Rusk: That's a brilliant little christmas gangster story, love it. Might have benefited from being a little longer so we could get more of a grip on who the characters were (the single-letter codenames didn't help), but that's the limitations of the competition, really. Really good tale though.
I'll sneak my own entry in, because why not? Something of an experiment using the unconventional 2nd-person future-tense.
A Choice
The offer will be a good one. At first, you’ll refuse, make excuses, ask for time to consider. They’ll let you – they know that nobody ever says no in the end. Human nature is all too predictable in these matters. So they’ll nod in sombre acceptance, as if they've never seen anyone display your presence of mind before, and acquiesce. You’ll leave the gathering, removing your hooded robe only after a mile’s walk and sixteen changes of direction, and your mind will be churning.
Why not accept? By then you’ll have already accepted that there are other powers in the universe than the God-Emperor alone. It’s not heresy, you’ll tell yourself, not really. Just the simple realisation of the truth. It’s not as if you’ll
deny the God-Emperor – you’ll still love him more than any. It’s just that you’ll realise that His boons tend to only make themselves known post-mortem. A shield for the soul is all well and good, but you’ll reason that it doesn't do much to help the body.
These other powers, the ones the group will tell you about once you accept their offer to slip out after curfew, these powers will take care of your life. They’ll give you passion to fuel your drive, intelligence to plan success, strength to carry those plans to fruition, and toughness against the hardships along the road. That won’t sound so bad to you, not after thirty-four years of toil in the counting-houses of the administratum, looking up at the next rung on the ladder hanging just too far above for you to reach.
These new powers, the Ones Beyond The Veil as the group names them – you’ll try to remember the individual names, the monikers of the Great Four, but every time they’ll slip from the cusp of your memory as you leave the group in the dead darkness of the small hours – these powers will give you the helping hand you need to just reach up far enough to grasp that next rung. And the one after that, and the one after. That’s the first thing your mind will latch on to, when they tell you – the
possibilities, how far might you go? How high might you reach? You’ll recall the guesses you made about the identities of some of the other group members, looking at mannerisms and accents and the glinting of rings beneath wide sleeves, recall dismissing those guesses because why would
those kinds of people associate with a clandestine meeting of midhive manufactory workers, forlorn clerks and typists? And you’ll pause on your walk home, and you’ll start to reconsider. Maybe
they accepted. Maybe they started where you are. Maybe they took that helping hand up and now they want to spread it to the rest? To you?
It will be a powerful lure. Only once you get back home to the safety of your hab, once you’ve checked you haven’t been noticed or followed and thrown your robe into the compartment prised open inside your kitchen wall, once you’ve sat down with a strong mug of recaf and begun to slow your mind down from its kaleidoscopic imaginings – only then will you consider the price they asked.
It won’t sound much. A pint of blood to open the way, that surely won’t hurt? You’ll half-remember hearing from one of the medicaes at work that the body contains ten or more. An electoo, in a place that you’ll be allowed to choose. Again, it won’t be a hardship – you’ll be able to keep it dark, get it someplace unnoticed, maybe your foot. Just a mark, really, a show of commitment to the group. A favour, they’ll ask for, to be paid in future at a time of their asking. It won’t sound unfair – they’re doing this for you, after all. It won’t be unreasonable for them to ask you to do something to pay them back later on. And they’ll ask you, almost as an afterthought, to bring someone else into the fold, another hooded face in the family.
You’ll ask yourself again, sitting there contemplating the steam rising from your recaf –
why not? They’ll have been a good group to you. The hoods and robes and insistence on anonymity will strike you as a little melodramatic at first, but in time you’ll realise that they’re part security and part atmosphere. If nobody knows who anybody else is, then if the enforcers catch one on their way to or from, they won’t be able to identify the others, bring the enforcers down on everybody’s heads. Not that you’re breaking the law too much, you’ll tell yourself. Just out after curfew, meeting some friends somewhere you can talk without the vox-thieves recording every stray sound and word. The enforcers won’t like it, but it’s not like you’ll be
hurting anyone. In fact, you’ll help them, just like they’ll help you. You’ll get advice, brotherhood, and after they get a handle on you, you’ll get a glimpse of what the galaxy can really do for you.
But there’ll still be that little niggling thought, the tiny voice insisting that opening yourself up to any power save the God-Emperor is wrong, heretically wrong. It won’t be easy to silence it, despite all your mental arguments. You’ll wrestle with it long after you’ve finished your recaf and crawled into bed for a fitful few hours of sleep, and you’ll still wrestle with it all the while you sit at your cogitator terminal at work. Your supervisor will berate you for your distraction – your work will be slow, mistakes frequent – but you won’t be able to bring yourself to care. They will not see that you wrestle with a problem bigger than the mundane administratum complex that whittles away your years.
The frustration will mount. You’ll find yourself annoyed with the mundane trials of the daily grind, your mind will be grappling with higher matters. You’ll find the stories of your colleagues dry and bland next to the possibilities offered you by the group.
The lure, as it always does, will grab you. By the time you go back, three nights later, you will have made up your mind.
Yes.And from that moment, you will have damned yourself to a life of darkness beyond your deepest fears, until you die screaming under the Question.
So think on, little clerk, when hooded men come bearing gifts.
(1068 words, including title)
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