Ghost Of The Black: A 'Verse Full Of Scum

by Alan Baxter

  The Guide-Prime made a face like he respected my request. Good for him. ‘Our holy books have been regularly updated when members of Sanctuary have religious experiences. Visions, visitations and so on. Over a hundred years ago a monastic Guide named Haliotep had a series of powerful visions. One of those visions resulted in him scrawling an image on the floor of his room. The image was a face. It was the face of, to quote Haliotep, “A ghost, dangerous and unpredictable, prone to irrational behaviour. Integral to the Plan, he will need to be treated with respect and caution. A ghost that will cause turmoil and upset. He will pass through the Sanctuary and he can be aided or hindered by the People. Their choice in this matter will determine the future of the universe.” Are you with me so far?’

  ‘It’s not high literature. Go on.’

  ‘Well, it’s simple really. The face was yours.’

  ‘I was a lot of decades short of alive back then. How could it be me. And your monkey here has a photo in his book, not a drawing.’

  The Guide-Prime nodded. ‘Well, yes. A number of years ago the Sanctuaries all simultaneously received an anonymous sat-feed. It contained that image, the photo of you, and the text from Haliotep’s vision. Along with it was a note that said, “This man is called Ghost. It is time to make the choice.” It was simply signed, “A Believer”. We compared the photo to Haliotep’s ancient drawing, but it was academic. Everyone that knew of Haliotep’s visions would easily recognise you in an instant. We asked our prophets what to do, whether we should track you down. They said that you would come to us in your own time, so we’ve waited.’

  ‘All this was years ago? How come no one has mentioned this to me before? How come no one has recognised me before?’

  The Guide-Prime smiled. ‘I suppose you don’t spend much time with people that are familiar with God’s Word.’

  Episode 15

  I had a whole heap of thoughts running around in my head like chickens when the farmer comes along with his hatchet. I needed a few minutes to collate just what the hell was going on here. The Guide-Prime started to speak again and I held up one finger. The look on my face held promises for the finger that made the Guide-Prime wince and he sensibly closed his mouth again.

  I walked over to the big stained-glass window behind him. Through a clear panel I could see the port laid out below, people milling around like ants, ships cruising in and out in the distance. It all seemed very surreal. I sucked a long, slow, deep breath in through my nose and started rounding up the chickens in my brain.

  The Dems had given me a job to track down this Magicker goon named Pietre Gans. My leads so far had led me to Gallenin where I found one stuck-up broad that lost her grip on her panties for a moment, one entrepreneur that couldn’t seal a deal and one businessman that had ended up dead. Out of all this I had a lead to Methesda and the dead guy had prepared a ‘slide for me. The police had decided they wanted to talk to me some more about that, so I did the natural thing and legged it. I wanted to go to Methesda. But, on bolting, I randomly ended up on a crappy boat that dumped me here on Cerunia, religion central in the region. And it seems that I’ve been a star feature of Coexistence literature for a hundred years. What were the connections? Were there any connections? More importantly, what the fuck was I supposed to do now?

  There were three specific threads to follow up on now. One was getting out to Methesda and trying to pick up the trail of Gans. That was a pretty straightforward proposal and my main priority.

  Number two was trying to figure out why that dead guy, Darver Phelms, had left a message for me when we had no idea of each other’s existence. That was possibly connected to Gans. Had Gans set that up? If so, why? Just to fuck with me? Then a thought occurred to me. Maybe that was designed to trip me up. Maybe Gans knew that it was me that was after him and had arranged all that so that the police would at least hold me for a while and give him a chance to get away. But that didn’t add up. The recording had been made and Phelms killed before the Dems had even given me the job. So that little chapter in this whole thing was still a mystery.

  So, what about thread number three, which was: What the hell am I doing in the prophecies of the Coexistence? Then a slightly profound thought occurred to me. Who cares?

  In the grand scheme of things, everything important is connected to Gans and Phelms. This whole Coexistence thing was just a weird and irrelevant coincidence that had no relevance to the case I was working. At least, it seemed that way.

  I decided to let my curiosity stretch its legs for a minute, then get back to business. I was intrigued, but not prepared to let this bizarre turn of events distract me from my work. I’ve got that reputation to maintain, remember?

  I walked back around the desk and leaned on it. The Guide-Prime was still a couple of metres away from me where he sat behind it. Thoughts of Freudian compensation gusted briefly through my mind. ‘Show me the drawing.’

  The Guide-Prime blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘This Halitosis guy…’

  ‘Haliotep.’

  ‘Whatever. He drew me on his floor, right? You must have a copy of the original drawing. Show me.’

  The Guide-Prime nodded and turned a holo-screen to face me. Slipping his hand among the holograms on his desk, tapping at them, an image came up. It was a still of what looked like an old fashioned prison cell, concrete and stark. There was something on the floor. I reached into the screen and pulled the image up, zooming in on the floor. It looked like it was drawn in charcoal or something similar and it was definitely a face. And it did look a hell of a lot like me.

  The Guide-Prime cleared his throat nervously while I stared at the image. I didn’t attack him so he decided to try talking again. ‘For nearly a hundred years we’ve used face recognition software through security cameras, scanned entertainment and news feeds, had Guides always on the lookout. But we never found you.’

  I shrugged. ‘When I see a religious sort I tend to look the other way. And cameras are anathema to my line of work, so I never look at them either if I can help it. I’m more interested in other people that get seen on cameras.’ I was still staring at the image. It was giving me the creeps.

  I saw the Guide-Prime nodding gently from the corner of my eye. ‘I suppose you eventually came up on someone’s camera,’ he said quietly. ‘Inevitable, really. And that someone knew our prophecies and anonymously sent out the word.’

  A question had been bugging my hindbrain for a while, like a mosquito repeatedly buzzing by yours ears at night that you just can’t catch a hold of. Then it suddenly caught a hold all by itself. ‘You knew I was arriving here today. How?’

  The Guide-Prime smiled that shit-eating smile they all seem to have. I could imagine them practising it in the mirror. ‘We have a visionary here among us,’ he said proudly. ‘He recently had a vision of you arriving here so we’ve had a Guide at the port for the last few days, waiting. And sure enough, here you are.’

  I made a wry face. ‘Yeah. Here I are. I want to see this visionary of yours.’

  I had pretty much decided to ignore this whole freaky business and get on with the job at hand, but I just wanted to learn a bit more first. I could just walk out and get on with business, but while I was here a bit more info on this whole prophecy thing might work out well for me at some point. Like I said before, in my line of work intel is worth more than diamonds. And, in the long run, there’s no such thing as irrelevant intel.

  Episode 16

  This Coexistence visionary guy turned out to be a lunatic that lived in his bed and smelled like a toilet. According to the Guide-Prime, who warned me on the way there to be prepared, he took offence when they tried to mask his stench or clean his place. I took immediate offence to him. He was blind, crippled, thinner than a tall man on hunger strike and covered in weeping sores. Even if he wasn’t blind I would have had trouble stopping the look of disgust twisting my face when we stepped inside his cell. Right away he started laughing, a sound like someone shooting projectile bullet
s into tar.

  ‘My presence disgusts you?’ he asked. His voice was worse than his laugh.

  I was in no mood to be polite. ‘You choose to live this way?’

  ‘I have no choices in life. It is my lot to receive and deliver the visions.’

  I barked a short laugh, more a sound of dismissal than humour. ‘You have a choice to have your illnesses treated and your stink mopped up.’

  He shook his head. ‘The more I pay attention to my humanity, the less clarity I receive in the visions. This is my blessing and my curse. I do endeavour not to inflict myself upon others, but I believe you wanted to see me.’

  He had a point there. ‘These visions you’ve had of me. How does that shit work? You got the Sly gene?’

  He laughed again. I wished he wouldn’t. ‘Not at all. The Sly gene, the Magickers, they are a mutation. A strange aspect of God’s will. I have no power over matter or the minds of others. I simply see possible futures and hear echoes of things yet to pass.’

  It sounded like the Sly Gene to me, just wearing a religious robe. ‘Yeah, right. Enough of the poetic crap. I have no respect or faith in you or your kind. In any religious kind. But you seem to know a lot about me and I want to know everything about me that you know.’ That was about as clear as I could make my intentions. I didn’t want him rambling on in some hokey religious way. I just wanted facts. I should have known better.

  ‘The ways of God are strange. He moves in mysterious ways and his provenance and his intentions are unknowable.’

  He had the look of someone about to deliver a sermon, so I cut him off. ‘Bullshit. You tell me in one breath that you see the future, then you say his intentions are unknowable. You contradict yourself and avoid my question. I don’t care about your god, or his intentions. What do you think you know about me?’

  That shooting tar laugh again. ‘Irrational, difficult. The prophecies were accurate.’

  ‘I’m not above bashing the shit out of you, you know that?’

  ‘Oh, I do know that. But it is not necessary. You are a small part of our prophecies, but seemingly very important. What we know of you, however, is almost nothing. We are aware now of who you are. We are aware that you will be integral in the Plan. We know that whether we choose to help you or not will drastically affect the outcome of the Plan. Beyond that, we know nothing.’

  ‘That all sounds to me like nothing anyway. You don’t really know shit.’

  ‘We knew you were coming here. Your picture has been in our books for decades.’

  I ground my teeth. What the hell was I doing here? What did I really want from this guy anyway? None of it was relevant to catching Gans. ‘What the fuck is this plan you keep on about?’

  ‘God’s Plan. The Lord’s intention for the universe and humanity.’ He struggled to sit himself more upright in his festering pit. ‘Everything runs to God’s Plan. We are all bit players in his theatre of life and he has the script. But he also gave all men free will. That means that we can rewrite his script with our arrogance or we can choose to follow his guidance and play along.’

  I sneered. ‘I’ll take the free will thanks. I can’t believe how many people think they need to pay homage to some imaginary friend who’s never given them a shred of evidence to confirm his existence. It’s always been the religious people using the concept for their own gain.’

  The rank visionary nodded. ‘You are perfectly entitled to hold that opinion.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘But it has absolutely no impact on God’s Plan.’

  ‘You better be getting to some kind of point.’

  He nodded again, dabbing at the pus that dribbled from his forehead over his blank eyes. ‘The point is this,’ he said quietly. ‘Whatever you think is irrelevant. It’s what you do that matters.’

  ‘And what is it that you think I’m supposed to do?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  I stood there, my mouth half open, words caught behind my teeth like kids behind a fence, not big enough yet to jump over it. I had no idea what to say to that. Eventually I said, ‘So, in sum total, you knew who I was and that I was coming?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have no idea what I’m doing?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘And no idea what I’m supposed to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or what you want me to do?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You fucking people are mad! Why am I standing here wasting my time?’

  ‘Why indeed. We wanted to meet you, that’s all. Point out that you have a part in Gods Plan.’

  I was exasperated. ‘But you have no idea what that is!’

  He laughed again. I didn’t think it was possible for me to get more annoyed with him, but I was wrong. ‘No ideas of your part, no. But we know that you will play a part.’

  ‘This is all complete and total bollocks.’ I turned around to leave. I had a job to get on with.

  ‘And we wanted to let you know our decision.’

  I stopped halfway to the door, refusing to turn back to face him. ‘What decision?’

  ‘Do you remember Haliotep’s prophecy?’

  ‘Your Guide-Prime here mentioned it to me.’ I kept my back to him, still planning to simply walk away.

  He quoted the thing again. ‘“A ghost, dangerous and unpredictable, prone to irrational behaviour. Integral to the Plan, he will need to be treated with respect and caution. A ghost that will cause turmoil and upset. He will pass through the Sanctuary and he can be aided or hindered by the People. Their choice in this matter will determine the future of the universe.” A ghost. That’s you. The People. That’s us. We’ve had to decide whether to help or hinder your progress, in whatever it is that you do.’

  I turned back to face him, my expression one of fury. ‘If you try to hinder me, if you so much as stand in my way, I’ll shred every one of you.’ I turned to the Guide-Prime, silent and terrified beside me, and grabbed a handful of his robe. ‘I’ll probably start with you, you self-satisfied prick. Then I’ll use your body to bludgeon him to death so that I don’t have to touch his stinking flesh.’

  The Guide-Prime raised both his hands. ‘Please, hear him out.’

  The prophet was chuckling, a sound like someone vomiting slowly onto a tiled floor. ‘We anticipated your behaviour, Ghost. We decided that to hinder you would cause more strife for everyone. Which is why we’ve decided to help you. Now. How, exactly, can we help you?’

  Episode 17

  It goes completely against my nature to work with anyone, but I’m not above using people to achieve my ends. I told them that the first way they could help me was by feeding me. If nothing else it got me out of that stinking cell. Sitting back in the Guide-Prime’s massive office I tucked into a plate of fresh produce, fruit and meats, nothing reconstituted. It was actually pretty good.

  ‘We’ll do all we can to assist you,’ the Guide-Prime said while I ate. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I need to get to Methesda,’ I said around a mouthful of cold roast blent. ‘Can you do that? I need to get there on the quiet.’

  ‘The Sanctuary has certain privileges,’ he said, obviously very pleased with himself. ‘We have priority travel allowances, for example, and can avoid some of the usual securities around ports.’

  ‘That’s a good start. But I ain’t Sanctuary.’

  ‘No. But you could travel in a Sanctuary vessel, unmentioned on the manifest.’

  I looked up at him, my eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘That’s illegal. Aren’t you people supposed to obey all the laws of any given jurisdiction? The law about declaring all passengers is pretty universal.’

  He smiled like a naughty schoolboy. ‘We are aware that helping you may mean… bending some rules. We are prepared, within reason, to do that.’

  I shook my head. ‘I have a lot of aliases. I can move around pretty freely as someone else, wit
hout the risk of a ship audit turning up an extra passenger.’ I’d already stowed away once recently and didn’t want to push my luck. A soul made his own luck. ‘If we can generally avoid port authorities I’m happy to rely on an alias if anyone does come asking. The real concern is whether or not you can get me out to Methesda.’

  ‘We have many vessels at our disposal. Travel should not be of any concern to you from now on.’

  ‘I don’t want a ship procured specifically for me.’ Incognito meant going with the flow as much as possible, letting the stream carry you along and simply hopping on and off where you wanted. ‘Do you have any ships that are going to Methesda anyway?’

  The Guide-Prime shrugged slightly. ‘I don’t know. Methesda is a long way out, and I get the feeling that you’re in a hurry.’ He paused, obviously thinking. I carried on eating and let him think. He began tapping at his console and frowning. Eventually he looked up again. ‘There is nothing specific, to Methesda. However, it is a relatively new planet and still rather lawless and, therefore, Godless. It is quite normal for us to send out missionaries to such places. There is a missionary team there now. Perhaps we could decide to enhance their numbers and send a couple more Guides out there. And perhaps you could ride along with them?’

  It really stuck in my craw to be considering the help of these people, people I really didn’t like. Then again, the proposal this guy had just made was a very quick and easy way of getting out to where I needed to be. ‘I don’t want Guides hanging around me all the time. When I get there, I want to be left alone.’

  The Guide-Prime nodded. ‘That’s no problem at all. You can ride along with the missionaries and then be on your way. Of course, if you ever need any more of our help after that, you only have to ask.’