Jeff Noon - Pixel Juice

'I'm doing that already.'

'Good. Now leave me, please.'

He pushed Lucy towards me, his face suddenly hardened into a frown. 'I'll get you strapped up again,' I said. But Lucy was in the way, and I was walking around her when a sudden choking noise frightened me into stillness. It was Parker. Right in front of me, he had stuck the plastic spoon down his throat. He was jamming it, again and again, deeper and deeper into his mouth. For a good few seconds I couldn't move; the look in his eyes, the sheer pleasure of submission that played there, it rooted me to the spot. Coming out of the freeze, I simultaneously called for the guard, pushed Lucy aside, and rushed over to the bed. With one hand on his face, and the other forcing his mouth open, I tried to make him breathe, to breathe, to breathe again. His right hand had squeezed around my throat. Where the fuck was that guard? Behind me, somewhere behind me, and far, far away, Lucy was screaming.

I got home at eleven, dead beat and frazzled . Lucy was with me. She was showing all the tagging skills of a jetgirl. I shoved her down on the sofa. 'You sleep there,' I said. 'Don't think I'm giving up my bed for you.'

'I don't want to sleep,' she answered. 'It's the daytime. Will Parker be all right?'

'What's all right? We're keeping him alive against his wishes. Is that all right?'

'Maybe we should let him… you know?'

'Don't even think that, right? I mean it, girl.'

I took off my gun and mask, and it seemed like I was taking off my skin, so long had I worn them.

'OK,' said the girl. 'This is a nice place. Wow, you've got a TV.' She said it like she'd never seen one before.

'It's off limits,' I told her. 'And I've got the password.'

'Sure. You live here alone?'

'Yes.'

'No husband?'

'I'm going to bed.'

'No boyfriend? Girlfriend?'

'Bye.'

I carried the mask and gun into my bedroom, stripped naked, fell slowly, blissfully into bed. I don't know what I dreamed of. It had been a long, bad night and morning, and I wish I could leave it at that, the night and the black sleep and the end of the story.

Some things you just can't wish for.

I woke up feeling worse than when I'd gone to sleep. I don't know what time it was. I had to shift through several layers of reality until I got the noise fixed in my head, the sound of a television far off in the distance. At first I thought I was fighting some killer ad along the shining pavilions of a golden arcade, Parker at my side; then I was thinking it was all a dream, and how glad I was at that realization; then I heard the sound of my spoiler gun firing in a long continuous burst of static, and I was back in the arcade once again, but only for a second as I caught the last thread of reality. The noise was coming from the living room, chased by a terrible howling.

The blind sight of my mask was staring at me from where I'd left it hooked to the wall, but the gun was gone. That stupid girl…

I burst the door open, naked.

That stupid fucking girl was just sitting there, right in front of the TV. She had the gun in her hands, and was still firing it at the screen. The howl had gone from her now, replaced by a whimpering cry. I don't know how she broke the password on the set; that girl always was a mystery. And still she fired. Fired and fired at the golden stairway that travelled ever upwards, unrolling on the screen like an escalator to the sky.

Just kept on unrolling, right through everything the girl could hope to spoil it with.

Yeah. I saw it. I was naked, straight from bed. And the mask was still hanging from the hook in the bedroom.

'Don't look! Don't look at it!'

Those were the last words I heard, and they seemed to freeze on the air like drops of ice. Everything froze. Everything froze for me.

'I'm sorry,' said Lucy. 'I tried to…' 'What?'

'Come back to me, please!'

Moving through slow ice that melted, I came alive with my eyes tight on the screen, where a dancing elephant played gaily. There was no sign of the stairway. Everything seemed normal, perfectly normal. Me, a young girl, a television set. Almost a family. There were no feelings inside me, nothing I could touch.

'Oh God, I'm sorry.'

That's fine.'

'I was trying to kill it.'

'I said it's fine.'

I realized that I was naked in front of the kid. Walking slowly back into my room, all I could think about was getting dressed. I even put on the mask, I don't know why. I put it on first, as though it could still protect me. I went back into the living room, took the gun from Lucy's clutched hands, just as my bleeper went off.

'Muldoon, that you?'

'Yes.'

'You heard?'

It was Gumball, and I could hear his voice clearly, no sticky chewing sounds. I knew it was bad then. 'It's Parker?'

'Yeah. He found a way. You'll want the details, right?'

'No. No details.'

'Right. Look… erm… shit, I'm no good at this stuff. I'm sorry. Oh shit. Look, they got a partial trace on the killer trans, it's coming from the Ancoats area. We're doing a house-to-house. You up for it?'

'No. I'm going to the arcade.'

'The arcade? You're not on tonight. Are you all right, Muldoon?'

'Fine. I'm fine. Goodbye.'

I broke the connection, just ripped the bleeper off my belt, wires dangling. Lucy was looking at me scared, as I took up the spoiler gun, reversed it, and with the reinforced butt smashed in the TV's screen, killing that stupid poor innocent elephant dead. 'Come on,' I said, grabbing the girl by a skinny little forearm.

'But where?'

'Shut up.'

I wasn't sure when it would kick in, the suicide impulse. Some cases had taken at least a week for the urge to strike, others felt it in seconds. So time was everything, making me drive like a madwoman, swerving the jeep, a crazy snake through the traffic. I wasn't even sure why I was going to the arcade, but it was my natural hunting ground, after all. I had this intense feeling that I was needed there.

'I thought we were going to the commcop station,' said Lucy.

'Not yet.'

'But miss, what if you…?' She couldn't finish the sentence.

This is between you and me, kid,' I said to her. 'You understand?'

'It's a secret?'

'Yeah. A secret.'

'OK.'

I looked at the girl; she was small and slight, making herself even smaller by pressing back into the seat. Her eyes were blank, fixed on the badly lit road ahead, the arcade that loomed suddenly over us now, all twelve storeys of it almost bending down to receive me.

I drove into the service entrance, through to the underground park. Another commcop car was there, and Gumball was leaning against it. He called out my name, but I just swerved away from him, heading for the up-chute. I could hear his starter engine growl and echo in the hollow space, the screech of tyres.

First storey. Second. Now he'd turned his siren on, as though I should care any more. Third storey, fourth, fifth. I was burning the curves of the building. Six, seven, and Lucy was screaming at me to slow down, to stop, to just please stop now please. I couldn't. The storeys were unfolding, upwards, upwards. Eight, nine, ten. I think I lost Gumball around there. I lost everybody. There was just me and the girl and the stairway leading me on. I had to get to the top. If I could only get to the top, I'd be OK then. Something good was waiting for me there. Eleven, twelve. I jammed the car against a barrier, smashing the bonnet flat. Electrical sparks rose from the engine and the girl was crying now as I bundled her from the vehicle.

'Please! Don't-'

I didn't have anything to say in reply. Grabbing her by both wrists, I dragged her to the metal door that led to the roof. With a kick I released the locking bar, banged it open, pulled the girl through behind me.