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They stood before me, skin like chalk, eyes like pissholes in the snow. Colourless flyaway hair, purple lips, and endless smiles that meant nothing, nothing at all. They were entirely naked, untouched by piercings or tattoos or any such trappings. Such lesser things were not for them. Just hanging on the air before me, silent and inviting, they were still the most blatantly sexual things I had ever seen. They had all the impact of the first nude photos you ever saw, the first object of desire, the first boy or girl you ever wanted, and the first you ever lost. I wanted them and I was afraid of them, and God alone knows what I would have done if my torc hadn’t been there to protect me from the worst of their influence.
I knew the four names, but not which was who. I don’t think anyone does anymore. Perhaps not even them. One of the women spoke to me. Her voice sounded like she had ice in her veins and a fever in her head.
"What do you want here? What’s your pleasure?"
I had to clear my throat before I could speak, and even then my voice wasn’t as steady as I would have liked. "I need to consult your computers. I need information, the kind only you might possess."
"What do you offer in payment?" said one of the men. His voice was calm, cheerful, confidential, and about as human as a spider scuttling across your arm. "Information in return, perhaps; or money, or your seed? You’d be surprised what we could make from your seed, freely given."
"Information," I said quickly. My mouth was very dry, and my legs were shaking. "First, a secret location used by a Drood field agent, on the outskirts of London." And I gave them the address of the garage I’d just abandoned. "Second, the name of the Drood field agent who’s just been declared rogue and is on the run here in London: Edwin Drood."
All four of them actually shivered with delight at the prospect of getting their hands on a new rogue Drood, the first in years. They rose and fell on the air, laughing silently, their chalk white skin shimmering brightly. If they could seduce and corrupt the rogue to their cause, they would have access to secrets and information no one else had. They commanded me to follow them and floated off towards the centre of the room, descending slowly until they walked on the bodies that moved unstoppably beneath them. I struggled after them, my feet slipping and sliding on the sweat-covered bodies. I stared straight ahead. You can’t keep glancing down and apologising. And finally, in the exact centre of the cavernous room, the four founding Chelsea Lovers impersonally levered people out of the way to reveal a large puckered orifice in the floor. They gestured, and it dilated open, revealing only darkness and a sudden pungent smell on the air, like supercharged ci
And found myself suddenly in a brightly lit, high-tech environment that was the complete antithesis of everything above. It was a circular room barely twenty feet in diameter, crowded with all the latest computer equipment. But the computers had burst open, their silicon contents spilling out like fruiting bodies, spreading themselves up the walls and across the ceiling like silver ivy, even dropping down in encrustations like silicon stalactites. The computers here were living things, growing things, fuelled by the sexual energies from above. Self-centred, self-perpetuating. The air-conditioning gusted like heavy breathing, and the monitor screens all around me could have been eyes or mouths or other orifices. The four Chelsea Lovers stood together in the middle of it all, looking at me expectantly.
"Word is, there’s a traitor inside the Drood family," I said. "I want to know everything you know about that."
They nodded in eerie unison, and one of them ran a hand caressingly over a computer console. It was a slow, sensuous lover’s touch. I could feel beads of sweat popping out on my forehead. Normal people weren’t supposed to be exposed to things like the Chelsea Lovers. Just their presence was toxic to ordinary humans. The computers hummed thoughtfully to themselves. The Chelsea Lovers stood together, in the same stance, even breathing in unison. Their eyes didn’t blink as they considered me. I could feel a presence, a pressure, forming in the room. A desire, a need, a physical imperative…
"What’s it all for?" I said abruptly. "I mean, all of this. The Chelsea Lovers. The Kit Kat Club. The sex magic and the computers. What’s the point of it all?"
"Apocalypse," said one of the women, and they all smiled a little more widely. "The real sexual revolution, come at last. We want to turn the whole world on. Using sex magic, computer magic, ritual and passion, instinct and logic, flesh and silicon bonded together in unthought-of ways, to work a tidal change in reality itself. We will make the whole world sexual. Fetishize everything in it, the living and unliving, suffusing the whole world with a passion and an appetite that will never end. A great joyous sexual apocalypse, the climax of history. The biggest bang of all. Endless sensation, endless pleasure…And we shall all worship the new flesh, forever and ever and ever…"
She broke off as a face appeared on all the monitor screens at once. The computers had discovered the identity of the new rogue Drood, and it was me. My face was on every wall, with my real name beneath it. The family had released my true identity to the world. The Chelsea Lovers turned as one to orientate themselves on me. They weren’t smiling anymore. They each thrust one hand out at me, and sex hit me like a fist. I cried out, convulsing helplessly as passion burned in me like a fever, like the nightmares you have when your temperature rises and your blood boils in your brain. I wanted to go to them, on my hands and knees if necessary, and worship their flesh with my own. I would have begged, would have died, for their lightest touch, for the pleasure of their favour.
But there was still just enough Drood training and pride left in me to hold them off, just enough for me to be able to subvocalise the Words, and my armour flashed around me, golden and glorious, sealing me off from all attack. I staggered backwards, suddenly myself again, like a man who lurches back from the very edge of a cliff. The Chelsea Lovers cried out in one awful voice, full of rage at the sight of Drood armour. I jumped up, the strength of my legs amplified by my armour, and I went soaring up through the orifice and back into the Kit Kat Club above.
I erupted back into that fleshy, cavernous place, and people fell back from me, shouting and screaming. I had broken the mood, or the Chelsea Lovers had. I ran for the door, and all at once, in answer to some unheard signal, everyone in the room surged forward to attack me. Blows and kicks came from every direction, though I couldn’t feel them through the armour, and naked people grabbed at my arms and legs, trying to pull me down. I ran on, kicking and pushing people out of the way, and none of them could slow or stop me. They clutched at me with endless hands and crowded in before me, blocking the way to the door with their bare bodies. I focused on just moving forward, not striking out, though every instinct yelled in me to fight. With my armour’s strength I could kill these people, and I didn’t want to do that. Unlike some of my family, I still believed in (mostly) i
I could see the door, up ahead. The huge bouncer came forward to stop me, his huge hands opening and closing eagerly. I hit him once, and he fell backwards, blood flying on the air, to be trampled underfoot by the packed crowds still pressing forward. Strange forces crackled on the air around me, sex magic and computer energies from the room below, crawling over my armour, trying to force a way in. There were screaming faces all around me now, desperate people clutching at me, wrapping their arms around my legs, reaching down from the ceiling to clatter their hands uselessly against my golden head. Naked men and women crawled all over me, slowing me down by sheer weight and press of bodies.