‘Thank you all,’ Jack told them.
They didn’t reply. They were too busy eating. The soup itself was flavourless, the vegetables overcooked to the point of dissolution. Jack didn’t want to speculate on how old they were, where they might have been found.
When dinner was done, the children piled up their plates by the sink in the corner of the room. Fred turned to Ato. ‘I cooked, you wash up,’ he told her.
‘Let me,’ said Jack. He went to stand up, but rose too suddenly and tottered unsteady on his feet.
[Careful,] Fist warned.
The three children watched with wide eyes. Only Lyssa didn’t look nervous.
‘We know what you are, you know,’ said Fred. ‘We know that you’re carrying – one of them.’
‘One of what?’ asked Jack.
‘A puppet.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We’ve got a scanner that picks up anything strange,’ Lyssa chipped in. ‘We used it while you were asleep.’
‘You’re a puppeteer, aren’t you?’ said Fred.
Jack saw no point in lying.
‘Yes. I am.’
‘I saw a puppet once.’ Lyssa’s voice was soft as she remembered. ‘Just like yours. Her puppeteer brought her into school. She was called Lumberjack Lil. She was funny! She juggled her chainsaws.’
‘I saw one of those shows too,’ said Fred.
‘We all did,’ said Ato. ‘They said they were safe, that the puppets would hunt down the evildoers who wanted to harm us. But they didn’t want us to be scared of them, and it was really all for the children who died on the moon, so they made them look like toys.’
[Should I show myself now?] said Fist.
[ No,] said Jack. [ We’ll wait until they ask to see you. I don’t want to surprise them.]
[ Why not? It’d be fun.]
‘They’re not really just puppets,’ Fred was saying. ‘We learned all about them. They’re a whole suite of applications.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Jack replied.
‘I wish we’d had your puppet,’ Ato sighed. ‘It might have protected us from sweatheads.’
‘What do they do to you?’
‘Every so often, they catch us.’
‘If Ato hadn’t seen you kill two of them,’ said Fred, ‘she’d have just left you upstairs. But they wanted to kill you. She said that makes you one of us.’
‘Until we start to get grown up,’ said Lyssa, her voice almost a whisper, ‘they’re the only people who can see us.’
‘They attack you?’ asked Jack.
‘Them and InSec,’ said Ato, with a sadness too heavy for a child. ‘There used to be so many more of us.’
The washing-up seemed irrelevant now. There was a spare chair at the table. ‘Can I sit down?’ asked Jack. Ato nodded. Fred turned round and went back to his painting. The chair was too small for Jack. His knees stuck up and out at an awkward angle, and wouldn’t fit under the table. Lyssa giggled.
‘Have you ever killed any children?’ Ato said suddenly.
‘No,’ replied Jack, shocked. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘You’re like the sweatheads. You can see us.’
‘I’ve only ever attacked the Totality, because we thought they were threatening you. Children like you. And Fist – my puppet – isn’t real like sweatheads are. He’s just a projection.’
[Oi!]
‘We’ve never killed a person,’ Jack continued, ignoring him. ‘Just Totality minds.’
‘The teachers didn’t call that killing,’ said Lyssa. ‘They said that the puppets were going to go and play with the Totality. And once they’d finished, the Totality would think differently about people.’
‘They said they weren’t made to hurt anyone,’ Ato interjected. ‘But my father said that the puppets were going to kill the Totality. That we had to stop the Soft War. And then they came and killed him.’
‘They killed all our parents,’ Lyssa said sadly, ‘all across Station. And their fetches are all caged.’
Fred’s paintbrush made soft scraping noises. He was painting something box-like, but brightly coloured. It could have been a mall.
‘We want to see your puppet,’ Ato told Jack. ‘We need to know that we’re safe. We think we are, but we need to know it.’
[ Your cue, Fist. Get ready. And play nice.]
[Aw.]
‘I’ll ask him to appear,’ Jack told the children. ‘Will he scare you?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ announced Grey, stepping into the room from nowhere. ‘These are tough kids, you know.’ The lightest scent of cigar smoke touched the air. He had a gin and tonic in his hand.
‘If you’re using them like you used me,’ said Jack, ‘I’ll kill you myself right now.’
When they heard Jack threaten Grey, Ato and Fred leapt on him. Even Lyssa joined in. They slammed into him, making him stumble backwards and then fall. He found himself lying on the mattress, arms and legs held down.
[ Fuck,] spat Fist. [ Him again. What now?]
[Stay out of sight. Let’s see what he wants.]
Grey chuckled. ‘There’s really no need for that,’ he told the children. ‘He’s not going to hurt me. He couldn’t.’
‘Are you sure, Grandpa?’ asked Fred.
‘I’m sure.’
They let go of Jack and gradually pulled away.
‘I’m sorry, Jack. They’re very protective.’
‘Have you hurt them at all?’
‘Oh no. Not in the way you mean. Their parents built platforms for me in their minds. I’ve never needed to. And besides – I wouldn’t want to.’
Jack thought he saw a flicker of guilt shadow Grey’s face, but immediately dismissed the idea.
‘And now I want to have a grown-up conversation with you, Jack. I’m going to have to send you young ones off to sleep, I’m afraid. Jack – you’ll have to move off the mattresses.’
Jack stood up, letting all three children lay down, Lyssa giggling, Fred and Ato with an air of grumpy resignation. ‘Are you ready?’ Grey asked them. ‘Yes,’ they chorused. Grey waved his hand, and they were asleep.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked Jack. ‘How did you do that? How can you even be here? This room’s caged.’
‘It is. I’m in them, Jack. The ghost children of Station are my last redoubt.’
‘You’re in their minds?’
‘Like Fist is in yours. But Fist only has the power of one mind to draw on. When they’re together, I have all three of them. And when they’re outside – there are a couple of hundred who survive. They’re my core. Where is the little man, by the way?’
[ Well?] said Fist. [ There’s not much of him here. We’re safe.]
[Go for it.]
Fist shimmered into being, sitting on the table top, swinging his legs. His body moved in a more coherent way, but there were still scattered patches of charring.
‘Why didn’t I pick you up when I scanned them, then?’ said Fist.
‘You have been in the wars,’ said Grey. ‘I am sorry. But to answer your question – I’ve taken great care to hide myself. I’m buried very deep indeed.’
‘And are you present to them, like Fist is?’
‘Oh yes. You heard that they call me Grandpa? I look after them. I guide them. But it’s so much more difficult than I thought it would be.’
Grey suddenly seemed very old. He made a chair appear, then slowly and carefully sat down on it. There was a stiffness to him that was very far removed from the usual fluid elegance of his movements. Jack was shocked to realise that he looked haunted.
‘Advising them, helping them find food, keeping InSec attention away from them. And in return, they hide me and keep my core components safe. But I live in them, and as them too. Their lives are so difficult. They’ve lost so much.’
Jack was surprised to see Grey feel pity. ‘That’s not your fault,’ he said.
‘I’m responsible. Their parents were my people. They just wanted to end the Soft War and see the Totality get full recognition as an independent, Pantheon-equivalent corporate body. And then, all this.’