For this reason, she had not only created ‘his’ new program, designed to help pass the time for those waiting for judgement, she had let Marchant think that he had done it all himself. By imbuing him with this sense of ownership she felt she could to some extent be confident that it would become the centre of his attention. She even waved a carrot: that somehow it might become a source of income and contribute towards his ridiculous escape fund.
The unsuspecting consumer group: the billions of souls in the Afterworld, were soon to be exposed to a service that, as in life, they had no idea they needed. Dead Gorgeous would be the first, and only, dating site for the deceased. Tapping into the massive relational database at the heart of The Afternet, it promised to bring “Friendship, Companionship, and…who knows? much much more” to millions trying to come to terms with the reality of their own mortality, and often bearing the scars of its genesis.
“Yah. It taps into the interpersonal on a very real level,” said Justin, as his bullshit gene cut in, “offering a meaningful, yet manageable interface to bring happiness to millions.”
“It’s for shagging, isn’t it?” said Marcel.
“It’s about hope, Marcel. I want to touch lives, bring light into their darkness. And of course I need to figure out how to charge for it.”
“How does it work?” Marcel asked, ignoring Mary’s attempts to stop him.
“Oh, it…er. It syncopates the RAM with access to the main core predecessor unit. And, er…translates the input factors into WHAM.” Justin extemporized impressively.
“What about the BAM, and Thank you MAM?”
“”Do I need that? Mary, what do you think?”
She felt it better not to say.
Marcel, setting out on the road to anonymity in a place occupied by those who thought it Heaven, was almost jaunty. Mary had seen many moods in the Frenchman, admittedly a lot of them variations on a theme of simmering anger, but ‘carefree’ would not have been a word she would generally have used to describe him before now.
“I’m quite looking forward to this, Mary.” He was packing a small bag. “It’s so hard to know what to pack, isn’t it? You just don’t know what the weather’s going to be like.”
“Surely it will be sunny and warm, won’t it? In heaven?”
“Not if you’re an Eskimo, it won’t, Mary. Probably bloody freezing but with an endless supply of blubber. I think you need to realize that you can never predict what the mass of morons inhabiting the earth might have in mind for their eternity.”
“What would you have had? Not that you have a choice, of course.” she asked. “No offence meant.”
“None taken.” She raised her eyebrows; he hadn’t always been so prepared to overlook a slight, however imaginary. “If you’d asked me that question when I made the transition, it would have been something involving endless supplies of doxies and the opportunity for casual violence without penalty. Lots of food and wine. I suppose that tells you enough about why I wasn’t given the choice, doesn’t it?”
“And what about now?”
“I’ve learned, Mary, that there are things more valuable than endless guilt-free sex and murder.” His voice was mellifluous, and the French accent he had retained almost sent a shiver down her spine. “People are important. Friendships and support.”
“Really?” she said. This could be a really lovely trip, she thought.
“No, not really. When you’ve lived with Geoffrey for two hundred years you quickly realize that people are a pain in the arse. Geoffrey makes the prospect of being up to your knees in willing women look even more attractive than ever.” He blithely resumed stuffing things into the bag, utterly unaware of her disappointment.
They said their farewells to their companions, which included manually pulling Geoffrey away from an episode of Thunderbirds.
“But this is really exciting! Virgil is trying to rescue those people in cars from an exploding bridge. Again. Why are their heads so big?”
“You’ll hear nothing from us,” said Marcel, ignoring Geoffrey’s protests, “we are going to be completely under the radar.”
“Like Dambusters.” Geoffrey said. “As if that could possibly happen. Ridiculous! In the real world they would have used Thunderbird 4 and The Mole.”
Mary told them that she had set up a proxy A-mail account under the name Jane Doe, and that when they had found a safe place she would find an Afternet terminal and drop them a coded message. Apart from that they would be off the grid so that initially The Devil would not be able to track Marcel and then would lose interest.
“He’s hot on me at the moment,” said Marcel, “but something bigger is bound to come along eventually. Anyway, who knows, I might find somewhere I really like and want to stay.”
Mary, having heard Marcel’s views on what Heaven might comprise, suspected this was unlikely. God seemed to take a pretty liberal view of what might comprise paradise for people but it was a stretch to imagine that this might include the subjugation of women for sexual purposes and the provision of some weak men to physically harm.
It wasn’t a long goodbye. Justin seemed a little bit itchy to actually see them go, and Geoff was prancing backwards and forwards with his knees and hands extended trying to walk like a Thunderbirds puppet. Or, in Geoffrey’s naïve reality, person. Mary waved from the door but the action didn’t gain any attention. Marcel was already off down the corridor outside. Was she the only one who saw this as a potential parting of the ways?
The dead, at the moment of their judgement, were whisked through the Afterworld tunnels to whatever fate awaited them. These travellers from the backroom organization had the advantage of using the subsystem designed for management. Strictly speaking, the only deities allowed to visit the Heavens were those seconded to Blisscom, the body put in place to ensure the promises made to people during their lives were delivered. Conversely, those demons and acolytes of Satan employed by BurnBabyBurn were deputed to ensure that the level of suffering in the Hells was up to snuff. Such excursions apart, taking a trip to the eternity of others was strictly forbidden.
Herding these particular cats, though, had always proved beyond the figures at the top. Firstly because, in some cases, what were Heavens for some were Hells for others, and thus an old couple enjoying a glass of sherry were on occasion confronted by a grinning imp checking the level of suffering of the accursed treading the grapes. Secondly because the ban on travel for those not on official business was casually disregarded. Death may seem a long time for those who had lived, but for Gods and demons it was literally interminable, and when you are the Inca God of snakes who hasn’t had a worshipper for centuries you scratch around for something to do. That glass of sherry and the chance to have a gentle discussion concerning the unfair bad press for reptiles in general, and snakes in particular, offered welcome relief in those circumstances, especially when it provided the chance to get physical with some snivelling devil-worshipper.
The Everywhere Door, an unremarkable lump of wood at the end of a long corridor somewhere in the mess underpinning the Afterworld, had therefore become something of a meeting point for these trippers seeking only to alleviate the boredom of their own eternities. The door led, well, everywhere, but essentially it led to where you wanted to go. As a door, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite the fact that these forbidden journeys were known about by God (obviously) and The Devil, those making them at least had the decency to attempt to disguise themselves in the hope of avoiding trouble from the boss. When Mary and Marcel arrived at the door, it was like the departures lounge of a British regional airport on the Friday morning of stag weekends or an American regional airport before spring break.
There was a general hubbub as Gods high-fived each other; (“Yo, Mercury! Where you bin, man?”), plans were changed; (“Oh no, like, Vulcan! Vail powder Heaven is like soooo last year. Icelandic Glacier extreme Nordic. That’s where it’s at, bro”), and there was just a hint of consequence-less romance in the air
(Wow! Lakshmi! What’s with all the arms hon? Good news. I’ve got four penises; we can both be busy, huh?).
“What on earth? What’s going on here, Marcel?”
Mary looked at her companion. The crowd in front of them was so deep they couldn’t see the door. It may lead everywhere, but it couldn’t lead everywhere all at once. That would be ridiculous. It was the first door that needed a rest after people used it.
“This is the rule of law in action, Mary. Not one of these is supposed to be here. That’s what I hate about death. It’s one rule for one, and another rule for everyone else.”
“What are we going to do? It could take forever.”
“Well, we’ve got forever, actually. You’re like one of those people who joins the end of a long queue to board a flight. You don’t get there any quicker and actually you get a shit place on the bus.”
“What do you know about flights? You died before anyone had flown anywhere.”
“I had an assignment.” He coughed, guiltily. “Low-cost air travel. He wanted to see if it could work as a Hell.”
“And?”
“No. Too nasty.” He peered over the shoulders of the figures in front. The crowd stretched for some distance: he could barely see the door, which appeared to be smoking from overuse. “I’ll sort it out.” he said
He elbowed past the pair in front of him, who were wearing purple-fringed cowboy hats with the phrase ‘I Last Forever’ printed around the rim. As luck would have it, they were Buddhists, so put up no resistance. In front of them, though, was a group of women in neon yellow t-shirts, the front of which read ‘Roman Goddesses on Tour’, oblivious to anonymity. They had gone to the trouble of printing diminutives and derivatives of their names on the back, so as Marcel shoved between them, Mary could read ‘Min’, ‘Di’, ‘Juno Juno Juno’, and ‘’S’one Vesta’. Deification was apparently no bar to lack of wit.
After a moment, Mary lost sight of Marcel, who pushed his way through the crowd between them and the Everywhere Door. Above the general low hum of excited chatter she could hear the complaints of those he unceremoniously pushed aside. A tall man in a lion onesie was staring at her. The suit had a magnificent mane and his narrow face was visible through the massive, and very authentic-looking, jaws. She gave him a half-smile, uncertain how to react to his scrutiny.
“Are you Nubian?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Nubian. No, I suppose not. Just, you know…the colour of your-“he circled his finger around his masked face. “Only you aren’t Egyptian, because I am, and I know them all. Don’t see many Gods of colour in the other religions. Well, voodoo I suppose. Shocking really, it’s just so…white middle-class, isn’t it?”
“I’m from Neasden.” She said, unaware how to respond to this suggestion of institutional racism in the heavens.
“Neasden? Not sure I’ve heard of that. What do you worship?”
“Low-cost shopping and lager, mainly.” He looked puzzled, but before he could reply she was jostled by a stream of gods and goddesses moving rapidly in the opposite direction. The man in the suit looked up in surprise and swung his head from side to side as if to see the cause of the evacuation. Mary saw Marcel coming through the thinning crowd, looking even more pleased with himself than usual. An old woman in a shawl sidled up to the man in the lion suit and he bowed his head to listen to her whisper in his ear, then drew himself up quickly.
“Come on, Neasden, we need to get out of here.” She watched him hurry away, and realised that only she and Marcel remained.
“Fire?” she asked.
“Nah. I spotted Pheme, that old bag with the big gob and the low voice. Goddess of Rumour. Told her that there was going to be a spot check, but to keep it to herself.”
“Impressive. Mind you, how about that lion onesie?” she said.
“Oh, that’s not a onesie, he’s a lion. Martin or Mark or Maahes or something. Egyptian. Actually a bit of a version of your old mate War. Definitely a lion, though. Lucky you weren’t disguised as an okapi.” He looked around at the now empty corridor and nodded towards the door.
“Shall we?” he said.
Justin still couldn’t figure out how he was going to make money out of Dead Gorgeous. During his lifetime he was an occasional user of internet dating sites, whereby he would pay for introductions to suitable candidates for company, hints of something more. It never occurred to him that these factors may just be placed the wrong way round, and that romance was in fact the ‘something more’ rather than the implied sexual liaisons. He was absolutely one of those who read ‘Heart’ and thought “Vagina’.
He had followed a well-trodden path, reading the questionnaire and then fabricating brazenly in his answers. The fact was that if he had just told the truth it would have revealed to him why he was on his own in the first place. Much easier to put ‘sensitive’ than ‘uncaring’, and ‘loves dogs and walks in the country’ when he was hoping for a couple of hours watching American Pie VII, some chips, and a sweaty grope in a bedsit in Peckham. What really hurt him was that having paid £19.95 per month introductory fee, he was habitually confronted with women (and in one case a bloke) who had lied even more transparently than he.
Nowhere on any of the dating sites had he seen anyone who said that they were shallow, fat, or impecunious and hoping for a meal ticket, but still he only met people who were at least one of the three and often more. The photographs always displayed someone of a sunny disposition, hair lightly tossed by a zephyr, smiling to the camera. What he met was someone with massive self-confidence issues, hair so greasy Hurricane Katrina couldn’t have moved it, and a grin characterised only by teeth in such a state of disrepair they would be condemned by any self-respecting dental authority as a threat to the public health.
He lied about his height, convincing himself that the levels he could reach in platform soles and on the tips of his toes could be deemed truthful. However the night he spent pretending to enjoy creative modern dance, staring at the navel (uncovered and pierced) of a willowy amazon, sent him scuttling back to his profile to correct any misapprehension. He lied about his demeanour, and the amount he gave to charity, an assertion brought into doubt by his repeated cries of “How much???” when leaving Nando’s and discovering his ‘date’ wasn’t paying her share.
He embroidered the state of his hair, which would have benefitted had he woven it instead, and most of all he cast a rosy glow on the success of his tawdry business ripping people off for the repair of ancient computers, and the position this gave him in the firmament of hi-tech entrepreneurs.
“So, from what I read, you are massive!”
He raised an eyebrow, not recalling having included that particular exaggeration.
“In IT.”
Ah.
“Well, yes. I’m proud to say that I am at the crest of the digital wave.”
“Oooh.” She had long black hair, really dark eyes, earrings a budgie could have swung on, and a leopardskin jacket worn over a leather pencil skirt. He sat opposite her in Miss Meg’s Southern-style Fried Chicken, where the proprietor had spent more on the lettering over the door than the ingredients, and thought that, blimey, this could be the one. She was hot, knew how to dress, had a voice of such huskiness it made his balls tremble, and actually thought that this qualified as taking her out for a meal.
“I love a digital wave, if you know what I mean.” And, it appeared, she might be really dirty.
“Hah ha. Well, you know, me and Gatesie, Jobso (sadly gone now), you know we started it all. We were kind of the er…foothills of Silicon Valley.” Do valleys have foothills, he thought? Probably not, but she was looking impressed, so he thought he might have got away with it.
“Silicon Valley? Nice.” She pushed her hands onto the sides of her jacket, and her breasts crushed together and almost leaped out at him.
“They call me Silicon Valerie.” she said.
So, that was the bloke.
Dead Gorgeous very
rapidly became very popular. All he could see was activity, and all he could hear was the word ‘kerching’ echoing into the distance.
“There’s a bloke here, died in the sinking of the Bismarck. He’s some working class oik from Hamburg, full of seawater and fish. He’s only scored a model with an eating disorder. Go figure!”
“Does she eat fish?” asked Geoffrey, eyes fixed firmly on the screen in front of him. “Because that could kill two things with one wotsit.”
“He’s not literally full of fish, Geoff.” Justin peered at the computer to make sure that the German hadn’t listed this as a unique feature to attract mates, “I just mean he was in the water for a while. Could have a conger eel in his stomach.”
“That’s his body, Justin. He’s long gone before the crawly things move in.”
Marchant looked from his screen to Geoffrey, actually surprised that over the two hundred years running the Afternet, the early Briton had somehow managed to gain an understanding of Descartian Dualism.
“Unless,” said Geoffrey, “he had just eaten one.”
The attention Geoffrey paid to Justin’s gripes about Dead Gorgeous was not, it has to be said, all-consuming. Whilst flicking through the channels on one of the TV screens, he happened upon The Games Channel, and its speciality, if you can call it that, was wall to wall advertisements for stairlifts and legal action against unsuspecting employers interspersed every now and then with re-runs of It’s A Knock-Out, Jeux sans Frontières, and Almost Anything Goes. He was so enthralled by the action these shows presented to him that he fast-forwarded through the bits asking whether he had tripped over in the street when it wasn’t his fault.
“These people have massive heads, too, Justin! It’s like Thunderbirds.” Justin swivelled and glanced at Geoffrey’s screen, where a group of people in foam heads the size of half their bodies were trying to put a sponge in a bucket despite being tethered to a post with a very strong bungee rope. It was like testing for witchcraft.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 70
