Code 42! said Magurk, jumping to his feet.
Favours whipped to attention, eyes full of fire. Code 42! he cried in a phlegmy warble.
Code 42? said the Mayor.
A breach, muttered Griggs. From the main floor came thumps and shouts, a crash. Footsteps pounded back and forth. The alarm howled, the stomping thickened into rumbling, a mob of dozens, crashes and whoops.
In the corner of the room, Favours had never seemed so alert, eyes darting around the room, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. They’ve come, he chortled. Code 42, Code 42! They’ve come!
The Mayor looked from Favours to Diamond-Wood to Griggs to Magurk to Noodles, who returned her bewilderment with a curt, officious nod.
Magurk rose, knuckling up. Those fuggin animals, he sneered.
They’ve come, sung Favours. Oh my yes Code 42 they’ve come!
Who’s come, old man? demanded the Mayor.
Kicking his feet in their stirrups and cackling, Favours threw back his head to reveal a rubbery yellow neck laced with purple veins.
For fug’s sake, growled the Mayor, what kind of loony clubhouse is this?
Application forms are upstairs, said Griggs coolly. He pressed a button on the console. The alarm died, the lights in the basement extinguished. After a moment of total darkness, a generator stirred to life somewhere within the Chambers, and the lights returned, though duller, tinting everyone beige.
The noises above weakened into a faint scuffling.
Griggs lifted the phone to his ear. His face sagged. He tapped the console, once, twice — then hung up, sat back, and rapped his fingers on the table.
Did they cut the line? screamed Magurk, and then he stamped off to the adjoining room yelling, Is someone here for you, you fat sack of squatter trash? Who the fug is it?
If there was a reply to this, it was drowned out by a gentle explosion from the Great Hall. The conference chamber shuddered. From upstairs came another rush of footsteps.
There must be a hundred of them, said Griggs.
Favours howled.
Who’s them? hollered the Mayor. Who are they?
A smoky odour began seeping into the basement, acrid and sharp.
Magurk reappeared drawing a sword, long and parabolic, with a slippery shink of metal. Slicing through the air, he shrieked a feral battle cry.
Oh come now, please, said Griggs. With the portal closed there’s no way anyone can get down here. Sheathe your weapon, you’re embarrassing everyone.
Griggs, said the Mayor, tell me right now: who’s attacking you?
Oh, it could be anyone, said Griggs, almost sadly. There are just so many people, he sighed, so many people it could be.
WHAT DO THEY EXPECT? said Starx. That we’ll get out and check every site?
Maybe we should have told them we don’t even know what — Olpert checked their notes from Residents’ Control — Gip Bode looks like.
And what? Also tell the HG’s we didn’t even watch the show? Terrific idea, Bailie. Crazy Magurk’d cut our fuggin eyelids off.
Ha, said Olpert — though this time Starx didn’t seem to be joking.
They drove at a crawl through fog-soaked Lakeview Campground. Around every bend the Citywagon’s highbeams appeared as twin dabs of yellow paint on a blank canvas, illuminating nothing, while the wipers scrubbed lethargically back and forth, smearing the scant snowfall into wet streaks across the windscreen.
Starx steered them into a Scenic Vista at the edge of the poplars. Though the vista was of fog. Above the treetops this bled into a grey cloudcover in parts tinged bluish. Around the Citywagon the fog churned, coiling and uncoiling, a thicket of pale snakes or the fingers, thought Olpert, of many many searching hands.
Know what I think?
Okay? said Olpert.
I think this guy, Raven — know what he’s doing? He’s hanging out somewhere right now, maybe in his hotel room, having a laugh at all of us.
You think?
Starx tapped the walkie-talkie: just a dull drone, not even static. Weird, he said.
So do we go to the Grand Saloon?
No, it’s not our job to look for him. They’ll have dozens of guys doing that. We’re supposed to find the kid, right, but how can we? I’m not a fuggin detective. Are you?
Starx put a hand over Olpert’s mouth. That was rhetorical, you scrotal pleat.
He let go. A taste of soup lingered.
Tell you what. Let’s get a cider.
Starx! We haven’t had lunch yet!
Fine, you get lunch, I’ll get a cider. Though if you don’t drink then you have to drive.
Oh, said Olpert uneasily.
The Golden Barrel it is, said Starx, firing up the ignition. On the dash dials spun into place, the Citywagon’s headlights splashed onto the fog. Starx pointed at the dashboard clock. See? It’s nine o’clock, Bailie. Perfect time for a drink.
Starx, wait, said Olpert, pointing through the windshield. Look.
Something was happening in the headlights, mist swirled into phantasmal forms.
Pictures? said Starx.
They’re moving, said Olpert.
What is it? said Starx. Can you tell?
A series of indistinguishable images played holographically out of the highbeams, skipping one to the next — a slideshow of strange shadows marbled with light, just figurative enough to suggest people maybe, or animals. The pace quickened, then the figures began to sputter into motion, invoking those halted jerky images from the advent of cinema. But quickly they sharpened, the animation smoothed, and a scene took shape. .
Is that? said Starx.
I think so, whispered Olpert.
And —
It can’t be!
But —
Oh god, said Starx. Oh no, oh god.
Olpert’s face had gone the colour of the fog.
No, said Starx. Bailie, no.
The two men watched, rapt. The film’s refracted light danced over the Citywagon’s hood. Neither spoke, neither blinked, neither budged a muscle. The film blazed into a final searing swath of white, and in an instant everything was gone. The highbeams left a yellow stain on the wall of fog.
What was that? said Olpert. What did we just watch? Starx?
Starx shook his head as if to dislodge something from it, slung an arm around the passengerside headrest, put the gearshift into reverse, and floored the gas. Olpert lurched forward, the seatbelt sliced into his neck, gravel shrapnelled up the sides of the Citywagon, and they went screeching out onto Lakeside Drive.
At the roundabout a Helper lowered his traffic batons and leaned in the window.
Nothing on my radio, he said. Your guys’s dead too?
Starx nodded so slightly that Olpert felt the need to pipe up: Yes, ours too.
Where you headed?
Special mission, said Olpert.
Special mission, repeated Starx, and fixed the Helper with a blazing, wild look. Going to let us through, brother? B-Squad’s got places to be!
The Helper removed himself from the car, called, Good lookin out, and waved them through the barricade, around the traffic jam up the Throughline, and out of People Park.
IN THIS MOVIE or is it a dream the bridge has been empty, that sort of huge and booming emptiness that could never have been anything but empty, who else could be out here and where would they come from. But there it is bobbing at the horizon, a fleck, what might be just a spot in Calum’s vision or a reflection or a trick of light. From this distance it could be anything small, a mote or mite or flea, maybe not a person at all, this little blip of matter exactly at the point where the bridge narrows and vanishes. Amid all that emptiness here is this thing, whatever it might be, a blot or a mistake, a puncture or a speck, now visible and now not, flickering. It seems less present than projected or imagined. It is a dot, a period, the end.