Cowl

by Neal Asher

  In a gust of scented warmth a woman in a towelling bathrobe opened the door and looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Hello, how can I help you?’ she asked.

  Another age—so much trust.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Jill … Jill Carlton. Why do you want to know?’

  Her married name obviously. She wore a wedding ring. Not any name he recognized from U-gov or from the Agency, so it was unlikely she was an ancestor to any of his masters. He might have had qualms if that were the case. He reached out and slashed her throat. Choking red onto white towelling, she staggered back and fell, her flailing arm pulling a telephone and a basket of dried flowers down on top of herself.

  ‘Jill?’

  Drawing his seeker gun, Tack stepped over her into the hallway, then to the right into the kitchen, where a man was just rising from the table, a newspaper open to the half-completed crossword. The husband caught a glimpse of his wife thrashing bloodily in the hall behind Tack, and for a moment could not comprehend what he was seeing.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he managed, before a brief thwack from the gun and the whine of a round, flung him back against a kitchen worktop, with a hole in his cheek. Then the round exploded inside him, blowing all his teeth, and half his head across the granite-effect kitchen surface. He was dead even before the blood stopped pumping from his wife’s open throat.

  Tack holstered the gun and pocketed his knife before looking around. Remembering how time-travel stories traditionally went, he moved to the newspaper and looked for the date: 1997. He was even further back than he had thought. He then moved to the sink and washed his hands, coldly observing his own reflection in the darkened window above it.

  ‘The energy required to short-jump here is immense, but I was allowed this alternate so I might see you—know you.’

  His gun immediately back in hand, Tack turned so fast that his twisting foot ripped up carpet tiles. He turned again, this way and that, still unable to locate the source of that calm androgynous voice.

  ‘I do know you now, Tack, and I have no qualms, none at all. The new Tack will be different. You end here.’

  A hand, bone-white, emerged out of the empty air over the kitchen sink. The hand clasped a gun that looked laughably small and ineffectual. There came a click, an infinitely bright light, and a brief indescribable agony. Tack burnt away. This Tack.

  AHEAD OF HIM AND to the right, Tack caught glimpses of artificial light through a thick hedgerow. Mud was clodded on his bare feet and between his toes, and spattered up his legs. It was also smeared up his front and on his face from when he had tripped over and thumped the ground like a child in a tantrum. Eventually reaching a gate in a thorn hedge, he stooped to pull up a handful of soaking grass to clean his feet, and found his eyes swimming with tears and his chest tightening with a surge of self-pity. Swearing at himself then, he stood up and vaulted the gate. On the other side was an asphalt lane and a little way along it the glow from the windows of a house. Scraping his karate-hardened feet against the macadam surface as he went, he … paused as a wave of something flowed up to him through the night, through and past. He drew his knife, clicked it open, and glared around. But disquiet remained as there now seemed an abnormality to his surroundings—strangely indefinable.

  A figure, tall and rangy, clad in a long coat, baggy trousers and pointed shoes, stepped out of the shadows to his right. The hands and face of this figure were bone-white, and its pale hair was tied back in a ponytail. The expression on its face held anger and contempt. Tack had only time for one breath before a fist like a bag of marbles slammed into his stomach. He went over, his knife clattering on the asphalt. He couldn’t get his breath back. He had never been hit so hard in his life.

  ‘That is for what you were going to do,’ said a horribly calm androgynous voice. ‘And this, and what is to come, is for all those things you have already done.’

  A foot—moving too fast for Tack to even think about blocking—slammed his testicles up into his groin. Throughout the systematic beating that followed, he heard a woman’s voice asking what was going on out there and a man’s voice telling the woman, Jill, to get back inside and that he would go and find out. And all the time Tack could not understand why he kept thinking: This is wrong; it does not happen this way.

  Those thoughts carried him into unconsciousness.

  THE TWO SOLDIERS DEFERRED to the boat’s captain, even though he wore no uniform that Polly could see. But then he was clad in a long waterproof coat and woollen hat and a uniform might be concealed underneath.

  ‘You all right, luv?’ asked the young ginger-haired soldier who had pulled her out of the sea, his concern not preventing him goggling at her. Drunk with fatigue, Polly glanced down at herself and saw that her soaked blouse was now utterly transparent, her nipples protruding as a result of the cold water, and that her skirt had ridden up to her waist, revealing knickers that had also been rendered transparent.

  ‘I’m cold,’ she said.

  The youth blushed and glanced at his companion, who had now moved closer to get a good look. Polly observed that this youth carried a machine gun, whereas the first had a rifle strapped across his back.

  A Sten gun and a Lee Enfield rifle—that’s definitely from Muse as I wouldn’t be able to identify a ‘bolt-action .303 rifle’ if one bit me on the arse.

  Ignoring Nandru’s commentary, Polly pulled her skirt back down and folded her arms across her all-too-noticeable breasts. She felt foolish doing this, considering her daily occupation, but suspected these two would not possess cash euros or chip cards. She was also experiencing a horrible cringing shame at what that occupation had been. This, she now realized, had been just one of the many reactions she had deadened with the drugs and alcohol. The two young soldiers were both now staring with puzzlement at her folded arms. Glancing down she realized what might have attracted their attention: the strange object had lost its spikes and sharp edges and was now completely moulded around her right forearm, from her wrist to just a few centimetres below her elbow. Lowering her arms, however, immediately gave them something else to concentrate on.

  Leaning out of the wheelhouse, the captain called to them. ‘Are you two just going to stand there ogling the young lady, or is one of you going to offer her a coat?’

  Both youths moved into action. The one with the Sten gun said, ‘Come on, let’s get you below … You can have my greatcoat.’

  The ginger-haired youth reached out to grip her biceps, then hesitated and turned the movement into a gesture for her to move ahead of him. On unsteady legs she preceded him to the hatch, and down splintered wooden steps into a hold heated by a small stove and thick with cigarette smoke. Without speaking, ginger hair moved past her to take a heavy army coat down from a wall hook. The machine-gun holder, following them, took up a piece of blanket from one of the cases that they had been using as seats down here, and passed it to her. Still shivering, Polly dried her arms and legs and tried to blot the rest of the moisture from her clothing, thoroughly aware of the silence of the two soldiers and how they could not keep their eyes off her. When she accepted the greatcoat, shrugged it on and moved closer to the stove, the spell broke.

  ‘They spotted you from one of the pillboxes. How did you end up in the sea?’ asked ginger hair.

  ‘Toby, get that bloody kettle on!’ came a yell from above, giving her time to try and think of a plausible answer. Toby, the ginger-haired one, moved over to where one crate being used as a small table was cluttered with cups, tea-making stuff, and two overflowing ashtrays. Taking up a large teapot, he emptied its remaining contents into a nearby bucket, which by the smell of it also served a less sanitary purpose. He then spooned in loose tea. The other soldier unhooked his Sten gun and sat down on one of the lower steps, propping the weapon against his knee. He took a pack of Woodbines from the top pocket of his army shirt, knocked out a cigarette and lit u
p.

  Not too bright: an oil stove and cigarettes down here. You’d think they’d be a bit more careful considering the load they’re carrying. But then I suppose you get blasé about that sort of thing after a while.

  Polly desperately wanted to ask what Nandru was on about. She studied the crates stacked everywhere and saw stamped on them ‘Corned Beer’, and in one case ‘Pilchards’. Over to one side were stacked hessian sacks, which she guessed contained potatoes.

  Over to your left.

  Polly glanced in that direction, wondering if Nandru was much closer to her thoughts than she would like, and observed a stack of metal cases roped down to hooks and partially concealed by a tarpaulin. On one of these she could see, stamped in white letters, the label ‘3.7 inch AA’, which meant nothing to her.

  That looks like a shitload of ammunition.

  ‘Well, what happened to you then?’ asked the one with the Sten gun, shaking out his match then grinding it underfoot.

  I’ve been thinking about this and there’s no easy story. Say you had a row with your boyfriend or something, and he tipped you out of his boat.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Polly asked the youth.

  ‘Dave,’ he replied, hoisting his Sten gun into a more comfortable position. ‘This is Toby, and the captain up there is Frank. What about you?’

  ‘Polly.’

  Dave continued staring at her, evidently still waiting for an answer to his previous question.

  Polly said, ‘Nandru … my boyfriend … he died and I was going to join him.’

  The kettle Toby had just filled from a jerrycan clanged down on the castiron surface of the stove. He was staring at her with his mouth open, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Gurkha?’ Dave asked. Polly thought it safe to affirm this.

  ‘He died fighting then, I take it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘I think he did.’

  Oh, very funny. Now they’ll ask you where and when I was killed, and we don’t even know the damned date.

  ‘Where’d he cop it then,’ asked Dave.

  ‘He was killed at … in the desert. They said he died doing his duty.’

  Dave stared at her for a moment. ‘He was with Monty?’

  Polly numbly nodded her head.

  Ah fuck, yes. Tell them I caught it at El Alamein.

  ‘Yes, at El Alamein,’ she added.

  ‘Yeah, well that Rommel was a tricky sod, but the bastards are on their last gasp now,’ said Dave. He gestured at the ceiling with his cigarette, and they all paused to listen to the distant gunfire. ‘Probably trying to hit Marconi again. That’s one they haven’t given up on,’ he finished.

  Polly did not know what to say to this. She had heard the name Marconi once but could not remember in connection with what. Dave observed her for a moment, then took out his cigarette packet and held it out to her. Polly stepped over to him and took one, then stooped low to light it from the match he struck and cupped for her. Drawing on it, she found it tasted of nothing but burning paper and gave her no satisfaction at all.

  ‘You were going to kill yourself?’ asked Toby, then got a warning look from Dave and flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘I was,’ said Polly, ‘but now I wonder if that might just be giving in to the fuckers.’

  Silence immediately followed and, glancing at the two youths, she realized they were shocked by her swearing. She moved to one of the crates and sat down. Drawing on her cigarette again, she got a bit more of a hit this time, and immediately sensed movement from the thing on her arm. She took another drag, ignoring it.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘If I told you that I’d have to shoot you,’ said Dave, in mock reproach.

  ‘OK,’ said Polly. Glancing over at Toby, now pouring boiling water into the teapot, she tried to remember the last time she had drunk any tea. Her mother used to make it and, ever since, the stuff had left a bad taste in her mouth.

  ‘No big secret,’ admitted Dave. ‘Cock-up on the supply front from Herne Bay to Knock John. So we’re running some stuff down from Goldhangar to keep ‘em going for a week or so. We all know something big is coming up.’

  ‘Knock John?’ Polly repeated, before she could stop herself.

  Toby said, ‘I always wanted to go out to them. I’ve never seen them.’

  ‘Not many people have,’ added Dave. Then, to Polly, ‘Knock John naval fort is where we’re heading. It’s one of the Maunsell sea forts.’

  Polly nodded as if she knew what he was talking about, and hoped Nandru would be able to fill her in. While she waited for his input, she sipped from the tin mug Toby handed her, and the memories became more painful than ever before.

  CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED UNGENTLY AND Tack found he could not move. Staring up at dusty beams, he at first thought the assailant had broken his neck. But it wasn’t the beating that had paralysed him. The familiar sensation of imperatives dissolving in his skull told him that he was connected, as did the raw pain at the back of his neck where his interface plug was located. It was apparent someone had done some home surgery, on this dusty floor he lay upon, to access the plug and connect him up. He was being reprogrammed, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Movement to his left, but he could not turn his head to look. Someone said something in a language he did not recognize, then went on with, ‘Ah, you took your time, but then I suppose that’s to be expected. You AD humans are soft and riddled with imprecise genes.’

  The face of the white-skinned man loomed above, his expression contemptuous.

  ‘You knew the fundamental laws of evolution and you ignored them. You bred strong diseases and weak humans, poisoned with a shitload of inherited idiot programming. You, Tack, have been doubly programmed. And your second program is about to be replaced.’

  The stranger liked to talk, that was evident. Tack listened as best he could, through the white noise in his brain, as imperatives were changed and new instructions melded into place.

  ‘Normally we would have nothing to do with your type, but this opportunity to grow a viable tor we cannot miss.’

  The man’s face hovered above Tack again for a moment, then went away. Tack was left with an impression of alienness, but one not easy for him to define.

  ‘The tor is the device you were sent to retrieve, in a future that does not exist as of here and now. The piece broken off in your wrist, given the right nutrients and conditions, can be encouraged to grow into an entire new tor. And that would be one of which Cowl has no knowledge. Perhaps through you we can get to him at last.’

  ‘Cowl?’ Tack managed, his voice grating dry in his throat.

  ‘Ah, Cowl.’ A hiss now came into the man’s tone. ‘Cowl is a step too far for a social species. He is the ultimate individual and, though I hate to admit it, the ultimate application of Darwin’s laws. He kills every threat to him and would destroy humanity to save himself. Your existence is threatened, just as much as mine.’

  Tack just didn’t get it—it was all too much. But he did recognize someone far beyond him in the arts of violence, and he wondered about his captor’s programming.

  ‘You may sit up now.’

  Tack did as instructed and found himself on the floor of a barn, in a space walled around with straw bales like huge bricks. Sunlight stabbed through holes in the shiplap wall and illuminated motes of dust in the air. Nearby was an old grey tractor steadily being iced with bird droppings. Tack looked first at his captor, then at the cable snaking from the back of his own neck to a strange-looking portable console propped on some rusting farm implement. The console appeared to have been fashioned from glass, in a suitable shape, then again melted and allowed to distort and sag before cooling. Turning aside, he noticed a ploughshare only inches from his right hand, but he found he could not act on his initial intention, which was to pick up the lump of iron and cleave that white face with it.

  ‘Pick up the console and stand.’

  Tack did precisely a
s instructed. His programming had changed and he resented it. He suddenly resented all such control: he wanted to be himself. Was this urge part of his new programming?

  ‘You may detach the cable now.’

  Tack obeyed, his fingers pulling the bloody optical plug free from the back of his neck. White-face took cable and console from him and placed them in a backpack. Returning, he reached around and pressed something against the wound in the back of Tack’s neck. Tack could feel the object moving as it occupied the cavity and sealed it shut. The other man then pointed to the backpack.

  ‘Pick that up and put it on.’

  Tack did as instructed.

  ‘Questions?’

  There had never been questions when dealing with his DO. Tack asked anyhow.

  ‘What do I call you?’

  ‘You call me Traveller. It is a title in our time, and you do not have my permission to use my given name.’

  Tack absorbed our time and wondered just when this man was from.

  ‘What do you want of me? I didn’t understand you before.’

  ‘It’s not really you we want, just what is embedded in your wrist.’

  Traveller pointed at Tack’s arm. Tack raised it and now saw that his wrist was enclosed in a transparent band filled with esoteric electronics and some sort of gelatinous fluid. Only just could he see the thing embedded in his wrist through all this—it lay at the centre of an array of golden connections almost like an integrated circuit.