Midnight Lamp (51 page)

‘You’re admitting your stuff really does burn peoples’ brains?’

‘So does learning to read. Your point is?’

The netheads were not fully informed on fusion consciousness. A few people around the table became abstracted, glazing over while they went scurrying after a crash course for the collective, in the privacy of their heads. One of them came out of his trance, impressed, but shaking his head. ‘Sage, okay, how can I put this, have you talked to the band? You’re already on the index in fifteen states. Now you want to announce to the world that classic immersion code contains the seed of a deadly virus?’

‘It’s Morpho, not immersion code. We don’t care what happens to Morpho. We lost the rights, remember? Like everyone in Europe knows, I re-authored: everything after Morpho is in Mark II. Vireo Lake is using Mark I, which is tainted. Check it out… I don’t know why it would be a public scandal. I’d think it’d be something to keep quiet. But if our sales took a dip, we can weather it.’

He didn’t explain it would be the Second Chamber government’s loss.

The leonine chairperson said, thoughtfully, ‘Can it be argued that this viral infringement happens s
pecifically
at Vireo Lake?’

The living skull grinned. Well, of course. We don’t want to pick a fight with any other users, such as the virtual movie industry; or medicine. The time he’d spent with Fred Eiffrich had been spent laboriously tracing a path that would single out the weapons developers.

‘The lawyers in the President’s camp say a case can be made.’

The chairperson nodded. ‘Mm.’

‘Immersion code was never my property, see. All I did was I went looking for what I needed, picked it from the bough, made it do my will. I didn’t nick anything—not besides crunching time, which I was siphoning off my dad’s machines, without his knowledge—’

‘You can’t still believe Joss didn’t know what you were doing,’ broke in the woman with the razor cut. ‘Grow up, Sage. Get past the emotional block.’

‘Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this was the Joss Pender fanclub.’

‘Your dad was caring for you. He was giving you what you needed most, the only way that you would let him—’

The living skull treated her to a hideous glare.

‘
Fuck. Off.
’

‘Three chillies,’ said the acting secretary. ‘One more of those, Sage, and you are out of the room.’

‘Fer fuck’s sake, I only told her to fuck off.’

‘It’s the tone of voice. You can call Andie a brownnosed interfering little cunt with stupid hair, and I wouldn’t argue. But you don’t look at her like that and you don’t use that tone. We do emotion control and we do gentleness, Sage, and don’t you fucking cross the line again.’

‘
As I was saying
. I didn’t nick anything, I didn’t create anything. I got there first, which was very cool, and me an’ the Heads then made a stack of profit, but I put the code back in the public domain because tha’s where I found it. I didn’t make Ivan/Lara happen. But I feel responsible, and tha’s why, having realised this situation, I decided I had to come to you.’

The commissioners confered, silently: but he didn’t need to know what they were saying. They were sold. He knew they hated the fusion consciousness weapon, or there’d have been no point in trying this. No love lost between net-lovers and icky grey matter research. Better than that, it was their psychology. These were sixteen of the smartest, best informed and most successful people in the entire world, but all geeks are mischief-makers at heart.

‘They’ll have an answer,’ said the second woman Commissioner, and deputy chair, a NASA information systems chief: with regret. No love lost between inner space and outer space. ‘They’ll prove they’re clean.’

‘Maybe so,’ said someone else, gravely. ‘But we’ll have to check it out. Very carefully. It’s complex. It could take years to come to a decision.’

‘Yay! Let’s pull the plug on the buggers! Awesome!’

‘You’re the firemen,’ said Sage, limpidly. ‘You can do whatever you like.’

He was dismissed, and left the building with Dino Logothetis. The weight of several overheated atmospheres fell on them as they stepped outdoors. Californians are from Mars, Sprawlers are from Venus.

Dino looked at Sage, suddenly curious. ‘Have you changed the mask?’

The living skull would have raised its eyebrows, if it had any. ‘Not recently.’

‘You look different somehow.’

‘I had my hair cut yesterday.’

‘Hahaha, that must be it. Share a taxi?’

‘No. I hate sharing taxis.’

At Logan International he ran the gauntlet of civil unrest. One of the things that middle class Americans don’t tell you is that the price of aviation fuel is only part of it. Not only is the security horrible, but airports are where the poor gather, picketing and hustling. It’s just a miserable, humiliating experience. Safe on the other side, in echoing, melancholy halls, he found a bar, and tugged the mask button from his eyesocket. The button was new, the file copy of the mask had been downloadable from England, thank God. He couldn’t have done that pitch barefaced. It’s been confirmed, I’m not Aoxomoxoa anymore.

He thought of the woman whose bitter brilliance had been extinguished, her cabined spirit, failing for breath.
Tonight it doth inherit, The vasty hall of Death.
He picked up the tiny button, and held it on his fingertip. Shall I chuck this, in memoriam? Nah, I would only buy another one next week.

Know thyself.

The President had been spending too much time at his beloved Bellevue this summer. His detractors were bitching; but they were going to have to shut up when the Lavoisier affair was revealed to them, so he could afford one more weekend. He held a quiet dinner party, to which Ax and Fiorinda were invited: an apology, he said, for missing both their Bowl concerts. The hostess was Cleonce Sherville, the lady quietly known to be the president’s current
maîtresse du titre.
Ax noted the compliment with something like dread. The meal was late, Spanish style. Coffee and liqueurs were served outdoors at midnight. Ax and the President strolled on the Japanese terrace: moonlight shining on the forested ridges, stretching away forever. ‘I always hate to leave this view,’ sighed Fred. ‘I dream about it. How’s the big guy?’

‘He’s okay. He won’t take care of himself, that’s all.
What can I do
with a man who had his liver replaced a year ago, and insists on drinking alcohol?’

‘You could try accepting that he’s a grown-up.’

‘I’ll hold that one in reserve,’ said Ax, gloomily.

‘What are your plans, the three of you? Where are you heading?’

‘I have plans,’ said Ax, with a hunted look, muscles knotting at the angle of his jaw. ‘Someone has to look after Sage, he keeps forgetting he’s not superman, and Fiorinda won’t do it, he has her hypnotised. I badly need to see more of the world; and I’m thinking I might learn to sail. I have to get those two to appreciate the Blues, that’s very important. And Beethoven. I need to convince Fiorinda to give Beethoven a second chance. She has the superficial idea that he’s some kind of shallow, megalomaniac tyrant—’

‘I have something for you. Shall we go along to my study?’

Shadows followed as they walked around to the study: even here, in the heart of this armed camp. The President opened the french doors, shut them behind his friend, and drew the curtains. The lamps were lit. On a table by the hearth stood a silver tray bearing bourbon, ice and glasses.

‘Let me see—’

Mr Eiffrich made a little business of looking for his gift. ‘Is that Vireo Lake?’ said Ax, looking at a glossy colour photo. Sleek block houses, bonsai pines in green lawns, all set in an unreal white plain.

‘Yeah.’

Well, well, thought Ax.

‘Where are the faithful protestors?’

‘Oh, they haven’t been airbrushed. They never get beyond the perimeter fence. Nobody does, except authorised personnel. But if you’d like to make a visit I could arrange that?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Get it while you can. They’ll be shutting down, very shortly. And before they get out from under Sage’s Morpho moratorium, I’ll have disclosures I can make about the Lavoisier affair that will outlaw research of that kind forever. Fusion consciousness science may be the coming thing, I accept that. Human weapons development in the USA is down the tubes. And that means forever, I hope.’ He gave Ax a warm, firm smile. ‘For which I am eternally grateful, to you, and your lady; and to Sage.’ He was holding a dark red box, like a jewel case. What could be in there? A necklace for Fiorinda?

‘Think nothing of it,’ said Ax, looking at the red case.

‘Shall we sit down? Will you take that drink, this time?’

‘No thanks.’

They went to the armchairs by the hearth, and the President poured himself a little bourbon. ‘Ax, all this time, I haven’t said a word to you about the situation with the Presidency in England.’

‘I noticed, and I was grateful.’

‘I saw the ambassador, in Washington last week. Do you know the guy? James Spencer-Mehta? He has the greatest respect for you.’

‘Does he? I’ve never met him.’

‘They want you back.’

‘I gather they do. Why not? I’m decorative.’

Mr Eiffrich looked into his glass, and sighed. ‘How did it happen, Ax? How did England fall? Of all the states in Europe—’

‘The mother of all stock market crashes, and a mountain of consumer debt. That’s how. Millions living one pay cheque away from ruin, a government slipping into tyranny and corruption; and then ruin came. That was the situation that empowered the Green Revolution.’ Ax’s eyes flashed, ‘We did a good job, Fred. When we took over we made the revolution work: for a while, marginally, smoke and mirrors. But it was a
shambles
that I directed, and I always knew it. You know what that means? It means a slaughter house. What was slaughtered was a civilised nation. It’s gone. And the venal idiots who find that situation comfortable and profitable are the ones who have ended up in charge.’

Mr Eiffrich looked guiltily alarmed—

Ax laughed, ‘Oh, that’s not in the movie. Don’t worry, it’s all smoothed over, practically the only on screen casualty will be the truth.’

‘Good.’

Soon, thought Ax, you’ll convince yourself nothing strange happened at all, and there’ll be nobody to convince you otherwise. There was only one, and she’s dead, may the Compassionate have mercy on her. But before you know for sure, you’ll be compelled to engage with your eco-warriors. You’ll have to listen, and so will others, who would never, never have listened. I count that as a result.

‘Spencer-Mehta gave me this, to give to you. Ax, your brother himself knows he’s not the man for the position: and I know you’ve talked to him.’

Ax had talked to Jordan in the end, after the pep-talk from Rob. How was it these people didn’t realise they were hammering on an open door? To go back, to try again, this time
without
the corruptions of power… It wasn’t something he didn’t want. It was an unbearable temptation. Mr Eiffrich gave the case to Ax. He had to take it, open it. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a gleaming leaf-shape of green stone, as long as a man’s hand.

‘It’s the Falmouth Jade,’ said the President. ‘To replace the stone axe that was lost when you quit the dictatorship. They really want you back, Ax.’

‘I don’t think they know what they’re asking for.’

‘Fiorinda will go with you. She wants to look after her drop-outs. Sage will go with you, and you could have no wiser friends.’

You think I’ll be useful to you in Europe, he thought. The Westminster government wants to trade on the legend, and my darlings want to go home. They know we can’t live in England unless I take the Presidency. It would be Ax Preston lurking down in Cornwall, no fixed role, a focus for every plot and conspiracy. How long could that last?

‘Are we talking terms? Let’s talk about the way your wars are making the Islamic populations of Europe, including England, impossible to govern.’

The President leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the bourbon glass in his hands. ‘I’m not a fool, Ax. I know what the USA looks like from Crisis Europe. I know people over there see me—maybe even you see me—as the puppet of the forces of evil. I can only tell you, it’s not true. Okay, I have to obey the secret rulers, like every Head of State, and like everyone else I have no choice about who those rulers are, my country’s history has made that choice. But I have a mandate. I intend to use it to do everything in my power to get the world out of this very frightening tailspin we are in. But I won’t waste fire in battles I can’t win. There’s things I can do for you, there’s things I can’t. Will you go back?’

They stared at each other, and it was Ax who broke away. He stood, without a word, and walked out of the room. Fred stayed by the empty hearth. He raised his glass to the dark-haired woman above the fireplace: and grinned, as at a point well gained, in a long and still doubtful game.

‘Turned him!’

* * *

The English packed up, said goodbye to Emilia and the house at Sunset Cape, and moved into the Alisal, a historic (well, repro) Art Deco hotel in town. The day before the Few were due to leave by Htrain, for New York and the sea voyage home, they did a group interview for a movie-news channel. Harry had sprung this on them without notice, just to prove he was still Harry, and they’d said yes, for old times sake. The interview was conducted in the Triumvirate suite. There were far too many people, most of them there for no good reason, and the interviewers, who modelled their style on Dee-Dee and Bob the software bots, treated the Few like filler: blatantly only interested in the Big Three.

Interviewer
: What’s it like living with three laydees, Rob? Aren’t you everlastingly catching hell about the toilet seat?

Felice
: (Unintelligible, sound cone whisked away.)

Interviewer
: I just can’t get over the bisexual Aoxomoxoa, Sage. Don’t you find that a lot of your male fans are kind of ooooh, woooo, about that?

Sage
: ‘Who are you calling
bisexual
? I’m not bisexual!
He’s
bisexual, I’m perfectly normal, there’s nothing wrong with me.’

Interviewer
: (merrily) ‘Ax, why the fuck do you tolerate him?’

Ax
: ‘I get off on being publicly humiliated. When I was dictator I used to meet workers in the sex industry on railway concourses, and pay them to reveal disgusting details of my sex habits to the tabloids. But they always let me down.’

Fiorinda
: ‘He didn’t pay them enough. He’s incredibly stingy.’

Ax
: ‘They could have revealed I was incredibly stingy, couldn’t they?’

Anonymous party boy
: Ax, are you going to hold democratic elections?