The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny

by Simon R. Green

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go in the opposite direction. How about Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor? The most distressing agent for Good the Good ever had? He’s spent most of his life pursuing and punishing the wicked.”

  Walker smiled sadly. “The population of the Nightside would plummet.”

  “True,” I said.

  “I’m dying, John,” said Walker. “I hate to keep reminding you, but time is not on my side. I need your answer. Now.”

  “You already know it,” I said. “I don’t want your job. I protect people from people like you. I know what your job leads to. I watched you murder your oldest friend in cold blood!”

  “I have always been able to do the hard, unpleasant, necessary things.”

  “That’s it? That’s your justification? That it’s not what you do, but why you do it?”

  “Exactly! The end justifies the means.”

  “Only sometimes,” I said. “And only some ends, and some means. I have always drawn a line I will not cross, no matter what, because to cross that line would mean betraying who I am.”

  “And what is that?” said Walker. “An honourable man?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “The difference between you and me ... is that you believe in protecting the System, and I believe in protecting people from the System.”

  “People!” said Walker. “Never put your trust in people, John; they’ll always let you down. You have to put your faith in something bigger. Something that will last.”

  “The System?” I said. “There is no System, no State; just us. Men and women, struggling to get by, pursuing their own little desires and accomplishments. It’s people who keep the wheels turning, Walker. We don’t all want to rule the world, only the chance to live in peace in our own little part of it.”

  “We may all be cogs in the machine,” Walker said calmly. “But some cogs are more important than others. They achieve more, and so they matter more, and they must be protected. Sometimes at the expense of certain minor cogs.”

  “Is their pain any less? Their deaths any less final? Do their children suffer and miss them any less?”

  “It always comes back to you and your father, doesn’t it, John?”

  “You and Mark sacrificed my father, for the sake of your careers!” I said. And my voice sounded cold and vicious, even to me. “You broke him, ruined him, destroyed him. But who was it saved us all, in the Lilith War? You? Mark? No; my father sacrificed himself to save everyone.”

  “We all sacrifice for what we believe in,” said Walker. “Will you sacrifice the bitterness of your past? Your blink ered, limiting sentimentality ... for real responsibility? You say you want to protect the people of the Nightside; well, this is your chance. Your chance to stand between the people and the Authorities; to punish the wicked, stamp out corruption, make the world run as it should. Think of all the good you could do, with real power to back you up.”

  “Power,” I said. “It always comes down to power. To be able to say, Do what I tell you, Whether I’m right or not. Power tends to corrupt, said a wise man, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. The Nightside is living proof of that. I couldn’t do your job without becoming you, Walker. And for me that would be a fate worse than death.”

  “Ah, well,” said Walker. “I had to try. I knew you’d never see sense, but I had to try. You always were far too much like your father. I didn’t want to do this, John, really I didn’t ... But unfortunately for you, I have a backup plan. I always have a backup plan. Do you know what this is?”

  He held up a gleaming high-tech circlet for me to see. In the cold moonlight it looked like a crown of thorns, made out of steel and glass and diamonds. The more I looked at it, the more fiercely it blazed, until I had to look away.

  “This,” Walker said proudly, “is the time-travel device the Collector acquired recently. Not sure where he found it, some obscure alternate world or future time-line ... but this really is something rather special. It was designed to let you travel in Time without interfering by putting your thoughts inside the head of any individual, at any Time. The perfect observer, of Time Past, Present, and Future. Very noble, I’m sure. But I have a more practical use for it. This is why I had to kill the Collector; so I could get my hands on this device. I knew he’d never give it up voluntarily. This is power, you see. Real power. To step inside anyone’s head and take over. To drive them like cars and make them do or say anything.”

  “You didn’t kill Mark because you were afraid to leave him running around loose,” I said. “You killed him because he was in the way.”

  “Quite,” said Walker. “I needed you to get me in there, because the Collector didn’t trust me any more. So I told you what you wanted to hear, a simple, plausible story, and off you went like a good little hound on the scent. And all I had to do was follow you.”

  “You haven’t a clue where Tommy Oblivion is, have you?” I said.

  “Of course not. Why should I care about some minor private eye who never did anything that mattered? Glad he’s gone. I have more important things on my mind. Do pay attention, John! This is the last conversation we’re ever going to have. Because, you see, with this marvellous little device, I don’t need you any more. Or at least, not as such. This device will put me inside your head. Since you wouldn’t agree to take my place, I’ll take yours. I will become you and dispose of you in my old body in this handy bottomless pit. As you, I will then take over my old position and continue my work. I’ll have to kill off all the people who know you well, of course, even the ones I approve of; but it shouldn’t be too difficult. They’ll trust your face and your voice, right up to the point where they realise they shouldn’t have. It won’t be the first innocent blood on my hands, after all. Comes with the job.”

  “Yet another reason why I don’t want it,” I said.

  Walker advanced slowly on me, holding the device out before him. “You failed the test, John. I gave you every chance. But unfortunately, you’re just not worthy. Far too limited in your thinking and far too sentimental. You’re not what the Nightside needs. I am. I can’t die, John. I’ve far too much left to do.”

  He lifted the circlet with both hands, as though to crown himself with it, only to discover at the last moment that he’d forgotten he was still wearing his bowler hat. It was so much a part of his outfit, so much a part of his persona, that he’d honestly forgotten he still had it on. And as he hesitated, I stepped slightly to one side to get the full force of the wind blowing behind me, and threw the handful of pepper I’d sneaked out of my coat pocket into Walker’s face. The wind blasted the vicious stuff into his eyes and up his nose, and he cried out in shock and pain before sneezing convulsively. He staggered backwards, sneezing so hard it shook his whole body, while tears streamed down his face. It was the easiest thing in the world for me to step forward and snatch the circlet out of his hand, then step quickly back out of reach.

  Being the tough old bird he was, Walker quickly had control of himself again. He glared at me through puffed-up eyes.

  “You bastard, John! You bastard ... You and your damned tricks!”

  “Keep it simple,” I said. “You taught me that, remember?”

  “You don’t know how to work the device!”

  “I don’t want it,” I said, slipping it inside my coat. “Now, after everything I’ve heard, what am I to do with you? You were going to walk around in my body, killing Suzie and Cathy and Alex and Eddie, and everyone else who knew me; to keep yourself safe. You were going to walk up and down the Nightside, with my face and my reputation, dispensing your own idea of justice. Undoing everything I ever achieved and believed in. Could there be any greater betrayal?”

  “Oh, grow up, John,” said Walker. He had his old calm back again, but his voice was flat and cold. “I do what needs doing. Always have done. What are you going to do?”

  “Well, first, I’m going to try and get this time-travel device back to where it belongs. It’s far t
oo dangerous, and too tempting a thing, to have here.”

  “And then? What will you do, John, to the man who always tried to be a father to you?”

  “I’ve never had much luck with fathers,” I said. “Probably why I’ve always done my best to go my own way.”

  Walker sighed, looked out over the Nightside, then back at me. He smiled briefly. “We always knew it would come to this; didn’t we, John? That eventually one of us would have to kill the other.”

  “You always were a closet drama queen, Walker. It doesn’t have to end like this.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  I thought about it for a while and nodded slowly. “Yes; it does. You crossed the line.”

  “Two good men and true, who never could agree to disagree. And here we are, at the end of a very long road, standing on the edge of the pit. How very Nightside. So, what’s it to be? My secret weapons against yours?”

  “No,” I said. “For all you’ve done, and for all that you meant to do, I’m going to beat you to death with my bare hands.”

  “Excellent,” said Walker. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I moved forward, and Walker came to meet me, drawing his long, narrow sword from where it lay hidden inside his umbrella. He threw the shell away, and I stopped abruptly. Walker smiled widely as he swept the long blade back and forth.

  “Did I mention I was captain of the school fencing team? I had this lined with silver, John, just for you. No werewolf blood regenerations for you this time. My enemies stay dead.”

  “Good-bye, Walker,” I said.

  We went for each other like fighting dogs, as angry and vicious as only two old friends can be. I was young and fast and strong, but he had his blade, and his expertise, and a lifetime’s hard-earned tricks and tactics. He stabbed and cut at me with his sword, and I evaded it, forcing my way closer. Again and again I went for him, and every time he drove me back, with blood streaming from cuts that wouldn’t close. He cut chunks out of my reaching hands, and hacked at my arms when I lifted them to defend my throat or breast. Soon enough my white trench coat was soaked with blood. I was almost too angry to feel the pain, and what I did feel drove me on. I wasn’t fighting for myself, but for Suzie, and for all my friends who would inevitably die at Walker’s hands. At my hands, driven by his will. I thought of Suzie; and the blood and the pain didn’t matter a damn.

  We stamped back and forth on the edge of the pit, with me fighting to get to Walker, and him fighting to hold me off. But in the end, I was willing to die to bring him down, and he ... was dying. He stumbled, just briefly, as he mistimed a lunge, and I hit him in the head. His foot turned under him, and he fell suddenly sideways into the pit. He reached out instinctively to me for help, and just as instinctively I lunged forward to grab his hand. But it was too late.

  Walker fell into the pit. I knelt at the side, reaching helplessly after him. He didn’t scream, didn’t cry out, and in a moment he was gone. Nothing left but the darkness. I called after him, but there was no reply. He was gone. Swallowed up at last, by the dark.

  ELEVEN

  Bringing Them All Back Home

  I sat on the edge of the pit, my legs dangling over the impenetrable darkness. The cold wind was still blowing, ruffling my hair and striking tears from my eyes. I watched blood drops slowly form on the bottom edge of my trench coat, then fall into the pit. I felt tired, and hurt, and strangely numb. As though a major part of my life was finally over. For good or for bad, Walker had always been there in the background, defining my life by my resistance to everything he stood for. He protected me and threatened me, but he never once ignored me, like my father did. I could always depend on Walker ... to be Walker. I’d gone out walking earlier in the night because I was unsure about my life, and now I had just destroyed the one sure thing in it. I’d wanted change, and now I had it. You should always be careful of wishing for things in the Nightside because you never know who might be listening. There was the slightest of sounds to my left, and when I looked around, there was Hadleigh, standing next to me.

  “Hello, John. You look like shit.”

  “How the hell did you get here?”

  He shrugged. “There are short cuts in reality if you know where to look.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I know what I need to know when I need to know it”

  “That answer is getting really irritating.”

  “I know.” He looked thoughtfully down into the pit, leaning dangerously far over. “So Walker’s really gone, then?”

  “Yes.” I studied him thoughtfully. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

  “Not as such. The future’s not set in stone; there are many possible futures. Which one we end up in depends on the decisions we make. And you and Walker have always been very difficult to predict. You’re hurt, John. Allow me.”

  He took a firm hold on my shoulder, and a sudden shock ran through me, like a bucket of cold water thrown right in my soul. I gasped, and the pain was gone; and I knew without having to check that all my wounds had been healed, all damage repaired. I scrambled up onto my feet, suddenly full of energy. Hadleigh chuckled briefly.

  “You see, I’m not only here for the bad things in life.”

  I arched my back and stretched my arms, relishing the freedom from pain and tiredness. I didn’t feel numb any more. I felt like kicking the whole damned world in the arse and making it take notice. I gave Hadleigh one of my best hard looks.

  “What did you do to me? I’m not used to feeling this good. It feels ... strange.”

  “Let’s just say I jump-started you. The technicalities would only upset you.”

  “What is your job, exactly, Detective Inspectre?”

  “I could tell you,” said Hadleigh. “But then I’d have to haunt you. Some secrets cannot be revealed because the burden is not mine to share. To put it simply, I walk between life and death, the better to deal with crimes against reality itself. Because somebody has to.”

  I looked down at my once-white trench coat, now tattered and torn and soaked with drying blood. I looked at Hadleigh. “Could you ... ?”

  “No, I couldn‘t,” Hadleigh said firmly. “I’m a healer, not a tailor.”

  We stood together for a moment, side by side, looking down into the pit. Walker was gone. Let the neon lights be dimmed and the traffic brought to a halt. Walker was gone, and we shall not see his like again. If we’re lucky. After a while, I deliberately turned away from the pit and frowned at Hadleigh.

  “You know where Tommy is, don’t you? When Larry asked, you said, Closer than you think.”

  “Yes,” Hadleigh said equably. “I know. I’ve known all along. But I had to wait until you and Walker had put an end to your business. That was more important. What just happened here will affect the Nightside for generations to come.”

  “How ...?”

  “Tommy is in no danger where he is. He’s just ... lost, and needs our help to find his way home. Come on; Larry’s waiting. Impatiently, I have no doubt.”

  I looked down the mountain side, at the dark and angry jungle that covered its slopes. “You going to call one of Larry’s limousines?”

  “Oh,” said Hadleigh, “I think we can do better than that.”

  He seemed to turn sideways, then keep on turning, and the sheer force of his unnatural motion dragged me along with him. In a moment we were both back at the Cheyne Walk approach, and Larry actually jumped as we appeared out of nowhere right in front of him. The few remaining onlookers took our reappearance as their cue to be getting along. I grinned at Hadleigh.

  “Nice trick. Could you teach me to do that?”

  “Depends. How attached are you to your sanity?”

  “We’re still on speaking terms, which given my life is actually quite an achievement.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” demanded Larry, glaring at both of us. “I thought you were here to help find Tommy, Hadleigh, but all you’ve done so far is stand
around looking enigmatic, then disappear after Taylor.”

  “Tommy’s right here with you, in a sense,” said Hadleigh. “It’s time to bring him back. I had to wait for John to acquire the last necessary piece of the puzzle. You do have the Collector’s device, don’t you, John?”

  I took it out of my coat. Larry regarded it dubiously, while Hadleigh nodded a bit smugly.

  “Put it on, John, and raise your gift. Then focus your gift through the device, and it will lead you right to Tommy.”

  I raised the device with both hands, then hesitated as I remembered Walker doing the same thing. I cautiously lowered the future-science thing onto my head, while some small part of me gleefully thought, I crown thee King John the First of the Nightside. The device settled itself onto my head, feeling a lot heavier than it had in my hands. A series of small pin-pricks ran around my scalp as the device established contact, and sharp stabs of lightning detonated inside my head, as long-quiet parts of my mind woke up and made themselves known.

  I raised my gift and a huge charge ran through my mind, blasting my inner eye wide open. And suddenly I could See a whole lot more of the world than I ever had before. All the secrets that had been hidden from me, all the wonders and terrors that my Sight either couldn’t or wouldn’t See; because the world is so much more full than we ever realise. I made myself concentrate on Tommy, and immediately I was surrounded by ghosts. Soft ghosts, people worn thin and ragged at the edges—vague, undefined, faceless. Walking through the hard places of the world as though they weren’t there. Haunted by their own past, forever always just out of their reach. Dazed, confused, helpless ... lost.

  One of them was Tommy Oblivion. I was looking through his eyes now, Seeing the world he saw. He had become a soft ghost. I could sense his presence, his drifting, unfocused thoughts. More than dreaming, but far from awake. The Collector’s device brought our two minds together, and I could actually feel his thoughts concentrating, his identity coming into focus for the first time in a long time, strengthened and stabilised by my presence.