Pasha Malla - People Park

Griggs pulled a list and a pen from his pocket. Let’s see. . Magurk’s got the roundup underway — anyone not from here, anyone suspicious, they’ll be taken in — check. D-Squad is looking for Favours, Diamond-Wood’s going to find the Mayor, bridge access is still blocked, check, check, check. Radios are back up. Wagstaffe’s — sorry, our — movie is almost ready to go, Island Amusements is set to open for families, check and check. Starx and Bailie — no word yet, but they’re on the hunt for that kid. And then there’s Raven. . Anything else?

Noodles motioned for the list and Griggs’ pen. He made an addendum, and with a long-nailed index finger tapped the freshly bulleted point:

Revenge .

UP OVER THE common Pearl floated, pumpkin-sized knee dragging her beneath it. Along she scudded, sweeping the occasional languid backstroke or, with her good leg, whipkicks that stirred the fog into spirals.

Her mind was so blank she was unaware of its blankness. Everything was airy, empty, nothing mattered. She had a vague impression of the ground hundreds of feet below, and yet with this realization came no fear, only lightness, the heedless ease of a sleeping child.

She drifted out of the park’s northern side, a sign emerged out of the mist: STREET’S MILK & THINGS. As she swept past, Pearl reached out and grabbed its corner, hung on for a moment, her knee tugged her away. There was no breeze to speak of: the knee seemed to enjoy a velocity and volition of its own.

Pearl was lofted out over Street’s empty parking lot. East along Topside Drive the rollercoasters of Island Amusements appeared in silhouette, skeletal dinosaurs prowling the fog. Across the road she was carried, distantly aware of people below, the faraway sounds of idling engines and horns and voices.

From above came a fluttering sound. A bird swooped down, disappeared, circled back, and, as Pearl reached the far side of Topside Drive, made another pass. At the shoreline the fog parted: mist swirled around the bushes on the chalky hillside but ceded abruptly at the water. She floated out over the Narrows. The opposite bank was low and flat.

The bird returned, soaring up from below and gliding for a moment alongside, a flock partner or mate. It seemed to regard Pearl with curiosity, this bird — a pigeon. Then it did a little loop and landed on her inflated kneecap, adjusted its footing, ruffled its feathers, and settled. In tandem she and this new passenger traversed the slate-coloured channel over which Guardian Bridge had once risen. On the far shore an airplane was taking off from the airport. The skies above the mainland were blue and clear.

The pigeon seemed both wary and dismissive of the human being connected to its roost. It clucked. The Narrows rippled along. A slight breeze ruffled Pearl’s hair. She waited, watching the bird, should she shoo it away or let it rest? But before she could decide, it straightened, fluffed its wings, extended its neck, and, with a swift, downward stroke, drove its beak into her knee. Chirruping gaily, the pigeon lifted and flapped madly back to the island.

Air whistled out of the hole, the balloon began deflating, Pearl sank toward the water — fifty feet up, now forty, she could smell it: clamshells and rust. The current rushed swift and purposeful to the east, a branch went whisking by, thirty feet below. The skin around her kneecap had gone baggy and loose.

She had to get to shore, either the mainland or the island, she was halfway to both. One was home, the other — something else. Wheeling, Pearl paddled the air, arms thrashing, lowered ever closer to the murmuring Narrows.

THE THUD AGAINST the side of the Citywagon at first struck Debbie as a hiccup in the exhaust. But then figures swarmed out of the fog, surrounded the car. How many people, a dozen, it was impossible to tell, one stood at the car’s fender, holding a plank with spikes at both ends, there was nowhere to go, they were everywhere.

The driverside door was pounded, voices were hollering. Debbie fumbled with the locks — and something smashed into the window, crinkling it in a greenish web, and she screamed, and the pipe or crowbar was swung again, and the window caved inward, greenish glass sprinkled her lap.

A high, childish voice cried, Out of the car, out of the car!

Debbie went foetal, the door was opened, hands undid her seatbelt and dragged her out and shoved her ass-first onto the tarmac, and for a moment everything went still.

Over her stood a figure, hood pulled tight around its face, holding a mophandle with bike chains attached to one end.

The trunk was opened, slammed shut.

No one in here, called a second voice — flatter, kazoo-toned, but also very young.

The figure pulled her hood aside to reveal hair shaved into a handprint. But the Hand made no intimations of recognition, just flicked her weapon between Debbie’s outstretched legs: the chains jingled, brushed her thighs.

Please —

Again the Hand whacked the chains against the pavement.

The first voice, shrill as a whistle, demanded, Where is he?

Debbie raised her hands in a pacifying gesture. Who? I don’t know. Please.

Your car took Calum, said the second voice. Your car hit him and took him, it said, moving out from behind the Citywagon. We saw it happen.

We see everything, said the first voice.

The speakers appeared on either side of the Hand, tiny creatures each carrying makeshift weapons: two-by-fours with metal prongs ducktaped to both ends. Ten years old, Debbie guessed — and only three attackers, she’d assumed a mob of dozens.

Calum, said Debbie. I know Calum. Who took him, what are you talking about.

The Hand stared back, unspeaking.

The kid on her left said, What do you know? Can you help us?

Tell me what happened, maybe I can —

He was hit by a car like this one. This car.

No, this is a Citywagon, they all look the same — wait, he was hit ? Is he okay?

They took him, said Right. They put him in the back part.

Oh god. Was he alive? Is he all right? Where did they go?

We don’t know.

The Hand shifted. The bike chains clinked.

We’ll find him, said Debbie. I can tell you care about him, and I care about him too —

Shut up, said Left. We need to find him.

We need to, said Right.

I know. I didn’t know — but yes. We need to find him. There’s a Citywagon depot —

We’re taking your car, said Right. Drive us.

I can’t, it’s not my car —

The Hand lashed the ground again, Debbie sprung away. The girl’s eyes were hateful.

Okay, said Debbie, hands up, placating. Let’s go, we’ll find him.

INTO THE DUSK they sprung, up through the bowels of Whitehall and south on F Street beneath the Yellowline tracks, three phantoms in hoods pushing and the Mayor white-knuckling the dessert cart, rumbling over the uneven sidewalk, jarred by potholes and cracks in the road. The fog had lifted to form a cloudbank into which the day was fading, inky shadows spilled from the feet of the Blackacres lowrises, the twilight pixelated and staticky and through it the hooded triumvirate rolled the Mayor, past darkened derelict housing all sad old ghostfaces on the eastside of F.

At Tangent 18 a sour, chemical smell swelled up — Lowell Canal. The Mayor’s eyes watered and nostrils burned, her tear-streaked cheeks whipped dry by the wind. On she was driven, down F past a blur of descending east-west Tangents — 17, 16, 15 — and three-storey walkups, some with plastic sheeting for windows, others freshly painted with windowboxes sprouting green shoots. A Citywagon whipped past at F and 12 and was gone.