‘No offence to your friend here, but he ain’t telling us shit,’ Balor said. It was the first time he’d really spoken. He’d spent most of his time staring at Gregor, who now swivelled his head round to look at the one-eyed pirate.
‘I was kind of busy being experimented on,’ Gregor said evenly.
‘And you’ve admitted that they can programme you,’ Buck said. I saw Gibby looking distinctly uncomfortable.
‘Yeah, it’s slightly less subtle than the way they control everyone else,’ Gregor said. I sat more upright in my chair, somewhat surprised at this insight. I gave it some thought.
‘I’m not fucking programmable,’ Balor said.
Gregor looked Balor right in the eye. ‘You used to serve,’ he said. I guessed he just didn’t understand the whole respect thing that Balor was supposed to command.
‘Did I?’ he asked. ‘That didn’t feel like what I was doing…’
‘Fine, but it was what the rest of us were doing,’ I said. ‘Except Mudge.’
‘That doesn’t mean he’s not still controllable or under their control,’ Balor said.
‘He’s not,’ Morag said. ‘We dealt with that.’
‘Then who is in control, the alien or the man?’ Gibby asked.
‘Both,’ Gregor said. ‘And believe me I have more motivation than the rest of you to stay under my own control and deal with the Cabal.’
‘Besides,’ I added. ‘If he was still working for them, where are they? They’ve got no good reason for leaving us free.’
‘Deal with the Cabal?’ Buck asked. ‘How we supposed to deal with this Cabal if they’re as powerful as you say?’ It was a good point.
‘I don’t know,’ Gregor said. ‘But you will need to deal with them soon because they will want me back and they certainly can’t let knowledge of my existence leak.’
‘So let’s leak it,’ Mudge mused. Pagan looked over at him thoughtfully.
‘We need to release God,’ Morag said suddenly.
Pagan’s thoughtful expression suddenly disappeared. ‘It’s not ready.’
Morag wore a look of irritation on her face that said this wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. I took another mouthful of whisky from my tin mug. Mudge had produced a bottle of decent whisky. I think he’d stowed it to celebrate Gregor’s liberation. I’m not sure how celebratory Mudge was feeling about it now. I was mildly drunk, which wasn’t really helping the constant nausea but was giving it a sort of warm glow.
‘It is ready but it might not be perfect,’ Morag said. ‘And you didn’t see it.’ I had been wondering about this but the right time to broach it just never seemed to come up.
‘What happened to you in the facility’s net?’ I asked. All eyes turned to Morag, who shifted uncomfortably, not enjoying being the centre of attention suddenly, but there was something else. She was scared – not the general scared of doing dangerous things but real terror.
‘She overreacted to a very nasty security program,’ Pagan said.
‘Oh bullshit!’ Morag shouted at him.
Pagan sighed. ‘Look, Morag. Nobody’s saying that you haven’t come far and fast in a little time. You’re probably the most gifted hacker of your generation, but the fact is you’ve never been up against serious security with illegal black-attack programming. It cuts through your neural ware’s own defences and goes straight for the biofeedback.’
‘If she said she saw the devil then we should believe her,’ Rannu said. I thought this was creepy somehow.
‘You saw the devil?’ I asked. I knew Morag had been eagerly awaiting her first net-bound religious vision. It seemed unfortunate that it had been the devil.
‘When we entered the system they tried a purge, sent a firestorm program ahead of us. It was good but like any purge there’s always something left. We were sifting through the wreckage trying to get what we could…’ Pagan said.
‘What did you get?’ I asked.
‘We’ll get to that,’ he said. ‘They’d left a particularly nasty security program in there to get us.’
‘It was more than that; it was like God…’ Morag said.
‘Only evil,’ I suggested, smiling. Morag glared at me.
‘It was frightening, there’s no doubt about it,’ Pagan said. ‘It was sophisticated and dangerous.’
‘But you dealt with it?’ I asked. Pagan shook his head, his dreadlocks whipping from side to side.
‘No, it went for Morag first-’
‘Because it knew who the dangerous one was,’ Rannu said. I don’t think he was purposely trying to goad Pagan, but if he was he was doing a good job.
‘So we ejected,’ Pagan said, trying to ignore Rannu. I knew that they hadn’t gone back into the facility’s isolated net.
‘So you can’t be sure it was just a security program?’ I asked.
‘Look. Morag’s never been hit that hard and has become used to thinking that she’s invulnerable in the net. The thing rose out of the obsidian like some enormous bloody worm triggering just about every one of our conditioned fear triggers.’ He sounded exasperated. At the mention of the worm Gregor’s head had spun round to look at Pagan.
‘When you said "bloody worm" did you mean the worm was covered in blood?’ he asked. Pagan nodded. ‘You know the project name?’ Gregor asked.
‘Project Blackworm,’ Pagan said. ‘But I don’t see what that has to do with it.’
‘Can you tell us what you found in there?’ I asked.
‘Broadly speaking it confirms Gregor’s story,’ said Pagan. ‘The overall project is called Project Blackworm, which is presumably why the security looked the way it did. The project’s designed to harvest Their biotechnology for a number of different applications.’
‘Did it mention why they started the war?’ I asked. Pagan shook his head.
‘Did it mention the sub-projects?’ Gregor asked.
‘Yes,’ Pagan said.
‘Which are?’ I probed.
‘Project Crom and Project Demiurge,’ Pagan said.
‘It was Demiurge,’ Morag said.
‘Why would they leave Demiurge in a system they’ve purged and presumably abandoned?’ Pagan demanded irritably.
‘Then it was a fragment of Demiurge,’ Morag insisted.
‘Like you’re a fragment of God?’ Pagan said.
‘Guys?’ I interrupted.
‘Demiurge is the software application of Themtech,’ Pagan explained.
‘So?’ I asked.
‘So it’s as sophisticated as God and potentially as powerful, if not more so because they’ve got a lot more resources to throw at it.’
‘So what happens if Demiurge gets out into the net?’ I asked.
‘Same as if God got out, only presumably less benevolent. I’m guessing it would mean Gregor’s Cabal would control all information. The easy way, I mean,’ said Pagan.
‘How do we know they haven’t already released it and are in control?’ Mudge asked.
‘They haven’t. I’d know,’ Morag assured him.
Pagan glanced irritably over at her. ‘As far as we can tell they haven’t perfected it yet.’
‘Which is why we need to release God into the net as quickly as possible,’ Morag said.
Mudge looked very uncomfortable at this suggestion.
‘What’s Project Crom?’ I asked, forestalling what I suspected would be another argument.
‘As far as I can tell, it’s a viral weapon,’ Pagan said.
‘It’s an application of the control bionanites they used on me,’ Gregor answered.
‘What application?’ Mudge asked.
‘Basically infect, replicate, control,’ Gregor answered.
‘What?’ Mudge asked.
‘Them.’
‘All of Them?’ I asked incredulously. Gregor and Pagan nodded.
‘Are you talking about this Cabal taking total control of an entire alien race?’ Mudge asked.