Terminal World (3 page)

‘I will.’

‘Are you Quillon?’

He was silent for a few seconds. He had often wondered how it would happen, when his pursuers finally caught up with him. Strangely, he had never envisaged the encounter taking place in the morgue. He had always assumed that the time would come in some dark alley, a packed commuter train, or even his own apartment as he clicked on the light after returning home. A shadow moving into view, a glint of metal. There would be no reason to ask his adopted name. If they had managed to track him down that efficiently, his real identity would have been beyond question.

The only reason for asking, in other words, would be to taunt him with the sure and certain knowledge that he had failed.

‘Of course,’ he said, with as much dignity and calm as he could muster.

‘That’s good. They said I’d be brought to you.’

The unease had begun deep in his belly and was now climbing slowly up his spine.

‘Who said that?’

‘The people who sent me here, of course. You don’t think any of this happened by accident, do you?’

Quillon thought about killing the angel there and then. He still had the Morphax-55 to hand, ready to inject. But the angel knew he was capable of doing that and was still talking. His mind raced. Perhaps trying to kill the angel would be the very trigger that caused him to kill Quillon.

He kept his composure. ‘Then why did you fall?’

‘Because I chose to. This was the quickest - if not the least risky - way.’ The angel swallowed hard, his whole body flexing from the table. ‘I was under no illusions. I knew this was a suicide mission; that I would not be returning to the Celestial Levels. But still I did it. I fell, and stayed alive long enough to be brought to you. They said when an angel falls into Neon Heights, it almost always gets taken to Quillon to be cut open. Is that true?’

‘Most of the time.’

‘I can see why that would work for you.’

The tape reels were still running, recording every detail of the conversation. Quillon reached up and clicked off the microphone, for all the good that would do.

‘Can you?’

‘You were once one of us. Then something happened and ... now you live here, down amongst the prehumans, with their stinking factories, buzzing cars and dull electric lights.’

‘Do I look like an angel?’

‘I know what happened to you. You were remade to look prehuman, your wings removed, your body reshaped, your blood cleansed of machines. You were sent to live among the prehumans, to learn their ways, to prove that it could be done. There were others.’ The angel drew an exhausted, rasping breath. ‘Then something went wrong and now there’s just you, and you can’t ever go back. You work here because you need to be on guard, in case the Celestial Levels send agents down to find you. Ordinary angels can’t reach you, so you know that whatever they send will have to be unusual, or prepared to die very soon after finding you.’

‘There’s just you and me in this room,’ Quillon said slowly. ‘Why haven’t you killed me yet?’

‘Because that’s not what I was sent to do.’ The angel inhaled again, the breath ragged and wet-sounding. ‘I came to warn you. Things are moving in the Levels. You’re back on the agenda.’

‘What do you mean, things are moving?’

‘Signs and portents. Indications of unusual instability in the Mire. Or the Eye of God, if you’re religious. You’re not religious, are you, Quillon?’

‘Not really.’

‘If you were, you’d say God was getting restless again. You’ve probably noticed the pre-shocks down here. Boundary tremors, warnings of zone slippage. There’s something inside Spearpoint that no one really understands, not even the angels, and it’s got a lot of us rattled. The people who sent you down here, the ones you’re hiding from? They want you back.’

‘I’m useless to them now.’

‘Not what they believe, unfortunately. There’s information in your head that they’d very much like to suck out. And if they can’t, they’ll kill you anyway to make sure no one else gets their hands on it.’

‘Who else cares?’

‘The people who sent me. We want that information as well. Difference is we’d rather you stayed alive.’

‘Are the others here?’

‘Yes. They’re like you, to some extent: modified to work down here. But without the expertise you brought to the first infiltration programme, the modifications aren’t as effective. They can’t stay as long and they don’t blend in as well.’ The angel studied him. ‘Inasmuch as you blend in, Quillon.’

‘How near are they?’

‘Chances are they already have you under observation. They may already be covering likely exit points, in case you try to leave Neon Heights.’

‘Then I’ll hide.’

‘You’re already hiding and it hasn’t worked. They’ll have a chemical trace on you by now, sniffing you out by your forensic trail. Running’s your only option. Being here is already pushing them to the limit. They won’t be able to track you if you cross zones.’

‘Leave Neon Heights?’

The angel licked his lips with a fine blue tongue. ‘Spearpoint. All the way down, all the way out. Into the great wide open.’

The thought made Quillon shiver. ‘There’s nothing out there.’

‘There’s enough for survival. If you’ve adapted to life down here, you’ll cope. What matters above all else is that the information in your head never reaches your enemies.’

‘Why do they care now?’

‘The work you were involved with was only ever the tip of a project, a covert programme designed to create an occupying force. An army of angels with sufficient built-in tolerance to take over the rest of Spearpoint.’

‘I know.’

‘Without you, the work stalled. But now the prospect of a zone shift has heightened the urgency. They want that occupying force, which means they want your knowledge.’

‘And what do your people want?’

‘The same knowledge, but to use for different purposes. Not to take over the rest of Spearpoint, but to provide for emergency assistance if the worst does happen.’

‘Seems to me the safest thing would still be to have me killed.’

‘That was ... considered. I won’t lie to you.’ The angel gave him a weak, pitying smile. ‘But in the end it was agreed that you were too valuable for that. We can’t see your knowledge wasted.’

‘Then help me get back home.’

‘Not an option. Best we can do for you is warn you to get out. After that, you’re on your own.’ The blue eyes regarded him with deep, penetrating intelligence. ‘Can you leave Spearpoint without being followed, Quillon?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because if you can’t be certain, there’s very little point in trying. There’s no one you can turn to?’

After a moment Quillon said, ‘There is someone.’

‘A prehuman?’

‘A man who’s helped me from time to time.’

‘Can he be trusted?’

‘He knows what I am. He’s never betrayed me.’

‘And now?’

‘I’ve no reason to assume otherwise.’

‘If this man can help you, then go to him. But only if your trust in him is absolute. If you’re not sure of that, you have to get out on your own.’

‘How long am I supposed to be away?’

‘You’ll know when it’s safe to return. Soon there’s going to be a change in the power balance in the Celestial Levels.’

‘I can’t just drop everything and leave. I’ve got a life down here.’

‘Our intelligence says you have no one, Quillon. No wife. No family. Hardly any friends. Just your work. You cut open corpses and lately you’re starting to look like one. If you want to call that a life, fine by me.’

Quillon stared down at the angel. ‘Did you really sacrifice yourself for this?’

‘To reach you, Quillon? Yes. I did. Knowing that I would die, and that my death would not be an easy one. But I also knew that if I could reach you, and persuade you to take your own survival seriously, something good might come of it. Something that would make my own death seem a very small price to pay.’

‘I don’t even know your name.’

‘Do you remember yours?’

‘No. They scrubbed that from me when they layered in the new memories.’

‘Then we’ll part as strangers. It’s better that way.’

‘I understand,’ Quillon said softly.

‘I’ll take that injection now, if you have no objections.’

Quillon’s hand closed around the syringe of Morphax-55. ‘If I could do more for you, I would.’

‘You don’t have to feel bad about this. It was my choice to come here, not yours. Just don’t waste this chance.’

‘I won’t.’ Quillon made sure the syringe was still free of air. He touched his other hand to the angel’s bare sternum, applying gentle pressure. ‘Hold still. This won’t hurt.’

He pushed the syringe in and squeezed the plunger.

The angel sighed. His breathing became slower and more relaxed.

‘How long?’

‘Couple of minutes. Maybe less.’

‘Good. Because there’s something I forgot to tell you.’

The whirr of gears, the clunk and chatter of an electromechanical telephone exchange, relays tapping in and out, the purr of a dialling tone, Fray picking up after ten or eleven rings.

‘Who the fuck?’

‘Quillon.’

‘My favourite monster.’ Fray paused. Bar sounds in the background: rowdy laughter, the chinking of glass, a television or wireless turned up loud, the time-bell of a boxing match. ‘Kind of early, aren’t we? I don’t have the sewing kit with me right now.’

‘I’m in trouble. We need to talk in person.’

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘A delicatessen, on my way home.’ Quillon cupped one hand around his mouth, conscious of the shopkeeper eyeing him from the front of the store. The man had wanted Quillon to use the public booth down the road, rather than the private one tucked away at the back of the store. ‘They’re on to me,’ he said.

‘You think, or you know?’

‘Something happened today. That’s all I can tell you right now.’

‘All right,’ Fray said after long seconds. ‘One thing I know: you’re not the kind to jump at shadows unless there’s good reason. Forget about going home. You think you can make it up here without being followed?’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Stay vigilant, stay alert, but try to act perfectly normal and relaxed at the same time.’

‘That’s a good trick, Fray.’

‘You could do this once. Start getting back into the groove.’

Fray hung up. Quillon stood with the telephone still pressed against his ear, struck by the feeling that he had set something in motion that could not be stopped. Fray was an avalanche waiting to happen. It only took a tiny nudge to set him off, but from that point on the only option open to him was to gather momentum, rumbling and roaring towards some cataclysmic, landscape-altering event.

Quillon replaced the handset, walked to the front of the store and threw a handful of coins onto the counter.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘Cheer up,’ the shopkeeper said, scratching at the roll of fat under his chin. ‘Might never happen.’

He took the car off the slot, parked it at the kerb and reached over to the passenger seat for his bag. It had travelled with him all the way from the morgue. The bag was finished in black leather, scuffed to a fleshy brown at the edges. It had a black leather handle, a label marked
Doctor M. Quillon.
It was secured by a gold clasp and opened like a concertina, disclosing an assortment of padded pockets and receptacles. He locked the car and adjusted his hat. Fifth was a bad neighbourhood and it was getting late. He wondered if he’d see the car again.

The Pink Peacock was easily missed. It lay at the end of a blind alley that terminated in the rising black wall of Spearpoint’s underlying fabric, a cliff that soared into the heavens, rising ever higher until it jogged back to form the next shelf. Bracketed on one side by a fleapit hotel and on the other by the derelict offices of a failed taxi business, there was little to identify the nature of the premises. A metal fixture marked where the peppermint-green neon illumination used to hang, until Malkin gave up having it repaired. Metal bars fenced the outside windows, the glass so grimed by dirt and cigarette smoke that it was difficult to tell if the lights were on inside. Posters and graffiti covered the walls in layers of archaeological thickness.

Quillon walked to the end of the alley and knocked on the door. It opened a crack, a fan of pink-red light spilling across the asphalt.

‘Here to see Fray.’

‘You’re the cutter?’

Quillon nodded, though the dismissive term repulsed him. The doorman - it wasn’t the usual one - grunted and let him in. Inside, the sudden humidity fogged over Quillon’s small, round, blue-tinted spectacles. He took them off and rubbed the flat lenses on his sleeve before slipping the glasses back onto the narrow ridge of his nose. The lights were turned down, but that was the way Malkin and most of his customers preferred it.

Malkin himself was behind the bar, polishing glasses while he kept one eye on the fight that was still playing out on the television. He was rake-thin and mean-looking, with cryptic tattoos on his forearms, all smudged purples and liver-reds. They looked like they’d been done with a piece of scrap metal and a bottle of low-grade transmission oil. Malkin wore a yellowing vest and a towel draped around his shoulders, the vest showing off his scrawny, leathery-skinned neck with the thin circumferential scar where - Quillon could only assume - Malkin had survived being garrotted. Certainly there had been some damage to his larynx, because when he opened his mouth all he could produce was a croaking noise, a sustained guttural rasp that forced his clients to lean in close when they wanted to understand.

‘That time of year again?’ Malkin asked. ‘Must be getting punchy, because I could have sworn it wasn’t long since your last visit. When was it, June, June Prime?’