Rainbow Bridge (27 page)

‘Sage?’ The artist tried to lift his hands, which were broken, his drowned voice took on urgency. ‘
They know, Sage,
’ something lost
…
‘
very…be careful…
’

He was left holding the body, waiting for the lights and shouts to reach him. Toby was gone.

Sage had climbed a modest slope behind the Rainbow Bridge complex, to see the countryside. So this was Suffolk. Newly frozen waterways slate grey in the snow; a disused access road to the former shopping centre roping the quiet fields. Beyond woodland, smoke rose from the chimneys of a town. A vehicle or two crept, bright insects. At least England’s still breathing, if barely.

Bet the neighbours hate that fucking camp like poison.

Richard’s leg had been taken off above the knee in the early hours of the morning, Corny was cleaned up and under sedation. That’s how it is, the way we live now. The cannibal meat stalls, next alley along from the clinic where dedicated staff are vaccinating babies, scrubbing up for emergency amputations, handing out leaflets on healthy eating. The Executive Committee and their friends had vanished overnight, which was tactful of them. Had been allowed to vanish, get it straight. Rich would probably survive. He would wake to be told the amputation had been a success, and that he was in amazing shape, considering. Later, he’d find out that Cornelius was gone forever, and he’d have Ax telling him that
he must
co-operate with the Chinese, he must give them a formal surrender. We saved your life Rich, aren’t you grateful?

Ah well, cheap at the price. Four teenagers safe, military escort not badly dented. Two horses and the lighters written off, and a sad feeling that they wouldn’t be seeing Joe Muldur for a while. Last night was a Reichsperience too far, he won’t be on our fabulous trail no more and I’ll miss him… A tiny purple dot appeared on the pale western horizon. He watched it for a moment, then put the glasses away and left the hilltop: bareheaded, fists in his pockets, the collar of his greatcoat turned up.

And all the time it was Toby we should have been watching. We couldn’t figure out what a mutilated genius was doing on our trip; and we’ve never liked him, so we just ignored him. Now I believe I get it. What did Norman say?
You have responded well
. Maybe showing no interest was our best option. What were you trying to tell me, Toby? Were you warning me we’re suspected of clinging to forbidden powers, same as you? Tha’s okay, we knew—

A robin followed as he tramped downhill, along the margin of a field of snow-crusted turnip greens. At a break in the hedgerow it waylaid him, on the stump of a felled beech: let rip a burst of song and cocked its head, expectant.

‘Sorry, mate, can’t help you. No change.’

Humans give me food, said the little bird’s indomitable glance. You are human, therefore give me food. Don’t piss me around, just because I am small.

‘Okay, okay, see what I can do.’

He came up with some manky fragments of chocolate biscuit.

‘You talk to animals, Aoxomoxoa? Is this your magic?’

The bird whisked away.

The Daoist nun had changed her robes and cap for an elegant padded coat in dark silk, and a discreetly fashionable little hat. She still wore the serene, seamed face; but context is everything. This morning it was obviously a digital mask

‘Anyone can talk to a robin. They like people, dunno why.’

‘You seemed to understand each other.’

The trunk of the beech, shorn of branches, had been left by the hedge. She brushed snow from the close-grained grey hide and sat down. Sage realised he’d better sit on the ground. To make this woman look up at him was not a good idea.

So he did that, and waited.

‘They call you the Zen Self Champion. Tell me about it.’

‘
Jiejie
, I don’t know what to say, it’s embarrassing. It was a daft adventure in rockstar spirituality, dressed up in fake tech, and I’m over it.’

‘I have watched you,’ she said. ‘And I don’t think so. Tell me the truth.’

‘Hm.’

‘Tell me about your fabled yogi powers, that would be a good start.’

Sage thought about it, studying the crystalline snow. ‘There’s a passage in a Zen text, about a master approaching enlightenment. I can’t quote, but he meditates, and goes out of his house and looks around. He talks to animals, he sees demons and lurid monsters; the spirits within appear through the veil. Then he meditates again, goes out and sees the abyss of non-being opening before him… But having achieved enlightenment he goes out of his house and everything is as before. I don’t know if the ancients wanted us to believe in yogi powers as literal fact; I do know they’re a distraction. Wherever I went,
jiejie
, I’m back where I was. Except perhaps I reached a starting point, perhaps now I know how to live.’

He looked up. The nun studied him carefully, and nodded.

‘That’s a good answer.’

Rufus O’Niall’s assassination hung in the air, he wondered what the hell he’d do if she raised the subject, but she decided to move on.

‘Immix code is
extremely
dangerous. Don’t think we don’t understand it, we do. We know that an
immersion
is achieved by building the neuronal firings and fractional firings of a perceptual state in code, and delivering this fake to the visual cortex, where it is processed as if the stimuli were external. This is playing games with the stuff of reality! This is the highway to pernicious delusion, it CANNOT be permitted. Do you want the universe to dissolve into primordial information soup?’

‘Well, no, but…’ Somebody, maybe Toby Starborn’s ghost, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Never say
no
! Think of your meat and potatoes! Okay, okay.

‘It’s a great loss to you, but you must accept it.’

‘I know I must, and I do accept.’

‘You have other talents. The lyrics of “Winter Song” are beautiful.’ She laughed. ‘But why a “children’s talking book” Aoxomoxoa? Can’t you read?’

Sage grinned, eyes down. ‘Not exac’ly, not very well. Dyslexic, me.’

‘Good heavens.’ She stared at him. ‘Were you
never
able to read?’

Fuck! Am I nuts, trying to score points off her? ‘Nah, it’s temporary, it seems to be the result of, of, er, the time I spent with the secret police.’

‘Ah…you were tortured, I know. I didn’t know there were lasting effects.’

He found the compassion coming through the mask disquieting, but he answered. ‘They stuck needles behind my eyes, allegedly to retrieve memories I told them I didn’t have. It was
bullshit
… It’s settling down, better all the time.’

‘You haven’t had a scan of the damage? But you must!’

He could not stop himself from flinching. ‘Er, no. I’m fine, really.’

And that’s all on the torture topic. He felt a change, a steely edge.

‘And yet, Aoxomoxoa!…
And yet
, despite these wise opinions, despite this courage of yours, in the face of the most terrible threat the world has known, last night the Triumvirate had the folly to perform a flagrant act of ritual magic!’

Thought you’d get to that.

He chose his words with care, not daring to look up, wishing it was Ax dealing with the rocket science. But she’s not going to do this conversation with Ax. That wouldn’t work, Ax must be above suspicion.

‘We performed a live sex act, undignified but harmless. The people in the camps don’t have much. At Warren Fen you saw what we’ve tried to do to rebuild, it’s nothing like enough… Sex means a lot to them.
Make love not war
is a sacred principle to the Rainbow Bridge Council, daft addle-brains though they may be. We gave them our affirmation, on stage last night. We believe it’ll win you hearts and minds, and rip up the support from the recalcitrants, all over the eastern flank.’

He knew not to mention the Feds. Let’s hope to fuck Russian intervention in Anglia goes into the official
this never happened
file, and stays there.

‘Hmph,’ said the nun. ‘I think you are prevaricating.’

Damn right I am. You and I both know what that was. It was something misnamed a fertility rite, a ‘magic’ humans have performed since they were human, not meant to conjure, meant to
enact
the bond between us and this world of flesh. It has fuck-all to do with occult superweapons. Did I do okay?

‘The other aspect of it was Cornelius and Richard. Loyalty impresses the English, but I won’t say we did it out of cold calculation. They’d taken the wrong path, but we couldn’t abandon our friends to that death.’

‘Right action, perhaps,’ said the nun, judiciously. ‘But faulty reasoning. You must learn to consult with your superiors. You will fall into error if you take things into your own hands’

The robin launched a flight of silvery notes, probably advice to leave the biscuit crumbs alone. Her silence held no threat this time. They looked down on Rainbow Bridge, stain on the landscape, and he spared a thought for the poor bastards out in the cold. It was hard to summon up any pity for the Executive Committee, but they weren’t the only actives. Sorry lads, you fought for our cause once, but it’s change or die time—

‘In the Dunhuang Caves in the west of China,’ said the nun, ‘a great cache of thousand year old scrolls was discovered, early in the twentieth century. It seems the Buddhist monks and nuns, a thousand years ago, believed disaster had fallen on the entire world. So they gathered all the books, the sum of human knowledge, and hid them where they might survive. In places like Rainbow Bridge Ax’s England has stored away a treasury of appetites. A hoard of redundant consumers, whose life consists in preying on each other and indulging in the coarsest pleasures. The world will never again have a place for those people, what use are they to futurity?’

‘You’re asking me?’ Sage shrugged. ‘I dunno. What practical use were the lost Dunhuang scrolls, when it came to rebuilding after that other disaster? It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was an act of hope.’

‘Another good answer.’

The purple dot had been growing. The land ship was suddenly very close, coming to a halt with a silken, pervasive thunder. Like a fenland lighter, he thought, looks as if nothing’s happening until you have to kill the momentum. A group of people had emerged from Rainbow Bridge: he saw two stretchers. Ah, that’s bad. Richard and Corny will wake up in Chinese hands, we won’t be with them.

The Daoist nun, aka Ax’s fifth element, stood up. ‘Your transport will be here soon. You must tell Ax, I found his performance last night
very
impressive.’

Of course she’d been in the Arena. She does whatever she feels like doing, this nun, with her unstoppable buggers and no safety net. What does that imply? I was there too, he thought. How about my performance? It’s those pretty brown eyes. And the insane naked yelling at clandestine Fed military advisers—

‘I will.’

She smiled through the mask, and left him.

Sage watched the Chinese embark, and let the ship clear before he set off again down the hill. This is how it will be, he thought. We’ll chip away, solving their problems for them, in our crazy rockstar fashion. Ax will go on saying no to their kind offer of the Presidency, until it dawns on them that he’d holding out for one particular deal. Then eventually we’ll hit the
real
problem, and all the ducking and diving, all the triage and betrayal will have been for nothing. Ah well, such is life.

Keep on dancing ’til the music stops. So far, so good

Spring Moon

‘Eating shit was a feat of jackass gross-out,’ said Sage. ‘But it meant something about the rape of the planet, greed-culture. I was very angry, those days.’

‘I know. I didn’t know it at the time, I thought you were just weird.’

The roadshow was in Yorkshire, helping to normalise relations between the Islamic heartland and General Sheng of the North East; or rather his subordinate here, Yen Dawei. Something must have been done about the privateers and their arms caches (imagine a Covert Operations suit called Ospenko hunted down and captured, imagine top-level secret exchanges; the Feds folding their cards). The AMID was efficiently crushing the last die-hard actives in Anglia at the moment; it was not for the Triumvirate to know the details. They had turned the tide in the east with their bit of theatre, now they were being used for something else—

Sage and Fiorinda found some picnic tables, beside the drear, windswept reservoir. Imagine summer Sunday outings. Rough-hewn recycled plastic ‘wood’, like the timbers of Warren Fen’s watchtowers. A row of bins, a car park gone to seed; grey-brown whaleback hills rising across the steel water. Winter goes on
forever
up here. In the third week of March you’d kill for a mist of green, a clump of primroses.

‘I’m turning in some shambolic performances, Fee.’

‘Mm.’

‘Ha. You’re supposed to say,
oh, what nonsense Sage, you are invariably superb
. I’m in a disaster zone. I feel like a kindly uncle, I can’t never do the stunts I did no more, I’m an arthritic ex-ballerina and I’m fucking
bored
.’