Pearl stepped out, took Kellogg by the elbow. I can’t find them, she whispered.
Can’t find what?
His meds, she said. I can’t find Gip’s meds.
THE FOG FIT snug as a lid over the island, dying at its edges in raggedy wisps. As the view from Podesta Tower rotated east the Mayor, torso still estranged from the lower half of her body, was faced with People Park: the common was a bowl of milk overflowing into the city. Fog scudded along the streets and up the sides of buildings, thick all the way to the water in every direction.
The deck rotated: Fort Stone, Li’l Browntown, Bebrog, Greenwood Gardens, the Institute’s campus knuckled into the island’s southeastern corner — all of it hidden under a melancholy lather. To the south, Perint’s Cove was also lost in fog, the Islet didn’t exist.
To the west the fog spilled through downtown, connected in ropy sinews to the low-slung clouds concealing the office towers’ tops, lapped up Mount Mustela right to the Necropolis, in LOT ignored and bounded over and through the gates of the Mews, engulfed Knock Street, threaded into UOT and Blackacres, the tenements swathed, the power still out, in the northwest corner of the island Whitehall was invisible too. And on the westside, as with the east, the fog stopped at the water. As if, thought the Mayor, a wall had gone up around the island.
Now she looked north: where Guardian Bridge had been was only absence. Across the Narrows, the mainland, was fogless and clear, not a wisp reached its shores. NFLM patrols clustered at either end of Topside Drive and at the opening of the People Park Throughline, into which snaked a trail of cars. That morning a queue had begun forming of commuters waiting for the bridge to reopen — or reappear.
Though this she couldn’t see, and only knew from the memo Griggs had faxed over at dawn. The gist: At four a.m. some hysteric had broken through the barricade screaming, Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors! and tried to sprint out over the Narrows. There’d been no cartoonish moment of the guy suspended in space, he’d just plummeted straight into the river. The current had been particularly swift and Luckily, reported the NFLM, there were no witnesses, and the story had been swept away with him.
Phone, said the Mayor, and Diamond-Wood passed her the handset, retreated, the cord connected them umbilically. The Mayor coiled it around her finger, let it sproing back and dangle slackly, listened to the steady bleat of the dialtone. She liked when expecting a call to ambush the person phoning, to pick up before it rang and disorient them, to always have the upperhand.
People who weren’t quick and sharp infuriated her, inefficiency was the bane of any city. This was the reason she’d whittled her council in half her first term, why she’d cut the city districts to four, and now met only quarterly with representatives from each quadrant. The Mayor was methodical, which wasn’t the same as slow: methodical meant developing a methodology and then operating, swiftly. If life were a minefield, the Mayor reasoned, you informed yourself and blazed into it, never tiptoeing along in meek, weak terror. If your leg got blown off you hopped. And now with a shudder the Mayor thought of her own legs: if you lost both, apparently, you found someone else to push.
Connect me to the Temple, she said.
Diamond-Wood dialled, the handset purred, the Mayor imagined the NFLM line jangling unheeded on some desk, the men asleep in bunkbeds — kids playing firemen but with hairier feet.
The view swung around to People Park. On its north side, the Thunder Wheel looked like a rusty sawblade lodged halfway into a robustly frosted cake. Beneath it, damp with fog, the rides would be shrouded in tarpaulin. Island Amusements was scheduled to open that evening, yet how could it possibly in this?
She let the line ring a couple more times, hung up, ordered, Hit PAUSE.
The deck stopped turning. Everything was still.
Look, she said, pointing to the Thunder Wheel. What a beautiful thing. Do you love this city? I love this city. I was born at Old Mustela Hospital fifty-seven years ago and I’ve lived here all my life. You know how many times I’ve left in those fifty-seven years? None. Why would I leave? I’ve never been on an airplane. On a boat exactly once — the fireworks barge during the centenary celebrations. You don’t need to leave this place. So why get bent out of shape about being trapped here — where else would you rather be?
Silence from Diamond-Wood. The Mayor checked the phone again — nothing — handed the receiver to him, he deposited it into its console. Take off that tape, will you? she said. It’s like talking to a coma patient.
He did.
Better?
Yes, he said. Thanks.
Anyway where was I? Oh yes — trapped, bah. The idea of being trapped here, it’s like a child being trapped in a. . in a. . wherever children like to be. A store for children’s things. Games or what have you!
The Mayor could hear the anxiety rising in her voice. Like a child in an adultless land, she decided, and continued with rekindled vigour: And while these aren’t ideal circumstances, doesn’t it offer the potential to bring the city together? Maybe it’s exactly what we need to make us realize how lucky we are! So the bridge is gone, so what! Right?
Well, said Diamond-Wood, the power’s still out in the Zone —
Those people are used to struggling! If anyone can deal with a little hardship it’s them. Few people are aware of this, but I come from poverty.
Oh?
The Mayor peered over her shoulder at her aide: hunched upon his crutches, patchy stubble darkened his cheeks and chin, his uniform had the appearance of a rumpled paper bag. She looked away, continued: Touch green! Grew up in a trailerpark in what was then called South Bay. This was before the Lakeview projects. I was born in a house on wheels. Not literally, I was born at Old Mustela, but a trailer was where I spent the first few months of my life. So I think I know a little something about struggle. I understand people — rich, poor, young, old, fat, stupid — and that’s what makes for an effective leader in times of crisis: empathy.
The phone burbled to life.
Give it to me! she screamed, nearly falling off the dessert cart.
The High Gregories sat around the speakerphone in their underground conference chamber — Griggs, Wagstaffe, Magurk, Noodles. Bean stood at the portal that led up into the Temple, hands behind his back in the pose of niteclub bouncers. In an adjacent chamber, Favours was having his morning treatments administered by two Recruits in latex gloves and surgical masks. From another came whimpering — tears?
Bad news first? said Griggs, his voice as inert as the basement air.
Fine, said the Mayor.
No sign of him, said Wagstaffe.
None? said the Mayor. What is wrong with you people? What did you —
It’s nothing we can’t sort out, said Griggs.
And Island Amusements? said the Mayor. It’s expected to open —
Don’t get your gitch in a gotch, said Magurk. That’s the fuggin good news.
Everything’s all set, said Wagstaffe.
Everything? said the Mayor. I wouldn’t say —
Let’s meet here for a face-to-face, said Griggs. There’s a car waiting for you outside.
Now?
Now.
See you soon! said Wagstaffe cheerily, and the line went dead.
Griggs looked around the table. Anyone hungry?
Noodles nodded.
Bean, said Griggs, fetch us some flats. And wake B-Squad up. I’m sure the Mayor will want some answers from the dynamic duo meant to be keeping tabs on Raven.