a Kid called Dazed

The cloth came out of Tully Marchbanks’s back pocket at the same moment every time, and a Kid called Dazed had counted it six times now. Tully wiped a thumbprint off a chrome frame and put the cloth away again. The clip inside the glass played on, untouched.

The Clip Wall ran along the end of the avenue, rows of small screens in bubblegum-pink glass, each one showing somebody’s moment from yesterday. The light was the cheap gold that comes before a proper sunrise. Under the pavement the Hum sat tight and low, the way it had all week, and nobody looked up from what they were doing.

a Kid called Dazed stood at the edge of it all in their Pink Squirrel balaclava and watched. Tully polished. Tully straightened. Tully never touched the clips. At the very far end hung one last screen that showed nothing at all, just grey glass, and Tully walked past it without a glance.

Then a Kid called Dazed noticed the trainee.

They stood a little apart from the others, very carefully not looking at a screen in the third row. On it, a young Beast in a borrowed jacket stepped onto a strip of red carpet, caught a heel, and went down sideways into a potted fern. Then they got up. Then they did it again, because the clip looped.

a Kid called Dazed moved closer to see better, and the pink lanyard swung out and ticked against a frame. The premiere pass flashed in the glass, small and bright.

Tully turned. “Mind the chrome.”

“Sorry.” a Kid called Dazed held the pass still. Then, because Tully was reaching for a high frame on tiptoe, they took hold of the bottom corner and steadied it. Tully looked at them for a long second and handed over a second cloth. That was how you got let in here, apparently: you held the other end.

They polished side by side for a while. It was nice. It felt like the start of something.

The trainee hadn’t moved. The avenue would fill by midday, and every passing face would catch that fern.

a Kid called Dazed looked at the cloth in their hand. One wipe would do it. Tully’s back was turned.

They didn’t. They walked round to Tully instead.

“Could that one come down early? The one in the third row.”

Tully didn’t even look. “Midnight. Never earlier.”

“They’re standing right there.”

“Then they’ll learn to walk.” Tully held out a hand, and after a moment a Kid called Dazed understood and gave the cloth back. Tully went on down the row without them.

It stung more than a Kid called Dazed had expected. They’d had a door for ten minutes, and now it was shut.

They went and stood next to the trainee anyway, shoulder to shoulder, facing the screen. On it, the fern won again.

“You don’t have to stay,” the trainee said.

“I know.” a Kid called Dazed tilted their head at the glass. “Your left foot goes before you’re ready. Watch.”

The trainee watched. Something in their shoulders let go a little. “It does, doesn’t it.”

They stood there and studied it together as the gold went white and the first stalls rattled open behind them. Down at the far end, Tully had stopped in front of the empty grey screen. They stood with the cloth in their hand, not wiping it, just looking, as if they were waiting for midnight to come early.