The Holy Machine

14

Needless to say, when I got home, Ruth was beside herself.

‘I told you shouldn’t go to the Outlands! Don’t you realize what this does to me? The squippies have gone crazy! In Illyria, George, even in Illyria – and there you were in Greece! Don’t you ever think of me? Don’t you ever think of me at all?’

A few little tears came starting from her eyes.

‘They were down there in the street George. Banners! Chanting! Crosses! Just like in… just like in…’

She didn’t like to say the word – or at any rate affected not to like saying it – so I said it brutally for her:

‘Yeah, yeah. Just like in Chicago.’

‘All over town. Even here in Faraday, George. You don’t seem to understand what this means… I’ve been on the net all day. I’ve mailed our assemblyman, and the President, and the Police Department, and… and… This mustn’t be allowed George. It’s got to be stamped out. And you go to Greece!’

The TV was on in the corner. I picked up the remote control and starting flipping to and fro across the day’s news. I was tired, and hungry, and very shaky, beginning to get the delayed shock reaction to my close shave back in Ioannina.

‘Get me a dinner, Charlie,’ I called to the robot, ‘I don’t care what it is. And a couple of beers while I’m waiting.’

I settled into an armchair. The X3 trundled mutely to do my bidding. His antique speech mechanism had seized up recently and we’d not been able to find anyone who could fix it.

‘Are you listening to anything I’m saying, George?’ Ruth demanded. ‘I’ve been half out of my mind and you don’t seem to care. In Greece, George, you were in Greece when the Greek squippies went crazy.’

I pulled the top off the first can of beer and let the TV settle on real-time news.

‘…all around Illyria, sabres are rattling’ a commentator was saying, ‘The Islamic Republic of Albania has officially declared war. The Holy Autochthony of Epiros has suspended all contacts. The First Hearer of Herczgovina has called on all children of Light to suspend their differences and obliterate Illyria, which alone of all countries in the world is purely made of Darkness. The Pope has sent a message of condolence to his erstwhile bitter enemy, the Patriarch of Constantinople. Even the First Elect of America, Elisha Jones, has expressed his outrage, though of course Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox Christians, just as much as unbelievers, are persecuted under his own Protestant rule…’

Image after image showed angry crowds, angry religious leaders, in the diverse trappings of their faiths…

Then there were reassuring images of Illyria in readiness: jets marked with wide-open eyes streaking across the sky, Goliath fighting robots, three metres tall, patrolling the frontier, armed speedboats streaking across the mild blue sea with Illyrian flags fluttering behind them…

And then: more crowds, flashbacks to earlier that day in Illyria City itself.

I was shaking badly now. When Charlie brought me my meal I could barely hold it.

‘You see?’ Ruth demanded, pointing at the screen, ‘You see?’

I exploded then. ‘For fuck’s sake Ruth, just leave me alone for five minutes will you!’

She burst into tears and ran off to her room.

‘You never even asked me what happened to me today!’ I shouted after her, ‘I’m the one that was nearly killed, not you! Me! Me! Me!’

I felt a strange dull ache behind my eyes.

Hungry as I had been, I found that when it came to it I couldn’t bring myself to eat, or to follow what was happening on the TV screen, or even to sit still in one place. I grabbed my jacket and went out, heading for Lucy, through subways crawling with security machines and streets still littered with debris.