The lesser lights of the minor dictators, mass murderers and wanton criminals who had made their way to Pol’s Pot would provide a ready batch of lieutenants and foot soldiers for the implementation of the plan. While the Gold group had plotted above, the Silver members had watched sneeringly the fist fights, stabbings, and brawls taking place on the hillside. The slight inconvenience of death had not changed the roles they would play in whatever was to come. When the leaders emerged into the weak sunlight of the evening, the second tier almost instinctively fell in behind them and adopted threatening poses. The foot soldiers ceased their mutilation and turned squinting to hear how they would fulfil their roles.
For Geoffrey and Justin, left behind in the Control Room, the role of ‘taking care of business’ did not weigh heavy. Since the Afternet had flicked back into operation Geoffrey’s role with it had been one largely involving a bit of dusting. He cast an eye occasionally on the master screen, which scrolled with unintelligible speed through the names of those receiving their judgement. Only very occasionally would the stream of green letters stop, the cursor flashing as thought the system was having to weigh up a larger than usual range of factors, and then as suddenly it would consign the soul concerned to whatever fate and move blurrily on.
This was not a scenario that caused him much concern. He did not harbour fond memories of the times when he and Marcel would bicker for hours over the fate of a Kenyan witch doctor, an Australian vicar with racist tendencies, or a French Nazi collaborator. He had always felt that Marcel would do almost anything for a quick decision in the vain hope that it may somehow remove the blocks in the system, whereas Geoffrey actually wanted to get the decision right.
Now, he was simply grateful that it was taken out of his hands and the most onerous responsibility was making sure no one pulled the plug out to hoover the room. Apart from anything else, it gave him so much more time to watch the endless television feeds and ponder why anyone would love Lucy or why choose such shallow idiots as Friends.
Occasionally, as he took a break from whichever piece of fact or fiction he was misinterpreting, he exchanged a few words with Justin, who seemed to have taken umbrage at something. He slumped in front of a screen monitoring A-Bay, watching what was going on with the transactions, stalked around the room grumbling to himself, and made endless cups of tea.
Geoffrey finally asked him if anything was wrong.
“Do you realise they took all the usable currency? All the money I’ve made with A-Bay. I can’t believe they thought they had the right to do that! All my money.”
“Well,” said Geoffrey, trying to think how to make his companion a little happier, at least until the others got back, “you didn’t actually write the programme, did you?”
“No, but I had the idea.”
“And the Afternet isn’t actually yours? You know the computer thingy.”
Justin agreed that it wasn’t, and cast a glance to the corner of the room. Geoffrey thought he looked much cheerier.
“And we told you how to actually get hold of the money in the first place. With the door and everything.”
“Yes, yes yes! I get it. But I had the idea. Bill Gates didn’t invent the bloody Personal Computer but it didn’t stop him from becoming as rich as Croesus, did it?”
“Actually I met Croesus a while ago and he’s going through a tough time, in fact. Something about sub-prime.”
“God, Geoffrey, you’re annoying.”
“Truth hurts, Justin.” He looked at the erstwhile entrepreneur, who didn’t seem to have cheered up at all. “Rachel just said it to Joey,” he said by way of explanation, gesturing towards one of the TV screens. “What does it mean?”
Justin looked at him. Geoffrey’s hair was almost upright, as though he had stuck his hand in an electric socket, but which was actually because he had had an accident with a lasagne and the microwave. He was wearing an Afghan waistcoat, the fur of which was matted with something pink, which could well have been part of the Afghan itself. Disconcertingly, underneath that, he had a cropped black T-shirt with the words “PORN STAR” picked out in pink glitter. From the waist down, he had a pair of cut-off Birmingham bags, beige DVT stockings and purple Crocs. He looked like someone from a tribe in Borneo whose first contact with the Western world was to be let loose in T K Maxx.
“I don’t know Geoff. Truth’s always been a bit of a wavy concept to me. Do you want a cup of tea?” Geoffrey said yes, just to be nice, and watched the Extinction Clock as the kettle raised its tone towards boiling. The flick of the off switch coincided spookily with the last gasp of the Black Sea Codling.
Justin brought over the tea. He never let it steep for long enough, which for Geoffrey, for whom tea should be a solid in liquid form, was about twenty minutes.
“I wish I was down there with them.” Justin wrapped his hands around the mug, as though he were cold. “I miss it. Do you miss it, Geoffrey?”
“Life? It was a long time ago. But no, not really. It was cold, all the time, or that’s what I remember. Boring. Hard.” He shuddered at the thoughts. “What do you miss? Or who?”
Justin thought, took a sip of tea. It was a bit weak. What he actually missed was being in charge, wheeling and dealing. It almost took him aback to realise that he couldn’t really think of the who.
“Oh, lots of things. But hey!” At this pointless fragment, there was a repeated bleep, an alarm, from Justin’s terminal. They both looked in the direction of the noise.
“What’s that?” asked Geoffrey.
“I don’t bloody know. How would I know?”
“It’s your programme.”
“Yes, but I didn’t-“ Justin thought better of going further.
In fact, Mary had designed the A-Bay application so that should anything suddenly have a serious trend, they would be alerted. She had somehow envisioned that if there had been a run on windbreaks, or rear light clusters from a ’67 Chevy, Justin might want to know. Maybe in case he had one lying around and wanted to break it up for spares.
So when Justin went back to his terminal, shufflingly pursued by Geoffrey, he saw an alert on the screen informing him that there was a sudden upsurge in purchasing activity within a single category and that for more information he should CLICK HERE.
‘Wonder what that could be?” said Geoffrey.
Justin didn’t rise to the unintended bait, but simply followed the instructions on screen. A-Bay revealed that there had been a trend in the category ‘WEAPONS’. This was news to Justin because he didn’t know there was such a category. He also didn’t know that the next most popular category was ‘GARDEN EQUIPMENT’, and the least popular, ‘CRUSTS’. This cast some light on his earlier outburst, because Bill Gates had a pretty good idea about what was going on with PCs, whether he invented them or not.
Justin clicked for further information and was amazed at the sheer range of instruments of harm the dead had brought with them. He would have thought that anyone in the streets of Iraq, Afghanistan (War could fill in a list here), when the fatal bullet or shard of shrapnel hit, might just have the thought that they may no longer need the rifle or grenade, but no.
Throughout the ages, it seemed, the last thing on the mind of the dying was that they should unfurl their fingers from whatever piece of ordnance they happened to be holding, and thus A-Bay was replete with available weaponry.
Cudgels, freely available, went unrequested (there were plenty of these and rocks lying around, after all), but all of a sudden, everything from crossbows to Kalashnikovs, and pistols to pepper spray were being bid for and snapped up in a feeding frenzy.
The two men may have been born over a millennium apart, but as they gazed at the flickering screen, watching the stream of purchases of fearsome looking devices, they both had an inkling that this was not in any way a trend to celebrate.
“Coincidence?” said Geoffrey, hopefully. The numbers in front of them escalated all the while.
Justin stared at the screen. It clearly
wasn’t.
“I don’t know what to do about this, Geoffrey. Why would anyone want all of these weapons? Everybody is already dead.”
“Apparently it hurts just as much.” Geoffrey said. “A knife, a sword. I’ve seen these guns, over there,” he gestured towards the TV, “I would guess they don’t hurt any less.”
Justin put his face in his hands, trying to think what might be going on. When he looked up again the details were moving even faster, if possible. How would someone dying happen to have a cannon? If only he understood the system, perhaps he could do something.
“If Mary was here,” said Geoffrey, “perhaps she could do something.”
Justin didn’t need the reminder that he hadn’t written the programme, that he had no idea what he could do about it. An idea, rare at the best of times, burst into his mind. He ran his chair on its’ castors to an adjacent screen.
“What are you doing?” Asked Geoffrey.
Justin didn’t answer, just woke up the screen and brought up the Afternet as it would appear to anyone logging in at any of the cafés around the afterworld. When the Fiends Reunited flash came up he entered his details. The system paused and then confirmed his temporary acceptance as an utter bastard. He clicked on the ‘NEWS’ tab.
It was all there. Great News! It proclaimed. The first ever Convention of evildoers, major, middling, or minor, was about to take place, and in order to make it go with the greatest possible swing, all potential attendees were advised to ensure that they were packing. Get your guns it said. Get your bows and arrows, get your rocket launchers, your mines, your grenades, swords, and halberds. It’s time, the invitation said, to have some fun around here.
Geoffrey was over his shoulder, reading somewhat slower, but reading for all that.
“Oh dear.” He said. “This isn’t good, is it?”
“I blame Mary for building A-Bay.” Said Justin.
“I thought you might.”
Eighteen
Slaven had slept better than he had for years. The bed was spacious and soft, the room quiet and dark, and although the air wasn’t fresh it was completely lacking in the tinge of sulphur which pursued him through his afterlife. When he strolled from his room into the small lounge to find Jenkin already awake and as ever glued to his computer screen, he was actually humming to himself. Granted, he was humming “Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight”, but for him this was joie de vivre.
The boy looked up at him but didn’t offer a greeting. On the table were two massive pizza boxes, and slices of over-cheesed dough were cooling in each.
“What’s this?” asked Slaven.
“What’s it look like?”
Slaven picked up a slice of Meat Feast and sniffed it suspiciously. “What I mean is, how did you get it?” Slaven took a large bite and chewed, even though to him it tasted more like Meat Feet.
Jenkin sighed and leaned back from the screen. He pointed sarcastically as he replied.
“Telephone. Number. Speak. Man come on moped, ring doorbell.”
He didn’t see it coming. The hand was round his throat, the rimless spectacles magnifying the eyes madly staring into his. Slaven’s breath smelled of processed meats and cheap cheese.
“Listen, you little shit. I’m here to help you get your side of the bargain.” Jenkin was beginning to choke. He could feel his eyes bulging, his tongue felt enormous. “I’ll do that and you can get whatever pathetic little revenge or whatever it is you want. But you are a long time dead, and when we go back you are on my territory. So watch your step, because whatever happens here I won’t forget.” He roughly thrust Jenkin to the floor, releasing the grip on his neck. The youth sat in a heap, spluttering, his face purple and tears of pain in his eyes.
The thin man didn’t even look at the gasping figure on the floor. He flicked on the television and began to learn how to make money from the junk in your house. Which disappointed him as he had thought ‘Flog It!’ might be about something else entirely.
Jenkin slunk into the bathroom and took a long drink of water, coughing the first draught back into the sink, his throat sore. He looked into the mirror and saw the redness in his eyes, splashed his face with the cold water. He needed to get this over with and then he could get back to Ron and Ethel. And Millie.
An hour later they were in a crowd three deep on the westbound platform of the Docklands Light Railway at Bank station. There had been virtual silence between them, punctuated only by Jenkin giving monosyllabic instructions about their journey. Now they stood like almost all of the others on the platform, gazing across the track at advertisements they wouldn’t remember, and looking every now and then at the information board in disbelief that three minutes could take so long to pass. The train disgorged its passengers, the crowd moved forward with a determination to get on board, and Slaven grabbed Jenkin’s arm roughly, forcing them both forward. They took the last standing gaps in the carriage at the expense of a woman with two small children, who watched forlornly as the doors hissed closed.
There was barely any conversation in the carriage as it trundled on its way. Passengers read, or stared ahead, or closed their eyes and dozed, rocking to the motion of the train. At each stop passengers pushed past, Slaven making no concession to their need to get through the doors. At West India Quay, where no one alighted, he calmly stared down a group of youths who tried to squeeze themselves into the limited available space. Having begun their attempt to board noisily, talking loudly and bouncing with confidence, they saw something in the eyes behind the lenses which made them decide to step off and await the next train.
They moved as part of a snaking mass into the cold December sunlight at Canary Wharf, and Jenkin moved off to one side to avoid being sucked along by the crowd inexorably drawn towards their destinations.
“Where are we going?” Asked Slaven, pulling the collar of his coat around his neck.
“I’m not sure. I need to find one of the banks.”
They tagged slowly along at the edge of the crowds, which gradually diminished as its members split away to enter one or other of the towering structures. Jenkin noted the names above the doors, confidently proclaiming their stature, wealth, and success.
“That one.” He said at last, pointing across a square to a massive, glass-fronted building. A bronze of a lion rampant with a snarling face stood at the foot of a broad flight of marble steps, and a steady stream of smartly dressed men and women tapped upwards to a bank of doors which opened and closed with automatic precision as each passed through.
“And?”
“We wait.”
The brightness of the morning belied the chill in the air. They sat, with no other company, on glinting metal chairs outside a coffee kiosk in the square, Jenkin eking out a caramel macchiato, Slaven holding a large black coffee simply for the warmth on his hands, not prepared to risk whatever taste surprise it may hold. For two hours they sat in silence, their breath steaming in front of them, a huge Christmas tree with shining baubles casting a shadow to the door of the building Jenkin watched with a fixed gaze.
Slaven was confronting the prospect of having to order some more time-filling liquids when Jenkin suddenly lurched forward in his seat.
Slaven looked over to the doors of the building, which were just closing behind a man and a woman who were chatting and laughing as they veered off towards some planters to the side of the entrance, and lit cigarettes. The woman had a black woollen coat and a scarlet scarf, and the man was dressed in a sharp suit of visible expense.
Jenkin stood, pulled his jacket around him and his cap down over his eyes and walked slowly towards them. Slaven sat and watched as the youth strolled towards the steps, ignored by the couple, who continued to talk animatedly as they smoked. Jenkin reached the foot of the steps, head down, then looked up at the couple, holding the pose until the man glanced in his direction, at which point he turned and veered off as if he had changed his mind, and began to walk around the perimeter of the square
.
Slaven, concerned that the boy was running away, jumped to his feet and walked across past the Christmas tree to intercept. When he reached him, Jenkin was leaning against a wall, and even as he approached, Slaven could see he was shaking. The wall was in the shade, and without the sunlight the temperature plummeted, but this shaking was not because of the cold.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“None of your business.” The thin man made a quick movement as though to grab Jenkin, but the boy started and shied away.
“It’s my dad. He left when I was two. Me and my mum lived in a shitty flat. He does this. He’s going to pay now, though.” Slaven quite liked the sound of that.
“I need to get inside.” The boy looked over to the building, the doors sliding closed behind the smokers as they returned to work.
“What for? You going to attack him?” Slaven laughed. “Ooh, he’s going to be terrified.”
Jenkin didn’t rise to the sneer.
“I need a log in for the computer. I could work it out, but we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Leave it to me.” Said Slaven.
When the doors hissed open at lunchtime, to let out the occupants and let in the sandwich sellers, none of them paid much attention to the man in the suit climbing the stairs. In particular, James Morrisey did not particularly notice the bump on the shoulder as he headed for Boots to get some condoms for the Christmas party (which he did every year, throwing the unopened packet away just before the next one). Like most Englishmen, he simply apologised for something that wasn’t his fault and continued on his way. When you are on a mission that hints of guiltless sex, whether or not you still have your ID card isn’t really a priority.
Jenkin had been ordered, under a threat of extreme pain, not to leave the coffee kiosk, and he sat nursing a Coke and a bacon and brie ciabatta as the place filled up, became vibrant, filled with conversation, laughter, and liaisons nascent and in full flood. It was actually really pleasant, sitting there amongst these people, who may have some idea of what comes after, but actually had no idea. The looped Christmas music was starting to wear thin by the time he spotted Slaven coolly striding from the office block towards the top of the steps.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 47
