Bedlam (18 page)

Cicerus stepped closer, Marcus correspondingly backing off, his threat amply demonstrated. Apart from their spoken names,
there was really nothing to denote one from the other now that their uniforms had been matched. And yet evidently they were
distinguished by rank, Marcus not only taking his cue to administer the whip, but treading delicately in the way he had pointed
out that his boss was having a wardrobe malfunction.

Ross could now make out the finer details of a symbol on Cicerus’s lapel. It showed three ellipses overlapping, the design
having initially struck Ross upon his earlier glimpses as a bizarrely inappropriate parody of the pure wool guarantee. Beneath
the symbol he could now see that Cicerus’s name and rank were stencilled in what looked like silver on black, though when
the material moved, it was clearly just two surfaces of the same non-colour, the light catching different angles of grain
in the minute mesh.

In a sudden flashback, Ross now recalled that this symbol had appeared somewhere on all of the costumes Cicerus had
toggled through, even the Seventies Disco gear, though in that case it had been etched on a medallion.

‘These clipping errors, as you know them, are more than mere gaps or anomalies,’ he stated, speaking softly, requiring Ross
to strain to listen against the distant sounds of gunfire and explosions. ‘They are rents in the very fabric of this place,
and as they grow they are threatening to tear it apart completely. Unauthorised transit through these gaps is exacerbating
the damage exponentially, so you might say we are concerned with what you would call “ecology”. A place for everything, and
everything in its place.’

‘I can relate to that,’ Ross said, ‘but my place is not as a cyborg on Graxis, endlessly battling against the backdrop of
the same invasion. And forgive the cultural mistranslation, but in my
true
place, where I come from, the eco-warriors tend to be more tree-huggy and less scourge-the-flesh-from-your-backy. Maybe it’s
the Playmobil Nazi look, but you’re not really selling the whole altruistic motivation jag here.’

Cicerus glanced at Ross’s tablet and gave Marcus a nod. He took a sideways two-step run-up and let fly with the whip. The
results disinclined Ross towards making another smart remark ever again. He was wracked with something more than pain, a violation
of his very psyche leaving him wishing not for this place’s pseudo-death but for complete oblivion. As he dangled, spun and
bucked, for a few moments merely trying to remember who he was felt gruesomely unpleasant, like touching his own flesh with
a hand that had gone to sleep.

There would be no pseudo-death here, he understood: that was what Cicerus was monitoring. Health gradually regenerated in
this world, which meant the bastard could give Marcus the nod once more whenever his stats recovered, and they could keep
this up as long as they wanted.

Cicerus waited until Ross had stopped reeling and approached him again.

‘The eco-warriors where you come from are only trying to save
one
world, and unlike them we don’t have documentaries to help us spell out the consequences. That’s why we have to make it a
bit more immediate. You think our methods are harsh but you’re like children let loose at the controls of a nuclear
reactor, pushing all the big colourful buttons and levers. To you it’s innocent fun but your idiotic dabblings are unpicking
the threads that hold a thousand worlds together. And by that I don’t mean that this is some kind of digital Pangaea, about
to undergo continental drift. I’m talking about total destruction, the complete annihilation of this place, of
Starfire
, of everyone you’ve met and everything you’ve seen.’

He placed his gloved hands either side of Ross’s head, staring unflinchingly into his face.

‘Our
motivation
,’ he emphasised, ‘is simple. It’s the same one that was hard-wired into DNA back in the meatverse: ongoing existence. Altruism
comes as a bonus. Call it an unlockable achievement.’

He stepped back again and spent a lingering moment looking down meaningfully at the tablet. Ross could feel his legs buckle
and his arms take the strain, while a voice began mumbling ‘no, no, no, no.’ It took a while for him to realise it was his
own.

Marcus dangled the scourge, letting it play out again in preparation, but Cicerus gave him the slightest shake of the head,
satisfied that they had made their point.

‘What now?’ Marcus asked, speaking as though Ross wasn’t there. ‘Port him back to
Starfire
or does he get some down-time first?’

‘We hold him.’

‘You got it. I’ll organise a transfer to the detention blocks.’

‘No, I mean we hold him here. I’ve had orders from the very top. Ankou himself wants to deal with this one personally.’

‘Ankou is coming
here
?’ Marcus asked, with a tone of concern that was all the more disturbing when Ross realised it reminded him very precisely
of that bloke in
Return of the Jedi
who’s just been told Ian McDiarmid will be popping by for Eccles cakes and summary executions.

Ross sat on the cold floor, as miserable and depressed as he could ever remember. The physical damage from the scourge was
now healed but the mere thought of it seemed to bring forth an echo that caused him to shudder, and it wasn’t an echo of the
pain, but of that absolute violation.

He felt water run down his back from the damp brickwork he was sitting against, and as he worried distantly about corrosion
he realised you can always fall a little further. A moment ago he thought he’d bottomed out, but now he was concerned about
personal rust. Mother of fuck.

He’d never been imprisoned before, he realised, other than voluntarily. He remembered himself and Eilidh being locked in the
laundry cupboard by Megan when he was about seven, but it was just a game. His big sisters had been watching
Prisoner Cell Block H
. Megan had always loved bossing the others about, so she was the warder. They made beds on the floor from spare pillows and
duvets, and Megan brought them mugs of water and digestive biscuits as meals. He had reprised the game with Megan’s kids back
at his mum’s house last Christmas. Little Caitlin had inherited her mum’s juvenile authoritarian streak, keeping Ross and
her older brother Danny under guard in the same laundry cupboard. It was a little comfier than this, and considerably easier
to stage a break-out.

At least his guards had unhooked him from the ceiling, content that he wasn’t going anywhere without their say-so. The single
window was robustly barred, too small to fit through and too high to reach anyway. The steel door had been locked and bolted
in so many places it reminded him of the opening credits in
Porridge
, and beyond it lay a whole host of these eco-Nazis,
including Cuddles the maenad. That just left the grate in the floor, but it wasn’t removable. It was completely embedded,
as though they had put it in place first then poured the concrete around it.

He’d given it a dig with his metal-clad heel, but it felt like the heel would break first.

He had no weapons, not even the default shitty blaster. He was stuck here in this cell, stuck in this cyborg body and pretty
soon he’d be stuck in
Starfire
for what sounded suspiciously like eternity. Even as a teenager he’d had limits to how long he could spend on one video game.

Cicerus’s words seemed to slam door after door upon his hopes of returning to reality, yet at the same time they permitted
glimpses behind those doors sufficient to tantalise him that the eco-Nazis at least understood the reality Ross was referring
to. Wherever this realm was, it had clearly been here a long time before Ross’s arrival, supporting certain of the Reaper’s
comments. But unlike the Reaper and the NPCs, Cicerus knew what this world was distinct from: what he had disparagingly referred
to as ‘the meatverse’.

Cicerus had repeatedly told him to forget about the world he had come from. It could hardly be described as friendly advice,
but there was no doubt that it was sincere. ‘Here is all there is,’ he said, and there was little doubting his commitment
to preserving ‘here’. But to forget that world was to forget his family, his friends; to forget Carol, forget the baby.

It was amazing how clear this shit could become. Not once since he arrived here had he thought how important it was that he
got back to his job and his research. He’d admit that the news of Carol’s pregnancy had banjoed him, but a big part of the
impact was simultaneously learning that she had chosen to keep it from him, and almost as instantly understanding why. He
wouldn’t pretend that the thought of settling down and playing dad hadn’t horrified him, but Carol deciding that he wasn’t
up to the job had felt worse, compounded by his thoughts of how lonely and scared
she
had to be feeling. He knew he had let Carol down, and that bothered him because he hated seeing her upset. He wanted better
for her. He wanted to
be
better for her.

He loved her.

Yup, there it was. It had been lurking in the background,
fogged up by the chaos in his mind, but it was plain and clear now. No bloody mistaking it once he’d been forced to contemplate
the prospect of accepting that he’d never see her again and never get the chance to put it all right.

Cicerus had warned that clinging on to his memories would rain down pain, and the misery he was already enduring at the mere
thought of Carol amply demonstrated the truth of this, but he’d take that over the nothingness of cauterising his past. The
man he had been in the old world was still who he was in this one. The things he felt, the thoughts he had, the choices he
made and the actions he took were all determined by his memories. He couldn’t erase them, nor was he ready to give up hope
of returning. He wasn’t ready to accept that there was no way out of this place, and he certainly wasn’t going to shuffle
off meekly to spend forever in
Starfire
. He recalled the torment of that poor bastard Bob, who feared he was in hell, doomed to spend eternity amidst war and carnage.

It reminded him that there were obligations and responsibilities to be met here too. He’d made the guy a promise.

Even as he recalled his pledge, he felt the tiny black tongues of the scourge licking at his resolve. These people could hurt
him in ways he had never imagined. There was anger too though, and the defiance he’d always felt whenever anyone sought to
make their case through the threat of force rather than facts and reason. And what made him all the more defiant was that
the facts should have been compelling enough. It was more like they were using their ecological cause to support their use
of force rather than requiring force to support their ecological cause. And, with that, something else became clear. Cicerus
might have the ability to spontaneously alter his appearance, but Ross could still spot a chancer when he saw one.

If transit through these gaps was potentially catastrophic, fair enough: it stood to reason that people should confine themselves
to one place. But shouldn’t they get a say in where? Clearly there was far more to this realm than
Starfire
and a World War Two cover-shooter. That flying abomination didn’t hail from around here, and Cicerus had worn skins from
different periods and even genres, presumably enabling him to not-quite blend in with the milieus of several games. It was
clear that the
importance of the eco-Nazis’ mission absolved them from practising what they preached.

He only had Cicerus’s word about this apocalyptic threat, and it was one of his most fundamental principles not to accept
something purely on the basis of anecdotal evidence, especially when the anecdotal evidence was coming from a complete throbber.
He needed data. He had to get out of here, and before this Ankou character showed up, as that didn’t sound like a promising
development at all.

He stood over the grate again, testing its solidity quietly by putting all of his weight on it and rocking up and down on
the balls of his feet. The metal was not going to bend. It made his own cladding seem puny and insubstantial, like the sides
of a car compared to a railroad spike. But with that thought came inspiration: he had more than just armour that he could
bring to bear.

He clenched his fist and drew out the spike. It still looked thin compared to the circular grid covering the drain, but it
didn’t need to be stronger than the grate; it only needed to be stronger than the concrete. He poked it through, enduring
a shuddering quease as it penetrated a slimy membrane of blood, flesh and other matter, like the sensation of lifting a stranger’s
hair from the plughole multiplied by that of picking someone else’s scab.

The tip of the spike found purchase in the concrete just beneath where the grid was embedded, which was when Ross opened his
hand and engaged the Cuisinart effect. He felt, as much as heard, a brief grinding sensation, vibrating all the way through
him, then the walls became a blur as he was pirouetted at high speed, sparks flashing all around him where his legs scraped
against the concrete floor.

With his arm threatening to wrench itself from his trunk, he managed to withdraw the spike and was sent tumbling into a corner,
where he remained motionless on his knees as the room continued to spin. It was like that horrible latter-stage drunkenness,
a sensation that extended to him subsequently barfing voluminously into the sluice. It struck him as both confusing and unfair
that he could be sick when he hadn’t eaten anything and wasn’t even sure he had a digestive system to speak of, but these
ruminations were cut off by a muffled clanging sound somewhere to his right.

For a troubling moment he thought perhaps the spike had come flying off, or that some other metal part had been shed as a
result of his brief wind-turbine impression, but when he looked up from the river of spew he saw an object wrapped in an old
rag, lying on the floor directly beneath the barred window. From outside he could hear the splash of footsteps withdrawing
at speed across the rain-swept street.

Ross waited for the dizziness to subside then scuttled over and examined the manky beige cloth, curious but wary regarding
what it might conceal. He tugged gently at one edge of the material, revealing a hooked shaft of metal with a fork in the
end.

It was a crowbar.

‘No. Fucking. Way.’

He was getting help, not just in the form of this object, but in what it was intended to communicate. Game rules still applied:
a drain cover can be impervious to grenade blasts and machine-gun fire, but there is one weapon that will always break it
open like a piñata.

Ross returned to the grate and wedged the crowbar into one corner, creating a fulcrum at the lip of the concrete, then placed
a foot upon the other end and began applying weight. It was a bit more effort than a couple of mouse-clicks, but after a few
seconds of pressure, the grate began to come away from its surround.

It was a tight squeeze, but the narrowness of the shaft meant he could control his descent, at least until it opened into
the ceiling of a cavern-like tunnel. From there he dropped the last ten feet or so into a slow-moving cold brown river, the
water breaking his fall but leaving him waist-deep in the reason sewer levels would never have been quite such a staple had
PCs been able to render more than just sound and vision.

It was dark, the dim glow from the chute above being the only light source, the passage fading into blackness in both directions.
He could follow the flow, though. It would be creepy and very disgusting, but it had to lead somewhere, and not necessarily
according to the logic of waste treatment. This was a scripted route through part of a World War Two map, intended as a thoroughfare
as much as any street on the surface, and put there by a level designer, not a town planner.

Presumably you were meant to have a torch when you reached this part of the game, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Ross could
handle it: he had played enough gloomy horror shooters on irritatingly bright winter mornings to have faith that he could
bump his way along in the dark until another light source eventually presented itself.

It was slow going and unnervingly silent, just the occasional splash of drips and the constant slow trickle of the jobby-bearing
current. He waded steadily, picking his steps with caution as his feet encountered all manner of slippery squelchiness beneath
them. They encountered more solid things too, soft yet firm shapes motionless in the trench. A reluctantly exploratory hand
reached down and confirmed that they were bodies. He’d like to get hold of the developers who were always advocating ‘realism’
and make the bastards wade through this for a while. Dollars to donuts they’d soon be patching the game to make the dead NPCs
simply disappear instead of lying around and rotting.

Jesus, this was mank. If he couldn’t get back to reality and did end up banished to a gameworld forever, he was choosing
Driver San Francisco
or
Just Cause
: some sandbox affair where the weather was warm and the lifestyle was decadent. Not
Saints Row 2
, though: that shit-spraying carry-on wasn’t going to be funny again ever.

Ross’s progress was next halted not by an obstacle, but by a sound. He heard a grinding of metal followed by a splash; and
it wasn’t a drip-from-the-brickwork splash, but a big, humansized splash. It was followed moments later by a glow, light and
shadows playing upon the arched walls up ahead where the tunnel bent out of sight.

Someone was coming. Ross could hear him wading through the murk. There seemed no point in running: the intruder was making
considerably faster progress than Ross had been, and the light that let him do that would also let him see Ross attempt his
gingerly waddling getaway. He could hide, however. He could lie down and play dead, though he wasn’t sure what the survival
underwater time-limit was in this place. It was a strange anomaly of certain first-person shooters that you could take a grenade
blast and multiple bullet-wounds to the face and yet still limp home for a couple of Paracetamol and a warm bath, but if you
stayed under the suds for more than thirty seconds while washing your hair, you would drown. Making this even more of a risk
was the fact that he had been left without his tablet, so he had no way of monitoring how fast he was losing health.

He settled for crouching shoulder-deep, waiting until the intruder was in sight before he’d have to go face-first into the
corpse-and-jobby soup. Unfortunately this plan broke down when his facial proximity to the liquid caused him to retch with
the dry heaves, having already emptied himself of vomit upstairs after he became the human rotary drier.

He was still racked by involuntary gagging when the torch beam struck his face.

‘I ain’t so sure that stuff’s potable, dude.’

Ross stood up straight and gawped at the approaching silhouette. The height and build were all wrong and he couldn’t see the
face for the dazzle of the torchlight, but the voice was unmistakable.