China Miéville - Un Lun Dun

She held the weapon in her right hand, the rebrella with her left. The Smog was right above her. She could feel the wind it pushed as it dropped. All of the Smog was congealed into a dark, rushing shape. It concentrated itself so densely it looked almost solid.

It growled as it came.

Nothing’s the opposite of something. If I fire something, anything, from the UnGun, it shoots it out, and exaggerates it. So if I shoot nothing…

Deeba fired.

There was an enormous implosive rush. This time, the UnGun didn’t recoil. It didn’t push her back. It pulled her forward, and she staggered to stay standing.

With a roar, the UnGun sucked. It sluiced with impossible strength into its barrel.

A huge chunk of the Smog’s cloud-matter was drawn from the sky. In the instant that Deeba pulled the trigger, a tightly twisting vortex sprang from the Smog and funneled into the UnGun.

The Smog broke off from its dive and curved away. The face it had made boiled and re-formed. It looked confused.

It was noticeably smaller than it had been a moment before.

The Smog turned like a vast rearing horse, and snarled. It stared at Deeba, and the cloud swept down again, changing shape as it came.

Deeba hefted the UnGun. It was heavier than it had been. Five chambers left, she thought. She fired again.

The sucking sound roared across the heavens again, even louder than before, like water rushing into a cosmic drain. Another great whirlpool of Smog coiled superfast out of the cloud, slurping out whole banks of its stuff, which gushed out of the air in a dense stream, into the UnGun.

The weapon clicked in Deeba’s hand, the cylinder twisted, and another empty chamber slid into place in front of the hammer. Deeba fired again, and suctioned in another swath.

With three bullet slots full, the Smog was at least half-gone. At last it understood what it was facing. It gathered itself, and in a rolling mass like a storm front, the dark, green-tinged cloud fled across the sky.

Deeba planted her feet and aimed carefully. She fired twice in quick succession. Huge clots of Smog yanked backwards like stretching dough, gushed into the pistol.

One nothing left, Deeba thought.

There was only a small, dense patch of Smog left in the air, but it was large enough to send down a murderous rain if it got away. It flitted frantically in a zigzag over UnLondon, curling around towers and behind high roofs. It was already miles away.

Steady, thought Deeba. She watched it sink towards unlit streets, to hide below roof-level. Deeba shifted her aim, pointing not at it, but at where it was heading.

As its front entered her line of sight, she fired.

One last gust swept into the UnGun. The big lump of Smog strained against the currents, but stretched and twisted, and spiraled, and was pulled in. For seconds, the night sky over UnLondon was full of a horizontal tornado, a corkscrew of poisoned smoke gushing into the UnGun. It hauled backwards over the abcity, the wind rushing through its eddying particles with a noise exactly like screaming.

Until with a long, loud gurgle the last of the Smog disappeared down the barrel, and the sky was clean.

For a long time, Deeba just stood in the rubble of the factory, swaying. She dangled the UnGun at the end of her arm, cautiously. Deeba thought she could feel the weapon twitching slightly.

She staggered to an unbroken stool and sat at the remains of a table.

“That,” said the book slowly, “was great.”

Deeba had forgotten it was there. She bent and picked it up, wiped the dust off its cover.

“Are you alright?” she said.

“Okay,” the book said. “It tore out a couple of my pages and burnt them, to scare me. Worked, too. Are you alright?”

Deeba laughed tiredly.

“I think I am,” she said.

Trailing dust, Curdle emerged from a pile of rubbish. It shuffled to Deeba’s feet. She picked it up, too, and stroked it clean.

“And you,” she said, and beckoned to the rebrella. It jumped onto her lap. They listened to the noises of celebration across UnLondon.

There was a cough and a shuffle nearby. Brokkenbroll was staring at her, from the ground. He looked as terrified of her as he had of the Smog.

“It…you…it…” he whispered.

“How long have you been awake?” Deeba said.

Sending up dust, Brokkenbroll fumbled for his unbrellas. All but one were buried under bricks, or lost.

“You stay away from me!” he whined. He scrabbled backwards, his single unbrella in his hand. He stumbled to his feet. “The Smog…!” he said. “It…you…” His mouth worked a few more seconds; then he ran across the remains of the room, leapt the rubble of the wall and out into the air.

Without any others to carry him, the unbrella lurched down a long way. It opened and closed frantically, struggling to stay airborne. Brokkenbroll clung to it, swaying, with his right hand. His clothes were ragged and flapping and left a trail of powdered brick.

As he flew slowly away, Deeba heard him wail.

She got to her feet.

“Quick,” she said, and staggered. “We should…I should…” She wasn’t sure what to say next.

“Leave it,” said the book. “He saw you with the Smog, at the end. He’s too afraid to do anything but run. We can deal with him later.”

Deeba sank back onto the stool.

“If we even need to deal with him,” she said. She patted the rebrella. “We know how to free his soldiers. Without them, he’s got nothing.

“And not,” she added, looking at the UnGun, “in the good way.”

“Deeba…?” Through the remnants of the door, staring at the wreckage, came Conductor Jones, leaning wearily on makeshift crutches.

Behind him came Bling and Cauldron, holding Hemi’s hands. And behind them, bleeding, holding his wrist gingerly, but wearing a bewildered smile, was Obaday Fing.

Deeba called their names happily. She stumbled over and hugged those who weren’t too bruised to take it.

“What,” said Hemi, looking at the devastation admiringly, “did you do ?”

“The utterlings persuaded those words to go exploring,” said Jones. “And we heard all sorts of banging and whatnot. The Hex are all tied up. We shouldn’t have left you alone.” He hobbled slowly forward. “We tried to get up here as quick as we could.”

“Look at the utterlings!” Deeba said. “They’re back.”

Bling and Cauldron weren’t quite fully solid, but they were more substantial than when she had last seen them.

“You were right,” said Jones. “It worked. Took them awhile to work out how to say themselves by signing, but they’re getting it. Bling does it by rubbing his legs together.”

“The smombies all emptied,” said Hemi. “The smoke went up. Zoomed about the sky. But…” He looked about. “You know all about that, don’t you?”

Deeba waved the UnGun vaguely.

“What?” said Jones. “Did you manage to reload?”

“Sort of,” said Deeba. “It’s a prison. It’s full of the Smog.”

They yelled and backed away, then paused as they realized there was no sign of trouble.

“What happened here?” said Jones.

Deeba paused a long time, then laughed.

“I’ll explain,” she said. “But basically…Nothing. Nothing happened.”

The sky was beginning to grow light.

“There’s lots of stuff to do,” Deeba said. “We have to find Brokkenbroll. He got away. And we have to tell everyone in UnLondon what to do with the unbrellas.” She twirled her rebrella, and it did a little midair pirouette of its own.