The Long War

whispered, “So much left to do.” Now you have the chance to do more. What do you say? Will you be Boswell to my Johnson, Agnes? Watson to my Holmes? Satan to my Miltonic God?’
    ‘Your nagging wife?’
    He laughed, an eerie, not quite human sound.
    Sister Agnes was uncharacteristically silent for some time. The loudest noise was the not-quite-authentic fire. In this womb of a room, she felt stuffy, enclosed. She longed to be out of here. Out on the open road – ‘What happened to my Harley?’
    ‘Joshua had it stored properly: off the ground, tyres over-inflated, fuel drained from the tank, everything greased up.’
    ‘Will I be able to ride it? I mean, will I be physically capable—’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And will this wretched alchemy of yours allow me to drink beer?’
    ‘Most certainly.’
    ‘Where the hell am I, by the way?’
    ‘In Sweden. At the headquarters of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Black Corporation’s medical division. It’s a nice crisp day outside.’
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘There are bikes. I thought ahead, you see. Not Harleys, but . . . Would you like to go for a ride?’
    It was tempting. To be young again. Young, and on the road . . .
    ‘In a moment,’ she said firmly. ‘How’s Joshua?’

27
    S O J OSHUA FOUND himself sitting with Sister Agnes reincarnate, in a shabby coffee shop in Madison West 5.
    It was an odd atmosphere. Two people trying to get a grip on this inexplicable new world: a world where the dead could rise and sit cheerfully sipping a coffee while talking of old times . . . Two people not quite finding the words that needed to be said. As it was, however, for now, the smiles were doing the job.
    Agnes sat upright, a bit primly, sipping her coffee. Maybe her features were just a little too regular, her skin a little too smooth, to be convincingly human.
    But as far as Joshua was concerned, too many of the regulars in this coffee shop, mostly Low Earth construction workers, took a much too irreligious interest in Agnes’s new curves. ‘They ought to have more respect for the wimple.’
    ‘Oh, hush. All men are rudimentary creatures who respond to symbols a lot more basic than a habit and a crucifix.’
    ‘I can’t quite believe this is happening.’
    ‘Neither can I. And it’s hard to even believe I’m here to do the disbelieving, if you know what I mean.’
    When he looked up she was smiling, that flagstone-cracking beam of a smile that had always made her look twenty years younger. Agnes’s smile wasn’t the kind of smile that the regular world would associate with the word ‘nun’. It was a smile that had always contained a touch of mischief, and also a terrible rage, kept in check until it was needed. This was what had enabled her to sustain the Home, and her many other projects, in the face of opposition from the Vatican on down. The smile and the rage.
    She sipped her coffee quite convincingly, just as Lobsang’s ambulant units always had; he tried not to think about the internal plumbing that made this possible. Now she lowered her cup and looked on him with pride, it seemed. ‘Ah, me. And here you are, a full-grown man, a father, a mayor—’
    ‘Lobsang did this to you.’
    ‘He did,’ she said warningly, ‘though he used some careless talk from you as an excuse to do it, young man. We’ll have to have a serious chat about that.’
    ‘How? I mean—’
    ‘Either I was downloaded from my poor dying brain via some kind of neural scan into a bucket of gel, or I was brought back by Tibetan monks chanting the Book of the Dead over my already interred corpse for forty-nine days. Lobsang tried both ways, he says.’
    Joshua smiled weakly. ‘That’s Lobsang, all right. “Always have a backup.” I came to your funeral, you know, but he kept the rest from me, I guess. I didn’t know about the reincarnation. Or the monks. They must have driven the Sisters crazy . . . Does anybody else know you’re back? I mean, at the Home—’
    ‘Yes, I got in touch with the Home as soon as I could. I asked for Sister Georgina, she was the least likely to go bananas when she picked up the phone and heard my voice, or so I thought. I got a note from the Archbishop, if you want to know. The Church picks up more secrets than Lobsang himself. But I’m not public knowledge yet. Of course I’ll have to come out, so to speak, some time, if I’m to assume my place in the world again. At least, thanks to Lobsang, I’m not the first, umm, revenant