Un Lun Dun

“A…rack? I can’t say it.”

“Easiest way is to bend over and say ‘car.’ ”

“Stay low in the water,” Jones told the gathered army. “And don’t go too fast. We need everyone to look like rubbish. There’s no point avoiding the bridges if they catch us on the water.

“You’ve all been told where you should go. We want you to storm into the front, and— if you make it— we’ll see you inside. There’ll be defenses. No doubt about it. Probably a lot of them. So be prepared to fight hard.”

People waited. After an awkward silence, Jones nudged Deeba, inclined his head.

Deeba hesitated.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” she said. “At first I just wanted to go home, but I couldn’t, because you-know-what would’ve come after me. And back where I come from I couldn’t have done nothing about it. So I had to stay and fight, even though that was crazy.

“That thing wants UnLondon— and who knows what else? It’s poison with a mind— you do not want to be here if it runs things. Unfortunately, some people have been taken in.

“But you haven’t. We haven’t. You’re fighting for UnLondon. And you know something? Me too. I want to get home, and I have to stop that thing coming after me, so I’m going after it…but that’s not the only reason. I’m here for UnLondon, too.” She realized it was true. “You lot— us lot— we’re UnLondon’s last chance.

“We don’t ask for much,” she said at last. “Only to live in our abcity. Un Lun Dun!”

It wasn’t much of a speech. But somehow spoken in a night so apocalyptic, beside the lapping river, under a sky crossed with the lights of flying machines and stars and Smog-feeding fires, it inspired.

“Un Lun Dun!” The crowd knew they couldn’t risk shouting it, but they whispered enthusiastically, and it was almost a chant.

Deeba didn’t realize for several seconds that she had said our abcity, and meant it.

“Does this thing have a name?” Deeba said as she settled onto a bench set between what had once been car doors, now upside down and sealed shut.

“It ought to,” said Hemi. “Bad luck otherwise.”

Her companions paused and considered, and all started making suggestions at once.

“Feather-I-Say?”

“Silver Belle Flower?”

“QV-66?”

“No,” said Deeba. “This is the Diss&Rosa.”

82. The Tangle

As Jones and Skool tugged on the oars, Deeba saw that the sky was darker, more stained with Smog than ever. Deeba was sure that those shreds would be mostly gathered over Unstible’s factory, where they were heading.

One by one the [image should be there]s began to cross the river, with faint splashes. Lectern and three binja huddled with Deeba and her companions in the Diss&Rosa. A widening wedge of vessels followed. The ghosts walked and drifted like thread over the river’s surface, appearing and disappearing.

What had been the car’s windshield and windows were below water level, and Deeba watched the brown swirl. She thought she could hear the noises of fighting in the wind.

“Sounds like trouble,” Hemi said.

From the shore they had left, Deeba heard the song of a bird.

She looked back sharply. Jones stopped rowing, and looked through his telescope. He swore excitedly.

Ru

“Mr. Cavea!” said Deeba, and jumped up, swaying the [image should be there] dangerously. She waved her hands excitedly over her head, and Yorick Cavea waved back, desperately, without breaking stride. “But we saw him get et!”

“That was just his vehicle,” the book said. “He must’ve got a new one.”

“What’s he singing? What’s he singing?”

Cavea had reached the [image should be there]s that had not yet cast off, and was shoving them towards the river hurriedly.

“He’s saying…‘Quick,’ ” the book said. “He says: ‘They’re coming.’ ”

No one on the shore seemed to understand Cavea. One or two even shoved him back.

“Too late,” said Hemi. Lectern let out a cry.

Masked figures were emerging into the docks, following in Cavea’s footsteps, stepping in time. The nightlights reflected in their goggles. Pipes clanked and rattled from their helmets and the sacks over their heads. Deeba heard the hissing of gas sluiced through tubes.

“Stink-junkies,” she said. “Hundreds.”

The UnLondoners still at the river’s edge stared a moment in horror at the oncoming army, then tried to race onto the water.

“Too slow, too slow,” said Jones. “They won’t make it!”

They could not all launch onto the Smeath before the Smog’s slaves reached them. The front line of stink-junkies was already raising hoses, preparing to spray their enemies with flame or poison. Deeba’s army was way outnumbered.

Flumen and a few others stepped forward, swinging spa

“They’re doomed!” said Jones, stricken.

“No they’re not,” said Deeba. Her voice was suddenly hard. “Everyone who’s not a stink-junkie!” she shouted as loud as she could. “Get down right now! Jones, catch me.”

Every Slateru

The recoil slammed her backwards, but this time Jones was there behind her, braced and ready. In the split second of the roar, Deeba was trying to remember what was in the cylinder.

Ant? she thought. Salt?

Light flared from the barrel, and the stink-junkies froze. For one, two, three seconds they were all immobile, and the rebels looked up from where they crouched. Then the Smog’s army began to shake, and their masks to bulge.

“What in…?” Obaday said.

The stink-junkies’ helmets shifted. The sacks that covered their faces blew up like lumpy balloons. They split, and from the rips burst out yards and yards of hair.

Oh… that’s what it was, thought Deeba.

Stink-junkies tugged ineffectually at their heads, but their hair kept growing, shooting out of their scalps like waterfalls. Sideburns and stubble erupted from the seams of their masks, and the edges of the eyeglasses. Sudden fat dreadlocks pushed the pipes out of the headpieces, and clogged them so only trickles of Smog escaped.

The attackers reeled under the weight of the sudden shaggy swamp. It oozed out of their heads and mingled in a matted slick. In seconds they were just shambling mounds in a streetful of hair. The odd arm, leg, or split-open helmet poked from the tangle, but nothing could get out of it.

Deeba’s allies got slowly to their feet and stared in astonishment.

With a little swagger, Deeba blew the smoke away from the end of her UnGun. She wrinkled her nose at the reek of scorched hair.

“He says that was amazing,” the book said, translating Yorick Cavea’s twitters.

Cavea opened his head-cage, and the bird flew over the river and joined Deeba on the Diss&Rosa.

“It’s so good you’re here!” Deeba said. “How’d you find us? Where did you get…” She pointed vaguely at the human body on the shore. Cavea whistled.