‘Then what difference does it make if you tell her?’ Bress demanded. ‘Or is it just, even now, even after all the pain, you know how ridiculous “I want to destroy everything” will sound?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ Patron started.
‘It fucking is if you’re one of the poor fuckers about to not exist,’ Vic said. ‘I mean seriously, man, grow up.’ Patron turned to look at him. Talia wasn’t sure she had ever seen a look that more supremely defined cold anger. Vic took a step back. Talia found herself doing the same.
‘Vic,’ Talia said, putting her hand on his arm. His armour was still warm. ‘If it’s more complicated …’ she started.
‘I … we … just want the pain to end,’ Patron snapped. Then Talia saw it. It was etched all over his face.
‘We can end the suffering,’ Scab said.
Patron was shaking his head. ‘It’s not enough. Memory.’
‘We need to compromise now,’ Talia said, and found Scab’s dead eyes staring at her. ‘That way everyone’s equally unhappy,’ she said weakly.
‘I do its bidding—’ Patron started.
‘But neither you nor it are thinking straight,’ Bress said. ‘This is a pain response. You’re aeons old, the only thing holding you together is ill-will, unintentional masochism, and an instinctive understanding of how to manipulate fundamental forces. You want the pain to end, then end it.’
‘It would never allow me—’ Patron started. There was desperation in his voice, but something else as well. Hope. Talia’s eyes felt wet.
‘It’s a wounded animal, lashing out,’ Bress pleaded. Talia couldn’t help but glance at Scab. ‘Even if it had control of you in the past, here? Now? It’s so cold back in our universe that the simplest of its thought processes could take millions of years. You’re trapped in a cycle of your own pain and madness, but everyone around you is either afraid of you, or under your control, and nobody dares tell you this. You can end it with a thought.’
Patron stared at Bress. Realisation broke over his face. Suddenly he looked younger. Then he turned to dust.
All of them stared at where he had been standing. Even Scab. Talia was aware of tension leaking from Bress’s frame, tears running down his face. Britha watched the dust drifting to the ground, her face a mask of fury, as though she had been cheated, then she sagged as relief broke across her pained features like a wave.
‘Oh,’ Talia managed.
‘That was a lot easier than I’d thought,’ Vic said.
‘We need to kill the other two …’ Scab said, turning to the two remaining Elite. Talia lost her temper.
‘What the fuck is the matter with you?’ she demanded at him. Scab turned back to look at her. ‘Your fucking violence, and fighting, and all your hate, and anger, a complete waste of everyone’s fucking time! Do you not see that now?’
Everyone looked a little awkward, except for Scab, who looked furious.
‘Do you have anything to offer other than words …’ he started.
‘Words just fucking stopped us from getting killed!’ Talia screamed at him.
Scab pointed at the Innocent. ‘He has to—’
‘It doesn’t fucking matter!’ she shouted in his face. Straight away she knew she had gone too far, but she was past caring. Scab moved very quickly, but Vic was there between them.
‘Maybe you’ll win, maybe you won’t,’ the ’sect said evenly, ‘but you risk not being able to kill god.’
Scab was seething, trying to control himself.
‘I really was a fool,’ Bress mused. Scab’s head shot round to glare at him.
‘I’ll pierce your body with your own bones before you touch him,’ Britha spat at Scab. She reminded Talia of a witch in a children’s book. Scab looked like he was desperately trying to control his breathing. Britha turned back to Bress. ‘Is he some hellish fetch made in your image?’
‘There is only me,’ Scab shouted. ‘You’re a fucking copy, nothing more.’
‘Change a broom’s handle and its brush enough times, is it the same broom?’ Talia said, trying to calm down herself.
Bress sighed. ‘No, he is me, as was, and is one of our descendants.’ Now Scab was staring at Britha.
‘Do you know how much suffering I’ve caused?’ he demanded. ‘You should have drowned your child at birth.’ Talia found herself thinking of her teenaged temper tantrums.
‘I was not there at their birth,’ Britha said, though that did not make any sense.
‘The pain you’ve caused …’
‘You make the decisions!’ Bress snapped. ‘Stop making excuses!’
‘In fairness to him,’ Talia said, ‘he’s clearly mentally ill.’
‘He’s an entitled little prick, you mean,’ Vic muttered. Scab turned to stare at the ’sect. ‘I know: rage, rage, rage, threat, threat, threat. She’s right.’ He nodded to Talia. ‘None of this matters here … Can we get on and …’
‘Excuse me.’ All of them turned to look at the scorpion Elite. ‘I’m going to take young Woodbine here—’ She nodded at the sleeping Innocent. Scab bristled at the sound of his name ‘—and go. Okay?’
Nobody said anything. The silence stretched out. Talia’s enhanced awareness allowed her to notice both Scab and Vic tensing.
‘Sure,’ Talia finally said. The scorpion Elite walked over to the Innocent. The way she picked him up, cradling him in four of her arms, reminded Talia of a mother with her child. She looked around at the city, at the broiling seething mass that was the thing from the black lake.
‘He trapped us here,’ the Elite said. ‘But there has to be something for us as well.’
‘What do you want?’ Vic asked, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice. The arachnid hesitated.
‘You know, I haven’t thought in those terms for such a long time,’ she said.
‘I want to rest,’ the sleeping Innocent said in her arms. The arachnid looked down at the human Elite, and then back towards Talia, Vic, Scab, Bress and Britha.
‘I don’t think we want to fight any more today,’ she finally said, and then took off. They watched her fly through the city’s strange crumbling spires until she was out of sight. According to Talia’s new-found senses the two remaining Consortium Elite were making for low orbit.
‘I know how to kill it,’ Britha suddenly said. Talia assumed that she was talking about the Destruction. ‘To poison it. This city can act as a trod, send me, somehow, to the Hungry Nothingness.’
‘We have a way as well,’ Vic said. ‘We think we can make it kill itself.’ The ’sect glanced at Scab. ‘No harm in doubling up.’
‘I have come a long way to find you,’ Bress told Britha. ‘Please don’t just go now.’ There were no tears. He spoke without his voice breaking, but Talia could hear the strain in his words.
Britha touched her swollen head. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘I thought you were …’
Something was nagging Talia at the back of her mind. This didn’t seem right somehow.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Scab snapped. ‘Can we just get on with it?’
‘Shut up, you vicious little prick!’ Talia screamed at him. ‘After everything you’ve seen, done, is that all that you can offer? Self-pity and suicide?’ Scab was staring at her, breathing heavily. It reminded her of a panic attack.
‘You have to stop speaking to me like that,’ he managed. She saw Vic open his mandibles to counter-threaten.
‘Vic, don’t,’ she said. ‘Look, there has to be a better way than this. Has anybody tried talking to it?’ The moment the words were out of her mouth she remembered Portsmouth, the destruction it had wrought.
‘It’s not Crom Dhubh,’ Britha said. It took Talia a moment to realise that she meant Patron. ‘I have seen it, it ate the sky.’
‘It’s not something you can communicate with,’ Bress said gently. Talia noticed that he was holding onto Britha now, very tightly.
‘Patron must have,’ Talia said.
‘It did
n’t work out well for him,’ Scab snapped.
‘Maybe she’s got a point,’ Vic said, though even he sounded sceptical.
‘Maybe you just agree with everything she says,’ Scab spat.
‘It’s what Churchman was trying to tell us. I mean, all the violence and shittiness, it just played into Patron’s hands, which played into the Destruction’s hands, didn’t it? Created the kind of society that deserved to be destroyed, that wouldn’t resist. I mean, where has it got us?’
‘Here,’ Scab said. He sounded bored now.
‘Okay, fine. Patron and the Destruction were driven mad by pain. They couldn’t see beyond that. Can you?’ Vic asked his partner. He was sounding less sceptical now.
‘Your time is terrifying, Scab,’ Talia said. ‘But what about your ghost? What about what Oz showed you? I saw your face afterwards.’
‘I’m all for a better world,’ Scab said, eyes on the ground, then he looked up at her. ‘I just don’t think I have a place in it.’ Bress laughed. Talia felt like slapping him. Just for a moment she felt profoundly sorry for Scab. He turned to Britha. ‘We should both go, to be sure.’
‘I’m going, on my own,’ Talia said, simply.
‘No,’ Vic said immediately. Talia looked down.
‘You’re not in love with me, Vic. It’s just the side effects of your brain surgery, and I don’t love you. I just needed someone.’ When she looked up he had a very human-looking expression of hurt on his insect face.
‘And you’re going to do … what?’ Scab demanded.
‘Try and communicate.’
‘This is stupid,’ Scab spat.
‘Oh yeah,’ Talia said. ‘It’s stupid to talk about things. Much better to poison your problems, and try and get them to commit suicide.’
‘It’s trying to destroy everything!’ Scab shouted at her.
‘Do you care?’ Vic asked. It shut Scab up for a moment.
‘I want to do something,’ he said.
‘You have,’ Talia told him. ‘A great deal.’ She turned to Britha. ‘The city, it can … I don’t know … send me or something?’ Britha looked unsure but nodded. ‘So what do we do?’
‘I’m coming,’ Vic said. Talia sighed. ‘I don’t care about what you said. I just want to go where you go.’ Talia opened her mouth to argue, then she nodded. She wondered what would have happened if her sister had been here. She probably wouldn’t have let her try this. She was absurdly pleased that Vic was coming. It was selfish, she knew. It would probably end in instant oblivion, but she had never liked being on her own. Scab was shaking his head in disgusted disbelief.
Britha sat down in the ashes and debris and closed her eyes.
‘Vic,’ Scab said. Talia heard something in his voice and looked over at him. His armour was peeling open across his chest. He reached in and withdrew the large revolver he carried with him. Talia had an inkling that it was important to him somehow. The armour resealed as he walked over to Vic. ‘I’ve had enough now. I think you should do it. Use this.’ He held the revolver out to the ’sect. Vic looked down at it. Talia opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it as Vic made his own weapon grow out of his armour. It looked like a three-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. Talia glanced at Bress. He was watching the exchange. She could not read the expression on his face. Vic put the gun to Scab’s head. Talia squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Fuck you, Scab,’ she heard her insect lover say, and then tensed for the shot. Nothing happened. She opened an eye. Vic was lowering the three-barrelled weapon. Scab looked stricken.
‘Don’t get jealous,’ Talia told the big ’sect as she walked over to Scab and kissed him. He tasted of cigarettes. It was somehow comforting. She broke away from him. ‘I’m sorry I’m not her,’ she whispered and moved back to Vic, taking one of his hands in her own.
A complex, shining, crystal flower blossomed from Britha’s head. Talia and Vic both collapsed to the ground.
44
The City
Vic had the impression that he was standing on the floor in a broad room with a low ceiling, but the walls – if there were such – and the ceiling were lost in darkness. He was not sure where the light was coming from. Talia was standing next to him, and despite what she had said about not loving him, which he was sure she had meant, and she was probably right, she looked grateful for his company. There were two other figures in the room. One was a well-built human male with very short hair and light brown skin. He was wearing a grass skirt and his body and limbs were covered in tattoos composed of horizontal lines. At first Vic thought the hairless monkey was wearing a cloak made from some kind of tentacled creature. An octopus, according to his neunonics, but then he saw it move and realised that the octopus didn’t quite look right. Some of its tentacles were digging into the man’s flesh, and their two bodies looked at least partially fused.
The other figure was frail, his skin grey, loose and spotted. He was in a wheelchair, an oxygen tank attached to the back of it. He looked familiar to Vic. He had seen the man in one of Talia’s attempts at programming an immersion.
‘Dad!’ she cried, and ran to him, hugging him. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!’ Weak, sickly hands stroked her hair. ‘Vic, it’s my dad.’ She was smiling, despite the tears. Vic was loath to cause her pain, but he reached for her, trying to pull her away, though she resisted.
‘Talia, I don’t think that’s your father,’ he told her. She turned to look at the old man.
‘He is correct,’ the human in the grass skirt said. Talia pushed the hand of her father’s doppelganger away, and stood up. The figure in the wheelchair just watched her.
‘Who are you?’ Vic asked the human in the grass skirt.
‘I am, or I was, Lodup Satakano.’ He nodded towards the octopus fused with his back. ‘This is Lidakika.’ Talia had backed towards Vic, and he had put his arms around her. It was funny but he didn’t feel frightened here, just very protective.
‘You’re one of the Seeders, aren’t you?’ Talia said.
‘No,’ Lodup said. ‘I was a human. I worked in the city a very long time ago. I was, I guess, sacrificed to it. Lidakika, however, is a fragment of one of the minds that you call Seeders. She protected me, made a place for me. We spoke with Britha, who like you is connected to one of Lidakika’s sisters.’
Talia nodded. There were tears again, but Vic suspected that these weren’t the tears of self-pity, anger and frustration he was used to seeing from her.
‘I miss her,’ Talia said. Lodup smiled and nodded. Vic wasn’t sure if Talia meant the Seeder ship she had once been merged with, or her sister.
‘Which means that you are the Destruction,’ Vic said, turning to look at the figure shaped like Talia’s father. Lodup nodded.
‘As Britha asked, we have facilitated communication,’ Lodup said.
‘He’s not quite the raging inferno of hate, pain and oblivion I expected,’ Vic admitted.
‘This is how the communication has been translated. It is so you can understand it. The minds in the city attempted communication once before, but now they mostly sleep. Everything is cold now. Pain can only burn so hot in a time like this.’ Lodup’s voice sounded different, more feminine. His posture had changed. Vic wondered if they were talking with Lidakika now.
‘We need you to stop trying to destroy everything,’ Talia said. ‘Please.’
‘Existence is pain, there is only pain, and therefore there is no reason for it,’ the sick old man said.
‘Look, we can’t possibly imagine what it was like for you, but what about now? Surely it’s over?’
‘Only now can I think enough to understand what has happened to me,’ he said.
‘And the pain?’ Talia asked.
‘It is manageable. It is the memory. Physics is so cruel, and should not have been allowed to exist.’
Talia went quiet, thinking, clearly not sure what to say next.
‘But you’ve done extraordinary things,’ Vic said. ‘Look, th
e Seeders may not have worked out, but they did extraordinary things. They made her, me, all the other uplifts. You should see the things they can do. I mean they … we can be real fuckers, but they’re capable of other things as well. Living Cities, immersions, alcohol …’
‘Their accomplishments were taken from older races,’ the old man said.
‘Their culture wasn’t,’ Lodup said. His voice was back to its original masculine sound.
‘Music, art, poetry, literature, even the tech and science in my time, it was, to all intents and purposes, innovation: imagination and hard work building on itself,’ Talia said.
‘There is still sanity among your children,’ Lodup said, his voice turning feminine again. ‘It is there in the beauty of their minds, their accomplishments. They built entire ecosystems, created sentient species, they made an entire universe for you to hide from the pain.’
‘Look,’ Talia said. ‘Maybe we all seem fierce, and violent, and horrible, but the truth is, all the worst things just tend to be caused by a minority. Admittedly they are a minority with a disproportionate amount of power, but still. Maybe things changed after my time because they were socially engineered that way, but there were billions of unnoticed acts of kindness every day, billions of people caring for each other. Sure, we get distracted, we get caught up in our own selfish shit, and our insecurities make us want to find someone to look down on, and our fear has us looking for someone to blame, but that’s not really us. Not all the time.’ Her voice had become small and tapered away at the end. Vic wasn’t sure that the humans she was talking about still existed by the time he had been hatched.
‘I saw the look of wonder on a killer’s face,’ Vic said. He wasn’t sure where this was coming from. ‘Worst person I ever knew. He had probably killed millions, possibly billions in his lifetime. As an Elite he had been a one-man extinction event.’
Talia turned to look up at him. ‘Way to sell the species,’ she muttered.
‘Truth be told I wasn’t much better myself, just smaller scale, and less of an arsehole, but the Lloigor machine showed him something. Life in other places, in the hearts of stars, beneath the ice …’ Now he dried up.
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