Nymphomation(52)

‘You make your own luck these days. Hasn’t the game taught you anything. OK blurb, find me Irwell, Edward.’

The blurb took off and they both followed. One time Daisy’s foot landed in a hole and she heard a crunch underfoot. Oh dear, she’d just obliterated some poor beggar’s records. The blurb landed on a hole in Gorton Town.

Another lump of sugar, another feeding for the hungry creature.

‘Irwell, Edward, Mr. Seven hundred and forty-nine point six seven punies all told.’

‘Maybe I should become a beggar,’ said Jazir.

‘Vacated. Current whereabouts unknown.’

‘Time to go, Jaz.’

‘No way. I’m not giving up. We just need some logic, that’s all.’

‘They’re not registered.’

‘We knew that anyway. Remember the NFA coding. But how are they living, that’s what I’m asking. What are they living off?’

‘Maybe they got a job.’

‘Celia’s too young, and Eddie… no, he’s a pro, I can feel it. Too long on the street to go back. He’s still begging. He’s out there somewhere.’ Jazir was trying to grab the map’s immensity in his outstretched hands. ‘He knows that he’s on to a winner with the girl. He’s gonna protect that investment. Especially with all these jealousy killings going on.’

‘That’s why he’s moving around so much?’

‘OK, let’s say he gets a new hole, but doesn’t register it. What’s going to happen?’

‘Let’s say he steals a hole.’

‘Daisy, I love you!’

‘But won’t the beggar he kicks out make a complaint?’

‘I love you even more.’ To prove it, he kissed her full-on. Then turned to his faithful blurbfly. ‘Any complaints come in, in the last week, say? Any beggars been vacated against their wishes?’

The blurb went flying, landing on four different holes in turn, only one of which was anywhere near to the Gorton pit. ‘Cheetham Hill!’ shouted Jazir. ‘It’s got to be. A good place to get lost.’ He took the cube out of the new hole, fed it quickly, making the blurb sing with glee: ‘Sauce, Harold Patrick, Mr. Fifty- five point seven eight punies all told. Vacated (non-compliant). Current owner unknown. Investigation pending.’

‘That means the cops will be on to them,’ said Daisy.

‘Yeah, some time in the next century. Beggars are the bottom-feeders, Daze. They come last in the game. Let’s go.’

On the way out, Jazir collected at least a dozen of the little sugar cubes from various random holes. Daisy asked him what he was doing.

‘Food.’ Crunching one between his teeth. ‘Yum yum. Knowledge.’

‘You’re mad, Jaz. Know that?’

‘Getting that way.’

Twenty minutes later they were on a bus heading north of the city. Twenty minutes after that the suit-and-tie finally finished whatever he was doing in the gents’ lavatory. He was hungry after his exertions, but not just for food. Those two kids, what had they been up to, running along the corridors like that? They shouldn’t even be in here, these sacred chambers, not on a Saturday anyway. No way were they legitimate tramps. He would have to have words with the securiblurb. Maybe it needed feeding? Or maybe replacing all together. That was more expense off the year’s budget, already down to the dregs. Those AnnoDominoes have us in chains.

The fat suit found the doorblurb fluttering in the foyer. A few harsh words, some tricky questions, and the fly was almost grounded in shame. The suit now had the precise time the two kids had entered the building and the time they had left. A simple calculation…

What the hell were they doing in here so long?

On a whim, he went up to the Room of Holes, just to make sure. The door was shut but not locked. Now where had they found a key? He made a mental note to have a complete security review expedited as he stepped into the room.

The adminiblurb was flying around in wild circles, sometimes even banging into the wall. The suit received a glancing blow from the thing as he struggled to get it under control. Really, it should follow his orders; he was on the official control panel. Something had messed with the blurb’s orientation, obviously. Those bloody kids!

Two minutes of hard work got the thing under some kind of control, enough to make it do a retrograde flight path.

Now then… what was so interesting about two tramps, both of them currently NFA, and never mind some stupid hole in Cheetham Hill?





Play to win


Cheetham Hill, North Manchester. Saturday afternoon, a mad shopping rush. The things you have to push through, just to move an inch or two; the crowds, the cries, the litter and the loot. Last bastion of the real store; no megaburgs out here, no chains, no bondage, no packaged deals. And only a few scattered blurbs, hardly heard above the tumult of the frenzied crowd. And Daisy and Jaz pushing through towards the designated hole. Finding a thin man almost drowned under the wave and flash of passing trade. Jazir beamed down on him. ‘What’s the game?’ he asked.