Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk

by James Lovegrove

  BENDER

  THE CROWD AT the colliery couldn’t follow Barnaby, but the shame did, all the way back to the UK. Opprobrium was heaped on GloCo from all quarters. Newspaper editorials castigated him. TV pundits berated him. He became a public whipping boy as never before.

  It was as though he had somehow deliberately caused the cave-in, as though he were personally responsible.

  He started to drink, harder and more intently than he ever had. He holed up in his house and went on a week-long bender. Whenever he felt himself sobering up, he would reach for another bottle. He had plentiful supplies, a whole cellar full of wines and spirits. He could have stayed in the house and drunk for twelve months straight before he ran out of booze.

  He woke up on the sofa late one afternoon to find Lydia standing over him. Her nose was wrinkled. She was looking down at him as she might have at a pig wallowing in its own filth.

  “The state of you,” she clucked. “Have you no self-respect?”

  “Think I pissed it away this morning. Along with half a kidney.” He groped for the bottle of Mersault Premier Cru that stood on the coffee table, uncorked and half empty.

  Lydia slid it out of his reach. “That isn’t the answer.”

  “It is,” he said. “Especially if the question is, ‘Did a teenage boy just die down one of your mines? Quite aside from the seventy-two grown men?’”

  “Alcohol won’t solve your problems.”

  “No, but it does mean I don’t have to think about them. Everyone hates me, Lydia.”

  “Since when has that bothered you?”

  “Since I started hating myself too.”

  She grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him upright. “You go and have a shower – a long one – and shave. When you come back, I’ll be downstairs. All the way downstairs.” She nodded towards the basement.

  “You want to...?”

  “Don’t you?”

  He was drunk, but not that drunk. “Yes. God, yes, I do. I just assumed you wouldn’t, given... how I am, at the moment.”

  “If you keep on talking, I might change my mind.”

  He stood. He swayed. He made for the door. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  WORLDS IN HER EYES

  SHE WAS NAKED except for a PVC corset that strained around her, as though trying to withhold a flesh explosion. Barnaby hadn’t seen her wearing it before. She was, he thought, really getting into this.

  “I don’t trust you to tie a knot or fasten a shackle properly right now,” Lydia said. “I’ll just bend over that sawhorse there, okay? I won’t move, I promise. I’ll stay put. I give you my word. Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do what you have to.”

  She draped herself over the sawhorse provocatively, offering him her rump. Barnaby grabbed a whip and began flailing. He wasn’t as accurate as normal, but made up for that with enthusiasm. The whip’s cracks were deafening in the enclosed space of the basement. Bright scarlet weals appeared across Lydia’s buttocks and thighs. She flinched, but didn’t cry out. Blood beaded from the wounds. Barnaby kept going. He thrashed and thrashed, breaking into a sweat. No safeword – none that he heard, at any rate. The whip lashed out. He was panting hard. He wasn’t aroused at all. That wasn’t what this was about. He just wanted to hit and hit, hurt and hurt. He hated the world. The world hated him. Why wouldn’t everyone go away? Just fuck off and leave him alone? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was simply making money, same as everyone did. He hadn’t forced those miners to go down into that pit. They had gone of their own volition. They got paid. They knew the risks. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his... It wasn’t...

  He collapsed to the floor, lungs heaving. The room spun around him. The pattern of the flock wallpaper became swirling mandalas. The cranberry-glass lights pulsed like hearts.

  Lydia crouched over him. Her legs were streaked with blood. He looked into her eyes. The blue, the green...

  Good God, they were the world. How come he had never realised that before? There were patterns in the irises. The blue, the oceans. The green, the continents.

  “Barnaby,” she said. “It’s time. Time for you to take your turn.”

  He slurred out some words. “What are you talking about?” Something to that effect.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “Isn’t it obvious? Hurting me hurts you. And I am everything. What you do to me, I give back to you. It’s nature’s way.”

  Was she even speaking? Her lips were moving, but they didn’t seem to synchronise with what she was saying. The voice didn’t sound quite like hers, either.

  “It’s no coincidence, Barnaby. You started beating me, accidents started happening to GloCo. There’s no act without consequences, especially where a woman like me is concerned. I’m not one of those emaciated nothings you used to use and abuse. Those girls. I’m more, so much more. I’m trying to teach you a lesson here. Hoping you’ll understand. Hoping you’ll learn.”

  She took his hand, helped him up, led him across the room.

  “The Berkley Horse, I think,” she said. “As good a place as any to start.”

  He should have protested, could have resisted. Too drunk still, perhaps. Too exhausted. But also... It felt right. As though it was meant to be.

  People could switch. People could change.

  “You think you’re at your lowest ebb,” Lydia said as she fastened the straps around him. “But it could get worse. Equally, it could get better. Depends on what you’re prepared to do, the sacrifices you’re prepared to make.”

  “I want it to get better,” he murmured.

  “Then it will. But it won’t be easy. You continue to fuck the planet. Get ready for the planet to fuck you back.”

  He was pressed tight to the Berkley Horse, his back, buttocks and legs exposed. He couldn’t have writhed even if he wanted to. He was held fast.

  He had thought that to be immobilised like this would be unpleasant, constraining, inhibiting. But, strangely, it was the opposite. Liberating, almost.

  Lydia fetched the riding crop, the same one he had used on her, their first time. He glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye. She ought to be walking stiffly on account of the weals, but she seemed unhampered by them. It was as though she was not fully present, her mind elsewhere, transported out of her body, beyond sensation.

  She flexed the crop, testing it.

  Barnaby waited for the pain, and when it came it was tortuous, bewildering, dizzying, deserved, and wondrous.

  TOP TO BOTTOM

  BARNABY ON ALL fours, his ankles parted by spreader bars.

  Barnaby, ball-gag in mouth, suspended from manacles.

  Barnaby bent double, a rope around his testicles, tightening.

  Barnaby with Lydia squatting on his face, smothering.

  Barnaby in the pillory, Lydia behind him, thrusting.

  Barnaby on his back, feeling a jet of hot urine hit his belly and trickle off the sides.

  Barnaby and the cold, searing bite of the nipple clamps.

  Barnaby never once saying, “Gaia.”

  A CHANGED MAN

  GLOCO’S FORTUNES BEGAN to pick up.

  For a time its prospects had looked dicey. Its CEO was AWOL, nowhere to be seen. Its shares were nosediving. The Talcher mine tragedy had turned it into a toxic brand. There was talk in the City of a shareholders’ revolt, hostile takeovers by any number of rivals, even nationalisation by the government, GloCo being one of those British companies that was ‘too big to fail.’

  GloCo was a captainless ship, sailing on under its own relentless momentum, but who knew where? What reefs or maelstroms lay ahead of it, with no one at the helm to steer it safely past?

  Then Barnaby Pollard reappeared.

  He was not the same Barnaby Pollard who had vanished into self-imposed isolation a month earlier, after the events in Talcher. Anyone could see that. He was thinner, gaunt almost, no longer exuding the sleek,
glossy confidence of the billionaire businessman. His hair was discernibly greyer. Occasionally he would walk with a very slight limp, as though his hip or lower back was sore.

  But he was Barnaby Pollard nonetheless, visible once again, taking his seat at the summit of GloCo Tower, making calls, doling out commands.

  GloCo was under control. Stockbrokers, bankers and financiers breathed a collective sigh of relief. All was right with the world again.

  He was a changed man, though. Easier to deal with. Less ruthless. The deaths of those miners had done something to him, clearly. Brought humility. Chastened him.

  One person who was more acutely aware of the alteration in Barnaby than anyone was Jakob. The boss whom Jakob ferried to and from work and escorted through all public appearances had become a shadow of his former self. They didn’t banter in the car any more. Barnaby was subdued in the back seat, seldom engaging in conversation, never rising to the bait when Jakob made some mildly insulting quip.

  “Boss,” Jakob said to him one evening as they dawdled through unusually stodgy rush-hour traffic, “where are you? What the hell’s happened to you? I barely recognise you. It’s like I’m bodyguarding a ghost these days.”

  He got nothing in reply, just a look in the rearview mirror from eyes that were sunken and grey-rimmed, set in a face that was weary and haggard.

  “I’m worried,” Jakob went on. “Seriously I am. I think you’re sickening for something. You should go see a doc. Get a check-up. Have the old prostate looked at. That’s a silent killer, you know, prostate cancer. Slowly sucks the life out of a man, then blam, he’s gone.”

  Barnaby gave him a bleak smile and shifted in his seat. “I’m fine on that front. Getting plenty of that sort of thing.”

  “That sort of thing?”

  “You know. Examination, kind of.”

  Jakob’s forehead creased into a set of thick, meaty ridges. “I don’t get.”

  Barnaby dismissed the topic with a flap of the hand. “Never mind.”

  Jakob had to help him up the front steps of the house. His boss was almost hobbling.

  “You sure you’re all right?” he asked.

  “Never better,” Barnaby told him. “I’m how I’m supposed to be. It’s all great. Stop fussing, you old woman.”

  Jakob paused, then turned away to go back to the car.

  FIGHTING THE TIDE

  LYDIA WAS HOME. She had more or less moved in with Barnaby. One of his walk-in wardrobes was now hers. The fridge was filled with the sort of food she liked to eat. One of the bathrooms was a riot of scented candles, essential oils, makeup remover and ethically-sourced, bleach-free tampons.

  She was already kitted out in readiness for the evening’s shenanigans. Her boots were thigh-high. Her corset was leather, laced under great strain. Her dog collar was festooned with short, sharp spikes.

  Barnaby meekly let himself be taken downstairs. He knew this was what he had to do. What must be.

  You continue to fuck the planet. Get ready for the planet to fuck you back.

  It was a penance, of sorts. A price to be paid. An offering to the goddess.

  He loved Lydia. Lydia was his world. He had to take everything she dished out. That way, balance was restored, happiness ensured.

  He submitted to the restraints. He surrendered to the humiliation.

  After she had flogged him for a while, tenderising him, she buckled a strap-on dildo into place. Through the muzzle gag that enclosed his head like a horse’s bridle, Barnaby groaned, half in eagerness, half in dread.

  “Brace yourself,” Lydia said, positioning herself behind him. “Don’t clench.”

  Then the basement door opened.

  “Fok me! I knew it!”

  Jakob’s near-rectangular bulk filled the doorway.

  “I knew something was up,” he said. “Boss. What’s this bitch been doing to you?”

  “Nothing,” Barnaby replied. “Go away.” But the words were so muffled by the muzzle as to be all but incomprehensible.

  “Oh, my fokken God, she’s got you completely turned around and back to front. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s meant to be at all.”

  “It is,” said Lydia. “What’s happening here is none of your business, Jakob. Leave.”

  “I will do no such thing,” Jakob said. “Untie him. That’s Barnaby Pollard. He’s not like that. He’s the one who hands it out, not the one who receives. Bloody hell, this explains everything. She’s destroying you, boss, inch by inch.”

  “I said leave!” Lydia barked, with deep menace in her voice.

  Jakob advanced into the room. “You,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “are not my employer. I do not take orders from you, you doos. You may be all got up like a dominatrix, but you’re not dominating me, got that?”

  Lydia took two steps towards him. Her bearing was imperious, for all that she had an eight-inch rubber penis bobbing between her legs. “You have no idea what you’re messing with, little man. Lay one finger on me, and you’ll regret it.”

  “You’re mad,” Jakob scoffed, laughing.

  “Try me.”

  “Jakob, no!” Barnaby yelled through the muzzle. He hoped his tone would carry, even if the words didn’t. It wasn’t an order he was giving, it was a warning.

  The Afrikaner moved closer to Lydia, hands spread. “I’ve never liked you. You know that? I’ve always said you’re dangerous.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I’ll drag you out of the room by your hair. I’ll throw you out into the street, where you belong.”

  “You can’t fight me,” Lydia said, “any more than you can fight the tide.”

  Jakob dwarfed her. She gazed up at him wholly without fear.

  Barnaby knew there was something inside Lydia Laidlaw that you mustn’t resist. It filled her to the brim. She was only outwardly a woman. Within her lay a terrible power. If roused, it could ruin.

  But his hands were tied, literally. He couldn’t intercede. He could only make noises, imploring Jakob to back off. But his pleading grunts fell on deaf ears. Jakob was too loyal. He loved his boss too much. He believed what he was doing was right.

  He made a grab for Lydia.

  She ducked, kneeing him in the groin.

  As he slumped to the floor in agony, she snatched a chain from the wall and wrapped it round his neck. She placed her foot in the small of his back and pulled. Jakob struggled, pawing at the improvised garrotte. His face purpled. He tried hitting backwards at Lydia, but she leaned away out of range, hauling on the chain with far greater strength than she ought to have possessed. Her eyes were huge and ferociously, intimidatingly blue-green.

  She let Jakob go when he was half strangled. He keeled forwards onto his face, twitching and retching.

  She found the hugest, fattest vibrator in the room, and clubbed Jakob on the head with it.

  Savagely.

  Viciously.

  Repeatedly.

  Until the thudding impacts turned crunchy and wet.

  Barnaby could only look on in abject horror.

  When Lydia was done, she sat back, chest heaving. The bloodstained vibrator had been switched on by accident during the bludgeoning. It buzzed like some monstrous mosquito, glutted on the juices of its prey.

  Lydia looked across at Barnaby.

  “We’re in this together now,” she said. “All the way. You understand that, don’t you, Barnaby? There’s no getting around what we’ve just done here. No getting away from it. I can dispose of the body. I can find a way. I’m a familiar sight at various landfills around the country. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Black plastic bags. A piece here, a piece there. But you’re implicated, my love. You’re as guilty as I am. This isn’t going to end at all well for you if you try to wriggle out of it. Think of the scandal. Think of the disgrace. There wouldn’t be a GloCo left, if this got out. The only hope you have is if you go along with me. Do as I say. From now on. In everything.”

  She rose, droppin
g the vibrator with a splat onto what was left of Jakob’s skull.

  “We need a new contract, you and me,” she said, dressed as a sinner, smiling like a saint. “One that’ll apply everywhere, not just within these four walls. A new, very simple agreement. One without a safeword. You do what I tell you, or else.”

  She stroked Barnaby’s hair.

  “What do you say to that, my love?” she crooned. “Well, nothing, of course. You can’t. But you can nod, can’t you? So nod.”

  With tears spilling from his eyes, Barnaby lowered his head.

  “Is that a yes?” said Lydia. “I’ll take it as one. Oh, this is going to be so good for us, Barnaby. So good for everyone. Such an opportunity! You’ll see.”

  SWITCH

  WHEN GLOCO ANNOUNCED that it was diversifying its portfolio, the general assumption was this meant branching into other consumables, perhaps upping its investment in nuclear power and fracking.

  Nobody could have foreseen that the company would commit to a regime of renewable energy production. Wind farms, hydroelectric dams, tidal barrages, massive photovoltaic panel arrays – GloCo sank billions into them all, selling off its existing assets piecemeal in order to fund the purchases.

  Most people called it madness. Some called it glorious madness. Many said it was commercial suicide. Everybody predicted that GloCo would be bankrupt and in receivership within the year. ‘GloCo Goes Loco,’ ran the headline in the Wall Street Journal, adding, ‘Putting All Its Greenbacks In One Green Basket?’

  CEO Barnaby Pollard oversaw the fraught process of restructuring his company with a mixture of regret and resolve. It was not a dismantling, he told himself. It was just change. Radical but doable.

  Always Lydia was by his side, administering to him, offering instruction.

  His mistress.

  His guide.