Night Train

by David Quantick

  “‘A bad person should look bad’,” Garland finished. She looked shocked that she had spoken.

  “It’s all coming back to you now, ain’t it,” Lincoln said cheerfully. “But yeah, a bad person should look bad. And a traitor –”

  He stared at Banks’s altered face.

  “– should look like a traitor.”

  * * *

  Banks said nothing.

  “I deserved it,” he said.

  “Sure you did,” said Lincoln. “You did it to save your own skin, which is kind of funny when you think about it, seeing what we did to your skin. And the rest.”

  There was a moment’s silence before Poppy said, “What do you mean, the rest?”

  “Leave it,” Banks said.

  “Oh no, that’s a perfectly fair question,” Lincoln said. “Because we didn’t just mess with your face. Wasn’t all new ridges and contours in your skull to make you less pretty. See, we had a few fellows, medics and such, wanted to try a few things out.”

  “That’s enough,” said Garland.

  “Go on,” said Banks, his face blanched and tight.

  “We were getting short of prisoners, and clones don’t – well, they don’t fall right when you work on them. So we opened him up and we let the fellows do what they wanted to.”

  “Which was what, exactly?” said Banks.

  “I don’t entirely know. They kind of got in there and played roulette. Took some shit out, moved some shit around. You know the saying, his heart’s in the right place? Ain’t true in your case.”

  “He’s joking,” said Poppy.

  “Truth is,” Lincoln said, “I have no idea. But hey, they sewed you up again and you’re alive. It all worked out fine.”

  Poppy put her arm around Banks.

  Garland took his hand.

  “Listen,” Poppy said, “whatever you did, you more than paid the price.”

  “Unlike you,” said Lincoln. “Those fancy parts we gave you, you stole them.”

  “Not much use to anyone else,” Poppy replied.

  “But they didn’t belong to you,” Lincoln said. “They were new technology, and expensive too. We were just about to take ’em back when you made a break.”

  “Good job too, then,” said Poppy. “And since you took what I was born with, I feel fair exchange is no robbery.”

  “Kind of a shame you came here,” said Lincoln. He turned to the others. “She thought she was escaping, but she wasn’t, was she? She came right back to us.”

  “I saw Denning,” said Poppy. “He was here, too.”

  “It should have been you in there,” Lincoln said. “Once we’d figured out how to get those off you –” he nodded at her arms, “– without damaging them, we were going to put you in a death room, same as Denning, and throw in a couple of vials.”

  Garland stared at him. “You’re not human,” he said.

  “About the only one here who is,” Lincoln replied. “You got your freak face here and your metal girl and – well, maybe you should tell me who you are.”

  “I’m human,” said Garland.

  “That remains to be seen,” Lincoln said. “No pun intended.”

  “What pun –” Poppy began.

  Lincoln interrupted her.

  “I said this train was like a book. Different carriages, different chapters,” he said, getting up. “I didn’t say which book, though.”

  He motioned for them to follow him. They did so, uncertain and reluctant.

  “Come on, we’re nearly there,” said Lincoln. “Hey,” he added, “you ever hear of a man called Shandy?”

  * * *

  The next carriage was black. The walls were black flock wallpaper, gloss black decoration on matt black paper, the carpet a thin black pile, while the ceiling was hung with black crepe, and the windows were draped with it.

  Music was playing as they entered, a strange high bubbling sound, like a dance but also like a scream.

  “What is that noise?” Banks said.

  Poppy said, “I like it. It sounds frightening and jolly all at the same time.”

  “Bagpipes,” said Lincoln. “The Leader liked them because they were martial.”

  He listened for a moment as the tune unfurled.

  “‘Train Journey North’,” he said. “It was the Leader’s favourite. I mean, I guess, he was a tone deaf old shit who didn’t care about music. Me, I love anything so long as it’s a train song.”

  They made their way with some difficulty through the half-lit carriage. Ornate black brackets held dim candle-shaped bulbs that lit the air a few centimetres around them. In the centre of the otherwise empty carriage was a large box mounted on a pair of trestles.

  “I’ve been here before,” said Garland.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Lincoln said.

  Poppy said, “Who’s Sherlock?”

  “I was here with Denning,” Garland said.

  “Denning?” Banks said. “Did you know him too?”

  “She never said before,” Poppy said.

  “I didn’t know before,” Garland replied. She turned to Lincoln. “How have I been here before?” she asked. “How do I know Denning?”

  “Oh, you know Denning well,” Lincoln answered. “Matter of fact, you used to rely on him for advice and assistance. He was kind of your factotum. Your gofer.”

  “I don’t know what any of those words mean,” said Poppy.

  “I do,” said Banks, his face severe. “He means that Denning used to work for Garland.”

  “No,” said Garland. “That’s not true.”

  “There’s more to her than she lets on, that’s for sure,” said Lincoln, and he winked at Garland.

  “Banks, this is what he does,” said Poppy. “He makes us scared so we don’t question him.”

  Banks wasn’t listening.

  “Is he right?” he asked Garland. “Did Denning work for you? The man who did this to me – did that to her? The man who killed the only person I loved?”

  “Strictly speaking,” Lincoln reminded him, “you killed the only person you loved. But yeah, I’m here to tell you that our late, recently liquidated friend Mister Denning was employed as an advisor to this lady here.”

  Garland shook her head. “I know you’re right,” she said, “but I also know you’re wrong.”

  “Well, that makes no sense,” said Lincoln. “Now, I have a question for you all.”

  He laid his palms on the lid of the black box as if drawing strength from it, then looked up.

  “You ever hear of the murder weapon paradox?” he asked.

  Poppy shook her head. Banks just looked at Garland, who avoided his stare.

  “The murder weapon paradox is this,” said Lincoln. “Let’s say you commit a murder. Not the kind Banks committed, but a real man’s murder, with a knife. The police arrest you, throw you in jail, and they take the knife because the knife is the only proof they have that it was you who committed the crime. Maybe there’s fingerprints on it, a couple of hairs. Are you with me so far?”

  The three of them said nothing.

  “So the trial for some reason is delayed, and in that time someone is cleaning up the evidence room and they drop the knife, and the handle breaks. Maybe it’s a cleaner who doesn’t want to lose her job, I don’t know. But she has an identical knife of her own that she carries in case she gets attacked on the way home. It’s a rough town. And she replaces the broken handle on the murder weapon with the handle from her knife.”

  “This is all very confusing,” said Poppy.

  “It gets worse,” Lincoln replied. “A day or two later the same thing happens again. Only this time it’s a painter working in the same room and he needs a blade to open a pot of paint, I don’t know. And he breaks the blade. Oh crap. He panics, and runs out into the canteen, and finds another knife with the same kind of blade, pulls out the blade and slots it into the handle of the old knife. Which, you may recall, is not the original handle.”

  “I wis
h I had it here now,” said Poppy. “I’d kill myself to get away from this story.”

  Lincoln took out the remote control again. “Don’t need a knife,” he reminded her. “Anyway, the day of the trial comes, the accused is brought into the dock and the knife is shown to him. ‘Is this your knife?’ they ask him. And he’s about to say yes when something makes him stop. A smile plays on his murderer’s lips. ‘No,’ he says. ‘That is not my knife.’

  “Well, the place is in uproar. The defence are shouting no fair, the police are saying nobody’s touched the knife. When the dust settles, the judge orders an investigation, which of course reveals that the murder weapon is no longer the murder weapon. Because of this, there is no evidence, which means there is no case, which means the prisoner walks free.”

  “But it was the murder weapon,” said Poppy. “It was the knife the murderer used. Wasn’t it?”

  Lincoln put his hands together. “And that,” he said, “is the murder weapon paradox. When something changes, and over time all its component parts are replaced, does its original essence remain, or is it a new thing?”

  “Like the Ship of Theseus,” said Garland out loud.

  Banks said, “Washington’s Axe.”

  “Trigger’s Broom,” said Poppy.

  “Whatever you call it,” Lincoln replied, “it was the end of our world.”

  He thwacked the lid of the box with the flat of his hand.

  “Knock once if you can hear me,” he said, “twice if you can’t.”

  Silence followed.

  “It was the Leader,” said Lincoln. “When he came to prominence, when he became the Leader, he was strong. He made decisions and he made our world. People died, because they had to. There was war, and there were all kinds of things, but the Leader had sight, and he followed the sight. Then he got old, and he got worried. What would people think when he was gone? Worse, what would they think when he was old, and ill, and dying? What would they do? Would they do it to him? He got soft. I would ask him to make a decision, and he would hesitate. Denning would advise him on a course of action, and he wouldn’t take it. You see, he wasn’t the same person.”

  “You mean he changed?” said Banks.

  “No,” said Lincoln. “I mean he wasn’t the same person.”

  He looked at Garland for support, and she saw that Lincoln was not sane.

  “People change, that’s a common saying. But it doesn’t account for the real truth. Every day our cells die, don’t they? And they’re replaced by new cells. Every cell dies and every cell is replaced. Which means that the person you were as a child, or as an adolescent, is not the same person you are as a grown adult. And that person is not who you become. And so on, until you die.”

  “That’s not how it works –” Banks began. Lincoln wasn’t listening.

  “A clone,” he said. “See, a clone is more than a copy of you. It’s a digital copy. It doesn’t decay like you. It doesn’t change its mind or learn or get swayed by arguments or become more compassionate with age. It stays the same. But people – people change. We all do, unless we have the strength to resist. Some of us can do it. I can. Denning could, until he was taken apart. But the Leader – he was no longer the weapon. And so we had to remove him.”

  Lincoln looked down at the black box.

  “Remove him?” asked Poppy.

  “Oh, we explored other avenues first,” said Lincoln. “Reason, persuasion, even threats… but he was adamant. He wanted to be remembered. We told him he would be. But he said no, he wanted to be remembered favourably. We told him he had saved the world. He just shook his head. So we made plans. We made provision for his removal, for his replacement, and he… stepped aside.”

  After a while, Poppy said, “And that’s him?”

  “What?” said Lincoln.

  Poppy spoke slowly. “In the box,” she said. “That’s him in the box?”

  “Hell no,” said Lincoln. “We burned his body and scattered the pieces. Fuck him and his legacy.”

  “Is it Shandy?” asked Banks.

  Lincoln laughed. “I do not believe so. As a matter of fact,” he went on, tugging at the lid of the box, “this ain’t a man at all.”

  He pulled the lid off and it crashed to the floor. Inside the box was a body. It had been preserved with some kind of chemical that made it look fresh but deathly pale, and it was wearing an expensive uniform. In every other respect it was Garland’s double.

  “A real chip off the old block,” said Lincoln. He looked Garland in the eye. “Ain’t that right?”

  Interlude Three

  She was in the room with the black box again. Denning was there and he was talking. Lately, she reflected, Denning was always talking. It was as if he knew the end was near, and the only thing he had left was words. She wished that he would shut up, but she knew he wouldn’t.

  “Somebody once said that the end of an empire is messy at best,” Denning was saying. “They were right. And this one is no exception.”

  She looked out of the window. The grey sky was getting even greyer. She wondered how that was possible.

  “We’re trying the cloud bombs again,” said Denning, catching her gaze. “Might work, might not. But he promised them blue skies, so we have to try. Of course,” he went on, and she realised that he was never going to stop talking because then he would have to start thinking, and when he did, it would all be over for him, “he promised a lot of things at the end, didn’t he?”

  “He was trying to reform the system,” she said.

  “He was trying to create his legacy,” Denning almost spat. “He was crapping on everything we had created, throwing it all out so he might get a kind word from the history books.”

  “He wanted to change,” she said.

  “Everyone does, at the death,” said Denning. “They want to be forgiven. They want their mothers. They want to die in a state of grace, so they can be born again.”

  He looked out into the grey night.

  “Mothers,” he said.

  “I never knew mine,” she said.

  “Overrated,” Denning said. “I had mine arrested. Quite by accident, as it happens, but that’s by the by. We can do without them.”

  He looked at her again.

  “All the men we sent to fight,” he said. “All of them, at the end, screaming and crying for their mothers. So much simpler to do without, don’t you think?”

  Denning opened the box. A face exactly like Garland’s stared back at him, expressionless.

  “It’s always the same,” he said, looking into the dead eyes. “There’s an emperor who isn’t really an emperor, just a boy in a crown that’s too big for him. His empire isn’t even a kingdom, it’s four walls and a roof. Or there’s a dictator and he’s not the great dictator, he’s the man who comes after the great dictator. His empire is a bunker and a loaded pistol.”

  “When are we leaving?” she asked, hoping to stem the tide of words. Denning wasn’t listening.

  “History is full of these people,” he went on. “The small men who follow the big men. Nobody remembers them. Donitz, Constantine Palaeologus, Caesarion… they’re the men who run out onto the pitch just as the game ends. The ones who end up poisoned, or in front of a firing squad, or on trial for their grubby lives.”

  He sighed. “And then we have this young woman. The second and final Leader. She had all the qualifications for a classic last emperor: no qualifications save blood, and an empire that nobody could see. An empire that goes on rails, and has to keep moving, in case its enemies see it. A skulking, tiny empire.”

  “Did you kill her?” she asked.

  “Me? No,” said Denning. “There was no need. She – she didn’t work. We tried everything but the upgrade was too much.”

  “Upgrade?” she said, needing to hear the answer but not wanting to. “I thought the process was simple.”

  “Simple to make a soldier, yes, or a labourer,” agreed Denning. “But we weren’t transferring basic skills a
nd the rudiments of a personality. We weren’t making a worker bee. We were making a queen.”

  He looked down at the corpse, almost fondly.

  “We were making a new Leader, who was to have the character and force and mind of the old Leader,” he said. “Your father reincarnate.”

  “She wasn’t him,” she said.

  “For a moment, she was,” Denning corrected her. “When we woke her, she was him. It was uncanny: apart from her gender, which was necessarily yours, she had his ideas, his voice and even his mannerisms. Unfortunately,” and Denning sighed again, “she also had the disease that killed him.”

  “But his illness took –”

  “Years, I know. But the process must have accelerated in her.”

  He turned to her.

  “I was never for using your cells,” he said. “I said the moral decay in you was worse than any physical or mental decay. We should have used someone with fibre.”

  “You, perhaps?”

  He was taken aback by the steel in her voice, so different to her usual meekness. “Why not?” he said.

  “When you look at the filth who will follow me… why not?”

  Denning looked at his watch.

  “Oh well,” he said. “No use chuntering on about the past. Let’s go. We have a train to catch.”

  * * *

  Garland found that she had closed her eyes tight. When she opened them, she saw that the others were standing around her.

  “She remembers,” said Lincoln. “How was it? Your trip down memory lane?”

  “I remember,” said Garland. “I’m not sure, but I think I remember everything.”

  “Who are you?” said Banks.

  “Who’s she?” asked Poppy, looking at the body in the box. “Is she your sister?”

  “Is she your daughter?” Banks asked.

  “Of course she’s not her fucking daughter, you tosser,” said Poppy.

  “Then who?” Banks said.

  “She’s my clone,” Garland said, quietly.

  “The fuck,” said Poppy.

  Banks looked confused. “But clones…” he began. “They’re not like you.”

  “They’re not,” said Garland. “They’re not very sophisticated, you mean. They’re basic personality templates. But she was meant to be like the Leader. The Leader before he got –”