Electric angels Date: June 5, 2012 Time: 10.12pm Location: Leicester Square, London Characters: Gabriel Thorne Description: What is and what can never be again Status: Private-ish, happy as a one shot but other characters could join if they were there.
He changed at Farringdon, then again at King’s Cross, taking the Piccadilly line through to Leicester Square before stepping off the hot metal of the train and onto the equally hot platform at the station. It seethed with people, a writhing, babbling, energetic swell of humanity that pushed towards the doors of the train but still had the decency to part and wait impatiently as everyone disembarked.
He smiled.
He followed the throng of people through the platform, jostling for space with those on their way to a night out and those just returning from it. He didn’t even know why he was here at 10pm, politely standing as close to the right hand guard as he could on the escalator as creatine-pumped teenagers chattered excitedly on their way up the enormous metal staircase, a small workout obviously being part of the plan for a Good Night Out. In front of him, girls wearing just enough clothing to salute the idea of imagination while sailing boldly past it spoke at a velocity that would leave Senna worrying about his speed gauge, all subtle floral scents laced with vodka and the electric sense of an evening just started, albeit halfway gone.
He followed them as the crowd milled towards the tube exits, the intermittent beep of Oyster cards distinguishing “real Londoners” from hopelessly lost and confused tourists, who didn’t know why they kept putting their paper ticket into the machine but it kept spitting it out. Some passed with a smug superiority at being able to navigate, or appear to navigate, the travails of the Underground with a smooth, practiced motion that marked them out. One man, in a suit that had faced the rigors of the week and, like the rings under his eyes, come out looking tired, took pity on them and tried to explain in broken German that no, sir, it has to be the other way around and magnetic strip down. Two men and a woman in TFL blue stood to one side, arms crossed, wondering if it was worth bothering to step in to this one or wait until there was a genuine reason to get involved.
Gabriel breezed past them, swiping his wallet over the yellow indicator and hearing the satisfying beep as the light turned green, and the doors groaned with repetitive strain injury as they swung through. He felt the brief jolt of power as he stepped outside the confines of the tube, the magic of the city halted at its gate for all who did not hold a right to travel, those subject to a penalty fare payable on the spot by a licensed officer of Transport for London or the Metropolitan Police.
Even the humans who weren’t particularly sensitive to magic felt the loosening of restrictions and the flow of life around them, the volume of conversations picking up noticeably as people filed towards the signs that pointed towards Covent Garden (thank you for not taking the tube), towards Chinatown (we hope you have a large wallet), or towards Trafalgar Square (genuinely the most impressive monument in London). He picked the Chinatown-for-Leicester-Square exit, and made his way towards the stairwell.
Anticipation built in him as he took the first set of stairs, shuffling his way around the corner with the crowd until the second lay in front of him. When he reached the top, the scents and sounds of the city hit him full blast. Taxis screamed indignation at each other on their way to Cambridge Circus, ferrying Japanese tourists who’d honestly tried as hard as they could to figure out how to get to Holborn from Embankment, and eventually given up, succumbing to a Hackney Carriage that would take them the long way twice. Crowds of office workers, gone far past the point of a few drinks after work and pointedly ignoring the phone calls buzzing into their mobiles from friends they’d made plans with days ago and failed to show up for. Tired-yet-exhilirated patrons of the overpriced cinemas flooded towards the plastic snack stands that littered the approaches to the square proper, smarting slightly at £6 for a smaller-than-expected box of noodles and suspicious chicken that would probably involve an hour in the bathroom tomorrow, but you know what, actually really hit the spot now. Pickpockets moved seamlessly through them all, assessing the person first, then the walk, before deciding on a target. The walk was the most important thing in London, you see, cut-purse or wage slave, and it came in broad flavours. You had the confident, steady gait of the regular, someone who’s walked this way a thousand times before and will walk it a thousand times again, a person who never actually changes their speed despite bobbing and weaving between groups of people with a practiced skill, yet who is operating entirely on autopilot, thinking about getting back to zone three in time for last orders at their local. Then there was the samba of the sauce, the aggressive lope that came with packs of men and women who’d had a few already and decided that, you know what, they said they’d only stay out for one and there was no way they were going to a club but they weren’t quite done yet, and what were Fridays for, right? There was the intimidated shuffle of those not yet used to the boisterous exuberance of the second group, and the weary impatience of the first, people who Weren’t Of The City, and therefore found themselves at something of a loss to explain whether they felt wholly intimidated, or whether this simple expression of sheer life was the most exciting thing they’d ever experienced.
My city.
Gabriel drank it all in as the tall oaks of Leicester Square loomed to his left, the pristine, urbane remodeling of London’s central point passed him by, giving way to the office blocks, theatres and newsrooms of Coventry Street dead ahead, and the lascivious wink of the edges of Soho to his right.
He felt the magic in this place, but in a different way to others of his kind. The electric sprites of neon signs filled his blood with possibility, the never-ending (at least until 1am) buzz of traffic lights and street lamps giving him a sense of latent power waiting to be tapped. And there was a deeper power, too, a more ancient magic in the stones beneath him. Not the ones he was walking on, laid by a team of builders eighteen months ago, but in the sheer vitality of the place. From the bouncers with gimlet eyes, guarding the entrances to private gentlemen's clubs and casinos, and the miserable girls in latex underwear that handed out flyers to sweaty men in too-tight shirts with names like Tommo, Big Dom and Ninja on the back, proudly proclaiming that this was Daz’s Stag Do and that they were Lads on Tour, through to the bar workers in blacks, heading home from exhausting shifts or heading off in muscle shirts to a night in Soho’s gay scene.