by Ian McDonald
Everness lay over White Hart Lane like a compass needle, her prow pointed north, her tail south. To the south, behind her, lay Leyton and, beyond that, the Isle of Dogs. In Everett's world, the Isle of Dogs was a city in its own right, complete with towers and conference centers and business parks. He had flown through them with Sen. That was Everett's world.
In this world, the Isle of Dogs was dominated by a towering spire, black as oil. Everett had seen pictures of the great Burj Khalifa in Dubai, his world's tallest building. This thing—more a spike than a tower—was five, six times the height of the Burj Khalifa. It was hard to tell exactly how tall it was; it dwindled to a fine, sharp point. It was like a knife thrust out of the heart of dockland. It stabbed the sky. On maximum resolution, its surface seemed to move and catch the light like flowing liquid. A dark halo surrounded it. Everything about it was wrong: its height, its sharpness, its geometry. Everett knew—everyone on the bridge knew instantly and by instinct—that this thing rising out of the dark heart of Docklands was the cause of this abandoned London.
“Bring us about, Sen.”
Sen turned Everness slowly on her center of gravity.
“Mr. Mchynlyth, break out the drone.”
The camera lifted away from the abandoned doll. Sen took the drone up quick and fast, speeding over the weed-choked chimneys of desolate Hackney Downs and dead Dalston. My home is down there, Everett thought. There are shrubs growing out of the gutters and pigeons nesting in the attic and all the windows are smashed and the carpets are soaked with rain. He remembered how horrible his real home had looked that time he had come back from meeting with Colette Harte and found the door broken down, everything trashed. He knew now who had done it, and he knew what she had been looking for.
The drone flew on, homing in on the dark spire. Now Everett began to see the little differences hidden by the huge differences that made this world utterly unlike his own. Those car skeletons: they were sleek and low and streamlined, like cars from futuristic science fiction movies. Where were the power lines, the phone lines, the cell-phone towers? The closer the drone came to Docklands, the more frequently modern architecture appeared among the older buildings. The buildings were shaped like clouds, or those strange, transparent creatures from the bottom of the sea, or flowers and seeds spun from spider webs and glass. They were no less abandoned than the old buildings of brick and concrete and steel, their glass walls fallen in so that all that remained were beautiful skeletons. Everett could see beneath the ruin that this had been a hi-tech world far in advance of his own. And something had destroyed it.
“Where did all the people go?” Sen asked.
The drone came in low over the old wharves and docks of the Isle of Dogs. There were no buildings, no roads, no conference centers or hotels or restaurants or water-sports clubs. Every exposed surface was covered with what looked like an oily black lava flow, tongues and ridges and fans of something dark and half liquid. Like lava, it was in motion. The flows and tongues oozed and spread, melting into each other, forming new, short-lived shapes and patterns that existed for a moment before collapsing back into the darkness. Bubbles, spines, cubes, delicate three-dimensional fans and paisley patterns, whirlpools and spirals and things that looked like flowers or turning gears or miniature cities. Sen took the drone close; the camera zoomed in. Everett saw that the surface of the blackness boiled with movement, that the patterns that emerged and submerged were made up of smaller, similar patterns, that the whole buzzed like a swarm of insects. Minute insect motion, patterns made up of similar smaller patterns. These were fractals, like the ones produced by the Mandelbrot Set that had given him nightmares of falling forever through endless mathematics.
He thought he had been afraid before. Now he knew real fear.
Sen took the drone up and away. She flew straight for the dark tower. Now the dark, smoggy halo that surrounded the spire came into focus. Birds. They were black birds. But birds that crashed into each other and merged and split apart into two birds again or a dozen smaller birds, or the birds would merge into one great flying thing that did not look so very much like a bird at all. Birds with more than two wings, or birds with whirring helicopter fans in place of wings. Birds that did things no bird could. They flocked like starlings around the drone, dashing and swooping around it as Sen carefully took it in.
The surface of the spire came into focus. Faces. It was made up of human faces. Faces embedded in the black, buzzing substance of the spire. Faces of men and women, old and young, children, babies, millions of them. Their faces were contorted, their mouths opened wide in a never-ending scream. The drone's microphones were small and basic, but they were sharp enough to allow that vast scream, made of millions of voices, to fill Everness's bridge. It blasted into every soul. Everett knew he would never hear anything worse than that.
“That's where all the people went,” he said.
Captain Anastasia strode to Sharkey's communications desk and cut the transmission. The silence was like an ache ending, but Everett knew that part of him would never stop hearing that endless howl that projected out over this dead London.
“‘But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,’” Sharkey said. His voice was low and soft and full of the fear of God, or something worse that God.
“Miss Sixsmyth, recall the drone and power up the impellers,” Captain Anastasia said. “I want us out of this dreadful place.”
He woke with a shiver and a cry. Fire dreams, missile dreams, laser dreams. Graves exploding, firing flaming bones into the air. Angels falling on blazing wings. Burning trees.
This was no dream. This was remembering.
“Everett?” A knock on the door. That was what had awakened him, the knock, the name.
“In a minute.” Everett M tried to unscramble dream from memory. A fight. There had been a fight, in a graveyard. There was dirt under his fingernails, graveyard dirt. Among the tombstones and the trees and the weeping Victorian angels he had battled his enemy, his alter. Everett Singh. It all came to him in a rush. They'd escaped, done some smart trick with the Heisenberg Gate they'd stolen. God, it was cold. Had the heating broken? Everett M put his hand on the radiator and pulled it away with a yelp. It was on full. Cold and starving. So, so starving. He had gone through an entire box of cereal when he'd come home after the battle of Abney Park but it hadn't even begun to fill him. And the shower, to get rid of the dirt and the smoke, the leaf litter and the blood from flying stone chips that had grazed him, hadn't even begun to touch the core of ice at his heart.
The door creaked open. Laura's head peeked in.
“Everett! Someone to see you.”
“If it's Ryun, tell him I'll see him later.”
“It's not Ryun.”
“Look, I don't want to see those two cops this time of the morning. Either they believe me or they don't.”
“It's not the police. Are you going to get up? She's been here for twenty minutes.”
She. Everett M dived out of bed, scrabbled for jogging pants, a T-shirt that didn't smell, and flip-flops. He was running his fingers through his hair as he went through the living room door.
Charlotte Villiers was sitting in Tejendra's chair. Laura Braiden glared at her. Charlotte Villiers ignored the dark looks. She was dressed elegantly, with lace gloves and a small hat. She had put up her customary veil. Her legs were crossed at the ankles. Her handbag was neatly aligned with her red high-heeled shoes.
“There's a Bosnian saying that if you put your handbag on the ground you'll never have any money,” Everett M said. He'd gotten the saying from his friend and classmate, Alia Vedic. Alia's Dad had escaped from the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, settled in Stoke Newington's Yugoslav refugee population, married, had two daughters, and then Alia, one of Everett M's best friends at Bourne Green school. That was what had happened in Everett M's world. In this world, Alia had walked past Everett M on his first lunch break in the E10 v
ersion of Bourne Green. Alia hadn't even glanced at Everett M. Charlotte Villiers smiled, but the bag remained where it was.
“I'd like a cup of tea, Mrs. Singh. The day's not begun without one, don't you think?”
“Braiden. Mrs. Braiden,” Laura said.
“Darjeeling,” Charlotte Villiers said to the closing door. She smiled at Everett M. “That was an impressive mess you made of Abney Park Cemetery. Fortunately, since the riots it's easy to blame such things on disaffected local youth. Disappointed, Everett. Very disappointed.” She bent down to take her compact from her little bag. She snapped it open and surveyed the state of her make-up. She seemed satisfied.
“Oh, sit down. You're not in school.” Charlotte Villiers shut the compact with a loud clack and put it away. Everett M had not noticed that he was still standing. He sat down on the edge of the sofa. It was impossible to be comfortable in Charlotte Villiers's presence.
“Who did you tell her you were?”
“Social Services.”
“Social Services don't dress like that.”
“They ought to. That's the general problem with this grubby little world. No class. You let him get away, Everett. The Infundibulum has eluded us.”
“He opened a Heisenberg Gate. He was out of there like a rat up a drainpipe.”
“We know. We tried to inject a team through the quantum echo. Twenty seconds sooner, we would have had them on the bridge on their own airship.”
Everett M remembered the viral video, passed around phone to phone, of the airship floating over White Park Lane.
“Are they still here?”
“Of course not. They jumped off this world immediately.”
“Where did they go? You said you could follow their trace.”
“E1.”
In the upholstered, centrally heated living room of 43 Roding Road, Everett M felt a shock run out from the center of his spine. E1: ghost world, hell planet, place of demons and monsters. Banned. Quarantined completely and for all time. The only things that came off E1 were rumors and urban legends. Everyone knew the stories. No one knew the truth.
“But—”
“Must you question everything I say? Do you think our interdictions mean anything to these criminals? They can go anywhere they want. Your alter is clever. Very clever.”
Everett felt his jaw tighten, his teeth clench. Yes, tell me again that I'm the dumb one, the useless one.
“He has the jumpgun—my jumpgun, and he's worked out where I got it from,” Charlotte Villiers said.
“You've been to E1?”
Now Charlotte Villiers tightened her jaw in annoyance. I can get to you, Everett M thought. Good. I'll keep needling you with those so-so-dumb questions.
“It came into my possession,” Charlotte Villiers said. “We have a mission for you. It will be difficult and it will be dangerous but, frankly Everett, you have much to prove.”
Everett felt his stomach tighten in dread.
“You're sending me to E1.”
“Yes.”
“To E1.”
“Yes.”
“To hordes of insane killer nanobot assassins.”
“Everett, whatever urban legends the over-fertile imaginations of Fifth Formers send wafting through the corridors of Bourne Green School, I assure you, they're very far from the truth. It is all arranged. I will be temporarily taking you into care—for observation. We're not convinced you've recovered from your trauma. It will only be for a day or two. Our story will be quite convincing. I have all the proper documentation.”
“Who are you?” Everett M asked. “You're not the Plenitude.”
The living room door opened. Laura entered with a mug of tea in one hand and a plate of toast in the other.
“No Darjeeling, Charlotte.”
“Ms. Villiers.”
“I hope Earl Grey's okay.”
The corner of Charlotte Villiers's mouth gave a tiny twitch of displeasure at the sight of the Tottenham Hotspur mug.
“Would you like some toast, or maybe some cereal?”
Charlotte Villiers looked at the plate as if she had been offered toast spread with dog turd.
“I find the idea of eating in the morning nauseating,” she said. “Thank you, Mrs. Braiden.”
“Are you all right, Everett?” Laura asked from the open door, with the plate of toast in her hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Braiden,” Charlotte Villiers said again.
“I'm okay,” Everett M said. “Mum.” The word was not so hard this time. “Really. Can I have that toast?” Hunger was gnawing him. Laura set the plate on the arm of the sofa and closed the door. Charlotte Villiers set the tea mug on the coffee table and waited before answering Everett M's question.
“I assure you, I am the Plenitude, Everett. I am Plenipotentiary from E3 to this world.”
“What you did…” Those words were still difficult. Everett hated the thought that his body had been taken and used and engineered to other people's wills without his consent, without him even knowing. “What happened to me, did the Plenitude order this?”
Charlotte Villiers sighed. “There are many worlds, Everett, but politics is the same everywhere. We have theories, philosophies, schools of thought, and opinions, and they naturally form groupings—not quite political parties, more like shared interests—and goals. Think of them as clubs—societies, orders. I, and my alter, Charles, are both members of one particular order, along with many others, on all the known worlds. We are even beginning to attract members on this world, even though it is still not yet an official member of the Plenitude. Therefore, their membership, and my activities beyond my official duties, as well as your presence and purpose here, are subject to a degree of secrecy. It's regrettable but necessary. Our concern is the ultimate security of the Plenitude and seventy billion human lives.”
“Your alter said there are forces beyond the Known Worlds that make even the Thryn look puny.”
“Yes. We have evidence of other entities in the Panoply that, if they had access to the Infundibulum, could endanger our survival as a species. But you must understand the seriousness of our mission: I am a mathematician, Everett. Does that surprise you? I am a Maestra of Ars Mathematikal and Algorithmikal from Cabot College, Cambridge. I have a set of Schinken-space multidimensional algebraic groups named after me: the Villiers Set. Your alter would understand. Thus, I achieved mathematical immortality. But I lacked the single-mindedness to become one of the true gods of mathematics. Perhaps it requires a particularly male mindset, perhaps I simply desire more from a life than chasing dusty theorems down long corridors of abstraction to the end of my days. You may mistrust me in my role as a servant of the Plenitude, but as a scientist, believe me when I say that opening up the Panoply of All Worlds is the least of what the Infundibulum can do. The very least. The threat is to reality itself.”
The toast did not look so appealing to Everett M now.
“I don't know what to believe,” Everett M said.
Charlotte Villiers smiled. Everett M thought he had felt cold before, when the lasers sucked all the energy out of him. It was nothing to the absolute zero of Charlotte Villiers's smile.
“Then we're getting somewhere. We are right, and we are good. You'll come to see that. So, if our methods seem harsh now, it's only because we know that, in time, you will come to see that we are right, and work with us for the love of that.” She glanced at an elegant, jewelled watch, ignoring the time that pulsed on channel display on the flat-screen television. “Your mission, Everett M. We asked too much of you. You are, after all, very young and inexperienced. But we're giving you a chance to redeem yourself. We need you to plant a tracking device. Every time your alter makes a Heisenberg jump, he leaves an imprint in the universal quantum field. We can find where he goes, but not where he goes after the jump. Airships are just such versatile devices. You will jump back to E4, where Charles will equip you with a tracking device. It utilizes the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. Through it
we will be able to locate your alter on any world in the Panoply he cares to jump to. All you need to do is affix it to the hull of the airship. You won't come into contact with your alter, isn't that a relief? My alter will also fit you with some new equipment from Madam Moon. To go to E1, you'll require some…augmentation.” Charlotte Villiers slipped her bag onto her arm and stood up. She pulled down her veil, glanced in the mirror over the mantelpiece to adjust the set of her hat. “The police will pick you up here at five o'clock sharp. They'll ensure your mother isn't worried. You will be returned as soon as the mission is complete. Please thank your mother for her hospitality, and maybe suggest that she buy some Darjeeling. Good morning. Do not fail us again, Everett.”
He woke, bolt upright, instantly awake. Gasping, staring. What, where? A glance at his surroundings did little to ease his disorientation. He was in his own hammock, swinging gently in his tiny latty as the wind moved Everness at her mooring, but something wasn't right. A scream. He'd been awakened by a sound that had started as low whimpering before erupting into a full-throated shriek of fear and horror. For a moment Everett thought it had come from his own throat. No, he could hear breathless, fearful panting. It came from the latty next to his. Everett pulled on warm layers and went to rap a knuckle on the door.
“Sen.”
“What?”
“Are you all right?’
“Go way.”
“You're awake.”
“I's all right”
“I thought I heard—”
“I said, I's all right.”
Everett stood, forehead pressed against the nanocarbon. He felt the door being unbolted.
