Chapter Six
‘I need lots of booze to wash this nightmare from my memory,’ said Irvin after a big gulp of beer. ‘But a promise is a promise: no more than two pints in one sitting.’ He banged his pint pot on the table and stared at Thaler. His companion was hunched silently over a thin and pale — like himself — glass of lager. Having got no response, Irvin turned his eyes upon the crowd.
They were sitting in the corner of a bustling pub. The word ‘traditional’ chalked outside meant good beer, shabby-chic furniture, and an ill-tempered bartender. The place was full of tourists. Excited people sang, laughed, and talked loudly over each other in various languages, creating a throbbing cloud of sound. Robotic waiters weaved and wobbled among the crammed tables.
‘No tips, no tits, no soul,’ Irvin murmured, watching the robots in action, before taking another sip. ‘Why on earth do they make them look like frozen mummies?’
‘It’s a regulation,’ Thaler replied indifferently. ‘It says, “All droids employed in conservation areas must display clear features to identify said droids as distinct and separate from other biological and/or carbon-based beings, including, but not limited to, Homo sapiens and all other life forms.”’
‘If so, they went way too far,’ remarked Irvin.
There was no further reaction from his interlocutor. Irvin scratched his ear and cast his line from the other side.
‘I like Prohibition,’ said the inspector after a long slurp of beer. ‘The government did the right thing when it banned social networks as a totalitarian sect. Now people have time to meet each other and talk! The networks for robots, computers for work, and friends and beer for life!’
Thaler didn’t even bite that juicy piece of bait. But Irvin didn’t intend to give up.
‘You know, I’m still thinking about how to explain to my boss why you and I were lying in that coffin.’ The inspector shared his thoughts. ‘The version I’m thinking of is that we were checking to see if there was enough room to carry two dead bodies, instead of one, inside the box.’
‘There could’ve been two dead bodies indeed.’ Thaler sniggered and continued his solemn meditation.
‘Good Lord! What are you staring at?’ exclaimed Irvin. ‘It’s just a mug of booze, lad, not a crystal ball!’
Thaler took a sip and returned the glass to its previous position.
‘All right, all right,’ Irvin said soothingly and finished his pint. His cheeks turned red as his tension ebbed away and he sank deeper into his chair. ‘You’re right. We’ve been through a lot tonight and have to cool down. As they say, pour cold beer on troubled minds. Now I’m half-cut, and I’ll tell ya the truth.’ He leaned over the table. ‘I’d never been so scared in my life.’ He looked around conspiratorially. ‘But you know what?’ he whispered. ‘Now I’ve got it. All that shit was only in our heads. Like a hallucination. Those beasts disappeared . . . evaporated. Right?’
‘But then who smashed the door in? Butterflies?’ Finally, Thaler gave voice, but at that point, Irvin was drunk enough to ignore his words.
‘I must confess,’ the inspector said, leaning back in his chair, ‘I responded like an idiot. Or a coward. Or both. I still cannot believe it happened to me. I should’ve got out of that bloody box and kicked the demons’ arses!’
Thaler looked at Irvin but didn’t say a word.
‘I wasn’t cool tonight, eh?’ Finally, Irvin launched an overt attack. ‘What do you think, Thaler? And why, damn it, are you sitting in the pub like an idol while you’re supposed to be drinking and chatting with your friend?’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Thaler said quietly. ‘You’ve seen the sorts of things that a common man shouldn’t see. It was my job. And my fault. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it. I shouldn’t have answered your call. Because I knew you’d come. I never believed in such a thing as a white lie. But, you know what, it’s horses for courses. I might not be able to stand a single punch of yours, Irvin, but I’m the right man to call on when evil gets out of hand. At least, I’m supposed to be. You’re not the only one who didn’t look bright tonight.’
‘We’ll get ‘em in the end, Thaler.’ Irvin stretched his hand over the table and patted Thaler on the shoulder. He then snapped his fingers and shouted, ‘Another pint over here!’
A new mug of beer along with a packet of crisps, brought by a nimble cyber-banshee, appeared in front of him. Irvin tore the bag open and put it in the middle of the table. ‘Cheers,’ he raised his mug, ‘to our victory!’
‘To the victory.’ Rather apathetically, Thaler raised his glass, too.
‘Thaler,’ Irvin picked up a crisp, ’let me ask you something. You’re a good-looking lad, and you’re still not married. Why not?’
‘In a business like mine, you can’t have too much family.’ Thaler replied.
‘Wrong!’ Irvin slapped his hand on the table and wagged a finger. ‘I’ve been married twice, and both times ended in divorce. I have four children and have to feed them all, except the eldest daughter — the only one who really cares about me. I’ve been shot, drowned, and tortured with Chinese needles. I’ve had a strong taste of life, you know, and I have to say that the only thing you need to be a happy family man is a good, fat life insurance policy!’ fired Irvin, and he burst out laughing at his own joke.
Thaler gave him a modest social smile.
‘You know what?’ said Irvin. ‘I have to introduce you to my daughter. She’s a clever girl, and she likes loonies like you.’
Thaler nodded politely. His face, however, expressed concern.
‘What d’yer say?’ asked Irvin frankly.
‘It would be an honour,’ began Thaler. ‘But before we go ahead, I have to solve one private mystery.’ His voice was pedantic. ‘It’s a mystery that relates to you, Inspector.’
‘I have no mysteries, Thaler.’ Irvin reclined confidently in his seat. ‘You know me — what you see is what you get.’
‘No. There is one,’ Thaler insisted. ‘Earlier this evening, you tried to break my balls — thank goodness, unsuccessfully — and now you’re trying to make me your son-in-law. A mysterious fact, isn’t it?’ Thaler finished this phrase with a poker face before almost instantly bursting into a shriek of laughter. For a second, Irvin sat thunderstruck but, then, caught the wave and started laughing like mad, too.
‘Shall I send my apologies to Mr Goolies?’ asked Irvin between convulsions, wiping away tears of laughter. ‘I was terribly wrong tonight!’
Thaler, who was rocking and shaking with laughter, too, couldn’t say a thing. It was the deep, visceral, almost cathartic laughter of two men whose lives had recently hung on a thread.
‘Coming back to our business,’ Irvin moved on when they both calmed down, ’my daughter . . . she’ll be here in a month or so. Why don’t you—?’
‘We don’t have a month or two, I’m afraid.’ Thaler rubbed his chin.
‘Why?’ asked Irvin, who was still in a jolly mood.
‘Because she’s got into this story, too.’ Thaler pushed his beer away. ‘She freaked them out, and now the demons will try to find her and exact their revenge.’
In a flash, Irvin’s facial expression changed, as he went from looking totally calm to being completely livid. He suddenly looked stone-cold sober. His eyes bored into Thaler, and his jaw tightened.
‘Damn it, Thaler!’ he snarled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’
‘I wasn’t sure.’ Thaler held Irvin’s glare. ‘I had to double-check it before telling you.’
‘But why are you so sure now?’ asked Irvin angrily.
‘While we were walking down the street, I ran a search through my extrasensory connections,’ said Thaler. ‘There’s no mistake. She’s involved.’
‘Did you know that when you asked me to call her for help?’ Irvin enquired.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Thaler replied.
Irvin smashed his mug onto the table and turned his face away. An awkward silence settled between them.
‘I have to tell you something about your daughter that you probably don’t know,’ Thaler continued.
‘What?’ Irvin snapped.
‘She’s in the same business as me. She’s a demon hunter,’ said Thaler quietly.
‘And you didn’t know this before?’ Irvin turned back to Thaler, his eyes showing his fury.
‘No,’ answered Thaler calmly. ‘When you talked to her on the phone, it wasn’t just a long-distance call. It was a rescue operation. She cast some spells — which, of course, you didn’t notice — that stopped you from committing suicide and expelled the demons. If not for her, we would already be dead.’
Irvin listened intently with his brows knitted and his mouth fixed in an agitated grimace.
‘All masters of the Order know each other,’ Thaler continued, ‘but she’s a completely new kid on the block. It took me a while to realise where the help had come from. My mission was, and still is, strictly confidential. So, even some top figures in the Order don’t know a thing about it.’
‘Is something threatening her now?’ Irvin questioned.
‘Nothing particular at the moment. ‘It’ll take them time to trace her.’
‘What are you gonna do?’ Irvin watched Thaler closely.
‘I’m going to New Amsterdam right now,’ said Thaler calmly.
‘Very well then.’ Irvin stood up and threw a credit card on the table. ‘Tonight’s my shout.’
A robotic waiter arrived immediately, scanned the card, and disappeared.
‘Don’t worry, Gregory.’ Thaler rose to his feet, too. ‘I’d sacrifice my life to protect your daughter. It’s my obligation and honour. She’s a brave girl. She’d barely got her stripes and jumped into the heat of the battle immediately. I can’t wait or ask for help. Our bosses are too sluggish and careful, and our enemies are still confused. I have only one advantage over them all — time. And I’m gonna use it. The war we’re waging has no clear frontline. It’s like a labyrinth of mirrors: You never know if it’s a friend, a foe, or just your reflection. Someone has to guide her through this maze.’
‘I hope you are the right man to do so,’ said Irvin, and they made for the exit.
Chapter Seven
‘Fascinating,’ said Irvin, as he wolfed down a hot dog, watching the airport through the panoramic window.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Thaler. He didn’t look interested in food at all.
They stood on the top floor of the ultramodern, glass-and-aluminium terminal building. The sky above one of the biggest and busiest airports in the world was crammed with flying machines of all kinds, and the ground below looked like a thriving seabird colony. Airplanes, helicopters, convertiplanes, cargo drones, and the ubiquitous sky cabs — dozens of them — were swarming through the air and crawling on the ground. It was a smooth, never-ending process — a humming symphony of the post-post-post-industrial era orchestrated by invisible conductors or, to be more precise, semi-conductors.
‘Fifty years ago,’ Thaler began, ‘one certain carpenter banged his finger so badly that he declared that this world was not real but rather a fake image created by a mischievous super-machine. The story wasn’t brand new, though. Rather, it was a mash-up of older ones. But, nevertheless, it helped him to snatch some cash and publicity.’
‘What are you getting at, Detective?’ Irvin delved in his pocket.
‘I was watching this place and suddenly realised that he was wrong,’ said Thaler. ‘Yes, we went through two subtotal conflicts, and the ocean is grabbing more and more land, but we’re still here, free people — not talking rats driven into cellars. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and even Artificial Intelligence has got its own fear of death and a “switch off” belly button. We still watch movies and not creepy 3D shows; we eat junk food and take cholesterol tablets because we are creatures of habit. And one of those habits is to live and carry on in a human way.’
‘For all that, there must be accidents from time to time,’ remarked Irvin, cleaning his greasy hands with a handkerchief.
‘Not at all,’ said Thaler. ‘It’s as safe as hangover pills. There are four separate anti-collision systems to keep this bedlam in order. If your jet-pack engines go off and you’re falling to your death, just in no time at all, every flying vehicle in your path will be automatically redirected to avoid your trajectory.’
‘Blimey! It’s pure magic!’ exclaimed Irvin, who then burped contentedly and started to fiddle in his mouth with a toothpick while watching dozens of sky workhorses pulling on their ropes.
But there was a queen in that concrete bee garden. It stood in the middle of the airfield, separate from the rest of the crowd. Its metallic, spindle-shaped hull and sleek sharp wings were shining in the purple light of the rising sun. It was the Glambird: the last word in 21st-century aviation engineering and a chef-d’oeuvre of industrial design. It was a rocket and an airplane fused into one perfect piece of aircraft technology; a shuttle that was able to transfer one hundred passengers over the Atlantic in about ninety minutes or circle the globe in less than six hours.
‘Nice one.’ Irvin nodded in the direction of the aircraft.
‘Nice one?’ Thaler exclaimed indignantly. ‘It’s perfect! It’s the most advanced flying machine the world’s ever seen!’
‘So what?’ Irvin shrugged.
‘Its engines work on liquid hydrogen and, when it flies really high, on liquid oxygen too. It’s not a new technology, however,’ Thaler explained passionately. ‘The real miracle happens upon reentry when it slows down in the atmosphere. Then its engines start working in reverse, fishing out carbon dioxide from the air and releasing back pure oxygen.’
‘Marvellous,’ approved Irvin. ‘I wish the pigeons could do the same thing instead of shitting in my garden.’ He eyed Thaler up and down curiously. ‘I didn’t know you are such a tech-head.’
‘I, myself, am not,’ said Thaler. ‘But I’ve got an old friend who told me about it.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Irvin.
‘A pure genius: Donovan Brown,’ Thaler said proudly. ‘He was a prodigy from childhood. Now he’s a chief engineer at Global Impulse Corporation. This little bird hatched under his bottom. But all this,’ he gestured out to the runway, ‘is just the tip of the iceberg: their main job is for the military.’
‘Isn’t he supposed to keep his mouth shut?’ enquired Irvin.
‘Probably,’ said Thaler, feasting his eyes on the plane. ‘But that was always a problem for him. A few years ago, we were travelling across Eastern Europe and, naturally, went to the pub. Don started socialising with the locals and charging himself with shots of vodka. At one point things went terribly wrong because, when I came back from the loo, I found Don lying breathless in a pool of blood and a waitress — his future wife — screaming and jumping around him. I was pumping his chest until the ambulance arrived and his would-be sweetheart was giving him “the kiss of life” through his nose because his teeth had been crushed into his mouth. The doctors had to wire his jaws together for about a month. He had to survive on liquified food for a while but learnt how to slurp beer through his nasogastric tube very quickly, and then life was finer than ever.’ Thaler tittered. ‘One day, he said to me that this punch had given him an excuse to stay alone and put together all his ideas. He sat on his arse for a couple of months and created this beauty.’
‘I like this man.’ Irvin smiled heartily. ‘I always said that vodka makes people think outside of the box.’
The two men watched as the ground team was giving the last spit and polish to the liner before the flight. A few service vehicles with cables and hosings gathered around the plane and a couple of hydraulic platforms were unfolded along its sides.
‘I wonder how much the ride on this pony costs,’ said Irvin thoughtfully.
Thaler didn’t answer. His eyes were riveted on a small and unremarkable car that, on the sly, had left the Glambird parking spot and melted into the turmoil of the airfield. He then focused on the Glambird itself as if trying to hypnotise it. The longer he looked at it, the more concerned he became. His neck and his whole body stiffened.
Irvin recognised this change instantly. He stood idly nearby for a while, then turned around and, keeping his eye on Thaler, set off towards the nearest hot-dog stand.
‘What’s going on, lad?’ When Irvin returned, Thaler was already out of the trance, but looked drowsy.
‘They’ve planted a bomb on the plane,’ he uttered.
‘How do you know that?’ Irvin, with a new portion of junk food in hand, drew nearer.
‘Thank my parents.’ Thaler smiled. ‘I got this gift from them, though, I have no scars on my forehead. But I can see it from here,’ said Thaler, touching the windowpane. ‘There, on the upper deck, under the sink, in the pilot rest cabin.’
‘Can you tell what kind of a bomb it is?’ asked Irvin.
‘Not exactly.’ Thaler was peering at the aircraft through the window. ‘But I’m pretty sure it’s a very basic device, so I’ll be able to defuse it.’
‘What?’ Irvin shrieked, nearly choking on the jaundice-coloured drink he was sipping from a small bottle, and pulled out his phone. ‘You’ve gone mad, kid,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna bang on the “stop” button.’
‘No way, Irvin. We can’t stop the flight,’ said Thaler in a firm voice. ‘That’s what they want — to delay me. The demons know who I am and what I can do. If we cancel this flight, I’ll have to wait for the next plane. It’s a conventional jet and it doesn’t get here for another four hours.’ His eyes were still focused on the Glambird. ‘I have no time for that. I’m gonna get on board and solve the problem there.’
‘Have you lost your marbles?’ Irvin uttered. ‘That’s suicide! Do you know exactly what type of bomb it is? Do you have any idea how to tackle explosives at all?’
‘I served as a paratrooper for five years, Irvin. I’ve got some skills,’ said Thaler. ‘Please don’t forget that.’
Irvin’s face reddened, and he blew air through his nose indignantly.
‘I know, I know that. But don’t be heroic,’ he growled. ‘I just worry about you. It is even written in our constitution: any citizen has an inalienable right to worry about his close friends, right?’
Thaler cracked a smile.
‘I won’t let you down, old man,’ he said. ‘I simply know that everything will be fine. Please, trust me. And stay online in case I need your help.’
‘So be it.’ Irvin shook his head and looked heavenward. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Thaler with confidence. He turned his face promptly to the large hall as if he’d lost interest in the magic airplane. There were a few flights due to depart, and the place was full of people.
‘I need someone who can give me access to the restricted area where the bomb is mounted,’ said Thaler, craning his neck and looking around. His eyes caught something. ‘And here she is — my pass-key.’
Irvin followed Thaler’s gaze and whistled.
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