The Factory Trilogy 01 - Gleam (7 page)

‘You know, if you’re talking about a way into the Pyramid – there are a lot of folks out here who might be interested in helping you out. The Arbitrators are getting a little too bold with their raids, taking people’s bugs, taking their livestock …’ She paused. ‘I was talking to a woman at a bucket-fire over near the Hinning House a few months ago. She said they took her brother’s neighbour.’

Alan felt the anger stir. He remained silent for a moment. Then he replied, ‘No, I’m not getting into the politics of it. This is about my son and only my son. I’m not waging war. I’m not dragging any innocents into my mess and I’m not going to provoke any backlash. I don’t need a gang, I don’t need an army, I just need some rare and powerful mushrooms.’

‘Oi!’ Churr shouted. ‘Pighead! Got any mushrooms in?’

‘Naturally,’ Pighead growled. ‘Wait a sec.’ He ducked behind the counter for a moment and then reappeared. ‘I got long-leg bonnets, toadthrone, rustcaps, dream-meat and tunnellers. I’d have more but those damned bandits are getting braver.’

‘Dream-meat, I think. Alan? Dream-meat? I know this isn’t what you were talking about, but they’ll take the edge off another long, hot Discard night.’

‘Go on then. And hey, Pighead, you got any teeth? Old Green’s Teeth?’

Pighead frowned. ‘A couple. Didn’t think you were the sort. What, you want ’em?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You know teeth?’

‘Yeah, I know teeth.’

‘Why do you want teeth, Alan?’ Churr asked.

‘Because they’re strong. I want out of my skull, Churr.’

‘But it’s such a pretty skull.’

‘The outside of it is okay, I grant you. But inside it’s a right mess.’

‘Well, you want to get fucked up tonight, that’s up to you. But in the longer term – what you’re saying is, we need to get our own supply.’

‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But yes, I suppose that is the logical conclusion. And what’s this
we
?
Our
? I don’t know about that. We’ve only just met.’

‘Maybe Daunt and I have our own history.’

Alan squinted at Churr through the haze. ‘Wait. You want to go up against Daunt?’

‘That’s what it would take, right? That’s what we’re talking about?’

Alan shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘That’s what
you’re
talking about,’ he said. ‘This conversation’s kind of getting ahead of me.’

‘But Daunt
was
your usual supplier.’

‘Kind of. I couldn’t afford to buy what I needed, so …’ Alan trailed off.

‘You
stole
? From
Daunt
?’ Churr tipped her head back
and laughed, more loudly than she had all night. ‘Oh, Alan. You poor little thing.’

The night was reshaping itself around him and he hadn’t even taken anything yet. ‘Daunt and me go way back. We’re good friends.’

‘Let me clarify things for you.’ Churr took Alan’s chin in her hand and looked into his eyes. ‘You’re not Daunt’s good friend. You’re wrong. You don’t know her at all. You’re an idiot. You don’t mess with Daunt. You’re fucked. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Alan mumbled.

‘You need lots of potent mushrooms for your friend at the Pyramid. You’ve burned your bridges with the only real supplier in town. Are you rich?’

Alan shook his head.

‘You’re not rich. So you can’t just hoover them up from all the Discard’s Pigheads. The only option is to set up our own supply.’

‘This
our
again …’

‘I’ve got a good eye for an opportunity.’

‘I’ve got my own friends, Churr.’

‘Have you got a Mapmaker? I can get you a Mapmaker.’

‘A what? No, of course not. We don’t need a Mapmaker. Do we?’ Alan wrenched his face free of Churr’s grip. ‘What do we need a Mapmaker for?’

‘Getting safely to Dok.’

‘What?’ Now Alan laughed. ‘Firstly, no way am I
tangling with those psycho Mapmakers. Secondly, no way am I going anywhere near Dok. I’m happy in most stinking hellholes, but even I draw the line at Dok. Thirdly – yeah, I stole from Daunt, and maybe that was foolish, but surely setting myself up as her rival would be drawing her attention in a much more obvious and confrontational manner. And you – I like you a lot, and I know you can handle yourself out here in the Discard, but I don’t want you putting yourself in all of this danger for my sake.’

‘It would be for my own sake.’

Alan stood up. ‘Maybe so. But …’ He trailed off.

‘But what?’

‘I’d feel bad.’

‘I could make you feel good again.’

Alan sat back down. ‘It’s like you know me really well,’ he said.

‘You’re quite a simple character.’

‘Is that so?’

Pighead interrupted, bearing a tray laden with teapots and small cups. ‘Mushroom teas,’ he said, putting the tray down. ‘Dream-meat in this ’un, and Old Green’s Teeth in that ’un.’ He eyed Alan warily. ‘Good luck,’ he said, and then returned to the bar.

‘The point is,’ Churr said, ‘you may have your own friends, you may not want me to get hurt, etc., but this is my plan. My idea. My potential profit.’

‘Then why aren’t you doing it anyway?’

‘Maybe I will.’ Churr smiled as she poured herself a cup of tea. ‘The question is, are we colleagues, or rivals?’

‘All I am is drunk,’ Alan said. ‘You’re taking advantage of me. Listen, I’m not committing to anything – not tonight.’

‘At the very least acknowledge that if you want to see your son again, you have to somehow secure a supply of mushrooms from Dok.’

Alan nodded. ‘I suppose that is the awful boiled-down truth that I was dimly aware of but was hoping to run away from for the night. Yes.’

‘The other awful truth you need to confront is that you’ve pissed Daunt off.’

‘She doesn’t know it was me who stole from her, though.’

‘Doesn’t she?’ Churr raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s interesting. I guess I have some leverage.’

Alan paused for a moment. ‘I guess you do,’ he said, feeling miserable.

‘Good. Well done. Now then. Let’s drink our tea and have fun.’

‘This night isn’t going the way I planned it.’

‘Maybe you chose the wrong woman to sleep with.’

Alan poured his own tea. It was green with pale flecks floating in it. ‘I’m looking forward to this,’ he said.

‘You’re mad, then.’

Alan didn’t say anything.

Churr lifted up her cup. ‘To Billy,’ she said.

‘To Billy.’

*

A writhing mass of pale, arm-thick worms spilled out of the snail when it was cut open. They slithered towards Alan and wrapped themselves around his arms and legs, lifted him up, up, up into the sky. They were utterly smooth and featureless. The shell had been smashed into millions of uniform triangular pieces that formed a pattern when he looked down upon them: an intricate mosaic depicting Marion’s face. He laughed to see her again. She was smiling at him in a way that she hadn’t since before Billy was born. The mosaic covered the flat, stone rooftop, beyond which was only darkness. When Alan inhaled, the darkness rose up into the sky like black mountains; when he exhaled, the mountains receded once more, as if he were blowing them flat. The remains of the snail crawled across the mosaic, pulled by more worms, like a slug with tentacles, disrupting the pattern of Marion’s face.

‘Get away!’ Alan shouted. ‘Get away, slug!’ But it either didn’t hear him, didn’t understand him, or didn’t obey him. It left a thick trail of pink slime behind it. The black mountains rose and fell all around. Slowly the worms turned him around so that he was facing upwards. He could hear Marion’s voice from below: ‘Get the fuck out, swine!’ It was a scream, but it sounded distant. A
black diamond hovered in the sky like a hole. All around it stars were pinpricks in a purple sheet. The diamond descended towards Alan’s face and he saw that it was the entrance to a tunnel. Marion’s voice came again: ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’ The tunnel was made out of black and white diamonds, receding. It was like looking into a mirror reflecting another mirror. He strained and twisted as much as the worms permitted, but the tunnel curved just enough to prevent him seeing the end of it. The purple of the sky darkened as he inhaled, lightened as he exhaled. The sound of his breath was almost deafening; he could hear it rushing into and out of his lungs, whistling through the narrow passages of his nose and throat, first one way and then the other. He could feel the oxygen filtering through into his blood and the blood moving through his veins. He felt like it was beating against the inside of his skin.

Something was falling down the tunnel; something wet and bright. It sped towards him and he saw that it was a person. She fell out of the tunnel and landed on top of him; she was naked and covered with ink. He was naked too now, somehow. Churr. It was Churr. She slapped him once across the face, and then again. She leaned forward and opened her mouth and cold black ink gushed out of it, all over his face. The ink was ice cold. He pulled her down against him, so that her breasts pressed into his face. He grabbed hold of her buttocks, slid one hand down and around her upper thigh. His
fingers, hand and then arm disappeared inside her. She started kissing him but her tongue was a pair of long, rough fingers: Bittewood’s fingers. They probed around behind his teeth and in the back of his throat and made him gag. He tried to fight her off but her skin was now fused to his; there was no space between them, and their bodies were gradually melting together. She was sinking through him. He kicked and thrashed but his limbs were bound by the soft elastic of her flesh. He couldn’t see or even breathe. All was dark and he was suffocating. Then, in the distance, there was something gleaming: a point of light. It was a torch being carried towards him. The boy carrying the torch drew back his hood.

‘Billy,’ Alan tried to say, but his voice was muffled and quiet.

‘Dad,’ said Billy.

‘I’m sorry, son.’

‘What?’

‘I said I’m sorry.’

Alan tried to move towards his son but couldn’t. Billy’s face was older than Alan remembered it. He walked towards Alan and reached out and gently placed his fingertips on Alan’s eyelids and closed them. ‘Goodbye, Dad,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll all get some peace now.’

Alan leaped forward, got tangled in the bedclothes, and fell sprawling onto the floor. He lay there for a moment, still. He didn’t recognise the room. It felt real, though. It had the anonymous air of one of the House of a
Thousand Hollows’ rooms for hire. Alan’s mouth was dry and his skin was wet. ‘Churr?’ he croaked. ‘Hello?’

Churr was lying face down in the bed. He watched her until he was sure she was breathing. He crept to the sink, but when he tried to turn the tap it just swivelled in its socket and nothing came out. His brain felt like a sick toad. He was hot and couldn’t stop shivering. He went to the window and looked out. It was still dark. He had not slept; his experiences had not been dreams but hallucinations. Chimneys opposite the window were expressing long jets of steam in a seemingly random sequence. The steam was bright blue in the moonlight. Sometimes pipes thought long-dead came back to life, suddenly spouting water or vapours. There were some Mapmakers who devoted their lives to tracing working pipes – or even dormant ones – back to their sources to find out what their original purposes were, and who, or what, was keeping them operational. That usually meant going deep down, though, and as far as Alan knew, not many of those fools came back.

His clothes were a sad pile on the floor by the bed. He put them back on, slowly.

On his way out of the room he noticed a half-empty bottle of Dog Moon on top of a low bookcase. The bookcase was full of ornamental crystals, covered with a thick coat of dust. He took the Moon, and then closed the door softly after himself.

‘This isn’t a good way of dealing with anything,’ Eyes said, standing over Alan.

‘It’s my way.’

‘Yeah, I know. That’s why you’re such a Green-awful mess.’

‘Well thank you, Eyes. Now please fuck off. Let’s have this conversation when I’m sober.’

‘You’re never sober, though. That’s the point. And show some respect to your elders if you would, you little pisspot.’ Eyes rubbed his head and tutted. ‘This can’t go on. Trust me. I know it well, and you know that I know.’

Alan glanced up at Eyes. The man looked older than he was. His ruined eyes were two red-raw holes in between … not crow’s feet: turkey’s feet. His head was hairless and spotted. His skin was grey and his once-red beard white and untidy. And right now his frown was severe.

‘See this face?’ Eyes said, pointing at himself with his
thumbs. ‘This is how you’ll end up. You don’t want that now, do you?’

‘Don’t worry, Eyes,’ Alan said, ‘I’ll kill myself before I ever get as old as you.’

Eyes hit him, hard, across the back of the head. He wore thick rings on his big, gnarled fingers and the
crack
they made against the younger man’s skull was followed by silence as Alan folded up. Eyes watched, mouth twisting. He had various tics and his mouth twisting uncontrollably was one of them. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You deserved it, but I
am
sorry.’ He fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat and then put his hands behind his back. Eyes would be visited by trembling fits at times of distress – periods of severe shaking that lasted indefinitely – and he’d always try to hide it from Alan by putting his hands behind his back. The gesture was tantamount to announcing it.

Eyes did not live in the House of a Thousand Hollows but in a rambling wooden shack built on soil rich with humus that, according to Eyes, had once itself been wooden buildings. The shack was one of several nestled against a long, high wall enclosing a flat square space – probably the top floor of a huge building that had somehow lost its roof. The space was vibrant with plant life and smelled of earth and wild garlic. The soil at the far side of the expanse was always damp; rainwater drained towards it, then stayed there. Alan had told Eyes that this place wouldn’t last forever, that it would eventually collapse, but Eyes would have none of it.

The place was maybe an hour’s travel from the House. The kitchen table was piled high with rhubarb. Alan had come over for some of Eyes’ peppermint tea, but so far Eyes was withholding.

‘I didn’t raise you for this,’ Eyes said.

Alan didn’t say anything.

‘What is it, then? What’s the excuse this time? What grand and terrible pain are you trying to kill?’

‘It’s about Billy.’

Now Eyes stayed his tongue. For a moment. Then he flung his shaking hands into the air. ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘Well, there’s not much to say to that. I know it’s hard, Alan, but—’

‘Actually I don’t need your advice, Eyes,’ Alan said. ‘No “Everybody’s got it hard in the Discard” crap. No homilies. No platitudes. I’m only here for some tea, something to clean me out, and then I’ll be on my way.’

‘And then what? You’ll do it all again tonight?’

‘No. I’ve got a plan. Things are going to change.’

Eyes sat down. ‘Tell me about Billy. What happened?’

‘He’s being bullied – but then, that’s what happens in there, isn’t it? That’s how it operates. It’s so normal that nobody sees it, but the place runs on bullying and fear. In no time at all they’ll be Bleeding him, and then he’ll be manning his Station until he’s an old husk, and then they’ll put him in the gardens to die.’

‘But you knew that already.’

‘Yes, Eyes, I knew that already. Thank you for your
sensitivity; it is much appreciated.’ Alan started chewing at a fingernail and then he said, ‘Also, fucking Tromo’s wanting more and more before he’ll let me see him. He wants these new mushrooms – a kind Daunt had little of, and what she did have, I … I lost.’

‘Nothing else he wants?’

‘Nothing that he’s told me about.’

‘Why not just kill him?’

‘You really are old-guard, Eyes, you know that?’

‘I’m not. You’re just soft.’

‘If I kill him there’ll just be another Arbitrator takes his place, and this one’ll be a paragon of virtue who I won’t be able to bribe at all.’

‘Then why not
threaten
to kill him? Blackmail, like?’

‘Maybe. Maybe.’ Alan thought about it. ‘But the whole reason they exiled me in the first place was for my activities and the reason the little wretches pick on Billy is that I got kicked out for making trouble. If Tromo were to talk … if I were to make more trouble … No, I don’t want to risk the Management hurting Billy. Or Marion.’

‘So what, then?’

‘I’m not going to need your help, Eyes.’

‘You don’t know how much of my help you need, Alan. That’s always been the case. Now talk.’

‘Don’t try to talk me out of anything.’

‘Talk. And I’ll brew up.’

‘I need to go to Dok.’

Eyes laughed as he hung the kettle over the fire, but Alan just shrugged.

‘You mean it,’ Eyes said.

‘Yeah, I mean it.’

‘And you think you don’t need my help.’

‘You’re not coming with me.’

‘I’ll decide for my own damn self if I’m coming or not.’

‘Eyes …’

‘I know, I know.’ Eyes held up his shaking hands. ‘I know. But I can still hold a knife. I can still fight. And I can still move sharp enough. It’s just the shaking now and again.’

‘What about your ointment, though?’ Ever since Eyes had had his eyelids ripped off in the dungeons below the Pyramid, he’d had to treat the wounds with a special cream that both prevented infection and solidified into a mask that kept his eyes moist while sleeping. Before the torture, his name had been Guy.

‘If I were to come – and it’s a big
if
, still – I’d just ask Loon to make up a big batch for me. No problem. The woman’s a genius.’

‘Will it keep?’

‘She’ll find a way. But so: if not me, then who’re you planning on taking with you?’

‘I do have other friends, y’know.’

‘Yeah, yeah. You’ve always got friends, Alan – it’s just that none of them last very long. So who?’

‘Spider Kurt, if he’ll come.’

‘What? You, me and Spider? The band? Are we just going on tour?’

‘He’s tough, though. You know he’s tough.’

‘Yeah, he’s tough. Who else?’

‘A transient called Churr. It was her idea. I think she’s tough too.’

‘All transients are tough.’

‘And Churr knows a Mapmaker.’

‘Hell.’ Eyes found two mismatched glasses, both chipped, and spooned a tiny bit of sugar into each. Alan noticed, and suddenly felt so grateful to the old man that he nearly welled up. But that was probably just the hangover. ‘A Mapmaker, eh?’ Eyes continued. ‘That’s probably
too
tough.’

‘You ever met one?’

‘Not close up, no, and I’ve never really planned on it.’ He ran a hand over his head. ‘Probably not a bad idea though, all things considered. Dok, eh?’

‘Dok. Yeah.’ Dangling from a hook in the ceiling was a net full of small muslin bundles. Alan watched Eyes root through it, bringing each bundle to his nose and sniffing it until he eventually found two that smelled right. These he dumped into a small brown teapot. The kettle started to whistle.

‘And what then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You get the mushrooms, you deliver them – all easier
said than done, naturally – and then they don’t kill Billy. Then what?’

‘Then nothing. That’s it.’

Eyes frowned. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that can’t be it. You’ve got an in, and you’ve got an … an
opportunity
. We’re talking about the bloody Pyramid here: the monsters who killed your good old mother and father, and they
were
good, too, your mam and da. They’d see this for the gift it is.’

‘Don’t.’

‘And the taxes! The raids! The
kidnappings
, lad!’

Alan shook his head. ‘Rumours,’ he said.

‘You know it’s not damned rumours.’

‘I lived inside that thing for years,’ Alan said. ‘I would know if they were spiriting folks away up into it.’

‘It’s big enough for all sorts to be going on in there without you knowing.’

Alan shook his head, but Eyes was right. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘look, I’m not interested in any of that. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t. You and me, we’re angry with them for different reasons. I’m angry at what they did to Marion, what they might still be doing for all I know, and what they’re doing to Billy. This isn’t your fight.’ He reached for his glass of steaming tea. ‘This isn’t political,’ he said.

‘You know the taxes are real.
Taxes!
That’s too grand a word for it. It’s just theft. You know the raids are real.’

Alan closed his eyes and drew the fragrant steam up
through his nose. ‘That used to be my fight,’ he said, ‘when I was in there. That was my fight, and Marion and Billy paid the consequences. I’m not going to keep kicking that dog, Eyes. I just want my family to be safe.’

‘As long as that Pyramid gets away with doing what it does, no family is safe.’ Eyes was gripping the back of a spindly wooden chair, his knuckles turning white.

‘Maybe I have to make it explicit,’ Alan said, his voice hardening. ‘If I have to choose between trying and failing to take down the Pyramid for the sake of the whole damned Discard, thereby putting my family at greater risk, or trying and possibly succeeding to keep just Billy and Marion safe, then I will choose the latter. Do you understand?’

‘I understand that you’re abandoning your principles,’ Eyes said, turning away.

‘I’m abandoning
your
principles,’ Alan said, ‘and it’s a decision that I’m comfortable with.’ He finished his tea. Usually they shared a whole pot, but not today. ‘This hasn’t been the pleasant, amiable chat I was hoping for. I apologise.’ He stood up.

‘No,’ Eyes said after a moment. ‘I’m sorry, lad.’ He let go of the chair. His hands shook wildly. ‘I’m just – when it comes to that bloody thing, that bloody Pyramid, I can’t think straight. It’s just – it’s like I hear the word and a door opens inside me and all these monsters come out and they take me over.’

‘It’s because of what they did to you,’ Alan said.

‘It’s part of what they did to me,’ Eyes said, and fell into silence. Alan couldn’t remember the older man ever looking so sad and wretched. He went over and embraced him.

‘I will help you if I can,’ Eyes said, just before Alan left.

‘I’m arranging a meeting at the Cavern Tavern,’ Alan said. ‘Seven o’clock tonight. You don’t have to come, but if you do, you’ll be welcome. Thank you for the tea.’