by Naomi Foyle
The car hit a puddle.
Sydney’s eyes sprang open.
A wall of water sprayed over the car in a bleary light-streaked fan.
At last she came, or something like it, a splintered, fractured, neon explosion that ripped her out of her body, out of the vision-world, into darkness and silence and then, at last, into a hurtling, white-hot scream, not of terror, but of fury.
Sydney’s scream reverberated down an endless corridor in his mind: a corridor that ended in a door he never, ever wanted to open: a door behind which Jessica died every day, all alone, small and naked, while he played with sand castles and didn’t care where she’d gone. That door was swiftly growing larger as he was sucked toward it by a searing, high-pitched blast of sound, it was waiting to swing open and slam him inside to a place full of maggots and rot and the smell of stale semen, the desolate howls of his mother and the empty eyes of his dad, and the high, sputtering laughter of someone who had taken Jessica away forever, someone Damien wanted to kill but never would, because Damien was weak and stupid and frightened and worthless, and should be dead himself, should be dead, should be dead, should be dead—
With a huge effort of will, Damien wrenched himself back into the car. Beneath his layers of winter clothing he was cold and damp and shaking, and his tongue was a mossy slab in his mouth. It felt like a year since he’d last drawn breath.
Sydney had gone limp. Her hand was like a piece of plasticine in his; a string of saliva hung from her lower, blooded lip. Outside, the river had disappeared into darkness. Inside the car was completely still. Even Sandman’s elbow had stopped moving. The psycho was humming now—some weird, off-key tune, punctuated by fizzles of spit. Christ, was it “My Way”?
Ahead, the road made one final curve into a large round clearing lit by a single lamppost. Beneath the light, a spade was planted between a mound of earth.
The car swung round; Pebbles braked.
A sledgehammer pounded a hole in Damien’s chest.
Keep calm, he thought, swallowing back an upsurge of bile.
Everything was happening in freeze-frame. Sydney’s eyes were open, but staring vacantly ahead. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
Johnny withdrew the gun and pressed it, slick and sticky, against her belly. Grab it, Damien thought, crazily. Twist it out of his grasp. Break his wrist.
But the Yank was built like a brick shit-house, and anyway, the thought had barely flashed into his mind before Johnny was waving the blunt barrel in his face.
“All right, English. When I hold the gun to Pebbles’ very expensive head, you can tie her up. Use your scarf—and her cable. Wrap them around her arms and the back of her seat.”
“Yeah, sure, thanks, man,” he stammered. If he could grab the cable, he could whip Johnny in the face with it—or maybe he could unlock the doors and run—or at least tie the knots loose, or “accidentally” leave the ProxyBod’s hands free—maybe she could plug herself back in?
“I’m going to have to tie you up too after that,” Johnny continued.
“Hey!” Damien squeaked. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“If I want to see you get your kicks with the bitches, it’s going to be when and how I say.” His voice was ugly and tarry again. His hand still gripping Sydney’s hair, Johnny held the gun aloft. “Pebbles, honey: unplug yourself. Now.”
Damien gave Sydney’s pinky one final squeeze. She gripped his fingers tightly in return.
Now the effort of trying not to feel anything, pleasure or pain, was over and the brutal new fact of the gun on her stomach was dragging her back to the interior of the car. Damien was talking to Johnny, squeezing her pinky, trying to get her to help him.
But he didn’t need her help.
Sydney closed her eyes. She couldn’t see the Peonies anymore, but she could hear them, whistling and chattering outside, swooping under and over the car, playing dangerous games beneath the chassis, rattling the exhaust pipe, their echoes shaking the seats. She gripped Damien’s little finger back. Everything’s okay, she told him, we’re going to be all right.
“No one is tying Pebbles up.”
Da Mi’s voice slid into Sydney’s mind like an icicle. She shivered as it melted away.
“You’re not the one giving the orders anymore, Doc,” Johnny sneered, as mean as always—but it was all meaningless now. Outside, her babies were smashing the headlights, clawing at the windows, banging their heels in the roof in a thundering tantrum of warning. It didn’t matter what Johnny did or said; they would soon be on him, they would bombard him, destroy him, pull him limb from limb.
Her eyelids were glued shut, but she could see everything. All around the car endless spiral metal ladders, corkscrew slides, were shooting up like magic beanstalks between the walls of ginormous glittering castles. These looming palaces of light were tiled with broken mirrors, their turrets made of tornadoes, double helix helter-skelters and huge swirling ice-cream cone domes, all spinning at a hundred different speeds. Glorious sunshine flooded the Vision City at the heart of VirtuWorld, throbbing and pulsing and revolving with goodness and rightness. Orange and pink flags and banners unfurled, snapped and rippled in the breeze. Everywhere she could hear the chatter of her children, the excited preparations for a battle to the death.
The ProxyBod stepped on the gas and the car revved out of the clearing and over the end of the road, dropping onto a gravel slope and hurling the passengers out of their seats. The gun rose in Johnny’s fist, jerked back at a strange angle to within an inch of the roof of the car. Just for a moment Damien thought he would drop it.
Then everything happened at exactly the same time:
The car landed and Pebbles turned in her seat. The space between her eyebrows opened as if on hinges and dropped down over the bridge of her nose. Silently and smoothly, a gun barrel emerged from between her eyes, aiming straight at Johnny’s head.
“Damien!” Sydney screamed, her rigid body rising in the center of the car as Johnny pulled her into the line of fire, and Damien lunged forward. The Sonata jack-knifed, he grabbed Sydney’s shoulder and a thunderbolt of colors tore through his head like a deafening Acid-Industrial non-song.
The back of the car hit the ground with a smack. Mud rained down, the windows turned to liquid and all the Peonies in the world flew in to trample and ravage and maul the man with the gun. The heavens were cracking open, trumpets were screaming, the car windows were melting and Sydney’s children were swarming inside. The fish-tailing Sonata was now a spinning kaleidoscope of Peonies, chartreuse Peonies, turquoise Peonies, crimson, canary, cobalt, emerald, cherry, tangerine, bubblegum Peonies all howling for blood.
Then everything went black.
Sydney couldn’t breathe.
42 / Miscarriage
All around her was the gentle, plopping sound of simmering porridge. Something warm and liquid was dropping from the roof onto the leather seat, into her clothing, slipping down the back of her neck. And Damien was on top of her, crushing her, his chin digging into her shoulder.
“Let me up,” she gargled, but her mouth was clogged with her own hair. She twisted around to push him away.
Her hands pressed against wetness. Damien’s jacket was soaked with hot, black liquid. His body was inert. With a huge effort she pushed him against the door of the car. His head rocked back to hit the window, then flopped forward on his chest. At the same time, she became acutely aware of Johnny’s knees, digging into her back. Fear and fury shooting through her, she whipped round to confront him. His body was slumped back into the seat. His mouth was hanging open and there was a raw black hole in his temple.
She gasped for breath, then turned back to Damien. A dark jam smeared the glass behind his head. His forehead was a jagged red cave and his right eyeball was hanging down on his cheek.
She looked at her hands: they were slimy with blood. She closed her eyes and screamed: a shrill, escalating scream, punctuated by the slow pucker of the droplets falling, more slowly n
ow, just one drip at a time.
“Sydney!” Da Mi’s voice ricocheted into the dark space between them. “Sydney! Are they dead?”
“Damien’s dead!” Even while she was shrieking his name, a clear, urgent chill was rising inside her. She had to get a grip. She had to get out of this car.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. She couldn’t look sideways. She couldn’t think about Damien. She had to look straight ahead—into Da Mi’s bloodless mask.
“Good.” The ProxyBod switched on the light in the roof of the car. The gun was still sticking out of her forehead. Leaning back between the seats, she tried to take Sydney’s hand.
Sydney shrank back, shaking in an Arctic wind of disbelief.
Pebbles sighed as the gun slid back inside her skull. “Sydney, you have to believe me: I only wanted to frighten you tonight. But those men would have killed you. I know it’s terrible for you right now, but I had to stop them.”
It took a moment to connect the dots. “You shot him? You shot Damien?”
“He was doing a deal with Johnny—he was planning to rape you. I heard them talking. You were unconscious. I had to take action.”
“You liar! You horrible, horrible liar! Damien was protecting me. He was protecting me from you, Da Mi!” She twisted away from Pebbles toward Damien’s body. Gulping, she gazed at the ruin of his face. A hot, heavy wave of grief swamped her anger. Reaching up, she stroked his good cheek. A thin layer of stubble rasped beneath her fingertips. She found his hand, clasped his little finger and lifted it to her lips.
We had a promise, she told him. I remember our promise.
“Please believe me, Sydney,” Da Mi said softly, “I wasn’t going to shoot you. I’m the one who’s protecting you.”
“Protecting me? By kidnapping me? By letting Johnny rape me with a gun?” She realized she was still half-naked, swollen and stinging. She tugged her panties and jeans up, wincing, zipped herself back in. Adrenalin was coursing through her, and in a dim corner of her brain she recognized that this silent surge of energy was preventing her from collapsing in hysterics. She also knew that however much she wanted to lunge at Da Mi’s big doll and break its fucking neck, that would be a very stupid thing to do.
“You have let me down once too often, Sydney, but that doesn’t mean I want to hurt you. My intention this evening was to use Johnny to get you and Damien here, then to kill him and let you two go.”
“What?” Again, Da Mi’s words took a few seconds to compute. Sydney glanced again at Johnny’s body: his oozing head wound, his gun arm dangling awkwardly in his lap. Something like relief shivered through her, followed by a wash of nausea. Swallowing back a mouthful of bile, she stared into Pebbles’ glassy brown eyes.
“That was your plan? To kill Johnny right beside me?”
The ProxyBod tilted its weird, oversized head and blinked slowly. Da Mi’s most emollient, consoling voice flowed out of its magenta lips. “He was violent and irrational, Sydney. We had video evidence of him attempting to sabotage the ProxyBod project in an extremely perverse manner. Even his superiors were afraid of what he might do next. They granted Pebbles permission to terminate him. To be honest, they would have preferred both you and Damien dead as well. I had to fight hard to save your lives.”
Sydney leaned forward. Pebbles’ eyes reflected nothing human except Sydney herself, flaring in the dark irises like two tiny fires. “You said Pebbles was a game, Da Mi—what the fuck is going on? Who the fuck are you?”
“Naturally the ProxyBod has military applications, Sydney,” Da Mi said calmly. “I don’t like it any more than you do—I resisted for the longest time. But ultimately I realized that cooperating with ConGlam was the only way to fund the Peonies.”
Damien had warned her, ranting at her on her sofa; Damien had known. “So are they going to be monsters too?” she asked bitterly.
“No, Sydney, the Peonies are going to be everything I told you they would be: spiritual, musical, nurturing beings, and more.”
“What?” Sydney snorted. “Are they going to have two heads?”
“Please.” The ProxyBod’s voice was low and urgent. “Let’s not argue. You have to know that there is a desperately important reason for the trauma you’ve experienced tonight.”
“The fact that you’re insane?” Why was she having a fucking conversation? She had to get out of here.
But she was trapped. Even if she could wrest Johnny’s gun out of his hand, Da Mi would shoot her before she could use it. Shuddering, Sydney covered her eyes with her arms. Where were the Peonies now? Why had they abandoned her, dumped her back in her body again, the last place in the world she wanted to be? Her head was cracking open, every bone in her ached, and her pussy was raw and sore, like a piece of meat Johnny had bashed and banged, just because he could. Tears squeezed down her cheeks. There was nowhere to look that didn’t make her want to throw up.
But even though she couldn’t see her anymore, Da Mi wasn’t going away. “It’s not insane to ensure that humanity survives a global ecological disaster, is it?” she cajoled.
“The only disaster here is you!” Sydney yelled. “I wish I’d never met you, Da Mi.” She struck her hands over her ears, but Da Mi’s voice snaked between her fingers into her brain.
“Sydney, listen to me. I didn’t want to tell you this—I didn’t want to frighten you—but ever since I’ve met you I’ve been trying to save your life. People think we have twenty or thirty years to save the planet, but we don’t. We have a month, and we won’t make it. On December twenty-first, an asteroid called Lucifer’s Hammer is going to hit the Atlantic Ocean. The impact will cause massive tsunamis that will hit Europe, Africa and North and South America. When they recede, the world will be devastated. Essential infrastructures will be washed away, major Western capitals will lie in ruins. The nuclear powers may well take the opportunity to settle old scores, wipe out their opponents forever. But if the human race survives, Seoul will be protected by its mountains, and we will become one of the planet’s most important cities. Korea’s leaders know this; that’s why they have allowed the tent-cities to flourish. And I am one of the people they most rely upon.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. “Then they’re fucked, aren’t they, Da Mi?” she shouted, clenching her fists. “I relied on you, and look at me!”
But Da Mi just purred on and on in that low, melodious voice, like she used to do in the cafés, in the anbang, in the Chair. “Darling, darling, I’m so sorry about Johnny. I stopped him as soon as I could. Please listen, Sydney: my plan was to take you to my mountain village for the Solstice, to meet the surrogate mothers. You can still come: you can survive the floods and stay safe from social chaos. If you don’t, Sydney, I can’t guarantee your safety. And think about it: even if global civilization is rebuilt, in most places on the planet it will be too hot to go outside for six months of the year. Africa and India will have been half-emptied by famine and floods. Hospitals in America and Europe will be turning away millions of people dying of skin cancer, malaria, dengue fever, cholera. If you leave Seoul now, perhaps you yourself will be ill or thirsty or hungry too.”
Was there no air in the car anymore? Sydney’s mouth was coated with gunge, her head felt dizzy and Damien was dead. “I don’t care,” she choked. “I don’t care.”
“I care, Sydney. I want you to stay and finish healing in the Chair and be around to help the Peonies grow up. The Peonies will be strong, healthy, beautiful people—your children, miracle beings, created to survive even radiation and nuclear winter.”
Change the record, Da Mi. “You’re so full of bullshit,” Sydney croaked. “You can’t force me to do what you want, so don’t try to scare me—”
But Pebbles raised her hand to continue. “Please—let me finish. I’m not trying to frighten you; just the opposite. I want you to be excited about the future! I haven’t told you half of what the Peonies can be, Sydney. Their natural lifespan will be at least two hundred years—and if you keep taking th
e honey drink, you can share in their longevity. Imagine being young and beautiful for decades, enjoying all the pleasures of life, all the while growing in wisdom and experience. Maybe you don’t ever have to die—even if our own bodies finally collapse, in a hundred years we will be able to transplant our brains into a ProxyBod, transfer our consciousness itself. Can you imagine it, Sydney: all our memories, our personality, our sensual experiences, housed in an indestructible body, one that’s capable of living on Mars, or traveling deep into outer space. It can be done—GRIP is halfway there already—and I want you to join us!”
Sydney closed her eyes. “You want to put my brain inside one of those things? That’s gross, Da Mi.”
“You’re so young.” Da Mi’s voice was sad. “You still think you’re immortal. Do you know how many people would kill for the opportunity I’m offering you right now?”
It was like hitting the wall in the gym, then getting your second wind. Something clicked in Sydney’s skull and a dose of liquid rage coursed through her veins. She shot up from her seat, gripped the front chair backs, and screamed, “You would kill! You just killed Damien! If you think I want to hang around with you for the next two thousand years, you’re nuts, Da Mi! I hate you—I hate you! Get that into your thick rubber head!”