Edge (15 page)

    "Hallo, Richie-boy," said a familiar voice.

    "Jayce!"

    "Vodka Mary saw you head across Vauxhall Bridge. Thought I'd follow."

    "Who's–? Never mind."

    The expression on the turbaned man's face seemed to be melting downward. Richard's stomach lurched with shame.

    "I get ya," said Jayce. "Come on."

    They moved through well-dressed crowds, heading along the Strand. In shop doorways, the destitute sat awake or still slept, under shabby blankets or cardboard boxes. Soon they would have to move as the businesses opened. At least one form was so still that it could be dead; but no one was checking. Richard felt sick as he kept pace with Jayce, because he was like the rest, doing nothing to help. From some doorways came "Spare any change?" – directed to those who had money, not toward two homeless youths encroaching on choice territory. Hard looks sent a message even Richard could read, however confusing he found this new world.

    In the shops, glowglass windows doubled as display screens, reporting the morning's headlines: WEST MIDLANDS FLASH FLOODS, 22 DEAD; VIOLENT CLASHES BETWEEN CHINESE CONGLOMERATES IN AFRICA; PM BILLY CHURCH GAINS 43% LEAD IN POLLS… He tuned it out, for they were meaningless signals, no more relevant to finding something to eat than the weather on Jupiter or the beating of pulsars beyond the galactic rim.

    He missed his books.

    "Sod this," said Jayce. "It's better south of the river."

    Everywhere people were hurrying to work. What did people actually do all day in offices? What did Father do? He was on the boards of companies, but for the first time Richard realised he had no idea what that meant.

    "Is it always like this?"

    Jayce might have shrugged, but Richard's attention shifted to the other side of the street, a couple with two children, well-dressed and laughing as they paused before the Apollo Theatre, pointing at the animated poster over the doors. Sourness rotated in his stomach. He watched as the parents hugged their kids, continuing their saunter down the Strand.

    "Fuckin' plod's all over the place." Jayce nodded toward three police officers further down the street, and another trio beyond. "See what I mean?"

    Before he became a criminal, Richard had thought of police as reassuring. Now he wanted to break into a run, but that would catch their attention.

    "Can we get out of here?"

    "Down this way."

    Old steps sloped between two centuries-old buildings. At the bottom, Jayce turned left and Richard followed, continuing toward Waterloo Bridge. They climbed up to bridge level, made the long walk across – an ache throbbed in the back of Richard's legs – and descended an underpass to a round area below ground level, open to the sky, containing the black, shattered cylinder of the Imax Ruin. In the ramps and underpasses all around, Cardboard City was a packed confusion of makeshift shelters, grime-caked faces, tattered clothes, and a pervasive, heavy sourness that entered the nose and lungs and would not leave.

"'S crowded 'ere." Jayce had begun slurring. "Innit?"

    Or perhaps it was something to do with the green powder he'd taken last night. Whatever happened, Richard knew he had to steer clear of that stuff. Was there something he should do to help Jayce? The thought made his arms tremble, helplessness spreading inside him. And then Jayce was gone. Rubbing his eyes, Richard wove his gaze among the shabby figures, trying to spot… There. Jayce was wobbling his way through another underpass tunnel. What else could Richard do but follow? Among the fragrant stench of the lost, he made his way as best he could, only catching up Jayce when they were above ground, heading for the South Bank where the buildings shone and clean air blew off the Thames, the turbine vanes circling, and everything in its place.

    Around the pillars and blocky sculptures, in the profusion of concrete architecture – Festival Hall, ramps, and walkways – were brightly-dressed figures who took Richard's breath away. Despite the early hour, they ran and vaulted over stairwells, rolled across concrete outdoor tables, threw themselves cartwheeling from walls, hit flagstones with a shoulder roll and came to their feet. Some used slideshoes, while others with boots and gauntlets spidered up buildings and took urban gymnastics to a level Richard had never seen.

    "Who are they, Jayce?"

    "Huh? Spidermen. Gekrunners."

    "Will they talk to us?"

    "Dunno, man. Tired."

    "Jayce?"

    But Jayce was sliding to the ground. He curled up sideways on the paving stones, shivered in hot sunlight, and fell into sleep.

    He was too heavy to carry. Should he go to hospital? There were few pedestrians here – not so many offices for the commuters to rush to – and the whatsits, the gekrunners, were intent on their own thing. But a trio of police officers, bulky in their body armour, was heading this way. Trembling, Richard shook his head as if in disgust at the sight of Jayce, then walked on, head down, as if he had places to go, classes to attend. The more he realised this was a dream, the slower his paces became; and then there was a tap on his shoulder, and his bladder almost let go.

    "You're his friend?" It was a girl's voice. "Jayce's friend?"

    She was thin, about his height, wearing a helmet, gauntlets, and boots. Her sweatshirt flickered between two messages – Born to Jump and Head over Heels – beneath a moving graphic, a cartwheeling silhouette.

    "Uh, yeah."

    "You look straight. I'm Opal."

    She held out her hand like an adult. It took Richard a moment to react.

    "R-Richie."

    The gauntlet, as he shook her hand, felt tough.

    "You ain't been on the streets long."

    "No." There was a crack of sound overhead. "Bloody hell."

    A young man with dreadlocks clung spiderlike to sheer concrete, after a spectacular spinning leap from a table. He grinned at Opal and Richard, then twisted off and dropped, shoulder-rolling as he hit the ground, coming up into a skating motion, sliding away as if the flagstones were slick as ice.

"That's Kyle, and he's nuts. Good, though."

    It was impossible to look away as Kyle vaulted over a stone plinth, cartwheeled, then skated onward.

    "How does he do that?"

    "Practice every day and you'll find out."

    "But–" He stared up at the concrete wall. "I don't see how it's possible."

    "Oh, that. Watch, and don't move a muscle." Opal curled the middle and ring fingers of her right hand, then opened them. "Totally still, now. Don't want to tear your skin."

    She placed the palms of both gauntleted hands on his shoulders, then raised her arms a little. The fabric of Richard's shirt pulled upward. Then she crimped her fingers and the shirt dropped free.

    "Gekkomere strips." She turned over her hand. "See? Sticks like magic."

    "Fractal microtendrils." Richard peered at the strips. "Tap into the van der Waals forces between the molecules, the covalent bonds."

    Opal looked at him.

    "You so gotta talk to Brian. He's a right tech-head, too."

    "Brian?" Then Richard remembered Jayce. "Oh, shit."

    Looking back, he saw that the officers had hauled a wobbling Jayce to his feet.

    "Let's hope they'll take him in this time," said Opal.

    "You want them to arrest Jayce?"

    "Stick him in a cell, inject him with anti-whatsit to clear his veins? Too right. It zaps the cravings for days. Give him another chance to go cold turkey."

    Two of the officers, hands in Jayce's armpits, pretty much carried him along as they walked. The other officer was scanning everyone in sight. Richard turned away, feeling as if he were about to cry.

    "Hey, what is it?"

    "I just… don't know what to do. Where to go."

    "Why don't you come with us?"

    "Who's 'us'?"

    "We are the Vauxhall Spidermen." Opal grinned. "Except I'm more Spidergirl myself."

    Richard's eyes were blurring. He gave one sob, then caught himself. "Sorry."

    "Come on. This way."

Technically the Spidermen lived in a squat, or a sequence of squats joined together. The street was part-derelict, but the local council had refurbished some of the houses: outer walls coated with cheap ceramic, rooftops shining with photoplastic. The gekrunners had possession of houses that were on the council's to-do list – or according to Opal, the won't-ever-get-aroundto list. The interiors were plain-painted, scraped back to brick in some places, decorated with movie posters looping through five-second clips. Several showed gekrunners performing daredevil acrobatics. Through the rear windows, Richard could see rows of photobulbs, soaking up sunlight. Inside, he counted twenty-eight different people before he gave up keeping track. Most were thin, some with lean muscle. Was everyone a gekrunner?

    Laughter sounded from upstairs.

    "Do all these people live here?" Richard looked at the varicoloured cushions scattered around the floor. "I mean, here or the other houses?"

    Opal was about to answer, but a male voice forestalled her.

    "Most do." The speaker was tall and white. "Me, I sleep over the shop most times."

    "This is Brian," said Opal. "And this is Richie."

    "Hey."

    "Hey."

    "Richie's a tech head. Richie, tell Brian about the Van Vols. You know."

    "Say what?"

    "In the gloves. Tell him."

    "Uh…" Richard shook his head. "She means gekkomere tapping into van der Waals forces."

    "Cool. You've got it."

    "But Kyle's skating, how does that work?"

    Brian gestured. "Show him your boot soles, Opal."

    "OK." She put on hand on Richard's shoulder for balance, then raised one foot. "See?"

    "Hyperglace gel strips." Brian pointed. "Like the gekkomere, flips between two modes. Just apply a tiny potential."

    "And they're frictionless?"

    "Coefficient damn near close to zero."

    "At ambient temperature?"

    "Unless the weather is–"

    "You two." Opal lowered her foot, releasing Richard's shoulder. "Tech heads."

    The absence of her hand felt… strange. Warm and strange.

    "You hack code?" asked Brian. "Course you do. If you want to work, come over to the shop in the morning."

    "Er…" Richard looked at Opal. "Work?"

    "We aren't losers." Brian nodded toward the seated people. "Apart from maybe Kenny over there. He's a doctoral student at King's, and a total waste of space."

    "I love you too, man." Kenny raised a hand to Richard. "Hey."

    "Hey."

    Richard looked down at the floor. It was cleaner than he'd expected. Of course he had to work, because that was what people did, or at least grown-ups. Fourteen year-olds did not pay tax, were outside the system that adults lived in, so whatever Brian meant it was surely illegal.

    "It's what they call cash in hand," said Opal. "No ID required. No phone. Good place."

    "Oh. And it's a shop?"

    "You'll like it." Brian tapped Opal's gauntlet. "We sell stuff like this. Gekrunner tech, bikes with graphite memories, you name it. At least until July twentieth."

    Richard's guts clenched.
Knife blade, coming at me.
But there was no knife, and he was safe, because Zajac was in school and that was another world. July twentieth was the day of the
Knife Edge
final, when Zajac had said he'd come for him. But he was away from that, and safe.

    Safe from Zajac, anyhow.

    "He's talking about the general election." Opal shrugged, distorting the cartwheeling logo on her shirt. "Politics."

    "Matters more than you think, kid." Brian waved his phone. "If Fat Billy Church stays in office, they're threatening to make cash illegal. Pure phone-to-phone economy."

    "That's impossible," said Opal.

    "All they got to do is stop making coins and notes, then announce a cut-off date. Bring your cash into a bank for credit, or it drops to zero value, and you have bugger all."

    Richard's stomach made a noise. He felt stricken; but Opal smiled.

    "He needs feeding. Smell that? They're cooking chilli."

    "Right," said Brian. "Let's get him fed."

But the food wasn't ready yet. It hurt to leave the steamy kitchen and step out into the back yard, where old mattresses lay in neat rows, plastic crates stood in a pyramid, and rusted poles supported a web of clotheslines. Eight or nine teenagers were practicing flips and rolls around the makeshift outdoor gym.

    "He's going to mess that up," said Opal. "See?"

    One of the youths rolled off a mattress, hitting the ground hard. He stood up, rubbing his ribs.

    "Ouch," he said.

    "You nearly nailed it," Opal told him.

    From their left, a canine yap sounded. A Jack Russell on a lead formed of braided string wagged his tail. His owner was a girl around Richard's age; her sweatshirt was pink, bearing a picture of a flat-chested muscular man holding a knife. The heading read CARLSEN: THE FIREMAN RETURNS, while his blade dripped moving blood, animated droplets sliding down the sweatshirt fabric.

    "That's Zoe," said Opal. "And this–"

    Everything faded as Richard's hearing filled with the hiss of non-existent surf.

    
Blades and the whirring machines, peeling back the skin
and slicing the skull, glistening folds of fatty brain, trickles of
blood and no one noticing.