The Factory Trilogy 01 - Gleam (28 page)

He didn’t much care about the Clawbaby right now. It had come slowly, but the rage had come. He was thinking about Billy – not as the six-year-old child he had just seen, or the two-year-old he’d left behind when he left the Pyramid, but as the whole human being: Billy at every age, all at once, all of the things he had been, all of the different moods, all of the different haircuts, crying and laughing at the same time, two years old and six years old at the same time, and all ages in between, and all ages before, and all the ages that he would yet live to be.
Should
yet live to be: Billy as a teenager, as a young man, as an old man, all of the different people that he could yet become –
should
yet become. Would yet become.
Would
. Alan could not tally the love he felt; he could not total it. It was a bottle that once uncorked would overflow and never stop, and he could not cork it again, and it would fill him up, it would rise up and flood his lungs, and it would drown him.

Alan stepped forward and fastened his hands around his old friend’s neck. It was how he’d attacked Tromo, but this time his anger was greater and his body and head were full of red mist and his vision had blackened and narrowed and his opponent was more feeble. Eyes had dropped his knife – Alan’s thumbs had straight away pierced the papery skin of his throat and he’d spasmed and dropped his knife – and now he was trying to pull Alan’s wrists apart. He fell to his knees, and Alan knelt too, and increased the pressure. His strength was infinite: he could just direct energy to his hands and his grip would tighten. It was a simple, effortless thing to do, and there was no end to it.

Eyes choked and struggled, and then he stopped, and then he died.

The night blurred quickly. Alan hurried back into the Discard, smoking, the smoke flowing from his nose and mouth and drying his eyes. He stopped at a bucket fire and drank moonshine with some transients, which they let him share for a song. Then, his nausea and shakes quietened for a time, he rushed on to Market Top, where he played some more and drank some more, all the time thinking. People were burning bunches of dried lavender in the tavern fires at Market Top, scenting the night air. Alan paced the square, thinking, thinking, thinking. He could hear laughter and talking and other singers singing, but he did not want to spend time with other people. He felt nothing but an incredible rage, which, despite being also love, somehow, meant that he was not good company, and he knew it. He paced the small network of narrow streets and thought and smoked a roll-up, and he looked up at the sky and listened to the noise of people and the backdrop of the Discard, the whispering, the
creaking, the distant howls, the venting of steam, the occasional metal-on-metal shriek that signalled some forgotten machine springing back into life, if only briefly, as was usually the case.

He finished his roll-up and flicked the stub to the ground.

He thought about Spider and Nora and Eyes, and even through his terrible anger he felt a sickening guilt. Eyes had been right, ultimately: the Pyramid’s time had come. But he had to get Billy and Marion out first, and for that, he had to find Nora. Then no more acquiescing, no more negotiating, no more wasting time trying to do it right. They would break into the Pyramid and save his family – not through the main entrance: that way, they wouldn’t stand a chance. They would go in through the Sump.

Alan looked at the Pyramid. His eyes were drawn to the framework of brass and glass and strange machines that rotated slowly around its peak, reading the skies and harvesting light. They gleamed red and pink by the light of the moons.

Alan stared a moment longer, then stumbled through the glowing doorway of a tavern, trying to blink his eyes clear.

Thanks to Beth and to Jake, for – amongst too many other things to mention – love, motivation, kindness and inspiration. Thanks also to the members of the Northern Lines writing group: Jenn Ashworth, Emma Jane Unsworth, Richard V Hirst, Claire Dean, Nicola Mostyn and Michelle C Green for their insight, support and company. Thanks to my parents, and all of my ever-growing family. Thank you Nicholas Royle, as ever, for your life-changing mentorship. Huge thanks to the enthusiastic and wise Euan Thorneycroft at A.M. Heath and to everybody at the great Jo Fletcher Books – especially, of course, Jo herself, Nicola Budd, and Andy Turner, for all their advice, hard work and patience. And thank you to Mervyn Peake, Grimes, Lewis Carroll, Hayao Miyazaki, Robin Hobb, Jim Henson and Timber Timbre, for the things you’ve made.