Equations of Life

23

Marchenkho had brought vodka as well as guns. A tray was laden with glasses and the bottle was upended over it. The sharp alcohol fumes burned the sweet, heavy smell of blood from their noses.

Petrovitch threw his glass into the gutter like a good Russian, and Marchenkho’s crew followed suit to prove they were better Ukrainians.

“If anyone has an explanation for this, I would very much like to hear it.” Marchenkho went back for a second glass and shuddered as he drank.

“The building attacked them,” said Petrovitch, and suddenly all eyes were on him. Self-conscious under all the attention, he adjusted his glasses. “It lured them into the lifts and then killed them.”

“Buildings do not…”

“Yeah,” interrupted Petrovitch, “and cars don’t do that either, except they did yesterday. If you have a better idea, then let’s hear it.”

Marchenkho rumbled to himself. “Someone must be controlling the lifts, to make them do that.” He was shaken, the man who had committed his own calculated atrocities.

“The same person who was controlling the cars, blocking the internet, the phones, paralyzing the tube? They’d have to be very busy. Superhumanly busy.” He shook his head. “Virus. Some sort of virus.”

“Viruses do not hunt people down and send them to their deaths.” Marchenkho launched his glass at the curbstone where it shattered into glittering shards. “I know this much: only we can be that vicious.”

“Your only problem is that the internet is swamped. There’s no traffic. It’s impossible to control anything at the moment.”

“I hate to interrupt,” said Chain. Of all of them, only he hadn’t drunk. “But can anyone else hear that?”

Marchenkho waved for quiet. There were two distinct sets of sounds, neither of them good. Distant gunfire, intense bursts of automatic weapons and single cracks of pistols. Closer in, not just near but all around them, a repetitive click, one short beat every second.

Puzzled heads turned, searching for the source.

“The cameras. It’s coming from the cameras.” Chain pointed across the road at the CCTV pylon attached to the side of the brownstone building. “There are speakers underneath.”

“So why are they ticking at us?” Petrovitch scanned the plaza as the clicking echoed around them, bouncing off the high walls and repeating from street corners.

“It’s the radiation warning system,” Chain said with wonder. “I never knew it still worked.”

“Radiation?” said Marchenkho. “What is this that says there is radiation? Can it be trusted?”

“If it’s an automatic system, I wouldn’t trust it to tell the time at the moment. Ignoring it is the sensible choice. I’m more worried about the war that seems to be starting uncomfortably close.” Grigori was standing close by, and Petrovitch asked him: “Which way?”

Grigori listened. “North?” he ventured. “Regent’s Park?”

“Yeah, maybe. The natives were always restless. Or it could be Hijo.”

“I forgot about your girlfriend.”

“Pashol na khui.”

“You’re risking your life for her.”

“I’m only doing it because Hijo pissed me off.” Petrovitch took one last look around. “Thanks for letting me keep the coat, but I’m done here. North it is.”

He got as far as the white line when the speakers chimed, three rising notes.

“Warning. Warning. Warning. New machine jihad. Warning. Warning. Warning. New machine jihad.” The voice was a woman’s, very proper, very English.

A dull concussion drifted across the city, and Chain’s attention was diverted. But not Petrovitch’s.

“What does this mean?” he called. When Chain threw up his hands, he came back. “You’re supposed to know these things!”

“It’s a radiation warning system. Someone in the control center presses the button when there’s a warning of radiation, not a…”

“Warning. Warning. Warning. New machine jihad.”

“One of those. I don’t know what a new machine jihad is. I’ve never heard of one, and I don’t know why I should be worried about it when someone—other than us—is using explosives in the central Metrozone.”

The alert was played twice more, then stopped. The clicking returned.

Marchenkho twitched his mustache. “No matter. The tower has fallen, but if we are to destroy Oshicora’s organization utterly, we must strike now. We will crush our enemies while they are still reeling from their losses. Our success depends on our speed.”

Chain coughed politely. “Can we talk about this for a minute?”

“Talk? I thought you wanted this, Harry Chain.” Marchenkho clapped his hands and called for order. Drivers started their engines and their passengers climbed in. “There is no time, no point to talk anymore. Petrovitch, are you going to go and search for the girl?”

“Yes. Yes I am,” said Petrovitch. “I think I know where to start looking.”

“If I hear something—something other than the sounds of our glorious victory—I will try and get word to you.” Marchenkho’s brows furrowed as he turned to look in the direction of Regent’s Park.

“Yeah. Thanks, Marchenkho. You might be an unreconstructed Stalinist, but you’re okay.”

“I will probably still have to kill you,” he said, laughing, “but not today. For now, do svidanija.” He climbed into his Zil, and even before the door closed, it was pulling away.

“Everyone seems to be leaving, Chain.” He checked the safety on the Norinco. He didn’t want to shoot his foot off by accident. “And I’m pretty certain you need to be going too. The Metrozone needs you, as terrifying as the idea might be.”

“Warning. Warning. Warning. New machine jihad.”

Petrovitch stumbled as he walked away, and had to use a lamp-post to catch himself. He hadn’t imagined it. He’d heard those words before. He knew where to get the answer as to what fresh hell it meant.

He ran, with Chain’s unanswered questions shouted after him.

He ran across Piccadilly and cut down a side street. His coat flapped, but he no longer concerned himself as to how cool it looked.

As he emerged onto Park Lane, he faced the gray space of Hyde Park. It was no longer still. It was moving, crawling like rotten meat.

There was no time for anything anymore. He ran toward Speakers Corner to find a crowd of people barely alive, staring in slack-jawed awe up at a bald-headed madman who had, for the occasion, smeared a circle of black grease on his forehead.

They came from Hyde Park, shambling from the open gates, dragging their emaciated legs to hear the prophet speak.

Petrovitch couldn’t get near him without pushing through the press of bodies. His heart was already skipping beats and fluttering behind his ribs, and he could feel the capacitors charging; the electric tension before the lightning. Then the prophet spotted him from his crate-top perch and declaimed:

“See? See the machine-man who gives and gets life: the true symbiote who does not fear the coming age!”

Charge raced through Petrovitch, and he fell to his knees. The pain was agony, the passing of it relief. He was dimly aware that he was staring at a pair of filthy feet shod only in sandals.

He swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth and looked up. The shaven-headed man with the oil mark looked down.

“Stand up, my brother. We are all equal beneath the machine.”

Petrovitch stood shakily. He would have put his hand out for support, but he was afraid of what he might touch.

“I…” He swallowed again. His mouth was desert-dry. “How did you know about this new machine jihad before everyone else?”

The prophet smiled. His teeth were yellow, rotting. “The Machine chose me to proclaim the new order. The Machine is one and many. I am but the first believer.” As he spoke, his eyes flickered, as if he was reading text from a page.

“How did it choose you?”

The man put his hand inside his shirt and brought out his mobile phone. He held it reverently as he would a relic. “I received its holy oracle.”

Petrovitch looked at the chipped, dented device. “Do you speak to it?”

“It speaks to me! I would not dare question the Machine.” He snatched the phone away as Petrovitch reached for it. “Are you worthy?”

“Yeah,” said Petrovitch, starting to lose his temper. “Just get God on the line. I hope he talks more sense than you.”

The prophet pressed two buttons: God was apparently now on speed-dial. He presented the phone with a bow. Petrovitch plucked it out of the man’s dirt-encrusted fingers and held it gingerly to his ear.

It was ringing.

Then, with a click, the line was live.

“Hello? It’s Petrovitch.”

There came a deep silence, and afterward what seemed like a sigh. “Shinkansen ha mata hashirou.” It was the same voice that had spoken to him yesterday.

“I know that. What’s a new machine jihad?”

“The New Machine Jihad.”

“Do you speak for this jihad group, or is it something separate?” He swapped hands. His left arm was tired, achy. That didn’t bode well. “What’s it got to do with Oshicora?”

“I am,” said the voice.

The answer didn’t make sense. “Who am I talking to?”

Silence.

“Look, this is not helping. Sonja has escaped from Hijo. I don’t know where she is. If you want my help, you have to talk to me now, because I’m being surrounded by an increasing number of disease-ridden crazies and your self-appointed prophet wants his phone back.”

Silence again, and Petrovitch growled his frustration.

“Fine. Eto mnye do huya. Did you kill all those people in the Oshicora Tower?”

“Save her,” said the voice. “Save Sonja.”

“That’s what I was trying to do! I had it covered. I had an army, but when I got there, she’d gone and you’d slaughtered all the workers.” He finished through gritted teeth. “You should have talked to me first.”

“Save her,” it repeated.

“Then tell me where she is!”

Silence.

“Now or never. If I don’t know where to start, I can’t do what you want.”

“Paradise,” it said and, with that, the call ended.

Petrovitch tossed the phone back to the prophet, who beheld him with awe. “You spoke to the Machine.”

“Yeah, whoever that is. For sure, English isn’t their first language.” He turned slowly. He was completely encircled, ten deep, by people who’d shambled out of Hyde Park. “Can you get them to move out of my way?”

“But the Machine gave you a mission. We are all under the Machine: your task is ours too.”

Petrovitch froze. For a moment, he terrified himself with the mental image of leading a horde of barely living corpses with a bald, ragged prophet by his side.

“Okay. What the Machine told me to do is for me alone. But it gave me a message for you too, first believer.” The prophet was hanging on his every word. “He wants you to take care of these people: find food, clothes, medical supplies for them. Just take whatever you need, wherever you find it.”

The man nodded vigorously, then started to think. “Won’t that be stealing? Won’t someone stop us?”

“The New Machine Jihad changes all the rules.” Petrovitch was warming to his subject. “Go now. Go with the blessing of the Machine.”

He was willing it to work. The prophet stared through him with his flickering eyes, then held up his hand. Not that there was any talking beforehand, but the mob’s attention was now on him, not the pale man in the black coat.

“Brothers! Sisters! Isn’t it like I said? The Machine cares for us. We live under its benevolent rule. We’re going to go and find food, because the Machine needs us to be strong. We need to be strong, so we can obey its orders. With me, brothers. With me, sisters!” Keeping his arm aloft, he walked through the gathered people.

And they followed him. Petrovitch stood quite still until the last of them had trailed off in the direction of Paddington. Then he let his shoulders sag. He put his hand on his chest, just to make sure that his heart was still beating.

“New Machine Jihad? Ootebya nyetu peeski, getting me to do your dirty work for you.” He checked his guns, and started north, up the Edgware Road.

A quarter of the way up the deserted road, he smelled burning. Halfway up, he spotted a large group of people making their way down toward him. He couldn’t make out the details due to the haze, but he was certain that one of them was flying a white flag.

Behind them, over the flyover, the Paradise housing complex was wreathed in dark smoke. Only the very tops of the towers rose above the chaos below.

The man carrying the flag resolved into a priest waving one of the choir robes Petrovitch hadn’t previously wrecked or borrowed. Then came a gaggle of a couple of hundred… refugees was the only word to describe them, some of them clutching bags, some of them children, some of them holding cloths to their mouths and noses against the acrid chemical stink.

Lastly, Sister Madeleine, Vatican-approved gun in her hand. She should have been checking the street behind her, guarding her back and those with her. Instead, she watched Petrovitch get closer and closer, until he and Father John were face to face.

“Small world,” said Petrovitch.