Remkou wakes from a dream. It was a cruel dream, a dream of his wife. Its substance melts away as he opens his eyes, but threads of it remain, gossamer fragments of shame and loss and loathing.
An overcast morning sky greets him. It glowers down through the crumbling roof of the Cathedral of the Blessed Martyrs. Colossal spars of ancient, fire-blackened stone, the remnants of a magnificent rib-vaulted ceiling, jut into empty space above him. Watery daylight shines in through cracked, empty windowframes big enough to admit entire houses. He wonders how those windows must have looked before Nilen’s bomb, filled with centuries-old mosaics of stained glass.
He has made his home in the rubble of the western cloister, tucking his scavenged bedding in the shelter of a fallen pillar. It’s dry, tolerably chilly, and well-hidden from the Inspectorate machines that circle like vultures all night long.
There seem to be more of the machines with each passing day. The armoured rigs are always coming and going on Blackwater Avenue. Remkou doesn’t know what they are looking for. He does not wish to find out.
All around him is jumbled devastation. Piles of shattered, half-melted stone fill the cathedral’s interior, all caked in twenty years’ worth of dust and soot and birdshit. A gigantic curving fragment of the fallen dome, like a crescent moon rendered in limestone, fills half of what remains of the grand nave. Devotional statues of the martyrs and cardinals of the Faith lie scattered around in the wreckage like discarded toys. Their stone eyes stare blindly into the shadows.
Though his faith in the Almighty is long gone, Remkou still feels a dull grief every time he awakens in this place. Something wonderful was lost here, never to be restored.
The little god is waiting for him. It murmurs inside his head, reassuring him he is safe. He can hear the faint sounds of traffic on the avenue, and the distant yells of rubble gangers in the ruins south of the cathedral. It must hear so much more than that. Its vigil over him remains, ceaseless and unfailing.
“You’ll need your strength today,” it tells him, toneless and calm. “We need to move on. I believe we are close to our goal.”
Its voice has become sharper and clearer in recent weeks. It seems ever quicker to plan his routes for him, more adaptable, more perceptive of potential threats. It has kept him from starving, helping him to scrounge and steal unseen from corner shops and tenements. It still tells him almost nothing about what it is and what it wants. He has no issue with this. He is here to serve it, not to question it. And he is heartened by its growing strength. Perhaps it is not such a little god after all.
It is getting stronger. But Remkou is weakening.
He feels it as he tries to stand up. There is pain in every movement. It takes him several attempts to find his footing in the cloister’s shadowy wreckage. The shivers run through him from head to toe. The deadness in his hand has now spread halfway up his forearm, and there’s a tingle in the fingers of his good hand that never goes away. The little god may see clearly through his eyes, but he no longer does. His vision darkens and mottles at the edges like burning paper.
His stash is dwindling. The cocaine is gone, the methoxetamine down to the last sachet. He is rationing his dreamcane like a marooned sailor, but soon, there will be nothing left to satisfy the cravings and keep the shivers at bay. He’s a long way from his usual dealers, not that he has any money left to offer them. He knows of men who’ve gone on their knees in dockland alleys and sucked cock for a pinch of dreamcane. If it were not for the little god, he might already have sunk to that extremity himself.
He may die soon – perhaps very soon – but he will die with a shred of dignity.
The little god projects a new path for him. It shines like a thread of gold in his mind’s eye. It runs along the western face of the cathedral, using channels and trenches in the rubble that no casual observer would even notice. The route snakes through the devastated streets of inner Ninth Watch, crossing acres of overgrown rubble and waste ground. It ends at the very spot where old Indeleon ended, and the new world began.
“The hypocentre,” Remkou mutters in surprise. He hasn’t spoken for a long time, not even to himself. His voice is as cracked and dry as a drought-struck riverbed.
“I believe we will find others like me in that area,” the little god tells him. “I cannot be entirely sure, but if you bring me closer, I will be able to verify. Once I am reunited with my counterparts, we will be able to help you.”
Its voice is empty of emotion, as always. And yet he thinks he detects a note of concern. The little god must know how rapidly his health is failing. Likely, it knows it even better than he does.
He is grateful, but he no longer expects it to save him. He is not so afraid of death as he once was. If he can help the little god fulfil its goal, the one meaningful thing remaining in his life, he will be content.
*
A heel of stolen bread and a few glugs of water are all Remkou can stomach for breakfast. He is glad to leave the cathedral after so many days hiding in the gloom. His footsteps echo off its ancient stones as he navigates his way through the shattered nave.
He cannot move quickly, so he moves deliberately, with all the care he can muster. He follows the path laid out for him, trudging west into the maze of ruins, keeping parallel to Blackwater Avenue but out of sight. He sees the signs of the rubble gangs everywhere – palimpsests of graffiti, discarded hypodermics, broken bottles, used condoms. The little god carefully steers him away from their hideouts, spotting signs of activity that his failing eyes cannot.
It’s only a mile or so from the cathedral to the hypocentre. It feels far longer to Remkou. His heart thumps and his lungs protest with each step. He was a quick runner once, quick enough to play winger in his school football team. Now even walking is a challenge.
He passes the point where Blackwater Avenue curves away to the south, leaving him in the streetless waste at the heart of Ninth Watch. Out here, the ruined houses stop resembling houses and devolve into meaningless jumbles of scorched rubble. This was the zone of total destruction, utterly flattened by the blastwave. The weeds have recolonised this place, turning the dips and hollows into wild little gardens. At this time of year, they are flowering brightly, and Remkou smiles to see their colours scattered amid the grey devastation.
He pauses to catch his breath beside a low, overgrown wall that is the only remnant of some obliterated building. Beneath its blanket of wild chicory and knotweed, he can see the brickwork is melted and fused. He touches it idly, feeling its weird, glassy surface.
“We are not alone,” the little god warns him.
It’s right, as usual. Remkou hears voices, echoing flatly over the rubble. Two of them, both male, with noticeably differing accents. They are getting closer, and fast. Their heavy footfalls crunch over stone and broken glass.
The little god tries to guide him away from them. He is slow to respond to its directions, not out of disobedience, but because his legs are stiff with exhaustion. Helpless frustration burns in him. For every step he takes, the gangers can take three.
“They are heading directly for us. Our current route may be nonviable,” the little god says, sounding as calm as ever. He wonders if it is disappointed in him; if it is even capable of such feeling. “I will attempt to find an alternate solution.”
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Remkou freezes. The footsteps are too close for him to do anything else. If he runs, they will hear him. But if he stays, they will find him.
He crouches down behind a pile of fallen bricks, trying to make himself invisible. He already knows it won’t work.
The gangers are mere yards away now. They both seem to be carrying something heavy; they huff with effort. “What’s inside these things?” one of them gripes. “Fucking plutonium?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” says the other. It’s a deeper voice, more thickly accented. “Modvehl can get his hands on anything. I think he’s tapped into the same smuggling ring that sells the Zegiris their missiles.”
A snorted laugh. “He should hire some of those desert rats to carry these for us. Shouldn’t be a white man’s job.” Then, after an awkward pause: “Uh, no offence.”
“None taken, you Nilen-loving fuck.” A grunt, the sound of something metallic being set down in loose rubble. “Hold on a second. I need a breather. This thing’s digging into my shoulder something awful.”
An assenting groan. “Mine too. Can’t Modvehl’s bloody miracle machine do some heavy lifting? It’s strong enough to rip a man in half. It must be strong enough to carry a couple of fucking canisters.”
“Go ask him if he’ll rent it out to us. I’d love to see his reaction.” The deeper-voiced one is coming perilously close, kicking loose fragments of masonry aside. “Keep watch, will you? I’ve been holding in my piss too long. My back teeth are floating.”
The little god chimes with alarm inside Remkou’s mind. It flashes up one final escape route, urging him to retreat, to get away from those approaching boots and into the safe shadows of a caved-in ruin to his left.
It’s no use. The little god is quick, but it is limited by its human vessel. He struggles to rise from his hiding place, his aching legs slow to obey, his good hand scrabbling to steady him. He is still trying to back away when the ganger steps around the rubble pile right in front of him.
The ganger is a Forester in his twenties, tall and solidly muscled, with bronze skin paled by the omnipresent dust. He wears grubby army-surplus fatigues with the sleeves cut away. He is fumbling with the fly of his trousers when he spots Remkou and starts in surprise. His hands close instantly into tight fists. A fighter’s reflex. “Who the fuck are you?” he growls.
“What? Is someone there?” The other ganger hurries up in a clatter of debris. This one’s a Kauln, a bit older and shorter than the Forester but similarly dressed, with a crude buzzcut and Nilenist tattoos decorating his thick biceps. When he sees Remkou, a cold sneer forms on his face. “Look at this old fuck. You lost, friend? Or just sightseeing?”
“Bad fucking place for it,” the Forester rumbles. “Modvehl doesn’t like it when we get seen.”
“Doesn’t like it at all,” the Kauln echoes. “Nobody comes snooping around here, except Inspectorate songbirds.” He draws a long serrated knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh. The blade is scratched and dented. Well-used, by the look of it. “And we don’t like songbirds very much. We tend to clip their wings.”
Remkou says nothing. The little god is trying to compute a new avenue of escape for him, but there is nowhere to go that the gangers can’t easily cut off. They’re younger, bigger, and far healthier. Even in his prime, he would have stood no chance.
“Are you a songbird, old man?” the Kauln asks. There is a glint in his eye that Remkou recognises from so many of his old Seventh Watch cases. The look of a man who enjoys violence, and who needs no excuse to mete it out. “Did they send you here from Queen Haara Square? Miserable job. They must want rid of you, too.”
The Forester scowls at Remkou. “I don’t think this one’s Inspectorate. Look at his hand. He’s a dreamcane junkie.”
“Degenerate,” the Kauln spits. He holds the knife out, pointing it towards Remkou’s chest. “You know what the Salvators did to drug addicts, old man? Sent them straight to the camps, for a nice healthy whiff of cyanide. Looks like they missed one.”
“Never heard of the Inspectorate using junkies to spy on us,” the Forester says. He seems unbothered by his friend’s words, even though Nilen sent millions of his kind to those same liquidation camps. He paces around Remkou like a circling wolf. He fits something over his fist – a set of ridged brass knuckles. “But we live in strange times.”
Remkou feels real fear, for the first time in a long while. The little god is silent. It is no longer projecting an escape route in his mind’s eye.
“How long have you been watching us, degenerate?” the Kauln – the neo-Nilenist – demands.
The Forester flexes the fingers of his brass-knuckled hand. “Too long, however long it was.”
“You don’t look like you’re long for this world,” the Nilenist says casually. He steps closer, closer. His smile is cold as stone. On his upper left arm, the words SUFFER NOT THE UNCLEAN are tattooed beneath the sword-and-star emblem of Nilen’s Incorruptible. “Dreamcane junkies don’t die easy. They rot from the inside out, slow and painful-like. You know that, don’t you?” He pauses, with the knifepoint just inches from Remkou’s face. “Well, today’s your lucky day, old man. We’ll make it quick. Quicker than you deserve.”
“Stop toying with him,” the Forester grunts to his friend. “Just fucking do it, if you’re gonna. We’ve got to get those canisters out of Ninth.”
“Fuck it, why’d you have to suck the fun out of everything?” the Nilenist complains. He presses the tip of the knife lightly into Remkou’s neck.
Remkou does not think of the face of his vanished wife, or his long-dead parents. His life does not flash before his eyes. As he feels the cold metal at his throat, all he thinks is I’m sorry. I failed you.
“Remain very still,” the little god whispers inside his head.
He feels a faint vibration underfoot. The ground is trembling, ever so slightly. Little drifts of dust and pebbles shake free from the mounds of rubble. The gangers look around, their wicked smiles fading into uncertain frowns. The Nilenist lowers the knife.
“What the fuck was that?” he asks the empty air.
The air answers.
Something bright and silver and unthinkably fast whips through the ruins. The air displaces around it with an express-train whoosh. Remkou’s hair and clothes ripple in the sudden gust. He flinches, despite the little god’s instruction, and blinks his eyes in confusion.
The Forester is gone. Where he stood, there is a wide bloody streak stretching several metres into the rubble, dotted with ragged chunks of meat and shreds of clothing. Bright, fresh splatters of crimson decorate the scorched concrete and strewn brickwork. Drops of spurted blood are still pattering down out of the air like ghastly drizzle. The hand wearing the brass knuckles is eerily intact, lying where it fell, attached to a few inches of severed forearm.
The Nilenist takes a second to realise what has happened to his comrade. His mouth drops open comically wide. The knife tumbles from his fingers. “Oh, fuck,” he breathes. He stumbles backwards into a tangle of weeds, barely keeping his footing. “Oh, Almighty, oh fucking Almighty, it’s here. It’s-”
Then the machine whips back into view. It moves so fast that it seems to simply snap into existence, right behind the stunned ganger. It stands there for a split-second, motionless, a tapered human silhouette easily ten feet tall, fashioned from shining silver blades stained with dripping red. Its razor wedge of a head is featureless, faceless. And yet, Remkou almost imagines that it smiles at him.
Its bladed arms move in a whistling blur. The Nilenist falls to the ground in several smoothly delineated pieces. Blood fountains out, hot and reeking, drenching Remkou from head to toe.
The air screams. The silver machine is gone.
Remkou wipes the blood from his face and exhales. He stands there, swaying on his feet, amid the red wreckage of his two would-be killers. His eyes bug out wildly. He does not speak.
“My analysis was correct,” the little god pronounces calmly. “There are others like myself very nearby. That automaton was responsive to my bioelectric messages. There appear to be several more like it, interred beneath the hypocentre.” It highlights a new route for him, zigzagging off into the middle distance. “There is not much further to go. I do not think it will be necessary to summon the automaton to protect you again, but I will remain in contact with it as a precaution.”
Remkou’s fear and astonishment are now giving way to an almost – no, not almost, genuine – religious adulation. He is filthy and aching and soaked thickly in human gore. His vision is tunnelling and his heart is pounding fit to burst. A smile forms itself unstoppably on his red-washed face.
His life has been spared. He will not let it go to waste.
As he tries to wipe his bloody hands on his equally bloody corduroys, he spots the objects that the gangers were so grudgingly carrying when they found him. Two greyish metal canisters lie in the rubble where they were abandoned. They are unmarked and unlabelled, roughly the size of fire extinguishers, with matte-black domed ends.
The little god notices his idle curiosity. “I cannot identify those objects with any certainty. They are likely to be munitions of some kind. I would strongly recommend leaving them where they are.”
Remkou obeys. He steps carefully around the various pieces of the dismembered Nilenist, hardly caring about the blood seeping into every fold of his clothes. Slowly, painfully, joyously, he makes his way through the rubble, keeping to the shadows where he can, staying low and quiet where he cannot. He knows the little god can protect him, but he is determined not to be careless in his task. He owes it his full attention.
He proceeds without further incident. If there are any other gangers stalking the debris field, they are far away. Gradually, the weed-choked ruins begin to thin out, and a suggestion of civilisation returns. He sees a wide road, razorwire fences, a row of low-roofed warehouses. A new-looking railway bridge crosses the road on angled pillars.
Beyond the bridge, atop a blocky plinth of stained concrete, the Atomic Cenotaph rises like an accusing finger against the colourless sky.