vehicle.
The bus got going again with a roar. “Where…?” Sprout asked,
but Colin just shrugged.
Off in the distance the building loomed. Sprout pointed it out. As
it grew bigger, it appeared as if it was growing, pushing its way out of
the earth, swelling and taunting the tiny insects that milled about it.
Biddenbrooks was housed in a sheer structure, thirty stories straight
up, but with an old-fashioned stair-step pattern at the apex. It looked
like a rocketship with a ziggurat glued on top. There were plenty of
other giants looming around, but no one noticed them. They couldn’t
see the forest for the tree.
Pouring out of the vehicle, the crowd of soldiers, mercenaries,
mentally-ill and merely curious assembled on the sidewalk, arching
their necks backwards to glimpse the logo at the top of the building.
It was designed with an extra-bold typeface that recalled happier
times, and sat to the right of a circle which contained a smiling whale.
The whale was pale green and so strong that it had propelled itself
entirely out of the water, spraying foam in all directions. It looked
smug, as if had just digested Botticelli’s Venus.
“Okay!” shouted General Heck, “Attack formation!”
Nobody moved. They stared dumbly at him.
“Get in a line. Or, maybe, a couple of lines. Two or three.” he
ventured. They transformed from a spread out formless blob to a
slightly more compact formless blob.
“What are we going to attack?” the hippie said, “The building?”
“Of course not, solider,” Heck said, “Don’t get smart with me.”
But then he stared at his battalion and realized he had no idea what
they were going to attack. He turned and marched over to Sprout,
who was still staring up at the giant whale.
“General Sprout,” he said. “We need to work out the details of
our strategy.”
“What details?” she said.
“Exactly. We don’t have any details. To be honest, I’m not sure
we have a strategy.”
“You’re right,” she said, “We don’t.”
“I don’t understand,” Heck said. “Is this a joke?”
Sprout turned to him and flattened him with her gaze. He felt as
if a subtle and invisible force had pushed him back, and it was no
easy feat to push back Tobias Heck. He shifted his weight unsteadily.
She beheld him a long time before speaking.
ABYSSINIA
264
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