The Age of Scorpio

6

Now





It took fourteen hours to hitch from London to Portsmouth. Beth had taken the train into King’s Cross and been delayed there by some kind of nearby terrorist incident. She had decided to hitch to save some of the small amount of money her dad had given her.

A bored lorry driver picked her up. She struggled to keep up her end of the deal, providing enough conversation to keep him awake. It had looked so close on the map. She could not understand why it was taking so long. They got there in the early hours of the morning. Came in on the M275, drove onto Portsea Island past the rusting hulks of dead submarines and other military-looking vehicles.

The lorry driver was taking a load over to the continent and dropped her close to the ferry port. On the other side of the road was a high wall of grey concrete council flats. They reminded her of the prison she had just left. She turned and trudged towards the town centre, following the signs. Nothing moved. The town seemed as dead as the rusting hulks she had seen on the way in.

It was Hamad. Control had seeded the rats. There were too many eyes in the city. You were never more than two metres away from a grass. They had uploaded the images into his head and du Bois had got to see his old adversary, a man he once wished he had had the courage to call a friend, staggering through the more picturesque of London’s Roman sewers.

He thought back to when he had first met the Syrian Nizari. Du Bois laughed at his own naivety back then. He had actually been looking for the grail, fool that he was. He wanted to heal his sister’s mind. Hamad had been looking for the milk of Innana. Both of them had been wrong. Hamad had been closer to the truth.

The Hamad he had known had been calm, even tranquil; the Hamad he saw through a rodent’s eye looked mad. Du Bois wondered if the madness was guilt over his crime or something else, something ancient and corrupted whispering horrific truths into his godsware.

Du Bois now knew where Hamad was going. It made sense. He could hide there; after all, Hawksmoor had been a rogue and a turncoat before du Bois himself had caught up with him and put a stop to his geometry of violence, ironically with violence. This was after the architect had faked his death and been reborn. He hated the churches; each one was a death trap that knew him.

Beth awoke to judgemental glares from people waiting at the bus stop. She was achy and tired. You never got much sleep on the street; you had to be aware at some level in case someone tried to do something to you. She ignored the glares and the suggestions that she find a job and rolled up her sleeping bag.

She didn’t feel much cleaner after a trip to the toilets in a fast-food place, but it would have to do. A little bit more of her preciously dwindling money brought her a map and she found the address. Pretoria Road down in Southsea.

The walk gave her time to think about how much she was not looking forward to seeing Talia. The anger she thought would have died down after years inside came back stronger than ever, and she saw her sister’s face crumpling under her fist. She tried to suppress the anger. She could not let her temper go like that again. Lose control and she would be straight back inside. All those years of model behaviour would be worthless. She was not institutionalised, she thought fiercely. It did not matter how shit it was outside, she did not want to go back.

It was unlikely that Talia would want to leave whatever she was mixed up in and return to her dying father and a very still house. Beth did not even really know what she was doing. Maybe she could get Talia to write a letter pretending to care.

Du Bois did not so much park the Range Rover as just abandon it on the side of the road. He checked the accurised .45. He still had the magazine with the special loads in place. He chambered a round and then slid the weapon back into the hip holster, safety off. He hoped it would be enough, he did not fancy taking heavier artillery into a London church.

He glanced up at the pyramid spire, a reconstruction of the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus and nothing at all to do with Christianity. The statuary – St George, the lion, the unicorn – all made him nervous. Still, at least it was not Spitalfields. He still saw the stream of blood pouring down the red-painted church when he slept sometimes. Even after he had tried to edit his memories.

How decadent Christianity has become, he thought as he headed up the stairs past the bacchanalian porticoes and pushed the door open. When it closed behind him he knew that it did not just lock, it sealed itself shut. The spite with which the tendrils of his blood-screen reaching out towards the building had been destroyed was amplified in the church itself. This building fundamentally did not like him. He wondered if the vicar, staff and any unfortunate visitors were already dead.

The .45 held in a two-handed grip, Du Bois advanced slowly, checking all around. The white of the Portland limestone seemed to jar with his presence here. Even if he had not understood the significance of the architecture he would have been able to see why people connected this with a pale reflection of heaven.

Above the pulpit he saw the hilt of a black dagger rammed into one of the supporting pillars. Du Bois recognised the weapon. He was surprised and more than a little worried that even now the Brass City would let Nightmare out. The dagger was said to be far beyond insane. He did not like the violence it had done to the church either.

‘Old friend?’ Even with his screen being eaten, there were few people who could hide from du Bois. He spun towards the voice. Hamad had emerged from the nave and was leaning heavily against one of the pillars. He held the curved white-bladed dagger in his right hand. Gentle Sleep was a much more reasonable piece of ancient insanity to be let out, du Bois thought.

Hamad looked awful. Haggard, haunted, fatigue written painfully across his face in a way that should have been impossible for someone augmented like he was. His suit was soiled and stank from his trip through the sewers. His headscarf was long gone and the slits of his extra eyes were plainly visible on his forehead.

‘Hamad,’ du Bois said carefully. He tried to forget about the magnitude of Hamad’s crime but could not. The hopelessness, the destruction of more than two millennia of planning all washed over him. He could not even muster anger; he just wanted to sit down. It had all been too long. ‘Clever coming here where we cannot track you.’

‘I just wanted to be closer to God.’

Du Bois smiled despite himself.

‘Even though you know there is no God?’

‘I think that there is. I just don’t think it is what we want it to be.’ Du Bois said nothing. ‘Are you going to shoot me or ask me why?’ Hamad said when the silence became too much. Du Bois swallowed. He had not had time to really think about it. ‘Last I heard you were tracking down looted Sumerian artefacts in Iraq.’

Du Bois just stared at the Syrian. ‘Why doesn’t really cover it, does it?’ he finally said.

‘All things have a time.’

‘Humanity would have survived,’ du Bois said, unable to master the anger in his voice. Hamad started shaking his head before du Bois had finished.

‘No, not humanity, a perversion. Is it so bad to stay with the rest of us?’

‘So spite then. You cannot go so nobody will? You couldn’t even leave one bridge, even the cloning information, so something of humanity could live?’

‘It wouldn’t be living; it would be slavery and hell. The powerful people who out of selfishness made decisions that messed things up down here would have gained even more, perhaps total control. We will not allow you to remake humanity in their . . . in your image.’

‘Decisions always go to the powerful – that’s just the way of things,’ du Bois told the Syrian. He saw the guilt dissolve on Hamad’s features and for the first time anger appear.

‘No! That is an excuse. That was not what the Circle was set up for. The best minds working for the same purpose, and when their time had come they could be uploaded, so you could take them with you, the real treasure of humanity, and do you know what your powerful men did? They erased half of those minds. People who had sacrificed everything for your grand plan destroyed, made nothing with a thought for what? For more storage space.’

Du Bois tried to make his features impassive but the accusation felt like a blow.

‘You’re lying,’ he said. Hamad stared at him incredulously.

‘At this late hour? Why would I?’

‘Then you have been told a lie.’

‘Is it more likely that you, the perfect servant, have been lied to or that I have been lied to?’

‘So what now?’

‘I will not be going with you.’ It was said as matter of fact, calmly.

‘The souls?’

‘They are all gone. Burned in the fire.’ Hamad was a good liar, but du Bois had a lot of help reading the tells of the bluff.

‘Give me the souls, Hamad,’ du Bois told him. Hamad’s face hardened. ‘No.’

‘What difference does it make? We’re all f*cking dead.’ Hamad said nothing. ‘What? You think the Brass City can protect them? And who will be the lords of your little utopia?’ Hamad still didn’t answer. ‘Hypocrite!’ du Bois spat. ‘A virtual prison is still a prison.’

‘It’s another world,’ Hamad said with the voice of a true believer. Du Bois knew this was not going to be solved with words.

‘Give me the souls or I swear I will tear them out of your head,’ he said evenly though he could not help but glance over at Nightmare sticking out of the limestone pillar. It was a matter hack, an ugly one at that. The ancient weapon was whispering its madness to the church. Or rather to the semi-conductor quantum dots that acted like programmable atoms in the smart matter that the limestone was impregnated with.

‘The things that I have done this day, do you really think a threat will work?’ Hamad asked, sounding genuinely aggrieved.

Du Bois barely had time to register what it looked like as it burst from the matter of the pillar. Part gargoyle, part image of a malign desert spirit, part disjointed, strangely angled alien other, and all madness. Nightmare’s hilt stuck out of its head.

Hamad spun behind the pillar. Du Bois might have risked a shot but he couldn’t afford to waste a round. He swung round, bringing the gun to bear on the smart-matter monstrosity. He had misjudged its speed. He was too slow.

Nano-fibre-reinforced armour and flesh hardened but not nearly quickly enough. The impact alone felt like it had fractured, if not splintered, ribs. Limestone claws tore open a huge gash in his chest and sent him flying through the air.

Du Bois landed twenty feet away, the air forced out of him, spine hardening to survive the fall. His impact destroyed a pew and sent him sliding into more. The limestone gargoyle galloped towards him on all fours, running through pews, vestigial wings flapping on its back.

Du Bois sat up, shut down the nerve endings that were trying to disable him and forced his body to work. He brought the .45 to bear and got off one shot. The gargoyle slapped the gun out of his hands, breaking them both. Du Bois rolled to one side just in time to avoid a punch that pulverised the floor beneath where he had been.

He rolled to his feet, realising he was going in the opposite direction from his pistol. His body was healing but slowly, his own systems having to fight the little nano-scale surprises that were inhibiting his own nanites every time the gargoyle hit him. He ran from it, trying to gain time. However, the gargoyle was not limited by human physiology. It barrelled into him with all the building’s hatred for him.

Du Bois hit the wall and left a red smear on the white limestone as he slid down it.

As his systems were knitting the wounds caused by the impact back together, the gargoyle pounced, landing on du Bois’s prostrate face-down body. It could have finished him then, but the ghost of hate that lived in it wanted him to suffer. It flipped him over.

Du Bois’s features were repairing themselves. It looked like his face was being inflated. The tanto he had in his hand was forged from folded steel during the Sengoku period in Japan. Crafted by a master swordsmith, it was just about as fine a knife as you could find in the world. It would be of no use against the gargoyle. Du Bois used it to mutilate his rapidly healing left hand. As the gargoyle reached for him, he smeared his blood over its limestone flesh. If you want to win you have to sacrifice, he managed to think. He sent the signal to his blood.

The gargoyle’s misshapen jaws opened wide in a soundless howl as it picked him up. The tanto fell from numb fingers as du Bois was bashed against the wall. Only just managing to stay conscious, he grabbed the small punch dagger disguised as a belt buckle. He rammed that into the gargoyle’s stone flesh. The blade disintegrated into its constituent nanites, flooding the gargoyle’s animated limestone. Acting with his own blood and the first bullet he had fired, they replicated like a matter virus. The gargoyle started to crumble, but its free hand swung back to tear open du Bois’s skull. Somehow he managed to reach up and tear Nightmare out of the thing’s head.

As soon as he touched the hilt of the weapon he heard its whispering as the ancient and corrupt AI nearly overwhelmed his neuralware. He dropped the evil old curved dagger as the gargoyle turned black and continued crumbling, dropping him in turn.

A moment’s respite was just enough time for more healing. The white blade opened up his cheek. Immediately addled and blurry, he threw himself to the side, scrabbling for his tanto. He found the blade as his internal systems fought off the tiny ancient machines that offered sleep and a gentle, peaceful end.

On his feet, he managed to dodge more of Hamad’s slashes. If the Nizari had had both blades he would be dead by now. He could not afford to get cut again. The nanites made by the assemblers in the hilt of the ancient weapons carried a lethal neural toxin. Anything more than a mild gash from either knife would overwhelm du Bois’ own internal defences.

Hamad came at him with the blade, his fist, open-hand attacks and a series of short kicks, each strike calculated to be the most efficient, to cause the most damage. A fighting system perfected across centuries.

Du Bois moved sinuously, swaying, his hands and feet moving to be where they were least expected, blocking punches with raised legs, checking Hamad’s blade with a hand to the wrist, slashing his leg open with the tanto when the Syrian tried to kick him, all the while the seductive urge to sleep becoming fainter as the alien nanites were hunted down and destroyed by his own defences.

Hamad was by far the better knife fighter, but mental fatigue had taken its toll. Du Bois never stopped moving, swaying, making debilitating finger strikes to his opponent’s eyes, groin, nerve clusters using rapid whipping movements, all the while looking for an opportunity with the blade.

He found one. The incredibly sharp folded-steel blade sliced across Hamad’s throat, opening it. Blood surged out. Hamad staggered away holding his neck. Du Bois backed off.

‘You fight like one of them!’ Hamad hissed when his throat had knitted itself back together enough for him to speak.

I should do, du Bois thought. One of them taught me.

Hamad saw what du Bois was slowly moving towards and charged. Du Bois threw himself back, grabbing the .45 from the floor. Blossoms of red appeared on Hamad’s soiled suit as impact after impact slowed his charge. He staggered to a halt over du Bois. The bullets’ nanite payloads were overwhelming Hamad’s own systems. Du Bois was breathing hard. The slide on the .45 was back, the magazine empty. Smoke drifted from the barrel. It seemed quiet and still in the destroyed church.

‘Would you do the right thing?’ Hamad asked and then collapsed.

Du Bois crawled over to Hamad’s body. He looked peaceful.

‘Sorry, brother.’ Du Bois drove the tanto into Hamad’s head, prised off a piece of skull, cut open his own thumb and pressed it against the brain. Du Bois downloaded yottabytes of information just before ephemeral electronic Ifreet destroyed it.

Then he sat back and looked at his friend’s cooling corpse. He could hear them if he concentrated. All the souls. He did not concentrate. He did not want to hear their voices.

Southsea seemed still, as if abandoned. It was a grey day. All the colour had been bleached out of the city as Beth made her way through terraced street after terraced street.

It wasn’t until she turned onto Pretoria Road that she saw signs of life. About halfway down, it had been sealed off. The middle part of the street was encased in an opaque tent-like structure with some kind of airlock leading into it. Police vehicles and officers prevented people from getting close. There were other official-looking vehicles behind the police cordon and Beth saw people wearing NBC suits going in and out of the airlock.

Beth could not see a connection between this strange sight and her sister but somehow couldn’t shake the feeling that Talia was involved. She headed down the street, head down, arms in the pocket of her leather jacket, trying to avoid drawing attention to herself. She did not have to go far before she realised that the address Billy had given her had to be in the tented area.

‘Hey, what’s going on there?’ she asked a slow-moving cyclist being trailed by a scruffy mongrel dog. The guy braked the bike and shrugged.

‘Don’t know. At a guess it’s some kind of terrorist thing. Maybe a germ bomb or one of those dirty bombs. Makes you think though. Be lucky if we don’t all end up with cancer or a head growing out of our neck or something.’

He wittered on for a bit as she stared down the street at the tented area. Eventually he said goodbye and headed off. Beth was wondering what to do. The thought of her sister as a terrorist actually made her laugh.

‘God is a prude.’ The voice was all but a croak. Beth had to replay the words in her head until they made sense, or not as it turned out. Very little of what the bag lady actually looked like could be made out through the layers of clothes, the dirt and the tangled mess of hair. She was crouched beside a nearby garden wall. She could have been anything from thirty to ninety for all Beth knew, and she stank. Beth’s initial reaction was to move away. What stopped her was the night she had just spent on the cold concrete.

‘He can’t stand nudity. Hawkings said that.’ The bag lady pushed herself up on the long stick she was leaning on. Even with the stick she was still hunched over.

‘Are you talking to me?’ Beth asked. She genuinely wasn’t sure. The answering dry chuckle sounded like twigs being snapped. The chuckle turned into a cough and the bag lady spat up something red or black that Beth did not want to think too much about.

‘God abhors a naked singularity because that’s when things stop making sense. Predictability breaks down. That’s why the universe takes all its dirty little secrets and hides them in the centre of a black hole.’

The woman laughed to herself and began to shuffle away. Beth watched her go. She turned back to the tented area and found a policewoman watching her. She’d been there too long, she decided, and left. She wasn’t sure where she was going.

By the time du Bois left the church it was his clothes rather than himself that were the worse for wear. His phone started ringing the moment he was on the street. In the distance he could hear sirens. They would be intercepted, he imagined, and a clean-up crew sent to the church.

Du Bois ignored the phone until he had changed his clothes in the back of the Range Rover.

‘Report,’ Control’s voice said placidly as soon as he answered. As tersely as possible du Bois explained what had happened, including him taking the souls from Hamad’s neuralware. Control asked pertinent questions and even remonstrated with him slightly for wasting resources when he requested a new punch dagger and a magazine of nanite-headed bullets.

‘We have godsware that needs harvesting and two L-tech artefacts,’ du Bois told Control. Nightmare had tried to hack his systems the moment he picked the evil weapon up. He had locked both weapons in a strongbox. ‘Nightmare and Gentle Sleep, assemblers in the handle and AI aware. Nightmare’s AI is badly corrupted; both will need containment.’

Control gave him a cache drop where he could pick up what he needed and leave the two artefacts. They would even cut the Marduk Implant, the two extra eyes, out of Hamad’s head.

‘What do you want done with the souls?’ he finally asked.

At first there was silence.

‘They are surplus to requirement and may already have been corrupted by the Brass City,’ Control finally told him. The pause had meant some kind of consultation, du Bois knew. ‘Erase them.’

Du Bois said nothing.

‘Du Bois?’

‘It’s done,’ he said.

Du Bois wasn’t sure why he’d lied. He would have to find a way to hide them for the next neural systems audit if he wanted to keep them. He was not sure why he would even bother; after all, the Brass City had doomed them all.

‘Du Bois, there has been an incursion in Portsmouth,’ Control said. Du Bois started the Range Rover’s engine as Control downloaded coordinates into the vehicle’s satnav. He glanced at them before pulling out into traffic.

‘Is this the beginning?’ he asked.

‘No, the evidence points to this being something else.’

As he drove, du Bois edited his memory. Just a tiny bit. He made himself think that he had erased the souls as per his instructions from Control. He was ravenously hungry.