Pandaemonium

by Christopher Brookmyre

  There are rows upon rows upon rows of those pods, but no movement from within. That, he is certain, is about to change.

  Harper approaches a wall cabinet just inside the door: four rifles racked behind a mesh-reinforced glass panel, at the side of which is a combination keypad. He keys in six numbers. Nothing happens.

  ‘Shit,’ he mutters.

  ‘You forget your code?’ asks Velasquez.

  ‘I know my code. We’re in The Little Vatican: they got their own auth codes this side of the rainbow.’

  ‘I’m Catholic myself,’ Velasquez mutters, ‘and I don’t care if God strikes me down for saying it, but those guys creep me out almost as much as the diablos, man.’

  Harper turns to the two priests.

  ‘The use of decoherence weapons has not only been authorised, but explicitly specified. We need you to open these cabinets. Now.’

  So he was right. Total annihilation. There would be nothing left, not even dust.

  Decoherence rifles: they were Steinmeyer’s price, what he sold of his soul to pay for his place here, with his hand on the controls of what the facility housed. Weapons so deadly, the army had never allowed them to leave this base. Their calculation of the risk-benefit equation had resolved that the threat of anyone else getting hold of such devices was far too great a price to pay even for the considerable advantage they would confer upon their own troops. It had been generally assumed that they would be decommissioned and buried before ever being fired in anger - but that was before the demons came through, and the military brass had reason to be a little less trusting in the efficacy of conventional ballistic technologies.

  The rifles were so secret that even their naming was an act of misinformation, intended to cloud speculation should anybody ever be telling tales out of school. They had nothing to do with decoherence. Steinmeyer’s field of interest was gravity, and in particular why it exerts such power despite its comparative weakness next to the other three forces. In the case of the electromagnetic force, this was due to the mutual cancellation of positive and negative charge. The greater strength of the electromagnetic force over gravity was such that if there was a difference of even 0.00001 per cent between the positive and negative charges within the human body, its atoms would be torn apart and instantaneously scattered into space.

  Steinmeyer invented a weapon that created precisely that differential at a localised target; only for a nanosecond, but a nanosecond was all it took. The decoherence rifle was an abomination, but it was the price he had considered worth paying in order to facilitate the pursuit of his true ambitions. Now it was about to be used to erase the most tangible evidence that his greater work had ever borne fruit.

  ‘I’d like to contact the Cardinal before you do this,’ says one of the priests up on screen. ‘There may be a rite that it is necessary to perform in order to cleanse—’

  ‘Just open the goddamn weapons cabinet. No, second thoughts, just give me your code. You guys don’t get to keep secrets here any more.’

  The priest rhymes off a sequence of six numbers. Merrick can’t see his face through the visor, but from the tone of his voice he can tell he’s doing so with dignity and humility: no whining, no bad grace. Harper turns to the cabinet once again and keys in the code.

  Still it doesn’t open.

  ‘Father,’ he says gravely, ‘I am warning you: you no longer enjoy any kind of special privilege or protection. You give the correct goddamn code, right now, or so help—’

  Harper has glimpsed something behind the two priests, something that halts him mid-sentence. Velasquez turns his head to see what Harper is looking at.

  Merrick watches on a different monitor, viewing the scene from another angle.

  Oh God.

  The barred steel gate on one of the pens is ajar. It’s open only slightly, but in such circumstances that distinction has the same meaning as only slightly pregnant.

  ‘The fucking code - now!’ Harper yells.

  ‘But that was the code,’ the priest insists, a millisecond before something flashes across Merrick’s screen. When he looks back at the first monitor, he sees Harper on the ground, one of the creatures clawing frenziedly on top of him. Velasquez unhol sters his side arm and a shot rings out, but not before a second demon has hurled itself headlong into him, taking him down.

  One of the priests makes a lunge towards a wall rack, where two of their electrified pikes are lodged alongside four more empty slots. He reaches towards the nearer shaft with both hands, but just as they are about to grasp it, another pike swings from somewhere unseen and shatters his visor with an electric crackle.

  The other priest stands frozen for a moment, then breaks suddenly from his terrified stasis and turns to run for the door. He stops after one pace, halted by a shuddering impact. He looks down and sees another pike jutting from his midriff, a scaly talon curled around it.

  The demon takes a step back and angles the pike, lifting him off the ground. He jitters and trembles spastically, blue sparks dancing about the edges of the suit like an aura, before an eruption of blood spatters the inside of the visor.

  Merrick watches as though hypnotised. It feels like he’s stranded there, unable to move, though in reality it’s all taken five seconds at most.

  The pods are open. The fucking pods are open. On the monitors, he sees dozens of demons emerging from their pens, suddenly aware that their way is no longer barred.

  Merrick looks at the door to the AV room, remembers how he fell against it. The red light is on next to the key-swipe, indicating that it’s locked. He turns the handle. It opens freely. Fuck. Jesus. The key-readers are functioning normally, but the mag-locks themselves are dead. That pulse from the machine, that shock wave that had run through the entire base: it had disabled the magnetics. Every door in the complex is open.

  He hears a gurgling scream from the speakers and looks up again in response. Before he can avert his eyes, he sees Velasquez’s terrified face as his scream is choked to silence by a demon’s claw emerging from inside his mouth.

  Two screens along, Harper is being ripped apart.

  Merrick hauls the headpiece and visor off the radiation suit and grips the desktop for balance. When his head stops swimming, a degree of clarity returns amid the fear and panic. He’s got to sound the alert. He tears off the suit. It’s no longer relevant that he’s in deep shit for trespassing on the Alpha labs - none of that matters now. He has to let everyone know.

  He uses the headpiece to smash the glass on the emergency panel and thumps the alarm button. There’s a pregnant second while he waits, like the system needs to breathe in before it can call out its warning. The second becomes two. Three. He hits the button again, holds it down. Fuck.

  Don’t panic. Try another.

  He opens the door, staggers into the corridor, repeats the procedure on the first panel he can find, only a few yards along.

  Still nothing.

  Oh no.

  The alarm system has been disabled, the mag-locks have been wiped out by an electromagnetic pulse and the auth codes have been changed on the cabinets storing the decoherence rifles.

  Oh Jesus Christ no.

  Steinmeyer.

  He sees it, too late. Merrick thought he could convince the world of the truth with a few smuggled video files, but Steinmeyer knew there was one way of ensuring that the military couldn’t suppress what happened here, one way of guaranteeing that further research would not only be permitted, but would become utterly imperative.

  For this infernal pit shall never hold Celestial Spirits in bondage, nor th’ Abyss long under darkness cover.

  Chaos and Eternal Night

  XVIII

  Yeah.

  It’s all happening. Makeshift stage at one end of the dining room, speakers stacked either side. The man Sendak has some decent kit, Radar has been pleasantly surprised to discover. Must throw some parties up here for all the corporate wanks learning to be proactive hothousing go-getters. Whatever. Fuck
them. Got a lighting rig, USB connector so that it can respond to the tunes: spinning ball in the centre of it, firing laser effects about the place. UV lamp to make all these peely-wally Scots look suntanned, and show up all the pooks on their clothes.

  Found a big box of Christmas decorations in a storeroom. Bit early for that, you could argue, first week of December, so they’ve just draped the tinsel and laid off the flashing Santas and the like. The point is to make the place look fit for a party, and it does. Good as any effort they ever cobble together back at St Pete’s anyway. Same old rolls of twisted crêpe paper they’ve probably been hanging since the place was built back in the seventies.

  No sound system like this back in the San Pedro dinner hall of an evening, either. And no chance of him being granted control of it. This is the berries. Got his cans on, got double decks, got two litres of Merrydown transferred into a jumbo plastic ginger ale bottle stashed beneath the table. It’s not a perfect colour match, but nobody can tell in the dark. Could do with some actual fucking records to play, but you cannae have everything. He’s connected up the turntables anyway, just because it looks good. It’s not Father Ted though: stuck playing the one song all night. The whole show’s running off a laptop, and everybody with an MP3 player has had the chance to upload their stuff.

  Yeah.

  Radar’s cued up ‘Cloudy Room’. Perfect for the occasion. It’s fucking Saturday night! Having a bit of it up on the stage, starting to move, tapping time with his fingers, bass drum, hi-hat, bass guitar, waiting for the big snare beat to kick in.

  The big beat kicks in.

  Has a swig. Mm. Pretty cool. Good move leaving it on the window ledge earlier, even if he had to keep checking every two minutes in case some bastard thieved it.

  Yeah. Here we go. Tonight.

  Gaunny be jumping. Gaunny be mental. Gaunny be the berries.

  Or at least it will if any fucker shows up. Fucking typical, but. All that prep, all that anticipation, and he’s the only bastard in the place. Right now, the party’s spread out, happening everywhere but the dining room.

  Ah, so fuck. They’ll pile in here eventually, through those big double doors, and that’s when they’ll be requesting all their own shite music, so he’s making the most of this while it lasts.

  There’s no going back from here, there’s no going back from here.

  ‘God’s sake, how long are yous gaunny be?’ Julie asks. ‘I can hear the music started already. We’ll miss the whole thing at this rate.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Theresa tells her. ‘We can hear music from about five other rooms as well, because nobody’s left them yet.’ She checks the time on her mobile. ‘It’s half-eight. The only folk in there’ll be Radar kiddin’ on he’s a DJ and maybe Mr Guthrie. You want to get down there and shake it with the deputy?’

  ‘I’m just sick waiting. It’s only a pathetic school disco, and yous are all acting like you’re going to some teen-movie prom.’

  Gillian rolls her eyes, knowing Theresa can see her in the mirror from across the room and Julie can’t. Teen movie prom. What is she like? They’re just taking their time, enjoying getting ready. Julie’s problem is she always looks a state and she knows she looks a state, so seeing other lassies getting dolled up just kind of rubs it in and annoys her. Well, good, because she’s starting to annoy Gillian. All she did throughout the day was moan about how tiring it was. She wasn’t wrong either: it was obviously so much effort hauling her fat arse up and down the hillsides that she didn’t have the energy left to bitch about anybody, and when you take away slagging off other people from Julie’s patter, that’s when you realise her company’s shite.

  She could have done with Debs being around on the hike, she has to admit. That’s been so weird, though. First all the vibe about getting split up in different rooms, and then the way she was blanking them. Or rather, it would have been easier if she had been blanking them: if it had been a pure obvious huffy act, making a big show of ignoring them. Instead, Gillian hadn’t even clocked her looking across or anything. She was all caught up with other folk, talking to people she’d normally have nothing to do with, like geeky Adnan, to say nothing of suddenly seeming all best pals with bloody Marianne.

  Ach, maybe it was a huffy act, just a subtle one. Fair do’s: she’d got the shitey end of the stick with the rooms thing, so possibly she was reminding them not to take her for granted. It bloody worked if that was the plan. Still, it was one thing to make out she wasn’t bothered being away from them, something else to be actually hanging about with Marianne. Never mind, though. Party time. They’d all have a wee swally and a dance together and it would be back to normal.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Yvonne announces.

  ‘You don’t want to be going in yet, but,’ Theresa warns.

  ‘I know, but I can have a wee wander, get a look at what nick everybody’s in, maybe grab some crisps and report back. You coming, Julie?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Yvonne and Gillian share a wee look in the mirror. She’s a good girl, taking moaning-chops out the way for five minutes. First dibs on the voddy for Y, then.

  Gillian reaches for the mascara wand, leans closer to the mirror. Her elbow catches the edge of it and gives it a dunt. The mirror is lighter than you’d expect: swings quite a bit and ends up sitting all skelly. She goes to straighten it, and that’s when she notices a tiny wee hole, with light coming through it. There’s sound too, the music from through the wall just a little louder now that the mirror has moved clear of the hole.

  There’s a flash of movement beyond, something flesh-coloured. She presses her forehead to the wall and closes her left eye, peering with her right.

  ‘Oh. My. God.’ Her last word is a whisper, as she remembers belatedly that the sound travels both ways.

  ‘What?’ Theresa asks.

  Gillian doesn’t speak, but instead makes a beckoning wave with her right hand, suppressing a giggle, her cheeks glowing with a combination of humour, embarrassment and delight.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shh.’

  Gillian points to the gap and Theresa takes a peek. Theresa springs back from the wall a moment later, her expression an incredulous mirror of Gillian’s. Through the wall, she has just seen Jason and Liam in their boxers, obliviously getting themselves ready for the evening ahead.

  Theresa helps herself to another swatch, then the two of them start playfully nudging at each other for control of the peephole.

  ‘Hang on though,’ Theresa whispers, ‘does that mean they could have been spying on us?’

  ‘No. It’s only covered on our side.’

  ‘Dirty bastard whoever it was did it, though.’

  ‘Aye,’ Gillian giggles, helping herself to another eyeful. ‘Shameful.’

  ‘Seriously, though,’ Theresa goes on. ‘You’re a disgrace.’

  ‘Me? How?’

  ‘You’ve been at that mirror putting on your warpaint for ages. If you’d noticed the hole a bit sooner, we’d have got to see their cocks.’

  ‘Oh God. Are you really sure about this?’ Marianne asks. ‘Feels like I’m doing Molly Ringwald on Ally Sheedy in reverse.’

  ‘I’m sure, I’m sure,’ Deborah replies. ‘It’s only make-up.’

  ‘And hair,’ Marianne reminds her. Marianne’s pretty sure she didn’t get the Ringwald-Sheedy reference, hopes she doesn’t think it was some kind of lesbian thing. ‘I’m just scared you’re gonna freak out when you see the mirror.’

  ‘I promise I won’t.’

  ‘I’ll remind you you said that. Maybe I’ll get you to record it on your phone, so I can play it back.’

  ‘Oh, I’m excited now. Must be pretty dramatic if you’re acting this way.’

  ‘It’s pretty dramatic.’

  ‘Is it nearly done? Can I see yet?’

  ‘Just another little lick of . . . And let me dab around the lines with . . . Keep still, that’s it.’

  Marianne breathes in. It was finished about three minutes a
go, but she’s been fiddling around the edges here and there, procrastinating to delay the moment when Deborah gets to see the results of her Goth-over.

  ‘Oh come on, you’ve got to be finished by now.’

  ‘Okay. Yeah, that’ll have to do. Try and remember what you said, and no violence.’

  Deborah steps away from the bed and has a look in the mirror. She gasps.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Marianne says, squirming.

  Deborah just stares and stares and stares, speechless.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Deborah is shaking her head.

  ‘It’ll all come off. Five minutes. Got these great wipes.’

  Deborah is still saying nothing, just staring, staring, staring. Whenever she’s spent ages trowelling on the slap, the results have reminded her of the telly she had as a kid, when the picture tube started dying and her dad turned up the colour settings to compensate. Same face, only brighter. Every time she’s ever looked in the mirror, in fact, she’s seen the same face. Not now, though. Not tonight.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ she says. ‘I love the eyes. Like Cleopatra or something.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s just you seeing it. Are you ready to debut the new you in public?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she says, and she can’t wait. ‘I mean, you said Cameron’s into this kind of music, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’d stay off the subject if I were you, because it’s going to take him no time to suss out that you’re not.’

  It’s not about Cameron, though: she’s just saying that for cover, a reason that feels easier to admit to. The real reason is that she feels like a different person, so she wants to look like a different person. A get-it-up-you as well? A wee bit. And yeah, actually it is a little bit about Cameron too.

  Cameron hands Adnan a can of Irn-Bru and they clink them together in a ‘cheers’ gesture, leaning against the frames of the big windows in the reception area. It’s pretty busy there right now, everybody in a kind of holding pattern between emerging from their rooms and actually venturing into where the party is supposed to be.