“Be merry,” Mirror-Face said.
The conversation dragged. The other men at the table were hardened drinkers from Gang 11 who ended every Saturday night crawling across their own vomit. The tables to either side were crowded with huddles of Undead Nameless Gone. Such low-caste value kept to their own groups on Saturday nights, if they came to the Dining Hall at all. Many stayed away, holding their own little gatherings in dormitories or vacant rooms to avoid the risk of getting beaten up by a gang of drunken brutes. Lawrence sipped at the stiff. Even watered down, it left a taste of burnt sulphur. He watched the band for a while. There were five of them: two on banjos, two on guitars and one on the fiddle. They played on a stage at one end of the Dining Hall, created by pushing the tables together to clear a dance floor for the gamers. Lawrence’s mood sank. The jaunty music took him back to the street dances he raved at as a teenager on the hunt for girls. Christ, how carefree and clueless he was then. What would he be doing now, had his old life continued? Cosy in Sarah-Kelly’s flat, the two of them wrapped around one another in front of the fire, maybe giggling over a joke, or just staring into space, silent, totally content with one another. Lawrence’s guts twisted in outrage that by now Sarah-Kelly must have found another man and at this very moment could be… But he had to expel such thoughts from his head, or he would go mad. He had to be dictator of his own mind.
Spiderman reached across and prodded his shoulder.
“Cheer up, Big Stak. This lot are good.”
De Stulna means The Stolen Ones in Swedish. Its members were all Swedish travelling players. One evening they were performing at a dance hall in Liverpool—within its central enclave, where they ought to have been safe. The next morning, they were arrested by ultramarines on charges of gang-rape. The ultramarines had no formal authority within the enclave, apart from such ‘formal authority’ as their pistols and arrogance gave them. A good band was a major asset to the Value System, after all.
Lawrence pulled Spiderman closer.
“I want you to escape with me,” he said.
“Are you an idiot?”
“They can’t hear us.”
The rest of the table was deep in its drinking spree. Lawrence persisted:
“With a 10% chance of success—would you be interested?”
“There’s no chance of success,” Spiderman said.
“How do you know?”
“Nobody has ever escaped from here.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Spiderman gave him a pitying look.
“You should be over that kind of thing by now, Big Stak. Even if you get through the marsh people—and you won’t—you can’t escape the ultras. They’re in every town and city, on every sovereign land, in every industrial asylum. They organise the gravel trade, the road beating, the water carrying, the wall-building, the earth-moving, the man-hauling… Where are you going to hide?”
“Ultras a hundred miles away won’t give a toss.”
“Of course they will. Catching Fog on the run is good gold.”
“You’re afraid of freedom.”
Spiderman was silent for a few minutes, while De Stulna played on his eyeballs. He eventually said: “There’s no freedom for us, Big Stak.”
Perhaps freedom became dreadful after so many years of suspended pre-death where past and present blended into one soothingly certain future.
“You told me your dad’s a judge,” Spiderman said. “That’s pretty high up. Won’t he come looking for you?”
“I ditched the whole family a decade ago. They were arseholes then, I don’t suppose they’ve changed much.”
Lawrence sighed, his mood dropped through the floor of his stomach again. How alluring the peace of death was at this moment. Every year, he had received a Christmas card from brother Donald. It usually arrived in the middle of January, addressed to “Lawrence Aldingford, employee of General Wardian glory trust”, with a multitude of stamps and notes added as it got tossed through the corporate mail system eventually to the correct hands. How easy it would have been to post a card back, just once. How late it was now.
“Do you think The Captain picks suckers for the Value System?” he asked.
“Of course he does. His population is a fine blend. The bulk are dross with obedience ingrained on their souls as a survival instinct—born slaves. Then you’ve got us lot, the top crust—we make good slave-drivers. At the very bottom are the treats, the kid-fuckers and toy-boys. The Captain pulls them in as little presents for cunts who’d otherwise make trouble. It’s an open secret the gangs scoring the highest performance get the most treats. Gang 7 were top in September, so they got that repugnant little scumbag who came in with you.”
“Zeta727.”
“You’re probably the only one who can still remember him.”
“Mark Chetley Gnevik.”
Spiderman glanced around. No one had noticed the real name spoken, amid all the shouting and the music.
“It’s up to you what risks you want to take, Big Stak. If you want my advice, don’t play with fire. There are some habits you don’t want to get into.”
Lawrence just shrugged. As if it mattered. This night, fatalism was running in his blood. For the first time since arriving in the Value System, he was ready to fall into the arms of Lady Alcohol. It was dangerous to get drunk with Tricky Fingers, Buttons and the like cruising about looking for victims. He did not really care.
“That said,” Spiderman continued, “getting back
