“Me too.”
“Birds of a feather. So, what are you really doing here?” he heard her quiz, still monotone, but louder-voiced while he dried his hair.
“I’ve got unfinished business.” Jacob threw back the towel. “Where’s Gonzo?”
“Who?”
“Guy with the green mane.”
The girl sniggered, at the same time covering her mouth with a hand. “Oh, you mean Brion.”
“That’s his real name? Huh. Can I see him?”
“Not here. Probably, he’s passed out somewhere.”
“Who’re you?”
“Midori.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Jacob. Otherwise known as Jack, a.k.a. Southern Cross.”
The girl teetered back a few steps, gaze on the terrain at her feet. “Southern Cross? Oh. Southern Cross.”
“Try not to wear it out.”
Her eyes — admittedly attractive — swung up then. “And why would I do that?”
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re Prima Ballerina.”
“Was.”
“Running away from what’s going on down there?”
She breathed out in loud fashion. “I have a condition known as adolescent idiopathic scoliosis — it’s not the easiest thing for me to do a spot of jogging anytime. Besides, I never thought Heropa would get so crazy.”
“Midori…Prima…crazy is here. This place. You know that as much as me. At least, in Heropa, we make a smidgeon of difference.”
“It’s scary. No.”
“You can dance.”
The girl closed her eyes. “True. That was something.”
“And what about the Brick?”
“What about him?”
“He’s still there.”
“So what?”
Voice assuming a defiant tone, the girl had an expression steering in the direction of a sneer — the Prima Ballerina he remembered and precisely what Jacob, right now, held dear.
“My point. So what?”
She turned about, head suddenly held more erect even if her spine was not. “Are you implying something?”
“You two are pretty much common knowledge — well, were, before Bulkhead died.”
“Meaning?”
“An item.”
“What — me and that lump of rock?”
“We knew.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
After returning the towel to the bathroom, Midori shuffled back into the dim passageway. “What’re you talking up? A silly rescue attempt?”
“Not just that, but we sort out what the fuck is going on. Call it justice or revenge or whatever you bloody well like — we go back and kick some serious arse.”
Midori laughed, her bi-coloured eyes dissecting Jack, taking out his innards and examining each individual organ. “I had no idea you’d look like this.”
“Scrawny and inconsequential?”
“No, right now you appear to me like you do in Heropa.”
“Probably I sound tougher, because I get to swear more here.”
“Likely, that helps.”
The door at the other end of the hall suddenly burst open and Gonzo was trudging in their direction, a half-empty wine bottle in one hand.
“It works!” he shouted to them, then at the walls and the high ceiling. “You buggers hear me? It works!”
“What works?” Midori asked, startled.
“What do you reckon? The Reset’s back online! I am, it goes without saying, a bloody miracle worker — can’t believe I fixed the thing. It’ll kick in at midnight, Heropa time. You bloody beauty!”
#176
Jacob squatted on the rancid, carpeted floor in front of a man in one corner in a ‘wheelchair’ — a yellow Series 7 number that’d seen far better days, castors gaffer-taped to the stainless-steel legs, and a belt encircling his waist to keep him seated.
There were other people strapped into similar, improvised contraptions around this spacious room and the air was not only stale, but also damp, ill-lit. The place had a heady fragrance of human effluence.
Jacob never once looked at the others. He felt that would be too much. The Rat was in here, Bulkhead, Sinistro, Iffy Bizness, Baron von Gatz and General Ching. Hell, even Marat/Rabble Rouser.
The boy continued to squat and stare into the face of someone he knew well, without having ever met, that Gonzo had reluctantly fingered.
While he needed a shave two weeks ago and his skin was too pale, this was a good-looking man, fortyish, thin face, strong chin. Light brown hair, with silver pushing through on the sides. There were wrinkles around the eyes, suggesting a sense of humour that’d scarpered.
The Brick was wrong. This wasn’t the loser his partner had conjured up in their game in the park. Given an absence of expression in the sitter’s eyes, Jacob doubted the Great White Hope would now care if he were tucked into an undersize baby chair. This man’s observational powers were like the Rat’s — a fat zero. It was like peering into a pair of glass eyes.