The Glass God (7 page)

The screen changed again. A little message box appeared. It read:

‘
Did You Know You Can Use Flags To Organise Your Inbox? Just One Of The Great New Features Of Mail 8.1!
’

“⁠… you can access some bugger’s email?” suggested Sharon.

“Um… yes.”

Sharon contemplated this, while the screen filled up with Swift’s email. Then, “Rhys…⁠”

“Yes, Ms Li?”

“I just gotta ask this, in my capacity as a knower of the truth and all that, but…⁠”

“Yes, Ms Li?”

“It seems like a lot of hard work, doesn’t it?”

Rhys hesitated, then shrugged. “At least it’s open source,” he said. Sharon leant past him, examining the screen. Matthew Swift’s approach to his email was not unlike his attitude to paper filing. Most of the items on the screen were unread, even those labelled URGENT or marked out with a big red flag. She did her best not to tut.
Management for Beginners
would have had critical things to say about all this. Only one or two had been read, standing out among the detritus.

[P. Ngwenya] Re: New York Expenses.
 

[K. Shiring] URGENT – Imp infestation in N. London.
 

[D. Sinclair] Invitation to dinner.
 

[P. Ngwenya] Re: re: New York Expenses – PAID.
 

[M. Seah] Re: your undead problem.
 

… and so on. As Rhys scrolled down, more emails appeared, and shuffled in through the server as if embarrassed at contributing to the volume of unread strangers already on Swift’s hard drive.

She said, “Anything recent? Like in the last forty-eight hours?”

Rhys scrolled back to the top. A note from P. Ngwenya turned out to be a picture of a woman – presumably the P. Ngwenya in question – making a giant thumbs-up sign from on top of the Statue of Liberty. A caption underneath read:

WISHED YOU WERE HERE, BUT THE LOCALS SAID THEY LIKED THE QUIET LIFE
 

A quick note from one A. Huntley wished Mr Swift well in his enquiries, and invited him to drop by the Fields any time he needed further advice. An even shorter note from C. Wijesuriya informed the Midnight Mayor that the matter was being looked into, but, personally, she didn’t think it likely.

A few emails down from the still-populating top of the screen was one headed:

[A. Hacq] Re: umbrella
 

“That one!” Sharon exclaimed. “Umbrellas! That one there!”

Rhys clicked it. It seemed to take a very long time to open. As it did, Miles came through the door, holding, with some dexterity, three steaming mugs of tea. “You got into the emails?” he asked, laying the mugs down wherever he could find.

“Rhys did.”

“Ah – of course. I suppose you used the base incantation, routed through a proxy rack, yes?”

“Um… yes,” said Rhys.

“Good trick that – lovely to see it still works.”

Rhys bit his lip, and didn’t answer. On the screen, the email from A. Hacq unfolded with the softness of a stick insect. Sharon peered at it. It was one line long.

Found the needle. Tonight, 11 p.m., Longshore Quay, Deptford. Bring money. A.A.

That was all.

Sharon looked at Rhys, and Rhys shrugged. She turned to Miles. “Know anything about a needle?”

“I’m afraid not. Should I?”

“Dunno – guess it depends whether you’re a minion or a swot.”

Miles beamed, which Rhys couldn’t help but feel was the wrong reaction.

“Anything else from this guy?” she asked.

Rhys peered through the inbox. “One today.” It, too, was headed as re: umbrella. Rhys went to click on it, then froze. “Uh…⁠” he began.

The screen shimmered. It seemed, to Sharon’s eye, that half the screen decided to go one way, while the other half went the other. It happened in the blink of an eye, and then settled back to normal service, but there was no denying the moment had happened. Rhys’s finger was frozen over the mouse button, ready to strike. But strike it did not.

“It’s got an attachment,” he murmured.

“Is that good?”

“It’s a hex file.”

“And…⁠”

“
Uh…⁠”
This time, Rhys’s “uh” was the protracted, painful “uh” of someone seeking to give very bad news. The screen flickered again, and this time Sharon saw something move within it. It was a shadow, there only when the picture distorted, but, for a second, just a second, something was staring out at her from inside the screen.

The something was grey, pixellated, twisted, and had eyes.

Rhys lunged forward and turned the screen off with a sudden, decisive movement. “It’s a hex!” he called, pushing Sharon away from the computer hard enough that she stumbled over a pile of paper and fell sprawling into a great mass of files. “I need magnets!” he cried, diving under the desk and pulling the power cable out of the back of the computer. Miles was already making for the door with the not-quite-run of a man who wishes to be seen as making merely a strategic withdrawal, not a full-blown retreat. Rhys continued clawing cables out of the machine, but it still went on giving a rising, determined whine. Sharon looked up at the screen, and, though it was black, the glass was warping; something was trying to push its way out like the screen itself was liquid, trapped within a barrier no thicker than a sheet of cling film. Something long and thin; something which, as it pushed, developed shape, grew protrusions, grew, unmistakably, claws.

“Rhys!”

Sharon scrambled to her feet. Rhys stuck his head up from under the desk, saw the claw and exclaimed, “I really need m-m-m-magne… atchoo!”

“Rhys, this would be a great time to take your antihistamines!”

The claw was now all the way out of the screen, a thing of three talons that rounded to a sharpened point. It wasn’t solid, in the sense of skin and bone, but, rather, seemed composed of static greys and flashing whites, of dull sparks and flashing blacknesses, as if its essence were pulled from the base stuff of the computer.

Rhys was fumbling desperately for his antihistamines; and now the arm had grown a shoulder.

Sharon looked around for a weapon. Finding nothing, she grabbed her shoulder bag and slammed it like a slingshot into the emerging arm. She felt resistance, an undeniable something in the air, but the arm just splattered into two where her bag struck and immediately reformed, the parts fusing back together with an electric fizz, like follicles of hair dragged towards a static balloon. Almost immediately a shoulder had moved all the way out of the screen, and the beginning of a head emerged: a sharp chin of static, a jaw that sparked and crackled as it opened wide, eyes of spinning data and rolling numbers, hair of bursting code that spat and scarred the screen as it wriggled its way out. Still looking for his antihistamines, Rhys sent wads of used tissues and old receipts tumbling out onto the floor, while water filled his eyes, but as the creature coming into view now turned its head and seemed to see Sharon, he gave a cry of, “I think I left them at the office!”

Sharon yelped with exasperation. “Tell me how to stop it!”

“I need magnets!” he wailed again, wiping the back of his nose with his sleeve.

Sharon swung her bag again, slamming through the head of the creature as it began to pull its torso out of the now-smoking screen. The head dissolved, and reformed, all in a smooth, hissing crackle of static. She hit it again, and as the creature flopped out across the desk, only its legs yet to come, she reached out for Rhys and prepared to run. The world was already shimmering grey around her, the cold drizzle of invisibility ready to drop over them both.

Then someone was at the door. She glimpsed blond hair and a flowing black coat; and with a cry of “Don’t mind me, now!” Miles the Alderman burst into the room, leapt dexterously between the drifts of paperwork heaped on the floor, slid easily beneath the desk and with a great metallic thump, slammed a pair of magnets the size of frying pans against either side of Swift’s machine.

The creature, nearly all out of the screen by now, screamed.

It was an electronic scream, the high beep of an error sound, prolonged into a great whine of distress. The thing’s body rippled with static, great pulses of whiteness surging out of the screen and down to its fingertips, and with each pulse it writhed and twisted, the fingers dissolving to dull grey sparks that fizzed as they dissolved on the air, then hands, arms, shoulders, head, back and bony hips, as with a final burst of whiteness the creature pressed against the screen and vanished.

Silence settled over the office.

Rhys gave a huge sneeze.

Miles stood back, laying down the two magnets on the desk. Something caught his eye, and a smile burst across his features. “Tea!” he exclaimed, seeing the three mugs gently steaming. “That was what we were doing, wasn’t it?”

Chapter 9

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

Sharon, Miles and Rhys sat on a sofa in the lofty glass-walled reception area of Harlun and Phelps and drank tea in thoughtful silence.

At length Rhys said, “I… I think I found my antihistamines, Ms Li.”

Sharon looked up from her mug of tea. A foil packet containing one white pill was gripped in the druid’s hand. Fluff clung to it, from the ultimate depths of his pocket.

“Oh, good,” she murmured. “That’s great.”

Miles’s voice, when he spoke, seemed suddenly far too loud. “You know, it takes a lot to get a hex file through the firewalls in this place. Which I think is something positive we can take from the experience.” At the stare that Sharon and Rhys each gave him, lesser men would have squirmed. Miles was not a lesser man. “If someone is attempting to cover up their activities by attacking us with a binary hex,” he said, “then it does rather imply that we are in danger of stumbling on their activities, doesn’t it? Which is a marvellous indicator of positive progress!”

Sharon hesitated. To her irritation, the Alderman had a point. She rolled the handle of the umbrella between her palms, then turned it over to examine the end. There was a small hollow where the point of the umbrella had been removed. The inside of the hollow was rusted; clearly this operation had happened some time ago. She ran her finger carefully along the curve and for a moment there was,

Snap snap snap umbrella snap along street surface

               pouring rain drum

water running off the edges

     pain in sharp and hot and

forgotten

          taste of dirt

in the mouth

     in the throat

          suffocating

               choking

                    hot!

                         can’t

                              breathe!

                                   Can’t breathe!

                                   CAN’T BREATHE!

                                   CAN’T BREATHE HOW DARE THEY

She choked and dropped the umbrella, clawing at her throat and gasping for air. The world was spinning, her eyes watering; and as she choked she simultaneously tried to cough, to spit, to splutter, to get air in and dust out, her chest contracting and bursting all at once within her.

“Ms Li!” Rhys was by her side, pushing Miles out of the way, grabbing her by the shoulders as she leant forward. She hauled down air and almost at once gasped it out, as if her need for oxygen was too great for one petty lungful of air to satisfy it. The umbrella had fallen between her feet; instinctively she kicked it away as she shuddered and pulled down more air.

Slowly, the rushing of her heart retreated from her ears and throat. She looked up, and managed to wheeze, “Mega-fucking-mystic-fucking-umbrella!”

Gingerly, Miles picked it up, examining every inch. “Interesting,” he mused. “I really can’t detect anything mystic about it.”

“It’s bloody magical!” she retorted. “Who the hell has a magical umbrella?”

“Mary Poppins?” suggested Rhys. She trod on his foot. “Sorry,” he said.

“I’m sure you’re correct, Ms Li,” said the Alderman, “but we did have a good look at it and I’m sorry to say that no one detected a glimmer of any spell. Which isn’t to say that it hasn’t been used for mystic purposes in the past; merely that, at the moment, the umbrella’s purpose seems entirely related to the weather.”

Sharon’s scowl deepened. Briefly and, she felt, perhaps naïvely, she wondered if the time hadn’t come to consult her spirit guide. All shamans, so she’d been told, had one – a psychological manifestation of their deepest thoughts, feelings and strengths made visible to them alone – but it was a continual irritation to her that her own spirit guide, far from the majestic being of light she’d hoped for, was a cheap talk-show host by the name of Dez. Particularly irksome was the feeling that Dez’s manifestation, from the inner recesses of her consciousness, could be no one’s fault but hers. She looked up and saw Rhys’s face set in an expression of expectant optimism. He was, she reminded herself, a believer. It was just bizarre that the thing he believed in was her.

“Right,” she said, and felt surprised to hear herself. Then, firmer, to make sure it wasn’t a mistake, “Right!” She got to her feet. “Well, there’s no point arsing about here, hoping it’ll get better by itself. Time to… fulfil our management obligations, yes?”

“Absolutely, Ms Li!” enthused Miles. “How do you propose following this excellent plan?”

She thought; but the answer, it seemed, was obvious. “What’s the best way to Deptford?”

Chapter 10

… Try, Try Again

They took the Overground.

This surprised Sharon. It wasn’t just that the line through Whitechapel and across the river was new; it was that it was new, sleek, punctual and all things for which the words ‘National Rail’ seemed destined to reject. It wound through that transitional part of town where the City met the East End, humming above the streets whose occupants looked up from bus stops and cracked old benches as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. Posters at the stations warned passengers heading towards Camden Road and Willesden that, during this season, leaves might fall on the line and this could be a problem. But such reassurance that the Overground was, in fact, a part of London’s transport network and fulfilled the requisite clichés of the same, was countered by the promise, then arrival, of trains to within a few seconds of when they were due.