‘Let him answer,’ Morag told me coldly.
‘It had something to do with Pais Badarn Beisrydd.’
‘Oh this is bollocks,’ I spat.
‘No, no, it’s really not,’ Tailgunner said. ‘Miru’s eel net.’
Pagan was nodding.
‘We’re not just having visions now. We’re not just seeing things on the net that are very real to us despite a total lack of evidence,’ Salem said. ‘Now we’re being given artefacts, programs, pieces of code way in advance of what we can do, maybe as much as four or five generations ahead. Better than the best corp and military stuff. I saw a djinn in the net. She told me to come to you.’
‘A djinn?’ Pagan asked. ‘I though they were all evil.’
‘They are like people – some are good and some are bad. She told me that we cannot trust angels any more.’
There it was again. After all we’d done to break away from being manipulated by the likes of the Cabal, here we were dancing to someone, something else’s tune.
‘So what are they?’ I asked.
‘What they are not is figments of our imagination,’ Tailgunner growled.
‘Or fragments of God,’ Salem said. Tailgunner and Pagan turned sharply to look at him. ‘My faith does not come from the net. They are copies, not spirits. Though these copies may do God’s will.’
‘Which leaves either evolved AIs or aliens,’ I said. Everyone looked uncomfortable. I looked at Pagan. ‘And again I ask why?’
‘The way Ogham spoke suggested that he knew you would get out of there, would be you again. I think that’s why Nuada set up the cage-’
‘It was Nuada who imprisoned me?!’ I was angry again. It was Nuada who had let me hear myself torturing my friends.
Pagan looked up at me. ‘He protected you. Locked part of you, the most important part, away from Demiurge’s control. That’s why we were able to save you.’ Back was the hacker explaining to the technologically uninitiated what he felt was the obvious.
‘And again why?’ As I asked I remembered dreams of blackened glass, fire and a dark sun burning in the sky. The landscape had similarities with the net feed I’d seen in the Cabal’s Atlantis facility.
‘I don’t know. I need to look inside your head again,’ he told me.
‘Oh yeah, now the trust is so strong between us.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Tailgunner said.
‘You’ve already threatened me today.’
‘I’ll do it then,’ Morag said.
‘You tried to kill me!’
‘I will look,’ Salem said. ‘With Jakob’s permission.’
I looked at the calm old man. His weathered leathery features, the fissures in his skin. He was clothed like his icon and everything from those clothes to his calm demeanour seemed out of place here. Then something occurred to me.
‘Pagan, you said the only reason I was saved was because of what Nuada did.’ Morag and Pagan nodded. Both of them looked unhappy. ‘Rannu?’
Their expressions told me everything I needed to know. His screamed obscenities were still echoing through the cave. We’d lost another friend but they’d left us with a twisted mockery just to remind us.
‘I’m sorry,’ Pagan said miserably. He looked broken. It was why he’d gone for me before the exorcism, when I’d been savaging Morag – guilt. I couldn’t find it in myself to feel angry with him any more. I think he’d finally got what he wanted. He was a true priest now, a tool of the gods. I don’t think it was what he’d been expecting.
‘No,’ I said. Everyone turned to look at me. ‘We’re getting him back.’
‘It can’t be done,’ Pagan told me. I could see Salem and Tailgunner shaking their heads.
‘Jakob, listen. Normally I’d be the first to agree we should push this but seriously there’s no way,’ Morag told me. She was trying to control her voice, not show how upset she was about losing Rannu.
‘It reverses the interface, effectively. If meat can control hard- and software, then why not the other way? It’s the same principle as slaveware but Demiurge’s sophistication is such that it’s considerably more insidious, thorough and with none of the drop-off in motor skills. If anything, cognitive abilities increase, particularly if there is a connection to Demiurge proper,’ Salem explained.
This made a lot of sense. It didn’t matter how good their black propaganda was, how concrete their cover story, there was no way the fleet and ground commanders would have just handed over their forces to Rolleston and Cronin. They must have possessed certain key figures. This worried me. I knew what it was like, what Demiurge was like and how much it liked to cause pain. I didn’t like the idea of it possessing people who had so much power.
‘We were only able to get you out with Ogham’s help and because your core identity was kept safe by Nuada’s cage. Even then the tiny fragment of Demiurge managed to work out what we were doing.’
‘And that was code that neither Morag nor I was able to find when we checked,’ Pagan said. I took this in. Well at least I think I understood.
‘That’s my point. These things, these gods – if their stuff is so far in advance of us then they could help.’
I could see the four hackers sharing a poor-naive-non-hacker look.
‘That’s not the way it works,’ Tailgunner said uncomfortably.
‘No, I know. They play it all mysterious and you guys jump when they tell you to.’
Cat and Mother were starting to pay attention now.
‘Wait a second,’ Tailgunner said angrily.
‘No, he’s right,’ Pagan said.
‘Anyone still think they are actually your gods?’ I asked.
There were a lot of uncertain looks except from Salem.
‘They are echoes, copies, nothing more,’ he said.
‘Wait a second. You’re talking about our faith here!’ Tailgunner objected.
‘No. You either have faith or you do not. You’re talking about proof. Either you feel God or you do not. You will only feel God if you go looking, if you accept and embrace Him,’ Salem said.
‘Or Her,’ Morag added. ‘You’re saying that all we’re talking about is dealing with programs?’ Salem nodded.
‘That still doesn’t help us. They don’t do our bidding and they are too powerful to coerce,’ Tailgunner pointed out.
‘So you hope for their scraps? What they deign to give you?’ Mother demanded. Tailgunner looked like he’d just been slapped. ‘I’m sorry, but Jakob’s right. You think if that was you down there I wouldn’t trample heaven to get you fixed?’ Yeah, I liked Mother. I could see Cat nodding as well.
‘Fine,’ Tailgunner said. Clearly it really wasn’t. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact that whatever they are, they won’t do what we say. We can’t even really communicate with them. They come and go as it pleases them.’
‘So they can’t be contacted or summoned?’ I asked.
‘There are ritual programs,’ Pagan told me. ‘They are complex and difficult to write, time-consuming and more often than not they don’t work.’
‘Shit, that won’t work. They’ll let Demiurge in, won’t they?’ That was the end of my plan, to the obvious relief of Tailgunner, Salem and Morag. Then I saw Pagan’s face. Pagan should never, ever play poker.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Ogham appeared in an isolated system,’ he said.
‘That’s impossible,’ Tailgunner said.
‘Where’s your faith?’ I asked sarcastically and then wished I hadn’t said anything.
‘How?’ Cat asked.
‘You don’t really try and work these things out. It’s a religious experience,’ Pagan told her.
I couldn’t quite make out what she was muttering but I could tell she was less than pleased with this answer. It did have pretty serious repercussions for the whole what-are-these-things issue. It meant a transmitter, a very powerful one capable of breaking shielded systems. Suddenly I felt like looking behind me. Still it unfucked
