Vurt

If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you.
Vurt
, winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award, is a cyberpunk novel with a difference, a rollicking, dark, yet humorous examination of a future in which the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are as tenuous as the brush of a feather.

But no review can do Noon's writing justice: it's a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.

VURT.

Copyright © 1993 by Jeff Noon.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Noon, Jeff. Vurt/Jeff Noon.

p. cm. ISBN 0-312-14144-0

1. Brothers and sisters -- England -- Manchester -- Fiction.
   

2. Manchester (England) -- Fiction. 3. Virtual reality -- Fiction. [PR6064.045V871996]
   

823'.914-dc20 95-41014 CIP

First published in Great Britain by Ringpull Press Ltd First St. Martin's Griffin Edition: February 1996

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Nick -- totally feathered up, living on the dub side

A young boy puts a feather into his mouth. . .

DAY 1

"Sometimes it feels like the whole world is smeared with Vaz."

Mandy came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.

Close by was a genuine dog, flesh and blood mix; the kind you don't see much any more. A real collector's item. It was tethered to the post of a street sign. The sign read NO GO. Slumped under the sign was a robo-crusty. He had a thick headful of droidlocks and a dirty handwritten card -- "hungry n homeless, please help." Mandy, all twitching steps and head-jerks, scurried past him. The crusty raised his sad little message ever so slightly and the thin pet dog whined.

Through the van's window I saw Mandy mouth something at them; "Fuck off, crusties. Get a life." Something like that.

I was watching all this in the halo of the night lights. We stuck to the dark hours in those days. The Thing was on board and that was a major crime; possession of live drugs, a five year stretch guaranteed.

We were waiting in the van for the new girl. Beetle was up front, ladies' leather gloves pulled tight onto his fingers, smeared with Vaz. He likes to feel a little bit greased when he rides. I was in the back, perched on the left side wheel housing, Bridget on the other, sleeping. Some thin wisps of smoke were rising from her skin. The Thing-from- Outer-Space lay between us, writhing on the tartan rug. He was leaking oil and wax all

over the place, lying in a pool of his own juices.

I caught a movement in the air above the parking space.

Oh shit!

Shadowcop! Broadcasting from the store wall, working his mechanisms; flickering lights in smoke. And then the flash of orange; an inpho beam shining out from the shadowcop's eyes. It caught Mandy in its flare-path, gathering knowledge. She ducked down from the beam, banging, hard-core, on the van doors.

The dog was howling at the cop, scared by the lights.

I opened the doors a thin-girl measure. Mandy slipped through.

The dog went for the cop's legs, twin fangs closing on nothing but mist. That dog was confused!

Mandy handed me the bag.

"You got it?" I asked, dragging her inside.

A tangerine flare from outside, a burning light.

"Got some Beauties," her answer, as she stepped over the Thing, into the van. "You got the one?"

Mandy just looked at me.

Something was howling outside. I glanced back and saw the poor dog on fire, the shadowcop moving towards us, reloading.

He let loose a tight inpho, beaming onto our number-plate, which was just a series of random numbers anyway.
You won't find that in your banks.

The Vurt-U-Want doors crashed open and a young man came stumbling through, looking scared.

"It's Seb," whispered Mandy.

Two cops followed him out of the doors. Real-life versions. Fleshcops. They chased Seb over towards the wire fence that skimmed one edge of the car park. I turned around to the Beetle. "It's a bust!" I shouted. "Let's go, Bee! Out of here!"

And we were. Reversing first, away from the bollards. "Watch it!" This from Mandy, nervous as fuck, as the van jerked backwards. She was thrown to the floor, landing on the Thing-from-Outer-Space. I was clinging to the straps. Brid was rudely pitched from sleep, pupils in shock from the sudden awakening. The Thing had six tentacles wrapped around Mandy. The girl was screaming.

The van leapt up onto a pavement. I thought the Beetle was trying to dodge the beams, maybe he was, but all we felt was the sickening thud and a yowling scream as the left back wheel put the collector's item out of its misery.

The crusty was crying over his dog and pushing his fists through the shadowcop's smoke as we scorched the forecourt. The van made a wild circle, and I saw the whole thing sliding by -- the shadowcop, the crusty, the dead dog, until Beetle got it under control. Mandy was struggling with the Thing-from-Outer-Space, calling it all the names. Over the Beetle's shoulder I could see the wire fence coming up close. Seb was dropping down on the other side, down to the tramlines. The two fleshcops were struggling with the fence. Beetle turned on the headlights, catching them full-beam. He gunned the Stashmobile towards them, total, shouting out, "Awoohhh!!! Kill the cops!

Kill the cops!" The cops fell off the fence. Their faces in the headlights were a joy to be- hold; fleshcops, scared to fuck. They were running now, away from the van's bulk, but Beetle had it; he swung the wheel around like a true star, last moment, taking the Stashmobile all around the parking space, heading for the gateway. The debris of a thou- sand trips was banging and clattering all over the floor as we took a vicious U-turn onto Albany Road and then left onto Wilbraham Road. One last glimpse over the Vurt-U- Want wall and I could see the shadowcop beaming messages into the air. The robo- crusty was a pile of fused plastic and flesh. A cop siren wailed through the darkness.

"They're onto us, Bee!" I cried. "Hit the jam!"

Beetle took the brow at speed. Oh boy, were we flying! Stash Riders! Riding the feathers back to the pad. The point of impact squelched Mandy deeper into the Thing's embrace.

Mandy screaming at the Thing, "Get the fuck off me!"

Keeping firm hold of the strap, I dropped the goody bag, and reached down with the free hand, jabbing at the Thing's belly flesh, tickling him. The one weak spot. How he loved that! His laughter was dredged up from deep inside, from thousands of miles. He was writhing around and Mandy was able to slide free. "Fuck that! Jesus!" She was shaking from the fight.

Through the back windows I saw a cop car's lights flashing. Its siren was loud, piercing. The Beetle took the corner onto Alexandra Road without slowing. Brid was clinging to the straps, desperate for sleep, her skin full of shadows. The Thing-from- Outer-Space was crying out for a fix. Mandy had a tight hold of herself, and I had the goody bag back in my free hand. The Beetle had the wheel.

Everybody has to grab hold of something.

Alexandra Park was a dark jungle shimmering the right side windows. We were skirting Bottletown by now and no doubt the park was full of demons; pimps, pros, and dealers -- real, Vurt, or robo.

"Cop car's closing, Beetle!" I shouted.

"Hang on, folks," he replied, cool as ever, twisting the van into a tight right, onto Claremont Road.

"They're still with us," I told him, watching the cop lights following.

Beetle burned all the way down, over the Princess Road, into the Rusholme maze. Cops were following, but they were up against three killer factors: Beetle had lover's knowledge of these streets, all moving engine parts were greased with Vaz, Beetle was hooked on speed. We hung on tight as he took a vicious series of lefts and rights. It was a tough job, hanging on, but we didn't mind. "Do it, Bee!" cried Mandy, loving the adventure. Old-style terraces passed by, each side of us. On one of the walls someone had scrawled the words -- Das Uberdog. And underneath that -- pure is poor. Even I didn't know where we were. That's the Beetle for you. Total knowledge, fuelled by Jam and Vaz. Now he was driving us down a back alley, scraping paint off both sides of the Stashmobile. That's okay. The van could live with that A quick glance through the back windows; there go the cops, speeding on by, towards some dumbfuck nowhere.

Bye, bye, suckers! We came out of the alley, and there we were, the Moss Lane East. Beetle took another right, heading us back home.

"Slow down some, Bee," I said.

"Fuck slowness!" he replied, burning the world with his wheels.

"We're like eggs back here, Beetle," said Mandy. And the guy slowed us down, some. Well there you go; some things will slow the Beetle down; the chance of a new woman, for instance. Bridget must have had the same feeling; she was looking daggers at the new girl, smoke rising from her skin, as she tried her best to tune into the Beetle's head. I guess she wasn't getting too far.

No matter.

We were in some kind of easy travelling by now, so I picked up the goody bag, emptying the contents out on to the tartan rug. Five blue Vurt feathers floated down. I caught a few as they drifted, reading the printed labels.

"Thermo Fish!" I said. "Done it." "How was I to know?" said Mandy.

I read another. "Honey Suckers! Oh my shit! Where is it!?" "Next time, Scribble," Mandy said, "you go shopping."

"Where's English Voodoo? You promised me. I thought you had contacts?" "That's what he had."

I read the other three. "Done it. Done it. Not done it, but it sounds boring anyway." I'd let the feathers go in disgust. Now they were floating around inside the van.

Mandy's eyes were darting from feather to feather, as she spoke; "These are very beautiful."

"And the rest. . ." I said. "What's that mean?"

"No messing. The whole bit. English Voodoo. Deliver."

A blue feather had landed on the stomach of the Thing-from-Outer-Space. One of his tentacles reached out for it His spiky fingers took a hold, and a hole opened up in his flesh, a greasy orifice. He turned the feather in his feelers and then stroked it in, direct, to the hole. He started to change. I wasn't sure which feather he'd loaded, but from the way he was moving his feelers I guess he was swimming with the Thermo Fish.

I sure know that wave.

The Beetle glanced back at the noise of the waves, shouting; "He's going in alone! No one goes in alone!"

The Beetle had this obsession about doing Vurt alone. That you'd need help in there, friends in there. What he really meant was -- you need me in there.

"Cool it, Bee," I said. "Just drive." Just to spite me he put on a sudden spurt but I was holding tight to the straps. No problems.

I turned back to Mandy; "Give!" "You want?" said Mandy.

"I want. You found the Voodoo?"

We turned right onto the Wilmslow Road, as Mandy pulled a stash from the inner reaches of her denim jacket. It was a black feather. Totally illegal. "No. But I found

this. . ."

"What is it?"

"Seb called it Skull Shit You think he got away?" "Who gives a fuck! This is all you got?"

"Said it was red-hot. You don't like?" "Sure. I like. It's just not what I want." "So make do."

"Mandy!" I was losing it. "I don't think you realise. . ."

Her red hair was catching fire from each passing streetlamp; I had to pull myself away from the flames.

That new girl was getting to me.

Behind the back of Vurt-U-Want, when the time was right, so Mandy said, you could buy a bootleg remix. The mainman was Seb. The supplier, so Mandy said. He worked the legit counter, with a nice little side-sweep in black market dreams. So Mandy said. So we'd sent the new girl after English Voodoo. Girl had come back with five cheap Blues and a vicious Black. Added all together -- a thousand miles away from the Voodoo. Girl had failed.

The van took a sudden swerve and we were all thrown to the wall. The black feather slipped from Mandy's grip. The Thing made a swipe for it, but he was so wave- deep, pressed against the van side, his feelers were numb and he missed out.

I scooped the outlaw flight up into my palms. The van took another swing, no doubt dodging some dumbfuck pedheads. The Beetle was shouting through his window; "Fucking walkers! Get a car!" He was driving like an insect; not thinking, just reacting. The guy was high. Cortex Jammers. You know how a fly flies? At the top speed always, and yet dodging obstacles instantaneously?

That was how the Beetle drove. They say don't jam and drive, but we had total belief in the master. He was jammed right out of fear, and that was beautiful.