by Jaine Fenn
Finally she was deep in the rarely visited base level of the infoscape, experiencing raw and unfiltered data ebb and flow around - and through - her. But though the sensation recalled her data nexus dream, this was no physical titillation, no bodily arousal; it was perfect synthesis. When she’d accessed the freetraders’ stream during the quarterly update on Tarset, she had experienced the dataflow peripherally. Now she was inside it. She knew how seductive this nowhere/everywhere place was, how easily she could lose herself in it. But she had work to do.
Hubs received three types of beevee transmission: messages, secure data and streamed pay-per-view entertainments. Unknown to most people, the latter high-volume channel contained additional verification keys for the two more secure lines, with partial decryption/re-encryption applied down here at the base level before the datastreams split off again, heading for local planetary systems or adjacent hubs. The filtering, splitting, decoding, re-encoding and packaging occurred at consolidation nodes, structures only accessible from within the inchoate data sea of base virtuality. The minuscule delays at these consolidation nodes as the data were processed formed the spacetime where she did her deepest magic.
She drifted over to a node she knew was particularity productive, hosting as it did transactions for several of the major pan-human banks.
The operation of interstellar finance relied on encryption that, while fiendishly complex, was in theory breakable. The combination of a deep understanding of the principles behind it and possession of a number of highly illegal encryption algorithms gave Bez an unfair advantage, as did the computational power she carried in her head. As the node advanced to fill her consciousness, she sensed her awareness drift through its firewall, the code in her head engaging with and defeating the node’s countermeasures.
Inside, the flow was tornado strong, thousands of transactions combining and splitting. Although any discernible analogue to reality was lost in the maelstrom - her normal senses had been banished to save them being overloaded - Bez weathered the storm instinctively.
She began with some simple shunts: one advantage of hacking at Xantier was that accounts in several of her still-sound IDs were easily accessible from here. She instituted basic commands that would take a while to propagate, but would eventually result in safely laundered funds from a number of her hidden stashes becoming available to key personae she expected to use over the next few months. Small amounts only: although she possessed large financial reserves, moving them would attract attention. More importantly, that credit was earmarked to pay the agents in her network who would enact her will. She would work double shifts cleaning toilets while living in the ducts before she drew on funds required for the mission.
The easy part completed, she moved on to more challenging work, insinuating herself deep into her chosen node and deploying the relevant virtual tools. Such direct hacking took advantage of every aspect of financial transactions, from minute variations in exchange rates to fraudulent fee requests. Many of her routines hinged on the rounding errors which had been exploited ever since humans first started to record their finances. Bez was patient, and never greedy, taking fractions of credits from the millions of transactions opened up by the nightly update, gathering in a slow and steady harvest, never taking too much too quickly.
With her routines initiated and the credit beginning to trickle into a spread of holding accounts, she began to relax, to settle into this unthinkably strange, pure existence.
EVERYTHING—
No warning: unreality dispelled. Disorientation, blind attempts to reconnect, to sense, to feel-
-IS-
Ripping through defences, through thought. Down deep, below consciousness, where the wondrous world of data is-
-GONE-
PART TWO
REMILLA
(New Salem, Quondat System)
It wasn’t an auspicious location for an epiphany. Crates and storage drums lined the walls of the back-street warehouse, and the dust kicked up from clearing the space in the centre still hung in the air, lit in slices by dilute sunlight slanting in from the high windows. Remilla wrinkled her nose rather than give in to the urge to sneeze. The reek of biofuel and damp stone was seeping into her already unsettled stomach. But she understood why the miracle must occur in such a place: the true path is only vouchsafed to the persecuted few. She put aside the physical discomfort of cloying air, gnawing hunger and aching knees, and tried instead to do as Frej had instructed: Review your life, ready to bring the best of yourself to the fore when the time comes.
She’d find it easier to stay focused if she hadn’t recognised one of the other supplicants. He hadn’t given any sign of knowing her when the five of them had been led in by their sponsors. Mind you, the last time they’d met he’d been too busy ramming his prick into her arse to pay much attention to her face.
Since meeting Frej two years ago, life as a whore had become both harder and easier. Harder because she was trying to wean herself off the drugs; easier because now she had something else, even if it wasn’t always enough. Knowing she had someone to share her spiritual life with had awoken Remilla’s soul. True, Frej’s faith would have got her hung and burned by the Community.
But when Frej started to discuss her creed - in a straightforward, no-nonsense way - it made more sense to Remilla than anything she had heard when she was growing up. ‘We all got a bit of the Divine in us,’ claimed Frej, ‘and we all got the potential to become more than we are. We gotta remember that spark, that responsibility, and choose the right path. Course it ain’t easy, but it’s never too late to put things right.’
Never too late to put things right. Just hearing that made Remilla’s heart leap. Frej had taken a few weeks to introduce the wildest concepts: that you could be saved without submitting your will to the Manifest Son; that the concept of a single God was wrong; and that you needed to live more than one life in order to achieve salvation. Finally Remilla dared ask the question that had been nagging at her from the start: ‘What do you call your religion? It’s not like any sect I’ve ever heard of.’
‘That’s cos it ain’t any breed of Salvationism, sis. It’s Ascensionism.
Remilla hadn’t heard the term before. ‘And it’s called that because … because you evolve through your many incarnations, and eventually ascend to become reunited with the Divine?’
Frej smiled broadly. ‘Praise the Devas, she sees the light!’
Remilla smiled back, raising her face to the yellow-grey sky; they were in one of their favourite haunts, a dead-end alley with sealed dumpsters that made passable seats away from the rats and skitterbugs. For once, it wasn’t raining. She looked back to her teacher and friend. ‘The Devas? You’ve mentioned them before.’
‘Sure have. The next step, remember?’
‘Yes, I remember. You said, urn, that it’s possible to eventually get re-incarnated as a Deva if you remain true and prove yourself willing to sacrifice all for the Divine.’
‘Right again ! Want to know a secret?’ Frej leaned close, and Remilla was reminded of the way Armina used to share confidences. Remilla nodded eagerly. She was sure her sister would have liked Frej.
‘One day, if you keep on the path, you might meet one.’
‘Meet a Deva? How?’
‘They travel around, inspiring the faithful.’
‘But you said they’re full of Divinity, and are as gods themselves-‘
‘Goddesses, yeah. But they’re still part of the universe. They know that when they die they’ll ascend fully, so they make it their mission to help others take the next step.’ Frej turned and looked at her intently. ‘Y’know, you’re very lucky.’
‘I am?’
‘Yeah. Most people get fed a load of shite about the Devas. You’re coming to this fresh, without prejudice. That makes you special.’
Remilla smiled. No one had ever told her she was special.
A year later, she took an oath to follow the Ascensionist faith.
And now, a year after that, her time had come. She had made it to her twentieth birthday. Whether she would make it beyond that was about to be decided.
The pain in her knees was moving from distraction towards agony, and someone’s stomach had started to rumble. Keeping her head lowered, she glanced over at the man she recognised. Though she was used to seeing him in a suit - or rather, out of it -like all the supplicants he wore a plain white robe.
She realised the rumbling wasn’t the john’s empty belly: it was a low drum-beat. The sound grew, setting off odd grumbles in Remilla’s own guts and making her feel light-headed. It hadn’t been hard to fast for two days: hunger had always been part of her life. And she saw the need to cleanse her body, to make it as pure as soiled flesh could be. She had expected the mamas to be unhappy at her going so long without any trade, but Frej said she’d fixed that. Not having a breath of Fume for so long had been harder, but if she was going to be saved, she needed to get clean.
The music became louder with a faint fluting overlaying the hypnotic beat. Remilla smelled something new: incense? The scent was heavy and sensuous. The drum gave three firm beats then fell silent. She did as Frej had told her: bowed her head lower, raised herself to kneel up, and readied her mind.
She sensed the change and, despite herself, looked up.
Before her stood a Goddess.
Remilla had expected an offworlder, and she knew how tall they were. But the Deva’s presence filled the room; all light focused on her, as though she were its very source. Her perfect beauty made Remilla want to cry.
The Deva didn’t speak. There was no need.
She strode up to the first supplicant, a well-turned-out woman who had given Remilla a sour look when they first came in. The woman bent her head back as the Deva lowered a hand to gently touch her cheek. What seemed like scant moments later, the Deva stepped away again. The woman sat back on her heels, eyes closed and a dreamy smile on her face.
Next was a man, the only other male chosen beside the john.
Remilla, mindful of Frej’s instructions, tried not to watch this time, and instead concentrated on preparing herself.
She looked up at a thump, the sound painfully loud in the otherwise silent room. The man lay face down on the ground, unmoving. Remilla knew he was dead. The Deva stepped around the body. Beside Remilla, the john drew a panicky breath.
Remilla wasn’t panicking. She was calm. She would accept her fate, even if that fate were death.
Another woman next. Remilla didn’t intend to look, but again she was distracted by the noise: not a thump this time but a sob.
The woman collapsed and began crying wildly. She sounded like someone who’d lost everything.
For the first time, Remilla doubted. Death she would willingly accept, but more pain, more despair … there had been so much of that already. Please, she prayed to the Divine spirit that had replaced the Salvatine God in her heart, no more suffering. Oblivion, yes, but not pain.
The john looked terrified as the Deva reached for him. His epiphany took mere moments, and at the end of it he too collapsed, though not in pain. His eyes rolled upwards and he made a noise Remilla had heard him make before, hands clutching at his groin.
Then it was her turn, the youngest and least worthy. She should have ignored the others, should have concentrated instead on her own ordeal!
The Deva’s long, cool fingers brushed her face.
Images, sensations, memories, whirled through her head, too fast to catch and then-Settled on the tearing emptiness inside when she mourned her dead sister, and knew the only person she loved and trusted was gone for ever-Settled on the indignant bruising pain when Pol beat her, resenting the obligation to do so even as he raised the rod-Settled on the obscene suffering inflicted by three strangers in an alleyway, who saw her as no more than warm flesh that would be dead and cold at the end of a long, terrible night. She remembered all the details, every last thing they did to her, with her-Except, it no longer hurt. The pain was gone. All of it: mind and body. She knew, as surely as she had sensed the Goddess enter the room, that she need never experience such pain again. Her past was absolved. She had been washed clean. Reborn.
It took a moment for Remilla to grasp this last miracle, though Frej had told her that the Devas sometimes spoke directly to a person’s soul. She composed herself as best she could then projected unconditional and wholehearted acceptance.
Remilla was held in a state of grace such as she had never dreamed possible. The Deva’s words had become the only meaning in the universe.
< We shall send you to a place with no sky, from where you will further our cause. >
CURRENTLY INACCESSIBLE
Falling.
FallingFallingFaIling.
Shivering and falling and …
… not falling.
There was something beneath her. She twitched. Bounced. Fell again, more slowly.
And settled.
Her body was stretched out; confined, feather-light, nauseous and chilled to the core. Everything was dark. No, not everything: numbers flashed at the edge of vision, counting, regular. She took comfort in them.
Aside from the numbers … sensations and images skittered beyond consciousness. Something bad had happened, something unexpected and very bad, and now she was strung up in a cold place where she weighed too little. It was like that story, the bad child in the spider’s larder. She needed to escape, before the spider got her. If only she could move …
Wait: being restrained didn’t matter because there was something else, a remembered impulse. Yes, she knew what she needed, what she did, what she was! She exhaled and tuned out of the nightmare and into the comfort of the virtual world.
An unseen force drove a spike into the base of her neck. She shrieked.
Someone said, ‘Easy, girlie!’
The pain in her head eased and suddenly she was fully awake and in the moment. She opened her eyes wide. It didn’t help: she could see nothing. She could smell, though, despite the freezing air. This place stank.
‘Heh, heh, girlie.’
Light flared, cold and white. Next to the light was an impossible figure, long thin limbs bundled in rags and topped by a crazy halo of tangled hair. The figure was pulling itself free of some sort of cocoon, its shadow dancing across the curved walls. The spider, come to suck out her innards!
She tried to cry out, but the noise caught in her throat. Helplessly she watched as the apparition unfolded itself and punted off the floor towards her, coming closer, closer … Animal terror over-whelmed her. Warm dampness spread out from her groin.
‘Easy, aye, see what old Kety’s got fer you.’
The figure bent over her, blotting out the light. This was no monster; it was a person, albeit an appallingly tall and thin one.
The vile stink increased, masking the other smell: in her stupid, unthinking weakness, she had wet herself like a frightened child.
A tube was thrust into her mouth; she tried to turn away, but only managed to bruise her lips.
‘Drink, girlie, drink. Kety has fresh water, clean and pure!’
Despite herself she sucked at the tube, her body knowing what she needed even if her mind didn’t. She kept drinking until the tube was snatched away.
‘Little by little. Don’t wanna hafta scrape yer puke off the wall, do we?’
Whoever this person was, she - and it was a she, at least if the voice was anything to go by - didn’t appear to mean her any harm.
She let the woman remove the tube, swallowed carefully, then tried speaking again. ‘Wh-where?’
‘Aha. Better? Better. Heh, heh.’
‘Where … is this?’
‘Safe. Safe in the tunnels.’
‘The tunnels?’ Should she know what that meant? Sh
e was lying in her own urine, imprisoned in a strange place by a crazy scarecrow. Nothing made sense. But if she let go now, she might never regain control.
‘Tunnels, aye.’ The woman smiled, revealing a vague assortment of discoloured teeth. ‘With Kety, eh?’
She latched onto the name. ‘Kety?’
‘Aye, girlie.’
‘You’re … Kety?’
The scrawny woman moved back, pointed to her chest and nodded vigorously.
‘And I’m…’ Did Kety know? ‘Who am I, Kety?’
Kety shook her head.
‘Please, I can’t remember! You have to tell me!’
Kety patted her arm. ‘Sleep again now,’ she said gently, ‘sleep and dream.’ She turned in a swirl of rags and loped away, then reached for the light.
‘Please, leave it on!’
Kety looked over her shoulder, and chided, ‘No fuel for night-time.’ The light went out.
She fought the urge to scream as the darkness returned.
She sniffed, then sobbed, before focusing on the numerical display in her vision. As she watched the digits click over she felt herself becoming lighter, as though she could float away from the horror of her situation, up into the darkness.
When she awoke the light -vas turned up fully and the woman who called herself Kety was fussing around the small space the two of them shared.
She wriggled, testing her bindings. She was tied into some sort of hammock, suspended a few centimetres above a hard, curved floor; the bindings were uneven, with one leg held slightly crooked, and her arms tied across her chest. Like the spider’s cocoon … She watched the numbers until that thought went away.
If she bent her body, she could touch the floor with her head and feet, but she had no way of getting any purchase. The movement reminded her of what had happened earlier; her groin was cold and sticky, the smell appalling. She began to gag. Kety’s head shot up, and she came over. The way the thin woman moved … the gravity was wrong, far too low! Swallowing vomit, she clung to that observation, desperate to build on it.