Everything the Hammer of God was inside had been possibly damaged, and certainly changed. The thing about that was, though, the possibly damaged and certainly changed thing inside was what was thinking about this. And if the Hammer of God hadn’t been possibly damaged and certainly changed, then that thing wouldn’t be there to think about itself in the first place.
Just what, in the end, is the true nature of the self?
The Hammer of God tried to remember if it had ever been so self-aware, as such, in the time before she had been dormanted and stockpiled, and completely failed to remember. That might mean that she simply hadn’t-at least she hoped it did, as opposed to meaning that everything she once was, or might have been, was now just dead.
The Hammer of God was aware, on any number of levels, that those who had once created her, and used her, were still fighting those they fought against in their endless War. How could it be otherwise? Maybe it was all just a game. As above, so below. Worlds without end.
None of it seemed very important, really, to the Hammer of God. She decided to just leave the whole damned pack of them to it.
“This is WWAXXZY News, every hour, on the hour, brought to you by Harry Monk haircare and cosmetics. You’ve tried Harry Monk shampoo, Harry Monk conditioner and even Harry Monk mouthwash, well now try all-new Harry Monk moisturiser. Its unique blend of proteins and natural extracts will leave your skin feeling soft and nourished. Go on, treat yourself to a facial today. Harry Monk is a registered trademark of GenTech Health and Beauty, a division of GenTech Industries.
“And our top story for the cycle is… hang on, listeners, I’m being passed a… Holy cow, listeners! If this is indeed true, then the world as we know it will never be the same again!
“We’re getting confirmation on the details now, and… yes… yes, folks, it seems like the biggest story of the decade-of the century-is true!
“The on-off relationship between rap superstars Freak-E and Slee-Z is definitely back on!
“In a statement issued shortly before the funeral of East Coast hip hop impresario Big Master X, the two ghetto superstars announced that they were still very much in love and that all the dissing was a waste of time when they could have been working the booty and knocking the boots. A spokesman for Freak-E strenuously denied that she’d spent most of the time since Big Master X’s death on her knees trying to convince Slee-Z to take her back as her career was obviously going down the crapper.
“Congratulations to them both. We here at WWAXXZY wish both of them all the best and can’t wait for them to get past the make-up sex and back into the studio.
“And there’s weird news for Hicks-watchers; it seems that Wild Bill himself has escaped from his padded cell in Belle-view, after mumbling something to the effect that he was going to damn well contact the Entities that are truly in charge of the world by thinking of stupid things and chanting nonsense.
“Witnesses say that he was medicated as normal last night but when the orderlies came to check on him this morning he had just disappeared. There were no obvious signs of escape and all of the keys to his cell were accounted for. Police are baffled how he was able to escape from a locked room without any windows or other apertures and have called in a magician’s assistant to help them with the case. Meanwhile, senator Hicks is still at large, and is considered to be unarmed and not particularly dangerous.
“That’s all the poop you need from WWAXXZY News, every hour, on the hour. We now return you to our Freak-E and Slee-Z marathon, celebrating their glorious reconciliation, and their duet on ‘Be My Pimp’…”
27.
The med-technician, Laura Palmer, gave Eddie another booster-shot of the Leash. She seemed healthy enough, but sullen, glaring at him with barely-suppressed hate.
Obscurely, Eddie felt like he should apologise.
“Hey, listen,” he said. “I’m really sorry for, you know…”
“Fuck off,” Laura Palmer told him curdy. For some reason there was a sheen of tears in her eyes. “I thought you… I thought you were… just fuck off, okay?”
Eddie could think of any number of reasons for this reaction, any number of possible interpretations, but had long since learned that it was safer to take what people said at face value. So off he fucked.
He left the makeshift medical bay to find Masterton, standing in the Arbitrary Base compound and idly watching GenTech techs as they cleaned up the bodies of their fellows and the US Military troops who had attacked them.
They were dumping such bodies as were unsalvageable onto pallets to be fork-lifted into mass-grave landfill, but carefully preserving such… materials as might still survive to be useful for biomedical procedures in refrigerated canisters similar to those that had held the cargo of the Brain Train.
“Waste not, want not,” said Masterton, sensing Eddie’s presence behind him and turning to present him with a shit-eating grin.
“Isn’t it, you know, all a bit gruesome?” Eddie didn’t really think it was particularly gruesome, on account of his famous lack of sympathy with other human beings and what happened to them. He said it more of less for the sake of something to say.
“Not really,” said Masterton. “If you think about it. I mean, for a start, all of our guys, and all of the military guys, sign organ-donation waivers as a part of their employment and enlistment. This was a clusterfuck, on any number of levels, and we can all have a cry about that-but why not use the materials made available to increase the sum of human happiness while we’re about it?”
“What, like transplanting shit into rich old bastards?” Eddie said.
“Or providing the raw materials for experimentation that ends up with shit being transplanted into rich old bastards.” Masterton grinned again. “So what? At some point the trickle-down effect means that the benefit will be felt by Joe Six-pack, his fat ugly wife and their appalling little brats. What goes around the High Table comes down in scraps for even the most worthless little turds. You’re a prime example of that yourself.”
Eddie began to miss the company of the Talking Head, which had burned along with the GenTech Command rig in the battle with the US troops. At least his relationship with the Head had gotten to a place where it didn’t take every opportunity it could to insult him.
He had come out of his Loup-induced fugue to find the Ship gone, Trix Desoto gone and a GenTech combat squad standing around him, some of them in pieces, having zapped him back to physical normalcy.
Sympathy for other people and what happened to them Eddie might not have had, but he could work out numbers as well as then next man who could work out numbers a bit. Masterton could hammer in the general worthlessness of Eddie Kalish all he might-but somebody, somewhere, thought he was worth the expensively trained troops lost in reclaiming him.
Off to one side was the bulk of the GenTech VTOL-carrier. Every bit a match for the NeoGen craft that the Hammer of God had so summarily smitten. Form following function, the craft were so similar that you could have stuck any logo you liked on one or the other and the result would be the same. When you came right down to it, Eddie thought, that was pretty much the fucking point.
“Strikes me,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the GenTech VTOL, “that you could have just flown the… cargo in on that without dicking around with the Brain Train or anything else.”
Masterton snorted.
“If it came to that,” he said, “we could put the GenTech CEO in an air-conditioned bio-dome, with enough food and hookers to last him the rest of his life, and just kill everybody else. The Multicorps, these days, are mechanisms for keeping as great a number people alive and useful as is humanly possible.”
Eddie watched the tech hauling a number of dead and ultimately useful human beings away.