Pasha Malla - People Park

ONCE THE NOISES upstairs had calmed, Magurk raised his sword. Who’s got my back? He pointed the tip of the blade at Diamond-Wood. Recruit, you ready to earn your schnapps?

The aide glanced at the Mayor, who waved him away. My sword’s got a jones, screamed Magurk, blade in disembowelling position. Griggs, sighing, opened the portal from his console: no one waited there ready to pounce.

Magurk crept up the slope at a crouch, Diamond-Wood followed awkwardly on his crutches. A tense sort of hush poured down from above. The Mayor waited, listening. They’ve trashed the place, cried Magurk. My people, are you with me?

Griggs and Noodles exchanged a look.

We should probably get the radios back up, said Griggs, and Noodles nodded, and together they headed upstairs to join their brethren.

The Mayor eyed Favours in his wheelchair. Should we have a race or something?

Code 42, chuckled Favours, they’re here, at last!

From upstairs came moans of dismay, disgust, barks of rage from Magurk, the sound of the men moving room to room, surveying the damage.

So what next for your little boys’ club? said the Mayor.

His eyes widened — in anticipation , it seemed.

And the portal banged closed.

Favours squealed.

From the hallway that led to the other chambers came a whooshing, fluttering sound. Out of the darkness flew a bird. It circled the room — the Mayor ducked — and returned down the hall. From the shadows came a patter of footsteps and in the next chamber the man hollered, Lark! My liberationeers have arrived!

In a rush of black six hooded figures spilled into the conference room. Before the Mayor could cry for help, hands were upon her, a strip of ducktape was slapped across her mouth. Favours was spun around in his wheelchair, the old man clapped and hooted in delight, and then he was shuttled off into the Chambers.

The Mayor found herself wheeled past barred cells and bunkrooms, down a ramp into an unlit corridor. Favours’ whoops faded as he was swerved along another passageway. The abductors piloted her in silence, eerily purposeful, careering around a corner — a flash of light from some hatch above, they were entering a stormdrain. Things went dark again. The air warmed, infused with a mustardy, sulphurous smell. .

The floor degenerated from concrete to gravel, juddering through the cart and rattling the Mayor’s teeth, she held on for dear life. My legs, she screamed, make sure you don’t lose my legs — but beneath the gag her words sounded submerged. On they went, hairpinning into a passageway that angled up toward streetlevel.

Some light splashed weakly from the end of this tunnel: in it the Mayor tried to get a sense of who her kidnappers were. But their faces were mysteries inside their hoods. They drove her headlong up toward the watery brightness — a glimpse of the surface in some distant corner, who knew where, of her city.

THE FIGURE STRETCHES from the tips of his fingers to the heel of his palm and suddenly Calum is outside it all. He has a bird’s-eye view. From high above Calum sees himself upon the bridge and sends frantic thoughts to this person who is some version of himself to run, but the body is frozen, leaning against the railing, staring at this person, whoever it might be, barrelling over the bridge and inhaling the visible world with him.

That purple-lipped grin shadows the lower half of its brown face, the grin of some sinister and weird anticipation. Here are the eyes, dark and glittering. The baldhead sings with a dull sheen. The legs move in great strides but the upper body is motionless, almost rigid, the man less runs toward the Calum on the bridge than glides.

And this Calum is up against the railing, on this bridge from nowhere to nowhere, with even that nowhere becoming some farther and deeper sort of nowhere, and the man closing in of course must be a dream, the whole thing must be a dream. The skybound Calum watches himself look over the railing: hundreds of feet below, a swath of gauze.

The figure is big and close, hovering, and overhead Calum as a bird traces looping circles against the shrinking sky, and where will he go when there is no sky left. A vast negative halo surrounds this approaching figure. It brings nothingness into Calum’s dream — but then Calum thinks no, this is not his dream, it couldn’t be his dream. Calum has invaded someone else’s dream and now that person is coming to banish him from it.

From above Calum watches himself watching — the figure is almost upon him, moving swift and slick, no sounds of footsteps, no sounds at all, just those blazing black eyes and monstrous joyous grin, legs stabbing in front and sweeping away behind him, and this man is big, he is so big, and he is reaching for Calum with long thin brown fingers, and the fingers seem to be growing, stretching into tentacles twisted through with veins.

Things start to swirl and twist and eddy and Calum, soaring, can imagine this man’s hot breath on his own face, those fingers lace snakelike around his wrists, almost gently, and he feels his knees go weak — but then with a last desperate surge of strength Calum watches himself tear free, climb up onto the railing, and launch himself off the bridge.

But then Calum is climbing up, closing his eyes, and jumping off the bridge.

Closing his eyes, Calum climbs onto the railing and jumps.

Before the man is fully upon him, the man’s fingers are curling around his wrists and he feels the feathery touch of something else wrapping his ankles, the mouth opening from a grin to something far more sinister, he is trying to devour Calum, Calum shakes his arms free and leaps up onto the railing and propels himself off the bridge.

In silence Calum jumps off the bridge.

Eyes closed, Calum jumps, and for a moment finds himself floating.

And he is back inside his body and falling. The wind whistles into his ears and his head fills with a sort of screaming, all he can hear is screaming, his guts tumble, and down he plummets, not quite a swan-dive but flattened out, all swimming limbs, the tug of gravity, Calum’s body, the water and meat of it, falling, and it feels endless, this fall, down and down he tumbles toward the possible river below. He braces himself for the smack and icy rush, time will slow as the water catches him, then he will sink, and his crushed and ruined corpse will be buoyed back to the surface and swept away. And if this is a dream Calum will instead of dying hit the water and wake.

THAT’S HIM, said Starx. That’s the kid.

What kid — oh. Him?

That kid on the corner there. The one who spat on you.

Across the intersection of F and 10 the fog opened to reveal the Golden Barrel Taverne. From the Citywagon idling at the corner Olpert watched: onto the sidewalk stumbled a someone in a black sweatshirt, hood up. His movements were a sleepwalker’s — that sludgy, heavyfooted trudge through one’s own inner world.

Same shirt, said Starx, same slouch. Though, fug. All these people look the same to me.

Olpert squinted. The fog swirled, the figure disappeared. Are you sure that’s him? What’s he doing?

Take the wheel, said Starx, unbuckling his seatbelt. I’m going.

A lump bobbed in Olpert’s throat.

These animals, they need to pay.

Starx flew into the street like a great khaki bat, the fog closed around him. A scrabble of footsteps, muffled shouts, Olpert thought he heard his name, opened his door, reconsidered, and slid into the driver’s seat. As he edged the Citywagon forward, the passengerside door flapped and creaked. A misty whorl shivered up over the hood. Olpert eased on the accelerator, couldn’t see anything.