Prophet Margin

by Simon Spurrier

  "Gosh..." Gumption blushed.

  Wulf bashed his pointy head against the glass, reasoning that even if the wretched stuff wouldn't break he'd be too concussed to listen.

  "I have a question," a voice shouted, its owner apparently unphased by the chorus of irritated snorts from the rest of the audience.

  "Um," Gumption faltered. "Yes...?"

  "Yes. I wanted to ask when you were planning on admitting that everything you've said today is a complete fabrication?"

  Silence dropped like a ton weight. Wulf leapt to the front of his cage, scanning the audience for the speaker.

  "Yes!" he shouted, uselessly. "He is speaking of der truth! All is being lies und made up!" Naturally, nobody heard him.

  A solitary man with a clipped white beard and a grey cassock walked slowly along the aisle of the lecture hall, hands clasped. Heads (and eyestalks) craned to regard him.

  "Uh... Y-you, ahaha. What do you m... uh." Gumption had turned a pleasing red hue. "Y-you can't prove anything!"

  "I don't need to," the man said, drawing a blaster from within the folds of his robes and racking its arming bolt with a clatter.

  The audience, as if well rehearsed in spontaneous pandemonium, shrieked. Gumption whimpered, the white-bearded man raised his gun and a five-strong squad of figures, all dressed equally as plainly, shuffled into auditorium's rear with a medley of arming guns and charging lasers. Wulf punched the air, anticipating imminent release.

  The man with the beard dented his enthusiasm proficiently:

  "We know you're a fake," he hissed, "because in His eternal wisdom the Great God Boddah teaches us that history is a lie conceived by Ogmishlen, the reality devil!"

  Members of the audience exchanged uncertain glances. In his box, Wulf groaned. If there was one thing more depressing about the twenty-third-century than the prodigious number of cheats, liars and criminals, it was the abundance of lunatics.

  "W-what?" Gumption squealed, staring down a barrel.

  "The universe was created one hundred and eighty six years ago!" the bearded man chanted, froth catching on his lip. "Everything before then is an illusion, seeded in the minds of the impure by the rumour-wasps of iniquity! So sayeth the Book of Boddah. Hail!"

  "Hail!" the other cassock-wearers chanted, slightly out of time.

  Someone in the audience coughed.

  Gumption appeared to be recovering his composure. "S-so. What you're saying," he said, "is that every person in this room, myself included, is... ah... contributing to some universal falsehood?"

  The bearded man nodded. "Exactly! You are agents of Ogmishlen and shall be purged!"

  "All eight hundred of us?"

  "Yes!"

  "All of us shall be purged by you and your, ah... five men?"

  "Yes."

  "In a hotel that has fifty armed security guards in the reception?"

  "Y-yes. Um." the voice suddenly didn't sound quite so certain.

  "Using the guns that you're carrying?"

  "Yes. Look, th-"

  "Which, I can't help noticing, you don't appear particularly comfortable with."

  This, it would seem, was one smuggism too far.

  "Comfortable enough to blow your snecking brains across the stage!"

  Gumption's increasingly confidence ego resumed its "gibbering terror" status. Wulf went back to beating his head against the glass.

  "L-l-let's, ahaha, let's not be hasty, shall we?" Gumption prattled. "I mean, we, ahaha, we of the historical community have always been v-very prepared to listen to... uh... opposing point of views."

  "The Illuminated Children of the One True Boddah do not discuss matters of faith with devils. Hail!"

  "W-well I just wondered what you m-made of, uh... of him..." Gumption gestured towards Wulf's box. "He comes from the ninth century, you see."

  The bearded man glared at Wulf with a look of deep revulsion. "No," he said, "he does not. He is a spawn of Ogmishlen's unspeakable loins."

  Wulf threatened the man with several imaginative types of painful end, many of them involving unspeakable loins.

  "His death will please the Boddah greatly," the bearded man nodded. He turned the gun away from Gumption and onto Wulf.

  "Bollocks of Odin," Wulf mumbled.

  The gun roared, everyone screamed, the other cultists opened fire, mayhem ensued.

  In the end, forty-two people died. Not an unimpressive figure given that the killers had almost certainly never attempted to fire, say, a SegaColt Fragblaster .76 before.

  The Illuminated Children of the One True Boddah were rapidly overcome by the hotel's security goons, who had fired high calibre weaponry before and weren't in the habit of being outgunned by religious weirdos.

  In interviews after the event a roguishly dishevelled Marteh Gumption shyly confessed that, yes, it had been him who had summoned the security guards during a daring sprint to the nearest exit. Any suggestion that he'd been seen dashing through reception in a pair of piss-stained trousers whilst calling for his mother were, of course, a fabrication.

  When he was informed by the interviewer that his authentic Viking specimen had escaped, probably due to a poorly aimed monofilament flechette shattering the adamantiplex of its cage, Gumption burst into tears. "I-I was just worried about how that poor devil would fare alone in the wild," he later explained.

  At any rate, the entire episode was clearly a source of trauma for the celebrated guru. The preproduction for "Horns of Hell" was cancelled and Gumption announced his retirement from the world of movies to concentrate on his poetry.

  Perhaps tellingly, his first published work was titled "Forgiveness is a Viking Virtue".

  It ran to three hundred pages, was favourably reviewed by the "What For...?" journal of abstract expression, and sold approximately seventeen copies, galaxywide.

  The van doors opened with a clang, flooding the interior with daylight. Shelves groaned beneath bulky cameras robotic sound recorders, microphones jostled in hat stands, lenses twinkled, portable lightmounts dangled and, somewhere near the back, two curled figures muttered and grumbled at the sudden light.

  "Out!" said the woman who'd opened the doors, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "Welcome to earth."

  Johnny pulled himself upright and dropped onto a tarmac floor. Around him a concrete landscape sulked beneath a grey sky - corrugated warehouses lined up like tombstones. "Nice to see it hasn't changed," he muttered. The woman stood dusting down the lapels of her fluidcolour work suit - currently calibrated with blue tiger stripes and perpendicular barcodes. "Where is this?" he asked her.

  "Place used to be called 'Elstree'." she said, watching Kid Knee clamber from the van.

  "And now?"

  "TeeVeeTown." She nodded towards the warehouses. "Those're studios. Welcome to the glamorous world of showbiz."

  Right on cue, it started to rain.

  Johnny regarded the sombre complex. "This is where they shoot the science show?"

  "This is where they shoot everything."

  "But it's deserted."

  "That's CGI for you."

  "So which one was Koszov in?"

  "Studio 72. I'll show you in a minute." The woman rummaged in her slicing-edge-of-fashion handbag, hair crackling as whatever nanohairspray she wore succumbed to the rain. "There's something I want to ask you first."

  Johnny raised an eyebrow. The usual I'm-so-cool-it-hurts twang was gone from her voice, replaced by something worryingly like embarrassment - an attribute he'd never have associated with Nickle Reggo.

  The self declared Queen of British Style (documentary presenter extraordinaire, enfant terrible of investigative journalism, hyper-chic fashion avatar) withdrew from her bag a small gun, decorated in a cheeky pink-and-blue Mandelbrot fractal pattern. Aimed, Johnny couldn't help noticing, directly at him.

  "What's stopping me," she said, "from handing you over to the police? You've been on the exile list since the war. I checked."

  Johnny glanced up to see if he
'd get any help from his partner. He should have known better. Kid Knee stood rooted to his spot, hands raised in terror.

  The motorcycle helmet he'd puttybonded to his headless shoulders in an attempt to look normal - if such a thing would ever be possible - was sagging, giving him the look of a dead man hanging on barbed wire. His other "ingenious" innovation was to wear a hockey mask over each knee, supposedly a "fashionable pair of kneepads", to conceal his true mutation. The overall effect was of a punk with no neck and no sense of style. Reggo threw him a cursory glance and discounted him as a threat. Johnny couldn't blame her.

  "Then you'll go down for aiding and abetting," he said, returning her stare. "We couldn't have got through customs without your help. I thought you were doing us a favour."

  "Hah. 'Favour'," She said the word in much the same tone a Trilaxxian Stud breeder might have used to discuss donkeys. "Don't be ridiculous. I'll just tell them you abducted me. It'll make a great story. Loads of free publicity."

  "Uh-uh." Johnny shook his head. "Phone records. That call I made from the Doghouse, remember? The one where you said you'd meet us at the spaceport, help us out, renew old friendships, blah-blah. I believe the words 'smuggle you out through the VIP lounge' featured at one point. The station's AI records all calls."

  She smirked and brandished her middle finger.

  "Wow," said Johnny. "Good comeback."

  "Look closer." Something metallic flickered on the finger's knuckle. "Series 4000 dermally implanted microphone," she presented a chipper grin. "Comes complete with one hundred minutes free call time, cerebral phonebook, suite of games and a top notch signal scrambler. Nobody records me."

  Johnny nodded, impressed. "You got me then."

  "Looks that way."

  "But you brought me here anyway. Could have handed me over in the airport."

  "So?"

  "So you're after something."

  "Who isn't?"

  "I already told you we can't pay you, so that's not it-"

  She flicked a hand. "Pfft. Money."

  "So, what then?"

  "Exclusive access."

  Johnny scowled. "More interviews? Lady, that fly on the wall thing covered the lot. I told you: I find people, sometimes I kill them, then I get paid. End of story. If you're looking to make a follow-up you're going to be disappo-"

  "The... ah... other kind of access."

  Nobody moved.

  "Um," said Kid Knee.

  "The other kind?" said Johnny.

  The journalist rolled her eyes. "Look, people don't want documentaries any more. They don't give a sideways sneck about the Plutonian pigmies or the Liberacii Gaycolonies or whatever. People want excitement. Danger. Titillation." She coughed, embarrassed.

  Johnny shrugged, lost.

  She almost snarled. "My ratings are diabolical, okay? I need some scandal."

  "Scandal." Johnny suddenly spotted where the conversation was going with crystal clarity.

  Reggo took a deep breath. "The only show I've made this year which even got near to all that 'inform, educate and entertain' bollocks was the one about Strontium Dogs. People like freaks. It gives them something to... to..."

  "To hate?"

  "Ish. But they love to hate muties. And they love it even more when they can compare all that freakiness with razor sharp gorgeosity in the shape of moi."

  "I'm still not getting this." Johnny lied.

  "Oh, for sneck's sake! My agent thinks it would be a good career move if I had a stain or two on my record. And muties are fashionable at the mo."

  Johnny swallowed. "Right," he said.

  "Right."

  "So, you want to... ah..."

  She shuffled her feet. "It would just be once. With a camera drone watching, of course."

  "Of course. Um. Here?"

  "Well, perhaps one of the studios would be warmer."

  "Warmer. Right. Uh." Johnny pointed towards the nearest of the buildings. "What about that one?"

  Reggo swivelled in her spot. "Yes," she said, observing the unimpressive lovepad. "Yes, that looks fi-"

  Zzk.

  She crumpled to the ground with a sigh. Johnny deactivated the electronux he'd smuggled onto his fist. A single tap on the forehead was all it had taken to introduce Miss Nickle Reggo to slumberland.

  Kid Knee turned from the unconscious reporter and fixed Johnny with a disbelieving glare. "What," he said, barely able to speak, "are you doing?"

  "Close call, that," Johnny said.

  "She... she was going to-"

  "Come on. Studio 72." He strode off, leaving Reggo where she was.

  "You're mental, Alpha."

  "Shut up. It's this way."

  "She was throwing herself at you, man! You're deranged!"

  "Not on the job, Kid."

  "Whaaaat?"

  "It... impairs focus."

  "You're snecking joking, right?"

  "Look, just shut up."

  "Couldn't we at least bring her with us? I'm not gay!"

  "Nor am I!"

  "You know, I always wondered about you and Sternhammer."

  "Shut up."

  "That big beard he's got, it's a dead giveaway."

  "Shut up."

  "And you gotta admit, that helmet of yours is kind of suggestive."

  "Shut up."

  WORDS FOR THE DEAD

  #3 Chryz Montellimar Fortunis Jenkins Widdiso

  The last note, traditionally, lasts 39.45 seconds. I'm feeling mischievous, so I add a full three microbeats. The second aria of Faelii Spatchula's masterwork, "Celestial Detritus", thus finishes with spine tingling beauty. Naturally.

  I am, I admit, excited. Amongst the usual range of passion and brilliance I will this evening demonstrate no fewer than seventeen techniques utterly inaudible to human ears. That none of the groundlings will appreciate them is irrelevant: one does not protect their position as the galaxy's greatest singer by resting on one's laurels. In my hundred and fifty years of life (one hundred and nineteen of which have been spent in "artificial" realities) I have devoured the musical knowledge of countless civilisations, I have perfected the most challenging cadences and developed new techniques of my own. Next time you listen to Zagre The Konk and his Martian NoseChoir, or the FartBeat of Yollande Whippet, spare a thought for the genius who innovated their chosen artforms.

  That's me.

  If spending ninety-nine per cent of one's time immersed in fabricated realities sounds unsatisfying, allow me to retort. Where else may a gigabillionaire take the opportunity to indulge every vice and perversion without the tabloid press watching on? I'm assured that the real Nymphqueen of Hedon IV isn't able to perform half the "stunts" that my simulated version can, and have perfected the art of Tantric Opera whilst testing this theory to its limits.

  Some people might regard that sort of fastidiousness as a manifestation of arrogance.

  Peasants.

  Tonight's audience, mercifully, appears well behaved. I can't see the shrieking cretins, of course, which is a bonus. They're down on the ugly little world below me, craning their necks back to peer up at the holo-projections of yours truly that the techs are scattering liberally across the ionosphere.

  It's live, but not as we know it.

  Speaking of which, time for the next number. Dame Bossuk's famed "laughing" version of the Cadmium Movement: a challenging piece given that I have only one mouth and set of lungs, but I'm yet to be beaten by biology.

  Oh, for my sake. It seems I was wrong about the crowd being well behaved. Yes, here they come: hovbikes scudding across the horizon like a swarm of gnats. Bloody stage divers.

  You know, at my second concert, ninety years ago, one of the little bastards actually made it onto the stage. He was about to touch me when the assistant-deputy-trainee-sound-engineer bludgeoned him to death with a quantum microphone stand. I had to start the seventh chorus of Zephanixxus III's "Purple, O Purple" all over again. I tingle merely thinking about it.

  Thankfully we've impr
oved our security since then. A flotilla of Carnagebots will tend to discourage even the most insane of thrillseekers from a stage invasion.

  Ha, yes. They're turning away.

  Actually... they're turning away rather fast. Fleeing, you might say. And what's that glowing thing they've left behind? Ah well. I can't be held responsible for the peculiarities of my fans. The show must go on, as they say.

  Take a deep breath. Feeeeeeel the music, that's it.

  A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three-f-

  Boom.

  SEVEN

  The sky shook.

  Roolán had always assumed that descriptive sentences of that nature ("the earth moved,"; "the ground shivered,"; "the stars quaked,") were the hyperbolic work of overenthusiastic authors. Not so now.

  The sky really did shake. He felt it all through his body, like a highly impersonal massage from someone with cricket stumps instead of fingers.

  Confined to the farmhouse by his parents, he'd smuggled himself onto the corrugated roof where he could stare upwards and watch the show undetected. Peering across the irregular surface of Shtzuth presented a bizarre spectacle: every spare inch of ground occupied by a ticket holder, sprawled on their backs (or dorsal carapaces, etc) with their eyes fixed on the sky.

  Roolán's parents were charging a stupendous amount for "ground rental". He could see them in the distance, ambling about on hov-scooters selling refreshments at six times their value. Roolán had never seen them so happy.

  Thus far, the show had been breathtaking, with spectral images of Widdiso hazing like supernovae across the atmosphere, haloed by a spaghetti trail of lasers. Every soaring crescendo, every orchestral dirge, every reflective breath that the maestro took was reproduced in gargantuan scale.

  Clouds ceased to be the usual drab tetramethane smudges that blotted the sky and became instead nuggets of gold or sapphire, snagging at whatever luminescent artillery was sweeping past. Arcs of light lifted and fell, prismic shapes arose and broke apart, puddles of colour ran together like molten lead, here bubbling to form a brief image of Widdiso's face, there crackling in time with the orchestra's weird harmonies.