Cronix (20 page)

She peered into her drink, a slight smile on her lips. “You know, one of the main reasons people believe in god is just to avoid anonymity. When it comes right down to it, most of us are about as anonymous as ants, forgotten as soon as we leave the room. And we can’t bear to live life unregistered, with no one to notice we were ever here. That’s why we need god – compassionate or judgmental, at least he notices. Even the punisher gives enough of a shit to actually punish. That’s why we need him. He redeems us from obscurity.”

Glenn stared hopelessly at the floor. "But... do you still need my help?"

She smiled, without warmth. "Mr Rose, I'm not interviewing you for some summer job hay-baling on my farm. Did you see this in the ‘Help Wanted’ ads in the Holsten City Chronicle? Did I ask you for a resume?"

There was silence. She stared at him, until he dropped his head and started playing with his empty glass. Unexpectedly, she opened the bottle again and splashed out another double.

"You're serious," she said. "What's up, couldn't face a life of blank domesticity? Or are you in trouble back home?"

He said nothing.

"Trouble at home, huh? Ain’t that always the way. But it's not that easy. I got a couple questions for you."

He looked up, unable to discern any visible signs of encouragement in her lean face.

"You know King David?"

He paused, non-plussed. "From the Bible?"

"No, the King David who works at Wal-Mart. Of course from the Bible. You know when he lived?"

"Umm ... I dunno, I guess, about, what ... four thousand years ago?"

"Not bad. Almost three thousand years ago."

Glenn nodded.

"You know how many generations between us and him?"

He shook his head.

"Hundred and twenty. One hundred and twenty people between us and him. That's all. Yet almost everything that's happened in human history stands between us and him. The Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the conquest of America, Newton, Voltaire, Washington, Hitler, the Bomb, the Cold War, those crazy Muslims, everything. All in 120 lives. And that's allowing for the extremely short life expectancy of pre-modern peoples."

"Huh," said Glenn, nodding but totally confused. "Doesn't seem like much, really. When you put it like that."

"It's not. But where are they all?"

Glenn pursed his lips, weighing the strong possibility that this was a trick question.

"Dead?"

"Yeah. Dead. Very good.” She raised her eyebrows as though in appreciation of her pupil’s great strides forwards. “Dead. All of them, every last one of them. Billions of people, trillions of thoughts, emotions, aspirations, experiences. All gone. Kind of a waste, don't you think?"

He ducked his head, yes.

"It's just lucky that we humans have pretty much the same water content as a cucumber, otherwise the world would be one big cemetery. But all those people have gone."

"Uh-huh."

"So, tell me. Where are they?"

"Who?"

"The dead people, Glenn."

Glenn screwed up his eyes. The woman was
way
weird. But then that was all she'd promised, what he must have come here for, though he wasn't too sure any more.

"Er … heaven?"

She smiled, jutted her head forward as though she expected him to go on.

"Hell?"

Her smile widened, disconcertingly. She licked whisky off her lips.

"Do you believe in God, Glenn?"

"I think so, yeah" he muttered, in his usual non-committal way when asked a spiritual question. He was about to launch into qualifications, based on his extra-curricular readings about Buddhism and Hinduism while at university, but she cut him off.

"I didn't ask you if you think there may or may not be the possibility of the existence of some mystical deity. I asked you if you
believe
God exists."

Glenn thought for a moment, tried to focus on exactly what he did think. It felt like exercising some long neglected muscle, whose balance and holding-capacity were untested, but which was unexpectedly called upon to function.

"Er, yeah. I guess ... I mean, I think I believe in God."

She stared at him, shook her head. "No. I'm sorry to tell you, Glenn Rose, you don't have a God. What you have is a vague and unfounded hope that you're not all alone in the universe now that your mommy finds watching TV more satisfying than catering to your every whim. What you have is a lame, largely unserviceable stand-by for emergency situations, something beyond blind chance to cry out to when your finger gets caught in a drinks machine some dark night in the middle of nowhere in the height of a snowstorm. What you do
not
have, however, is a God."

Glenn gawped. "Well... do I need one?"

"You may find out pretty soon. Now, drop your pants."

"What?"

"I said drop your pants. And your underpants too, if they're not the same thing in dear old Blighty."

He laughed nervously. "Hey listen, you've got to be joking. I mean, I can't just drop my trousers in your kitchen..."

She smiled, almost laughing with him. She nodded with mock vigor. "Yes you can. Try it and you can do it. You'll see."

She carried the whiskey bottle over to the sink, put the bottle back in its box. She pulled open a drawer under the sink. When her hand emerged, it was holding a pistol.

"Oh no, not that again." He tried to laugh, but couldn't. Their tenuous rapport had evaporated in an instant. "You're not gonna shoot me 'cos I didn't drop my trousers, are you?"

"No, because you're going to drop you're trousers so I won't have to shoot you. Now do it."

"Hey, listen ..." he said, but she raised the pistol, pulled back the slide and pointed it straight at his chest.

"Do it."

"Okay, okay. Okay, for fuck's sake," Glenn said, half ducking and unbuckling his belt. His bandaged hands fumbled with the zipper, then he pulled his jeans down round his knees.

"And the boxers."

"Oh Christ, what the fuck..."

She fired. The report of the shot was unbelievably loud in the confined space, like the crash of a cannon. A stand of wine glasses exploded some place behind Glenn’s head and he dropped to the floor.

"Get up and pull down your boxers," she barked.

Glenn pulled himself awkwardly from the floor, brushing shards of glass off his bare white knees. Hairline scratches welled red. He fumbled for a second under his pullover and shirt, then pulled his boxers down. His shirt tails hid his crotch from view, he noticed gratefully as he straightened up.

They stood in silence for a second. She had lowered the gun to her side, was staring at him. He felt foolish but also, to his great surprise, the vague stirrings of sexual arousal. He stood stock still, suddenly hoping he wouldn’t get a semi hard-on.

"Now jerk off," she said.

He let out a strangled laugh. "But I can't, I ...I'm not at all..."

She gave a tiny shake of her head. "I don't give a shit. Just do it." She raised the gun again.

"Fuck," said Glenn as he reached under his shirt tails to grab his mercifully still flaccid cock with his bandaged hand. Staring hard at the floor, he started pulling at it, though it felt like a useless piece of cold, wet pasta in his hand. To his horror, he felt that pulse of sexual arousal again. She stood pointing the gun at him. A thought flashed through his mind, that the last moment of life would bring not enlightenment but the revelation of a hitherto unacknowledged Dominatrix fetish.

The phone rang, its sudden trilling like a transmission from another planet.

He stopped his frantic tugging and hid his dick under his shirt again as she moved over to the phone, the gun still pointing at him.

"Hello?" she said as she picked up. "Doug?"

A moment's silence. "It worked? No way. No fucking way. It really worked? Oh dear God, thank you, Lord."

She held the phone to her ear for a moment more, though from her silence Glenn guessed the line had already gone dead. Tears welled briefly in her eyes, before she sniffed and let the pistol drop to her side. She rubbed her tired face and smiled, the gun dangling in her other hand, as menacing now as an oven glove.

"Congratulations," she said. "You've got the job. Now pull your pants up and finish your drink."

***

Little man

Oriente looked up from his book, startled. Lola, who'd filched some of his drugs from the pharmacy and taken them herself, was sitting in a semi-trance in the chair next to his bed.

“What did you say?” he asked her.

She shook her head, eyes unfocused.

“What?” she mumbled. “Didn't say anything.” She frowned slightly in concentration. “Did I?”

Oriente peered around the room, scouting for one of Wexler's visitors.

“Someone just said something,” he said.

“What did they say?” she slurred.

“'Little man,'” he said. “That was it.”

“Not me,” she said. “I don't think you're little. I think you're hot.” She grinned, without opening her eyes. He smiled back at her, the shock of the strange voice receding.

“And you, my dear, are off your tits,” he said.

“And what great tits they are,” she mumbled. “Best in history.” And she started snoring gently, leaving Oriente only slightly reassured that he wasn't cracking up.

***

The woman led Glenn up to a bed room, his whiskey glass still clutched in a shaking hand.

"This is where you'll sleep. Don't get any ideas just because of what happened down in the kitchen. I don't want any sexual favors from you, I just wanted to make a point: you do what I say, when I say it, no matter how crazy it seems."

He nodded, face red at the memory. “And no, I didn’t see your junk, so don’t worry,’ she said.

He smirked nervously, never sure when this woman was serious or joking. He was still trembling from the experience in the kitchen, and here she was, acting like a landlady renting out rooms.

"Keep your stuff in the wardrobe, don't spread it around. No one must know that you're here for now, until my colleagues come back. They’ll have to vet you.” She caught the alarm on his face. “Don’t worry, they won’t look too deep into your past. This place is like the Foreign Legion. You check your shit at reception.’

The last remark clearly did little to calm her guest. "It'll be okay. They do occasional checks, but I'm senior enough that it's only cursory."

"Who's 'they'?" asked Glenn

"Site security," she said, vaguely.

"Who owns the site?"

"Mostly private businesses, but there’s some government interest too," she said. "Not the sort of people who need to know you're here right now."

"So what do I have to do while I'm hiding out here?" he asked, looking round the Spartan room.

"Just press a few buttons every day," she said.

"That's it?" he said, slightly disappointed. "But who's dead?"

"What do mean, who's dead? No one's dead."

"Well, I mean, if I'm a mortician's mute, that implies someone is dead."

"Just a turn of phrase. Lab humor."

"Well, it's a relief to hear you have a sense of humor, seeing as you keep waving that gun at me." He attempted a smile: she barely reciprocated.

"You just keep yours, and we'll get through this fine," she said.

“You’re not soil researchers, are you?”

“No,” she said. “Now look, I have to go out now. I wasn’t expecting you, and I have to meet someone on Holsten City. I'll be back late. Put your car round the back, then wait in the house till I come back. Don't touch anything and don't go snooping around, 'cos I'll know if you do. Do you believe me when I say that?"

He nodded. She turned to go, but he called after her.

"Hey, you haven't even told me your name," he said.

She stopped in the doorway, smiled like someone just remembering what social intercourse was.

"Oh yeah. Sorry. I’m Laura." And she headed off down the stairs.

***

Fitch and Stiney were too busy to celebrate. They worked with the feverish excitement of sports fishermen landing a great marlin on a slippery deck, far out at sea, the thrill of triumph concentrated into the long series of tasks involved in securing their prize.

When they had finally run all the assessments of the data reaped from the executed
genocidaire
, Fitch put on what Stiney had, with typical facetiousness, dubbed the 'space hat' and allowed his younger colleague to administer a dose of the same drug that had set the killer Patrice's mind free of its conscious self earlier in the day.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before," snickered Stiney as he plunged the syringe into the stringy muscle of the older man's forearm. Fitch scowled and lay back on the padded bench. Stiney adjusted the electrodes over Fitch's carefully cropped grey hair.