The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Without any visible target, Tolton stopped firing. People were everywhere, shrieking and crying as they skidded about, a racket which fused with the roar of the flame throwers to create total sonic bedlam.

  Any random shot would probably hit someone. He dropped to all fours and tried to find the cavern wall, a way out.

  Erentz and the others kept on firing. The personality’s perception of the cavern through its sensitive cells was less than perfect, but it could keep them informed of the Orgathé’s approximate location. Erentz twisted about continually, keeping the flame playing on the creature’s flanks.

  With the billowing mist, running figures, and the target continually shrinking, she had a lot of trouble keeping aligned. But it was working: that mattered above all else, helping to blank the knowledge of what a misapplied jet would strike.

  Dariat finally perceived the Orgathé’s denuded ghost flying back out into the habitat. He shared his enhanced cognition with his relatives and the personality, showing them the wraith flashing past. The light and sound of the flame throwers swiftly died away.

  As the disgustingly clammy mist descended out of the air to congeal over people and polyp alike, it revealed a floor littered with bodies. Those who hadn’t been too badly burnt or had escaped the Orgathé’s slashing appendages were wriggling mutely beneath the slick membranous muck.

  Nearly a third remained motionless; whether they were too exhausted or wounded to make an effort was impossible to tell. The grungy fluid concealed details.

  Tolton watched with numb incredulity as ghosts started to rise up out of the floor like humanoid mushrooms, stretching elastic fronds of the fluid with them. They were harvesting the material as Dariat had done, cloaking their form with substance.

  Erentz and her team were striding through the slaughter and misery as if it didn’t exist, whooping out greetings to each other as they congregated by one of the side passageways. Dr Patan was among them, wiping sloppy goo from his face and grinning with the same vivacity as the others as he checked his launcher.

  Tolton stared after them as they hurried off down the passageway, totally immune to the suffering throughout the cavern. The personality had informed them of another visitor raising hell in a cavern close by, and they were eager to resume the fight. It wasn’t just entropy which was stronger in this continuum, he reflected; inhumanity was equally pervasive.

  Eventually he stirred himself, though he was uncertain what to do next.

  Dariat came over to stand at his side, and they surveyed the cavern with its dead, its wounded, and its enervated ghosts. Together they moved out to offer what comfort they could.

  The mask came away cleanly from Jack McGovern’s face. He blinked against the gentle light coming through the storeroom’s high window. Without the package, his bare skin was host to a peculiar sensation, somewhere between numb and sore. What he wanted to do was dab at it with his hands, trace his fingertips over his cheeks and jaw to find out what they’d done to him. But he was still bound up with the tape and chain.

  “Not bad,” Courtney said. She gave Greta an affectionate slap on the arm.

  The woman flinched badly; muscles on her neck and limbs twitched in a cascade reaction.

  “Even got the eye colour right.”

  “Show him,” Quinn said.

  A giggling Courtney bent down and thrust a small mirror at Jack. He stared at the image. It was the last thing he expected; they’d given him Quinn’s face. He frowned the question.

  “You’ll see,” Quinn said. “Get him ready.” A single gesture, and the chain fell from Jack’s ankles. The tape wasn’t so simple. Billy-Joe produced a vicious-looking combat knife, and started sawing.

  Returning blood brought pain roaring into Jack’s feet and hands as the tape was prised away. He couldn’t stand. Courtney and Billy-Joe had to drag him out between them. First stop was a staff washroom. They dumped him in a shower cubicle, and turned the nozzle on full. Cold water sluiced down, making him gag, batting feebly at the spray. Dark stains seeped out of his trousers. Never once had they let him use a toilet.

  “Take your clothes off,” Quinn ordered. He chucked a tube of soap gel down onto the cracked tiles. “Wash thoroughly. That stink is a giveaway.”

  They stood round, watching as he slowly opened the seals on his shirt and trousers. Feeling and movement was slow to return to his extremities. He had a lot of trouble keeping hold of the tube as he applied the gel.

  Standing was also very painful, it felt like he was tearing tendons as his knees straightened out. But it was Quinn who’d told him to stand, and he didn’t dare not.

  Quinn snapped his fingers, and Jack was abruptly dry. Courtney handed him a black robe. Its cut was identical to Quinn’s, voluminous arms and deep hood, but it was just ordinary cloth, not the patch of empty space which clung to the dark messiah.

  Courtney and Billy-Joe inspected them as they stood side by side. Height was almost the same, within three centimetres. A slight weight difference was obscured by the robe.

  “God’s Brother must be laughing His ass off,” Billy-Joe said. “Shit, it’s like you’s twins.”

  “It’ll do,” Quinn decided. “Any updates on her position?”

  “No way, man,” Billy-Joe said, suddenly serious. “Those dudes from the Lambeth coven swore on it. It’s a big fucking deal for them having another High Magus visiting the arcology, especially now. They’s all talking about how this is His time. But she’s staying put in her tower, won’t move, won’t see anyone, not even London’s High Magus. And she’s a real pain in the ass, they all say that. Who else is it gonna be?”

  “You’ve done good, Billy-Joe,” Quinn said. “I won’t forget that, and neither will He. When I bring Night to this arcology I’ll let you loose inside a model agency. You can keep yourself a harem of the hottest babes there are.”

  “All right!” Billy-Joe punched the air. “Rich bitches, Quinn. I want me some rich bitches, all dressed up real fine in silk and stuff. They always wear that for their own kind, don’t even look at the likes of me. But I’m gonna show them what its like to fuck with a real man.”

  Quinn laughed. “Shit, you don’t ever change.” He took another look at Jack, and nodded in satisfaction. The man was eerily similar to himself.

  It ought to be enough. “Do it,” he told Courtney.

  She pushed Jack’s hood aside, and pressed a medical spray to his neck.

  “Just to keep you calm,” Quinn said. “You’ve handled this all right so far, I’d hate for you to blow it now.”

  Jack didn’t know what the drug was, only that it buzzed warmly in his ears. The fear of what was going to happen to him set sail and drifted away. Just standing still and admiring the glistening droplets form around the shower nozzle was fascinating entertainment. Their fall was an epic voyage.

  “Come here,” Quinn said.

  It was a very loud voice, Jack thought. But he had nothing else to do, so he slowly walked over to where Quinn was standing. Then his skin grew cold, as if a winter breeze was flowing through his robe. The room began to change, its drab colours melting away. The walls and floor became simple planes of thick shadow. Billy-Joe, Courtney, and Greta were blank statues, frothing with iridescence. Other people became visible, everything about them was clearly defined, their features, clothes (odd, ancient styles), hair. Yet they lacked colour to the point of translucency. And they were all so sad, mournful faces with anguished eyes.

  “Ignore them,” Quinn said. “Bunch of assholes.” By contrast to the others, Quinn was vibrant with life and power.

  “Yes.”

  Quinn gave him a sharp look, then shrugged. “Yeah well, I suppose we’re not really talking. After all, you’re not actually alive in here.”

  Jack contemplated that. His thoughts were losing their sluggishness.

  “What do you mean?” He realized he couldn’t hear his heart beating any more. Nor was his mouth moving when he spoke.

  “Shit.” Quinn’s ex
asperation manifested itself as a tide of warmth flooding from his shining body. “The hypnogenic doesn’t work here, either. Should have figured that. Okay, let’s put it real simple for you. Do as I say, or I’ll hurt you real bad; and in this realm that can be very bad indeed. Understand?”

  They started to slide through the room. Jack didn’t know how; his legs weren’t moving. The wall came at him, and passed by with a stinging sensation that made his thoughts quake.

  “It’ll get worse,” Quinn said. “Going through thick chunks of matter is painful. Ignore it, just you sit back and enjoy the view.” They started to pick up speed.

  Banneth had tired of the acolytes. Even watching them fucking each other senseless was a bore. It was all so ordinary. She kept thinking of the improvements and modifications she could make to their thrashing bodies to spice up the sex and make it potentially a great deal more interesting. There were definitely attributes she could bestow upon the boy to make him more ruthless, both in bed and in life, the first arena acting as a training ground for the second. After critical deliberation, she concluded the girls would probably both benefit from a more feline nature.

  Not that any of it mattered now. She’d acquired the same kind of fatalism as the rest of the planet’s population. Since the vac-train shutdown, absenteeism and petty crime had increased considerably in every arcology.

  After an initial flurry of concern, the authorities had decided such actions were not in fact precursors to wholesale possession. Basically, it was people taking the news badly. Apathy had risen to rule with all the intangible force of a dominant star sign.

  Banneth pulled on her robe and walked out of the penthouse’s master bedroom, not even glancing back at the fresh outburst of moaning from the tangle of bodies on the mattress behind her. She went over to the lounge area’s cocktail bar and poured herself a decent measure of Crown whisky.

  Four days’ inactivity floating round the apartment had reduced the bottle’s contents down to the last couple of centimetres.

  She settled back into one of the atrocious leather chairs and datavised the room’s management processor. Tasselled curtains swished shut across the glass wall, cutting off the sight of the night-time arcology. A holographic screen above the fireplace bar flared with colour, giving her a feed from the local news station.

  Another two of New York’s domes had succumbed to the possessed. Rover reporters relayed the images from the vantage point of a megatower, revealing a faint red glow emanating from the buildings inside the geodesic crystal roof. Police in Paris claimed they had captured nineteen more possessed and thrown them into zero-tau pods. There were interviews with dazed ex-hosts; one claiming to have been taken over by Napoleon; another swore she’d been used by Eva Perón. From Bombay a terse official statement assured residents that local disturbances were under control.

  Several times the station switched back to that morning’s address by the President, who had asserted that there were no new incidents of suspected possession. He said his decision to shut down the vac-trains was now fully justified. Local law enforcement agencies were successfully keeping the possessed confined in the regrettable cases where they’d managed to establish themselves in arcologies. He called on all people to pray for New York.

  Banneth took another sip of the Crown, enjoying the all-too-rare sensation of alcohol seeping through her synapses. <>

  <> Western Europe confirmed. <>

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  <> Banneth perked up at that. Any information she could gather on B7 always fascinated her. In all the years she’d been working for them, she’d learned so little about how they operated. <>

  A flash of pique escaped along the affinity link. <>

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  The affinity link carried a mental chuckle. <>

  “Six hundred years old,” Banneth muttered in awe. It was an astonishing disclosure. If it was true. But the supervisor had no reason to lie. <>

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  <> she repeated, annoyed.

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  <> The holo-screen image wobbled; a story from Edmonton, a reporter touring round a sabotaged power plant, detailing the repairs. <>

  <> Western Europe’s excitement was crackling down the affinity link like a static slap to the brain.

  “Shit!” Banneth downed the whisky in one swift gulp. Nothing I can do.

  The phrase was locked in her mind, repeating and repeating. Now the moment was swooping down on her, bitter resentment surged up. She struggled to her feet. Quinn was never going to see her slumped in defeat. He was also damn well going to know she was the principal factor in outsmarting him.

  She datavised the lights up to full strength, and turned a circle, scanning the penthouse. Moisture was smearing her vision. The holoscreen wobbled again, its sound jolting.

  Slowly, and with a taunting smile on her face, she said: “Where are you, Quinn?”

  It was like a poorly focused AV projection coming to life. A dark shadow wavering in front of the door to the bedroom, blocking out the motion of the oblivious acolytes. It was translucent at first, but thickened quickly. The overhead lights flickered and the holoscreen image imploded into a soiled rainbow. Banneth’s neural nanonics crashed.

  Quinn Dexter stood on the marble tiles, clad in his ebony robe, looking right at her. Fully materialized.

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  The supervisor’s victorious cry rang out in Banneth’s skull. For a whole second she stared at her beautiful creation, every gorgeous feature; remembering the angry power locked up beneath the smooth pale skin. He stared right back. Rather, his eyes were unmoving. Wrong. Wrong! WRONG.

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  The SD X-ray laser fired. Kilometres above Banneth, the beam penetrated the arcology’s crystal dome. It struck the top of the Parsonage Heights tower, transmuti
ng the carbon-concrete structure and dubious decor into a blast of ions. A twister of near-solid blue light flared up towards the dome from the skyscraper’s ruined crown.

  Quinn floated down lightly through the heart of the explosion, intrigued by the level of violence storming through the physical universe outside.

  He’d been wondering exactly what weapon they’d use once they found him.

  Only an SD platform could produce such spectacular savagery.

  He observed Banneth’s soul disconnect from the dispersing atoms of her body. She howled in rage as she became aware of him; the real him. Jack McGovern’s desolated soul was already slithering into the beyond.

  “Nice try,” Quinn mocked. “So what are you going to do for an encore?” He extended his perception as she dwindled away, savouring her anguish and useless fury. And also … Out there, trembling weakly on the furthest edge of awareness, was a ragged chorus of more tenuous cries. Resonant with misery and terrible pain. Far, far away.

  That was interesting.

  Chapter 06

  The uniform sheet of light which appeared above Norfolk to signify daytime wasn’t quite as glaring now. Although still several weeks away, the onset of autumn was plain to see for those who knew their weather lore.

  Luca Comar stood at his bedroom window, looking out over the wolds as he’d done every morning at daybreak since … Well, every morning.

  There was a particularly thick mist covering the estate today. Beyond the lawns (unmown for weeks now, damn it), all he could see were the old cedars, great grey shadows guarding Cricklade’s orchards and pastures.