China Mieville: Jack

It's been a long time since I been in this secret political life. And there are conventions that are important.

One is, don't get personal. When I apply the pressures I need to, when I do what needs to be done, it's a job that needs doing, no matter how unpleasant. If you're fighting the sickness of society, and make no mistake that's what we do, then sometimes you have to use harsh methods, but you don't relish it, or it'll taint you. You do what has to be done.

Most of the time.

This was different.

This little fucker was mine.

It's a windowless room, of course. He was in a chair, locked in place. His arms, his legs. He was shaking so hard, I could hear the chair rattling, though it was bolted down. An iron band filled his mouth, so all he could do was whine.

I came in. I was carrying tools. I made sure he saw them: the pliers, the solder, the blades. I made him shake even more, without touching him. Tears came out of him so fast. I waited.

"Shhh," I said at last, through his noise. "Shhh. I have to tell you something."

I was shaking my head: No, hush. I felt cruelty in me. Hush, I said, hush. And when he quieted, I spoke again.

"I made sure I got to take care of you," I said. "In a minute my boss'll be coming in to help us, and he knows what we're going to do. But I wanted you to know that I made sure I got this job, because ...

well, I think you know a friend of mine."

When I said Jack's name the traitor started mewling and making all this noise again, he was so scared, so

I had to wait another minute or two, before I whispered to him, "So this... is for Jack."

The leader of my crew came in then, and another couple of lads, and we looked at each other, and we began. And it weren't pretty. And I ain't supposed to glory in that, but just this once, just this once. This was the fucker sold out Jack.

I knew it couldn't last, Jack's reign (because that's what it was). I couldn't not know it, and it made me sad. But you couldn't fight the inevitability.

I knew it couldn't last, Jack's reign (because that's what it was). I couldn't not know it, and it made me sad. But you couldn't fight the inevitability.

But I knew it would end, so I tried to steel myself. And I never went to see him, when they stretched him out in BilSantum Plaza, Remade again, his first Remaking gone, knowing he'd be dead before the wound healed. I wonder how many in that crowd were known to him. I heard that it went a bit wrong for the

Mayor, that the crowds never jeered or threw muck at the stocks. People loved Jack. Why would I want to see him like that? I know how I want to remember him.

So the snitch, the tattletale, was in my hands, and I made sure he felt it. There are techniques—you have to know ways to stop pain, and I know them, and I withheld them.

I left that fucker red and dripping. He'll never be the fucking same. For Jack, I thought. Try telling tales again. I did something to his tongue.

As I did it, as I dug my fingers in him, I kept thinking of when I met Half-a-Prayer.

People need something, you know, to escape. They do. They need something to make them feel free. It's good for us, it's necessary. The city needs it. But there comes a time when it has to end.

Jack was going too far. And there'll be others, I know that too.

I knew it was necessary. He really had gone too far. But I can't talk to my workmates about this, like I say, because I don't think they think this stuff through. They just always went on about what a bastard

Half-a-Prayer was, and how he'd get his, and blah blah. I don't think they realise that the city needs people like him, that he's good for all of us.

People have their heroes, and gods know I don't grudge them that. It ain't a surprise. They—the people

I mean—don't know how hard it is to keep a city, a state like New Crobuzon going, why some of the things that get done get done. It can be harsh. If Jack gives people a reason to keep going, they should have it. So long as it don't get out of hand, which, of course, it always does. That's why he had to be stopped. But there'll be another one, with more big shows, more grand gestures and thefts and the like.

People need that.

I'm grateful to Jack and his kin. If they weren't there, and this is what I think my mates don't understand, if they weren't there, and all them angry people in Dog Fenn and Kelltree and Smog Bend had no one to cheer on, gods know what they'd do. That would be much worse.

So here's a cheer for Jack Half-a-Prayer. As a spectator who enjoyed his shows, and a loyal and loving servant of this city, I toast him in his death as I did in his life. And I exacted a little revenge for him, even though I know it was past time for him to stop.

It was a basic Remaking. We took that little traitor's legs and put engines in their place, but I made sure to do a little extra. Reshaped a suckered filament from some fish-thing's carcasse, put it in place of his tongue. It'll fight him. Can't kill him, but his tongue'll hate him till the day he's gone. That was my present to Jack.

That's what I did at work today.

But it was me held the claw. That great, outsized mantis limb, hinging chitin blades the length of my forearm. I held it on Jack's stump while my boss made the flesh and scute run together and alloy. It was him Remade Jack, but I was part of it, and that'll always make me proud.

I was thinking about names as I knocked off today, as I walked home through this city it's my honour to protect. I know there are plenty who don't understand what has to be done sometimes, and if the name of Jack Half-a-Prayer gives them pleasure, I don't grudge them that.

Jack, the man I made. It's his name, now, whatever he was called before.

Like I say, in the short time I knew him, before I made him and after, I never called Jack by his name nor he me. We couldn't, not in this line of work. Whenever I spoke to Jack, I called him "Prisoner," and answering, he called me "Sir."