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  Shelby is a hundred per cent Brandfield girl, but she has another side. Most of her friends would consider it outré to know how to work a watch, but she bats around on her heliporter like a wild thing, and even has some idea how it works, I suspect. She didn’t seem totally convinced when I told her once it was magic, anyway. Some doctor, lawyer or orthodontist is going to find themselves with a bit more than they bargained for when the time comes.

  The Actioneer shook his head.

  ‘Never been there. Hardly been anywhere, in fact. Where is it?’

  ‘Couple of Neighbourhoods away. She said half an hour but she’s always just that little bit later than you’d expect.’

  There was a pause before Alkland spoke.

  ‘So we are going to make it, after all?’

  ‘Looks that way. Bummer, eh?’

  Things went silent again and I sat covertly watching the Actioneer, who was swaying slightly and obviously very tired but trying to stay awake. It looked like something was on his mind. After a moment he roused himself and turned to face me.

  ‘Stark, when we do get off here, where will we go?’

  We hadn’t discussed the situation at all since his revelation on the raft, and this was a question I’d been expecting. For the first time it looked reasonably definite that we were going to carry on living, which meant that there were some issues which had to be addressed.

  ‘Well, that’s sort of up to you. My job was to find you, and take you back to the Centre.’

  He nodded, smiling painfully.

  ‘However,’ I continued, ‘I get the sense that you could maybe use a little time to reorientate yourself, or whatever. Also, there’s something I think I should talk to you about. So there is an alternative, which is that we go back to Colour.’

  ‘Is that where you live?’

  ‘Yeah. Me and my cat. Centre will have no way of knowing we’re out yet. A few hours either way won’t make any difference. I’m a flexible person. It’s your call.’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind, if you really don’t, I would value a little time before I go back. If that’s all right.’

  He looked so forlorn at that moment, so much like a lost child, that I nearly went ahead and asked him just what the hell was going on in his life. But you get a lot more sense out of people when they start talking by themselves, because you don’t have to badger them, don’t have to rely upon asking the right questions. So I didn’t. I’m surprisingly gentle with my clients. I wish someone would be that nice to me.

  ‘No problem. Look. We got about forty minutes to wait, I would guess. You look like you could do with some sleep. Why not have a little?’

  ‘Yes Sleep is something I certainly do need. I don’t think it will come, but I’ll try.’

  ‘Good.’ It struck me again how pale he looked, how owl-like his tired eyes. ‘Don’t worry: I won’t leave without you.’

  He lay back on the stone, using his jacket as a pillow, and in under a minute was away. I lit another cigarette and stared up into the sky, waiting for the cavalry, considering the situation.

  It wasn’t at all clear what was going to happen when we got back to Colour. I was supposed to be taking Alkland back to the Centre: that was the job I’d been given, and to some guys, that would have been the job they were going to finish. But the fact that Alkland hadn’t been snatched at all, that he’d made his own way here, that changed things a little for me.

  I don’t work for money, you see. I do what I want to do, or what’s interesting, or what seems to be the right thing to do. That’s what makes me good at this life. I follow my instincts, and generally they lead me in the right direction. Someone is usually grateful to me at the end of a job: it’s just not always the people who asked me to do it in the first place. Somebody wins, somebody loses, and sometimes I get to choose which is which. The only person who never stands a chance of winning is myself, because there can be no victory for me, only future battles. Sometimes I wish that weren’t so. But it is.

  As it turned out Shelby was actually on time for once in her life, which was a damn good thing for us. Early, but not a moment too soon.

  As Alkland slept I got up and walked over to the edge to have a look myself. The view from there was, well, a view really. And then some. The highest wall in The City is round Babel Neighbourhood, but that’s a different sort of thing and it’s a long way away. Babel is only three hundred yards across in either direction, but it’s over a mile high. It’s where people who love living in high buildings go to hang out. Some floors are offices, some residential, some hotels, some leisure complexes, there’s a six-storey-high park and they have the most can-do elevators in the world.

  Stable is next on the scale. We were on Royle side, and way down below that twisted scrapheap was glinting in the sun. Beyond was the much lower roof of Red, and then, slightly higher, the roof of the Centre. Beyond, but hidden in the distance, was Colour. To the left was Fnaph, to the right Natsci and, a few Neighbourhoods away, Turn. Shelby would be flying in from behind me, travelling from Brandfield over first Yo! and then Grainger Neighbourhoods.

  Enough of Geography 101 already, you may be saying, but you should be impressed. A lot of people only visit three or four Neighbourhoods in their whole lives. I can’t understand that, but it’s true. The sky all around me was empty: heliports were a fad that died over a hundred years ago. Shelby’s is an antique, passed down the family and never used until she came along. Travel to other planets has almost ground to a halt, and the people out there have gone pretty much the same way as down here.

  I guess there’s not the same need to search any more: somewhere there’ll be a place that’s right for you, and so you go there, and you stay. The majority remain in the Neighbourhood where they were born, in fact. They’re so distinct now, so specialised, that if you grow up in one nowhere else ever feels comfortable. A few people still feel the need to roam, to travel for its own sake, to see new places and different things just because they exist, but not many. If you’ve found the best, why try the rest? Most have found their own customised pasture by now, and they graze. I don’t, but I guess I’m never going to feel at home wherever I am.

  I stood looking out for a good fifteen minutes. You don’t often get a chance to see something like this, and I was storing it up. When I was full I turned and went back to where Alkland was sleeping, and immediately wished I had come back sooner.

  The Actioneer was having another nightmare, and this one looked even worse than the one I’d seen in the hotel room. When we were back in Colour I was going to have to do a little probing of Alkland, for his own sake. I didn’t have to have him around to do it, but it would be easier that way.

  Knowing from experience that it’s not a good idea to wake someone forcibly from that kind of dream if you can help it, I sat close to him, lit a cigarette, and held it where the smoke would drift close to his twitching face.

  It was sitting in that position I heard the sound. It was only a small noise, but it was pretty quiet sitting up there on top of the world, and it jolted me to my feet and over to the hole immediately. The sound repeated itself, louder this time, and I knew instantly what it was. Swearing vigorously I grabbed the jacket from under Alkland’s head and spread it over the hole, trying to replicate the effect that a grille would have on the light below, and the other device I’d brought with me in the centre. Alkland hadn’t really woken up, so I prodded him and he came to eventually.

  For a moment he stared round, wide-eyed, still wherever he had been in his dream, and then he began to reorientate.

  ‘Wass matter?’

  ‘Police. Again.’ The noises I’d heard were the dull puffs of sneezes. ‘They’re in the rain room. It’s the same two who came to the hotel, but I’m going to bet they’ve got some colleagues with them this time.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Alkland, flustering to his feet. ‘How long till your friend arrives?’

  It was only twenty five minutes since I’d called which meant at
least another fifteen, I reckoned.

  ‘Long enough. I think we should move away from this hole. Quickly.’

  I took Alkland’s arm and led him across the roof, moving as quickly as possible. Either some piece of debris from the raft must have clogged the conduit and triggered an alarm, or they were just being thorough in an inspired way. I hoped it was the latter. If they actually knew we’d come up here then as soon as they established we weren’t in the rain room there was only one place we could be. As we ran I scanned the sky for signs of the heliporter, but there weren’t any yet.

  ‘This isn’t good, is it?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘They’ll have security police with them this time, and they’ll shoot to kill. There’s no one up here to see, and there’s nowhere for us to run.’ For a moment I remembered my thoughts on hiding at the beach the night before, and smiled ruefully to myself.

  Then, amazingly, I saw a faint dot in the sky, heading our way over Grainger Neighbourhood. The cavalry was actually going to arrive more or less on schedule for once. Seconds later I heard a very faint yelp behind us.

  ‘Bollocks,’ I observed, urging Alkland to move even faster, ‘they’ve found the chute we came up.’

  The heliporter was now a small shape in the distance, and getting closer all the time, the tinny buzz of its engine increasingly audible. I felt hopeful for a moment, then glanced back to see that a head was poking out of the hole back there.

  ‘I see them!’ cried the man, and as he scrambled to get out I saw he was dressed entirely in dark blue. I knew from Snedd that this meant security police, and my heart sank.

  ‘We have to run like hell now,’ I told Alkland.

  ‘Right-o,’ he gasped, and actually started moving a little quicker. All those hours spent sitting in a bathing costume must have done him good. I could still keep up with him running backwards to keep an eye on developments, but at least he wasn’t crawling. We had a couple of hundred yards’ head-start on them, and it takes a bloody good shot to fire accurately when you’re running.

  The bad news was that the heliporter was still a good half mile away, and that there were now five men dressed in blue on the roof, all running our way and moving much quicker than we were. That meant the device had failed, which was terrible news. It was a Lethargy Bomb, which would have increased our chances massively.

  Then I noticed the two stalwart cops crawling out onto the roof, and saw that it had worked after all. Those two guys could have been run over by a glacier. So why the hell were the boys in blue still on form? Maybe the two cops had been given the job of going up the well first, and had caught the brunt. Also, I realised, they still had flu. I was glad I wasn’t them: them must be feeling pretty awful. On the other hand, they were in a rather better position than we were. The security police were now gaining ground, and seconds later the first shot banged off the ground about five yards to the side of us.

  ‘Oh dear,’ panted Alkland, ‘things are actually getting worse.’

  ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’

  The whine from the heliporter’s engine climbed in pitch, and I knew Shelby had seen the situation and was putting her immaculately shod foot down. She was only a couple of hundred yards away, but the men in blue were a lot closer. Another shot rang out, fired by the man in the lead, and this one came a lot nearer. Then suddenly the second security policeman stopped dead in his tracks, put his hands on his hips, and frowned.

  ‘You know,’ I heard him say, ‘I really can’t be bothered.’

  He wandered slowly off to the side, looking for a place for a bit of a lie down. A moment later the one at the back of the pack said, ‘No, me neither. Sod this,’ and went off to join him. The Bomb had worked, but these were geared-up professionals, and the effects were weaker and taking longer to get hold. The heliporter was now within a hundred yards, and Shelby was banking hard to come straight to us. A shot whined past my head and I realised that the time had come to stop running.

  ‘You go on!’ I yelled at Alkland. I’ll catch you up.’

  He hesitated for a moment, and then ploughed on. I pulled my gun out and quickly flicked it back to maximum intensity as another one of the police skidded to a halt, stretched, and sat down. Still trotting backwards I levelled the gun and fired.

  Shooting accurately while running backwards is a bit of an acquired skill, and the first shell went wild, but the second was closer, and the man in front slowed to take better aim himself. The buzzing of the heliporter was much louder now, and I glanced back to see that it was hovering a foot above the roof, and that Alkland was within yards of it.

  The second policeman was also firing and looked like he was going to stay awake, but he was much slower than the one in front, who was coming on strongly in the closing stages. Either he’d been in the back of the queue when the device went off, or he was one motivated bastard. He fired again and I came closer than ever before to losing my head. When I reached the heliporter Alkland was already perched on the passenger seat.

  Heliporters are basically a rotor unit, a stick that hangs down, and a stick at right angles to that with a seat on either side. I was going to have to sling one leg either side of the centre pole and hang on. Before that, I had to do something about the first policeman. He was still coming, now firing at the heliporter instead of at me. If he hit it, we were stuffed.

  I don’t like this kind of thing, but if it has to be done, I do it. I had a clear shot to the guy’s chest, and I took it.

  The shell hit him square between the lungs and took his torso apart. As he toppled backwards his face looked alarmed and pissed off, and I’m not surprised. It was the only chest he’d got. Things were going to be very different for him from now on.

  I ran the last few steps and jumped on. Shelby did the aerial equivalent of a wheel spin and the heliporter jumped straight into the air, a bullet from the last policeman’s gun zipping neatly underneath us.

  ‘Full speed ahead, Shelby,’ I gasped.

  ‘Like, totally,’ she said.

  The ride back to Colour, buzzing back to freedom through the early morning sun, high above the Neighbourhoods and leaving Stable far behind, will live long in my memory as one of the most straightforwardly positive things in my life.

  The first hundred metres were kind of intense: Shelby slammed the heliporter into maximum thrust and the acceleration would have toppled Alkland backwards off his perch if I hadn’t been hanging onto him. I was clinging on pretty precariously myself, wrapped round the centre stick with a leg on each side, and the bullets zipping past us from the last policeman’s gun added a certain something to the experience. Pretty soon we were out of range though, and when we looked back to see the policeman sitting lethargically down on the roof and taking out a book, we knew we were clear. Shelby had pulled off a rescue that professional friends of mine would have been proud of, and Alkland and I had escaped from certain death, the first people in over fifty years to get into Stable and come out again without being caught. Did we holler and whoop, shouting things like ‘Yo’ and ‘All right’? I think we did.

  I got Shelby to take us round the Centre instead of over it, on the off-chance that ACIA still had an automatic search on Alkland’s tracer implant. Sailing high above Royle, looking down on the gleaming metal and turgid waters, I made myself more secure and checked that Alkland was hanging on tightly. The Actioneer was completely zoned by the whole thing, but so amazed to still be alive that he forgot to be terrified and just gazed beatifically down, taking in the scenery. In his whole life he’d been to Natsci twice and to Stable via Red, and nowhere else, so busy Doing Things that he’d never actually done anything at all.

  Feeling like a parent who is happy to see his child enjoying something special, I turned and looked at Shelby, who was immaculate in designer jeans, designer white blouse, designer red sweater and designer pearls. She was watching Alkland too, and we smiled at each other. On impulse I put my arm round her shoulders and thanked her as best I could, with a
small kiss.

  On we flew, over Fnapf, and I explained to Alkland why the people down below appeared to be jumping as high as they could and then falling to the ground, time and time again. After Fnapf we passed over the corner of Shunt Neighbourhood and then into Colour airspace. As Shelby took us slowly lower, heading in the direction of my apartment block, Alkland’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way for some time. I knew what he meant. Colour is something special from the air. From high up you can see that the Street Colour Co-ordinator Computers aren’t just responding to the people walking around, but that there’s an overall structure to it as well, an enormous painting continually in flux. Quite why they do that when there’s no one up here to appreciate it remains to be seen. Probably just because they can.

  Less than an hour after her last rooftop landing, Shelby dropped the heliporter gently onto the top of my building. We waited for the rotors to stop, and then climbed off.

  ‘Shelby?’ I said, holding her hands in mine. ‘You earned extra lives.’

  ‘Yes,’ smiled Alkland tentatively. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Thank Stark,’ she grinned at him. ‘He taught me.’

  I asked her if she’d like to come in, but she shook her head regretfully.

  ‘Love to, but I have to go shopping. I’m way late already. But listen, you,’ she added, poking me in the chest, ‘some sort of one-to-one social event is completely overdue.’

  ‘When this is finished,’ I promised, ‘let’s have dinner.’

  Totally,’ she said. ‘At Maxim’s. We’ll get dressed.’

  ‘It’s a date.’

  ‘But don’t wait until you’re finished,’ she smiled, slipping elegantly back onto her perch and flicking the rotors into life. ‘Nothing’s ever finished with you.’

  We waited until she was safely aloft and spinning back towards Brandfield, and then I led Alkland to the door which opens onto the stairs of the building. The top three floors are empty, and as we trudged slowly down Alkland stumbled once and almost fell. Reaching out and grabbing him was getting to be a full-time job.