The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [131]
Suddenly there was an insistent, high-pitched whooping from above as quivering holes opened up in the ceiling.
‘Dat’s the netlaw,’ said Alfred. ‘S’gonna be trouble … ’
Without hesitation the big man lunged into the crowd like a tuxedoed battleship. People moved aside like a bow wave as he charged in, grabbed Harry by the collar and dragged him back to where Julia was standing. The next thing she knew, Alfred had grabbed her round the waist while still holding on to Harry.
‘Sorry Miss Julia, Mr Harry, but I got my ’structions … ’
The chaos all around them seemed to merge into a yowling, roaring surf of sound as everything Julia could see turned ash grey and swirled into nothing.
Awareness returned with the suddenness of a thrown switch. She was sitting in a leather armchair in what looked like a lowceilinged, dim-lit study. Then she saw Harry in a similar chair, hands resting in his lap, head lolling forward and still. Like her, he was wearing the old-fashioned trench coat from their first encounter. Julia whispered then spoke to him but he did not stir.
‘I’m afraid he will not wake,’ said a male voice, sounding hoarse, slightly gravelly, an elderly voice. ‘The zazins must have reached him with some kind of short-range attack. Like you he is running on base system, and there is some kind of activity going on, a self-check perhaps, but he won’t respond to stimuli.’
She got to her feet and looked around her at dark shelves crowded with books and files, a couple of cabinets, more boxes with labels arranged neatly under the lowest shelves on every wall. There was no door. A solid wooden chair on castors was positioned at a desk lit up by a flexi-necked lamp. Above the desk, sandwiched between large, heavy books, was an archaic CRT-style vee screen, glassy and grey, deactivated.
‘Who are you? Where are you?’
The old screen blinked on and a wrinkle-faced old man with a grey ponytail gazed out at her.
‘We’ve actually already met,’ he said and for a moment the image switched to a manically grinning face adorned with black goggles. Then back to the elderly man.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Nicodemus?’
‘Everything that you see in the Glow is illusory, by its nature. A dance of masks and marionettes in rainbow colours.’ He shrugged. ‘Which includes that whole spectacle that we just put on.’
Pangs of unease passed through her.
‘I think I’m due an explanation,’ she said. ‘I explained to you what was at stake – are you saying that was all for nothing?’
‘Far from it, young lady sentience,’ said Nicodemus. ‘As you’ll see very shortly. In the meantime try to relax.’
She looked around her. ‘But where am I?’
The face on the screen chuckled and a skinny finger tapped a silver-grey temple. ‘In here, as am I, strictly speaking. Although my I is as much a visitor to the base-system sim I’ve got you running in … ’
‘Sorry, I don’t follow … ’
‘Look, I’m 109 years old so I’ve had a few modifications done to the old brainbox, enough capacity to run two or three fractalised sentiences like you if I wanted. Anyway, the main event is about to begin – oh, I took a copy of the Farag report, by the way, while we were in transit, so to speak. Okay, he’s almost here so keep watching.’
The image of the old man dissolved into a view over rocky slopes and sheer mountainsides sheathed in icy white while wind-driven snow whirled and streamed past outside. There was a glass surface, Julia realised, between the observer and the raw elements and she speculated that this was some kind of research station, high in some range of mountains.
The observer (who Julia took to be the elderly Nicodemus) looked to the right, revealing that he stood in a glass-covered walkway which curved out of sight around a strange, brick-built edifice. There was the sound of a mechanical door opening and closing and Nicodemus turned the other way to see a diminutive figure in