Nevertheless, most people on Mangala believed that the Jackaroo were watching them. After the aliens had made themselves known, the conspiracy theorists and the UFO nuts had gained a new lease of life. They’d gone mainstream, elaborating ideas that Mangala and the other worlds were Petri dishes in some galactic experiment. Skinner boxes. Rat mazes. It was possible, some said, that eidolons weren’t the ghosts or memories or imprints of former tenants, but were instead part of a covert monitoring process that nudged and guided people in certain directions.
And here was proof of those paranoid theories, hissing and fizzing and swaying in front of Vic, conjured from some kind of memory wire and parasitising the quantum dust and algorithms that generated the eidolons in this ancient necropolis.
He stood his ground, feeling a prickling across his body, every hair trying to stand up, as the ghostly man-shape turned towards him. Its attention had the weight and warmth of summer sunlight.
Nevers was saying something, saying that it was all right, that this was a friend.
‘I am a friend,’ the avatar said.
Its voice came from nowhere and everywhere. It was the wind hunting in the crevices of the long dark ledge. It was the gentle clap of waves washing along the river’s edge. It was Vic’s breath and heartbeat.
‘We’re here to help,’ it said. ‘But we do not want to shape you. We give you the tools, but we let you make from them what you will. As is right. As it always has been. But there are others. Fellow travellers. Who do not share our scruples. Who plunge into your lives. Who plunder your stories. And if your stories are not pleasing, they reshape them.’
‘He means the!Cha,’ Nevers said.
‘They are young…’
The avatar’s voice faded into a dismal hiss; its body rippled like a heatwave mirage. Rogue eidolons fluttered away like scraps of mist, and the avatar stretched like a whip and gathered them into itself and slowly regained its shape and definition.
‘They have no patience,’ it said. ‘They like to accelerate change. They want to see what comes next.’
‘That’s what this is about,’ Nevers said. ‘The!Cha trade stories. And they create them or make them more interesting by directly interfering. By aiming people in certain directions.’
Vic said, ‘So the people we’re chasing, they’re working for the!Cha?’
‘They are being manipulated,’ Nevers said.
‘We changed you when we first contacted you,’ the avatar said. ‘It was unavoidable. Perhaps you will change further. Or perhaps you will dwindle, or destroy yourselves. But whatever happens, it should be your choice.’
Vic said, ‘Why involve me? Doesn’t that go against your principles?’
The avatar hummed and swayed. It said, ‘The!Cha are part of us. We are part of them.’
‘The!Cha are pointing people towards something dangerous,’ Nevers said.
‘They love stories,’ the avatar said.
‘And we have to give this one the right ending,’ Nevers said.
His smile was fierce and eager and hungry. The poor guy not realising that he was being manipulated — or knowing and not caring.
And Vic was in this too, in over his head. He had a sliding feeling that he was in the wrong place, heading in the wrong direction. Like one of those frustrating dreams.
He said, as calmly as he could, ‘I’m a murder police. I’m here because I want to find the people who killed my partner. And yours, too. This other stuff is way beyond my pay grade.’
‘It’s all part of the same thing,’ Nevers said. ‘The people you want are the people I want.’
Vic thought about that. He didn’t trust Nevers, let alone the avatar, but he’d seen the aftermath of the shootout, knew he was outgunned by the bad guys. And the avatar would definitely give him an edge.
He said, ‘So how can your friend here help us do the right thing?’
47. Run
Mangala | 28 July
Chloe and Henry stood back while Cal McBride harangued the drone operator, telling him to get the fucking thing back on line right now. ‘And give me the phone. Let me talk to Sammie.’
Chloe said to Henry, ‘Drury is coming after us, isn’t he?’
‘There’s a good chance of it. Can you run?’
‘I won the four-hundred-metre race in school one time.’
‘When I say run, run. Run for your life.’
McBride said that Sammie wasn’t answering.
‘He’s watching Drury’s crew, like you asked,’ the operator said.
‘Well he’s not fucking picking up. And why haven’t you fixed the fucking drone?’
‘There’s nothing I can fix. It’s all good here. Either the drone is down, or something is blocking the signal.’
‘Play the last minute of footage again,’ McBride said.
The screen blinked, showed the two men in the speedboat.
‘There,’ McBride said. ‘Stop.’
He pointed at the screen. One of the men was turned in his seat, looking straight at the drone’s camera, one hand raised.
‘Waving hello, the cheeky fucker. Oh, and now he’s giving us the finger. Well, fuck you too, Mr Danny Drury.’ McBride was suddenly all business, telling two of his men to move up the track, find what cover they could. ‘Rolls, you stay with me. Tommy, Dean, pack up this shit. Fast as you can, bring what you can carry to the boats, burn the rest. It’s time to go,’ he said, and turned to Chloe and Henry, pulling his ray gun from its loop, telling them they were coming with him.
Then they were outside, hustling towards the jags of the lightning trees. Chloe, breathless and excited and scared, half-ran, half-walked as she tried to keep up with the men. The ground was ploughed but barren, pale ridges studded with reddish stones. She remembered that Hanna had said that the soil had to be steam-cleaned, sterilised, before plants would grow in it. She stumbled when dust whirled up around her, and Rolls, a big man in a denim jacket, its sleeves ripped off to display his muscular arms, caught her and hauled her along.
She protested, tried to shake off his grip, but he was implacable. They were almost at the trees. And then Rolls seemed to trip, his feet tangling together in an awkward pirouette, and he let go of Chloe’s wrist and clapped his hand to his neck. Blood oozed between his fingers. A hard crack echoed out across the field. Chloe realised it was a gunshot, realised that it was the second one she’d heard, as Rolls grunted and collapsed at her feet.
McBride shouted, a raw wordless sound, and turned and aimed his ray gun. For a moment, a thread of intense blue light seared across the ploughed ridges of the field. Then Henry grabbed McBride’s arm and twisted it up and back. Blue light split the air above their heads, bending towards one of the lightning trees and setting its fluttering clouds aflame. The light winked out; McBride had dropped the ray gun. As Chloe darted forward and scooped it up, Henry stepped back, a pistol in his hand. He must have snatched it from McBride, but it seemed like a magic trick.
‘No,’ McBride said, and put up one hand like a traffic cop as Henry swung the pistol and whacked him on the side of his head. McBride staggered, half-raised a hand to fend off Henry’s second blow, and fell in a heap.
‘Run!’ Henry said, and Chloe ran, chasing him towards the tree-things. The one touched by the ray-gun beam was burning fiercely now. An acrid smell like scorched plastic scraped her throat.