The Crying Machine

by Greg Chivers

  The judge’s gaze turns from the prophet to the prosecutor, a heavyset, middle-aged man uncomfortable in a tunic that reveals legs which, on balance, would be better hidden. ‘What is the charge levelled at the accused?’

  ‘Conspiracy to commit acts of terror, sedition, and criminal damage, your honour.’ He straightens his skirt and tugs unconsciously at his wig. The outfit is another stab at Bronze Age retro, supposed to be an authentic representation of priestly garb from the era of the First Temple, but cheaper than the ministerial robe, and about as authentic as this courtroom. In another city, you might mistake the prosecution team for inept middle-aged transvestites, but history in Jerusalem is currency, and even a forgery is worth something.

  ‘What form did this “terror” take?’

  ‘On the second of August, he led an occupation of the Talbiya branch of K-Nect-U implant clinics. His followers vandalized the property and destroyed implants valued at almost two million shekels.’

  Glassberg leans back in his seat. A sigh of impatience escapes him. ‘Counsellor, what you are describing is a public order offence, culminating in criminal damage. I hope there is a reason you have elevated this to the city’s highest court. Furthermore, I hope that reason is unconnected to the cameras we have present.’

  A murmur passes through the room. Glassberg has addressed the elephant directly. He does that. Anyone who’s spent time in his courtroom should know it, and yet somehow it always surprises people. It is one of the gifts that make him dangerous.

  The prosecutor squirms. His plastic smile does a poor job of deflecting the implicit accusation: that the trial is political pantomime for the cameras, headline fodder for news feeds fuelling the fears of the anti-immigrant brigade. ‘Please bear with me, your honour. The list of charges is extensive.’

  Amos is merciless. ‘But succinct; at least it will be if you wish it to be heard in this court.’

  The crowd in the galleries around Silas trembles again, sensing conflict.

  ‘Two days after the occupation, the clinic was burned to the ground. The perpetrators are in custody, and claim they were acting on the orders of this man.’ A stubby finger points at the prophet.

  ‘And obviously you’ve obtained evidence to corroborate their claim?’

  ‘I have their sworn testimony.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’ The prosecutor opens his mouth, but Glassberg cuts him off. ‘Well, we’ll see in due course, won’t we? Is that it for charges? You mentioned sedition?’

  ‘When officers attempted forcibly to remove the perpetrators from the clinic, he claimed their authority was invalid, and multiple witnesses heard him instruct his followers to heed the call of a higher authority which he alone can interpret. It is both a blasphemy and a violation of civil law.’

  ‘More or less the usual then?’

  ‘Your honour …’ The man adjusts his curled wig in a misguided attempt to assume an air of dignity. ‘Cases like this strike a twin blow at the very fabric of our society. The clinics are vital for the installation and maintenance of citizen comm-plants. Without them, commerce suffers, and law enforcement loses a vital tool. Chaos and ruin threaten. This, I believe, is more than sufficient justification for the charge of terrorism.’

  Silas bites back a bark of laughter at the legal hyperbole. There is more than a touch of the absurd in the spectacle. Glassberg’s dignified disdain sets it off perfectly. He sees what’s happening, but can’t help being the straight man in the deadly theatre unfolding around him. He knows what will happen outside the court, as the pantomime of manufactured outrage reproduces itself in earnest on the streets. A man like him cannot see past the fire and blood to the opportunities they bring for anyone possessed of will and imagination. His lean jaw tightens, and his gaze tracks pointedly from the prosecutor to the cameras at the back of the court.

  ‘Are you finished? I assume that little tirade was the reason we’re all gathered here. I imagine there was enough there for it to have the desired effect?’

  Silas grimaces. This is what makes Glassberg an obstacle, for all his plodding predictability. In a sentence he can steal the wind from anyone who tries to play the part of demagogue in his courtroom, and he does it without putting so much as a dent in his reputation for impartiality. The rebuke sends a thrill shivering through the crowd. The prosecutor looks around the room, pretending to gauge the mood while he searches for a rejoinder. He starts to say something, stutters and falls silent. The threat of a contempt charge hangs unspoken in the air.

  ‘Right, shall we move this along? I’m sure we’d all rather be doing something else.’ Glassberg assumes a breezy businesslike air. ‘I’m throwing out the conspiracy charges and the sedition. There are a hundred lunatics saying the same thing on every street corner in the city, and I fail to see any benefit in turning the city’s prisons into asylums or, indeed, into refugee camps. The charge of criminal damage is, I note, uncontested, so we can dispense with a lot of the formalities.’ He sits up straight and addresses the prisoner in the dock. ‘The accused will pay a fine of one hundred shekels and understand that any further instances of this behaviour will be more severely punished.’

  The man in the dock smiles placidly as the bailiffs lead him away to his liberty, quietly certain his fate is the result of divine providence rather than any trivial human agency. His followers at the so-called ‘Mission’ will pay the fine without blinking. This is not their prophet’s first appearance in Amos’s courtroom, nor will it be his last. Nobody wants them in Jerusalem, even the Christians they claim fellowship with scorn them, but still they persist, funded by some foreign fanatic who hopes to earn his own place in heaven by importing religion to the Holy City.

  Fury darkens the prosecutor’s face. No doubt he imagines he will exact revenge for this humiliation in the city’s looming elections. The prosecutor’s chair is the traditional stepping stone to the Justice Ministry and the judge’s seat currently occupied by Amos Glassberg, but he is the wrong man in the wrong place. His support from the traditionalists of the Syriac and Orthodox traditions will not be enough. The landscape is changing; new faiths disturb the old balances – in that sense the transparent evangelism of the Mission is no different to the Cult of the Machine: both sweep up human refuse and recycle it, building armies of the grateful. They don’t dare wield their influence openly yet, but it is only a matter of time. Power, once gained, does not go unused. Already, in subtle ways, they force change upon a city that resists it by nature. And so they must endure the painful lessons learned by all the faiths that came before them, lured by the conceptual Jerusalem, and damned by the real.

  The foreign churches will burn tonight. Frightened people will start the fires, their fear will spread like the flames, and then they will look for someone to make them feel safe from themselves. The city’s fractured politics have long made it impossible for any one faith to govern, but for the right man, for someone with a vision for Jerusalem as more than a backwater city-state at the edge of the developed world, the cracks in the old order offer a chance to sow the seeds of a new era.

  9.

  Clementine

  Something twists the night air around Clementine, dragging it through the narrow channels of the Old City’s streets, raising tiny dust devils of grime that disappear in the dark. A storm blowing in from the desert? No, something else. She follows the flow, drawn by the sense of something unfolding, until the bark of human voices reaches her. The shouts sound faint and distant, but it’s an illusion spawned by the wind blowing away from her; nothing is ever further than a stone’s throw in the clogged vessels of Jerusalem’s ancient heart.

  She hears the crackle like snapping twigs before she sees the glow, a nimbus of orange floating above the rooftops like a second dawn: fire, sucking the air from the alleys, gorging on the tainted oxygen. The calculation of its position comes to her unbidden, and panic sours the back of her throat; the flames are coming from the Mission. She runs easily, slipping through
pools of darkness between scattered bubbles of yellow sodium light, the movement a liberation she could never enjoy in daylight hours.

  A small crowd lines the edges of the square around the Mission, watching the chapel roof burn as if it were a sacrificial pyre. A few figures, some robed, some ragged, scurry around the base of the white walls, leaning ladders against the gables the fire hasn’t touched yet, running thin hoses to grime-encrusted hydrants, relics of another age. At the centre of it, she recognizes Hilda’s bulk silhouetted against the flames: still, solid, a bulwark of calm amidst the panic surrounding her.

  ‘What can I do?’

  The older woman jerks around at the sound of her voice. Her gaze sweeps up and down Clementine’s foreign clothes, the question of where she has been unspoken.

  ‘It looks like it’s just the roof so far. If we can stop it spreading, we can still save the Mission.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Later, Clementine. We’ll talk.’ Her voice is stern, but unthreatening. The anger in it is directed elsewhere. ‘Get to one of the ladders.’

  She follows Hilda’s pointing finger to a patch of white wall already darkened with soot. Two ladders lean against it at either side of the patch of blazing roof. One wobbles dangerously as a man bearing a thin green hose climbs to the top. She clutches it with both hands, but still it totters with every step the reluctant firefighter takes, threatening to slip away from its two tiny points of contact with the cobbled ground. As she leans her body against it, his movement vibrates through the quivering wood and into her, her entire bulk still insufficient to prevent the ladder’s metal feet scraping against the stone.

  At the top, the man waves a signal and someone at the hydrant gives a lever a quarter-turn. The hose gurgles next to Clementine’s ear and water trickles from the tip, bringing shouts and urgent gestures from the holder. The small robed woman operating the pump hesitates before giving the lever another quarter-turn. There’s a rushing noise and suddenly the water line starts twitching like an angry serpent. For a terrible moment Clementine imagines the hose’s plastic splitting like a bean pod, unable to withstand the pressure within, but in seconds the trickle becomes a fierce, sparkling jet.

  The ladder trembles against her as the hose-wielder shifts position to direct its flow into the heart of the blaze. She can see he’s trying to climb higher onto the ladder’s last rungs, but he keeps stepping back, sending new vibrations down through the wood. It must be the heat from the flames forcing him away. Her fingers grip the zip of her bodysuit’s high collar. She could pull it up to cover most of her face – it’s not fire-proof, but the nano-weave is tough and the insulation would stop her feeling the heat for a few minutes. She could do it. A few yards away, Hilda directs another shopkeeper’s ladder towards the blaze, but it’s too short for the Mission’s high walls. The debt she owes to these people burns in Clementine’s chest, but heroics bring attention. She might not get another chance to disappear.

  The wail of a siren drowns the thought. A red-painted, six-wheeled vehicle creeps from one of the alleys with a slowness that belies the urgency of its cries. The Old City’s narrow lanes do not permit speed. It stops directly behind Clementine, and something like a shiny gun on the roof of its cab swivels to point up at the fire. There is a roar of pumps and bright white foam arcs, dreamlike, into the heart of the blaze. It spatters onto the men on the ladders, but seems to land like soft snow, doing no harm. The fire simply dies. Its absence leaves silence, and Clementine stares in wonder at the roof, the nubs of blackened beams poking through the foam like boulders in the snow of a sudden, surreal winterscape, where moments ago flames crackled.

  The spectacle over, the crowd around the edges of the square fades away. The fire truck simply reverses back into the alley it appeared from with a whine of electric motors, presumably guided away by its driving AI. The ladders are carried away. The reluctant firefighters become themselves again, the memory of the blaze persisting only as an acrid stink in the air. Clementine follows the trickle of robed figures retreating into the Mission.

  When she gets to Hilda’s room, the older woman is sitting on the chair in front of the desk, not the bed, where they usually talk. ‘Where were you, Clementine?’

  For a moment she struggles to speak, wrongfooted by the question. Her comings and goings seem trivial after the Mission’s brush with catastrophe, but Hilda’s voice makes it clear she is quite serious.

  ‘I … I went to see some men about a job.’

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘They run a bar.’ The betrayal is acid at the back of Clementine’s throat.

  Hilda stares for six heartbeats before nodding silently to herself, as if in response to some internal dialogue. ‘I suppose that’s your right. This isn’t a prison. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it mattered.’

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I’m a fool …’ Hilda’s words trail off.

  ‘I don’t understand, Hilda. What happened here? What’s going on?’

  ‘Perhaps you can tell me?’ For a moment, the older woman appears lost in thought. ‘No, no, forget that.’

  Clementine’s eyes close, her hands rise unconsciously to cover her nose and mouth as the implications hit home. Of course, what was Hilda supposed to think? This woman arrives, a self-confessed fugitive, and a day later, someone sets fire to the roof of the Mission. How could she not think there was a connection? And the timing – by pure coincidence it all happens just after she snuck out.

  ‘I don’t … I don’t know anything about this. I don’t think anyone knows I’m here. This … the fire – it’s not what they would do.’

  ‘Perhaps you should explain.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’ Clementine lowers her hands away from her face and lifts her gaze to meet the other woman’s scrutiny, those green eyes boring into her from beneath the shock of copper hair. The temptation to confess threatens to swallow her. But it would be selfish; the knowledge brings danger. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I go away for a while.’

  Hilda flinches and gives a barely perceptible shake of the head. ‘You don’t have to.’ The corners of her mouth relax. The anger that possessed her moments ago seems to flow away, dispelled by some internal discipline or ritual of acceptance. Clementine watches, fascinated by the subtle transformation. There is still so much unsaid. What is it that moves this woman to care for her above the strays who wander through these doors? She’d thought at first it would be sex, but the bed has remained hers alone.

  ‘Who would set fire to the Mission?’

  Hilda smiles sadly. ‘I’m afraid there’s a long list of suspects.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s easier. We don’t belong here, that’s one thing a lot of people in this city agree on.’

  ‘I don’t understand. The work you do …’

  Hilda takes a breath. ‘It’s hard to understand the city until you’ve lived here. The work we do, helping the helpless, is a visible reminder of all the ways the city doesn’t work. People would rather turn a blind eye than see their own cruelty laid bare, and our beliefs frighten them.’

  ‘I thought you were Christians.’

  ‘Let me show you something.’ Hilda stands from the chair and steps over to the bookcases against the far wall, her fingers ghosting across the spines of old volumes bound in cracked leather. The titles are unfamiliar: The Revelations of Glaaki, The Pnakotic Manuscripts, De Vermis Mysteriis. ‘These books are our most treasured possessions, but they are not Christian scripture. Indeed, many Christians would consider them heretical. We gather knowledge because we accept there are truths in all faiths – they are all paths to connect with something greater than ourselves. We believe we all worship the same creator, whatever you wish to call her. So, yes, we are Christians, but we’re the wrong kind. We are not pure.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a threat.’

  A long sigh escapes her. ‘If you’ve survive
d a thousand years by telling everyone they’re damned unless they accept your trademarked God, our mere existence is a threat to who you are.’

  ‘So the fire …?’

  ‘It’s only the beginning, Clementine. I’m afraid there is worse to come.’

  10.

  Silas

  The city burned bright last night. Four animated sparks of yellow twinkle in digital imitation at the corners of a cold blue street plan, shimmering in the air an arm’s length from Amos Glassberg’s desk. He blinks periodically in response to the recurring glitch that makes a section of the map flash bright white, a sudden annihilation. The sparks mark the sites of four fires, all at or near Christian sites of gathering or worship. You could link them by drawing the shape of a cross if you were so inclined.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Silas. I know it’s early, but last night was the worst violence we’ve seen this year, and there’s more coming.’

  He stands by the wall display, his spare shadow darkening one corner of the map. An aquiline nose and short, steel-grey hair combine to give him the appearance of a cleaning implement, which, in a sense, he is. We don’t get on, but it is a mark of the man that he will turn to me for insight despite our personal incompatibility. His devotion to the city does not permit him the luxury of picking favourites. Still, his appeal for help marks the night’s events as exceptional. The most recent blaze still smoulders. He looks away before turning back to speak.