Dream London (31 page)

One ant ran across my hand. It ran up my arm. Another joined it, and another. The creatures were quite large, about the length of the last joint of my little finger. And they sparkled in metallic colours, golds and yellows and blues and reds, magentas.

All around me, the top floors of Angel Tower shone like Christmas, the richness of the colours, the sparkle and flash against the velvet darkness.

I felt the brush of antennae on my face, and I did my best not to flinch. Another brush, and then the ants seemed to lose interest. They dropped to the floor and scuttled away.

I watched them go, and then my eye was drawn back and up and I followed the mounds over which the insects swarmed as they rose up higher and higher, up into the heavens of the enclosed space. Waves of vertigo swept over me.

“How tall...?” I asked.

“Nearly four hundred floors,” said Miss Merchant. “All the way to the top.”

I stared around the space. There were patterns to the movements of the ants. Indigo rivers of movement that splashed down from the highest points like mountain streams. Slow throbbing waves of magenta ants that lapped the base of the mound like waves.

Just above the level of the magenta waves, lines of emeralds and rubies studded the walls, like windows.

“What are the jewels for?” I asked.

“Trade,” said Miss Merchant. “There are treasure vaults at the heart of the mound, or so I’ve heard.”

“What do the ants trade for?” I asked, but I knew the answer right away.

“Land,” said Miss Merchant. “That’s how they bought up London.”

“You make them sound intelligent.”

“They’re not intelligent, James. They just exploit other species. There are slavemaker ants here on Earth that use pheromones to enslave other species of ants. These ants enslave other species, but they don’t use pheromones. They use money. They buy other species.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Is it? What would you do for them if they offered you gold? Or property? How about the leasehold to Belltower End?” She smiled at that. “What if they used a third party to broker the contract? You’d have worked for ants and never even known it.”

“But they don’t understand what they’re doing!”

“Do you, James? Do you really know how your actions affect the world? Do you really understand what effect your little business has on the wider world?”

“No, but...”

“I wonder how it happened, James? Somehow or other the ants found themselves in possession of a property in old London. And from that possession revenue began to flow into their nest. Rent. All of a sudden, Angel Tower found itself with a toehold in this world. And with that money, Angel Tower found it had the capability of buying more property. Soon, revenue was flowing in from all over London...”

“And where the ants came, others followed,” I said. Of course they did. The ants had opened up a new market.

“Now this world is ripe for exploitation and anyone who is anyone is looking to the opportunities that are opening up in this little corner of England. The City beneath the Spiral is coming. Daddio Clarke is here. Even the flowers are trying to take over. The wind blows their pollen down the river: they’re using sex to shape us.”

I looked around the vast space once more.

“Ants,” I said. “Surely we could take on a load of ants?”

“Of course we could,” said Miss Merchant. “If we were to all work together. But that’s not happening. You said it yourself. They work as a hive, the humans are all acting as individuals. The ants have shaped us that way.”

She was right, of course. Anna had said the same. Dream London messed with geography, it turned everyone into individuals. The ants had their own defence mechanisms. They didn’t care about people, or individuality, or sex or truth or anything. All they cared about was the nest. That’s why they would defeat us.

“I’ve seen enough,” I said. “Take me back down.”

“You can walk around to the other side,” said Miss Merchant. “Stay close to the wall and you’ll be okay.”

“I said I’d seen enough.”

I walked back into the lift.

W
E RETURNED TO
the Contract Floor. I wandered to the windows and looked out to the west, to the green space of the parks.

“What will come through the parks?” I asked.

“More of the same,” said Miss Merchant. “More trade. More people seeking to exploit Dream London.”

“What about the ants?”

“What will the ants care? As long as the hive thrives, they’ll continue as they have done.”

She took me by the arm and gently led me back to the middle of the room. We waded through slow time. The ants had built their nest on stillness, she had said. I could feel it in the floor. I could see it in the middle of the room, that column of stillness, that stalk to which the nest was attached.

She led me back to the little desk by the grandfather clock. The parchment still sat on its surface, covered in calligraphic script.

“Now,” she said. “Why don’t we tear up this contract and write one up anew?”

“Can we do that? I thought things were unchanging here.”

“It’s not signed yet, is it?” She placed her hand on my arm. “You’re too good a man to waste. If you work for Angel Tower you’ll thrive. If you don’t, you’ll be just one of the hoi-polloi, lost in the city.”

“Or one of the Daddio’s pawns.”

“Would that be any better? Do you know what the Daddio is? Nothing more than a pool of water writhing with leeches, somewhere down the river. The leeches attach themselves to animals’ tongues and that way the Daddio’s influence spreads.”

A look of distaste crossed her face as she spoke.

I looked at the desk. I looked at Miss Merchant. Captain Wedderburn would have flung her across the desk and fucked her there and then.

“I’m not Captain Wedderburn anymore,” I said. “I don’t know why. Dream London has defused me.”

I strode to the desk, and before I could change my mind, I signed the piece of paper.

“There, contract all done and dusted. I’m a good man now. It says so on this piece of paper.”

Miss Merchant seemed to lose interest in me.

“So,” I said. “I’m ready for the fight.”

Miss Merchant was busy rolling the contract up. She patted the end, straightening it.

“What fight?” she asked.

“Now that I’ve refused to join Angel Tower,” I said, though with less confidence than before. “Bring it on.”

“Bring what on?” asked Miss Merchant. “Mr Wedderburn, you are no longer of any interest to Angel Tower. You know where the lift is. Perhaps you could leave the building without a fuss?”

I snatched the roll of parchment from her hands and made to tear it. I couldn’t.

“This is the Contract Floor,” said Miss Merchant, in a patient voice. “Once a contracts is signed, nothing can change it whilst it remains in here.”

“Then I shall carry the contracts outside and burn them.”

“You’d never get them out of the room, Mr Wedderburn. Trust me on this. Now, don’t let me detain you any longer.”

She took the contract back from me.

I looked at her. I didn’t know what else to do.

“Still here, Mr Wedderburn?”

Captain Wedderburn would have hit her. James Wedderburn just felt a terrible emptiness.

I turned and walked towards the lift. I pressed the button. The doors slid open and I stepped inside.

“Goodbye,” said Miss Merchant as the doors slid shut. And then I was descending, and then I was walking through the large atrium, and then I was standing outside Angel Tower, ankle deep in yellow and white blossom, and the world continued to slowly twist itself in knots, just as it had done before I entered the building.

All I had gained was my dignity.

TWELVE

AROUND ANGEL TOWER

T
HERE WAS A
different feel to the streets outside Angel Tower. The previous feeling of hurriedness and self importance had been replaced by a prickling uncertainty. There was an underlying sense of panic waiting just around the corner.

The towers were emptying. Men were milling in the streets, tears in their eyes.

I walked through the middle of this with no purpose of my own. A man, staggering aimlessly by, noticed me and seized my arm.

“You! I recognise you. You’re someone important, aren’t you?” He looked at my green jacket and nodded. “You are. You’re a man who will recognise talent. Are you looking for a clerk? Hire me!”

His words were enough to ignite the flames in the other men. Pale faces turned in my direction.

“You want to hire a clerk? One moment, let me find my card!”

“Don’t listen to these people. My CV speaks for itself...”

“Hire me!”

I found myself in the middle of an expanding crowd of people, all desperately trying to engage my attention, shouting their claim on a job I wasn’t offering them. White cuffs emerged from dark suits as hands reached towards me, brandishing business cards.

“The Sheep Tower closed down! Just like that! They’re relocating the Head Office, they said. I need work, I need it now.”

The man was in his fifties, he had tears in his eyes.

“Inclement Tower has shed fifty per cent of its staff! They say that we’re surplus to requirements!”

I wondered, was it the uniform, the old Captain Wedderburn charm, or could they see the new me? The man who had contracted himself to serve his fellow human beings? Whichever way it was, they kept pressing forward. A tall silver-haired gentlemen in an expensive suit shouldered his way through the crowd. The others stood back respectfully.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a card.

“Sir Hugo Cameron,” he said, handing me the rectangular card. “Former MD for Ascension Tower. Shall we retire to your premises to discuss my future employment with you?”

I stepped back. The crowd was pushing closer to me, and I tripped on the shoes of someone behind me.

“Get back!” I said. “What’s the matter with you all?”

“Give the man some space,” said Sir Hugo Cameron. “We have important business to discuss! This is not a hiring fair!”

“Leave me alone!” I said. In between the legs of the businessmen, faces were emerging. The besuited beggars who had sheltered in the walls of the surrounding streets. “All of you! What’s the matter with you?”

“We need work!”

“We want to work!”

“All the towers are laying off! The message went out just after the blossom fell! New premises are opening up in the parks!”

“We’ll be sent to the workhouses!”

Those words silenced them. Several of the men choked back sobs, they pulled white handkerchiefs from their pockets and pressed them to their noses. And I felt no pity for any of them. These were the people who had raised the rents and foreclosed the mortgages and cast innocent families onto the streets. It looked as if they were getting a chance to see what it was like on the other side. Let them all rot in the workhouses.

“You want jobs?” I said, and I began to smile. This was so sweet. But then, up the street, I saw the rising bulk of Angel Tower, yellow and white blossom plastered down one side by the wind. And an idea occurred to me...

“You want jobs?” I said, the smile draining from my face. Another expression took its place, and Captain Wedderburn, leader of men, asserted himself for maybe the last time.

“You want jobs? You want something to do? You want to make a difference?”

“Yes!”

The crowd was looking at me expectantly. I had them now. I may have been a new person, but I could still talk, and I’d always been good at persuading people to do things that were bad for them. Well, now it was time to persuade them to do something for their own benefit. I raised my voice.

“Listen,” I said. “Listen!”

An expectant hush fell on the crowd.

“I have a job for you all,” I said. “I have a task to the benefit of everyone in Dream London!”

“What is it?” asked Sir Hugo Cameron.

“I’m raising...” I paused, building the tension. I saw the crowd lean forward, eager to hear more. I had them now.

“I’m raising... an army!”

You could feel the disappointment. The crowd seemed to diminish.

“An army?” said one nearby man with red hair.

“Yes, an army!” I said. “Gentlemen, listen. Look behind you! Look over there at Angel Tower! That place is the source of all our troubles! That’s the place that has made Dream London what it is!”

The crowd was silent.

“Up there,” I said. “On the 853
^rd
floor, lie the contracts that have tied our world to the others! If we were to storm Angel Tower, if we were to take those contracts and bring them here and tear them up, then perhaps London would return to normal!”

The crowd was not impressed.

“Perhaps,” said the man with the red hair. “But surely fighting is the job of the army?”

“And we could be that army,” I said, faltering. I’d never encountered this sort of a response before. In the past, people would have been eating out of Captain Wedderburn’s hand by now. But it occurred to me that I was no longer Captain Wedderburn: I’d signed that name away up on the 853
^rd
floor.