Veteran v-1

by Gavin G. Smith

  I was getting used to oddness. Me, Mudge and Pagan sitting in a circle talking to a sea demon, a teenaged girl and an alien was beginning to feel commonplace. We let Gregor ease back into human communication by telling him a heavily abridged version of what was going on. He mostly stayed quiet, asking the occasional question. He seemed awkward with himself, even after Morag had found him a pair of Balor’s cut-off shorts and he’d tied them round his waist. I realised halfway through Pagan’s description of God, which I couldn’t be bothered to listen to, that he was ashamed of his alien-ness. Somehow that seemed reassuringly human, but I couldn’t think of anything to do that would make him or us feel better about this.

  Gibby and Buck had returned about halfway through our brief. I wasn’t sure whether they’d been sent away in case they angered Gregor or had decided to not be around themselves, but when they returned Gregor stood up, or unfolded himself. Both Gibby and Buck had backed away, hands going to holstered antique revolvers at their sides. We’d calmed things down but Gregor still looked like he might eat either of them and they looked like they might bolt at any time.

  ‘Who’re the Cabal?’ I finally asked him, several hours later, when I was pretty sure that we’d exhausted our version of events.

  ‘The people who’ve done all this. The people who captured me and experimented on me,’ Gregor said. His voice, almost normal now, was lulling me into believing he was both human and my friend. ‘Basically a group of fat old rich guys. Invisible men, corporate old money, intelligence agency types, military and civil service high-ups.’

  ‘From where?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘Most anywhere, but mainly Europe and America, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘A conspiracy?’ Buck asked scornfully. Gregor swivelled his head round and looked at him with the black pools of his eyes, long enough to make the pilot feel very uncomfortable. Buck was opening his mouth to say something when Gregor answered.

  ‘I don’t think they see it that way. They don’t see they have anything to conspire for or against. They and people like them have always made the decisions, and that’s the way it is.’

  ‘A secret government then?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think it’s anything that prosaic. They’re just the doers for our society. Cabal is my word for them. I had to call them something to give them an identity, you know?’ Gregor said. It had to be the alien’s influence that was making this ex-squaddie who’d grown up on the streets of Stirling use words like prosaic.

  ‘Do we know who any of them are?’ I asked.

  ‘Rolleston,’ Gregor answered without hesitation. We nodded. ‘He’s the head of their security, handles all their dirty work. The others are somewhat distant. They communicate remotely or through intermediaries. Other than Rolleston, the only other one I’ve seen is a guy called Vincent Cronin. Must be in his late twenties or he looks it anyway, expensive suits, expensive ware, katana…’

  ‘Which corp?’ Mudge asked. Anyone carrying a katana was normally an executive, a corporate samurai. A good executive had to prove himself in business and then duel for promotion. Rumour had it that for the top jobs the duels were to the death, blood on the conference-room floor. They only wanted people with the nerve to step up. If he was that young and carrying a katana, then he must not only be good, he would’ve had to have gambled big time and had it pay off.

  ‘I don’t think it’s that simple; he doesn’t appear to have a particular citizenship. He’s some kind of high-level fixer, executive without a portfolio. Rolleston handles all the dirty work and Cronin does all the organisational stuff.’

  ‘So we can assume this guy’s best of breed?’ Mudge said. Gregor nodded. It didn’t look right, his head seemed to bob elastically.

  ‘So they started the war?’ I asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What did they want you for?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘For Their technology,’ Gregor answered. ‘I was a sample, then I was a test bed and finally I was a production facility.’

  ‘Military applications?’ I asked. Gregor shrugged. That didn’t look right either. I wondered if he still had what we would recognise as a skeleton.

  ‘I guess, but I think a lot of the Cabal is very old and very ill.’

  ‘So they want to use Their liquid… biological whatever to help rejuvenate and generally increase their lifespan?’ Mudge said.

  ‘Possibly,’ Gregor said.

  Something horrible occurred to me. ‘Their operators – Rolleston, the Grey Lady and the like – will they be augmented by Themtech?’ Gregor considered this.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a possibility. They look normal so if they are augmented they must be a lot more sophisticated than me.’

  ‘No offence to your friend here, but he ain’t telling us shit,’ Balor said. It was the first time he’d really spoken. He’d spent most of his time staring at Gregor, who now swivelled his head round to look at the one-eyed pirate.

  ‘I was kind of busy being experimented on,’ Gregor said evenly.

  ‘And you’ve admitted that they can programme you,’ Buck said. I saw Gibby looking distinctly uncomfortable.

  ‘Yeah, it’s slightly less subtle than the way they control everyone else,’ Gregor said. I sat more upright in my chair, somewhat surprised at this insight. I gave it some thought.

  ‘I’m not fucking programmable,’ Balor said.

  Gregor looked Balor right in the eye. ‘You used to serve,’ he said. I guessed he just didn’t understand the whole respect thing that Balor was supposed to command.

  ‘Did I?’ he asked. ‘That didn’t feel like what I was doing…’

  ‘Fine, but it was what the rest of us were doing,’ I said. ‘Except Mudge.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he’s not still controllable or under their control,’ Balor said.

  ‘He’s not,’ Morag said. ‘We dealt with that.’

  ‘Then who is in control, the alien or the man?’ Gibby asked.

  ‘Both,’ Gregor said. ‘And believe me I have more motivation than the rest of you to stay under my own control and deal with the Cabal.’

  ‘Besides,’ I added. ‘If he was still working for them, where are they? They’ve got no good reason for leaving us free.’

  ‘Deal with the Cabal?’ Buck asked. ‘How we supposed to deal with this Cabal if they’re as powerful as you say?’ It was a good point.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gregor said. ‘But you will need to deal with them soon because they will want me back and they certainly can’t let knowledge of my existence leak.’

  ‘So let’s leak it,’ Mudge mused. Pagan looked over at him thoughtfully.

  ‘We need to release God,’ Morag said suddenly.

  Pagan’s thoughtful expression suddenly disappeared. ‘It’s not ready.’

  Morag wore a look of irritation on her face that said this wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. I took another mouthful of whisky from my tin mug. Mudge had produced a bottle of decent whisky. I think he’d stowed it to celebrate Gregor’s liberation. I’m not sure how celebratory Mudge was feeling about it now. I was mildly drunk, which wasn’t really helping the constant nausea but was giving it a sort of warm glow.

  ‘It is ready but it might not be perfect,’ Morag said. ‘And you didn’t see it.’ I had been wondering about this but the right time to broach it just never seemed to come up.

  ‘What happened to you in the facility’s net?’ I asked. All eyes turned to Morag, who shifted uncomfortably, not enjoying being the centre of attention suddenly, but there was something else. She was scared – not the general scared of doing dangerous things but real terror.

  ‘She overreacted to a very nasty security program,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Oh bullshit!’ Morag shouted at him.

  Pagan sighed. ‘Look, Morag. Nobody’s saying that you haven’t come far and fast in a little time. You’re probably the most gifted hacker
of your generation, but the fact is you’ve never been up against serious security with illegal black-attack programming. It cuts through your neural ware’s own defences and goes straight for the biofeedback.’

  ‘If she said she saw the devil then we should believe her,’ Rannu said. I thought this was creepy somehow.

  ‘You saw the devil?’ I asked. I knew Morag had been eagerly awaiting her first net-bound religious vision. It seemed unfortunate that it had been the devil.

  ‘When we entered the system they tried a purge, sent a firestorm program ahead of us. It was good but like any purge there’s always something left. We were sifting through the wreckage trying to get what we could…’ Pagan said.

  ‘What did you get?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ he said. ‘They’d left a particularly nasty security program in there to get us.’

  ‘It was more than that; it was like God…’ Morag said.

  ‘Only evil,’ I suggested, smiling. Morag glared at me.

  ‘It was frightening, there’s no doubt about it,’ Pagan said. ‘It was sophisticated and dangerous.’

  ‘But you dealt with it?’ I asked. Pagan shook his head, his dreadlocks whipping from side to side.

  ‘No, it went for Morag first-’

  ‘Because it knew who the dangerous one was,’ Rannu said. I don’t think he was purposely trying to goad Pagan, but if he was he was doing a good job.

  ‘So we ejected,’ Pagan said, trying to ignore Rannu. I knew that they hadn’t gone back into the facility’s isolated net.

  ‘So you can’t be sure it was just a security program?’ I asked.

  ‘Look. Morag’s never been hit that hard and has become used to thinking that she’s invulnerable in the net. The thing rose out of the obsidian like some enormous bloody worm triggering just about every one of our conditioned fear triggers.’ He sounded exasperated. At the mention of the worm Gregor’s head had spun round to look at Pagan.

  ‘When you said "bloody worm" did you mean the worm was covered in blood?’ he asked. Pagan nodded. ‘You know the project name?’ Gregor asked.

  ‘Project Blackworm,’ Pagan said. ‘But I don’t see what that has to do with it.’

  ‘Can you tell us what you found in there?’ I asked.

  ‘Broadly speaking it confirms Gregor’s story,’ said Pagan. ‘The overall project is called Project Blackworm, which is presumably why the security looked the way it did. The project’s designed to harvest Their biotechnology for a number of different applications.’

  ‘Did it mention why they started the war?’ I asked. Pagan shook his head.

  ‘Did it mention the sub-projects?’ Gregor asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Which are?’ I probed.

  ‘Project Crom and Project Demiurge,’ Pagan said.

  ‘It was Demiurge,’ Morag said.

  ‘Why would they leave Demiurge in a system they’ve purged and presumably abandoned?’ Pagan demanded irritably.

  ‘Then it was a fragment of Demiurge,’ Morag insisted.

  ‘Like you’re a fragment of God?’ Pagan said.

  ‘Guys?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Demiurge is the software application of Themtech,’ Pagan explained.

  ‘So?’ I asked.

  ‘So it’s as sophisticated as God and potentially as powerful, if not more so because they’ve got a lot more resources to throw at it.’

  ‘So what happens if Demiurge gets out into the net?’ I asked.

  ‘Same as if God got out, only presumably less benevolent. I’m guessing it would mean Gregor’s Cabal would control all information. The easy way, I mean,’ said Pagan.

  ‘How do we know they haven’t already released it and are in control?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘They haven’t. I’d know,’ Morag assured him.

  Pagan glanced irritably over at her. ‘As far as we can tell they haven’t perfected it yet.’

  ‘Which is why we need to release God into the net as quickly as possible,’ Morag said.

  Mudge looked very uncomfortable at this suggestion.

  ‘What’s Project Crom?’ I asked, forestalling what I suspected would be another argument.

  ‘As far as I can tell, it’s a viral weapon,’ Pagan said.

  ‘It’s an application of the control bionanites they used on me,’ Gregor answered.

  ‘What application?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘Basically infect, replicate, control,’ Gregor answered.

  ‘What?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘Them.’

  ‘All of Them?’ I asked incredulously. Gregor and Pagan nodded.

  ‘Are you talking about this Cabal taking total control of an entire alien race?’ Mudge asked.

  ‘Theoretically, yes,’ Pagan said. I noticed that Buck had a look of extreme concentration on his face.

  ‘I don’t think that should happen,’ the degenerate cyberbilly said. In many ways I was impressed with his grasp of the situation.

  ‘Delivery?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Pagan said. Gregor just shook his head but he still hadn’t quite mastered human body language.

  ‘So how do we stop it?’ Morag asked.

  ‘We?’ Buck asked. ‘Why is this our problem?’

  ‘You said you’d help,’ I reminded him, but I had to admit it seemed that we were dealing with things beyond our capabilities. With the best will in the world I don’t think we had either the skill set or the resources to deal with something like this. Besides, if they were looking hard enough they were going to find us sooner or later.

  ‘We don’t need to stop it, we just need someone more benevolent to control it,’ Mudge said.

  I looked over at him. Everyone was looking at him. I noticed Balor was smiling but Gregor, Pagan and Morag looked appalled.

  ‘What?’ Mudge demanded. ‘They are a hostile species and want to destroy humanity. We can’t wipe Them out so taking control of Them seems like a good idea to me – in terms of self-preservation, I mean.’

  ‘We started the war,’ I pointed out.

  ‘So? I mean don’t get me wrong. I wish we hadn’t but we did, and now we have to deal with the results of that. If that means in order to survive we have to win, then this strikes me as the nicest way to do it. Regardless of who started this mess, They are a hostile race that wipes out humans wherever They find them. You do remember that, don’t you?’ he asked me.

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Mudge.’

  They’re a sentient race in their own right,’ Rannu said.

  ‘Agreed, and I’m very sorry about it all. It’s a sad fucking mess but if the choice is my species or Theirs then it’s mine, and if we have any responsibility in this at all then it’s to the human race,’ Mudge said.

  ‘I don’t,’ Gregor said. Everything went quiet. Gregor and Mudge were staring at each other. Mudge looked away first.

  ‘I guess we’re seeing your true colours,’ Mudge said quietly, not looking at Gregor.

  ‘I don’t either,’ Morag said. I turned my head sharply to stare at her. I think it was one of the most chilling things I’d ever heard.

  Mudge pointed at her. ‘You are a silly little girl. You think this is all cool and interesting, and I’m sure it’s a big change from servicing the great and good in whatever Dundee shit hole you worked in-’

  ‘Mudge,’ I said warningly.

  ‘-but what you’re talking about is us being a Them fifth column. You see betraying your whole race as some fucked up post-pubescent game. They aren’t cute, and they certainly aren’t your fucking friends; what they are is dangerous and, and -’

  ‘Alien,’ Gregor finished for him. ‘And this one used to be your friend.’

  To Morag’s credit she seemed to master her anger. When she spoke it was evenly but through gritted teeth. ‘You think this is a game for me? You think I’m not terrified to have this thing in my head? Do you think I like killing people?’ She glanced at me. What was that? I wondered. Then I re
membered my Slaughter high. Shit. ‘But I feel this. I talk to it and I know,’ she said simply.

  ‘But surely you’ve been used before, darling?’ Mudge said nastily. His face became mock-sympathetic. ‘Never been told a lie, duped by someone you trusted? "Oh, but he seemed so nice and I thought I could trust him." And what happened next? He’s getting paid and you’re running a chain up against the toilet wall?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Rannu said.

  Mudge was on his feet. ‘No, it fucking isn’t enough. I mean don’t get me wrong. I can see the attraction here, but we keep on listening to this little girl because he worships her,’ he spat, stabbing his finger at an increasingly angry-looking Rannu. ‘And he wants to fuck her,’ he said pointing at me.

  ‘Mudge…’ I started, but Rannu was on his feet.

  ‘Sit down,’ Balor snapped.

  Rannu paused and then glanced at Morag. She shook her head. What the fuck? Rannu sat down, though he was still glaring at Mudge.

  ‘So,’ Mudge began, ‘who’s for the humans and who’s for the aliens?’

  ‘That’s fucking ridiculous, and you are bang out of line,’ I said angrily.

  ‘He’s right,’ Balor said. ‘He has put me in a position I never thought I’d be in.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Gibby asked.

  ‘Being for the humans.’

  ‘This is all hypothetical anyway; we don’t have access to Crom.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we need to know who’s for humanity and who’s against it. We may need to settle it here and now,’ Balor said. Even Mudge looked shocked. Rannu shifted, so did Gregor.

  ‘This can be settled with a conversation,’ I said. Where had the impending violence suddenly come from? ‘Right?’

  ‘Look, Crom aside, the fact is we’ve just heard Morag say she’s for Them and she wants to release what is effectively an alien virus into the net,’ Balor said.

  ‘How many times do we have to tell you we want peace?’ Gregor said.

  ‘See? We? He’s one of Them,’ Buck all but shouted.