The Living (21 page)

Ef did not download everything from the beetle. Instead he came to me in first layer and asked whether I knew the Leo-Lot
formula
. And before that he asked if any of the festival employees might help a pre-pauser
after the shower
. You don’t have to know hundreds of openings and middle games to realise that the man in the mask that quizzed me on Golden Mean Square, who did not know how pauses are carried out, is no planetman.

He is someone who has made too many mistakes recently. He is someone who has one message waiting for him in the
Everything’s Going to Be Alright service. To the Saviour from the Apostle.

He is the one who has already destroyed me once before.

He is the one I need.

They say there’s no better way of getting to know someone than
luxury
mode. They’re lying. The best way to get to know someone is the directed Leo-Lot ray. I need a lab. I need to win his confidence, get contact up and running, convince him.

They say that there’s no better way of getting close to
someone
than
luxury
mode. They’re probably lying about that too, but I don’t know any other way…

I couldn’t delete her here, in the cell. But I was afraid of
looking
at her fading eyes for a whole minute. Dog owner friends of mine have told me how naturalistic
socio
-animals are when they die… I didn’t know that it would be like this. As the Living is my witness, I didn’t want to drag out her suffering. I wanted it all to happen quickly and painlessly…

She will whimper, she will look for the way home, she will sniff around, trying to find my trail. But there are no
trails in
the depths
. There are no smells and no sounds can be heard.

Without food, water or the attention of her owner she will be done for in two to three days. The beetle will write the
chronicle
of her solitude, and then they will both disappear.

…They say the only way to forget about sadness and shame, to silence the voice of your conscience, is to move to
luxury
.

I offer him an
act
, and he agrees. He wants to be dominant.

He
creates
the earth, the grass, the flowers and the shrubs, the trees and the stones, the hills and the gullies, the pine cones and the moss, the fallen leaves and the mushrooms rotting beneath them, the fine suspension of rain in the air, the low, swollen sky, and the birds hiding their snakelike heads under their warm wings. He
creates
the animals – mice, badgers and racoons, squirrels and hares, and deer, and foxes, and bears.

He
creates
himself in the form of a wild dog or, maybe, a wolf.

He
creates
me in a form like his.

I draw his scent in through my nostrils and realise that in this world he and I have the same mother, that he is my brother and my husband, that we were born together and we will die together, and become a part of this earth and this grass, of these flowers and shrubs, of these trees and pine cones and leaves. And our children’s children, as they track a fat hare on a rainy evening, will smell our scent as it seeps from the plants and the soil.

…He licks my ears, my eyes and nose, my stomach, my crotch and my nipples and then my eyes and ears again. In first layer I would feel sick with disgust, but here, in
luxury
, in the wet grass, in the body of an animal, I take pleasure in every touch. He licks me, and his mouth is hot with the scent of me, and of our mother, of the male he fought with over me, of the damp earth, of the blood and flesh of our prey, and of death, and, ever so slightly, of fear.

We know that there, on the far side of the blue-grey hills, where the animal marks on the tree trunks stop, there, beyond the line that binds sky and earth, lives the Dead God.

No one knows how he was born: he does not and never has had a mother or a father.

His body is not whole. The parts are not connected to each other and one part can crawl away from another over the line of the horizon.

He does not grow old. He will never die because he is already dead…

We fear him.

We will mate to try to fight this fear…

He is completely dominant in this
act
. He
created
this whole world, he
created
me and himself – all that is left to me is the details.

I
create
a home for us – a den on the slope of a hill. Its entrance is almost invisible in a thick cluster of tree roots, but just in case I
create
an outcrop of tall grass. For safety. So that no one will notice us… Inside the den I
create
a floor of warm branches and dry leaves.

I go inside and he sneaks in after me. He bites my neck with his teeth; it is not painful, but commanding. I break free, turn around and growl for show, but I give in almost immediately. I think about the pups, which will smell like me and him. He takes me, growling quietly.

When the
act
is over, he licks me again, but I snarl at him to make him stop. I clamp my teeth shut and whimper silently to myself, so that he doesn’t hear. I think about the pups, which will smell like me and like him, when he and I are already smelling of earth and rotting meat. I think about the breeding seasons I have been through before – about the hundreds of squeamish pairings in contact underwear. I think about the festival which the Dead God needs to fertilize himself. I think about the
dog
which is scampering about in the emptiness and cannot find my trail. I think about the fact that something is wrong with my
luxury
programme: such melancholy is
unnatural
in the ‘garden of delights’.

We lie in silence by the entrance to the den and look out. At the world he
created
for our
act
. The land is good, but the sky
is tainted with pus-yellow and there is no moon. I wonder whether I should
create
it but I don’t have the strength to change anything.

He quietly leaves the den and sits with his back to me. He is doing something to our world – and the pus-filled abscesses in the sky burst, not with rain, but with thick, dull snow.

I wonder whether I need to make our den warmer before the pups come.

He throws back his head and gives a long, throaty howl. And then disappears. His world turns into the Wastes of Solitude.

And I am all alone there.

No bargaining with his conscience, no worries, no doubts. He was lucky: he had been a constant guardian of order for the last 306 years, at the very least. But probably since the Nativity itself, it’s just there is no record of it: Renaissance only appeared in 145 A.V. And in the first branch of the bank in the EA region, in the first letter he left for himself in his personal cell (in the old fashioned way, on paper), the first words on the first line are ‘I am a planetman, I am proud of that and always will be.’ It’s a little cheesy, but forgivable: it’s an Initial Entry after all. And a sincere one at that. Cerberus really had always taken pride in his work. He was a good professional: in all those 326 years there had been no serious fines or warnings – sure, some minor violations (‘observed not wearing mask’, ‘assault of persons in custody’, ‘non-consensual copulation outside of festival zone’), but not a single penalty card for cowardice, not a single
socio
-bribe
, and a whole gallery of awards. The first three, trinkets that still existed in first layer, were great rarities – ‘For Vigilance and Valour’, ‘For Services to
Socio
’ and ‘Hero, First Class’ – Cerberus kept them all in his cell in Renaissance. He liked to get them out and feel them in his hands every now and again: it was childish, of course, but Cerberus thought that it was better for someone with eternal life to be a child at heart rather than a complete cynic. At the end of the day, for guys like him Renaissance still existed in first layer. Like a cupboard full of toys, an old-fashioned chest of drawers with
tangible
treasures from his childhood, from his past…

From the Sixties of the second century onwards the awards had become virtual; Cerberus had hung a whole wall in his
socio
cell with ‘Heroes’ and ‘For Valours’, and, as a sign of its respect for his achievements, the Service for Technical Support had given him a complimentary Eternal Memory setting. The setting was not wiped after the pause – so when Cerberus was
reproduced and entered an empty cell, his medals and awards were already there waiting for him, hanging on the bare walls.

And there had been a lot of pauses. Twice he was killed during arrests: in 149 and in 176; they had not yet perfected the Houses of Correction, it was a difficult time. In the Eighties these outrages came to an end and working in the SPO became much safer, but Cerberus still renewed himself regularly, preferring to visit the Pause Zone after the first gentle
recommendation
so that he could stay in good shape, so he had only reached sixty once.

Everything was right and proper. His life was precise, uncomplicated and orderly, like a pyramid of ice cubes. Yes, a pyramid of ice – that’s how he had always thought of his life when he became a child. As if he was building it: cube – pause – cube – pause, building it up to the sky. Then, when he got a bit older, he would prefer the analogy of a chain. His life was like a strong, endless chain, with no weak links.

Other people’s chains would break every now and again. Cerberus’s friends would fall away after picking up five penalty cards, and new, inexperienced ones would come to replace them. Over the course of three and a bit centuries everyone he had started out with had been replaced, including the Servant of Order. Everyone except Ef, his constant partner and best friend: his partner’s ‘chain’, like Cerberus’s, had no weak links.

Over the course of three and a bit centuries Cerberus and Ef had been through a lot – sting operations and early pauses, first-layer injuries and cells deformed by viruses, dragnets for spammers and attacks by hackers. They had tracked members of familial sects who didn’t give their Darlings to the boarding houses, they had searched the cells of heretic old believers who believed in the ancient three-headed god, they had ensnared dissident scum in all layers…

Justice has no face. ‘The human factor’ has no influence on planetary order. The mirrored distance should keep the SPO
officer at arm’s length from everyone, even other officers. So it is written in the Codex… But over the course of three and a bit centuries they had become friends, not only in
socio
, but in first, and occasionally they had broken the rules of the Codex, not seriously, but little things here and there. The previous Servant of Order had always forgiven them for their antics.

They had seen each other without their masks – different faces at different times. They had heard each other’s voices
without
them being distorted by chatterboxes. They could recognise each other from a long way off by the way they walked, and from up close by their smell. By the way their standard
inviz-coloured
uniforms smelled at the armpit. At festivals they would share one girl. And when one of them was reproduced as a woman (which had happened a couple of times for each of them), they had become lovers.

…Over the course of three and a bit centuries they had grown together nicely and their ‘chains’ had become intertwined. So when Ef started behaving strangely, Cerberus noticed
immediately
. It began after Zero’s suicide, he and Ef were sitting in a pub in first layer. Ef kept touching his mirrored cheek and Cerberus said show me. Ef reacted as if they were strangers. He was cold.

From then on it was easy, like in the training program for young guardians of the Living, ‘Catch the Thief’. All future planetmen had this program installed when they were four. Cerberus remembered how Duckles, mirrored and opalescent, had once taken him by the hand and led him off into a patch of reeds. There, by the stream, he taught him how to hide and sit in wait. ‘You suspect that Fishie has stolen something, right, little fellow?’ Little Cerberus nodded animatedly: ‘Fishie is a thief. I’m sure.’ Duckles’ magnificent mirrored bill smiled: ‘Well done.’

‘So I’m going to go and tell Livvles!’ ‘It’s too soon,’ Duckles didn’t let go of his hand. ‘First gather evidence. Make sure
Fishie doesn’t realise that you know that he’s up to no good. Let him think you are his friend. But instigate surveillance on him and start putting together a report. When the report is ready, give it to me. I am your senior officer. I will give the report to Livvles myself. And I will ask Him to reward you.’ Two words, two magic spells, full of sibilant sorcery: ‘
surveillance
’ and ‘senior officer’; Cerberus didn’t know what they meant. Backed by the songs of the cicadas, in the crackling clump of reeds, Duckles explained to him what they meant. At four years old Cerberus filed a report against Fishie and received his first gold star…

…It was so simple. He had shared his suspicions with his senior officer. The Servant of Order, like Duckles before him, had ordered him to gather evidence. Cerberus put together a report on the fake Ef over the course of a few days. He didn’t include, of course, the refusal to take off the mask. But he did include:

– errors during arrest and transport of compulsory Matthew (completely amateurish, Ef would never have made mistakes like that with his experience and savvy);

– behaviour unbefitting of an SPO officer in the Pause Zone at the local Festival for Assisting Nature (a total rookie would have behaved better);

– partner’s inability to complete password-response exercise (‘Did that virgin at the festival put out for everyone?’ – the correct answer should have been ‘No, she’s waiting for you and me’);

– ‘diagnosis’ offered by conversation device (Cerberus had chosen ‘interrogation’ mode on his chatterbox when he and Ef were chatting during the arrest of the compulsory and later at the festival). The chatterbox’s conclusions were beyond belief. ‘Based on the
interlocutor
’s physical indicators, such as body temperature, arterial pressure, pupil dilation, and
functioning
of sebaceous, sudoriferous and salivary glands, the
interlocutor
’s condition can be characterized as
close to panic,
with frequent episodes of
fear, shame
and
remorse
’;

– comparative analysis of user ef’s
socio
speech before and after 15th July 471: ‘
socio
speech belongs to two different users…’

…QED.
Quod erat demonstrandum
. Which was to be demonstrated. This evidence was enough to arrest the fake Ef and bring a case against him for the kidnap of an SPO officer. And to start searching immediately: there had been no signal about Ef’s pause, so he must be being kept captive. In these stable times of ours this is an unprecedented crime against the Living…

The last time the
real
Ef went on
socio
chat was when he was in the House of Correction. A few minutes before the suicide of correctee Zero. Cerberus kept the statements of the witnesses who had been present at the suicide in a separate file. The
statements
all matched. Matched a little
too
well. And there was no shortage of witnesses.
Too
many witnesses. There was not a single correctee, or warder, or member of the domestic staff or House administration who did not give a statement. It turned out that the ENTIRETY of the household was on the Available Terrace at the outbreak of the fire. Which is impossible, purely physically: they just wouldn’t fit… That said, the chatterbox tracking the physical condition of those interrogated came to the conclusion that all the witnesses had answered Cerberus’s questions sincerely enough.

He did not try to put together any versions of events. He just sent the report and the transcripts of the interrogations to his senior officer and awaited further instruction.

He was sure that his senior officer would instruct him to seize the fake Ef immediately. But his senior officer instructed him to ‘hold on a bit for now’.

Cerberus was taken aback.

…It turned out that the Servant of Order was handling this case personally. In first layer, undercover as Clown. With no mask.

Cerberus almost forgot to breathe in excitement. He noisily pushed the warm, celebratory air out of himself. Glap, he’s involved in a Case of First Level Planetary Secrecy! His senior officer had taken his mask off in front of him. He had seen him – the Servant of Order, the head of the SPO; sure, he might have been wearing clown’s makeup, but he had still seen him. He and the Servant were going to be working together on this case. What does that mean? It means they trust him. They really trust him. What else might it mean? Maybe an Order of the Living is not too much to hope for? He wondered whether he should hang it separately. Not on the same wall with all the other awards, but right there on his
desktop
.

The Servant of Order permitted the arrest of the pretender only after ten days. At first they recovered Ef – the scumbag was keeping him in a cage, like a sick ram at the Farm. His
partner was in a very bad way. His temperature was over forty, he was groaning and ranting, begging for snow.

Interlocutor’s condition can be characterised as pre-pausal
– the chatterbox announced, although it hadn’t been asked.

Cerberus felt that beneath his mask his face was wet with tears. A pause is fine. A pause is nothing. But his friend had spent so long in this state! He must have suffered so much…

he asked, already placing the cold barrel against his friend’s temple.

‘Ice, ice…’ Ef smiled and closed his eyes.

Cerberus took the gun away. Do it by the Codex, right. But there’s something inhuman about it. The former Servant would definitely have let him finish him off. This new one wants everything to be strictly by the Codex… Fine, it would be stupid to pick a fight with him. The former Servant would never have worked alongside Cerberus.

They sat in wait for the fake Ef in the roboslums. It was a strange arrest. For some reason the Servant dragged along – literally dragged along, across the ground – a slum witch. He shook her like a dead bird that had fallen from the sky (Cerberus had seen that happen once) and jabbed his finger against her filthy chest:

‘Are you really a witch or just a bullshitter?’

The woman drunkenly chanted her dumb first-layer spam in a drawl:

‘Ay, I’ll tell your future, you won’t go wrong…’

‘So who am I then?’ the Servant barked.

‘Thirty unics, dearie, just whack it in my
sociopurse
…’