“Right sorry I had to do this to y’all,” Jarrett said. “Seemed like it was the only way. Shame about the god.”
I looked across the room. The meaty thunk I’d heard had been Aeolus dropping to the floor. I ran over to him. His mouth was flapping open and closed. He didn’t seem to have any words to put in it. One of the propeller blades was embedded in his chest. He was lying in a lake of god’s blood. His eyes were glazed and his jaw was slack.
I whirled round, shouted at Jarrett, “The only way to do what? Do you know what you’ve done? You haven’t just killed a god—you’ve killed the whole city!”
Jarrett smiled. He was listening, but not to me. He cocked his head, put his hand to his ear, said,
“Listen. You hear them?”
“What? Hear what?”
Then I heard it. A wailing like a choir of banshees trying to sing syren. It came out of the desert, getting loud, fast. I stuck my fingers in my ears but the sound drilled through. My teeth tried to dance out of my head.
The Mimi were coming.
71
I GRABBED THE remote off Jarrett, thumbed the buttons at random. The Scrutator didn’t budge. I tossed the gadget aside and bunched my fist. I thought Jarrett would fight, but he just stood there looking tired and spent. I knew how that felt. But he looked to be something else too, something I couldn’t quite believe.
Jarrett looked contented.
I thought about those folk back inside the city limits. All those who’d lost their homes and were now trying to scratch a living in the refugee camps. For them, and all those around them, life was about to get a whole lot worse. Never mind the Fool demolishing the Still Point—without air to breathe there’d be nobody alive to see the end when it came.
There was nothing I could do for them.
I had to get back to the office, find a hidden dimension for me and Zephyr to pack ourselves into. Somewhere to ride out the storm. I pulled the Dimension Die from my pocket. A single black face remained. If I used it to return to Zephyr, how would I get us both out of String City?
I took a deep breath, stilled the panic. A guy could do a lot with twelve hours of air. This wasn’t over yet.
I pressed my fist to Jarrett’s face and clamped my other hand round his throat. He didn’t resist me. “Just tell me why,” I said. “If these Mimi are as murderous as you say, why did you set them loose?”
Underneath his mustaches, Jarrett was sporting a serene smile. “Folk always used to call me ‘grounded’. Said my soul was still. I figure they were right, leastways, that’s how I was until Mary died.”
“Mary?”
“My wife. She was my heart, my everything. She was my still center. You understand what I’m sayin’ here?”
“I do.” I did.
“Mary got sick and she died. I could spin out the tale but that’s the gist. After that, I was all hurricanes and rages. I got to blamin’ folk—I even blamed my Mary herself for lightin’ out on me. Boy, was I sore. After, I just turned blue. Folk said it’d blow past, like all storms do. But this storm didn’t. So I came to a mind where all I wanted was my Mary back. Folk told me to move on, but there ain’t no movin’, not in my yard. They told me she was gone, but I knew she wasn’t. I knew there was a way. So I pretended. Convinced them I was over it. Made myself plans.”
Outside, the wailing of the Mimi was getting louder. It sounded like knives on a whetstone.
“I guess I know the rest,” I said. “You figured your wife had become a Mimi. Mimi don’t come out in bad weather. So the best way to be reunited with her was to turn off the wind. Am I right?”
Jarrett’s smile turned sad. “Guess you cracked the case. I came to your office meanin’ what I said—I wanted to bring a suit against Aeolus, shut him down. Do it all legal like. But then I realised that’d take time, and seems to me time’s runnin’ out in this here world. Soon as I saw your robot I figured a better scheme.
“When we got back here, I had me a quiet word with Pizza and Joey. They’re good with mechanics—we all are, have to be, livin’ how we do. But those boys are better’n most. Bright too, leastways bright enough do what I ask, not so bright they ask questions. They sweet-talked the robot, opened it up. Got its logic boxes all overridden, spliced it with this here remote. I’ve seen these robots, what they can do. Thanes built them for work but underneath they’re weapons. Wanted to get my hands on one for a while, but they’ve all been shipped out of town. Reckon yours is the only one left.”
“The robot’s not mine,” I said. “Thanks to you, it’s not even its own any more.”
Jarrett shrugged. “Guess that’s what they call collateral damage. Sorry, mister, but I ain’t gonna mourn no machine, and I certainly ain’t gonna mourn the city. Not now my Mary’s comin’ home.”
Spindly shapes were beginning to gather outside the hole in the wall. Most flowed straight past, headed for the shanty town.
One didn’t. It peeled away from the main group and flew inside the control room. I stepped away from Jarrett, my heart doing somersaults.
The Mimi was tall—at last sixteen feet. It was floating and wispy and draped in darkness. It looked like a paper nun stretched out by the rack, its face pale and beautiful, except for the tiger teeth. It was wailing. The wailing was bad. It felt like my ears were bleeding. I touched them and found they were.
Jarrett was walking toward the Mimi, arms open. I wondered what he was seeing. The ghost sure as hell didn’t look like any woman I’d ever take on a date. But love’s blind.
They met just inside the hole in the wall. Desert light made a halo round them both. The Mimi—Mary—stopped wailing and stooped to Jarrett’s level. They embraced. The Mimi’s ghostly hands caressed Jarrett’s back; he held her phantom head, stroked her diaphanous hair. Somehow they found a way to kiss.
Then she bit him in half.
A fountain of blood hid the rest. I heard more than I saw. Those tiger teeth made animal sounds as the Mimi gnawed its way through the rest of Jarrett’s body. Bones crunched. There was a lot of slurping. All the Mimi’s wispy drapery folded round the bloody remains, scooped them up, sucked them dry, crushed them to dust. Then the Mimi went into a dervish spin, started up its wailing again and set off for the shanty town, ready for the main course.
I couldn’t believe it was all over so quick. I tried to take a breath, but with the wind gone the air was already turning rancid. Breathing’s something you take for granted—until you can’t do it any more. Jarrett had been right about one thing: time was running out.
I stroked my finger over the last black face of the Dimension Die. It felt like the whole cosmos had just hit its expiry date. One roll would take me back to Zephyr. Maybe that was enough.
Instead my eye settled on Jarrett’s remote control, lying right where I’d thrown it, upside-down. On its belly was a small black button. Beside the button was a tiny label marked REBOOT.
Just when you think you’re all out of last chances, two come along at once.
I tucked the Dimension Die in my pocket, picked up the remote.
I pushed the button.
72
I’D NEVER SEEN the Scrutator move so fast. It was like every part of it had been oiled. Within five minutes it had put out the last of the fires in the control room, rewired all the logic boxes and set up a temporary automated operating system. It put the turbines back together. It took a while—the blades had been thrown all over the place, plus the shafts kept turning all the time the robot was reattaching them—but piece by piece it all got fixed, minus one or two missing sections of aerofoil.
I knew we were saved when a hot desert breeze started blowing in through the hole in the wall once more.
I wondered if the Mimi had made it as far as the shanty town. For the sake of the townsfolk, I hoped the wind had got there first.
The Scrutator swung down from a conduit and landed right beside me.
“You okay?” I said.
“I feel more precisely aligned
than I have ever felt in my entire existence,” said the Scrutator.
“Still talk like you swallowed a dictionary. You want this?”
I handed over the remote control. The Scrutator took it, crushed it like a paper cup and threw it away.
“The process of rebooting me severed the crude control override system that those two nefarious individuals installed while my attention was diverted. It also had the effect of purging many of the closed-loop paradoxes that have inhibited me since I started interacting with organic life forms.”
“Say again?”
The afternoon sun angled through the hole in the wall. A beam of desert light hit the robot square on. The light punched through all the perforations in its gleaming shell, lit up about a billion little cogs and widgets all ticking away inside. In its radiance, the Scrutator looked epic.
“I am a machine intelligence. The Thanes built me well, as they did all my siblings, but even the Thanes cannot escape the fundamental cosmic law which is this: intelligence comes easy, sanity comes hard. Woven as I am of cosmic string. I am perhaps the pinnacle of their achievement to date—their strongest child—yet even I am flawed.”
“Join the club, buddy.”
The robot ignored me. “As long as I try to integrate myself with organic society, I will always be a misfit. I hear more than you can possibly hear. I know more than you can possibly comprehend. Yet I comprehend almost nothing of what you truly are. You are a mystery to me, detective man—a mystery I fear I shall never solve.”
Something swelled up in my throat. It seemed to me the robot looked strong and noble and sad, all at the same time. Or maybe it was that desert light turning me into a soft-hearted sap. The feeling lasted until the wind god coughed.
“I thought he was dead,” I said.
We ran to where Aeolus lay. The god’s blood had congealed, gluing him to the floor. The fan blade stuck from his chest like a boat embedded in a sandbank. His red-rimmed eyes had turned milky.
“I feel the wind,” he croaked. “Can it be?”
“I have begun the process of restoring your machinery to its optimum operating condition,” said the Scrutator. “I apologise for the damage I caused. I am afraid I was hijacked.”
“Not your fault, son,” said Aeolus. “Hyperion told me bad times were coming. Perhaps I should have listened.”
“You’re not breathing,” I said. “How come you’re still alive?”
“Won’t be... for long,” said the god. “God’s breath lingers. Nothing’s coming in... but there’s still a little... to come out.” Huge eyes rolled toward the Scrutator. “So, son... do you really think you can... fix things up here?”
“Certainly,” said the Scrutator softly. It had said it was no good with people. If I heard a voice like that on my death bed, I reckon I’d be comforted. “I have already established a minimum threshold status of wind production that will ensure atmospheric stability while I undertake more comprehensive repairs.”
“It took... five gods... to work this place,” said Aeolus. “Can you handle it on your own, son?”
“Of course,” said the Scrutator. “The wind factory is a machine, as am I. I understand its needs intimately. And I am tireless. This, sir, is what I was built for.”
A hand the size of a bison patted the Scrutator on the head.
“Good lad,” said Aeolus. His eyes closed. “Good...”
That was the last of his breath. The Scrutator stepped from under the wind god’s limp hand. The hand hit the floor. Aeolus was dead.
“Now,” the Scrutator said to me, “if you will excuse me, there is much work to be done here.”
“You sure about this?” I said. “I mean, it’s another jump, isn’t it?”
“I cannot parse that sentence.”
“Look—the Thanes build you to work in the Mountain, balancing books. Then you get the urge to turn detective. That wears thin, so you look to try something else. This job comes up at the wind factory—suddenly it’s all you ever wanted. You see where I’m going?”
“I believe you are concerned that I will grow bored with this occupation as I have with others.”
“You got it.”
“If that happens, I will try something else. But there are three good reasons why I believe I shall remain. First, this is an honorable labor: to ensure the smooth running of a beautiful machine. It is work I can do well. Second, if what Pete Jarrett says is true—if I am indeed fundamentally a weapon—then it is right that I should separate myself from the rest of society, so that nobody may hijack me again.”
“You were out cold when Jarrett said that.”
“I hear everything, all the time. I have told you this already.”
“So what’s the third reason?”
“The most important of all: as long as I remain here, the sound of the wind drowns out all the other sounds of the cosmos. Here I can experience a peace like none I have ever known. You speak of the Still Point of the Turning World. I have found mine.”
73
WE TALKED A little longer but neither of us said anything new. Truth was, I was putting off having to leave. Now it was safe outside, I figured I could use Jarrett’s automobile to get back to the city. The route would take me right past the aircraft shanty. I wasn’t looking forward to what I might find there.
The Scrutator was antsy too—eager to get on with its work. In the end we shook hands, promised to keep in touch. The Scrutator was naïve enough about human nature to believe we really would.
Half a mile from the factory I hit a run of deep furrows in the sand. I flanked them, heading north toward the crashed planes. The furrows puzzled me: they hadn’t been there on the way out. Then it hit me. They were the tracks left by the Mimi.
A sandstorm blurred the distance. I drove on, wondering if the Mimi had reached the shanty before the wind had kicked in again. And what state the townsfolk would be in if they had.
A silver tail fin appeared through the sand—the first of the B29s. The Mimi tracks were pointed right at it. I damped the motor, took it slow. Also, I activated the central locking. Fifty yards out from the plane, the furrows were still deep. Forty yards out they made a sharp turn, straight for the open bomb bay doors of the Superfortress.
Thirty yards out they came to an abrupt stop.
I checked the ground beyond the end of the furrows. No tracks came anywhere near the crashed planes.
I cruised past the aircraft; faces appeared in some of the cockpit windows. A few folk waved. Probably thought I was Jarrett. I waved back. They’d learn what had happened soon enough. Right now, the wind was blowing again, keeping them safe. That was all they needed.
I gunned the motor and headed north out of the canyon maze toward the doomed city.
74
I DROVE STRAIGHT past my office without seeing it. I realised I’d gone too far when I reached the remains of the deli. I doubled back, trying to work out where my office had gone.
Turned out it hadn’t gone anywhere. When I’d left, the front wall had been a gaping hole; in my absence, someone had patched it up. With balls of dung. Holding my nose, I got out of the car and examined the work. It was patchy, plagued with lumps and shot through with little bones. But it looked solid enough. There was even a doorway of sorts. I squeezed through, trying not to touch the sides. Inside, everything looked normal. Zephyr was at her desk, exactly where I’d left her. So was the tax beetle. The coffee pot was empty.
“I’m back,” I announced when neither of them looked up.
Zephyr said nothing. The beetle clacked its mouth parts.
I tried again. “What happened to the wall?”
“Um,” said the beetle, “I rebuilt it during my rest break. Scarabs are very good with dung. I hope you approve. I added some art deco flourishes.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Are the municipals going to charge me for that?”
“Um, no. The new wall is, um, on the house. It’s my way of saying, ‘Thank you for the coffee’.”
/>
I sat down. Zephyr still didn’t look at me. “So how’s the work going?”
The beetle closed the ledger. “Your return is timely,” it said. “I have just finished.”
“Any problems?”
“I found nothing significant. It took me a while to understand your book-keeping systems, however. Have you ever considered a basic accountancy course?”
“Me? I dropped out of school before first recess. The books added up though?”
“Remarkably well, considering your, um, unorthodox approach to arithmetic.”
Zephyr muttered something I missed.
“What was that, honey?” I said.
She looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “I said, ‘Unorthodox doesn’t even cover it.’”
“Am I missing something here?”
“You tell me. And stop calling me ‘honey’.”
The beetle shifted uncomfortably. “I think perhaps I should be going.”
I let it clamber off the chair, all the while keeping my eyes on Zephyr. Meanwhile her eyes were fixed on the zoetrope. One of her fingers traced a circle on the glass globe.
“Is that thing still working?” I said. Zephyr went back to not answering. At the same time, she got up and showed the beetle to the doorway.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. Her voice was as flat as a crepe.
“On the contrary,” said the beetle. “I should thank you. For, um, being so welcoming.”
“Well, you know,” said Zephyr. “You fixed the wall. And I enjoyed your funny stories—they made me laugh.” She sounded like someone who hadn’t laughed in years.
The beetle loitered, twitching its antennae. “There’s just the matter of the small, um, discrepancy.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Zephyr stared at me. “How could I have forgotten?”
“What discrepancy?” I said. “I thought everything was dinky.”
“Everything is, as you say, ‘dinky’,” said the beetle. “The discrepancy I’m referring to is, um, a minor shortfall in the tax return ledger.”
String City Page 22
