The Artificial Kid Read online

  “How much should I tell him?” Armitrage said.

  I shrugged. “I’ll leave that to you. I’ll take these two to Money Manies. He’s the only person I can think of who could fight the Cabal on their own terms.” I glanced at Saint Anne. “It’s our only hope. Now that we’ve seen Moses Moses, our lives are forfeit, no matter what we do.”

  “But Professor Angeluce said that Mr. Manies was a Cabalist himself,” Saint Anne objected. “Why don’t we simply go to the streets and announce that Chairman Moses has Come Again? We’ll soon have a crowd of loyal supporters around us, and we can get them to do what’s best. Besides, we have the right on our side. The Cabal are usurpers. We shouldn’t skulk around in the dark, like them. We should declare ourselves.”

  “Maybe so, but not in the middle of the Decriminalized Zone,” I said. “They’re armed, and they may have explosives. Besides, we should announce it to the whole world, not just a small group. Otherwise, they could kill us all, and then claim that the Second Coming was just a rumor. We need an announcement on tape, a released speech that six million Reverids can see at once. That way there’d be no way to stop us. Besides, if everyone knew, then the Cabal would have no reason to single us out—unless we got in the way while they were trying to kill Moses Moses, of course. And Money Manies can help us. He has access to more channels than any Reverid on Telset Isle. We have to have his help, or we can’t survive. Armitrage, run upstairs to the storeroom and get us all some infrareds while I see to Quade. Get all my smuff, too. You know where I keep it.”

  I would have liked to take the rifle with us, but it would have attracted unwelcome attention outside my home. In any case, I still had my shotgun nunchuck. My arms and legs were stiffening up; they were blue and purple and swarming with mites. They felt hot to the touch. I didn’t hurt, but the body has its own wisdom, and it wanted to be flat on its back. But there wasn’t time to indulge it.

  By the time I had finished ministering to Quade, Saint Anne and Armitrage were telling Moses Moses about the events of the past four hundred and twenty-five years, a process that was obviously going to take a very long time. They gestured excitedly and slapped their foreheads and backtracked and interrupted one another loudly. They all had infrareds on. Anne and Moses Moses had put on pairs of my night-party glasses, frivolous ornamented numbers that fit them very badly and looked completely ludicrous on them. Armitrage had Quade by the arm; he was tall and the top of his head came almost half-way up her forearm. I put on my infrareds and everything went black and white and shiny. “Ready?” I said. We left.

  5

  Armitrage and Quade left us at the door; Armitrage agreed to rejoin us at Many Mansions as soon as possible. Saint Anne, Moses Moses, and I walked quickly east. We reached the beach without meeting anyone of consequence, then headed south to the docks where I kept my little boat, the Sea Whip. I had half-expected it to be guarded, but the Cabal apparently hadn’t had time to take that precaution. They must have been scrambling for some way to meet this unexpected emergency, and the long habit of sloth slowed them down. It’s impossible to be both quick and secret.

  I hadn’t taken the Sea Whip out in two months, and there was a dense growth of weed on her hull. We got on board and cast off. She was sluggish; the night breeze off the reef was only mild. I took her down the channel and about half-a-mile offshore, where we wouldn’t run the risk of holing the hull on coral.

  By this time I was beginning to hurt quite badly. I took more smuff and heard the first telltale buzzing in my ears. I got off the little gunwale and stretched out on the deck so I wouldn’t fall overboard; my equilibrium was shot. I was hungry, too, and the only food on board was four stale bars of oneill synthetic chocolate. I gobbled them down.

  Saint Anne was giving Moses Moses her grossly biased view of Reverid history. Moses kept nodding and saying, “Really? Amazing, fantastic!” Moses Moses was at least three hundred subjective years old, probably closer to three-fifty, but he hadn’t lost his zest for life. For him, his reawakening must have been a lot like a rebirth. He assured me that he could pilot the Sea Whip, and of course he knew where Prospect Point was, though in his day no one had lived there. I stretched out and went to sleep.

  We reached Many Mansions about two hours past midnight. A Harlequinade party was still going on far down the western slope of Prospect Point, in one of the Mansions’ beach outbuildings. At the top of the slope I saw a glow through one of the heavy one-way windows in Money Manies’ private chambers, where no one was allowed to set foot but himself and his wife Annabella. Even his faithful secretary Chalkwhistle was excluded; Manies treasured that small three-roomed core of privacy. I was glad Manies was awake and separated from his usual horde of sycophants and hangers-on.

  We tied up at Manies’ dock, next to the Albatross. I glanced at Moses Moses and laughed. “No one could possibly recognize you behind those glasses,” I said. “At least we’re safe on that point.” We left the Sea Whip and climbed up the slope to one of Many Mansions’ numerous doors. I tried it; it was locked. I rang the bell and waited. Eventually Chalkwhistle answered it. “Hello, Kid,” it said. “What happened to you?”

  “Open up, Chalkwhistle,” I told it brusquely. “I’ve got to talk to Manies.”

  Chalkwhistle looked apologetic. “Sorry,” it said. “I’ve been told to admit no one. Why not go down the beach and join the party? Mr. Manies will be there some time before dawn.”

  “Sorry, Chalkwhistle,” I said. “Emergency.” I popped Chalkwhistle on the head with my ’chuck and it went down, its arms flailing. I stepped inside. We dragged Chalkwhistle aside onto a comfortable section of carpet, shut the door behind us, and locked it. We made our way through panelled corridors rich with mobiles and objets d’art to the door of Manies’ private chamber. Manies must have been watching us through a house alarm system because he opened the massive, well-oiled door before we reached it.

  “Kid!” he said. “What a peasant surplice.” With an unsteady swing of his arm he gestured us into a richly decorated sitting room across the hall. Behind him, his wife Annabella came out, shut the door behind her, and ostentatiously locked it with a thumbprint. We heard heavy bolts and magnetic seals slide into place. Annabella was a slim, dark woman with enormous green eyes who had once been Manies’ top pornostar, although she had never had a speaking role. She never spoke. She had the litheness of age but that was all I knew about her. Manies collapsed into a tapestry armchair. Annabella sat on the floor before him and wrapped her arms around one of his legs. Silently, she stared at us.

  Manies’ face was flushed and he kept nodding his head and tapping his fingers in rhythm. Saint Anne, Moses Moses, and I were too anxious to sit down. “Take off your glasses,” I told Moses Moses. “Mr. Manies, do you recognize this man?”

  Manies moved his head in Moses’ direction, but his goggling eyes skimmed blankly over him. “My dear Kid,” he said laboriously, “if it weren’t for that lovely lovely hair I wouldn’t even recognize you. And is this Saint Anne, your wife? Have you both discovered the happy happy joys of linking, at long last? I congratulate you. I felicitate you.”

  I sighed in heartfelt desperation. It was pitifully obvious that Money Manies had picked this night of all nights to take a powerful hallucinogen. He was completely wrecked. I addressed myself to his wife. “Annabella doll,” I said, “I know you never speak, and I certainly wouldn’t expect you to do it now, even though the political future of the planet is at stake. But this man is Moses Moses, the Father of the Corporation. He isn’t dead, but the Cabal wants him that way, and they’re sure to kill all three of us. We desperately need your husband’s help.” She stared at us stonily. “Can’t you even nod, or anything?” She gave us all the lively response of a dead dugong.

  Now Saint Anne tried. “Mr. Manies,” she said. “We’re your friends. Our lives are in terrible danger. Can’t you help us?”

  Manies blinked. He fidgeted uncomfortably and rubbed his nose. “My dear Saint Anne, how
can I help you when you keep changing shape? Go to my pornostars. They understand your problem. I insist you enjoy yourself!”

  Moses Moses said, “This man has taken a powerful drug. Look at his eye dilation.”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman. I had no way of knowing. Neither did he. It’s just an unhappy accident. He’s a good man, and he would have helped us if he could, I’m sure of it.”

  “He’s beyond helping us now,” Moses said. “We’d better think of a new plan of action.”

  Manies nodded once and kept nodding, apparently unable to stop himself. “So you’ve guessed my little secret! My apologizing apologies. I didn’t expect your visit.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Manies,” I told him, forcing a smile. “I’ll write you a note, and you can read it later when you’re not having so much fun.” I stepped to his desk, opened it, and took out a sheet of his creamy deluxe stationery. Like many of the older generations, Manies sometimes wrote letters, rather than bluntly stating things face to face over a communiqué line. I wrote Manies a quick note, explaining all the important details on a single sheet of paper. I folded it and handed it to Manies, and on the third try he managed to stuff it into the breast pocket of his red quilted drugging jacket.

  “So you are the famous Moses Moses,” said Manies hospitably. “You know, you died when I was only twenty-three, and that was a long long long time ago. Do you still read Riley?”

  “Yes, Mr. Manies,” Moses Moses said soothingly. I had to give him credit for presence of mind. He knew better than to press old Manies; had Manies fully grasped our situation it would very likely have sent him into a terrible panic fit. “He was my favorite author.”

  “Yes, I know,” Manies said, going into his nodding routine again. “I have all his surviving works in my library—a complete edition of your first reissue. You saved him from oblivion.”

  “Yes,” Moses Moses said. “I was very lucky to find that old microtape.”

  Manies smiled. “Like myself you are an antiquarian! Of course his Flying Islands of the Night is the longest surviving piece. Do you remember the verses that go:

  “O Prince divine! O Prince divine!

  Tempt thou me not with that sweet voice of thine!

  Though my proud brow bear the blaze of a crown,

  Lo, at thy feet must its glory bow down,

  That from the dust thou mayest lift me to shine,

  Heaven’d in thy heart’s rapture, O Prince Divine!”

  “How could I forget them?” asked Moses Moses with a sigh. “That’s the confrontation scene between Queen Crestillomeem and her son Jucklet in Act One.”

  “Crestillomeem?” I said. “Jucklet?”

  “Yes,” Moses Moses said happily. “Wonderful names, aren’t they? So evocative.” Saint Anne and I traded amazed glances. The expression on Anne’s face suggested that she had a mouthful of thick mush and was looking for some place to spit it out. Moses continued, “And what about those majestic verses in the beginning of Act One?

  “Lo, launched from the offended sight

  Of Aeo!—anguish infinite

  Is ours, O Sisterhood of Sin!

  Yet is thy service mine by right,

  And, sweet as I may rule it, thus

  Shall sin’s myrrh-savor taste to us—

  Sin’s Empress—let my reign begin!”

  “It’s marvelous,” Manies said. “Crestillomeem, the prime creation of Lord Aeo, revolts from pride in her own beauty and is banished from heaven! What imagination! What a thundering cosmic scheme! I don’t believe there’s another work like it in the whole of literature.”

  “Did you say ‘Aeo’?” I said. “I often wondered why anyone would give a name like that to a helpless, inoffensive continent.”

  Moses Moses frowned. “What do you mean? It’s a perfect name. It rolls with superhuman majesty. Say it to yourself a few times. Aeo, Aeo, Aeo. It’s perfect!”

  I shrugged. “If I were a mass of land that big I think I would demand the dignity of at least one consonant.”

  “How it all comes back to me,” Manies mused. “I haven’t read Riley in a hundred years. Isn’t it something how memories seize you in a state like this? As Riley says, ‘All havoc hath been wrangled with the drugs!’”

  “I must admit that I myself have neglected Riley,” said Moses Moses with an introspective knitting of the brow. “I haven’t read his work in twenty years, subjectively speaking. To think how his work inspired me in my youth, when the Corporation was myself and three men in a beer hall! I must say I’m glad to have met you, Mr. Manies, despite the circumstances. You have recalled me to myself.”

  “Think nothing of it,” said Manies magnanimously, fidgeting in his chair. “Might I offer you an invitation to breakfast here next week? My guests would find you fascinating; they don’t often meet the dead.”

  The usual slow ease of Reverid repartee was out of place in our predicament. “Listen,” I said. “Let’s give some thought to escape. It’s only a matter of time before the Cabal thinks to look here for us.”

  “Where could we go?” said Saint Anne. “Besides, we promised to wait here for your friend Armitrage.”

  There was a pinging sound from the heavy bracelet on Money Manies’ wrist. “Oho!” he said in annoyance, puffing out his cheeks. “Chalkwhistle should be taking my calls. I dislike disturbance!”

  “Wait,” I said. “It may be important. Answer it, I’ll take the call.” Manies fumbled with his bracelet and a holo of Chill Factor appeared in the room.

  House cameras floated in to cover Manies. Irritated, he waved them to me. Chill looked haggard, but he brightened a little when he saw me. “Kid!”

  “Has Armitrage reached you yet?”

  “That’s what I called about. He was here with your housekeeper. He gave us a really strange story, do you confirm it?”

  “Yes, Chill, it’s true.”

  Chill clutched his forehead. “Kid, you amaze me! Things like this can only happen to you! My little angel of intrigue, your news has stunned me like the blow of a hammer!”

  “Spare us the histrionics, Chill; you can act them out and splice them in later. Quade all right?”

  He nodded. “I got a strange call, Kid. From Instant Death himself. He’s declared blood feud on all enemies of the Cabal in Telset. You in particular.”

  “That was quick,” I said.

  “They have some guns, Kid. They’ve transgressed the Code. The Cogs are completely outclassed. Instant Death has enough firepower to slaughter every artist in the Zone. He gave us a choice, Kid; stay with you and get shot, or throw in with them and take a cut from the Cabal. He’s talking more fracs than any of us could earn in ten years.”

  I nodded. “I understand, Chill. Did he mention why I’m the Cabal’s enemy all of a sudden?”

  Chill looked guilty. He lowered his voice. “No, Kid. They didn’t mention him. The Chairman.”

  “I’ve seen him, Chill. He’s alive. Look.” I waved one camera to Moses Moses, who looked into it and nodded once. “I know about him now; that’s why they have to kill me. The Cabal will try to hush up the Second Coming for as long as they can; even if they can’t, it won’t matter much if they manage to kill the Chairman. Don’t try to challenge them. Play along. Can you hide Quade?”

  Chill started at the question; his eyes were fixed on Moses Moses in awe and amazement. “Hide her?” he said. “Sure. We’ll take care of her, make sure no one sees her. But you’d better leave Telset. We can’t protect you from guns. No one can. Go to Jucklet or Eros if you want to stay alive.”

  “Better cut off before someone can tap the line,” I suggested. Chill waved once. “I’ll spread the word,” he said, and vanished.

  Manies looked sick; the realities of the situation were beginning to percolate through to him. “Perhaps you should leave, Kid. I believe I am about to peak. I won’t be good company.”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry, Mr. Manies. Perhaps we can get away before you’re
implicated.”

  An explosion shook the house. “I retract that statement,” I said. I started unscrewing the base of one nunchuck handle.

  It didn’t take them long to find us. Saint Anne and Moses Moses had ducked down quickly behind the desk and an ottoman. When they came in they found Money Manies and I sitting in two armchairs, quietly conversing. Annabella Manies was still silently holding on to her husband’s leg; he must have been the one oasis of certainty in her twisted universe.

  There were two of them: the Stag, and Slummer. The Stag had a red pennant flying from one handsome antler; Slummer had a rag of red cloth twisted around one shabby arm. They were two of Instant Death’s best men. Slummer had a small pistol, probably one of the few firearms the Cabal could scrape up on short notice. The Stag carried a heavy mace, his usual weapon. Slummer pointed the gun at me. “You’re both under arrest in the name of the Cabal.”

  “Oh, I surrender, I surrender,” said Manies cheerfully.

  “Me too,” I said. “We won’t fight.”

  Stag and Slummer exchanged puzzled glances. “Well,” said Stag. “I’m glad you’re taking this so easily.”

  “Stag doll, what did you expect? I might fight the Instant Death, but the Cabal? Be reasonable. I don’t buck the odds.”

  “But we’ve declared blood feud,” Slummer said in his peculiar grating voice. Slummer had bent, rickety legs and always talked as if he were suffering from a lung disease. He dressed in filthy rags. “You’ve got to die, Kid.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m betting the Cabal will change their minds when they see I’ve given myself up. I can probably get off with a partial brainwipe.”

  Stag looked around suspiciously, whacking one of his floating cameras with one antler. He was one of the rottenest camera programmers I’ve ever seen. “What exactly did you do, anyway? I can’t figure out how a shrimp like you could do anything to bother the Cabal.”