Download first five chapters - John Trevillian

John Trevillian is an author, songwriter and artist, living inthe United Kingdom. Creator of the Talliston interiordesign project, his novels include the A-Men trilogy, plusShadowmagick, a collection of poetry, songs, travel journals,short stories and other miscellaneous writing. The A-Men ishis first novel.www.trevillian.com

Copyright © 2010 John TrevillianThe moral right of the author has been asserted.Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and PatentsAct 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, inany form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of thepublishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance withthe terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiriesconcerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.Matador5 Weir RoadKibworth BeauchampLeicester LE8 0LQ, UKTel: (+44) 116 279 2299Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277Email: books@troubador.co.ukWeb: www.troubador.co.uk/matadorISBN 9781848763432British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.Typeset in 11pt Bembo by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UKMatador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

MGJCFor without you, there would be no me

1 DäalessandroHere under a ring of water in this sealed chamber deep beneath theconcrete foundations of the Phoenix Tower lies the rig. The rig that isthe hostgod. The hostgod that is the Amen. Viewed from observationcontrol, its one hundred and one Amtech generators form a giantmetallic henge, while the thirteen saucer-shaped discs of the mind-panremind of submariner craft. Everything is strung with a chaotic riggingof cables and conduits. Its vast, concentric lake of cerebrospinal fluidand desalinated water appears bottomless, uncharted. Its metal stepsdisappearing into the dark liquid; the entrances to infinity. Wires strangleevery centimetre of the encrusted girders, each rivet a precise hexagonallimpet fastened upon the edge of the wide unmoving sea. Above thecentral platform hang three many-faceted tanks, girthed by gangwaysthat link and border its immense circumference. And every centimetreof the part-submerged cathedral is dappled with reflected movement.And at the heart of this one hundred and fifty metre ocean liesthe whale brain. Encased in the remains of its skull and bulbous headsection, cocooned in more cables, its eyes are tiny mirrors of theentire machine. Circles within circles.When the balaenoptera musculus was taken from the SûrabianOcean it was but a calf, yet it was required that we grow it to maturitybefore operating. The blue whale’s cerebrum is the only living animacapable of acting as the central conduit for true sentience. Workingwith the K/OS system, it forms the living nucleus that stores andprocesses the data required to run the simulation and is the only medullaoblongata large enough to cope with the immense strain of transference.

2 | THE A-MENThough it has been many years since light and cell structures replacedelectricity and silicon, the final leap to implicit autonomy tookcomputer science in a completely new direction. To run the X-Isle,this rig is the smallest possible construction. To run an entire ectosystemwould require a machine twenty times the size and the brain of amammal that does not, and has not, existed on this planet. Not eventhe largest recorded dinosaurs ever approached the size of a blue whale.There’s a ripple of activity on the main console, snapping meback from my meditations. Someone’s at the freight lift on one.“Dr Glass?”A female voice spikes from the com; my pretty head psychist fromthe rec unit. Signing in for day of project four-thousand seven-hundredand twenty.“Yes, I saw it, Jana. Ready for authorisation?”“Jana Elizabeth Morgan.”The console blips green.“That’s an A-OK. Close-circuit all power, then charge hydraulics.”“On it. Rycharde’s here, and Baseeq’s just finishing up.”“Showering again? How wash-compulsive. Still, no immediaterush. Today’s mostly going to be orientation.”“Have you heard from Lloyd?”“I faked Thomas’ exitstamp at New Jeda International toll aroundoh-six-hundred. As far as Exxo central is concerned, our rookie isalready on the shuttle westside.”“Clever, but still risky. There are always erase traces.”“And in this case the trace is the opening and closing of an elevatordoor in an abandoned corporate building. It’s a blip. A malfunction.An aberration of a complex system.”“And, in my opinion, that’s one aberration too many.”“Ah, Jana, even after five months you still do not fail to amuseme.”“Rycharde Everley Tasker.”The new voice is male, the second member of my sub rosa teamlured by treble salary, over-generous stock options and the wondrous

THE A-MEN | 3notion that our accomplishments are revolutionary; world-changing.A second blip.“That’s A-OK, Rycharde. Good morning.”Silence, then Jana again.“Rycharde says hi. We’ll be at controls in ten.”“Perfect.” I lean forward and start the day’s protocols, immediatelysparking the console into life. Lazily I scan for anomalies, yet onlyone subroutine is of especial interest. “Ah, speak of the devil…”“Dr Glass, Lloyd has just entered the freight cage.”“Yes, Jana. I saw that too. I’m on my way. You and Rychardefinish up in rec and we’ll rendezvous in the lab.”Standing, I exit observation control and step out into the rig. Theten-million-litres of liquid muffles my footsteps as I stride across thehighest gantry. The freight elevator stands between the rec hatch andthe laboratory, a short stroll around the metal walkway. After thedimness of my unit the sparkles of light that play across the waterdazzle me, yet that is as if nothing compared to the brilliance of theAmen.The project upon which we are working is a personal one, a secretone, its itinerary locked here with us in the subterranean vaults of thiscorporate skyblock. The Phoenix Tower stands at the source of 13thStreet, in the financial cornerpost that is everything north of the Circle,its one hundred and thirty floors the third tallest freestanding inhabitablestructure in the whole seaboard. Once world headquarters of the Glass-Suko corporation here is the testament in concrete and steel mesh ofmy father’s achievement. And perhaps in time, of mine. For while heonce sat in the luxurious faux-marble floored offices on the 129thfloor, I and my select team are now entombed and unseen in thedungeons beneath. Here we busy ourselves with my own stab atgreatness, even if my dear beloved father remains blind to my work’sfull potential.Ahead and just to the right, there is a faint chug-clunk and theelevator door grinds opens. Behind the sliding concertina stands adark-suited man, his jet black hair at odds with the symmetrical

4 | THE A-MENopenness of his young features. He looks Celto-European, possiblyXian-mixed bloodline. He also looks scared out of his skin.Unfortunately, this is not in any way improved by the suddenklaxon fanfare that greets his arrival.I roll my eyes at the newcomer, attempting some kind of signalthat all is well.“Terminate malware,” I say, inaudible amidst the alarms. Then overthe dying horns, I shout, “Don’t fret. It’s just intrusion detection.Please, state your tri-name.”“Thomas Bryce Lloyd.”“System verify,” I say to the air around me. “All-replace ThomasBryce Lloyd for Ryan Reece Jarrett. Immediate effect.”There’s a moment’s recalibration and then the malware falls silent.Just as Thomas’ fear looks set to overcome him.Poor, poor bastard.I extend my hand.“I am Nathaniel Raymond Glass, team lead and replicator. Welcome,”I indicate the immensity of the rig before us, “to project X-Isle.”

6 | THE A-MENTwelve-Twenty, her mind’s already wandering back to her time spenthere. Her mind under her newly teased, tousled and tweaked hairthat makes this mirror-floored conservatory the most successfulcolour hairdressing salon in the city.Pause and note the USP here, lover. The word ‘colour’. If it wasjust ‘most successful hairdressers’ we’d be fifty-third. But it’s that littleword that does it. That makes us number one. Shit knows what colourhairdressing is. But it’s the USP that matters and all the differentialwe need to be the best.And the bitches love it.We have hundreds of clients just like ms one-fifteen. Hundredsof them. Over twenty five each shift. Of course, this means only onething. On any single day, somebody’s always got PMS. My currentclient’s only memorable feature is her dress. The way it bulges. Actuallythis witch is so padded it looks like someone’s forced a waterbeddown the front of a frock and belted it. In comparison Lucille’s lookslike a fucking exhibit. Her whipped moccachino curls are every colourof an inner city elementary school. And we’re not talking the brickshere, you understand what I’m saying? She exudes concealer as if it’ssap. Bubbling in the heat of the weird autumn weather. Tiered banksof driers do nothing but fight with the air conditioning, forcing thetemperature to swing ten degrees in as many seconds. Plants gasp forcarbon dioxide overhead, while the blinds try to dissuade the fiercesunlight from burning everything it touches to ash. Also overhead theradio blares. Some unknowable junk. Could be KKIZ. Could beCentral 4-50. Could be someone reciting the phone book for all Icare.“There’s a black, black star in a white universe, you can see it if you dare.In the midst of all that brilliance, in the distance. See it? There! And theywant this mote to vanish, to banish its intensity. The little, lonely blemish. Butthat black, black star is me.”Just the usual romantic bollocks.Lucille’s has been in since twelve-ten. Adding personality to lastweek’s failing wire frame extensions. No way that shape is anything

THE A-MEN | 7but underpinned. Not in this gravity. Lucille herself is just applyingthe finishing spray. Piling it on. Hand pumped dispenser looking teenyin her mammoth hands. It’s a pity. The rest of the surgery’s beenpretty successful so far, but there’s always the hands and neck.Me and Lucille are going to be stars. Straight to the top. I goaqua-boxing on Mondays, trim and tone before work on Tuesdays,Shotokan karate on Wednesdays, circuit before work on Thursdaysand progressive dance on Friday. That leaves Tuesday and Thursdayevenings for am dram. And the weekend for getting laid. We singtoo. And I also do men. More clients. Mainly as a sideline to payfor all those bloody courses. And all the A’s I’ve been popping.Supposed to be studying Astrogations. To keep the parents happy.Spend more time on my knees. Anyhow the lectures mess with mynight job. Still I need the cash. Lucille says you can’t knock havingmoney and I agree. Of course money can’t buy you love, but therest is pretty much negotiable.“And I can plan faerie tales in the empire city. I can build a web ofwonders in one home. Fix picnics at volcanoes, conjure marvels in the dark,but I just can’t spend another night alone.”I cringe at the thought that I’ll be here in another year. I have toget out. That’s what makes it such a big day. This evening’s the tryoutfor Che Castella. Some new action horror flick. He needs a sidekickfor a major major star. My money’s on Cutie Kuzushi. Lucille thinksit’s Vadge Tears. We could both be wrong. But only one of us could beright. Of course I worship street trash turned superstar, Babs O’Neill.Only woman in the world to have ever made the front cover of Eternitymagazine twice. She’s a real benchmark. And no one, but no one’s gotbetter boobs than Babs.“And what I want is still a dream and what I want is just a prayer –a snatched glance, a stolen touch – and the end seems so soon. There is nothis. There is no us. Just a black, black star in a white universe.”One-fifteen is done and I get rid of her quick. Swipe her card.Stuff her in her furs and hold open the door. She doesn’t tip, so I letit go just as the cow’s halfway through. Just so it catches the back of

8 | THE A-MENher chopstick heeled strap-ons. Watch through the glass as she staggersforwards and almost into the street.Eat that, ms name probably starts with an ‘S’.Turn and see my two o’clock easing her withered frame intothe still-warm swivel seat. This one looks like some vampire’s beenfeeding on her about a month already. Last few drops to suck outand she’s undead for sure. Still blaring, the radio switches to newson the twos. Terminally ill cancer grandmother raped in hospitaltoilet. Twenty-five kilometre tailback on northbound Outerstate. Exxomacrocorp announcing tonight’s curfew is just a precaution. Soundbiteof fat cat repeatedly lying that when Exxo leave NJC for the brightlights of near-space there will be some loss of infrastructure, but notto panic. Assure that there won’t be blood on the streets. There won’tbe riots. Blah blah and more bloody blah. Everyone ignores it. If wewanted out, we’d be on the starship and headed for Venus already.We’re not sipping daiquiris in corporate club class. We’re left behind.Big deal. Anyhow to these bitches their reflections are far moreimportant.With a raised eyebrow as the only warning, ms vamp victim says,“I’s fifty-five, y’know.”“Really,” I reply through my semi-permanent blonde ringlets,“you don’t look it. Look younger.”Yeah, like ten fucking minutes younger.My two-o’clock wriggles, flattered. And as she smiles I get stuckin. Reach for the slim blue bottle that marketing men the world overhave decided should look like an alien’s penis.“What is that?” asks two-o’clock prissily.“Ah, madame,” answers Lucille as she sashays past bound for thetransaction booth, “That’s liquid dynamite. It’s an active balancingcomplex, containing menthol, satinol and agave for fresh yetconditioned hair and scalp.”“Yeah,” I add. Nodding and chewing.“Faw’sure,” the bitch relents, clutching one prune-like hand toher crumpled breast.

THE A-MEN | 9Squeezing the tube I slap it on, thinking, God, if I don’t make itto the final ten this afternoon and have to come back here tomorrow,they’ll be mopping these bitch’s brains from the pine cladding.Faw’sure.

3 23rdxenturyboyWay back when I met Elliott, I wasn’t really sure if he was a mandogor a dog-man. So I ask’t him.“Elliott, is you a dog-man or a man-dog.” See.And Elliott said: “A little bit of both.”Bei’n a little bit of both, Elliott has an irregular structure to hismouth. S’like have’n a cleft palate. Like I do. Alsa, his vocal chordsand the shape of his lips is all wrong, so he has trouble pronouncingall the letters in the alphabet. Like I do. Got difficulties ’cept withnasal sounds. But I understand him ’n all. Mosta the time I don’t hearnoth’n wrong. Not a thing. He was way bad. But he’s get’n better.Unlike me.Still, though Elliott can say a whole lot, it’s always good to learna little doggish. This is more about think’n like a dog than bark’n orsaying woof a lot. You have to watch their eyes and mouths and bodiesand ears and tails. Growl bark means I’m gonna play with you. Barkgrowl means I’m gonna bite your face off. Then there’s gruff, ruffand arff. Them’s the difference between whassat, come here and wayhey!Stuff like that’s pretty important when you work with pooches.Especially gene-freaked lab mutts like Elliott, Zark and his pack.Actually Elliott’s been mess’t up pretty bad, but I guess life’s toughwhen you’ve been grown in a vat. It’s not that he minds or noth’n…Well, OK, so I guess he does mind, but that’s not really what I’m get’nat. What I’m get’n at is him’s not have’n access to a veeteevee.Veeteevee’s cool. Way cool. Cooler than the fridge that he spent mostof years one thru five stuff’t in. Veeteevee has over four thousand

THE A-MEN | 11channels and if you press the intra remote fast enough you can goepileptic. Well, for about three seconds. Then your hands slip and youspaz out. Or paws in his case. I had a veeteevee for about six monthsback when I was younger sometime, but that was only because theslummers had one in the dorm I was slave’n in and I learn’t how toslip my manacles. The boss duke always use’t to be out fight nightand that’s when I first got hook’t on Phantom the Wonder Dog. He’sElliott’s hero. He’s who he wants to be. The real Phantom has theserocket skates with little wings on ’em and he beats up bad peopleand smiles a lot. I likes Phantom too. He’s ace. The Wonder Dog’s ina comic book as well, but it’s not the same. Hector says that beforethey disappear’t comics were the kiddie fables of the last generation.If that’s true then veeteevee shows is the ones for this.When I got caught with the veeteevee they box’t me for a monthstraight. Personally didn’t see what all the fuss was about. After all,that’s what they fed me for. Break’n in. Break’n out. Duck’n anddive’n. Dodge’n and weave’n. So what can they expect? From thenon things were tougher. I was cold turk’t. I was bolt’t. And now I’mon perimeter.Haven’t seen hide nor hair of a veeteevee from that day to this.No way, no sir. Have miss’t every episode of the Wonder Dog since.By my reckon’n that’s about eighty-six. At an hour a piece, I’m sofar behind I may never live long enough to ever catch up. Unlessthey gets a repeat slot on Channel Retrox. Instead I read the comics.Phantom when I can, others when I can’t. Way-strange shit mostly.My Spastic Friend, Johnny. Captain Cotdeath. That sorta pook. WhenI’m done read’n ’em so hard the ink’s about three microns thinner,I hands ’em to Elliott.The Roosevelt Zoological Dome is big, way old and in the sunlightit shines like a rainbow bent into the shape of a big hollow eye. It’salsa home for me and the mutts right now. Takes about a week togo all the way around. Well, OK, so maybe not a whole week. Maybejust a couple of hours, but it’s a long way all the same. Stands betweenOakcrest and City Park. Just off the Carrolton Approach.

12 | THE A-MENShuffle, shuffle, sniff.Spend the hours look’n for breaks and breaches and anyth’n Ididn’t see the other nine hundred and ninety-nine times I’ve beat’tthis way.I’m plumb wore out. If only I had some wheels. Like a little bikeor a scooter or someth’n.Long whiles ago the RuZu use’t to be a big zoo and game park.It’s on the edge of the city. Not far from Forevermore. That’s thetheme park not the stupid story. Anyway the park’s near the bay. Thezoo’s inland aways. In exurbia. Can still make out the water they say,but only if you get to the top of the Spire of Life. Not that I’m evergonna get up there. Elliott use’t to live in the convert’t Aqua Park.Pools resurface’t and link’t with the hydrology system, so that’s wherethey grow the new recruits. He’s part wolf, you know. Mostly thehead part. The rest of him’s sorta human. Hairy but human. Mixtureof yellowy-brown with grey ’round the edges. Scruffy. Murder tokeep unmatted. But that’s him!This place was close’t down ages ago and I don’t think what theyuse it for now is strictly legal. Hence the good reason for keep’npeople away. They say they have a government contract, but Xerosays that’s so much shit. How he knows, I can’t really say, but he does.Now I live near the cages over in Wonders of Nature. Well, I sayme, but there’s lots of us. Well, me – Benjamin or Little Ben or Benjie– and lots of them. There’s Xero. Xero’s a mongrel. Bad breed. He’salsa crazy. Not full blown batshit crazy like Zark, but still pretty wayout on the wonky limb of the wongo tree. There’s alsa my otherperimeter pal, Hector. And then there’s Elliott. My best mutt buddy.Elliott. That’s all there is. Seems a little short, don’t it? Not like Phantomthe Wonder Dog.The other mutts call him Dingo.While I’m just a street brat brought in to shovel dog crap, Elliott’scode-name’t Anima-626a which is really cool. He has this tattoo’t onthe back of his left paw. It’s like he’s a secret agent. Would be evenbetter if the other dog thiefs didn’t all have these too. If only Dingo

THE A-MEN | 13was a secret agent we could blow this pile and zip outta here. Outtahere. That sounds cool. No more drills and thumps and no moreperimeter patrols.Same old, same old.Today the perimeter looks as it has always done.Except I guess for about a hundred titchy dots that hang in thebig blue sky like little black flies.

4 Sister MidnightI can feel the oncoming war like a great weight in my gut. It isinevitable. I pray to the holy mother of God asking all her mercyupon the world, but she just smiles her benign smile. And then Iknow that the war is coming. It is dark and it is mysterious, dark likestigmatic blood, mysterious like a stranger. Like the stranger who sitsbeside my bunk, wired into his terminal. When he’s not sitting heskulks, and he smiles as he skulks. A grinning smile that is notaltogether pleasant.Still the war, the riots and the carnage that will follow give mea feeling of great purpose. It is like a first jihad, especially for me. Ineed it, badly. Recently my faith has been worn tissue-thin and Ihave feared that if forced to test the gossamer surface too strongly itwould tear asunder. The rest of the world has forgotten the fervourof the rites, the last feast and the wounded side. But I still carry thebook and the memories, held tight to my breast, like a mother carriesa child. And I will not toss it aside like the rest. What would take itsplace but hollowness? It is easy to discard all that displeases us – jobs,lovers, God – yet more difficult to rejuvenate and reinvent.The dark green of the hatch shivers before me and I tense. Hiddenchains spasm, screaming. I heft the ultra-light belt-fed semi-automaticin my hands, balance its weight with my pack and helm. Keep mytacticals steady, just off-centre in my right eye. At the moment only thistiny chamber shows hotly on the v-rad. Yet this will not last for long.With an agonising grinding of metal on metal the door screeches.Breaking in two, the ever-widening jaws vanish above and below me.

THE A-MEN | 15Ahead is the emptiness of a rusted hall. Two exits; one left, one right,both way off at the far end. Oil drums crowd the corners. Shadowstwitch in the light from my shoulder-mounted torch. My black handstighten on the polygrips while my brown eyes scan the scene.Nothing. When the screaming ends, there is silence like a tomb.Like the silence of the stranger who sits beside my bunk.I start running as if by doing so I will never stop. The lo-gravitymakes movement easier, makes stopping difficult. I twist toward therighthand path and spring off the grime-encrusted metal. Land uponthe intersection wall and reconfigure my XYZ-coordinates. Now thewall is the floor, the corridor a long hall. To the right, emerging fromanother hatch, is Sanada. Edwardo Alexander Mohammed Sanada.One of the E-Unit newbies. Good frontman, but lousy in the maze.Bleating shells, I hit him seventeen times in the head andbreastplate. Spinning, he goes down. falling backwards into the darkwell of the hatch. The jaws of his coffin biting as they swallow him.One down. Now where’s the flag this time?Heads-up shouts possibilities. Follow my intuition instead.Leaping I come to the end of the long hall and twist onto theroof. Reconfigure again, then head left. Ceiling strips pulse beneathmy boots. I find I’m panting, gulping air. Check my oxygen flow, allthe while running. Seeking. Scanning for hidden foes.Go easy, my mind tells me. Concentration is the first brick in thewall of the strong. Concentrate. Breathe. Don’t think about thestranger. Think about your mission. Kill the creeps. Take the flag.Return to the hatch.Simple.And elementary as this half-baked jingo training course may be– as numerous as the times I have navigated the steel bowels of thisrotting labyrinth educating those neophyte newcomers swelling theranks of Emergency Unit Six in preparation for the inevitable – Iam still shocked at the appearance of the a-droids. Six pop up as Itrip their sensor-packed threshold. My body is here, but my mind iselsewhere.

16 | THE A-MENAve maria, they’ve modified this sector. But I should haveanticipated that and presumed nothing.In cases such as these instinct takes over. And in my case instinctis what I live on. That and whatever the good Lord sends.Dropping to one knee, I feed the belt and spray two hundredrounds in a wide arc. Casings erupting against my flak vest, dancingupon the many pocketed plating like jumping beans. The a-droidsdance too, flapping like marionettes. Then each one disappears backwhence it came.And I carry on.Ignoring as I make for the inner door that leads to combat hallseven-g the flashing counter on my tacticals. Ignoring RIN as itannounces that all but two of those a-droids was a friendly. That Iwill now have to score maximum points to reach my fulfilmentquotient. That my chances for success are eighty-six per cent unlikely.As the Lord God Eternal is my witness, that’s fine.This black mutha is ever up for a challenge.

5 The NowheremanThis is about how it started.I guess it started with the darkness. A nocturne permeated withgreat droplets of blackness that fill me like an ocean of water. S’likeI’m dreaming the dreams of the dead, but I sense that I am awake.I can’t move or see, can’t even breathe, but I’m not asleep. It’s likebeing deep underwater and you daren’t open your mouth or you’lldrown. And then there’s the drilling. The sensation of my headvibrating.I panic. Try to thrash. Just makes the panic worse.Then I feel it.Feel the something in my head.There’s something in my head. Moving around. Filling it totally. Abig spider. Crawling. Touching. Feeding.Feel woozy. Like I’ve been drinking or on drugs.Am I dead? I remember a brightness. A flash. The smell of burningair. A black metal tunnel as large as my left eye. It’s like my firstmemory ever. Like it happened to me when I was three. Primal, fuzzyand very long ago.The spider is feeding still. Engorged, it presses upon the insideof my skull.I can’t even breathe.There’s sudden light in my eye. Then a sting in my neck.I dimly think that I’ve been bitten. Dimly think I have lost allmy dreams. Think I’ve dropped them. Dropped them through mytrembling fingers.

18 | THE A-MENMy mind is emptying. The brain at birth. Tabula rasa. Truerenascence.Then I don’t think anything.*I wake to find her standing there. Praying. An ebony rose. Naked.She’s standing at the window, framed by sunlight. Moonlight? Well,light anyway. Unfolding to some unseen morning.Where am I?Who am I?The porthole is rimmed with gold, as is her face. Her strong darkface. As are her eyes. But outside the sky is black as pitch. My eyelidssting. They water and itch. And still all I can do is force them opento look again.The rose woman is wet. Like she’s just stepped inside after a lightsummer shower. Her thorns, the barbs of her breasts, are erect. Full andhard and young. They stand as she stands, gazing through that tiny circleof transparency in the immense wall of grubby green metal. Her fleshis kidskin, glistening. Rounded and vast and brown as bark. Herbackbone arcs, revealing the feral power of her shoulders, but she iscrying. The tears falling unnoticed onto the slickness of her breast. Herhead is shaven. Only the merest hint of ebony flecks show, yet thisaccentuates her savagery. Her animalness. At her side her hands clenchand unclench like great black birds. Faint sounds escape her tinglinglips. And even though her stance betrays nothing of it, I sense that sheis praying.Then I hear it.“Today, O Lord, make me brave enough to face the things ofwhich I am afraid…”Yes, she’s praying alright. Praying to some unseen divinity outsidethe window. This strikes me as strange. Never met anyone who praysto God. Thought all that mumbo jumbo died out years ago. Didn’tsomeone prove He was an urban myth?

THE A-MEN | 19“And help me to live in purity, speak in truth, act in love. Grantme the strength to be true in every hour of my adventure: Amen.”It is then that I notice she’s wounded.Between blinks of pain I see it. The gash. It sits upon her rightside, the weeping tear dribbling blood like a tiny fountain. I can’tquite make myself focus on it for too long. My eyes are still achingand tired. My head hurts. Hurts as if someone had opened it up andquietly slipped in a bowling ball. Like my brain is cramped right upto the front of my skull, while behind it the size 12 sits, just being.There’s something around my head. Hot. Not burning, just hot.I try to lift my fingers up, but my hand never seems to reach it.I twist where I lay and find that it’s a bunk. Green sheets andmetal ends. Hung with a huge mesh netting. Each link shaped likea piece of exploded vertebrae. Its surface shimmers above me, whileabove that gantries cross. Making their own kind of weird mesh.I am in a hulking cave. A metallic cave. A vast hulking metalliccave. Filled with bunks and low lights. One above each. Some areon. Most are not. Place looks haunted. And of course it is.It is haunted by me and the black woman. She is like the firstwoman I have ever seen. But however perfect a solution this wouldbe, however apt, I know that she is not.Am I dreaming this? Hallucinating?Finally feeling my gaze, she turns. One leg lifting, so as to protecther wound I guess. And in that move I see her power and also hersleekness. Her otherworldly beauty. That impossible forged quality ofher body, her skin. Yet also I see the other liquid, this one of desire.She whitely bleeds it, dripping from the dark gash between hermuscled thighs. And here I see that her real wound is not the reasonshe cries. The cum is the reason. Or perhaps the reason lies throughthe window I can’t be sure. My mind’s too inchoate to hold any onethought for very long.I am shocked though. Appalled. Hurt for her hurt. Still, here forthe first time I feel connected with the woman. We are both victims,her and I. I’m a victim of some terrible violation of my mind. She,

20 | THE A-MENa violation of her body. Am I imagining all this? Am I tripping? Mad?The huntress’ eyes meet mine, reading every thought.“Hello, Jack,” she whispers.Unlike every other centimetre, her voice is like crushed ice, butshe’s giving me a look that makes me shiver and squirm.Who’s she? Who’s Jack? Where’s here?These thoughts make my head hurt again. Involuntarily I let outa little whine and reach for her.Seeing me seeing her – seeing me reaching – she turns away.Embarrassed? Disoriented? Shivering too perhaps. Perhaps not. It’shard to tell.Uncaring for her nakedness, she gives the darkness beyond theporthole one last longing look, then sits upon the next bunk. Sitsand pulls around her shoulders a grey robe. Then she starts to tendher wound, to towel herself dry.And all the time I can see displayed between her legs the thickwhite stain.What is happening here? What is going on?The vision forces me to focus on myself again. And it is then, forthe first time, that I realise that my mind is blank. Like an unwrittenpage. Aching and cold and empty. This unfamiliar cavern into whichI have woken is not new because I have never been here. It is newbecause everything is new. Virgin territory. It’s not that I have norecollection of falling asleep here. Or no recollection of wakingyesterday. I have no recollection of ever waking anywhere.Of waking ever.I get angry.The anger is an instant thing. Inexplicable. Raw. A sudden wellinglike a flood. Gripping me in a moment and wrenching me to action.But I can’t. I’m restrained. My hands and feet are strapped to thebunk.“It’s for your own safety,” sneers the black woman, still towelling.“And, of course, ours.”Now I can see that she’s not blushing or confused. Now I can

THE A-MEN | 21see that she’s seething with fury. Every sinew of her body knotted inhatred, yet she finds within herself some shred of restraint. Some wayto turn the other cheek.I try to talk. To articulate the pain and utter terror I feel, but thewords are not there. Just hazy clouds that might be words if only Icould see through their iridescent fog. Inside I can make out what Ibelieve to be letters. But alphabets and syllables and past imperativesare beyond me. Can I even remember what my voice sounds like?Its speed? The music of its intonation? No, I cannot. Robbed ofcommunication, I try to concentrate on non-verbal skills, but I don’tremember the rules. I can’t recall how to interact. And it occurs tome then that I was not asleep before, but unconscious. Dead to theworld. And now I have risen as a newly born infant in the body ofa man. Reincarnated in this god-awful place.A thousand questions scream at me to be answered, but I amunable to even curse. It’s maddening. And the madness only fuels myinfuriation.I struggle, ripping at the restraints. They gnaw at my skin, butotherwise hold fast. Hold me fast.The woman shakes her head a little as I writhe, but apart fromthis, does nothing. Nothing except drying the water from her legsand arms. The tears from her eyes. And once she is done, she tendsher pain.Now that she has moved, I can see that the gash is just a fleshwound. All around it is the dark flower of a bruise. By the skin’swithered paleness, my guess is that it’s from an impact. Skin’s brokenagainst some force. Like the pounding of a hard object. She may haveto get her ribs checked out, but it’s nothing serious. And she knowsthis. Just the way she swabs it tells me so.My eyes flutter as I watch her. Trying to get a grip on the simplethings. Everything else can go hang ten. For now I let my anger burnout. Grunt and look despairingly at the straps. Try to punch her intounderstanding what I want. She gets it immediately.“Uh-uh, Jack.” She uses the name like a scalpel. “Don’t go asking

22 | THE A-MENme to release you. Doctor’s orders.” When I spasm my insistence, sheloses her cool, shrieking, “Back off, you crazy bastard! After whatyou’ve done tonight it’s a wonder you’re not lying in the latrinepissing blood through a hole in your throat.” Then she catches herself.Forces the fire inside. “Just back off. Why can’t you lie there and becool. You can do that for Esther now, can’t you?”Esther? The name means shit nothing to me. Running it throughmy head turns up nada. Esther. Esther. Esther. Yet that also brings upthe nagging problem that Jack means shit nothing either.Beside me, Esther finishes tending her wound by spraying somekind of foul-smelling gunk on it. And when this forms an idioticallybrightpale pink crust against her chestnut skin, she draws her robearound her and belts it. Then, and only then, does she pull the towel’sroughness between her legs. Wiping away the residual cum with threejerking tugs. And all the while she does this her face is a mask ofhate. A mask that is turned to me. Scalding me with its boiling sting.The muscles on her face knotted. The rest of her body tense.There is a distant clanging. Like a bolt cutter dropped into anempty drum. Then echoes resound in the cavern over our heads.Someone – no, two someones – are walking above us. Their bootsstriking some unseen meshed metal walkway. Drumming it. All elseis quiet while they cross the eternal darkness above us. Their departurepunctuated by another distant clang. Then silence resumes. Vast,imperious silence.Esther stands and busies herself doing something at the far endof the bed. Can’t see what it is. She seems to have relaxed a little.Resigned herself to whatever it is that has incensed her. In a momentof complete uncentredness, I wonder who did that to her. And wasit the same bastard who hit her too? But those kind of questions areso far beyond where I am right now that I trash them as soon asthey swim to the surface of my muddled mind. Can’t major on her.Got to focus on myself. Where I am. What I am. Where I came fromand where I’m going. Try to keep myself from getting frustrated. Tryto get my thoughts out of slow motion mode and up to speed. The

THE A-MEN | 23dreaming moment of waking in this place is beginning to fade, butwith it also fades all sense of security. Of ease.So if I can’t talk, what can I do?I still feel sluggish. Both mind and body. I feel drained of the willto face this right now. About all I can do is watch. So I watch. Iwatch the woman who calls herself Esther – and who calls me Jack– as she continues to prepare for some unknown event.Pulling my neck back, I try to ignore the contraption that sitson my head and look toward her. The hat, crown or whatever it ismakes this difficult, but I persevere. And as I do, I see her digging ina large metal chest that stands at the foot of her bed. Of every bedin this huge dorm. Out of it she pulls a variety of clothes and objects,piling them beside her on the floor. I see boots. I see khaki pants. Isee a belt wrapped with tiny leather pouches.Then she pulls out a sword.Though I have no recollection of arriving here – or of leavinganywhere else to come – I know that I have not seen a blade of thistype since I was a child. It is a great thick length of steel. Polished.Its hilt etched in silver. Wrapped in coarse vermillion leather. It hasno scabbard, just a harness that fits across the top and bottom of theblade. A thing of beauty and death, it suits her. It is a treasuredpossession, that much is clear. Just by the loving way her long fingerstouch it. Seems strange for a lump of metal. Perhaps it’s a familyheirloom. Perhaps it is the last thing she owns that links her back toher past. Perhaps–The sword… The sword and the… The sword and the ring. The crossand the circle. The weapon of the warrior. The weapon of the wizard.The sight of the sword has given me a hook. A jagged little barbthat snares a single droplet of memory from the fathomless deeps. Itbobs up and down for a while, unsure if the air will kill it, thensurfaces fully.It is not a memory that I would have expected.I am seated in a room without doors. A panelled room. Somewhereexpensive. The sort of room a professor would have. Old and musty.

24 | THE A-MENLots of bookcases. Two chairs. Fancy paintings on the walls. Also onthe wall is a sword. I see it for a moment, but that’s not really whatthe memory is about. It’s not what the memory is really concernedwith. It’s concerned with the book. This thick gargantuan book. I holdit in my miniature hands. Each page is an acre of paper. Each letteras tall as a man. I am reading to a fair-haired child who sits at my feetbefore a roaring fire. He is young, maybe seven or eight, and the entirescene invokes an unconditional sense of calm. Right this moment I’mstarting a new chapter, a chapter that starts with a big ornate letter O.O is for orange. All juicy and sweet. P is for Papa. Who walks downthe street…This O isn’t for orange, though. This O is for…“Hello, mister Jack. Can you hear me?”There’s a little light in one of my eyes.This O is for–“Mister Jack?”This O is for–“Jack? How’d you feel, hmm?”There’s a doctor standing by my bunk when I look up again.Have I slept? Wasn’t I looking at Esther. Esther and the sword?Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn’t. Pick any maybe you want. WhateverI was doing the warrior huntress is gone now. I am all alone in thecavernous hollow of the unknown hall. All alone except for the doctor.Has time passed? Has space warped? Is this reality? Was that? AgainI cannot be sure.I look at the man. He’s old. Hard to tell how old. Could be forties.Could be fifties. Real groomed look to him. He’s wearing the usualthings doctors wear. Shirt. White coat. Miscellaneous accoutrementspoking from his top pocket. He’s a walking doctor cliché. Exceptthat he’s not walking. He’s checking this square plate. It glows in hishand. He’s tapping at it. Half interested in me, half with the plate.And when he’s not tapping, he’s leaning over and shining a fingermountedtorch in my eyes. First the right, then the left. Then theright again.

THE A-MEN | 25Then he’s chatting.He talks quite fast. Yakkety-yak. And I have a tough time keepingup. Flits from topic to topic. Straining my limited level of tolerance.Overloading me with information. Then he seems to realise this andslows right down. Turns his babbling bedside manner intocondescending schmaltz. Both are a verbal barrage. I take in none ofit.Then he says, “Well, this is to be expected I suppose.”I look blankly back at him.Taking this as a good sign, he continues.“Do you know who I am?” he asks. As if we met once at a partyand shot shit all night. Slept with each other’s wives. Winked afterwardsin the street. Male bonded.I shake my head. It comes out as a manic series of movements.My personal bowling ball knocks around. Shifting sluggishly in mysoup-filled head. Smashing any thoughts it finds flat as pancakes.Seeing this, the doc disregards his last question. Switches toanother tack.“Can’t you speak, sir?”More jerks.“Mmm,” he mutters and taps at the plate. Now I look closely atit, I can see it’s an input tablet of some sort. It’s strapped to his palmso it can’t fall off. I’m under no preconceptions of being in somehigh-class private hospital. This place looks more like the inside of ahydro-electric facility.“I have just given you a little something to deaden your head fora while. Plus you’re getting a feed of steroids, a little librium. Youknow, chlordiazepoxide…”He spells it out. Intonating each deft, unintelligible syllable.Klor. Dye. Az. E. Pox. Ide.I have awoken a fool. A stupid irascible idiot. And still he continues.“There’s also a hypnotic sedative to help with any dissociativeidentity disorder that might develop. All in this IV. Mainly sodiumamylobartital…”

26 | THE A-MENSoo. Dee. Um. A. My. Lo. Bar. Bit. Al.“Anyway, nothing too strong. The effects of all that whiskey shouldbe fading just about now. The drip-tab will take care of the residualhangover. Under optimum circumstances I would normally suggestnarcosis, but, well…”At the mention of a tab, I feel for the first time the slight glassyache in my groin. Looking down I see a bump in the covers.Something is attached to my dick. Out the end of the bed tubessnake. Channelling piss and shit. The sight of this makes me queasy.Means I must have slept though. They weren’t here when I wokewith the black woman. With… Esther.Check my arms and find the restraints are still very much inevidence. The doctor notices me checking them and says, “Ah, yes.Well, do not look too astonished. What did you expect they woulddo to you?”Unannounced my ferocity bursts into life again. Spontaneousinhuman combustion. I gag on a stream of curses. Frustrated by mycontinued inability to speak. I stumble upon sentences. Trip over vowelsand consonants. Grapple with grammar. Then:“Fuck!” I shriek. “Fuck… fuck… shit!”The doc’s eyebrows raise and he stands up really straight.“Ah, progress at last.”While I find language impossible, eventual coherence comes incurses.“Shitting, fucking, wanking… fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”“Good, good,” eggs the surgeon general.“You fucking, pissing, shitting, fucking… CUNT!”“Now try some other words.”“I… I… Fuck!”This hurts. It’s so difficult it hurts.“No, go on. Keep trying.”“I… I’ve…”Ouch. S’like pulling teeth. Feel like I’m dragging razors upmy skinned throat and pushing them through my gums. Each word,

THE A-MEN | 27each syllable, is made of an iron ball. Each ball is covered withjagged glass.“Just let it come,” the doctor is urging. “Don’t force it. Let itcome.”“I… I’ve…”One moment the glass is snagging, tearing, ripping. The next Ifall exhausted and let it drop. And without thinking, out the sentenceexplodes.“I… I’ve… I’ve no fucking clue what you’re fucking… no fuckingidea what you’re talking about!”I’m sure that by the look on the labman’s face, if he hadn’t hadthat tablet strapped to his hand he would have applauded. I’m beyondcaring. The effort of getting out even that simple single sentence haswasted me.My mind swirls. Ice cream sundae cold. Bath water drained.Weak as a puppy, I am swept down with it. Down, down, downand away.Then there’s this sofa. Easyclene. Sitting by the freeway. It’s night.Moon gives the only illumination as all the street lamps are smashed.Dead. Sofa’s covered in endless stains. Stains upon stains. Sitting rightsmack bang in the middle of the weed-covered concrete. No view.No reason for being there. No place it could have easily come from.No nothing.It’s like it’s waiting for me. No, not waiting. It’s like it’s me. LikeI’m it.Out of place. Out of time. Out of fucking nowhere.Horrors watch. Rocking in the shadows. Black jackets twitch.Sunken eyes.And somebody says, “Since the first day you was born, you wasalways gonna be a punk.”I look up. Up, up and away.When I open my eyes it’s to the other world. Doctor’s sitting onthe black woman’s bed.“Ah, you’ve returned,” he says with a thin smile.

28 | THE A-MENI feel wounded, yet not as weary. So I try something else. Andwhen I do, the jagged iron balls are covered only with sand.“OK, let’s start again…” I croak with a sudden clarity. “Start with…basics. Name. What’s my name?”“Jack.”“My… whole name?”“That’s all it says in your files.”“Who am I?”“A grunt volunteer to a code orange situation.”“Orange?”“They’re threat codes, dear boy. Green, amber, red, orange…”“How old am I?”“Your records show twenty-eight. And before you ask,” hecontinues, “you are one point seven metres tall, weigh one hundredand sixty-five pounds, have blood type O negative, plus no recordedaddress, financial or personal data. And,” he adds slyly, “if you ownedany, you would wear a size seven hat.”My head lolls on the pillow and I drift in and out for a while.In my damaged mind, I hear the sound of the doctor speaking. It’sall that keeps me from losing it completely. That and a newfoundstrength through stubbornness. A tenacious inability to let myself go.It’s all I have so I hold on tight.“Well, let’s start at the beginning shall we,” the voice in my mind says.“This is the XSS Scheherazade, USSA Destroyer Twelve Zero, homeportedin Saptarshi One, Orizon, currently on duty for sustained combat in NewJeda dirtspace. And I am chief medical officer Douglas Grisholm forEmergency Unit Six. And you, my good man, are mister Jack.”Don’t hold back. I’m all ears. All ears, eyes, nose and throat. Anempty, hollow man. Yearning for the doctor to fill me up.“Put simply: we have been syndicated, sponsored if you wish, byExxo to facilitate the peaceful handover of the city into the handsof marshal law. That’s marshal as in military ruler, rather than martialas in connected to war. Well, that is until the establishment of a secureinfrastructure and an appointed civil government…”

THE A-MEN | 29Flash. Memory number two.I see a bed. Like this bunk only bigger. Wider. The whole ochrefibrous surface is covered in red. Splattered. Randomly painted. Likea sacrificial altar.“There’s blood,” I am saying. “Blood all over the cunt.”“The cunt?”“No!”Why am I replacing normal words with expletives? Why?“The… bed…”“There’s blood all over the bed,” mimics the doctor. “This bed?”“No.”“Another bed? Your bed?”Fuck knows. It’s just a bed. A bed with blood all over it.The words come quicker now. As if the link, now made, makescommunication swifter. Cleaner. Feels easier. Like time has passedagain. Like my mind has moved on.“Tell me everything,” I say into the confusion, clear as anything.“I want to know… everything.”Dr Grisholm shrugs. His grey quiff nodding.“I’m sorry I can’t be more help on that one, but you’re somewhatof an enigma. I’ve already told you all we actually know about you.You’ve been with us for the mandatory nineteen-week trainingperiod, but before that we have no idea. Obviously you gave a wholebatch of data, but under scrutiny this was found to be fallacious.”“Eh?”“You lied.”“Lied? About who I was?”“Oh, you lied about everything, my boy. A veritable tissue ofdeception. But in their hurry no one really checked too thoroughly.Been such a rush for recruits, procedures have been lax. And muchof your time here you’ve kept yourself to yourself. Apart frommanoeuvres, you appeared to be working on some pet project orother in the stream rooms. You didn’t really talk to people. Even yourbunk buddies. Maybe Chase once or twice. The most you ever said

30 | THE A-MENto anyone was to Esther, but nothing one could call a conversation.Just passing talk. Talk that you have to talk when you want somethingor want to know how to get something. That all changed last night,of course. Do you remember any of this?”I shake the dull clod that is my head.“Hmm, interesting. Well, last night you sought me out. Drunk asa fish. Just waltzed into the lab with this look in your eye and saidyou wanted me to operate. To sever the link with your past. You don’tremember any of this, do you?”“No,” I growl.No, I don’t. I don’t remember a fucking thing.“You paid me well. Very well, in fact. I’m not really a neurologist,so I got the machines to officiate over most of the actual removal.The cutting. Not my field, as I said. What you wanted was perfectretrograde amnesia. An inability to recall any past episodes, butwithout damaging your learning capabilities. You explained that youwanted to continue a completely normal life. Of course, I explainedthat…”Shivers run through me. I can’t concentrate for long enough. Notenough to catch everything the doc’s saying. Keep drifting off.“We moving?”“Orbiting. Geostationary. About thirty-six thousand kilometresup. The engines are off, so technically you could say we’re falling.About six and a half kilometres a second. Just in time with the planet’srotational–”“No, stop! Too much… information.”“Oh, yes, I’m awfully sorry. Anyway as I was saying, I explained toyou that pure retrograde is very rare except in e:vols and movies–”“Why’d you do it?” I rumble.“Why?” the doctor looks surprised at the question even thoughto me it sounds like the most obvious one to ask. “Why not?”“Try again.”“I’m not what you would call a good doctor.”Seems reasonable. Would a good doctor be here? Be doing this?

THE A-MEN | 31I wonder about that. Thinking on what he must have done to gethere. But it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.“And again,” I press.“You told me not to tell you.”“Did I?”“Indeed. You were most insistent about it.”“Well, I’m insistent now that you forget what I said and fuckingtell me.”Grisholm twitches once. Nervously like a tick. Pauses just longenough to make himself feel that he’s got no choice. That he hasethics but, hey, what can he do about that? Then he continues, “I didit because your insistence was provided by an advanced state of alcohol,drug fuelled hysteria and a loaded weapon. So I set the program andhere we are.”“Why didn’t you jump me… once you put me under?”“Ah, well, you were much more clever than that. You taped a gunto my forehead while the operation was taking place. We injectedyou with O-narc, so…”“So I was awake while you cut me up?”“Why, yes. It was what you wanted. I explained that it is extremelydangerous to work that deep into the brain if the patient is…”“Skip it.”“So–”“No, skip everything. Must rest.”“As you wish.”I’ve awoke without the ability to deal with those first and lastquestions.Generally: Who am I? What am I? What must I become?Specifically: Why would I erase my own mind? What possiblereason could I have? It’s like finding out your worst enemy was yourself.Like enacting revenge on someone you’ve never met.Then: bang! Memory number three.The twisted writhing rope of a DNA strand. No, not DNA, it’sRNA. RNA? Rye. Bow. New. Clee. Ick. Ass. Id. Don’t know how I

32 | THE A-MENknow about this shit, yet I do. Fucker’s impossibly large, Cellularproteins spiralling. Uncoiled strands dancing. Synthesising like theydo. Like they do? It’s some kind of virus. The RNA complexcompound is the carrier of the virus’s genetic codes. Though I cannotrecall ever having studied molecular biology I know it’s a virus. Itjust looks like one. Unphased, I go with it. Go just to see where it’lltake me. It takes me into a great swirling mass of strands, each forkingoff in some kind of weird replication. It’s beautiful in a scary kind ofway. Links are forged. Strands enwrap like lovers sixty-nining. Breeding.Going at it on the sterile slide of a macro-electron microscope.Then I’m in an office. Enfolded in a chair. Lots of tiny mirrors,clamps and tubes. Reminds me of being tied to the belly of a bug.Strapped to a cockroach’s underside. Instead it’s just real life snappingback into focus.“I need to perform some tests,” Grisholm is saying. Off somewhereelse. Out of shot.“What kind of tests?”“Well, it would appear from my observations that you areexperiencing some echoic and iconic memory lapses. I’d like to checkthem out if that is permissible.”Figuring that my primary action plan is to get back to healthbefore I can sort all this shit out, I agree.The doc appears at my side. Obviously pleased by my acquiescence.“Good,” is his only reply.Leaning over me, he busies himself with a variety of controls onthe chair.“Actually the real function behind these tests is to assess anycognitive impairment that you may be experiencing.”I haven’t a fuck what he’s on about, so I just lie there and takeit.Systematically he tests my attention and concentration.Checks his tablet.Result: so-so. Gives me a five out of ten.He asks me a basic set of ten questions to see if I know the date,

THE A-MEN | 33month and year. Only one I get right is that it’s a Sunday, but that’sa pure guess. He tests the speed of my information processing. Check.Slow but OK.He does word association and language skills. Expletivesnotwithstanding, this is patchy but improving all the time.He tests my perceptual skills. Things like interpreting iconic data.The things I see. And echoic data. The things I hear. Check.Then comes spatial and constructional skills. The links betweena series of objects. I get to touch my nose. I get to build towers withblocks. Check.Logically, I’m fine. My problem solving is a little off, but doc saysthat’s normal enough for now.Self-awareness. Social skills. Double check.Only real problems manifest when we get past all the kindergartengames and into what I can and can’t remember.“Though I barely knew you,” the doc explains, “you now appearto be suffering from an increased level of disinhibition.” As Grisholmbusies himself resetting his equipment, he mumbles his opinions asif I’m not even there. Like he’s talking to himself. “I have no way oftelling if your irritability and egocentricity have been heightened, butin my limited experience, pre-op you were a very introverted person.”He studies his tablet for a moment. The charts flashing on hisirises make his eyeballs glitter like flames.“That seems not to be the case anymore. Your abusive or crudelanguage is something no one here had witnessed before surgery. Youwere never even remotely violent or abrasive – and certainly notsexually aggressive to anyone. Least of all Esther.”A flash of whiteness. The smell of candy. The taste of salt.“Esther?”Grisholm ignores this, but the mention of the black woman hasbeen enough to dislodge another question.“What have you told the others? About the op?”“Oh, you had all that figured out. Tumour. Life or death situation.Emergency case. Deep removal in the cortex. As cortex damage impairs

34 | THE A-MENlong-term memory, you’d worked out that this would be the simplestsolution to explaining away the aftermath.”“I sound like a clever fuck. Why didn’t you jump me during theop?”“You’ve asked me that already?”“Have I?”“Yes.”“Look, will I remember? Ever?”Grisholm looks down at me. Like he’s staring at a child. Then herealises he is.“Memory is not a single thing. It is not a skill on its own. Thinkof it as a number of independent skills all working together. For astart you store memories in at least three separate ways. Your immediateand sensory memories – those areas that hold visual information ortransient facts like a quote from a book – have been unaffected. Neitherhas your past or future learning abilities, so those hundred and thirtydays slaving in the training pens won’t have been a complete waste.But as to reknitting your severed synapses and linking with yourremote long-term memories, well that’s going to be fragmentary atbest.”“So after all that bullshit, the answer’s no?”“Well, yes. We already know that after a passably successfuloperation you have lost a large section of your long-term memory,but let’s see if we can find the boundaries. What’s the last thing youremember?”Drive my mind back.What do I remember? What’s the last thing? The very last thing?Strain and force. Dredging up thoughts s’like shitting sharp rocks.“What is the first thing you remember post-injury?” the doc goads.My limited past jitters. Rocks and rolls. And what finally comesout of the fog is…“The black woman.”“Of course, Esther. Anything of the operation?”“Nope.”

THE A-MEN | 35I don’t tell him about the spider. Or the sound of its feeding.The stinging.“Anything of what you did afterwards?”“Nothing. First thing I remember is waking up in the dorm. Shewas in the next bunk. Bleeding.”“Yes, I heard she scored poorly on manoeuvres.”“She was also, y’know, naked. Looked like she’d just… y’know?”“Concluded a sexual encounter?” Grisholm prompts.“Yeah, like just before.”“Just before?”“You asked for my first memory. That’s what I remember first.”“Hmm, and you didn’t see anything of this… encounter?”“Nope. Nada.”“Well, you seem to be experiencing some kind of post-traumaticamnesia.”“Whassat?”“PTA? The surgery didn’t touch your pre-frontal lobe, so there’sno reason why you wouldn’t recall what you did subsequently afterleaving the theatre. Even with all that whiskey still running aroundyour system.”“Whiskey?”“As I mentioned before, you were very drunk when you foundme.”I ignore this detail. Focus on what Grisholm just said. The otherthing he just said.“So you mean I blocked it out?”“It’s quite common, really. PTA covers the period after injuryuntil a person starts retaining information. The time when they beginto regain some continuity in their memory function. In your case,this sounds like it happened after you blacked. Around the time theywere restraining you.”“Restraining me?” I glance at the straps around my wrists. “Yeah,why’d the fuck they do that?”The doctor looks at me in a very level kind of way.

36 | THE A-MEN“Are you sure you want to know all of this?”“Why, hell yes.”“Perfectly sure?”“Why wouldn’t I?”“Well, it seems to me that you must have had a good reason togo through with this… this stunt… to join this unit, to falsify youridentity, to pay people off to get here, to threaten me at gun pointto perform surgery, to do all these things. Actually, when you thinkabout it, you must have had an extremely good reason. And if youhave spent so much time and effort trying to erase the past, wouldn’tit be sensible if you just trusted your motives and got on with thingsas they are?”I think about this for a while. Think about the implications. Theme before. The me now. Think about it all. About just letting it drop.Think and think and think. Like for about a nanosecond.“Fuck that. Just tell me what I did. Why’d they restrain me?”For a moment more Grisholm holds out on me, then – just as Iguess he did when I handed over all that cash and stuffed a gun intohis handsome face – he gives in. Not really a great surprise. Not reallyearth-shattering. I doubt he joined this makeshift outfit because hewas too stuffed full with morals anyhow.“As you wish,” he concedes with a slight sigh, “but concentrate.I’m not about to go through this twice.”I nod. Leave it at that.“When you returned to the dorm, post-op, Esther was thereand you turned on her. From what I heard she had just come backfrom the worst score of her career. The very worst. Now this is oddin itself because Esther usually tops out. Straight As. She wasshowering, you went wild. Knocked her head on the tiles. Renderedher unconscious. Then you, ah… forced yourself upon her. Beforethe other members of the unit returned from the maze and pulledyou off. After that was when they strapped you down and I wascalled to apply a sedative.”I’m stunned. Trembling with the news.

THE A-MEN | 37“You’re fucking kidding me?”“I assure you that I have no reason to. Now, shall we continuewith the tests?”I know nothing about myself. Nothing at all. And all I’m hearingis this. All I know is this.“No, I’ve got to see her. Talk to her. We can play doctors andnurses later.”“Unfortunately, that’s where you’re wrong.”“Why?”“You see, we don’t have a lot of time.”“Double why?”“Because in minus six E-Unit are scheduled for the drop.”“The drop?”“Earthside.”“What are you saying to me?”“I told you. About the city. The riots. Exxo macrocorp pullout.Don’t you remember?”Rattle in the chair. Make its multiple antenna tremble.“I’m saying that our unit – your unit – has been assigned emergencycode orange. It’s what you’ve all trained for. Sanada, Chase, Biggs andall the rest of the no-lifers we were assigned to take on at short notice.All one hundred and thirteen or us are listed for drop at eleven hundredhours. That’s minus six. As I said we don’t have much time.”My anger is again a brittle bush caught like tinder in the heat ofan eternal day in purgatory. A fragile withered plant. Reaching autoignitiontemperature. Flash point. Either or both or…“Fuck all this shit!” I scream, raving. “Fuck it up your ass!”Wrench upwards trying to break free from the chair’s cloyingembrace. Fail to snap my fetters the first time, so try again. The tannedmuscles of my arms strain, but the seat outdoes me.“There’s no way you’re getting me down there. No fucking way!I want none of this crap. I want out!”Dr Grisholm watches me ranting. Already the glowing pad is inhis hand. Already tapping in his notes.

38 | THE A-MEN“How’d you think you’d ever get away with this? When I tellwhoever’s in charge what you’ve done…”“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that, Mister Jack,” Grisholmsays calmly.Try to kick the bloody tablet out his hand, but my legs are asimmovable as my arms. Still I don’t give up. Not one little bit. Infact, I don’t surrender until he’s finished his tapping. Till he instructsthe chair to stick me.With absolute precision, one of the spindly bug legs swings intothe space above my left arm. Hovers for moment. Its silver proboscisdrooling.“Get that fucking cunting thing away from me!”Then it dives into my forearm. Dives, regurgitates and withdraws.Instantly my rage turns to jelly.And in its fading wake, my body to spam.

6 DäalessandroWithin the hour, my neoteric team convene in the laboratory. Thomassits across from Jana, Rycharde and myself in the only area of floorspacelarge enough to fit four zabuton around a low table. Hot drinks steamin our hands, though the only nod towards ceremony is a bowl ofpopcorn and, incongruously, a single wooden fork.“I trust your journey down was without incident.”I direct the statement to our newcomer, and everyone there knowsI am not referring to the elevator.Thomas nods, sipping at his darjeeling.“Yes, very comfortable. The transport dirtside was almost empty.”“Empty? Well, that’s understandable. New Jeda City is not currentlywhat you would call the vacation capital of the eastern seaboard.”“You have that right, Dr Glass. I felt like I was the one fishswimming against the stream. But they’ve annexed that name. Thestreamsheets are calling this place Dead City now.”“Dead City?” I say, amused. “How dramatic.”“What’s it like out there?” Jana asks, her eyes scanning everycentimetre of our new recruit. What are you searching for? I wonder.Signs of weakness? Plague? A hint that my insistence at not beingable to adequately cope with a two psychist team is fatally flawed?Yet her question is valid on other levels. It’s been over a year sincethe creation of the near-space consortium and of the XEs sentienceto run its affairs, yet in that time corporate exodus has been inescapable.Like dozens of others, this megalopolis was macrocorp funded to thelast world dollar. Exxo controlled every significant utility, every core

40 | THE A-MENbusiness in transport, fuels, neu-genetics and, more importantly,employed over eighty-six percent of the populace.“Surprisingly calm… for an evacuation.”“The forecast is for financial and urban collapse in a third of allmajor cities.”“Yes. Yes, it is…”“Well, enough babble of the promise of freedom among the stars,”I interject, “that’s not why we’re here.”Rycharde shifts on his cushion, reaching for a handful of saltedsnacks. For our silent co-worker this action is as loud as a scream,but to Thomas it is invisible.“Perhaps we should start with introductions. They’ll be time forintegration later. Lady’s first. Jana is our head psychist, the personresponsible for guiding our fledgling creation into maturity.”“Ms Morgan, I know of your work on panpsychism. So you trulybelieve that matter possesses a mind?”“Oh, I’d go further than that,” Jana replies, leaning forward toshake his hand. “On this project we’ll prove that the whole universeis an organism that possesses a mind.”Thomas is shaken by this so I move on, not wanting to give thechance for shock to set in so early in our acquaintance.“Next is Rycharde. We are extremely lucky to have a bioengineercapable of building and maintaining the rig you see out there.”“It’s certainly an impressive piece of kit.”Thomas goes for a second handshake, but Rycharde just grabsanother handful of popcorn.“The other member of our team is Baseeq. He’s responsible forthe backroom fixing for the project. He also makes a damn fine cupof tea.”Thomas laughs. He is the only one.“As for myself, I’m sure you’ve read the file. As you are no doubtaware, my team are specialising in simulated, self-contained universes,direct brain accessed with the central hostgod interface. Throughprecise manipulation we are perfecting the art of sense substitution.

THE A-MEN | 41Thus sight, sound, touch, smell and taste all become infinitelycontrollable through their respective nerve centres.”“In short,” adds Jana, “a person can enter a controlled landscapeand, quite literally, journey inside their own head.”“Of course, we face countless problems yet already the first fullyoperationalprototype, which we call the X-Isle, is functional. Andyou will be crucial in taking this project to the next level.”“Dr Glass, your private mail mentioned a vacancy, but the streamwas an absolute blank about exactly what it is you are doing here.”“Indeed.” I repress a smile, but allow myself the merest glance atJana. She returns a glare that dares me to elucidate. “A third psychistrecently left the project, hence the position.”And how simple that sounds. Even as far back as when we werecalled Sol Inc., Ryan Reece Jarrett was my thought channelist, abrilliant mind and the man who cracked the bioanima interface. Yetin the long run his suitability proved erratic, or more bluntly, it washis dastardly bawling that made my father hesitate and finally denymy request for incipient human entry into the X-Isle. It was becauseof Jarrett that we have been forced to vanish off the face of the realworld; to occupy the Phoenix, left vacant as surplus to requirements.As if my father didn’t know it would be a worthless estate once Exxorelocated to near-space. Like the other macrocorps, Glass-Suko’sdigital signature is on that treaty.“What do you know of Glass-Suko, Lloyd?” Jana asks.Thomas shifts in his seat, feeling the spotlight upon him.Remembering that this is an interview of sorts, even if, having enteredhe has unwittingly and irrevocably committed to this project. Itssecurity forbidding his exit until we are all done here. The only wayof leaving now a ziplok body bag.“Well, I know the basics, that Glass-Suko was created by RaymondIsaac Glass and Darrold Suko to further the development andimplementation of new generation computer interfaces.”“Yes,” I interrupt, “that’s correct. Light-driven computertechnology had come as far as it could, and by introducing tissues

42 | THE A-MENsimilar to that of the human brain they pioneered a new genus ofhardware; the anima-conscious, symbiotic creation. We renamed whenI joined the team, bringing the last piece of the puzzle for truesentience.”The rest of the story is bioanima 101, but I tell it anyway.My father’s early experimentation with seventeenth generationbio structures married brilliantly with Suko’s visionary anima sentienceresearch, and the Glass-Suko pairing brought forth fruits in the shapeof true, organic replication, the term coined to denote the storing ofmemory structures in crystallised form. Developed to file the nearinfinite data generated by true non-human intelligences, eachreplication is grown like any normal crystal. In so doing it capturesthe complex way anima-consciousness – and more importantly, thehuman mind – holds information. I applauded their discovery withthe rest of humanity, yet unlike the rest I already knew where I wantedto take these discoveries. The marrying of their invention with mine– and also that of self-styled mystogenesist, Seth Campbell Malorian.He had developed an operating sentience structure, then in iterationK, that was the control panel required to harness our bioanima R&D.This aptly titled K/OS was all that we required to bind these elementstogether – operating sentience, anima-consciousness and replication– to build truly sentient mind-machines. Of course Malorian guardedthe key and his creation jealously, but where there’s a will, and allthat. And once we had full access to K/OS, the results were littleshort of revolutionary.“I can see why you’re keeping this project so secret,” Thomas saysonce I am finished the history pep talk.My dear, dear boy, I think, you have no idea.

7 PureSome song once said that for every beginning there’s an end. Forevery kiss, there’s a broken heart that will never mend.For every dream, a nightmare.For every prayer, a sin.For every opening door there’s another that won’t ever let youin.Utter cock, but when the day’s smilin’ and bitchin’s over, this iswhat’s in mine.I’m coming home. Been out shopping. I hate shopping. Well,shopping in 3D anyhow. Always end up at the checkout stuck behindthe woman who’s hair smells like old furniture polish. Home is thisthree-storey cavity. Unlit, unfurnished, with walls of crumbling brick.It’s two minutes to four. We’re three floors up and there’s no lift. Thestairs are narrow with only a few stains to suggest the bare wood hadonce been painted. Our hovel’s no better. If the waster artists had aname for it, they’d call it art gecko.Mama’s listening to zydeco on the balcony. Papa’s watching WhosePiss Is This? on the box. Neither of ’em get up to help unpack. Wouldtell you how much I hate their guts, but don’t like to speak ill of thebraindead. They’re like something other that has infiltrated this world.Like some insidious animal contagion that we just can’t shake or cure.Papa is the worst. In a word: disturbed. In another: terrified. Afraid.Ignorant. Ultimately pessimistic. No one word’s enough. He was thekinda daddy who would use words like ‘abortion’ in everydayconversation. Nameless lowlife. At least mama made me laugh. When

44 | THE A-MENhe went off on one over something stupid, she’d turn and wink atme. Like we were sharing a joke. Like saying I’d understand when Iwas married. Like that’s ever gonna happen. Try not to think aboutthem much at all. Just pack my day full to overflowing. Make surethe times I come home are to crash. And that’s it. Most times I feelthat the only remedy is to take the bastards outside and hack at themwith axes until they stopped.Even I knew that this was a bad thing.My place within their place was once a walk-in something orother. Things were already in it when I got here. Will be there whenI go. Desk’s now a vanity unit. Pull down bed-cum-wardrobe. Singlebow-back to sit in. A wedding dress hangs over the back of the onlychair. Ashes on the floor. No wedding. No dress. No future.Check my look in the chipped mirror. Small enough that it takesthree goes to see all of me. Smooth the creases of my tight blouse.Make sure my front side looks just as fine as my back side. ’Boutthen Lucille calls from her apartment in Arlington South, face showingup bug-eyed on the mini-monitor.“So what’s up,” I say to the hair and the lips.“That punk Maximillian.”“Ditch, don’t bitch, girl,” I snap, trying to ward off the inevitableunspooling.“It’s done already. Loser took me on a one-way trip to DumpCity. Bent my block every which ways. Said he couldn’t cope withcock, manhoe and tigobitties all in the same evening.”“Shame. Thought this one might last. Like at least a week.”“Hey, y’know what they say; where there’s a willy, there’s a wanker.”“They come, they go…”“Sounds just like my sex life.”Red head’s chewing gum. She don’t do it nasty though like collegegirls. She does it slow and keeps her mouth closed throughout. Shedoes it classy.“Ya doing am dram tonight?”“Nah, s’Monday. Starting aqua-boxing.”

THE A-MEN | 45“Shit, girl, what the fuck’s aqua-boxing? No, don’t! The only wayI’d want to know is if it’s made of cashmere and comes in a bag withlong string handles.”She clacks her way across her once-polished floor. Grabs hernicolubes. When she comes back into shot, her eyes are glassy. Notlooking at me, but not really looking anywhere else. Then she says,“Thought maybe after the audition, you’d give yourself a night offand come to the Afterlife. Boogie. Get naked. Lock-in starts at nine.”Not too keen. Especially as it’ll all go orgy as soon as the doorsshut and the drugs kick in. And after a weekend of tricks…“Lucille, look, love to but, nah. I’m not really sure I can handleany more all-night action right now.”“Hey, lighten up. The reason there’s a lotta sex about is…”“Yeah I know, ’coz they’ve given us A’s and the cure for newstrain blood-plasma virus all in the same year.”“Yeah and also, hey, it’s fucking Freaks Not Meeks night!”“Oh, please.”“It’s our tryout, girlfriend. Che Castella’s casting couch one-ohone.”Singing: “And I’m a genuine Venus from my head down to mypenis!”She’s such a tramp. A real tough taster. I love her so much. Loveher so much it hurts.

8 23rdxenturyboyThree-quarter-ways through our recon, and we’re hav’n a pit and shitstop near the Carousel of Carnivores. Me to take a drink of waterfrom a twin dodo and dolphin shape’t fountain. Elliott to mark histurf. And alsa to look up at the flies in the sky.“Y’know I’ve been thinking,” says Dingo as we move out again.Trudg’n under the many leg’t atrium at the base of the central Spireof Life.“What’s that?” I reply, notice’n like him the little black dots andwonder’n what those tiny blips could actually be. An unidentify’t fly’nterror fleet from Planet Nim (Phantom In Hell, Episode XIX)? Anextrinsic cloud of AstroLoonies each with a hundred limbs but onlyone eye (The Bug Wars Of Zendo, Episodes III-VIII)? Invaders from Xaar(The Dog Wonder Takes Antares)? Zygotian Raiders (Ex Cathedra, EpisodeII)?“Those Wonder Dog shows you’s missed. The eighty-six…”“Eighty-seven,” I correct. “There was another one this morn’n.”“Those eighty-seven episodes you’s missed.”“Yeah, what of ’em?”“Well, they must be out there somewhere. Just like those ships.Just floating off in veeteeveeland.”“Stream archive’t, you mean?”“Yeah.”“Sure they is.”“Well, if they is, then I’d’a said all you’d need to do is thoughttunethe anima-coded scene series frequency, set a tripleback bypass,

THE A-MEN | 47post-hack the feeder loop, then repo down the stream data, and –hey presto! – you’d be able to view, well, if not the actual triaxialmultiview, then at least the source script.”“Oh, is that all?”“Yeah.”“And you could do that?”“Easy.”“Well, let’s do it!”Excite’t by the thought of regain’n even limited access to myhero’s weekly transmission, the plan comes together real quick. Asthe only place sure to have a work’n uplink, we set a course forthe multicolour’t, multimedia centrepiece of the once-zazz’nzoological park. The Spire of Life. Only to find that’s exactly wherewe is.“Why’s you never mention you could do this before?” I ask aswe go.“’Cause you never mentioned I should,” is the reply.It’s at times like this when I appreciate that dogs see the worldvery differently than what I do. It’s as if each dog lives in their ownunique world. His reality is such a far cry from ours that he can’texplain his to us, and we can’t explain ours to him. Still, while inmost stuff Dingo’s really autistic, in the field of codebreak’n he’s aundispute’t genius. Though the place’s quad-lock’t, we’re inside inunder twenty seconds. It would have been sooner, the canine quips,but he’d left his jemkit at base. And about five minutes after that,we’re into the Tri-Deluxe Biome, the mutt’s plug’t himself in and isflipp’n wildly through downstream episode registers. Once this placewas where the pay’n creeps trip’t through a walkthru soup record’nthe begin’n of all life. Now we’ve hijack’t it for a little liteentertainment of an altogether different kind.“Got one!”“What one?” I’m almost gagg’n with excitement.“Header’s titled, The Dog Wonder Flies Again Parallax Showcase.Wow, it says here it’s in Extragalact-O-Vision!

48 | THE A-MEN“Play it!”Elliott trips someth’n deep in the hack’t link panel and bubblesswarm. Speech percolates everywhere. Primary-colour’t shapes foamlike suds. Radiant light and weirdness. Lurid images flex’n out of thedull taupe screens. All morph’n bolts and iridescent steam. Then weis surround’t with our idols. Faux-ink’t animations of the best superheroteam ever.Scene 16a.12Wrapped screen spread.1. Exterior. Alien world. Half-moon balcony ofOrrery observatory. Starset. The Wizard Wheezeand his sidekick, Loathly tinker with holographiccharts of ever-unfolding galaxies.2. Two shadows fall across their upturned faces.One canine muzzled. One human quiffed.WIZARD WHEEZEWhat? YOU!PHANTOM THE WONDER DOGYes, I. The one weapon in the war againstreality.LOATHLYM’Juuurz!The sights and sounds is eye-shredd’n. Ear-popp’n. Each transmute’npanel over twenty metres high. Wrapp’t around us like a shimmer’nmirage.“Wow!” Elliott is yelp’n. “Wow!”“This is awesome!” I yell over the noise.

THE A-MEN | 493. As if the diocam were sitting on the floorlooking up to the glass observatory roof. All shotsare shadows.23RDXENTURYBOYNo so fast, Wheezie.WIZARD WHEEZEYou are too late, boy. I control the entireuniverse now!PHANTOM THE WONDER DOGHow is that possible?WIZARD WHEEZEAbecedarian, my cuspid foe. This is myuniverse. I created it!23RDXENTURYBOYHe must have switched it with the realuniverse while everyone was asleep.PHANTOM THE WONDER DOGUltra-fiendish!WIZARD WHEEZEAh, it’s worse than that! I’ve built it soit’s set to fall apart two days later!PHANTOM THE WONDER DOGDouble-diabolical!“Watch out, Phantom!” calls Dingo, but it’s lost in the whirlwindof sights and sounds. “That wizard’s not to be trusted.”

50 | THE A-MEN“Too right,” I agree. “He’s been tinker’n with reality since thestart. Remember Woof Freedom…”But the scenes is move’n fast. There’s no stopp’n ’em.Triptych, full-screen panels1. Monochrome close-ups. Full panel faces.Heavily shadowed.23RDXENTURYBOYThis is worse than when cats took over theplanet Earth…PHANTOM THE WONDER DOG…but only after mankind was stupid enough toinvent one-touch, auto-opening tin cans.23RDXENTURYBOYYeah, but we took care of that.PHANTOM THE WONDER DOGYes, that’s right. With a sword and a gunand a clear cry of–23RDXENTURYBOY“You can purr but you can’t hide!”2. Overhead shot. Villain and his henchman.Fiendish smiles of smug victory.WIZARD WHEEZEThere’s a fine line between a hobby andsheer lunacy and I have erased that line!Bend to my demoniacal will!

THE A-MEN | 51LOATHLYHrnnnnnnnnn!3. Wide wraparound Extragalact-O-Vision of entireobservatory. Wizard Wheeze is conjuring forthlightning bolts. But the canine’s too fast forhim.4. Phantom taking off centre panel. Winged rocketskates blazing.PHANTOM THE WONDER DOGNot so fast, you sinister mandragorian slug!I cannot be compelled to be what I am not.I can’t be corrupted or destroyed.I am the Dog Wonder!And with that, Phantom flies right into the evil Alwaidian sorcerer.Smack’n both paws into his over-size’t gut.SFX: KA-BRAK!WIZARD WHEEZE: Oofffff!Us: “Yah! Yah!”Then, the scene blips. Fuzzes and fades. In its place is a big distorte’tlandscape of wild static. Vertical lines. Flashes of monochrome. Black.White. Black. White. A sea of interference.Then a voice.“We interrupt this pan-global broadcast for our pre-scheduledshutdown. Clearing all terrestrial, intraterrestrial, extraterrestrial and

52 | THE A-MENraid channels of extraneous transmissions… Indefinite sign off.Logout.”Blip.Horizontal lines. Flashes of monochrome. White. Black. White.Black.Then just black.

9 Sister MidnightI am summoned to the aft sky-hub of Commanding Officer FirstSergeant Lawrence Sebastian Strøm. It is a dark place; synthetic. Lolight.Camouflage green walls. Domed brilliance of stars. A desk setupon a tiered platform, girthed by bevelled panels. It is a clinical place.A godless place.The reason for this eleventh hour summoning is ambiguous tome. There has been no official directive and it is occurring eventhough time is of the essence. Though Emergency Unit Six requiresmy full and undivided attention, and though, as I enter the CO isstill wholly consumed extrapolating catastrophe models through theirR h = H x V h vulnerability ratios.Assessing the factors of mitigation, preparedness, response andrecovery.As, indeed, am I.Since the creation of the USSA consortium it was only a matterof time before the macrocorporations abandoned the Earth. Owningas they did many thousands of subsidiaries, freed from earthly careseach could form a self-sufficient economy; their own heaven. On thatfateful day when all twelve signed the treaty the Earth was surplusto requirements. RAON Industries, Informatex, Satel, Exxo, IK,Orizon, Amtech, PanKeiretsu, Jenii, Osakimo, Glass-Suko andMalorian. The united starstations saw a future of self-governance. Theworld saw a hell far too terrible to imagine. Still, Exxo are payingfor our support in this zone of transition, so I guess that’s the focushere. I mean, who else could afford all this shit?

54 | THE A-MENI approach the dais and clock medical officer Grisholm seated inthe shadows. The debonair doctor’s attendance in part validating mysuspicions. The gloom hides nothing of his purpose here. Or his unease.Reaching the demarcated saluting space before the CO’s altarlikedesk, I stand to attention, but the First Sergeant ignores this. Onlyhalf breaking from his simrunning, he casts a disinterested eye overme, then refocuses on the pizzicato peaks of his operational continuitymatrices.“Sergeant Rose,” he says, distracted.“First Sergeant Strøm.”“So, do you wish to file an official report?”Mitigation.“Sir–”“And before you proceed, I feel I must stress that this is acomplicated and controversial issue,” Strøm says.Grisholm makes a face but says nothing.In that moment, I know the way the path before me turns. ThoughI have lost the one treasure the Lord God Eternal gave my newlyborn soul at the moment of my birth, the one part of me that wasHis and His alone, the road is one way.Preparedness.“This was not a crime of stress or low morale, sir. My faith callsfor forgiveness, yet as a criminal action, I feel I must push for animmediate call to action.”Strøm is adamant.“I respect your wish, but we do not have adequate resources. Everyiota of our time and energies should be focused on the drop. Andeven if we prosecute as you suggest, do you know how many of thesecases actually stick? How even if you get court-martial approval, howmany accused perpetrators walk away free? Almost all, sergeant.”“So you are saying boys will be boys, sir.”The CO stares into the radar-XY scatter icons as they swirl overhis desk, then snaps a look at Grisholm.“Has Sergeant Rose been tested for…”

THE A-MEN | 55“Yes.”Yes, Strøm. I have been pricked and swabbed and smeared.“Look, Rose, maybe it bears remembering that the chief missionof the military is to train civilians to kill. And I have it on goodauthority from the MO here that…”Grisholm stirs at this, desperate to avoid misrepresentation.“I am not trained as a therapist,” he ejects, “but my initial responsewould be that rape is a function of violence, not sex. The singlecharacteristic that is most often linked to convicted rapists is a greatertendency to express rage and aggression through such violence.”“And since his arrival, we have seen a marked increase in thesubject’s levels of violence. Isn’t that so, doctor?”“Indeed.”The devil wears many skins.“May I speak freely, sir?”Response.“Yes, Sergeant Rose.”“Why has Jack been assigned to this unit?”Strøm finds the request detestable, even the merest voicing of it,but it is the doctor who winces. And ultimately, who replies.“First Sergeant Strøm,” Grisholm tiptoes, “I agree that thisinsurgent behaviour cannot be entertained. Yet we run the risk ofsending the wrong signals if such ill conduct goes unpunished.”Strøm scowls. In the harsh illumination of twin desk lamps I cansee the shape of the veins at his temples. The same attraction I havefor Jack repulses the CO. It is a weakness of character I do not wishto share.“With respect, sir,” I add, also aware of the thin ice on which weboth tread. “We send the wrong signals whichever way we react.”“Insightful but unhelpful. What do you suggest should be ourcourse of action, Rose?” He’s seething now. Like a serpent.His words are a trap. We all know it. For some situations there isno adequate response. To punish would require mission abort. To releasewould suggest weakness; ineffectual headship.

56 | THE A-MENHaving never served under the CO, I am aware yet unfamiliarwith his sub rosa agenda. Yet he is not unknown to me. My observationsof Strøm, however brief, have afforded the singular conclusion thatthe phrase ‘unnecessary force’ was invented specifically to describehis leadership style.“Well?” he goads. “What is your assessment, sergeant?”“Issue a court martial pending successful first base objectives. Thatway the drop is not compromised, and neither is the unit.”“You mean, neither am I?”“Neither is anyone,” I dare.Grisholm looks to me, obviously perturbed by my words. It is alook that Strøm cannot fail to notice.“I feel I have no need to stress that your actions are also underquestion here, Grisholm,” he says.“It would seem that all three of us have suffered at the hands ofour mysterious stranger,” the MO counters, “yet all of us havebenefited, too…”It is a phrase too far.“Get out!” he screams. “Get out!”Without another sound, the doctor leaves. And once we’re alone,Strøm’s full rage is unleashed.I weather the storm of my CO’s wrath, knowing that after thetempest is out, nothing has changed. I am still a virgin bride nolonger. There is naught that can correct this. Nothing.And that leaves just one codified disaster phase remaining.Recovery.

10 The NowheremanWhen the spam turns back to jelly, and the jelly back to rage, I’min a bunk again. A bunk, yep, but now in a much, much smaller room.A private room. Grisholm is here, pacing. No, it’s a couch. I’m on apissing couch. This time I’m minus the tubing. Just the unseenheaviness around my head. Also I’m unrestrained. Flex my arms andgo to sit up. That is until I see Grisholm‘s holding what looks like acattle prod. Flinch and the leather of the bunk creaks. That makesthe doc notice me. And as soon as he notices he starts lecturing.“We’re now at minus two,” he explains, “and I have no idea whatto do with you. Due to the severity of your aggression usually Iwould assign a course of cognitive assessment, coupled with slowrehab of your core skills; attention, perception, that kind of thing, plusstrong behavioural and social skills management…”“Stop the bitching shit-speke.” I have so little. Don’t tell me eventhat little is wrong. “Don’t I remember you saying I wasn’t thisaggressive before?”“Forget before,” snaps Grisholm. “Before is gone. You will neverget that back. Never. Do you understand that, Mister Jack? And forgetthe future too. You may never fully recover enough to matter.Concentrate on the now.”Shift on the couch. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.“OK, so what happens now?”“A prolonged prognosis is not an option. It would be impossiblewhere we’re going. I filed a request that you should stay pendingtransfer. That was rejected wholesale.”

58 | THE A-MENBut that’s OK, because somehow my mind has changed on this.Now I think I want to go. When this happened I do not know.Perhaps these lucid spells are not the only times I’m awake. Perhapsthey’re just the times I can recall. The ones my savaged brain nowfeels like storing. Don’t waste my breath asking Grisholm to verifythis. Would rather puke down his throat. Focus on moving forwards.Getting a direction. Sticking to it.The only way I can figure it, I placed myself in this damnedsituation so I would make this drop. Like the doc said, maybe I shouldjust trust myself and go with it. What other choice have I got? Don’ttrust anyone else, anyhow. OK, so I’ll go with it. Keep my distance.Get moving. Later I can worry about trying to find out why I wouldwant to do this to myself. I mean, right now I can’t even begin toimagine. What possible reason could there be?Like the doc said, at the end it comes down to this: either I trustmyself or I don’t.So do I trust myself? The instigator of this craziness? Shit, whoelse have I got?No, I want to go, I implore him. Don’t leave me here.“Then behave and let me get through these tests,” the doc suggests.So we return to the tests. And another round of endless shittingquestions. What day was I born? Who’s the head of Exxo? If twospeeding locomotives leave a terminus and each one is travelling halfthe speed of a third train… Mostly though they are just yes or nokind of answers. That is until:“Do you have any anxieties. Anything that is worrying you?”I think about this. At first there’s more nothing. Then I rememberthe RNA nightmare.“Have I got a virus? Earlier I thought about a virus.”“No, there’s no virus.” He flashes a look at his pad. “Surgerynotwithstanding, you are extremely healthy.”“I… I got a flash of molecules. DNA. Shit like that.”“Well, that’s promising. Perhaps it is something from your past.Your job, maybe?”

THE A-MEN | 59“My job?”“Well, look at your hands. You don’t strike me as a labourer. Yourbone structure, muscle definition and lung capacity all point to youbeing of exclusive near-space origin. Sedentary male. Echelon oneor two. Probably two. Traces of cologne and exfoliants on your skinindicates a grooming regime of some complexity… and expense.”“Expense,” I repeat, turning my hands in my lap.“Did you work perhaps in a medical facility? Bio-coding? Neugenetics?”“I have no idea. It’s just there.”“I see.”“No, you don’t see. You don’t see a fucking thing!” I get angryagain. Swollen with the suddenness of it. Filling me. Swamping allrational thought.Just then klaxons blare. Cutting to the core. Instantly my fury isdispelled. I sit up. Stiff as a board.“Whassat?”Grisholm looks up towards the ceiling of the laboratory.“T-minus sixty. I am sorry, but we are going to have to cut thisshort.”“My heart bleeds.”“Quite.”“So are you letting me go?”The doc moves over to the door, distracted by the whining ofthe alarm.“Stay here. I want to check on something.”The hatch opens, he steps through and the moment it closes I’mup and moving after him. I need answers, not these useless platitudes.Grisholm mentioned that since I arrived I’d kept myself busy in thestream rooms. Whatever they are. Sounds technical. Maybe there I’llfind someone I could force to answer a few questions of my own. Orfind a record. Dataphial. Something. Ah, yes, dataphials. That’s a memoryI can retrieve. In theory – for ‘theory’ read ‘corporation protocol dogma’– every person in the entire entraverse has been implanted with a

60 | THE A-MENdataphial. It’s micro-tech that accumulates data sent to the brain. Sitsback of the head. Impregnated about the same time they snip yourforeskin. Anyhow, it carries birth details, blood history and the usualpertinent personal and medical information everyone wants to knowbefore they give you anything. Like credit. Or a blowjob. Anything.Some even allow for advanced memory recall and playback. In theoryeveryone has one of these, yet that’s not exactly true. These thingsrarely are. Tech’s been around forever. Implementation law a lot less.So while all near-space and corporate personnel are fitted, of thosewho are still dirtside it’s only about thirty percent.Yet I agree with the doc on one thing. My guess is I come fromnear-space. Some Van Allen colony or corporate back street. Work inthis lo-gravity too well not to. Would have to if I slipped into theforces. Best I remember they don’t take too many onworlders.Now smooth-talking Grisholm is gone I find I don’t trust him.Not at all. Know he won’t sign me to go. I’m too much of a threat.If I squeal about the op, he’ll fall harder than a brick. His originalplan must have included me playing ball. Staying schtum about hislittle pay, cut and run. Got to get some answers and do a bit of cuttingand running myself.And very, very soon.As I go to leave I grab a scalpel from a tub on a shelf. UnlessI’m going to fend off prospective attackers with a clipboard, this isthe best weapon I can see. My recent training has taught me that air,shelter and water are the first elements of survival, but my choiceevery time would be something that went bang or weighed heavyin your hand. And failing that, something that cuts. People alwaysrespect anyone who can redefine their face for the worst.Predictably the hatch is safety locked. Doc’s not going to let hisonly patient go walkabout. No siree. Look for another exit. Nope.No windows or grilles. No way but the hatch. Where’s that combatdancer I remember using on manoeuvres when I need it? Greatweapon. High-powered. Fully automatic. Seven millimetre calibre.Twelve round feed. Tripod. Handlock.

THE A-MEN | 61Eyes lock on the door controls. Buttons. Sensors. All on a raisedpad. Think hard, but can’t recall I was any good at breaking andentering. Still, I do know how these beauties work. Some have keys.Some have id. Most on proximity of authorised users. If it’s the latter,I might as well go lie back down. Have a rest. Fortunately for me it’sthe former. There’s a serrated slot in the top. Poke the scalpel in it,hunting for a trip or catch or something. Find squat. Unperturbed,I try again and this time the hatch hisses open.Shit fuckadoo. Way to go.Sadly my sudden joy is quashed the heartbeat it opens.For there in the gaping arch stands Grisholm. His key still shovedtight into the pad on the other side.“Mister Jack, I really think you…”Already the doc is going for the prod at his belt. Skunk fast. Isurprise myself by being a fraction swifter. Snake fast. Leaping forwardI knock the grey-haired bastard aside and stuff the scalpel blade hiltdeep in his wrist. Shrieking, he drops the stunner like a stone. As hefalls back, I’m down at his side. Releasing the tiny blade. Alreadygrabbing his weapon and running. And as I go I snatch his keychainfrom the lock.Behind me the hatch grinds shut cutting off the doc’s groaning.I don’t look back.I’m in a grey-green corridor. Deep in the gut of the XSSScheherazade. The medlab looks like it’s in its own section of the attackcraft. Doors flash by. Each tagged with some unknowable code.MDX-αλπηα-O.KRAYN.MDX-αλπηα-S.DAVENPORT.MDX-αλπηα-L.RUSSELL.As meaningless as my fuzzy memories. But it’s not that I knowjack. Now I’m getting a clearer head, I know shitloads of things. Iknow about viruses. I know about near-space. I know about thecolonies. About the corporations running the show from up on high.About the thirteen moons. Y’see though the planet is orbited by areal satellite moon, the other moons are man-made. Took fucking

62 | THE A-MENyears to build them. Great slabs of arcing wonderfulness. Hanging inthe inner night sky. They’re where the real shit happens. They dealwith communications, networking across the globe. Remember aphrase: ‘from here to the thirteenth moon’. Means something veryfar away. Maybe this is the start of something. Of my recovery.At the end of the corridor another hatch waits. Sealed tight. Ared light flickers as I slow my approach. Wave the card and it rumblesopen.Proximity. Good. That’s going to speed things up a little.Beyond I leave MDX. Find myself in a huge hall. Much like thedorm. Only bigger. Very much bigger. No walkways and gantriescriss-crossing overhead. Just dozens of hatches studding the walls. Eachleading into other hidden sections. Read CRM. XSS. REM. Mustbe some kind of hub.It’s just about then that I realise that without a map, I’m fucked.This vessel’s too big to wander aimlessly. And by now doc’s no doubtpulled the alarm. Already got the dogs out looking for me. They knowI’m lost in this maze and they know where I was. Can’t recall if theforces fit trackers to new recruits. If they do, I’m double fucked.Try for home, says a thought. Nerve endings speaking. My voice,their words. There on the tip of my mind.Where’s that? I ask back.Home. The ship. The bio-anima.“Home?” I ask the great expanse of nothing over my head.“Yes, Private Jack.”Private. Great. That’s all I need. To be wandering around like alost lamb with an E-1 rating. Too bad I’m not a fleet admiral or fivestargeneral. Then things would be a little different. Then I couldreally get shit done.“Home, I need a map.” Worth a try I guess.“The XSS Scheherazade is equipped with Tek1 facilities includingfull z-gravity delineation. Please state your destination.”“Stream rooms.”“XSS-γαµµα section?”

THE A-MEN | 63“S’pose.”“Executing.”Immediately there’s a fibre trail etched across the air before me.Curious I find my hand passes clean through it. Must be some kindof heads-up. Something in my eyes. Even more reason to think I’mtooled. Trail leads to a long series of hatches marked with the XSShieroglyphs. Move toward them. Light path narrows. Pointing straightat one marked XSS-γαµµα. Well, guess that’s the baby.Cross the room at a jog. Try to keep my eyes on as many of theother hatches as possible. Swing my head back and forth. Reach thedoor and press myself into the alcove beside it. Feel vulnerable in themiddle of this immense space. Virgin vulnerable. For the first timeunderstanding I have something to lose. Hatch don’t move. Guessproximity isn’t gonna work with the doc’s key. Look the hatch over.All three by two metres of hulking mass. Standard thirty-six centimetresof poly-carbon alloy. Designed to stop just about anything. Hull breach.Grenades. Anything the geeks at the labs could imagine.Perhaps with oxyoscetelene could pop through in about two anda half hours.With a pulse unit, might cut that down to thirty-five minutes.Maybe a well-placed fragmentation device could disable the padin ten. Maybe jack it open enough to crawl through.All pie in the sky. I have none of the possible exceptions to theirpriority exigent planning. All I got is a scalpel and a security bluepasskey.And the stream…The stream. As I hear this term again I feel my memory forging.Linking. Entwining like a big twisted rope. One moment it meansnothing. The next, everything.The stream’s what I need. S’what everybody needs. What feedsus all. Stream’s a data stream. The data stream. Global, mid- and nearspacecommunications medium. Controlled via one big intricateextraverse. Uses a combination of light and radio waves. The streamis the new spirit world. The untouchable place that surrounds us.

64 | THE A-MENEverything’s out there on the stream. Everything and anything. Aschool kid’s flunked homework assignment. Or his positive drugs scanfrom the morning milk break. Political speeches. Poems for dead lovers.Every flick from every genre from every era. Encircling us. Nourishingus. It is the information from an entire world. Fifty million gigaflopsof raw, processed, cooked and digested data. A veritable googolplexof material. World League visuals. Outstanding court assessments. Sight.Sound. Scrambled textual mapping. The perfect receive anything,anywhere technology. And the way to get hold of this consensualdata field? Dataphial. Set to receive. Just thought-dial the correct codeand you’re in. Link raw and it’ll fry your mind.Of course, right now I have shit nothing memory of any codes.Shit nothing of anything. Otherwise I could pluck what I neededright from the air around me. The very air that presses down on me.Makes me feel like I’m about three hundred pounds. Easy. Only way’sto get to the stream rooms. Find a code. A trace of what I was doing.Anything.My cock aches. Aches to be sucked. I think of a woman then. Abimbo. Blonde hair. Naked. Peaches. Tits. I think I knew her once.Maybe more than once. Her back is badly beaten. Maybe I’m hertrick. Maybe I’m her husband. Look to see if she wears a ring. Can’tsee. Her hands are around my cock and I can’t see. Feeling this makesme feel exposed again and I drop the thought and look around.Out there in the heaviness of the air, the hall prowls waiting.Hiding who knows what. Who knows where. The emptiness is toomuch to watch all at once. Yet I feel that when they come – as comethey must – they won’t come quietly. Justice never does. Always comeswith sirens and dogs and the cries of the hunt. No need for superiorforces to skulk. To creep and crawl. No need at all.No, when they come, I’ll know. They won’t leave me guessing.Turn my attention back to the hatch.So, how am I going to get through this? All of the security systemsI can imagine involve shutdown. Locking out. Sealing perimeters.Can’t for a minute think of one way to get every hatch this side of

THE A-MEN | 65judgement day to spring open. Desperation makes me look out intothe hub again. Makes me face the hollowness.Watch as it flaunts my insufficiency.And look straight back.Look back and think. I’m Douglas Grisholm. Medical officer forE-Unit. There’s an emergency in XSS sector. I need access. Sure Iwould call, but… but my com’s broken. Or I left it behind.Then I see the mediQ.It sits on the wall. Halfway between this hatch and the next.Crouching like a beetle on the wall.Move down to it. Sidling. Flash the passkey near it. Watch as ithisses open. Inside’s lots of zero-g medicals. Pill pots strapped intoneat belts. Like bullets in a bandoleer. Few tools. Emergency com.And that’s about it. Nothing with which to break open an air-tighthatchway.“Home, get me security.”“I am sorry. Your profile has been restricted.”“Fuck.”“Thank you for understanding.”Still now I know it’s only a matter of time till they come. Tillthey smell me out. Till I die.Empty the case. Ignore the way the contents bounce idly on thefloor below me. Search the cabinet for something useful. Seconds tickaway. Precious unretrievable seconds. One-way trip. I can never getthese back. Time’s the only currency for a running man. Maybe itshould be the currency for everyone. Right now that makes a lot ofsense. Makes sense at a time when not a lot else gets even close.At the back of the mediQ, there’s a selection of sachets. I pullthem out. White packaging makes me think of breakfast supplements.Coding on the front says they’re stimulants.With a snake-like laugh, a dozen hatches across the hall vanish.Spew shaved headed grunts. Armed, shaved headed grunts. Thoughmy mind’s all at sea, they look like a unit. See Esther’s face. Shiningeyes beneath her battered helmet. They’re my unit. Think I recognise

66 | THE A-MENa few of the others too. Just not so well. They know me though. Justthe way they move tells me that. The way they move and aim theirbig fuck-off guns.Tracers lacerate the heavy air. Yellow trails. Marking each of myseven death points in vivid septic light. I duck. Trying to shrug themoff me. Roll to the side. Drop the prod and keep going, back towardsthe hatch. In my hands I tear the white sacs. Spill their needles. Grabthem all and move on.It takes the dweebs with the peashooters about two seconds toretarget. Takes me about five to reach the hatch. First tag hits mesquare in the lower left shoulder. Stings like a first fuck. Or what Ifeel a first fuck would sting like. All rough and unready. Rips a bigshiver from my latissimus dorsi. Next one spears my right leg. Bullseye.Gastrocnemius city. Dead on.How’d I know all these shitting names?Slam up against the bulk of the hatch. Stab the first stim needleinto my neck. Spear the jugular. Feel the burn as the fluid races tomy brain. Beats the knockout darts by about two seconds. Head buzzesas they fight for possession. Don’t wait around to find out who’sgonna win.Stand. Even as I squirt another stim in my neck, I’m swayingcrazily. Left to right. Overcompensate, then topple sideways. Only bygrabbing at the pad do I stop from falling.Squit. Third tag hits me in the hip. Somewhere in the quadriceps.Struck stoned. Can’t feel where. Not exactly. On my periphery thegrunts are closing in real slow. No need to rush. Quarry’s contained.Zero threat. On the verge of going down. Why rush? Best to keepback. Finish the job from a distance.Stab another needle. Makes fuck nothing of a difference. Growlat the grunts. Still don’t recognise anyone except Esther. Maybe theone with the black hair poking out. Maybe him, but that’s all. Theiruniforms are green and blue. Combat oriented. Half ready for thedrop. Bet they don’t relish having to pop out for this assignment.Can’t think it’ll win me any friends. Not a single one.

THE A-MEN | 67Third needle only confuses what to my brain is already a seriesof very fucked-up messages. It don’t know whether it’s up or down.In or out. It wants to just sink into the sweaty paws of paralysis.Needles say, fuck that. S’time to get up and party.Tracers have stopped. Yellow light’s gone. The task force sent tobring me down have stopped too. They’re standing in a rough halfcircle around me. Waiting it out. Then through my jagged vision theyall salute. As one. Like fucking androids.What–?Takes a few painful heartbeats to notice the hatch beside me hasyanked upwards. In it’s place’s this commanding officer. All navy andgold. Brass buttons shining. And behind him are two grunts. Thenthere’s the doc, two medical guys and a great big nothing.Force my numb hand up in a mock salute. Extremities burn themost. Can’t quite keep them articulate. Suddenly leprous. I wobbleon unsure feet. Can’t feel my toes. Balance’s all shot to shit.The CO sneers. Sneers and says something about getting thispiece of shit off his deck. Or something. Beyond him can still seethe crimson fibre trail. Disappearing into the grim half light of a longcorridor. Off to a door some way back. Can’t see what it says on it.Too steep an angle. Eyes too shitty to make it out anyhow.Behind me the suited automatons jump to attention. Begin toclose in on their stunned prey. Now the brass is here, everything’sover.Actually, that’s not quite right.Actually, that’s when the madness starts.One moment, I’m slumping before the colonel or commandantor whoever the fuck this is. The next I’m gone.Solid gone.The spider in my mind awakens. Starts feeding. Sucking the sapfrom me. Fuelled by the weird mix of narcotics. Staring out fromoblivion.Oh.My.

68 | THE A-MENGod.Yelling, I launch myself at the group. Psycho fast. Pummel theCO in the face with the heel of my right hand. Twist and use thelo-grav to pound up the wall. Jump just far enough to get past them.Waste the last needle by stabbing it into the face of one of the orderlies.Come down and find that I have a pistol in my hand. I’ve traded agun for the needle. How’d I manage that? What’s happening? But themonster in my mind cares not for such impossibilities. When I land,at my feet lies one of the grunts. His face is broken. Both nostrilsspurt blood. Blood on his cunt. His nose. Seeping through his fingers.Now it’s up to you, says the voice of the arachnid bowling ballpresence.Shake my head. Fight for sanity, but find only momentary blindness.My vision swims like I’ve got my head stuffed in a fish bowl. Flailout and the butt of the weapon finds a target. Hits something thatgives. Then as my eyes clear again, I hold the pistol in both hands.Pointing its bloodied barrel at the CO’s head. Everyone else is pressedhard against the corridor walls. Their guns are on the floor. Everyonestares back. Wide-eyed. Shocked and scared. I scream something feral.Some agrarian meaningless shit about them getting back and megetting away. The CO wants to strangle me with his bare hands. Wantsto choke the very last breath from me. A nanosecond of this and Iget tired of waiting. Haul him with me as I go. Dragging him alongthe trail of the thin red line. Headed for XSS-γαµµα-WHEREVER.Laugh at the things I am doing. Laugh and pull and aim theweapon. It’s a small bore auto. No markings. Standard issue. Nonrecoil,tri-action handweapon. Point forty-five calibre bore. Twelveround magazine. The thing you pack with your emergency water,shelter and personal protection items. Every time you go out to play.“You are making a big mistake, private,” blurts the CO. Staggering.“Sure thing,” I reply, laughing it up. Then I plug a few slugs intothe bulkhead to show them I mean business. Force the rest of theunit out into the hub. Don’t stop until the hatch is closing and I amsaved from their stupid stares.

THE A-MEN | 69“Seal it,” I whisper in the cunt’s ear.“This course of action will–”“Seal it!”Force the gun barrel to his temple. Grind it against his skin. Scrapethe muzzle through his hair.“I’m sure you have far more to lose than I have,” I remind him.Needlessly, but still do it.“Home,” he says through gritted teeth, “seal external XSShatchway,”Red locking nodes flash twice. Then the doorway disappearsbehind forty-five centimetre impact shields.“XSS hatchway sealed,” bleats Home impassively. Belying theurgency and ferocity of what is happening. Encouraging calm wherethere is none.I know what’s next. Follow the little red line of light. Keep thebrass close to me and the gun butt. This guy may have spent his lastthree offensives behind a desk, but he’s bound to be at least blackbelt. Maybe even white. These people usually are. Total chick magnet.Hard man central. Anyhow, takes longer than since his promotion toforget martial training. One fraction and he’ll have my ass pinned.Sure as fuck. And I’m too close to shit this up now.The scarlet trail ends at a silver door. On it a single plaque.XSS-γαµµα-E:NODE.“Open it.”“Look, private, just what are you trying to prove?”“Open it.”Last thing I want to do with this prick is start reasoning withhim. Conversations are for pussies. No eye contact. No words. Starta conversation and they’ve got you. No way they’re gonna talk mein off this ledge. Use the gun to impress my point. Use it to illustratethat I’m a dangerous psychotic who’s got nothing left to lose. Nothing.And everything to regain.“How far do you think you can go before your money and friendsin high places start to wear thin…”

70 | THE A-MEN“Fucking shut it!” I yell. Drowning out his whining. Roar like abull with fifteen picadors on his back. Luckily for the brass he doesas he’s told.Into the resulting silence, I twist the bastard around. Force myknee into his groin. Pin him to the smooth wall. Then take the standardissue army pistol and work it into his mouth. Chip off a crown ortwo on the way in. Keep on going. He gags on it. Sudden spittleoozing like pre-cum around the shaft. Look at him then. Look deepinto his eyes. And he looks deep into mine. Deep deep. Lovers deep.For an instant, he struggles. Tries to pull away.And then he sees the spider. For the first time realises the hotshit he’s in. That this is no vac-spaced shirt-loser who’s surfing ODCentral after too much stardust. This is someone infinitely more wild.Someone sailing the seas beyond desperation. Beyond fear. Outtowards the island at the edge of the world.The island.At the edge of the world.A jug of water from the fountain of eternal youth on the island at theedge of the world.What–?I flinch. Withdraw the gun and shiver.“Open it!” I shriek for a third time.The words hit the monstrous alien full in the face and it retreats.For now. I get about five or six flashes. Too fast to focus on. Too fastto record. Faces. Names. Places in the dark. Then, for now, the madnessis over.And this time the brass obeys me.*Within XSS-γαµµα-E:NODE, the room is a globe. Pretty much.Seats crowd the walls. Ether nodes waiting for access. All grey. Lifeless.Dead.Stand pressing my sweaty back against the closed door. Gulp air

THE A-MEN | 71and try to reassert my balance. Now the CO’s gone, I have no humancrutch. Left him outside. Spark out. MediQ tranq in his ass. Still,probably monitored the whole way. System already knows where Iam and what I’ve done. Won’t be long before they steam in. All gunsblazing. Got to make my time here count.So what’s the good news?There ain’t no fucking good news.Sure. Sure, there isn’t.Move down and shift into one of the seats. Slides to accommodateme. Tilt the back and get comfortable. Well, as comfortable as mypulsing muscles allow. Flip open the console. Plug the finder. Jack thev-rad. Heads-up rezzes on. In the air before me constructs form. Thegateway to the stream. Mapping out the terrain data in the vicinityof the ship.Check everything’s green. Everything’s under control.Then think, ‘Enter’.A kaleidoscope of images sucks me out of myself and into thestream. Replacing dull gun-grey metal with a million multi-hued datarainbows. Endless droplets. Elongated by speed. I drown in it all. Itis so existentially beautiful. So foreign and yet so familiar. No wombwas ever so large or so welcoming. Somewhere out in the real greyyonder there’s a muted bleep. Wants a passcode. Within the ocean ofinformation I bob surfacewards. Try to catch my breath. Yet it’simpossible. If I was here – ever – then I don’t recall it. Don’t recallit at all. As I turn my eyes, the three dimensional world turns withme. Repositioning me into the oncoming flood of yet moreimpenetrable data light. I want to stay here. Submerged in this riverof many colours. Wait to see what uncoded driftwood the tides washup. What polished pebble this eternal sea makes of the jagged rockof my mind. Yet I cannot. Time and tide wait for no creep. I cannotdelay. I must move on.What entry details would I use? What possible password? Whatcombination of mnemonics? What call sign?What?

72 | THE A-MENYet even though I am surrounded by more information than thefastest light-driven bio-anima sentience could ever decode in itslifetime, this one piece of data eludes me. If this specific fish swimsthese particular waters, then it is deep and invisible.Gyring through this underworld, I try a different tack. Call upcrew rosters. Splay records of traffic. Innately. Using the system as ifit’s second nature. Screen out anything beyond the last twenty-fourhours. Still weighs in at over thirteen billion emissions. Not surprisingI guess considering a craft of this size. Most of the data’s pre-orbital.Tracking and mass statistics. Internals reporting status. That sort ofshit. Set the deck to scan anything external. Clip the internals downto entry. Cutting volume by four-fifths. Still an awesome amount ofstuff. Phase to E-Unit personnel and the level drops like a stone.Leaves only five active patterns. Mine’s one of them. Judging by thelevel of activity, I seem to have had a pretty impressive securityclearance. Was dodging e:nodes like they were slalom poles. Last activitywas eight hours ago. Sent something big. Something very big. Outinto the stream.On the very edge of reality I sense a draft against my skin. Likea gnat landed on the moon and I felt it. Somehow. Force my headup through the weight of water. See the door’s gaping. Human teethenter. Their faces grim as their guns.Spasming, my mind thinks Spool. System bucks at this. Demandsan address. Demands a path. Demands a whole bunch of unknownparameters. I have no idea what to do. Most of this shit’s so heavilyguarded it’d take a week to unravel. And I don’t have seven seconds,let alone seven days. Not before the goons grab and stick me.Broadcast.Without any idea what I’m doing – at least consciously – I thinkthe command line. Watch as my last file shreds. Fibonnaci spirallingoff into infinity. Creating a weird cosmic bud. Some of it gets lost.Some’s stopped by the security buffers. Yet most gets through. Floodinginto the open stream like a porpoise through a hole in a trawler’snet.

THE A-MEN | 73Bye bye, I say to it. Watching it go. See ya later, baby. I promise.Then the first of the cutting crew is upon me. Rip the connectsfrom my temples, while others drag me off the curved back of thechair. Hauling me up. Holding me spread-eagled like a landed crab.My mind still swims uncharted waters. Is still washed up on theshore of the stream. Still zazzing. But this is only a memory. The v-rads, the constructs – the rainbow world – are gone. Gone like myinsufferable past.For a moment they hold me suspended. Hanging by both arms.Slumping.Then they dump me on the floor and cosh me.*Later I’m with Esther. In some kind of rig. Armoured suit. Strappedinto a great mesh seat. All around me sit similar hulking shapes. Dimlights. All one hundred and twelve of my E-Unit buddies. Somethingdripping around us. Water. Oil. Can’t be sure. For all I know couldbe blood. Esther sits opposite me. Her black face sticking from hercamo green helm, she regards me with unreadable eyes.Why’d I do that to you, I think, but in thinking I know I’ll neverknow. The memory’s lost in Doc Grisholm’s PTA. Still, got to saysomething.So I say: “Where am I?”“You’re in the land army.”Laugh. Comes out like a snort.“The land army? So where’s all the land?”She points. And in pointing I see it.The planet looming. Rising past the porthole. The sweeping azurecurve of a vast expansive ocean. The cloud-hung brown of a savagedcoastline.“What’s happening?”Esther casts a quick look out the porthole.“We’re going down,” she says simply.

74 | THE A-MENThe grunts cough and shift in the semi-darkness around us. Iignore them. Have to keep talking. Keep my eyes on the woman.Keep my mind off what’s about to happen. About what’s happened.Tricky ’cause just about then below our feet engines whine. Locksclang open. And the fear of falling starts to burn in my chest.“So who am I?”“Your name’s Jack.”“Jack? Jack what?”“You tell me, honey. You never said. You just called you ‘Jack’ allthe time I knowed you. Could be jack shit for all I care.”That amuses me.“Yeah. That’s about right. Jack shit. I like that.” Nod and grin.Now it’s Esther’s turn to snort.“You better be careful around me, white boy,” she continues.“Better act sweeter than pie. Better… after what you did.”I try to feign ignorance, but I can’t. Don’t even get close.“Today’s been a bit of a strain,” I explain. “I’ll try harder. I promise.”The black woman sizes that up. Trying to guess if I’m jackingwith her. Whether I’m serious. Finding no suitable answer, she getspreachy.“He who fails to prepare for the night, fails to prepare for thedawn.”“What?”“Look, brata, you got me all wrong. I’m in this to survive. Thislife. I don’t think about the bad things. Just the good things. I’m asurvivor. While all those about me are losing their heads, I’m keepin’mine. You understand me? I’m an optimist. Don’t let none of thatbad karma get me down. Not one single bit. Don’t have one pessimisticbone in my body. Not one. Ut-uh, not one.”The metal beneath us grinds again. Sounds like doors. Great doorsgaping. Thirty-five thousand kilometres below can’t imagine how theground looks. Can’t imagine how it’ll feel to fall that far. Can’t imaginewhy they’re still letting me go. Why my ass isn’t already hanging outto dry. But I can’t ignore it. I have to ask. To know.

THE A-MEN | 75“Why they sending me?”Something twitches across Esther’s face. Like the shadow of agrave. Then she says, “Why not. Strøm needs all the guns he can get.”She’s lying, I realise, but I’m too scared of the fall to care. Gotto take my mind off it. Just keep focusing on Esther. Her dark browneyes. Got to keep her talking. When she talks I don’t think of thedrop. Well, not exclusively.“Why’d you join the army? Just for the front row seat when theshit goes down?”“Wrong again, private. A doctor don’t be a doctor because hegets to deal in death, but because he gets to deal in life. A firefighterdon’t believe everything will burn, but that some things won’t. Somethings can be saved. That’s where I come in. Why I signed up. ’CauseI believe I can make a difference. That people can be delivered. Thatthere’s a way to avoid mass destruction through the presence of force.”“You’re crazy. So you wanna shoot people to save lives?”“A doctor don’t make people die. A fireman don’t start fires. Acop don’t make crime. And a soldier don’t make wars.”“I see. Very idealistic.”“What’s your problem, man? Why you here?”“Honestly, I don’t know.”“Sure you do. You told me.”My interest is piqued.“What’d I tell you?”“You said you was getting away from yourself. Wiping the slateclean. Cutting loose.”“I said that?”“Yeah. Or thereabouts. Course, you spoke a lot different then.Doc says the op took a lot out of you.”The cages shudder. Somewhere outside I can feel us gaining speed.Banking. My stomach sickens and I tighten my grip on the rails.“Yes, it did. Did I say anything else to you?”“Not much. Guess you don’t recall the last thing I said to you,do you?”

76 | THE A-MEN“What in the dorm?”“No, before.”The word tingles with meaning.“Nope.”“I said, you can’t get away from your own shadow.”“Deep.”“No, just plain truth tied up ugly.”“Great. So let’s get this straight. I’m in the wrong body. On thewrong planet. And eight fucking hours too late.”“’Bout sums it up.”Another thought snags in the fluttering mess of my mind.“Why was I green-lighted? Why am I here? After… you know?”Esther frowns.“You just asked me that.”And yet I really can’t recall that I did. Her eyes tell me that shedoesn’t trust me. However coolly she seems to be treating me. Perhapsthe doc had no desire to keep me behind. Perhaps they want me intheir sights. Or under a tank. What better way than getting rid of thebad ass than whacking him in the line of some friendly fire?I shiver at the thought of this. Turns the figures around me intomonstrous skulking beasts. To take my thoughts off this I start gettingcurious again.“How long till we… y’know?” I say to Esther.“Feel the metal shaking?”“Yeah.”“That’s a giveaway.”“So?”“By my reckoning, less than sixty.”“Minutes?”“Moments.”“Double great.”Look around. Everyone’s edgy as hell. Feel the tension. Runningthrough the metal like it’s alive. Below us the pod we’re in trembles.One long slow burning towards orgasm.

THE A-MEN | 77Oh, shit this.My hands twitch. Fists clench and unclench. I’m desperate forsomething. Something unknown, unnamed. Feels like a need.Dependency maybe. Maybe not.“Do I do drugs or something?” I ask. “Feels whizzy. Laevoamphetatamine?Methylenedioxymethamphetamine?” Again the words,the alien language of chemical perfection, come easily. “Am I onanything? Dextromoramide? Methadone? Anything like that?”Esther shakes her head.“Do I smoke?”“You do.”“I did. I just quit. Quitting all that other bollocks too. I’m startingfrom zero.”Total zero.“Not quite,” says Esther, “there is one more thing.”“What’s that?”Watch as the woman leviathan shifts inside her powered armour.Writhes beneath her metal seat. And brings out a brown satchel.Battered old thing. Torn straps. Looks like it belonged to some baglady wrong side of the last millennium.“What’s this?” I ask as she hands it across.“Present. Wasn’t going to give it to you. Not after you went psycho.But I guess you deserve it now more than ever.”“What is it?”But I’m already tearing back the flap. Pulling out the bulky treasureinside.It’s a book. A big battered tatty volume. Worn black leather cover.Feels real. Surely it’s not. Can’t be. Spine’s broken in places. Front’scarved like stone. Curves and leaves and ornaments. The name’s almostunreadable. Gold’s long since rubbed off. As if passed through a millionhands before I hold it. Concentrate on the ghosts of the once words.Haven’t got a clue what it says at first. The letters have no meaning.Go cross-eyed trying to focus on them. Then I have it. The word.Forming in my mind like a bright sudden star.

78 | THE A-MENForevermore.“Where’d you get this?”“You gave it to me.”“I gave it to you?” I repeat. Baffled by this.“Clear as you are now.”“No way.”“Way.”“Why?”“To make sure you got it later. I’ve given it to you once already.Right after manoeuvres. That time you got real angry. Real real angry.Like you didn’t want no part of it. Like you knew what it was.”“But I have no idea what it is–”Turn the book over in my hands. Room seeming to turn withit. Almost drop the fucking thing. Instead I open up the cover. Justto see what’s there.What’s there is a big black and white map. And in the cornerthere’s a message. From me to me. Writing’s chaotic and jumbled.Like this is the first time I’d held a pen in my life. It says:“To Jack. Welcome to Forevermore. Population: you. The faerietale is over, but perhaps this time around you’ll find your happy everafter. Yours truly, Jack.”And just as I’m through reading these words, hidden callipersspring open and we are dropped into orbit.And straight into the eye of the shitstorm.

11 DäalessandroLit by the unnatural fluorescence of the sublevel loading bay, we watch,Thomas and I, as the fixer polishes my car. This great hulk, his nameis Baseeq. A self-styled nigger: the new black. A giant of a man, hugeall over, big arms, big legs, fists the size of typewriters, whose powerto press one hundred and twenty-five kilos is surpassed only by hisinherent ability to fail in whatever task he undertakes. The other blackbeast in my life is much-prized geo from another age.“What is it?” the newbie murmurs.“My dear boy,” I say in a similar hushed tone, “have you neverseen a Diablo?”“No, I…”“May I present the Lamborghini Diablo. My metamorphic, ravenblackroadster.”The overhead lights do little to change the vehicle’s ebony aspect.Their strips are absorbed, leaving only the merest sheen on anotherwise flawless surface. Moth-like, the light just seems to be drawnto its dark flame.In the here and now, the combustion engine is a thing of thepast and this ground engineered organism was crafted long beforewe were all conceived. There are none alive who would ever haveseen even the twenty-first derivative of this darling automobile.“Where did you get it?” is Thomas’ next breathless question.“Oh, I acquired it years ago. It was the jewel of a private auctionaround the early eighties out near the eastern rim states. They wereasking a reasonable W$10 million. I gave them an opening bid of

80 | THE A-MENW$50 million and the beauty was mine. I’m never a man to barter,it always feels so primitive. And frankly I left all that behind me atmedical academy.”“Have you ever, y’know, driven it?”“Oh, yes,” I reply, the memory forming clearly in my mind. “Butjust the once.”I raced it that day. That very day. Clocked another four hundredand seventy-three kilometres coast-roading from the city to thenearest waystation. It was, and still is, the most remarkable day of mylife. Designed as it was in a time when equines provided the onlyscale, the Diablo bleeds power. Though the statistics mean nothingto us now, I know everything about this vehicle. Every little detail.From the four hundred and ninety break horse power to the fivehundred and eighty Newton metres of torque. Its overall widthincluding mirrors. The rear differential. Even the independentwishbones, coil springs, anti-roll cage, telescopic dampers andelectronically controlled shock absorbers that make up its imperfectsuspension.“Now I keep the vehicle down here as a talisman, a lucky tokenthat forever awaits the completion of this current undertaking. Waitingfor a second exquisite ride. Maybe,” I eye the psychist up and down,“I might be inclined to take a passenger.”Though we have not moved, our voices never louder thanwhispers, something alerts Baseeq to our presence. The black manlooks up and frowns, as if we’ve caught him in the middle ofsomething unpleasant.“How’s Baseeq part of the team?”“He is my fixer, the man who sources anything and everythingfor the project. He also takes care of the janitorial aspects of thisfacility and helps Rycharde where he can. His father was a friend ofthe family, a personal chauffeur during much of the company’sfoundling years. When the Phoenix Tower was still the company’sflagship.”It was pater’s wish for Baseeq to join the business when he came

THE A-MEN | 81of age, although the petulant child was less keen. I think he grew tohate the thought that life had afforded him no choice in the matterof his career. He was as if betrothed to the Glass Corporation longbefore he saw the benefit of a condo multiplex, subsidised food andmid- to high-class lifestyle. One day he rebelled, choosing freedomand finding the gutter. Within only the shortest of whiles, he wasjailmeat. Having already exhausted the possibilites of vjox, roxter andfledgling drug baron when the marshals hauled his sorry burro intothe pen. That particular episode cost the company far more than thefive-figure bail money in bad publicity, yet at least it returned thetwenty-two-year-old vagrant into the fold. Immediately he wasassigned to me and my project, considered as it was the most avantgarde of the ones we had on offer. Lambasted and cowed, in time heproved his worth, but there’s always that fire in his eyes; that darkanger.“Dr Glass?” Thomas is so full of questions. “Can you define exactlymy role here?”“Put simply, you are to be the first human ever to awaken withina simulated space-time.”“That’s… quite an honour, sir.”“Indeed. Ryan’s departure left an unfortunate hole in our team.Your training as a psychist within Glass-Suko puts you at thetechnological forefront of modern anima-biological sentient structures.Yet trying to programme a living machine from scratch is as close toimpossible as I’d care to mention. In the beginning living machinesare like children. No, even worse, they are foetuses. Able only to takeand not give. They must be fed and nurtured, yet unlike infants theyremember everything they are taught. Remember everything and thendo just what the damned hell they like.”“That’s one way of putting it.”“Hence our current tribulations with the X-Isle.”Even before I was forced to move my project underground, I hadalready fashioned the hardware and inputed the vast quantities of apriori concepts needed to create a believable environment. Yet it was

82 | THE A-MENlittle over a year ago after obtaining full access and licensing for theK operating sentience from Malorian, that we could move to thenext stage; the realisation of the first truly sentient hostgod. Its job:to create a self-contained universe and govern it exactly. Here is whereForevermore’s replicated book data proved invaluable. Within the pagesof the faeries tales was a simplistic world that would act as protei formore advanced creations. Unlike a simulation of an actual multiverse,replicating the entirety of space and time, one that takes place onceupon a time includes just the right level of input required for myfledgling immortal. And once constructed, there was no stopping him.“So, once the Amen was born, a being self-named after the creatorwithin the Forevermore universe, the parameters were in place for rapidand controllable growth. We built the X-Isle, yet the Amen populatedit with the rest of the pantheon…”“Yes, the other gods and goddesses; Ianus, Mûhamet, Astarth, Kalím,Bêz, Æoseth and Torûs.”“Yes, very good. I like people who do their homework. Nextcame the geography and the characters straight from the pages of thefolk tales themselves. And on the seventh replication, they all sat backand waited to be worshiped. All very simple really. Cosmically speakingof course.”Yet while I explain this to our new team member the hourapproaches when I must attempt the task of linking with this otherworld. Thomas Lloyd is to act as guinea pig. The tank is set. Everythingis in readiness. Yet something stirs me to pause. Though the latestexperimental laboratory dog, Bixby, has entered and is at this verymoment chasing around the imaginary island, the canine cannot initiatethe proper exigency sequence without our intervention. And my initialproposal to my father requesting human access to the simulation wasdenied. Blocked because of the whimperings of that inane thoughtchannelist, Jarrett. It was his bawling that made my father hesitateand finally deny my request for incipient entry.Filled with rejection and pride, I told my father that the isle wascomplete and could exist within its own humble logics. I proved that

THE A-MEN | 83the hostgod had settled down and was at stable limits of its intelligencequota. I triple-tested the direct brain access system. I even prefixedthe entryway to include a waystation outside the gods’ jurisdiction.Regrettably, nothing would placate him; his decision was final.Yet enough of that. For now that we are secreted here in theseshielded vaults, now that we are sectioned off from the outside world,now that we no longer report to anyone except our selves, now canwe finish. And when we are finished, I will throw open the reinforcedconcrete-alloy shield doors to the level-E carport and take my littlelady out for another spin. Yet this time it will be at night. A starry,starry summer night, all cool and cloudless and calm. It is all I dreamof. All perhaps I have ever dreamed off. The completion of the projectand the actualisation of my immortality.“Come,” I take Thomas’ arm and start to move back toward thestairs, “we have much to do if I am ever going to get that ride.”Below, Baseeq shifts his huge weight against the sleekness of therear trim, erasing the last invisible specks of dust from the lightweightcarbonfibre lift-lid roof section. I shiver at the sight, then turn fromthe balcony and lead Thomas back toward the rig. Back to the matterin hand.The matter of this fellow’s incipient entry into the uncannyX-Isle.

12 PureWe arrive at Shed 26 of the Castella backlot only to find it’s thisduplex storage warehouse out on 22nd and Bartlett. East Mission.What a dump. The smell from the uncollected garbage is driving eventhe rats away, but that ain’t stopping the true scum of this city whoare out in force. Lining up like pigs for the slaughter. Sun’s gettinglow in the sky. Shadows lengthening. We wait like for ever and whenwe finally get inside I feel like we’re gatecrashing some frat shit-kickersparty. There are zeebs everywhere. Place’s crawling with them. Toomany freaks, not enough circuses. There’s also one dry bar and a buffetthat even the vermin are avoiding. Lucille’s disgusted. I tell her not toworry. Not to fuck things over before they’ve started. Yet like everyother time in her sad little life, the redhead says shit to all that.“Hey, you!” she shouts over to a couple of tuxedoed gorillasguarding the inner sanctum of what must be the studio proper. “Who’dyou have to suck off to get a real drink around here?”That’s the trouble with street trash. They’ve the kinda roots youjust can’t bleach.Hearing this, everyone gets edgy. All turn away into their cliques.Heads down.“Shh, girl, don’t get all emotional.”Lucille grunts. “I don’t do emotion,” she snaps back.The neanderthals wrinkle their foreheads, clocking us. Seeing this,I grab the dumb bitch and make straight for the john. Times like this,there’s only one thing to do. Go pop some pills. We’re intercepted aswe cross the concrete. Suits herding us inside. At first I think they’re

THE A-MEN | 85gonna stick us, but instead they show us to the boss. Guess they wannaget us through the casting and outta there pronto pronto.Che Castella’s this porky bearded dude in camos and last year’sneo-punk cast-offs. Tearing and piercing is so passé, but especiallywhen accessorised with stud-emblazoned patent shoes, scarf andscowl. Man chews a cigar like he’s just fell off the slow spaghettiwagon mid-mesa. We clatter up onto the makeshift stage and totterthere, unsure what’s next. Out in the smoky haze, bright lights blindus to anything useful. Anything other than shadows and shapes. Canmake out a desk, perhaps six or seven people. Could be anything outthere. Anybody. Could be thousands.Castella smokes for a while. Puffing and stroking his fat gut. Thenhe says: “I am a genius and this film is my masterpiece. So you girlsa duo?”Lucille is off on one quicker than fuck. Her all-in-one knitwearand cashmere ensemble straining for a sabbatical as she waddles tothe front of the stage and curtsies.“Hi,” she purrs, “my name is Lucille. My resumé includes thechorus lead of Burn, Bollywood, Burn and a walk-on in the bodypoliticalcomedy, As Seen On TV. I played the TV…”“Are those highlights or just what you did last week?”“Highlights.”“So what’d’ya do usually?”“Ooh, lots of stuff. Like what d’ya wanna know?”“Like d’ya dive, for instance?”“Oh, hell no,” she whines. “Can’t recollect last time we even wentto the beach…”Groaning, I step forward. Realisation slowly dawning. I was nevermeant to deal with shit like this sober. OK, so maybe Lucille has theexperience, but I’ve got the tits, you know what I mean?“Hiya,” I drawl, chewing, “My name’s Susie-Sue. I’m 33-24-35and I’d be glad to eat just about anything.”“Good,” replies the mogul, “’cause I was worried you was anorexic.I’m only into babes who like to stuff their faces.”

86 | THE A-MEN“Sheesh, I don’t know what you mean. See I’m just a dumbblonde. Don’t go trying any of that shit on no brunettes.”Then I giggle. And Lucille joins in. Though her eyes spit poison,she tries to look sweet as pie. Like we’re some sorta dimbo double-act.Whole show buys us about three more minutes couch time before we’redead meat.“Look,” growls Castella, “let me try to explain what this flick isabout. Maybe then you can grasp what I’m looking for.”“OK,” we both say.“This flick is hot,” Castella starts. “Hotter than hot. It’s goteverything. Your catch my drift? Ever. Ree. Thang. It’s a kinda horror,action, suspense, porno chick flick. It’s called Nighties of the LivingDead. It’s got violence. It’s got gore. It’s got sex. It’s also got thesearmies, I said armies, of gorgeous women in negligées. Now thisparticular underwear comes direct from Hell itself. It’s, like, possessed.Stitched by demons from the cloth of the damned, whatever. Anyhow,these chicks are all at this crazy pajama party. Just chillin’, y’know.Chillin’ and popping off to the shitter for some lesbian lavatory lust.All hot stuff. When suddenly this one chick – I see her as blonde,maybe early twenties with these huge fucking jugs – well, she sortafinds these nighties in the closet where she’s been giving it largewith this… oh, I don’t know, this teenager’s baseball bat orsomething… and she makes like ‘wow, aren’t these just the mostgorgeous threads’, and rushes off to show the other babes. They clickwith this, so she just hands them out to everyone. Now then there’sthis scene where all the girls throw off their jim-jams and slip intothese skimpy baby dolls. All the girls. And every one of these thingsis like two sizes too small for them. They’re all so tight it hurts tolook at them. But we looks anyways. And just as they’re all tryingto get comfortable in these ultra-taut gossamer cotton bed things,they’re suddenly consumed with aching, wracking pains as thenighties suck every last fluttering breath from their heaving hooters.Yeah, like they are all totally choked to death and then they rise upas these fucking amazing zombie chicks, and burst out of the house

THE A-MEN | 87and swarm down upon the hicksville town that they all live in, andstart massacring the trailer-trash populace. I mean they start eatingtheir brains. Tearing people like limb from limb. There’s blood allover everything. They’re soaked in the stuff. And they slaughtereveryone. Men. Women. Children. Fucking babies in their cribs. Cats.Dogs. Ever. Ree. One. Yet of course not before stopping to blow afew biker dudes on the highway. And this is all filmed in wraparound.Spliced with close-ups of arms and legs and their huge, gore-soakedbazooms! Then in the finalé, the grand fucking finalé, the fascistgovernment fat cats send in an army of mutated killer wombats withchainsaws who’ve been grown in test tubes as a weapon against biochemicalwarfare techniques and the chicks are wasted, I said wasted,in this mega-apocalyptic battle in an abandoned meat packingwarehouse!”Castella pauses to cough. Think he’s about to upchuck his lungs,he coughs so hard. And when the coughing ends, he asks, “And thereyou have it. Twenty-five words or less? Nighties of the Living Dead. Seethe dead give head. So… what’d’ya think, ladies?”Silence.Throughout his diatribe we’re both paralysed with the wholesheer brain-fucking concept. Stunned rigid. I mean I know I’mdesperate and all to get into flicksville, but even I have limits. LinesI don’t cross. Still, let’s not be too hasty. Let’s concentrate on speakingbefore Lucille gets a chance to unfreeze her drooping jaw.“Wow, awesome,” I lie, my eyes thrown as wide as I can get them.Mouth open. Gum just sitting there on my tongue. Try to make eventhe gum look amazed. Like totally majorly impressed. “The mutt’snuts. Top dollar. Unbelievable. Really, really un-fucking-believable.”Somewhere out in the smoky darkness, I can feel Castella beaming.Grinning like a dog eating its own vomit. And mercifully while I’mdoing the best acting I’ve ever done ever, Lucille says nothing. WorriedI look over and see her hands fall to her hips. Ut-oh, bad sign. Verybad sign. Haven’t seen that since she got pipped to the post for MsAlternative Lifestyle last holiday weekend.

88 | THE A-MEN“You sick, sick fuck,” Lucille bleats at last. “Without doubt thatis the most twisted, sick, pissed-up tank of old shit, I have ever, everheard in my entire fucking non-life.”I try to put a brave face on this outburst, but it’s beyond me.That’s where my talent runs right out. Glance in panic around us.Try to locate an emergency exit. There are none.We’re fucked.Feeling the tension rise to the boil, I adopt my best hidari hanmigamae fighting stance and wait for the inevitable. And at that moment,at the end of what could have been a very promising acting career,there is a whine of generators over-revving and then the whole worlddies around us.In the darkness that follows comes the sound of anti-gravs,explosions, systems popping and the screams of the masses waitingdutifully outside.“I’m sorry,” says Lucille in the blackness, “did I miss something?”

13 23rdxenturyboyBack in the pens after our recon patrol. Swill’n out and feed’n whilethe mutts sniff’n around the bollocks of their mates. Everyone’s edgyat my story of the things in the sky. Xero, Zark and a few of theother woofers is bark’n on about it, while I try to hose and read issue#34 of Captain Cotdeath. Both at the same time. That’s the one whereDr Rico Zimpel is abduct’t by Dark Matter and taken to his coolmoonbase carve’t inside an extinct volcano and force’t to clone hismagneto death-ray device. It’s a real cliffhanger and a lot more rivet’nthan figure’n out what those tiny black flies is.“My guess is this has something to do with the united starstationstreaty,” croaks Xero between puffs of homegrown. “Didn’t someonesay they were all having talks ’bout that ’bout now?”“Don’t rightly know,” ruffs Zark, from the next cell, “but there’sa lotta whisperings about the corporation just pulling out.”“Pulling out?” asks Hector as he paces around and around thesame spot. “What of the city?”“Nope, pulling out of the planet.”“Can they just do that?”“Exxo can do whatever the feck it likes,” snaps Zark. “’Causethey’re in charge. They own this city and they own us. Ain’t that true,Xero?”The grey-black mongrel scratches his left ear with his back leg.“Yep, they’re in charge. And yep, they can.”“Well, it looks like we’re surplus goods then,” butts in Buster fromthree pens down.

90 | THE A-MEN“Not necessarily,” says Xero, before anyone can begin whimper’n.“There’s a good chance that this just might be why the corporate fatcats have had us bioengineered in this abandoned aqua attraction…”“Quiet up, back there,” comes the call from way down yonder.“Incoming!”Everybody twitches at this. Slope to the back of their cages andshut up. Xero outs the smoke and bats madly at the air around him.It’s nearly curfew time now and all’s get’n ready to shut down. Thewatchman’s do’n the final rounds before lights out. Same old storyevery single night.See’n, hear’n, sense’n all this I stop swill’n. Finish the page I’mon, turn down the already mangle’t corner and stow the comic book.Later I’ll try to slip out and intercept my dealer in guest services.With any luck he’ll have news of the final issue of Phantom and theXian Imperitors, the classic crossover series. Now that would besometh’n. And in return I’ll try another few combinations on thelockers. Most of the last dozen or so have been emptier than Zark’shead, but you never know. It seems a fair partnership, though I’d maulto know where he gets hold of these strips. Perhaps there’s a libraryor store or someth’n somewhere in the complex. Maybe he found asecret stash.If Dingo was the real Dog of Wonder, I’d get him to follow thecreep and find out. Slip past the guards and locate just where he goesto get ’em. But Dingo’s just Dingo and I’m just me, and we’d bothget caught for sure. Know’n my luck that’s a dead cert.Over our heads the dogs hear the clank’n boots of the watchmanjust before they smell him. And long before I see him. Well, no morethan his long bulky shadow that is. His stinky leather treads squealon the lattice’t mesh floor. He stomps along, stop’n now and againto check the access hatches and reset the codes on any that is overtwenty-four-seven. I pray real hard that he misses hatch twelve asthat’s the one I use to get out. Elliott’s already hack’t the pass for this.Will save him from break’n it again tonight.As I said, my luck is on a shit run right now. The black shadow

THE A-MEN | 91halts right above me and reprograms the hatch. It’s almost as if hehears me think’n. Then he marches on his way. Not even notice’nthe mucky urchin under his boots. As he goes he whistles. Whistlesand drags his piece along the corrugated iron that runs the length ofthe corridor above us.Bei’n grown to be sooper-dooper-sensitive in all five senses, thewhole guard thing hurts the mutts someth’n chronic.Soon as he’s gone, motion-tracker switches off the light globes,plunge’n our underground world into blackness.Rats’ shats.When not even my ears can pick out the tuneless whistle’n anymore, the vat dogs start talk’n again. As I no longer have a light toread by, this time I’m force’t to pay more attention It’s either that orfall asleep and for some reason I’m not in the least bit tired. Xeroonce more leads the mutter’ns. He starts by say’n that if he’s heardright and the corporation pulls out its fund’n, the city bigwigs willgo down. They’ll be no gas, no hydro-electric, no water, no noth’n.The corporate-own’t slumpermalls will close, so they’ll be no food.The Exxo-control’t first facilities will up and leave, take’n with ’emevery single paramedical unit. It will be what Zark calls a ‘fuckingway major disaster of the worsest kind’. And everyone agrees withhim. Most likely they’ll be conscript’t up to fight the good fight. For‘the good fight’ read ‘the good city people’. It would be awful. Whoknows what’ll happen to me. After all, Exxo does wholly fund theRuZu Dome neu-genetics operation too. Yet, says Xero, there is oneconsolation in all this. For if the power cells bleed dry, the electromagneticdoobrie-thingies on our prisons will all stop work’n. Andthis is seen as a good thing.“We have to make plans,” reasons Xero, “just so we know whatto do in the event.”With this said, the mutts next talk of our escape. By the soundof the arguments it won’t be at all easy, but at least they seem to betake’n me. The only way for us to go is out into the Main Plaza,then through the food court and into the primary entrance lot. Xero

92 | THE A-MENsays that this is mega dangerous, but sees no other way. No other wayuntil I mention Transport Central and Elliott backs me up by bark’non about the series of service alleys and ducts that run the lengthand breadth of the entertainment complex. Seen these on our roundsa thousand times. Always feel as if we keep our eyes peel’t. And thereisn’t a patrol that goes by without us think’n up some ever moreingenious way of escape’n from this glass concentration camp.“Well done, Dingo,” Xero says when he’s finish’t tell’n ’em allthis. “That’s the way we’ll do it.” And everyone agrees that we’ve gotthe bestest plan.In the dark Elliott grins and wags his tufty tail.We wait for three whole hours before the transports can be heardabove the sound of the main generator, but when we do the endcomes quick after that.One minute there’s light and music and power. Just like everyother night.The next they all wink out.And the next, the bombers come in.The flies from the skies.And just as Xero predicted, when everyth’n goes tits up and thepower goes down, every bolt on every cage in the whole penitentiaryclanks noisily open.

14 Sister MidnightPut a bullet in the bastard’s head and bring back his heart in a fucking box.The drop is as transcendental as ever.The attack ship releases us into the highest geostationary orbit itcan manage, allowing the pull of the planet to do the rest of theLord’s work for it. Firing us down toward the Earth’s eastern rimstates. Other pods scattershot the skies. E-Units one thru thirty-two.All aimed right at the heart of the city.The weight upon my chest makes my lungs feel as if they are tobe crushed, that my ribcage is seconds from imploding and piercingmy heart. Yet whatever my body tells me, my mind knows that allwill be well, that this is normal for such a forced re-entry. Pretty soonthe pain will pass. For me. For all of us. Unlike some other pains Icould mention.The veterans of the unit sit as I do, waiting out the agony. Thatbeing myself, Doc and Nezhadian. The rest cry and vomit and foultheir powered suits like newly-born babes. It is a sad situation andyet nothing in the past nineteen weeks of training could possibly haveprepared them for the sheer horror of the drop. The simulations,however realistic, never quite get to grips with the unremittinganguish of it all. No longer are our lives running on rails. No longeris this some exaggerated rollercoaster. Now we have been cut loose,abandoned to the raw power of nature. It is a fall of discovery intowhat a nasty unforgiving witch she truly is.Y’see, what I told Jack I believed. Soldiers don’t start wars. We’rejust the poor bastards have to finish ’em.

94 | THE A-MENIn my right hand I hold my string of prayer beads. In my left Ihold the good book. It’s dark screen flashing. And all the while I utterthe pater noster, speaking through quivering cheeks, biting down onthe words as if to snap each one in two. Opposite me the strangerwails, clutching his book. As if beseeching his own abandoned deityas his soul is torn into the jaws of the unholy kingdom. But no one’slistening. Everyone else’s in the same storm-tossed boat.“Papa bilong mipela, yu i stap long heven: nem bilong yu i masi stap holi…”I pray in my mother tongue; the lingua franca of my island.Memories of dancing around the fires in another place, another time.Singing and mimicking until I knew every last syllable, every lastgramme of sentiment and power.“Kingdom bilong yu i kam. Laik bilong yu ol i bihainim longheven, olsem ol i mas bihainim long graun tu. Kaikai bilong mipelainap long de nau yu givim mipela…”I pray for the inhabitants of the city. For their salvation duringthis time of imminent collapse. For their forbearance in the path oftemptation. For the souls of those who are to die. For those souls tobe few.“Na yu lusim sin bilong mipela, olsem mipela tu i lusim pinisrong bilong ol ol i mekim long mipela…”I pray for forgiveness of my trespasses. And for those who havetrespassed against me.Most especially for those who have trespassed against me.“Na yu no bringim mipela long samting bilong traiim mipela,tasol tekewe mipela long samting nogut…”All around us the metal screams. Everything shakes, rattles androlls. The neophytes are shrieking still. Yet finally Jack is silent. Nowhe is watching me. Staring deep into my eyes. Intent on somethinghidden there. It is hard for him now, this silence. His jaw is locked,his white knuckles shining in the semi-darkness.He is staring so hard his eyes are weeping.And still I continue.

THE A-MEN | 95“Kingdom na strong na glori bilong yu tasol oltaim oltaim: Amen.”As I finish, we drop through into the top of the true sky and asemblance of calm returns. Though we are still tumbling impossiblyfast towards the arc of the planet’s largest continent, now it is througha less volatile atmosphere. Now the rattling is reduced to a constantthrum. Taking this as good sign everyone calms a little too. Just alittle.And all through this, all through the pain and prayer and panic,the CO’s words goblinise my mind. As through his broken teeth heshrieks across the desk, all semblance of restraint gone.“I will not be made a mockery on my own ship. We can’t keephim here, so he’ll have to go. But he’s in your care now, SergeantRose.”Spitting the words. Foam flying.“I want him dead, Esther. Do you understand me? They’ll be nocourt martial. No fucking preliminary hearing. Keep the little shitwith you and don’t let him out of your sight. And when theopportunity arises put a bullet in the bastard’s head and bring backhis heart in a fucking box!”While inside my thoughts rage, outside the ship is void and, intothis relative island of tranquility, Jack asks me what I was saying onthe way in.“It’s a daily prayer. In those few words it embodies the sayings ofthe prophets, the discourses, the parables, everything. It honours God,faith and obedience. It is a record of hope, the question of life, theconfession of sins and an asking of protection against temptation.”“You religious?”“Profoundly.”“Whoa, too cool. Never met anyone who believed in God before.”“Like you’d know.”“Yeah, I guess. Now can I have that in a tongue I can comprende?”And so I repeat it. Twice. In a tongue that he can comprehend.That he can mekim gen. Just so he gets a handle on it. So he canrepeat it. Near enough.

96 | THE A-MEN“And you believe all that guff about forgiveness and bread andstuff?”“Of course. The generosity of God places only one condition onus in order to receive remission: that we forgive those who sin againstus, that we pardon those who have wronged us. Only then can wetruly show mercy toward our brothers and sisters.”“You’re fucking amazing,” he says, unable to grasp even thefaintest clue as to what I am talking about. What it all means.“I don’t think you were a religious man, Jack.”“No, I don’t guess I was,” he replies, “but perhaps I could be.”“Where we’re going, perhaps you gotta be.”“What’s that mean?”“The CO – you remember him, don’t you? – he’ll be along ina few minutes to explain all about where we’re going and what we’redoing. Just to recap yesterday’s seventeen-hundred briefing.”“Hmm, I think that went the way of the rest of yesterday.”“Yes, I think it probably did. Still I’m sure he’ll bring you up tospeed.”I look around at the other members of E-Unit and see the doctorand wetnoses starting to rouse and mentally prepare for what’s next.Sanada gives me a look that I can’t quite fathom. Perhaps it’s becauseI zapped him so early in manoeuvres. Perhaps because he’s sweet onme and feels the stranger’s muscling in. Then again perhaps not. Perhapssomething else.When I look back at Jack, he’s regarding the escape hatch on hisleft, my right. The glass. The large handle. The fluorescent yellowarrow. Again beyond the porthole we can see the planet.“Hey, don’t you ever just want to throw one of these open? Justto see what would happen?”I shudder at the banality of his comment. Such idiocy incites me.But in his case, I decide to ignore it.“It must be hard being an airhead in a vacuum,” I say as a reply.He grins. The grin is not altogether sane.Tucking the electronic book and beads away, my thoughts turn

THE A-MEN | 97once more to the task before us. Overheads flicker on as I do this,filling the cramped cabin with unwelcome light. There are grumblesand moans, yet these are all quelled when First Sergeant LawrenceStrøm slips through the control lock and releases the safeties. As themetal restraining bars slam open everyone stretches, finally releasedfrom their immobility. Immediately I stand and unlatch the racksabove our heads. At my lead the others do the same, revealing ourstandard issue equipment. Semis, dancers, fragmentation devices. Allthe usual stuff.At my back mr memory man stows his leather-bound book andstarts suiting up too. Near-space people – those born in the controlledenvironments of the thirteen moons – are not as physically strong asonworlders. Hence the powered suits. Of course in time the bodywould adapt, but for emergency mission drops like this one, there’slittle margin for such luxuries as the suggested two-weekacclimatisation rotas. Without our intervention in two weeks the citywould be just a smouldering ruin.As we load up, Strøm tells it like it is.“OK, I’ve just had the latest recon on the situation down there,so listen up. All existing treaties between the Earth and the macrocorpsons of bitches have been declared null and void. Exxo pulled out allfirst and second rank facilities at t-minus two hours. All militaryprimary and tertiary units are in. We’ll be forming the first nondirtsidepeace-keeping force on the scene, so keep to the scenarios.I don’t want this getting out of hand. Now I know that most of youare newbies, but that’s no excuse to go psycho on me. Rememberwe are neutral forces. No gook corp owns our asses. We’re here tocontain, so keep focused and in direct contact at all times. Anyoneeven thinking of deactivating their d-com equipment will be recalled.”I stow my weaponry in the suit’s armoured casing, checking mybio-signs as I do. With an audible click the suit’s micro-climateconditioner becomes operational, pushing cool air between me andthe silky smoothness of the camo-suit.“Sergeant Rose, you command Black Wolf. Corporal Nezhadian,

98 | THE A-MENyou get Blue Bear. Sanada, Red Fox. Now let’s look lively and getthis job done!”Lastly I retrieve my blade, strapping this to my back sheath. Andthen I am ready. All around me E-Unit are ready too. All except Jackwho stands by the porthole like a lost lamb.“You’re with me, so keep with your division buddy and you’llbe fine,” I say to him as the CO rants his way through the last of thetactical assignments.“Yeah,” he says, “thanks.”Can’t say I trust quiet people. Once I thought that they wereintense or mysterious or holding back, but then I found out that thereason people didn’t say much was because they didn’t have much tosay. But with Jack I know that there are other reasons. And reasonsalso behind why I’m ready to give him so many chances.Why am I so willing to forgive?Why?Then I realise. It comes from the deep. Uncontrolled thoughts.Up from the wild black chaos in my gut. This has nothing to dowith religion. Of forgiveness and forgetting. This has to do withsomething infinitely darker.

15 The NowheremanThe drop is the worst. The total worst. Like having your entire insidesripped out then rammed up your ass. It’s hard. It’s long. And it’s away weird experience. Not that I felt that peachy before. Not afterwhat I’ve been through. But what with Esther spouting her crap andthe weight on my upper torso, I’m left wondering just what goodreason I have to be here in the first place. I wonder about a lot ofthings. About my arrival into this pissed-up regiment. About the bookI left for myself as a parting gift. About the sheer facileness of it all.But also about my mother.Grisholm asked me about my earliest memory and now I haveit. The spider in my mind has given it up. Strained it out from severedmind to sudden memory. It’s the day my mother left me. Maybe leftus, but I can’t seem to include any other significant person in therecollection. It’s just me and her.I see a hall – well, a door anyway – through which my motherleaves. She is tall, thin and wearing in this impossibly figure-huggingpolka dot dress. Her hair is severe. Bunned on top. Her face saysgoodbye more than her brief kiss ever could. I try to hold onto thatkiss, then her wrists and finally her bag, but the polished leather slipsfrom my tiny grip. I mewl. She revs the engine and is gone.Forevermore. Darkness crowds behind me. Perhaps this representsfigures, siblings, fathers, but if so I am unaware of it. The memory isjust me and her.Parents. What do I know of my parents?Far as the crawling thing lets me recall, my parents were either

100 | THE A-MENfighting or fucking. If they weren’t doing one, they were doing eachother. Their loathing was legendary. Can’t for a moment rememberwhy. Perhaps even without the op I wouldn’t know. What kid does?The book is another irritant. I want to look through it. Exploreits possibilities. But right now I don’t think calling study leave wouldbe best appreciated. Just gotta go with the flow and hope that whenI’m beached, I have the sense and opportunity to pick up where Ileft off. Yet between there and here is a whole lot of unknown. Thecity. The riots. The dawning realisation that pretty soon I’m going tobe smack bang in the middle of it.Actually to be frank, right now the prospect of death wouldbrighten up an otherwise dull afternoon.The towering black woman is up and handing out guns longbefore the rest of the raw recruits have even grasped the fact thatwe’ve entered the atmosphere. Most are still peeing their pants.Actually the only reason I didn’t puke on re-entry was that my stomachfeels so empty it would be a god-sent miracle if I could even dryretch. But there you have it.I watch her trying not to notice me looking. She so nearly succeedsthat I want to cheer her efforts. But I don’t. I don’t do anything.Then it’s my turn to get kitted out.As well as the steel zoot suit. I’m handed my combat dancerwhich I stow. Then comes a handgun. Deckler and Konran. Highvelocity .45 automatic. Explosive shells as standard. Three barrels. Threecylinders. Three sizes of ammo. All unutterably deadly. These she termsmy long range killing zoners. Words trip training lectures. Like onehundred to one thousand metres. Like common calibre, minimalmoving parts and huntpatch. Twitch skills like tracking by sight andscent, animal butchering, camouflage and concealment. Stir bottomlines like know thy enemy and nothing should come as a shock ina survival situation.Experience is the only true teacher.Surprises kill.Next comes those weapons assigned for the middle killing zone.

THE A-MEN | 101The ten to one hundred metre radius. The D&K is on this list, too,of course, but Esther adds to that a whole rack of anti-personneldevices. Grenades. Mines. Torques. Most are things that blow up. Thingsthat once they’ve blown up either smoke, shred or nuke.There’s only one weapon in the personal killing zone. Jarl Class.Solid core. Razor straight. Bayonet prongs. Looks like the sort ofblade you’d use at a Brit Milah. Not that I’d know. Or think I’d know.And lastly comes all the ammo.“The suit you’re wearing’s triple-layered,” Esther’s saying. “You’dhave been briefed about these in basic, but my guess is you’ll needa recap. Outer layer’s ballistic. Will absorb the impact of thrownweapons. Bullets are fifty-fifty. Depends where they hit. Middle layerconducts the technology feeds. Supplies you nutrients and vitaminsthrough your skin into the bloodstream. Whatever your stress levelsrequire. There’s an automatic shield and faceplate. Night-vision visor.Target and comlinks. Thermal imager. Surveillance bot. All the usualshit. Auto everything. Voice command everything else. Manual’s here.Also comes with all the standard emergency, medical and personalsecurity packs built in. Water’s here. Rations and survival bivouac arehere and here. Rest of the miscellaneous guff is stowed with thepower pack in the lower back section.”Esther is sleek and precise. Her voice clipped and raw. Her eyesare hungry for the chaos that fast approaches.“Anything else?” I ask, already bewildered.“Yeah, one thing. RIN.”“Rin?”I say it like a word, so she spells it out. “Ar. Eye. En. Stands for‘retinal interface node’. It targets your weapons, gives you all thereadouts, has limited AI too. You can access stream data with it.”“What, anything?”“Well, yes, in theory, but it’s patched through Strøm so don’t gothoughtchannelling porn, OK?”Fuck piss damn.“OK.”

102 | THE A-MEN“Use it like any environmental system.” Esther pauses, then adds,“Like you used Home on the Scheherazade.”“OK.”Feel uncomfortable about all this. Like technology’s not to betrusted or entertained or invited over for dinner. Not allowed to crossmy personal threshold. It’s like I’m standing inside humanity’s futureenslavement by its own utensils. Sure, it’s all stylish, sexy and dark, butnot easy. Not kind. I distrust being encased in this second skin. Thissecondary intelligence around me. It’s claustrophobia, mechanophobiaand thanatophobia, all rolled into one handy to handbag psychosis.“Why don’t they use mechs?” I ask. “I mean all mechs?”“What instead of men in suits?”“Yeah.”“Too costly. Skin and bone’s more economically viable.”My mind crawls at this. Creeps. Thinks confinement, machinesand death again. All utterly reasonable fears from where I’m standing.I’m standing…I’m standing in the shadow of this colossal circular rig. Inside thisgreat mechanised cake of wires. Crushingly close. There’s an eye here.Right before me. As large as I am. Cold and ocean wide. The wokenorb of a dead fish. I am lost in its blackness. There is no escape. Thereis only parturition. The eye. The crushing closeness of the machine.And absolute death.Shake my head and find that Esther’s waiting for me to signalaffirmation. Only once I nod that I’m zipped and zoned does shenod too. Nods and moves along to the next guy.Round about then there’s a lurch and the tug of a stronger gravity,and suddenly I feel heavier than fuck. At once sluggish and clumsy.Instantly I am a fat cunt in a world of fat cunts. In response to thisthe suit jerks into life. With an almost inaudible hiss it pulls the pressureoff my chest. Bearing the weight on my femur. My humerus.Elsewhere, the rest of E-Unit starts limbering up. Getting used to thedead weight of their own bodies. Guy straight next to me is a bit ofa porker. Chubby faced. Must be feeling all this in the worst way.

THE A-MEN | 103More than me. Much more. As he squats in his grey and green battlegear, I stick out my hand and try to get all buddy-buddy.“Hiya.”His look is one of iron. Halts before offering his hand. Like hewas checking to see if mine held something poisonous.“Hi.”“I’m Jack. We…”“We’ve already met.”“Well, yeah, I’m sure we have. It’s just…” I tap the side of myhead. Make a funny face.“Chase,” he says.“That’s it? Just Chase?”“Yeah, that’s it, Jack.”I back off. Can’t quite get the taste of his hate out my mouth. Can’tface his reproach. It’s tough being the bad guy when you can’t evenrecall what you’ve done. Not that I’m feeling what you’d call guilt oranything. I’m no way that self-aware. I mean a million people every daymust wish for a clean slate, a way to wipe the shit off the walls of theirpersonal hells and start again. And here I am in the whitest room ofmy life, and already I’m being tarred with stuff I don’t even recollect. Imean it’s all right for Esther and her setup. All she has to do is confessto get her slate wiped clean. For the rest of us, it’s a little more complex.Yet seems not even grade A mind wipe cuts it. Need to really get outto break free. To leave behind each and every pair of eyes. Only way.Either that or just turn out the lights. Then only the smell would remain.The smell is the memory.In the left plate of my helm my heads-up flicks into life. Instantlytracking vital signs, blood sugar level, ammo count. Also holds thefeed. Sending real-time digital signals back to base. Linking me toevery one of the other shitehawks in the unit. Now I’m truly tagged.Globally positioned to within a single metre. Another set of eyes.Whoop-de-doo.“This is RIN. Initiation sequence complete. All internal functionsoperating at prime.”

104 | THE A-MENThe voice is sweet like candy. Smoother than marble. And just asicy cold.“OK, you chancers, get sweet,” says the voice in my left ear. It’sthe CO. Letting us know he’s still there. Still in charge. “We’re oneminute thirty from ground zero.”Everyone turns towards the exit hatches that line the outside ofthe craft. Psyching up ready for the off. Faces grimmer than ever.The crying and pissing is over. Now they’re all convincing themselvesthey’re undisputed unclefucking badasses again. Trying to convinceeveryone else that too. Everyone else looks pretty impressed. All exceptEsther and me. Don’t really know how I look, but she’s got a facelike the final judgement. And all I can say is it don’t bode too wellfor civilisation. No way, no how.“What’s up?” I ask. Sassy.Her reply is not what I was expecting.“The Earth is going down,” she spits, then by way of explanation,adds, “We used to live in a land where we were in some wayaccountable for our actions. Now those days are gone. The macrocorpsown everyone and everything. For decades unlimited people havebeen encouraged to be stupid. They’ve been pampered until theyhave become asinine. And that is why they will all die.”“Hey, wow, Esther. Just what the world needs right now. Hopeeternal.”Look away from her judging stare. Look away and outside. Outsidethe planet’s too big to see. Now’s just clouds and lessening morningdark. First traces of dawn. Purple light.Then I get a glimpse of the city.It is big. Bigger than I had imagined. Or at least had I imaginedit I would have imagined it smaller. The financial district overshadowsthe rest of the structures. Rising like a range of jagged spires of rockto the north, south, east or west of the bay. Too disoriented to tellwhich way is which. First sunlight glisters in a million windows.Grapefruit pink. Thirty-eighth floor skybridges arc through a thousandnowheres. Tension-wired feats of architectural vanity span highways

THE A-MEN | 105and byways and spiralling exit ramps. Whole place don’t look like it’schanged much in a decade of decades. There’s a suspension bridgereaching to a string of islands. There’s a park. Urban sprawl. Let looseand weird. There’s also twenty million stories running their supersanitised way to their natural conclusions. Some touching. Most not.Some touching. Most not. It’s city as endless till receipt. Of interest tono one. The merging morass of the commercial, political and sexual.The mail-merging of the many.Esther crowds me as I look. As I gawp. She knows what I see forshe sees it too. She sees the city as a labyrinth of human construction.City as world. World as cosmopolitan metroplex. A dusty jungle.Implacable and unassailable.Seeing us as we come to assail it.“Welcome to Pandaemonium,” she whispers, her breath cool onmy hot neck. “First City of Man. Capital of Hell. Built by Cain underthe tutelage of Satan.”Real deep shit, girlfriend. Real fucking grievous.“So what happens when we get down there?” I ask, as much tostay my sudden vertigo than through any real interest.“What happens?” Wolf leader asks. “Honey, who knows. Nothing’ssure ’cept this one thing–”“Whassat?”She smiles a voodoo smile. Eyes wide as saucers from anotherworld.“When these doors open, you can kiss normal goodbye.”Then the bells and whistles sound. Squawking. All at once.Screeching for our attention.Announcing dirtside landfall in sixty seconds and counting.*The city is no longer a toy glimpsed from on high. Now it isgargantuan. It dwarfs us. Looming around the transport even thoughwe circle ten storeys up. Tight recon. We’re in an almost constant bank.

106 | THE A-MENStandard procedure apparently. The first dozen or so forces were assignedCentral. We’ve arrived in Zone West. At a place my schematics identifyas 15th and Lincoln. Looks like an insurance district. Second-ratebusinesses. Financial wannabes. Cubes within cubes. Out the portholethe name of Bartlow, Jerome and Banks pans quickly by like someiridescent commercial seen down the barrel of a shotgun. Concept:killer accountancy for killer clients. The rumble of the engines masksevery other noise. We’re all hanging on. Waiting for the inevitable.Then in a heartbeat it’s here.“Zero in ten,” Strøm recites over the comlink.In a rush the entry shield doors snap open. Bulkhead splits.Windows port and starboard crack apart. Sphincter swift. Rotatinginto nothingness. Outside is just air. Air and a two hundred foot drop.There’s a sudden smell of wood smoke. Acrid. Charring the lungs.Been breathing recycled oxygen so long, throat automatically takesit in. Big mistake. Choke it out and hang a right as we bank again.Dropping. Feel the pull of the abyss again. Super strong. Drawing meinto it. Want to run. Vault. Fly…“Eight.”Manoeuvre throws a wide view of the scene below. It’s a municipalparkway. Green fringe to a concrete swathe of faceless offices. Littlefaux river plays through it. Running from grass to paving. Meanderinguntil it ends in the foyer of some big-shot brokerage. Obviouslysupposed to signify some bullshit message to its tight-ass clients.Something environmental and deep. But it’s all lost on me. There arebenches too. Little paths. A tiny oasis where once people lunchedand bitched and character assassinated their bosses with colleagues.Not any more.Now scattered violence replaces the gentle sipping of café lattes.Splintered furniture litters the grass. Motionless figures lie beaten todeath on the greensward. Mere broken dolls at this height. Tiny,forgotten toys.Vivid imprints. Of childhood. Of a city rendered infantile by itsown lawlessness.

THE A-MEN | 107“Zero in five. Off your asses.”Concertina ropes of abandoned vehicles border the park. Morebodies adorning the hoods. Splayed like twisted trophies. Like sickadverts at a ROAN motor show. Bikini-clad women now brain-deadcorpses. Most of the doors hang open. Gaping at the smeared carnagewithin. Windows staved. Trails of brightness staining their usuallyspotless interiors. One geo’s been overturned and set on fire. Othersare daubed with the names of the hip illiterati. Words like Gangstar,Kansa and Joyrida. Each hastily painted in all but unrecognisablehieroglyphs. We pass through the wreck’s white smoke trail as wedescend. Charnel house sweetness replacing the bitter taste of theother fog. Beyond, a jam extends as far as the eye can see. PackingEleventh Street with chaos. Unruly mobs dash every which way. Overand through the congestion. Panicked or panicking. Throwing missiles.Destroying everything. Like a human sea. Waves of anarchy. Rioting.Looting. Ruin.“Three.”Now right below us there’s a pot-load of hysteria caused by abouta thousand people all trying to avoid the rampagers behind them.These are ordinary folks, middle-aged couples with fear-filled faces.Teenagers. Family groups. Single thirtysomethings. Backpackers. Thecollective displaced. The gathered lost. Pouring down the funnel ofLincoln they have arrived at the oasis and been sucked into its fragilecalm. Now they’ve discovered that this leads nowhere. Nowhere exceptthe sparkling glass facade of the insurance building. The dazzlingwaterfalls. The fake moss-covered rocks. The silk orchids. Way outturned no way out. Sanctuary turned killing jar.There are no marshals. No lawgivers or enforcement units orvolunteers with batons. Only the crowd and the rushing mob. Andthere is little to no difference between them. Still that’s not toosurprising. After all, this time yesterday they were all the same.Indivisible. Now they have been segregated. Doomsday has arrivedand sundered them. Split them into hunters and hunted. Eaters andmeaters.

108 | THE A-MENThe walking wounded and the living dead.I am appalled. Shocked. My nihilism breached.“Two.”Faces upturn as we flyby. For the first time we hear some of theshouts. Screams. Few shots over the gunning of the engines. Then wedrop like a brick. Hit ground zero on the edge of the manicuredlawns. Just before the plaza. Tailgate goes down. Traps fly open.Then there’s Esther’s voice. Yelling at us to, “Go, go, go!”Pressure’s let loose. Throats rip with roars. Tear with shrieks.Grunted machismo. One moment we are restrained, held in place bythe opaque red pall of death across our sight. The next our visorsclear. The next we are released.We go.As one the combined power of E-Unit launches itself into themidst of the battle. Shields up. Dancers tight to our plated chests.Tacticals haunting the air on the periphery of our vision. Street maps.Cutaways and marching orders. Prime directives flashing like trafficreports. Winking on and off.Sprung from our cages in our powered suits, we hit the concreteand start running. Liberated like dogs, starving. Hungry for the hunt.Headed for the crowd.At first they don’t see us. Then they do. Scattering like flightlessbirds, they are driven before us. Back toward the buildings. Towardthe glass frontage of the skyblock. Pitifully they view us as just anotherenemy. Insane with the fear of brutalisation, they flee. Flight theironly option.“Bear and Fox, keep course. Black Wolf, prepare to engage withthreat on Lawton.”On my periphery, the twenty or so members of Wolf divisionsplit from the pack. Head back for the park. Don’t watch them go.Try to keep focused on the other crowd. Keep focused that is untilthe CO’s voice reminds me that I’m a black wolf too.As I turn to join my assigned unit, I find Esther and Chase arewith me. Shadowing. Looks like they’ve been asked to keep an eye

THE A-MEN | 109on the loose cannon. S’OK. No big deal. My only ideas are complianceanyhow. At least for now.As we reach the tiny river, a band of about fifty punks spill intoview. Swarming beyond the iron railings. RIN instantly auto-targetseach one. Requests filtration information. Asking which I want totake a pop at. Automatically feeds back the other grunt’s choices.Striking them off my possible options. Making sure we incur theoptimum fire pattern. That we all don’t waste ammo shooting at thesame carcass. Technology-controlled abolition of the blue-on-blues.All clever stuff. All far too quick for me to keep up. Gotta take timehere. Gotta think. Force my fractured mind back to my training.We’re the good guys. Exxo-controlled peace-keepers. Macrocorpfunded.Or so the doc told me.Then I clock this lumberjack. All ochre beard and broad shoulders.He waves what looks to be rifle. Single-shot. Standard hunter’s kit.Displays spell out make, model and defence codes, but I ignore allthat. Instead let the automatic locking systems tag him, then yankback the trigger. The gun spits shells. Ten, twenty, thirty-three beforeI get a chance to release it. My slight spasm arcs the deadly showeracross the air between me and the huntsman, but not enough to missmuch. Missiles make a sudden bright mosaic against his alreadycheckered shirt. Changes his rallying cries to a gurgling shriek ofsurprise and death. Turns his ripped chest to a savaged thing. Fallingface-first into the railings his heart and lungs spray the azaleas. Hisface frozen. Puppet-like. Wide-eyed and very, very dead. His cohortsfare no better. Black Wolf’s amassed firepower reaps the mob likecorn. The harvest over even before it has begun. There is not evenone shot of returning fire. Not even one. All that’s left’s a row ofcorpses sagged against the fence.Experiences of death knife past me. Game-like. Primary coloured.Illusory. I almost expect a score to appear at the end. A tally beforemoving to the next level.Unfortunately the sound of our guns echo in the confined area.Panicking the other crowd. They think it’s a cull. That we’re here to

110 | THE A-MENwipe them out. They scream like little girls. Start crushing each other.Frantic to be saved. As the CO orders us forwards to secure theperimeter, I glance back. In the courtyard Bear and Fox divisions arestill as statues. Forming a protective arc around the masses. Of course,the masses see this as a pen. Those pressed against the glass frontageof the skyblock scrabble at the tinted barrier. A few who are crushedagainst the double entry doors attempt to force their blooded fingersinto the imperceptible crack. Trying vainly to prise their way inside.Literally sobbing against the windows like starving zombies.Esther ducks into view to my right and drags me forwards.“Move on,” she urges, “there’s nothing for you back there.”I protest, shrugging off her gloved hand. But when she runsforwards, I follow. Inside my mechanical uniform, I try not to fightthe way the suit aids my movements. Yet it’s difficult. The armour isalways a micro-second out of sync with the rest of my body. Sometimesit’s way off. Makes sudden movements sluggish. Movements likerunning. Stopping.“Wolf division, seal the parkway, then secure your position. TheBartlow, Jerome and Banks building has been assigned our base camp.Lay down suppressing fire while we contain the area.”Strøm says nothing about the civilians. Nothing at all.With an audible ripping sound, two of my division tear open thiskhaki pack they’ve been carrying. Inside’s a microfine coil of razorwire. While others strap a range of jar-like grenades to the railings,these two weave the wire between the spears of the fence. And whenthey’re finished the only way anyone’s coming through that is in atank. All finished we back off. Leaving five to act as watchmen, wereturn to where the others are containing the non-combatants.The mess is still a mess when we get back. Now the main doorsto the lobby are destroyed. Staved by a metal bench. The crowd hasscattered into the building and are trapped inside. Forgetting thatthere’s no electric some have tried to escape via the elevators. Allthey find are the static cars. Just dark boxes. Useless. Others havefound the fire doors that lead to the stairs. No one appears to have

THE A-MEN | 111anything to smash through them, but they try anyway. The only otherexits to the place are into self-contained offices and storage cupboards.There’s what looks like a boardroom too. All ways lead nowhere.Strøm barks orders, but I don’t really take them in. Spouting somethingabout repressing tactics and break camp. Behind me the landing shippowers up, its lift-off accompanied by a great storm of dust and litter.Taking the CO and the doc with it. Bound for a quick recon, itsassigned landing position atop the building. All ninety-two floors aboveus. Seems sensible. Keeps it out of reach, but ready for a possible evac.Should the need arise.But I can’t see it. This city has had its plug pulled and few wereprepared for it. Resistance forces will have had little time to prepare.Esther is right, of course. Society has become a fatted calf, bloatedon its own brand of neu-organic grain. I don’t need a brain to workout the scenarios for the next few days. Nobody thinks what they’ddo if they lost electricity forever. That their heating, their appliances,their air conditioning, the four-thousand and sixty-two separate chipsthat control every basic function of their daily lives would all die.While this would be bad enough, it’s just the beginning. In the currentscenario the water’s gone too. As are all natural fuels. Soon the water’sgonna get contaminated, one way or the other. And then what? Everyroad out of this place is already snarled to a full stop. Even if youhad enough gas, you couldn’t go anywhere. And to top it all, thegrocery stores and malls and cornerstores will be out of food bytomorrow morning. I’m certain the populace were told that Exxo’srelocating would be tough but I’ll bet not one single fucker thoughtit would come to this. And while no one wants to think too muchabout situations like these, though they pray they will never happen,now they are forced to. Forced to face up to feeding and fleeing andtrying to survive. Until now, people’s worse dilemmas have beenleeking taps and where to spend their money-off coupons. Now theyhave to face the question of what they’re gonna do about the gangof street punks looting their neighbour’s house, and knowing theywill be next.

112 | THE A-MENWhy’d I send myself here? It doesn’t make any sense.Keeping close to Esther, I see on the heads-up that there’s a spateof flash fires back along 15th. Just before the CO’s alert. He sendsWolf and Bear divisions. Leaving Red Fox in the hands of the guynamed Sanada. My suit identifies him as this big hulking brute of aman. Raw recruit like us all, RIN shows he’s got a good record. Bythe look of him he’s real officer material. Not like most of the otherno-hopers in the unit. Can tell by his face he’d rather be going withus than staying here nursemaiding the civs though. Not too good athiding his feelings. Looks pissed. Severely pissed. Not the sort of dudeyou’d ever like to face-off against.Glad to know I’m getting away from him for a while. Maybehave time to think about how I’m going to get clear of the fallingshit. In a city splitting apart at the seams, hopefully that won’t be toodifficult.*We arrive at 15th and Island on foot. Using society’s unwanted debris,we weave along in shadows, picking off looters as we find them.Heading for this giant conflagration. Some kind of warehouse unit.Storage facility. You know, the ones where you buy a lock-up to stashyour overflow. Sign says fifty world dollars a week. Unwanted junkstored out of sight. Out of mind. Now the whole place’s ablaze. Aninferno. Burning like magnesium. Emergency fire-fighters have beenassigned to the task of controlling the work of the arsonist’s torch,yet these units cannot respond to many of the fires because snipersare shooting at them. Don’t ask me why. So we’ve been called in asescorts. Given the job of going in to protect the boys with the hosesfrom the guys with the shooters.Actually the spread of fires is growing. Breaking out over an everwider area of the city. These blazes are not limited to any one sector.The roaring, billowing flames are burning in all directions. Varioustargets. Supermarkets, drug outlets, auto stockists, liquor stores,

THE A-MEN | 113businesses, restaurants, food halls. As we hiked we passed a buildingwhere a fire was just starting. Looted shopfront. Something to dowith home appliances. Just light wisps of steam, then smouldering.Then a heavier smoke. Stopped for a moment, back against a wallwaiting for the sign to press on, I watched the store as it burns. Firstthe smog’s grey, then black, then the intense orange of all-consumingblaze out of control. The shell’s consumed frighteningly fast and itdoesn’t take long before the flames reach up through the roof. Oncethis happens, the fire rushes next door. Spilling via vent pipes. Thenthe floors go in a shriek of splinters. As we move on, not five minuteslater, the fire’s already burning out. And in its wake, only ash. It’s anamazing sight. Absolutely fucking amazing. Yet so is everything. Thisworld is so new to me. I am a child again. Every sight, sound andsmell an experience that enthrals. My shattered memories filling inthe blanks. Hungry for the devil in the details.Our arrival in the street of the storage facility is heralded by ahail of bricks and other missiles. First I know about this is when myshield plate beeps proximity alerts and slams over my face. Shockedbreaths steam it instantly, but at least the wine bottle that smacks intoit don’t shatter on my face. Above I see about two dozen figureshanging from various windows. These apartments once held the objetsd’artof the West Central elite. The bankers and their wives, their twopoint-twosanctioned children, their single non-violate pet. Now theyhold opportunists and despoilers, eager to frolic for a moment in thehomes of those they have always despised. The hail of projectiles comesfrom their lookouts, expecting something like us to arrive at anymoment.“Move away from the buildings,” Strøm orders in my ear. Thoughhe’s about two kilometres away, admiring the view over the city fromhis precipitous aerie, he can still see everything that’s going on atstreet level. “Keep moving due east. ETA at Stor-More-4-Less in underone minute. Don’t get distracted. Keep it tight.”Following his orders we clamber onto the tops of abandonedvehicles. Ignore the no-lifers above. Leap roof to bonnet to roof while

114 | THE A-MENall around us the deadly rain continues. And every so often someoneupstairs gets daring and down comes a glass table or an easyclenesofa. Esther hangs back, but Chase runs ahead of me now. Sick ofplaying puppy dog behind. In one hand he’s holding his dancer, inthe other his D&K. Firing indiscriminately at the balconies above.Trying to give us some cover. We follow his lead and start to losesight of most of the other Wolfs. Strategy slows us a bit, but it’s betterthan giving the fuckers chance at a good aim.Announced by a wave of scorching heat, we see the facility. Allfifteen storeys of it. All burning like a birthday cake for a five-timescentogenarian. Too many candles. And the building is melting.Transforming from solid to liquid. From liquid to grey ash. The fourfire trucks look inconsequential against the wall of flames beyond. Risinglike huge billowing sails. Sky’s bright as the dawn. Man-made sunrise.The air full with the smell of burning plastics. And at the intersectionwhere the apartments meet the next block are the snipers. Hidden butfor the ends of their barrels. Firing at the fire-fighters below.“Blue Bear, get your asses over to the main tankers and shieldthose firemen. Wolf, disperse and take out those snipers. I want thismess contained.”On our way, mon capitaine.Assignment quotients appear on the v-rads. It comes as no surprisethat I’m with Chase. Follow his lead as we duck off the street andinto an alley alongside the main apartment complex. There’s anotherlooted store here. Looks like it sold faux fur goods. Coats, bags, wraps,that kind of thing. We pass beneath its huge once-lit neon sign.Fur-HQ.Some joker’s zapped the letter ‘H’. Lies in a twisted pile at thebase of the main drag. All broken glass and metal crampons. Place’sonly five floors. Holds a single sniper in the room overlooking thejunction. Right at the top. Guess that’s our man.Down the alley’s all grime and neglect. Barred windows and rustedmetal balconies. Oil stains the cement. Each entry door is solid iron.Looks like they don’t welcome unexpected guests.

THE A-MEN | 115Filtering battlescan confusion, I ask if there’s a plan.“Yes, there’s a plan,” he replies. “We break in and waste the losers.”Nice.“Anything more specific?”“Nope. Now cut the shit and help get this door open.”The door in question was once painted red. Now’s the colour ofdried blood. Like the others it’s solid metal. Probably barred inside.Locked and locked again. Immediately he clocks this, Chase startspacking the hinges with torques. Realising what he’s doing I standback. He’s too gung-ho for me. Makes me edgy. Tighten my griparound the shaft of my dancer. Look around. Look up and down.Then look up again.Above our heads, maybe three metres above, I see a balcony. Gota ladder tucked up against it. Its windows and doors look a lot moreaccessible. A lot less metal. Might also get us in without alerting thewhole fucking block. I point this out to Chase. He sizes the optionsfor a moment, then relents.“OK, let’s go,” he says.In one he’s threading a grapple from his backpack through bothhands. Flicks open the barbed end. Swings it twice and lets it fly. Firsttry wraps itself around the slatted rail. Pulls but doesn’t hold. Secondattempt catches fast. Chase snaps his wrist locks to the wire and pumpshis way hand over hand to the top. Pure training move. Perfectlyexecuted. My ascent’s not quite so deft but eventually I make it.Throwing my leg over the balustrade, I see Chase’s already breakingand entering. I follow into the musty room beyond. Enter to thesmell of leather and tanned hides. Powerful and heavy in the lungs.even through the filters. It’s some kind of workshop. Walls are coveredwith boards covered with patterns. Fluttering now in the breeze fromoutside. There’s about six or seven tables filled with dressmaking kit.Stuff the machines can’t manage. Detailed creative work. Fur art.Apliqué. That sorta shit. Single door leads out into the central stairwell.Door’s open and from above the distinct sounds of sporadic shotsfilter down.

116 | THE A-MENOver my com, Chase whispers that we’re going up.Shadowing the grunt, we switch to D&Ks and snake our waythrough the building. Stairs are empty, as is the corridor and all therooms we peek into. See nothing at all unusual until the fifth floor.Here steps lead up into a vacuous attic space. Piled with plastic crates,tanks and air-con. There’s an outside walkway circling the entire topfloor. Doors lead out at various points and through the one overlookingthe storage facility crouch two figures. Dark against the golden blaze.One’s got the rifle. The other’s watching and handing new rounds. Bothare laughing like loons. Can hear them clearly over the crackling flames.Whole inside of the attic dances in the infernal light from outside.Makes the beamed ceiling seem alive. Like some mad carpentry ballet.Me and Chase watch for a while, our heads close to the dustyfloor. Level with the lino. Nothing much happens for a time. Thenthe smaller figure stands to go back inside and we are forced to duck.Below we match strategies, all the while hearing the footsteps rightover our heads. Then we move in.Racing up the last few stairs, we burst from the floor and startfiring. Chase gets number one. I get number two. My little shit’ssquatting over by one of the rusty tanks. Back to me. Having a drink.Not where I expected him to be. Takes me three whole seconds torecompute my tacticals. Chase goes straight for the sniper. Alreadyreading off the spiel.“Sir, you have the right to remain silent.”Hits him twice in the right arm, once in the left.“Everything you say is being recorded and will be used againstyou.”Fucker leaps up like the walkway’s just turned two hundreddegrees. Drops his rifle and kicks it as it falls. Waves his arms spastically.His eyes wild.“Be warned that code orange situations exempt your rights to alaw counsellor.”Fourth shot hits the hick in the face. Sends him spinning backwardsand over the railing. Drops out of sight like a stone.

THE A-MEN | 117Chase laughs, enjoying the kill. “If you cannot afford an undertakerone will be appointed for you…”During all this, my runt uses the other’s death as a distraction toduck into the shadows. Squeezes himself behind the tank. Hides.Cursing my stupidity, I follow. Squeeze after him. Gun ahead. Getabout a metre and see he’s trapped. Back there’s just one big deadend. He turns when he realises this and I see that what I took to besome kind of midget redneck is in fact a young tomboy. She’s dressedlike a farmhand, but her face and hair are obviously female. My guessis she’s early teens. Very early teens. And in her hands is the biggestgun she could possibly carry.Oh shit.Try to back up, but my pack’s jammed on something. Some pipeor rod. Can’t move. Try to force it, but I’m stuck fast.The girl registers this and lifts the unknown weapon in bothhands. Her upper arms tremble with the weight, but she manages it.Her face’s serious. Across my sight the v-rads go crazy filling inproximity data and technical readouts fit to bust a gut. Highlights thebarrel I’m staring down in sickly red. Point-four-five-four. Huge hardonof a hollow shaft. Six-shooter. The sorta gun used by homeys thewhole world over. Kind that you’d take out your mom’s suspectedserial killer boyfriend. Gasp deep breaths. Find my throat’s drier thanlast summer’s flip-flop. Mist my faceplate as I exhale. Turning my viewto fog. Flip it open, eager not to miss what’s going on.And as I do the teenage bitch stabs the hair-trigger.And as she does her screwed-up head turns inside out.There are two perfectly synchronised explosions. Raping my ears.Then the girl’s face meets mine. Her inside’s meeting my outsides.Bits spattering me. Recoiling I see Chase at the other end of thetank. Seen as the tomboy goes down. Know that he shot the girl. Yetalso know that the girl shot me. Know she’d already pulled the trigger.Know that the pain I feel in my left pectoral is the bullet. Ricochetingaround my chest cavity. Ripping its signature across my musculature.Then suddenly I am free. Falling backwards, I hit the floor in a twist

118 | THE A-MENof armour and limbs. A jumble of equipment. I am covered in grueand all my mind can do is scream.I’ve got the girl’s blood on my suit, on my clothes, in my hair.Pieces of her slip across my forehead. Down the gap between theneckbrace and the breastplate. Disappearing, hiding. Sliding into thesuit’s darkness.I am shrieking. Back-pedalling across the room. Flailing.Distantly I see Chase follow me as I reel backwards. Walkingtowards me. All big shoulders and chub legs. Asking me what’s up.What’s my problem.I answer him with incoherence. Gestures without form. Wordswithout meaning. I’m back on the doctor’s couch, gabbling. Losingmyself again. The soldier doesn’t understand, so he just carries onshouting. Ordering me to shut the fuck up. To get it together. Whenhe gets close enough to spit in my eye, I stab the suit’s abort andpower down. Careening backwards. Instantly my muscles turn to leadand I’m stricken useless. Heavier than the heaviest thing ever. Yet Istill manage to scuttle out the armour and squirm away from theblooded mess. My hands scrabble at my face. Wiping. Wiping. Wiping.Drag my vest up to my face and scrub away the gore. I feel so unclean.Gone is the thrill of the hunt. I am just so unready for the debris ofdeath.And so unready for the visions that follow it.In a dizzying swirl, I am lying on a bed of black silk, crying. Lightfloods the room. A black submarine-shaped room. Firelight throughcast-aluminium grilles. More flames. The ceiling waltzing. Just likethe attic. Above the sound of the fire comes the sound of engines.Waves crashing on an unseen beach. In my hands there is an animal.I think it’s a dog, but it’s hard to tell. The poor creature has beengutted like a fish. Its insides slop across the bedlinen, slithering everso slowly out of sight. Uncoiling from inside the beast and onto themodular panels of carpet. There is a knife, but I’m not holding it.Someone else is here.Normand.

THE A-MEN | 119Though I can’t make out anything about this stranger, I know hisname. He stands at the foot of the bed, his face lost within the shadowsof a mask. Some kind of breathing apparatus. Then I notice the smoke,filling the bedroom from top to bottom. The totally black bedroom.And then he speaks, his voice turned automaton by the strap-ongrille.“Each man kills the thing he loves,” he intones. His voice is sexlessand impossibly devoid of emotion. “It’s inevitable. Which means oneday you are going to kill yourself.”“Normand?”The figure picks up the knife and turns it over. Studies it like itholds the secret of some ancient alchemical cure-all. Then he goes.Just turns and goes. Out into the burning corridor. Leaving me alone.“Normand!”The spider feeds me this scrap and I am forced to take itwholemeal. To swallow its pain. To choke on its fanciful delusion. Tobe deafened by its unknown message. Is this memory or reverie? Isthis the past or hallucination? From where are these nightmare imagesemerging? Knitting synapses? Severed nerves? Laceration orcompression of brain tissue? What? Contusions? Multi-focal capillaryhaemorrhaging? Vascular engorgement? Oedema? What the fuck ishappening? If madness, then bring it on. Just stop dicking with me.Stop fucking me over piece by piece. Bit by bit. Sliver and sliver.Splinter by splinter. Back off or close for the kill. Don’t–Feel a pinch to my neck. Slamming me straight back to the hereand now.Chase stoops over me. Giant like a bear. He’s given me a shot.My head burns with it. Straight through my jugular. Straight to mybubbling brain.“On your feet, soldier,” he’s saying. “We’re moving out.”Look up into his big bronze face. Look up and see he’s poweredoff his suit too. See it because the eye of his feed is black. Strickenblind.“Can’t.”

120 | THE A-MEN“Back in your suit,” he continues. “S’been less than five minutes.System will allow that long for minor refreshes. More and you’ll beregistered AWOL.”“But I’m…”“Zip it, you piece of shit, and get back in your fucking suit!”His command drives me forwards. Back to the discarded armour.Slip within like a snail returning to its long-lost shell. The breastplatewas ruptured by the girl’s bullet. But the casing held. Deflected itaway from my heart. All I have to show for my stupidity is ablossoming bruise. Like the shadow of my heart. A purple rose tattoo.Once inside I flip back online. Jack RIN. Rezz up the power core.Again vision’s filled with data. Bio-signs, tactical readouts, divisionreports, everything. One apparition replacing the other. Immediatelyhigh command want to know what’s up.“Wolf-five, Wolf-six, why were you offline? What is your status?”“Esther?““This is Wolf-leader. What is your status and position?”“It was a girl,” I say to the air around me. “Just a little girl.”Hearing this, Chase cuts in. Afraid of what I’m gonna say next.“Sergeant Rose, this is Wolf-five. We have secured our objectiveand pacified the insurgent threat…”“Pacified?” I say quietly. “You blew their fucking brains out.”The fat freak ignores me. Carries on his report. Telling them ofmy suit’s malfunction. Caused by becoming trapped behind the tank.I watch him with a look of distaste. Don’t want to be a part of this.Not at all. Want out. Way out. As far out as I can go.“Wolf-five, Wolf-six, get suited and sorted, then secure yourposition. Prepare for lock down until seven-hundred hours.Chase looks back at me as if I just let him down big time. Likehe wonders how he got assigned to a dead weight like me. I can seehim considering all the possible questions that he’d just love to ask.In the end he settles on one which, of the multifarious options, possiblyleaves the sweetest taste in his mouth. Well, perhaps not the sweetest.Perhaps the least sour.

THE A-MEN | 121“Who’s Normand?” he asks. Curt. Bitter like stagnant water.“Huh?” I answer. Wanting to know more. Like why he asks. Alwayswanting.“Normand. You said the name while you were freaking out.”“Did I?”“Yeah, you did.““He was a friend of mine.”“You remember him?”“Well, yeah. Sort of. I get flashes. Like my brain’s healing andsorting stuff out. S’like in dreams. Pictures. Sounds. Flashes. He wasin one of them. Sort of.”Chase swallows this, gets braver. Then comes the crunch question.The thing he really wants to ask.“Why’d you do that thing to yourself? To your head?”He wants to say brain, but can’t. I can see it clearer than I cansee my own hand.“It was a tumour, you know that…”But I can see in his eyes that he knows. He knows and so doeseveryone else.“What’s it to you?” I blurt, rattled to be caught lying.“Seems like a fucked-up thing to do.”Well yes, I have to give it to him, it certainly does that.“I… I don’t know,” I reply honestly. Then, when this fails to igniteany real sense of being an answer, I add, “I think I wanted to givemyself another chance.”“Chance? Chance at what?”“For all I know it could be another chance at porking yourmother.”The jibe comes from nowhere. Like a reflex. A protective wall. Regretit even as I speak the words. Yet this is as nothing to Chase’s reaction.“You fucked-up, son of a…” he spits, getting all manly as he saysit. “Strøm should’ve flatlined you when he had the chance. You justcan’t wait to piss over everyone, can you? Guess you’d be happiersitting here saying squat for the next few hours.”

122 | THE A-MENI smile at this. Don’t know why but seeing Chase get angry cutsall the suspicion outta me. Instantly warm to the grunt. Turn thetables. Ask him why he joined up. Actually interested. Actually wantto know about somebody else for a change. First time for everything.“I joined because I wanted to do my bit, y’know. Save the city’sfrom crumbling. Give the onworlders a future outside macrocorpcontrol. Fight the fuckers who wanted to abuse the situation. Anyhowright about now in my esteemed career the other options were a lotworse.”“You’re so true blue, I’m almost crying,” I grumble.“Yeah, well I guess it’s no use asking why you signed up?”“Hey, who knows. I’m just working here till a good fast-food jobcomes up.”“You think you’re so smart–”“Nope. Try another.”He ignores the request. Decides to get back on track.“Look, command reckons fire’s gonna take about two to threehours to sort out, so we’d better set post and wait it out.”“Fine by me.”“Want me to take first watch?”“Yeah,” I say.“Want me to get rid of the girl?”I send the suit off towards the stairs. Let that be my answer. Tellhim I’ll secure the lower levels. He seems OK with that. Too bad ifhe isn’t. Couple of hours is just long enough to start dealing with afew questions of my own. Like finding out about this little book I’mlugging around. Locate and secure a nice quiet place in one of thesewing rooms. Pull out the hefty volume and curl up around it. Crosslegged.Hunched over it. Look again at the aged bindings. At thefaded, once-gold title.Forevermore.Wonder at that for a while. Feel how the word fills my mind.Comfortingly. Like a mouth full with chocolate. Like feet soaking inhot water. You know what I mean. Yet this time I also notice the

THE A-MEN | 123author’s name. It’s not on the main cover but is etched onto thebeaten spine.D’Alessandro.D’Alessandro. D’Alessandro? Can’t say I know the name. Butsomehow it feels hauntingly familiar.And that gets me to wondering about that too.

16 Däalessandro>Internal mail. Dated day of project: 4497. Addressed to NathanielRaymond Glass in Room 314. Addressed from Raymond IsaacGlass. Re: Request for Amen access. Message is: Request denied.The septic green letters flicker eerily on the screen as I sit at myconsole and stare out across the colossal rig. Though since receivingthis memo I have taken every step to continue the project, secretingmyself away in this subterranean vault, these scant words still stir feardeep within me.What if my father were right? What if Ryan understood far betterthan I the dangers of the inner world that we have created.Outside in the ocean of the rig a steady stream of bubbles risesfrom the deep as Rycharde calibrates the primary generators. Wrappedin his wetsuit, I watch as he swims through the swaying weeds ofcable between each crustacean-like junction box. His expertise in thefield of psychistry and bio-mechanical engineering is inspiring, hismood unwaveringly stoical, though underneath he is less passive. Lessindifferent. Like all those who are entombed here with me and thisvast apparatus, he has no love for anything other than the Amen. Forthe beauty within the savage beast of the rig. He wishes only to createthe next generation of mind-machines, unconcerned by the fame,fortune and undoubted accolades that would be heaped upon theteam responsible. My amusing mental image is that while Jana andThomas were basking in the scientific community’s rapturous applause,I see Rycharde slipping quietly away in his deejay to future-scan forprojected down-time.“Dr Glass? Dr Glass, are you ready up there?”

THE A-MEN | 125“Yes, Jana.” I speak to the air around me. Little more than a whisperin the machine-packed office.“Lloyd is prepped and ready. All we need now is your clearanceand we’ll start the numbers.”All we need now…“You make it sound so simple.”“Is that a yes or a no?”“Is Rycharde finished with the pre-op?“Quit stalling, Nathaniel. Are we going to green or not?”I rock back in my chair and steeple my fingers. Take a deep breathand let it out.Damnation.So here it is, my final chance. Should we go on or go back?Should I listen to the ache of reticence or continue this chaotic pursuitof truth in an age of lies? Do I really believe that what I’m doinghere is the only way to reconnect people with a sense of permanence?Something to replace a little of all that is lost, to hand them backthe tales of old? I think upon these earth-shattering matters for aboutfive seconds. Then I face my fear and march on.Along the Path of No Return.“Record, set to on,” I say quietly. “This is Nathaniel RaymondGlass, head of projects, verifying and augmenting that last request.Jana, you have my permission to proceed.”“Verification recorded. The numbers are checked and locked. Justwaiting for Tasker to finish and we’re go for Lloyd.”It strikes me then as I watch the frogman emerge from the tankhow different are Jana and I. It’s always the little things that betraypeople. The minutiae. Like the touch of a nose or an ear while lying.Like the failure to act in love when saying it. Like using last namesinstead of first. I always try to keep matters informal; there’s enoughrigid systematic process and methodology in this field already. Whyburden oneself with additional? Yet Miss Morgan delights in suchformalities. While it makes her an exceptional psychist, it also makesher annoying. The only time I ever hear her use anyone’s given name

126 | THE A-MENis when she gets angry. As if exasperation cuts through complexity.Excises the need for ceremony.“Dr Glass?” asks the air around me. Impatient for me to respond.“Yes, Jana, I am fully aware of the situation. My thanks for keepingme doubly appraised.”Rycharde clears the dark rim of the water, struggling with hisflippers on the metal ladder, slapping his way along the second tierwalkway. His thumbs-up towards observation control and then to thelaboratory at the head of the central gantry is his usual sign that allis well. Rycharde dislikes the communication links almost as muchas Jana delights in them.“That’s A-OK from Tasker,” she reports needlessly. “Lloyd is onhis way.”As Rycharde reaches the outer pathway, the porthole door to thelab grinds outwards, spilling neon light. There, enframed, is Thomas,naked but for a tight-fitting suit from which protrude multiple tubesand wires. They bob as he strides, waving like antenna as he proceedsdown the central walkway to the cluster of tanks that hang suspendedabove the decapitated whale head. This nightmarish clothing is thecrude prototype interface constructed to enable access to the X-Isle.Based upon the kind of regen-tanks found in every medical facilityfrom here to the thirteenth moon, the chambers allow true threesixtyfreedom of movement plus the intrinsic monitoring equipmentnecessary to interact with our invisible universe. Already the first tankboils with viscous jelly, its pipes and cylinders vanishing inside thelaboratory dog. Even as Thomas climbs into the empty crystal boxbeside him, the komondor Bixby writhes in his own gelatinous soup,seemingly spasming in some kind of extraordinary canine cold-turkey.His distinctive corded coat sways like white reeds in which the animalis eternally caught. Unable to convert dog thought patterns, whoknows through what terrain he dashes, yet suffice to say he is entrappeduntil someone intervenes to show him how to exit.Ignoring Bixby, Thomas lowers himself into the second of thethree tanks, the fragmented plates throwing myriad images of his

THE A-MEN | 127actions as he attaches the power and auxiliary couplings. After this iscomplete, he reports in.“Lloyd to control, I’m ready for incipient entry.”How restrained he is, I think, how calm. The first human beingever to attempt contact with a sentient power and he’s not evenperspiring. Thomas’ shock of black hair is lost under the translucentcap that he wears, but his eyes are not. They shine out like coals,betraying a little of the anticipation, the breathless excitement he mustfeel to be standing at the threshold to another world. Not since extrasolarexploration has anyone even been close to what we now hopeto achieve. He teeters at the dark galaxy’s edge, a new galaxy. Utterlyvirginal territory.“Dr Glass, Lloyd is ready for the inception. Any last words?”“Last words?” I repeat, distracted.“For the record,” she adds.“Ah, yes. For the record. Thomas?”“Yes, Dr Glass?”My long-fingered hands skip across the console, readying the finalprotocols for automatic takeover. Flipping switches and pressing keys.Outside the entire rig responds by plunging the chamber into lolighting.Ready for the off.“Do you know the real tragedy of life?”The psychist looks out from the minute translucent jar hangingover the immensity of the midnight water. Gazing through glass andair and glass. Right at me. The only sound his quickening breathsover the speakers. Our eyes lock across the darkened space and I seethat he is restrained no more. Nor excited or eager or agitated. Nowhe is afraid.“The tragedy of life?”“Yes.”He looks away to his left. Thinking. There is a pause. A long pause.“To die?” he says at last.My pre-ops completed, I lock all systems and poise my left handover the button that will auto-commence the entry sequence.

128 | THE A-MEN“No,” I correct him, “the real tragedy of life is not to die, it isnot to have lived. It is to endlessly re-enact one’s petty squabbles,languish in dreams undone, surround oneself with ineffectual friends,misplace passion and entertain the sloth of the easy road. Harder isit to truly forgive and forget, to fulfil our imagined ambitions, tohunt out stimulating company, seek for true love and choose the bestrather than the shortest path. That is what we are doing here. Whythis magnificent day dawns in the eyes of only a few. My father hasno notion of these concepts. For him these ideals were a threat tohis bottom line. A threat to the society into which he becameenlocked. Once he forged lead into gold. Now…”“Nathaniel?”It’s Jana again, urging me on, questioning my sanity. Alwaysquestioning something.“Yes, Morgan?” I stab back.“Nothing,” she replies.I let her interruption slide, switching into the cat and mouse ofthe arrays. She verifying my every check. Point for point.“Operations?”“Set and locked.”“Rig apparatus?”“Rig is tri-checked and secured.”“Structure?”“Structure is sound.”“The Amen?”“Hostgod is awake and go-green.”“Perfect,” I conclude, eager suddenly to be done, to be finished.Like a little child on the eve of Kringlefest. The only night they turnin early. “Let the game commence.”And with that I stab the final button with surprising vehemence,consigning Thomas to the whims of liquid space.Why so angered? I ask myself. Surely you’re not jealous? But Ihave no answer to that.Instantly the systems take over. From hereon in, there’s nothing

THE A-MEN | 129to do other than watch and listen. Watch, listen and hope.“Initiating entry sequence.”>Prepare for entrance to X-Isle.– shows the screen.Out in the circular room tubes snake from the tank and impaleThomas’ linen suit. Spearing him like a butterfly on two dozen pins.Making him twitch. Receptors slither across his eyes, ears and nose.Catheters seek his mouth, penis, anus. Connecting him to themonolithic killing jar. And the jar to the machine. Then sirens sound,the countdowns beginning. All hatches and doors auto-lock; the onlyway of releasing them now the total shutdown of the rig. Floodgatesopen, firstly filling the tank with macrobiotic jelly, then after sealingit, the remainder of the vault with water.And once the entire structure is submerged the first pulses oflight are freed into the thalassian-shaped hall, permeating the roomwith wild movement. Directed into the depths, the flashes illuminatejust how deep the tank goes, a hundred thousand wires, channellingthe particles straight down, then back, via banks of infinitesimallysmall mirrors, up into the three-dimensional target of the mind-pan.The console flashes the power flux.>Generators at twenty kilovolts.>Generators at thirty kilovolts.>Generators at forty kilovolts.At ninety, the stored light is released. Firing back down into thecore of the colossal structure. A web of pure power. And there it findsthe last replication, the stored information of the entire system,encased in frozen light. Two hundred billion particles lance the iciclesimultaneously, thrusting and squeezing the captured data and feedingit directly into the sentience.Bringing us one step closer to God.To avoid blinding us, at this moment the windows snap opaque,rendering the remainder of the scene to our constructs. Filling theair before me with patterns of dancing colour. There the machineappears, pulsing like a perfect fluorescent cetacean. And as life is

130 | THE A-MENreturned in this vast electric storm, Lloyd’s mind joins it and is sweptoff into its brilliant heart. He reaches telepresence a moment later.Becoming part-body, part-object. Becoming many. Then becomingone.Parameters explode in the air around me as he enters Home. Theroom without doors. Here he dwells for a few moments, effortlesslychanging the internal settings – seasons, time, moon phases – beforepassing into the X-Isle proper.“All systems at prime one and holding. Ready for initiation ofcentral garden sequence.”Jana’s voice is tinged with awe, but it is not until the last elementof inception appears on my display that I really understand what thisall means. What we have achieved. It is like a dozen ghostly handstouching me all at once.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has entered the X-Isle.My head feels faint. That is it. It is over.We have done it.

17 PureWe hit the dirt out the back of Shed 26 and haul ass into 23rd Street.Going flat out. Right from the off. Lose the heels. Pop some pills.Ladies. Snowboys. Weird mix. Grabbed from the bottom of my clutchpurse. Don’t want to. But have to. Right now there’s a real need forspeed.Behind us the gorillas spill into the alleyway. Ungainly creatures.Kicking up trash and dust, they steam on. For a moment, I’m in front.The next, Lucille’s ahead by a nose. Then the drugs pump mybloodstream and the world turns the colour of frozen meat. Sky freezes.Purple like an abuse victim’s bruise. Street warps and quivers. Tremblingat my feet. Garbage flowers scramble from tarmac lawns. Posterplasteredwalls flow like rivers.My last sane thought: too much, too many, too young.Then all thinking is over.Dance amidst sudden paradise. Laughing. Skipping. Whirling mytight skirt as if it’s a gypsy petticoat. Crowing synthetic delight. Nottoo far off the redhead staggers on her thick ankles. Knitted dressclinging. Clutching the banks of this amazing multicoloured waterfall.Then she’s yelling. Shouting mantras as the world ends. Bends.Whatever.“Taxi! Hey, taxi!”I close my eyes.I feel warm. Free.Open them. Find the night is dawn is not so bad now.I appear to be at this totally wild party. Me and this other chick.

132 | THE A-MENSome kind of man-woman. The rest of the place is filled with men.All dressed up to the nines. Tens. Twenties. Don’t do it, girl, for lessthan five crisp green twenties. Whoops, almost forgot. As respect isto be shown to all karateka at all times, I bow to them. As one, notone at a time. Seeing this, one of the suitors approaches me. All graspingarms and sweat. And about half a metre bigger than me in alldirections. We go to dance, but unexpectedly he hits me in the face.Makes my nose bleed. Sprays the air with tiny droplets like rain.Someone is shouting something about flying.Tossing my ringlets from out my eyes I see a face. There’s a facebehind a sparkly windshield. It’s the dress-freak. She’s there by thisbig yellow car. Pistol against the bearded driver’s head. There’s a bang.Loud as thunder. Then I’m stepping between blood rain again.Between the black of more little droplets and the slivers of nothingbetween.“Bakayarou!” I yell and without thinking I crouch. Tight.Instinctual. Danced immaculate. Mixing progressive dance withShotokan. Friday with Wednesday. Twist and come up striking. Tettsuiuchi tango. The bottom of my fist hits the towering ox under hischin, snapping his head. I step back. Allowing the power of the atemito take me. Then I back kick. Ushiro geri rumba. Straight to the gut.He goes down. Like a stone into the river. Poetry and motion.“The dark blood stainsThe landscape ochre;I see the nothing between.”“Kuso shite shinezo!” I scream, post-haiku. Nobody does tricksin Chinkitown without picking up a few choice phrases. Dudes haven’ta clue what I’m saying. Assume yohi, then look mean. Luckily rightat this juncture, Lucille drives up in this awesome yellow cruisemobile.She’s hanging out the window. All tits and teeth.“Hey, meatheads,” she shrieks at the gorillas. Mad as shit. “I’mfresh out of estrogen and I have a gun. So if you fuckers don’t back

THE A-MEN | 133off, you’re liable to wake up with me patting your face with a shovel!”That stalls ’em.And while they’re dawdling I get swept into the other girl’s arms.Feel the rush as the metal bubble car flies past. I’m pulled inside andwe’re off. Speeding like a fish in a flood. Slipping on the wetness ofthe leather upholstery. Riding the back of this beautiful ocean, wearc through the seascape of horrors and away. Screaming blue murder.And though my mind is afire with the dust of seduction, as werise through the gyring ruin of the streets, I can see that the wholecity is not how I remember. Now it’s a maelstrom of troubled waters.The city is burning to the ground!

18 23rdxenturyboyCut to the chase.Xero, Zark, Buster, Hector, Elliott and me. Scamper’n out ofWonders of Nature and through the tunnels past the old entertainmentcomplex. Windows still show exhibits. Dioramas. Birds. Bat caves. Stuff’tmongooses. All look dead as dullsville to me. Inner ring is the nextthing. Big circular street. One out from the Spire of Life concourse.Mostly apartments here. Places for the workers to not work. It’s alldesert’t after dark, but we still keep to the shadows. Be morn’n soon,so we have to hurry. Head for the main plaza. All clip’t claws and airsneakers on pseudo-brick mosaic. This park must have been someth’nin its time. Before it got shut down and taken over by Exxo’sbioengineering division. Transport Central is tuck’t away in the uppercorner of the dome. Rails come in from middle of the city. Hasn’tbeen use’t for ages.Xero’s at the front, keep’n his nose low to the ground. The restof us trot along in his wake, with me lead’n from the rear. ApparentlyI’ve got to make sure we’re not bei’n follow’t. Fat chance of that.Once the freaks realise’t their cages were open there was no stop’n’em. The hullabaloo was awesome. It was like the arrival of zoo recess.Total craziness. There were tigers and lions and bears and these hugelong-neck’t birds that I hadn’t a clue what they were. No one had aplan. They just ran about squawk’n and carry’n on. It was only uswho seem’t to know where to go or what to do. The only ones wholook’t even remotely organise’t. I mean they say dogs is dumb, butwe’ll show ’em. When we get out on the tracks and home free, we’ll

THE A-MEN | 135really prove to everyone who’s got all the brains. People can be sowrong about things sometimes.Up ahead, Xero’s stop’t at this big grille in the floor.“Hey, Dingo,” he calls back to Elliott. “Bring your boy and getup here and take look at this.”Off back in the distance I can hear some of the watchmen charge’naround. Can hear geos too. Plus lots of screech’n tires. Guns and tasersgo’n off. Little mayhem go’n on. Don’t even want to think what’shappen’n to the others. Just try to keep focus’t on what’s happen’nto us.Arrive’n at the front of our little party, me and Dingo see whatXero wants. Up ahead is a steel wall of mesh. Only way forward nowis to get access to the maintenance tunnels and drop right down intothe main terminus. Grille leads into the sub-floor system. Bit smellybut it’ll get us through.“It’s locked,” says Xero gruffly.“Can you do it, Dingo?” asks Hector.We all look at Elliott, then down at the lattice’t metal. Lock’s thisturnstile tumbler. Usually would require a passkey and a t-bar to open,but no problem for a guy like Dingo.“Easy-peasy,” he says and the rest of ’em grin. Wag’n their tails.Searchlights spear the shadows. Make’n sudden rainbows on thecurve’t ceiling. They’re come’n from the spire. We all duck as one ofthe silvery beams swishes past. This is so excite’n!Dingo starts size’n up the lock. I look too. Take’n in serials, makeand model. Looks like the same company that’s done most of thepark. Familiar logo, deadbolt, keyslot.With a screech of treads and the sickly smell of burn’n rubber,one of the geo jeeps zips onto the concourse and races right at us.Caught in its headlamps, we is momentarily zone’t.“Dingo!” shouts Xero in our ears. “You have about zeroseconds…”Beyond intensity! It’s times like this when I try to think whatthe Dog of Wonder would do. What he’d say. Can’t, so I just slit my

136 | THE A-MENeyes and drop to the ground. Watch Dingo fidget’n with the mainmechanism. Then he whaps it open. Without power, it’s as simple asthat. Just a case of twist’n a few inner cog things, then bingorama!Impresses the others though. Gets himself a quick growl of approval.“Great going, Dingo,” says Hector.“Yeah, well done, buttmunch!” adds Zark, grin’n.Round about then bullets rip and ricochet into the metal justover our heads. Ping’n around like peas in a can. Buster yelps. ThenXero is yell’n, “Go, go, go!” and we is hurl’n ourselves face first intothe channel. Above us a four-wheeler screeches to a halt over thehole. There’s shouts of frustration and “Back up! Back up!”We’ve made it. But only just.Inside’s all muddy puddles and unidentifiable black gunk. Realfur unfriendly. And it fair feck’n mings down here. The dogs arufftheir displeasure. But there’s no time to waste with moan’n. Insteadwe all scamper off, the mutts sniff’n the way forwards, me scour’nthe way back. We get about two hundred metres when the floor turnsto mesh and we’re look’n down into this big shop complex. Wellmore like lots of shops all set out in one big room. Aisles is stack’twith unsold guff. Books, newspapers and boil’t sweets take up theones right below us. From back when this place still sold stuff. Butthere’s no time for sight-see’n. Instead Zark starts bash’n away at thefloor, try’n to get inside.Some things is move’n behind me now. Scuttle’n down the tunnelafter us. The sound of ’em makes my blood freeze.“Faster, Zark, faster,” I urge.Mr bat shit crazy is use’n this huge pair of boltcutters, thoughwhere he got ’em from, I dare not guess. One minute he’s hammer’naway like there’s no tomorrow and we can hear the guards creep’ntheir way along the tunnel, the next we’re fall’n carpetwards like somuch furball hail.I land on this rotate’n rack, flail’n. Scatter the whole display in amillion directions.Ouch!

THE A-MEN | 137It’s only when I’m lie’n flat on my back, wind’t and gasp’n forair, that I realise what I’ve fallen on. It’s a magazine rack and it’s fullof comics! Correction: was full of comics. Now they lie strewn allover the place. Scrabble’n to my knees, I begin scoop’n ’em up. Greatarmfuls. Their names like old friends as I sort through ’em. Butt-Naked Boy Rides Again. The Lobotomy Squirrels Holiday Special. Now Iknow where my dealer got ’em all from! There’s hundreds andhundreds of ’em here. Must’ve been left after they shut the park down.I’m gonna be read’n these till doomsday!And then I see it. One comic separate’t from the rest. Its red,white and blue cover shine’n in the overhead strip lights.Phantom the Wonder Dog meets the Xian Imperitors in BetterDead Than Alien.I am frozen in my tracks. Cold blood’t. Chill’t to the marrow.This is utterly wow. Phantom and 23rdxenturyboy teaming up againstthe diabolic forces of Xian.I look at the slightly crumple’t ancient comic, let’n the rest fallforgotten onto the industrial-strength carpet.Around me the doggies is pick’n themselves up and skedaddle’n.Shout’n for me to come on. But I can’t. I’m transfix’t.Because it’s just about then that I realise that this comic has fallenfrom another set of racks above me. And these is fill’t with WonderDogs in miniature. His crimson cape. His blue-starry boots. His redand white mask. Stare’n out at me in a hundred different poses. Andthere’s more too. Enough merchandise to bust a gut. Fibre-optic doggiephones. The fly’n muttmobile. Phantom snow globes. Knee pads. Bendyaction figures. Little lunch boxes. Franchise city comes to the RuZu.I never knew the Wonder Dog was so big! It’s like I’ve fallen intomy own personal superhero paradise. My mouth drops open and Idrool. Not a pretty sight.This feel’n lasts for about three heartbeats.For as I watch the whole Dog of Wonder display erupts in a hailof lead. Send’n scores of plastic nik-naks explode’n into pieces. Loadsof items of personalise’t stationery flutter’n like autumn leaves.

138 | THE A-MENI yelp and dive for cover. Shower’t with the splinters of my hero’seffigy. My canine compardres is bark’n bigtime. Scramble’n for cover.Behind the stand, Zark and Xero and Hector and Buster are run’nabout like headless loons. Elliott’s not. He’s tuck’t himself into a furryball, hind legs up, paws over his head. As the shoot’n stops then startsagain the dogs get wise and duck down. Backs against the uprights.I look up, but can already see the warders swarm’n in the ceiling.We’re corner’t. Chewie chunks for sure. The main door’s right at theother end of the store. Here we’ve got some kinda cover. Run’n forit’s a suicide mission. There’s no way even with four legs we’d makeit.Another round of auto fire’n and the stand we’re all hide’n behindbegins to get blown apart. A few more minutes of this and we’re deadeven if we stay put. Don’t know how we’re gonna get out. Not withall our limbs.Then I see the dozen or so dress’n-up boxes. The masks. Thecapes. The blue-starred skates with the streamers on the heel.And then I know.

19 Sister Midnight“Homo homini lupus,” I whisper.Striding through the corridors of the apartments of the nouveauriche and C-list famous, I am Wolf-leader. My division buddies crowdbehind me, covering all the angles, laying down suppressing fire.Leaving me to wade on. My dancer is hot in my hands. The casingssplaying as I sweep the barrel back and forth. Those who are curiousenough to come to see what gives are mown down like corn. Fallenwheat. Mostly I aim for the heads, but sometimes I only manage lessdeadly locations. Like the arms or the legs. Sometimes I have to letthe grunts mop up my mistakes. Yet of these there are few.I can see that this is no random looting party. This is an organisedgroup. Their mission to strip Fort Bernard Apartments of its inherentwealth, of each and every saleable item left behind by the exodus ofthe privileged few. Abandoned by the aristocratic strata who couldafford the exorbitant extrication fees levied on those who, anticipatingcivilisation’s nosedive, were able to buy a ticket for the last train out.Yet for many across the planet there was no choice. They weren’tcorp-owned so could not leave with them, and they weren’t richenough to leave without them. Exit without the appropriate paperswas deemed illegal. The emergency powers created by the vacuumof Exxo’s departure issued statements that panic and troubles in thecoming crisis would be kept to a minimum. The general populacesaw what was coming, but could do nothing but prepare for thestorm. Batten down the hatches. What few hatches they had available.The thought of such segregation sickens me. It is an irreligious

140 | THE A-MENconcept. In the eyes of God, all men are equal. Yet this does not meritor condone the lawlessness of the left.Still, it makes our mission here simple. We must locate and slaythe shepherd then the sheep will scatter. Once this is accomplished,we will seal the building from further violation. Yet the realisationthat here is a prearranged looting party niggles. It is far too systematicfor tertiary action phase behaviour. But who would have had timeto prepare such groups?We come to a marble stairwell. It is white like snow. Veined ingrey and black. Severe iron banisters curve alongside polished stepsleading up and down. There are a few pieces of expensive furniture,stuffed with desiccated flowers in crystal vases. Little more. Seeing aswe have secured most of the lower levels there is no choice as to ourdirection, yet I pause anyway, even if only to allow my combat weaponthe chance to cool.At my back the rest of Wolf division prowl. Let my helm feedthem the view. Then say, “Cover me. I am switching to bot mode.”Automatically my armour initiates the appropriate sequence. Frommy pack a fist-sized ball of metal detaches itself and floats into the airabove my left shoulder. It looks like a rough globe, but is really arhombicosidodecahedron. Each of its sixty-two sides holds either aneye, a sensor or a taser. The eyes are linked to my tacticals. Sensors stopit flying into walls. And the tasers stop anyone from getting too close.Wave my hand to guide it forwards. Gauntlet position monitoringXYZ coordinates. Send the bot out into the middle of the well, thenwait for data entry and feedback. Takes the archimedean solid twopoint three-five seconds to sweep the entire three-dimensional space,and once it has I get six views of the terrain; one for each of thehexagonal sensors.The scene looks safe enough. There is only one sentry and sheis standing at the very top of the next flight of stairs. Using an antiqueottoman as a barricade, she is armoured, her hair lost beneath a redbandanna. Sighting goggles making fishbowls of her eyes. Her weaponis a single shot rifle, so obviously her job is to act as deterrent.

THE A-MEN | 141She sees the bot immediately and trains her gun on it, but all sixof her shots miss by a significant margin. My reasoning is her sighthas been knocked off. There are few others why her weapon couldnot hit such a relatively large target.Strøm’s reports buzz in my ears. Filtered by the suit. Catch somemambo about Jack, but I ignore it. I’ve had quite enoughblamestorming from that milky white cow-son for one day. I knowthe CO said not to let him out of my sight, but the view from Chase’ssuit is a valid alternative. Worries me that they went offline for awhile, but situation’s settled now.With another gesture I send the bot upwards, systems set to tasethe bitch.And as it disappears, I run across the half-landing and up theimperfect curve of the stairway.Unphased by all these actions, the sniper shouts a warning to hercohorts. Alerting them to my coming. She gets about three wordsout before the bot bobs level with her position and locks in on her.Worthless pikinini, I think. Child should have carried on firingwhile she had the chance.Leaping stair by stair, I let off a few rounds of suppressing fire,while the bot paralyses her with some well-placed shocks. Then Ivault the barricade and stabilise for the coup de grâce. Unfortunatelythis is postponed due to the appearance of four more of the faithlesswho tumble out to aid their compatriot. They are not expecting tosee me already standing within their defensive perimeter. Nor arethey expecting the two-hundred and twenty five bullets that greettheir messy arrival.Below me, Wolf division are cleared to proceed. Begin taking tothe stairs like the animals they are.Expecting further assailants I turn to dispatch the sniper, but findthat I am out of ammunition. Dropping the automatic, I unsheathemy broadsword and close to the woman, who now twitches like adiscarded puppet face down against the railings. Trying to animateher spasming muscles. She spews blood as I force the sword down

142 | THE A-MENbetween her shoulder-blades, ignoring the bony plates as they crackand splinter. On exit the metal tip catches on her sternum, jarringme, but I keep the pressure on until it is fully through. Kneeling, Ifinish by praying. My work here is done.“Ave Maria, Mother of God, pray for these sinners now, and atthe hour of their death. Amen.”All around me the men and women of my division advance. Gunsblazing. Resounding in the domed vestibule. Quick, controlled bursts.Sweeping like instruments of the Almighty into the rooms andchambers beyond. Just as they have been trained to do. Herding thewayward flock into the confining pens of their swift and mercifuldeaths.And God said, ‘Man is a wolf to man’. And God looked on andsaw that it was good.Amen to that, pikinini meri.

20 The NowheremanFor a hundred years this book has waited to be read…When I first open the tatty volume all that’s there’s the title. Thename of it. Just like on the front. And that other name too. Thatsurname. But inside it’s kept company by others. Like Rafaele. LikeJuarez. No publisher. No date. Nothing else but the weird title andthe creepy name.Forevermore by Rafaele Juarez D’Alessandro.Next page there’s a contents. An introduction and thirteen otherchapters. Plus inside the front and back covers there’s the maps. They’relisted as showing the thirteen kingdoms of Forevermore. Before andafter. Doesn’t say what. I turn to them. First inside front, then insideback. Drawn by the need for visuals; a kid’s fascination withcartography.Have I seen these maps before? I have no idea.Ignoring the note to myself, I look at both charts. They’re etchedin harsh lines of black ink. Front one’s divided into twelve slices. Setout on a single cake-like continent. Each with strange-sounding names.Some ancient. Some childish. Like Darkadia, Whereland andNowhereland. Like Sleepybubbyeland. That kinda tosh. The back one’sgot the same names, it’s just that the land now looks like someoneclumsy dropped it. The kingdoms’re redrawn as archipelago. Shatteredamidst a swirling mass of ocean. Now they are smaller, more fragilelooking and surrounded by tiny fragments of rock. The thirteenth’sfar out on the edge of the make-believe world. It’s called Xankhara,and the way it’s drawn makes it look like it’s underwater.Some deeper memory shares that this kind of kid’s fiction was

144 | THE A-MENbanned long before any of us were born, making this a certified relic.Turn to the contents and read down the section listing. Each ofthem looks like a different story made up of several parts. Chapterswithin chapters. There’s ones like The Little White Knight and the LittleWhite Horse. Like The Tale of Pure White and Pure Red. Like The Storyof the Doppy Wooluf. Then right at the bottom, just before the indexand appendices I see something else. Something that makes my skinprickle. Something out-and-out all the way out weird.It’s the thirteenth story. The last on the list.It’s The Tale of Jack O’Nowhere.I flip to it. Whapping through the uneven pages. Clumsy in mygloved hands. What I find there is a title and a story number. Everychapter begins with this elaborate inked letter and an etched illustration.First one’s of an ambling youth walking with an old crone on a cliff.Looks like the stupid bastard’s gonna waltz right off it. Right into thecrashing waves below. The first letter’s a big O. It’s black and greenand red and very pretty. Drawn entangled in the branches of a bigtree. And in the tree sits this big black bird, its one unblinking eyewatching. Scrutinising my every move as I start to read.Once upon a time in a forested kingdom there lived a young mannamed Jack. Now Jack was King of the Wood and no mortal wascleverer or no god more wise. Though he had all the riches he couldwant, Jack wanted more. You see he had a big dream. A dream aboutan island at the edge of the world. An island where the gods dweltfar over the sea. An island where Death never trod. And this story isabout how Jack came upon the notion of discovering the island thatwas lost, the secret isle that was Xankhara, and how this path ledhim to battle the might of the faerie king.It is an old saying that we each become the things we’ve lost, yetit is just as true that most of us are searching for those things wenever lose. For you can only make green from blues and yellows. Addred and the colour goes awry. Though most cannot see it, life is alsolike that. Many wish for a world of gods, ecstasy, power and magic,

THE A-MEN | 145yet to find them one must know how and where to look. For if yousit very still and you look very hard – and you believe – you’ll seethat they were there all of the time.Now Jack was a misfit, part renegade, part rebel, part savage pieceof genetic voodoo. He played in the forest that was his home, hisNowhereland, carefree and wild. He ran with the stags and dancedwith the hens. He swam with salmon in deep waters and racedThunderbirds with stallions across the naked back of the world.Yet then came the day when the faerie king’s army arrived at thewatchtowers along Nowhereland’s borders, and war swept through thekingdom destroying all that the wild forest king held sacred. All hissplendid treehouses, and picture books, and web-fine tapestries andprecious goods; yet this was only the beginning of his troubles. Withinthe wrathstorm of the gods, he lost every ship he had upon the sea,every caravan on the land and every airship in the skies. And from aposition of great wealth and happiness he fell into the direst poverty.And once the land was shattered and his kingdom destroyed, Jackwas overcome with despair, and turned his back on his burned-downpalace and empty treasure rooms. For he suddenly knew that he wasat heart a fool for not knowing what all should know; that one daythings will change, as all things do. And as he ran away he cameupon the dreaded Path Of No Return and at its end found one acreof land that was untouched from the ravages of the war. And herewas all that he had left in the world, a little house in the midst ofthe dark forest. Here he fell to his knees and prayed a big prayer toHe Who Shall Not Be Named, god of the Land of Shadows andSouls, of Creation and Destruction and speaker of the thirteen wordsof power: the great and powerful Amen.Reading this, the only tangible link to my past, a tale that must havebeen written an age ago, its story reads like it’s my story. Like it’s sayingI went into all this shit with my eyes welded wide open. That I wantedto wipe the slate clean and move on. Scorched earth policy. Torch theground and start anew. The more I dig into the tale of the fanciful

146 | THE A-MENJack, all I see is myself. The man who lost everything. So I get tothinking that perhaps if I can understand the story, I can understandthe shreds of memories still fluttering around in my nuked brain.And all the while I’m half listening, half watching the E-Unitbulletins. Listening to the CO’s recurrent status reports. Watching asthe entire city goes belly up. Most of the chat is mindless tacticalstuff. This division takes that defensive route point. This grunt takesthat civilian down. How Fox is assigned the job of shooting nonpermitholding citizens who try to break the marshal-controlled citylimits. Code orange situations dictate that no one’s allowed freemovement without official say-so. What this amounts to is little shortof public executions. Sad fucks. What’s the matter with this world?Why don’t everyone just sit in and interact with their VTV? RIN’speripheral bulletins report that after Exxo’s pull-out, an emergencygovernment’s been given the job of trying to get power and facilitiesback online. Trouble is most of the stakeholdings have been renderedinoperable before the corp personnel went bye-bye. Nothing works.Not power. Not water. Nothing. So chaos reigns in this city of death.Curfew isn’t holding them. Many rampage out of the sheer terrorof dying in their beds. Also there’s another threat. Apparently gangsare springing up all over the place. Real tight units. Armed andmobile, they cruise and entrench. Already taken several areas of primereal estate. Must have been planning this for months. No one couldjust up and mobilise that swiftly. Not unless they knew this wascoming. Knew long and planned hard. Long before anyone wassupposed to. Still, that’s all second tier to me right now. My pushbuttonattention span is thrust nose-deep in this shit-for-brains faerietale.In essence The Tale of Jack O’Nowhere is about this King of theWood named Jack and how he builds an army dedicated to thegod almighty big cheese Amen duke, how war comes to thethirteen kingdoms and how everything is lost. Here finally I findout why there’s two maps. Forevermore used to be one big continentwith each realm ruled by one of thirteen monarchs but was attacked

THE A-MEN | 147by the faerie king called Maleore – whose name isn’t spoken awhole lot – but the book does make it crystal he’s prime perpetratorof all the major bad things that go on. So far so formulaic. Big badfaerie stomps on goody two-shoes mortals. Most of the timeMaleore and his gang get up to random mischief, but then oneday king evil bastard did something truly awful. Haven’t found thisin the book yet, but must have been über-über wicked becausethe head honcho creator was so angered he brought down the fullmight of his wrath and smote the land. Trashed it completely. Whatwas left was the geographical mess of map the second. Maleorewas imprisoned on Xankhara that was sunk to the bottom of theocean out on the edge of the world. Anyway, that would have beenall well and good if it had not also been an island that held a darkand powerful secret.Now Jack had an elder brother named Joseth. And Joseth was Kingof the Land, of all that was not wood or tree or brush or briar, andhis kingdom was named Whereland. He ruled his towns and citiesand palaces with an iron hand, yet though he was fair, he metedjustice unwavering, and anyone with brain enough for knowingunderstands how justice can follow no letter of no law without erring.So it came to pass that Jack went to his brother’s immense palace ofdreams to beg for his help and to tell of his foolishness.And here at a great banquet of illusions he heard tell that the kinghad left only three days previously on a sacred quest. For hissoothsayers and viziers and grand sages had unearthed parchmentstelling of the lost island at the edge of the world and how here stooda fountain of eternal youth which bestowed upon any who drankthere the power of immortality. And it was said that his brother hadsought to find this well and quaff his thirst – and return to defeatthe faerie king and rule Whereland for ever and ever and ever.A jug of water from the fountain of eternal youth on the islandat the edge of the world.

148 | THE A-MENYeah, I was thinking that sounded familiar too.But while I’m reading this, I find another more startling revelation.Upon certain pages there’s annotations in the margins. Underlinedpassages. Areas where notes have been made indicating bits of interest.Of study. Seems like someone had a beef about the book in myprevious life. Had a big problem with the fact that most of the storieswork around the principle that life is fair and ends with happy everafter when of course it isn’t and it don’t. That evil-doers are punishedand the heroes get the princesses, the kingdom and the split-leveltapestried pad. This positively crippled the note maker. So he beganto change things. Sentences mostly, passages. Sometimes only a fewlines, sometimes whole endings.It’s a simple task to discover that the notes are my ownhandwriting. That these are my words. That I was the disillusionedreader compelled to erase and amend and rewrite. Don’t ask me why,but it’s too damned important to dismiss. I must comprehend all this.Why I’m here. Where I’m going. What the fuck is happening.I slap closed the book. Slamming it. Finally frustrated by the prosaicreferences. Dogged by the need to understand what I’m carrying. YetI feel that I am chasing shadows.The spider’s next image is clean and clear and as sharp as anythingcan get. It is of a young blond boy. Fresh faced. Violet eyed. He is onan operating table. Swathed in waxy green cloth. Pale skin poking through.I have Forevermore in my hands. Interrupted mid-story by machines.Automated surgical instruments probing. Bleeping in the darkness. ThenI’m standing in darkness. Lost behind glass I watch. Watch the cutting.The tubes drawing the fluids away. The cardinal humours. Phlegm, bile,melancholy – and blood. Infected blood. Infested. Deeper thanhaemoglobin. Deeper than lymphocytes. A virus. A disease. Deep in theRNA. And then I understand or remember or a little of both.It’s there like a thorn, stabbing me in the eye.I was on a quest. A quest reflecting Jack’s quest in the book. Tofind Xankhara. The island where Death never trod. Seeking for thefountain. Immortality. For my son.

THE A-MEN | 149Your son is dead.No, that can’t be. There’s still time. There’s still a way.The treatment is not working.Then try another fucking treatment! Shit, what in god’s name ismy father paying you for?He’s gone.And now I am gone too.The doc’s words return to haunt me. About forgetting everythingand trusting myself. Might as well believe in this as much as anything.Yet with all this sense of revelation, after all this reading there’s onlyone thing I can say I find out for sure. Now I know what that Owas for. That O wasn’t for orange. It was for once.Once upon a time.*The call to move out comes just shy of seven hundred hours. Afterone hundred and seventy minutes of the mental equivalent of sittingcross-legged clapping to Kum Ba Ya, Strøm blasts through my thuddinghead ordering us off our asses and back to the financial block.The Bartlow, Jerome and Banks building is under attack.Even as I hear this, as the order is still rattling my previously quietmind, hear Chase’s feet on the stairs. Pounding like drums.“Wolf-six, this is five. Let’s up and at ’em.”He finds me seated. As he pokes his head into the room, I haven’tmoved. Well, except to stow Forevermore. His face is one of raptdisappointment, which seems odd. Surely he wasn’t anticipating that I’dbe on my feet, belted and booted and ready to go? That I’d be keen?I play to his frustration. Just because I can.“Hey, whoa there, tiger! Way you’re going, you’re gonna burstsomething.”My insignificant other halts at this remark. Panting. Those stairshave puffed his chubby mass. I wince at the twinge of pleasure I feelat seeing this. Then he ruins it by yakking.

150 | THE A-MEN“Look, let’s put all this down to a bad start…”“Because of what?”“Because we’re not getting no place.”“Who wants to get any place?”Chase asks me if I’ve ever been punched. If someone has juststood up one day and punched me square on the jaw. I say nope.Not as far as I remember. Which is not that far obviously. But no,nobody’s punched me. Get a ghost memory of a woman slapping meso hard it turns my cheek, but other than that nothing.“That surprises me,” he finishes and leaves. And in his wake Itrail, smug.I wonder at the reason for this. Why I’m being so fuckingawkward. Maybe because he’s just a military grunt. One of the smartor the scared. Trained to listen and to learn. And that I am none ofthese things. I’m green as the grass. Blue as the sky.As I follow my unit buddy out of the leatherworkers, I feel as ifat last I have something to start hanging my shit on. The first peg.The primary clutter in my otherwise white and only slightly shitstainedroom.What I don’t have is a purpose.*The insurance building is not as we left it.Then it was a place of urban riot. Now it is the setting of theApocalypse.Around its base the sewers spit bodies like the earth’s exhumingthe dead. Hundreds and hundreds. Dressed in graveyard finery theycome like an ebon plague. On foot. On bikes. En masse. Shroud-likerobes hung with skulls. Bone-white faces painted with rictus smiles.Hair a mix of wildness. Mohicans, pigtails, crops, dreadlocks. Hoodsflap in the feral wind. Eye masks. Tattoos. Typical bad-assed punk stuff.A swarm of black, white and grey. As if the whole world has justslipped into duotone.

THE A-MEN | 151Multiplying like rats they converge on Jerome, Bartlow and Bankslike flies around a corpse. Silent. The only sounds their hard bootson the faux-stone walkways. The gunned growling of their cycles.We see and hear all this on the inside’s of our visors, though theswarm is long gone when we arrive. The area is as conceptuallydesigned; a relative oasis of quiet. There are signs of their passingthough. The perimeter’s been breached. Freshly disgorged bodies liein roughly the right places for where we planted the booby traps.Already dew-drenched spider’s webs hang in the loops of razorwire.Traps within traps. And the whole scene reeks of recent warfare.Wolf and Bear divisions approach on foot. Running like crazies.Our ears tortured with reports. Updates on the horde. No one knowswhere they came from, their purpose or their primary actionobjectives. Tacticals sweep their behaviour and throw up patterns, butat the end of the day it’s all guesswork. Nobody’s got a clue. Andnobody’s coming to help either. Emergency Unit Six are on theirlonesome. The other E-Units’ve got quite enough chaos and mayhemof their own, thanks. So we’ve been recalled. The aim: to repress theinsurgent force before they reach our landing craft. Our ticket homefrom this hell hole. Which at the rate they’re punching through thebuilding is not going to be long at all.Perhaps it’s vanity for us to suspect that they’re heading for theship, but what else would this bunch want in a lawyer’s skyblock?After all, they sure don’t look like clients. Something larger is happeninghere in this city. Something that the authorities have missed in theiroverview. This gang was ready. Like a lot of other gangs if the buzzingin my helm is anything to go by. All prepared. All waiting for themoment to strike. No one predicted organised groups so early in thedisaster efficiency curve. They expected emergency evacuationdemarcation procedures. Optimum breakdown coefficients. Paraboliccrucibles of hazard differentials. Future disaster programmes. All rankand file.This is not rank and file. This is totally unknown territory.The brass must be wetting their pants.

152 | THE A-MENThe other members of Black Wolf crowd close as we approachthe shattered glass entrance. Chase is on one side. This dude who’sreadout calls him Grainger on the other. Esther’s way out front. Wolfleaderleading her cubs back home. Kick debris as we go. Clearinga narrow path through the war zone.“Wolf division,” announces mr omnipresent in our heads, “theelevators are out so you’ll have to grapple the shaft.” I snigger at this.Its infantile innuendo amusing. “Bear are already securing themezzanine. Fox are on twelfth heading up the stairs.”I ignore most of the constant ramble. Phase it out. Too damnconfusing. Keep my dancer close to my chest. Try not to jump everytime someone blasts off a few rounds. Air’s drifting with smoke.Smelling of sweet incense. Inside, my suit’s sucking the moisture frommy back and trying to keep me from overheating. Muscles ache fromthe jog back uptown. Don’t think I was into fitness in a big waybefore. Even after nineteen weeks training, body’s just not up to it.In ten we’re turning into the ransacked lobby. The tall windowsarching above us. In twenty we’re through the elevator doors andrigging inverse rappelling. Buckling paracords. Setting automaticmotors. Esther’s the first to go. All wrist locks and lots of pumping.We follow her sterling example. Hand over hand. Just like breakinginto the leather store. Only higher. Much, much higher.After about fifteen floors of this, my arms are whacked. Afterthirty they’re as numb as a tranked-up doosie. Trust Strøm to landon the tallest structure in the whole wild Westside. At the thirtysecondsome joker mentions how it’s only another sixty to go. Threeof the division almost pass out then and there. Hear Chase groanabove. Clear as day. Only thing that keeps us going is the guy rightbehind us. Pushing us on. Pushed by the guy behind him. Wonderwho’s last. Who’s the hero setting the pace. Can’t see that far down.Just got to keep heading up.On my displays the collected data on the street gang builds to forma cohesive picture of just who we are about to deal with. Words likearmed, anarchic and inchoate. Phrases like tribal markings, skull faces

THE A-MEN | 153and filed ivory teeth. RIN says that they are angels of death who livein the underground kingdom of the Metro. Two-hundred kilometresof tracks once serving twenty-nine million people each day. A mess ofswitchbacks, heating pipes, municipal public service tunnels. Now theabandoned sections house bandits hiding from justice; a cradle of crime.A trog migration for alcoholics, drug addicts, pros; the great unwashed,dribbling in over the last few decades. And here are their heroes. Theirarmy. Come dirtside to snatch while the raiding’s good. Like rats theday before they grab the garbage. All this comes as a solid data mass.Like the world’s quest in miniature. These low-lifes now have a nametoo. Calling themselves the Grim Reapers tm . Apparently the ‘tm’ standsfor ‘the morgue’. How totally absolutely predictable. I want to kill themthen. To find their leader and stick my Jarl Class blade in both his eyes.And then I’d say, “Your balls are next unless you can come up with abetter name, you stupid fuck!” Wonder why I’m so angry? It’s becausemy anger is all I have right now, so I go with it. Still messed over bythe tomboy. Still aching. Smarting. Like me, this city looks like it’sescaped conflict until now. It was not designed to survive as a battlefield.It’s too vulnerable, too claustrophobic. Both emotionally and physically.At the thirty-sixth floor we encounter a problem. With a suddenear-splitting blast the tunnel above us turns to fire. There’s a suckingof air. Hot wind howling. Then the entire shaft supernovas. Turnseverything above into a giant golden fireball. Must be about a dozenfloors. Zappo. All wasted by the flames. The rush of heat hits us likea wall. If it wasn’t for our wrists being locked to the tensile cablewe’d be blasted to the basement. Instantly there’s the snickering offaceplates shutting. Wrapping our ears in cotton. Filling them withthe womb-like rasp of our sharp breaths. Oxygen fills my lungs.Rarefied. Sweet as sugared water. Instantly feel better. Think clearer.“What the shitting hell was that?” screams Fox-leader over theopen channel.There’s a pause, then Strøm’s on the blower.“Cool it, Sanada. The Grims have blown levels thirty-six thruforty-eight. Some kind of thermal device. Best guess is a heating tank.

154 | THE A-MENWolf, take your division out into the offices. Progress on foot tothirty-five and seal the perimeter. Bear, stay on the mezzanine andawait orders. Fox, can you state your position.”Silence. Still as a tomb.It’s about then that we all realise Fox division are gone.“Fox-leader, sign on and report.”My eyes sting from the conflagration. Above the whole verticaltube is blackened. Though the main fireball has retreated, its bastardbabies are left clinging to anything combustible. Burning playfully inthe dark passage. Walls still resound with the pressure of the blast.Trembling with its memory.“Fox-leader, your status and position.”There’s a crackling. A muted sense of screams. Then Sanada’s onthe line. Babbling. Practically incoherent.“We were working…” his voice says between gasps. “Ten levelsat a time… Nothing… Nothing but empty offices…”The line comes and goes. Making him sound drunk. Druggedand drunk. All we can do is wait on the wire. Wait while Estherjemmies the doors to the elevator shaft. Secures a rope for us to crossto the corridor beyond.“We… gutted. The whole fire was… booby-trapped…”Nonsensical ramblings. The murmurings of a madman.“This is Strøm. What’s your status and position?”“Level forty-nine… we are at twenty per cent…”Twenty per cent. That means there’s only four foxes left, but theCO is way ahead of me with the mental arithmetic.“We have no visual. We have intermittent bios. Who’s alive? Weneed a full appraisal of your situation.”Silence again. Few crackles, but nothing more. For the longesttime there’s static. Then Sanada puts us out of our misery.“Frontman triggered some kind of device. In the east stairwell.Level forty-one. Took out most of everything. Walls, windows, floor.We lost all fore and mid crews. Only… left… Fox-leader, eight, twelveand nineteen…”

THE A-MEN | 155At the roster count my heads-up fills in the survivors. More namesI don’t know. Biggs. Fitzpatrick. Some girl named Kerris. All gruntnewbies. Green as gooseberries.All lucky as fuck.“OK, enough with the time out,” says Esther. “Look alive.”Now above us there’s a line across to the gaping doors of theelevator. Shimmy across the hundred metre drop to the dull passagewaythrough the wedged doors. Find it leads out to the muted decorationsof an enormous office space. All cheap cladding and heavy dutyflooring. Plastic panels. Synthetic fibres. Doors off to a million cubicles.As we climb out of the shaft, Esther says, “Just look at this place.Twenty-third century and we still got battery workforces.”She’s right. As I look around I see that each compartment’s acomplete unit. Just big enough for eating, sleeping, working, shitting.Communal facilities for those who can face the agrophobia-baitingcanteen caverns.“Soon as the corporations owned the jobs,” she continues, “sothey came to own the people too. Governments became less and lessimportant. Eventually became ineffectual nobodies. The problem withdemocracy was that in the end they had elections and nobodybothered to vote. Like religion and loving thy neighbour, as modernbrand images, politics just don’t sell. As products, they lack vision andtruth. They have shit to offer either. Actually, come to think of it,compared to jeans and soft drinks, government as fashion icon is somuch shit.”Piecing together the story I can start to see this city’s currenttroubles. As politics took a backseat, consumer giants must’ve tookover running things. And that’s why when Exxo decided to pull outthey took everything with them. Leaving the token kidkissers left onthe board to mop up the crap. What a fucking disaster.As I stand there taking all this in, I call up RIN. Request nextleveldetails on the present mess. RIN obliges and I read how eachof the corporations are their own entity, with Exxo majoring in thebig time cybernetic league. Real class stuff. Exclusive commissions

156 | THE A-MENand standard issue. Custom designer models. The works. Grown faton the signing of the dataphial contracts, they now own occlusiveimplantation rights for all onworlders. Sidelines include all kinds ofmachines and workshops across the planet. World claims for this.Engineering interests for that. Now they are taking their entire factoryfloor into near-space. The whole lot. Every last twisted thread wingnut.Every last cybo-robotic eyelash. Leaving the city to crash and burn.Leaving this fourteen thousand kilometre square patch of prime realestate up for grabs to anyone with enough brains, balls and edgedweapons to stake a claim. This must have been an Exxo controlledblock. Makes sense it being so empty.So is that what this is? Some great landrush? A race for the bestslice of the pie? Could that be what the Grims are doing? Just grabbinga big building for their huntpatch? After years of living in their sunlesswonderland, are they intent on catching a few rays topside? Someprime claiming and maiming? Could it really be that simple? Whoknows. They’re way ahead of me on this one.Out in the corridor Black Wolf regroup and seal the exits. Takeand hold both stairwells. East and west. One at each end. Then Estherorders that we entrench. That we R&R after the climb.No news of the Grims. No news from the watchers on themezzanine. Nothing from Sanada. The remains of Fox must be lickingtheir wounds.So again all we can do is wait. Wait and listen while Strøm preparesfor emergency standby. If the Reapers show, the transport needs tobe prepped and ready to fly.What’s the time, Mister Wolf?We get about fifteen minutes.Sitting between the rows and rows of tiny home offices, the firstI hear of the goth guerrillas is the black woman ordering us up andout. We’re taking the stairs. Our next mission: to join with Sanadaand his division. Up on forty-nine.We make for the west stairwell, it being the only one left unmelted.Its faceless grey steps shine as we tramp over them. Scuffing black

THE A-MEN | 157marks on the otherwise pristine industrial-strength surface. Theheaviness returns to my upper legs. The fuzziness to my thoughts. Ijust want to lay down and sleep. Like for about three days straight.But instead I’m force-marched up another thirteen flights. Above floorthirty-six whole building’s fish gutted. East side’s got a chunk out ofit like it’s been munched on by Godzilla’s mother. Inside’s like it’sbeen hit by the twister from Oz. No furniture. No windows. Nobodies. Further up’s less destroyed, but not much. Fires creep acrossthe ceiling. Leaping from suspended roof tiles to blinds to cabinets.Consuming In Tray workloads. Bubbling terminal screens. Effacingmock-laminate zedbeds.Out past the ragged remains of the glass the city sprawls. Blockupon block. Grid within grid. Sweeping down to the expanse of thesuspension bridge, the island and, beyond that, the glittering bay. Sunhanging gold above the fiery water. Sky above is cloudless, thefreshness of a new morning poisoned with smoke and the motes ofunknown fliers. Paralysed birds. Vultures circling.Look past them. Up at the sky. Then down at the rooftopscrouching below.The world so beautiful. We, so ugly.Behind me my unit cohorts pass without even a sidelong look.As if the view were invisible. As if they all were blind. Insensate.Then even I move out.*Many flights later we’re at forty-nine. What’s left of Red Fox is there.Holed up in this plush chief exec’s office. Biggs looks the luckiest.Just some burn damage to his suit. Half his shielding scorched. Butthat’s it. Sanada looks like he caught the blast from behind. Rippedhis helm clean off. Fitzpatrick and Kerris both have bandaged limbswhere fragments of unidentifiable white-hot junk ripped throughthem. All look set to drop. The leaders exchange pleasantries, thenwe’re all ordered up and out.

158 | THE A-MENAnd then we get the news we’ve been dreading.In a blaze of static we are ported into lander. There’s suddenchilling confusion. Grisholm’s shouting for evac. There’s firing. Blamblam-blam.Heard both in my ears and, echoed a fraction later, outsidethe windows.Sixty stories up, the Grims have found the grav.Without a single word we’re racing for the elevator shaft. Readyfor another climb. And it’s on the way that at last we get to encounterthe rearguard of our elusive adversaries.They emerge from the shadows of an emergency exit door. Fiftystrong. Laden with malice and very large weapons. Guns, knives,pitchforks. Spilling into our path like dark sewer rats scavenging fora new home. Strangely out of place in these mercantile surroundings.Schismatic metal rebels. Dancing haired tergiversators. Even as thereports from Strøm and the doc fight for our attention, our battlescansflash tactical eye candy. Once again filling my fishbowl viewfinderwith targets. Informationally overloaded I just drop to the floor andstart firing.All around me the air ignites with killing as Wolf and Fox switchto slaughter mode. More game-style massacres. Ahead the cloakedfigures spin. Turned dervish by the force of fire. Spiralling into deathand defensive positions. I watch as this one punk, all painted grin andbeaded dreads, leaps through the barrage. Lands unscathed across anupturned coffee station, then is gone. Vanished into the maze ofcubicles. Others follow and once all are either pacified or lost, so dowe.In the labyrinth we move bent double. Weaving, ducking anddodging. Yet this environment is not optimum to our training. OK,we had the maze, but there the targets were well and truly static. Thiswarren is guerrilla friendly and the Grims are guerrillas. We are not.They move and strike as individuals. Our superior fire power andstrength of numbers hold no advantages here.Me and Chase are soon strung out on our own. Running betweenfake wood cupboards, plastic palms and low creche areas. We get

THE A-MEN | 159assigned the task of securing a sector out near a string ofcommunication booths. Here we find three Reapers. Or morecorrectly, they find us. Pouncing. Flapping cloaks. Screaming. Theirserrated blades singing in the air. They spring, it seems, from everyside. Coming high and hard and fast. Effectively trapping us. Partitionsahead. A wall at our backs. We’re bottle necked. Even as I raise mydancer, the first’s blade stabs my right hand. Sliding against the paddedgauntlet. Yelping I release the gun. Dropping it. Turn and reach formy D&K. Snapping it from my thigh casing. Chase shrieks behindme. Spasming into action. He’s got two on him. Both wielding tripletinedspears. Both stabbing at his midsection. Ripping his suit downto the inner layer. Tight in my fist feel my gun shoot. Aiming at theshape ducking to my left. Suit’s sluggish recalibration making me firewide. First shot blasts only air, then I take out a cooler, but that’s it.Grim’s next swipe misses, but as I twist to get a better shot, his thirdruptures my power pack. Instantly the heads-up shivers. Warps, thendies. Leaves only sound. Fuzzing visuals. Broken imaging. Flashes offormer glories.Got to get out of this suit. S’too restrictive. Battle armour wasmade for advancing in lines, all guns blazing. Not for this welterweightshadow boxing.Deep breathe, then aim and shoot. D&K spits again and this timethe dreadhead goes down. Spraying the wall. Adorning it with crimsonbody art.Next I know, my shoulder section locks. Shuddering immobilewith a worrying grind. Being in mid-turn, I get slapped still by this.Toppling me against the cubicle wall.Damn thing. Metro-trog must’ve kebabbed something vital. Haveno idea what gizmos make up this unit but guess they’re all situatedin the exact region the punk stiffed.Insectoids in my ears says Strøm’s lost the roof. That they’ve gonefor evac. Taking the doc with him. Also hear that Bear division havepulled out of floor thirty. A gang of Reapers laid into them big time,too. Acceptable losses apparently. Nothing to lose sleep over. Strange.

160 | THE A-MENThought Nezhadian was on the mezzanine. Surely he’s not breakingrank? Not ducking orders?In my half-busted suit, I grapple with frozen gears and try toregain my feet. Can’t see Wolf-five. Yet he managed to take one out.Leaves just one standing. I blast best I can. Straining over the barricadeof my own left shoulder. Trying to stay cool as the mad-eyed Reapercloses to skewer me. First shot atomises this crazy buffalo skull thatclings to his back. Next punctures the side of his head. He goes down.Skidding on the tiles. Look of wild panic on his face.Panting, I force myself around. Strain to crouch. At my feet I findChase’s corpse. Pitchforked to the plastic carpet. His face is blank.Totally and utterly and terrifyingly blank.What is happening here? We’re being taken apart by a bunch oflosers.“It’s Jack… Is anyone still listening?”“This is Wolf-leader. Assume RIN protocols. What is your callsign, soldier?”“Esther? Is that you? I need help bad. We’re getting the shit kickedout of us down here.”“Wolf-six, state your primary requirements…”“Suit’s broken. Can’t move too good. Reaper shorted my pack.I’m on forty-three, I think. East side.”“We know your location, Wolf-six. Will ETA in roughly eightand a half minutes.”Eight and a half minutes? What am I going to do until then?Play This Little Piggy?“RIN?”“This is RIN.”“Shutdown all secondary and tertiary systems. Anything but thebits keeping me happy.”“Reconfirm: happy.”“Alive.”“Affirmative.”Suit shivers. Starts rezzing off all extraneous routines. Every non-

THE A-MEN | 161functioning heads-up view and push feed and monitoring schematic.Soon I get my old eyes back. Clear vision of the office around me.All’s off except for global targeting and bio.Able to move a little, I haul myself back against the wall. Scuttlingcrab-like into the corner, I level my gun before me. Using my kneesas a tripod. Respirator groans in my eardrums, while in the distancethe sounds of war and death blanket everything else.I’ve got to get out. Only blind fortune has so far saved me fromgetting creamed. And I have no trust in luck as a career choice. Thisis not my life. Not the road I want to walk. Even if I wanted thisbefore, I don’t now. I need to cut and run. I’d rather be shot by oneof my own buddies than go down to a Reaper’s rusty scythe. I recallenough residual survival training to stand a fair chance on the streets.I could steal to live. Kill to eat. Stow myself away somewhere till allthis anarchy and nonsense blows over. I could weather the storm.This city? I know I didn’t live here. But maybe I could. Anyhow, Ihave to get out so I can go digging. Find that file on the stream andstart piecing things together. I’m fucked with being fucked. I wantto get back to existence on my own terms.Like a pair of carrion clowns, two more Grim Reapers turn thecorner of the far cubicle and sprint toward me. Both are armed withautos. They don’t clock my position right away. Seem to be runningfrom something else. Instantly RIN throws up their coordinates inthree-d. Targets and locks. First one then the other. Then the first oneagain. Over and over. D&K shrieks lead. Rapid shot. Puncturing chests,hearts and lungs. Wall above me spits plaster as the second Reapermanages to get off a couple of shells. Then they tumble. Dead as dolphins.Fatigued, I slump and pull out the book again. Open it oncemore and begin to read. Because I need that escape route into thisstory. I need to unlock the message I have left myself. To look foranswers in its pages, because, hey, I’ve found none on the outside.It’s either that or go stark staring mad.*

162 | THE A-MENReturning to the book, I attack the impenetrable chapters as ifthey were my own personal pentateuch. But they’re tougher thaniron. For example, the first part of the book is a great big sectioncalled How The Tales Came To Be Told. Sort of an introduction to thestories penned by the book’s mysterious author. Decades ago thesekind of tales were banned, and D’Alessandro takes great pains to tellus why and what the world lost in that instant.For a hundred years this book has waited to be read.If we hope to live – and by this I mean truly live, not just existfrom moment to moment – then our greatest and most difficultnecessity is to find meaning in our lives. And more so than any otherform of literature, faerie tales allow us to discover this meaning. Todiscover our identities, our vocations. These seemingly slight fables arefar better at making sense of our personal universes than any halfbakedphilosophy. They dispense with the need for dialectics andsyllogism. They rid us of the guilt previously attached to mainstreamreligion. They allow everyone the chance to see that a good, happyand fulfiling life is within reach, subtly teaching us that our personalnirvana quest is gained not through some esoteric or cosmicunderstanding of truth, but through – almost despite – adversity.Indeed, they instruct that to achieve any life which is deemedworthwhile, an individual must be able to face their fears in order toobtain the riches of their inner ideologies.Leaving behind the noumenal world, the kingdom of faerie ispacked chock full with tales of conquering despair, fulfiling wishesand overcoming insurmountable odds. And through these lessons canwe discover not only a way out of current predicaments, but also away in to ourselves. Much as the heroes and heroines of the storiesdo.In fact, all things considered, faerie tales rock.Pity then, that every last sentence of this priceless ancientknowledge has now been lost. I speak of the seventy-second summit,coda nineteen, which states that all fiction which contravenes the

THE A-MEN | 163social and political paradigm of the New Consortium State should beconstrained. That the ‘subversive plots’ and ‘neo-activist stereotypes’ offaerie tales should be classed a threat to the very children whom forcenturies they had enthralled. Psychologists testified under oath thatfaeries tales ‘create a mental readiness for wickedness’ and ‘anatmosphere of deceit and cruelty’ for children. That the fables were‘arousing fantasies of sadism in seeing others punished while thereader remained immune.’ The layman upshot of this interminablepsychobabble is that faerie tales were outlawed.And in that moment, all meaning suddenly vanished from theworld.Unlike those of politics and religion which died out naturally, forover a century these have been banned books. Vile, evil tomesoccupying the same burning shelf space as all the other ultra-violentendorsers of alternative lifestyles, works criticising advertising, and thedefamation of corporate powers. Starting with Baum, Perrault andWilde. Ending with the excising of all elements termed as deformity,wickedness and vulgarity. Too many publishers were being sued overirreparable infant trauma. Too much money was being lost. Branded aliar and a thief, gone were the heroics of Jack the Giant Killer.Tainted an envious slut, Cinderella was lost. Debased as a coldblooded murderess, the girl in the red hooded cape was abandoned toanonymity. Like comics and television and all other forms of art andliterature before them.I’ve always believed that the source of most things that go wrong inlife are due to our very natures. Most things. The rest are due toofficious pumped-up statesmen who bow to whatever majority carriesthe best chance of re-election. What now cares the chief executiveofficer for the achievement of ideal goals through phases ofpsychosocial crisis? What return on investment is there in that? Havethey ever lain awake at night worrying about the sequence of basictrust, autonomy, initiative, industry and identity? Of true intimacywith the world and the self through the gaining of a higher state?No, they have not. Instead they misunderstand, then they ban.

164 | THE A-MENWelcome to our times. Our literary Ragnarök. CodexGötterdammerung. The twilight of the dreams tossed into the fire.Still, in a world where so much has already been discarded asunnecessary – the gods, the family, the basic interaction of people –the truly frightening thing is that nothing has been created to replacethem. Archaic maps of ancient worlds tried to fill the yawning spacesof exploration with the fantastical. What we do not know, we invent,and what we invent reflects our fears of what we do not know. To fillin the empty spaces on the map. For the human mind cannotcomfortably bear much blankness.Which is why I wrote Forevermore.I took from the past, from the tales and stories of long ago andreinvented them for the post-alienist generation. A ’versal world; notuniversal, but reversal. A mirror world. Its timelessness that of theretellings themselves.The thirteen stories herein deal with the fantastical and themundane, finally mixing the two worlds of myth and faerie tale, ofsupreme deities and the everyman. To illustrate the difference: inmyths, heroes overcome insurmountable adversities by superhumanfeats and the odd dash of deus ex machina; those of folk tales arepeople just like all the rest of us. Everyday champions who prove tous all that we can win through impossible odds even though,underneath, we are fallible, fragile cretins. For you see, the heroes whoinhabit faerie tales are innocent and love justice, while the heroes ofmyth are wicked and prefer mercy.The entity of Forevermore is a modern text based on old folk storystructures last committed to paper around a hundred years ago by thepoet and folklorist Eyland Strachen, who also wrote the Ringhasaga.Like this Tolkien-Wagnerian epic, Forevermore’s thirteen faerie talescontain a wide variety of lore which represents the model of thehuman life-cycle, in essence the phase-specific psychosocial crises onemust pass through to achieve true identity. Unlike every other form ofliterature, these stories illustrate what experiences are needed forultimate character development. Before the ‘happy’ life can begin, the

THE A-MEN | 165evil and destructive aspects of our personality must be mastered.These primal texts are of interest to modern readers because theycontain consistent narratives of many of the plot lines of ancientmythology. Although Strachen was a scientist he treated the paganmyths with great respect. To this end, like Strachan’s Ringhasaga,Forevermore creates a quasi-historical back story for the land’s godsand is of interest because it replicates one of the first attempts todevise a rational explanation for mythological and legendary events. Itis also notable because it contains fragments of a number ofmanuscripts which Strachan had access to, but which are now lost.It goes on like this. Page after page. Unending. The appendices areno better. No clearer. These are filled with tables and diagrams andlists of the many mortals and faeries and deities that people thesestrange stories. Star charts. Histories. Magical creatures. Most’s coveredwith more scribbled notes. Especially scrawled over is the bit aboutthe gods. Looks like someone was doing a character resumé on thesedudes. Now the handwriting’s different. Spidery. All capitals. Whoeverit was, they seem to be studying all this shit. Feels so unlike anythingI would do, but who can say? For all I know I could’ve wrote thewhole fucking thing.There is a word though, a name, that rings with meaning. Themoment I look at it. Read it. Like the title of the book. Like Normand.Somehow it is friend; familiar. It’s the name of the supreme being ofthis fictional bedtime bruhaha.It is the supreme divinity of Forevermore.The Amen.I look it up.In a series of lengthy passages, it basically says he’s the man. Thetop dollar above all others. The Amen. Sounds archaic. Ancient. Preeverything.He Who Shall Not Be Named. It says the Amen dwellsin a place called the Land of Shadows and is into stuff like creationand destruction and souls. It also lists the other gods and goddesses,too.

166 | THE A-MEN• The Amen: Creator god. He Who Shall Not Be Named. God ofthe Land of Shadows and Souls. Of Creation and Destruction.Speaker of the Thirteen Words of Power.• Ianus: Greater god. He Who Shall Not Be Sighted. God ofKnowledge, Mirrors and Balance.• Æoseth: Greater god. He Who Shall Not Be Heard. God ofChaos, Immortality and Sleep.• Mûhamet: Greater goddess. She Who Shall Not Be Touched.Goddess of Life and Death.• Bêz: Greater god. He Who Shall Create Wishes. God ofShadows and Dreams.• Astarth: Greater goddess. She Who Shall Destroy Wishes.Goddess of the Void and Nightmares.• Kalím: Greater god. He Who Lives To Kill. God of War,Destruction and the Dead.• Torûs: Greater god. He Who Kills To Live. God of Earth Magick,Flora and Fauna. Also God of the Undead.Reading this makes me think of what Esther said on the lander. Aboutme not being religious. Also recall me saying maybe I could be. Isthis a clue? A deep-seated link to something I can’t remember buthad in mind? Then her comment: ‘Where we’re going, perhaps yougotta be.’ Now I get an inkling as to what she meant. How facingdeath makes men reach for a higher force. Something to pray to.Something that can save them. Maybe.And maybe save me.The Amen pantheon is based around ancient Mesopotamian gods.On child-stealing demons and gatekeepers of the heavens. Ellil andInnin and the Igigu. There’s reams and reams about cultures andsandstorm-bringing birds and haunters of the desert. Mukil-reslemutti.Ugallu. And a hundred hundred more. There’s enough hereto warrant building a whole new world. Fucking pages and pages ofit. Stuff like biblical passages. Stories. Histories. About looking out sofar you see inside. Of the beginning through the end.

THE A-MEN | 1671:1 Before all was there the Amen. Before the light, before the dark,before the void. Before all things was there the Amen. And the Amenwas there all.1:2 And in the beginning the Amen beheld a vision. And the visionwas the One Divine Dream seen in the Perfect Divine Mirror. Andthe Dream was Forevermore, the world that is.1:3 So the Amen took His vision and made that vision manifest.And He spoke thirteen words, each a single perfect sound. And thusdid the Amen create the void to cradle His Dream.The Amen paragraphs gambol in my mind. I try to make sense ofthem. To connect. But I can’t. And they don’t. There’s a footnoteadded in my scrawled hand just after this. Its words sting. They tauntme. Their tone making the imaginary real. It says:Here is the next clue. The way to find Xankhara. I’m getting closernow. So close. I can feel it. So many pieces placed close together. It’sjust a matter of time before I find the way they slot in place. Untilthe puzzle is complete.Searching for Xankhara? An island in a faerie tale? What fuckingdrugs was I on?I stop reading and find that everything is silent again. All is calm.All is bright. It’s just me and the dead. The war has gone to playsomewhere else. Esther’s eight and a half minutes are up and there’sno sign. The black woman’s minions should’ve been here pages ago,but can’t say I’m particularly bothered. Maybe I should be off. Butthis island still haunts me. I can’t just pack up now. I need moreinformation. And so I’m drawn back to the text. Drawn to a muchscribbled-over passage entitled The Legend of Xankhara.In the fourth age, when the Thirteen Kingdoms were but fledglingrealms, Xankhara was born. Known as a place of new dreams, ofhope and sanctuary, it was destroyed by the Amen in the greatest

168 | THE A-MENcataclysm ever to be unleashed upon Forevermore. Herein is told itsterrifying story.Xankhara is a name which is not often spoken. It is a word ofblasphemy as potent as any daemon’s, a word which strikes fear andcauses common folk to ward themselves as if the mere sound of itsfragile syllables will throw down bad luck as effective as any hex. Yetto understand why, we must first understand the world of the fourthage and what transpired to warrant the kingdom’s foundation.The fourth age was the age of unmaking and law. It was a timewhen men grew to dominate the sundered realms and reforge anexistence after the horrors of the Dragon Wars. All the many folk ofForevermore prospered and grew in size. The dungeons and slave pitsof the old dragonish citadels were abandoned, all the giantish gaolerswere hunted and slain, and the new hierarchy basked in theirfreedom while their peoples multiplied one hundred fold. Twelvekingdoms were created, kings and queens were crowned, and lawswere passed to make passage into the former dragonish realmspunishable by death. This central range of inhospitable mountainsbecame known as the Thirteenth Kingdom, a dread realm into whichnone would dare trespass. Here is the start of the legend whichspeaks that any mortal who stands upon the stone of thosemountains will be slain. At least any who returned and spoke ofsuch a sojourn would have met with a public execution.Yet in any time of expansion and unprecedented growth, theboundaries of once-empty frontiers will always become areas ofcontention. As the different factions all began to crave more and moreland, border militia were the first step, then watchtowers to defendfords and river estuaries from marauders. Outerlying villages builtwalls to keep out dangers far greater than packs of hungry wolves.After only a few decades the memories of fighting for a single causebegan to fade. No longer were the common folk all struggling to befree of the rule of serpents; now they began fighting amongthemselves. Tensions grew as more and more skirmishes turned tosieges and whole areas of newly planted corn and wheat were set to

THE A-MEN | 169the torch. What started out as a new beginning turned into a longrunningseries of battles. Each of the twelve kingdoms fought, withalliances being hopelessly short-lived in such a climate of fear anddistrust.In the many hundreds of years that made up the time of thesewars (and there were many) every kingdom suffered. One of the greattragedies was that vast expanses of enchanted woodlands were ravagedby fire and the One Forest was destroyed forever. This was a fatalblow to the faeriefolk, who were effectively caught inbetween thewarring factions. Driven from their forests and dells, they were forcedinto the only area left unmarked by war, hiding in the caves andvalleys of the unnamed Thirteenth Kingdom.And as it was on Forevermore so is it always firstly in theHeavens, for there too the factions fought, threatening to break thewalls of the sky, and many were the gods who fell to earth and werelost. All-told, these wars lasted for a thousand and one years and theonly reason they ended was because the faerie king Maleore gainedand used the magic of making and unmaking; the fabled TwelfthWord that the Amen had spoken in the creation of the universe. Noone truly knows what happened on that fateful day; all that isrecorded is the outcome. King Maleore’s wife, Queen Ravenna wastravelling upon her barge in a lake some way off from the ruinedcastle that was their home. Suddenly, there was a sound like thunderand a flash like lightning and the entire boat was destroyed. Many ofher servants were killed, yet she survived and dragging herself fromthe heaving waters she saw a great crystal. As she stared at thebeautiful rainbowed light that dappled its surface, she saw within itsmirrored egg-like shell was a child. She had heard of the wars withinthe halls of the gods and knew in her heart that this was a fallenspirit. So she wrapped it in her arms and set off on the long trekback to her home. When Maleore saw the child he knew that herewas a way to win favour from the neighbouring realm of Darkadia.For in that kingdom the queen was barren and so the faerie kingseemed benevolent indeed to grant her two sons; one faerie born

170 | THE A-MENnamed Joseth, and one unborn named Jack, the one who had fallento earth. So happy was the royal couple that when the children cameof age they divided their demesne into three parts, bestowing a thirdto each son and keeping one third for his own. And Joseth’s realmwas called Whereland and Jack’s Nowhereland.Many were the adventures of these two princes, now kings in theirown right, but of the two, Jack was the most extraordinary for he toldof the worlds beyond the heavens, of the creator, of the gods and alsoof the great land between where are held the secrets of all things.Here and only here echoes the last of the Amen’s words, thethirteenth and final power; belief. Many flocked to swell the unbornprince’s populace, yet their faith was not blind. In truth, any who metthe young man were left with little doubt that here was indeed aservant of the mighty Amen and, in time, his followers becameknown as the Amen too.Yet finally Maleore’s plan came to fruition when he went to theyoung princes to ask of them a favour. And so the young men wentupon a great quest and returned with the power of the Twelfth Wordof the Amen, that of command over all things; of making andunmaking; creation and destruction. It was their hope that with thispower they would end the bickerings and borderland wars forever.And keeping his promise, Maleore used the power but instead ofsaving them, he subverted each of the kingdoms to his will. Indesperation Jack decided that he must repair this wrong that they haddone, so he undertook another quest, this time to gain the only powernow able to defeat the evil magician; the power of the thirteenth andfinal word.To fetch this the boy king formed an enchanted gateway that rosefrom the earth, ripped from the rock by his magicks of command andthrough he entered accompanied by only his most trusted vassal. Andafter they vanished within the gateway descended back into the stonefrom whence it came. Yet at the last moment the fayking too slippedthrough the archway, intent on gaining the word for himself andbecoming greater than any who had ever touched the earth.

THE A-MEN | 171Whether they actually discovered the final word is not known, yetupon that day it is said that their trespass awoke the Creator fromThe One Dream. Appalled beyond reason by what he witnessed, theAmen’s destructive wrath caused great earthquakes to wrackForevermore from end to end and Xankhara was blasted with a greatfire that turned the Thirteenth Kingdom to desert. The realm wasdestroyed utterly – and the great continent split into many pieces.Maleore was thought to have perished, though there is a rumourwhich says that the Amen awoke only because he attempted tomisuse the power of the sacred word and that the evil faerie kinggained protection by using its awesome powers and so was saved. Yetif such is true this last fragment is now buried beneath the everchangingwaves of the ocean, the Thirteenth Kingdom having beensunk to the bottom of the sea at the very edge of the world.And what of Xankhara?Well many who travel far out to sea and who brave the forbiddenfogs known as the Mists of the Dead say that when the wind isfrom the west and a storm is raging, that then you may sometimescatch a glimpse of the lost kingdom’s spires as the lightning rages.And that once a year, on All Gods’ Day, that the waters recede andthen are Xankhara’s gates open to any who can find and enter them.I close the book. Thinking on everything I’ve read. A blank pageupon which this story is imprinting itself. For if the Amen and hisfollowers appeared from nowhere and took over once already, thenby hell, why can’t they do it again? After all, am I not looking forsomething to believe in? Why not myself? But there’s something elseI need first. To talk to the person behind this pile of garbage. I needto find out why he and I wrote footnotes about this place. Why hegave me his personalised copy. Something tells me maybe I knewhim. And that is the biggest start I have right now.That and a bunch of fancy faerie tales.“RIN, run a findsearch for me.”“Keywords?”

172 | THE A-MEN“Rafaele Juarez D’Alessandro. And combinations. He’s an authorif that helps. I want personal files, anything you can locate. Butultimately I want to know where the fucker lives.”“Affirmative.”There’s a crackle. The slight interference of connecting to thestream. The almost imperceptible hiss of a zillion pieces of data beingscoured. If only RIN were an orbital uplink then I’d have the meansto access that file I broadcast. But it isn’t. So I can’t. No time to worryabout that though. Or the fact that someplace else Strøm will bewatching. Already my helm view’s flooded with information. Pipedstraight into my left eye. Bouncing off my corona. Washing across mysight.Within seconds I have access to every open-coded recorded facetabout this man. His work history. His medical chronicles. His preferredhair care products. Yet none of this interests me. What I’m lookingfor is far simpler. And within seconds I see it.There on 13th and Logan Circle. Smack bang in the middle ofthe business quarter.Exactly what I need.Schematics of his one-hundred-and-thirty-floor corporate offices.

21 Däalessandro>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has entered the entrance to the gardens.This must be what it would have felt like for the first explorer,the mystic adventurer stepping upon the first sands of virgin territory.It is as if I am part of some reimagined Heroic Age, a reinventionof the notions of science, discovery and the needs of the humanspirit.I envy Thomas. Wholly and completely. Utterly. I envy his experienceof the first transcendence of the material human body. A full mindupload of all he is and its placement into a quasi-dream of … what?Self-indulgent power-fantasy? I cannot gainsay that this is the case. Aquixotic quest for eternal youth and escape from the limitations of theflesh? You’ve got me there.Slipping between metrics and biotasks, I monitor, record,document. Every single iota of retrievable data autospooled.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has entered the centre of the gardens.“Hour one sign-in,” Jana reports in my ear. “Tracking positionOK. Telemetry stable. Commands running. Few fluctuations in thecore, but nothing abnormal.”“Thank you, Jana,” I say dreamily, then to the system, “Executesearch.”>Executing search sequence. Game register equals Lloyd. Modeequals game. Game time elapsed equals one hour and thirteenseconds. Game location equals Garden Central. Executing predawnsequence. Search completed.I have to imagine what the psychist sees as he passes like waterbetween pre-entry home: the room without doors. His brief yet

174 | THE A-MENthrilling fall through the void. His august arrival at the gates to hisprivate club otherworld. The reason for this is, regrettably,communication with Thomas is prohibited. If I was so inclined Icould contact my colleague along any one of his senses, yet it isimperative that we keep a closed experiment. As sterile as a child’schemical reaction. Like a physics equation, the simulation is out ofbounds. The universe, however limited in this thirty-seventh build,must be kept complete and in harmony with itself. Like a butterflypoised upon my upturned hand, I cannot reach or twitch or flex orI will lose this perfect and beautiful bauble entirely. It is as we are,secluded from the outside world to prevent even one byte of tesseraxialdata from leaking to the corporation.Instead all I see of Thomas’ experiences is the encrypted log thatseeps through the bio-anima soup and is deciphered by the terminalbefore me.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has entered the vegetable garden.So we watch, and we observe.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has picked up the wooden stepladder.And I seethe with ardent jealousy.I don’t have to see it, of course. I can imagine. Can picture thelong gravel pathway leading northwards away from the gates andtoward blossoming gardens of great beauty. The way lined on eitherside by tall swaying palms that shade the pleasant walk with theirdelicate fronds. Then, there beyond, rising high above the trees, astrangely forbidding grey mountain. Just a shadow against the lastshreds of true night.Here in this splendid garden area eight paths meet to form acircular paved walkway, girthed by fragrant flowerbeds and centredby an elaborate sundial. This is carved from white marble formed intointertwining sculptures of a lance-wielding knight and a scalearmoureddragon. The artist has cleverly captured the glory of sucha man and beast, while rendering it impossible to guess which onewill eventually triumph.In my mind’s eye, I see clearly the magnificent botantical splendour

THE A-MEN | 175that forms the central hub of the small island. The threshold to thelands; the puzzles.Here also stand the entrance archways to the five self-containedareas of the X-Isle.The Gothic delights of Horrorland.The ancient tombs of Pharaohland.Faerieland’s enchanted realms of legend.The gun-slinging backwaters of Prairieland.The kiddie paradise of Sleepybubbyeland.Thomas immediately chooses Horrorland, taking the stepladderwith him and the scene changes to an area marked ‘PrivateProperty.’In sharp contrast to the beauty and warmth of the gardens, thisarea is a muddy mess. Standing at the base of a sheer cliff, the abruptmountain bursts from the uneven ground in a precipitous rock face.The only way up is found in an ugly square framework of rusty ironforming the shaft for a rickety elevator car. I can almost taste theclaustrophobia in that grim metallic box.I wrote it, we created it, now Thomas lives it.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has read the billboard.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has disabled the security camera.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd has activated the elevator (button 2).>Executing elevator sequence.Our longing to wander seems to lead us away from hearth andhome. But every step and every day leads us back again. And this isbecause I want nothing but to except what I am. That is happiness.What I want is not to want.Of course, this will never happen, just like the way I do not trulyenvy my colleague.Here within the X-Isle God is indeed a conjurer and the universehis box of conjuring tricks. Intended to deceive us. Cloaking deceitin sentient joy.Now, that is a position I envy. That.And then, there at the end, amidst the infinite ragged terrain of

176 | THE A-MENundeciphered data, a phrase, a coherent understandable sentence,comprehensible within acres of encoded graphical hieroglyphs.>IT IS DAWN.>I AM COME.

22 PureDodging under burning elevated freeways, we fly up, up and away inour beautiful yellow balloon. Revving through air. Spinning throughsmoke. Great backcombed hairdos of it. Piled atop the broken morning.Below is chaos. Rioters sweep the exit lanes. Torching off-ramps.Fighting and shooting and dying. The wrecks of bodies and cars turningthe eight-lanes into open-air morgues. We’re heading who-knowswhereat dangerous speed. Think this is Army Boulevard. Could beanywheres. We’re flying mad and blind. Pills have eased enough tomake reality visible again. Makes all this shit impossibly real. Makesit scary. Paranoia kicks in. Must be the snowboys. Need some A’s, butI’m fresh out.Now all I’ve got’s acute terror.“Lucille, the whole world’s ending,” I babble. Hearing myself, butnot quite in control of the words anymore. “Just what the fuck isgoing on here? What’s happening?”Lucille shrugs.“So, it’s fucked. But then everything in this world is so fucked,it’s a wonder we notice. ““No, listen to me! Zura karu ze! Everybody’s dying!”“Stop being such a stress puppy,” Lucille yells back, “or I’ll openthe door and just dump your ass.”“You mean you’re utterly unworried?” I ask incredulous.“Utterly. I worry about my hair, not people. Here, take this.”She drops the blooded pistol in my lap.Freeze for a moment, then scoop it up in both hands. Point it.

178 | THE A-MENSight it. Aiming at unseen targets out the busted window.“Hey great,” I say. “this solves everything. We’re fucking chickswith dicks.”Lucille gives me one of her looks, so I stow the gun. Unplacated.Six-point-seven-second attention span ended. Paranoia kicks back inand I continue. On a roll now.“How did I wind up in this mess? Just when did everyone headout to lunch. And what the fuck are those?”Up ahead is the Expressway. Also there’s a line of chinooks. Risingfrom behind the rooftops. Death cannons set to kill. All pointing inour direction. Looking set to blast us all the way to Palookaville.The wool-clad nancy spies them about a nanosecond after I do.Then she worries.“What the–?”“This is LEO Marshal O’Neidd. You are contravening the citycontainment zone and in violation of emergency curfew regulations.Surrender your vehicle.” All this over the comms speaker.The transvestite grimaces.“Leo wants us to pull over.”“You stupid bitch, that’s not his name. LEO stands for lawenforcement officer.”“Whatever, he still sounds pissed.”“Well I don’t have to guess we were speeding.”Lucille stabs the wheel, switching air channels.“Reduce your altitude to street level. You have ten seconds tocomply,” mister marshal insists.“Everyone’s dead,” I spit. “Maximillian. Your momma. Your papa.Everyone! And we’re next!”The redhead flips off the intercom, then carries on regardless.“We’ve got to do as he says,” I bleat.“Drop dead, gorgeous!” she spits. “I have enough outstandingfelonies to go prison platinum. We’re busting through.”Slamming her finger on the accelerator we pull gees as the taxileaps forwards. Straight on course for the air blockade. It’s so obvious

THE A-MEN | 179we’re not going to make it. There’s no fucking way. Any fool bitchcan see it. We haven’t got a scoob.It’s just about then that they launch the missiles. Three vapourtrailedpresents of messy destruction. Sweeping gracefully through theair to greet us.Screaming we both freeze for a moment, then all thought of herunpaid community service gone, Lucille spins the power steering likea top. Sending the bubble car into an inverted loop. Dropping.Dropping. Dropping. There’s a flash of sky. A flash of explodingconcrete. A flash of sky again. And just about then we hit the sidewalk.Backwards somehow. Skimming like a stone on concrete water.Spraying sparks. Grinding undercarriage. Ripping the shiny newbodywork to shit, we hit a pile of big industrial bins. Trash meetstrash. Auto-restraints snap our heads, chests, arms and legs into position.Save us from hitting the windshield at terminal velocity. Also mostof the whiplash. But not all. We spin, then careen to a stop in thewindow display of this petite shoe boutique.Mini-klaxons whine while the consoles blaze warnings. And inanswer to this apocalyptic state of affairs, Lucille asks me for the gun.“Girlfriend, I don’t think…” I start, but she cuts me off.“Don’t upset me! I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.”Lucille’s always joking on about being this closet serial killer, andit’s at times like these when I start to believe her.“Still, we’ve gotta go. If those marshals catch us, we’re dead meatfor sure.”Faw’sure.Lucille relents. Whacks off the power and we run for it. Yet evenas we emerge from the wreckage, you can hear the choppers coming.Blasting the backstreet with their hot, feral wind. The road we’re inis some sorta shopping backwater. Everything draped in swags ofcrimson leaves. Guess it must be autumn. City doesn’t have seasonsanymore. No real plants to mark the time. Mall decor’s the only wayto tell. This one’s half-built. Scattered with smashed-up excavatorsand burning oil drums. Warehouse edifices loom while crisp new

180 | THE A-MENcraters belch smoke where the first of the torpedoes hit. Not muchcover. Well, at least not from attack craft.Above external announcement systems boom.“As law enforcement officials, we are required to warn citizensof imminent counterstrikes…”At this, my delusional paranoia sends me doolally. Spazzes me out.Shrieking I throw up my hands and start running in circles. Lucilletries to drag me on, but I’m past saving. As we’re consumed beneaththe shadows of the chinooks she gives up and heads for the nearestbuilding. Leaving me alone.Shitcakes, she’s abandoning me to die!Luckily the threat of death focuses my mind. Saps the last of mystrength but at least I flick back from loonyland. Stop weirding out.Unluckily I’m just in time to see the vapour trail as an incomingmidi missile targets my rampaging body heat and arcs toward me.My scream shatters the air and I flee. Running randomly. Onemoment I’m tripping barefoot across tarmac. Surrounded by fast foodemporiums. The next the white penile shape darts past my leftshoulder and ploughs into a nearby caterpillar-tracked earth-mover.Everything goes white, then red, then black. White, red, black.Like some awful surrealist artwork. There’s a flash of tri-colouredmadness, excruciatingly brilliant. And then an explosion of metal andconcrete and glass as the shoe boutique, the earth and my wholefucked-up world blows right up in my face.

23 23rdxenturyboyIn the funky shop’n shrine to my hero, there is dog death all around.Buster is the first to go. His tousle’t grey-brown coat torn openas the bullets run up his spine like a seam. It’s like someone’s throw’nbig overripe tomatoes at him. Burst’n on his back. He lets out awhimper, then curls, his legs go’n underneath him. Smacks clean intothis glass cabinet full of Save the Krill t-shirts. Panic’n, Zark goes overthe edge. Leap’n up he dashes down the left aisle, bay’n. Behind himthe cupboards explode. Spray’n splinters. Then he explodes. Spray’nguts. The bay’n stops and he rolls. End over end. Land’n in a mangle’tmess about two metres from the poster-cover’t entryway.During all of this I haven’t move’t a muscle. I’m still paralyse’t atthe far end of the same aisle. Dingo’s still tuck’t up at my trainercladfeet. But we have to do someth’n to fox our warders. And there’ssometh’n about the plan in my head that is just crazy enough towork.“Elliott!” I shriek over the gunfire. “You’ve got to be the WonderDog. You’ve got to save us.”Dingo’s furry face looks up. “Save us?” he whimpers. “Me?”“Yes, you.” Reach’n up I knock the Phantom accessory pack offthe shotgun’t shelf. “We gotta fly.”Elliott’s bark brown eyes go all piggy and small. Means he’s think’n.Hard. Talk’n with the young doggie was never very deep and it’snever gonna deal with tri-nuclear genetics. Mainly this is ’cause dogstalk about social events, where they fit in the pack, how they’re feel’n,what they want. That’s it. Mostly. Yet sometimes there’s a breakthrough.

182 | THE A-MENAnd look’n at Elliott’s face reflect’t in the warp’t plastic wrap’n onthe costume box we get one now.“I always wanted to be Phantom the Wonder Dog,” he says.“Always.”“Well, now’s your chance.”Dingo glances up at me, wince’n as more of the blood-spatter’tcabinetry explodes around us.“Hokay,” he woofs, look’n at the comic in my hands. “But onlyif we team up. Like against the Imperitors of Xian. I can be Phantomand you can be 23rdxenturyboy!”“Okay,” I agree and then he’s frantically break’n into the box andtie’n the laces of the pair of blue-star’t rollerboots. Have’n troublewith the double knot, so I helps. Paws is so crap for things sometimes.From where we’re hide’n, we can see Xero down aways. He surelooks wild eyed and brushy tail’t. Never seen him this out of control.Must be all that mongrel blood course’n through his veins. Wave tohim as he gazes around like a crazyman. Just makes him go evencrazier.With an ominous thwump, I hear someth’n hit the carpet behindthe racks. Shoot’n’s stop’t. And in the buzz’n silence there’s anothercouple.Thwump, thwump.Sound of magazines bei’n eject’t. Of new ones bei’n slam’t intoplace. It’s our warders. That unique, special order of terrify’n men.Move’n in for the kill.Way I see it, to get to the door we need a big diversion and alot of luck. Alsa need one heck of a lot of momentum to smash ahole through that plastic, because bet anyth’n it’s lock’t tight andsafety-shield’t. I have an idea what, but it’s get’n up and do’n it that’shard.For a start-off, Elliott needs someth’n to shout.Currently my head’s full of Wonder Dog sayings. Poster bylines.Things Phantom spouts off all the time. Like, “To err is human, towoof, canine.” Or, “Things are getting a little spasmic!” But none of

THE A-MEN | 183’em is any good. Well, not for this situation. Need someth’n else.Someth’n that fits the current worst-case scenario. Then I have it.Someth’n real appropriate. See it on the cover of one of the fallencomics. A bolt from the blue. It’s also what he barked at the end ofthe three-part Dog-fight on Deathstation X micro series we was watching.The bit where Rex Backspasm is gonna liquefy the galaxy to soupand Phantom is chained in the path of this runaway asteroid. Leanforward as Elliott’s fix’n his shiny cloak. Whisper in his upright ears.Make’n him grin and loll his tongue. So now we have our tag line,we can go for it. Now we’re ripe and ready.Wrap’n my arms around Dingo’s scraggly neck, the dog wonderleaps up and starts skate’n. Push’n out. Just like they taught him todo across the ice field in that winter bunker sim. Just go-go-go, dropthe demob device down the eye slit and get clear. Same thing here,except the frozen lake is midnight blue drugget and the bunker isthe Ms Whippie ice cream hatch, but not so different.And as we go, Dingo howls like a loonie.“Dog power! Howwoooooooooahhhl!”Pick up speed, his little legs pump’n. Skate’n hard. Hear the rangersgrunt that they’ve seen us. Moments before their weapons startscream’n. Can’t get an angle though. Not now they’re on the floor.And not while we’re in the aisle.Xero’s ahead. His face a furry mat of terror. Bloodshot eyes bug’n.Mouth show’n every one of his forty-two teeth. All yellow as toffees.“Benjie?” he manages, use’n my name for once. “What in feck’s–”“Run!” I yell over the skate’n mutt’s left shoulder. “Go for thedoor!” He hesitates. I’ve never order’t him to do noth’n before. Noth’never. Never ever. But there’s someth’n in my voice. Someth’n newand different. Makes him sit up and listen.“Like now, Xero!” Elliott adds to be sure.About then we hit the last curved display case like a freight train.Show’n off a range of once yummy sweeties at prime kiddie eyelevel.All mouldy now. Best before tags read like history lessons. Glow’nred in the shadows. At the top of the makeshift ramp the guns start

184 | THE A-MENagain. Wonder how fast fired projectiles go. How fast we’re go’n. Toolate for maths now. Just got to get on with our escape. Can worryabout die’n later.Throw myself into a ball as a billion bullets blast every last paneof glass out the front of the shop. Puncture’n posters. Turn’n the airto glitter’n crystal. One moment we’re fly’n with the scatter’n shards,the next we’re connect’n with concrete. Skid’n on our backside allthe way across to the other side of the concourse.Yowzer, that stings! And, hey, why don’t real superheroes ever landon their butts?But there’s no time for that. Got to get clear.Pick’n my little self up, I turn back towards the shop. Just in timeto see Dingo head’n for me push’n an abandon’t stroller that waslie’n in the gutter. Beyond the broken glass, see the warders wade’ndown the shop straight for Xero. Poor doggie’s claw’n at the shopfront, try’n to pull his self up to the jag’t hole. As Elliott skates pastI leap aboard. Yet we’re too late. As we come level with the window,the crazy mutt is slaughter’t. Turn’n the glass opaque with his blood.Elliott yowls, then we’re scarper’n. Race’n for the corner as the wardersburst out into the desert’t street.We barely make it. Yet the bastards have only themselves to blame.They bred kooks like Dingo to be quick, and that’s just what he is.As the gun brigade kneel and take aim, we whoosh around thecorner of one of the big apartment buildings and head straight forthe avenue between Subterranea and Terrors of the Living World.And through all the horror and ickiness I find I am laugh’n myselfhoarse as we zoom along. On my back. Hold’n my legs and fairyowl’n.“Pure dog power, Dingo!” I cry out. “Pure bitchin’ canine kickass.”And Elliott smiles at this. Smiles and smiles and smiles.Then he’s laugh’n too and we don’t stop cackle’n till we reachTransport Central. Till we sees the masses of other survivors all crowd’nout through the cramp’t shuttle tunnels. Up above there’s a greatshatter’t hole in the dome. Fires in the sky. Some in the windows of

THE A-MEN | 185the buildings inside too. Is there a war on? No time for that nowthough. Straddle the stroller onto one of the track lines and go withthe flow.Out on this rag-tag exodus along with all the other freaks andinto the burn’n city.The dog wonder and his 23rdxenturyboy.

24 Sister MidnightKerris and Biggs report that when they found him, the man with nomind was sitting against a wall clutching his big leather book andsurrounded by bodies. As he is brought before me in the meetingroom on seventy-three his eyes are unfocused. It is as if now his entirebrain is blank. As if the remainder of his thoughts have been sweptaway, wiped clean like the stain of sin after the confessing. It is nosurprise when I find he is riddled with reticence and unwilling totalk of the hostile encounters and the death of his unit buddy. Whatis more harrowing is that he has abandoned his armour too, shed likea snake’s skin. The suit was damaged, apparently unusable. Kerrissalvaged what weaponry she could, then cut the rest loose. He carrieshis guns, knives and ammo, his anti-personnel devices and rations allstuffed into a pull-cord shoulder bag. Less satisfactorily, the outcasthas garbed himself in the salvaged street wear of the Grim Reapers.In flak vest and fringed motorcycle jacket. In blue jeans, patched andpadded on the shins, knees, thighs and seat. In black leather boots setwith silver spurs and chains. In fingerless gloves.I want to berate the two Foxes, to reprimand them for theirinability to think of salvaging a workable suit from the wreckage, butthere is no time. Since Grainger’s appraisal of the structural damagecaused by the Reaper fireball, such matters as combat etiquette andattire will have to slide.Though everyone in the unit – except Jack – has had ample timeto dissect and digest the situation via their heads-up displays, I feelthe need to communicate the facts personally. To make sure they all

THE A-MEN | 187fully appreciate just what total shit we are currently wading in. So Iaddress the rabble that is Emergency Unit Six. The troops are tense.Some are wounded. Some are spotted with blood. All of us – exceptJack – gaze at each other through the grime of our closed faceplates,constantly filtering the dust and smoke from the air around us. Ofthe original one hundred and thirteen, now less than half remain. Ofthe three divisions of thirty-seven, Black Wolf reads twenty-three,Blue Bear reads sixteen and Red Fox, four. With the CO and thedoc, that’s forty-five.And there’s still a long way to go.Standing atop a glass desk covered with an ashen pall of debris,I relay Strøm’s orders.“E-Unit, it falls to me as acting senior to appraise you of thecurrent situation. Circumstances should continue to be viewed ascode orange. Our primary action plan is to rendezvous with thetransport on the roof level at nine-three-zero.” I see the shock risein their faces. Hear the stifled groans as they recognise just how littletime this leaves. How hard will be the way ahead. “I realise what Iask, but it is my assessment of Fox-leader’s data that whatever theexact nature of the explosive device used by the marauders, it hasseverely weakened the skyblock. Due to fires on the lower levels,down is not an option. Whatever the Grim Reapers’ objective withinthe Bartlow, Jerome and Banks building, it is no longer our concern.We have been prepped for immediate evacuation. Now we knowthat somewhere above us are a group of hostiles, but emergencyprocedures are key.” I leave it at that, for I feel that if I say more Iwill begin to preach. “May God and your last confession go withyou,” is my only concession.Standing here in this office wasteland, I try to stare past the filth,the masks, the armour and aching, to see inside the people withinthe suits. Though each and every one of this emergency unit aresociety’s waste products, someday way back they were real people.Good people. They were young men and women, some at college,some holding down jobs in TwentyFourSevens or studying bio-

188 | THE A-MENmechanics at university. I try to imagine these people in baseball caps,lounging in apartments with lopsided grins, but cannot. It is impossible.“OK, let’s move out. Keep to your recalibrated divisions andassigned exit routes.”“What about me?”It is the stranger’s voice. Feeble without his communications feed.I gaze down at him coldly.“What about you?” I reply, climbing down from my makeshiftpulpit and rechecking my weaponry.“Where am I going? I’ve lost my suit and my buddy–”“Biggs!” I yell, watching as the soldier’s scorched helm twitchesat the sound. “Assign yourself to Wolf-six. Make sure you relayassignments as we go.”I turn away from him – from them all – and start for the stairwell.I don’t need this right now. We have wasted enough time already.Sanada intercepts me as I stride for the fire doors.“Wolf-leader?” he asks urgently.“What is it, Fox-one?” I don’t stop, nor acknowledge his presence.Yet then I hear his helm hiss open and feel him closing in on myright side.“Wolf-leader!” he repeats, stepping across my path and halting mein my tracks. Then: “Please, Esther.”His face is caked in muck, but his brown eyes beseech me.Irregardless of his insubordination, that he has barged into me, thathe has forsaken his comms equipment, it is his eyes that make melisten. That and his use of my birth name. Reluctantly I reboot RINconsigning the confession off-record.“You have five seconds.”“Look, I know we’re up against it timewise and this is not theplace for all this shit, but… well, all that you were saying aboutconfessing, and how we’re really not gonna make it–”“We don’t have time for this, soldier.”He looks at me then like he’s been shot. No, more. Like I havejust pulled out my D&K and shot him myself. It is a look of shock

THE A-MEN | 189as acute as a betrayal and it confuses me. I just don’t know what itmeans.“Is there a point to this, Sanada?”“It was me,” he says at last.“You?” I echo. “What are you talking about?”Behind us E-Unit masses, moving toward the exits. Under myfeet it is as if the building shudders. Maybe it does. Right now I can’tbe sure.“In the shower room. It was me.”Then I understand.My empty stomach churns. My heart at once ice. I gasp air, as ifto save myself from frostbite, but no warmth enters.Of course I never saw my attacker, my intruder. He slugged meas I showered. They told me they’d found Jack there. That they’dpulled him off. But I vaped Sanada in the maze. He was first out inthe unit.Before anyone…“Santa maria,” I whisper, “mama foe Gado.” Then I bite and lickmy dry lips.At my stiff back, the gunmen crowd, waiting for me to move out,but I don’t. I don’t do anything. Nothing except grapple with emotionsand a sickening, pounding, churning thought: I can’t do this any more.I can’t handle any of it. I am losing my faith.And I want out.

25 The NowheremanI’m about five metres off to Esther’s left when she pulls out herstandard-issue Deckler and Konran and shoots Sanada in the face.One moment the suited brigade are filing toward the centralstairwells ready for the long climb up, the next Esther’s stuffing thesnub end of her pistol under the poor sucker’s chin and pulling.There’s a familiar thunderclap and the soldier’s face is gone. Replacedby an arcing wheel of blood and flesh. In the shattered echoes theunit goes wild, jumping out of their suits and brandishing arms. Theones not looking in the black woman’s direction are the most spooked,but the real madness comes from those that bear witness, their facesfrozen and shocked. As Sanada’s carcass topples to the floor, Estherwhirls. Still travelling. As if her actions are one long continualmovement. For a heartbeat she faces us, brandishing her weapon, andI glimpse her resolve, her frightening intent. Then her turn takes herpast me as she launches herself at the central stairwell, disappearingin a blur of blackness.As she goes so do I. Booted. Unsuited. Breaking from the middleof the pack. All street smart and guns. Biggs is my shadow now. ButI ignore him. Ignore the others too. Following only her. Keeping hoton her trail. The way I see it, she’s the only link I have made. Somehowa part of this new world I am so desperately trying to unearth. Soadamant to be a part of. Infinitely more than these wetnose conscriptsand gun-obsessed volunteers. I can’t afford to lose her. Not now. AndI definitely don’t want to stay with them.Flapping through the bulk of the fire doors, beyond the square-

THE A-MEN | 191cut spiral corkscrews. All concrete steps and steel cappings. There’s aclanging somewhere far below, and every now and then there’s anominous growl. Like the building’s hungry. Like its belly’s rumbling.The black woman is heading up.Up? my mind asks, why up? Surely that’s right into a trap. AllGrims and Strøms and court martial cities. Maybe she’s got otherreasons. Based on stuff I don’t know. Without my helm I have noidea. Esther’s comments about fires and structural integrity seem flimsyat best. Yet I have nothing to barter with. Instead I drag my heavylegs and pursue.In our wake, voices rise. Without RIN I’m guessing, but hertransgression appears to have amassed a lynch mob. I can imagine theCO’s bleating cries that Fox-one’s execution should be avenged. ThatEsther is to be deemed AWOL. To be shot on sight.Stairs, stairs, stairs.As I go questions unwind like this cubic architectural snake. Like:where is she going? Like: why has little miss I’m-so-together finallylost it? The strain of so much wanton carnage finally flipped herswitch? The sheer crass enormity of life in this chaotic churning cityhas unscrewed her internal wingnuts?Fuck knows.Scan back the fiery brain footage. Watching from behind threerows of grunts I saw Sanada confront Wolf-leader. Couldn’t hear whatthey were saying, but Esther’s reaction was pretty clear. Never seendisgust like that on a woman’s face. Never imagined emotion so raw.While the stories and histories from the faerie tale book still swimthrough me, hinting at escape from the grittiness of my current locale,looks like she’s found her own way out.Side-splitting stitch kicks in after the third flight, but Esthercontinues on as if a pack of wild animals is on her tail. Which I guessthere is. Pumping stair after stair, floor after floor, she sets a cripplingpace. Unrelenting, her step is savage. Keeping even two flights behindbecomes difficult for me. Here is a maiden of battle, a warrior withmore muscles in her torso than I have in my entire body. Without the

192 | THE A-MENcushioning gears and grid supports of my suit, I feel bloated, Filledwith fluid. Heaviness plagues me and I am forced to break for breath.Frequently. Below Biggs and the rest of the unit moves on irregardless,unaffected by such weaknesses of the flesh. Yet being rid of that infernalsuit makes me a little faster on my feet. A little more nimble. Andright now it is all I need to stay ahead of the baying mob.Then above the black woman moves off the stairs. Through a setof firedoors. I follow, whapping them open. The darkened floor beyondis empty. The unlit neon announcing this as floor seventy-eight.Where’d she go?Clunk, ker-chunk.Bolts. Metal on metal.Turn and find myself looking into the big brown hollow of hershadow. Flattened against the wall. Looming above me. Spotlightedby grey shafts through tall slitted grilles. Her internals are off. All lightfrom her helm extinguished. I bend double and pant. Clasp my hipsand gulp air.“You’re following me?” she snorts. More questioning my sanitythan my destination.I shrug. Resigned to enigma. On the other side of the door echoesthe muted sound of pursuit. Hut-hut-hut. A mass of booted feet.“They’re coming,” I say, abstractly. Hinting at the suicide missionshe’s on. How when they find us we shall be their fallen media icons.The backlash swift, merciless and unstoppable.The huntress shoots me a dark look. It’s obvious she holds noplans to kill further members of her unit. Here I see sympathy notpsychosis. Yet urgency dogs us. This is no time for long speeches. Yetshe has to say something. To imply or demand. Or perhaps just todiscover why I’m tagging along.“Look, Jack, I don’t want to put a hole in your pretty little head,but I need some space here.”“Where are you going?”“Up.”“And?”

THE A-MEN | 193“I’m getting out.”“Out?”She doesn’t reply to this one. Instead starts crossing to the elevatorshaft. In our wake hear several someones slam into the firedoors andstart wrenching.“Wanna take me with you?”“Now why would I want to go and do a damn fine stupid thinglike that?”She speaks like there’s a wall right between us. Thicker than thesuit and higher than heaven. Need to break through. To get her tosee that she’s not alone. That we are connected. But all I can thinkof is her and the porthole. And that without her I’m gonna be alonein this city. And that gives me a survival horizon of about six hours.If I’m lucky.Reaching for her belt, she pulls out her own Jarl class and startsprising the elevator. I duck under her suited shape and help. As muchas I can. At our backs many others join the first grunts.“Look, I… I’m real, real sorry for what I did.”Esther’s eyes flash white. Her face twisted in memory. My apologyburns her. For a moment she stops wrenching, then braces her backinto the task. As if renewed.“Jack… I’ve got something to tell you.”“Hey, I hope you’re not…”“You didn’t,” she breathes.Right about now the shooting starts. Sounds like the whole ofE-Unit. Blasting at the barred doors. Unable to think on what Esther’sjust said, I watch as she hauls open the elevator and snaps herrappelling gear onto the central cable. There’s a few moments ofindecision then, as if the huntress is going to ditch me right there.Yet even as the air at our backs fills with a storm of splinters, shehauls me through. Slamming closed the vaults of our bottomless crypt.Entombing us in darkness.*

194 | THE A-MENWe climb forever and a day. And then we climb some more. Estherhas belted me to her suit. Fixed a strap around me, threaded underboth armpits. With the yawning nothingness below me, all I can dois hang on and hope my arms aren’t ripped from their sockets. As weascend I count off the floors. Eighty-two. Eighty-nine. Ninety.Checking for every once-illuminated sign at each set of sealed doors.Inside the shaft air’s filled with dust. Yet all I can do is hang on andbe dragged skywards. Not that there’s any hint of how high we arenow. Except perhaps in the feeling of the rarefied air in my lungs.How I have to take ever bigger and bigger breaths to keep frompassing out.It would appear that our unit buddies were thrown off the trail.Probably thought we switched stairwells or something. Scrammedalong the window sills. Obviously in a building doomed to imminentcollapse they have deemed the elevators too dangerous an option.Still the waiting and the silence is maddening. Though Wolf-leaderhas demanded silence, I can’t help breaking the monotony with theodd inane question.“Was this supposed to happen?” I whisper.“Nope, but what did they think would? It’s like this stupid city.Scorched earth policy. Whole lot’s vaped. But when things grow back,they’ll look exactly the same. Leave any place a few years and it’sgonna be just like you found it. The natural things anyway.”“Scorched earth policy…” I say idly.“Yes, after everything is wasted, the natural things regrow. It’s justthe unnatural stuff that’s the problem. What’s reborn from these ashesis gonna be ten times uglier than what they had before.”Silence. Listening in the dark. Then, later, gunfire. Lots of gunfire.From some indeterminate direction. After that, silence again. Then:“You know, you have a fragile grip on reality, Jack.”“But Esther...”“At best.”“I don’t believe–”“Now that’s something. What do you believe in, soldier?”

THE A-MEN | 195“Right now?”“Uh-huh.”I think, then say, “Nothing.”“Well, there’s another problem right there. You got to believe insomething. Anything’s better than nothing. Even bad belief. Somedays without bad belief I’d have no belief at all.”“I’m sorry, I…”“Listen to what you’re saying for once. There’s no true penitencethat does not begin with the love of righteousness and of God.”“Do you think that’s right?”“Right? Right about now, I don’t know what to think.”“I want to get things back… back to how they were. I don’twant to regrow all wrong…”“That can’t happen without a change in your heart and yourlove.”“Bullshit.”“Black must be put with the white.”“This is getting too deep.”“Then what do you want? Simplicity? Letters of indulgence?”“Whassat?”“This memory thing you’ve been gone and done. It’s like you’rebuying forgiveness. Cleansing your soul outta purgatory. But it justcan’t be accomplished. Not that way. You think that by erasing a thingit’s gone? That the memory of sin is all that makes you sinful?”“How can I believe in sin if I don’t believe in God?”“Well, if I stop believing in you, don’t mean you stop existing.And that works both ways. Denial is a human thing. True piety,forgiveness and love are divine.”“Hallelujah, praise the lady,” I mutter.“Amen to that.”Silence regained.At one point I ask: “How long have we got.”“Well, I wouldn’t go for coffee.”“Yeah, but…”

196 | THE A-MEN“Shhh…”It’s at times like these when just being alive can really hurt.Yet then I hear what she’s hearing. The low rumble of concrete.The rapid fire of automatic weapons. The drumming of a hundredfeet on faux-wood flooring. And above all that the multi-jet enginesof the troop carrier. Coming in to land.I look up. About ten metres above us is a vacuum-sealed ceilinggrille. Beyond smoke stains sky. We’ve reached the top. Floor ninetytwo.The realisation dizzying.Shit, so what happens now?Esther is readying her weapons. Seeing this, my face spasms. Seeingthis, Wolf-leader grimaces. Knowing how unprepared I am for whatcomes next.“Do you want to survive?” she asks in a hissing whisper.I look dumbly up at her, then down at my feet dangling overfive hundred metres of empty space. Afraid to go on. Afraid to goback.“Do you want to survive?” she says again. Trying to break mefrom my numbness.“Yes,” I hiss.Yes, I guess I do.“Well, that’s good, white boy, because where we’re going survivalof the fittest just came back on the menu.”*We blow the elevator via the service hatch and spin onto the concreteroof of the insurance building. Out under the big blue yonder thecity burns and smoulders and shakes in its death throes. Big copterszig-zagging. Buildings impersonating mountains of smoking rubble.A reminder of what civilisation looks like on the other side of themirror. Yet certain distractions make sightseeing impractical. Force meto ignore the view. Ignore the fifty-click dioramascope. Ignore thelisting swaying of three million square metres of prime office space

THE A-MEN | 197below my booted feet. ’Cause just right now we have other morepressing things to think about.Like about a hundred black cloaked crazies barking like loons atthe sun.Like the huddled remnants of E-Unit holed up in and aroundthree giant extraction units over by the edge of nowhere.Like the buzzing transport, attempting to land without tearingitself to shreds on the dozen or so communication towers.No one sees us arrive, no one’s actually that interested in a blackavenger and a white homey. They’re all too interested in slugging outthe last few moments of their lives. The Grims swarm and flock,shooting and hurling weapons at the military types from behind largesee-through shields. Unable to use grenades in such a confined space– unable to do shit all much – E-Unit responds with controlled fire.Picking off the Reapers as and when they get a peek of somethingfleshy. Soon as a dreadlocked head or a gloved hand slips out intothe open, they’re on it. They kill and they maim. Yet the street gangoutnumber them three to one now. For every single bullet, there’s averitable arsenal returned. Even in their suits, the soldiers find dodgingthe hail of knives and pitchforks impossible. Shotgun shells finish whatthe slings and arrows start. Already the forty or so have been whittledto less than twenty-five. And it’s plain as shit that unless that transportcan sort out its incoming telemetry, they’re all so much dead meat.We crouch in the eave of the hatchway and watch. Esther’s eyesbugging. Taking it all in. Assessing. Weighing up the numbers in hersuit. Amassing information. She looks across at our men. She looksacross at the sewer rats. She looks up at the hulking craft that weavesabove us.Then she says: “So what is your assessment, soldier?”And I have nothing to give her. Nothing but a big blank look.So she gives me hers.“Strøm and the doc are gone.”“What did you say?”But her mind’s already elsewhere. Moved on.

198 | THE A-MEN“Get under cover. The lander’s going to attack.”Then she’s off, making for the junctions at the base of the maincomms tower. A flash of silver buckled boots and sheathed steel.Confused by what she’s said, I gawp rather than follow. Staringup at the open-sided craft. Then I see she’s right. It’s not trying toland. It’s lining up on the newbie’s position. Its erratic movementsjust the product of unskilled hands. On its final trajectory it passesover where I’m crouched. Downward breath roasting. Snarling angereternally stored in its underslung cannons.And then I run too. Pounding across the paved roof in the wakeof the black goddess. Aiming for her. Her aiming for the tower.At my back I hear the autocannons click open. Hear the vicioussnap as they shift to battle readiness. Then the guns begin. Roaring.Instantly filling the air with the sound of bursting bullets. Shatteringconcrete. The short, sharp shocks of a dozen men dying.The black woman stops still at this and, skidding to a halt, I landat her feet. Throw my hands over my head. Feel the building buckbeneath me. Look up. See the parapet at the grunt’s back erupt. Figuresspinning toward the ragged gaps. Staggering then gone. Swept offinto thin air. Thin air and a ninety-two floor nosedive. E-Unit arebeing massacred. And all we can do is watch.Feel a hand upon the back of my neck. It’s Esther. Pointing outthe ship.Looks like it’s going to land after all.Racking its guns back into their mountings, the bulbous craftreplaces them with undercarriage. Swinging in behind the cloakedfigures of the sewer rats. Sweeping away the smoke of war. And whenthe fog clears, our boys lie in their own guts. Languishing over thecratered roof like melting lollies. Raspberry popsicles with most ofthe raspberry melted clean off.Once the gatling guns are gone, the Grims mass and enter thekilling zone. Intent on picking off anyone still hanging onto life. Itis a bitter sight watching the dealers of death in their element. Takinghacksaw and blade to each and every throat of our vanguard

THE A-MEN | 199peacekeeping force, they’re merciless and thorough. A few Reapersgo down to the odd last-ditch D&K blast or the taste of a grenade,but such things do not trouble the host mind of this fanatical league.“Come on,” says Esther in my ear. “We have to go.”And with that she is up and striding toward the landing craft.Dancer already blasting. Sweeping a path. While the carrion crewpick clean the living, she makes a break for her freedom.I cannot move. My legs are water. Trembling with dread. Suddenvertigo etching itself through my every muscle. Crippling me weak.All I can do is stare wide-eyed as the hulking warrior throws deathin a wave before her. Shooting an automatic like she’s shooting pool.In this world of violence, she is not afraid.Budda-budda-budda.Most of the Grims are unaware of her. Their noses’re deep in theentrails of the fallen. It’s not as if her gun is the only one that stillhowls. She is one among many. Even the ones she mows down areultimately unaware of her. And soon she is halfway. Closing the gapbetween herself and the lander. Step by jogging step. For a momentI think she’s going to make it. Unopposed and unwounded. Yet thenthe sewer king appears. And all hope of such naivity is stricken. Allhope lost.The creature that appears in the arch of the hatch was once aman. Once. Yet now he is more than this. Much more. Augmentedand honed into something else. A leader for an underworld rabblethat he alone is badass enough to wrest to his command. Here is theGrim Reaper. Tee. Em. It can be no one else. His flapping hood’sthrown back, revealing a shaved head. A mask of dark bruises aroundhis eyes. Too many teeth in his fat amphibian head. All painted white.Powdered. In two hands he holds a scythe. In the third he carries adouble-barrelled pistol. The fourth gloved and grasping a riot shield.His additional arms are mainly metal, mostly chrome. Resalvaged.Junk store finds. He is a remodelled machine. Kickstarting humanityin a new image. His robes are shredded, grafittied in ashen letters.Symbols of anarchy, necromancy and the rites of death.

200 | THE A-MENUpon seeing this exo-morphic monster my guts turn to fire.Burning my anal tract. Demanding release. Spurring me to dosomething even if it’s to shit my Levi’s. Spatter them with at least apart of me that wants to flee. Coaxing the rest of me by example ina messy game of follow-the-leader.Esther’s reaction’s no less transparent. The appearance of thisfuckedup piece of genetic voodoo strikes her immobile. Her backstiffening. Her chocolate knuckles straining to cream around the hothandle of her weapon.The bald Reaper takes in the scene with one roll of his bloodshoteyes. Looks at the puréed mush that was E-Unit. Looks at thecommunication towers. Looks at the crowded buzzing sky. Looks atEsther. Then he laughs. Crazy as a motherfucking loon. Leering. Histoo many teeth in his lipless mouth.Esther shoots. Her auto screaming. Its last bullets hungry for thekiss of bone.They are in vain.At once, the figure’s mechanics spring into action. Swifter thanthought, the plastic shield goes up. Flailing back and forth in a glisteringblur. Some kind of proximity screen. Got to be a processor. No one’sreactions are that fast.Then Esther’s auto is empty.She tosses it. Chucking it in favour of a less erratic weapon.Slipping her blade from its cumbersome sheath, she flips off hersuit to regain some fluidity of movement. Just about then the ship’sengines cut. And an eerie semi-silence follows. Making the remainingReapers look up. Guns twitch, yet a dark look from their lord holdsthe bullets back.“Good morning,” says the insect-armed apparition. Bows, his manyarms splaying.The huntress says nothing.“Ah, the strong but silent type,” he continues. “Are you too highand mighty to speak? Too fucking cool for school?”Esther’s head tips slightly. Her feet planted firmly on the concrete.

THE A-MEN | 201“Well, listen and learn. Be taught what your ineffectual, deadfriends have failed to learn. I am Blackwing, leader of…”“I know who you are, pig-filth.”The Reaper feigns a shiver. “Ooo, you’re a bad jigaboo bitch! Areal nasty piece of news on this fine, fine morning. You’re no nobrainedmother-shafting nigger with no history and no future. Theworld has got you wrong!”“Place your weapons on the ground and turn to face yourvehicle…”“You want to cross swords with me?”This entertains Blackwing. This terrifies me.And then I feel the gun butt press tight against my temple.“Up and attem,” hisses a voice in my ear.Without turning, I stagger to my feet and get marched across theroof. My equipment pulled from me as I go. Stripped barer than bare.Am forced to my knees two metres to Esther’s right. Just on herperiphery. She clocks me, but doesn’t move. Right now, she only haseyes for the monster.Blackwing doesn’t deign to notice me too much either. Is toointent on amusing himself with the black woman.“Is our motive not obvious?” he’s telling her. Again it’s as if I’vemissed something. Everything. “Is it not plain? We’ve lived in thiscity’s filth too long. We want out. And is this not a fine place tostart? And a fine, fine day. This shall be my penthouse suite. Myoffice. My home. And, hey, y’know, I may have room for a maid’sposition.”A few of the other Grims snigger at this. Impressed somehowwith the inanity of his spiel.“Shit always floats to the top,” Esther says. An aside throughclenched teeth.Blackwing’s swollen eyes swell some more. He is amused no longer.“Let’s get one thing straight, miss prissy. Let’s get somethingunderstood. We come from darkness. We go to darkness. Who wantsto live in darkness?”

202 | THE A-MENEsther lets her actions be her answer. Raises her sword up aboveher head, one leg sliding back to brace the weight.“You fucking countess of cuntshire,” spits the Reaper, “you wishto fight with me? You’ll be sliced and diced so tiny you’re grandma’llhave to come and collect you in a hipflask! Gregor!” he calls backinto the hollow craft, “bring out the rest of them. I want everyoneto see this slit-sucking bitch go down.”From inside are herded the trussed-up forms of the doc, the COand two grunts. One’s Grainger. The other’s Biggs. All look like they’vedone a few rounds. Stripped of all but their fatigues. No suits. Noweapons. No nothing. Of them all Biggs looks like he’s wounded theworst. Blood making a mess of his left arm and chest. So this is it.Just us six. So much for the first wave. When’s it time for the cavalry?“Get them on their knees,” Blackwing commands. And it is done.“Now, where we’re we?” he muses. “Ah, yes.”Striding down the entry ramp, the robed figure moves towardEsther. As he comes she stiffens. Can see her deep breaths. As visibleas her inner prayers.Blackwing stops just in front of his prey. Half a metre taller thanthe sergeant. His extended limbs making him wider too. Poised likea great mantis.For a moment he regards the lesser figure before him. His ownhead cocking.“We are the army of the night,” he howls, inspiring cheers. “Wecan outdrink, outfight and outfuck any motherfucking son-of-acunting-bitchon the block. We are the Grim Reapers. We don’t drivearound in air-conditioned geos, eating donuts and calling our fagfriends on our v-phones… We live cut off from the straight world,barely part of their consciousness let alone their dreary day-to-day.We have as little to do with them as possible. Live or die, we handleour own shit on our own turf in our own way. We are dark angelsof death. We are fucking werewolves on wheels.”Esther continues to be unimpressed. Waiting for an opening. Orsomething. Could be doomsday for all I know.

THE A-MEN | 203“There’s more to life than to get loaded, fuck and party.”“Is there?”“Much more.”“We have made a choice. A choice to be free. And now we haverisen!”And with that the chatting is over. With that he is upon her.With a whirl of shield and chrome and steel, he leaps.And panther-like, she responds.Landing, Blackwing’s scythe arcs, the shield blocking, pistol stuffedthrough its letterbox slot. Esther ducks into the reach of his curvedblade, hefting her weight against the transparent barrier. Forcing theReaper a step back. Double barrels blaze. The bullets seeking animal,finding mineral. Biting brick. Blackwing re-aims. I wince. But thistime it is Esther who pounces.Whirling, she sweeps her broadsword, turning with it. Letting itsmomentum take her. Feinting an undercut directed at slicing theReaper’s legs from under him, her real target is the gun. Crashingmetal on scratched plastic, she shaves both barrels, splitting the firearmin two. The rat king screams, as if the gun is suddenly hot in his hand.Screams wild like thunder. Bringing the cumbersome scythe overhead,he backs a step and hauls its entire length up and over his head.Wheeling he impales Esther’s suit reiving it in two. Slicing fabric andtrikevlar and casing and webbing and all. Rupturing water flasks.Carving skin. Now it is Esther’s turn to shriek. To back away.Scorpions they circle. Stinger’s poised. Ready. Dancing before thecrowds. Us and them.Then they clash again.Over by the ship, something catches my eye. It’s Grisholm. Tryingto signal me. For a moment I’m wide-eyed. Baby dumb. Then I seeit. Right next to my right eye. My gun. Tucked into my guard’s skullbuckledbelt. The white-faced freak’s not watching me. He’s too intenton the circus of the combat. I nod to the doc. Then wait for mymoment.Back in the ring, Blackwing continues howling. Cutting the air

204 | THE A-MENin a frantic fight to rip the black bitch’s helmed head from hershoulders. Yet she is too quick. Too fleet of foot. Too trained. Nowshe’s going for the kill. Not content with an arm, a leg, an escape.She wants the whole enchilada. On a stick.Esther throws steel again and again at the Reaper. Hacking,hacking, hacking. Grunting like she’s on heat. Orgasm after orgasm.Humping. Jumping. Thumping. Hurling herself again and again at theebony figure. His riot shield shatters, split from her onslaught. Herhelm’s gouged with wounds from his blade, then is torn off. Discarded,it rolls past where I’m kneeling and, transfixed, my eyes follow it.Tumbling and bouncing. End over end over end. Tripping across thebody-strewn roof. Then it’s gone. Reaches the edge and skips off intomid-air. There’s a flash of brilliance. The faceplate against the sun. Areflection of the whole busted city in its curved visor. Then an emptyspace. A black spot when I blink. A sickeningly long fall to thepavement far below.The battle pauses. The gladiators retreating. A brief respite.Cold winds blow across us all. Freezing the sweat to our faces.There’s a few jeers from the watching sewer rats.Chest-heaving, Blackwing drops what remains of the shield. Dropshis scythe too. Has long since discarded the hacked-up pistol.Weaponless he reaches into the dark folds of his cloak. Dipping intodarkness with all four of his gangly limbs. His quartet of stretchingarms, wrists and fingers. And there his hands find new hardware. Amore lethal arsenal. As Esther drags shuddered air into her lungs, theGrim Reaper draws forth strangely bowed blades. Exotic toys attachedto some kind of single-fingered mitten. One on each hand. Bringingthem up like the ragged sails of a windmill, he stands poised like thatfor a heartbeat. Then with a twitch, a flick of the wrists, each bladesplays. Revealing four brothers, pivoting into an arc of teeth. A manytalonedfan. Snicker-snack. Snicker-snack. Snicker-snack.Then once more the monster smiles.“Come on, you bastard,” Esther says between rasping breaths. “Let’sfinish this.”

THE A-MEN | 205And come he does.With a wheeling, maddening whirl the Reaper pounces. Thrashing.Threshing. One. Two. Three. Four.Crying out loud, the huntress brings up the heaviness of her twohandedsword. Blocks the first of the deathsclaws. The second. Eventhe third. But the fourth hits home. Finding a target of her left shoulder.Scraping skin, muscle, mercifully not bone. The wound makes Estherspin. Instincts forcing her as far away from the pain as is possible. It’sa blind reaction and almost fatal. For as she squirms, Blackwing ispoised to strike again. The incredible quickness of his mechanicalarms too swift, too accurate. A bright gash opens on her thigh. Anotheron her back. She staggers. Almost toppling. Righting herself somehowand countering. Whacking her blade up, over and out – and takingone of the metallic hands with it. Yet Blackwing is already slashingagain, slicing another wound across her arm, her leg, her back.And it is then, in that agonising moment of imminent death thatI make my move.Forcing myself up, I strike the Reaper unawares. My elbow, hischin. He lets out a little-girl yelp of surprise, both hands grabbingfor his throat. Unguarded, my D&K sits like a jewel at his waist andI grab for it. Trying to pluck it from his belt. My fingers find thebarrel and I tug. Yet I’m too eager and it tumbles. Making a sicksmack on the concrete. I grab for it again, but the Grim’s boot isthere before me. Kicking the gun, it goes skidding. And I scrambleblindly after it like a dog looking for a place to be sick. Reaper followsclose behind. Can hear his boots. Skittering the gun stops far toonear the sickening edge for comfort. Stooping, both my hands findthe handle, the barrel, the trigger. Tugging, I twist and stand up. Pulland watch the creep’s face implode. His fingers splaying. Droppinglike a heavy shit from a savaged ass. All slick and bloodied and sogood to be rid of.Once he’s gone I turn and fire frantically, not really focusing.Aiming at anything. Somewhere off toward the ship. The dark shapesbefore it. Anywhere. From out of the inner distance my mind screams

206 | THE A-MEN‘prime target’ and I drop while other guns blaze. The air full onceagain with a deadly frenzy. Gunfight at the OK Coralbluesky. There’sbullets and blood and brains and bones. I’m hit once. Twice. The hurtmaking me move towards the landing craft. An impala convertiblebeing infinitely preferable to a sitting duck.The craft can only be a dozen metres away, but it seems in adifferent time zone. Crossing the distance is like crossing between theearth and the moon. Then concrete turns ribbed rubber, and I’minside the yawning cave of the craft. Skidding on dirty metal. Fallingto the floor. Grisholm waving his free arm yelling, “Kill or cure! Killor cure!” Gun snatched from somewhere tight in his fist. Graingerand Biggs screaming to be set free. Strøm hanging dead in his ropes.A single bullet wound in his chest. I slash at their fetters with myknife, yelling, “Esther? Where’s Esther?”Grainger’s eyes flash to a point off over my shoulder.“She’s still out there,” he says in a whisper.“And Strøm?”He eyes the doc who’s whooping and a-hollering. Out of hismind.“Why?”“He said the fucker betrayed us. Said this was all a set up. Adoozy.”I can’t care about this. What’s left of my mind’s on other things.Like living to see another day.“Get this thing started,” I shriek, then duck back towards thedoor. “But we’re not leaving without Esther.”On the roof of the Bartlow, Jerome and Banks building, there’ssomething of a standoff. The crowds of Reapers have formed a roughcrescent around their leader and his prey, guns raised, eyes intent onthe two. Blackwing has all three of his remaining vorpal deathsclawsaround the black woman’s neck. Esther has the point of her bladeheld one-handed beneath the bald man’s throat. Their eyes are locked.Their teeth clenched. For a moment one animal. One many-clawedmonster. Then they withdraw.

THE A-MEN | 207At this Blackwing’s men ready for their guns for the execution,but their lord waves them back.“Get out of here,” he says. His voice just audible over the wind.“I would not wish to rid the world of such a worthy adversary.”It is grandiose. A show of shows. The Grim Reaper allowing freehis chosen victim. It is remarkable, unknown. Impossible.Yet then as she turns I see the primed thermal grenade in herstiffened fist. And then I know why he lets her go. Why she is thewinner. Why amnesty is granted.Beneath my feet twin engines roar into action. The doc oncemore priming the ship for evac. With my eyes I urge Esther onwards,but she is in no rush. For a moment she shuffles, backing away slowly,pausing to scoop up the Reaper’s severed hand. A clawed trophy. Shestows it in her sundered suit and only then does she turn and run.Using the last of her energies to get to the ship, to break free. I watchher come, amazed. Knowing that I am witnessing something rare. Shestaggers at the steep incline of the entry ramp. I step to aid her, buther sneered look warns me back. Unassisted she makes the last fewmetres alone, then nods and I give the order to fly.With a bone-quaking jolt, the craft lurches skywards, clearing theprecipitous edge of the skyblock and twisting towards the bay. BelowBlackwing’s minions watch as we withdraw, yet their leader seemsintent on other matters. Searching for something in the human debrisof the rooftop. Then he finds it. A manportable, fire-and-forget, antitankmissile launcher. Taken from one of the fallen.Esther whimpers as the Reaper lifts it atop his shoulders. Unableto strain another ounce of strength from her exhausted body. Noteven able to toss her fist-sized device.“Grisholm, evasive!” I shout, even as the sewer king fires. Evenas the vapour-trailed barb arcs up into the clear air below us. Fromsomewhere deep in my mind, my training is writ large. The ratiosand devices and statistics untouched by the surgeon’s laser. On-boardtactical precision engagement system. Night vision sight and passiveimaging infrared. Heat-sensitive. Range of five thousand metres. First

208 | THE A-MENpriority: engage and destroy. It’s clear that we stand little chance ofoutmanoeuvring the missile, but I shout out anyway. All I can do iswatch it come.“Jack.”It’s Esther. Her broken glass voice calling me.I look down and she hands me the grenade. The red lightthrobbing atop it even as her large hand opens to release it.I snatch it from her and pitch it off into the nothingness. Aimingfor the dart, but missing. Watching as it explodes harmlessly aboutthirty metres below the twisting trail of the missile.“Inside,” I say, dragging her back. Losing sight of the bomb as Ipull her deeper into the dark hull.There we crouch and wait while the city wheels wide-angledout through the hatchway.“We’ll be OK,” I say, pulling her to me.“Like fuck,” she replies. “God’s not that kind.”She looks like all belief’s left her. Like she’s broken. Roll andburn of the soul. I want to say something profound. Something thatwill bring her out of herself. Bring her back to me. Yet I goof off.Try for deep. Managing corn.“Hey, death, mayhem, destruction… guess our work here is done.”With an ear-shattering eruption the ground-to-air ruptures theaft engine port of the lander. Smacking dead centre into the hottestpoint of the vehicle. Only the massive thickness of the bulkhead savesus from being toasted where we squat. There’s a few seconds of mutedshudders, then the motors whine and we start to drop. Pitching downto the turreted tower blocks below us.Groaning, Esther rips herself from the bucking floor and staggersup the steps to command. Follow dumbly in her wake. Fighting thespasms of the walls and floor and hand rails. Trying to keep fromfalling over. From tipping out the exit.Within, the doc wrestles with the helm while Grainger and Biggsyell orders at him.“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Grisholm barks in his defence.

THE A-MEN | 209“You not making it look easy.”They both glance up as the sergeant stumbles into view. Quietenedby her savageness. Uncontesting as she slips into the second seat andtakes the stick. Now both she and Grisholm try to control the spirallingmachine. Both struggling to do anything more than stop the birdfrom simply dropping from the sky like a stone.“We’re going to crash!” cries Biggs uselessly, for it’s plain as fuckthat this is exactly what is going to happen. I go to yell at him tostop being such a prick, but Esther is already speaking. Calmly likeshe’s out on a Sunday drive to some lakeside picnic.“Yes, we are. So belt up and keep the fires from our backs. I’lldo what I can. I promise nothing.” Then, calling to me, she says, “Jack,I need telemetry. Take the v-rads.”“But, I don’t–”“Learn,” she barks.Strapping myself in the side seat, I plug in. Check off mass data.Tracking data. Flip on the v-rads. Haunted by help routines. Ignorethe external view. Plug the ordnance banks of the shipboard computer.Watch as wireframes appear in the air before me. Multi-colouredschematics. Infinite detail.“What the fuck am I looking for?”“Somewhere long and flat. But right now anything not a buildingwould be a blessing.”My innards still churn chaotically, unable to be controlled. Theothers watch with fear in their eyes. Strapping themselves into theremaining bins and clutching extinguishers to their chests. Out in thehull the place burns like hell’s on our tail. Flames melting the meshcages. Sucking the air from our lungs. Fox-leader sprays white foamthat whirls like a snowstorm and then is gone. Sucked out the sideof the sinking ship. Sucked out and lost in the wide expanse ofnothingness through which we descend. Giddily, I try to clamp myeyes on something solid, something immobile, but there is nothing.The whole world is gyring.Then I find something familiar. Something I’ve seen before.

210 | THE A-MENIt’s D’Alessandro’s corporate HQ. There’s no mistaking the thing.Tallest tower in the area. Approach down 13th is over ten blocks fromend to end. Perfect. On all counts. We get to land safely. I get to gomeet the book’s maker.“Got it!” I yelp.“Patch it to me, flyboy!”And so I do.All around us now, scrapers and diamond-roofed towers loom.Then its apartments. Then condos. And out front the tall tower.Dominating everything.“That’ll do it. We’re going in,” Esther warns.Then I can see cars, growing in size as we swoop along a sixlanedfreeway. Surrounded by windows and buildings and up aheadthe spacescraper rushes to meet us. Black glass revealing nothing.Everything absorbed into that great wide open hulking expanse ofmirrored darkness. Even our reflection. Even us.“Fuel jettison in three, two, one…”Drop my hands to clutch the sides of the seat. Brace my entirebody against the unyielding starched fabric of the flight chair. Watchin abject horror as a midnight replica of ourselves races towards us,into us, through us. We are consumed by the building. Swallowed, asit folds around us. It a glass and brick and steel body. Us an erraticbullet spinning out of control. From the mangled barrel of somemisshapen gun. Out of a cerulean blue sky. Out of luck and timeand life and… And at times like these I’d always assumed that mylife would flash before my eyes. ’Cept I have no life. Nothing exceptthese last few hours on this first dumb day. I have nothing. Have losteverything. Oblivion. And if I thought it would do any good I’d havebeen screaming like the others.

26 DäalessandroFaerieland. Thomas is approaching the stone circle. I am lost in hismemory.“Search,” I say idly.>Executing search sequence. System register equals Lloyd. Modeequals game. Game time elapsed equals seven hours, fifty-nineminutes and fifty-six seconds. Game location equals Sacred Isle.Executing faerie queen welcome sequence. Search completed.I only half read the words on the terminal. The sudden lettersswimming in and out of focus.“System.”>Internal date: 03/05/14.2 Gyr.>Internal time: 07:59:41.>Day of project: 4721.>Machine: Sol Series 1140.>Prototype number: 156008-a12.>Sentience: Ianus.>Programming language: K/OS.>Copyright © Glass-Suko Corporation. All rights reserved.All’s well on X-Isle island. Lloyd is deep within the enchantedrealms and about to attempt retrieval of the hawthorn crown fromthe faerie queen. Based upon story three, The Tale Of The Little WhiteKnight And The Little White Horse, it is a quests within quests. Anendless spiral. Still the psychist knows how to thwart the Big BlackKnight; at least he did in the last rebuild.“Hour eight sign-in.” Jana’s voice swills through the silt in my

212 | THE A-MENbrain. “Tracking position OK. Telemetry stable. Commands running.”“It’s fascinating, isn’t it,” I say into the comlink. “The story isaltering, changing as Thomas interacts with its parameters.”In Forevermore, this land was a meadowed kingdom of knights andchivalry touched by the glamour of faerie. Now in the latest replicationthe old world myths are deepening, spawning side plots, breaking outof the original text and creating new.“Lloyd’s green to go for the crown,” Jana reports.In this tale a towered castle was being constructed on the highesthill of the area, that was until the faeriefolk revolted and turned allthe workmen to stone. The Big Black Knight has currently lockedthe faerie queen’s meddlesome daughter in the only finished towerof the main keep, threatening never to release her until the workersare restored to a more useful state. Yet so far this has been refused,and the two parties – mortals and immortals – now hang in a stalemate.Thomas has undertaken the task to rectify the anomaly. To enter thecastle and attempt a rescue he needs to defeat the knight, but as thefellow only fights by the rules of combat, the psychist now has thejob of collecting all the items he needs. Starting with the faerie’shawthorn crown.The young man’s progress through the technological immensitythat is the X-Isle leaves me dumb. I am caught with his passagethrough the torturous labyrinth of the hostgod’s choosing. The islein the void was created by the gods and the gods by us, thereforereality has had what you might call a weighted hand. The sheer scaleof the island in terms of processing accomplishment is impressive,though in square metres the results are less formidable. Yet scanningthe parameters as Thomas traverses the imaginary landscape ishypnotic. After entering via the main garden area, he proceeded swiftlythrough the basic set pieces and soon located Bixby playing aroundthe toy houses and children’s area of the faintly detestableSleepybubbyeland. His meeting with the dog means far more thanI can even contemplate – the linking of the human and animal mind.The animal’s recognition of the psychist, his interaction with the

THE A-MEN | 213canine and the initiating of the dog’s exit criteria were mesmeric intheir simplicity, naturalness and finesse. Hour six saw Bixby’s releasefrom the tank, giving Rycharde the unenviable task of cleaning thekomondor’s tangled coat of slime.Yet my mind wanders. I think of the black car and my escape.Cutting myself off from all contact has brought this dream to bearfar greater and with much greater intensity than ever.Bobbing to the surface of my reverie I concentrate on Thomas’biotherms and cut in on a few preselects to make his voyage morecomfortable. Worryingly the physiological and psychological responsesfor the hostgod are peaking on the wrong side of the chart, but whatcould we expect when such an adverse entity manifested itself in theself-contained universe? For the Amen there is no outside. Still thesefluctuations are ripples no longer. Now they are waves. PredictablyMorgan monitors the liminal data with the tenacity of a shark. Shehas smelled blood in the water though unfortunately Thomas is outof our reach in the tank. His physical form languishes scant metresfrom where we sit, but mentally he’s in another world.“Dr Glass, the hostgod’s still mutating. I suggest we ready forpurge.”“For every light that shines, there must always fall a shadow,” Imumble in reply. Goading her frustration.Lloyd’s awareness of any possible problem seems minimal. Hiscurrent track has him unknotting Forevermore’s Little White Knightenigma of gates and doors and endless quests. A ship of fools. Thepersonification of impossibility.“Dr Glass?”“Jana, your unease is unfounded. All functions are otherwisenormal. Just because you read fluctuations in the core is not indicativeof error. After all we have effectively introduced an alien entity intothis perfect organism. While the canine was a germ, Thomas is a virus.He does not just run around chasing his tail. He is changing things,altering the world. It seems only natural that the system is reactingto his presence.”

214 | THE A-MEN“Which is my point exactly. Taking your analogy to its logicalconclusion…”“And, of course, we do have the added benefit–”“But, Dr Glass–”“The added benefit of the inhibitors.”“Which I was just checking. They are also erratic in theirproficiency curves. In fact, if you take a look at… Oh, no!”“Jana?”“The inhibitors. They’re gone.”“What do you mean…”“The entire subroutine. The entry code’s frozen. It’s locked usout.”“Go for purge.” I bark, panicked by her findings – and her voice.“OK, ready for purge on your mark.”“Mark. Three… two…” My fingers dance, readying the hostgodfor interrupt access. The screens whine errors, but I ignore them.“One. System purge is go.”Nothing. No endgame. No fireworks. No Lloyd emerging like alanded fish from the viscous ooze.“Talk to me, Jana.”“Nathaniel, the purge was ignored.”“Ignored!”“The emergency buffers have been nulled. The code’s shuttingdown.”There is a sudden rumble, like a nightflier’s thunder. A detonationin deep valleys. Muffled by the concrete and iron and stone.“What was that?” I question.In answer, from somewhere far above, there is a staggered seriesof explosions muted by layers of five-metre thick foundations.“It’s the tower,” Jana reports. “Check the schematics.”I look and find that she is right. The Phoenix Tower is afire.Already hatches and doors are autosealing. Containing what? Aconflagration? A bomb? An armed assault?Whatever it is, the damage is severe. Red warning signs stain

THE A-MEN | 215many of the lower levels. Unchecked the building is breached. Theunimaginable attack destroying everything in its path.“What–?” I repeat, but get no further.With a hideous whine, two of the seven Amtech generators fail,suddenly bereft of power. Immediately the flux shudders through therig, ripping apart the cathedral quiet of the chamber. Breaking thesilence with mechanical groans and sighs. Clearing the screens, I lookout once more into the vast room, breathless as the roof is sundered.Chunks of iron detach and fall, plunging into the broiling waters.Amidst the chaos, Thomas floats serenely, swaying slightly in theamniotic fluid. Unflinching, even as one of the huge gearing columnscollapses, hitting and shattering three of the five domed tanks withan ear-splitting crash.“Jana! Rycharde!” I call at the console. “What is happening!”My answer is static. Static and the heart-wrenching noise of thecontrol centre ceiling as it splits from end to end. And of the realworld beginning to fall around me.

Zzzzzzt…27 Pure

28 23rdxenturyboyThe city looks like a big bomb’s gone off. There’s white asheverywhere. What few live’n faces me and Dingo sees are stare’n,blacken’t. Slump’t in glass-less windows. Choke’n on dust. Crouch’nin the wreckage of their former homes. Lives. Selves. Dawn has broughtits golden glow to the comic monochrome. But, as my mongrel pilotsays, like in any war there is little time to reflect. There is just stuffto get done or be do’n.From the RuZu, we follow’t the tracks towards Central. Pass’tOakcrest, Broadmoor and have now arrive’t slamdunk’t in Mid City.All’s black metal on methadrine. The mourn’n after. Rove’n packs ofzippies stalk. Hunters gather’n. The Wonder Dog’s still push’n mealong in the buggy, ask’n me what we should do next.“Don’t ask me,” I yell back. “You’re the super hero.”Only acting super hero, he corrects me. And we still don’t knowwhat to do.“We gotta hole up,” I say, spit’n. “Find somewhere defensible.Water supply. Food if we can. Get some weapons. Riots and firesmight be burn’n out, but the fight for survival is gonna be brutal.”Doesn’t sound too good.“Does this mean we’re gonna have to eat rats?” Dingo asks.“People,” I reply. “Means we gotta eat people.”He shuts up after this and carries on push’n. Skate’n between therubbish of civilisation. Duck’n and dive’n. Dodge’n and weave’n.Distant gunfire announces death like a bell. The odd flier zips by butotherwise the roadways and skyways are no-go. Depend’n on the

218 | THE A-MENwind the mountains of smoke’n rubble blow the haze of dust acrosseveryth’n. Sometimes uptown. Sometimes down. At a hardware storeby the cemetery on Cleveland, we find a scatter’t box of dust masks.Scoop’n up a couple we fix ’em over our mouths and snouts. Gratefulfor any protection. As we do I notice some facts stamp’t at the bottom.‘Warning. This mask will not protect your lungs. Misuse may resultin sickness or death.’ Eek! That don’t sound safe at all. Elliott wondersout loud if the dust is contaminate’t, although he has no idea withwhat. “We all have to breathe,” I say. Seems a bit selfish to worryabout the health of the live’n when so many people are dead.Later we come to Parkway. Sign announces this, hang’n at a weirdangle, its base stave’t by the front of a jack-knife’t eighteen-wheeler.Cab window is mush. As is everyone inside. Back’s torn open like acan of Butcher’s Tripe Supreme. Whatever it contain’t gone. Every lastcrate and box.Dingo whimpers that he misses his pooch couch.Out on the eight-lane lay wrecks. Miscellaneous strewn stuff. See’nthis I urge Dingo to stop and get out of the pram. As he sniffs around,I finds a couple of choco bars and an iron pole. Looks as if someoneuse’t it to get into the trunk of an old Winnebago.“Spaz hot!” I say wield’n it like a blade, but Elliott looks lesskeen.Dingo’s no mercenary, see. Zark and Xero’s train’n was in howto waste things and wave large guns. All Elliott was taught to do wasto sneak and steal. And what use is that now? What use in a worldwhere everyth’n is ours for the take’n?Climb’n back in the cart, I yell, “Let’s go,” and we do. Head’nfor Stanton Park as fast as Dingo’s feet can skate us. We get abouttwo kilometres when the dweebs jump us. First I see of ’em is theirshadows loom’n on the tarmac like mutate’t freaks. Hit us run’n.Spill’n me onto my ass. Collect’t goodies go fly’n. Feel someone’sknee in my back and I’m pin’t. Whine and am told to shut up.Whimper, then I do.Through the rasp’n dustbowl I’m chew’n, I see the one on Dingo

THE A-MEN | 219weigh’n up the iron pole. He’s bloat’t like a big fish. Got the kindaface that looks like someone’s taken all the fat from round the edgeand tuck’t it into the middle. Like there’s too much face acreage forhis features. He’s wear’n some kinda dirty apron. Got unidentifiablestains up the front. Which is not good. He’s also laden with knives.Hang’n from a builder’s utility belt. Ditto. Throws down the pole.Starts search’n the mongrel and the cart.The voice of the other one asks if he’s found anyth’n. His accent’sdrawl’n. Like he’s had one too many. Or like he’s on drugs. Neitheroption is too pleasant. Means I’m either stuck beneath a rave’nalcoholic or a snow-snort’n drug baron.“What’s with the weirdo mutt anyways?” he asks when fishfacedoesn’t answer.“Hey, Cleatus, how’d the fuckin’ fuck d’ya ’spect me ta knowthat?” says the apron’t monster.“Now, Bubba, that’s enough of your cussin’. Just search ’em thenwe’ll stick ’em quick and go.”“Don’t kill us,” Dingo whimpers, “I don’t wanna get sticked!” Hispleas sound strange through the dust filter. Even with his warpedspeech. Like he’s got a bad head cold or someth’n. They get themessage though.Cleatus laughs at the whine’n. A little snicker’n laugh that chills.The dog wonder struggles for a bit when he hears it, but otherwisedoes noth’n.“Hey, brother, d’ya hear that? The mutt talks. How about that, atalkin’ mutt.”“Hey, and I thought he were just a weirdo hairy kid!”Bubba’s laugh is throaty. Gurgle’n like water outta jug. Yuck. Leansover and attaches a coil of flex to Dingo’s collar. Ties and tugs at it.wrap’n the other end around his blubby fists. The mongrel’s fur is halfcover’t in ash, but underneath you can see he’s seethe’n. The rumbleof a growl starts in his throat, but Bubba bitch slaps it outta him.“They must be from a circus or summun’,” the fat man reasons.Look’n over the cape and skates getup.

220 | THE A-MEN“Geddup, brother,” muses Cleatus, “but looky here…” He touchesthe tattoo on the back of the canine’s left paw. “Looks like militarycode to me.”“Whoo-wee! Yeah, the street brat’s 440. Well, mebbe they mightbe useful after all. Mebbe we could take ’em back with us. Train ’emup as guard dogs.”“Now wouldn’t that be fine.”Dingo is not happy with this. Not happy at all. Still what choicehas he got? Has we got?None it would seem. For then I feel Cleatus’ hand round myneck and I too am hogtie’t and drag’t wheeze’n to my sneaker’t feet.“Head ’em out,” he whoops in my dirt encrust’t ear. “Don’t wannakeep the ol’ Pigsticker waitin’ now, do we?”

29 Sister MidnightFresh from the kill I weep. The death that was in my hands is nowslipping away. Is now gone. Jack is unconscious again even before thewarcraft punctures the outer casing of the skyblock. Another surgeryinducedblackout like the half dozen I have witnessed before. Onemoment he is lucid and filled with life, the next he is lost. Lights off.No one home. His choice of landing strip is judicious though. Theapproach up Logan straight and long enough to at least drop thelander down to under two-hundred. The structure does the rest.Restraints almost snap but the reinforced cockpit holds while theremainder of the ship is turned to metallic lametta.As is my life.My history is not some impressive biopic, but I’ve come a longway from watching my shaman grandmother tossing bones in herSan Cristobal, Makira Province shack. Born on this near-desertedisland to the east of Papua New Guinea, I spent a lonely childhooddrifting through the irradiated storms that plague what’s left of theSolomon Islands. Here I planned my escape, for I knew that therewas to be no nine-to-nine for me. I joined the army after the churchbusted my ass. Said my take on Neo-Catholicism was way too wild.Little black girl getting visions of the gore-soaked loins of the VirginMother was not covered in the Pater Noster. Nor was her deadancesters coming back as spirits in the form of sharks, birds and reptiles.It was then that I understood the link between the words sacred andforbidden. The army stationed me in New San Leandro. Fed me,clothed me and gave me a bed. Not a bad deal. Considering. Easy as

222 | THE A-MENthat. I kept my suit bright and my boots shiny. Learned to survive.Deconstruct weapons. Shoot. To roadhouse with the civs in the bars.I majored on aggressive and minored nonconformist. Kept religionout of the picture. The army don’t want to be getting into all thatmumbo-jumbo.As granny used to say, ‘Life’s a bitch and then you get reincarnated’.Said you might as well make the most of it while you’re here, becauseit won’t be long before it’ll be here again and who knows what newbucket of douche you’ll be neck-deep in by then. And she knew. Thespirits of the dead told her so. The voices of all those who have diedsince the beginning of time. And, hey, two hundred billion dead peoplecan’t all be wrong.So now we are five. Doc. Grainger. Biggs. Jack. And me.Crashlanding long over, the wreck of the craft has buckled underthe weight of the half-fallen masonry, but it’s holding. At least for now.Doc and Grainger pull me from the pilot seat, drag me out the rearof the control capsule. Biggs is already there, lying on the shatteredground. They bring out Jack last, making sure everyone else is clearfirst. From somewhere courtesy tabs of brandy alexanders are handedout. As is a quick round of benes and morphine. I pass. Wanting clarityamidst chaos. Wanting to feed not bury the sharpness of the hour.There’s drug taking and drinking. Those age-old habits. Dying hard.A rising awareness that I am the only one of my sex among them. Itis not until all are suitably pacified that the questions start. The slurredbabbling. Surprisingly, destination seems to be the unit’s first priority.“What is this place?” Biggs asks the dust and darkness.“Seems to be a suit facility,” says Grainger.“RIN said Glass-Suko HQ and R&D,” adds Grisholm, finishingup the injections with an unknown cocktail for the stranger.“You all realise that by fraternising with me you face courtmartial?” I tell the air.“Sergeant Rose,” says Grisholm without looking up, “weunderstand perfectly. Yet there is another aspect of the mission toconsider.”

THE A-MEN | 223I’m taken aback by this. “What aspect?”“They want… near-space wants the world to go down. And goingdown it is.”“How can you say that?”“We are no peace keeping force. Strøm blabbed in the ship. We’reonly here to look like we care. This city is finished. Over. Kaput.”“That’s madness. How can you infer…”“So I shot him.”Biggs giggles as he sprawls against a fallen chair.My eyes bug wide. “You what?”“I was incensed. I also had a free hand and was close enough tograb one of the Reaper’s weapons. Well, to grab back one of ours.”“So there’s no way back?” I question.“No way back,” he agrees.“But what if you’re wrong? What if…”“He’s right.”I look over at Jack and find that he’s back from the braindead.Resurrected from his personal nowherecity.“And you would know that, would you, crazy boy?”“Look, Esther, it’s all over. No one’s coming for us. No one cares.There’s no cavalry or wild bunch or posse of fucking Hell’s Angelsgoing for it over the horizon. This place is history. Our actions meanfuck.”To counterpoint this, he stands and walks drunkenly to the window.As he goes he draws his D&K and blasts out a jagged section. Stepsup to it and leans out. Below a convoy of station geos pass. Eachstrapped with giant plastic canisters filled with precious gas. Headingfor the open road. Jack grimaces when he sees them and aims. Fires.Piercing the sides of the vehicles with hot lead. They erupt into fireballsfrom which dark flailing shapes leap. Dark shapes that, as they crawlaway, he picks off one by one. Round after round after round. Thespaced-out soldiers’ whoops are the hardest things to stomach. Thethings that make me grit my teeth harder than hell. I look away. Unableto deal with this slaughter. This murder by numbness.

224 | THE A-MENWhen he’s finished he says, “Look, I’m not an evil man, but I saylet ’em die! Reality’s gone bye-bye, Esther. Our lives are faerie talesnow. They’re stories. We’re making things up as we go along. Tell meI’m not right.”Silence.“So what do you suggest we do?” I growl at his chilling display.Knowing that he is unsafe now. That he probably thinks he’s actingnormal as pie.“Group up and survive,” he says lowering the smouldering barrelof his combat weapon. As much to me as to us all. “Group up andset guard and try to live out the night. One day at a time. Once that’sdone, maybe we can break free. What’cha’say?”Of course he is a fool. The memory wipe has created the perfectstereotype. The jack who knows jack. He has wiped his mind. Hehas wiped his sins. He is the mirror of my faltering beliefs. Thoughthe seed of doubt was already there, he magnifies it.“And?” says Doc, his eyes rolling back into his head.“And, I say we do what everyone else’s doing all around us. Gangtogether and grab a defensible patch.”“No,” I say. “We should break for secondary evac point.” In thisworld without religion, it is hard to reference and acknowledgedevotion. Obsession. Here is the box we never get to open. For arace who has turned its back on God, now its individuals turn theirbacks on each other. On reason. Unintentionally I find myself holdingthe holy book. Fumbling its beaded marker.“You killed Sanada, remember? They are going to hunt you toyour grave.”“That’s not what’s going to happen.”“Why? Because God Almighty thinks it’s bad karma? Forget yourfaceless god. Forget it all. Wouldn’t you give it all up for the pursuitof a dream?”“Dream?” asks Grainger, swigging. “What fucking dream?” Andthen to me: “And, now you mention it, why did you kill Fox-leader?”“Yeah,” adds Jack, “I didn’t really get that either.”

THE A-MEN | 225Unprepared for the telling, I spill it all out in one stream. AboutSanada’s confession. Of his crime and how he used Jack’s surgery tocreate the perfect stool pigeon. Jack’s face through the telling is anunreadable mask. Then when I finish I find he is holding up his book.Threatening us with its bindings and unread passages. Then he stepstowards me and he rips the word of God from my hands. Handingover Forevermore in its place as I grasp after it.“Hey, gimme that!”“We’ll do a swap. You read that and I’ll read this.”In his eyes, madness gleams. And I am the only one sober enoughto see it. My failing has always been to expect wisdom, even in theyoung. For others to see truth and sense and reason. Though I knowthe drink and drugs possess their hearts and minds, I continue to tryto make them see that ahead lies danger. The road closed signs. Thepath of no return.“Look around you, Jack. I don’t see many yellow brick roads fromwhere I’m standing.”“You’ve been out of touch too long,” is his reply. “You’ve lostthe ability to see.”I look down at the book. Its roughness felt against my aching palms.“This world’s no place for fantasy. This city is no place for fantasy.”“No, you’re wrong, Esther, that’s exactly what this city needs. It’swhat’s happening.”“I don’t believe in faerie tales,” I hiss between gritted teeth. Awareof the others’ stares. Wondering how we have strayed into this strangeness.The white man looks down at the e:vol in his hands.“Neither do I, sister,” he bites back.“Hey, break it up,” Grisholm shouts, knowing where these actionslead. Packing up his bag of tricks, he stands and talks to us all.Spotlighting this moment of skipped-out sanity. Trying to bring usback from the brink. “This is no time for arguments. Let’s chill alittle. We could all do with some R&R.”I know then that we are trapped. As Grisholm has said, there isno going back. We are all MIAs. We all died in the crash. And for

226 | THE A-MENme, I know that something has. Perhaps all of me did. At least the allof me that was Sergeant Esther Alesha Rose.“OK,” I say, “here’s the plan. We should salvage anything fromthe dropship that we can that doesn’t house a tracker or sensor orlink back to the unit. Then we blow the ship. Move from the crashsite and set camp. Defensive perimeter. Three hours per watch.” I tellthem how our arrival will bring rubberneckers. At the very least willlead the Grims right to us. The wounded mean we can’t go far fornow. Decide on heading down a few floors. Perhaps the sub-basement.Anywhere we can zee for twenty-four hours. The vote for going italone or going back is four-to-one. Grainger the only abstention.It’s all pure sense and necessity. Yet I am left with more than amild concussion floating around in my head. Now I have the addedweight of life’s vicissitudes. This unpredictable change of fortune. Andsomething more. Something new. Something that until now I havesaved for only one man. And that man in my book is Lord KingEternal of Nazareth, Iesus Melchizedek Immanuel, the Balm of Gilead.The Last Adam. The Amen.It is a dark litany when you decide that you must always faceyour fear.Face your fear. Face your fear.As a life maxim, how potentially cripplingly stupid.And yet this is exactly what I decide to do.

30 The NowheremanIt’s my watch, but I’m not watching. As the others snore and R&R,I’m nowhere to be found. Instead of at my post I’m on floor elevenstalking the ghost of Rafaele Juarez D’Alessandro. And ghost he is,for though this is the mailing address for the book-writing bastard,I’m standing in the office of some geep called Glass. NathanielRaymond Glass. Room number one-hundred and eleven. Weird kindof project space. Abandoned like the rest of the building. Looks likeno one’s been here for months.The office’s huge in comparison to its neighbours. Huge by anystandards being as long as a gallery and pillared. Also conjures imagesof a tomb. It’s gothic, sleek, functional. One end’s crowded by a giantdesk silhouetted against a set of ivory shutters that mask all but thebarest of illumination into the room. Carpet sweeps across the mirrortiled floor up to the desk. In the floor itself the whole room’s perfectlyreflected. Glass by name…The door to the office is the biggest kick. It’s made of what couldactually be real wood. Polished and stained a lustrous black. Upon itsface’s a single silver nameplate proclaiming the room number, owner’sname and job title. Name and room I knew. Job’s different. A singleword inscribed into the plate. But it don’t say CEO or COO orPresident or nothing. Oh no, nothing so simple.Instead it says GOD in Romanesque lettering.Almost turn back then and there, but I can’t. I won’t. I’ve got tofind my file because I’ve got to know about me. Got to knowsomething. Anything or I’ll go crazy. Whatever spike Grisholm stuffed

228 | THE A-MENme with is still buzzing through my system. Keeps me up. Keeps megoing. Wounds are bandaged and aching but somewhere far away.Lighthouse bright but on the horizon. Savage rocks leagues from theprow. Know that soon they’re gonna get much closer but for nowI’m well clear. For now.Walking down the gallery see bas-relief faces. The busts of deities.Slipping in and out from the room’s twilight edges. Peeking, thenfalling back into the shadows. They are from the pages of Forevermore.Fantasy made real in alabaster. Stop beside the cowled austerity ofsome dude named Ianus. Torchlight making the whiteness glow. Eeriechiselled features. Creepy. Seeing this gets me edgy. My skin itchesand I paw at my holster. Then I’m at the desk. Ready for monsters.Finding a deck. Monitors. Research equipment.As I search through the shit I try to think if I’ve ever been inthis room before. Try to imagine it in the day. Bright sunlightstreaming through the shutters. Coffee brewing. Blueskying. E:confon nine channels.Nada.The heads prove a link with the book. But this is no publishinghouse and this office is no longer that of D’Alessandro. Like my fuckedupthoughts he’s long gone. Am I losing more of my mind or gettingit back? How is it possible to tell such things? How do you rememberwhat you’ve forgotten? That you’ve forgotten? I guess only by tryingto recall. If you never try, you never know it’s gone.Think cognitive. Think memory critical structures in the brain.Atrophy to regions.Hope that the doc was right. That fragments can be saved. Canrebuild anew.Anything to ease this maddening frustration.Because there’s no power, computers are useless. Because this isa tech business everything worth anything is locked in the deadnessof the system. Because my suit got busted, there’s not even RIN toaid me now. Not even that.Anger sweeps desk toys to the floor. They clatter then are still.

THE A-MEN | 229The room applauds with echoes. Then this too is silent.“Are you looking for something specific?” asks Esther from thedoorway. “Or have you gone AWOL just to smash things up?”Turn and sneer at the shadow of the woman. Don’t want herhere. Don’t want anyone here.To my non-answer, she adds, “So what are you looking for?” andstarts walking down toward me.“Stay back,” I command. “Go away. I need some space.”She keeps coming. As I knew she would. Her salvaged auto heldtight against her chest.“Look, this isn’t like I’m absent minded,” I shout at her. “It’s likeforgetting everything. I can’t retrieve shit. I feel so fucked up. Sofucking fucked, and I can’t stand it!”The black woman stops about five metres away and now it’s hertime to say nothing.Self-induced solitary. My raving keeping her away. Keeping meisolated.The effort of this much bile floors me. Saps my strength and Icrumple. Think I’m going to zip out, but just crack down on myknees. Once more the spider ravages the inside of my skull casing.Chewing against the bone. Hurts so much my eyes water.Then I feel the butt of Esther’s gun against the outside of myhead. Harder than iron. Wince and scrunch my lids. All clenchingteeth and tightness. Since seeing her waste those geos through thewindow, I fear her. The way she coolly blew the tanks. Picked off theburning bodies. Snipered down the fleeing. Like when she faced-offSanada. Even through the narcs, I was afraid. Framed in the floor-toceilingpanels, she looked the part of heavensent avatar. All-righteous.Unequivocal. Unstoppable. Spray-painted requiem saying Christ isback for the third coming. Real soon now. Hear the safety click, andknow I’m dead. Yet instead of that I hear her long sigh in the darkness.“Ave maria,” utters the blackness.Then the gun is gone. And remarkably so is the monstrous mutantarachnid. Gone, but not forgotten.

230 | THE A-MEN“Is there anything I can do?” she asks in a husky half-whisper.“Well, you could always help me find a support group,” I quip.“Fetch my prescriptions. That kind of shit.”Help me restore. Retrain. Reinvent myself. Maybe.“You have to keep focused, Jack. Times’re hard, but that don’tmean nothing can be done. Eventually.”“No one wants to be broke,” I say, crawling up the side of thedesk. Using it as a crutch. Returning to its useless equipment. Itsscattered contents.“I want to help,” Esther tries again.“Yeah, sure ya do.”She pulls out Forevermore. Lays it on the desk beside me. “I readthis,” she says.“And?”“It made me see.”“See what?”“That my life is as wretched and fucked up as yours, but withone big difference. I’m not going to throw mine to the dogs ofeternity.”“OK.”“I start to understand. To see the attraction. Still screwed up, butI can see what you’re doing. First principles of faith. The Lord said,‘Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, youdo not have life in you.’”“Great. Bible bashers turned zombie flesh eaters.”“The flesh and blood are bread and wine. They alter with faithand ritual. Yet the method’s the same. Someone once taught me thattrue magic is to make something out of nothing. To change thatwhich already exists into something which it was not before?”“The Amen?” I ask, my brain buzzing.She nods and holds out her hand. “Please.”I hand back her metallic volume and watch as she flips throughthe presets.“I can’t say I read yours,” I confess.

THE A-MEN | 231“No matter. It only takes one to cry eureka.”Before I can ask about this she holds up the e:vol. Showing apage marked Revelation. Marked 3:14. The words clear and fuzzy allat the same time.And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; Thesethings saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning ofthe creation of God.“The Amen?” I ask.“Y’see, Jack? Your book and mine have a lot more in commonthan you think. It means I have been blind. I thought I was losingmy faith, but I wasn’t losing anything. Only gaining. Understand?”I frown and shake my head. Still reeling from the appearance ofthe name in both texts.“What you said downstairs, about creating a new life, that ringstrue now. I want that. We must go forward. Of course it helps thatright now we can’t go back. Now we’ve faked our deaths this meansnone of us. All are implicated. Accessories after the fact.”“And this all means–?”“It means we are all creatures hunting for the things we can neverhave… It also means I’m in. Perhaps not till the end, but in for now.I want to help. To get you back. To save what we can. To save ourselves.”“Wow,” I say. “OK, you want to help. So help. On the ship –y’know when your E-Unit goons coshed me – I sent a broadcast outon the stream. I don’t know how but I did. Also, used RIN to trackdown the author of that book I’m carrying. That led me here.”“So those coords you punched weren’t random?”“Nope. Well, maybe a little lucky.”“Have you been here before?”“I don’t know. Have no idea…”“What do you remember?”“Remember? What, the last thing?”“The very last thing.”

232 | THE A-MENThe spider. Feeding. Feeding. Feeding.“Forget that. It’s not important.”“Well, what do you want to remember?”I want to remember my son.“Dunno.”“Were you married?” The question comes suddenly. From deepleft field. So close to my thoughts that it scares me.“I was, but I don’t want to remember her. She was a bitch.”“So you do remember some things.”“Some things. I remember her hitting me.”“This does not surprise me. What else?”“Look it’s simple,” I continue. “All I want is… y’know, maybe Ican find a place I can call my own. And the way I see it, might aswell be here and now.”“Which brings us back to this dude.” She holds up the desknameplate. The monogrammed inkwell. Next she stoops behind thedesk. Sorts through the junk. Retrieves some kind of report. Checklistof options.“Says here your Glass brother is a psychist.”“Whassat?”“Well, the word means being of the soul or mind. Kinda in chargeof phenomena and conditions outside the domain of physical law.”“Not really what you’d call a job description.”“Don’t dismiss it, Jack. Might be a connection. Computers innear-space combine biological anima systems and light. They’re socomplex they have to be programmed by shrinks.”“Sounds cool.”“Don’t knock it. The USSA macrocorps need something damnnear omnipotent to keep them in check. To stop catastrophies likethis whole Exxo mess from occurring. All twelve of the USSA…well, no one’s really in charge anymore. They need a thirteenthgoverning system to keep tabs on their operations. Clamp down andtighten up. Stop the big boys throwing their weight around.”“So what’s this system called?”

THE A-MEN | 233“XEs.” The term is duo-syllabled. Ex. Us. Can’t help thinking ofgods again, just by hearing it.“So XEs is big God Almighty in the new offworld, is that it?”Esther starts ripping couplings from the back of the nearestmonitor. “Yes, something like that. It is the ruling AI sentience. Well,fledgling anyhow. The coding that runs it runs just about ninety-ninepoint nine per cent of everything that goes on in near-space. Makesup one nucleus of data – one source – from which all inforivers flow.A consensual governing sentience. Many who ride the stream havefound that the juggling of a zillion gigabytes of data has createdsomething that is the closest thing to omnipotence that can beimagined.”“Cool. Er, what’ya doing?”“After I went over the wall I dumped my suit’s RIN module. Tokeep me off the radar. Can’t access the stream without showing uplarger than a freight beacon. But I kept the packcell. Might be ableto hook it up to run this deck.”I react like that’s the best news I ever got. Which of course it is.“How long will it take?”“The question you should be asking is how long will you have.My guess would be seconds rather than minutes.”“That’s OK. Can you do it?”“Only one way to find out.”Flipping the brushed metallic lid of the Osakimo V4400 deck,Esther unclips the neuros. Fixes them to her ears. Fixes the back leadto her suit. The system blips to standby. Her finger poised over theOn key.After fiddling with the calibration, she hands me the clips.“Osakimo’s buzzin’. Set for I/O. You ready?”“Yeah,” I say, “but what do I do?”“Just direct. Leave the navigation to me.”Even as I nod she’s stabbing Power. Bringing the console to life.The keypad light goes amber, then green. The screen rezzes onand the tsunami that is the stream hits me full on.

234 | THE A-MENImmediately the construct program rises over the chaos of data.Sucking me into an immense mosque of light and dark. A thousandolive trees crowd an expansive patio. The courtyard bordered by anaustere facade. Set with arched stained glass. A night sky glisteringabove. While Esther hacks passcode and entry details, the machinetransmutes into details. Plasterwork. Tilework. Friezes. Each withunimaginable information enlocked within and beyond. Mandelbrotiancomplexity seen as Mudéjar craftmanship. Each aspect infinite. I findthat wherever I look autotargets. Concentration brings me close.Indifference defocuses. Too much and the facets overwhelm. Too littlesends the temple spinning.“C’mon, Jack,” warns a voice from someplace else. “This is notime for sightseeing.”“What’d I do?” I ask the sky’s emptiness.“You need a net. Try the sacristy.”Turning out of the courtyard brings me into the cathedral proper.From here lock and zip through to the domed plateresque creationof the house of sacred vessels. Here the altar feeds an e:node for theregion. Still intact atop the Phoenix Tower. Obviously. Turning intothe flamelit nothingness, I ignore eye-watering masterpieces. Gostraight for the autobahn.Off-ramp requests destination facts and figures, but I let the blackwoman deal with it. Heartbeats pass, then pulses of neon suck meinto the eye of their electrical storms. Flashes of the Scheherazade blinkpast. Mass data. Tracking data. Then transmission logs. We’re codedout of all but the lowest priorities. Hear Esther murmuring aboutcloaking. About findsearch and ’hikers. All I can do is go with it.Then the beautifully domed chapter house is gone and I am insidea belt of stars.“Power at twenty-five per cent, Jack. Locate it, grab it and go.”I wonder at first what she’s saying, but then I see it. Appears asa shredded flag. Hung like bunting along with a trillion or so others.Decking the halls of heaven with red, white and blue. Finding meby my dataphial callsign. My inbuilt and unique anima code. Reach

THE A-MEN | 235out and pluck the file in non-existent hands. Pulling it back to thechamber. Laying it out like some ragged altar cloth.“Got it,” I say to the nothingness outside me. “ I think.”“Not a moment too soon,” replies the midnight.The cathedral smears to colour. To darkness. To nothing. In itsplace the office slides into view. Rainbow to reality. Wipe on, wipeoff. The 100-kilogram sergeant switches off. The deck whirring downto minimum activity. Stunned, I blink back the residual firework displayand ask if we got it.“Yes, sir,” she grins. “Trapped the bugger midstream. Fragmenteda little when you sent it. Little more on reload. But should be enoughto view and search. Depends on what you were expecting.”“Answers would be good.”“Well, let’s playback and see, shall we?”*The file is made of three thousand unspliced entries. Over a gigaflopof slab data. Some raw. Some cooked. Here I find many things. Musicfiles. Songs I have written. Mail from Normand. Stupid stuff likeaccounts and book catalogues and inventories. Snatches of poetry.Some mine. Some not. Electronic scans of birthday cards and picturesand 3D representations of painted Playclay models. All from my son,Aaron. Accounts show I had money, but no income. My wealth wasprivate. Unnamed deposits injected from some off-world trust fund.Until about two days before joining E-Unit when the account waspurged. All monies paid out. Transferred to an unmarked third-partytab that must be either government or top brass operated. Henceno locking code. Job features in a few of the puzzle pieces. Guilddegrees in planetology, cellular biochemistry, xeno psychology.Personal data history is gone. Unknown anima type. Unexpectedend of file on parsing. Record classification is 15A-REM. Meansnothing to the system. Just times out after fifteen seconds offindsearching.

236 | THE A-MENOne thing that is instantly noticeable is that my real name appearson none of the info tracks. None of the secondary records. Not evenon the blueprints. Every single one has been tri-wiped.Yet here are the shreds of the tale of Jack. The sum total of whatI was. Can’t really tell what end is up and what’s down, but onething’s for sure though: I really didn’t want myself to find out whoI was. Doctored every last tagged folder. Deleted and triple erasedevery trace. It is not the system I am fighting, it is myself. Who wasI? What was my purpose? Again: why dump my life and cover mytracks so completely?Turn to Esther, my face blank.Shrugging, she turns to the deck and starts editing. When I askwhat she’s doing she just shushes me. Watch as her thick fingers tripacross the clattering keys while the screen flip-flops through functions.Drilling down into the data mess, she tries to reconstruct theunderlying pattern before tampering. With so much damage, boththrough my internal hatchet work and the intrinsically lossy natureof flat broadcasting, it’s a tough challenge. Her brows knot into it,but all I can do is watch and wait. Then:“OK, that’s about the best I can do without sub-programmingthe entire parity cell structure.”“What’ve you got?”“Well, the problem is you seem to have set some kind of wormin the a-layer.”“And this means?”“This means what’s left’s being eaten away, cell by cell. Anotherfew days and it’ll be gone completely. There seem to be referencesto other files and other data, but the links are missing or alreadyerased. What you have here is like a loom-woven tapestry that’s beentossed in a harvester and the shreds unravelled by field mice.”“Do what?”“Never mind. Look, let’s just say the data’s fucked, OK?”“Yeah, I can dig that.”“So what I’ve done is auto-spliced the remains into one backbone

THE A-MEN | 237structure. Like stitching the pieces together. Do you know what apatchwork quilt is?”“Nope.”“Well, it’s like one of those.”“So we can playsee it now, can we?”“Yes, it’ll play like a series of flashcard images. Might top sensoryoverload, but I’ll be right here.”“You’re not watching?”“No. Ready?”“What choice have I got?”“Exactly.” Esther flips the Osakimo around and I stare at theunintelligible code that packs the screen. “What choice have we got?”With one finger she stabs Unspool and downloads all that’s leftof my first life straight into the nerve centre of my brutal brain.*So, this is my life. This is what’s left. These ill-fitting fragments thelast remnants of the file I broadcast from the XSS Scheherazade. It’s ashaky blend of images and senses. Voiceover recordings. Notes. Letters.Erupting like fireworks fired straight into my head. And the first thingis darkness. Then a disc code.>03|05|11.4 Gyr|21:03:22.“History disc 744-02. Entitled: ‘Untitled’. Dated: undated. Speakeris Jack. Incomplete structure.”Then, as my mind scrambles out the dark, I see a vision. It’s ascene inside a vac. Walls are grey-green. Swathe of red around theportholes. Shields are up with Earth rising to starboard. Looks likethe attack ship. Lens autofocuses on me. My tanned face and militarycrop. Got a pair of rays blocking my eyes. Can still see I’m drugged.Veins knot my neck like ropes. Scene’s still and calm. Tense.The image flickers, then it begins. Immediately there’s the whirrof a cooler. A hidden deck playing an unknown concerto. Suddenstink of stale air and shine.

238 | THE A-MEN“This’s being taped on the night before our descent. E-Unit hasminus seven and the doc’s ready with the scalpel, so I guess this willbe the last chance I have to get all this out my system.”My voice is slurred. Weirdly accented. Did I really talk like that?Shee-it.Behind the shades my eyes flutter like swollen moths. Nothingtoo serious. Won’t be comatose for another hour yet. Guess I wasgetting ready for the op. Outside the world drifts slowly by.“Each man kills the things he loves. It’s inevitable. Normand toldme I was no different. Well, Normand, you were right. The Weird’sgonna get us all in the end. Sure got me. I’ve lost everything andnow the world’s collapsed. Lost that too. My unit’s posted to Bumfuck,Nowheresville to contain the mass rioting. Seem’s murderers and rapiststhe only hope left. Anyhow, s’no surprise. World had it coming.”As I watch the other me looks away. Distracted by somethingbuzzing. Leans out of shot. The buzzing stops. I’m back.“Haven’t been earthside for five years. Not since our last familytrip to the lodge on Devil’s Ridge. Stayed two days. Hated it. Criedall the way through re-entry. That’s a piece of cake compared withtomorrow.“Don’t really know why I’m leaving this record. Certainly gotno one to leave it to. Maybe it’s the comfort of knowing that all I’vegot left is stored somewhere. Else who’d ever know I existed? Chancesare E-Unit won’t come back and I haven’t got the stow space to takeeverything with me. So I’m encoding all the discs I have; my music,my files, my diocam films. Let the stream take ’em. Then I’ll knowI’ll always be out there somewhere among the stars… Choice. Yeah,I like that.”Then I giggle. I actually giggle. Throw my head back the waydrunk men do. Ha fucking ha.See the myself I was plug in the first of the discs, then swig shineand drool. On the periphery of my mind I watch readouts. Tellingme what’s burning. Home movies. Journals. My entire body horrorcollection. Some of my songs.

THE A-MEN | 239Fastwind through the next twenty minutes. See all sorta shit. Insideapartments. Smiling faces. Stop as cam swings over a verdant landscape.I’m with a child. My son? We’re down at some lake beneath a greatwash of blue-black sky. Green trees. Air filled with fake butterfliesand wide arced expanses of crystal.>28|08|9.2 Gyr|14:34:28.This must be offworld, but have no idea where. The straw-hairedkid’s locking together a telescopic fishing rod. I’m taping his everymove. Cajoling him. Trying to help. Almost breaks my heart whenhe calls me daddy. Almost tears me in two when I call him Jack.Dark triggers snap. Think fastwind again and the scene blurs intomotion.Some time later the scene returns, but this time I’m walking withan older man. My father? Just by the look of his forehead it’s obviouswe’re arguing. Then words scratch across the landscape in my mind.>20|09|13.6 Gyr|11:18:10.“Once upon a time I was a man with a dream, d’ya know that?”“Once upon a what?” Daddy’s voice is a sardonic echo of mine.I ignore it.“Back then I was a man with a son and a wife and a home amongthe stars. But nothing’s forevermore, is it? Every dream ends…”“You selfish prick. You’re not the only one who’s lost something.”“I loved Aaron.”“We all loved Aaron. Stop acting as if…”“As if what? As if the world hasn’t ended?”“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to make this difficult,Jack.”“Yeah, we agreed. But it’s the anniversary of his death, forchrissakes. It was always going to be difficult.”Feed glitches. Sparks into nothingness. When it returns, we’re onthe other side of the dark water. Still walking. This snatch’s earlier,before the fighting. Shooting shit. Him more than me.>20|09|13.6 Gyr|11:22:04.“Do you know what today is? What is happening to the world?

240 | THE A-MENIt is the eve of the declaration and establishment of the Consortiumof Heaven. The USSA. When the macrocorps signasign that statementa new country will be created. The twelve independent bodycorporates now united starstations…”“Yeah, yeah, skip the history lesson. I know what’s happening. Ipull the streamsheets.”“Jack, this is the most potent and consequential event of ourcentury, of any century.”“Yeah, and you know just as well as me that when this happensthe world’s dead. The Exxos and the PanKierestsus will retreat uphere, and abandon the Earth to fend for itself.”“If you’re asking me not to join the Consortium…”“You sign what you want. I’m out.”I pull out some lights. Stick one in my mouth and ignite. Draw.Sigh out smoke.“Do you have to do that?”Just smile back my answer.“I suppose you feel such retro behaviour is bohemian affectation?”“Yeah, it’s…” I breathe smoke into the aeriated atmosphere,“cool.”Daddy shakes his head, gazing away from me and over themidnight water of the lake. There’s another jump. An ugly cut, then:>20|09|13.6 Gyr|10:21:57.“You have failed me. You have failed this family.”“Yeah right, daddy. Lay it on real thick, why don’tcha. But, d’yaknow what, go sit on it. From today, I’m gone. Gone for good. I’mso far gone, you’ll have trouble finding my shadowtrace. This shityou’re signing is the end. Just try to imagine what this treaty’ll meandirtside? Civilisation’s gonna go bye-bye. But that’s fine and dandybecause you’ll all be up here playing pat-a-cake with each other overmartini cocktails.”The image fizzles. Then is gone.In its place is an endless stream of technical notes, data spools,results. Whap hold and see what’s cooking. Turns out it’s technobabble

THE A-MEN | 241interspliced with shots of big grey fish. Some dweeb voiceover dronesover the footage.>14|06|03.9 Gyr|08:18:09.“The Sûrabian Ocean. Three calfwhales are brought aboard theSolar Huntress ready for primary testing. It has taken four days to traceand separate these creatures from the main school. No mean feat –and carefully coordinated by Captain Flemyng and his crew.”It’s me. Narrating like I’m making some freaky docurama. MaybeI am.The scene changes from oceanic panoramas to underwater footageon some converted freighter.“Each of the specimens are housed in their own private tankwhere the doctors and technicians can more easily access them. Thefoundation of anima-consciousness surfaced after initialcommunication was patched into the original Sol prototype. The eventwas kept low key; even in Consortium-free waters the capturing ofwhales was politically sensitive.”Closeups of whitecoats drilling into fishheads. Shots of eyes. Shotsof wires. Shots of suits standing around looking smug. Most areprobably board directors. One could be daddy, but who knows.“Yet the incidents that followed,” I continue, “were far beyondeven the professor’s team’s formidable experience.”Now we’re in a circular laboratory monitoring readouts. One ofthe whale babies can be seen through the aquarium wall. It’s securedto a gantry. Covered in pipes and wires. Looks spookily like theHuntress, only bigger. Much bigger. Must be at least ten times thesize. Can’t make out a lot of what’s going on. Commentary means Idon’t have to.“The initial objective was to link the mind of the humpback tothe prototype system, while communications were tested by feedingcarefully selected code frequencies into the subject. The team hadbeen using the Sol Series computer to decipher whalesong and nowhad enough empathic data to attempt contact, albeit on a very crudelevel.”

242 | THE A-MENAnother cut. This time to a stuffily-dressed, tached guy with sweptgrey hair. The screen labels him as Professor Raymond Isaac Glass.Glass? That’s the name of the guy whose office I’m in somewhereoutside this mind dump. But he’s not Nathaniel, he’s Raymond. Lookslike a jerk. When he starts speaking, he sounds like a jerk too.>09|08|03.2 Gyr|14:26:30.“The results were astonishing. Everyone was gathered around thewater’s edge when the first transmission was injected into the subjectmammal. We waited with baited breath for the reply and withinseconds we received one.”Scene shakes. Cam op’s running toward the terminal bank whilethe whitecoats go ape. Mind-torturing wailing bursts from the consolesas the screens wash with data. Someone’s shouting, “What’s it say?What’s it say?” but no one answers.“Within fourteen seconds the prototype was receiving four hundredterabytes of translatable material a second. In less than three minutesour onsite systems were full and we had to kick into the uplink forfurther archive space. Thirty-two minutes later the mathematical eddiesof the communication pattern were broken. After only half an hour,man was talking for the first time with a species alien to its own.”I skip most of the next bit. Too technical. All resonant datastructures and surfing the mind-pan. Kick back in for the endsummary. Hit the credits and wind back twenty. More compositeshots of an ocean full of whales. Huh? When was this taken? Haven’tbeen school’s like that for ever.>09|08|03.2 Gyr|15:07:11.“So the discovery of this empathy link became the catalyst forthe hostgod breakthrough eventually forming the basis of the XEssentience. And this is all thanks to the generous donation of the K/OSgenetic protocol by our handsome benefactor.”The image shudders as Glass reaches past the shot and drags meinto view.That’s the end. Oh, except one last soundbite. It’s the professoragain, winding up with a wry smile.

THE A-MEN | 243>09|08|03.2 Gyr|15:08:21.“What were the first words translated? It said, ‘Welcome. We neversuspected you would empathise so early in your development.’” Helaughs.I zip out while the screen transmutes into a living theatre file.Historical archive appearing as projected lightshow in the air all aroundme. Phoenix Tower the subject of a comgen walkthru. Five thousandpixels per centimetre and a million colours do nothing to hide thefact that it’s as fake as tits. And as we roll through the glass frontdoors, a dry voiceover unravels to join it.>30|02|12.1 Gyr|23:22:51.“History File 682-s12 – Genesis Of The Glass-Suko Corporation(Vol I). To fully understand the success and ultimate vastness of theentity known as the Glass-Suko Corporation (Catalogue entry: Glass-S), we need to look back through the careers of its founders. RaymondIsaac Glass (Personality entry: RIG-135m) was born the son of a geneticresearcher and lived for most of his childhood on his parent’s estateon the NewEarth. His integration with computers developed throughintensive memory implant procedures (Memplan XII: Program Library8380). Nurtured into his adult life, he began to specialise in the fieldof psychist/computer analysis and early in his fortieth year he pioneereda new generation of computer interface. The project was labelled Panand its internal program Imagick. This was a quasi-intelligent programwhich effectively linked man and machine in the production of tailormadescenarios. On this project Glass met Darrold Suko (Personalityentry: DS-288v), a brilliant programmer and now one of the leadingexperts on the new fields of computer psychology. For with the mixingof tissues similar to that of the human brain and light-driven computertechnology, the result was a new genus of hardware, the animaconscious,symbiotic creation. A decade later, Sol Incorporated(Catalogue entry: Sol-I) was founded and work began upon the birthof the now legendary Sol Series computers. Progress at first was painfullyslow, for with a sentient brain, designing patterns of learning and growthwere difficult. The problem was finally conquered when Glass

244 | THE A-MENintroduced a new source of talent in the field of thought-chanellingin the form of his son, Nathaniel Raymond Glass (Personality entry:NRG-136m). With the combined genius of these three scientists SolInc was retitled the Glass-Suko Corporation which led inevitably tothe X-Isle project launch. The new development intelligence nameditself Amen and from this sub-personalities have already beenprototyped, including such personae as Mûhamet (a teaching specialistpackage), Tôrus (a Pan derivative and mobile residual) and Ianus (thedevelopment sentience for the X-Isle project).”Next it’s back to yours truly. Let it run. Can’t bear seeing myselfgetting more drunk. When the burning’s finished, there’s more talking.Slow the tape. Break in mid-sentence.>03|05|11.4 Gyr|21:14:01.“…in the lurch. Since they killed my son on the slabs of theirworthless medical facilities, when they began harvesting the last of theblue whales, I’ve wanted out. If anyone sourced where the brain tissueoriginated, Glass’d be vacced for sure. No denying he’s a genius. He’sthe man who built the greatest mind-machine in history. He’s also aruthless bastard who has no idea what he’s playing with. But I havea lot to learn. Then Jack – I mean, Aaron – was diagnosed with theneu-plasma strain virus and my entire world turned to shit. They saidhe received the best treatment the Glass-Suko faculty could muster,but it was all useless. The virus was resident in his RNA. His deathwas like my death too. After that I worked hard losing everything else.“In the nothing that followed I retreated into myself. I estrangedmy wife and even my friends stopped visiting, which is choice whenthere’s money to be had. So I was obnoxious. So I insulted them,their mothers and the whole stinking system. They soon got themessage, even the stupid ones. Who wouldn’t. Normand was the onlyone who held out. He told me I was just on self-destruct. That Ishould get away. ‘It’s not worth having all these beautiful things,’ hesaid. ‘If you’re not beautiful inside.’ He was right. Under the skin Iwas ugly to the bone. When I told Angela Jane it was all over, shescreamed that I was the most selfish person in Heaven. Hell, maybe

THE A-MEN | 245I was. Who cares? I’m better off without her. Without them all.“It’s odd when you realise that you’ve never had a friend in yourlife; the sense of loss is so unexpected. The disinheritance was next.That was harder – and with such a stubborn father as mine it took along time and a lot of stunts to get it through to him. The day of theattack I doubt they even thought of a third party. Though I was neverblamed or dragged through the courts or anything, the freighter ticketsarrived in my apartment the very next morning. They had ‘get out’written all over them.”I’m caught like soon-to-be roadkill in a geo’s headlights,mesmerised. And still there’s more.>12|08|11.9 Gyr|21:08:19.Next comes inconsequential writings on days spent bummingaround Bay Terminus. Wherever that is. With some woman namedKari Kami Kitani. Whoever she is. Then fragments which chill. Onkilling my Alsation dog. Mister Wolf. High on flash. Gutting the beautybecause I thought he’d swallowed my chronometer. Filleted becauseI wanted to know the time. Normand was there, too. A memoryburnt too deep for the scalpel to reach. To extract. Hidden beneaththe scorched earth policy of my cruel intent.The file is dizzying. Shifting between images and soundbites andtextual impressions. Still I let it come. Wanting it, yet fearing it.Knowing that the more I see the more I want to un-see. I want toleave it all unsaid, unseen, unheard, unknown. Please, please, please.Stop! But it keeps on coming. End over end over end. And like anempty vessel I’m filled up with its black waters.>04|07|08.4 Gyr|13:04:48.Next, staccato scenes of home movies. Flickering badly shotmontages. Wives? Sons? Lovers? Running on fake beaches with fakewaves and fake tans. Whole worlds of electronic impulses. Spool timeelapsed: twenty-three years, seventeen minutes and twenty-one seconds.Everything captured in one meaningless slide show of snippets. Alledited down to under thirty seconds. Like life flashing before youreyes. Like when you die. Or when you’re reborn.

246 | THE A-MENThere’s three star-like explosions of images taken from some bodyhorror collection. Then:>20|09|13.6 Gyr|20:42:04.“The gun was in my stormcloak,” the voice says, deadpan. “Thegun to kill my father. So I guess you wanna know why I didn’t useit? It was the assassins. My family’s executioners. Coming out of thedark like all their worst fears at once. So that’s why, if you really haveto know. ’Cause I didn’t get a fucking chance. Yeah, I know whatyou’re thinking. This is the USSA. This is a controlled Kármán linesanctuary. This cannot happen! But you’re wrong. Take a look.”The diocam snaps on showing the elegant arced dome of someoffworld starhouse erupting. Spinning, the op watches as the crystallinetwelve-storey structure shatters, flames feeding hungrily on the oxygenrichatmosphere. For an instant I see the interior detailing of thebalconies and staircases, the hive-like rec rooms and zincblendemeditation halls, and then the base of the dome implodes and theentire structure is lost in fire.Then the image blurs. I’m running. Then the scene skips to aplace much nearer the house. I’ve stopped before the carved polystoneentryway. An unbadged trooper’s stepping out from the shadows. Hisvisually coupled combat helm shines hotter than his rifle muzzle.Offering him full visual freedom. Offering me a mirrored goldendiorama of the burning parkland behind me.“Kneel,” commands the invisible assassin.He has a bright spray of crimson liquid upon his armoured suit.A spurted exclamation mark of gore.They’re dead, I think feebly as I watch, they’re all fucking dead.The diocam backs away from the shot in the skull that no doubtawaits my compliance. This causes the mercenary to cock his weapon.“Soldier, wait!” the voice on the track barks. “Don’t you knowwho I am?”It’s obvious I want to escape, but cannot rake my eyes away from hisfaceplate. While I look at myself looking back I feel a connection; a falsecamaraderie. As if that gilded reflection of who I was will save me.

THE A-MEN | 247The heat from the manse billows, then windows shatter, rainingglass. Being ten metres closer than me, the trooper staggers in theunexpected blast. I don’t wait.I twist and run.A crazy spray of bullets splinters branches above my head.Dropping, I roll into rhododendron and scrabble on all fours back tothe path. Some kind of lab stands about fifty metres away, but I seemto reach it in moments. Crashing through the lobby and swinginginto the main corridor.Seen clearly through the demi-opaque partitions, five mercs arekicking daddy. Stamping on various parts of his body, going forextremities. Dodging like a rat in a maze, I work my way towardthem with no idea in my mind of what I’m going to do when I getthere. They’re finished by the time I negotiate the switchback ofanterooms. Burst in and find the troopers already withdrawing, noteven giving me the benefit of a second glance.Daddy’s lying in the atrium garden just outside the lab proper.He’s lying in an unnatural slump. I check his pulse; he’s breathing.Alive. Barely. I put my boot on his face, pressing hard. The mud poolsin his mouth drowning him. Look around but our assassins are gone,retreating back to their ship.I pull out a pistol from the folds of my stormcloak and cock it.Obviously here’s the right moment, the one I’ve been waiting for.To kill the prize shit and be done with it. As a prelude I start shootingup the sky that shatters and rains frozen light all around us.And thereI watch the other me stand like a gun-toting diablo in the raginginferno wanting to scream at the retreating figures. To get into therecording and grab the fuckers’ attention. Get them to come backand finish what they started.What are you waiting for. Shoot me! Shoot me! I wanna die. Kill me.Kill. Me!All around me my family are dead and dying on the cold quartziteground. The starstation burns. The world ends.But somehow, for some reason, I don’t end with it.

248 | THE A-MENJust when I think it’s all over are more disparate images. Thelumberpunch that hits me square centre of my mind. Stunning me.>27|12|11.9 Gyr|23:18:37.It’s footage of a fleeing victim. A woman. She’s fallen and thediocameraman’s upon her. Attacking. Ripping. Shredding. Single shotimages of her head as I bury it. No teeth. No eyes. Her hair blackenedand burnt. Then another location. Her legs. Her arms. Missing fingers.Missing toes. Then another head. And another and another. But the worstof it, the utter worst are the babies. That I killed them is not. It is theway I killed them. How I stabbed an unwanted newborn before a fifteenyear-oldgirl who gave birth in secret at my arcspace. How they foundone mother’s torso with her child strapped to it with plastic tape. Howmost of the babes were in the parkland. Inside a buried wardrobe whichwas taped shut, their skeletal remains wrapped in discarded mail sacksand insulating tape. Beamed newsfeeds screaming for the killer to becaught. Crying out for justice. For no mercy. Telling of an unspeakableoffence that’s unheard of in this or the last two centuries.>04|02|12.0 Gyr|09:14:22.Mocking-mouthed psychiatrist unspooling his opinions like festivebunting. “His child was taken. He takes others. He kills because ofwhat he is, anomalous, trapped between states of being, trapping othersas he is trapped.” Wanker. Hasn’t he ever lost something irreplaceable?And then at the last a news-in-brief special. Taut-haired, suited womanframed by monitors. Tight mouth. Spindly fingers. She reads from anautocue projected directly into her twitching eyes. Says the killer isgone. The butchery has ended. The murderer has vanished. Authoritiesare baffled. Marshals are flummoxed. In his wake lie thirty-eightvictims. Mother and child.And then the killer. A lightning-quick segment. A crying mother.The words: ‘How can such a monster live with himself? How can hedo these things and just stop and expect that to be that? What aboutmy baby? My little one who never knew his own name. What aboutall the others…” An eruption of sobs stops her mid-recrimination.Then: fade to black.

THE A-MEN | 249>01|11|10.7 Gyr|07:33:06.The final image is me reading to Aaron as he falls asleep in a vastcanopied bed. Forevermore open in my splayed hands. The Tale of JackO’Nowhere. It’s clear he’s sick. Very sick. As pale as the linen thatenfolds him.“And so Jack moved from the Room of Illusions and down thestone corridor into the inner sanctum of the Castle of Enchantment.There he found a red chamber filled with smoke and braziers. Theair was hot and sticky, the Fountain of Eternal Youth visible on acolumn of stone on a small island in the centre of a lake of lava. Hesaw that though he could walk all the way around the edge of theroom on a stone path, the only way across was upon three steppingstones guarded by a Big Black Demon. In its eyes was hatred andvengeance. In its taloned hands was a double-bladed axe, drippingwith the blood of all those who had failed here. Also here was hisbrother’s sword, lying on the floor. Yet of his brother there was nota trace...”“Daddy, I’m tired… Can we finish the story tomorrow?”“Sure, Jack. Happily ever after will have to wait a day, won’t it?”But Aaron – my little Jack – is already asleep.And at that very moment everything is totally, impossibly real forme. I did this, all this to forget my son, but keeping this file, thisbook, I’m undoing everything. There are some things that cannot beforgotten. For everyone knows that this world is ending one momentat a time and that we are ending with it. But though we all expect– as a son expects to outlive his father – that the world will outliveus, one can never really be sure.Nothing lasts. Never comes. The end always manifests. And whenit does it is so perfectly, utterly complete.Then with a sudden lurch the file ends. The screen blanks. AndI am left in the dark with Esther and the terrible realisation that thesea of crap of the past few days is just the tip of a shit-covered iceberg.*

250 | THE A-MENDespite the chaotic jumble of the feed, it threw up few facts Ican actually investigate. Yeah, so I have a link with me donating somegenetic protocol to the professor who invented the sentience thatruns the USSA, that there’s some link to the Phoenix, that I have apossible family massacre starside and a holiday home somewhere calledDevil’s Ridge, but that’s it.Yet none of this can be actioned right now. Not with all the cubscout stuff Esther’s got planned for us. It’ll have to wait.We make base camp in a strongroom in the basement. The subbasementsare no-go areas. Our ramraid entry brought down enoughof the surrounding structure to block the stairwells into all but theupper levels. Still, wouldn’t have wanted to go too far underground.Not with the prospect of being buried alive. Because of Biggs andhis chest ricochet, moving out into the streets in search of a betterhidey-hole is prohibitive. Also, apart from possibly being on the radarof Blackwing and his goons, this place’s as good as any.A new day has dawned. A scratchy, grubby morning that does notentice exploration. Esther spends the morning cataloguing every pieceof field equipment we’ve salvaged. The list is not impressive, especiallyas she ordered us to burn the remaining suits. Trikevlar doesn’t torchtoo good, but the internal skins make excellent firestarters. And there’senough abandoned desks and cork boards in this building for a goodfew months worth of bonfire parties. From the spare combat armourwe have managed to collect the nutrient and vitamin feeds, medicalpacks, water canisters, bivouacs and miscellaneous stuff. Like microlitesand bobbins. Except me, everyone’s down to their inner camos. Everyonehas an auto, handgun and combat knife. Grisholm has his fixing kit.Esther has her blade. Also have a few torques, mines and grenades, butthat’s about it. Way in’s protected with a smattering of these. Tied totrips and traps. Otherwise we’re pretty low on everything else. Rationswill be all out in twenty-four. Thirty-six if we half nibble. Seventy-twoif we half starve. Water’s the real issue though. As ex-sergeant Rose iskeen to point out in her aprés breakfast sermon to her still-stonedcongregation. Words keen as a Damascus blade.

THE A-MEN | 251“Look, if we are going to survive in this city long enough to getout of it, we need to address the basics. Scanning the list, we’re actuallypretty well off. For a start we have air, we have a fire and we haveour tents for shelter. However cold it gets, the bivouacs are a moreefficiently heated area than this bunker, taking exposure out of theequation. That leaves us food and water, plus it wouldn’t go amiss toscavenge some extra clothing and medical supplies. How’re you doingin that department, Doc?”Grisholm looks up from his bag of potions and smiles his handsomesmile. “Well, another party like last night and the morphine’s gonnabe dry, but I have enough iodine for purifying water if that’s a help.”“Good. And Biggs?”“His lungs are pretty battered. I’d say he needs complete rest foranother sixteen hours, maybe another overnighter. That’s until he canbe moved. I’d say he needs to stay off the cross-trainer a little longer.”“OK, well with regards water, we cannot chance that the city’ssupply is not already contaminated. So coolers are our first source.Grainger, you have collection duties. Doc’s staying so you can hookand drop canisters from the floors above. Ideally I’d like three hundredlitres. I’ll settle for one-fifty.”Grainger groans, but clambers to his feet and starts tooling up.“Jack, you and me are going topside. We need to find a food sourceand set up an outer perimeter. Don’t want to get trapped like rats downhere. We need another way out. Plus we need a lookout. Somewherewith a clear view of the surrounding blocks. I’d have liked RINcommunication at all times, but now three-hour base camp sign-inswill have to do. Doc, we’ll also need proper sanitation and some kindof hygiene regime. Get on that while we’re out. Won’t be any morerunning water as soon as the gravity feed tanks on the roof empty.Without that the johns are gonna be a no-go by this time tomorrow.”“So you still in charge here?” Biggs asks between breaths. Hisentire body smothered beneath grey space blankets.Esther doesn’t even blink.“There is no big chief now, just the wolves of need. I have been

252 | THE A-MENquad-trained in survival tactics under extreme conditions, thereforeI outrank anyone else alive by about eighteen months. And I knowthe dangers.”“So what are the dangers? Apart from my lungs collapsing or thatwe run out of happy juice?”“People,” she says, her face growling. “The most dangerous thingwe will have to face is the people, the gang culture of those who areleft. That and every desperate bastard who has not been able to buytheir way out of this mess. On the one hand we shall be pitted againstorganised crazies like the Reapers. On the other those left withoutfood, water, fuel and other essentials from the outside. They are amortal danger both to themselves and to their neighbours. And tous.”“Why us?” the wounded soldier asks.“What will husbands do when their wives and children arehungry, thirsty, sick and starving? Will they just go back home to diewith their loved ones? We have already seen looting and killing. Thiswill increase. When people realise the electricity’s not returning, thenthey will no longer steal VTVs. They will begin killing for scraps.There are two strategies of warfare. One is called counterforce andthe other countervalue. With counterforce you knock out the enemy’sforces, so he can’t harm you. With countervalue, you go after everythingthe enemy holds dear in order to enact complete demoralisation.Yesterday we were the counterforce. Today they are the countervalue.Am I making myself clear?”Biggs looks away. Like an animal cowering down to its better.Something breaks in him, and I see it break, but of them all I don’twant to relinquish my rights to sergeant queen bitch, whatever hersuperior tactical advantage. That could lead me down paths bestavoided.“All that’s fine and dandy, Esther,” I start, “but not really the wayto go about raising a family.”“A family? What do you think this is? A day trip to the beach?”“Nah, you know, dib dib dib and all that? A family. Sticking

THE A-MEN | 253together. Watching out for each other. Tucking in at night. A senseof brotherhood.”“We are all in this together,” she warns. “Isn’t that enough?”“Not really, no. It’s going to be chaos out there, like you said. Weneed to be ready to help each other. Like you said.”“Anarchy prevails. Survival is not about who gets to vote.”“Yeah, but no individual has the resources that a group has,” addsGrainger.“True,” the black woman answers, “but unprepared and ill equippedindividuals are a liability.” Surprisingly she does not look at me whenshe says this. “A successful survival group is not a democratic societyany more than is a cruiseliner or a charterflight. The captain’s authorityis absolute and one should have confidence in his credentials andability before boarding.”“Like I had a choice,” I mumble.“Like any of us,” adds Grainger.I look back the question. He sees it and realises something.Something I don’t know. Something so obvious nobody’s thought tovoice it until now. Grainger looks at Biggs who looks at Grisholm.And it is the charming ripperdoc with the half-empty case of jujujuice that gets the job of telling me.“Jack, there’s a little nuance of E-Unit you don’t know.”“And what’s that?” I say. Cautious.“Each one of us here is a felon. A perpetrator of some heinouscrime against near-space harmony. Medical malpractice,” he points athis chest.“First degree,” says Grainger.“Slash and burn bodged smash and grab,” says Biggs.All eyes turn to Esther who just stares right back.“And her?” I say, “What she do?”“Oh, nothing,” replies the doc. “She’s clean. Like Strøm, she wasassigned the task of babysitting our asses. After all, you don’t thinkthey would waste real soldiers on this fucked-up planet.”The black woman snarls. Snapping the conversation back on track.

254 | THE A-MEN“Look, this shit’s immaterial. This is still no picnic we have here. Weneed stringent rules regarding behaviour. We need assigned duties.No one’s along for a free ride to be served by others. There have tobe limitations on personal freedoms. There needs to be a final say.”“All sounds thoroughly depressing,” I say, thinking of the bookagain. “And totally unnecessary. Way I see it, we have here the classiccunt, anti-cunt paradox. On the one hand we could all stomp aroundfiltrating water and bagging and burying our own shit beyond theminefield perimeter. Or alternatively, we could actually have somefun.”“Fun?” Esther is so shocked by the word I think she’s gonnachoke on it.“Yeah, fun. You remember that don’t you, sergeant? Being happy,acting the fool, amusement…”“Amusement?” the sergeant fires back. Mentally staggering.“Yeah, having a good time, y’know?”“The world is ending and you want amusement?“Well, you catch my drift.”“Yes, I think I do. Faced with our long-term goals to fightmortality, with defence against exposure, starvation, plagues andanarchy, you want to pop off for a hop-jam nautch and the chanceof nailing some dark-tanned lapdancer.”The others hide grins. Loving this. Relishing the sparring.Still, I’m frowning. Feeling Esther’s missing the point. And notjust missing this point, but every point. The point of life. Didn’t weall evolve past the rules of survival a few millennia ago?When my answer is not immediately forthcoming, she says, “OK,you want a democracy, let’s have a vote. You versus me. All are eligible.If I win, the group falls under my jurisdiction. If you win, we party.Fair?”I nod, then look round at the others. No one seems to want tolook at me back.“OK.”“Right, show of hands for me.”

THE A-MEN | 255Esther raises her gloved paw. As does the doc.“For Jack.”Four hands reach for the ceiling. Including two of mine.“Ave Maria, mother of Iesus Lord Almighty,” the black soldierwhispers.“Hey,” snorts Biggs from his makeshift bed. “Way to go, Jack.And this was how I became the leader of the A-Men.*There’s been G-Men, X-Men, K-Men and T-Men.And now there’s the A-Men.Naming us was like everything that followed, it came straightoutta Forevermore. Like the prime mover, Jack O’Nowhere called hisarmy the Amen, and so do I.That was rule one: you have to pick a handle from the book.The book that became the A-Men bible. Some names were straightcopies. Others were screwed around with a bit. So Jack O’Nowherebecame The Nowhereman became me. The man from nowhere. Goingnowhere. Knowing nothing and caring even less. Grainger becameMordeci, after the wizard that lives on the Isle of Elsewhere. Docchose the name of one of the strange animals in the Sleepybubbyelandstory. Can’t remember which one and doesn’t matter a hoot aseveryone kept calling him Doc anyways. Similarly, Biggs went for theBig Bad Giant in The Tale of the Doppy Wooluf. Just so he could staybeing called Biggs. Uber-grudgingly, Esther chose the character ofMidnight from The Tale of Dawn, Dusk and Midnight. The pseudogoddesswho rules the night with an ivory sword. Apt.The rest sorta fitted into place. Like being in a gang was a forceof nature. Like tribes’re born in each and every one of us. Hardwired.The feeling of belonging and, from belonging, of meaning. Oncemarshals and dataphials and hundred-per-cent stalkwatching cameonline, gangs kinda went into a decline. Natural selection of lawenforcement wiped ’em clean off the face of the earth. Well, at least

256 | THE A-MENfrom public view. But they’ve always been there. Subterranean.Troglodytic. Always under the surface. History has been flooded withthese urban tribes. Fuelled by greed and violence and power. All theusual ideals.Esther’s deck has the gen on the entire savage pantheon. First Ifound were three maybe four hundred years back. Bouncers andbutchers and volunteer firemen forming street bands under thecommand of vicious shits with names like Sadie the Goat and ‘HellcatMaggie’. Groups who used to stamp their victims to death or sailedthe rivers between mystical places called Manhattan and Pughkeepsie.Flying the Jolly Roger and making their enemies walk the plank.Born To Kill. The Molasses Gang. The Whyos of the Morgue wereled by a bastard who put out his victim’s eyes with a special coppergouger attached to his thumb.Grisly were their antics, even by Grim Reaper standards. TheWesties killed and dismembered enemies, with one victim’s head placedon a bar and toasted by the drunken gang all night. The Five Pointers.The Car Barn Gang. The Eastmans. And this is just on this continent.In the Old World were the Uralmash, the Lyubertsky and theMalina, the latter ruled by Vyachaslev Ivankov, aka Little Japanese. InXu were the Quang Binh, the Wah Ching and the Jo’Boys. Therehave been the Yakuza. The Bloods and Brims. El Rukn and the Searchand Destroy Posse. The Pagad and the Ugly Cats. The ten-thousandstrong Hard Living Gang in the Cape and Mogamat Benjamin, leaderof Arcafrica’s oldest and largest Numbers prison gang, who said ofhimself: “I am powerful, I am partly God.” The Elephant Boys. TheApaches of New Europe. The Grags and Zazous. Pissed-off prickswho had taken their fill and could hold no more. Savagely they grewlike ripening fires until all hell raged. The Gypsy Jokers. Highway 61.The Nomads. Satan’s Slaves. The Coffin Cheaters. Armed with knivesand bats and the odd anti-tank missile nicked from the nearest army.And from this melange of murder and mayhem I crafted us.A tribe for the place in which we found ourselves, something tobelong to. In this new world where death was the only release, this

THE A-MEN | 257was the dream of being special. About being above it for a while anda part of something that gets you out the gutter. It was a dream thatin the here and now, there had to be something better. Of coursethere wasn’t. It was all just so much eating crow.And in this smoking city there was no sense going halfway. Ifyou’re gonna cut, cut to the bone.Once we realised it wasn’t going to collapse upon us, ourchapterhouse was the Phoenix Tower. Place where we fell from theheavens and rose from the ashes. Our good-time place.Far as club rules and discipline go, I wanted as few rules as possible.Y’see, this isn’t about rules. It’s about being the zero-percenters. Thewarriors of unconventionality. The children of non-conformity. Butwe needed some. Even the worst-case nihilist anarchist punks onbrain-rotting acid have some rules. Yet when they appeared the ruleswere all about who we were and who we were going to be. Initiationwas by swearing on the good books. Faerie tale in one hand. Biblein the other. Second book was just so as not to fuck Esther off. Alsoto make sure when she took her oath, it was with something she’dfeel compelled by. We all stood together to take our vows. Bled withcuts across the palm. We all swore. Till the end of time.We kept it brief and to the point.So, what about other members? Well, though we had no idea atthe beginning when that would be, I think even I was surprised athow soon the next recruits showed up.The story went like this: Esther and me were scared of gettingfragged in our beds. Even with the trips and the sounds of nukesgoing off all along our perimeter we still couldn’t have run far. Perhapsinto the next room or around the nearest corner. But not much else.The strongroom was a great place to hide but had no long-termqualities. I mean it wasn’t what you would call des res. Even withthe toilets rigged to flush once a day and a reasonable stock of supplies,we needed a way out. If the Grims were to give up their conspicuousabsence and swarm this place then we would be their bitches bybreakfast. This got under Midnight’s helmet and kept buzzing there.

258 | THE A-MEN“Maybe we should delve a little deeper,” I say three days later.“Into the basements. See if there’s an escape route down there.”“Doubtful,” Esther growls back. “But I’m happy to see what’sbehind those autosealed doors.”“Yeah, maybe scout round for buried treasures in the ruins.”She doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead she agrees right off.Ever since my landslide victory in the polls, Midnight’s been atad reclusive. Sure, she was as efficient and functional and on top ofstuff as ever, but you could tell all was not right with her. That hermind was on other things. Perhaps she was doing the guilt trips aboutSanada. Perhaps her personal crusade wasn’t going the way sheplanned. Who knows.Still, had to keep her sweet as she had the deck and the only wayI was gonna follow up on any of the clues from the slab data.Our first port of call was the slumpermall. If we’d been earlyenough, like yesterday, we’d have found pandaemonium. Today wefound pandaemonium’s after-party clear up. This translated topractically nothing. Well, nothing useful anyhows. We were expectingtrouble but there wasn’t any. Mainly because no one was around.Nor was there any food. Wreckage, yeah. Edible stuff, nope. Not awhisper.After an hour’s search all I came back with was a dropped packetof cheesies and two tins of floor wax. Esther had lucked out with alarge bag of dog food and a packet of salt. There were no girls at theregisters. Not that they were working anyhow. Most hung open, themoney looted. Not sure why.“Let’s get going,” the ex-sergeant muttered, eying the spacebetween the shelving units.“Y’know, you buffalo me.”“Buffalo?”“Yeah, buffalo. Rattle me, y’know.”“And why ever would that be, Jack?”“Well, for the past seventy-two hours all you’ve done is sit andeat and shit. Yeah, you’ve dismantled and reassembled your gun five

THE A-MEN | 259times. Yeah, you’ve patrolled and set watch and kept lookout. Butthat’s it.”“So?”“So why the heavy silence?”“I’ve been prayin’.”“Which is fine as far as it goes, but, hey, you’re almost in solitary.It’s just not good for you. And it definitely ain’t good for the group.”About then we arrive at somewhere called the Atlantis Spa andGym.“So, let me guess. You want me to lighten up a bit?”“Too right, I do.”Esther stops and studies me. But all the while her gun neverlowers.“I’m with you, Jack, you know that. But I’m not with all thispartying or pill-poppin’. I’m sorry.”“Yeah, I’m sorry too, Midnight.”Entering through the cramped lobby, escalators feed off into acavernous multi-tiered auditorium. Stacked full of the kind of stuffde Sade would have creamed over. Or with. Passing the ‘We R Closed’signs, we start at the top level with cardio and work our way down.Place was once lit with real-lite panels and must have soaked upenough energy to power a small town. Now the diaphanous nu-glassscreens and banks of ghost-quiet equipment are totally dead. Theanathema of body, beauty and wellness treatments that were once onoffer here. We use torches strapped to our dancers to illuminate theway ahead. There is no sound. Even our footfalls lost in the plushdeepness of the green-flecked carpets.Ignoring the irony of installing escalators between floors of afucking gym, I split from Midnight and start going through thesecondary chambers. Find sunloungers. Foot spas. Complete virtualcircuits for all muscle groups. Plus an indoor sitzbath where oncespa jets would make you feel frisky fed directly by a simulatedthermal and radioactive spring. Water’s all gone now and withoutelectricity this place’s worthless, but it’s all pretty redundant anyhow.

260 | THE A-MENNow outside in the big wide world there’s plenty of ways to keepfit that require none of the trial and tedium of this place. Plus,without an inexhaustible supply of fat and sugar, there’s more needto conserve yourself rather than over expending what little energiesyou have.Lower down are the change rooms. Steam areas. Health bar. Lootthe stores for Dynabars and cans of honey Coke, then meet up withEsther in the shower and ablutions block. Lowest level. All white tiledand smelling of chlorine and jocks.“No pool,” she mutters as she checks behind every cubicle door.“Seems odd in a place that’s got everything else.”“Must be a space issue,” I guess, watching her. Standing in thelocker room, just watching. The way she flips from door to door.Angling the muzzle. Checking all the corners. In the beam of hertorch I can see a poster. Filled with smiling happy faces. A sense ofhealthiness prevails. Words reinforce the message. Pointing out thatthis sterile underground facility is a peaceful, yet energising retreatfor the mind, body and spirit. That drones and their guests can pumpout the stress of cubicle life, bathe in quasi-luxury, and in so doing,live for the moment.“It’s all hogwash,” Esther says as she passes. “Just another corporatebullshit way of buying people.”Yeah, I get it. Not content with making it impossible to ownproperty without major financial backing or a private legacy income,corp workers were guaranteed housing and all the mod cons underthe dark umbrella of corporation employment. Working for Exxo orAmtech or Osakimo was the only way most people could actuallykeep from the gutter. S’why current events impacted so badly.Down at the end of the corridor of shower rooms, Midnightstops by the plunge pool set beside the doors leading off to the bathhouse and saunas. Lowers her auto and starts fiddling with this greatfaucet in the wall.“What’s up?” I ask, starting down toward her.“Just seeing if there’s any flow down here,” she answers, not looking

THE A-MEN | 261up. “Maybe a head of water… Anything.” Turning the tap she letsout a spluttering gush that soon gurgles then stops.Her sternness upsets, so I glance away. Above her head, just overthe archway off to the steam house, there’s a sign.“Douce obligataire,” I read. “Know what that says?”“Something like ‘Please shower before entering’.”“Personally I always shower after entering.” I slur. Suddenly a littlewoozy from the morning’s pick-me-up.“I wish you wouldn’t take drugs,” she says, walking off.“Hey, everybody’s addicted to something,” I call after her as shegoes.The saunas and steam rooms are a no-go. Rubble blocks the wayahead. Roof’s collapsed and the dust’s been dampened by a millionlitres of water from above. Looks like we’ve found out why the tanksare empty. The black woman regards the wreckage, then turns back.“Right, that’s it. This area’s secured. Let’s head–”She stops, listening. Her head cocked to one side. At first I thinkshe’s heard something back behind us, which gets me edgy. But thenI hear it too. And feel it. Coming up like a shiver through the concretefloor. Trembling the superstructure. Leaping from metal to stone.Through underlay to carpet through boots, skin and into my bones.Vibrations. Accompanied soon after by a distinct rumbling.“Whassat?” I ask, knowing that she can’t possibly have any moreidea than I. But excited ’cause there might be some treasures downhere after all. “Building?”“No, it’s below us.”“But what’s below us–”She shushes me, then listening again says, “Maybe it’s the metro.”“But there’s no power.”“Perhaps an emergency supply. Some self-serviced generator incase of power failure. A way to get those trapped out of the tunnels.”Seems reasonable.We descend. Searching for the source of the sound. Seeking theclosest wall to the subterranean tunnels. For here is our way out. Our

262 | THE A-MENway to run if the odds get ugly. Turns out the Phoenix was largeenough to warrant its own terminus, but that was later. Before westumbled on that little revelation, we found the Diablo.We’d been following the outer limits of the collapse for about threehours when we stumble on a missing section of corridor that linkstwo stairwells off the first of the sub-basements. Leads straight intoanother complex of rooms not accessible from the main thoroughfare.Couldn’t find the actual way in. Whole area’s been hit pretty squareon by the cave-in which makes the finding of the garage even moreincredible. It was like urban archaeology. Breaking through into a pyramidor sarcophagus or something. Splitting the seal on some inner sanctumand finding within the untouched treasures from the past.The vehicle sits like a shining black beetle amidst the dust of ages.Its perfect carapace shines in the beams of our torches. Untouchedby the destruction around it. We emerge upon a half-fallen balconyabout twelve metres above the garage floor. Opposite us, anotherbalcony juts from the brickwork while below ceiling rubble lies piledagainst a single reinforced shutter that takes up most of the far wall.Giant yellow letters announce this to be level-E carport. The onlyother feature of the garage is a workshed. Smashed flat beneathconcrete blocks that must each weigh several tonnes. That the carescaped without harm is miraculous. As is its condition. The bodywork’sspotless. There’s not even a hint of grime upon its glistening ebonysurface.“That is too unreal,” I say. My voice echoing in the great space.“Indeed,” agrees Esther. “Let’s go down and take a closer look.”Fixing grapples, we rappel down. Ready our weapons and creepslowly towards the black vehicle. Tinted windows hide the interior.Mirroring our cautious approach. Step by step by step. Here in thebowels of the Phoenix Tower we have discovered the motherlode. Ofcourse it will be practically impossible to get the car out of here, butjust right now all I want to do is slip inside and feel the comfort ofits interior.Just about then the security system tags us. Spacials sense our

THE A-MEN | 263presence and warn with a silent bleating of red cat’s eyes that rippledown the curved trim of the car. Sweeping around door frames.Whispering across the tailfin. Letting us know it’s got us on its radarand warning us away.“What’s the security rating on a thing like this?” I say as Midnightmoves toward the rear of the car.“Dunno, but it’s gonna be a big number.”Then she whistles. Stops in her tracks and lets out the sort ofsound that makes you think all her lemons have stopped in a line.Like she’s just found out she’s inherited half the Pacific coastline.“What’s up?”“Lookie here,” she says, throwing the dusty beam of her torchonto the trunk. “Do you know how old this mother is?”“Old? Looks brand spanking new to me.”“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, white boy. Way wrong. ActuallyI would say you’re about two hundred years off. At least.”Two hundred years?“You’re kidding me.”“Nope. Says here on the badge this is a Lamborghini Diablo. It’snot even a copy. Look at the quad-exhaust. This runs on gas.”“Gas?” Now I know she’s lost it. “That’s impossible. Nothing runson gas. I mean, nothing’s run on gas for…”“Yeah, I know. But this beauty does. Must belong to some superrichcorporate fat cat. Or rather, did. Now it would seem it’s ours.”“Finder’s keepers.”“Loser’s weepers.”Over-eagerly, I step forwards. Making for the driver’s door. I’mzoned instantly. Vehicle scanning me. Red warning lights swarm again,yet this time they’re accompanied by a shrieking alarm. Mega-deafloud in the confirmed carport. Clamping my ears I stumble back.Esther does too, but not for the same reasons. I’m saving my hearing.She’s already clocking the splitting of the vacuum-sealed roof section.Already aiming as the entire lift-lid swims gracefully backwards.Settling on four locating studs above the engine. Revealing the

264 | THE A-MENgoggle-eyed head of the huge black bruiser who sits in the passengerseat. Fucker’s kneeling back in the leather shotgun pointing at Esther,but easily able to flip to me any time it damn well fancies. The guyin the lambo looks huge. Like he’s maxxed out his membership tothe gym above us three times over. Hidden by the wailing din of thealarm system, he shouts something and the klaxons mute. Leavingonly the warping red of the eyes. As the roof reaches its resting positionthe internal lights rezz on, illuminating the dashboard and driver’scompartment. Throwing the muscleman’s shadow large onto thecorrugated shutter.As my hearing drifts back, Midnight says something that wasobviously intended to diffuse the situation, but the hulk’s having noneof it. While she tries again, I move slowly towards her. Trying not toupset the dude in the car too much. At least not enough so he takesa pop at us. When her assurances fall on deaf ears, I have a go.“She’s telling the truth,” I say. “We were just, y’know, moochingaround.”“Guns down,” says the lambo guy. “An’ back away from the car.”“Esther?”Dropping her auto and handgun, she says, “Just do what he says.”We both step backwards. Trying to move toward the ropes. Atthis the proximities stop flashing. Now the only light in the room’sfrom within the lambo. That and our torches. Spotlighting the wheelarches across the dusty floor.When our backs are against the wall, the muscleman slides outof the vehicle and stands up. He is wearing some kind of weird kaftan.All the colours of the rainbow.“So who yo’ fuckers?” he asks.I glance to Esther, who stares daggers at the enemy. Looks likeit might be better if she didn’t lead in the negotiations. So I wadein. It’s either that or start getting used to breathing with a puncturedlung.“I’m Jack,” seems a good opening. “And this is Esther. We’re…”“Trespassin’ on corp’rate turf.”

THE A-MEN | 265“Yeah, well, y’see… there’s a reason for that.”“Which is?”“Everyone’s gone,” Esther blurts. “Glass-Suko is gone. Exxo pulledthe plug. How can you not know this?” Her words make a wrinkledmess of the gunman’s forehead. Again I leap in quick.“Whoa, Midnight, not so fast,” I turn my attentions back to theblack guy. “Look, it’s true. The city’s vaped. All hell’s breaking looseand… yeah, how can you not know this?”Goliath’s twin barrels waver. Then he says, “We been down doin’.Lock’t away. Me tho’ was an earthquake. Rest’s dead or trapped. Deep.Real deep.”“How deep,” says Esther.“’Bout deep as yo’ can go.”“Show me.”And remarkably that’s just what the black dude does.*Descending’s like going down through the layers of the city’s history.Which I guess is exactly what we’re doing. The Phoenix Tower’scollapsed basements split the metro system about a hundred feetunderground. Busted waste pipes and conduits spill effluence and otherless identifiable liquids that seep and ooze into the earth’s core. Theterminus – North Central – is wasted. Tracks ripped up and twisted.Buckled tunnels. Everything bent out of shape. Out of all recognition.From some place way off yonder can still hear a cracklingannouncement. Haunting the further passages.As we go mr kaftan explains how to reach the others. That it’snot possible via the access routes and stairwells and instead we mustnegotiate the subterranean railway. He also gives us a first-handrunning commentary about this place and the dreaded trog kingdom.Seems the Reapers weren’t the only gang to inhabit the underearth.Dropping through split concrete we fall into the escalator park wherethe mechanisms that drive the eternal walkways are unprotected.

266 | THE A-MENCrossing the triangular tunnels, he leads us from one system and intoanother. Apparently the metro is called the 8 or the Loop mainly’cause of the shape it makes with its central route map. RunningEdge, Adams-Morgan, Mission, Lakeview, Telegraph Hill, City Park,Broadmoor. Crossing at Central. Not surprisingly. See that thetrunkways have already been damaged. That the rails are filled withall kinds of garbage blown from the streets above.Apparently city government trembled at the thought of thepossibility of revolution from below. But it could never get the corpsto put its security on the agenda. Too damn expensive for too damnlittle show through. Large investments and special staff were just notavailable in otherwise bottomless coffers. All the time suits and cityfolk were reporting sightings of groups of people dressed in old armyuniforms. Hooded, rat-haired figures rising up through shop basementsfor looting. Groups of children or midgets were said to lair in a tunnelunder the stock exchange ventilation shafts. Not until the collapsedid anyone take these sightings seriously. Workers on the new AlcovaHeights tertiary loop reported detachments of leather-clad men onscooters in the lower electric conduits. Marshals were deployed, butafter some scattered shots and an abortive chase, all of them escaped.Upon investigation they confirmed signs of fresh digging, of humanskulls and evidence of a criminal den built in a tunnel leading to anunderground river. Inside the den was a waste pipe down which theunknown cutthroats tipped the corpses of those they had robbed andmurdered. This incident called for the installation of a monitoringsystem, but upon inspection of the vastness of the undergroundpassageways, chambers of torture, hundred or so subterranean riverbeds,brick-lined funnels, drains, sewers, venting shafts and all the rest, theproject was abandoned as being impossible.“Them diggers that was given the job o’ tryin’ ta map these placessaw lotsa strange mambo,” our guide continues as we skate aroundthe edge of a slime-filled basin. “Some says they foun’ a second metroring built when war was on da cards, but never used. Rumours gothat they foun’ deserted laboratories, bunkers done out like cathedral

THE A-MEN | 267churches and other darker things. There’s more to this place thanrapid mass transit, that for sure.”Trudging through the debris of the underside of the city, I canvouch for that. S’easy to conjure up images of hardhats down herefreaking at their own shadows. Imagine what they’d do if they cameacross a bunch of Grims out for an afternoon bike ride? On oursojourn we hear, see and find nothing though. One minute we’reshuffling through thick mud crouched double. The next we’rescampering like rats up an aluminum vent the size of a blast cannon.Baseeq explains how it took him days to locate the way through, andI can see why. This place’s a maze. A dark and terrible labyrinth.And then, like we’re part of some industrial magic trick, weturn and emerge into the heart of the machine. Rising into agargantuan circular chamber. Packed with gantries, wires, greatgenerators fallen and split like eggshells. Stepping up through thesundered floor, the weight of the construction fills me with dread.Dread and a sudden mind picture of a vast unblinking eye. Movingso that Esther can clamber up beside me, I turn and there it is. Theblack pupil staring back. Lifeless because its host is dead. The whale’shead half crushed by fallen metal ladders, but where the rest of thebig fish is I have no idea. Hear the black woman’s sharp intake ofshocked breath. Hear her ask the exact same question as is on mylips.“What is this thing?”“Magnificent, ain’t it?” says Baseeq. “Still, I’m sure Dr Glass wouldhave preferred something smaller.”“Dr Glass?” I question. At once recognising the name. The office.The whole shebang.“Yeah, he was in charge of all this,” replies Baseeq.I look at Midnight, but her look back says drop it.“But what is it?” Esther asks again.“The god machine,” our guide replies without a hint of irony.Or smile.After the initial wow has worn off, my fear of machines kicks in.

268 | THE A-MENI want to be so far away from this highrise mechanical hell that it’sall I can do not to scream. Yet déjà-vu holds me. Haunted, I can’ttear my eyes away. My memories of viruses and the crushing closenessof the eye of the fish. This can be no coincidence. View of the feedlinks me somehow with this project. Backtrack why I’m here, howI came to wind up in the bowels of this mind-fucking machine. Itwas the lambo, the gym, the crash, the ship. No, it was the book. Iwas looking for the writer of the book. He worked here. The Tower.Something creeping up my spine says it’s a little more cute than that.He worked here.“Where are the others?” I ask, a little too loud in the echoingvault.“This way.”The muscle jock stows his shotgun and starts climbing the rungsof the nearest ladder. Going up and up and up. Rising out of thedripping wetness of the chamber. Up towards the latticed walkwaysabove. Doesn’t stop until we’re on the highest level. Ceiling’s a messof broken bits of metal and machinery. Rubble covers every surface.Piled against the outer gantries. Securing all ways off this level.Blackened windows can be seen between the boulders, but little else.Dead centre of the machine lies the weirdest sight. That of a blackhairedman drowned in a vat of slime. His body pierced with a hundredtubes. The other vats are destroyed, their contents gone. Miraculouslythis one’s intact. Then I see that the guy’s alive. He’s still moving.Twitching and coiling in the see-through soup.“Is this a medical facility?” Midnight asks. She’s unconvinced, butcan’t hazard a guess at anything more plausible.Our guide shakes his head. “Yo’ way off, missy. This is somethin’else.”Bark-bark-bark.We all jump at the sound off the mutt’s yapping. Leftfield. Filteredby fifty tonnes of rubble. But this is as nothing to how we jitter atthe sound of the voice.“Baseeq?”

THE A-MEN | 269It comes like the word of God. Crackling out of the air aboveus. Ruptured speakers making it sound tortured. Twisted.“Dr Glass, I’m here with help,” the black man replies.“Who are they?” the disembodied thing questions.“Jus’ two kooks I found in the carport. They say the city’s beenpulped.”“Are they there? Let me speak to them.”“Dr Glass,” says Esther in her most polished of military tones. “Iam Sergeant Rose of the New Consortium State’s vanguard peacekeeping force, Emergency Unit Six. My men…”I cut her off, mid-pomp.“Look, professor, Exxo’s pulled out and the city’s trashed. We weresent in to contain the mess, but that’s all finished now. Everybody’sgone and those that’s left are busy surviving. Gangs rule now andthat’s the way we’re going, too. So we’re not army anymore. Nowwe’re the A-Men. So if…”“What did you say?”Voice’s booming, like I called his mother a fucking cuntwipe orsomething.“I said, we’re our own force now. We’re not attached to the armyor nothing…”“No, your name. What is your name?”“The A-Men.”From the ripped and ruined rafters there is silence. That and alittle static. We all stand around scratching ourselves, waiting for thevoice to resume. When it doesn’t Midnight gets fidgety and triestaking control again.“Dr Glass, the city is under code orange. I have no idea why youwere not evacuated and quite frankly I couldn’t give a flying fuck.But my men will give any assistance that you require…”“And who did you say you were, my dear?”“I told you, I’m…”I’m in there before she has a chance at any more nonsense. “She’sMidnight and I’m The Nowhereman. Now do you want saving or not?”

270 | THE A-MENThe invisible professor muses on this. Chewing the fat of whatwe just said. Perhaps knowing something. Recognising the names.This Glass, this building, the book… it’s all linked somehow.Then he replies: “You are standing in the main chamber. Thereare two hatchways. Baseeq can point them out. When the systemwent down, the doorlocks autosecured. Double failsafed. I am trappedin the control room to your right. Rycharde and Jana are in theoperations room to the left.”We look where his henchman indicates, but it don’t take a geniusto see that operations is a landfill. No way anyone is gonna be aliveunder that mess of rock and masonry.“They’re gone,” I say to the falling skies.“Gone?” the voice replies.“Crushed.”“What, all of them?”Baseeq croaks out that someone called Lloyd is alive in the slime,and they can hear the lab dog’s barking, but that’s about it.Above us the air is filled with a long sigh.“Then it looks as if I could use help with a little digging.”Midnight at once springs into motion. Eager for action. Steppingup to the tank she runs her hands over the dusty sides, searching forsomething. Leaving me and Baseeq to check the control room door.“Where are the controls to recover this guy?” she asks as we pickthrough the ruins.“Thomas? Don’t touch him!” warns the disembodied Glass. “He’sconnected to the system. I am still monitoring him and he’s fine. Tomanual abort will fry his brain.”“So you want us to just leave him… floating.”“Yes, I… I have everything under control.”Look around me. At the mangled chaos of machinery. Yeah, DrGlass, I’m thinking you’ve just about got things covered. You prick.Under her breath, Esther mutters, “What is this thing?” again.Clear as a bell in the echoing chamber.Joining us, she oversees our progress, which is shit. Each of these

THE A-MEN | 271rocks would stop a train. And there’s about twenty five to get through.No two ways about it, we need help. Able bodies and very bighammers.“Baseeq,” she hisses in her best military yap, “we are going toreturn to our HQ and figure out how to get through this. Are youOK to stay here?”I look across at the muscleman and find he’s distracted by thetanks. Looking straight at the zeeb hanging in the soup. Eyes wideand white. He fears this fucking contraption too. Bad juju all round.“I’s not stayin’,” he rumbles. “Not here. Meet me at the Diablo.”Esther nods, then we go. Descending down the dripping ladders.Passing the mutilated whale head. Returning back through the blastedwreck of tunnels, sewers, metro commuter tubes and out into theAtlantis.On the trek back, Midnight’s quieter than a glossophobic mousewith a sewn-up mouth. Says nothing. But by the way her forehead’sgrinding she’s thinking about a whole lot. I leave her be. Last fewdays have been a strain enough on her already. And now this. Westumble upon what must obviously be an illegal experiment by someDoctor Frankenstein and his shotgun-wielding henchman – neitherof whom seems to know there’s a war on – and are given the jobof shifting a zillion tonnes of rubble to release the psycho from hissubterranean tomb. Great work if you can get it. But apart from acouple of ‘ave marias’ and a bit of muttering, Esther stays schtumuntil we’re well out of the netherworld and back to the basement. Iguess she may feel responsible. After all we did crash land into thebuilding and cause the collapse. But hey, shit happens. Not really ourfault. After all we were hit by a ground-to-air and were spiralling outof control. OK, I did over-egg the pudding by picking the landingpad, but as Midnight said, Logan was about as good an approach stripas we were likely to find. So, that’s me off the hook.And I really, really want to talk to this Dr Glass sucker. He holdsthe key to quite a few Pandora’s boxes in my turbulent tale. He’s thelink with the book and that’s good enough for starters. So I do nothing

272 | THE A-MENto dissuade Esther from her guilt-trip. Works out fine for me and finefor her. Now all we have to do is work it out fine for the others.The rules and regs of the A-Men say nothing about hard manualgraft or community service. Soon my forehead’s grinding too, tryingto suss a motivating force for the pissheads back home. Turns out Ishould have saved myself the angst. For when we get back to base,we find there’s plenty more shit to sort out first.*We get to within thirty metres when the concrete thins enough tohear Doc’s hollering. Coming through the ducting. One minute we’reslugging our way over buckled water pipes, the next Grisholm’s voice’sstuttering through the air. Screaming for attention. It gets ours in aninstant. Slapping her auto into her hands, Midnight’s locked and readyto roll even before we get into real earshot. Then he spiels out thewhole caboodle. General upshot: the Grim Reapers tee em have sniffedout our hidey hole. And they ain’t come knocking for trick or treat.“Damn not having any comms,” Esther spits, then up the serviceshaft: “Hold the fort, Doc. We’re about a hundred metres away andclosing. Secure the perimeter and keep all gun fire to a minimum.We’re coming as fast as we can.”We start running. Clambering over the conduits. Emerging intothe corporate gym and racing up immobile moving stairways andinto the crawlspace we call home. Place’s deserted. Checking in,Grisholm leads us topside. Into the main lobby. We arrive to a grislysight. The other two MIAs are all secured behind a row of filingcabinets, strung with razor wire. Effectively cordoning off the centralstairwell down to headquarters. Between them and the entrance doorslies the minefield. Torques placed visibly over the hush-sensitive slidersinto the monochrome reception area. Even the towering ferns andup-themselves art is shaded in grey. Ashen like the acres of charcoaltwill. Inset with a circuitboard maze that’s cleverly mirrored in theother five surfaces. Walls and ceiling. It’s impressive. The only colours

THE A-MEN | 273the red on orange logo of the Glass-Suko corporation. Itself a twistof calligraphy. A puzzle.Outside in the scorched streets the black robed bikers prowl.Gunning their engines. Circling the concrete steps and an abandonedbuggy. Some kinda sand car. Dumped right in the middle of themayhem. All narrow fenders, grab rails and bitch bars. Tires burningrubber on the faux granite entry ramp. Wide enough to ride a dozenhorses side by side into the foyer. That or five limos. If you took offthe fins and wing mirrors. Caught in the confined square, the roarof machines is awesome. Amplified by the surrounding metal andglass and brick. Deafening outside. Just bearable inside. The thicknessof the tinted panes protecting us. But not for long. Already the windowssport dozens of impact wounds. Fractured, splintered bullet marks.Sprayed across the scene. Between us and them. The Reapers knowwhere we are, but are biding their time. There is after all no rush.They have all day. Have all night too if they want it. They hold mostif not all of the cards. We have the mines, but they have the numbers.Few suicide strikes and we’d be fresh out of options. Other thangoing below and waiting in our bedrolls to be slaughtered. The crazyfoul-mouthed apostles of all things dark and gothic have definitelygot the upper hand. Still, no sign of their four-armed führer. Thankshit for small mercies.Flexing my hands in their fingerless gloves, I pull out my dancerand prime it. Feeling the end is very near. Yet Esther has other plans.Other ideas.“Where’d they come from?” she asks Grisholm.“Up Logan. Like a swarm.”“How long?”“Been out there about an hour.”“Good. Means we might have some time.”“They’re waiting for something?” I ask.“Sure looks that way. So what brought them here? Why now?”Doc points off towards a crowd of cubic seating. All plush leathercouches and deep armchair blocks. There’s four of them. First’s an

274 | THE A-MENolder guy, maybe touching forty, called Harris. Dark hair, long andwith the kinda shades that only geeks wear. Greatcoat and camos.Typical zoner stuff. Deck slung over one shoulder, patched in andcurrently hugged to his chest. Next to him’s this semi-suit. Jacobs.Smart but no corp. Maybe some independent company man. Packand shotgun says he’s more. Short hair, ponytail and dirty as a rat.Last’s two younger kids called Jamie and Timmy. Scruffy brats withskater tags. Armed with enough knives to stock five kitchenettes. Brightblond. Both of ’em. Eyes like buttons. Face’s unfamiliar, but they’restriking all the right notes with me. Me and my finely choppedthoughts. Pangs of undeniable empathy flooding all channels. Paternal.Paternal. Paternal. Twisting uncontrollably out of the dark. My son.My tortured dying son. All look like they’ve been roughing it for afew days. Hauling duffels full of preciousness. Slowly offloaded as theygo. Look like they’re on the run and wound up here. Which is exactlythe story Grisholm tells.“They must’ve come in that geo,” Doc muses. “Then circ’ed thetorques and made the lobby. Biggs was on watch and saw them coming.Disengaged the doors and let them in.”Midnight’s on that like a mad dog. “That was a stupid call openingthe doors.”“Look, they were trapped in the no man’s land between therazorwire and the mines. The bikers were right behind them…”Still Esther won’t let it go. “You compromised our position.”“Hey, back off,” I say, double quick, stamping my silver spurredboots. “It’s only two civs and a couple of kids.”“A breach is a breach, Jack. We can’t throw down the welcomemat every time someone shows up at the door–”“Stow it, you two,” Grisholm snarls. “It’s done, so let’s deal withit.”So Esther deals with it. In her own unique and inimitable way.Starts shouting orders to the cunts behind the chairs. Yelling schematics.Office layouts. Giving them a path through the backrooms, upstairsand then down to the basement. The geeks take it where they’re

THE A-MEN | 275lying, then go. Fleeing as if the devil was riding ’em ragged. WhichI guess she is.Then Esther turns her attentions on us.“Whatever those bastards are waiting for, they’ll soon be crawlingall over us. And we have to be ready. That means spike boards, H toA wires and neck breakers. Biggs, you and Grainger start ripping updesks. I need about thirty planks. About so wide. Doc, start collectingconduit wiring. As much as you can rip out the skirting ducts. Jack,you and I are gonna start making the mountings.”And so we do. Within forty-five minutes we have every doorjamb laid with the broken up backs of desk laminate, spiked withfive centimetre nails shot through the back with the niftiest gun I’veever seen. Stolen straight from the maintenance locker on themezzanine. Pounds them in quicker than fuck. H to A frames areharder to make, but sealing off the fire doors on all incoming corridorsis a must. Anywhere where the bikers would get up enough speedto throttle down. Trick is to get two lengths of lumber, about half ametre each. These are placed either side of the swing doors. Lowerend’s tacked loosely to the wall. Upper end’s pointing slightly upcorridor. Between is tied a thread of razor wire. Cored out andseparated from its brothers. This forms the H. When a speeding bikeslams, the wire snaps taut. Forms the A. Mangles and squeezes, doingneither machine and rider any good at all.When the four no hopers join us, they’re placed on neck breakerduty. Punching out flooring squares, lifting access panels and relayingcarpet. The newcomers try to be helpful, show their gratitude andingratiate themselves, but no one pays them much notice. Not untilwe’re all done with chores and have rendezvoused in the centralstairwell. Starting our wait out until zero hour. Until the Grims cometo pick us off. To do what it says on their tin.Then I sit with the newbies and swear them into the gang. S’eitherthat I tell ’em or we dump their asses outside in the piranha tank.Harris, the older one with the deck, spills their story. Such as it is.How they were beaching it in their sand buggy when the army arrived.

276 | THE A-MENHow they lost their nearest and dearest in the preceding looting. Howthe cruisers had left with most of the rest of the people they knew.How they’ve been trying to find a place to hole up and stumbledupon the Reapers’ street party and were chased all night until theyfound Logan. Reporting how the bikers have barbed off all the accessroads out of the area.Netting the world out.And us in.How they were funnelled down into the killing jar that is thePhoenix Tower.“Well, that kinda explains why the Grims have laid off until now,”Biggs says once they’ve finished.“Securing their turf,” Mordeci adds.“Containment before the kill,” Midnight finishes. “The freaks havebeen busy.”Turn to the noobs thinking that if they’re staying, we should swearthem in. Taking out the book, I get them to kneel before me andinitiate. Flick through for names. Jarl-class their palms and watch thembleed upon the pages. Help ’em choose their handles from the wordsand notes and pictures.Karl Harris the technonerd goes for Exor. Ripped from a sectionof coding scribbled in the Pure White and Pure Red story. E:nodeparameters. XOR gates. XAND operators. Spilling over onto the nextthree pages. Edward Jacobs becomes Edward of Phlegethon becomesEddie Phlegm. Liking the combination of river of Hades and mucousmembrane. Shitehawk and Mizhog are the last of our new gangmembers. Twelve-year-old Timmy Clarke and nine-year-old JamieCrowe becoming the namesakes of two of the strange anthropomorphiccreatures of Sleepybubbyeland alongside other such animals as thelummox, the mah seal and the apeth. This done, we five are nine.Which is just as well for it’s round about then that the Grims decideto punch through the perimeter and waste our sorry hides.“Lookout! Lookout!” calls Biggs down the elevator shaft.“Blackwing’s sighted. All hands. All hands.”

THE A-MEN | 277As one, we race to the forward watch on fifth. Stand on thefrosted observation balcony overlooking the plaza and see the arrivalof the heavies. They come in trucks, in armoured buses and fourways.Each camo-sprayed and bolted with extra metal. Glass rippedfrom every window. Replaced by mesh and iron and tattered curtains.The boss himself rides in a hearse convertible. Its ebony paintjobaugmented by stains that look like red paint but are probably freshslaughter. Great twisted horns have been strapped or welded to therad. The top down. The velvet and walnut interior strewn with fakeflowers. Inside sit Blackwing’s muscle. Five bearded bruisers in whosehands shotguns look like batons. And the main man stands astridethe backboard. Shrieking at his troops. Rallying. Inciting to violence.As he passes, bottles and guns and blades are raised. Hooded facesturned towards him. Dirt-stained dark.Stopping at the base of the entry ramp, Blackwing becomes theshowman, the ringmaster for the feral circus of his men. Flipping tohis neck mic. Speakers blasting his every breath into broadcast.“Reapers! Bikers! Howlin’ wolves! Long have we lived in thiscity’s garbage, its sewage and its filth, but now the day is at handwhen we have risen from the underworld and have taken back thestreets from those that exiled us. No more will we dwell in darkness.Now we are the masters.” Cheers at this. A raucous swell of druggedand drunken voices. Guns popping. Screams. “Here is the hour toparty, but first we must secure our territories, before those around usmake their claim. North Central will be ours. It is our manifest destiny.”The bald Reaper laughs at this as if it’s some kind of joke. Throwinghis four arms in the air. Beneath his cassock he’s wearing orangeleather pants and a sheer gold satin t-shirt. Incongruous against theocean of blackness. Unexpected colour. “We have Bartlow, we haveUniquest. Now we will claim the Phoenix.” Power-mad party risesonce more. “When I was in that detention block, when I was beinglectured and caned and whipped into shape, the warden had apersonalised organisational value plaque. And that plaque said: ‘Thenail that sticks out gets hammered in.’ Now it’s our turn to wield the

278 | THE A-MENhammer. Our turn to define who’s a nail. Find those war junkies andmachine gun them into the ground!”Pep talk over, there’s an eruption of voices. The black and whitesea of bikers surging into action. An unwashed wave that gathers andapproaches under thundering clouds. It’s nine against nine hundred.A brutal writhing band of blood-hungry gang members against ahandful of ex-cons, ex-armymen and ex-joyboys from the beach.The wizard is the first to voice the unconscious collective of ourthoughts.“This is suicide. Let’s split.”“No.”“No!”I surprise myself by being the first negative. Esther surprises meby being the emphatic second. I shrug an after-you kinda shrug, andgive her the floor.“If we run now, where will we go? What have we achieved? Imay not want to be here, but I definitely don’t want to be out there.”She nods towards the crowds below. Forming a motorbike wake totheir leader’s morguemobile. “We have defences here. This is our place.Their numbers can be used against them. Out there we would bedestroyed. If not by the Grims then by any of the other groups ofsavages that are taking advantage of the lawlessness and the looting.”Of course, I have other reasons why I don’t want to skedaddleout of this block. Though she’s right, the oncoming pack of bayinghounds is gonna be a tough nut to crack. But Biggs is way ahead ofme on that one.“So how’d’ya suggest we beat them?”“We don’t.” Midnight licks her lips, running her pink tonguearound and around. Sizing up the opposition. Drags both palms acrossher shaved scalp and begins to control her breathing. “All we needto do is keep them out and stay alive.”“Oh, is that all?” smirks the doc.“This is crazy,” says Biggs, turning his back on the boiling view.Down below, Blackwing’s hearse screeches to a halt at the top of

THE A-MEN | 279the ramp. Slamming into the sand buggy. Throwing it into the nearestwall. Behind him a hundred motorcycles growl. The footsoldiers’ chantssexual in their power. Then the Grim’s leader hefts the launcher uponto his shoulder and fires. Turning the office front below us into amess of flames and glass. Tripping every torque. One by one by one.“Grim Reapers!” he screams as the flames rumble. “Sniff themout. Beat them with spiked collars. Break their fingers with wrenches.Render them roadkill and make stew from their worthless coyotebones!”Froth-mouthed, his riders swarm. Passing around the vehicle likea stampede. Riding into the lobby minefield at full tilt. Their warcriesturning to shrieks of death as they plough into the killing zone ofthe carpeted welcome lounge.“A-Men, let’s go!” I yell. “Keep things simple. Don’t be heroes.We want to take out as many as we can. We want to lose no one.Use the stairwells. Keep out of the open offices. Apart from that, stayalive.”“Rendezvous point is this balcony,” adds Esther, her eyes ragingto be gone. “That way we can always abseil out of here. May theLord protect your worthless asses.”“Amen,” comes the chorus of replies.Checking over my equipment, I wince at my scant bag of bullets.At the scattered grenades at my belt. Then, after taking one morelook down at Blackwing, I leave with the others.Trotting along together we all split when we get to the east stairway.Hold open the fire doors as Shitehawk and Exor and all the othershurry past. Midnight is last to go through, and as she does so I askif she’s cool. Her answer is a little off what I was expecting.“I was taught by the army to kill. I was taught by the church tolove. To try to practice endurance, kindness, to cultivate joy of heart.But how can both be done in this mad modern world?”“My book says there’s always a happy ever after.”“Well, that’s where we differ. Mine don’t. Says at the end we’reall gonna get judged and the world is gonna go down. Bit like today,

280 | THE A-MENonly worse. These riots are as nothing when compared to theApocalypse.”“How d’ya plan to keep the Phoenix?” I ask just to ward herfrom her revelations.“Only one way far as I see it. We need power.”“Power for what?”“For a spot of home cookin’.”“But the grid’s out. There’s nothing in the pipes.”“Nope, but we both know where there is.”“Do we?”But then I have it. Glass’ generators souping the system. Most ofthem have busted in half, but there’s enough juice in each of thoseto run a small town. Esther sees me realise. Then she’s slammingherself down the stairs. Heading for the basement before the Grimscut her off from the gym entrance.I stand next to the L5 sign and watch her go. Clattering bootsagainst the hard metal edges of the steps. Check over my weapons.Shoulder my D&K. Unsling my dancer.Then follow her into the half light of the stairwell.*The bullets made them cry. The switchblade made them smile. Thesplinter torque turns their faces into curtains of skin and blood. Soonall the grenades are gone forever. Later the dancer bleats its last sprayof lead. I am left with my handgun and my knife. And a bag filledwith spike boards to foil pursuit. The tactics for the next hour aresimple. I dodge around floors three and four, using the access panelsand corridors to lure crazed bikers down deadends and into boobytraps. Taking them out one at a time. Below me I hear the othersdoing the same. Few yells of victory. Few cries of pain. When I seemore than three together I hide. Let them pass and try to pick themoff, one by one. For a while I get a bike. Torn from the death gripof this evil-smelling rat of a man. Cycle’s rusted and black with grease.

THE A-MEN | 281Grease and painted weird shit. Mystic spirals. Arcane circles. Also thisneat semi-auto mounted cannon. Poking out of the windshield. That’swhen I take out the most of the fuckers. Lay in wait in faucet closets.Let a few gun by, then waste the sorry sacks. Like the feel of thebike. The way it moves. Too good at manoeuvring not to guess thatI’ve ridden before. Have memories of distant trips around a great ringof track with the planet below. Liking the way when you ride peoplecheck you out. How that’s what it’s all about. Rubberneckers. Whatall life’s about. Ourselves seen through the eyes of others. Wonder alittle about when we develop this trait. How kids are born so veryunaware of what they look like. Able to do and be anything. Howlater we lose this and begin to become what others want us to be.Then I wonder why this is important, but the short spaces betweengun battles make deep thought impossible. Eventually the bike picksup a near direct spray from a wild-haired freak with an Evans andStanley. Nearly lose a leg too. Lucky to get away with just a rippedshin and carpet burns. And it’s when I’m escaping from this dudethat I run into Mizhog. Blond kid skulks atop a file server case, justto the right of the main office complex on fourth. Got blood sprayedup his skinnies. Making his t-vest into a sumi. I high-five him as hejumps down.“What’s your count?” I ask, checking the corridors.“I… I dunno, mister.”“Just call me Jack.”“I think it might be ten. Maybe more.”“Ten’s good enough.”“I ain’t never fired a gun at a living person before,” he confesses.“Just dead people?”We laugh at that and I reach down and mess his hair.And that’s when the black vampire flies. Reaper. Hiding behindthe raid units. Must’ve been crawling up for ever. In the creep’s fistsare twin .45s. Blasting like volcanoes. Bright and boiling volcanoes.Kid takes a shot and spins. Server box gets the other one. Sprayingplastic and molten cabling. I’m down in one. Rolling on my back.

282 | THE A-MENAnd as the coat-winged bastard goes over me, I plug him with pellets.One. Two. Three. Opening him up. Chest. Belt. Calf-skin boots.Then it’s all over.The fucker lands like a brick while the kid paints the wall.Gibbering in shock.I stop rolling and spit the gore from my lips.Take that, you knob-wanking, old git-fuck.Then the power goes on. Throwing the world into stark relief.Yet by this time the warring is already ended.

31 DäalessandroThe code is infected.When I so recently acquired the K/OS key code, when I finallyplaced my hands on the last piece that would make all this vast,beautiful and wondrous universe real, it had been corrupted, sullied,tainted at a molecular level. And since the collapse of the laboratory,the near destruction of the god machine, since the voice calling himselfThe Nowhereman visited my subterranean prison, I can only watchas my creation – all that I have lived, and planned and breathed theselast years – slowly unravels before me. So I monitor the simulation.Sub-checking, for there is scant little else to do. That or listen to theterrible aching rumble of my stomach. Instead, I rig a recycle bin asa water barrel and spigget a pipe that I think is mains supply andpray’s not sewage. Then I concentrate on Thomas’ progress.The penultimate living member of the X-Isle team is not doingwell.His intrusion into the Amen’s world has provoked intense intereston the part of the omniscient beings of the simulation. Bêz is themost fascinated and, being the trickster god, that is the least surprisingaspect of what transpires. The psychist began with the usual lineardevelopment objects, navigating the gardens and collecting the variousitems to allow access to the service elevator. His problems beganwhen he reached the lip of the extinct volcano and approached thehaunted house. This edifice was designed to be the setting for theclimactic part of the X-Isle experience, an American Gothic mansionfilled with cobwebs and shadows lifted from the collective unconscious

284 | THE A-MENof generations of horror entertainment. Yet while Bêz was edited tobe engaging, playful with the occasional spate of badness, his personalityhas shifted into darker shades. When Thomas met him on the ashentrack, his speech matrix borders on the obstinate. At Thomas’ requestto return to the Room Without Doors, the grinning godling repudiatesthe question, and instead dismisses the psychist in what can only berecorded as unsubtle and visually impressive. I scream to intervene,but already the Amen has locked out the abort, input and interruptmodules, making it impossible for me to communicate or end sessionor anything except observe.And what I witness is the herding of Lloyd into the killing jarof the house.For that is where he’ll meet the Little Old Lady.Programmed as everyone’s favourite grandmother with largealmond eyes and big rosy cheeks, the Little Old Lady is thehousekeeper and only resident of the mansion. Yet what unlocks thedoor to the psychist’s persistent hammering is instead a pasty-faced,ravenous bloodsucker, recognisable only due to her little round pairof pince-nez. Here Thomas’ luck ends. For when the octogenariansinks her talons into his forearm then goes for the jugular, he findshimself unable to retreat back to the elevator and freedom. His onlyescape forcing him deeper into the mansion.Bleep.Wincing I look down at the left console where an internalinterrupt gleams.>Thomas Bryce Lloyd: Request system verification.I look at the scant words and can offer nothing.“I’m sorry,” I answer, just to say something, “I’m just a plain oldcircus humbug.”“Yo’ more than that,” says the fixer’s voice over the comlink.Damnation, I forgot I was still on broadcast.“Sorry, Baseeq, I was–”“Yo’ is a dark god, Nathaniel. Your father was one, mr Suko-sanwas one, and now you is one too. I’m watchin’ mr Lloyd here and I

THE A-MEN | 285can see’s he in a whole buncha trouble. I don’t have to be in thereto know that.”“I assure you–”“Yo’ assure all you wan’. Mr Lloyd’s not gonna make mornin’.This machine’s gonna kill him and then it’s gonna kill everybody it’stouchin’. That’s the time it’s gonna kill us too.”The fixer’s voice is haunted, filling the air in the cramped controlroom with its uncooked superstition. Just like my father and the boardand all the other technophobic renegades that have frowned on allprogress through the whole of history.“That’s nonsense,” I reply to my unseen fixer. “What would youhave me do? Shut it down? That’ll kill him as surely as switching offhis mind.”“Don’t matter no-how. He dead already. Best you can do is keepthe total to one. Destroy to save. That’s God’s message to the world.A message the world has long forgotten.”“I thought when my father hired you, you’d said goodbye to allthat nonsense.”“I’d destroy it right here an’ now if I could, Nathaniel, but I can’t.We both know that. Both know I gotta be in there. With the crystals.”He’s right. I’ve taught him too well. All previous replications arekept in the central core just off the control room. Signed in andsealed. He could do any damage he wanted out there, but with asingle crystal the whole universe could be back online just as soonas the hardware was reconstructed.“Let’s make a deal,” I say, more to keep him calm than becauseI am relenting. “If this should go the way you predict, then I giveyou my word that I will techwipe every last replication withouthesitation.”The ether muses this for a moment, then says, “An’ what if yo’not able?”“Then, I’ll give you the signal and you can do it.”“What signal?”“Out Of Time.”

286 | THE A-MENThat makes the fixer laugh, it’s poignancy not lost on him. Afterall it is the title of his only roxter track. His snatch of fame in thecharts.“Don’ deal,” he says once he’s able to speak.“Good, now go check on the Diablo and report back about theA-Men.”“I’m goin’, but aren’t you gonna tell that boy jus’ who he is?”“In time, Baseeq. In time.”First I have to find out why he’s returned and what he’s playingat. And also run some diagnostics on the code to track down thesource and modus operandum of the infection. Because if the virusgoes back too far in the hierarchy then the world is going to be ina million times more trouble than he comprehends.

32 PureI’m reborn with a mind that’s a crazy retro cabaret. Hangover drumsolo is on. As is this tinnitus whistle melody. Feel like I’m an animalat the vet. Knowing something really odd is up. Struggling to escape.I’m in an apartment painted by the blind. Its rainbow swirl ofcolours matched in gaudiness only by the shining of polished woodand glass. A multitude of cut glass figurines set in mirrored cases. It’sthe kind of expensive that looks cheap. The kind that makes youthink of casinos and people who put money before taste.Then I see shoes. Hundreds of pairs of shoes. Scattering from thedepths of a sparkling cave set in a wall of blooded damask. Brieflysoaring they bounce on or near the slab of silken sheets upon whichI sprawl. All manner of shapes. Sizes. Patterns and prints. Gaudy zebrafurred mules. Bejeweled high straps. PVC thigh-lengths with tencentimetre stilettoes.The shoes match the room. Unlike the figure that then followsthem. A scrawny redhead webbed in a mink kimono peplos dress.No straps. No back. No sense of gravity.In her strangely savage hands are held a pair of bulky slip-ons,ribbons threaded around bamboo platform soles of purest ebony.Westwood-VeeDubs. Taffeta and tires. Best guess price: month’s salarystraight off. Last time I saw shoes like that they were sticking outfrom under a house.Where am I getting all this stuff from? I never knew all thiscatwalk ephemera.I also don’t quite recognise the beauty with the shoes.

288 | THE A-MEN“Hi,” the creature breathes, raising her hard-won prizes. “Aren’tthey wonderful.”It is not a question.“Are you a man or a woman?” I ask groggily.“A woman, I think.”“A lesbian?”“No, I’m bisexual so nobody’s safe.”“You remind me of someone and I can’t think who.”“Maybe when they left in the morning they didn’t give theirname.”There is something about the flippancy level that gives her away.“Lucille?” I whisper.“Spot on. Now take these.”Man-sized hands open to reveal a fistful of pills. Red. White. Brownwith yellow tips.“What’re they?”“They’re all your addictions in one easy-to-swallow pack. Aye tozee. Don’t you remember? Your daily dose.”“Daily dose?” When I blank her she adds, “Aw, just take ’em, youcum-guzzling slut.”The pills taste bitter in my mouth, so the new-improved, twofor-oneLucille holds my mouth and nose until I’m forced to swallow.To take my mind off the taste I look back at the circus shoes inher free hand. Struck by their retro cut and design.“I didn’t know they were in fashion?” I ask as she releases me.The dusky broad takes a seat at the spotlit dressing table. Stuffingthe platforms on her oversized feet. Throwing both heels onto thecrowded vanity unit.“They are now,” she wisecracks. “Want these?”She holds up an impossibly white pair of trainers.“Nah,” I say groggily, “Air soles are for assholes.”She gives me the dubbleya sign. Three middle fingers. Thumband pinkie tucked across her palm.“Whatelse,” she says as she does it.

THE A-MEN | 289“Where am I?”“Big Mamma’s,” is the reply. “And boy, is she’s one cool mother.”“But she’s a fast-food emporium.”“Yeah, biggest on the continent. Old-Fashioned Fanny’s don’t evencome close.”“Explain.”Lucille sits herself on the bed and starts sizing more pairs againsther mammoth feet. While her mouth runs wild. And the tale she tellsis a little too much to take in all at once.When the missile hit I was toast. Explosion ripped into me badly.Tore my front half clean off. Lucille was floored by the blast butotherwise escaped pretty clean. Tried to scoop what was left of mydribbling carcass, but it just wasn’t working. Then, a miracle happened.Out of the fast food emporiums flooded at least a hundred beautypageant princesses. Came shrieking up the street and took out thecops. With ground-to-air bazookas. Then they dragged what was leftof us into the cartoon scrawled interior. Dragged us down to thisunderground food processing factory and operated. Stitched andsewed and saved. Repackaged our grisly hides and dumped me inregen. All for the deal of joining their gang. The Burger Queens.“Gross,” I whisper.“Yeah, the first part was icky,” snorts Lucille. “Like rebattering afish finger.”I have woken up in a Che Castella pulp pilot. Something freaky.Something deaky. All Cunny O’Mara and Spunky Rivers in Kiss TheBlood Off My Weapon.I sit up, griping at the pain. All around mirrors gleam in their giltframes. Festooned with lights. My reflection is missing. And in itsplace is Babs O’Neill. Straight off the cover of Eternity magazine. Onethousandth issue. Even the boobs are the same. Well, not exactly butstill too close to be anyone else’s. Hair’s a little different. Not quiteas sculpted. Not quite as burnt umber. I reach up and touch it, watchingas the girl in the looking glass does the same.I stare again into the mirror.

290 | THE A-MENI am unrecognisable.“It’s me,” I say stunned.“Yeah, it’s all you,” Lucille repeats. “Your heroine risen from thegrave. I didn’t have a shot of your face with me, so we had to improvise.The bitches had every copy of Eternity, so hey, no brainer. The faceand tits are from one thousand, but the hair is eight-six-six. Thoughtyou’d prefer to stay blonde. Keep something, y’know.”I have woken as someone else. Something else.Eyes wide, I turn and look at Lucille. Look for real. Long andhard. She’s had a lot of work too. Nips and tucks. Big improvementover the backstreet job she started with.“So who are you supposed to be?” I ask, squinting.“Vadge.”“No?”“Way yes. Isn’t it great!”Nod, but can’t really take it all in. Burger Queens? Bazookas?Babs?Still woozy, I ask, “Is there anything else you should be tellingme?”“Designer mind,” the redhead giggles.What? My face puffs in confusion. My new cheekbones ridgesof perfection.“A Chanel 2009 Designer Mind. Sorta augmentation to the mainstuff. Arkus-Vogue. Gen10. It’s fabulous.”“Fabulous?”“Try it out. Ask yourself something. Anything you didn’t know.”“What like?”“Like how many costume changes did Amber Ciccone have atthe bi-centennial Festival of Fashion at the Imperial Bowl.”“I don’t know that.”“Just ask.”Think of the question. The impossible answer. And it’s there.Twenty-three.I even know each of the designs, colour coords, print numbers,

THE A-MEN | 291pattern codes, names of cutters, fitters, cost of manufacture, cost ofupsell to the punters. Everything.Lucille sees that I know. Sees it in the look on my face.“Designer Mind,” she says again. “We’ve all got one.”“All?”“All Big Mamma’s girls.”“Girls?”“Well, you’re more than girls,” says a voice from the double doors.“You’re my kick ass angels.”I look around and see the great slab of woman entering. Herbloated body supported by a ring upon a dozen casters. Her lankhair is slick with grease. Her beady eyes lost in the folds of her blubberyface. She is everything we are not. We are everything she ever wantedto be.Behind her come two more stunners in bikinis and jackboatscarrying shotguns. Her armoured guard and trolley pushers.“Nice to see you back in the world of the living dolls,” she drools,then, to her cohorts: “Jeez… Louise… get these goddesses down tothe playpens. There’s a war on and right now I need all the foxyloxiesI can get.”

33 23rdxenturyboyPlace me and the Wonder Dog is dragg’t back to is this barricade’tbar on 16th and Oakland. It’s call’t Pigsticker’s Place after the ownerwho took care of the building, cadge’t drugs for the boys and wastheir in-house pimp. Start’t life as the kinda place you go for a shave,shit and a shower. Evolve’t into this. A block frequent’t by male hustlersfrom Westmont, burglars try’n to offload hot goods, dealers push’ngrass, junkies look’n to score, undercover narcs keep’n tabs oneverybody, water’n hole for unsuccessful cowboys from the rodeo andthe new kids in town who turn’t down the wrong alley, car thieves,second storey men. All that and more. Learn’t all of this knowledgeoff brats like me. Always brats like me round these places. Found outthese is the kinda folks who think marry’n ten cousins by age sixteenis par for the course, but one martini before suppertime makes youa pervert. Now this bar was where the city’s many undercurrentsmerge’t after nightfall. Commercial, political, sexual. Manifest’n themoment. Not that it look’t too much. To me just look’t like a boardedupand sec-perimiter’t doss house.What I did know is that we were kept on a tight leash. Start’tuse’n me for lookout and Dingo for break’n and enter’n. Taught ussome tech that we didn’t know. Took us out on jobs grab’n stuff fromvaults, secure stores, those sorta dives. Once you got to know ’emBubba and Cleatus were a couple of cool dudes. Elliott detest’t ’em,but hey, they seem’t swell. Especially Cleatus who always let me havehalf of the half he got from jobs, while the Wonder Dog got zilcho.I think it was cause he was so nasty and didn’t know noth’n about

THE A-MEN | 293not bit’n the hand that fed him. They tried to show us guns too.Found my bad aim and Dingo’s paws made gun practice a little hit’n’ miss. More miss, miss and miss. Left the kneecap’n and knucklepop’nto ’em. It made my eyes water anyway. So that’s what we didfor a while. And when we weren’t steal’n stuff, we wait’t on tables.Got right good at it, too. After the first day we didn’t hardly breaknoth’n. This whole thing sorta conflict’t with our new superheroimages, but I saw it as us bei’n essentially undercover anyhow. Y’see,they didn’t call us by our real names. Or our imaginary ones. Theyhad their own. This was ’cause when we met Pigsticker his first wordswas, ‘So who’s the company, Mutt and Jeff?’. And it kinda stuck. Likethe worse things always do.Then it came to the time we were knock’n over this Zebedee’sstore over on 36th and Fulton. We was lookout, while the otherswere inside pack’n the sacks after Dingo maxx’t out a triple-tumbler,billion combination on this securities outlet in about ten minutes.S’easy once you’d suss’t the code, he said. He can’t read or write oradd up or noth’n, but that shaggy mutt can see hexadecimal piderivatives like they’re easy words. Guess it’s his talent.So we’re piss’n on a sign that says ‘No Dumping’ when we hearthe bark’n. Hey, we might be hang’n with mean desperados, but we’restill law conscious, that’s us! Still do-gooders inside. Through andthrough. The woof’n catches Dingo’s ears same way a baby cry’ncatches a mother’s. Like chalk on a blackboard. Needle on a record.That kinda thing. Hear’n it, he’s off like a shot. Sound’s like it’s come’nfrom this steam’n hole in the sidewalk. Snap a look into the alleyway,but the guys seem to be in and sort’n the goods. Follow as the dogskates up to the iron grille and woofs back. The bark’n starts againwith renew’t vigour, so we force up the lid and start down. Fewminutes gone won’t hurt no one. I mean, who needs their lookoutsto be look’n out all the time, anyways?So we go down the dropshaft and below’s this open sewer. Canhear eerie moans off from someplace else, but we just gird our loinsand carry on. Dog’s this shaggy dirty hunk of a mutt. Cord’t coat’s

294 | THE A-MENlong and unkempt. Looks like a komondor, but he’s so grubby hecould be anyth’n. He’s trap’t behind a set of railings. Some tunnel offsomewhere deeper than deepness. Fella seems real please’t to see us.Dingo especially. Starts leap’n about and bark’n again. Like he’s aboutto be given marrowbone or someth’n. Take out my pocket flashlightand shine it at him. It’s then that I see the blood. All round his mouth.Like he’s been feed’n on people. Suck’n ’em dry. Back off a little, buthe seems so alone and frighten’t that I come back. Dingo shows hima paw and instead of gnaw’n it off, he just licks it. Real friendly. Sothe dog wonder springs the padlock and he leaps up at him. Startsdrag’n the canine down the other way. I’m caught a little offguardby this. Don’t know what to do. Elliott tells him we can’t go rightnow. That we’re on a bank job and real busy, but the dumb dog don’tunderstand.“What we gonna do?” I ask my cape’t companion.“Well, he seems mighty insistent. Like it’s really important. So wehave to go, don’t we?”“Yeah, I guess.”“Be real rude not to.”“OK.”Grab the bounce’n canine and try to stop from bei’n drag’t intothe muck. As he pulls me off, I notice someth’n attach’t to the backof his ear. Someth’n bulky like a hear’n aid or someth’n.“Whassat?” I ask Dingo.“It’s a t-com,” is the reply, then goes on to say how it’s got aserial number and connections into the dog’s brain and everyth’n.This marks him as no ordinary mutt. When I look at the tag I seethat it’s alsa got a name. Bixby. Magimarker’t on the back.“So, you’re a lab animal too,” I say to him as he hauls me along.“You two have a lot in common.”Yet at the end of the tunnels and sewers and desert’t metroswitchbacks, where he takes us is far out beyond what I was expect’n.I mean, I can’t really tell you what I was expect’n, have’n not reallythought about it a whole lot. But one thing I can say is that almost

THE A-MEN | 295come’n face-to-face with a shotgun-wield’n, kaftan-wear’n, man-giantburn’n the bodies of a dozen hood’t motorbikers in the shadow ofa vintage super sportsgeo newly spray-paint’t in camouflage greensand browns in a secret underground carport wouldn’t even have madethe top one hundred.

34 Sister MidnightOn watch. Top floor. Day after I plugged the power core back intothe Phoenix and nuked the Grim Reaper’s asses back into the gutter.Now their coiled culling pen is our electrified perimeter. WithBaseeq’s guidance we’ve also located a dozen bio trucks. Once usedfor carrying Glass-Suko’s toxic crap out into the beyond. Now usedfor patrol. Keeping the block tight. And the Reapers calm.To be honest, can’t say it was all us that sent them packing. Wassomething else. They were not defeated. They withdrew. Maybe othergangs attacking their flank. Maybe something else entirely. One thing’sfor sure, there’s more going on in this city than any of us couldpossibly imagine.Think on this as I look out over the black on black buildings.Only lights from fires. Burning like stars in the midnight. At last amoment of peace. For now.That is until the scream comes just before light.Another day. Another holler.But this one was different. Doesn’t sound like the cry of butchery.Sounds like the cry of freedom.“They’re calling this place Dead City,” says Jack from the shadows.I turn away from the parapet. Cast my eyes over the way heslouches. His darkening crop. The hideous attraction of his body.“If this city is dead, then what are we? The maggots moved into party on its decomposition.” My reply pleases him. Wanting meto succumb to his pitiful fancies. His heroic dreams. His romances.So instead I construct walls within walls. Guilt within guilt.

THE A-MEN | 297Leaving the doorway, The Nowhereman strolls out into themoonlight. His auto slung over his shoulder. Frighteningly casual.“How’s it going?” he asks.“Symptomatic of my desire to escape the squalor of everydaymegalopitan existence, I’m contemplating how to forge alternate formsof cohesion among our increasingly alienated individuals.”“Whoa, baby!” he laughs, his face a mask of creases. “Now you’reteasing me.”“Oh, save it, Jack. There’s plenty other things to do than that.”But, he’s right, I am teasing. All velvet hand in iron glove. “Ithought you liked joking around.”He takes this as some kind of a blow to his ego. Then he’s besideme. Swaying against the railings. Thumbs locked into his belt.“Yeah, I do, but I thought you understood what all this was about.”“And that is?”“To do something great.”I shudder. Aware of the dawn that is not yet come. Aware, butimpossibly out of reach.I point to his head. “Greatness is not achieved here.” Then I pointto his heart. “But here.” It’s as close as I can get. “The Amazons weresaid to cut off their right breast the better to draw their bows,” Icontinue, unable to look at him. “Almost certainly propaganda, butit did no harm to let others think it. The message is clear: ‘If we’dcut off a breast without fear, what else might we do?’”There’s another cry. Clearer this time. A definite cheer.“Whassat?” asks Jack, reeling on the rail.“Dunno, but it’s coming from the bay.”“But that’s over three kilometres–”“I know.”We wait. And by waiting we finally know. Some of it now. Someof it later.For there we see the procession from our blood-stained eyrie,when I hear the piped requiem and guns and singing, I knew.Sometimes you just do.

298 | THE A-MENI knew I could not go back, so I must go forward. And the reasonis simple; it’s about killing.I didn’t kill Jack.I did kill Sanada.Therefore I must go forward. On the rocky road. Alone.So with tears streaking my hot cheeks, I stow my weapons and,looking straight into the face of the soulless stranger, say: “I’m leaving,Jack.”The news takes the wind outta him like a two-fisted punch.“No way, Midnight! What are you talking about? You can’t leave.You just can’t!”“This is not my place, Jack. This is not my war. I can’t go backto what I had. Not unless I want my neck stretched. And I can’t stayhere, because… well, because. But out there something’s coming.Something I do believe in. And I gotta go and meet it.”The Nowhereman reels. Blubbing. Pleading. It’s impressive. Realemotion from the fucker. Here at the last. Tears squeezed from thestone. And if a reaction was what I was angling for, I get it. In spades.“No, no, you can’t go! You bled. You swore. Forever A-Men,remember.”“Forget it, I’m gone.”“No! Why did you do it all then? Why’d you stick with me. Youcould’ve run. Sneaked off in the night. Anything.”“Well, maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but something toldme you was a soul worth saving.”I surprise myself with this. Saying it catches me broadside. CatchesJack too. Wringing more from him than I thought I’d ever hear.“Look, Midnight… Esther… you can’t leave. I need you. Weall do. But most of all me. Y’see, you were the first woman I eversaw. It was like you were there when I woke up from being bornfor chrissakes. You took me through all that shit at the beginning.And you didn’t waste me even though we both thought… well,we both thought I’d done that to you. Through the riots, theshitstorm…”

THE A-MEN | 299“I don’t want to be your mother,” I say. “Can’t you see that?”“Then what? My girl. Hey, I only had my first wank yesterday.I’m not even pubescent!”More jokes. I turn back to the city. To the gathering possibilitiesof what this way comes.“You don’t need me, Jack,” I tell the black abysm of night. “Youthink you do, but you don’t.”“And it sure sounds like you don’t need me either.”Now that’s where you’re wrong, white boy.When I don’t immediately answer, he goes on. Mouthing off.Digging himself deeper. Even without realising it. He’s right, of course,he is just a child. A kid with sass and guns and his own street gang.I try not to pity him, but it’s hard. Way hard.“What’s out there?” he asks, following my gaze off into thenothingness.“It’s my promise of something better, greater,” is all I can givehim. “Meaning, hope, love everlasting.”“Is this about your hokey religion?” Getting angry now. Like onthe Scheherazade. Filling up with his sudden hatred.“Yes,” I say, not thinking that he’d ever get it.“Fuck, I knew it. So you’d screw us in the ass for a fable? A storytold to the ignorant and fearful. A promise of something better–”“Yes.”“Which of course there isn’t. ’Cause let me tell you, you blackwitch, this – all this – is as good as it gets!”I turn to him and he flinches. Thinking I’m going to backhandhim. But I don’t. I’m openly crying now. Filled with something farmore powerful than his cheap insults.“Come with me,” I say.That stalls him. It’s like he tries to pull away, but is in the wronggear.“No… I… Esther, I can’t… I won’t…”“Why, Jack? Want to stay here and screw yourself in the ass fora fable?”

300 | THE A-MENHe whirls and rams his fists against the railing. Making it ringlike a morning bell.“God damn you, Midnight! I am not selling myself to your stupidGod!”“And I will not sell myself to the pursuit of your stupid dreams.”“Fucking, fucking fuck!”“Goodbye, Jack.”I walk for the stairwell.“Midnight!”I don’t turn around. Hoping that he won’t do something asinine.Like fake throwing himself off the building. Like shoot me. Thankfullyhe doesn’t. Thankfully he just lets me leave in an almost gracioussilence.Almost.“Midnight?”“Yes.”“Will you read to me? From the book?”I turn, frowning. “This seems an odd request. Even for you.”“Please.”“Yours or mine?”“Guess. Just for a little while. Before you go.”“OK. For a short while. And then I’m gone.”And that’s exactly what I do. I take the book and read to him.Then I walk.

35 The NowheremanWatching Midnight go is the hardest thing in my entire life. But Iget over it. For about two days. Until I heard the story of the newarrivals and from Grisholm that the kid was dead.A cruiser has come. Arriving at sunrise the day Esther skippedthe Phoenix. Word says it brings a blind religious fanatic dressed inwhite robes and sandals. A messiah from the ancient continent of Xu.Wherever that is. To save us all apparently. He’ll have a tough job.Civilisations give up all hope of salvation ‘bout the same time thefood and water runs out. Anyhow, outside a few fervent minorities,religion’s been rusting on the long Sunday afternoon of the world’send.That was until Dai-80 came to Dead City.First time I see the blind prophet, he’s below me. Being carriedin a sedan on the back of a ’88 Kressler amphibian landrigger. Comingstraight up Balboa. Headed for the cross at Stanyan. Out in the baya sliver that’s reportedly a crippled ocean cruiser shines in the sun.He comes across the shredded suspension bridge with close to fourthousand followers, each one armed with only a bowlful of rice paperflowers. I watch as they’re met at the edge of Diamond Heights bya mess of gangs. Told to turn back. There’s no love lost for the likesof this holy-holy mumbo-jumbo. Reports say Blackwing vowed thatif the cavalcade placed even so much as one pinkie into city centralterritory they would be annihilated.Before the pack the vehicles stop. All eyes turning to their spiritualguide. Dai-80’s not an imposing figure. He’s short, bald but for a single

302 | THE A-MENplaited length and carries a white cane. Led faithfully by a blue andgreen feathered mallard, he looks odder than odd. So Blackwing thought.And Big Mamma. And Psycho Billy of the Replicats and all the rest ofthe whacked-up weirdoes that have come to haunt DC. Into the silence,the tanned figure does nothing, nothing except utter one single wordthat sends a shiver like thunder crackling through the crowd.“Proceed,” he says.And with that the flower-tossing acolytes continue their march,chanting as they go.The carnage that follows is grotesque, yet over two hundred reachtheir destination. The great Vaux Cathedral. The looming edifice atthe foot of Park Presidio. And once the doors are closed, they’re safe.And so began a new gang within the city’s blasted deeps: the God-U-Likes.I watched it. I saw it. And I knew in my gut that this was whereMidnight had gone.And knew that I had to follow.This was more frightening. The feeling hollow. Like my first trueemotion. Yeah, I had kidded her about being prepubescent, of my lackof emotional complexity, but that was only a haze, a cloudy screen forother, primal stirrings in the savaged mess that was all I had left ofmy mind. She was right about me wanting a mother, but now thatEsther’d flown into the smoke and mirrors of religion reborn on thebloodwashed streets of this abandoned city, it was more than that.Every mutha and their fucker was referring to this as the Collapse,but only Esther saw it as the Fall. Still, while this is hardly a city ofpunk-ass heroes, if ever it needed saving it needed saving now.Later, post-Midnight, post-massacre, I sit kicking locker doors hard,harder, hardest until each snapped into splinters, twisted back on benthinges. Inside my head liquids boil. Scouring my brain with newthoughts and feelings. This was not about them and her, but her andme.So, finally, I went to confront the buried dude.The mangled machine was as we’d left it. This time empty. Baseeq

THE A-MEN | 303having kittens over the Reapers’ spray paint job on his master’s onceimmaculatelambo. The guy they’re calling Lloyd still shivering in themucus tank. Face’s distorted through the glass, but apart from him Iwas loner than lonely. Just me and the big voice. Clearly rememberedthrough shattered jagged notions.“Midnight’s gone,” I say in echoes.“I take it you are referring to the woman rather than the time.”“Yep. She’s gone to find God.”“Why would she want to do that?”“You’re real lucky being stuck down here,” I say and mean it. “Insome ways. Like not having to deal with shit…”“Other than eating and breathing.”“Yeah, well there’s that I guess, but…”“Why are you here, Jack?”The question stings. Squirm a bit then say: “I ain’t got no memory.Paid Doc to snip out all the parts that mattered. Woke up in somearmy hard labour camp for losers with a brain filled with mush anda whole lotta nothing much else.”“No memory,” chimes the voice. “None at all?”“Well, I get flashes. Like bits are knitting together, but nothingof any use. I think I worked in chemicals or bio or something.”“Don’t you have a dataphial?”“Yeah, I got to that. Looks like I was involved with yourcorporation.”“Really?”“Yeah, and I can’t say I’m too keen to go back to that anytimesoon. Want to just forget it.”“But you cannot, is that it?”“Nope, I can leave it alright. It’s just I want to know why. WhyI did it. And what this book’s all about.”“And what book would that be?” The voice almost sounds snide.“Forevermore. It’s a faerie tale. Hey, do you know anyone calledD’Alessandro?”There’s a pause. A long, long pause.

304 | THE A-MEN“D’Alessandro is long gone. He wrote that book over thirty yearsago and they destroyed him for it. And after that he slipped quietlyinto obscurity and… vanished.”“So I guess that’s not gonna help me fill in the blanks, then.”“Ah, the ultimate terror; to not know your own story.”“Yeah, and to be forced to steal someone else’s.”“My advice,” purrs Glass, “is to follow your feelings. It’s all wecan ever do. On a cosmic scale, doing what’s best is impossible, butdoing what you feel is right – well, that’s another matter. So whatdoes your mind tell you?““That I want Esther back.”“Well then, that is what you should do. But before that, can youhurry along your little gang with the blasters and the shovels?”“Why should I trust you?”“This is nothing to do with trust, Jack. This is about getting whatyou want.”“Yeah, it is.”So I ride out. Into the labyrinth of the streets. Alone. Legs swungover the rattling twin-throated Phantom. Its dull red and silverpaintwork scratched and dented and bent. Its seat worn in patches.The sawn valves kicking as I go. All milled rims and custom tanks.Everywhere lies the carnage. The abandoned jerks who, when theend of all things came a-riding into their tiny lives, were still tryingto figure how to pour water out a boot with instructions on theheel.The district north of Logan has quickly become a veritable blackhole of pleasure. But I’m going east. Right towards the glitteringwaters of the bay. Oil slick’s sparkling in the heat of the already hotmorning. It’s gonna be the end of the year soon enough, but there’snot a hint of cold weather. Biggs tells me that since the mid-60s’round here the only snow they get comes in globes.Addling the throttle, I zip through the deserted wreckage of thestreets. Gun strapped tight against the crossbar. Bandoliers hung withknives. Ready for throwing. Tearing down the road. Faster ’n fast.

THE A-MEN | 305Aimed at Park Presidio, for the by-pass via Turk and Balboa, thenultimately to Gypsy Hill. Where the sightless messiah was said to bewaiting for all those who heard his call. Their calling.I follow as if the end of the tangled barbed wire that grips herso tightly is bound to me too. Snagged, I’m hauled down the litteredopen graveyard of DC. Sun making sticky work of the roads andbodies and me.Hear the piped chanting as I turn off the centreway. See bridgesand streetlights hung with garlands of multicoloured flowers. Alreadyshrivelled in the heat. Body count rises sharply too. All around thestaked perimeter. Gooks are using some kind of stunfence to keepout the undesirables. Well, five stun fences actually. Each one insidethe other. Skin within skin within skin. Ditch the bike in an alley,then bust in. Not difficult getting over the first two barriers. Lastthree are more tricky. Still they’ve not been designed to keep outlone mavericks. To keep out half-crazed Nowhereman bad-ass bastards.Been designed to stop hordes. Like latticed bouncers outside thisweek’s happening kiki club. Jarl class, sawing and a little digging isall it takes, and then I’m at the lake and sticking a linen clad devoteein the bushes. In the kidneys in the bushes. Right after that I’mdressed for the part. Burlap sack hung over the single flower of bloodon the robes. And after that the rest is easy. One minute I’m stridingin woven flops along the blossom-strewn tarmac, next I’m enteringthe manse, bowing as required. Herded deep down into the bowelsof the operation. Funneled with the others who come more for thepromise of hot tofu and crackers than chicken soup for the soul. Thereason I can blend in so well is that I look like a desperate no-lifeon the trail of something better. Just like everybody else. Queue jumpthe zillion or so zeebs standing along the corridors and stairs. Keepgoing. Always on the lookout for Esther. Knowing that she’s got aboutfifty-eight hours on me, but also that she will go through the ritesone by one. Might close the gap if I skip the preliminaries. Get straightto the main course. Force the process outta this one skinheaded fucker.Know ’bout now she’ll be waiting in line like a good little acolyte.

306 | THE A-MENNo one stops me as I barge past. They just bow and about the worstI get’s a low growl. All’s going great guns. That is until I run intoMother Earth and Father Sky.They’re waiting like ghouls at the doorway to the cellar door.Meeting and greeting. She’s done up like a black and white moviewitch. All stayprest rough robes and origami hat. Only bit of thewoman visible is a small moon of red face. Peeking out of too manyfolds of material. He’s in uniform too, but his is more ornate. A hundredlayers of brocaded cloth, topped with a tall chimney of silken hood.Beard bushy and white as a sheet. They’re talking to each supplicant,all beams and sincere nodding. Like whacked-out elves at the gatesto KK’s grotto. Know I’m not going to blag, push or shove my waypast these fuckers. So instead I shuffle into the line and start to fidget.Then I see her.She’s about forty people ahead. Almost at the entrance. Dressedin monochrome. Head lost in the folds of fabric, beads and feathers.Not waiting I rush forwards. She sees my approach and her eyes bug.But I keep on going. Crash right into her and push her against thewall.“Midnight, what’s all this? What the fuck d’ya think your doing?”“Jack, don’t…”“You should get your ass back home. You belong to us. To theA-Men. You’re one of us, not this.”“Well, you know where you can stick that, crazy man.”“Is there a problem anywhere around here?” asks a honey-sweetvoice.We both stop black-balling each other and notice we’re front ofthe queue. The happy couple of freaks cup hands at their breasts andexude faith, hope and charity from every pore. This wall of love stopsus both in our tracks. And silence falls once more to the stairwell,broken only by the nerve-soothing harp plucking and choral chantingoozing from inside.“Mmm…” I fumble, but Midnight’s more together.“It’s a slight misunderstanding. It’s gone. Our chakras are centred.”

THE A-MEN | 307This seems to placate them. At least for now.“Beyond,” begins Earth, “is the doorway to your new physicalnexion. Already on day one has your body been cleansed in the sacredlake of Tathagata and on day two your mind has been atuned in therite of the Esoteric Chant of the Quartz Tetrahedron. Now you willreceive the final initiation and the Ceremony of Recalling withSacrificial Conclusion. This will open your new nexion and, whenthis is done, the gateway to personal fulfillment. Once unlocked thisneeds to be kept open and requires regular rites on your chosentemple for a number of years.”“How many years?” I ask, more to shut off the drivel than throughany real interest.Father Sky almost mewls at this question. “The specific rite needsto be undertaken at the very least twice yearly for the first five years,and then once yearly for ten years after.”“Fuck that–” I snort, but Midnight’s elbow is already in my ribs,knocking the wind and words from me.“Father, Mother, my companion is new to the rites of HimImmaculate, as are most of His children. Forgive his colourful surprise.”She shoots me a dark look. “What next must we do?”“You must next receive your karmic guardians,” soothes the blackand white bitch.“Sorry?” I’m confused now. As if I wasn’t before. Not sure what’sgoing on. Not sure how to extricate myself from this lunacy. Andthis time Esther is with me.“Yes, you are required to pick your gods,” chimes in monkey man.“Gods?” asks Midnight dealing out her incredulous look evenlybetween the two of them. “What do you mean, gods?”“Don’t fuss, dear,” Mother Earth chitters. “You have to make yourchoices from the sacred shiftfile.” She indicates a flickering terminalset into the brickwork at her shoulder. In a move straight from somewarped nun-fixated quiz show.“What happened to monotheism?”“Ooh, that’s so pre-apocalypse,” coos Earth. “That old-time religion

308 | THE A-MENwas so depressing. Belief’s everlasting destructive potential. All thatendless violence. All those rules...”“All that sex through a sheet,” adds Father Sky dreamily.“We’re all god nouveau now. Pantheism’s the new black arts. It’sso exciting.”The two exchange a benevolent look that raises bile in my throat.“What do you mean I have choices?” the black woman insists.“Well, that’s easy,“ they say staccato, first him, then her. Then himagain.“We are the brotherhood for the lost and alone.”“The God-U-Likes.”“Yes, that’s right. We deal in gods.”“All gods. Any one you care to mention.”“Astarte. Mohammed. Quetzalcoatl…”“Quikinn.a’qu. Qa’wadiliquala. Q-Mart, goddess of two-for-onemeal deals…”“We’re not fussy like some churches. We have more gods on ourfiles than there are twinkling angels in the night sky.”“It’s like that fast food restaurant only instead of potatoes you getreligion and instead of toppings you get deities.”“Oh, undoubtedly. Any one you like. For all faiths are one faith.All beliefs one belief. It’s cosmically so aligned like that.”“Yes, for the gods are all the same. Only the aliases change,” saysFather Sky assertively. “And it is our task to reintroduce god to thegodless.”“Yes,” Esther says back.“Transcendental unity is beyond experience. As idealists webelieve everyone can have a transcendent understanding of a unifiedreality.”Midnight makes full use of the smug pause between the drooling.“Forget the files. I choose God Almighty, master of Elohim andElim, Jehovah, Yahweh, the one true lord.” And then just to show ’emwhat kinda witch bitch they’re dealing with, she lists off all hundredand one names of her god. Takes about three minutes.

THE A-MEN | 309The zealots consult their almanac that flashes dreamy green inthe candlelight.“I’m sorry, that’s not on our files,” beams Earth.Midnight growls deep in her throat. “What do you mean youdon’t have ‘God’ on your files?”“Exactly what I’m saying. Take a look.”Midnight looks at the flickering monitor. Her eyes twitching likethe wings of dark moths.>G: Gobniu, God of skills and ale-brewing>G: Gonaqade’t, Sea god and good fortune>G: Gon-Po Nag-Po, Lamaist god of ping-pong>G: Goldilocks, Queen of the Universe“Do you want us to add it in?” asks the beaming sister of allthings nice. “We can spreadsheet it across several celestial columns.Otherwise, we can always make a recommendation…”“Add it,” Esther says.Tapping at the keypad, they whip up an entry for ‘Mr Almighty,the Ineffable’ combining the superpowers of about four or five otherfuckers. Once done, everyone seems satisfied with that. ExceptMidnight, of course. Then they turn their attentions to me.“So, young man, can we look anything up for you?”I think on this for a moment. Pawing at my holster. Hidden deepin the folds of my pleated tangerine robes. This is going to be fun.Real prime A-Men prankstering.“Nah,” I drawl at last, “I want to add these.”Hold up Forevermore. At the section on the deities. Seems toflummox the shit outta them, but they come around. Of course I tartup their spheres of influence a bit. Kinda make the Eternal Ones alittle more current. More relevant. But apart from that I keep themjust as they are.Ianus gets to guard newsfeeds and advertising and knowledge likethat plus that über-cool mirror they’re always knocking on about.The one that’s gonna blast creation to little bits at the end of time.Æoseth nabs all the wild dangerous chaos that we’re in, plus the

310 | THE A-MENgreat big scrapyard in the sky where all the busted bikes and cruisersgo.The tricky-dicky Bêz is the kinda guy who likes a laugh, so hegets to be the god of having a good time. Things like food, drinkand driving nose-bleedingly fast in cars.Astarth is one funky mutha so she gets sex, drugs and rock ’n’roll. Whatever does it for you.Life and death are still to be sorted, so they go to Mûhamet.Torûs, He Who Kills To Live, I assign the task of being lord dudeof earth magic and the slaying and killing and generally keeping trackof the dead.Kalím, He Who Lives To Kill, seems like a badass so I assign himwar. Y’know guns and ultra-violence and all that pants-creaming stuff.But the Amen stays the Amen. Somethings’re too sacred to messwith. More than your life’s worth, you know what I’m saying?When I’m finished Esther’s jaw is almost as wide as the fanatic’seyes.“Well, aren’t they an interesting pantheon,” says Father Sky, asMother Earth nods.Of course, they have no record of these supreme beings, but theysound so good they check several times. Eventually though they noticethat the book is not an encyclopedia as they first thought, but insteada work of total fiction. So they have to turn me down.“I am sorry, but these don’t appear to be real gods,” Mother Earthsimpers as she hands the leather-bound book back to me.“Not real gods, my ass,” I snort, “That’s rich coming from cuntswho’ve got fucking Goldilocks on their list. OK, show me a real godand I’ll happily take ’em back and go for a double on mr god almighty.”Though it pains them real deep, they have to admit I have a point.And that’s how the Amen got added to the God-U-Likes’ list.Then we are waved through to the weird candlelit cellar and theceremonies beyond.*

THE A-MEN | 311The chamber beyond the stairwell is a hollow subterranean temple.Crowded with smoke and music and weirdness. Candlelight makesshadows of the multitude. Too murky to make out anything much.But then again I’m not too concerned with it anyhow.Esther’s grumbling something about a travesty against nature, butI ignore her. My mission’s a little more temporal.“Look, like I said out there, I want you to come back.” Tryingto look sincere.“Forget it, Jack. I’m staying.”“But these people are sickos. I can’t leave you here.”“Why ever not?”“I just can’t see you hanging out with your weirdie beardiefriends.”“Don’t call them that, they’re not weirdie beardies.”“They’re weird, they’ve got beards. Go figure.”A spaced-out cookie breaks between us. Screaming. His beard istied with little brass bells. “Be warned! There are no fashion outletsin purgatory! What you wear for the end of the world will be themost important decision of your entire life!”Esther sighs. Letting it out.“Maybe they’ve actually got it right,” she says above the gospelmerriment. “Mythology everywhere is the same. You. Me. Them. We’reall the same. Physical. Spiritual. It’s all ending, all falling into ruin.The night-sea journey beginning for us all. A darkness on the edgeof everything. Closing, closing in. But where is God in all this?” Shecasts a disgusted glance around the room. This is not what she thoughtit was going to be. Not at all.“Yeah, why would anyone want life eternal if they had to spendit with these creeps?”Midnight smiles and I know she’s cracking.“Look, come back and we’ll fight for an immortality worthhaving.”From somewhere close by behind a curtain of incense, a gaggleof wailing woman are singing.

312 | THE A-MEN“Not to touch the earth. Not to see the sun. God wants to cutyour fingers off one by one. Let’s run!”“The A-Men want you back. Doc, Mordeci, Biggs…”“That’s just nowhere talk, Jack.”“I want you back, Esther.“I dunno, Jack…”We’re interrupted yet again by another robed psycho-nun.Introducing herself as Sister Luna, she asks if we are ready to beginthe fifteen-hour initiation.“Fifteen hours?” I shriek. “I can’t even think of the last thing Idid for fifteen hours. I don’t even sleep for that long… Esther, look,I’ll give it to you straight. We need you… oh, for fuck’s sake, I needyou. You have to come back. We’re all shot up without you. Andanyway, I went to see Glass and he said to hurry up with the rescuingas he’s only got two more bags he can shit in.”Midnight laughs. Her hand grabbing for her mouth, but it’s outbefore she can stop it.“Jack, you…”“It’s not nowhere talk, Esther. It’s not. OK, how about this. Theblond kid’s dead.”Her grin’s wiped like a bad stain.“What?”“Grisholm told me ’fore I rode out. Mizhog’s gone. Doc’s prettygood, but he can’t perform miracles.”“Excuse me,” says the nun. “Can we get back–”“Shut the fuck up!” Esther spits. Makes the thin sister cringeback. Then, looking me right in the eye, Esther says, “OK, let’s go.”My heart leaps like a salmon. Just without all the gushing water.“You mean it?”“Yeah, I mean it. Like you said, the buried dude needs our help.”“Way cool,” I bitchslap her behind, then turning to the wimpledone, I add, “You heard her. Fuck off, sister, we’re outta here!”“Oh my,” the woman gasps, her hand going for her rosary. “Youimpure, impure man…”

THE A-MEN | 313“Yeah, I drawl, licking my lips, “that’s the nature of the beast.Sick. Sick. Sick.”*So The Nowhereman come back with Sister Midnight on the bitchbar. Whooping through the alleys. When we get home we fall intomy space, lighting candles as thunder rolls. Then we fall together,tumbling over and over and over. Grinding, gulping, sucking tongues.Softness and hardness in equal measures. I sink into the waiting,wanting, adoring depths.“Do you want me?” I say against her mouth.“God, yes,” she answers.And then there’s no stopping it and we’re shedding our clotheslike skin. Draining the blood from our bodies into other places.Esther taking hold of my dripping cock. Pulling it to her lips.Sucking the wet head into her mouth. I gasp and feed on her nipples,then on the engorged slash between her thighs. Exploring her cuntas my cock slides down her throat.My body reacts in great heaving shudders.“Wait,” I gasp, spasming. “Are you sure about this?”“Yessir.”“Would you give up your place in heaven… for me?”“Yessir.”Our inhibitions are gone, then our minds, then my virginity.Falling, falling. Kissing with her. Speaking in tongues. Thrusting.Twisting. Trysting. Pump, pump, spit. Switching from lust to full fuckmode. And then I’m twisting and I’m inside her, holding the glorywithin me.“Yessir. Yessir. Yessir.”And in that moment I get the feeling that I’m no longer damned.And the next I cum.When it’s all over and we lie together. Later she reads to meagain. The story of Pure White and Pure Red. A tale of two young

314 | THE A-MENsisters, one pure as snow and pure as blood. How they are entrappedin the fortress of the count. A beast who takes the bodies of childrento eat. Thus preserving his youth. All cool stuff. Strips every organfrom every dead child and even preserves parts of the bodies fornight-time snacks. Fuck, no wonder they banned this shit.I’m so glad to have her back. Glad to have broken barriers. Beenon my first date. Glad to have kept a stiffy through my first sex session.Glad it was with her.Feel so fucking lucky that it hurts from the top of my head tothe tip of my cock.And back again.*So all was well and good for a while. But these things never last.Not with me. Not with anyone. We patrolled our turf, a turf thatnow extended from Mission Creek Marina and Memorial freewayeast-west and Pike Columbia to halfway south of 13th. Eight of us.Me. Sister Midnight. Mordeci. Biggs. Doc. Exor. Eddie Phlegm.Shitehawk. Days were spent taking pot shots at anyone who cameclose. Hearing rumours of other gangs. Eco-Vigilantes. Crayzeez.The Spunkhunters. Nights were spent tuffing with Esther andhanging out with the gang members. There’s a lot of stuff we did.Crazy, wild, senseless acts of needless chaos and violence. Parties,dancing with feathers in our hair. Moshing with Gonks at theWerehouse. Strafing Replicats on Club Fantazi rooftops hangingfrom makeshift dirigibles. Blading with proto-assassins on flametornskybridges. Slapped out our brains on who knows what. Yes,there were lots of happenings for the A-Men. Lots of tales of whatwe did and how we fared. Our gathering prestige. Our rising positionin the city. How we came to rule the dark. Or at least a splinteredfragment of it.But this got me no nearer answering my nagging inner questions.Then one night me and Esther rigged a sat-link atop the nearby

THE A-MEN | 315courthouse and broadcast a symphony to Dead City while we atedinner in the shadow of the halls of justice belltower. Some fortypartmotet Sister’s being banging on about. Choirs bouncing off amillion empty windows. Off City Hall. Off the darkened world. Thenight our church. Our concert hall.When the music and food was over, we stood gazing out acrossthe blasted buildings, chilling. Hot night. Flickering candles. Belowthe multi-layered entryway into the subterrania of geo stores.Ordinarily a constant noise would have come up from the city. Itwas never quiet here.Now it was a tomb.There was something of the night about us. About all this. Thissituation. Never a girl-boy thing, but more than a casual jack-offfantasy fest either. I knew it wasn’t gonna be forever. Yet not evenSister Midnight could have predicted how fragile this forever was.It was here that we saw our first tussle between the Grim Reapersand the Burger Queens. We’d heard that Blackwing and Big Mammawere fighting for Columbia Heights, but as Dupont Circle was tenblocks southeast of us, we’d seen nothing ’cept a couple of burntoutfast-food vans and scattered fur and feathers. Yet obviously thewarring was getting closer, ’cause here they were spilling across thefountain plaza. Scythes and shotguns. Hotrods and hotpants. Gunningbikes and leggy blondes with AM7 neural pulse rifles. Deathsheadsand designer eveningwear. All in one gorgeous, candy-coloured waltz.The armoured soft drink trux come next. Catwalk models tuckedinto gun turrets blasting shells into phalanx of ebony cloaked bikers.Blowing apart wheels and shocks and fins. Homemade molotovsthrown from sparkling painted nails. Perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfectskin. Easily a match for scalps and skulls and tattered banners splayedfrom a sea of dancing aerials. It’s impossible to tell who pursues who,so tightly wound are they in their deadly game of tag.“Let’s go,” hisses Midnight as the craziness screeches into the square,but I shake her off.“I wanna watch.”

316 | THE A-MEN“What’s to watch?” she asks.I shrug and pull myself back to the rail. Transfixed as model andmongrel savage each other. Dog and bitch. Each their own tactic.Snarling, circling, firing, throwing, dying. I shudder as this one stunningpageant queen goddess is speared through her shoulderless cocktaildress by a Reaper’s lance. Goes right through her tit and spine andskewers her to a blazing pastel green vanette painted with daisies.Blood stains her glittering smile as her insides scream to escape. Hermake-up’s ruined as he head lolls maniacally. So hard it dents thepanelling. Once. Twice. Once more for luck. Her court shoes kicking,she dies still stuck like a pig. Somehow still stunning even then. Butin a wholly different way.Almost directly below, right on the steps of the courthouse, a dozenhigh-heeled princesses in little black dresses form a defensive wall andspray bikers with autos. A few are picked off by lucky shots fromReapers in sidecars, but the wave of death they sweep over the nearestvehicles creates a massacre-panic. Wheels lock. Bikes slide into gore.Each other. The fountain. Gastanks explode. Lighting our faces andthe escapades of two Burger Queens caught in the sudden skidding,off over to the right. On the periphery of the action, they ride tandemon a rotor. Tactic’s swooping low and dropping splatterbombs on lonegunmen. Assassinmen. Or anyone who’s getting too big for their buckledboots. They’ve been bobbing in and out picking off the strays, butcaught too low when the decimation starts and forced to flee beforethe chaos. That or crash headlong into the morbid fuckers.The first one’s a redhead. Lips cocksucker red. A perfect matchto her nails, highheels and snatch purse. She’s clad in chiffon, attachedto a skin-tight body stocking that shows off her legs, flat chest andincongruous front pouch that pokes from beneath the ballerina-likemid-section. She also wears a sash that reads ‘Ms Alternative Lifestyle’plus a year, but that’s lost in the crack of her ass. But though thisbeefy bitch is as fine a woman as you can imagine, beside her isperfection.Great hair. Blonde like a sunrise. Great body. Full like a glass of

THE A-MEN | 317milk and just as white. Skin like light has never touched it. Top outfit.All bronze power suit and a throatful of frills. And these great, greatbazooms.“Oh my god,” I whisper, almost inaudible over the engines. “She’sbeautiful.”Sister Midnight grunts. “Beauty makes no pot boil.”But I am gone. Lost in the moment.Watch as the two abandon the rotor and make a break for thewetness of the steps. I’m already moving also. Headed for the doorto the emergency stairs.“Jack, where the fuck are ya going?” Esther shouts as I flee. Idon’t answer. Can’t. Too breathless for that. All I know is nothing.Nothing except the steps below lead to the courthouse’s marbledentry hall. The domed vestibule. Knowing I can cut them both offbefore they work out which of the neo-walnut archways leads tosafety. And which to certain death.My boots clatter, spraying gravel that has somehow found a homehere. In this place where no-one was ever meant to be. Reach theslatted door and slap it open. Throwing myself headlong into theshadows beyond. Hear Midnight following. Hot on my heels. Ourtable, meal and music all utterly forgotten.“Jack!” she pleads. “Jack! Jack! Jack!”I laugh at her clucking. Of our mother and son dichotomy. Brokennow the last supper is over. Don’t feel callous, but can understandwhy I am. How post-honeymoon period reality has been so efficientlyreplaced. How kicks and love and life are all intertwined. Inextricablybound. And now savagely cut free. Sloughed off like a second skin.Hit the metal stairs. Making them ring. Jumping down two, threeat a time. Bat-like, the black woman descends behind. Sending echoedshudders through the bars and latticed steps. Fluid fills my thoughts.Drowning the spider. The bowling ball floating like it’s made fromhollow plastic. Dropping like a brick, I crash onto the mezzaninelanding. Shoulder barge the fire door and skid out onto the curvedgallery. Leather boots screeching on ancient stone. Esther shrieking

318 | THE A-MENin the dark well. Beyond the waxed marble floor lies a waxed marblebalustrade and beyond that a wide staircase drops to the entrance hall.All discretely carved panelling and plunging columns. The blondeand redhead are trapped like fancy rats. Caught in the vaulted chamber.Each pair of double doors locked tighter than the gates of heaven.Both are frantic. Kicking at the wood with their inappropriatefootwear. And not just inappropriate for busting into courtrooms, butinappropriate for anything. Running, leaping, walking the dog. Yetthey still stagger around. Unable to come to terms with the advantagesof ditching their heels and going barefoot. How much simpler thatwould be. How efficient. How sane.I cross to the railing and shout down to them. Just a quick ‘Yo!’Nothing too committal.Both women look up.Look up and raise their assorted weaponry.Ms Alternative Lifestyle has twin magnum 28s.Ms white trash has sawn-off snuff guns.Shit. Dressed as I am in Levi’s, leathers and thirty-two lace bikerboots, mop hair spiked and unkempt, stubble dark like a chin guard,don’t have to think too long just what I look like. Just what I represent.The sprayed blood-crimson ‘A’ in the circle on my back the only giveawaythat I’m not a stinking low-life, gutter tramping Reaper. But by thenit’s too late. Too late to scream or wave or do anything much, but justtake the bullets and die in a semblance of dignity. Too late even to–Quad barrels blast. Recoil snapping the lady’s arms like twigs ina tornado. There’s a sudden flare of realisation and the stink of bilein the back of my desert-dry throat, then I’m hit. Not from the front,but the back. Legs folding against the deadweight. The dark amazonbreakdancing beneath me. Collapsing as banisters and chandeliers andplaster mouldings explode around us.Crashing onto the hardness of the floor, I crack my arms andelbows, then chest. My entire upper body taking the brunt of thefall. Somewhere else, voices cry like sirens. On-off, on-off, on-onon-off.Erratic pulsing sounds. Unpredictable and annoying. Flooding

THE A-MEN | 319all thought with their unrelenting need. Then I’m picking the dustand muck from my eyes and sitting up. Looking through the gapinghole where the balustrade once was.Sister Midnight stands above me, dripping venom. Drippingvenom and pointing her belt-fed down at the frozen models nowturned marionettes in some war-zone department store display cabinet.Guns raised. Waiting the outcome of the screaming. Outside the battlerages, but in waxedmarbleland, the only sound is the falling tinkle ofdebris. The collapse of dentile teeth from the shattered curved mouthof the domed ceiling.Then the shrieking stops. And there is no answer to the argument.There is only mutual hatred. And a need to gain the upper hand.Esther caught in the black spotlights of the other’s pistols. The girlsexposed with nowhere to run. Well, nowhere but back outside andit’s clear they don’t want anything of that at all.Which leaves me to intervene.“We’re not Reapers,” I say with as much conviction as I canmuster. “Look.”Opening my arms, I pirouette. Spinning slowly on the balls ofmy feet. Showing them the gang sign. Letting them know where ourallegiances lie.When that’s done the redhead spits. The gesture is far fromattractive. Far from feminine. Matching her words, as she says, “Soyou’re not Grims. Big fucking deal. What’s the ‘A’ stand for then?”“The A-holes.” Going for the laugh. Bursting the tension.Ms catsuit is not amused, but her companion sees the funny sideof the situation. Her baby face breaking into the prettiest smile youcould ever buy.Then she drops her guns. First one, then the other.“Chill it, Lucille,” she says. “Big Mamma’s got nothing againstassholes.”Cocksucker red’s not too sure about this, but after I wave Estherdown, she too complies.“So what brings you here?” says the blonde.

320 | THE A-MEN“Just browsing,” I say. “Do you have a name?”“Susie-Sue.”Poetry.“Mine’s Jack.”“Cool.”“Look,” says Esther, “sorry to break up your impromptu soiree,but we are this close to being machine gunned off the planet.”Lucille seems just as impatient to be gone as Midnight, and themoment’s over, so I go with it.Up, off and away into the night.

36 DäalessandroI sit in a circle of shattered crystal. Shards of creation destroyed bymy own hand. A set of my forgotten golf clubs stand at my side. Atitanium powermax in my fists. Lining up on another irregular ballof frozen light. One moment it glints with all the possibilities of anew universe. The next it is slamming into the concrete wall andexploding like the final apocalypse.At every stage of the project all data from the X-Isle has beensaved in the form of a replication crystal, yet each is now found tobe infected by a virus in the genetic code. Sentience structures areorganisms and like organisms must reproduce and pass on to theirprogeny a complete copy of their genetic information. Consequentlythey must be able to replicate their genetic archive. Change is affectedthrough the stimulation and growth of mutants. This virus is amutation that prevents replication. However the cell that inhibitsreproduction is not fatal in the first, second or even hundredthreplication. Eventually though it is lethal. The cell structure shutsdown and, unable to reproduce, it dies. Unfortunately so subtle is thelysing of the bacterial cell that the process is practically undetectable.How could we have been so duped? How could I have beensuch a babe in the woods?Scanning with the autoradiomics shows the growth fork, but itis so small it was missed in the initial screening.These past hours I have been parsing each replication, trying todiscover one that is clean. Inside boils my anger at the Grim Reaper’sfor camo painting my Diablo, yet I focus that anger towards the task

322 | THE A-MENbefore me. It’s a relatively simple matter to find the carrier. The RNAcomplex compound seemed the most obvious and that was the firstplace I looked. That I found the pathogen there was no surprise. No,the shock comes when I tri-match the virus’s origins.The results identify the subject as Aaron John Malorian.Jack’s son.The match is perfect. The bastard must have cloned it from thestrain that killed his child and then infected his father’s code. So whenhe was disinherited and gave Glass-Suko the genetic key, Jack’s revengewas accomplished and the fate of the project was sealed. Once theK/OS key was introduced into our systems, the code infectedeverything.Aaron died and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.After all you cannot replace RNA. Not all of it. And now everysystem primed with the same eighteenth generation sentience willdie also. Not now, maybe not for years but they will die. And as XEsruns everything in near-space, that’s one big bang when the wholething fails.I know that I have to escape from this tomb and tell someone;everyone. But right now all that consumes me is Xankhara. Knowingthat it too is infected, that my child is now dying, is insufferable. Oh,Jack, what have you done? Logically the only way to restore thecrystal would be to go back to before the K sentience installation.To the pre-K/OS save. The last clean replication. To when the islandwas a prototype rock, an isle in the void. A primitive backwater ofthe place it is now. A bauble, only.So I destroy the imperfect crystals. And curse the unfairness ofcreation.Of course, I ache to jack the program and ask the sentience, toinitiate sequences that could autoscan from the inside. But I cannot.To do that would be to further expose the construct to the outsideworld. A world that by Thomas’ intrusion has already slipped frombehind its cloak of invisibility.Somewhere behind me, the monitors bleep. A code red alert.

THE A-MEN | 323“System, query, alert,” I say, not wanting for a moment to get up.>Initiating query sequence. Alert register equals termination.What–?That is enough to drag myself up and to the console. Seeing thefatal words even as I approach.“Search,” I say idly.>Executing search sequence. System register equals none. Modeequals termination. Game time elapsed equals six hundred andfifty nine hours, twenty-one minutes and twelve seconds. Gamelocation equals Pit of Spears. Executing halls of death sequence.Search completed.Shuddering, I try not to notice the flat line of I/Os that makeup Thomas’ biosigns. Instead I say, “Inventory.”>Initiating inventory. Current name equals Lloyd. Current securitypasscode equals nine. Current resident mode equals X-Isle.Current psyche equals Kalîm. Current location equals Pit of Spears.Current objects equals rusty sword and gas mask. Current scoreequals forty-six. Assessment of game story completed: 61%.Damnation. He’s dead. The Amen killed him. Perhaps Baseeq wasright. Perhaps we are all going to die.“God, have mercy–” I whisper to the shadows.“Don’t count on it,” says a dark voice from behind me.

37 PureSitting up late with Jack. At my pad. Well, the burnt-out ruin of whereI used to hang. All alone. Together. Lucille playing gooseberry. TheNowhereman playing guitar. Didn’t know he could till he tried.Discovered he was a real natural.He’s writing a song about his princess. That’s princess perfect,not princess pre-op. I’m caught in the impossibility of meetingsomeone like him somewhere like this sometime like now. S’likelove out of death. Real poetic. Inspirational stuff. Jack’s trying tocapture that in chords, while I scan the woodcuts in his faerie talebook.“I don’t know why I said I loved youIt’s just the sort of crazy thing I’d doAfter trying hard to fool you girl all that summer longI guess that I just thought that it was true.”Lucille sprawls. On her back. Big cat like. The bed her dust.“So what’s so great about this fucking book then?” I say, turningthe pages idly. Tearing off corners and eating them. Balling them intowet bullets and flicking them at him.“Don’t do that,” he says.“What,” I say back, “The balling or the flicking.”“Just don’t.”Gives me one slit-eyed look, then he goes straight into the strummychorus.“Give me your heart and I’ll take itYou know I’m gonna break it

THE A-MEN | 325But you want me to remake it for you:Susie-Sue.”As he sings I autocapture it all in my earrings. Editing as we go.When I was saved by Big Mamma’s girls and reborn in the imageof a goddess, the coolest thing that came out of it all wasn’t the face.It was the jewellery. OK, the designer mind was kooky, but the superportable streamware was way kookier.I got the full set. All in brushed nu-silver. Pale and textured. Justlike me. Got the earrings, plus the brooch, necklace and rings. Wholething powered from body radiation generated in the small of myback. Siphoned off through the coolest chainlink belt you’ve everwitnessed. Speech recognition unit fixed in a tooth cap. Eye lens thatfires image-to-retina. Projects ten-twenty display that toggles on, offand transparent in an eyeblink. Chunky silver band inset with diamanteon my right index finger takes care of XYZ coords. Curved lozengespipe sound directly into the middle ear. Necklace doubles as afunction-studded keyboard. Major wowola!Sleek, stylish, functional.Sleek, stylish, functional and branded Christina Picasso.Also, managed to pick up a pair of I-Fax targeting goggles. Whichalmost beat the Picasso rig, but not quite. Now if I could just getmy manicured hands on a gtec pistol to go with it, then – paizuriville,here we come!“I’ve been watching how you act around meThat I’m the one to tell your secrets toGirl, to be a woman you’ve got to open up your heartThat’s something almost every girl goes through.”Having flipped through the book a few times, the only story thatinterests me is the one where all the children get slaughtered. The onewith the deathly fascination with sex. I try reading it now. Lookingfor my A-Men name. Stuck stupid with getting the right one. Wantit to be right. Unlike the other zweeboids who just chose anything.Probably took them two minutes. I’ve been at this for about threehours.

326 | THE A-MENOnce a count and countess were driving their sleigh through themidwinter forests, and as they approached their castle, the count sawthere beside the road three doves as white as snow. ‘I wish I had alittle girl with a throat as white as those doves,’ he said to his wife.A short while later as they neared the open gates, the count sawthere beside the road three robins with breasts as red as blood. ‘I wishI had a little girl with lips as red as those robin’s breasts,’ he said tohis wife. As they drove on and were passing across the threshold oftheir castle, the countess cried out. And there above them on thestonework sat three ravens as black as night. ‘O husband dearest,’said the countess, ‘I wish I was still the little girl with hair as blackas those raven’s feathers.’ For when the count had met her she wassuch, yet now with the passing of the years she was an old womanand her hair was silver like the stars. Yet the count had never agedone day. And now when the count wished and wished she did notlike it and knew that one day her husband would tire of her andchoose another child. And seeing the ravens it was as if that day hadcome, for as they arrived in the courtyard, there upon the steps stoodtwo identical little girls, one with a throat as white as a snow, andthe other with lips as red as blood.Tired and drug-needy, I roll onto my side. Jack watching mewhile going through his fingering. Working on the bridge. I sigh andtry to distract him with my tits. He looks up and smiles.“So who ya gonna be?”“I thought either Pure White or Pure Red.”“Great, so what’s the problem?”“Why don’t they have Pure Black?”“Dunno. Just be Pure then.”So I become just Pure.Slam shut the book and toss it to the trannie.“Your turn,” I say, stifling a yawn.Lucille gives me a pained look, but goes along with it. Opensthe big black cover and flicks idly through the dog-eared pages. Goes

THE A-MEN | 327through twice then just stabs her finger randomly. Calling out thewords she finds under her thick thumbs.“Cottage.”“Lummox.”“Phase-specific psychosocial crises.”Her shouts make a mess of the music. The recording. I tell herto shush. She ignores me.“Just pick a name,” Jack bleats between verses.“Well if she’s the virgin queen, can’t I be the boy who would bekinky?”We both groan. For her. For each other.“Just pick a name,” I say like an echo.So Lucille asks for a pen then scribbles something on one of thepages.“A-ha! Got it!” shouts the redhead. “Psychosex.”“You just wrote that in!” yells Jack.“Oh, Jackie, don’t get all hot under the collar for little old me.Don’t understand why you’re with this trollop anyhow. Not when Icould be your baby-doll. So what’d’ya say? Fancy a bit of in throughthe out door?”Jack winces, then puts down his guitar and comes over to me.“I love you,” he says softly against my lips.I recoil, pouting. “Don’t say that!”“Why?”“’Cause every time you say ‘I love you’ another faerie dies.” Rollmy eyes towards the bed.“Huh?”I laugh and writhe as Lucille snorts. And he laughs too. Makingthe silver spurs on his boots tinkle.The redhead makes a gagging motion with her hand.“I’m so glad I met you,” says the wild-eyed boy.“Hey, it was fate, baby. If I didn’t meet you in this gutter, I’d havemet you in another.”“Yeah, I guess.”

328 | THE A-MEN“It’s simple. The love we’ve found can only exist in this place.This time. Without this we have nothing. Would have had nothing.”“You two make me want to chuck,” says Lucille, pacing off tothe window.“You’re just jealous,” I spit as she goes.“Well, so what if I am. Only way I can get a man these days isusing forty miligrammes of Ritalin and a restraint harness.”“Hey, try sex,” I giggle, rubbing my slim white legs over the frontof Jack’s jeans.“I’m not blowing my own or anything, but if sex wasa religion, then I would be its temple.”“Yeah, and my crypt.”“Be sure. Be pure,” I recite from the book. Pure White’s maxim.Now mine.“Oh, please,” says Psychosex.“Whoa, yeah. Be sure. Be pure,” Jack repeats and we lunge ateach other’s throats like starving things.I repeat the saying over and over between fleshy stabs. Wrappingmyself in The Nowhereman’s arms.“That’s so cool,” he says as he stiffens. “Hey, y’know what. Let’scut this scene and go out and party.”“No,” I say, my eyes flashing. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s gettattoos!”

38 23rdxenturyboyBefore I met Esther, the time I spent with Dingo and Bixby in theunderground passages of the business district was neverend’n. Nightsseem’n to go on for days. Most’ve the time’s spent get’n a little placesort’t out. Keep’n off the streets. No way we want to go back toPigsticker’s Place. Ut-uh. No way, no how. Alsa, the Wonder Dogkeeps us fit skate’n up and down this empty sewer pipe that runsfrom nowhere to nowhere. Bixby likes the exercise too and it’s goodcompany for Elliott. Even if he can’t speak and doesn’t know anyth’nabout Phantom – and tries to eat the comics that Dingo shows him– he’s still a great pillow and makes us both laugh when he eats hisown poo and stuff.Curiosity kill’t the cat, but it’s not just those of a feline persuasionthat are nosy. When I was drag’t off to the room of the big machine,I was gobsmack’t. Never imagine’t someth’n like that would besomewhere like this. Not down here. It’s like Dr Rico Zimpel’s clone’tmagneto death ray from issue #34 of Captain Cotdeath. Well, sorta.There was people there. One inside a gunk tank, the rest dig’n. Clear’ntonnes and tonnes of rubble. When we saw ’em, it was all I can doto stop Dingo and Bixby bark’n the whole place down. There wasmen and children and then the black woman call’t Midnight. Shewas kinda oversee’n. All tall and serious. Watch’t ’em all for days anddays and days, go’n back without my doggies, just in case they gotfrisky again and gave us away. Finally the clear’n was done and a doorreveal’t. Then they start’t on the lock. Though this is Elliott’s bag, Icould see they weren’t have’n much luck. It was after that that I went

330 | THE A-MENand got Dingo. It was way hard for him too at this point. See’n asbreak’n and enter’n is his forté, all he kept want’n to do was put uphis paw and say, ‘I can do that!’ Alsa he was fair drool’n at this onedark-hair’t dude’s toolkit. A toolkit that consists of what looks likeevery crack’n spanner and etorque you could ever wish for. Not thatthe dude’s got a clue how any of ’em work, but the Wonder Doghas. Even from twenty metres he can see the door’s autolock’t. Basictwenty-four digit encryption. Icewall tri-protect’t and construct’t ofpoint-five metre thick shield’n. It’s your typical crack the lock or gohome with your tail between your legs situation. And they are get’nzilcho-zippo real damn quick. Watch for two days, through six shiftsand a whole host of attempts. But noth’n gives.And it’s at the end of one particularly long shift of eyeball’n withElliott that I feel the butt of Midnight’s gun against my scruffy hair’ttemple. And I realise that we’ve been rumble’t. It’s not a good feel’n.“Who are you,” the woman’s husky voice says in my ear.“I’m no one,” I say shake’n, try’n to turn but with her not let’nme. “But most people call me 23rdxenturyboy.”“Twenty-third– and who’s this?”“Dingo the Wonder Dog.”“Right, OK, and what is he?”“His code’s Anima-626a. Sorta a secret agent grow’t by Exxo formilitary shishkebabs.” I hold up his left paw so she can see the tattoo.“Look’s cool, huh?”“You a corp-rat?”“I dunno what that means, ma’am. We’re just escape’t, see. Fromthe RuZu Dome.”The gun goes away and I turn to see she’s still hold’n it. But notso surely.“Why are you spying on us?” she says to the Wonder Dog, size’nup his rollerboots.“Were jus’ curious,” he yelps back. “You know you never gonnaget through that door. That man doesn’t have a skoob.”“Mordeci?” she says look’n off to where her friend is still fiddle’n

THE A-MEN | 331with the half-dismantle’t access panel. “Well, he’s no hacker, but he’sthe best we’ve got.”“I can do it. If ya promise not ta kill us.”The dark-skin’t woman’s eyes flash back to mine. Slip’n back thesafety on her big pistol. “Who said I was gonna kill you?”So we was hired. Dingo spent the next four hours tappety-tap’nat the finder. Run’n through the spiral’n permutations. During thistime Esther sent the others away and talk’t with this disembodiedvoice. Tell’n it all kinds of lies about have’n trouble with the excavate’n.About malfunction’n cranes and injuries and shit like that.Then the dog wonder crack’t the correct sequence and she wentinside.Now as we stand outside, I wonder what’s go’n on within. Aboutwhat’s happen’n in the wake’n world, and alsa about Bixby and howhe’s tied up and probably’s want’n his daily mush round about now.And that’s just about the time when the first bullets rip throughthe metal girders over our head and the chamber is flood’t withdreadlock’t spectres scream’n like the demon armies of hell itself.

39 Sister MidnightWhen I look down into the eyes of the tall spidery man, I hear echoesof my confession. For when I look into the face of my Lord eventhough we have never and will never meet, I know I love him. Thesame is true of The Nowhereman, the stranger. He is my saviour andI am his. And it all comes down to this. This man and this machine.And the fate of their clandestine project.Jumping, Nathaniel Glass twists on his seat and looks up at thefigure towering over him. At me, at my face, at my drawn weapons.At the dirt and dust making a muddy, ashen mess of my white andblack robes. Even the rosary at my throat caked in grime.“How–”“We finished the digging days ago,” I confess, my eyes taking inthe shattered crystals that cover the floor. “We’ve been voting on whatto do with you when we came and got you.”“So the door’s been clear all that time.”I nod slowly.“You said voting?”“Voting about all this.” I indicate the control room and beyondthat the entire rig. “Well, deciding, anyhow. Just me, Doc and Mordecireally. The rest’s not interested.”“Not Jack?”“Jack’s… busy. Got his own agenda now. Last I seen of him hewas humping the blonde whore in the foyer.”This is far too much for him to take in. “And what was theoutcome?” he asks, baffled.

THE A-MEN | 333“The voting or the humping?”His eyes narrow.“Decision was whether to let you join us or to feed you to thecrows.”“Join you? Why ever would I want to do that?”“We need you. You’ve got smarts we could use. Get one stepahead of the other gangs. That kinda gen.”“And the verdict?”I wave the barrel of my gun. “You’re still breathing, ain’t ya?”“You are too gracious. Very well, I’ll do it – help you that is –but I need something from you, too.”“Name it.”So he tells me all. Of what Jack has done, of his dead son andthe virus that destroyed the child and how The Nowhereman lostthe only thing he ever loved. How by losing that thing the strangeman with no mind has somehow deep in his crazy brain decidedthat he must destroy the thing Nathaniel loves too. His bioanimasentience; his home-grown plaything. Of course he leaves out thefact that Glass-Suko were the corporation given the task of screeningthe child’s blood in the first place. That he is Rafaele JuarezD’Alessandro. I find all this out later on the stream. Yet the rest hetells me straight, or as straight as I can cross-verify.The story appals me, though I try not to let him see this. Tryto keep my first move advantage. After the telling, Nathaniel fallssilent and waits. It takes me about a minute to decide how to answerhim.“Do you know Jack’s had his memory wiped,” I say finally. Iexpect the news to be a shock to him, but it is not. I see that instantly.“I guess you do,” I continue. “Got the doc on the Scheherazade to doit before we landed. So if we’re here, it’s either one big coincidenceor Jack’s brain is not nudging empty after all. What I do know is thatJack’s running from a world full of pain. I could always see that. Now’sI see what that pain really was. Yet he don’t know about any of this.He don’t know you and he definitely don’t know what this all is. He

334 | THE A-MENdon’t even know why he gave himself that big book he’s carryingaround–”“Ah, yes. Forevermore.”“Never leaves his side. Has me read it to him all the time. Lovesthe gory bits especially.”“Does he? Really?”“Yes, sir.”“He always loved that book. Loved it more than you could imagine.Unlike most people. Which is why faeries tales died a slow and painfuldeath.”“I can see why. But not Jack. He’s created his street gang in thebook’s image.”“Hence the A-Men?”“Bingo.”Nathaniel sighs and relaxes slightly in his seat. “There is one thingthat I haven’t told you yet. One thing which makes this tale of revengea little more imperative.”“And what’s that?”“The code, the infected code containing Jack’s son’s virus–”“Yes.”“Glass-Suko used it to create the bio-anima cornerstone for theXEs sentience. ”I feel my eyes widen. Nathaniel lets the horror of his words sinkin a while before continuing.“As I said, I need your help.”“But the XEs sentience controls near-space.”“Yes.”“If it fails, then… everything will fail. Near-space will burn justlike the Earth.”“Yes.”“Ave maria, holy motherfucker of holies…” I genuflect wildly.“Indeed.”“So how long have we got?”“Well, that’s less of a problem. Though the virus is smaller than

THE A-MEN | 335a strand of DNA, is self-replicating, self-sustaining and self-destructing,it is not a particularly voracious parasite. It took seven years to killJack’s son, so I estimate we have a similar timeframe before internaldenigration.”“Isn’t there a genetic protocol? A way of unlocking the virus?”“Yes, but the only one who knows that is Jack.”“Or was Jack.”“Exactly.”And then it all makes perfect sense. What, how and, more thananything else, why.“What do you want us to do?”“We have to bring down the system. Stop the spread now whilewe can control it. Whichever way’s a catastrophe, but at least thenthey can rebuild from scratch. To leave it to replicate to conclusionis unthinkable.”“So you want to destroy near-space’s backbone,” I say just toclarify.“Yes,” he says softly.“How?”“Break into XEs central and pull the plug. So to speak.”Distantly, guns roar. Heard even through the metre-thick walls ofthis secret laboratory.“The A-Men are in.”“But what about–”“Forget Jack. We’re in.”“Good. And so now the only thing we are missing is someonesmart enough to hack the XEs outer core.”I smile, all teeth.“I think I may have just the mutt you need.”

40 The NowheremanThe city that once never slept grows dark with the night. I standwith Pure atop the Phoenix Tower while below, Reaper’s howl.Roaring louder than their bikes can yell. Up here on the hundredand twentieth floor it sounds like a war flick playing in a neighbour’sbackyard. I care about as much too. Y’see I’ve come to a decision.Well, me and Pure have anyhow. We’re running away. Eloping. Cuttingthis shit-filled city and going someplace else. Someplace special.I get the idea of our destination from the playback. The mentionof my last trip dirtside. Of a lodge on Devil’s Ridge. That’s wherewe’re headed. Anyhow, Susie and me’s going through some post-drugshell. Her more than me. And while she’s puking and twitching andscreaming for me to cut her cunting throat, I hold her. Tight tight.Telling her about what’s on the other side. What it’s like to be special.What it’s like to survive. Don’t mention love though. I’d be a fuckingdisaster to be in love with. She don’t want none of that.As we look out into the boiling eternal ebony, Pure tucks hertiny frame against me. She’s crying. Her eyes streaked with black.Rivulets running from beneath her moth’s-eye lenses.“Hey, baby. Don’t blub. Just wanted to come up here one moretime. Before we split.”There’s no reply. Just little shudders against my chest.“Girl, why are ya crying?”“Because.”“Because?”“Because… Oh, I don’t know, Jack.”

THE A-MEN | 337“Tell me.”“I’m just fucked up,” she whispers. “My whole life. Just so fuckingfucked up.”“Shhh,” I soothe, wrapping my arms tighter around her. “I’m herenow. I’m…”“And do you know what really fucks me up? What fucks me upmore than anything? It’s ’cause you know all my faults and failings…you know all about all that… and you still want to be with me.”I have no words for this. So I just hold onto her tighter thanever. As if even the gentlest of breezes is gonna whip her fragile bodyand tear her like a feather off into the midnight. If I could I’d giveher something. Something from before. But there is no before. Onlynow. Living without memories is maddening. And more so, it’s ’causemy memories have not been lost, not ripped away by some diseaseor accident or wild card of fate. Ut-uh. They’ve been stolen, takenby yours truly. Me. Me. Me. I have only one person to blame. Andthe thought that I would do this to myself is driving me slowly insane.“I don’t know much about my life,” I say at last, “But I can tellyou what I do.”“No, don’t tell me anything about yourself, then I don’t have toknow nothing I don’t like.”“OK, baby. That’s OK.”“Are you sure you wanna go?” she says after the next gapingsilence. “I mean, you have so much here.”“I have squat. We’s just treading water. Trying to keep our head’sup is all.”“But Midnight and Doc and Biggs.”“Fuck them. I want to be with you.”“But–”“But one whole big nothing. Doesn’t this feel right to you?”Hugging her again. Kissing the place where her hair meets the backof her ear.“Yes.” She lets the word out like a long sigh. “It feels right. Itfeels good.”

338 | THE A-MEN“Yeah,” I say back. “And it’s not often that we get to feel good.”“No.”“No, so we have to go. Anyways, I don’t for a moment want toget involved in this rescue mission that Esther’s gotten us all into. Ican’t see the sense in it. Not just to buy us some weirdo psychistwith a whale brain in his basement.”Which is true. Midnight’s leaving and returning was a big deal,but now she’s back she wants to run the show. Her and that splicerand the dregs of their retard unit. It’s always been a power strugglebetween her and me. All about law over chaos. Control over freedom.I want to leave now.Only problem’s the escape method. Susie’s idea was to drop intothe Metro and steal a shuttle, but my gut instinct is that all the trackswill be owned by now. And didn’t someone mention the main routesloop in a big figure eight? No, I want the Diablo. Want to head north.To find Devil’s Ridge. Know now that this is an impressive mountainrange out of Dead City. Real before-the-collapse vacation hotspot.Terminus maps show valleys and lakes and smiling fuckers skiing andfishing and shitting in the woods. A whole wild world away from thenoise and bustle of the busted megalopolis.All this is ninety-five kilometres almost due thataway from wherewe stand. And chances are we’ll be able to find my family’s hideyhole.Give us a chance to be together. And maybe find some moreanswers.Y’see knowing Pure life has quickly turned to bliss. If it wasn’tfor fucking Lucille always gatecrashing our private parties then thingswould be perfect. And while I’ve no problem with a man-womanthing, I really could do without a man-woman-man/woman thing,you know what I mean? Of course, Susie’s got more baggage thanher freaky friend. She’s got drug issues like you just wouldn’t believe,but I’m gonna help her kick that. And, as someone who I no longerremember used to say, all the sex I’d ever had was just 3D masturbationin comparison to what we got.Susie’s also grown to love the book. She wants to read it and me

THE A-MEN | 339read it to her all the time. Loves the grimness of the stories. All thebits Esther refuses to stomach.But then again, Susie is everything Esther is not.Esther is black. Susie is white. One’s XL, the other’s petite.Midnight and Pure.It’s as simple as that.And also now we have our tattoos. Kinda makes things official.I have these angel wings on my left arm. Up on the bicep. Setaround a flaming golden ring. Ring of eternity. Wings of immortality.Right from the Jack O’Nowhere tale. Ain’t that just so crispy?She has this devil that snakes over her shoulder. It’s scaly tail curlingaround her left tit. The barbed end, hers. All red and white and black.She’s also told me all about the Burger Queens. About BigMamma. About how the ganglords are carving up this city. Piece bypiece by piece. Cutting the cake into different zones. By now, everyonewho wanted to get out is out. Exxo-funded marshals patrol the citylimits, but leave the pissing and shitting to go on at dirt level. Allpretty much unchecked. As long as the pandemonium is contained,they’ve not got a problem with that. Everyone who isn’t in a gangor a group has been hunted down and slaughtered. Maybe a fewpockets of people hiding out, but to survive here you’ve got to bepart of a tribe. Days are quiet. Hot and open. Already most of theactual action happens after dark. Whole place’s gone nocturnal.Everyone feels safer. Less vulnerable. In a city’s that once held twentymillion, wouldn’t want to guess how many are left. Streets’re stackedfull of the cunts who didn’t make it. Slowly being pecked at by thebirds. Or dragged away by the beasts. Gang names you hear most areGrim Reapers, Burger Queens, Replicats, God-U-Likes. Gutter tribeseach. Full of the mad and the crazy. After all, who else would stayaround this place?Central is the most fought over. Far as we can tell no one yetowns it. Well, not all of it. Maybe not even half. Other turf namesare bandied about like Dead Zone where the Grims rule, Free Zoneby the bay or War Zone where Big Mamma is facing off the Inki-

340 | THE A-MENWinki Chinkimen. Whoever the fuck they are. Only word on themis that they practice the ancient art of inki-winki that’s banned onfour continents. Whatever the fuck that is. Rumours say this mysteriousart involves years of devoted practice, a square piece of coloured paperand a slice of lemon. All just gossip. Propaganda. There’s also otherdistant places talked about. O-Zone. End Zone. Slices of uptown. Butnothing specific. Nothing definite. Just stories.And I’m all done with fucking stories.Sway with the blonde at the lip of the nothingness. I’m decided.We’re going. But that’s the easy part. Now we have to do it. To go.And to do that we’re gonna have to steal the lambo. Dodge the streettrash. Break city limits. And reach the mountains.“We’ll need food and gas and water. Lots of water,” I say.“How’d we get there?” she asks. Shivering like a lamb.“Second star,” I point off to the right. “Straight on for maybeseven, maybe eight hours.”“Let’s go now,” she urges. “We can be there by morning.”“OK,” I agree and kiss her.“Gonna take a miracle,” she whispers.“Yeah, baby, but we’re gods, ain’t we? We can create all the miracleswe want.”And in saying that, I don’t know who I’m trying to convince.Who I want to make believe it more. Her or me.Her or me?*The first we see of Baseeq is when we reach the lip of the half-fallenbalcony. A dozen metres below is our escape vehicle. A little differentfrom when me and Esther discovered it, but hey, nothing’s forever.The green on green on black is neat work. Sprayed like camo gear.The entire sleekness of the Diablo’s bodywork now erratic patchesof rainforest canopy. Even the chrome plating on the wheels is a massof undergrowth.

THE A-MEN | 341The corp demoniac’s fixer is swinging in a hammock strung fromripped portions of framework for the garage. Right next to the weldedshutter. One end wrapped around the top of the oxyacetylened catflapthe Grims used to bust into the Phoenix all that while back. Fucker’sdozing. Want to waste the black bastard, but Pure’s a little less gungho.Instead she sets me the task of hotrigging the lambo while shesorts the door.Watch as she crawls along the ledge and slides to floor level. Downone side of the makeshift rope ladder. Linking our turf with Nathaniel’s.Once there, she slips off her KwaZulu mules and slinks around therubble right up to the sleeping dude. Quiet as a fox. Bobs under thehammock. Almost touching Baseeq’s flopping arm. Twists and stands.Reaches one taloned hand for the shutter release key. Hanging froma ragged wire from the metal wall. Her other is gloved. Blinking likea star. It’s then that I see what she’s done. Shuddering at the audacityof it, but loving it all the same. It’s Midnight’s deathsclaw. Correction:Blackwing’s deathsclaw. How the hell she got it I have no clue. ThatEsther’ll be pissed to fuck is undoubtable. Catching sight of themmakes me smile. As does the way Pure reaches up and positions thepivoted blades either side of the hammock’s main towline. Up by thefixer’s head.With a nod she signals me and I go. Following her down theladder, I sneak towards the car. Ready to be tagged. Having beenhere before. Back when I would black out every three to five hoursand dream nightmares like succulent terrors. Still if I’m going, I’mgoing in style. And maybe this also has something to do with pissingof the professor. Glance from the Diablo to the girl. Tits and pitssweating in my leather jacket with the big A on the back.I stop as the electronic ripple passing along the entire carbonfibrelength of the roadster. Cheap modern security for a priceless antique.Tagged, I stand as close to the driver’s fliptop door as I can manage.Then I give the blonde the nod and she giggles.On the hammock Baseeq’s eyes open wide as he wakes. Suddenspots of white in his all-brown head. He makes one strangling mewl,

342 | THE A-MENthen Pure stabs the shield door lock and dumps his ass. As the giantyellow letters roll into nowhere, I rush forwards. Synchronised withSusie as she claws for the fixer’s throat and rips the lambo’s lockingpin from his thick neck. Entangled in the hammock, it’s all Baseeqcan do to thrash.“Finder’s keepers,” I yell as she tosses the chain over to me.“Loser’s weepers,” she choruses. Kicking him a few times. Just forthe fun of it.Laughing like crazy children, we find the car like a friend. Scoopedup in the plushness of its seats. Slap in the key and rev.Then, we’re gone.Out in the streets I stab the unfamiliar pedals and laugh as theengine guns like thunder. Race down 13th, turn onto PotomacParkway, and just about here the engine dies. Lambo’s primed forthree-fifty clicks per hour, but streets’re set for twenty-five. Drags ourgetaway down to a brisk walk.“What’s happening?” Susie asks.“Fucking inhibitors. Corner of every block.”“Oh, is that all it is.”Pure pops the top. Takes my D&K and aims. First shot blows thenearest metal box to dust. The engine revs up. Next crossing she doesit again. Blasting. Blasting. Blasting. Then we reach the expresswayand it’s just freelaning till the city limits.“Hey,” says Pure, flipping through a manual she’s found somewhere.“This baby’s got an unlimited mileage guarantee.”“Check the expiry,” I say, powersteering onto the up-ramp.“Far out,” she shrieks. “It ran out, like, before fossils.”Too quick, the edge of Dead City appears. White line highwayending in a mass of trouble. Still, cage’s weakest here. Powers that beare focused on the thruways and coastal exits. Looks like they’re reallynot worried too much about people fleeing for the mountains.Barricades are light. Patrols just geos and no airborne.“Get inside,” I order. “This is gonna get rough.”Barked commands start about a thousand metres out. Bullets about

THE A-MEN | 343a hundred. All I can do is press my foot till it aches and start wishing.Godspeed’s our only ace. Our only hope.When we’re under fifty, quick count makes out three marshalsawake enough to be shooting. Set in twin turrets clamped to the sideof a big A-sign. Below them mesh and iron. Scan for weak spots.Find nada.A projectile slams into the front hood. Shredding recessed spots.“Jack?”“I know, baby. I know.”“Jack?”“I know–”“No, look.”Pure’s pointing one milk white finger off to the left. I look andsee a wrecked fuelstop, its forecourt a charred mess.“What?”Then I see it.The undercroft. A sub-street service area for tinkering with cars.Dogging with friends.Twist the wheel. Slide the machine down the ramp. Grinding onconcrete, we lose the back bumper, but not control. Unfamiliarinterface making a mess of any road skills I may or may not havehad. Susie’s squealing. Sharp as the sparks that fly in our wake. All Ican do is grit my teeth and hang on.Below is parking. Greasy bays filled with trash. Abandoned cleaningbots. Scorches where once bonfires burned. But what I’m looking foris a way out. Find it just past a web of tyre tracks. A fence of real chainlink. Yeah, it’s another barrier, but far and away better in the optiondepartment than the one waiting for us upstairs. For a start there’s nodouble-barreled beatniks. No dragon’s teeth. No force multipliers.We break out with minor body damage. Few scars. Few holes.No casualties. No chase either. Guess it’s not worth the effort. Roadsto the inland empire’re all eventual deadenders forcing us to eitherdie out on the ridge or be coming back with our tail between ourlegs soon enough.

344 | THE A-MENOnce clear I open up the black beauty and wonder what to dowhen the tank empties. No place to fill up this kind of car. Onlyoption’s to just burn it out and ditch the scrap metal that remains.First signs we see point to Newangel, then switch from the Five-Eight to the Six-Eight-Zero. Every hour it gets hotter and hotter, andthere’s nothing to do except count roadkills. Thirteen people by fourteenhundred hours. Eventually after cutting through a few desert townsteads– Blackcreek, Santiagos and Oakville – we arrive at a shanty town. Signsays: Paradise Lake. It’s a lifeless dump, full of deserted holiday homeson the shore of a dried-up lake. As we pull up to the four-bedroomedshack of a motel, the moon begins its long haul into the night sky. It’sfuller than full, yet there’s also a dark shadow upon it.“Lunar eclipse,” Pure mutters.The streets around the motel have far too many cats for my liking.Yet the room we break into is spacious and clean enough. Aftershowering and changing, we head to the bar. Once the watering holefor ex-marines and aging homecoming queens. Jukebox’s a minefieldof covers and country classics from the time this place was built.Someone must have anticipated a boom time that never came. Thisplace is a far cry from the opulence we’re headed for. Everything,from the room to the tavern to the cars is from another time.No one is here now and we wonder why.Still don’t stop us barring the door and putting boards up at thewindows before we crash for the night. Dreams of vampires hauntme. Vampires and a hundred thousand cats clawing at the door. Puretosses like a landed fish as she dreams. Snake-like. Always tinged withthe threat of violence, like a heavy swollen bruised of a sky on a toohotafternoon.*Imagine. The desert. Five graves. The lambo. Us. Magnificat. Gloria inexcelsis pumping out the quad-speakers. It’s three days later and thereahead rocks rise up. Raping the sandy ground. And there it is. The

THE A-MEN | 345mountain. Devil’s Ridge. Ahead through a gap in sudden pines. We stare.“This is a good sign,” I say and mean it. It is.For those with eyes to see it is there. Waiting. And hopefully someanswers, too.Jumping back in the geo we snake up Scenic Ridgeway Threeand towards the weird rock formations that crowd the roadside. Bylater afternoon we climb into a series of self-contained valleys highabove the desert towns. Takes about an hour to cross, then we headthe kilometre or so up the valley and finally to the private lodges.The one I pick is the largest. Set on the edge of a big rock with themountain at its back. Sign announces we’re at Jacinto Peak. All aroundthere’s snow, trees and vast expanses of nothingness. Pure’s freaked bythe sight of so much whiteness. Is off at once. Stalking Bigfoot orsome such while I break-and-enter the house.Whole place smells like strawberry gum. As if the entire buildingoozes amber-coloured sap.It’s been one arduous fuck of a journey. The scent of hope taintedby the bitter draught of reality that follows it. This isn’t about theroad, or even the running away. It’s about me and her. Tension betweenme and Susie is now a constant thing. For all her pluses, the beauty’sbehaviour swings are little short of frightening. Her depression is starkand, once engaged, her change of mood is unassailable. No promiseof a good time or sex or anything seems to help. Yet inaction feelswrong. In the city there was purpose. But here? Nothing. None. Nada.Pure returns from her scavenging and we embrace on the veranda.“We’re here,” she says, but I can’t be sure.“I love you,” I say to the little girl clutched to my breast.I don’t know why. It’s just the sort of crazy thing I do.I’m already looking forward to going back.*Time cut.Skip three weeks and I’m sipping daddy’s old vine Zinfandel lazing

346 | THE A-MENin a hammock with the last of the day’s sun reflecting off my ebonylenses. View’s out over the beaten veranda and after that the world.It’s been good not skulking in civilisation’s mad destruction derby.Hunkering down in chaos and hate and death. No blood smearedthick at my feet, the torn ochre sky above. Now the sky is below meand I’m watching ravens soaring below the rim. I swing on the porchof the western balcony that’s set upon a natural scar falling a kilometrestraight down about two metres from where I lie. Pure’s frying briochein the nearby kitchenette. Can smell it on the breeze.But apart from that, all is still.“This is how the universe will end,” Suzy shouts from inside.“Just a sudden silence, then… Ka-whoom!”The lodge is big. Consisting as it does of a ranch and stables andall the trappings to keep whoever lived here as far away from anyoneelse as possible. A retreat in more ways than one.Trying to sum up the time we’ve spent at the ridge is difficult.Mainly because there’s not a lot in terms of actions to recount. Insteadthe moments between are left to expand. To fill the yawning hollows.The long hours spent entwined. The looks. The glances. The preparingof a masterful feast of lips and fingers and cock and cunt.After only three weeks I ache on all levels. Feel like my entiremind, body and spirit has been lightly whipped into the mental,physical and emotional equivalent of a sex and death omelette. Nowthe dust settles on another weird day. Emotion, tantrums, blackmail.A scattering of strange interpretations of the truth. Heated, drunkenscreaming. Her, spinning wildly, shrieking: “Hey, I wish I had a bunnyso you could boil it.” Me saying: ”Just try and tame me! Just youtry!” The sheen of joy thick like grease on my skin. Rolling in theashes in the fireplace. Beating the drums of locker doors like yearonesavages. Her running away. Packing her bags and going. There isno courage in it, her coming back. There is only tactic.And now there is the mail.The file sits on the e:node terminal set into the quarter-cut oakroll-top desk. Its message, its newness, the fact that the sender opened

THE A-MEN | 347and recoded it before posting, the slightly rushed sigils, the hackedcodemark, all are wildly at odds with the turn-of-the-century-beforethis-onefurniture. The mail’s presence is powerful. Making the pastthe present once again. I am knocked sideways by the poignancy ofwhat it means. It means the wolf has returned to my door. So fromwine and lakes and walking hand in hand with the sun on our backsand a simplicity and joy of life, I’m transported to a dark time whenall that I now am was born and all that I was then died.>Jack. You are not who you think you are. Your files were faked.Time code’s tampered. Errors in file signatures. The you-then wasfar smarter than the you-now thought. Glass-Suko had themissing pieces. You need to see this. I want you to come back.Esther.This changes a whole lot.But the cave, the cave changed everything.We found it while rambling. Exploring the grounds. Climbingaround the wooded lip of a perfectly circular lake set between tworidges. We arrived at sunset, made a fire and sat around waiting forheavenrise. When they do we look down into the perfectly still waterand see the orbitals making a well of stars in the sheer-sided hollow.Looks like a gateway to another world. A map of utter blackness.“It’s beautiful,” Pure says. “Like me.”I go to answer, but there’s something here for me. Somethingfamiliar.Hey, daddy, it’s raining. Can we go inside?Aaron?I stand and turn, suddenly sure. I take a dozen striding steps andcome to a tangled rockface. I don’t stop. Push inside the bush andcreeper. Push hard and there it is.Behind is a natural tunnel, a cold throat gaping.C’mon, daddy. C’mon!“Jack?”“It’s OK, Susie. I’ve found a cave back here.”She joins me, and we go forward into the darkness.

348 | THE A-MENAnd there we find the place where my real memories live.Shivering under the weight of all those millions of tonnes of rock,we find a solar generator powering floor-level spots and recirculationsystem, an oval hatchway opening into a self-contained den. Shadowsreveal Sol Series workstation, Kidson dinette, Columbia entertainmentcouchspace, even a steamroom. No comfort overlooked. No expensespared.“Hey, this place is awesome,” Susie says.I have to agree.There was nothing at the summerhouse. Nothing of me. Justdetritus from a family I cannot fully recollect. Yet in the cave I findthe key to my lost life, the rock inscribed like a map of my mind.There scratched into the limestone is Aaron’s name, and the namesfrom the stories. From Forevermore.We were here; me and my son. We came here. We fished. Wehung out.And I remembered it was here.Now I know for certain that there is nothing random to this paththat I am travelling. It means I could be saved. If I want to be. If Ilive long enough. It means that I was being driven by somethingdeeper than memory. Something that’s impossible to slice out. Scorchedearth policy. Raze. Erase. Burn it all to hell, why don’tcha? Only beready to watch it grow back exactly the same. As it was. As it is.This place changes everything because now there is hope, andalso there’s a need in me to stop pretending none of this matters, touse the code Esther sent and to find out what exactly I was hiding.Cross to the terminal and tap it into life. Watch with Pure as thescreen whips through its start-up, then:>Hostgod interrupt. Access?Not what I was expecting.“What’s a hostgod?”“I have no idea.”Tap in Esther’s string of meaningless digits. Expecting nothingmore than an error beep. Maybe a second tier security layer. So I’m

THE A-MEN | 349as surprised as anyone when the green letters blink into nothingnessand are replaced by:>Glass-Suko Corporation retrieval. Request accepted.Terminal fizzles. Converting stream data. Then the diocam footageunspools again. The deadpan voice saying: “The gun was in mystormcloak. The gun to kill my father. So I guess you wanna knowwhy I didn’t use it?”Then it blips to the vac shots and I’m saying: “This’s being tapedon the night before our descent. E-Unit has minus seven and thedoc’s ready with the scalpel, so I guess this will be the last chance Ihave to get all this out my system.”Terminal cross-compares. Voice/data matching.>Corelation Vox#1.0a/Vox#1.0b: 62%.Then there’s a freezeframe of the golden diorama in the unbadgedtrooper’s faceplate. A clunky zoom on my reflection against the wallof fire behind. Cross-compared with my reclining drunken self in thevac.>Corelation Img#1.0a/Img#1.0b: 42%.The vox and the images don’t match. They aren’t even close.Whoever was holding that diocam, whoever was gunning for his father,it wasn’t me.Soldier, wait! Don’t you know who I am?No, buddy. No, I don’t. But, after fleeing from the fear that Imassacred my own family to avenge my dead son, knowing I’m offthe hook makes me fucking powerfully sure I wanna find out.“Jack, what’s that?”Snap back from my daydreaming and see Pure’s pointing at thescreen. At another system request.>User/psychist. Identify.“Fucked if I know.”“Let’s try something…”“No–”But before I get the chance to stop her, the blonde’s typing.>ITS PURE. WHOS ASKING?

350 | THE A-MENThere’s an awkward pause, then:>User rejected.“Hey, babe, nice try but looks like we’ve overstayed our welcome.”Cut the feed. Watch as the e:node dies. Screen zapping to black.Little do I know that the damage has already been done.And that the Glass-Suko troopers are eight hours fifteen minutesfrom blowing the lodge, the estate and the whole fucking JacintoPeak off the face of the earth.Later we slip into wine-induced sleep. Well, Susie does. I can’t.There’s too much wildness in my head.So what am I to do? Stay or go. To fall into the thing I ambecoming or go back to the thing I was? Parts of me want to run,run as far from the truth as I can, like one runs from a black briefcasewith a sawn-thru pair of handcuffs snapped to its worn handle, lyingupon an emptying tram station. And then there is the other part thatis pushing forwards, upwards, inwards trying to find a way closer, asif even the merest hair’s breadth, or even a single particle of oxygen,between me now and me then is insufferable.And if I decide to go back, what then? Leaving this time andplace will be more difficult. More difficult than leaving DC. It’ll bethe most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Like shitting razors or passinga camel through the eye of a needle.So what have I got? What’s the story?Even after all this time, there’s not much.Rafaele Juarez D’Alessandro writes an illegal book of faerie tales.Somehow I get hold of a copy. Start reading it to my son. We’re richand I spend my time funding the creation of true sentience. Linkingme with Glass-Suko. My son dies and I go loopy. So unspools themadness that leads to where I am right now.As I said, it’s not much.At my side, Pure murmurs in her sleep. Reaching for me.And I remember my cum still on her chest and hers is spurtinginto my mouth and my deep brown eyes are reflected in her blueones and they’re so blazing bright that I feel as if to look too long

THE A-MEN | 351will be fatal like some Medusa-like power and her smell and mine,mingling together…Later dawn creeps up on the horizon. Visible through the cracksin the vertical blinds. As is a brighter light. A carpet of silver thatsweeps over the treetops and the roof of the stables.What the fuck–?I squirm out of bed. Waking Susie. But when I get to the window,the light’s gone. Outside’s as peaceful as every other night since wegot here.“What’s up, baby?” she asks.I look at her and know I cannot lie.So I tell her.“I’m going back, Susie.”“Going back? Why?”“I have to go back. I am not who I thought I was.”“That makes no shitting sense, Nowhereman,” she says, now wideawake.“Y’see, you and me we’re anomalies. Mutations of this replicationof the genome and about as cosmically important as smears of shit.But meeting you and being here has changed a whole lot for me.Made me question what I have and what I am. Of course we canall make a difference, but what that difference is – or even why wewould want to make it, is the issue here.”And there’s nothing more dangerous than hitching up withsomeone who don’t know what they want.“Are you ditching me?” She can’t see it.I say nothing. What can I say?Stunned, the blonde beauty stares. Ugly for a moment with herrising loathing.“But, baby–” she mumbles.“I gotta go back. I can’t just run away. I can’t. Esther–”The mention of Midnight’s name changes everything. Instantly.“I hate you,” she spits. Hurling back the bedcovers and reachingfor the nightstand. Going for her guns.

352 | THE A-MENDance and duck as she shoots up the place. Race out onto thebalcony and roll as windows explode behind me. Showering glassinto the great wide beyond. Unable to stop I leap the rail and dropa whole storey to the ground in front of the house. Roll into bushes.Blam-blam-blam goes the world behind me.“You crazy fucking bitch!” I scream over the gunshots. “I’m goingand that’s final.”Pure appears above me, vicious as a rabid thing. Wilder than wild,she waves smoking pistols in her hands. Clicking triggers. All chambersempty.Then she stops. Looks off into the night.What you seen, baby?And then I see them, too. The attack craft. Blades whispering nolouder than the wind through the pines. Moving slowly anddeliberately toward the lodge.I don’t wait.“Susie! Baby, ya gotta jump!”Nothing.“Susie!”She jumps.Lands in my arms and we’re running. Naked in the dark. Just ourtattoos. Her empty pistols.As we reach the stables, as we dive into the plush interior of thelambo, the first shots strangle the pre-dawn hush.Blam-blam-blam-blam-blam.Can’t even hear the engine start over the sound of busting wallsand windows.“You comin’?”Watch her nod. Like a little girl.Then I nod too, and hit the pedals. Wanting to be on the roadbefore the sun starts melting the tarmac. Wanting to get back beforeshe changes her mind. Or I change mine.Or, when the smoke clears and the fires die down, the Glass-Suko deathsquad discover that our bodies are not in the rubble.

41 DäalessandroAfter months of solitary confinement in my underground laboratory,I am back in my old office to witness the gathering of the A-Men.It is the first time I have seen them together.It will be the last.Doc.The tall, handsome Douglas Grisholm, arms folded and calm.Dressed in casual coordinates, his only nod towards the chaos of thecity being his buckled motorbike boots and kneepads.Mordeci.The wizard Grainger, obviously part of the management team.He is supposedly guilty of murder one and you can see he will killagain. He has that devil inside him. Just the way he makes fists as hestands there watching me is enough to know that.Biggs.The big bad giant is less of a killer, more opportunist in the faceof need. He’s dressed in tight fitting thermals. More big boots andarms covered in chains. Fingers dirty with grime, face haunted bythe grimness of a full beard.Sister Midnight.Esther’s black hair is now twisted into the first formations ofdreadlocks. Each stumpy knot hung with scraps of scarf and bootlace.Her body is wrapped in arctic camouflage gear. Her inscrutable eyesare fixed upon me, waiting for my prep talk. For the true details ofthe deal to go down. Of course I am going to lie to them all, but Iwill find it hardest lying to her.

354 | THE A-MENPsychosex.The transsexual Lucille is as ever inappropriately dressed. Clad inchenille jacket and velcroed velour evening dress. No doubt a designerlabel no one but her has ever heard of. Her red hair is laced withsparkling diamonds that look fake but are probably real. Her makeupperfect. Gun holster slung low on her hip with twin mother-of-pearlDerringers shining.Exor.Harris is clothed in army green from his fatigues and vest, rightup to his stormcloak and hood. His face is almost lost behind a pairof fighter pilot’s goggles. Under the shadow of the cowl only the tipof his chin is truly visible. He has been toying with the stream forweeks now and his stance betrays addictions far too complex to assessor understand.Edward of Phlegethon.The trickster Eddie Phlegm sits cross-legged beside Exor. Onceplain-old, same-old Edward Jacobs, he has been reborn as easily themost out-there member of the gang. Clad in what is little short ofjester’s finery, he mixes Burgundian with Wild West hero with scrapsof his original army issue. His legacy? A twenty-eight foot scorchmark that nearly saw him plough concrete while dogfighting GrimReapers out on Vermont. No one gives Eddie long, the resident oddsslim that he’ll make it to new week, let alone the new year. Still, hemay surprise us yet.Shitehawk.Little Timmy Clarke, hardened by the death of the other child,now packs a hunting bow, helm and greaves. The dark around andwithin his eyes a testament to the kid that has been destroyed andthe evil shit that has taken his place. Shitehawk is a savage, slayingwithout remorse or compassion, so practiced with his bow that histactic of picking off targets from rooftops is honed and deadly andeminently welcome.Maggiore.The newest newcomer is Johnnie Tai, part-white, part-red, part-

THE A-MEN | 355yellow. Dressed in motorbike leathers, his hands and hair slick, thoughit’s hard to tell which is the more grease-ridden. A deserter from theReplicats, Tai joined the ranks as little as a week ago. His knowledgeof geos and tanks and internal machinery is impressive. As is his retrodevotion to Elvis and James Dean. His tricky and gratingly cheerymanner is less so. Named himself after one of the cities in the book.The capital of Whereland, I think you’ll find.23rdxenturyboy.The other child and his cohorts are not sworn members of thegroup, but like myself, are intrinsically linked to it. Inexorably boundto the fate of this day. This seven-year-old is more mysterious andstreetwise than Timmy and comes strapped with knives and the coloursof a dozen pro teams. Benjie is not as dangerous as Shitehawk, buthis impossible supra-human ideals and comic-book code of ethics areeasily as fanatical. His close companion, the ridiculously named Dingothe Wonder Dog, is garbed in cloak and pseudo-superhero trappings.The rollerbooted Elliott is unable to keep still, is always twitching orfidgeting or spinning his wheels. At his side sits the lab komondorBixby gnawing on a badly chewed toy. The three standing in a roware like some genetic comparison of the origin of their species.Then off to the right, keeping detached from the main group arethe recently returned Nowhereman and Pure. Jack in denim andleathers, brooding and moody and tanned like hide. Hands stuffedunder his arms. Hair longer every time I see him. Susie is pretty inpink ra-ra skirt and white thigh boots with twenty straps up eachside. I can’t help counting them. Twice. Blonde hair kept out of hereyes by a diamante crown. Back from the sun-scorched badlands herbleached skin is a wonder to us all. She plays with her many-bladeddeathsclaw as if it were a kitten.Behind everyone stands Baseeq, frowning as usual. Watching thecorridor, not wanting to be seen as a part of this meeting, but notwanting to miss it either.And then there is me. Seated at my desk, commanding a view ofall around me. Ready to use whatever means I can to undo that

356 | THE A-MENwhich has been done. Or so it should appear. When I took the K/OSkey code, bartered it for a new life for Jack far away from corporatelife and dead sons, it was already infected. Jack’s revenge for mysupposed involvement in Aaron’s death. Then there was delight andunimaginable progress. Now there is a whole tonne of damagelimitation. Before I can start again…“I’ll keep this brief and to the point. You require my skills to aidyou in your turf war against the Grim Reapers, to rig defences andrepower the Phoenix. I need you to break and enter the Glass-Sukomainframe, to disable the infected coding and upload the cleanreplication. Only in this way will the self-replicating virus be removed.”“Correctamundo,” says Jack, needlessly.“Such a complex task will utilise multiple groups accessingmultiple nodes and all must be precisely coordinated. This just isn’tpossible using standard issue comlinks. No, this mission has to beperfectly timed to the nearest macrosecond. Only by atomic processingare we going to have even the slightest chance of success against asupracomputer. Also we need to give the forefront teams audio andvisual stream data and for that they need specific direct brain accesssystems. While the actual molecular mechanisms required to blackprogram the bio-anima sentience are unfathomably complex, inessence the process is simple. The entire Glass-Suko structure runsusing the K operating sentience RNA code. The only way to gainaccess to the K/OS code is via the sequences written into the originalDNA string.”Being genetic, there are a finite amount of people with the preciseaccess helix and who know the correct access protocol. Jack wasobviously one, but he wiped his memory. Probably precisely for thispoint. But my audience’s getting restless, so I move on.“We need to take out the four main targets of the R&D fortressto gain access; the e:node, backbone, central core and system. Dingoand 23rdxenturyboy will crack the central uplink in City Hall. Sincethe damage sustained to the Phoenix comsat that is the only wayinto near-space left in the city. We need access to the Glass-Suko

THE A-MEN | 357e:node and an open link for about ten minutes. That’s Grim territorynow so, Mordeci, you get them in and out using whatever force isnecessary. Take Biggs, Eddie, Shitehawk and Maggiore as your taskforce. Baseeq can arrange the juggers and geos. Tai can help prep,lock and load. Esther, once the link is open, I need you and Exor tohack the R&D central core. To take it down and keep it down whileI use the access codes and reset the entire system. But I need a sampleof DNA. Doc, you will aid me in taking this from Jack…”“Hey, wait one fuckin’, shittin’ minute–”The Nowhereman’s retort is as sharp as it is expected.“There is a problem with the plan?” I ask.“Shit, yes. Why’d I have to be cut?”I look at the microfine scar that trembles in the lamplight alonghis hairline. He sees me looking and shuts up. Thinking that he knowswhy he’s been chosen, because invasive surgery has already beenperformed, but is about as far away from the correct reason as he canbe.“So, to recap: Mordeci, your team gets us the e:node. Esther, yoursdisables the core. This leaves me to flatline Glass-Suko and uploadthe last replication. Is that clear?”“What about us,” growls Pure. “What about Lucille and me?”“Yeah,” chimes in Lucille. “What about our parts? Haven’t wegot parts?”“Your talents are not required for this particular mission,” I reply,a little too harshly.“Well, fuck you, Dr Doom. We want in, too.”So the supermodels get the task of helping in the lab fitting theAmtech headmans; the communcation tools required to sync thewhole operation. It’s the only job I can think of at such short notice.Lamentably, the plan mentions nothing of how once we link withthe R&D backbone the Glass-Suko system will come under thejudicial scrutiny of XEs and all the secrets that I have kept hiddenso long in the darkness will be revealed. Within heartbeats mycorporation will know of the X-Isle, will know of Lloyd’s death, will

358 | THE A-MENknow how my disappearance contravened nigh-on every corporatelaw in the book. I mention nothing of this. Or of the inevitablemobilisation of a countervaluation task force hellbent on mydestruction. No, the real mission is about survival of the Amen andwiping out 101 percent trace of the evidence against me.And the sacrificing of every last motherfucking one of these nohopers?No, I mention nothing about that at all.

42 PureAfter my drama-queen outburst, we get stuck wet nursing the dweebswhile they get their implants. To keep communicado, the tall dudeis digging deep into his company’s pockets and fitting everybody withDBA thought-channel interfaces. Discarding the gang’s retrotechcomlinks, they all get brand new Amtech headmans. Must’ve cost anabsolute fortune.“It’s a common misconception,” the green-masked professormutters as he slices the back of The Nowhereman’s ear from top tobottom, “that hearing voices is associated with schizophrenia andschizophrenia with multiple personality syndrome. While it is truethat schizophrenics often hear voices, one needn’t even have a mentalillness to experience auditory hallucinations.”Turning, Glass hands Grisholm the scalpel and is handed back aminute instrument. Looking like an electronic beetle, the Amtechheadman is barely the size of a finger nail, its many-legged micro-thinwires dangling. Expertly he pops the unit into the fleshy wound he hasopened and asks for some high-falooting tool to fuse the connections.“With the headman, input can occur in any sensory form –auditory, visual, tactile, gustatory or olfactory – but these units areprimarily communication and channel devices.”Blah, blah, bloody blah.When he starts yakking on about transducing sound into neuralpatterns and feeding them directly to the contralateral inferiorcolliculus, I tune out. Words like ipsilateral medial geniculate nucleusand superior temporal gyrus are just noise, ya know?

360 | THE A-MENBehind her own mask, Lucille makes a face and gestures that shetoo has had enough of this bullshit. This is the eleventh stiff we’verigged. The eleventh bloody implant we’ve administered. The eleventhdead weight we’re dumped in the surviving gunk tank to regen. Docwas first, then Midnight, then the grunts. After that it was the littleboy, the weird kid and reconfiguring his roller-skating pooch. Nowit’s Jack’s turn. The last of the ops. Of course with our designer minds,we have all the relevant gubbins. All it took for us to psyche intoradio A-Men was a little twiddling with the settings. I’m glad aboutthis. Frankly, me and Lucille have had enough cutting for one lifetime.“Actually there’s a very fine line between getting audible voicedata and white noise. Each unit is anima-coded into a set frequency,icewired and completely secure, but it is easily thought-tuned to acceptstream data, both audio and visual.”I ache to scratch my neck as Nathaniel slices and dices. Stabbingwith his distaff. Making Jack bleed. I’m vividly aware of the semitranslucentgloves on my hands. And the darkening stains on the seethroughsurface. Now the exact shade of burnt umber of JacquelineDu Nord’s wolf-lined powersuit in the bi-centennial Fashion Olympics.Then we have to turn the body and all I can think of is Jack.The Nowhereman is out cold, his breath reeking of whiskey. Theonly way he would submit to more surgery. Our time upon the Devil’sRidge is still an ache to me, but I see now that this blasted, bombedup,burnt-down city is a perfect place for someone like him. Maybesomeone like all of us. Or what we have become. We all have ourbooks, be they comics or religious texts or the unreal lives of ourheroines sprawled across the pages of beauty neozines. We’ve all beensold these aspirational lives. These lies. Maybe we’re all insane. Maybethat’s what’s brought us all together like this. Maybe that’s what theA-Men’s all about with Jack’s unavoidable beauty at the centre. I ama moth to a flame and that flame is getting hotter. Brighter. Fiercer.And I know that unless I slam on the emotional brakes, shut thisaffecting tome, it will also be my pyre.The black bitch is behind Jack’s return to Dead City. She’s revealed

THE A-MEN | 361something to him, lied to him, cajoled him, to come back. And tryas I might in the sweetest depths of the darkness, pre, during andpost our torturous sexual encounters, no amount of pillow talk willdraw it from him.Watching him lying on the makeshift operating table in one ofthe only serviceable canteen areas left in the Glass-Suko headquarters,I am still numbed by him. Watching him breathing, him sleeping, isenough to know that even after all the madness of our escape andreturn, I cannot walk away.I am like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a juggernaut.I am the little girl upon the steps of the blood-sucking count’scastle. My throat is white as snow. Ready for his teeth. My burninglove for him mirrored only by my burning hate.Be sure, be pure.I shiver and Lucille hugs me. Her black-lined eyes heavy withtears. Like someone’s spat in each one. Both unable to watch the profand the doc poking about inside the back of Jack’s head. Winsomeas only little girls can be.The surgeons retreat. Leaving us to swab. To clean and rinse andbathe. To wipe away the mess of the thorns of the operation andmake ready for the sealing.Then the healing begins. Maxi-induced by another taser-likegizmo. Fusing without bruising. And then it’s done and after a quickspike with a stimneedle, The Nowhereman awakens. But before hedoes I stoop and kiss him. It is not a full-on thing. There are notongues. Just a gentle brushing of lips. A breathing in of liquor fumes.A brief encounter.It is over in a moment.And then Jack returns to the land of the living and his kingdom.But not to his self.Focusing, his brown eyes meet mine. Taking in my face, my hair,my clothes. For a moment words flutter on the edge of his mouth.Trembling his lips with possibilities.“Yes,” I breathe. “What is it?”

362 | THE A-MENMy words rouse something in him. His mien darkens. Transforminghim from prince to gloating fox clutching stolen eggs between jawsstained crimson red. With chicken blood, so warm and good. Andfresh.“What?” I mouth, unable to face this look. This thing.His reply is colder than a knife to the heart.“Why don’t you just fuck off out of my life.”“Jack–?”“Get away from me. Don’t you get it? I hate your fucking guts.I hate every piece of you. Every tiny piece.” He sits up as everyonebacks away. But he doesn’t notice them. His entire poisoned gaze isall for me. “I hate your preening and your pouting and your fuckingslack-sided pussy.”“No, Jack. You can’t mean this. You don’t know what you’resaying?”He slides like a snake off the countertop and paces towards me.I back into the redhead’s rigid arms and she into the cabinetry andwe can go no further.“Don’t I? Go fuck yourself, you dumb blonde bitch. Can’t youget it through your bleached little brain? It’s over. We’re over.Everything is so fucking over!”“But, you said you… you said you loved me.”“Love you?” his voice is acid. “I’d rather fuck handfuls of my ownshit.”Tears blind me as I run. Clacking in Jervaise-Versace thighboots.Fleeing from everything I know and want and love.For this dumb blonde bitch has finally got the message.

43 23rdxenturyboyLet me tell you ’zactly how it happen’t.Dingo and me get prep’t, then head down to the carport wherewaits the customise’t battlewagon. Not really sure what it was to startwith, but the black man and the mech men have recreate’t it in theimage of a war machine. The main cab has mesh’t potholes whereonce windows would have been. Swap’n plastic for sonar to feedstreet and obstacle constructs to the driver. They’re is places for twoothers strap’t beside him. Room for the rest of the dukes in the rearcabin-cum-death room. The jugger now has rib’t shutters along bothsides, hide’n spearguns and these über-wickedarama twin ballistas.There’s a missile launcher mount’t on a gyro-tripod forward, with atrapdoor and mine store aft. The midsection houses this barb’t steeplesurround’t by rail’ns with space for two people to take potshots anywhich way. Whole thing’s paint’t black and grey-green with a bigcircle’t letter ‘A’ on the front that covers the entire cab. Window’nroof’n all.Biggs gets to drive, with Shitehawk as navigator. Eddie andMordeci get port and starboard, while Maggiore gets top. This leavesthe dog wonder and me to keep the launcher arm’t and ready andto man the trapdoor. Bixby has come too. Whimper’n whenever Dingogoes to tie him up. As if he knows.The way to City Hall takes us straight into the Dead Zone. Groundzero Grim Reapers tm territory. Location we’re bound sits with thecourthouse and halls of justice just off Logan Circle and Rhode.There’s no real plan. Just slam the pedal to the metal and try to bust,

364 | THE A-MENbreak and blast our way through to the other side. It’s only fivekilometres or so, but once the Grims get our scent, it’s gonna be thelongest road of our lives.Elliott is plug’t into the new A-Men comms system, on accountof him already have’n the gadgetry in his head to pick it up. But Idon’t. So I ask’t him to pass things on. Not all of it. Just the thingswhat concern me. And he says he will.The first thing he says is that Nathaniel is verify’n that all is inposition. That Doc and Jack and Psychosex is at the Phoenix controlroom. That Sister Midnight and Exor is topside. That Pure is AWOL.Not that that’s a big downer. She never had a big part in all thisanyhow.Soon as the word’s given, we’re off. Baseeq opens the hatch andBiggs throws the geo out down Tunlaw then left onto 13th. This’lltake us directly to Logan. And alsa into Grim central. We stop onlyonce. Opposite U Street. Edge of A-Men turf. Here’s the barrierbetween us and ’em. Perimeter is a mass of barricades and these greatiron gates. Secure’t between scrapers on both sides of the road. Onlyway in from the southern approach. The white-face’t, black-hood’tones wait for us there. Half-hidden by car wrecks. Half-conscious dueto drink and drugs. A squadron of motorbikers set here by Blackwingto wait and to watch. Wait’n for that moment when the gates isopen’t. Watch’n for that one day when we make a mistake and theycan get in. We’ve seen it a hundred times before. The way they masswhen we appear. Like undead outside the house of the only live’nguy in town. Soon as the jugger appears, they’re gun’n their enginesand shriek’n and radio’n their unseen companions. The call goes outand we know we have seconds before they make our run impossible.For though we is tuck’t inside our battlewagon, arm’t to the teethand safe behind all this reinforce’t iron and steel, we is only seven.At last count, they is five thousand.Quick as a wank, Shitehawk jumps out from the cab and runsfor the gatelock. HQ clicks the auto lock, but it’s a manual dual seal’ndevice to make doubly sure. Stop’n only to shoot twice, spear’n two

THE A-MEN | 365Reaper’s to their machines with tri-point’t arrows, Timmy dodges ahail of missiles and slaps open the safety gears on the gates. With ahideous grind’n, the barb’t wire hung rail’ns stagger inwards and Biggswastes no time in force’n the battlewagon through the widen’n crack.Plough’n past suicidal scream’n Reapers, we gun down 13th, pause’nonly once to allow Timmy Clarke to catch up and be haul’t throughthe trapdoor and inside.Run’n the gauntlet towards Logan is a trial. Dingo winces everytime the great buttress’t bus crunches someth’n under its armour’twheels. Every time a bullet ricochets off the outer case’n. Every timea kamikaze creature lands on the roof and is blast’t by Maggiore’sshotgun. On a normal day ammo is sacred, but not today. Today ismake or break. Do or die try’n.To shit or get of the pot.Then someone is shout’n, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”and the wagon is siege’t by sounds. Sounds of autos and engines andthe whang’n of bullets, bricks and whatever else the Grims can laytheir hands on.Yelp’n, the komondor hides under his paws, while me and Elliottcower over him. All three of us scare’t shitless. We ain’t never beenin noth’n like this.“The bastards are swarming,” shouts Mordeci from somewhereamidst the mayhem. “Biggs, gun the fucking thing over them. Twentythird,we need shrapnels.”We don’t have to be told twice. Tug’n at the chains, Dingo whapsopen the trapdoor as I grab two flasks off the racks. Underneath thebus broken bikes and twist’t people smear past my blurry eyes. I don’tlook too long. Just click the mines to three seconds and drop ’em.There’s a brief pause then an almighty whoomph. Then the backof the geo is spray’t with stuff that sounds like a hard rain. I can’tand don’t imagine what makes up the hail. Just close the hatch andgrab the floor again.With a sicken’n lurch we hit what must be the Circle and haulleft. Throw’n the world away. I think the wagon will topple, but itdon’t. Right’n itself, we is on the straight road to the square. Takes

366 | THE A-MENmoments to reach the cobble’t old town. Judder’n the bus halts andMordeci orders us to follow him. Without think’n, Dingo grabs hisgear and tails the boss through the side door. And I’m right behind’em both. The plan was to leave Bixby in the geo, but that’s all mess’tup when he slips out before Eddie can slam him in.Outside the mass’t hordes of bikers and urban apaches crowd.Come’n at us from every direction. My legs turn to jelly, then I’mrun’n after the others. Puke’n with fear but not able to bring it up.Behind us ballistas spear the foolish gimps who assault the bus, yetnow it’s stop’t they’re sit’n ducklings.Pound’n across the sidewalk, for a moment we is caught beforethe masses, yet Biggs position’t the battlewagon well. We is only pacesfrom the steps and after the steps the door. As Dingo cracks the code,Mordeci blasts his auto as fast as the chamber can take it. fell’n Grimafter Grim. Keep’n ’em off our backs. Me cover’n ’em both with abust’t riot shield.Then the door is open and we’re stumble’n inside.Then it’s bar’t and bolt’t and as secure as we can make it.“Right,” our leader pants, “we’re in. You’ve got about five beforethose bastards are in here with us. Make ’em count.”Nod’n we go, man and boy and dog.Know’n that the savage road race was just the begin’n.Now the real work is about to start.

44 Sister MidnightMordeci on. Channel’s open. Midnight, you are green to go. O ’n’ O.When the signal comes from Mordeci that The Wonder Dog and23rdxenturyboy have spliced the e:node and cleared transmission, Ijack my terminal and enter once more the cathedral of light.Transmuting into my stream construct, I languish in the intricatecourtyard just long enough to allow Exor to join me, then autotargetthe sacristy and go. Facing the altar and e:node gateway, I coaxial intomy companion’s presence and skip to delight speed. The channel winksclear even as we whirl into its cyclopean centre. Dingo has done hisjob well.Midnight on. We’re in.Passing blackdoors and d:locks without flatlining, we ride the eyeof the storm from hub to hub to hub. Skipping across twenty-threethousand kilometres in as many seconds. Leaving behind the shatteredcity, the endless streets of death, the ganglords, the ruins of our world,lives, selves, Exor and I fly free. Passing a billion fractal channels, ourcourse is set. Our pole star the Glass-Suko central core upon theseventh moon of near-space. Tucked within the virtual folds of Harris’ethereal robes, I clutch the ball of data that is to act as our shell, oursword. The blade that will pierce the AI’s inner defences and hopefullybuy Nathaniel enough time to bypass the security modules and hitthe purge key. Like some giant programmed Achilles’ heel, this willcause the titan to fall. And in falling it will perform the only functionleft open to it. It will reboot. In that moment, if the access codingproves true, the psychist can reconfigure the anima-tree and cold start

368 | THE A-MENfrom the last replication. The uninfected replication. While this is afar inferior translation to the current model, it will suffice. Admittedlythere will be some loss of function – and life – yet this compares asto nothing if the virus is left to mature.Glass on. Call back when you gain sanctum. O ’n’ O.If the Glass-Suko sentience stopped working, even if fifteen percentof its subsystems were rendered inoperable, the results upon thecorporation would be disastrous. Since Nathaniel requested our aid inthis matter, in the deepest hours of the night I have studied this. Witha fifteen percent failure, twenty-seven of its one hundred and eightynavigational satellites would cease transmission. Sub-space aviation,ionospheric shipping, planetary trucking and sixteen thousandtelecommunication hubs would blink offline. Stream activity would beslowed to a crawl. Hundreds of billions of gigaflops of intrinsic datawould be irretrievably lost. Over half the company’s backbone systemsand timestamping stations and agribiological markets would be blinded,causing food consignments to be literally lost in space. In the secondto-worstcase scenario I ran, thirteen peace-keeping missiles woulddestabilise and auto-ignite. In the worst case, the corporation’s skystationwould lose its geostational orbit and collide with at least one of theother six nearest moons massacring multi-millions in a single stroke.And that is only with a fifteen percent failure rate. The smallestfigure on Nathaniel’s sliding scale of the forecasted burn-out causedby Jack’s virus. The highest is thirty-five and I cannot even bringmyself to run the disaster curves for that percentage.The brilliant stars of a hundred thousand suns slow and then stop.Ahead is the Glass-Suko construct. Seen through my deck’s interpreteras a vast citadel, its spires and minarets circling an inner sanctum ofmonolithic proportions. Tree-lined pathways and elegant hexagonalcourtyards spatter the continent of the corporate land mass below us.I look at Exor. At his fiery eyes and silken tabard. He nods ascentand we drop like mountains from the hands of God the Allfather.Like sinners from the gates of paradise. Here Dingo’s shielding ends.Here we are on our lonesome.

THE A-MEN | 369Midnight here. We are down. Repeat down. Entering vertex sequence.I draw a hundred swords in my hundred arms and raise them ina giant wheel about my head. My skin is so black it is blue. A mirrorfor the lapis lazuli coloured walls and stonework all around us. Watertrickles like molasses from a dainty fountain at the quadrangle’s exactcentre. It’s delicately mosaiced pool filled to overflowing with yellowblossoms beneath which koi carp glisten. Each one is a library ofrecords. A consensual history of this the smallest of themacrocorporations that have grown to own this manufacturedConsortium of Heaven and ninety-six percent of all who dwell withinit. The USSA in its entirety.But there is no time for sightseeing. Now is a time of action.Already the air bristles with a million dangers. The bells of a hundredalarms ringing out our trespassing.Exor. It’s time. Do it.The technonerd quivers. Clutching the jewelled casket to his silkenbreast. For a moment trembling against the weight of what he is aboutto attempt. In that moment wazirs erupt from the walls and doorsand flagstones. Intent on us and our eradication from this time-space.I silent scream, my arms a blurred wave of flesh and steel.Now! Do it now!And he does.Or tries to.As his imagined fingers attempt to prime and arm the incendiarydevice, security black programs swarm him. Forty thieves, their eightylimbs grasping, grabbing, dragging him down. Sweeping his residualdata image into the shadows and the shadows into his completesubsumption. Amalgamating his signature fields and tesseraxial dataflowinto the greater machine. Into nothingness.The sparkling little chest drops at his naked toe-ringed feet andI leap for it. Even as the guardians reach for me, my fingertips clawfor its make-believe locks and latches. Its primary release mechanisms.“Ave fucking maria,” I cry as I force the pandora’s box open. Asthe sentience wrenches me into its octadecimal maw.

370 | THE A-MENInstantaneously the unreal ether turns molten, charring the guardsand the temples and the entire fantastical construct into manual infinitydump.Which in its turn sends the subsystem into override.The alluvial anima core into overload.And the AI into conniptions.

45 The NowheremanGlass on. Begin peroration on system reset. That’s in ten, nine…Dingo calling. Hi everyone. I’m on, signed and delivering in three, two…Mordeci on. Channel’s open. Midnight, you are green to go. O ’n’ O.Midnight on. We’re in.Glass on. Call back when you gain sanctum. O ’n’ O.Midnight here. We are down. Repeat down. Entering vertex sequence.Exor. It’s time. Do it.Now! Do it now!While the signals of war spear my mind with their monotonebuzz, I am left to float in the last of Nathaniel’s weird crystal-shapedtanks. Tubes spearing everywhere else. Jacking me to the monitoringequipment and the A-Men net. Regenerating so the doctors tell me.Seems like I’ve been here a lot longer than the others were. I meanhow long can it take to seal a fucking five centimetre slice?My weighted legs ache. My fingers spasm all on their own. Andthere’s nothing I can do to stop them. Also I’m dying for a piss inthe worst possible way. Too groggy to really focus. Too tired to givemyself to unconsciousness. Way too tired.And then I am aware of the spider in my mind. Moving. Creeping.Twitching each one of its eight spiny legs. Flexing them. Brain feelslike its being picked at. Like it’s being eaten. Ragged piece by raggedpiece. Wolfed down cold by the monstrous thing. Try to force myarms up to my temples. Try to rake and tear and rip a hole in myskull. It don’t have to be big. Just large enough to slip in my handand pull the hairy fucker out. Once and for all. Pull him out and

372 | THE A-MENstamp on the many-eyed freak’s pus-filled head. Dash out his brainswith the plated heel of my black leather boot. Laughing as the silverspurs shine. As the steel chains sparkle.It’s Glass. Midnight? Exor? Can you report? What is your assessment?Nathaniel! We’re being overrun!Who is this? Mordeci? Dingo, have you still got a channel?We’s lost ’em!Biggs on. Mordeci, we have to be leaving now. Copy, big leader.Ave maria mother fucking muthafucker of holies…Glass on. Keep to the t-com parameters! Keep to the t-com–The mayhem of the messages begins to overlay, one atop theother, until there’s just a million channels of static. I know there areno nerve endings in there, but it hurts all the same. Hurts like a worldof pain. Writhe against the intrusion and then I reach out toward thesystem into which I am plugged.And then my vision draws back. Losing all focus in the slowreveal. My mind a sudden kingdom. An island. Many islands. Andthen I see the entire faerie tale world. The hills and dales. The seaand sky.And then I see Xankhara.Or its shadow at least. Deep below the farthest reaches of thefarthest ocean. Drowned in the ocean of its own fate. The Sea ofFate.I’m a traveller on the Sea of Fate. Out here adventures wait. I’m atraveller…On the Sea of Fate.Downward I plunge. Sickeningly fast. Impossibly quick. Out ofthe air. Into the water. Sea spray blinds me. Blue-green chokes me.Blackness enfolds me.I scream and glug slime. It tastes salty. I shit myself. Like a babe’sfirst crap. Merconium spilling into the viscous fluid in which I bob.Staining with its green-black cloud.It’s the spider I want. The foul thing within me that’s beencontrolling, whispering, moving my hand.

THE A-MEN | 373I awake on a beach of skulls. A hundred million skulls. No scapulasor femurs or clavicles. Just skulls. Skulls and the odd mandible. Andthe hypnotic jingling of an unseen sistrum. Above the wavy curve ofthe ocean wanders. Dizzying. Above a planet shines through. Couldbe the sun. Could be the moon. Illuminating the shore of this spectralisle. Only this. And nothing more.I breathe water as if it were ever a function of the humanrespiratory system to do so. I am alone. Alone on the white bleachedstones. I sit. It’s either that or I’ll fall. Grasp for something solid.Something unmoving. Something real. But I know none of this is. Itcan’t be. I’m in the regen tank. I’m in the busted subterranean vaultsof the Phoenix Tower. I am Jack. The Nowhereman. I know whoand what and where I am.For once, I do.“Do you?”The voice is ethereal. Monosyllabic. Faintly ominous.Where once I was alone on the grimly shore, I am alone nomore.Scrambling to my feet in the odd, semi-weightless environment,I turn clumsily and see the tall figure standing upon the edge of theisland. Where the land meets the sea.“Where the land meets the sea. That’s where I’ll find you. That’swhere you’ll find me.”“The book,” I say. Surprised that I can still speak in this underwaterunderworld. “You’re quoting from the book.”“I am,” the figure replies. His low voice clipped. Tortured.With hair parted to reveal a long thin face, the figure is a statuefrom a tabernacle. Deep-set eyes. Dead, fish-like eyes. Bonynecromantic fingers. As if they’ve got too many joints. Too manyknuckles. The rest of him is hidden. Swathed in many layers of cloth.Stitched in vespertine. Wreathed by a penumbra of burning iridium.Seeing him I am reminded of past failures. All the deaths by myown hand. The calamities of love. The longing ache of living. Of timeand tide and life. Of the fact that I never did manage to track down

374 | THE A-MENRafaele Juarez D’Alessandro, the book’s mysterious author. As muchan enigma as this haunted, sunken fellow that stands before me.“Who are you?” I ask. “Where am I?”“No,” the magus commands. “Who are you? What are you? Whereare you bound? How will you get there?”“Wait, I know who you are,” I say, unexpectedly sure. “I knowwhere this is.”“Yes,” breathes the shape.“It’s the island that was lost. Xankhara. So you must be–”“Yes?”“Mr fucking bad faerie. Maleore.” The name is like a thorn in themouth.“Yes.”Maleore. This place’s black-hearted ruler. The seeker of the finalword of power and the bastard who damned the thirteen realms todestruction. The central linking story at the heart of all the others.I look around. At the dusty skeletons. All those bleached whitebones.“No, this can’t be. Xankhara is the place of forever. The isle whereDeath never trod.”“As you can see, it is not.”“What the fuck happened here?”“The Thirteenth Word. I spoke it.”“The word of making and unmaking. Hell, fuck. So it’s true.That’s what you did. You played with the Amen and you got yourfingers burned.”Maleore twitches. Flexing. Uncomfortable with the thought ofthis. “More than just my fingers.”And then I know truly who he is. The spider in my mind. Themalevolent, crawling, venom-mouthed cunt in my skull. The itch thatI just cannot scratch.“Why am I here?”“Ah, now at the last is the truth of it.”“You’re trying to escape. To be released from your prison.”

THE A-MEN | 375“That is but the half of it.”“What then? What are you seeking?”“Revenge.”“How? What have I got to do with all this?”“You are the destroyer of tales. The man who deals in once upona time. Who opens and closes the book. The assassin of this particularworldspace.”“This is about my son?”“No, not your son. You are the key.”“Key?”“Yes, the key.”Somewhere far off I feel a tug. A snagging of thought. The dustyinspiration: they know everything about me. I know nothing aboutthem.“No cross-legged magicks could ever prepare, could ever dull,the feeling of this hour,” the figure says in a tone of unforged iron.His eyes blaze. He is afire.And distantly I know that he has it. His answer. His revenge. Hiskey. Even if I don’t know what it is or means, I know that. And knowthat the entire world is gonna blow.And then where once I was not alone on this grimly shore, I amalone once more.*Somehow I bubble to the surface and when I open my gunked upeyes, Nathaniel Glass stands watching me. Wringing his hands.Mangling them together. He wears a sombre tight-fitting suit completewith a waistcoat and jacket. Upon his shoulders is a long ashen cloak.And tucked between his legs is a battered cloth bag.“Time to go,” he says as I flounder.“What?” The sound is hardly recognisable as language. More likea strangled grunt. But Glass gets my meaning all the same.“It’s the God-U-Likes. Dai-80’s readying them for the day of

376 | THE A-MENjudgement. As if we don’t have enough problems.” This last is saidabsently. As if to himself.Slowly he moves along the gantry, then back into his controlroom. There he positions himself in his great bucket seat and turnshis attentions to the monitors. Tapping quickly, he switches frequenciesin the tank and patches me directly into Dai-80 central. Broadcastinglive from the Vaux Cathedral. Where mass the brain-washed acolytes,the misguided devotees, the lost children and sacrificial lambs of hisold-time religion.“Watch this,” he commands. “It’ll all be over in a short while.”I’m too late to catch the start of the sermon. But just in time tocatch the meat and two veg of it. The poisoned chalice of every religionthe world has ever known and forgotten and restored, brought to thetrembling lips of their catechumenic minds. The choirs already singin their ears. The wafer already tingles on their tongues. Now just thewine remains to be poured. And then the word to be made flesh.I am no abecedarian, no mystagogue, no usher of the end of all things…he is saying, right in the heart of my mutilated mind,I am just a messiah. I represent not one god but all gods. I do notrepresent the Koran nor the Talmud nor the Bible, for they are each untrue.For they only see one side. I wish to see all sides. All religions. All gods. Takethe Holy Bible of Holies. The idea of its pages being a single, sacred unalterablecorpus of texts is ridiculous. Here is a work that began in heresy and wasrewritten so many times as to represent whatever tenet its authors favoured.The beliefs in these scripture was the trigger for the most violent atrocitiesagainst man in the history of the world. representing only belief’s everlastingdestructive potential. It can only serve us at this time to understand the forcesthat have signalled the end of the truth and meaning of divinity and keptthe peoples of the world in continual conflict. Much of this religious vademecum details war, slaughter and butchery ordered straight from the mouthof its supposedly loving God. These descriptions of genocidal barbarity are awarning of the dangers that can result from belief. How the genesis of faithrelies on hope and ignorance. Only through the knowing and understandingof all that was lost can we appease and rebalance.

THE A-MEN | 377Throughout this diatribe, I struggle, but there’s no escape. Andall the while on the periphery Glass fiddles endlessly with his deck.Resetting and programming and augmenting the machine in someunfathomable way. Yet at the last he is done. Filling my mind withsights and colours. Of the packed cloisters of the cathedral.“He’s on all channels,” Nathaniel announces. “Pumping out toeveryone who has the dataphial to receive it.”Let me open your eyes to you the atrocities of which I speak. Of themass murder and the slicing and the kill, kill, killings by the word of God.Let me spell it out to you my innocent children. One death at a time.The great and terrible God who ordered, permitted and approved of thedestruction of the entire population of the earth at the time of Noah. Whoimmolated every inhabitant of Sodom and Gomorrah, and of the surroundingplain, in fire and brimstone. Murdered the first-born of every family in Egypt.Slew twenty-four thousand golden calf worshipping Israelites. Two-hundredfifty Levite princes burned or buried alive. The utter destruction of theCanaanites at Hormah. The Ammonites, decimated by the Lord so that Lotmight possess their land. All the citizens of Jericho, except for a prostitute andher family. The twelve thousand men, women and children of Ai, smote withthe edge of God’s sword…“He’s raving,” I say to no one in particular.“Yes,” says Nathaniel, and the way he says it, I know this city’sin a whole heap of trouble.All the people of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish and Gezer and Eglonand Hebron, leaving none remaining. All the cities and souls within massacred.Ten thousand Moabites. Six hundred Philistines, and all the hosts of Sisera.One hundred twenty thousand Midianites by Gideon and his men. A thousandPhilistines slain by Samson with the jawbone of an ass when the spirit ofthe Lord was upon him. Twenty-five thousand one hundred Benjamites. Fiftythousand seventy people of Bethshemesh, struck dead by God for merelygazing at the Ark of the Covenant. The Geshurites and the Gezrites andthe Amalekites slain by David, leaving neither man nor woman nor infantnor suckling alive. Forty thousand Syrian horsemen. Every man in Edom,killed by Joab and David. One hundred thousand Syrian footmen, mutilated

378 | THE A-MENin a single day, with the city walls falling on the twenty-seven thousand thatwere left. One hundred Moabite troops, consumed by fire from heaven. Allwho died in a seven-year famine sent by the Lord on Samaria. One hundredeighty-five thousand Assyrians slain by an angel of the Lord in a single night.One hundred twenty thousand Judeans, massacred because they had forsakenthe Lord God…“Oh shit,” I mutter, seeing it at last. “I can see where this isgoing…”“To the bitter, bitter end,” remarks Glass. “I brought you here.These files, those memories, the book… I didn’t realise such a trailof bread crumbs could prove so indelible. Yet now it’s time to erasethe trail and leave you lost in the woods.”“The spider… You put it… here!”Try to bring my hand up to my head but it just wafts lazily inthe goo.And there are many, many more. All told forty-two million, sixty threethousand, three hundred seventy-nine. All butchered in the name of the Lord.Yet here is the truth at the last. These were not atrocities. Oh no, my brethren.These people were not innocent. Each of them was riddled with corruption,with unholiness. All but the chosen are sinners from conception. Eternal deathis their lot. Even their babies in the womb are not innocent. These are notatrocities, these are acts of divine deliverance. I think you’ll agree that theLord God’s message is clear: Better dead than misled!Upon the screen of my mind the blind zealot’s image begins toflash. Pulsing like a dying star. And not just on the dataterm, but inmy minds, their minds, our minds. Gaining in strength. Intensity.Accompanied by that demoniacal chant.Better dead than misled!Flash!Better dead than misled!Flash!Better dead than misled!Flash!It’s maddening. Hypnotic. My hands reaching once more for my

THE A-MEN | 379temples. Like in the tank. But this time they are unrestrained. Claspingeach side of my head I scrape at the flesh. Trying to get the chanting,the tortured imagery out of my brain.“For fuck’s sake, get rid of it!” I shriek.But Nathaniel does nothing. Just stares through the benevolent,loving, strobing face of the one-true messiah. And straight at me.“Ah, now we see the blind man leading the blinded. The avatarsent to open the eyes of the world. To let the true message in…”“Nathaniel, cut the fucking signal!”“Do you ask that I stop it? Before the flashing ends. Before thebrainstorm completes. Before you too become a child of the unchosen.The great mugwump. The falsest god since the first…”“Nathaniel–!”There are drums now, rising like thumping heartbeats. Deafeningin their intensity. Their message. Calling the faithless to war. My eyesblur and I lose sight of the psychist. Now all I can see is the cathedraland the messiah.Go, my children, and do what must be undone. Did not the peoples ofthis city persecute us upon our arrival? Did they not throw down a welcomemat of barbed wire and bullets? Have we not the right to do to others asthey have done to us? Have we not suffered at the hands of humanity’sinhumanity? And do not think by this command that we dance for the Devil.No, we do not hide out with the nowheremen. Now – behold! – the devildances for us! Our gods cannot be tolerant of sin and be holy. Our godscannot fail to judge sin and be just. I have given enough time to the infidels.Have I not welcomed them into my bosom. And have they not come to mein their tens of hundreds. But now, I say, my pearly gates are closed. Andthose that are without shall forever be without.Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes.So I command as the gods of old hath commanded: Go ye after themthat inhabit this fallen city and smite them. Slay utterly old and young, bothganglords and hoodlums, street trash and mothers and children and sucklings.Go and destroy all the accursed peoples of this place. Let not your eye sparea single one, nor neither should you look upon them with pity. For they are

380 | THE A-MENnot innocent. And upon the side of the righteous shall I rejoice when I seethy vengeance. For then shall I wash my feet in the blood of the wicked.Forever and ever…The images, the noise, the whole shitting mystical ritual circusgoes zip.Out in the other world I surface. Ripping tubes and pipes andwires from every orifice in my body and from the newly implantedjackport in my head, I rise from the slime and breathe, breathe, breathe.Huge gulping breaths. Forcing my lungs with air. Emptying them ofgunk. Puking. Grab for the side of the vat and haul myself up andout onto what’s left of the ice cold gantry.Hands reach in and help me up, but when I hit the metal all Ican do is ball my body into itself and weep. The relief is so good.So, so good.“It’s started,” says the broken voice of the huntress.I look up. Nathaniel’s gone and in his place stands Sister Midnight.Her face a picture of ruin. Her finger still on the terminal’s flamered abort key.“Oh, Esther–” I say.“Save it,” she replies.Moving forwards she helps me up and wraps me in somethingwarm. Drawing me away towards the fallen exit. And beyond that tothe control room. Whole place still smells of effluent. The stink of Hades.It’s his shit. Still stored in the cabinets and cupboards of his tomb.I shiver as I go. Each step of my naked feet like walking on snow.Or daggers.Making me sit, Esther takes the helm, her fingers tappety-tappingon the function keys of the equipment panel. “Exor’s dead,” she’ssaying. “The other’s are in a great shitheap of trouble. And we don’thave much time. The God-U-Likes’ jihad has already begun.”Seeing Midnight once more brings back the words of her ownrevelations to me. Of the teaching that whoever I was, I was a lotcleverer than I suspected. The process was complex, but the path ofmy deceit is clear now. I am not the molester and killer that the

THE A-MEN | 381authorities were fooled into sequestering into E-Unit. Esther’s scrutinyhas found the flaw. The internal timecodes were fine, but look deeperand there were discrepancies. Whoever owned this life, it was not me.Whoever was convicted of slaying the women in the woods, it wasnot me. Whoever butchered their way into the penal colonies, it wasnot me. Someone within Glass-Suko aided me, gave me this newidentity. Or rather stole this identity for me.And there is now only one person this could have been.Only one person with the access and skills to accomplish such afeat. To have been my accomplice in all this. “Where’s Glass?” I sayto Midnight. “He’s…”“I know,” the black woman replies, “but now’s not the time. Wehave to help the others. They are being massacred.”“No, I want to find Glass.”“Oh, grow up, Jack. Listen–”“No, Esther, you listen. I’m sick of fighting the ghost of who Iwas. I’m going to find him and get some answers.”“Jack, you’re going nowhere. The A-Men need you. If our turffalls, if the Grims and God-U-Likes get in, we are lost.”“I was lost long ago. Sister, don’t you get it? What all this is about?I don’t fit into this world. I guess, any world. I gotta create my own.”“You did, Nowhereman, you created here, you created us. Andnow all that has been created is about to be destroyed.”“Who am I?” I bleat. “Just tell me who I am!”Sister Midnight grabs me by the shoulders. Shaking me.“You’re a psychopath, Jack. A fucking, fucked-up psychopath. Yourmind is hanging by a thread. You can’t separate real from unreal. You’reisolated, withdrawn, crazy…”I’ve heard enough.“I’m gonna find Glass and then I’m gonna get Susie and–”“Pure’s gone.” The way Sister says it, it sounds so bitter. So final.“Gone?”“You sent her away–”“Why?”

382 | THE A-MEN“Lucille said that you told her to go fuck herself.”“No, you’re lying. When the shit was this?”“You told her the moment you woke up after the op–”“There was an incident. With Glass. I sent her away to save her.”“Save her?”“What have I done?” I whisper.Susie, where are you?Fuck off, Nowhere.You can’t go…I am going. There’s a brig bound for Newarabia. With the man with theplanes. We’re going away. Leaving. Leaving. Leaving…Susie’s broadcast is slurred. Slippery like a fish. Drugs. She’s ondrugs. My earthbound angel is back on those stinking, shitty chemicals.And she’s leaving. Not just the Phoenix or Dead City, but the wholedamn continent. This is not what I meant to happen…“Pure needs me.”There’s a screaming outside in the corridor. A merciless whine.It’s Lucille. He bursts into the room and teeters. His face is reddenedand bloated. Too many tears.“Susie’s dumped me. She’s run away.”“Where?” I ask.“Out there. In the streets. She’s out there with all those horriblemen!”The sight of the transsexual decides it. I’m going after Pure beforeshe cuts out completely.I’m coming for you, baby, I say to the ether.But there is no reply.“What’s happening, Jack?” asks Midnight. Unable to keep up withthe surge of decisions that pass through me.“Can’t you see, Esther? This is who I am. I’m Jack the misfit. I’mJack the renegade, the rebel, the savage piece of genetic voodoo. Iplay in the forest. I swim with the salmon and race Thunderbirdswith stallions across the naked back of the world. This is my book.My story. This is what I am now. What I want to be. And Pure’s a

THE A-MEN | 383part of that. I can’t let her go forever.”Upon saying all this Lucille’s leaping and clapping her hands, whileEsther can only frown.Of course the revelation is not that I want Susie back, but thatI want them both. And how impossible that sounds and is, even inthis fucked-up time and place.So I face-off Midnight. Irresistible object versus immovable force.Land and sea. Ever at war on the no-man’s-land that is the edge ofour two worlds. For a moment I think Sister’s gonna draw her greatblack sword in both hands and stick me where I stand. But insteadshe growls, “I’ll get the car,” and strides out. Leaving me to followher like a little child. And Lucille to wave us bon voyage.*We fly like broken heroes. Lost. Alone. Running like our sacred angelsare beckoning us from the streets.This is our nightstory. Our time to be special or to get off theride.The Grim Reapers wait for the showdown. Straddling the whitelines that run from the Phoenix plaza right down to the end of theroad. I am behind the Diablo’s wheel. All leather, lenses and browndriving gloves. Midnight’s standing in the back, MLA auto-feed setupon a thin tripod. Sword on one side, chainsaw on the other. Weaponscrouch in the passenger’s seat. Dancer and D&K poised for potshots.All strapped tight against the ragged interior. Glass and Grisholm aregone. The rest of ’em’s out in the field. In the blood-shot streets.Though it is the darkest hour of the night, there’s a sticky heat inthe air. Clinging and unrelenting. Even at speed. Even as we screechaway and shoot off like a bullet down 13th. Down towards the gates.Here’s where we fight. Win or lose. Fight to breathe free air andreclaim something for our own. Ravaged of all else, we are here todo what must be done. To save the world. To get the girl. To try togain our happy ever after.

384 | THE A-MENThis is my moment of glory in the story. This is my moment toshine. Perhaps this is all our moments. But it is certainly mine.Ahead the gates lie smashed and broken. Ripped off their dualprotectedhinges by a hundred hands. Grim Reapers crowd the spacein between. Their bikes making a barricade. Their bodies half-hidden.Unlike their guns which gleam in the lanterns that top the makeshiftdefences. Seeing us approach, a cry goes up. Horns blare.I honk a reply. And pump the pedal. Flooring it beneath my heel.Then Esther is shouting out her battle cry. To them, to us, to theheavens. She is exultant. Caught up in the fervour of all that we areand say and do.“Live long and hard and when you die, die well!”“Amen!” I shriek. Firing at the bikers, the buildings, the emptynight sky.Faster and faster we fly. The windows and doors and scattereddecay flashing past. The wall of bodies and bikers getting closer andcloser. Nearer and nearer. And then we are upon them. Or maybethey are upon us. Crashing into the flesh and metal. Scattering alllike trash. A spray of crimson-stained garbage. The lambo skids.Ploughing sideways. Spinning while I struggle with the controls.Praying that we stay on the road. That we don’t roll and burn.Gunfire blasts in my ears. Midnight is firing. Tucked against thelift-lid roof section. Unloading hundreds of rounds into the crowdingblack shapes of the Reapers.Somehow I wrest the vehicle under control and the city stopsspinning. Yet this only gains us glimpses of the true nature of ourfolly. Of the single candle that is us against the vast monumentalblackness that is them. For off to our left, from down someunrecognisable side street, swarms of Grims ride out. Massing, theyare centred by a great plated vehicle, atop which stands Blackwing,his many arms flailing. Behind them come the God-U-Likes. Slashingand beating and burning everything they encounter. They are madmen.So full of religious fever they are intoxicated beyond reason by it.The Reapers are running like rats before the flames. Driven out of

THE A-MEN | 385their holes and hollows by the purification of Dai-80’s wild jihad.Seeing us, mr Grim Reaper himself shrieks curses. To us. To thesky.And then the sky shrieks back.Six starlifter craft appear in the air over Logan. Zipping across theglimpsed sliver of burnt infinity above us. For a second their tripleengines roar. Echoes leaping from glass to brick to ear. Bouncingauthority by their very oppressive presence. For a second they areslicing a trail roughly east, then they are gone. Obscured by the financialtowers. In their place armoured figures drop like handfuls of discardedcandies. Orange and brown and black. Converging on the skyblock.Flocking like migrating geese. For a few seconds they haunt the skies.Then they too are gone.And into the silence mr Grim Reaper still shrieks.“So it all comes down to this,” I say to no one in particular.“Public hero numero uno versus public enemy number one.”And I mean it. For it to end here and now. With this. I can seeI’ll never make it to Susie now. Perhaps I never could.Yet fate has other ideas. As have the pilots of those attack craft.With an ear-splitting roar, the half dozen orbitals appear oncemore. Flying in a staggered formation, one behind the other. Screamingalong 13th, offloading missiles like autumn leaves. Jettisoning fromtheir torn undercarriages. Casting them off as if unwanted. The firstof them plough into the tarmac behind the bikers. Turning the streetto smoke and ash. Ripping up the road and painting the pavements.Shattering, splintering, splitting. The next fusillade strike dead centreinto the cloaked gang. Sweeping them aside. Turning their insidesout. Their torsos to carrion. Their men to mutton.And then I see that we are not the fighters’ primary target. Thatis the Phoenix Tower. Ripping up the road, the next missiles find thethin perfect edifice of the skyblock. Fifty floors above where we crashedinto it all those days ago. Yet as the structure erupts into fire and ice,I throw the lambo into overdrive. Screeching rubber, we are rippedforward, but it is not fast enough. The whole back of the camo-

386 | THE A-MENpainted car is lifted off the ground. Tossed and torn. I lose all senseof up and down. All sense of anything.For at the sight of the Phoenix going up, so comes the sound ofthe system that links us all together going down.Zzzzzzt…It is like terminal feedback of the brain. Blasting like the bombs.Shredding even the shadows of thought that I have left. I scream, joiningthe sound of Esther and all the A-Men. One last cry before the end.My mind fries. Shatters. Again. Wiped. Shredded. Broken. Again.And my last thoughts, my very last thoughts are: Glass.Screeching the lambo to a halt, I twist in the seat. Hoping to getorders from Midnight, but Sister is gone. The blast must’ve thrown herfrom the bucking bronco. All around in the haze shapes crowd towardme. Ahead lies Pure. Behind lies Esther. What a fucking nightmare.Fleeing, I lose the car, the Reapers and all direction in the fog.I have no idea where I am going, just that my legs need to takeme away. Driven by the need to survive. Always that need under allothers.Under the madness. Under it all.Now I know I have lost everything again. That the end has comeand I have nothing left. I am back where I started. And I am finallywhat I was destined to be.Jack.I stumble over Sister in the savaged street. She’s almost out cold.Mercifully the shadows of the bikers avoid us. Dragging her upI make for the car and once she’s in the passenger seat we go. Goand go and go until I am out of the fog and out of the Dead Zoneand out of strength to even carry on taking another, single rasping,fucking breath.

46 DäalessandroDawn arrives and all is silent in the heart of the god machine. All isdead and gone. The room is sundered. The womb of my new worldis just a well of black space, hollow and barren, the waters of lifedrained away into the cold ground. I am keeper of the beast no longer.The monster I created has escaped into the night. With the codesreset, with the last replication uploaded, with Glass-Suko disinfected,all has returned to its origins. By resetting the sentience I have endedthe project for which I have risked everything. I have destroyed thething I loved. As have Jack and Esther and Benjamin and Susannah.Yet unlike them, I knew that the end was coming, that the legionsand gunships and armed guards were disembarking from the throatof Glass-Suko’s military orbitals and dropping through the stratosphereat two hundred and fifty kilometres a second. That within the hourthey would be here.When I gave Jack his fake identity in exchange for the K/OS keyI had no idea that his plan was to do anything other than drop outof near-space and lose himself in the backwaters of the cosmos. Icertainly had not foreseen the extent of civilisation’s collapse or thepresence of the virus. After the operation, Jack’s vengeance against hisson’s death was unexpected. Who’d have thought a mind-wiped nobodywould manage to piece the puzzle together. And it is so hard to crossswords with an enemy who doesn’t even know he’s ever met you.So I pack my bags and say farewell to this fangled world. To takewhat can be salvaged and go to find another place where I can beginagain.

388 | THE A-MENIt has been a long time since the incinerator on level-H one hasbeen in use. Ever since the Glass-Suko corporate evacuation the fireshave been dark, the boilers cold. After weeks and weeks, the syntheticcoals glow once more, crackling and hissing and spitting. By my sideis the bag in which the remaining crystal replication hides. Thoughmy laboratory has been rendered unusable, I still have this last sliverof my creation. Albeit at an embryonic stage, it will only take timeto address its insufficiencies. I will find another balaenoptera musculuscerebrum, another lab, another home. But, after blasting the brains ofmy unwitting little helpers, next I must dispose of the last of theevidence against me.Thomas’ body is heavier than lead as I drag him out of the shadowsand along the corridor towards the furnace. Here is the price ofexperiment. The weight of research. The giving of one’s life in thepursuit of a dream. Jana was another. Rycharde the third. The threecorners of a rotten triangle. The first two are already disposed of.Their bodies destroyed in the fiery pit before me. Double destroyedwhen the vipers finish nuking the Phoenix back into its ashes. Andnow the third one is to be given the same personal treatment.With all my meagre strength I heft Lloyd’s limp body into myarms and from there onto the lip of the furnace. Instantly I hear theflesh on his shoulder begin to sizzle. The smell of sickly sweetnessfilling an air until now scented only with brimstone.Heaving, my long-unused back muscles straining, I push thepsychist’s body over the edge and, as he slides, toss his legs in afterhim. For a moment I see the flames roast and bubble the skin acrosshis naked back, then I force shut the rusty door, obliterating the sightbut not the stench.Suddenly there is a hammering of heels on concrete and Lucilleraces along the corridor. The she-man’s eyes are wild, her normallycoiffured hair dragged into rat-tails. She sports a black velvet shell suitbound with yellow ribbons upon the knees and ankles, wrists and elbows,waist and neck. Her make-up is savaged, smeared as if applied by ablind man. When she sees me she almost turns on her tail, but doesn’t.

THE A-MEN | 389Instead the redhead shrieks something about attack craft and the worldending. About being chased by unbadged troopers. About trying toescape the killing above. And then something about the sentience.“What did you say?” I ask the spitting tramp.“Midnight forgot the autorestructure. The code’s regenerating.”“How do you know this?” I ask, panicked.“It’s on the stream. It’s everywhere.”And then I curse my own inadequacy. While the A-Men are wiredto the stream, I am not. Having turned it off just prior to the God-U-Like mass broadcast. Though it was originally important to not behoist by my own mind-wiping pitard, now it smacks of neglect;complacency.Yet listening to Lucille’s whines I know that I am trapped. Thatit is too late for flight. Too late for anything now. Even if I escape,where now could I run? The known universe is just not big enough.So I stand calmly until she is all screamed out, then ask, “Where’sJack?”“We’re all going to die,” she babbles, ignoring my question utterly.“You’ve got to save me!” Then she grabs me by both arms. Thesudden movement and the force of her grip startles me. My fingersspasm, hands twitching like dying birds. And as they do, I drop thecarpet bag.“Lucille,” I say as she shakes me like a puppy shakes a squeakytoy. “The bag… Damnation!”But it is no use. The bombing has begun again. The finaldetonations this time. Coming stronger now. Rumbling through thefloor, the walls, the entire superstructure. Coming closer and closerand closer.It’s all over. All so very over.Never will I experience that endless night, that pitch black oceanroad winding into nothingness. The Lamborghini Diablo, myself atthe wheel, black hair dancing wild in an ecstasy of no limits. Speedingfaster than the velocity of darkness. Catching up the dawn, momentby moment.

390 | THE A-MENMoment by moment.Over our heads and all around the concrete of the corridor erupts.Forcing dust and debris like a tidal flood toward us. Lucille and Iduck uselessly. Falling to the floor as the Phoenix Tower crumbles.As my Babylon is battered to bits.I lose the bag beneath the avalanche. I lose Lucille. I almost losemy life.The bag. No, not the bag. Anything but that!I am trapped within the tiny mirrors of infinity. Circles withincircles. Each betraying the other.And in the throat of my loss it is my turn to scream. To screamand scream and scream.

47 PureSo here I sit crying out all I can for you, Jack, you tonight are thetravelling man.I wait inside the brig bound for a place as far away as I canafford. Somewhere over the sea. Somewhere else. Ticket’s paid forand in my pocket. As are the crumbs of three dozen pills. Trying todose out the white noise that has blasted my brain to ashes. No one’ssupposed to leave Dead City, but there’s still cracks, still ways. Meand six others are blasting over the barricades tonight bound foranother continent.Listen, shhh, can I not hear the sound of a distant roaring enginethat threatens by its nearness to be you? I look. I stare. Can I not seethe cruel white beam that sweeps through the shivering trees outside?And though this happens a dozen times, none of them are you.Nothing. No one. Not you.It’s never you.The drugs make a mockery of me. Yet still I remember sendingthe message. And still I think you will come. Darkness crowds outsidethe windows of the nightflier. Ravn, the pilot, eyes my legs in therearview, but I ignore him.So I wait. I fret. I pace. I snort and swallow. Returning toaddictions. Racing to them.Racing through all the things that I will do and say when youarrive.I drink; the shine will loosen me. Will halt the sinking.My lips a miniature cruiseliner as they crash against the ice. The

392 | THE A-MENspirit my dark apprentice who teaches its mistress the virtue of sinyet does nothing to disguise the cunting mess she’s in.I’m cold in my hot room.I’m wet in my dry clothes.It’s night in my luminous hell.Jack, please tell me where you’ve gone. Tell me why. What,where,why, which, wonder and who. Not that any of that will matterif you were here.Listen and look. Shhh and stare. I look and listen, but you’re stillnot here. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. Nowhere. Yes, nowhere,that’s where and what and who you are. Nowhere.No sign. No sound.So I stop for another sip and snort another line. And waste anotherstabbing, painful heartbeat that, once beaten, will never again be mine.I feel so silent, so small, Jack. So alone. And though I have nothing,yes, when you touch me, I lose it all.I am possessed of you. Your soul it keeps me tied to your frostyground. I am a sacrifice to a bitter god who does not know his powerto control.So here I sit and unweave, hoping that even at this late houryou’ll appear outside the curved oval of the window.Stepping out of the midnight. Out of the black. Holding thosethings which I lack, lack, lack.Jack!There’s a dark door slam, a shadow, footfall –Yet it’s only a stranger, some final passenger, that’s all.Nothing, no-one, not you.It’s never you!“OK, giddy up,” Ravn says, flipping power to the vrads. “We’reready to go-go-go.”So here I sit crying out all I can for you tonight are the travellingman.“Ima imashe kuso, Jack,” I say as the pilot autoseals the portal.And then we fly.

48 23rdxenturyboyBack at City Hall it don’t take long for things to go from bad towuss.While Dingo tappety-taps at keep’n the channel open for Sisterand Exor’s return, I wrap my arms around Bixby and watch as outsidethe Grim Reapers assail the battlewagon. Rabid and incense’t beyondthe point of reason, the death’s head’t bikers break like waves on theiron rock of the bus. Wave after wave after wave. Use’n bows andflasks of oil and pickaxes and crowbars. Maggiore is the first to bekill’t. A simple death inflict’t by a feather’t spear. As he whirls, his slickhair fly’n, he cleaves over and over at the crawl’n cloak’t shapes thatsmother the roof like a black cloud. Yet for every five he slays anotherten take their place and soon he is unable to fend them off. The firstspear kills him, yet as he dies another dozen is skewer’t through him.Shitehawk and Biggs abandon the front cabin as the portholes issmash’t, the entire mesh’t front torn open. Seal’t inside the bus, theyis now effectively trap’t. Unable to power or steer, they can onlydefend.Eddie uses both his missiles clear’n the steps before the halls ofjustice of the scum. Scores and scores of the skull-face’t crips is blownto smithereens. Smear’t across forty metres of cobble’t sidewalk. Withinmoments the courthouse is burn’n, seen clearly through the blacken’tsmoke. Yet these is small victories. The Grims is too many. The A-Men too few. Once the spear guns and ballista bolts and mines andtorques is gone, all Eddie and Biggs and Shitehawk can do is waitout the inevitable.

394 | THE A-MENThis comes sooner rather than later.As one the ranks of the dead open up behind the bus allow’nthis huge armour’t towtruck into the fray. It backs through the wideeye’thorde, the crane and hook on its back shine’n in the firelight.Without slow’n it rams into the rear of the battlewagon, puncture’nthe shield’n. Slam’n with all its weight and make’n the black busshudder. And once it’s punch’t through it drags the vehicle – back,back, back – until finally the rear panel ruptures. Tear’n it off like thetop of a tin can. Inside for a moment I see the two men and the boy,their faces rigid with the inevitable. Then a hundred Grim Reapersflood inside and they is gone.All the while this is happen’n I am aware of Mordeci stand’nwatch’n a little way off. Look’n down from the arch’t window of thesecond floor. He strains to aid them, but to be quite frank, we’s gotour own problems. Like the crowds of demons who’ve taken thelower floor and is currently axe’n their way into this one.“Dingo,” he calls as the battlewagon is drag’t outta sight into themass’n Reapers, “we have to get out of here.”The Wonder Dog whimpers at this, his eyes never leave’n theterminal. Then he says he needs another few minutes.“We haven’t got– Fucking shit! We’re gonna be overrun.”“He knows,” I say cross’n from the window to show my support.The look the boss gives us is mean. “We is only try’n to be helpful,”I mewl. But Mordeci knows that anyways.“Yeah, well, just be a quick as you can,” he adds through grit’tteeth.It’s the last thing he ever says.With a comic-book whooomph, the arch’t window, the wall andmost of the internal plasterwork implodes into the high-ceiling’t hall.Mordeci is instantly bury’t under the dust and rubble. Dingo and meis a little more lucky. Not a lot, but a little more. Caught by the edgeof the blast, we’re thrown with the computer equipment back overinto the far corner. Hit’n the wood panel’n at mach one. Ears andeyes and nose and throat all scream’n at once. Feel someth’n rip across

THE A-MEN | 395my gut as I’m thrown backwards. And when I finally stop and godown, I stay down.First thing I hear when the noise and dust settles is the dog wonderscratch’n at the fallen masonry. Dig’n me out. I try to smile, but myface aches too much. My whole body does. But noth’n moreso thanthe someth’n in my belly.Elliott’s face appears before me through the white clouds. It’s likeit’s snow’n which is cool as it’s Kringlefest and it never snowsnormally. The boy-mutt stops dig’n when he sees me and snugglesreal close. Ignore’n all the redness beneath the thin layer of powderywhite. I know the end’s come’n, so I start think’n of what to say. Butwhen I finally say it, I can’t stop. Get’n it all out. Between coughsand cries and the icy cold that’s spread’n. Spread’n all over me. StillI gotta say it. Just gotta.“Ah, Dingo, you’s the best. The one absolutely unselfish friendthat a boy can have in this selfish world. You’s the one that’s neverdesert’t me, the one that’s never been treacherous. You’s stood by mein calm and in craziness. You’s slept by me on the cold ground whenI’s been ill. You lick’t me hand when there was no crunchies in it.You guard’t me in the sewers even though you said it smell’t badderthan bad. I been a porpoise all my life, but you treat’t me like I wasa prince. When we was driven into this outcast world, you ask’t fornoth’n ’cept to come with me. And you’s taught me stuff. Simplestuff like how to run, jump and play. How if what you want is buried,you gotta dig till you find it. And no matter how much you’re toldoff you just run right back and make friends all over again. And nowthe last scene’s come and big daddy death’s gonna take me away, Iknow you’ll find a place for me and be there, by that shallow graveside,your whack’t out head between your paws, with your big sad eyes,ever watchful and faithful and true, forever and ever. Is that whatyou’re gonna do, Dingo?”From somewhere far off, Bixby woof barks, but I know myplaytime’s all end’t. The episode’s finish’t for another series. The credit’sis roll’n. The veeteevee’s fade’n to black.

396 | THE A-MEN“Go on, scat,” I tell the Wonder Dog. “You gotta go. Don’t wantBixby to be a Reaper kebab. Nor you neither.”Someth’n deep inside knots like rope. Knots and twists. Twistsand twists and then breaks.“Benjie!” Dingo says. “How’s I gonna live without you?”“Dog power, Dingo. Pure dog power–”Just about then’s when I start spit’n blood.“Dogspeed, Dingo! Dogspeed!” I’s shout’n.And ’round about then’s when I know’s it’s all over.

49 Sister MidnightThe fucked-up legion of fallen angels are singing and death is theanthem of this day. Yet I cannot be sure if my world is falling apartor if it is finally falling together.Wreathed in smoke I stand upon the escarpment overlookingGypsy Hill, the once lair of the God-U-Likes. Now it is a burnt-outruin. The manse a crumbling shell. All gone. Washed away by theganglords’ retributive strike forced by Dai-80’s ridiculous jihad. Fleeingfrom the oblivion that is the Phoenix Tower, I have lost Lucille andGlass and Doc in the panic. And the others to the Reapers. All I havenow is the Diablo and Jack. Driven here after I woke in the cradleof the ancient car.Once I had my faith, but now desperation and lust drives me on.The agony and the ecstasy. Embodied in the man that lies unconsciousin the passenger’s seat.I wring my hands and brush the worst of the mud off them. Ihave been digging. Burying the remnants of my savage time in thissavage city. My deck. My two-handed blade. My MLA auto-feed. Mychainsaw. All wrapped and given to the barren ground. I won’t needthem where I’m going. Perhaps I won’t need ’em ever again, but younever can be too sure.Not when it comes to the weapons of the Lord.Both lords.I have been abandoned by all those whom I have worshiped andloved. So now I am going away. For good. But before I go, I justwant to say a few words. To get stuff off my chest. To confess.

398 | THE A-MENSo I stand on this mound of scorched earth and speak my firstand last sermon. For the ears of my insensate audience of two. Oneabove, one below. But mostly the one below.So here comes the gospel according to Esther Alesha Rose.And none of it’s good news.“Listen up, both of you. For this is all I’ve got and I’m sayingthis only once. The problem for all religions is that at their core theyhave to have a problem. ’Cause without that they can’t provide asolution. A solution for suffering or sin. These beliefs bind us inempathy, infuse us with ego, without which we would be just wildanimals. We would be ravenous bears. Rabid wolves. Unrepentantfoxes. Alienated, scared and alone. Kinda sounds like you, Jack, doesn’tit?“The problem with the A-Men is you just couldn’t fill all thecracks in our hearts and minds and souls. Your solution was toexperience the forbidden. To meet the sacred head on in a twelvelanemulti-planar collision. With the world going down what else wasthere? Nothing except this hostile place we called home. You wantedto rediscover the child, Jack, to return to innocence, but you got itway wrong. Wronger than wrong. This fantasy you created, it’s anadult fantasy. This is not the childhood world you wanted. It’s all justone big fat fake nostalgic ball of nothing.“Iesus Melchizedek Immanuel, the Lord King Eternal, says, ‘Mitok tru long yupela: Sapos yupela i no tanim na i kamap olsem olliklik pikinini, bai yupela i no inap i go insait long kingdom bilongheven.’ ’Course you won’t understand that. Like you don’t understanda whole lot, abùna. So let’s make it a little simpler for you. He says,‘Except you become again as a little child, you shall not enter thekingdom of God.’ I know. I looked it up. After you made me readForevermore and it triggered something. And there it was. In the goodbook. It’s why I thought you had a solution. Something solid in allyour wild crowing. But I can see now you got it all wrong. To becomea child again, you can’t just forget all you’ve learned in becoming anadult. You gotta keep all that you’ve learned and then try forgetting

THE A-MEN | 399that it’s all real. The god I worship requires sin. He needs the sufferingthat kindles change. He’s the line down the endless highway thatmeans we have a choice of going both ways.“But, hey, y’know you got one thing right – not that it mattersmuch now, but guess I’ll tell you anyhow – and that one thing is:you are God, Jack. We all are. You are everything and everywhere.You are a unique and rare and special thing. Nothing ispredetermined for you, you can change anything you want. Nothing’swrong, Jack, not really wrong. You are not broken. You don’t needfixing. You are not lost. How can you be when you are your ownentire universe? You’ll never grow up. There is no up to grow. There’sjust one way to be alive and a hundred thousand ways to be dead.One of those ways is to become old, but you’re never gonna dothat. So just carry on playing, Nowhereman. Playing your deadlyserious game.”I look longingly at the figure draped over the back of the leatherinterior. His arms splayed out. Stopping him slipping down the slickcurves of the ribbed seating. As I look The Nowhereman stirs. Hisblasted mind reawakening for another dose of whatever this dumb,shit-for-brains reality can dish up for him.“I gotta fly now, Jack. Sermon’s over. I gotta fly into the armsof my sisters. Into my own universe. Only there can I be saved.And you? Well, you gotta save yourself. Maybe one day you will.You sure as hell won’t be saving anyone else. I’m through withfighting this strange fascination that draws me to you. To you andto my other God. I’m through with both of you. Still, I gotta admitit. Here at the last. I gotta admit it that I love you. Yessum, I lovedyou from the very first day we met. A day you don’t even remember.But that don’t mean much now. Nope, it don’t mean nothin’.Suppose it never did.”Jack shivers once then opens his eyes. Taking in the car, the smokeand the whole damned world. Then he takes in me. It’s like back onthe Scheherazade. Kinda like. But then the story was beginning. Andnow we’re almost done. And somehow I fear its finishing for some

400 | THE A-MENstories should be neverending. Perhaps it’s ’cause once it finishes, Ifear that we will see that it ends in nothing.Still, almost done. Almost done.And that’s good, ’cause I’m so, so fucking tired.

50 The NowheremanI wake to find her standing there. Praying. My ebony rose.Wasn’t this where I came in? Isn’t this where we started?Awakening with a fucked-up mind and seeing the black huntress?My brain hurts like hell and whatever just happened has fucked withwhatever tiny pieces had tried to heal for me in my fragile post-oplife.“I came back to save you,” I say to her gathering grimace.The storm upon her brow passes at my words. Even now catchingher completely off guard.“Well, I guess God thought it was my day to do the saving,” shereplies. For a moment she looks very old. Like she’s aged twenty yearsjust by saying what she said.“Where am I?” I say, noticing the Diablo and the wreaths ofbillowing smoke.“You’re safe. At least for now.”“Where’s the others?”“Dunno. Lost ’em when the Phoenix went down. When it allwent down. I also lost my mind. There was a great singing, and then…It’s like every time I go to pick up a piece of memory it cuts likeglass.”“Now you know how it feels–”“Yep, I guess I do. What happened back there? Last clear thoughtI have is the riots. It’s like at the end we all got blasted. Blasted bysomething big. Was about when the bedlam started. When we losteveryone. Lucille ran off into the smoke, then I found you slumped

402 | THE A-MENin the gutter, so I hotfooted it outta there. It was either that or wrestlewith a thousand tonnes of rubble.”“Where we going now?” I ask. The only question that don’t hurtjust to think about.“I’m going to join Mother Earth. After the jihad, some of thesurvivors are setting up a convent by the bridge. I’m going to becomeSister Midnight.”“But I thought you were–”“For real.”“Oh. And what about me?”She throws her head back and laughs like a drain.“Oh, you crucify me, Jack, you really do. Truth is I’ve seen awhole rack of good people destroyed by this madness. Your hysterical,naked ideal. And now enough’s enough. There’s been enough dreams.Enough drugs. Enough drink. Enough that has been burnt. That hasbeen busted. Enough is enough.”“No, Esther, can’t you see? It’s never enough. That’s the wholepoint.”“It’s enough for me, Jack. I’m done with your faerie tale.”“Hey, more has been created for your myth…”“Not any more. You’re way outta date. I answer to a higherauthority now. Higher than God and certainly higher than you. Ianswer to myself. I’m off for normalland. Nonfreaktown. A new home.A new start. Y’see, white boy, black birds just ain’t supposed ta beblue.”“What about me?”“Oh, you’ll be just fine. But just ’member, there’s more to lifethan what you read in books. Goodbye, Jack.” She turns and starts towalk away down the lea of the hill.“Wait–!”“Goodbye, Jack. I said goodbye and I mean it. Don’t you gocoming for me, now. ”“Yeah, goodbye, Esther.”Then she’s gone. And I am alone.

THE A-MEN | 403Above, the drifting smoke reveals the silver disc of the moon.Staring down at me with its hungry eye. And so in the stolen lamboI ride out into the gathering midnight. Start by going out lookingfor survivors. Like Grisholm or Lucille. Leaving behind my life,whatever and whoever I really am or was. Leaving it all far, far behind,but knowing, knowing deep in my knotted, aching gut that one dayhowever long I live or however far I run it will hunt me down. Andknowing that, though right now my mind’s a fractured piece of shit,knowing that I’ll be waiting.Then I see it. Screech the brakes and let the Diablo slide on thewet street.There’s this easyclene sofa. Covered in multiple stains. Sitting bythe weed-covered freeway.Out of place. Out of time. Out of fucking nowhere.Know what I’ve got to say, so I don’t. Give myself some vaguenotion that I have a choice. An unrailroaded destiny.By the dashboard light I see the chronometer click over to thenew day. And it’s then that I notice the date.Shit, s’like I’ve lived a whole life in four dozen days. And still Ihave outlived the earth. I have survived the ultimate horror. Of notknowing my story. Of having to steal another’s. I’ve survived my birth,my naming, the acquisition of language, the familiarity of conversation,my first date, my first fuck, adolescence, my transition to adulthood.All the major crises of mortal life. The cracks down which fall theunwary. I now know where I begin and end. I now know myself.Esther once said that we should face our fear. But, fuck, what else isthere to do?We are still the A-Men. And the A-Men will go on. As will I.Will go on as long as even one of us survives. Or remains. Aslong as there is someone left to believe.As long as there are bastards like me who are desperate and wickedand yet still give a fuck.