by Kim Newman
Christina’s filaments changed colour angrily. They looked like electric ghost nerves.
Warning bells sounded.
Wings Over the World to the rescue! Another distraction.
Thank you, Syrie.
The Daikaiju – whoever was in its driving seat – only had to stand for another five minutes.
Then, midnight – and the Ascension.
This terminal would be obsolete.
Christina and Jun Zero could afford to lose their bodies.
They’d quit the flesh and this giant fucking monster. It stood to reason. Colossi fell in the end. Pyramids crumbled. Gargantuabots rusted. The Ascended would be a pernicious weed. Rooted deep, and with such a complex, all-permeating branch pattern, it couldn’t be pulled up and burned.
It would be impossible to turn off.
The world user couldn’t be trapped in a box.
Zeroids were everywhere. Aum Draht too.
Factions would worship the new boss-god, trying to believe they alone would be saved as genocide tallies rose. Rebellions would be crushed.
The Princess might imagine banishing all bad people – by her definition – with her ossification beam. But she wouldn’t chuck a bug grenade into the marketplace. She was a ruthless moralist, not a sociopath. Even as a terrorist, she’d been purposeful.
The Light Years – Anni Lux – would be crushingly horrible.
But Zeroworld would be worse.
Jun Zero was a nutter.
He wanted a killing jar the size of a planet.
DR AKIBA
In the dark, Fire Dragon fought Black Bat.
Even without a face, Akiba saw the laser. A fireline through the eternal night.
He felt the explosions. Concrete, sheet metal and glass fell all around.
More were dead than he could count.
PAUL METCALF
Direct hits.
Only superficial damage.
‘Wing Missiles Two and Three preparing,’ he reported.
‘Silly billies,’ said Drusilla.
The seeress unlocked her seatbelt and stood.
Warning lights went on. Sirens sounded.
The Black Manta was so finely balanced the bodyweight of the crew was taken into account – a design feature copied from the Hansom Cab, of all things. Unauthorised jumping about the cabin could be disastrous.
Wing Captain Gardner wrestled the controls but the Manta dipped on its side. The left and right wings became top and belly fins.
The Daikaiju’s beam weapon – hell, its death-ray eye, its basilisk stare, its gorgon glance! – would have sheared off a wing if they were flying straight.
Drusilla had saved the ship. She’d seen the future and scotched it.
‘Wing Missiles Two and Three readied,’ he said.
His hand hovered over the button.
‘Abort firing,’ said the Wing Captain. ‘She’s right. We can’t hurt it. All we’d do is trash a couple of city blocks. Kill innocents. That’s not the Way of the Wings.’
‘We can’t dodge that toecutter beam for long,’ said Hayata.
‘I know,’ said Gardner. ‘I’m going to try something out of the box.’
Drusilla kissed her fingers and slapped the top of the Wing Captain’s helmet.
‘Brace for impact, Wingmen,’ said Gardner. ‘This might not be survivable.’
What did it matter? Paul Metcalf was dead already.
After this he’d just stop moving.
NEZUMI
Hal wasn’t himself.
He was possessed by Jun Zero.
Hal wasn’t even important to the demon now. His purpose was served. He was a skin to be shed by the serpent. Only allowed independent existence to get Lefty – the client, the villain of the piece – past the Princess’s moral bug-zapper.
Nezumi was sad about that.
Whether Hal was real or not, she felt sorry for him.
She did not feel her trust was betrayed. Hal hadn’t meant to mislead or hurt her.
He wasn’t cruel, like the Bad Penny.
Tsunako Shiki would enjoy the World Under Zero. Lots of toys to break.
The pest hadn’t been trying to kill Hal. She was working for Jun Zero all the time, for giggles. But – even if they were holding back – he’d seen off trained assassins. He was only harmless at the surface level. Unconsciously, he was a survivor.
Hal was who Nezumi believed he was. He had to be, to get here.
Even now, she wanted to look after him. To save him from drowning in the polluted well that was User Jun Zero.
That was a mean joke in plain sight. Jun Zero had used everyone. Aum Draht, Radu cel Frumos, the EarthGuard rogues, the Princess, Nezumi and Mr Jeperson. Most of all, his invented better self. All merely conduits for his Ascension.
Nezumi knew she was to blame.
She had not been suspicious enough. She had not seen through the boy who needed to be looked after. She helped others because she was a leech, a vampire. She had to prove she wasn’t utterly selfish. This was where that had got her.
Midwife to the nightmare century.
‘Christina looks poorly,’ said Mr Jeperson.
Nezumi wasn’t surprised.
The Princess was locked in her failing body. It must be galling to be kicked out of your own purpose-built mind-castle.
The woman laid out on the bed still shone, but was haggard. Consumed by her own glow, she sank into the mattress as if it were bathwater. Her filaments broke up. Firefly sparks fell on her bier. Her raiment was mouldy, like a shroud.
Now Hal was wreathed in light, connections throbbing with energy, neon ghost-worms burrowing into his face.
He didn’t fight. He was letting himself go.
DETECTIVE AZUMA
The ptero-bat reared up in the air, wings curving, coming in to land like a falcon rather than an aircraft.
It slammed into the upper floors of the Daikaiju Building. Grapples unspooled from its undercarriage and latched on ledges.
With a painful creak, black wings curled around the dragon’s body. It attached itself to the neck-ruff like a vampire, biting.
Windows exploded.
Shards speared down.
‘Oh, my eye,’ said Derek. ‘Never mind. It’s nothing.’
Dr Akiba had a glass wedge stuck in his no-face. He pulled it out and threw it away. The cut healed over, tendons knitting inside the wound.
Asato shook out her hair. Splinters pattered on stone.
A severed head rolled against Azuma’s shoes. It had crinkling cat-ears and was rapidly going off.
‘Frig me with a forklift truck, it’s the bloomin’ Butler!’ said Derek.
Azuma remembered. One of Golgotha’s crew. Guillotined by falling glass. A shabby end, no matter that puffed-up perp deserved worse.
‘I was sure he was behind it all, you know,’ said Derek. ‘How it always turns out in the flicks, isn’t it? The Butler did it.’
‘This was done to the Butler,’ said Azuma.
He kicked the head. It came apart like a rotten pumpkin.
Azuma got scum on his shoe. Typical evening, then.
Booting the Butler’s coconut didn’t bring back Inugami, the Sakis, or the other good (and bad) police who’d died. It was an ill-will gesture.
Azuma would have to report all this to Captain Takeda. Somehow, everything would wind up being officially his fault. They’d call him Beat because he’d end his career walking one – in the Aokigahara Forest, hauling hiker suicides back to a way-station for disposal.
Asato gasped – a low, extended exhalation – and they all looked up again.
The ptero-bat’s wings were wreathed in flame.
Its head – cabin, cockpit, flight pod? – was jammed into the Dragon’s Mouth.
Great bursts of fire spurted around it. Retardant foam gushed and dribbled.
The dragon looked rabid.
The Daikaiju’s hide lit up like a giant pachinko board. Cables snaked out of its pede
stals like kicking, untethered fire hoses. The rubber-sheathed tentacles felt around, trying to make connections. It wanted to feed off the power of the city.
‘Maybe now’s the time to skedaddlerate,’ said Derek.
Azuma agreed.
He and Derek had to coax Asato and Akiba away. They were weird ones, drawn to the maelstrom around the clashing kaiju. If Akiba had family, he would have to do some explaining – with pen and paper – when he came home faceless. Asato would need a new job. If Azuma got canned and had to open shop as a private eye, he’d hire her to run his office. She liked making phone calls.
The Gate was open. Those who could flee the Bund were heading for it.
Azuma saw the tipsy American actor and his pretty pink-haired friend.
‘I said I’d get you into an A-list party,’ he bragged.
Her hair was partly burned off and she had scabs on her neck and chin but she wasn’t complaining.
Hyakume, the gatekeeper, had given in – a full three minutes before it was due to retire – and let folk flood through its precious checkpoints without showing ID. Because most people didn’t know what had happened, there was still a queue to get in. The Gate couldn’t accommodate all the foot traffic, so vampires who could, flew or climbed the Wall. Azuma was tempted to join them, but was still on duty.
Chaos from the Bund spread to mingle with the chaos of celebration outside.
Tokyo was Yōkai City now.
RICHARD JEPERSON
The only person on their side with a hope of understanding (and unpicking) what Jun Zero was doing was a fictional character. The malicious Meccano mitt insisted they bring Hal along because his computer savvy was needed. A persuasive cover story. Had Lying Lefty outsmarted itself ?
‘Nezumi, talk to your friend,’ said Richard. ‘Encourage him to fight for his life.’
‘What life?’
‘Even if it’s illusion, it’s life.’
He felt that Nezumi was shaken.
Floorlight panels flickered, somewhere between electric chessboard and disco dance arena. Bach sped up, then segued into a speed metal cover of ‘Yakkety Sax’. That was the sound of the world going down the plughole.
Two minutes left.
Nezumi knelt by the fagged-out warm man, who hung limp, fringe over his face, fixed to the oval screen by his traitor hand.
‘Hal,’ she said. ‘Listen…’
NEZUMI
‘He can’t do this without you,’ she told Hal. ‘He only wins if you let him.’
His face was a slack mask.
Up close, Nezumi saw faint scars around his jawline. Whoever he really was, he’d had work done.
Jun Zero was a human noppera-bō. A false face stitched over the blank.
No, not false.
She believed in Hal. She’d taken him for real.
He was scared but clever. Funny. Kind. Cranky. Obsessive, like stamp collectors or model train enthusiasts. He talked to her as if she were a person, not a little girl or a monster.
‘Snap to,’ she said. ‘You haven’t long. You can beat him.’
His eyes opened but it wasn’t him.
‘I know about you, Miss Mouse,’ said Jun Zero. ‘And you, Richard Jeperson.’
Mr Jeperson groaned and slumped to his knees beside them.
‘Fight, Hal,’ she said.
The mouth tried to smile. Hal’s face didn’t work for Jun Zero.
‘I know everything,’ he said. ‘I have full access. To hidden files in all the archives. I know who you are. I know the names you were born with. Which is more than either of you do.’
Even through the racket, Nezumi heard Mr Jeperson’s startled hiss.
‘I can tell you how many Geist/Yurei primes survived the War, whether they have fulfilled their potential. I can produce filmed records from Villa Pfaffenhof, implicating Dr Ziss and the Key Man. The plans they had for you, GEIST 97! What a creature you would have made if you’d completed the programme. You’d have been the worst. But you don’t want might-have-beens. You want actually-ises. So, here’s a taste of what you get if you stop making a nuisance of yourself. GEIST 83 and GEIST 89. Your sisters. Alive, in Serbia and Morocco. The Green Lamia and the Crimson Witch. You should never have been separated. You were a triad, made to fit together in a greater whole. I can reunite you with your family, Richard.’
Nezumi knew that was a temptation.
She felt the hook go into Mr Jeperson’s heart and tug.
All his life, he had sensed his shadow-self. Behind a curtain was a boy who grew up with another name, another nationality, another purpose. Jun Zero could lift that curtain.
And she thought of her cold mother. Yuki-Onna.
Mr Jeperson laughed. A shocking, mad, thrilling laugh.
She understood even before he explained.
‘It’s too much,’ he said to Nezumi. ‘Too golden. Too exactly what I want. This close to Ascension, he shouldn’t be desperate to give away prizes. That means we can still stop him. You, me and Hal.’
HAROLD TAKAHAMA
He heard Nezumi.
She asked him to struggle.
He couldn’t fight.
But he could play a game.
Who could pile up the most chips, the most points? Who would win living space in his brain?
He transitioned through states of being, levels of the game:
His body, self-designated Hal, worn out and in pain, supported by the little vampire girl who’d left her sword behind and now fought only with her pure heart.
The Daikaiju, a humungous vamp chewing its neck, fires raging throughout its body.
The glittering plain above, not yet conquered, but breached.
Standing at the edge of the battlegrid was a knight in robot armour. Its crested helm featured a single eyehole – a sucking white maw that drew in all light, like gallons of milk pouring into a sink.
This was the avatar Jun Zero would wear on the next level.
An army of beetle-carapace bots swarmed beneath his iron cloak. Each speck was a real-world mischief-maker who’d flock to Jun Zero’s standard. Feeling blessed to spread his carnage. Zeroids in Zorro hoods. Aum Draht adepts in eyemasks. Mechamatadors mounted on alien predators. Traitors to the living.
A locust cage hung from Jun Zero’s crooked staff. Behind criss-cross bars, a doll-sized fairy princess flickered. Christina Light in captivity, awaiting rescue.
Hal wasn’t a G-bot or a samurai.
He might not even be a person.
But, while he had full access, bytes popped up.
Seventeen listings for ‘Takahama’ in the Ventura County, CA telephone directory. Six in Ojai. Newspaper cuttings. George (Joji) Takahama of Persimmon Hill, awarded Fez of the Year 1994 by the Sons of the Desert. Dr Helen McLean (née Takahama), appointed resident therapist at Ojai North High School, 1997…
Nothing conclusive – but he might be a real boy after all! Not that he could do anything with it.
Digital clocks counted towards midnight.
23:59.47
In the next thirteen seconds, he could snap Jun Zero’s neck and end it all.
Including his own life or half-life.
Nezumi hoped he would come through. So he did too.
He was at the bottom of the cycle, in the Princess’s chamber, with Nezumi and her boss. Nezumi held his limp human hand, squeezing encouragement.
She hoped for the best.
23:59.51
Then he was the Daikaiju, systems breached, losing power.
23:59.55
He was on the plain, within reach of Jun Zero.
He remembered his coding, circa 1992. Throwaway designs. Obsolete in months. No need for eight-digit date-stamps. If those systems were still in use, they’d fail at midnight. Timers couldn’t reset to 1900 but would lose data-centuries chasing disappearing tails. A temp feature, a bug. A pitfall.
23:59.58
He touched Jun Zero and could have stopped him.
But – as light ex
ploded in his brain – he didn’t.
He used his access to make an edit then let Jun Zero Ascend.
JANUARY 1, 2000
RICHARD JEPERSON
All the lights went out. Most of the noise stopped.
In the dark, he heard himself breathe.
From outside the building and across the city, chimes – physical bells, not tape – and cheering.
‘What happened?’ Nezumi asked. ‘Did we lose?’
‘The Millennium Bug,’ said Hal – and it was Hal, not Jun Zero. ‘At midnight, everything shut down.’
‘Forever?’ Nezumi asked.
‘Everywhere?’ Richard added.
An underfloor panel lit up. Hal was relieved. Lefty unstuck from the terminal and slapped into his lap. Dead as a brick.
‘System will reboot. The unfuture-proofing was only local.’
‘Jun Zero?’
‘Fried. He had to mesh with the Daikaiju as a launch pad. When the system glitched – for a microsecond at midnight, by its internal atomic clock – he was wiped off the board. No back-ups. He Ascended into the void.’
They all stood up, carefully.
Christina was a recumbent semi-phantom.
Which made her better off than Jun Zero.
‘If she’d Ascended, would this have happened anyway?’
‘No, it was User Hal,’ he said. ‘Me. I was Jun Zero, I was throughout the building’s intranet, co-administrator, if only for a few seconds. I deleted a few lines of code. I couldn’t duke it out with lasers but I could trip him up.’
‘You fought the villain,’ said Nezumi, hugging him. ‘And won.’
‘Only because you made me.’
Nezumi looked down, modestly.
‘I’m proud of you, Hal,’ she said.
He got up, prosthesis thumping his leg. He prowled the room.
‘Do you know what Jun Zero said just before midnight?’ Richard asked.
‘About your… sisters? Yes. That packet ran through my mind. Like water. So far as I could tell, it was real. But it’s irretrievable. Junked by the bug. Anything Jun Zero was into got trashed. Wherever it was kept.’