studied the younger kid. “How about you?”
The boy shrugged. “S’okay, I guess. Sometimes it smells funny. And the
music don’t stop.”
The sampan rode the swell as a cigarette boat rumbled past, a languid
drag queen draped over the twin fifty-cals on the prow. Fixx showed the
tungsten caps in his teeth as he gave them a genuine smile, amused at
the boy’s description. “That’s March’ Gras for you. These days, carnival
never ends. Was a time when you could walk these streets afoot,” he
said, sniffing the air. The ever-present tang of faint rot, azaleas and
curdled petrochem presented itself; but there were alien scents too, ash
and old blood out of place on the breeze. He tapped the driver on the
shoulder and indicated where he should turn toward the Place Benville.
“Back before the Cat Fives and the Big Tides, though, before you were
born. Now there’s no place that don’t live off second floor or higher.
The Venice of the South…” He leaned closer to the younger lad. “Parts
of the city, she sank, you dig? Tempests and floods just kept comin’.
Now the depths belong to the dead and the drowned.” From a hidden pocket
in the long coat, he brought a handful of bleached bones, all of them
careworn and yellowed through thousands of uses. Fixx bent low and shook
them in his hand like dice.
“Maitre Carrefour, are you listenin’?” he whispered. “If it would please
your honourable self to visit your blessing on your worthless son
Joshua, so that along my day I might be obliged to serve the good of
things.” He said something else that the boys could not make out and
turned the bones on to the deck.
“Told you he was voo-doo,” said the older kid.
Fixx frowned and fingered the bones, nudging them a little, considering
the patterns. Things had not improved; if anything, the bones told him
it was worse. Quickly, he scooped them up, destroying the message. Ahead
of the boat, the grey arc of the Hyperdome was becoming visible behind
the buildings and Fixx stood up, scanning the sides of the boulevard for
a place to alight. The original stadium that stood there had collapsed
years ago, brought down by the surge tides fanned by Hurricane Mandy;
the replacement sat like a dark jewel in the heart of Newer Orleans,
cupped in a setting of murky waters.
A hovercraft coming the other way floated closer and Fixx stepped on to
the stern. He gave the boys a look over his shoulder. “I got some advice
for your dad, when he wakes up. You tell him you’ll have more fun over
the Gulf at DisneyCity.”
“You’re going to kill someone?” asked the younger lad.
“Never can tell,” said Fixx, and leapt to the other vessel.
The girl’s face was reflected everywhere he looked. Holos of her dancing
in the evening air over the curve of the ’dome, fly-posters in
fluorescent shades three or four layers thick on the walls, her eyes
winking from video billboards. Then there were the people. Men and women
dressed as her, hair in various imitations of her auburn topknot, the
faux-Egyptian eye make-up from her first album or the gothcore look she
sported for the second disc. The crowds were a funhouse mirror for the
girl, a thousand copies of her tall and short, fat and thin, dark and
light. It was like a net had been cast through the universe, pulling
together every alternate version that could, did or might have existed,
gathering them here to coalesce at the feet of the one true original.
The actual, the real, the genuine article.
At first, the girl seemed to be a hazy idea at the edge of his mind, the
vague concept of a person distant and removed, thin as smoke, fading
whenever he tried to concentrate on her. But as time passed, she filled
in. The sketch of her grew depth and presence, moving slowly from his
deep dreams to moments awake when his mind wandered. She was coming
closer, he realised, and with her she dragged a bleak thread of
something that his conscious mind shied away from. The girl
The boy shrugged. “S’okay, I guess. Sometimes it smells funny. And the
music don’t stop.”
The sampan rode the swell as a cigarette boat rumbled past, a languid
drag queen draped over the twin fifty-cals on the prow. Fixx showed the
tungsten caps in his teeth as he gave them a genuine smile, amused at
the boy’s description. “That’s March’ Gras for you. These days, carnival
never ends. Was a time when you could walk these streets afoot,” he
said, sniffing the air. The ever-present tang of faint rot, azaleas and
curdled petrochem presented itself; but there were alien scents too, ash
and old blood out of place on the breeze. He tapped the driver on the
shoulder and indicated where he should turn toward the Place Benville.
“Back before the Cat Fives and the Big Tides, though, before you were
born. Now there’s no place that don’t live off second floor or higher.
The Venice of the South…” He leaned closer to the younger lad. “Parts
of the city, she sank, you dig? Tempests and floods just kept comin’.
Now the depths belong to the dead and the drowned.” From a hidden pocket
in the long coat, he brought a handful of bleached bones, all of them
careworn and yellowed through thousands of uses. Fixx bent low and shook
them in his hand like dice.
“Maitre Carrefour, are you listenin’?” he whispered. “If it would please
your honourable self to visit your blessing on your worthless son
Joshua, so that along my day I might be obliged to serve the good of
things.” He said something else that the boys could not make out and
turned the bones on to the deck.
“Told you he was voo-doo,” said the older kid.
Fixx frowned and fingered the bones, nudging them a little, considering
the patterns. Things had not improved; if anything, the bones told him
it was worse. Quickly, he scooped them up, destroying the message. Ahead
of the boat, the grey arc of the Hyperdome was becoming visible behind
the buildings and Fixx stood up, scanning the sides of the boulevard for
a place to alight. The original stadium that stood there had collapsed
years ago, brought down by the surge tides fanned by Hurricane Mandy;
the replacement sat like a dark jewel in the heart of Newer Orleans,
cupped in a setting of murky waters.
A hovercraft coming the other way floated closer and Fixx stepped on to
the stern. He gave the boys a look over his shoulder. “I got some advice
for your dad, when he wakes up. You tell him you’ll have more fun over
the Gulf at DisneyCity.”
“You’re going to kill someone?” asked the younger lad.
“Never can tell,” said Fixx, and leapt to the other vessel.
The girl’s face was reflected everywhere he looked. Holos of her dancing
in the evening air over the curve of the ’dome, fly-posters in
fluorescent shades three or four layers thick on the walls, her eyes
winking from video billboards. Then there were the people. Men and women
dressed as her, hair in various imitations of her auburn topknot, the
faux-Egyptian eye make-up from her first album or the gothcore look she
sported for the second disc. The crowds were a funhouse mirror for the
girl, a thousand copies of her tall and short, fat and thin, dark and
light. It was like a net had been cast through the universe, pulling
together every alternate version that could, did or might have existed,
gathering them here to coalesce at the feet of the one true original.
The actual, the real, the genuine article.
At first, the girl seemed to be a hazy idea at the edge of his mind, the
vague concept of a person distant and removed, thin as smoke, fading
whenever he tried to concentrate on her. But as time passed, she filled
in. The sketch of her grew depth and presence, moving slowly from his
deep dreams to moments awake when his mind wandered. She was coming
closer, he realised, and with her she dragged a bleak thread of
something that his conscious mind shied away from. The girl
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