by Gavin Smith
‘Bollocks,’ the Monk said. It seemed to be a pre-Loss word for testicles, according to Vic’s neunonics. He couldn’t imagine why she’d choose to bring that up now. She was, however, looking nervously between Scab and Elite Scab.
‘Could I arrange refreshments for everyone?’ the guide asked, his tone neutral.
‘As soon as we have killed the copy. I have no need to subject myself to the insult of his further existence,’ Elite Scab said. Vic almost thanked him for his help in resolving the situation peacefully.
‘I thought you were the original,’ Vic said carefully. He knew he was taking his life in his hands and half-expected a thorough killing from Scab.
‘I am,’ Scab answered. There was something of the cornered animal about him at the moment, Vic thought. Scab clearly wanted to kill everyone in the room, but unusually for him – as Scab was prepared to pick fights with entire habitats – found himself horribly outgunned.
‘You’re little more than a biological machine. You were programmed to think what we wanted you to think. You’re a pale imitation, nothing more. If this wasn’t the case you’d still be able to make art,’ Elite Scab told Scab.
‘Art?’ the Monk asked incredulously.
‘Kill people in creative ways,’ Vic told her. She looked unimpressed.
‘You know what you are, messenger boy?’ Scab asked once he’d managed to stop shaking with rage. ‘Motivation, nothing more.’ Vic couldn’t read Elite Scab at all. He also didn’t understand what Scab was saying. He was missing part of the conversation. He was also sure that Elite Scab would have to be one of the Consortium Elite, and if he and Scab were about covert Consortium business then he didn’t understand why Elite Scab would be allowed to kill Scab or even what he was doing here in Monarchist space, the Living Cities’ enmity with the Game notwithstanding.
Elite Scab turned to the guide, who was speaking.
‘Since you all arrived here at the same time, we thought you might all benefit from a conversation. We can only assume that you will all have plenty of opportunities to kill each other once you are far away from Pangea, but for now there will be no more killing.’
Elite Scab nodded as if he was taking this in, but Vic recognised the signs that he was preparing to do something awful – he’d seen similar behaviour in his own Scab. There was little they could do. It was pointless attacking an Elite at the best of times, let alone unarmed. He respected the guide for standing up to Elite Scab, but it had seemed foolish to let him into the city in the first place.
‘Look, can everyone called Woodbine Scab, clone or not, please just be reasonable for a moment,’ Vic ventured.
Elite Scab looked a little bit exasperated at this, as he reached out and touched the wall of the Living City. It had taken years of research and untold amounts of debt relief to develop the Seeder-tech-derived programmable virus that coated Elite Scab’s hand, but he still made its application look casual.
The guide screamed. The City shook, convulsed; there was a palpable feeling of pain and distress that even Vic picked up on. Through the transparent flesh they saw a helical artery crushed by a convulsion of muscle, the people in it reduced to squirts of luminescent flesh and blood. The guide sank to his knees in pain. The Monk moved around the table to help him to his feet despite her ruined arm.
‘Apparently not,’ Vic said.
‘Mr Scab,’ the guide, who Vic was beginning to think was a bit more than just a guide, said to Elite Scab as the Monk helped him to a seat, ‘we of course respect your power, and you could cause us great harm, perhaps even destroy this city, but we would live on. What I don’t think you could do is destroy this city before we kill you. I wonder if you have ever been this close to destruction before?’
‘You think I care? I’ve razed planets, I’ve been worshipped as a god. I’m bored and I could kill my copy with a thought.’
‘I’m not the copy,’ Scab said quietly, dangerously.
‘I don’t think that harming us or killing your copy was what you were instructed to do,’ the guide said to Elite Scab evenly. ‘Though I confess I’m not sure of the purpose of your presence here.’
Vic could see his Scab bridle at this. There it was, the problem with being a killer god: you had to do someone else’s bidding. It was hardwired into the Elite. It had to be or they would rule Known Space or simply run amok to see if they could grow bored with the killing. Elite Scab’s features were still unreadable, but Vic guessed he didn’t like being reminded that he was a servant either.
‘You are both an unreasonable pair of fucktards!’ Vic was surprised to find himself shouting. He was less than pleased to find that his involuntary outburst now had the attention of two of the most dangerous professional arseholes in Known Space. ‘I mean really! I know we’re all well armed and Known Space is a dangerous place, but there are other fucking means of conflict resolution where mutually assured destruction isn’t a fucking certainty! I mean, what? Will your heads explode if we have a conversation, or will you find yourself unable to sustain an erection for the next five fucking years because an hour went by and you didn’t manage to kill something?! I mean really! Grow! The! Fuck! Up!’ Vic finally managed to get control of himself and waited for the inevitable killing.
‘I’d clap if I had use of both arms,’ said the Monk, who Vic was beginning to like and think of in relation to his egg-fertilising wand.
‘We want the bridge tech,’ Elite Scab said.
‘Who wouldn’t?’ the guide said. ‘But we do not have it.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ the Monk said.
‘We would be prepared to offer Pangea membership in the Consortium, a senior seat on the board.’
‘We are not interested,’ the guide said. ‘And we have not acquired bridge technology since you last mentioned it a moment ago.’
This is weird, Vic thought. It was as if the Consortium was showing its hand. They had sent an Elite out with little to negotiate with. It was almost as if the Elite had been sent here to be humiliated.
‘You realise that if Pangea gains unrestricted access to bridge tech then there will have to be a military response from the Consortium systems.’
‘Well yes, and we still don’t have access to it.’
‘Don’t you get tired of being prisoners of the Church?’ Elite Scab asked.
‘You are asking the wrong people. We have all we need here.’
‘Until you’ve sucked this world dry.’
The guide said nothing.
‘You’re the Elder, aren’t you?’ Vic asked the translucent glowing man. He smiled.
‘The essence of the Lord of Pangea is contained within the cities and we are all linked. We are one.’
‘So everyone on Pangea is aware of this conversation?’ Scab and Elite Scab asked at the same time. The Elder nodded. Both looked less than pleased.
‘Fucking amateurs,’ Elite Scab muttered.
‘You’re thinking of it in terms of millions of individuals knowing your secrets, but we are as one and can be discreet when we choose. Now, you have delivered your message, though I’m not sure what it was. Please leave.’
Elite Scab’s features were unreadable as he walked to the wall, Scab following every move. Elite Scab started to vibrate – it looked like he went out of phase – and then he just pushed through the wall and out into the freezing skies of Pangea. The Elder cried out again, and the room seemed to flinch. Elite Scab was hovering outside the transparent flesh. He turned to look at them, then the exotic matter of his armour leaked through his skin like oil. The black glass material formed into its coffin-like configuration and he disappeared into the sky.
‘Well, he seemed nice,’ Vic muttered. When he looked up he found Scab looking at him. Both were then distracted by a cracking noise and a shout of pain. They turned to the Monk, who had just put her arm back into place. It looked like it was starting to heal. Scab’s face was returning to its normal dimensions as well, though it was still covered in dry
ing blood.
‘I’m a little confused as to who you’re working for,’ the Elder said to Scab. ‘Because if you’re not working for Consortium interests . . .’
‘Then you would be the next most likely client,’ the Monk said as she sat down, grimacing slightly.
‘Though there are competing interests in the Consortium,’ the Elder said.
‘Not for something like this,’ Scab pointed out.
‘Do you have a name?’ Vic asked the Monk, feeling slightly smitten.
‘Yes. Who doesn’t?’ she answered irritably.
‘What are you doing?’ Scab asked her.
‘What does it look like?’ There was pain written across her face, presumably from the healing process. ‘I’ve worked quite hard to get to the point where I can have a reasonable conversation with you.’
‘How did you find us? I put a week-long block on the information we got from Pythia.’
‘I guessed,’ the Monk said.
‘You’re lying,’ Scab said with certainty.
‘Well, let me just explain to you all the secrets of my trade,’ she offered sarcastically.
‘We have business to discuss with the Elder here. We can’t do it with you here. Either leave or . . .’
‘What?’ Vic asked. ‘Get scolded by petulant psychopaths? The Living Cities have made it clear that not even Elite arseholes, no offence, are getting to push people around.’
‘Mr Matto is right. It seems to require a great deal of effort and indeed the death of some of our people just to get you to have a reasonable discussion.’
‘There’s nothing to discuss, surely?’ Scab said irritably, wishing that he could smoke. ‘We want whatever is in the cocoon because it could break the Church’s monopoly on bridge travel, and they want to stop us from doing that.’
‘Actually, we want to help you steal it,’ the Monk said. She was smiling. The Elder let out a sigh.
‘You’re very pretty,’ Vic said. ‘How do you feel about ’sects?’
‘Sex?’
‘’Sects, insects. Cross-species copulation?’
‘Why?’ Scab asked.
‘Because the Absolute having access to the cocoon is as abhorrent to us as it is to you. So once we’ve stolen it, then we can start screwing each other over to see who ends up with it.’
‘Bit of a risk for you?’ Scab said, but Vic could tell he was warming to the plan. There was even the trace of a smile in the slightly upturned corner of his mouth, though Vic had to magnify his optics to see that.
‘Less of a risk than the Absolute having it. Besides, you’re overconfident to the point of having a god complex; I don’t see any huge problem in screwing you over.’
Now Scab was smiling.
‘Back off, Scab. I saw her first,’ Vic said, much to everyone’s confusion, before turning to the Monk. ‘You’re very pretty. We should totally have sex.’
‘And with reasonable conversation comes romance,’ the Elder said.
‘I’ve never had sex with an insect before. I wouldn’t even know where to begin,’ the Monk said, sounding a little surprised. She turned back to Scab. ‘Unless you want to be reasonable. We’ll pay you twice what your current employer is. You might even end up in credit.’
‘The money’s abstract now.’
‘Let’s not be too hasty,’ Vic said. ‘And it’s okay. I have immersions which would help explain,’ he said to the Monk.
‘Explain what?’ the Monk asked, confused.
‘Sex with insects.’ Vic was a little hurt that she didn’t seem to be paying attention.
‘Well, romance of a sort,’ the Elder observed.
‘Why didn’t you open with that?’ Scab asked.
‘Offers of insect sex?’ the Monk asked, more confused.
‘I would be up for that,’ Vic said. The Monk glanced at him distractedly.
‘The offer to work together and then I kill you and take what I want anyway,’ Scab said, explaining the deal from his perspective.
‘Like she had time!’ Vic cried, trying to appear gallant in front of his new interest. ‘Every time she, or the other guy, the one on Arclight, tried to talk to you, you responded with attempted and actual murder!’
‘So you’re not interested in the money then?’ the Monk asked Scab.
‘You can’t pay me what I’ve been offered,’ Scab said.
The Monk studied him. ‘I believe you. On Arclight we had hoped that familiarity and a biological link would be enough to open negotiations with you.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Vic asked suspiciously. ‘Scab, what’s she talking about?’ But Scab ignored the question and just stared at the Monk. She seemed surprised.
‘Did he not tell you that it was his son he killed in the Polyhedron?’ the Monk asked Vic.
Vic turned to stare at Scab, whose face was impassive underneath the crust of dried blood.
‘Did you not even upload my file?’ Scab asked.
‘We had hoped that murdering your offspring was as much a phase as propagating them had been in the first place.’
‘When did you kill your children?’ Vic asked.
‘Be quiet, Vic.’ Then to the Monk: ‘Stop cloning him, destroy the genetic material and his personality and memory uploads.’
‘Is that a condition of your cooperation?’
‘Was that when you killed me the last time and the ship got damaged?!’ Vic demanded.
‘Shut up, Vic. And yes, it is a condition of my cooperation.’ The Monk gave this some consideration.
‘Agreed,’ she finally said, somewhat reluctantly. Scab studied her for a while.
‘You’re good. The only reason I know you’re lying is because you agreed too quickly to kill a member of the Church. But there were no tells whatsoever.’
The Monk looked less than pleased. She shifted in her seat and leaned towards Scab.
‘I think you underestimate the importance of this.’
‘Your monopoly. I think we understand the motivations of power and greed in the Seeder Church,’ the Elder said. Vic was fascinated by the display of bioelectric energy that played through his internal organs as he said this. The Monk said nothing but Vic noticed that she swallowed.
‘What?’ Scab said suspiciously. Apparently he had noticed it as well. ‘You don’t feel it’s about that?’
The Monk shook her head, a degree of defiance in the set of her mouth.
‘You actually believe the shit you peddle?’ Scab asked.
‘Did you when you were the leader of a heretical street sect on Cyst?’ she asked – somewhat combatively, Vic thought.
‘What are you bringing to the table?’ Scab asked her, changing the subject.
Instead of answering, the Monk turned to the Elder.
‘We have access to the biotechnology and enough intelligence as well as experience from the Art Wars to enable you to infiltrate the Game and hopefully get you close to the cocoon you’re after,’ the Elder told them
‘What’s in this for you?’ Scab asked.
‘The Absolute, despite his power, is a very immature lord. He is playing games of control and empire that many of us have left behind. He has too much influence over what you call the Monarchist systems as it is. With his control of the Elite, access to bridge technology would give him the power to remake the entirety of the Monarchist systems in his image. He wants it all because he will never realise that it won’t make him happy.’
‘The Absolute’s a man then?’ the Monk asked. ‘I find myself unsurprised.’
The Elder actually laughed at this. ‘You’ve no idea how much of a male he is.’
‘Are you sure you don’t just want to fuck him over for your humiliating defeat in the Art Wars?’ Scab asked.
‘Would it make any difference to you if it was?’
‘No, but I respect honesty.’
‘This has considerably more to do with self-preservation.’
Scab nodded and turned back to the Monk.
‘Because they can get you in –’ the Monk pointed at the Elder ‘– but only I can get you out.’
The plan was suicidal, Vic thought as he inspected a food bladder and watched a bioelectric charge arc from one organ, designed to store harnessed energy, to another. Despite sometimes making him feel like he was being digested, Vic loved the Living City. The Elder, who was basically just an avatar representation of the city, had given him the freedom to roam around and look at the biotechnological wonder. He was standing on an artery that curved underneath the roughly saucer-shaped domed city. Far below he saw the windswept and scarred rock of the planet’s surface, the skirt of tendrils trailing towards it.
Vic reviewed the information he’d bid for from Pythia. He would have to erase it and trust to the remaining meat in his head to remember it. If he didn’t then Scab would find it the next time he neurally audited him. It would be enough for Scab to cause Vic pain but not enough to kill him.
Jide and his crew had been on Pythia to buy information on a completely separate case. To Pythia’s knowledge there was no bounty being offered for Scab and Vic, despite what Scab had done on Arclight. Scab had found who the most dangerous crew in the area were and had picked a fight with them to make an example. He had then paid bribes to manipulate the media so it looked like Jide had come after them.
Arguably the example could have been made without destroying Jide and his crew’s chance at being cloned. Vic guessed that Scab had decided that it wouldn’t be enough. He wanted other crews to know that if they came after him it was permanent death. He didn’t want any distractions on this job.
It was too much for Vic though. Even if they got the cocoon, he still had no idea what it was about or how it connected to bridge technology. They also had the three most powerful organisations in Known Space about to squash them like bugs. They would probably let them experience the cutting edge of prolonged torture immersions first.