Omega Point Read online

  "Chloe will tell us why," said Valdaire.

  "You do not need to. Tell me, why has Kaplinski not destroyed this place with us in it?"

  "He's looking for Waldo too," said Chures.

  "Ja," said Otto. "And I would say that he paid for all this."

  "Then we frag the lot, and stay one step ahead of him," said Chures. "We've got Kolosev's data."

  "That could work," said Otto. "Or maybe Kaplinski couldn't get Kolosev to give the data up himself, and can not get at it remotely, and he is waiting for us to lead him right to Waldo instead."

  CHAPTER 6

  The Terror

  Though the day promised rain, it held off. Soon Richards' human facsimile was sweating heavily and he was obliged to remove his macintosh. As his soreness receded, he began to take in the sensations his near-human form fed him, so much more entire than those he had experienced before. It was almost pleasant. Almost.

  It was slow going with Geoff. "He's just not balanced right for it," said Bear. "Being three-legged is a disadvantage overcome with difficulty by giraffes." He shook his head as another frustrated squeak reached them from the wheat. "I fear he'll never master life as a tripod."

  They rested awhile by a stone barn deep in the soughing corn. Bear leant against a huge chestnut tree and Richards sat with his back to a sundial. Geoff lay on the floor; it was easier for him.

  They napped in the sun, each lost in his own thoughts. As they readied to leave, Geoff conveyed his wishes that the others go on, via a series of tremulous squeaks.

  "We must stick together," said Bear.

  Geoff would not be swayed. After a long and urgent conversation between the two animals, Bear came to Richards.

  "Giraffes can be stubborn beasts, even those whose heads are full of wool," he said. "He's going to stay." Bear sniffed the air. "I'm sure he'll be fine. All I can smell down here is summer sleep and wheat." He yawned. Bear had a lot of teeth. "And look too," he said, gesturing upwards. "Look at the sky."

  "Yes?" said Richards. The sky was blue and pretty.

  "The sun!"

  Richards shielded his eyes. "It's hardly moved," he said.

  "I suspect night does not fall easily on these golden fields," said Bear.

  "That's rather poetic," said Richards.

  "I'm a poetic kind of bear," said Bear with a shrug.

  The day wore on, and the sun did not move from its noon. They stopped for lunch by a rare brook. Richards took the opportunity to wash his stinking clothes as Bear ground some wheat and made flatbread on a rock heated by a fire of straw.

  "My favourite," said Bear.

  "Really," said Richards, annoyed at his need to eat. It tasted foul, and the grit in it hurt his teeth.

  "It's free!" said Bear, grinning, though his smile was brittle.

  Without night, time became meaningless. Richards' eyes blurred with endless gold, and he welcomed clouds, however fleeting. What had been a fine feeling turned sour, and his brain throbbed. When they slept, they did so in the shade of trees that broke the expanse of wheat, or underneath tumbledown walls that cut across the land, doggedly running to nowhere. The light shone through Richards' eyelids, turning his dreams pink.

  "This is a land better suited to plants than men," said Bear, his voice roughened by thirst. It was all he said for quite some time. Pollen choked them.

  After what felt like several days, Bear stopped and pointed. "Look!" he said. "The sun has moved at last."

  Richards raised his sunburnt face to the sky. His body itched and his skin was tight. He was tired and hungry and thirsty. Humanity had worn thin.

  The sun was several degrees lower than it had been before.

  "Hmmm," murmured Bear, "this is most peculiar. The sun is setting, but it does not seem dependent on our passage through time, but more on our traversal of distance."

  "Right," said Richards. He badly wanted to lie down. "Well done."

  Bear waggled a paw with a rattle of beans. "I'm a curious kind of bear."

  They walked through sunset fields where the unripe wheat reached Richards' chest, then came to a place where a sooty twilight reigned, and the wheat stopped altogether.

  "I was afraid of this," said Bear. "I've been able to smell it for some time."

  Ahead of them lay an area of blackened land. Patches of stubble poked up through fine white ash. The air was acrid. Dust devils whirled, and the ground radiated a dangerous heat. The swollen sun melted away into tears of fire at the ruin of the world.

  An eerie howl sounded across the plain.

  "Hmm," said Bear. "Let's stop here."

  Richards, more tired than he thought possible, sank to his knees and was asleep before he hit the ground.

  Day came as day does, the normal order of things holding sway at the edge of the wheat, and they continued onwards.

  Soon after, Richards and Bear found a village that had been sacked. A small place of twenty or so cottages whose blackened beams stood exposed to the sky, walls bowed, close to ruin or ruinous already, revealing tangles of bones inside. There was a broke-back church and a mill whose wheel lay smashed in the river. The crackle of dying fires and wisps of smoke still haunted the place.

  "I smell trouble," said Bear, "and it is trouble of the worst kind. We best be careful, sunshine." He fell to all fours and slunk across the river, a scowl on his face. Richards followed, the water warm and stinking, his trousers clinging unwelcomely to his legs.

  Bear crossed quickly, leaving Richards to scramble up its far bank alone. At the top, he came across a body, a brightly hued rabbity thing the size of a five-year-old.

  It couldn't have been killed more than a day ago, but it looked as if it had been dead for centuries. Its bright skin was a thin, dirt-lined parchment, eyes sunken in cavernous, glitterrimed sockets. Where Richards touched it, its flesh felt hard and brittle.

  "YamaYama," said Bear, coming to Richards' side. "Had a quick scout, there's lots of 'em dead, all like that, poor little blighters."

  "This is a YamaYama?" said Richards.

  "Toy of the year, 2102," said Bear. "Fully interactive, cute little beggars, bit like rabbits, but more soppy."

  Richards nodded. "I heard of them, although 2102 was a couple of years before I was born. I've had to interrogate one as a witness. Big learning capabilities, but then what doesn't possess heuristics in this day and age? There was a controversy: too close to true AI. Neukind rights people said they were alive, like me, or you. They were one of the examples the rights movement used."

  "Yeah, well, that didn't stop them being trashed in their millions when they went out of fashion," said Bear. "And I complain about my box in the attic."

  "Some of their minds got out onto the Grid and ended up here?" said Richards.

  "Mm-huh," said Bear. "Their collective was already up and running when I got pulled in. It was all going so well for them, and now look at this." A paw swept round the devastation. "Shocking."

  The YamaYama looked like he'd been sucked dry, his face an expression of agony that suggested he had been alive to suffer it.

  "What did it?" asked Richards.

  "Haemites," said Bear. "One of Penumbra's lot," and he shook his long head until his little helmet rattled.

  "Who is this Penumbra?"

  "I've said too much. Got to keep you fresh for the debrief. Forget it, if you're not shamming, that is." The bear squinted suspiciously. He wrinkled his nose. "Hey, can you hear that?"

  "What?" said Richards.

  "That."

  There was a ring of metal, then another.

  "Is that a swordfight?"

  Bear shrugged. "Mebbe. I'm going to check it out. You can stay here if you want."

  "Aren't I your prisoner?" said Richards.

  Bear grinned a daggered grin. "And where you going to go, sunshine?"

  They hurried to the far side of the village, toward the sound of mêlée.

  "Get back! Get back, I say!" Clang! Clang! "Avast! Avaunt! Begone!" Clang, cla
ng, clang-clang.

  There was a tumult of steam whistles, a frantic scrabbling, and four figures came haring round the carcass of a smouldering house, stumbling to a stop of blades and curses twenty metres from Richards and Bear.

  One of them was a man, his face furrowed with concentration. He wore slashed velvet clothes of eye-watering purple, a goatee on his face. A large hat sat atop his sweat-damp hair, decorated with a long, bedraggled feather.

  "A cavalier!" whispered the Bear with some delight. "Or he looks not unlike one. He certainly fights with their panache. Let's watch," he said, and pulled Richards into the shelter of a ruined cottage.

  The cavalier handled a silver blade with an ease that belied its unwieldiness, shaped as it was like a huge feather. In and out it went, turning away the weapons of his adversaries. Yet his movements were slowing, flickering a semaphore of desperation.

  His opponents were iron homunculi a metre and a half tall. Stooped and misshapen, they moved with an ugly grace.

  "Hee hee! Hee hee! Kill him! Kill him! Eat his eyes! Stab his heart!"

  "Ha ha! Break his bones! Smash his skull! Strip his meat! Take him apart!"

  Each was the colour of ancient rust. Their faces were intricate masks. Clanking mechanical noises issued from them, a ratcheting hum underlying the swordplay.

  "Hoo hoo hoo!" chittered a third. "Take his blood! Eat! Eat! Eat!"

  "Bloody Hell, clockwork goblins," said Richards. "This place gets weirder by the minute." The bear was watching with an expression approaching enjoyment. Richards elbowed the toy in its gut. "Go on then, help him," he said.

  Bear shrugged. "Not my problem."

  Richards scowled. "Some soldier you are. Well, I can't just stand here." He stepped out into plain sight. "Oi!" he shouted, his plan running out with that.

  One of the haemites turned from the fight. "What's this? What's this? Fresh meat! Fresh meat!" A whistle on its shoulder tooted. It whirred towards Richards.

  "Run, you fool! Flee!" shouted the cavalier. "Be away swiftly before they are upon you!" And he redoubled his efforts to drive back the haemites besetting him, but to no avail, and they tooted as they pressed him harder. "For the love of god! Don't let it touch you!"

  The creature came closer to Richards. It smelt of furnaces and stale water. "Hee hee, hee hee hee!" it gibbered. "Slow we'll go, slow and nice. Best for me!"

  Richards scooped up a house brick and bounced it off the haemite to no effect. "Ah, balls," he said.

  "Oh, for the… Ahem!" shouted the bear. "Hands off my prisoner!"

  "A bear!" the machine screeched.

  "A bear?" queried a second.

  "Where?" cried the third.

  "There!" hollered the fourth.

  "More, more!" cried the creature approaching Richards. "Oh, joy joy! Iron and meat for us to eat! Plenty!" It whistled, jaws clacking together. "You later!" It giggled. "Kill the bear!"

  "I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you, matey," said Bear, flexing his claws.

  "Skreeeeeeee!" shrieked Richards' assailant. It charged the toy. Bear batted its first strikes away, sending the goblin-thing staggering with the force of his paws. It recovered with alarming alacrity. Bear snarled and swiped, missing. The creature ducked and lunged. There was a soft rip as sword connected with fabric.

  The creature's blade sunk up to the hilt in Bear's belly, and it screamed in triumph. The fight by the barn slowed, the man looking on in horror. The other creatures joined the call, a keening whistle.

  Bear looked at the sword, then at the haemite. Bear raised his eyebrows. Bear did not look very happy.

  The creature wrenched its sword from Bear's gut and stabbed again. Bear grimaced.

  "Ouch," said Bear. "Ooh, ow, oh, really, aiee! Stop it." He scowled, and spoke with leaden menace. "Oh, do stop it. Do."

  The creature stopped and drew the sword out. A thin wisp of stuffing snagged on the blade's nicked edge. Bear poked at the hole in his tummy, and fixed the mechanical monster with a doleful glare. "Now you're just annoying me," he said.

  There was a noise like a beanbag travelling at mach three hitting a sack of spanners, and the haemite hurtled into a wall. It exploded with a gout of steam and hot coals. Tiny gears rained down over Richards.

  "Aha!" yelled the cavalier. He swung his blade, cleaving one of the creatures in two. The remaining pair faltered, the energy gone from their assault. Bear roared and they turned tail and fled.

  The cavalier planted his sword in the ground and leaned upon his knees. "A thousand thanks," he panted. His face was florid and running with sweat. "Rarely have I seen such valour in battle. Indeed." He caught his breath, stood straight and smiled. "I had come to a sorry pass with those devils, and feared my days were done. Were it not for your timely intervention I believe done they would have been."

  "No problem, bud," said Bear with a shrug, beans rattling. "Just doing the decent thing." He looked at Richards. "How are you, Mr Richards, OK?"

  "Just Richards," said Richards.

  "You were most fortunate, sir," said the stranger. "The preferred delicacy of the haemite is the iron found within the human organism. Three moments more and you, sir, would currently resemble the poor wretches of this place." He spun on Cuban heels, staring up at Bear. "And how fare you, my mighty friend? What says your steely gut? I have seen such blows disembowel an elephant, yet you stand unscratched."

  Bear shrugged and scratched his hole. "I'll stitch."

  "Stitch?" said the man. "Aha. Stitch!" he bellowed with pantomime laughter that stopped as abruptly as it had begun. "I am forgetting my manners. I, Percival Del Piccolo, poet swordsman of wit, cavalier, debonair liberator of ladies' virtues, pirate king and all round irritant…"

  "Yeah," butted in Bear.

  "Ahahaha," said Piccolo, laughing, "all round irritant to tyrants, evil Maharajahs and Grand Viziers with ideas above their station." He held up his sword, which only now Richards realised was shaped like a quill, with a silver nib for a hilt. "I also appear to be overly fond of glib cliché." He let the weapon fall to his side again.

  "What are you?" Richards looked him up and down. "You're not a historical, nor educational. An old game character? A composite of old game characters?"

  "This place is full of them," said Bear. "Wankers. Always asking you to do pointless shit. Over. And over. Again." He growled.

  "I know not," rejoined the cavalier. "I only know that I am, and that I possess only one set of clothes." Piccolo's face turned from frown to grin as he took in the gold trim and lace cuffs. "And that is not a welcome state of affairs."

  "Does this chap ever shut up?" said Bear to no one in particular.

  "Rarely, I admit," said Piccolo.

  "That it? I'm Bear," said Bear.

  "He's a toy, even though he looks like a bear," added Richards. "And I'm Richards."

  "And he's an idiot, even though he looks like a fool," added Bear drily.

  "A toy like a bear and an idiot fool, eh? Ohohoho. What a gay pass."

  "Ra-ight," said Bear. "Well, I think we'll be on our way now, if you don't mind. No need to worry about the rescue and all."

  "In that case, strangers, I assume you do not wish to be made aware of what occurred in this place?" inquired Piccolo.

  Bear huffed. "No."

  "Yes," said Richards.

  "I shall perforce forgive your hirsute companion, sir, for he is but a rude beast, with manners to match. Indeed who would expect more –" he laughed "– from a bear? 'Tis fortune indeed for him for that he is naught more. Mayhap, were he a man, honour would compel me to slice the blaggard from gizzard to crotch."

  "Just you try it," muttered Bear.

  "This land you presently stand in," began Piccolo, "was once the happy YamaYama nation of Optimizja. Ah!" he projected, bouncing his voice off the surrounding buildings. "Ah! Optimizja! The very name is sweet mead on the tongue! A veritable salve to any misery was a week in Optimizja! A panacea to the ills of the soul! A joyous place, where th
e YamaYama folk were happy with never a care, all times willing to see the best in things, always hopeful for tomorrow, forever…"

  "They'd be optimistic, then?" said Bear. "Hurry it on."

  "I suppose one could ineloquently put it like that, if one had to, or were one rushed for time," said the cavalier. "May I, with your leave, Sir Bear, continue?"

  "Be my guest," said Bear, settling down on the floor. "Sit down, sunshine," he said to Richards. "This may take a while."