The angry-looking woman in the orange velour jumpsuit walks up to the man in the tan jacket, ignoring the jostling crowds and the wash of humanity pressing in from all sides. The girl in the white towelling robe trails vaguely after her, still digging into her nose with the one remaining fingernail she hasn’t broken or cracked in the hours since she found herself in this body. She sighs. “Still hungry,” she mutters. She finds something up her nose and eats it. Success! Chewy and salty.
Madame d’Ortolan stands in front of Mrs Mulverhill, close enough for the veloured breasts and belly of her current incarnation to touch Adrian ’s shirt, open jacket, jeans. She stares into the grey-green eyes.
“Hello, Theodora,” Mrs Mulverhill says, in Adrian ’s pleasantly deep voice. “How’s tricks?” Madame d’Ortolan tries to take Adrian ’s wrists in her hands but finds her own wrists grasped. “I don’t think so, Theodora. Let’s stay here and discuss this like civilised people, shall we?”
“What in the holy fuck are you, Mulverhill?”
“Just a concerned citizen of the Concern, Theodora.” Mrs Mulverhill uses Adrian ’s face to smile over Madame d’Ortolan at the girl in the white robe.
Bisquitine waves back with one finger. “Sui amazaro. Climb ev’ry woman. Ah belong to you, Underground.”
“You hypocritical bitch.”
“Oh, now, Theodora, I’m not the one trying to murder my way to absolute power within the Central Council. You might have noticed your loyalists have gone unharmed.”
“Really? What about Harmyle?”
“Oh, he was a traitor so many times over that I’m not sure even he knew who he was betraying at the end. He was a disloyalist. I think offing him was just to get your attention.”
“You think. Let’s ask Oh himself, shall we?” Madame d’Ortolan struggles to free her hands, in vain.
“The point is I could have murdered them all in their sleep if I’d wanted to. But then I’m not you. I’m going to stay an outsider.”
“You’ll stay dead when we kill you.”
“You’d have to catch me first, which you have signally failed to do so far.”
“Try flitting now, then.”
“Oh, I know, so close to your little friend here, we’re all stuck with what we’ve got.”
“And with their vulnerabilities,” Madame d’Ortolan hisses, and tries to knee Adrian ’s body in the balls. Mrs Mulverhill turns Adrian to one side, still gripping Madame d’Ortolan’s wrists. The velour-padded knee thuds into the side of Adrian ’s thigh.
“Ow! Now, Theodora: civilised, remember?”
“Eye bee eye bee for eye for-oh,” Bisquitine sings. “It’s all idiotic nonsense. Mama’s little baby loves shortbus, shortbus.” She is standing quite close behind Madame d’Ortolan. She sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth, extends one index finger and pokes Madame d’Ortolan in the small of her orange-clad back. “Me belly finks me froat’s cut. Wot’s a gel to do then, sing for me suppa? I should cocoa, coco. Let me tell you.”
Madame d’Ortolan whirls round as best she can with her wrists still held and spits, “Do not touch me!”
Bisquitine takes a step back and folds her arms, looking grumpy. “Leiplig!” she growls. “My war chariot! At once, d’you hear!”
Madame d’Ortolan turns and presses further into Adrian, who tenses as Mrs Mulverhill holds her ground. Madame d’Ortolan goes on tiptoe to put her mouth as close as she can to Adrian ’s ear. “If I had a gun I’d blow your brains out the top of your fucking head.”
“Jings. We’ll take that rifle now, Chuck.”
Mrs Mulverhill makes Adrian sigh. “You’re not entirely comfortable with this whole ‘civilised’ concept, are you, Theodora?”
“Why are you doing this, Mulverhill? You could have been on the Council years ago. There’d have been peace, a pardon. No grudges. We’re pragmatists and you’re gifted. You made your point. What more can you want?”
“Give up this day our Mendelbrot.”
“All this is tired, Theodora,” Adrian ’s voice says. Mrs Mulverhill uses Adrian ’s face to smile at a couple of passing nuns, monochrome punctuations amidst the colourful throng. “And keeping me talking while your teams come groggily back to their senses isn’t going to work. In the meantime our man Tem is getting away, and anyway, your little chum there is ticking down to zero.” She nods at Bisquitine, who is staring intently at the back of Madame d’Ortolan’s head.
“Und dat is dat und vat noo? Terminé, terminé.”
“Let me worry about her.”
“I wish you had, but it’s too late now,” Adrian ’s voice says with every appearance of resignation and sadness. “Madam, I don’t think you realise what you’ve unleashed here.”
“And you do, of course.”
“Yes. Like Tem, I can see round corners.”
“We’ll get him.”
“Too late, I got to him long ago.”
“I bet you did, my sweet.”
“My finest pupil. Though it was you who really brought him on. All those missions. Were you trying to kill him?”
“Yes.”
Mrs Mulverhill raises one of Adrian ’s eyebrows. “Well,” she observes drily, “there’s blowback for you. Between us we’ve made him something very special. He’ll go far.”
“Urry up please, it’s time.”
“It won’t be far enough. We’ll get him.”
“Soon there will be no ‘we,’ Theodora. You will be on your own, exiled.”
“We’ll see about that, too.”
“I don’t mean just from the Council. I’m talking about what she’s about to do.” She nods at Bisquitine again. “She can make solipsists of us all. You’ll never see Calbefraques again, Theodora.”
Madame d’Ortolan smiles humourlessly. “You aren’t frightening me, my sweet.”
“Theodora, it’s settled. This is already over. I can see the ways forward from here and they all-”
“Go to fuck!” Madame d’Ortolan shouts as she struggles again to free her hands. Mrs Mulverhill keeps Adrian ’s body turned to the side, protecting his groin.
Bisquitine rolls her eyes. “Excuse your being French. I’ll thank you to keep a civil lung in your chest. Oy! I is posimitively Biafric here, missus wumin. Do I look facking Effiopian? You caahnt.” Madame d’Ortolan ignores her.
Inside Adrian ’s head, Mrs Mulverhill can still sense Tem’s presence. She has a sudden vision of him standing at the bar of a café, just out of Bisquitine’s damping range. He’s draining an espresso, quickly. She can feel the various Concern people starting to remember who and where they were, and why. Then Tem’s presence winks out. “Bless you,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“Help me, General Betrayus, you’re my only hope.”
“Nothing. What’s it all been for, Theodora? Apart from power.”
“You know what it’s all been for.”
She smiles. “I think I do, now. But you can’t hold it back for ever.”
“Yes, I can. There are a lot of for evers. They add up. And it’s all about power, you fuckwit bitch. Not mine; humanity’s. No diminution, no subjugation, no ‘contextualisation,’ no aboriginalisation.”
Mrs Mulverhill shakes Adrian ’s head. “You really are a racist, aren’t you, Theodora?”
Madame d’Ortolan bares her teeth. “A human racist, and proud to be so.”
“Nevertheless. We will meet up. They will be here. In any event, it will happen.”