Equations of Life

by Simon Morden

  “Don’t be a zhopa. I’m going to find Sonja Oshicora. The New Machine Jihad tell me she’s in Paradise.”

  The priest looked puzzled. “The who?”

  “No, the New Machine Jihad. I think they’re the ones behind all the weird computer shit.”

  “You can’t go to Paradise,” said Sister Madeleine, over the heads of everyone.

  “Yeah. I’m going to do it anyway.”

  “But they’ll kill you,” she said.

  “I’m officially dead already.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and felt the weight of the guns, the bullets, his soul. A fresh outbreak of gunfire clattered down a side street. There was a collective flinch.

  “I need to get these people to safety,” said Father John quickly. “What can you tell me about the center?”

  “It’s pretty quiet. Where are you heading?”

  “A church on Mount Street.”

  “Then avoid Hyde Park. Take the long route round.”

  The father held his flag up again and waved his ragged column on. They streamed around Petrovitch, scared not just of what they’d left behind, but of what lay ahead of them. He couldn’t blame them.

  As the crowd flowed and thinned, he could see Sister Madeleine striding toward him. She came closer, and as she walked past him, she deliberately looked away. A few seconds later, she stopped, clenching her empty fist. The others carried on without her.

  “What is it that you want from me, Sam?”

  “I don’t want anything from you. I want you to go.”

  She still refused to face him. “Why is finding Sonja Oshicora so important?”

  “I promised that I would. But that was before the New Machine Jihad crashed every information system in the Metrozone. Now, doing what it wants might be the only way to get it to stop.” He stared at her tall, broad back. “Something else too. I think I might actually be doing the right thing for a change. I’m not the only one looking for her, but I’m not going to put a bullet in her head when I find her.”

  Finally, someone noticed the nun’s absence and told Father John.

  “Sister Madeleine. With us, please,” he shouted.

  “Do you know how difficult you make this for me?” she said.

  Petrovitch didn’t, although he was both hoping and fearing that she might show him.

  “Sister? Now.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. She was crying. “Tell me honestly: what is it you want?”

  “I…” Petrovitch didn’t know how to articulate the feeling he had inside.

  Sister Madeleine ground her foot on the tarmac and took a step away from him.

  “I want to make a difference,” he blurted, then took several deep breaths. “That sounds stupid. I could have hidden, I could have run. I didn’t. Whatever crappy motive I had to start with, I want to do this. I have to.”

  “How very Russian,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “You won’t last five minutes without me. Come on.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “I thought you wanted to go to Paradise.” She moved to a shop doorway, and checked left and right.

  Petrovitch jogged after her. He saw Father John usher his flock behind a row of abandoned cars, then start back up the road toward them. His stiff movements and set face showed his mood.

  The nun was busy pulling her robes off and bundling them up. When the priest arrived, she thrust them at him.

  “You have to come with us, Sister. It’s your duty.”

  “Father. I can’t.”

  “You are not free to make that decision.” He grabbed her arm. “Madeleine.”

  She shrugged him off with such violence that he was thrown backward to the ground. “I have to go with him. That’s it. I have to.” She slipped her fingers under her veil and peeled it off.

  Petrovitch stepped forward and helped the priest up. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t understand this either.”

  “This… this is all your fault.” He snatched his hand away. “Sister. If you leave now, you might never be able to come back. You’re breaking your vows.”

  “So it seems. It’s getting to be a bit of a habit.” She barked out a laugh. “Hah. Habit.” She was down to her impact armor, interlocking sheets of fabric that looked like fish scales. She held up her gun and peered around the corner. “Clear.”

  “Looks like we’re not hanging about. Sorry, Father.”

  “What did you tell her? What?”

  Petrovitch was at a loss. “Just that what I was doing meant something.”

  “And what she’s doing doesn’t?”

  “It’s her choice! I haven’t asked for anything.”

  Sister Madeleine snagged Petrovitch’s collar and pulled him after her as she made a short, darting run to the next piece of hard cover. She pushed him against a set of window shutters and crouched down. She scanned the road ahead, ignoring the plaintive shouting of her name.

  “Go again,” she said.

  She trusted him not to wander off this time, and let go of his coat as she headed toward a car parked sideways to the curb. Petrovitch ducked beneath the level of the roof and looked through the windows.

  Smoke drifted in dirty clouds between the buildings. The occasional shot rang out, but nothing too close.

  “I appreciate that I’m only a filthy heathen, and it’s probably not my place to say anything, but are you sure about this?”

  “All I’m going to say is that you’d better make this worth my while.” She pulled her plait over her shoulder and looped it around her wrist.

  “I’ll try not to disappoint you.” Petrovitch thought he could make out figures in the distance, and he jabbed his finger forward.

  “I’ve just left everything I’ve known for the last four years, and you’ll try not to disappoint me? Good start.” She risked another look. “Go right. Doorway on the corner.”

  They ran doubled over. He made a much smaller silhouette than she did. Hers was more graceful. This time the space they had to hide in was narrow, and they had to press themselves in, body to body. Their height difference meant that Petrovitch didn’t know quite where to look. Rather than staring at her armored chest, he looked up into her big brown eyes.

  “I mean it,” she said. “If you let me down, I’ll kill you.”

  “I kind of assumed that.”

  “Good: just so we both know where we stand.”

  There were footsteps, the sound of broken glass underneath booted feet, voices. Petrovitch and the sister froze and waited. She turned her head to hide her face, and Petrovitch could see the stubble on the side of her partially shaved head.

  Someone laughed, kicked a loose plastic bottle across the street, then shot it for target practice. Their effort was greeted with a chorus of jeering, and a fusillade of firing.

  When it had finished, they moved on.

  “Rabble,” she muttered. “Take away their guns and they’re nothing.”

  “It’s not what Father John thought. It’s not what you thought.”

  “Forgive me for feeling uncharitable. That stink on the wind is my church.” She checked the road they were going to take was free of militia. “Keep to the right-hand side. There’s a red glass-fronted building at the end of this street. Turn right and go into the car park behind. We can cut through.”

  She eased herself out and ran again, darting between cars, leaping over the urban debris of decay. If Petrovitch hadn’t known where to look, it would have been impossible to follow her. She was like a gray ghost, disapparating at will.

  He set off after her in his own clumsy fashion, catching a few moments rest where he could press the street furniture hard against his back before moving again.

  There was a body in the middle of the road, forever frozen in a sprawled, crawling, spider-like pose. Shot in the back, then shot again. He belatedly looked around him, trying to think like Madeleine did, weighing up cover and spying out shadows.

  It wasn’t the same as running from a few
overweight St. Petersburg cops.

  He kept going, even though he’d lost sight of her. It was a confession of faith that she was ahead of him, and she’d be where she said she would be when he got there. And he’d get there, or die trying.

  A gust of wind sent the pillar of smoke from St. Joseph’s down to street level. Petrovitch took a chance and ran through the drifting cloud of soot and ash to the next corner, then across to the rose-pink edifice. Its glass front was lying in shattered piles on the pavement.

  He steered right and then into the gap between it and the next anonymous concrete block. It was dark and empty. He couldn’t see her at all.

  He skidded to a halt, his breath labored, unable to focus. He took two sideways steps and leaned heavily against the wall. It wasn’t just his left hand feeling weak now, it was his whole arm: tingling with a thousand pinpricks.

  “You Okay?”

  He jumped, as did his heart. “Yobany stos, woman!”

  “I thought you knew I was here.” She shifted, and her outline was suddenly apparent.

  He slid down the wall until he was squatting. “I just need five minutes,” he gasped. He tilted his head back to look at the slit of the sky. “Chyort, it hurts.”

  “I can do this for you, if you want,” she said. “I know what Sonja looks like.”

  “If you hadn’t remembered, the Paradise militia want to kill you.”

  “They want to kill Father John.”

  “They were watching the building and they thought you were alone.” He rubbed at his sternum. “It was you they were after.”

  “Then, thank you.” She played with the thick rope of her hair.

  “Yeah, well. They didn’t seem too fussy where they pointed their peesi. I guess I’m off their Christmas list, too.”

  She straightened up, stretching her already long legs by standing on tiptoe. “Ready to carry on?”

  He puffed. “Shortest five minutes in history.”

  “We can wait for a little while longer.”

  “No, let’s get this over with. The sooner you can get me into Paradise, the sooner you can get back to protecting Father John.” He pushed himself up, and was dizzy with vertigo.

  “Sam, I’m not going back,” she said. “I thought I made it clear I’m staying with you.”

  “Yeah. I’m having a hard time believing that, so I’m giving you an easy way out.”

  “I don’t want an easy way out. I have to suffer for what I’m doing.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “You sound like me. Where next?”

  “Over the wall,” and she pointed. The breeze-block structure was twice as tall as he was.

  Madeleine, however, had no problems at all. She holstered her gun at her hip and approached the wall at a loping run. She jumped, placed both hands on its top and ended up astride it, legs dangling either side. She waved Petrovitch on, and reached down, gripping his forearm as he gripped hers. He scrambled up the best he could, and lay beached on the thin rail of rough stonework.

  “And I still have to get down the other side,” he grunted.

  “Getting down’s easy,” she said, and twisted his arm in such a way that he fell off. “It’s landing that’s hard.”

  She still had hold of him, fingers tight around his wrist. She lowered him down until his feet made contact with the ground, then vaulted off herself, legs together, knees bent; a perfect dismount.

  “Do they teach that at nun school, or is that something you’ve picked up along the way?”

  “I owe the Order everything,” she said.

  “So why…”

  She slipped her gun back into her hand, as natural as an extension of her body. “Because I’m possessed by some overwhelming madness that forces me to desert my vocation, my sisters, my duty, my priest—and go with you instead, you foul-mouthed, unbelieving, weak, selfish criminal who by some freak chance or divine plan has not only captured my stone-cold heart but seems to embody the virtue of hope in a way I have never experienced before, inside or outside the church. That’s why.”

  Petrovitch pushed his glasses up his nose, entirely lost for words.

  “What did you call me, earlier? When we were going through Hyde Park?” she asked.

  “Babochka,” he whispered. “It’s not a swear word. It means…”

  “Butterfly,” she finished for him. “I looked it up. You called me—me—butterfly. Don’t stop calling me that, but you can use Maddy as well. It’s been a long time since anyone did.”

  Petrovitch gave himself the luxury of a few steadying breaths. “Right. Maddy. Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I used to live there.”

  25

  The most dangerous part was running across the wide, open expanse of the Marylebone Road. No matter how low or fast they were, they could have been seen, and having been seen, followed, ambushed, and killed.

  But the Paradise militia had decided to expand their territory to the south, toward the bright lights and consumer durables of Oxford Street, and to the east, trying to take on the domik pile on Regent’s Park. That their excursion into the high-value shopping streets was met with less resistance than their assault on some of the Metrozone’s poorest residents proved the authorities were powerless.

  “This machine thing,” said Madeleine. They turned a corner and Petrovitch found himself facing the railway station. Its shutters were down and locked tight. “Who do you think they are?”

  “Oshicora loyalists. Coders on the VirtualJapan project. I don’t think anyone else in the Metrozone could have put together such a coordinated, comprehensive attack. They’ve taken down so much I don’t know what they control anymore. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re fighting a losing battle with their own botnet.”

  “All I wanted to know was whether we could trust them or not.” She pointed to the station frontage, and they ran.

  The low-level skirmish between Paradise and Regent’s Park had formed a fluid front-line ahead of them. Stray shots from that battle clattered overhead: sometimes a rooftile or a window would crack and fall in pieces to shower the street below.

  Petrovitch’s back rattled against the metal screens. “Aren’t we going the wrong way?”

  “We have to go this way to go back. Is that okay?”

  “Since any answer other than yes will get my limbs torn off: yes.”

  She grinned, and the whole of her face lit up; no longer the avenging angel, but the teenager out on her first date.

  “Down here,” she indicated with a jerk of her head, and cut into a gloomy street beside the station. On one side was a terrace of pre-Armageddon, probably pre-Patriotic War, houses. They faced a battered chain-link fence that separated the road from the railway tracks, and soon she found a weakness in it.

  She dragged the base of the wire up, straining at it with her clawed hands. A shower of soil and weeds and litter fell from its mesh. Petrovitch took his cue, and rolled underneath, picking up mud on his coat. She followed, after making the hole bigger.

  They slipped and scrabbled hand in hand down the embankment and onto the oily ballast beside the rails.

  “Watch your step,” she warned.

  “Kind of figured that.” He looked back in the dark mouth of the station. The platforms were immense, jutting out from under the covered section and into the distance. He tried to imagine the number of carriages it could have served, thousands of people at a time coming from outside the city and spewed out right there, one train after another, every few minutes. “Listen.”

  The overhead power lines, supported by spidery metal gantries, were humming.

  “I thought you said nothing was working?” She stared up the empty line. It passed under two bridges before disappearing into a tunnel.

  “I think I said we weren’t in control of anything; a world of difference.”

  “We need to go that way.” She pointed down the track, away from the station. “If there’s anything you want to tell me, now�
��s a good time.”

  Out of sight, a steel wheel screeched. The ringing, whistling noise echoed around them. Petrovitch licked his dry lips and remembered the cars. “Have you got another plan?”

  “It’s not as good.” She turned to see a train, lights as bright as stars, wink into existence. The slanted face of the power unit grew, framed by the road bridge it had to pass under. “Is this something to be afraid of?”

  “Yeah.” He started edging back toward the wire fence.

  Her hand curled around his arm. “Wait. We don’t know which way to run.”

  The train was closing fast; too fast for an urban line, too fast for the buffers up ahead, too fast even for the gentle curve it was attempting to take. The first carriage was tilting farther and farther out, and taking the two behind with it. The tortured wail of grinding metal became a roar.

  Petrovitch really, really wanted to be anywhere but in front of this beast, and still she hung onto him, forcing him to stay still.

  Wheels left the track, great metal and glass containers were in flight, spreading out like a thrown chain.

  At last. Madeleine picked him up and in three strides she was at the platform’s cliff face. She unceremoniously posted him on top and lifted herself on after him. She was on her feet before he was. She took his hand and they sprinted across the platform, down into the next rail bed. There, she wrapped him up in her.

  The ground shook itself like a wet dog. The first carriage, almost vertical, tried to carve a new route through the brick and steel bridge. It bent and broke like a straw, one half soaring into the sky, the other digging itself into the ground. The next car hit a support head-on, ripping a flash of lightning out of the expanding cloud of dust.

  The last one leaped over the remains of the bridge, intact, spinning. Before it crashed back down, the front end of the train howled past, into the station, and didn’t stop when it reached the end of the line.

  The noise was a punch to the gut, a concussion hard enough to break stone. Metal groaned, masonry toppled.

  Then came the carriage. It had turned sideways, and it hit the end of the platforms rolling. Glass crystals sprayed out, and the jagged-edged windows spat out the contents of the train while grinding flat everything before it.