Veteran

27

‘Sergeant MacDonald?’ The voice was American, northern states. It sounded like someone was trying to spread a veneer of culture and corporate elocution lessons over street roots. I saw Gregor turn to look up at the viz screen; even on his warped features the look of disgust was unmistakeable. On the screen was a handsome, well-groomed young man in an immaculate understated suit that screamed upper-echelon corp. The giveaway was the sheathed antique katana held casually in his left hand.

Everything about his appearance was perfect, from his hair to the duelling scars. God was providing a biography for this guy. I downloaded it onto my internal visual display but still only managed to catch the highlights. His name was Vincent Cronin. He’d grown up in one of the more Darwinian neighbourhoods of Detroit and excelled in cash generation for one of the more successful gangs. He’d been drafted into a relatively prestigious American airborne unit and seen action on Lalande. He’d worked his way through the ranks, played the system – first degree, commission to officer, some clever investments – and there’d been a corp job waiting back in the world. By all accounts he applied the same natural selection skills he’d learnt in the street to the boardroom. More than twenty-five dead execs by his sword. More importantly he was canny, good at business, as well as hell on wheels with a sword.

Now he was an executive without a portfolio. Reading between the lines he was the Cabal’s corp liaison, their fixer. He solved the problems that didn’t require Rolleston’s violent attention.

I saw Cronin smile. It was the sort of smile that would put people at ease, though I couldn’t help but think there was a predatory quality to it. He seemed to be sitting in the lobby of some kind of plush comfortable-looking hotel.

Standing not far away from him was the muscle. The guy was huge, as big as Balor, but nominally human-looking though his features were a mismatching patchwork collection of ugliness. His eyes were lenses but seemed to bulge out like a fish’s, and he had a very pronounced, forward-jutting jaw. He wore an expensive and well-tailored suit that he looked very uncomfortable in. A Hawaiian shirt beneath the suit jacket and a large trilby finished the ensemble. Everything about him screamed cybernetic-induced psychosis, not least his dress sense. I don’t think I would’ve liked to fight this guy. I wasn’t even sure I’d want Gregor or Balor to fight him. He stood a little way from Cronin, constantly scanning the surrounding area. He was paying no attention whatsoever to the events unfolding on the viz screen.

I downloaded the muscle’s bio. It filled me with disgust. He’d been US special forces, spent his time on Lalande as well. Possibly that was where he’d met Cronin, but he’d come back to spend time in a Green Beret counter-insurgency unit. Basically he killed humans. He’d been loaned out and cross-trained with the CIA’s Special Activities Section, their paramilitary black-ops wing. Just before he’d gone to work for Cronin he’d been in command of the Washington branch of the IRS’ elite SWAT audit team. He was a taxman. His name was Martin Kring.

‘Cronin, you piece of shit,’ Gregor hissed at the viz screen.

To your friends and everyone watching this I think it’s important that we all know that MacDonald is completely compromised by the alien entity that resides within his flesh. He works for the enemy. Whether or not that is the case with Miss McGrath I cannot say, though I suspect it is, but we studied MacDonald for over a year and he is definitely one of them.’

‘That’s bullshit!’ Gregor said.

‘Why, because you say so? Whatever you think of us, we have worked in humanity’s best interests-’

‘Funny, it looks like you’ve worked in your own best interests. Though even allowing for that I can’t imagine why you started the war,’ Mudge said.

‘I wasn’t even alive when the war started, and we only have your word for it that you think the people I work with had anything to do with it,’ Cronin said evenly.

‘My word? I’d call it a lot of evidence, but I would encourage people to check it for themselves.’

‘I’m not about to get into yet another argument about mediation with you. People are smart enough to see through these things. I’m sure any vet knows the self-evident truth about the nature of Them,’ Cronin said with a look of distaste on his face.

‘Or, you know, check out the evidence for themselves. What I don’t get though is why start the war in the first place? I mean, I could see that you and yours would make a lot of money investing in munitions, cyberware, shipbuilding, electronics and various other industries, but surely it was an insane thing to do? You couldn’t know you were going to beat them?’ Mudge asked.

‘Then surely you’ve answered your own question,’ Cronin said.

‘They’d studied Them,’ Gregor began. We all looked over at him and suddenly it was his face on the viz screen. He was being filmed through Mudge’s eyes. ‘They’re not at all like us, like you. The Cabal aren’t even sure if they’re sentient as such. They theorised that they could be some kind of organic neural net processor, a biological learning machine, but they learn by reaction. If you can control their stimuli then you can control their progress. Basically they would always meet force with a similar degree of force, because you were teaching Them how to fight as you went along,’ he finished.

‘They guaranteed a stalemate,’ I said. Gregor nodded.

‘And no biological warfare that would’ve wiped us out, no nuclear weapons etcetera, etcetera. Nobody would be allowed the tools they needed to win. They modelled it using the most powerful software they could find. They forecast all possible outcomes of the conflict until the odds were in their favour and the chances of Them winning were infinitesimal, and then made sure they kept back certain edges for themselves,’ he said.

‘What edges?’ Pagan asked. I glanced up at the screen. Cronin was listening intendy but showing no other reaction.

‘Early precursors to Crom-’ Gregor began.

‘Even out of the evidence you have manufactured there seems to be none to support the existence of this Crom virus you talk of,’ Cronin interrupted.

‘A more primitive version designed to kill rather than control,’ Gregor finished.

‘That’s still a hell of a risk,’ Mudge said.

‘Not really. They are ordered and cooperative, where we are chaotic. It was surprisingly easy to gauge how They would react. At the end of the day They are little more than plants and as predictable as which side of the boulder moss grows,’ Gregor finished. I must admit, uniformity of tactics or not, They never felt all that predictable when I was fighting Them.

‘We were fighting space lichen?’ Mudge said. ‘Somebody should’ve said.’ The thing was, I couldn’t decide if knowing that would’ve made things better or worse for morale.

Mudge turned back to Cronin. ‘I still don’t get why?’

‘Why what? I’ve little idea about any of this. It sounds like an involved conspiracy fantasy. Why don’t you ask one of your alien friends? They’re running this psy-op,’ Cronin answered impassively.

‘Do you ever get tired of all the spin and the lies?’ Mudge asked. Cronin didn’t dignify the question with an answer.

‘Look, let’s ignore this guy’s bullshit. I think we’ve got more important things to worry about.’ Everyone ignored me and apparently the fact that Rolleston and the Grey Lady could breach at any moment. I couldn’t be the only person shitting himself, could I?

‘Biotechnology,’ Gregor said. He sounded tired. I could understand why; trying to navigate through this sea of lies against constant denial was tiring.

‘I can see that,’ Mudge said. The viz screen was split three ways between him and reaction shots of Cronin and Gregor. ‘But even allowing for great advances and huge profits it just seems a trivial reason for sixty years of conflict.’

‘Once again you answer your own question. Nobody but an insane person would do these things,’ Cronin said. Gregor glanced up at the viz screen but pretty much ignored him.

‘Not really. Profit aside, many of the Cabal are dying. Mixing Their naturally evolving but incredibly advanced, in its own way, biotechnology with human ingenuity and scientific know-how and you’re looking at incredible advances. Advances we would have problems even imagining,’ Gregor said. Mudge gave this some thought. He did a close-up on himself just so everyone could see how thoughtful he was.

‘And that’s the thing, isn’t it?’ Mudge said. ‘God, can you bring the images of the Cabal up on the screen?’ On the viz screen the images we’d seen earlier appeared. They were almost all fat old white guys being kept alive by drugs and machinery that probably cost thousands every day if not every hour. Presumably they communicated through the net but I don’t think they were jacked in at the moment, unsurprisingly. ‘All this is for them?’ Mudge asked. ‘What the fuck have these vampires got to do with the rest of us? Why are they even living, if you call that living, off of us? Anybody else want to die for them?’

‘They worked for the power they have and deserve to be rewarded for it,’ Cronin said, though I wasn’t sure even he believed that. He seemed very uncomfortable with the images of the sleeping members of the Cabal.

‘These people had their time; now it’s over they all should’ve died a long time ago. This is deeply unnatural,’ Mudge said in disgust.

Cronin shook his head. ‘This is irrelevant, a fantasy. What proof have you got of us harvesting Them biotechnology? Even your God seems to struggle to fabricate evidence.’

‘Because you used Demiurge to purge your systems,’ Morag spat with a surprising amount of hatred in her voice.

‘There’s me, there’s my last year of being a fucking test bed for you after Rolleston exposed the Wild Boys to a Ninja in the hope that one of us would be infected. What were you doing then?’ Gregor asked. His voice had become nearly a whisper. Cronin concentrated as if he was receiving data.

‘Rolleston ordered you to hunt and kill one of Their assassination bioborgs, not an unreasonable order to give an SAS patrol. When you were exposed, you were isolated to be studied so we could find a way of more effectively combating Them. You’re fabricating a fantasy out of little strands of the truth,’ Cronin snapped.

Gregor was pointing at Cronin. ‘No, you are!’ he shouted. Even to me it sounded weak.

Cronin leaned into the screen. He looked angry now. ‘And in the absence of any credible evidence it is your word against mine, and one of us isn’t currently possessed by an alien! What have we done? Nothing! Except try and study you, even see if we could help you.’

‘Oh, that’s bullshit!’

‘You people, on the other hand, have just single-handedly destroyed our economy and our security apparatus. People have access to information that is dangerous to them. Now everyone in the world can learn how to manufacture nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons, genetically targeted weapons and concrete-eating microbes. You’ve just released all the information on banned genetic engineering and cloning processes, processes that were considered to be immoral by the UN. Now people have access to black bio and cyberware, sequestrination cyberware. Or are you going to tell us that you didn’t think of any of this?’ It was quiet again. I felt like I’d been scolded and the answer was no, I hadn’t thought it through. The thing is, there were smarter people than me here. Had they thought it through? ‘You say that we’re the enemies of humanity and then you go and do all this. I trust the comparison with Pandora isn’t lost on you.’

‘You’re right,’ Pagan said. I looked over at him. Surely he must’ve thought of all this. I was beginning to wonder if we’d been very stupid. ‘We have made all that information available, do you know where from?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘From the likes of you and your friends. God, all the things that you just mentioned, can you provide evidence for their manufacture and use in, say, the last ten years?’ Text, audio, and audiovisual information began scrolling down the screen. I wondered how many people accessed it. ‘See, it hadn’t gone away. The information was still there. What you’re pissed off about is that we’ve taken it out of the hands of people like you.’

‘Yes, congratulations on proliferation. That’ll help,’ Cronin said.

‘How will it proliferate? Every time someone accesses this information everyone in the system has the potential to know about it. Surely that’ll make it easier to police?’ Pagan said. He seemed to have recovered from his earlier despondency. It was obvious he had thought of this and he had a counter-argument; the trouble was, I wasn’t sure if it was enough. I didn’t like the idea of genetically targeted viruses or slave cyberware available to anyone. I wondered if this was the part of me that liked the idea of other people making the decisions, making things safe, looking after us. The trouble was we were here because they weren’t doing a very good job. In fact they had become abusive.

‘Surely you’ve made every hacker in the world unemployed?’ Cronin said sardonically.

‘I’m sure we’ll find something to do,’ Morag said.

‘I’ve always fancied farming,’ Pagan said, looking slightly wistful.

‘And what about the financial markets? Money and commodities are moved around as information all the time. Now anyone can access this.’

‘You’d be surprised how few people that affects. Well maybe you wouldn’t. For most of us it’s still cash under the mattress or illegal credit chips. God?’ Pagan said expectantly.

‘While all information is available, security systems are still functioning. Money and other commodities still cannot be moved except by the authorised person, though now it is a lot easier to check that person’s authorisation,’ God said. I noticed that Pagan was momentarily tranced in but he was back by the end of God’s explanation.

That said, it’s now a lot easier to see how much money people have. Wow! You’re rich, Mr Cronin,’ Pagan said. There was something of the teen-punk hacker about him at this moment. He was enjoying himself. ‘How did you make your money, I wonder?’ Pagan continued. There was all sorts of information scrolling down the screen.

‘This is an obscene breach of privacy,’ Cronin said, looking less than pleased.

‘I would argue that this information is relevant to the populace as it seems to affect them directly,’ Pagan said, somewhat distracted as he studied the information he’d found. ‘Hmm, a cursory glance would suggest that you’ve made a lot of money from arms and have recently been investing in biotechnology. I wonder why?’

‘Do you not understand that your alien computer virus of total truth is a weapon you’ve wielded against humanity? Lies protect humanity as well as deceive them. What if every lie you were ever told was suddenly revealed, would it do more harm than good? From "Yes, you do look fat in that" to Pearl Harbor, we exist in a web of lies, and not all of them are bad. The truth can be a destructive force, as your attempt to pull humanity apart is proving,’ Cronin said, changing tack.

‘But why your lies? Why do you get to decide what lies we hear?’ Mudge asked.

‘Because we are allowed to, because we worked hard to get ourselves into positions that allow us to make these decisions, because we are strong enough to do so. This is how our system works: it rewards success and it rewards strength. This is how things are supposed to be. Who else is going to lead? You?’ I had to smile at the guy’s balls.

‘What about democracy?’ Mudge asked. I almost scoffed. The word seemed a joke, but Mudge was deadly serious: this was important to him. I saw Cronin’s eyes narrow around his custom lenses, designed to look like real eyes, the designer logo just about visible on the large viz screen. I think he was trying to gauge how serious Mudge was.

‘We work within the framework of democracy,’ Cronin said carefully. I think he saw a trap. Democracy was a joke to people like this, almost meaningless. He knew it and we knew it, but he couldn’t openly say that.

‘Do you think we would’ve voted for the war?’ Mudge asked.

‘This is a ridiculous argument. You’re being naive and you know it. The governments that you voted into place allowed us the latitude to make certain moves.’

‘Like starting a war?’

‘I didn’t stan the war,’ he repeated, sounding slightly exasperated. ‘We’re going round in circles.’

‘Should governments act on the will of the people?’

‘They do when they are elected, but despite your attempt to simplify it you know that for security reasons the populace cannot be privy to some information and the decisions that come about as a result of them. Through their votes they delegate their trust to their elected officials, who act for them.’

‘In their best interests?’ Mudge asked.

‘You’re setting up a straw man,’ Cronin said. ‘You want us to be a secret government-controlling conspiracy. You give us prosaic names like the Cabal so you can find a scapegoat. Find someone to blame for your own sense of dissatisfaction because you’d rather attack than actually do anything constructive to help.’

‘How is the war-’ Mudge began.

‘I didn’t start the war, Mr Mudgie, now let me finish. What you don’t understand is this is the way of things. We exist within the framework of our society as a necessity. We manage the difficult decisions, the decisions where victories involve sacrifice. We are always going to look bad. You want to punish us but all you’re doing is fighting the momentum of your own society. You want to blame us for the start of the war but its beginnings are a lot more complicated than you’re allowing for, and the sad fact is the war began because of the weight of society bearing down on that point in history. What you call the Cabal was acting on what humanity required at that point.’

‘Bullshit,’ I said. ‘Fancy words aside, the war started because someone who you work for ordered a passive alien organism to be attacked by an RASF ship.’

‘Someone has to lead because so many people will not take responsibility for themselves,’ he said.

‘Because people have had it driven into them by the likes of you that there’s nothing they can do, that they’re helpless and they can’t make a difference. That’s not true,’ Morag said.

‘Actually it is. Few people have the will or the ability to make a difference. You have to remember the majority of people will not collude with the implacable enemy of their race and put an alien parasite in their head,’ Cronin said. Morag just glared at him but didn’t respond to the cheap shot.

‘Even if that were true, then the strong have an obligation to lead responsibly and try and foster that strength in others,’ I said.

‘We are making humanity stronger,’ he said.

‘Oh, you are so full of crap,’ I said. There were sounds of disbelief from the others.

‘He’s right. Conflict breeds strength,’ Balor said. I looked up at him. Cronin was looking smug on the viz screen.

‘What humanity?’ I asked. Suddenly I was on the screen. I was being shot through Mudge’s eyes again. I felt uncomfortable, I looked at my features writ large on the viz screen. Some of my discomfort stemmed from looking like I was dying of radiation poisoning.

‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Cronin said.

‘Less than a third of my body is the original biological material,’ I said. ‘They want to wage war on my humanity, where will they start, my testicles?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, the flesh isn’t-’ Cronin began.

‘Look at Balor, does he look human, sound human?’ I asked Cronin.

‘Appearances…’ Cronin began.

‘It goes beyond looks. He had neurosurgery to make himself less human, didn’t you?’ I asked Balor. Now it was Balor on the screen. He looked magnificent and nothing whatsoever to do with humanity.

‘I had neurosurgery done on myself to weed out weakness,’ Balor said impassively. I wondered with this talk of strong leadership who Balor actually sympathised with.

‘The actions of one man-’ Cronin began again but I interrupted him again.

‘It’s not one man, though, is it? We’re making our own aliens. Do you know how many cases of cybernetic-induced psychosis I’ve seen put out of their misery? Even if we win we lose, and if we don’t stop soon there won’t be any humanity left, just sick machines.’ Cronin looked like he was about to start talking again but something else occurred to me. ‘See, you and yours may have something invested in turning us into machines but I don’t and neither, I guess, would the majority of other people in the world. I was a member of the SAS, an elite. In theory all the machinery, training and experience should make me one of the strongest people on the planet. I don’t feel strong; I feel dead, I feel horrified with what I’ve done and seen.’ I said it earnestly enough and I believed it, but I also knew there would be a group of men and women in Hereford throwing things at their viz screens – that at least made me smile.

‘It made me strong,’ Balor insisted.

‘It made you a freak,’ Buck sang along with the music he was playing. I’d become so used to the soundtrack I’d all but stopped noticing it. Balor glared at the guitarist.

‘Actually these two are a good example,’ Mudge said. ‘God, can you draw up the recruitment information on Buck and Gibby and make their entry photos big on the screen?’ he asked. I saw where this was going; it was something of a cheap shot. Buck and Gibby’s recruitment photos came up. We saw images of them as two young clean-cut recruits on their way to basic training.

‘Compare and contrast,’ Mudge said. Buck and Gibby as they were today in all their cyberbilly splendour appeared on the screen. Buck decided to use his moment in the spotlight to start a guitar solo. ‘Congratulations, Cronin, the sum result of the Cabal’s machinations to date is to create a degenerate junkie hillbilly making machine.’

‘Yeeehaaa!’ Buck screamed.

‘Face facts. We’re the elite of your so-called strength and we’re a bunch of weirdos. I mean look at how Mudge dresses,’ I said.

‘Hey, I’m a fucking serious journalist!’ Mudge complained.

‘So, who leads? We do after all work with most governments in the world. You appear to be intent on overthrowing democracy as well as everything else you’ve attacked,’ Cronin said.

‘We haven’t touched the infrastructure of government, though I don’t doubt there will be the world’s largest and most transparent…’ Mudge began.

‘Witch hunt?’ Cronin suggested.

‘Corruption investigation,’ Mudge finished. ‘But we can help governments. See, through God we have the capability to reveal as much truth as is technologically possible.’

‘How very Orwellian,’ Cronin sneered.

‘Orwellian how?’ Pagan asked. I had no idea what they were talking about. ‘We didn’t create the Panopticon.’ I still didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. ‘The mechanism for near-total surveillance was already in place. We’re just taking it out of your hands and making it open to everyone. So we can watch you as well.’

‘As for democracy, we now, through God, have the ability to run a worldwide referendum so everyone can have their say. You know, aid decision-making when crucial questions come up, like should we wage war on an initially harmless alien organism? Can’t we, God?’ Mudge said.

‘You are not entirely correct, Howard. I actually have the facility to run a system-wide referendum but it will take a little longer,’ God answered.

‘Seriously, Rolleston’s about to come in here, guys. Do we have time for this?’ I asked. Even I had got sucked into this argument. Nobody answered me.

‘Fine,’ Mudge said, slightly irritated at God. ‘Yes or no question. Once people have had a chance to look at the information as regards the Cabal do they still want to be controlled by these people? And if They want peace do we want it too? Vote, people,’ he invited.

‘And again we trust the alien computer virus because…’ Cronin asked.

‘Because everyone will know what they voted for. They can ask their friends and family, who will ask their friends and family, and so on. Hell, they can ask total strangers in the street.’

‘It won’t work. With every secret revealed people will pull themselves apart,’ Cronin said. ‘Every suspicion proved, think of all the scores that people will be able to settle.’ This was the first time I saw Mudge get angry during the whole thing. Up to this point I think he’d just been enjoying himself.

‘You’d fucking like that, wouldn’t you? But what if they don’t?

What if sixty years of conflict is enough? What if we cooperate now so that our children don’t have a life of violence?’

‘Someone will always take advantage,’ Cronin answered.

‘And now we can see them coming,’ Mudge countered. ‘You see, there’s no reason to not be calm. It’s over. We can see the strings and anytime anyone else ever tries to lie to us, control us for their own gains, we’ll see those strings as well. We know the truth. You can’t lie to make us afraid any more. We’re able to make decisions for ourselves now. Will there be pricks like you trying to take advantage? Of course there will, but everyone will see it. The thing is, what you think of as our weakness – our ability to not succeed in your terms – I think is our strength. Why would we want to live like you? Your power is smoke and relies on us anyway. Your existence relies on how much you’re able to fuck others over. Is that what you need to make yourself feel good? Is that your validation, your reason to exist, your measure of success? How fucking hollow. Most people just want to make their way, do their thing and look after themselves and their loved ones, but you won’t let us. You win because we divide. Well, now we’re connected. What are you going to do?’

Cronin was silent.

‘See, we’ve left the world’s infrastructure in place but you’ve got to go because this isn’t working. We can travel across the stars, we can rebuild the human body and we’re capable of feats of engineering like this Spoke, and we’re still killing each other for food. That’s not right,’ Mudge finished.

Cronin smiled smugly. ‘Well, stop doing it then,’ he said.

It looked like Mudge leant in but I guess he just did a close-up on himself, and suddenly his ugly face was massive around the world.

‘This is how we start. Consider yourself fired,’ he said. I reviewed the data on Cronin. He was on a luxury elevator on the Brazilian Spoke. I checked with God, making sure that the Brazilian authorities were waiting to pick him up. They were, then I made sure the Brazilian authorities had enough firepower to deal with Cronin, Kring and any other surprises they had. It looked like they did.

‘I mean, how do you do it?’ Mudge continued. ‘How do you justify sending millions of people to die? What do you need all the money and power for anyway? Surely it must reach a level where it becomes an abstract?’

Cronin let out a brief bitter laugh. ‘Because whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, this is how progress is made,’ he said.

Then Mudge did something that I thought was brave, risky and showed much more faith in people than I had, or I thought he had.

‘No, this how progress is made. God, show this twisted fuck our people,’ Mudge commanded. Cronin was now glaring at us from the viz screen but his features were replaced. It was a street scene, one of London’s many Ginzas. London was Mudge’s spiritual home. Thousands of people were on the street just watching the viz screen, then the picture shrank down to a tiny window and it was replaced by Washington, then Paris, Berlin, Nairobi, Pacifica, Berlin, Auckland -all the major cities of the world – and then smaller cities, faster and faster, towns and then individuals. People stood and watched in silence, people cried, people hugged and kissed, talked or just stared, looks of relief on their faces. Somehow Mudge had predicted this. Everyone looked tired but relieved. Some of them even dared to look happy. I realised how tired I was. I staggered over to the wall and began to slide down it. Morag was there to help me.

‘See, this isn’t a riot; it’s a great big fucking party, you twat. The war is over,’ Mudge said. I realised that Mudge may have spoken too soon but it felt good. I also realised as I watched image after image flicker up on the screen how much I really loved what was left of our fucked-up humanity.

‘The war is never over,’ Cronin said.

‘Give war a chance!’ Buck and Gibby sang together.

‘What? Rolleston? You think killing us is going to make a difference?’ Mudge asked.

‘No, but it might be worth focusing on now,’ I suggested.

‘You didn’t listen to MacDonald did you? With what we’ve learnt about biotechnology we’ll be more like gods. Like your whore,’ Cronin said.

Morag looked up. ‘Oh, do you mean me? See, there are a lot of things I wouldn’t do for money and power.’ She looked confused. ‘Sorry, who’s the whore?’

‘You’ve started the next great human conflict,’ he continued, oblivious to Morag’s jibe.

‘You’re issuing us an ultimatum?’ Mudge asked.

‘The combined colonial fleet cannot allow the net, perhaps Earth’s most important tactical asset, to remain in control of something that by its own admission is compromised by the enemy,’ Cronin said. ‘You must see that.’

‘Who are you to make that decision?’ I demanded, getting drawn in again despite myself and Rolleston’s imminent breach.

‘There is no enemy; they want peace!’ Morag shouted. She sounded desperate for Cronin to understand her, for him to see. I knew he did and it didn’t matter.

I was receiving an urgent comms message from Cat outside. I opened it to see her comms icon. Did her icon look nervous, unhappy, angry? Or was I just reading that in? Again I was distracted by Cronin.

‘Unfortunately we only have the word of one little girl, a whore no less, who has an alien living in her head, whereas the combined experience of millions of people says otherwise,’ Cronin said. I could see Morag fighting back tears, not at this arsehole’s words but at the thought that after all this we could end up fighting our own people all over again. I knew how she felt. Though I don’t think in her there was the same capacity for hatred of Cronin, Rolleston and their ilk that I felt.

‘Sergeant…’ Cat began.

‘Call me Jakob.’ She looked annoyed at the interruption.

‘In order for there not to be a war all you have to do is stop,’ Mudge said. ‘If you leave it a few minutes you’ll get a mandate from humanity asking you to do just that.’

‘You said when you’d done this you’d come out,’ Cat said.

‘For you, not him. Sorry. Get your people well out of the way,’ I said, then to everyone inside the node, ‘Guys.’ Something in my tone this time – suddenly everyone was alert.

‘"I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it,’" Cronin said. It made me think of Vicar. Cronin’s face disappeared from the viz screen.

‘God?’ Mudge asked.

‘We’ve lost the feed from the elevator security cameras. I believe Mr Cronin has had them disabled.’

‘You’re the demons,’ I said quietly to myself. Morag looked up at me; she must’ve heard.

‘They’re coming,’ Cat said over the link. She’d be lucky if Rolleston didn’t have her killed. Cronin had been a distraction.

‘ "For thou hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name," ‘ God said, finishing Cronin’s quote for him.

Bang.