E.N.D.A.Y.S. (5 page)

'London.'
Kali said.
'And it's a City.'

“Lun-dong? What the fuck kind of name is that?” he asked.

'Don't be a fucking moron. You've been to lots of Londons,
I'm
from a fucking London.'

“Never heard of it.” he said, turning off the main road and coming in to a residential area. Tall four and five storey buildings lining either side of the street, looming above him with ancient, elegant architecture. “I think I'm going to have to kill myself.”

'What are you talking about?'
Kali said.
'Those houses are fucking gorgeous.'
she watched through his lens as he passed house after house. Each marking itself off from the sidewalk with wrought iron metalwork, below which basement levels looked up at street level.
'I wish I lived in a place like that...'
she said, to a grunt.

Hayes kept walking down until he found his destination. The house was five floors of large, white bricks. Three windows wide, with shallow marble steps leading to an oversized black door surrounded by pillars, covered overhead by the balcony of the floor above.

“Shithole.” he said.

'Stop saying that.'
Kali said, pulling up data on the house, swiftly becoming aggravated.
'They're paying more for that building than they do for me!'

“Well, I'm worth it.” Hayes said, as he knocked on the door. “What's this guy's name?” he asked.

Kali threw static across the system, drilling through his head with digital screams.

'Read the brief.'
she said.

The door opened, revealing a short, stocky redhead. His ginger stubble carved into a goatee that was barely visible in natural light.

A big grin contorted across Hayes's face as his eyes lit up with recognition. “Garbage!” he shouted, pushing the little man out of his way as he entered the house.

“It's
Darvish
, you fucking wankrag.” said the little man, pursing his lips and slamming the door, trying to keep up with Hayes's long-legged strut.

“Shitty place you got here.” Hayes said, looking around the living room. Velvet flocked wallpaper clung to the walls, parting only for an ornate marble fireplace. A thick, red carpet at his feet absorbed every footstep like a warm embrace. Two sofas sat adjacent to one another at a right angle, golden upholstery lined with a dark wooden body, silk tassels hanging at the bottom.

“Hope you made me something nice for dinner.” he continued, walking through to the dining room, where the carpet and wallpaper were identical. A crystal chandelier hung low from the ceiling, swaying wildly from a brush with Hayes's hand. Darvish caught it mid-swing and settled it before it fell on the table that lay beneath, a thick sheet of glass held aloft on a pedestal of brass and lucite.

“I am not your fucking butler.” Darvish said, struggling to keep up with Hayes, who was already traipsing along the hardwood floor of the kitchen. A cacophonous symphony rung out as Darvish entered. Hayes had knocked the utensils from the Calcutta Oro countertop of the centre island with his elbows on his way to investigate the black American-style fridge.

“This won't do at all, Garbage, I need protein. Can you run out and get me a steak? Rare to medium.”

“Hayes, this is my operation...” Darvish started, whilst picking up the items knocked to the floor, but Hayes was already out the kitchen, up the stairs and entering his bedroom.

“Oh, this is nice though,” Hayes said, who as Darvish walked in, was standing on the bed, thick footprints marking his path across the bedspread. “Comfy. Is this memory foam?”

“Get your feet the fuck off my bed, Hayes.” he said, standing his ground, and firing up nano control to redirect strength.

“You're very rude.” Hayes said, with a mocking tone. “I'm a guest!”. The words had barely left his lips before Darvish grabbed the duvet and wrenched it from under him, throwing Hayes off the bed, his head ricocheting off a bedside table on his way to the floor.

“This is
my
mission, Hayes.
My
rules. You are going to do as I say, when I say it. I am not going to take
any
of your shit, do you understand?”

Hayes picked his pounding head from the floor whilst his nanos rushed upwards through his bloodstream. “You could have said please...” he mumbled, as the nanos began to repair the dent in his skull and siphon back the blood that was leaking down his face.

“Get out of my room, fix
yourself
something to eat and get an early night. We're going out first thing to track the signals.”

“What fucking signals?” Hayes asked, as he dawdled to the door.

“Read the
fucking
mission specs.” Darvish said, as he slammed the door in Hayes's face, crushing his nose in the process.

“I don't like that people keep breaking my face...” he said, as he trudged back down the stairs, nanos putting his mangled snout back together.

'Be less of a dick, and maybe people won't hit you so much...'
Kali said.

Hayes made himself a sandwich, leaving the fridge open to freeze up overnight as a small modicum of vengeance. Going through the rest of the house, leaving crumbs with every step, he discovered that other than the rooms downstairs and Darvish's bedroom, the rest of them were entirely unfurnished.

“Where am I meant to sleep, Darvish?” he shouted through the bedroom door. There was no response.

He glared at the imprint of his face on the door, and returned to the living room, throwing the cushions off one of the sofas. Keeping his boots on as he got himself comfy, to be sure to leave marks on the upholstery.

“So, what's this all about?” Hayes asked Kali.

'Read the mission specs.'
she said.

“Can't you just give me the cliff notes?” he asked.

'No.'
Kali spat back.

“They'll send me to sleep real good...” he said.

'Don't care.'
she said.

“What about a lullaby?”

Kali sighed, and sent pulses of feedback through his brain until he ran out of expletives. A call rang out through her system. She set Hayes's nanos to interfere with his neurotransmitters to send him into a swift sleep, and answered it.

One of her screens switched over to the video feed, a backlit shadow appearing on the monitor.

“How's he settling in?” the figure asked.

The silhouette leaned back in his chair, revealing himself as Judge Phillips.

“Fine.” said Kali, swiftly correcting herself. “Well, he's being a dick, but that's to be expected.”

“Indeed.” said Phillips. “No complications?” he asked.

“Not that I've noticed, no sir. As far as he's aware, it's a routine punishment.”

“Good.” Phillips said. A cruel smile started to form at the corners of his thin, pale lips. “We need to be certain he is
un
prepared for what is to come next...”

18 hours to the end of the world.

Hayes couldn't dream. He was told it was a possible side-effect of the various bodymods he had willingly undergone. Nanotechnology coursing through his blood, tinkering away at the molecular level, there were some sacrifices that came with the abilities bestowed. On top of that, he got hit in the head a lot. Whilst he couldn't dream, in a sleeping state his senses were still turning over, accruing information, a defence mechanism should he come under attack whilst unconscious.

It was this reflex that had him waking up with a start, throwing a fist through the air before he became alert. His knuckles impacted with Darvish's chin with full strength, throwing him and a pot of coffee heavenward. The cafetière shattered on the ceiling, a black rain soaking into the red carpet below. Rather than shatter, Darvish merely scraped the light fixtures and crumpled in a heap against a bookcase on the other side of the room. Volumes of old leatherbound books toppled out and ricocheted off his head, settling on the plush carpet with light
flumps
.

“Oops.” Hayes said.

'Oh Jesus fuck, what have you done?'
Kali said, her words muffled amidst a half-chewed bite of bagel.

“Don't talk with your mouth full.” Hayes said.

'Is he dead? Did you just kill your fucking partner?!'

Hayes trundled over to the body reluctantly, and checked Darvish's pulse. “He's fine...” Hayes said, with a grunt. “Shouldn't have snuck up on me.”

'Goddamnit.'
Kali said.
'This is not how a mission should fucking start.'

“I refuse to take the blame for this...” Hayes said, as he picked up his unconscious colleague and took him up the steep stairs.

'What are you doing?'
Kali asked.

“He hates me enough as it is... I'll throw him back in bed, maybe he'll think he slept in. That it was all a painful, fisty dream.”

'Darvish doesn't dream either...'
Kali said, watching through Hayes's lens as he pulled the bed covers up on his partner.

“I thought it was a
possible
side-effect of mods, not a
very definite
side-effect that happens to fucking everyone...” Hayes said, trundling back down the stairs. “Maybe he'll forget it happened. Maybe he'll have brain damage.”

'He's not the only one... Where the fuck are you going now?'
she asked, as she watched Hayes walk into the kitchen, grabbing a knife from the centre island before returning to the living room.

“Cleaning up my mess.” he said.

'You mean 'removing evidence'?'
she asked, rolling her eyes as she took another bite of her bagel.

“Whatever you want to call it.” he said, as he knelt down by the coffee stain on the carpet, holding the knife to his hand.

'Oh, fucking
don't
...'
she said, but it was too late.

Hayes winced as he dug the blade deep into his palm, blood forking from the wound down the lines of his hand into the carpet.
'That's fucking disgusting...'
Kali said, coughing over a bite of bagel that had decided her wind pipe was a faster route to her stomach. She grabbed a glass of water from the workstation, a cacophony of hacks and gargles in Hayes's ear as she tried to recover from the miss-swallow, averting her eyes as he continued to dig at the hole in his hand, spreading the blood across the stain.

“Ok, do your thing...” Hayes said, through gritted teeth, as he ordered the nanos to eat away at the coffee. Siphoning it from the carpet, taking it apart at the molecular level and redistributing it through his bloodstream. “Good girls, now come on back into daddy...” he said, placing his hand at the centre of the stain on the carpet.

The nanos obeyed his order, withdrawing themselves, and the blood from the fibres, tracing a path back to the hole at the centre of his palm, sealing it behind them. Hayes pulled his hand from the carpet and watched the skin regrow around the gash. “Good girls.” he said again.

'You're a fucking idiot.'
Kali said, having recovered from her coughing fit.

“Learn how to swallow.” Hayes said. “Everyone likes a girl that can swall--” digital feedback coursed through his skull before the sentence could be finished.

“You're a fucking arsehole.” Darvish said, watching Hayes suffer from the door.

“You have no idea how often I hear that...” Hayes mumbled back, shaking off the pain. “We gonna get to work or what?” he said, rising to his feet to meet a fist from Darvish that threw him back to the floor.

“Put the coffee on,” Darvish said, already on his way back up the stairs. ”I'll set the gear up...”

Fifteen minutes later, Hayes was clumsily bringing two cups of coffee up the stairs, poking his head in every room as he ascended the building trying to find Darvish.

“Up here!” his partner shouted, from the top of the building.

Hayes continued upwards, until he came to the attic, Darvish sitting at a three-legged wooden stool surrounded by tables of mundane tech.

“What the fuck is this?” Hayes asked, placing a cup down by Darvish.

“Read the fucking mission specs. We're here to find anomalous advanced tech. It's counter-productive to attempt to do that whilst bringing yet more advanced tech in-world.”

“It's fucking slower, is what it is.” Hayes said, as he watched Darvish twiddle knobs on rusting metal boxes, flicking switches jutting out of dented panels, observed needles skimming back and forth on scratched displays. “This is fucking laborious. Kali, can you do a scan that won't take all fucking day?” he asked. There was no response. “Kali?”

“I've disabled comms up here.” Darvish said. “Advanced tech, remember?”

“What about our nanos? Our mods?” said Hayes, trying to pull up the data in his lens, but the screen was frozen

“Shroud.” Darvish mumbled back, pointing at the ceiling. A dome of interlaced copper piping hung over them, cables coming down at every quarter, leading back to a generator.

Hayes stepped from under the copper dome. His lens display flickered, then burst back into life, followed by a tickle across his blood vessels as the nanos started waking back up.

'How's it going?'
Kali asked, her voice coming through his head with an undercurrent of static, as he side stepped back under the dome, the lens operation ceasing, tickling through his veins coming to a stop. Another side step out, control resuming
'What the fuck are you --'
said Kali, interrupted as he took another step in. A step out again
. '-- keep disappearing --'
a further step in, at which point he noticed Darvish's glare.

“Stop fucking with my readings.” he spat, with barely restrained venom.

Hayes grunted as he stood still under the shroud and waited impatiently for Darvish to gather his readings.

“We're all set.” Darvish said, grabbing a handheld metal box the size of a block of butter, with three knobs at the side, the plastic front encasing a display with a needle ricocheting back and forth.

“About fucking time...” said Hayes, smirking as he watched Darvish grab his coffee and knock it back.

Darvish coughed on tablespoons of grounds floating in the cup. “What the fuck?”

“Somebody broke your cafetière...” Hayes said, already making his way back down the stairs.

Darvish spat the grounds back into the cup and followed him down, coming in to the living room as Hayes pulled the nanomesh body armour he had secreted in the sleeve of the peacoat. “What the fuck is that?” he asked.

“Can never be too careful...” Hayes said, as he wrenched the sweater off and pulled the nanomesh on. The surface of the skin-tight body armour rippled as it interacted with the nanos in his bloodstream, sending signals back and forth. The needle on the scanner in Darvish's hand went crazy.

“Take it off, you're fucking with my readings.” he ordered.

“Just give it a second. Nanomesh is quiet tech, only does stuff when it needs to... the nanos are just getting to know one another.” Hayes said, as he put the sweater back on over the body armour.

Darvish growled an angry sigh as he turned the knobs to recalibrate the mobile extension of the equipment he had set up in the attic. “I knew you'd fuck this up...” he grumbled.

“Chill out, Darvish, this is a cake walk.” Hayes said, throwing the coat behind him in a swift movement. It coasted through the air as he strode to the hallway. His arms found the sleeves, a roll of his shoulders securing it to his body, fingers twitching at the buttons locking them in place as he came to the front door and swung it open. “So, are we going or what?”

The scanner took them across west London. It wasn't the most precise of instruments, and they had to stop at every street corner. Darvish turned clockwise, then counter-clockwise, confirming the direction of the signal, and they resumed their journey. Until the next street corner.

Hayes was thoroughly bored, but after walking sixteen blocks soon realised that stating how bored he was did not alleviate the boredom.

“We're closing in.” Darvish said, as they came up to the Royal Albert Hall.

“You've been saying that for three hours.” Hayes muttered, as he watched Darvish turn back and forth on the spot.

“This way.” Darvish said, already in mid-stride down Kensington Gore.

Hayes's eyes lingered on the street sign, and he rested his hands on the holsters at his hips, biometric scan activating them. The pocket dimensions rippled into existence, flanking each of his thighs.

Darvish stopped dead in his tracks. “You stupid fuck.” he shouted, turning on his heels with enmity. “You stupid fucking fuck, what did you just activate?”

Hayes pulled his hands from the holsters, and after a moment, they deactivated, the signal no longer interfering with Darvish's scan. “Nothing.” he said.

Darvish glanced down to his scanner and turned back. Hayes rolled his eyes at the seething acrimony that was rippling off his colleague in waves, and continued to follow Darvish's signal.

They came to a stop at a giant building, smooth cream plaster on the facade, scenes of ancient Greeks carved into the stone above and to the sides of each of the windows. Behind the Greeks lay a salmon pink background, drawing the eye to their presence from the otherwise plain latte-beige Victorian architecture. Darvish looked up at the building, relishing its beauty, bands of brown marking each storey with rectangular embellishments of gold metalwork built into the facade. The windows at the third floor jutting outwards from the centre mass of the building, each held aloft by four pillars of wood that surrounded the windows below. Design and construction from well over two centuries previous that had been kept it in pristine condition.

Hayes was less interested in the architecture, and was scoffing at the sign carved above the wide, black door, reading Royal College Of Organists. The name conjured images, to his childish mind, of an esteemed circle jerk.

Trained, professional circle-jerker was a legitimate career path for the denizens of a reality Hayes had been stationed to for a brief, and messy mission. This was a world in which achieving skill in self-pleasure was deemed amongst the highest honours. Whilst Hayes was visiting, the Premier of the dimension was in the midst of a nationally broadcast series, in which he gave tips and extolled the virtues of a number of masturbatory techniques. Unfortunately, during the course of the mission, the Premier lost his hands, and soon after, his title. However Hayes came away with a plethora of new self-servicing skills, so he didn't consider it a complete screw up.

“So what are we waiting for?” Hayes asked, hands itching to return to his holsters.

'I'm picking up some weird signals...'
Kali said, as she orchestrated a quick trans-dimensional scan of the area.

“What kind of weird?” Darvish asked, waiting for her response before knocking on the door.

'I could swear this looks like residual jump dispersal...'
she pulled up a scan of a jump site for comparison, analysing the contrast and correlation between the two sets of signals. The dispersion of emissions circulating around the jump site were almost identical to those propagating somewhere in the vicinity. The signal was dissipating, weak, certainly not a trans-dimensional jump, but someone had attempted or experimented with jump technology nearby in the recent past.

“Well let's go say hi, and ask 'what the fuck?'” Hayes said, stepping up to the door and knocking loudly on the veneer of the black-painted hardwood.

“We don't have all the intel!” Darvish garbled as the door swung open with a soft, shrill wail of hinges begging to be oiled.

“Can I help you?” asked a thin, pale woman. Her eyes batting back and forth between Hayes and Darvish, owl-like, behind thick glasses. Straight brown hair hung over the spectacles in a centre parting, stopping at her hip.

“We're here to see the Professor.” Hayes said, with a big smile, his eyes wide and bright at the mousy girl standing in front of them.