The city was still in the summer breeze, hues of orange and violet filled the evening sky over head, jet contrails crisscrossing the heavens, carving through the nimbus clouds.
The buildings of the city loomed overhead like dark brooding priests, tired from gasping in the carbon thick air of the streets. Their vermillion brick faces stained by the years of smog and acerb rain. Windows, dusty filters to the world, dragonfly arrays of lenses held in place by pealing acrylic, look down and dour.
In this twilight of greenhouse chemicals and ammonia clouded skies Vincent marched home, his noir polymer boots stomping on cracked and crushed paving slabs. Each step heard a faint creak as the leather clad feet strode along the pavement.
A tinkle and rattle of coins and keys heralded Vincent's return home as he dug from his pinstripe trousers his door key. A satisfying clunk and a ghostly creek welcomed him home, the warm synthetic air gave way to a chill musty air, pungent incense still lingered on from the night before.
The long windbreaker hung from its usual peg, and the satchel nestled into the sofa. A bubbling and a click, and soon Vincent had a piping hot coffee in hand, the mug emblazoned with an insipid "You’re the Best".
Running a hand through his flamboyant red hair, allow the tufts to take on a semblance of order, though still a ragged vivid mess, he removed the shades from his forehead and made his way up stairs, collecting the satchel as he passed.
The leather boots thumped up the steps, muffled by the 70's vomit patterned carpet, the banister creaking with each hand grip upon the lacquered cream paint.
He passed the other rooms on the floor and made his way to his study, entering the curtained room, faint slivers of light cutting past the thick fabric drapes.
Sat humming in some digital tune was Vincent's PC; the titanium white case freckled with dust. Beside it sat a dated CRT monitor, the standby light blinking a lime green disco. Above the monitor was a chrome camera, its cover off to allow the device to zoom at the corner of the room.
Vincent took in a tired breath and sat down on the thread worn office chair and took a gulp of the amaroidal coffee. "Still no answer then?" He sighed, his voice ragged, disguising his youth.
He turned about on the spot, the chair straining, and he looked in the direction the camera was viewing.
Inscribed in a sticky black fluid was a circle, lined with ten burning candles in one quadrant of the circumference. Within the circle lay a fat slab of beef steak and about it three small coffee mugs containing various fluids; one contained Mercury, the next had some Iodine brown emulsion, the last held what was obviously blood, thick and blackened by the oxidized iron.
Vincent turned back to the PC and pulled out the keyboard from under a morass of books and printouts; some held menageries of Norse runes, pages held mandalas and seals. The monitor blinked on.
FILE TO BIG Vincent eyed the screen and peered at the UNIX shell, fumbling about for a DVD to write too. Well that’s new. I thought these demons were only little. Seeping through the cracks in the cage of reality, the Decarabia took form, its luminous being spilling from the camera lens and sucked into the magic circle. Blood and mercury boiled. "Oh come on. I at least gave you breakfast." "Fuck you." Vincent sat down cross legged and placed the maps to his side. "Let’s rephrase that shall we. What awoke it?" "Don't take the piss. Lovecraft was having a joke when that was written. It’s not true. The one in London has no power." Makes its own power and its own magic. Then did the Seers truely win? What if they made things worse. What if man can in the emptiness of this cage invent horrors never seen of before the Fall? ***** ***** Having crossed the road and past its gas burning contraptions, Vincent skulked about the base of the tower, his eyes alert for those that might have need to follow him. He paused and took in his surroundings, the neat little alcove of cast stone and brick. His eyes were drawn down and he smiled as he found, as always, the greeting card of the sanctum, the inlaid metal emblem, a version of the Atlantean symbol for the arcana of Space, sat upon one of its side making it resemble the symbol for pi, the emblem though having been fractured into dull and polished lines. The symbol also acted like a barcode. ***** ***** The steel coffin of a lift rumbled upwards, its used and worn doors scraping past metal and concrete. The square tin can grated against the inside of the lift shaft. But then nothing. Just silence. "Yep 'da missus'. Need her heads up on events to come and how the information is talking in the Web. Need her views on some other things too." ***** Down a further 2 screws of the spire was one of the CoMed labs. Communication. Communion. Mediation. Speaking to the wires. Listening to the flow of data on the skin of thought. The edge of Pandemonia. The cusp of the internet. The chamber was built like a jail cell. Fortress had once said a member of the original Zero Coder Hyperion cabal, Dr P0l4gOn, had ensured that the chamber was electromagnetic negative. However others felt it was also to ensure no Zerks could escape if the 'mancers Soul Barriers failed. The last thing you wanted was a technodemon loose in the facility. ***** *****
The tray slid out of the face of the difference engine, and Vincent plucked the silvered polycarbon dish out with his middle finger. A faint emanation of sulfur followed the disc from the CD writer.
Should be glad I know at least which realm this blighter is from.
Gingerly Vincent held his hand out over the magic circle and placed the disc on the pungent piece of cow, directing the rainbowed face towards the digital camera.
For a Decarabia this sucker has taken up a lot of band width.
Vincent sat back on the chair and swiveled around so to lean his forearms on the back rest, he took off his suit jacket and slung it on the door handle. He reached back for his cup of coffee and pulled out a coin from his pocket. With a plop the coin dropped into the inky caffeine and he took a slug of the potion.
Words not heard of on Earth except by those of his calling emanated from his stern lips, the sounds tugging at the cords of the world, holding back all the locks and veils for a brief moment. The world paused in its rotation and the stars above screamed from their fiery hearts. The candles flickered and the CD crackled as the reflective metal vaporized within the disc. The smell of cooking fat filled the room and a wind picked up, flicking pages and notes from the computer desk.
Vincent grinned. Time for an interrogation.
"Bastard! Who are you to bring me here?!" Spat the foul toady being, no higher than 2 feet, it observed Vincent with avian orbs. "I shall have the crows tear from you your eyes I will. Feast upon them and dance upon your broken form."
Vincent leaned back laughing and gulped back more of the coffee and held out his cell phone, the LCD screen flared into life and red numerals bleed in from the edges. The demon clutched at its ears with 6 spindle like fingers on each hand.
"Yaarggghhh!" The beast screamed, frantically shaking its pocked marked head back and forth. "It hurts! Nooo. No More!"
"We have an understanding I see." Vincent lowered the phone. "So let’s get the obvious stuff out the way. What’s the price?"
"Fine!" The demon sulked and stared at the mage. "Bloody toys and you. Easy it was back when all they had were swords and crystal balls. Nooo. Make diiigiiital things you did. Bah! Lazy!"
"Ok. The half moon, on the eleventh hour of night. Burnt in foxglove and nightshade. The hair of a newborn boy. And with it part of the placenta."
"I see we've gone and gotten a little refined in our tastes." Vincent got up of the chair and crossed over to the edge of the circle, bringing with him a map of the city and a collection of glossy photos. "You know what I'm going to ask."
"The city stone. The Great Stone. Oh dear. Late in the hour is it that we try to undo the mistakes of ages past. Of our forefathers." The Decarabia grinned and licked at it's greasy lips, cracked and weeping with sores and scabs. "You've heard him dream. Restless he is. Neither here nor there he dreams. Looking for what was his."
Vincent sighed. "Yeah. I guess we are a bit late. What is the name?"
The pygmy creature let out a guttural cackle. "You think any of us know. Viiiiincent my boy. Are we tired? Has it been a long day? Bless."
"A shard. How does one cut diamond? One uses diamond of course. What awoke him is what sealed him away. Stones and rocks are my specialty didn't you know" With a snigger the demon held up the 'OK' hand signal. Vincent had to smile, as much as these beast were cruel, they did have a way with comedy.
"Ok, so some idiot breeched the Atlantean seals using some device made of the same stone as the Great Stone and the standing stones about the city. How do we seal it?"
"Now that’s a tough one. Bit like an egg shell."
"Huh?" Vincent rubbed his chin and got up for a second, the floor boards creaking as his weight shifted. The Decarabia hopped up onto its avian legs and turned to regard the lump of steak and greedily snatched it up, gnawing away of the rancid flesh with a mouth of piranha teeth.
"SHIT!" Vincent turned on a heel and stared at the demon. "Your saying those seals were a one shot! Oh fuck. We're fucked then!"
"Mwha?" The demon looked over its shoulder, its mouth half stuffed with the sickly meat. "Mwo ye. Mwah!" The hellish spawn giggled.
"But that’s what it's looking for its name. It's true name. That was how they stripped it of its power. Stole its name and sent the bastard to Elsewhere. Genius. Now all I need to do is find its name before it can. That'll be easy." Vincent chewed on a nail and paced back and forth in the study.
"Book of Dead Gods."
"But in his own cage Man makes power and makes magic."
Vincent stood and looked at the hellspawn puzzled.
"Best joke ever made I think that one."
Vincent raised an eyebrow and slid his hand into his back pocket and ran a finger over the smooth plastic buttons of the cell phone.
"Piss off!" And in unison Vincent thumbed the button on the cell phone. A high pitched whine broke the stench of the air and the veil of the worlds open once more, sucking back into the pits of hell their foul little minion.
"Remember the deal Vincent! Remember!" The howl of the winds of the Abyss cut the vile creature off as its form was folded into itself and the CD crumpled and crispened.
Vincent lay outstretched on his bed, his hands behind his head, buried by his shock of hair, his boots still laced up and resting on the deep ruddy duvet sheet. The thoughts running through his mind, triggered by the squat fiend, had caught his imagination, and his darkest fears. He let out a weary sigh and stared at the ceiling.
Unlike his study, his sanctum, the rest of the house was a sty, lacking any sort of attention. Wall paper pealed from the damp, plaster was dented and crumbling, mildew lined the bathroom tiles, a stale air filled the kitchen. His bedroom merely did its job, providing a means for sleep. A worn and lumpy spring mattress lay on top of the bed frame with scruffy worn sheets covering it. The pillows were old and lacked body, and the room had a single chair, the type made of a plastic bucket seat sat on a painted coated metal frame, the gloss plastic bubbling up due to rust just below the veneer.
The ceiling above with its chip flecked wall paper faded to a digital fuzz and the tender embrace of sleep robbed him of consciousness. The support of the well-used mattress gave way to the agoraphobic nothingness of incubus, and Vincent, or more correctly Mercury, drifted along the threads of sleep.
Clad in a cloak of polythene gossamer, a deep grey iridescent with circuitry, Mercury, Vincent, both one and the same, his inner and outer guises, stood before the vast open roof top, a surface of tar and gravel covered in shallow pools, the ever present thunderstorm pulled back by the tide of cognizance. A crisp, abrasive salty air filled the breathing reality, the gravel rubbing their asperous surfaces together like a choir of stony crickets, a digital substance of silica.
Mercury strode down the beachy gravel and listened to the roar of the untamed storm in the distance, the clamor of nightmares and desires and lust of all the other humans of the world, of Sleeper and Awakened alike. He wandered to the edge of the roof top and clambered up onto the ledge and stood to observe the land below. All around a roiling ocean of ashen waters clashed against the pitted concrete of the tower, the wind whipping up his cloak, a snakes tongue of synthetic flesh.
Come on. I know you’re out there. You’re watching, listening, looking for that name, that power. Why not be more blunt? Take the name, it’s yours. Or has it been so long you have forgotten what it is?
"You as much as anyone should know that no road is that straight."
The ocean below smashed into the silica rock of the tower, sending up a chlorine spray. The tempest clouds illuminated with a sliver of electron light. Mercury turned on his heel and eyed the new arrival.
"So we have a face then, demon." Mercury hopped off the ledge and stepped forward, approaching the raven being, a wry smile crossed his face. Before him was a man, some 8 feet tall, draped in a fuligin shroud, topped by an equine Spartan helmet, the plume a mass of bloody hairs and feathers matted together. The booming sound of the storm slapped the tower.
"Just one I plucked from the chimera of thoughts out there in the mortal gestalt." The onyx being approached Mercury, his steps met with the faint chalkboard scratching of raptor claws upon the chipped stone. "But we know that faces only serve to act as a body to the thoughts we wish to show. Why look at you my argentate warlock, dressed in the trappings of your wisdom and ego."
"I guess this little meeting explains why that Decabrian sucked up so much hard disk. You’re a Trojan, a message, a warning" Mercury growled "An annoyance! But I like the play on words."
"I knew you'd appreciate it." Mercury watched as the ebon form stalked to the ledge, looming over the edge. "So many voices, all wanting, all lusting. Dreams are so painful are they not? I have sampled for eons their misguided hopes, no matter how vile or honorable. They still taste bland." The hollow helm turned to regard Mercury, his hair now a silver static made the two seem perfectly opposed in the realm incubus. One of dark, one of light. One of the modern age, one of ages now forgotten.
"Dreams give us hope. Hope to fight on. Hope to allow us to survive pain and anguish. Its gives man strength in the face of being cleansed of our weakness, our foibles. Surely I thought you'd know about that? I mean Pandemonia is what ties us?"
"Ahh. But then that is where your ego, the faith in your skill, is your weakness. You really think I have anything to do with the realms beyond?"
Mercury stepped back taking in the full weight of the words, their very syllable. The color washed from his eyes and his coat bled away its polychrome.
"Oh. Yes. You have a phone call."
"W-w-What?" Mercury stood open mouthed. His mind was lost in confusion and in the maze of illusion and mystery.
A phone call? Shit! The phone!
Vincent awoke with a start on his bed. His phone wailed away in synthetic tones.
"FUCK!"
The pavements blurred past, a menagerie of people and places, luminous curry houses, gabbling bars, 24 hour supermarkets, and the streets being woven by lines of students and frolickers of the night.
It was almost ten and night had now properly set in, the navy sea of the heavens loomed in, gazing down onto the orb of the world through a host of beady ice eyes. The bus lurched and stuttered in the traffic, a near constant chatter pervaded the carriage, intermingled with the pungent aromas of kebab and perfume. Vincent sat lazily at the back of the coach, one foot propped upon the seat before him, his arm resting on his knee cupping his chin in hand. He simply watched the world rush by, his eyes filled with the neon reds of car headlights, of the sodium yellow of the street lamps.
Every thing about us is just numbers and connections, formula trying to balance itself.
The bus sputtered and ground metal gears as it pulled up to another bus stop. Outside club goers ejected from the bar nearby balled and jeered, laced with the under current of shattering glass and wailing of intoxicated foul mouthed women.
Or maybe its just formula out of balance, and this thing we call 'Life' is just one glimmer of the world we just to control. Is this our destiny? To tear and rend one another apart just to feel that control once more?
The tired metal behemoth, feet of molded rubber and heart of cut steel and noir vitae, came to a stop just outside the museum. With a reptilian hiss the door swung open and Vincent alighted, turning to gaze at the gothic spires of the Manchester museum, its walls of cut sandstone now grime slick with soot and bird foul.
A choking cloud signaled the departure of the bus and Vincent stood on the pavement as there other inhabitants of the city flowed by. He inhaled deeply and allowed his mind to rise above the clamor of the world, focused upon the quadratic form of a formula, a wavefunction, one cut by his very being, allowing him to expand onto the buzzing sea of thoughts about him.
How lucky, to worry and fret about such minor, small, insignificant things. Is your curse, the snuffing out of your flames, a blessing shielding you from the darkness about?
Vincent shook away from the ocean of thoughts and turned to view the Math tower, the university mathematics department, a spire of poorly designed concrete and sheet glass. An eye sore on the campus, yet the home of a secret more bewildering than the madness of pi.
Vincent approached the alcove and searched the surface for the right spot, his fingers feeling every groove, every scratch. And there hidden amongst cracks and worn stone was the symbol of Space again, though different, altered by other cuts, altering the underlying power of the rune. It glowed.
He withdrew his hand as the rune came to life, lime green essence seeping from the engraving. The wall before him shuddered and a slither of light sliced its way down the length of the alcove. With a grinding of cement and sand the alcove opened, dust falling snow like from the emerging doorway. The concrete revealed a dented and gnarled metal elevator door, the edges rusted and spattered with grime. With an accomplished 'ping' these doors also opened, revealing the checkerboard printed metal floor and dimpled sides of the inside of the lift. A faint musty smell emanated from the lift, the exhalation of air catching Vincent's coat. He stepped inside and jabbed the button for the only floor available. Floor 13, the sanctum of the Hyperion cabal.
Kirsten stood naked in the chill warehouse, bathed in the pale bulbs above. Her sensual form contrasted against the dark of the mechanized environment. About her a circle of dark robed figures paced in a counter-clockwise motion, murmuring verses under the cloaking hoods.
Kirsten inhaled deeply, her chest rising in anticipation, her desire growing, wanting to feel this 'power' wash over her. About her the chanting grew, reverberating about the store house and taking on a metallic tang.
Faster and faster the circle of warlocks paced, all seven drawing blades from within their shadowed coats, pointing with the glinting daggers toward the naked form.
The lights stuttered, and all about the vermin and insects hid.
The chanting grew.
"Orrooobaasss! OOOrrrrooooobaaaassssss!" The seven hoods, a mandala of black pawns, added further urgency to their calls. Kirsten shuddered, her body inviting the alien force to caress her.
The seven daggers darted back in toward their owners, followed by a snap of sound, the sharp tune of a taught elastic band being cut. The blades flicked back to point at the female, drawing with them a crimson stream of fluid, the claret speckling the ivory skin of the woman. She gasped in ecstasy. Her cheeks flushed. She tingled and felt the world fall away.
As one the warlocks were blown back, dark ragged sails on the wind, blown by a wave of cerise nebula.
Kirsten shrieked. This wasn't how they had been told that it would work. It should have been some blessing in honor of a spirit of life and dreams. Sparkled tears flowed down her cheeks and she trembled alone in the dark.
She retched, dropping to her knees. Spilling out a mixture of acrid stomach juices. But also blood. The ferrous taste coated her lips. She whimpered and clutched at her belly, heaving up another foul mouthful of mordacious fluid.
"Help!" Kirsten quietly whimpered. "It hurts. It’s in me."
Her hands slipped in the bile and acid that coated the concrete floor as she tried to steady herself. She gagged again, falling onto her side with a wet thud; her body twitched and writhed in pain.
"Mum. Please. Mum?"
A miasma of gore and meat erupted from her stomach, rending her body open like and obscene flower, a mess of red and white petals. And there is the dark in its sanguinary birthing hall the being took its first breath.
Mercury leaned back against the enclosed walls, his one boot lifted and rested against the shabby, corroded, lining. He looked up and watched the fluorescent light pane wane. The lift shuddered and lurched, by all the time Mercury maintained his footing and rode it out.
It almost felt like a life time had past when the tremourous encasement of sheet steel came to a halt. On the button pad the loan button gleamed, under lit by a vile green. Floor 13.
The lift doors creakily opened, grinding against the frame and their components. Mercury composed himself, adjusting the strap of his satchel and dug his hands into his pockets, drawing back his rain coat. It had gone from being a sticky heat to an ominous electrical chill, the hum of air conditioners filling the silence.
Before Mercury stretched a twilight corridor, lit by flickering yellowed lamps and the LEDs of network hubs and transformers. Along the edges of the corridor snaked length upon length of polymer coated copper. He paced out of the lift which promptly closed with its signature rasping, and then only the dull thudding of Mercury's boots could be heard.
He passed rooms to either side, chambers lit only by desk lamps and dispersion lights over head. One was filled with box upon box of over flowing print outs, yellowed and crumbling with time. Another hosted a desk which was home to a miniature city, composed of stacks of floppy disks, with some towers collapsed, a domino effect of data. More boxes fill the room, their contents ranging from reels of tape to cassettes and more disks and zip drives. A faint patter gives the room life as liquid mercury pools from an unknown leak, the alchemical fluid a small pond amongst the towers of cardboard and magnetic storage devices.
As Mercury continued to wall down the hallway he often ducked under low slung cables that hung from the gaps in the ceiling tiles, the vines and creepers of conductors forming an organic black mass of shoots and branches. Clockwork whirring and wining, along with metallic skittering emanates from the alcoves, the green spider LED eyes watching with interest the man walking below.
Mercury didn't stop his pace as he approached the double doors ahead, their mesh reinforced panes allowing only a slight haze to pierce the dust and oil coating them.
The double doors opened with a resonating slam, swinging out onto a form of reception. A grim looking man stood up from the leather sofa, the yellow foam spilling from untended tears.
'Took your goddamn time Mercury.' Exclaimed the man in a gruff tone. It was Fortress, and he eyed Mercury with steel blue irises, searching for some sort of reaction. 'Well?'
Mercury stood there for a second and tossed his bag on to the glass coffee table next to the sofa, knocking of a collection of next weeks papers. He sighed. 'I'm here aren't I? Let’s just cut to the chase, my day has been fun already.'
The older man stretched and rubbed his neck, showing the extent of the tears in his woolen top, the t-shirt underneath showing through. He reached into his khakis and pulled out a pack of twenty and lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply, infusing his body with the plethora of fumes. 'Right. Well we've got work for you.'
Mercury was lead to the other side of the reception toward a large rusting steel door, a door more at home in a submarine than in a block of offices, or at least a demesne of that design. The cigarette was stomped out and pounded into the concrete floor and the grey flecked man wrenched the seal open, the round door handle straining against the rust and grime. Nearby on a lone laminate desk, peeling at the edges, a plump cream colored PC humming away on top. Mercury followed in through the bulk head door.
Mercury's boots clunked satisfyingly on the gantry on the other side of the bulk head. With a dull clunk Fortress closed the door and turned the wheel, locking inch thick metal pins into place. He turned about and strode forward past Mercury, the heat of the coolant systems generated a low breeze that floated up from the depths. Mercury followed and leaned against the railings and stared forward.
Before the pair spearing up from the deep black was the MADAM, one of the most powerful computers on Earth. The central core housed block upon block of servers and dual core processors. But as the levels descended so did the technology. Blade servers made way for RM desktop PCs. PCs were wired and fixed in place next to Macs. In amongst these even more motherboards protruded like leaves on a silicon tree. Further down more PCs, their cases yellowed with time, and next to those AMIGAs and further down ATARIs and BBCs. The further you went the more backwards the devices plugged in, the simplest way to upgrade the machine being to build straight on top. Further down again more early computers, CRAYs and soon enough some of the first devices designed by Alan Turing.
All about the tower of silicon and capacitors ran a criss cross of chains and cords, pulley and gurney allowing users to interface at different heights, to analyze the variety of data pouring out of the arcane machine. The stench of polymer hung in the upper belfry as CDs were copied, while lower the insect buzz of dot matrix printers spewed reams of data.
In amongst the network of cables and chains skittered the Web Spiders, the children of the MADAM. The MADAM, being a device that was possessed of a spirit, had been able to reproduce, and here offspring were the Web Spiders. Their hand sized bodies a collection of cutting edge devices and brass, clock work, mechanisms. Each had a studded head of optic lenses, each of a variety sizes and fashions, twinkling a faint green as they worked at the damaged chips and burnout wires, tending to their mother the MADAM.
Mercury turned about and locked eyes with Fortress. 'So what’s the problem that has the MADAM pumping out next weeks lottery results?'
Fortress didn't shake his gaze on the tower of difference engines. 'It's a spike in the qubits. Someone’s waking up soon and nearby. You’re on recon.'
Mercury pounded down the waffle iron steps. The arch of the gantry spiraled down about the MADAM, the first computer alive with the humming of capacitors and pulsing copper connectors. Her eyes and ears all linked to the labyrinth of the world, the madness of mathematics and lost ideas and dreams.
Another half screw of the shaft and Mercury was at one of the primary interface stations. A hub of bumblebee monitors all displaying files, videos and raw code trickling up the screen. Windows and portals opened and closed as the MADAM sorted and resorted the data. Her Web Spinners dancing over the keyboards, shrill clicks and wails emanating from the Tonka toy familiars as the bumped and worked together. Some sat at USB ports soaking in the raw figures. Viridian eyes irised as they drew in the succulent statistics.
Outstretched and twisted up into the intestinal cables of the hub, set back into the black corroded steel, was Sigma-Pi-Off. He was a muscled and toned man, his Caribbean skin slick with oil and cream blue coolant. His grey vest was stained in a similar manner from his communions with the MADAM. He didn't even move to see Mercury when he spoke.
"Adu mon?" His voice muffled by propylene. His Black Country accent reverberating in the web of Ethernet lines. "An' before ye opens ye cakehole me nuh know what’s up with de Gaffer." Mercury just stood there and watched. Sigma, as he was known for short, slid out from under the bank of computers.
"Ye gorra feace lark a bulldawg chewin' a wasp." He flashed his whimsical smile. Mercury smiled and let out a small chuckle. "So mon ye gonna speaks with da missus?" He clambered to his feet and replaced his tools back into the webbing of his cargo trousers. Filings of silver. Peppered dust.
"Oh ya mon?" The ripped bulk of Sigma sat down on a torn leather desk chair. Cracked leather boots, pensioner skin, crossed and propped on the back of keyboards. "What’s missus gonna be getting ye inta?" A bushy eyebrow rose. A benzene flick of the lighter and a cigarette was into his pale pink lips.
"Just need to confirm some concerns, lay them to rest."
"Speaks to da wires." Ash cloud exhaled and reinhaled.
"Yeah. Speak to the wires."
Beyond the 6 inch thick walls was a fine ion barrier. The smell of a summer thunder. The spherical chamber roughly 16 yards across and no visible panels or seating.
Mercury had already discarded his coat and was now sat cross-legged in the base of the sphere. Simplexes patterned the walls, plates of aged chrome. Speckled greens and filthy vermilions and their edges. He exhaled.
To a silent pulse beyond the Veil. Inhale. The wash of icy numbers. Exhale. All out. Empty. Just flesh and blood. Body and soul and thought. Tool and command and purpose. Inhale. Deep this time. The pulse dying and with it his own, a slow subdermal tick. Be one with the ether of ideas. His body floated. Up on the eddies of the Web, that Platonic reality. his feet inches from the surface.
All dark. The lights dying and giving way to the edge of the Abyss and allow this jaunt over to the spectral hell of Pandemonia. But not too far. Just enough so that both world could be felt. Fallen and High reality in communion at the point of transmission. The critical point, the saddle point of worlds.
The triangles of iron floated back and flipped. Knife edge against knife edge. Slicing the Veil. The new surface was vast, reflective. Showing the inside. Showing the beyond. Show everything and then nothing.
Brighter than the Morning Star the sphere illuminated. Epilepsy of data. A thousand dying stars. A thousand more new born. Straight from the womb of the black primal waters. A pounding subsonic bass of lights. Mercury was dead. His eyes burnt to hollow ciders.
Another jolt, a scream from Thor, his hammer of energy surging through Mercury's body.
A whiplash and there before him a lattice, a megaopolis of connections. Hydrogen red etchings of data expanding through his consciousness. A further layer of color overlaid. Cobalt and gold. Teal and navy. Racing in their framework of concepts.
Mercury almost cried. So close once more to the High worlds but so far from that correspondence point.
"Speak dear." An omnipotent song coursed through him. Soothing. "Come child what is it you wish?"
"Madam." His naked body dressed in the plasma of algorithms encasing his body in luminosity. "I seek your information."
"Submit acquisition. Present topic and arguments. Define limiting variables. Submit Upload."
"Present God. Query all. Limit to Manchester. Pre Roman. Submit Upload Dream. Recent."
He waited. The firefly dance continued about him. The slices of information bleeding a fractal path.
"Pause search!" Mercury blurted. He floated in contemplation, though his arms were outstretched. Crucified. He couldn't understand. Something was missing.
"Resume."
"Submitting new search. Directory Manchester. Time present. Input all available arguments. Search for Butterfly."
"Prognostication in process."
An age crept by and Mercury hung there thinking.
Fortress stood behind Sigma and looked at the main monitor. before them was the CoMed chamber and suspended in the centre was Mercury, fully clothed and held by 3 dozen fine cables, all injected into nerve endings and along his spinal cord.
"What’s he looking for" Fortress stood arms crossed. Concern filling his face. "What’s he searching for?"
"Dunno mon? 2 hours straight. Da Butterfly trace is a dun deal. Mons diggin' deep code."
Her wet footsteps, slick, patted across the grainy concrete. The black tarmac.
Legs soiled in dried blood, hands trembling, stuttering, fumbling for the chipped and weathered wall of the viaduct.
A rush and clatter startles her from her midnight jaunt. Strobing lights of the train above, steel juttering, chalk board scraping of rails.
The night breeze flicked at her ragged cloak, a stretch of filth flecked fabric. White nylon. Dried blood. Her eyes burning a deep salty red. Lips cracked and sore, a rouge of wet fluid than Chanel.
She shivers and hobbles into the dead shadows of the viaduct, fearful of the jeering approaching. Louts drunk on an evening of larger, stumbling home to the tunes of another disposable pop icon. High on the excitement of the last club they had left. 42nd Street, Norwegian Blue, Mutz Nutz. All centers of that commerce, of consumption, of lust, and breeding grounds for hate.
The men passed, their trail dotted by another Budweiser bottles discarded and smashed on the asphalt. She continued her walk.
One bare foot at a time. Picking over the broken glass, and knife-like stones, discarded kebabs spilt like some overgrown amoeba. Small toes sore and grazed. Each step and effort of will. Her mind filled with a dark, thicken soot of confusion, of unbeing.
She stops again and holds a hand to her head. Her clammy hand sticking to the matted locks of mousey hair. The power of unconsciousness dragged her to a side alleyway, huddled in between tall walls of cast stone and shafts of mandarin light.
Her body convulsed and she lurched forward.
"Hello?" A call from the street. A young girl. Tight jeans and an asymmetric bob. Stark eye shadow and a series of tops and t-shirts, layered. Indie. The uber cool of Manchester, stuck together from items from Top Shop and Urban Outfitters. "Hello?"
The nylon draped figure heaves again, the body ejecting more of its contents onto the patchwork ground of concrete, tiles and tarmac, re-laid over years as pipes and wires and cables were rerouted and repaired.
Loud slaps of body matter channel down the alley.
The young girl grimaces and steps forward, her good deed for the day. Samaritan purpose driving her. The stench of bile hits her, clawing at her gagging reflex.
"Hello?" She peers forward at the slumped figure in the corner. The rag doll fabricated from hospital bed sheets. "Are you, you alright? Need help?" She tip toes forward. Her eyes wide, a meerkat.
The Indie shivers as another foul stream of biomatter erupts from the woman’s mouth. She stops. A dear in the head lights watching the glint of blood seep across the ground and flush the tattered edges of the cloak. Crimson and bone. Heart and soul. Vitae and death. The girl spots the form of the vomit, of the grizzly mess. Flesh and bone and hair. A partial digestion of creatures, now a soup of acids, lipids, cartilage.
The woman turns, her locks, a gorgon's nest of vipers. Eyes a piercing violet, the skin torn and plucked away at the edges of the sockets and eyelids. "Come my dear. Your Charity is not outweighed by your vanity." The guttural witches tongue strikes out.
The young girl stammers, eye welling up with a stream of chloride fear. One step back. Then another. Then another. Keep it together she thinks.
Too late.
She turns face to face with the devils concubine. Into the dark shell of Kirsten. Looking back into the pools of the beasts soul. Her lip quivers.
"Shall we see what little girls are made of?"
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