“Get ‘em off, Big Stak. We want some fun,” Buttons said.
The spear of terror that lanced across Lawrence’s chest transformed into a blind rage. His knee pistoned up under Buttons’ mini skirt with enough force to lift him off his feet. The moon-head screamed and buckled around his groin, writhing and whimpering. The other two jumped him, their sheer weight forcing him down to the cobbles. Lawrence spun around and around under them, foiling their grasping hands. He felt a nose smack flat under the heel of his hand. Whoever it was, they fell away on their back and lost interest entirely. A kick in the kidney knocked his guts up his throat. The last of the bastards was on his feet and the next kick got Lawrence over the heart. He lunged, arms curled over his head in a classic Jiu-Jitsu strike, got the man’s chest in a clamp and with the momentum of a rugby tackle bowled him over on his back. From the blasts of bad breath and sheer bulk it could only be Tricky Fingers, winded by Lawrence’s attack. Lawrence followed up a hand-strike that spun Tricky Fingers’ head and banged it off the cobbles. A head-butt delivered the coup de grâce.
Lawrence struggled to his feet, leaving Tricky Fingers on the deck groaning and bubbling blood through mashed lips. The butt had impacted a couple of inches too low, hitting teeth rather the nose. Lawrence waited. The three stayed down, grinding their teeth in private worlds of pain.
“I’ll kill you if you try that again, Tricky Fingers.”
This was not an idle threat. Lawrence had a sharpened knife out in the plantation, retrievable at night through a sequence of counted paces. He hacked Tricky Fingers twice in the body. He would have kicked him to death but for being so exhausted from drinking, puking and fighting. When he pushed back into the heat and noise of the Dining Hall, it was obvious he had been in a fight from the blood trickling down around his nose from a cut forehead. A few glanced twice, most ignored him. Fights were ten-a-penny.
“You Okay?”
It was Spiderman, his genuine air of alarm refreshing Lawrence.
“I got jumped outside. Tricky Fingers, Gnasher and Buttons.”
“What happened?”
“I beat them up.”
“I knew those pricks would try something sooner or later. I’ll get Mirror-Face. He simply despises the gamers, though he has to keep quiet about it, seeing as they run things. We three are going to stick together.”
They found Mirror-Face out cold under a table towards the back of the Dining Hall. Spiderman badgered him until he came around. It was bed time. They would all go up together. As the two of them carried Mirror-Face across the Yard between them, Lawrence sensed the Value System was thickening around him to form the matrix of comradeship and hatred that eventually crystallized over every value and fixed them in its lattice until they died.
Chapter 10
The pitiless bells of the seven o’clock alarm cut inside drink-sodden minds. Groans and belches, zomboid forms crawled from bunks towards the revitalisation of head dunked in searing frigid water for half a minute. The gamers drifted about like ghosts, lipstick smeared up their cheeks, tights hanging in tatters.
Lawrence got back from the toilets with cold water still draining off his face, ready to fight. There were no takers. Buttons was flat out in his bunk with little Pig Tit on his chest. Gnasher was bowed over, head in his hands. Tricky Fingers was on his feet, naked, apart from orange tights hanging in ribbons from his sturdy legs. He swayed, squinting through barely open eyes at Lawrence whilst rubbing the two fat bloody slugs that formed his mouth. His tag must have got yanked in the fight, as there was dried blood on his neck.
“You must have had a hell of a bang last night, Gang Leader,” Lawrence said. He strolled out laughing.
*
Parade followed at half past seven. Value had to be free of makeup and dressed in their overalls and working boots. At eight, an especially good breakfast was served, with bacon, pigeons’ eggs, French fries, rye bread and unlimited dandelion tea. At nine o’clock the population formed in a long crocodile behind SMS London, who led a two-mile run to the watering lake and back at a surprisingly tough pace considering what a bulky, unlikely runner he made. Then he posted teams for the Sunday football league, which was played on an expanse of grassland beyond the Factory. There were sixty-four half-sized pitches on an eight by eight square, marked out with knee-high wicker fences. Refereeing, keeping scores, breaking up fights, all were dealt with by the gang leaders. The ultramarines goofed off to their compound for the rest of the day.
Lawrence found himself in a team of strangers. He played until lunch time and then said he was going to switch to Spiderman’s team and would send a player back to balance things out. After lunch, he left the Dining Hall early and ambled around in the Yard. He paused and took a quick look about. There were a couple of groups chatting on the far side of the Yard, which paid no attention as he slid along the wall and out through the archway that led to the Tidal Basin, where the barges docked.
He scanned the roof of the Square, trying to spot any lookouts before they spotted him. The Square itself was windowless to the outside, to simplify black-out arrangements. There were no obvious lookout posts on the roof. He doubted the ultras posted anybody, it was not their style to suffer tedious duties like watch-keeping, or even basic precautions like locking the Yard at night. They had the marsh and its savages
