400 Boys and 50 More by Marc Laidlaw Page A

other slickers. “We thought different.”
    “What did you think?”
    “Gods,” Bala goes.
    “Gods!”
    “God-things, mind-stuff. Old Mother looked into her mirror and saw a bonfire made out of cities. Remember before the blister tore? There were wars in the south, weirdbombs going off like firecrackers. Who knows what kind of stuff was cooking in all that blaze? “Old Mother said it was the end of the world, time for the ones outside to come through the cracks. They scooped all that energy and molded it into mass. Then they started scaring up storms, smashing. Where better to smash than Fun City?”
    “End of the world?” goes HiLo. “Then why are we still here?”
    Bala laughs. “You doob, how did you ever get to be a slicker? Nothing ever ends. Nothing.”
    In ten minutes we come to a monster-mart pyramid with its lower mirror windows put back together in jigsaw shards. Bala gives a short whistle, and double doors swing wide.
    In we go.
    The first thing I see are boxes of supplies heaped in the aisles, cookstoves burning, cots, and piles of blankets. I also spot a few people who can’t be Galrogs —like babies and a few grownups.
    “We’ve been taking in survivors,” goes Bala. “Old Mother said that we should.” She shrugs.
    Old Mother is ancient, I have heard. She lived through the plagues and came out on the side of the teams. She must be upstairs, staring in her mirror, mumbling.
    Slash and HiLo look at each other. I cannot tell what they are thinking. Slash turns to me and Jade.
    “Okay, Brothers, we’ve got work to do. Stick around.”
    “Got anywhere to sleep?” Jade goes. The sight of all those cots and blankets made both of us feel tired.
    Bala points at a dead escalator. “Show them the way, Shell.”
    The Galrog with a blond topknot that’s streaked purple speeds down one aisle and leaps the first four steps of the escalator. She runs to the top without skipping a stroke and grins down from above.
    “She’s an angel,” goes Jade.
    There are more Galrogs at the top. Some girls are snoring along the walls.
    Shell cocks her hips and laughs. “Never seen Brothers in a monstermart before.”
    “Aw, my ma used to shop here,” goes Jade. He checks her up and over.
    “What’d she buy? Your daddy?”
    Jade sticks his thumb through his fist and wiggles it with a big grin. The other girls laugh but not Shell. Her blue eyes darken and her cheeks redden under the blue triangles. I grab Jade’s arm.
    “Don’t waste it,” goes another Galrog.
    “I’ll take the tip off for you,” goes Shell, and flashes a blade. “Nice and neat.”
    I tug Jade’s arm, and he drops it.
    “Come on, grab blankets,” goes Shell. “You can bed over there.”
    We take our blankets to a corner, wrap up, and fall asleep close together. I dream of smoke.
    It is still dark when Slash wakes us.
    “Come on, Brothers, lots of work to do.”
    Things have taken off, we see. The Galrogs know the hideaways of more teams than we ever heard of, some from outside Fun City. Runners have been at it all night, and things are busy now.
    From uptown and downtown in a wide circle around 400th, they have called all who can come.
    The false night of smoke goes on and on, no telling how long. It is still dark when Fun City starts moving.
    Over hive and under street, by sewer, strip, and alleyway, we close in tourniquet-tight on 400th, where Soooooots ran a clean-fun bloc. From 1st to 1000th, Bayview Street to Riverrun Boulevard, the rubble scatters and the subtunnels swarm as Fun City moves. Brothers and Galrogs are joined by Ratbeaters, Drummers, Myrmies, and Kingpins, from Piltdown, Renfrew, and the Upperhand Hills. The Diablos cruise down with Chogs and Cholos, Sledges and Trimtones, JipJaps and A-V-Marias. Tints, Chix, RockoBoys, Gerlz, Floods, Zips, and Zaps. More than I can remember.
    It is a single team, the Fun City team, and all the names mean the same thing.
    We Brothers walk shoulder to shoulder, with the last Soooooot