“Networked?” he said. “You mean—”
“A gestalt,” I nodded, “a hive-mind. And that hive-mind would be the mind of the Old Ones’ avatar.” I gestured down the aisle. “Great Cthulhu,” I said, “the Opener of the Way, the Waker of the Dead, the Old Ones’ harbinger and herald.”
Jones dashed past me up one of the paths to the entrance. I followed.
He backed away from me: he wanted to flee, but he’d come for answers, and he didn’t want to leave without them.
“Why would you kill my son, then?” he cried. “What had he done to you?”
“Oh,” I said, “he’d done nothing. But his death pushed you in the direction you needed to go, Professor—your work in nanotechnology. That work was vital, you see, to precipitate the final phase.”
“Final phase of what?”
“We’re all part of the gestalt, Professor. Of the hive-mind. Potentially, if not in actuality. At the moment, anyone with access to a computer, to the internet, to social media can be linked into it at a moment’s notice. That was the whole point of the technology, the true reason we invented it in the first place. One hypnotic flicker of a screen and millions of minds become one, become His mind, Professor Jones.
“But He needed more. Needed to be more than a bodiless mind, possessing the crude, weak bodies of humans. He needed to regain His own physical form once again. So as you built in your commands and specifications, Professor, you were also building in others—forgetting them as soon as you’d done so, of course. Specifications that fulfil not your design but His.”
“You’re fucking mad,” he said.
I laughed. “That’s why you’ve come here, Professor. Because it was time for me to remember. Because I should know. And so should you.”
“I’m leaving, Mr. Rogers.” The light of the exit was almost in sight.
“Shh!” I held up a hand. “Listen; can’t you hear?” And in the stillness that followed, I knew he could. A noise like a vast swarm of wasps, growing closer and closer, louder and louder. “Your little babies are loose, Professor Jones. Their true programming is running now, and they’re doing very well. They are fruitful, they multiply, and they replenish the earth with something it hasn’t seen in millions of years. With every human brain that lies in their ever-widening path, they’re linking another cell into the hive. Until all human minds are linked together to form His.” I turned to indicate the great tentacled figure on the throne. “And as their minds are joined, so too will their bodies be broken down and transformed into the matter that will form His new body, when He returns to open the way.”
Jones ran for the stairs, but from the streets above, the screams began. Hundreds of them; thousands. Soon to be the screams of millions, of billions. The screaming of a world.
“Listen to them, Professor,” I said. “They’re afraid. But I’m not. I die happy, Professor, because I die not. I rise, I ascend, I am transformed. I rise in glory!”
And now, Jones began to scream, reeling back from the entrance as the buzzing grew louder. He fell to his knees; his skin and the flesh beneath ran like molten wax.
I raised his arms aloft and threw back my head in laughter, watching as the bones of my fingers rose from the liquefying flesh like R’lyeh’s towers from the deep, and hailed the coming of the gods.
Described as “among the most important writers of contemporary British horror” by Ramsey Campbell, Simon Bestwick is the author of the novels Tide Of Souls, The Faceless, the serial novel Black Mountain, and, most recently, Hell’s Ditch. Further novels are forthcoming. He’s also written many short stories, collected in A Hazy Shade of Winter, Pictures of the Dark, Let’s Drink to the Dead, and The Condemned. Having spent most of his life in Manchester, he now lives on the Wirral with a long-suffering girlfriend. This is taking some getting used to, but he’s starting to enjoy it. When not writing, he goes for walks, watches movies, listens to music, and does all he can to avoid having to get a proper job again. All contributions toward this worthy cause will be gratefully received.
The Judas Goat
Robert Brockway
I don’t have a very good imagination.
It was a woman who first told me that. I don’t remember her name. She was an online match-up, and like most online match-ups, it didn’t go anywhere.
“You’re not much for imagination,” she said after three boring drinks. “It’s lucky you’re a scientist.”
I’m not a scientist. I’m a research assistant at NASA. My job is more like engineering mixed with cartography. People tune out by the time I get that far. Then, they call me a scientist.
It’s a pretty exciting time for us, actually. Eight months ago, we launched the James Webb Space Telescope. It hasn’t yet built up the cultural presence of the Hubble. Most people haven’t heard of it, but it puts the HST to shame. We find new objects every day. That’s been most of my job lately: finding and cataloguing new stars, molecular clouds, even whole galaxies.
If I’m feeling romantic, I tell people I’m helping to explore the edges of the universe.
If I’m not feeling romantic, I tell people I look at blurry photographs all day.
I’m sorry, I meant that as a joke, but it probably comes off like I’m another boring office drone who hates their mundane job. Just the opposite: I love what I do. Even on the off days, I can at least enjoy the methodology. And I love my life outside of work, too. Not that it’s anything special. I date. I go out drinking with friends. I have a little girl, Kit, who’s the best part of every day. At night, I tell her stories about princesses. I may not be terribly creative, but she likes the stories that I make up best. Well, I don’t actually make them up completely: I mostly take my favorite movies, censor the violence, simplify the plot, and replace every character with a princess, an evil queen, or a magic frog. Last night, I told her the story of a wandering princess. She came to a land that had just lost its king. His two daughters were feuding over who would inherit the throne, and the peasants were suffering for it. Our clever heroine played both feuding princesses against one other until they destroyed each other, leaving her rich and the townspeople free.
That was the princess version of A Fistful of Dollars.
I’m going to tell you a brand new princess story now.
One day, a princess was walking across a wide, open field when there was a noise from the heavens such as she had never heard. It was the gods themselves. They came down from the sky, and they gave the princess a test. The princess was strong and clever and beautiful, but she was still just a girl, and a girl does not work on the same level as gods. The princess did not understand the test and could not tell you what it was.
She could only tell you that she failed.
The gods put the princess to sleep and gave her their mark. When she awoke, she returned to her kingdom, and all was well for a time. She fought with her brothers, for she was quicker than all of them. She danced with her father even though he was big and clumsy. She laughed with her friends, and she fell asleep in her big, soft bed.
That night, the princess dreamt of strange noises from the sky. She heard the crack of sharp thunder. But she slept deeply and did not awake until well into the next day. When she did, she found that she was alone. Her castle was empty, her family was gone. There was no trace of them. The princess searched and mourned, but nobody can search and mourn forever. One day, the princess traveled far away to the kingdom of her aunt, a woman she had never met before. Her aunt was kind, and with time, the princess made friends there.
She fell asleep one night and was troubled again by the noises in her dreams. When she awoke, her aunt’s kingdom, too, was empty. Its people had vanished without a trace.
The princess vowed to be alone forever this time, but some vows are very difficult, even though they seem simple when you make them. Eventually, the princess got lonely, hiding in her aunt’s empty castle. When a wandering merchant and his family took shelter there one night, the princess broke her vow. They
smiled so easily. They laughed and joked and sang and danced, and when they left, she went with them. She lived in their village. Though she was not a princess there, she was happy nonetheless.
She fell asleep.
She dreamed of thunder.
And they disappeared.
The princess carried the mark of the gods, and the gods followed her wherever she went, taking away the people around her. But they never touched the princess.
I never told that story to Kit. It’s too tragic. Especially considering that the tale is entirely true, save for two lies. I will tell you what those lies are at the end. You’ll have to listen to my story first.
“Hey, Victor?” Jan was leaning across my monitor, one of her headphones still in her ear. “I can’t seem to verify GL 386-HP. You think we had something there?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Let me check.”
I ran a search for GL 386-HP, and a result popped up.
Declination 63° 17’ 04.1”
Redshift 9.62
I opened up the latest exposures sent down. I checked the coordinates. Nothing there. A little spot of unassuming black space.
“Huh,” I said. “Guess I was seeing things.”
Jan gave me a friendly smile and tucked her other headphone back in. She turned to her monitor.
I tried to forget about GL 386-HP, but it buzzed around in the back of my head all afternoon. Before I shut down my computer, I pulled up the image history from the James Webb. The telescope takes several sets of long exposure images over a period of months, and by compiling them, we can get a massive, fairly comprehensive picture of that part of deep space. Sure enough, two sets ago, GL 386-HP was a little white dot.
A false reading, then. It happens. Distortion. Reflection.
I went home. I drank a pretty fine porter. I watched a TV-edited version of Kill Bill while Kit did her homework. Then, I went upstairs, and I told her a story about a princess who had been attacked on her wedding day by a team of other princesses that she thought were her friends, and her epic quest for revenge upon the magical frog who had ordered the hit.
“Hey, Victor?” Jan leaned across my monitor, headphones in. They were blaring something squealing and punky. “I can’t verify HD 161859.”
I ran a search for HD 161859, scanned to its coordinates in the latest exposures from the James Webb, and frowned at my monitor.
Another little spot of unassuming black. It was right next to where GL 386-HP had been.
“Come look at this,” I said, and I gestured for Jan to walk around my desk.
She didn’t respond. She frowned a little, but I didn’t move my hand. After a few seconds, she reluctantly pulled out her headphones and trudged over to see what I wanted.
“Here’s GL 386-HP—that last false positive—two sets ago,” my finger settled under the little splotch. “Here it is in the latest set.”
A little spot of unassuming black.
“Let’s check HD 161859.” I could tell Jan was already bored. “Yeah, same thing. There it is on the last set. But on this one? Nothing.”
“Weird,” she said, though I got the sense she was only confirming that she understood that I thought it was weird more than she was agreeing with my assessment.
“It is weird,” I said. “One blip is distortion. This is two blips across a span of what? Three weeks?”
“Yeah, keep an eye on it,” Jan said, already slipping her headphones in and heading back around the desk.
The weekend.
I took Kit to the mall and bought her an Adventure Time backpack. We had dinner at a Japanese place where they flung meat in the air with their knives and made corny jokes. I hung out with a few friends and pretended to be into a basketball game when I was really just into getting a little drunk. I lost at darts, badly.
Monday.
Even when I’m hungover, I’m usually the first in the office. I find that I can shut off hangovers better with something to focus on rather than just sitting around in my underwear, wishing I didn’t exist. But I wasn’t the first one: Jan was already at her station, staring intently at her monitor. She didn’t even have her headphones in.
“Morning, Jan,” I said, but she didn’t respond.
I lost the morning squinting at spots of light and marking their locations. I stood to head out for lunch and found that Jan hadn’t moved.
She was still staring when I got back.
“You okay?” I put a hand on her shoulder.
She didn’t respond.
I shook her lightly.
“Hmm?” She said, blinking up at me through bloodshot eyes. “Oh yeah. Sorry, must have been zoning out.”
“You’ve been sitting here for hours,” I said. “You look like you just got maced. You getting sick?”
“Y-yeah. Yeah, maybe,” she said. “I think I’ll head home early.”
She was still at her desk when I left at six.
The next day, Jan was still there. Her eyes were bleeding. Her breath came shallow. You could hear the wheeze across the room. I called Alex in, and we tried to coax her away from her monitor. She scratched his cheek open and smashed me in the head with her keyboard. The paramedics were both big guys; they had to call for backup.
Alex asked me a lot of questions. I asked him just as many. Neither of us came away with answers. When I walked by Jan’s workstation, I saw what she’d been staring at so intently: a blob of black, empty space located toward the bottom right hand corner of James Webb’s latest exposures. GL 386-HP.
I sat down at my computer. I pulled up the images and went back through the last few exposures. GL 386-HP, HD 161859, and now Z6 GND-5865 and a handful of other objects—all gone.
I called Alex. I pointed it out to him. He grunted, acknowledged that it was strange, and joked that it wasn’t the strangest thing to happen today. He went back to his office and resumed the endless stream of phone calls about the incident with Jan.
I was all set to leave for the day when Alex tapped me on the shoulder.
“Vic, show me the missing objects again.”
He looked distracted. I brought up the exposures. I showed him the empty space.
“What, uh … what color would you say that is?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“That spot,” he pointed to where GL 386-HP had been. “What color is that?”
“There’s nothing there.”
“No, I know, but what color is it?”
“Black, I guess?”
“No, it’s … I mean it is, kind of, but it’s also …”
Alex clenched his fist. “It’s like, it’s almost … but not. It’s like a darker …” He shook his head and walked away.
Wednesday. Alex didn’t say hello to me this morning. He said, “Did you give any thought to it? Can you figure out what color that was?”
I didn’t have an answer.
He came by my desk three more times, asking me to pull up the James Webb exposures. He stared at the empty spaces.
Thursday. Alex did not show up for work.
Friday. Saturday. Sunday.
Alex’s wife called Monday and said he wouldn’t be in. He would be taking some personal time.
I never saw him again.
There were rumors about his disappearance. That’s a universal truth: no matter the work, from copywriting to industrial espionage, the gossip is always the same. I heard they had to drag Alex out of his garage. He was surrounded by paints. He had painted every surface. No images—just random smears of color. I heard he gouged out his own eyes on the way to the hospital. I heard they had to keep him in a completely sealed, dark room, or he’d never stop screaming. I heard he was having an illicit affair with the director, and his wife caught them both in gimp masks. I heard the Men in Black came because he’d accidentally contacted aliens. I heard a lot of stupid, unsubstantiated stuff, and I didn’t give any of it much thought.
Alex’s replacement was a tall woman with enormous lips and frizzy blonde
hair. Her name was Elise. She spoke with a slight lisp and seemed very sorry to take the job, like it was disrespectful to the memory of Alex. We didn’t hold it against her because, in all honesty, we didn’t care. Alex was an all right guy, but he checked out at six on the dot. He didn’t bring his personal life to work and didn’t ask about ours. He was his job to us, and we were our jobs to him. Elise was different. Right away, she wanted to know how we were dealing with the changes. What we did for fun around here. What music we liked. If there were any good restaurants she should know about, being new to town.
She asked about Alex. I told her. I showed her GL 386-HP.
The empty space was bigger now. Only black where there used to be swirling nebulae and glowing stars.
Within a week, Elise fell mute. It started slow at first. She stammered. She hemmed and hawed in between thoughts, like she couldn’t find the right words. Then she started speaking more simply, in mono-syllables. Those became short, staccato bursts of gibberish.
“Hik no im wo to pat op tra,” she yelled, pointing frantically. Her eyes went wild.
Eventually, she stopped speaking altogether. She didn’t seem to be able to understand, either. She could hear and would jump at noises, but it was like she no longer knew how to use language.
I didn’t leap to any conclusions. I didn’t assume an empty little corner of a random photograph had something to do with a wave of mental breakdowns occurring in my office. That was too outlandish. But I entertained other theories. We could have some sort of chemical leak. Something in the water, maybe. This job always brought in the eccentrics; maybe it only takes a little something unexplainable to set off a dormant breakdown.
I never deigned to believe that the black spot had anything to do with Jan or Alex or Elise.
But I stopped telling people about GL 386-HP.
Just to test the theory, I told myself.
I stopped talking about it, but I didn’t stop watching. With each new set of exposures, the emptiness spread. People started noticing. They brought in a technician to work on the system, but he found nothing. He did reboots and uninstalls, cleared something, restarted something else, and left.
Tomorrow's Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity Page 24
