The bodies I’d seen from the hopper were heaped all over the plaza five levels down. I made out a banner with SHORTIS & CLOUNS painted on it and a placard that said, FUCKIN CAWPRASHUN GISSMOR FUN CREDS. Some of the adult bodies appeared to be male clones from a number of different reject batches, identifiable by visible defects; others looked like originals, all of them naked except for penis sheaths. Their war paint was still vivid but the corpses, glistening in the rain, were turning grey and green and purple as they bloated and rotted where the terminator beam had caught them. In the purple light of the Ziggurat they looked nightmarishly at one with their surroundings. With the full-grown warriors lay the bodies of a Shorty point squad, none of them older than ten. One of them was visible only as a pair of legs sticking out of a ventilator intake.
There were two other men at the wirecar stop. One of them was talking into a throatphone: ‘John? Albert this, Code Zed Two Seven — re ufax oh one twenty this, firm wipe Prog Two, firm slot Alter B up estim CHS cuts rev privasec due newdata. Instant T, OK? Tsit.’ He sighed a little as if it was lucky for everybody that he was around to take care of things. Then he noticed that I was looking at something and came over to see what it was. ‘My X!’ he said. ‘Why don’t they tidy them away?’
‘Maintenance strike,’ said the other man.
‘Technology!’ said Albert. ‘They can flicker from here to the Hawking Threshold Instant T but they can’t sweep a plaza.’
Something about this Albert fellow was beginning to seem familiar, and for the third time in my life I heard the voice of my mind, NOISE, it said. ALWAYS MORE NOISE.
Albert Stiggs! That’s who it was — the grown-up Albert who used to bully me back at The Cauldron until I broke his nose. Both of us were wearing breathers that masked our faces but his adult voice and speech recalled the boy Albert enough for me to recognise him. He’d been bigger and heavier than I then and he was bigger and heavier now but I closed my eyes and saw once more the vibrant purple-blue that I’d seen that long-ago day at The Cauldron. Then there flared up again the craziness of many colours and I felt ready.
‘No one cares about the public any more,’ said the second man.
‘And yet,…’ I said. My mind was open, it was easy, it was singsonging to itself in the heart of the maze, in the heart of the maze where the eyes of becoming were always becoming, the spirals were always unwinding, the power was always enabling the ancient, the huge and the tiny in the billions, in the trillions of me. Strong, very strong, the ancient animal of it. Strong, very strong, the mighty fortress and the dark boat of the everything-fear. ‘And yet,…’ I said again.
Both men turned to look at me. Albert was wearing MedExec insignia and had clearly become someone of importance. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and yet what?’
‘And yet, you know, that plaza looks as if it was meant to be covered with naked corpses; it looks so natural like that.’
Albert hadn’t recognised me and he hadn’t come close enough to read my name tag but the Latin on my shoulder patch was legible from where he stood. ‘“Semper longius”!’ he read. ‘You don’t look all that long to me, flickerhead. Where do they find you lot?’
‘They send out feeler squads to feel around till they find people with balls. Those are the ones they train for Deep Space Command. The ones with no balls go into Exec’
‘Do you believe this spaceturd?’ Albert said to his companion. He came closer and read my name tag. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘I might have known it — The famous Fremder Gorn, late of Clever Daughter! The lucky chap who had a return ticket when everyone else had a single. One of the chosen, he is — in fact the only one chosen. You must have some very special connections, clipcock.’ His voice was deep (although he might have had an enhancer in his Novexec breather) but perhaps there was just the slightest quaver in it.
‘Be careful, pussy,’ I heard myself say, ‘you’re in over your head.’
‘Oh yes? Maybe you’re not in good touch with reality, Gorn. Too much flicker. This isn’t that time back at The Cauldron, this is now.’
‘You wearing bio?’
‘Oh, dear, getting aggressive, are we? Yes, little man, I’m wearing bio.’
‘So try me, noballs.’
‘OK, spaceturd, I’m trying,’ and he went into his threat posture.
‘Pathetic,’ I said, and went into mine.
‘Right, hotso, let’s see your feedback.’
I showed him my indicator and he showed me his. His read: Entropy 7:04, Action Potential 12:02. Mine read: Entropy 1.08, Action Potential 16.24, and I could feel that I had plenty more where that came from. ‘Satisfied, Albert Noballs Stiggs?’ I said.
‘You probably rigged your indicator.’ But he was walking small as he turned away and the wirecar came rattling into the stop.
‘Don’t cheapmouth me,’ I said, ‘I’ll rig your fucking arse. Want to have a go?’
He made himself even smaller and crept into the wirecar.
‘OK?’ I said. ‘Tsit.’ I got in, found a seat, pushed the button for OW 81, and sank back while my mind replayed the incident. Almost it seemed as if Albert had been given to me this time as a present, as a confidence-builder. Evidently the memory of my long-ago success with him had reactivated the circuitry in me that hooked me up with the mind-animal. I tried to remember what my thoughts had been when at the age of eight I jumped on Albert and gave him a thrashing. Ravens, Elijah; Elijah being fed by the black.
Tell me about sorrow and rage, I said to my mind. Tell me about love and happiness.
No answer.
What I did with Albert, why haven’t I been able to do it more often? And what happened with you and Pythia?
No answer. A riffling of images: the owl; the face of Isodor Gorn stretched wide across the reaches of space; the spirals and circles of the B-Z; the mantis shrimp in a sea of purple-blue.
Please, I said, talk to me. Are you going to be with me from now on?
No answer.
The car lurched into motion, I settled back in my seat, closed my eyes, and saw Katya. No, I thought, opening my eyes, save that for when you’re alone. The vuescreen on the seatback in front of me was doing an ad for Second Galaxy Ecodomes in which children without breathers were enjoying a kickabout on emerald-green grass. ‘Clean air and safe streets at low, low interest rates,’ burbled the minty-fresh female voice as I put on the headphones. ‘It’s goodbye to earthly cares when you find tomorrow today on Galaxy Two!’ Then the Galaxy Four Interfun Cruiser appeared with a seductively smiling Eurasian fly-me in mini-harness who murmured, ‘After you’ve done your business at the Straits, let us take you off the narrow into new zones of excitement. Haute cuisine and Yin-Yang massage with our Intergals and Interguys are only the beginning of an experience that will send you home refreshed and satisfied. All tastes are catered for when you book Corporation Interfun Exec’ Next was a stunning blonde in the briefest of business gear. ‘Athena Parthenogen have been serving the executive community since 2012,’ she said in tones of silk and money. ‘We supply fresh new personal assistants to your specifications — Al office staff guaranteed to meet your personal requirements. By appointment only. Athena Parthenogen is a division of Corporation Personnel Services.’