by Al Robertson
‘Oh, fuck,’ said Leila. ‘I can zap them with my skull face. But then they’ll know I’m here.’ The limitations of anonymity were starting to frustrate her.
‘I’ll take them,’ Cassiel told her. ‘It’s what I do.’ Then, before Leila could reply, she leant forward and let herself fall, curling herself up as she went. Her back bent more than a human’s could. She half-slid, half-rolled down the stairs, barely in control, then bumped on to the landing and lay splayed out for a moment. Then she groaned, pushed herself up on all fours, crawled forwards and disappeared down the next flight.
Leila glanced back. Both fallen minds were in the passage. They were more frightening without overlay. Their blotched, empty faces stared hungrily past her. One reached an arm out, pointing towards the stairs. The other one grunted. They sped up. Leila jumped to the bottom of the stairs. Cassiel had just managed to stand up. The mind pushed the door open and half fell into the street. In the sky, the Twins were fishing, their giant forms towering over the sleeping city.
‘I’ll take them here,’ Cassiel said, propping the door open with the sealed-up box. The camera nest above it looked down at them. ‘One at a time. As they come through.’ She looked at Leila. ‘You said you escaped a fly attack?’
‘Yes. They tried to rewrite my memory.’ There wasn’t time to explain Dit. ‘But I was running a buffer self. They attacked that instead. They think they’ve neutralised me.’
‘Best to keep it that way.’ Cassiel nodded towards the stairs. ‘Whatever happens, stay back.’
‘Do you really have to fight?’
Cassiel couldn’t answer because the first fallen mind was on her. He came rolling through the door and uncurled to stand, stumbling a little as he turned to face Cassiel. The mind was suddenly a blur, moving with him, one hand at his wrist and the other at his chin. As she spun him she pulled his arm out and pushed his head back. His plastic body bent, but not quickly enough, and he fell backwards, landing with a wet thump on the hard pavement. Cassiel sank with him, moving to straddle him, both hands pushing into the blank oval of his face. They vanished up the wrist. His body shook, arms and legs thrashing. Cassiel pulled her hands out. A moment, then his head lost all form and collapsed into a dirty purple puddle. The stump of his neck bled dirty nanogel. The body was still.
‘Fuck,’ gasped Leila, both surprised and profoundly impressed.
The second mind appeared at the door, moving as quickly as the first one. This time Cassiel didn’t have the advantage of surprise. She tried to spin to the right. She was exhausted. The movement was slow and awkward. The second fallen mind threw himself forward. She grabbed for his wrist and started to spin, trying to throw him over her head, but she missed and he was on her. His momentum threw her backwards and he was kneeling over her, his hands almost touching her face. Almost, but not quite – for she’d grabbed both his wrists and was holding him off. Her body shook with strain.
Running footsteps echoed in the night. Leila glanced up the street. A silhouette, rushing towards them. ‘Shit. Another one.’ There was no choice. She targeted the skull face on the mind attacking Cassiel and prepared to fire it.
A private message howled into her mind. ‘JUST GO!’
‘No!’ she shot back, hoping to break Cassiel’s attacker before their new adversary reached them. But he was almost on them. Leila spun, ready to switch her attack to him, but it wasn’t a fallen mind.
‘You?’ she gasped, staggered. ‘What are you doing here?’
Of course the caretaker didn’t hear her. He shot past, converting his momentum into an almighty kick that took Cassiel’s attacker in the middle of its chest, lifting it right off her and into the air beyond.
Chapter 18
The fallen mind crashed back down into the street. The caretaker landed beyond Cassiel then sunk down, smashing his knees into the mind’s chest. It shook feebly, arms and legs flailing, while he splashed it with liquid from a little metal container. A flame flared from a lighter in his hand. He touched it to the mind then stepped up and back. Fire leapt across the mind. It shuddered and tried to roll. Then the flames had all of it and it lay still.
‘Job done,’ said the caretaker, as he dropped the lighter and its fuel canister back into his pocket. ‘You all right?’ he asked Cassiel. She grunted. ‘There’s someone else here too, isn’t there?’
Leila let him see her.
‘We’re going. Now,’ he said, already helping Cassiel up.
‘How did you know I was there? How did you even find us?’
‘I had a message from a spray can.’
Questions pulsed in Leila’s mind. But the caretaker was right. They needed to get moving. She looked round, orientating herself, as he slipped an arm under Cassiel’s shoulder and pulled her to her feet.
‘Lighter than she looks,’ he commented, shrugging himself into a support position. ‘Right, good to go. Where’s safe?’
Cassiel was trying to say something. She forced words out: ‘Surveillance. The Rose will be watching.’ She nodded at the camera nest over the door. ‘I can fix it.’ She reached up, her arm elongating. For a moment her hand became a mass of nanogel wrapped around the nest. Lightning shimmered within it. ‘Dropped a virus. Intercepts all local images of us. No recording, invisible.’ Her arm fell back down and she slumped against the caretaker, completely exhausted. ‘Over to you, Leila,’ she muttered. ‘Hide us. Don’t forget the box.’
Leila nodded and the caretaker squatted down to pick up the box, grunting as Cassiel’s weight moved against him. ‘Home’s not safe,’ said Leila, as he stood up again. She remembered standing before Ambrose, racking her brains for somewhere to hide together. The apartment block she’d shown to the awful couple would most likely still be empty. ‘There’s somewhere a few minutes away. Nobody’ll find us.’
When they reached the block, Leila called up the cuttlefish. It made short work of the block’s security systems, reprogramming them to give Leila full access and lock anyone else out until she’d been alerted to their presence. As the caretaker carried Cassiel up the block’s staircase, Leila thought back to the last time she’d been in it. Her life had changed so radically since then. It was almost like accessing someone else’s memories. Then she thought of Lei, and shivered.
They installed themselves in one of the top-floor flats, its windows facing the back of the building. ‘Invisible from the street,’ noted Leila. She had the cuttlefish lock the block off from the weave. ‘I can use the block’s weaveservers to manifest. But nobody outside can see any of us.’
‘Smart move,’ wheezed the caretaker. He carried Cassiel into a bedroom, settled her on to a mattress and staggered off towards the kitchen. ‘Drink of water,’ he gasped.
Leila stayed with Cassiel. She spoke in a cracked whisper, her words slurred with exhaustion. ‘Deodatus’ corruption is so much worse than I thought,’ she told Leila. ‘Those flies, riding the fallen minds. They very nearly broke through my defences. That takes deep technical knowledge of our most secret procedures. And the fallen minds defended themselves too well against me. I thought they were human until their overlay crashed. The rot has gone deep.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Leila, feeling inadequate. There was so much pain in Cassiel’s voice.
The mind held up the dark globe containing the box. ‘At least we recovered this. Must dissect it.’ Her hand shook. The tremor spread through her.
‘But not right now,’ Leila told her gently. ‘You’ve got to heal.’
‘Yes,’ muttered the mind. She put the globe down on the floor next to the bed, the shaking dying away as she let go of it. ‘I will sleep,’ she continued, ‘and rebuild.’ With that, she drifted off. Leila settled her more comfortably on the mattress, then held her hand as unconsciousness took her. She stayed with the mind for a few minutes, watching her sink into a deep and hopefully restorative sleep mode, then went to find the caret
aker.
He was standing at the living room window, staring out into Docklands, a mug in one hand and a hand-rolled joint in the other. Spears of dawn light filled the room, illuminating his thoughtful expression. He drew hard on the joint. Its tip flared red, then darkened again. He waited for a few seconds then exhaled out of the window.
‘Thank you for helping me again,’ Leila said. ‘For helping us.’
He turned to face her. ‘My pleasure, I guess.’
‘But who are you?’
‘Mind if I smoke this in here?’
‘I don’t have lungs,’ smiled Leila. ‘Neither does Cassiel.’
‘I suppose not. Thank you.’ He moved slowly and deliberately to an armchair, then sank carefully into it, balancing the mug on one arm. ‘Good to take the weight off,’ he sighed. Then he said: ‘And, as for who I am – well, I was hoping you could tell me.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a very good question.’ He held the joint up and peered at it. ‘Found some weed in my pocket, thought I’d skin up, bring myself down after all the excitement. Maybe jog some memories.’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing yet. Don’t know who I am. Don’t know who you are. I found myself in a street somewhere. Got a message. Said it was from a can of a fly spray. Told me you were in danger, gave me a location. I thought, well, if someone needs help, who cares about the messenger?’
Leila sat down. ‘Shit. The pressure men must have got to you.’
‘Pressure men?’ He exhaled. ‘Who are they?’
‘The people attacking us.’
‘Ah, those dudes. The fucked-up versions of Cassiel.’
‘Yes. They can rewrite memories. They must have wiped yours. Is there anything left? Do you remember the first time we met?’
‘What, just now?’ He chuckled. ‘Of course. I’m not that screwed up.’
‘No. It was somewhere else. Somewhere far away. And very old.’ Leila talked him through everything that had happened since Dieter’s death. He smoked his joint down as she talked, nodding along, his round glasses flashed as he took it all in. ‘Ring any bells?’ she said at last.
‘Nope.’ He still seemed very relaxed about it all.
‘What about your weaveself? Are there any externally stored memories?’
‘Worth a try.’ He tipped his head back. A few moments of silence, then: ‘Nothing useful. Just weaveware update requests.’ He paused again. ‘Lots of them. The gods are a bit pissed off with me.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t strike myself as the kind of person who’d care much about that.’
Leila smiled. ‘I’d have to agree with you there.’
The caretaker nodded and took another draw on his joint.
‘Is that helping at all?’ asked Leila.
‘The mood, but not the memory.’ He smiled again. ‘Could be worse.’ He pulled his thoughts into focus. ‘So, what next?
‘I’ll get in touch with the Fetch Counsellor. See if we can get the names of the next two Deodatus victims from Ambrose’s fetch. Use them to get on his trail and work out where the Shining City is. Then we’ll go back there and get Dieter out.’
‘What about mopping up Deodatus and the pressure men? They’re pretty scary guys.’
Leila sighed. ‘I can’t take them on. That’s a job for Cassiel and the Totality, maybe the Fetch Counsellor. Maybe even the Pantheon, if we can find one of them that hasn’t fallen and isn’t totally useless.’
‘Pretty big job.’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Leila. ‘I don’t want to think about that too much. I just want Dieter back.’
‘Fair enough. Blood’s thicker than water.’ The caretaker went to fist bump her. ‘What about me? I should probably try and work out who I am.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t even know what I’m called.’
‘You just said you were the caretaker,’ Leila reminded him. ‘I’m sorry, I wish I’d asked you.’
‘Hey, no problem, you had other things on your mind.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And that’s not such a bad name. The Caretaker. The guy who takes care of things. I think I’ll be that, for the moment.’
Leila smiled. ‘OK, Caretaker. We’ll call you that. And we know one other thing. You’re pretty handy with a lighter. And a broom, too.’
The Caretaker chuckled. ‘Improvising with what’s at hand.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You know, I guess I must have been checking them out. Maybe they wiped my memory because I found something important.’
‘Or maybe you scared them. When I met you in the Shining City, you seemed to know who the pressure men were, where they came from and how to handle them.’
‘Looks like I need to get back down there too.’ He took a long, final draw on his joint. The tip flared down to the roach, and then burnt out. ‘Might remember who I am. And in the meantime – well, I’ve kicked the crap out of the bad guys, helped rescue Cassiel and I’m well supplied with excellent weed. I think I might just approve of myself.’
Chapter 19
Leila walked briskly up a little road of red-brick, two storey terraced houses. Being in the Coffin Drives again filled her with low, grumbling fear. The Fetch Counsellor had replied to her update with a message summoning her back. ‘Come to the Channel of the Quiet Dead,’ it said. ‘We’ll be talking to Ambrose.’ Leila wanted to believe that was possible, but the very mundane feel of the neighbourhood didn’t help her believe in miracles. On the plus side, at least it soothed her a little. A glorious sunset smeared the sky with reds and oranges. A man in shirtsleeves, braces and a flat hat waved a cheery ‘Hello!’ as he trundled a hand mower across his front lawn. Through front windows, Leila saw couple after couple sitting quietly down to supper, televisions flickering alongside them. A low susurrus of engine noises rose up from somewhere near, implying a busy main road.
The Fetch Counsellor was standing in front of one of the houses, checking her watch. The Counsellor’s dark eyes looked out from a blonde in her late thirties, dressed in a heavy overcoat and carrying a large, glossy handbag. When Leila reached her, she said: ‘You’re late. I was worried.’
‘I got lost. The Channel of the Quiet Dead is a hard place to find.’
The Counsellor smiled. ‘On purpose.’
‘What is it exactly?’
‘Just what it says. It’s where people who want peace and stability come. An eternity of quiet Friday nights, Saturday mornings with the kids playing in the garden, Sunday afternoons dozing after a good roast lunch.’ She gestured at the quiet street. ‘Of this.’
‘What about the traffic? That sounds pretty busy.’
The Counsellor smiled. ‘The main road? You can walk here for ever, but you’ll never reach it. It’s an aural representation of all of the rest of the Coffin Drives’ traffic, on all the other channels. Apparently one only really appreciates peace if there’s a little disturbance to compare it with.’
Leila snorted.
‘Don’t be so dismissive,’ chided the Counsellor. ‘Think of a quiet day. You only know how quiet it really is when there’s a tiny little fly, making its tiny little buzz, breaking the peace.’
Leila shuddered. ‘I don’t want to talk about flies. Let’s go in.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry. And, before we knock on Mr Meeker’s door, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. No flies, I promise. Which first?’
‘Bad news.’
‘The gods have been asking after you. The Rose, East, even Grey.’
‘I told you about East. She wants to turn me into a reality star.’
‘I said she should leave you alone for a bit, that you were still mourning your brother. I promised I’d ask you to think about her offer. She seemed happy enough with that.’
‘That’s a surprise. She’s usually so pushy. What about Grey?’
‘Oh, he was just very vague. You know how he’s been since his new board took over. All those teenag
ers. It’s much harder to read him.’
‘They saved him from Kingdom.’ Leila sighed. ‘Let’s hope they’ve saved him from the pressure men too. And if they can’t – well, there’s not much we can do about it. The Rose, though – that’s serious. What did she want?’
‘She knows all about last night’s little adventure, though she doesn’t seem to know that you were involved.’
‘The ghost cloak worked. Thank you.’
‘Yes, but the Rose knows exactly how Cassiel spoofed the weavecams. She’s watching out for it. If Cassiel tries it again, she’s got maybe half an hour before the Rose spots it, cracks her security and locates her. It’s a one-shot weapon now.’
‘Shit.’
The Counsellor smiled. ‘She’s pretty furious about it all. Ranting about viral attacks, terrorism, the usual. She managed to recover a couple of images of Cassiel and the Caretaker, and she’s scouring Station for them. Telling everyone that the Caretaker’s an anti-Totality extremist, that he anonymised himself by wiping his own weaveself. That two of her operatives tried to stop him kidnapping Cassiel but couldn’t.’
‘She’s claiming the pressure men as her own?’
‘Yes. The way she’s playing it, I’m pretty sure she’s either working with or for Deodatus. And it gets worse. She’s had me supply location data on potentially implicated fetches. Checking alibis.’
‘What’s the problem with that?’
‘It was a short list. You were on it.’
‘What did you tell her?’ Fear gripped Leila. The ghost cloak made her location unreadable. That in itself was suspicious. She imagined the Rose demanding an immediate interview. ‘Did you cover for me?’
The Counsellor laughed. ‘No need to. You were at home. Entertaining yourself with one of East’s dramas.’