Remnants of Old Montreal. Part VI

A year had passed. The vagrant no longer sat on the stoop of the office-building. But his cardboard sign remained. Mr. Skirts stepped outside and allowed the arrow to direct his gaze upward. The clouds were hidden behind row upon row of hovering cars, whizzing at high speed, as far as the eye could see.

In his proposal Mr. Skirts had suggested the necessity of developing personalized air-transport technology. The city invested heavily in incentives for the auto companies to make it happen. Car owners were required to buy jet-stream engine upgrades. Skyscrapers were fitted with giant parking docks. The heavens had been sold off in chunks and opened for air travel. Street congestion was simply a problem of space, Mr. Skirts had realized, and the open sky offered room to spare.

There had been no word on Peanut; as far as anyone was concerned he did not exist. Mr. Skirts wondered whether the bear could have helped with his new project: the problem of air collisions. The creation of a high-speed, high-density air transit system meant the creation of hourly car-car and car-building crashes in the sky. It rained dented fenders and shattered glass in New Montreal. The modern sky moved in streams of metal. Mr. Skirts saw no clear solution to the problem.

That night Peanut emerged from forgotten gutters. He ordered five shots of espresso laced with Grappa at a nearby café and savoured them slowly. He scribbled something onto the check and handed it back to the waiter.

Tu connais le panda?

Peanut shot the puzzled waiter twice in the face, dropped the gun, and ran out without paying.