Pandaemonium

by Christopher Brookmyre

  It’s Adnan who speaks, eliciting a glare from Dazza warning that this better not be him just geeking out at a time like this. But Adnan’s not trying to be facetious or inappropriate: he thinks some of them may genuinely find this comforting.

  ‘It’s known as Many Worlds theory. In a parallel universe, Dunnsy is still alive and we never came here on this trip.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Dazza says irritably. ‘Load of shite. This is serious, Adnan.’

  ‘So am I. This isn’t whacked-out fringe stuff. More physicists accept the existence of parallel universes these days than deny it. It’s one of the possible implications of the quantum uncertainty principle. At every quantum juncture, the universe splits, creating an infinite number of parallel universes. Right here, where we sit, we are co-existing with infinite, slightly varied versions of ourselves and our world, and in one of those - in many of those, in fact - Dunnsy never died and we’re doing something else of a Saturday lunchtime. There’s more evidence to suggest this than there is to support the existence of Heaven or Hell.’

  ‘So where, physically, are these other universes?’ Rosemary asks, suddenly wanting to get analytical now that her religion has been challenged. ‘I mean, I’ve heard you ask where Heaven is when the universe is so huge. Where, then, is this multiplicity of universes?’

  ‘It’s right here. They’re all right here in different waveforms. But it’s like our perception is a radio and we can only tune into one frequency. We can only follow one branching path of our own reality.’

  Dazza feels his hackles fall. He actually likes the sound of this: that he’d be better thinking of Dunnsy living out his life the same as the rest of them than thinking of him in Heaven, which has in recent years started to sound more and more like just a consoling thought for the living rather than a reality for the dead.

  Guthrie’s natural inclination to go on the defensive at Adnan’s dismissal of Heaven and Hell is derailed by the tantalising nature of what this alternative offers. In another version of reality, he left his office a few seconds earlier, a few seconds later, never encountered the fourth years, and got there in time to intervene.

  Deborah feels a shudder as she thinks of the parallel universe in which she pressed Send and shared that photo. She’s ostracised, in lesbian hell, maybe looking at expulsion and even the sex-offenders register. One click, a no to a yes, a zero to a one, that’s all it would have taken to split her universe into two vastly different paths.

  ‘Is this maybe why we can feel people once they’ve gone?’ asks Michelle. ‘Or why we sometimes say we feel like someone walked over our grave?’

  A number of heads nod, a murmur echoing approval of this suggestion.

  ‘No,’ answers Matt, silencing it. ‘There’s complete decoherence. We can’t interact with branching parallel paths.’ He says it flatly, typically oblivious to the fact that he’s slamming a door in the face of their hope. That’s Matt for you, Adnan reflects: can’t get a word out of him for ages, then he chooses to voice something that would have been better left unsaid.

  ‘But you said last night,’ Ewan appeals to Adnan, ‘if we could move in the fifth dimension we could travel between universes.’

  Adnan shakes his head, wishing he could tell him otherwise. ‘Ironically, if we could access higher dimensions, we could reach the furthest points in space, but we couldn’t reach the parallel version of our own reality that’s right alongside us. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.’

  There’s silence again after he says this, leaving Adnan feeling like it’s his fault. He lifted them for a moment only to drop them again, albeit with a lot of help from Matt. Thus he’s un accustomedly grateful when Rosemary wades back in.

  ‘That’s why Heaven is a much better concept,’ she says. ‘Because even Adnan would have to admit that there is a possibility that we can reach there and be reunited with our lost loved ones. Whereas there’s no possibility of seeing them again in the worlds he suggested. Is that right?’

  Adnan nods. He tries to be magnanimous and offers a little smile, but he’s always uncomfortable giving up concessions to faith-heads. This is partly because he feels it’s never reciprocated, but more so because it’s like giving money to a junkie: you know they’re just going to use what you gave them to make their problem worse.

  ‘Well I just hope there’s a Hell so that that wee cunt’s paying properly for what he did. Fucker got off lightly.’

  It’s Kirk who speaks. Of course. Guthrie says nothing, reading it astutely. Kirk looks like he wants to be challenged, so that he can further rev up his moral indignation.

  With Guthrie not biting, Kirk directs his stare at Blake, all but demanding a response. Blake just nods.

  ‘Look, I’m not here to sell you some Jesus Juice on this,’ he says. ‘I could tell you how forgiveness will help you deal with this in the long run, but nobody’s ready to hear that, not at this stage. We’ve all seen those front pages and we’ve all used those words: evil, beast, monster. But those words don’t tell us anything. What Robert did was monstrous, nobody could ever deny that.’

  ‘Here come the trendy excuses,’ Kirk mutters.

  ‘There’s an important difference between excusing and comprehending, Kirk,’ Heather intervenes. ‘You say it’s no excuse, that’s your right, but Robert’s upbringing is an inextricable part of what happened. This was someone who had known nothing but violence since he was brought into the world.’

  ‘Evil breeds evil,’ says Kane. Pain multiplies.

  ‘I prefer to think of evil as simply an absence of good,’ offers Blake. ‘Like darkness is an absence of light. As I’m sure Adnan could tell us, darkness is the more prevalent state of the universe. Chaos is the natural state. Second law of thermodynamics: entropy always increases. Order always decays. All nature is war, Darwin said. The natural state of the universe is for things to consume other things, and not just biological life. Stars devour other stars, galaxies devour other galaxies. Good is us rising above natural savagery, and in doing so we burn like stars, illuminating the dark. But we can only burn for a finite time, so we have to burn as brightly as we can.’

  ‘Robert will go to Hell, though, won’t he, Father?’ asks Bernadette, seeming to need assurance in the face of all this moral equivalency.

  ‘Bloody right,’ blusters Julie, proving the power of religion to bring people together: acid-dripping bitch-queen and God-bothering dweeb united in their desire to mete out eternal suffering. ‘And Satan doesn’t give time off for good behaviour.’

  ‘I don’t believe in Satan, Julie,’ Blake replies softly. ‘There are no demons with horns and pitchforks and pointy tails, and there is no “presence” of evil manipulating men. I believe in . . . I have faith in God. The God within us.’

  Heather clocks this hesitation, connecting it immediately to what Kane told her last night.

  ‘Satan is just a symbol we dreamt up for the worst that we’re capable of,’ Blake adds. ‘I don’t accept that evil is simply incarnated. Nothing is born monstrous. Monsters have to be created.’

  XV

  Tullian stared back and forth from the desiccated demon corpses to Parducci, feeling like he might burst from the torrent of questions welling inside him, but one preceded all its fellows.

  ‘Why does this remain a secret? Why in a world corrupted by sin, ridden roughshod by arrogant godlessness, have you concealed such evidence of the truth of our church?’

  Parducci nodded patiently, letting Tullian vent his incredulous frustration.

  ‘These are the questions I asked also, when I was first taken here, the questions asked by everyone who sees this place. And I will first tell you what I was first told also: to consider the legacies of the creatures who lie here; of what was wrought in their wake. Hundreds of deaths, perhaps thousands, from a mere two such dark emissaries. The common man, even the common priest, is not equipped to deal with this knowledge. Nor, surely, would God wish for him to have it. God does not want men to come to Him thr
ough fear of monsters, but through love for His word.’

  ‘But when His word is trampled and scorned,’ Tullian protested. ‘When the Church’s influence is being squeezed out by secular forces in every corner . . .’

  ‘Then we must learn from the Lord’s example,’ Parducci replied. ‘Jesus suffered scorn, scourge and spittle, all of the time knowing he had at his disposal the power to turn all of it back upon his tormentors. He endured for a greater purpose, as we must too. Even in torment, as the world turns its face from God, even as we may despair for our church’s place in the world, it is our sacrifice that this horror, a mere phantasm to others, remains a reality only to us.’

  ‘So it is our burden to know but to remain silent,’ Tullian said, and even in saying so he understood that he was accepting that burden upon his shoulders.

  ‘We must endure,’ Parducci confirmed solemnly. ‘But we must endure with vigilance, which is why you are here, Cardinal. We know what these things are and we know where they have come from. There is but one entity with the motive - and evidently the means - to have penetrated this barrier separating us from the shadow realm. We must be grateful that his successes have been few and the damage temporary. However, the greatest danger is not that he will redouble his efforts, but that man will do his work for him. As you have warned us, if scientists are close to deducing how it might be even theoretically possible to breach this barrier, then that is terrifying, because nothing will prevent them from pursuing such a course.’

  Tullian immediately understood the truth of this. ‘Scientists are like children told not to look in a particular room,’ he said. ‘Once their minds are set upon it, nothing will mean so much to them as their desire to uncover whatever is locked to them. No matter how disastrous the possible consequences, they regard their work as paramount, as though the pursuit of science constitutes its own moral imperative. The atom bomb proved that forever. Scientists pride themselves on objectivity, but they cannot be trusted to be objective when it comes to the morality of their own conduct.’

  Parducci nodded solemnly.

  ‘You will therefore understand, Cardinal Tullian, that it would be futile to show them these creatures in the hope that it might convince them of what lies beyond the barrier and dissuade them from seeking to open it. This is another reason why we have never let the world in on this secret. If scientists examined these remains, they would entertain all explanations except the one that is obvious to us. They would say that these are simply another species of creature, nothing more. An evolutionary tributary, perhaps, that we have projected our fears on to, as the sight of horses glimpsed in the morning mist, their breath spouting steam, once gave rise to the idea of dragons. Then despite the physical evidence in front of them, they will dismiss the threat of demons as no impediment to their ongoing research.’

  Parducci turned to him and gripped his hands as he looked deep into Tullian’s eyes. ‘Only when it is too late,’ he said, ‘when the seal cannot be unbroken and the blood has started to run, will they finally turn to us. And when that time comes we must be humble, we must be courageous, and we must be ready.’

  XVI

  Rocks is walking alone. He just dropped back and let Kirk and Dazza gain a bit of distance; can’t be doing with what’s going on with the big man just now. Nobody’s really talking much anyway. Everyone is subdued compared to on the journey out, maybe a hangover from the solemnity of their discussion after lunch, maybe a bit of tiredness setting in too. It’s still clear, but the sun is starting to dip.

  He’s aware of footsteps close by and turns his head to see Caitlin walking along just behind and to the right. She notices and gives him a timid, uncertain wee attempt at a smile, like she’s half afraid he’ll blank her. He wonders why she’s walking alone; he thought she was pals with Rosemary and that lot, but he’s sure they’re way up ahead.

  He wants to say something but he’s worried that wee unsure look she gave him was just her being polite. It’s a long-standing concern of his that the more studious and well-behaved lassies regard him as a bam. That was fair enough a couple of years ago, because he couldn’t have given a monkey’s, to say nothing of the fact that he was a bam, but he doesn’t like the thought that that’s what they still see.

  But then she speaks.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, quite tentatively.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I just wanted to say . . . what you said up there . . . I really got it. I think the reason my memories are locked up is because my brain doesn’t want to make sense of what I saw.’

  ‘I didn’t think there was anything to get,’ he replies, self-consciousness making him feel he can’t take credit for any insight in case she subsequently sees through him for being a fraud. ‘Just a head-dump, really.’

  ‘You said you’re still scared. That’s it. We all expect to be sad at this point, so we know what to make of that, but we don’t expect to still be scared. We think that part’s temporary. It wouldn’t have struck me so much coming from a girl. Guys don’t like to admit they’re scared. And coming from a guy like you, it really hit home.’

  ‘What’s a guy like me?’ he asks, trying not to sound too much like he’s dreading the answer.

  She blushes a wee bit. ‘I don’t know. Someone . . . not easily scared. Someone brave, I suppose, compared to me.’

  ‘I used to be a bit of a bam. Doesn’t mean I was brave.’

  ‘Telling all those folk up there that you’re scared - that’s brave, if that doesn’t sound too much of a paradox.’

  ‘No,’ he says, and manages a smile. ‘Compared to all that stuff Adnan was talking about, it makes perfect sense.’

  ‘Fuck! Check this,’ comes a shout from Kane’s left. He and Sendak stop and turn. Beansy is waving from the edge of the treeline, about a dozen yards from the path.

  ‘What?’ Kane asks wearily, already looking forward to a warm bath and a cold drink and consequently in no mind to be entertaining any of Beansy’s carry-on.

  Beansy bends down to lift something. Kane really hopes it’s not a dead animal. He can just picture the daft bastard with a sheep’s head, chasing a few shrieking girls through the trees and thus bringing down a whole power of Guthrie-grief upon the lot of them.

  To Kane’s relief, Beansy holds up a rusted rectangle, though he fails to appreciate what is supposed to be so remarkable about an old sign-plate.

  ‘It says “Mod keep out”,’ Beansy reports. ‘Does that mean you’re not allowed to play any of that shitey Gaelic music round here then? Or is it warning you that somebody is gaunny be playing shitey heedrum-hodrum music, so you’d better stay away?’

  ‘Naw,’ suggests Deso. ‘It means you’re not allowed in driving a scooter and wearing a raccoon-tail parka.’

  ‘It’s not “mod”, ya stupit pricks,’ grumbles Kirk witheringly. ‘It’s M. O. D.’

  Kane turns to Sendak.

  ‘MoD? This isn’t army land, is it?’

  Sendak gives him a hey-ho shrug. ‘The name Fort Trochart not suggest anything to you?’ he asks. ‘Parts of this area been military land for centuries - but not as much as used to be. We ain’t trespassing on a firing range, if that’s what you’re worried about. That sign must be fifty or sixty years old. Ben Trochart over there - that’s still MoD land. Being why I took us out and around Ben Rudan.’

  ‘So,’ Heather says, ‘how long are you hoping to hang on to the school chaplain position while going directly against church dogma and telling the kids there’s no such thing as Satan?’

  ‘I said Satan didn’t exist?’ Blake asks. ‘You must have misheard. Are you sure I never said Santa?’

  They’re at the rear, making sure none of the stragglers falls too far behind and gets detached from the group. They’ve been walking side by side for maybe half an hour without saying anything, but that was because Guthrie was with them at that point. Heather couldn’t help but be reminded of times when she and various boyfriends were making only minimal small talk while the
y waited for his or her parents to leave the room. As soon as the deputy decided to step up the pace in order to investigate whether Deso and Beansy were merely smoking or had in fact set fire to something, not only did she feel free to speak, but she sensed he’d been waiting for the same cue too.

  ‘Actually, I’m cutting my own throat by telling the truth,’ Blake admits. ‘Maybe Guthrie’s right and I should be going all fire-and-brimstone to at least consolidate my base, rather than reaching out to the waverers.’

  ‘No. The kids actually listen to you. That’s rare enough for an adult, rarer still for the school priest. There’s no way in the world your predecessor, Father Reilly, would have been invited along on an occasion like this. There’s no point in providing “spiritual guidance” if nobody wants any. The kids know you’ve got something to offer.’

  ‘Yeah, but is what I’ve got to offer them spiritual? I mean, is there anything I’m giving them that I couldn’t give them without the collar? That’s what worries me. My big fear is that I can’t reach the people I want to through my ministry, while I’m wary of the people who only want to reach out to me because of my ministry.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’ Heather asks, suffering a pang of paranoid concern that this might be his subtle way of warning her off turning into a priest-stalker.

  ‘There are people who are quite definitely Catholics rather than Christians, hung up on the ritual and the institution. They’re sort of Catholicism anoraks.’

  ‘I thought we called those priests.’

  ‘No. We’re the crew of the Enterprise. I’m talking about the Trekkies here.’

  ‘I got you now,’ Heather says. Neither of them needs to name names, and he isn’t just talking about Dan.

  ‘They revere the institution: the ritual, the magnificence, the hierarchy, the history, the authority.’

  ‘You’re worried they’re more enthused by the medium than by the message,’ Heather suggests.