Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk (43 page)

Then Barnaby Pollard reappeared.

He was not the same Barnaby Pollard who had vanished into self-imposed isolation a month earlier, after the events in Talcher. Anyone could see that. He was thinner, gaunt almost, no longer exuding the sleek, glossy confidence of the billionaire businessman. His hair was discernibly greyer. Occasionally he would walk with a very slight limp, as though his hip or lower back was sore.

But he was Barnaby Pollard nonetheless, visible once again, taking his seat at the summit of GloCo Tower, making calls, doling out commands.

GloCo was under control. Stockbrokers, bankers and financiers breathed a collective sigh of relief. All was right with the world again.

He was a changed man, though. Easier to deal with. Less ruthless. The deaths of those miners had done something to him, clearly. Brought humility. Chastened him.

One person who was more acutely aware of the alteration in Barnaby than anyone was Jakob. The boss whom Jakob ferried to and from work and escorted through all public appearances had become a shadow of his former self. They didn’t banter in the car any more. Barnaby was subdued in the back seat, seldom engaging in conversation, never rising to the bait when Jakob made some mildly insulting quip.

“Boss,” Jakob said to him one evening as they dawdled through unusually stodgy rush-hour traffic, “where are you? What the hell’s happened to you? I barely recognise you. It’s like I’m bodyguarding a ghost these days.”

He got nothing in reply, just a look in the rearview mirror from eyes that were sunken and grey-rimmed, set in a face that was weary and haggard.

“I’m worried,” Jakob went on. “Seriously I am. I think you’re sickening for something. You should go see a doc. Get a check-up. Have the old prostate looked at. That’s a silent killer, you know, prostate cancer. Slowly sucks the life out of a man, then
blam
, he’s gone.”

Barnaby gave him a bleak smile and shifted in his seat. “I’m fine on that front. Getting plenty of that sort of thing.”

“That sort of thing?”

“You know. Examination, kind of.”

Jakob’s forehead creased into a set of thick, meaty ridges. “I don’t get.”

Barnaby dismissed the topic with a flap of the hand. “Never mind.”

Jakob had to help him up the front steps of the house. His boss was almost hobbling.

“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.

“Never better,” Barnaby told him. “I’m how I’m supposed to be. It’s all great. Stop fussing, you old woman.”

Jakob paused, then turned away to go back to the car.

FIGHTING THE TIDE

L
YDIA WAS HOME
. She had more or less moved in with Barnaby. One of his walk-in wardrobes was now hers. The fridge was filled with the sort of food she liked to eat. One of the bathrooms was a riot of scented candles, essential oils, makeup remover and ethically-sourced, bleach-free tampons.

She was already kitted out in readiness for the evening’s shenanigans. Her boots were thigh-high. Her corset was leather, laced under great strain. Her dog collar was festooned with short, sharp spikes.

Barnaby meekly let himself be taken downstairs. He knew this was what he had to do. What must be.

You continue to fuck the planet. Get ready for the planet to fuck you back.

It was a penance, of sorts. A price to be paid. An offering to the goddess.

He loved Lydia. Lydia was his world. He had to take everything she dished out. That way, balance was restored, happiness ensured.

He submitted to the restraints. He surrendered to the humiliation.

After she had flogged him for a while, tenderising him, she buckled a strap-on dildo into place. Through the muzzle gag that enclosed his head like a horse’s bridle, Barnaby groaned, half in eagerness, half in dread.

“Brace yourself,” Lydia said, positioning herself behind him. “Don’t clench.”

Then the basement door opened.

“
Fok
me! I knew it!”

Jakob’s near-rectangular bulk filled the doorway.

“I knew something was up,” he said. “Boss. What’s this bitch been doing to you?”

“Nothing,” Barnaby replied. “Go away.” But the words were so muffled by the muzzle as to be all but incomprehensible.

“Oh, my
fokken
God, she’s got you completely turned around and back to front. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s meant to be at all.”

“It is,” said Lydia. “What’s happening here is none of your business, Jakob. Leave.”

“I will do no such thing,” Jakob said. “Untie him. That’s Barnaby Pollard. He’s not like that. He’s the one who hands it out, not the one who receives. Bloody hell, this explains everything. She’s destroying you, boss, inch by inch.”

“I said leave!” Lydia barked, with deep menace in her voice.

Jakob advanced into the room. “You,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “are not my employer. I do not take orders from you, you
doos
. You may be all got up like a dominatrix, but you’re not dominating
me
, got that?”

Lydia took two steps towards him. Her bearing was imperious, for all that she had an eight-inch rubber penis bobbing between her legs. “You have no idea what you’re messing with, little man. Lay one finger on me, and you’ll regret it.”

“You’re mad,” Jakob scoffed, laughing.

“Try me.”

“Jakob, no!” Barnaby yelled through the muzzle. He hoped his tone would carry, even if the words didn’t. It wasn’t an order he was giving, it was a warning.

The Afrikaner moved closer to Lydia, hands spread. “I’ve never liked you. You know that? I’ve always said you’re dangerous.”

“You have no idea.”

“I’ll drag you out of the room by your hair. I’ll throw you out into the street, where you belong.”

“You can’t fight me,” Lydia said, “any more than you can fight the tide.”

Jakob dwarfed her. She gazed up at him wholly without fear.

Barnaby knew there was something inside Lydia Laidlaw that you mustn’t resist. It filled her to the brim. She was only outwardly a woman. Within her lay a terrible power. If roused, it could ruin.

But his hands were tied, literally. He couldn’t intercede. He could only make noises, imploring Jakob to back off. But his pleading grunts fell on deaf ears. Jakob was too loyal. He loved his boss too much. He believed what he was doing was right.

He made a grab for Lydia.

She ducked, kneeing him in the groin.

As he slumped to the floor in agony, she snatched a chain from the wall and wrapped it round his neck. She placed her foot in the small of his back and pulled. Jakob struggled, pawing at the improvised garrotte. His face purpled. He tried hitting backwards at Lydia, but she leaned away out of range, hauling on the chain with far greater strength than she ought to have possessed. Her eyes were huge and ferociously, intimidatingly blue-green.

She let Jakob go when he was half strangled. He keeled forwards onto his face, twitching and retching.

She found the hugest, fattest vibrator in the room, and clubbed Jakob on the head with it.

Savagely.

Viciously.

Repeatedly.

Until the thudding impacts turned crunchy and wet.

Barnaby could only look on in abject horror.

When Lydia was done, she sat back, chest heaving. The bloodstained vibrator had been switched on by accident during the bludgeoning. It buzzed like some monstrous mosquito, glutted on the juices of its prey.

Lydia looked across at Barnaby.

“We’re in this together now,” she said. “All the way. You understand that, don’t you, Barnaby? There’s no getting around what we’ve just done here. No getting away from it. I can dispose of the body. I can find a way. I’m a familiar sight at various landfills around the country. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Black plastic bags. A piece here, a piece there. But you’re implicated, my love. You’re as guilty as I am. This isn’t going to end at all well for you if you try to wriggle out of it. Think of the scandal. Think of the disgrace. There wouldn’t be a GloCo left, if this got out. The only hope you have is if you go along with me. Do as I say. From now on. In everything.”

She rose, dropping the vibrator with a
splat
onto what was left of Jakob’s skull.

“We need a new contract, you and me,” she said, dressed as a sinner, smiling like a saint. “One that’ll apply everywhere, not just within these four walls. A new, very simple agreement. One without a safeword. You do what I tell you, or else.”

She stroked Barnaby’s hair.

“What do you say to that, my love?” she crooned. “Well, nothing, of course. You can’t. But you can nod, can’t you? So nod.”

With tears spilling from his eyes, Barnaby lowered his head.

“Is that a yes?” said Lydia. “I’ll take it as one. Oh, this is going to be so good for us, Barnaby. So good for everyone. Such an opportunity! You’ll see.”

SWITCH

W
HEN
G
LO
C
O ANNOUNCED
that it was diversifying its portfolio, the general assumption was this meant branching into other consumables, perhaps upping its investment in nuclear power and fracking.

Nobody could have foreseen that the company would commit to a regime of renewable energy production. Wind farms, hydroelectric dams, tidal barrages, massive photovoltaic panel arrays – GloCo sank billions into them all, selling off its existing assets piecemeal in order to fund the purchases.

Most people called it madness. Some called it glorious madness. Many said it was commercial suicide. Everybody predicted that GloCo would be bankrupt and in receivership within the year. ‘GloCo Goes Loco,’ ran the headline in the
Wall Street Journal
, adding, ‘Putting All Its Greenbacks In One Green Basket?’

CEO Barnaby Pollard oversaw the fraught process of restructuring his company with a mixture of regret and resolve. It was not a dismantling, he told himself. It was just change. Radical but doable.

Always Lydia was by his side, administering to him, offering instruction.

His mistress.

His guide.

His Gaia.

BONUS CONTENT:

“The Four Authors of the Apocalypse” Blog

I
N
D
ECEMBER
2009, the
Solaris Books blog
ran a feature, “The Four Authors of the Apocalypse,” in which we invited four of our authors to write about the grim future: was it really going to be as grim as all that, exactly
how
grim are we talking, and is there anything we can do about it. James was kind enough to contribute, and given the message of human agency and responsibility running through these stories – and especially the environmental issues in
Age of Gaia
, we thought it would be worth reproducing it here...

M
ICHAEL
C
RICHTON’S
S
TATE
of Fear
, an anti-environmentalist diatribe fashioned roughly in the shape of a thriller, concludes with an “Author’s Message”. In part, this asserts: