out. A hatch banged open. Two men stuck their heads out, wearing the distinctive domed helmets of the London police.

“Deeba Resham,” one shouted. “You’re under arrest.”