Manifestations (22 page)

As the large squib approached, the earth below it exploded as if an invisible plough was being dragged by a giant. The tanks didn’t have the speed to escape.

The drones swept in to defend, but they buckled and fried before they could get within firing distance.

‘Chiggy has come,’ the voice crackled through, calm, almost soporific with satisfaction. ‘All witness the coming of Chiggy.’

The tornado didn’t stop. The wrecks of the tanks were thrown further down the line. The artillery tried to protect itself but their defensive fire only added more shrapnel to the kinetic attack.

The benders curved up from the south and flew parallel to the barricade, half of them dropping to claw the innards from the tanks, the other half scattering to divide up the swarms of drones.

‘Holy mir ... have you ever seen anything like it?’ the pilot asked.

Yes,
Tamsin thought to herself. She reached out towards the big squib.
Pierre? Is that you?

Tamsin and her team were watching from a safe distance, monitors zooming in and following the action as the barricade fell into disarray. It didn’t all go the benders’ way though, as many of their vehicles were cut to pieces by drone lasers — but even then they didn’t crash to the ground as Tamsin’s people had. The kinetics managed to control their descent and glide back into psi territory.

With the barricade down they watched the slowly approaching refugees. It was close enough now to see why they were going so slowly. ‘Look at it, it’s a wreck,’ the pilot said. ‘How’d they ever think that was going to get through?’

‘There’s nobody on board ...’ she said. Try as she might, she should be able to feel something by now.

‘Are they dead?’

The mood in the squibs dropped. They’d done all this for nothing. They’d lost comrades for nothing.

‘Hang on.’ Tamsin spun around and pointed with her finger through the floor of the squib and behind them. ‘What is down there?’

‘I don’t see anything on the scope.’

‘Okonta? Do you sense it?’

Something. Someone called Freya.

We’re chasing a decoy,
Tamsin thought ruefully. Go
get the real ones. But don’t give them away.

‘There is a message coming in, Miz Grey.’

‘On speaker.’

‘Chiggy owns you,’ she heard. The voice was deep and slow, wet and numb.

‘We thank you, Chiggy. Tonight we shall celebrate in your honour.’

‘You will send the benders to me.’

‘Shouldn’t we let them decide who —’

‘Chiggy will choose.’ His echoing laugh was scarier than his voice. ‘You pay tribute to Chiggy.’

‘We will provide all that you need, so long as the benders stand beside us,’ Tamsin said.

‘This is how it will be. Praise Chiggy.’

‘Chiggy be praised,’ Tamsin answered.

She could hear Okonta’s thoughts in the background, asking if she wanted him to do what was necessary.
Now is our best chance.

We need him.

~ * ~

‘Give us five minutes and we’ll have you up to speed on the big memes,’ the meme-minder called out their slogan. ‘The unknown black mass that took over Busan now has a name and that name is Kronos. Things are not looking good for General Zybyck Zim as Services have their pants folded for them by the psi rebellion. Again.’

Zim took a pistol from his belt and began to shoot the screens before him one at a time. His staff delicately retreated from the room. When all the monitors were dead black he looked around for anything else that had shown his failure. Anything he could destroy before having to answer the incoming call from the Prime.

How could this have happened? The barricade was built to the standards for air, ground and naval, and had been surrounded by a line of merciless bots with auto-generated strategy. Nothing was faster or better. He couldn’t understand how the psis had broken the line so easily.

‘Explain yourself, General,’ the Prime demanded, forcing his way through Zim’s queue. The young Shima was dressed in his strict black robes and was barely containing his rage. Zim had always cursed the boy’s ascendancy when they needed an experienced commander as leader.

‘Prime, we weren’t ready for that kind of attack.’

‘That has been made clear.’

‘We will triple the line,’ he said.

‘But it is already too late, General. The rebels made it through. You allowed the Will to be weakened. Your incompetence borders on treason.’

‘We must launch a counterattack immediately.’

‘To what end?’ the Prime asked.

‘This is war, Prime. We must strike back.’

The Prime sat still, considering.

‘Very well. Prepare your retaliation plans for consideration. For now triple the defence line. Do not allow anyone else in or out of the Cape.’

‘Yes, Prime. It won’t happen again.’

The Prime signed off. ‘You won’t be given the chance.’

~ * ~

The clouds didn’t so much roll in, as were poured out from above and spread to block the light from the sky. The priest looked up and thought that today the rain would come. That was good. It had been dry for so long. Today it would flood.

His monastery sat at the base of the mountains, where many large and small temples took shelter. Deep inside the wilderness zone, many of the old belief systems waited humbly for their time to come again or their time to run out forever. A wide common path snaked between and around the gardens, buildings and cemeteries of the religions, a philosopher’s walk that led through wafts of incense and echoes of chant and prayer.

There was so much grace and beauty and love in this one small area, and though the priest didn’t agree with the practices of those around him, he enjoyed their earnest and quiet appreciation of goodness. Unlike them, he had no god. His was a non-theistic religion, a décroissance, or slow life, dedicated to existence at its most simple and human.

He had a small shrine of white walls and red uprights. He wore robes he had spun himself from wool he had shorn from a llama he had raised since birth. That was the way of his belief and he was the only human he knew who still followed it. Listen. Think. Accept. Practise. Believe. He sat on his heels and rocked back and forth, humming deeply in his throat.

Thunder knocked on the roof of the world and he looked up to see if rain was about to fall. A boy sat on his altar looking down at him.

‘Who are you?’ the priest asked.

‘I am your god.’

‘I do not believe in gods.’

‘I am here to save you.’

‘I do not need saving.’

‘Of course you do. You all do.’

‘Please leave me to my prayers. May you live a blessed life, my child.’

The priest closed his eyes and breathed himself into a deep-throated chant. He built the vibration up and pushed it deeper into his chest. His chest erupted in pain, ribs cracking outward like cage doors, and he collapsed to the ground and looked up to the sky.

The pain disappeared and he saw the boy still seated on the altar, watching him roll on the stones. The visions were terrifying, unlike anything he’d experienced before.

The priest pushed himself back up and rested again on his legs, composing himself. ‘You should go, my child. It is rude to disrespect another’s beliefs.’

Again the priest began his prayers. This time with a constant hum to drown out anything the boy might say. He bowed backward and forward, then his stomach burst open and entrails began oozing out and running away like panicked snakes. The priest choked on the pain and tried to grab handfuls of his guts and pull them back inside him. He looked up in desperation and saw the boy, calmly watching him, and the pain was gone again. His body was whole.

‘Believe in me,’ the boy said.

‘You are not human.’

‘Pray to me.’

‘No,’ the priest said. He prayed the boy would go away. In his head he begged him to go.

I am your god.

No.

I am inside you. You cannot hide from me.

No.

Submit to me and you will be free.

I reject you.

You have no choice.

‘No!’ the priest screamed.

A drop of rain hit his face, large and cold. It turned to acid and bore through his flesh, into his brain. He screamed as more drops fell, tearing him to shreds.

Neighbouring monks and priestesses from the other shrines rushed over to find out what was wrong, only to find the priest rolling on the ground and shouting at himself. He was obviously hallucinating.

~ * ~

The sharp tinktink of a spoon on a cup greeted her as she demersed. Charlotte had been under a long time. The Primacy was almost constantly in session now and this was just a quick recess before Zim put forward his next strategies to combat the psi problem.

The window said it was daytime. She didn’t want to get up from the couch, but someone was luring her with tea and something freshly baked. Her nose began waking up.

‘Muffins?’ she mumbled.

‘Peach and blueberry,’ Max said.

Amy Watson sat at the window table with everything laid out. There were even doilies under the breakfast plates and the yellowest slices of butter arranged in a dish.

‘What’s all this for?’ She sat up.

‘Do we need a reason?’ Max grinned. She in turn squinted at him. She had expected Max to leave her now that his influence had risen, but he was still here, happy to remain her advisor.

‘I wouldn’t need a reason. Amy wouldn’t need a reason, but you, sir, do nothing unless you have a reason,’ she said.

‘Let’s call it a celebration then.’

‘Oh yes, what are we celebrating?’ she asked.

‘Please, come sit with us, Representative. There is something we need to discuss with you,’ Amy said. Charlotte rose, pulled her lounging robe into decency and grumbled.

‘There’s no reason to be mysterious. I don’t need big news delivered with sweet things and tea.’ She sat and broke open a muffin and covered its steam with a knife-load of butter. Max joined them, but sat back for Amy to do the talking. ‘Alright, you two. What is happening?’ Charlotte asked.

‘Well, first of all, you’ve gained position,’ Amy said.

‘That’s good.’

‘Yes. You’ve gained a lot of support since your mother’s centenary and then again with the mess-up in the Cape.’

‘Yes ... why is Amy talking and not you?’ she asked Max.

‘This is more Amy’s area of expertise, Charlie. I’ve taken you as far as I can.’

‘There’s further to go?’

‘Yes, to Prime.’

Charlotte choked on muffin crumbs. ‘You’re deluded.’

‘No. Charlie, listen to what Amy has to say.’

‘Representative. I believe a convocation of the Will is coming.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Do you know what asabiyya is?’ Amy asked.

‘No.’

‘Group subconscious?’

‘Not really. I’ve heard of it.’

‘Group think?’

‘That is an easy one.’

‘Well, in technical terms it means that the majority of the Citizenry are either abstaining or deferring their vote. But what it really means is that the Will is undecided.’

‘I don’t understand. The Will can’t be undecided. How could the world operate like that?’ she asked.

‘In the same way,’ Amy answered. ‘It just means that less people are contributing to the decision tree.’

‘It means most people have become maybes, Charlie,’ Max butted in. He was excited, she could tell from how red his face was going. ‘They don’t know what to believe.’

‘That doesn’t make me as happy as you might think, Max,’ Charlotte said sweetly.

‘Okay,’ Amy pushed on. ‘Technically, we are always in convocation, but we don’t name it unless it is on a mass scale. It hasn’t happened since the first formation of the Will.’

‘Never?’

Amy shook her head.

‘How do you know what will happen then?’

‘I don’t, but there is much theory on it.’

Charlotte quietly ate her muffin. Breaking off small chunks and nibbling on them.

‘So what do you want me to do exactly?’ she asked.

‘I suggest we try a complete change of strategy. Instead of remaining as the voice of dissent, we start proposing alternative plans. That will give people options.’

‘Charlie, we think now is the time to do another big push,’ Max said. ‘We can turn the tide of opinion. You could be Prime.’

The word made her head spin. It wasn’t right. She, Charlotte Betts, at the top of the hierarchy?

‘I don’t know ... That sounds awfully risky.’

‘Charlie, you can change the course of events. You can stop this war before it begins.’

Then the bell rang and their conversation halted suddenly. ‘I wonder who that could be.’