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“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 i
“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 tu
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 Za
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.
“They’re sending out squads,” Jones whispered.
In some areas the streets were patrolled by nervous-looking locals swinging makeshift weapons and wearing cobbled-together armor. Most UnLondoners knew a fight was coming, but didn’t yet know what the sides were, let alone which one they were on.
“Don’t forget the Concern, and those they pay,” the book said. “There are plenty who’ll line up with the Smog, when it comes to it.”
Order was breaking down: once, in the distance, the travelers saw the looming heads of giraffes in the loonlight, far from their usual hunting grounds. Once they thought they saw the distinctive helmets of London police, and hid until the officers, if there were any, went by.
“Was it them?” said Deeba. “The same ones? Did they get out?” But no one had seen them clearly: everyone was on edge. “Let’s just get going.”
Hemi led them to a moil house, with eccentric walls of variegated trash.
“How do you know this is safe?” Obaday said.
“Better avoid the obvious emptish houses now,” Hemi said. “We don’t want just anyone walking in on us. But that?” He indicated a set of scratches by the front step. To Deeba they looked random. “It’s a sign from a local…guild. Safe house. There’ll be a bit of food; it won’t be watched.”
“What guild?” said Obaday.
“Guild of extreme shoppers,” said Deeba, and Hemi laughed. He strained against the door, oozed out of his clothes and through the entrance itself, opened it from within, and held out his hand for his outfit, to get dressed again before he’d let them in.
Inside, Deeba leaned her head against the dark glass of an oven door, part of the moil wall. She rested her hands on broken toasters embedded in see-through mortar.
“This is a thieves’ hideout!” the book gasped. Obaday looked up, startled. He nodded in horrified realization, opened his mouth to say something— then met Hemi’s eye. The half-ghost raised an eyebrow.
“Oh…” said Obaday to the book eventually. “Hush up.”
The house on Unshrink Street was opposite an official newswall, showing headlines like ALL GOING WELL! BE READY TO RETREAT FROM ATTACKED AREAS! and instructions such as REPORT ANY UNUSUAL ACTIVITY OR YOUNG VISITING LONDONERS TO THE PROPHESEERS! THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY!
Like several they had seen, this one was scrawled over with counter-graffiti, from more than one group. E = A, someone had sprayed. It had been crossed out vigorously, and next to it written PROPHS R SUCKY SELLOUTS! Deeba read. On one patch was written CHOSEN ONE ROOLZ!
“Look at that,” sighed Deeba, peeking out at it from under a curtain. The sky was not quite light, and airborne buses were trawling with searchlights. “Za
Deeba woke to mutterings, and sat up in sudden shock in a newly crowded room. The travelers were no longer alone.
They’d been joined by a small group of locals, as varied and bizarre as most collections of UnLondoners, talking quietly to Hemi and the others, while Skool kept an eye on the door. They greeted Deeba with great, though hushed, excitement.
“It’s wonderful to meet you,” said a large woman wearing a dress made of insects’ wings “May I see the UnGun? Of course if it’s inconvenient…”
“You helped my sister up by the abbey,” said a man shorter than Deeba but more muscular than Jones. “I wanted to say thank you.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with the Propheseers,” said a third person, who was tall and wore thick glasses and whose sex Deeba couldn’t tell. “’Course, people like us’ve never seen eye-to-eye with them entirely, but I always understood them before. But now their instructions make no sense.”
“Who are these people?” Deeba hissed to her companions. “Why are they here?”
“Rumors travel faster than we do,” Hemi said.
“How?” said Deeba. “I don’t want nothing traveling faster than us.”
“There was already rumors,” Hemi said. “People must’ve been worried for a while. Now there’s something they can do about it. The first people here are going to be those…extreme shoppers, or people who know them, but I bet you word’s spreading.”