An Innocent Man
Page 24
highly likely) completely innocent of those crimes of possible murder, then of course I condone murder, torture and exploitation on a daily basis simply by living in the west in the twenty first century.
That Mark and Alice and all their cohorts (and yes, Carl Alfred Thomasson, I include you in this, in case you ever hear this) have decided that the only way out is to build a bridge to an alternative universe and shove a few select people through so that they can go and fuck that one up too, but they can fuck that one up in their own way with their own specific brand of crap and maybe learn from the massive mistakes we’ve made in this one… so that when the fire burns and the lights go out and the temples crash down, it’s not their fire or their light or their temples, but someone else’s, because they’re the Gods this time and they will make the rules in their own image. I make no judgement except to say that, if nothing else, I realise that as God material goes, I’m not the place you should start, but then neither are these guys, whose self-obsession and self-reverence was screamingly obvious to me after only an hour in their company. After an hour, I also realised that I really didn’t care, because it’s someone else’s universe they’ll screw up and not the one I live in, and if, as seems possible, there’s an alternative version of me there, then all I will ask is that he doesn’t find a way to come back and track me down and kill me for failing to even try to stop these lunatics from doing what they were planning to do.
Actually, all I cared about really was G6 and what it may have done to me because that idiot Justin decided to steal it and feed it to me (sort of). And what they said about that was that it was still in development and its current effects were not entirely predictable; early trials had left subjects dead (a few), blind (many), mad and committed to an asylum (again, many), unable to distinguish between reality and dreams (many more), and sometimes in a state of occasional transference between this and one alternate universe which they were trying to access (a few). I didn’t dare ask how many test subjects they had got through, and what became of them, but I did also understand that these symptoms seemed to be on a timeline which worked in my favour (i.e. the first few ended up dead, the next lot blind and so on), and that the symptoms could also get mixed up rather than be purely linear (which didn’t work in my favour, especially when they added that this particular trait was greatly exacerbated when G6 was taken with caffeine, for reasons they didn’t fully understand) and that the alternative universe that sometimes opened up was one called Moondance – apparently, that’s what it had been named – which wasn’t their universe of choice for domination because it was a strange and dangerous place – but did have one thing in its favour in that it was the home to a certain mythical creature known as a unicorn – and they needed the unicorn in order to kill it, as the unicorn (or more precisely its horn) was the source of unfathomable power which they needed in order to be able to build a stable bridge to the universe they did want to go to, which they had named, in characteristic modestly, as G.
Of course, G6 also had all the usual potential side effects like paranoia and schizophrenia, but Alice only mentioned these in passing as if they were to be expected and not even worthy of comment. This is what Alice explained to me that morning in that meeting room, and she also explained that the loss of the drug G6 was a potential catastrophe that must be corrected immediately, and that they had their own super stealth team on the case as well, looking to bring the culprit to justice. Mark Smith added that although they remained sceptical of my ability to do anything remotely helpful to catch the thief, they were willing to extend the same offer to me as they did to the leader of that team – that if I brought the thief to justice (in its loosest sense) and oversaw the interrogation of said thief, or any other suspects, by any means necessary (and they had means) – then I would be allocated one of the places on the bridge to G. They let that hang in the air. You may have known all this already, of course, but you know what my first thought was? Stupid and banal, I know, but I thought if that’s what level 2 clearance gets you, what the hell do you get when you have level 1 clearance? That the world is secretly ruled by Godzilla? It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
But seriously, I thought, they probably went way above what they should have told me. They could have told me anything, but their story was so far out and crazy that I thought it had to be true, or at least they probably believed it, and if the consequences were the same, then what was the difference really? You know why I thought they told me? I think it was pride. I think Alice and Mark got carried away, thinking here’s some grunt from Department H who thinks he knows things, let’s show him what real knowledge is and let’s show him how we are important, not just important, let’s show him how we are the makers of destiny. That’s a phrase Alice used again and again, the makers of destiny, as if they were something special, as if they were saying look at you and your pathetic career… head of security for some forgotten, lost department doing small, crappy things, and you dare to come and talk to us? Us? You talk to us as if you are an equal when you don’t even exist in our stratosphere. We are more than queens, more than kings, we are creators of a world and the makers of destiny. They forgot who they were and thought of themselves as the young gods, marching on invincible and not willing to acknowledge that they had been brought back to our own level through a small, simple mistake, had to rely on people like me to restore their status, and had to offer the elixir of eternity to the highest bidder. I left their offices feeling physically and mentally sick as I stumbled back to my own, pausing on the elegant stone steps of the Ministry of Rural Affairs to try and compose myself and decide what to do next.
The Young Gods
X started giving me a lecture how I was to show respect and not go barging in to the offices of Department G without so much as a by your leave, then start demanding answers from their senior officials, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, to throw up on the steps outside their – admittedly poky – offices. I did try and point out that it was him to told me to go to the briefing, but he was having none of it, and it did make me wonder if he was getting past it, if the years of physical and mental toil that he had put himself through were starting to have an impact.
Anyway (he told me, once he climbed off his metaphorical horse) they think they have a culprit.
Culprit for what? (almost spilling my coffee)
For the theft of G6, you idiot. Looks like you weren’t quick enough. They got a team together and went through all the records, CCTV, all that jazz that we should really have ourselves but we don’t (he looked at me pointedly), and they’re pretty sure they’ve got our man. Turns out he’s some jerk who has worked for us for years – for Department H, I mean – probably been pilfering our secrets and selling them to the Russians, I wouldn’t doubt. Don’t know who, exactly, but maybe if it’s not too much trouble you could find out? Probably him who walked out with the invisibility suit, I imagine. I mean, come on Sylvain, our security’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it? We leak more than a sieve. To be quite frank, I am surprised you can come in here, into this building, into my office, with your head held high in the mornings. Our security, frankly, is a disaster.
I did try and point out to X that I had been Head of Security for just under a day, but he wasn’t in the mood to hear excuses, he said. He had managed – as one last favour to me, because we went back – to get them to agree to let me sit in on the interview with the suspect – and I better be bloody grateful because he had to pull in a lot of favours and he wasn’t sure why he was making the effort, but he put himself behind his team. Get over there and get it sorted and don’t come back with any excuses.
I did start by saying that I had just left there and I was not sure I was entirely welcome, but he was already doing something else, so instead meekly I got myself up and shuffled out of his office. His secretary had already arranged transport and I found myself speeding back to the place that I had just left and being ushered in to an altogether different room. The young guy who met me outside glan
ced at the mess – someone seemed to have thrown up just outside the building’s entrance – and gave me a look that suggested he was just as disgusted as I was and he would make sure it was cleaned up, as a priority. The room that I was taken into was bizarre to say the least. It felt like the same size and shape as a squash court – I’m assuming you know what one of those looks like – with a concrete floor, dirty sheet metal walls and a large window at the top. There was a disgusting looking wooden table in the middle with three chairs around it – two on one side, facing the other. They looked stiff and uncomfortable and I hesitated as my guide ushered me into one of them, before sitting down heavily.
Coffee, he asked me in a sweet voice and I nodded. Don’t worry, he said, someone will join you soon, I really do hope you have fun, and he winked at me before leaving.
I sat all alone, wondering what was going to happen next and yes, of course I was worried, if you’re wondering. I don’t do nothing well, and I do it especially badly when I’m worried. I kept looking around the