Fifteen minutes Courtney sat up at the bar waiting. Four men offered to buy her a drink. Not as many as usual, but then there were very few civilians abroad these days. Even the Blue Orchid was suffering from the scare stories flashing across the net, its numbers well down. Normally it would be jammed at this time of night; the kind of not-quite-sleazy club where lower-middle management could hang out after work and not have to worry if someone else from the company saw them. Courtney had been in a lot worse than this. The doormen didn’t give her any hassle even though her ass was virtually hanging out of her cocktail dress. Courtney liked the dress, cool black fabric with straps on the front to hold her titties up high, and more cross straps down the cut out back. It made her look hot, without being too cheap.
Banneth said she looked good wearing it. Best thing the sect had ever done putting her in this dress; she’d never been so fem before. And it worked. There hadn’t been a night she didn’t deliver for them. Sometimes twice. It was a good gig, taking the men back to one of the student rent hotels where the sect had squeezed the manager. Then as soon as the mark’s pants were off, Billy-Joe, Rav, and Julie would storm in and kick the shit out of him. Then when he was unconscious Billy-Joe took a recording of his biolectric pattern and emptied his credit disk.
She’d done much the same thing for all of the last three years since her brother introduced her to the Light Bringer. Except to start with she’d attracted paedopervs, who mostly had their own dens to take her to, or just hauled her into the dark end of a downtown alley. Those days, it had been Quinn Dexter who pimped her. In a strange way, she’d always been safer with him in charge. No matter how big a sicko the man was, Quinn had always arrived in time.
Now she was fifteen, and too big to pass for a juvenile any more. Banneth had switched the hormones she took. This new batch didn’t prevent her breasts from growing; quite the opposite, they promoted development. She’d still got a skinny frame, but now she was huge with it. In the last nine months her targets had changed completely. It wasn’t the pervs who wanted her now, just the losers. Courtney reckoned she’d come out of the alteration okay. Big tits was one of the mildest modifications Banneth made to sect members.
The fifth man to ask if she was all right and did her glass need freshening had what it took. Overweight, round face with perspiration on his brow, hair slicked back with gel, a good suit cleaned too often. His expression was hesitant, ready for a slapdown. Courtney drained her glass, and held it out to him, smiling. “Thanks.”
He was too fat to dance. That was a shame, she liked to dance. So that meant having to sit and listen to about an hour of bitching—his boss, his family, his apartment; how none of it was going right for him. The drone was so she’d see he was a real genuine guy who’d had a couple of bad breaks lately, hoping for the sympathy fuck.
She made all the right sounds at the right places. After this time working the arcology’s clubs she could probably have filled in his life story just by looking at him. Proof of that: she never chose wrong. They always had a loaded disk. After the hour and three drinks he had enough nerve to make his innocent suggestion. To his utter surprise the answer was a demure smile and a hurried nod.
It wasn’t far to the student hall, which was good. Courtney didn’t like getting into a cab with them; there was too much chance Billy-Joe might lose her. She didn’t look to see if the three sect members were trailing after her down the street. They’d be there. This was a real smooth routine now.
Twice though, she thought she heard footsteps following. Real distinctive, regular thuds of someone using a lot of metal in their heels. Dumb idea, there was a whole bunch of people walking along the street. When she did snatch a look, there was no one she could see that looked like a cop. Just a bunch of civilians scurrying around, making out their stupid lives meant something.
The cops were her only worry. Even given the fact less than a quarter of the targets reported the assault and theft, it wouldn’t take an AI to spot the pattern. But Banneth would know if there was any sort of operation being mounted. Banneth knew fucking everything going down in Edmonton. It was scary, sometimes. Courtney knew some of the sect’s acolytes didn’t really believe in God’s Brother, they were just too shit-scared of Banneth to step out of line.
“This is it,” she told the man. They’d stopped outside the worn entrance of a two-century-old skyscraper. A couple of genuine students were sitting on the steps, taking charges from a power inhaler. They looked at Courtney with glazed uncaring eyes. She pulled the man past and into the foyer.
In the elevator he made his first tentative move. Going for a kiss, which she let him have. Tongue straight down her throat. He didn’t have time for anything more; the room they’d hijacked for the night was on the third floor. Its real owner lost somewhere in the arcology as the black stimulant program shorted out her neurones.
“What are you studying?” he asked once they were inside.
That caught her short. She didn’t have a story in place for that—he wasn’t supposed to care. Nothing to help here, either. The room was a usual student’s jumble, badly lit with fleks and clothes everywhere, a decades-old desktop block on the one shabby table. Courtney didn’t read too good, so she couldn’t tell what the tiny print on the flek cases said.
Easy way out. She shoved the shoulder straps down, and let her tits bobble free. That shut him up. It took him about thirty seconds to push her down on the bed, then one hand was up her skirt while the other was squeezing a tit crudely. She groaned like it was good, hoping Billy-Joe and the others got a fucking move on. Sometimes the shits waited and let the man fuck her. Watching the show through some sensor or peep hole, getting off on the scene and laughing quietly. They always claimed it looked less like a set-up if they came in afterwards. Banneth laughed too if she complained.
The man’s hand was tugging at her panties. Mouth all hot and slobbering over a nipple. Courtney tried not to grimace. Then she was shivering, as if the conditioning duct had suddenly dumped a shitload of ice into the air.
He gave out a single puzzled grunt, pulling his head back. They looked at each other for an instant, both equally bewildered. Then a white hand clamped over his gelled hair, yanking his head away from her. He yelled in shock and pain as he was pulled off her and flung over the room. His flabby body hit the opposite wall with a loud crash, and crumpled to the floor. A figure in a black robe was standing at the side of the bed, blank hood tipped down towards Courtney. She drew in a breath to shriek, knowing fucking well this wasn’t Billy-Joe or any of the others.
“Don’t,” the figure warned. The darkness inside the hood withered to reveal the face.
“Quinn!” Courtney squeaked. A smile flicked her lips. “Quinn? God’s Brother, where the fuck did you come from? I thought you got transported.”
“Long story. Tell you in a minute.” He turned and went over to the quivering man, grabbed his head and pulled back viciously. The man’s throat was exposed along its entire length, skin stretched tight.
“Quinn, what are you . . . Urrgh!” Courtney watched in a kind of interested shock as a couple of sharp fangs slid out of Quinn’s mouth. He winked at her as he lowered his head to bite the man’s neck. She could see Quinn’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he sucked down the blood, several drops dribbled past his lips. The man was whimpering in high-pitched terror. “Oh fuck, Quinn, that’s disgusting.”
Quinn stood up, grinning, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood. “No it’s not. It’s the final conquest. Blood is the best food a human can have. Think on it; every nutrient you need all nicely refined and cooked ready for you. It’s your right to take it from the followers of the false lord you defeat. Use them to make you strong, Courtney, replenish your body.” He looked down at the fat man who was clutching the neck wound desperately. Blood was pouring through his fingers.
Courtney giggled at the feeble gurgling sounds the man was making. “You’ve changed.”
“So have you.”
“Yeah!” She cupped her tits and lifted them. “Grew these for a start. Good, aren’t they?”
“God’s Brother, Courtney, you are a total slut.”
She straightened a leg and dangled her shoe from one toe. “I like what I am, Quinn. That’s my serpent beast, remember? Dignity is a weakness, along with all the other crap on the middle-class wish list.”
“You did listen to the sermons.”
“Sure did.”
“So how’s Banneth?”
“Same, I guess.”
“Not for long. I’m back now.” He held out his hands, making simple gestures. The room began to change; the walls darkening, furniture turning to matt black cast iron. Manacles appeared on the metal railings at the head of the bed.
Courtney looked round wildly at the manifestations, and scrambled backwards over the crumpled duvet, cramming herself into a corner away from Quinn. “Shit, you’re a possessed!”
“Not me,” he said softly. “I possess. I am the one God’s Brother has chosen as his Messiah. This power the returning souls have depends on the force of their will. And nobody believes in themselves more than me. That’s how I regained control of my body, through the belief He gave me in myself. Now I’m stronger than a hundred of those snivelling lost dickheads.”
Courtney unfolded her legs and peered forward. “It is you, isn’t it. I mean, like really you. You’ve got your own body and everything.”
“You never were very quick, were you? But then, it was never your brain the sect wanted.”
“Were you in New York?” she asked in quiet admiration. “I saw all the fighting on the AV. The police killed skyscrapers full of people they were so scared.”
“I was there a while back. I was also in Paris, Bombay, and Johannesburg, which the police don’t know about yet. Then I gave in to myself, and came home.”
“I’m glad you did.” Courtney bounded off the bed, and flung her arms round him, licking from his ear to his mouth. “Welcome back.”
“You will follow me now, not Banneth.”
“Yes.” She slid her tongue over the tacky blood congealing on his chin, tasting its salt.
“You will obey.”
“Of course.”
Quinn focused on the thought currents in her brain, and knew she was telling the truth. Not that he’d expected anything else from Courtney. He opened the door and let the other three in. Billy-Joe and Rav he knew from before; it hadn’t taken much to cow them. Five people standing made the little student room badly cramped, their breath helping to heat it up. Fast breathing which came from nerves and excitement. They were all eager to see what Quinn would do next.
“I came back to Earth so I could bring down the Night,” he told them. “You’ll play a big part in that, and so will the possessed. I’m going to leave a nest of you in every arcology. But Edmonton is special for me, because Banneth’s here.”
“What you going to do to her?” Billy-Joe asked.
Quinn patted the slender youth’s wire-like arm. “The worst I can imagine,” he said. “And I’ve spent a lot of time imagining.”
Billy-Joe’s mouth split into an oafish grin. “All right!”
Quinn looked down at the fat man. He was gasping like a fish. Blood had formed an enormous puddle on the scuffed tile floor. “You’re dying,” Quinn said cheerfully. “Only one way to save you now.” Fields of energy shifted at his command, exerting a specific pressure against reality. The cries of the souls began to filter out of the beyond. “Courtney, hurt him.”
She shrugged to the others, and kicked the man hard in the crotch. He shivered, eyes bugging before the lids began to flutter uncontrollably. An extra squirt of blood pumped out of the wound.
“And again,” Quinn directed mildly. In his mind, he was dictating terms to the lost souls who clustered round the weak rent between universes. Hearing the pleas of those who claimed they were worthy. Making his judgement.
Courtney did as she was told, watching in fascination as a soul (a real dead person!) took control of the wretched man. The wound closed up. He started hissing in consternation. Tiny rivulets of lightning slithered along the creases of his blood-soaked suit fabric.
“Give him something to drink,” Quinn said.
Billy-Joe and Julie ransacked the cupboards for cans of soda, popping them and handing them down to the grateful possessed.
“It’ll take you a while to replace that much blood,” Quinn said. “Just lie there and take it easy for a while. Enjoy the show.”
“Yes, Quinn,” the possessed muttered weakly. He managed to roll onto his back, the effort coming close to making him faint.
The iron manacles snapped open loudly. Courtney took one look at them, and glanced back enquiringly at Quinn. His robe was already dissolving. “You know how to use them,” he told her.
She wriggled out of her dress and bent over the bed, placing her wrists in the manacles. They hinged shut, and locked.
Ilex emerged above Avon, radiating profound satisfaction (and considerable hunger). Every Edenist within Trafalgar picked up the emotional emission, and smiled simultaneously at the results Auster was declaring. Lalwani immediately declassified the strike mission against the antimatter station, and the navy press office started relaying the information to the system’s news companies. Everything happened so fast that the First Admiral’s staff only just managed to officially brief Jeeta Anwar before the Presidential office staff received it off the communication net.
The voidhawk’s easy two-gee flight to the naval base’s docking ledges was considerably more relaxed than the last time it had burst out of wormhole close to Trafalgar. General affinity hummed with a great many ironic comments pointing this out to its triumphant crew.
Two hours after Ilex ’s arrival, Captain Auster was escorted into the First Admiral’s office by Lieutenant Keaton, the newest member of the admiral’s staff. Samual Aleksandrovich greeted the Edenist captain warmly, and gestured to the sunken reception area. Lalwani and Kolhammer joined them on the leather couches, while the lieutenant served tea and coffee. As he was moving round with their china cups, the bulky AV cylinder at the apex of the ceiling shimmered brightly, and the images of President Haaker and Jeeta Anwar materialized in the reception area.
“My congratulations to the Navy, Admirals, Captain,” Haaker said. “The destruction of an antimatter station at this time is particularly satisfying.”
“Capone’s antimatter station, Mr President,” Kolhammer said significantly. “That’s a considerable bonus.”
“Essentially he will be unable to mount any more of these damnable infiltration missions against Confederation planets, let alone attempt another full scale invasion along the lines of Arnstat,” Samual said. “That means he’s been neutered. We shall now resume our harassment campaign, and enhance it considerably this time around. That should wear down the hellhawks, and deplete his stock of antimatter in defence. Given its unstable social base, we expect the Organization to collapse within a few weeks, two months at the most.”
“Unless he pulls another rabbit out of his capacious fedora,” Haaker said. “I don’t mean to disparage your action against the antimatter station, Samual, but in Allah’s name, it was a long time coming. Possibly too long. According the latest report I have, nearly a third of Kerry’s population is now possessed, and it’s only a question of time until the remainder are taken over. On top of that, we know of eleven other worlds Capone has successfully managed to infiltrate. That means we’ll lose them, too, you know that as well as I do. And there will no doubt be starships currently en route, telling us of more infiltrations launched before the station was destroyed. Your pardon, but this success rings hollow indeed.”
“What else would you have us do?”
“You know very well. How is Dr Gilmore’s project progressing?”
“Slowly, as Mae Ortlieb has been telling you.”
“Yes, yes.” Haaker waved an irritable hand. “Well keep me informed of any further developments. Preferably ahead of the media.”
“Yes, Mr President.”
The image of the President and his aide vanished.
“Ungrateful old git,” Kolhammer muttered.
“It’s understandable,” Lalwani said. “The Assembly is beginning to resemble a zoo these days. The ambassadors have realized that for once their magnificent speeches alone aren’t going to solve this crisis. They’re shouting for action, though of course they don’t name a specific.”
“The antimatter ought to relieve a lot of pressure on the Navy,” Kolhammer said. “We should be able to press individual governments to maintain the civil starflight quarantine.”
“There’s still a lot of reticence there,” Lalwani said. “The smaller, more distant asteroids are suffering badly from the economic situation. To them, the conflict is a remote one. That justifies their clandestine flights.”
“It’s only remote until their selfish idiocy allows a possessed into their settlement,” Kolhammer snapped.
“We’re making progress on identifying the principal offenders,” Lalwani said. “I’m getting a lot of cooperation from other intelligence agencies. Once we’ve confirmed the offence, the problem then becomes a diplomatic one.”
“And everything goes pear-shaped,” Kolhammer said. “Bloody lawyers.”
Samual put his tea cup down on the central rosewood table, and turned directly to Auster. “You were with Meredith’s squadron at Jupiter, I believe?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Auster said.
“Good. I accessed all of your report on the antimatter station mission while the Ilex was docking; and I’d like you to tell me directly why Consensus is sending two ships to the other side of the Orion nebula. Specifically why one of them is the Lady Macbeth . I simply could not make it plainer that I expected Captain Calvert and that despicable Mzu woman to remain in Tranquillity, and incommunicado.”
The voidhawk captain gave a slight bow, his face respectfully grave. Despite all the mental bolstering which came from unity with other Edenists, and his link with Ilex , facing the displeased First Admiral was quite an ordeal. “I assure you, Consensus regards the Alchemist problem with the utmost seriousness. However, there was some on-the-ground information available which required reassessing your proscription.”
Samual Aleksandrovich settled back in the leather upholstery, knowing he shouldn’t enjoy playing the inflexible tyrant. Sometimes it was hard to resist. “Go on.”
“The Lord of Ruin has discovered that the Tyrathca religion may have some physical basis.”
“I didn’t know they had a religion,” Kolhammer said. His neural nanonics was running a search through various encyclopaedia files.
“That was also something of a revelation,” Auster said. “But they do, and their God would appear to be some kind of powerful artefact. They believe it capable of saving them from human possessed.”
“So Consensus sent a pair of starships to investigate,” Samual said.
“Yes. Given the distance involved, the only kind of Adamist ship that can get there is one that has an antimatter drive.”
“And such a flight also removes Calvert and Mzu from any possible contact with the possessed. How very convenient.”
“Consensus considered it so, Admiral.”
Samual laughed dryly. “Lagrange Calvert meeting a real live god. What a spectacle. We should be able to see that clash of egos from this side of the nebula.” Lalwani and Auster grinned in unison.
“Well, there are slimmer straws to grasp, I suppose,” Samual said. “Thank you, Captain, and my congratulations to Ilex on a successful mission.”
The Edenist stood, and bowed formally. “Admiral.” Lieutenant Keaton went with him to the door.
Although he considered it faintly ridiculous, if not rude, Samual waited until Auster was outside before speaking to the other two admirals. Privacy was a hard concept for him to abandon; and he knew Lalwani kept their secure sessions confidential as a matter of courtesy. “A god?” he asked Lalwani.
“I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “But Consensus wouldn’t embark on such a course unless it had a degree of confidence in the result.”
“Very well,” Samual said. “I’d like to receive a complete briefing from the Jovian Consensus, please.”
“I’ll see that we’re updated.”
“Until we are, we won’t be including biblical salvation in our strategic planning sessions.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“That just leaves us with our last current problem,” Samual said. “Mortonridge.”
“Could have told you that was a waste of time,” Kolhammer retorted.
“You did. Frequently. As did I. But it is first and foremost a politically motivated campaign. However, we cannot ignore the fact it isn’t going quite to plan. This latest development is unnerving to say the least. It also looks as though our marine battalions are going to be tied up there for a longer than we originally estimated.”
“Longer! Ha,” Kolhammer said in disgust. “Have you accessed any of those sensevises? God, that mud. The whole bloody Liberation is completely stalled.”
“It hasn’t stalled, they’re just encountering more problems than they anticipated,” Lalwani said.
Kolhammer chuckled, and raised his coffee cup in salute. “I’ve always been a massive admirer of the Edenist ability to understate. But I think defining a chunk of land fifteen kilometres across that suddenly takes flight and wanders off into another dimension as a little problem is possibly the best example yet.”
“I never said little .”
“Ketton’s disappearance isn’t my main concern,” Samual said. He received the surprised look which the others gave him with calm humour. “I was thinking about the medical difficulties de-possession is leaving us with. So far we’ve been fortunate the news companies have been playing it down, but that won’t last. People will eventually wake up to the implications if we’re ever successful in returning planets like Lalonde and Norfolk to this universe. There’s been a commendable effort by the Kingdom’s allies to assist with fresh medical supplies, but the number of cancer-related deaths is still rising.” He clicked his fingers at Keaton, who was hovering near the samovar.
“Sir.” The lieutenant stepped forward. “Trafalgar’s medical office have been examining the consequences of depossession. Frankly, we’re lucky Mortonridge doesn’t have a larger population. The Kingdom and its allies should just manage to provide enough nanonic packages to cope with two million cancer patients. Though we’re dubious about correct application; the number of experienced doctors is a critical factor. However, we estimate that an entire planet of de-possessed, with an average population of three quarters of a billion, would essentially exhaust the entire Confederation’s medical facilities. To our knowledge, the possessed have so far taken over eighteen planets, with several hundred additional asteroid settlements. And we expect the planets Capone has infiltrated will soon join them. Ultimately, we could be dealing with as many as thirty planetary populations, possibly more than that.”
“Shit,” Kolhammer exclaimed. He gave the youngish lieutenant a very worried frown. “So what’s going to happen if we get them all back?”
“Given the development level of cancers we’ve seen on the de-possessed so far, there will be a rapid and extremely high mortality rate among their respective populations if they remain untreated.”
“That’s a very clinical way of putting it, lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir. You should also consider, the possessing souls are either unaware of the damage they’re inflicting on their hosts, or are unable to cure it. Their energistic power is capable of repairing physical injury, but we haven’t seen them deal with this kind of illness yet. It may be they can’t.”
“What are you getting at?” Lalwani asked.
“Unless the biochemical environment on the planets they’ve removed from this universe is radically different in some way, then the possessed will all be suffering like this no matter where they are. In which case, if they don’t start to effect some kind of treatment, their host bodies might die.”
Lalwani’s shock was so vehement she couldn’t prevent some of it from leaking into the general affinity band. Edenists in the asteroid automatically opened their minds, proffering emotional support.
Reluctantly, Lalwani refused. “Thirty planetary populations?” she demanded, incredulous. She glanced from the lieutenant to the First Admiral. “You knew?”
“I accessed the report this morning,” Samual admitted. “And I haven’t informed the President, yet. Let him get on top of the Assembly again before we break news like this.”
“Dear God,” Kolhammer muttered. “If we pull them back from wherever they’ve gone, we won’t be able to save them. And if we leave them alone, they won’t survive either.” He gave Keaton a look that was almost a plea. “Did the medical office come up with any ideas?”
“Yes sir, they had two.”
“Finally! Someone with some bloody initiative. What are they?”
“The first is fairly simple. We broadcast a warning to the possessed groups we know are still remaining in this universe. Ask them to stop trying to change the appearance of their host bodies. It should appeal to their own self interest.”
“If they don’t just ignore it as propaganda,” Lalwani said. “By the time a tumour actually becomes noticeable, it’s usually too late for primitive medical treatments.”
“Nonetheless, we will definitely proceed with that option,” Samual said.
“And the second?” Kolhammer asked.
“We formally request the Kiint ambassador for help.”
Kolhammer let out a disgusted breath. “Ha! Those bastards won’t help us. They’ve already made that clear enough.”
“Um, sir?” Keaton said. He gave the First Admiral a glance, and received a nod of permission. “They said they wouldn’t provide us with a solution to possession. In this case, we’re just asking them for material aid. We know they have a more sophisticated technology than ours; human companies have been buying upgrades and improvements for a variety of products ever since we made contact with them. And now with the Tranquillity incident we know they haven’t abandoned their manufacturing base as thoroughly as they claimed. They may well be able to produce the kind of medical systems we require in the quantities we’ll need. After all, we’ll only have a use for them if we solve the possession problem for ourselves. If the Kiint are as sympathetic as they assure us they are, then there is a good chance they’ll say yes.”
“Excellent analysis,” Lalwani said. “We can’t possibly ignore the option.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Samual said. “In fact, I’ve already requested a personal meeting with Ambassador Roulor. I’ll sound him out about the prospect.”
“Good move,” Kolhammer said. “That’s a commendable advisory team your medical office put together, Samual.”
It felt strange to be back. Quinn stalked through the ghost realm, observing the sect’s Edmonton headquarters. His peculiar, hazy perception of the real world from this shadowed existence might account for his new interpretation of the familiar rooms and corridors. Or it could just be time and a very different attitude to when he was last here.
This had been home for many years. A place of refuge and of terror. Now it was just a cluster of gloomy chambers, devoid of any appeal or memories. The routine of the place hadn’t changed, though it was slowing down, much to the fury of the senior acolytes. He smiled as they shouted and brutalized the juniors. His fault. His word was spreading.
All of Edmonton would soon be aware of his arrival. So far he’d taken over eight covens, and was ready to visit the remainder. Those that had fallen under his thrall were now actively pursuing the will of God’s Brother. Over the last few days he’d been dispatching several small groups to attack strategic sections of the arcology’s infrastructure. Generators, water stations, transport junctions; they’d all been damaged to some degree. It was primitive stuff, chemical explosives concocted from formulae loaded into public databanks centuries ago by freethink anarchists, the files replicated so many times they were impossible to erase. On Quinn’s orders, the possessed would only supervise the missions, never actually venturing to the target themselves. That was left to the faithful: useful, disposable, imbeciles. He couldn’t risk the authorities discovering a possessed in Edmonton, not yet. So for now such destruction would appear to be the work of a breakaway sect faction, fanatics who had split away from their High Magus. That way they would appear as sympathisers to the anarchist groups in Paris, Bombay, and Johannesburg that were also bombing and terrorizing their fellow citizens.
The authorities would discover who was behind it eventually. But by then he would have established enough cells of possessed to bring about the Night.
Quinn arrived at the temple, and surveyed it slowly. A tall chamber, more elaborate than the smaller covens. Pictures of violent depravity alternated with runes and pentagons along the walls. A wreath of small yellow flames flickered weakly around the tarnished inverted cross on the altar. He was drawn to the big slab as the memories of this place finally returned. There was the pain of his initiation, then more pain as he was used for further ceremonies. Each time, Banneth had smiled down serenely; a dark angel ministering to his body. Drugs and packages were applied, and an obscene variety of pleasure would be combined with his agony. Banneth’s laugh would wrap around him, taking on the power of an indecent caress. She/he/it, that terrible androgynous multi-sexed monster, conditioned him to respond to the torment in the way that generated the most enjoyment—for it. Eventually the two extremes of sensation merged, becoming one.
A triumph, Banneth had declared. The creation of the perfect sect mentality. Birthing the serpent beast.
Quinn gave the altar a curious look, seeing himself bound to it, skin glistening with sweat and blood as he screamed. The pain and the images were real enough, but he couldn’t recall anything before then. It was as if Banneth had created his flesh at the same time as his mind.
“Quinn? Is that you, Quinn?”
Quinn turned slowly, squinting at the ghostly figure sitting on the front pew. A face he was sure he knew, belonging to this place but from a long time ago. The figure stood, a hunched up adolescent in a torn leather jacket and dirty jeans. He was pitifully insubstantial. “It is you, isn’t it? You remember me, Quinn. It’s me. It’s Erhard.”
“Erhard?” He wasn’t sure.
“Damn, we shovelled shit together for long enough. You must remember.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” A novice acolyte who’d joined the sect around the same time as Quinn. One who lacked the strength to survive such a brotherhood. The same relentless battery of ordeals and punishments which had fortified Quinn had crushed Erhard. It had culminated in a ritual in the temple, one which Banneth had never intended Erhard to live through. There was rape and torture and drugs and burrowing parasites of Banneth’s devising; atrocities performed to the hot chants and wild laughter of the entire headquarters coven. Erhard’s final pleas had risen above their chorus, a thin wail of ultimate terror. Then Banneth had brought the jewelled sacrificial knife down in a fast slash.
The joy Quinn had experienced that day was almost orgasmic. He’d been the one tasked to carry the knife for Banneth.
“It’s not fair, Quinn. I don’t belong here. I hate this place. I hate the sect.”
“You never did feed your serpent beast,” Quinn said contemptuously. “Now look at you. You’re as much a loser now as you ever were.”
“It’s not fair!” Erhard cried. “I didn’t know what the sect was like, not really. And then they killed me. You killed me, Quinn. You were one of them.”
“You deserved it.”
“Fuck you. I was nineteen. I had my life, and you took it away, you and that psycho fruit Banneth. I want to kill Banneth. I swore I would.”
“No!” Quinn stormed. Erhard quailed, cowering back from the command. “Banneth does not die,” Quinn said. “Not ever. Banneth belongs to me.”
The ghost edged forward, holding out a hand as though feeling the warmth thrown out by a fire. “What are you?”
Quinn giggled quietly. “I don’t know. But God’s Brother has shown me what I’ve got to do.” He walked out of the temple, leaving the ghost behind.
Three figures were marching along the corridor, one of them with desperate reluctance. Quinn recognized him. Acolyte Kilian. They’d met a few days ago. All three frowned as they passed their invisible watcher, puzzled by why they suddenly felt so chilly.
Quinn followed them. He knew where they were going, he’d taken this route himself enough times. Soon he would see it again: Banneth. That’s all it would be, this time. Just a look, a reminder of that face. Nothing fast would happen to Banneth. It had taught Quinn well, in that respect. The most delectable punishments were the slowest ones. And when Night came, it would be in tandem with eternity.
Darkness has arrived. Even when the acolytes didn’t whisper it, the phrase hung in the smoky air of the sect’s Edmonton headquarters. A threat more menacing than any sadism the sergeant acolytes could bestow.
Banneth knew what that meant. The AV projectors were broadcasting a constant coverage of the New York situation, which the entire headquarters coven was obsessed by. The arcology’s continuing isolation. Rumours of free possessed. Portents wherever you looked. And many of the coven looked very hard indeed.
Their work suffered as a consequence. Income from the scams and hustling were well down in every coven across town. Even she, the High Magus, couldn’t rack up much enthusiasm. What chance did the lesser maguses have?
When she did rage at the sergeant acolytes, they just shuffled their feet and muttered dourly that there was little point continuing their old activities. Our time has come, they said, God’s Brother is returning to Earth. Who cares about knocking off dumb-ass civilians. Given the creed of the Light Bringer sect, it wasn’t an attitude she could effectively argue against. The irony of the situation didn’t escape her.
All she could do was keep listening to the rap from the street, hunting out clues. It was a thin source of information, especially now. Like a great many of Earth’s arcologies, Edmonton was slowly shutting down as it spewed out its own fear. Commercial districts were reporting increasing absenteeism. People were calling in sick, taking holidays. Parks and arcades were nearly deserted. Football, baseball, ice hockey, and other game fixtures were played to small crowds. Parents kept their kids away from day clubs. For the first time in living memory it was always possible to get a seat on metro buses and tube carriages.
The vac-trains weren’t shut. Keeping the routes open was a bravado example of Govcentral confidence, intended to reassure people that Earth was still safe. Passenger numbers were under thirty per cent. Nobody wanted to do anything that brought them into contact with other people, especially strangers. Civic utility companies had to threaten employees with lawsuits to keep essential services going. Government workers were intimidated with the prospect of disciplinary proceedings if they didn’t perform their duties as normal, especially the police. The mayors were desperate to provide the image of normality in the hope the public would follow their cue. A desperation that was taking on increasingly surreal dimensions in the face of such stubborn public reticence.
Banneth kept dispatching sect members to wander through the eternal half light gullies that were downtown streets, hunting any sign of a score. The usual broken inhabitants shuffling along the sidewalks would huddle away from them in sealed-up doorways, sniffing suspiciously as they strutted past. Cop cars swished along silently, creating whirlpools of silvery wrapping foils; the only vehicles moving at ground level. They slowed as they drew level with the sect gangs, examining the sullen faces through misty armoured glass before tooting the siren and accelerating away. Forcing them to go out was a mostly futile exercise. But she had persevered while the world slowly choked on its own paranoia. And now it seemed as though she’d got lucky.
Acolyte Kilian was doing his level best not to shake as the sergeant acolytes hurriedly left him alone in Banneth’s inner sanctum. The chamber was buried at the centre of the skyscraper which the sect used as its headquarters. As with the Light Bringer covens the world over, the original layout of rooms and corridors had been corroded and corrupted as acolytes burrowed their way through walls and ducts like human maggots. Haphazard partitions were hammered and cemented up behind them, creating a bizarre onion-layer topology of chambers and cells that protected the core. Banneth had dwelt there for nearly three and a half decades without once ever venturing out. There was no need now, everything necessary to make her life enjoyable was brought to her.
Unlike several High Maguses she was aware of, Banneth didn’t go in for ostentation. Her senior acolytes were permitted whatever decadent luxuries they could steal and bribe for themselves. But they lived several floors above her, decorating their apartments with expensive hedonistic amenities, and harems of beautiful youths and freakish supplicants. She indulged herself on somewhat different levels.
When Kilian started to look round, he found he was in a place that was way beyond the worst-case scenarios that acolytes whispered among themselves. Banneth’s sanctum was an experimental surgery. Its mainstay was a broad bench desk with high-capacity processor blocks and shiny new medical equipment. Three stainless steel tables were lined up in the middle of the floor, with discreet leather restraint straps placed strategically round the edges. Life support canisters were arranged around the walls, like huge glass pillars. Aquarium-style lighting caps shone brightly on their contents. Kilian really wished they didn’t, the things inside were enough to make him shit his pants. People, in a few of them. Suspended by a white silk web in some thick clear fluid, tubes going into their mouths and noses (those that still had mouths and noses). Always with their eyes open, looking about. Acolytes he remembered from not so long back; with new appendages grafted on; others with parts removed, their incisions raw and open to reveal the missing organs. Then there were the less than human creatures, made worse by having very human pieces attached. Clusters of organs bound together by a plexus of naked pumping veins. Animals, game cats and gorillas with the tops of their skull removed, and no brain left inside. Pride of place on the wall above the work desk was taken by an ancient oil painting of a young woman in a dress with a stiff bodice and long skirt.
Although Kilian had never been in the sanctum before, it was the place where everyone came eventually, either for boosting or punishment. Banneth performed both types of operation herself. Now he stood as still as his trembling limbs would allow as the High Magus walked briskly across the floor to him.
Banneth’s face had a male jawline, a blunt protuberant blade of bone. But that was the only masculine feature, the eyes and mouth were soft, very feminine. A shaggy pelt of straw-blonde hair completed the enigma. Kilian glanced nervously at the white shirt Banneth wore. Everyone said the High Magus got aroused at the sight of fear. If her nips were jutting, then she was in the feminine stage of her cycle.
Dark circles of skin were definitely tenting the cotton. Kilian wondered if it really made a difference. Banneth was a hermaphrodite—by design, so rumour said. She looked as if she was about twenty, either as a male or a female; though age was an easy enough cosmetic adaptation. Nobody knew how old she really was, nor even how long she had been High Magus. In fact, legend and rumour were all that existed about her past. Questions were discouraged.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” Banneth said. Her hand stroked Kilian’s cheek, the cool skin of her knuckles drifting gently along his cheekbone. An appraisal by a gifted sculptor, finding his exact form. He quivered at the touch. Pink eyes with feline irises blinked in amusement at his reaction.
“Nervous, Kilian?”
“I don’t know what I’ve done, High Magus.”
“That’s true. But then a barely human grunt like you doesn’t know much of anything. Do you? Well don’t worry yourself too much. Actually, you’ve been quite useful to me.”
“I have?”
“Amazingly, yes. And as you know, I always reward the devout.”
“Yes, High Magus.”
“What can I do for you now, I wonder?” She began to circle the apprehensive acolyte, grinning boyishly. “You’re how old now? Twenty-five, isn’t it? So I ask myself what does a nice young boy your age always want. And the answer’s a much bigger cock, of course. That’s pretty standard. I can do that, you know. I can snip off that pitiful rat-sized cock you’ve got now, and replace it with something much better. A cock that’s as long as your forearm and as hard as steel. You would like me to do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Please, High Magus,” Kilian whimpered.
“Was that a ‘yes please,’ Kilian?”
“I . . . I just want to help you. However I can.”
She blew him a kiss, still prowling her circuit around him. “Good boy. I asked to see you because I’d like to know something. Do you believe in the teachings of the Light Bringer?”
Trick question, Kilian screamed silently. If I say no, she’ll do whatever she wants as punishment; if I say yes she’ll ask me to prove it through endurance. “All of it High Magus, every word. I’ve found my serpent beast.”
“An excellent answer, Kilian. Now tell me this: do you welcome the coming darkness?”
“Yes, High Magus.”
“Really? And how do you know it’s coming?”
Kilian risked a glance over his shoulder, trying to follow the High Magus as she circled round him. But she was directly behind him now, and the only thing he really noticed was the way the eyes of the acolytes in the life support containers were tracking her movements. “The possessed are here. He sent them, our Lord. They’re going to bring His Night to the whole world.”
“So everyone says. The whole arcology is talking about nothing else. Indeed the whole planet has little else to say. But how do you know? You, Kilian?”
Banneth stopped in front of him, lips curved in a sympathetic, expectant smile.
I’ll have to tell the truth, Kilian realized in horror. But I don’t know if that’s what she wants to hear. Fuck! Oh God’s Brother, what’ll she do to me if it’s wrong? What will she turn me into?
“Cat got your tongue?” Banneth asked coyly. The smile hardened slightly, becoming less playful. Her glance flicked to one of the life support canisters containing a puma. “Of course, I can give the cat your tongue, Kilian. But what would I fit in its place? What would be appropriate do you think? I have so much material I don’t really need any more. Some of it is long past its sell-by date. Ever felt flesh that’s started to decay, Kilian? Necromorphology is a somewhat acquired taste. You never know, though, you might get to like it in time.”
“I saw one!” Kilian shouted. “Oh fuck, I saw one. I’m sorry High Magus, I didn’t tell my sergeant acolyte, I . . .”
She kissed his ear lobe, shocking him into silence. “I understand,” she whispered. “Really I do. To understand the way people think, you must first understand the way they work. And I’ve made the workings of the human body my special area of study for a long time. Physiology begets psychology, you might say. Mightn’t you, Kilian?”
Kilian hated it when the High Magus talked all this weird big-word shit. He never knew how to answer. None of the acolytes did, not even the seniors.
“It—I saw him in the Vegreville dome coven’s chapel,” Kilian said. He knew for sure now that the High Magus wanted to hear about the possessed. Maybe this would get him off the hook.
Banneth stopped her pacing, standing directly in front of the woeful acolyte. There were no more smiles left on her androgynous face. “You didn’t tell your sergeant acolyte because you thought you’d wind up in deep shit. Because if the possessed are real, then the sect hierarchy that you’ve so devoutly been kissing ass to for the last six years will be replaced by them. By telling everyone what you’d seen you would in effect be spreading sedition; though I doubt you would be able to rationalize it quite like that. To you it was simple instinct. Your serpent beast looks after you, it puts you first. As indeed it should, in that respect you’ve been loyal to yourself and God’s Brother. Of course, you couldn’t resist telling a few people, could you? You should have known better, Kilian. You know I reward acolytes who betray their friends to me.”
“Yes, High Magus,” Kilian mumbled.
“Well I’m glad that’s settled then. Unfortunately the golden rule of the sect is that I am to be told everything. I and I alone decide what is important, and what is not.” Banneth walked over to one of the stainless steel tables, and tapped a finger on it. “Come over here, Kilian. Lie down for me.”
“Please, High Magus.”
“Now.”
If he’d thought running would have done him the slightest good, he would have run. Actually, he even had the wild thought that he could attack Banneth. The High Magus was physically weaker. But that idea was resolved in a second by a simple clash of wills. He was foolish enough to glance at her pink eyes.
“That’s a very bad thought,” Banneth said. “I don’t like that at all.”
Kilian walked over to the table, taking the smallest steps possible. In the faintly violet light thrown out by the life support containers, he could see the scuffed silvery surface was sprinkled with small black flecks of dried blood.
“Remove your clothes first,” Banneth told him. “They get in the way of what I want to do.”
The initiation ceremonies, the punishments, the degradations he’d undergone for the sect—none of them prepared him for this. Simple pain he could endure. It was soon over, making him all the meaner, stronger for it. Each time his serpent beast would come away slightly larger, more dominant. None of that helped him now. Each garment he took off was another portion of himself sacrificed to her.
“In times gone by, they used to say the punishment should fit the crime,” Banneth said. Kilian removed his jeans, and she smiled thinly at his flabby legs. “An appropriate sentiment, I always thought. But now I believe it’s more fitting that the body part should fit the crime.”
“Yes,” Kilian said thickly. That, he needed no explanation for. He had spent hour after hour mucking out the pigs as part of his duty. All the acolytes had to do it. All of them detested the filthy squealing animals. It was an insidious reminder of what fate ultimately greeted Edmonton sect members, no matter you were being disciplined or rewarded.
Banneth’s herd were special; developed centuries ago when geneering was in its infancy. They were originally designed to provide organs for human transplants. A worthy project, to help people with worn out hearts or failed kidneys. Pig organs were the same size as human ones, and it was the first practical success of the geneticists to modify porcine cells so they didn’t trigger a rejection by their new host’s immune system. For a few brief years at the start of the Twenty-first Century the concept had flourished. Then medical science, genetics, and prosthetic technology had raced on ahead. Humanized pigs were abandoned and forgotten by everyone except medical historians and a few curious zoologists. Then Banneth had come across the obscure file in some long-outdated medical text.
She had identified and traced descendants of the original pigs, and began breeding them anew. Modern genetic improvements had been sequenced in, strengthening the bloodline. It was the raw primitiveness of the concept which appealed to her. The sect’s use of modern technology was so much at odds with its basic gospel. Pigs and old fashioned surgery were an ideal alternative.
When an acolyte needed boosting, it wasn’t AT muscle she implanted to enhance the original human ones. Like the rest of the porcine organs, the muscles wouldn’t cause rejection. Pig skin, too, was thicker, sturdier, than its human counterpart. Lately, she had begun to experiment with other animals. Grafted monkey feet turned an acolyte into an efficient acrobat, useful for gaining entry to upper-storey floors. Lighter leg bones allowed them to outrun police mechanoids. Given time and research subjects, she knew she could match any modification used by cosmoniks and the combat boosted mercenaries so prevalent out there among the Confederation worlds.
The surgical techniques could also be used to rectify behaviour. For example, an attempt to run away from the sect would be easily curtailed by replacing legs with trotters. In Kilian’s case, Banneth hadn’t finalized on an effective lesson. Though she did favour extending and re-routing his colon into the back of his throat, so that every time he wanted to shit, he’d have to do it through his mouth. The extra tubing would give him a very thick neck. A nice irony, that. It would match his thick head.
When he was naked, she made him lie face down on the table, then used the straps to secure him in place. Creative punishment would have to wait. Since he blurted confirmation about a possessed, only one thing had mattered to her. She smeared a big dollop of depilatory cream on the back of his neck, and squirted it off with a cold water hose. It left his skin clean and bare, ready to receive the nanonic implant package.
Kilian wasn’t permitted an anaesthetic or sedative. He groaned and whimpered continually as the personality debrief filaments pierced his brain; their brutal intrusion sparking cascades of aberrant nerve impulses that sent spasms rippling along his limbs. Banneth sat on one of the desk bench stools, sipping a chilled, hand-mixed martini as she supervised the procedure, occasionally datavising new instructions into the package. After nearly two hours, the first erratic impulses started to flood back along the invading filaments. Banneth brought her AI on-line to analyse and interpret the confusing deluge of impulses. Visualizations that were nothing more than randomized detonations of colour slowly calmed as the AI began to marshal Kilian’s synaptic discharges into ordered patterns. Once his thought patterns had been catalogued and correlated with his neural structure, his entire consciousness became controllable. The filaments could simply inject new impulses into the synaptic clefts they’d penetrated, superseding any natural thoughts he had.
Kilian was thinking about his family, such as it was. Mother and two younger half-brothers, living in a couple of dingy rooms in a downtown skyscraper over in the Edson dome. Years ago, now. Mother surviving on a Govcentral parent work-pay scheme; never there during the day. All he had was the constant noise, the shouted arguments, fights, music, footsteps, metroline traffic. At the time he’d wanted nothing more than to escape. A bad decision.
“Why?” Banneth asked.
Kilian flinched. He was sprawled on the sagging bed-settee by the window, looking fondly at all the familiar old objects that had occupied his brief childhood.
Now Banneth stood by the doorway, regarding him contemptuously. She was brighter than anything else in the room, more colourful.
“Why?” she repeated.
A spherical wave of pressure contracted through Kilian’s skull, squeezing his thoughts out through his mouth in an unstoppable stream. “Because I left this to join the sect. And I wish I hadn’t. I hate my life, I fucking hate it. And now I’m on your table and you’re gonna turn me into a dog, or chop my dick off and give it to someone else to fuck me with. Some kind of crap like that. And it’s not fair. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve always done whatever the sect asked. You can’t do this to me. You can’t, please God. You’re not human. Everybody knows that. You’re a fucking weirdo freak cannibal.”
“Now there’s gratitude. But who gives a fuck about this pathetic little comfort regression you’re in. I want when you saw the possessed.”
The pressure wave found another part of Kilian’s mind to crush. He screamed out loud as memories erupted like fountains of acid behind his eyes. Home was coldly scorched out of existence, huge great sections of it peeling away like rotten flesh to reveal the Vegreville chapel’s temple. Kilian had been there three days back, sent by his sergeant acolyte to pick up some package. He didn’t know what was in it, just that: “Banneth wants it fast.”
The coven was different than before. There was a new atmosphere percolating through the dark nest of rooms. They regarded him as a joke. His urgency to complete the assignment, to get the package and leave, made them snigger and scoff. Every time he asked them to be quicker they delighted in delaying. They were like frisky kids at a day club who’d found a new boy to taunt and bully.
Eventually he’d been taken to the temple where the senior acolyte told him the package was waiting. The chamber walls were made from thousands of slim metal reinforcement rods welded together, the inside of a bird’s nest woven out of iron twigs. Its altar was a tight-packed mound of rusty spikes, their tips all shaved down to the same length. Twin flames rose out of the bristling metal at each end, long yellow tongues dancing in the gloom. Pews were composite roof planks nailed to a variety of pedestals. The sect’s usual runes were still on the walls, but they were barely visible now. A single new slogan had been sprayed everywhere: Night is coming. On the walls, on the ceiling, even on the floor.
Kilian was made to enter alone, his little escort clustering round the thick doors behind him, giggling wildly. His annoyance dropped away as he walked quietly towards the altar, replaced by growing nervousness. Three figures waited silently for him behind the altar, clad in black robes. These garments had none of the embellishments or pentagons usually favoured by senior sect members. If anything it made them appear even more menacing than usual. Their faces were almost lost inside the large hoods. Flickering yellow beams from the candles would occasionally reveal a feature within two of the hoods: bloodshot eyes, hooked nose, wide mouth. The third hood could have been empty for all that Kilian saw. Even when he reached the altar, he could see nothing inside that night-like cavity of fabric.
“The High Magus sent me,” he stammered. “You’ve got a package for me, yeah?”
“We certainly have,” a voice said from somewhere inside that veiled hood.
Alert now, Banneth ran the voice through an analysis program, though ordinary memories of voices were a notoriously unreliable source for such verification programs. Nonetheless, it showed remarkable similarities to recordings of Dexter’s voice. Kilian trembled as the hidden figure slowly held out an arm. He was almost expecting a pistol nozzle to poke out at him. But it was just a snow-white hand that emerged from the voluminous sleeve. A small plastic container was dropped carelessly on the altar.
“Our gift to Banneth. I hope it is useful.”
Kilian scooped it up hurriedly. “Right. Thanks.” All he wanted now was to get the fuck out of here. These guys were almost as creepy as Banneth.
“I am interested that the High Magus is carrying on as though nothing is happening.”
Kilian didn’t know how to answer. He cast a glance over his shoulder, wondering if he should make a dash for it. Not that he could ever get out of the chapel unless he was allowed to. “Well, you know how it is.” He shrugged lamely.
“I certainly do.”
“Sure. I’d better get this back to her, then.”
“The Night will fall.”
“I know.”
“Excellent. Then you will join us when the time comes.”
“My serpent beast is strong.”
A head emerged from the hood, the darkness slowly washing backwards to expose more and more features. “You’ll need to be,” Quinn said.
Banneth froze the image. No doubt about it. Skin as white as snow, eyes infinite pools of black—though that could have just been emotion-aggravated exaggeration. But it was Quinn.
The High Magus smiled thinly as the image hung in her mind. The fierceness which had once so animated him, and fascinated her, was gone. If anything, he looked rather stressed out. Crinkled lines radiated away from the corner of his eyes, while those sweet cheeks were rather sadly sunken.
She concentrated her thoughts, focusing on the personality traits of one individual. Dexter’s in Edmonton. One of my acolytes encountered him three days ago.
Ah. Thank you,western europe replied.
The ten ships in the convoy emerged above New California, immediately confirming who they were to Monterey’s SD command. For once the hellhawks accompanying the frigates hadn’t raced on ahead. They were quite content to let the convoy commander break the bad news they were carrying.
Where’s Etchells?hudson proctor asked once the four remaining hellhawks had checked in.
We don’t know,pran soo said. He left us to scout round the antimatter station. He will probably emerge soon.
You’re sure the Confederation destroyed it?
The frigates were still there. They saw it explode.
A fact which the convoy commander was very reluctantly confirming to Monterey. The news was all around the asteroid within thirty minutes, and down to New California’s cities in roughly the same timescale. Word spread across the countryside within a couple of days. The more remote Organization asteroid settlements lagged behind by anything up to a week. The last ones actually got to hear about it from Confederation propaganda broadcasts—who damn well weren’t going to miss that opportunity.
This time Emmet Mordden refused point blank to be the one who had to tell Al. So the senior lieutenants decided that Leroy Octavius should be awarded the honour. Their unspoken thought as they watched him waddle out of the asteroid’s command centre was that he too would chicken out and simply tell Jezzibella.
A lifetime juggling temperamental personalities in the entertainment industry had left Leroy wise to that option. Knowing that Jezzibella was the only guarantee his own precious body and soul remained intact, he simply couldn’t permit her position to be weakened. Leroy gathered his courage and went down to the Nixon Suite. Walking along the last few metres to the doors his legs had more than a little wobble of apprehension. The two gangsters on guard outside picked up on his emotions, and studiously avoided eye contact as they opened the big doors for him.
Al and Jezzibella were having breakfast in the conservatory, a long, narrow room with one wall made entirely of curving enhanced sapphire, which gave a slightly bluish tint to the view of the planet and stars outside. The opposite wall had vanished beneath a trelliswork of flowering vines. Pillars running the length of the conservatory were transparent tubes, aquariums filled with the strange and beautiful fish from a dozen worlds.
There was only one table, a broad wrought iron oval, with a vase of orange lilies in the middle. Al and Jezzibella sat next to each other, dressed in identical aquamarine bathrobes, and casually munching toast. Libby was limping round the table, pouring coffee.
Al looked up as Leroy came in. His welcoming smile faded when he caught the anxiety in the obese manager’s mind. “You don’t look too happy, Leroy, my boy. What’s eating you?” Jezzibella glanced up from her history book.
Leroy took a breath and plunged in. “I have some news. It’s not good.”
“Okay, Leroy, I ain’t gonna bite you because those wiseasses dumped a shitty job on you. What the fuck’s happened?”
“That last convoy we sent to the antimatter station just made it back. Thing is, the Navy was there waiting for them. They blew it up, Al. We’re not going to get any more antimatter, not ever.”
“Jesus H Christ!” Al’s fist thumped the table, bouncing the crockery. Three slim scars throbbed white on his cheek. “How the hell did they find out? Ain’t nothing we do more careful than sending the convoy to the station. Did the last lot get followed?”
“I don’t know, Al. The frigates’ll dock in another ninety minutes; maybe the captains’ll tell us more.”
“They’d fucking better.” Al’s fists clenched. He stared at the starfield outside the conservatory.
Leroy hesitated, glancing at Jezzibella. She inclined her head silently to the door. It was all the permission Leroy needed; he ducked his head at Al, and shifted himself the hell out of there as fast as his thick legs would allow. Jezzibella waited patiently, not saying anything. By now she was well used to the cycle of Al’s moods.
After a minute in which he could have been frozen, Al roared: “Fuck it!” and smashed a fist down on the table again. This time it had his energistic power behind the blow. The iron bent alarmingly. Plates, jam pots, cups, and the vase went sliding down the new valley to crash together along the fold. He stood up fast as the boiling coffee splashed onto the floor with the lilies. His chair legs caught on the tiling. “FUCK!” Al spun round and kicked the chair, sending it flying into the curving sapphire window. Libby whimpered in fright, cradling the milk jug as if it alone could protect her. Jezzibella sat back, holding on to the coffee cup she’d saved. Her expression was strictly neutral.
“Goddamn motherfucking shit-eating bastards! That was my goddamn station. Mine .” He put both hands under the buckled table and shoved it upwards. The entire thing went somersaulting along the conservatory. Crockery tumbled away to smash against the floor. Libby cowered as one of the heavy metal legs flashed centimetres above the bun of her grey hair. “Nobody takes my property away from me. No Body! Don’t they know who the fuck they’re dealing with here? I’m not some chickenshit small-time loser pirate! I am Al goddamn Capone. I’ve got a fleet that kicks the shit out of whole planets, for Christ’s sake. Are they fucking insane? I’ll blow that whole stinking pennyass navy of theirs out of the goddamn water. That knucklehead Ruski admiral is gonna get a baseball rammed so far up his ass he’ll be pitching it out of his mouth.”
“Space,” Jezzibella said firmly.
“What?” Al whirled round and bellowed at her. “What did you fucking say to me?”
“You’ll blow them out of space. Not water. We’re not on Earth now, Al.”
He pulled a fist back. It shook violently as he held it over her. Then he swung round and punched one of the tall aquariums. The glass shattered. Water and a shoal of long purple fish poured out of the big hole, splattering the hem of his robe.
“Shit. Goddamn.” He danced backwards, trying to keep his house slippers out of the water.
Jezzibella calmly lifted her feet off the tiles as the tide swirled round her chair. Fish started wriggling frantically over the mosaic, their movements skidding them against the planters. “Did you have antimatter when you started?”
Al was watching the fish in mild perplexity; as if he couldn’t quite understand where they’d come from. “What?” he demanded.
“You heard.” She deliberately looked away from him, and gave Libby a gracious smile. “Go and fetch a bucket, or something, there’s a dear.”
“Yes, poppet,” Libby said nervously. She scurried away.
“You frightened her,” Jezzibella accused.
“Fuck her,” Al said irritably. “What did you say about antimatter?”
“First off, we’ve still got tonnes of the stuff. Think how many convoys got through.”
“Tonnes?”
“Alright, not tonnes, but certainly kilograms. Work it out if you don’t believe me: one kilogram equals two and a fifth pounds. So the fleet and the SD network still has more than enough to wipe the floor with any Confederation Navy task force stupid enough to try its luck against New California. Then there’s Kingsley Pryor. You haven’t forgotten him, have you?”
Al stopped his mental arithmetic. He was actually very good at it, a hangover from the days when he was working as an accountant in Baltimore. Jez was right again, they had got a healthy stash of the superbomb material. And no he hadn’t forgotten Kingsley, exactly, it was just a long time since they set him loose on his clandestine assignment. “That flaky asshole? I’ve written him off. Christsake, it’s been too long.”
“No it hasn’t. He’s a courier, not a missile. He’ll get there eventually.”
“Could be.”
“Will be, and then you’ve won. Once the Confederation’s been broken, you don’t have to worry about New California being hauled back here.”
“Could be,” he sighed. “But we ain’t going to get any more antimatter. Hell, Jez, if they send two task forces, we’re up shit creek.”
“They won’t. Believe me. It’s a political impossibility. So we’re back to my original question. You didn’t have antimatter when you started out, and you still managed to take over this planet. Antimatter was a beautiful bonus, Al. And you used it perfectly. You’ve not only got the Confederation public terrified of you, but with those infiltration flights you’ve weakened them physically. Twenty-five planets seeded. That’s crippled their economies and leadership. They can’t challenge you on your home ground. No way. And that’s what really counts.” She extended her legs, and rested her heels on one of the two remaining chairs. “We’re never going to see Navy warships outside this window. Not now. You’re secure, Al. You’ve made it clean. You’ve dug the moat to keep those bastards out, now concentrate on cementing what you’ve conquered. Don’t let those moaning weaklings who claim to be your friends chip away at the Organization.”
“God damn, you’re beautiful.” He splashed through the thin runnels of water to kiss her. She smiled up at him, and used a forefinger to tickle under his chin.
“The guys are going to go apeshit about losing the station.”
“They’re going to be frightened, that’s all,” she said. “Just show them they don’t have to be, that you’re in charge of the situation. They need that reassurance. They need you, Al, no one else can hold things together.”
“You’re right. I’ll call the senior lieutenants in. Spin them some bullshit, and kick ass.”
Her hand curled round the back of his neck. “It can wait an hour.”
Al buckled down on his disapproval when he arrived at the Chiefs of Staff office. No point in biting people’s balls off before they’d even started the meeting. It was just—he couldn’t help remembering what the plush office had looked like the first time they’d used it. Tidy and gleaming, with coffee served from a silver pot into elegant china. Now, it was suffering from the general tide of crap washing through Monterey. Without mechanoids, nothing was being cleaned, let alone polished. There were plates and crumpled sachets on the table, dating back three or four meetings; cups with mould growing in the bottom. No one could be bothered to take them back to the nearest canteen.
It wasn’t good. Not at all. Jez was right. He had to consolidate what he’d got. Make things function smoothly again. Like it all had at the start.
Kiera was last to arrive. That was getting to be a habit. Al couldn’t work out if she was doing it to annoy him, or to make everyone take notice of her. She took her place halfway down the side of the table, between Patricia and Leroy. Al performed his own theatre by getting up again and refilling his coffee cup from the wheezing espresso machine.
“Hey, Leroy, where’s Webster?” Al asked suddenly. “He should be dishing this stuff out.”
The manager broke off his murmured conversation with Patricia and glanced round the office in surprise. “Kid’s probably skiving off.”
“Yeah? I ain’t seen him about for a while. How come?” Now he thought about it, Al couldn’t remember the last time the boy had been in attendance. It was goddamn typical of the sloppy way things were being run these days. No hostage was more important than Webster Pryor; he was the only person who could make Kingsley Pryor go through with the assignment.
Leroy took out his pocket block and typed quickly, summoning up staff rotas. The results made him uneasy, which everyone was very aware of. “He’s down in the kitchens, I think. That was his last assignment, helping the chef. His supervisor hasn’t reported back since.”
Al sat down and stirred his coffee. “Silvano, where’s the kid?”
The morose lieutenant’s scowl deepened. “I don’t fucking know.”
“It’s your job to fucking know. Je-zus, I put you in charge of keeping people in order, and you can’t even look after a brat. You know what’s riding on keeping Webster in line. He’s more important than all the other hostages put together.”
“Sure, Al. I’ll find him.”
“You’d better. Fuck me, this is goddamn typical of how slack things are getting up here.” He took a sip of coffee, making sure his temper sank back. “Okay, are you guys all up to speed on what’s happened with the antimatter station?” By the way everyone mumbled and avoided his eye he guessed they were. “Well don’t all make out like it’s the end of the world. It ain’t. We just about achieved what we set out to do. Dwight, how many planets have we screwed now?”
The fleet commander flushed as everyone concentrated on him. “Seventeen confirmed infiltrations, Al. We’re waiting for another two flights to get back.”
“Nineteen planets.” Al grinned round the lieutenants. “Plus Arnstat. Not bad. Not bad at all. We’ve kicked so much shit into the Navy’s face they can’t even see us now. And if they do try a raid . . . What’ll happen, Emmet? We still got what it takes to see them off?”
“No problem, Al. The SD platforms are all armed with antimatter, along with half the fleet. The only Navy ships that’ll visit New California for a rumble are the ones on a suicide mission.”
“Glad to hear it. You all hear that, too?” He searched round, trying to spot any major-league dissenters with his ethereal senses as they all swore they heard and approved. There was the obvious ones; Kiera with her cool contempt, the rest were just jittery, or, like Silvano, sullen and resentful. But so far he was carrying it. “Okay, so we’ve done what we set out to when we walked into City Hall. We got us an entire planet, along with a haul of space factories. And the important thing is, we took out the nearest opposition. This planet is a fucking fortress now. That means we can ease up on watching our backs, and get on with running this shebang properly. Leroy, how’s the food situation down on the surface?”
“Nobody’s starving, Al. The farms aren’t producing as much as they did before. But they are producing. I think we can get them back up to the old levels if the lieutenants on the ground applied some pressure. We need to motivate them.”
“Okay. So food is something we can improve if we had the time. Mickey, your boys jiving you, or are they marching round like a bunch of krauts whenever you give the word?”
Mickey Pileggi licked at the beads of sweat that had suddenly erupted on his upper lip. “I got them under control, Al. Yeah. Sure thing.”
“Mickey, you’re full of crap. This whole fucking joint is going down the pan. We’ve been humping away at the Confederation so bad, we ain’t noticed the rain coming in.”
“That’s what you wanted.”
Al stopped in full flow, hauling back on his anger. He’d just been getting nicely into his spiel. “Kiera, stop being such a ballbuster. I did what I had to to protect us. Ain’t nobody here gonna argue with that.”
“I’m not arguing, Al. I’m saying the same thing as you. We are where we are, because this is where you’ve brought us.”
“You want to be somewhere else right now?”
“No.”
“Then shut the fuck up. I’m telling you, all of you; now is when we start getting things working properly again. You gotta start keeping tabs on the soldiers under your command, else everyone’s gonna finish up going AWOL like Webster. And that way, we wind up in deep shit. We gotta have things working smoothly around here again. If you don’t start exerting some proper discipline then the whole Organization’s gonna fall apart. And if it goes down, then we go down with it.”
“Al, the Organization is set up to keep the fleet working,” Kiera said.
“Hey, fucking lady Einstein, you just worked that out for yourself, or did one of the kids from the gym explain it when he was banging you?” Al chuckled loudly, encouraging the others to join in.
“I’ve always known it. I just wondered if you did.”
Al’s humour faded out. “What are you getting at?”
“The only reason we need the fleet is if New California remains in this universe.”
“Aw shit, not this crap again. Don’t you get it? If we leave, then the Confederation longhairs are going to be free to dream up some way of snatching us back. We have to stay here, it’s the only way we can see what’s coming.”
“And if you see something like that coming at you, Al, what are you going to do about it? A technology powerful enough to pull a planet back from the other side of the beyond. Launch a combat wasp at it? Believe me, if the Confederation ever gets to be that powerful, then we don’t stand a chance. But I don’t think they’ll ever learn how to do anything like that. We can do it because we’ve got the devil’s own power charging us up. No chunk of machinery can challenge that. If we leave, then I say we’re going to be a hell of a lot safer there than we are here.”
There was an itch in Al’s palm, running across his skin exactly where he gripped the handle of his baseball bat. He held off from making it real. Her talk about the devil being behind them made him uncomfortable. A Catholic by birth, he didn’t like examining the implications of what he was now, nor why. “We ain’t pinning our future on what you think might be right, sister,” he growled. “If we want a certainty, then we stay right here.”
“The Organization can be transported down to the planet,” Kiera said, as if Al hadn’t even spoken. “We can use the SD network to keep our power base secure until we assume control of the cities. After that, we use ground troops to enforce order. Al was right about that. There’s been too much slippage allowed recently. We know we have to keep the farms and a lot of the industries going if we want any kind of decent life on the other side. It’ll take a strong, positive government to achieve that. And that’s us.”
“We can do all that crap, and still stay here,” Al said. His voice had become little more than a whisper. That worried those who had been with him the longest, though Kiera didn’t seem to notice the barely concealed danger. “When I want someone else to tell me how to run my Organization, I’ll let you know. Got that, baby doll? Or do I need to make it real plain for you?”
“I hear what you say, Al.” The tone was amused indolence.
“That’s smart of you. Now I want the rest of you guys to start doing like I’ve said. We need a crackdown like God’s foot is stomping through the clouds. I want things up and jumping around here. Put the word out to your soldiers, as of now you shape up or ship out. And out is where you don’t want to be.”
Al told Emmet and Silvano to stay behind after the others trooped out. He flicked a switch to turn the wall clear, and waited impatiently as transparent waves skidded about in front of him. With his mind all het up, it was hard to cool down his energistic power. Eventually, the wall stabilized, giving him a view across the SD Tactical Operations Centre. Five people were sitting behind the long ranks of consoles; two of them playing cards.
“The bitch is good,” Al said. He was surprised more than anything.
“She used to be married to a politician,” Silvano said. “Knows how to sound plausible.”
“Certainly convinced me scooting our asses out of here is a good idea,” Al muttered. He turned back to his two senior lieutenants. “Emmet, is what she said right? Can we take the planet out of their reach? I mean, right away?”
Emmet wiped a hand across his forehead. “Al, I can make the machines we’ve got work for you. Do a few repairs, make sure everything’s plugged in where it oughta be. But, shit, questions like that . . . That’s out of my league, Al, way out. You need a theoretical physicist, or a priest. But even if they can learn how to do that, it’s not gonna be tomorrow. We’d be safe there a long time. And could be we’d learn how to keep ourselves there. Shit, I just don’t know, Al.”
“Ha.” Al sat himself down, annoyed by how badly he’d come out of the clash. “And we don’t get to find out, neither. God damn that bitch. Now she’s declared for the running away option, I’ve gotta make my stand to stay here. And you can be certain she’ll start shouting her idea about.”
“Leaving this universe has a strong appeal to the possessed,” Silvano said. “It’s intrinsic. Perhaps you should bow to the inevitable, boss.”
“You think I’m gonna knuckle under to that whore?”
“Not to her, no. But she’s backing a winning idea.”
“I still need the hellhawks a while,” Al said. “Emmet, you done anything more about building another feeding trough for them?”
“Sorry, Al, haven’t had time.”
“You’ve got it now.”
Banneth was making her preliminary preparations to Kilian when one of the senior acolytes pounded on the door of her sanctum. Kilian gurgled weakly as she eased the slim tube deeper inside him.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Banneth promised him cheerfully, and fastened a clamp around the incision to stop the bleeding. She stripped the thin isolation gloves from her hands as she walked over to the door.
“A body, High Magus,” the acolyte panted. “There’s a body in the temple.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“Acolyte Tilkea, High Magus. He was butchered. We didn’t authorize it. Tilkea is one of the better ones.”
“I see.” Banneth datavised a codelock at her sanctum door, and strode off towards the temple. “How awful, a corpse we didn’t authorize.”
“Yes, High Magus,” the acolyte agreed nervously. Like everyone in the headquarters, he never knew if she was joking or not.
Even by the standards of the sect, the killing was fairly extreme. The remains of acolyte Tilkea were suspended from strands of carbon wire above the altar, arms and legs extended wide. Large hooks punctured the skin above his shoulder blades, as well as his buttocks, wrists, and ankles, fastening him to the wires. His chest had been split open from throat to crotch, ribs levered apart to allow the internal organs to spill out. They’d splattered down on the altar, along with a small lake of blood. Banneth circled the corpse carefully, while a gaggle of acolytes stood at a respectful distance. It was ironic, she thought, that a death in the temple where they themselves had killed hundreds over the last few decades should invoke such trepidation. A sign of the times.
The blood was still warm. Banneth took a small medical block from her pocket, and pressed its sensor pad against Tilkea’s glistening liver. “This happened within the last half hour,” she announced. “Was he on duty in here?”
“Yes, High Magus.”
She datavised the headquarters network processor, and instructed it to review the security systems. Nobody had left the building within the last hour. “I want every door guarded by a team of five acolytes. You can issue the hand weapons, chemical projectiles only.”
The senior acolytes hurried to obey. When she stood up, Banneth saw the writing on the wall behind the altar. Someone had used Tilkea’s heart as a sponge, scrawling in blood: Darkness has arrived.her gaze switched from that to the wires disappearing into the shadows cloaking the ceiling. “Who fixed them up there?” she asked quietly. Not a difficult job, but hardly one that could be done unnoticed. The acolytes simply shrugged helplessly.
This is a very elaborate death,banneth told western europe. It obviously took some time to prepare. And getting in and out of the building would be hard even for the possessed. My AI is running a constant glitch scan.
It wouldn’t be difficult for Dexter,western europe replied. From what we’ve seen so far he can circumvent all your electronics. I’d suggest he’s starting a war of nerves. If he’s as fixated on you as we believe, then a quick death will hardly suffice.
I expect you’re right.
Cheer up, it confirms that he’s still in Edmonton. And if Tilkea was killed only half an hour ago, he can’t have left yet. I’ll have the vac-trains shut down immediately.
If Dexter can make himself invisible, he’s probably still inside this temple right now.banneth resisted the urge to stare round into the many dark recesses. I imagine he’ll want to see my reaction.
You could make him happy. Scream, faint; that kind of thing.
I’ll consider it for the future.
Perhaps you ought to trigger your gender cycle early,western Europe suggested. Shift into a man.
I fail to see the relevance.
A male’s aggression would probably be a more appropriate response to this situation. Dexter is a raging psychotic, after all.
Banneth dispatched a dry laugh down the affinity bond. That’s one of my more treasured privileges, an intimate knowledge of both psychological profiles owned by the human race. I can exploit the relevant weaknesses to perfection. Men have less of a conscience, I’ll grant you; but your claim that you’re rougher and tougher is a rather sad ego-enhancing lie you tell yourselves.
Charmed, I’m sure. Well if you don’t want to do that, is there anything else you need?
I can’t think of anything. This place is so heavily booby trapped I’m more worried about one of these bumpkin acolytes setting off a charge than I am an invasion of possessed.
Very well.
Are you watching the other sects?
Yes. North America and I have them all covered. Eight of Edmonton’s chapels have been taken over by possessed. It’s only a matter of time until the remainder follow. Quinn has also started to sabotage Edmonton’s infrastructure. The acolytes have been sent out several times to damage fusion generators and water pumping stations. They actually got through in three or four instances.
I haven’t noticed any reduction in services.
Because there haven’t been any. Not yet. But the margins are being cut; which raises an considerable question mark over Dexter’s ultimate goal. However, it’s proved an interesting footprint for us. There have been similar acts in Paris and Bombay.
You think that’s where he’s been?
Yes. I’m investigating Paris myself, of course. The East Asian supervisor is giving the Bombay sect his personal attention.
Your observers here should keep watch for Courtney and Billy-Joe.banneth concentrated on their images. They’ve been missing for a couple of days now. Dexter used to pimp Courtney for me when he was an acolyte. You couldn’t classify her as a friend, but she’ll be loyal to him. If he keeps anyone close, it’ll be her.
Thank you. We’ll keep an eye out.
The program’s visualization took the form of a three dimensional spider web that filled the entire universe. Strands were all primary colours, crossing and recrossing against each other, a weave that stretched away to an infinity where they blurred into null-grey uniformity. Louise’s mind hung in the centre, looking in every direction at once.
What her neural nanonics were showing her was Earth’s communication net. Or at least, part of London’s informational structure. Then again, it might have been just the Ritz’s internal house network. She wasn’t entirely sure, only that this was what surrounded her room’s net processor . . . when she ran this particular symbology protocol, anyway. There were some interpretations which were like cybernetic coral, others that had cartoon roads, looping gas-giant rings, even one that was an intertexture of glowing liquids. But this, she felt, was the most real.
Information taxis were flooding back towards her, silent sparkles of light riding the strands down to the centre, condensing around her like a new galaxy. A response to the latest questor she’d fired into the digital aether; the fiftieth variant on that one basic inquiry: find a connection between Quinn Dexter and Banneth, any category. She’d tried multiple combinations of the most preposterous phonetic spellings, removed time restrictions so that the questors could search centuries-old memories, allowed fictional works (every media type from books onwards) to be incorporated. If she could just get that first connection, discover a single positive reference, then the questors and news hounds and directory extractors and credit profilers and a hundred other search programs installed in her neural nanonics could be unleashed on Banneth like dogs after a hax.
The information taxis loaded their passenger files into the analysis program she was running in primary mode. “Oh hell,” she groaned. The neuroiconic display vanished, and she propped herself up on her elbows.
Genevieve was sitting at the room’s desk, running an English geo-historical tutorial through her processor block. She gave her big sister a sympathetic look. “Zeroed out again?”
“Yep.” Louise leaned over the side of the bed, and hunted round for her shoes. “Not a single file entry, not that combines them.”
“You’ve just got to keep asking.” Genevieve indicated the pile of flek cases on the desk. “Computers aren’t smart, just fast. Garbage in, garbage out.”
“Is that so?” Louise wasn’t going to quibble about Gen’s new-found interest of boning up on educational texts. It was better than games. Trouble was, the knowledge was superficial.
Like mine.
“I don’t know enough,” she confessed. “Even with the program tutors to help me format the questor.” It wasn’t just her inability to get a lead on Banneth that bothered her. There was still no response from Joshua. She’d sent half a dozen messages now without so much as an acknowledgement from Tranquillity. “I need professional help.”
She was back. Andy Behoo sighed helplessly as soon as he saw her walk in. The magic was only slightly soiled by Genevieve trailing after her. This time he didn’t even bother to say anything to the customer he was serving before he abandoned them. Louise was standing in the middle of the shop, looking round with that same slightly befuddled expression as the first time. She smiled lightly when she saw him approaching (not too fast, don’t run—you’ll look pathetic).
“Back for some more?” he asked. God, what a stupid thing to say. Why not just yell out: I don’t have a life.
“I’d like to choose some programs, yes,” Louise said.
“Excellent.” His eyes tracked up and down in a fast sweep, feeding the image into a memory cell. Today she wore a lemon-yellow dress made from a sparkly fabric that was tight around her bottom; and a pair of antique wire rimmed sunglasses. An odd combination, but very stylish. You just had to have considerable poise to carry off the effect. “What can we get you?”
“I need a very powerful questor. You see. I’m trying to find someone, and I’ve got very little information about them. The NAS2600 questor can’t locate them for me.”
Interest in what she was saying actually diverted Andy’s eyes from her cleavage. “Really? It’s usually pretty good. Your friend must be very well hidden.” And pray it’s her loathsome fiancй.
“Could be. Can you help?”
“What I’m here for.” Andy walked back to his counter, working out in his mind what he could do to use the situation. He plain didn’t have the nerve to ask her outright if she’d like to come for a drink with him after work. Especially not with Genevieve at her side. But there had to be some way he could get to see her again, outside Jude’s Eworld.
He was very conscious of Liscard, the general manager, tracking his progress. Liscard had been on edge ever since a couple of Special Branch cops had paid Jude’s Eworld a visit. They’d taken the manager back into her office, and spoken to her for over an hour. Whatever they said, her suppresser programs couldn’t get a grip on her subsequent nerves. She’d certainly given Andy a hard time all day, snarling at him for little or no reason.
Andy had a horrible feeling it might all be connected with Louise. Specifically de-stinging her and Genevieve. If they had been Govcentral bugs, then Jude’s Eworld had probably broken the law removing them. But there’d been no real reprimand. The sellrats had been nibbling on curiosity and rumour ever since. Each of them bragged about their own special shady customer who was the probable cause.
The shop’s inventory flashed up in Andy’s head, and he ran through the specs for questors. “I expect half of your trouble is that the 2600 questor only reviews current file indexes,” he told Louise. “What we need to do is get you one that’ll review entire files and disregard data status, that should help with obscure references.” Andy ducked down below the counter top, and looked at the clutter of fleks stacked up on the shelves below. “Here we go.” He surfaced, holding up a flek case. “Killabyte. It’s almost an AI in its own right. A one shot request that operates on fuzzy breeder intuition, which means it can utilise whatever references it finds to build new associations which you haven’t loaded in, and search through them. It won’t taxi back until it’s found the answer, no matter how long it takes. Tenacious little bugger.”
“That’s good. Thank you, Andy.”
“What I’d really like to give you is the Hyperpeadia, but we haven’t got any fleks of it in stock right now. If it’s used in tandem with Killabyte I’d guarantee you’ll find your friend. They’re the two market leaders right now.”
“I’m sure Killabyte will be fine.”
“I’ll put in an order for Hyperpeadia. The software collective won’t datavise it to us, they’re worried about bootlegs.” He put his elbows on the counter and leaned towards her in a confidential fashion. “Course, the encryption has already been cracked. You can get a pirate clone at any stall in Chelsea market, but it’ll probably have transcription degradation. Best you have an original. It’ll be here tomorrow morning. I can have it delivered straight to wherever you’re staying.”
“I’m at the Ritz.” Louise fished round in her shoulder bag and produced the hotel’s courtesy collection disk.
“Ah.” Andy held up the counter’s delivery log block to accept the Ritz’s code. “Your fiancй hasn’t arrived yet, then?” Genevieve had to bend over and hide her face in her hands to stop the giggles.
“No, not yet,” Louise answered levelly. “But I’m expecting him any day now. He’s already in the solar system. I was wondering if you could help me with something else?”
“Sure. Anything!”
Louise smiled demurely at his enthusiasm. I ought to be firmer with him. But somehow being firm with Andy Behoo would be like drowning kittens. “It’s just in case the questors can’t find what I want. You said some private detectives use the store. Could you recommend one?”
“I can ask,” he said thoughtfully. “Hang on a minute.”
Liscard gave him an alarmed look as he walked over to her. “A private dick?” she mumbled when Andy asked which one he should recommend.
“Yeah,” Andy said. “One that’s good at finding people. Do you know if any of them are?”
“I think so,” Liscard stammered. She waited apprehensively. As soon as the Kavanagh girls had come back into the store, she’d established a sensevise link to the eddress which the Special Branch officers had given her. Her retinas and audio discrimination program had been capturing the scene for whoever was at the other end of the link. She didn’t have the nerve to load any of the tracer programs available to employees of Jude’s Eworld. The software houses who produced them guaranteed they would be completely undetectable, but she wasn’t about to take the risk. Not with the people who claimed they were from Special Branch. When she asked her fixer in the local police about them he’d abruptly told her never to contact him again, and cut the datavise.
“What do you want me to say?” she datavised to the anonymous receiver.
“There’s someone I know who can help the girl,” came the answer.
Liscard datavised the information directly into Andy’s neural nanonics. He took his time walking back across the shop, a measured approach allowed him to savour her shape. The images he’d snatched before were fine as far as they went, but they amounted to little more than photonic dolls in his sensenviron. After conjuring them up he was left craving for more substantial replicants. Now, with his retinas switched to infrared, and feeding through discrimination program, he could trace her abdominal muscle pattern and rib cage through the fabric of her dress. A scan grid overlay revealed the precise three-dimensional measurements of those wonderful breasts. And her skin tone spectrum was already on file; that would be a simple continuation for the sculptor program, extending up from the legs, and down from her bare shoulders. That just left the taste of her as he ran his tongue along her belly and down between her thighs. The correct pitch as she cried out in gratitude, the praise she would moan to him, her greatest ever lover.
Andy hated himself for resorting to sensenviron sprites. It was the final humiliating proof that he was a complete loser. But she was so fantastic. Better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all. Even if that love was purely digital.
“What’s the matter with him?” Genevieve asked loudly. “Why’s he looking at you all funny?”
Andy’s smile was a thin mask over his horror as her piping voice broke through his distracted thoughts. Cool sweat was beading across his flushed skin. His neural nanonics couldn’t help dispel the blush, they were too busy fighting down his erection.
Louise gave him a vaguely suspicious look. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Andy mumbled. He scurried back behind the counter, ignoring Genevieve’s frown. “I think the person you want is Ivanov Robson. He specializes in missing persons, both kinds.”
“Both kinds?”
“Yeah. Some people are genuinely missing; they drop out of life, or haven’t updated their directory entries—like your friend. Then there’s the kind who’re deliberately trying to vanish; debtors, unfaithful partners, criminals. You know.”
“I see. Well thank you, this Mr Robson sounds about right.”
Andy datavised the detective’s address and eddress over. Louise smiled and gave him an uncertain wave as she walked out. Breath whistled out between Andy’s crooked teeth. His hands were shaking again, forcing him to grip the edge of the counter. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot! But she hadn’t stormed out, or made an issue of his stupid erotic daydreaming. There was still a chance.
Yeah, about the same as me getting crowned King of Kulu.
He looked down to double check. The counter’s middle shelf held a stack of fifteen Hyperpeadia fleks, all with their wrapping intact. His one and only excuse to see her again.
The taxi pulled up at the end of Fernshaw Road, where it intersected with Edith Terrace. Louise and Genevieve stepped out, and the door slid shut behind them. The vehicle accelerated away silently down the road. It had deposited them in a quiet residential street, where the pavements were actually made from slabs of stone rather than a simple band of carbon-concrete. Silver birch and sycamore trees that must have been a couple of centuries old lined both sides of the road, their giant boughs merging together to provide a gentle emerald shield against the fierce sunlight. The houses were all ancient two or three storey affairs, painted white or cream. Bricks and slate roofs were betraying their age by sagging and bulging; centuries of subsidence and environmental decline had distorted every wall and support timber. Window frames were tilted at the oddest angles. There wasn’t a straight line to be seen anywhere in the street. Each house had a tiny front garden, though they’d all been paved over; the massive trees absorbed so much light they prevented any shrubs or vines from growing underneath.
“This must be it,” Louise said dubiously. She faced a high wall with a single golden oak door in it, heavily tarnished with age. There was a brass panel with a grill on one side. It looked far too primitive to datavise at. She pressed the ivory button on top.
“Yes?” the grille squealed.
“I’m here to see Mr Robson,” she said. “I called before. I’m Louise Kavanagh.”
The door buzzed loudly, and she pushed it open. There was a rectangular patio beyond, running along the front of the building; home to a set of wrought iron furniture and a couple of dead conifer bushes in cracked pots. The front door, a duplicate of the one behind, was open. Louise peered cautiously into the small hallway. A blonde girl, barely older than she, was standing behind a reception desk whose surface was smothered with folders, flek cases, and china coffee mugs. She was staring into a small AV pillar that protruded from the top of a very expensive-looking stack of processor blocks. Pale turquoise light from the sparkling pillar was reflected in her narrow, brown eyes. Her frozen posture was one of shock.
Her only acknowledgement of the sisters’ entry was to ask: “Have you accessed it?” in a hoarse voice.
“What?” Genevieve asked.
The receptionist gestured at the pillar. “The news.”
Both sisters stared straight into the pillar’s haze of light. They were looking out across a broad park under a typical arcology dome. Right across the centre of their view, a big tapering tower of metal girders had collapsed to lie in a lengthy sprawl of contorted wreckage across the immaculate emerald grass. Several of the tall, cheerfully shaggy trees that surrounded it had been smashed and buried beneath the splinters of rusty metal. A vast crowd encircled the wreckage, with thousands more making their way along the paths to swell their numbers. They were people in profound mourning, as if the tower had been some precious relative. Louise could see they all had their heads bowed, most were weeping. Thin cries of grief wove together through the air.
“Bastards,” the receptionist said. “Those utter bastards.”
“What is that thing?” Genevieve asked. The receptionist gave her a startled look.
“We’re from Norfolk,” Louise explained.
“That’s the Eiffel Tower,” the receptionist said. “In Paris. And the Nightfall anarchists blew it up. They’re a bunch of crazies who’re going round wrecking things over there. It’s their mission, they say, preparing the world for the fall of Night. But everyone knows they’re just a front for the possessed. Bastards.”
“Was the tower really important?” Genevieve asked.
“The Eiffel Tower was over seven hundred years old. What do you think?”
The little girl looked back into the projection. “How horrid of them.”
“Yes. I think that’s why there is a beyond. So that people who do things like that can suffer in it until the end of time.”
A glassed-in spiral stair took Louise up to the first floor. Ivanov Robson was waiting for the sisters on the landing. Travelling in the Far Realm had accustomed Louise to people who didn’t share the bodyform template she’d grown up with. And of course, London had an astonishing variety of people. Even so, she nearly jumped when she first saw Robson. He was the biggest man she’d ever seen. Easily over seven feet tall, and a body that seemed bulky even for that height. Not that any of it was fat, she noticed. He was frighteningly powerful, with arms thicker than her legs. His skin was the deepest ebony, glossy from a health club’s spar treatment. With thick gold-tinted auburn hair twirled into a tiny pony tail, and wearing a stylish yellow silk business suit, he looked amazingly dapper.
“Miss Kavanagh, welcome.” From the confident humour in his smooth voice, it was obvious he knew the effect he had on people.
Floorboards creaked under his feet as showed them into his office. The bookcases reminded Louise of her father’s study, although there were very few leather-bound volumes here. Ivanov Robson eased himself into a wide chair behind a smoked-glass desk. The surface was empty apart from a slimline processor block and a peculiar chrome-topped glass tube, eighteen inches high, that was full of clear liquid and illuminated from underneath. Orange blobs glided slowly up and down inside it, oscillating as they went.
“Are they xenoc fish?” Genevieve asked. It was the first time she’d spoken. The huge man had even managed to quash her usual bravado. She’d kept well behind Louise the whole time.
“Nothing as spectacular,” Ivanov said. “It’s an antique, a genuine Twentieth Century lava lamp. Cost me a fortune, but I love it. Now, what can I do for you?” he tented his fingers, and looked directly at Louise.
“I have to find somebody,” she said. “Um, if you don’t want to take the case when I’ve told you who, I’ll understand. I think she’s called Banneth.” Louise launched into a recital of her journey since leaving Cricklade, not quite as heavily edited as usual.
“I’m impressed,” Ivanov said softly when she’d finished. “You’ve come face to face with the possessed, and survived. That’s quite a feat. If you ever need money, I know a few people in the news media.”
“I don’t want money, Mr Robson. I just want to find Banneth. None of the questors seem to be able to do that for me.”
“I’m almost embarrassed to take your money, but I will, of course.” He grinned broadly, revealing teeth that had been plated entirely in gold. “My retainer will be two thousand fuseodollars, payable in advance. If I locate Banneth, that will be another five thousand. Plus any expenses. I will provide receipts where possible.”
“Very well.” Louise held out her Jovian Bank credit disk.
“A couple of questions first,” Ivanov said after the money had been transferred. He tilted his chair back, and closed his eyes in thought. “The only thing you know for certain about Banneth is that she hurt Quinn Dexter. Correct?”
“Yes. He said so.”
“And Banneth definitely lives on Earth? Interesting. Whatever happened between the two of them sounds very ugly, which implies they were involved in some kind of criminal activity. I think that should provide my investigation with an adequate starting point.”
“Oh.” Louise didn’t quite look at him. It was so obvious, laid out like that. She should have sent a questor into criminal archives.
“I am a professional, Louise,” he said kindly. “You do know the possessed have reached Earth, don’t you?”
“Yes. I accessed the news from New York. The mayor said they’d been eliminated, though.”
“He would. But Govcentral still hasn’t opened the vac-train lines to New York. That should tell you something. And now we’ve had the Eiffel Tower blown up for no reason other than to demoralize and anger people. That probably means they’re in Paris as well. A feat like that is beyond the ability of some stimbrained street gang. What I’m trying to say, Louise, in my dear bumbling way, is that if Quinn Dexter is here, then he’ll be heading for Banneth as well. Now do you really want to bump into him again?”
“No!” Genevieve squeaked.
“Then bear in mind that’s where your current path is taking you.”
“All I need is Banneth’s eddress,” Louise said. “Nothing else.”
“Then I will do my best to ensure you receive it. I’ll be in touch.”
Ivanov waited until the sisters were circling down the spiral stair before asking: Do you want me to give her Banneth’s eddress?
I’m afraid it’s a bit pointless right now,western europe answered. Edmonton has been sealed up, with Quinn inside. I can’t get her in to meet him; so she’ll just have to sit this out on the substitute’s bench for a while.