The Gone-Away World

  Less far-fetched, the panoramic backdrops from Ike Thermite’s stage show have been erected randomly around the place under cover of night, repainted and positioned to appear to be or to conceal local landmarks. The big generator (usually used to light the circus) has been set up to emit broad-spectrum squawks which will make radio triangulations almost impossible. Since there is no longer a GPS network (satellites did not respond well to the reallocation of mass and gravity occasioned by the Go Away War, and quite some number of them drifted away or fell to earth), this should blind our enemy quite effectively, at least for a while. K’s people and the mimes themselves will be several miles away at go-hour, providing medical support for anyone who can be got out to them, and creating the appearance that we are all elsewhere by means of sequential costume changes.

  With Humbert Pestle’s security forces thus distracted, we will enter the compound, rendezvous with the remaining members of the Free Company (under the leadership of Tobemory Trent, Tommy Lapland and Baptiste Vasille) and free the remaining undamaged prisoners from Templeton (the file says there are seventy-one, a tiny fraction of the initial population, but that doesn’t make them not worth worrying about), locate the Bey and inform him of his peril, nab Gonzo and get them all out before Humbert Pestle can change into his evil pyjamas and come a-hunting. Ideally, when Humbert does shed his jolly japester-cum-corporate-silverback guise and get serious, he will have to come out of the building he is in, at which point Sally Culpepper will shoot him. This last was not Ronnie Cheung’s suggestion but mine, because for all that Master Wu might not approve, I don’t have the right to be squeamish about it when other people are risking their lives for me. Ronnie, however, made a sort of approving noise through his nose as if to say it was more sensible than he would have expected from a bumhole like me, especially an imaginary bumhole with a talent for seeing both sides of the fight.

  It’s not a bad plan. It has the benefit of simplicity, coupled with some elements which are unconventional (ducks, for example, are not often part of a covert intrusion and extraction scenario, and nor are pie-throwers). I could wish for more, but this is what we have to work with. Improvised mayhem has a long and chequered heritage going back to the time when weapons did not come with user’s manuals, and a stick for herding goats was just as often a stick for beating your neighbour to death with if he looked at you funny. The fact that some of our weapons are weird and silly doesn’t mean they won’t work. We hope.

  I look across at Elisabeth Soames. She looks back. I am afraid for her. I don’t want to see any of the things which may shortly happen happen to her. I have not insulted her by asking her to remain behind. Even if she weren’t at least as capable as I am, she loved Wu Shenyang very much, and while most people here are concentrating on the other awful things Humbert Pestle has done, I know that in her mind the destruction of that over-stuffed cosy house and all the amazing things in it—the wind-up gramophone, the ugly porcelain ornaments, the ancient Buddhas and the awful yet splendid weapons on the walls, the photographs, and worst of all Master Wu himself—is as high and fresh a crime as all the others.

  She takes my hand and squeezes it.

  There’s a pale, slender moon shining down on the buildings below, making them look clean and soft. Jorgmund Actual is huge. It’s adapted from one of Piper 90’s cousins and set deep into the ground. Down there is a well, a cauldron of FOX waiting to be pumped out under pressure, filled all the time from the manufactory a hundred yards to the west. (I can’t think about FOX any more without shuddering. Time was when it gave me a warm glow. Now I feel sick.) The Pipe emerges from the station like a huge worm, bending at right angles and burrowing immediately into the hillside. That’s not where we need to be. Our first stop is the main control centre, two buildings over (looks like a shoebox; even has the little rim a third of the way down the side). I look at Samuel P. and he nods, mouths a countdown. I look back at Elisabeth, and she smiles fiercely then apologetically lets go of my hand. I miss her immediately.

  The night explodes.

  . . .

  I RUN low, like the hunchback. There are no bells to lament, but there are whistles, klaxons and people shouting, and also small-arms discharges and things going b-boom! Jorgmund Actual is on fire. Hah! Payback is good. I zigzag like Ben Carsville, and Elisabeth and Sam zigzag around me. We are a fishball, a confusing shadow. We are invisible. Then someone sends up a flare or uses some kind of phosporus weapon, and everything is like day. Disaster. We’re completely exposed, trying to disappear behind a shrub the size of a television set. I wait for the chatter of guns and the inevitable pain. I know, courtesy of Gonzo, what it is like to get shot. And now I am real enough to die. I wish I had had a chance to take Elisabeth to dinner and eat bruschetta. Please, dear Lord. Tomatoes and basil, and plenty of green olive oil. A prayer for the antipasti.

  Nothing happens. There’s no one looking, or they’re stupid, or they were blinded by the flare. Maybe the ninja outfits are working in our favour. It doesn’t matter. We survive.

  The fighting moves away from the main gate, and from us, and redoubles. There’s a loud sound, a joyful cry of “HELLO, THERRRE!” and then startled, undisciplined gunfire; the first jack-in-the-box has been set off and the guards are starting to realise that they are in for a very strange evening indeed. Another flare goes up, and I can see the jack peeping out of the trees and wobbling, to and fro, before someone hits it with a grenade. Then there are screams—not of serious injury, but of alarm and pain. Chilli powder in the wind. Somewhere, right about now, Ronnie Cheung is kicking someone sharply in the unmentionables, and the geese are being whipped into a frenzy.

  In my head the map from Humbert Pestle’s file. This is Hut 1. It contains machine parts. As we pass by, I kick the door in. This is part of the plan: we won’t be able to avoid triggering alarms as we move through the compound, so we are going to trigger all of them. If you can’t be silent, you hide yourself in a forest of sound. I glance inside the hut: machine parts. So far, so good.

  Samuel P. falls flat on his face. He becomes a bush amid the flowers (this is a corporate facility; at some point it has been landscaped just a little). Elisabeth and I flatten ourselves against the wall. A guard. Two. Professionals then, to ignore the grand kerfuffle going on beyond the fence on the other side of the enclosure (do they believe they are guarding a synthetic milk plant?) and carry on with their rounds. They are wary, but they are not looking for a commando rhododendron. They walk past Sam. He rises silently behind them. A man falls. The other turns, and Elisabeth hits him in the side of the neck, once, twice, three times, catches him as he goes down. She is gentle. I envy him just a little. We put them both in Hut 1, amid the spares. It’s fine if they wake up and make a ruckus, as long as they do it in three minutes, not right now. It’ll add to the fun.

  Past Hut 7 and across the roundabout (more flowers). Jorgmund Actual is dressed up as the main office of Lactopolis Inc., glossy and dressed in pink and baby blue, with modern glass. Very corporate. Very ironic. I’m not laughing. The building is large—huge even. Parked boldly in front is a familiar maroon Rolls-Royce. The Bey. We look at one another, shift up another gear. The hardest part will be inside.

  Ahead of us four guards, well-armed, armoured. They disappear as we draw close: Vasille’s team is faster than we are. He waves. Baptiste Vasille is totally delighted with this situation. Typical Frenchman. (In the hills around the plant another Jack goes up: “IIIIII’M JACK-OOOO!” and then a boom and more chilli powder, and furious ducks and geese. Strobe lights, shouting, confusion.)

  The accommodation block, for visiting milk executives. The glass is armoured and the doors are locked (as expected). Vasille’s group has a circular saw to cover this situation. The noise is very loud, a shrieking, grinding wail. On the other side of the enclosure Tobemory Trent’s team sets something on fire and more alarms go off to cover us. Perfect synchrony. We go inside. A guard arrives at a run, and one of Vasille’s men shoots him in the
head. He is the first person I know we have killed, and I feel bad about it. Gonzo wouldn’t. Gonzo is a secret soldier, a pro. Perhaps that’s part of what I was to him: the luxury of regret. The guard doesn’t bleed very much; the bullet is still in his head. He leaks.

  Past the lobby everything is calmer. The floor is made of marble. There’s a fountain, and some very stylish seats in artful circles around coffee tables. A row of very old bonsai trees rest under glass. This place is expensive. Five-star. I feel underdressed—a terrible faux pas. At any moment the maître d’ will arrive and request that I retire to my room and change into something more suitable. Not relevant. I shake my head to clear it, follow Elisabeth. (I worry all the same: unease of any kind is a warning. No matter that the fear was spurious. The warning is not. Something is wrong.) Samuel P. leads us down a service corridor.

  Hallways and stairs and endless lounges with upmarket carpets. The diversion is working—the guards are elsewhere or not paying attention, or other things less pleasant. First floor. Second. Third. (Something is wrong. I don’t know what it is. Something about the guards.) Guest accommodation. Vasille opens one door after another on the left, Samuel P. the right. No. Nothing. Keep moving—next set of doors. Find the Bey. No. No. No again. (Something missing. Something wrong. Guards but not guards. Booby traps? No. Not that. No pussy willow. Use your nose . . . no. Not that. But something is wrong.)

  Samuel P. slams open a door and there are five of them, big lads with guns. Two of them are sitting. Vasille dives into the room, they all fall together in a huddle. His men pile in after, a Belgian and a Spaniard, all flying fists and arms. We follow. It’s a short fight. I don’t even hit anyone, just duck and then my opponent is gone. Not hard. Easy. (Too easy. These men are competent but no more. They are soldiers. Humbert Pestle has had no hand in their training. Too easy. I wait for the shoe to drop. It doesn’t.) I look at Elisabeth. She knows. Her eyes are lit with nervous energy. Not fear but anticipation. The hard part is yet to come. She knocks on the main door.

  “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.

  It’s been so long, so long, so long! How good to see you. Oh, yes, of course, quite right, I shall be totally silent, silent like the mouse, or better! Hah! The flea which whispers past the mouse’s eagle eye (if such a thing he can be said to possess, being a mouse and not an eagle): in either case the epitome of stealth. What? When? Immediately! Now! . . . Oh, yes, I see. Indeed. Shshsh . . .

  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.