by Rod Rees
“A Grade One Daemon?” asked Trixie.
Crowley’s forehead furrowed; he obviously disliked being interrupted in mid-sermon. “The Daemons who entered the Demi-Monde before were little more than malevolent imps. They destroyed bridges, they incited unrest, they gave encouragement to the enemies of the ForthRight, but when captured and questioned . . .”
Poor swine.
“ . . . they were found to be empty vessels. They knew little of the worlds that lie beyond the Mystical Integument; they knew nothing of the intentions of their dark masters. Most were unintelligent and bestial: lowly Grade Fives of no consequence. But now . . .” He paused dramatically. “The Daemon we have captured is different: it is fully cogent and aware. It is, we believe, privy to the deepest secrets of the Dark Daemons and to the ambitions of their Master, Loki, regarding the Demi-Monde.”
Crowley gestured toward Crockett that his glass should be replenished. Trixie was disgusted that he should be indulging so heavily so early in the evening. Obviously the man had a huge and overwhelming appetite for blood; perhaps that was why, although he was still relatively young, his flesh had started to soften and his complexion to blotch.
“Unfortunately our experiences in interrogating lesser-ranked Daemons are that should they be subject to coercion, they become dysfunctional; it is as though their minds switch off. That is why we have determined on this new policy in which you, Lady Trixiebell, will have such a key role.”
Trixie felt every eye in the room turn in her direction. She fidgeted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. “I am always ready to do whatever is necessary to help the ForthRight and to do the Leader’s will,” she said, mouthing the words her father had made her memorize.
“Excellent. But put your mind at rest on one thing, young lady: this Daemon, though duplicitous and conniving, is not physically threatening. It has manifested itself in the shape of a young woman and there is no record of a Daemon ever transmogrifying itself whilst in the Demi-Monde. There is no risk of you being confronted by a Daemon in its true and horrific guise.”
Well, that’s reassuring.
“But whilst there is no physical threat to your person, Lady Trixiebell, there is, I regret to say, a spiritual threat. The natural inclination of a Daemon confronted by a human is to try to corrupt their soul. Daemons are great deceivers. Make no mistake, Lady Trixiebell, this creature will attempt to fox you, to persuade you that it is not what it truly is. That is the one thing you must continually be on your guard against: feeling sorry for the Daemon. As you know, Lady Trixiebell, the aiding and abetting of a Daemon is one of the greatest of all sins against UnFunDaMentalism, so you must harden your heart against its trickery and its perfidy. You have been chosen, Lady Trixiebell, because you are a pragmatist, because you are, by inclination, a RaTionalist.”
Crowley held up his hand to still the gasp of protest that came from Trixie’s father. “Calm yourself, Comrade Commissar, it is not my intention to chastise Lady Trixiebell for her doubts. As I myself have noted, the Key of Joy is disobedience. It is the role of the young to be dubious of the teachings of their elders: the young are inclined to be impetuous.” He smiled at Trixie and she was amazed to see that Crowley’s canine teeth had been sharpened. The man, she decided, must be totally mad. “I am confident,” he continued, “that the proto-RaTionalist that is Lady Trixiebell Dashwood will emerge from her communion with a denizen of the Spirit World a changed woman, perhaps even as a candidate for the SisterHood.”
Over my dead body.
“But on a more practical note, it will be important for you, Lady Trixiebell, to record everything you discuss with the Daemon and to note down everything, no matter how trivial, the Daemon says. It is also vital that you adhere to all the security arrangements that Captain Dabrowski has put in place: it is imperative that the Daemon is not allowed to escape or to be rescued.”
“Rescued?” asked Dashwood.
“You should be under no illusion as to what a prize you will have living with you, Comrade Commissar Dashwood. This Daemon possesses the secrets of the world beyond ours, and so it is almost inevitable that other Daemons will seek to rescue it. And then, of course, there are the more prosaic temptations the Daemon presents to our fellow Demi-Mondians. The Daemon is possessed of blood and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Shaka’s Blood Brothers will attempt to abduct the Daemon in order to drain it.”
The thought of Dashwood Manor being assaulted by a Zulu HimPi made Trixie shudder. Maybe, she thought, the presence of Captain Dabrowski and his Checkya detachment wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“You have fifteen days. In fifteen days we will hold a reception, here in Dashwood Manor, to present the Daemon to Comrade Leader Heydrich and by then it is necessary that it is both docile and cooperative.” Crowley turned to Captain Dabrowski. “Now, Captain, I would be grateful if you would release the Daemon from the steamer parked outside. It is time Lady Trixiebell met her companion.”
Chapter 9
The Real World: June 12, 2018
Area of Tension #1, Population Density: The OutSet density of population of the Demi-Monde® is almost 70,000 persons per mile2, which comfortably exceeds the figure of 60,000 persons per mile2 believed by sociologists to be the maximum density sustainable in an urban milieu without the disintegration of discipline and the breakdown of law and order. As a consequence it is confidently predicted that post-OutSet the AntiSocial Behavior Quotient (ABQ) registered in the Demi-Monde will accelerate, leading to social unrest, to violent disorder on a mass scale and, ultimately and inevitably, to the outbreak of inter- and intra-Sectorial war.
—THE DEMI-MONDE® PRODUCT DESCRIPTION MANUAL, JUNE 14, 2013
You want me to go to hell?”
“Perhaps that’s a somewhat melodramatic way of putting it,” admitted the general, “but in essence the answer is yes. We want you to enter hell. We want you to enter the Demi-Monde.”
“Enter?”
“We want you to become a Dupe in the Demi-Monde.”
Ella guffawed. “Look, General, I don’t wanna rain on your parade but you and the captain have just finished telling me how the Demi-Monde is mean as cat shit and twice as nasty, and now you’re offering me the chance to mix and mingle. Pardon me if I give a big no to that offer.”
“There is just one more . . . wrinkle I should explain before we discuss how we see you being able to help us, Miss Thomas.”
The guy must be hard of hearing.
“As Captain Sanderson has explained, the design team led by Professor Bole was charged with raising the inter-Sectorial disharmonics evident in the Demi-Monde such that at least two Sectors would always be at war. Therefore it was felt necessary to promote intense competition between the Sectors, to have them vie for possession of a scarce commodity that they were desperate to possess. In the Real World this might be the control of oil deposits or water resources but the professor here was more mischievous in his choice of commodity: he chose blood.”
“Blood?” Ella asked, nervously wondering where this question would lead.
“We programmed the Dupes that inhabit the Demi-Monde so that they had a craving for blood,” the professor explained. “We made it so blood to the Demi-Mondian is like heroin to an addict, the only difference being that they can’t go cold turkey. Without blood they die in a fortnight.”
Ella stared at the professor wide-eyed in disbelief. “Are you saying that everybody in the Demi-Monde is a vampire?”
The professor gave a disdainful laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. Vampires indeed! There is nary an extended canine nor an aversion to daylight in the whole of the Demi-Monde. No, better to say that Demi-Mondians have a requirement for a dietary intake of at least ten milliliters of blood each week. Most of them take it mixed with alcohol, which they call Solution because it provides, literally, a ‘solution’ to all their cares and worries.”
“But where do they get the blood from?”
“Oh, that was very simple
to organize. There are a number of Blood Banks in the Demi-Monde and each week the Demi-Mondians are credited with twenty milliliters of blood. What they don’t consume they can save, trade or convert into cash.”
“I don’t understand, Professor,” protested Ella. “If they only need ten milliliters and they are being credited with twenty, how can blood be one of your disharmonics? There’s an oversupply of the stuff.”
“Ten milliliters is the absolute minimum a Demi-Mondian needs to survive; they crave much, much more. They can survive on ten milliliters a week but they don’t find it much fun.”
Ella eyed the professor carefully. “I hate to be obtuse, but so what?”
“Unfortunately there was a programming error.” The professor ignored the glare this admission provoked from the general. “Whilst the Dupes inhabiting the Demi-Monde crave blood, they don’t actually have any blood . . . not in their bodies, anyway. But whereas the Demi-Mondians are bloodless, ABBA programmed those visiting the Demi-Monde—the general’s neoFights—to have their full quota of five liters of virtual blood . . . blood that on the Demi-Monde black market is worth a fortune.”
“Ah . . .”
“Ah, indeed. The Demi-Mondians took to hunting down our soldiers—or Daemons as they call them—capturing them, strapping them to a drip and then milking them of enough blood to keep them docile but not enough to kill them. Their human POWs became not so much milchcows as blutcows.”
“Jesus, that’s horrible.”
The professor nodded. “Unfortunately it was not as awful as the realization that if we unhooked the POWs from their connection to the Demi-Monde without them having ‘returned,’ so to speak, they would be left here in the Real World as vegetables. Remember that for our neoFights the Demi-Monde is the only reality: they are completely unaware of the existence of the Real World. The last thing we wanted was a grunt getting drunk in the Demi-Monde and spilling the beans to any locals in earshot that they were only a piece of digital mapping. That sort of snafu wouldn’t be helpful to maintaining the integrity of the simulation.”
“We have tried to amend this by giving neoFight officers some partial recall—”
“Protocol Fifty-seven,” interjected the professor, but the general ignored him.
“—but as this is a facility available only to officers we won’t burden you with it. Suffice it to say that for those unfortunate neoFights captive in the Demi-Monde, to bring them out prematurely would mean that though their bodies would be with us, their minds would be lost in cyberspace. They have become, in the parlance of the Demi-Monde, the Kept.”
“Let me get this straight. You sent men into the Demi-Monde and they were captured by Dupes?”
The general didn’t look happy. “I know it sounds a little far-fetched, and believe me we have made efforts to remedy the situation, but the simple answer to your question, Miss Thomas, is . . . yes.”
“But didn’t you try to rescue them?”
The general sighed. “Yes, we did but the Dupe leaders were too quick for us. All the Sectors closed the access ports—the Portals—that lead to and from the Real World. As a result of this debacle we now have seventeen of our men trapped in the professor’s little simulation.”
Ella shook her head. “Look, I don’t wish to seem brutal, but this Demi-Monde of yours sounds like a most trippy place. Why don’t you just cut bait and close it down?”
“Well, apart from the fact that it would cost the lives of seventeen good men, there is another consideration. Somehow, Norma Williams, the daughter of the president, has become lost in the Demi-Monde.”
Ella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Norma Williams? Just what the fuck were you doing letting Norma Williams into this hellhole?”
The general nodded toward Professor Bole for an explanation. At least the professor had the good grace to look awkward. “As I have said, the Demi-Monde is a self-governing and self-supporting cyber-environment. It is also self-protecting. The leaders in the Demi-Monde—crazed and paranoid as they are—concluded, correctly as it happens, that we in the Real World were a threat to them and so they moved to abduct someone we would be unable to sacrifice: the president’s daughter.”
“But how did they do that?”
“We don’t know,” admitted the professor. “We believe the abduction was organized by Aleister Crowley but how he did it, we just don’t know. What we do know is that Norma Williams is active inside the simulation.”
“Well, send in another rescue squad.”
“As I have told you,” intoned the general gloomily, “the Demi-Mondians have closed all access Portals: we can’t get anybody in. Fortunately there is still one exit Portal working but that’s in the middle of NoirVille Sector and NoirVille is a very dangerous place.”
“So, if there is no way into the Demi-Monde, why are we sitting here talking? You’re screwed.”
The general and the professor exchanged looks.
“Not entirely screwed, Miss Thomas,” answered the general. “It would seem that Professor Bole here is of a whimsical turn of mind. In the early days of designing the Demi-Monde he persuaded one of his designers to create a Dupe jig that was never utilized. It was to serve, in the argot of the computer world, as a ‘back door’ into the Demi-Monde.” The screen on the side wall changed to show the picture of an alleyway. “This is an alley in the Rookeries, the Anglo-Saxon Sector of the Demi-Monde.” The scene shifted, the view focusing on a doorway at the end of the alley illuminated by a red gas lamp.
“Gaslights?” queried Ella. “Why are they using gaslights?”
“We locked the Demi-Monde’s technology at that which existed around the year eighteen seventy. The U.S. military insisted that the simulation display a fairly primitive technological modality, such as would be available to belligerents in Real World Asymmetric Wars. So it was agreed that the technology in the Demi-Monde be held at a Victorian-era level. That’s why they’re still using gaslights: they haven’t yet figured out how to harness electricity.”
Yeah, right.
As the camera zoomed in on the doorway, Ella saw the sign over the door, which read “The Prancing Pig.”
“The Prancing Pig is a pub in the slum area of the London docklands,” advised the professor. “A horrible pub in a horrible place.”
The zooming didn’t stop there; it kept going until it had tightly focused on a handwritten notice—rain-stained and tatty—nailed to the pub’s door. The notice said:
THE PRANCING PIG PUB
WANTED
CHIRP
MUST BE YOUNG, SINGLE AND WILLING
TO MINGLE
ONLY SHADE FRAILS NEED APPLY
AUDITIONS EVERY SUNDAY
SPEAK TO BURLESQUE BANDSTAND
“A ‘chirp’ is—” began the professor.
“I know what a chirp is. A chirp is a female jazz singer.” Ella shook her head. “Oh, you must be joking.”
“I should explain,” said the general evenly. “When the Demi-Monde was originally being populated, the good professor here thought it would be a great joke to advertise for a thing that could never be: to wit, a black jazz singer performing in a rabidly white Sector. And he created a Dupe to match.”
Once again the general nodded to the captain and once again the screen shifted, this time showing the picture of a Dupe. The girl shown was tall, had tawny black skin, was slim, big-eyed and—ignoring the Victorian-style gown and bonnet the Dupe was wearing—looked a lot like Ella. It was almost as though ABBA had been expecting her.
“You must be out of your tree. I ain’t going anywhere near your Demi-Monde or Reinhard I’m-a-Motherfucking-Racist Heydrich and that’s final.”
The general ignored Ella’s protest. “We desperately need someone who is capable of posing as a jazz singer to go into the Demi-Monde, to rescue Norma Williams and to bring her out safely. As I think you might appreciate, we’re under a lot of pressure from the president to save his daughter.”
“You’re assu
ming I’m willing to go, which believe me I ain’t. You’ve got the wrong girl, General. Let me sum up the offer you’re making me: I get to be jacked up to some über-computer and sent to a truly fucked-up war zone populated by vampires and run by a bunch of most undeluxe and undelightful psychopaths who hate—sorry, HATE—black cats like me. And once I’m in there all I’ve got to do is track down the president’s daughter, rescue her and somehow find my way home. And if I foul up I get to spend the rest of my life plugged into a blood-sucking machine playing Brenda Blood Donor.” Ella mimed being deep in thought. “Nah . . . I think I’ll pass.”
“You must go, Miss Thomas! You are the only person available who fits all the selection criteria: you are a perfect physical match for the dormant Dupe; you are intelligent; you are healthy enough to endure the rigors of the Demi-Monde; and you are, according to the captain, a talented jazz singer. You are ideal. You must go!”
“Well, ideal or not, I ain’t going. You think I’m gonna let you drop me into the middle of Racism de Ville? Once those bastards spot my black ass I’m gonna have the life expectancy of a fruit fly. How do they dress in this ForthRight of yours, white robes and pointy hats? Do they have funny names like Mr. Ku and Mrs. Klux?”
“This is a most unhelpful attitude, Miss Thomas.”
“Well, General, it might be unhelpful, but I’ve got a shrewd idea that it’s a much more healthy one.”
“I would remind you, Miss Thomas, that your life is currently a piece of shit.”
