by Al Robertson
‘An army?’ asked Leila, disbelieving. ‘You might be building him an army?’ She glanced over at Ambrose. He looked profoundly shocked. ‘What are you really up to down here, Dieter?’
And that was when the pressure men attacked.
Chapter 13
The flies came first, a dark swarm shooting across the room like a blurred fist. They crashed straight through Dieter and he froze. Then they were on Ambrose. ‘Get out,’ he yelled, then his shields went up and he was silver. Oh crap, thought Leila. She stepped back, instinctively calling her skull face into being. She’d only just found her brother. She didn’t want to leave him. There was an angry, roaring buzz, then Ambrose’s shields dropped away, puddling beneath him like a pool of mercury. He took a step back, thrashing at himself, his skin dotted with crawling insects. Leila ran towards him and tried to help him. But her fingers just went through them.
‘Crash out,’ he shouted again. ‘Once they’ve finished with me, they’ll come for you.’ He staggered backwards then fell over. ‘I can feel them,’ he howled. ‘Inside me.’
Ambrose’s cord flashed to red. The cuttlefish leapt into her mind, alarms wailing as it fled the attack. She hushed it as she ran to Dieter. She tried to shake him but her hands went through him. He’d been frozen, pulled out of time just as he turned to see what his friends were looking at. Leila tried to slap him, but her hand slipped through him too. ‘Fuck,’ she said to herself.
Then two pressure men burst in. The first one took her at a run, throwing himself on to her. He was fully weave enabled. His attack systems forced his presence on her. He could touch her, hurt her. She collapsed under his weight, his rings cutting into her hands, his medallion hard against her chest, stubble scouring her cheek like a weapon. There was the cologne stench again and something else beneath it – the thin, high reek of decay. She fell and skidded backwards with him on top of her. She brought her knee up between his legs but it made no difference. His weight crushed movement out of her.
Then her skull face was ready and she hit him with it.
He arced his back, howled and rolled off her, hands clamped over his ears, eyes tight shut. She kicked him in the mouth as she stood and felt a surprising softness. The other approached her. There was murder on his face. He balled his fists. It would take fifteen seconds or so for her skull face to lock on to his virtual senses, build an assault package and break him. In the meantime, he could cause her pain. She backed away from him.
Ambrose winked out of existence, vanishing back to his room. Relief flooded her until the flies rose up. They’d broken straight through Ambrose’s armour. They’d break hers too. She remembered the Blood and Flesh plague tearing its way into her. She couldn’t risk being shattered again. This time, she wouldn’t have Dieter to heal her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed as she started her exit countdown. ‘I’ll come back.’
She turned and started to run. The flies were behind her, then the second pressure man. Dieter was an uncaring statue. She jumped ahead, reappearing halfway down the store room, still running. Fear of her pursuers erased any shock at the jump. There was an infuriated buzzing from behind her. She looked out of the window at the Shining City and tried to leap there. But this jump failed, denied by the local weave. The pressure man entered the store room and cackled. There was no other exit. Her skull face was almost ready again. Perhaps now they had the measure of it. She hit the wall and turned to face her pursuer. Two more appeared behind him, all pastel suits and snarling faces.
The flies were ahead of them all.
Leila switched the skull face to multiple targeting. Testing it out at last, she thought. It would have a weaker but still damaging impact on its targets. She felt its systems grind away and wished it worked more quickly. The flies exploded around her, a swarm shot through with a hard, artificial glitter. Leila thought of jewels, of electrical components. The cuttlefish screamed danger in her mind. The flies were a prickling on her skin. First one, then several, then uncountable numbers landed on her, tiny creatures that burned into her like acid, tearing first at her skin and then at her mind. She sank to her knees, swearing and brushing at herself. The skull face flared readiness and she pulsed out an attack. She wasn’t sure what it did to the pressure men. It didn’t affect the flies. Her exit countdown crawled downwards. She wanted to scream. Perhaps she should risk just shutting herself down.
But before she could, a firm hand grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. There was a hissing sound. A cool mist settled around her head, a metallic taste suffused her mouth and the flies began to drop off.
‘What is this breadhead shit?’ her rescuer drawled. ‘Be cool, you’re good.’ Rough hands brushed at her face and hair. She felt the swarm’s touch on her skin lessen, the pressure on her mind fall back. ‘Keep your eyes closed,’ the voice said. ‘One more hit of fly killer.’
‘What about the pressure men?’
‘The guys on the floor? Oh, you fucked them up good and proper. For the next minute or so, at least.’
Another hiss, and she felt more cold liquid. It soothed the last of the little hooked legs away. The flies died into stillness, becoming tiny weights that fell with a dry rustle as Leila brushed at herself.
‘All fixed. You can open your eyes now.’
Her rescuer wore round, mirrored sunglasses. A tight little moustache pointed out from beneath a hawkish nose. A triangular beard sharpened his chin. Cheekbones cut up towards neat sideburns. He’d pulled his steel grey hair back into a ponytail. He wore a tie-dyed T-shirt that had once, long ago, been molten with lysergic colours, a faded pair of jeans and a tool belt. One hand held a spray bottle.
He smiled. ‘You’re not from round here,’ he said.
‘Who are you?’ gasped Leila. ‘Where IS here?’
‘Oh, I guess I’m a caretaker.’ The three pressure men stirred. The caretaker nodded towards them. ‘Deodatus adapts pretty quickly. Every time you use that weapon of yours, it’ll be less effective.’ He peered towards the end of the room. ‘More of ’em coming.’ He tossed the spray bottle to Leila. ‘More flies too. Zap ’em.’ It felt about a quarter full. There was a broom leaning against the wall. He grabbed it. ‘I’ll take those dudes.’ He hefted it in his hands like a weapon. ‘Hold ’em back. Till we can get out of here.’
‘With a broom?’
‘It’s not the tool, it’s how you use it.’ He pointed to his forehead. ‘This is what you really fight with.’
‘Can we get my brother?’
‘The frozen guy in the main room?’
She nodded.
‘We’ll see. Might have to beat a retreat, come back when all’s quieter.’ He sounded deeply relaxed about the whole situation.
The closest pressure man was back on his feet. Leila had her first good look at him. He was, she guessed, about the same age as her, but the resonances of his clothing made him seem much more mature.
He leapt towards them.
The caretaker took him in the forehead with the broom. ‘IN YOUR FACE, BROTHER!’ he yelled, very clearly enjoying himself.
Their attacker collapsed. The caretaker planted a heel in his chest and leapt for the second one. Holding the broom in two hands he swung it in a high arc and bought it down like an axe. The brush smacked into the pressure man’s head and he too went down. The third one dropped into a crouch. The caretaker spun the broom in his hand.
‘You know, I’m usually a pacifist,’ he drawled. ‘Just not today.’
Leila didn’t see how the fight ended. Her vision shimmered and the room glitched out. She’d forgotten the countdown. Five, it read, then four. There were black specks everywhere, maybe flies, maybe the local weave shutting down.
‘I’m going back,’ she shouted. ‘Where is this place? How do I find it again?’
But there was no reply, for she was falling through darkness, and the room she’d been
in was just a memory. Ambrose’s systems crashed her back into her flat. All of a sudden she was back in her own living room, panting hard and needing to vomit, a bottle of fly spray clutched in one shaking hand.
Her head ached. Back in Docklands it was very late at night. The flat was shockingly quiet. She felt like she’d just escaped from a nightmare. She reeled across the room, knocking against Dieter’s little Grey shrine. A tiny avatar of the god appeared like a sickness hallucination. His voice was a rasping buzz. ‘I see your expenses management apps need upgrading. Let me help you with that,’ he chirped. Leila nodded yes to shut him up, staggered past him and collapsed against the door frame. The flat’s messaging system babbled about a message. It played automatically. Cassiel talked about the two Deodatus beneficiaries: ‘I can’t find any links between them,’ she said. ‘I’m going to keep digging.’
Leila wondered what Cassiel would make of Dieter’s workshop, deep in the Shining City. She still didn’t know what he was really up to down there. If the worst were true he might be raising an army for Deodatus. She couldn’t think how he’d do that. For now she felt too broken to speculate. Fear shot through her. His captor had already taken some of his memory. She wanted to get back out, to try and find him. First she’d lie down for a moment and recover herself. She staggered down the hall and into her bedroom. It swayed around her. It had always been such a safe space. In the back of the mind she felt the cuttlefish, curled up in terror. She thought of Ambrose and imagined him falling back into his body. She hoped his buffer self had protected him. She’d jump to his office as soon as she felt a little better. She collapsed queasily on to the bed. She clutched the fly spray to her. The sheets felt harsh. They reminded her of stubble. It was worse than any hangover she’d ever had. She found that she couldn’t move.
And then she discovered that she’d never left the nightmare.
Three loud bangs came from the corridor. Then there was a splintering crash. She imagined the front door torn from its hinges. She wanted to stand, to jump, to flee. But something had reached into her core self and frozen her. There were footsteps in the passageway. As the handle turned and the door to her bedroom opened there was a soft buzzing. A shadow became a man as it stepped into the light from the street outside. It was the pressure man from the hospital, dressed in yesterday. Her very earliest memory leapt to mind – her father, when he’d still been there, coming to kiss her goodnight. Here was his dark opposite, breaking into her most intimate space.
The pressure man pulled his shirt open to the waist. There was a square void beneath his ribcage. The skin around its edges was sticky with decay. He smiled as the flies leapt out of it. Once again she felt their hard legs scratch first at her flesh and then at her mind. This time she couldn’t move. The skull face refused her summons. The swarm swatted away her defence librarians. And then it was inside her, ripping at her past.
Chapter 14
Leila was in one of Dieter’s workrooms. He was standing next to a pile of closed circuit televisions screens. Grey images flickered across them, showing her fragments of the flat.
‘Hello, Leila,’ Dieter said, smiling. ‘Some pretty nasty paralysis code in you. Don’t worry, I’ve stripped it all out.’
Leila still had the fly spray in her hand. She raised it like a weapon, scanning the room as she did so. ‘Are you real?’ she asked him. ‘Are they using you against me?’ There were no flies. The scratching in her mind had gone. ‘Are we safe?’ She felt memories of the Blood and Flesh plague rise up within her. She pushed them back down. She couldn’t let the past distract her from the present.
Dieter took one of her elbows in each hand, staring intently into her eyes and ignoring the fly spray. ‘No, I’m not,’ he said, then: ‘And yes, you are.’
Leila wondered if she should spray him. But she wasn’t sure what sort of effect it would have. She might be wasting a dose. And he’d released her from paralysis. It was hard to believe that he was an artefact of the pressure man’s attack. ‘Where are we? The Shining City?’
‘What?’ Dieter looked confused. ‘No, we’re still in the flat. The secret part of it.’
‘But you’re gone, Dieter.’
‘Oh, I see!’ He laughed. ‘I’m not the real Dieter. I’m just a defence system. Keeping you safe from whoever’s out there. Until the real Dieter can deal with him.’ He gestured to a screen. The intruder stood in her bedroom. ‘Do you recognise him?’
‘Yes. People like him – pressure men – they’ve been following me. Attacking me.’ Fear still gripped her. ‘Are you sure we’re safe?’
‘Of course. Though this “pressure man” is a serious customer. He’s broken most of the flat’s defences. Broken you, too. Or rather, what he thinks is you.’
Leila could only stare. She hoped desperately that this wasn’t all an illusion.
Her rescuer chuckled. ‘He’s actually attacking a copy.’
‘Like a buffer self?’ she asked. She remembered the Blood and Flesh attack. They’d broken into her memories too. She felt none of that violence in her mind now.
‘Pretty much. Only it’s not linked back to you. So you’re perfectly safe. There’s no way he can reach us in here.’ He was so proud to be protecting her. Grief shifted tectonically within her. She must have looked shocked. He became serious. ‘You really are safe, Leila. The real Dieter built all this to take care of you. And it has done.’
‘He never told me.’ She remembered how high handed Dieter could be with his little sister. ‘Which, to be honest, is not a surprise.’ As she spoke, she ran diagnostics on herself. All seemed to be in order. Perhaps this new version of him was telling the truth. And if he was what he claimed to be, there was something he needed to know. ‘Sit down,’ she told him.
‘What’s wrong, Leila?’
‘Please. Just sit.’
He reached for a stool and sunk on to it. She found another and perched next to him, surprised at how much sadness she suddenly felt. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. All that was most loving and unselfish in him rose up. ‘Why are you so upset?’
It was so hard to say. ‘Your physical self is dead.’
‘Oh,’ he replied, sitting back. A moment of sadness. Then: ‘But he’ll be back. Six months and he’ll be a fetch. I should be able to keep you safe for that long.’
‘No. He sold his weaveself to Deodatus.’ She gestured towards the screen. ‘The person that the pressure men work for. I’m going to find a way through them and rescue Dieter. And I’m going to need your help. If we fail, he’ll die a true death.’ She remembered how afraid her brother had looked as he told her he could be building an army. ‘And gods know what else will happen.’
Her protector froze.
Then the room shook, and he was back at the televisions. He turned to her. ‘I’m sorry about the reset,’ he said, smiling gently. ‘I’m very limited. I’m here to keep you safe, but I can’t do much more than that. I think you must have just told me something I couldn’t process.’ He chuckled. ‘Still, I’m sure the real me’ll be back soon. And in the meantime, I’ll look after you.’
It was then that Leila realised that she was still stuck in a dream. But it wasn’t hers or the pressure man’s – it was Dieter’s.
Her rescuer saw her confusion, but misread it. ‘Is the name thing a problem?’ he asked. ‘It is confusing. Why not call me Dit? Then it’ll be easier to keep us separate.’ He turned back to the screens. ‘This is remarkable,’ he continued. When Leila didn’t reply, he glanced towards her and again saw that she was upset. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, reaching out. ‘Are you OK?’
She tried to tell Dit about Dieter selling his weaveself and risking true death three more times before she accepted that it was beyond his ability to take in. And every time he reset, she had to work a little harder to pull him away from observing the pressure man. When he reappeared for the fourth time, he didn’t
look round at all. She sighed, accepting his limits.
‘You really should come and see this,’ he said, rapt.
Leila sighed.
‘It’s extraordinary,’ he continued. ‘He’s really doing a number on you. Or the copy of you, that is.’ He bent forward and peered at one of the screens. ‘Let’s call her Lei. Come and have a look.’
‘I don’t have time for that,’ replied Leila, standing up. ‘They’ll go after Ambrose. Maybe Cassiel, too. I’ve got to warn them.’
‘You can’t leave while the pressure man’s here,’ replied Dit. ‘Only exit’s through the flat. He’ll spot you.’
‘Gods’ sake. What use is that?’
‘More secure.’
‘I wish Dieter had talked to me before he built this place,’ grumbled Leila. ‘There’s really no way I can get past him?’
‘None that I can think of.’
She remembered how quickly the caretaker had broken the flies. ‘Maybe I should attack the flies with the spray, see if that distracts him.’
‘You’ll give away your hiding place. And me,’ Dit told her firmly. ‘All you can do is wait until he leaves. Until then, you’re perfectly safe.’
‘And perfectly stuck.’
Dit ignored her. She slid off the stool and joined him at the screens – cathode ray tubes, nested in plastic and wooden boxes. They looked archaic. She peered at the swarm, spattered across Lei like an explosion of ink.
‘Those creatures scare me far more than the pressure men,’ she said.
Dit twisted a dial. ‘Let’s check one of them out.’ Images shifted as he zoomed in. He caught a fly hovering in midair. Red-orange compound eyes bulged dully out of a small, hard head. Black legs hung from a stumpy little body. It bristled with dark hairs. Leila flinched.