She was the catalyst, at the heart of the expanding reaction. For every person who joined in the chorus, for each mind that willingly surrendered itself to the touch of the Z3N, the creature’s manifestation became stronger. Against her will, Juno led the city into a hive mind designed and directed by the will of the beast. It was circular, a self-reinforcing metaconcert-and soon it would reach a critical mass of human thought and make the Jade Dragon fully real in the material plane.
Juno touched the very faintest corona of the demon-thing’s psyche, and it sickened her beyond all words. She understood only that to pierce the veil of dimension from the Outer Darkness where it originated, the beast needed believers. It could only become tangible when men and women gave themselves over to the desires that it embodied, the blood-soaked, conflicting needs to procreate and to destroy.
As the lyrics came around again, Juno saw the flesh-city and the glass monsters of her waking dreams forming, and rejected them with all her might. “I’m the quiet muh-mind in-inside,” she stammered. “Pretty… pretty…” Her chest tightened, the muscles rebelling. She tasted blood in her mouth and screamed, fighting the compulsion, forcing the words to shift and change.
“I’m the lying fiend inside!” she spat wildly, “hateful voice! I’m the bloody smile! Touch my thoughts and die, there’s nowhere you can hide!”
Juno clutched at her skull as spikes of pain wracked her. The singer’s piercing shriek was repeated by the first fifteen rows of the concert audience, each of them falling into psychic synchronicity with her.
“I won’t sing!” she snarled, tearing the microphone tab from her cheek. “I won’t help you any more!” The camera drones closed in, curious at her sudden change in behaviour.
Juno’s angry cries died in her throat as the brilliant sodium lights of the stage were snuffed out, plunging the platform into blackness. She saw a shimmering curtain fall, cutting her off from the audience, and suddenly the screens blared out new tunes, picking up and repeating the words to “Touch” over and over. The live feeds from the cameras were abruptly severed.
From the deep shadows of the wings emerged Mr Tze, his face bright with rage. “You dare defy me?” he roared, his voice beating at her over the blare of the music. “You vat-grown, clockwork bitch. You’re just a grandiose sexclone, a fuck-toy for my bidding.” He brutally backhanded her. “Sing, damn you. I order you to sing. Infans simulare! Infans simulare. ”
“No more.” she cried, her words strangled and sobbing. “I won’t do it.” Mad elation filled her, a sudden sense of lunatic freedom.
Tze spat and drew his sword. “Very well. The King is coming, it is too late to stop it now. If you will not obey him, you will bleed for him.”
“Listen to me!” she screamed at the cameras, begging her fans to hear her. “The Jade Dragon will destroy you all! Don’t let it in! If you ever loved me, don’t-”
Tze’s ceremonial blade flashed in the spilled light from the screens and opened her throat to the air. Juno staggered backwards and fell, hands at her neck, struggling to hold in a flood of rich, hot crimson.
There were bright flickers of pasts and lives that she had not experienced, the death and death and death of other Juno Qwans, an endless loop of them, lives of engineered soulnessness bereft of human warmth. Laughter. Applause. The punishing glare of fame. In the grey haze, her mind collapsed to a single point, to the touch of a man’s hand on her face and the look of utter truth in his eyes. Francis…
Voiceless, she collapsed and died there on the stage, a blossom of red expanding about her.
“The songbird is silenced,” snorted Tze. Above, the unblinking glass eyes watched and recorded.
Only the goggles over Professor Tang’s eyeballs had stopped him from gouging them out when the green fires fell from the air, but now he was pleased, giddy with the sight as he raped the corpse of the lab assistant he had shot in the stomach. All the secret things, all the keys to the monstrous desires in his head were free, and he had no more need of human values.
Fixx felt his breath coming in shallow, brutal gasps. There was blood all around him, making the stone tiles slippery. His vision was misty, as if everything around him was made of felt. He tasted copper. The sanctioned operative made his hands work with fierce concentration, fishing in his coat pocket for a weapon, a touchstone. His fingers found a ragged tear in the kevleather and nothing else. With effort, Fixx pushed himself off the floor, leaning up.
“Looking for something?” asked Rope. The Josephite had the ghost knife held up high. He tipped back his head and let drops of red fall from the shifting blades on to his tongue. The killer came closer, nodding at the bones scattered on the floor. “Lost your precious things? How sad.” With exaggerated care, Rope brought his shoe down on the fetishes and ground them into powder. “All gone. Now how will you know what to do, Joshua? You’ll have to make your own mind up for once.”
Fixx had a dagger in his boot, but it might have well been on Mars. Agony churned in his gut as he dragged himself backwards, pressing against a jade pillar. Dimly, he was aware of a sour breeze sluicing in through the broken windows, heavy with death-scents, sirens, singing and the noises of human despair. A rough chuckle escaped his lips. “This… not goin’ exactly how I planned.”
“You had a plan?” sneered Rope.
“Nah,” admitted Fixx, “always been a kinda make-it-up-as-I go sorta guy.”
Rope toyed with the knife, flicking a glance at Frankie where he cowered by a console. “Perhaps there’s something to your ridiculous religion, Joshua. You might be right. Perhaps your loas did bring you here for a reason-just not the one you thought it was.” He bared teeth. “You’re here to die, Joshua Fixx, to fail. Look.” Rope pointed at the d-screens that were still functioning. The displays were fed from cameras at the Peak. He saw the audience, the weeping black skies, the stage.
“Juno!” Frankie gasped, staggering to his feet. “Oh god, no.”
The audio feed had been damaged in the firefight, and no sound was relayed; but they saw the anger ripple across the idol singer’s face, her sudden surge of rebellion. Frankie’s heart leapt as she flung away her microphone, freeing herself. “I knew you could do it!” he shouted. “Run, Juno!”
Rope rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you shout a bit louder, Francis? She might even hear you… ”
The live feed shifted as the stage went dark. For a second the cameras dithered, shifting to image-enhanced mode. In the corner of the display, the Live Feed overlay changed to Broadcast Suspended.
“Oh dear,” mocked the Josephite. “The slave has ideas above its station. Not that it matters, too little too late.”
He could not tear his eyes from the screen as Tze, resplendent in the cloak and finery of a Qin warlord, came into frame and berated the girl.
“Frankie,” said Fixx, “look away. Don’t… ”
The ghost of Tze’s blow made Frankie choke; he felt it as keenly as if it had been him that was struck. He saw the sword, and shook his head. “No, no, no, no-”
Juno looked into the camera, directly at him. He read her lips. If you ever loved me, don’t “No!” Frankie’s body went rigid with rage and shock. Juno fell away, life ebbing from her eyes, crashing to the stage.
Rope made an amused noise. “Your turn now Joshua. Take solace in knowing that your vitae will be put to good use. I’m going to paint a mural with it.” The knife fell and Fixx caught it, pushing all his strength into holding the razor tip away from his throat.
Rope licked his lips. “Don’t fight it. Believe me, this is a kindness I do for you… I’m sparing you the endless agonies of living in a world where the Dragon rules. ”
The blade pressed into Fixx’s skin; he felt his strength ebbing, and at the corner of his vision he saw movement. A flash of wet steel.