[ Where did Grey say Mr Stabs would meet us?]
[ He was very precise. It’s an access door just where the pillar hits Heaven.]
[Perfect. Will anyone spot the pack?]
[ They’re ghosts until they’re on you – if you can see them, you’re already fucked.]
Heaven raced towards them. Jack touched the void with his steerjets, spinning round and slowing. When he touched down he landed gently but firmly, magnetic soles clamping him to the ground. One by one, the dogs landed around him. Looking back, he saw that the trail of fire they had burned into the night was falling away to nothing.
[ You are an artist sometimes, Fist.]
[Everything I am comes from you.]
For a moment Jack mistrusted the compliment, but he could find no ambiguity or hostile intent in it. Fist hovered in front of him, slowly rotating to bring himself right way up. The pack sniffed around them, exploring new territory.
[ Have they found anything?] asked Jack.
[ They’ve neutralised some basic security systems. Nothing else here. I don’t think the gods ever expected anyone to get in this way.]
[Complacent as ever. Where’s the door?]
[Over there.] Fist pointed at the pillar. An airlock started to open. Pale light leapt out of it. [ You’ve waited long enough,] Jack told him. [Let’s go see Mr Stabs.]
Chapter 41
‘Stabsy!’
Fist rushed to embrace Mr Stabs, his spacesuit disappearing as he reached and clutched him. Mr Stabs jerked an arm up, patted at Fist, and then let it fall. His awkward movement ended the hug.
‘I’m sorry to see you’ve been hurt,’ he said, speaking with a grating singsong quality. Alert eyes peered out of holes raggedly cut in a baggy head mask, hand-stitched from white fabric. He was dressed in dirty blue overalls and heavy work boots. One shoulder was pulled up slightly higher than the other. But for a slight stoop, he would have been taller than Jack.
‘I’ve had worse,’ shrugged Fist. He stepped back and looked up at Mr Stabs. ‘We’re going to have such fun!’ he said, his joy suddenly sounding a little forced. The airlock hissed air back into space, reminding them where they’d come from and why they were there.
‘We have business to attend to,’ Mr Stabs responded coldly. He turned to Jack and jerked out an arm. Every part of him shuddered. Jack shook his hand, half-expecting to squeeze hardwood, but there was only soft flesh and a weak, uncertain grip. He was glad not to see Tiamat’s face animated by another mind. He imagined how his own would look when fully possessed by Fist and shuddered.
‘It was very brave of Grey, returning to Heaven to ask for my help,’ Mr Stabs told him. ‘Any one of the Pantheon could have picked up his presence. If Kingdom found out how active he still was, he’d crush him like—’
His hand came up. His fingers moved jerkily, not quite pinching together.
‘Fortunately for us, he hasn’t,’ said Jack. ‘And Grey said you’d help us.’
‘I can get you into Kingdom’s compound. The rest is up to you.’
‘Then let’s get over there.’
‘It’s night here. You go first thing tomorrow. Until then, it’s back home to sleep. Follow me.’
Mr Stabs lurched, wheeled round, and began to walk. He swayed left and right with each pace, but managed to move with reasonable speed. His head jerked back towards them. ‘Come on!’ he shouted, ‘I don’t want to be missed.’
[ He used to be the coolest of the cool,] said Fist, his voice hushed with pain.
[ Him and Tiamat both.]
[And now look at him.]
The journey took an hour or so. They followed Mr Stabs down indistinguishable corridors, up and down ladders, in and out of lifts. Every so often, there was a security door. Mr Stabs had a card he’d pull out to open it.
‘Can’t you just tell the doors to open?’ Fist asked him.
‘Kingdom burnt out my weave implants before he handed me over to Grey.’
‘No weave! But what do you do with yourself ?’
‘Feed my plants. Visit other gardeners.’
[ Fuck,] said Fist quietly to himself. [ No parties.]
Jack said nothing. Meeting Mr Stabs had been a shock for both of them. He wanted to let its impact settle before talking it through with Fist.
They found themselves walking through a vast subterranean forcing house. Bright lights blazed down on rows of vegetables. Sprays hissed water. The air had a humid, tropical feel, heavy with the scent of growth.
Jack breathed in deeply. ‘I’ve never smelt anything like it.’
‘My underworld,’ Mr Stabs replied proudly. ‘And now we climb into Heaven.’ He was standing at the foot of a short ladder, leading up to a metal hatch. ‘I’ll go first. Got to check nobody’s around.’ He moved up the ladder like a broken spider, then disappeared through the hatch. A moment later his white, covered head reappeared. ‘OK. Come up.’
Jack imagined himself wearing a similar hood, Fist trapped behind it. Fist snapped him out of his reverie. ‘Come on. What are you waiting for?’
Climbing up, they found themselves in a small wooden shed. Half of it was a living area – there was a low bed, a shower cubicle and a sofa. The rest was packed with gardening equipment. A spade and fork leant against the wall. There was a workbench, half-covered with a clutter of hand tools. A lawnmower’s metal entrails spilling across the floor. Wisps of curtain covered a window.
Mr Stabs shuddered over to it and, lifting the material, peered outside.
‘All’s quiet,’ he confirmed.
‘Where are we?’ Jack asked him.
‘Grey’s corporate space. You’ll see it tomorrow. For now, keep away from the window. I’ll make you up a bed.’ He rolled a sleeping mat out by the dead lawnmower and dropped some bundled sheets on to it. ‘Best we sleep now.’
‘Stabs,’ said Fist, ‘there’s so much we’ve got to talk about. The old days—’
‘No,’ said Mr Stabs, pain evident even through the squeak of his voice. ‘I don’t like to think about that.’ He moved to stand by his bed, leant forwards at the hip, bent backwards at the knee and collapsed into a rigid sitting position. His mask leapt up and fell back, for a moment revealing Tiamat’s familiar chin and lips. His mouth was turned down.
But Fist persisted. ‘What about the future? You and me, we’re the only puppets left. We’ve got to stick together.’
‘You’re only here because Grey told me what Kingdom’s done, what he might use you to do and what you’re going to do to him. I didn’t want to see you.’
‘What?’
Mr Stabs leant backwards and pulled his legs up on to the bed, then swivelled awkwardly round and collapsed back into a lying position.
‘You and Jack. You remind me so much of how I was with David. So arrogant. Then I spent months alone with him, deep in space. I watched him lose hope. I was inside him when he died. I am what I am now because of that. It changes your perspective.’ His head jolted round to face his guests. ‘You’re lucky, Hugo. It won’t be as hard for you. You’ve both got something very important to do. You’ll either succeed or die together. And if you do defeat Kingdom, you’ll have the memory of one last, shared triumph to hold on to when Jack’s gone. I only have pain and emptiness in my past. So we’ll sleep, and in the morning you’ll go, and I won’t see you again.’
‘Stabsy—’
‘I’m going to switch the light off. Then I take off my mask.’
[ There’s so much I want to talk to him about!]
[ Hush, Fist. You heard what he said.]
Jack lay down on the sleep mat, and pulled the sheets over him. There was a click, and the bare light bulb that lit the shed flicked off.
‘G’night Stabsy,’ chirped Fist hopefully. There was a rustling from Stabs’ corner of the room, but no reply.
[ He’s so different.]
[ He’s been through a lot. It changes people.]