Big Papa Neon was perfectly attired in glowing graveyard finery, from top hat to tails. His dreadlocks had glowing circuitry woven into them and left fractal patterns in the air as they moved; one eye was covered by a glowing UV monocle. Like Pagan he carried a staff but it was a stick of pale blue luminescence.
Little Baby Neon was something else altogether. Rumour had it that Little Baby Neon was Papa Neon’s younger brother. Little Baby Neon was huge and mainly made of metal. If there was anything of his original body left I couldn’t see it. He was so augmented that there must’ve been very little remaining of his humanity. We were all estranged from our flesh once we started replacing it. Little Baby Neon was divorced from it. He was to all intents and purposes a machine. I’d heard him called a cyberzombie. There had been a mutiny on Proxima. Papa and Baby Neon and some of their people had deserted the Haitian Marines and hijacked an Earth-bound transport. However, some of Baby Neon’s proclivities had become too much even for the Big Neon Voodoo, and Papa Neon had just kept having ware added to his brother. Baby Neon’s metallic hide was covered in the luminescent sinuous figures of veves. Pop Voudun protection from Papa Neon for his near-mindless brother.
And then of course there was Morag. Wearing a black tunic not unlike the one that Messer wore and trousers that looked damn close to leather. Nobody was wearing his or her hazardous environment gear. No Rannu. Took me a while to realise he’d be out on the town somewhere, covering this little meeting. Also, the presence of the Neons notwithstanding, Rannu being Nepalese probably would’ve excited these throwbacks. It was thinking along those lines that made me realise that Morag with her recently shaved head and new costume could’ve passed for one of these fucks.
I hadn’t wanted her to see me like this. Pagan had glanced up at me, Mudge hadn’t, and neither had Morag. She was striding across the Nazi compound like she owned it and she looked angry. There was something very un-Morag about her. If she was acting then she was doing a very good job. Later I would realise that all the time that she was working on the Forbidden Pleasure she would’ve been playing a role. I watched as Messer and a group of his skinheads met Morag and the others.
The rest I got from Mudge’s recording. His camera eyes were mounted on stabilised balls to compensate for the movement of his head, but even so it was a strange first-person perspective. Mudge was striding forward, Morag just in front to his right and Pagan on the other side of her, walking with the Neons and Mrs Tillwater. According to Mudge, Pagan was on very good terms with the Neons, and Mrs Tillwater had been asked to come along because the Wait respected her all-white gang of serial killers, despite them being Baptists. Pagan had friends. Indeed he seemed to be walking with the lords and ladies of Crawling Town.
I saw Messer gesture towards Mudge’s eyes. One of the skinheads moved forward, holding his hands up to block Mudge’s recording. Mudge grabbed the skinhead’s hand and twisted it, forcing the skinhead to bend forward at the waist. Mudge had his Regiment-issue SIG Full Auto in his hand. He pushed the barrel into the skinhead’s shorn skull and looked straight at Messer. The other skinheads brought their weapons to bear. Pagan and the Neons stopped and Mrs Tillwater kept walking around Messer and the group of skinheads, flanking them. From Mudge’s perspective I could see she was carrying an M-19 ACR, the standard assault rifle of the US Army.
Morag, however, kept walking. She walked right up to Messer and backhanded him hard enough to draw blood from his stained purple lips. Watching the recording I was somewhat taken aback by this. Mudge was chuckling, but when Messer turned round I could see that she’d managed to make him lose his composure. Needless to say there were a lot of gun barrels being pointed at her. So she slapped him again. Watching this played back, I burst out laughing. I laughed so much I threw up blood. Messer’s face was now a mask of rage.
‘You are a disgrace to your race!’ Morag spat at him. I watched his eyes widen and the crystal of his multi-faceted eyes turn red. I realised Morag’s strong Dundonian accent had gone.
Who are you, woman, to come here with niggers and say that to me?’ Messer demanded, his voice shaking with fury. Baby Neon stepped forward but Papa Neon laid a hand on him and muttered something in patois that I didn’t understand. It was an interesting approach to negotiation – not sure I would’ve taken it.
‘We being niggers or not, you need to remember where you are, boy,’ Papa Neon said. A lot of the skinheads were spending their time looking nervously between Baby Neon and Mrs Tillwater. Morag softened and stepped in, running her hand down Messer’s face, causing him to flinch.
‘You are a good soldier, Messer,’ she said and then pointed at me. Mudge glanced up. I was a mess. ‘But that is mine and I want it back,’ she said, and then she became all coquettish. ‘And if I don’t get it you will make my masters very unhappy.’ Then she grabbed the skin on the side of his face and was all authoritarian again. ‘Do you understand me?’ Messer looked over at Mrs Tillwater.
‘Mrs Tillwater?’ It was clear that despite Mrs Tillwater being a member of the weaker sex, according to this guy’s fucked-up ideology, she was seen as a kindred soul. It was kind of pathetic really. It was all the more pathetic that these violent little children had taken me down.
‘Well it’s up to you, Messer,’ Mrs Tillwater said, as if she was addressing a Sunday school lesson. ‘But if I were you I’d do what the nice young lady asks.’ I didn’t like the look on her face though. It was as if she wanted to see something. Messer pointed up at me.
‘That is my gift to God,’ he snarled. That upset me; I liked John Coltrane.
‘The gods have other uses for that one,’ Pagan said. Messer’s head snapped round to look at his fellow hacker. I could sense Messer appraising the bizarre tattooed and pierced figure he saw in front of him.
‘And you are?’ Messer asked.
‘Pagan.’ Mudge did a close-up reaction shot of Messer. I could see the punk Nazi’s eyes widen round the red crystalline lenses. He’d heard of Pagan. Pagan held Messer’s stare. You could tell that hacker patriarch was a role he felt comfortable with. It was a bit like watching Messer get spanked. ‘Your god is coming and when it does all the niggers will feel his wrath,’ Pagan said, though it was obvious he was trying to master his distaste. Papa Neon looked over at Pagan with an expression of amusement on his face.
‘The space niggers as well,’ Messer said, looking up at the sky, though mostly all he would see was dust. He was sounding more and more like a desperate child. Mudge had to stifle a laugh as Pagan nodded benevolently.
‘The space niggers as well,’ Pagan said. This was clearly a ridiculous ideology that Messer had discovered. It was difficult to imagine anyone ever having taken this seriously.
Morag sauntered up to Messer, seemingly oblivious to the guns covering her. She stepped behind him and, smiling, leant forward to whisper in his ear.
‘Let me have him back,’ she whispered. It seemed to me that Messer actually flinched. I found out why later: the whisper was the signal for Pagan to send him an encrypted message saying that if he didn’t release me they were going to take me anyway and his people would lose all their respect for him. The only thing he could really do was try and save as much face as possible. I could see him looking between Papa Neon and Pagan. They were the two big-name hackers there. He knew he was outclassed.
‘Conflict is good – it feeds Ogu Bodagris – but boy, you push too hard, both here and in the spirit world. You need to calm yourself,’ Papa Neon said. I could see Messer swallow like he wanted to say something but had decided against it. He ordered me to be taken down.