I watched this for a few minutes, according to the mannequin’s clock, then the figures began to leave. Some disappeared, others just faded slowly out, a few exploded in a variety of different colours, one was enveloped by shadows and a couple simply used one of the doors in the chambers. Finally only one figure in a very off-white robe was left. The figure turned to look at me and beckoned me down.
Pagan’s icon came as no surprise. It was a man of a similar age to Pagan, his hair cut into some kind of tonsure. He wore tatty and authentic-looking robes and carried various tools and fetish items that made him look like he had just stepped out of a history documentary. He of course had a long beard and a staff. I stood with him in the now otherwise-empty circular chamber looking at the contained information form.
‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ I said. Pagan smiled and nodded. I noticed the chanting had stopped.
‘What was with the chanting?’ I asked.
‘Manifestation of our anti-surveillance software.’
‘So you wanted me to see but not hear?’ I said.
‘You weren’t our main concern and what you saw was designed to engender trust,’ he said.
‘Where is this?’ I asked. I looked around. From inside the chamber I could see that the walls were covered in many shelves, each containing bundles of scrolls. This was some kind of huge library of information.
‘This is my sanctum, Dinas Emrys,’ Pagan said. I detected a hint of pride in his voice. I was impressed despite my dislike of IT. A site as secure as a sanctum was an impressive bit of programming, something that took time beyond the instant gratification that most hackers sought.
‘Who are you people?’ I asked. Pagan gave this some thought. It looked like he was trying to find the best approach to explaining something complex. It was the slightly patronising look I’d seen before from hackers and signals types when they had to explain something to the uninitiated.
‘Do you believe in a god or gods?’ Pagan asked. I almost turned and walked out. Though that was potentially futile in a controlled realm. I’d heard this sort of thing from hackers before.
‘I’m sure your religion is very nice, but I’m not a hacker and I haven’t had my religious gene tickled,’ I said, hoping that the mannequin managed to translate my irritation. Pagan’s icon sighed. It was a good icon.
‘Jakob, I couldn’t care less what you believe in or whether you believe in anything at all, and I certainly have no interest in trying to convert you to my own rather private beliefs,’ he explained patiently. ‘What I want to know is, do you believe in anything?’ I gave this some thought.
‘Beyond self-reliance, not really,’ I told him. ‘If there’s a god even you’d have to admit that he doesn’t appear to give a shit.’
‘So what do we see in the net?’ he asked.
‘They’re just hallucinations. The overactive imagination of a brain that’s receiving too much information through its ware.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, but does that matter?’
‘Whether God or your gods are real? I would’ve thought it was pretty key to your faith,’ I said.
‘No, faith is pretty key to our faith. It doesn’t matter if they are gods and spirits that have somehow come to live in the net. It doesn’t matter if they are information forms that have developed pseudo-sentience and taken on the identity of our cultural icons, or if they are aliens, or as you say just a hallucination tickling the old religious gene. All that matters is how we respond to them, what we choose to do with them. Personally, I see them as manifestations of worthwhile concepts that we should respect and work with, such as communication and creativity, or our scarred and beautiful Earth.’
‘That would seem to prove my point that they’re not real,’ I said. Pagan opened his mouth but I cut him off before he could speak. ‘And don’t fucking ask me what’s real,’ I warned him. One problem with working with signals personnel was often when there was nothing else to do you ended up debating religion.
‘I wasn’t going to say that. The visions we see on the net seem very real to us. We have to deal with that reality. In a sense their origins do not matter subjectively.’
‘But it’s your mind playing tricks on you,’ I said. Pagan considered this.
‘Do I strike you as a particularly gullible or stupid person?’ he asked. I managed to get the mannequin to shake its head. ‘And I know of the various explanations for the visions or encounters.’ I nodded again. ‘But I am still, for want of a better word, religious. Though I prefer the term spiritually inclined.’
‘I just don’t see the point,’ I said.
‘To help,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Me initially. It helped me make sense of things.’
‘Things make no sense,’ I said.
‘No, probably not, but a tool to help you try and understand is a useful thing. Or rather a tool to help you put things into a perspective so you can process them, handle them.’
‘So what cultural icon do you worship?’ I asked. I was trying to decide how to bow out of the conversation. Being really rude was rapidly becoming the option I was favouring.
‘I am inclined towards a modern interpretation of northern European paganism, of the kind practised by the Celts.’ I’d heard of this brand of paganism but it really didn’t mean a lot to me. ‘I have a relationship with, rather than worship, Oghma. I see him as a totemic figure, inspirational iconography.’ I shrugged; it meant nothing to me.
‘And you believe this Oghma is alive and well in the net?’ I asked.
‘Oghma brought writing to Britain. I believe he is out there, still inspiring creativity, still writing, but now he’s writing code.’
‘In your head.’
‘I don’t care about his objective existence.’
Then I remembered something that Vicar had said to me. ‘Vicar didn’t believe in God, he told me.’
‘You said it yourself: our gods are cultural icons,’ Pagan said.
‘So?’ I replied, searching for a point.
‘So we create them.’
‘What’s that got to do with that thing?’ I asked, pointing at Ambassador.
‘The ultimate act of hubris. We want to make a god but in a way that is indisputably not in our head, but obvious to all.’ I turned to look at Ambassador in its containment program.
‘ You’re going to worship that thing?’ I asked in amazement. Suddenly my treason didn’t seem so bad.
‘No, we’re just going to make it God. Or rather use it to help create God. Nudge the net, something that has evolved almost organically, into true sentience. A life form made of information that is near omniscient.’
‘And this was Vicar’s plan?’ Pagan nodded. ‘What a total fucking waste of time,’ I said. Clearly this particular group’s religious mania had gone beyond the pale. Morag and I were going to die on a fool’s errand. I looked around trying to decide how best to leave before my poor IT skills reminded me to trip the escape function.
‘Please wait,’ Pagan said. ‘Just hear me out.’ I hesitated. To be perfectly honest I had nothing better to do until Rolleston caught up with me.
‘What you witnessed was a meeting of a think tank of some of the best hackers on the planets. The vast majority of them vets,’ he said. I nodded. Fortunately I’d long given up on any kind of operational security. Everyone seemed to know about the alien now.
Great, I thought, let’s get this over and done with.