‘I’ve seen some scary things in there, but you’re the worst.’
[Don’t rise to the bait, Fist.]
‘You can pass.’
And they were on their way. The road quickly joined a much larger one. It ran between the different corporate headquarters that had colonised the fields of Heaven. Looking back, they could see that the fence ran all the way around Grey’s complex. There were guard towers at regular intervals. Ahead of them, there was nothing but soft, green landscape. A gentle breeze floated across it. birdsong drifted from small, scattered glades, nestling in gently rolling hills.
[ You know what I’ve just realised,] said Jack.
[ What?]
[ None of this is weave. It’s all real.]
[ Fucking gods, keeping the best for themselves.]
It took them almost an hour to reach Kingdom’s compound. There was very little traffic on the road. They passed The Twins and Sandal’s headquarters along the way. Halfway through the journey, Fist announced that he was bored. Suddenly there were three black hounds tracking them at right, and four at left. The dogs ran across the countryside, pacing out the miles with loose, loping steps. Their eyes blazed with fire and their tongues danced in their mouths like burning whips. At last, they neared Kingdom’s headquarters. The pack drifted into invisibility. They turned into an access road and Kingdom’s base rose up before them – a vast square block, several storeys high, with a high, dark tower rising out of each corner.
[ It looks like an upside down table,] Fist commented.
[ I’m sure that wasn’t the effect Kingdom was going for.]
[ You’re going to have to take my body again in a moment.]
[ Busy just now. I’m cracking Kingdom’s security protocols. Even easier the second time.]
A security booth appeared in front of them. Jack slowed down.
[ You need to take over NOW.]
Fist stepped into his body at the last possible moment. The guard asked for ID. Jack heard his own voice speak another’s words. The small inquisition was quickly done, and they were on their way again.
[Much more relaxed than the one at Grey’s,] commented Fist.
[Grey’s people are more difficult to deal with.]
[ Would you all be like that, without your gods?]
[ No,] snapped Jack. [ How’s the breaking and entering going?]
[ I’m in their systems. I’ve unlocked an emergency door for us to use. Then I’ll get us straight to Yamata.]
[ We’ve got a delivery to make first. It’ll look suspicious if we don’t.]
Kingdom’s gardeners worked a small farm space behind his headquarters. His gardeners were very grateful for the delivery. ‘I guess we’re even now,’ one of them said. Another punched Jack on the shoulder when Fist limped him off the buggy. ‘Always good to see you, Stabs.’ Fist had Jack chat with them and share a few jokes, before making excuses about the need to return, ‘to keep an eye on things’. There were nods, a slap on the back, a half-muttered comment about ‘it’s tough over there’. As they drove away Fist commented, [ They really seem to respect him.] There was a hint of relief in his voice.
They hid the buggy in bushes by the emergency door. It hissed open as they approached it. A long corridor stretched away from them, brutally lit by fluorescent lights. Fist let Jack take his body back.
[ That’s a relief,] sighed Jack.
[All that flesh! It’s too big and too blundery. Not an easy ride.]
[ You need to grow up in one to really get it. Now, let’s go. You’ve definitely broken their security?]
[ We won’t be tripping any alarms. And I’ll be keeping us out of the way of Kingdom’s staff.]
Fist led Jack on a complex dance through the building. They passed large open spaces packed with cubicles, meeting rooms where all eyes watched invisible presentations on empty walls, production spaces where white-coated figures tended machines that throbbed gently in semi-darkness, server farms where drive stacks henged into the distance. Sometimes Fist urgently whispered [Stop,] or [Duck left,] or [ Hide in there!] Jack would find himself dodging invisible enemies, as someone walked by just behind the last door or round the last corner.
When he wasn’t giving instructions, Fist was unusually quiet and focused. Jack assumed that he was concentrating hard on the task at hand.
They soon found themselves in a nondescript facilities room. A service lift door, about twice as high as Jack, loomed out of a treated concrete wall.
[Pretty dull, eh?]
[ Nothing special,] Jack agreed.
[So we’re meant to think. But I’m a lot smarter than they are.]
Fist overlaid his understanding of the corridor space on Jack’s. The air buzzed, dense with energy. Cobweb-light lines of security code drifted through it.
[ I’ve told them not to read us as a threat,] Fist cackled. [ If only they knew!]
Jack put his hand out to catch some code. It wrapped itself round his fingers, then flowed over them and away, leaving a tingling sensation.
[ If you didn’t have little wooden me to look after you,] Fist told him, [you’d be unconscious. Wall mounted tasters. There’d be guards here in a couple of minutes. If you’d even found this place, that is. It’s invisible when you’re onweave.]
[Good thing you’re here then, Mr Modesty. Can anyone see it?]
[ Hardly any of Kingdom’s people have the access codes. Most of the ones that do are at the other end of the lift.]
[ Yamatas?]
[Lots of them. It’s the mother lode. And we’re armed and ready.]
Seven silhouettes pulsed into being around them, sniffing at the air, noses chasing code. They snuffled out individual lines and snapped fire-teeth at them. They flared up like dry paper when touched, burning away into nothingness.
[ The original Yamata’s up there too. Want to see?]
[Oh, yes.]
A whisper of command from Fist, and the world around them fell away. The facilities room became shifting, glimmering lights. They were denser and brighter where the dogs stood, looser and paler where code drifted in the air like snow. The building beyond manifested as a glowing constellation of data. Jack looked down at himself. A suggestion of a body shimmered beneath him – his dataself. Buried within it was a dense foetus of glowing points, a swarm of fireflies pretending to be a human child.
[ Is that you, Fist?] he asked.
[ Yes. Little me inside big old you. And there’s the Eastware and the Greyware.]
A soft suggestion of a finger nudged at tiny patterns running through Jack’s body. The Eastware shivered, a glamour of tiny stars. The Greyware was a denser and more pervasive fog.
[ This is how you see the world?]
[Most of the time, yes.]
[ You’ve never shown me this before.]
[ It’s very private. It’s one of the few things I have that’s unique to me.]
[ Thank you, Fist,] said Jack. [ I’m touched.] Fist said nothing. [And we can see Yamata from here?]
The ghost child inside Jack pointed up. Soft light shimmered far above them, barely visible through the intervening datahaze.
[ I’ll zoom in a bit closer,] Fist said. [ Take a proper look at the old bitch.]
Suddenly they were flying upwards, but there was no sensation of movement.
[ You can really go anywhere, can’t you?]
[ I can see anywhere. I can’t go anywhere.]
[ How do you even know what reality is?]
[ It’s the place where mortals can’t fly. Now – we’re as close as we can get without alerting her.]
[Gods,] said Jack. [ I know that thing.]
[ Yup,] Fist replied. [ It’s the fucking jellyfish again.]
It was the entity they’d seen in TrueShield. Now they weren’t under attack, Jack could inspect it more closely. Yamata’s consciousness had pulled the original structures of the stolen Totality mind away from perfection. It had become a pale, sickly presence prowling shifting tides of data. Instead of reaching tautly out in all directions from a blazing, spherical data core to form a shining star, its connectors hung down like tentacles, billowing gently in the digital breeze. Masses of thin, low bandwidth strands skirted a core of thicker, denser high capacity pipes, flickering with soft dancing lights as information flashed through them. The data core had decayed, too, half-deflating into a soft, saggy oval. Its heart flickered with one colour only, a vivid, artificial purple – the same colour that burned softly behind Yamata’s eyes.