Savages Read online

  JD nodded but the questions were bubbling. I let him speak rather than just reading him again - it’s best not to rub in the thought transparency every chance one gets.

  “I understand we’re to gather information,” he said. “But I don’t really see the point.”

  “Ours not to reason why, old boy. The Unchanging want it, we oblige.”

  It’s a bonus when a JD comes in with a military background - one gets to skip all this.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I trust you’ve absorbed the file.” A dream had been flagged for investigation by the internal system - FiatLux 3.0, since the last updates - either because the auto-detect had picked up something or because a complaint had been filed. “This being part of your orientation and training, you’ll be in the driving seat. I’m here in more of a supervisory capacity - I’ll make a few notes and we’ll discuss them between times.”

  The plural confused him.

  “But sir,” he said, “I thought we were doing just one.”

  “One respondent, not one attempt.” There are JDs who are naturals and pull it off at the first stroke, but not many, and not this chap. “And besides, over here one plus one has been known to equal one. Any other questions?”

  I thought I’d indulge him for calling me sir - vanity, I know, but I see it as rewarding respect.

  “How will we know if he’s telling the truth?”

  “My dear boy, only bankers and politicians tell lies in their dreams. No no, we’re on solid ground with Gubbins.” I checked my FiatLux portal and popped it back in my breast pocket. “He’s ready. Shall we have him in?”

  The poor lad was terrified. Most are. Anyone would think they could still die.

  “Remember,” I said, “if anything goes wrong, I’ve the fail-switch here.”

  He did not like the sound of that, but supposed that for the rest of eternity no one would care what he liked - the first sign of progress, in a sense, though there again I prefer soldiers because they have the right expectations from the start.

  “That’s the spirit,” I said. “You’ll go far like that. Right, let’s be having him.”

  I sometimes pretend for the benefit of beginners that it’s a button on the portal which opens the rift, but it’s basic telekinesis. Two bookcases in the opposite wall slid apart: in floated, stout and hairy, a lost-looking man of about forty in an old sunhat and a pair of love-heart boxer shorts. He looked at the two of us, scratched his armpit and yawned.

  “Mr. Gubbins,” said JD. “Take a seat.”

  Gubbins walked over, picked up the other chair and looked around for where to take it. His eyes rested on the pipes leading in and out of the radiator below the window. JD wondered why he himself had not noticed the fittings when he came in, but he had to learn one thing at a time and evolving environments were not a priority.

  A blast of noise issued from Gubbins’s hairy ears and, to JD’s bewilderment, our man melted away like steam.

  The poor lad turned to me.

  “Neighbours,” I explained. “The drunk next door’s stereo. It happens. Don’t worry, he’ll drift off again soon. Anyway, it gives us a moment to think about you.”

  “Me?”

  He looked himself over. He had the default clothe-skin for minimum invasiveness. Only the ones with real initiative thought of it without being told. It meant he had already lost the top rating, but he was never really a contender for it.

  “I look normal,” he said. “Don’t I?”

  “But is that to be wished, JD? Might it not sometimes be better to engage the subject’s attention? Contribute something to the ambience, as it were?”

  He gave it some thought - there was a kind of plodding honesty about him.

  “Well that’s one idea,” I said.

  It took a few moments to two-way the mindlink and show him how to downthink a clothe-skin, in this case the costume of a judge.

  “Not bad,” I said, switching the mindlink back to one-way. “You take the fail-switch this time.”

  He would have to anyway sooner or later. To him it just looked like a small box with a button. He put it under the robes and composed himself to look grave and judicial, or at least his own idea of it.

  I reopened the rift and Gubbins was back, in an England football kit and slippers.

  “Mr. Gubbins,” said JD with an authority he didn’t feel. “Be seated.”

  Gubbins strolled over and parked himself, yawning.

  “We have summoned you here today, Mr. Gubbins, on a matter of the utmost importance.”

  Gubbins scratched his furry belly. He folded his tattooed arms and sank deeper into the chair.

  “Your deposition in this matter will be in the nature of a sworn testimony and must therefore be regarded by you as legally and immortally binding.”

  The lad hadn’t slacked with those procedures. Whatever else, I wouldn’t mark him down for effort.

  “One week ago in the night of 15th-16th January last, you Norman Arkwright Gubbins, as the record shows, were present at an altercation involving a German Panzer Division, Godzilla, and your mother-in-law Mrs. Hilda Ramsbottom of 25 Wordsworth Gardens...”

  Gubbins’s eyes closed; he shimmered like a mirage and was gone. JD turned to me as though it were my fault.

  “What happened?”

  I give higher marks when they think for themselves before asking me questions, but it’s my duty to be patient when they don’t.

  “I’m afraid you didn’t hold his attention, old chap. He’s fallen awake.”

  The lad was offended, bless him. He tossed the fail-switch onto the desk and got rid of the judge robes while at it.

  “Melchizedek,” he began. “What’s the point - ”

  “Don’t fret, old fellow,” I said. If he got himself too upset, the whole thing would take longer. “Call me Melky.”

  It was a condescension but it’s harder to mispronounce, and I find I can be more patient when I take a sporting outlook.

  “Melky,” he said. “I was following the procedures. It clearly says, somewhere in the part on - ”

  “Yes, yes,” I had to interrupt him - I can’t bear the things quoted at me as if I hadn’t had time to learn them. “Section 4.1.2. Don’t worry, old chap, I know. The Unchanging write the procedures, but we’re the ones at the grindstone.”

  There are moments when I ask myself if I set a good example. But I like to think I give the new fellows a survival kit.

  He managed to suppress his answering thought, but it’s a long road from that to suppressing the suppression.

  “If you’re going to distract him you need an emotional response,” I said. “You know, get him involved.”

  I admit that Gubbins did not look an easy one to involve in much of anything. JD wondered what on the other side had last achieved the feat. I whipped out my portal and looked.

  “Three nights ago in a restaurant he had an argument with a Chinese waiter over the number of beers on his bill.” I almost found it in myself to be interested. “Gubbins was enraged. Positively incandescent. In fact he and Mrs. Gubbins subsequently discussed the matter in connubial privacy with some heat. As breadwinner he continues to be fed, but not a drop of tea has since passed his lips but what he has made for himself. I’m uploading the man’s image for a clothe-skin. Downthink as I showed you before.”

  JD got it and made a few status-minded adjustments - jacket and tie in place of apron and name badge, the fail-switch under the breast pocket handkerchief.

  “How do I look?” he asked.

  I wished he hadn’t. I believe in the policy of not lying to them.

  “Like a student of Natural Sciences pretending to be a Triad. But never mind, Gubbins is brewing.”

  Through the rent in the wall he stepped back in, without a stitch on him and entirely unaware of it. One forgives whoever had the idea of being descended from monkeys when one sees a specimen like Gubbins.

&nbs
p; “Ha!” JD sneered at him with a thick Chinese accent and a pleasing bit of spirit. “You, Gubbins. You think you clever. Sneaky-sneaky.”

  Gubbins strolled up to the desk and stared down at us in his simian nakedness like a confused prehistoric effigy.

  “Eh?”

  “Think no one find out, yes? How you run away from cartoon monster and tanks, leave mother-in-law?”

  It was nice to see the lad improvise. He thought he was being subtle, of course. Gubbins just looked blank.

  “Fat animal,” said JD. “All evening pick nose and fart in my restaurant, then not want to pay. Poor Hell-da say truth about you.”

  I winced inside: it had been going well. Gubbins’s warty shoulders went back, his eyes did something funny in his head, and he fetched JD a smack around the ear that, even with the physics simulation at moderate, sent the poor lad out of his seat and halfway across the floor. He couldn’t feel pain, naturally, but even a Junior Daemon has some sense of dignity. At the thought of a naked Gubbins dropping on top of him, he hit the fail-switch and we were alone.

  He sat up and looked at me, bewildered, beseeching.

  I said, “You breached the fourth wall, old boy.”

  “What?”

  “Lapse of continuity. How would the Chinaman in the restaurant know what Gubbins calls Mrs. Ramsbottom in his own head? Gubbins realised he was dreaming. Once they do that, it’s best to take cover for those last few seconds. They assume their actions don’t have consequences, you see? That’s why he...did what he did.”

  The poor chap shed his judge robes and got himself back in the seat.

  “But Melky, what’s the point...?”

  “Chin up, old sport,” I said. “I’ve seen fourth-wall breaches result in worse than that.”

  I didn’t mean violence so much as downright weirdness. Once for instance when I myself was starting out - but no, I won’t digress.

  “JD, see if you can come up with something to rivet his attention in a way that’s, well... friendly.”

  The idea went through the poor lad’s his mind before he could stop it - the idea, not the consent.

  “That,” I said, “is generally effective.”

  It’s not recommended for beginners and there are those upstairs who frown upon it as rather bad form, but the statistics bear it out. And - must I blush to admit it? - when one is in the same job for eternity, one takes amusement where one can.

  Poor JD was near panic.

  “But - but Melky...”

  I feigned surprise. I’m naughty sometimes.

  “Really, old chap, you must look at the thing objectively - gender is hardly an issue for us here.” I took out the FiatLux portal. “Shall we consult his tastes, JD, or just go with a generic standard? Or I could run a check on his fantasies and - ”

  “No! Please. Just the standard.”

  He did his downthinking and in a jiffy was an unclad Aphrodite, long blonde hair and all. Even without physical sensation the breasts gave him a queer feeling, and he suspected - rightly - that I’d overdone the buttocks as a little extra joke. I squared this with myself as it conformed to Gubbins’s predilections.

  “But Melky, where am I supposed to put the fail-switch?”

  Let him who could have resisted judge me.

  “Don’t you think,” I asked him, and I dare say I had a twinkle in my eye, “that that’s rather a leading question?”

  He didn’t appreciate that. But he actually gave the switch to me - I suppose he was appealing to my better nature and duty of care.

  I said, “I’d better be invisible for this one.”

  In a moment it was done. Poor JD sat back down but was desperate for any delay.

  He said, “Shouldn’t we change the surroundings?”

  “If he notices the surroundings this time, old boy, it’s a damning indictment on both of you.”

  With the simulated corporeality the poor lad was actually blushing, and even had the urge to cover himself when I opened the rift to Gubbins.

  The two of them faced one another in silence. Gubbins strode up in his boiler suit, spanner in hand and a look in his eye - as if he were about to bust a gasket or something of that kind - that gave me a pang of conscience and brought JD out in goosebumps.

  “All right, lass?”

  His grease-stained fingers began to twitch and JD had to be quick to stall him.

  “Sit with me,” he cooed across the table, and motioned with a fluid dancer’s arm that I must admit impressed me.

  Gubbins complied, but his eyes ravened and his tongue lolled like a panting dog’s. He stroked his hairy chest where the boiler suit divided.

  JD said in breathy whisper, “Gubbie, I need your help - without you I don’t know what I’ll do...”

  JD thought he heard me chuckle as he looked down and fluttered his lashes. Gubbins was rapt.

  “How’s that then, love?”

  He was getting hot in the boiler suit.

  “Tell me,” said JD. “Tell me all of it. I was so worried about you with those awful tanks... And then when Godzilla appeared too, I just - ”

  Gubbins’s hands were on the table and he was rising from the seat.

  “Wait,” JD pleaded. “Tell me - give me all the details.”

  Gubbins paused mid-climb and just ogled.

  “Tell me,” said JD in the most suggestive moan he could - for one with so little initiative he was doing all right now. “I want to know. I want to... I need to... Gubkins... Gubcakes...”

  That alone was worth a pass grade, but it was no good. Gubbins sprang. The last thing JD registered were the bare hairy feet at the end of the boilersuit, with toenails that must have scraped out pipes. Then he was facing upside-down the ceiling where it met the rear wall, the first scream dying in his throat and Gubbins there with hands and tongue and teeth and - well, anyway, JD screamed for me to hit the fail-switch and I didn’t have the heart to write it up against him as a willful fourth-wall breach. I contented myself by punishing him with a few seconds’ delay. It did make me feel rather unchivalrous.

  JD changed back to his default clothe-skin before even picking himself up. I straightened my face and revisibilised.

  “I suppose,” he choked out, “you’ll tell me I breached the wall again.”

  I consulted the portal. As I said, I always stick to the truth.

  “Actually, old boy, there’s no evidence of it.”

  The hows and whys frothed in his mind, but now that I knew he could think for himself I only waited and smiled.

  “But if I didn’t breach the wall...he didn’t know he was dreaming. Right?”

  “Indeed.”

  “So you mean...he’s like that on the other side? That’s how he really is?”

  I always enjoy it when they’re shocked.

  “You’d be surprised, JD. Though on the other side a fellow like Gubbins doesn’t stumble into such scenes too often. Nor any fellow, come to that.”

  JD reflected that he never had.

  “Neither did I, old boy,” I said, to console him. “Life is wasted on the living, I assure you. The odds are against them, I grant, but they don’t make it easy on themselves.”

  He asked himself the point without even trying to suppress. The poor lad was ready to send Gubbins to the fires encased in a brimstone u-bend.

  “Try something different, JD. See if you can inspire him.”

  He wished for a clue. I took back some of the credit I had given him for initiative and checked FiatLux 3.0.

  “Not much here of note, JD. Tastes tend to conservative with a hint of romantic. Reads Top Gear magazine and the odd Jack Higgins. Favourite actors are Steven Seagal and Errol Flynn.”

  JD downthought a clothe-skin of an officer’s full dress uniform. He felt the part, bless him, and even wished he had a mirror.

  I said, “Shall I be thin air again?”

  He said, “How about some music?”


  “Here to oblige, old boy. Gubbins’s national anthem?”

  JD in his mind rejected it as funereal - showing, I’ll admit, a level of taste with which I hadn’t credited him.

  He said, “What about Jupiter from The Planets?”

  “Splendid, old chap - I vow to thee my country and all that. Quietly stirring.”

  It was nice: one could almost say we formed a connection. I invisibilised into the opening strains as the wall opened again upon Gubbins. It gave poor JD a bit of a turn to see him back in the boiler suit, but he now had his slippers on and a cup of tea in his hand. The English ones never start mischief around hot tea.

  JD let the music play a few bars, stood and saluted. Gubbins goggled, transferred the cup to his left hand and saluted with his right. JD motioned him militarily into the chair.

  “Gubbins,” he said, “you find your nation in an hour of peril. Her salvation may depend upon you.”

  Gubbins was about to sip his tea but stopped and stared, mouth open. JD paused to let the idea sink in, but it did not have far to sink.

  “Our country calls upon you. Gubbins, you are no common man.”

  The music helped out nicely. Gubbins was transfixed but in his eyes was a tacit agreement.

  “You, Gubbins, are unwittingly in possession of vital intelligence that could turn the course of this war. Otherwise...may God have mercy on us all.”

  Gubbins straightened the collar of his boiler suit.

  “Oh, ay.”

  JD paused to give Jupiter another turn, but I didn’t want him relying on it so I added a bit of a rhumba beat at the bass end.

  “Gubbins, some evenings ago you encountered Godzilla and a division of Panzer tanks believed to be advancing in a coordinated movement under the command of your wife’s mother. Please recount the said engagement in all possible detail.”

  “Do what, lad?” said Gubbins.

  JD looked as grave as a JD can.

  “It is imperative, Gubbins, that you do your utmost to recall. The enemy is resourceful and insidious. They may have assaulted you when you were not quite awake but rather in what we might call a...dream state.”

  Gubbins with a sigh sat back in the chair and slurped down the rest of his tea.

  “Oh ay,” he said. “Well that explains it, like. I never remember my dreams.”