by Rod Rees
Of course, these pecuniary considerations were secondary to the real reason why Bole had organised the captain’s intellectual destruction, this being to obviate any possible indiscretion on Simmons’ behalf. There had always been the likelihood, once he was back in the Real World, that Simmons would have been inclined to spill the beans about what really happened in the Demi-Monde, and a man with no brain was unsurpassed in his ability to keep confidences.
‘He’s gone,’ murmured a distraught-sounding Andrews. ‘His brain’s fried.’
That observation reminded Bole that there was one other biPsych who could now be referred to in the past tense: Norma Williams. Even as the medical team clustered frantically – and uselessly – around the body that had once been Captain Charlie Simmons, Bole turned to Dr Andrews. ‘A tragedy, Doctor,’ he said, miming sympathy, and then turned away and recalibrated the dials on the Storage Facility’s control panel to check that Norma Williams had indeed expired in the Demi-Monde.
To his horror he saw that she hadn’t: she was still functioning normally inside the Portal.
He frowned, trying to work out what had gone wrong. He’d seen the eyeVid of Simmons shooting Norma Williams in the chest. The bitch had to be dead … but she wasn’t.
He could hardly believe it. The girl’s ability to survive his many and varied efforts to kill her was becoming positively unnatural. He thought for a moment of simply instructing Metztil to destroy the girl’s body held in Los Angeles but he knew this was not the answer; do this and he would be unable to have Aaliz Heydrich return to the Real World, and he still needed her to make a final curtain call. Desperately trying to retain his composure, Bole reminded himself that with regard to Norma Williams he had other options … other agents in the Portal. All was not yet lost. Anyway, Bole rather enjoyed playing the role of Frank Kenton and whispering sweet nothings in the ear of Holder.
1:22
The JAD
The Demi-Monde: 7th Day of Fall, 1005
1.14. So Lilith told Adam that there would be no more bumping pelvises until he got the moxy to make with the fruit of Yggdrasil. 1.15. And Adam said to ABBA, ‘For fuck’s sake, ABBA, can you shut this bitch Lilith up? Yadda, yadda, yadda all fucking day. Man, it’s, like, driving me outta my gourd. You gotta lemme give her a taste.’ 1.16. But ABBA was off-seat at that time sorting out the rest of the Whole Known and didn’t get back to Adam, so to appease Lilith and to stop her moaning about the grass being too green and the water too wet, Adam took the fruit of Yggdrasil and they did eat. 1.17. And when ABBA got back and had sorted through his messages and dug what had gone down He was sore pissed off.
The HIM Book, Book of the Coming: Chapter 1, Verses 14–17
ParaDigm’s own technology saved Norma’s life. The prototype energy-absorbent blouse that Moynahan had made her wear under her burqa might have looked and felt perfectly normal, but when struck by a bullet, the material reacted at super-fast speed using the bullet’s energy to perform a localised transformation into a bulletproof membrane. But bulletproof or not, Norma was willing to testify that taking a bullet at point-blank range in the middle of her chest was not a pleasurable experience. The impact had thrown her off her chair and onto the floor, where she had lain stunned for nigh on a minute. When she had finally struggled back to her feet, she found she was the proud possessor of a huge bruise and an empty Transfer Room. Simmons had gone.
A worried-looking Moynahan – alerted by the sound of the gunshot – barged his way into the room. ‘What happened?’
‘Maria was right. Captain Simmons was up to no good: he shot me and then disappeared. Presumably he’s transferred back to the Real World.’
As statements went it was something of a show-stopper, and Moynahan asked the obvious question. ‘I don’t understand why Captain Simmons would want to murder you.’
Norma shrugged. ‘All I can think is that for some reason he didn’t want me getting back to the Real World, but why, I have no idea.’
Moynahan looked over to Sergeant Edelstein, who had joined them in the room. ‘What do you think, Sergeant?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘Don’t make sense. Even if he’d succeeded in blowing Miss Williams away, as soon as the rest of us were back in the Real World—’ He stopped in mid-sentence and stepped across to study the instrumentation at the side of the room. ‘Well, it looks like the rest of us ain’t going back home. That prick Simmons has scrambled all the transfer codes. Now we can’t lock on to ABBA. We’re fucked.’
*
For the second time that day Moynahan and the rest of the platoon gathered in the Rec Room, but this time the news wasn’t so good.
‘Okay, listen up, this is our status. Captain Simmons has gone AWOL.’ Sergeant Edelstein waited while the reaction caused by that little announcement died down. ‘So from here on in, I’m in charge of the Portal.’
‘Whaddya mean, he’s gone AWOL, Sergeant?’ came a question from Corporal Massie.
‘About an hour ago, the captain transferred back to the Real World and changed all the transfer codes while he was doing it. Now it’s impossible for us to lock with ABBA. We’re stuck here in the Demi-Monde.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘We dunno, Massie. It has something to do with Miss Williams here.’ He nodded to Norma, who was standing rather awkwardly to his right. ‘Seems Captain Simmons didn’t want her getting back to the Real World so he fixed things so none of us would get back.’
‘So what we gonna do now, Sergeant?’
‘Communications Corporal Hoskins is trying to re-establish the codes Simmons scrambled, but that might take a while.’ Around a thousand years was Hoskins’ best estimate, but Edelstein had obviously decided it would be bad for morale to share that piece of information with his men.
‘We might not have a while, Sergeant.’ This comment came from neoFight Private Billy Harrison, one of the brighter of the GIs manning the Portal. ‘Word from the Observation Deck is that the Shades are getting frisky. Seems that stunt the nuJus pulled in blowing up the hotel this morning has really put a burr up the HimPeror’s ass. Could be that the Shades are thinking of making a house call.’
Edelstein nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess we can expect it to get hot and heavy in the next few days, but there’s no reason why the Shades should take an interest in us, so all we’ve got to do is to lock down and keep a low profile. And even if they do come knocking, that ain’t a big cause for concern. The Portal is steel-reinforced and built to withstand a lot of punishment, we’ve got state-of-the-art weaponry, enough ammunition to blow every Shade in NoirVille to hell and back twice over and plenty of food and water. So I want you all to remain frosty. I’m putting Moynahan in charge of perimeter defence. It’s Sergeant Moynahan too … I’ve given him a battlefield promotion.’
*
After the meeting Norma, Moynahan and Edelstein met for a council of war.
‘I think you’re right, Sarge,’ Moynahan began. ‘If the Shades do invade the JAD, our best chance is just to stay quiet, just let the fighting pass us by. The last thing we want is for the Shades to know we’re here. I reckon if we just close the blast screens and pretend there’s nobody home we’ll all come out of this in one piece.’
Norma shook her head. ‘I’d love to agree with you, Dean, but I don’t think that that’s how it’s going to play out. Simmons’ hasn’t been the only attempt to assassinate me since I’ve been in the Demi-Monde so I’m getting the feeling that for whatever reason someone in the Real World wants me numbered amongst the missing, and I’m guessing that someone is Septimus Bole.’
Edelstein whistled. ‘That’s a powerful enemy you’ve got there, Miss Williams.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘But what’s that got to do with the rest of us?’ asked Moynahan.
‘Lots. Once Bole realises that Simmons didn’t manage to blow me away, he’s going to be looking for another way to bump me off and I’m guessing that a war will give him the perfect o
pportunity to do just that.’
‘Shit.’ Moynahan looked across to Sergeant Edelstein. ‘Maybe it would be safer for Norma if she got out of the JAD?’
‘Too late for that, Moynahan,’ observed Edelstein. ‘According to our spotters, the Shades have got the JAD surrounded. Chances of Miss Norma getting through one of the CheckPoints are fuck-all and falling.’ He gave Norma a meaningful look. ‘Way I see it, you’ll be safer here with us. At least here there’re sixteen neoFights ready to protect you.’
*
In Holder’s opinion Captain Simmons had been a good man. Captain Simmons had knelt down in prayer with Holder every Sunday and none of the other guys had done that. And Captain Simmons had tried to destroy the false Messiah, Norma Williams, but she had survived and only those in league with Satan were immune to bullets. The more Holder thought about it, the more he was convinced that he was surrounded by the Servants of Satan, who would lead him away from the grace of God and deny him Revelation.
That’s what the voices told him, whispering that by helping to protect Norma Williams he was doing the work of Satan. Wasn’t she, they kept repeating over and over, the spawn of that atheist President Sam Williams, the man who spurned God and had sworn to remake America as a secular society? Holder wasn’t real sure what ‘secular’ meant but he knew it wasn’t good. He also knew that Sam Williams was the man who had bad-mouthed the memory of the Last Prophet, Frank Kenton, calling him a racist and a bigot.
Even as he sat there eating his microwaved burger, he could hear Frank Kenton talking to him, telling him that he was surrounded by evil and by the emissaries of Satan, telling him that now Captain Simmons was gone he was the only True Believer in the Portal, telling him that God was relying on him to do something about it … about the AntiChrist.
Be ever sober and vigilant, Frank Kenton told him, for Satan is the subtle serpent who seeks to enchant the imagination and lead you from the Path of Righteousness.
Pieces began to fall into place. Yeah, Norma Williams was a false Messiah … the AntiChrist. Hadn’t he heard that whore Sister Maria calling her the Messiah? And wasn’t this blasphemy of the worst kind? Everyone knew that Jesus was the Messiah and that it would be He who would return to save the Believers after Armageddon.
Holder closed his eyes, trying to still the babble of voices in his head. He felt confused and dizzy. He didn’t like thinking about the Final Confrontation with the AntiChrist, it scared him.
1:23
The JAD, NoirVille
The Demi-Monde: 12th Day of Fall, 1005
Copy of PigeonGram message sent by Konstantin Pobedonostsev on 12th day of Fall, 1005
For perhaps the fifth time in as many minutes Schmuel Gelbfisz examined the PigeonGram he had received from Pobedonostsev. He felt like crying. They had so very nearly done it, he and Salah-ad-Din had come within an ace of keeping the peace in NoirVille. Despite everything – the assassination of Shaka Zulu, the massacre in Khan al-Kalili square, the attacks of the Black Hand Gang and even the nonsense with the Protocols – sanity had almost prevailed.
Almost …
And now, thanks to those damn-fool Zealots, the nuJus were staring into the abyss. Oh, he knew his people would fight bravely but it would be a hopeless struggle. They faced a formidable enemy and, trapped in a walled city, there would be no escape. The Zealots’ hubris had condemned two million nuJus to death.
Gelbfisz crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. ‘Unt zhat, Giscala, is vot you unt your gang of hooligans have done mit zhe future of zhe JAD … thrown it avay. Vot are you? Some kind of behaimeh? A fucking idiot, perhaps? Vot vere you thinking vhen you unt your bondits vent unt blew half of NoirVille to Hel unt back? Didn’t you realise zhat zhe Shades vould go fucking crazy?’
Giscala had been the only man to come back safe from the attack on the Hotel du Zulu and he’d done that only because he’d got lost when he’d been rushing to catch up with his fellow Zealots after performing his stunt with the petrol bomb. Ninety-one Shades and fifteen nuJus had been killed when the bombs had exploded but Giscala had walked away without a scratch. And now he sat in Gelbfisz’s office, lolling in his chair as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Worse, he didn’t seem at all taken aback by the dressing-down he was being given, he simply sat there, carelessly smoking his cigarette and tapping his foot on the parquet floor. ‘It is t-t-time for the nuJus to f-f-fight, Gelbfisz,’ Giscala answered with a careless wave of his hand. ‘Now is the time for l-l-liberty or d-d-death. Now it is the t-t-time for the young to r-r-replace the old. You and your g-g-generation are finished. The t-t-t-time for t-t-talking is over and you will not find the f-f-fighting youth of the J-J-JAD recoiling in the face of the sacrifices and s-s-suffering entailed in w-w-waging war against the Sh-Sh-Sh-Shades. We will not s-s-surrender. W-W-We will not be c-c-cowed as you have been by the empty threats of the Sh-Sh-Shades. ABBA is on our side.’
Gelbfisz could hardly bear to listen to this twaddle. It was symptomatic of maniacs like Giscala that they could only converse using clichés and vapid doggerel, this presumably enabling them to avoid having to think about the nonsense they were spieling. ‘Oy vay! Zhis ABBA of yours must have more sides zhan a fucking polygon. Hear me loudly: just like you, zhis groisser gornicht Pobedonostsev thinks ABBA is batting for zhe Shades, unt looking at zhe number of fighters he has crowding around zhe Vall I think he might be right.’ Gelbfisz shook his head. ‘Zhe problem mit you, Giscala, is zhat you are a shmuck who thinks mit his pitsel unt not his mind. Zhe IRGON knew zhat vun day zhe Shvartses vould come calling, so do you think ve have been sitting in zhe Council Chamber just pounding our putzi? No, ve’ve been trying to save our people. But now, thanks to you, ve are nut-deep in shit. Thanks to you, ve now have to fight.’
‘Yes,’ exclaimed an overexcited Giscala, ‘we have to f-f-fight! And at last the D-D-Demi-Monde will see the true worth of the n-n-nuJu. At last we nuJus will show these Sh-Sh-Shades and the rest of the Demi-Monde that they attack the J-J-JAD at their peril.’
‘Feh! At last we will lose, more like. Zhat is zhe lesson zhat Varsaw taught us, zhat vhen ABBA chooses sides he picks zhe vun mit zhe big battalions, unt as big battalions go zhey don’t come much bigger zhan zhe Shade vuns. Zhere are four million Shades in zhe NoirVille army unt ve have maybe half a million fighters. Even a gloopy luftmensch like you must be able to see zhat zhem odds ain’t very even. Zhis war is all over bar the shooting.’
‘We had to attack the Hotel du Z-Z-Zulu to stop the secrets of Aqua Benedicta f-f-falling into enemy hands,’ protested Giscala.
Gelbfisz gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Vot a yold! I’m betting zhat paskudnik Pobedonostsev played you Zealots for greeners. Pobedonostsev vanted you to attack zhe hotel, vanted you to do zomething stupid so he had an excuse to call for war.’ Suddenly Gelbfisz sprang to his feet and marched across his office to tower over Giscala, the young man at least having the courtesy to look frightened. ‘Okay, Mr I’m-Such-a-Fucking-Tough-Guy Giscala, you vanna be a fucking martyr zhen I ain’t zhe vun to get in your vay. You can take command of zhe defence of CheckPoint Charlie unt I hope you have zhe good manners to get killed in zhe process … it’ll save me doing zhe job myself.’
*
General Salah-ad-Din stood watching as his artillerymen went about their business and he had to admit that they were nothing if not efficient. By his estimation, the guns would be ready to commence their bombardment of the JAD at dawn. In a few short hours, death and destruction would begin to rain down on the nuJus.
He sighed. War was such a ridiculous waste of both energy and lives. The mission of all military men was, in his oft-voiced opinion, to preserve peace, and in this he had failed. But there had been no denying the involvement of the nuJus in the Hotel du Zulu atrocity and it had been this that had proven to be the final straw. Pobedonostsev had demanded retribution and the Council had concurred, so now the killing would begin in earnest. And like all good soldiers, now wa
r had come he would prosecute it with controlled ferocity. He pitied the nuJus.
There was a movement to his left and when he looked he saw the tiny, birdlike figure of Grand Vizier Pobedonostsev tripping towards him. Careful to keep his face utterly expressionless, he nodded a greeting to the poisonous little snake.
‘I have been sent by His HimPerial Majesty to enquire how go the preparations for the destruction of the nuJu race.’ Having got his war, the bastard was full of bounce.
‘I was under the impression that my task was the subjugation of the JAD, Grand Vizier. Nowhere in the orders I received was there any mention of the words “destruction of the nuJu race”. Genocide is not a military strategy of which I am particularly enamoured.’
‘Oh, come, come, General, this is not the time for semantics. We both know that the HimPeror will not be satisfied until the treacherous nuJus are totally destroyed, so let us not quibble as to whether this constitutes genocide or not.’ Pobedonostsev gave an awkward smirk. ‘So, what is your strategy for the prosecution of the war against the JAD?’
‘My strategy may be summed up in one word: cautious. The JAD will be difficult to subdue, and I am determined to do this in a way that involves my HimPis suffering the minimum number of casualties.’
There was a dismissive laugh from Pobedonostsev. ‘With the greatest of respect, General, the coming battle must be fought in a spirit of holy hatred. Certainly this will be costly in terms of lives, but such is war.’
Salah-ad-Din studied Pobedonostsev, wondering how a man’s soul could ever become so blistered and buckled. ‘There is no place for hate in war, Grand Vizier. War must be pursued in a cold-hearted manner, with decisions made that are free of the fog of emotion. I counsel caution because I refuse to underestimate the nuJus. Rabbi Schmuel Gelbfisz is no fool: he understood full well that one day our HimPis might attack the JAD and in anticipation has turned the JAD into a fortress. Behind the Wall the JAD is a maze of blockhouses, pillboxes, minefields and barbed-wire entanglements such that every time one defensive layer is peeled away there is another behind it. Every street is a killing zone where unwary fighters might be trapped, tripped, blown up or caught in enfilading fire.’
