Page 38 of Green City Wars

Hansard chuckles into his mustachios about that. He and his detachment were in the area because the Grays had been putting the word out to interested parties about valuable information. Selling tickets to Skotch’s gallows confession, basically. Ripper got greedy once she worked out that it wasn’t just the Country Club who’d pay. Probably Szerky was royally pissed at it, but Skotch will shed copious tears over that when hell freezes over. Anyway, once the Reds not only heard this particular word on the street, but figured out they were pointedly not invited, they decided to track down the party and crash it with extreme prejudice just on principle. Hence, they were in the neighbourhood for Lulu to find and guide in. And for once—given they’ve been on the back foot for a while against their rivals—it worked out for the Reds. Except now Skotch has explained it wasn’t even a Gray scheme, just one they were providing the hired muscle for, because a single stoat wasn’t going to be taking on Sly’s entire kennel on her own.

Skotch goes quiet and still then. Hasn’t really had the time to process it. Sly’s death. And why? Not like the old fox was anyone’s ideologue. Szerky could just have bought what he knew off him, given the deep pockets the Country Clubs have.

Except, Skotch gets, it wasn’t that she needed to know it. Presumably she—or her paymasters—already do. It was that she couldn’t have anyone knowing whatever it was. Meece’s chemistry experiment. That’s why she wants Meece dead. That’s why she offed Sly once she worked out, or even suspected, that he was onto the secret.

“Son?” Brass-Shirt prompts. “Mud in your eye, get your memory sparking again?” He decants a single bead of Plangent from his cup and Skotch takes it on the pad of one finger and pulls his eyelid back to drop it in. It’s not that he’s slow, though. It’s that everything else is big, and he’s having difficulty stretching his head to fit it all in. There’s a limit to what even Plangent can do.

Szerky wants Meece dead. Benson wanted Meece alive, and then decided dead was also good. Meaning …

He shakes his head. The pieces rattle around but don’t quite connect.

“I don’t know what you want to hear, boss,” he tells Brass-Shirt. “I got myself in the middle of some big old mess I don’t understand. I’m not with the Grays, and right now I’m probably on their list of public enemies till I can buy myself off it, buttons or favours, you know? I’m not a problem for you. I owe you, even. Owe you even more if you can fix up the pigeon.”

Brass-Shirt regards him levelly, slurps the last of the ambrosia from a cup no longer running over. That genial regard has crystallised into something calculating that reminds Skotch the Reds aren’t the good guys, just the bad guys who aren’t currently shooting at him.

“I mean, you’ve told me enough, son,” the squirrel says meditatively. “You’ve told me that your hide is worth something to someone.”

It was, Skotch considers, inevitable that they would end up here. If he’d been sharper he’d have seen it coming. There’s a tension in the way the guns in the room are being held that suggests he shouldn’t try to wring Hansard’s neck right now to register his dissatisfaction.

“I can do a lot of good work for the Reds. I have contacts, skills,” he tries.

Hansard does a little shrug and juggle with the cup, as if to say that contacts and skills are cheap in the big city, as opposed to a big sack of buttons to pay for guns and mercenaries. “Cheer up, son,” he says sunnily. “Not like I’ll be selling you to the farms, or anyone who decides the Grays make better partners than we true children of Neuwien. But someone’s buying, of that I’m in no doubt.”

Skotch is already slouching to his feet for them to lead him out.

They put him back in with Lulu. She’s still alive, breathing, awake. Staring at him with one eye at a time.

“Skotch,” she whispers, deep in her throat. A voice that sounds like it’s gone on a long, ragged journey to find the open air. “I need you to do something.”

He sits down by her, slumping, brain trying to suck the last goodness out of those two drops of Plangent. “Whatever I can do,” he says.

“I need you to tell Schreiber—”

“Lulu, I’m not—I can’t…” Talking to a human, or at least a human who isn’t Saint Frances. Not something he’s going to do. Even a human who wants to hear from a Gehirner, it’s too far into Rule One territory. “You can tell him yourself,” he says, trying for “bright” and just getting “hollow.”

“Skotch…” she says, and to stop her asking, he starts talking. Telling her things. All the things he knows, all the workings of his mind. The Meece case, the story of the fugitive mouse, its details all Swiss-cheesed full of holes he’s trying to fill.

“Benson,” he tells her. “Benson at Uzco, he wanted what Meece knew, that’s why he hired me to bring the squeaker in alive.” Wondering, as he says it, whether that “squeaker” would piss off Meece as much as “washbear” or “bandit” do him. He’s never thought about it before, but he’s not had much to do with mice either. “But I guess I wasn’t his only angle, and maybe he pulled some serious strings. Next thing I know he wants Meece either way, and to me that says he found out what the mouse was up to, and decided it was dangerous. And no way is Szerky on regular runaways duty, not with the buttons she’s throwing around. The Baron told me Meece is like a super-genius mouse. Whatever it is he knows would mess things up for Uzco as much as the farms.”

He looks at Lulu. Still with him. Managing a nod. The details are starting to fuzz and disassociate in his head. Talking about it is just about keeping the wheels turning.

“Murnau, the Rattenkönige, not sure quite what their angle is. Either they want him so they can sell him at a markup, or they want what he can make, or they want him dead because he’s a threat even to them. I mean the only people who definitely wanted him alive and well were the Maulers, and they want to bring everything down. Or say they do.”

“What,” Lulu whispers, “does he know?”

“I mean, I was thinking … poison gas? A plague? Apocalyptic stuff,” Skotch says. “Was a moment, in the Alley, where I had my hands on him and I thought, I could just snap his skinny little mouse neck myself, you know?”

She nods. “But you didn’t. Because you’re a good Gehirner.”

“I mean it’s just one maus worth but maybe I can’t afford the gelt.” A wretched chuckle from him. “Or maybe it’s that I’d have to pay it to those farm bastards, as his guild. Even though they’re trying to kill him themselves.”

“You let him go,” Lulu says.

“You think that was the smart move?” he asks her. “Half the humans drop dead, or some Gehirner Strain suddenly goes extinct, I’m going to know I was wrong, aren’t I? Except…” His hands clutch at one another as though desperately trying to keep hold of his train of thought. “The Baron should be the first one panicking about anything getting into the water, and she was pro-mouse. And Sly … Sly could just have sent a message ‘Kill Meece On Sight.’ And didn’t. Told me the Baron had an angle. Told me he needed to speak to me. Not spreading an alarm. Keeping a secret. Said … save Meece, at the end. But what did he know, honestly? A mad old fox on the way out.” He clutches his fingers together so hard it hurts. “I can’t make it make sense, Lulu.”

She just makes a noise. No contribution, but telling him she’s still alive. And all the pieces of what’s going on are just floating away from one another in his head, the little well of Plangent all run dry. He can’t think, certainly not the high level of problem-solving that this kind of thing needs.

“Hey!” he calls for the squirrels. “Hey, we going to get fed in here?” Just in case dinner comes with a side order of ampoules.