Waking Hell

by Al Robertson

  The soft crunch of feet walking through sand alerted Leila to someone else approaching her. She turned, expecting to see a stranger possessed by familiar night-black eyes. But it wasn’t the Fetch Counsellor. Instead, her own face looked back at her.

  ‘Hello, Lei,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘I’ve done my bit up top,’ Lei told her. ‘Released funds to the gun kiddies. Bought out some of the Rose’s subsidiaries on behalf of Grey. Now they’re under him he can drop his own management systems on to them. Start rebuilding her.’ She was trying to sound confident, but Leila sensed sadness too. ‘Recorded an interview with East explaining the situation to everyone. And then I realised there was nothing more for me to do. So I thought I’d come down here. See how our boys are doing.’

  ‘Is she letting people know about the other Station on Earth? About what our Station really is?’

  ‘Not yet. She thinks it’d be a bit much for people to take in. On top of everything else.’ She paused. ‘I’m certainly finding it hard to get to grips with.’

  Leila smiled. ‘You won’t hear me say this very often, but East might actually have a point there. And how’s the battle going?’

  ‘We can’t lose. Thanks to you, Dieter and Cassiel.’

  Leila hadn’t expected to hear Cassiel’s name, hadn’t been ready for the sadness it would release in her. The mind now only existed in memory. Loss pulsed in Leila.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Lei. After a moment, she put a hand out and touched Leila’s arm. There was something very awkward about the gesture. It struck Leila that Lei must have very little experience of closeness. There was very little in her past to show her how it worked.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Leila. ‘That means a lot.’

  ‘So have they decided?’ asked Lei. Leila let her change the subject, skating back into a subject she was more comfortable with. ‘Are they both sticking around? Or will there be just one of them to deal with?’

  ‘They’ve agreed. They’re going to go into the sea together. And then – well, someone a lot more like the real Dieter will come out.’

  ‘Your real Dieter. Not mine,’ Lei shot back angrily. ‘My past isn’t real.’ Then, almost immediately, she said: ‘I’m sorry. That’s not fair…’

  ‘No. You’re quite right. He won’t be your Dieter. Or any of our friends’.’ Leila smiled sadly. ‘I hope he’ll be the better for it.’

  ‘Look,’ said Leila. ‘They’re coming out.’

  First Dieter, then Dit, stepped out of the small cabin. Dieter’s decay had progressed. He was little more than a scribble. Dit looked well defined next to him. They moved towards the two women. A third figure followed them out, then hung back – a young boy with dark eyes, dressed only in a pair of red bathing trunks.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ said Dieter. A new version of Leila’s pendant hung round his blurred, uncertain neck. He fingered it nervously. Thunder rumbled over his words. He looked up, suddenly worried.

  ‘We’re winning,’ Lei told him. ‘And I hate to say it – but it’s all thanks to you.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’ Dieter smiled nervously. ‘I’m glad. Really.’ He looked round at Dit, gestured to him to come closer. Dit came to him and took his hand. ‘I know it’s hard to believe. After everything I did.’

  ‘You weren’t yourself,’ Lei told him. ‘I know how that feels, at least.’

  The thunder died away. The waves roared on, always changing, always the same.

  ‘It is good, Dieter,’ said Leila. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘I’m so glad.’ Lei didn’t move. ‘Are you ready?’ asked Leila.

  ‘The Counsellor’s been explaining it to us,’ Dieter told her. ‘We just walk in together – and let the water rise above our heads – and let the currents take us – and the sea and our fetch code will do the rest.’

  ‘It sounds so easy!’ chipped in Dit. ‘I’m so pleased I can help with it. And Leila, it’s good to see you. Dieter tells me I helped you, too. I’m very glad about that.’ His words shone with confident love, a strong contrast with Dieter’s more nervous tone.

  ‘You did. Thank you,’ said Leila.

  ‘And now there are two of you, too!’ continued Dit. ‘Remarkable. Are you going to come into the sea with us?’

  ‘No,’ said Leila and Lei together, both equally firmly.

  ‘Suit yourselves.’ He reached out and hugged Leila. Lei stepped back. Dit noticed, shrugged, then turned back to Dieter. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said cheerfully, putting an arm round his double’s unfocused shoulders. ‘Bet the water’s lovely, this time of year.’ He put a little pressure on him. Dieter turned with him, and together they started off towards the surf. ‘We’ll see you in a bit,’ Dit said cheerily over his shoulder. ‘Be a bit harder to tell us apart!’

  ‘Goodbye,’ called Leila. Lei said nothing. Leila glanced at her. A bolt of emotion flickered across her copy’s face and then was gone. She looked towards the sea and saw that Dit and Dieter had stopped by the shoreline. They were facing each other. Dieter had his hands up on Dit’s shoulders. Leila imagined him asking one last time if he was sure about going through with it.

  ‘Should I go to them?’ asked Leila.

  ‘No,’ said the Fetch Counsellor, as he appeared next to her. ‘I think they’ll sort it out.’

  A moment’s wait proved him right. Dit took Dieter’s hand, hugged him and turned towards the sea. They walked slowly in, each wave crashing a little higher against them as the shore dropped away and became sea floor. As they went deeper, the waves lifted them up, making them bobbing heads on the grey green surge. They kept going, the water deepening with them. Dit stopped, waited for a trough then dived forward into the next wave, his straight body all determination. He didn’t surface again. Dieter paused for a moment, then turned back and waved, before diving forwards and irrevocably entering the sea.

  Leila turned to the Fetch Counsellor. ‘I should be thanking you, I suppose,’ she said. ‘For helping us all along the way.’ She let anger and sadness into her voice. ‘I can’t bring myself to.’

  ‘The memory virus?’ replied the Fetch Counsellor. ‘You still disagree with it?’

  ‘I always disagreed with it,’ replied Leila. ‘You pretended to be so kind. So thoughtful. And behind it all you’re using a weapon like that. How can I trust you? How can any of us?’

  Eyes that were beyond age looked out of an innocent face. ‘You can trust me to protect you all,’ he said. ‘To take hard decisions on the Fetch Communion’s behalf.’

  ‘I want to trust you to do the right thing,’ she replied. ‘To be better than the Pantheon. To not hide the truth from us.’

  ‘Your brother made the virus.’

  ‘I’ll be having words with him about that. Besides, you took the code to him. You asked him to adapt it. He’d never have created it without you.’

  ‘Do you have a right to criticise? You rejected us.’

  ‘Even if I’d stayed with you, I wouldn’t have known about it. Does any fetch? Did you give any of us a real choice?’

  He looked down. ‘But you’re all safe.’ He paused, then corrected himself. ‘We’re all safe.’

  ‘I don’t want to be safe on those terms. I think a lot of us won’t.’

  He turned to look out to sea. The waves pounded in – the sea never resting, the shore never changing. ‘I’m a new god of a new people,’ he told her, his voice so quiet that it was barely audible above the ocean’s roar. ‘A very fragile people. I took our weakness and made it a strength. It was all I could do.’

  Leila remembered what it had been to face Deodatus alone. ‘I know about fear. But you mustn’t let it control you.’ She thought of Cassiel. ‘There’s always another way. A better way. A kinder way.’

  ‘Sentimental crap,’ muttered Lei.

  ‘Maybe you’re right, Leila,’ sa
id the Counsellor. More silence, hushed by the waves, and then he asked: ‘Will you come back to us, now all this is done?’

  Leila remembered East’s assessment of the Counsellor’s motives. ‘To be a figurehead for the Fetch Communion? To remind people of how a fetch saved Station and gave it a new past?’ She’d already refused to have anything to do with East’s transmedia celebration of her achievements. ‘No.’

  The Counsellor sighed. ‘Nothing like that, Leila. To live, on your own terms. Wherever, however you’d like.’

  She looked at him properly for the first time. ‘Do you really mean that?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I don’t know where I feel at home now.’ A pause. ‘I want to be on my own, for a bit. I want to see Dieter. Apart from that, I don’t know.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I couldn’t live in the Coffin Drives unless I felt you were being open. With all of us. I don’t want to go to the Totality.’ Sadness pulsed through her. ‘I need a little time before I can do that.’ A thought occurred to her and she smiled to herself. ‘I might go and stay with the Caretaker for a while. He’s the only god I’ve met who really understands freedom.’

  The Fetch Counsellor stood up. She thought he was just going to turn away and leave. She was surprised when he moved round to stand in front of her. He took her hands in his and looked up at her.

  ‘You’ve accomplished great things,’ he said. ‘You’ve rescued us from a broken past and shown us all our true one. And you’ve made sure our present and our future belong to us. Thank you.’

  Then he was walking up the beach behind them, his small footsteps crunching quietly into silence. Then there was just the sea and the shore and the two of them. The waves crashed on. The storm clouds clamoured, unreachably far above. Leila was surprised to find herself crying. Lei reached up with a finger and took a tear from her double’s cheek.

  ‘Cassiel’s dead,’ said Leila. ‘And Dieter’s dead too. I bought him back, and he’ll be reborn, but he’s still dead. He died too soon. On someone else’s terms.’

  ‘You really love him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Leila, her voice catching on even that small word.

  ‘I can’t understand that.’ Lei’s voice was barely audible over the sea and the wind. ‘I just can’t.’

  Leila remembered sharing memories with Cassiel. ‘I can show you our life together,’ she said. ‘Copy memories across. Directly into your mind.’

  ‘No,’ snapped Lei. ‘No.’ Then, more gently: ‘That would change me too quickly.’ She met Leila’s eye. ‘When I’m with you – I feel temporary. Fragile.’ She spoke quickly, as if it was an effort to admit her feelings.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Leila. ‘You’ve done such an amazing job. Managing things up here. Dealing with East.’

  Lei gave a quick smile. ‘I’m even going to front that show of hers for you. Tell the story of everything you’ve done.’ But then the sadness returned. ‘You’re the one hundred per cent version. Me – I’m the woman a pressure man made. By stripping something away. You’re whole. I’m not.’

  Leila shook her head. ‘You’re your own person, Lei. That makes you whole.’ She smiled. ‘If you weren’t, we’d be going into the sea together, like Dieter and Dit did. The memories are there for you, if you want them.’

  ‘I don’t want to learn about him like that.’ She looked out to sea. ‘Him or Ambrose. When they come out again – when we greet them – I don’t want to just have your memories cut and pasted into my head. That would change me too quickly. I want to get to know them in my own way, build up my own understanding of them. At my own speed. Like we’re all going to do with our new history.’ She glanced at Leila. ‘Do you understand?’

  Leila nodded. She thought of Deodatus, of how he’d tried to force new pasts on his victims. And she remembered Dieter, who’d only come back to her when she’d left him to choose to engage with his past. ‘I think I do,’ she said. ‘Shall we start here? Or we can go back to the cabin. If you’d prefer.’

  ‘The sand’s dry enough. And we’ll be on the beach for a while. Might as well enjoy it.’ Lei squatted, then sat, settling herself down. Leila followed, feeling the soft beach welcome her. Lei was silent as Leila made herself comfortable, looking out to sea again. She held the pendant for a moment, remembering her brother, looking forward to his return. Then she turned to Lei.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘where should I start?’

  Acknowledgements

  Waking Hell is very much a continuation of Crashing Heaven. So, first of all, many thanks again to everyone I thanked back when Crashing Heaven first launched.

  As I began writing Waking Hell we left London behind and moved to Brighton. A deep thank you to all our old and new friends down here for making a new town feel immensely welcoming – it would have been much more difficult going back to work in imaginary places every day without having such a lovely real one to come back to.

  And while I’ve been writing this book, Crashing Heaven’s been making its way into the world. I’ve felt like a proud parent watching a first born child leave home. I’m very grateful to all at Gollancz, Conville & Walsh and beyond for everything they’ve done to help it on its way.

  Now Waking Hell’s heading out there too! That would have been so much harder without so many people. First of all, thank you to all at the Milford SF Writers Workshop 2014 for some very practical critiques of an earlier draft of the opening chapters. Deepest thanks to my estimable editors Marcus Gipps and Rachel Winterbottom, who helped me pull it all into its final shape, and Simon Spanton, who was there right at the very beginning. And, of course, as ever I’m hugely grateful to Sue Armstong, my wonderful agent, whose professional and creative help and support has been invaluable at every stage.

  Finally, thank you to my family, who make it all worthwhile. And I don’t have enough words to thank my wife Heather Lindsley, who travelled with me all the way through every version of Waking Hell and made sure that none of its demons ever overwhelmed me.

  Also by Al Robertson from Gollancz

  Crashing Heaven

  Copyright

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © Al Robertson 2016

  The right of Al Robertson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 473 20345 7

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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