“They’re claiming the neighborhood!” Hemi said. Locals fled desperately past them, carrying what few possessions they had grabbed. Several gripped unbrellas, opening them in terror, and holding them like shields.
“Everyone move!” shouted Jones. Deeba grabbed one old man’s bags, helped him to the edge of the square. Skool picked up a fallen escapee under each arm, and hauled them out of the road. Deeba and her friends struggled to help the UnLondoners away.
“We have to get out of here!” Hemi shouted. The smoglodytes and the thick Smog they breathed came ominously fast. The outer fringes of the Smog had reached the web, which shook strangely. From a couple of the dark funnels wooden jointed legs twitched.
They’re going to come out, thought Deeba. When the Smog gets inside, they won’t be able to breathe. Any moment, as well as predatory monstrosities and choking fumes, the streets would be full of panicking spider-windows. There was no way the locals would get away.
There was no way she would get away.
“Deeba!” Hemi shouted. A smoglodytic tentacled goat-thing was bearing down on her faster than she could run. With a despairing cry, she raised her hands.
77. Fruit
Deeba had forgotten she was carrying the UnGun. She didn’t realize she was pointing it at the smoglodytes, or that she pulled the trigger.
There was an almighty BANG! and an explosion of smoke.
Deeba went flying backwards, sailing over the table, still holding the pistol, her hand stinging and her ears ringing, as something shot from the barrel of the UnGun with a little stab of flame.
Instantly, there was rumbling. The buildings shook.
A plant roared up from below the pavement, splintering the concrete and sending it flying.
Others leapt out of nothing beside it and beyond it, in a thicket and then a copse and suddenly in rows, clambering the sides of buildings and bollards[3] and corkscrewing around lamps.
Deeba stared, her mouth open. In less than a second, the street ran with roots and stems moving so fast they looked like molten wax, setting in exaggerated gnarls. Trees hauled themselves vigorously out of nothing, shook off dust and debris, and were suddenly tall and thick and very there, filling the street and square. Fruit hung from them.
The UnLondoners who moments before had been running for their lives stood still, staring in shock. Deeba got to her feet and stared at the UnGun. She stumbled towards the vines.
“Deeba!” said Jones. “Careful!”
“It’s alright,” she said. “Look.”
The vines had twisted themselves into position and grown in an instant around the smoglodytes.
Wrapped around with coils of stems so thickly they were almost mummified, the smoglodytes were immobilized. There must have been more than a hundred of them, frozen in the positions they had taken when Deeba fired.
She saw the squid-goat thing. It eyed her as she approached. She was sure it was straining against its bonds, but it could do no more than make the grapes hanging from its chin tremble.
Behind it, where the smoglodytes were closer to each other, the vines had grown together, connecting overhead from creature to trapped creature. They grew into fantastic shapes, stretching over the monsters. Their leaves and fruit shook as the smoglodytes struggled, but that was all.
Deeba boldly entered the new green-lined walkways.
“Deeba!” shouted Obaday, but she walked for a little distance between trapped smoglodytes, which watched her from beneath leaves. She plucked a bunch of grapes hanging from the horn of a thing staring at her with rage.
“It looks as if it’s been an arbor for years,” said the book in wonder, from under Obaday’s arm. “Whole new meaning to the word grapeshot…”
Eddying around them, the Smog seemed confused and panicked. It thrust out smoke stalks like snails’ eyes, swept down out of the air, and examined the vines that trapped its inhabitants. It coiled into a column and raced around the gathered UnLondoners, stopping in front of Deeba.
Deeba could tell it was hesitating. Slowly and ostentatiously, she raised the UnGun and aimed at it.
The Smog coalesced, poured out of sight down into a backstreet, and was gone.
“Oh, my, lord,” whispered Hemi. Skool pointed at Deeba, at the Smog, at her again.
“You scared it off!” said Obaday Fing.
Deeba looked at the UnGun. There was still smoke rising from its barrel. Deeba sniffed it. It smelt of grapes.
Tentatively, UnLondoners explored the new groves.
“I’d stay out of them,” Jones called. “You don’t know how long until the vines disappear.”
“They look pretty solid to me,” Deeba said. “And if they do disappear, I’ll bet the smoglodytes won’t hang around. Not without the Smog.”
Curious people in nightclothes were approaching. “Is that…?” they said, and, “Are you…?” Deeba ignored them.
“It still won’t open?” she said as Jones fiddled with the UnGun. He shook his head and handed it back to her.
“Are you sure you can’t remember what went in?” he said. “In what order? Remember, it turns counterclockwise.”
“Not really,” Deeba said. “I think it’s my hair in the next one. Unless it’s the salt…I thought it was sugar, you see…There was some other stuff, too…”
Jones smiled and shook his head.
“Well, if we’d known,” he said, “we might have tried to plan it. But I don’t know if we could’ve done, or if it’d make much difference. We know the Smog is scared of that thing, and no wonder…”
“You should use it,” Deeba said suddenly, and held it out to him. He flung himself to the floor.
“Don’t point it like that!” he shouted. “Is the safety catch on?”
Deeba held it awkwardly, twisting the little lever he indicated. Jones rose.
“You know how to use it,” she said. “My hand still hurts. I don’t know what to do with it. You take it.”
“I do not know how to use it. I’m a close-quarters fighter. I’ll twang a bow if I have to, but that’s all. I’m no gunslinger. Each time you fire it— if you have to fire it again— it’ll hurt less. This is your UnGun, Deeba. There’s no way I’m taking it from you.”
“Listen to you!” She stamped her foot. “You’re acting like I’m the Shwazzy. I’m not. It’s just a gun, and you should use it.”
“The thing is…” Hemi said hesitantly. Deeba saw that he and the others were standing behind her.
“Skool,” Deeba said. “You know how to fight.” She held the UnGun to him, handle-first. Skool raised a glove and wagged a finger no.
“The thing is,” Hemi said, “we all sort of think you’ll do best with it.”
Deeba looked helplessly at the pistol. From the growing crowd of onlookers, she heard a few whispered phrases.
“…scared off the Smog…” she heard, and “…Shwazzy…”
“No,” she said immediately, and turned to them. She tucked the UnGun into her belt. “I’m not the Shwazzy. I’m completely unchosen.”
“There’s no way this’ll stay quiet,” the book said.
“I know,” said Deeba. “We have to go now, even though it’s the middle of the night.” In fact, she didn’t feel nearly as tired as she had.
“You’re right,” said Jones. “We need to start traveling covertly. We couldn’t take the bus now…even if any of us could drive it…” He looked up, stricken, at the vehicle bobbing overhead.