body. Had I just been a vessel for revenge or self-defence, sent by another race?
The decapitation of Rolleston must have distracted the Grey Lady for a moment as Morag caught her squarely on the side of the head with a punch. She kicked out at Morag hard enough to break ribs. Rannu feinted with his left. Bran easily blocked it. Rannu’s right hand was a blur, then he stepped back. The dagger with Crom Dhu in it was sticking out of Bran’s shoulder. She turned slowly to look at it. The dagger would be pumping Crom Dhu into her system, killing all the Themtech bio-nanites that had given her the edge over all us mere humans for all those years.
In the net the vagabond army had taken to the air, trailing their silver cords behind them. They were among the net representations of the ships of the enemy fleet.
The head in my hand started laughing. I looked down at it in horror.
‘What were you hoping to accomplish?’ Rolleston’s severed head asked me.
I dropped it and backed away. His body stood up and reached for its head. Already black veins were growing from the stump of his neck and the bottom of his head. They met as he placed his head back on his neck and I watched as they knitted together.
The Grey Lady picked the knife out of her shoulder and threw it away. It was empty and useless now. Morag was clutching her chest and shaking her head despondently. Black scalpel-like blades shot out of Bran’s fingers, and she moved too quickly for Rannu. She raked the blades down his face, tearing them through his subcutaneous armour and making four deep bloody rents in his face. He stumbled back, sitting down hard.
‘Are we finished now?’ Rolleston asked. He was starting to sound angry. ‘Have we done our little dance?’
I glanced over at the knife he’d taken from me and tossed aside.
‘Probably not,’ I ventured, but if the knife hadn’t worked on Bran then this one wouldn’t work on Rolleston. He followed my eyes to where it lay.
‘Do you not understand what you’re fighting against?’ he asked.
‘Well, I’ve always known you were a wanker.’
I heard Mudge laugh. A lit fag had appeared in his mouth.
‘You know this fight would’ve been over a long time ago if you two hadn’t poisoned your flesh,’ Rannu said bitterly. I could tell by his body language that he was ready to start fighting again. Mudge was about to back-shoot Bran, and Morag was preparing to attack Bran as well.
I spent a long time looking at Morag. She looked back at me. She didn’t smile. She nodded. It was enough. I turned back to Rolleston. I briefly wondered why he was naked. Maybe there were just no clothes fine enough for a new god.
‘Shall we get this over and done with?’ I asked.
‘It is,’ he said. Black Squadron mutants came running into the vast biomechanical chamber to point their weapons limbs at us.
‘Bollocks,’ was the best I managed to come up with.
‘This was a game, a diversion for us, nothing more. You were controlled at every step of the way,’ Rolleston told me.
‘Bollocks,’ I said again, with some feeling. ‘I think we gave you a bit of a fright.’
He gave this some thought.
‘A few surprises but what have you accomplished? You’ve removed Demiurge from the Bush ’s isolated system at the cost of one of your own. I’ll just open it up to Demiurge out there. You made the little gods come. Good. They’re in one place – makes it easier for us to deal with them – and thanks to you we now have an idea of where they come from. Your god is gone. I rule the net. Your fleet is almost destroyed and Earth will finally grow to its manifest and true form.’
‘If I ask really nicely will you kill us now?’ Mudge said. Rolleston glanced over at him. The Grey Lady was coming to his side.
‘I’m not going to kill you, Howard. We didn’t go to all this trouble for that.’
‘Fuck you,’ I said quietly.
‘Don’t worry. We’re not even going to possess you. Well perhaps Mr Nagarkoti just long enough for him to rape his family.’
Rannu flinched. He looked terrified.
‘No, you’re such throwbacks that you will be the only witnesses to the world transcendent. Of course you will be in different forms. We are going to experiment with nerve endings and agony in entertaining new shapes. You’ll become musical instruments, curiosities.’
‘You know, all the other Wild Boys used to hate you because they thought you were a ruthless bastard. Then you get into all this and everyone’s scared of you because you’re such a thoroughgoing loon. I never hated you. I just don’t like you because you’re so fucking boring,’ Mudge told him and ground out his cigarette. Then he started crawling towards Merle, who was lying on the floor, his face a mask of agony as he tried to cope with the pain. Mudge ignored the Black Squadron things. What was the worst they could do to him?
I saw the anger on Rolleston’s face. He really couldn’t understand why such lowly beings as us – scum really, squaddies, petty criminals, failed not-so-petty criminals, journalists and ex-hookers – wouldn’t bow and scrape to his divine majesty. He really had bought into this god thing. The amount of power he wielded aside, it really was pathetic. He had us. We were dead or worse. We would end up as playthings for his twisted fantasies, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling we’d won, or rather that he couldn’t touch us. On the other hand I suspected that wouldn’t be much comfort to me in my future of torture, but the human mind could only take so much. I’d end up mad, insensate and probably comatose. So something to look forward to then.
‘If you’re doing the supervillain bit, have I got time for a drink?’ Mudge asked.
‘Look, you’re going to do really bad things to us – we get it. All things considered, we’re a bit fatigued by looking at the all the squirrel shit in your head that you’ve forced out into the real world,’ I said. ‘Really, we’ve got nothing to talk about, us and you.’
He nodded as if he understood. Then his fingers became claws and he rammed them into my chest cavity. I dribbled blood. It really fucking hurt but I didn’t scream. Rannu flinched. Mudge actually gave a shout of surprise. Morag cried out, her hand shooting to her mouth. Merle had his own stuff to worry about.
I could feel his fingers inside me. That’s okay. Internal organs don’t have nerve endings. I spat out some more blood. My love/hate relationship with the medical diagnostic warning icons on my IVD continued as they told me I’d be dead soon.
‘Major,’ Josephine said, putting a hand on Rolleston’s arm. He looked down at her. She was staring at me.
Something itched at the back of my head, some instinct telling me to concentrate on the net. Odd time I know, but I checked the net feed. Silver fire flowed from weapons, limbs, mouths and other things into the net representations of the ships in Rolleston’s fleet. The silver fire, given to the vagabond army of hackers by the gods in the net, sought out the possessed. It was the same godsware program that had freed Rannu. Many of the possessed would die. They weren’t in as good a physical condition and didn’t have Rannu’s strength of mind. I looked at Rolleston and smiled. He was getting angrier and angrier. He would feel the mass exorcisms – as pain, I hoped.
His feelings at what was happening boiled out onto his malleable flesh, his features warping, flowing and changing, I suspected beyond his control. As I watched his face become part demon and part insect, I realised. This wasn’t just hatred aimed at us, this was fear and self-loathing given fantasy and then form. He hadn’t considered himself human, ever, and hated himself. If he hadn’t had his fingers in my chest I would have pitied him.
I saw Pagan walking across the plain of black glass under a sea of fire towards four black suns. Lightning played all around him as his staff tapped against the glass.
I turned to look at Morag. She was horrified by what was happening to me. I wanted to tell her it would be okay. Maybe I did. I turned back to Rolleston and laughed at him.
‘Father?’ Josephine said with some urgency now, still holding on to his arm.
‘Look what you’ve done to yourself,’ I said to him and then closed my eyes. I didn’t want his face to be the last thing I saw. I thought of Morag. Rolleston clenched his fist.
