by Geoff Ryman
He led her to a blue door. He nudged the long metal handle with his nose.
Mae was numbly grateful. 'Thank you.'
She pushed the door and stepped out into a full parking lot in blazing sunlight, full of burnished company buses and three limousines.
Ling followed.
There was a fence. It was high and made of crisscrossed metal, and was crowned all along the top with barbed wire.
Mae was dim and detached. She felt her root into Air. It was easier to do on drugs, for she was as a calm as if she were in Air.
'This is all a joke,' she said, and suddenly smiled.
It was true. The world was a joke. It was a story, twisted by gravity out of nothing. It was an accidental by-product of Air, of the eternity where Air was.
She could feel this eternity. She could take the story into her hands. She could feel the metal fence. The fence was mere fiction.
So she tore it.
Reaching into Air, Mae seized reality, as she herself had been seized, and very simply, very easily, Mae's mind ripped the metal of the fence apart. She giggled at how funny it was that everyone should take the fence so seriously. She tore the mesh like a strip of cloth.
'This season,' she said, 'Air-aware young ladies will wear the fences they have torn down as sign of their strength.'
The torn edges of the fence danced, as if in wind.
'Sing,' she told the fence, and started to chuckle. 'Why not?'
And the snapped, sharp edges of the torn wire began to tinkle, just as lunch had done. Anything was possible.
Wind blew the dust, the fence danced and sang, and Mae stepped out, into the desert, followed by a talking dog.
Beyond the fence was hot valley scrubland, full of bracken and thorns grown to Mae's height. The thorns and bracken parted and bowed before her. She walked barefoot through them. They rose up again behind her to shield her. She heard Ling's feet behind her in the dust. Overhead was sky, unchanging, clouds as they had been in the time of the Buddha.
'You're coming with me,' she said.
'Yes,' said Ling. 'It is my job to stay with you.'
'How will we get home?'
'I will follow you there.'
A lizard scuttled across their path into shadow and froze, watchful, its throat pumping.
'What do you see?' Mae asked him.
'Many corridors,' said the dog. 'No ceiling.'
'That is called the sky,' said Mae.
The dog paused and then was pumped with Info. 'Oh, yes,' he said. 'I see it is the sky now.'
They walked. Overhead hawks circled looking for desert mice.
'I want to hunt,' said Ling.
'No. Not yet. Later. You have a job,' said Mae.
Ahead of them were the mountains, soft and rounded in the nearer layers, then rising up, one after another, back into the hills, back to the sharply folded crags, the snow. Mae had a vague plan, to walk through the undeveloped plain around the town.
Already they were pushing their way through a hedge, into a dust track leading to the outskirts of a village. A handsome green mosque rose up above mud huts, and there was a smell of billy goat. Two women were making dungcakes. They turned leathery desert-plain faces to her, not quite believing what they saw.
A naked Chinese woman, they would later say, with a dog wearing a metal hat.
Mae pushed her way through another hedge, and walked across a field of straw.
'When do we eat?' Ling asked.
'I don't know,' said Mae. Something seemed to go pop in her head. Her thinking was clearing.
'Ling feels unloved if he is not fed, 'warned the computer on his head. 'He becomes anxious and unreliable.'
'There is a big juicy steak at home and a bowl of water,' promised Mae.
Water dripped from Ling's panting tongue. 'That sounds good,' he said. 'I can see the steak,' he said. 'I can smell it.' The computer was feeding him.
'Good dog. Good boy,' said Mae, feeling sorry for him – for being fooled, for being possessed. It made her feel they had things in common.
The city had spread beyond its old boundaries. Mae paused at the edge of a road. There was nothing for it but for Mae to keep walking. The streets were bright, broken. Traffic idled past her, heads turned. A woman shouted something about covering herself up, drunken woman.
The dog turned and growled, baring teeth in black jaws.
Why are they all so worried? wondered Mae. My shift is as long as my knees, and some of us are still so poor we wander barefoot. A teenage boy, all in sleeping-bag clothes stepped out, then stepped back into a small bookshop and called to his friends. A man helpless in a barber's chair stared at her as she passed, his face going slack and open.
'The world is so big,' said Ling. A man in old, stiff clothes and a peasant's cap dropped a bag of tools.
'These are all houses for people,' said Mae.
'Where does the world stop?' asked Ling.
The man began to follow.
'It never stops,' said Mae.
'Your… Your dog is talking,' said the man.
Ling thought he was being praised and turned back to sniff the man. He was a hard Karz villager with a face that looked as though someone had smashed it with a plank of wood, stubble-black chin merging with huge moustache. He backed away in alarm.
'They do it in the Air,' said Mae, explaining, wanting him to know it was nothing extraordinary. 'It is like a radio in his head and in his throat.'
The man began to shake his head over and over. He wiped away the world with his hand. 'I fix cars,' he said. He turned back. 'The dog understands?'
'I want to,' said Ling.
The man gazed into the dog's soft black eyes, as if he could fall into them and disappear. 'Tuh,' was all he said, the sound of his world changing, suddenly, for real. He picked up his bag of tools. Ling sniffed them experimentally. Dazed, the man scratched his head and turned away.
The boys from the bookshop stared.
Mae gave them a little wave and walked on.
The streets began to climb steeply.
'How far to the steak?' Ling asked.
'Oh, perfect boy, lovely fellow,' said Mae. 'It is a long way but we will talk.'
'What is the world like to you?' Ling asked her.
'Right now, I am drugged. So everything is very strange. Like it is for you.'
A woman came up to her and wordlessly pressed into Mae's hands a pair of plastic sandals. The plastic was clear and full of silver}' flakes that reflected and caught the sunlight. The woman's eyes were ringed with mascara, full of outrage and pity. She wore a purple jacket and Western-woman working boots.
'May I suggest a light mauve scarf with a such a strongly coloured jacket?' said Mae.
Mae, she told herself, your mind. Your mind is not working properly yet.
The woman's face did not change, but she walked away quickly.
Mae walked on in her silver shoes to where the road turned off, towards the sign for home, and she looked back over the city with its trees and light. Shadows were slightly longer, sunlight and shadow were balanced in the foul blue air. It looked cooler, golden, mauve. Rising up out of the light was the Great Saudi mosque, made of frosted crystal, dancing quotes from the Koran catching the sunlight to be illuminated from within.
A long bronze-reflecting limousine coasted to a halt beside her. A window slid open like the protective lens of a lizard's eye, and Mr Tunch leaned out.
Mae felt terror, only the terror could not fight its way to the surface of her face, her limbs, or down into the pit of her stomach.
I'm caught, she thought blandly.
'Hello, Mae,' said Wisdom Bronze. They both waited. He pushed open the door on the other side of the car. 'Let me drive you home.'
Mae could not move. Part of her wanted to cry. Her eyes tried to cry, but the drugs prevented it.
Ling looked back and forth, back and forth.
'Mae?' he pleaded for direction.
'Get in,' she said, in
a voice so soft only a dog could hear.
'He said we're going home,' said the dog. He climbed into the backseat, next to Mae's old best dress.
Mr Tunch was doing his own driving. 'I meant what I said, Mae.' His eyes were blanked out by glasses. 'There's something I want to explain.'
Something seemed to pop in Mae's head again. Something told her the walking had been good, it had made the drugs worse, but they'd be over with sooner. The thought meant she had not yet got into the car.
'Don't be silly, Mae, you are not important enough to me to hurt you.'
She got in the front seat.
'Me,' whimpered Ling, and, claws clattering, climbed onto Mae's lap. His feet dug in for something to grab.
'Ouch,' said Mae.
'Hold me,' said Ling, and she realized he was afraid. He ached for the window, where there were smells, the world he truly believed in.
Mae hoisted him around so that he sat on her lap comfortably.
'All in?' asked Tunch, as if they were a family on an outing.
The car went in the right direction.
'What will happen to you back home?' Tunch asked.
Mae considered. 'I will be an outcast. It will make helping the village very difficult, for they will not listen to me.' Pop, went her head, clearing again. She began to be aware of the light breeze of fear blowing through her.
'You won't take the drugs?' he asked.
Mae shook her head.
He had to change gear, glancing in the mirror at the future behind them. 'That is probably wise. It will leave you with a clearer head. But when you and Mrs Tung feel the same thing, she will emerge.'
'I can beat her off,' said Mae. 'Except when people interfere.'
'Sorry,' said Tunch.
Mae could have said a lot of things. Do you say 'Sorry' to the wives of men you kill? Or do you just threaten? How do you keep all your separate selves apart? I hope you manage to keep the small-time assassin separate from the man who wants to rule.
Pop.
Tunch went on: 'One of the side effects as the drug wears off will be a period of, uh, greater sensitivity. Someone needs to be with you.'
Pop. 'You know my address in Air. Will you be recording that, too?' Pop. 'And sell the information to the foreigners? Or have they already paid for anything you might find out?'
'It depends,' murmured Tunch, 'on the information.'
'Ling,' said Mae, 'he may try to kill you. Too many people have seen you, boy. And you are not supposed to exist. Do you understand me, boy?'
'Yes,' said the unreadable mechanical voice. Mae buried her face against his furry cheek, and the bare, shaved forehead.
'I'm sorry. I didn't understand. I should have left you in the compound. Watch him, Ling. He has masters, too, like you do. He has to be loyal to them or he does not eat. You and he are the same.
'I understand,' said Ling.
'Good boy, Ling,' said Tunch. 'Just be a good boy.'
'I always am,' said Ling.
Mae said, 'You will turn Karzistan into the garbage pail of the world.'
'Karzistan has to make a living,' he said.
The car drove on, grasses blurring by. What was close was lost in speed.
'You do not understand me, Mae,' said Tunch. I am slightly relying on the drug to help you accept what I will say. What I am about to say, is said using very carefully chosen words, used in a very precise way.'
'I'm ready,' said Mae.
'I am a hero,' said Tunch.
Ling's nose was pushed out of the window. 'This world smells different,' he said.
Mae was unimpressed. 'I am waiting for the precise meaning of the word,' said Mae.
'A hero mediates,' said Tunch. 'He brings together good and evil. He uses the tools of evil, may even be evil, to do something constructive. People need heroes. They yearn for them. That is because people who are not heroes think that heroes are good. And evil is done by people who think they are good. Good people do harm by being gentle and not stopping things. Good people fight wars out of love. They need heroes to break that cycle. To defend them, to build things.'
Black shadows danced inside Mae's eyes, and Mrs Tung tried to gather her thoughts.
'It is terrible, but it is the only way forward. Heroes are not like in stories, where they wear a mask of nobility. All heroes do evil, terrible things. Robin Hood was a thief and murderer. John Kennedy ordered invasions and wars. So did Lawrence, who fought like a wolf for the Arabs. Ataturk destroyed the mosques and killed the clergy. Wonderful, terrible people are both good and evil.'
The drug made it difficult for anyone to gather their thoughts. 'You are trying to tell me why you will never do me harm,' she said, 'now that you have learned from the harm you have already done me.'
'Exactly. You are too valuable. I want you home in your village. You know why?'
'Yes,' Mae said meekly. 'You think I am a hero, too.'
Tunch simply gave a thin, satisfied grin.
'How did you tear the fence?' he asked.
Mae told him. 'Air is real and we are not.'
Wisdom nodded once, something confirmed.
Mae told herself what she did not tell him. What they have done is make an artificial soul. You and your Format want to sell our souls back to us. You are about to find out that we have always had them.
They drove on, into the night.
Ling rode with his head out of the window.
Halfway up the hill the dog asked, 'Why are there stars? They don't smell.'
Tunch replied, 'They smell of heat, so fierce it burns away the ability to smell.'
'Are we getting closer to them?' said Ling, looking around.
'Not yet. Not for a good few many years,' said Tunch.
Mae suddenly understood that Tunch intended to stand on the stars, however many centuries it took.
Tunch asked the dog, 'Do you want to know how the universe began?'
'Oh. That would be good to know,' said the dog, looking around.
'Dreadful pride,' said Mae.
Tunch was very pleased with that, and grinned.
'When there is nothingness,' he said, 'gravity does not attract. It becomes repulsive. Ask what those words mean.'
Obediently the dog consulted Air, sweat dripping off his panting tongue. After a moment Ling said, 'Gravity pulls everything together. It makes us heavy so we stay on the ground. Otherwise we would float off to the stars.'
'Good,' said Tunch.
'So, my nose won't burn out.'
'No.'
The dog seemed to grin, panting.
Tunch continued: 'Before anything existed, gravity had nothing to do – except pull apart. It pulled, and nothingness stretched, like a rubber band, until it broke. When it broke there was a burst of light and heat. So energy was created, and out of energy, things were made.'
'So far so good,' said the dog.
'So with something there instead of nothing, gravity then became an attractive force. It pulled together. As the universe exploded, it also pulled and twisted things into shapes. Clouds of gas, then balls of gas, then stars.'
'Is gravity a hero, too?' asked the dog.
'Yes,' said Tunch, pleased.
'How?' asked Mae.
'We know that, mathematically, there must be eleven dimensions. Like height and width, except these other dimensions were not affected by the explosion at the beginning. They are still the same size, coiled at the heart of the universe. Where nothing really changes. Think of the point right at the centre of a wheel. The wheel turns, but the point does not.'
'What's a wheel?' asked Ling.
'We're riding on wheels. Access the mathematical definition of a point.'
'Okay, boss.'
'In those coiled dimensions, we know that the same equations that describe electromagnetism, describe gravity. In the timeless realms outside our universe, they are one. Now, ask again, what is thought?'
Ling had the answer ready. 'An electromagnetic phenomenon. Differences
in charges produced by chemical reactions.'
'Gravity is like thought. It has power over everything in this universe, but it is not in this universe. There is no gravity wave, no gravity particle. It exists outside time. It makes things. It loves things. It tears things apart.'
He let the car speak for a while, the roaring of its wheels on the rough surface, the hum of the engine.
'You know what we're going to do, people like you and me, Mae?' Again the disembodied grin, adrift from the sunglasses, lit from underneath now by the dash panel lights. 'We're going to prove God exists. We'll send it messages.'
Mae thought:
I am trapped in a car with a madman who happens to tell the truth. I am trapped in a car with someone driven so crazy by a big opinion of himself that he thinks he will live forever. He thinks he will shake God's hand by machines. The truly awful thing is that he might just do it.
Mae saw clearly that his system was so greedy it would eat anything. Anything she did or said – kick Mr Pakan, befriend Ling, argue with Tunch, or agree – would be wound into his Bronze madness, feed it.
The only thing she could do that would not help him would be to stay silent. Staying silent would prevent him from wanting to know anything more about her. If he felt there was more Info to be derived, he would imprison her again until he had it.
Mae pretended to go to sleep.
The car crackled to a halt over loose gravel.
Mae blinked around her. 'This is it,' she said. She petted Ling. 'Treat him well,' she told Mr Tunch. 'He has been promised steak.'
Ling looked up into her eyes. 'I want this box taken off my head,' he said. 'I want this voice taken out.'
Mae looked at Tunch. Would he?
'We can do that,' Mr Tunch said, and gave Ling's head a casual scratch.
Mae said curtly, 'Thank you for driving me.'
She got out, stepping out of the smell of luxury, leather, and polish. She smelled drains, the little river, and the mud.
'The future will be wonderful, Mae.' He passed her her best dress, covered in hearts.
She simply smiled and nodded, as enigmatically as possible.
'Work towards it,' he told her. And closed the door. Mae waited as the car turned. Ling's nose was pressed against the gap in the window.
