All four of them actually shivered with delight at the prospect of getting their hands on a new rogue Drood, the first in years. They rose and fell on the air, laughing silently, their chalk white skin shimmering brightly. If they could seduce and corrupt the rogue to their cause, they would have access to secrets and information no one else had. They commanded me to follow them and floated off towards the centre of the room, descending slowly until they walked on the bodies that moved unstoppably beneath them. I struggled after them, my feet slipping and sliding on the sweat-covered bodies. I stared straight ahead. You can’t keep glancing down and apologising. And finally, in the exact centre of the cavernous room, the four founding Chelsea Lovers impersonally levered people out of the way to reveal a large puckered orifice in the floor. They gestured, and it dilated open, revealing only darkness and a sudden pungent smell on the air, like supercharged cinnamon. One by one the four of them floated down into what lay below the floor, disappearing into darkness, until only I was left hesitating on the rim. In the end, I just shrugged and jumped in after them. This was what I’d come for, after all.
And found myself suddenly in a brightly lit, high-tech environment that was the complete antithesis of everything above. It was a circular room barely twenty feet in diameter, crowded with all the latest computer equipment. But the computers had burst open, their silicon contents spilling out like fruiting bodies, spreading themselves up the walls and across the ceiling like silver ivy, even dropping down in encrustations like silicon stalactites. The computers here were living things, growing things, fuelled by the sexual energies from above. Self-centred, self-perpetuating. The air-conditioning gusted like heavy breathing, and the monitor screens all around me could have been eyes or mouths or other orifices. The four Chelsea Lovers stood together in the middle of it all, looking at me expectantly.
"Word is, there’s a traitor inside the Drood family," I said. "I want to know everything you know about that."
They nodded in eerie unison, and one of them ran a hand caressingly over a computer console. It was a slow, sensuous lover’s touch. I could feel beads of sweat popping out on my forehead. Normal people weren’t supposed to be exposed to things like the Chelsea Lovers. Just their presence was toxic to ordinary humans. The computers hummed thoughtfully to themselves. The Chelsea Lovers stood together, in the same stance, even breathing in unison. Their eyes didn’t blink as they considered me. I could feel a presence, a pressure, forming in the room. A desire, a need, a physical imperative…
"What’s it all for?" I said abruptly. "I mean, all of this. The Chelsea Lovers. The Kit Kat Club. The sex magic and the computers. What’s the point of it all?"
"Apocalypse," said one of the women, and they all smiled a little more widely. "The real sexual revolution, come at last. We want to turn the whole world on. Using sex magic, computer magic, ritual and passion, instinct and logic, flesh and silicon bonded together in unthought-of ways, to work a tidal change in reality itself. We will make the whole world sexual. Fetishize everything in it, the living and unliving, suffusing the whole world with a passion and an appetite that will never end. A great joyous sexual apocalypse, the climax of history. The biggest bang of all. Endless sensation, endless pleasure…And we shall all worship the new flesh, forever and ever and ever…"
She broke off as a face appeared on all the monitor screens at once. The computers had discovered the identity of the new rogue Drood, and it was me. My face was on every wall, with my real name beneath it. The family had released my true identity to the world. The Chelsea Lovers turned as one to orientate themselves on me. They weren’t smiling anymore. They each thrust one hand out at me, and sex hit me like a fist. I cried out, convulsing helplessly as passion burned in me like a fever, like the nightmares you have when your temperature rises and your blood boils in your brain. I wanted to go to them, on my hands and knees if necessary, and worship their flesh with my own. I would have begged, would have died, for their lightest touch, for the pleasure of their favour.
But there was still just enough Drood training and pride left in me to hold them off, just enough for me to be able to subvocalise the Words, and my armour flashed around me, golden and glorious, sealing me off from all attack. I staggered backwards, suddenly myself again, like a man who lurches back from the very edge of a cliff. The Chelsea Lovers cried out in one awful voice, full of rage at the sight of Drood armour. I jumped up, the strength of my legs amplified by my armour, and I went soaring up through the orifice and back into the Kit Kat Club above.
I erupted back into that fleshy, cavernous place, and people fell back from me, shouting and screaming. I had broken the mood, or the Chelsea Lovers had. I ran for the door, and all at once, in answer to some unheard signal, everyone in the room surged forward to attack me. Blows and kicks came from every direction, though I couldn’t feel them through the armour, and naked people grabbed at my arms and legs, trying to pull me down. I ran on, kicking and pushing people out of the way, and none of them could slow or stop me. They clutched at me with endless hands and crowded in before me, blocking the way to the door with their bare bodies. I focused on just moving forward, not striking out, though every instinct yelled in me to fight. With my armour’s strength I could kill these people, and I didn’t want to do that. Unlike some of my family, I still believed in (mostly) innocent bystanders.
I could see the door, up ahead. The huge bouncer came forward to stop me, his huge hands opening and closing eagerly. I hit him once, and he fell backwards, blood flying on the air, to be trampled underfoot by the packed crowds still pressing forward. Strange forces crackled on the air around me, sex magic and computer energies from the room below, crawling over my armour, trying to force a way in. There were screaming faces all around me now, desperate people clutching at me, wrapping their arms around my legs, reaching down from the ceiling to clatter their hands uselessly against my golden head. Naked men and women crawled all over me, slowing me down by sheer weight and press of bodies.
I reached through my armoured side and drew my needle gun. I still had it. Strictly speaking, I should have handed it in to the Armourer, but what with one thing and another I never got around to it. There were only a few needles left. I aimed the gun at the nearest wall and shot a holy-water ice needle into the nearest pulsing vein. The whole room convulsed, like a great fleshy earthquake. Everywhere, naked men and women were falling away from me, clutching at their heads, crying out in shock and horror. They forgot all about me as the room shook, and I ran for the door.
I pulled the door wide open, and daylight poured in. More screams, as much fear as anger. I looked back. The whole place was convulsing now, with great cracks opening up in the drying-out walls. People dropped out of midair as the magics fell apart, no longer sustained by the endless orgy. Men and women cried and howled and hit out at each other. I’d broken the mood. I nodded, satisfied. I might not have learned anything useful here, but at least the word would go out: that even though I no longer had the support of my family, I was still a force to be reckoned with.
CHAPTER NINE
Dream a Little Dream for Me
So I went back down into the Underground and took the Tube to Leicester Square station. No one wanted to sit next to me in the carriage; in fact, people actually got up to move farther away from me. It took me a while to realise I still stank of musk from the Kit Kat Club. Still, several women did smile at me. And a couple of men. I finally emerged from the station and wandered up St. Martin’s Lane. The evening was drawing on now, and people were out on the town in happily chattering groups. No one paid me any attention, so I guessed the musk was wearing off in the open air. It felt good to be safely anonymous again.