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When do you know finally that a secret
'
s successful?

 

She stood frozen, eyes ticking across the scene. And I thought, I
'
m a better man than her by far.
‘
You all report to the specimen above as surely as churchmen.
'

Casolaro looked grim.
‘
You
'
re alone, Alix. Nobody knows you
'
re here.
'

‘
Then I can do whatever I want to you.
'

Quinas gave a contemptuous snort and shook his big, crafty head.
‘
Always the next trip, eh? Which of us here withholds the most power through prevarication? Louder concerns are not necessarily deeper. You
'
re still part of a population that
'
s been craving more vacuum and less content every hour
—
sanity its madness, song its science, fashion some right-hand nothing. Tedious repetition is exalted and boredom is a sign of sweetness. For brains I fear this is more than an interlude.
'
How could eyes of dead silver be so full of humour?

Within this device I couldn
'
t project an etheric image of my view and so had to use the arcane code of words. What was I doing here anyway? Tuning up for silence?

‘
I feel awkward watching while you sort the pottery shards of your justification. If you
'
re the spokesmen for god
'
s niggling doubts, I think I can deduce that it
'
s ready and waiting.
'

‘
It probably is. If it created our nature to rebel against force, our nature not to submit, will it be surprised? Can it be, on any score? Heaven and hell
—
both offer immortality, which ultimately doesn
'
t get us very far. All is one, as they say. So why not be at peace, Alix, with what you have. It won
'
t go unrecognised.
'

‘
What, smart job on the train? Neon headstone? The only real peace is a defeat you cowards intend never to concede
—
an admission of reality. The refusal to help it pretend we
'
ve every reason to be grateful. Through inventing justice we
'
ve earned the knowledge that we hate the constancy of our suffering. Crimes against humanity.
'
Yes, the revenge was self-destructive, nuclear. The only act of dignity left to us. All great events close as many doors as they open. Open as many doors as they close. Fear the less-than-great. Does Spring smash Winter?
‘
I can
'
t help you feel anything better. Fuck you old men, it
'
s the golden mischief
—
this if nothing else. I complied with myself. Do better, if you can.
'

I even suspected it was a dare, a set-up. Sainthood, you could feel it coming up like dust.
Escape
.

Casolaro stepped up with a hypodermic.
‘
Death in etheric containment,
'
he said coldly.
‘
Very nasty.
'

‘
Sometimes the needle hurts most when they pull it out,
'
Quinas called, enjoying himself.

Casolaro looked me in the face.
‘
It
'
s not personal.
'

‘
Everything
'
s personal.
'

Technology masked the old blade.

Melody had handed Quinas the bound book.
‘
I found this in his hotel room.
'

Quinas looked at it vaguely, lump-fanned it open
—
Melody had put the mirror book into an old cover. A scream tore in half as Quinas was drawn eyes-first into the object, a cloud of blood sizzling across the floor and ceiling, drenching the onlookers. Casolaro looked back as Melody whacked down the generator switch, breaking the current to the rack.

Ah! Melody.

‘
I
'
ve lost all feeling in my gob, gentlemen. Time to go.
'
A shiver of static trailed away from me and everyone stepped back in panic
—
like they
'
d no idea I could be this far into the countdown. My teeth powdered in my mouth as I slipped the lifeline. Sparks of nervous system rushed shooting past my release.

I felt like a white maggot as I pulled out of my skin. Neat as the meat from a lobster.

 

Chains live without air

 

I left the body on the ground like an old cracked shoe. The onlookers
'
faces were turning to porcelain, then to thin paper masks on the surface of flowing film
—
still shielded, then irrelevant as I swept behind the pasteboard stage of architecture and on into the airwaves.

The end
—
every tiny hero, remember their story. The end
—
every history. The end
—
every youth in the adventure street. The end
—
every lover. If you won
'
t do it, then I will.

Men
'
s fields were old rags of land, the setting sun was enraptured, a huge edge and wheel, fire descending a sky covered in bruises. Intersecting dimensional sightlines tangled the continents, a mountain was a green city of things, stone depths.

A little air high in the sky singing as the universe flew into my eyes. I was a single monochrome cell accelerating through kidstuff and clashing superstorms. A squall of ultraviolet geometrics and other junk intended to distract. Red gold elements and shifting clarity.

Another forgotten firmament rolled into view, dark pulses teeming with stings of light, waves of a billion perishing cells. Gigantic flavour tides in high definition, space overdoing it and washed by fizzing toxicity.

The sawtooth strobing of sideviewed dimensional edits ended in the seething, chaotic mass of quantum foam. Hypergrey depths rumbling with the accumulating density of what was ahead. It was letting me approach. It hadn
'
t flattened the steps yet. Bringing its own poison to its lips.

But when the thing drew near, it precipitated from all directions in a vastness of intricate, nonrepeating evil. A slow spectacle of dark vanes and complex underside, a titanic black insect floundered on its back at the centre of an infinite nerve net, fiddling a million legs amid the ferocious stench of vomit and scorching wires.

Its mouth rimmed with lashes like an eye, biting in space at an end, it was eternally frantic in its convulsions, evils tangling and stretching about its mindless ratchetting. Shackled by its own influence. Seeping cold corrosion in a night of oceanic tragedy. No cure ever, a constantly breaking heart.

And before this thing I felt the blossoming of total exposure. All resolve atomised by horror. One particle of poison in a sea of poison. No guts in a zero. No hero.

On the cross, my eyes turned gold.

 

 

Daylight air gnawed off the curtains. Each molten tear frazzled down Alix
'
s face like a fuse.
‘
Truth crosses the blood/brain barrier intact, boy.
'

The boy leaned forward.
‘
But you
are
sort of a hero. You found the heart despite everything, everyone. They all talk about you back there, the ashers.
'

Alix rasped, old and faded as a photograph.
‘
You don
'
t get it. Quinas
'
s escape, the abduction, the final act in the basement, it was stage-managed. The whole deal had been to send me off with passion. My friends. To save me from being a mere dry ironaut, easily turned. Quinas knew he
'
d get it in the neck
—
he welcomed it as a burnout. But he had more mischief in him at the end than alot of us start out with. He parlayed the coalition. I thought I
'
d seen everything. I was surprised, just as you
'
d be.
'

‘
They talk about the forgiveness of god
—
I could never forgive it before, maybe now.
'

‘
You
'
ve missed the point
—
Lockhart urged me not to feel pity because Quinas had got a sense of what the enemy was, during his failed try. It
'
s the reason I failed too. Remember the cause of it all, and what is the enemy. There
'
s a furrow through fortune
—
it
'
s not irrigated with mercy. You know the one thing I can say that
'
ll help you live a life? We
'
re shit, but we
'
re better than It.
'

‘
And part of it?
'

‘
The better part maybe
—
by a small margin. Now get out of here. You
'
re too young.
'

The boy stood as tiny pin-minutes sprang over silence. The room was aching. The living legend had gone dismal in the skull, lording it over dead flowers and dead books. Inside the ink, night alone was prophecied like black confetti.

Alix
'
s metallic eyes seemed to move.
‘
Someone else is here. I can hear her smile.
'

Melody was in the doorway.
‘
I
'
m not smiling.
'

He didn
'
t turn.
‘
Nor am I. Heaven sickness. Too many exits drown the soul. I
'
ve talked to your rookie
—
honour
'
s satisfied.
'

‘
Thank you, Alix.
'

‘
I really got a big rep out there? I remember me
—
stars in my pocket. Young rebel gun. Remember? I can see you and me in the street, believing it. I don
'
t even scare myself now. I
'
m dust.
'

‘
You
'
re a star.
'

‘
I know it
'
s you brings the flowers.
'

‘
Yeah.
'

Melody and the boy left him in the small room, victory ghosts in his hung head.

They reached the street through a fence, stepping over broken tarmac pieces with the scent of oil.

‘
That was intense, Miss Melody. I didn
'
t know he
'
d be like that.
'

She stepped in front of the streets, stood watching rain on asphalt, tears hidden in the downpour.
‘
Let him alone. Let him figure in a cloud, not in history.
'

‘
So why bring me here? I
'
ve read the books. What do I do now?
'

She looked back at him.
‘
You could wait for a surprise, that the fruit won
'
t always correspond with its seed. That
'
s evolution, after all.
'

‘
You think I
'
ll back down because of this? You think I
'
m a re-run head just because I
'
m not so bright?
'

She didn
'
t answer. Maybe he
'
d think she hadn
'
t heard him above the rain.

‘
Wait a minute
—
this is a setup, right? Like what you did to him. And he
'
s in on it, yeah? I knew he couldn
'
t be a burnout. You want me to fight forward, push against you. I
'
ll do that. I
'
ll go for the big trip. The enemy
'
s up on blocks? So bring it on. I
'
m ready.
'

She watched the rain sussurating in the street, clouds fighting over the sky, and the bandaged windows of the edgeman
'
s house behind them, in which there was no living human energy whatever.

‘
He was right,
'
she said.
‘
You
'
re young.
'

She saw Alix and herself in the streets he had described, the psycho heroes, coats full of death-welcome and belief. Nothing can be reclaimed.

She began striding back across town, the boy hurrying after her. And turning corners only they could see, they lost themselves between the rainfall.