Page 40 of Green City Wars

“I mean why bring her if not?”

“What we can, yes, done. If we can,” she says. “Why? Why you and her, Skotch? You owe her? She owes you? Source for your investigations? All of the above? Yesno?” Her look at him is sharp, suspicious.

“A source? The pigeon?” he asks. “She’s, like, the opposite. An information sink. A nuisance, ask anyone. She’s just…” And he has it all lined up: Lulu’s curious relationship with Rule One, the danger of humans taking an interest if something happens to her—or something worse, given something already did. Skotch the tough guy, brushing her off. Wanting her patched up only because his life would be easier that way, and not for any other reason.

He doesn’t say it in the end. “Just … help her. If you can.”

“If help is possible. The Redcoats, inconducive to ongoing salubriety, yes,” Nimoy says, most of which are not real words, in Skotch’s book.

“Your friends,” he points out.

“No, not, no.” Her whiskers bristling at the thought. “No enemies. Ratlabs tries hard. Neutral, benevolent. Everyone’s confederates. Worked so far. Maybe not much longer, yesno?” And a look at him, as though he ought to know what she’s talking about.

The car slows, descends a ramp, turns perfectly into a low but wide space where a score of the little buggies are parked. It slots itself neatly between two others, and there is already a rat trauma team there with a trolley, ready to rodenthandle Lulu away.

“I should go with her.” Skotch slides off the car, ducking under the ceiling.

“No, no, small rooms, delicate work, large raccoon,” Nimoy tells him, tugging painfully at the fur of his flank with her little hands. “Come. Time to look at you, Skotch the raccoon.”

“Me?”

“Squirrel bites, nasty, yes,” Nimoy says. “Infected, yesno? Examine, diagnose, see.” She yanks his fur again, which he’s getting fed up of. And there are no guards, or maybe there are guards he can’t see. Maybe there are all sorts of defences around here. You hear a lot about Ratlabs and some of it’s probably true.

A guild, like she says. Slotting into the services network of the city. Rats, like the name suggests. Maybe a Rattenkönig gang that went straight. Maybe they got religion real bad in a weird way. Maybe some early part of the original Gehirner plan in Neuwien-Grunstadt. Maybe really just some guild that went in a radically different direction to the others. The main thing you hear, though, is they don’t do things like anyone else in the city. Work smarter, not harder, that could be their motto. So mostly Skotch runs into the name “Ratlabs” attached to some innovation or other that’s spreading through the other guilds of the city. Some time-saver, work-saver, little piece of efficiency. That’s how he reckoned they made their capital. But apparently here is their little heartland, a nugget of territory right in the middle of the city, and they still do guild work, keep the human lights on and the communications infrastructure connected.

“Look,” he tells Nimoy’s back, “I don’t have time for this. There’s … stuff going on, out in the city. Stuff I urgently need to get sorted out. Or people will sort it out for me.”

She cocks an ear back at him, to show she’s listening. “Yes?”

“Only there’s this psychopathic stoatweasel out there, and she’s not got what she wants yet, but she’ll get it soon, and I reckon that’s bad news. Or there’s my old boss, and maybe it’s bad news if he gets what he wants, which is basically what the stoat wants, or maybe it’s not. And some of your kin, too. More than one faction of them, only one of them’s got a cat on retainer. And some anarchists, if they’re even still in the picture. And the Baron’s shoving her dank snout into things too, the Baron of Waste Sector Three, you know her.”

“Yes, known, yes. Friend. Mostly. Maybe.”

“So what I’m saying is”—even as he’s drawn helplessly along after her tail because he’s way out of his regular haunts and needs her to point him right—“I don’t have time for a medical check-up. I’ve got to get back out there and … do stuff.”

“Find mice, yesno?” And, when that makes him stop, she turns a beady eye on him. “Known, yes. Ratlabs. SCURRY AND KNOW THINGS.” Spoken as if it’s their official slogan, on all the flags and T-shirts. “Come, now.”

She descends into a chamber where the walls are lined with tubes and the tubes are full of bugs. Skotch has a bit of a moment, seeing them. Not revulsion or fear, as a human might. Hunger, mostly. Fat bugs, bustling back and forth through clear organoplastic tubes. Roaches, he sees. Hundreds of them, crawling over one another, meeting, butting heads, passing by. And, incidentally, lighting up the chamber with a warm, amber glow because they have illuminated backsides. The last handful of abdomen segments glow and flicker. Just a little per roach, but a lot of roaches together and the room feels like there’s a hearth there, a fire in the grate, save that the gentle leaping light comes from all over.

“I never knew they engineered roaches with light-up asses,” Skotch admits, thrown from his resolute purpose by the sheer weirdness of the sight.

“‘They,’ clarify?” Nimoy asks.

“‘They’ as in humans.”

“They did not. Ratlabs work. See. Peer close, Skotch.”

“What?” He does so. There’s a little blurred shadow across every lit-up bug butt. He squints very closely, with the focus brought by a recent Plangent infusion. There’s a word there. He has to wait until a couple have paused to flick feelers at one another, but it’s true. A slightly malformed rendition of the letters “r a t l a b.” Short for rattenlaboren.

“Wait, you made…?” For a moment he wants to believe that somewhere there’s a whole class of rats with little crayons, doodling these things onto the bugs. But this isn’t just scrawled on. The letters are actually within the translucent cuticle of the insect carapace. Which means … big things. Possibly bad things, Rule One things, maybe. He shivers.

“You want Meece, don’t you?”

Another couple of rats have wheeled a little trolley in. They apply stuff to where the squirrels bit and cut him, stinging and sharp enough that it’s probably good for him. Nimoy regards him brightly.

“Yes, guest, colleague, emerattus professor, if he would, yes. Here, friends, admirers, supporters, or would like to be. Known, he is. We Know Things. Meece’s work, we know. Meece’s place, you know.”

“Everyone says that,” Skotch remarks, wincing at the ministrations. “Going to make me an offer?” He watches the bugs seethe through their tubes. Wonders if the unauthorised engineering changes the taste. Wonders if bug-ass lamps will be the big thing next year, every guild and Gehirner space crawling with them.