The Long War

She raised her hand, looked at it, flexed her fingers, and imagined she heard the whirring of tiny hydraulic motors. ‘I’m finding you’ve turned me into Frankenstein’s monster.’

‘Actually Frankenstein’s monster was considerably more learned and worthy than his so-called master. Just a thought.’

‘Get to the point. What do you want?’

‘Very well. Agnes, knowing a great deal about you from Joshua, and from other sources including your own diaries – and knowing your most excellent sympathy for an irrevocably flawed humanity – I have shanghaied you, so to speak, on behalf of said humanity. I have a mission for you. It is this: I need an adversary.’

‘A what?’

‘Agnes, you know me. You know what I am. I span the world! Indeed, the worlds. I wield an enormous amount of power, starting with the ability to fix parking tickets and working on up to a scale that no tyrant in all of history has been able to boast. I have no master. I report to nobody save myself. Even Douglas Black is only a patron, a facilitator. He could not stop me. And that’s what worries me.’

‘It does?’

‘Of course. Shouldn’t it? I need an adversary, Agnes. Somebody to tell me when I am out of order. When I’m being inhuman. Or being too human, even. It seems to me, given all that Joshua has said about you, that you

are uniquely placed to be that person.’

‘You brought me back to life to be your conscience? This is ridiculous! Even if I agreed – how could I stop you from doing anything that you want to do?’

‘I will give you the means to shut me down.’

‘What? Is that even possible?’

‘It’s tricky,’ conceded Lobsang. ‘There are now a number of iterations of myself scattered across the world, the Long Earth, and even various locations around the solar system. You can’t have too much backup . . . But, yes, I can find a way to make it happen. To have me deleted from all those places.’

‘Hmm. And in all those places,’ said Sister Agnes, ‘where is your soul?’

‘Here, talking to you like this, in these new bodies, surely we can agree that the soul has no boundaries?’

‘Do I have a choice in any of this?’

‘Of course. You can walk away now and you will be taken anywhere on the planet that you wish. You will never hear from me again. Or – well, you too have an off switch, Agnes. But I know that you are not going to take those options.’

‘Oh, you do, do you?’

‘You see, when I came to visit you with Joshua that day, and I asked you if you had any regrets – do you remember? You whispered, “So much left to do.” Now you have the chance to do more. What do you say? Will you be Boswell to my Johnson, Agnes? Watson to my Holmes? Satan to my Miltonic God?’

‘Your nagging wife?’

He laughed, an eerie, not quite human sound.

Sister Agnes was uncharacteristically silent for some time. The loudest noise was the not-quite-authentic fire. In this womb of a room, she felt stuffy, enclosed. She longed to be out of here. Out on the open road – ‘What happened to my Harley?’

‘Joshua had it stored properly: off the ground, tyres over-inflated, fuel drained from the tank, everything greased up.’

‘Will I be able to ride it? I mean, will I be physically capable—’

‘Of course.’

‘And will this wretched alchemy of yours allow me to drink beer?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘Where the hell am I, by the way?’

‘In Sweden. At the headquarters of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Black Corporation’s medical division. It’s a nice crisp day outside.’

‘Is it?’

‘There are bikes. I thought ahead, you see. Not Harleys, but . . . Would you like to go for a ride?’

It was tempting. To be young again. Young, and on the road . . .

‘In a moment,’ she said firmly. ‘How’s Joshua?’

27

SO JOSHUA FOUND himself sitting with Sister Agnes reincarnate, in a shabby coffee shop in Madison West 5.

It was an odd atmosphere. Two people trying to get a grip on this inexplicable new world: a world where the dead could rise and sit cheerfully sipping a coffee while talking of old times . . . Two people not quite finding the words that needed to be said. As it was, however, for now, the smiles were doing the job.

Agnes sat upright, a bit primly, sipping her coffee. Maybe her features were just a little too regular, her skin a little too smooth, to be convincingly human.

But as far as Joshua was concerned, too many of the regulars in this coffee shop, mostly Low Earth construction workers, took a much too irreligious interest in Agnes’s new curves. ‘They ought to have more respect for the wimple.’

‘Oh, hush. All men are rudimentary creatures who respond to symbols a lot more basic than a habit and a crucifix.’

‘I can’t quite believe this is happening.’

‘Neither can I. And it’s hard to even believe I’m here to do the disbelieving, if you know what I mean.’