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I FOUND MY WAY TO THE New Crush Club. The main street was a bit broken. No air. Someone had rigged temporary bridges here and there made of random scrap. There was a lot going on. People I'd only ever seen partying were now out fixing stuff, cooperating, talking, laughing, hugging! Tourists were mixed in with the regulars, using skills we never knew they had. Power tools had be pulled out of hiding and shit was getting done! It was like those old Festivus Parades back home. Further out in the dark, strange stiff-legged beetles loped across the horizon in slow motion out at the limit of the floodlights that still blazed under the truck-yard. I stared at those beetles for several seconds before I realised they were buildings. Spider-striders were driving around, picking up things, coaxing stalled buildings back into the long march, changing power cells and so on.
Me – I was still coming down from my adrenalin high, still trying to come to terms with a whole bunch of stuff. I’d missed my dinner, for example. Didn't even need it! More than that, I’d missed my flight back to Crush Central and my new old job and my official graduation and, in fact, my whole future; the one I'd spent years building in my head.
Yet it didn’t seem so bad. I had friends. I had a clinic! I had a town that loved me. I had a place that seemed like 'home'. Didn't matter that I'd missed out on Sharp. Didn't matter if Tyge wasn't the one for me either (yet to be established.). What mattered was Life! I'd gone right to the edge of it. Right to the Edge.
Is that what they meant by 'Being an Edger'?
Except of course I knew it wasn’t going to last. Edgetown was still doomed. Without the Kirrikabats to do the maintenance; without the airport; without the constant flow of tourists ... I just couldn’t see how they were going to survive. [They? 'Us'! Why was I still counting myself as an 'outsider'?]
It was 1:44 in the morning. I could crash at any moment. Even so I ordered a steak and a beer. Twenty people tried to serve me. I was assailed by well-wishers, back-slappers, and grinning strangers who were trying to offer book deals, money for the movie rights, and the possibility – “just a possibility mind you” – of a talk-show tour.
Interestingly, no one offered to sew up my pants.
I politely declined all their offers and went to sit with my usual buddies, except it seemed as if half of them were missing – but it was only Tyge. Stevedore and Tipper had just rolled in from some mysterious errand a minute earlier. Notch was there, and Komodo, but I was too burned out to talk. Couldn’t even remember what had happened that morning.
Oh yeah – lost my virginity. That's right.
#
DOB BOL BUSTLED IN five minutes later and handed something to Notch. “Here’s that stuff you asked for.” The ‘stuff’ was a couple of elaborately finished plasto-paper documents and a fist-sized file-projector which, like everything in Edgetown, was hopelessly out of date.
“What’s this?” I asked Dob, trying to lift myself out of my fatigue and worry. I had meant to say, ‘What’s this about?’ but had run out of energy.
“Well, that yellow one there is the Town Charter, and the other one is what they called the ‘Declaration of Crush’.”
He pointed at the projector, “And that’s just all the appendixes and other legal crap I’m supposed to know. Anyway, ol’ Notch here is the lawyer, not me.”
“Disbarred,” corrected Notch without looking up.
I shook my head in wonder. The place was refusing to stop amazing me.
Notch studied the papers for a few minutes, then looked up. “Yeah, you’ve got some rights, Dob, but you’ve also got a fair few responsibilities. Your autonomy is fairly strong but I don’t know how they’re going to take to us walking off with the town and trashing the taxi-way and stuff.”
“Hey, it was an emergency.”
Notch ignored this and continued, “I anticipate that they’ll try to get you on neglect of safety standards or failure to comply to procedures or something picky.”
“Ah... what safety standards would those be, mate?” asked Bol, “Are they somewhere in the appendixes?”
“Appendices,” corrected Notch absent-mindedly, still flicking his way through the files that hovered in front of him. From my point of view they were on edge, shimmery green blurs of light. I turned to Tipper feeling strangely detached from the town’s troubles.
“So, you’re thinking The Authority is going to come down hard?”
“Real bloody hard, mate! They won’t take this one lying down, especially with the bugs on our team!”
“What! The Kirrikibats rebelled?”
“Yep! Got their orders and refused to go back.”
“Why?”
“That piano of Stevo’s. They’re not leaving it.”
“But hang on, isn’t it still...”
“Don't panic. We gave 'em the bowling alley, New cultural centre. Piano's there.”
This was a change of events! Maybe Edgetown had a chance after all. Inspired, I reached across and took the fanciest-looking document.
DECLARATION of AUTHORITY over PLANET CRUSH:
Establishing the Rights, Powers, Obligations and
Jurisdiction of An Authority to Administer all Activities
of Science and Commerce on the Planet of Crush.
It looked horrendous, but I set about reading it. I soon began to realise that The Authority was once a pretty grand edifice, governed by illuminati from a slew of major Universities galaxy-wide. It had given itself full authority to land upon, build upon, and poke instruments into the orifices of The Crush, as well as establish bases, landing pads, a university, a city, enclosed farming, railways, etc etc. (Nothing about golf courses.) I almost felt sorry for the Big Lady and began to consider my donation of a cheese-based skin lotion as the least I could do to make amends.
“Well,” I said, tossing it on the table, “those guys seem to have it pretty well sewn up.”
“Well they don’t own me,” said Tipper boldly, “any more than my parents did! When they gave me the shits I just up and left home!”
I sat back for a while, aware of a curious resonance in my brain triggered by Tipper’s outburst. I should have been dead-beat but I figured my body had really gone to town on the dopamine production – I felt utterly high. Suddenly I sat forward and picked up the Declaration of Authority again. There was something in there I had to find again, some detail I had read and snorted at in my mind and thought, ‘Yeah, well, they really knew jack-shit about The Crush in those days!’
I began reading it again, obliviously to the agitation going on around me. There! I got up and went around the table. “Notch, mate, waddaya make of this clause?”
I pointed to a few lines halfway down the page.
He glanced at it and said, “What about it?”
“Well, if they defined their area of jurisdiction according to the size and shape of The Crush way back then, wouldn’t it be the same area now?”
“Yeah. As defined. It's in the appendices.”
“But The Crush is bigger now. We all crossed the line today.”
He seemed to hang in silence. I backed off, thinking I’d just stated the bleeding obvious and he was annoyed with me. “Sorry,” I murmured, “you’re the lawyer, not me.”
Right then some tourist came up and started babbling at me about the rescue. I nodded and smiled and tried to answer his questions. By the time I was done I noticed that Notch was having a whispered conversation with Bowle, showing him the paragraph in question. As I collapsed back into my chair I saw a slow smile begin to spread over Dob’s face. He looked over the other fancy document and I heard him repeatedly saying, “Doesn’t say we can’t, does it? Eh? Eh?”
Suddenly he surged out of his chair to speak in hushed tones with Stevedore. The smile crept wider. Then he clambered up onto the table and called out, “Alright everybody, order! Order! Can I have some bloody quiet here please! Tipper will you shut up!”
When Tipper’s voice ceased, everyone in the Club looked around wondering what was happening. In moments, the whole place was quiet.
“Good citizens,” began the Mayor, “upon reviewing our various legal ties and obligations to The Authority and after taking appropriate legal advice, I’m pleased to announce that we have a, ah, ‘workable’ plan of action that might just get us out of the shit vis-à-vis our recent hasty departure from our previous location; as it is expected by us, the citizens of Edgetown, that the aforementioned Authority will no doubt try to question the legality of our, er... geographical adjustment.”
There was a confused murmur. Bowle scratched at his unshaven chin, as if trying to find a better way to put it. He began again, “In other words, we’re going to tell those Authority pricks exactly where they can stick their Declaration! Mate!”
He demonstrated with the rolled up copy of the aforementioned document. There was loud applause, laughter and cheering, not that many people there even understood what he was going on about. Then, damn it, he just had to go and say, “And once again it’s all thanks to our resident miracle worker, Doc Bagel!”
I stood up, put on a brave face and smiled humbly as they showered me with boozy compliments and shouts. High I might have been, but dog-tired I also was, and I began to remember that I no longer had a home to go to.
“I’m all for bed,” I whispered rather hopelessly to Tipper.
“Right!” She promptly stood up, as did Stevedore, and they bullied me out through the crowd. Outside they steered me eastwards and walked me the short distance along the street. I thought I was being taken to the hotel but we turned in at the entrance to the old Crush Club. Just inside the force-field, Stevedore flicked back a curtain and opened a door I’d never noticed before. Inside was a small apartment.
“Here y’are, mate! Home and hosed!”
“Gee, this is... flash,” I said cautiously.
It was a very odd room, strangely decorated, but it did have a huge picture wall showing wind blowing across a cornfield and little white clouds drifting across a fabulous blue sky. I wanted to stand and watch it for hours, but I needed sleep. “Where’d you get all this stuff?” I asked, feeling like I had to say something.
“It was all donated.” said Tipper proudly.
I poked at the bed. “Should I be asking where it came from?”
“No.”
Heh. As I contemplated what to say next, tiredness caused me to waver on two legs that suddenly felt like rubber.
“Doc!” said Tipper firmly, “this time I am putting you to bed!”
And she did.
#
I WAS WOKEN BY THE last thing I expected to hear: the amplified voice of Doctor Anthea Panther, and she was really pissed! “Attention Edgetown! You have no authority to move your premises! Please return to your previous location!”
It seemed to come out of the floor.
Understandably I snapped awake, wondered where I was for a moment, then tried to spring out of bed. Not so easily done, what with all the sprains and bruises I’d collecting the day before. I should have taken some nanobots for it last night, but my mind had been on more important matters. Without pause to enjoy the fact that I was still alive, I hobbled through the building to check on Tyge. She was asleep. All the read-outs looked good. Then I noticed another sleeper, curled up on a temporary bed alongside. Ms Sharp.
Panther’s voice sounded again from outside, “Hello? Anyone there without a hangover? Get out of bed you lazy yobbos! You've got a town to move!”
I ran to the street entrance, flung on my breather and pushed out through the force-field. It was a glorious morning: the sun was blazing warmly from a pink and purple sky. There was no rain. Not even a cloud. And there were already a few people out strolling.
Well, strolling was too nice a word. These folks were striding. And carrying guns. It was easy enough to figure out where the action was going to take place, and I hurried along with them. “Hey, Doc! Nice save last night.”
“Yo, dude!”
“Bodacious!” Fist-bumps and everything.
We gathered at the eastern end of the main street, where only yesterday the taxi-way used to sweep in through the big double-portal force field. Of course there was no taxiway now; just a cut metal edge with a fine view of the living skin of the Crush. Unobstructed by the taxiway and the previous clutter of warty buildings, the Big Lady looked particularly grand today. Her skin was smoother. The air was somehow cleaner. I felt my spirits momentarily lift, then promptly fall as Panther’s amplified voice snapped, “I repeat, The Crush Authority orders you to return to your previous location or face severe consequences! You Have No Authority Here!”
I now saw where she was. There was a big helicopter parked about eighty metres out, marked with the big ‘A’ of the Crush Authority. Quite a monster although it looked small compared to its surroundings. And in front of it stood my boss Doctor Panther, holding a bull-horn. She was flanked by several Authority thugs and a couple of wimpy-looking guys I figured were lawyers.
A voice bellowed in reply from my end. It was Notch, also armed with a bull-horn. “On the contrary, Dr Panther. You have no authority. Check your own charter: Declaration Of Authority over Planet Crush, Paragraph 5, subsection 3: ‘Defining Geographic Extent of Authority’. You’ll see what I mean.”
“Fancy yourself a bit of a lawyer then?” she shot back, as her flunkies glanced at each other, then started poking at their wrist projectors.
“Ever heard of Chantuk vs the Planet of Yipes?” asked Notch.
“Yes,” snapped Panther, “What about it?”
“Remember who won?”
“Chantuk! So what?”
“Mr Chantuk was quite pleased with my services.”
Her two lawyers seemed to freeze for a moment, then frantically began to confer behind her back. I must admit, my jaw was flapping open a bit too. Then one of them began tugging at Panther, disrupting her next utterance.
“You can’t frighten me, low-life! Just get ...” her voice faded, “...What is it?”
We watched as Panther conferred with her lawyers for about a minute. Even from a distance I could see how ferocious she was getting. Finally she lifted the amplifier again and called to Notch, very silkily, “perhaps you’d like to explain how you interpret this ... notion of yours, mister big-shot lawyer.”
“I think your advisers are smart enough to figure it out already,” replied Notch, equally silkily, “Your Authority has defined its own boundaries and has no jurisdiction beyond that. By your own definition you are currently half a kilometre outside of your zone of jurisdiction. Also by your own definition, we the entrepreneurs of Edgetown are defined as ‘Independent Business Entities’ and as of last night, by our own free will, we removed ourselves from your territory. By the powers and rights sanctified in the Pan-Galactic Code of Sovereignty we have laid claim to the entire western edge of this continent and an hour ago were declared an Independent Sovereign Territory. Thus; Doctor Panther, you’re now trespassing on the Independent Nation of Edgetown and I request that you remove yourself forthwith.”
Panther spluttered, her lawyers babbled behind her back, and her two flunkies fingered the hand-grips of their blasters. But it looked like an impasse. She wasn’t going to back off.
Notch seemed happy to wait.
Just then, three striders whirred into sight from the under-town shadows and strode towards the helicopter. They paused at about twenty metres range, standing tall and impressive around Pather and her crew. Suddenly one of them fired off a laser-pulse at a skin flake. It shattered with an impressive amount of smoke and noise. Panther et al flinched.
Suddenly I was struck with an important idea and wormed my way hastily through the crowd to Notch’s side. “Can I borrow that a moment?” I said to him.
Notch, with a certain degree of reluctance, let me have the bull-horn.
“Doctor Panther,” I called, my voice not quite as assertive as I’d intended.
She raised her bull-horn, “Is that you, Bagel?”
“Yes. I just wanted to check something about that job.”
“What about it?” she was very snappy with me. I wonder why?
I quickly swallowed to wet my throat, “Is the position still available?”
“Yes.”
Several people were looking at me very anxiously, but I ignored them and pushed on with what I’d planned to say, “Well, I just wanted to say that, on behalf of my new clientele the Independent Nation of Edgetown, I politely request that you take the job in question and stick it right up your arse.”
I didn’t hear a word of her reply. Cheering erupted around me, and laughter too, and I braced myself for the usual onslaught of back-slapping. But this time I felt like I deserved it.
Well, that was it, I’d just burnt every bridge I could possibly burn. Scary.
Suddenly Tipper took the loud-hailer from me. “Hey!” she boomed through it, stunning everyone to silence, “Listen, Panther, get with the program! You’re history! Bugger off!”
“Why should we?” sneered Panther in reply.
“Because you’re in the way of our airport.”
There was a wave of laughter through which Panther’s angry response filtered. I think she said, “Bullshit!” Then I saw what Tipper meant. Coming from the west, like some macroscopic metallic centipede, was the airport!
We all watched as it slowly bore down on her helicopter until Panther and her crew finally spun around in horror. I don’t know who was ‘driving’ the airport but whoever it was had no intention of stopping. Panther and her cronies scrambled hastily aboard their vehicle and it fluttered slowly to life, escaping by a matter of five seconds at the most. Everyone around me was laughing and cheered, of course, and amidst it I could heard Mayor Bowle’s voice trying to be heard. He had to shout it three times before the crowd picked it up.
“I nominate Tipper for Mayor! Tipper for Mayor!”
“Yeah! Tipper! Tipper for Mayor!”
“President!” someone shouted.
“President! President! President! ...” chanted the crowd.
And that pretty much sums up our first election.
Tipper raised her hands for silence. Everyone finally shut up. She stood upon a chair that someone had thoughtfully brought out from somewhere. This was it: her inaugural speech. I listened carefully, knowing that history was about to be made.
But I needn’t have worried about keeping it all in my memory. She was characteristically blunt. “Let’s party!” she shouted.
And thus our first official holiday was established.
Everyone poured away towards the New Crush Club, leaving me on the edge of the main street. It was still only about six-thirty in the morning and I didn’t much feel like partying right then. I just wanted to enjoy being alive. I watched the airport as it trundled out of sight to the north-west, then stood a bit longer, soaking in the sunlight.
I felt kind of floaty. Kind of free.
It was about then I realised I were being watched. Beneath me, slowly emerging from the shadows of the town’s underbelly, came about sixty or seventy Kirrikibats. More than the town usually employed. Much more! In fact it was probably the entire planetary population of the things. They all stopped as if governed by one mind, then swiveling their heads around to look at me. They seemed nervous. It was like they needed some sort of sign.
What were they looking at me for?
Then Stevedore appeared as if from nowhere and sidled up beside me. Silently he handed me something. Not a standard hospital-issue flaking tool but something much finer, a titanium one, with a handle he had somehow managed to shape perfectly to fit my hand. I looked at him in amazement. He just shrugged and glanced down at the expectant bugs.
I lifted my tool high over my heard, pointing it to the zenith. They all cheered in that insect-ruckus kind of way they had. Deafening.
But it was my destiny, after all.