Nick Harkaway - The Gone-Away World

Humbert: Idiot.

Gonzo: Release my friends and we’ll say no more about it.

Humbert: No. Look, you’re not getting this, are you? I am . . . evil! Yes! Eeee-vil! Bwah-hahaha!

Gonzo’s face at this moment is a picture. If the situation were not so dire, I would frame it. I want to nod. Yes, Gonzo. He is a monster. Yes, he has betrayed you. Yes, all of this and worse yet—everyone else saw it coming a hundred miles away. Then Humbert Pestle gestures, and they bring in Leah. She looks unharmed and not in mourning but very cross. Thus, a trick. Leah has been decoyed here. Gonzo needs you, come at once! Ma and Old Man Lubitsch left safe at home, saved up in case more leverage is needed.

If I were still inside Gonzo’s head, this tactic would work admirably. I would doubt and dither, and the moment would be lost. But Gonzo Lubitsch, in pure form, does not do stand-off. He moves straight from shock to attack, so quickly that even Pestle is surprised. Gonzo’s fists strike him, hard and fast, and they do not stop. Elbow, knee, knee, knee . . . It is a pounding, a ceaseless assault. Pestle gags. Gonzo strikes again, and again. The ninjas do not move. I don’t understand . . . I do understand. This too is part of the evening’s entertainment. They were expecting it. Leah was not brought to restrain Gonzo. She was brought to provoke him. And because, like the rest of us, she has defied the machine and must die.

Pestle’s head comes up sharply as if he has been woken from a sound sleep and only now realises that he’s being attacked. There’s blood on his face. Gonzo hits him in the nose, and it breaks, in as much as there’s anything left of it to break. Pestle shakes snot and spit, dyed red, from his mouth, and rolls the next punch off like a dog shedding a cobweb. Then he hits back. Gonzo blocks. He puts his whole body into it, hard style, turning as he does so. Wallop. They lock like that for a second, eye to eye, and then Gonzo bounces away as Pestle’s heavy hand reaches for his head. It’s his right hand, of course, so big that Humbert Pestle could actually grab Gonzo and hold him the way I’d hold an orange. Bambambam. More blows, Gonzo like a dervish, striking the upper body. Pestle grins again, smacks Gonzo in turn. Ow. Gonzo staggers back, kicks out, Pestle slips the kick, and around it goes. The ninjas watch without speaking. They’ve seen this dance before, and they’re not interested. Hard form versus hard form. Pestle is bigger and stronger. Sure, he’s old. He’s not that old.

The end comes a moment later. Gonzo and Pestle are bound up together, straining and barging. It looks much less scientific than it is. Then Gonzo breaks a bit too slowly, and Pestle yells with delight and brings his huge, clubbed hand around in a mighty arc for Gonzo’s head. Gonzo throws up his arms to ward it off, and turns into the punch to punish it.

Two sharp snaps, and Gonzo goes white. His arms are broken between the elbow and the wrist. Pestle kicks him and he sprawls away, gasping. Man down.

And then he turns to us. Me, Elisabeth, Tommy Lapland, Baptiste Vasille. A second later Vasille is wearing a row of spikes in his arms and legs. He sinks down, groaning. Tommy Lapland falls to the floor at the same moment. A thrown billy club clatters to the ground beside him. Leaving just us two.

Pestle walks towards us. The ninjas straighten a little, pay attention. We’re the main event. Killing us, in fact, is the main event. Pestle is fifteen feet away and grinning hungrily. He’s looking from me to Elisabeth as if he can’t decide where to start.

I smell something.

I feel better.

It’s ludicrous.

I’m going to die but I don’t mind because I smell something which reminds me of good times. What is that? Then Elisabeth smells it too—and her face goes absolutely still. And suddenly she grins, wide. A tiger’s grin. Humbert Pestle, stalking towards us, stops in his tracks.

Greasepaint.

The refugees behind us look a lot less grey and wan than they used to. They look almost avid. Around their eyes and lips they have traces of white make-up, and they are wearing black, in fact they are wearing black polo necks, with a few overcoats and things thrown in. Not refugees at all. Substitutes. Ringers. The Matahuxee Mime Combine. And then a figure steps from their midst, slender and sprightly.

“Hello,” says Ike Thermite. “My name is Ike Thermite.” He smiles. “And we, ” he adds, “are the School of the Voiceless Dragon.”

HUMBERT PESTLE roars something furious which sounds like “No” and charges towards us. His huge, dreadful fist thunders at my head. And Ike Thermite’s narrow fingers brush it to one side and his shoulder hits Humbert Pestle and drives him back, and all around us the Matahuxee Mime Combine are making a fighting wedge, a slender knife where each person supports and protects the next, and the ninjas are having a really bad day. The students of Wu Shenyang have a great deal of pent-up aggression, and while they don’t generally believe in that sort of thing, they are prepared to make an exception today in honour of the Clockwork Hand and most especially those who burned Master Wu alive in his own home. Of course, no one knows exactly who those people were, so they’re content to assume that the person they are presently hitting very hard was solely responsible. Elisabeth Soames dives for the steps leading up to Leah Lubitsch, and a second later it rains unwary members of the Hand. I look for Gonzo. It’s like one of those movies where a hundred bad guys attack the hero one at a time; the only danger is that he may get out of breath hitting them. I am liquid. I am steel. I hit people.

There’s a guy with a pole. He thrusts it at me. I slide past it, and he tries to use the broad side. I roll under it. He twists. I twist too. He flies past me, and now I have the pole. I glower at him. Run away, little man. I am on a job here, saving a friend. If I weren’t, we’d be pursuing that conversation in terms you would not enjoy.

He decides to fight someone else. I glance around.

Down by the door, four ninjas pursuing Zaher Bey find themselves confronted with a prune-faced bloke aged about a hundred and nine. They laugh at him. Ronnie Cheung turns on his heel and drops his trousers to expose his ugly, wrinkled arse. The ninjas freeze. It isn’t just the sheer gall of this action; Ronnie Cheung’s arse is a startling sight, and where it cleaves there are suggestions of unspeakable mysteries, hirsute awfulnesses best left unexamined. Ronnie smiles over one shoulder at the ninjas, removes his left leg from his trousers, and kicks the nearest one in the throat. Then another. The third and fourth realise their mistake and rush him. Ronnie kicks up with his other leg, wraps his trousers around the head of the smaller one, and drags him down into the path of the other. Then his bare leg scythes onto the fallen guy’s head and it breaks open. The fourth ninja tries to run away, and Ronnie punches him in the back. The ninja lies on the ground, thrashing.

I decide I can safely leave Zaher Bey with Ronnie for the time being and turn back to the fight.

Ike Thermite is going toe to toe with Humbert Pestle. Pestle is impervious; Ike is untouchable. It’s a draw. Master Wu obviously didn’t teach him any Secret Internal Alchemies either. I had this crazy hope, for a moment.

Ike hits Humbert with a combination. It’s a blinder. Pestle takes it in his stride, and Ike has to dodge fast and low. He’s in terrific shape. He can’t do this for ever. Sooner or later, something has to give.

Something does. Humbert Pestle lashes out, and Ike Thermite is slow. He absorbs the blow, flies across the room and lands in a heap. Pestle follows, smashing through the fight around him as if it were a garden hedge. One mime and one ninja are clubbed to the ground. He doesn’t care. He wants Ike. He stands over him and slowly raises his left hand up, his right on Ike’s head. In a moment he will exchange the two, palm for fist, and Ike will break open and die. Pestle’s shoulders ripple as he begins the strike.