The Light of Other Days. Stephen Baxter

A longer life – available exclusively from Billybob Meeks.’

      Bobby nodded. ‘But what's wrong with that?’

      ‘Bobby, look around. Old people are frightened of death. That makes them vulnerable to this kind of scam.’

      ‘What scam? Isn't it true that Grains actually works?’

      ‘After a fashion. The brain's internal clock actually runs more slowly for older people. And that's the mechanism Billybob is screwing around with.’

      ‘And the problem is –’

      ‘The side effects. What Grains does is to stimulate the production of dopamine, the brain's main chemical messenger. Trying to make an old man's brain run as fast as a child's.’

      ‘Which is a bad thing,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Right?’

      She frowned, baffled by the question; not for the first time she had the feeling that there was something missing about Bobby. ‘Of course it's a bad thing. It is malevolent brain-tinkering. Bobby, dopamine is involved in a lot of fundamental brain functions. If dopamine levels are too low you can suffer tremors, an inability to start voluntary movement – Parkinson's disease, for instance – all the way to catatonia. Too much dopamine and you can suffer from agitation, obsessive – compulsive disorders, uncontrolled speech and movement, addictiveness, euphoria. Billybob's congregation – I should say his victims – aren't going to achieve Eternity in their last hour. Billybob is cynically burning out their brains.

      ‘Some of the doctors are putting two and two together. But nobody has been able to prove anything. What I really need is evidence from his own labs that Billybob knows exactly what he is doing. Along with proof of his other scams.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘Such as embezzling millions of bucks from insurance companies by selling them phoney lists of church members. Such as pocketing a large donation from the Anti-Defamation League. He's still hustling, even though he's come a long way from banknote-baptisms.’ She glanced at Bobby. ‘Never heard of that? You palm a bill during a baptism. That way the blessing of God gets diverted to the money rather than the kiddie. Then you send the note out into circulation, and it's supposed to return to you with interest…and to make especially sure it works, of course, you hand the money over to your preacher. Word is Billybob picked up that endearing habit in Colombia, where he was working as a drug runner.’

      Bobby looked shocked. ‘You don't have any proof of that.’

      ‘Not yet,’ she said grimly. ‘But I'll get it.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘That's what I want to talk to you about…’

      He looked mildly stunned.

      She said, ‘Sorry. I'm lecturing you, aren't I?’

      ‘A little.’

      ‘I do that when I'm angry.’

      ‘Kate, you are angry a lot…’

      ‘I feel entitled. I've been on this guy's trail for months.’

      A drone robot floated over their heads, bearing sets of virtual Glasses-and-Gloves. ‘These Glasses-and-Gloves have been devised by RevelationLand Inc., in conjunction with OurWorld Corporation, for the full experience of RevelationLand. Your credit card or personal account will be billed automatically per online minute. These Glasses-and-Gloves…’

      Kate reached up and snagged two sets. ‘Show time.’

      Bobby shook his head. ‘I have implants. I don't need –’

      ‘Billybob has his own special way of disabling rival technologies.’ She lifted the Glasses to her head. ‘Are you ready?’

      ‘I guess –’

      She felt a moist sensation around her eye sockets, as the Glasses extruded membranes to make a light-tight junction with her flesh; it felt like cold wet mouths sucking at her face.

      She was instantly suspended in darkness and silence.

      Now Bobby materialized beside her, floating in space, holding her hand. His Glasses-and-Gloves were, of course, invisible.

      And soon her vision cleared further. People were hovering all around them, off as far as she could see, like a cloud of dust motes. They were all dressed in white robes and holding big, gaudy palm leaves – even Bobby and herself, she found. And they were shining in the light that streamed from the object that hung before them.

      It was a cube: huge, perfect, shining sun-bright, utterly dwarfing the flock of hovering people.

      ‘Wow,’ Bobby said again.

      ‘Revelation Chapter 21,’ she murmured. ‘Welcome to the New Jerusalem.’ She tried to throw away her palm leaf, but another simply appeared in her hand. ‘Just remember,’ she said, ‘the only real thing here is the steady flow of money out of your pockets and into Billybob's.’

      Together, they fell towards the light.

      

      The wall before her was punctured by windows and a line of three arched doorways. She could see a light within, shining even more brightly than the exterior of the building. Scaled against the building's dimensions, the walls looked as thin as paper.

      And still they fell towards the cube, until it loomed before them, gigantic, like some immense ocean liner.

      Bobby said, ‘How big is this thing?’

      She murmured, ‘St John tells us it is a cube twelve thousand stadia to each side.’

      ‘And twelve thousand stadia is –’

      ‘About two thousand kilometres. Bobby, this city of God is the size of a small moon. It's going to take a long time to fall in. And we'll be charged for every second, of course.’

      ‘In that case I wish I'd had a hot dog. You know, my father mentions you a lot.’

      ‘He's angry at me.’

      ‘Hiram is, umm, mercurial. I think on some level he found you stimulating.’

      ‘I suppose I should be flattered.’

      ‘He liked the phrase you used. Electronic anaesthesia. I have to admit I didn't fully understand.’

      She frowned at him, as together they drifted towards the pale grey light. ‘You really have led a sheltered life, haven't you, Bobby?’

      ‘Most of what you call “brain-tinkering” is beneficial, surely. Like Alzheimer studs.’ He eyed her. ‘Maybe I'm not as out of it as you think I am. A couple of years ago I opened a hospital wing endowed by OurWorld. They were helping obsessive-compulsive sufferers by cutting out a destructive feedback loop between two areas of the brain –’

      ‘The caudate nucleus and the amygdala.’ She smiled. ‘Remarkable how we've all become experts in brain anatomy. I'm not saying it's all harmful. But there is a compulsion to tinker. Addictions are nullified by changes to the brain's reward circuitry. People prone to rage are pacified by having parts of their amygdala – essential to emotion – burned out. Workaholics, gamblers, even people habitually in debt are “diagnosed” and “cured”. Even aggression has been linked to a disorder of the cortex.’

      ‘What's so terrible about all of that?’

      ‘These quacks, these reprogramming doctors, don't understand the machine they are tinkering with. It's like trying to figure out the functions of a piece of software by burning out the chips of the computer it's running on. There are always side-effects. Why do you think it was so easy for Billybob to find a football stadium to take over? Because organized spectator sport has been declining since 2015: the players no longer fought hard enough.’

      He smiled. ‘That doesn't seem too serious.’

      ‘Then consider this. The quality and quantity of