Pasha Malla - People Park

In Mount Mustela ?

My lady, god love her, she’s a tough bird, she goes right out front and is like, what are you doing to my store, I’m right here! There are maybe a dozen of those fuggin animals. And, sure, they stop painting. But then they just close in on her.

Oh no.

Starx stood, started pacing. I would have killed them, he said, wheeling at Olpert and brandishing one of his little fists. If I’d been there, I mean. You hear me?

What happened?

What the fug do you think happened?

I don’t —

What happened was that she came home and told me, she’s crying, and I’m — Bailie. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even describe this feeling. Not even angry . It’s something way beyond that, like having some crazy evil part of yourself open up. Your brain starts shooting off in all these directions. I’m picturing finding these people, these animals, and tearing them apart with my bare hands. Just ripping them apart. You know?

From the common the Ra- ven chant started up again.

Starx continued: This lady of mine, Bailie, she was a fuggin spitfire. Lakeview-raised, the whole bit. But after this, after they interfered with her, she’s half that person. I don’t know what to do, so I call Griggs. He tells me to bring her right away, but she wants to take a shower. She goes into the bathroom and locks the door and I’m out there screaming we have to go, she can’t do this — so what do I do? I break the door down.

Olpert thought, Interfered . What did that mean?

My logic is that we have to preserve all the evidence, so the HG’s can do what they need to, so I can’t let her shower. Right? And, Bailie, this is not a woman who anyone lets do anything. Nobody didn’t let her do anything, ever. She just did or didn’t. But now she’s barely there, she’s limp, there’s nothing in her eyes. So I pick her up and carry her outside and — Bailie, it was horrible, horrible. I’ll never forgive myself for that.

Starx stopped pacing. He stood at the pond’s edge watching the water, his back to Olpert. Telling Starx about Katie Sharpe and the frozen apple seemed a terrible mistake now, so indulgent and pointless. The big man’s whole world seemed coiled around that singled word — interfered — and when he’d spoken it everything had come unspooling: he appeared now smaller, drained, and spent.

From the common came another roar. Raven cried, Who will help me, who will help me, who among you will join me onstage and help me, here, tonight?

POP HANDED HAVOC and Tragedy a can of spraypaint each. He zipped the duffel, slung it over his shoulder, and flapped his manifesto. Restribution, he said, saluted, and crossed Knock Street at a low scuttle. While Pop stole around the side of the Temple, Tragedy pulled a radio from his jacket, held it to his face, and spoke: Griggs, it’s Pea and Dack, the squab’s in the oven. A reply came crackling back: Good lookin out. Bring him in.

KNEELING ON THE RUG by the dead TV Adine became aware of a stillness that extended beyond her apartment. A blackout, she said, aloud. She moved to the window, opened it, listened. Her neighbours were pouring onto the streets, Adine was struck by how many they seemed. Their voices were loud and curious, almost bold, and amplified as though seeking echoes. You without power too? asked someone and someone else replied, Yeah, right in the middle of the show, and Adine thought, Me too, but didn’t call down to them, just listened as the two of them decided to head together to Cinecity. Adine closed the window, sat in the nook, pulled a pillow onto her lap and stared into the goggles. As always, everything was dark. But in a blackedout world, she wondered, what if anything did being blind mean?

SWELLED TO GARGANTUAN proportions on the videoscreens was the face of the boy, pudgy and astonished, the eyes of someone woken from a dream to live that same dream.

Yes, you, my friend, said Raven, you in the red cap.

With needless help from Kellogg (a hand on his son’s rear), two Helpers lifted the boy onto the catwalk.

From the right sort of people, said Raven, the right sort of boy!

The crowd went berserk with envy and vicarious joy.

Please, now, silence, said Raven. Come, son. Yes. On the ducktape X. Your name?

Gip Poole.

Hello, Gip Poole! Now, Gip Poole, are you the right sort of boy? Do you believe?

Gip looked at his parents. Kellogg shouted, Say yes!

Yes, said Gip.

Raven snapped three times. From the white trunk flew doves, he extended his arms, three landed on the left, two on the right. His expression clouded. He motioned with his fingertips, glared at the trunk. No sixth bird appeared. Snapped three more times. Nothing. The crowd shifted uneasily, the lack of symmetry was unsettling.

With a shrug, Raven lifted his hands over his head, the doves exploded into a shower of sparks. Kellogg screamed and lunged, a Helper straightarmed him behind the barricade. But Gip seemed less frightened than delighted: all around him fire came sizzling down, and he spun happily as though basking in the year’s first snowstorm.

THE AIR IN THE cavern felt diluted, sapped. Debbie was bumped from behind. This time the touch didn’t feel sensual, but urgent. People seemed to be congregating with new purpose, someone pushed her — and the whole group heaved and she was swept up, into the tunnel, bodies pressed around her on all sides.

And now they were running.

Down they went, zagging left, a hard right — starlings wheeling in a massive flock. No one said anything. The tunnel descended, swerved, Debbie tripped but she was caught and bolstered, there was no room to fall: a mad, wordless stampede down through the dim warrens of the city.

On they went, and then the tunnel seemed to angle upward again. Debbie’s feet met stairs. She climbed, she was lifted. Ahead a shaft of light shone from some window or opening, and they reached it and burst into the night. The air felt sharp and cool. She looked around: they’d surfaced inside the gates of the Mount Mustela Necropolis.

Pushed up from underground — disinterred — here they were, a faceless horde, their numbers inestimably fading into the shadows. Everyone had gone still. The only movement came from a shirtless guy in a strange helmet, hoisting a lithe figure atop the roof of a little crypt. This person rose to her feet and swept back her hood: the girl with the handprint haircut.

Everyone pressed in close, leaving Debbie behind. The Hand moved to the edge of the crypt’s roof, a pastor facing her parish. No one said anything. The silence reminded Debbie of that dreadful empty moment between a screech of tires and the explosion of steel and glass.

The Hand spoke: Look!

She pointed east, where a brilliant gloriole floated above People Park — the stagelights fanning up from the common in a silky wash. Then she pointed west: the entire Zone was cast in darkness, lights out all the way from Whitehall to Lowell Canal. And, finally, south: in LOT the Dredge Niteclub glowed in purple strips around its rooftop, the Mews sparkled and gleamed, Mount Mustela glittered like a circuitboard.

Here it’s just darkness and damp cold, preached the Hand. There it’s all sunshine.

Voices swelled in dissent — shouts, jeers, someone barked, someone squawked.

The Hand hushed them, beckoned them closer.