Kill The Monster, Chapter 10

VIII. MOTHER CHURCH

He'd never even seen the car. It was worth more than his house, and he'd not even glimpsed it from a distance. He was also - a minor technicality - not insured to drive it. Insurance woul have cost him an appreciable portion of his annual income, back from the days when he'd had one.

The Phantasm stood in the centre of the yard between rows of air-conditioned garages like a jet fighter wheeled out for a sortie, a queen of the road dominating the lesser automobiles around her. There were Rolls Royces and Ferraris in the yard, and a Morgan parked up next to the site office, but the circle of mechanics gathered round like a crowd of small boys were gathered to look at his Hirondelle.

Okay. Lilianne One's Hirondelle.

He'd chosen the car from a catalogue. An online catalogue. But bountiful and glossy as the pictures had been, they'd failed to convey the effect of a full-scale Hirondelle standing on the tarmac within arm's length.

With the Phantasm, more concession had been made to the general public's current flirtation with aerodynamics. The grille, the classic emerald-cut grille that advertised every Hirondelle as a luxury item cut by master craftsmen from the finest minerals the earth had to offer, had been canted over to interface smoothly with the air. Unlike any other auto manufacturer, however, Hirondelle had canted the grille forward, a move which surely threatened to lift the entire car clear of the road at high speed. Perhaps this was counteracted by the two wings which swept down on either side containing bewildering batteries of lights.

The car's nose, the length of a doodlebug's, was false; it contained both boot and bonnet, putting the engine properly in the midsection of the car. The rear passenger seats, though they appeared impossibly squashed up against the rear axle, sports coupé style, were surprisingly wide and roomy; only the fuel tank, which Sean knew to be an optional extra, rode behind them.

The car's paintwork, a proud eighteen layers thick, had recently been waxed, and glittered like dark Labrador spar, subtly different colours from different angles - not like the gaudy colour changes mainstream manufacturers had recently made possible using expensive prismatic paints, but like a tiger's eye turned in the hand. The doorhandles, filler cap, windscreen wiper bays, and the visible top of the radio aerial were all flush with the chassis for speed (and certainly also for the mere look of the thing).

This is the car I will die in. One way or another.

He had phoned Wilson and asked for the car to be made as safe as Hirondelle engineers could make it. Wilson had phoned back ten minutes later and informed him that all warranty countermeasures on the vehicle had been deactivated. He had even passed on a few driving tips.

The keys, when they arrived from the safe with the ceremony more properly accorded the launching of an ocean liner, were simple cylinders with no surface features whatsoever.

Having handed over the keys, the garage boys stood around in an unashamed smirking circle waiting to see what would happen next.

The key slid into the lock like an Arab stallion into Catherine the Great. Feeling slightly ridiculous, he turned it. He felt the resistance due a flat-sectioned key with teeth, and the engine started. All around him, the garage mechanics burst into spontaneous applause. He saw banknotes being handed over. Evidently some of them hadn't believed the cylindrical key would start the car either.

There were five gears as there should be, and a manual clutch. The steering wheel was on the side of the car ordained by God.

The car purred away like a discreet earthquake. He waved to the garage boys, who grinned like monkeys and waved back. There were, after all, more manned space vehicles in the world right now than Mahayana Phantasms.

He turned gingerly out into graffitied, tumbledown urban back streets and headed east toward Edgware.

***

The car obstinately refused to kill him all the way up to the impressive-looking drive, flanked by bronze angels, that Mahar's papers had said Wilson lived in. There was no car in the drive, but no less than three garages. One of them would undoubtedly hold the unobtrusive black Volvo Wilson drove when he was out shooting small children. Two of them would be for Hirondelles.

There was no sound of large, attack-trained dogs barking as he walked up the drive. There were lights on in the house, though when he rang the doorbell, nobody answered.

He stood on the front step in the cold, shuffling his feet. He waited a long long time. A next door neighbour, a middle-aged man standing clipping his hedge in a hideous diamand-patterned sweater, wsa dimly visible down the vast length of the garden. The neighbour, almost certainly a banker of some description in this neighbourhood, watched Sean warily.

The appallingly noisy chug of Wilson's Volvo broke the impasse. The dreadful, inexpensive Swedish tatmobile had pulled up inches from Sean's rear bumpers with a squeal of brakes. Wilson drove like a learner. He even jumped out of his car and ran round the bonnet to inspect Sean's car anxiously for damage. Sean grinned.

Wilson walked up the drive, squinting into the windows of the big house. "So this is where I live."

"Certainly is. Don't spend much time here, I take it."

Wilson pered through a crack in the curtains and shuddered. "I spent the last ten years of my life in a one-room apartment in the middle of an urban sprawl where property costs million dollars a square yard. Places this size scare me." He unstuck his nose from the window and turned to Sean. "Lamb."

Sean nodded. "I think he's changed the consonants of his name. I also think, from a quick look at his website, that he's speaking to his first few loyal followers in a matinée performance at Lindley Hall in Westminster this very afternoon." He held up two slivers of cardboard. "And I've got tickets."

Wilson's eyes widened. "How did you -"

"We have an old-fangled thing called an Internet."

"Give me the ticket." The voice was peremptory, accompanied by a snatch for Sean's right hand. Sean easily held the ticket out of reach. "Not so fast. I believe you were going to make me a consultant employee of Hirondelle, and my last month's researches have cost me my job. I think a one-time finder's fee is in order."

Wilson was appalled. "The future of the world is at stake, and you're thinking about your bank balance?"

"You spent the last night with a warm whore, Mr. Wilson. I spent last night on a cold night train travelling away from home, where my wife won't let me go because she thinks I'm a suicidal lunatic, and where I can't show my face right now in any case because the police are looking for me. Yesterday was Christmas Day, Mr. Wilson. I should have spent it with my wife and family."

Wilson listened quietly. Then he said: "I had a family too, you know."

"Then you know how I feel."

"I have - will have - two beautiful daughters. They were due to come to me out to Tucana. The chance of me getting sent back in time accidentally was so slim, and the chances of retribution by the Committee so high, that I never even bothered to confide in my wife that I had taken an oath to destroy the Church in the past if I ended up here. All that's good help me, I was scared she'd turn me in, or that, if I was taken in, she'd end up being implicated with me. I swore to do the deed if the opportunity arose, but I never thought it would ever happen to me."

"And now you can't go back", said Sean.

"And now I can't go back."

"You could kill Lamb and then go back."

Wilson shook his head. "You don't understand. The future would be changed by my actions. My wife and children would no longer exist. I'd have murdered them as surely as if I'd pushed the button myself."

"Not necessarily. If the past is unchangeable, we can still kill Pastor Lamb in your future from here. Then you can return to that future and live happily ever after." Sean was amazed that Wilson had not thought of this, but the pathetic flame of hope it kindled in the other man's eyes proved for certain that he hadn't.

"Okay", he said, licking his lips, "how much do you need?"

"I checked my current account this morning, and I was two thousand in the red. So, uh, two thousand would be a good start."

"Is that all?"

"Multiply that by twenty and you have my annual income after tax. The average man gets paid a darn sight less."

Wilson stared in dumbfoundment. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to thinking in cash terms."

"What, you don't have money in the future?"

"The Church decides how much money we have in our bank accounts at the end of every month."

It was Sean's turn to stare.

He ushered Wilson in the direction of the cars.

"Come on. We have a Messiah to kill."

***

The stage at one end of the hall was makeshift and unprepossessing; the man standing on it would have been unremarkable if Sean had seen him on the street stark naked painted blue. Perhaps the British High Commissioner to India in 1918 had thought the same about Gandhi.

He was wearing a different jumper today - a massive white wool number that made him resemble an overeducated sheep. This sweater bore a single black Greek letter which Sean was fairly sure was an Alpha. It also looked unsettlingly like the plastic fish that Christians tacked on to the back of their Smart cars. Regardless of his unremarkability, he had only had to walk onto the stage for the crowd to go wild. He was holding his hands up, signalling for the approbation to subside.

"Before we begin", whispered Sean through the corner of his mouth to Wilson, "you haven't brought along any instruments of violence with a view to taking a shot at the Pastor, have you?"

Wilson looked at the floor guiltily, and handed over an unsettlingly large handgun. The weapon felt surprisingly light in Sean's hand, though it was equipped with electronic sights almost as bulky as it was.

Sean turned the weapon over in his hand. He noticed a woman in the ro behind looking at the weapon in horror. He grinned.

"Don't worry, it's just a toy. For my son's ninth birthday. Feel the weight." He passed the weapon over to her. Most of it did, in fact, seem to be made of plastic, not unlike his own Glock. "See? Clearly not real. Where have you ever seen a real gun like that?"

The woman twisted the gun gingerly in her fingers, looking up the barrel. Sean noticed Wilson staring at her in undisguised horror, and craning his neck surreptitiously to see whether there was anybody behind her, and anybody behind him.

She passed the gun back to Sean and nodded stiffly.

"This is a non-violent movement", she said. "We bring our children up to love others, not to kill them."

Wilson turned round to scan the stage. The lights had dimmed. Only the one man standing at the podium was visible, standing in a single shaft of light.

"ALPHA", said the man at the podium. Speakers all round the room amplified his voice.

"ALPHA", he repeated, pointing to the fuzzy cod-Christian fish on the front of his jumper.

"OMEGA", he said, turning round. There was a Greek letter on the back of his jumper too. Sean could only assume it was Omega.

"ALPHA AND OMEGA", he said. Sean began to wonder whether he'd inadvertently walked in on the Sesame Street guide to the Greek language, but there was more.

"WORDS WHICH ARE USED IN ALGEBRA TO DESCRIBE QUANTITIES WE KNOW EXIST, AND ABOUT WHOSE PROPERTIES WE KNOW A LITTLE, BUT WHOSE EXACT VALUE IS UNKNOWN TO US."

He's got me so far, thought Sean.

"WORDS", thundered the speaker, "WHICH ARE ALSO USED TO DESCRIBE GOD."

Whoah there. Sean began to feel nervous at the fact that he had a loaded weapon in his hand. He hoped the safety catch was difficult to figure out for the speaker's sake.

"OUR ENTIRE LIVES", said the speaker, "ARE SPENT IN A STRUGGLE TO QUANTIFY GOD. KNOWING ONLY A VERY FEW THINGS ABOUT HIM, WE ATTEMPT TO EXTRAPOLATE HIS IDENTITY WITH THE LIMITED INFORMATION AT OUR DISPOSAL. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HIM? THAT HE IS ALL-POWERFUL, ALL-KNOWING, ALL-FORGIVING. THAT HE IS LOVE. THAT HE IS TRUTH. THAT HE IS ERIC CLAPTON."

A murmur of guilty appreciation moved through the audience. The man on the podium grinned.

"OKAY,MAYBE NOT THE ERIC CLAPTON PART. BUT OF ALL THE IMAGES OF GOD THAT HAVE BEEN HANDED DOWN TO US BY STRANGE BEARDED MEN WITH STARY EYES ACROSS THE AGES - IMAGES THAT CONFLICT IN SO MANY WAYS AND ON SO MANY LEVELS, FROM WHETHER GOD DIED ON A CROSS THROUGH WHETHER GOD MADE THE JEWS HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE TO WHETHER GOD PROHIBITED MEN FROM TASTING ALCOHOL AND PORK - THERE ARE IMAGES THAT ARE CONSTANT. THOU SHALT HAVE NO GODS BEFORE ME. THOU SHALT NOT MAKE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL. THOU SHALT NOT LIE -"

Sean found the thou shalt not kill particularly interesting, considering that Pastor Lamb would eventually, if Wilson was to be believed, be responsible for the liquidation of half the population of China. His fingers tightened round the weapon's handgrip.

"GOD IS POPULARLY SUPPOSED TO BE INFINITE AND THEREFORE UNKNOWABLE. INFINITY AND ZERO - TWO NUMBERS THAT, LIKE THE SQUARE ROOT OF MINUS ONE, SERVE TO TEACH AN AMATEUR MATHEMATICIAN THAT WHATEVER MODEL HE IS BUILDING WILL WORK ONLY IN ALGORITHMIC LA-LA LAND, NEVER IN REALITY. HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO PUSH A HUMAN BEING TO LIGHTSPEED? AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME. HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO COOL AN ICE CUBE TO ABSOLUTE ZERO? FOREVER. GOD IS LIKE ABSOLUTE ZERO; LIKE THE SPEED OF LIGHT; LIKE IMMORTALITY; LIKE PERPETUAL MOTION.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I INTEND TO BEGIN MY DISCUSSION TODAY BY PROVING TO YOU, VIA A FEW HEDGE MATHEMATICS OF MY OWN, THAT INFINITY EQUALS ONE."

The blank surface behind the speaker lit up with what was unmistakeably the output of an overhead projector. The speaker, however, did not seem to be operating it himself - he evidently had a well-primed assistant concealed somewhere in the auditorium.

The display said:

ASSUMPTIONS

1: ANYTHING DIVIDED BY INFINITY EQUALS INFINITY
2: ANYTHING DIVIDED BY ITSELF EQUALS ONE
3: ANY FRACTION CAN BE REWRITTEN AS ONE DIVIDED BY THE DENOMINATOR MULTIPLIED BY THE NUMERATOR, E.G. 3/4 = (1/4 X 3)

The audience took their time with these terms. Sean could see lips moving. He was sure that, had he taken the time to look, he might also see fingers being used to count.

"GOT THAT?" said the speaker. "FAIRLY SIMPLE SET OF ASSUMPTIONS, I THINK. UNTIL WE TRY AND PLUG INFINITY INTO THEM, THAT IS."

The slide vanished, to be replaced by another one saying:

INFINITY DIVIDED BY INFINITY EQUALS ONE

"I THINK WE'RE MORE OR LESS AGREED THAT THIS IS TRUE", said the speaker, and Sean saw heads nodding. "NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE."

The next slide said:

ONE OVER INFINITY, TIMES INFINITY, EQUALS ONE

"REMEMBER", said the speaker, "ANY FRACTION CAN BE REWRITTEN AS ONE DIVIDED BY THE DENOMINATOR MULTIPLIED BY THE NUMERATOR. NEXT SLIDE?"

The next slide said:

ONE OVER INFINITY, TIMES INFINITY, EQUALS INFINITY

"LOOKS LIKE THE SAME SLIDE, RIGHT?" said the speaker. "AND ONE SIDE OF THE EQUATION IS INDEED EXACTLY THE SAME. BUT IN THIS CASE, THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE EQUATION IS DIFFERENT. THIS TIME, RATHER THAN INFINITY, THE EQUATION EQUALS ONE. SO IF WE COMBINE THE TWO EQUATIONS, WE SEE THAT..."

The slide changed. It now said:

INFINITY EQUALS ONE

The applause from the audience was rapturous; the speaker raised his hands in a self-deprecating appeal for calm.

"SO IT WOULD SEEM", he said, "THAT INFINITY HAS ITS PLACE IN THE REAL WORLD. THE DRAWBACK, OF COURSE, IS THAT I CAN PLUG DIFFERENT NUMBERS INTO THE SAME LOGIC TO MAKE INFINITY EQUAL TO ANY VALUE I WANT. BUT IT DOES PROVE THAT MATHEMATICS DOESN'T, AS MANY OF OUR PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS TOLD US, NECESSARILY SEPARATE MAN FROM THE INFINITE. RATHER, IT GIVES HIM THE TOOLS TO EXPLORE IT..."

"Grade school showmanship", hissed Wilson through his teeth.

"The first of his assumptions is wrong", nodded Sean micrometrically. "Anything divided by infinity is an undefined number."

"...WHICH IS WHY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I URGE YOU STRONGLY TO GET YOUR HANDS ON A COPY OF THIS BOOK." The bearded messiah lifted up a weighty-looking volume in a three-colour cover. "THE MATHEMATICAL PROOFS CONTAINED IN IT ARE NOT NECESSARILY FOR THE LAYMAN, BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE THE ALGEBRAIC TRAINING, PLEASE DO PERSEVERE WITH IT, THE TRUTHS OUTLINED INSIDE ARE UNASSAILABLE AND DEFINITE. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T HAVE THE MATHS, DON'T WORRY; FAITH IS AT LEAST AS IMPORTANT AS MATHS..."

Chunky-sweater-clad minions were walking the aisles with shopping trolleys - Tesco shopping trolleys, Sean was amused to note, with the logos covered up - filled with copies of The Book, which were being snatched up as eagerly as any length of red silly string handed out by acolytes of Kabbalah. Sean held up a five pound note.

"The books are not for sale", said a minion scornfully. "They're a gift." He was wearing a rather fetching white Tibetan crocheted bonnet with an Alpha on the forehead, tied up under his chin. Sean had no doubt the bonnet would have an Omega on the occiput.

"Could I have one, please?" said Sean.

"We do ask for an entirely voluntary donation", said the minion.

"How much would you suggest?" said Sean.

The man looked at Sean's fiver fluttering in the air conditioning. "Five pounds should do fine", he said.

Sean handed over the money; the minion yielded up the book.

"You", whispered Wilson with undisguised disgust, "have been had."

Sean nodded and grinned. "But the difference between me and the other poor thousand sods sitting in here is that I know I've been had." He opened the book and thumbed to the first page, which began What Is The Angelus Effect?

"When's Lamb coming in?" said Wilson.

Sean turned to check Wilson's expression. He did not seem to be kidding.

"Are you kidding?" he said.

"No", said Wilson.

"That was Lang", said Sean. "The man I thought was Lamb."

Wilson shook his head. "He isn't", he said. "I've seen Pastor Lamb and heard his voice on broadcasts every hour on the hour for the last five years. That wasn't him."

Sean was distraught. "But the cult seemed exactly the way you described it."

"As do any number of ridiculous early-twenty-first-century pseudoreligions", growled Wilson. "You appear to have wasted my time." He rose to leave.

"Do I get paid?" said Sean.

Wilson threw him a cold glance back. What do you think?

"Wait!" Sean bounced out of his seat. The hissing whispers were beginning to attract attention. "Look, this is just one nutter. There'll be others. The longer we look, the more Lamb is going to be in the limelight. But in order to find him, in order to sort him out in a way that preserves your future and allows you to see your kids again, you have to use me or somebody very like me. For God's sake, you're a stranger in a strange land here! You don't even have any idea how to tell a gay man from a straight one!"

"SSSSSSH!" A single pioneering voice became the first of a chorus of shushes.

Wilson stared back stiffly. "I do too know that. The straight man is the one who doesn't tell the jokes."

"Wrong! The scary thing is, you don't know how wrong!"

"Allow me to help you! Please!"

Wilson rolled his eyes sardonically. "Because you need the money?"

Sean thought about lying, but fought down the instinct. "Yes! Yes, I do need the money. But only because I chucked my job in a week ago after my father was killed by a bloody Hirondelle and I want revenge." He paused as he said it. Was that really the truth?

Wilson was puzzled. "Road accident?"

"No, he broke the warranty seals and it killed him. His name was Owen Agnello. Get your staff to check the name out if you need proof." Sean began to usher Wilson gently towards the entrance, uncomfortably aware that he was, by now, attracting the attention of approximately a quarter of the audience. However, he was now certain that this audience were no sinister would-be world conquerors of the future, but just another group of fools who were firmly convinced that a grinning fruitcase with a beard was God.

However, far worse was to come.

A bright light stabbed down from above like a pitchfork in the eyeballs. The light seemed to be coming from the ceiling high above. But a voice accompanied the light, booming from speakers all round, and it said:

"WHO IS LEAVING SO SOON?"

"He's got a gun", whispered a woman's voice, a sound as alarming as a hammer clicking back in the dark.

"CAMDEN", roared the walls. "I GAVE YOU A LEAFLET."

The exits were clearly marked. An usher moved aside to let Sean and Wilson through. The audience were now openly laughing. Laughter, as far as Sean was concerned, was good.

"YOU CAN RUN FROM THE TRUTH, FRIEND", bellowed the walls, "BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE -"

The door banged shut. Sean and Wilson were in a quiet anteroom full of posters. Knitwear-swaddled acolytes were staring at them oddly. Hugging his arms around the weapon, uncomfortably mindful of Scotland Yard's shoot-to-kill policy on suicide bombers and Brazilians, Sean moved out into the street as quickly as possible. Wilson followed him.

"Indigestion", improvised Wilson to the hall staff.