by John Luxton
Lorna’s opponent was one of the most striking fighters from the all-female Strike Girl stable; a large-breasted, chisel featured Amazon, her blonde hair cut short, as was the convention, and a host of wins under belt, courtesy of her speed, aggression and Muay Thai pedigree; a popular fighter because of her Kage Kandy status.
The first round had been a letdown and so at the start of the second as Lorna began to circle her opponent, she was aware it was time to put some pain Chloe’s way. It was at the self-same millisecond that she began her signature take down move, a flying Cisco, that Agim’s message had flashed across the periphery of her consciousness. It was a distraction that she could have done without.
Nobody likes to end up on their ass, especially in front of several thousand people and live on national TV, but it had happened and here was Chloe coming at her with the express intent of using Lorna’s head as an anvil in an upcoming and seemingly unavoidable ‘ground and pound’ scenario. Lorna twisted away but made contact with the cage. Chloe pounced. The crowd suddenly came alive.
In the second row Simon Magus stifled a yawn.
“Doesn’t look like your man, Agim Volte, is going to show, does it?” he asked of his companion.
Eddie was leaning forward, his lips drawn back a little showing some of his perfect dental work; the slight upturn on the corners of his mouth suggesting both a smile and a grimace. He shifted in his seat as if to accommodate some preludial trouser action that was occurring beneath the radar. His plans for Lorna were taking shape.
Some people do not like the idea of watching women hitting each other in the face. Men doing it is simply barbaric, something that is recognized as proof that the male of the species is a barbarian. With women it is seen as aberrational in the extreme – not so in beta world. Get real, its citizens would tell you, for women are as adept at dispensing punishment as nourishment. Luckily on this particular evening, Lorna’s ground skills prevented any such description from being necessary. Before Chloe could land a single blow with her fist, elbow or knee, Lorna had snaked out a leg and then the other, putting a choke-lock around her opponent’s throat; the submission swiftly followed.
Chapter 11
THE DYSTOPIAN PRESENT
“It’s set in some dystopian future, or actually more like a dystopian present,” said Toby, grinning at his own cleverness.
“And where’s this?” I asked.
“London – but not as we know it,” this time it was Lloyd who responded. “Want to play some?”
“I’ll just watch,” I said.
This seemed to suit the two addicts who then set to work on their endorphin levels; these men certainly loved their toys.
Even as an observer I experienced some of that immersive experience that I had often heard about as being the Holy Grail of web design and especially game design. I could almost smell the burning cars as Toby used his ‘Placater’, a kind of stun-gun, on another gaggle of looters who were about to turn nasty. Through the avatar’s eyes and ears the players were able to experience this virtual reality and move around freely, down streets, into buildings, across bridges and into subterranean tunnels where danger lurked at every turn. After about ninety minutes of this the boys laid down their controllers and agreed to park it; I asked what this meant.
“It’s played in what’s called a ‘persistent world’, which means that although the guys we are playing against will lay down their weapons too and we will do a body-count and then take our scores forward with us, the game will carry on without us and this ‘beta world’ will have developed and evolved by the time we next play,” explained Lloyd.
“I need pizza,” said Toby.
I ignored his request and ploughed on.
“So is the whole of London one big riot zone?” I asked.
“No, looks like the hotspots are marked on a map and rated as to the level of violence.”
“And what about everywhere else?” I said.
“Why would you want to go there?” said Toby, annoyed that we were not on our way to the Pizzeria.
“Usually the graphics go flat once you get away from the action, in these kinds of games,” answered Lloyd, clicking around on the console and bringing up various locations. “That’s weird!” He exclaimed. “What’s odd here is that the world away from the action hot spots seems pretty developed too,” he shrugged and went to power down.
I saw this to be true, as he had panned around and zoomed-in on the streets in riot-free area, I saw that people were just going about their business as normal.
“Wait,” I said.
Before we left I made Lloyd check the documentation files to see who the makers of the game were.
“Entropy Productions, England, is all it says.”
I bought them both pizza.
* * *
The next day I threaded my way down the lost byways of Mortlake to keep my appointment with Detective Z. The Sunday lunchtime throng were crowded at the far end of the bar watching a rugby match on the TV – only two customers were enjoying the glow of the open fire: Detective Z and Alan, sitting together like old chums.
After replenishing their glasses I settled down between them, telling them of my concern over the renovation work to the tower. Detective Z gave a blank look.
“Why shouldn’t they fix it up if they have the funds?” he asked taking a draught of the dark stout we were all drinking.
I let Alan explain. When it was settled that together they would come up with a plan to deter or delay the builders from continuing – I changed the subject by describing the contents of the data stick.
“Joel Barlow,” said Alan.
“The writer of those books – Alembic Valise and..?” I said.
“I arrested him once,” Detective Z interjected unhelpfully.
“It’s a kind of twenty first century camera obscura, pointing at beta world” said Alan, when I had finished my description of the contents of the data stick.
“Yes, but what use is it,” asked Detective Z.
“That, we have yet to ascertain, maybe we can solve your crimes, or maybe find...” I trailed off. I had been about to say – maybe find Lorna Z.
Chapter 12
FALLEN ANGEL
The next day at 6am Detective Z was shaving when his phone rang; it was the station house – there was another body. It was only when he was hurriedly gulping down his Earl Grey tea that he realized that the postcode he had written down was somewhere near the previous evenings rendezvous with Darren and Alan.
Vernon Reach was a shunned section of the Thames embankment between a sewage treatment works, still operational, judging by the smell that Detective Z could detect before even getting out of the car an hour later, and an abandoned dog racing stadium. A dirt track ran between the two down to rivers edge and there on a greenish slab of mud was today’s fallen angel.
The FIS were already at work; the support team had laid out planking and meter square slabs of plastic to stop the whole of the crime investigation team from sinking into the odorous slime. Today, Detective Inspector Slocombe was on hand, and making a point of taking charge of the operation as he stood on one of the furthest planks and waved his arms around, shouting instructions. An audience of seagulls watched impassively from the shingle.
“Another twenty something woman, light bruising to the left cheek, other than that there’s too much mud on her to tell. We need to move her before the tide turns,” said the Forensic Manager to Detective Z, as he passed by. “I think your boss wants you,” he added, nodding towards the gesticulating DI Slocombe.
Detective Z put a tentative foot onto the first plank.
Five minutes later he was back on dry land having drawn the shortest of straws during his briefing with DI Slocombe: organize the search of the adjacent dog track and the sewage works. He was not sure what was worse: being relegated to a supporting role that barely registered on the relevancy scale, or having to trek around a shit-processing facility.
When he had bee
n out on the mud bank the SC4 brigade had been about to maneuver the woman’s body onto a stretcher; working swiftly before the ever-present and inevitable turning of the tide achieved its allotted diurnal moment. Therefore the Detective had been unable to get any clear view of today’s victim, and therefore been also unable to silence today’s batch of deepest darkest fears – the ones that had persisted through every waking hour since Lorna had been spirited away. Especially so since this spate of killings had begun; each one in the sick sequence, because he knew in his bones that he was witnessing the handiwork of a serial killer, seeming to be directed specifically at himself, as either warnings or taunts from some ghastly beyond – the existence of which he had trained himself over the years, not to contemplate. The worst kind of policeman behaves thus, he told himself
The sewage works were thoroughly protected and enclosed by serious and secure fencing and so Detective Z and his two Detective Constables turned their attention to the dog racing stadium. This proved to be easily accessible; here they found the entrances to the grandstand and outbuildings to be boarded up and on the far side close to the main road they came across an elderly security guy in a Portacabin. He offered them tea which they declined.
“I’m here to stop vandalism. Kida get in and smash the place up,” he said when questioned about the reason for his presence.
“There’s a big hole in the fence, down by the river,” Detective Z told him.
This he knew. The Detective changed his mind about the offer of tea, and after sending his two assistants back to their car, settled down to speak with old boy.
“Were you on duty last night?”
“I was and will be right through until seven tonight.”
“What’s that a twenty-four-hour shift?”
“Forty-eight,” came the reply.
“Christ! And I thought we had it bad.”
The tea was dark and strong.
“See anything last night?” asked the Detective, getting back to the subject in hand.
“The dog started barking at about four-thirty.”
“What dog?”
“My boy took him home. Why, do you want to question him?”
“Not right now,” said the detective. “Not right now.”
Chapter 13
NEST OF LOOPS
Lloyd had delegated the job to Toby – I was his ‘pizza daddy’ so he was willing. He got my modest laptop supercharged to the point where it could run Nest of Loops without glitching.
“Even if you don’t want to shoot anyone you still need to use the joystick an stuff on the controller,” Toby told me during the hand-over. “Pick an avatar,” he said explaining that I needed to have an identity in order to interact with the denizens of beta world. “Remember you see them, but they can see you too.”
This reminded me of the Nietzsche quote about staring into the abyss; when you do – it stares back - into you. Maybe my upcoming immersive experience would take me to the same dark place that the philosopher referred to.
I eschewed the combat clothing, body-armor and the steampunk weaponry, settling instead for casual sportswear and a beard. That will confuse the fuckers, I thought. I was in fact becoming a little paranoid around the edges back here in my own world – every night I took a different route home from the Institute. And if I was to meet with Detective Z, I hopped from bus to bus to reach my destination, and this is what I indeed did on this particular evening, for we had agreed to meet at The Tower in Mortlake in order to ‘carry out some important police work in the otherplace’, as he had cryptically told me over the phone.
To my amazement the scaffolding structure that had previously been surrounding the Church Tower was gone; not a plank or a pole remained. The ancient stonework seemed glow as shadows lengthened and shafts of evening sunlight flickered through the elm and birch. The church bell began to strike the hour – it seemed an affirmation. After the final eighth strike the reverberation hung in the air. Ancient and modern, ancient and modern, I thought.
Detective Z was waiting inside the vestibule; I patted my computer case to indicate that I was fully prepared to help with ‘the investigation’.
“Follow me,” I said. And up we went.
In the end my laptop, that had been pronounced adequate when running on the in-house wifi back at the Institute, could barely make it past the first few frames of the opening titles before seizing up, no doubt due to the lowly 3G connection to the cloud where the Massive Multiplayer Game’s persistent world lived.
As I descended the Tower each step seemed to be eroding my connection with first part of my earlier mantra - ancient and modern. The manuscripts and magical instruments that I had hoped were taking me closer to my goal of being able utilize some form of ‘practical magic’ had been put aside in favour of a digital substitute. Here I am, I thought - too much book learning and not enough action. A monumental battle was being waged and so far I was playing no part, and now I was betting all my chips on a kid’s game, it felt like a kind of betrayal.
We decided to reconvene in the morning at the Institute under the auspices of Lloyd and Toby. I bid a disappointed Detective Z goodnight and then went home and slept badly all night; pursued by alligators.
Chapter 14
OXYGEN THIEF
They had surprised Alan in his allotment shed; he seemed an unlikely progenitor of insurrection in his green tweed jacket and dusty brogues. The two heavies, who had been dispatched to find him, simply taped him to a handcart and wheeled him into their van, before driving through the rush hour traffic to bring him into the presence of Eddie Brocade on an upper floor of the Vertical Abyss.
“I’m not saying you don’t have a fucking good reason,” Eddie said, whilst pacing up and down. “To meet with a certain Detective,” he stopped walking, his face inches away from Alan’s. “Perhaps you are old friends?”
Ever since his wife had died two years ago Alan had been spending more and more time at his allotment, even to the point of cooking meals on the wood-burning stove he had installed and brewing his own wine. The fact that he had been disturbed whilst testing the latest batch of elderflower wine gifted him the idea of simply pretending he was drunk whilst being interrogated, until him came up with a better plan.
“I was in me hallotment,” he slurred whilst exhaling what he hoped was a sufficiently wine-laden lungful into the man’s face. A smooth faced preening faggot whom Alan would have decked with one punch when in his prime. He let his head loll forward as if in a drunken swoon.
“You pissed up old oxygen thief,” said Eddie almost absent-mindedly. He was thinking of the collection of medieval torture equipment that Simon Magus had someplace; he had always harbored a desire to try some of the pieces out on a real person; an achievable scenario - to oil hinge, flange and spike with some fresh blood.
“Tell me when he sobers up,” he called to the minder.
Alan was left alone – to his captors a semi-conscious old boy, his wrists bound with a plastic tie, in a locked room.
With a swift downward movement he broke the wrist restraint and then took from his pocket a flick knife and then a mobile phone. He quickly ascertained that there was a signal, albeit a weak one. He then sent a text. Turning his attention to the knife he squeezed the release on the handle a couple of times to test the spring action, both times it opened smoothly. Afterwards he lolled back on the bunk bed in readiness for captor or captors to return, the knife tucked loosely in the sleeve of his jacket.
Chapter 15
UNDERTOW
We entered The Nest of Loops. We could skim over the cityscape until our appetite for destruction might lead us to a riot zone or an ‘anything goes’ unregulated area where the authorities had abandoned any pretence of law and order and anarchy held sway – here drugs, weapons and women were freely bought and sold. Of course Detective Z and I wished to avoid these blazing vectors of bad karma and high scoring opportunities; much to Lloyd and Toby’s disgust.
Instead we follow
ed the semi-deserted streets towards a forgotten bend in the river. We were here to see what goes down in beta town; to reconnoiter the latest and freshest of crime scenes and hopefully prove or disprove the theory that the dead girls were denizens of that hidden obverse world.
“It’s down here someplace,” said Clive. We were finally on first name terms, Detective Z and I.
Right on the spot where, according to Clive, a dog racing stadium had stood was a glitzy palace of plastic and glass – Welcome to The Babadrome – Kage Kandy Every Night – promised the illuminated hoardings. In much smaller lettering it said: Except Wednesdays; today was Wednesday.
For some reason I elected to wait outside, somewhere alarm bells were ringing – it was in my head.
After a while I went in too, to look for my comrade in beta world, but Detective Z was gone – I retraced my steps. I waited. Cleaning staff were making a thorough job of the whole of the front-of-house area. After a while I was able to detach my senses from the sights and sounds of the world I had entered – I found myself back in the basement of the institute, the big wall-mounted monitor was a flickering field of static. I was quite alone.
Chapter 16
THE VULTURE’S NECK
Detective Z sidled his power-suited avatar into the side entrance and looked around the foyer. When he saw the poster - Chloe ‘Cold Fury’ Andretti versus ‘Calamity’ Jade Power - he froze. The poster struck hope and fear in equal proportions. He looked at Chloe’s opponent, ‘Calamity Jade’ it said, but it was Lorna.
This had all the parallel meaning and synchronicity of a dream where totemic detail, personal to one’s own life, was woven into a creaky storyline in order to impart a secreted message that was always floating just beneath the surface of the conscious mind. And yet the lizard brain persisted: he was a detective, he was trained to hunt for meaning and sift for clues, and he was on the trail of a multiple murderer or murderers.