Nick Harkaway - The Gone-Away World

I am acquiring a profound dislike of falling. Even in the arms of Elisabeth Soames, with her sweat still on my skin; even with the shriek of the little winch paying out a line; even knowing that we will never hit the ground, that everything is taken care of, I hate the lurch in my stomach and the wicked clawing of the air. Air should be a soft thing, a coddling thing, a breeze which wakes you in the morning, ruffles your hair and wafts the scent of summer in your face. It should bring tea. It should not rip like an angry dog at your clothes and graze your face with abrasive claws. We fall. Just enough time for a chat with my invisible life coach.

So, Bumhole, how are we in our little self ?

Bit busy, Ronnie.

So one observes. Pneumatic bit of crumpet too.

Please never, ever say that again.

Are we in any danger of finding out the Why behind all this, Bumhole? Because those of us in the gallery are developing a profound desire to break some heads.

I tried that. He’s too strong.

Might be too strong for you, Bumhole. Might or might not be too strong for me. However, that’s not the point, is it? You aren’t supposed to be stronger. You’re supposed to be cleverer. Old Wu’s gong fu is beloved of smartarses the world over. Use your noggin.

How?

My thinking? Shoot the fucker in his Iron Brain. Absolutely guaranteed to mess up his day. But then, I’m a practical sort.

Would that count?

Well, Bumhole, he’d be dead, wouldn’t he? And you’d be alive. Which is definitely a species of victory, especially if you are directly responsible for the variance.

I think . . . I think that’s not what Master Wu would do.

Ah. Now, there, Bumhole, you have me. Predicting the old fart was a game we used to play endlessly and without success. If you can do that, you’ll have passed me by. Now, may I suggest, relax your legs, stiffen your core muscles and place your tray-tables in the upright position for landing. And move your head so you don’t hit that limber bit of totty in her elegantly formed nose. You have arrived at your destination.

Bye, Ronnie.

The winch slows us, and we touch down almost without a sound. Elisabeth Soames is pleased: she has estimated the distance and the weight to a fine margin. Geek fu is strong in this one. She looks at me curiously.

“Were you talking to yourself back there?”

“Taking advice from an old friend.”

She smiles.

“I do that. I talk to Master Wu and my mother and . . .” She hesitates. “Well, you, actually, now that I think about it. Or mostly you. Hm.” She frowns, then brushes this little oddness away like a cobweb. “Come on.” She slips away, soft-footed and sure. She has done this before.

Elisabeth leads the way to a curious dome or pagoda, and next to it a very ordinary door set into an equally ordinary concrete box. A rooftop door. It is padlocked. Elisabeth Soames taps the hinge sharply, and the pin falls out into her hand. She lifts the door against the catch. It opens just enough for us to slip through. She slips it back and pockets the hinge pin. I wipe away the water in my eyes and look around.

We are on a gantry, a floating walkway. There is a network of them, metal grilles suspended above insulation, fibrous tiles, cables and hoses. There’s even an emergency mini-Pipe system. This is the gut of the building, the gasworksish bit which doesn’t mesh with the idea that everything just happens, smoothly, at will and on demand. All this is hidden so as to convey perfection without achieving it. The gantries are here to allow access when imperfection becomes too obvious to ignore. Elisabeth sets off at a swift, smooth pace. We follow the gantry for thirty metres, then it curves away left and we go right and over to a bright spot, where light filters up from the room below. More gantries converge here. If you mapped them, this place would be a node, a multiple crossroads where weary plumbers meet tilers and gaffers, drink stale tea from vacuum flasks and exchange sandwich quarters and oilyrag gossip. I look around. Yes. At the juncture of our gantry and the next there is a smooth spot, worn shiny by years of arses settling, wrapping legs around the stanchions—and there, underneath the railing, someone has scratched an obscene graffito, a ludicrously long male sexual organ chasing a pair of rudimentary breasts. It looks to have been done with a screwdriver, too big for the task. There are scratches where the artist lost traction and the tool skidded away, taking a narrow slice of plastic paint and ruining the integrity of the image. Below us there is a single piece of grillework. A vent.

Elisabeth lies on her stomach and slips her fingers slowly through the holes in the vent. She breathes in, heaves and makes a noise like “uhh-hhhhp,” very soft. The vent comes away in her hands. So now, technically, it’s an aperture: a hatchway. Elisabeth mouths: Down here. She doesn’t tell me to be careful. She knows me.

She braces against the gantry, and lowers me through the hatch.

I AM standing in a lounge sort of thing, with sofas. The lights are on. My remaining Royce Allen jacket drops beside me. I look up. Elisabeth smiles slightly, encouraging, as if I’m taking baby steps. She points to herself (Do I imagine that she is very specific about pointing to the left side of her chest, where the heart is? Or is that just because she’s twisted around to hang out over the hole and see me?) and mouths: I’ll be watching.

She hoists herself up and out of the way, so I can’t see her face any more, just her shoes. She wiggles a leg at me: Get going, or perhaps Move it, you sexy beast! which would be very gratifying. In either case, I obey. I remove the ninja hood. It’s all very well being invisible, but it also takes away your hearing and makes you just a little bit less sensitive to noises and feelings. I put on the jacket. Now I’m not a scary ninja guy. I’m just a bloke in the office on an all-nighter. I hope.

I bend, touch my front teeth to the door handle. (Vibration in a corridor means footsteps; faint vibration is most easily felt with your teeth against metal; closest metal to reach with your mouth is a door handle; ludicrous but effective. Don’t believe me? Try it.)

My incisors have nothing to report. I listen, just in case. Silence. I open the door and step through into the corridor. Above me I hear a soft sound of cloth on metal. Elisabeth is following.

It’s dark, but not completely. Exit lights glimmer every five doors. I’m about midway along a windowless corridor. The way to my right is slightly lighter. Someone home, perhaps. I head in that direction, softly softly. I walk the way Gonzo used to on patrol, not on tiptoe, but putting the front outer side of the foot down, rolling back onto the heel. It’s almost as fast as ordinary walking, but quiet. My ribs complain. Of course they do. Ribs are whiners. I tell them so. There’s a noise now, a cranky, creaky noise, small rubber wheels. Mr. Crabtree, right on time, regular as . . . (don’t say “clockwork,” not here, not now: to name the Devil is to call him . . . Humbert Pestle. Shhh! Humbert! Pestle! . . . I go back to my simile) regular as a German train. If Crabtree sees me, he may sound the alarm. On the other hand, Robert Crabtree is a very specific sort of person. His job is not security, it is paper. He may reason that if I am here, I must be meant to be here. He may show me wonders. Risk and reward.

Follow the paper. Not Ronnie’s voice. Not anyone’s but mine.

All right. I stand and wait. Mr. Crabtree slouches into view. He stops. He looks at me.

“Unh,” says Mr. Crabtree.

He looks down.

“You’re in the way,” he says irritably. I should know better. I am halfway to being a paper man myself. I have walked the paper path with him already today. I hasten to make space for the cart. He rolls past. I follow.