Tonto surveyed the damage. The shop did look older. Her brief introduction to the Detroit Police Department had left a definite impression — a police car–shaped impression on the northwest workshop wall, to be exact. But there was more: the falling plaster, the cracked walls, the chipped tiles, and the sagging shelves all combined to give the impression that the shop had aged a decade or two in the last twenty minutes.
“Damn,” said Tonto. “So the shop looked just like this in your vision. How much time do you think we have?”
“No idea,” said Vera. “He could be here any minute.”
There was a sudden clank of metal on metal — the sort of sound you get when a raccoon upends your recycling bin and sends empty tin cans tumbling down your drive. This was followed by a long, appreciative whistle.
“Whoa,” said Zeus, the recent whistler, as he extracted a length of serrated metal with a moulded leather grip from a pile of gadgets.
“Sacre merde!” said Nappy, gaping at Zeus, her eyes ablaze with admiration. “Zees eez une Vibro-Blade!”
Her reaction was understandable. When one sees a perfectly formed, heavily muscled titan pulling a sword from a pile of metal, it’s difficult not to have eyes ablaze with at least a touch of admiration.
“Nice,” said Tonto, who wasn’t immune to the effect. Zeus presented a tableau that might have been captioned “Impending Victory.”
“You know how to use one of those?” asked Tonto.
“Dunno,” said Zeus, giving the sword a couple of clumsy swings. “I’ve never tried.”
“Give me ze weapon,” said Nappy, approaching Zeus from behind and placing a hand on his lower back. “You’ll ’urt yourself. I ’ave beaucoup d’experience avec zis sort of zing.”
This last remark caused several eyebrows to arch. After a few ticks of the clock, Tonto spoke. “Give her the sword,” she said in a calm, not-to-be-disobeyed tone of voice. She’d probably made the right decision. When deciding which member of a gang of mental patients ought to wield an advanced weapon of flesh destruction, it’s best to go with one whose diagnosis carries with it an innate knack for armed conflict and an aptitude for martial strategy.
“I don’t see what use these weapons will be,” said Ian, sidling over to Vera and Tonto. “We can’t fight. We have to run. We’ve got scraps, they have hovertanks and rockets. We should just leave and get to wherever I’m supposed to find Penelope. Or wherever I’m supposed to learn these Rules, or, well, wherever it is we’re supposed to go next. Not that we have any idea where that might be,” he added, aiming an accusatory look in Vera’s direction.
“Where we’re going isn’t important right now,” said Tonto, “just so long as it’s far from here.”
“I just wish that I had the parts to get my IPT online,” said Vera.
This gave rise to what is called a pregnant silence, during which every non-medium present stood goggling in Vera’s direction. The silence was interrupted by a loud metallic clank and a bad word, indicating that Rhinnick had dropped something heavy on his foot.
“Say that again,” said Tonto, levelly.
“Bugger,” said Rhinnick.
“Not you,” said Tonto. “Vera. About the IPT.”
“Oh,” said Vera. “I have one. Most of one, anyway. I started building it last month. I had an idea it would come in handy,” she added. It had come to her in a dream. She somehow knew that an independent IPT — one that could run without connecting to the city’s official network — would be useful in a pinch.
Two minutes later they were all in Vera’s attic, examining her partially completed personal IPT. It was a large, metallic box about the size of a small tool shed, with room for six or seven people who didn’t mind getting up close and personal. Or possibly four regular people and one partially folded Zeus.
“But like I said,” said Vera, scratching her head, “it’s missing a key component. I’ve had the parts on order for over a week, but —”
“What does it need?” said Tonto.
“An autonomous homeothermic perambulatory impetus generator,” said Vera, who, like all engineers, responded to stressful situations by slipping into the comforting embrace of technical lingo.
“Basically just a battery,” she added, translating.
“What kind of battery?” said Tonto.
“The kind we don’t have,” said Vera, biting an anxious lip. “It’s an eco-friendly battery. Green tech. It generates organic power. Bio-derived technology — latest big thing. Anyway, it works by converting vegetable matter into forward rotary motion, and the forward rotary motion powers up the IPT. The battery plugs in here,” she added, sliding open a panel in the side of the IPT, revealing the core of its power system. It was a titanium wire cylinder measuring roughly fifteen inches in diameter.
“The battery takes in organic matter, consumes it, and uses its own internal energy to impart rotational momentum to the cylinder. It’s —”
“Organic matter,” said Ian, staring dully at the cylinder.
“Yeah,” said Vera. “You feed it into the battery, pop the battery into the cylinder, and it —”
“It makes the cylinder spin,” said Ian. He continued staring vacantly as his brain sifted the phrase “autonomous homeothermic perambulatory impetus generator” through its high-school science filter.
“But we’re wasting our time,” said Vera, running a nervous hand through her hair. “I don’t have the parts. And we’ve got to get you out of here A-S-A-P. Socrates will —”
Something clicked in Ian’s brain. It was practically audible.
“It’s a hamster wheel,” he said.
“Well, in layman’s terms,” said Vera, dismissively, “I suppose you could describe it as —”
It was at this exact moment that Vera fell into slack-jawed silence. On the cue “it’s a hamster wheel,” Rhinnick had stepped to centre stage and had, by the moment the word “describe” had passed through Vera’s lips, produced from his jacket pocket an autonomous homeothermic perambulatory impetus generator.
He handed it to Vera.
It said, “Grrnmph.”
* * *
Assorted mental patients — well, former mental patients — scurried around Vera’s attic double-checking their equipment, securing extra supplies, and generally doing the sort of things that any sane person would do before running away in a hurry.
Ian stood back from the crowd and observed the proceedings. After a few minutes of detached observation it occurred to him that Rhinnick had been right about Zeus and Nappy. The two busied themselves preparing for the journey, but managed to do so while hovering around each other like a pair of twinned stars trapped in one another’s orbits. Rhinnick said this new development was inappropriate — mere “oompus boompus” sparking up — while peril loomed on every side. Ian found it refreshing. If they could find a little happiness in the midst of a mounting crisis, good for them. It showed resilience. It showed spunk. It showed the power of hormones fuelled by a hyper-masculine body and a female Napoleon, a woman whose ideas about romance were best expressed in terms like conquest, skirmish, flank, and surrender. But most of all it gave Ian a measure of hope. If they could find each other in the midst of all this panic, if there was some force — call it destiny if you want — that could let love prevail despite impending disasters, then maybe . . .
Ian brushed the thought aside. He could be on the verge of finding Penny. This wasn’t the time for thoughts that were best expressed by greeting-card poetry.
Vera suddenly stomped on the attic floor, snapping Ian out of his reverie. She seemed to be arguing with Tonto.
“You’re coming with us,” said Tonto.
“No I’m not,” said Vera, “I’m not supposed to. I think that I’m supposed to remain behind. I have to stay and . . . and . . .”
Vera suddenly slipped into her television
routine, staring vaguely at a point about six inches to the left of Tonto’s ear. She swayed slightly and lost her balance.
Zeus scooted to her side and gave assistance, propping her up with the tree trunk that passed for his left arm. He ushered her to a crate near Ian and set her down.
“Sorry,” said Vera, collecting herself. “TV again.” She smiled a thank-you to Zeus and cradled her forehead in her hands.
“What did you see?” asked Tonto, kneeling beside her.
“I’ve seen what’s coming,” she said. “I know that I’m going to get through this. I’ve just seen myself next month. I’ll be okay if I stay behind.”
“But you can’t stay,” Ian protested. “You said yourself that Socrates is dangerous. You told me that he can kill. Even if he doesn’t wipe you, he’ll probably force you to tell us where we’re going, or where —”
“He won’t,” said Vera, firmly. “He won’t even try. He’s going to come to the shop, look around, and then leave. I have no idea why. But I know it’s true. Besides, you need someone to stay behind and wipe the IPT’s hard drive so you can’t be traced. Socrates can’t know where you’re going.”
“Now that you’ve brought it up . . .” said Ian, darkly.
“I know, I know,” said Vera. “You don’t know where you’re going, either. Neither do I.”
“You can’t try your TV again, can you?” asked Tonto, doubtfully.
“Sorry, no. I’ve already tried. All I could hear myself saying was that there would be some kind of sign — a sign that’d point in the right direction.”
“What kind of sign?” asked Ian.
“Search me,” said Vera. “All that I know is that it’s a sign that’ll point to where you’re going to learn The Rules.”
“The Rules that govern everything,” said Ian, flatly.
“Yes,” said Vera, pointedly ignoring the doubtful expression that had mounted Ian’s face. “Once we’ve seen the sign, we’ll know.”
“Hmm,” said Zeus, gazing with interest through the attic’s rear window. He had the keen, fascinated look of an extra-large boy scout who had just spotted the last bird needed for his ornithology badge. “Maybe it’s that sign,” he added, pointing.
The group crowded around him and peered through the window. A block away from Vera’s shop, various specimens of Detroit’s overall-and-hard-hat-wearing proletariat were in the process of dismantling a billboard. It displayed a giant advertisement depicting stars, planets, comets, question marks, equations, and other assorted icons of cosmological import. The workers had already pulled down one corner of the billboard, but you could still make out the words emblazoned across the ad’s midsection. They said this:
Have Questions about the Nature of Existence?
Wonder Why Things Are the Way They Are?
EXISTENZIA 273
A Conference about How the World Works
Detroit University, July 15–17, 18,183
They stared at the sign. They blinked at the sign. Someone coughed, quite possibly at the sign. Rhinnick patted Zeus on the shoulder and said, “Good boy, have a biscuit.”
“Huh,” said Vera, thoughtfully, followed by “Yeah, that’ll do nicely.”
“But why are they taking it down?” said Zeus, corrugating his mighty brow.
“Look at ze date!” gasped Nappy. “Ze conference, it began two days ago. Eet shall be oveur zis après-midi!”
“This afternoon!” yelped Zeus, translating.
“Then you haven’t got time to lose,” said Vera, grimly. “Quick. Gimme the hamster.”
* * *
49Patent number 8675309, issued to Isaac.
50Like explosives in reverse. Picture a transient black hole that you can fire into your friends and neighbours.
Chapter 31
A pair of black, leather, heavily embuckled boots crunched their way across the scattered bits of glass, metal, and wood that littered the floor of Vera’s shop.
Don’t be fooled — this wasn’t a pair of disembodied boots doing a spooky two-step through the rubble. The boots were occupied by feet. And in accordance with all the usual arrangements, these feet were attached to legs, which led up to all of the mundane appurtenances normally associated with the human-initiated moving around of boots. But the point of directing the reader’s51 attention to one detached and detailed element of this tableau — namely, the boots — is to assist in establishing mood. And at the risk of being too straightforward about the intended effect, the mood we’re going for is sinister. Foreboding. Portentous, even. Practically ominous. It was the sort of mood you get on midnight strolls through graveyards on Halloween, preferably in a graveyard equipped with plenty of fog, a few unfriendly owls, and possibly three or four of those gnarled trees that make that eerie creaking sound as you pass by them.
The atmosphere, in short, was thick with atmosphere.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if your thumbs aren’t pricking just a little, you haven’t embraced the proper spirit.
But back to the boots. These were, as you might have guessed, Socratic boots.
Socrates crunched his way across the debris in Vera’s shop.
In the heavy fug of silence that permeated Vera’s shop, Socrates crunched at a volume that he judged to be just loud enough to be heard by anyone hiding upstairs — say, just by way of example, the roughly Vera-shaped lifeform Socrates’ intracranial implant had detected in the attic when he’d arrived.
Stealth, Socrates knew, would have been pointless. Vera was a medium, after all. The sign outside said so. And he’d also been warned by Isaac. And since Vera was a medium, she’d surely have seen Socrates coming, skulk though he might.
More to the point, Socrates wanted Vera to hear him. The menacing sound of crunching boots, Socrates reasoned, served to heighten the suspense. Socrates wanted Vera to marinate in fear; he wanted to punctuate her terror with the sounds of his arrival, and to let the mounting suspense ferment into full-blown, blood-freezing horror.
Socrates wanted to terrify his prey.
Terrified prey was clumsy. Terrified prey was easily taken.
And so it was that Socrates crunched. He crunched through aisles of broken appliances. He crunched through a spray of debris that had spilled from toppled shelves — shelves that seemed to have been upended in a scuffle. Socrates crunched over tools, over broken machinery, and over assorted odds and ends that appeared to have been absent-mindedly cast aside as someone scavenged for equipment.
He crunched into the back room.
The crunching stopped.
Socrates paused to examine a torpedo-shaped object. It was buried under the tangled mass of wires on Vera’s bench. He brushed a handful of wires aside and cocked his head. Where the rest of the equipment in the shop was out-of-order, disassembled, smashed beyond repair, or desperately in need of wrench-to-nut resuscitation, something about the torpedo felt alive.
Socrates stared at it for the space of several heartbeats.
“Daimon,” Socrates whispered.
Microscopic gears whirred, datagates opened, and fibre-optic channels pulsed. You might have noticed them yourself, but only if you’d been in Socrates’ head. Various nanoprocessors in Socrates’ intracranial implant spit on their hands and got to work.
Daimon Sensory Systems Active, said a deep, computerized voice, audible only to the assassin.
“Initiate reticular scan.”
In the privacy of the assassin’s cybernetically augmented visual cortex, a Heads-Up Display depicted a ghostly targeting reticule passing back and forth along the torpedo casing. A stream of alphanumeric characters scrolled up the right-hand side of the HUD.
G32-E type torpedo. High-yield explosive.
Radiological danger. E.M.P. capable. Countdown in progress.
T minus 254 . . . 253 . . . 252 . . .
“Disarm,” Socrates whispered.
Pain happened.
A buzz and a high-pitched whine emanated from Socrates’ head — this time loud enough to be heard by any hypothetical observer unlucky enough to have been standing within a metre of the assassin.
Socrates dropped to one knee and closed his eyes. He gripped his forehead with both hands. The HUD flickered and blurred as though someone had grabbed Socrates’ skull and punted it through an MRI. For the space of seven seconds Socrates experienced a sensation you can replicate at home by giving yourself an ice-cream headache while also chewing aluminium foil.
None of this was standard procedure. The Daimon Array (™ Isaac) was a highly sophisticated, radiation-hardened, cybernetic sensor array and electronic counter-measure system that Isaac had hard-wired into Socrates’ cranial implant. It had never caused the slightest hint of discomfort — not for Socrates, at least. It had indirectly led to a fairish amount of pain for other people.
The headache passed.
Socrates massaged a temple with the heel of his palm and got to his feet. He shook his head and blinked.
The digital images swam back into focus as the HUD returned to normal. It relayed the following message:
Countdown Terminated.
Socrates stepped closer to the torpedo and ran a hand along its casing. If he’d been the sort of man to whistle appreciatively, he would have. Even Isaac might have been impressed by the engineering know-how that had culminated in the creation of this torpedo.
It was something of a shame, Socrates reflected, that within the next five minutes Vera wouldn’t remember how to change a lightbulb.
She wouldn’t even recall her name.
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