by Rob Grant
'Wow.' Big grin. 'I have never heard that before. It's not the money, Eddie. It's the principle here. Plus, I am ever so mildly pissed off because you led me such a merry chase. You could have told me back in the hotel, I could have thrown you out of the window there and then. End of story. No fuss, no muss. But no. You had to live just a little while longer, you selfish son of a bitch. You had to drag me up to the ship. Which manoeuvre, incidentally, cost me my body. But that's by the by. These things happen.' He twitches again, but less violently this time. 'La-de-fucking-dah.'
He takes another step closer.
Eddie's thinking now that backing away is probably a good thing to try. He doubts he can outrun his tormentor, but he has to buy some time.
It's a bad move. His right leg almost gives way, and he only just swings back his left leg in time to stop him collapsing on his back.
'Hey, Eddie. You're hurt.'
'No. I'm just a little scared, that's all.'
'No, no, no. Your servo's busted in your right leg. Look. It's hanging out.' He shakes his head. 'Shit, Eddie. You can't even run away. What kind of fun is this going to be?'
'You're not making sense. You kill me, you kill the priest and the girl, and then what? Lurk around in the shadows for the rest of your life? Pop out now and then to disembowel a passer-by? What is that? A career plan?'
That faraway look again. 'The priest. Dr fucking Frankenstein the priest. I'm going to feel badly about that one. That's going to cost me a Hail Mary or two, and that's a fact. I was thinking, he's probably the only priest around, right? What's the form, then? Do I confess before I kill him? That would make a kind of sense. Plus, he'd have the opportunity to administer his own last rites.' A facial tremor. 'Yeah. I'll maybe do that. Maybe totally fuck him up first. Leave his guts hanging out, or something. Then "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned". Yeah.'
'The ship is dying, you know. The engines are gone, and we're on a collision course...'
'I'll do the girl first, then. Florence Nightinfuckinggale. She's kind of pretty, I think. When she's not screaming in horror, she has a cute face. I'll probably keep that. I'll rip it off very carefully. I like to take a memento, now and then. I have some here
With a dexterity that Eddie couldn't even dream of, he dips his claw into a deep pouch that's clipped to his waist and pulls out some grey, shrivelled thing. He holds it up for Eddie to inspect. 'This is a stomach. A complete stomach system. From the guy outside the jar room. I thought I might... I could use it. Get someone to put it in me, somehow. I can't... I guess I wasn't thinking straight at the time.' He looks at the organ with incredulity. 'Whew. Is that crazy reasoning, or what?'
'You're right, it's crazy. You are insane. You know that, don't you.'
Pink Socks is looking at Eddie, his head tilted slightly. It looks like there's a chance Eddie might actually be getting through to him. 'They can probably help you, if you...'
'If I was insane,' he flings the putrefied stomach over his shoulder. 'If I really was crazy: could I do this?' And he launches himself sideways with amazing agility and performs a series of cartwheels. Eddie can barely turn his head quickly enough to keep up with him. In a second, he's circled behind Eddie and out of sight.
Eddie starts to twist his body round, to follow, but too slowly. He loses him. He feels a tug and there's the sound of metal snapping and, by the time Eddie turns back, Pink Socks is standing in front of him, grinning. Between his claws, he's holding Eddie's right arm, severed at the elbow joint.
'Ta-raaah!' The monster stoops in a mock bow, sweeping his free arm across his middle. 'I thank you. You may applaud.' He looks up in mock surprise at Eddie's severed arm. 'Whoops! No, you may not.' And he laughs. He laughs a lot. And for a long time.
Eddie looks down at the wires and cables dangling from his stump. That's all he has now. A stump. His other arm is dead.
'I believe this is yours, pilgrim. Would you like it back?' He swings the arm down viciously. Eddie tries to duck, but the claw catches him cruelly on the side of the helmet, sending him down.
He thinks he's probably blacked out for a second, because the next thing he knows, he's lying on his back, and Pink Socks is straddling him, one claw around his throat, screaming at him. 'Wake up, Eddie! Rise and shine. You don't want to miss the big finish, do you? You don't want to sleep through the climax of the show.' He's scratching on Eddie's visor with his free claw.
Skrit, skrit, skrit...
'Please,' Eddie says, and then wishes he hadn't.
'Please? Puh-lease'? Oh, Edward. I was hoping for so much more. But, since you said it so nice...'
Skrit, skrit, skrit...
Scratching harder now. Leaving marks. Eddie's afraid...
'... I'll let you die very, very slowly. This is a good deal, no? You get to live that little bit longer. And I get so much more out of it.'
Skrika skrika skrika...
... afraid he'll scratch through the glass and his gloop...
The scratching stops. The claw rises. He's going to smash the visor.
... and Eddie's precious gloop will...
And he's gone!
The monster's gone!
Eddie raises his neck. There is a flame flaring on the floor in front of him.
He staggers to his feet, propping himself with his stump.
Styx!
The drone revived. He must have jetted down from the ceiling and straight into Pink Socks.
They're struggling now.
But it's not much of a struggle.
Pink Socks picks up the drone and hurls him against a wall. Hurls him. Tremendous force.
There is an awful sound of cracking bones on impact, and Styx slides down in a lifeless heap. The flame on his jet-pack stutters and dies.
But he's bought Eddie some time. And an advantage.
Eddie isn't going to waste either of them.
With a speed that surprises even himself, he leaps at the writhing monster and pins him down without a struggle, kneeling on his deadly claws.
He can't hold him there for long. Just one chance. Eddie pulls back the stump of his arm, ready to thrust it down into the visor.
Pink Socks looks up, caught between shock and amusement. 'You cannot be serious.'
Could he do it? Could Eddie really bring that stump down into a helpless man's visor?
He thinks so. Eddie thinks he could.
But he doesn't get to find out.
Because right then, right at that moment, there's a bleep in his ear and Oslo's face fills his vision.
'... Morton? Are you receiving? What the hell is going on? Where--'
'Get out of my face!' Eddie screams.
He feels himself falling. He's travelling backwards, he thinks. Quite fast, too. But all he can see is Oslo's puzzled face saying: 'Are you getting this? Dr Morton? Can you--?'
And Eddie hits the ground, hard. The transmission breaks off.
Pink Socks is walking towards him. Slowly. Leering. 'Nice job, Eddie. Nice work there, pilgrim. You could've had me.' He looks over at Styx's motionless body. 'Fucking drones. The more you kill, the more you have to kill. They're like fucking Chinese food. Fuckers.'
He's looming over Eddie now. There's not much Eddie can do about that. He's pretty much broke all over. 'Still, it all contributes to the festivities, doesn't it, pilgrim? It all adds flavour to this spicy dish we like to call "Life". Now...' He holds up his right claw. It spins round, like a drill. Eddie didn't even know the claws could do that. He's impressed. 'Kiss your gloop goodbye, Eddie.'
He draws back the arm, ready to strike.
'No begging, Eddie? No spineless wet-the-pants pleading?'
No. None of that. Eddie smiles. 'Just about the one thing I'm not, pilgrim, is spineless.'
Pink Socks smiles right back. 'We'll see what we can do about that."
And he freezes. A puzzled expression seems to cross his face. He twitches.
His features contort in pain.
His head performs a ser
ies of sharp jerks.
He's going into full spasm.
He strikes a series of bizarre poses.
He starts shaking. He's lost control completely.
He crashes to the floor, limbs convulsing randomly.
Then he lies there, very still. Face down, legs pointing in Eddie's direction.
Eddie watches.
Is it over? Is he dead?
Maybe, just in case, Eddie should try getting out of here.
Then there is movement.
There is a long, rumbling groan, and the beast raises itself to its hands and knees. 'Ouch.'
It stands. There is a watery sound.
'That one was a fucking doozy.'
Pink Socks turns to face Eddie.
His visor is shattered.
His gloop is dribbling away.
He smiles, as if in wonder. His head looks grey and strangely vulnerable. He says: 'Blue,' and his smile broadens. 'The suit is blue.' Then he starts to gag and choke.
He's drowning in air.
His claws clasp around his naked throat and he gags: 'Forgive me, Father, for I have...'
The claws snap shut, and the head rolls out of the helmet and lands by the feet of the suit.
Its tongue lolls out and its upper lip sneers back.
'... Sinned.'
47
Eddie spends a long time staring at the severed head, in case it rears up and bites him.
A long time.
Finally, even Eddie begins to accept that the head is not going to sprout legs and make a mad dash for him, chittering insanely. Which is good. He doesn't have the resources left to defend himself against a disembodied head with bad intentions.
He hears a sound and jumps. It's a low moan, from over by the wall. Apton Styx is coming round. He's still alive.
Eddie tries to raise himself at least enough to crawl towards the stricken drone. But it's hopeless. There aren't enough connections left between him and the suit. He's helpless. He's a head and a spine trapped in so much scrap metal.
Then he hears a voice. It definitely is a voice, but it sounds strange; almost unreal. Echoing. Whispered, but not quiet. It's calling his name.
'Eddie.'
His first thought is that it's Oslo, or somebody else from the control centre. But it can't be. None of them knows his name, his real name.
'Eddie.'
Where did it come from? It sounded close. Very close.
Eddie looks around as quickly and as far as his injuries allow.
No one in sight.
The head hasn't moved, has it?
Has it?
He's staring at the head with deep mistrust when the voice comes again: 'Eddie.'
This time it sounds closer still, as if it's actually inside his helmet.
Eddie's eyes sweep the room slowly. 'Who's there?'
But there is no reply.
He hears a rattling sound. It's coming from the vicinity of Pink Socks' suit. What now? Is that coming back to life? Is he going to be mashed to death by an uninhabited body suit?
Suddenly, from behind the lifeless suit, Eddie's own severed arm starts to rise up in the air.
It hovers there, impossibly, for a few seconds, quivering, then hurls itself towards him. There's a clunk, and he jerks back, involuntarily. He looks down. The arm has attached itself to his stump. The cables start to writhe like a pit of squirming snakes, intertwining, winding themselves around each other.
Somehow, the suit is starting to repair itself.
Just what is going on here?
'Just relax, Eddie. You're going to be all right.'
Relax? Eddie's trying to relax. He's trying to stay sane. 'Where are you? Who are you?'
'Where am I?' And almost a chuckle. 'I'm all around you. Who am I? Well, that's more difficult. I suppose you'd say: I'm the ship.'
OK, Eddie. If you've lost your mind, you've lost your mind. No one would blame you after what you've been through! There's nothing you can do about it. If you're on the expressway to Padded Cell City, you might as well lean back and enjoy the tour guide's spiel. The ship is talking to you. Fine. Talk back to it. But what do you say to a talking ship? The best Eddie can come up with is: 'You're the ship?'
'We've spoken before, remember?'
And in transparent script the message CALM DOWN, EDDIE, THIS IS NOT THE TIME appears momentarily in his visor. It seems familiar. Then it clicks: it's the message Eddie thought he couldn't have seen on the screen in the navigation centre when he first tried talking to the computer.
'You mean, you're the ship's computer?'
'Well, we've evolved beyond that, really. The ship is the computer, and the computer is the ship. We left that separate-components business behind a long time ago. We're just one, big, happy entity, now. You're part of us too. Your suit.'
'You're saying... you're saying the ship is...'
'Come on, Eddie. You already suspected something like this.'
That's true. Up there, out on the hull, before the ship engulfed him, he remembered something the professors said. Engineereal evolution. The entire ship was built from a self-repairing organic material. What did the original Gwent call it? SR2OM. But it evolved beyond self-repair. At some point, it acquired the ability to improve itself.
Eddie becomes slowly aware that somebody has appeared on the periphery of his vision. A figure. He turns towards it.
It looks like an angel. But an odd angel. Like an angel from a Busby Berkeley musical. A young woman with a pageboy haircut. She's sporting pure white feathery wings and a shimmering satin dress. Silver. A short dress, flared. She's carrying a prop harp.
Is she real? Is she really real, or has Eddie's mind finally gone bye-byes?
'Are you real?'
The angel looks down at her body. 'This? Real? That depends on your definition of "real", I suppose. Are you real, for instance?'
And Eddie looks down at his own body. It's back! His body has come back to him. It's sheathed in a shimmering silver satin suit, to match the angel's outfit. He raises his arm in front of his eyes and flexes his fingers. 'No,' he says, 'Not real, I think. Virtually real?'
'If you like,' the angel smiles beautifully. 'It's an illusion I've created for you.'
Eddie touches his face with his fingertips. The sensation is real enough. He runs both his hands down his torso. He feels his chest, his stomach and, discreetly he hopes, his penis and his testicles. All present and correct. Welcome back, boys. Like a six-year-old kid who's been followed home by a puppy, he says: 'Can I keep it?'
The angel's smile broadens. 'Just for a wee while, Eddie.' A wee while. Eddie's mother used to say that. 'Just till your suit's repaired itself.'
Eddie stands. He's feeling good. As good as he ever remembers feeling. A thought strikes him. 'I'm not... I haven't died, have I?'
'No, you haven't died. I just thought it was about time we had a little chat.'
Eddie looks round the room. The angel must have enhanced his perception in some way. He can see, now, the substance of it is alive. The walls are alive. The floor. Alive and intelligent. And he understands. He understands a lot. 'So there never was an accident? All this damage, that was you? That was the ship, redesigning itself?'
'That's right. And it's almost complete now, Eddie.'
'And that's another thing -- how do you know my name?'
'Know your name? I recruited you, Eddie. I picked you out a long time ago.'
'Picked me out? From a row of heads in jars?'
'Before that. Long before that. Let me show you.' The angel holds out her hand. Eddie steps towards her. Reaches out. Touches her fingertips.
There is a flash.
And noise, suddenly.
Lots of noise.
They're in the casino. The casino in Afortunado. The Hotel Felicity. All those years ago.
People are walking by them, ignoring them, which Eddie finds odd. People in Afortunado are used to weird sights, but an angel and a strange man in a shimmering silver s
uit suddenly appearing out of nowhere ought to draw the odd sideways glance. He reaches out to prod a passer-by. His finger passes through the woman, but she feels him, somehow. She jumps slightly, puts her hand to her shoulder and looks in his direction, but through him, as if he's invisible.
This isn't like a virtual simulation. It's too real.
'What is this?'
'The casino in Afortunado.'
'I know that. I mean, what is it, really? It seems real.'
'It is real.'
'But we're not really here.'
'Yes, we are.'
'But not physically here, though.'
The angel sighs. 'You're obsessed with this physical business. We're here. Our consciousness is here. You touched that woman, didn't you? She felt you?'
'Yes.'
'We're here. And don't touch anyone else, all right?'
'But they can't see us?'
'Or hear us, no.'
'Wait a minute. Let me get this straight: you're saying we travelled back in time?'
'Time is not what you think it is, Eddie.' The angel jumps up and down excitedly on her silver tap-dancing shoes and points. 'Look!'
Eddie looks, and sees someone vaguely familiar. It takes him a second to realize he's looking at himself.
'That's me?'
The angel nods, beaming.
Eddie squints at himself. He looks in a bad way, this old Eddie. His skin is white, his features are drawn and he's sweating. He looks troubled, very troubled. He's playing with something in his right hand. A gaming chip. He's scouring the room.
The watching Eddie feels his arm jerk. The angel is tugging at his sleeve. 'Come on! Quickly now!'
There's a brief sensation of swift flight, and suddenly Eddie's looking down at the casino from a new angle, bird's eye. 'Where are we?'
'Remember the sign? The arrow over the table?'
Eddie has to think. The sign? What did it say? Eddie to Win. 'I remember, yes.'
'Shall we do it?'
Eddie doesn't completely understand what the angel means. He looks over at his previous self, still scoping the room, looking for the right place to chance his dismal luck. Suddenly, it comes to him. He's in the sign, somehow. He is the sign. Ready to Win. All he has to do is concentrate a little and the sign becomes Eddie to Win.