Rainbow Bridge (11 page)

‘In your view the “Zen Self” had no relation to the experiments in the US, at Vireo Lake, where the project was to create a so-called “occult superweapon”?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Good, very good.’

Eighteen months ago, at Vireo Lake in California, a small group of neurologically altered psychics had broken the mind/matter barrier together, and willed the destruction of all supplies of crude oil, plus anything still in the ground, incidentally wrecking the other fossil fuels beyond recovery. This was not the task they had been set. The “occult superweapon” had been intended for use against the oil-powered might of Islam (might which had vanished like a dream; hard to believe it had ever existed). The A-team had acted for the best, and died in the act. They had plunged the world, in recovery after years of crisis, back into chaos.

The Chinese had taken their time, and then tackled the situation with masterly efficiency. The two countries where the ‘so-called’ occult weapon had been invented and developed were in Chinese hands. The novel and wonderful technologies associated with the breaking of the mind/matter barrier were under a global ban, backed by staggering military superiority, and the A-team event
had never happened.
To believe otherwise was the ‘pernicious delusion’ Wang Xili had come leaping round the world to suppress. Ax wondered what was happening to Fred Eiffrich right now. Fred, who had fought the Pentagon’s Vireo project tooth and nail, but had not been able to prevent that single, catastrophic successful test. Did you fence like this, Fred, when the Chinese arrived? Trying to find the bottom, trying to guess what you were meant to say? He dared not express the slightest curiosity about the President of the United States. Who was alive and well, of course, in this Chinese world: he could be seen on tv, making speeches in support of his new allies.

Wang had turned his wrist and was consulting a small screen he wore there. Clock watching? Getting feedback? Maybe he was checking his list. Dead Counterculturals, Rufus O’Niall, Sage and the Zen, what next? Be ready.

‘What’s your opinion on the Welsh problem?’

‘The Welsh problem?’

And Ax was caught, after all, off guard—

‘The people of Scotland and Ireland have welcomed our intervention. They are co-operating fully with Chinese inspectors in stamping out forbidden technology. The Cardiff government has made good resolutions, but can they be trusted? They may be harbouring suspect characters.’ The General cast a dismissive glance over Ax’s knot work, which said he had friends in the north. ‘Scotland and Ireland are sovereign states, we have undertaken to respect their territories. The case of Wales is different, as you know. What do you think? Should we go in, and cleanse the running sores?’

At the Dissolution of the United Kingdom there’d been a rush for Welsh assets. The little country had ended up substantially owned by Japan; Japan had vanished into China’s maw. It had all seemed so far away, so harmless, like the corporation that “makes” both your breakfast cereal and the car you drive. Now the Chinese were here, and why hadn’t he been prepared for this threat? Caer Siddi, on the Llyn Peninsula, where Olwen Devi and her team had fled, was the last refuge of mind/matter tech. What did Wang know, what was Ax supposed to say?

He had a moment of total fugue.

He was in the Zen Self tent, cool light through the planes of the geodesic, with the woman whose genius had provided the tech for his dreams of Utopia, spin-offs from her great experiment. He was a penniless rockstar warlord; Olwen was saying, with the force of prophecy,
you will pay me by looking out for Wales, Ax, when you come into your kingdom.

It’s not the past, there is no past, when I was there I was here—

Wang’s office looked very strange, as if it shouldn’t exist.

He shook his head. ‘I can’t advise you. I’m not a political leader.’

‘Well then we’ll put the Welsh question aside. Running sores should clear up of their own accord, when the system has been restored to health. By the way, we intend to handle the so-called “Pagan sacred sites” of England very carefully. They should be preserved, if possible, for their ancient beauty, and they could be booby-trapped. Do you think that’s likely?’

‘I know nothing about it.’

‘Good, very good. Now, to business.’ Wang opened a drawer, and brought out a cigar shaped tube, a thing popularly known as a blunt-case. He set it on the desktop, and activated the packaging, with distaste. A pink, penis-shaped rocket rose on Monty Python clouds, and attended by tiny wriggling space-babes, from a squashed ball of virulent green; possibly representing the earth. ‘You persist in turning down the government post? This looks like resistance to our mission, Mr Preston.’

‘I want to help, sincerely. I’d be no use as your President, because
I am called the just
.’

Wang brightened, the scholar intrigued. ‘That sounds like a quotation.’

‘It is… The people of Athens decided to banish Aristides, called the Just. The citizens cast their votes, in cases of the kind, by writing the name of the person they wished banished on a shard of earthenware. An illiterate, peasant fellow came up to Aristides during the voting, without recognising him, and begged him to write
Aristides
on a shard. He, surprised, asked what harm “Aristides” had ever done to the peasant. None at all, replied the other, but I’m tired of hearing him called “the Just” all the time. Aristides made no reply, he simply inscribed his own name, and handed back the shard… The story’s from
Plutarch’s Lives
. Like Aristides, Wang, I have a tired old reputation for virtue; it annoys people. You need fresh faces.’

‘You’re too modest,’ said Wang, with that disarming smile. ‘But I like the quotation.’ With a lightning change of tone, he pounced on the blunt-case. ‘So! You have the insolence to tell me that your “virtue” would be compromised and useless to us in an official post. Very good. And you wish to be a rock musician again. What do you call this
excrescence
? An album?’

‘It’s called a rez,’ said Ax. ‘Short for residency. It’s what replaced “albums”, when downloading finally killed the cd. Sort of a music-video compilation, usually purporting to be a candid diary, like reality tv. That one’s called
Wood Court
’

The Triumvirate had made
Wood Court
on Sage’s visionboard, during the invasion. They’d sent it to Paris, where their friend Alain de Corlay, the French Techno-Green leader, had produced it for them; it had just had its underground ‘launch’ in Europe. Excrescence was a mild word for the packaging, a dirty trick and they’d probably never know why Alain had shafted them like that—

‘It will be banned. There is nothing patriotic here, nothing inspiring! Every song celebrates a degraded lifestyle smeared with the filth of the Counterculture.’

Ax nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

They’d used forbidden immersion code: three per cent direct cortical stimulation for the emotional triggers, stronger for the qualia. They must have been out of their minds to think they could publish. Yeah, easily: those pure and naked crazy days, hiding in the undergrowth, building their house of sticks, he could feel the madness now and he wanted to be back there.

General Wang glared. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Your work cannot be banned, it is in the datasphere, we will only add to its filthy notoriety. You are mistaken. We decide what is propagated, and what is deleted from the record.’ He squinted at the case, unable to find the angle that would make a list of tracks blossom. Briefly the commander in chief became a forty-something undone by youth-tech. He didn’t lose his temper. ‘Why
do
the kids buy these things? Pop videos are freeware.’

‘I’ve no idea. They say it’s the romance of owning an object.’

‘Ah. There it is. What does
this
title mean?’ Wang’s finger stabbed the air, where Ax couldn’t quite see anything, his tone venomous. “
The Doctor Came
”?’

‘The Eighteenth of October is the feast of St Luke,’ explained Ax. ‘One of the Christian Evangelists, held to have been a physician. It was the day you had chosen for the ceasefire, and your executions. Sometimes medicine hurts.’

‘I see. But you are a Muslim.’

Ax shrugged. ‘Got a lot of respect for the prophet Jesu. Sayeed Muhammad would have taught me that, if my mother hadn’t. The English like “old”, General. Christianity is older than the so-called Paganism of the Counterculture by a very long chalk, and it preserves the only genuine relics of our native animist religions.’

‘Ingenious.’ Wang leaned back, touching his fingertips to his lips again. ‘Hm.’ Do good to them that hate you, thought Ax. Sometimes it works, bizarrely enough. But you have to be sincere in your good will, or the enemy will sniff you out at once. He waited as General Wang, flattered despite himself, puzzled over the enigma that was Ax Preston’s attitude.

‘I think you should say, “The
Teacher
came”.’

‘Well, good luck. I’ve been trying to get the English to respect education for years, it’s an uphill task. Doctors are better liked.’

‘Hmph.’ A leap back to venom. ‘The song called “Hard” is crude repellent filth.
Something hard, shoving through…
It’s about rape!’

‘I believe it’s more complex. You’d have to ask Fiorinda.’

‘No woman was raped in the operation I commanded; nor man. Chinese soldiers do not commit rape. NO non-combatants were harmed.’

Counterculturals who refused to recant were classified as combatant, down to babes in arms. Ax thought of sights in his own past that he wished he could forget, things he’d been unable to prevent on the first rampage of Green violence. Times he’d chosen to put his own life and fragile authority first, tell the absolute truth—

‘You can’t be everywhere.’

‘
Wood Court
will be banned,’ repeated the General. He tossed the case back into his desk drawer. ‘Your music lacks focus, it lacks energy. You’ve lost direction. We’ll see if the track called “Lay Down” can be rescued, stripped of foul, deluded technology. Its pacifist message separates you from the active recalcitrants. They need to know that you have abandoned them to their fate.’

‘Yeah. I want them to know that.’

‘Good.’ The General rose to his feet, indicating that Ax should do likewise. ‘What d’you make of Chu? A remarkable young woman, she’ll be jumping over my shoulders soon. Don’t you think?’ No answer seemed required. The secretary, who had been silent in the background all this time, hurried to open the office door. ‘My intention is that you and your partners, and the Few, will resume your role as cultural icons. First, you three must be rehabilitated. You’ll have to work hard, take direction, be humble, win respect. Become better artists, you can set your sights no higher.’

They left the rooms that had been Fiorinda’s suite, heading for the spectacular main stairs. ‘I’ll see you again before you leave. Now I want you to meet the mentors under whose direction you’ll be working.’

The great solar, with its nineteen-sixties style wall of glass, echoed with memories best forgotten. It seemed to be dead space in this incarnation, a strip of utilitarian carpet making a pathway through. Ax’s ‘mentors’ were occupying a small huddle of chairs in front of a mobile display screen. They stood up as Wang and Ax approached. One of them was Norman Soong. The other two were Joe Muldur, rock journo in a different mould from Dian Buckley, and Toby Starborn, a digital artist who’d been the darling of the Second Chamber: whose presence here, on both counts, was astonishing. Soong grinned, and saluted the General with relish. Toby Starborn, wearing the olive green uniform over a red shirt, sketched an odd bow. Joe, in civvies, tried to copy Soong’s salute and made a mess of it.

‘Hey, General,’ said Norman. ‘Did you convince the prince?’

‘I believe so.’ Wang looked at Ax: the charming smile had a hint of devilment in it. ‘Enjoy, Mr Preston. You’ll be excited by the plan, I’m sure.’

Toby Starborn
. How the fucking hell does that work?

Toby’s amber, tip-tilted eyes were fixed on Ax with a disquieting, shallow intensity. His nappy brown curls were dressed like Norman Soong’s in a stiffened aureole. They looked, the big gaudily-wrapped impresario, the faunlike artist, as if they’d made their heads into fright-masks to ward off demons. Ax’s stomach was hollow, he had been offered nothing to eat or drink and he’d been hungry when he arrived. Bodies piled on plastic rose from where they’d been suppressed through the interview, threatening to overwhelm him—

There was a gear-changing pause as the General strolled away. ‘Hi, Ax,’ quavered Joe. ‘I’m, I’m incredibly honoured to be invited to join this.’

‘This is the turning point of your career, Axl-baby,’ said Toby, the shallow stare replete with malice. ‘No more sad pseudy self-referential lyrics about the fab threesome, endlessly up yourselves in a garret. No more smug fucking protest song hit singles. This will be concrete, this will be beautiful. We’ll make you famous.’

Soong patted Ax on the arm. ‘Ax, what a privilege. Did I say that? Love your music, guitar man, the toast of the world and the jam on it, in the words of our native guide here, I mean Joe. Toby’s being tactless, but he’s right, we’re going to commit fantastic things! He’s a genius, I
love
the themes he dares to tackle.’

Ax looked at the hand on his sleeve. ‘May I speak to you for a moment?’

They walked to the other end of the glass wall, Joe and Toby Starborn left awkwardly standing together. ‘Norman,’ said Ax, electing the man his instant buddy, showbiz culture’s got to be good for something. ‘Who the fuck set this up?’

‘Everything we say is heard,’ intoned Norman, unctuous and alarmed. ‘Everything we do is seen, and it’s good. It’s
good
to live like this.’

Ax gave him a disgusted look. ‘Of course. We all live in the same household, it’s the human condition, we all watch and listen. One day I plan to be boring, it’s my dream, meanwhile I’m
fine
with being under surveillance every moment. What are you trying to do to me? Toby Starborn is a professed Pagan.’