She did her best to disbelieve me, then gave it up and sighed. “Whatever.”
“Do you mind if I ask some questions, just so I know what happened?”
She snorted. “Didn’t they let you read the report?”
I shook my head. “I don’t work for Security.”
“Go on, then. If you really need to.”
“I suppose you didn’t actually work in a call centre? Or the recruitment agency?”
“No, I worked in the call centre and the recruitment agency, well, a kind of recruitment agency, they were the same place really, different parts of the same organisation.”
“So… was it sales, or customer service, or…?”
“We had a service for adventurers, I mean amateur adventurers, the ones who didn’t get paid, they could call up and find out who they were up against, get help if they needed it, call the professionals in, that kind of thing.”
“So anyone could be an adventurer? How many people had powers on your world?”
“Forty per cent. Maybe fifty, sixty in some areas.”
“That’s… very strange.”
She shrugged. “It’s why the world was so fucked up. You can’t stop someone with superpowers trying to save the world or whatever, so they licensed it. They did a psych evaluation, gave you some training, you paid your fee, they let you run around on the rooftops scaring muggers.”
“I can see how that would cause problems.”
“Hah. You don’t know the half of it. Once I’d been in the call centre for a while, I moved over to dealing with applications. Interviewing them, trying to stop the real idiots from getting a licence, that kind of thing…”
“Was that what you were doing when it happened?”
She paused for a moment. “Yeah.”
“Can you tell me…?”
She sighed. “I was interviewing this guy. He could go sort of half invisible so he thought he could be an adventurer. I was trying to talk him out of it because really, it was disgusting, you could see all his organs and everything. Poor kid.”
“What happened?”
“He caught fire. Got so hot he burned into powder in just a second. At first I thought it was his power backfiring on him but when I went to the office for help, all I saw was ash. And outside… it was like a dust storm. Or a building collapse. Clouds of it, everywhere. And that was it. For all of them.”
7. Group
Iokan cleared his throat. “I have a little experience with this kind of thing…”
“Really?” I said.
“Oh, bloody hell, you’re not pretending to be a nutcase as well, are you?” said Olivia.
“No, but—”
“Oh, so you are a nutcase.”
Iokan smiled. “Very witty, Olivia. No, what I mean is, I know a little bit about police work. And I think there’s something missing from the story.”
“Go on,” I said.
“If you’re infiltrating an organisation, or a world, or anything, really, it’s very unusual for someone to do it on their own. There’s usually someone backing you up. I was wondering if she had an accomplice.”
“Forgive me for asking what must seem an obvious question,” said Kwame, “but how can you have an accomplice if you are the last member of your species?”
Iokan shrugged. “Was she?”
“Yes. Very definitely,” I said.
“What if it was someone else?” asked Pew.
“Another species?” asked Kwame.
“Well… you can have more than one species on a world…”
“She didn’t have an accomplice,” I said. “But she did have some very advanced technology.”
“Artificial Intelligence?” asked Elsbet, suddenly on edge.
“No. Not intelligent as such, but very sophisticated.”
“How could she possibly have access to a device that could defeat your security?” asked Kwame.
“We’re not sure.”
“Perhaps something left behind by another species…?” asked Iokan.
“We don’t think so.”
“Are you certain?”
“We’re still looking into it,” I said.
8. Liss
“What about the device?” I asked.
“The what?”
“The one that let you get past our security. The one you were hiding in the remote for your screenplayer.”
“Oh, so you found it then,” said Liss with a scowl.
“Was that kind of device common on your world?”
“There was too much of that kind of crap.”
“So it was a common device?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay…”
“I meant there was too much crap from the superbrains.”
“Superbrains?”
“Look, lots of people had powers. Some of them, it was being clever. Too clever. A lot of them went mad. That’s what was wrong with the world. They built all this amazing stuff but then one of them would do something like wipe out all the wheat and rice so they could find out if people could eat some horrible crap they made from rocks, or invent some healing gloop that ended up eating people and mashing them together into one great big blob, or try and stop the hurricanes and give us a winter that lasted three years instead…”
She put her head in her hands.
“And then all the idiots who thought they could save the world just because they could breathe fire or punch through steel would go after them and half the time they just made it worse.” She lifted her head again, eyes damp. “That security gizmo was something they had in the vault at the PRG. Don’t ask me how it works. It just does. The guy who made it was doing seven to twelve for bank robbery in the low tech prison in Hallitasset. That thing’s all that’s left of him. Except for the ash.”
9. Group
“I suppose the question is, why did she do it?” said Iokan.
“Well, she seemed to be investigating, “ I said. “Beyond that I can’t tell you. But if you’d like to discuss it, I don’t have any objections.”
“It’s revenge,” said Pew.
“Why do you say that?”
“I mean, what happened on her world wasn’t natural. Somebody did it. Maybe she wants to get back at them.”
“She wouldn’t know what revenge is,” said Olivia. “She thinks a harsh word is a slap in the face…”
“I’d do it.” Pew suddenly sounded on edge, and everyone looked up at him.
“Would you?” asked Iokan.
“Yes.”
“Would you kill?”
Pew only took a second to think about it. “Yes.”
“Do you think that would make anything better?”
“Yes. It’d make me better.”
“How so?”
“I wouldn’t be a coward.”
“You’re not a coward. Don’t be stupid,” muttered Olivia.
“Yes I am.”
“Stop talking rot! Just because you’re not killing every bloody Soo you can lay your hands on doesn’t mean you’re a coward. I used to do it with revenants but it doesn’t do any good, it doesn’t matter how many you kill, you don’t feel any better so stop it.”
Pew sighed and stopped talking.
10. Liss
“What did you do after it happened?” I asked.
“I don’t remember. I blanked out for a couple of days. I was drinking. I went to find my parents and I buried them…”
“So that part was true?”
She looked straight at me. “Every word.”
“I’m so sorry, Liss.”
She sighed and looked down. “And then I went home. Opened another bottle. Skipped a few days…” She shook her head. “Then I snapped out of it.”
“By yourself?”
“No. The computer at the PRG found me. The damn thing kept pestering me. It took over the sound systems in all the apartments nearby to get my attention.”
“Was that an artificial intelligence?”
“Not really. All the real AIs were eaten by a virus years ago — another fucking mess from a superbrain. All they had at the PRG was an automated system. Once everyone was gone it went into survival mode and took over all the country’s computers to stop everything falling apart…”
“So… why did the PRG computer want to talk to you?”
“All the governments figured out the world could end years ago. So they made plans. They had protocols. And one of the protocols was what to do if there was only one survivor. As soon as the system recognised me as the last person on earth, it made me boss of the whole planet. Queen of the fucking anthill.”
“Does that make you the head of state?”
“Huh. Guess it does.”
“And that’s why it was trying to snap you out of it.”
“No. It had a message. It had found the bastard who did it.”
“Ah.”
“So that got me out of the apartment…”
“What happened? I mean, who did it?”
“They really didn’t tell you, did they?”
“I told you, I don’t work for Security. They don’t let me see their reports.”
She sighed. “It was Professor Crayfish.”
“…I’m sorry?”
“Professor Crayfish. Superbrain. Hyperbiologist. He used to make armies of crabs and lobsters and attack towns in the South Pacific.”
“Professor Crayfish.”
I must have seemed very incredulous, because Liss was incensed. “Yes! My world was a fucking joke! Do you thinking I don’t know that? Were you even listening? That crap was happening all the time. We had nutcases popping up and killing thousands of people every other week because they lost the remote for their killer robots or some godawful bullshit…”
“I’m sorry, Liss. You’re right. It isn’t funny.”
“So I killed him.”
“You killed him?”
“I punched him until he was dead. He had this carapace thing he’d grown, so I had to hit him hard, but I definitely killed him.”
“I think we’ve jumped ahead a bit. So… the computer found him. And you went there and you… killed him.”
“That’s right.”
“You took revenge.”
“Yes.”
“How did it make you feel?”
“I threw up.”
“I mean emotionally…”
“It made me sick to my stomach. Isn’t that enough?”
“It didn’t make you feel better?”
“No. It didn’t. The bastard wasn’t working alone. Somebody from another universe was helping him. He didn’t even know why. He was just a madman they gave the technology to… I shouldn’t have killed him.”
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head. “I just shouldn’t.”
11. Group
“Perhaps it was not revenge,” said Kwame.
“Why do you think that?” I asked.
“Perhaps she was simply seeking justice.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” said Olivia. “Just because you want something, doesn’t mean everyone else wants it.”
“Have you never wanted justice for your people?”
“Justice? From what, a disease?”
“It might have been prevented. Someone must have failed in their duty.”
“Of course they bloody failed. And now they’re all dead. How do you get justice when all the guilty people are dead?”
“That is my point. If those who committed genocide on Liss’s world are from another universe, she may be looking for justice.”
“And what good’s that going to do?”
“She may find some comfort if the guilty parties are uncovered and punished.”
“So it’s just more revenge, is it?”
“Not at all—”
“What’s the difference? Revenge or justice, it’s the same thing in the end.”
“The difference is law.”
“What law? How can you have laws when you don’t have people?”
“Perhaps he means interversal law,” suggested Iokan.
“Oh, and how’s that been helping you, eh?” said Olivia to Kwame.
Kwame sighed. “I did not say that her motives were entirely rational. Only that they may be purer than simply revenge.”
“Still a waste of time.”
“That is your opinion.”
12. Liss
“Afterwards… I got drunk again. I sound like a lush, don’t I? Then I realised I’d fucked up. I should have used Professor Crayfish as bait.”
“As bait?”
“He only survived because he was the one who set it off. He was protected, somehow. They were going to come back for him sooner or later.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s not a genocide until you’ve killed everyone, is it? And he would have known something. According to the protocols, I was supposed to find and interrogate anyone involved in the genocide, so that was going well. Hah. I was supposed to investigate and exact justice.”
“What kind of justice?”
“They left it up to me to decide.”
“That’s a terrible responsibility.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“How did you feel about it?”
“It gave me something to do.”
“What would you have done without it?”
She shook her head. “Don’t ask me that.”
13. Group
Elsbet hadn’t spoken yet, and I hoped a little prodding would bring her into the group. “Elsbet. Do you have an opinion?”
She frowned. Something occurred to her, something she couldn’t quite articulate — but then it snapped into place. “She was an infiltrator.”
“Could you expand on that?”
“I don’t really know her…”
“Of course, but what do you mean by ‘infiltrator’?”
“Well… that’s what she did? Right? She pretended she was innocent, but she was running a covert operation. That’s… like espionage. I don’t know. I wasn’t here.”
Iokan gave me a significant look. He was no fool. He’d figured out the parallels to Elsbet’s own situation as fast as I had: someone hidden in the shell of an entirely different person. I decided to risk the obvious question.
“Is this something you had experience of, in your universe?”
“No. There was no way the machines could have got someone in with us.”
“And you never did the same to them?”
She gave me a reproaching look. “Do I look like I could imitate a machine?”
The group shared surreptitious glances. She didn’t notice.
“No, of course not,” said Iokan.
“Well, shut up about it then.”
“Is that all?” asked Kwame.
She looked back at him, confused at everyone’s sudden interest and covering it with aggression. “Yeah. Why, what else do you want?”
I decided it wasn’t the time to press her further. “Nothing,” I said. “Let’s move on.”
14. Liss
“So we knew the bad guys were from another universe. We researched everything the superbrains knew about that kinda stuff. Turns out all the ones who went into that field died young — lab accidents, mostly. None of them made it past twenty-five.”
“You think someone was suppressing the technology?”
“Hell, yeah. Someone didn’t want us seeing other universes. We could have done it, of course we could. All of the things the superbrains were doing, and they can’t go to other universes? That doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like going to another star system.”
“Did you find anything else?”
“There was enough in the research for us to set up detectors to see if anyone else came through. And the only bait we had left was me. The idea was to set up shop and make it obvious someone was still alive, and then… well, there were lots of things we could have done. We only d
id the undercover thing because you seemed friendly.”
“So when we turned up, you really thought it might have been us?”
“What else was I supposed to think?
“Okay. I can understand that. How did you do it?”
“Preparation. We set up an apartment, made it look lived in, created the electronic trail in an office and shops and everything. I had to have acting lessons as well.”
“How—?”
“Interactive software. I wasn’t very good. I ended up pretending to be someone from work.”
“I see…”
“There was this woman called Galts. She was so annoying… everyone in the office could do an impression of her, she was such an idiot. I shouldn’t talk like that about her, I mean she’s dead but… well, she was an idiot.”
“If it’s any consolation, we believed the performance.”
“Huh.”
“You fooled everyone. The clothes were a very nice touch as well. Perfect distraction.”
“That’s nice. Do I get an award?”
“We’re still looking at whether or not we can bring you back to the group.”
“Oh, great.”
15. Group
“I think, in conclusion,” said Iokan, “We don’t know enough about Liss to really judge her.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Olivia.
“I believe, however, that she is acting from an honest wish to do good.”
“So you don’t think she is on a quest for revenge?” said Kwame.
Iokan looked at him. “She may be.”
“And you count that as ‘good’?”
“If that’s what needs to be done.”
“Is she coming back?” asked Pew.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“Is it even possible?” asked Kwame.
“It may be. How would you feel about that?”
“Huh. Bloody good riddance, that’s what I say,” said Olivia.
“You’re assuming she’s who you thought she was,” said Iokan. “What if she isn’t?’
The Last Man on Earth Club Page 27