I saw myself being got down, barely able to stand. Mudge was helping me. Somehow I managed to walk aided by Mudge. I didn’t remember this, but as I walked past him I grabbed Messer. I was holding myself up by my bloody grip on his tunic.
‘I’m going to kill every single last one of you,’ I managed to mumble. Messer said nothing as Mudge pulled me off him.
The rest of the viz was me being carried by Mudge and Mrs Tillwater to the back of a pickup truck and driven through the transient streets of Crawling Town. We stopped to pick up Rannu from where he’d been watching my rescue along the barrel of a gun. The ex-Ghurkha glanced at me but said nothing. I noticed that Pagan had fortunately had the presence of mind to retrieve my personal belongings from the Wait. They took me to one of the Day-Glo articulated lorries that belonged to the Big Neon Voodoo. Morag was shaking like a leaf.
‘You did fine,’ Pagan told her. Mudge mumbled his agreement. The back of the lorry they had brought me to was a garishly decorated infirmary. I must’ve been hallucinating by this point because Mrs Tillwater was wearing her mask of somebody’s flayed face.
‘Welcome to America,’ the grinning mask told me. I may have screamed.
19
It was kind of a baseline nausea. Like the day after you’ve had a lot to drink, and although you’re capable of functioning the sickness in your stomach tells you that you overdid it the night before. It was like that but all the time. Just reminding you that there was something wrong, something corrupt in your body at a basic level. Other than that I felt fine.
In the trucks and land trains of Crawling Town there were stabilised trailers with protein vats and hydroponics farms, but they didn’t provide enough for self-sufficiency so Crawling Town raided and traded. One of its main cash crops was drugs. Ironically they made more from selling medical drugs on the black market than they did selling the cheap and readily available recreational drugs. This was one of the reasons that Papa Neon was a genius. It was also where the initial supply of drugs that was going to keep me functioning until close to the end came from.
In the mirror I looked the same, pretty much. They’d even ironed out some of the creases for me. Was this my face? It had been rebuilt so many times I felt a bit like the broom who’d had its handle and its brush changed. The hair had to go, which pissed me off. It wasn’t vanity. I was vain enough to not want to see it fall out but I didn’t want to end up looking like the bald-headed bastards who’d done this to me in the first place.
It was written all over their faces when they came to see me in the Big Neon Voodoo’s ritual infirmary. By this time my hair had been shorn and I had a bandanna tied round my head and sunglasses on. I felt like I was in the American army. There was that awkwardness you have when nobody wants to mention something awful. Weird really, when you consider that several of the people in the room had probably killed more people than they could remember, but they couldn’t bring themselves to say radiation sickness. Well, except for Mudge.
‘So you’re dying then?’ He’d spent some time looking confused by the forced politeness in the room and apparently become bored. There seemed to be a collective sharp intake of breath. I paused long enough to make everyone uncomfortable and then started laughing as Mudge offered me some vodka.
‘A bit faster than everyone else,’ I said.
‘Sure you just don’t like us all coming to see you in the hospital? I think you like the fuss,’ he said. I was about to drink from the bottle when I stopped.
‘Is there no chance of you ever drinking whisky?’ I asked.
‘Oh,’ said Morag and searched around in her bag. She pulled out a bottle of single malt, one from the park distilleries. I was impressed.
"Where’d you get that?’ I said.
‘Found it,’ she replied simply.
‘Spent a long time searching for it,’ Pagan said. To his credit there was only a little bit of resentment in his voice. Presumably she’d been looking for it when she should’ve been doing her God homework.
‘Nice rescue, guys. Not sure that was the approach I would’ve taken,’ I said. I would’ve killed them all.
‘I was scared shitless,’ Morag said, glancing at Pagan.
‘I told you, people like that are always scared of women. If they weren’t they’d respond to people better,’ he said. So it’d been his plan.
‘Ever done any psy-ops. Pagan?’ I asked. Pagan said nothing.
When are we going to kill the Wait?’ Mudge asked once the silence had got kind of awkward. I was touched that I could see Rannu nodding.
‘That will not happen,’ Papa Neon said. Mudge’s head didn’t move but I saw one of his eyes rotate to look at the gang leader.
‘They’re going to die before my friend here does,’ Mudge assured him. ‘I’ll film it and everything. We can show you after, if you like.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Pagan said. ‘Papa Neon has helped us out a hell of a lot here. Can you not show a bit of respect?’
‘I thought we’d be doing him a favour. The Wait didn’t seem to have anything nice to say about him and his people,’ Mudge said. I could see him getting irritated now. I took a sip of the whisky. It was good, a smooth burn. I watched Pagan and Papa Neon. I was beginning to see why Mudge and Rannu hadn’t gone in shooting when they came to get me.
‘They are Crawling Town, you are not,’ Neon said.
‘What I’ve seen of Crawling Town amounts to a small fucking war going on,’ Mudge said.
Papa Neon shrugged. ‘Several wars. We are a city; like all cities we have social problems. Though our biggest killer is traffic accidents rather than gang warfare. But it doesn’t matter. We can wipe each other out. If it gets out of hand then steps are taken, but we will not tolerate threats from outside,’ he said with a sort of laid-back finality.
Mudge looked around at everyone else. ‘You’re kidding right?’
‘Mudge,’ I said softly, ‘Pagan’s right. Papa Neon’s done right by me. He’s done a lot of shit he didn’t have to and we’ve probably been a huge pain in the arse to him,’ I said, looking at Papa Neon. He just smiled. ‘Besides, he’s one of Pagan’s little conspiracy of God builders, yeah?’ Pagan started; Neon didn’t show any reaction. Morag looked up at Papa Neon as if seeing him anew.
‘It is true. I would see Obatala brought back into this realm and I will dance for him,’ Papa Neon said.
‘You were one of the robed figures in Dinas Emrys,’ I replied. Papa Neon nodded.
‘Could’ve maybe mentioned this before, Pagan,’ Mudge said.
‘He didn’t want to risk exposing his contact, did you?’ I asked.
‘With good reason,’ Pagan said.
‘Pagan’s right,’ Morag said.
‘How’s that?’ I asked, trying to decide how pissed off I should be. If Pagan had contacted Papa Neon in the first place this would’ve gone down very differently.
‘Crawling Town is being overflown almost constantly by recon drones,’ Pagan said.
‘Fortunate Sons?’ I asked. Pagan nodded. ‘We are pretty close to the US,’ I said.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ Pagan said and looked at Papa Neon.
‘You’re not the only ex-special forces type that’s been picked up in town recently,’ the gang leader said.
‘Rolleston’s people?’ I asked.
‘They’re XIs,’ Rannu said.
‘You sure?’ I asked.
‘The two that broke were, before they were broken down into their constituent parts,’ Papa Neon said. I could see Rannu shifting uneasily at this. ‘And this isn’t New York,’ he added. He meant that he couldn’t or wouldn’t protect us like Balor had. I didn’t really blame him. I climbed out of bed and started getting dressed. I didn’t feel too bad, except for the nausea.