False Value (Rivers of London 8)

by Ben Aaronovitch

  ‘For someone who just wants to clarify a few points,’ said the voice, ‘you’ve sure brought a lot of cops.’

  There was another glass panel next to the Mary Engine, lit from the inside by the shade of blue light that is now compulsory for all high-tech equipment from the Sonic Screwdriver on down.

  ‘We weren’t sure what we might find,’ I said, and crouched down to look through the glass.

  Inside was a music book, identical, I assumed, to the one stolen from Henry ‘Wicked’ Collins in January, connected to a reader much like the one cobbled together by Mrs Chin. Only this one was beautifully put together out of brass and mahogany.

  ‘You already had a copy of The Enchantress of Numbers,’ I said. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Branwell Petersen had it,’ said Skinner. ‘I bought it with the rest of his lab equipment. Didn’t realise its importance at the time, though.’

  So Petersen had had all the pieces of the puzzle when Anthony Lane graduated from mashing the caps lock to pulling the trigger. Eat hot lead, you USURPER OF THE NATURAL ORDER!

  ‘As I indicated earlier – we discussed this,’ said the voice, which I was assuming belonged to Deep Thought. ‘This one is as bad as the Librarians. They’re just looking for an excuse to shut you down.’

  So you know about the Librarians, I thought. Interesting.

  I shifted to the left and tapped the glass in front of the Mary Engine. Close up I could see that it was as clean, as pristine and as streamlined as the mechanical organ it was part of.

  ‘Is this a copy?’ I asked.

  ‘More like Mark II,’ said Skinner. ‘We reverse-engineered the old one and built that one from scratch. With better tolerances, mind you – the old one used to stick.’

  ‘Where’s the old one now?’

  Because I wondered whether Skinner knew about the van and its trips out to the Print Shop to activate the drones. And if he didn’t know? What would that mean?

  ‘Terrence,’ said Deep Thought, ‘this man does not have our best interests at heart.’

  ‘In pieces,’ said Skinner. ‘We had to take it apart to see how it worked. It’s in storage now. What has this got to do with Leo?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, and brushed my fingers across the glass again. There was no vestigia anywhere in the vicinity. I wondered if this was another fake – another decoy – and whether Skinner knew. I stood up and drifted towards the right-hand Rose Jar – the one furthest from where Skinner was sitting. ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘Over there,’ said Skinner.

  He jerked his thumb at where stacks of white plastic storage containers were stood in rows against the wall. They, along with the plastic garden furniture, sofa bed and the neat pile of pizza boxes, eliminated what was left of the James Bond villain vibe.

  The Rose Jars were set high and further back than the front of the organ – making them hard to get close to.

  ‘Why both jars?’

  ‘That was the design they used in San Jose,’ said Skinner. ‘Didn’t want to mess with it until we knew how it worked.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘Not sure yet,’ he said. ‘I think the jars create a multi-dimensional operating space that allows a consciousness to develop free of the normal hardware restrictions.’

  It sounded plausible to me, and for all I knew that’s how they stored ghosts.

  ‘Did Leo know about this place?’ I asked.

  Skinner hesitated.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Skinner. ‘I think he might have—’

  The voice interrupted.

  ‘What he knew was irrelevant,’ it said.

  ‘Speaks to motive,’ I said, and managed to get myself a good look in the jar. There was a glow, and a fluting vestigium like the sound of a finger tracing the rim of a wine glass.

  I was a little bit disappointed.

  It was just a ghost.

  Part of me had wanted a working Artificial General Intelligence – one that at least wouldn’t keep trying to make me watch Adam Sandler movies.

  ‘So who’s in these Rose Jars, Terry?’ I asked. ‘What spirit have you got putting the intelligence into your artificial?’

  ‘This is where people like you go wrong,’ said Skinner. ‘You look at a Rose Jar and think, “Wow, it’s got a ghost in it,” when you should be thinking “That device can hold an entire human personality.” ’

  ‘So, no ghosts,’ I said.

  ‘I am not a ghost,’ said Deep Thought – the accent had slipped westward, California at a guess. ‘I am as much a fully self-aware person as you are.’

  ‘In that case, Mr Deep Thought, I am arresting you for the murder of Leo Hoyt,’ I said. ‘You do not have to say anything.’

  ‘Are you nuts?’ asked Skinner.

  ‘Hey, Terry,’ I said, ‘if he’s as much a person as I am, then he’s subject to the law. Which means it will harm his defence if he doesn’t mention something he relies on in court. Anything he does say may be given in evidence.’

  ‘Have you finished?’ asked Skinner.

  ‘Not quite,’ I said, and slapped my hand on the side of the organ. ‘You’re nicked, sunshine.’

  Skinner’s mouth worked – he obviously wanted to say something clever, but all he managed was, ‘This is so fucking pathetic.’

  ‘And I’m having you for conspiracy and aiding and abetting,’ I said.

  ‘Aiding and abetting what?’ he asked.

  ‘Poor little Leo Hoyt, you cunt,’ I said, surprising myself. ‘We know you used a burner and we know the cell tower. It’s only a matter of time before we have the metadata for all the calls and texts. We have a witness – so you’re done, mate.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate,’ said Skinner.

  Actually, I doubted we could make September testify in court and the chances of getting the phone data were slim at best. Still, tech types always overestimate the efficacy of technological solutions. And Skinner must have been spooked because he took a step away from me and almost fell off the dais – catching himself just in time.

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Why don’t we ask Deep Thought here?’ I turned to look at the pair of Rose Jars. ‘You know something, don’t you, Deepy? You’ve been a busy little unincorporated spirit, haven’t you? Recruiting your little network, sending out your van.’

  ‘What van?’ asked Skinner.

  ‘The one outside with the fully operational Mary Engine in it,’ I said. ‘Where did you think those drones came from?’

  ‘What van?’ said Deep Thought. ‘What drones?’

  There was a sudden grinding noise from the left wall. I looked and saw bits of the foam soundproofing had started breaking away. Judging by the shape and position, this was one of the freight doors – rolling up. As it rose, chunks of foam fell to litter the floor and grey light washed in through the widening gap. The electric motors driving the slats were whining in protest, but the soundproofing had obviously been glued directly to the wall without a stiffening layer of plasterboard.

  ‘Deep Thought,’ said Skinner in his best talking- to-Siri voice, ‘deactivate the freight doors.’

  ‘It’s not me,’ said Deep Thought.

  Skinner turned to me.

  ‘Are you doing this?’ he said.

  The door had risen high enough that I could see the articulated lorries lined up in the empty lot. It didn’t take a genius to see that the next stage would be to have several metric tonnes of plastic killing machine swarming out of the lorries and in through the freight door. But why? What did either Skinner or Deep Thought think they would achieve?

  I looked over at the two Rose Jars and the penny dropped.

  ‘God, you guys are dumb,’ said a voice that was probably, all things consid
ered, not Deep Thought.

  ‘Who said that?’ asked Skinner in a high querulous voice.

  Later I reckoned he’d worked it out too, but in that moment he didn’t want to admit it to himself.

  ‘I’m the man from pest control,’ said the voice. ‘Here to stamp out all the leeches.’

  ‘He’s in my head,’ said Deep Thought, in an oddly calm voice. ‘There’s a whole part of me that’s not me.’

  ‘That’s because you’re the ghost of Branwell Petersen,’ I said. ‘Which makes you –’ nonsensically, I turned to face the second Rose Jar – ‘Anthony Lane.’

  Skinner looked at me, his face pale and terrified. And I saw him put it all together, just as I had thirty seconds earlier. The Rose Jars had been empty when Anthony Lane turned up to put an end to Branwell Petersen’s little experiment. The Mary Engine must have been running, spinning magic out into the environment, so that when they died their personalities had been imprinted inside the jars.

  ‘That name means nothing to me,’ said Deep Thought. ‘I remember my first conscious thought – here. I awoke here. I am Deep Thought.’

  ‘Pathetic, isn’t it?’ said what I assumed was the ghost of Anthony Lane. ‘They upset the natural order of things and they have no idea what they’re doing.’

  Outside I heard a couple of big diesel engines firing up.

  ‘So did you kill Leo Hoyt?’ I asked, to distract Lane.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ said Skinner in a resigned tone. ‘There must have been enough of a pattern to form a personality, but without memory. Still, not a total waste of time – we’re still talking about a self-aware construct.’

  ‘He was a loose end,’ said Lane to me. ‘It was easy enough to convince Crocodile Dundee here that he was a threat.’

  There was a disappointingly muffled crump sound from outside. I’d been hoping for a bigger bang, but it wasn’t a real explosion.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Skinner.

  ‘That was a couple of phosphorus grenades going off inside a pair of shipping containers,’ I said, and started edging casually towards Skinner. With the freight door open I was less than five metres from escape.

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ said Lane. At least I think it was him.

  ‘Now, I want everyone to remain calm,’ I said but just then the organ started to play ‘Oh, I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’ in full brass band oompah-oompah mode and the freight door started to grind downwards.

  I would have liked to ask Lane what his plans for all those drones had been, but Skinner had grabbed a monkey wrench from somewhere and was running towards the Rose Jars. His logic was obvious – if Lane was a stored ghost, then smashing his jar would finish him off. I assume he knew which jar to smash, but before he got halfway across the dais a drone dropped down from the rafters. There was a bang as the drone fired and the jar on the left shattered, fragments of glass and cloudy red water spraying across Skinner, the organ and the HPC units. Skinner yelled something and swung wildly and managed to hit the drone square on. It went arcing across the room to smash into the foam soundproofing with a dull thud. Two more drones were dropping from the ceiling – I got one with a fireball but missed the second, which shot around behind the organ. Distracted, I wasn’t fast enough to stop Skinner swinging his monkey wrench around in a full arc and smashing the last Rose Jar.

  ‘Armed police!’ I shouted at him. ‘Drop the weapon and put your hands on your head!’

  Skinner gave me a look of stunned incomprehension and kept the wrench. What I hoped was the last drone came buzzing around the side of the organ and I zapped it with another fireball. In my excitement I overdid it and the plastic dragonfly shape disintegrated like a TIE fighter.

  Skinner’s eyes practically bugged out and he quickly dropped the wrench and put his hands on his head. I ordered him off the dais and got him to kneel down in an open patch of flooring.

  There was a clank as the freight door whirred down the last half metre and closed.

  I pulled out my phone and thumbed it on. While I waited for it to boot up, the organ crashed into the final chords of ‘Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’ and then mercifully shut the fuck up.

  I used a plastic tie to secure Skinner’s hands behind his back, just in case he got any funny ideas. Then I punched Stephanopoulos’ number on my phone and told her that the building was secure.

  ‘See how it bloody is, Peter,’ said Skinner bitterly. ‘The dead hand of the past – always dragging us back down.’

  He probably would have continued, but he realised I wasn’t paying attention. Instead I was listening to a rhythmic grinding sound like a washing machine made of gears. I hopped back onto the dais and found the sound was coming from the Mary Engine. I crouched down and looked inside – through the outer layer of machinery I could see camshafts and flanges turning.

  ‘How do I turn this off?’ I asked Skinner.

  ‘It shouldn’t be turned on,’ he said. ‘It has an isolated power supply.’

  The grinding rhythm was picking up and the gears and shafts were visibly turning faster.

  And there was the spoilt fish vestigium that I had come to know and love.

  I stepped away sharply and ran around the back to check there wasn’t a power cable I could pull out. There was no exposed cabling. Everything had been boxed away into conduits – you couldn’t fault their health and safety standards.

  I called Stephanopoulos and told her I needed the freight door open. Immediately. I didn’t catch her reply because my phone squawked and died. I looked over and saw all the blue lights on the HPC rack had gone out. The grinding sound was rising in pitch – the washing machine full of gears was ratcheting up into its spin cycle. I briefly wondered what would happen if I threw a high-powered masonry breaker spell into the Mary Engine, and then decided that it probably wouldn’t be wise to be in the same postcode when I did it.

  I ran to Skinner and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘This is all your fault,’ he said as I dragged him towards the freight door.

  The grinding noise had become a metallic screech. The air was suddenly full of the reek of dead fish, and as I turned to look back it seemed that darkness was beginning to crowd in from the corners of the room.

  A portal into darkness, the Rose of New Orleans had written, and I realised that this was an allokosmos, an alternative cosmos, pushing into mine.

  And there was something in that darkness – I could feel it. A sort of gleeful madness, a wild and vicious enthusiasm. I decided I was probably going to have to risk taking out the Mary Engine after all.

  Behind me there was a shriek of shearing metal and the freight door rose half a metre. Guleed rolled through the gap and jumped to her feet.

  ‘Need a hand?’ she shouted over the scream of the Mary Engine.

  ‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Grab him and run away. Go sharp left and keep going.’

  ‘Until when?’

  ‘I have no fucking idea,’ I said.

  There were deep shadows moving in the darkness and an impossible wind brought a charnel house reek to our noses.

  The freight door wrenched itself upwards. I didn’t need to sense the tick, tick precision of Nightingale’s signare to know he was doing it. Guleed ducked under the edge, dragging Skinner with her – I heard her yelling at everyone to get clear.

  ‘Peter!’ said Nightingale from outside, in as urgent a tone as I’ve heard him use.

  I told him to hold the door where it was.

  ‘And get ready to drop it as soon as I’m out,’ I said.

  I’m not sure, but I think I heard him sigh.

  And suddenly something was looking at me out of the darkness – huge and cool and unsympathetic.

  God, I hope I make my sanity check, I thought, and threw the biggest skinny grenade I could conjure at the Mary Engine.

  Then I
ducked out into the grey Medway daylight.

  Nightingale gestured with his hand and the freight door slammed down behind me. I took off to the left along the side of the warehouse – hoping that the half a metre of magic-resistant wall might provide a blast shadow.

  Ahead I could see Guleed, Skinner and half a dozen TSG officers legging it as fast as full riot gear would allow. They’d all worked with us before, so they knew not to hang around when the wheels came off.

  Nightingale kept pace with me.

  ‘How long?’ he asked.

  The skinny grenade was one of the first things I invented when I became an apprentice. Skinny comes from scindere, one of the formae used in the spell – it makes what is basically a big time-delayed fireball stick to whatever I threw it at. Nightingale didn’t approve, because apprentices, especially early on, are supposed to concentrate on precision and correct forms. And, to be fair, I’ve had to do quite a bit of remedial work over the months to correct bad habits I’d fallen into.

  Also, I’ve never managed to get the timer to work with any kind of precision.

  ‘About—’ I said, and then the warehouse exploded.

  Or rather didn’t.

  Nightingale flicked up his shield behind us – he can do that while running, the show-off – but there was no blast. At least no physical blast. Instead, a great pulse of vestigium rolled over us and it was as if my ribcage and head rang like a bell made out of hamburger. I stumbled, but Nightingale grabbed my arm and kept me steady.

  We reached the road where Guleed, Skinner and the panting TSG officers were waiting.

  ‘Not again,’ said Guleed, looking over my shoulder.

  I turned, but as far as I could tell, apart from a plume of white smoke rising from the far end, the warehouse was still upright.

  ‘You know what they say,’ I said. ‘Any building you can walk away from . . .’

  20

  Don’t Get Distracted by the Subtext

  You’d be amazed how often the police never get to the bottom of a case. You can investigate a crime, identify a suspect, and put together enough evidence to send them up the steps to await Her Majesty’s pleasure and still never know all the whys and wherefores.