The Neutronium Alchemist

by Peter F. Hamilton

One of the men walked over to the elevator and pulled a processor block out of his pocket. He typed something on the block’s surface, paused, then typed again, casting a nervous glance at his impassive workmates as they watched him.

  The building management processor array accepted the coded instruction which the block had datavised, and the elevator doors hissed open.

  Emmet Mordden couldn’t help the way his shoulders sagged in sheer relief as soon as the doors started to move. In his past life he’d suffered from a weak bladder, and it seemed as though he’d brought the condition with him to the body he now possessed. Certainly his guts were dangerously wobbly. Being in on the hard edge of operations always did that to him.

  He was strictly a background tech; until, of course, the day in 2535 when his syndicate boss got greedy, and sloppy with it. The police claimed afterwards that they’d given the gang an opportunity to surrender, but by then Emmet Mordden was past caring.

  He shoved the processor block back into his overalls pocket while he brought out his palm-sized tool-kit. Interesting to see how technology had advanced in the intervening seventy-five years; the principles were the same, but circuitry and programs were considerably more sophisticated.

  A key from the tool-kit opened the cover over the elevator’s small emergency manual control panel. He plugged an optical cable into the interface socket, and the processor block lit up with a simple display.

  The unit took eight seconds to decode the elevator monitor program commands and disable the alarm.

  “We’re in,” he told the others, and unplugged the optical cable. The more basic the electronic equipment, the more chance it had of operating in proximity to possessed bodies. By reducing the processor block functions to an absolute minimum he’d found he could make it work, although he still fretted about the efficiency.

  Al Capone slapped him on the shoulder as the rest of the work crew and the flatbeds squeezed into the elevator. “Good work there, Emmet. I’m proud of you, boy.”

  Emmet gave a fragile grin of gratitude, and pressed the DOOR CLOSE button. He respected the resolve which Al had bestowed on the group of possessed. There had been so much bickering before about how to go about turning more bodies over for possession. It was as though they’d spent ninety per cent of their time arguing among themselves and jockeying for position. The only agreements they ever came to were grudgingly achieved.

  Then Al had come along and explained as coolly as you like that he was taking charge now thank you very much. Somehow it didn’t surprise Emmet that a man who displayed such clarity of purpose and thought would have the greatest energistic strength. Two people had objected. And the little stick held so nonchalantly in Al Capone’s hand had grown to a full-sized baseball bat.

  Nobody else had voiced any dissension after that. And the beauty of it was, the dissenters could hardly go running to the cops.

  Emmet wasn’t sure which he feared the most, Al’s strength or his temper.

  But he was just a soldier who obeyed orders, and happy with it. If only Al hadn’t insisted he come with them this morning.

  “Top floor,” Al said.

  Emmet pressed the appropriate button. The elevator rose smoothly.

  “Okay, guys, now remember with our strength we can always blast our way out if anything goes wrong,” Al said. “But this is our big chance to consolidate our hold over this town in one easy move. If we get rumbled, it’s gonna be tough from here on. So let’s try and stick to what we planned, right?”

  “Absolutely, Al,” Bernhard Allsop said eagerly. “I’m with you all the way.”

  Several of the others gave him barely disguised glances of contempt.

  Al ignored them all, and smiled heartily. Je-zus, but this felt good; starting out with nothing again apart from his ambition. But this time he knew the moves to make in advance. The others in the group had filled him in on chunks of history from the last few centuries. The New California administration was a direct descendant of the old U.S. of A government.

  The feds. And Al had one or two old scores to settle with those bastards.

  The elevator doors chimed gently as they opened on the one hundred and fiftieth floor. Dwight Salerno and Patricia Mangano were out first. They smiled at the three staff members who were in the corridor and killed them with a single coordinated blast of white fire. Smoking bodies hit the floor.

  “We’re okay, they didn’t get out an alarm,” Emmet said, consulting his processor block.

  “Get to it, people,” Al told his team proudly. This wasn’t the same as the times with his soldiers like Anselmi and Scalise back on Cicero’s streets. But these new guys had balls, and a cause. And it felt righteous to be a mover again.

  The possessed spread out through the top floor. Tarosa Metamech uniforms gave way to clothes of their own periods. A startlingly unpleasant variety of weapons appeared in their hands. Doors were forced open with precisely applied bolts of white fire, rooms searched according to the list. Everyone following their assignment to the letter. Capone’s letter.

  It was six o’clock in the morning in San Angeles, and few of the mayor’s staff were at work. Those that had turned up early found Retros bursting into their offices and hauling them out at gunpoint. Their neural nanonics failed, desktop blocks crashed, net processors wouldn’t respond.

  There was no way to get a warning out, no way to cry for help. They found themselves corralled in the deputy health director’s office, seventeen of them, clinging together in panic and mutual misery.

  They thought that would surely be the worst of it, crammed into the one room for hours or maybe a couple of days while negotiations for their release were conducted with the terrorists. But then the Retros started taking them out one at a time, summoning the toughest first. The sound of screams cut back clean through the thick door.

  Al Capone stood by the long window wall of the mayor’s office, and looked out at the city. It was a magnificent view. He couldn’t remember being so high off the ground in his life before. This skyscraper made the Empire State Building look puny for God’s sake. And it wasn’t even the tallest in the city.

  The skyscrapers only occupied the central portion of San Angeles, fifty or sixty of them bunched together to form the business, finance, and administration district. Beyond that the vast urban sprawl clung to the shallow folds of the land, long grey lines of buildings and autoways, interspaced with the equally regular squares of green parks. And to the east was the brilliant glimmer of the ocean.

  Al, who had always enjoyed Lake Michigan in the summer, was fascinated by the glistening turquoise expanse as it reflected the first light of a new day. And the city was so clean, vibrant. So different from Chicago. This was an empire which Stalin and Genghis Khan would both envy.

  Emmet knocked on the door, and popped his head around when he didn’t receive an answer. “Sorry to bother you, Al,” he ventured cautiously.

  “That’s okay, boy,” Al said. “What’ve you got for me?”

  “We’ve rounded up everyone on this floor. The electronics are all fucked, so they can’t get word out. Bernhard and Luigi have started to bring them to possession.”

  “Great, you’ve all done pretty goddamn good.”

  “Thanks, Al.”

  “What about the rest of the electrics, the telephones and math-machine things?”

  “I’m getting my systems plugged into the building network now, Al. Give me half an hour and I should have it locked down safe.”

  “Good. Can we go to stage two?”

  “Sure, Al.”

  “Okay, boy, you get back to your wiring.”

  Emmet backed out of the office. Al wished he knew more about electrics himself. This future world depended so much on their clever mini-machines. That had to be a flaw. And Al Capone knew all about exploiting such weaknesses.

  He let his mind slip into that peculiar state of otherness, and felt around for the rest of the possessed under his command. They were positioned all around the b
ase of City Hall, strolling casually down the sidewalk, in cars parked nearby, eating breakfast in arcade diners.

  Come, he commanded.

  And the big ground floor doors of City Hall opened wide.

  It was quarter to nine when Mayor Avram Harwood III arrived in his office. He was in a good mood. Today was the first day in a week when he hadn’t been bombarded with early morning datavises from his staff concerning the Retro crisis. In fact there hadn’t been any communication from City Hall at all. Some kind of record.

  He took the express elevator from his private car bay up to the top floor, and stepped out into a world which wasn’t quite normal. Nothing he could clarify, but definitely wrong. People scurried past as usual, barely pausing to acknowledge him. The elevator doors remained open behind him, the lights inside dying. When he tried to datavise its control processor there was no response. Attempting to log a routine call to maintenance he found none of the net processors were working.

  Damn it, that was all he needed, a total electronics failure. At least it explained why he hadn’t received any messages.

  He walked into his office to find a young, olive-skinned man lounging in his chair, a fat soft stick in his mouth with one end on fire. And his clothes … Retro!

  Mayor Harwood spun around, ready to make a dash for the door. It was no good. Three of them had moved in to block the opening. They were all dressed in the same kind of antique double-breasted suits, brown hats with broad rims, and carrying primitive automatic rifles with circular magazines.

  He tried to datavise a citizen’s distress call. But his neural nanonics crashed, neatly tabulated icons retreated from his mind’s eye like cowardly ghosts.

  “Sit down, Mr. Mayor,” Al Capone said munificently. “You and I have some business to discuss.”

  “I think not.”

  The Thompson’s butt slammed into the small of Avram Harwood’s back. He let out a cry at the pain, and the world went dizzyingly black for a second. One of his big armchairs hit the back of his legs, and he fell down into the cushions, clutching at his spine.

  “You see?” Al asked. “You ain’t calling the shots no more. Best you cooperate.”

  “The police will be here soon. And, mister, when they arrive they are going to fillet you and your gang. Don’t think I’ll help you negotiate, the commissioner knows my policy on hostage situations. No surrender.”

  Al winked broadly. “I like you, Avvy. I do. I admire a man who stands up for himself. I knew you wouldn’t be no patsy. It takes smarts to get to the top in a city like this, and plenty of them. So why don’t you have a word with that commissioner of yours. Clear the air some.” He beckoned.

  Avram Harwood twisted around as Police Commissioner Vosburgh walked into the office.

  “Hi there, Mr. Mayor,” Vosburgh said blithely.

  “Rod! Oh, Christ, they got you too …” The words shrank as Vosburgh’s familiar face twisted. A feral-faced stranger sneered down at him; hair was visibly sprouting out of his cheeks. Not a beard, more like thick prickly fur.

  “Yeah, they got me too.” The voice was distorted by teeth which were too long for a human mouth. He burst into a wild laugh.

  “Who the hell are you Retro people?” an aghast Avram Harwood asked.

  “The dead,” Al said. “We’ve come back.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I ain’t arguing with you. Like I told you, I’m here to make a proposition. One of my guys—comes from just after my time—he said people took to calling it an offer you can’t refuse. I like that, it’s great. And that’s what I’m making here to you, Avvy, my boy. An offer you can’t refuse.”

  “What offer?”

  “It’s like this: Souls ain’t the only thing I’m resurrecting today. I’m gonna build up an Organization. Like I had me before, only with a shitload more clout. I want you to join it, join me. Just as you are. No catch; you have my word. You, your family, maybe a few close friends, they don’t get possessed. I know how to reward loyalty.”

  “You’re crazy. You’re absolutely berserkoid. Join you? I’m going to see you destroyed, all of you deviant bastards, and then I’m going to stamp on the pieces.”

  Al leaned forwards and rested his elbows on the desk, staring earnestly at the mayor. “Sorry, Avvy. That’s one thing you ain’t gonna do. No fucking way. See, people hear my name, and they think I’m just a bigshot hoodlum, a racketeer who made good. Wrong. I used to be a fucking king.

  King Capone the first. I got the politics tied up. So I know which strings to pull in City Hall and the precinct houses. I know how a city works. That’s why I’m here. I’m launching the biggest heist there’s ever been in all of history.”

  “What?”

  “I’m gonna steal your world, Avvy. Take the whole caboodle from under your nose. These guys you see here, the ones you called Retros, they didn’t know what the Christ they were doing before. Because just between you and me shutting off the sky like it’s some kind of window with thick drapes is a bit of a wacko idea, you know? So I’ve straightened them out. No more of that bullshit. Now we’re playing straight hardball.”

  Avram Harwood lowered his head. “Oh, Christ.” They were insane. Utterly demented. He began to wonder if he would see his family again.

  “Let me lay it out for you here, Avvy. You don’t take over a society from the bottom like the Retros were trying to do. You know, little bit at a time until you’re in the majority. Know why that’s a crappy way to get on top? Because the goddamn self-righteous majority is gonna find out and fight like fuck to stop you. And they get led by people like you, Avvy.

  You’re the generals, the dangerous ones, you organize the lawyers and the cops and the special federal agents to stop it happening. To protect the majority that elects you from anything which threatens you or them. So instead of an assways first revolution, you do what I’m doing. You start at the top and work down.” Al got up and walked over to the window wall.

  He gestured at the street far below with his cigar. “People are coming into City Hall, Avvy. The workers, the police captains, the attorneys, your staff, tax clerks. All of them; the ones who’d lead the fight against me if they knew what I was. Yeah. They’re coming in, but they ain’t going out again. Not until we’ve made our pitch to each and every one of them.” Al turned to see Avram Harwood staring at him in horror.

  “That’s the way it is, Avvy,” he said softly. “My people, they’re working their way up from the ground floor. They’re coming all the way up here.

  And all the people sitting in their offices who would normally fight against me—why, they’re going to be the ones who lead our crusade out into the world. Ain’t that right, guys?”

  “You got it, Al,” Emmet Mordden said. He was hunched over a couple of processor blocks at one end of the desk, monitoring the operation. “The first twelve floors are all ours now. And we’re busy converting everyone on thirteen to eighteen. I make that approximately six and a half thousand people possessed so far this morning.”

  “See?” Al waved his cigar expansively. “It’s already begun, Avvy. Ain’t nothing you can do about it. By lunch I’m gonna own the entire city administration. Just like the old days when Big Bill Thompson was in my pocket. And I got even bigger plans for tomorrow.”

  “It won’t work,” Avram Harwood whispered. “It can’t work.”

  “Course it will, Avvy. The thing is … returned souls. They ain’t altogether marbles intacto. Capisce? It’s not just an Organization I’m building. Shit. We can be honest in here, you and me. It’s a whole new government for New California. I need people who can help me run it. I need people who can run the factory machines. I need people who can keep the lights on and the water flowing, who’re gonna take the garbage away.

  Fuck, if all that goes down the pan, my citizens, they’re gonna come gunning for me, right? I mean, that’s what the Retros didn’t think about.

  What happens after? You still gotta keep things running smoothly.” Al s
at on the arm of Avram Harwood’s comfy chair and put a friendly arm around his shoulder. “Which is where you come in, Mr. Mayor. Plenty of people want to run it. Everyone in this room, they all want to be my lieutenants. But it’s the old problem. Sure they’re keen, but they ain’t got the talent. But you, you my boy, you have got the talent. So how about it? Same job as before. Better salary. Perks. Fancy girl or two on the side if you like. So what do you say? Huh, Avvy? Say yeah. Make me happy.”

  “Never.”

  “What? What was that, Avvy? I didn’t hear too good.”

  “I said NEVER, you psychopathic freak.”

  Very calmly, Al rose to his feet. “I ask. I go down on my fucking knees and ask you to help me. I ask you to be my friend. You, a wiseass I ain’t never even seen before. I open my goddamn heart to you. I’m bleeding across the floor for you here. And you say no? No. To me!” Three scars burned hot and bright on his cheek. Everyone else in the office had retreated into a daunted silence.

  “Is that what you’re saying, Avvy? No?”

  “You got it, shithead,” Avram Harwood shouted recklessly. Something wild was running free in his brain, a mad glee at confounding his adversary.

  “The answer is never. Never. Never.”

  “Wrong.” Al flicked his cigar onto the thick carpet. “You got it way wrong, buddy. The answer is yes. It is always yes when you talk to me. It is yes fucking please Mr. Capone Sir. And I’m going to fucking well hear you say it.” A fist thumped on his chest for emphasis. “Today is the day you say yes to me.”

  Mayor Avram Harwood took one look at the stained baseball bat which had materialized in Al Capone’s hands, and knew it was going to be bad.

  ***

  Duke-dawn failed. There was no sign of the primary sun’s comforting white light brushing the short night before it as the bright disk rose above the wolds. Instead, a miscreant coral phosphorescence glided out over the horizon, staining the vegetation a lustreless claret.

  For a harrowingly confused moment Louise thought that Duchess was returning, racing around the underside of the planet after it had set scant minutes ago to spring up ahead of the lumbering Romany caravan. But after a minute’s scrutiny she realized the effect was due to a high haze of reddish mist. It really was Duke which had risen.