World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (44 page)

“Are you wrong?” The governor pondered. “In one sense, no. In another, yes.”

Kahlo’s shoulders slumped. All at once, she saw everything clearly.

As did Dev.

“You weren’t hypnexed,” Dev said to Graydon. “You’re not Jones’s patsy. You’re actually doing this of your own free will.”

“Free will?” said the governor. “I feel more as though it’s out of necessity. No one is forcing me, and I haven’t even had to force myself. Do you know how much I hate this place?”

He swept an arm, indicating the beleaguered subterranean city and the cavern containing it.

“It took everything from me. Everything. My wife. The love and respect of my daughter, my only child. It took my belief in the rightness of things. It stripped me of all I ever valued and left me with nothing. Shall we go indoors?”

Graydon didn’t wait for an answer, but led the way into his office, closing the picture window behind them.

“There,” he said, a small frown easing from his forehead. “Now we can hear ourselves think. I don’t need to be out there any more. Ted seems to have everything firmly under control. The downfall of Calder’s Edge is assured.”

“That’s what you think,” said Dev. He held up three fingers. “You have three minutes. Three minutes to explain yourself. Then you’re going to tell me how I can identify Jones in his moleworm host form. You’re going to point him out for me if he’s down there in the city, and if he’s not, you’re going to tell me exactly where he’s squirreled himself away, and then I can go after him and kill the living shit out of him.”

“I’m sure you have ways of making me talk, Dev,” said Graydon.

“You bet I do.”

“And if he doesn’t succeed,” said Kahlo, “I’m more than willing to try.”

“My own flesh and blood.” Graydon sighed, mockingly. “It’s so sad when children rebel against their parents.”

“I don’t have anything to rebel against. I don’t have parents. Haven’t since I was small. So come on, out with it. You say you were left with nothing. You’ve been governor of Calder’s Edge for twenty years. That’s hardly ‘nothing.’”

“A title, a job,” said Graydon. “Something to occupy my time. The people love me. They’ve voted me into office again and again. If it makes them happy, why not? But I stopped caring about the governorship a long time ago, about politics, about anything much. Life is transitory. Its pleasures are fleeting. One moment you’re there” – he snapped his fingers – “the next, you’re gone.”

“Ma’s death.”

“Indeed, Astrid. Soraya’s death. It shouldn’t have happened. A woman – a beautiful, clever, skilled woman in her prime – taken away, all because some rig designer at TechnoCorp couldn’t be bothered to debug the operating software, or because some CEO decided to cut corners on materials or manufacture, or because some worker on the assembly line didn’t insert a rivet properly, or I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. A stupid, random event. Human error or neglect, one or the other. The inherent imperfection of our species, and Soraya was its victim.”

“And for that,” said Dev, “you’ve decided to betray our entire race?”

“Not betray.” Graydon headed over to the sideboard and poured himself a generous measure of his expensive Japanese whisky. It seemed a natural gesture on this occasion, rather than a calculated, cynical pose. The man needed a drink. “Revenge is, I suppose, the name for it. I am avenging myself for Soraya’s death.”

“On thousands, maybe millions of innocent people?” said Kahlo.

“No one is innocent,” Graydon stated firmly. “Everyone is guilty of being imperfect. It’s the human disease.”

“The human disease,” said Dev. “You sound like a Plusser. Ted Jones may not have hypnexed you, but you’ve certainly been listening to his propaganda, haven’t you? Listening and learning.”

“Ted and I, we’ve had many a long and informative talk. Funnily enough, I haven’t ever met him in person, in his fleshly guise. It all started with an anonymous conversation, a call out of the blue from an unlisted commplant address. I didn’t even realise that the fellow I was talking to was Polis Plus, at first. I assumed, up ’til the penny dropped, that he was simply an Alighierian. A Lidenbrocker, judging by the slight satellite-bounce delay. I might have guessed he wasn’t, had we ever been face to face. That thing with the eyes – Uncanny Valley, is it?”

“He befriended you. He wormed his way into your confidence.”

“And made things clear to me. He showed me that there was an alternative to humanity and its many, many flaws – a race without imperfections, and somewhere where there’s no suffering, no loss, no despair, only contentment and logic and
meaning
.”

“For fuck’s sake, he
converted
you?” Dev exclaimed.

“Enlightened me, I’d prefer to say.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Kahlo. “Jones got you believing in his religion? The Singularity? Plusser heaven? All of that digimentalist bullshit?”

Graydon looked pained. “I wouldn’t expect you to be open-minded, Astrid. You’ve never been the type. It’s always black and white, with you. You’re typical of how people are in this day and age. Empirical, unimaginative, lacking a sense of mystery...”

“Not deluded either,” Kahlo shot back. “And Jones has promised you – what? A place in the Singularity when you die? You can join all the other Plussers in their glorious eternal afterlife?”

“Absolutely.” Graydon’s expression was serene, beatific. “When the time comes, I can be uploaded. Elevated to oneness with the Singularity.”

“Yeah, Jones dangled that one in front of me too,” Dev said, “like a rotten carrot. He suggested my digitised self is pretty much the same thing as a soul. The implication being, stick anyone through a transcription matrix and there’s not much difference between them and an AI sentience.”

“He even offered me the chance to become a member of Polis Plus before my body starts to decay and die.”

“The price being Alighieri,” said Kahlo.

“If it’s anyone’s to give away, it’s mine.”

“All this time, you’ve been lying to us. To everyone. To
me
. You nearly killed me with that train!”

“I regret it,” Graydon said. “But Ted insisted that it was the right course of action, that I had to sacrifice you in order to rid us of Dev Harmer. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you escaped unscathed.”

Kahlo, unable to contain herself any more, lunged at him. Sweeping the whisky tumbler out of his hand, she grabbed him by the throat and shoved him up against the wall. Her eyes were wide and glittering.

“Bastard,” she snarled. “To think I ever loved you or thought you loved me. You don’t love anything. You’re not even a strong person. I see that now. You’re weak. Weak and pathetic. Scared of death. Scared of grief. Scared of anything you can’t control.”

“Kahlo...” said Dev.

Ignoring him, she continued, “I lost someone too, Dad. You seem to forget that. But did I turn out like you? Did I let myself get eaten up by bitterness? Did I hate myself so much I would fall for a Plusser selling me his religious snake oil?”

“Kahlo,” Dev persisted. “You’re killing him.”

Graydon was making guttural, strangulated choking sounds, and his face was purpling. His fingers plucked at his daughter’s hands, uselessly.

“So what?” she said. “He doesn’t deserve to live.”

“No argument,” said Dev. “But I need him alive just a little longer. He hasn’t yet told us where to find Jones.”

Kahlo reluctantly loosened her grip. Graydon slumped to the floor, sucking in urgent, wheezy breaths.

Dev squatted beside him.

“While you’re recovering, I want you to think carefully about your situation, Governor Graydon. If I let Captain Kahlo throttle you to death – and she very well might – or if I kill you myself, which, let’s face it, I’m perfectly capable of, then you’re never going to get your chance at life after death, are you? You’re never going to become a Plusser like you so desperately crave. You’re going to be just another defunct human being.”

Graydon’s eyes were bloodshot, crazed with broken capillaries. Red marks showed where Kahlo’s fingers had dug into his neck.

“Jones won’t be able to save you,” Dev went on. “You’re not going to be transcribed and uploaded. You’ve got nothing to look forward to except oblivion, like the rest of us. On the other hand...”

He paused, trying to gauge Graydon’s state of mind. How much did the man want what Ted Jones had promised him? Could Dev convince him there was a chance he might still get it?

“On the other hand, I’m willing to consider letting you live, on condition that you tell me what I need to know.”

“If I tell you...” Graydon’s voice was squeakily hoarse, each word having to be forced out through a traumatised trachea. “If I tell you, you’ll kill Ted. Where’s the benefit for me?”

“Oh, I’m going to kill him all right. But you get to live, and perhaps then we can come to some sort of accommodation. Hand you over to the Plussers, maybe.”

Graydon looked sceptical. “You’d do that?”

“It’s a possibility. It’s the best offer you’re likely to get. I’d take it if I were you.”

“I have no reason to trust you.”

“No, but since I’m all that’s standing between you and extinction, trust really isn’t the issue. It’s more a case of what else have you got?” Dev pointed at Kahlo. “She’s seriously pissed off at you, and I’m not exactly your biggest fan right now. She wouldn’t stop me throwing you off that balcony, I don’t think, and I know I wouldn’t stop her. I’m hoping you’ll realise that ratting on Jones is your only shot at salvation – in every sense of the word.”

Graydon gave it some thought.

“Hurry up,” Dev said. “Time’s short.”

“I think I’ve made up my mind.”

Graydon stood, smoothing out his rumpled shirt collar and readjusting his tie. He headed for the balcony.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Kahlo. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“How else can I identify Ted Jones’s moleworm host form for you, if not from out there?” said Graydon reasonably, as he hit the control to open the picture window.

The noise of conflict, no longer muffled by soundproofed glass, flooded the room.

“Okay,” said Dev. “You have a point. Glad you’ve seen sense.”

“Oh, I have,” said the governor, pivoting round on the spot. “And Ted is pretty hard to miss, as you’re about to discover.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Looks a lot like this.”

A taloned paw appeared, clutching the balcony parapet; a moleworm paw, three times bigger than average.

Another joined it, the claws cracking the stonework.

A vast head lurched above the parapet, nasotentacles like boa constrictors writhing and wriggling. Eyes the size of basketballs peered palely, malevolently, as more of the creature clambered into view.

The giant moleworm slithered fully onto the balcony, letting out a rumbling, satisfied growl.

“Now,” Graydon said with a smirk, “perhaps you’d like to tell me again, Harmer, about my only shot at salvation?”

48

D
EV COULD HAVE
kicked himself.

At some point during their conversation – probably as Graydon was ushering them back into the office through the picture window – the governor had sent out a distress call to Ted Jones. Much of what had followed, including the confession, had been a stalling tactic. Graydon had been giving Jones the time he needed to break off from commanding the moleworms and come to his rescue.

The giant moleworm now crouched behind Graydon like some enormous, hideous guard dog. Within its brain was the imprinted essence of Jones, his sentience overwriting the creature’s. Jones had engineered an ordinary
pseudotalpidae
to grow larger than any of its kind, tweaking the pup’s DNA as it developed, and installed a transcription matrix inside it as a portal, giving him access into its head at any time.

It was both his personal steed and field marshal of his moleworm legion.

“Impressive, don’t you agree?” said Graydon. “First time I’ve seen the beast myself, but it fair takes one’s breath away.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Dev. “If you’re talking about how bad it smells, that is.”