The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (Nightside)

  Up and down we went, in and out of every private domain and sphere of influence, and no-one challenged us. Hard men stepped back into doorways, and foot-soldiers for a dozen different crime lords quickly changed direction or disappeared down handy alleyways. Walker led the way and I followed, and no-one wanted anything to do with us. After a while, my legs grew weary, and my feet hurt, but Walker never slowed his pace. I grew so tired I lost all track of time, which might have been the point.

  I’d reached the point where I was prepared to swallow my pride and call a halt when Walker beat me to it. He came to an abrupt stop before a shabby storefront in a decidedly grubby area and gestured grandly at the run-down establishment before us. I looked it over and wasn’t impressed. The starkly lettered sign on the blank window said Welcome to the Nightside Tourist Information Centre! I couldn’t help thinking that the exclamation mark at the end was entirely unjustified. A sort of resigned shrug would have been more appropriate.

  “All right,” I said to Walker. “This is new, I’ll grant you. I didn’t even know we had such a thing. Does it get much business? I would have thought most people who come here already know what they’re looking for.”

  “That’s the point,” said Walker. “Shall we go in?”

  He pushed open the door, and crumbling bits of paint fell off it. A small bell tinkled sadly as we entered a stuffy little office. A dark figure sat hunched behind a rough desk, half-concealed behind piles of folders, pamphlets, and assorted paper-work. Curling posters had been roughly tacked to the walls, offering picture-postcard views of places I happened to know looked nothing like that, and tall spinners held cheap pamphlets that looked as though no-one had disturbed them in years, There was dust, and cobwebs, and a general smell of futility and despair.

  “Carter!” snapped Walker. “Why are you naked again?”

  The figure at the desk crouched down even further behind his stacks of paper. “It helps me relax! I’ve got a lot on my mind!”

  I turned away and interested myself very firmly in the contents of one of the spinners. Mostly pamphlets and flyers concerning places of interest for the discerning tourist in the Nightside. All written in that false, cheerful tone so beloved of Chamber of Commerce types, which fools no-one.

  Visit the colourful Street of the Gods! (Travel insurance advised, especially against Acts of Gods.) Visit the amazing Mammon Emporium; all the merchandise from all the worlds! Try a bucket of Moose McNuggets, or a Cocaine Cola! Have you seen the Really Old Ones in the World Beneath? (Parental discretion advised. Some parts of the tour may not be suitable for those of a nervous disposition.)

  That was about as much as I could stand. I looked back, to see Carter emerge sullenly from behind his desk, now wearing a grubby undershirt and jeans. He looked as run-down and untrustworthy as the place he worked in, which took some doing. Carter was neurotically thin, defiantly unhealthy, and basically disgusting on a genetic level. You got the feeling he’d still be sleazy even if you soaked him in bleach for a week. He did his best to look put-upon and hard done by, but I still felt an instinctive need to slap him, on general principles. He cringed away from Walker and glared at me.

  “Don’t bother; I already know who you are. I’m Basil Carter, and you’re not at all pleased to see me. No-one ever is. See if I care. And yes, this place is a dump. Why not? No-one ever comes here. The last person to stick his head through that door really wanted the karma repair shop next door. What do you want, Taylor? We’re closed. Or out for lunch. Or renovating; that’s always a good one. There’s been a fire, or an outbreak of plague, or the rabid weasels are loose again. Come back later. Or not at all; see if I care. Those are my official responses to any and all inquiries. I’m only talking to you now because Walker will hit me if I don’t.”

  “And quite right, too,” said Walker. “I never knew anyone who deserved being beaten repeatedly about the head and shoulders more than you do, Carter. And don’t you dare complain. If the people around here knew who you really were, they’d drag you out of this shop and feed you into a wood-chipper, toes first.”

  Carter sniffed loudly, in a defiantly moist and unpleasant way. “When you offered me this job as an alternative to lifetime incarceration in Shadow Deep, I should have known there’d be a catch. Working in this hell-hole should count as cruel and unusual punishment. At least I don’t have to deal with people much. I’ve never been a people person.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have buried so many of them under your floor-boards,” Walker said briskly. “I needed someone for this position whose very existence would discourage people from coming in, and you fit the job perfectly.”

  “Walker,” I said. “Why are we here? You didn’t march me all the way across the Nightside just to meet this ... person, did you?”

  “Perish the thought,” said Walker. “Walk this way.”

  “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the acupuncture,” sniggered Carter.

  Walker hit him.

  A concealed door at the back of the office opened up onto a much larger room. I followed Walker in, while Carter resumed his post behind his desk again; and just like that, I was in a whole other world. The new room was huge, stretching away in all directions, its walls covered from floor to high ceiling in hundreds and hundreds of viewscreens. Images came and went faster than I could follow them, constantly changing and updating. There were computers everywhere, backed up by unfamiliar machinery working furiously at unknowable tasks. And miles and miles of hanging cables, twisting and turning in great loops, criss-crossing like the web of a spider strung out on acid. Sitting in the middle of all this was a silent figure in a simple white robe, held upright in his chair by a series of tight leather straps. He was utterly still, his face blank, staring at nothing, with dull, unblinking eyes. A dozen thick cables sprouted from his shaven head, where holes had been drilled to allow them to burrow on through into the brain. He didn’t react to me, or to Walker. He didn’t even know we were there. Walker shut the door firmly and locked it, then strolled over to the silent figure and checked a few of the skull contacts to make sure the cables were secure. He clapped the unmoving figure on the shoulder and smiled happily, like a proud father.

  “Welcome to my Secret Headquarters, John. My special place, from where I see and hear everything, hidden behind the perfect off-putting disguise. This is Argus. He makes what I do possible; don’t you, dear boy? Argus isn’t his real name, of course; it’s more of a job description. No-one remembers who he is; in fact, I doubt if even he remembers any more. It doesn’t matter. There have been hundreds like him, and no doubt there will be hundreds more. Computers and scrying balls can’t do everything; you need human input to pick out the things that matter from all the oceans of information that come pouring in at any moment.

  “So, Argus. The god with a thousand eyes. Sees all, knows all, and no personality to get in the way. Though they do tend to burn out fairly quickly ... Still, not to worry; there’s never any shortage of replacements. Don’t worry, John; he can’t hear us. All his senses are focused exclusively on the Nightside. His higher functions have been surgically removed, so they can’t interfere with his observations. His mind has been surgically adjusted, so it can interface perfectly with the computers and watch thousands of situations at once, throughout the Nightside, and never once grow bored or distracted. Nothing happens that Argus doesn’t know about, and report on, and draw attention to, if it is red-flagged in his programming. Names and faces like yours, John. He always has an eye out for you.

  “What do you think of my Secret Headquarters, John? Admit it; you always thought I had some great underground lair, watching over an army of secret informers and secret police, reporting back on everything they see. Well, in a way you’re right, but we’ll get to that later. Why are you scowling, John?”

  I gestured at Argus. “He’s not a volunteer, is he?”

  “Well, hardly. That would be cruel. Only the really nasty bastards get to undergo the Argus proc
edure. People who deserve it. Like Basil Carter out there; why waste time and money locking them up? There’s Shadow Deep, of course, but that’s for the out-and-out monsters like Shock-Headed Peter, who deserve to suffer. Everyone else gets to do useful things for the Nightside, in recompense for their crimes. This particular Argus ran an utterly foul con scheme, ripping babies from living wombs to sell on. Now he performs a useful function and is well provided for. He gets fed and watered and changed on a regular basis, and he’ll spend what’s left of his time helping to protect the Nightside from people like him. What could be more fitting?”

  “You said something about secret police,” I said.

  “So I did. Well spotted, John. Glad to see you’re paying attention. There are hundreds of other criminals, their heads as empty as Argus, walking up and down the Nightside, their minds linked to him through the computers. They’ve been programmed to look and talk like everyone else, even though there’s no-one at home in their heads. They go everywhere and see everything, and no-one ever notices them.”

  “And these are more pressed men? More criminals being punished?”

  “Of course!” said Walker. “Take your poachers and turn them into gamekeepers. A grand old tradition...”

  He looked at me for some response, some reaction to what he was saying, but I wasn’t ready yet. I gestured at the hundreds of screens covering the walls.

  “Ah, yes, those,” said Walker. “From here I can talk to everyone in the world.” He didn’t say it at all grandly, to boast or to preen. It was all just part of the job, to him. “From here I can call on any backup I need, to help me enforce my decisions. I can get armed men from the Church, the Armed Services, the Carnacki Institute, and any number of more specialised organisations. I can talk to the Authorities, the British Government, and places of power all across the world; and there isn’t a place on Earth where they won’t take my call. Because everyone knows how important the Nightside is, and how dangerous. Of course, only specially trained troops are ever allowed into the Nightside. You couldn’t expect ordinary soldiers to cope. I’d say that about the only people I don’t talk to are the Droods. They’re banned from the Nightside by long agreement. They don’t play nice.”

  He broke off abruptly, as Argus began to rock back and forth in his chair. When he spoke, his voice was rough and harsh, as though he didn’t get to use it very often.

  “Out of the dark, it’s coming. From out of the place that nothing comes from, it’s coming. And, oh, it’s so bright, so bright! ”

  Walker moved quickly forward and put his mouth right next to Argus’s ear. “What is it? What’s coming?”

  “So old, so ancient; far older than people think. But it never was what people thought it was. It is mighty and terrible, too ... and it shines so brightly it hurts to look at it. The only survivor from a Golden Age; because we were not worthy of it. Now it’s back. And God help us all.”

  He stopped speaking, and nothing Walker could do could make him say anything else. Walker didn’t know what Argus was talking about, but I thought I did.

  “You said he had no personality left,” I said. “But he sounded really scared.”

  “They can always surprise you,” Walker said finally. “I wouldn’t worry about it. His condition makes him supersensitive to certain disturbances in the aether. He’s only repeating what someone else is saying ... I doubt it’s anything important. Bad things are always coming to the Nightside. It’s what we’re here for.” He turned his back on Argus, and spread his arms out wide, taking in the whole set-up. “So, John, what do you think of my Secret Headquarters?”

  “Typical of you,” I said. “That all your influence and power should be derived from the suffering of others.”

  “They suffer because they deserve to,” said Walker. “And through their penance they serve and protect the people they preyed on.” He smiled briefly. “One day, all of this could be yours. Or would you shut the system down and become blind to what threatens us? Let the bad guys go unpunished and let everyone else suffer? What would you replace this with? See? Not as simple as you thought, is it, John? I only do what is necessary for the common good. And so could you, John. All this could be yours to command. All the secret lines of influence, control, and power ... Tell me you’re not tempted.”

  “Get thee behind me, Walker,” I said.

  He laughed.

  Next he took me to the Londinium Club, that most private and select of clubs, where the elite of the Nightside come together to dine and do business, and discuss the destruction of their enemies. You aren’t anyone in the Nightside unless you’ve been invited to become a member of the oldest club in the world. I am not a member. They wouldn’t accept the likes of me on a bet. Though I have been known to barge, trick, and intimidate my way in when I need answers I can’t find anywhere else. This has not made me popular with members of the club, but I’ve learned to live with that. The current Doorman saw me approaching and looked like he wanted to pull up the drawbridge and set fire to the moat; but I was with Walker, and no-one says no to Walker. The Doorman bowed stiffly as we passed, his face utterly impassive; but his body language suggested terrible things were happening inside him.

  “You see what it is to have power?” said Walker, as we strolled into the elegant embrace of the club lobby. “You can go anywhere, and they have to smile and bow and let you in. No door is ever closed, and no-one is ever unreachable.”

  “And you do so enjoy having the world by the throat, don’t you, Walker?” I said, and he surprised me by considering the question seriously.

  “I try not to,” he said finally. “It gets in the way of getting the job done.”

  Various liveried servants appeared to take Walker’s coat. They tried to take mine, but I just looked at them, and they gave up on the idea. The servants concentrated on Walker, smiling and bowing and asking if there was anything at all they could do for him; and as I watched them fawn over him, with their fake smiles and subservient gestures, I had to wonder if this was anything I wanted. Most people refrained from upsetting me because they were afraid of my reputation. They did what I told them because they were afraid of what I might do if they didn’t. Was that really any different?

  Walker and I moved on into the dining room, where the great and the good, the movers and shakers and Major Players of the Nightside all sat down together, like so many predators sharing the same watering hole. A general truce prevailed because the place was so useful. Walker moved easily amongst the various members, greeting them all by name, charming and intimidating and persuading all the right people. All in the same calm, quiet, and utterly assured manner, never once raising his voice. Everywhere he went, good men and bad smiled just a bit nervously and agreed with whatever he said. They took it on the chin as the price of doing business.

  Eventually, Walker and I ended up standing before a table set far too near the kitchens, an indication that the people sitting there might be members in good standing but were still very much at the bottom of the Londinium Club’s pecking order. Surprisingly, the old man and his wife not only didn’t look pleased to see us but made no effort to hide it. Walker tipped his bowler hat to both of them.

  “John Taylor, allow me to introduce Dash Oblivion, the Confidential Op, and his wife, Shirley den Adel, once the costumed adventurer known as the Lady Phantasm.”

  “Oh please,” said the grey-haired lady in the pearls and twin set. “Do call me Shirley.”

  Dash just grunted something, concentrating on his meal. It was a curry, steaming hot, and the smell of it made my stomach rumble. Dash was a whip-thin figure in a smart blue blazer and white slacks. Bald-headed, his face was dominated by an eagle nose and bushy white eyebrows. He had to be in his eighties, but his cold blue eyes were still sharp and piercing. He sat bolt upright in his chair, and his blue-veined, liver-spotted hands didn’t tremble once as he shovelled food into his mouth.

  Shirley gave her husband a look that was half-exasperated and half-amused.
“Don’t mind him, Mr. Taylor. He hates being interrupted at his dinner. He’s always believed conversation should follow food, not interrupt it. Won’t change your ways for anyone, will you, darling?”

  Dash grunted again, and she laughed quietly. Shirley den Adel was a well-preserved woman in her seventies, with a faint European accent I couldn’t quite place. Her gaze and her voice were both quite firm, and her easy manner did nothing to hide a sense of accustomed power and authority.

  “Good to meet you at last, Mr. Taylor,” she said, with what sounded very like genuine warmth. “Tommy always spoke very well of you.”

  “Tommy didn’t know his ass from his elbow,” said Dash, his voice still dominated by a sharp Chicago twang. He pushed back his empty plate and fixed me with a hard stare. “He should never have been a private eye. It’s not for everyone.” He glared at Walker. “And stay clear of that one. He’s bad news.”

  “You wound me, Dash,” murmured Walker. “After all, it was your son Hadleigh who taught me everything I know. Before he ... stepped down.”

  “Before he went crazy and ran off to the Deep School,” growled Dash. “The job broke him like it breaks everyone.”

  “He left to save his soul,” Shirley said firmly.

  “Or what was left of it,” said Dash.

  “The job’s not for everyone,” said Walker. “It’s always suited me just fine.”

  He looked at them both challengingly, and they looked away rather than meet his gaze. Walker glanced at me, to make sure I’d seen them defer to his authority.

  “So,” Walker said easily. “What are you doing these days, Dash?”

  Dash growled at him, apparently deeply immersed in the dessert menu, so Shirley answered for him. I got the feeling that happened a lot.

  “Dash is retired now. We both are. He gardens, and I work on our memoirs. Oh, the stories we have to tell! Not to be published until we’re both safely dead, of course. It’s not everyone who were legendary heroes back in the thirties and forties, then made an even more successful comeback in the seventies and eighties! We could have gone on ... but we both felt we’d done our best. So now we just consult, on occasion, and let younger bodies do all the hard lifting. Isn’t that right, Dash?”