by Tara Basi
Her Headgear delivered her to a lift, and she gratefully headed down. When the doors opened, the unnatural warmth and stillness of the air reminded Zip of desert battles. Nothing reminded her of anything good.
The senior administrator’s domain was Level Twelve, still fashionably underground. Just. After Twelve, there was no pretend sky, tinned sunlight or wide-open spaces.
Ahead of Zip was a large pink sandstone plaza. It was encircled by empty wooden benches. Beyond the benches, an arc of multi-storied blocks of brutal concrete held up the sky and guarded the narrow alleys that ran between them. On the far side of the plaza, standing in opposition to the surrounding monotony of grey cement, was an Orb Church. It was a miniature replica of the real thing, though still large enough to hold hundreds. The bright blue ball appeared to be precariously balanced on the roof of the senior administrator’s residence. It was late in the artificial morning.
Zip headed directly for the Church’s monumental doorway, which was framed by Romanesque, stone blocks and bordered by double-height stained glass windows, set in intricate, red brickwork. Senior Administrator Bremer might refuse Zip’s VR calls, but he couldn’t refuse her in person. A Church administrator was a servant of the Pilgrim, and Zip was most definitely a Pilgrim. It was official: she had a doctor’s certificate from the Richard Dawkins Psychiatric Hospital.
From random alleyways and wider paths, a steady trickle of naked Pilgrims converged on the Church, balanced by an equal and opposite flow of the faithful heading home. Zip, suitably undressed for the occasion, joined the orderly rainbow stream heading into the faux Orb.
She ignored the grand blue carpeted staircase that climbed up inside the Church proper. Zip turned to her left and headed towards the opening marked Administration. Beyond was a small reception area, empty except for a naked old man with lightly closed eyes. He was sitting stiffly at a battered metal desk. From the ripples under his eyelids, Zip guessed he was in a VR meeting or processing mail.
She strode on towards an entrance that was further ahead and stepped inside. A plump man, dressed in a flowing robe, had his back to her. Faint traces of old stains freckled the once-white gown. He hadn’t noticed Zip’s arrival and remained bent over a desk, studying something intently while humming a jaunty tune. Despite his unkempt appearance, Zip knew he was the senior administrator by the acutely angled top hat precariously balanced on his bald head.
“Senior Administrator Bremer?” Zip asked, slightly surprised that a senior administrator could look quite so shabby.
The man started speaking as he slowly turned towards Zip. “There’s no Orb viewing slots available till next year—Wow, you’re … gorgeous. Tramp must have had you in mind when he insisted on nudity in the Church. Truth be told, most Pilgrims would look better with some clothes on. You’re not one of mine, are you?” The senior administrator’s smile shone brightly out of a wrinkled, apple-red face. The man smelt faintly of dust, salt and soap: the kind of old smell that came out of forgotten chests in sweltering attics on sunny days. The front of his robe was equally stained, telling the history of past spills that hadn’t quite washed out. The faint Rorschach-like blots weren’t what gripped Zip’s attention. She couldn’t help staring at the horrible growth sprouting out of the middle of his face. Zip was stunned; the old man was wearing pre-God War gear-glasses that looked too small for his face. The thin wire arms bulged around his cheeks before disappearing over thick, fleshy ears. The narrow, wire-framed, lozenge-shaped lenses clung tenuously to the bridge of his broad nose with a sweaty grip.
“You definitely aren’t one of mine or you’d be used to my gear-specs. I like old things. I don’t like intrusive tech. I can’t even tolerate gear-contacts. Now, how can I help you, Pilgrim?” the senior administrator said, answering Zip’s unasked questions, questions he must have been asked many times before.
Zip forced herself to stop staring. As she looked down, her eyes couldn’t help falling on the open graphic novel the senior administrator had been studying so intently when she’d come in. It was one of her favourites: a century-old tale of vendetta. The damn senior administrator was trying to steal her rage.
“How can you not know me? You had me committed, you bastard.”
The senior administrator’s face scrunched up, his eyebrows arched like startled cats, and his smile flipped over as he clapped his hands to his ruddy cheeks. “I did? Oh dear, that’s terrible.”
It was as though Zip had just slapped him, and for a terrible moment she thought he was going to cry. Digging deep, she recovered her indignation and shouted into the face of the quivering old man trapped between her and the desk behind him. “Yes, damn right, it was terrible. Why did you do it? Why is the Church so scared of Professor Morris? Or is it his daughter, Kiki, that terrifies you? You’re going to tell me everything.”
The senior administrator’s wide, terrified eyes stared back at Zip, and, for a moment, his mouth hung silently open. “You can’t be? Are you Zara? But she’s older than me, with a grownup daughter.”
Zip hung her head in frustration for a second before taking a deep breath. “I’m Zip, formerly Zara. I’ve had a body transplant. Now answer my questions.”
The senior administrator was leaning so far back to escape Zip’s verbal assault, he was almost lying on the desk. Zip disgusted herself. She was feeling sorry for the man. He was shivering like a struck tuning fork and perspiring like a saturated sponge.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Which was a lie; it was exactly what she had been planning to do. “Sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water.” Zip looked around the office and spotted an old water cooler. She filled a paper cup and passed it to the now-seated senior administrator who was holding his head in his hands. “Here.” Zip waited patiently while he sipped it with shaking hands. His pathetic state was a vivid reflection of how she felt when a panic attack grabbed hold of her.
Senior Administrator Bremer cleared his throat, swallowed and began explaining himself in a low voice. “I’ve never heard of the people you mentioned – Kiki and the professor? The office of the CEO contacted me. They said you were behaving oddly, you hated the Church, never been in attendance, never made a pilgrimage to view the Orb, even denied it was God. Now you have to admit that’s weird behaviour for a Pilgrim.”
“Skip the theology and just tell me why.”
The senior administrator looked affronted for a moment before a frightened nervousness swept back over his face. “You know we’re forbidden from communicating or speaking aloud any part of the Revelation – Pilgrim or administrator. I take my responsibilities very seriously.”
“Jesus and the Tramp, give me patience. So, you got in touch with Alice?”
“Yes. And your daughter confirmed, in very forthright terms, that your conversion was suspicious. We referred you to the institute,” Bremer said, getting agitated again as he leaned back in his chair.
Zip glared at the man, trying to burn through his innocence.
Bremer blinked, dislodging a pearl of sweat that had been clinging to the tip of his nose like a jewel.
“What happened? Did you escape?”
“No. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m a Pilgrim. It’s official. So you have to help me, don’t you?”
The senior administrator stared at her blankly for a moment. Zip guessed he was using his ancient gear-specs to check with the hospital. He shook his head slowly, as though a thought had wormed its way into his head that shouldn’t be there and he was trying to dislodge it.
“Pilgrim, I’m terribly, terribly sorry. You’re absolutely right. It’s all been a horrible mistake. I should have assessed you myself before contacting the institute.”
Zip struggled not to smile. The poor man appeared genuinely appalled. His round apple face had sagged into the shape of a fat-bottomed pear.
“Then help me.”
The senior administrator stared at Zip, looking perplexed and anxious. “Help you? You’re released and you seem fine, so no
harm done. Look, maybe I can get you a priority Orb-viewing pass to make amends?”
“A viewing pass? I was locked up and tortured. They gave me horrific nightmares. You’ll have to do better than an Orb-viewing pass. Besides, I hate the Orb almost as much as the damn Church.”
Bremer screwed up his face and chewed nervously on an invisible lemon. “Are you sure you’re a Pilgrim?”
“Are you sure you’re a senior administrator? You’re not exactly typical. When did you last have those vestments cleaned?”
Abruptly, the senior administrator stood up, his face glowing like a polished plum. “How dare you! Next week I’m retiring from the ministry with an exemplary record. My every deed and action is ruled by the Tramp’s Administration, a document you’ve probably never read. If you had, you would know that external appearances count for nothing. Only administrative excellence matters in the Church.”
Zip couldn’t help smiling at the senior administrator’s red-faced indignation; there was something very disarming about this particular churchman.
“Study of the Administration led me to the Revelation. When I worked in Orb Industries, it was required reading. It has a terrible weakness, though, doesn’t it?”
Bremer’s face reverted to looking puzzled. “It’s the best management manual ever written. What weakness?”
“You’re allowed to discuss it, interpret, embellish, twist and corrupt it. I know, I’ve seen how the darker side of the Church operates.”
The older man deflated like a punctured bouncy castle as he slumped back down in his chair. “It’s so clear, so wonderfully written. It should be safe. It is safe. It’s a myth that some think the Administration is the Revelation.”
Zip almost felt guilty about hurting the old man’s feelings. “It’s no myth. The Church CEO and the Board believe that Pilgrims are sheep to be exploited. Well, I’m a Pilgrim but I’m no lamb.”
“You can’t know that. It’s just a vile rumour, a hideous lie. The Church’s only purpose is to serve the Pilgrim in all things secular. Nothing else.”
“Wake up, Bremer. Orb Industries has been battling with the Church since the end of the God War. And for what? What else? Control of the Orb and the Pilgrim’s money?”
“Be quiet. I’ve nearly completed my term.” Bremer squeezed his forehead, as though trying to massage Zip’s words away. He dropped his hands and leaned forward, his face glowing with indignation. “In a few more days, I’m going to open a café. A real one. Proper coffee, fresh baked pastries. I’ve had enough of sweaty, naked Pilgrims and bossy directors.”
Zip found it hard to believe. Was Bremer an honest senior administrator, just like the Tramp had imagined an Ungodly senior administrator should be? “Administration, Chapter One, Verse One, says you have to help me. And I need help.”
The senior administrator sighed deeply. “What do you want?”
Zip thought, Where exactly do I start? “Peter just wants to know why his daughter died, and he hired me to find out. The Church warned me not to help him, and then they had me committed. Why? What are they afraid of?”
The senior administrator sat slumped in his chair, head bowed. For a long moment, he was silent. “I’ve no idea. I’ve only got days left in the Church. I’ll see what I can find out, but I’d rather leave with my perceptions of the Church and the tenets of the Administration intact. So don’t expect too much.”
“A Pilgrim cannot expect too much of their administrators,” Zip quoted from the Administration. She wasn’t going to let the good senior administrator off that easily.
Bremer nodded nervously and summoned up a half-smile. Zip found herself returning his smile and hoping he’d be alright. This was not how she’d imagined her encounter with the senior administrator unfolding.
Back outside in the concrete bowl of the open space, still host to a trickle of Pilgrims, Zip wondered what to do. Go and berate her daughter, Alice? Tell Peter she’d quit? With the senior administrator problem temporarily put aside and her fury gone, she couldn’t concentrate. Her thoughts kept turning back to the visions she’d experienced in the hospital. She’d never visited the Orb as a Pilgrim, that was just a horrible fantasy, but the bomb run under the Vatican was almost exactly as she remembered. Except, there were no refugees, no homicidal Catholic girl. Only a final bloody firefight with a security patrol before she’d escaped with Mathew and the AI. The Pilgrim hadn’t made it. Up top, high on a hill overlooking the city, the three watched a sunburst of blue light turn the Vatican and the whole of Rome into a boiling lake of molten rock, vaporised bone and incinerated flesh. The air crackled and reeked of burnt meat.
Zip recalled what it was like to be Zara on that day. She wanted some of that back: the fearlessness, the determination, the confidence in her body and her training. Jesus and the Tramp, she had the rest: the self-loathing, the bottomless guilt. Resetting her Record after the transplant was a mistake. It hadn’t dimmed her worst memories or lessened the nightmares; she just couldn’t Replay any of the good stuff anymore. There must have been some.
Alice lived on the level above Bremer’s Church. Her daughter had to be confronted. Their personal war had gone on long enough. After that, she’d decide what to do next.
The first twelve levels below ground covered pretty much the same sized area as Central London. The subterranean districts aped the names of the sunlit places they lay beneath. There was a Chelsea-Eleven and a Hoxton-Eleven sitting below the real thing, all trying hard to echo the world up above, less convincingly the deeper you went, like a Chinese whisper. Below Level Twelve, and on down to where Zip had her office, the city gave up pretending and embraced its nature as it funnelled into ever-smaller areas. Until you reached the place of myth and rumour: Sediment Town. After Level Twelve, there was no spare power to cool and light open spaces, to pretend there was a sky or that night fell, so there wasn’t any of that. Instead, the lower levels were filled with anonymous, one-size boxes and the narrow corridors that ran between them. And the boxes were stacked high and filled nearly every millimetre of level space. These dark and claustrophobic underground places were no better than people warehouses.
The cheapest-deep, where Zip lived and worked, housed only private bunkers. Useless insurance. At best, the bunkers provided living interment and a slow death instead of instant incineration. It suited Zip, being out of sight and far away from the surface, Orb Industries, the Church and, most of all, the Orb.
Alice lived in a detached house in Pimlico-Eleven on the banks of a half-metre deep mock Thames. Underneath the shallow liquid veneer ran Eleven’s power, water, sewage and other utilities, as it did on all the other wannabe London levels. The river was another subterranean conceit Zip couldn’t understand. It was obvious that the mirror-smooth swathe of still liquid could never be mistaken for a natural river. She preferred the utilitarian honesty of her bunker.
Still, Alice lived in a nice house, a lovely recreation of a Victorian villa, with strict upright windows, properly dressed stone and a funeral-black slate roof. The little, two-dimensional garden ringing the house was painted onto the concrete: strips of green bordered by colourful flowerheads and, here and there, the odd cartoon bee or a butterfly. It didn’t smell of anything but warm concrete, barely discernible above the overpowering stench of chlorine drifting off Thames-Eleven. Without the chlorine and the nocturnal auto-bot cleaners, the shallow canal would turn green. Zip smiled and imagined that the chlorine sedated the river into believing it was real, so it never had to be jealous of its over-ground cousin.
Without a nearby Church to draw out the Pilgrims, the streets were empty and almost quiet. Only the throb of air pumps rose above the general background hum of the invisible machines tending to the environment. Zip remembered a time when even Sunday morning’s deserted thoroughfares retained some trace of past pedestrians: broken cigarettes spilling their guts of black and gold; carelessly discarded wrappers dancing for fun; crumpled paper coffee cups brightly stamped with lipstick memori
es; shiny cans of sparkling silver rolling down the street, chased by the wind. Pimlico-Eleven didn’t have the breath to blow anything anywhere. Pimlico-Five, nearer the surface, had some artificial weather. Pimlico-Two had recreational rain. Pimlico-One had snow at Christmas. Most of the time, most of their streets were as empty as a senior administrator’s prayers and as quiet as a dead Church mouse.
The Pilgrims only went out to visit their Church, and then it was straight back home. The Ungodly hardly ever ventured out unless they were Church administrators. Outside, a clothed Ungodly wouldn’t go unnoticed in a crowd of Pilgrim nakedness. And where there were Pilgrims there might be Pilgrimists. There was no need to venture out. A ’bot could deliver anything, and VR could take you anywhere.
And then there were the sporadic attacks: bombings, shootings and worse in VR. Orb Industries blamed Church-sponsored Pilgrimists. The Church accused Industries of trying to drive London’s Pilgrims out.
There was plenty keeping people in. Thank Professor Simmons for full-body VR, if not the killer AIs. Without VR, half of London would be two-cats-in-a-sack crazy and the other half would be looking for a sack to climb into. If the Church ever managed to kill the Net, it would all be over.
It dawned on Zip that she’d been outside her little box more in the last few days than she had in the last two years.
Zip had called ahead to tell a shocked Alice she was coming. As Zip climbed the steps to the front door, it swung open. Her daughter’s house security was expecting her. The welcome only extended to an airlock lobby where she was politely decontaminated before a second opening appeared, leading to the house proper.
She was standing in a short hallway with a kitchen at the far end, a staircase to the right and a door on the left that she vaguely remembered opened onto a large lounge and a dining room. The door under the stairs led to a cellar. Zip hadn’t visited the house for real in years.