The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees Read Free Book Online Page A

revealed?
    Nothing.
    Oh, after much deliberation and head-scratching the Party in the shape of His Holiness Aleister Crowley had officially classified the Boundary as a Selectively Permeable Magical Membrane, but that was just a fancy way of saying that neither the Party nor Aleister Crowley had a clue what it really was. All they – or anybody else, for that matter – knew was that the Boundary Layer was the transparent wall that surrounded theDemi-Monde and prevented Man from moving into the Great Beyond.
    And as such the Boundary Layer was at the centre of the schism that had divided the religions of the Demi-Monde and kept them at each other’s throats. Was – as the UnFunnies had it – the Boundary Layer there to keep nasty things like Daemons out, or – as Ratties believed – was its purpose to keep DemiMondians in? That, in a nutshell, was the dilemma that was the Containment, the key philosophical question that had bedevilled thinkers since time immemorial: was the DemiMonde a sanctuary or a prison?
    Whatever the Boundary Layer’s purpose, it was a wall that the harder you pushed against it, the harder it pushed back. The only things that seemed to be able to traverse the Boundary Layer were light, air and the waters of the five Spoke Rivers.
    Nothing else.
    It was an invisible and impenetrable wall that extended thirty feet below ground level where it made a seamless join with the Mantle and extended up … well, no one knew quite how far up into the sky the Boundary stretched. That daredevil Speke had ridden one of the new hydrogen balloons to an altitude of over six thousand feet and the Boundary had still been there, so it was anybody’s guess how high it really went.
    Trixie drew a hand lovingly over the surface of the Boundary, feeling it ripple slightly as she did so. The thirty feet of topsoil of the Great Beyond was clearly seen through the Layer … so close and yet so very far away.
    The strange thing was that – as far as Trixie could tell – the nanoBites that inhabited the soil of the Great Beyond never got closer than twenty feet to the surface. That was why there were so many great trees in the forests of the Beyond: there weren’t any nanoBites nibbling at their roots. Not like here inthe Demi-Monde’s Urban Band. There weren’t many trees in the Urban Band as the nanoBites came within five feet of the surface and made short work of their roots. Luigi had only been able to dig the pit because it was Winter and the nanoBites were hibernating.
    One day, Trixie was determined, she would penetrate the Boundary Layer and understand the mysteries of the Great Beyond. One day she would understand all the mysteries of the Demi-Monde. One day she would be the most famous of all RaTionalists.
    ‘It really gettin’ awful, awful late, Miss Trixie. We gotta be home real soon.’
    Luigi’s whining voice cut through Trixie’s reverie. With a sigh she dragged her fob watch out of her pocket.
    Dancing Daemons!
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me that was the time, Luigi?’ Trixie demanded as she scrabbled up the ladder leading to the top of the pit. ‘You stupid, stupid man! If I’m late it will be your fault. I’ll have Governess Margaret tan the astral ether off your useless Eyetie arse!’

5
The Real World: 12 June 2018
     
An α-Class Singularity (aka Dark Charismatic, Hi-Level Psychotic) may be defined as an individual demonstrating such distorted and aberrational force of personality and such singularity of purpose that they have the ability and the inclination to wrest power from existing governments, to overturn the politico-social status quo and to irreparably change existing cultural, moral and religious mores.
    – The Demi-Monde® Product Description Manual: 14 June 2013
     
    Captain Sanderson led Ella out of the General’s office and back along Fort Jackson’s labyrinthine corridors. Being out of the General’s presence helped the Captain relax: he chatted quite amiably to her as they