And then six dull booms exploded in my earphones, one after another. I raised my battle goggles to look at the distant sky.

  Six huge flowers were blossoming in it – a red one, a green one, a blue one and three in bright rainbow colours. They were all different shapes – and they looked like new universes that had just been born in the blackness of non-existence, each one now living according to its own laws. Then the second round of charges started detonating, and the sky around the six large flowers was lit up by small coloured zigzags, arrows and spirals of multicoloured fire. Ba-boom! Ba-boom. Ba-boom!

  I had forgotten to change the programme on the control manitou. And at the last reloading the base had given me fireworks instead of battle rockets – just as they had done every night recently, when I flew out to earn some easy night-time money above David-Goliath’s villa.

  I was in the habit of thinking of myself as a sky warrior – but for the system I was already … I don’t know what it’s called. You know, the one who stands by the bed holding a candlestick.

  And then the six universes in the black sky burned out, Wagner fell silent of his own accord, and my battle goggles went dark forever. But before Hannelore tumbled into her infinitely distant green grave, I just had time to notice the most insulting and intolerable thing of all.

  They weren’t looking in my direction any longer.

  They …

  They were carrying on.

  I took off my blinded flying goggles, climbed down off the battle cushions and fell onto the floor. I cried all night long, only stopping to take a dose of alcohol. And then the alcohol started pouring back out of me again.

  EPILOGUE

  I only have a few words left to say about myself – and about what happened to our world. Conjointly I shall explain why at the commencement of these artless sketches, as the creative articulator puts it, I called this a tale of revenge.

  But all in good time.

  My Hannelore didn’t die completely. She has a reserve battery that powers a recovery radio beacon. It will last for many months, and it can occasionally be used to maintain contact via the sputnik. And the sweet couple didn’t forget about me. Kaya linked in to Hannelore via her air port and sent me a message that unexpectedly popped out of my orphaned battle manitou.

  ‘Happy birthday, Damilola, and thanks for the firework display! We love you! Kaya and Grim.’

  It’s probably no problem for Kaya to connect to Hannelore’s memory. It still has a lot of interesting and amusing things stored in it. Take Grim’s graduation essay, for instance, filmed from his manitou through the window. Or the photograph of the document in Upper Mid-Siberian, which the wind tumbled past his nose at Orkish Slava.

  Strangely enough, I don’t regret in the least that Grim wasn’t killed. On the contrary, I’m extremely glad about that turn of events. It’s the very thing that makes my revenge possible. The only thing I can’t understand is how my premonition could have misled me so badly. After all, I’ve seen death clearly reflected in his eyes, not just once but twice.

  But what’s to be done? It means I was wrong. It happens to everyone. All sorts of things can be discovered in the depths of Orkish eyes. Perhaps it’s simply the imprint left by a difficult childhood.

  Grim was a greatly hyped media figure, so his flight could have got into the news. But the story was skilfully hushed up. Chloe helped.

  By that time things were going wonderfully well for her – she had been given a supporting role in a snuff that they started shooting as material for the next war. A supporting role isn’t porn, so age doesn’t matter here. There are usually semi-naked creative young people with candlesticks standing around the conjoining aged celebrities. The viewer loves close-ups of chaste, youthful eyes, with the copulating stars reflected in their pupils – it’s pretty much like derporn, only in reverse, and without any moral ambiguity. While the creative young people hold the candlesticks, the senior sommeliers select their future giants from among them – it’s a long process, and it’s important to get the right start in it.

  Excerpts with Chloe in them were shown in the entertainment block (she even allowed herself the liberty of several hip movements approved by a lawyer), and then the presenter asked her about Grim. And Chloe, the clever girl, shed a little tear and complained in a thin little voice:

  ‘He used to raise his fist to me and once, when he was drunk, he said, “Go away, you stupid fool, you’ve got the face of war.”’

  The presenter’s answer to that was:

  ‘Perhaps we were too hasty in inviting him up here.’

  And that was it, Grim didn’t exist in this world any longer.

  But military men, of course have their own particular reality, and facts don’t fall out of it so easily.

  I sent my boss a report of what had happened – and I was summoned for a talk. It immediately became clear that no evacuator would be flying out to get my Hannelore. And my future prospects came under consideration.

  From now on I would be working only with rented equipment – that is, as I’ve already said, sucking dick for food. If I happened to take another brilliant long shot like the black Orkish octopus, the company would simply pay itself three million. And as for a new sura, I could forget about it – with zero collateral there was no real chance of getting a new loan. At the very best it was renting for the weekends. Taking some disinfectant-smelling blue-eyed blonde, with a sealed tuning block, from a rental outlet and hearing her say things like: ‘Right then, fatty, how about we play the birds and the bees? I really love our intrepid warriors of the air!’

  After the talk with my boss I got the feeling that up here they had always known about our neighbours. And feared them. There could be wizards living among them, capable of bringing down our offglobe by tootling on a reed pipe, the way it had already happened in Brazil. I was ordered to keep my mouth shut. The idiots, the blind, greedy idiots. It wasn’t wizards with reed pipes that they ought to be afraid of, but their own immediate business partners.

  And this brings me right up to the point in space, time and destiny at which I find myself now.

  A month after Grim bolted, we were bombed.

  That is, Big Byz itself wasn’t bombed, of course. They blew up the wall of the Circus.

  It was done by that self-same Torn Trojan from whom all our news channels were expecting changes. So he went ahead and arranged that. Now there will be very big changes.

  Why did he do it?

  Well, because Torn Durex was killed. Our people thought it was a lesson that would intimidate all future Orkish Kagans, and no one would ever dare to use gas as a weapon again.

  But Torn Trojan drew the exact opposite conclusion – he decided that in the end he would be dumped head-first into Orkish Slava in exactly the same way. And he decided to raise the stakes. He watched Star Wars again – to get his courage up (Orks who have access to Ancient Films have been comparing the offglobe to the Death Star for centuries), soused his noggin in durian (probably not the simple stuff, but free base – for half the Orkish budget) and resolutely blew up the wall of the Circus with a gas bomb.

  The most bizarre and galling thing about this whole story is that it was the report on the opening of Trig’s memorial that gave him the idea.

  It showed a cross-section of the mine that the Orkish secret police had supposedly dug under the home of the martyred pupo. A very fine drawing, thorough, and they showed it for a long time – they were obviously reluctant to let such a fine piece of work be wasted. And it definitely wasn’t. The Orks themselves would never in their lives have come up with that. But now they started thinking – why shouldn’t their repressive regime really throw out a challenge to the global community? Since they were chattering about it in the news anyway, and the regime itself was already in the process of being flushed down the drain …

  The Orks know how to dig, and they have gas too.

  Never drive dogs into a corner, not even your own working dogs. They start to bite. But it’s too late to recall this ancient wisdom now.

  They moved the bomb in through a tunnel dug from Slava. Not a single one of our cameras spotted this work going on – no one approached the wall on the surface, and they simply weren’t expecting a tunnel. Why not? Well, because everyone who could give the nod for it to be done kept his manitou with us.

  Not one can understand how our special services could slip up over something like that. After all, we record all of the Kagans’ communications. I recall a conversation in which the Orkish secret police tried in all seriousness to persuade the Kagan not to carry his emerald Vertu around with him, because the people could always tell where he was. Our sommeliers were just rolling around the floor with laughter.

  ‘Anyone would think we couldn’t do it without the phone. If necessary, the Kagan will call in himself to report …’

  Well, now what have they got to laugh at? Torn Trojan didn’t talk to anyone about the bomb on his mobile. And he didn’t call us.

  Actually, some discoursemongers said that the rationale behind it was all to do with economics. In former years Global Orks could steal down below and hide what they stole up above, because it could be magically transmuted into a special non-material condition. This is a complex alchemical mechanism, comprehensible only to people such as David-Goliath Arafat Zuckerberger. The wealth that a Global Ork possesses is like points awarded to him by the Manitou Reserve. So naturally, this can only be kept with us.

  Global Orks had been doing that all their lives. And then suddenly they noticed that the high-flyers in the Reserve had inconspicuously awarded themselves a lot more of these points, with the result that the Orks now seemed to have very few of them, although for a long time before this they had had more and more points every year. Of course, they felt insulted by this injustice. So their top brass started wondering why they had to steal and go for each other’s throats day after day, while the topside guys, based on annual results, simply pronounce themselves ten times richer – a feat that they achieve by prodding elegantly at the keyboard with their well-manicured nails. So it all went bang.

  But our vibrant Orkish community didn’t celebrate for long. It turned out that our security people had a detailed plan of action in case of sabotage. And the doors of all London apartments that belonged to Orkish top screws suddenly locked solid. At the same time the water, electricity and air were cut off. And then the London outside the window went out. And for the remainder of their lives (from some units, with a large volume of air inside, tapping was still heard for another five days or so) what they saw through their windows was no longer the gloomy and magnificent city on the Thames, but the sulphurous campfires of Lower Shitfall, their religious hell – programmed in perfect keeping with Orkish iconography, only realistically and in high definition, together with infrasound croaking of the Toads of Retribution and a pungent faecal smell. All this had been prepared by the House of Manitou a long, long time ago, for use if required.

  The rich Global Orks were lucky – they died quickly, after jumping from their open balconies onto Orkish Slava. A couple of them even took the balcony ‘bollocks’ with them on their final journey – and the news channels found time to laugh at that (‘You’ve already heard about the Kagan’s prayer, dear viewers, but now we’ll show you the Kagan’s jump as performed by a group of Orkish investors.’). Orks have never been really liked in London. The people who say that our media have played a certain role in this might possibly have a point here.

  I’m joking, in case you haven’t realised. Everyone everywhere is joking now.

  The explosion damaged the support solenoid of the gravity drive, or whatever it is that the sommeliers call it. Nothing can be repaired, because to do that everything has to be switched off. And if everything’s switched off, we’ll fall straightaway.

  Basically, we’re going to fall anyway now – the technical sommeliers gave us one month after the explosion at the most, and that month has already passed. It’s hard to believe in the inevitability of a catastrophe, because there aren’t even any cracks in the wall of the Circus – it looks the same as before. There’s just black smoke rising up from under the ground in two places. Only a very little bit. But because of that smoke the manitou is now showing scenes from Titanic – that was one of the Ancient Films.

  Evacuation is ongoing. But we won’t be able to transfer our critical technologies down below in the time that’s left. And that means that very soon we shall be fighting the Orks on equal terms. There’ll be probably enough shells for my generation. But after that they’ll simply devour us.

  The most interesting thing is that it took them a whole two days to kill Torn Trojan, because he buried his emerald mobile phone in the forest, in a false dugout with several gas cans. When three battle cameras homed in on his signal, they were blown up too. The guys were experienced enough pilots, but they immediately dropped straight down to ground level – since they were competing with each other. Each of them wanted to shoot the villain in person and sell the close-up for a good fee. They were thinking of what a big bang they could make in the news. And they made one – probably even bigger than they wanted. I wouldn’t have got caught out like that. But for the basic wage other people can do the flying.

  Pilots, never forget: under any circumstances the most important thing is to have altitude in reserve. It can always be converted into speed. But speed can’t always be converted into height. And the worst thing of all is when you have neither height nor speed.

  Which is the situation we’ll all find ourselves in soon. Big Byz will no longer exist. But Orkland … Eschatological conspiracy theory has been in fashion with the Orks for hundreds, if not thousands of years. But their Urkaganate is so vile that there’s not much chance of it ever being in any real danger. The problems will start if they ever want to improve.

  Of course, some people will survive in the new world. Take Chloe, for instance. Before being evacuated she came running home and looked for things to take down below. I remember her well. Three layers of make-up, five platinum chains with diamonds and a gold brooch. Grim was exactly right when he said she had the face of war, that’s exactly what it is. She’ll find herself something to do.

  But how the aged porn stars with their lapdogs and trailers will settle in down below is a great puzzle. On the other hand, our crack discoursemongers will have an excellent opportunity to learn for themselves in the Orkish marketplace how much their free word weighs without close air support.

  The unidentified patriots who have being printing manitous for us – and, naturally, themselves – all this time (and are possibly still continuing with their labours even at this moment) will probably get by all right. Bernard-Henri, I recall, compared them with spiders that digest flies by pumping spittle into them. As long as there are flies, the spiders will still be around. But even so, it’s not clear from where they’ll be injecting manitous into the world now, and to where they’ll be sucking out the vital strength of mankind, dissolved in their venomous emissions. However, it’s best not to go too deeply into this subject, since no one has rescinded the law on hate speech – and it would be doubly stupid to fall victim to it in these terrible days.

  Basically, no one will have an easy time of it down below.

  And there are even some who have decided to stay.

  I’m glad that I am one of them.

  Everything that I loved in this world is already in the past – so what good is a future to me? What would happen to my clumsy, fat body in Orkland? Thanks for the offer, but no. I’ve observed this life through a gunsight for far too long.

  Throughout this final month that the technicians gave us I haven’t been scurrying about or packing things, but calmly setting my jottings in order. Of course, I’ve been greatly assisted by the creative articulator, and now my work is practically completed. I’ll be polishing it right up to the last minute – but there might be something I don’t have time for, so please don’t be too hard on me. As soon as the farewell sirens order me to put in the final full stop, I’ll send this book via the sputnik to the address of my paralysed Hannelore, and then my little darling can download it via her air link, and the local scribes will write it on bulls’ skins, or whatever the fashion is there nowadays.

  Let Kaya and Grim not pity me, for they have nothing to love me for (naturally, as applied to Kaya the words ‘love’ and ‘pity’ signify only imitative patterns – but there’s no other way to say it).

  It’s entirely possible that in a hundred years their new tribal kinsmen – those sullen guys with crossbows and coloured ribbons in their hair – will be grabbing my composition out of each other’s hands. And by that day it will be the final monument to our great culture.

  But then, my little darling would ask, what is any culture if not a pre-programmed sequence of electrical impulses passing through human synapses, which allows some people to laugh and crack jokes as they kill others? The word ‘great’ is only appropriate because any human greatness has the same electrochemical nature …

  And now for the most important thing.

  I have asked myself many times: why, oh why did my only love choose Grim, without even waiting for me to pay off the loan I took out for her? The answer is so simple and obvious that I would never have thought of it myself if the compassionate consultant (he is also staying here) had not enlightened me.

  Simply because that’s the way she’s programmed. Her control codes include a series of operators that make her simulate sexual preferences in a specific way. This sub-programme orders her to select well-proportioned young males and to do it demonstratively – in the timid hope that all the other males will fight with each other over this, and there’ll be lots of flesh and blood all over the place.