CHAPTER 9
Ben returned to the cave, back to the recess that sheltered Victoria, Albert, AID, Wilf and The Moof. Lured by the storming mass of ghostly insanity that festered in the air before them, his presence, as before, fell flatly on them.
'I've come back for you!' Ben announced. 'You must come with me! This isn't The Place!'
'Jealous monkey lies!' snapped a quivering Wilf. 'This is The Place! Wolf territory. Sniff the air. It's in the wee!'
'It isn't!' Ben replied, 'I could take you through time and prove it, but we must be quick; we must leave now!'
'To where? For what?' Albert asked.
'To fight! To at least try,' Ben answered.
'Goodness,' said The Moof, 'we've a right loony-cheese here. A moldy one to boot. I love stinky cheese. Stop it. You can never go back! Don't torment yourself!'
'Albert,' Ben continued, 'you made a promise. You know to who. Next time bravery, next time valour, next time honour.'
Albert looked at Ben with a startled, angered glare.
'Where have you been? What have you seen?' he demanded.
'Enough to know..'
'Enough to know!' Albert interrupted aggressively, but words then failed him, silenced by shame. Ben continued.
'Enough to know you need a second chance to prove yourself brave, to prove yourself a man!'
'How dare you presume-'
Ben spoke over him and cut him silent.
'I presume only this, that you won't help, that you'll look, and run, the other way.'
Albert plunged deeper into shame. Ben turned to Victoria, who turned her gaze away from him.
'Victoria, you too must come and help. If you don't, if we don't at least try, the one thing that is certain, is that all the stars in all the skies will turn black for evermore. What will be left? What will shine eternal?'
She looked him square in the eye, the very first time she had. He studied her stare. After all the years she had spent dead beyond the grave, could she still remember the joy that once sparkled within her?
'Come with me!' he pleaded. 'You, can shine eternal.'
She held his stare, pinned by the past remembered.
'You have never been a coward! I know that. Never! Don't be one now. Take back, for everyone, what was taken from you!'
He turned to address the others.
'And all of you, we all must fight! There is a book, the heaviest book that there ever was. If we find it, we have hope! And there are others, other forces, other powers, that also stand ready to fight!'
'Fight? Like rebels? You wish to reduce
us to scum? Well, you've rendered my computer quite nearly speechless,' said AID.
'Good! Then speak for yourself as all of us should!' He addressed them all. 'Speak now, yes or no, will you join me?'
'Wilf!' screamed The Moof, 'He's gone!'
They all looked. Wilf had vanished.
'He's been taken, from another time and place,' said AID.
'Say goodbye while he is still in time. Goodbye!' said The Moof. 'What? Who? Nutter! Goo brain!' continued The Moof laughing at himself.
They looked at each other blankly; their memories of Wilf had been erased. Ben recovered his train of thought.
'Who's with me? Albert, will you prove me wrong?'
'What choice do I have?' he answered flatly and without any hint of enthusiasm, but still, Ben thought, at least his answer was yes.
'Victoria?' Ben asked.
She nodded - forced herself to do so through the fear that still laid waste to her stare.
'AID, you must follow now.' Ben said to him.
'Correct. And may I say, what joy to be led by a human,' he replied.
'Moof?'
'I's not a fighter. I's an eater. But since I's dead, I's not eatin'. So maybe the time's now to let rip with the fightin'. Unlikely. Oh, muchly. It's hard to go to war when you got two bums. Even harder when you got two brains. That's a yes though. It be that, ar.'
Ben led them from the cave, through space and time, to stand as small as pixels beneath a massive blue sky. He stood, scanning the flat, empty horizon in search of a direction to take. Where to look for the book? Where to even begin?
'And now? What now?' Albert enquired.
'We find the book,' answered Ben.
'Why? What makes this book so special?'
'And the author?' asked AID. 'Tell my computer. When was it published?'
'I don't know,' answered Ben.
'Then what do you know?' Albert asked.
'When we find it, it will lead us to a shield, one of great power, that will help us defeat The...'
'How do you know this?' asked Albert with a cynical tone.
'I was told.'
'By who?'
'No one you know.'
'But still, I must believe what you believe?'
'I do believe!' Ben snapped. He turned away to cast his stare over the flat, barren land. He felt it swallow his confidence, to enforce indecision.
'Then continue, lead us,' Albert said, grimly satisfied, as he witnessed Ben's confidence ebbing away.
Ben caught sight of Victoria as she moved to stand close to him, closer than she ever had before. She held his gaze and gave a friendly smile.
'Have you heard of this book?' he asked her. She shook her head. 'Has anyone heard of the book?' he asked the others.
'Me has,' said The Moof. 'Had a teacher. Used to throw it at me. Said this is the heaviest book in all Moof Land. It's not for reading. No. It's for throwing at right thickie-know-nots. Which was a lie. Cos he only ever threw it at me, and I know more than the average Moof. Much more. I've done things that only I knows about. Thankfully. So I must know more than most.'
'Is that the book you seek?' Albert asked Ben, knowing it was not.
'What do you think?' was Ben's tart reply.
'My computer says we are foolish; we are standing here completely exposed.' said AID.
'He's right,' said Albert. 'We must keep moving. Where do we begin? Do you have any idea where this book may be?' he asked Ben.
'No,' answered Ben.
'None?' Albert asked, dismayed.
'No!'
'Bravery, valor, or just another chance to fail, stupidly?' Albert said, more to himself than Ben.
'I's gettin' nervous,' said The Moof as he looked up to the sky. 'I feel like a wriggly bug. Lookin' up at a bird filled sky. A fat and juicy bug to boot. Great with cabbage. Better with moths.'
'We must go, move somewhere!' demanded Albert.
'No. We stay. We wait.' said Ben, firmly.
'Stay?'
'Yes!'
'My computer asks a question, is it better to be a moving target or a static one?' said AID.
'Tell him! Enlighten him!' Albert pleaded to AID.
'It depends on who's trying to find you,' said Ben
'You don't know?' asked Albert.
'Of course I do, but there are others, other forces trying, looking, to help us.'
'Looking for us?' asked The Moof, nervously.
'Yes! I'm sure they are,' answered Ben. 'But anyway, why should we always run away? Why, for once, don't we dare to stand our ground?'
'My computer says time is as vast as space so whether we wait in time or search through space, what does it really matter?' said AID.
'Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,' said The Moof, seemingly stuck, until, 'I's not know that why. Put simply.'
'It doesn't matter!' said Ben. 'We should have the courage to wait, to think, to hope!'
'Hope? You mean dream!' said Albert. Ben ignored him and addressed the others.
'I'll take us back to a time before life.'
'Why?' asked Albert.
'No life, no ghosts, nothing for The... to hunt.'
'They hunt through time.'
'Why search a time that has no ghosts? I mean normally, naturally. Now, come on, hold hands. Everyone.'
Ben stepped forwards and took Albert's hand. The others all gathered round to complete the ch
ain.
Ben took them back through time, two billion years, to a time when no complex life existed on the Earth. They landed suspended in air. Ben's weight drew him down slowly towards the ground, Victoria too as she continued to hold of his hand. The others followed. Beneath them was a dark, angry sea of rock: a seemingly endless range of mountain tops, like waves fixed into stone by a moment of terror. No colour relieved the bleakness. All land was rock, and all rock was grey. The sky was spotless, as parched as the land. Nothing but silence moved, the currents of which washed over them oppressively.
'And here we must wait,' said Albert. 'This ugly land.'
'Me. I don't like places without mud,' said The Moof.
'It's not unlike France in 2075, just as welcoming,' said AID.
As they came to settle on their own mountain top, Ben looked at Victoria. He could see the view flooding into her eyes. To her, the immensity of it was wonder enough.
'It looks so still, so fixed, all this rock,' Ben said to her. 'But over time, over geological time, which is masses and masses of time, rock moves like a fluid. It's always moving. Mountains rise and fall. Whole continents crash into other continents.' She gave him a look of total disbelief. He continued, 'it's true.'
The sense of wonder returned to her eyes. Did she trust his word, he wondered.
'From this we came, this earth!' said Albert, who saw only desolation as he struggled to gather the view. 'And now we wait, imprisoned. Are we to stay here long enough to move with the rock?'
'Do we have that long?' asked AID with a polite, deferential air. 'My computer says we do not. Time is racing ahead; soon we will either win or lose.'
'What's about a draw? We could play for a draw?' asked The Moof. 'All Moof sport ends in a draw. It made us think. Stop this sport. I's out of puff. Early bath. Early feast.'
'Everyone's a winner cos everyone gets dinner!' said Ben, remembering.
'Say nothin' more! You's peaked!' said The Moof.
Albert turned to Ben impatiently then spoke.
'So we wait, we think, we hope? All sound easy, but, really, none are!'
'What exactly should we think about?' AID asked. 'Where the book is located?'
'Thinking ain't my best skill. When I start. I don't know when to stop. When I's stopped. I don't know when to start,' said The Moof.
'Why a book? Why so primitive? In my time all knowledge exists at all time, you just take it from the cloud.'
'All knowledge, at all time?' asked Albert.
'Yes. All approved knowledge that which has been deemed good and correct.'
'And still you know nothing about the heaviest book that ever was?'
'Absolutely nothing!'
Albert and AID looked at Ben for an answer. He spoke.
'What if all other life, all those who were never cowards, could come and join the fight?'
'They can't!' said Albert.
'Correct. Everyone accepts they are gone forever!' added AID.
'And even if they could return what use would they be? How can we ever defeat them? How can we destroy The...?
'It's possible,' Ben answered.
'You think so?' asked Albert, almost amused.
'I've seen it done!'
'When?'
'How?' asked AID.
'I did it!'
'You? As you, a boy?'
'By yourself?' asked Albert.
'In molten rock,' said Ben.
'Completely. You completely...'
'A piece of one,' said Ben before Albert had finished his question.
'How big a piece?'
'A particle.'
'One particle?'
'They are comprised of billions!' added AID.
'It's a start,' replied Ben.
'This is our hope!' proclaimed Albert, despairing.
'The particle was stuck to my hand. I put my hand into molten rock and when I took my hand out the particle was gone.'
'Destroyed?' asked AID.
'Yes,' answered Ben.
'Not washed away? Not something else? You saw it destroyed? You know that as fact?' asked Albert.
'I'm not saying it's an easy way to defeat them.'
'Good! Because, to me, it's no way to defeat them! You crack a stone or kick it away but still the mountain remains! And even if we could destroy a single particle, how would we catch them? You, alone, you, with your power to chase them through time?'
'Then some other way,' Ben conceded.
'Yes! Some other way!'
'We need to think. What do we have that they don't have?'
'Weakness!'
'If they were created, then surely, they can also be destroyed.'
'What do they want? They want one, just one, to rule dead, empty space. They want nothing! They exist beyond our understanding.'
'But why do they like to see our fear? And why do they need to defeat us? Did the Germans, did they have to destroy ants, or birds, before invading Poland?'
Ben's question brought a moment of pause.
'What's that noise?' asked The Moof alarmed.
'What noise? I hear no noise,' replied Ben.
'That noise! I knows I only got two ears. But they's quality. Got a brain each.'
'I hear it too,' said AID.
From deep underground a noise slithered up. An exacting, rhythmic noise that suggested something was climbing, or clawing, its way up to the surface.
'My computer says the noise may have a geological cause,' said AID.
'My instinct says. Do a runner!' said The Moof.
'It's not good! It can't be good!' said Albert.
'Why?' asked Ben.
'It can't!'
'Computer update, the noise is too rhythmically regular to be caused by natural phenomenon,' said AID.
'It's getting closer!' said The Moof.
'Only just! You can hardly hear it!' countered Ben.
'Let's go! We must leave!' said Albert.
'Agreed! The wisest and safest option!' added AID.
'I'm not going anywhere. It's only a noise,' said Ben.
'For now,' said The Moof. 'Then come the claws - to the chops, to the belly, to the bum!'
'We're ghosts! We have only one enemy!'
'Two, ourselves!' said Victoria. Shocked, they all looked at her. Slightly embarrassed she retreated into her hood.
'Yes, two, ourselves!' said Ben.
'Can I say, not I!' said AID. 'Me an enemy of me? Impossible! I have no self! There's no internal conflict inside this machine!'
'You're a machine, just a machine? You have no self? Your not conscious?' Albert asked.
'I have a computer. I am an Artificially Intelligent Dummy!' AID answered.
'How can intelligence be artificial? It either is or it isn't.'
'Non-human intelligence. Programmed intelligence.'
'I's non-human!' The Moof interrupted, then continued as if a great truth had just been revealed to him, one which filled him with awe. 'So I's artificially intelligent! That explains...What?'
'You have free will. You make choices,' Albert said to AID.
'I have an algorithm. I make calculations,' replied AID.
'What's an algorithm?'
'What's a self?'
Ben, seeing attention had switched from the noise to AID, continued with the questions.
'How were you made?' he asked AID.
'I was printed,' answered AID.
'Printed?' asked Ben and Albert together.
'Yes. Four dimensionally printed, three for the body, one for the mind, or rather, personality, my computer is the brains.'
'Isn't personality self?' asked Albert.
'No, it's dressing, the style, the flavour.'
'A mind, a personality, was printed?' asked Ben.
'It was. People are clever in the future,' answered AID.
'I'm confused,' said Albert.
'I's artificially confused!' added The Moof.
'Finally, we are as one!' added Ben.
; 'How can I put it more simply, it was downloaded, placed, into the machine,' said AID.
'A mind, a personality, was put into you?' asked Ben.
'Yes,' answered AID.
'Where did it come from?'
'Oh, from some man,' answered AID in a matter-of-fact tone that left the others perplexed and in need of further explanation.
'Don't stop there,' said Ben. 'We can't fill in the blanks.'
'In the future, if you are poor, and are lucky enough to be selected, you can choose to be downloaded into one of me, an AID.'
'The mind of a person is taken and put into the body of an AID?' asked Albert.
'Yes, basically. Of course, tweaks, deletes and additions are made. You wouldn't want one of me as raw as one of you.'
'What happens to the poor man?' asked Ben.
'He is waste. He is disposed of,' replied AID.
'Killed?' asked Ben shocked.
'He is waste, surplus to requirements. It's basically meat.'
'Why would anyone volunteer to become, basically meat?' asked Albert.
'For the benefits. No hunger. No thirst. No need for a home. No tiredness. All that, human, struggle gone. An AID has a function for life. There were no limits to my labour. I was well looked after, I mean, let me say this, I was far from cheap, in fact, I was quite an investment, one far beyond the reach of the average man or woman although it must be said, we made the best of you humans even richer, and the worst, we outworked with ease, those we made redundant.
'You were a slave!' Albert accused him.
'No! Nor a servant. Much more than that.'
'I can't believe you allowed yourself to be killed.'
'Me? No! Not myself! I have no self. I am not conscious of the man. I have no awareness of him. I am not he who once was. I am an AID. I am now!'
'There must be something of the man left inside.'
'I assure you, there is not!' replied AID.
'Why did they use a real mind?' asked Ben.
'It's the mesh everything else, the intelligence, my computer, is wired into.'
'Something of the man must remain,' continued Albert.
'No! Nothing! Nothing of the man! I am utterly new!' answered AID, impatiently.
'Why are you a ghost? You must have been alive as an animal, as a man, with a sprit or a soul! How can a simple machine become a ghost?' asked Albert
'He is no simple machine!' said Victoria, who was utterly fascinated by what she had heard.
'Correct! I am no simple machine!' said AID.
'Exactly! A marriage of man and machine so something of the man must remain! How else could you have become a ghost?' replied Albert.
'An anomaly! A freak! A bug in the system!' said AID getting annoyed.
'You feel no connection to the poor man whose mind you are?' asked Albert.
'None,' answered AID.
'His memories?'
'What are memories? Like dreams, memories lie!'
'You had dreams?' asked Victoria.
'I had no need for sleep!' answered AID.
'Nor do dreams,' Victoria replied.
'His dreams, memories, his thoughts, you see them, you feel them, don't you?' Albert continued, accusingly.
'I do not feel! I calculate!' replied AID.
'What did the poor man look like?'
'The noise! My computer says, we must remember the noise!' Desperate, pathetic, AID tried to change the subject. Albert continued, relentless.
'You told me your face could morph into any face you had ever seen.'
'Only my master can choose my face!'
'I am your master; I am the man! Now show me your true identity!'
'I have no image! The man has gone! He was a man of no importance!'
'You!'
'He!'
'You have his soul, his consciousness at the very least! You must!'
'I am merely an interface!'
'To the soul of a real man!'
'The priority is the noise! Computer says, priority is the noise!!'
'Explain your cowardice!'
'You explain yours!' Ben demanded of Albert in an attempt to silence him and save AID from the pain of further questioning. It worked, Ben and Albert looked at each other with a shared contempt until a dark, sudden chill snapped them apart.
'The..!' cried The Moof.
The... two of them, both much larger than those previously seen, punched into the sky. Lost in a blur of speed, their intentions were not immediately clear.
'Quick! Take us away!' demanded Albert to Ben.
'No! Look!' Ben replied, seeing their intent more clearly.
The... were locked into a pursuit of each other, trapped in a circle of death so that each was both the hunter and prey.
'They're hunting each other!' cried Ben.
'The noise! The priority! The noise!' cried AID.
'Forget the noise!' replied Ben.
A third, a giant, appeared, as if expelled from the air itself and, in a single pounce, cast itself net-like to ensnare the other two. The net drew shut, drawn complete and tight, then imploded beyond the point of vanishing. A moment of nothing. An explosion of smashed lightening, which glittered all the colours of the rainbow in a brief, silent show, brought the giant back, fed and fattened by two of its own. It hung in the sky, solid and black - part monolith, part monument to an alien kind - as if the sky, a ruin, had finally cracked to allow the void of space inside.
'What's it doing?' asked The Moof as he backed quickly away.
'We can never know.' replied Ben.
'Let us not wait to find out. Take us through time!' said Albert as he reached to take Ben's hand. But before their hands could meet, a single wave of energy pulsed through the body of The...and sent a blackening jet of dark energy out towards Ben. All but The Moof where hit by the jet, and all who were, were immediately shot through time.
Ben, Albert, Victoria and AID came to rest in normal time, suspended high in the air above a green and bountiful land. Below them, an ancient nomadic tribe - men, women and children - wandered ever on. The...still menaced the sky but now as a raging swarm of particles. In a concentrated burst, it slashed against the air to cut a gash in the invisible wall which divided the ghost dimension from that of the living. The gash, fizzing with an electrical charge, began to close rapidly. Using most of its mass, The... plugged the gash and reduced the speed of its repair. The people of the tribe stood and watched, transfixed by both fear and wonder, unsure whether this spirit, as they saw it, brought good or ill. The... lunged through the opening and, with an indiscriminate lust, snatched and scooped up a dozen or so of the people below. All who were left scattered and ran. The...whipped its catch back through the ever tightening gash, then threw these people, screaming, away, to be crushed forever out of time. The gash, unplugged, shut closed and sealed.
'How did it do that?' asked Ben, who had floated down several metres away from the others.
'Why? Why?' Albert replied.
Ben kicked the air to propel himself up towards the others.
'Quickly, hold hands!' he cried, wanting to take them away through time. They moved to comply. As they reached him, The... released another blackening jet of dark energy that pounded into Ben and the others. Each felt a jolt, a physical assault.
'I felt that, physically! How?' asked Albert.
'So did I,' Ben said.
The... slinked away back into time. Ben looked towards the tribe. Two children vanished. He knew they followed a parent, or two, who The... had just thrown from time.
'I remember!' he cried.
'What?' asked Albert.
'The children!' he replied, and then remembering more, 'Wilf!'
'Wilf!' said AID also remembering.
'And others, all taken, all gone! We can remember!' said Albert.
'The Moof? Where's The Moof?' asked Ben. 'Hold me!'
They moved together. Ben took them back to the time before life. Wilf looked relieved to see them.
'Oh. Right good news. That be. Turn my tums to simmer,' he said.
'Wilf! Do you remember Wilf?' Ben asked him.
'The worm?' replied The Moof.
'The wolf.'
'Me, know a wolf? No chance. They're stinkers. Wouldn't use them for outdoor slippers!'
'It's only us,' Ben said to the others.
'You!' Replied Albert. 'It only wanted you. We just happened to be in the way,' he continued, suspiciously.
'It chose to leave all of us!'
'Why? What does it know? What's it planning? Why let us remember? Why leave us? You! Why You?' asked Albert in a near panic.
'The noise! My computer says, the noise!' said AID.
'We haven't the time for this. They're close to breaking through. They've nearly won. You saw them, they're turning on themselves.' said Ben.
'Isn't that always the way!' boomed the voice of The Man, followed by a merrily little laugh. 'People turning on themselves.'
Ben and the others all looked. The Man stood before them, his face beamed with a warm, welcoming smile.
'What do you want?' asked Ben contemptuously.
'Community. To be one with thee.' he answered, his arms outstretched as if to embrace them all.
'Not a chance! You're a liar and a cheat!'
'Fine attributes to possess in both love and war, and this, my brothers, is our war.'
'Get away from us!'
'Us? You speak for them all? You, the mighty leader.'
'I speak for myself!'
'Oh, and I. Please, do speak for me! Save me from the fear! Save me from the darkness!' he pleaded somewhat dramatically.
'Leave us alone!'
'For how long? For now?'
The Man disappeared, only to reappear a second later in exactly the same spot.
'Go? Where? In time? Can we ever truly go?' he continued.
He disappeared then reappeared behind Ben's back.
'I can always come back!'
Ben turned to face him and shouted,
'Get away from me!'
The Man looked away and rushed towards Albert, speaking to him,
'You, sir, you are right to ask why! Why The... treated this boy so special!'
'Don't listen to him!' cried Ben.
The Man swooped behind Albert and whispered into his ear,
'Come. Privacy for the men.'
A moment later they vanished, as The Man took Albert back through time.
Albert and The Man stood huddled together on the mountain top.
'Now let us speak freely,' continued The Man.
'And truthfully?' replied Albert as he backed away nervously.
'You know I have lied. Alas, a play for hope in a dark, miserable world, for the chance of a deal, now superseded by the opportunity we, both you and I, have within our grasp.'
'What opportunity?'
'A deal!'
'For what?'
'For peace, for power, to save ourselves!'
'What do you want from me?'
'Mere information, simple words.'
'And in return?'
'You earn peace.'
'The Place?' Albert said contemptuously.
'A lie! Offered to you when you were nothing!'
'And now?'
'We stand as equals. And as such, what fool would I be to offer you anything less than truth and reality?'
'What, exactly?' Albert asked impatiently.
'Peace! And a life agreeable to your every whim.'
'And I should trust you?'
'You trust him, the boy?'
Albert gave no answer.
'Good! For this I know, they toy with him. They toy with him and all those who follow him. Why not take him? Why be different? Why let him remember those they have taken? Why? Let me tell you why, because he dares to believe he can be victorious. Yes. You know it. Ah, but how they mock him! Him and you. They keep him, and you, because they have in store for him, and you, a most special, a most vile, a most vicious fate! Oh, how they will rein their justice down! Oh, how they will pillage all that is dark and cruel to take vengeance against the boy who dares believe he can ruin their dreams!'
'Maybe...Maybe.'
'But say, dream, you were never to meet this boy. You were, at the very least, just another ordinary ghost, with an ordinary fate. Say it, dream it, believe it! Nay, take more from me! Demand no less a deal than the best you can extract from me! Know, I can fix it for you to live beyond these ghostly years, and a life that will be full and rich! One touched by your dreams!'
'You've promised me before.'
'I will travel to the point of your demise, as you know I can, and there I shall alter history!'
'Could you stop the entire war?'
The Man looked shocked at the thought.
'For what good? To what end? Stop one to start another? Dampen the flames which can never go out? Albert, friend, history is war! So, mercifully, war will never be history! We are, after all, men! Think what might rise to power if we were free from war? Man would rot, in both spirit and mind. In his youth, he would turn old and infirm, become lost and, frankly, befuddled.'
'No. No.' Albert pleaded weakly.
'Stop! Let us find no quarrel. Let us embrace only what unites us. I enter your life and turn fate to give you a different, better, existence. Yes, in a time of war, but, and I promise, America, that is the land for you as a man. Where no one will call on you to fight. Where you shall only be required to live, and a life without the challenges that have reduced so many to the status coward.'
'You can make all this happen?'
'I can.'
'For what?'
'Mere information. Tell me everything. I know The Place held you until the boy returned for a second time. Why? What does the boy plot?'
'What do you want to achieve for yourself?'
'The new power, let us join them, become them. The tides of time can drown us, or they can carry us to an island paradise.'
'You make me this promise but what is there that can hold you to your word?'
'Nothing. There is nothing, and how that makes me weak! But if I betray you, I will have even less. A worthless, worthless reputation to match only the man! Is there no trust left within you?'
'None.'
'Then we have no deal. Let us return.'
He offered Albert his hand. Albert hesitated then spoke.
'He claims there is a book, the heaviest book that ever was. It will lead us to a shield of great power which he can use to defeat The...'
'How does he know this?'
'He has been told. He says there are other forces, also fighting, resisting.'
'Who?'
'I don't know.'
'Do you believe what he says?'
'Even if I did, it would give me no hope.'
'No, it shouldn't! But why did he come back for you all?'
'To help him? He says he needs our help.'
'Do the others believe?'
'More than me, I think.'
'Stay with him. Help him. Learn all you can. I will leave you here. Let him save you again. Feed his vanity and earn his trust. If he returns alone, then admire me even more greatly.'
'But he will be able to hear what we have said.'
The Man burst into laughter.
'Never! Never!' he said. 'Trust me! Do, do, trust me!'
The Man turned and vanished, leaving only the echo of his wicked laughter. The solitude and lifeless silence sunk quickly into Albert. He felt wrong and mocked by the laughter that still played in his mind.
The Man returned to Ben and the others. His time away seemed to them to have been less than a second. Seeing that The Man had returned without Albert, Ben demanded to know where Albert was.
'Ha!' The Man replied. 'A coward indeed! How do you own him so?'
'I don't own him!'
'A boy has brainwashed a man! What cult is this? The cult of the loser, of the scrawny boy? I hate you all!' He turned his slobberin
g stare to Victoria. 'All but you my poor, sweet child.'
She recoiled, moved closer to Ben. The Man continued,
'Take no hope from him. Give me your trust. Look. Make your peace.'
He raised his hands and gestured for his audience to look behind. All complied. Victoria's Father floated slowly towards them - his dress and age were little changed. Victoria plunged, wrecked, into black. Her Father looked demented. His mouth shivered with words that fell silently and half-formed. His stare and hands reached out towards her, desperate to possess her, for she was an object he had pursued obsessively through centuries of space and time.
'Victoria!' Ben cried out to her then held out his hand. 'Come! I'll take you away!'
'And we shall follow, forever, through time!' warned The Man.
Ben continued to offer his hand, unwilling to heed the warning.
'Victoria!' he called her again. She gave no reply, returned no look. Ben had no gravity now, her Father's presence was the only force that drew her.
The Man wafted in and stood next to Ben.
'Apart for so long,' he said, 'and yet, feel, how raw their feelings are. Alas, the human heart, best left to pumping blood,' he continued, full of delighted smugness.
'What are you trying to do?' Ben asked.
The Man cackled with laugher. Ben turned to AID and The Moof.
'What can we do?' he asked them.
'A plate of sandwiches!' suggested The Moof enthusiastically. 'Everyone stops for a sandwich. And a beverage. A cold one. Coooool. We're ghosts! Thickie-know-not!' he remembered with a dejected sigh.
'The noise! Prioritise the noise!' answered AID. 'My computer knows best!'
'Silence that man!' demanded The Man, pointing at AID.
'I am no man.' AID replied.
'But a coward. Why?' The Man rushed up to AID. 'Let me say, you chose this life, to become this, an empty machine! Snap! An empty man you were, too! A nonentity, a nothing man! A poor man, without the guts, indeed without the imagination, to even thieve! A man without the will to plot his own way up! You chose to be a slave! Faceless! Expressionless! Hidden! Dead!' He turned to the others. 'He did, this man! Willingly chose servitude!' He looked back at AID, seething contempt. 'In the name of man, I would have you killed, but alas there is no need, you did it to yourself already!'
'My computer! My computer!' replied AID, panicked, cracking under pressure.
'Keeps you hidden. Good! Who would wish the sight of a man so utterly pathetic?' Instantly softening, he turned to Ben and asked, 'But do tell, what is that noise?'
Ben briefly considered the question. The noise was getting louder, closer. With every beat, shockwaves pulsed through the ground. But Victoria reclaimed his focus. She remained utterly still as her Father laboured ever near, heavy with a sense of disbelief.
'Stay away from her!' Ben cried. But her Father was sealed in a space of his own, one that shrunk around Victoria, tighter and tighter, as he moved ever closer.
'He cannot hurt you, Victoria! He has no power now!' Ben pleaded.
'You, Victoria, you!' Words rumbled from Victoria's Father, his out-stretched hands were now just a lunge away from her. 'Save us!' He stopped, fell to his knees, his hands held an inch from her face. 'Let me touch a daughter again.'
She gave no reply, trapped in a coma of fear.
'Plead forgiveness!!!' he screamed at her. 'It is you that brought these horrors to me!'
'He cannot hurt you!' Ben told her.
'Oh, shut up, boy!!' spat The Man.
'My name is Ben!' he snapped back.
'Benjamin, as you were christened! Mummy's choice not good enough for you now?' he asked.
Ben, taken aback, was lost for a reply. The Man looked away from him, back towards Victoria. Ben kept looking at him, lost.
'Free us!!' Victoria's Father continued. He tried to clasp Victoria's checks with his hands, but his hands went through her face and came together. He held them there, inside her. 'Confess!! Claim my sin!! Accept it as your own!!'
The Man turned sharply to look back at Ben.
'But why reject your mother's name?' he asked in a light, playful way. 'Was she not quite right? Not quite sound of mind, your mother? Possessed by demons of a maddening kind! Oh, pray tell, any I know?' He laughed briefly, vicious.
Ben stood, deaf and blind to all outside - stung, somewhere deep, somewhere hidden. Then coyly, automatically, he asked,
'What does that mean?'
'Accept your sin!!' Victoria's Father continued his demands.
'Accept your man!' The Man cried at AID.
'The noise! The noise! The noise!' said AID, caving in to pressure.
'What does it mean?' Ben repeated his question to The Man, but his voice was barely a whisper.
'Take it!! Save me from the horror!!' cried Victoria's Father, but Victoria gave no reply, she remained immobile.
'We can pretend sandwiches!' proclaimed The Moof. 'Moof cheese and worm pickle? Mmm. Yes. Please. Thank you! The spicy kind!'
'You are mine to possess!! You will obey me!!' Victoria's Father continued.
'His kind rebelled!' said The Man as he moved up close to AID. 'Remnants of the people they were remained, and these remnants came to the fore. But not here! Not with this one!'
'Confess my sin!!' Victoria's Father continued.
'The noise! My computer says think of the noise!' pleaded AID.
'This one suppressed his true self, whipped himself into submission,' The Man went on. 'Let the alien invade his brain.'
'Accept my sin!! You are mine!! You can be no other!!'
'Other AIDs rebelled for freedom, and for equality but not this it thing here! The Man paused, laughing.
'This witch!! Cast me from your spell!!'
'But listen, and how sweet the comedy, his master,' The Man continued, 'still killed him!'
The Man laughed loudly. Ben looked, woken. A clear sense of hate filled him.
'No, no. He forgot to charge me.' replied AID desperately, backing away.
'Your master killed you! You are known! You are revealed! You even failed as a docile machine!' proclaimed The Man.
AID turned and sped away, fast and far.
'AID!!' Ben called after him, but AID had gone.
'Let me cast you into the flames!! Burn this witch!! My very soul to watch her burn!!' Victoria's Father raged.
Victoria took a sudden step back as if repelled. Her Father released a terrible scream, a roar of total demand, which somehow caused a continuous thread of Victoria's ghostly vapour to be drawn back into his clasped, praying, hands. Some kind of force or power - the intensity of his will - gave him this strength to consume and possess her. She took another step backwards, but the bind between them remained unbroken. His scream continued to unravel her.
The Man's laughter rose up again, bursting with delight. Ben stood watching, desperate to act but without the thought, or idea, to do so. He looked to the ground, as the noise from below piled over him. Five human hands - all bone, no flesh - punched through and broke the surface. Fragments of shattered rock scattered. These hands were solid, not those of ghosts. With raptor-like speed and precision, five human skeletons climbed out of the ground then stood, poised, in a circle surrounding the ghosts. They looked like a family - or rather a pack of hunters come from the wild. The tallest stood as tall as Albert, the shortest, as tall as Ben.
The Father continued his act of possession, lost to everything else. Victoria grew fainter and fainter.
The Skeletons spoke in unison as they addressed the ghosts.
'Who of you will accept our help? Who of you will pay the price?'
'I will!' Ben answered without any hesitation.
'What price? What help? Who are you? What do you offer?' asked The Man.
'Who of you will accept our help? Who of you will pay the price?' The Skeletons asked again.
'I will!' Ben reiterated. 'Now!'
'I...I' The Man hesitated.
A skeleton,
which matched Ben's height, flung itself towards him. A shiver of doubt cascaded through Ben, but the Skeleton loomed large and quick. A moment later, it had embedded itself into Ben as if it were Ben's own skeleton. A look of revelation filled Ben's face. He looked at his raised hands and proclaimed,
'I can...'
But before he could finish, the knowledge he held propelled him towards Victoria. He and the skeleton moved as one. He took hold of Victoria's Father, hooked him with a single hand, then pulled him clean away. Shock silenced his scream. The bind gave way. All vapour lost to the Father's possession snapped back to replenish Victoria. Ben released him, throwing him to the ground, where he found another rage, one of anger and savage discontent.
'You minion of the witch!' he screamed at Ben before turning on Victoria, 'You corrupt another! How many more have you deceived?'
Ben glanced at Victoria. He knew the meaning in the look she returned, a plea for freedom, for justice, for Mary and Hannah. A craggy spire of rock, which rose from the mountain top, caught his eye. He knew it was large enough to trap and imprison a ghost. He knew the pain it would cause, but anger silenced the guilt. He grabbed Victoria's Father by the foot.
'None of us are free, not here' Ben said to him, 'but there is always somewhere worse! Or, in your case, right!'
'Right? You have no right over me!' Victoria's Father replied.
'I do now, and I will!'
Ben rushed him towards the spire. The Man watched him full of envy.
'Victoria! Victoria! Save me! Yourself, alas! Save us all!' Her Father called to her, pleading. She seemed to pause, her reaction hesitating, but then with calm, deliberate purpose she moved her body and turned her back on him. Such was his rage it could find no voice.
Ben reached the spire and paused.
'You'll be alright,' he told Victoria's Father, 'in time the wind will erode this rock; in a couple of million years I should think.'
Ben threw him into the spire where he vanished, all except his screams, interned, locked in the rock, finally, imprisoned.
Ben returned to the others, his stare fixed on The Man.
'Don't you want this power?' he asked him.
'Yes. Yes. The power!' He turned to the skeletons, 'Help me! Help me!' He pleaded dramatically.
Ben went up to Victoria and spoke to her.
'He's gone.'
She looked at him, dazed, exhausted, relieved.
The largest skeleton pointed his index finger at The Man then curled it to beckon him near. The Man rushed over.
'If it's flesh you need, I come richly prepared!' said The Man jokingly, as he displayed his ample belly.
Ben looked at The Man for he knew what was to follow. The thoughts of his Skeleton had played in his mind and told him all he needed to know.
The largest skeleton stepped into The Man, dressed itself in a new, ghostly, skin. The Man's face grimaced under strain as if he were trying to move a heavy weight; however, the rest of his body remained perfectly still. The grimace gave way to a look of confusion and shock until, again, the grimace filled his face.
'I can't move!' he screamed.
His Skeleton and he, for they moved as one, began to climb back down into the ground, as did the three who wore no coat of ghostly skin.
'You took no risk so take no reward,' the Skeletons spoke in unison.
'What? No! What? Where? No!' cried The Man as he realised he was powerless to resist, to escape his capture to even twist through time. 'I can pay! I can offer you the world, twice! Trice!' His Skeleton continued to take him down. The Man looked at Ben:
'Don't think me gone! No! Do! Be that fool! be that fool!!' he cried.
They disappeared into the subterranean world.
Ben felt a sudden urge to look behind, he turned. His Skeleton stood facing him, eerily close. Ben took a step back to regain the comfort of his personal space.
'The price?' His Skeleton asked, before laughing somewhat mischievously, which caused its jawbone to rattle. 'No price at all, if taken well.'
'I have nothing to give,' Ben said.
'You have plenty.' His Skeleton replied, as it stepped forward and placed its hands over Ben's ears. 'But why listen to me?' It's hands clenched to clasp Ben's ears. 'Listen to you, everyone of you!' It yanked Ben's ears sharply and pulled his head apart - a perfect split, straight down the middle.
'Hey! Put me back!' Ben demanded, the two, separated, halves of his mouth moving in unison.
'Only the broken can be fixed,' said the Skeleton.
'Then fix me!'
'Free you!'
'Put me back together!'
'Yes.' It laughed exuberantly.' Put you back together.'
The Skeleton dropped to a crouching position, pulling the two halves of Ben's head down with it. It then powered back up and launched the two head halves up into the sky. They streamed up like rockets fired from the ground, each leaving a thin, ghostly vapour trail in their wake, an unbroken connection between head and body. As they accelerated further away from the source, they moved further apart from each other. Victoria and The Moof watched, aghast.
'That's how I feel,' said The Moof, 'only fatter.'
Ben - two halves, but as one in knowledge and feeling, the sights and sounds caught by one half were instantly fed to the other. But the sights were the same, a desolate land. And Ben's feelings were the same, abandoned, lonely, the worst he had ever known. He was dead to sensation. The land below rushed past at a frantic pace; however, he felt he was stuck, static.
Each half rose up in an arc to loop towards each other. Now set on a collision course, hope rallied in Ben. Would the two unite, again become one?
One half morphed into the serpents head, the same as on the Pendant, its gaping mouth ready to swallow the tail, its hostile thoughts - loathing and contempt for the scared, lonely self - displaced the thoughts that once dared hope.
Ben felt himself consumed, by sickness and curse, swallowed by the serpents mouth. Everyday fears flickered past as memories seen and felt in and out - teasing, punching bullies; the searing cold and anger that his Aunt dispatched so readily; creatures, monsters and things, hidden but there, ready to pounce; wasps; the air thick and unbreathable. All just flashes now, blunt against his hardened soul.
Into fathomless black, his only sensation was that of sinking, down, down, slowly down. The thin, metallic echo of a drip faintly sounded. He stopped, landed against nothing, yet still sent forth a drip of his own to echo weakly then vanish into the nothing.
He called out for company. None replied. Another drip tormented. He called again, 'Who's there?'
'The drips,' replied a flat monotone voice of a boy that could have been his own.
'What?' Ben asked.
'You,' replied the voice in unison with another, one the same, but which came from a different direction. 'Us.' the voices continued, again joined by another - and another with every additional word they the spoken. 'This is where we go. Drip, drip, drip.' Louder, closer always encroaching. 'Into the black. Drip, drip, drip. You, me, everyone. Drip, drip, drip.'
'No!' replied Ben. 'I know more than this! This doesn't frighten me! I know more than this now!'
A shard of light pierced the black from above. Ben looked up, at a grey winter sky. He stood at the bottom of a deep, drained, lake.
And through a forest he ran, fleeing desperately, gulping great bursts of air.
The lakebed was a trap of thick, clawing mud, which held Ben's feet and pulled him down. He began to struggle, to free himself, but then a presence felt hooked his stare. It was Mark, collapsed on the ground just beyond Ben's reach, suffocating, his hand stretched out towards Ben.
Running through the forest, he heard himself speak, 'The man'
And the man, Mark as a man, his limp, lifeless body fell down, thrown, onto the lakebed so close, and shockingly, to Ben that he recoiled backwards and fell sitting in the mud.
Running through the wood, he heard himself speak, 'The s
ons.'
And the sons, Mark's four sons - men now, their limp, lifeless bodies fell down, thrown, onto the mud to land in a pile that trapped Ben's legs.
Running through the wood, he heard himself speak, 'The daughters.'
And the daughters, Mark's three daughters, women now, their limp, lifeless bodies fell down, thrown, to join the pile, to further trap and cover Ben.
Running through the wood, snatching great gulps of air, he heard himself speak, 'The grandchildren.'
And the grandchildren, Mark's many grandchildren, adults now, their limp, lifeless bodies fell down, thrown, to join the pile. Ben, his feet free of the mud, scrambled up through the twisted thicket of limbs. A whistle appeared in his mouth. He blew in sharp, violent bursts.
Running through the wood, suddenly blindsided by a diving tackle that smashed football boot studs into his shins. He crumpled to the ground, winded, sick with shock and pain. His Dad stood over him - dressed in a tracksuit, a referee's whistle held in his mouth.
'Dad?' Ben asked, crushed.
'You!' came the stern reply. 'Off!' He blew on the whistle, a sharp, aggressive burst.
'I was scared!' Ben cried. 'Scared! So what?! Am I now?! Can't you know me now?'
His Dad blew the whistle with a furious breath. A great, instant wind ripped Ben and the entire wood - animal, vegetable and mineral - from the earth and powered them away in a rabid current of scorching air that reduced all but Ben to vapour and ash. Then, from nowhere, stillness. Ben stood on an island of rubble, one of hundreds surface in an ocean of ash that stretched as far as the eye could see. The Earth was a ruin, a nuclear wasteland. Vast tumors, mushroom-shaped clouds, that filled the horizon where all that now reached for the sky.
Ben felt nothing, each half cancelling each other out, until his voice, an echo from the past, piled out through a loudspeaker in a harsh and authoritative tone.
'Let the rats rule!'
'No!' replied the physical Ben, 'This doesn't happen! It doesn't frighten me!' he replied.
'This is your want! This is your will!' countered the voice, bland with power.
'No! Not now! Not now!'
'The rats must rule!'
And the ash became rats, every fleck a rat - hungry, scurrying, fighting, sniffing, knowing Ben was there. Millions and millions of rats, all racing towards Ben. But Ben stood firm, he refused to give ground.
'This doesn't happen! It doesn't scare me!'
'I scare you!' cried the woman, the abductress, shrill and savage, hovering over Ben as he lay in bed rigid with fear and the half-dream world. More than a memory, he felt himself grabbed, then stuffed in a bag, then carried, then thrown. Plunged into ice cold water, all his senses scrambled to the fight. But his other half weighed him down - thrown as rubbish on to the tip, dull and limp with resignation. The gulls came pecking, the pigs inspecting, to learn how filling this boy could be.
'I'm not rubbish!!' his thoughts called out as he freed himself from the bag. Once clear, he kicked hard to reach the surface. Above him, a lavish full Moon sparkled and shone, and The Abductress, who knelt at the side of this pit of water, like a phantom perched, guarding another realm. Having seen her, he stopped his ascent and floated, suspended, utterly peaceful as if left, forgotten, between two jarring worlds.
She plunged her hands into the water, parting it, searching, calling out obstructed words. Ben paddled down, desperately down, down beyond the tentacles of moonlight into the depths where no light can shine. She thrust her head into the water. 'Ben! Ben!' she screamed as if terrified, her voice pulsing through the water as if a depth charge, shattering it. And then she cried another word, one he refused to be known.
The night she came that wild, violent night. The Abductress alone against men, a savage in the trenches, fighting them until flattened by overwhelming force. Her cries pressed into the ground and muffled by bodies, Ben's ears muffled by his Aunt's uncaring hands. And the other Ben watching them all, listening, knowing, seeing it all so clearly.
'I'm scared of this!' he said to the Ben being dragged away by his Aunt.
In his bedroom, alone at the window, cowering behind a curtain as if it were a shield. Fear held him still, and would only loosen its grip once the red tail lights of the van, which carried The Abductress away, had vanished into the night.
A narrow country lane, the other Ben running after the van, wanting, needing to catch it. The tail lights twist from view. The hum of the engine thins to silence.
'Follow her would you?' his Aunt spoke, standing at the bedroom door. Ben turned from the window to face her. 'Maybe you will,' she continued. 'Maybe you, as cursed, and as mad as she.'
'Who's she?' demanded Ben in a sudden outburst. His Aunt cackled with laughter.
'The cat's mother, no doubt!' she replied.
The Abductress, her bloodied face, caged between the ground, crushing arms and pressing hands. Her mouth gagged, her jaw locked but still words came pounding out, forced through the barriers with a desperate, primal force.
Ben kneeling over her, listening.
'Son?...Son?' he asked, he knew.
He looked towards the other Ben being dragged into the house by his Aunt.
'Son!' He cried. 'Son!'
Wembley football stadium, filled to capacity with a faceless, jeering crowd. Ben poised to take a penalty kick. And the other Ben keeping goal, ready save the penalty and win the final game.
'Go on my son!' The voice of his Dad shouting encouragement to the penalty taking Ben.
'Come on my son!' The voice of his Mum shouting encouragement to the Ben in goal.
Paralysed with knowledge, each Ben knowing the others intended move - which way he will shoot, which way he will dive.
'For Dad! For country!' 'For Mum! For family!' Their voices rallying their cause.
Ben, the penalty taker, sick with pressure, desperate to score. What to do? Where to plant the ball? The goalkeeping Ben, sick with anticipation, bursting with tension.
'Be me, son! Score and be me!' His Dad continued.
'Save it, son! Let him be me!' His Mum continued.
Hatred for each other filling each Ben.
'Let me score!!' Screaming inside his head.
'You can't score!' Echoed the reply. 'I'll make you mad! Start with me!!'
Unable to contain themselves, they set-off in perfect unison, screaming a war-cry, running for each other ready to clash and fight.
Back on the mountain top, Ben lay dizzy on the ground looking up at Victoria and The Moof as they stood over him. His head was once more a single whole. The Moof thought Ben was concussed so pointed to his two noses and asked,
'How many noses can you see?'
'Two,' Ben answered.
'True that. Each one a stormer.' He turned to Victoria, 'He's right unbefuddled.'
'I'm fine,' said Ben, standing.
'What happened to you?' asked Victoria.
'It tried to scare me,' Ben answered.
'How?'
'It failed. I know who I am, which half I am. How can I ever be her?'
'Who?'
'It doesn't matter, not now. How can anything from then matter now? Where's it gone?'
'Back down there,' said The Moof pointing to the ground.
'Why was it here?' asked Victoria.
'I don't know. It doesn't matter. We must move on,' said Ben.
'Move? We's waitin'. Ain't we not?'
'Not now. I think we should leave.'
'To where?' asked Victoria.
'Anywhere. Somewhere. But how are you? Are you alright?'
She smiled gently, but this failed to take the sting out of her dark, sad eyes. She spoke softly,
'Let's go.'
'We will.'
'We? We's only three. 'ere now,' said The Moof. 'I's not like odd numbers. They's weirdoes. I's wanna poke 'em.'
'Albert!' said Ben remembering.
'Must we still find the book?' asked Victoria.
'Yes. We must.' Be
n answered.
'The British National Library.'
Ben and The Moof looked at her, unsure. She continued,
'It holds more books than anywhere else. We must start somewhere so why not there?'
'Clever,' said The Moof. 'Too clever. Wouldn't it be better to go to the place with one book?'
'No,' said Ben. 'The National Library, that's where we'll go! It makes perfect sense.'
'Sense? Nothin' there to be proud of? We's a day ahead of sense round 'ere. I's instinctive. In tune with me senses. Oh, bums!'
'Think of all the knowledge!'
'No!' cried The Moof shocked and somewhat offended. 'Now that's not necessary!'
'If we can't find the book there then maybe a clue or something else to help. I'll fetch Albert.'
He disappeared, slipped through time to find and retrieve Albert.
'How many books is there? Here at that Library?' The Moof asked Victoria.
'So many, millions,' she answered.
'Millions? Not likely. You's been fooled. Ain't a million words. Let alone books!' He snapped his mouth shut in a failed attempt to trap and silence a burst of laughter.
Ben returned with Albert.
'He knows our plan. Now come on, we must hurry!' Ben said as he gestured for everyone to hold hands.
'Maybe we should spilt-up, and meet there,' suggested Albert.
'Why?' asked Ben.
'As a precaution. We're chased. We're wanted.'
'But we're going the same way, as straight and as fast as we can.'
'We can take different times. You go with Victoria.'
'All right.'
'Where is this library?' asked The Moof.
'London,' Ben and Albert replied.
'At the British Museum,' said Albert alone, 'Once in London, I can find my way to the library, Victoria, too. We first met on the street outside.'
'Did you?' Ben asked Victoria. She nodded her head. 'Good,' Ben replied, encouraged. 'I'll take us back, forward, through time. There's a road sign in my village that points to London. It can start us off. If you travel high, and fast, as fast as you can, you'll see London from miles away. It'll be easy to find.'
As Ben was about to take them away, Victoria spoke to him, 'Wait.'
Ben stopped. Victoria glanced at the rock in which her father was imprisoned then returned her stare to Ben.
'Go,' she said.