Vampires of Avonmouth

by Tim Kindberg

  “Impossible.”

  “Dammit. Where in Big Mind did you look, then?”

  “Anomaly.”

  “What kind of anomaly?”

  “Beads hacked.”

  “We knew that. What else?”

  “Unexplained algorithmic determination. Extra anomaly in beads. All is known.”

  “Except that it isn’t. It never is. It’s not logically possible to know that all is known.”

  The desres said, “Bodai interchange scheduled. Now.”

  “Let it in.”

  A smart female business bodai entered. She and Breakage touched beads. The manual worker stepped out and the businesswoman remained, standing, eerily turned away from David, looking at nothing in particular.

  “Breakage, what is it like?”

  Breakage turned, the substituted bod having now located the source of the voice.

  “It?”

  “Rebodding. What’s it like?”

  “Breakage status: okay.”

  “Is anything different?”

  “Bod change.”

  “Beyond that?”

  “All is known.”

  “Please get on with the search. The physical search. With this bod, another bod, a hundred bods – why not? I don’t care how you do it, but search. I need you to help me. And meanwhile run more analyses in Big Mind to see if you can explain this anomaly in the dolls’ beads. That will be all, Breakage. Oh, I’ll need you in the morning.”

  He put the bone circuitry back in its case. Those demented souls were drawn to the bones for some unfathomable reason. When would they return? How many more would come?

  And Obayifa would come for them too. He seemed reluctant to rid himself of them, but it was madness to keep them here. He had to find somewhere safe for them.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Pempamsie

  I, Pempamsie, arrived in UK.land. I found strange, mostly pale people here: obedient, or shouting curses. The fleshren, that is. The robots are stupid and uncanny like our own. I have seen no Chinese robots.

  I beached my craft beyond Avonmouth.city. It served me well, sailing across the Sahara to Europe, above the channel and through the tangle of near-above that makes up the few remaining cities on this island.

  I listened back to my own imprint on the network, with a scope I retained from IANI. I, my true I, was non-existent in the noise. My vodu ciphered me throughout my user journey and still does. It delta’d me, modulated my emanations into the net to avoid detection. It seems to have worked so far. But I cannot be sure that a higher algorithm will not parse and pattern-match my presence out of my network touchpoints.

  And most of all, I cannot be sure that Swirling Suit did not leave a back door.

  I must rid myself of my inhabitant. And yet evade capture. But better true – my parents’ faces, and all the multifarious memories of them, which I know are there, at my recall again, my self returned to me intact – better true than free.

  The painter told me I must find the one who can help me in Super Mare, must ask for him here. I, Pempamsie, will heed his words. For he is true flesh. But who must I ask – trust to ask? And can I even trust myself? Pempamsie has arrived incognito by dint of borrowing from a spirit unknown. It should merely tweak my behaviour, but I feel it steering me. When I landed, there was a struggle with the joystick. It had its own wants – I could feel it, its hungry volition. I pulled the joystick back to its true alignment.

  I am tall. My hair is coiled. My lips are full. Eyes bright. And yet.

  Swirling Suit may know where I am, even though I stopped randomly, zigzagged, rested here outside Avonmouth.city, where no one would think of heading. There is a barren hill, despondent trees, strange little birds calling and larger black birds cawing and flapping from the treetops. A pool.

  I brought my painting with me to remind me of who I am and what dangers I face. It is framed and held in a protective case permeable to air so that its drying can be completed. The moon and star. I, Pempamsie, beneath it. Behind me, she who is a vampire of the mind. Swirling Suit wants revenge. But she is no ordinary means. She is so clearly pursuing me in Nsoroma’s painting. Perhaps it takes one to know one: maybe a vodu can find a vodu, however nonned its carrier.

  I must not speculate; I must make for Avonmouth.city. I take my bag and the painting, abandon the craft after hacking and cleaning it of Is and zeroes as I learned in the icestation. And set off walking.

  I, Pempamsie, spent weeks in Avonmouth.city without success. My goal was to achieve Sankofa: undo my mistakes. Which meant tracking down whoever knew how to find help in Super Mare. Nsoroma had told me of two steps, both without anything concrete to go on: first a man who knew of vodus in Avonmouth.city, then a man without beads in Super Mare. Nsoroma was wise, I have no doubt, but lacking in details. I was forced to engage with the pale denizens here, to ask around. And at the same time, I took care not to reveal myself too far. Though I was nonned, I was still physically vulnerable.

  I took a room in a low-life hotel to minimise my visibility. I spent the days riding in the strange tro-tros they call N-cars, which hang instead of running on rails, watching, following strangers who, my instincts told me, might know what I needed to know. Days spent stopping them and asking, “Do you know Super Mare? Do you know of vodus?”

  It was hopeless. They looked at me as though I were mad. “Are you a dem?” they said. “Get away from me.”

  Day by day my squatter corroded my soul. Yes, there was one locus. Yes, it was I. But my parents’ faces were completely gone. I knew only that I had parents, that they existed. But not who they were. All I took with me to the icestation was my memories of them. I was not, I knew, a dem. I tested myself regularly. I could calculate, find my way, could recall many specific details from throughout my life. But not my parents. Moreover, when I spoke – when I had to speak, for I had no desire to – the words I uttered seemed not to be entirely mine. Was this merely the fruit of my imagination?

  I was not of Avonmouth.city, but merely within it. An evanescent inhabitant, ghosting it. My heart said Dwennimmen, concealment. But I had to keep looking, blindly. And meanwhile I had to earn bytecoins for lodgings, food.

  There were women in the hotel, sex workers. I joined them. Needs must. But only so far.

  My first visitor was a wan specimen indeed. I took his bytecoins. I laid him down. I did not smile. There was a mirror by the bed. I looked at myself. The scar lay on my cheek like a reclining stranger. A bright sun tried to shine in my eyes through the clouds of the vodu that trammelled me.

  “I’m not going to fuck you,” I said. He would not remember. He would recall only a non-specific pleasure after taking the draft I had offered him. “Something special from Westaf,” I told him, “included in the price.”

  In the hotel room I fixed my hair as high as I could; I made structures in it, as did my ancestors. I dug in a wooden comb, Duafe. Sunglasses and facial jewellery further altered my aspect. I did not look as I had in Accra.city. Disguise. An old art which satisfied an irrational urge. There was no reason to think she could tell me from other women, with or without it.

  Then I saw her, the vampire. She boarded an N-car with me. There was no mistaking her: a weird energy in her eyes; a chill about her long limbs, her veined arms. I moved, careful in my concealment, Dwennimmen, among the crowds. Casually I made my way along the cars away from her and disembarked. She was like a blind woman sniffing me out. She knew her prey was near. Could she suck out the minds of the entire tro-tro? The whole of Avonmouth.city?

  I felt lonely: a new feeling since my arrival here. On seeing this creature I was lonelier. I thought of the child of the sky, Nsoroma, in the painting house so far away. His portrait of me lay in the hotel room, with her behind me.

  Swirling Suit had done his job well. He sent her after me, but I was nonned even to her. Was he capable of reaching her, to engineer her further against his engineering of me? Or was she not of his making at all?

  Tho
se in the Between had lost their true flesh selves. And what if Swirling Suit sent more vampires like her? They would lose everything.

  Aya: I am not afraid of you.

  I loved the sun on my skin. I loved the faint scent of my sweat, the way my hair stood tall. But I was no longer my true I inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  David

  After just a few hours’ sleep, David showered again in an effort to wake himself. The desres chimed, its sound penetrating the pouring water. “Priority call. Officer Parkin.”

  David towelled himself, hunted for elusive clean clothes.

  “What is it?”

  “Why do you still have those bones?”

  “What’s it to you? We’ve discussed this. The original case in connection with the Mekhanik Pustoshnyy is closed, and now I have a new one, remember?”

  “Not quite closed.”

  “Oh?”

  “The network is interested in what’s happening to those crew members of yours, David.”

  “The network? Which multinat do you mean?”

  “All is known, David.” Parkin’s voice was cold, ironic. “They want the bones.”

  A small voice inside David said he could be rid of them, hand them over. They would be somebody else’s problem.

  “No, I need them for other investigations. They are physical evidence.”

  “A touch old-fashioned, wouldn’t you say? Not to be dealing with Big Mind alone?”

  “I could say the same to you. Who are you speaking for? What’s it to a forensics officer? Haven’t you got some combing thorough Big Mind to be getting on with?”

  “Calm down, David. They want them. They’ll get them. Despite you.”

  “Well, you’ll have to wait. I have reason to believe they are material to two psychic attacks.”

  “‘Psychic attacks’? Really! That’s how you describe what’s been happening to the crew? We’ve noticed you are spending time on this case with a new sidekick. What madness has he or she got you thinking about, David? We’re unable to identify this new party. Which is strange for someone hanging out with an ID police officer.”

  “It’s experimental. Something new-fangled courtesy of Professor Dirac, if you must know. He tells me it may help ID the psychic attacker. I’m unconvinced, but it’s worth a try.”

  “‘It’? Bead me to it. I’d like to feel it.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Dirac tells me it’s important to tune only myself to it, or it won’t be an effective tool. Anyway, I think it might be malfunctioning. I think I’m going to return it to him.”

  “Intriguing. We’ll be taking a closer interest from now on. In you and your professor.”

  “My professor? He’s assigned to the department, remember? Parkin…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d leave me to it, if I were you. Westaf has its hands all over the psychic attacks. I don’t want you stumbling around and getting in my way. You and whatever multinat you represent. I can take this to IANI, you know. All the way up.”

  Parkin terminated the call.

  Evidently Parkin had not picked up the bone circuitry’s emanations during its time in his custody. Had they begun only after David took them? And was that connected specifically to him? With his vodu? Or maybe they began beaconing sometime after losing contact with Obayifa. He had to take the bone circuitry back to Dirac for further examination, and not allow himself to be distracted this time.

  David’s vodu shifted among his thoughts like a grim intruder rifling through an attic, notwithstanding the cage that contained it. He could see it clearly: sinewy and naked. A body inside his mind. And a mind inside a body inside his mind.

  He winced. Slowly he returned to the bathroom to look at himself. Tired but not bad for a man of forty-seven, if you didn’t count the veins streaming down to his big hands. Breakage had seen him naked, but the physical manifestation of flesh per se was irrelevant to the network. The multinats cared only about the online consequences of physical existence. Parkin knew something but not much. At least, that’s how it seemed. Was Breakage really not reporting any of David’s activities to the network – the emanations from the case, Mary, the visits by dems?

  A queer, shifting presence shone from his uncovered eyes, symptomatic of the vodu within but less intense than Obayifa’s mentalmagic. Any flesh would know something was not right.

  “Breakage.”

  “Breakage here.” The bodai, dispatched elsewhere, spoke through the desres.

  “You’re to accompany me to the labnode. Then you can go.”

  David handed the case over to Dirac.

  “Are you going to be all right out here?”

  “Alone, the stretching estuary on one side of me, plied by barely controlled ships from another century; locked up with ancient but electronically enhanced fragments of a humanoid whose weird network presence lies beyond the normal bounds of the virtual and is, one might say, supervirtual? Whatever could go wrong?” Dirac did not smile.

  “I’ll have a feel from the network locked onto you. Breakage will be on it.”

  “Good luck with instructing him. Is there something I should know, a reason not to take these bones?”

  “The danger, as you know, is Obayifa. She’ll want them back.”

  “Has she tried to take them from you?”

  “I’ve seen no sign of her. Although I have sensed someone following me around. Just—”

  “Just what?”

  “There have been escapees from a nearby carie, dems, camped outside my door. Somehow they knew about the bones.”

  “Interesting. Perhaps they sense a way of reclaiming what they have lost.”

  “You think so? Obviously I can’t get any sense out of them. At least, they act as though they are demented.”

  “But not all of them might be?”

  “One of them was at my door even before I had the bones. Muttered something about juju.”

  Dirac snorted. “Juju indeed. At any rate, no doubt Obayifa is a powerful threat. I will expect her. She may have followed you. Quite possibly she is capable of tracking the emanations.”

  “I was careful. How could I fail to notice someone tailing me to the middle of nowhere?”

  “Hardly nowhere, Detective. The fringes of the network.”

  “I am grateful to you, Dirac. You’re the best person I can think of to look after the bones. No doubt they will prove an interesting subject for your examination. I assume you have a safe. If Obayifa were to come—”

  “You may rest assured I will secure them. It is I who should thank you, for the opportunity to study them. And whatever it is within them.”

  “You think it’s a vodu, like mine?”

  “Your visitor, ah, yes. But I rather think this bone circuitry might be quite different. More of Westaf’s experimentation, but to a different end.”

  “You mean the renegades. But hence the network’s interest, too, I guess. Parkin’s been calling me about the bones, and about an identity accompanying me – as though it weren’t the same thing.”

  “Best not to speculate about the network – as you, an ID officer responsible for enforcing its obfuscation, know well.”

  “Point taken. Back to the renegades, then. What other kind of purpose might the bone circuitry have?”

  “I really have no idea as yet. It’s another type of construct I haven’t seen before, its purpose rather obscure.”

  “Whatever happened to the idea of Nature, Professor, plain and simple?”

  “Humans happened to Nature. And now both have been subsumed by the network. Goodbye for now, Detective.”

  David felt a pang of cowardice for handing over the bone circuitry to Dirac. He had told himself that Dirac would be safe, that he was the one best placed to keep the bones for now. But he had put him in danger. He turned around.

  “Dirac.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you make the emanations appear back at my desres instead of here?”


  “But then you will continue to be in danger.”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “With the right virtual Faraday here, an encrypted route to your desres, a—”

  “Please do it.”

  It might not fool IANI or Westaf for long, let alone Obayifa. It was a mystery to David that she had not come after the bones already. Perhaps she needed to continue her dolling first.

  But the arrangement apparently fooled the escapees from the carie. When David returned to his desres, they were back outside, asking for the bones even though he no longer had them. He carefully pushed through them and went inside.

  “Desres, how many present?”

  “Two.”

  It was working. Would she come? And what could he do about her if she did?

  Over the next few days, ten more dolls were found, all crew members of the Mekhanik Pustoshnyy. They were discovered in eyries in Avonmouth.city’s near-above, saucer-eyed, looking down from steel and concrete ledges, haunting ladders, hatches and access-ways normally used by maintenance bodais only, places to which the dolls had climbed in their mindless drive for height. None had stopped where there was a route to go higher, no matter how precarious: they had found their level, like drops raining into the sky.

  David called up an image of the remaining crew member, taken upon his detention after the Mekhanik Pustoshnyy had reached its haphazard stopping point. A frightened, round face, wide-eyed in panic at his uncertain fate. The man did not look as though he would be particularly self-possessed or clever enough to elude Obayifa for long.

  Unusually, Breakage was in the form of a cop, a uniformed woman. David was vaguely baffled by this manifestation.

  “Breakage, find the remaining crew member.”

  “Does not exist in Big Mind. Unsatisfied designation.”

  “Find him anyway.”

  “Joke? Breakage has searched.”

  “Where?”

  “In Big Mind.”

  “No, in the fleshwork. In the physical world. We’ve been through this. How many times?”