Un Lun Dun (49 page)

All the clots of Smog billowed through the air and rolled into each other, like blobs of mercury. They joined into fatter clouds. They slowly approached the densest patch of all, over Deeba’s head. After weeks in Unstible’s skin, it was luxuriating in the open sky.

Deeba heard cheers from across UnLondon.

“They think it’s over,” said Deeba. “They think they won. But it’s drawing together, so it can mix that chemical in. It boiled it so it could breathe it—now it’s going to mix it into every bit of Smog there is. Then it’ll spread again…and rain. While everyone celebrates. They’ll see it coming, but they’ll just put up their unbrellas.”

“And then…” said the book.

“The unbrellas,” Deeba said. “And the people carrying them. They’ll all burn.”

94

The Dreadful Sky

“Can you get to the bridge?” she said. “Mortar! Can you?”

With a visible effort, Mortar looked away from the growing mass of Smog.

“Yes,” he said. “I may be tired, and an idiot, but I wouldn’t be a Propheseer if I couldn’t get to the Pons Absconditus.”

“Right,” said Deeba. She thought fast. “You have to go
everywhere.
Hundreds and thousands of people are out and about tonight. You have to go
everywhere,
and tell them the Smog’s coming back, and that their unbrellas won’t help them: they’ll kill them.

“Maybe gather up more Propheseers. Move as fast as you can. Tell people to get underground, whatever. And throw their unbrellas away!”

“But what then?” said the book. “The Smog’ll be everywhere…”

“First thing’s to stop it
killing
everyone,” she snapped. “Then we’ll work out what’s next.”

“What are you going to do?” Mortar asked.

“I need to get my friends,” Deeba said. “Jones and Obaday and the others…I have to make sure they’re okay.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“
No.
You have to go
now.
There’s no time. Spread the word. I’ll…try to sort things out here.”

Mortar looked for a moment as if he was about to argue, then changed his mind.

“I’ll get the bridge,” he said. He shook his head to clear it, and concentrated.

“She’d better go with you,” said Deeba. “Don’t want her escaping to London.” She stretched out her hand, and her rebrella yanked Lectern towards her. Lectern squeaked.

“How did you do that with an unbrella?” said Mortar.

“It’s not,” Deeba said. “It’s a
re
brella…that’s another thing! Everyone can
fix
their unbrellas. That frees them from Brokkenbroll.”

“So if they fix them, they can use them against the Smog…?”

“No, they’ll still explode in the rain. Forget it. You have to get everyone inside, fast. We’ll fix the unbrellas afterwards. Brokkenbroll’s not the problem now.”

Above them, the Smog was condensing. Its smogglers were congealing into it one after the other. The green tinge was spreading throughout its substance.

“Get the bridge here,” said Deeba.

Mortar gripped Lectern’s shoulder. Lectern was so slumped and defeated, Deeba didn’t think she would run.

He should take Brokkenbroll,
Deeba thought. But the Unbrellissimo was still out cold, and no one had the strength to drag him. She watched the Smog.

A cold awareness settled in her stomach. The Smog was seconds away from merging completely, mixing its new chemical, and spreading out again for attack. Even with the help of several other Propheseers, there was no way Mortar could warn more than a handful of UnLondoners.

It’s not going to work,
Deeba thought.
We have nothing.

When she looked back at Mortar, the bridge was there, jutting from the edge of the building. She glimpsed the desks on its surface, saw its girders recede with perspective.

There was a bass growling from the sky. The last trail of smoke disappeared like sucked spaghetti into the thick green-tinted Smog, which rumbled.

“Go!” shouted Deeba. Mortar went onto the bridge, dragging Lectern. He looked at Deeba. A tentacle of Smog swooped down towards the roof, moaning like a monster.
“Go!”
she shouted.

Mortar waved once. Deeba ducked to avoid the swirl. When she looked back the bridge was gone.

The Smog churned its murderous chemical within itself. It made shapes with its clouds, sank towards Deeba.

With Mortar gone, Deeba felt a strange calm. Perhaps it was certainty—the certainty of defeat. She knew she had no time to retreat to where Jones and the others were waiting, and she knew there would be no point even if she could. She tried not to think about all the people in two worlds the Smog had at its mercy.

She had stayed in the remains of the room because she couldn’t bear to run from her enemy. Not after everything that had happened.
It’s crazy,
thought Deeba.
I have nothing.
But still, she realized, that was why she’d stayed.

Brokkenbroll lay untrustworthy and unconscious. Deeba was alone.

The Smog descended.

Deeba made a brief move towards the remains of the corridor, then stopped. She wouldn’t get farther than ten feet. There was no point. She looked up.

The Smog made itself a green cloud face. It loomed over her, and sent out a cathedral-sized smoke tongue to lick its smoke lips. It bashed air currents together in its miles-wide mouth, and with a voice made out of thunder, it said to her:

Deeba closed her eyes as the Smog came down. All she could think, again and again, was:
I have nothing.

95

Nothing

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

And the UnGun.

Deeba opened her eyes.

Nothing and the UnGun!

96

Six-Shooter

The enormous Smog-mouth plummeted towards her. Deeba raised the empty UnGun.

It’s no mistake!
she thought.
In the book! It’s not “Nothing
but
the UnGun” the Smog’s scared of, it
is
supposed to be “Nothing
and
the UnGun.”

She held the weapon in her right hand, the rebrella with her left. The Smog was right above her. She could feel the wind it pushed as it dropped. All of the Smog was congealed into a dark, rushing shape. It concentrated itself so densely it looked almost solid.

It growled as it came.

Nothing’s the opposite of something. If I fire
something,
anything, from the UnGun, it shoots it
out,
and
exaggerates
it. So if I shoot
nothing…

Deeba fired.

There was an enormous implosive rush. This time, the UnGun didn’t recoil. It didn’t push her back. It pulled her
forward,
and she staggered to stay standing.

With a roar, the UnGun
sucked.
It sluiced with impossible strength into its barrel.

A huge chunk of the Smog’s cloud-matter was drawn from the sky. In the instant that Deeba pulled the trigger, a tightly twisting vortex sprang from the Smog and funneled into the UnGun.

The Smog broke off from its dive and curved away. The face it had made boiled and re-formed. It looked confused.

It was noticeably smaller than it had been a moment before.

The Smog turned like a vast rearing horse, and snarled. It stared at Deeba, and the cloud swept down again, changing shape as it came.

Deeba hefted the UnGun. It was heavier than it had been.
Five chambers left,
she thought. She fired again.

The sucking sound roared across the heavens again, even louder than before, like water rushing into a cosmic drain. Another great whirlpool of Smog coiled superfast out of the cloud, slurping out whole banks of its stuff, which gushed out of the air in a dense stream, into the UnGun.

The weapon clicked in Deeba’s hand, the cylinder twisted, and another empty chamber slid into place in front of the hammer. Deeba fired again, and suctioned in another swath.

With three bullet slots full, the Smog was at least half-gone. At last it understood what it was facing. It gathered itself, and in a rolling mass like a storm front, the dark, green-tinged cloud fled across the sky.

Deeba planted her feet and aimed carefully. She fired twice in quick succession. Huge clots of Smog yanked backwards like stretching dough, gushed into the pistol.

One nothing left,
Deeba thought.

There was only a small, dense patch of Smog left in the air, but it was large enough to send down a murderous rain if it got away. It flitted frantically in a zigzag over UnLondon, curling around towers and behind high roofs. It was already miles away.

Steady,
thought Deeba. She watched it sink towards unlit streets, to hide below roof-level. Deeba shifted her aim, pointing not at it, but at where it was heading.

As its front entered her line of sight, she fired.

One last gust swept into the UnGun. The big lump of Smog strained against the currents, but stretched and twisted, and spiraled, and was pulled in. For seconds, the night sky over UnLondon was full of a horizontal tornado, a corkscrew of poisoned smoke gushing into the UnGun. It hauled backwards over the abcity, the wind rushing through its eddying particles with a noise exactly like screaming.

Until with a long, loud gurgle the last of the Smog disappeared down the barrel, and the sky was clean.