“You’re probably aware that I do not share this opinion.
“My father believes that human life is sacrosanct, and that a human being may be harmed only reluctantly, gravely, as a last resort, when there is no other way to defend the health and lives of others. For Dad, that’s a law of nature, quantifiable and absolute, like gravity and momentum and entropy.
“Except for you fuckers.”
I nod at moiré smears of my own face. “He hates you. All of you. Every single one of you. Personally. If every soapy on Earth was on fire, he wouldn’t piss on one to put him out.
“He admits this is a failure of principle. He admits it makes him a hypocrite, but he can’t help it. The closest he can come to rationalizing it is deciding you’re not really human anymore. He says humanity can’t be taken from a person, but it can be surrendered. He says every one of you surrendered your humanity when you became the willing tool of oppression. Get it? You’re not even really alive. You’re tools. Inanimate objects. Hammers. Saws. Whatever. You should know that I don’t share this opinion either.
“He’s giving you fuckers too much credit.
“You’re people just like anybody else. Bad people, but people. That’s all. I don’t hate you. You don’t hate slime buildup in your bathroom drain, y’know? But sooner or later you’ve got to clean that shit out.
“My father dreamed of a society that valued people for what they are instead of what they have. He dreamed that government of the people, by the people, and for the people had not perished from the Earth. He dreamed with liberty and justice for all.
“He didn’t have the power to bring forth even an echo of these things. He didn’t have the power to save his wife, or his child, or himself. He didn’t even have the power to control his own body.
“There’s tragic irony for you: the greatest accomplishment of this idealist, this civilized man of peace, was to father the living negation of everything he believes in. A human weapon of mass destruction.
“That would be me.
“He didn’t mean to. He didn’t want to. If you could put him back together and wake him up, he’d probably try to stop me. He would never, never ever, raise his fist against you. His fists were for my mother, and for me.
“His fists raised against his will. If he could have stopped himself, he would have. But he couldn’t. He can’t. He couldn’t stop his fists then.
“He can’t stop his fist now.
“Against his will he has raised me up, and I am going to beat this world until your entire fucking planet can’t do anything except lie there and bleed.”
• • •
Finally one of the soapies breaks. His helmet’s digitizer turns his derisive snort into a burst of static. “Nice speech,” he says. “Too bad nobody will ever hear it.”
In his mask, my smile looks wider than the span of my hand. “That’s not what I hear.”
“From who? The voices in your head?”
“Um, actually, since you ask? Yes. Exactly that.” I shrug at him. “Voices in my head. Funny, huh?”
“What’s more funny is that your father is part of the system that isolates and deletes seditious transmissions. He might be the exact component that has flagged your whole little rant for deletion.”
“That is funny,” I admit. “Want to see something even funnier than that? Gayle, you’ll like this one too. What’s the call code on that palmpad?”
“Why?”
“Just read it out.”
He does, and then I say, “Jed? Get everything? How’s it look?”
When the palmpad’s annunciator chimes, Gayle jerks so hard he almost drops the thing. I nod to him. “It’s all right. Answer it. Hold it so we can all see.”
The soapies shift and tighten up on their weapons. I wonder if they can see the looks they’re giving one another. I wish I could. Merciful Jesus, if I could only see the looks on their faces as Gayle taps the accept and a frame-in-frame box pops up and Jed Clearlake says, “Pretty good, Hari. It’ll take some editing, and I’ll have to cut in reaction shots.”
All six soapies lurch into combat stances and their rifles twitch back and forth like none of them can decide whether to shoot me or the palmpad or both.
I grin at them. “Those voices in my head? He’s one of them.”
“It’s kind of over the top,” Jed says.
“Practically my trademark.”
“The ‘government of the people’ et cetera stuff is Abraham Lincoln, right? Dictator of the American Federal Union?”
“Hey, good catch. Except the title was President of the United States of America.”
“Depends on who you read. Anyway, what’s this ‘liberty and justice for all’? Is that some kind of historical reference? Nobody knows what it’s supposed to mean.”
“Leave it in.”
“You’re the boss. We done?”
“Miles to go before we sleep.”
“Is that another—”
“Forget it. Yeah, we’re done. Get to work.”
“Then I’m out. Give ’em Hell, Hari.”
“Believe it.”
A couple of the soapies are tapping away on their sleevepads.
“Don’t bother. You can’t trace that signal.”
“There’s no such thing as a signal we can’t trace.”
“Really? No kidding. People used to say there’s no such thing as magick. That’s what educated people call irony, huh?”
They stop tapping. I wave a hand. “Hey, don’t let me spoil your fun. Take your best shot.”
I look over at Gayle. His face has gone almost as grey as Faller’s was, and his lips are white and he keeps mouthing oh my god oh my god. “Recognize that guy? Know what he does for a living?”
“That’s Jed …” He has to cough his throat clear. “That was Jed Clearlake—the, uh, the … the Studio Affairs anchor for Adventure Update—”
“Used to be. Now he’s the information minister for the Free State of Caine.”
“The what?”
“Even the Social Police and the Board of Governors would be surprised by everything we can do on Earth with magick these days. Monitor my thoughtmitter, for example.”
Gayle jerks again. I smile at him. “Thought I didn’t know about that one, huh? That while you fuckers were putting my skull back together, you went ahead and jammed in a new thoughtmitter. A convenient tool to keep tabs on me. It may be that there is such a thing as a tool that can’t be used as a weapon, but I’ve never met one.”
I open my hands. “I’m kinda proud of myself. You know I like books. One of the oldest, cheesiest gags in the history of the novel is the concealed recorder—hell, it’s older than the novel. Before they had the technology, it was somebody hiding in the bushes or behind an arras. What I think is cool is I didn’t have to worry about you finding mine. You fucking put it here.”
Gayle can’t get his mind around it. “But how can you possibly have done any—”
“Oh, I didn’t. It took me a few years—a few decades—to figure out that I don’t have to do everything myself. That’s why it’s good to have friends. I don’t have many, but they’re good ones to have.
“Like, say, if you have friends who can Whisper or Speak, they can tell you shit privately—not even a thoughtmitter can pick it up. And if one of your other friends can, say, Meld, well then, you can actually have a whole conference just in your mind. So you don’t have to, say, actually talk. Or even monologue. But that’s kid stuff. We can hijack whole data streams. And upload viral—literally viral—video. Not to mention crown me king of my own virtual nation, but let that part go. It’s not easy, but all kinds of shit can be done if your friends are powerful enough. If you stop and think about it, you might remember who some of my friends are.”
One of the soapies jams his rifle at my face. “Can they bring you back from the dead?”
“Actually, yes. Sort of. It’s complicated.”
Another rifle joins the first. “Killing you
isn’t.”
“Have you been listening at all? Uh, wait. Hang on a second. Voices again …”
Stillness.
“You’re sure you have him? Raithe, we have to do this right the first time.”
Gayle says, “Raithe?”
“Shh.”
An electric rush all over me inside and out, skin and bone and guts and blood, dry ice and thermite.
A tear rolls from my eye and tracks down my face and scorches stink up from my beard. It splashes iridescent black on the front of my prisoner’s gown and it starts to burn and I don’t care.
One of the soapies leans in for a better look. “What the fuck?”
“Raithe. Thank you. Anything. Ever. Just ask.”
A second or two of stillness, and I nod to myself. “Thanks. Tell Orbek: go on my signal.”
“Signal? Orbek and Raithe?”
Gayle backs away. “Maybe you should shoot him.”
“Too late.”
Another rush, bigger, harsher, and it’s not the love of some incomprehensibly oceanic thing I’m feeling now.
It’s concrete. And specific.
“Oh God … Jesus, if you could only know …”
More tears roll, and if I don’t cut this out I’ll set my fucking beard on fire. “Yeah. I know. I do. I love you, Dad. See you soon.”
Now all six of them have their power rifles aimed at my face. “What the fuck are you playing at?”
“I really think you should shoot him,” Gayle says unsteadily. He’s backed himself all the way to the wall. “I really do.”
“Yeah, go ahead. One thing first.”
“Shoot him!”
“It’s not your call,” one of the soapies says, then aims his mask at me. “Start talking. You know what happens if you don’t.”
“Talk? Sure. Regards from my father,” I tell them. “He says good-bye.”
I make a fist and five of their heads explode.
Really explode: blood and brains and shreds of their helmets and pretty much all of it’s on fire and Gayle’s screaming at the last one to shoot him fucking shoot him, and the sixth soapy lowers his rifle and shakes his head.
“Fuck me upside down,” he says. “I tell you, Jonnie, I will never get used to that.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to,” I tell him. “Have everything you need?”
He nods, kneeling to go through the other guys’ armor. “Anything I don’t have, I can get as I go. Think you could cut it a little closer next time? Like, say, after they actually open fire?”
“Timing is everything.”
“Would it be rude to mention that breathing is everything too?” He pockets the secmen’s personal pads and spare charge packs. “Useful talent, Jonnie. Leaves all their gear intact. Well, not the helmets. But still not bad. For an amateur.”
“Is anybody ever gonna explain how the fuck this all came off?”
“If somebody tries, don’t expect it to make sense.” He gets up and heads for the door, but stops with his hand on the lever. “It really is Tanner.”
“What is?”
“My name. The one I was born with.” His face is unreadable in his helmet. “Not Hackford, though. Mark.”
“Mark Tanner?”
“You—uh, somebody who looked like you—asked me one time. Since we both figured we wouldn’t see each other again.”
“Shit, Tanner, if I killed you I’d figure to see you again.”
“I guess.” He pushes open the door and heads on out. “Take care of yourself, Jonnie. I ain’t so friend-heavy I can afford to lose any.”
I’d tell him to take his friend and shove it up his ass, except he might be able to make me fit. If he chops the pieces small enough.
Besides, I like the guy. “Luck to you, Tanner.”
“Thanks.” The helmet twists back toward me. “Die fighting, Caine.”
“Seems likely. Thanks.”
And he’s gone.
• • •
Gayle is mostly huddled in a corner, but he’s getting his nerve back. “Who was that? An Actor?”
“Best I’ve ever seen. But he works for somebody else.”
“There’s no way he can successfully impersonate a Studio secman.”
“That’s his problem.” I stare at my stripcuffs for a second until they kindle white fire and melt away. Gayle doesn’t seem to notice. “We need to talk about the future.”
“Future? You don’t have a future. There is a whole division of Social Police out there—”
“Not anymore.” I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand up. Jesus, that feels good. I stretch, pull the I.V. out of my feeding port, and walk over to the armorglass windows. “A report should come through any second.”
“You can walk?”
“Here, yeah. It’s a little tricky—the oil is a different kind of power from Flow, and there’s some boundary effect—but I’ll get the hang of it.”
The palmpad’s annunciator chimes again. I pick it up and give it a tap, and the screen wipes to a shadowy side-lit image of my brother’s face. “You look like shit.”
“Good to see you, big dog. How we doing?”
“You do good work for a human,” he says. “All clear so far.”
“Good. Don’t kill anybody.”
“Yah yah. Survivors are maybe friendlies, hey?”
“On the ground, yeah. The lockout codes?”
“Fire control dick is up hard,” he says. “We ain’t gonna be sharp as Soapy for a while, though.”
“Are you kidding? If I ever find a gun ogrilloi can’t shoot better than humans, I’ll fucking eat it.”
“How’s our air cover? Whole lotta bad guys up there.”
“On its way.”
“Yeah well, maybe they get their way on fucking faster, hey? I don’t want to eat a nuke when Deliann’s not here to turn the fucker off.”
“Me neither. Stand by.” I look over at Gayle. “Maybe you want to come watch, huh? This is not gonna be something you see every day.”
He dazedly pulls himself up and stumbles over by me. “Can you tell me—explain to me—any of this …?”
“Glad to. Because the Board of Governors is monitoring my thoughtmitter, and this is shit they need to understand. It’s pretty straightforward.”
“Straightforward?” He gives a bleak laugh. “That’s a joke, yes?”
“Mostly it’s what I already said. It’s just that none of you fuckers believed me. Because you dumb shits think this is just another Caine Adventure, so it has to end with some kind of giant fucking Bond movie battle. So okay. This was it.”
Gayle looks baffled.
“That giant battle? You just saw it,” I explain patiently, because I can afford to be patient. “You lost.”
Gayle goggles at me.
I’d feel sorry for him, except there’s that whole smug-weasel, unctuous-little-fuck thing. “It’s like this. What I did to those secmen is a nifty feature of what happens when I come in contact with your black oil blood-of-the-blind-god shit. Well, you pumped an assload of it into me today. So just now, I exploded the heads of all the soapies within a couple miles of here.”
Gayle’s jaw drops and just hangs there. “You—?”
“Yeah. This close to the dil, they’ve got oil in their blood too. My oil can talk to their oil. My oil told their oil to ignite, and their oil wants to stay on my oil’s good side, so they did me this favor. I guess it’s more accurate to say it’s all my oil, but I don’t think that clarifies the situation.”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“The Bog does. So, you’re a reader. Ever come across a story called ‘Br’er Rabbit’?”
He turns a whiter shade of pale.
“Now, I can’t reach out farther than a mile or two because the farther you go, the more local physics goes Earth Normal. So all those riot cars on station up there are out of range. That’s okay. We have an unpleasant surprise for them too.
“S
ee, none of you really understands what the black oil is. The Bog thinks it knows … but then, the Bog thought mainlining that shit would turn me into whatever kind of psycho zombie monster Kollberg was, so we don’t have to pay much attention to their opinion, right? Other than me and a few Monastic scholars and operatives, the only person who really understands the oil—who understands the true nature of the blind god—is my dad. He called it the shared will of the human race, and that’s closer to true than, y’know, any of those elvish legends he got the name from. The blind god is an expression of human nature, and the black oil is only an expression of the blind god’s power. It’s not evil. People are evil.
“That’s the whole thing, right there. Good and evil has nothing to do with gods. It has to do with us. The blind god destroys because we do. But we also create.
“Now look, Gayle. Don’t blame yourself for any of this. There’s a lot of shit you don’t know about what happened after my wife was murdered. Though you’d think the Bog would clue you in, because they do know some of that shit. I mean, come on. They must have suspected. Seriously. Black hair. Black beard. Black eyes. Black clothes. Black Knife. Black Flow.”
I spread my hands to apologize for how fucking obvious this is. “Black oil.”
Gayle sits down. There’s no chair. He doesn’t seem to notice. He draws his knees up and wraps his arms around them.
“You’ll be interested in some of the, y’know, peculiarities about my current situation, excuse the planet-size understatement. One of them is how those voices in my head can tell me about shit that hasn’t happened yet. They’re not always right—they never really capture the details—but some things are clear. Hell of an edge in planning, right? This installation was clear. That black oil is another, because without your black oil I.V. today, the whole seeing-the-future thing never comes about in the first place. In fact, it’s probably fair to say my whole career might have unhappened.”
Gayle shakes his head blankly.
“Yeah, well, I don’t really understand either. Point is, we knew what you fuckers were going to try, and we knew when, and we were ready. You lost. I won.”
“You’ve won … what?” He looks around, still baffled. “Anything? You can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything. All you’ve done is murder a few thousand innocent men in the middle of a radioactive wasteland.”
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