No one seemed to know what to say, until Bal, arm wrapped protectively around Gaela, looked over at Aryel. ‘Do you think they’ll do it?’
She shook herself out of a reverie. ‘Do I think who will do what?’
‘What you just said about conscience. You were asking people – norms – to stand up. You really think they will? For us?’
‘I think some will. Some already are, things would have been even worse today if bystanders hadn’t jumped in. The UC will, and I think … I hope … that tomorrow there will be people calling their MPs and ward councillors and posting more rebuttals on the streams …’ She sighed and shrugged. ‘If you want to know whether it’ll be enough, I don’t know, Bal. I just don’t.’ She glanced at Gaela. ‘That reporter from earlier. He got mugged after he left.’
‘Oh shit. George.’ Gaela squeezed her eyes tight shut for a moment. ‘They thought he was a gem?’
‘No. Apparently it was gems who did it. A reprisal for Callan. Beat him up pretty badly. He was found by the godgang.’
‘No. Oh no. Oh shit.’
‘I’m afraid so. Seems he told them what happened, they put a ghost call in to emergency services with his location, and then went hunting.’
‘No. Oh god. Nelson.’ Gaela was crying now, face buried in Bal’s broad chest. Her shoulders shook. ‘Oh god, what have I done?’
‘You’ve done nothing. Gaela. Gaela, listen to me.’ Aryel’s voice was as close to harsh as Eli had heard it. He and Rob stood side by side, awkwardly silent, as Aryel reached between Bal’s arms to place a firm hand on Gaela’s shoulder.
‘If anyone is at fault, it’s me. You only identified him, I dealt with him. I could have sicced Masoud on him, or offered him transport back to the Underground. And you know what? This might have happened anyway. The godgang wasn’t prowling around the Squats because they were feeling friendly.’
Gaela was still shaking, but the sobs subsided as she nodded into Bal’s chest. Aryel withdrew her hand.
‘Have they found them?’ Bal asked. ‘The gems?’
‘No, but we might just be in luck there. The recorder that Gaela spotted was running. Masoud said it seems George was working up a piece to publish in place of the scoop he didn’t get. He was furious at the police for taking it off him. Anyway, there should be video.’
‘They haven’t looked at it?’
‘Not yet. George told them it was two men, purple hair.’
Bal winced.
‘Masoud’s asked me to look at it, see if I can identify them. At least if I – or any of us – can, it’ll help offset the damage the idiots have done.’
Rob interjected. ‘No one can hold their actions against you, Aryel, whoever they are. You’ve rejected violence from the beginning.’
‘Yes I have, which means if there’s much more from our side I’m going to start to look pretty ineffectual.’
‘I’ll look,’ said Bal quietly. ‘If you think it might help.’
She nodded. Figures were starting to drift towards them, black shadows outlined against the arc lights of the crime scene. In the vanguard was Masoud, next to a uniformed policewoman and a white-suited technician.
He beckoned Aryel over to an incident van as the technician unlocked it. The others trailed after her. Masoud cocked his head at Bal, Gaela and Eli, and looked at Aryel, eyebrows raised.
‘I’ve told them,’ she said. ‘It’ll be all over the streams in no time anyway. I thought the more help with identification, the better.’
Masoud looked surprised, but pleased. As the technician fitted the recorder’s memtab to a tablet, the policewoman briefly recounted what George had said.
‘He wasn’t very coherent,’ she explained. ‘They worked him over pretty thoroughly. He kept talking about his editor. When we found this, we realised he might have images both of the people who beat him up, and the ones he said found him. But we didn’t have time to look at it before the … this … before we became aware of this incident.’ She bit her lip. ‘I am so very sorry.’
‘Thank you.’ Aryel frowned. ‘How did you become aware of it? Did someone call it in?’
‘In a manner of speaking. The ambulance that was transporting this victim,’ she nodded at the tablet the technician was working with, ‘reported hearing screams. We were on the scene in minutes, but …’
‘We’re ready.’
The technician stepped back, and Masoud and Aryel leaned in. There were several minutes of milling around in the community hall. Tobias had done a good job of introducing George to as many people as he could. Nevertheless the image returned often to the distant figures of Masoud, Rob, Eli and Sally where they waited at the front of the room. Then there was the scramble for seats, and the exchange with Gaela. The policewoman turned to look at her in astonishment. Then Aryel, and bouncy images of the hall doors, the foyer, and George’s feet as he scrambled down the front steps.
The video and sound cut out a few seconds into a tonguelashing from his editor, and came back on to a different view of the street unfolding in front of George. Masoud shook his head in puzzlement at the muttered monologue that accompanied it. Eli couldn’t hear it clearly, nor see Aryel’s face, but he noted the stillness that settled over her, and Gaela, and Bal.
Then a jerk and the flash of the club, so sudden and violent that they all reared back, and the shift in perspective as George landed on the pavement. They saw the purple heads, heard the approval of victim.
Then it got very hard to watch. Rob turned away first. Eli quickly found he needed to check on his friend. As he looked round he saw that Aryel was watching steadily, with the same intent gaze she had had for the Bel’Natur vid, and the same sick, drawn expression. Bal was a picture of grim impassivity. But Gaela was leaning in, frowning in disbelief.
‘Stop it. Stop. Stop.’ Gaela spoke over the grunted references to Callan, and George’s desperate pleas. Masoud looked round at her.
‘I’m sorry, you shouldn’t watch. I know this is hard …’
‘It’s not that. It isn’t real. Stop the vid. Now.’
Masoud nodded to the technician, who paused the play. The policewoman turned to Gaela. ‘I know this must be difficult, but I saw the victim. And his injuries.’
‘That’s not what I mean. That part’s real enough. It’s the others.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘They’re not gems.’
They all stared at her. Masoud’s frown matched her own. ‘What do you mean? Do you know them?’
‘Never saw them before in my life. But they’re not gems. Their hair, it isn’t genuine. I know it looks alright to you, but it’s not.’ She pointed to the image on the screen, of the two attackers looming over George. ‘Our hair has a specific UV signature, it glows in a particular way. These guys are wrong. They’re dye jobs. They’re fake.’
The policewoman was staring at her, open-mouthed. ‘But you … how could you know that? It would take a special scanner to—’ She stopped. ‘Oh.’
Gaela’s lips twisted. ‘Oh yes. I am a special scanner.’
She turned to Masoud. ‘You’ll need to get it verified using a spectrometer. If you just took my word for it there’d be hell to pay, I understand that. But do it quickly, please, because this poor bastard thinks he’s had the crap beat out of him by a couple of gems, and that’s what he’s going to be telling everyone, and that’s the story Newsbeat is probably already running …’
His hands were up. ‘I get it, I get it. I understand.’ He glanced back at the screen. ‘Jesus, Mohammed and all the prophets. Who the fuck are these people? Right.’ He was speaking now to the technician. ‘Get started doing whatever you need to do to get this image independently verified. Sergeant Varsi,’ to the policewoman, ‘please let your colleagues – and anyone else who might have heard about this – know that there is grave doubt about the genetic status of the assailants. We do not want to inadvertently assist in the spreading of a malicious and inflammatory falsehood. Feel free to quote me.’
‘Yes, sir
.’
‘Aryel, you saw the vids from the employment centre. These guys don’t look the same to me, do they to you?’
‘No. But since I don’t share Gaela’s ability I think it would be worth asking her to take a look at those vids as well.’
He looked at Gaela. She said, ‘Happy to help.’
‘Okay.’ The tablet was still frozen on the impostors, false gemsigns glowing over snarls and fists and a boot raised for a kick. ‘I’m afraid I need to watch the rest of this.’
Eli and Rob declined to rejoin them. Gaela and Bal also turned away. They stood together, close enough to hear the beating end and the footfalls of the attackers as they departed.
‘We don’t know how long he was there before they found him,’ said the technician, and speeded the vid up. They turned back when it was slowed to normal play. They heard more than George had, from the moments before he recovered consciousness; the concerns of some, the doubts of others, then the interrogation and the departure. There was a good view of Mac, and a partial of the man with the glove and the tablet. Everyone else was in shadow.
Aryel said, ‘Gaela?’ Her voice was steady and soft. Eli ached with the knowledge that they had just watched men depart on a mission to murder their friend. Beside him Rob stood, chin tucked into his chest as though he might bury it there, quietly sucking air in through his teeth.
Gaela was wiping away tears, but her voice was also steady. ‘I got a bit more than you would. Enough to identify a couple of others.’
DAY FOUR
16
On another cold, grey morning, in a crowded café next to Victoria Station, customers spoke of little else.
‘That’s rich, innit, people pretendin’ to be gems. Like there’s not enough of ‘em already.’
‘Shameful. Beating up our own kind, just to make them look bad.’
‘Kinda works for them though, don’t it? Between that and the one got killed, everyone’s feelin’ sorry for them. Makes you wonder.’
‘Come on. You don’t seriously think …’
‘No, no, well I dunno. Like all the stuff’s been on the streams, then the cops say it’s fake, now all these folks postin’ sayin’ hey I’m no fake, mean what I said … I’m not sayin’ I agree with them, you unnerstand. It’s just hard to know what to believe.’
‘I think it’s horrible. Just terrible. The poor creatures.’
‘Yeah, well, they may be creatures but they ain’t all poor!’
‘True enough.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I hear some of ‘em make a mint.’
‘Still, don’t exactly make up for gettin’ kicked off a roof.’
‘Kind of thing never used to happen. Say what you like about the gemtechs, no one was gettin’ thrown off buildings back then.’
‘Yeah. Wasn’t a paradise, but fuck me. I hear they scalped the poor fucker.’
‘Language, please.’ That from the barrista.
‘Sorry, Joe. But seriously. Some of ‘em have got to be wishin’ things’d stayed the way they were.’
‘I can’t imagine they would ever wish that. We were supposed to make their lives better.’
‘I don’t have a problem with that, ma’m, s’long as it don’t make my life worse.’
On the screen above the counter, set to a trending algorithm, the UrbanNews interview with Aryel Morningstar flashed up yet again. The conversation in the café dropped to a murmur, and the ambient noise sensor scaled the volume up.
‘ … a crisis of conscience. I think all of the people out there need to decide …’
‘She’s something else, this one. Wonder where they found her.’
‘Bit mysterious, apparently.’
‘Someone said mebbe she was with them Remnants.’
‘How’d they get hold of somethin’ like her? They’ve not got a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of.’
‘I heard that rumour, that ain’t right. No, mate of mine told me she came out of one a’ them weapons programmes. Y’know, the ones that went wrong.’
‘Seriously?’
‘S’truth. That’s why it’s all so hush-hush. You know.’ The speaker tapped the side of his nose meaningfully.
‘She’s so pretty, ain’t she, you’d never guess. I mean she would be if the rest of her wasn’t so fucked up. An’ she wasn’t so little.’
‘Good thing she is fucked up. At least she ain’t got any powers.’
‘She can talk, though, can’t she? Way with words for sure.’
‘She’s got a point, too. I mean okay, so she’s a gem, but these godgangs are fu— ’scuse me … they’re outta control.’
‘What’s she mean by this part?’
‘ … an old adage about following the money …’
‘She’s talkin’ about the gemtechs, I s’pose.’
‘The only place I want to follow any money is back into my pension where it belongs. It’s worth half what they told me when I signed up. Half!’
‘That’s bad, mate, but money isn’t everything.’
‘No, I mean the last part. That whole “moment of significance” bit.’
‘Big date comin’ up, isn’t it? For all those religious types.’
*
Tobias’s interview had less prominence on the streams, but was still generating a very respectable hit rate. The bishop had called early to register her approval, and the old brick church near the Squats hummed with sombre congratulations. Volunteers had turned out in force. Many were not even people of faith, but knew about the UC’s involvement with the gem community, and under the circumstances had no reservations about channelling secular support via an ecclesiastical route.
‘None of this god stuff makes sense to me,’ a woman told Tobias, ‘but if it’s what people want to believe I want them listening to you, not those racist maniacs.’
‘I understand. I’m very glad you’ve come. Our gem friends need everyone’s help. And maybe after a while, the god stuff might start to make sense too.’
The fact that Nelson had been coming to church was a subject of much discussion amongst the parishioners.
‘That it would be a believer who fell in the way of those monsters … what he must have been thinking in his last moments …’
‘At least he knew they were not really representative of our faith. At least he knew that. It would be so terrible if he’d died thinking that’s what we’re about.’
‘It finally shows the godgangs in their true light. People who only claim to be true to our beliefs killing someone who really is. It proves how illegitimate they are. We need to all keep making that point.’
‘This cannot happen again. It just can’t. We have to find a way to get through to them. A cousin of mine sometimes goes to a godgang meeting. I don’t approve but at least I know that not everyone there is this kind of person.’
Tobias had in mind a more direct approach to preventing further attacks.
‘Not many of our gem brothers and sisters are venturing out today,’ he said. ‘But for those who must, we should offer to escort them. Any volunteers?’
A forest of hands went up.
‘How about tonight?’
People shuffled their feet and looked at each other. Two, then three, then four hands went up around the room. ‘Thank you, brothers. Thank you, sister. We’ll work out the details in a minute.’
Aryel dropped in early. People looked and whispered behind their hands. ‘Inspirational,’ was murmured over and over. ‘Able to do what she does. The pain she must be in, and she doesn’t let it show. Just amazing.’
Several of the new volunteers, including two who had put themselves on night duty, went over to tell her that they were there because of what she’d said. She looked tired, but her smile was as warm as her words.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘You’ve just made a bad day a lot better. There’s an old-fashioned notion about moral courage that I hoped … I trusted … would still be alive today. I can see I was ri
ght. Thank you.’
Though her voice was not loud, it carried. Several more volunteers made their way over to Tobias and signed up to provide after-dark protection.
‘I’m just stopping by to say thanks, for last night as well as everything else,’ she said when she got to him. ‘And I thought you’d like to know that Callan’s out of danger. I’ve just come from the hospital.’
‘Thank God. Does he know …?’
‘He’s still heavily sedated. I spoke to him for a while, but I don’t think he understood much.’
‘That may be for the best.’
‘Indeed. The others do know, of course. They’re coming home today. Also we’re hearing from gems who live elsewhere in the city, who’d like to come and stay in the Squats. Safety in numbers.’
‘Under the circumstances that sounds wise. We can help with transport, make sure they get here safely. Can’t we?’ He looked around. There was a chorus of assent, met by another brilliant smile from Aryel.
‘Will Mikal have the details?’
‘He will. With the Conference starting tomorrow I’m afraid I’m all over the place.’
‘You need to get some rest, Aryel.’
‘In a few days. One way or another.’
*
Once again Mac stood hunched against the cold, gazing across to the top of the Bel’Natur building. This time he didn’t really see it. He was thinking about what to say to his flock.
They were sipping coffees and checking tablets, exclaiming at the various trends and posts. The news that George had been attacked by ‘fake gems’ had been met first by confusion, then doubt, then derision. Mac was a little annoyed that it had taken them so long to come to terms with this turn of events, although in truth it had been just a few minutes. But it was such an obvious lie. They should know by now that the enemies of the Lord would stop at nothing to deceive, that the so-called police were deep in the pockets of the Beast.
He caught the edge of sound from one of the tablets, faint but enough to tell him that someone was watching the interview with the hunchback succubus again. He looked around sharply, stopped himself before he barked at the guilty party to change streams. Let them get it out of their systems, watch it enough for their own rage at the lies to build and boil over, as his had done after just one viewing. Still. She was the one he’d most like to get his hands on. Aryel Morningstar. Calling herself two names as though she were a proper person, hiding her mark away as if that could disguise what she was. But the Beast had slipped in his pride, branding his offspring with a sign that the faithful could recognise. The preacher had whispered its meaning to him before he departed, with the dawn.
Gemsigns Page 17
