‘Maybe that’s how it would start. Look, we’ve abdicated responsibility to our leaders for too long; we need to take responsibility for ourselves,’ I told him.
‘Which sounds great but is meaningless in terms of implementing it,’ Mudge said.
‘We don’t implement anything,’ I said. ‘We just tell the truth.’
‘What do you have in mind?’ Pagan asked, taking an interest.
‘Starting with the war, we have God reveal every secret there is on the net. Programme it to reveal the objective truth to the best of its abilities. We then have it so it can arrange a system-wide and completely secure referendum-’
‘Tyranny by majority,’ Mudge pointed out.
‘Got a better idea?’ I asked.
‘Take control, murder the Cabal, negotiate peace with Them and then try and make things fairer,’ Mudge said.
‘I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to. If you take control of the net the first thing you’ll do is have a crate of vodka and a crate of drugs delivered to you before continuing your quest for the perfect prostitute,’ I pointed out.
‘Shame your mum’s dead,’ Mudge said and grinned. I felt a surge of anger at his attempt at humour but let it pass.
‘Do you really want to rule the world, Mudge?’ Gregor asked gently. I saw Mudge falter.
‘Well… I thought, not me but…’ he said.
‘Who then?’ I asked. ‘We’re it, man. I ain’t doing it, Pagan won’t, you don’t trust Gregor or Morag. Balor’s a psychotic. No offence.’
‘Offence taken,’ Balor said quietly.
‘Rannu?’ I asked.
‘I don’t want to,’ Rannu said.
‘That leaves Buck and Gibby,’ I replied.
‘Hell yeah!’ Buck said. ‘I always knew I’d amount to something.’
‘He’s not serious,’ Gibby said. Buck looked genuinely disappointed.
‘Do you have any idea how dangerous telling people the truth about everything would be?’ Balor asked quietly.
‘He’s right,’ Pagan added. ‘Lies are used for protective purposes as well as to deceive. This could – this will – cause chaos.’
‘It will tear our society apart,’ Balor said and then grinned. ‘I’m warming to this plan.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said and poured myself another drink. ‘You’re right about lies, but we need to grow up sometimes, and as for our society, what we have now’s not good enough.’
‘But-’ Mudge began.
‘We could argue about this from now until the Cabal finds us. If this works it will mean a huge change for everyone. We could never cover every argument and counter-argument. Either we act or we don’t act,’ Rannu said.
‘But we haven’t come to a decision,’ Pagan said.
‘We’ve got two ideas: either we use God to control the net or we programme God to tell everyone the truth about everything,’ Morag said.
‘And destroy society,’ Mudge added.
‘You value tyranny by majority so much, let’s vote on it,’ Balor said, his voice all but a whisper now.
Morag shrugged. ‘All those in favour of ruling the net?’ she asked.
Buck’s hand shot up. After some consideration Gibby’s went up as well, then Balor’s. I watched Mudge struggle but he didn’t put up his hand.
‘All those in favour of telling the truth?’ Morag asked. I put my hand up; so did Morag. Rannu predictably followed her. Gregor put his hand up as well. Pagan was still thinking. Mudge just shook his head. Finally Pagan put his hand up.
‘So whatever happens, it wasn’t your decision?’ Pagan said to Mudge.
‘Damn straight, just abrogating my responsibility again,’ he said, staring at me.
‘What about the Demiurge?’ I asked Pagan.
‘What about it? If they meet, I have no idea what will happen.’
‘We could programme God to resist it?’ Morag suggested.
‘Should we?’ Pagan asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. The others nodded.
‘Do Rolleston and his people know about God?’ Mudge asked.
‘We’ve no reason to believe so, unless he had intelligence resources in New York,’ Pagan answered.
Balor shook his head. ‘Our discussion was clean, unless Rannu reported in before he changed sides,’ he said.
‘No, I always keep stories about my targets trying to create God out of my official reports. It makes me sound less insane,’ Rannu said without a trace of humour.
‘Besides, who’d believe it?’ I asked. ‘So as far as we know, the Cabal has no reason to rush Demiurge into the net?’ Pagan and Gregor nodded. ‘Will they respond with Demiurge?’
‘That may be the only thing capable of destroying the net,’ Morag said. ‘It would be a very destructive fight and they would have little to gain.’
I could see that Pagan wasn’t convinced but he didn’t say anything.
‘So how long to set God’s parameters?’ I asked.
‘Three to maybe four hours’ work,’ Morag said. Pagan nodded in a resigned manner.
‘Then what?’ Mudge asked. ‘You just release it into the net?’
Pagan considered this. ‘That’s one way of doing it, but it would take a while because of its size, and during the initial stages it would be potentially vulnerable. A node of some kind, a place capable of downloading huge amounts of information very quickly, would be ideal, but we’d have to do it at source.’
‘Like a site?’ I asked. Pagan shook his head.
‘Like a media node?’ Mudge asked.
‘Perhaps,’ Pagan said. Mudge grinned.
‘Mudge?’ I said. He looked over at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘I don’t want to kill anyone else.’ He nodded.
Morag was staring at me.
25
Casually dressed and heavily armed, I had more drugs in me than in a Carrion’s dispensary; just enough to keep me upright, make the pain tolerable and stop the nausea from overwhelming me. I leant against the transport cockpit’s door frame. Gibby’s hands moved across the keyboard, playing something almost bluesy, Buck accompanying him softly on the guitar.
Through the window I could see our lights play over the reinforced concrete of the Spoke as Gibby used the enormous structure to guide his ascent. Below us we could see the Mountain Princess, docked close to several similarly sized ore transports, becoming smaller and smaller.
Morag came and stood by me. Pagan was in the back taking care of Atlantis air traffic control. He and Morag had spent the last six hours setting God’s parameters and getting the program ready to run. The rest of us had spent it sleeping and prepping kit in preparation for Mudge’s half-arsed plan. I’d thrown up some blood as well. I wasn’t sure how real any of this was at the moment – me dying, God, any of it. I think I was just functioning on nerves, a cocktail of drugs and good whisky. The good whisky was almost finished.
Morag was looking out. Light shone through windows in the Spoke and from its aircraft hazard lights, and searchlight beams stabbed high into the night sky. We passed the landing decks growing out from the tower like fungus. We passed balconies of rich revellers who waved at us, unaware that if even half of what Pagan and Morag had said was true then their world was going to be changed tonight. We manoeuvred past other transports, many of them much larger than ours. We passed copters, aircars and various other aircraft, though we kept well clear of shuttle air paths. We rose past factory levels, shopping levels, garishly lit entertainment levels and accommodation levels. We passed huge viz screens mostly showing adverts for things that nobody but Balor could have afforded, and if he wanted he would’ve stolen them anyway. On one of the screens there was footage from the war but you couldn’t see the faces of the soldiers. That was good. I didn’t want to see the suffering faces of people I could be about to betray. Morag took it all in with a near-fixed expression of wonder on her face. I split my time between looking out the window at the tower of light and looking at her.