Novahead (18 page)

‘
What
'
s coming to you, Atom,
'
Blince muttered. He snipped the tip from his cigar, looked at it, put it between his lips, lit up.
‘
Will arrive.
'

Instead of a heart he had a huge shut eye.

‘
Your timetables for the absolute are insulting,
'
I said.

‘
The schedule
'
s published and the tickets have been sold,
'
said Betty. Her pet spine had shuffled off when the shooting started but I noticed she was still dandling the Jericho pistol from her knee.
‘
Humanity has so far set up a rather makeshift torment and there is still much to do. Its short memory allows it to forget even its own apocalypse, its escalating terms in hell. Re the nuclear stuff they
'
ve been smug since the big deal. The EMP wave five years ago knocked out a city and nothing was learnt. Same with the quakes. It isn
'
t funny and it isn
'
t clever.
'

‘
I still contend the first of Feb
'
s the date for that asteroid of yours,
'
Ract baited Darkwards.
‘
That infernal marvel of velocity
'
ll have everyone holding their bones but my atomic loop
'
ll get there first.
'

‘
I
'
m talking about a comet, as you well know. A scabby red card, a timely bubo. We had it coming.
'

‘
Let
'
s hope and pray the world will be assailed with every kind of cataclysm and upheaval. At the same time, I mean, rather than spread out as people expect. It will be exactly like a race, neck and neck!
'

‘
My asteroid has it in the bag, Mr Ract.
'

‘
You see?
'
said Betty, turning to me.
‘
We
'
re just protecting our interests.
'

‘
Nothing can do that at this stage. Are you
really
unaware of it? The bet
'
s off.
'

‘
What
'
s that?
'
Ract snapped, dropping his magazine.

‘
Taking us all by storm are you,
'
said Betty. Her eyes were nonsignifying insets.
‘
Smashing upwards into our lives.
'

‘
Maybe I am.
'

‘
What
'
s this about the bet? What happened,
who
won it?
'

‘
None of you.
'

‘
Whaddya mean?
'

‘
It
'
s simple. You made a bet as to the method by which civilisation will end. But everything you
'
ve done, everything you
'
ve said, thought, observed, should have made it clear to you that civilisation has already ended.
'

Ice cold behind the face, Ract glared at me.
‘
Shamus, this explanation you seem to have coughed out of your ass has done nothing to reassure me.
'

After a dead silence, Blince piped up.
‘
Huh. He had me going for a minute.
'

‘
He
'
s quite right,
'
said Betty.
‘
It
'
s over. And let
'
s not point the forearm of blame. Pivot didn
'
t realise either. Goes to show you can
'
t subpoena wisdom. I used to think it would fall amid a battle, with governments clutching at what they might lose to the people. As it turned out, everyone just kept pretending, as best they could amid the ashes. Here in Beerlight it
'
s the comforting old gangland modality. Parts of the Fadlands have gone full pasta, as you probably know. Humanity has tanked. Get used to it. It might be called its
“
death
”
or
“
destruction
”
were these not somewhat grandiose names for so small an affair: an empire falling silently as snow on old bones. Just another self-vanquished species.
'

‘
But the bet!
'
Ract shouted.

‘
Forget what you think you know about the apocalypse. It
'
ll destroy the head, the torso, and other cherished misconceptions about the human body. Something else is clearly at stake. Raise your sights, gentlemen. The world. The bet is the world.
'

Ract and Darkwards turned to look at each other, then back at Blince, who nodded.

‘
Agreed.
'

‘
That
'
s why we
'
re here, after all.
'
She smiled slowly, almost realistically.

‘
I don
'
t believe this,
'
I said.

‘
What?
'
Betty asked.
‘
It
'
s such a slight matter. The end of the world. It
'
s come rather late, I
'
m afraid. But more interesting than some breakaway empire.
'

She had a gun and was taking her sweet time about shooting me. They were holding back, waiting on something. Which had happened before.

‘
Get to the point.
'

‘
Say what you mean, Atom.
'

‘
I mean, quit stalling. I think that
'
d be the local term. What are you counting on? What
'
s the deal here?
'

There was a sudden bang as the kid dropped a bound book on the floor - he bent to pick it up. When I looked back at the others I saw they were coming back from a bad scare, covering up.

They were at once hopeful and terrified of the innocent opulence that might propagate all at once behind his eyes. I could not honestly bring these thoughts to any other conclusion. The notion burned phosphorescent inside. My heart was burning with grief and anger.
‘
This sort of thing never ends well,
'
I said. There was silence.
‘
Aren
'
t you going to ask what I mean?
'

‘
Not a chance,
'
said Ract, looking scared - his eyes flicked to the kid.

‘
Oh, you people have had value out of me,
'
I told them.
‘
I
'
ve done everything wrong this time. Following leads.
Following!
What a chump! Now you fuck up my window out of here. I don
'
t know how I
'
m getting home. And worst of all, you
'
re
boring
me!
'

Betty was staring straight at the kid, her claws clenched to the arms of her throne.

‘
I
'
m sick of all this. My deepest contradictions are of one accord when compared to you alien fucking smithereens.
'
I barely knew what I was saying. I was seething. My body shook.
‘
MUST I REALLY TAKE CARE OF THIS MYSELF?
'

The connective tissue between the walls and floor seemed to contract.

‘
You
'
re standing there like a gunslinger,
'
Darkwards said with a sort of sniggering gasp.
‘
You
'
ll have to reach deep to make a difference here.
'

I swept the Hand of Glory from the etheric holster and aimed it into the midst of them. The ground hardened under my feet. I understood even as I squeezed the trigger that they had all changed their bets. Everything on the kid.

The whirr of acceleration as the unfamiliar gun powered up for ignition scared me and then it was extruding baffles and rivetted armatures and reversing pulsations up my arm. The cylinder rotated through a dozen modes I didn
'
t recognise. Threads of blue light were running along its fluted cowling as it Swiss-Armied open, enclosing my arm like armour and flipping out six circular projections like directional propellor guards. The weight belied the fact that I was now holding something bigger than a Harley-Davidson.

As if its understanding of the scene led to a terrifyingly compressed urgency, it exploded upon the roomful of gaping targets. I think I saw Darkwards jerk with a bolting charge of realisation and then there were leaping outlines in blinding incandescence. Being in back of that gun was like being on a rollercoaster. Shrill blasts of backdraft batted from the six muzzles as they exchanged sinewless patterns of swooping matter, motive particles shooting in vertices, gathering denser compression until it all locked together in a thunderclap of mutuality.

I dropped the gun.

Betty, Blince, Ract and Darkwards seemed to be gone.

A massive, gutty beachball stood in the centre of the throne room. In its fleshy surface, four faces stretched like melted cheese. Poking from one was a cigar, still smoking.

‘
Let
'
s go back over this thing a little,
'
said Blince.

The pyramidal gun drones on either side of Betty
'
s throne came to life, firing upon the group anomaly. It exploded in a storm of blood and shredded matter.

It was messy. Me and the kid were red statues in a red room.

‘
Well,
'
I said, dazed.
‘
You alright?
'

I went over and slapped him on his slimy shoulder.

‘
I
'
m not much used to this sort of thing.
'
I looked at the red room, my red arms.
‘
Thank god I was disgusted with those bastards, or I might have been part of that. Ah, I
'
m all
verklempt
.
'

The kid seemed overcome by it all. His eyes had a surprised look of imminence like he was about to sneeze. I didn
'
t immediately realise it was the confluence of nitrophages in his uterine mind. Then he looked at me.

‘
Oh.
'

The air around Heber was starting to wrinkle, bunching inward. Then it tore in places, light blazing through like pain. Gravity became precarious.

‘
Oh, kid,
'
I said.
‘
I
'
m sorry.
'

He smiled faintly. The world bent open, ripping.

I was incredulous with light.

 

[end]