"

"Sir, please, calm down." The Customs man looked alarmed and Art realized that
he'd begun to pace.

"Sorry, sorry. It just sucks. Bad job. Time to quit, I think."

"I should think so," the Customs man said. "Welcome to England."

Traffic was early-morning light and the cabbie drove like a madman. Art kept
flinching away from the oncoming traffic, already unaccustomed to driving on the
wrong side of the road. England seemed filthy and gray and shabby to him now,
tiny little cars with tiny, anal-retentive drivers filled with self-loathing,
vegetarian meat-substitutes and bad dentistry. In his rooms in Camden Town, Art
took a hasty and vengeful census of his stupid belongings, sagging rental
furniture and bad art prints hanging askew (not any more, not after he smashed
them to the floor). Bad English clothes (toss 'em onto the floor, looking for
one thing he'd be caught dead wearing in NYC, and guess what, not a single
thing). Stupid keepsakes from the Camden market, funny novelty lighters, retro
rave flyers preserved in glassine envelopes.

He was about to overturn his ugly little pressboard coffee table when he
realized that there was something on it.

A small, leather-worked box with a simple brass catch. Inside, the axe-head. Two
hundred thousand years old. Heavy with the weight of the ages. He hefted it in
his hand. It felt ancient and lethal. He dropped it into his jacket pocket,
instantly deforming the jacket into a stroke-y left-hanging slant. He kicked the
coffee table over.

Time to go see Fede.

27.

I have wished for a comm a hundred thousand times an hour since they stuck me in
this shithole, and now that I have one, I don't know who to call. Not smart. Not
happy.

I run my fingers over the keypad, think about all the stupid, terrible decisions
that I made on the way to this place in my life. I feel like I could burst into
tears, like I could tear the hair out of my head, like I could pound my fists
bloody on the floor. My fingers, splayed over the keypad, tap out the old
nervous rhythms of the phone numbers I've know all my life, my first house, my
Mom's comm, Gran's place.

Gran. I tap out her number and hit the commit button. I put the phone to my
head.

"Gran?"

"Arthur?"

"Oh, Gran!"

"Arthur, I'm so worried about you. I spoke to your cousins yesterday, they tell
me you're not doing so good there."

"No, no I'm not." The stitches in my jaw throb in counterpoint with my back.

"I t