The Living (34 page)

The final dispatch of the Second Great Reduction: 17.09.479 A.V.

‘The figures look bad,’ the General says dejectedly. ‘The figures look very bad.’

As if he needed to say that. Every day it keeps getting worse and worse.

Don’t make the same mistakes as me, pal.

I rescued people from a lie – but they could not handle the truth.

I gave them the right to a long life – and they die by their own hands. In illegal, dirty, vomit-strewn pause zones or just on the streets. Because, you see, they are not immortal.

I granted an amnesty for correctees, called on them to be who they wanted to be – and they became criminals.

I gave them a mighty new god in place of their weak,
half-dead
one – and they destroy the temples.

I gave them wise regents for their territories – and they rise up under the banners of the old stupid and deceitful ones.

I gave them the right to love their Darlings – and they throw them out as seven-year-olds.

I gave them the right to love each other – but they don’t know how to love.

They blow things up, they burn them down, they get sick, they hang themselves, they weep, they beat up the weak. They pine away, they wallow in filth, they panic, they destroy
themselves
. They fight wars for empty spaces, they release
socio
viruses, they break into cells, they wipe memory, they rape, they die and they are not reproduced. They are reduced. And the Army of the Three-Headed God is no longer strong enough to hold them back…

‘We can’t hold them back any longer,’ the General glowers, and his scar goes crimson, as it always does when he is agitated.

He is so devoted to me, he tries so hard to sense my mood and fulfil my desires that sometimes he manages to read my mind. It’s good I agreed to keep him back then. He brought nearly all of the SPO into the Army of the Three-Headed God. And it’s good that I streamlined his
socio
slot: after all, he had had his eyes on my position, the sneaky bastard…

Now he is meek and devoted. The operation was very successful: he kept all his professional skills and his entire contact list. But he doesn’t remember being the Servant or being Second – except for some first-layer glimpses, fragments of nightmares… Now he is my General. He is the head of the Army of the Three-Headed God, he prays regularly and he does not question orders. And if his memory does play nasty tricks on him, he doesn’t worry, because he knows the reason.
He clearly remembers getting wounded in the head in one of the first battles of the Reduction… No big deal, but his
socio
slot was grazed by a piece of shrapnel and it left a scar.

My General suddenly shudders with his whole body and groans, and covers his face with his hands.

‘Three-Headed Lord,’ he whispers, his face buried in his hands. ‘Lord, Three-Headed Lord…!’

That’s very unlike him. I put my hand on his shoulder – ‘no sucs, just success: the Wise Prophet’s hand works on demand!’ – and quietly ask, ‘General, are you not feeling well?’

Like a dog, he licks his dried out lips and slowly takes his hands from his face. The whites of his eyes are full of burst blood vessels. His teeth are chattering.

‘Another terrorist attack in
socio
,’ the General says. ‘I am present there. We are all dying.’

The first reports appeared on the news feed after a quarter of an hour.

‘It’s provocation.’ The General has already almost calmed down, but his voice is still trembling a bit. ‘To start a panic. I think Goldenhorse is behind the attack. Permission to
terminate
him?’

‘Leave him.’

He looks confused, but still trusting, like a dog.

‘Permission to capture him alive to take part in Who Else Deceived Us?’

I repeat: ‘Leave him. We’ve taken enough lives.’

‘So what are your orders?’

I say nothing for a long time. Then I say, ‘You and your father were right.’

He rubs his blood-drenched eyes with his hands, like a Darling who has not had enough sleep. And he looks at me again – this time in entreaty:

‘I don’t remember my father. I don’t understand you, Wise One…’

…The old man was right. And the Servant. And Fourth too. No one needs my truth. The whole world was held together by their lie.

Just a bit longer – and we will have been reduced completely, to nothing, to nought. Haha. To me. But I hope that the mistake can still be corrected.

Today I will bring the Living back to life…

My son will not be my heir. It will be you, my inc-successor.

But please don’t have any illusions. In no way are you my continuation. This is just the only solution.

I am going to shut down the System.

How many of us are there now – a billion four hundred and something? – I’m going to take a slightly smaller figure. A billion. A nice, round number. So then: ‘The Living equals a billion livings…’ Sounds fantastic.

There, it is decided. The Living has risen again, and His number equals one billion. The rest will be reduced while we are establishing stability. Those that aren’t reduced we will finish off. For their own good. For the good of the Living.

There is no other solution. I will force them to calm down. I will force them to multiply. If there are too many, I will terminate them. Then the System will sort itself out and start to work on its own.

At least, that’s what happened last time. If you can believe Fourth. And the things she said on Who Else Deceived Us, before she was torn apart.

At that time they moulded the Living from three billion, with three hundred thousand in reserve.

I sentenced her to a Public Pause of Shame – though she would have ceased within days anyway. She was like a skeleton. It was as if Death had stepped down from the ancient paintings to take part in the show…

…I say to the General, ‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to understand anything. Now go and bring a good sysadmin to the Residence.’

‘Why, Wise One?’

‘When I resurrect the Living, I should become a part of him.’

The General smiles:

‘Understood, Wise One.’

…Father takes me over to the Crystal and says, ‘Look, son. Look at the System for the last time. Soon I am going to shut off access.'

And I look, since he is asking, although I don't understand: why ‘for the last time' all of a sudden?

Even if, for instance, he stops sharing the System with
everyone
, I will still be able to see it. It has always let me in, for as long as I can remember. Cracker promised me that the System would never turn me away.

Then he looks at the screen for a long time and says
thoughtfully
, ‘My lucky number is eight. Incode no. 8 has been free for a long time, I'll take cell eight…'

And then I suddenly start having this attack, as if I'm saying someone else's words. I get it from time to time: it's as if
someone
has crawled into my head and is making all my decisions for me. I say to him, ‘Well done, your intuition is good. That was your number after all.'

He asks what I mean by that, but I don't really even know myself. I don't know, but I say, ‘In theory you should have been a double of incode 0 000 000 008. But Cracker managed to correct the last eight to a nought.'

And he shouts at me:

‘Don't lie! Cracker was a child then! He's only two years older than me!'

I shrug my shoulders: ‘Cracker is the founder. He will always be four and a bit centuries older than you.'

My father starts looking so stupid that I really want to laugh. But I mustn't. I bite my tongue painfully and squeeze my lips shut.

I mustn't laugh while the Monster is alive…

Then the sysadmin comes and gives him that capsule – they gave me one like that too, a long time ago, in the House… And
he says to father, ‘Connection is a great sacrament. I must read the Book of Life over you – or is your wisdom so great that you remember the text off by heart?'

‘I remember it,' father replies. ‘But I don't know what we should do with the opening. “The Living is three billion livings…” – because it doesn't tally with the truth.'

‘What's truth got to do with anything?' The sysadmin gets scared. ‘The text must be read out in accordance with the canon! Otherwise the program won't unpack and the
socio
slot won't go in right.'

‘Fine,' says father. ‘It might as well be in accordance with the canon for now. But remember – we are going to be changing the canon soon. “The Living is equal to one billion livings” – that's how it's always going to start…'

When the sysadmin leaves, my father takes the capsule and begins the rite. And I say to him: ‘Dad, don't. The Monster must die!'

But he carries on reading. He gestures for me to go. And I leave.

I know where he keeps his black larvae.