‘What? If you’ve got some skills as well, then jump in, have some fun,’ Vic told the guide.
‘I will simply ask the city to flex. Everyone in the room will be crushed.’
Vic sighed. A power-assisted leap carried him easily over the table. The tall ’sect landed softly behind his partner. Scab currently had the upper hand and was standing on one of the Monk’s legs, fending off kicks from the other while trying to break her knee by punching it. He was aware of Vic behind him but had assumed that his partner had come to help.
There were a number of ways Vic could have handled trying to break up the fight, but he was feeling reckless. He grabbed Scab by the shoulders of his raincoat with his upper two arms and then flung Scab backwards.
Scab flew across the boardroom again and hit the wall. Behind Vic the Monk skipped to her feet. One of her arms hung limp at her side but she assumed a defensive stance. Scab was straight back onto his feet. Even through the pulped meat of his face, Scab’s rage was plain to see. Vic actually staggered back a few steps. This is it, he thought, but he made himself big, stretching to his full height, all four arms outstretched.
‘Are you out of your fucking mind!’ Scab screamed. Vic had never seen him lose control like this.
‘They’ll kill us all if you don’t stop,’ Vic said. He couldn’t quite keep the tremor out of his voice. His pheromone excretions told the rest of the story about how frightened he was.
Scab’s face was contorting and he was gasping for air as he tried to control himself. The humourless and very familiar laughter wasn’t helping matters, Vic decided. Both he and Scab turned to look at the Elite. What they saw were warped reflections of themselves in the glass armour.
‘Something funny?’ Scab asked in a tone that suggested to Vic more impending violence. Good. You just kill yourself attacking an Elite, then Known Space will be fucking rid of you and I can enjoy the sights of the Living Cities while waiting for a bounty crew to catch up with me.
‘It’s like watching a bad actor try to play you in a low-budget immersion.’
The black armour became liquid and was sucked into the Elite’s skin. He was an Elite version of Scab. He looked healthier, less gaunt. He was wearing a skin-tight, long-sleeved black top and black trousers, and his lips were stained black. The thing that unnerved Vic most about Elite Scab was that his eyes looked alive, but there was a malignancy in their life, a hatred and a madness. Vic wondered if Elite Scab had had the same neurosurgery to remove some of his more unpleasant predilections as his partner. He wasn’t optimistic about the chances of that.
‘Bollocks,’ the Monk said. It seemed to be a pre-Loss word for testicles, according to Vic’s neunonics. He couldn’t imagine why she’d choose to bring that up now. She was, however, looking nervously between Scab and Elite Scab.
‘Could I arrange refreshments for everyone?’ the guide asked, his tone neutral.
‘As soon as we have killed the copy. I have no need to subject myself to the insult of his further existence,’ Elite Scab said. Vic almost thanked him for his help in resolving the situation peacefully.
‘I thought you were the original,’ Vic said carefully. He knew he was taking his life in his hands and half-expected a thorough killing from Scab.
‘I am,’ Scab answered. There was something of the cornered animal about him at the moment, Vic thought. Scab clearly wanted to kill everyone in the room, but unusually for him – as Scab was prepared to pick fights with entire habitats – found himself horribly outgunned.
‘You’re little more than a biological machine. You were programmed to think what we wanted you to think. You’re a pale imitation, nothing more. If this wasn’t the case you’d still be able to make art,’ Elite Scab told Scab.
‘Art?’ the Monk asked incredulously.
‘Kill people in creative ways,’ Vic told her. She looked unimpressed.
‘You know what you are, messenger boy?’ Scab asked once he’d managed to stop shaking with rage. ‘Motivation, nothing more.’ Vic couldn’t read Elite Scab at all. He also didn’t understand what Scab was saying. He was missing part of the conversation. He was also sure that Elite Scab would have to be one of the Consortium Elite, and if he and Scab were about covert Consortium business then he didn’t understand why Elite Scab would be allowed to kill Scab or even what he was doing here in Monarchist space, the Living Cities’ enmity with the Game notwithstanding.
Elite Scab turned to the guide, who was speaking.
‘Since you all arrived here at the same time, we thought you might all benefit from a conversation. We can only assume that you will all have plenty of opportunities to kill each other once you are far away from Pangea, but for now there will be no more killing.’
Elite Scab nodded as if he was taking this in, but Vic recognised the signs that he was preparing to do something awful – he’d seen similar behaviour in his own Scab. There was little they could do. It was pointless attacking an Elite at the best of times, let alone unarmed. He respected the guide for standing up to Elite Scab, but it had seemed foolish to let him into the city in the first place.
‘Look, can everyone called Woodbine Scab, clone or not, please just be reasonable for a moment,’ Vic ventured.
Elite Scab looked a little bit exasperated at this, as he reached out and touched the wall of the Living City. It had taken years of research and untold amounts of debt relief to develop the Seeder-tech-derived programmable virus that coated Elite Scab’s hand, but he still made its application look casual.
The guide screamed. The City shook, convulsed; there was a palpable feeling of pain and distress that even Vic picked up on. Through the transparent flesh they saw a helical artery crushed by a convulsion of muscle, the people in it reduced to squirts of luminescent flesh and blood. The guide sank to his knees in pain. The Monk moved around the table to help him to his feet despite her ruined arm.
‘Apparently not,’ Vic said.
‘Mr Scab,’ the guide, who Vic was beginning to think was a bit more than just a guide, said to Elite Scab as the Monk helped him to a seat, ‘we of course respect your power, and you could cause us great harm, perhaps even destroy this city, but we would live on. What I don’t think you could do is destroy this city before we kill you. I wonder if you have ever been this close to destruction before?’
‘You think I care? I’ve razed planets, I’ve been worshipped as a god. I’m bored and I could kill my copy with a thought.’
‘I’m not the copy,’ Scab said quietly, dangerously.
‘I don’t think that harming us or killing your copy was what you were instructed to do,’ the guide said to Elite Scab evenly. ‘Though I confess I’m not sure of the purpose of your presence here.’
Vic could see his Scab bridle at this. There it was, the problem with being a killer god: you had to do someone else’s bidding. It was hardwired into the Elite. It had to be or they would rule Known Space or simply run amok to see if they could grow bored with the killing. Elite Scab’s features were still unreadable, but Vic guessed he didn’t like being reminded that he was a servant either.
‘You are both an unreasonable pair of fucktards!’ Vic was surprised to find himself shouting. He was less than pleased to find that his involuntary outburst now had the attention of two of the most dangerous professional arseholes in Known Space. ‘I mean really! I know we’re all well armed and Known Space is a dangerous place, but there are other fucking means of conflict resolution where mutually assured destruction isn’t a fucking certainty! I mean, what? Will your heads explode if we have a conversation, or will you find yourself unable to sustain an erection for the next five fucking years because an hour went by and you didn’t manage to kill something?! I mean really! Grow! The! Fuck! Up!’ Vic finally managed to get control of himself and waited for the inevitable killing.