‘They’re frightened,’ I said, looking up at her. She glanced down at me but went back to staring in the fire. ‘We’re frightened,’ I corrected myself. ‘Well maybe not Buck and Gibby; they’re just arseholes.’
‘Mudge is as well.’
‘Yes, but he’ll die for you,’ I said with certainty.
‘Huh?’
‘He’s just like that with his friends. I suspect he tries to keep their numbers low by behaving like a prick, and he’s also frightened.’ She turned and looked at me.
‘Do you think I’m a hybrid?’ she asked.
‘You’re prettier than Them,’ I said, and straight away knew I’d said the wrong thing. How was it she was eighteen and smarter than me?
‘And that’s it, isn’t it? I shouldn’t fucking bother trying to make things better for myself or anyone else. I should just lie on my back and be happy with the… the… fucking commodity that I’ve got, yeah?’ she spat.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Tell me something, Jakob. Do you miss me being afraid? Do you miss the frightened little made-up girl-whore you found on the Rigs?’
I hadn’t realised until she said it that it wasn’t the hooker I missed, but the feeling that I was protecting her, looking after her. It must have been written all over my face.
‘You cunt,’ she said, shaking her head, and turned to walk off. I sat up slightly and swept the legs out from under her. She cried out as she landed on the concrete on her arse. We were beginning to draw attention from some of the others around the fire. I stared at a couple of them; my eyes would’ve been black pools not even reflecting the flames. People went back to their own business. I hadn’t been paying attention and only just managed to block Morag’s straight-arm strike.
‘Okay, great, Morag. You’ve got some hand-to-hand softskills, we’re all very impressed.’ I turned to look at her. She was angry now.
‘Out of my league, am I? Want to teach me a lesson in helplessness? Do you not think I’ve had enough of those?’
‘I’m sorry!’ I shouted more out of desperation than anything else. ‘What do you want me to do about it? Sometimes we’re all going to be helpless in situations that we can’t do anything about, and in the circles you’re travelling in at the moment I’m afraid you’re going to meet a lot of people more dangerous than you.’
‘Only physically,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t so long ago that you were the helpless one and it was me that was doing the rescuing and, guess what? We managed it without violence.’ She was right. The hackers were the dangerous ones; all I was was a weapon.
‘And we’re back to where we started. We’re scared of you,’ I said softly, and lapsed into silence. We sat there staring at the fire for a while. Eventually Morag produced my bottle of whisky from her bag.
‘You left it back at Crawling Town,’ she said, taking a swig and passing it to me.
‘That was careless of me.’ I took a long pull. I welcomed the burn down my throat; my stomach was less sure but I bit down on the nausea. I reached into my pocket for one of the pills that Papa Neon had given me to help cope with the symptoms, keep me going to the last. I hoped that Morag hadn’t noticed. I washed it down with another pull of whisky.
‘You want to fuck me,’ Morag said. It wasn’t a question, she almost sounded resigned. I shook my head. I was starting to feel angry.
‘What am I supposed to say to that?’ I asked her.
‘You could admit it – admit that you think I owe you.’ I turned to look at her. She was watching me, the glow of the flames reflected on her pale skin.
‘I want you. You don’t owe me a fucking thing,’ I said and got up. I wasn’t sure who I was more disgusted with. Yes, I was. It was me. How was she supposed to respond to this? How was I any different to any of her old johns? I was just another dirty old man and I needed to stay away from her. I started to walk away.
‘I’m not an alien,’ she said. I stopped. ‘Bring the whisky back.’ I sat back down, weak in every way. ‘Will you hold me?’ she said. I pulled her close. Was this what I wanted? She felt so small and vulnerable. I realised that I didn’t want her to be scared or hurt. That was pretty much the best I could do. I didn’t know what it meant. ‘We talk, or we try to,’ she said, confusing me.
‘Who?’ I asked, wondering if she meant us.
‘Ambassador.’
‘You realise you can do things you shouldn’t be able to,’ I told her. She looked up at me.
‘I’m good, I mean really good. It’s not just Ambassador; I was born for this,’ she said.
‘I believe you, but Pagan’s not just professionally jealous, he’s genuinely scared. He thinks that Ambassador is, I don’t know, changing you or controlling you.’ She didn’t say anything. ‘Morag?’
‘Ambassador’s just information,’ she said. ‘Pagan thinks I’m possessed or something.’ She was hiding something. ‘He thinks I’m the Whore of Babylon,’ she finally said.
‘Huh?’ I asked, sounding ever so intelligent.
‘That I have truck with demons.’
‘You mean Them?’
She nodded. Well she did have truck with Them. We were just gambling that They weren’t as bad as we thought They were. Even though that flew in the face of everything I knew about Them.
‘It’s a hacker myth, a son of anti-Messiah who betrays us to Them. Judas to the entire human race. Vicar said the same thing,’ she said.
‘When?’
‘ "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication." It’s from the Christian Bible, Revelation. I looked it up,’ she said, her voice flat and emotionless. Fucking hacker religious mania. Fucking Vicar.
‘Vicar was always quoting from Revelation. Besides, he was insane.’
‘You know, I don’t think he was,’ she mused. ‘Papa Neon said something similar when you were out of it. He tried to pass it off as a joke but I got the reference.’
‘What the fuck has voodoo got to do with Revelation?’
‘There’s no such thing as voodoo, that was made up for the vizzes. Papa Neon practises a religion called Vodou.’ The word sounded the same to me. ‘Which is west African religious practices influenced by Catholicism.’
‘Really embracing the religious side of hacking, huh?’ I asked.
‘He sees Loa, spirits in the net, and talks with them,’ she continued.
‘And they’ve been talking about you?’
‘Apparently.’ How could I tell her that this was all bullshit? That it was just one story feeding another. We weren’t much beyond burning witches. How much pressure could we bring to bear on this one teenaged girl?
‘And Pagan thinks you’re this…?’ I didn’t want to use the word.
‘Whore? Everyone wants to call me a whore.’ As if she didn’t have enough to deal with at the moment. ‘He hasn’t said as much but I can see it in his eyes.’ Then she looked a little embarrassed. ‘Besides, I know he’s been researching it in the net.’ That was odd.
‘And he doesn’t know you know?’ I asked.
‘Nope.’ That meant that she had outwitted an experienced hacker like Pagan. Spied on him and hadn’t been caught. No wonder he was frightened. No wonder we all were.
‘Morag, do you think Ambassador has changed you?’ I asked more forcefully than I’d meant to. She looked up into my lenses.
‘Of course it has, how could it not? And the cyberware in my head’s changed me, and you’ve changed me, and Pagan’s changed me. Ambassador doesn’t control me, he’s so gentle. I don’t think I could explain what it’s like talking to him.’ This was beginning to sound worrying.