Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘Where are you staying?’ he finally asked. The thank you was sounding too much like a goodbye.

‘Brighton.’

That made sense to du Bois. Even he was aware that Brighton was a party town; the judgemental side of him wanted to call it decadent. Alexia liked it there and felt that she fitted in.

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘We have a gig in Portsmouth in a few days, on the pier.’

Du Bois had lost count of how many times Alexia had reinvented herself. Her current reinvention was as the front person for a band playing a type of music that du Bois found very difficult to listen to.

‘And you need me to get onto the island?’ Alexia grinned at him. ‘You don’t change, do you?’

‘You could come.’

‘You know I don’t—’

‘You like some of it, and you have to admit we’re good musicians.’ She was right about that. Alexia had always excelled at music – all the courtly arts, in fact. He had excelled in the arts martial.

‘I’ll get you into the city.’

‘And I was worried about you.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘That’s a lie. None of us will.’ She looked sad. Even after all the trouble she had put him through, all the chaos she left in her wake that he inevitably had to sort out, he hated to see her sad.

‘You know I can’t talk about it.’

‘Everything comes to an end. You can rest now if you want.’ Du Bois looked away and said nothing. ‘But you won’t; you’ll rage against the sea and the heavens and the hateful uncaring gods themselves.’

Du Bois frowned. ‘Are you quoting your own lyrics to me?’

Alexia’s smile brightened her face.

‘I knew you listened to us.’ Then she became serious again. ‘I wrote that for you. You’re a bad servant, Malcolm. You always have been.’

‘It’s all I’ve ever known.’

They lapsed into silence again.

‘You know,’ Alexia started, ‘I will be deeply disappointed if the apocalypse starts in Portsmouth.’

Du Bois had to laugh. Then he wondered if she just wanted to see the end. He looked around. There was nobody else on the hill. He wasn’t sure what made him look over to the mound that had been the hill fort. Relaxed as he was, he had not let his guard down. She had appeared unnoticed through his blood-screen and even now seemed invisible to it. Something was spoofing the tiny machines somehow. The level of tech involved was frightening. On the other hand, she was there in plain sight. He cursed himself for being so reliant on technology.

‘Malcolm?’ He could hear the fear in her voice. Fear was an emotion they both should have been able to put aside a long time ago. They were not used to it. ‘It’s her, isn’t it? The traitor?’

Malcolm’s mind wandered back to a night in an earthen root-lined chamber. He remembered the flickering firelight, painted faces, fire dancing and the feeling that he had left his faith far behind him. The chalice full of molten red gold. He remembered how it burned inside. No way of surviving, it had been his death. He remembered her standing over him. Not the shambolic mess she was now, but strong, powerful, impossibly old and so very sad.

‘Alexia, go back to the bike and get away from here.’

‘But—’

‘Alexia, please. She won’t be here for you. I can’t worry about you…’ And fight her , he left unsaid.

‘I don’t want her to kill you,’ Alexia said fiercely. She meant it, but even now, after all these centuries, he could still hear the voice of the child who just wanted things to be better.

‘Please.’ He was all but begging her now. Alexia gathered their picnic stuff and headed back towards the bike. Du Bois waited until she was out of sight. He thought about contacting Control but assumed that Alexia would somehow deal with that. He wondered how the woman was hiding from the network of micro-satellites they had orbiting the world as he made his way towards her. He drew the .45 and swapped the magazine for one with nanite-tipped bullets. Somehow he didn’t think it would help.

She was standing on what had once been the ramparts, looking out over trees at the patchwork of fields under the cold blue sky.

‘It wasn’t that different. All farmland. Of course, the trees were not here, but I like them. I like trees.’

‘Good farmland’s good farmland,’ du Bois said warily. Even standing as far away as he was, he could smell her. She stank of urine and sweat. Her clothes were basically layers of filthy rags, her face obscured by grime, her hair a matted mess. She leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden staff. In her other hand she gripped a plastic bag full of what looked like rubbish.

‘No wonder we can’t find you,’ he said.

‘They wouldn’t think to look where I hide.’

‘They say that you’re no longer real.’

‘It’s easier to be a legend than it is to be a person.’

‘That you’re a nano-form. That you live in the earth now.’

‘They say a lot.’

‘They certainly do.’

She hadn’t looked at him yet. If anything she seemed to be enjoying the view, her mind somewhere else. Du Bois was content to let her be, though he himself was wound up like a spring, waiting for her to attack, assuming that it would be over soon. She laughed. It was a very dry-sounding noise.

‘I’m not going to kill you, Malcolm. I like you. I always have done. You’re so terribly earnest, to the point of parody.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘Would you believe me if I told you it was going to be okay?’

‘I’d want to see some evidence of that. For example, access to your bloodline.’

‘Me? No, I poisoned that knowledge a long time ago. I pissed in my own DNA when I saw what the Circle was becoming. I couldn’t risk it falling into their hands.’

She sounds bitter , du Bois thought.

‘You’re protecting the prodigal.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Am I?’

‘Did you help the Brass City kill the other children?’

She turned on him. The look of fury in her face made him step back, his hand reaching for the holstered .45.

‘I don’t kill children!’ she hissed and then seemed to master her anger. ‘Unless I have to. I disagree with their methods but the Brass City were right. This corruption that the Circle has become cannot choose the shape of the future of mankind. They will only feed destruction. They will only teach people not to care. They will only teach them that they are helpless. These are lies.’

‘Do you serve the angels now?’

She looked more exasperated than angry. ‘What is it with you? Despite all the killing, somehow after all this time you still know right from wrong and always did. If only you would think for yourself. Alexia –’ she nodded towards the car park ‘– is all appetite; you are all duty. Both of you could learn a little from the other.’

‘She is a deviant.’ The words were out of his mouth before he could even think.

‘Don’t call her that! You know it’s not true and always have done! You just listen to all this bullshit you’re fed. Religion’s like anything else. Take the good stuff, ignore the hate.’

Du Bois wasn’t sure if she was angry or just frustrated. She was, however, making him feel like a child.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he demanded, as much to cover up the shame of what he had said.

‘Have you ever even met an agent of the Eggshell?’ He did not answer, but thinking back he hadn’t. It had always been the Brass City and then smaller groups or individual madmen who had stumbled onto the technology. ‘They are your legends, your myths. Fools, but at least they were honest fools.’ She either doesn’t realise that she’s contradicting herself or doesn’t care , du Bois thought. ‘But no, I’m not serving them.’