Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (17 page)

“I know, I know.”

“Where did you get it?”

I recalled the excuse I had concocted in the event that I was going to return it to her. “Found it. On the beach.”

“No. Really.”

“Your room.”

“Thought so. I knew someone had been in. You can tell. There’s a slimeball in the PR department who’s obsessed with me. A real pesterer; all paws and bad breath. I suspected it was him. Never occurred to me it might have been you.”

“Sorry. The door wasn’t locked.”

“It is now, always. I won’t be that careless again. Do you have any idea how much trouble I got into? Security thought I’d lent you the swipe card, like we were in cahoots. I had to protest my innocence ’til I was blue in the face. I’m not sure they don’t still think I helped you.”

“I’ll make it right,” I said. “Promise.”

“Don’t do me any fucking favours, Zak.”

It hurt to have her so pissed off at me. If we’d ever had any bond between us, I had severed it with my deceit. Whether that was permanent... Well, that wasn’t up to me. It could only be mended from her side.

I took heart from the slightly softer tone she then adopted.

“Listen. Word is, the Trinity are giving you a second chance. A very special second chance.”

“So it seems.”

“I think you should take it. I think you
have
to take it. They can seriously mess your shit up, those three. I think this is the classic ‘offer you can’t refuse.’”

“Do you know why? Why me? Why now?”

“I guess they’d prefer to have you in than out. Golden handcuffs. It’s the neatest solution to the problem.”

“The problem being that I’ve seen too much?”

“You haven’t seen all that much, but what you have seen is enough,” Aanandi said. “But it’s also about timing and opportunity.”

“They want to theogenise me. Deva-fy me
.
”

“Yes. They need a pinch hitter, just in case.”

“Baseball reference.” I whisked a hand above my head. “Totally wasted on a Brit.”

“It’s a sweet deal, Zak. Though I’m not saying you shouldn’t think carefully about it. You should. As carefully as you’ve ever thought about anything. What could you gain? What do you stand to lose?”

“I have a choice?”

“Not much of a one, but yes.”

“Krieger seemed to imply that the alternative is being bought for a packet of cigarettes by the boss of B-wing.”

“Worst-case scenario. They want you off-balance, intimidated. You’ve ticked them off, and nobody gets off lightly with ticking off the Trinity. But they’re businessmen too, first and foremost. They’re playing hardball. They can’t help themselves. It’s ingrained. It’s how they get their way.”

“Is this part of the sales pitch?” I asked. “You being here now?”

“You mean did the bosses send me in to sweet-talk you?” Aanandi half smiled. “Maybe. Maybe I came of my own free will. Does it matter?”

“Obviously not to you, because I’m the thieving bell-end who swiped your swipe card and landed you in the shit.”

“That you are. Why in hell should I care what you do next?”

“But if you
were
someone who cared, what would your recommendation be? I mean, being honest now, not just toeing the party line. What would you do in my shoes?”

She shrugged. “Way I see it, Zak, you’re a fan of superheroes. Always have been. You loved them as a kid. You still love them as an adult. You love them so much that you spend your life drawing pictures of them. Now someone is telling you they’re willing to turn you into one. If it were me, it’d be a no brainer.”

“And,” I said, “as we’ve already established, I
am
a no brainer. One more question. Is it reversible? Theogenesis? If it doesn’t agree with me or I decide I don’t like it, can I go back to being just me?”

“Not to my knowledge. As far as I’m aware, it’s a one-way ticket. Once it’s done, it’s done, and you just have to live with it. None of the others have seemed too worried about that.”

“It’s a hell of a commitment, though. A hell of a change.”

“You scared?”

“No. Actually no.” I sounded surprised, even to myself. I was already more than halfway to making my decision.

“To think,” said Aanandi, “just a few days ago I was advising you to get out while you can. Now look at you.”

“I know. I kind of wish I’d listened.”

“Well, too late.” Her smile was rueful. “You’re in it now, up to your neck. The alternatives are sink or swim. If it were me, I’d start doggypaddling.”

¹
And by “borrowed” I mean “took without permission” and by “drove” I mean “wrote off on the A38 near Edgbaston.” I couldn’t afford the train fare on top of the con entry fee, and my mother refused to drive me there herself – “A two-hundred-mile round trip just to meet some long-haired American druggie?” – so taking the car seemed like the right thing to do even though I only had a provisional licence, because, after all, Frank fucking Miller. When was I going to get another chance to meet the genius behind
The Dark Knight Returns
in person and show him my portfolio? Of course Mum was relieved when I called from a payphone to tell her that I was alive and unhurt, but she was furious, too, quite understandably, that her beloved Golf GTi was totalled and I had broken the law. “Of all the stupid, reckless, irresponsible...!” etc., etc.

20. THEOGENESIS

T
HEY WARNED ME
it wouldn’t be pleasant. They never said just
how
unpleasant. Which was just as well, because if I’d known how grim an ordeal theogenesis was going to be, I would never have consented to go through with it.

A pair of orderlies came for me. Both of them were sheathed in pale blue hazmat suits, the material of which rustled and squeaked as they wheeled me on a gurney to the Treatment Chamber. By this point the propofol I had been given had really kicked in, and I was off my face, feeling limp, loved-up and wonderful.

Inside the room, the Professor was waiting. I’d learned that his name was Gennady Ivanovich Korolev, and he was a biochemist from Yekaterinburg with a list of qualifications, prizes and accomplishments as long as your arm. His speciality, aside from being spectacularly surly and wearing eye-watering shirts, was the use of protein cage structures – virus-like particles – for the packaging and targeted delivery of gene therapy drugs. He had explained to me earlier how, through a process called bioconjugation, he was able to link small molecules to proteins which became self-replicating when introduced into the host body. In this instance the host body was me and the small molecule was a reverse transcriptase enzyme which resequenced specific DNA strands in the telomere regions, causing chromosomal alteration and enhancement by means of wibble-wobble gobbledygook blah blah blah-di-blah... He had lost me somewhere around “bioconjugation,” but happily he had a succinct,
Reader’s Digest
version to hand.

“You have heard of ‘god particle’ in physics, yes? Higgs Boson? I have developed something similar. A ‘god virus.’ I infect you with it, you become god. Simple.”

Put like that, it did sound simple. Yet also daunting, and I had plenty of questions. How safe was the process? Were there failures as well as successes? If so, what was the ratio of one to the other? What were the odds on me ending up a mangled, distorted mutant reject rather than a sleek, glorious deva? And assuming it did work and all went according to plan, what if, afterwards, I changed my mind and wanted to go back to being just plain old Zak Bramwell again?

Professor Korolev’s response had been a hefty shrug and a liver-lipped scowl. “You wish to back out? Too late. You have made pact with Trinity. You have signed release forms. Decision is made. The time for second thoughts is past. No use being coward. Face up to your commitments like a man.”

Not big on the bedside manner, this guy. Not one for the morale-boosting pep talk.

The propofol infusing my bloodstream had made all my fears vanish –
poof!
– in a cloud of euphoria, and now the orderlies were hoisting me from the gurney to a steel table with a moulded indentation of a human shape in it. I shivered at the metal’s chilly touch. The orderlies attached a dozen dry electrodes to various parts of me until I was sprouting wires in all directions like some sort of cyber hedgehog. They then fastened fleece-lined Kevlar straps tightly across me, buckling them at the side.

“I can’t move. Is this a bondage thing?” I tittered hysterically.

Professor Korolev appeared at my side, also in a hazmat suit. His bifocals glinted through the Lexan faceplate. “Is for your own good. So that you do not harm yourself with the thrashing about.”

“Not harm,” I mumbled. “Thrashing. Gotcha. It’s a good thing you’re all covered up, you know, prof. Can’t see whatever Hawaiian monstrosity you’ve got on underneath. Be thankful for small mercies.”

“Says adult man naked except for Joker underpants,” Korolev replied. “Maybe you should be one wearing hazmat suit, huh? For mental health of others.”

“
Lucky
Joker underpants. Never leave home without ’em.”

“Lucky. So you wear on dates?”

“Without fail. Make a girl laugh, she’ll go to bed with you.”

“Is plan, I suppose. But if she laughs when seeing underpants, probably not best timing.”

Through the faceplate and the bifocals I caught a hint of a twinkle in Korolev’s eyes, a glimpse beneath his permafrost of grumpiness. Blame the propofol, but I found myself warming to him.

The table was swung up on a central axis until I was perpendicular. The orderlies rolled me towards a tall plexiglass tube that stood in the centre of the room, thick as a column in a Greek temple. At the press of a button, the front half of it swung outwards on hinges. The orderlies stationed me inside, then stepped back. The tube closed with a pneumatic sigh, sealing me within.

Korolev’s voice came through via a speaker. “You are ready, Mr Bramwell?”

“Not ready. Braced, perhaps. Hey, this must be how a goldfish feels in its bowl.” I gaped my mouth a couple of times, goldfish-fashion.

“
Dolboeb
,” Korolev muttered.

“I heard that. I have no idea what it means, but I heard it and I think it’s not nice.”
¹

“I am commencing sequence to introduce vector virus. It comes in aerosolised form. Introduces itself into body most efficiently that way. Even penetration of membranes all over.”

Through the plexiglass I watched the Russian biochemist prod at a rubber-sealed computer keyboard, taking time over it to compensate for the clumsiness of his gloved fingers.

“You will hear hissing, then see vapour. Stay calm. Breathe deeply.”

Vents in the base of the tube began to whirr. Then, with a mechanical sibilance, mist began billowing in around my feet, wreathing slowly upwards. It bore a bluish tinge and smelled bitter, like salt marshes and lime zest.

If not for the propofol, I might have started panicking. I’d never been good with enclosed spaces anyway, and the rising vapour intensified my claustrophobia. Contrary to Korolev’s instructions, I held my breath. It was instinctive more than anything. Meanwhile, beneath the blanket the sedative had laid over my thoughts, a faint, small voice was quailing:
Are you sure about this? Are you sure? Are you
really
sure?

Finally I had to inhale. The vapour flowed down my throat and into my lungs. I coughed and spluttered. It was icy and acrid, like breathing in a vodka shot.

The vapour continued to rise and thicken, obscuring the Treatment Chamber from view. The last I saw of Korolev, he was bent over his computer, monitoring my vital signs. The orderlies, meanwhile, stood back watching me with curiosity. One of them I recognised as the guy whose approaches I had rebuffed at the bar. He offered me a thumbs up as the vapour completely filled the tube.

Cut off, alone, I gradually adjusted to the taste and feel of the vapour.

This isn’t so bad
, I thought.
What was everyone so stressed about? I can handle this.