Kill The Monster, Chapter 14

XII. TAKING IN SOME ART

There was, as anticipated, hardly anybody at the Tate. Porthmeor Beach was empty apart from a few die-hard surfers. He passed nobody on the street but gaggles of depressed-looking anorak-clad winter holidaymakers with deathly silent children in tow, standing outside the gallery as if waiting for a coach, or possibly merciful death, to arrive. They wore what looked like MP3 players clipped to their ears, providing the only entertainment that could be had in Cornwall at this time of year. Seagulls stood, their wings waving gently, in the air above him, looking down at him quizzically as if wondering why he didn't just walk up into the air and join them.

He bought a ticket for the coffee shop only. Many people did. His interest in shapeless blobs of colour stretched only as far as Mickey's infant school art efforts. He certainly didn't believe people should be paid for them.

An elderly couple wandered past paintings he was not sure were the right way up as he entered the lobby. The elderly gent was saying to the elderly lady, "I really like this big yellow one."

She probably couldn't hear him. She had an MP3 player clipped to her ear.

When I am king, performance artists, non-executive directors, and Paris Hilton will be forced to work for a living.

The Tate staff trusted him not to attempt to look at the art, which was very sweet of them. His heart was thumping as he took the elevator provided for differently-abled persons up to the top floor. Gulls could still be heard mewing outside.

He'd inflicted this on Wilson, but had not fully appreciated the implications.

I'm on my way to meet me.

What if I don't turn up? And what if I don't like me?

The lift doors motored open.

"Lord God alive, you look like you've seen your own ghost."

The words were loud, confident, booming. There were few other people in the café; most of them were wearing ear-mounted MP3 players. Were the players some sort of cheap throwaway tour guides? A pair of outlandishly-dressed women were discussing someone called Yang Zhi Chao in loud, knowledgeable voices. Apparently Yang Zhi Chao had a small tree planted in his shoulder, and apparently this was art. A coach party of octogenarians was chattering at a corner table.

And sitting at a table in the centre of the room, an outstandingly attractive woman on each arm, one white, one black, was Sean himself. The women were not dressed for January. Sean, meanwhile, was dressed in the same clothes he had walked into the Tate in - the same Gore-Tex anorak, the same fleece, the same walking boots.

Sean winked at Sean. He probably imagined this was the Best Joke In The World. What it had cost to duplicate the exact outfit Sean had been wearing back in 2007 on a man from thirteen years in the future, Sean had no idea. But there were differences. Fat hung in jowls round Sean-from-2020's face, and had ballooned the belly into a paunch. The eyes were red and sunken. The scar, of course, had faded. The hair was the same colour, though the stubble was grey. The sad bastard dyes his hair.

"'My god", quoted Sean-from-2020, "it's like looking in some horrible drunk mirror.' That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? I hope you realize how busy I am. I've had to cancel three appointments with senior Pentagon officials to fit you in."

He burped, and Sean tasted an acrid cloud of formaldehyde. He patted the chair next to his left hand floozy. "Sit down, sit down, do. So sorry I appear impatient. We're about to nuke China."

The Consolidation Wars start in 2020. Wasn't that what Wilson had said?

"I am, as you properly divine, drunk", said Sean-from-2020 with some difficulty. "But perfectly in control of my facilities. That was a big old word, huh? Many syllabubbles."

"I seem to have acquired a mid-Atlantic accent", said Sean.

"Got to", said Sean-from-2020. "President. President of the Yoonited States of Maircka. Yes, yes, yes, you're Pastor Lamb. Stop crapping yourself over that other Lamb guy, he's toast. You know, you really did decide to set this meeting up at a fucking inconvenient time. We had to postpone the whole Manchurian offensive. What that dick Wilson didn't bother to tell you was that the war against the evil Chink starts at 2:30 p.m., January 15th, 2020."

Sean did not bother to display a reaction. He couldn't think of one. "So you're quite busy, then."

"Busy! Quite busy, he says!" Sean-from-2020 cackled. "I don't know, you fucking Limeys." He pulled a hip flask from his anorak and swigged at it. "Ah, sweet absinthe. Romantic poet fuel. Had your president in my office only this morning. Very turannone-resistant. Had to explain to him the need to intern the Chinese population of Britain."

"Prime Minister", said Sean. "He's called the Prime Minister."

"He's called the President", grinned Sean-from-2020 through yellowed teeth. "I had your Royal Family liquidated some time in 2019."

"So you are good for something", said Sean.

Sean-from-2020 laughed. A gobbet of spit flew all the way to the sweet counter, narrowly missing a carrot cake.

"If you wouldn't mind not drinking in here, sir", said the man behind the till, looking sourly at the absinthe flask.

Sean-from-2020 grinned.

"Of course", he said.

The man on the till nodded and looked down to the worktop he'd been wiping. Sean-from-2020 drew a compact handgun from his anorak pocket and shot him.

For its size, the gun produced impressive blood spatter. Sean was more used to such wounds being made by high velocity rifle bullets. The shot had also been entirely soundless.

The two girls flanking Sean-from-2020 were staring at the wall in open shock. The other customers, meanwhile, did not react at all, continuing to talk and chat and laugh as if no-one at all's entrails were dribbling down the wall ten feet away. Had they not seen? Had they not heard? Were their MP3 players turned up too loud?

"As I was saying", said Sean-from-2020, returning the gun to his pocket, "before I was so rudely interrupted." He then said nothing, staring at the tabletop in front of him.

"I'm supposed to give you advice on what to do for the next six years", said Sean-from-2020. "As you can see, the pressure of work's pretty much getting to me." He looked up at Sean. "The bitch divorces you. Runs off with Craig. I'd like to say don't waste too much time on her, but of course, I know you will." He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably as he sprawled in his chair. "You have a bad back in 2020, by the way." He shifted in his seat to fart.

Sean sat quiet, watching the other customers in the room.

"Yes", said Sean-from-2020. "They're mine. Got to be, you see. Pastor. Supreme Primate. President of the Good Old US of A. Can't walk anywhere without I bring Security." He drew the gun out of his pocket again and turned it side on to Sean. "Beauty, isn't it? Metalstorm Glock Firedrake 20. Shell only weighs a gramme, but will go through armour plating and still cavitate on the other side. But useless against you." He raised the gun, took aim directly between Sean's eyes, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He moved it frantically to the left, and fired; the gun coughed, and a gaping hole blew out of the plaster behind Sean's left ear. He traversed the gun to the right; the gun coughed again, and plaster dust again flew everywhere as another circular hole was punched in the wall.

He centred the gun on Sean again and pulled the trigger, again and again and again. The gun clicked uselessly.

"Most reliable handgun in the world", said Sean-from-2020. "Built for the US Army. Can be boiled in oil, hit with a ten pound sledge and thawed out with liquid nitrogen and it'll still fire. But it seems to have a problem with you. It knows you're still alive in 2035." He turned the gun to his own temple and pulled the trigger repeatedly. It clicked noiselessly. "Seems it thinks I'm still alive in 2035 too. Trash. Worthless Oztrian trash." He threw the gun across the room in disgust. An elderly lady from the coach party scuttled for it obediently. He kicked her in the seat of her surgical knickers, sending her sprawling.

"Of course, you realize there's a far more rational explanation", said Sean. "Your servants are concerned about your apparent attempts to kill yourself, and have planted sensors in the gun to stop it firing when it's pointed at you."

Sean-from-2020 stared at Sean and blinked bleary eyes. "I hadn't remembered saying that. But it's a thought. I'll get on to the gun people and have a few designers put to the pain. We'l get ourselves an answer."

"Jesus", said Sean. "What happened to you."

Sean-from-2020 grimaced toothily. He had beautiful teeth, though of course they weren't real. "Would you like to shoot me?" He nodded across the room at the gun. "Go on, shoot me." He waved an expansive hand at the customers in the café. "They won't stop you. They could no more do so than lick their own elbows. But you can't shoot me any more than I can. I've got to carry on living for at least another fifteen years." His voice came out through gritted teeth. "Ain't life grand."

He looked down and twiddled his thumbs on the tabletop. "Lamb, now. Lamb dies tragically. I won't tell you how, exactly, or it'll take all the fun out of planning it for you. You have to get rid of Lang too, of course; he's a loose cannon, own mind, own ideas, far too dangerous for our little revolution." This last phrase was spoken bitterly. "Horrific deaths, but almost poetically appropriate. Martyrs of the Church both. If it'd been choreographed by some mad fuck it couldn't happen any better. Greater love hath no man and so on."

Sean stared back across the table. "I can't murder anyone."

"Oh, you can." His own red eyes burned into today's blue ones. "Believe me, you can, and you will. He must die before we see each other again."

"When you say I can", said Sean, "do you mean I can, or you can?"

Sean-from-2020 shrugged. "Just because you don't want to do it doesn't mean it won't still have to be done. Just think of the end rather than the means. The perks of the position ain't bad. You get to be Chief Rabbi, Secretary General of the United Nations, and Best Dressed American, 2015 to 2020 inclusive."

"The United Nations?" said Sean. "Won't he Chinese have something to say about that?"

Sean-from-2020 held up a finger. "Not after the Great Schism of 2019, when we move the UN to Jerusalem. The Chinees and Indiwags set up their own antipope in Singapore. And the Sec. Gen.'s perks are the best of all." He jerked his head at the white girl at his left. "Unlimited bitches for one."

The bitch recovered her composure, probably out of a finely-developed sense of self-preservation, and smiled a row of perfect teeth.

"Isn't that sort of behaviour rather bad for a daughter of Mother Church?" said Sean sourly. Sean-from-2020 guffawed and slapped his knees happily.

"These ain't from twenty-twenty. The Church don't make whores like it used to. No, these ladies are the best that 2007 Las Vegas can offer. Say hello to Shanice and Crystal."

Shanice and Crystal smiled carnivorously. They both had beautiful teeth.

"Of course", continued Sean-from-2020, "Shanice and Crystal can't be allowed to run around in 2020, or for that matter 2007, shooting their little mouths off about weird religious nutjobs travelling through time, so we will have to dispose of them after use. Sort of Fire and Forget. Say goodbye to Shanice and Crystal." He grinned at the girls, who were staring at him in shock. "Don't worry, mesdemoiselles, it'll be quite painless."

He nodded to an elderly gentleman sitting near the counter; the gentleman nodded back.

"Meet The Committee", said Sean-from-2020. "They're not as old as they look. Undergo surgery to make themselves look twenty or thirty years older, an athlete's muscles inside an old man's body." He winked. "Believe me, you have no idea how many of the folk you pass in the street every day are Committee field operatives."

As Sean's gaze moved among the oldsters, he picked out a grey-haired man in horrific National Health glasses, who removed them to wipe them clean. Sean recognized clearly the drunkard who'd kissed him on the forehead in the Peacock Inn on Christmas Eve.

"That is Jude", said Sean-from-2020, noticing Sean's interest. "He is twenty-four years old."

It couldn't be possible. The man's face was red as a beetroot, the lower part of his face a mass of jowlflesh.

"Kill Shanice for us, Jude", said Sean-from-2020.

Jude rose to his feet, slowly and deliberately. Shanice jerked to her feet in panic, knocking over a chair, unable to move quickly in pink sequinned winklepickers. She tried to make a run for it, and the elderly gentleman hopped clean over a coffee table, his feet barely touching it at the high point of his arc, arriving directly between her and the exit. He hit her full in the mouth with a blow that Sean hardly even saw. He heard something crack as the blow connected, and there was blood. She dropped to the floor, and Sean was not sure she was still conscious. Jude didn't bother to check this either, but stepped in close behind her and twisted her neck round as if he'd been unscrewing a nut. Her head stared lifeless out from between her shoulderblades, no longer the same shape around the mouth, leaking bone and tooth from between the lips.

Crystal stared at the corpse in horror, gripping the sides of her seat. Sean-from-2020 turned, without apparent concern, back to his cappuccino.

"Effective, I think you'll agree, if a trifle gruesome."

"In any case, you'd better run along now. Think I've given you just about enough to be getting on with for the next six years. See you in San Angelo." He raised a finger suddenly. "Oh. One more more thing, though. Just to make sure those doofuses in the Hirondelle labs don't slip up, I'd better give you this." He rummaged in his other pocket and produced a multicoloured plastic card adorned with translucent blisters arranged in a matrix. He slapped the card down on the table in front of Sean, looked up at him, pointed to the top row of blisters. "Turannonovirus", he said. "Has to be injected to work. This end", he said, indicating the purple end of the card, "is level ten. Anyone infected with helotonovirus and no natural ability to synthesize turannone will go into shock on exposure to it, just like a kid sticking his thumbin a jar of methadone syrup. No natural immunity, you see. Be very very careful with it. From here on down the efficiency of the turannonogenic complex decreases in steps until you get to here", he indicated the red end of the card, "level one. Right in the centre of the card here, meanwhile, we have a few blisters containing", he indicated, "helotonovirus. This card is all you need to get Hirondelle labs producing ten shades of turannone. They can move on to the higher levels later. Me, I'm a Level Thirty, the only Level Thirty, and I can't walk past normal Holy Joes in the street any more. I'll put a Level One into anaphylactic shock just by sitting next to him. I like spending time in the past. No-one's infected with helotone yet. No-one dies when you raise your hat to them. Though sometimes that's, you know, kind of cool." He slid the packet over to Sean. Sean stared at it like Macbeth at an invisible dagger.

"Don't waste my time", said Sean-from-2020. "You take it anyway." He looked at Sean with a huge grin of misery. "Do it. You know you want to. I deserve it."

Sean rose to his feet and smacked himself squarely in the maxilla. He fell backwards onto the floor; he heard his head crack on the tiling.

"FUCK that was a good one", he heard himself say. "I really could hit hard in my day. I fink I've losht two teef."

The assembled art lovers flocked to their Pastor's assistance, but no-one stood in Sean's way as he left. He recognized Aleister Stanley, the GKN director. Stanley bowed graciously to him like a mandarin to an emperor.

He was shaking when the lift hit the ground floor. When he left the lobby, the elderly lady and gent also turned and bowed to him, as did the receptionist, as did the holidaymakers outside with their silent children. Are those really children? Or are they highly trained surgically altered ninja dwarf assassins?

As he hurried away, he heard glas break behind him, and turned to see a scantily-clad woman fly out of the top storey of the Tate, falling, arms flailing, suspended in mid-air for one drawn-out moment before she hit the ground with a sickening impact. Blood and bling flew everywhere. An item of cheap jewellery zinged past Sean's right eye.

Upstairs, Aleister Stanley peered out through the broken window. Sean shrugged himself down into his anorak, turned - if I pull the sheets over my head the Monsters can't get me - and went on his way.

He pulled the mobile phone out of his pocket, thumbed it on.

The bitch divorces you. Runs off with Craig. Don't waste too much time on her.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Craig. This is Sean. Can I speak to Sam, please?"

"Hi, hon. I've sorted out that little bit of business now. Have you had a good day?"

"Oh, that's nice. Look, I thought we might drive on to Polperro tomorrow. Just the three of us. Or, uh, the four of us if you want. It's not too big a deal."

"He's leaving?"

"Well, obviously I can't say I'm too sorry, but if you want him to stay another couple of days I'm fine with it. If you don't, erm, feel safe."

"I've been thinking about the hospital visits. I'll submit myself voluntarily. I need to get myself sorted. I've been laying too big a load on you and Mickey."

"I love you too, sweetie bumps." He paused. "I will always love you."

He clicked the phone off, and walked off through the narrow streets towards the Island and his car, staring defiantly into the future.