by Al Robertson
Jack was the only one to stare at the stage, rapt as Andrea’s singing prowled around him. He lifted his glass and swigged. The harsh taste burnt his throat, pulling him back to the past. In the few short months he’d been with Andrea, he’d sat drinking cheap Docklands whisky in so many clubs like this.
He’d always taken a seat at the back, always entered and left without acknowledging her. They’d put so much care into keeping their relationship secret. Harry had eyes everywhere. Later in the evening, they’d meet somewhere hidden – a cheap hotel or a private dining room – and talk through the evening’s gig, then the day or days since they’d seen each other last. Again and again, Jack found himself grasping for words, never quite able to express how Andrea’s songs moved him. He stopped listening to his store of Homelands sounds. They seemed so insipid when they had to follow the deft, committed power of her live performances.
Jack let an ice cube roll out of the glass and across his tongue, chilling his mouth. The cold pulled him out of his reverie. As he did so, he noticed the faintest light in the air just beside him, shivering around an empty seat. [ By the pricking of my thumbs …] said Fist, giggling nervously.
Jack looked back to the stage, assuming that the light was an effect of the stage lights. But they had dimmed and now glowed too softly in the darkness to reach him. He glanced back at the seat. The light still hung there, faintly suggesting a human form. Jack wondered if there was a glitch in the weave. Even if there was, he shouldn’t be able to pick it up. There was a hint of a sound in the air, something that could have been a word, maybe a greeting. Fist tittered nervously, a sharp contrast with the slow, mournful blues that Andrea was whispering out from the stage. It was suddenly cold. A waitress came by, collecting empty glasses. Jack wondered if she’d respond to the shimmer, but it seemed that she could not see it.
He looked back towards the anomaly. The light was shifting towards him, as if something were leaning in to speak to him. There was the slightest breath, echoing the gentleness of Andrea’s singing. It seemed to be whispering, but he could not make out any words. Then the shape collapsed. A thousand tiny shards of light flashed softly against him. They pooled on the table, in his lap, on the floor, before slowly fading out. It was as if a ghost had kissed him. He wondered if it could have been some new form of fetch. But the dead could not manifest unsummoned and he had no way of invoking anyone from the Coffin Drives.
[Did you see that?] he asked.
There was a pause.
[ I saw nothing,] spat Fist, drawing himself back into Jack’s mind like a snail coiling up into its shell. [ This feels dangerous,] he hissed as he vanished. [ We should leave now.]
Jack briefly wondered what had scared him, but his heart was elsewhere. Andrea’s dark hood nodded before the microphone. Hiding her skull, it let Jack imagine her face, as unreachable as the past. But her voice was present and it moved him profoundly. He realised that there was no real choice to be made. Of course he was going to talk to her. The song ended. Applause scattered itself away as another began. Jack realised he’d finished his whisky. He thought about going to the bar again, but then Andrea might see him and find some way of preventing him from reaching her. He let the last of the ice fall into his mouth and sucked at it until it was gone.
At last she finished her set and disappeared backstage. Looking around, Jack saw that the blonde woman was staring at him with a look somewhere between fascination and hunger. She’d forgotten her surroundings. There was a man just behind her, concentrating on not spilling two ornate drinks, who hadn’t seen her and was about to walk into her. Jack would have shouted a warning but there was no time, the man was already brushing against the blonde. Then there was a shimmer, and to Jack’s shock he’d walked straight through her and was handing the drink to his girlfriend. The blonde stood there untouched, revealed as an illusion. She flashed a smile at Jack, then let herself fade into the gloom. Her eyes were the last part of her to vanish.
Jack had to walk through the space where she’d manifested on his way to the stage door. All that was left of her was a taste of ozone on the air and a cocktail umbrella crushed on the floor. It looked like a bright, abandoned feather, fallen from some strange, fictional bird. As he perceived it, it winked out of existence.
[She has to be Pantheon, to be able to show herself to us like that,] said Fist nervously, from deep within Jack’s mind.
[ It must be East,] replied Jack. [She loves visiting clubs in disguise.]
[ We should leave.]
[Pure chance that we ran into her. And we’re quite unusual. It’s not surprising she took a second look.]
[ We meet one of her people, and then she appears the next day? I don’t like it. You’ll get damaged.]
Jack had never seen Fist so jittery. [ I’ve come to see Andrea,] he said. Her name was a talisman that strengthened his resolve.
[ Then see her!] Fist’s voice had a sudden half-panicked shriek to it. [And she’ll tell you to fuck off! And we can get the fuck out of here.]
There was a large man wearing a cheap suit at the door to the backstage area. ‘I want to see the singer who was on just now,’ Jack told him.
‘No socialising.’
‘I’ve come a long way. I’m – an old fan of hers.’
The bouncer grunted. ‘One of those. Well, if you want to piss your money away you can have her manifest at your table for twenty minutes. Got to be before her second set, she gets pulled back to the Coffin Drives after that. Pay at the bar.’
‘Is there anywhere more private?’
‘We’re not that kind of place.’
‘No, really. I just want to talk.’
‘I bet.’ The bouncer snorted. ‘I’ll ask the boss.’ His face went blank for a moment, then he said, ‘Empty dressing room out back. Cost you big. We monitor it.’ A fist slapped against a palm. ‘Don’t try anything funny.’
Jack paid. [Keep spending like that and we’ll have nothing left to live on,] whined Fist.
The bouncer ushered Jack through into a long, narrow corridor. ‘Third on the left. She’ll be waiting for you.’ Performers had tagged its walls with graffiti. There were barcodes too. Had Jack been onweave, they’d have summoned datasprites as soon as he perceived them. He wondered what he’d have seen. There’d probably have been nothing more than a shimmer at the edge of his vision as his anti-virals snuffed them out.
It was easy enough to find the dressing room, harder to knock confidently on the door. Seconds passed. Jack wondered if he’d been ripped off. At least he’d only have lost InSec’s money. Then Andrea shouted ‘Come in.’
The room was tiny. There was barely space for two chairs and a makeup desk. Andrea was sitting at the desk. A real dress, identical to her virtual one, hung shimmering behind her. It was like a field of stars, haloing her covered head. ‘Close the door,’ she told him. With a little contortion, Jack did so. ‘Sit down.’ She’d made her voice cold. ‘I didn’t want to see you. I hoped you wouldn’t try and find me.’
‘I had to. Especially after I found about – your situation.’
There was no adequate way of describing her death.
‘I needed some easy cash once, when I was alive. Signed away fetch performance rights to a few little clubs. Too cheap to even advertise the gigs onweave. I always thought I’d be able to buy the rights back. But then I died.’
‘I don’t mean the club,’ replied Jack. ‘You – she – you passed on. What happened to her, Andrea? And why didn’t you tell me?’
Jack sounded plaintive, even to himself. Andrea was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I wish I could smoke. This would be the perfect time.’
‘Andrea, please. I’ve only got twenty minutes with you.’
‘Oh Jack, I know, I’m sorry. But what can I say? I’m dead, I died, I was killed. And of course I couldn’t tell you. Because what would I have been then? So much code on a server.’
[Oi! What’s wrong with being code?]
‘But why g
et in touch at all?’ Jack asked, ignoring Fist.
Andrea half-smiled. ‘You should have seen how she remembered you, Jack. It was so different from Harry. So private, so intimate. Even after you’d gone. She kept it all in a little secret place, so close to her heart, and she went back to it again and again.’
Jack sighed, at once touched and saddened. ‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘But I still don’t understand why you came and found me. Why you tricked me.’
‘Oh Jack.’ She turned the dark void beneath her hood to face him, and raised a hand to cup his face. He nerved himself to look back as directly, but when he did the shadows hid her white bone face. ‘I have all her memories,’ she told him. ‘I am her memories. So I missed you. I thought about you all the time. But I’d never even talked to you.’ There was such loss in her voice. Her hand drifted gently across his cheek. He felt the slightest of breezes, as if tiny feathers were flickering against his skin. ‘I thought you’d never come back to Station. I wanted to see how the war had changed you. To be as close to you as she’d been, when everything was so different. And then you found out about Fist’s licence, and you needed support, and I could give it.’ She let her hand drop. ‘I know all about coming to terms with death. And now, here we are.’
Jack wished he could take her hand in his. It was so strange to find himself moved by a ghost.
[ Time’s a-passing, lover boy.]
[ It always is.]
‘Is the puppet here too?’ she asked, breaking the silence.
‘Yes,’ replied Jack. ‘But he’s not very happy about it.’ [ Too bloody right!] interrupted Fist. ‘He’s hiding in the back of my head,’ continued Jack. ‘But I might be able to get him out, if you want to meet him.’
‘No,’ replied Andrea. ‘If he doesn’t want to – let’s just let him be.’
[ Thank the gods. Wake me up when you’re done with the nostalgia and we can get the fuck out of here.]
Jack was silent for a moment. He’d shared so much with this woman, who both was and was not the Andrea of his past. Her mails – pages long, coming every few days, in response to his own equally lengthy letters – had given him so much strength.
‘How did you manage to write to me?’ he asked.
‘Gods,’ she responded, shifting. ‘Straight to the practical.’
‘You shouldn’t have been able to.’
She laughed joylessly. Jack imagined a sad half-smile, then remembered the cold, hard skull that the shadows hid from him. ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘That’s another reason why I didn’t want you to come and see me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s because of Harry. He’s been reborn too. But he came back as something new.’
‘He’s not a fetch?’
‘No. He’s something very different. After he died they tried to cage him. They did that to a lot of fetches, the ones made from people who’d helped the Totality. But he broke out.’
‘They thought he was a terrorist?’
‘Harry?’ She laughed. ‘Dear lords no. But he was going to damage the Pantheon. He reopened the Bjorn Penderville murder case just before they shot him.’
‘Proof of Pantheon criminality.’
‘I always thought he’d left it behind him, one of the ones that got away. But one day he came in furious, said he’d been stitched up, that he needed to know who Penderville had been working for to hit back. Next day he put the paperwork through to make it official.’
‘You’re sure there was a connection?’
‘We were both killed that night.’
‘Shit.’
‘He talks about it often. He’s found out a lot more about the case since he died. You remember Aud Yamata? The dock worker who was the last person at the crime scene before the shooting?’
‘The one with the cast-iron alibi?’
‘That you thought killed Penderville. You nearly had her and the man that managed the Panther Czar and their Pantheon backer. So when Harry went back to the files, they acted. And’ – Andrea made a gun shape with her hand, cocked to fire – ‘Boom.’ Her thumb came down like a hammer on a bullet.
‘But how does that mean you could write to me?’
‘Harry needed someone to talk to. He trusts me. So once he’d been back for a bit, he started summoning me. He helped me disable my kill switch, so I don’t have to go back to the Coffin Drives any more. I pulled myself together then I got in touch with you.’
‘Fuck, Andrea, I’m sorry. I thought it was just my life the Pantheon had screwed up. Have you told anyone about all this?’
‘I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. That’s why I didn’t want you to find me. People mustn’t even think you might be digging into this. You have so little time left. I don’t want whoever killed us taking any of it away from you.’
‘What about Harry? Can’t he go to InSec?’
‘He’s taken it as far as he can on our own, but he doesn’t trust them. He doesn’t like to admit it but he’s very vulnerable. I am too.’
‘Then why even tell me all this?’
‘You’ve meant so much to me. You still do. Part of me’s so happy that you found me tonight. So I decided that I wouldn’t hide anything from you. Not any more.’
The moment froze Jack. Andrea shimmered in front of him, a pattern of memories made almost real. He wanted to touch and hold her, to kiss her, but there was nothing physical left to embrace. And overlaid on that need was grief and loss for, despite her presence before him, the woman he’d loved was dead.
It was impossible to know what to say.
Andrea broke the silence. ‘I’m getting a warning. Our time’s nearly up.’
‘How much more?’
‘A minute or so.’ She leant forward, her hand on his knee, the darkness that hid her face so close to his. ‘I really don’t want you to get involved, Jack. Harry and I were killed, and you’ve lost seven years of your life. That’s enough.’
‘I’m going to die soon anyway. And nobody needs to know you’re part of it.’
‘No, Jack. Nothing good can come of taking on the Pantheon. I want you to patch things up with your parents and then let go in peace.’
‘I thought I’d had enough of taking sides.’
‘You did the right thing stepping away from the Soft War. Step away from all this, too.’
She put a finger to his lips. He was sure he could feel it. ‘I love you, Jack,’ she said. ‘But we’ve had our time together. I’m sorry I can’t see you again, but it’s best for us all.
‘Andrea, I—’
‘Goodbye, Jack.’
And then she was gone.
[She’s right,] snapped Fist. [ It’s too dangerous. Stay out of it.]
[Didn’t you want to take on a god?]
[ Not with both hands tied behind my back.]
It took a while for Jack to recover himself. He heard Andrea’s second set begin, but he couldn’t bring himself to go out and watch. Seeing her perform would have broken him. At last the music ended.
As he passed back through the club, Jack noticed that East was sat on the lap of the man who’d passed through her, kissing him ferociously. She’d let her disguise slip and was now recognisably herself. The man’s girlfriend looked on in awe. Jack wondered what great transfiguration she was witnessing. Fireworks would be happening onweave. East’s blessings were always generous. The man would be forever changed, his weave presence suddenly more elegant, more chic, more watched and thus more real than any of those around him. New choices would open up for him. The girlfriend would soon find herself alone.
Others were starting to understand the true nature of the visitation. A crowd was gathering. East reached down, fumbling to unzip the man’s flies.
[ That’s the gods for you,] said Fist, [all appetite.]
In that moment, Jack decided. [ I’m going to find out which one of them did this to us,] he said, [and I’m going to bring the fucker down.]
Chapter 10
Fist sw
ore all the way home. Once they were back in their room, Jack tried to talk to him. At first the puppet refused to even listen, sticking his fingers in his ears and chanting gobbledegook. At last he began to calm down. Jack tried again.
[ It’s simple,] he explained. [ We go to the Panther Czar, you break into their local network, we copy all their records, that’s it. We should be able to do it from the club’s public areas. We might not even need to go in.]
[ But what if someone recognises you?]
[ I was InSec’s secret weapon. They kept me hidden away. I’ve never been anywhere near the Panther Czar.]
Fist only really started to come round when he realised just how hard finding out who was behind Akhmatov’s more questionable activities would be.
[ It’ll take a few weeks to go through the data, Fist. Perhaps even longer.]
[ We really won’t need to leave the hotel?]
[ Hardly at all. There’s just food. And my dad. That’ll be it.]
[Oo, it’ll keep you right out of trouble!]
And there was a little reverse psychology, too.
[Of course, getting into their core commercial servers won’t be easy. They’ll be very heavily shielded.]
[Cracking some shitty little nightclub’s security? A challenge? You are joking, Jack.]
[ If you thought you couldn’t do it I’d completely understand.]
[Dear gods, remember what I am.]
[As if I could forget.]
[ Just get me close to them, I’ll fuck ’em in the arse, we’re done. They won’t even know I’ve been in there.]
The discussion left Jack exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. At last he entered a liminal state, somewhere between waking and dreaming. Lying on his side he watched Fist manifest, then tiptoe out into the middle of the room. The puppet clearly thought Jack was out cold. The window opened beneath him, a black pool glistening with stars. He looked down, then over at his puppeteer.
‘Little sleepy boy,’ he whispered, ‘soon be sleeping all the time. Soon be sleeping all the time!’ He cackled quietly and wrapped his short arms around himself in a strange little hug, shaking with silent laughter. Then he leapt up and started to throw himself around the room. His limbs spun as he wheeled and pranced across the floor, the walls, even the ceiling, hissing a song to himself that would rattle in Jack’s head for days.