‘There’ll be some at the airlock,’ Grey reassured him. ‘There’s always an emergency supply.’
‘And then? The gates of Heaven don’t open for just anyone.’
‘There’s someone who can help you with that. An old friend of yours, Fist. Mr Stabs.’
Fist couldn’t restrain a gasp of joy. ‘He’ll see us?’ he cried. ‘At last?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Grey. ‘I’ll tell him you’re going to bring down Kingdom. That’ll blow his mind.’
Chapter 39
It was night in the void site garden. Spinelight glowed dully, drifting across the trees and lawns like so much dust. The abandoned apartment building stood out like a broken tooth. Behind it, the sleeping suburbs of Homelands rolled up and away into the sky. There was a deep hush over Station, strong enough to be almost palpable. Hundreds of thousands slept. Jack imagined them dreaming, and wondered briefly if their dreams were any more real than the waking world they moved through every day.
[ I wish we didn’t have to come up here again,] grumbled Fist. [ I just want to go to Heaven and bring down a god.]
[ You’re the one that wanted reinforcements,] Jack replied.
Ato had brought them up. They’d followed her through a maze of maintenance ducts and machinery rooms. Sewage engines roared as they pumped waste away from humanity. An electrical substation hummed as power leapt up and away from it, out into Homelands. When they passed the gravity generators, their weight fluctuated unpredictably. Sometimes, they found themselves bouncing through great caverns, a few steps carrying them tens of metres. Sometimes, they crawled through maintenance passages, or struggled down corridors glyphed with emergency instructions, their own amplified weight a nearly impossible burden to bear. Grey had always been there, ahead of them; a beacon in the distance, showing them the way.
‘It’s always strange for me to leave this room,’ he’d said before they started out. ‘I’m different out there. I don’t let them see it, but I’m not just Grandpa any more. I’m not that simple.’
‘Can we still trust you?’ asked Jack.
‘I’ll always deliver what I’ve promised,’ Grey replied carefully. ‘I might just be a little more self-interested about it.’
[ That’s great! We’ve made a deal with the devil,] groaned Fist.
At last they reached the garden. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours,’ Ato said cheerfully. ‘Grandpa’s going to help me find some food.’
She wriggled through a small gap in the void site’s fence and started up the street. A taller figure shimmered into being next to her – Grey, holding her hand. They disappeared into the darkness together, leaving Jack and Fist alone.
[ Right,] said Fist, [ I’m going to trigger the void site’s security systems, but I don’t want anybody to know I’ve done it. Give me a minute or so.]
Jack moved into a clump of trees and sat down, leaving Fist to his work. Untouched for many years, the grass was unexpectedly lush. It had collected a soft, cold dew that quickly penetrated his trousers, chilling his skin. The sensory detail delighted him. For a long time, he’d only felt nature in weavespace, where anything that could be understood as discomfort had been elided. It was such a pleasure to feel again the awkward, determined presence of an ecosystem that persisted regardless of humanity, unenthralled by its limiting sense of the comfortable.
Fist reappeared next to him, glowing softly in the darkness. [ It’s done,] he reported. [ I’m bringing the block’s security systems back up to full function. First time they’ve run properly in years.]
All of a sudden, the grove thrilled with virtual life. Sounds emerged – the soft, lonely cry of an owl, the high-pitched screams of hunting bats. Jack imagined the glade in daytime, rich with nature’s soundtrack.
There was a rustling on the other side of the glade, and a dark shape emerged into the light. It was a fox. The pale light softened its hard hunter’s face, making it something gentle in the night. It paused for a moment to look round, then trotted purposefully across the clearing. Halfway across, it stopped, raising its nose to sniff the air.
‘Talk out loud, we want it to hear us,’ ordered Fist. ‘It’s only a scout, we want it to summon the block’s heavy security systems.’
‘What a beautiful night to be out and about!’
The fox’s ears twitched. Its head snapped round towards them.
‘Come to Daddy!’ called Fist. His words broke the fox’s concentration. It leapt for the bushes. Leaves shook behind it. ‘A couple of seconds, and we’ll have some company.’
‘I hope you’re ready.’
‘Piece of piss.’
New presences arrived soundlessly, coalescing from the darkness that the tall trees and the bushes made.
The first was a lion. It walked with a heavy grace, head swaying left and right, shoulders rolling behind its mane. Its tightly closed mouth was a black scar on its shadowed face. Intent eyes focused on Jack and Fist with a hunter’s passion. It halted in the centre of the glade and yawned. Teeth caught the light, streaks of white fire gashing the darkness.
The second was a tiger. Its casual, confident, loose limbed stroll promised lethality. Iron-hard muscles fluttered beneath skin. Light and shadow danced across its pelt, combining with its stripes to form jagged, shifting patterns. It stretched itself out by the lion. Claws broke out of its paws, then retracted.
Finally, there was the bear; a great, lumbering mass, snuffling loudly in the quiet night. Its muzzle was paler than its dark fur, an off-white smudge that lent definition to an otherwise featureless silhouette. Something very ancient woke in Jack – a deep fear of the great shape that loomed before him, older than darkness. It joined the other two.
The silhouettes of all three exuded menace. They were in full offensive mode. Jack wondered how they might have looked when they’d been manifesting in friendlier ways. He’d often visited friends who lived in similar blocks; watched the defence creatures play with the children in their gardens. Bears were giant, cuddly creatures, lions very proud but more than a little lazy, tigers whip-smart jokers. Each of these animals would no doubt have a cartoon self too, gathering virtual dust in silent digital vaults, ready to look harmless for children it would never again guard.
[Good,] said Fist. [ They’re not attacking. The confusion protocols are working. And now …]
Feral breath hissed to Jack’s left and right. Fist had summoned his panthers. They rose out of the darkness, spinning up from memory into sleek, silent shapes. Fear spat adrenaline into Jack’s blood.
[ I’ve refined them a bit,] Fist commented, not noticing. He’d stripped the four big cats back to near abstraction. They were little more than brushstrokes in the air, prowling shapes spun out of fluid lines that were darker than the night. A shimmer, and there was a leg; an eye was a flash of red, a tooth was a white gash. Tails swished. There was a snarl and a hiss, and they moved into the glade.
Jack flinched. [ They still spook me,] he admitted.
[ I might be able to do something about that, once I’ve absorbed this lot,] replied Fist.
[ I’d like that.]
The three guardian animals stayed still as the puppet’s ghost creatures prowled around them. The trio had lost animation, now seeming more like still images.
[ I’m cracking them,] crowed Fist.
[ You’ve got about a minute left.]
[ We’ll be fine!]
A panther leapt at the bear and vanished into it. The bear shape shimmered and disappeared. Then Fist took the tiger and the lion. One last cat remained, prowling watchfully around the glade.
[ They’re ours now?]
[Oh yes. They work for me.]
[ No extra strain on your processors?]
[ No – they’re still running on the block servers. I’ve just rebuilt their command structures so they listen to me too. A bit more tweaking and they’ll be able to manifest anywhere. We can summon them whenever we need them.]