Free Vurt 2 - Pollen by Jeff Noon Page A

he answered. “Keep climbing.”
    It was just gone 2.15 p.m. The papers and the daily feathers had pounced on the story.
    Hero-dog Killed by Blooms?
    The Killing Fields
    
     .
    Death by Petals
    
     .
    Headlines. Worst of all, Gumbo YaYa was on the march, mocking the cops with his easy access to the info-wave. The Flowers of Evil, Gumbo was calling the case.
    And so, here we were, a reluctant dogcop and his Shadow, looking for clues. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Zero, torn between the good cop mode, and his loyalty for the master, Jakob Kracker. Zero had told me he was coming along just out of friendship, which I was grateful for, even if I didn’t believe it.
    A paw-scratched door opening onto a vista of cleanliness. A recently hoovered carpet. A single bed freshly laundered. A shelf of books. A collection of AirVaz plastic models—all neatly arranged, dangling from the ceiling on pieces of string—and a big, laminated map pinned to the wall.
    “Victims’ rooms,” Zero said.
    “What about them?” I asked.
    “Always so lonely.” He was pulling drawers out from the sideboard. “Oh yes!” he announced. “Pornography!”
    Zero had a pink feather in his paws. He pushed it into his mouth, and his eyes closed in bliss for a second. He pulled the feather loose, and then said, “Very nice. Very human. Not a sign of a bitch in heat. This man has taste.”
    “Sometimes, Zero…”
    “What?”
    “Sometimes I can’t make you out.”
    “Sometimes…” And Zero Clegg looked at me then, as though to say Sometimes I can’t make myself out. So shut the fuck up.
    I got all this bitterness over the Shadow, so I did what I was here for. “Let’s search,” I said.
    The two of us going through a taxi-dog’s personal belongings, hoping for a trace, finding nothing but trivia, the collected fare-droppings of a lonely life: biscuits crumbling and model aeroplanes dancing and cold tea solidifying in a china cup. Cheap crime novels folded open beside the single bed. Manchester City Vurtball programmes piled up neat in files. An official supporters’ club diary lying on the dresser. I opened it up, turning to the latest pages, saw the name Boda there, shut the book tight. I slipped it into my pocket, not wanting Zero to see.
    “What you found?” Zero asked.
    “Nothing yet,” I lied, not knowing why. Except that Zero was looking for traces of a Zombie pick-up, because that would pacify the dogs of the city, or so Kracker believed. The cops were still hoping to close this case down quickly, with a Zombie at the end of it. But the Zombies were not natural-born killers, they were just desperate survivors. The world in those days was on a constant knife-edge between species. Through the tiny window above Coyote’s bed, I could hear the dog-people barking, their growling voices full of hatred and fear.
    “Jesus, I hate this,” Zero said. “Searching through victims’ things. It’s so depressing.” He was holding up a clear plastic container.
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “Nano-fleas.”
    “What?”
    “Robo-fleas. You buy them from the pet shop. Symbiosis, Smokey. The give-and-take scenario. Keeps a doggy clean.”
    I shuddered, right down to Shadow-level; the things that dog-people got up to. Now Zero was twisting off the lid, and I was scared suddenly, irrationally. Please don’t let those monsters out of the jar! What can you do with such feelings?
    “Come look at this, Clegg,” I said, hoping to distract him. My eyes were scanning the big map on the wall. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”
    Cop-dog sneezed: “Just looks like a mess to me. What you saying?”
    “I’m saying this is where he went.”
    The map was pricked with pins, and scribbled over with felt-tip markings. It was a map of Manchester, and all the outlying regions. Limbo was represented by snakes creeping along dirt roads. “You see, just here?” I said, and Zero came in close. “This is where Coyote made the pick-up.” I was