mercury madness

Mercury madness

Vagus is frightened. More frightened than he’s ever been in his whole life. He crouches in the cellar of the Seneschal’s residence like he’s been doing all night, but the fear’s beating tight in his throat now. He can’t breathe, however deep and full he makes his lungs there’s never enough air. The vial of mercury and the syringe are snug in the junkie needle case, brown leather in his pocket reproaching him for not taking it himself and ending this. Sweetest, most painful of all poisons, quicksilver, madness slowly percolating every thought and the torture only lasts as long as you hang on to your fading sanity. If you just let go, give it all up, it’s the bliss of the truly crazed.
Can you do that to someone else? Take their mind away?
We do it all the time. The Reconstructs are worse than this.
He feels really sick now, he needs to piss, he needs to scream and it will all stop. The dust and rot and horrible mulch smell in here is choking him. No one’s been down here for years, that’s why he chose it. No one would bother digging through the soft wall from the sewers like he did, Calvinus isn’t worth the effort.
Is Ramir worth the effort?
Yes, cause he’ll fuck me up if I don’t do it.
Anything’s better than being fucked by him.
Vagus wonders again and again why he’s even here. Why he didn’t just stay where he was, on the dole in Jerboa. It was alright: not much, but it was a life. Better than this he’s living in now, this sickly culture of fear and fanatics and Ramir-worship. He hates the man. Hates him for making him do this, and he hates himself for getting into all this mess when he could so easily have said no and walked away, left it, got on with his life.
You were played for a sucker, which makes you a sucker.
It’s your own fault.
He shakes his head. Now is not a good time to be arguing with his conscience. He’s just going to do it, get it over with then escape from everything, leave Northbridge, go east to Legrad or south to Brenna. If he doesn’t do it, Ramir will catch up with him. Ramir always catches up with everyone. He caught up with that woman who leaked their details to the press, making them out as psycho fanatics. Now she’s a Reconstruct, doing very well, said her first words last week. What kind of end is that? To have your brains removed and replaced by little machines, you can’t do anything unless you’re told to. Same as before, really.
If you do it you’re safe from the brain-drain. If you don’t, you’re not. Simple as that.
Vagus can hear movement upstairs somewhere, lots of footsteps. He’s so frightened. He knows what he’s meant to do but he doesn’t want to do it. Inject someone else with mercury, actually end their life in that slow painful way. How do you summon the nerve to do that? Such a small action, such huge consequences. He’s going to change Northbridge’s political history for good, and no one will ever know it was him, if he does the right thing. The plan is, get up to Calvinus’s bedroom or wherever it is he sleeps, distract the staff and guards on duty, sneak in and jab him, then get out via the cellars again. He hasn’t got a map or anything; all he knows is which window is Calvinus’s from the outside. First on the left.
That’s not going to help me now.
He creeps up the stairs. It’s time to move, he’s been sitting here far too long already. It’s about one in the morning, he thinks, though his watch has stopped and he actually has no idea. He feels disoriented, alone in the dark with no clock, no one to run to if it goes all wrong and say Get me out of here, please, help me.
The stairs are stone and dark, slimy. He nearly slips, grabs the rail and a huge cobweb tangles round his hand. He whips it away, biting his scream back. He hates spiders even more than he hates Ramir. Something about the way they move. He goes up the stairs more, heart racing, stomach turning over. He thinks he might vomit soon if he can’t calm down. Even his eyeballs are shivering, he’s so tense. There’s a door at the top of the stairs. Where does it lead? Another sour-smelling passage lit with dribbly candles, doors all off the sides. Ratty red carpet on the floor, big, heavy-framed pictures leer from the walls. Fat old men in wigs, with scrolls of paper and books and globes and stuff, like Vagus saw once in the Northbridge Art Gallery when they had a free opening. He creeps down the corridor. Heart thumping. Which door is it? They all look the same. No, one has a sign outside it with ‘Seneschal’s Private Bureau, No Admittance,’ on it in peeling letters. Vagus tries the handle, it’s open. Chaos inside, books and files and huge heaps of paper on every surface, a candle burning low in a little jar on the desk. Chairs, table, tall cupboard, on every wall are maps and pictures and bits of paper pinned up. The red official robes and hat that Calvinus wears are hanging over the back of a chair. Vagus is surprised: he thought he’d wear them all the time. What if he doesn’t recognise Calvinus without his red clothes?
What if I poison the wrong person?
God help me.
The room suddenly seems claustrophobic, so small and so mad. He shuts the door on it and goes away, heart sinking. He doesn’t know if he can take being in this house for much longer; the walls are shrinking in on him, it’s far too hot but he can’t stop shivering. He climbs some more stairs, past a grandfather clock that ticks brokenly, past a huge grimy window where the outside darkness streams in and mixes blue with the black. It’s a house in Central Ward, one of those big ones with all the balconies and towers and stuff, but it’s falling into disrepair because Calvinus is so miserly. It’s a maze, this house; he wanders randomly along sleepy corridors, up stairs, down stairs again, past what looks like the same door about a hundred times, into rooms thick with dustsheets and the foul sweetness of decay, until he thinks he’s found the right door. It’s a different colour to the others, sort of red rather than grey. It’s unlocked and he turns the handle quietly, quietly. His heart’s beating so loud he wonders what the point of being quiet is; surely anyone can hear the thump of his fear in his ribs like a cannon. The room stinks of smoke and a sickly perfume smell that he knows is Shivano, the worst of the new hard drugs that Northbridge can’t get enough of. Calvinus is sitting slumped in an armchair, there’s a candle burning down and the room is crumpled, the bed unmade, the curtains drawn. It’s close, humid, oppressive, sort of dirty. Vagus shuts the door. Just him and Calvinus now.
It’s going to go wrong. He’s not as far gone as all that.
He slides the thin vial of mercury out of the junkie case, fits the syringe to it and goes up to Calvinus. At least, he thinks it’s Calvinus. Yes, it’s got his horsy face, the twisted nose, the wily politician-mouth that’s so clever with its words.
If I give him this he’ll never utter another clever word again, it’ll only be gibberish and madman’s ramblings.
The man’s skin is waxy, sort of greased, and he’s mumbling and twitching in his druggie dreams. A fitting end to the man who’s responsible for half of Northbridge’s addiction and debt problem, being poisoned all alone in a sordid, dingy room, off his face on who-knows-what. But he’s human all the same, he’s alive, he thinks, feels; cut him he bleeds red just like the rest of us. Vagus watches him for a long time, finding him strangely pitiful in sleep, vulnerable, almost beautiful, an ordinary specimen of humanity but achingly significant all the same. The man who’s supposed to be unassailable – without all his defences, his assassins, his scheming and second-guessing and spies, he’s not much, really, just a man, a sad drunken drug-riddled sack of a man like anyone else in the city. Asleep and alone. They say he has numerous mistresses and a string of bastard children, but where are they now? They’ll miss him when he goes mad and doesn’t recognise them any more. They’ll miss him and they’ll grieve and they’ll curse the one who took him from them.
I don’t believe in curses.
I DON’T BELIEVE IN CURSES
He gets the syringe out and looks at it in the gloom, the mercury sloshing silvery inside it, thick, viscous, glittering. It’s quite a nice-looking poison, almost like jewellery. He presses the syringe a little bit and the silver shoots out in a tiny fountain on his hand. He wipes it quickly on his sleeve where it glimmers wetly. His hands are shaking and he’s sweaty, jittery. Nervous as hell. He’s thinking of Selen again. Poor forsaken Selen who Ramir says is dead, doesn’t exist, never did exist. The Creator told him so. Selen said once, thou shalt not kill. Anyone, whoever they are, however bad they are, they’re alive and you have no right to make it otherwise.
Have I gone too far for that now? Am I beyond the reach of a compassionate God?
The Creator is my god now.
Vagus is still poised with the needle in his hand. Where to stick it in? The mark will get found anywhere, so it doesn’t really matter. In his wrist, in his arm, in his neck. It does the same job wherever it goes. He looks at Calvinus. One arm is flung out over the chair-back, his neck is twisted to one side. Easy targets. Vagus takes a deep, slow breath. He’s shaking even more now. The room is timeless, out of touch with the world. Nothing else has ever mattered apart from killing this man, and he can’t bring himself to. Everything he thought he stood for, once when he was young and foolish, what seems so long ago but it’s only a year or so, the Blueprint and Ramir and the Creator and technology and community and everything the Architects are about: this is his last chance to show he still believes, or he’s given up forever.
He’s doing it now, he’s steadying his hand very lightly on Calvinus’s neck, he’s easing the needle between two fingers into the blueness, the vein, the blood that runs below the papery skin. It’s gone in; Calvinus grunts and half-turns but Vagus holds him gently and presses the plunger down. It’s so easy. He’s not waking, he’s not shouting or struggling or any of the things Vagus imagined he’d do. He doesn’t even know. The syringe is empty; he returns it to the junkie case. Nothing but a tiny hole with a thin line of blood on Calvinus’s throat. Vagus wipes it away tenderly, suddenly ashamed of what he’s done, sad, afraid, guilty. He’s started taking lives on command, the slipperiest of all slopes.
I didn’t have to do it. I could have run away instead.
It hurts, what he’s done. He can never change it, however much he wants to undo, to erase the last few moments from the history of the world. This will go down in books, in print, in time and Vagus doesn’t think he can take the responsibility of that. He wants to suck the poison out, un-infect Calvinus, make him whole and healthy again.
He wasn’t healthy. He was off his face half the time and no one even knew.
He knows that doesn’t make it alright. Even the fact that he’s working for Ramir, for God, for the future, none of that makes it alright.
This has gone far enough. I’m getting out before he makes me do anything worse.
If anything can be worse than this.
The real world comes crashing back into the room. He’s just poisoned a man. He’s standing in a stranger’s room with a hypodermic in his hand and mercury on his sleeve at three in the morning. He can already imagine the heavy hand of a Security man landing on his shoulder like a death knell, the two doom-laden words, You’re Nicked.
GET OUT OF HERE QUICK his senses scream at him. He doesn’t think about it, really. He just goes any which way, shuts the door on Calvinus and walks, panicky-quickly down all the stairs down the sour corridor and the slimy staircase and out through his tunnel into the sewers, the stink welcoming, the cold the sloppy floors, anything but that sad house and the sad man in it. He closes the tunnel with the pile of rubbish that was there before. He’s shaking again, really bad this time. His legs are so trembly he has to sit down on a mossy stone ledge. It’s only just hit him now what he’s done. Calvinus was totally helpless, a paralytic, a child, a consumptive. He was so gentle with him, like he cared for him, like he was administering life-saving miracle cure, not a poison. It’s for your own good. The irony, the horrible sick humour of it makes him despair. It would have been better if Calvinus had screamed and struggled and he’d had to force him down, have to earn the right to stick the needle in like he meant it, like it was his utmost desire. He could deal with that, with giving as good as he got. This was too easy. Vagus sees again the needle sinking into that white flesh and the blue-grey-purple below it and he whimpers, involuntarily. It was a routine. He destroyed a man by numbers.
‘What have I done?’ he whispers to himself, alone in the sewers where the water splashes and gurgles and the rats own the place, ‘what the hell have I done?’

‘Vagus back yet?’ Einor asks. It’s a bright, cold sunny morning and they’re off to their various duties. They’re in the new canteen, staffed by a dour, stringy woman with a rigorously healthy outlook on food. They’ve got so many permanent members now that it was ridiculous for them all to go out to the street stand for food, they’d clean them out.
‘I haven’t seen him. But we’d know if he’d been caught, it would be in the papers. Headline news, I expect,’ Nagy replies confidently. Mihan only looks at his porridge, worried. He reckons Vagus has done a runner, couldn’t take killing Calvinus. Nagy shrugs and gets up, swinging his coat on.
‘Well, I’m off to the Chamber. You’ll soon hear whether Vagus has done it or not.’
He leaves Mihan and Einor both thinking the same thing.
‘He hasn’t done it, has he?’
‘Well, it is quite a hard function to process, I’d say. Taking another life in cold blood.’
‘We do it all the time! What’s so different about Calvinus and a Reconstruct?’ Mihan exclaims. He could’ve done it. Then Ramir would truly love him.
‘Shh! Keep your voice down, for goodness’ sake. Honestly, you’re a nightmare sometimes, blurting out whatever comes into your head willy-nilly,’ Einor says repressively, peering over his shoulder at the canteen lady, who isn’t listening.
Mihan is stung. He gets up, deliberately bumping the table so Einor’s coffee slops over his hand as he drinks, and goes. He knows where he’s appreciated and it’s not by Einor any more. Einor used to be his friend but they’ve sort of drifted apart now Einor’s an engineer and Mihan’s a Propagandist. Work comes first, as always.
By the evening Vagus is still not back, and neither is Nagy, though he’s often late when he’s coming from the Chamber. Meeting seems rather empty without them, especially Nagy who’s usually sounding off about something that happened in the Assembly. They’re waiting anxiously for Ramir as well, who has disappeared into his workshop and shows no sign of coming out. They’re avoiding conversation. They’ve said it all already.
Mihan can’t bear it in the room any more. He goes outside and stands in the cold corridor, as though if he waits for something to change it will. These things make him so scared; they’re the signs of the machine breaking, they’re the spanners in their otherwise so thorough works. It shouldn’t be like this. He spins round as their messenger boy Dane rushes through the door with a bit of paper in his dirty little hand.
‘Urgent message for Leader Ramir, Mister Igrain!’
‘Dane, how many times? It’s Unit, not Mister. What’s it about?’
Mihan’s not really concentrating. He knows what it is. His heart sings; Vagus has done it. Calvinus is on the way out and Nagy is on the way up.
‘It’s from Mister, uh, Unit Na – I mean, Unit Murat, he said it’s urgent,’ Dane gabbles, waving the bit of paper. Mihan takes it from him firmly and pats him on the shoulder.
‘Alright, Dane, you’ve done your quota. I’ll take it to Leader.’
‘Thank you!’
Dane scuttles off and Mihan unrolls the bit of paper in trembling fingers. Nagy’s writing, usually so neat, is a frenzied scrawl.
Leader
C is malfunctioning and I’m staying here until everything’s a bit calmer. Please can someone cover my night duty? I’ll be back in the morning
Nagy
Mihan can’t believe it. It’s actually happening, everything they’ve plotted and schemed and worked out so long ago with such precision, it’s working just as they said it would. It’s like a dream, Mihan’s afraid he’ll wake up any moment now and it’ll be last night, with Security pounding on the door cause they’ve caught Vagus doing his mission and they’ve dragged everything out of him. He touches the wall just to make sure it’s really there; cold and solid meets his outstretched hand. Only then does he let the smile, the amazed happiness, spread across his face and render him imbecilic for a moment, paralysed with the gratifying feeling that it’s not all going wrong, it’s as right as can be, nothing is more right than this. He rushes down the corridor to Ramir’s workshop and knocks on the door smartly.
‘What?’
‘Leader, it’s me, it’s Mihan! Nagy just sent a message for you!’
Ramir bangs the door open with a tangle of wire in his hand. Mihan stands up straight and correct but a boulder of guilt rolls down his throat. He’s interrupted the genius at work, probably on something groundbreaking and unimaginable. Ramir’s still somewhere else, in the last throes of his assembly time. Mihan tries not to look guilty.
A mistake acknowledged with shame is both a mistake and an embarrassment. Take your faults like a man, then pray and repent for them to be removed from you.
Some blueprint or other. There’s one for every situation. How will I ever remember all of them? What if I’m asked to recite one and I can’t?
JUST STOP PANICKING
‘What do you want? I don’t have all day,’ snaps Ramir.
‘Leader, Nagy just sent this with Dane who said it was very urgent.’
Ramir grabs it and reads it, his lips twitching soundlessly as he makes out Nagy’s scribbles. His face goes from tired and cross to exultant, lit from within.
‘Yes! Brilliant news!’
Mihan pretends he doesn’t know what it says. It wouldn’t do to let Ramir know someone’s reading his mail: he’s the one who does that to other people.
‘What is the news, Leader?’
‘Calvinus is down! We’re through, Mihan. We’ve done it, we’ve freed Northbridge from him and now we can really start to break through the masses! Get back to meeting and tell the others right away. We haven’t got a moment to lose.’

politicking

Some weeks later Ramir calls them all to a meeting at a very funny time, in the middle of the night. They’re all sitting there yawning at the table, apart from Ramir, who looks as fresh as a daisy, and Nagy, who was awake anyway on night duty, training up a few congregation volunteers. Ramir is in a rare good mood, smiling and sharing a joke with Cephall, who looks sleepy and confused. Ramir looks round.
‘All present?’
‘Yes, that’s everyone,’ answers Nagy. Ramir nods to Rufilla and she begins typing.
‘Good. Units, I know this is a very inconvenient time to meet, but you are all inured to physical discomfort, of course, because the Third Blueprint says that work comes before bodily want or need. So it shouldn’t matter to you what time it is; you’re ready to function whatever the hour. Anyway, enough of that. I have received a letter from Calvinus, just ten minutes ago, that says… ’
He picks up a piece of thick paper with the government stamp on it.
‘Greetings to Ramir from Lord Calvinus, Seneschal. It has not escaped government notice that your association, the Architects, blah blah blah, although of questionable political opinion, and so on and so on, are significant enough to warrant legitimisation as a party which therefore entitles you to send one delegate to the Assembly from now on… blah blah… probationary period… scrutiny… strictly above-board dealings… yes, that’s it, nothing else is relevant, I don’t think.’
‘Above board? Hah! I like that, coming from him,’ exclaims Nagy.
‘Quite. Anyway, this is a great day in Architect history, Units. No more grubbing for funding in the muck, we’re official now. We can attend the Assembly, we can produce any propaganda and display it anywhere we want, we can have rallies, we can run for Seneschal election even! Well done, units. It is down to your effort that we have earned this privilege, and I promise you, this will make things much easier from now on.’
‘Who’s the delegate?’ snaps Vagus.
‘Yeah! How do we decide that?’
Ramir looks around them.
‘Who do you think, Units? I know exactly who we should have. Unit Murat, this job is made for you. Do you accept?’
Nagy looks amazed in the silence.
‘Me?’ he says incredulously. ‘You want me to represent you at the Assembly? Well, I…’
He stops, laughs shortly. No one says anything, moves, smiles, objects. They sit there like disengaged Reconstructs. They all know he’s the best choice, but more than one of them is bitterly disappointed. He shrugs expressively.
’I don’t know what to say, for once. I’m flattered. It would be an honour to represent this regime anywhere, especially somewhere as prestigious as the Assembly.’

It’s time the political system around here was explained, insofar as any sort of system can be applied to Northbridge. It is essentially well-designed chaos, that very special sort of chaos that works just well enough to make people realise they need it, and however bad it is, it’s still a hell of a lot better than it would be if they cleared it out and started again – that really would be chaotic. There’s been a lot put into politics over the years, by various people, and it’s a big part of what makes Northbridge the way it is. If you changed it, no one would know where the hell they stood and things would get messy.
Essentially, it’s an autocracy. The Seneschal has the highest power in the city-state of Extended Northbridge; whatever the parliament says, they can overrule it. One man or woman is ultimately in charge – it’s never been a woman yet, but there’s nothing to say a it can’t be. Anyway, the Seneschal sits in the centre of the Assembly, which is a cross between a parliament and a bull ring, yah-boo politics being the norm here. It has a representative from every legalised party, religion, cult, union, Guild, association with a significant influence over the people of Northbridge – the significance is decided by the government of course. Fair’s fair… right?
The Seneschal is meant to listen to all these representatives equally, but what’s a bit of shady dealing when there’s money and power and stuff like that involved? This is modern predatory capitalism, don’t’cha know: eat or get eaten by some other bastard with more money and contacts than you. The Assembly is always rife with corruption and intrigue, which is what makes it both the favoured haunt of the Northbridge Post journalists – the NP is the ‘serious’ paper round here – and quite a dangerous place to work, if you’re not extremely aware of cause and effect: or in simpler terms, who you’ve offended this week who’s got a short fuse and enough money to pay for your removal, and who you haven’t, which doesn’t always mean they’re your friend.
As regards the general population of the city, they can’t do a lot. They can vote for the new Seneschal if the old one dies or goes mad or falls from grace in a big way – should they happen to care which new crook rules their city instead of the last one because it won’t make much difference – but other than that, they have to be involved with a represented group in order to have any chance of a say at all. Hence most of them are involved, or completely not interested in politics. There’s not much middle ground in Northbridge; it’s just not a middle-ground kind of place. You know.

They’re all in the bunk room now, the meeting’s done. It’s nearly two in the morning, but none of them are remotely tired any more. They’re all totally amazed.
‘I can’t believe it’s happened at last! I was starting to think we’d never get the message across to anyone!’ Mihan exclaims. Nagy nods.
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Just in time, though. It was sort of hanging in the air, you know, just hovering over us, and it was equally likely we’d be declined. I remember writing that letter of application and thinking, oh God, we’re never going to get it, it’s going to be a disaster. Not that I’m saying it was the letter that swung it,’ he adds quickly as Vagus raises an eyebrow, ‘far from it, it was atrocious. But still, we got it.’
‘You scared about the Assembly, Nagy?’
‘No! It’s going to be brilliant! I’ve always wanted to get in there, even just to have a look around the building, see if the stories are true.’
‘What, about assassins and all that? You’d better watch your back, Nagy, Calvinus will have someone onto you the instant you walk through that door, you know.’
‘Yes, I know that. I’ll just have to be careful. It won’t be very useful to the Master Blueprint if I get killed trying to set it up…’
His face grows thoughtful.
‘Though what I really don’t understand is why he isn’t taking the job himself. That would make much more sense than me doing it. I’m bound to get his instructions wrong sometime, and we all know what happens when we do that.’
‘It’s cause you’re expendable and he’s not, Nagy – at least, he thinks he’s not. He don’t care if you get done in, but this way he can avoid the poison daggers and pull your strings at the same time,’ snaps Vagus. Nagy looks like he’s been punched; his mouth flaps for a second but he doesn’t say anything. Vagus continues, fired up now.
‘You know it’s true, Nagy. He’s just using us, and the more we play along, the more stuff he’ll make us do. I’d reject the job, get free while I still can, if I was you.’
‘What kind of remark is that, Vagus? You don’t think that – at least, you’d better not, or you’re in the wrong place and you’d better leave before we get you thrown out!’ Mihan shouts, unthinkingly, just saying what he feels. Everyone shushes him frantically and he claps his hand over his mouth. Wrong thought is worse than wrong when it’s out loud.
‘God, look at you all!’ Vagus exclaims. He’s half-laughing, half-disgusted. He waves a hand at them. ‘Can’t even talk openly any more, can you, you’re so shit scared of getting in trouble with him,’ jabs his thumb towards the door. Mihan spins round, half-expecting Ramir to be standing there listening. He’s not, of course, but you never know.
‘I mean it! It’s ridiculous! We’re sposed to be working together or something, but all we do is try and make ourselves look good by smearing other people in the dirt, cause we’re so scared that we’ll all go behind each other’s backs over little tiny details that no one should give a shit about. He's just one of us and not the best one either, but for Creator knows what reason, you’re all frightened of him! I tell you, I’ve had it absolutely up to here with this place, and you can report that to who you like.’
Vagus gets up and barges out of the bunk room. The others all look at each other with frightened faces.
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘Who knows, Mihan? He’s really not right at the moment, and I don’t know why. He should not have said that stuff, it’s going to catch up with him. It always does.’
‘He’s the one who’s shit scared, not us at all,’ Cephall says suddenly. They all jump; they thought he was asleep in the corner. He continues talking.
‘You can see it in his face, he’s really frightened of something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s eating him up and he’s letting it get the better of him. He’s panicking and that’s what made him come out with all that.’
‘So? I panic all the time about stuff, but do I come out with crap like that?’ Mihan counters. ‘No, cause I’ve learned that saying what you mean isn’t always telling the truth. It’s the whole flawed thought argument again, isn’t it? He thinks he’s always right and we’re all against him, and he’s dead wrong! He’s the one against the rest of us, he’s letting everyone else down,’ he says bitterly. ‘I sometimes think he’s not one of us at all, he’s got some hidden agenda that’s nothing to do with the Regime or the Master Blueprint. Does anyone else think that?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Mihan, but you’re right, he is acting strangely,’ says Nagy. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about Vagus, I’m sure he’ll see the error of his ways and come back to us when he’s ready. There aren’t enough of us to get rid of him, and I’m overworked as it is without having to cover his duties as well if he leaves, so let’s not hold it against him unless it gets really bad, right?’
‘Good idea. I’m going to bed. Restful off-shift, all of you,’ Einor says and climbs up into his bunk, kicking his boots off at the top like he always does. The others all follow suit, but sleep does not come easily to a lot of them that night.

Several days later, Nagy comes back from his first assembly meeting. He’s spitting angry, absolutely seething. Mihan greets him as he bangs into the bunk room.
‘Evening Nagy. What’s the matter?’
Nagy shakes his head incredulously and the invective begins.
‘Why the hell did I take that job? It’s horrible, Mihan, it’s absolutely awful, everyone staring at you in that room, not knowing anyone and they all know you, God, it’s terrifying, standing up and giving our views when absolutely no one else shares them, I know they were laughing about me behind my back. And that man! Creator stay my hand, I’m going to do something bad to him if he makes one more Brenna joke! I mean, what difference does it make if I’m Brennan? What a racist! And the rest aren’t much better, specially the right-wingers – oh no, don’t even get me started on them. I need to calm down or I’ll really lose it.’
He sits down on Mihan’s bunk next to him and runs a tired hand through his hair. He looks exhausted.
‘What about Calvinus? Is he the racist you were talking about?’
‘Of course. No wonder so many people hate him. I mean, it’s true he’s made the city a lot richer than the last guy, but he’s corrupt as they come! And he’s in charge of about five million people’s lives! I wouldn’t trust him with his own life, let alone everyone else’s.’ He sighs. ‘Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Right – what would you have, money or the truth?’
‘The second one, of course. That’s what we’re all about, isn’t it?’
Nagy looks sadly at him.
‘Well, you see, that’s the whole problem…’ He whacks his fist into his hand. ‘Hell, listen to me! One day in there and I’m doubting everything I’ve ever stood for. I mustn’t let them get to me, I mustn’t weaken,’ he says fiercely.
‘Just believe, Nagy. It’ll be alright. Be who you really are, not who they force you to be. Then you’ll get a label as the honest one in a bunch of crooks – and that’s a good face for the Regime, honesty over power, uprightness over shady dealings behind closed doors, that kind of thing.’
Mihan’s amazed. Nagy, sharp-as-nails razor-wit Nagy, going to pieces over people who are nothing and no one? Where’s his faith gone?
‘Creator! Mihan, why can’t I think like you? You’re so clear, you know where you’re going and nothing gets in your way; it’s amazing.’
Mihan would laugh at that, if it wasn’t so upsetting. He smiles sadly.
‘Nagy, you’re the one who taught me how to be like that. It’s doubts, your problem. If you don’t think about them, they’ll go away. I only believe so strongly because the Regime’s just about the only thing I can trust, and even then, I sometimes wonder what I’m doing.’
Or do I? What am I doing?
What I want to do.
I could so easily have stayed at the Jerboa Gazette, not got involved with all this. I might even have been successful.
Mihan shakes his head. When he starts to think like that he just gets depressed. Nagy pats him on the shoulder encouragingly.
‘I think everyone does. It’s because it’s so hard. We believe, sure, but getting other people to is a different matter. You know. Anyway, I’ve got to go; thanks for the advice. See you at the meeting, where I’m sure I’ll be asked for a full report on today’s events.’

Mihan watches Nagy go. He looks down at his hands in his lap, wondering.
What am I really doing?
He doesn’t know if he’s meant to be here after all. This place, this building, these people, they've become his world. His beliefs, they’re his world too. He so desperately wants there to be something else out there apart from the cruelty of men, the ultimate hopelessness of life, something bigger than him. He almost knows it, when Ramir’s there and he’s talking about the Creator like He’s in the room with them but only Ramir can see Him. Mihan wants to see Him as well, and he never has, at least, not properly. That time with the Reconstructs, when the first one sat up and said ‘Ramir is the mouthpiece of the Creator,’ his heart did a great leap and he thought he saw a huge golden eye watching him over the desk, and love and appreciation was shining out of the eye and it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but when he looked again it was gone and he couldn’t remember what it looked like, all he remembered was the warmth.
Is the warmth enough to base my whole life on? To give everything I’ve got to the word of one man, human like me, fallible, mortal, flawed?
Ramir makes him wonder. Mihan knows he’s right, knows he’s the one. Ramir’s got the prescience, the big ideas, he’s the man with the mission. But Mihan has some serious doubts about the way they’re going to carry out their plan for Northbridge: the Reconstructs, for one. It sickens him sometimes, what they do to them. He knows they can’t feel it, he knows they’ll never feel anything ever again, he knows it’s for the best. Better they’re being useful than idle criminals – but still, to take their mind apart and put it together how you want, rather than how it is? Surely that’s over the line.
But who draws the line?
It’s technically perfect. No one likes criminals, the jails are getting too full, and if they can be turned into something so useful, so flawless, who could object? And even if they did, they know Reconstructs don’t object to the way they are; they’re programmed to release endorphins when they do a task right in the name of the Creator. Humans entirely without vice. What humanity could have been if there was no money, no power, no inequality, no materialism, no possession.
That’s the end result, Mihan. It’s the means you can’t accept. But you know the ideas.
Questioning = flaws
Freedom = weakness
Thought = wrongness
Individual = nothing, group = everything. We are just units in the master machine.
The Third Blueprint: The thoughts of an individual are simply thoughts/The thoughts of the group are an ideological force/One man cannot build an empire on his own.
He can’t wait long enough for it. It’s starting, the age of technology, the age where cleverness and diligence is far more valued than money or status, a meritocracy, classless, without prejudice, where anyone is your friend because they share your beliefs, and anyone who renounces those beliefs in favour of the bad old ways is not just your enemy, they’re everyone’s enemy. Why put yourself through that when it’s so much easier and nicer just to shut up and get on with it, and if you don’t like it, don’t think too hard about the whys and wherefores.
Soon everyone’s going to be like that. Not just us. Ramir will teach everyone.
Mihan’s afraid of Ramir. Been well-taught: obey or get punished. Of course, most of the time he’s jumping for the chance to obey, but when there’s something that makes him think what? he can’t be serious, the only way to get it over with and get it right, is to ignore your conscience and just do it completely out of context. It’s the context that messes with your head, so blot it out, or, if you really can’t, there is one other option.
But who would do that to themselves?
Volunteer for Reconstruction. Be eternally freed from ‘wrong thought’ and be rewarded in the next life, one of the Creator’s guard of honour, perfect unstoppable super-human. He knows what they go through. He's the one who does it to them, Creator’s sake. He imagines feeling what he program, nothing but a sort of fanatic love for one man; no emotions, nothing has any effect on you apart from what the transmitter tells you, and you obey unconditionally. No doubts, no questioning. No nothing.
Could you do that to yourself, Mihan?

Meeting time again. They’re all round the table, Nagy’s on his feet, telling them about the political issues of the day. Rufilla’s typewriter clicks mercilessly.
‘Labour rights came up. I gave our position as Pro reform, but no-one’s told me exactly what the reforms are going to be. I assume they’re for the better – well, they can’t get much worse, can they? I also said we were very involved with workers at the grassroots level, which didn’t go down too well with Security and the right wingers. What’s my direction? Aggravate them, show whose side we’re on, or suck up to them and, er, kick them when they’re down, as it were?’
‘Kick them now, they deserve it!’ Mihan blurts before he can stop himself. Ramir looks at him coldly and he freezes. He didn’t mean to say that.
‘Speaking out of turn shows unconsidered thought. Wrong thought, Unit Igrain. Don’t let it happen again. Repeat that, please, Nagy.’
‘Do I side with the right-wingers to get what we want, then dump them once we’ve got it? That would get us some useful rich contacts, but it’s a bit, erm, well, you know…’
‘Corrupt, perhaps?’ Vagus suggests archly.
‘Thank you, yes, that’s exactly what I meant. What should I do, Leader?’
Ramir frowns, as if it should be obvious: why are you even asking, you know our ideology don’t you? Do you need me to do everything for you?
‘Side with them, of course. We’re beating them from the inside out. It hurts much more that way, and it’s quicker. If we show our colours on the Chamber floor we’ll get ripped apart like all the other left-wingers. Let’s bide our time, wait for a few other blueprints to be realised. Speaking of which, Vagus, Nagy, there are a few things we need to discuss. I think you know what I refer to, but I trust no one else knows anything of this.’
‘Do you mean the poiso – nnff,’ Nagy starts to say and stops himself.
‘It’s time to tell you, units, something that may shock you. It shocks me too, that we have to stoop this low in order to rise to the dizzy heights of control – but there you have it, it’s a cruel world out there. We crush, or we get crushed.’
‘Tell us, Leader,’ says Einor. ‘If we truly believe, we’ve got to know.’
‘Quite so, Unit Lanegan. Very well, I’ll tell you. I have for some time been working on a nasty little blueprint with Unit Vagus, on how we might gain power. Once Unit Murat has enough support in the Assembly and he’s got us a favourable reputation that shines through everyone else's oil and mud, once we’ve got that, Unit Vagus is going to poison Calvinus.’
Mihan’s dismayed at that. Can they really do no better than a common crook, paying for the removal of people who get in the way of his schemes?
‘Why can’t we just beat him honourably in the elections?’ he asked. He sounds so innocent.
‘Because until he dies, there won’t be an election,’ Einor replies promptly.
‘And knowing him, he’s got it all planned out already, how he’s going to mess everyone else’s campaigns up from beyond the pale,’ Nagy adds, pulling a face. ‘Don’t you see? We need to force an election, once I’ve got my image right, and the only way we can do that is to make Calvinus be unable to rule any more.’
Mihan is embarrassed at his scant knowledge of the Northbridge political system. For Creator’s sake, he’s meant to be a core member of a new and thriving political party but he still doesn’t have a clue about how the whole thing works.
Why am I so bad at all of this? I try harder than anyone and I’m always the one who bungles things we’re all meant to be good at.
‘You’re all very quiet, units,’ says Ramir nastily. ‘Good; I assume that means there are no objections?’
‘Why would we object? We want to get rid of him, don’t we?’ says Nagy. ‘I mean, after today, I’m all for any scheme that gets rid of him.’
‘How are you going to do that, Vagus? I swear he’s untouchable or something; don’t you read the papers? He’s survived more assassination attempts than Neel Merion, and that includes all the slow poisons which you can’t see or smell or taste,’ Cephall says, dismayed. ‘It was in the Science Institute journals, how he must have a superhuman immune structure and they wish he’d donate his body to them once he dies.’
‘Well, it’s funny you should mention the Institute, actually,’ says Ramir, ‘because I’ve been doing some research and I know exactly who we are going to frame for doing this: a Dr Larken, who’s quite high-up in the Institute.’
‘Cause he’s mad as a hatter?’
‘Because, Cephall, he’s the expert on obscure and subtle poisons and logically, he’s the most likely culprit. Everyone knows he hates Calvinus after that ban on importing toxic substances.’
Mihan sees the opportunity to make a sharp political comment. He’ll show them he understands just as well as they do, he’s not some stupid novice.
‘His whole empire runs on drugs, and he banned toxics?’
Lead balloon. Einor shakes his head wearily, rolls his eyes behind their glasses.
‘Yes, Mihan, so the Northbridge drug dealers could have the whole market, instead of cheap foreign muck being imported from Brenna – sorry, Nagy, no offence. Honestly, don’t you ever think these things through?’
‘I thought he’d banned local toxin suppliers as well, actually – ’
Einor actually laughs at that. Ramir puts his foot down.
‘Alright, that’s quota. This arguing is unproductive, units, I make the decisions around here. Never mind the process for now, Unit Vagus and I will engineer that. But this is the overall blueprint: Vagus is going to use a slow poison; probably mercury, since it’s intravenous and unless they cut him open they’ll never find it. You, Unit Murat, will recognise the symptoms when he starts feeling them, and you will run forward to help him, thereby showing your loyalty. Stay with him when he’s down, make yourself indispensable. He’ll begin to trust you. As he deteriorates, and if you keep at it long and hard enough, he’ll think you actually are indispensable. Make him depend on you, humour his delusions; tell him about our plans for improving output in factories, building new public facilities – but Creator’s sake, nothing about the Master Blueprint. Agree with everything he says. If in a lucid interval he twigs that it’s a poison, which he will – he’s not stupid – then this is what you do.’
Ramir pauses, leans forward a bit. The room is dead quiet. Even Rufilla’s not typing this bit down in case someone else reads it and turns them in.
‘You tell him you’ll investigate; even mix some, er, cures for him. You were a student of chemistry for a while, were you not?’
‘I was.’
‘Well, use a bit of technical jargon to show whose side you’re on. If people start to suspect you, tell them you’re doing all you can, you were only an apprentice after all so you’re really out of your depth, keep telling people that it must have been an expert who did it because the poison’s very complex. They’ll automatically think of Larken: high profile expert on poisons with a long-held grudge against Calvinus. That’s the first place they’ll look, and that’s where Unit Vagus will plant his research, disguised as Larken’s own work. He gets arrested, no one can prove it wasn’t him because he’s absolutely mental and he’s known for memory loss. Calvinus dies, Nagy, with you in his favour – if we’ve engineered it correctly, you might even be named in the Testimonial as his successor; in which case, you will rule the city, with our help, and the Master Blueprint will become a reality. I know it’s disappointing to stoop this low, but to climb we must fall first, so we know what we can endure.’
The moment hangs in the air. No one knows quite what to say; it’s a bold blueprint, a brilliant blueprint, it’s the way forward. They can see it now, Calvinus on his deathbed in a candlelit room with Nagy there at his side, Calvinus gasping with his last breath that he names Nagy as his successor, the arrest of Larken, the trial, the funeral – and then, at last, at last they would have the city. It could take years, or it could all be over in weeks. Who knows with Calvinus?