Authors: Gavin Smith
‘Morag, I’m your wet dream. I am exactly what you want.’ More nails down a blackboard as she laughed. ‘I suspect you are one of the most unwanted people who has ever lived. I think there are back-alley abortions who’ve been more wanted than you.’
‘That’s bullshit,’ Pagan spat at me.
‘Why do you love her? Want her?’ I asked him.
‘She is a valued member of …’ He faltered, realising how weak it sounded.
There was a flash of irritation as Morag glanced at him.
I turned on him. ‘Oh bullshit, Pagan. Why am I the only one telling the truth here? All your mentoring, your paternal care, when you’re not accusing her of being an alien whore of course. Just waiting for the Elektra Complex to kick in, weren’t you, so she could come and play with the daddy who also abandoned her. You don’t care about her. She’s a commodity, a cunt and a beautiful body. That’s all you care about. Just like everyone else.’
‘That’s not—’ Pagan began.
‘Shut up, Pagan,’ Black Annis told him. ‘I don’t need validation. I know who I am and how people feel about me.’
‘So why did I sleep with the Grey Lady?’
‘Because you’re sick.’
‘It was the old weak Jakob who did it, and you know that.’
‘She raped him.’ Black Annis was sounding less sure of herself now.
I just looked at her. She knew the truth.
‘Is the sum purpose of your evil machinations to try and get me to cry?’ she asked. Angrier now.
‘We both know you will. Or rather you would do if you still could, but you’re selling your humanity so you can be more like me, aren’t you?’
‘Fuck you, you’re not human. You’re a computer program someone made up.’
‘Yes.’ I looked at Pagan. ‘He did.’ Bang. Even on the icon guilt was written all over his face. ‘Hi, Dad. Want to abuse the old patriarchal authority with me as well? Actually you’re a great parental figure, aren’t you? How’s God doing? Moping and suicidal last I heard.’
‘I think we should try and ignore him, get on with it,’ Pagan said. He almost sounded like he meant it.
‘Look, I realise you feel like this big all-encompassing evil but really you’re just a bit fucking irritating at the moment,’ Morag told me.
That angered me. She was going to suffer a lot.
‘I’m sorry, darling. What I was trying to say before Daddy dearest interrupted was that it’s okay. Even though you’re shit in bed in comparison with drunk posh girls and assassins, not only will I take you back but I can give you what you want.’ Morag just laughed and shook her head, ropey black hair swinging from side to side as she tried to ignore me. ‘See, I worked it out. You’ve been systematically raped since you were however old you were when Mummy dearest sold you. I mean I know we call it prostitution and we tell ourselves it’s okay because we pay – it’s just like a job, isn’t it – but I know what it was for you. Worse still, you have to pretend you like it for the punter. You must have been good at that because you were in the high-end part of the Forbidden Pleasure, not in the cargo containers working the turnstiles. I guess you just got to like it, didn’t you? That’s why you spread your legs for me and for Ambassador. Open your mind. Open your legs. What’s the difference? It’s just another invasion, another violation, isn’t it, Morag? But I’ll take you back. I’ll use you; I will fucking hurt you so much; I will brutalise you; I will even pimp you out, though I’ll struggle to go lower than an alien and you’ll want me too. I promise you.’ I leaned back smiling.
Both of them were staring at me, anger and hatred obvious on their faces. That was good. Good for them. See if they could embrace it, live pure, free of their hypocrisies and lies.
I was sure it would be Morag. After all, I’d gone to the dark place where we all sometimes live. Well, not me any more. But it was Pagan who broke. Who did what I wanted him to do.
‘Bastaaard!’ I didn’t think it was possible for an icon to look that angry. He really was a very good programmer but weak. That was okay, we could fix him. White lightning played around the tip of his staff. It was an attack that would probably fry most hackers so badly their heads would catch fire, but all it was going to do was break the circle and I would eat their fucking souls.
Black Annis grabbed Pagan before he could activate the attack program and slammed him into the stone wall of the room. Glyphs buzzed around them as she shut down his program. A display of raw power that I’m sure wasn’t lost on Pagan. I was sure that he was so close to being a broken man.
‘If you don’t have the discipline to ignore what are only words, then get out. I’ll finish up.’ It was like listening to rocks grind together as she hissed that at him. I had been so close. ‘That is exactly what he wants. Someone to break the circle.’
He couldn’t face her. What sort of idiot writes the ability to look overcome by anguish into his own icon? They should live large. It’s not like it’s real after all. She let him go and he just seemed to sag against the wall. She turned to stare at me. The things I wanted to do to her then.
The door opened and another well-rendered icon walked in. I was surprised. The icon looked old, older even than Pagan. Again, why would someone make themself look old in here? He wore a long linen shirt and linen trousers. Over the shirt he had a kind of waistcoat decorated in brocade. The fabric skull cap on his head also had a brocade pattern running around it and he wore a simple pair of sandals. In the early-morning sun the white linen seemed to glow. He looked over at Black Annis and Pagan.
‘I think it would be better if you left,’ he said. His voice was cultured and educated. The accent was definitely from somewhere in the Middle East back on Earth. Black Annis nodded. The hag and the Druid looked so ridiculously out of place with this man.
‘We’re done anyway. You understand the rules?’ Black Annis asked through grinding stone.
‘I think so. Don’t break the circle,’ the man said. We’ll see.
Black Annis didn’t spare me a look as she practically led Pagan out. He did though. Pagan turned to stare at me and there was hate and anger but defeat also. Morag may have managed to control it in here but she was going to burst into tears as soon as she left the net.
The man pulled a chair up opposite mine. Of course he didn’t break the circle.
‘I think it’s much easier to upset the people you know and love,’ he said.
‘You know I don’t love them.’
‘You? No, but Jakob does, and that gives you insight. I find it interesting that the only power you have over them comes from your love for them and their love for you. Twisted of course but nonetheless …’
‘Really? That’s your opening salvo? Love is power?’ I couldn’t keep the scorn from my voice, not that I was trying terribly hard.
He laughed. ‘Yes, it does sound trite put that way. Easy to be cynical about, but even then it still holds true.’
‘So what are we doing here?’
‘We’re going to talk a little.’ You mean you’re going to run as many diagnostic programs and analytical routines as you can to try and get insight into me. ‘Then I am going to do some praying. I would ask you to join me but I can’t see that happening.’ Or rather you’re going to try and write code because you think the old weak Jakob is in here somewhere. He’s not. This is a fusion. I’m in the meat, not in the machine, old man, but you can find that out the hard way.
‘What should I call you? Exorcist?’ He laughed at this. ‘Would you be more comfortable if I looked like this?’ It was a simple change I made. The icon no longer looked like me. Instead I had become the beast. I saw his expression falter. Not because of the goat-headed form I took – that had long ago ceased to be frightening – but because of the control I had. Total control over my surroundings, with the exception of this fucking circle.
‘My name’s Salem,’ he said after he’d recovered quickly.
‘This your sanctum?’
‘A copy of part of it. We’re in an isolated system.’
Damn. Still I can’t pretend it’s a surprise.
‘Where’s it supposed to be?’
‘A place where I used to come to do my lessons when I was a boy in Jerusalem before the war.’
‘You really are old.’ He smiled. ‘And why are all you people so painfully sentimental?’
‘Connections, identity. I think it’s part of being comfortable with who you are.’
‘I could make you comfortable with who you are and with God.’
He just smiled. Too soon. We’d get to that later.
‘What’s this got to do with you?’ I asked.
‘It’s my duty.’
‘You are an exorcist then?’
‘I think it’s the duty of all to help when they can.’
‘Brilliant. If you could just break this circle, that would be really helpful.’
‘I am here to help Jakob.’
I leaned forward and formed the words very carefully. ‘I am Jakob. When will you people understand that? There is nothing wrong with me.’
‘You are an evil djinn who has taken over his body.’
‘That what your analysis programs are telling you?’
It was written all over his face that the answer was no.
‘You have the power of an ifreet—’
‘And you are a step away from a fucking witch doctor. Why don’t you shake some monkey bones over me?’
He flinched at the swearing. Good, I liked delicate sensibilities.
‘It’s just terminology. Do you really think that I do not know what you are?’
‘Who I am is Jakob Douglas, and no, you don’t have a clue. If you did you wouldn’t fucking be here.’
‘Is there need for swearing?’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘It just diminishes you.’
I would have loved to stop talking to the sanctimonious prick. His constantly calm demeanour was beginning to piss me off, but I needed an in. Some way to anger him enough that he would go for me.
‘I see refuge in Allah from the pride, poetry and touch of Shaitan, the cursed,’ Salem said to himself.
I had to laugh. It was like something out of the Middle Ages. Still there was something about his words at a very basic level that I didn’t like.
‘You’re frightened?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘You are very dangerous.’
‘It doesn’t have to be this way. There is a real god coming, not a feel-good fantasy designed to justify hatred and violence—’
‘Something that hasn’t been an issue since the Final Human Conflict. The hatred and violence is entirely of the creation of your masters as far as I can tell.’
‘You interrupted me.’
‘I apologise.’ He actually looked contrite, as if manners mattered. I on the other hand was pissed off that I had lowered myself to speak to this superstitious caveman, to offer him a chance, and all he wanted to do was hear himself talk.
‘We offer a chance, the ultimate chance to belong, to be part of what humanity will become, and we are attacked for it. Unless of course you feel that humanity is doing fine now?’
‘I think it would be reductive to lay all the troubles of humanity at the feet of the Cabal. It is much more complex than that. But they have certainly played a significant part in humanity’s current state, don’t you think?’
‘Birth is always painful.’
‘Particularly when it’s poisoned.’
‘So what then? The abortion of humanity’s rebirth? We just remain in our animalistic state?’
‘I don’t think you can force these things.’
‘The only force is the result of resistance.’
‘Because some do not wish to live the way you do.’
‘No.’ This truly angered me. ‘That is not the reason for resistance; the reason is fear. All of us have a chance at something better, something more, and the throwbacks are too frightened of the unknown to embrace that. No attempt has been made to understand, only to lash out like spoilt children who do not get their way.’
Salem sat back in his chair and smiled. ‘This at least is progress. Please, I wish to understand. Tell me what we are frightened of.’
I smiled at him. ‘Then let me out.’
‘You know I will not do that.’
‘Then this is not a free exchange of ideas.’
‘Not when you hold this man Jakob prisoner.’
This was turning into an exasperating circle jerk.
‘I am Jakob, and I think you know that.’ I was getting angry now.
‘I think you have assimilated Jakob. At a fundamental level, against the laws of man and God, you have no right to do this. You must leave and I think you know this.’
It appeared they had sent in the world’s calmest man to speak to me. Where was Pagan when you needed him?
‘And your diagnostics must have told you by now that Jakob has ascended – he is something else now. Just as you know that deep down your god is only real as a net-bound hallucination, a hollow ghost in your neurones. We have something tangible to offer.’
I was imagining what this man’s insides would look like. What it would be like to make patterns with them, to wear them? Didn’t he realise that they are as nothing to us? They are tools, nothing more, and we are under no obligation to take them with us.
‘Old man, I know angels, holy terrors,’ I told him, frustrated.