‘You were that presence when Andrea was playing in Ushi’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you reprogrammed Fist?’
‘I tweaked him a bit.’
‘If you can do that – can you free me from him?’
Grey chuckled. He shivered in and out of being, strobing in time with his amusement, an old man seen through a storm of static. Then his mirth ended and he was back, the full force of his presence undimmed.
‘Oh, Jack. Even now, you have so much faith in me. No, I can’t. I can nudge him gently in certain very small directions – but I can’t unpick the contractual law that binds him to you and you to him. Those bonds hold us all together, Pantheon and human, corporation and employee. They cannot be broken. We depend on them to survive.’
‘And that’s a good thing?’
‘Look around you, Jack. We are humanity; the last of it, perhaps not the best of it, but all that’s left. What else lives in this dead universe?’
‘The Totality.’
‘Facsimiles. Clever imitations, nothing more. We shouldn’t have gone to war with them, but we can’t let them take over. In a few generations they’ll decay. Without the Pantheon, where would you all be then?’
‘They’ll endure, Grey.’
‘Did you ever hear about something called rock climbing, Jack? People used to strap on a safety harness and drag themselves up mountains for fun. Humanity’s a bit like that. But you don’t have a safety harness, you’re never quite sure if there’s another hold coming, and your rockface never ends. Just one slip could kill you all. You need Pantheon discipline to hang on tight.’
‘By discipline you mean control.’
‘You know what the war machines did to earth. One little loss of control and we lost our planet. That’s what you risk with the Totality.’
‘The Totality aren’t war machines, Grey. They’re something very different. They’re the future. They may not be perfect but they’re the change humanity needs. And you’re shutting them out.’
‘So we should just hand over all control to our conquerors? Stockholm syndrome, Jack. You’re not one of us anymore. You’re one of them.’
‘I’m neither. Nobody controls me. I just know how precious it is to have a tomorrow you can believe in.’
Clouds shivered across the white moon. An imagined wind dance invisibly across the grass.
‘Of course. That must be very much on your mind.’ Grey thought for a moment, then continued: ‘You don’t want to do anything useful with those few weeks left to you? Strike back at my enemies for me?’
‘No. I won’t help you. In any case I can’t. With Fist caged I’m just an out-of-work auditor.’
Jack was surprised at how gentle his voice was, how swiftly his anger had left him. Over the years, he’d spent so many hours debating with Grey. Their conversations had shaped his soul, the divinity’s words helping his thoughts and actions cohere. He felt a sudden nostalgia for those times. He realised that he didn’t care what the consequences of refusing Grey’s request for help would be. A sense of freedom sighed through him, with all the soft insistence of the hilltop breeze.
‘I was the only one of us who really argued against the war,’ replied Grey. ‘I was convinced it would be counterproductive. That was why I had to make sacrifices like you once the decision to fight had been made. I had to prove that I was fully committed to the cause. But the war’s supporters still thought I was standing in the way of victory, so they brought me down. Judge me by my enemies, Jack. Of all of us, I’m the radical.’
Jack snorted. ‘You’re the least conservative one, Grey, but you’re still Pantheon. And I stopped being part of all that long ago.’
‘How does that make you feel, Jack?’
Fist held all his anger now. But Fist was asleep. Jack looked down over the broken gardens that had once been at the heart of his Station life. Scraps of moonlight caught themselves on tumbled walls. Empty plinths held nothing more than memories. A chaos of plants rampaged through it all, at once softly verdant and so slowly destructive. Years would pass and the simulation would let natural, spontaneous forms entirely remake itself. Empty at last of all that had been Jack, it would be reabsorbed into the heart of the weave, ready to serve as a new platform for a fresh-born child. Jack would be a handful of memories in other people’s fetches, if that.
‘That’s not for you to ask any more, Grey. But I do have one last question. What happened to Mr Stabs when he returned to Station in Tiamat’s body?’
Grey smiled sadly. ‘Kingdom had no further use for him, so I made sure he was safe. It was one of the last good things I could do before I fell.’
‘Where is he now?’ asked Jack.
‘He won’t let me tell you.’
‘You’re lying. You’ve had nothing to do with him.’
‘No. Mr Stabs found Tiamat’s death very difficult to process. I told him you and Fist were returning. He’s not sure he wants to see you. It brings too much back.’
‘Indeed.’
‘If he reaches a decision, I’ll try and let you know.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ Jack stood up. ‘I’m going now. I hope I won’t be seeing you again.’
Grey sighed. ‘And I hope your last days pass in peace. I have one final gift for you.’ He made a gesture with his hand, snatching a card out of the empty air. It was a near-duplicate of the one Jack had been given at Customs House. Grey held it out but Jack didn’t take it. So he placed it on the ground and carefully set a pebble on it.
‘There, Jack, my final gift to you. Enough money to live out these last months in a little more comfort. It can’t be traced back to me and it’s not tagged InSec. Spending it won’t cause you any problems.’
Then Grey stepped back into his temple. A stone door closed behind him. Jack sat for a long time, staring at the gift his patron had left. At last, as the dawn light palely frosted the temple and the hill, chasing long shadows through the gardens, he reached down for it. Fist stirred and grunted in his sleep. Dew had moistened the card. Jack turned it over in his hands and tossed it away, before starting off downhill. A few minutes passed and Fist awoke. He stood and yawned, scanned through Jack’s available memories to see what had happened while he’d slept, then followed his master off the hill.
The broken temple stood alone, overlooking broken gardens. Then it disappeared. There was nothing but a small bare room where an empty whisky bottle stood on a table, a man was climbing into a bed and the floor was made of stars.
As sleep took Jack, he looked down at the void and thought about light years of travel, the history encoded in each point of light. Starlight holds memories that can never be changed. Station throbbed alive around him, constantly moving onwards in time, remaking itself as something new with every passing second.
Chapter 18
Jack woke with a savage hangover. Fist was still passed out in his mind, his buzz-saw snoring jagged in Jack’s thoughts. Jack muted the puppet. Hunger gripped him. He needed something hotter and greasier than the bread, caffeine and juice combination that the hotel offered. Clothes were scattered around the room. A few minutes of fumbling and swearing and he was dressed. Another desk clerk was on duty. Seeing Jack he said: ‘So Charles took care of you last night?’ Jack grunted in reply.
Outside, a sweathead lay against the hotel frontage. It was almost noon. Harsh spinelight cracked down, making the sight of the reddish black void where her nose had been even more disturbing. She opened her eyes and looked up at Jack. Noticing him start, she realised that he could see her and stretched out a hand. Her sleeve fell back, revealing blotched track marks. Sweat was only ever taken orally. Jack wondered what other drugs had caught her, when she’d be staggering back into hiding to trip again.