‘You hacked your way out of your own interrogation?’ I asked, impressed. Obviously you’re not supposed to be able to do that. I guessed the God conspirators really were among the best hackers in the world.
‘To a degree.’
‘Where are your guards?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps I was forgotten.’
‘Nothing gets forgotten any more. God’s always there to remind us.’
‘Did God work?’ Vicar asked.
‘Define “work”?’
‘Tell me everything.’
I glanced around the church. I don’t know why, habit really; after all, we were in part of a sense program. I wouldn’t see them coming. ‘I don’t think I’ve got much time.’
‘More than me.’
‘Can’t we get you out of here first?’
‘How and to where? Just tell me, Jakob. You owe me that much.’
He was right. Besides, I was looking at a beating and prison time. He’d been extensively tortured both in here and in the real world. The bastards seemed to have tortured him so much he’d gone sane.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing at the image of Morag.
‘A crude allegory. Tell me.’
I told him. He listened carefully and rarely interrupted, though he quizzed me on everything I knew about Demiurge and again about what Morag had done in the Dog’s Teeth. I don’t know how long it took. I tried not to think too hard about it but I hadn’t been yanked out just yet.
‘It’s a shame that you released God with those parameters. I don’t think they were strict enough. God is clearly given to introspection, whereas certainty and infallibility would have been more useful.’
‘And you could program that?’
‘Given enough time with the people involved, I think so. You’ve come close to destroying everything we worked for with an ill-thought-out and hurried solution.’
‘Oh I’m sorry. We’ll do better the next time we’re being pursued by a powerful conspiracy.’
Vicar managed to ignore my sarcastic tone and just nod sagely as if he knew I would. ‘In many ways Demiurge will be the finer accomplishment, though it is a tool of control,’ he said.
‘Are you looking to change sides?’
‘Don’t be facetious.’
‘Look, we need to find a way to move you and get you some proper medical treatment. I’ve got some cash if we can find a-’
‘I’m dead, Jakob. I’m just a ghost haunting this machine.’
‘But that’s not-’
‘You need to focus.’ He handed me an old-looking creased paper leaflet.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s a hymn book.’
‘What do I need-’
‘For God’s sake, Jakob, it’s a symbolic transfer of data. It contains all I can remember about Operation Spiral.’
‘What-’
‘If you stop interrupting, I’ll tell you. Get this to Pagan.’ I started to ask why but Vicar just held up his hand. ‘Spiral worked. It was a successful operation.’
‘You hacked Their mind?’
‘Obviously. But we couldn’t understand or deal with it. We weren’t in an electronic space that human minds had designed. We were in a biological mind that once aware of us had no problems repulsing us. It did so in its own terms, with its own references and understanding, which were of course alien to us. Our minds were never going to be able to cope. Our own minds struggled to grasp what was happening to them, to protect us in any way they could, to find a frame of reference that we could understand.’
‘You saw hell?’ I said.
He didn’t say anything but stared straight at me. He looked like he was trying to control rage. Towards who I wasn’t sure. He seemed to calm down.
‘What I’ve since worked out was that in order for it to work, the interface system, which we never saw, had to be either Themtech or some human biotech copy of it. Presumably supplied by the Cabal, which would make sense as Rolleston was present in the build-up to Spiral.’
‘But why bother? They were developing Crom? Complete enslavement?’
‘But they didn’t have Gregor at that time. Crom was still quite crude and remained so if what you tell me was correct, but if they could sneak in then they could start to influence Them.’
‘More thoroughly control the war.’
‘And prolong it if they wished.’
‘Sneak in?’ I asked. I hated IT but an idea was trying to force its way into my head.
‘Now you begin to understand. The others used Ambassador to help provide the operating system and processing power that God would need.’
‘And Demiurge used the same principles because it utilised your conspiracy’s research.’
‘Yes, and had greater access to Themtech and therefore was more reliant on it.’
‘Are you saying we can use the information from Operation Spiral to sneak past it? Hack Demiurge? But the Cabal must control it or at least be aware of it. They’ll see us coming.’
‘How? Everyone’s dead, mad or in my case both, and I was in their custody. Their systems are locked down by Demiurge, and even if they have an agent here who is aware that we have met, this is a sealed system and I have worked very long and hard to cultivate the persona of a notorious lunatic.’ I was only starting to realise how clever Vicar was. ‘Though I’m not denying Pagan and Morag… if she is who… if she is the savant you seem to claim, she will need to do a lot of work on it.’
This was beginning to sound like a chance, a very small one but a chance nonetheless. I hated the way that hope seemed to wriggle into my psyche like an intestinal parasite and get me to do stupid things.
‘Won’t the NSA or GCHQ already have all this info and make it available to Pagan and Morag in the US?’
‘Yes and no. Much of it is classified and Pagan and Morag are known anarchists after all. Also I have been theorising about this ever since I managed to make my sanctum, and I had been working on it before I was caught.’
‘You wanted your own way round God?’
‘Every single one of us would have been doing the same thing while trying to ensure that nobody else could.’
‘But when God-’
‘GCHQ and the NSA keep all the most sensitive stuff on isolated systems.’
‘If we turn this over then it means people can hack God. It means it’s all over. God just becomes a voice on the net. Nothing more than a depressed search engine.’
Vicar actually smiled at this.
‘That was inevitable. They are already trying to circumvent him, destroy him, subvert him. Yes?’ I nodded. ‘For some reason the demands of technology and commerce long ago superseded human concerns. We always try and kill our gods in the end.’
‘So it was for nothing. It’ll just go back to the way it is. That prick Sharcroft is already trying to make it happen.’
‘Nothing? Christ’s life was short.’
‘Look, don’t start giving me this religious bollocks.’
‘He changed everything. If nothing else, then God has at least shown everyone what is happening. The rest is up to us, it always has been. God was just a tool, as are arguably all gods. And it’s not religious bollocks; the whole thing was a secular revelation. Obviously I was just drawing a parallel.’ He was sounding less like Vicar, the frothing religious lunatic I’d known, and more like a university teacher in some old viz.
The church burst into flames.
‘Are we being attacked?’ I asked, alarmed.
‘It’s a virus.’
‘From outside? An attack?’ Vicar went and stood in the flames. They engulfed him but he wasn’t burning like human flesh would.
‘Break the fifth seal, Jakob.’
Despite myself I was backing away from the flames. I could feel the heat from them, virtual or not.
‘They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the Earth and avenge our blood?” Break the fifth seal, Jakob, because Rolleston will surely break the sixth.’