Leila jumped back to the safe house, shocked to the core. Not only did Dieter think she’d been forced into a true death – he was going to rewrite Station’s past by way of revenge.
The first thing she said was: ‘Where is he?’
‘The portal led back to the Wart,’ said Cassiel. ‘That’s where we’ll find the Shining City. It’s probably an entirely virtual environment. It’ll be sitting in a dedicated weave server somewhere in there.’
‘The Wart?’ asked the Caretaker. ‘What’s that?’
‘Oldest part of Station,’ explained Leila. ‘It’s the asteroid that holds Docklands and Homelands together. Mostly just wasteland and ancient ruins. The kind of place Dieter loves. We have to get him back.’
‘And stop Deodatus,’ said Cassiel. ‘We need to get in there.’ The frustrated anger in her voice mirrored Leila’s emotions.
‘Totally,’ said the Caretaker. ‘The Shining City looked familiar. Might trigger some memories.’ It was the first time Leila had heard anything approaching sadness in his voice.
‘It’s not a good place for fetches,’ said Leila. ‘There’s not much weave coverage in there. I’d need to find a way of piggybacking on you two to manifest in most of it. I can’t go there on my own.’
‘And if we leave the flat, then the Rose agents will find us almost straight away.’ Cassiel’s voice was bitter. ‘We could explore it, but we can’t leave this flat. You can leave the flat, but you can’t explore it.’
A thought struck Leila. ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ she said, remembering the InSec agents she’d watched. ‘The Rose’s people are following a specific search pattern. I mapped some of it. If we can understand it, then we’ll know where they’re going to be when, and we can avoid them.’
‘Well, that gets us moving,’ said Cassiel thoughtfully. ‘I can mask the Caretaker and me again. If the Fetch Counsellor’s right, we’d have a little time before the Rose’s cameras spotted us.’ She sighed. ‘But what then?’
‘You’re the infiltration expert,’ Leila told her, tossing over memories of her search pattern observations. ‘That’s your problem. And while you’re solving it, I’m going to find Cormac Redonda. Make him talk to me. We need to know as much as we can about what we’re heading into and he’s the only expert we’ve got.’
‘I hope he’s willing to talk to you,’ said Cassiel.
Leila thought of her poor lost brother, of the damage he could help Deodatus do. ‘Oh, he will. I’ll make damn sure of that.’
The streets flickered by, filled with evening bustle. The gods looked down, apparently pleased with the world they controlled. They had always seemed complacent. Now Leila felt that they were completely out of touch. She hurried to the Flurrytown restaurant where Redonda had looped out. It was on a little broken street, a clutter of abandoned office blocks and emptied shops. A gun kiddy crew had scrawled graffiti across their broken fronts. Leila imagined how lively this lost little street must once have been. The estate agent in her rose up, suggesting ways of selling it. Ripe for regeneration, up and coming and similar phrases drifted through her mind.
As she reached the restaurant, Leila thought about how East’s entertainment areas were always evolving. The god liked to flatter each new generation by creating novelty, making those who partied in her realms feel that they occupied a world that was freshly made for them and them alone. Then the masses would move on and there would be small, local collapses, leaving empty streets like this. But they wouldn’t stay empty for long. Soon the rebellious pioneers would come, reworking empty space on their own terms. Subversive creativity would flourish. East would bless it with low rents. The old would marvel at East’s ability to regenerate and the young would flock to these fresh new entertainments. A new standard would be set. East would win the gratitude of a new generation of creators and – through them – consumers. And so all would adore her and her power would flow on.
It’s a racket, thought Leila. She remembered East in her room, trying to force stardom on her. She thought of Dieter, so totally controlled by Deodatus. I won’t be anyone’s puppet, she told herself. And as she did so, she realised how she could free her brother. Dit remembered their life together over the last couple of years. If she could copy those memories and share them with Dieter, then she could restore her brother to his original self. And then he’ll stop all this bullshit and leave the Shining City with me, she thought.
Heartened, she sent a call out to Flurrytown’s internal audio-visual systems. They clicked into life, letting her move into the shop. It had once been a bustling family restaurant, one of a chain that was still very popular. Now she found herself in a wilderness of broken tables and chairs, graffiti-clotted walls and strands of dangling wire. A fire had burnt up and out in one corner, a record of an attempt to either squat or vandalise the space. Leila supposed that East would be equally happy with either. Both were transformative.
The restaurant’s AV systems had decayed, so to Leila the room had a low-resolution, pixelated look, like a memory that had already begun to fade. She looked towards its rear, where the darkness was particularly thick. It took her a moment to register the presence of first one figure, then several.
‘Hello?’ said Leila uncertainly, forgetting for a moment that she was both invisible and inaudible.
She moved a little further into darkness, then smiled to herself as decayed remnants of Flurrytown’s cartoon house band faded into view. There was Flurry Beaver, Wilo Hedgehog, Zamboo the Cat and the rest of them, incarnate in a series of broken plastic sculptures. Years ago, their weave avatars would have been bouncing around the room, laughing with both children and parents. Now they were dormant. Leila remembered them from her own childhood. She’d always been at Flurrytown for someone else’s party, never her own. She touched her pendant for luck, then let her ghost cloak reach out. Sensors pinged in her mind. There was another cloak operating in the room. Hers began to mesh with it. Leila stood still, waiting for it to open up Cormac’s paradise to her.
There was silence for a few seconds. Then a sound leapt at her from behind – a child’s soft, high-pitched giggle. Leila spun round. There was nobody there. Dust motes lazed through long beams of spinelight. Then footsteps ran behind her and vanished. She caught her breath. Reality flickered. A child’s silhouette shimmered in and out of being. Leila took a step back. For an instant the walls were covered in brightly painted images of the Flurry band. There was a burst of music, loud and echoing, then voices singing ‘Happy Birthday’, chanting faster and faster until they became a vanishing scribble of sound. Unease grew in Leila, although she knew there was nothing to be scared of. She’d never thought of fetches as being akin to ghosts, until now.
One of the tables – tumbled into a corner – was suddenly upright, and covered in drinks and food. There was a man and a woman. Each handed snacks to invisible children. The rest of the restaurant was still dusty and cobwebbed. Now they were singing ‘Happy Birthday’, this time at the right speed. Then the couple watched a small boy unwrap his presents. Leila recognised Cormac, his wife and his son. A sudden, blinding flash, and all came online at once, and Leila, still invisible, was standing in the middle of a six-year-old’s party.
At first, it was indistinguishable from reality. Children ran, orbiting a table dense with weave-coded junk food and shredded wrapping paper. There was a scattering of presents at one end of it – bright little cars, fierce-looking robots, cuddly toys and a couple of already discarded educational jigsaw puzzles. The Flurry band charged around, its bouncier members leading games, its quieter ones nursing the tired and the tearful. Adults clustered in one corner of the room, sipping at brightly coloured cocktails. A murmur of conversation drifted over. ‘So generous of them. They’ve taken over the whole restaurant.’
A waiter appeared with a birthday cake. Flurrytown sprites danced across its candles. Cormac and his wife stood by their little boy. A metal exo-skeleton, chunky little wheels at its base, supported his frail body. His legs dangled uselessly. ‘Yes, yes, it’s your cake!’ she heard Cormac say. ‘Now blow!’ The child looked up at his parents, his face alive with joy, and said ‘Really? ALL mine?’ His mother nodded. The exo-skeleton turned his head back towards the cake and let it drop forwards towards the cake. He blew hard and the candle flames leapt sideways, then vanished. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Oh!’ Behind his head, his father leant forward and kissed his mother.
The loop ended and the moment juddered out of being. A second of the drab, empty room and then the memory flared up and began again, a haunting that would repeat itself for ever. Children scurried around the room. Parents applauded the party. There was that drift of dialogue again: ‘So generous of them. They’ve taken over the whole restaurant.’ The cake was carefully placed on the table. Leila noticed how the little boy’s eyes shone. Candles flared and died. The parents kissed again, then vanished.
Leila watched the scene play through three or four times. She didn’t want to bring Cormac Redonda out of his fugue too quickly. She wove herself gently into the repeated scene, appearing first as a flicker and becoming more present each time it played through. She hoped her repeated presence would begin to trigger Redonda’s deeper self, the dormant part of him that had life beyond this one, repeated moment.
He began to notice her. At first, he just glanced over at her. As she faded in, he became more engaged, more worried. Sadness drifted across his face. At last, he left his child and started towards her. Now he looked angry. She hoped she’d be able to talk him into helping her. The room reset, and for a moment there was nothing. When the memory restarted, he’d reach her and they’d talk. Leila realised that now she was the ghost – an unwelcome intrusion from another time, stepping into a settled moment and shattering its coherence.
‘You really should let him be, you know.’ It was a woman’s voice, calm and confident.
Leila jumped with shock. The cloak had failed her. The Rose had found her.
But when the woman spoke again Leila realised that she was wrong. ‘It would be too cruel to bring this version of him back into the world. And besides, after the Fetch Counsellor blundered in here I promised I’d stop anyone else from reaching him.’
‘Oh,’ said Leila, as white light flared up and she felt a jump being forced on her. ‘Gods.’
‘No,’ replied East, ‘just god.’