scuttled about like headless chickens, conspiring and scheming, treating the wounded and carting-off the dead.
All through the day, Nate kept a nonchalant sort of 'watch' while I kipped, nestled up in a bed of dry leaves beneath a footbridge, on an out-of-the-way path in the park. He shuffled off once or twice to chat to the little knots of Red Gull scavs living in bivouacs in other parts of the greenery, keeping himself out of sight of any Clergy passing through, and seemed to be warming to the role of information gatherer. I like to think he saw himself as a duellist's 'Number Two', preparing for his benefactor's moment of pistol-waving tribulation… but frankly behind his open face and warming smile it was fucking impossible to work out what he was thinking, let alone what historical-romantic notions he was dreaming-up.
He mumbled a lot, just under his breath, and had started to sweat too much.
All very weird.
As I slept, I dreamed of the signal on the computer in the Vauxhall Cross building – the glowing word PANDORA, beaming bright. I dreamed of Bella impaled on her spike, shouting at me to stop being so selfish and think, dammit, about what she'd told me. I dreamed of Nate, laughing, and John-Paul Rohare Baptise, dancing through it all like a daddy-long-legs, battering himself against polished glass to reach the shining light outside.
The light was red, and sticky.
I dreamed of somebody else too, but the face I should have memorised years before had become a fuzzy collection of features in my mind, and the figure dissolved the instant I reached out to grab it.
Nate woke me at eight. He'd caught a couple of rats off the banks of the stagnant Turtle Pond and sat cooking them, not once complaining at doing all the hard work, rambling away blithely on the events of the day, apparently not troubled by whether I was listening or not.
I was.
He said the whole territory was in uproar. He said the scavs were all but hysterical at the news of what I'd got up to that morning, and it was a toss-up as to whether said hysteria was based on delight or disgust.
He said no one had ever heard of a Klanboss getting himself Tagged before. He said already the other tribes in the area – the StripLims to the east and the Globies up on the edges of Harlem – were choked with gossip and book-running. Already barter-wagers were hot business all across the Island, he said, and scavs from Klans he'd never even heard of had been showing up in the En-Tees all round the edges of the Red Gull patch, to stand about and murmur in low voices about the 'Big Tag', hoping to catch a glimpse of the action.
He said it was big news.
'You, ah…' He coughed awkwardly, and twitched. He looked unwell. 'You sure you wanna do this?'
I told him, of course I did. How the hell else was I going to get into the UN building?
'Yeah, yeah… Yeah.' He coughed again. 'Only, ah… That Cardinal asshole, Cy. He was up here 'round noon.' His voice shook.
'Did he see you?'
'You think I'd be talking to you if he did? Shit, no! Stayed well outta his way. You live in En-Why any lengtha time, you get good at making sure folks ignore your ass. Like… There was this one time I got stuck with…'
'Nate.' I interrupted the tangent before it got started, troubled by his uncomfortable manner. Even in the midst of his most enthused ramblings, he'd never seemed quite so twitchy. 'You were saying. About Cy.'
'Yeah. Sure. H-had himself a little chat to Scrim, that's all. In-depth, man. Intense.'
'Who's 'Scrim'?'
Nate looked at me like I was stupid. 'Motherfucker you tagged. Top dog.'
'Fair enough.' I poked the rat in the fire. 'Stupid name, but fair enough. So what did our friend Cy have to say for himself?'
Nate shook his head, eyes rolling weirdly. 'Pass. No way was I getting close enough to hear. But you want me take a wild stab, I'd say he's keeping an eye. Knows it's you. I mean, shit, it don't take a genius! Raggedy-assed stranger shows up at LaGuardia, goes through a pack of Choirboys like a razor. Next day you got witnesses see the same guy heading through Queens on a quad. And next day, Mister 'Nobody-Knows-Who-The-Hell-He-Is' not only gets himself balls-deep in the Red goddamn Gulls, but slaps a challenge on Big Scrim.
'You think Cy ain't gonna make the connection? C'mon! He knows. He knows it's gonna be you out there tonight.'
'But you said this shit is sacred, right? You said nobody else gets to interfere.'
'And that's the truth. But that don't stop our pal the Cardinal from helping the odds. Clergy got themselves every killing toy in the world holed-up over there.' He nodded east, towards the unseen slab of the Secretariat. His hands were shaking. 'They got every brand of… of chem with a name, and twice as many without.
'I hate to say it, most guys, running a Tag, they got less hope than a snowball in hell. But you…? Up against the Gulls? And them tooled-up by the Choir?
'Shee-it!'
I let this sink in.
'I see,' I said.
Ten o'clock. I stood and waited, tensed, beneath a canopy of spindle-fingered trees. Beside me the stagnant water sucked at the south bank of the Turtle Pond, on the fringe of what had once been 79^th street and was now a crippled lane of rubble; its tarmac long since plundered for the construction of the Gulls' shanty nest.
I'd filtered out the noise of the crowd by now, but the force of it was still there at the back of my head, nudging against my concentration. I'd spent an hour flicking through my tattered map, and a series of notes Nate had gathered from the scavs nearby; all of them covered in spidery descriptions that didn't help at all ('gud rats!' and 'watr mostly clean'). I had a vague idea where I'd go. I wasn't stupid enough to let myself believe I had a plan; that I was ready. In situations like this, there's no such thing as 'ready'. There's just people who can wing it, and people who can't.
I let the instincts take over, like shrugging on an old coat; patched and frayed and stinking, but so comfortable you can't imagine ever taking it off.
Vehicles rumbling nearby. The five Gulls glared at me, weapons bristling in every direction. Four blokes, one woman. That same crazy chick who had the sword before, but the others were just faces. Muscular, armoured-up, ready to play. All except Big Scrim. He stood out; encased in flashy sports gear and rubber body-armour, holding the Clergy's tracker-device like a novelty TV aerial in the back of an open-top jeep.
Everywhere I looked, Clergy.
Clergy guns. Clergy AVs. Cardinal Cy whispering to Scrim, his four goons cross-armed behind him, pointing and directing, throwing glances my way beneath hooded eyelids. Silent communication between us, crackling like static.
Twat.
The crowd gets noisier. Arms slap against my shoulders, people shout and laugh, something painful digs beneath the skin of my neck.
The tracer.
Stay calm.
Breathe.
Are you ready, soldier?
Sir, no sir!
Well done, son. Right answer. Now get goi A flare went up.
I ran.
Trees whipping past. Branches scraping cheeks already sliced and puffy from last night's melee. Legs pounding like pneumatics.
It's almost a joy to open-up. All cylinders. Let go. Feel the burn.
Know everything.
Cover the angles.
Their advantages: Speed, local knowledge, the tracker in my neck, more guns than a survivalist all-comers WorldCon and enough drugs to make a pharmaceutical multinational look like a primary school chemistry kit.
So. One thing at a time.
Get off the track. Confound the vehicles.
I took the verge beside the street at a vault, darted through more trees; heading for the dark blot of stone
