War in Heaven

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘Ogham came to me,’ he started. Pagan had once told me that Ogham was the Celtic patron god of writing and brewing. Pagan identified with him as someone who wrote code. ‘He told me that Jakob had to be given to Demiurge.’

  ‘Why?’ I demanded.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you fucking did it anyway?!’ I shouted. I felt like apologising to Salem for my swearing.

  ‘Let him answer,’ Morag told me coldly.

  ‘It had something to do with Pais Badarn Beisrydd.’

  ‘Oh this is bollocks,’ I spat.

  ‘No, no, it’s really not,’ Tailgunner said. ‘Miru’s eel net.’

  Pagan was nodding.

  ‘We’re not just having visions now. We’re not just seeing things on the net that are very real to us despite a total lack of evidence,’ Salem said. ‘Now we’re being given artefacts, programs, pieces of code way in advance of what we can do, maybe as much as four or five generations ahead. Better than the best corp and military stuff. I saw a djinn in the net. She told me to come to you.’

  ‘A djinn?’ Pagan asked. ‘I though they were all evil.’

  ‘They are like people – some are good and some are bad. She told me that we cannot trust angels any more.’

  There it was again. After all we’d done to break away from being manipulated by the likes of the Cabal, here we were dancing to someone, something else’s tune.

  ‘So what are they?’ I asked.

  ‘What they are not is figments of our imagination,’ Tailgunner growled.

  ‘Or fragments of God,’ Salem said. Tailgunner and Pagan turned sharply to look at him. ‘My faith does not come from the net. They are copies, not spirits. Though these copies may do God’s will.’

  ‘Which leaves either evolved AIs or aliens,’ I said. Everyone looked uncomfortable. I looked at Pagan. ‘And again I ask why?’

  ‘The way Ogham spoke suggested that he knew you would get out of there, would be you again. I think that’s why Nuada set up the cage—’

  ‘It was Nuada who imprisoned me?!’ I was angry again. It was Nuada who had let me hear myself torturing my friends.

  Pagan looked up at me. ‘He protected you. Locked part of you, the most important part, away from Demiurge’s control. That’s why we were able to save you.’ Back was the hacker explaining to the technologically uninitiated what he felt was the obvious.

  ‘And again why?’ As I asked I remembered dreams of blackened glass, fire and a dark sun burning in the sky. The landscape had similarities with the net feed I’d seen in the Cabal’s Atlantis facility.

  ‘I don’t know. I need to look inside your head again,’ he told me.

  ‘Oh yeah, now the trust is so strong between us.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Tailgunner said.

  ‘You’ve already threatened me today.’

  ‘I’ll do it then,’ Morag said.

  ‘You tried to kill me!’

  ‘I will look,’ Salem said. ‘With Jakob’s permission.’

  I looked at the calm old man. His weathered leathery features, the fissures in his skin. He was clothed like his icon and everything from those clothes to his calm demeanour seemed out of place here. Then something occurred to me.

  ‘Pagan, you said the only reason I was saved was because of what Nuada did.’ Morag and Pagan nodded. Both of them looked unhappy. ‘Rannu?’

  Their expressions told me everything I needed to know. His screamed obscenities were still echoing through the cave. We’d lost another friend but they’d left us with a twisted mockery just to remind us.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Pagan said miserably. He looked broken. It was why he’d gone for me before the exorcism, when I’d been savaging Morag – guilt. I couldn’t find it in myself to feel angry with him any more. I think he’d finally got what he wanted. He was a true priest now, a tool of the gods. I don’t think it was what he’d been expecting.

  ‘No,’ I said. Everyone turned to look at me. ‘We’re getting him back.’

  ‘It can’t be done,’ Pagan told me. I could see Salem and Tailgunner shaking their heads.

  ‘Jakob, listen. Normally I’d be the first to agree we should push this but seriously there’s no way,’ Morag told me. She was trying to control her voice, not show how upset she was about losing Rannu.

  ‘It reverses the interface, effectively. If meat can control hard- and software, then why not the other way? It’s the same principle as slaveware but Demiurge’s sophistication is such that it’s considerably more insidious, thorough and with none of the drop-off in motor skills. If anything, cognitive abilities increase, particularly if there is a connection to Demiurge proper,’ Salem explained.

  This made a lot of sense. It didn’t matter how good their black propaganda was, how concrete their cover story, there was no way the fleet and ground commanders would have just handed over their forces to Rolleston and Cronin. They must have possessed certain key figures. This worried me. I knew what it was like, what Demiurge was like and how much it liked to cause pain. I didn’t like the idea of it possessing people who had so much power.

  ‘We were only able to get you out with Ogham’s help and because your core identity was kept safe by Nuada’s cage. Even then the tiny fragment of Demiurge managed to work out what we were doing.’

  ‘And that was code that neither Morag nor I was able to find when we checked,’ Pagan said. I took this in. Well at least I think I understood.

  ‘That’s my point. These things, these gods – if their stuff is so far in advance of us then they could help.’

  I could see the four hackers sharing a poor-naive-non-hacker look.

  ‘That’s not the way it works,’ Tailgunner said uncomfortably.

  ‘No, I know. They play it all mysterious and you guys jump when they tell you to.’

  Cat and Mother were starting to pay attention now.

  ‘Wait a second,’ Tailgunner said angrily.

  ‘No, he’s right,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Anyone still think they are actually your gods?’ I asked.

  There were a lot of uncertain looks except from Salem.

  ‘They are echoes, copies, nothing more,’ he said.

  ‘Wait a second. You’re talking about our faith here!’ Tailgunner objected.

  ‘No. You either have faith or you do not. You’re talking about proof. Either you feel God or you do not. You will only feel God if you go looking, if you accept and embrace Him,’ Salem said.

  ‘Or Her,’ Morag added. ‘You’re saying that all we’re talking about is dealing with programs?’ Salem nodded.

  ‘That still doesn’t help us. They don’t do our bidding and they are too powerful to coerce,’ Tailgunner pointed out.

  ‘So you hope for their scraps? What they deign to give you?’ Mother demanded. Tailgunner looked like he’d just been slapped. ‘I’m sorry, but Jakob’s right. You think if that was you down there I wouldn’t trample heaven to get you fixed?’ Yeah, I liked Mother. I could see Cat nodding as well.

  ‘Fine,’ Tailgunner said. Clearly it really wasn’t. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact that whatever they are, they won’t do what we say. We can’t even really communicate with them. They come and go as it pleases them.’

  ‘So they can’t be contacted or summoned?’ I asked.

  ‘There are ritual programs,’ Pagan told me. ‘They are complex and difficult to write, time-consuming and more often than not they don’t work.’

  ‘Shit, that won’t work. They’ll let Demiurge in, won’t they?’ That was the end of my plan, to the obvious relief of Tailgunner, Salem and Morag. Then I saw Pagan’s face. Pagan should never, ever play poker.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Ogham appeared in an isolated system,’ he said.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Tailgunner said.

  ‘Where’s your faith?’ I asked sarcastically and then wished I hadn’t said anything.

  ‘How?’ Cat asked.

  ‘You don’t r
eally try and work these things out. It’s a religious experience,’ Pagan told her.

  I couldn’t quite make out what she was muttering but I could tell she was less than pleased with this answer. It did have pretty serious repercussions for the whole what-are-these-things issue. It meant a transmitter, a very powerful one capable of breaking shielded systems. Suddenly I felt like looking behind me. Still it unfucked part of my plan. Then something else occurred to me.

  ‘How are you doing with reverse-engineering the eel net?’ I asked.

  ‘We can just about replicate a poor man’s version of it,’ Tailgunner told me.

  I saw Pagan’s face fall. I think he realised what I was thinking.

  ‘You’re insane. You don’t fuck with these things – they’ll kill us on a whim,’ he said.

  Morag was watching me with guarded interest.

  ‘Where’s your faith, Pagan? Is the cage gone? The code that Nuada put in me.’

  Pagan nodded. ‘It’s served its purpose and they hate leaving traces of themselves. It will have gone.’

  I turned to Salem. ‘Will you confirm that?’ He looked confused but nodded. I turned back to Pagan. ‘Do your ritual and tell Nuada this: if he does not turn up then I will re-expose myself to Demiurge.’ There was a storm of violent objections. Even Salem looked angry. Morag was the angriest. I let them rant at me for a while. ‘And this will be done before anyone has a look around inside my head.’

  ‘Then it’s all for nothing?’ Pagan asked angrily.

  ‘Only if they don’t show,’ I said. ‘And Pagan –’ he looked up at me ‘– I am not bluffing.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ he told me.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Mother said.

  ‘Look, if there’s something in your head you could be throwing away our last chance, you selfish bastard!’ Morag shouted at me. It echoed around the cave.

  Our mostly Maori audience had put their guns down some time ago but they were still watching the exchange. I rounded on Morag.

  ‘Don’t you tell me about throwing away chances – and have a good listen to Rannu before you try and stop me. I will kill anyone who tries to get anything out of my head before we’ve spoken to one of them.’

  ‘You can’t coerce them,’ Tailgunner started, sounding frustrated.

  ‘Fuck them,’ Cat said and then to me, ‘I got your back.’

  ‘She doesn’t even know Rannu,’ I said to Pagan and Morag.

  ‘You bastard,’ Morag said quietly, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘I agree. Jakob’s off limits until we’ve spoken to one of these things,’ Mother added. Tailgunner turned to her to object. ‘Don’t cross me on this,’ she told him.

  Morag was right: this job was proving hard on relationships.

  I was gambling that there was something in my head that Nuada and his friends wanted or they wanted us to have. I was threatening to destroy this. I hoped it was enough to at least get their attention.

  So far the only good thing that had come out of this mess was that the heist had been a success. The Puppet Show had shown Mother’s people how to smuggle the goods down into the caves. We pretty much had enough food for the next month or so and more than enough ammunition for the foreseeable future. It was funny how weapons always seemed to end up the priority. How sometimes it can be easier to get an assault rifle than something to eat.

  Salem had checked to see that Nuada’s cage had gone. It had. I had made him swear he would look no further. He argued with me but relented. I was pretty sure he was a man of his word but then I’d thought that of Pagan once. I liked the old guy. His presence was soothing, even if he did refuse to discuss whether or not he was one of the Immortals.

  It was good to have Salem to speak to as the Maori contingent didn’t want to have much to do with me, and Merle, Pagan, Mudge and Morag were all avoiding me for different reasons. Pagan could barely even look at me and I wasn’t about to make it easy for him. I think he was setting up the summoning ritual/program largely out of guilt. Merle on the other hand didn’t seem to think he had anything to apologise for.

  Rannu just kept screaming as long as he could. His voice was changing he was doing it so much damage, and there was only so much sedative we could afford to give him. I tried sitting with him, but very quickly he was probing for damage, looking for a way in, a way to cause pain, and it knew us well by now. I had to leave him.

  ‘You know we’re wasting time?’ I was sitting on a smooth boulder that broke the surface of the water, trying to refit the two claws that Rannu had been using as shanks. I was surprised to hear Morag’s voice but there was no emotion in it. I turned to look up at her. There was no emotion in her face either. She was wearing her heated inertial armour, a hat and scarf. Her breath misted in the cold, dark, deep cave.

  ‘Do you want to go somewhere and talk?’ I asked. I’d been dreading this, but we had to talk at some point and here everyone could see us. They would also hear the inevitable shouting echo throughout the cave.

  ‘We’ve got nothing to say to each other.’

  That confused me a little bit.

  ‘So why are we talking?’

  ‘This is about the job. I know it takes a long time to mobilise a fleet and ground forces, but they’ve been at it for months and this whole thing is a waste of time.’

  I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.

  ‘What about Rannu?’ I asked. ‘He supported you right from the beginning.’ After he’d kicked the shit out of me twice. ‘Have you even given any thought to his wife and kids?’

  ‘I think we need to focus—’

  ‘On what? You’re the great tactician, are you? So what do you want to do?’

  ‘Demiurge. The Citadel,’ she said quietly. She didn’t want to shout this through the cave.

  ‘How?’ I demanded. I could see that she was getting angry now.

  ‘Look, I want Rannu back as much as you, but we can’t force these things. I admit I don’t know how to go after Demiurge or the Citadel but the answer could be in your head.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Rannu first, then my head.’

  ‘Selfish bastard. It’s not just your friend at stake.’

  ‘No, he’s yours as well.’

  ‘At least let us look in your head.’ She was exasperated now.

  ‘Pagan sent you,’ I said matter-of-factly. After all, he was running the information side of things and he’d put me in harm’s way to get whatever was in my head, assuming there was anything in my head.

  ‘You think I wanted to come and speak to you myself?’ she hissed at me.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it. We need what’s in your head.’

  ‘No. I can’t take the risk that they’ll know, at which point I become expendable and the threat doesn’t work. When did you become so fucking ruthless?’

  She looked as if I’d slapped her. ‘You’ve got no right to speak to me like that,’ she said coldly.

  I took a deep breath, suddenly aware of how angry I’d become. I was struggling with how quickly Morag was able to sacrifice Rannu.

  ‘Do you think I don’t care?’ she demanded. As her anger subsided I could see how upset she was.

  ‘Morag, seriously, we need to talk,’ I said softly.

  ‘There is no we to talk about, Jakob.’

  I don’t know what I was expecting. It still felt like a cold knife sliding between my ribs.

  ‘Of course there is. You wouldn’t keep on trying to kill me if you didn’t care about me.’ She just stared at me. ‘That came out wrong.’

  ‘You know, at least when you were possessed you told the truth.’ Then she stormed off.

  That went well, I thought. I couldn’t even go looking for Mudge for drugs, booze and solace. He had his own problems. In fact, just about the only person who was talking to me, other than Salem, was Cat, and she never let me forget that she disapproved of my sleeping with the Grey Lady. She’d understandably taken Morag’s si
de in that.

  It was the first time I’d seen Dinas Emrys from the outside. Although a library it looked like a huge fortress straddling the peaks of several mountains that rivalled, but didn’t surpass, the tallest peaks in the Highlands. The fort looked old. Older than even the tourist-haunted ruins of the castles I’d seen in Scotland as a child back when we’d lived in the park.

  It was dark. The moon was full and closer than I remembered it being back home. Pagan had told me that Nuada had an affinity with the moon. Whatever. It was cold and a wind strong enough to tug at our icons’ clothes was blowing. The air smelled fresh and just a little thin. I was just pleased that it didn’t taste like greasy farts. I felt so light here away from my body and Lalande 2’s high G. This was good programming. I was revelling in the star-filled night sky after too long underground.

  The circle was made up of poles. Each pole was tipped with a grisly skull. The weird thing was the skulls belonged to icons as diverse as dragons, bizarre aliens, even cartoon characters, down to relatively normal-looking human ones. Pagan assured me that all of them were trophies from other hackers he’d delivered a sound kicking to on the net for one reason or another. They almost sounded like his pride and joy. This was called a ghost fence and was the Pagan-flavoured voodoo he’d made with the reverse-engineered eel net that Tailgunner had given him. It was our optimistic containment program.

  All the skulls looked into the centre of the circle at a huge bonfire. It was the only warmth out here, and the wood smoke smelled like the campfires I’d made as a child and during my recent foray into the Highlands. For a moment I thought about what it would be like to be in the Highlands now with a whisky in my hand and my real arm around a happy Morag. I glanced over at her. She was wearing her Black Annis icon. Unlike the room in virtual Jerusalem, both she and Pagan in his Druidic finery looked at home. Tailgunner, with his feathered cloak and bladed spear, looked less at home but he was holding his own.

  Salem had asked not to take part in the ritual. It wasn’t really his thing. That was fine as we needed someone on the outside. Salem was watching this on a monitor hooked up to the solid-state memory cube. Pagan had copied Dinas Emrys onto the cube from his staff. I guessed he didn’t want these things in it.