The Night's Dawn Trilogy (176 page)

“No,” Al said politely. “I’m not shitting you.”

“Holy Christ.” He tried to laugh. “Al Capone.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy Christ. Al Capone in my car! Ain’t that something?”

“That’s certainly something, yeah.”

“It’s a pleasure, Al. Christ, I mean that. A real pleasure. Hell, you were the best, Al, the top man. Everybody knew that.
Run a bit of moonshine in my day. Nothing much, a few slugs, is all. But you, you ran it for a whole city. Christ! Al Capone.”
He slapped the steering wheel with both hands, chortling. “Damn, but I can’t wait to see their faces when I bring you in.”

“Bring me in to what, Bernhard?”

“The group, Al, the group. Hey, you don’t mind if I call you Al, do you? I don’t want to give no offence, or nothing. Not
to you.”

“That’s okay, Bernhard, all my friends call me Al.”

“Your
friends
. Yes siree!”

“What does this group of yours do, exactly, Bernhard?”

“Why, get larger, of course. That’s all we can do for now. Unity is strength.”

“You a Communist, Bernhard?”

“Hey! No way, Al. I’m an American. I hate the filthy Reds.”

“Sounds like you are to me.”

“No, you got it all wrong. The more of us there are, the better chance we stand, the stronger we are. Like an army; a whole
load of people together, they got the strength to make themselves felt. That’s what I meant, Al. Honest.”

“So what does the group have in mind for when they get big and powerful?”

Bernhard gave Al another sideways glance, puzzled this time. “To get out of here, Al. What else?”

“To get out of the city?”

“No. To take the planet away.” He jabbed a thumb straight up. “From that. From the sky.”

Al cast a sceptical eye upwards. The skyscrapers were flashing past on either side. Their size didn’t bother him so much now.
Starship drives still speckled the azure sky, streaked flashbulbs taking a long time to pop. He couldn’t see the odd little
moon anymore. “Why?” he asked reasonably.

“Damn it, Al. Can’t you feel it? The emptiness. Man, it’s horrible. All that huge nothing trying to suck you up and swallow
you whole.” He gulped, his voice lowering. “The sky is like
there
. It’s the beyond all over again. We gotta hide. Someplace where we ain’t never going to die again, somewhere that don’t go
on for ever. Where there’s no empty night.”

“Now you’re sounding like a preacher man, Bernhard.”

“Well maybe I am a little bit. It’s a smart man who knows when he’s beat. I don’t mind saying it to you, Al. I’m frightened
of the beyond. I ain’t never going back there. No siree.”

“So you’re going to move the world away?”

“Damn right.”

“That’s one fucking big ambition you’ve got there, Bernhard. I wish you a lot of luck. Now just drop me off at this intersection
coming up here. I’ll find my own way about town now.”

“You mean you ain’t going to pitch in and help us?” an incredulous Bernhard asked.

“Nope.”

“But you gotta feel it, too, Al. Even you. We all can. They never stop begging you, all those other lost souls. Ain’t you
afraid of going back there?”

“Can’t say as I am. It never really bothered me any while I was there first time around.”

“Never bothered… ! Holy Christ, you are one tough sonofabitch, Al.” He put his head back and gave a rebel yell. “Listen, you
mothers, being dead don’t bother Al Capone none! Goddamn!”

“Where is this safe place you’re taking the planet to, anyhow?”

“Dunno, Al. Just follow Judy Garland over the rainbow, I guess. Anywhere where there ain’t no sky.”

“You ain’t got no plans, you ain’t got no idea where you’re going. And you wanted me to be a part of that?”

“But it’ll happen, Al. I swear. When there’s enough of us, we can do it. You know what you can do by yourself now, one man.
Think what a million can do, two million.
Ten
million. Ain’t nothing going to be able to stop us then.”

“You’re going to possess a million people?”

“We surely are.”

The Oldsmobile dipped down a long ramp which took it into a tunnel. Bernhard let out a happy sigh as they passed into its
harsh orange-tinged lighting.

“You won’t possess a million people,” Al said. “The cops will stop you. They’ll find a way. We’re strong, but we ain’t no
bulletproof superheroes. That stuff the assault mechanoids shoot nearly got me back there. If I’d been any closer I’d be dead
again.”

“Damn it, that’s what I been trying to tell you, Al,” Bernhard complained. “We gotta build up our numbers. Then they can’t
never hurt us.”

Al fell silent. Part of what Bernhard said made sense. The more possessed there were, the harder it would be for the cops
to stop them spreading. But they’d fight, those cops. Like wild bears once they realized how big the problem was, how dangerous
the possessed were. Cops, whatever passed for the federal agents on this world, the army; all clubbing together. Government
rats always did gang up. They’d have the starship weapons, too; Lovegrove burbled about how powerful they were, capable of
turning whole countries to deserts of hot glass within seconds.

And what would Al Capone do on a world where such a war was being fought? Come to that, what would Al Capone do on any modern
world?

“How are you snatching people?” he asked abruptly.

Bernhard must have sensed the change in tone, in purpose. He suddenly got antsy, shifting his ass around on the seat’s shiny
red leather, but keeping his eyes firmly on the road ahead. “Well gee, Al, we just take them off the street. At night, when
it’s nice and quiet. Nothing heavy.”

“But you’ve been seen, haven’t you? That cop called me a Retro. They even got a name for you. They know you’re doing it.”

“Well, yeah, sure. It’s kinda difficult with the numbers we’re working, you know. Like I say, we need a
lot
of people. Sometimes we get seen. Bound to happen. But they haven’t caught us.”

“Not yet.” Al grinned expansively. He put his arm around Bernhard’s shoulder. “You know, Bernhard, I think I will come and
meet this group of yours after all. It sounds to me that you ain’t organized yourselves too good. No offence, I doubt you
people have much experience in this field. But me now… ” A fat Havana appeared in his hand. He took a long blissful drag,
the first for six hundred years. “Me, I had a lifetime’s experience of going to the bad. And I’m gonna give you all the benefit
of that.”

•  •  •

Gerald Skibbow shuffled into the warm, white-walled room, one arm holding on tightly to the male orderly. His loose powder-blue
institute gown revealed several small medical nanonic packages as it shifted about. He moved as would a very old man in a
high-gravity environment, with careful dignity. Needing help, needing guidance.

Unlike any normal person, he didn’t even flick his eyes from side to side to take in his newest surroundings. The thickly
cushioned bed in the centre of the room, with its surrounding formation of bulky, vaguely medical apparatus didn’t seem to
register on his consciousness.

“Okay, now then, Gerald,” the orderly said cordially. “Let’s get you comfortable on here, shall we?”

He gingerly positioned Gerald’s buttocks on the side of the bed, then lifted his legs up and around until his charge was lying
prone on the cushioning. Always cautious. He’d prepared a dozen candidates for personality debrief here in Guyana’s grade-one
restricted navy facility. None of them had exactly been volunteers. Skibbow might just realize what he was being prepped for.
It could be the spark to bring him out of his trauma-trance.

But no. Gerald allowed the orderly to secure him with the webbing which moulded itself to his body contours. There was no
sound from his throat, no blink as it tightened its grip.

The relieved orderly gave a thumbs-up to the two men sitting behind the long glass panel in the wall. Totally immobilized,
Gerald stared beyond the outsized plastic helmet that lowered itself over his head. The inside was fuzzy, a lining of silk
fur which had been stiffened somehow. Then his face was covered completely, and the light vanished.

Chemical infusions insured there was no pain, no discomfort as the nanonic filaments wormed their way around his dermal cells
and penetrated the bone of the skull. Positioning their tips into the requisite synapses took nearly two hours, a delicate
operation similar to the implanting of neural nanonics. However these infiltrations went deeper than ordinary augmentation
circuitry, seeking out the memory centres to mate with neurofibrillae inside their clustered cells. And the incursion was
massive, millions of filaments burrowing along capillaries, active superstring molecules with preprogrammed functions, knowing
where to go, what to do. In many respects they resembled the dendritic formation of living tissue in which they were building
a parallel information network. The cells obeyed their DNA pattern, the filaments’ structure was formatted by AIs. One process
designed by studying the other, but never complementary.

Impulses began to flow back down the filaments as the hypersensitive tips registered synaptic discharges. A horribly jumbled
montage of random thoughtsnaps, memories without order. The facility’s AI came on-line, running comparisons, defining characteristics,
recognizing themes, and weaving them into coherent sensorium environs.

Gerald Skibbow’s thoughts were focused on his apartment in the Greater Brussels arcology: three respectably sized rooms on
the sixty-fifth floor of the Delores pyramid. From the triple glazed windows you could see a landscape of austere geometries.
Domes, pyramids, and towers, all squashed together and wrapped up within the intestinal tangle of the elevated bhan tubes.
Every surface he could see was grey, even the dome glass, coated with decades of grime.

It was a couple of years after they had moved in. Paula was about three, totter-running everywhere, and always falling over.
Marie was a tiny energetic bundle of smiles who could emit a vast range of incredulous sounds as the world produced its daily
marvels for her.

He was cradling his infant daughter (already beautiful) in his lap that evening, while Loren was slumped in an armchair, accessing
the local news show. Paula was playing with the secondhand Disney mechanoid minder he’d bought her a fortnight ago, a fluffy
anthropomorphized hedgehog that had an immensely irritating laugh.

It was a cosy family, in a lovely home. And they were together, and happy because of that. And the strong arcology walls protected
them from the dangers of the outside world. He provided for them, and loved them, and protected them. They loved him back,
too; he could see it in their smiles and adoring eyes. Daddy was king.

Daddy sang lullabies to his children. It was important to sing; if he stopped, then the hobgoblins and ghouls would come out
from the darkness and snatch children away—

Two men walked into the room, and quietly sat down on the settee opposite Gerald. He frowned at them, unable to place their
names, wondering what they were doing invading his home.

Invading…

The pyramid trembled as if caught by a minor earthquake, making the colours blur slightly. Then the room froze, his wife and
children becoming motionless, their warmth draining away.

“It’s okay, Gerald,” one of the men said. “Nobody is invading. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

Gerald clutched at baby Marie. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dr Riley Dobbs, a neural expert; and this is my colleague, Harry Earnshaw, who is a neural systems technician. We’re
here to help you.”

“Let me sing,” a frantic Gerald yelled. “Let me sing. They’ll get us if I stop. They’ll get us all. We’ll be dragged down
into the bowels of the earth. None of us will ever see daylight again.”

“There’s always going to be daylight, Gerald,” Dobbs said. “I promise you that.” He paused, datavising an order into the AI.

Dawn rose outside the arcology. A clean dawn, the kind which Earth hadn’t seen for centuries; the sun huge and redgold, casting
brilliant rays across the dingy landscape. It shone directly into the apartment, warm and vigorous. Gerald sighed like a small
child, and held his hands out to it. “It’s so beautiful.”

“You’re relaxing. That’s good, Gerald. We need you relaxed; and I’d prefer you to reach that state by yourself. Tranquillizers
inhibit your responses, and we want you to be clearheaded.”

“What do you mean?” Gerald asked suspiciously.

“Where are you, Gerald?”

“At home.”

“No, Gerald, this is long ago. This is a refuge for you, a psychological retreat into the past. You’re creating it because
something rather nasty happened to you.”

“No. Nothing! Nothing nasty. Go away.”

“I can’t go away, Gerald. It’s important for a lot of people that I stay. You might be able to save a whole planet, Gerald.”

Gerald shook his head. “Can’t help. Go away.”

“We’re not going, Gerald. And you can’t run from us. This isn’t a place, Gerald, this is inside your mind.”

“No no no!”

“I’m sorry, Gerald, truly, I am. But I cannot leave until you have shown me what I want to see.”

“Go away. Sing!” Gerald started to hum his lullabies again. Then his throat turned to stone, blocking the music inside. Hot
tears trickled down his cheeks.

“No more singing, Gerald,” Harry Earnshaw said. “We’re going to play a different game. Dr Dobbs and I are going to ask you
some questions. We want to know what happened to you on Lalonde—”

The apartment exploded into a blinding iridescent swirl. Every sensory channel splice into Gerald Skibbow’s brain thrummed
from overload.

Riley Dobbs shook himself as the processor array broke the direct linkage. In the seat next to him Harry Earnshaw was also
stirring.

“Sod it,” Dobbs grumbled. In the room through the glass, he could see Skibbow’s body straining against the webbing. He hurriedly
datavised an order into the physiological control processor for a tranquillizer.

Earnshaw studied the neural scan of Skibbow’s brain, the huge electrical surge at the mention of Lalonde. “That is one very
deep-seated trauma. The associations are hotwired into almost every neural pathway.”