Mirth is lurching his way toward me. The metal of the Octopus is bent and twisted and most of his tentacles have been scorched into stumps. He comes closer and my mind is too tired to stop him. He reaches out his one remaining tentacle and pulls me to him. We stand locked in a deadly embrace on top of Table Mountain. I look at the pathetic, burnt Octopus and marshal the last of my strength. I draw the Mantis’s forelegs back and then arc them forward like pincers. They slice through the cockpit and pin Mirth to the seat, his arms splayed like some exotic moth being mounted by an entomologist.
Frothy pink blood erupts from his mouth with a pathetic little gurgle.
I make the Mantis bend down in front of him. ‘Game over,’ I say.
‘You almost believed me,’ he wheezes through a mouthful of blood. ‘Give me that at least.’
‘If you’re expecting some kind of grudging respect for the complex beauty of your plan, then you can forget it, you pathetic, ponytailed freak,’ I say.
That seems to hurt him more than the spike of ancient metal I’ve jackhammered through his ribcage. His face sags and he struggles for breath.
‘I created you,’ he says. ‘I changed the course of history to create you. Think of that. I could have done anything and I created you.’
‘How touching,’ I say, ‘a Luke-I-am-your-great-great-grandfather moment.’
‘We are family,’ he says, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. ‘You can’t change that.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘But I can watch you die with a smile on my face.’
‘That’s my boy,’ he chokes out and then begins to convulse.
I watch until the last spasmodic jerk racks his body and he lies still.
Fire laps at the edges of my protective bubble as I stand looking over this decimated version of Cape Town. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say and then feel stupid. Somehow I don’t think these people need my platitudes after I have brought nuclear Armageddon upon them. I focus my mind again and try to remember what I had done to jump dimensions. Closing my eyes, I create an image of the Dark Lady in my mind. I need to make sure I get my dimension, not just one similar to it, so I focus on the one thing I care enough about in my version of reality. I focus on my version of Esmé.
The jump back is easier than I thought it would be. Like stepping through a beaded curtain. I see Rafe and Esmé on the deck of the warship. Esmé turns to me and I smile. It’s her. It’s my Esmé. She runs toward me but I shake my head and she stops. There’s something I have to do first.
CrowBax: You’ve got to admit it, this Mantis is a seriously pimping ride.
SienerBax: You know we can’t keep it, right?
CrowBax: Maybe we could keep it in the garage and take it out on weekends, like a vintage Porsche?
SienerBax: I hope that’s a joke.
CrowBax: Even I can see that idea, however awesome, wouldn’t work.
SienerBax: Do you know what this means? We’re actually agreeing on things.
CrowBax: If you start crying I’m going to give us a brain haemorrhage.
Think of smoking dark-chocolate-flavoured heroin cigarettes while inhaling pure sunshine through your pores and having sex with the entire world screaming your name in adoration and worship. Think of having that for eternity. That’s what having complete control of the Mantis is like. And then think of walking away from that. Impossible! Unthinkable! But that’s what I do. It’s not because I’m a good person. It’s precisely because I’m not a good person that I do it. If I keep the Mantis I won’t use it for good. Oh sure, maybe at first I’ll try to do good things. I’ll try for universal peace and all that, but pretty quickly my Crow side will kick in and I’ll start being power-hungry and evil. A universe with Baxter Zevcenko as the Supreme Leader? Nobody wants that, least of all me.
I dig my mind into the exoskeleton and unravel it. Particles begin to unwind as I reverse the magic African metallurgists created thousands of years ago. I see windows to other worlds close and it saddens me. It would have been cool to see some of those versions of reality without bringing a nuclear winter down onto them. I step out of the Mantis and watch as it crumbles into dust.
‘Baxter,’ Esmé says. She pulls me to her and kisses me on the lips. It’s not the honey-sunshine-heroin power of the Mantis. But it’s pretty close.
17
LET IT BURN
KYLE AND I are sitting on the roof of one of Westridge’s prefab classrooms when Anwar is stabbed. We watch him walk haughtily across the Sprawl without any of his enforcers. That’s Anwar’s way. He wants to show everyone that he’s not afraid of anything. Which doesn’t stop a group of the Form from surrounding him and sticking a knife in his belly.
He collapses, swearing at his assailants, and then rolls into a ball on the tar.
‘We need to get this on video,’ Kyle says, searching his pockets for his phone as Anwar rolls onto his back clutching at his stomach. It’s two hours after school has ended and there is nobody else around except us.
‘We could sell it,’ I say.
‘Denton will pay a lot for this,’ Kyle agrees, finding his phone and aiming it at Anwar. ‘But we might make more from ads if we put it on YouTube.’
‘You know we have to help him?’
Kyle turns to look at me. ‘I think you’ve lost the entrepreneurial spirit, Bax,’ he says and flicks his camera closed with a sigh.
‘I know,’ I say.
We climb down onto the tarmac and walk over to where Anwar is lying in a pool of blood on the tar.
‘Come to gloat, Zevcenko?’ he croaks.
‘Actually we thought we might help,’ I say.
Anwar tries to laugh and then grimaces from the pain. ‘If you think I’m going to give you the porn back, you’re an idiot,’ he says.
‘We don’t want it,’ I say.
‘We don’t?’ Kyle asks.
I shake my head. ‘The Spider is done with the porn business.’
Kyle takes out his phone again and points it at Anwar. ‘Snuff films, Bax, please tell me we’re moving on to snuff films.’
I push Kyle’s phone down. ‘Nope.’
Anwar manages a contemptuous smile. ‘Your little girlfriend has made you soft, Zevcenko.’ I stick out my foot and jab my hard school shoe into the knife wound. He breathes in sharply and closes his eyes.
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But don’t fucking push me.’
We call an ambulance and put pressure on the wound with a school jersey while we wait for it to arrive. Anwar stoically refuses to look at us. I think of leaving him to die more than once.
When the ambulance finally arrives the paramedics usher us away and then strap Anwar down and lift him into the back. ‘I suppose you want me to thank you,’ he says from behind the oxygen mask.
‘Your happy smiling face is all the thanks I need,’ I say. He manages to lift a hand and give me the middle finger as the medics close the ambulance doors.
‘You know what this means?’ I say as the ambulance pulls away.
‘That we’re in serious shit,’ Kyle says. ‘This is what we’ve been working to stop. They’re going to question everyone. EVERYONE. There’s no way people are not going to squeal. Shit, the cops are going to get involved. Bax, what the hell are we going to do?’
‘We’re not going to do anything,’ I say.
‘What?!’ Kyle looks like I’ve just punched him in the stomach.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ I say.
‘Bax,’ he says, ‘think logically. I know it’s been a lot to deal with but we can’t just –’
‘No,’ I say. ‘We’re not going to do anything. I’m going to do it. I’ll confess to it. All of it.’
‘You’re not making any sense,’ Kyle says, his eyes wide and teary. ‘You want to be some kind of martyr? What will that achieve?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, looking at him. ‘Maybe it’ll make me feel better about the shit I’ve done. Maybe it’ll stop you guys from having totally fucked-up lives. Maybe I�
�ll feel like the kind of guy that Esmé deserves and not some fucking science-fictional time-travel-spawned half Crow bastard child. Shit, maybe it’ll make me feel that Tomas’s death wasn’t totally and utterly meaningless.’
‘Yeah and maybe it’ll do absolutely none of those things,’ Kyle says sullenly.
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘But where I’m at at the moment I have to give it a try. You’ve always been there for me and I’m asking one last thing from you. Let it burn.’
‘You remember that time when we were little kids and you convinced me to eat a cockroach?’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say with a laugh.
‘This is worse than that. But, Bax, I trust you. I always have. And if this is what you need to do then I’m with you all the way. No matter what a dumbshit, Darwin-award-winning, Kardashian-level, Ben Affleck-in-Gigli, written-in-Comic-Sans-font idea this is.’
I smile. ‘Thanks, man, that means a lot.’
The rest of the week is chaos. Lockers are searched. DVDs, hard drives and cellphones filled with porn are found. Kids squeal like little pigs and the Spider is immediately implicated. All of us are called into the headmaster’s office but I request a private emergency meeting with the Bearded One.
He ushers me into his office, his face red and grave. ‘This err umm is very serious, Baxter,’ he says. I nod. I know what kind of trouble I’m in. But it’s time for one last manipulation.
‘I umm ahhh never expected this from you,’ he says. ‘Do you have anything to say for yourself?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘First of all, I’m not apologising. I merely provided a product for which there was a demand.’
‘I’ve seen some of your product,’ the Bearded One says. ‘It is disgusting.’
I shrug. ‘One man’s art is another man’s moral panic.’
The Bearded One slams his hand down on the table. I’ve never seen him this angry. Which is exactly where I want him. ‘You are going to tell me everything about you and your accomplices’ little business,’ he says. He raises a finger to point at me. ‘I’m warning you, Zevcenko.’
I smile. Compared to Mirth and the giant crows, bearded headmasters are pretty low on the list of things to be afraid of. ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m not. It’s me and only me. Everybody else that has participated is merely a pawn in my game.’
‘Everybody involved needs to face the consequences,’ he says.
I lean back in the chair. ‘Think about it,’ I say. ‘Either the press will report that Westridge is running rampant with knifemen and porn syndicates. Or that one rogue pupil is responsible for it all.’
‘You’ll take responsibility for everything? Even the stabbing?’ he says suspiciously.
I shrug. ‘I have a motive. Anwar was a threat to my business.’
He rubs his beard thoughtfully. ‘You realise that your punishment will be far more severe if you insist on maintaining that you’re the only one responsible.’ I nod. ‘Normally I wouldn’t do something like this,’ he says. ‘But we have to think of the future of Westridge.’
Weapons chemists, headmasters; they’re all the same. Once you isolate their core motivations you’re halfway there.
I’m expelled with criminal charges pending. I burst out laughing when my lawyer suggests that I might be able to plead temporary insanity. I make a call to Tone and he says he may be able to get me off the attempted murder charge if I agree to enrolling in a school sponsored by MK6. I tell him I’ll think about it.
My parents are predictably appalled. I’m subjected to several emotionally draining episodes where they beg me to tell them what they did wrong when I was a child. I’m unable to give them satisfactory answers. They’re horrified by my missing finger and begin to believe I’ve become involved in some kind of self-mutilation cult. They make an appointment for me with a psychiatrist. I promise myself that this time I’ll lie about everything.
In the days that follow, I seriously begin to regret my noble gesture. In my rush to prove to myself that I’m not inherently evil I may have gotten carried away. Being tried for attempted murder and distributing pornography to minors is no way to be repaid for saving the world. But like I said, the world is unfair. Those kids with dial-up Internet minds are going to become lawyers, politicians and doctors, and mediocrity will continue to rule the day. Perhaps being Supreme Leader wouldn’t have been so bad after all. Is it too late to change my mind?
But at least I have Esmé. That Saturday night, five days after Anwar was stabbed, she climbs up my drainpipe and slips into my room.
‘Thought it was the least I could do after you came to rescue me,’ she says as she flops down onto my bed and lights a cigarette. We lie back and stare up at the ceiling together.
‘I thought you’d dumped me,’ I say after a short silence.
‘If I dump you, I’ll tell you about it,’ she says. ‘And include a spreadsheet list of all the things you’ve done wrong.’
I laugh.
‘Can’t believe you thought I’d date a guy with a mullet,’ she says.
‘Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking,’ I say.
‘It’s weird to think that I was a zombie,’ she says. ‘I mean, I didn’t really feel anything. No emotions, no nothing.’
‘I know the feeling,’ I say with a laugh.
‘You’re not a zombie, Bax,’ she says. ‘You never were.’
‘I meant what I said back on the ship,’ I say. ‘The world is totally screwed. I may have saved it but nobody is going to thank me or reward me for that. I thought I’d feel some sense of satisfaction that I’d done the right thing. But I don’t really. Being a hero is pretty damn stupid.’
‘You came to get me,’ she says, looking into my eyes. ‘Bax, that means a lot.’ She pushes me down on the bed and straddles me. ‘You’re a knight in shining armour,’ she whispers into my ear.
‘Not even close,’ I murmur as she slides down my body.
Grandpa Zev’s funeral is at an old cemetery in Woodstock filled with rows of ancient, crumbling gravestones. Esmé comes with me. She wears a black dress and black sneakers and looks beautiful.
Grandpa Zev wasn’t religious so we have a humanist celebrant who seems somewhat at a loss as to what to say. Apparently without all the prayers and psalms there’s not a whole lot you can say about a death except that it happens and that it sucks.
The family takes turns to say a few awkward words about how great he was. My dad talks about going to rugby games with him when he was young. My mom reads something really New Agey about entering the light after a period of darkness. Uncle Rog prays for his father’s soul, which is nice in a twisted sort of way. I feel like I have to say something and I know exactly what I want to say.
‘My grandfather believed that there were giant crows out to get him,’ I start. There’s a sharp intake of breath from the family. Uncle Rog glowers at me. ‘But so what? There are people who believe much crazier things than he did.’ I give Uncle Rog a look.
‘Grandpa Zev taught me that sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to and that instead of whining you’ve just got to suck it up and carry on. He taught me that if you love something you have to fight for it.’ I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a hip flask. ‘To Grandpa Zev and to the death of giant crows.’ I say and pour some gin onto his grave. ‘Bye, Grandpa,’ I whisper.
Esmé and I are walking back to the car when a blonde, middle-aged woman with a pug face intercepts us. She introduces herself as the head of Shady Pines, Grandpa Zev’s retirememt home.
‘I’m very sorry about your grandfather,’ she says in a drawling, nasal voice.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘Of all the things that were said I think he would have appreciated yours the most. He really was a very stubborn man,’ she says, twirling her finger in the string of pearls around her neck. ‘Very stubborn. Which is why I need to give you this.’ She hands me an old, leather-bound book and the photo of Klara, my great-grandmother. ‘It is o
ur policy to give all personal effects to the deceased’s children. But he insisted that I give these to you myself. He said he’d come back to haunt me if I didn’t.’ She lets out a high-pitched, tinkling laugh. ‘And I kinda believe the old bastard would be stubborn enough to do it.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
Esmé and I walk up the small hill behind the cemetery and sit beneath an old, gnarled oak tree.
‘Read it,’ she says softly to me. I open the leather-bound book to the first page. It is written in Afrikaans but someone has lovingly translated each page into English with a soft pencil.
The Diary of Ester van Rensburg
Klara is born! A more beautiful and precious daughter I cannot imagine. It is hard to believe that such innocence could come from such a monster but perhaps that is the way of life. I have resolved never to tell her about her father. I shall say that he was a sailor and that he drowned at sea. It is better that way.
Living with Luamita’s family has been wonderful. Her father is named Tomas, as are all the males in their family, and he is a strong and gentle man. He tells the most beautiful stories about the history of the Obambo. Their scriptures say that they are destined to almost die out, but that their race will once again bloom like shining flowers on the face of the Earth. I hope it is so. They are too beautiful to disappear.
Sadly they cannot hide me forever. Luamita has helped me to find passage on a ship bound for Poland. I am terrified of leaving. This land is the only one I have ever known and I feel I will be leaving my father and all my ancestors behind. But for the sake of Klara, I must. I cannot risk having that evil man find us.
I think a lot about what has happened. Has it all been real? I think for the sake of my own sanity I must put it from my mind. I must live for Klara now. Oh, Klara. What will you become? I hope your life takes a different path to mine. I hope that you live a long and happy life. I hope that you will make my father proud.
I close the book and rub the dust from the picture of my grandfather’s mother. Klara. In the picture she is about my age, young and as beautiful as her mother. From what I know of her she did exactly what her mother wanted of her. She lived a long and happy life. I’m glad for that.
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