“Is that so bad?”
Deeba saw visions of the abcity, and all its inhabitants, in flames. The Smog would be colossal, a supergenius, of millions of minds and millions of books, all mixed in its poison, ruling over a kingdom of ash. She went absolutely cold.
“I’ll be so strong, then,” it whispered. “Strong enough to travel long ways, all of me, and burn, and learn, in a thousand places, in abcities…and cities.”
It was insatiable, Deeba realized. If it succeeded, tonight, it would become a poisonous, fire-starting smoke god, burning and learning everything it could reach.
“I’ll learn everything I can get to. Understand?” It began to laugh.
Deeba couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t just about her or Zanna or her family or even the whole of UnLondon. The Smog knew the way to London, too.
One bullet, she thought, and thought of what she’d fired already, and wondered what the UnGun would do with what was left. Do…not…miss…
There was the churn of a motor, and the approach of clanking.
“Well, that was a total bust,” she heard someone shout.
Brokkenbroll’s voice came from the elevator shaft.
“Like I thought, the minister won’t give us any more people. She was a bit concerned when I told them what’s going on, too.” The lift descended into view. Brokkenbroll opened the gate and stepped out, with Lectern behind him, and unbrellas on all sides.
“In fact,” he said, “she asked me to keep an eye out for Murgatroyd. Can’t find him. She said I should—”
He stopped. He stared at the chaos of the laboratory, at Unstible, hiding from Deeba, at Deeba herself. For a moment, no one moved.
“Turn up the gas!” screamed Unstible.
“Brokkenbroll!” shouted Deeba. “No! It’s a trick!”
But as Lectern dropped cowering to the floor, Brokkenbroll grabbed the gas valve and twisted it. The flames below the vat roared, and the glowing liquid bubbled more vigorously.
Deeba swung her UnGun towards Brokkenbroll, then faltered as Unstible leapt into view and ran towards her with bouncing strides.
One bullet, one bullet, Deeba thought.
She ducked sideways, aiming down the barrel of the UnGun, until both Unstible and Brokkenbroll were in her line of sight. The vat of glowing chemical was beginning to steam and spit.
Brokkenbroll’s unbrellas rose like ravens and came for her. Brokkenbroll raised his hand. Unstible was close, snarling, drooling smoke.
Deeba braced and pulled the trigger.
93. Shed Skin
An almighty explosion rang in Deeba’s ears. The UnGun recoiled.
From every corner of the air came paper airplanes. Some were tiny; some were made from huge sheets. They were all different colors. Some were made from pages torn from books, some were written on in pen, some were blank.
There were simple folded darts and intricate models with recurved wings. The air was filled with thousands. They dive-bombed Brokkenbroll and Unstible as if they were carried in a hurricane.
They swept past the targets, brushing the two men with the edges of their wings, scoring lines. Brokkenbroll cried out.
Her aim was good. But Brokkenbroll was clicking his fingers, and a phalanx of his unbrellas opened and made a shield. With a drumming like rain, the paper missiles bounced from the reinforced fabric.
In the center of that shield, Deeba saw the red, lizard-covered rebrella.
No! she thought in despair. With him so close, he’s controlling it again.
There were no unbrellas protecting Unstible. The paper edges scraped it hundreds of times. Had it been a man, the stinging onslaught might have hurt it. But it was not. It stood in the middle of the blizzard of darts and laughed. Behind it, the vat bubbled violently, and thick steam poured off it. Unstible sucked, and the green swirls eddied into its mouth and nose. Unstible’s body grew fatter. Its skin stretched.
“Come on!” Deeba shouted, and shook the UnGun. “Paper planes?” she shouted. “Paper cuts? Drop a ton of books on them or something!” But the onslaught of folded planes was ebbing.
Unstible’s skin was marked with little wounds, which didn’t bleed, but oozed wisps of smoke. Brokkenbroll peered out from behind his unbrellas.
He looked at Deeba, holding her useless empty weapon. She desperately tried to snap open its cylinder to reload, but it wouldn’t budge. The Unbrellissimo looked at Unstible, still sucking in the stream of green fumes.
Brokkenbroll didn’t look triumphant: he looked bewildered, and afraid.
“What are you…?” he said to the Unstible-thing, and his words dried.
He snapped his fingers. The unbrellas folded their canopies and made towards Deeba.
The rebrella did not. Deeba saw it fold up under Brokkenbroll’s nose, and understood. It had infiltrated his shield, to get close to him. When it did not obey him, Deeba saw a look of total horror cross Brokkenbroll’s face.
He did not have time to do anything. The rebrella whacked him resoundingly in the head. He keeled over backwards.
Instantly, in time with his fall, the unbrellas stopped moving towards Deeba, and eddied in confusion.
The rebrella smacked Brokkenbroll several times more, until he was definitely unconscious.
Deeba could not take her eyes from Unstible’s horrifying transformation. It inhaled like an industrial pump, and swelled into a revolting parody of a human. The smoke pouring from the vat sluiced into its body. The vat itself was beginning to shake, and creak.
Unstible staggered towards Deeba, but it was too grossly inflated now to walk. Instinctively Deeba raised the UnGun, but it was empty, and she could only lower it again. Unstible smiled.
“It’s,” it spat out through an inrush of reeking steam, “time.”
It smiled wider, and wider. It opened its mouth and stretched back its lips, and still kept smiling. Its mouth began to gape, and the skin at the corners stretched, and Unstible’s jaw dropped and its head lolled back, and that mouth opened so wide suddenly its head hinged all the way open, turned inside out, and a huge, dense cloud poured out.
The Smog inside Unstible was so thick it completely blocked out light. It was dark and tinged with the green of the steam. It gushed out of Unstible as if from an exhaust pipe.
Unstible’s skin collapsed. There was not a fleck of blood. It fell in on itself, as the fumes, the only things that had filled it for a long time, left.
The skin lay in a man-shaped rag on the floor. The Smog expanded luxuriously into the room. It seemed impossible that so much smoke had fit in Unstible, no matter how stretched. The Smog was everywhere, and Deeba couldn’t breathe, or see.
She felt the grit of airborne soot and rubbish sting her, and she tried to keep her eyes and mouth shut. The chemical stench was inescapable. She spat. She fell to her knees.
The room began to shake. For a second Deeba thought it was her imagination, but she could dimly hear the roaring of the huge cauldron as the magic compound boiled into gas, and joined the Smog’s substance.
There was a bursting roar, and Deeba felt the Smog rush from her, and the air clear.
Wind tugged at her hair. She opened her eyes, and was staring up into the crawling stars, and the loon, and a dark, soaring cloud.
Deeba looked around in confusion. Dust was settling everywhere, coating the aimless unbrellas, the ruined furniture, and the room’s other coughing inhabitants. She saw Unstible’s skin where it had fallen.