War in Heaven (78 page)

‘You’re talking about a human hive mind,’ Morag said.

‘And you’re talking about controlling it. That’s too much power,’ Rannu said.

Cronin was starting to look uncomfortable.

‘If you’re controlling it but not part of the hive, then won’t that make you the dumbest human alive?’ I asked.

Now Cronin was looking really uncomfortable. He didn’t answer.

Pagan got there first. ‘Unless you weren’t just part of it but were controlling it.’

I watched Cronin’s icon swallow hard. I couldn’t quite get my head around it. What humanity would look like, how it would act.

‘You understand that the very act of taking on that mantle, of ascending, would change the person who did it. You’re thinking that it would be me. It would not; it would be an ascended being that was once me.’ Now he sounded uncomfortable.

‘Is this what the Cabal were up to?’ Mudge asked.

‘No, they were small frightened men,’ Cronin said.

‘Who was?’ I asked. I knew the answer. There was a look close to awe on Cronin’s face.

‘What’s this about?’ Pagan suddenly demanded.

‘Apotheosis,’ Cronin said.

Mudge and Pagan were looking close to fear. I was just getting pissed off.

‘What the fuck does that mean?’ I demanded.

‘To become divine,’ Mudge said quietly.

‘This is Rolleston’s plan, isn’t it?’ Pagan asked. ‘He wants to be God.’

Cronin nodded. ‘Rolleston is a great man. Only he saw the true potential in Themtech.’ Then his face crumpled and he started to sob. I don’t think any of us were quite expecting this. His icon was programmed for real tears as well.

‘You’re all so fucking British about this sort of thing. It would’ve been better if we’d tortured this out of him,’ Merle said.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!’ Cronin wailed.

I pointed at him. ‘See, if you’re going to betray someone that’s the correct reaction.’

Annis looked angry but then it was the icon’s default expression. Pagan at least looked embarrassed and guilty. Mudge thought it was funny.

‘That’s assuming you give a shit. It’s not betrayal if your victim’s a whining bitch,’ Merle said. It may have been an attempt at humour.

‘How did you fall from his grace?’ Pagan asked.

‘Look, Rolleston is not an ordinary man like you or me. He can’t be judged by our criteria,’ Cronin told us a little too earnestly for my taste. It seemed he was desperate for us to understand, to see what he saw when he looked at him.

‘We don’t care about judging him, just killing him,’ I said. Merle and Rannu were nodding. Cronin look shocked. Like I’d said something blasphemous.

‘Even now after I’ve explained it to you, all you can think of is your own petty base desires?’ he demanded.

‘If you want to put it that way.’

‘It’s all I can ever think about,’ Mudge added.

‘You can’t understand this because you are simple-minded terrorists who want to drag everything down to your own sordid level.’

‘We understand it. We just like our sordid level,’ Mudge explained. Cronin shook his head in mock sympathy. ‘No, Mr Mudgie, you do not. Because you have never been part of anything extraordinary.’

‘Fucking the Cabal over was quite extraordinary,’ I said. Rannu, Pagan and Mudge were all nodding.

‘Because it was working against something not for something.’

Merle moved forward and before anyone could stop him grabbed one of Cronin’s fingers and snapped it. Cronin screamed.

‘Not sure that was going to work in here,’ Merle said.

Cronin was rocking back and forth in his chair clutching his finger. It was at an odd angle.

‘Not only did it work; it has probably damaged the finger on his real body,’ Pagan told him with a slight air of disapproval.

With a look of twisted satisfaction Merle grabbed the finger again and twisted it. ‘Get to the fucking point!’ he shouted, accompanied by Cronin’s screams, before letting go of the broken virtual finger. Merle stood over Cronin while Cronin tried to compose himself through the tears of pain.

‘He has certain proclivities. Like I said, he is a great man. He does not have the tastes that normal men like us have.’

‘What did he do?’ Morag asked quietly. I could hear her starting to get angry.

‘There are places where you can go and do things—’

‘Snuff houses,’ Morag said through gritted, grinding teeth.

‘A bit more sophisticated than that,’ he said.

‘Pretentious, up-market snuff houses,’ Mudge suggested.

I was impressed that Cronin had the ability to look irritated through the pain.

‘He didn’t just go there to kill people.’ I almost killed him when he glanced over at Annis as he said that. She was staring at Cronin with barely controlled fury. ‘He changed their flesh – made them something new.’

‘He ever let you watch?’ Mudge asked in disgust.

The answer was written all over Cronin’s face.

‘So he liked to torture people and then kill them?’ Morag growled.

‘No! You don’t understand. It was something to do with his past …’

‘What?’ Pagan demanded, leaning forward, getting sucked into the story.

‘I don’t know. It was why the Cabal recruited him in the first place, before the war!’

‘Because he was a loony?’ Mudge asked.

‘No, you don’t understand. He thought beyond us; he transcended our morality, which isn’t really our morality any more anyway …’ He was searching for the right way to explain but couldn’t seem to find it. He had a point about morality though. I thought about all the things I’d done just to survive. Something was broken within the entire human race.

‘How could we not know this?’ I asked Pagan angrily. ‘How could God not know this?’

‘There must be no trace of it electronically anywhere,’ Pagan said, but he looked baffled.

‘It makes sense. These places are very careful about their privacy and the privacy of their clients – no records, no surveillance,’ Morag said. She was still staring at Cronin, who seemed to be shrinking from her glare.

‘You know about these places?’ I asked.

She turned to fix me with a stare. Her eyes were black pools. I saw my icon reflected and made small in them.

‘There were always rumours. There was a boy … his name was Michael … prettiest boy I ever saw. One night some people came for him in a very expensive aircar. We never saw him again. The following day MacFarlane was suddenly a lot richer.’

‘That doesn’t mean—’ Merle started.

Morag silenced him with a look.

‘He’s not lying; look at him,’ she said.

She was right. The cool, calm and contained corporate troubleshooter was slowly being whittled away to reveal a craven apostle.

‘So Rolleston’s a sick fuck. Anyone surprised?’ Mudge asked.

‘Actually yes,’ I said. ‘I always thought he was a cold bastard who didn’t give a shit about anything but getting the job done. I thought he was more like Merle than a psycho. No offence.’ This last to Merle.

It wasn’t until I’d been possessed and then the Citadel that I’d got a glimpse of what Rolleston was really like.

‘None taken. I’d agree with that,’ Merle said. It wasn’t a huge shock that they’d worked together. To me anyway; some of the others didn’t look happy. Particularly Rannu. Merle leaned in close to Cronin. ‘But I think you’d better get to the fucking point.’

Cronin flinched away from him.

‘He merged with Demiurge too early.’

Everyone around the room reacted visibly or audibly except Rannu. I went cold. It was like someone taking a shit in my soul.

‘Rolleston and Demiurge are the same?’ Rannu voiced my fear. His voice sounded tight, like he was being strangled. I knew how he felt. We’d both been some fragment of Rolleston. The ultimate infiltration. The ultimate violation. I got to see what an approximation of sympathy looked like on Annis’s hag-like features. It just made me feel worse.

‘Then the biotech. He started experimenting. Started changing people, making them something else. Something monstrous. Like they were toys, playthings.’ I thought back to the hackers in the ice. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Rolleston had seen that as a practical application of biotechnological engineering in his twisted mind. ‘I had to load my internal drug reservoir with downers just to cope with the horror. He enjoyed watching them grow, the pain it caused them. I just wasn’t strong enough. That’s why Crom – Gregor MacDonald – was the way it was. Why it looked the way it did. Why it …’ Suddenly he looked around all the hard faces in the room and realised this wasn’t the audience for that particular discussion.

‘Suffered?’ Mudge finished.

‘You call our friend “it” once more and I will kill you,’ I told him.

‘You have to understand that it – Mr MacDonald – despite playing a key and beautiful part in what was to come, betrayed him. He had to be punished. You see that, don’t you?’

That people who betrayed you should be punished? Yes, but I decided to keep that to myself.

‘Like you?’ Mudge asked. ‘Should you be in the ice? In the ninth circle?’

I had no idea what he was talking about, but Cronin nodded miserably. I hoped he wasn’t going to cry again. I wasn’t sure if I could master my contempt if he did.

‘I wasn’t strong enough.’

‘So Rolleston intends to remake the world in his image?’ Pagan said.

Cronin nodded. ‘What he sees in his mind will come to be manifest.’

‘We’re lucky that Pagan didn’t merge with God and try the same thing,’ Mudge mused.

‘A world of nice cups of tea, smallholdings and folk music would be lovely,’ Pagan said.

‘Sounds like my idea of hell,’ Merle replied. Mudge was nodding in agreement. Cronin was just looking between them confused and a little disgusted at their flippancy.

‘This world according to Rolleston even scared a sick bastard like you?’ Morag demanded. Cronin nodded and then looked at her.

‘It’s sublime, but it’s hell,’ he told her. ‘And I’m just not strong enough. I never thought I’d be his Judas,’ Cronin said miserably. Morag was staring at him with disgust.

‘A world made over in your own image – surely even Rolleston would get bored,’ I said. I was joking but then I had some idea of what the inside of that bastard’s head looked like.

‘He is transcendent,’ Cronin said. Apparently it was supposed to be an explanation.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘But this is bullshit, right? Delusions of grandeur. He can’t do this, can he?’ I asked.

Everyone just looked at me gravely. They’d reviewed the information that Morag had stolen. Their expressions told me everything. I was scared. It was like being possessed all over again, but he could make the world like that. He’d already started in the colonies. He had the power to twist anything into his fantasies like the Berserks in the Citadel – if they had even started off as Berserks.

‘Who knew?’ Mudge asked.

‘Nobody except Rolleston, me and the—’

‘Grey Lady,’ Morag said.

Cronin nodded. Morag was staring at me. Now I couldn’t meet her eyes. She wasn’t the only one staring. Cronin had an evil little smile on his face. It was the second time he’d come very close to death.

‘The other stuff, his torturing hookers to death?’ Mudge asked.

‘I … I … don’t know. Some of the older members of the Cabal would have known. Before God they had the power to make information disappear. I mean properly, the old-fashioned way, with hard work. They would work very hard to cover their tracks.’

‘I don’t believe this shit,’ Morag said. ‘What are you leaving out?’

‘Nothing! I swear. Can’t you see how hard this is? This isn’t just another deal. I have turned my back on … on …’

‘God?’ Mudge couldn’t keep the sound of contempt out of his voice.

Cronin whipped around to look at him angrily. ‘Yes, Mr Mudgie, for all your studied cynicism and tragically hip posturing, yes, that is what I have turned my back on. I could have been part of something wonderful and instead I’ve lowered myself to your level.’ Now it was Cronin who sounded contemptuous. He shook his head, looking miserable again. ‘Like all of you, I was too frightened, too weak.’

‘Bullshit. You’re holding out on us!’ Morag snapped.

‘I am not!’ he said.

‘I believe you,’ Morag said.

Merle, Pagan and even Mudge tried to stop her, but this was her world. They were way too slow. Rannu and I stayed still. Long black obsidian nails sank into the virtual flesh of Cronin’s icon’s chest. He shook, spasmed and screamed as black lightning played over his virtual body. He died quickly, the biofeedback killing him in the real world. Quickly but in agony. I watched, smiling.

‘You stupid bitch!’ Merle screamed, losing it. I twitched as red fury threatened to overwhelm me but I suppressed it. Black Annis’s head snapped around, her thick black seaweed-like hair whipping with the movement. Merle stopped but his icon still looked furious.