The Chosen Seed (43 page)
‘You’re wrong. There’s too much information there. And the original scrolls will be found and carbon-dated. It’ll be enough.’
Cass could see the desperation in his eyes. He was close to cracking. Releasing these files would never restore his life, but they would give him peace. Cass looked back at Castor Bright and repeated his question. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Once the fighting was done here, you know what they’d do – in your heart you know: finally, maybe not this century,
but eventually, they will look Heavenwards. They’ll want to find it.’
‘But the Walkways are locked.’
‘Yes, they are, for now. But you all have such tenacity: you will die trying to find a way, until you succeed. What is
here
, all that has been built, that we have all worked so hard to create, will become worthless, because everyone will want Heaven. And when they do find a way to undo the locks, then they will meet their Lord God. And he will destroy them.’
‘Don’t listen to him, Jones.’ Dr Cornell leaned forward in the chair. ‘You
can’t
listen to him – I’ll send it myself. I’ll—’ He lunged forward, but Brian Freeman pushed him back again.
‘Don’t even think about it.’
There was a long pause.
‘Sometimes,’ Mr Bright said, so softly Cass could barely hear it, ‘it is only the greater good that matters.’
Cass looked from Mr Bright to Dr Cornell.
The greater good
. They were Bright’s words but Cornell no doubt thought that what he wanted Cass to do was also in everyone’s best interests. Cass wasn’t so sure. Was releasing the truth for the greater good? Was Cornell right? Did the world have the right to know? Or was the old man driven simply by his own need for vindication and that was a good argument to hang it on? Cornell might believe his motives were altruistic, but Cass wasn’t so sure. The Network had been his life’s obsession and he had been ridiculed for it. This was his opportunity for a moment of glory. Then there was the power, Mr Bright – always in the shadows, pulling strings and making decisions that affected them all. Was he acting in the greater good?
Cass thought of the students who had killed themselves
after the Experiment. They had been innocent and Bright had used them. Their truths had been lost and their families would never know the true circumstances of their deaths. Could he live with that? Would releasing the truth to the world actually make any difference to them now? He looked at the silver haired man whose eyes had lost a little of their sparkle over the past nine months or so. He found that he didn’t believe that Bright had acted in malice, no matter how terrible his deeds. What had those decisions cost him? And now that the Walkways were closed for good, how would Bright and the Network change? Was there an opportunity to really make them work for the greater good now? Cigarette smoke burned the back of his throat. He thought of the Glow. He thought of Luke. He thought of everything he had learned about himself. He thought about the world he realised he loved in all its grittiness.
The greater good. He stared at the screen and then looked into Dr Cornell’s desperate eyes. He knew beyond certainty that if he deleted the files it would destroy the man, just as surely as if he were to shoot him between the eyes.
The greater good
.
He knew what he had to do, and his heart raced with the relief. His choice was made, and he thought that perhaps it was the only choice he’d ever had.
He pressed the key.
Dr Cornell yowled like a broken animal when he saw Cass delete the files, and he yowled until Brian Freeman chloroformed him. Cass had known he would be destroying the old man when he’d made his decision.
‘What do we do with him?’ Freeman asked.
‘Keep him unconscious,’ Cass said, before Mr Bright
could speak for him. ‘Get him and all this stuff back to his house. When he wakes up, who’s going to believe his story?’
‘They’re going to have to put him in the nuthouse,’ Freeman muttered. ‘He’s snapped, poor bastard.’
‘Yes they will, and yes he has,’ Cass said. ‘It can’t be helped.’ He looked at the old gangster.
‘Haven’t you got anything to say about this? About what I’ve done?’
Freeman drained his whisky. ‘I’m not so different from him.’ He nodded in Mr Bright’s direction. ‘I’ve lived a lot of my life in the shadows. I understand the need for secrets. I’m all for knowledge, Cass, son, but not for everyone. Just for me.’
Cass smiled. He was coming round to that point of view himself.
I
t was New Year’s Day, and the two men stood side by side at the vast windows and looked down over the sprawling city of London as they listened to the news on the radio. One smoked a cigarette, the other a thin cigar
.
‘
Investigators still have not been able to locate the cause of the devastating fire at the Harwell Institute in Oxfordshire last night. They have, however, confirmed that one of the dead bodies is that of Cassius Jones. Detective Inspector Jones had been on the run from the police after they sought him for questioning over the deaths of two men earlier this year. Jones was responsible for uncovering a network of corruption in his own force only eight months ago, but there has been speculation that he suffered some kind of mental breakdown in the aftermath of the violent deaths of his brother’s family. The other bodies have yet to be identified, but are
—’
The elder of the two men clicked a button on the small remote control in his hand and the woman’s voice was cut off. From upstairs somewhere came the sound of a computer game being played, and the room started filling with the scent of rich, expensive coffee as hot liquid filtered through the machine on the table between the offices. It was a brand new year. It was a brand new era
.
‘
Are you ready to get to work, Mr Jones?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling
.
‘
Yes I am, Mr Bright.’ Mr Jones smiled too, but he continued to stare out of the window for a little while. He no longer had to look up. There was nothing to look up for. Everything that mattered was here on Earth. He turned and paused, automatically adjusting his expensive new suit, and enjoying the feel of the silver against his chest. The history had never been deleted. How could it be? But Cass had passed that final test. He’d made the choice that he’d always been destined to make. Beneath it, his shoulder moved with ease. There was no longer even a scar to show that he’d ever been injured. Mr Bright had been right; Cassius Jones was beginning to learn what the Glow could do for him. He smiled as he looked at the office doors. The brass plaques had been taken down and replaced with more stylish aluminium. Mr Solomon’s name-plate was now lying in Mr Bright’s desk drawer, a nostalgic memento. Cass looked over at Mr Bright’s door, and then back to his own. MR BRIGHT and MR JONES. He smiled again, and rocked on his feet, enjoying the feel of the thick crimson carpet beneath his Italian leather shoes. He hadn’t changed much, including the large painting of the fallen Angel on the wall: Mr Solomon had had good taste, and he liked the sense of history that came with it
.
Behind his desk, Mr Jones took a deep breath and turned on his computer. He had a lot to get through before taking Luke for lunch, and then after that he had the first meeting of the new Inner Cohort. He looked at the small silver ornamental engraving sitting on his vast desk. The words shone out at him, reflecting in the winter sunlight pouring through the glass behind him
:
Better to Reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
Wasn’t that the truth? he thought, as he lost himself in the morning’s work
.
THE END
It’s so hard to know where to start with these now that this trilogy is done. There are, I’m very lucky to be able to say, just too many people who have helped me on the way. Of course, as always, huge thanks to Jo Fletcher and Veronique Baxter and all the team at Gollancz, especially Gillian Redfearn, my new editor, and Jon Weir, my publicist and drinking buddy. For inspiration I need to thank Michael Marshall (Smith) and John Connolly whose work made me realise you could write crime that was still a bit on the weird side. A big thank you to Tony Thompson for writing books that give me so much of my research, and I still owe him a dinner. Ray Marshall at Festival Films for liking it so much he bought the TV rights – a man of taste obviously, who has also become a friend, mentor and colleague over the past two years. Stephen Jones for making sure I got a meeting with Jo Fletcher way back when, and all at the British Fantasy Society for making this writing journey less lonely. You all totally rock.
Also by Sarah Pinborough from Gollancz:
A Matter of Blood
The Shadow of the Soul
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2012
All rights reserved.
The right of Sarah Pinborough to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2012 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN
978 0 575 08956 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.