The UnSun was halfway across the sky, but Zanna and Deeba’s body-clocks were totally confused. They fought not to doze. Every so often a Propheseer would bring them cups of tea. “We’ll be with you very shortly,” she or he would say. “Sorry for the delay.” Birds flew overhead, along with bigger, odder-looking things.
From the street under the bridge came a faint whistle.
“Did you hear that?” said Deeba. Curdle skipped back and forward.
“Oy,” someone below shouted. The voice was very faintly audible.
“No,” said Zanna, standing. “But I heard that.” There was a commotion.
“Something’s coming,” Zanna said. A figure was stumbling slowly up the bridge, Propheseers running to help it.
“What’s happened?” Zanna shouted. She ran towards them, Deeba and Curdle on her heels.
Helped up the slope of the Pons Absconditus was a binja. Its metal was cracked, and bleeding a tarry goo.
“We’re under attack!” a Propheseer said. “The binja were ambushed! Thank goodness they heard something.”
From the empty street where the bridge touched down, several other binja were coming. They walked backwards, weapons up, guarding the end of the bridge.
“They’re watching both ends,” Mortar said. “No one should be able to get past us.”
“I thought no one could get on the bridge,” Zanna said.
“Well no one’s supposed to,” he snapped. “But no system’s perfect. That’s what the binja are for. Just in case.”
The binja congregated in front of their injured friend and the cowering Propheseers. They stood with weapons ready. They waited.
And waited.
“So…where are they?” Deeba whispered.
There were tiny whispering noises. The Propheseers and the binja looked frantically around.
“There!” said Zanna.
Meters behind them, in the center of the bridge by the office, grappling hooks were soaring up from below, trailing ropes. They coiled around the girders.
“A trick!” Lectern said.
“They know they can’t get on from either end,” said Mortar, “but now it can’t shake them off…they’ve snared the middle. Quick!”
Tumbling like acrobats, the dozen binja ran to fend off the intruders. But even as they reached the little maze of desks and cupboards, dark and horrifying figures were clambering over the bridge’s side.
The intruders outnumbered the binja. They wore dirty jumpsuits, rubber boots, and gloves. They aimed hoses like guns. What chilled Zanna’s and Deeba’s blood were their masks.
They wore bags of canvas or leather over their entire heads. Their eyes were smoked glass circles. The masks dangled rubber tubes like elephant trunks, stretching to cylinders like divers’ tanks on their backs, covered with oil and dirt, and stenciled with biohazard and danger signs.
“Oh my God!” hissed Zanna. “What are they?”
Lectern had gone pale.
“Lord help us,” she whispered. “Stink-junkies.”
25. The Addicted Enemy
The stink-junkies were people the Smog had caught and, horribly, forced to breathe it. It synthesized powerful mind-altering drugs with its chemicals, shoved them into its captives’ lungs, and took them over. If they were conscious it was in a deep dream. They would do anything the Smog made them do, while they breathed it. The stink-junkies were the Smog’s addict-slaves.
The binja came at them. Perhaps because the stink-junkies were such tragic figures, victims themselves, even the ruthless binja didn’t use their weapons. They attacked with chops, punches, and spinning kicks, their metal bodies twirling too fast to follow. They tried to subdue their enemies without hurting them permanently, but the Smog made the stink-junkies strong.
They were not so restrained. Their hoses sprayed oily fire. The binja dived between jets of flaming Smog.
“Quick!” said Mortar, hustling Zanna and Deeba away. Propheseers were scurrying frantically. “Lectern! We have to get the book and the Shwazzy out of here!”
“You what?” wailed Deeba.
A binja was caught in a blaze. It slammed down its lid to protect its eyes, and retracted its arms and legs. The flame licked harmlessly over its metal body.
“Where are we going?” Lectern shouted.
“Anywhere,” Mortar said. The stink-junkies were getting closer. “Let’s go!”
“Where?” said Zanna. Everyone looked around at the sound of her voice. “That’s Smog, in their tanks?” Mortar nodded. “It keeps finding me! How’m I going to get away?”
She turned, her fists clenched; she stamped, looking halfway between petulant and impressive. She grabbed a slat from one of the broken chairs and raised it like a club.
“Just leave me alone!” she shouted, and ran towards the fight.
“Zann!” shouted Deeba. “No!”
“Wait!” said Mortar, as Deeba and several Propheseers stepped forward to intercept Zanna. Mortar’s voice was resonant with tense triumph. “ ‘She shall prevail in her first encounter…’ ”
“Leave me alone!” Zanna shouted, and waving her stick, she hurtled into the battle, Deeba running to catch her.
“It’s time,” Mortar said.
Zanna crooked her fingers. Wind whirled unnaturally about her.
“Feel it rising, Shwazzy,” Mortar shouted. The Propheseers stared.
“What you doing?” shouted Deeba.
“What she was born to do,” Mortar said.
The stink-junkies came close. Deeba clutched Curdle. Air streamed around Zanna.
She raised her right hand, with its club-wand-splinter, and a wave of wind swept through the fight, and made the stink-junkies stagger. The binja leapt to Zanna’s side. She turned her head, caught Deeba’s eye. For a moment, she seemed to glow. Deeba stared.
“Zann,” Deeba whispered. “Shwazz…”
A stink-junkie shoved through the cordon of binja and smacked Zanna on the back of the head.
Instantly, Zanna collapsed.
“Zann!” screamed Deeba.
“What…?” shouted Mortar.
Zanna lay motionless. The wind that she had seemed to conduct blew suddenly random.
The binja surrounded her, trying to shove back the attacker. It raised its arms.
“Stop it!” Deeba shouted. “It’s going to kill her! What’s happening?” Deeba grabbed Mortar’s lapels.
“I…I…I…” he gabbled, staring at the unconscious Shwazzy. “Book?”
“I don’t know,” the book whimpered. Lectern was flicking through it rapidly, her expression appalled. “That…wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Help her,” Deeba said.
The stink-junkies outnumbered the binja. Despite the dustbins’ heroism, the attackers were closing in, stamping towards Zanna, their massive boots pounding.
26. Folders and Unfolders
There was a frantic sound like wings. Dark flapping shapes suddenly raced through the air around the bridge.
“Cut the hoses!” a voice came from below. “And let me in!”
“It’s Brokkenbroll!” said Lectern. “What do we do?”
“Uh…” Mortar said. He stared at the supine Zanna, and at the approaching stink-junkies.
“Let me in,” Brokkenbroll called.
“I…I’ll connect the bridge near him,” Mortar said. He clenched his jaw, and concentrated.
A tall, spindly man in a dark suit came running up the Pons, his trench coat billowing around him. The Unbrellissimo. Flying around him with little squirts of air, opening and closing like squid-bat hybrids in a hundred colors, were broken umbrellas, doing his bidding.