by Tara Basi
“Of course, you must investigate for yourself. See the evidence. We’ll leave, shortly.”
Beyond the half-melted metal door to the room, a firefight erupted. For a time, the noise was deafening. The Tramp looked terrified as he tightly cupped his ears.
“As soon as it’s safe.”
The thundering battle going on outside drifted away, returned, and then it fell relatively quiet. Mary approached the Tramp. “We’ll get you out of here. We’re sorry if we caused you any distress.”
The Tramp pulled his knees to his chest and began to rock slowly. “My hands were burning.”
Peter looked across to Mary and shook his head. They were losing him. He kicked himself; he’d rushed it. Next time he’d take it slower. This was still a good simulation. Unexpectedly, Mary began speaking.
“Luminance – apologies, Tramp – I’m a Pilgrim. Could I ask you about that night? I know we can’t, mustn’t, discuss the Revelation. And I know it’s the worst possible time, but I might never get this chance again.”
The Tramp looked as surprised as Peter at Mary’s request. “Of course. What, what did you want to know?”
“Did you say, ‘God has come’?”
The man leaned back against the wall and smiled. “Such little words. Who could know?”
Peter’s growing tension abated. Mary had bumped him back into the simulation. They were still going. It wasn’t over.
“Imagine you’re drunk and drugged up, sleeping rough in Hyde Park. It’s a cold, miserable night for the homeless. Only good for hunters and lovers: shiny clear skies and a crispy frost.” The Tramp fell silent, lost in the memories of that momentous night.
Peter and Mary kept quiet, content that their subject seemed to be stabilising, relaxing.
“People seemed to think it arrived from somewhere, descended out of the night sky. It didn’t. I was on my back with a bottle of rum in my hand staring at the moon, imagining all sorts of crazy things. And then, the craziest thing in the world happens. So crazy I couldn’t imagine it. A giant blue ball appears, like a magician’s trick. There’s nothing. Then there’s the Orb, just above the treeline, blocking out the whole night sky. Directly overhead. Like it appeared, just for me. Every man, woman, child, dog, cat and bird vacated that park like they had the Devil himself burning up their arses. Except me. I liked it. It was beautiful. And I thought I’d made it. I was too drunk to go anywhere. It was a sign, my sign. It made me think. About everything. After a while, a couple of hours, I sobered up, got up and walked away. Eventually ended up at one of the cordons around the park, and the press ate me up. I was the only one who’d stayed.”
The Tramp smiled. He seemed to enjoy the telling. Bunny had been very clever. The Tramp had never spoken about his experience that night. His only words on the subject of the Orb were captured amid the chaos of its arrival, when a frantic media was desperate for any insight, any information. He seemed to be enjoying going back to that time; maybe everything was simpler for him then. Peter’s view on the Tramp had changed at every VR session. He was not the demagogue Peter had imagined.
“Yes, I did say, ‘God has come.’ But that’s not the whole sentence. What I said was, ‘God has come to me.’ The Orb is not a god. It’s a ball. A toy. A weapon. Who knows what? It made me think, though, about me. Damn Orb Industries. Sorry, no offence. They turned it into a damn money-spinning idol.”
While the Tramp was relaxed and talkative, Peter needed to get him back on the subject of the Church. The Suit wouldn’t care for his commentary on Industries.
“They’re materialistic pragmatists. Same as the people you chose to run the Trust, and we know you did it for the right reasons, Tramp.”
The Tramp’s smile vanished, and his shoulders hunched. “I can’t believe it. They tried to kill me?”
Mary reached down, took the Tramp’s hand and gently squeezed. He relaxed a little, only briefly. Another round of gunfire from outside reminded the Tramp of what might be waiting for him beyond the door.
Mary took up the conversation. “As a Pilgrim, I’ve seen things at gatherings and at Trust conferences which don’t seem right. Maybe Orb Industries intelligence is wrong, but the Trust is definitely turning into a Church. It’s not what I thought you wanted.”
“I should have spent more time directing the Trust. But why would they want to kill me?” The Tramp’s voice was trembling. Peter wasn’t sure if it was with fear or rage.
“If you were martyred by the Jews, it would double Pilgrim numbers overnight and the Trust would have a free hand.”
“The Jews?”
“The Trust is going to blame Mossad, as retaliation for the Pilgrimist plague sweeping Israel.”
The Tramp shook his head and started shaking. “It can’t be true. This is horrible. I must find out for myself. I want to go. Please, let me out of here.”
Peter ended the simulation. The Suit was hovering next to his desk when Peter opened his eyes.
“That’s more like it, so what happens next?”
Peter hadn’t expected quite such an immediate response. He jerked upright in his chair. “You startled me. Next, well, we’ll take him to a debriefing, present the evidence and try to get him to accept our truth and say it was the Church and not Mossad. Will that do?”
“Absolutely wonderful! A Recording of the Tramp saying the Church was planning to kill him and blame Mossad would be priceless. We can plant all the circumstantial evidence before it’s released to a few select broadcasters. The news will sweep across the world. The Church will never survive. When will we have it?”
Bunny’s plan seemed to be working. Now he had to be very cautious. “It’ll take a while. We have to transfer to another simulated environment, get all the details right and not overstress him, or we could lose everything. We’ll try, but I’m not sure we can keep him stable long enough.”
“Quattro is stable. Perhaps she has a solution,” Bunny said.
Peter took his cue. “No, absolutely not. We could over-tax her. Besides, she doesn’t know anything about this stuff. She was a journalist.”
The Suit fluttered a little more than usual. “Peter’s right. Besides, we have an agreement. You succeed or no Quattro.”
Bunny fell silent. Peter’s insides were churning butter.
It was Bunny who continued, “Peter has suggested, and I agree, that it is odd that Quattro’s consciousness was so easily transferred to her new body. It suggests there may be code hidden in that particular body, perhaps specifically to support reanimation, and it has not yet been fully activated. Peter has searched my body and found only expected AI functions. Peter needs to search Quattro’s body.”
Bunny’s explanation only appeared to annoy the Suit even more. “Professor Simmons should never have been working on those AI bodies. It was never sanctioned. We still have no idea what she was doing, and you, conveniently, have no knowledge of her plans.”
Bunny stayed silent.
Peter decided to force the issue and make something up. He only hoped Bunny could deliver what he’d promised and give Quattro the ability to sleep.
“These AI bodies are unique. I’ve never seen anything like them. While Bunny and Mathew are pure AI, it’s possible Quattro’s body was specifically built to house a reanimation subject. That would explain why she transferred so easily.”
“What are you saying, Peter?” the Suit asked, its tone sceptical.
“If we could power up Quattro for an hour or two, and I could examine the body, I might find a way to stabilise the Tramp’s simulation and fix Quattro.”
The Suit disappeared. Bunny and Peter were left alone in the lab.
Chapter Eighteen – Zip and the Church
Brain in a jar. Stirred, not shaken. Disembodied swirling. Little dizzy thoughts. Looking for an idea, a feeling, an anchor point. Something to hold on to. Twisting and twirling in the blackness, searching for up, missing a down.
There, a sharp little pain. Grab it. Hold on. Reel it in.
Glorious feeling. A small point of lighter blackness. Seize it. Wriggle on. That’s the way. Pain and light. Somewhere to go. Something to feel. Something to see.
Unbearable agony. Pupil melting light. Saved.
The breath was so deep, so desperate, so hungry, there couldn’t be any more air left in all the world. Her arched back lifted her hips clear off the bed, forming a bridge of agony that spanned her head to her heels. Muscles moaned, sinews screamed, her panicking heart clawed at her ribcage.
It all stopped. The bridge collapsed into a river of sweat. Zip opened her eyes and screamed. It was still sitting on her chest.
“It undead,” Creep noted, before leisurely climbing off, up a wall and across the ceiling, coming to a frozen stop directly over Zip.
She tried to rise, to get away. The pain in her chest flattened her. It felt like she had an axe in her heart. She wasn’t paralysed, and looking around only revealed a standard-looking hospital room. That was until she lifted her head and saw two Church directors at the end of her bed, dressed as only directors of the Church would be: identically, in sharp, pinstripe, double-breasted suits and bowler hats.
Apart from their attire, they couldn’t have been less alike. One was tall, muscular, with an effeminately manicured thin line of lip hair, looking more like a plucked eyebrow than anything else. The nose was sharp, the lips soft and fat. His companion was severely emaciated. The hairless skin of his face was stretched over his narrow skull like some ugly God War lamp trophy. If he opened his thin-lipped mouth, Zip feared it wouldn’t stop opening until his head was peeled. Cold, blue eyes stared out of deep, dark sockets past a nose of raw cartilage. He might be a thousand years old, or perhaps very, very sick.
In her head, she labelled them Thick and Thin.
When she attempted to speak, she only managed a cough and an unintelligible croak. Her throat felt ravaged and raw. Swallowing sand might have been less painful. Thin moved to the side of her bed and poured her a glass of water. He added something else, a brown liquid from a vial, swirled the glass in his hand and held it up to the light. Seemingly satisfied, he handed the tumbler of tan water to Zip and then re-joined his companion at the end of the bed. She sniffed suspiciously at the water. It didn’t smell of anything. Sipping cautiously, her throat immediately cooled and felt soothed. Zip prepared to wince as she braved a bigger gulp and swallowed. There was almost no discomfort. The razor blades lining her windpipe had dissolved away. Overhead, the lurking spider hadn’t moved. Zip shook her head when she remembered.
“It’s a Pilgrim?”
Thin answered in a light voice, rising barely above a whisper, “The AIs are as diverse as humans, Ungodly, heretics and believers. Creep is a devout Pilgrimist. You are a … mess.”
“It racist,” Creep added, from its stationary position on the ceiling.
Zip ignored the jibes. “What did that monster do to me?” Zip croaked. Trying to speak above a whisper was still painful.
The two suited gents exchanged glances before deciding who should answer. Thick continued in a voice that was all gravel and sand. “Creep killed you, and then, unfortunately, it had to bring you back. You’ve been nothing but trouble, and even in death you have the power to irritate.”
Zip weakly tried to raise herself up onto her elbows. Thankfully, the bed responded to her movements and tilted forward to support her weight. Gradually, with the bed’s assistance, she rose to a sitting position. She treated herself to a smile, despite the pain in her chest. “You didn’t get my suicide note.”
Both directors frowned. Thin looked particularly angry. The two exchanged hissed whispers and maybe a lot of Headgear data. Finally, the private conversation ended and Thick turned back to Zip.
“We got some. You sent out a couple of billion emails. All of ours were blank. When Creep saw what was happening, it put you into a coma, which is just as well, for everybody.”
“I must have been one paranoid bitch that week. So what now? I guess you’re not here with fruit.”
Thick’s face turned even more sour. “You’re alive to be of use. Listen carefully, we’re in a hurry. There was only one real note. It slipped through, but it was tracked to a drop-box. Your Quartermaster retrieved it, and we know he’s in Sediment Town.”
Her smile faded away. Why was she still alive?
Thick brutally told her why. “We could take Sediment Town apart and find the Recording without any more information. Given the nature of the graveyard, it’ll take time and a lot of resources. All that activity would probably attract the attention of Orb Industries. Go to the Quartermaster, retrieve the Recording and bring it to us, and we won’t kill him or everyone else in Sediment Town, or Alice or your grandchildren. Or you, either. You’d be last, naturally.”
Zip pressed her lips tightly together to hold back the tirade that was bubbling up in her gut. This situation had to be thought through calmly. There was really no choice. Quattro wasn’t even really alive. And Mathew, well, he was dead too. It was a triage moment. They couldn’t all be saved. Not by Zip, not at the expense of her family and Q. And she’d finally get to see her own suicide note. Still, she had questions. “Do you have Peter, his technology? Have you stopped him from bringing back the Tramp?”
Thin looked as if he’d been smacked. “Peter’s blasphemy is out of our reach without going to war. Creep has stolen his technology. There were early hopes we could reverse engineer Mathew, but that proved impossible. We would never have pierced the Orb Industry defences around Peter’s lab if it wasn’t for K3 inviting us in. Quattro was the final prize.”
None of that answer made a great deal of sense to Zip, except that they had replicated Peter’s technology. “Who, what is K3?”
Thick scowled. “Never mind that. There’s not much time left. We’re trying to keep the peace. If we have Professor Simmons, we may be able to maintain the stalemate with Orb Industries. If they release a message from the Tramp before we can negotiate, it’ll be war.”
How warped. The Church was trying to stop the war from starting and with her help. There was one thing more. “I’ll do what you ask, but I have a condition.”
Thick laughed out loud. It was a gurgling sound as though the bubbles of laughter were floating up from some sticky tar-pool. “Conditions?”
“I want to be there when you bring Professor Simmons back. I have a question for her.”
Thick and Thin exchanged glances before Thick responded, “What question?”
“I want to know what the Orb said to her. Don’t you want to know?”
Thick smiled. It looked like a scar across his face. “The Church likes things just as they are. In this, we are in agreement with Orb Industries. A silent, enigmatic Orb suits both our interests. Besides, it could be saying anything. We can’t have that.”
“Can I be there, when she’s reanimated?”
Thick and Thin whispered together for a while before reaching a conclusion. Thin delivered their verdict. “You may. Your Recorder and Headgear will be blocked for the session. Your presence and interest in the Orb might actually calm Professor Simmons and get her to tell us more quickly that Orb Industries murdered her.”
Zip didn’t want to even imagine that possibility. “She committed suicide. It was clear cut. Why would she lie about that?”
“She won’t be lying. You have twenty-four hours. After that we’ll launch an all-out attack on Sediment Town. We already have Alice and your grandchildren.”
Zip couldn’t hold back anymore. “Bastards!”
Thin’s face darkened. “Relax, they think they’ve won a prize. They’re happy. Creep will give you a shot to get you back on your feet.”
Before Zip could react, the machine dropped onto her chest and punched it with a needle then returned to hugging the ceiling. At first, the pain in her chest grew before subsiding and then disappearing altogether. Strength rapidly returned to her limbs. Gingerly, at first, she climbed out of the bed and stood up. She felt almost normal. The directors tu
rned their backs and waited silently while she dressed. Next to her clothes was a rucksack full of gear and supplies. As she hefted it onto her back, Zip wondered where she was.
Thick must have noticed her puzzled expression. “You’re in the office of the CEO. Church guards will take you to the Channel Tunnel and put you on a train for the Nexus Hub and await your return. You’ll have twenty-four hours. No more.”
“I’m in Paris?” At least that explained why there was no Net access – a condition Zip was becoming increasingly used to. Her Headgear could detect a Net-like service that couldn’t be accessed. It was probably a Church service, for churchmen only.
Thick and Thin turned their backs on her and left the room, leaving the door open. A moment later, a burly Church guard appeared in the opening and beckoned to her. Zip shot Creep a hateful glance and mouthed a string of silent obscenities in its direction before heading for the door. It probably had no impact on the little machine, but it made Zip feel better. A troop of guards were waiting for her in a sumptuous corridor with thick, blue carpeting and walls draped in blue velvet. Ornate golden lamps appeared at regular intervals along the passage, casting pools of warm light. Her minders were in full ceremonial regalia: top hats, tails, white shirts, white bow ties, white gloves and burnished shoes that sparkled like polished ebony. Their ranks parted to reveal a space at their centre, obviously intended for her. Zip stepped in, and off they strode. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of vast gilded rooms, artistic treasures and other directors and senior administrators strutting around like cocks amongst the hens. Every glance was through the cage of her guards’ bodies, as they quick marched her through the magnificent palace and out into an ornate garden. It was dark and the moon was high in the sky.
It was a magnificent garden, a Biva painting come to life. Not overly structured, somehow simultaneously wild and tamed. Fantastical trees, open water, tall reeds, trellises of oak tightly wound with beautifully flowering Mandevilla vines, and flowing lawns stretching to high brick walls in the distance.