Debatable Space (37 page)

At Cavendish’s insistence, I was formally censured in front of my colleagues by the Arbiter. My papers of office were ceremonially
ripped up. It was all done by the book, in accordance with hallowed traditions. Except I knew it was all bullshit. I was the
first person to hold this particular office. We
had
no traditions.

But Cavendish had her way. I was humiliated. And, in the months that followed, as I read the press coverage, I realised that
piece by piece my reputation was being stolen. A new President of Humankind was elected, and the impression was created that
mine had been a caretaker administration. I had been not much more than a glorified civil servant; now a
real
politician was in charge.

To combat this torrent of lies, I leaked stories, I briefed journalists, I called in every favour I was owed. But every time
I thought I had a handle on how the game was played, the game tilted and I was utterly humiliated once again. I read entire
books that argued that the triumph of the planet Hope was a victory of plucky settlers fighting against the meddling interference
of jumped-up civil servants back on Earth – namely,
me
. I read that my principles and protocols of office were created by the person who succeeded me – a nonentity called Luigi
Scarpio, who combined astonishing charisma with utter ignorance of science and was devoid of morality and common sense. Every
achievement or insight or policy advance I had ever made was credited to someone else; every mistake or fiasco or instance
of corruption which had occurred during my tenure was blamed on me.

The people loved Scarpio. He was homespun, funny, a bit tubby, he liked to mock his own fondness for pasta and Italian women.
Scarpio became a legend. Whereas I… I became a footnote.

Cavendish had won; I had lost. And so, I admit, I lost control of myself. My rage was intense. I tried suing her for libel,
I tried tarnishing her own reputation. And then, eventually, in the full knowledge that she had a terminal illness that would
end her life in less than nine months, I obtained an illegal gun and I went to her house, intent on murder.

I stood outside the house, whipped by cold winds, trying to control my breathing, for six long hours.

Then I smashed in the back door and went in. The burglar alarm was blaring. I was handling this all wrong, I could have been
so much cleverer. A poison dart, a sabotaged car, a hitman.

I blundered onwards. Here I was, the former most powerful woman in the world, seized by an irrational rage. How could she
do this to me! How could she do this!

I spent ten minutes playing “Sardines”, hunting for an old lady hiding in a big old mock twenty-first-century mansion. I discovered
her eventually in the linen closet. When she saw me, her face uncrinkled in relief. “They’ve gone now,” I whispered. “You’re
safe, come with me.”

She held out her hand to me.

And I shot her, repeatedly, in the body, till I was deafened by her screams. Then I blew her brains out. The explosion was
awful. I was spattered with Cavendish. The sheer horror of the moment filled me with a childish glee.

I heard sounds at the back door. The police had arrived.

I wiped my prints off the gun, scratched my face on the side of the linen cupboard door, and concocted my cover story, involving
masked gunmen and an heroic struggle on my part to save the old lady.

It was a laughably bad cover story. The police charged me with murder. My own lawyer openly mocked my story of having arrived
to offer Cavendish my forgiveness and friendship, only to find the aforementioned armed burglars on the premises. She urged
me to plead insanity, in the hope of being offered a course of forcible therapy. Instead, I entered a plea of “Justifiable
Homicide”.

My lawyer, without my permission, changed the plea to temporary insanity, on the grounds I was totally raving mad and shouldn’t
be listened to. She had a point. But the court ignored all our bickering, and I was found guilty of murder in the first degree.
Fortunately, however, my lawyer managed to prevent the State from seizing my assets.

I was sentenced to be brain-fried for two days.

I knew exactly what to expect. I had studied this subject intensively, since I had of course introduced this particular punishment
into the penal system. Electrodes in the pain centres and imagination centres of the cortex fire electrical currents for between
twenty and a hundred consecutive hours. It is intended to be the nearest thing in life to being in Hell.

But I think the night before was worse. Every nerve ending jangled. My skin prickled and itched and I felt as if I was being
devoured by insects. I was in the hotel wing of the prison complex, I was well fed, my bed was soft and comfortable. But to
know that in the morning you will be tortured is a torture in itself.

My room was pastel pink. It had strange whorly patterns in the wallpaper. Ambient music played, that grated and scratched
at my soul. I think it was meant to be relaxing, but for me, it was part of the torment. For years after, I was unable to
travel in lifts in case muzak played and I started ripping out throats.

Then dawn came. I was led into another room with equally comforting wallpaper. I was sat down in a chair. A helmet was placed
on my head. My hands were restrained. A catheter was hooked into my arm to prevent me dehydrating. I realised I had urinated
upon myself, but a nurse came and wiped me down. The “Play” button on the brain-modification helmet was pressed.

At first, it hurt. But I could ignore that.

Then I had an hallucination. I imagined that I was free. Walking across a green field, in the hot sun. Beautiful men and women
walked beside me, stark naked. And then I realised my skin was peeling. I was burning in the sun. I rubbed a hot patch, and
skin came away and I saw sinews and tendons underneath.

I itched, all over. I rubbed myself. My hair come out, my nose fell off. My heart fell out of my ribcage and lay on the grass,
beating hot blood.

It started to rain. But there was salt in the rain, which burned into my raw skinless flesh. The agony was unbelievable. But
then my mother appeared, smiling. She picked up my heart and ate it. I felt a pang of betrayal and self-hate. My mother smiled
at me, my blood trickling down her jaw. Lightning struck me and sent millions of volts surging through my body.

But finally, it was over. I was clothed now, my skin was restored. I recognised immediately that this was a ruse to prevent
me becoming desensitised to pain. I knew I was still in the nightmare. But all my senses told me I was sitting in Starbucks,
with a caffè latte and a caramel shortbread in front of me.

I drank the soothing coffee, ate the cake.
Don’t do this!
I screamed at myself. The taste of pleasure was softening me up.

A man with tattoos sat down at the table with me. He took my hand and sawed off my fingers one by one. “Daddy, don’t,” I whispered
at him. He took out a club with spikes.

He beat me for several hours, until every inch of my flesh was tenderised and bleeding. I tried to tune out the pain. I kept
telling myself: this isn’t really happening.

The pain continued, and continued. It got worse. And even worse. But eventually it was over. I heard gentle voices speaking
to me. My straps were being unbuckled. A doctor was explaining that I was now ready to go into recuperative therapy. I was
led out of the room. I insisted on staggering down the stairs, rather than using the lift. We left the building.

“Am I free?” I whispered.

You’re free,” my father told me. “But remember, no more bad behaviour.”

“I promise, Daddy.”

“Lying bitch,” my daddy said, and slashed my face with a razor. He peeled my face off and blew his nose on it. And then he
walked away.

A pack of hyenas surrounded me. I was in the middle of Piccadilly, with shoppers walking past. But no one stopped or raised
the alarm. The hyenas starting biting at me. I shuddered and shrunk into a ball.

Lightning struck me and seared my body with unbelievable pain. The hyenas ripped my flesh to shreds and ate me.

I was in a lecture, at university. I was wearing glasses! This was the old me, the former Lena, before I became Xabar. I breathed
deeply, shaking with relief. I was coming to welcome these respites, at least they . . .

Everyone was staring at me. With hate in their eyes. “We despise you, Lena,” my fellow students were whispering. “You are
pathetic, you are flawed, you are the worst person in the world.”

“Sticks and stones!” I replied mockingly. A foolish thing to do because…

My fellow students proceeded to beat me viciously with sticks wrapped in barbed wire and jagged stones. I gritted my teeth,
as the pain escalated, and waited to die so that the next nightmare could begin.

I was in a room, with a blonde-haired eight-year-old girl. She was giggling and playing with a pet dinosaur and a spider that
you can move by pressing a rubber bulb. I sat down with her and played. “What’s the spider called?” I asked.

“Spidey,” said the little girl.

“I’ll be Spidey,” I said.

“I’ll be Mr Steggy,” the little girl said. “My granny gave me these toys. My granny is dead now, some heartless monster killed
her.”

I looked up and saw Commissioner Cavendish staring down at me. Sorrow and love in her eyes. The little girl’s eyes lit up
and she ran to her granny and kissed her. “Gran,” she murmured, “Gran, I love you,” as she hugged old Cavendish. And Cavendish’s
harsh face relaxed into the gentlest and kindest of smiles, as she embraced her beloved granddaughter.

Waves of remorse and self-loathing swept over me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. And Cavendish’s head exploded and the girl was
covered in blood, and she started to scream, and scream . . .

And so it continued. I endured two days of these nightmares, but it felt like ten years. Eventually it ended, but for months
afterwards, I was convinced that my life was just another dream, and any moment now, the next horror would arrive.

My “coercive therapy” punishment for murder was the most appalling experience that it is possible for any human being to experience;
it’s programmed to be just that. It is a toxic blend of pain, self-loathing, guilt, remorse and physical agony… My soul
was scorched and seared.

But the punishment didn’t, in fact, work.

Perhaps I was too steeped in sin. Or perhaps I am too canny, too experienced. But I found that my remorse ebbed rapidly. I
am still able, as my warrior exploits have shown, to kill whenever I need to, or want to. I can sleep without bad dreams.
My memories of the horror of my torture have been virtually expunged.

I still feel spasms of agony when I least expect it. The pain of my punishment will never leave me. But the sheer joy of that
moment will never diminish:

Cavendish staring at me with her skeletal, withered face, full of contempt. I show her the gun and the contempt turns to fear
and bewilderment.

Then I shoot her in the leg. Then the other leg. Then in the body. Then in the head, repeatedly, so that her brains are sprayed
over me. Then I sit and tell her wrecked skull stories of my debauchery until the police make it up the stairs and subdue
me. It is exquisite delight. I savour every moment of my soul-degradation.

Why did I do it? I cannot say, I cannot explain. It meant the total and comprehensive end of my reputation, it meant my damnation
by posterity.

Clearly, I was mad. But the question that then raises itself is: When did I become mad? Then, or earlier? Was I mad while
I was in power?

But then again, maybe I was just bored, and yearned for an experience more extreme than anything else in my long, long life.
Murder; incarceration; brain-frying; public excoriation. Well, I couldn’t argue that my life was
dull
.

After the brain-frying, a psychologist diagnosed me as unrepentant. I was sentenced to another course of treatment. But I
bribed a guard, and left the prison disguised as one of the conjugal visitors.

I left Earth that night on a colony ship. Twenty years later, subjective time, I was reunited with my son, who was on a ship
heading for Earth.

He led a conquering army. I greeted him like a matriarch applauding her Emperor son. He was completely under my spell. I had
no friends by then, I could not afford to make one more enemy.

I was amazed at how confident Peter seemed. He had a swagger, coupled with an easy charm. He had been fantastically successful
as a colonist; he had become the leader of his people, he had destroyed an alien species, and he had helped to terraform one
of the bleakest planets ever settled by humans. And now Peter was eager for fresh challenges. He was a general returning home,
with the intention of declaring himself Emperor.

I was still somewhat crazed when we met. Everything he said seemed normal. But in retrospect, everything he said was utterly
monstrous. Peter had become addicted to war; and he made it his life’s work to seek out the cruellest and the hardest way.

I gave him long long lectures on how to rule Earth according to liberal principles, and he paid me not a blind bit of notice.
Eventually, feeling myself to be old and tiresome, I bade him farewell. He went his way, I went mine.

I travelled through space a few decades more, and eventually made myself a home on Rebus, the fourth planet of the star Moriarty.
Whilst there, I watched the TV footage of Peter’s Earth invasion. I watched as my son installed himself as leader of mankind.

I watched and I understood nothing. By this point, I did not even understand myself. I wrote this, in my mental diary:

I do not know who I am, or why I did what I did. I am merely a forward arrow through time.

I wonder if I am truly human any more.

When he was nine years old I realised I was afraid of Peter. He had tantrums, terrible screaming fits that left me shaking
and shuddering for hours afterwards. But there was always that sense that he never really lost control. There was always that
still, eerie eye at the centre of the storm.