V. Moody's Blog, page 39

June 2019 Update

All three stories are up and running, now I just have to keep them going!

59: To the Rescue

Fourth Quadrant.

Planet Fountain.

Gorbol Training Academy.

 

“They’ve cut off all the exits,” said Princep Galeli. He moved the slider manually to widen the field of view on the scanner; it was easier to do it that way and still be able to talk rather than use voice commands. More blips appeared on the screen. “There’s more of them closing in on our position. Any chance of reinforcements?”

“We’re working on it,” growled Captain Hickory. He was standing by the window looking into the courtyard, which was flooded with white light from the two ships hovering over the Academy. “Jace, how are we doing?”

Jace sat huddled over in the corner of the room, headphones on, an open suitcase full of knobs and buttons on the floor in front of him. “They’re jamming every frequency, even the sub-atomic ones.” He tilted his head and fiddled with the switches, lining them all up one way and then the other. “It’s going to take hours to break through unless we get lucky and find a hole in their coverage.”

“Well, get lucky then,” said Hickory, chewing on his words before spitting them out. He was angry and ready to do something foolish. Galeli felt the same. “I don’t like this, not at all, not one bit. I can see them out there, preparing an assault of some kind.”

“I don’t like it either, but we don’t have many options. The trainees are in lockdown, the other instructors are in the bunker.”

“What good are they in the bunker?” said Gipper, standing by the other window with binoculars to his eyes.

“They’re there under my orders,” said Galeli. “No reason to put anyone else at risk.”

“Well, haven’t we changed our tune,” said Hickory. “Risk Factor Galeli makes the safe play.”

“We all learn from our mistakes,” said Galeli, “eventually. We just have to hope they take what they came for and decide it’s not worth the effort to scrub the place clean.”

“This is Vendx we’re talking about,” said Gipper. “Of course they’ll scrub clean. No witnesses, no claims, no refunds. Letting them have the kid won’t change that.”

“I think you’ll be surprised,” said Galeli. “I wouldn’t have left trainee Matton behind if I didn’t think it would be to our advantage.”

Hickory snorted. “Then I hope you’re right about—”

“I can hear them outside,” said Bev. She had her ear pressed against the blast door. It was a metre thick and shouldn’t have allowed any sound in, but Galeli was willing to take her word for it.

The Vendx agents had dropped in from above, swarming over the building and in through security doors they shouldn’t have been able to bypass so easily. It wasn’t really a surprise. Not everything in the Academy was Vendx-built, but what wasn’t would have been reverse-engineered to find a neutralising solution by Vendx R&D long ago. Competition in the manufacturing field was fierce and relentless. All the major corporations were aware of what the others were producing and had found ways to copy, improve and negate anything popular in the marketplace.

In many ways, it was healthy for the consumers since keeping each other in check meant they had less time to use the aggressive sales tactics that had made them what they were today. Dropping in on a customer to discuss upgrading service contracts could prove very persuasive when you had a battle fleet in orbit. To be fair, it did help to expedite deliveries.

“I can’t believe you don’t have any anti-aircraft placements,” said Hickory. “How are we meant to defend ourselves against aerial bombardment?”

“Fraiche City has very strict zoning laws,” said Galeli. “The planning permission required for gun turrets is more trouble than it’s worth, I can assure you. If we could get word out to your ship and any other guild members in the quadrant, I think that would help, don’t you?”

“I’m trying, damn it,” said Jace. “Just give me a second. I can do this.”

***

Point-Two wasn’t happy with how things were going. He never should have allowed his curiosity to get the best of him. He had wanted to see who would be sent to take care of him, well now he knew.

Two Seneca Corps women meant whoever wanted him dead wanted him really dead.

Be proactive, confront his pursuers before they were ready, send a message. Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to be of like-mind. When everyone tried to take the initiative, no one had the element of surprise on their side.

Now he had to think of a way to extricate himself from this situation. Preferably without Ubik’s help — Point-Two was in enough trouble as it was.

“Ooh, I see we have company,” said Ubik as they jogged through the dimly lit streets of Fraiche City.

Up ahead was the Academy, and hanging over it were two ships pouring light onto the decrepit stone building.

“Why are they still here?” said Point-Two. “Shouldn’t they have taken what they came for and left?”

“You don’t know much about their operational guidelines, then?” said Ubik. “They promise never to leave a mess when they’ve finished the job. And they never do. Everything scrubbed clean. Sound familiar? I think our Seneca friends are going to have a lot in common with the Vendx crew.” Ubik looked over his shoulder. “I wonder if they’ve clashed before. Had to have, right?”

“Maybe they had the good sense to avoid getting into a pointless fight,” said Point-Two, wishing he could say the same thing about himself.

“Nah, has to be some other reason. Payments of some kind, I bet.” He was still looking behind as he ran. There had been no sign of either the Seneca women or Terrific’s men. Which would have been a good thing except Ubik’s plan seemed to hinge on the opposite.

Point-two wondered if he could make it to the nearest spaceport without getting caught. Perhaps if Ubik made enough of a commotion. For all his faults, or maybe because of them, he would make an excellent decoy.

“They will have locked down all spaceports,” said Ubik, like he could read minds.

“What about local law enforcement?”

“Ha!” said Ubik. “They’ll have applied for an emergency maintenance visa which will have been pre-approved as part of the city’s contract for whatever services they have with Vendx.”

The numbers weren’t looking very hopeful. “There’s only two Seneca Corps operatives.”

“Ex-Seneca,” said Ubik.

“What difference does that make?” said Point-Two.

“They can’t call in the cavalry.”

“Which is my point,” said Point-Two. “How many Vendx troops on those ships?”

Ubik looked up like he was taking a quick head-count. “Twenty reps.”

“Reps?”

“Customer representatives — goons with guns. Plus six auxiliary drones, multi-purpose. Two artillery drones — doubt they’ll deploy those. At least forty surveillance drones — they’ll already have deployed those. That’s for each ship. Lucky they sent the Mark 2s. Mark 3s carry twice the payload.”

“How will two Seneca women make a dent in that?”

“No idea,” said Ubik. “I’ve heard so much about the Seneca Corps lately, I wanted to see them in action. Got to carry out a field test if you want reliable data to work with.”

“This is all an experiment to you?”

“This is life,” said Ubik. “We gain experience, we gain wisdom. Right, Grandma?”

“Oh, yes, that’s right,” said a woman’s voice from somewhere inside Ubik’s greys.

“What do we gain if we end up dead?” asked Point-Two.

“A valuable lesson,” said Ubik.

The entrance to the Academy was ahead of them. The door was open but a large drone was floating in front of it, yellow lights flashing from its head.

“This area is closed for cleaning. Please find another route to your destination.” Its voice was impersonal and mildly bored.

“They make these sound depressed so no one thinks anything interesting is going on,” said Ubik. He put both hands on the drones midsection.

Two long gun barrels immediately popped out, one from each breastplate. The ends crackled with electrical charge.

Ubik grabbed one in each hand and twisted them so the ends just about touched. There was a large crack, an arc of white lightning between Ubik’s hands, and the flashing yellow light went out. The drone hit the floor with a clang.

“Bit of a design flaw with this model,” said Ubik, his hair sticking up like he was the world’s most powerful organic. “You have to be willing to suck up some juice to take advantage. Up we go.”

The doorway into the Academy was wide open, but Ubik scampered up the wall.

Point-Two was tempted to take the less vertical route, but there were probably more drones waiting inside and he didn’t much fancy using Ubik’s patented purple nurple method, not when it involved so much direct current feedback. He grabbed the nearest handhold and followed Ubik up.

On the roof, there were at least a dozen drones, like the ones used by the Academy but heavier-looking with thicker plating. Overhead was one of the two Vendx ships, light pouring out of the bottom of its hull.

“Aren’t we a bit exposed here?” said Point-Two.

“The one place they’d never expect us to be, you know, because it would be so stupid.” Ubik was crouched by the ledge Point-Two was climbing over. He seemed to be cradling a drone in his arms. It was the guild drone that kept watch on the roof, Ubik’s past co-conspirator.

“Surveillance array,” said Ubik, motioning his head towards the drones lined up along the opposite ledge overlooking the main courtyard. “Watching everyone inside.”

“Can’t they see us?” asked Point-two.

“Not while we’re in their blindspot.”

“Another design flaw?”

“Working as intended, on a budget. Hey, drones, over here,” Ubik called out. The drones ignored them. “They disable auditory function for long range scanning. Infrared’s very power intensive.” Ubik opened up the drone in his hands. It looked pretty dead.

“What are you going to do with that? I thought you said all our drones had been turned off.”

“They have, for now. But they reboot once you perform a factory reset.” He fiddled with the drone’s innards, grimacing as he tried to reach some hard to get to part. “There.”

The drone flashed a white light around its hub for a few seconds. “Reformatting complete. Select one for standby. Select two for reassignment. Select three for—”

“Select two,” said Ubik.

“Administrator permission required.”

“Locate nearest administrator,” said Ubik.

The drone rose into the air and hovered there for a moment. Then it flew off, rising into the air.

“Where’s it going?” said Point-Two.

“Home,” said Ubik.

“And what do we do?”

Ubik turned to face him. “Wait. Quietly without attracting attention.”

“Really?” It sounded like a very un-Ubik plan.

“No, of course not,” said Ubik. “Where’s the fun in that?”

The drone at the end of surveillance array broke formation and swivelled to look up at Ubik’s new hatchling. It made a whirring sound, something extended, then retracted, then extended. It didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind —  just a fellow Vendx drone returning to base? It seemed to think so as it turned back to face the same way as the rest of the array.

Ubik looked up with his hands shading his eyes until the drone disappeared into the ship, then he turned his back to Point-Two and shouted “Run!” as he headed for the nearest drone.

“You’re going to get us killed,” Point-Two shouted as he followed, staying directly behind Ubik hoping he really knew where the blindspots were. “It’s your design flaw.”

“Working as intended!” Ubik grabbed the drone floating obliviously in front of him and jumped off the roof. Point-Two gritted his teeth as he did the same with the next drone along. The other drones in the array turned to look as the ship above them exploded.

431: Infernal Machine for Sale

Pain, as we know from Star Trek, is all in the mind. Spock, the emotionless alien who defined the sneering superior attitude of a billion nerds, would often resist torture with a steely gaze and a slightly trembling lower lip. But he was half-human, just like most nerds, and would end up screaming anyway.

My shoulder was burning. It hurt quite a lot.

The secret to handling a large amount of pain isn’t to pretend it doesn’t exist as you try to find your happy place (in my case, the commute would take far too long), the secret is to already be numb.

Which, to be fair, works a lot better when dealing with emotional pain rather than acid saliva burning through your flesh.

“Fuck me,” I yelled. There’s a Tinder profile that gets straight to the point.

“Hey, not in front of the baby,” said Mandy, like exposure to foul language was going to be what turned little Damian to the Dark Side.

She snatched the kid away from me like she was meting out some terrible punishment.

No more responsibility for the lives of others for you, see how you like that!

I pulled off my top and went into the kitchen where there was a sink. My left shoulder had little stinging volcanoes erupting across it, acrid steam rising from their tiny craters.

The water out of the tap was crystal clear, unlike the off-brown liquid we got in my part of town. I filled a glass with some and threw it on my shoulder.

Which was a mistake.

I fell to the kitchen floor which was covered in red tiles from Tuscany. I learned this from Mandy screaming, “Don’t get blood on my tiles, they were imported from Tuscany.”

You think vegans are pushy about wanting you to know about their life choices, you want to try visiting someone who thinks interior design is an art. Sure, flicking through an online catalogue and clicking on things you like totally puts you up there with Michelangelo.

Apparently, the acid that comes out of the mouth of babes does not mix well with H20. I lay on the hand-crafted, certified-organic Tuscan tiles shaking uncontrollably as my shoulder dissolved into mush.

“He skipped the second gate and went directly to the third,” said Cheng with what sounded like admiration in his voice — hard to tell when your ears are filled with the screams of nerve ending in their death throes. “He’s doing much better than I expected.”

Exceeding expectations was never my strong point, so it was nice to be ahead of schedule, even if my final destination was my actual final destination.

“Are you sure about this?” said Mandy. “If he gets his abilities back, he’s going to use them.”

“He is the only person I would trust with such uncounterable power in this world. He wouldn’t hold it over others, he wouldn’t force them to do his will. It’s a very unusual thing to have no interest in the obedience of the masses.”

“That’s because he’s an idiot,” said Mandy.

I was still rolling around on the floor, so it was hard to get in the right position to kick her in the shins.

“I think you underestimate him.”

“That’s because you have a good heart,” said Mandy, like she had the faintest idea what a good heart looked like. “He might be the least likely person to abuse his power, but that doesn’t mean he won’t. We have a saying here: Power corrupts, and absolute power totes corrupts really badly.”

Shins would have been too kind to her. If I could stop the shaking for just a second, I was sure I could have kicked her in the kneecaps.

“There is no need for concern,” said Cheng. He was talking in a calm, reassuring way, like you would to a child who was convinced there was a monster under the bed.

Personally, I would never try to convince a child they were safe and immune to danger. What kind of preparation for life is that?

Monster under your bed? Dude, the paedophiles are forming international networks with members in police forces and governmental departments. Under your bed with monsters is the safest place to be.

“But I am concerned,” whined Mandy. “If he’s that important to them, they’ll come for him again, and they’ll send their top people. The ones who don’t care about anything else but getting what they want, no matter what it costs, and we’ll be in their way.”

She made it sound like a consortium from some Arab state flush with oil money would make a takeover bid for me and force me to rename my stadium.

“We won’t be caught in the crossfire,” said Cheng. “If things get out of hand, we can always kill him ourselves.”

He said it so casually, even I thought it was a reasonable suggestion.

“Can we? Do you promise?”

That’s the great thing about being a couple, getting to do things together.

Meanwhile, I was locked into some sort of paralysing fever. My whole body was on fire and I think my shoulder may have been replaced by a series of steel drums playing a medley of modern country smash hits. Pain doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The thing about pain, though, is that it eventually becomes normal. You can stub your toe and feel like the end of days has arrived, but if you close your eyes tight, grit your teeth and hang on, you can live through it.

My eyes were watering and my throat was hoarse. I could take this. If it triggered some dormant part of my DNA into returning my powers to me, I’d be able to heal whatever was left of myself. Then again, this was apparently the third gate. Six more gates before I got awarded my overachievers medal. Posthumously, most likely.

A large white dome loomed into view over me. I blinked the tears out of my eyes to see Charlie’s giant head staring down at me, drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. Gate Four final boarding?

I decided I wasn’t in the mood for the full run in one go and rolled out of the way. Hands grabbed me and yanked me to my feet.

“You did well,” said Cheng. “You’ll have a scar there.”

I looked at my shoulder and nearly threw up. It was a mess of bubbling raw meat.

“Ah…” I said, followed by, “ah, ah…”

Cheng raised a bottle of green liquid and poured it over my open wound. Considering what had happened when I splashed a little water on myself, I expected to shit myself into unconsciousness.

The pain subsided as the liquid slid across my mangled flesh like gravy over a poorly roasted turkey. My legs went wobbly from the immense relief of not being ensconced in agony and I nearly returned to the floor.

“No, no, no,” yelled Mandy. “Don’t let him dribble over my floor.”

Cheng put an arm around me and propped me up. “This way. We can complete the process in my study.”

“What was in that bottle?” I mumbled. “Feels nice.”

“A little avocado, some cucumber, sprig of mint.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“Minced frog spawn, freshly removed spleen, bile from a dead cat.”

Suddenly we were back in Fairyland. “No eye of newt?”

“No, none of that cheap filler. Quality ingredients, that’s the real secret to magic potions.”

He guided me down some stairs, into the basement. It was full of computers and screens showing various parts of the grounds, including out in the street where some suspicious vehicles with tinted windows seemed to be waiting for something.

“Mandy calls this my man cave.”

Man cave is, of course, both the name for the room and the mental state. You give up on the rest of the house and barricade yourself into one room with all your favourite toys, abandoning all hope.

He lowered me into a chair. My shoulder was still smarting a bit but not too badly. I avoided looking at it.

“Is this really going to give me my powers back?”

“We can only hope,” said Cheng, as he rooted around his desk for something. “Once you get to a place so awful your soul can no longer stand it, there will only be two choices. To allow magic to save you, or to let you die. Aha!” He held up a small key.

“So you’re relying on my brain liking me enough to change the laws of nature to save me? What if my brain doesn’t like me that much?” I was pretty sure my brain didn’t give a fuck about me.

“Of course your brain likes you. Stop being so hard on yourself. You’re just like Mandy.”

He was a cruel bastard when he wanted to be. You could take the boy out of Monsterland, but…

Cheng went to a large metal box under one of the tables and used the key to open it. What dangerous artefact was he keeping in there?

He pulled out a black bin bag and dropped it on the desk next to me with a wet squelch.

“Fortunately, the damage my son did to you he can also reverse… with this.” He stuck his hand in the bag and pulled out a fistful of brown mud. Maybe not mud.

“Is that shit?”

“It has healing properties.”

“It’s magic shit?”

“This is no time to be squeamish.”

“I’m not being squeeeee…” The noise was involuntary as Cheng slapped the gunk on my shoulder. He smeared it around. It didn’t smell too bad, considering.

My shoulder stopped smarting. Who knew a mud pack made from human excrement could feel so nice? I mean, apart from the Belgians.

Cheng put what looked like a small clock in front of me. “This is it.”

It had lots of cogs and interlocking brass parts you could see through the glass case. “What is it?”

“I call it my infernal machine. It can open doorways in your mind.”

“I’m not sure I want any more doors opened in my mind, it’s drafty enough in there as it is.”

“With this, you can reach the ninth gate of pain,” said Cheng.

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“Once you reach the final gate, if you still live, you can claim your heart’s desire.”

“I can already get my heart’s desire at any kebab shop. Palmer’s Green is full of them.”

“I warn you, the pain will be unbearable.”

“I take my kebabs with extra chilli sauce, I think I’ll be able to bear it. Are you sure we can’t skip straight to gate nine and get this over with?”

Cheng shook his head. “There is no need to be reckless. If we take our time we should be able to do this safely over three days.”

Great, three days of ever-increasing pain. “Have you used this?”

“Oh, yes. It was horrible. I could barely walk when I finished.”

“And you can do magic again?”

Cheng raised his hand a light appeared around it, which formed into a ball and floated into the air. “I learned that from watching you.”

A fan of my work.

“Okay then, let’s do it.”

Cheng lifted up the front part of the small contraption. “Put your finger in here.”

I place my finger in the opening. He pressed down and something pricked my finger.

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I said.

“It will,” said Cheng.

I waited for the pain. It was taking its time.

Cheng sat down opposite me. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“Mandy, my family, my happiness.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t blame me when it all goes horribly wrong.”

“You don’t think happiness can last?”

“Someone always fucks it up,” I said.

Cheng smiled at me. “How long do you think I have left?”

“What time is it now?”

He laughed, which showed how little he knew about the human condition.

“Mandy is also grateful?”

“Could have fooled me.”

“She knows without you she would have nothing.”

“That makes no difference,” I said, my finger itching a little. I yawned. “The thing about people like Mandy, like many of us, she doesn’t believe she’ll be allowed to stay happy. It’ll get taken away from her, a mistake in the celestial paperwork. So she’ll end up wasting her life waiting for the recall to be sent out, and when she thinks they finally figured out their mistake, she’ll overreact and do something stupid and ruin everything. That’s what you do when you’re desperately happy — desperate things.” I yawned again. “Are you sure this is a pain machine? Feels like I’m mainlining Horlicks.”

“It will start soon.”

“You have to bully her, never let her forget it’s her job to look after the kid, look after you, don’t give her time to remember how easily it could get taken away. She’ll just panic and throw it away. Not her fault, really. Bad parenting. The same for all of us. Because, you know, technology. Parents are designed to raise you based on their experience of growing up, but the world we’re born into is totally different to the one they were born into, so their knowledge is worthless. Not that it stops them from faking it.”

I was rambling and my head was all floaty. Still no pain but it was on the way. I would have been tense about it if I could still feel my body. It was pleasant, no pain at all.

I seemed to be floating outside of my body, up towards the ceiling, up into the kitchen. I could hear Mandy’s voice.

“Yes, he’s here. You can have him. Do what you want with him, I don’t care. Don’t worry, he won’t be any trouble, he’ll be unconscious.”

She was on the phone, I could see her. Kid in one arm, resting on her hip, bent over a little conspiratorially.

“As agreed, right? This will be the last time you bother us. Take him and leave us alone. When can you get here?”

The kid was looking at me, pointing. Could he see me? Was I really here, watching Mandy turning traitor?

There was a sense of inevitability about it all. Of course she would sell me out. Why not? She had everything to gain and it only cost one useless twat. That’s a pretty good exchange rate.

Falling, I opened my eyes in the basement, in the same chair, finger in the infernal machine. Had I just hallucinated what I saw and heard? A dream, perhaps? My fears realised in startling 4K?

I took my finger out with a snap and stood up. Cheng gave me a curious look.

“When will they get here?”

“Who?” said Cheng.

“The people you betrayed me to.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The acting was good. Really good. Me with no top on, him only in girls’ panties, we were a shoe in this awards season. The Academy loves this sort of homoerotic coming of age story. If one of us had been black, it’d be a clean sweep.

Maybe he didn’t know. She could be doing it behind his back, doing what was best for her family, in her mind at least.

It shouldn’t have surprised me anymore but it always seemed to be the ones I helped the most who turned on me the quickest. I would just cut out the middleman but it’s actually quite difficult to stab yourself in the back.

“What’s wrong?” Cheng looked baffled.

“Come with me.” I got up an stomped up the stairs with Cheng behind me.

Mandy was still on the phone, her back to me. “You can experiment on him all you want. He’s a bit scrawny but he should be able to survive surgery if you don’t cut off too many things at once. He’ll be tied up, my husband’s taking care of it. ”

They were in it together, then. Exhaustion swept over me. How many times was I going to have to face down the people closest to me? Obviously, as a card-carrying member of the Cynical Party, this was business as usual. The manifesto I helped author clearly spelled out the unrelenting disappointment we the members could look forward to. So why was I ready to lie down and never get up. Why did being jaded have to be so damn hard?

“Gimme that.” I snatched the phone from her. “Listen,” I said into it.

“...three and forty-five seconds.” It was the talking clock.

“Mad?” said Mandy, smiling maliciously.

“No. I just…” A trick? A prank? Why? She was looking at my hand. I looked down. It was on fire.

“For me it was pain,” said Cheng, “for you, I didn’t know. It would appear to be anger, despair, giving up all hope? The machine helps you find it. Each to their own.” Cheng shrugged amiably, a muscular giant with sympathetic eyes.

I waved my burning hand in front of my face.

“I would have made a good actress, I think,” said Mandy. “Then again, you were pretty easy to fool.” She gave the baby to Cheng who walked off with him.

She was right. I’d been so wrapped up in what I expected to happen, it never occurred to me to take a proper look. All those things I’d said about Mandy, they were true, but they were also true about me. Always ready to assume the worst and act accordingly. It wasn’t a particularly fun way to live.

“I heard what you said about me,” said Mandy, which is never what you want to hear from a woman, especially when she has inch-long nails. “You’re wrong. I’m not afraid of losing what I have, I’m afraid of being too distracted to enjoy it.” She kissed Charlie on the cheek, making him giggle. “You gave me this chance. I hope you learn to take some of your own advice.” She sauntered off, full of herself and her happiness.

We in the Cynical Party have never got on well with our opposite numbers in the Smug Coalition. Bunch of bloody show-offs.

There was just me in the kitchen.

I blew on my still burning hand. It kept burning. I shook it and then stuck it under the tap. I had my magic back, now I had to work out how to turn it off.

Mandy’s phone rang. I picked it up and answered it.

“Mrs Cheng?” The voice was low and menacing. “Have you had time to consider our offer? Your family’s safety is at stake, Mrs Cheng. Hand over the visitor and—”

“Shut up, will you.”

“Who is this?

“My name’s Colin. I understand you’ve been looking for me. When can we meet?”

58: Hearts and Minds

Fourth Quadrant.

Planet Fountain.

Gorbol Training Academy.

Simulation Room.

 

The helmet filling Figaro’s vision pulled back, to be replaced by the barrel of a gun.

“Let’s go.”

The gun waved to indicate he should get up.

Figaro took a moment to try and comprehend the situation. When he had gone into the sim-U, the room had been occupied by the other guild members and Princep Galeli. Two technicians had been operating the hardware.

Now there were three armed men from the Vendx corporation, and none of the guild members in attendance.

They were dressed in the latest tactical armour, as you would expect of employees of the manufacturers of the latest tactical armour. It was a multipurpose suit, full body coverage, segmented at the joints to allow more mobility.  A large powerpack on the back provided propulsion in space, shielded the rear from projectiles and high-intensity laser fire, and powered heavier weapons.

Figaro saw the versatility as design mediocrity. The suit did a lot of different things at an acceptable level but one specialised attack would easily breach its defences.

Figaro turned his head slightly to get a better look around the room. There was someone lying on the floor on the other side of the simulation machine. It looked like one of the technicians. From the way their unmoving feet were positioned, most likely a dead technician.

“Hey!” The gun moved closer to Figaro’s face, waving at him more insistently. “I said, let’s go.”

The gun looked very new; never been fired, Figaro would guess. There was a transparent film across the muzzle from when it was first unpacked.

“What priority am I?” said Figaro.

“Not very high. Get up or I’ll show you.”

Figaro had a rough idea of how Vendx operated, although they were always updating their manuals needlessly. “Priority one, right? Must be taken alive. Something here triggered this response and you need me to work out what happened. If you kill me, you’ll lose your bonus. Might even terminate your contract.”

The agent didn’t seem to like the idea of losing his work-related benefits. His body shifted into a hesitant posture. He was probably requesting advice from his supervisor on the orbiting vessel that brought him here.

Figaro took advantage of the time to assess his options. The rest of the guild must have resisted the incursion. It was possible they were all dead, but unlikely. The men watching the door wouldn’t be so alert and primed for attack if that was the case.

They were trying to grab him and get out as quickly as possible, but for some reason they weren’t literally grabbing him and forcing him to go with them. Why not? He can’t have seemed like much of a threat to them, and they were bound to have the latest restraining devices.

The gun returned to Figaro’s face. “I’ve been given authorisation to shoot you in any non-vital areas if you continue to refuse to comply.” He sounded a little more certain of himself.

“You’ve been told not to touch me, haven’t you?” said Figaro. “Do you know why?”

“Get. Up.” The gun lowered from Figaro’s face to his stomach.

“I think you’re meant to take that off first,” said Figaro, pointing at the muzzle.

The Vendx agent tilted his head and then drew the gun towards his face. He reached up with his other hand and ripped the film off. There was some snickering from the other two agents who were standing by the door, keeping watch.

The moment of levity was all Figaro needed. They had abandoned their attack posture for just a second. Figaro jumped out of the seat, his body shielded from the two at the door by the one holding his gun to his own face.

Taking the gun away from him wouldn’t do any good. Each gun would only operate if held by its designated owner. It was a standard Vedx safety feature on all their weapons.

Figaro slammed the butt of the gun so the other end hit the visor covering the agent’s eyes.

He reacted by making a weird squealing sound, like a frightened child, and dropped the gun. He stumbled backwards.

Figaro followed his movement and grabbed the belt that held all the fancy gadgets Vendx gave its operatives. He pulled and twisted the man around to face the other two who had their weapons trained on them.

“Shoot him!” shouted the disarmed agent as Figaro drove him forward, angling his body so he had to run forward or fall over.

He should have chosen the second option and fallen over but his instincts were to try and stay upright and regain control of the situation. Ego was never a useful attribute in a fight, certainly not one worth defending.

Now that Figaro was up and had a shield, he had to keep going. He only had momentum on his side, but it should be enough to get him out of the room. Then he’d have to improvise.

There had been a full-scale incursion by Vendx, that much was obvious. Figaro knew from his father’s dealings with the company just how dangerous they were, and how lacking in restraint when it came to maintaining the integrity of their brand. But they seemed to be reluctant to make physical contact with him. Even now, he could feel the revulsion in the agent’s body, the danger of becoming… contaminated? By what, Figaro had no idea. He didn’t need to know to use it to his advantage.

The fact there were only three of them also suggested the rest were being kept busy. If there were still some guild members here resisting, they might be useful, too.

“Take him out, take him out,” shouted the agent. The other two continued to ignore his instructions.

Figaro watched them closely from behind the agent. Their body weight was angled towards the door. They were more likely to run than fight. They had orders not to kill him, but they could shoot him. The leg, the arm, that would be enough to incapacitate their target, so why didn’t they?

Vendx operatives weren’t the best trained but they were the best equipped. Their weapons could target specific areas, their ammunition could take indirect routes to their designated endpoints.

Their cutting edge gear made up for their lack of skill, but it didn’t improve their mental stability. If they were doing well, it helped them finish the job, but when things went wrong they had poor reactions. It was a win-more strategy, only useful when things went smoothly. The Vendx solution was to make sure things never went wrong, and going in early with only one objective was how they accomplished it. Most of the time.

These men didn’t have the tools they needed to do the job they’d been assigned. They also had a bug they couldn’t hotfix. Fear. That was what was stopping them.

Figaro put his hand on the back of the agent’s helmet.

“I’m popping this open,” he said, knocking on the side of the helmet.

“No, no,” screamed the agent. He was a simple grunt who went in to do repairs, fix things and get out. This wasn’t what he had signed up for. That’s what the screaming was telling Figaro.

That was a key part of Vendx’s business model. The people who worked for them did so because their job requirements were very clearly drawn up and generously paid for. In most war crime trials, the soldiers claimed they were following orders and people reacted with horror at the lack of humanity. In the two times Vendx had been accused of war crimes (and found innocent in both cases) those on trial had simply claimed they were under contract and had no choice.

Figaro didn’t actually know how to open the helmet. He wasn’t familiar with this model and didn’t have time to check it over for an emergency release button. But the agent’s reaction told him there was one.

He let go of the belt and put both hands on the helmet, one on either side.

One of the men fired at him. The projectile pinged off the helmet, just next to Figaro’s left hand. A warning shot.

They were being very wary of hitting him, but they were making it too obvious, giving him the freedom to not worry about getting shot. Figaro still didn’t know why, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it to his advantage.

He angled his body, used the shift to keep the agent off-balance while making it look like he was struggling to keep him upright, and exposed his side.

“Grab him!” shouted the agent in Figaro’s grasp, which he hadn’t expected but was actually helpful since that was what he was hoping for.

They took the bait and ran forward, hoping to overwhelm him while he wasn’t in full control.

Figaro pushed the agent out of the way, took the agent trying to tackle him into his arms and spun him around.

The other agent was desperately trying to halt his forward momentum while the one Figaro had dropped fell at his feet.

Figaro swung his dance partner’s arm up, the gun still held in the hand, and pressed his finger down on the finger over the trigger.

If the agent had had the presence of mind to move his finger or to stretch his arm — his reach was greater than Figaro’s — he would have avoided shooting both his colleagues. But Vendx prided itself on the standard of its products, not its employees, which they would have replaced with drones, if they didn’t break down so often in intemperate climates.

It was hard to aim with another man’s arm, but Figaro did his best to hit the other two in the hands. The gloves were thinner than the rest of the suit to allow better tactile response, and easier to penetrate with the projectiles from the gun, specially made to not penetrate the rest of the suit. Friendly fire was the number one cause of equipment damage in Vendx.

Both men pulled their bleeding hands into their bodies to protect them. It would do to keep them busy and unable to use anything that required dexterity to operate, which basically accounted for all the gear they carried.

Figaro twisted the arm back and up, dislocating the shoulder with a crack. The segmented suit helped make this move a lot easier. The agent cried out and then fell forward. Figaro let him fall and made for the exit.

“Stop,” called out a voice. It came from the suit he had just left as a mangled pile on the floor, but it didn’t sound like the man inside, who was still groaning with pain.

Figaro stopped by the door and turned.

“This is Commander Creed of the Special Service Octanaria. Give yourself up by order of Vendx Galactic. I can’t guarantee your safety otherwise.”

“We both know you won’t risk killing me, Commander. And I don’t intend to allow myself to be caught any other way.”

“We might not be willing to hurt you, but we have your fellow guild members pinned down. Surrender yourself or I will give the execution order.”

“Go ahead,” said Figaro. “I choose those I am responsible for, not you.”

There was a pause. “That’s a Seneca slogan.”

“Yes, Commander. Send better armed men next time.” He left the room at a run hoping the commander would do as asked, he would probably need more firepower to get out of here.

The good news was that there were guilders pinned down somewhere, which meant they were alive. Which meant he could use them as bait.

430: Charles in Charge

Mandy drove like a maniac. She clipped the kerb on every corner, ran the amber when it was clearly going to turn red while we were still in the middle of the junction, didn’t wait for the old lady to get off the zebra crossing before charging over the black and white stripes. Madness.

“Don’t worry,” she said, head bouncing between looking over her shoulder at her gurgling son on on my knee and the mirror to check her eye shadow didn’t need touching up. “It’s not far from here.”

Son, mirror, son, mirror. Can you see the part that’s missing?

“Watch the fucking road,” I yelled at her. I didn’t like my fate being in someone else’s hands at the best of times — and this was hardly one of those.

“Calm down,” said Mandy, looking right at me. The back of a red bus grew larger in the windscreen only I was looking through.

“Bus!” I shouted, pointing.

“Bus!” shouted the kid, happily joining in the game.

The car came to a smooth stop with Mandy still looking at me.

“Anti-crash technology,” said Mandy. “Or something. I don’t know what it’s called. Won’t let me hit another car. Or a bus. I’ve tried.” She smiled at the baby. “Hungry? You hungry? Are you? Hungry?”

The bus shook and rumbled, spewing black fumes into our faces. We were in a hermetically-sealed, air-conditioned bubble, but I could still taste the diesel seeping in against the odds. At least technology hadn’t taken away everything I remembered.

“Looks like we lost them,” said Mandy, her eyes shifting to look past me.

I turned and checked our rear. There was a guy in a white van with a frown that went full scowl as he began beeping his horn. Nothing a London driver hates more than a car standing still in the middle of the road when there’s nothing in front of it.

There was no sign of pursuit. No men in mirrored sunglasses sneaking up on us, no helicopter watching from above, the way shady organisations track their innocent prey in movies, coming in low and spraying the street with machine guns and somehow missing with every bullet.

Mandy turned back around, flicked on the stereo, and drove the rest of the way to Coldplay on repeat. There’s never a head-on collision when you need one.

I tried to put the kid in his car seat but he wasn’t having it, easily dodging my valiant attempts at good parenting. Jenny would have had him eating out of her hand, I bet.

Mandy’s house had a high wall running all the way around it and black gates that opened as we approached. It was a swanky place, all marble columns and original windows from 1066 or 1812 or whenever. I’m not sure why people value old shit so much more than new shit — maybe because some industrialist in the 1950s figure out you could make more money if you manufactured everything with planned obsolescence and nothing lasts anymore.

Shiny-leafed hedges lined the gravel drive up to the house. Mansion, really. Grand old pile. There was probably one of those blue plaques somewhere, letting you know a poet had killed themselves here because they were far too comfortable to write anything good.

How had Cheng ended up here? Where did he get the money from? His mother had been from Hong Kong, but even if her family was rich, Cheng could hardly prove his parentage with a birth certificate.

“We’re safe here,” said Mandy, taking the kid from me as I exited the car. “They won’t dare come any closer, not with Cheng here.”

The door opened and Cheng came out. He looked human. A bit baby-faced, very muscular, and naked. No tail or horns or wings, which I could see because he was naked. Did I mention he was naked?

“Hello, Colin,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.” He kissed Mandy (who was delighted to be home with someone to witness how well she’d done for herself) and took the baby from her. The kid immediately began to climb Cheng like he was a tree.

“Thanks,” I said. “Were you in the shower?”

“No, I was working. It gets very hot and sticky in my study and I need to cool off. I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?”

“We all walk around naked when we’re at home,” said Mandy, a sly smile on her bright red lips. “Au naturel.”

You get these types of parents, usually in Europe. Everything in the open, hanging out. It’s supposed to create a less repressive environment. But this was England, damn it. If we weren’t repressed, what were we? Swedish? No thanks.

“Could you put some underpants on at least?” I asked, not unreasonably.

“Certainly. You have something I can use?” he asked Mandy.

We went inside, me leading the way, which might have seemed a bit presumptuous for my first visit, but it allowed me to see fewer buttocks that way.

The house was all mod cons inside, full of very stylish furniture and sleek electronic stuff on the walls and blinking lights at me from various corners.

I had a lot of questions for Cheng but I felt like they could wait until he’d put his giant cock away. I sat down on a sofa that threatened to swallow me whole and waited for Cheng to come back, which he did, wearing a pair of Mandy’s knickers which didn’t cover much and made me even more uncomfortable than when he’d been fully nude.

“Did she tell you we were attacked on the way?” I said. Time to get serious, which is difficult with bulging black lace panties everywhere you looked.

“Yes,” said Cheng, not sounding particularly concerned.

“And your driver was one of them,” I added.

“Unfortunate,” said Cheng. “But these things happen. It’s been difficult finding loyal staff. He’s not the first to let us down.”

He made it sound like he was disappointed with their time-keeping and general attitude. If he was hiring Brits to do domestic work it wasn’t like there was going to be any alternatives.

“You don’t care someone tried to take your wife and child away from you?” I made it sound like I was appalled but to be perfectly frank, most guys would probably appreciate a little alone-time once they’re a couple of years into a marriage.

“Oh, I don’t think they were after them. They were much more likely to have been after you.”

“What? Why? How do they even know about me? I only just got here.”

“I’m not exactly sure how they do it, but they seem to be able to detect someone leaving or coming back. They can track us, too. Perhaps we emit some substance not natural to this world. You probably appeared as a massive spike in their readings — even I felt it when you returned”

Mandy came in carrying the child, changed into tiny denim overalls and Adidas trainers, his face attached to her breast. He looked like a little chav. Probably not the first one in that position.

“Charlie started crying, didn’t you Charlie-Biscuit, wet yourself and wouldn’t stop sobbing.” Mandy looked up at me. “That’s how I guessed it would be you.”

I ignored the bait. “And who are they, these people who can detect us and know about Flatland? Yes, they’re rich guys who want a piece of the other world, but how did they find out? Who’s behind them? What do they want?”

“As far as I know,” said Cheng, “they are the descendants of Peter.”

“Peter? His children?”

“No, not his children,” said Cheng. “His family, though. He found a way to contact them over the years, told them where he was. I can’t say for sure what he wants them to do, but I don’t expect it to be very admirable. They are harmless, though.”

I didn’t like how dismissive he was being. “They attacked me out in the open. They must be pretty sure of themselves if they don’t care who sees them.”

“Yes. the police and the media won’t touch them,” said Cheng. “They have little power beyond that.”

“That seems quite powerful to me.”

“What are you so worried about?” said Mandy, taking junior off the feeding tube. “I was there to protect you, wasn’t I?”

“And who was going to protect you?” I asked.

“My little Charlie-Biscuit, of course.” She put him on the rug where he sat looking dazed. “You’d protect mummy, wouldn’t you, golden one?”

He burped loudly.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning,” I said. “How did you get here?”

“The baby,” said Cheng. “She wanted to have him here.”

“On the NHS? Really?” Not that I thought the NHS was a bad thing, just not my idea of a destination holiday.

“No,” said Mandy vehemently. “Private, of course.”

“Okay, nice of you to ease the pressure on an overburdened system.”

“I wasn’t that fat when I was pregnant. Tell him.”

Cheng gave me a look like I had stepped into a minefield and needed to back out slowly.

“I didn’t mean… never mind.” Some fights are lost before you even get on the battlefield. “How did you get here? Is there a way back? Like a door?”

“No,” said Cheng. “My father opened the way from Nekromel, a one-time portal. I’ve been working on how to open a reverse portal but I’m not sure it’s a very good idea. The people watching us would most probably try to get their hands on it, and that wouldn’t end well.”

“But you think it is possible?”

“You want to go back and rescue the others?” said Mandy.

Did I? Or did I just want to leave this place?

“I’m not sure I’d want to bring them to this timeline. This Earth is very messed up.”

“What do you mean, this Earth?” said Mandy. “This is the only Earth there is.”

“I don’t think so. Haven’t you watched the news? This is nothing like the Earth we left behind. Fat-fuck in the White House, right-wing religious nuts taking over everywhere, Spurs in a cup final — something this bizarre could only be an aberration, probably caused by you two, you three smashing through dimensions to get here for your Harley Street doctor’s appointment.”

“I don’t think our arrival changed anything,” said Cheng, a little defensive.

“Trump was already president when we got here,” said Mandy. “Is that your problem? You’re a loony lefty who can’t handle a guy standing up for regular people? I have relatives in America, and they say things are a lot better over there now. It’s not like how the media show it.” She was getting quite worked up.

Politics has that effect. People are more interested in being heard than being right. They can easily be pushed into needless aggression if they aren’t treated with respect and understanding.

“Your relatives, I assume, are genetically related to you, so will be thick as two planks. Hardly who I’d want feedback from.”

“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” said an irate Mandy. The kid clapped his hands and laughed.

“You know, without him, we wouldn’t be together,” said Cheng, like a judge’s summation before handing down the sentence.

“Yes, don’t remind me,” I said. “I’m still waiting for my thank you basket of muffins, fucking ungrateful bint.”

Mandy looked like she was about to hit me. The kid was applauding wildly.

“Try to use your brain,” I said. “The guy thinks asbestos is harmless, big conspiracy by the gays and Muslims to make us use building materials that don’t kill people. Fucking retard’s going to proclaim cigarettes are full of vitamins next. Politics has nothing to do with it. If you can’t spot a sack of shit when it’s right in front of you, it’s because you’re too used to the smell since you’re full of shit yourself.”

“Fuck you,” said Mandy. “I suppose you think you’re going to change things back to how they were before, bloody Marty McFly.”

Mandy looked around for something to hit me with, and then stormed into the kitchen where she might find something with a sharp point.

“Now, please, let’s not argue,” said Cheng. “I can assure you the current state of the world is entirely natural and achieved through the normal means. A lot of people worked very hard to create this situation.”

“Yes,” I said. “Evil people. Evil people are very hard working while the peace and love crowd are a bunch of lazy twats; that’s always been the problem. But it’s never been this bad. Even when we had world wars, people at least gave a damn. This is all a bunch of…” I waved my hand around trying to think of the right word “...big hairy bollocks.”

Mandy came back waving a spatula. It looked brand new, which was hardly a surprise. Mandy was not the type to spend her time in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. More like bare-arsed and on Instagram.

Oh, how funny, I dropped my phone and it took an upskirt pic. Please like me.

“This is my house and I won’t be spoken to like that,” said Mandy. “I have the right to have an opinion.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s just that my opinions are worth more than yours. This world is all wrong. Just because you and people like you are doing okay doesn’t make it acceptable, you selfish prick.”

“Nice. You hear that?” she said to Cheng. “No, I don’t need you to step in for me.” He hadn’t offered. “Look, I know it’s a bit off how things are, but that’s what happens when things need to change. It’s like punk music. No one liked that shit, it was bloody horrible to listen to, but it was necessary to shake things up.”

It wasn’t a bad analogy. And she was right, punk was fucking terrible.

“Yes,” I said, “sure. There was terrible glam rock with guys in makeup trying to act cool, and then along came punk, and then there were New Romantics, with guys in makeup trying to act cool.”

Punk is always seen as this sea change in the music industry, but all punk did was allow a new set of idiots to take over. Nothing really changed. It was like a little kid having a tantrum to get his brother to let him have a go on the PlayStation. Takes him forever to figure out the controller he eventually gets handed isn’t even plugged into the console.

“Things are fine as they are,” said Mandy. “Leave it alone. You’ll only make it worse. I’m happy, for once, don’t fuck it up.” Her face dissolved into a desperate plea.

There was actually a fair point. No matter how bad I felt things were, I had no doubt they could be made worse, especially if it was left up to me.

“And then what? Wait for Charlie to grow up and become our demon overlord?” It actually wasn’t that bad an idea. “Is that why you came here, Cheng? Is that the plan? Let us destroy ourselves by refusing to vaccinate and voting in conmen, and then you’ll put junior on the throne to save us all?” The more I said it, the less I hated it.

“No, not really,” said Cheng. “Unless he wants to. I think he could do better, though.”

“Don’t you try to boss my son around,” Mandy said to me very forthrightly, spatula pointed at my face. “You leave him out of this.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t have any power here. Cheng, how can I regain my magical abilities?”

“Don’t tell him about the machine, Cheng.” Mandy clamped her hand over her mouth, too late.

“Machine? What machine?”

“It’s something I’ve been working on,” said Cheng. “A way to access power from the other side. But it is a very painful process. It is beyond the threshold of most people, far beyond.”

“I know pain,” I said. “I’ve been beyond the threshold. Jenny once accidentally kneed me in the groin, I doubt your process comes anywhere near close.”

“Ha,” said Mandy. “Accidentally. Right.”

“I can show you,” said Cheng, “but you will need to push yourself to the limit of your endurance.”

“No, don’t,” said Mandy. “If you give him his power back, you don’t know what he’ll do. You don’t know all the horrible things he said he’d do to me.”

“Yes, the horrible things like telling you to marry Cheng. What a bastard I was to make you accept actual love instead of the fake plastic version you’d been chasing all your life.”

“That was a back massager,” said Mandy.

“The only way to make you happy is to not let you decide anything for yourself, fucking dumb fuck. I gave you this life, and if I want to take it away I fucking will.”

“He said he’d set me on fire,” she said to Cheng. “Is that what you want?”

“You know he has a very dry sense of humour,” said Cheng.

“Exactly,” I said. “Dry like kindling. Tell me what I need to do, Cheng. Show me this machine.”

The kid was tugging on my trouser leg. I bent down and picked him up. He at least was on my side. Mandy was pouting like she’d been betrayed by her own flesh and blood — a face poor Charlie was going to see a lot of in the years ahead.

“Aha,” said Charlie in a lilting chortle, and then threw up on my shoulder.

A normal hazard when handling small kids, except this kid puked acid. The material on my shoulder began to dissolve.

“Ow. Little help.”

“This is the first step,” said Cheng, not coming to my aid.

“First step to what?” I asked, trying to hand off the child while my shoulder began to itch.

“To the nine gates of pain. Gate one will only hurt a little. Gate nine will… you will be the first to learn about the ninth gate, if you make it that far.”

Mandy was smiling bitterly. “Go on Charlie, give Uncle Colin a kiss.”

Charlie reached for me, smiling with a mouth full of tiny sharp teeth and what looked like a forked tongue caged behind them.

“And this will give me my magic back?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Cheng. “If you survive, yes.”

57: Worlds Apart

Location Unknown

 

Even though Figaro had no body to speak of, and no vision with which to track his surroundings, the sense of movement was undeniable. He was zooming through something towards somewhere.

There was no other way to describe it. It was fast and exhilarating, and all in his mind. And then he came to a full and incontrovertible stop.

He was unable to gauge time — it could have been seconds, it could have been millennia — but he sensed he had travelled an immeasurable distance. That didn’t necessarily mean physical distance. He might well still be in exactly the same grid location as his body (the real one and the one in the sim-U) but the same could be said of both ends of a wormhole.

Everything was black. He didn’t have eyes or any other body parts, there was only his sense of self, disconnected from his bodily existence. He existed as thought and was able to pass ideas and images and words through his mind just as he could before. Other than that, he could do nothing. It was a little lonely.

Light appeared from a single source. It was white and made his skin prickle.

The realisation he could see was quickly overtaken by the realisation he had skin. He looked down at himself, at his body. He was naked but, other than that, it was his body just as it was in the real world. No clothes, no bracelet.

Figaro had a flash of concern about his naked wrist, far more disconcerting than the rest of his nudity. He had spent a lot of time naked as a youngster, being a research subject for his father. It had never been insisted on but there had been so many tests it hardly seemed worth getting dressed between them.

Most likely, the absence of his bracelet wouldn’t make a difference here. As long as it was attached to his real wrist back in the academy, there was nothing to worry about. Logically, he knew that was true, but it was hard to convince himself of that.

The bracelet appeared on his wrist. A kindness to make him feel more comfortable? He sensed an intelligence at work. A hospitable one.

Figaro looked down at the rest of his body and imagined his clothing. Nothing happened for five seconds as Figaro tried to picture exactly what he’d been wearing before he ended up here. Not the spacesuit, just the FVG greys. They were simple enough to picture accurately.

The greys appeared on him just as he’d pictured them. The way they had appeared made him sure he was in a simulation, or at least a similar device. It was able to draw concepts out of his head and replicate them, just as the Vendx machines could. A sim-U inside another sim-U.

It didn’t seem that outlandish to think the Antecessors had the same sort of technology available to them and had one installed on their ships, but it was odd that it had never been encountered before. And just because they could create artificial realities, that didn’t necessarily mean they used them in the same way as humans did. The same knife could cut bread and spread butter.

The light changed to red. His skin tingled. Green, blue, purple, each made him aware of the surface of his body in a way he never did normally. It made him feel like he was encased in a membrane. Then the light went out, but he kept feeling the tingling in short intervals. Light outside of his visible spectrum?

It felt like he was being scanned. Having been a lab subject for so much of his life, he recognised the systematic pattern of evaluation. If this was as invasive as it got, he was fine with it.

A series of images appeared in front of him, hanging in the air (for want of a better word) much like the sigils, only much smaller and less brightly. Everything else was in darkness, he could no longer see his body (although he was aware of it, his skin still mildly tingling).

The way the images were laid out one after the other seemed to form a sequence of some kind, but Figaro couldn’t see the connection. They were arbitrary geometrical shapes as far as he could tell.

They disappeared and were replaced by another series of equally baffling images, and another.

He recognised the eighth sequence he was shown. It was dots and dashes, but it was clearly a binary sequence. The repetition of only two symbols in a variety of configurations was easy enough to spot. Figaro felt relief at having seen something familiar, like he’d answered a question correctly in a test.

This time, the sequence remained in sight and another, vaguely similar sequence appeared beneath it, but with squiggles instead of dots and dashes. The new series was also a binary numeral system, but cruder than the first one and harder to distinguish. Why show him the same thing again, only worse?

It disappeared and was replaced by yet another binary system, this one circles and crosses. It was better, more like the ones and zeros he was used to.

The first sequence disappeared and another one appeared below the noughts and crosses.

Figaro understood. This was an attempt at communication. Whatever had brought him here, it was trying to establish a baseline using his reactions to refine what both parties understood. A common language of numbers.

The flutter of pleasure at this realisation caused the ongoing exercise to select the wrong series of pictograms and Figaro felt a wave of dismay at having ruined a perfect run. The previous series returned.

He could convey his thoughts through emotion. And he could force an emotion into his mind rather than just react instinctively to a stimulus. If he focused on emanating satisfaction, it was taken as a positive. If he projected disinterest, the opposite.

It became quicker after that. They went through various different numeric concepts, and finally reached something resembling decimal numerals. The individual numbers weren’t the same, but the repeating function of zero was.

“This. This is what we use.” He knew his words wouldn’t be understood, but the associated emotion would.

It started showing him images of animals and plants. He didn’t recognise most of them, only slightly felt familiar with others, and often only certain body. It quickly narrowed down the field to a bipedal mammal. It was asking him to identify himself.

Figaro also vocalised Yes and No along with his emotional projection. Eventually, he stopped manifesting emotion altogether and simply said the words. He was understood.

It was very satisfying, although he was careful to keep his emotions in check so as not to give a false positive.

Many attempts had been made to communicate with Antecessor technology, but to no avail. The language was lost and the droids had little interest in holding talks. They were too busy trying to kill you.

In this case, though, he had the assistance of the Antecessors themselves. Assuming that was who he was talking to.

Figaro had many more questions to ask but Yes and No weren’t going to be enough, he felt. It wasn’t even clear to him what their purpose in bringing him here was. If this technology existed and they were interested in contact, why wait until now? What was it about him that had triggered this response?

“What about you? Show me what you look like.” It was hard to express the request non-verbally. Figaro tried his best to project curiosity, a need to know more.

An image appeared, one Figaro recognised. Why wouldn’t he? It was the one he saw every time he looked up at the sky over his homeworld — the wormhole that hung over Enaya. And Tetheri, the small asteroid that served as its sentinel.

The rock was the focus. The image moved towards it.

What was it trying to tell him? That the answer was on Tetheri? He had come all this way to be told what he wanted to know was back home? That seemed a very unlikely coincidence.

He was confused and couldn’t grasp something that was being pushed into his hands, which was frustrating

There was a click and Figaro’s skin prickled, but not like with the changing light scans. This was far more familiar and far more frightening — his organic was activating.

In a panic, Figaro reached for his bracelet. If he didn’t deactivate the process before it completed, he would die, and so would everyone around him.

He stopped himself. There was no one around him. This wasn’t real. Even if the organic in his actual body could be remotely activated from here, there’d be nothing he could do about it. Injecting this simulation of his body with drugs he’d imagined into existence a few minutes ago wouldn’t make a difference.

The organic turned itself off.

It was a message. He had asked for an explanation, he had got Tetheri and his organic as answers.

The organic had come from Tetheri, a long time ago. It was one of the most powerful and most unstable organics ever found. No one had been deemed suitable for it until Figaro had been born and his parents had implanted it in him knowing the risks. It had made him question their feelings about him growing up. What kind of parents would do that?

They loved him, he knew. Cared about him greatly. And had a purpose for him.

The organic came from Tetheri, that was where he’d find answers. Only, no one could get past the second level defences. He had tried many times, and if this simulation could recognise his link to that place, why couldn’t his father’s simulation of Tetheri itself?

Still, he would like to visit the real site, rather than the sim-U version. He doubted his father would allow it.

The image was still moving, inside the base on Tetheri now, gliding through the passages Figaro had explored so many times. None of the defences fired, nothing attacked, but that wasn’t very surprising. It was more like a guided tour.

The final door appeared, the one that led down to the next level. The one no one had managed to open. A solid slab of a substance impervious to all and any attempts to break through it. Every substance known had been tried, from high explosives to salty water.

A glowing symbol appeared on the door’s surface. It was the sigil he had found earlier. The same sigil appeared three more times, each in a different orientation. With the fourth, the slab slid aside.

A key. He had been given access. A black rectangular hole stood in front of him.

His mind reeled as it was pulled out of the sim-U. Everything stretched and distorted until his eyes opened with a sudden jerk. A sharp pain in his neck told him the simulation machine had been disconnected from him.

A man in a helmet covering his entire face was staring into Figaro’s face from an uncomfortably close distance. The Vendx symbol was embossed on the headplate just above his eyes.

“This is an official product recall,” he said in a voice through a filter. “You’re coming with us to see a customer services representative.”

The Good Student week off

Not posting today. Decided to take a break over the holiday weekend and give my brain a rest.

56: Criminal Damage

Fourth Quadrant.

Planet Fountain.

Fraiche City.

JonJo’s Surf ‘n’ Turf.

 

As a child, Ubik had been taught there were three groups of individuals that he was never to target. The police, because law enforcement held a grudge like no other. Members of other gangs, because if you made them look foolish, they would have no choice but to do something gratuitously violent to get their rep back. And the Seneca Corps.

There had never been a proper explanation, no background on the Corps. They were just well-trained and unwilling to compromise in any situation. If you engaged them, they would immediately react with lethal force, no matter what the level of threat might be. Not worth.

It was their predisposition for disproportionate retaliation that had earned them both their reputation and everyone else’s distance.

Ubik assumed attempts had been made in the past to curb the Seneca Corps’ outlandish behaviour, but for some reason they had failed. Something to do with them all being organics? He had never really cared. To him, they offered a poor return on investment, so he was happy to accept the idea that they would leave you alone if you left them alone.

This was his first time seeing them up close. They weren’t exactly what he had expected. A lot lighter and delicate than he’d imagined. More guns. Less makeup.

Their clothes matched, vaguely paramilitary, functional more than comfortable. Lots of straps to tighten in case of injury. Probably had built-in splints, too. Both women wore Delgados. He was impressed.

They had a dancer’s posture, erect but agile. No big muscles or indicator of drug use. Their faces were thin with delicate features, none of the swollen cheeks and jaws associated with jacking up. But they stood in place like it would take a team of construction drones working together to make them move off a spot once they were in position. They projected an immense sense of stability, even more than PT, who had impressed Ubik with his ability to find the perfect balance in nearly any situation. Until now. He looked ready to fall over at the first nudge.

“Wow, are you really Seneca?” gushed Ubik. “I have so many questions. Do you have five minutes for a fan?”

The two women, both of whom had their eyes trained on PT, shifted their gaze the minimum amount required to look at Ubik.

“Ooh, chills,” said Ubik. He wasn’t lying, either. The way they’d synched up their disdain was very impressive. “Hey, PT, which one do you want?” He had to force himself not to laugh at PT’s horrified expression. The other men in attendance didn’t look too happy about his tone, either.

“What are you doing?” said PT, his voice trying to stay hidden in the back of his throat.  

“Calm down,” said Ubik. “I don’t mean which one do you want in a fight. Obviously, we don’t want to make this confrontational. I mean, which one do you want to ask out? I don’t mind, I think they’re both lovely. The taller one, right? Because she’s obviously the one in charge.” He turned back to the women, who were still looking at him, disdain morphing slowly into confusion. “He prefers domineering women because his mother was a ship-wide computer system. He has difficulty relating to women on an equal footing, you know how it is.”

“Please stop,” said PT.

“They’re just people,” said Ubik. “There’s no need to be scared of them.”

“I’m not,” said PT. “I’m scared of you. I’m not with him,” he said to the women. “No blood relation. I hardly know him, you can test my DNA if you want.”

It was funny how everyone was terrified, even Terrific, who was shaking his head at Ubik, like he was trying to offer advice.

It was strange. When you broke down the situation to its most basic elements, it was just two girls. They still hadn’t said anything.

“What all of you seem to have overlooked,” continued Ubik, since no one else seemed to want to speak, “is that it can’t be easy being a stormtrooper, a working professional and a woman. Where do you find time for love? How do you meet guys? Everyone’s so intimidated, no one ever asks, right? It’s always the most vicious female assassins who are also the loneliest.”

Ubik looked around the group, offering them a chance to have their say. Still no takers.

“How about it?” said Ubik. “We could go for a meal. The place over the road is quite good, although I haven’t been since the change of ownership. I would suggest this place but the lights are on the blink.”

The sign over the Surf ‘n’ Turf flashed on and off to help illustrate his point.

“See? I could fix that for you,” Ubik said to Terrific. “My rates are very reasonable.”

Finally, the tension became too much for Terrific. “You’re the one who did this!”

“How do you know?” asked Ubik.

There was a click and Terrific’s eyes lit up. His long dark hair rose up in waves behind him. “I know,” he said in a voice several octaves lower than it had been a moment ago.

Ubik wasn’t an expert on organics, but he had a rough idea of the different kinds. This appeared to be a surveillance type. Perception more than precognition, he would guess. You wouldn’t hang around a small place like this if you were a precog. Neither type was that impressive, as far as Ubik was concerned. Knowing wasn’t as good as doing. Sure, it helped, but you needed backup. And Terrific’s current backup were all busy crapping their pants.

“I don’t think you should present a threat like that with them two behind you.” Ubik pointed at the women. Their eyes were bright white, much brighter than Terrific’s. “They might take it the wrong way.”

Terrific’s rage subsided as quickly as it had appeared. His eyes returned to normal and his hair wafted back down to his shoulders.

“This has been fun,” said the taller woman. There was no trace of amusement in her voice. She pointed at PT. “You. Come with us.” There was no attempt to be threatening, their guns remained in their holsters.

“Why?” asked Ubik. “Seneca business? It’s not, is it? Because you aren’t Seneca.”

“What?” said Terrific. “Of course they are… aren’t they?” He was staring at the women differently now. Still wary, but now with added suspicion. No one in a gang liked to be made to look a fool in front of their fellow gang members, especially if they were the boss.

“They’re definitely Seneca,” said PT, also looking miffed. “You can tell.”

“Oh, Seneca trained,” said Ubik. “The side-arms, you’ve got a KF-32, yours is the KF-3M. Not standard issue for the Corps. Make their own, don’t they — SC series. That’s how I was taught to recognise you guys, not that I ever got the chance. Leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone — big fan of that, big, big fan. Make your own ammunition for all of it, too. Proprietary IP, smart. Death for being an evil prick, death for copyright infringement, seems about right to me — got to protect what’s yours. Can’t take them with you when you leave the corps, though. And this, working as mercs to pick up a contract in the arse-end of the sector, this isn’t Seneca sanctioned. Freelance, right? Can’t go on around relying on the uniform to carry you anymore.”

“Can I shoot him now?” said the shorter one.

“No. I like him,” said the taller one.

“Sorry,” Ubik said to PT. “Looks like you’ll have to take shorty.”

“I like cocky men,” said the taller one. “I like watching their heads go pop when I stick my gun up their butts.”

Ubik grinned. “Nice, that was good. Three of these guys just wet themselves. I won’t say which three, don’t want to embarrass anyone, you know who you are. But the way I see it, any organisation with a reputation for excellence bases its promotional material on the best they have working for them. The average standard is a lot lower than that, and half the people are below average. Are you good enough to take on all these seasoned pros without any backup of your own? Because the people who hired you spent a lot of money for such a small-time gig, don’t you think? And here you are with these guys sitting on a case full of Z-55s, M-1s, 120 mm taser pellets, fibre mines, sticky bombs and sniper bursts.” From the look on the doorman’s face, Ubik had guessed well. “And Terrific over here probably knew you were coming before you did. So what you want to ask yourselves is, did you charge your employers enough for the shit they dropped you into?”

“No one is in the shit here,” said Terrific, “apart from you.”

“You deal with him,” said the taller woman. “We’re taking our package and leaving.”

Everyone seemed unsettled and unsure of the situation. They were doing their best to act like they had it all under control, but no one here was fooled. No one moved.

“What about the guild?” said Terrific. “We had a deal.”

“And I think the crazy kid is right. They sent us here for a reason, something more than a simple delivery job, and I don’t like being manipulated out of a fee. Deal’s off.”

“You better go,” Ubik said to PT. “Don’t want to make Mommy mad.”

“Shut up,” said PT his eyes wild and crazy. “Shut your mouth, or so help me…” He looked around like he was searching for a heavy object to hit Ubik with. Of course, PT wouldn’t need a weapon, he just wanted to keep all eyes on him and not on Ubik. Good of him to join in.

“Grab him,” said the doorman as PT stumbled past them towards the gun case. “Sorry, buddy, got to hand you over.” He sounded genuinely apologetic.

Multiple men tried to get hold of PT, but he seemed to slip through their grasp. He wasn’t trying to run away, though.

“One of you lend me a weapon. I just want to smack the little twerp around before I go.”

His movements were very smooth, sliding away from the hands trying to reach him. It looked inadvertent, but Ubik could see it. And so could the well-trained Seneca women. Doubt was creeping into their faces as they looked at each other. They were still holding off taking action, but not for much longer.

Ubik put his hand in his pocket and grabbed the detonator. He had planted numerous interrupters into the Surf ‘n’ Turfs security grid. It played havoc with the electrics, but it provided an easy way to syphon off power and store it. If you released it all at once, the whole system could blow, along with the whatever the system was kept in.

But before he could do anything, there was an explosion far across the city. A ball of fire rose into the air. Everyone was startled into a kind of paralysis, staring up at the orange ball.

“Looks like it’s started,” Ubik said to the women. “Hope you’re ready.” It was fun acting like he was the harbinger of doom.  

“Time to put an end to this,” said the taller one, gritting her teeth and pulling out her KF-32.

“Incoming!” shouted Ubik.

He pressed the detonator and the sign above JonJo’s lit up twice as bright as it had before. Everyone turned except PT, Ubik noticed. Then the glass front exploded, sending out a shower of glass. Not quite as showy as the fireball, but good enough.

At the same time, one of the doormen flew through the air and slammed into Terrific. How had PT managed to throw someone twice his size? The guy was a marvel.

There was no time to waste admiring the chaos, Ubik was too busy running.

The next moment, PT was alongside him. “This is your plan? Make a run for it?”

“Part of every plan is the escape. Nice assist, by the way. You catch on quick.”

“Even you couldn’t be that insane.”

“No? You’d be surprised.” Ubik laughed as he ran, yelling, “Woo hoo.”

“Hey, keep it down. You want them to find us easier?”

“What do you think?”

PT looked confused for a moment. He looked over his shoulder and then in the direction they were running. “Are we heading towards the explosion?”

“Of course. They’re going to chase us, might as well show them a good time. Seneca versus Vendx, who’s your money on.”

“I was wrong, you are insane,” said PT. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“Don’t be so negative,” said Ubik. “Worst day of your life so far.”

“It won’t work.”

Ubik didn’t try to convince him otherwise. He was probably right. But, if he thought it was such a bad idea, why was he smiling?

429: Golden Dragon

It was May and it was sunny and Mandy was all smiles and cleavage. She personified self-satisfaction, like the hot chick who managed to get the rockstar away from his first wife and had cemented her position with a verified paternity test, and wife number three was still in a nursery somewhere in Brazil.

That’s a little harsh, maybe. There’s no reason why a drugged out singer is going to cheat on you with a younger model just because that’s how you got your claws into him. You never know what the future will bring — genetically-modified cocaine might have an unexpected side-effect that improves morals.

Like most people, I resent others being happier than me. In my case, that’s a lot of resentment of a lot of people.

Mandy exuded unbridled joy and it was frankly obscene. The world was full of misery and tragedy, and she had the gall to look like she might start whistling for no reason.

We all know that resenting others for their success is petty and the mark of a desperately insecure person. That’s why we all deny we do it. Oh, but it’s fun when someone falls from their bliss perch on high. Down they go and here they come, to spend some time with the rest of us in the pit.

She looked older and heavier. Not much older and perhaps the dress was giving her the illusion of a fuller figure, but you have to take solace where you can.

“How are you here?” I said.

“Same way you are, I guess,” she said, rocking the buggy back and forth while the kid gnawed on the belt holding him in, or holding him back.

The child was maybe one or two, I’m not a paediatrician. Despite my lack of medical qualifications, there was something very unusual about the little monster. I choose my words carefully.

He had an intense face with heavy features. Big jaw, large forehead, very pale skin. The teeth looked pointy but it was hard to see past the hairy little hands. Fine blond hairs that only glinted in the sunlight, but give it a few years and he’d be rocking hairy elbow-length gloves like a mini-Wolverine.

“You have a kid,” I said, not really knowing how else to bring it up. What is that? seemed a little tactless.

“This is Charlie.” Her eyes lit up, her heart grew two sizes. Must be nice to feel like a success just by having unprotected sex. “Charlie, this is Uncle Colin.”

The child grunted at me.

“Cheng’s?”

“Of course. What do you take me for?” I kept my mouth shut. “We’re married. I mean here, we got married properly, not some crazy pagan ritual.” She widened her eyes at me like we were reminiscing about the crazy times we shared.

“Charlie Cheng,” I said. “Catchy. Should grow up to be a fine detective.”

“Charles Biscuit Cheng,” Mandy said proudly, like that was an improvement. “Come on, we should go.”

“Go where?” I said.

“To see Cheng, of course. You want to see him, don’t you? He can answer your questions about interdimensional travel and all that nonsense better than I can.” She bent down to give the child a kiss on the head, while also giving the whole street a look down the top of her dress. Not slut-shaming, just slut-confirming. Charlie shouted, “Ach!” disapprovingly and moved his head away sharply. I was beginning to warm to him.

“Where is he?” I asked. “Is he, you know, wings and horns?”

“No!” said Mandy, like I’d said something offensive. “He looks like you. Well, not like you, but normal.”

Nice. Women, as we all know, are the masters when it comes to weaponising resentment. Mandy could stick the boot in as well as anyone.

“Why didn’t he come, then?”

Sending Mandy out on her own to meet some stranger she from the internet didn’t sound like the sort of thing a normal person would do. Unless he had complete trust and faith in her, and how normal is that?

“This was my idea. I thought others might make it back, so I set up a Google alert. What? You think I don’t know how to use a computer because I’m a girl?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it. I’ll have you know my social media skills are top notch. Or they were until Cheng made me quit Facebook. He said he sensed great evil whenever I check my page. Anyway, he guessed it would be you when I found your page, but we have to be careful.” Mandy gave the child a soft toy to hold, which he snarled at and promptly threw on the street. “There are people who know about us.”

“What people? Men in Black?”

“No, silly.” She rolled her eyes at me. “They deal with aliens. This isn’t the government, they have no idea. This is some private organisation who want to find a way to get to where we went.”

“How do you know?”

“Cheng told me. He has ways of finding this stuff out.” She straightened up, tired of having to keep picking up rejected toys. “You know, special ways.”

“So magic works here?”

She looked at me with a lopsided twist of her lips, like she wasn’t sure I was being serious. “Yes. It works differently, but yes. Planning on threatening me with your powers?”

Our relationship had been built on a series of vicious threats made by me whenever our paths had crossed, which had been very effective. It is, of course, very politically incorrect to force a woman to behave like a decent human being through threats of violence and immolation, but it’s a fuck of a lot more effective than following Kylie Jenner on Instagram, so swings and roundabouts.

“No,” I said. “You aren’t that person anymore.”

“And what about you? Are you the same?”

“I have no idea what I am. What do you mean it works differently? How differently?”

“You really need to ask Cheng about these things. Come on, it’s not far. I’ve got a car waiting.”

“You’re driving?” I’m not sure why I found this a matter for concern. Women are perfectly good at driving. Perhaps it was this woman I didn’t trust to negotiate a busy junction. There’s something about confident women who think the world will stop for them without them needing to worry about it that makes me nervous in traffic.

“We have a driver.” Her irritation at my doubting her driving skills was nicely balanced by her pleasure at getting to boast about her chauffeur.

She turned the buggy around — it was the kind with three wheels and had a BMW badge on the front — and started walking with her head held high and her chest sticking out. I know I’m drawing a lot of attention to my view of her as an unrepentant strumpet, but don’t shoot the messenger just because he brings bad lewds.

I followed her down a side street where the cars were parked so close to each other it seemed unlikely any of them would be able to leave without the use of industrial-scale electromagnets. The kid was leaning out of the stroller making honking sounds.

“So, does your baby have any abnormal abilities?”

Mandy turned her head enough for me to let me see her scowl. “He’s perfectly normal and healthy. Cheng is half-human, you know.”

“And half not,” I said. “Have you seen Rosemary’s Baby?”

“I have actually. I thought it had a very happy ending.”

Sure, very jolly. Rosemary gets raped by a demon, betrayed by her husband and kidnapped by a cult. But she does come to love the child she’s forced to bear, so… yay?

The car was a Mercedes with tinted windows, but a minivan not a limousine. Very North London. The smartly suited driver jumped out to help stow the buggy, which collapsed into a small spacecraft that looked suitable for transporting the last survivor of Krypton.

“This is Tommy.” Tommy nodded at me. He was stocky and had a scar down one side of his face. Mandy leaned closer to me. “He’s ex-SAS,” she whispered through her perfume.

“These people we need to watch out for,” I said as we got in the back of the SUV, “are they dangerous?” Having an SAS driver seemed a bit extreme for a trip to the shops. We were nowhere near Tottenham.

“Not as long as we take care not to do anything out of the ordinary. They’re just watching us for now. They’re very rich, that’s all we know about them for sure. They can afford to outbid us on eBay.”

I was at a loss to understand the relevance of this tidbit of information.

We set off towards Hampstead, which wasn’t too far. It’s a leafy suburb of London with a lot of rich people in it. Not the evil rich who finance wars and own politicians, more the intellectuals who have romantic ideas about communism and always vote for the party that promises the biggest tax cuts.

The toddler sat in Mandy’s lap rather than in the safety seat, with the back of his head resting on Mandy’s boobs. He was a fat baby. No judgements. He looked pretty human, like Winston Churchill taking a shit. He grimaced, jaw clenched. Actually, I think he was doing just that.

“Good job,” said Mandy, bouncing him up and down. “Is mummy’s golden boy hungry?” She looked ready to pop out a tit, but then when did she not?

“Mrs Cheng,” said the driver. “I think we’re being followed.”

“Can you lose them?” said Mandy, as though this was completely normal.

I looked out of the rear window. It was a narrow street with three or four cars behind us, that I could make out. None of the occupants looked particularly menacing. Well, there was a Tesla driver who looked a bit smug, but that was to be expected.

“Which one?” I asked.

“The first three,” said the driver. And then he stepped on it and ran a red light.

London streets aren’t really made for car chases. They’re very narrow with parked cars on both sides and traffic lights every five metres. You have no hope of losing anyone by taking a sharp left and flooring it.

Tommy seemed to know a shortcut to somewhere, the way he cut through traffic and down tiny side streets. He made the moves of a pissed off dad late for the school run — no gap too small to slide in between.

There was no one behind us giving chase, but maybe they were smarter than that. What did they even want? If they’d been watching Cheng and Mandy for a while, why make their move now? The only thing that had changed was… my arrival.

The car came to a sudden stop and my face flew forward into the headrest of the seat in front. I tasted blood as my teeth bit into the inside of my face. When I looked up the driver was turned around in his seat with a gun in his hand. Not a real gun, this had a weird plastic yellow muzzle with wires sticking out of it. A taser?

“What the fuck is that supposed to be?” I mumbled through my bloody teeth. Old habits die hard, and my muscle memory still thought I was in the land of magic and fantasy where I didn’t get the shit beaten out of me by anyone bigger than me.

Through the windscreen, I could see another car, one with fancy rims, blocking the way forward. Two men were getting out.

The gun twitched, about to fire. I instinctively tried to grab it. My hand passed through the barrel. Magic confirmed to exist and to be at troll level 9000. Would that mean the gun would shoot through me and leave me unaffected? What do you think?

The baby growled.

I mean, properly growled, like an old woman’s pitbull eyeing the grandson who’d come to visit and was getting all the attention. Then Charlie threw up.

The spawn of Satan is known for their ability to projectile vomit, so little Charlie’s puke could have had nasty properties, maybe it would burn the guy’s face right off.

As it was, it just hit the guy’s hands and covered the gun in a stinky layer of yellow gunk.

The guy looked at his hand in disgust. Wasn’t he used to seeing a lot worse? Boys in turbans with half their head blown off and so on and so forth. His lips peeled back into a pained grimace and then he screamed. Fucking lightweight. My girlfriend took a faceful of acid for me and barely made a sound. No wonder the SAS kicked him out. This guy was definitely not dating material; swipe left.

The gun dissolved along with the hand, but not before he managed to pull the trigger and a barb stung me in the chest. So much for my theory I could phase through projectiles and bullets.

My body shuddered as a bajillion volts shot through me, and then it stopped as the gun fell apart.

Mandy shoved the kid, drooling corrosive bile (reminded me of his mother) and smiling. He smelled like he’d filled his nappy, although that might have been me. Mandy had the look of a woman who was not happy with the hired help. She slid the door aside and got out, pulled the driver side open and grabbed the guy by the collar.

The two approaching men ran towards us but were intercepted by a woman in a disability scooter, shouting they couldn’t stop in a school zone while filming them on her phone.

Tommy was shaking and shivering, his eyes and nose watering like a teenage girl who had just heard her favourite member of BTS was engaged to be married (what she doesn’t know is that it’s to her second favourite member of BTS).

Whatever was in baby’s spit, it had the kind of disinfectant effect that didn’t just kill 99.9% of all known germs, it went the full hundo, and that included germs like Two-Tap Tommy.

Mandy dragged him out with the superhuman strength of a mother protecting her cub, showing off the other advantage of going 21st century thicc, and dumped him in the street. There may have been a kick in the groin but it was hard to tell from where I was sitting.

She got in the driver seat and kicked the car into reverse. She drove with the alarm going off because she’d left the passenger door open and swung the car around. I winced. Not because of the barb sticking out of my chest or the baby dripped acid on my lap, but because women are notoriously bad at turning around in tight spaces. It would be horribly embarrassing to get caught while trying to execute a seventeen-point turn.

Mandy solved the problem of poor spatial awareness by hitting the parked cars on both sides and the floored the accelerator… in reverse. I was about to point out her mistake when two thumps demonstrated she knew what she was doing — not giving a shit.

We set off again, three bodies in the road behind us. They probably weren’t dead, and unlikely to report the accident.

“Sorry about that,” said Mandy, adjusting the rearview mirror and then rearranging her hair as she drove one-handed.

Driven through the narrow streets of London by an irate female driver buys fixing her hair and harbouring a strong dislike for other people’s wing mirrors — the baby clung to me and I to him, both of us experiencing fear like Tommy only wished he could induce in his victims.

55: Focus Group

Fourth Quadrant.

Planet Fountain.

Fraiche City.

JonJo’s Surf ‘n’ Turf.

 

Ubik checked the drone, removing part of its skull and pulling out a thin rod which he held up and examined like it was a thermometer. The readings showed no signs of life but only because the drone had been cut off from its source signal, which left it unable to function.

Ubik had seen this sort of thing before. It was what would happen to the drones back in Collection Zone E4-J when they lost their connection to their control centre. That was usually by accident due to the various types of shielding material lying around the junkyard causing interference. They would occasionally fall out of the sky for no apparent reason, which would be a pleasant bonus. The internal workings were very useful.

But this drone had been intentionally cut loose. Ubik tried to get it back online but it was no use; it hadn’t lost its connection, the connection was gone. With no primary source signal, the drone wasn’t much more than a large metal box with sharp knives sticking out of it.

“We can’t leave it lying around here,” said Ubik. “Help me move it into that side street.”

“Why?” asked PT, unfairly suspicious of Ubik’s intentions. “Are you afraid some kids might find it and hurt themselves.”

“I’m afraid they might nick it and sell it off for parts.”

“Like you would?”

“Of course not,” said Ubik, dragging the hefty lump of metal to the side. “I don’t sell off my friends’ body parts for profit. I cannibalise and find a good use for them. I’ll come back for him after I’m done with JonJo.”

PT reluctantly helped him drag the dormant skyjack across the street as the passing pedestrians ignored them. Ubik was starting to get the impression the locals didn’t think very highly of guild members.

“You seem very confident you can take care of JonJo,” said PT.

“It makes no difference to me,” said Ubik, doing his best to keep his end off the ground. “It’s only worth considering the options you aren’t dead in.”

They dumped the drone into the side street where it looked a lot more menacing emerging out of the shadows.

“That should be fine,” said Ubik, brushing off his hands on his greys. “They might even reactivate him once the issue with Vendx is dealt with. If anyone’s left.”

“Do you really think Vendx have gotten involved?” asked PT.

“I can’t say for certain, but I think it’s pretty likely. To be honest, I expected them sooner. Once Fig crashed the sim-U, they would have known something was up.”

“You’ve run into them before, have you?” asked PT.

“Once or twice,” said Ubik. The recollection made him shudder. It was Vendx that had forced him to leave the city behind and take up residence in a junkyard. He didn’t hold a grudge against them for his sudden relocation — sadly, he doubted the same could be said for them.

It was unlikely anyone sent to investigate a minor malfunction on an unremarkable planet would recognise him, but it would probably be best to wait until they left before going back to the academy. Assuming it was still standing.

They left the drone behind and headed towards JonJo’s establishment, the sign lighting up and dying helped remind them where to go.

“I don’t like this,” said PT, turning his head this way and that. “There’s too much going on at the same time. It’s impossible to cover every angle.”

“I know,” said Ubik. “But if we can’t, neither can anyone else. The more variables you’re working with, the less likely you are to take a direct hit — too many targets. Just remember to keep your options open.”

“What does that mean?” said PT.

“If the Academy goes under, we might need to ask Terrific JonJo for a job,” said Ubik, grinning at the idea of pulling off something so outrageous. Most people who wanted you dead didn’t hire you to work for them. It would be foolish to let someone like Ubik past your defences where they could check out your entire operation from the inside. Which was what made it such an attractive proposition.

As they neared the restaurant, Ubik noticed the place opposite — Dai’s Curry Palace — had undergone some changes. A big sign in the window said ‘ Under New Management’.

It seemed Dai had taken the fall for Ubik’s transgressions. He didn’t know how Terrific had found out about Dai’s involvement, but Dai had been the one who sent Ubik over to JonJo’s place, so technically he was responsible for any issues that resulted. Ubik felt no sympathy for the man, whatever his fate might be. Once you put a plan into motion, you had to be prepared to deal with the fallout.

“I don’t think business is doing well,” said PT.

The place was much quieter than when Ubik last visited. There was no long line outside waiting to get in. There were only dim lights inside the building; they had managed to rig some sort of temporary set-up, but it just wasn’t the same. The whole street was full of fancy shop fronts with enticing displays to attract customers. The Surf ‘n’ Turf was a black hole, by comparison.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” said the doorman as Ubik and PT approached. He was as big and as ugly as before, but he seemed tense. He had several other men with him, all wearing the same branded JonJo jackets that barely contained their bulging muscles. They looked ready for trouble. Ubik found it very flattering. “We thought you’d do a runner. You’ve earned some credit for not making us chase you down.”

He said it like he would make Ubik’s death quick and painless, rather than the protracted affair he offered others. A special deal for not making guys with big muscles have to jog.

“This is the guy who wouldn’t let me in when I asked to see the manager,” said Ubik. “Told me to buzz off. Now he’s delighted to see me. How things change, eh?”

“Sounds like he was just doing his job,” said PT.

“You’re taking his side?” said Ubik.

PT nodded at the doorman. “You did the right thing.”

The doorman nodded back.

“Hey,” said Ubik, not liking the way the two of them were bonding over their common distrust of an innocent man who had done nothing to warrant it. Nothing provable, at least. “I’m expected, remember? Shouldn’t we go in or something?”

“We were told you would be escorted by a drone,” said the doorman, giving PT another look.

“It’s not me,” said PT. “I’m just a trainee at the academy, here to make sure you acknowledge we’ve done our part. One annoying troublemaker, as per your request. We did have a drone, but it broke down on the way. He has that effect.”

“Yeah,” said the doorman, his gaze turning back to Ubik. “We’ve noticed.”

“Slander,” said Ubik. The lights came back up over the restaurant, glaringly bright. Then they blinked out again. “You should call someone in to fix that. Faulty wiring, probably.”

The doorman looked a little peeved at the advice. He put a hand to his ear and said, “Tell him he’s here. Does he want us to bring him in?”

PT was glancing around, looking for the people who had been sent to find him. They were too far away to see the interior of the restaurant clearly.

“You’ll have to get inside,” said Ubik under his breath. “You can’t see anything from here.”

“I can see fine,” said PT. “I don’t think I want to go in there. Everyone’s heavily armed.”

“Yep,” said Ubik. “Catering’s a tough profession.”

“And they’re very nervous,” PT added. “Not a good combination.”

“I have that effect,” said Ubik.

“Only on innocent drones. I don’t think they’re nervous about you.”

The doorman put his hand to his ear again, nodding. “He’s coming outside to meet you.”

“Oh, is he?” Ubik hadn’t expected that. A cautious man. Most people didn’t treat Ubik like that until after they met him, and by then it was too late. This man was an organic, though. Perhaps he had the ability to know when to take extra care. A pretty useless ability as far as Ubik was concerned.

“He probably doesn’t want bloodstains on his carpets,” said PT.

There was scream above them as two streaks of light shot across the sky. The doormen all stepped back, hands reaching inside their jackets.

“What was that?” said PT, looking up.

“Vendx,” said Ubik. “Mark 2 Harrier Hawks. They make them noisy on purpose. I told you, very obnoxious.”

“Vendx?” said the doorman, his mask of confidence slipping. “You sure? That’s all we need.” He was the same as PT — didn’t like too much going on at the same time. He turned to his men. “He’s coming out. Watch yourselves.” He really was very jumpy, they all were. Did their own boss scare them that much?

Or maybe it wasn’t their boss who had them so rattled.

“You could ask them,” said Ubik. “Want me to ask for you?”

“Ask what?” said PT, confused.

“My friend’s a bit shy,” Ubik  to the doorman. “He wants to know if you’ve got any assassins visiting from off-world. Or mercenaries, or guns for hire. He collects autographs of evil people. It’s his hobby. He’ll probably ask for yours, one day.”

The doorman looked like he was about to say something unkind, but the doors to the restaurant opened and a man exited flanked by a small coterie.

He was tall but moved very gracefully. His clothes seemed to flow around him as he walked down the short flight of steps.

“This is him,” said the man, his voice a gentle purr. “Ladies, the man you’ve been looking for.” But he wasn’t looking at Ubik, he was looking at PT. He moved aside and two stern-faced women were behind him.

PT took a step back. He seemed off-balance, for once.

“Nice,” said Ubik. “They’re very pretty for hired killers.”

“No,” said PT, his voice a little strangled in his throat, “they aren’t.”

“Not pretty?”

“Not hired killers. They’re Seneca Corps.”