Apocalypse Now Now (36 page)

Mirth turns back to me. ‘You?!’

‘I’m sure I gave you good severance pay and a gold watch for your service,’ I say.

‘Perhaps you are more dangerous than I initially assumed,’ Mirth replies.

I smile. ‘A lot of people make that mistake.’

The Octopus shudders with energy and begins to grow. Its tentacles spill forward onto the tarmac and crush a group of curious onlookers. Suddenly aware that this might not be the work of some avant-garde art collective the rest of the alternate-reality folk begin screaming and running.

The Octopus continues to grow, its metallic body glowing hot with energy. ‘You can still bow before me,’ Mirth says, his voice amplified and echoing down the city streets. ‘Or run.’

I do neither. I have control of the exoskeleton. All the power I’ve ever wanted is right here in these sigils. I see how easily it must have been to become Supreme Leader. With this kind of power this whole world, maybe all worlds, could be my Sprawl. I reach out my mind and touch the necessary sigils. The Mantis begins to lurch, shift and gain in size. I grow until I stand facing the Octopus. Gargantuan Time-travelling Octopus versus Giant Inter-dimensional Mantis. Fight!

Mirth lunges forward but I sidestep and drive a giant Mantis leg through one of his tentacles, pinning it to the tarmac below. He lashes out again, wrapping another tentacle around a train and swinging it through the air like a grey-and-yellow whip. The driver’s carriage hits the Mantis in its oblong head and sends me sprawling backwards into a building. Glass from a hundred windows shatters and I find myself staring into an open-plan office where people look up from their cubicles in disbelief.

I resist the urge to apologise and force the Mantis to lurch around as Mirth brings the Octopus rearing up to hit me with the
bulk of the huge metal body. I’m flung sideways and land heavily on a delivery truck, crushing it. I try not to think of the person who might have been inside it.

I bring the Mantis back to its feet and quickly instigate evasive manoeuvres as the Octopus begins launching cars at me with its many limbs. I dodge a luxury sedan and crash through the streets, hiding behind a large investment bank building. I’m breathing heavily and the hum of the Mantis shudders through my body. Despite the obvious power of the Mantis, I’m clearly no match for Mirth in a street fight.

So I do what I’m best at; I evade. I quickly cross between buildings and pass behind the Octopus, dodging as tentacles shoot out toward me. I try not to think about the death toll as my giant Mantis legs crush vehicles beneath me as I run.

As I crunch my way over cars and trucks, I realise the fatal flaw in my plan. I’m controlling the Mantis with my mind and my mind is getting tired. My temples begin to throb with the strain of it. I begin to slow down and I have to force myself to concentrate to keep it going.

Mirth is gaining behind me. With my mind I uproot several minibus taxis and send them sailing toward him. He bats them out of the way with a contemptuous flick of a tentacle. The effort of launching cars has tired me even further but I continue to keep the Mantis stumbling forward.

Mirth comes within reaching distance and grabs one of the Mantis’s legs and with a jerk sends me sailing into the air. I spin through the evening sky and crash through the faux-Renaissance vaulted roof of a nearby mall. I wince as I see two chubby shoppers with ice creams crushed beneath me.

I push my exhausted mind to pick the Mantis up and erupt out of the ruins of the mall as Mirth looms above me. I manage to push past his tentacles and drive a metallic leg into the cockpit where he sits. He twists and the leg misses but I manage to pin
two of his tentacles down and make the Mantis rear up, ready to drive its legs through Mirth’s brain.

That’s when I’m hit by the missiles. The natives of this alternate Cape Town have obviously tired of the two behemoths wrecking their city and have retaliated by sending several attack helicopters at us. I’m thrown backwards as the missiles slam into the Mantis.

The helicopters surround us and machine-gun fire chatters, sending bullets thumping too close to where I sit. Missiles thud into Mirth and he responds by grabbing two choppers and pile-driving them into the earth. He whips a tentacle around his head, destroying another two helicopters in mid-air. The remaining two execute a wide evasive arc and retreat toward the mountain.

The Octopus, its head scorched by missile blasts, grabs the Mantis by the head and slams me into the earth. The force of the shock is titanic and I lose focus completely. Mirth picks me up like a pro wrestler and throws the metallic body of the Mantis across several Northern Suburbs neighbourhoods.

Black spots swarm across my vision like excited amoebae. My neck feels numb and I struggle to move it. It isn’t broken but I wonder how close it came. I battle to concentrate my mind but know if I don’t I’m going to be dead in seconds. I push the Mantis to its feet and get caught in several layers of razor wire. I look around. I’m being thrown through the outer wall of the nuclear power station at Koeberg.

As I turn around I’m again hit by a tentacle which sends me slamming into the power station. The Octopus blocks out the setting sun in front of me. I lie there in the Mantis exoskeleton and close my eyes. I’ve done all I can. I’ve been swallowed by Cape Town’s supernatural underworld, digested and excreted. I’ve given it my best and it just wasn’t enough. I stop struggling. I let my mind drop from the controls of the Mantis. It’s been great but after sixteen years I’ve come to the point where it’s time to say sayonara to this mortal coil. I let go completely. And then I see.

I see what I can do. I reach out my mind to the reactor next to me and with a single thought I ignite it. At the same time I focus every inch of concentration left available to me to create a bubble of force around me. The reactor ignites and an immense blast-wave spreads around me. I’m thrown about in a tsunami of fire – swept along on a radioactive wave that rips through the city.

Trees, cars, houses and people cease to exist around me. The wave flings me across the city and sends me sprawling against the mountain. Struggling to keep the bubble of force around me, I bring the Mantis to its feet and climb to the top. I stand on the flat surface of Table Mountain and look down.

The city is aflame. Buildings collapse into themselves. The water of the bay is alight which sends massive plumes of steam into the air. It’s the South African Armageddon, Apocalypse Now Now. And I caused it.

Mirth is lurching his way toward me. The metal of the Octopus is bent and twisted and most of his tentacles have been scorched into stumps. He comes closer and my mind is too tired to stop him. He reaches out his one remaining tentacle and pulls me to him. We stand locked in a deadly embrace on top of Table Mountain. I look at the pathetic, burnt Octopus and marshal the last of my strength. I draw the Mantis’s forelegs back and then arc them forward like pincers. They slice through the cockpit and pin Mirth to the seat, his arms splayed like some exotic moth being mounted by an entomologist.

Frothy pink blood erupts from his mouth with a pathetic little gurgle.

I make the Mantis bend down in front of him. ‘Game over,’ I say.

‘You almost believed me,’ he wheezes through a mouthful of blood. ‘Give me that at least.’

‘If you’re expecting some kind of grudging respect for the
complex beauty of your plan, then you can forget it, you pathetic, ponytailed freak,’ I say.

That seems to hurt him more than the spike of ancient metal I’ve jackhammered through his ribcage. His face sags and he struggles for breath.

‘I created you,’ he says. ‘I changed the course of history to create you. Think of that. I could have done anything and I created you.’

‘How touching,’ I say, ‘a Luke-I-am-your-great-great-grandfather moment.’

‘We are family,’ he says, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. ‘You can’t change that.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘But I can watch you die with a smile on my face.’

‘That’s my boy,’ he chokes out and then begins to convulse.

I watch until the last spasmodic jerk racks his body and he lies still.

Fire laps at the edges of my protective bubble as I stand looking over this decimated version of Cape Town. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say and then feel stupid. Somehow I don’t think these people need my platitudes after I have brought nuclear Armageddon upon them. I focus my mind again and try to remember what I had done to jump dimensions. Closing my eyes, I create an image of the Dark Lady in my mind. I need to make sure I get my dimension, not just one similar to it, so I focus on the one thing I care enough about in my version of reality. I focus on my version of Esmé.

The jump back is easier than I thought it would be. Like stepping through a beaded curtain. I see Rafe and Esmé on the deck of the warship. Esmé turns to me and I smile. It’s her. It’s my Esmé. She runs toward me but I shake my head and she stops. There’s something I have to do first.

CrowBax:
You’ve got to admit it, this Mantis is a seriously pimping ride.

SienerBax:
You know we can’t keep it, right?

CrowBax:
Maybe we could keep it in the garage and take it out on weekends, like a vintage Porsche?

SienerBax:
I hope that’s a joke.

CrowBax:
Even I can see that idea, however awesome, wouldn’t work.

SienerBax:
Do you know what this means? We’re actually agreeing on things.

CrowBax:
If you start crying I’m going to give us a brain haemorrhage.

Think of smoking dark-chocolate-flavoured heroin cigarettes while inhaling pure sunshine through your pores and having sex with the entire world screaming your name in adoration and worship. Think of having that for eternity. That’s what having complete control of the Mantis is like. And then think of walking away from that. Impossible! Unthinkable! But that’s what I do. It’s not because I’m a good person. It’s precisely because I’m not a good person that I do it. If I keep the Mantis I won’t use it for good. Oh sure, maybe at first I’ll try to do good things. I’ll try for universal peace and all that, but pretty quickly my Crow side will kick in and I’ll start being power-hungry and evil. A universe with Baxter Zevcenko as the Supreme Leader? Nobody wants that, least of all me.

I dig my mind into the exoskeleton and unravel it. Particles begin to unwind as I reverse the magic African metallurgists created thousands of years ago. I see windows to other worlds close and it saddens me. It would have been cool to see some of those versions of reality without bringing a nuclear winter down onto them. I step out of the Mantis and watch as it crumbles into dust.

‘Baxter,’ Esmé says. She pulls me to her and kisses me on the lips. It’s not the honey-sunshine-heroin power of the Mantis. But it’s pretty close.

KYLE AND I
are sitting on the roof of one of Westridge’s prefab classrooms when Anwar is stabbed. We watch him walk haughtily across the Sprawl without any of his enforcers. That’s Anwar’s way. He wants to show everyone that he’s not afraid of anything. Which doesn’t stop a group of the Form from surrounding him and sticking a knife in his belly.

He collapses, swearing at his assailants, and then rolls into a ball on the tar.

‘We need to get this on video,’ Kyle says, searching his pockets for his phone as Anwar rolls onto his back clutching at his stomach. It’s two hours after school has ended and there is nobody else around except us.

‘We could sell it,’ I say.

‘Denton will pay a lot for this,’ Kyle agrees, finding his phone and aiming it at Anwar. ‘But we might make more from ads if we put it on YouTube.’

‘You know we have to help him?’

Kyle turns to look at me. ‘I think you’ve lost the entrepreneurial spirit, Bax,’ he says and flicks his camera closed with a sigh.

‘I know,’ I say.

We climb down onto the tarmac and walk over to where Anwar is lying in a pool of blood on the tar.

‘Come to gloat, Zevcenko?’ he croaks.

‘Actually we thought we might help,’ I say.

Anwar tries to laugh and then grimaces from the pain. ‘If you think I’m going to give you the porn back, you’re an idiot,’ he says.

‘We don’t want it,’ I say.

‘We don’t?’ Kyle asks.

I shake my head. ‘The Spider is done with the porn business.’

Kyle takes out his phone again and points it at Anwar. ‘Snuff films, Bax, please tell me we’re moving on to snuff films.’

I push Kyle’s phone down. ‘Nope.’

Anwar manages a contemptuous smile. ‘Your little girlfriend has made you soft, Zevcenko.’ I stick out my foot and jab my hard school shoe into the knife wound. He breathes in sharply and closes his eyes.

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But don’t fucking push me.’

We call an ambulance and put pressure on the wound with a school jersey while we wait for it to arrive. Anwar stoically refuses to look at us. I think of leaving him to die more than once.

When the ambulance finally arrives the paramedics usher us away and then strap Anwar down and lift him into the back. ‘I suppose you want me to thank you,’ he says from behind the oxygen mask.

‘Your happy smiling face is all the thanks I need,’ I say. He manages to lift a hand and give me the middle finger as the medics close the ambulance doors.

‘You know what this means?’ I say as the ambulance pulls away.

‘That we’re in serious shit,’ Kyle says. ‘This is what we’ve been working to stop. They’re going to question everyone. EVERYONE. There’s no way people are not going to squeal. Shit, the cops are going to get involved. Bax, what the hell are we going to do?’

‘We’re not going to do anything,’ I say.

‘What?!’ Kyle looks like I’ve just punched him in the stomach.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ I say.

‘Bax,’ he says, ‘think logically. I know it’s been a lot to deal with but we can’t just –’

‘No,’ I say. ‘We’re not going to do anything. I’m going to do it. I’ll confess to it. All of it.’