As Above, So Below

by Richard Lawther

  The first member of SWISH to meet me on the ground floor was a stag beetle the size of a small car.

  ‘Where’s the general?’ I asked.

  ‘He’ll be along shortly once I’ve confirmed that the area is safe,’ replied the beetle, ‘...and you are?’ it added, waving its antennae at me.

  ‘Geoff Christie,’ I replied. The beetle gave me a blank look. ‘Viscount Christie of Cheviot.’

  ‘Ahh! Our esteemed “negotiator”! What will they think of next!’ The beetle regarded the chandelier. ‘That it?’

  ‘The antenna? Yes.’

  ‘Is it inert? Free of the anomaly?’

  ‘It is.’

  The beetle withdrew some sort of scientific measuring device from a fold within a wing casing and pointed it at the antenna: ‘Yeah, seems to be.., wait a minute.., what’s this?’

  I followed the beetle’s gaze: lightning pulsed through the whole chandelier and a growing fairy-ring of sparks radiated out from the core. Then it all slowly began to fade, growing ever darker and more insipid.

  ‘Yeah, this thing’s safe. No evidence of the anomaly. Good work, Viscount.’ The beetle signalled back to the general: ‘Area secure. Anomaly undetectable.’

  ‘And the mutt?’ came the general’s crackly voice over the radio.

  ‘Woken up,’ I informed the beetle.

  ‘He’s tucked his tail between his legs and slinked off, sir,’ it informed the general.

  ‘Excellent! I’ll be right in!’

  ‘Copied.’ The beetle regarded its “tricorder” and turned to me: ‘The castle structures are beginning to break down, see.’

  The building briefly trembled and all around me manifestations of my own dreams began to appear: the rotating figure of the cartwheeling girl, and charging about in a drunken fashion, Edward Trunk . Watching me from the nearest balcony: the sneering face of Jordan.

  I approached the cartwheeling girl and held out a hand to stop her from rotating further; at my touch, she came to an abrupt halt and stood bolt upright, facing away from me.

  I heard her softly murmur: ‘Can you cope with this calamity, Geoff?’

  Something affixed itself to my back... ‘What the..!’

  ‘Dream incursions,’ stated the stag beetle. ‘They’ll be particularly vivid until this structure fully dissolves. I can place a temporary stop on them but it won’t last long.’

  My dreams quickly evaporated; my back appeared to be clear. ‘Thanks!’

  ‘Don’t mention it, but once you’ve spoken to the general I’d suggest you exit the building and also depart from this mountain summit. Ah, here comes the general now.’

  The general strode up, accompanied by a several human troopers and large numbers of bugs that quickly fanned out to inspect the disintegrating castle.

  ‘Viscount, glad to see you made it through in one piece. How did it go in... Wow!’ The general and several of the other SWISH units gazed up towards the mighty antenna. ‘...Man, that thing’s big!’

  ‘It’ll be a bear shifting it, sir,’ declared one of his bug sidekicks.

  ‘We’ll manage.’ The general turned to me: ‘You did a mighty fine job, sir. You delivered, just as you promised.’ I received a hard pat on the back. ‘So, Viscount, how did you pull it off?’ He looked at me, expectantly.

  Having glanced at South’s file on my way down from the upper balconies I was able to give the general a quick summary: ‘It’s all in here, sir. In essence, we now have the antenna, and free of the anomaly, which will be re-housed in cyberspace. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘Sure I have, say, that’s quite a concession you gave away, Viscount.’

  I shrugged and nodded towards the antenna. ‘Don’t you think it’s worth it? Besides, if the anomaly causes us any trouble we can locate it and then deploy antivirus software, so it will need to stay low-key to survive; as long as it does that, then we agree to leave it alone.’

  ‘Hmm...’ The general flicked through the report. ‘I guess we can work with this, but if it tries anything–!’ He was interrupted by a human private who came running up to our position: ‘No sign of the dog, sir.’

  ‘Roger that.’ The general turned to me. ‘I bet he didn’t take this lying down!’

  ‘The Labrador?’ I remembered Brock’s parting expression, just before he vanished: a look of despair, maybe even betrayal. ‘No, sir, he wasn’t happy at all.’

  ‘Roger that.’ The general glanced again at the file. ‘Alright. I’m going to take this over to HQ with the recommendation that we go with it, but the final decision won’t be mine.’

  ‘Sure.’

  I watched and listened as a group of ladybirds discussed plans for the removal of the antenna. The nearest one punched figures into a palmtop. What should I do now? I wondered: could I stick around with these guys?

  ‘Well, general, if you’re returning to HQ, maybe I could tag along: see what other work there is.’

  The general laughed. ‘Hell, Viscount, you’ve done enough already. Time you took a break, don’t you think?’

  The prospect of a return to the hospital left me feeling panicked, I tried to think of something that would change the general’s mind but he clearly wanted me out of the way, asap: ‘Corporal, escort the Viscount off Lingmell and see him safely to the nearest dream.’

  ‘Sir!’

  I protested, but only half-heartedly; I somehow sensed that, despite my valued contribution here, SWISH still viewed me as an outsider, not to be wholly trusted, not to be taken too seriously. I was, after all, a mere ‘live’ human, a member of a grouping that simply represented the front facade of an altogether more complex, multifaceted, entity.

  I was marched off the mountaintop and into “the nearest dream”. This time, though, all I could do was dream it.

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