Digital Magic

by Philippa Ballantine

  ***

  Ella woke with a gasping breath, the world spinning around her. For one dreadful moment she didn’t know where she was, what her name might be—panic superseded everything.

  But then, panic was an old friend, and she got used to the sound of her heart thundering in her throat. Two nightmares in one night were bad even for her. First the eyeless woman and then the razor sharp image which she couldn’t quite remember, except for the terrific fear it had brought with it. She lay very still on the couch, letting her breathing return to something near normal.

  Like she had a thousand times before, Ella repeated her mantra to still the fear. I am home; I am not in London.

  Any day when that was true was another good day—better than those she’d fled. She’d left that life and Nill behind. She was Ella, and that was how it was going to stay.

  But even to think of him and those times was to give them power over her. With a resolute tightening of her jaw Ella reached out and grabbed the spinebridge from where it lay on the coffee table. It resembled nothing so much as a glittering silver bug, only a cascade of green lights on its outspread legs and central column showing it was more than a hand-sized sculpture.

  Ella didn’t know how to feel about the bridge. Had it been a generation before, a wheelchair would be her lot, suspended in that curious state where people either looked at her with extra scrutiny or not at all. But on the other hand, it was old technology. The bridge got removed while sleeping as there was a limit how long wiring and the human nervous system could be connected at a stretch. And it did not shield her from sympathetic eyes; she still walked oddly and under thin shirts the curved dome would have been clearly visible even without its flashing lights.

  Ella counted her blessings, though, and slipped the cool metal under her shirt to lie against her T11 injury. The steel device snapped into the array of sockets and sensation returned to her legs. One day, she might be able to afford the astronomic price of biomelding and consign the bridge to the past.

  Still with a hint of caution, Ella levered herself out of the couch. The morning light had already crawled across the carpet toward the floor to ceiling bookshelves, to rest on Tolkien and Lewis.

  But Qoth had not waited for the sun to reach her. The chocolate cat perched on the window seat and, even though her back was to her mistress, Ella could imagine the expression of contentment on her face. The feline lived for warmth and it was her ritual to watch to make sure the sun returned. It had already clambered above the rolling green hills and now washed over the thatched and cozy roofs of Little Penherem. It would begin filtering down the narrow streets and running in long swathes across the village Green.

  Ella leaned her head against one overstuffed chair and watched the cat with lazy amusement. Every day it was the same. As if the chocolate tabby needed to see the dawn to make it happen.

  Ella could only dream of having the same kind of lifestyle—there were already three deadlines blinking from her notepad and her own personal goal of another three thousand words hanging overhead. The freelance work took priority as always—it did, after all, pay the bills—but she had to finish the novel by the time summer rolled to a close.

  Ella had just managed to turn her mind to filling her notepad with at least some perfunctory words when someone began banging on the door.

  Qoth gave her a yellow-eyed glare from the window that might have been a reproach, but her human had already accepted the offer of procrastination.

  Limping, Ella went down the hall to answer the unremitting thumping. When she yanked the door open with a small growl, she found Bakari leaning against the doorframe, one hand already raised ready to give another battering.

  He looked at her through golden eyes and flicked back one of his dreadlocks from his shoulder. Bakari was too exotic for Penherem; he might be made from beautiful wood that someone had spent many loving hours polishing. Few believed he was in fact an English librarian.

  Then again, she was almost certain that librarian was not all her friend was. The faint musk of him reached her, and like every other female in Little Penherem she couldn’t remain totally immune. In morning light he almost gleamed and as always he made her feel more than a little dowdy.

  “Weren’t napping, were you, Mouse?” He smiled enough to excuse the use of that terrible pet name he had for her. “You’d better watch out or someone might think you have a social life.”

  “Cheeky bugger,” she replied without malice and ushered him in. “You know that you have the social scene all wrapped up round here. There's none left for the rest of us.”

  He shrugged while prowling around the edges of her domain—too hyped up to sit down, perhaps. “Perhaps if you bothered to go outside now and then…”

  Her notepad was blinking, so she replied. “I do go out.”

  “Playing maid to the Furlion woman twice a week doesn't count. Writing a book isn’t an excuse to become a hermit you know.” Bakari gave Qoth such a firm stroke it made her blink in surprise.

  Sometimes Ella wished that Bakari would try to fit in more. If he were more accepted by the rest of the villagers, the two of them wouldn't get forced into each other’s company all the time. The man was a delight to look at and smarter than was healthy in this day and age, but sometimes he had a way of prodding her with her own inadequacies. That was probably why she alone was unmoved by his charms.

  Bakari folded his dark form into the wing backed chair by the window and smiled disarmingly. “Don't pout, Mouse. I just wanted to check on you.”

  Ella sighed and waited for the lecture; this was familiar territory. She’d made the mistake of telling Bakari some of why she’d moved to Penherem, just the bit about Nill. Somehow he thought this qualified him as her guardian. Easing herself back into the chair by the fireside, she watched as he scanned the bookcases that lined her parlor with professional interest.

  “You can tell a lot about people by what they read.” He muttered, “You know, some people have gotten rid of their paper editions altogether...”

  She stiffened, “I don’t like plugging into all those gadgets—gives me the willies messing with your brain like that.”

  Bakari flicked back the hair behind his ear revealing the tiny silver IO plug. “Lining makes life worthwhile.”

  “But you work in the library—you need it. Me, I prefer the classics. Reading may be slower but it’s more satisfying.”

  He snorted, “I didn’t get this thing put in for pleasure, Mouse. Nothing but a business tool. After all, it's all about information. Who has it, who doesn't, who wants it and who is willing to pay for it.”

  She wondered not for the first time what sort of business he’d gotten involved in. Someday he might share his reasons for becoming the librarian of such an insular village. He wouldn’t be the first to think that it was a good place to hide.

  Little Penherem was one of those darling satellite villages, orbiting around the not-so-distant planet of London. It catered to tourists, local and foreign, that wanted a sample of England. They demanded an England that only existed in a plastic, no-crap, no-dirt place like Penherem. It was history watered down and made palatable for the masses—and not a history that anyone who had lived then would be able to recognize. Rape, spitting and bigotry filtered out. Mass hallucination and feel-good atmosphere poured in. Penherem was a pretty cardboard cutout.

  However, the danger that Ella sensed hanging around Bakari was all too real. It seemed almost familiar, perhaps because Nill had shared that, too.

  “In fact,” he pulled out the hair-width silver cable from one of the pockets in his trousers and waved it in her direction, “mind if I check my messages?”

  Ella had seen him at the business end of a Line in the library. Not the dusty front of house where the books were mere window dressing, but out the back where the information centre pulsed with a more modern beat. Bakari was a real lion there, prowling the corridors of information that had replaced the motorway in importance.

&
nbsp; Trying not to show her discomfort, she shrugged. “Sure.”

  Bakari pounced on her Line, attaching the monofilament and then inserting the other end into his head IO. Just like that he was in and gone. Those golden restless eyes drooped a little as Bakari concentrated on that far off world. Very few were brave enough to go for the full headgear—most retained some residual fear of having hardware implanted into the brain. In Ella’s eyes it was a very reasonable concern.

  She hadn’t worked out where to look when someone ran the Line—was it impolite to stare or was it worse to ignore them as if they weren’t there at all?

  “It's alright, Mouse.” His voice was soft and slurred as if he’d had one too many beers down at the Green Man. She realized that his irises had swallowed up the whole of his eye. “I'm not doing anything illegal. I just need to speak to a friend and I’d rather not have the book squad interrupt.”

  Ari’s sarcastic comment on the dozen or so local ladies that occasionally helped run the library still made her smile a little. They carried on that ancient tradition of the interfering village wife with great vigor.

  Still, Ella didn't see why what they thought would bother him—he certainly had never shown much regard for it up until now. He finished while she still decided if she believed him or not. The speed of that other realm was another unnerving thing about it.

  He had already removed the cable and tucked it away somewhere. “Thanks Ella… it’s just a pain wondering who’s going to come into the library when I’m busy like that.”

  Surely it was over so swiftly he could have found some time to do it. Whatever he’d found, he didn’t look too happy about it.

  “I better move and so should you, Mouse.”

  Resisting an urge to bark back, she shooed him to the door once more. “I’m on my way.”

  “Maybe you’d come over to mine for some breakfast tomorrow.” He embraced her and had released her before she mustered a complaint. “You know how much you love my French toast.”

  “Well, if that’s on offer I guess I can manage it.”

  "I’m holding you to that,” he grinned before trotting down the steps and vaulting over her picket gate.

  Ella waved him off from the doorstep while her mind worked in little circles. Despite his cheerfulness, there was something wrong with her friend. His eyes did not reflect the smile on his lips. He hid from her. And Ella was somewhat afraid that she had worked out the emotion that she had seen on her friend’s face. Fear—and what could make a lion afraid, she hated to think.

  Ella was about to go back inside when a giggle sounded from just beyond her garden wall. For one confused minute she thought it could have been Ari. Then the jasmine that climbed the broken down brick wall shook and Penny Two Dolls emerged. Her wide blue eyes gleamed with mischief and she ignored the twigs that had caught in her hair.

  Ella bent down to the girl’s height and for the second time that morning tried not be angry. “Have you been peeking in the window again, Penny?”

  That gap-toothed grin spread across her face made it impossible to get annoyed with her, but Penny tucked her battered Two Dolls into her pants pockets just in case Ella meant to take it out on them. The broken-eyed toys wobbled as she shoved them further down into her tiny overalls.

  Looking over her shoulder Ella hoped to see Alice Thorn. She had yet to quite work out the relationship between child and older teenager. She might have been sister or young mother, but whichever, she seemed the only person capable of getting Penny Two Dolls to behave anything like a normal child. But no sign of Alice’s ragtag bone-thin form.

  Ella sighed. Much as she liked Penny, there was something worrying about the way she managed to get into anyone’s house, and that innocent blue-eyed look didn’t mean she would think twice if something she liked took her fancy. Ella had very few possessions, but the ones she did have, she treasured.

  Ella rolled her eyes skyward. She mustn't stand out here all day exchanging words with a little girl who had so far shown no signs of having any of her own. By the time she looked back the girl had vanished.

  2

  Avenge

  It was in bred in every soldier: never accept defeat. The New Zealand military forces had a long history of bravery and daring far exceeding their size. And yet at this moment no one could see a way out. General Seddon looked around the briefing room, hoping for one his comrades to suggest something—anything but the recommendation that was lying in front of him. It was a hasty report but he didn’t doubt that it contained all New Zealand’s available options. And it was painfully thin.

  Seddon had been trained for heavy decisions, to send men to death and battle, but this… this was far beyond the parameters of his training. The remains of the nation’s leaders both military and civilian around him were worn as narrow as the report on the desk. He would have asked God, prayed on his knees down in the little church on the waterfront not far from where he and Jessica had their home, but he could not for two reasons. The enemy had bombed the church along with the base two days ago. And Seddon had ceased to pray once Jessica was gone.

  Even that pain, though, would not save him from this decision. He couldn’t slink off and leave the hard part to others.

  Six hundred kilometers away, Aroha sat with her Nana podding peas in the sun porch. The day was hot, making her cotton dress stick to the back of her legs as she swung them backward and forward inches from the wooden floor. She didn’t speak, her eyes watching the drift of clouds while her mind locked to that terrified one so far away. She didn’t tell Nana what she heard in the wind, for even if she believed her there was nothing to be changed.

  It was only a few miles to the city of Wellington where the enemies’ warships were pounding the last of the population to dust. She'd already tasted the death and fear of thousands in the last few days—it scared her and destroyed the beauty of the day.

  The General could feel the heavy looks from around the table and he resisted the urge to wipe the trickle of sweat from behind his neck. This wasn’t the war for a solider. They couldn’t hope to give the enemy even a break in stride. They hadn’t expected to be in this position, naked and alone against a world that had always come to their aid. But their allies had more these days to worry about than a tiny country at the bottom of the world. They might miss the lamb, but they’d cope, he thought bitterly. But it was not for any of those things that the country was lost. It was for their other more precious resource—water. All over the globe, that which had been taken so lightly was now a cause to die for. And it was something New Zealand had plenty of. And she had grown complacent in the strength of her allies. But to the enemy, the water was worth the risk, and for them it had paid off.

  We’ve got to look after ourselves, Seddon reminded himself. He might not have had many weapons to defend his home with, but he wouldn’t be afraid to use that last one.

  Aroha’s mouth twitched. She flicked back her brown hair and looked askance at Nana through it. Could she not feel the man’s anguished thoughts? Even though they all knew about what was happening and had taken the shots, there was still a strange normalness to the day. Shouldn’t they be hiding rather than preparing vegetables?

  Aroha looked down the valley to where the little village of Makara lay cupped in the greenness of fern and toi toi grass. They’d heard the bombing of the city even though it lay beyond the hills and the village had reacted swiftly—perhaps a lingering racial memory of guerilla warfare. Adam Tohai had taken his tractor and plowed up a large section of the sealed road. The farmers had driven their stock into the bush until whatever happened, happened.

  Seddon was thinking of children like her, ones that had grown up with the pohutakawa as their Christmas tree and hearing the tui call in its branches. What would their world be like after this?

  He twitched, scooped up the report and looked across at his lieutenant, “It’s been ratified?”

  “Yes sir,” Rawlings blue eyes didn’t flinch. “Public approval of ni
nety percent. We’re a go.”

  “God,” Seddon whispered to himself and it wasn’t a prayer, “Then give the order, release Utu.”

  Even now the earth mother Papatuanuku was keening so loud that Rastas the ginger tom hissed loudly. Nana raised her head as he ran off, but her hand went out to her granddaughter, “Finish up Aroha. I think we better head in—it’s getting dark.”

  Utu—the word filled up Seddon’s mouth and he wondered if it had done the same to Maori warriors of old. But it’d been different for them; blood and revenge, yes—but also honor. It was a consequence to action. Here and now, for them, it meant nothing more than survival.

  Rawlings turned away from the others. She tapped her code into the console, submitting her eye to the retinal scanner attached. Then she slid the device across the table. The officials all did the same. Some hesitated briefly, battling with thoughts of what would no doubt come back to haunt them, but Seddon was proud. Even if they all looked like fanatics and lunatics to the rest of the world. When it was his turn he didn’t waver. The people had spoken. He completed the code, scanned his retina and it was done.

  The little huddle of leaders did not move, suspended in the moment. As if thinking that if no one moved, if no one went outside, it would all prove to be nothing but a bad dream.

  Nana was right. Aroha shivered. It was indeed getting darker.

  All over the country, from the chilly beauty of the fiords to the near tropical beaches of the north, the virus was released into the fresh water. The one thing the enemy wanted was poisoned against him. From the water it would spread like wildfire and all those humans not inoculated would die. Blood would boil from nose and mouth, internal organs broken apart by utu's onslaught.