“Don’t you see what they’re doing?” said Jones.
“Remember what the Smog said,” said Hemi urgently. “It’s still coming!”
“But they can keep me safe,” she whispered.
“Come on, Miss Resham,” said Sound gently. “Let’s get you home.”
It’s my only chance, Deeba thought. Hemi, Jones, don’t hate me, it’s my only chance…
She took a tiny step towards the waiting police, and caught sight of Jones’s face. She winced at his expression. I can’t just walk away and let them take him, she thought. But…but if I don’t go home now I’ll never make it.
Deeba looked away from the smug cruelty on Churl’s face and up at Sound. He kept his hand out for her, his face creased in concern. Come on, he mouthed gently, and Deeba came.
And then, for one fraction of a second, she saw Sound flick his eyes sideways, and glance at Murgatroyd, as Murgatroyd glanced at him. Just for a tiny instant, but the expression was unmistakable.
Sound and Murgatroyd had shared a moment of triumph.
Deeba stopped dead.
“What is it, Miss Resham?” Sound said, in the same gentle voice, but Deeba ignored him and looked at her friends in horror.
Sound’s fleeting look had brought home to Deeba something she already knew.
They’re allies, for God’s sake, she thought. It was Rawley giving Sound his orders, and Rawley was in cahoots with the Smog. The Smog that had tried to burn Deeba alive.
They’re on its side, Deeba thought. All of them! It’s a trick! Sound’s the one making promises? The one I was going to let take my friends? Take me? Stupid! They’re all working together.
Why would they protect me?
She raised the UnGun in both hands, looked Sound in the eye, and fired.
A roaring BANG echoed. Deeba had tried to plant her feet more firmly this time, but she still couldn’t stop herself being flung onto her back.
Fire stabbed from the UnGun.
From the ground around the police rose bricks. They soared upwards, layer after layer, incredibly fast, brick, mortar, brick and mortar in rows, walls lurching out of nowhere.
They zoomed up in front of the stunned officers, a low wall, then a tall wall, then a high building, tiles bursting into place with a noise like popcorn. Deeba glimpsed Sound’s appalled look as he was enclosed.
In less than a second, the yard was filled with a tall, solid house containing the police officers and Murgatroyd. Their vehicle was a little way off, empty.
There were the outlines of windows in the building’s walls, but there was no glass in them. They looked as if they had been bricked up decades previously. A door was concreted over.
Deeba and her companions stared. The bricks and slates were cracked and old. A fire escape curled from the roof, its black iron banisters ornate and old-fashioned.
Everyone looked at Deeba. Even Curdle turned its spout towards her. Deeba carefully turned the UnGun’s safety catch back on.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I must’ve got a bit of brick into the UnGun, after all.”
She looked at her companions. “Sorry about that,” she said quietly. She wasn’t talking about ammunition.
“It’s alright,” Jones said, and smiled.
“They’d have got any of us like that,” Hemi said.
“We’ll get you back safe. Really safe. And,” Jones said, “we’ll get you back in time.”
Deeba listened at the new house, but could hear no noise. She kept her face from her friends, so they wouldn’t see how she was feeling, at having thrown away the opportunity to get back. Even knowing it had been a trap, she was still absolutely bereft.
“Maybe all the rooms have blocked doors,” she managed to say. “But they’ll get out eventually. And you heard what they said about getting my mum and dad…”
“Hold on a sec,” said Jones. He trotted to the side of the burrowing vehicle.
“They wouldn’t have helped you,” Hemi whispered. He put his hand on her shoulder. “They would have given you to the Smog, when they were done questioning you. And your family, too.”
“I know,” Deeba managed to say. “I do know. It’s just…first chance I’d seen to get back…hard to say no…”
“It’s Rosa really knows her way around machines,” Jones said, fussing at the panels below the contraption’s huge spiral nose. He got one open, and made an aha noise at the mess of wires and tubes that sprang out. “But in my experience,” he continued, “this sort of thing generally doesn’t go down well with engines at all.”
Jones gripped a fistful of wires, gritted his teeth, and sent a huge surge of current into the metal innards. There was a series of flashes and a resounding bang, and smoke began to gush from the hatch, and the machinery’s seams. For good measure, Jones tugged out a handful of the charred, half-melting wires. He blinked and staggered a little.
“Now,” he said. “I’m not saying that’s unfixable, but it’ll take ’em awhile, I’d think, even after they get out of their new abode. A little breathing space for your loved ones, Deeba. So let’s use it, to get you back to them, sharpish.”
They took the fire escape over the roofs.
As she went, Deeba glanced at the burrowing machine and wondered how often the secret squad came through to UnLondon. The vehicle had to dig not only through the crust of the earth, but through the Odd, through the membrane between the city and the abcity. If I just climbed back behind it, Deeba wondered, into its tunnel…could I walk all the way home?
But even if it would work— which she doubted— Hemi was right. It was still a trap. The Smog would still come after her, and there was no one to keep her, her friend Zanna, or her family safe but her. She had a job to do. And UnLondon needed her.
Deeba and her comrades descended nearby in a tangle of loud, late-night/ early-morning streets full of shoppers and partygoers. Deeba realized she had missed crowds.
Even in such a boisterous area, filled with the tunes from several different music machines, and UnLondoners dancing in even more astounding costumes and colors than normal, Deeba could feel an edge of anxiety that had not been there when she first visited the abcity. Many people carried unbrellas. People watched each other suspiciously.
“UnSun’ll be up soon,” Jones said. “We should find some cover.”
“Look,” said Hemi. “Can you feel it? People know something’s up. See people all tense? Rumors are out. Word’s probably spreading about what you did up by Webminster Abbey, Deeba— people probably don’t know who to trust anymore. But they know something’s up. They know there’s a battle coming. Maybe some of them even reckon they’re going to have to pick sides.”
80. Rendezvous
While the UnSun was up, they sheltered in emptish houses. When they emerged, they stuck to backstreets and moved as fast as they could, at Deeba’s urgent insistence. Signs of trouble were everywhere. The abcity was growing more tense.
There were few people in the streets, even allowing for the fact that they went by night. Once, scouting ahead, Jones flapped his hand frantically and the travelers hid in the deeps of an alley till a group of binja trooped past the entrance, their weapons out, following a Propheseer Deeba vaguely remembered from the Pons.