Tanglewreck (17 page)

‘Run Silver, run!’

They ran towards the bus, the men following. Gabriel and Silver ran as fast as they could – or as fast as Silver could – but the men were faster, and they were catching up.

‘Help!’ shouted Silver. ‘Help!’

The figures at the bus heard and turned, and with a great roar one of them started running straight towards Silver and
Gabriel and the men. The men slowed, hesitated, then jogged to a halt, swinging their bats from hand to hand. Stones started showering over Silver’s head. The kids from the bus were hurling stones at the men.

‘GET LOST YOU LOT, YEAH?’ the boy at the head of the kids was yelling at the men. Then he waved at Silver and Gabriel. ‘Come on, come on! Faster, man!’

The men slowly turned tail, mocking the kids, and threatening them, but at last heading back to the scrapheaps, while the black boy stood his ground. The kids surrounded Silver and Gabriel.

‘Thanks!’ said Silver. ‘Who are they?’

‘Scrappers,’ said the boy. ‘Real evil. Lives on the heaps, yeah? They always out on the rob.’

The young black boy was looking curiously at Gabriel: his ears, his face, his clothes, his hands.

‘Do you laugh at me?’ said Gabriel.

‘No, man, no, no way!’ said the boy, losing his swagger. The boy wasn’t scared of the Scrappers, but he was a bit scared of Gabriel. He smiled and opened his arms to move everyone forward.

Silver and Gabriel began to walk towards the bus with the kids. All the kids were wearing tattered and patched school uniform, except for a pair of twins who hadn’t joined in with the others, and were swinging on the pole on the open deck of the bus. They were both wearing identical white dresses, so clean they shone. Silver wondered how anyone could keep so clean out here in all the dust and scrap.

‘Where you from? asked the tall black boy, obviously the leader.

‘London,’ said Silver.

‘Yeah, like us. We was on that bus. We was goin’ to school and then we was here. Just like POW! There in London. Then here …’

‘You’re the kids on the bus!’ said Silver excitedly. ‘You came in the first Time Tornado! You were on the telly – well you weren’t, cos you had all disappeared, but everyone heard about it.’

‘Cool, we were on telly!’ said one of the girls.

‘Oh don’t be stupid about stupid telly, I want to go home. I want my dog.’ The girl next to her started crying.

Another went to comfort her, saying to Silver, ‘We get food and stuff, it’s all right, but we don’t know what’s happening – are there aliens on Earth?’

‘No,’ said Silver. ‘There are Time Tornadoes.’

And she told the kids everything that had happened.

While they were all talking, a bell rang, and a woman came out from a far building.

‘Sally and Kelly! Inside now, please!’

The twins in the white dresses broke away from the group, and, holding hands, walked across the scrubby back lot towards the steel buildings at the other side. The buildings looked like the small low huts you got in car parks and places, but they were made of steel.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Silver.

‘Dunno.’ The boy shook his head. ‘Every day the twins go
to the hospital for check-ups or something, and they have to wear those white nano-dresses.’

‘What’s a nano-dress?’ said Silver.

‘It don’t get dirty whateva you do, and it keeps you warm whateva the wevva. The people who lives here wears nanosuits and dresses all the time – they don’t have to wash ’em ’n’ stuff. They got nano-chips in the material. Like smart cards ’n’ computer chips, but real tiny, yeah?’

‘We don’t know anything about this place,’ said Silver. ‘Will you take us round with you?

‘Yeah, we can show you all the stuff – like the Vatican, which is dead stupid cos it’s full of Popes.’

‘I’m a Catholic, so shut up,’ said one of the girls.

‘Yeah, but you only supposed to get one Pope at a time, right? This place has all of ’em. Everywhere you look, like wow, another Pope.’

‘Be we on Philippi?’ said Gabriel.

‘Yeah, Einstein Line, Checkpoint Zero.’

‘Then we be back where we were.’

‘Why, where you been?’

‘Rome, I think,’ said Silver.

‘In 1582,’ said Gabriel.

‘Cool!’ said the boy. ‘My name’s Toby.’

‘Gabriel,’ said Gabriel, making a little half bow.

‘Silver,’ said Silver, smiling.

Toby shared out the day’s food the kids had been given, so that there was enough for Silver and Gabriel. They had
sausages and hard-boiled eggs and apple pie and orange juice.

Toby said he would show them round. ‘It’s a bit like Disneyland here. Kind of a theme park? I’ll show you.’

Silver and Gabriel and the kids set off in a noisy tribe to walk round the streets, which weren’t really streets, but were groups of buildings, and squares, and then empty open spaces with rubbish all over them.

Ragged men were sorting through the rubbish.

‘More Scrappers,’ said Toby. ‘Like dossers in London, no job or any stuff. They sells scrap. These ones is OK, not so savage like, yeah, but them wild ones out on the rubbish dumps, you gotta be real watchful.’

‘What’s that doing here?’ said Silver, staring up at a tall tower.

‘Yeah, Leaning Tower of Pizza.’

‘Not Pizza – Pisa,’ said Silver, who wasn’t as bad at geography as she thought.

Around the base of the tower was an assortment of vintage cars: MG, Pontiac, Rolls-Royce, Model T Ford, Thunderbird, Big Healy, Bugatti, Porsche, all with FOR SALE signs propped on the windscreens.

‘If we could hotwire one, we could escape,’ said Toby.

Gabriel was very interested in the cars. He told Toby about the Enfields.

‘Cool!’ said Toby. ‘Can you wire one of these up to go?’

Gabriel nodded. He could make anything go.

‘Tonight, then!’ said Toby, who had decided to forget about Gabriel’s funny ears and strange clothes. Maybe this
wasn’t the place to behave like anything was strange.

‘How do these petrol wagons come here?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Huh? You mean the cars? It all come here first, man – the Scrappers told me,’ said Toby. ‘You know like how stuff and kids disappear and nobody knows where they gone, or why they never comin’ back? Yeah, right, well, is because they get time-warped and they come here. Whateva it is from the past or the future comes down the Star Road and it gets ticketed at Checkpoint Zero. Then it goes off for sale some place else. All the dealers come here to get stuff cheap. We sold our satchels and Walkmans and mobile phones, even our money. They got a coin shop, the lot.’

‘What about people? What happens to the people who come here?’ said Silver.

‘Dunno, really. We just waitin’ to be Deported, but we in a queue or whateva.’

They had come round a corner to a neat Parisian apartment block, with a big neon sign on the roof that said POL. The other half of the POL had broken off.

‘Parrots, maybe,’ said Toby. ‘My grandma in Barbados had a parrot called Pol, or Polly. Or maybe Pol is Police, dunno. Here’s like the posh part of town. The police chief lives here and the scientists. This building just dropped in from Paris one day, the Scrappers said.’

‘It must have been a Time Tornado,’ said Silver.

Silver wondered if Regalia Mason had an apartment in the Pol. She described her to Toby. Had he ever seen her? He shook his head. He hadn’t seen anyone like that.

A fat concierge came out of the main door of the Pol and shouted at the kids to go away. ‘Allez! Dépêchez-vous! Je travaille! Je déteste les jeunes!’ Then she started mopping down the marble steps.

‘She speaks that Frog stuff so we don’t get it,’ said Toby. ‘I think she came here with the building.’

They went on, past small neat rows of terraced houses, and wooden clapboard buildings from the American Mid West, and a disused factory that said SUNLIGHT SOAP.

In a siding, on tracks going nowhere, were locomotive trains, steam trains and diesel trains, their abandoned carriages home to refugees, who stood outside, cooking and staring.

‘You gotta be careful here,’ said Toby. ‘Kids go missin’. Kids get sold. These can’t hurt us cos we’ve been tagged – yeah,’ and he showed them his orange triangle, ‘but you not been tagged yet. How come?’

‘We’ll be tagged later,’ said Silver warily. ‘There’s a queue. We only came last night.’

Toby nodded. He seemed satisfied. The other kids straggling around weren’t interested. Toby was the leader.

Right in front of them was a big white stone building with columns and fountains and a paved area with benches and guards with guns walking up and down, but not threatening anyone who was just sitting or eating their lunch. A couple of the Popes in robes and hats were chatting to a man in a white coat so white that it reflected the morning light. Silver screwed up her eyes.

‘What’s this place then, Toby?’

‘The hospital. Bethlehem Hospital.’

‘What?’ said Gabriel, really taken aback. ‘Bedlam?’

‘Not Bedlam or whateva, BETHLEHEM, like in Jesus ’n’ Christmas ’n’ stuff.’

‘It is the same thing,’ said Gabriel, walking ahead and looking fixedly at the hated and fearful place of his nightmares and his father’s nightmares. He thought this place had long since been destroyed.

Silver said, ‘Is this a hospital for sick people, like in England?’

‘Yeah, I guess, and where they screen you when you arrive. We come here to check for diseases. You get wicked food and it’s not like a horrible hospital in London. I was in one once when I broke my leg. It was disgustin’, like slop to eat, and dirty, and everyone yellin’ all hours, days and nights. This is like a hotel.’

‘Can we go in?’ said Silver.

Toby shook his head. ‘No way. This is like free space out here. Like a meeting place. But you can’t go in. Sally and Kelly come here every day, but when we ask what happens they says nothing happens. They just get their DNA mapped – y’know, DNA?’

Silver nodded. The guard was looking at them. Gabriel was conspicuous in his strange clothes. He was agitated and upset too. He clearly wanted them all to move on, but Silver was staring at the gleaming white hospital.

Then Silver saw her, Regalia Mason, coming down the
steps of the hospital.

‘Let’s go,’ she said to Toby, already moving away.

It was too late. Regalia Mason had seen Gabriel. In less than a second he was surrounded.

‘Wozappinin?’ said Toby, frightened.

‘Go!’ said Silver. ‘Just go!’

Something in her voice made Toby obey. He whistled at the kids and they vanished like mice. Silver ran straight over to where Gabriel stood surrounded.

‘Let him go!’ she said, trying to pull the huge guards away.

‘No need for violence,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘They won’t hurt him.’

‘It’s me you want, not him,’ said Silver.

Regalia Mason laughed. ‘I only want what is best for both of you. When you disappeared last week, we were naturally very worried about you.’

‘Last week?’

‘Time flies, doesn’t it?’ said Regalia Mason.

‘Tempus Fugit,’ said Silver, before she could stop herself.

‘Yes …’ said Regalia Mason, ‘and that is why we should have a little talk, you and I. Will you come and and sit down with me? I know a very nice cafe nearby.’

‘What about Gabriel?’

‘I will make a deal with you, Silver. If you will come and talk to me, I will make sure that Gabriel is kept safe and not Deported immediately. We will have to pretend to go through the formalities – so he will be taken away – but I promise you he will not be Deported without you. Do you agree?’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Silver.

‘I always tell the truth,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘Gabriel will not be sent back to London without you. I give you my word.’ She motioned to one of the guards.

‘Take this boy away, but treat him as we did Count Palmieri. You understand? Count Palmieri.’

Turning to Silver she said, ‘He was an important Italian aristocrat we wanted to look after, but here, on the Einstein Line, we must obey the rules, or be seen to obey them, at least. Now come along, won’t you?’

Silver ran over to Gabriel. The guards let her, though.

‘It’s just pretend,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be safe.’

Gabriel smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t fear for me, Silver. Never forget what you must do. Never forget why you are here.’

And the funny thing was that Silver had forgotten. She hadn’t thought of the Timekeeper all day long. She shook herself like someone trying to remember. Regalia Mason’s eyes were watching her.

‘I won’t forget,’ said Silver to Gabriel.

Gabriel watched her walk away with Regalia Mason.

He did not know if he would ever see Silver again.

‘Micah.’ He was sending a Mind Message. ‘Micah …’

The Caffè Ora was behind St Peter’s church.

Silver was hungry and she was glad to eat the toasted ciabatta that Regalia Mason ordered for her. All her life, Silver thought vaguely between bites, she had never had enough to eat.

Regalia Mason was not eating.

‘Why is everybody here so tall?’ asked Silver, looking at the waiter. Like the guards, the waiter was at least eight feet high.

‘The people who live and work on the Einstein Line are known as Les Marginaux. They are outcasts, dropouts, refugees, protesters, and they have been forced to live rough. Living rough in Space is different to living rough on Earth. Earth has gravity, but many of the Space colonies do not. When humans live without gravity for too long, their bodies begin to come apart. They stretch.

‘These are the lucky ones who had medical treatment before they stretched too much. But, as you see, they are still taller than is usual.’

‘Why do they have to live rough?’

‘They don’t. No one does. The Quantum offers everyone a house and a job.’

‘Then why have they run away?’

‘There are always those who don’t know what is best for them. The future has changed a lot of things, Silver, but it hasn’t changed human nature.’

Silver nodded, and thought about human nature; her only examples were her parents and Buddleia – good, and Mrs Rokabye and Abel Darkwater – very bad. And the Throwbacks and Gabriel, but were they human? And Regalia Mason …