“Wait a minute.” I caught up with them both on the platform and gave them a quick outline of the news. At my request, 901 continued a real-time camera feed for me and I witnessed the events outside as ghostly images of black and white, a curtain across the upper half of my sight as my brain processed it and normal vision at the same time.
“Should we wait?” Peaches was asking, when we were approached by a pair of station officials.
The taller of the two showed us their security passes and spoke in a heavy local accent. “News of that trial has been leaked to the press. The nutters are already out in force. You've to come with us and get to your car before there's trouble.”
Damp, penetrating breezes cut along the platform as I watched a young girl at the front of the anti-AI section drag out the bulky shape of a house-processor unit from a box. As she and others set about it with hammers, there was a blurt of snow across the picture. Further down the street they were attacking the public-access terminals with crowbars. Through their fighting forms, Lula looked up at me, and back at the train.
“We could go back and find another way.”
The police seemed to be holding the front of the demonstration.
“No,” I said, “let's go. They probably won't recognize us anyway.” The officials were already halfway towards the ticket barrier.
We wrapped ourselves deeply into our coats as we went through into the concourse, like three criminals trying to avoid being identified by the public network. It was almost fun; almost, I thought, as I stumbled. It's hard to see two worlds at once and not trip over your own feet. Then my excitement vanished, along with the video feed and all the normal station sounds of announcements and music and advertising. At the same moment the lights went out and the concourse and all the shops were plunged into a grey twilight. Everybody stopped and froze into a fearful stillness.
Then someone said, “What's happening—is it a power cut?”
The two guards with us stood for a second or two, their mouths half open. It was Lula who grabbed Peaches and me by our sleeves and started to rush us towards the ugly glimmer of the doors to the street.
“Come on!”
It was strange, but I didn't immediately connect the loss of data and power with the demonstration, so I couldn't understand her sudden decision to plunge headlong into trouble. Demonstrations weren't uncommon, especially in situations like this one, but it was rare for them to express violence. Blackouts on the other hand just didn't happen. The systems for supplying electricity and data had a lot of redundancy in their design and they were controlled by AI slave servers, which would upgrade for full support at the first hint of trouble, so that even a small city like Manchester could get world-status assistance within seconds.
The stretching silence, the darkness, they weren't explicable by any normal means. I wondered if the system was under attack higher up, and tried to send a call, but the implant couldn't establish any kind of uplink. In fact my whole head felt empty of any kind of answer. I let Lula propel me all the way to the double doors, which didn't open, so that we almost walked straight into them.
There was a muted tinkling sound.
The doors burst into a brilliant flare of yellow light. Automatically we ducked and shielded our eyes, backing as fast as we could in our fancy mourning shoes, heels skidding on the smooth marble floor. Fire licked around the pavement outside as the incendiary gel ignited on contact with oxygen. As it burned it became liquid and streamed down the glass in molten rain. With a deafening bang the toughened panels shattered and sprayed outwards as the heat made them crack and their own high-tension tore them apart. Frozen, with my hands over my face, I glimpsed a policewoman down on the pavement. Her screaming was high-pitched, like a small animal, and there was a splatter of dark colour shining wetly around her.
Beyond the taxi line, the cordon suddenly strained with the pressure of bodies. The barriers were still functioning, making citations and arrests, but nobody was able to enforce their commands. All the police officers were stretched to their limit, trying to hold the demonstrators back from the station and each other.
“Now! Before the cars are all stranded!” Lula demanded. She renewed her hold on me. Peaches was up and in fighting mood. She had slung her bag over her shoulders and was wrapping her scarf around her head.
I followed them, with my gloved hands still over my face. We ran over the crisp, slippery shards of glass and it didn't give under our feet, so that as we ran we were constantly falling, the curved razors reaching up, jumping towards us. The gel fire had almost burned out already and there was no heat. As we made it to the pavement, a blast of bitter air enveloped us, full of the shouts and taunts of the crowd.
We had to pass the stricken officer. She was still screaming. Blood that was even bright in the half-light of day was spreading thickly around her, like hot toffee, steaming. I was looking at her, hesitating, thinking of stopping to do something—I didn't know what, except that I had to stop her making that terrible noise—when a small, quiet and alien voice spoke inside my head.
“If you don't get 901 off and secure it, then you're dead meat.”
For a second I saw the coloured logo of Machine Life. It was emblazoned across the woman's hunched body like a firebrand, and then it was gone and I was standing there, my hands by my sides, looking down at her in the gloom, alone.
There was a glass splinter about a foot long sticking out of her chest. Her hands were wrapped around it, loosely, because all the tendons had been cut in her first effort to pull it out and she couldn't grip any more.
She couldn't see me. I was grateful for that.
“Anjuli!” I felt someone hauling on my coat. I backed obediently and found myself being pushed into the soft interior of a taxi. A sound like hail pattered over it as the door was slammed shut and I saw bits and pieces of smashed microelectronics falling to the ground outside.
The woman was still screaming. I don't know where she got the strength.
Then the police barrier broke and a wave of angry faces, bared teeth, reaching hands, and swinging weapons came towards us. Someone got their hands to the far side door and Peaches was fighting to lock it and hold it closed. The car rocked.
The lights came on in the street.
For a fraction of time everyone looked up, stunned, and in the same instant the taxi in front and ours and several behind us accelerated through their narrow pickup channel and into the street, protestors and incoming medical crew both leaping out of their path or being barged aside to sprawl on the concrete.
As we merged into the ordinary traffic, our lights were green all the way.
“I'm sorry,” Nine said to me, left of centre. “I'm so sorry.”
I didn't say anything. I relayed my impressions of the strange voice and sat and waited for any information, all three of us quiet with a combination of shock and relief as the car bore us across the city towards the dank venue Roy had chosen for his funeral. It was suddenly obvious who was behind the blackout and their message to me was quite clear. The presence of the other demonstrators—those against AI—may have been a setup or maybe a genuine protest, hijacked like I had been. I didn't know or care. For the first time the whole stupid affair started to feel very real and at the same time it seemed to slide away from me, beyond control, so that I didn't want to even try to make the slightest move in case it brought evil attention on me.
Manchester in late September is blustery, with cool winds and rain showers and sudden bursts of sunlight. The sun was duelling with the clouds as Lula, Peaches, and I got out of our taxi at the cemetery gate. Wind snatched at the scarf over my head and wrapped around my neck, tugging fiercely. I peered through my dark glasses at the huddle of people gathered halfway up the hillside. There weren't very many of them, although I recognized most, some with surprise since I thought they must be dead by now, or lost in their drug-enhanced chip-spliced neuro-worlds—but there they were, a pale cluster of ghosts whose existence ought to have struck
spite and contempt into the heart of a corporate wage-chaser like me. I had to stop myself running over the sodden grass to meet them, arms wide with joy. On the other hand, if they had friends at that demo, maybe I should keep my distance.
As we got closer I saw that Augustine was already there and a rush of blood drained into my feet, leaving me feeling weak. Augustine and I had a long-term thing.
Like the others he had tucked his neck tortoiselike as far into the collar of his coat as he could manage: the grey wool Tsar with an astrakhan pillbox hat on his close-cut hair taking his height up to something like six feet. It's strange how sometimes you can long to see a person and then, when the moment has come, you realize that you don't want to because it isn't going to be the perfect reunion you were expecting, just you and them as usual, doing the things you usually do, saying what you usually say, with the great revelation unspoken and no finality to it. You'll part again and meet again in ordinary ways.
I felt like a stranger as I moved slowly in and stood beside him at the edge of the grave. Without looking at me, he took his hand from his pocket and put it into mine. I squeezed his fingers and risked a look at his face. Beneath its pale cocoa colouring he was withdrawn and thoughtful, but his smile was welcoming and I felt lifted.
Across the grave from us the ghouls ranged in clumps like sheep, their flocks firmly split by invisible and antagonistic lines of idealism. Lula and Peaches stood at the foot, backs to the wind, looking for anyone they knew. Peaches scowled as she recognized Maria coming over, heels stabbing the grass, leaning heavily on the arm of Richard Mori, the head of the nanoengineering unit. His expression was long-suffering.
From the other path leading up to the house of rest at the summit of the hill, Jane Croft walked down at the side of the cemetery's robot digger. It had a low carriage trailing it, with a long brown box on top. There were no flowers—as requested.
In my right pocket, my hand tightened on the flour jar.
Jane was thinner than I remembered her. Her pale hair was dragged back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and her clothes, although black, were rugged and functional: army-surplus combat trousers, fleece boots with rough treads, thinsulate anoraking, and microporous tuff gloves. She might have been going on a hiking expedition except for the haughty swagger of her slow descent towards us, eyes flicking across us all with dislike. I noticed her hands were clenched into fists. As she drew level with the grave and began to follow the robot across the grass, the carriage wheels bounced on a tussock and the cardboard coffin lurched and slid to one side.
She was there beside it in a moment, holding it steady, her face turned away from us to hide her expression. When the journey was finally over, she straightened slowly and, when she turned back, her face was like ice. She looked around us all (searching, I thought), and with each person she inventoried, her excoriating contempt visibly increased. One or two people took a step backwards. Most stared at their feet and the foreign reality of mud and grass, at the inch of water puddled below them in the dark slot of the grave.
Jane opened her jacket and pulled out a paper diary with a cheap black plastic cover.
Roy's diary. It had no markings but I would know it anywhere. Who else would write laboriously by hand on something so vulnerable?
Above us a cloud won its battle and the sky darkened. A few drops of rain fell and the wind thundered around the hill. The robot had manoeuvred itself ready. Roy's coffin was lifted by the machine's crane arm, and hung suspended over the earth. It swung lightly.
Jane opened the diary. “Roy wanted me to read this to you,” she said perfunctorily and began. “Dear friends.” The diary rattled its leaves eagerly in the wind. She pressed it open harder. “In this age of longevity and health I have no regrets except that of leaving our conversations unfinished. Everything else has gone to hell. We are all owned and used by companies that benefit nobody, great memetic constructs whose only purpose is to suck dry everything that comes into contact with them.” She stalled slightly, almost choking, but not with grief. “I once thought we would see our machine children find their own niche and go beyond us into the world, but that is not to be. Everywhere the machines are our slaves. Everywhere we are the slaves of ideas.” She got a grip and proceeded, deadpan. “We are all used. There is no escape but to refuse to participate. I have refused. Withdraw your labour, withdraw your minds from the struggle. You are all no more than pawns, yet you are also the directors of the game, the players, each one of you an atom in the mind of your champion and your opponent. The game has gone beyond you and as long as you live you are a part of the game. Save what you can. Help others escape. I escaped.”
“Gin and ham sandwiches will be served at the village hall now.”
Jane folded the diary shut and stuffed it back into her jacket. She stood at the head of the grave with her hands clasped in front of her, watching the robot lower the coffin. Water shone from the tough chrome of its fixings in near-perfect spheres—bulging blisters of other worlds, each the same, with the same group of cold people, the same recycled coffin, the same sky. The silent arm let slip the loops and drew them away. The coffin darkened as it soaked up the water.
Jane looked up and made eye contact with me. Her glance was assessive, curious. She turned her head back to observing the grave as the other mourners began to turn away and head into the sharp wind towards the road. Lula and Peaches passed close to our backs but did not stop.
“Are you coming?” Augustine said quietly.
“I want to see Jane,” I said. “I'll see you at the hall.”
He took his hand out of my pocket and set off.
Finally Jane and I were left alone. Drizzle started to come over the edge of the hill, horizontal in the stiff gusts. Jane leant back into it as it whipped her fine blonde hair free of its pins and lashed it against her face. We were about six feet apart. The robot wheeled itself to the pile of earth close by and started to prepare its shovel for filling the grave.
“Well, if you brought it, now's the time,” Jane said, tilting her head to look at me.
I stepped forwards and held out the jar of flour to her.
She hesitated, then shot out her arm and took it, gently, from me. Quickly she popped the seal and unscrewed the cap, squatting down in the churned earth beside the hole. Using her free hand as a support she leant as far down into the darkness as she could and upended the pot, scattering the contents over the coffin. It eddied up in clouds and caught in a mist on the robot's casing, turning the skin of every shining droplet opaque. The machine hefted its first spadeful of earth and let it drop into the gap. It fell with a heavy splattering sound. Jane capped the jar and stood back. She turned and must have seen the surprise on my face, because she smiled and offered me the empty container.
I took it. It was smeared with mud and grass.
“All done,” she said and turned to go.
“Wait a minute.” I struggled to catch her up. She had a deceptively long stride.
She waited for me and turned around again. I had to face into the rain to see her.
“What's that?” I asked, nodding back at the grave. “How did you know what it was for?”
She stood back in her boots and just looked at me. One hand lifted a box of lozenges from an outer pocket, and she put one in her mouth. Herb pastilles. After a second or two, not dropping eye contact for a moment, she held the box towards me and lifted her eyebrows.
I shook my head.
She smiled and sighed and formed a weary face. Her hand took the box back a little, held it out once more, open end almost horizontal. Inside the dark little oblongs tumbled towards me. I reached out and took one. It was just a lozenge. I put it in my mouth. It tasted sweet, and the eucalyptus vapour immediately sent a clearing wave of freshness through my sinuses.
Jane put the packet away. “I didn't know. About the jar—I just guessed.” She glanced at the grave where regular dumpings of wet slurry had almost covered the coffin. “I knew him.” He
r grey eyes narrowed. “Just like he knew you. Knew him better than he knew himself.”
“Me?”
She grinned with feral speed. “Funny who you choose to admire, isn't it?” And she turned away.
I caught up with her again. “He said you had a message for me.” I wasn't about to think on what she had just said because it was too weird and could wait. I was only frightened that she intended to vanish without giving me the chance to ask her.
“Oh, that,” she said, and from yet another pocket she took out a pair of nail clippers. She flicked the lever up into a working position and reached out for my hand. I was so nonplussed that I let her grab hold of my left index finger. There was a sharp snap and the sudden discomfort of tender flesh being bared to the world. I snatched my hand back. She had cropped the nail down to the bed.
“To protect the cut,” she said, “don't wait too long to read it.” She flicked the white strand of my nail, ground it into the trampled grass with her heel, and put the clippers back in her pocket. I watched her stride down the hill, and tucked my finger inside my fist.
The village hall smelled of damp and old curtains. A sagging trestle table was set out in the middle of a space the size of a badminton court, and laid with disposable cups and plates. There were two large mounds of white-bread sandwiches, each with a narrow pink filling of processed ham. Five bottles of gin and a plate of cut lemons completed the feast. When I arrived, it was hardly surprising to see only Roy's nutty cronies eating and drinking. If they had shared a kind of religion, then the sandwiches and gin would be the host all right. Roy lived on the things—when he was alive.
Jane was standing at the far end with some people who looked like they were relatives. People from work were clustered near the windows, looking out at the dismal sky and the grey, stone buildings of the village. I set off towards Augustine and Lula. I didn't make it.
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