the glass man gave a single emphatic flash and turned away with his arms crossed.
‘You need I translate that, my friend?’ Victor called out.
‘I think I got that one, thanks.’ He sighed.
Victor nodded amiably and settled back into his sleepingbag. He offered Beth his bottle and she peered at it, wondering what sort of motor engines it was designed to clean.
‘Ta, but no,’ she said. ‘Victor, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but you’re not… special, are you?’
Victor frowned. He flexed a brawny, tattooed forearm. ‘Da. In Leningrad I could deadlift two hundred kilo for Soviet Olympic team,’ he offered. ‘Is pretty special, no?’
‘Yeah, well cool — two hundred, no kidding? But I mean, you’re human, right? You’re a regular bloke?’
He nodded, and relief flooded through her. It was a little guarantee of her sanity. ‘So — don’t you think this is weird? Mute, man-shaped walking glassware? I mean, haven’t you ever been tempted to tell anyone?’
Victor shrugged. ‘Tell anyone what? Is none of this real: either I am drunk or crazy. My father died in insane asylum for protest against Kruschev. Do I want follow him? Niet, I do not, so me, I make sure I am drunk all of time. Drink enough of this, you can explain to see anything.’ He raised his bottle in a toast. ‘ Za tvojo zdorov’je’. ’
‘ I’m real,’ Beth protested.
‘You, maybe, but you see this also, so you drunk or crazy, too. ’ He grinned and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Which no mean I not like you. I like you as much as I like much prettier sane girl.’
In the middle of the square, Fil spun back towards Lucien and said triumphantly, ‘Don’t forget, it was me who negotiated that treaty for you, me and Gutterglass. You owe me. If weren’t for me, these streets would all be Amber by now.’
The Blankleit Elder’s face set into a sneer, visible even through the light coming off his glass brain. He folded his arms and flashed his reply.
‘He say,’ Victor called out, ‘that deal you are talking about is oppressing to him and to his nation. Is affront to dignity of Whitelight race. Traps them in crappy little ghetto in middle of town.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Beth was incredulous. ‘A minute ago this “crappy little ghetto” was the sanctum of his purity!’
‘Apparently it can be both,’ muttered Fil. He shot her a look which said, Good point. You’re not helping. Please for the love of God shut up.
‘Ghetto is shameful to them,’ Victor announced as Lucien strobed on, ‘white lights who can trace their lineage from Holy Gaslamps themselves.’
‘ Blood-in-the-River! You’re NOT gaslamps!’ Fil shouted at Lucien. ‘There’s not a bloody one of you has got an ounce of spirit-vapour in your blood. Just ’cause you’re half a shade paler, you think you’re holy? Thames! You’re metal and glass and sparks, same as the Sodiumites…’ He tailed off, eyes wide. He knew he’d said something stupid.
Lucien pounced, his expression haughtily offended. ‘How dare you compare us to Ambers, filthy bulbstealers!’ Victor translated as he strobed furiously. ‘Of course, we all know how fond you are of them — how you fraternise with their little princess.’
‘Just ’cause you never fraternised with anything but your own right hand,’ Beth said under her breath.
Everyone froze, and then looked right at her: a dozen glowing faces, and Fil, his shocked eyes two pale islands in the filth of his face. That was when Beth realised the Lamppeople were deaf; even though Fil was shouting, they’d been reading the words off his lips. And everyone in the square could see her — and that meant they all knew what she’d just said.
Beth licked her cracked lips. Her throat was dry and she flushed with embarrassment. Lucien was looking sneeringly at her, and she felt dislike for the tedious glass bureaucrat coming off her like steam.
Lucien made some patronising hand-gestures and Victor winced as he translated the flashes for her: ‘Come on then, little fleshgirl. If you have something to say-’
The look Fil gave her could have bored through brick, but Beth would drink her own paints before she let someone talk to her like that.
She stood up and straightened her hoodie. ‘All right then,’ she muttered and marched into the middle of the square. Blankleits shied away as she passed them. ‘Don’t worry,’ she muttered, ‘I’m not gonna to get girl on you. I’m just gonna talk a bit.’
She came to stand in the centre of the courtyard. Fil was looking at her like she was a live cable. She put her hands on her hips. She had an idea of what she was going to say — it was a bit mental, but if they wouldn’t listen to him because they thought he was partisan, maybe, just maybe, they’d listen to an outsider. Even if she was just a little fleshgirl.
‘You lot can all understand me, right?’ she called out. ‘You can all read my lips?’
A paparazzi-attack of flashes responded.
‘They say da,’ Victor said unnecessarily, but taking his role seriously.
She fixed Lucien with a look. She focused on how satisfying it would be to introduce her kneecap to his glass testicles and, miraculously, her nerves subsided. She licked her dry lips and started, ‘You know, we got people like you where I come from, old men — always old — you see ’em on the telly, all they ever do is shout about the “good old days” and how grand they used to be, and how they got screwed over, and now they reckon that means they’re owed.’
She smiled humourlessly. ‘But not one of them bickering, whining old bastards ever made a difference to the world.’
She started walking into the Blankleit crowd and they parted, making way for her, until, once in their midst, she deliberately turned her back on Lucien, blinding him to her lips, cutting him out. It was about as blatant a gesture of disrespect she could think of on the fly. The glass men had stopped fidgeting now, and every glowing eye was fixed on her.
‘The one we’re fighting controls them.’ She pointed to the horizon and the cranes. ‘And he doesn’t give a crap what you think you’re entitled to. Reach is clearing the city, tearing it up block by block. You think your pure sanctum, your crappy ghetto or whatever you want to call it — you think it can survive the Demolition God? You think you’ll hold out any better than your yellow cousins?’
It was deliberate provocation. The Blankleits stirred angrily at the word ‘cousins’ and one or two of them flashed something, but Victor shouted angrily, ‘ Niet! Not for lady!’ and the strobing died away.
Beth stared them down, and she could sense their shock in that. She knew she still had their attention. ‘You’re proud of your history, I get that,’ she said, ‘but Reach won’t care who your ancestors are, who you used to be. He’s going to kill who you are now. And he won’t hesitate. So if you want a future, boys,’ she said quietly, ‘you’ve gotta let go of the past.’
That was it, her pitch. She fell silent, her heart pounding. The bright glow of the Lampmen felt a lot more threatening now it was spilling over her.
Fil stole up to her side. ‘That was incredibly stupid,’ he murmured, ‘but incredible.’
She blushed.
‘The way you talk about Reach-’
‘He scares the crap out of me…’
‘He does? Thank the River! I was starting to think you were too daft to be scared of anything.’
Lucien was stalking around in circles, all lit up and waving his arms frantically. He looked like he was signalling an aeroplane in to land.
‘He say you full of something I not translate for nice lady,’ Victor called.
Beth swallowed hard, but one of the other Blankleits, a short man with a softly glowing belly, had pulled out of the crowd. After a shamefaced look back at the infuriated Elder he walked hesitantly towards Beth. When he reached her he semaphored, and even Victor sounded surprised as he translated, ‘He will follow. He says he will fight.’
Beth gasped and her heart felt like a balloon, inflated to dangerous levels with euphoria. A sudden raw awareness hit her: everyone was watching her. They were still looking at her as an outsider, but no longer as an interloper. God, she thought dazedly, they know what I’m saying is right.
Under their bravado, their denial, the Blankleits were deeply afraid. What had Fil said? The stronger Reach got, the scareder people became…
