“There’s hundreds, thousands of threads like it. Defiance forums have become the place where people from the two worlds are chatting. Some of them are a bit more serious. Isn’t it great?” Athena shook her head in amazement. “I had no idea this was going to happen when I invited them in.”
“It’s wonderful. See, it’s not all bad, this new situation we’re in.” There was a warm smile on Nathan’s lips.
“No, not bad at all. In fact, it’s getting exciting.”
A gentle buzz from the pocket of my hoodie made me jump. It was Michelotto’s pager.
“I bet he’s got a lead on the Dark Queen,” Milan said, glancing up at me.
“Probably.” As the text scrolled around, I entered the terms into the decoder. “He wants to meet me right away, in a place called Gilgamesh Square.” I looked up questioningly at Athena, who shrugged and returned to her computer.
“You know, Ghost, you don’t have to go. Not now. If Erik’s plan works, we don’t need to kill the Dark Queen and we don’t need Michelotto.” Nathan looked at me with concern.
“Maybe. But if he wants me to help take out the Dark Queen, I’ll still do it.” Even talking about the idea gave me a surge of satisfaction, of revenge achieved. “Suppose she gives in to Erik and his people. Lifts the addiction and as a result they leave. As soon as they’re gone, she’ll take her anger out on us, and anyone who helped them. Any pardon she promised won’t be worth a red credit.”
“I agree,” Milan said, scowling. “Go kick her ass.”
“But what about Erik’s people?” Nathan persisted. “If you kill the Dark Queen, there’s no hope for them, is there?”
The question troubled me. A little.
“Yeah, I’d like to help them. We have been helping them. But we have to look after ourselves, too.” I got up and kicked my board awake.
“Wait, Ghost. For the first time in all the years I’ve known you, I think you’re making a mistake. A big one. Two million people will die if you kill her.” Nathan stared at me earnestly.
“Athena?” I looked to her for help.
“Don’t ask me. I don’t know. There’s too many variables. For a start, I don’t trust Michelotto, either. With him as king, are things really going to get better for reds, or was he just saying that to keep us on his side? To keep you on his side. On the other hand, how long can we live our lives like rats? On pizza deliveries.” She scowled at Milan to head off a smart remark; he smiled innocently, lifting his shoulders, arms wide. “If you and Michelotto can kill the Dark Queen, I think that’s the best chance things will work out for us. But I feel it would be wrong to condemn those human beings to death, especially now that they seem to be getting somewhere with their protests.”
“So, what are you saying?” I challenged her.
“I’m saying—Don’t ask me, I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m going to see what he has to say, at least.”
“We should probably all come along,” Nathan suggested.
“Yeah.” Milan put down his pizza.
“Come on then.”
It took us an hour of hard boarding to get to Gilgamesh Square, and my thigh muscles were beginning to ache by the time we arrived. Athena had located it for us, in an abandoned residential area. Tall redbrick tenements overshadowed an old fountain, long broken and covered in several layers of graffiti.
An airbike was at rest in the darkest corner of the square, and Michelotto was standing beside it, dressed, as always, in black. I could sense the cold blurry void around him, where in a normal person were signs of life: heat, breath, heartbeat.
“Where have you moved the tank to?” He addressed us as soon as we were sufficiently close that he needn’t raise his voice.
“Did you see Erik’s newscast?” Athena asked him in return.
“Yes?”
“That was us; we got them into Newscast 1. But we had to abandon it.”
“I see.” He nodded to himself.
“So, what’s up? Got a bead on Queenie?” Milan stepped off his board with a swagger.
“No. I’m here to talk to Ghost, to perform a test.”
“Can I ask you something?” Nathan interjected before we could find out more. “You know how the Dark Queen has addicted Erik’s people. Do you think you could treat them? Cure them?”
Michelotto shrugged. “Possibly. I understand the theory but I’ve never tried it. The idea of such contact is too . . . too intimate for me.” He scowled. “There’s something slightly perverse about inserting moments of ecstasy into alien minds.”
“Would you do it, though, or reverse the effects of whatever she has done?” Nathan looked at him earnestly.
“It bothers you?”
“That two million people who might otherwise be our friends may die? Of course it bothers me.”
“That’s very empathetic of you,” Michelotto commented dryly. “Personally I don’t have such feelings, but if, in return for Ghost’s assistance in the elimination of the Dark Queen, she wished me to try, I would do my best.”
Nathan looked at me. I nodded at Michelotto.
“So be it,” he said. “But now to test Ghost’s skills.” From the carrier on the side of his airbike, Michelotto took out a metal tube. He opened it, holding it near the ground, allowing the parts it contained to fall to the floor. We came closer, to watch as he assembled a pulse rifle. When it was complete, Michelotto glanced around our group with a flash of his dark eyes.
“Here.” He tossed the rifle to Milan. “You just line up the sights and pull the trigger.”
“Cool.” As Milan admired the silver weapon, resting the thin curved stock against his right shoulder, Michelotto walked slowly toward the far wall, his footsteps ringing out across the pavement.
He turned to face us. “Shoot me.”
“You’re kidding?” Milan lowered the rifle.
“No. Really, shoot me. Don’t worry; you won’t hit.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain.”
“Here goes then.” With a high-pitched hiss and the smell of ozone, a shimmering bolt of ruby light shot from the gun, leaving a bright trail across our vision that couldn’t be blinked away. Michelotto was unharmed, a black mark on the wall beside him.
“Again.”
Hiss.
“Again.”
Hiss.
“Once more.”
Hiss.
Milan shook his head in amazement and dialed down the weapon to standby. The four black marks to the side of Michelotto formed the corners of a perfect diamond.
“How did you do that? I was aiming at your heart.”
“That’s what I wish to teach Ghost. Come on over here, please.”
I looked up at the mention of my name, then walked across the square. This was a trick I wanted to know.
“When he fires, firstly you have to speed up your perceptions, so that you have time to deal with the energy. Then imagine a thread of air molecules connecting you to the bolt. Twist the thread, steer the energy of the pulse, just like you controlled the wire-guided missiles.” He stared into my eyes, to see if I understood. I shrugged.
“Fire here.” Michelotto called out to Milan, pointing to the space between the four black marks on the wall. He turned to me and said, “Try to push it to the side.”
Across the cold stone floor, Milan raised the rifle. “Ready, Ghost?”
“Ready.”
He fired. A new black mark on the wall, in the dead center of the four marks.
“Again,” Michelotto called out.
Another black mark. Some plaster fell away, revealing the crumbling, scorched brick underneath.
“Again.”
There was no trace of discontent in Michelotto’s voice, but I was getting annoyed and my vision was confused by the bright trails of the shots I had been trying to focus upon.
“Let me try something.” I kicked up, so I was floating on my board, feeling it bob and sway slightly beneath me. This ought to have made things even harder, but by imagining I was about to perform a really challenging board trick, I felt the world settle into place all around. “Now.”
This time the bolt of fiery energy came toward me in discrete jerks. There was time to look at it, somehow shielding my eyes from the full glare. There was a line from me to the bright sphere, a line of molecules. It was a path that I had created and was conscious of, simply by focusing upon the space between the onrushing energy and my eyes. And even though the blast of ruby fire was devouring the chain, scattering its links with every passing moment of time, I was connected. I could feel it coming. Twisting, compressing, pushing, thinning. It was suddenly easy to move the bolt from its path. I steered it wide of the target area, then, exerting myself to the utmost, I forced the bolt up the wall, around in a curve, reversing it, steering it, then letting it dissipate into the bottom of the large ♥ I had scored on the wall.
I smiled proudly, looking down from my board. Michelotto’s mouth fell open; he took a step backward, back to the wall, astonished and fearful. “No one, not even the Dark Queen . . .” His whisper trailed off. My friends were cheering and clapping.
“Hey, Ghost, do something with these.” Milan raised the gun again and depressed the release button. It was now on auto-fire and the pulses of energy poured out of it.
Again the world slowed down so that the ruby bolts appeared to be like a line of dots, growing longer by one each time the universe moved. This time, I steered them into a whirling circle, filling the square with a blaze of scarlet light. Around and around they whirled, melting the air. It was possible to make them undulate, so that the circle I had formed gained a wobble, then appeared thicker but less bright. I spread them, forming a column, before bringing the bolts together once more and sending it into the old fountain. An explosion shattered the granite sculpture, sending gray splinters flying through the darkness, causing us to cower. There was far more energy in that collection of bolts than I had realized.
“Whoa!” Nathan ducked, flinging his arm over his eyes.
“Oops, sorry,” I called out, and boarded over to them. “Everyone good?” They were straightening up, unharmed. A song of delight welled up inside me. I could control the blasts of a pulse rifle! What else was possible?
“Ghost, you really are something special.” Milan switched off the rifle and gave me a thump on the shoulder.
“That’s incredible. I would have said impossible.” Athena’s voice was hesitant. I smiled eagerly at her, wanting her to share my excitement, not to be alienated from me.
“It’s like when I’m boarding.”
She shook her head. “No. This is something else again. Let’s face it, Ghost, you’re a strange creature.”
I must have looked anxious, for Nathan immediately gave me a hug. “You’re one of us, though, and wherever that talent is coming from, it’s amazing.”
The steady footsteps of Michelotto approached. There was an expression on his face that I had never seen before: respect.
“With an ability like that, you might be able to kill the Dark Queen on your own. Together, we can certainly destroy her.”
“Let’s do it then,” I replied, feeling as if I could stride across half the world with a single step. There was such energy in my body.
“Ghost, who are you really? Thetis?” Michelotto leaned in, and I shrank back from him, suddenly chilled, the black space in my memory spreading out to taint everything with sepia. It occurred to me that if he thought me his enemy, he would kill me at once. Perhaps I had been mistaken, reveling in my new abilities like that; perhaps he now had me marked down for execution after we had killed the Dark Queen.
“I don’t know.” Who was this Thetis anyway? When we had first met Michelotto he had mentioned her. A RAL who had gone missing? Was I Thetis? Neither my heart nor my mind gave any response to the question.
Chapter 27
HUMILIATION
Our world falls
apart. Our center cannot hold. The cup holdeth but bitter dregs, and it is these that We must now drink. Oh, how We rue Our mistakes; they circle constantly in Our thoughts. It is a barren and unhelpful circuit they travel, and We understand how maudlin and self-absorbed We have become.
The particular manner in which We used to dress, taking care with Our choice of clothes, is a pattern of behavior that belongs to the past, when the cold lethargy of disheartenment did not stifle Our enthusiasm for what now seems a triviality. This morning, We simply lace Our boots and stand upright, with hardly a glance in the mirror. Defeat is a horrid word and an even more horrible experience. But it is not death, We tell ourselves, and We must retreat to fight again.
“Your Majesty?”
A screen lights up to show Us Our Grand Vizier. The wary expression on his face is a harbinger of more bad news.
“Report.”
“A new assault.” He pauses, embarrassed to continue. We do not make matters easier for him, and stare back in silence. He clears his throat. “They are outside the Department for Internal Security.”
She will be there, Cindella. She is always there. Nothing makes Us more furious than her impudence, but We must not allow rage and pride to prevent Us from making the correct tactical move.
“Have the chauffeur meet Us outside Block Two.”
“Your Majesty intends to go to Imperial Square?” He hesitates, somewhat anxious.
“What is it?”
“Your safety.”
“Fear not. The only person who represents a genuine threat to Our safety is Michelotto, and We would like nothing more than to encounter him and lay upon him the anger of all Our humiliations.”
It is a cold, gray morning, the sun still below the level of the skyline. Cindella and her people like to strike early, when the streets are less busy, out of a curious consideration for the ordinary people of Saga. Strange, this human empathy. Even with Our furs wrapped around Us, caressing Our body, We still feel a slight shiver. The car is here, though, and, a moment later, warm air fills the partitioned area in which We ride.
“Imperial Square, Your Majesty?” The driver looks in the mirror and We nod.