altar of science

Altar of science

There’s a hall not far from the Selenite lodging house in Third Ward, district of tight-packed terraces and myriad little streets, where even street-wise newcomers get hopelessly lost, but the residents know it like the backs of their grimy hands. It’s an old-fashioned community hall that was set up by the Selenites about ten years ago to try and combat the problem of alcoholism in the area, but quickly abandoned due to unpopularity, bricks through the windows and stuff. Now there’s lights on in the windows again, there’s people going in and out, there’s bustling activity, which the old lady in the chair across the street has been watching with nosy interest all day from the shelter of a doorway. Hanging on the hall’s doors is a big grey sign saying ‘Architects First Meeting Welcomes The Forward-Thinking’, which is perhaps a little too intellectual for a slogan, given the area it’s in, but they’re not worried about that.
All day Mihan’s been in Cathedral Square telling people about it, giving out handbills and loving every minute of it. He’s part of something big. A movement of a kind this miserable city has never seen before, chasing the future like no one else knows how. He’s given out 500 bills this afternoon, every single one that he printed, and he’s heading back to the hall, feeling pleasantly tingly. He’s looking forward to tonight. Ramir has been planning this for nearly a week, shut up in his room, and everything’s been on hold. Even the Reconstructs, which Mihan has discovered a new zeal for; he was repairing people, all that time when he hated what he was doing, wishing he’d never agreed to it all. Giving them a purpose where they were lost, saving them from felonies that their weak minds would be incapable of resisting. Now even they’re on the back burner.
He’s in the street where the house is, and he can see the queue to get in stretching along the pavement past the grubby terraces, full of jostling and laughing and life, and his heart does a great big leap. There was a point where he was getting really scared, when no one looked that interested and he was dreading going back to Ramir with all the flyers he didn’t give out and say, I failed you. The very thought makes his flesh creep, the idea that he’d be letting Ramir down, letting the regime down, letting the Creator down, it scares him even more that what Ramir would do to him.
Mihan thinks of the Creator, of the splendid golden form Ramir has told them about with His face of infinite power and the thought crashes through his head like a tidal wave. He can’t get over the beauty that the world’s running towards headlong, and that he’s one of the people making it all happen. He instantly feels bigger, stronger, there’s steel in his bones. He can do anything. He squeezes round the crowds at the door and takes his place at the back of the stage they’ve set up at the far end of the hall, standing with the collection box just like an usher at Selenite services. Then Cave, who’s guarding the door, flings it wide and the crowd rush in eagerly, right up to the edge of the stage. The hall’s packed faster than he can believe possible, mainly full of factory workers and dockers, but there are a few industrialists and some soldiers at the back, tall and conspicuous in their red jackets and peaked hats. From somewhere a banging begins; Vagus with an old side-drum, hidden behind a pillar. He steps out and he’s hitting out a rhythm on it, really simple, doing it over and over again. The crowd begin first tapping their feet, then clapping, it’s like a disease, this strange rhythmic pandemic which no one knows the cause of but they’re doing it all the same and it’s new and exciting and there’s a buzz in the air – and then Ramir, dressed in black, literally explodes out of the back room and begins shouting. His face is almost frightening it’s so alive. His eyes are blazing, sort of bulging out of his head, and he’s shouting words again and again.
‘Tomorrow is ours!’ he shouts, in time with Vagus banging the drum and it’s like a wave. Cave begins as well, his voice low and scratchy compared with Ramir’s loud bark, then Einor Lanegan from the other side, then Nagy Murat, still on crutches, banging the end of one crutch on the floor, then a sort of madness comes to Mihan and seizes him by the throat and he begins yelling too. The crowd are stamping their feet in time. Mihan cannot think, all he wants to do is scream back at the figure at the front of the stage as loud as he can.
Take me, take me, I shout loudest for you. Take me, Creator, I’m yours.
Then Ramir raises his arm and drops it, and Vagus stops drumming, but the crowd go on for a while. Their faces are glowing and shiny and excited, it’s hot as buggery in the room but no one cares, they’re part of something really big here. Ramir flings his arms out wide and cries
‘Comrades, the first meeting of the Architect Order is officially in session!’
He strides to the front of the stage and opens the big grey-bound book on the stand.
‘The future awaits us, comrades. We are the Architects, the builders of a new world in the centre of the old and I have waited for this moment for so long, dear comrades, the point at which I show you the Master Blueprint that the Creator, mighty God of all men and all objects, has seen fit to reveal to me. How long I have dreamed of this, Oh Creator, when Your ideas grace the earth with their beauty,’ he sighs reverently. The crowd are silent.
‘How many of you work in factories?’ he asks. ‘Show yourselves, workers!’
A forest of arms wave in the air, many clad in overalls or the cheap padded jackets that the poor of Northbridge seem to live in.
‘Dockers? Soldiers? Engineers?’
More forests of arms. Ramir smiles. He’s sweating, and the harsh strip-lights reflecting off his gleaming shaved head make it look like there’s a ray coming straight from his thoughts into the room. His face is lit with it and Mihan feels the power of the man, a strange loveliness, formed of strength and ugliness and vision and sheer life-force. He’s more alive than anyone Mihan’s ever seen and he’s absolutely blown away.
‘The future is yours. What’s around us now is corruption and rot, and the Architects will clean all that away. We’re exploited, comrades! We’re being played for fools by the people we look up to, and it’s been going on far too long. How many of you don’t get enough pay to keep yourself fed, let alone a family? Eh? I expect there’s a lot of you who go hungry from time to time. We, the Architects, will end hunger. We will end poverty and want and unemployment and we will create a unique world for all of us, comrades! A model civilisation. Imagine it.’
Ramir sighs, letting his hands drop and his voice go quiet. Mihan strains to catch what he says; every face in the crowd is hanging on his words.
‘Buildings that touch the sky, buildings made of glass and steel and smooth concrete. They’ll shine in the sun and glisten in the rain and they’ll never be ugly, not like these hell-hole slums we live in these days. And we’ll build them, comrades, and the Creator will see them from above and bless us, bless us with knowledge and logic and the ability to raise His structures with kindness and love for our fellow workers. Technology, comrades, huge leaps in science and engineering and medicine. Diseases that kill will be annihilated, no more Lunacy Plague, we’ll cure it forever. Dangerous working conditions will be repaired, we’ll be long-lived and healthy and clever and efficient, and life will be sweet! Comrades, the glory of potential is ours, if we reach out as one and grab it. Join me, put your hands with my hands and your minds with my mind and together we are invincible! Follow the Well-Paved Way and live in the world of tomorrow, with me, your speaker, and the Creator, God most high of all things!’
Ramir flings his head back and shouts,
‘May the foundations never be undermined!’
The hall erupts with shouting and clapping. Vagus begins banging the drum again and everyone shouts this time, it’s like they’re a single organism with one voice and one brain. They’re all absolutely in thrall to Ramir, they’re following his every tiny move, watching him with hard, worldly eyes in grimy faces, some that are bloated with drink and greasy food, some that are lean and wolfish with hunger, all obsessed with the figure on the stage in front of them. Mihan sits there, shocked. He knows Ramir’s enormously persuasive, but he had no idea that so many people felt like that. He thought it was just them, the staff, who love Ramir like a father. Nagy gets up clumsily and hobbles to the front of the stage with a book and a pen.
‘How many of you would come back here?’ he calls, balancing precariously on one leg as he addresses the crowd. They scream back at him. Mihan’s just sitting there, whishing he was as brave as Nagy, to get up in front of that crowd and ask that, after one meeting – true, a phenomenally successful meeting, but still, it’s not like Ramir’s a big celebrity or anything – and he wishes he’d done it, because Ramir’s smiling benevolently at Nagy from behind as he waves the book.
‘Well, put your names down, if you like, and we’ll make sure there’s space for you at the next meeting, if it’s going to be as packed as this.’
‘Oi! What if we can’t write or nuffin?’ asks a lanky woman at the front. Laughter, a bit of applause. Nagy looks slightly flustered and starts to speak, but Ramir gets up.
‘Then the Architects will teach you to write, comrade. Free education for all if we get into power!’ Ramir booms, and the hall explodes again.
Everyone hates the Municipal Education Board. They’re the ones who decide that you’re fit for a decent job, or you aren’t. They give you your ‘Intelligence Level’ and the whole system is entirely skewed towards those who can buy a good education. Or, alternatively, there’s the specialist craft schools, but everyone knows they’re poor as hell and never get a break. Mihan studied engraving and printing at a craft school in Riverton and it was not a nice place. True, he learnt all kinds of useful stuff, but they work you so hard and there’s never a let-up. Well, they do have to keep pace with the records of the private institutes with about a fraction of the funds.
‘The intelligence level will be abolished, since it has become corrupt and meaningless through long years of elitism. Instead, we’ll set up Architect schools, free entry for everyone, no matter how clever. Everyone has a purpose, and at these schools our sole aim will be to teach you skills relevant to that purpose. None of this Intelligence Level rubbish,’ Ramir spits, ‘it’s ridiculous! What’s so good about clever people? Most of them just sit on their arses all day and waste time and money, while you, the workers, use your skills day in, day out and never get a word of credit. Workers, comrades, I am your word of credit!’ he thunders. ‘Meeting closed, comrades, meeting is closed. I await your return next week with impatience, and until then, let the flame of the Creator burn in your eyes and guide you through your work to the best of your ability. I bless you, comrades.’
Ramir’s voice has grown deep and sonorous, and the crowd are transfixed. Ramir bows to them, then turns on his heel and leaves the stage. Dead silence, then a surge, like the breaking of a colossal wave or a sheet of ice, with terrible slow grace, it gets louder and louder until it’s deafening. They’re shouting Ramir’s name, smiling and clapping and whooping and they want him to come back, they’re shocked and awed and just a little bit in love with him. Mihan gets up, hating himself for bringing money into the equation and dragging everyone back into the material world that Ramir’s been leading the way out of, he gets up and worms his way through the crowd to the door, opening it and standing on the step with the collecting box. Cave is busy shoving everyone away from the door of Ramir’s room at the back; they’ve stormed the stage and they show no sign of leaving. Mihan shakes his head, amazed. He didn’t expect that in a million years, that it would go down so well. Sort of frightening really, how the people have been starved of a revolutionary presence like that for so long; Calvinus is a deeply paranoid man, and any sign of any form of revolution is stamped out by Security before they can even say ‘Comrade’. But Ramir’s too clever for that. Religion is allowed, so long as it doesn’t interfere with politics. So long as it’s safe.

Soon there’s queues outside every week, people hanging round the door to hear Ramir preach. They love him; he has a sort of hypnotic effect on everyone who meets him and they keep coming back. Nagy’s in charge of the register and it’s growing and growing.
‘What does he do to them?’ Mihan asks Einor Lanegan one day as they’re printing yet more flyers on the press in the community centre. Lanegan shrugs, pushing his glasses back up his face with inky hands.
‘Do you know, I have no idea. He just makes you…fearless, like you can do anything, and all you have to do is give yourself to him, you know? It’s amazing. Wonder if he’ll ever tell them about the Reconstructs?’
‘Don’t talk about them, Einor. I hate them! They’re driving me mad,’ Mihan cries, smudging a flyer irreparably in his agitation. He sighs and chucks it in the stove. It’s cold in Northbridge now; the wind’s come in off the river and there’s no escape, it gets into your bones, that sort of damp cold that automatically makes your nose run and your feet all clammy. Einor shakes his head, pointing towards the door.
‘Shh! He’ll hear you!’
Mihan shrugs, but he looks a bit scared. Ramir’s been pretty quiet since the last meeting, where he really broke some boundaries. The subjects were hot topics: worker rights, the Industrialist Front, the corruption in the Great Assembly – usually even talking about that is a by-word for Security kicking the door down. Mihan remembers his face as he preached, the anger, the light, the power that swept the audience along until their faces glowed like his, glowed like they were face to face with the Creator and His golden skin was dazzling them, blinded and mesmerised by what they saw through half-shut eyes. Lit from behind by the projection lights, Ramir and the Creator were synonymous that night. Mihan would give anything for the man, anything. He’d die for him, gladly lay down everything at his feet, let the world go black and cold and still. He’d be alright on the other side, Ramir would guide him through the dark to the blaze that lies beyond, it has to, there can’t just be blackness forever.
‘Hey! Look at this!’
Mihan jumps, breaks off his gloomy revelations. It’s Nagy at the door, feverish with excitement, waving the dog-eared black register. He comes in and sits down, passing Mihan the book. It’s full of Nagy’s neat writing, column after column of names and dates and donations and ticks for attendance. Mihan flicks through it. So many pages!
‘Look at it, comrade! We’ve hit the 500 mark already!’
‘Brilliant! That was quick, we’ve only been up for a month. Has someone told…’
Einor jerks his thumb towards the hall, but the door opens and the man himself enters.
‘What have you been keeping from me, Comrade Murat?’ he thunders jovially. Nagy nearly falls over himself in his haste to get up. Blushing furiously, he hands Ramir the register, trying vainly to straighten out the crumpled bits.
‘We’ve got over 500 members, Leader Ramir. I was checking the books this morning,’ he says crisply, regaining some composure, his cheeks still a dull red. Ramir has this effect on all of them: they’re sort of in love with him and it makes them embarrassed, they’re gawky teenagers in front of a beautiful girl. Ramir flicks through the book. Their eyes are all on him, waiting for his words, he’s their life-or-death, he’s the decision-maker.
‘This is good,’ Ramir says quietly, and there’s real wonder in his face, a surprise and a delight that makes Mihan love him even more, that he’s human and he misjudges situations the same as the rest of them, he’s still taken aback by life occasionally.
‘Do you know what this means, comrades? We’re popular. Call a staff meeting for half an hour’s time, Mihan; it’s time for Phase Two to begin.’

fanatics and fervour

Fanatics and fervour

Northbridge is not a nice city by any standards. Dirty, run-down, notoriously corrupt and in some places desperately poor, it has a reputation amongst other city-states for being a great big nasty sponge that sucks up all their bright young things and gives them only dodgy exports in return, usually at an extortionate price. In recent years these unpleasant traits have been getting worse, under the ultra-conservative regime of Lord Calvinus, the Seneschal. And a man called Lucan Ramir has come here from the southern city of Jerboa to change all this. He’s been in Northbridge for about two weeks now and he is absolutely disgusted by the baseness of life here. He’s been mugged twice and Nagy Murat was beaten raw in a back-street for accidentally bumping into a gang leader and not saying sorry nicely enough. Ramir is sitting in his tall and uncomfortable chair in his room at their place, an abandoned church hall.
Even the Selenites here are corrupt. Look at them with their hymn-singing and their stupid little festivals while this place is crawling with every sort of sin imaginable. It makes me sick, this waste, this ineffectual wandering round the edges when they all know that the real problem is the city itself, and they’re too afraid to deal with that. Useless lot.
There’s a knock at the door, a timid tap, and this seems to fit so well with the namby-pamby Northbridge Selenites that it makes him all angry again.
‘For heaven’s sake, learn to knock properly!’ Ramir shouts. ‘Come in, then.’
The door opens and a huge man comes in. He has to duck to get through the door. He has a fearsome, simian face and ugly pinched eyes, too close together in his head.
‘Ah, it’s you, Cave. How’s Nagy?’
Cave shrugs.
‘Angry, Leader Ramir. He wants to get up but Cephall told him not to. He still looks like a side of meat though, I reckon it’s best if we count him out of things for a while.’
‘Luckily I’d already catered for that, Cave. You’re doing his duties instead. Fill the gaps, Cave. The work must be done, so done it will be, even if it kills you. You know this.’
Cave grunts a response and sits down in a vacant chair which creaks ominously.
‘How are the transistors going?’ asks Ramir.
He knows already, but he wants to see if Cave has checked the details, like he should have done by now. Fear brings obedience, he thinks, seeing Cave’s face empty of colour, and obedience brings devotion.
‘Er… fine… ’ Cave mumbles. He knows no one can lie to Ramir and get away with it.
‘You haven’t checked. Cave; that’s very disappointing, you know. Get out,’ Ramir says flatly. ‘I won’t see you until you’ve done all of your duties, not just those you feel like doing. For the last time, learn some DISCIPLINE!’
Ramir’s voice rises to a scream and he pelts a paperweight at Cave, which hits him in the ribs with a thud. Cave flings his long arms over his head as Ramir reaches for another missile, his face ugly with rage.
‘S-sorry, Leader Ramir, I’m sorry, I’m – ’
‘SHUT UP!’ bellows Ramir and Cave mumbles something incomprehensible, getting up and shuffling backwards towards the door, which he opens and practically chucks himself out. Ramir yells after him,
‘Get Mihan up here right away, Cave!’ and hurls another paperweight for good measure, which takes a chunk out of the door. He sits back in his chair, fuming and sweating, and tries to think of calm things. Anger is weakness. Control.
Why are people so stupid?

Ramir is one of those people who is terrifying when he’s in control. It looks like he’s the sort who never loses it, he just stays calm and when you’re gone he makes a black mark against your name, and soon enough punishment will come your way, unannounced and inescapable. He’s not like that. He’s got a notoriously short temper and the bad thing is, he’s even more frightening when he really loses it, goes purple and distorted and spitting with rage; he roars and curses and looks almost ill, and it’s horrible to watch. You have to wonder how anyone has that much fury all piled up inside them like a constipated volcano, just waiting to be tipped a little bit too far. Mihan Igrain almost shrinks from going to see him; he never knows what mood Ramir will be in and he dreads getting it wrong. He bangs on the door. Not too loud, because that makes Ramir afraid that his authority is being undermined, and afraid is nearly as bad as angry; but if he knocks too softly Ramir shouts at him for being wimpy and unassertive. Mihan grits his teeth as the door opens and the ordeal begins again. Ramir looks rather blotchy, and his bald head is shining with sweat, even though it’s freezing in his room. He is not an attractive man, it must be said. Shorter than average, but he makes up for it by his considerable bulk; he’s not fat, just sort of dense in a way other people rarely are. He has a square, brutal face with small, cold eyes, a shaved head and a cruel mouth. His voice is unctuous and barking at the same time, and Mihan always wonders how he does it. Ramir’s face assumes a twisted expression which is actually a smile, and he beckons Mihan into his room.
‘Ah, Mihan, there you are. How are the Reconstructs?’
Mihan swallows nervously. If there’s one thing he really doesn’t want to talk about, it’s the Reconstructs. He’s had enough of them, he knew they’d never work in the first place and he’s dreading telling Ramir just how badly the whole campaign is going. He takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders.
Bite the bullet, Mihan. It’s going to hit you anyway.
‘To be perfectly frank, they’re a nightmare. We can’t get the programming devices running at all even though Comrade Lanegan and I have been working flat out for four days. There’s something seriously wrong with the readouts and neither of us can work out what it is. I think it’s the crystal readers not being tuned properly so they’re not picking up the correct resonances, therefore we’re getting nothing on the screen at all.’
There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?
Ramir’s expression has not changed at all; he raises his hands in a gesture of plea.
‘Creator, help us in Your doctrines, for we are poor mortals and only with Your brilliance will we achieve the technological perfection worthy of You,’ he intones. Mihan nods, not daring to say anything in case it’s a private communication between Ramir and the Creator, as Ramir is famous for. As the Leader of the Architect society he’s said to have a special vision for the city, but none of his staff have seen much of it, apart from the bits about the Reconstructs, which they’ve seen too much of already. If they’re the way Ramir’s brave new world has to be achieved, then Mihan’s seriously considering jumping ship before it’s too late to get off, before it goes city-wide and everything starts happening all at once – before Ramir gets too powerful, he sometimes thinks. He’s spent months in the company of the most skilled, intelligent, dextrous people he’s ever met, and what have they been doing? Scientific butchery – going round collecting the dregs of civilisation from back alleys and gutters and slums and, as Ramir’s book, Blueprints Set A, puts it, ‘giving them a purpose to aid society once more and further the Architect Vision of a perfect synchronised workforce’.
What the hell have I agreed to? Mihan often asks himself, when he stands back after a day’s work and looks at what he’s done; the vision’s amazing, but is it worth this?
I know they’re asleep when we do it, I know they’ll never know the difference, it’s like dying, you’ll never know it’s happened.
But he does wonder just how much more blood and risky, messy, difficult, ugly surgery he can bear, stuck in that cellar with Cephall the surgeon as he lobotomizes them with the speed of a maniac, and him and Einor rushing around programming the crystals as fast as they can and it’s never enough, the pressure’s too much, he’s going to go mad soon. What a procedure they have to go through: Cephall doing brain after brain and fitting the crystal chips that Mihan’s assembled, tailored for each head, Cephall sealing them in there in place of a frontal lobe and connecting them to the transmitter grid so they’re controllable by thought, except it’s not working so they’re stuck as mindless gibbering atrocities, while Einor wrestles with the crystal readers and reconfigures them over and over again, with the same result: nothing. Oh, and constantly subduing their pain processors with specially-prepared drugs so a Reconstruct won’t even notice if its arm gets hacked off, it’ll just keep going until it dies. Terrifying stuff. But it’s the will of the Creator, and if it helps the new world, which it will without question, then it must be done.
‘Ah well, Mihan. There is nothing I can offer for advice, I’m afraid, but you have until the end of the week to sort out the problem, or, if it really cannot be rectified, then I shall investigate the matter myself. I know it’s hard,’ Ramir says, with something very much like sympathy in his voice, ‘I know you’re wondering how such a loving God as the Creator can drive us to such lengths to see His vision become reality, but think, Mihan!’
Ramir sweeps his arms out in a wide gesture as he begins to tell Mihan of this vision, and Mihan, despite the fact that he’s tired and hungry and sickened by his work, and he’s been in their basement/surgery for nearly eight hours today with only a ten-minute break, he’s seeing it too, this glorious tomorrow that Ramir and his God have dreamed up together. Buildings that no other civilisation can touch, gleaming and shiny and sleek, not lumpy brick but smooth poured concrete and metal and glass, the materials of the future. Electricity in every room. Automated transport. Useful industries only, with a job for everyone – no pointless pleasure-makers, like artists and musicians and actors; wastrels and scroungers, the lot of them, who’ve never done a stroke of honest work in their lives. They’ll all go first, when we get into power – at this Ramir gets rather violent, and has to stop while he composes himself again. Mihan sits spellbound.
He’s thought of everything, and it’s all true. Amazing.
None of this greedy, money-grabbing, sprawling capitalism, all untidy and tangled and backstabbing, Ramir continues, finding his focus again: everything is state-owned, and the proceeds go to everyone in return for their work for the state, who will own all the industries, insofar as anything is owned. Ramir stops talking, eyes shining with God, and Mihan shakes his head weakly, dizzied by this genius in front of him.
‘That, comrade, is the Master Blueprint of the Creator, which He has seen fit to show me alone. Stay faithful to me, Mihan, for the sake of what I have just told you,’ Ramir says softly. ‘Swear to me now, swear again, that you will do whatever I ask you, if you know it is for the future of this regime, when we seize power and save this sorry city.’
‘I swear it!’ Mihan says ardently, as Ramir takes Mihan’s right hand and cuts a finger with a tiny dagger, catching in his own hand the few drops of blood that fall from the little wound and licking them off his palm.
‘You are the first, Mihan, the first and trusted. Go now. Free your technical mind in prayer, and the kingdom of science will be yours in the next shift. Bring Vagus here.’

Mihan leaves the room, shaking and dizzy and over the moon. The future is waiting. All they have to do is reach out and grab it before the capitalists deface it. He feels reborn, the Creator’s burning in him and he’s prepared to do anything, so long as the vision captures him and holds on, sweeping him forwards in its juggernaut rush to perfection, faster and stronger and higher and more beautiful with every new day. And in the centre of this maelstrom will be Ramir, burning with a sort of holy fire, bright as sulphur showing them all the way forwards, cutting through the dark imperfection of humanity with the white light of science and ironing out the flaws that make all ideas fail in the end.
Bring Vagus here. Command me, oh Leader, and I will obey, eager as a Reconstruct.
Mihan thinks again of the Reconstructs: all he wants to do now is solve whatever the problem is with them and win Ramir’s approval. He doesn’t care if it kills him. He doesn’t need to eat or sleep, he’s got a holy quest; dying with Ramir’s smile raining on his fading sight would be the most beautiful way to go. All he wants is to see the approval in that mighty face and know that it’s for him, Mihan Igrain, lowly technician, that the light shines, for what he’s done. What could be more glorious?

Vagus is in the paperwork room, hidden in that mazy little warren of rooms at the back of the building, poring over a musty-looking book entitled Sub-Molecular Chemistry. Vagus is a small man about the same height as Mihan, but rather than just being compact, he’s scrawny like a rat, underfed, furtive, gives the impression that he could have been much bigger but got stunted somewhere along the way. He slams the book shut when Mihan approaches and gazes up suspiciously with a small cold eye. Vagus doesn’t like anyone, and no one returns the sentiments. Mihan doesn’t even know what he’s doing here anyway, since he does nothing for the regime apart from endless research on seemingly random subjects, and he never attends services either. But Mihan’s too full of bonhomie now to even register this; he smiles affably at Vagus.
‘Evening, comrade. Leader wants to see you.’
‘Oh yeah? About what?’ Vagus snaps instantly, shoving the book into a pile of papers strewn over the table.
Why do you always jump to such conclusions, Vagus? Just reach out and accept what you’re given, don’t question it all the time. Ramir will change your life like he’s changed mine, if you let him.
‘I don’t know.’
Vagus snorts and gets up from the chair, straightening his cap. He’s got a nasty blot on the front of his overall, and Mihan automatically looks down at his, which is his spare, and brushes a bit of lint off his sleeve. Imagine going to see Ramir looking like a shambles; the displeasure would be palpable. Vagus sees where he’s looking and rolls his eyes with a snort.
‘Wash behind your ears as well, did you? Little sycophant,’ he says contemptuously, barging past Mihan and leaving the room. Mihan shrugs to himself, sits down in Vagus’s empty chair and leafs through the papers on the desk. Undetectable Poisons, the title of one page says, followed by a tangle of symbols and scrawly writing. Mihan frowns and covers it up. Notes about poisons are not a good thing to be caught looking at, even if it is by a colleague. He wonders what it’s for. He flicks through the book but it might as well be in Legrady, all the sense it makes to him.

Vagus bangs on the door of Ramir’s room and it opens far too fast for his liking as Ramir appears in the doorway.
The bastard must’ve been standing right behind it.
‘Ah, Comrade Vagus, that was commendably fast.’
‘Well, I figured you wouldn’t be too happy if I ignored you,’ Vagus retorts.
Ramir nods, but Vagus can see his anger-management mask slip another notch.
‘Quite. Come in, comrade, we’ve got a lot to talk about.’
He ushers Vagus in, closes and locks the door. Vagus sits down in one of the hard chairs, but Ramir remains standing, looming slightly over him. Vagus feels threatened.
‘It seems that the time is near, Vagus. Your big moment is just round the corner,’ he says, with a cruel sort of amusement in his voice. Vagus is genuinely confused.
‘Time for what?’
Ramir scowls at Vagus and bangs his fist on the table.
‘The poisoning, you fool! Do you never listen to anything I say? The Creator has decided, it’s time to go ahead with poisoning Calvinus. Have you finished your research?’
Ramir leans over him, predatory, greedy for knowledge. They’re practically nose to nose. Ramir’s eyes are dark and cold, like underground wells where the light can’t ever reach.
‘Erm, nearly,’ Vagus gabbles, if only to get Ramir out of his face. In reality he’s still miles off, but he’s damned if he’s letting that little bomb drop before he has to.
Who the hell does he think he is anyway, eyeballing me like this? I’m my own man.
‘And what’s your plan?’
‘Ah – yes – the plan… I was thinking, should we not wait until the Reconstructs are up and running? I just meant, if things get nasty with Security, at least if we’ve got them working we can defend ourselves. On the off-chance, as it were.’
Vagus has considered that little speech very carefully indeed. Just the right amount of suggestion, not too hesitant, because that would look like he doesn’t believe it himself – and if he’s not convinced of his own idea, who else will be? But at the same time, any more forceful than that, and Ramir would think he was being undermined. Not a good career move, outsmarting a boss with a shorter fuse than a three-bronze firework and not half as pretty when he explodes. Ramir hangs there for a moment as if the ground has been whipped out from beneath his feet. Then a smirk cracks across his face.
‘You’re exactly right, comrade, of course we should. What was I thinking, rushing into something like that, and with Comrade Murat still in such a state? Thank you, you’ve opened my eyes to what I was completely passing by. You could have just saved this Regime from the long crooked arm of the law, Vagus; well done.’
He claps Vagus on the shoulder with a heavy hand. Vagus sits there, hardly daring to believe he’s got away with it. He can’t have done. Ramir speaks again and his heart sinks; he hasn’t got away with it at all. There’s always a catch. Here it comes.
‘Still, I would quite like to know what you’re going to use. I’ll need to test it, of course: we’ve only got one attempt at this and I want to make sure it goes just as I planned.’
‘Er – ’
Vagus actually can’t think of anything to say to this. How the hell can he answer that? Without revealing that he’s actually way behind on his research, he’s been doing overtime every night for weeks and he’s sick of the bloody project anyway, he never wants to see another diagram of a belladonna plant as long as he lives – and besides, it’s not going to work, Calvinus has survived more attempts than he’s had hot dinners.
‘Are you afraid of telling me what you’ve come up with?’ Ramir says soothingly, his voice all condescension. ‘Don’t worry, Vagus, everyone feels like this when they’re asked to present their works to me. I understand, you’re scared it’s wrong, you don’t want to let the Regime down. You won’t, Vagus: the only way you can let the Regime down is by failing to put the effort in. It’s less of a problem if you do the work and it’s incorrect, than if you don’t do it at all. Everyone makes mistakes.’
Vagus wants to snort derisively but he knows it would get him killed.
Afraid of you? Yeah, I’m careful of you, but that’s only cause you’ll beat the crap out of me if I don’t do what you want. I couldn’t give a stuff about your silly regime, it’s never going to get off the ground anyway.
He sighs, his ratty face the picture of contrition.
‘Yes, Leader Ramir, that’s it exactly. My work’s not good enough for you to see, I mean, I need to archive my notes, and…’
He watches Ramir’s face change, not for the better.
You’ve really blown it this time.
‘Oh shut up, you whining little man,’ Ramir snaps. ‘You’ve got until tomorrow, and then I’m taking whatever you’ve come up with and if it’s still not ready – ’
Ramir doesn’t even finish the end of his sentence, he simply bugs his eyes out in a way that’s more terrifying than any words in the world. Vagus gulps and gets up hurriedly, backing away from the horrible eyes across the desk. Ramir points a thick finger.
‘Get out, Vagus, and don’t let me down again. I’m watching you!’ he shouts, dragging the door open and shoving Vagus outside, then slamming it again. He sinks down in his chair again and opens the thick grey book open on the desk in front of him. It’s the half-finished version of The Vision; part manifesto, part prophecy, all-encompassing ideology. It’s his brain-child. He flicks through it to a bit he’s particularly fond of: the provision of labour. The golden figure of the Creator shines bright in his head as he reads, imagining preaching this to his hapless staff and all the good-for-nothing Selenites. They’ll be blown away. They’ll love him as the Creator’s representative in the world. God-on-earth.