by Rod Rees
Come out fighting.
‘Just who the fuck do you think you are? I’m an Ameri—’
A slap to the face shut her up. ‘You’re a nothing, Miss Thomas, and unless you do as you’re told, you will be a dead nothing. Understand?’
‘Where am I?’ Ella asked.
‘The end of the line,’ answered Zolotov with a smirk.
Straightening up in her seat, Ella squinted against the spotlight, trying to see where she was. She was certainly high up in the mountains – dammit, which mountains? – the silhouetted peaks and the thinness of the air told her that, but she’d never heard of mountains with huge steel doors set into their flanks like the ones she could make out beyond the halo of the spotlight. Colossally big steel doors, each of them at least fifty feet tall and as much wide and so heavy that it took almost a minute for them to slide fully open. She saw a green light flick on in the darkness beyond and the truck grumbled forward, coming to a halt inside the mountain. The doors slid shut behind them.
‘Welcome to ParaDigm Global, Miss Thomas,’ Zolotov announced. ‘We are now in the underground security area of the company’s Yamantau facility. If you would be so kind as to exit the truck, I’ll escort you to your meeting with Dr Thaddeus Bole … he’s very anxious to meet you.’
Ella suppressed a smile: Bole wasn’t the only one anxious to meet and greet. She’d been brought to the Grigori’s lair.
PARADIGM HOUSE, LONDON: THE REAL WORLD
As best Septimus Bole could judge, everything was going according to plan: Ella Thomas was now secure in Yamantau; Aleister Crowley had found the solution to the enigma that was the Great Pyramid; Robert Vetsch had written the retro-programming which would bring ABBA to heel; and the actress who was to play Norma Williams was, even as he watched his Polly, being prepared for her appearance before the Fun/Funs.
Yes, everything was going well, everything except that the real Norma Williams still remained irritatingly at large. He took a sip of his honeyed water and silently rebuked himself for his needless worrying: the cordon he had placed around Las Vegas would stop even someone as resourceful as her putting in an unscheduled appearance at the Gathering. So, as he sat in the air-conditioned isolation of his office in London, Bole felt he had every right to believe that the Final Solution was proceeding on schedule. His complacency was interrupted by an overexcited voice coming from his Polly.
‘Professor Bole, sir, this is Roberts at Gathering Security. We’ve just gotten word from outside the SuperBowl: Norma Williams is approaching the arena on the back of a pickup!’
The announcement was so unexpected that it took a moment for Bole to assimilate what was being said. ‘What? Do we have visual?’
‘Streaming cameraBot footage now, sir.’
The Flexi-Plexi on the wall of Bole’s office burst into life and there, in glorious 3D, was the image of Norma Williams riding along on a truck and being mobbed by Fun/Fun delegates as she did so. Bole could hardly believe his eyes.
‘What are your orders, sir?’
Bole frowned as he frantically tried to decide what to do. His inclination was to order the girl shot, but with thousands of her acolytes massing around the truck this would almost certainly provoke a riot which would seriously disrupt the Gathering. But the one thing he couldn’t do was allow Norma Williams to get up on stage and start talking … well, not for long anyway. Best to allow her to present herself to the gathered millions and to the world-wide Polly audience and then …
He took a deep breath and calmed himself. In many ways this was the optimum outcome. He had always intended that ‘Norma Williams’ would be assassinated at the Gathering – better she was a dead martyr than a live Messiah – so rather than killing her stand-in, now he could kill her for real. He spun around on his seat and glowered at the Flexi-Plexi, skewering the Intelligence Bureau colonel in charge of security with a ferocious look.
‘Have your sniper ready to fire on my command.’
He’d blame the assassination on Ella Thomas and the Black Panthers.
MOUNT YAMANTAU, BASHKORTOSTAN: THE REAL WORLD
Ella clambered out of the truck to find herself standing in what looked to be a vast underground car park, the unrelenting expanse of concrete only leavened by the occasional ParaDigm logo. Two IB agents grabbed her by the arms and led her towards a small windowless room off to one side of the car park, a room that was kitted out as a hospital diagnostic suite.
‘I must apologise,’ purred Zolotov, ‘but my employer, being of a somewhat mysophobic disposition and, hence, having a pathological detestation of germs, insists that all visitors to the Yamantau facility are screened for disease.’ Zolotov laughed. ‘Fortunately, that necessitates the removal of your clothes.’
They cut her clothes from her – the handcuffs remaining firmly in place during the whole procedure – and then she was subjected to a body scan and obliged to provide blood, saliva and urine samples.
‘As I say,’ observed Zolotov as he sat watching Ella being tested, ‘all this is necessary to screen visitors to Dr Bole’s enclave for medical abnormalities, but my own opinion is that he simply takes pleasure in humiliating beautiful girls. It’s a pastime I have some sympathy with.’
‘So where is this “enclave” of Bole’s?’
‘I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. Mount Yamantau is in the Urals … an area of the Urals run by the British. Back in ’47 the Soviets didn’t have the one billion pounds they needed to pay for ParaDigm’s anti-Plague vaccine so ParaDigm demanded a one-thousand-year licence to exploit the mineral and energy reserves of Bashkortostan. This sort of capitalist bouleversement would in normal circumstances have been anathema to the Communists, but, with the Plague marching across the Steppe, the Central Committee swallowed its political pride and agreed. Since then Bashkortostan has been, to all intents and purposes, part of the British Empire.’
‘She’s clean,’ announced the technician in charge of the screening.
Zolotov rose slowly to his feet and brushed errant cigarette ash from his trousers. He gave Ella a smile. ‘You have a quite superb body, Miss Thomas, and even a man as desiccated in outlook as Doctor Bole won’t fail to be moved when you present in his office stark naked. I just hope that once he’s finished with you I might be permitted to supervise your denouement. I can be very imaginative when it comes to torturing beautiful women.’
‘Come near me and I’ll rip your throat out.’
Zolotov took a long, reflective drag of his cigarette, then stepped forward and drifted a finger along Ella’s cheek. ‘You do not frighten me, Miss Thomas. Oh, I know you possess strange abilities, but not abilities, I fancy, that can defy steel chains or a sharp knife. I will make you regret those words.’
With that he nodded to the two IB agents lurking in the doorway and together they frogmarched Ella out of the room and along a featureless corridor that stretched deep into the mountain, stopping outside a door with a red light shining above it. Zolotov pressed his hand to the pad next to the door jamb, the red light segued to green, the door slid open and Ella was pushed into an antechamber lined entirely in stainless steel.
‘Once inside Dr Bole’s office,’ Zolotov instructed, ‘you are not to move beyond the yellow lines which prescribe the area visitors may occupy, as to do so will activate a lethal defence mechanism. Also be advised the ImPeno-Glass screen which separates Dr Bole from the visitors’ environment cannot be breached except by the most profound of munitions … munitions that, as I am delighted to confirm, you do not have hidden about your person.’
He pressed a button set in the wall and with a sigh – Bole’s office was obviously set at a higher pressure than the anteroom – part of the wall slid back, giving Ella access to the dark emptiness beyond.
‘Welcome to Hel,’ Zolotov whispered as he pushed her inside.
TERROR INCOGNITA: THE DEMI-MONDE
Captain Roberts had to admit that he had been surprised when General Clement had awarded him the hono
ur of accompanying him to the Ceremony of Purification. Whilst the cynic in Roberts told him that he had only been shown such preference because Clement had executed most of the other officers who had come with him to Terror Incognita, he determined to put these troubling thoughts to one side and to savour both the evening and his temporary elevation to the status of a VIP.
He had enjoyed being introduced to the Great Leader and to his very attractive daughter, Aaliz; he had enjoyed the rather sumptuous banquet that had been laid on for the dignitaries; he had enjoyed having his photograph taken for the souvenir issue of The Stormer; and most of all he had enjoyed being included in the ranks of the great and the good when they had been led to their seats in the main stand. Thus it was a well-fed and slightly tipsy Roberts who took his place in the seat directly behind General Clement and settled down to witness an event that, he suspected, would be one to tell his grandchildren about.
And though Roberts, as a closet RaTionalist, was naturally suspicious of UnFunDaMentalist ceremonial, he had to admit that the ForthRight did spectacle very well. The bleachers which had looked so workmanlike and simple during the day, once they were occupied by the six-million-strong audience, were transformed into a multicoloured patchwork of ForthRight power. The military bands had played and marched with precision while the pennants fluttered enthusiastically from the flagpoles lining the newly built railway running, as straight as an arrow, from pier to Pyramid.
The Pyramid …
With every moment that had passed since Dashwood had unlocked the power of the Pyramid it had begun to glow with increasing brightness until now it lit up the evening, this, according to Crowley, a sign that the dawn of a new age was at hand … the end of the Confinement. And with the Column having been positioned on the hexagonal platform at the bottom of the staircase that led to the pinnacle of the Pyramid, everything was ready for the Ceremony to begin.
But still a doubt nagged at the back of Roberts’ mind that something was wrong.
TERROR INCOGNITA: THE DEMI-MONDE
As Reinhard Heydrich moved to take up his position on the stand in front of the Pyramid, he had to admit being nervous. He remembered how Norma Williams had disrupted the ceremony at the Crystal Palace and worrying away at the back of his mind was that, somehow, she might connive to do it again. Ever since that girl had come to the Demi-Monde all his carefully constructed plans had gone awry. The one comfort he had was that now Norma Williams was back in the Real World and he had Aaliz – the real Aaliz – standing by his side.
But as he looked out over the vast crowd gathered around the Pyramid – six million of them – he realised that there was no possibility of him being denied victory. In thirty short minutes the Column would be atop the Pyramid and all the racial contaminants that denied the purity of the Demi-Monde would be destroyed … the UnderMentionables purged, and the Pre-Folk – the Aryans – would have reclaimed their world.
‘You should wave, Father,’ he heard Aaliz advising and he automatically raised his hand in acknowledgement of the crowd. The cheer he received showed him that Aaliz’s sojourn into the Real World had honed her political instincts. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised; Aaliz had been a revelation during the tour of the ForthRight intended to persuade people to attend the Ceremony, her enthusiasm and beauty relieving his dour presence on the hustings. Recognising that it was Aaliz the crowd wanted to see, he urged her forward so that she could share the adulation and as he did so he felt his daughter’s hand squeeze his arm.
‘The rocket has been fired, Father,’ she whispered.
Heydrich glanced in the direction of NoirVille and saw the trail of blue flames snaking through the dark sky. Immediately there was a fanfare of trumpets signalling that it was time for the final act of the Ceremony of Purification to begin.
Heydrich moved nearer to the bank of microphones. ‘Citizens of the ForthRight … fellow UnFunDaMentalists, we are gathered here in Terror Incognita to witness the Second Coming of the Pre-Folk and the ending of the Confinement.’ His voice was amplified a thousandfold by the galvanicEnergy-powered microphones, the words he spoke echoing out through the chill of the night, announcing to the Demi-Monde that the old order was dying and something new and terrible in its certainty was rising to take its place. ‘Tonight we usher in the age of the Aryan … the age of the superman. With the fulfilment of the prophecies enshrined in the Flagellum Hominum once more will we come to ABBA’s grace and be reborn as we were before the Fall … be reborn as Pre-Folk, pure and unsullied by the contamination that is the UnderMentionable.’ He glanced towards Crowley. ‘Let the Ceremony of Purification begin.’
TERROR INCOGNITA: THE DEMI-MONDE
This was Aleister Crowley’s moment. He took his place beside the Great Leader at the microphones and waited for a moment before speaking, savouring the crowd’s expectant silence. Tonight he would be ordained as the foremost mage in all of the Nine Worlds. Tonight he would remodel humanity. Even now, before the Column had been set in its final resting place, he could sense the vast potential energy contained in the Pyramid waiting to be released. It was a heady feeling to have so much power at his command, he felt almost dizzy with excitement and it took real effort for him to stand serene in front of the vast crowd, the six million men and women who would be the genesis of the new order of Man.
Taking a deep, calming breath, he began. ‘My fellow UnFunDaMentalists, as the Great Leader has told you, tonight we gather together to instigate a new world order. You, as bearers of the Order of the ForthRight, have proven yourselves to be worthy to become one with ABBA, to attain ABBAsoluteness. Together we will usher in the Second Coming of the Pre-Folk, and to do this we must unleash the power of the Great Pyramid, a power that has lain dormant for a millennium. Tonight, for the first time in a thousand years, the Column of Loci will, once again, be returned to its rightful place on the summit of the Pyramid.’
He paused for a moment to allow his audience to absorb the import of what he had said.
‘I will now read from that most sacred of all texts, the Flagellum Hominum, the verses telling of the Second Coming of the Pre-Folk and the attaining by ManKind of ABBAsoluteness.
The Final Moment.
The Old Yields
To the New.
The Duality of Life
Merges in Ying.
It is the One who
Brings the Column
to Rest who
Shall be the Victor.
Let the Column be raised.’
Crowley stabbed out an arm to point in a dramatic fashion towards the Column. Immediately a dozen arc lights flared into life illuminating the Column in a light so bright that he had to half-close his eyes against the blinding glare. The Column glowed, the Mantle-ite aura swathing it pulsating with an otherworldly incandescence.
TERROR INCOGNITA: THE DEMI-MONDE
As Roberts listened to Crowley read from the Flagellum Hominum, the inchoate thoughts that had been rattling around his subconscious suddenly coalesced and suspicion mutated into certainty.
TIME FACILITY, NEVADA: THE REAL WORLD
‘My God!’ gasped Dong E, as she looked around TiME. ‘It looks like something out of Korda’s Things to Come.’
‘An excellent film,’ crooned Madden. ‘I am a great admirer of H.G. Wells, he was a profound prescient and TiME is a miracle of science worthy of one of the man’s books. There are perhaps fewer than a dozen people who have stood where you are standing, Dong E, and all have uttered words which conveyed exactly the same wonderment.’
Dong E gazed around her trying to take in the enormity of TiME. To her left was what she supposed to be a control room, though it was as brutally fortified as an army pillbox. High above her, set pointing straight down from the steel-swathed ceiling were what looked like a couple of huge cannons designed as props in a Flash Gordon film. And in the very centre of the floor stretching fifty yards below where she was standing hovered two huge metal spheres, each a good sixty feet in diameter.
‘Yes. Every surface of the chamber is impregnated with Cavorite – this necessary to contain the black hole – the black holes – we will be conjuring. But before we get down to business, Dong E, perhaps I should give you and Robert a guided tour.’
THE GATHERING, LAS VEGAS: THE REAL WORLD
For Sally Summers this was the role of a lifetime. With Norma Williams back in rehab they had had to find a stand-in and she had got the gig. Okay, she wouldn’t be able to put it on her résumé, but the pay was really good and the producer had told her that it was a role she’d be asked to reprise. Sure, playing Norma Williams was a little weird, but with the girl being ill, she guessed they didn’t have any other option but to PollyMorph her. Like Sally’s agent always told her: the show had to go on. Anyway, she liked being treated as a star, with all these make-up people fussing around her and the guys from the wardrobe department making sure she looked great.
‘Thirty minutes to PollyCast,’ she heard the producer – a really fit guy Sally would be putting moves on later – shouting at the crew. Way she heard it, the producer always got to fuck his leading lady and that was one tradition that Sally was determined to uphold.
‘Is the PollyMorph loaded?’
‘Ready to roll,’ came the answering shout.
Sally hadn’t been over-pleased when she heard that she’d be Morphed for the role but then, she supposed, she’d only got the part because she was the same size as Norma Williams and bore a passing resemblance to the girl. And anyway, like her agent said, the ability to imitate a well-known character was what separated the really good actors – like Sally – from the dross.
And she would be performing in front of a huge audience: sure, her image carried on the Polly and projected up onto the giant Flexi-Plexis around the arena might be tweaked a little but it was still a live gig. Like her agent said, proper actors had to commune with their audience in order to properly inhabit their role.
