Differently Morphous

by Yahtzee Croshaw

  “Nobody needs”—he glanced briefly at the list on his screen again—“an Interstellar Bum Pirates 2: Corsair Edition DLC pack. If they desperately need the government to pay for their delivery pizza, they can get on unemployment benefit like everyone else. Are you quite sure you don’t know who took your credit card?”

  “Yes!” said Alison quickly, making for the door. “I’ll go and, you know, pack, like you said. Where . . . where are we going tomorrow?”

  “Yorkshire.”

  32

  Alison’s apartment was in an old brick building, squeezed thinly between two larger, more boisterous buildings from the same era. It was cramped enough that all the residents had, with no communication whatsoever, synchronized their sleep and work schedules to avoid awkward meetings on the narrow staircase.

  As Alison climbed the three steps to the front door, key at the ready, a familiar squelching voice came from the ground-level basement window. “Awison?”

  “Hi, Shgshthx.”

  “Cood I bowwow some wubbish to eat?”

  Alison gazed up at her living room window and found that it had no explanations to offer. “Someone was supposed to bring it down this morning . . .”

  “Onwy if it’s no twubble. Don’t want to caws a fuss.”

  “I’ll get it for you now,” promised Alison. She put her key to the lock but hesitated in the act of turning it. “Shgshthx, have you any more information on the killer? Through the fluidic psychic-network thing.”

  Shgshthx, partially extruding from the basement window, wobbled his largest protuberance in a manner suggestive of a dog cocking its head. “I fought we alweady knew oo the kiwwer was?”

  “We do?”

  “It’s the person on Oo-Tube weawing the funny mask.”

  Alison dowsed her tiny ember of excitement before it had even started to glow. “I think the point is that we don’t know who the person on the video is.”

  “Yes oo do,” said Shgshthx, confused. “They are the person on the wideo. Oo just said.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll pass that on,” said Alison, defeated, as she pushed her way into the lobby.

  The building was pitch black inside, but there wasn’t enough space to get lost in it. She grabbed the banister and began to ascend the stairs to her floor, confident that every other resident was in for the night, still at work, or sitting in the nearby hairdresser complaining about young people.

  She entered her apartment and was immediately hit by the smell of greasy cardboard. “Hey, your card isn’t working,” said Jessica Weatherby, before Alison had even closed the door behind her.

  Alison had never been concerned with keeping her living space tidy. At times it had been suggested that she try keeping her possessions in order, and she had usually asked why, only to be told that it would help her remember where she had left things, at which point the debate would immediately collapse.

  So it couldn’t be said that Jessica Weatherby had made a mess of the apartment. She had, however, initiated a war between two different factions of mess. The trail of rumpled clothing leading from Jessica’s backpack formed the main battle line, watched over by scattered pizza-box guard towers.

  Jessica herself was seated in the living room space, with her laptop balanced on the unorthodox lap formed from the strange manner with which she had sprawled her legs across the floral couch. Her eyes darted back and forth between a chat window and some kind of role-playing game.

  “Did you remember to bring the rubbish down this morning?” asked Alison.

  “No, sorry, I forgot,” said Jessica, not looking away. “I’ll do it in a minute.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” Alison dropped her bag on the kitchen counter and began struggling with the bin. The majority of its contents consisted of barely scrunched-up pizza boxes.

  “And your card’s not working,” repeated Jessica.

  Alison sighed and let the kitchen bin clatter back onto the floor as the liner resisted her attempt to come out of the bin without ripping. “They canceled it. It’s not going to work anymore.”

  “Oh.” Finally Jessica looked at her, for about three seconds, before the game she was playing made a noise and she returned to it like a new mother to a crying child. “Are you getting another one?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Alison to ask. “Erm. Probably. I think so. But I’m going on a long assignment tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “Oh. Okay. You could pick up the new card in the morning and drop it off here before you leave.”

  “Yes . . .” Alison’s voice was strained as she squeezed the bin between her thighs and hauled on the lengthening plastic handles of the liner. “Or . . . maybe you could . . . think about going out and getting a little easy job somewhere?”

  Finally, Jessica closed her laptop. She wriggled into a more upright sitting position, in a manner that looked like she was trying to take her trousers off without using her hands. “But you said I shouldn’t be out in the open,” she said, mouth quivering. “You said they’d find me and take me back to the school.”

  The bin liner’s handles were now double their original length, but the liner as a whole was definitely shifting. “Yes, I did say that,” said Alison. “But I don’t think you can use any card they give me anymore. They’ve been tracking the charges, and I’m only supposed to use it for work.”

  “Okay, how about this? Just use the card at an ATM or something and leave the cash with me. You could tell them you’re spending it on, I dunno, petrol.”

  Finally, the liner came free of the bin, and a wad of pizza-box cardboard immediately dropped out of the split at the bottom. Alison staggered back, lightly bumping her head on one of the overhead cabinets. “I’m really not sure that would work.” As she straightened up, she came to the decision that had been percolating all afternoon. She took a deep breath. “Jessica. I think we both knew that you weren’t going to be able to stay here for long.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Jessica, her quivering mouth joining forces with glistening eyes.

  “There’s someone I know at the Department,” said Alison, aware that she was passing the point of no return as she slid the leaking bin liner into a fresh one from the drawer. “She’s taking charge of getting the school shut down. I can pass you on . . . I mean, I can introduce you to her before I leave.”

  “Oh, okay.” Instantly satisfied, Jessica reopened her laptop to salvage her game from the noisy disaster her momentary distraction had apparently caused.

  Alison tied up the handles of the bin liners into a secure little knot, then peered at Jessica curiously. “Does your Ancient still talk to you?”

  “My what?”

  “You know, your Elder God? The thing in the Ethereal Realm that gives you your power?”

  “Oh, that thing. No, it . . .” She paused for an ungainly amount of time to deal with a particularly tricky monster. “Yeah, it stopped trying to talk to me ages ago.”

  “But you weren’t in the school for any longer than Aaron was?”

  “No.”

  Alison waited patiently for her to elaborate, to no avail. “But he got possessed—I mean, became dual consciousness—and you didn’t?”

  “Actually my one stopped talking before I even went to the school.”

  “Really?” So she never needed to be taken there in the first place, thought Alison; Nita would love that. “What did you do to shut them out?”

  “I dunno.” She blinked rapidly at the carnage on the screen. “I think it just got bored of trying to get my attention.”

  Another thing Nita would love, thought Alison. Me having enormous sympathy for an Ancient’s point of view.

  33

  jess: looks like im going afk a few days again

  xxreaverxx: What possible earthly appointments could drag you away from your business here.

  jess: moving safe houses

  xxreaverxx: I seem to remember you saying you were, quote, “shacked up f
or the long haul.”

  jess: alison has to go somewhere for work and she wont let me use her card anymore

  xxreaverxx: It’s such a shame when people let you down like that, isn’t it.

  jess: its cool im meeting this government lady tomorrow

  xxreaverxx: ...I thought the whole point was to stay away from the government?

  jess: shes shutting down the school

  jess: i think

  jess: i wasnt really listening

  xxreaverxx: Glad to see you’ve got it all thoroughly worked out, as always.

  xxreaverxx: Where does Alison need to be, anyway?

  jess: yorkshire i think

  jess: she said it was something to do with the fluidic killer

  xxreaverxx: Ugh. I am so sick of hearing about that.

  xxreaverxx: Every time I look at the news it’s right there at the top. Still no news on the Fluidic Killer.

  xxreaverxx: If there’s no news why is it on a news site?

  jess: its important dude

  jess: fluidics are being murdered

  xxreaverxx: I KNOW

  xxreaverxx: But like 200 human beings got murdered yesterday as well and I didn’t see any headlines about any of them.

  jess: its not the same

  xxreaverxx: How is it not the same?

  xxreaverxx: I thought that was the whole point. Fluidics are just the same as any of us. So it shouldn’t matter any more or less when they get murdered.

  jess: well theres less of them

  jess: and they dont have morphic privilege

  xxreaverxx: ...What does that even mean?

  34

  “Come on, lad, put your gadget away,” said Mike Badger, calling over to the sullen lump leaning against the far side of the car. “Come say ’ello to your uncle Chris.”

  “I’m messaging my online friend, Dad,” replied David, pronouncing the last word with the kind of heavy sarcasm teenagers employ when no sarcasm should exist.

  “Ah, leave him,” said Chris Cockburn, leaning on the short brick wall that divided his front garden from the road. He had been exercising his dog when Mike had stopped for a chat, and the hound in question was now at Chris’s feet, chewing viciously on his fetching stick with their bottom high in the air. “Least he’s talkin’ to someone. Our Sarah only ever plays them fantasy games. ‘Can’t answer the door, Dad, got to kill fifteen more goblins.’ I ask ’er when she’ll be finished killing the bloody goblins, but there’s a new bunch of ’em shown up every time I ask.”

  “Aye, Davey likes them,” said Mike. “But try to bring him out huntin’ real goblins and he just doesn’t wanna know.”

  “Aye.” Chris looked down for a moment, watching his dog’s enthusiastic gnawing. “How’re you holding up, Mike? I ’eard about the knobs down south cutting you off. Thought that were a bloody crime.”

  Chris was another member of the loose community of freelance monster hunters employed by the Department (and until recently, the Ministry) for fieldwork in the remote corners of the nation. He had a magical infusion and had been given the usual choice: keep it suppressed on pain of a relief course at the secondary school, or put it to use for the good of the nation. He was a heavyset man a handful of years younger than Mike whose wardrobe seemed to consist of nothing but ancient jeans and checkered shirts with rolled-up sleeves.

  “Aye,” said Mike, in a pained voice. “Dunno what all the fuss were about. We didn’t even kill any shoggies. Didn’t get the chance.”

  Chris made a curious gesture with his hand, and his dog immediately stopped chewing. It stood up without so much as a glance upwards and trotted robotically into the house. “Well, if you need any help getting back on yer feet . . .”

  “Don’t fret, lad, old Danvers’ll always have odd jobs at the manor.”

  Chris’s dog returned with a tobacco pouch hanging from its jaws. Chris took it, the dog offering no resistance, then repeated the strange gesture with his hand. The glazed expression vanished from the dog’s eyes, and it looked about itself, confused, before resuming its assault upon the stick.

  “You know, you probably got out while the getting was good,” said Chris, fiddling with rolling papers. “Everything’s going to buggery. They probably won’t even let us hunt goblins soon. Probably have to give ’em leaflets instead. Tell ’em to try to only eat kiddies at the weekend.”

  “Political correctness gone daft, in’t it,” said Mike, nodding.

  “You don’t know the ’alf of it, Mike. Things’re a mess down south.”

  “Is it true they’re trying to make out like demon possession is one of them, whatchacallem, lifestyle choices?”

  “Worse than that, I heard they’re gonna shut the school down. Let the kids run around in the streets all possessed like.”

  “Daft. Everything’s daft these days.” Mike shook his head sadly. “Aye, sounds like I’m well rid of it.”

  “Aye! It’s all falling apart.”

  “Aye. Wouldn’t come back if they asked.”

  “Good on yer.”

  A moment of silence passed. Mike stared at the toe of his boot as he tapped it idly against the wall. “They . . . given you any work lately, then?”

  “Now, shoggies,” said Chris, failing to register Mike’s question. “I’ll admit we got those lads wrong. We got one working at the post office now who licks all the stamps and he can’t do enough for yer. But one mistake and they throw the baby out wi’ the bathwater. The things them demon-possessed kids do with their bodies, it’s just not natural, is it?”

  “They really shutting the school down?” asked Mike.

  “Well, they’re gonna overhaul it or something so it doesn’t hurt no one’s feelings—you know what they’re like these days. What I want to know is if they’re gonna finally admit to putting the microchips in our heads.”

  Mike had been slowly nodding his head in agreement throughout most of the conversation, but ceased the motion jarringly at this point. “You what?”

  Chris puffed on his cigarette authoritatively. “You know, them microchips the government put in us to keep track of everything we do. Never see anyone complain about that, do you?”

  Mike furrowed his brow. Chris himself had been through the school, of course, and it was a rare personality that did so without becoming touched in some way. “I think that’s ’cos that doesn’t actually happen, Chris.”

  “Let me link you to a couple of sites I’ve read, you’ll change your tune. You’d be amazed how many public figures are secretly lizard people wearing human-skin suits.”

  To Mike’s relief, his phone rang. He made the traditional pocket pat of shame and apologetically turned his shoulder on Chris. “Hello?” he answered. “Oh. ’Ello, Danvers.”

  The remainder of Mike’s contribution to the phone conversation was the phrase “Oh, aye” repeated several times, his voice becoming increasingly intrigued each time until it could only be described as lustful. Then he signed off with a final, confirmatory “Oh, aye.”

  “What ye need to ask yourself,” said Chris, picking up where he had left off, “is where all these politicians come from. You ever met any normal people who wanna be prime minister? I asked the missus, I asked Milly at the corner shop—no one does. So where are they all? Lizard people’s about the only answer that makes sense.”

  Mike packed his phone away and slapped his hips excitedly. “I’ll see you later, Chris.” He started back for the car. “Davey! Get me gun ready. We’re going on an ’unt.”

  35

  Elizabeth had had very specific reasons for sending Alison and Diablerie to Yorkshire to follow up on the mysterious YouTube video. The possibility of it being genuinely connected to the Fluidic Killer was by far the smallest of them.

  The inquiry into how, precisely, the Dartmoor forest fire had started was still at the polite-email stage, but she had thought it prudent to move all the major participants to somewhere far away from head office for a while. Casin and Hesketh were presently
investigating the records of Europe’s most prominent salt suppliers.

  But while she needed Diablerie out of the way, she also wanted to keep him under scrutiny, and the only way to ensure that was to give him an assignment. She still had no idea where he disappeared to in his free time, and she wasn’t about to risk taking her eyes off him until a few questions had been answered. Her eyes meaning Alison’s eyes, which belonged to her.

  Unfortunately it meant that she had to fetch her own lunch. As she hobbled her way through the busy streets of Westminster, fending off young civil servants with ingrained Boy Scout instincts who kept offering to help her across the road, she found herself missing the old Ministry’s army of monks. They had had an irritating habit of forestalling every task she gave them until they had made up an appropriate chant and candle ceremony, but they had been ruthlessly efficient about it.

  Elizabeth managed to find the sandwich shop that Alison always went to, along with the vast majority of the people who staffed their building. The members of other government departments paid her no mind, but the Extradimensional Affairs civil servants all fell deathly quiet as she entered, as if Jesse James had just shoved open the doors of the saloon. The comparison swiftly broke down as she walked to the counter and began perusing the sandwich display, one finger to her chin.

  Her reflection in the glass was swiftly joined by that of Anderson, over a particularly enticing tuna roll. The curved glass made his head look stretched and cartoonish, but his neck was finally of a sensible width. “All right, Lawrence? Don’t usually see you slumming it with the muggles.”

  Elizabeth kept her gaze fixed on the BLT in front of her. “I take it you have bad news for me.”

  “Now why would you think that?”

  “Because you’re in a good mood.”

  The reflection of Anderson’s teeth shone brightly as he grinned, so that the tuna roll appeared to grow a spine. “Course I’m in a good mood. Had some really good meetings this morning. Education, first.” He counted on his fingers. “Then Health. Quick one at the Home Office, then a considerably longer one at Justice. And I’m happy to say that it was good news all round.”