Toby kept her eye on Dora, who’d arrive at the grilling booth to take over when Toby’s shift was done. She’d begun as a plump optimist, but over the weeks she’d been shrinking and sagging; on the white skin of her arms, the bruises bloomed and faded. “She wants to run away,” Rebecca whispered, “but she’s scared. Maybe you should get out of here yourself. He’s been looking at you.”

“I’ll be okay,” said Toby. She didn’t feel okay, she felt scared. But where else could she go? She lived from pay to pay. She had no money.

The next morning, Rebecca signalled Toby over. “Dora’s dead,” she said. “Tried to run. I just heard it. Found her in a vacant lot, neck broke, cut to bits. Saying it was some crazy.”

“But it was him?” said Toby.

“Course it was him,” Rebecca sniffed. “He’s bragging.”

At noon that same day, Blanco ordered Toby to his office. He sent his two pals with the message. They walked on either side of her, just in case she might get flighty ideas. As they went along the street, the heads turned. Toby felt she was on the way to her own execution. Why hadn’t she quit when she had the chance?

The office was through a grimy door tucked behind a carbon garboil dumpster. It was a small room with a desk, filing cabinet, and battered leather couch. Blanco heaved himself out of his swivel chair, grinning.

“Skinny bitch, I’m promoting you,” he said. “Say thank you.”

Toby could only whisper: she felt strangled.

“See this heart?” said Blanco. He pointed to his tattoo. “It means I love you. And now you love me too. Right?”

Toby managed to nod.

“Smart girl,” said Blanco. “Come here. Take off my shirt.”

The tattoo on his back was just as Rebecca had described it: a naked woman, wound in chains, her head invisible. Her long hair waving up like flames.

Blanco put his flayed hands around her neck. “Cross me up, I’ll snap you like a twig,” he said.

9

Ever since her family had died in such sad ways, ever since she herself had disappeared from official view, Toby had tried not to think about her earlier life. She’d covered it in ice, she’d frozen it. Now she longed desperately to be back there in the past – even the bad parts, even the grief – because her present life was torture. She tried to picture her two faraway, long-ago parents, watching over her like guardian spirits, but she saw only mist.

She’d been Blanco’s one-and-only for less than two weeks, but it felt like years. His view was that a woman with an ass as skinny as Toby’s should consider herself in luck if any man wanted to stick his hole-hammer into her. She’d be even luckier if he didn’t sell her to Scales as a temporary, which meant temporarily alive. She should thank her lucky stars. Better, she should thank him: he demanded a thank you after every degrading act. He didn’t want her to feel pleasure, though: only submission.

Nor did he give her any time off from her SecretBurgers duties. He demanded her services during her lunch break – the whole half – hour-which meant she got no lunch.

Day by day she was hungrier and more exhausted. She had her own bruises now, like poor Dora’s. Despair was taking her over: she could see where this was going, and it looked like a dark tunnel. She’d be used up soon.

Worse, Rebecca had gone away, no one knew exactly where. Off with some religious group, said the street rumour. Blanco didn’t care, because Rebecca hadn’t been part of his harem. He filled her SecretBurgers place quickly enough.

Toby was working the morning shift when a strange procession approached along the street. From the signs they were carrying and the singing they were doing, she guessed it was a religious thing, though it wasn’t a sect she’d ever seen before.

A lot of fringe cults worked the Sewage Lagoon, trolling for souls in torment. The Known Fruits and the Petrobaptists and the other rich-people religions kept away, but a few wattled old Salvation Army bands shuffled through, wheezing under the weight of their drums and French horns. Groups of turbaned Pure-Heart Brethren Sufis might twirl past, or black-clad Ancients of Days, or clumps of saffron-robed Hare Krishnas, tinkling and chanting, attracting jeers and rotting vegetation from the bystanders. The Lion Isaiahists and the Wolf Isaiahists both preached on street corners, battling when they met: they were at odds over whether it was the lion or the wolf that would lie down with the lamb once the Peaceable Kingdom had arrived. When there were scuffles, the pleebrat gangs – the brown Tex-Mexes, the pallid Lintheads, the yellow Asian Fusions, the Blackened Redfish – would swarm the fallen, rooting through their draperies for anything valuable, or even just portable.

As the procession drew nearer, Toby had a better view. The leader had a beard and was wearing a caftan that looked as if it had been sewn by elves on hash. Behind him came an assortment of children – various heights, all colours, but all in dark clothing – holding their slates with slogans printed on them: God’s Gardeners for God’s Garden! Don’t Eat Death! Animals R Us! They looked like raggedy angels, or else like midget bag people. They’d been the ones doing the singing. No meat! No meat! No meat! they were chanting now. She’d heard of this cult: it was said to have a garden somewhere, on a rooftop. A wodge of drying mud, a few draggled marigolds, a mangy row of pathetic beans, broiling in the unforgiving sun.

The procession drew up in front of the SecretBurgers booth. A crowd was gathering, readying itself to jeer. “My Friends,” said the leader, to the crowd at large. His preaching wouldn’t go on for long, thought Toby, because the Sewage Lagooners wouldn’t tolerate it. “My dear Friends. My name is Adam One. I, too, was once a materialistic, atheistic meat-eater. Like you, I thought Man was the measure of all things.”

“Shut the fuck up, ecofreak,” someone yelled. Adam One ignored this. “In fact, dear Friends, I thought measurement was the measure of all things! Yes – I was a scientist. I studied epidemics, I counted diseased and dying animals, and people too, as if they were so many pebbles. I thought that only numbers could give a true description of Reality. But then -”

“Piss off, dickhead!”

“But then, one day, when I was standing right where you are standing, devouring – yes! – devouring a SecretBurger, and revelling in the fat thereof, I saw a great Light. I heard a great Voice. And that Voice said -”

“It said, ‘Get stuffed!’“

“It said, Spare your fellow Creatures! Do not eat anything with a face! Do not kill your own Soul! And then…”

Toby felt the crowd, the way they were poised to surge. They’d stomp this poor fool into the ground, and the little Gardener children with him. “Go away!” she said as loudly as she could.

Adam One gave her a courtly little bow, a kindly smile. “My child,” he said, “do you have any idea what you’re selling? Surely you wouldn’t eat your own relatives.”

“I would,” Toby said, “if I was hungry enough. Please go!”

“I see you’ve had a difficult time, my child,” said Adam One. “You have grown a callous and hard shell. But that hard shell is not your true self. Inside that shell you have a warm and tender heart, and a kind Soul…”

It was true about the shell; she knew she’d hardened. But her shell was her armour: without it she’d be mush.

“This asshole bothering you?” said Blanco. He’d loomed up behind her, as he was in the habit of doing. He put his hand on her waist, and she could see it even without looking at it: the veins, the arteries. Raw flesh.

“It’s okay,” said Toby. “He’s harmless.”

Adam One showed no sign of dislodging himself. He carried on as if no one else had spoken. “You long to do good in this world, my child -”

“I’m not your child,” said Toby. She was more than aware that she wasn’t anyone’s child, not any more.