The glowing statue shook gently as he put his hand to it. Two sparks flashed from its eyes to his. The night became much darker as his retinas contracted, as mechanically reactive as any nanogel structure. The avatar started speaking. The warm care in the mind’s voice was as soothing as the cold flagstones had been, but it healed through addition rather than subtraction. Jack found himself deeply touched as he spoke.
‘Jack, I hope this reaches you well. I just wanted to let you know that our offer remains open. It is very important to us that you live out these last months in comfort.’
Ifor’s image shimmered and froze. Jack rubbed at each eye with the back of his hand, feeling slightly less alone. Then he felt sharp repeated stings on the back of his neck. There was a cackle behind and above him. Turning round, he saw Fist on top of a wall, throwing pebbles. One bounced off Jack’s cheek. Two or three hit his throat. Fist’s throwing arm was a tiny blur of movement.
Jack raised his arm to cover his eyes and staggered towards him, swearing. As he approached the wall, Fist leapt down behind it and disappeared. Rushing through another archway, Jack found himself at the base of a shallow hill. Fist was a little further up it, seeking the safety of high ground. ‘Can’t catch me,’ he shouted, flicking obscene gestures down at Jack. His hand moved almost as quickly as when it had been firing stones.
‘I’ll fucking have you, you little shit!’ roared Jack.
Fist turned and ran uphill. The sharp little tails of his dress coat bounced up and down behind him. Every few paces he turned his head and shouted abuse back at Jack, his monocle and white bow-tie flashing in the moonlight.
Jack should have been much faster than Fist, but whisky still blunted him. He kept catching his feet in the thick grass and nearly tumbling over. As the gradient of the hill flattened out he began to gain on the little puppet. Fist altered his face to show panic. His shouting was now a single high-pitched wail. Jack had his arms out, ready to snatch at him. He was entirely focused on the little man, so when the rabbit hole snatched at his foot he tumbled straight over, falling awkwardly and rolling two or three times. Fist alternated an exhausted – and highly theatrical – panting with jagged, uncontrolled laughter.
Jack found himself half-sitting, half-lying, cold stone once again at his back. The view back down the hill was beautiful. His pleasure gardens stretched away into the distance, a complex arrangement of hedges and flowerbeds, streams and paths, bridges and archways, hedges and walls. He’d once found so much satisfaction in its mathematical precision. From this far up it was impossible to see just how decayed the whole structure was, easy to imagine that all could still be thriving. Jack sighed.
Fist’s laughter looped on and on. He sounded like a broken fairground toy. The fall had broken Jack’s rage at the little puppet, a creature that found it so hard to feel anything more sophisticated than the spite and aggression that its makers had built into it. He thought of Ifor’s message, and wondered at the emotional and intellectual transcendence that Totality culture had – in stepping beyond the parameters of its original operating systems – achieved. As he did so, he realised that Fist had deactivated whatever new protocols had allowed him to so fully resist Jack’s attempts at control. Jack reached out, quietened him and began to reel him in.
Then he cursed. He’d only built one hill in his personal weavespace, at the request of his patron. Now he’d run up it and fallen over, and was leaning against the side wall of a small classical temple. Touching it had reactivated it. The main door was a little way round the building. Light flickered across it. Then, with the faintest of creaks, it opened. A grey-haired man emerged, of medium height, apparently just entering late middle age. There was a gentle shimmer to his colourless skin. He was dressed in a very elegant dark suit and a white shirt, open at the neck. His eyes were entirely silver.
‘Hello, Jack,’ said Grey, his voice the whispering of a million spreadsheets. ‘So your little man has brought you back to me at last.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ groaned Jack. ‘As if it wasn’t a shit day already.’
Chapter 17
Jack and Grey had once been very close indeed. His patron had taken him when he was twelve, and was then a constant presence through his teenage and early adult years. He always came when needed, and always gave the right advice for the moment.
He helped Jack lose his Docklands accent when the scholarship first took him to his Homelands boarding school. When Jack was bullied, Grey was there, soothing his tears and helping him develop strategies to overcome his tormentors. The divinity shared Jack’s joy as he triumphed both socially and academically, then won admission to one of Homelands’ most respected accountancy firms. He comforted him late at night as, overwhelmed by his workload, Jack wept again and considered leaving the constant pressure behind. Grey entered him and filled him and gave him strength, helping him survive the hard, lonely years of training. Jack dedicated his qualification speech to his patron, touched beyond measure that such a multifaceted corporate entity had focused so completely on him.
They drifted apart a little during his early years as an auditor, but Jack still made a point of keeping Grey informed of his activities. He was a regular worshipper at both his own personal and Grey’s public temples. He’d report on himself and subscribe to licences for on- and offweave products that – Grey promised – would help him with his work. Most of the time, his patron was right. Every so often, a gift didn’t deliver. Jack would discard it, understanding that any further reference to it would be an indicator of deep ingratitude, something like a small blasphemy.
Sometimes, late at night, Grey would still come to him and whisper that he was set for greatness. That was how he told Jack that he was having him transferred to InSec’s forensic accounting department. He convinced him that a return to the dingy, low-resolution streets of Docklands was a temporary and necessary sacrifice. Jack had to be seen to be a man of breadth and experience. His roots could only be transcended once they were fully acknowledged. Just after the rock fell, Grey came to him again. The journey into deep space began soon after, despite Jack’s outrage. That was the last time that Jack had seen his patron.
‘Long time no see,’ he said caustically. ‘I wish it had been longer.’
‘Don’t be bitter, Jack. We all had to make sacrifices back then. It was a difficult time for me. You’re lucky I could give you such a useful role to play.’
Jack wondered briefly if he should accuse Grey of complicity in a cover-up that had broken his life, and killed his old boss and the woman he loved. But he had no idea how involved his patron still might be.
‘Useful?’ he snarled. ‘I was an accountant and you packed me off to war. You let them implant that puppet in me.’
Grey’s presence had forced Fist to manifest. Whisky and exertion had hit his little system hard. He was lying on the sward, arms crossed behind his head, snoring.
‘I was under a lot of pressure to send someone good.’
‘That’s bullshit. You’re Pantheon. You were powerful. You could have chosen anyone.’
Grey laughed bitterly. ‘Oh really? So how did that power manifest, Jack? I did such a great job of standing up for myself, didn’t I? Look at me now. I’m a shadow. What little there is left of me lives by the charity of others. I couldn’t even summon you to me. East had to help me get to your puppet and force it to bring you to me.’