by Heide Goody
“I don’t know who directed it. I mean that film where David Bowie is the Wizard King or whatever,” said Rod. “Spiky hair. A disturbing codpiece that ten-year-old Rod Campbell did not need to see. And screwy geography.” He was angry with this city and its inhabitants. He didn’t want to get into an argument with its streets as well.
Rod removed the paracord bracelet from his wrist. Like many of his wearable tools, the bracelet had started out as a catalogue-bought item, before he had added to it. On top of the ten feet of handy paracord, he had woven a monofilament garrotte wire and a long spool of heavy fishing line. All told, he had nearly two hundred metres of line at his disposal.
On the next street corner, seven feet up a wall, there was a rusty bracket on which a shop sign might once have hung. Rod made a loop of tied fishing line, hooked it over the bracket, and began to feed it out from his unravelling bracelet as he moved down the street.
“This labyrinth isn’t going to fool me,” he told the King.
Progress was slow and awkward. Rod had to hold the bracelet directly above his head so it wouldn’t accidentally strangle passers-by. But he made progress. He asked people about ‘traders’ and even showed them the fidget spinner, but the city folk were unresponsive, and he went on his way, hand high, cursing them all under his breath.
He didn’t cross his own path once. He might have thought that an awning looked like one he had seen earlier, the pair of girls he saw walking solemnly hand in hand might have been uncannily like the two he had seen minutes before, but he did not see his string again. There were dead ends and he backtracked more than once, only coming to a full stop when he reached the end of his cord. Fishing wire had given way to monofilament to a final ten feet of paracord rope.
Rod looked about, hoping for a final revelatory sight of something that might be his end goal but, no, nothing. He sighed, composed himself, and began to make his way back, gathering the cord around his hand as he retraced his steps.
“I suspect someone is playing silly buggers,” he said out loud.
“Silly buggers,” said the King in Crimson.
“And I suspect that someone is you,” Rod added.
He was heading up a road when he felt a new rhythmic tension in the cord. He craned his head to look over the people and picked out a figure who seemed to be moving directly towards him. When the crowd parted sufficiently, Rod saw a scarred and filthy man winding in the cord from the other end.
The scarred man tugged at the cord, frowned as he found resistance, and tugged again.
“This is mine, mate,” said Rod. “I tied it to the wall for a reason.”
The man tried tugging it one more time, then looked up at Rod. “I can do you a … deal.” He spoke slowly, as though he rarely did so and struggled to remember the mechanics of it.
“I was looking for something,” said Rod.
The man dipped into the grimy waistband of his ruined trousers and pulled out something that looked like a wand. Only when he pressed the button on the side and it buzzed into life did Rod realise it was a filth-caked electric toothbrush.
“For cleaning,” said the man. “Zzzzzzzzz.” He mimed polishing something with the whirring brush head. “Good for shoes.” He nodded, glanced at his own feet, appearing to be surprised there were no shoes on his own dirty feet and choked back a sob.
Recognition hit Rod. “Jeffney Ray!”
The scarred man – his face an utter ruin since Rod had last seen him – blinked tears from his eyes. “Good for shoes,” he said.
Rod took the electric toothbrush from him and found the manufacturer’s logo. It was another Earth product.
“You got this from somewhere,” Rod said. “You came here somehow.”
The man, Jeffney, looked at him uncomprehending.
“Don’t you remember?” said Rod.
Jeffney nodded and licked his torn lips. “Skeidl hraim yeg courxean. Oyo-map-ehu merishimsha meren’froi,” he whispered.
“Do not kill me, honoured friend,” the King translated. “I was only admiring your beauty.”
Jeffney nodded, weeping, and still holding onto Rod via the length of cord, scampered barefoot down the street.
Birmingham - 05:09am
Hans Mammon-Mammonson, the current managing director of Mammon-Mammonson Investments sat at the top of a long table that seemed to have only one purpose; to make the people at the other end feel as small and as insignificant as possible. Morag put her hands on the table, half expecting to feel it sloping from the big man in his big chair down to what currently felt like the kiddy end of the table.
“Ven’bruch geometry,” Professor Omar whispered as though reading her thoughts. “Don’t look at the gold inlay too closely.”
Blinds were drawn against the apocalypse outside, the only illumination coming from concealed lights in the marble cornices. Hans Mammon-Mammonson stared at the three humans. Just to the side of him on the table was one of the smaller plastic crates that had been on the pile downstairs. He had brought it along when he invited them to speak with him in the board room. He cleaned out his fingernails using the large curved and spiked knife he held. He didn’t take his eyes off the three humans as he moved from fingernail to fingernail.
The Mammonites were the closest approximation to actual humanity the Venislarn had ever achieved. The August Handmaidens of Prein had embossed their shells with human faces. The samakha, the Ken’bet marionettes and the Voor-D’yoi Lak had adopted a vaguely humanoid two-arms-two-legs form, but not much more. Only the Mammonites had taken a shape that was almost passably human.
The fact they were almost human made them all the more disturbing to look at. Hans Mammon-Mammonson’s eyes were slightly too far apart, or perhaps just a fraction too narrow, or maybe it was something to do with the symmetry of his nose. Whatever it was, the uncanny effect of his appearance was just downright creepy. Omar had once shared a personal theory with Morag that humanity’s ancestors had evolved the ‘uncanny valley’ fear for a purpose. Way back in human history, early man had a good reason to be afraid of things that looked almost human.
Morag didn’t want to think about such things.
“The consular mission to the Venislarn,” said Mammon-Mammonson. He grinned, impressed, but the grin revealed something achingly wrong with his jawline. “I would have thought your job on this earth was done. The only reason we didn’t kill you on sight is I’m curious as to how your employer maintains such loyalty. Stock options? A share of the profits?”
“The consular mission is a public sector body,” said Morag. “There are no stocks, no profits.”
Mammon-Mammonson flinched as he frowned. “No profits?”
Morag knew such a concept would confuse, even disgust the Mammonite. “We do it because it needs doing.”
“Gratis? No commission?”
She made a vague agreeing motion, then looked around the room. All the computer screens and TVs were dead. “And how is business? How are profits?”
Mammon-Mammonson bristled. “Our mother rises presently. The priests of Nystar are welcoming her to this world as we speak.” He glanced at the chunky watch on his wrist. It was probably obscenely expensive, but Morag wouldn’t know. She didn’t know any normal human beings who still wore watches.
“Is she running a bit late?” said Morag.
“Our unholy mother’s schedule is none of your business.”
“It’s hell out there,” she agreed. “Probably got held up.”
Mammon-Mammonson stopped cleaning his nails and laid the knife down on the table, blade angled towards Morag. “Did you come here simply to goad me into killing you?”
“No, sir,” said Chad with sudden energy. “We’ve come to make a deal.”
“What do you want?”
Chad waved such notions away. “It’s not what we want. We’re here to see what we can do for you.”
“For us?”
“As my esteemed colleague Morag puts it, there’s a post-hell existen
ce coming our way. This isn’t the end. This is just the next stage.”
Mammon-Mammonson held Chad with a contemptuous gaze. Most people gave Chad contemptuous gazes once they’d got to know him.
“Go on,” he said, eventually.
“We’ve looked out the window. We know what’s going on. And your mother, Yoth Mammon, sure she’s on her way, but are you really happy? Really?” He dipped into his jacket and pulled out a wallet and flipped it open. He removed a bank card. “Visa. Up in smoke.” He pulled another. “HSBC. Melted into slag. Lloyds. Got my Costa reward card here. Don’t think they’re serving any more chai lattes. Tesco Clubcard. All those points … gone.” He dug out a pair of bank notes. “What are these worth now, eh?”
Mammon-Mammonson grunted and pulled up the clips on the plastic box he’d brought into the room. From it he took bundle after bundle of wrapped bank notes. Morag looked at the piles and could not guess if each was worth a thousand pounds, or ten thousand. Were the boxes piled up in the lobby downstairs full of such cash?
“The value attributed to something is what its value is agreed to be,” said Mammon-Mammonson. “It is a contract of agreement.”
“Business is business, right?” said Chad. “You’ve always understood that. You’ve been waiting for this day forever but, maybe, it hasn’t gone the way you planned.”
Mammon-Mammonson nodded grimly. Chad, a man whose bullshit just tended to flow over people, ignored or shrugged off, actually seemed to be getting through to him.
“Even when the last blade of grass has been burned away, the last living thing driven to extinction, and the last drop of water poisoned with our mother’s bile, it would still be nice to be rich,” said the Mammonite.
Chad grinned. “Hans, we are here to save the day. We are engaging in a multi-lateral, cross-deity set of negotiations with a focus on aligning best practice with the current reality framework. There is a new world order. This—” he brushed his own cash off the table “—is part of the old world. It’s VHS. It’s vinyl – and not in a good way. It’s horse drawn carriages. If there’s to be order—”
“We like order,” said Mammon-Mammonson.
“Of course you do. And this new order is to be built on commodities of value.”
“Such as?”
Chad pretended to look about himself. “Not many humans around these days, are there?”
Mammon-Mammonson guffawed sharply. “You think currencies of the new world should be built on the – what should we say? – the ‘human standard’?”
“Untouched living humans,” said Morag.
The mammonite laughed again. “You’ve come here to tell me we shouldn’t harm human beings because they will be more valuable that way?”
“We’re saying we want you to actively protect the surviving humans.”
Mammon-Mammonson was genuinely amused. Morag couldn’t gauge whether that boded well or ill.
“And that’s a marvellous notion,” he said. “But it’s not the basis of a negotiation. You have no authority to offer anything. All you’ve done is give me an idea and three healthy human specimens to start our collection.”
Sheikh Omar grunted with laughter. “Shows what you know, you curran khe’ad. I am far from healthy. There’s every danger I might shuffle off the old proverbial before I leave this room. And Chad … healthy in body but he’s a ha’penny short of a sixpence.” He placed a hand on Morag’s arm. She could feel him trembling. “Morag here, however is the a-made kaatbari.”
Mammon-Mammonson’s eyes widened in gentle surprise.
“Her daughter aside, she’s possibly the most significant human being on the planet. A holy mother, if you will.”
The mammonite didn’t question this assertion. They had moulded themselves physically and mentally to the world of finance and trading. Could they smell lies?
“She is going to Yo-Morgantus, so you might wish to think about what sway she holds in his court.”
Mammon-Mammonson put his hand on the pile of cash he’d made. Even now, Morag could see him drawing solace from the memory of wealth it represented. “We want the lo-frax field,” he said.
Chad looked questioningly at the others. Omar coughed.
“You want to own the spiritual field which surrounds our world?” he said. “You want to own the net, not all the human souls within it?”
Mammon-Mammonson gave a genial shrug, a sign of his reasonableness. “If human fraxasa are to be the currency of this new world, if you want us and our unholy mother to protect you, then we also want to control the borders. Import, export. Tariffs and taxes.”
“Excuse us a moment,” said Morag. She wheeled her chair back and turned Omar to face her. She crouched low to whisper. “Can we do that?”
“Do what?” said Omar. “The Mammonites want the lo-frax field. You know what that means?”
“What does that mean?” whispered Chad, who had scooted round to join them in their huddle.
“It’s like—” Omar gestured with his long fingers, reaching for a concept. “It’s like wanting to own the horizon. Or midnight. It’s not ours to sell.”
“Does anyone own it?” said Morag.
“Does anyone own the horizon?”
Chad had spun back to the table. “Hans, baby. That’s definitely doable,” he said with a firm confidence that he did not deserve to wield.
Morag was instantly beside him. “We will certainly look into it.”
Mammon-Mammonson rocked with mirth. Something shifted in his cheekbones as he smiled. Slowly, he reached for the knife on the table and spun it. It twirled frictionlessly, a silver blur. Mammon-Mammonson watched it, perhaps hoping to divine some meaning from its movement.
05:15am
The Forward Company van took a wide road. Prudence began to see buildings taller than she’d seen elsewhere in the city. “Are we near the centre?” she said.
“We’re here,” said Captain Malcolm.
The van swung around an elevated roundabout. At the centre of the roundabout stood an intricate concrete tower, too small to be a building, but large nonetheless. It was not a Venislarn thing, but it reminded Prudence of the Bridgeman fish sculpture nonetheless. She remembered these people had killed that with their special bullets, and wondered if perhaps they were no more her friends than the soldiers who had first tried to kill her.
The van mounted a pavement and passed through an archway into a shop front. Under dim lighting, the van was met by other soldiers in the Forward Company uniform. Prudence and Yang followed the soldiers out. Yang tripped as she picked up her blazer and stumbled against the rack of weapons.
“Careful,” Prudence whispered. “And don’t threaten to sue them.”
In Prudence’s hand, Steve continued play the part of a grubby ragdoll, one that tightly clutched a pencil to its body.
“Downstairs,” said Malcolm and pointed. A double width flight of stairs descended into the ground. Prudence held the wooden handrail as they went down.
“This used to be a cinema,” said Malcolm. “The Smallbrook Queensway Odeon.”
“Your military base is a cinema?” said Yang, unimpressed.
“An abandoned cinema,” said Malcolm. “The main auditorium is forty feet underground. Doubles up as a handy bomb shelter.”
They passed another band of soldiers coming up.
“You’ve heard of Odeon, the cinema chain, right?” said Malcolm. “Started by a local man. Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation.”
Gritty dust crunched under Prudence’s bare feet. The stairs turned onto another flight, then into an area crammed with desks, equipment and computers. The flow of humans in and out was matched by the volume of voices. Instructions, requests and questions were called out.
“Maybe this was what war used to be like,” said Malcolm. He spoke briefly to a woman at a desk, told her here were two more for registration, then led the girls into the next room.
This, Prudence surmised, was the main auditorium. From the entranc
e, large concrete steps ran across the length of the space, down to a stage area some distance below. Knots of people and gear dotted the amphitheatre steps: working groups, small encampments. As well as the dim lighting from above, torches and lamps provided illumination for the different spaces. It had a dank and fusty smell, as if the air in here didn’t get out much.
“See that?” said Malcolm, pointing to the stage area. “The tall cage of blue john?”
On one of several tables near a group of people in deep discussion was a cylinder, maybe three feet tall, composed of shards of purple-blue stone encased in a wire mesh.
“Put an explosive core in that, and we’ve got a bomb powerful enough to kill gods.” He laughed and directed them down the steps to a small clutch of people by a wall.
Three women sat together. A small boy slept on the stair, wrapped up in a quilt patterned with colourful steam trains.
“Mary,” said Malcolm and one of the women looked up. There were tired red rings under her eyes. She looked at Prudence and Yang without emotion.
“More refugees?” she said.
“Prudence and Yang,” said Malcolm. “I’ve got to go speak to the leadership. We found Handmaidens of Prein in Acocks Green. Killed one.”
Mary nodded. Another woman shifted and pulled out blankets from the pile she sat on. She gave each of the girls one.
“How much?” said Yang.
The woman ignored her and opened a round tin. Inside were golden biscuits, several of them broken, which she offered to the girls. Prudence took one and Yang followed her example.
“Find somewhere to sit,” said Mary. “Don’t wake the boy.”
Prudence moved up a step and carefully, watchfully, sat a distance away from the women. She unfolded the blanket and pulled it over her shoulders. She wasn’t cold, but it felt good to have the soft pressure around her.
“And now what?” whispered Yang, sitting close but at a measured distance.
Prudence had no idea. In her hand, Steve the Destroyer tapped at her wrist. She glanced down.