by Al Robertson
[ Fuck,] spat Fist. [ Him again. What now?]
[Stay out of sight. Let’s see what he wants.]
Grey chuckled. ‘There’s really no need for that,’ he told the children. ‘He’s not going to hurt me. He couldn’t.’
‘Are you sure, Grandpa?’ asked Fred.
‘I’m sure.’
They let go of Jack and gradually pulled away.
‘I’m sorry, Jack. They’re very protective.’
‘Have you hurt them at all?’
‘Oh no. Not in the way you mean. Their parents built platforms for me in their minds. I’ve never needed to. And besides – I wouldn’t want to.’
Jack thought he saw a flicker of guilt shadow Grey’s face, but immediately dismissed the idea.
‘And now I want to have a grown-up conversation with you, Jack. I’m going to have to send you young ones off to sleep, I’m afraid. Jack – you’ll have to move off the mattresses.’
Jack stood up, letting all three children lay down, Lyssa giggling, Fred and Ato with an air of grumpy resignation. ‘Are you ready?’ Grey asked them. ‘Yes,’ they chorused. Grey waved his hand, and they were asleep.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked Jack. ‘How did you do that? How can you even be here? This room’s caged.’
‘It is. I’m in them, Jack. The ghost children of Station are my last redoubt.’
‘You’re in their minds?’
‘Like Fist is in yours. But Fist only has the power of one mind to draw on. When they’re together, I have all three of them. And when they’re outside – there are a couple of hundred who survive. They’re my core. Where is the little man, by the way?’
[ Well?] said Fist. [ There’s not much of him here. We’re safe.]
[Go for it.]
Fist shimmered into being, sitting on the table top, swinging his legs. His body moved in a more coherent way, but there were still scattered patches of charring.
‘Why didn’t I pick you up when I scanned them, then?’ said Fist.
‘You have been in the wars,’ said Grey. ‘I am sorry. But to answer your question – I’ve taken great care to hide myself. I’m buried very deep indeed.’
‘And are you present to them, like Fist is?’
‘Oh yes. You heard that they call me Grandpa? I look after them. I guide them. But it’s so much more difficult than I thought it would be.’
Grey suddenly seemed very old. He made a chair appear, then slowly and carefully sat down on it. There was a stiffness to him that was very far removed from the usual fluid elegance of his movements. Jack was shocked to realise that he looked haunted.
‘Advising them, helping them find food, keeping InSec attention away from them. And in return, they hide me and keep my core components safe. But I live in them, and as them too. Their lives are so difficult. They’ve lost so much.’
Jack was surprised to see Grey feel pity. ‘That’s not your fault,’ he said.
‘I’m responsible. Their parents were my people. They just wanted to end the Soft War and see the Totality get full recognition as an independent, Pantheon-equivalent corporate body. And then, all this.’
‘But you told me that the Totality were a contagion, that their power had to be limited.’
‘I was lying to you, Jack,’ sighed Grey. ‘Doing what I do. Managing the situation.’
‘Manipulating the situation. Manipulating me.’
‘You can call it that, if you want to.’
‘Like when you reprogrammed me,’ said Fist.
‘Reprogrammed?’ said Grey, suddenly thoughtful. ‘That’s a good word. Maybe that is what I was doing. If you control the information that someone gets, you control them. Sharing the right data in the right way – I suppose it is a way of reprogramming people. I am sorry.’
‘What’s your game, Grey? What’s in it for you?’
Grey smiled sadly. ‘Nothing. What I am now comes from these few children. And they’re not old enough to have become effective dissemblers. You’ll find that I’m in a more evasive mood when I am out of this small room; when I can draw on my deeper resources.’
‘But for now?’ said Jack.
‘But for now, I am as simple and open as they are.’
[ Fist?]
[ He’s telling the truth,] answered Fist. [ He’s just coming from them. There’s nothing else there. His signal’s much less complex than usual.]
[ I can trust him?]
[ Broadly, yes, Jackie boy. Take advantage! Squeeze him for all he’s got!]
‘You’ve been working with East,’ said Jack. ‘What brought you together?’
‘I had such ambitions. I thought that if I worked with her, I’d be able to influence Station away from the war and bring us closer to the Totality. The Pantheon are too controlling, Jack, I’d begun to see that. We need to be more open – like the Totality are. Of course, that conflicted with Kingdom’s interests. He had a lot to lose. And he’s lost almost all of it.’
‘What did you tell me that wasn’t a lie?’ said Jack.
‘Lie? That’s a terrible word. I told you what you needed to know to ensure that you took the path that would be best for you.’
‘Not for me, for you.’
‘And I’ve done so well out of it.’ Grey waved his hand round the cramped little room.
‘You’ve been keeping yourself safe,’ said Jack. ‘At the cost of all of these children. Of their parents.’
‘I didn’t realise how ruthless Kingdom would be. We struggled for years. At last he found a weakness and used it. Made everyone believe that my activist groups were fronts for terrorists; killed them, blocked their fetches, shut me down, froze my board. It was a shocking experience. So fast. I barely had enough time to get the Greyware running in the kids, hide them in safe rooms. When my board was shut down I shifted over into them. I’ve been running in them ever since.’
‘So who were the real terrorists?’
‘I could never find any traces of them. All the bombs, the attacks on Station; they just happened. They mystified me as much as anyone. I had so many people out there, trying to understand what was going on. Nothing. The children think of themselves as ghosts, but the people who bombed Station were the real phantoms.’
‘They helped Kingdom, though, didn’t they?’
‘Oh yes. They justified the war, kept people from thinking too much about why we might really be fighting. All those empty shrines they created. Every day, people look at pictures of dead children and remember why the Totality has to be destroyed. Making peace with it? It means forgetting the dead. And, as a culture, we’re very bad at that.’
‘People walk with them every day.’
‘They’re part of our lives. We – they – live in a space station, orbiting a dead planet they can’t bring themselves to leave, living in ways they can’t bring yourselves to change, talking to corpses they can’t bring themselves to bury. Maintaining stasis takes a lot of effort. It’s the opposite of the Totality. And it gives Kingdom and his allies an awful lot of power, even now.’
‘Yamata was working for him.’
‘I always wondered about that. You have proof ?’
‘She told me. Could she have been behind the terrorist attacks?’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me. She had the right skillset. The reskinning that poor Corazon found out about. She started as a sweat smuggler, too. She could easily have brought weapons in, explosives. Akhmatov’s distribution and enforcement networks would have been very helpful to her. Perhaps Penderville was working with them, perhaps you were about to expose them, perhaps that’s why Kingdom wanted you out of the picture.’
‘And what about Harry?’
‘I’ve never understood him.’ Grey frowned. ‘He was always so supportive of you when he was alive. His reports on you helped me convince Kingdom that you’d be a useful part of the war effort. I don’t know what’s happened to him. Maybe he did find out about you and Andrea.’
‘You knew?’ said Jack.
‘I was with you everywhere, Jack. It’s what gods do; always present where intention meets action, understanding both, influencing where we can. She felt very strongly for you, you know, but she’s a very loyal person. I nudged her to stay with you after the rock fell, but her will was stronger.’
‘Always manipulating. You disgust me, Grey.’
‘My influence was always constructive.’
‘Constructive? You sent me away to kill. And you never just influenced. That implies choice, and you never gave me that.’
‘All of you always have a choice, Jack. I thought you realised that when you walked away from the war. I wanted you to do that, I wanted you to leave the Pantheon behind. I thought I saw that knowledge in you when you refused to help me in the garden.’
Jack laughed bitterly. ‘One last question. I don’t know what Harry is any more. Do you? And is Andrea safe?’
‘I stopped watching Harry closely when you stopped working for him. He was still human then. And I don’t think you need worry about Andrea. Beyond rolling her back, there’s very little he can do to hurt her.’
That was when Fist cut in, his patience exhausted. ‘Enough with the encounter group. Jack’ll talk about Andrea all night if you let him, but we’ve got some practical challenges to deal with.’ He switched to talk silently to Jack. [Can I tell him I can kill Kingdom?]
[ No,] replied Jack. [ It’s too dangerous. We don’t want any of the Pantheon to know you’re a direct threat to them. Just give him the basics. No boasting.]
[ Fucking consequences,] said Fist grumpily before continuing out loud: ‘Here’s the deal. We’ve tracked Yamata’s signal back to Heaven, and we know she’s working for Kingdom. I think her core servers are somewhere in Kingdom’s corporate headquarters. So, it’s simple.’
‘Really?’ said Grey. ‘I’m impressed by your confidence.’
‘We break into Heaven, and then into Kingdom’s HQ. Once we’re in, we find Yamata. We know what we’re up against, so we won’t be taken by surprise. We crack her, take her memories, find out exactly what crimes she’s committed, and use them to prove Kingdom’s guilt.’
‘I can speak for East,’ Grey responded. ‘She’ll broadcast whatever you find. Everyone on Station will see it. It’ll be impossible to cover up.’
‘You’re running ahead,’ Jack told him. ‘We need to work out how we’re going to break into Heaven first, then a core Pantheon facility. One of those on their own would be difficult. Both together …’
‘I can get you into Heaven’ said Grey.
‘How? I mean – they’ve shut you down.’
‘You can walk the vacuum paths.’
‘What?’
‘This room is buried in Station’s skin. That’s why the children hide here. Only engineers ever come down this far. One of their duties is inspecting Station’s exterior. To do that, they need a door out to Station’s outer skin. Half a day’s walk, and there’s one you can get to. From there, you can go straight to Heaven.’
Fist thought for a moment. ‘We don’t have spacesuits. I don’t need to breathe, but it’s a bit of a problem for Jackie boy here!’
‘There’ll be some at the airlock,’ Grey reassured him. ‘There’s always an emergency supply.’
‘And then? The gates of Heaven don’t open for just anyone.’
‘There’s someone who can help you with that. An old friend of yours, Fist. Mr Stabs.’
Fist couldn’t restrain a gasp of joy. ‘He’ll see us?’ he cried. ‘At last?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Grey. ‘I’ll tell him you’re going to bring down Kingdom. That’ll blow his mind.’
Chapter 39
It was night in the void site garden. Spinelight glowed dully, drifting across the trees and lawns like so much dust. The abandoned apartment building stood out like a broken tooth. Behind it, the sleeping suburbs of Homelands rolled up and away into the sky. There was a deep hush over Station, strong enough to be almost palpable. Hundreds of thousands slept. Jack imagined them dreaming, and wondered briefly if their dreams were any more real than the waking world they moved through every day.
[ I wish we didn’t have to come up here again,] grumbled Fist. [ I just want to go to Heaven and bring down a god.]
[ You’re the one that wanted reinforcements,] Jack replied.
Ato had brought them up. They’d followed her through a maze of maintenance ducts and machinery rooms. Sewage engines roared as they pumped waste away from humanity. An electrical substation hummed as power leapt up and away from it, out into Homelands. When they passed the gravity generators, their weight fluctuated unpredictably. Sometimes, they found themselves bouncing through great caverns, a few steps carrying them tens of metres. Sometimes, they crawled through maintenance passages, or struggled down corridors glyphed with emergency instructions, their own amplified weight a nearly impossible burden to bear. Grey had always been there, ahead of them; a beacon in the distance, showing them the way.
‘It’s always strange for me to leave this room,’ he’d said before they started out. ‘I’m different out there. I don’t let them see it, but I’m not just Grandpa any more. I’m not that simple.’
‘Can we still trust you?’ asked Jack.
‘I’ll always deliver what I’ve promised,’ Grey replied carefully. ‘I might just be a little more self-interested about it.’
[ That’s great! We’ve made a deal with the devil,] groaned Fist.
At last they reached the garden. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours,’ Ato said cheerfully. ‘Grandpa’s going to help me find some food.’
She wriggled through a small gap in the void site’s fence and started up the street. A taller figure shimmered into being next to her – Grey, holding her hand. They disappeared into the darkness together, leaving Jack and Fist alone.
[ Right,] said Fist, [ I’m going to trigger the void site’s security systems, but I don’t want anybody to know I’ve done it. Give me a minute or so.]
Jack moved into a clump of trees and sat down, leaving Fist to his work. Untouched for many years, the grass was unexpectedly lush. It had collected a soft, cold dew that quickly penetrated his trousers, chilling his skin. The sensory detail delighted him. For a long time, he’d only felt nature in weavespace, where anything that could be understood as discomfort had been elided. It was such a pleasure to feel again the awkward, determined presence of an ecosystem that persisted regardless of humanity, unenthralled by its limiting sense of the comfortable.
Fist reappeared next to him, glowing softly in the darkness. [ It’s done,] he reported. [ I’m bringing the block’s security systems back up to full function. First time they’ve run properly in years.]
All of a sudden, the grove thrilled with virtual life. Sounds emerged – the soft, lonely cry of an owl, the high-pitched screams of hunting bats. Jack imagined the glade in daytime, rich with nature’s soundtrack.
There was a rustling on the other side of the glade, and a dark shape emerged into the light. It was a fox. The pale light softened its hard hunter’s face, making it something gentle in the night. It paused for a moment to look round, then trotted purposefully across the clearing. Halfway across, it stopped, raising its nose to sniff the air.
‘Talk out loud, we want it to hear us,’ ordered Fist. ‘It’s only a scout, we want it to summon the block’s heavy security systems.’
‘What a beautiful night to be out and about!’
The fox’s ears twitched. Its head snapped round towards them.
‘Come to Daddy!’ called Fist. His words broke the fox’s concentration. It leapt for the bushes. Leaves shook behind it. ‘A couple of seconds, and we’ll have some company.’
‘I hope you’re ready.’
‘Piece of piss.’
New presences arrived soundlessly, coalescing from the darkness that the tall trees and the bushes made.
The first was a lion. It walked with a heavy grace, head swaying left and right, shoulders rolling be
hind its mane. Its tightly closed mouth was a black scar on its shadowed face. Intent eyes focused on Jack and Fist with a hunter’s passion. It halted in the centre of the glade and yawned. Teeth caught the light, streaks of white fire gashing the darkness.
The second was a tiger. Its casual, confident, loose limbed stroll promised lethality. Iron-hard muscles fluttered beneath skin. Light and shadow danced across its pelt, combining with its stripes to form jagged, shifting patterns. It stretched itself out by the lion. Claws broke out of its paws, then retracted.
Finally, there was the bear; a great, lumbering mass, snuffling loudly in the quiet night. Its muzzle was paler than its dark fur, an off-white smudge that lent definition to an otherwise featureless silhouette. Something very ancient woke in Jack – a deep fear of the great shape that loomed before him, older than darkness. It joined the other two.
The silhouettes of all three exuded menace. They were in full offensive mode. Jack wondered how they might have looked when they’d been manifesting in friendlier ways. He’d often visited friends who lived in similar blocks; watched the defence creatures play with the children in their gardens. Bears were giant, cuddly creatures, lions very proud but more than a little lazy, tigers whip-smart jokers. Each of these animals would no doubt have a cartoon self too, gathering virtual dust in silent digital vaults, ready to look harmless for children it would never again guard.
[Good,] said Fist. [ They’re not attacking. The confusion protocols are working. And now …]
Feral breath hissed to Jack’s left and right. Fist had summoned his panthers. They rose out of the darkness, spinning up from memory into sleek, silent shapes. Fear spat adrenaline into Jack’s blood.
[ I’ve refined them a bit,] Fist commented, not noticing. He’d stripped the four big cats back to near abstraction. They were little more than brushstrokes in the air, prowling shapes spun out of fluid lines that were darker than the night. A shimmer, and there was a leg; an eye was a flash of red, a tooth was a white gash. Tails swished. There was a snarl and a hiss, and they moved into the glade.
Jack flinched. [ They still spook me,] he admitted.
