“They made nineteen of those sensies, didn’t they?” Drakeforth asked.
“Technically, they made sixteen. The last three were a spinoff attempt at a reboot, which upset many of us hardcore Craggers. A large number of angry forum posts were made on that subject, I can assure you.”
“A tragedy for the entire entertainment industry.” Drakeforth nodded sympathetically, which made my eyes narrow.
“You can be sarcastic about many things, Drakeforth. Just keep your snide remarks about the single greatest story ever told to yourself.”
“If someone wishes to immerse themselves in a virtual reality experience for hours at a time, then who am I to judge?”
“You cannot be serious. You judge everyone and everything!”
Drakeforth did his best to beam at me. “Precisely.”
“That’s it!” I did a dance that was more like a convulsion. “I know where to find Professor Bombilate!”
Drakeforth regarded me steadily; I could almost see him replaying the conversation in his head.
“I was immersed in empathic energy. The tiny flakes of the life force of all those people. Who knows how many they have been pumping into the pyramid?”
“Yes, yes, generations of people, I am sure,” Drakeforth ushered me along to the point.
“Bombilate was entire. He was whole. He stood there and talked to me.”
“Which means he’s still in one piece. Possibly still alive even…” Drakeforth took a deep breath. “Pudding, there are moments when you almost give me hope for the future of humanity.”
“Don’t get all squishy on me now, Drakeforth.”
“Where in all of Pathia would they be keeping him?”
I looked out at the sparkling remnants of the pyramid summit. We were hardly making a fast getaway in this drifting wreck. “Remember the tank at the monastery? The one where the old sisters and brothers went when they were ready to die? We need to find an extraction tank like that. It must be what they are doing with Bombilate.”
“You think the professor sacrificed himself to some secret cult of Arthurians?” Drakeforth asked.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense,” I said.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense?” Drakeforth echoed. “Pudding, have you taken complete leave of your senses?”
“Yes!” I slapped my thigh and danced an impromptu interpretive thing. “I got you! I finally got you! I said something sarcastic and you completely fell for it!”
“What if you’re right?” Drakeforth interrupted my victory celebration.
“Have you taken complete—? Wait… That’s not fair. I got you.”
“How often do things that make no sense actually prove to be true?”
“Nev— Well hardly ev— Sometime—” I fell silent. “It’s still the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
“You said it,” Drakeforth replied.
“I was joking!”
“It doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Where would they hide something like that in Pathia?”
Drakeforth looked to the pyramid. The fountain of glittering energy gushing from it had subsided, and various emergency services were converging on the area with a jarring disharmony of sirens and flashing lights.
“In there?” I asked.
“Why not? Close to the storage system for their ill-gotten gains.”
“We should go back, have a good look around.”
“Did you just say we should go back and get arrested?”
“What? No?”
“Weird, because that is exactly what ‘go back and have a good look around’ sounds like.”
“We can’t just leave,” I said as the lights flashing about made the shadows of the ship dance.
“Leaving is what Drakeforth is best at,” Eade announced, setting down a battered tray of full cups.
“Where’s Goat?” Eade asked.
I think he’s up in the wriggling,” I said waving in the general direction of the macramé maze of knotted ropes and cords that seemed to be important in holding the mass of inflated goat-intestines together.
“Rigging,” Eade said, and sipped her tea.
I drank a mouthful of hot tea to stop me snapping at her, and a helicopter thudded into our airspace, fingers of searing white light stabbing at the deck before steadying and pinning us under their thumbs.
“Act natural,” Drakeforth warned.
“That is possibly the worst advice I have heard in a long time,” I muttered.
An amplified voice boomed over the rotor wash. “You! On the—the—whatever that is! Land immediately and prepare to be boarded!”
Goat bounced through the rigging like a fly trying to get through a closed window. The spotlight left us and chased him; he whooped and howled before leaping for a thick plaited cord and dragging it down to the deck in slow motion. A ripping, gaseous noise echoed through the night air. The stink of it made me gag. Drakeforth covered his face and Eade turned green.
A cloud of stinking warm gas exhaled in a loose-lipped flubbering from the net of balloons. We slowly slipped towards the ground, settling on the sand like a beached ship.
People in uniforms circled the ship. We did not assist them in getting on board; however, they managed themselves well enough.
Goat insisted on shaking the various officers’ hands and seemed to be offering them tea. Four of them tackled him to the deck and handcuffed his wrists behind his back. Then they advanced on us.
“You are all under arrest,” the first officer announced.
“On what charge?” Drakeforth asked.
“We are still writing a list. I can assure you it is comprehensive and long.”
“We are innocent of all charges,” Drakeforth replied.
“Of course you are. We have to prove you are guilty. Until then you are entirely innocent,” the officer nodded.
“So we can go, then?” I asked with a sudden surge of hope.
“Not on your life,” the officer replied. “Escort these suspects to detention. They will be held for questioning and forensic examination.”
“Forensic examination? Doesn’t that require us to be dead?” I asked.
The officer shrugged. “Depends entirely on how cooperative you are during questioning.”
“I’m a tourist! You can’t arrest me!” I squeaked.
“Of course we can’t.” The officer gestured to a companion and they pulled my arms back and handcuffed me.
“A mugshot will look great in the holiday album—if you ever get out of jail, that is,” the officer said.
“Don’t tell them anything, Pudding,” Drakeforth warned.
“I don’t know anything!” I managed to shout over the noise.
“That’s the idea!” Drakeforth yelled back.
Eade and Goat were already in the back seat of a 4WD with cartoonishly large balloon tyres. We were shoved inside and the doors closed, bringing air-conditioned silence to the night.
“Geese are terrifying,” Goat suddenly blurted. Eade stared at him, her face an unpleasant mix of confusion and pity. Goat looked confused and went back to staring out the window.
Someone banged on the roof and the vehicle roared to life. It sounded like a large predatory animal in full rut. It took me a moment to realise that this is what an engine burning fossil fuel must sound like.
“I can see why they soundproof their vehicles,” I said.
Drakeforth closed his eyes. “The lengths to which some cultures will go to avoid using empathic energy are quite extreme.”
“Not as extreme as the lengths cultures using empathic energy will go,” I replied, and closed my eyes against the flashing lights.
Chapter 36
I had never been in a jail cell before, and the novelty w
ore off even faster than I thought it would.
They are all the same, really: a simple secure box with a locked cage door on one side, a bed with a mattress thinner than processed cheese slices and a toilet that was the most basic item in a catalogue without any of the bonus features.
We took turns sitting on the bed and turns pacing up and down the small cell (nine steps each way for me) and turns leaning against the stone wall and staring at the floor.
I was on my third round of staring at the floor when a uniformed officer unlocked the door.
“You,” he pointed at me. “Out.”
“I want my phone call,” I said.
“Sure, who would you like us to contact?”
“I don’t know, the embassy?”
“Are you a diplomat or government official of a foreign power?”
“Uhm, no?”
“Out.”
I left the cell, relieved to be able to walk further than the length of my bathroom for the first time in hours.
“This way.” He indicated the exit. I walked meekly to the door. From there it was a short walk to an interview room, which was like the cell, except without the bespoke interior design elements.
“Sit down,” the officer instructed. I took a seat opposite a table that looked like it had been carved from the same concrete block as the room and the chairs.
I waited in the room alone for a while. We hadn’t talked about alibis or gotten our stories straight. I felt certain that Eade would be spilling her beans, telling the lawn everything, laying the blame squarely at the feet of Drakeforth and myself.
The door opened and a woman in a suit walked in. She closed the door and sat down opposite me.
“I’m Inquisitor Cartouche.” The Inquisitor had a gentle, motherly sense about her. I bet she made criminals feel like lying to her would be like lying to their mums.
“Hello,” I said meekly.
“Do you know why I have asked you to come and talk to me today?” she asked.
“Lysteria started it!” I said, and immediately winced.
“Did she?” Inquisitor Cartouche didn’t have a pen and wasn’t recording the conversation. I felt relieved about that. “Which one is Lysteria?” she asked.
“Sorry, it just came out. Lysteria Esconce was a girl I knew in high school. I haven’t seen her in years. I was just thinking about the one time I got called to the headmistress’s office, and it was definitely Lysteria’s fault.”
“Perhaps we could start with your name?” Cartouche asked in that same gentle tone.
“Charlotte Pudding,” I replied immediately.
“Why are you in Pathia, Miss Pudding?”
“Holiday. It’s such a fascinating country. The pyramids, the sand, the fossil fuel smoke. So much to see and experience.”
“How did you come to be near the pyramid earlier this evening?”
I half laughed. “It’s a long story,” I said, waving the question away. Inquisitor Cartouche stared at me, unblinking as a murrai. “I love a long story.”
“Do you?” I looked at her, my desperation not to engage in lengthy conversation evident in my expression.
“How did you come to be at the pyramid earlier this evening?” Cartouche asked again.
“We got there on Goat’s airship. It’s an odd thing. Built from scrap and parts that might once have been spare. It’s some kind of balloon. Except he uses inflated goat intestines all tied together to give it lift.”
“Quite the feat of engineering,” Cartouche said.
“I suppose.”
“Why did he build this balloon craft?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, he seems nice enough, but he’s not quite working on the same day’s crossword as the rest of us, you know?”
“There have been reports that this floating ship was brought to the site by two murrai,” Cartouche said gently.
“Yeah, how weird is that?” I was so used to feeling guilty that when I finally had a reason to look guilty, I wondered what my face must look like.
“Very strange. Murrai are the property of the Knotstick church. It’s unusual to see them wandering about unless they are under the direct control of a Knotstick priest.”
“How do they control them?”
Cartouche stared at me in a way that felt like being sized up by a soft toy filled with spiders. “They have always controlled them.”
I took a deep breath, and said, “The pyramid is full of double-e flux. Empathic energy. You know, the stuff that Pathia hasn’t used as an energy source in hundreds of years? We think the Knotstick church is using the pyramids as a storage facility and probably selling off the energy to the Godden Corporation, who incidentally are not the benefactors of all mankind they want you to believe.”
“Why did you blow up the pyramid?” Cartouche asked.
“I didn’t! I mean…I don’t think I did.”
“You were there. The pyramid was badly damaged in what has been reported by eyewitnesses as an explosion. What kind of explosives did you use?”
“Frustration, annoyance and a whole lot of panic at the thought of my impending death,” I explained.
“Were you forced to detonate the explosives?”
“There were no explosives. The pyramid itself is full of empathic energy. That is what blew up.”
“There is no empathic energy in Pathia,” Cartouche reminded me.
“What are the murrai running on, then?”
“Faith,” Cartouche said. “The faith of the Knotstick church drives the machines. It is a miracle.”
“Are you planning on telling Drakeforth that?” I asked.
“Which one is Drakeforth?”
“The tall one with the coat and the arrogant aura.”
“Is he a man of faith?” Cartouche asked.
My giggle came out at a pitch high enough to sound hysterical. “You could say that.”
“How long have you been part of the Credit Union?”
“Sorry, the what?”
“The Credit Union. We know they are active in the city. Several cells have been under surveillance for some time. You’ve certainly raised the stakes by committing this act of vandalism.”
“Wait.” I resisted the urge to put my hand up at knowing the answer to a question by knotting my fingers together in my lap. “Eade, the blonde woman, she told me about some terrorist organisation called the Credit Union. I saw their symbol on the wall outside our hotel. It looked like…” I went to rummage in my pockets and then remembered that the officers took everything off me when they checked us in. “It looked like a credit stick,” I finished.
“Why did the Union destroy the pyramid?” Cartouche asked.
“They didn’t—” I caught myself. “I don’t know anything about this terrorist bank or whatever they are. I just know that they didn’t blow it up.”
“Because you did?” the inquisitor asked.
“Kinda?” I tried.
“The others, how are they involved?”
“Drakeforth is actually inhabited, possessed I guess, by the immortal spirit of Arthur. Eade Notschnott is Drakeforth’s ex-wife and she asked him to come here and help her find Professor Bombilate. Goat, we met by chance.”
“That’s why they are involved,” the inquisitor said.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t the question I asked.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Tell me about the last time you were questioned by an officer of the lore,” she said.
“This is a first for me,” I admitted.
“You are very good at saying a lot without actually saying anything. What do you do for a job?”
“I’m a computer psychologist. I studied dialectics in university as we
ll.”
“Curious.”
“Not overly. I’d much prefer to stay home and watch it on the telly.”
“I mean it’s a curious combination of skill sets. Quite useful in avoiding answering questions, I imagine.”
I smiled thinly. “We don’t always get to choose our roles in the scheme of things.”
“Do you regret it?”
“The lack of choice, or my role in the scheme of things?”
“What do you regret?”
I fell silent. Regrets are like stamps: some people collect them obsessively while others acquire them and then send them on. I seemed to find regrets at the oddest moments, like a half-used book of stamps in a desk drawer.
“No regrets,” I said eventually. “Plenty of things I would do differently, I guess.”
“You wish you hadn’t destroyed the ancient pyramid?”
“I wish the pyramid hadn’t been destroyed. I didn’t destroy it. We destroyed it. By that I mean everyone. People like you, the Knotstick church…Erskine Uncouth, that guy, Nonce—”
“You are accusing Grand Linteum Nonce of being involved in the plot to destroy the pyramid?”
“Is he the guy with the whistle? He called it a…syllabus?”
“Sibilus. It is the sacred symbol of the Knotstick Order.”
“It’s a whistle that controls murrai,” I countered.
“The purpose and rituals of the Order are not for us to understand,” Cartouche snapped.
“It’s exactly that kind of insistence on ignorance that got us here in the first place!”
The door opened and a uniformed officer stepped into the room. He walked over to Inquisitor Cartouche and whispered something in her ear, before leaving as uselessly as he had arrived.
“This interview is terminated,” Cartouche announced. She stood up and opened the door. “You will be returned to your cell.”
“I am sure I reserved a private room on the booking,” I said as I stepped out into the stone hallway.
“Charlotte Pudding?” A man in a white, four-piece suit regarded me intently.
“Yes?”
“Dollar William; I am your legal representation. You will be pleased to know I have arranged for your release.”
“Okay?”
Time of Breath Page 15
