‘Where the fuck have you been! Why couldn’t I call you?’
‘Neasden,’ said Fiorinda. ‘My fault, I got pissed off waiting for gran to die, so I did a pilgrimage to the old homestead. I’m sorry Allie. Did they call? Is she dead?’
‘What?’ snapped Allie. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Is she dead?’
‘Who?’ Allie recovered her wits, shocked at the way she’d spoken to her leaders: but they didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Oh, your grandmother. I don’t know, Fio. That’s not why I’m here. You’d better come upstairs. Faud’s seen it.’
Ax gave her a look of quiet concentration. Sage nodded.
They went upstairs. Faud Hassim, in his customary white shalwar kameez, rich hair rebellious under a close little cap, rose and bowed when the Triumvirate entered the living room. He had seen the Lavoisier video. Early this morning he’d been asked to join the Prime Minister and certain close advisors, for an emergency meeting. A shocking scandal was just breaking in the US—
After a while they moved to the square oak dinner table. It was weirdly as if they were in conference with their defence lawyer, who’d already identified the questions he would not ask. No reproaches, no demand to know what they’d known about this bombshell. The PM wanted a televised debate on the issue, irrespective of whatever happened in America. The venue would be the Lower Chamber, Ax and Sage would answer to the House, Jack Vries would take the chair—
Quick work. This hadn’t been figured out in a day. The snapshot message had been reliable: They’ve known all along. We are screwed—
So this is how they live, thought Faud, who had never been inside these rooms before; never come close to being a personal friend of the three. He was impressed. by their spare and modest dwelling.
‘We couldn’t reach you, so we’ve spent the time consulting with the CCM, the Permanent Festival Councils, significant Urban Communards, all of them your friends. We, the so-called “Rebels”, want you to accept the government’s challenge, and every party we consulted agrees it’s what should be done.”
‘Who was at the briefing this morning?’ asked Ax.
Faud hesitated. ‘The PM, Jack… Actually, it was a small meeting.’
‘Actually it was just those two?’ said Ax, acutely.
‘Yes.’
Well, that’s interesting. That’s a telling piece of information.
‘What is the issue?’ Sage asked. ‘Do they accept the video as genuine?’
‘Greg Mursal wants the issue to be your raid on Lavoisier,’ said Faud, slowly. ‘He wants the House to decide if Ax Preson, as titular leader of the English Countercultural Movement, had the right to decide, without consultation, to make a savage attack those people, devout Gaians, arguably our allies—’
Fiorinda nodded. ‘But what are Jack and the PM hoping to achieve?’
Faud and Allie were drawn to stare at each other, across the table: Allie bit her lip. ‘We will make this a debate about what the Lavoisiens were trying to do, what nobody denies they were trying to do. Our national stance on Fusion Consciousness Weapons will be, will be aired,’ said Faud, as if he hadn’t heard the question. ‘Ultimately, it will be about the future of this new country. A trial of strength between the Countercultural Movement as it was originally conceived, and corrupt NeoFeudalism at the top.’ He was fiercely earnest now. The video had shocked him, they could see that: but he was unshaken. ‘Ax, we need you to do this. We have to welcome the confrontation, sieze it as our opportunity. You can’t refuse.’
They’re going for impeachment, thought Ax. That’s why the reenactment nuts want to hold this farce in the House of Commons, where their faces have barely been seen since Dissolution. Before turning us over to the Second Chamber for trial. We should skip the poisoned chalice, resign right now.
But the trap had closed, and he could see no way out.
Fiorinda’s grandmother died in the night. When she’d taken the message she went to the toilet, and confirmed what she already knew: blood, a few little bloody tears. It was a relief to feel the familiar sad weight, settling back on her heart.
One shock at a time, please.
By the next day, ‘The Lavoisier Video’ was all over the shredded but indomitable global village. Citizens of the Great Peace, in Ulan Bator, were probably shaking their heads over the wicked antics of the famous rockstar warlord and his champion. The full-length video was hard to come by, but within forty-eight hours of the breaking news, a remastered, feature-length version of the trailer appeared, complete with a soundtrack of Ax, Sage and Fiorinda’s greatest hits. It was an explosive success.
In the US, long-prepared moves of formalised violence were exchanged, like the opening of a giant chess game. Crisis Europe’s response was guarded, at least at first. The Lavoisier affair had been swamped by the A Team event, that had swiftly followed: European authorities didn’t know what to think. In England, the popular media swiftly grasped that Ax’n’Sage had either saved the world (again). Or they’d been turned into psychopaths by the Pentagon, and ought to be locked up. The government was doing the right thing; or the Rebels were forcing the government to do the right thing. Questions must be asked, it was probably a Constitutional Crisis—
Ax went to see Joss Pender in Holland Park.
Social niceties didn’t detain them long. They left Joss’s wife (his first wife; he and Beth Loern had never married) and retired to Joss’s den, a fortress where they could speak freely, if you could speak freely anywhere—
‘How long had you known?’
Joss glared, fury barely tamped down, from behind his oversized Italian car-designer’s desk: defended by a barricade of congential untidiness; papers, random souvenirs, dead gadgets, digital art.
‘March.’
‘And told no one.’
‘Couldn’t risk it. It wasn’t ours to leak.’
‘I’ve seen the “video”. The whole thing, although neither you nor my son thought to provide me with a copy. D’you mind if I say it’s appalling?’
‘We never had a copy of the whole thing, I only just saw it myself,’ said Ax. Suppressing a desire to yell, what did you all think we’ve been doing? What did you think we were doing to the Islamic separatists in Yorkshire? Playing guitar at them?
‘What they’ve done too you is outrageous…and very clever. Have you considered memory-retrieval imaging?’
‘Nothing like that’s going to work, Joss. The courts tear brainscan evidence to pieces, whenever it’s presented. The bad guys are no longer disputing the video’s manipulated: they’re just saying no one can tell by how much. Why wouldn’t the same go for the images we stored in our heads?’
Sage’s father looked like Marlon Williams grown old: slight and energetic, the same cocky, wary, golden-hazel eyes. Same jet black hair, in Joss’s case thickly powdered with silver. Normally you’d never guess he was nearly eighty. Today the years had fallen on him, an old man’s impotence flaring in anger—
‘My son was eighteen months old when he lost the use of his hands. By the time he was four I knew it wouldn’t ever slow him down. He could write code you couldn’t fathom in a lifetime, before he could dress himself unaided. My son is one of those rare people who could have done anything he chose—’
Whereas instead he had to end up the bumboy of a rockstar warlord, starring in a cowboy snuff orgy… Ax’s relationship with Joss had been fine, until Sage had insisted his dad had to know they were lovers. Difficult ever since. As Fiorinda’s other boyfriend Ax’d been fine. Now he was a rival, and you’d get your head in your hands if you called Joss homophobic but there was that too: a bit of distaste.
We always use a proper condom, he thought. You won’t catch anything.
No, no. Keep your temper.
He could see a framed photo of Stevie, aged about six, in the part-geek, part-bowerbird nest that was so disconcertingly familiar. It had slipped sideways behind a perspex block that enshrined a dab of pioneering photonic
crystal: eks, not fade away. Gurning for the camera. Little hands, that had lost several fingers to infant-meningitis septecemia, buried deep in his dungaree pockets. Ax remembered that gesture. He remembered Aoxomoxoa’s daily struggle, often in pain, so well hidden until you knew him, making sure disability didn’t ever slow him down—
‘He’s Leonardo da Vinci, Joss. I know it, I’m not arguing.’
It’s not my fault he never wanted to be king of the hill.
Joss sighed, hard and long. ‘You know, Ax, over the years, while you’ve been snake-charming the assets out of anyone you could reach, I’ve had the feeling you were saving me for something. So, here it is. What do you need?’
‘I need you to be my Post Office. I want to give you my Internet Commission cypher, and for you to take over that connection until the debate is out of the way.’
Joss nodded, looking slightly piqued at the modesty of the request. ‘What taking charge of Open Gates?’
The Lennonist bed-in publicity had won a concession. There was to be a pilot scheme, from October of this year, whereby a few government-owned camps would be run as open shelters. If it was a success (whatever that turned out to mean) it would be rolled out, and there’d be a time limit for the private sector to get rid of the razor wire and watchtowers as well. Plenty of weasel words in there, but it was something, and public support was very strong. That’s non-violent direct action for you: maybe it looks embarrassing and stupid, but it works—
‘No, that’s best left to look after itself. The other thing I need is for you to dismantle the annexe. I need someone, as safe from reprisals as possible, so not Sage’s band, to pull the plug there if it seems advisable. Get rid of the scanners, destroy them, ship them out, whatever you can.’
The lines around Joss’s mouth deepened and tightened.
‘When?’
‘Whenever you think. Sage will talk you through it.’
‘The video was a low blow,’ said Joss, his helpless anger building again. ‘Temporarily, at least, all the hopes of the people who wanted you back—who worked hard for your return, Ax—have crashed to zero. We’ll have to start again. But I don’t blame you two for that. Or for failing to anticipate the CCTV, or for failing to warn us… That insane installation under Battersea Reach is something else. Don’t you realise the science-hating lobby would destroy you for the scanners alone, and there are others who’d call it witchcraft? They don’t mess around, Greg Mursal and his cronies. They’re not the clowns you take them for, Mr Preston—’
‘You keep thinking I own him,’ said Ax, answering the rage, not the words. ‘I don’t, anymore than you ever did: I didn’t set up that space-lab. But I wouldn’t have stopped him if I could. This is what we do, Joss. We keep the door open and the lights burning, in case modern civilisation comes wandering home—’
Joss made an impatient gesture, possibly of apology. ‘All right. Consider it done. My God, Ax. Why the hell did you two have to get into that situation? Couldn’t you have left it to the professionals, for once in your lives?’
No, because the professionals meant to kill Fiorinda, thought Ax.
Could he say that? Even to Joss, in here?
He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep it straight. He would forget what could be said and what could not. Answer the question, he told himself. Answer the question, volunteer nothing. But the words spilled out, despite himself—
‘We were in Mexico with Fee, and we were losing her, Joss. She was falling apart, after what her father did to her; and then helping to kill him. We couldn’t reach her, we daredn’t touch her. It was incredibly painful. Fred’s emissary arrived, with a new problem, and it brought her back to us. I don’t remember making a decision, then or later. I wanted Fiorinda, you see. That’s all what was on my mind.’
‘Is that the line you plan to take in the House? You went on your killing spree in the grip of a sexual obsession?’
Ax smiled warmly, and nodded. ‘That’s it, spot on, well done.’
‘I apologise,’ said Joss, after a moment. ‘That was completely uncalled for.’
‘It’s okay. I’m sure I’ll have to field worse.’
In Washington the scandal had become weirdly focused on funding issues. Fred Eiffrich, unable to clear his expensive unlimited-force operation through the proper channels, had turned to the illegal expedient of paying ‘foreign mercenaries’ in vouchers for Hollywood stardom… In London, Ax and Sage’s defence team believed, the actual raid would be downplayed. Since it involved extraordinary courage; since it had saved Fiorinda’s life. The focus would be on character assassination. It would get dirty, and it would get personal—
Joss changed tack. ‘You’ve heard nothing from Fred?’
‘No more than you. A figure on the screen, saying his lines.’
Ax had known, the moment he saw Alain’s courriel, that he no longer had privileged access to the US President. So it goes. You make friends, you part from them. Sometimes a powerful friend loses an election: sometimes he has to throw you to the wolves. It hadn’t occurred to him that Fred could be in personal danger. But the “Fred Eiffrich” on the screens, since Lavoisier broke, had a spooky, stilted look, if you knew the man—
‘D’you think he has other troubles, besides this affair?’
‘I’m sure he has: but I wouldn’t know the details.’
Joss’s anger and Ax’s resentment, slipped aside. In silence they faced the prospect of a Neurobomb arms race, led by a new regime in the US, sweeping up the paranoid, unaccountable post-A Team world. Ax stared at the glittering crystal in its clear matrix, fighting a Black Rose moment, limitless fear of the Fat Boy.
Bullshit, things like that never happen. We’ll turn this around—
‘The debate is punishment for what happened at Wallingham,’ said Joss at last. ‘The people know that, they’re not fools. Fuck Greg and Jack, self-important mediocrities, can’t take losing a trick. What you did at Lavoisier, the real thing, not the tampered version, was heroic. I haven’t said that, I want to say that, and I’m making sure my opinion goes on record. But you have to do more than win, Ax. You have to undo the damage. You have to make the people see you are Ax Preston again. Our hero, our saviour. Can you deliver?’
Would I say no? thought Ax, but he took his time before replying: reviewing the odds he’d been weighing up night and day. The Rebels, the elected Members, the Secret Rulers (I’m looking at one of those right now). The Fourth Estate, and the callous, wayward English people themselves. In the other corner, Greg Mursal, Jack Vries; and the Second Chamber. Not even all of whom were fond of Greg; or his attack dog. A home crowd, basically manageable, and how many genuine, personal, determined enemies? A handful. Perhaps only two—
‘I can do it.’
Maybe you’ll pull it off, thought Joss, feeling the young man’s resolute calm, and the ability nobody could doubt. Ax Preston never lost a battle yet. But he was shaken by the bone-deep moral exhaustion he detected. Joss had never been in a firefight (and resented the new, or resurrected, rules of manhood). But he’d seen enough blood on the boardroom carpet to recognise certain states of mind.
Death wish, ooh, death wish—
‘Fine. Changing the topic, what do you people think of China? Do you “Techno-Green Utopians” approve of what’s going on there?’
Ax shrugged. ‘I doubt if we know what’s going on. But I’m talking to netizens who say the Great Peace brings liberty, equality and workable solutions. They say you lose nothing when you join the Sphere, they hero-worship the person or persons behind it all—’
‘You can’t trust a chat-room.’
‘I have to say, the precedents are lousy.’
They spoke of Fiorinda’s glorious North Eastern tour. Sailing; North Cornwall, the hopes of better weather this summer. Joss accepted the Commissioners cypher, and they parted friends. Better friends, at least, than they’d been in a while.
The opening of the debate was set for the 14th of June: aft
er Whit Recess, and ensuring the show would be over before Alban Heruin, the Summer Solstice. The Insanitude Mail Room was swamped by messages of support, and forced off the air. Anyone who had access to the coverage became addicted to the incomprehensible things going on in Washington DC; while the people of England formed opinions based entirely on prejudice, or else had none. To London’s Reich Youth the Lavoisier affair was adult crap, none of their business: but there were exceptions. Silver came to Brixton Hill, and argued with Marlon out on the warm, dusty street. Passers-by noted the kids, isn’t that Marlon and Silver?, but this was SW2. No one stopped to stare.
‘We have to tell them,’ hissed the girl with the silver brown hair.
Marlon was like a hunted animal. ‘You don’t know my dad. You don’t know what he might do, he’ll do something horrible, disastrous and stupid.’
‘Fuck you. I know Sage fucking better than you ever could.’
The sex had been nothing personal, but there was a bond between them now all right. They might never escape from what they’d done together. ‘Okay, you win… Have your way, bitch,’ added Marlon, in Welsh. ‘And to hell with you.’
‘You too, bro,’ said Silver, viciously. ‘All of that.’
Ax was in his office, getting round to neglected trivia. He was reading a handwritten note from William the cleaner, a demarcation dispute with the security crew, when Doug Hutton put his head round the door.
‘Can Mar see you for a minute, Ax?’
‘Yeah?,’ said Ax. ‘Of course, he can see me anytime.’
He put the note aside, and tried to look inviting. A timid knock, then Marlon walked in, Silver Wing beside him. They got themselves chairs, without speaking, and sat close together. Oooh boy, thought Ax, immediately. She’s pregnant—
‘How’s it going, Ax?’ said Silver, ‘You know, the debate prep?’
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