A Quantum Mythology

by Gavin G. Smith

  Scab walked into the café through a curtain from the back room. He looked much as he had back in the stone chamber, but here his look fitted in better. He laid a Thompson sub-machine gun down on the bar. Vic glimpsed movement under the arm of Scab’s suit jacket, the flash of a brass leg burying into flesh.

  ‘Are we all in the same hallucination?’ Talia asked, her voice touched with awe.

  ‘Yes,’ Vic said.

  ‘No,’ Scab said.

  ‘Now this,’ said an impossibly deep voice from a table in a window bay, ‘this is very civilised.’ The table held one of the water pipes and the man was sucking on one of its tubes. A bubbling sound came from the device and then he exhaled smoke. The man was nearly as tall as Vic but managed not to look too uncomfortable on the tiny stool he was sitting on. He was also quite thin. His skin was so black that it appeared to absorb light. Vic assumed it was a cosmetic augment. He wore a light linen suit, an open shirt with no tie and a Panama hat. ‘This I thank you for.’ He took another hit on the water pipe.

  Seated at the table across from him was a human boy who looked to be in his mid-teens, wearing loose-fitting white cotton trousers, his chest bare, head shaved. He was sound asleep. The restful expression on his face and his porcelain skin made him appear somehow beatific.

  ‘I know you,’ Vic said to the obsidian-skinned man, desperately trying to remember the man’s name. They had worked for him before, but there was something about him he could never quite remember. Vic wasn’t sure how that was possible with his neunonics. He should have perfect recall of everything he’d witnessed, but he couldn’t even remember this man’s name. He noticed that the man was toying with a ring. A speck of material floated over a tiny and complex array set in the ring.

  ‘Is that antimatter?’ Vic asked in awe. Talia was looking back and forth between them.

  ‘In a Penning trap setting, yes,’ the man said. His voice was so deep, it felt like it was causing pleasant vibrations in the surrounding atmosphere. ‘And you may call me Patron.’

  Vic nodded as if all it made sense now. Patron took another hit of the bubbling water pipe.

  ‘Are you here to buy me?’ Talia asked in a small voice.

  ‘Yes, but I assure you that it’s not as bad as it sounds,’ Patron said, a pained expression on his face. ‘We need access to certain genetic data. You will be exceptionally well treated, and protected.’

  ‘Free?’ she asked.

  ‘We will attempt to furnish you with as much freedom as possible, but part of your protection will mean—’ he said apologetically.

  ‘A gilded cage,’ Talia said.

  ‘I find that very few people use their freedom for anything worthwhile, and would you be free in this age?’

  Talia’s mouth turned upwards in a small smile. She gestured over her shoulder at Scab with her thumb. ‘At least you’re nicer than this prick and his bitch girlfriend.’

  Vic followed her gesture, and then went cold when he saw Scab shaking with rage.

  Scab raised his arm and pointed at the boy. ‘What is that?’ he managed to ask. Vic had assumed it was Patron’s sex toy. He noticed that Talia was looking between the sleeping boy and Scab now, a smile spreading across her face.

  ‘This, Mr Scab, is merely the fulfilment of a promise. You were paid handsomely and you betrayed me. I had an agent of mine warn you in the Living Cities. Proliferation is to be your punishment.’ Patron gestured at the sleeping boy. ‘Hence the Innocent.’

  ‘Ohmigod!’ Talia squealed. ‘He’s like you, only nice.’ Vic was already moving. She looked at Scab. ‘You’re so cute!’

  Vic managed to interpose himself between Scab and Talia before Scab could get to her. He didn’t know what violence in the hallucination would mean in the real world but he didn’t want to find out. Talia, realising she’d gone too far, was backing away from Scab. Even Patron had his hand up, a worried expression on his obsidian features.

  ‘We are so close,’ Vic told his partner/captor. Scab was still staring at the terrified Talia, but he backed off and lit a cigarette.

  ‘He is a social experiment,’ Patron said. ‘I wanted to know what you would have been like if you had grown up happy and well adjusted, cared for, instead of running feral on Cyst. Would you still have become a monster?’

  ‘I want it dead, before we even start,’ Scab said, still shaking.

  ‘Obviously not,’ Patron said. It was very clear that he wasn’t the slightest bit frightened of Scab.

  ‘How can it remain pure and fight?’ Scab asked.

  Vic was confused. ‘That guy?’ Vic said, gesturing at the human boy. ‘He couldn’t fight his way out of a wet fart.’

  ‘Tailored nightmares. He lives through them,’ Patron told the human killer. Scab shook his head and lowered his eyes. Vic wasn’t sure, but he thought Scab looked sad. He had no idea what was going on, and then it hit him. He turned and looked at the sleeping human, appalled.

  ‘He’s Elite?’ Vic asked. Patron nodded.

  ‘He has to die,’ Scab spat.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Patron said.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Talia demanded angrily.

  Scab turned on her. ‘You don’t know what I dream of.’ He pointed at the Innocent. ‘That is wrong. It’s an abomination.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Vic asked Patron. He was more than a little confused and frightened by Scab’s outburst.

  ‘To all intents and purposes, he’s the chairman of the board,’ a voice said from the balcony.

  They looked around. Vic cursed himself. In all the excitement he had forgotten to keep an eye on the steps leading up from the souq. Surveillance was a lot easier when he had access to all the sensors in his antennae and a P-sat to help him. The figure standing in the doorway wore a light summer suit, the jacket folded over his arms. His skin was transparent and his flesh had a violet bioluminescent quality to it. Vic wasn’t sure if it was the same spokesperson Scab and he had met when they visited the Living Cities on Pangea, but perhaps that wasn’t important. The hive mind in the Living Cities shared everything and knew everything the others did. Since the attack on Game, the Living Cities were the dominant power in the Monarchist systems, and it was believed that they controlled the remaining Monarchist Elite.

  Patron gave the newcomer a look of naked contempt that bordered on disgust. Vic felt that was unfair. If this was the Elder, the representative Lord of Pangea for the hive mind, then Vic had liked him/them when he’d met him/them. In fact, he/they had been one of the few reasonable people he’d met recently.

  ‘This is clever,’ the Elder said to Scab. ‘I’m assuming this is the real auction, yes?’

  Scab nodded.

  ‘Should there even be an auction?’ Patron asked. ‘I hired Scab to deliver something to me.’ He pointed at Talia. ‘And there she is.’

  ‘Do you guys even get that I’m a person?’ Talia asked.

  Scab was shaking his head absent-mindedly.

  ‘I am afraid you are also a commodity,’ the Elder said, not unkindly. ‘All I can do is apologise, but I assure you that you will be well looked after.’ Then he turned to Scab. ‘May I sit down?’ Scab ignored him.

  Vic gestured to a table. ‘Please,’ the ’sect said. The Elder sat down. Turning to Patron, Vic said, ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Why Scab and you?’ Patron asked.

  Vic nodded, then pointed at the Innocent. ‘You have access to Elite. Why not send them?’

  ‘I wanted it done a little less overtly than that.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Vic said, practising sarcasm. ‘Scab is the soul of discretion.’

  ‘And yet nobody has known of my involvement until now,’ Patron pointed out. Vic had to admit that was true, though he had been sure there was board-level involvement somewhere along the line. Patron glanced over at the Elder. ‘I underestimated
the childishness of the Absolute—’

  ‘You can glare at me all you want, but we are not the same person,’ the Elder said. He sounded a little peeved.

  ‘I didn’t think the aristos would use their Elite so quickly,’ Patron told Vic.

  ‘You know my price,’ Scab said. ‘And you have to kill that,’ he said to Patron, pointing at the Innocent. ‘In fact, that would be a good way for you to start the negotiations.’

  ‘We might be able to come to some arrangement regarding the Innocent, though I am rather fond of him. He is a prodigious killer whilst he sleeps. I will not, however, be making you an Elite and turning you loose. In fact, I am disappointed that you want something as paltry and tawdry as mere physical power. Power is there for the taking. If you want to be an Elite so badly and you want the Innocent gone, then come and work for us. You can replace him. I will not be paying you anything more because we already have a deal,’ Patron said. ‘I’m hoping to avoid bandying around undignified threats but proliferation is still a possibility. In fact, you already have a cult following as a bounty killer and an ex-Elite. We could probably make it quite lucrative. Collectible designer Woodbine Scabs. The market research has come back quite favourably.’

  Vic shuddered at the thought. Scab looked over at the Elder.

  ‘We will make you into an Elite,’ the Elder said.

  ‘Are you insane?’ Vic shouted despite himself. Scab turned slowly to look up at his big ’sect captive/partner. Vic hung his head and fingered his BAR. ‘Sorry, Scab.’

  Scab looked back to the Elder. ‘A free Elite?’ Scab asked.

  The Elder looked a little uncomfortable. ‘It’s not that simple—’ the Elder started.

  ‘In terms of resources both the Monarchists and ourselves can only sustain three Elite each. If he makes you one, and you go your own way, then I will destroy him,’ Patron said.

  ‘We would need you to fight for us,’ the Elder said, ‘though of your own free will, of course,’ he added hurriedly.

  ‘That’s exactly the same offer I made,’ Patron pointed out. ‘And frankly, you working for the Monarchists is just one spoiled child doing the bidding of another.’

  ‘I don’t care if they destroy you,’ Scab told the Elder.

  ‘You don’t think we’d go after their Citadel?’ Patron asked. ‘Which you’d need to sustain you.’

  ‘You know, I’m starting to think that you’re just not very bright,’ Talia said. Vic was making gestures for her to be quiet with all four of his limbs, behind Scab’s back. ‘Oh, what?’ she demanded. ‘He’s either going to kill me or sell me. What difference does it make what I say?’

  He can still hurt you, Vic thought.

  ‘Has it occurred to you that he just likes watching both of you fight?’ Talia demanded. Vic thought that was as good a motivation as any for Scab.

  A human walked in. He was wearing a black suit and shirt with an odd white collar, and had short blond hair and bright blue eyes. Vic raised the BAR to his shoulder.

  ‘A bit melodramatic, isn’t it, Mr Matto?’ the man asked as he moved around the bar and started pouring himself a drink.

  ‘I brought you here for security,’ Scab snapped at Vic. He drew his Webley .455 revolver with one hand and his Broomhandle Mauser with the other.

  ‘I’ve always wondered if those really work here,’ the man said.

  ‘They work,’ Vic and Scab said together.

  The man glanced down at the Thompson sub-machine gun on the bar. ‘Probably shouldn’t have left that lying around, then, should you?’ the man asked.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Talia asked. Her face was scrunched up in confused concentration.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve ever been formally introduced,’ the blond man said. Then he looked around at the café. ‘Do you know, I think my sister knew Burroughs? In the 50s, though I believe he was frightened of women.’

  Vic, Scab and Talia stared at the man.

  ‘Are you a priest?’ Talia asked.

  ‘He’s the priest,’ Patron said. He didn’t look at all pleased to see the priest, though he showed the man none of the contempt he had for the Elder.

  ‘Mr Chairman, always a pleasure.’ The blond priest raised his glass. He glanced over at the Elder, a look of distaste on his face.

  ‘You’re Churchman,’ Scab said.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Mr Scab. In fact, I’ve been trying to meet you for some time now. I believe you killed a friend of mine.’

  ‘Not so much that she couldn’t be cloned,’ Scab said. ‘The Templar?’

  ‘We’ll deal with the Templar the moment we have Miss Luckwicke,’ Churchman said and bowed towards her.

  ‘It’s been a while since I was this popular,’ Talia muttered.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Scab demanded. Vic was sure it was the first time he’d ever heard Scab sound unsure of himself. There were a lot of firsts involved in this. Scab was well outside his comfort zone, and Vic could only imagine that this would end in a severe psychotic episode.

  There was a dry chuckle from Patron. ‘Do you not think that we’ve been doing this for a while?’ the tall obsidian-skinned man asked.

  ‘After all, where did you get the know-how from? One of my ex-employees, perhaps?’ Churchman asked. ‘I’m intrigued – how did you work it out?’

  ‘St … the Alchemist, he was a bridge tech, not a chemist,’ Scab said. ‘Key is either involved in bridge technology, or more likely a by-product, because the Alchemist retained some residual knowledge of it after he escaped you, even after the Church conditioning had kicked in.’

  ‘Unlike Miss Luckwicke, I don’t think you are stupid, Mr Scab,’ Churchman said. ‘You may be a screaming red psychotic, but you have an enquiring mind. Have you any idea how rare that is these days?’ Churchman glanced at Patron as he asked this last.

  Vic had been puzzling through something. The thought was just out of reach. ‘Are we in Red Space?’ Vic asked.

  ‘Not quite, Mr Matto,’ Churchman said.

  ‘We’re not hallucinating?’ Talia asked. Then frowned. ‘It feels a little specific for a hallucination.’

  ‘What’s going on, then?’ Vic asked. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Unknown Kadath, Interzone, arguably Wonderland,’ Churchman told them after a moment’s thought. Vic and Scab looked confused. Talia, on the other hand, was pleased that she actually knew what someone was talking about for once. ‘It’s what we see in the corner of a dream or glimpse on potent drugs. It is the designer-mutated space-time fabric of an engineered universe, or rather the minds that engineered that universe, and it has been explored by creative minds and the ferociously hallucinating a long time before crude metal ships found it. Key, the secretion from the dream dragons’ glands, augments and guides a naturally occurring chemical in the brain called dimethyltryptamine.’

  ‘DMT?’ Talia asked. Churchman nodded. ‘Hmm, I think I’ve taken that.’

  ‘I find myself unsurprised,’ Churchman said.

  ‘It was intense.’

  Patron was shaking his head. ‘When did you become such a romantic?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m starting to appreciate things,’ Churchman said. Vic was surprised to hear sympathy in his tone. ‘I wish you could, too.’

  Patron looked out of the window, over the souq and the confused-looking city, but Vic had seen the expression of anger on the obsidian-skinned man’s face.

  ‘And are you here to offer a bid?’ the Elder enquired.

  Churchman shrugged. ‘Actually, I was wondering if I could nick a fag,’ he said to Scab. Scab looked at him blankly. ‘A cigarette.’ Scab reached into his suit jacket pocket and removed his cigarette case. He offered one to Churchman, who took it. Scab lit it for him. Churchman inhaled deeply and then exhaled the smoke. ‘So good,’ he said. Vic shook his head.

  ‘E
nough of this,’ Patron said, standing up and walking over to Scab. ‘Listen to me. I can make your dream a reality with such totality – your true dream, not this foolish power fantasy that you know can never be realised. That is just an excuse to fail again, to self-destruct.’ Patron paused before speaking again, carefully enunciating each word: ‘I can take your pain away.’

  Scab swallowed hard, and again Vic saw something new in Scab’s facial expression, something he’d never thought to see on Scab’s face. Vulnerability. Vic had spent most of his recent existence living in fear – of Scab, the Church, the Consortium, the Monarchists – but somehow what he had just seen scared him the most. Churchman was watching the exchange carefully as he smoked his cigarette.

  ‘Whereas we have offered something tangible,’ the Elder said in exasperation, ‘rather than vague promises’ – he nodded towards Patron – ‘and spiritual well-being’ – he nodded towards Churchman.

  ‘I have offered nothing,’ Churchman pointed out.

  ‘If you want succour, then join with the collective in the Living Cities,’ the Elder said irritably.

  ‘I am a disease,’ Scab told the Elder. ‘Do you have anything to offer?’ he asked Churchman.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything we have that you want,’ Churchman said, ‘and I can’t see an appeal to your benevolent nature being a great deal of use.’ Scab turned away from him. ‘Unless you want answers.’ Scab turned back to face Churchman.

  ‘Answers to what?’ Vic asked.

  ‘You’re not seriously considering his offer, are you?’ Patron demanded. Scab didn’t reply. He was studying Churchman. Churchman’s face was impassive.

  ‘I think we should go with him,’ Talia said, meaning Churchman.

  Patron sighed. ‘Being reasonable just doesn’t work, does it? You have no idea how much you owe me,’ the obsidian-skinned man told Scab.