The Gone-Away World (67 page)

“Hello?”

The door opens a crack. Zaher Bey, greyer, leaner and warier, in a bathrobe. And then it flies open and he whoops, and does a little dance, and Vasille is shushing him and saying now's not the time,
mordieu
! But the Bey is prancing around Vasille.

He is quiet at last, or rather he is for a moment, then murmurs that
we should probably go. I have made something of an error of judgement, yes, indeed. Of trust
. . . And then his eye is upon me, and he peers, and sees . . . something. I extend my hand. He takes it, and there is familiarity for us both.

“Zaher Bey,” he says, probing.

“We've met,” I tell him, “but you wouldn't remember; it was a long time ago.”

Zaher Bey holds on to my hand, feels the grip like a butcher with a joint, then his eyes take in my shoulders and my stance, my expression. He pushes against me, and I yield, soft-form style. “Ah!” he says. He draws me back the other way, turns his body, and I follow, butterfly-light. Our hands move a few inches, no more. He stares. “Yes. I see. I see, I see. I am an idiot that I didn't see it before, when he came. You are he and he is you and neither of you is who you were . . .” He smiles at my dismay. “Years with the Found Thousand. One becomes used to recognising the
new.
”

Which is as far as we get before Vasille and Samuel P. slap an armoured coat upon him and remove his bathrobe (white is not a good colour for escaping). The Bey is revealed in a pair of strikingly elegant silk pyjamas, handily maroon (to match his Rolls-Royce, no doubt), which is the next best thing to black at night. In these rooms, with their lush mahoganies, he will blend in even better than we do. Success, stage one. (But still something is wrong.)

Back down to the main level (lots of stairs again, the Bey surprisingly spry, good for him; we're all panting. Damn, you have to be in good shape for this stuff. I'm sweating. Samuel P. smells like one enormous groin. It's the thing which limits his effectiveness in special operations: you can always find him if you know how. On the other hand, on longer missions he starts to smell like a jungle cat, carnivore breath and matted fur. He blends right in, as long as he's in a jungle or on a plain. In an office block, less good.

“Where's Gonzo?”

The Bey doesn't know. He was brought here, then imprisoned. There was a big man with an easy laugh and eyes like a porcelain doll, perfect and empty.
Pestle.
(Where is Pestle? I can't hear the fighting outside any longer—does that mean we've won? Or lost? Is Jim Hepsobah in a cell, or dead? I glance at my watch. Fourteen minutes to the hour. When the big hand hits twelve, the generator will be switched off; we will have radios for one minute. Preset signals will be exchanged to signify the state of play. Or they won't, if we're already screwed. (We're not. Not yet. I don't think. But we're walking a ledge. Something, somewhere . . . Damn. Crispin Hoare told me that—among Pont's other impossible tricks of genius—was the ability to remember great sequences of numbers, letters, words, playing cards, names . . . anything. And when he couldn't remember, he didn't say “I can't remember,” he said “The information is coming to me
now
” and snapped his fingers, because that created positive reinforcement and you remembered. I try a variation. I know what's wrong . . .
Now.
Except that, annoyingly, I don't. Also, I have slapped myself on the forehead like a five-year-old. Everyone looks at me.)

“Nothing . . .”

Marvellous.

Swiftly down the main hall to the back, out of the fire doors. Open space and yes, there are fireworks still going off. I glance at the time: twelve minutes to the hour. Fine. Keep moving. The fire at the gate is out. The noise of geese is diminished. The ducks have apparently either run away or been shot. Samuel P. takes the Bey away—escape now, one objective achieved. The Bey argues but not much. This isn't his show, it's ours, and he's not in a position to know the score. Good. One less thing to worry about.

We kick open the door and go into Generation Centre 1. And stop.

This is the house that Humbert built. It is a huge room filled with regular, dark shapes, and each of those shapes is an isolation cylinder, a special life-support system for one person who has been broken on the wheel of Humbert Pestle's destiny. I look, and I see four rows of five, set apart from the rest. And then I look again, and I see that each dark shape in the middle distance is in fact a group like this one. Hoses and pumps, dials and buttons. This is a place where people feed the machine. In the great colony-organism that is Jorgmund, this is the gas bag that keeps the whole thing afloat, and strong. These are the Vanished, in boxes. This is the sacrifice which keeps the world the way we'd like it to be, allows us to ignore the changes we have wrought. It's like tying a virgin to a rock. The dragon takes her and goes away, and set against the fate of a nation, what's one virgin here or there? Nothing. A black box with a light on, and the slow, gasping wheeze of a ventilator for the ones who can't breathe by themselves.
Vvvv . . . gaahhh . . . Vvvv . . . gaahhh . . .
Otherwise, it's quiet.

This is not what we came for. We have to go through this. Six minutes to the hour. We walk.
Vvv . . . gaahhh.
Every so often there's a shudder as one of the dreamers kicks and shakes—autonomic reaction, spasm of old muscle. Maybe a heart attack. None of them perceives the world any more. None of them knows anything other than the grey interior walls of their coffins. A big hose brings Stuff from a pool or a lake, or a reservoir. The Stuff rolls past them, and changes into FOX. And Royce Allen's clients live the good life. We all do. Most of these people will die in the next six weeks. The remainder will carry on for as much as a year, then one day they'll just shut down and Humbert will throw them away like so many used gearboxes.

“Don't get too close,” Elisabeth murmurs. “That's still Stuff in there.” If we get too close, we might upset the process, make something instead of FOX. Could be good, could be bad. Isn't in the plan. Leave it. We'll do something for these people, though. Something. If we can. (If I get close to the Stuff, will I make something which would show me what's bothering me? Pass on. Not worth the risk. Pass on.)

I pass on.

We trot down the main avenue between the boxes full of people, and we emerge into a place which isn't quite as bad. Metal doors, stone walls, strip lighting. Guards on the floor. Holding cells. Tommy Lap
land applauds from a chair by the guards' room.

“Did you get him?”

“We got the Bey.”

“Gonzo?”

“No.”

Tommy nods. Bad news, but expected. Gonzo is deeper in. Of course.

“Seventy people in the cells. Trent's taking them out the way you came in.”

The radio pops to life. On the hour. Jim Hepsobah:

“Rustic.” That means Jim's alive and well. “Flambeau.” All proceeding smoothly. “Islington.” No sign of Humbert Pestle. The others respond. All according to plan. (No sign of Pestle. No sign of Gonzo. I hope that's coincidence. I doubt that it is.) Jim Hepsobah says “Dolphin,” which means “Find Gonzo or don't, but get out soon.” And then the radio goes flat again. The generator is back online.

Baptiste Vasille shrugs. It's very much a French shrug. It says “Well, what did you expect?” and it says it in a way which suggests the world is essentially English, and hence a bit awkward and silly.

“Control Centre,” Vasille says.

Yes. Of course. On the map it is marked as a second building like this one, with an operations room controlling every aspect of the facility and the super-secure offices of management. The holdfast within the fortress. Pestle's file says the warehouse part is empty—not enough donors (this is the term he uses for his victims, very sanitary, very
voluntary
) to fill it right now.

In ten minutes Jim Hepsobah will switch off the generator and pull everyone out. Sally Culpepper will put away her long gun and give up on the Pestlehunt, and we will run and hide and claim to have been drunk in a bar all night, and it was two other fellas and anyway they hit me first. We have exactly that long to get in and out. Vasille and Tommy Lapland grin. It can't be done. We've done it before. Just like old times.

We go do it.

T
HE BAD ELF
of disaster is riding my shoulder as we get to the big doors. It is screaming in my ear as we go through them.
Too easy, too fast, too inviting.
I think of Professor Derek's architectural traps at the old Project Albumen, and I wonder if we will just be frozen or melted, rendered down and sluiced away. It is dark inside, and quiet. Not quiet like empty. Not even trying. Quiet like expectant, like waiting for the show.

The lights come on.

And there, in front of me, is exactly what's wrong.

Ninjas.

In all this time I haven't seen a single ninja. Now I know why: they were all here. Waiting. Row upon row upon row. It never occurred to me there might be so many of them. In front of them is Humbert Pestle, in a pair of casual slacks and a white shirt looking every inch a gentleman. And yes, of course, beside him is Gonzo, proud, stupid and only now waking up to the possibility that something is seriously messed up. Only now, as two more ninjas bring in Zaher Bey, and behind us the refugees from Templeton are herded through the doors, sad and afraid and totally at a loss, to have salvation stolen away from them at this last instant. Idiot plan. Idiot me. All my fault. All Gonzo's too, but he's still catching up, so I can carry the can for us both. He turns to Humbert Pestle, and a brief conversation takes place which I cannot hear but which goes approximately like this:

Gonzo's face at this moment is a picture. If the situation were not so dire, I would frame it. I want to nod. Yes, Gonzo. He is a monster. Yes, he has betrayed you. Yes, all of this and worse yet—everyone else saw it coming a hundred miles away. Then Humbert Pestle gestures, and they bring in Leah. She looks unharmed and not in mourning but very cross. Thus, a trick. Leah has been decoyed here.
Gonzo needs you, come at once!
Ma and Old Man Lubitsch left safe at home, saved up in case more leverage is needed.

If I were still inside Gonzo's head, this tactic would work admirably. I would doubt and dither, and the moment would be lost. But Gonzo Lubitsch, in pure form, does not do stand-off. He moves straight from shock to attack, so quickly that even Pestle is surprised. Gonzo's fists strike him, hard and fast, and they do not stop. Elbow, knee, knee, knee . . . It is a pounding, a ceaseless assault. Pestle gags. Gonzo strikes again, and again. The ninjas do not move. I don't understand . . . I do understand. This too is part of the evening's entertainment. They were expecting it. Leah was not brought to restrain Gonzo. She was brought to provoke him. And because, like the rest of us, she has defied the machine and must die.

Pestle's head comes up sharply as if he has been woken from a sound sleep and only now realises that he's being attacked. There's blood on his face. Gonzo hits him in the nose, and it breaks, in as much as there's anything left of it to break. Pestle shakes snot and spit, dyed red, from his mouth, and rolls the next punch off like a dog shedding a cobweb. Then he hits back. Gonzo blocks. He puts his whole body into it, hard style, turning as he does so. Wallop. They lock like that for a second, eye to eye, and then Gonzo bounces away as Pestle's heavy hand reaches for his head. It's his right hand, of course, so big that Humbert Pestle could actually grab Gonzo and hold him the way I'd hold an orange. Bambambam. More blows, Gonzo like a dervish, striking the upper body. Pestle grins again, smacks Gonzo in turn. Ow. Gonzo staggers back, kicks out, Pestle slips the kick, and around it goes. The ninjas watch without speaking. They've seen this dance before, and they're not interested. Hard form versus hard form. Pestle is bigger and stronger. Sure, he's old. He's not that old.

The end comes a moment later. Gonzo and Pestle are bound up together, straining and barging. It looks much less scientific than it is. Then Gonzo breaks a bit too slowly, and Pestle yells with delight and brings his huge, clubbed hand around in a mighty arc for Gonzo's head. Gonzo throws up his arms to ward it off, and turns into the punch to punish it.

Two sharp snaps, and Gonzo goes white. His arms are broken between the elbow and the wrist. Pestle kicks him and he sprawls away, gasping. Man down.

And then he turns to us. Me, Elisabeth, Tommy Lapland, Baptiste Vasille. A second later Vasille is wearing a row of spikes in his arms and legs. He sinks down, groaning. Tommy Lapland falls to the floor at the same moment. A thrown billy club clatters to the ground beside him. Leaving just us two.

Pestle walks towards us. The ninjas straighten a little, pay attention. We're the main event.
Killing us,
in fact, is the main event. Pestle is fifteen feet away and grinning hungrily. He's looking from me to Elisabeth as if he can't decide where to start.