Chapter 6 #4
“I work alone, Lulu.” He signals the water-rat.
But of course there’s no way he’s going to lose a bird just by getting on a boat.
When he leaves the Chapel the pigeon is still talking his ear off, telling him of all the many times she’s been to Madparrot Alley and come out alive.
How they love her there. How they see her as the way to get their message out to the world.
Not just the Gehirner world, either. And honestly, maybe half of it’s true and the rest is her filling in the gaps left in her memory after she’s vomited out her information for her master.
Lulu confabulates as a matter of course.
Wouldn’t even understand if Skotch called her on it.
It’s just how pigeons live, half in the world and half in a fairy tale of their own construction.
It makes the pigeon armies absolutely terrifying when they’re on the advance, because they convince themselves they’re ordained crusaders or chosen ones or rightful inheritors, and you can’t reason with them.
At least Lulu’s the non-violent kind of pigeon crazy.
So maybe she can come and go in the Alley and maybe she can’t, but what she absolutely can’t do is be subtle.
Lulu is the loudest Gehirner Skotch knows.
There are probably engineered peacocks with more of a sense of modesty and discretion.
He goes into the Alley with Lulu at his back and every damn beast in the place will know he’s there.
Which, given there are at least two groups on the trail of the same small rodent, would be a problem.
He has a very bad feeling that he will, nonetheless, be doing this unwise thing. Lulu has attached herself to his story, now, and once she fixates on something shiny you can’t shoo her off it.
She dogs him all the way back to his nook in Unterroot 93.
Talks all the way, sometimes to the purpose, sometimes just whatever comes into her head.
Pigeons are like that. A lot of birds are.
Most mammals aren’t wired to make noise as much as birds do—birds having the privilege of being loudspeakers mounted too high for predators to dismantle.
Hence, bird Strains tend to run off at the mouth, and Lulu should win awards for it.
This level of incessant distraction is what he later blames for his not spotting the rats.
The first he knows of the rats, honestly, is when he’s at his nook, about to turn and explain to Lulu that, no, she’s absolutely not going to be a house guest overnight. As he prepares himself for the arduous conversational marathon this will entail, something cold and nasty prods him in the ribs.
The popguns the squirrels carry in two hands would just about have to be over-the-shoulder for a rat, like a bazooka.
Maybe two of them working as a team. Instead, the thing that rat is jabbing into him is known as a spiker.
It’s a single-shot tube with a tightly wound spring and a sharp metal bolt.
Once loosed, it basically needs a foot-crank to re-tension it, cumbersome as any medieval siege arbalest. Plus it has an effective range of about thirty centimetres unless you’re shooting a crowd and aren’t choosy about who gets hit.
It packs enough force to send that bolt right through Skotch, though, and at the current range of zero centimetres it’s probably going to make quite a mess of his thoracic cavity. He goes still.
There are three rats, and they’re all armed. Big, well-fed rats, which still means they’re smaller than a raccoon. Smaller even than a rather overstuffed pigeon like Lulu, whose flow of words is just petering out as she registers what’s wrong.
“Herr Washbear,” says the rat with a spike at Skotch’s ribs. “You got an overdue appointment.”
Skotch is about to disagree with this, just from general contrariness, but a prod from the weapon convinces him that his diary just came clear.
“You’re going to have to remind me,” he says carefully, “where I was supposed to be for it.”
“You booked a trip on Goods Lift Nine,” the rat reminds him helpfully.
Skotch’s little raccoon heart sinks. Nothing good or happy involves Goods Lift Nine.
It’s not one of the lifts that rises up into the human-occupied towers, where a bright animal might go seeking their fortune.
From where he’s standing, Goods Lift Nine only goes down.
“What about the bird, chief?” says one of the other rats.
The rat who’s menacing Skotch curls his lip, bares tobacco-brown incisors.
About to suggest that it’s sparrows God cares about, and the fall of a pigeon is beneath anyone’s notice.
Skotch hisses and jabs his snout at Lulu’s leg, the red metal ring clasped there.
“Ah, pellets,” swears the chief rat. “Is that the…?”
“It’s her, chief,” says one of the others, possibly better read.
Offing Lulu is abruptly off the table. Like Skotch knows, that ring says protection.
More trouble than any three rats can handle if she turns up dead and they get linked to it.
Rule One staring them in the face. And these rats are just the messengers.
The originator of the message won’t thank them for tracking that kind of trouble to their door.
There’s a brief battle in the chief rat’s mind, about whether it’s best to cut Lulu loose or haul her along.
No good options, honestly. Skotch, who’s well and truly fed up of the pigeon’s chatter, rather sympathises.
“Bring her along,” the rat decides. “Maybe she can get a chapter out of it.” And then he prods Skotch again, extra hard so it’s a miracle the spiker doesn’t go off by accident. “Get moving, you. Mother Murnau wants to see you.”