A Certain Number of Hypothetical Scenarios Page 7

  "Huh?" said the voice.

  "Not a corpse," repeated Yves as he twisted someone's arm and stubbed his cigarette on it. "Got a pulse."

  The goblins all piled on him. It was so dark they were probably hitting each other more often than not, but one got lucky. He felt the knife sink into his eye with a thunk. They probably just aimed for the light, he thought.

  It was strange to feel so cold after all that fire.

  C'est la vie.

  THE GOLEM RETURNS

  A patched up golem in riot gear stomped down the halls of the Parahuman Regulation Bureau. It had been modified extensively for use as a Bureau agent/heavy weapon. Harry was testing him out. He was especially proud of the new instructions he'd put in his creation's head. Do as I say or I will smash you into tiny pieces. No way that could be misinterpreted!

  The golem strode up and down the corridor. He was enjoying having free will. He felt empowered by his new instructions. If anybody did something he didn't like, they were going to know about it.

  MAENAD

  Lyanna Sidhe was hunting. Finwold edge was wild and huge, but her prey didn't know she was coming and had made no attempt to cover their tracks. A footprint here, a scrap of dress there. She was closing in on the Maenads.

  She could hear them. Yelping and singing, it all mixed together with the sounds of the forest. They were animals. Lyanna climbed a tree with ease, barely needing to use her hands, and made her way through the branches to the ruins at the top of the hill.

  In the hollowed out watchtower they'd lit a pyre and were dancing around it, glowing in the firelight. Some wore shredded dresses. Some were naked. Some of them were up to their elbows in blood. Some of them had it on their lips. They would be the first to die.

  Lyanna thought about Cass. Cass had visions. She liked to paint them. When she was with Lyanna, it was all so much more vivid, she'd said. She'd said so many things. A bitter tongue behind such sweet lips. Lyanna had liked the taste. It came back to her now. She tightened her grip on her dagger even as she felt her heart hang loose in her chest.

  Cass was always telling her weird stories. She loved everything that had been happening lately, the mysterious lights in the sky, the rumours going around about screams from the sewers. She loved the unexplained. She didn't ever want explanations, because then what would be the point?

  She was friends with everyone, and she was fascinated by anyone who wasn't quite human. In some of her less secure moments Lyanna suspected Cass was only with her because of the way she enhanced that side of her, inspired her visions and made her more than she was. Maybe that had been enough. Maybe not. Maybe the reason she'd took part in the Bacchanal was that she wanted more.

  When she hadn't come home Lyanna had gone looking for her. It was a long and rainy walk from Ingelmouth to the woods. As she climbed the hill, she came across some debris. Amongst the wet leaves, an empty wine bottle and a discarded dress. She passed a menhir wreathed in garlands. Something didn't feel right. When she arrived at the Woldstones, it was too late. In the centre of the stone circle, in a shallow bowl carved into a lying rock, Cass lay in a bath of her own blood. Her pale limbs draped lifelessly over the sides. Lyanna had cradled her for what seemed like forever, until she saw the dagger. It lay in the grass almost innocently.

  Now, in the tree, she held it so hard her knuckles were white. She was ready to pounce. She wanted to rip out their throats. But she didn't. She just watched. Their bodies danced and their voices laughed and sang but their eyes looked haunted. They smiled but they were weeping. Tears streaked mascara and blood down their dirty faces.

  Lyanna realised they hadn't killed Cass. The god inside them had. They'd prayed for carnal ecstacy and it had come at the cost of their minds. Perhaps the god had something to gain by sacrificing a seer. Perhaps it was just capricious and cruel. Either way, the maenads weren't willing vessels. It was clear from their faces. They'd been changed into monsters, and the dawn was coming.

  Lyanna couldn't kill them. She gripped the dagger as hard as she could. She was going to kill god.

  EX ASTRIS

  Harry took a swig of... of whatever this was. He peered at the label. Rum? Harry took a swig of rum and stared up at the night sky. It was still there.

  He reached the top of the hill, set down his bottle and planted the tripod he'd been carrying under his arm into the wet grass. A crystal ball was fixed at the top. He extended an arm from the apparatus skywards and clicked lenses of varying aperture and thickness into position. The finished device looked like a telescope without the casing.

  Harry squinted at the crystal ball and concentrated. He'd spotted a new star last night. When he managed to scry a little closer it became clear that it was a cluster of lights. They were close. He'd reported it to the bureau and they told him to keep an eye on it. They had their hands full with phantom gangs and unlicensed demonic rituals, they weren't so interested in alternative astronomy.

  He adjusted a lens and the milky white blur in the crystal condensed into what he was looking for. The mysterious objects had a sickly yellow aura. They looked unnatural. Harry scratched his stubble and reached for the rum. When he looked back the objects were green. He was recovering from a pixie dust binge and suspected it might be related, so he screwed up his eyes and looked again. Still green. Wait, no, turquoise, and intensifying.

  They were blueshifting. Coming this way. Fast.

  Frantically removing lenses and twisting dials, he fought to keep his target in focus. Soon he'd lost them completely. He threw his bottle at a tree and swore. That's when he noticed an unearthly keening, warbling noise coming from overhead. He looked up at the mothership, and it looked down at him.

  DIRK STRAUSS: GHOST POLICE

  Agent Strauss jammed his enchanted broadsword into the floorboards and straightened his tie. Ten seconds ago it had been chaos, but now the room was empty. All the defeated ghosts had faded away. Strauss was a little surprised at how easy it had been. There weren't many known ways to kill a ghost, but a magic claymore seemed to work pretty well.

  It had all been a little bit embarrassing really. Interacting with the corporeal world wasn't exactly their forté, and they kept dropping their guns and gunking them up with ectoplasm. It wasn't even clear what attracted ghosts to gang violence in the first place, the entire premise was nonsensical no matter how you looked at it. Strauss almost felt sorry for them. They didn't know anything but afterlife on the streets. Of course it's impossible to imprison most parahumans, none more so than ghosts. One strike and you're out. They knew the rules.

  Strauss sighed. It had been a long time since he'd felt challenged by his job. He'd spent the day busting a fairy dust ring and supervising the resurrection of a homicidal golem. Now he was raiding a haunted crack house. He was seriously considering a change of career.

  A light flashed outside. And another. Instead of thunder, he heard a shrill wailing noise that defied description. He rubbed the dust and web from the window with a sleeve and peered out.

  Black discs the size of cities were descending from the clouds and zapping the shit out of everything.

  Strauss hefted his ridiculous magic sword. Things were looking up.

  TITHE

  Lyanna was on her way back to bury her girlfriend. She felt sick. Cassandra's naked body was alone in the forest, going cold in a pool of her own congealed blood. She shouldn't have left her there.

  She saw two hunched little figures in the mist. They were burying something of their own. Their shovels rose and fell as they hollowed out the ground. They kicked a body into the shallow grave as Lyanna approached silently in the branches. She'd always been quiet. It was about the only magic she truly had. All she could do otherwise was inspire the magic in other people. As a teenager she'd cast herself as a muse, but the façade fell away quickly as she grew up. She had no control over it, no way to withhold what she could do from others. She didn't want to be an object or a tool. She wanted to be a facilitator. Someone with a
choice.

  Dirt and dead leaves piled onto the body. It twitched. Yves felt a fire kindled inside him. Then he felt a shovel hit him in the head. He lashed out instinctively and caught it by the handle, wrenching it from the grasp of his assailant, and swung it around blindly. His senses were coming back one by one, pain first. Eventually he heard them running away, and hauled himself out of the grave.

  It was very cold, but he was warming up quickly. His right eye was burning like a motherfucker. He took stock of his surroundings as he recovered. The edge? Yeah, that was probably where he'd go to get rid of a body too.

  "Not one move or I'll put you back in that hole," said Lyanna.

  Yves took a moment to locate her. A shadow perched effortlessly up in the trees. He was impressed. "Salut," he said, patting his pockets. Bastards had taken his cigarettes. "Here to supervise the digging?"

  "I'm not with them. Who are you?"

  "I'll ask the questions here, mon amie."

  "No," said Lyanna, bringing her dagger into view, "you won't."

  Yves had survived a dagger to the eye earlier, but it hadn't been a pleasant experience. He remained silent.

  "Who are you?" Lyanna asked again. "What happened here?"

  "Yves. Carabin. I've been dead, so I'm not so much with the current events."

  Lyanna frowned. "You came back from the dead?"

  "Oui."

  "Can you bring someone else back?"

  His right eye flared as he stepped towards her, illuminating his clouded breath. "Je suis désolé. I've tried before, believe me."

  Lyanna went silent for a while. "So, you do know a little magic then?" she asked eventually.

  "A little."

  She dropped from the tree. "I'm going to kill God. Do you want to help?"

  Yves considered this. It wasn't like he had much else to do. Sure, there was a client to see, but staring into the yawning maw of oblivion has a way of reshuffling one's priorities. From a cosmic perspective, murdering a deity seemed like the way to go. He was distinctly unimpressed with what he'd seen of the afterlife and wished to register a complaint.

  Lyanna had picked up the other shovel and was already halfway up the hill.

  Flashes of lightning came from the city, but it was strangely quiet. The only sounds were the crunching leaves underfoot, the breeze, and the patter of spitting rain. A keening, warbling noise lurked on the edge of hearing like tinnitus, suffusing the night with an unearthly air.

  They reached the stone circle that crowned the hill. The scattered remains of the ritual were everywhere. Cassandra's body was as Lyanna left it. She showed no emotion on her face as they dug, and she refused Yves' help as she carried her love to the grave. Only when Cassandra was at rest and buried did she speak again.

  "Light the candles."

  Yves found a box of cigarettes in a discarded handbag. He lit it with his eye socket. The closer he was to Lyanna the hotter he burned. Strange.

  As Yves lit the candles with his cigarette, Lyanna leafed through a grimoire that had been placed reverently on the kingstone. The script was unreadable, but as she ran her fingers over each line, the words sounded out in her head. The spine read 'Ephemeris', and as soon as she'd touched it, she'd known what it did.

  She realised she was uttering the words as she read them. Ancient guttural sounds she didn't know she was capable of making. Cassandra's blood began to bubble behind her.

  "Girl!" warned Yves.

  Lyanna turned to see the God rise from the bloody basin. "Who summons me?" it demanded, turning to Yves. "This sacrifice is already dedicated to me. I am owed blood as tithe."

  "So am I," whispered Lyanna as she slit its throat.

  "Bonne nuit," said Yves, flicking away his cigarette. He picked up his shovel and started digging another hole.

  ORPHEUS

  Somewhere over the hill, Intoxicus, lord of thirst and fever breathed his last. No sooner had his throat been slit than the Maenads awoke from their madness.

  They saw each other's disgrace, and remembered what they had done. One dropped Cassandra's guitar in horror. She'd played it for them so beautifully as they performed the rites. They remembered her beautiful voice, singing as their vision began to swim and the air turned to ether until the song became a scream. She'd joined their Bacchanal looking for heaven, and they'd cast her into hell.

  They ran to the river and tried to wash away the blood, and the water was red before they were clean. One by one the nymphs pulled them under, and they were never seen again.

  Somewhere over the hill, a God died and a nightingale sang.

  DIRK STRAUSS: DEFENDER OF EARTH

  Agent Strauss crashed through the skyscaper window and skidded down the hull of the alien saucercraft, planting a bomb and firing his pistol as he went. He pressed the detonator as he leapt off the edge, exploding the attack ship behind him. It felt good. He'd almost forgotten how much he enjoyed saving the world.

  PIXIES VS ALIENS

  (All dialogue in square brackets is translated from the Cacwm language. General Langmuir's dialogue to be read in the voice of Richard Nixon.)

  General Langmuir was furious. "[Someone tell me why my ships are all on fire.]"

  At the observation and targeting array, a confused ensign was moving bits of hologram around frantically. "[It's just one human! He's taken down four fighters and a dreadnought already!]"

  Langmuir thumped the arm of his swivelly commander's chair. "[Did he invent fire? When did they learn about fire?]"

  "[I don't know sir, he appears to have a magic sword.]"

  "[Just blast him from orbit.]"

  "[We've been trying, he keeps moving.]"

  Langmuir groaned. Someone suggested they try a new strategy.

  "[We'll do as we've always done!]" roared the General. "[We are Cacwm, we think as one! We do exactly as commanded, even when we don't know what the commands mean anymore!]"

  Captain Coulomb stepped forward with a contingent of elite warriors in blood red armour. Human blood, as the Cacwm didn't technically have any. "[Beam me down. I'll see to this personally.]" She saluted as she was demolecularised. "[For the Queen!]"

  "[Finally,]" growled Langmuir. "[This is a Queendamned hive fuck. Ensign, visual on Captain Coulomb and her squad.]"

  "[Uh, that's a negative sir.]"

  "[What? Consider yourself launched into space.]" He pointed at another ensign. "[You! You're in charge of observation and targeting. Get me a visual on Coulomb and then launch your predecessor into space.]"

  "[Captain Coulomb is dead sir,]" insisted the first ensign. "[The human flying kicked her in the Hrugthnax and her brain sac ruptured.]"

  Everyone on the bridge grimaced.

  "[And her squad?]"

  "[K.I.A.]"

  "[This is ridiculous. I'm getting a headache, I need to sit down.]"

  "[Sir, you already are sitting down.]"

  "[I'll do what I tell you to do. Urgh, I feel super weird.]"

  So did the rest of the crew. This was because they'd been drugged. Some of them lay down, some of them fell over, and some of them began singing or making out with each other. It was extra gross because they were transparent and had mandibles and stuff.

  General Langmuir became very maudlin and introspective.

  "[Y'ever really looked at this chair?]" he asked nobody in particular, swivelling around listlessly. "[It's just like, a chair. It's not even comfy.]"

  He slid to the floor, but didn't seem to notice. "[It all made so much more sense when the queen was telling me what to do.]"

  "[Blow up the planet!]" shouted someone.

  Langmuir's eyes lit up. "[My liege!]" he said, standing suddenly to attention. "[You heard the lady! Crash this boat into the planet! This is a suicide mission!]"

  "[Why?]" asked somebody.

  "[It's a suicide mission!]" screamed the General. "[Navigation! Point this spacebird at the bluey greeny thing and put the hammer down! For the Queeeeen!]"

  "[Punch it!]" said the n
avigation officer, and pressed the hyperdrive button with his face.

  Dirk Strauss watched from a rooftop as the mothership nosedived into the sea. He was wearing a gasmask. A pixie emerged from the ship's vents and returned to the glass jar Strauss was holding. "Good job, buddy," he said as he screwed the lid back on.

  DIRK STRAUSS: GOD SLAYER

  God descended from heaven, trembling with fury at the death of his son.

  "What the fuck is all this," he said.

  Flying saucers were hovering menacingly over various landmarks and capital cities. "Whoa whoa whoa," said God. "How did you guys get way the fuck over here? I created you billions of lightyears apart for a fucking reason." He pointed toward Andromeda. "Go to your goddamn planet. Stay away from my stuff."

  The invasion fleet obediently left.

  "Now," he said, turning back to humankind. "Who killed my son? And where have all my fucking trees gone? I look away for two millennia and the place is a shit hole." He started ripping up skyscrapers and muttering to himself. "No no no, this won't do at all."

  Agent Strauss watched everything unfold from a rooftop across the city. He lowered his binoculars and spoke into his transceiver. "Enola Clay this is Strauss, the targets have retreated. Copy?"

  "Copy that Strauss, should I return to base?"

  "Negative, Stay on course, you'll know the target when you see it. Looks like Hulk Hogan with Santa Claus' head. About two miles tall, you can't miss him."

  "Roger."

  There was a distant sonic boom. Agent Strauss watched God stomp around rearranging the park and calling bizarre creatures into existence, saying things like 'that's better' as they ran around eating people. The stealth bomber roared overhead. Strauss smiled as, reflected in his binoculars, it loosed its payload. He pulled a small device from his jacket pocket. It only had one button.

  The golem thudded into the pavement. God didn't pay it any attention and continued  ripping pipes and wires from underground, going "What the hell is this" and inspecting subway carriages in minute detail.

  The golem refashioned its malleable body so that it had lungs, and took a deep breath. It made a sound like the rumble of thunder. God stopped what he was doing and peered down at the homunculus. It began to speak.