Rollerskater: Annihilation
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII
This instalment contains strong violence.
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Socks fell.
It hadn’t been like this, before, when he had abandoned the Universe, losing his identity as the path between realities snapped shut behind him, like a door blown shut by a terrible storm. He had merely awoken in the other place. This was new. It felt strange.
As he fell, he realised just how quiet it was. When falling, you expect the wind whistling past your ears, the feeling of acceleration. He knew, of course, that he was falling, but he was falling through vacuum. There was no air resistance. It had the disconcerting feeling of entering a soundproofed room, before your ears have adjusted.
Faintly, above him, there was a dim red light that shrank away from him the farther he fell.
zdeevun oksferrrrrd
it said
yoo kannot izkape meeee
ware ar yew goeinggggg
He said nothing in reply.
He did not care that the Blood Moon was infinitely more powerful than him.
He fell, and he did not care, because his daughter was dead, and he had loved her.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed, when below him, the world seemed to open up, and he fell into that great empty desert, the void outside of time and all forms of physical space, known to Socks only as the Notherethere.
He stood, brushing himself off. More instinctively than anything. There was nothing to brush off.
“Is it time?” said a voice to his right.
Socks looked in the direction of the sound and met the gaze of Magpie, who stood, leaning on his cane expectantly.
“I think so,” Socks said.
Magpie nodded. Schrödinger, the cat, lay around his shoulders, sleeping. He reached up and scratched the cat behind the ear.
“The envelope,” he said. “Have you opened it yet?”
“No,” Socks said. “Someone else did. It destroyed her mind.”
“Aye, it would,” Magpie said. “Dangerous knowledge in there. Only blokes like us have the nous to get our heads round it.”
“What’s written in there?” Socks said.
“I can’t tell you,” Magpie said. “Suck it and see.”
“Helpful as always,” Socks replied.
Magpie grinned, spreading his hands.
“When we first met, you were a lot more docile.”
“Things change,” Socks said. “They evolve. That’s what chaos is.”
“Right you are,” Magpie said, still smiling. “Right you are.”
Socks did not smile in return. He only closed his eyes. For he was in the space between spaces, and his form here was merely a projection, composed not of atoms but that spark of chaos that resides within all life. And so, he could wander the corridors of his being just as confidently as that distant university where he had first met K-Os.
From within the fractal curves of his base pattern, he plucked a banana-yellow envelope that had been sitting there, waiting. He was struck for a moment by a terrific sense of déjà vu, as though this moment had always been predestined.
He reached down, and with an unshaking hand, he gripped the envelope, tearing it open.
He pulled out its contents and studied them a few moments.
Opening his eyes, he looked to Magpie, waiting patiently for him.
“Oh,” Socks said, with some surprise. “I see.”
And suddenly, the Notherethere, Liberty, Monica, the Blood Moon, K-Os, and everything else seemed so very small and very far away. It was as if he were looking at the full stop at the end of a sentence in the first chapter of a long, very long book.
*
Liberty felt the soles of her feet touch the earth. She felt no pain. The reunion of Ur’s spirit within her had broken the covenant of the Seal, and thus the blood-link that seared her arteries and veins was severed.
Yet, this marked the final undoing of the Seal. Geb had been loosed.
She walked along a road, past a car that had been smashed when Geb had devoured the village. A wing mirror pointed up and faced towards her, and she regarded it with curiosity and trepidation.
She was relieved when she looked upon the face of Liberty, that was her own face, but it was different, too, somehow. It was as though she were looking at her own face for the first time. A part of her that had been missing for many years had been returned to her, and she realised that this must be because she had always been half of a monad. Yet Ur, unlike his brother, was kind. He had not devoured her. You are Liberty, the reflection seemed to say to her. Great Ur is dead. Long live Great Ur.
She continued to walk through overturned soil. There was smoke and flame all around, and there, at the centre of it all, was the device, driven through the corpse of a man, the unmaking of the world.
Now she turned her gaze to the sky above. It was still dark, and in the sky there remained that red sphere, gazing down at her hatefully, mockingly.
“Listen,” she said, pointing at it. “I think I told you to come down here and face me, you coward. Enough of these games. I had hoped that in sealing you I had taught you a lesson you would not forget. But it seems you are in need of further teaching.”
Storm-clouds gathered around the tip of her finger – the only weather that existed under the slate sky – and lightning crackled. It began to rain.
“I challenge you, Great Geb!” she shouted. “If you truly want to settle this, then get down here, or else I shall chase you to the end of time. Don’t doubt me, brother. For I, too, have grown wiser, wiser and more stubborn, these past millennia. I would sooner cut my own heart out right where I stand than perish without a fair fight. I command you, dictator, villain, murderer, false god, demon, to face me in battle – or else, spend eternity fleeing my wrath!”
She felt her eyes flash blue as she gritted her teeth.
“CHOOSE!” she bellowed, and her shout seemed to echo all throughout the Wiltshire hills.
There was silence but for the hissing of rain flashing into steam on the burning earth.
The Blood Moon seemed almost to tremble at this accusation. For all its power and evil, it knew – he knew – the word of Great Ur to be absolute truth. Great Geb had transcended a form that could really feel fear, and yet, the only thing that posed a real and significant threat to his continued existence was his brother.
And so, with a burst of red light, Liberty stood and watched as Great Geb changed himself, compressed his infinite body into an intelligible form, and extruded it into the recently-deceased corpse of one Barnabas Mortimer.
The corpse stood, leaving the bio-key driven into the Earth. Pinkish liquid flowed from every orifice, and from the gaping hole in its chest where a heart had once been. These were the corpse’s organs, liquefied instantly by the transfer. What remained was a hollow man, an empty skin filled with evil red light that emanated from every cavity.
“I am returned,” said Great Geb, though the corpse’s lips did not move.
Without saying another word, he lunged at Liberty. She tried to parry, but he struck her hard across the face with the back of a fist.
“You are going to regret challenging me, brother,” Geb said.
Liberty looked up, and Geb seemed to hesitate for a moment.
For in the centre of her forehead had opened a third eye, yellow and magnificent.
The Eye of Ur now gazed upon Geb, who opened his toothless mouth and roared in hatred.
“I shall not die!” Geb thundered, in a voice that almost seemed to threaten to dislodge the Earth from its orbit. “I am eternal!”
“We’ll see about that,” Liberty said, and spreading her wings, she launched herself at him.
*
Lost. She was lost. Sixty-six million years old, and she had never felt so weak, so outcompeted, so obsolete.
Baird grinned, raising his clawed hand, bringing it down like a sledgehammer on the dirt. K-Os rolled out of the way, and his eyes seemed almost to flash red in the heat. Embers were floating through the air.
“There has been a change,” Baird said. “Yes, Geb has manifested Himself. I feel it in the air.”
K-Os struggled to her feet.
“Liberty,” she whispered.
Baird cackled.
“He is going to destroy that snivelling little whore, the bastard Second Coming of Ur. Oh, the old world shall die…we stand on the very precipice of glory, Envoy!”
“Doubt her at your peril,” K-Os said.
Baird cackled again.
“I cannot wait to make you watch as we exterminate the wretched human race. They are like termites, infesting the beams of a grand and beautiful house.”
K-Os looked around them at the burning world, and up at the black sky.
“You call this an inheritance?” she said. “A world of darkness, blood, and fire?”
“I call it eternal life,” Baird growled.
K-Os thought a few moments, then smiled.
“Just now,” she said. “You told me you couldn’t wait to make me watch as you destroyed this world. That means you don’t plan to kill me. You can’t kill me. If you could, you’d have done it already. But you can’t, because you need me. Because the Blood Moon and I are a monad, one and the same. One cannot exist without the other. You’re stalling for time.”
Baird’s monstrously clownish façade fell away at this. He bared his red teeth at K-Os. K-Os was not often given to laughter, which meant that when she laughed at him, and she did, it only served to infuriate him even more.
“In a sense,” K-Os said, “I suppose I’m your mother.”
Baird glowered. That was it. Play on his religiosity. He could not tolerate blasphemy. K-Os was weak physically, but she retained her mental strength. Their plans hadn’t factored in that she had a mind and a mouth.
“You will not win,” she said. “That’s a fact. I’ve lived for many thousands of years among humankind. I watched them transform from synapsids into burrowing creatures that crawled up into the trees, then into bipedal apes. Do you know why I took this form, Baird? I wasn’t aware of it myself, until now. The truth is that, despite everything, I believe in humanity. I will not abandon them. And so long as I live, you shall not take this world. For you have rejected humanity in pursuit of endless life and ever-increasing strength. But to die, and admit your weakness – there is nothing more human. You have weakened me, Baird. But I am that spark that resides in all life. And I say no more!”
Baird growled. He lunged at her, caught her by the throat.
“I may not be able to kill you, bitch. But that doesn’t mean I can’t break you.”
He drove her into the ground hard enough that, if K-Os had a skeleton, it would have shattered every bone.
It hurt, of course. But K-Os still smiled.
Prove me right, idiot, she thought.
*
It looked like a spider’s web hung with droplets of dew, pearlescent baubles that shimmered against a pure black background. Few people have ever experienced true pitch darkness, but this blackness was eternal. And yet, the thicket stretched on above him, below him, in front of him, behind him, to the left and right of him, in all directions, forever.
“Where are we?” Socks asked.
“You tell me,” Magpie said. Socks couldn’t see him, but somehow, he knew he was there.
Socks approached one of the droplets. It was strange, because it was not a three-dimensional object, and its geometry was not anything familiar to Socks. So, what had seemed to be about the size of an apple seemed to become the size of a room when observed closely. Shimmering inside it, he could hear voices, vague flashes of perception, snatches of memory.
“The root system,” he murmured. “We’re in the root system.”
“No,” Magpie said. “We’re always in the root system, my boy. It’s quite the opposite. We’re outside the root system. About as far outside it as you can go.”
Socks gazed around him. The contents of the envelope were impossible to describe, but he knew them to be a map, a map that could not be read by anyone but him, for he could perceive its fractal, multi-dimensional permutations without it destroying his mind.
“This is time,” Socks said. “I’m looking at time.”
“All the time in the world,” Magpie said, chuckling to himself. “Sorry, son. Excuse the joke.”
“Every one of these things…” Socks murmured.
“Is an event,” Magpie said. “It’s all here. Every possible happening, every possible timeline. Every forked path in the garden of forking paths.”
“My powers,” Socks said. “This is where my powers come from.”
“Yes,” Magpie replied. “You have a causal tether in your base pattern. It lets you jump sideways into the timeline most aligned with your true will.”
“And you gave me a map,” Socks said. “It’s so weird, it was like…reading an entire book by reading one sentence. I know every pathway through here. How is that possible?”
“You beheld the fractal shape of the root system,” Magpie said. “You’re the first person to do this without being destroyed by it.”
“What about you?” Socks asked.
Magpie did not reply.
“Alright,” Socks said. “I know what I have to do.”
“Be warned,” Magpie said. “Once you do this, you might never be able to return home.”
Socks gazed at the infinite tangle of threads around him.
“Well, maybe that’s one thing you don’t know about me,” he said. “I haven’t been home in a long time.”
Without thinking, he launched himself towards a sphere, and found himself tumbling into a world.
*
“Come on, Nigel. We’re going to be late!”
Her name was Catherine Osbourne. She was small, slight of frame, and liked to wear airy white blouses with long, flowing satin skirts. Her favourite food was Bounty bars.
She was also the Goddess of the Sun.
This was a fact that would be incredible and even wonderful, if it didn’t make life hell for her best friend. His name was Nigel Evans, and he was tired.
They were on their way to a party, and Catherine planned to make a big splash. This was a girl who could see atoms, but you wouldn’t know it from the clinking of glass bottles in a canvas bag on her shoulder.
“Kate, would you mind not doing anything too crazy at this party?”
“Oh, Nigel, whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the Halloween party where you turned me into a goat and sacrificed me.”
“Well, it was gory. People liked it.”
“At least three are still in the hospital. It’s April.”
“So it was one incident.”
“There was the time you made me completely invisible and then just forgot about it for two weeks. Granted, I got a new phone out of the deal, but that’s not the bloody point.”
“Oh, two incidents doesn’t count for anything, Nigel!”
A man approached them, looking very dazed. His skin was light brown, and his curled hair hung about his shoulders. He had stubble on his chin that made it seem like he needed a shave.
“‘Scuse me,” he said. “Where am I?”
“What do you mean, ‘Where am I?’” Nigel asked, incredulously. “East London.”
“Must have taken a wrong turn,” the man said. “Pardon me.”
“Wait,” Catherine said. “Do I…know you?”
The man looked at her a few moments, puzzled.
“No,” he said. “You don’t. And you never will. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” she said.
The man looked at Nigel intently. He seemed to recognise something in his face. Then he walked away.
“Bloody hell was that about?” Nigel asked.
“I’m not sure,” Catherine said. “How strange.”
“I thought you were supposed to be omniscient?”
“Yes,” Catherine said, quietly. “Yes, that is what worries me.”
They both looked to see where the man had gone, but he had vanished from sight.
“Come on, we’ll be late,” Catherine said. “Maybe I will go easy on you, Nigel, just for tonight.”
“I’d like that,” Nigel said. “I’d like that a lot.”
*
Geb flinched from her penumbric, but stood his ground. Every blow with which she struck him was met by two more. In his time, Ur had been more active as a warrior, but Geb was a grand and powerful tactician, and he had spent many thousands of years totally isolated.
He was wild. The structure he had erected around himself only served as a mask for his abstraction. He no longer had a true sense of self. His speech was only mimicry, meant to give the impression that he had intentions that still made any kind of rational sense. He had become a living contradiction, a being that starves forever, and yet calls this miserable state of being “immortality.”
They tumbled across the wasteland, thrashing and roaring in their mutual hatred. He brought a hand down on her jaw that felt hard as diamond. In her enhanced state, she barely felt it, but she spat blood from her mouth regardless.
It took a lot to make a god bleed.
“Give up!” Geb roared. “You cannot defeat me, brother!”
“Never,” Liberty said. “Great Ur shall defend humanity to the last. That is my covenant.”
“The covenant is broken,” Geb said. “You are nothing, Ur. Nothing but an obstruction!”
“Maybe so. But I would rather be nothing than devour everything and still hunger for more.”
Geb put his arms around her, and she launched them both into the sky, while the Blood Moon shivered in the firmament. It was naked and frightened, for though its facet of Geb was slowly wearing away at his brother, it knew that it was in mortal peril.
Even as millions around the world rioted and killed, found themselves suddenly thirsting for blood, or were transformed into hideous monstrosities, and the Blood Moon’s nascent empire grew ever greater and more powerful, it knew, for it could see all facets of the root system, that there was only one whose true will could supersede its own. It had tried to intimidate, tried to instigate, provoke and demoralise, but to no avail.
The one known as Stephen Oxford had slipped out of its purview, and he was now beyond all reach.
*
Bullets soared across a red battlefield. Socks threw himself on to the dirt and tried to crawl.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” someone shouted. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”
Bullets whistled past. Somewhere in the distance was an explosion. He had no idea where he was.
“Jesus Christ!” someone shouted. “Cease fire! Cease fire!”
And suddenly he felt hands on his shoulders, bearing him up to his feet.
“Who are you?” said the same man who had shouted before. He wore a military uniform, but not of any kind that Socks recognised. “You Terran or Martian?”
“What?” Socks asked.
“Terran or Martian? Tell me right now or I’m gonna put a bullet through your fucking head.”
“Where am I?”
“Terran or Martian, motherfucker? I won’t ask you again!”
“Don’t shoot,” Socks said. “I’m trying to find someone. I’m lost.”
“What kind of fucking accent is that?” the soldier said.
A bullet whizzed past.
“Fuck this. I’m taking you back to the bunker.”
Socks found himself dragged unwillingly towards a concrete structure that didn’t even look fully set. He was shoved in, surrounded by men.
“This guy says he’s lost,” said the soldier. “His accent doesn’t sound Martian or Terran.”
Socks saw men pointing strange rifles through an opening in the front of the bunker.
“Where am I?” he asked again.
“Where the fuck you think you are?” said one of the soldiers. “You’re on Mars, dipshit. Jesus, Kowalski, where did you find this guy?”
“This isn’t the right place,” Socks murmured. “This isn’t the right place.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You high or something, asshole?”
Socks breathed in and out, in and out.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
And then he was gone.
The soldiers stood in a circle, perplexed. They would never speak of what had happened on this day again, as the war wore on, their memories grew hazier with battle-weariness, and billions more met their demise at the end of a rifle or in the vacuum of space.
Moments later, there was another barrage from across the battlefield, pockmarking the concrete bunker.
“Enemy ATVs sighted across the plain!” one soldier shouted.
“Jesus Christ,” Kowalski said. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
*
It was 1967. It had always been 1967.
They’d stopped counting the days a long time ago. But it was definitely a Tuesday. Bad day, Tuesday. At least Monday has novelty to soften the blow. Wednesday feels like leaping the hurdle. But Tuesday is neither novel nor climactic. It’s just Tuesday.
Agent A examined his velour Carnaby Street finery and plaid trousers, and looked at himself through his green teashades. Nobody had ever seen him without them, and he liked it that way. The eyes are a window to the soul, and he didn’t want anyone to know what he was about.
He put on his jabot, which the lady in the charity shop had assured him had once been owned by King George III, and two pounds, ten shillings and sixpence was a bargain price, really. At the time he’d found it hard to disagree, so he’d paid her the exact change just to prove a point. And indeed, the jabot had a lot of harsh vibes.
The telephone rang, and he ran to pick it up.
“I think I smell limes,” he said, idly picking at his teeth.
“The walnuts are pickled,” said the voice on the other end. “Eat a couple. You’ll enjoy them.”
“I’m allergic to nuts.”
“That can be resolved if you add sugar.”
“One lump or two?”
“Three.”
“Fuck.”
The phone clicked off, and he slammed it down on the receiver.
Agent A hated Tuesdays. He particularly hated going on missions on Tuesdays. Interminable Tuesdays! He was starting to be convinced that the weeks had more Tuesdays in them now than they’d had before. Wasn’t yesterday a Tuesday, as well, or did his memory fail to serve him, as it often did? Well, that was a purely academic question. When it’s always the same year, collective memory starts to get a bit hazy.
He grabbed a large leather duffle bag, took the front door key and a wrapper of Wrigley’s, locked the door behind him and started on the way down the stairs into his tower block. The lifts were always out of service. The invisible hand of capitalism is fucking arthritic, A thought.
There was a blue Mark II Ford Cortina outside with its engine running. A stocky man with a shaved head sat in the front seat, while in the back was a young woman smiling a strange half-smile.
Agent A opened the left-hand passenger door and climbed in.
“Morning, B. Morning, C.”
“Morning, A,” B said. He wore a black suit jacket, black waistcoat and white shirt, with a black tie around his neck. His trousers were pinstriped.
“Did Control give you the info?” B asked.
“Yeah,” A said, tossing the leather bag on to the back seat. “We’re off to the Message Centre.”
The Cortina pulled away from Flat Block 84-F and headed south through the city’s endless gridwork. A placed an elbow against the window, pressing a fist into his cheek.
It wasn’t long after they’d quietly abolished the vote that the System had stepped in. Nobody really needed to think about politics any more, nor money. The System provided, so long as you worked in its interests. You were expected to produce, make things for the System, and in return, you earned your keep. The right to leisure time. The right to food, water, shelter, electricity.
The System was omnipresent, in absolute control of everything from breakfast cereals to traffic lights. In the third-to-last December before they stopped counting, they’d finally succeeded in networking everything together. It was to improve efficiency, so said the newspapers, which were, of course, also controlled by The System.
There was no war, any more. No nations. No flags. Just the System. You lived within it, you breathed it in, and you became part of its intricate wetwork. This, said the System, was the way of true peace and happiness. No more vague fear. Only a phantasmagoria of pure experiences to remember. Objects to make and obtain.
The Message Centre was quite a drive away. They passed through canyons of steel, glass and tarmac, punctuated by crossroads and billboards that promised yet another object to acquire, to stave off the ennui. Agent A had a headache.
“How much further?” C asked, kicking the back of B’s seat.
She was a teenage girl who wore her red hair high with a white headband. She wore an array of shapeless shifts with white cuffs and collars, and was the owner of a collection of low-heeled pumps that she wore everywhere. Though she looked rather plain and bookish, there was something very strange underneath the surface. She often laughed to herself, as if in on a joke that nobody else was.
“I make it thirty blocks,” B said.
All the buildings were indistinct, each one as grey and concrete as the last. There was no skyline, just buildings and buildings.
Nobody was quite sure how the subversive organisation known as S.C.H. had come about. Even its own agents didn’t know what the abbreviation stood for. At some point it had probably stood for a clever slogan, but now it just formed the letterhead at the top of their hand-written letters. This was a novelty in itself, of course, but a necessity. The System’s automated pneumatic mail system, which served every building in the city, was reputed to open mail for purposes of security and risk management.
The car suddenly braked, and A found himself slammed forwards, even with his System-mandated seatbelt.
“Fucking hell, B,” he said. “What’s your problem, man?”
“Look,” B said, nodding to something ahead of them.
There, in the middle of the road, stood a man, who gazed back at them with a look of confusion.
The car slowly inched forwards. Agent A turned a crank in the door to open the window and leaned out.
“Get out of the road, idiot!” he shouted.
The man turned and looked at him. He walked up to the window and put his hands on the frames.
“Where am I?” he said.
“You’re in London,” B replied. “Well. What’s left of it, anyway.”
“I’m lost,” the man said, distantly. He was dark-skinned and wore strange clothing. He had long hair and frightened eyes.
“We’re all lost,” A said.
The man seemed to be gazing into space.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Shit, man,” A said. “You on some bad pharms or what?”
“No,” the man said.
A looked to B, who looked to C.
“I say he comes with us,” C said.
The man climbed into the back of the car with C. He told them his name was Socks. He asked them what year it was. They said fucking hell you must really be out of it and they told him it was 1967 and it had been for a long time. He seemed to accept that answer like a swallow of bitter medicine, and they drove on into the morning.
It was raining when they got to the Message Centre. It was a large, round tower, bounded on all sides by blocks of buildings. The corners closest to the Message Centre were inversely rounded to accommodate its shape, since the buildings were so close and rose up as tall.
Socks waited for the others to get out, then followed them. The Message Centre had once been called the GPO Tower, back when they had a GPO. Now it was all strung with wires and piping, dwarfed by the mixed-use buildings around it, the sprawl of housing, shopping arcades, restaurants, laundromats, schools and warehouses.
The Message Centre acted as a sort of neural node for The System. Since The System was subtle and distributed, it would never be foolish enough to rely on single points of failure. But they had every intention of slowing it down, even for a few hours. That would be enough to show people that they were sleepwalking. At least, they hoped.
They entered the building, unobstructed by guards. The System was arrogant. It was assured of its own success. In a way, it was right. This action would be a setback, nothing more.
They took the lift all the way to the top floor and began to lay their quiet siege.
Socks watched them working for a while, damaging equipment, planting explosives, switching circuit breakers off.
When they were done, he turned to leave.
“Where the hell are you going?” Agent A asked.
Socks turned back to him, reaching into his pocket, and pulling out a pair of scratched teashades that matched A’s own, apart from the colour, which was blue.
“There’s a sniper watching out for you,” he said. “He’s to your left as you exit, fifth floor on the building to the southwest. Create a diversion and escape.”
“How d’you know that?”
Socks smiled.
“Because it’s all taking shape,” he said.
And then he vanished, as if he was never there.
B appeared from around a corner to find a shaken A staring into space.
“Where’d the other guy go?” he said.
“Have C prepare a smoke grenade,” A replied. “Watch for snipers as we escape.”
B raised an eyebrow, but he’d never doubted an order from A before and he was damned if he was going to do it now.
When he was sure that B couldn’t see him, Agent A took off his teashades and rubbed his eyes until he started to see coloured shapes and the twinkling of glitter.
*
In a coffee shop, someone sat, writing in a notebook with a plastic cover in the colour of mint green. On the first page, written in purple gel pen, were the words, in a spidery and awkward hand:
Another time,
Another place…
Socks sat across, as the person at the table by the window looked over the notebook, a pair of headphones over their ears. They wrote, crossed things out, doodled, and sipped at an iced beverage. They looked up, once or twice, but didn’t seem to see him.
Socks watched them, didn’t buy anything, just sat there and waited. It was late winter, heading into spring. He recalled that he had met with K-Os for Japanese food on a very similar day to this, a long time ago. At least, relative to himself.
Eventually, the person with the notebook stood, cramming it back into a rucksack, and walked out, throwing away the empty cup.
They never saw each other.
Socks didn’t attempt to look in the notebook. He didn’t need to. He knew what was in it, and who that person had been, and somehow, he was fine with it. His will was his own, despite his new understanding, and he knew what had to be done.
Running for the car park outside, he sprinted along the asphalt surface, and finding enough momentum, kicked off the ground, vanishing in streamers of rainbow light.
And he was rising, rising. The entire structure of the root system shrank away from him as he was elevated above it. Further and further he went in this timeless space, and it seemed like he would never reach the zenith of his climb, but still he threw himself further and further up.
The climb threatened to strip his ego from him, his body, to dash his spirit on the rocks of existence, but his true will, hardened by a spark of chaos, held strong against the tide.
At last, he had finally transcended. He looked down upon all of time, enlightened.
Laid out before him, as though looking at the floorplan of a grand and impossible building with a great many rooms, he saw every moment since his life had become intertwined with that of K-Os for what it was.
It was a story.
And what was more, he knew how it would end.
*
K-Os was still grappling with Baird when the two figures slammed into the earth, carving a great ditch into what had once been a grassy field.
Something that had once been Barnabas Mortimer had Liberty by the throat, and Baird looked to him and laughed.
“See, now, Rollerskater,” he said. “The end of Great Ur.”
K-Os could not speak. She could not move.
This was the moment she had been waiting for, her entire life.
It was the end.
*
He walked backwards through history as easily as browsing the shelves at a library. It took him a while to get the hang of the structure, but eventually he found the thread of K-Os’s life. Sliding along it, he was able to peek into an event in K-Os’s life.
There she was, dressed in strange clothing. She stood in an alleyway, surrounded by men. He called out to her, trying to warn her of things to come.
“K-Os, listen to me,” he said. “You have to understand—”
And he was wrenched back, dazed, and found that event now forever closed off to him. Clearly, he needed some practice.
Unperturbed, he slid further along, finding more events. She was standing in a muddy field, next to a dead tree, surrounded by barbed wire.
“Listen,” he said. “You don’t know me yet, but I have to warn you…”
“I know you,” she replied. “I always have done. You’re Socks. The man with the stupid name.”
“Then I need to keep going,” Socks surmised.
A whistling came overhead, and before the sky could fall in on their heads, he was skating again. After a while, what had been smooth like a fireman’s pole now became barbed like a paddle of prickly pear. He found himself cascading through a bewildering barrage of names discarded, forgotten, yet indelibly written into the ledger of her life: Jane Doe, Catherynne Wheely-Boots, Lilac, Eris, Tiamat, The Envoy, The Woman, She, The Goddess—
And now he stood in a tent, manifest as a disembodied spirit, a pillar of golden light that threatened to sear the eyes of anyone who gazed upon it.
There she was, dressed in animal skins, surrounded by women who cowered in fear at this apparition.
“I see you’ve come at last,” K-Os said, in English – a language that Socks knew would not be spoken in any part of the world for many thousands of years. And yet, she spoke it perfectly.
“Yes,” Socks said. “I know what you need to do.”
And he told her of all that had happened in London after he had made his escape, the attack at Trafalgar Square, the death of Monica, his flight into the Notherethere, and what he had seen while travelling between worlds.
“Everything we are, everything we’ve been through,” Socks said. “It’s all just a story.”
K-Os bowed her head, solemnly.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I had suspected that.”
“But it’s not just that,” Socks said. “The shape I saw…”
She was silent. At her feet were embers in a pit, smouldering, and the women still gazed at him, non-comprehending and shuddering in fear. How must he have looked to them?
“I think I understand,” he elaborated. “That’s how it ends, isn’t it? You have to stop being you. Become something else.”
She sat, looking desolate.
“I am that which brings death,” she said. “I am the inevitability of all things, spiralling down to their final end. And yet, I, myself, am alive. I gave birth to myself, became conscious. And now I dread my own end.”
“You died before,” Socks said. “I watched you die in front of me. You came back.”
“I had not truly died,” K-Os said. “I merely split myself into pieces and hid them throughout the root system. This is different. This time, I will not survive in any form you will recognise.”
Now Socks was silent for a time.
“Then I’ve brought your death warrant,” he said. “I’ve condemned you to die.”
“Perhaps,” K-Os said. “But then, these things are always inevitable. I have many years to make my peace with it.”
“Wait,” Socks said. “You mean you knew, all along?”
“In this universe, yes. We were strangers, in that world that died. But in this world, we were always meant to meet. It had to be so. Now, it seems, we must part ways, if the world is to be spared destruction.”
“I see.”
Socks digested the information a few moments, then felt grief wash over him.
“How did you know I was coming?” he asked, trying to escape the certainty of what was to come.
“Why do you think?” she asked. “You haven’t finished your journey yet.”
Socks took this information in, and felt a change. He disappeared back into the root system, following the line to its end. Now it grew gnarled like the bark of an old tree. It hurt him to keep going, and at points it was unbearable. But at last, he reached the very end, a shining pearl at the end of a long, twisted thread.
He emerged, sixty-six million years ago, to a world blanketed in ash and perpetual winter, where every large animal died, plants wilted, and the forests were eerily silent.
He had been here, before, a long time ago. He had seen pink liquid moving in tidal pools. At the time, he had thought how much it resembled strawberry milkshake. But now, he saw it for what it was. It was algae, bacteria, amino acids. Life itself, regenerating despite terrible and unendurable destruction.
In short, he knew that what he was looking at – what he had always been looking at, every time he saw K-Os – was hope. Hope for the future. Hope for survival. Hope for change.
He was here, at K-Os’s birth.
As he stood, ankle-deep in the pool, he knew that she recognised him, even in this diffuse form. And he knew also that he must be there at her end.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ll see you soon.”
He kicked himself backwards, grabbed hold of the thread of K-Os’s life, and flung himself forward, following her. Of course. He had always been with her. He always would be.
Events, events, events, they came whirling towards him like roadsigns streaking past on a motorway at speed. He collided with his past selves, felt the very fabric of himself changing.
A flurry of events flitted around him like maddened butterflies, and he retraced his steps. He felt the thread grow smoother, and he realised then that it was he who had tempered K-Os’s thread, smoothed it, given it definite shape and form. The gnarls and barbs fell away, and all at once, the story of himself was told to him.
His speed increased, and as he reached the final strait, he, almost without realising it, found himself manifesting his crystal arm.
The moment had arrived, and he knew that K-Os was waiting for him.
He balled his left hand into a fist.
*
In a flash of rainbow-coloured light, Socks emerged from thin air. He flew at speed, as though catapulted in.
Douglas Baird turned, and for a split second, he was able to contemplate his doom, before Socks’s hand struck him in the head with such force that it passed through it as though it were nothing more than candy floss. Both Baird and the crystal arm disintegrated in a shower of pink powder that blew away on the hot wind.
The vampire died without a sound, and Socks stood, his legs apart, once more bereft of his left arm.
“Socks,” K-Os said. “You came.”
But Socks did not answer her, for he saw at once that the Prime Minister had seized Liberty Parish by the throat. Her face was covered in blood that ran from her nose and down her chin. Her eyes were half-open. She was awake, but could scarcely fight any longer. In the centre of her forehead burned a yellow eye.
“Get your hands off her,” he said. He did not raise his voice. He said it as if he were inflicting a geas. The timbre of his voice seemed to have changed. He even looked taller.
Mortimer looked to him, his eyesockets empty but for red light.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Socks said. “You’re the Blood Moon.”
The lips did not move as the Blood Moon spoke.
“There is no hope, Stephen Oxford. The world is mine.”
With a boneless finger, the light-filled skin pointed at K-Os.
“She is mine.”
Socks nodded. He even had the audacity to smile.
“I think I misunderstood,” Socks said. “This whole time, I thought you were talking about Liberty. But why would you want Liberty? She can hold her own against you.”
“Socks, what are you doing?” K-Os whispered.
“No, it’s K-Os, isn’t it? You think you can defeat K-Os. That’s what all this has been about.”
He turned to K-Os, offering her a hand.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s end this thing.”
“She will be consumed,” the Blood Moon said.
“No,” Socks said, holding K-Os’s hand. “Because if there’s one thing I know more about than you, it’s what K-Os is capable of. The only reason she’s been holding back for this long is not because she fears that you will destroy her. It’s that she fears destroying herself.”
“Fool!” the Blood Moon roared. “I possess the Sword. I shall unmake her. I shall unmake you. I shall rule forevermore.”
“Then do it, coward.”
The Blood Moon reared up.
K-Os let go of Socks’s hand.
She didn’t feel ready. Even after all these years, she did not feel ready. She felt unsteady on her feet, and yet she stood, resolute. In all these years she had never shed a tear, and she wasn’t about to start now.
The last time she had died, she had been surprised by how much it had hurt.
But now she was done running. She’d made her peace with it.
The enemy roared, throwing Liberty to the ground, charging towards K-Os.
“K-Os, do it!” Socks shouted.
And she let go of her human form.
Waves of golden light, streamers of strawberry milkshake unfurling around the Blood Moon. For a moment, Socks beheld K-Os in her true form, as no other man could, and it was beautiful.
She threw herself at the great and terrible force, her shadow-self that had plagued her for the entirety of her existence.
And suddenly, she felt no fear. She realised that for all this time, she had been incomplete, and she had come home.
The Blood Moon – that was Geb – howled and tried to wrench himself from her grasp. He tried to devour her, but she only devoured him in turn: an ouroboros with two heads and no tail.
She entered him, coiled herself around him and absorbed him. They met each other, embraced, and the boundary separating them was annihilated. His base pattern was blasted away, obliterating his ego and scattering it, so that it could never again coalesce.
At the last moment she realised a great and unspeakable truth.
I understand. I understand now.
Rollerskater is Rollerskater is Rollerskater is—
*
The bio-key, still driven into the scorched earth, shattered in a burst of red lightning. The fragments fell into the mud with an unceremonious and wet sound.
At the same moment, the skin that Geb had been wearing crumpled to the ground. Liberty sat up, despite her weariness, and got to her feet. She looked down at what remained. The last embers of red light were slowly dying within the skin, giving it a strange translucency.
“Brother,” she said, quietly. “You must be so tired.”
A very quiet voice emanated from within the folds of pale skin.
“I am,” it said, in a resigned whisper. “I really, really am.”
Liberty crouched to her knees.
“Despite everything,” she said, “I forgive you.”
There came no reply.
The light died, and the remains of what had once been Barnabas Mortimer were left empty.
The skies above cleared, and the eternal darkness of the sky was now replaced with a bright blue, and the setting sun touched her face. Above them, in the centre of the sky, was not the red sphere of the Blood Moon, but a pink sphere. A Pink Moon.
“Liberty,” Socks said. “Are you alright?”
“Not really,” Liberty said. “But I’ll survive.”
“We always do,” Socks said.
He bowed his head.
“I’m gonna miss her, Liberty.”
“Me too,” Liberty said.
She thought for a moment.
“Please, call me Libby.”
Beneath them, they felt the earth begin to shake.
Without hesitating, she put her arms about his waist, and spread her eighteen wings.
She leapt into the air, carrying him with the same ease she might have carried an infant. Despite her exhaustion, she pressed on. She did not want to let go of him.
Because she loved him.
She loved him.
Below them, the circle, its fires now extinguished, closed up with enough force to rattle the hills around it for miles. What remained of the Great Seal of Ur was swallowed by the Earth, taking with it all evidence that it had ever existed.
The village of Avebury and the great stone circle was utterly destroyed, and the land on which it had been built now formed a broken layer that, some hundreds of years from now, archaeologists might dig up to find smashed masonry, shattered crockery, and the fallen stones that had once marked it as a place of great power.
Liberty flew east, away from the Sun and towards night.
She held Socks in her arms, and he clung to her as tightly as he could.
She had lost so much in a short space of time, and yet…
…and yet, there would be a tomorrow.
She allowed herself to shed a single tear, and then cried no more.
No crying until the end.
*
It was as though a great and unbearable weight had been lifted.
Suddenly, the sky was livid with colour, and people looked up. The darkness departed, leaving only a pink sphere in the firmament as a reminder that the nightmare had been real.
Many of the thousands who had been transformed into beasts by the influence of the Blood Moon were instantly freed from their agony, perishing almost with a sigh of relief.
In years to come, this day would be remembered with solemn minutes of silence. There would be memorials to the dead, in this apocalyptic event that had come and gone, all in the space of a few mere hours.
The vampires, on the other hand, met their demise with no dignity or remorse. They shrieked and wailed in mortal terror. Their existence had depended on Geb, and with his undoing came their annihilation. Their bodies quietly and swiftly dissolved into pink powder that was carried away by the wind and the rain.
K-Os and her allies had achieved the goal of Callan Crucefix – the utter ruination of Geb’s cult, and the final defeat of the Empire of Blood.
It was by some act of grace that all those who had begun their transformation into vampires had not completed it. They all felt something let go of their hearts and gasped for air.
Among these was Dolly Mixture, blood type AB-positive, who sank to her knees under the evening sky, shivering, her arms around Chelsea Rose’s long legs.
“Dolly,” Chelsea said, anxiously. “Please, tell me you’re alright.”
Dolly gazed up at Chelsea, panting, and saw her face, lined with fear and doubt.
Then, she looked down at herself, and came to the realisation that she was on her knees.
Despite the strange ache that now seemed to pull at every tendon and sinew, she was able to smile slightly, shifting her position so that now she balanced on one knee.
“Chelsea,” she said, softly. “Will you marry me?”
Another time, another place…
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Illustration created using elements of images by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash and Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII