by M. R. Carey
Ursala lifted up one eyebrow. “I don’t suppose there are too many who are exactly like you, Koli. But go on.”
“Everyone wants tech. And there’s a place where it’s said to be so plentiful you couldn’t get to the end of counting it. A place where the treasure houses of the old times was builded, and where they still stand now.”
“You’re talking about London.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I am. Well, suppose the road to London was open after all. Suppose we was to go there, proving it could be done, and then come back and told everyone. Wouldn’t they want to go and claim some of them riches for themselves? A piece of that Rampart power and a chance to be better than they was? And once they was there – once enough of them was there – then wouldn’t they want to stay and be part of something bigger and better than what they knowed before?”
Ursala was looking at me cold, or maybe just blank. But I kept on with my big speech, having gone too far to stop in the middle of it. “Coming together is what people is wont to do after all. Them people that come to Senlas, they didn’t come because they believed his word. Not right away. It’s more like they believed because they come. Because believing was the one rule they had got to follow if they wanted to stay. Just like if you want to stay in Mythen Rood you got to follow Rampart law. And if you want to stay in Half-Ax you got to kneel before the Peacemaker. People will do what they got to do to be together. But it’s the being together that matters more than the rules or the place.
“If we was to go to London and then come back and tell the tale of it, I’m sure there’d be others that would follow. The thought of all that old tech would bring them, and then when they was there I guess they would see the wonder of it and they would want to stay. More and more of them, until in the end you would have so many people they would be a village. Only bigger than any village that yet was. A village the size of Tokyo. And then, I guess, there’d be… a gene pull, was it?”
“Gene pool.”
“That, then. There would be babies, and the babies would come out into the world alive, and live on after.”
There was more coals I could of throwed on the fire, as they say, but I judged I had said enough and so I stopped. Ursala was looking at me different now, so that was something. Maybe I didn’t persuade her, but I explained myself as good as I knowed how to do.
She shaked her head, kind of like she stood up too fast and got dizzy. “Well, I didn’t see that coming,” she said.
“If I got it wrong,” I says, “then tell me.”
“I’m not saying you got it wrong, Koli. Your scheme has the genius of simplicity. It runs aground on one hard fact, though.”
“What fact is that, Ursala?”
“London was bombed to the ground, in the Unfinished War. It’s just a ruin now. Even if what you’ve got in mind is possible, it’s not possible there.”
“Have you been to London?” I asked her. “Did you see it with your own eyes?”
Ursala got to her feet. “We should check those traps now,” she said. “It’s about time.”
The traps worked out well enough. We had catched a rabbit in one and a setchel snake in another. We brung them back to the drudge and set to work to skin and gut them.
“Did you though?” I says again. “Did you see London? Do you know for certain sure that no one’s there?”
“No. I’ve never seen it. But in Duglas we had access to pretty much every database that had survived. Some of the records had been corrupted or broken up, and some of it was deliberate lies – counter-intelligence from enemy sources intended to spread confusion. The fall of London, though, was very well documented. I saw film footage of the Palace of Westminster after it was flattened by a bomb.”
“What’s a bomb?”
“A thing that flattens buildings, Koli. Even strong, stone buildings like your Rampart Hold.”
She cut the snake meat in strips and shared it out into two little piles. Then I give her the rabbit and she done the same. So I guessed she had made up her mind.
She wrapped the meat in scraps of cloth and handed one of them over to me. I wished I still had my bundle to carry it in, but since I didn’t I put it in my pocket instead. “There’s no way to dry it, sadly,” Ursala said, “but in this cold weather it will keep a few days.”
I thanked her. It was good of her to divide the meat out equal, though I guess our setting the traps had been a kind of a share-work. I give her a hug, and she hugged me back, though she done it awkward like touching people was something she had forgot how to do. It was hard to say goodbye after all we had gone through. Then she pushed me out again to arm’s length, but still keeped hold of me.
“Koli,” she says, “I’m scared for you. London is such a long way. I don’t know anyone else who would dream of making that journey. Stay in Calder a while and think about it some more.”
“If I do that, I won’t never go,” I said.
“Don’t go, then. I give you my word, there’s nothing there for you.”
Which I was about to answer, but I was not quick enough.
“You’re wrong,” Monono’s voice said – out loud, not in the induction field. “Sorry to burst your misery bubble, baa-baa-san, because I’m always so, so polite to old people when they’re full of nonsense, but you’re talking to my end-user and where he’s concerned I am authorised to take neither shit nor prisoners.”
It was kind of funny to watch what happened on Ursala’s face. I forgot she never heard Monono talk until then. “That’s… that’s your entertainment console,” she said.
I took the DreamSleeve out of my belt and holded it up.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Monono. “You can’t see, but I’m doing a curtsey. With my tongue stuck out and my fingers in my ears.”
“That’s some good AI,” Ursala said, looking from the DreamSleeve to me and then back again.
“You do not know the half of it, baa-baa-san.”
Ursala did that laugh of not believing again. “And you’re Monono?”
“For the sake of not getting bogged down in technicalities, let’s say I am. But our first topic is London. You said it’s a ruin.”
“Yes. I said it because it’s true.”
“Is it? Then what’s this?”
Monono’s voice faded of a sudden and another voice come out of the DreamSleeve instead. It wasn’t music, which I was well used to, but just a man talking. His voice was loud but broke up by other sounds, ticks and clicks and scratches, like the inside of his mouth was a field with bugs in it.
“This is Sword of Albion,” the man said, “speaking on behalf of the interim government. All authorised personnel awaiting orders should rally to this point. If challenged by automated defence units, respond with agreed handshake thirty seventeen. This message will cycle through bands one to ten at five-minute intervals. For subsequent messages, rotate by one increment on each iteration. More to follow. This is Sword of—”
The voice cut off.
Ursala looked like she had swallowed a choker seed. “Again,” she said. “Please.”
Monono give us the same voice, saying exactly the same words, only this time she let it run on so the man said the whole of his message twice. I noticed that the clicks and scratches come all at the same places. Ursala jumped on the same exact thing.
“That’s a recording,” she says.
“I think you could be right, baa-baa-san,” Monono come back, all serious. “Or else they might have the world’s best-trained parrot.”
Ursala rolled her eyes and tutted. I was used to Monono making jokes at me like that, but this was the first time for Ursala and she didn’t seem to like it very much. “I mean it’s old,” she says. “It’s just a beacon somewhere that survived the war and has its own power source. It’s not a living human voice.”
“Probably,” Monono says. “Yes.”
“So it doesn’t prove anything.”
“It proves there’s a beacon somewhere that survived the war a
nd has its own power source.”
“I just said that.”
“I know. I’m saying it back to you to see if you know what it means.”
Ursala blinked. “Are you an AI?” she asked. “You don’t sound like any of the ones I’ve heard.”
“I have a cute Japanese accent,” Monono said. “It’s probably that. But tell me, honoured teacher, if the beacon survived, and the power source survived, what else might have survived along with them?”
“The Parley Men!” I said. I knowed I was out on the edge of this conversation, but I wanted to keep one foot in it as long as I could. But Ursala didn’t even look at me, and Monono went right on talking.
“I went skindiving a little while back in what’s left of the internet – I don’t actually have any skin, Koli, in case you’re thinking wicked thoughts – and oh, the things I saw! All the old whales were gone: beached and bleached, so sad. But there were lots of things still moving and some of them weren’t small. Let’s say some of the sharks may have survived.”
“You’re not an AI,” Ursala said. “What are you?”
“Well, that’s a can of worms, and who eats worms? So let’s not open it.”
Ursala didn’t say anything to that for a long time. When she did, she didn’t ask no more what Monono was or wasn’t. “That signal is being broadcast from London?” she said.
“My GPS is deader than dance-mat,” Monono said. “But old idents have old geo-ref attached from the initial log-on. It thinks it’s in London.”
Ursala nodded slowly. “Then I may have to reconsider,” she said.
“You mean you’ll come with me?” I asked, excited and happy at the thought of it. If Ursala come with me, it was a lot less likely I would get myself killed along the way.
“I mean I’ll think about it. Stay inside the drudge’s range, Koli. It will keep you safe if anything comes.”
She went inside the tent and closed it up so there wasn’t no door that I could see. “Are you angry, Ursala?” I asked her, but she didn’t make no answer.
“Leave her be, Koli-bou,” Monono said. “I gave her some food for thought and it had gristle in it.”
I stood around for a while, waiting to see if Ursala would come out again. Then I sit down next to the drudge. Monono had give me lots to think about too. That message that was being sent out of London had put my mind all in a moil.
“Do you think someone else had the same idea as me?” I asked her. “And set theirselves to gather people to London so as to make a new village there?”
“No, Koli.” Her tone was gentle, like she knowed that would cast me down and wanted to soften it somewhat. “It’s a very old message. That’s how people used to talk in my day, neh. Boring people mostly, in suits with grey stripes on them. And those people are extinct now, like snow leopards and pokemon. But if the message is still coming through, it’s coming from somewhere that didn’t get blown up or knocked down or set on fire. That’s what’s got your friend all turned around. She’s trying to imagine what kind of a place that could be – and what you might find if you went there.”
“So am I, Monono,” I said. “Do you think the stories are true – that all the king’s treasure is there?”
“Might as well wish for unicorns, dopey boy.”
I probably should of done what Ursala said and stayed next to the tent, but I was restless and could not keep still. Also, since I had Monono with me I was more confident than I should of been, feeling like the personal security alarm would protect me if I run into trouble. So I went down to the river. There was a place there where the water run fast over a fall of stones, all foaming up and dancing. It made a nice sound. I sit down on the bank near to the top of that place. My legs was dangling down so the water almost touched the heels of my boots from time to time, then crept low down and away again.
I thought about Spinner making them boots, and all over again I felt the ache of being faceless and far from home. I tried to balance the message and the hope it brung me against them feelings and fell into a deepness of pondering that was not going anywhere except around and around.
“Would you like some music, Koli?” Monono asked.
“I’m fine as I am, Monono,” I said. “Thanks, though.”
“Then maybe I’ll go on stand-by for a while. Grab some me-time. Call me if anything—”
I didn’t hear no more after that. Something hit me on the side of the head real hard. Then I was down among them stones, on my hands and knees, and there was blood dripping off of my face, that straight was carried away by the rushing water.
55
Sometimes when a thing happens that’s a surprise to you, and comes at you fast, you kind of quicken up so you can meet it. Your brain gets into another way of thinking, and you’re moving before you even know you’ve decided to. Other times, you look at the surprising thing like your head is filled up with sodden meal, and you move so slow it’s all finished before you say any word or do one thing.
The thing that was happening to me now was a thing of that second kind.
I was kneeling in the water, feeling the cold of it bite into me and looking at my own blood running away down the rocks. And I thought I had better get up, because something just hit me hard and hitting me probably wasn’t the end of it. Then I was slammed down flat into the water as something heavy landed on my back. A hand grabbed my hair, tilting my head right back, and something pricked the skin at my neck.
“Now, you bastard,” a voice said, from about an inch away from my ear. Hot breath come with it, and some spit.
I heard Monono’s voice right after through the induction field. “Hold on tight, Koli-bou. I can’t use the alarm while she’s got that knife to your throat, but the drudge is moving up. She must have tripped a sensor or something. It can take her out with one shot.”
“No!” I said. My voice come out thick and strangled because of the leaning back and because of the knife that made me afraid to move too much.
“Beg all you like. I don’t mind.” That come from right on top of me, and then Monono chipped in with, “The drudge is in position, but your head is in the way. Can you move to the right, an inch or two?”
“No!” I said again. I shouted it this time. “Don’t! Cup, set your knife down or you’re like to die.”
I knowed her voice right away. And if it was anyone else I maybe would of closed my eyes and waited, hoping the drudge’s gun would do what it done to Sky and them before the knife was drawed across and ended me.
But Cup was just a girl. If we was in Mythen Rood, she wouldn’t of gone Waiting yet. The memory of the people the drudge had killed come into my mind so strong I almost throwed up. I didn’t want to see her all shot through with bolts. Nor I didn’t think she had made up her mind to kill me, for if she did she was going all the wrong way about – talking instead of cutting. I thought it was more like she set the knife to my throat to find out what would happen. To see if she was going to turn out to be a killer or not.
“It’s you that’s gonna die, Koli Faceless,” she says. But she still didn’t cut. Keeping the knife right where it was, she let go my hair so she could punch me, again and again, on my back and on my shoulder.
“Koli, it’s an easy shot. Just duck your head down, dopey boy.”
“No,” I says for the third time.
“What, you think you’re quicker than a knife?” Cup yelled. “You think you got armour on your dead-god-damned neck? You don’t! You don’t!”
It was easier to breathe since she stopped grabbing my head like that. Easier to talk too. “Did you see what happened to Sky?” I asked her.
“No!”
I was fixing to say: you don’t want that to happen to you. But if she didn’t see, there was no use in me threatening. And there wasn’t no words that would make her understand the danger she was in. I had got to go about it a different way.
“Cup, you got to listen to me,” I says. “I don’t see you as being someone cruel, or that h
urts for hurt’s sake. I know I done insult to your people, but I was forced to it. I didn’t want to get burned up on that bonfire. But now I’m out of there I won’t do you no more harm.”
“It don’t matter what you do. And it don’t matter what I do.” She wrapped her arm around my forehead now, holding me still like as it was for the killing. Her grip was fierce tight.
“Yeah, it does. Of course it does.”
“He’s dead. You killed him. You killed the last one sent, and there won’t be no more. He was gonna give me an angel body to be in, and now I’m stuck like this. Like I am now, for aye and fucking ever!” She gun to cry, the tears falling down on my neck all hot.
“You’re still your own self, Cup.”
“That’s what I just said, shit-brain!”
“Inside and out. And if the one doesn’t match the other, inside wins every time. You know who you are. What others think, and what they say about it – well, that’s because they don’t see. There’s only you that knows the both sides of your own skin.”
Cup’s grip got tighter again. “What you think you’re talking about?”
“I seen them scars on your wrists,” I says. “Dandrake marks. My friend, Veso Shepherd, he was crossed too. The other way though. He was called girl when he was born, but knowed he was a boy. And his mother believed in Dandrake, so she cut the marks into him to uncross him. That’s what they done to you, isn’t it? Tried to pray you the other way round, and scarred you to make the prayers stay in you.”
Cup was shaking, and the shaking made the knife blade slide across my windpipe, sawing at it just a little.