The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Okay,” Ivanov said sadly. “But just so you know, it wasn’t my idea.”

  “That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

  Louise sat next to Fletcher when they got back to the car. Ivanov and Brent took the jump seats opposite.

  “It’s your show,” Ivanov told Fletcher. “How do you want to play this?”

  “Wait a minute,” Louise said. “Fletcher, what’s that collar?”

  “Pacifier,” Brent grunted. “If he gets fruity, I can slam a thousand-volt charge through him. Believe me, that makes these possessed bastards sit up and take notice.”

  “Take it off,” she demanded.

  “Lady Louise—”

  “No. Take it off. I wouldn’t treat an animal like that. It’s monstrous.”

  “While I’m near him, it stays on,” Brent said. “You can’t trust them.”

  “Charlie,” Louise datavised. “Tell them to take it off. I’m not joking. I won’t cooperate any further until you stop treating Fletcher like this.”

  “Sorry, Louise,” Charlie replied. “The Halo police were jumpy. It was only supposed to be while he was in transit.”

  She watched Brent’s expression darken as he received a datavise from Charlie. “Fuck it all,” he spat. There was a click from Fletcher’s collar, and the locking mechanism rotated ninety degrees. Fletcher reached up and tugged at it experimentally. It came away in his hands.

  “Hey.” Brent slid the front of his jacket to one side, revealing a shoulder holster containing a very large automatic pistol. Three reserve clips had small red lightning emblems on them. He stared at Fletcher.

  “I’m watching you.”

  Fletcher placed the collar disdainfully on the floor between them. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” Ivanov said. “We want you comfortable.”

  “You mentioned a weapon, Lady Louise.”

  “Yes, the Confederation Navy have designed something that destroys souls. They want you to try and get close enough to Dexter to shoot him with it.”

  “True death,” Fletcher said in wonder. “There are many who would welcome that right now. Are you certain such a device works?”

  “That’s confirmed,” Ivanov said. “It’s been tested.”

  “If I might be so bold as to ask, upon whom?”

  “The project director used it on himself and a possessed who was threatening him.”

  “I am uncertain if that is heroism or tragedy. Did they suffer?”

  “Not a thing. It’s completely painless.”

  “Another example of your much-vaunted progress. May I see this fearsome instrument?”

  Ivanov put the alligator-skin case on his knees and datavised the entry code. The lock bleeped, and he opened it. Five matt-black cylinders, thirty centimetres long, were nesting on the grey foam inside. He picked one out. One end had a glass lens, and there was a single flat red button on the side.

  “The majority of its components are bitek, so it should be able to resist a possessed glitching it for a while. Simple operation. Push the button forward, so”—he worked it with his thumb—“to activate. Then press to fire. It will shine a narrow beam of red light, which has to strike your target’s eyes to work. Estimated effective range is fifty metres.”

  “Yards,” Louise murmured with a smile.

  Fletcher inclined his head in thanks.

  “Whatever,” Ivanov said. He handed the weapon to Fletcher. Brent tensed up. But Fletcher simply examined the gadget with mild curiosity.

  “It seems naught but a harmless stick,” he said.

  “There’s plenty goes on inside that you can’t see.”

  “Nor understand, I’ll warrant. However, its use is plain enough to me. Tell me, what happens to the original soul of a body when this is fired at a possessing soul?”

  Ivanov cleared his throat carefully. “It does as well.”

  “That is murder.”

  “One death is a small price to pay for ridding the universe of Quinn Dexter.”

  “Aye, the affairs of kings are not to be questioned by their subjects. For that is what makes them kings. Judged only by Our Lord.”

  “Can I have one as well, please?” Louise asked.

  Ivanov handed her one of the tubes without comment. She checked the trigger button briefly, then put it in an inside pocket on her waistcoat.

  Ivanov took one for himself and offered Brent Roi one. The Halo detective shook his head.

  “Now all we have to do is find Quinn Dexter,” Ivanov said. He looked at Fletcher. “Any ideas?”

  “Do you have any notion where he might be?”

  “Only a general assumption that he’s in the Westminster dome; that’s where he seems to have consolidated his grip on the other possessed. Logically he can’t be too far away from them.”

  “I know of Westminster, but not of its dome.”

  “Basically, the whole of the London you knew got put under a protective glass bubble. That’s the dome. He could be anywhere inside the city.”

  “Then I would suggest you take me to a suitable vantage point. I may be able to determine where large groups of the possessed fester. It would be a start.”

  It was the sign of a good leader that he could adapt quickly to changing circumstances. After the last couple of days, Quinn now considered himself to be ranked among history’s greatest. The curfew had come as a considerable shock, not least because it meant the supercops were on to him once more. He had a good idea who’d told them—a knowledge which was almost pleasing.

  Of course, the curfew had completely screwed up his earlier plans. The possessed from the Lancini had done as they were ordered, and used the night to take over a quantity of people in the designated buildings. But then the day workers hadn’t arrived, and the game changed.

  Quinn had sent runners out through the maze of tunnels and service shafts below the arcology, contacting the groups and telling them what to do next. They were to take out the police as he’d originally intended, luring them into ambushes and incinerating the precinct stations. Given their smaller numbers, it would take longer, but with the curfew conveniently shutting down the rest of the arcology the police would have little back-up or support available. He also told his followers to target the net and power substations, further isolating the beleaguered police.

  By late afternoon, deprived of police or emergency services, power and communications, the arcology’s population had effectively been imprisoned in their own homes. Quinn had achieved his goal without any need to smash the transport network, utilities, and food factories.

  It was almost what he’d originally intended, and achieved with fewer possessed than he’d originally estimated. That weighed heavily in his favour; it was easier to exert discipline over a smaller number. And the arcology, with all its prized resources, remained intact for him to use as he wished. His tightest control was imposed over the Westminster dome, with fear paralysing the nine outer domes, rendering them useless as possible sources of resistance.

  With London secure, Quinn had made one attempt to send disciples to Birmingham in overland vehicles. The venture had resulted in SD strikes and the total destruction of the commandeered vehicles.

  He knew it was never going to be that easy.

  As the first night wore on, and his possessed battalions continued their mopping-up operation against the civic authorities, he had several technical and engineering experts brought to his headquarters. They were put to work on methods of travel unsusceptible to the SD platforms. A token gesture. He knew the coming war of Night would not be fought with science and machines. It would be personal and glorious, as war was meant to be.

  As darkness fell, the bedlam of the demons had grown louder. Quinn supplicated himself across the desecrated altar of St Paul’s cathedral and delved deep into the ghost realm once more. This time he was rewarded with the greatest knowledge there could be, so beautiful he whimpered at its impact. God’s Brother Himself was awaking from His banishment at some
unimaginable distance past the end of the universe. Cries of glory and rapture rose from the demons as they welcomed their vast Lord among them, his ominous presence bringing a vigour and strength they had never known before.

  Their cold dreaming thoughts infiltrated Quinn’s mind. He could know them in all their astounding multitude, bound together in an enchanted torment. God’s Brother arose before them, hot and dark, radiant with malevolence. They reached out for Him, to be gifted with His power. And He freed them, His energy banishing their chains so they could soar again, as they once had so long ago. An entire army of apocalyptic angels, enraptured by their new state, and hungry. Hungry for so many things they had been denied for all this terrible time. They swirled in adulation around the Light Bringer in a cyclone larger than the world, screaming their malignant pleasure at His coming.

  Quinn left his ghostdreaming behind, his body solidifying to wake upon the altar just as dawn brought a grey light to the stained glass windows around him. There were tears in his eyes as he started to laugh. “Oh Banneth, you piece of shit, where are you now, unbeliever. This truth is when you’d finally despair.”

  “Quinn?” Courtney asked anxiously. “Quinn, you okay?”

  “He’s coming.”

  Courtney cast a glance towards the huge blackened oak doors at the far end of the cathedral. “Who?”

  “God’s Brother, you dumb bitch.” Quinn stood on the altar and held his arms wide as he looked down on the congregation of possessed milling across the nave. “I have seen Our Lord. Seen Him! He lives. He has risen to lead us to the final victory. He brings an army that will tear down the bright metal angels guarding the sky. Night will fall!” He was shaking with conviction. Courtney watched in a kind of dread awe as he slowly looked down at her. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I believe, Quinn. I always believe you.”

  “Yeah. You really do, don’t you.” He jumped lightly to the stone and marble floor, a wild grin visible before the blackness exuded by his robe eclipsed his flesh. His hood swung round to face the subdued congregation. Over five hundred of them had been mustered now, waiting obediently for the dark Messiah to tell them what he wanted from them.

  Their numbers were added to slowly, as further non-possessed captives were brought to the cathedral via underground service tunnels. The immediate vicinity around St Paul’s had been cleared of commercial and office buildings several centuries ago, extending its gardens and moating them with a pedestrian plaza. Quinn knew damn well that if too many people crossed all that open space to enter by any of the regular doors the satellites and dome sensors would see them. The pattern would be recorded, and the supercops would become curious at why none of them ever left. So the accumulation of his power base had to proceed slowly and cautiously.

  Those who were brought to him were taken down into the crypt and broken open for possession by a handful of committed followers loyal to His gospel. Quinn no longer cared whether those who struggled out from the beyond into the waiting bodies believed in the word of God’s Brother or not. As long as he was physically close by, they could be coerced.

  Studying the assembled possessed, Quinn thought he might have about a third of the numbers he actually wanted for the summoning ceremony. Just reaching the ghost realm took so much energistic strength. He would never be able to smash open the gates into hell by himself.

  “Where’s Billy-Joe?” he asked.

  Courtney gave a sullen shrug. “Downstairs again. He likes to watch.”

  “Go and fetch him for me. What I’ve seen makes it fucking important that we get more warm bodies in here for possession. I want him to get word out to the shitheads on the street, make sure they keep sending them. Nobody can afford to screw up today. This is His time now.”

  “Right.” Courtney started to walk towards the door at the base of the central dome which had stairs down to the crypt. She stopped and turned back. “Quinn, what happens after?”

  “After what?”

  “After the Light Bringer comes and, you know, we kill everyone that doesn’t do as we say.”

  “We’ll live in His Kingdom, under His light, and our serpent beasts will run free and wild for the rest of time. He will have saved us from enslavement inside the false lord’s prison city; that heaven the dumb-ass religions keep singing about.”

  “Oh. Okay, that sounds pretty cool.”

  Quinn watched her go, sensing the dull acceptance of her thoughts.

  Strange how her unquestioning compliance had begun to annoy him lately.

  He spent the rest of the morning supervising the groups he had out on the streets, directing them to new targets. It consisted mainly of intimidating the shit out of their representatives when they turned up at the cathedral. A couple of times he slipped into the ghost realm and travelled through the arcology himself. The original Lancini possessed tried to keep the newer ones in line, sticking to their orders, but nothing they could say about him and what would happen if they didn’t play ball was as effective as when he actually materialized without warning in the middle of them. Three times he had to make examples out of dissenters. He couldn’t visit every group, but word spread fast enough, even without the benefit of the net.

  When he returned to St Paul’s after midday, a couple of orgies had broken out on the nave floor: freshly arrived possessed, desperate for strong sensation. He didn’t stop them, the defilement of such a sacrosanct place was enjoyable; it was one of the reasons he’d chosen it for the summoning. But he did limit future numbers of participants. When the possessed got carried away, they were apt to give off their glitching effect over quite a distance, and there were still some power circuits operating around the cathedral. He couldn’t risk a giveaway impulse being tracked by an AI. Souls that’d possessed the bodies of police officers had reported how the net was exploited by Govcentral to hunt down possessed.

  Until he had enough people to perform the summoning, he was going to practice restraint.

  Quinn was watching the ghosts when Billy-Joe hurried up with a possessed called Frenkel. There were many tombs in St Paul’s, dating back well over a millennia, including those lost when the original cathedral building burnt down in the great fire of AD 1666. All the incumbents were supposedly men of distinction or nobility, the old nation’s finest. Or at least they might have been considered so while they were alive; Quinn thought they were just a total pain in the ass now. Oh, they had their pride, which came over in the form of resentment and hatred; but basically they were no better than all the other pathetic desolates inhabiting their insipid realm. The warriors who had fallen in defence of their king and country seemed to be in the majority of those who had lingered after death to haunt the land. They despised Quinn with a passion, knowing enough of his power to fear him. To start with they had done their best to disconcert his cohorts, especially Billy-Joe and Courtney, exerting themselves to their limit. Their chill presence made the walls bead with condensation; while the corner-of-the-eye visibility as they swooped around made the chancel’s rich gold-braided fabrics flutter with anaemic life. They keened as well, like dogs tormented by a full moon, spilling their morbid depression into the air for all to perceive.

  Twice Quinn had to shunt himself into the ghost realm to deal with them.

  His touch alone burnt them, sending them reeling away, weakened and cowed from the contact.

  Their antics had withered away, leaving them slinking round to view the gathering of possessed with mute disapproval, emitting a sullen rancour which percolated through the cathedral. Then they had began to stir, as if they themselves were the victims of an unnatural incursion. They gathered together under the central dome, twittering fearfully.

  The demons were growing louder.

  “Something you should hear, Quinn,” Billy-Joe said. He froze at the look of displeasure Quinn gave him for interrupting. Even Billy-Joe could see the ghosts in the nave’s energistically charged environment, shivering flames of colour that skidded uncertainly over the
tiled floor. “It’s important, I swear.”

  “Go on,” Quinn sighed.

  Frenkel was breathing hard, and trying hard not to peer into the black gulf that was Quinn’s hood. “I’m from the Hampstead group. We saw something we thought you should know about. I got here as fast as I could, rode a maintenance cab through the tube.”

  “Shit,” Quinn murmured. “Yeah yeah, very good. Get on with it.”

  “There was this bunch of people sneaking round the road tunnel interchange at Dartmouth Park. They’d driven a car there, which is weird, because we haven’t got round to crapping over the route and flow processors yet. Their car must have some kind of police override code, because the curfew restrictions are still in primary mode. They got up onto the street through an inspection accessway, then they started moving through the buildings. We figured they must be locals, they know the building layouts pretty good. No one can scope them from outside; our guys were having a hard time keeping up with them when I left. We didn’t take them out, because the thing is, there’s six of them; and two are really like the people you told us all to look out for.”

  “Which two?” Quinn asked sharply.

  “There’s the chick with long hair, and that humping great black dude. The others are just soldiers, real hard nuts. Except one, which is where things get strange. He’s possessed. And he’s not from our group, we’ve never seen him before.”

  “Is he controlling the others?”

  “No. They’re like a team.”

  “Where were they going? What direction?”

  “They were creeping along Junction Road when I left. Our guys are keeping tabs on them.”

  “Take me there.” Quinn snarled. He started to glide swiftly towards the door leading to the connecting subways. “Billy-Joe, bring your hardware.”

  Louise was thankful that the two GSDI field agents accompanying them were equipped with communications blocks. They provided her neural nanonics a direct, secure satellite circuit to Charlie and GSDI’s civil databank, circumventing the patchy net coverage in this section of the arcology.