biomass. His philosophy was the most complete fossil of its kind ever found. I could have sworn I saw a gravitational tide around him, the hidden physics of hypocrisy, its sickly scaffolding shoring up his bulk. He raised a bullhorn. ‘I’m having a lotta fun over here, nearly more than I can handle. Sure you don’t wanna join me? Even the coldest among you gotta feel tempted. Use of deadly force is authorised, as usual. Nuns, bargain-hunters, unbiased observers - I’ve damaged them all.’ He talked a little more but that was the gist of it. The ballistic charm escalated, echoes slapping back between the stale, half-eaten buildings.
The Fed girl rolled over, handing me a rifle whose architecture was densely ornamented with crazy golden scrollwork and other ceremonial lavishness. I wasn’t new to exotic ordnance but I’d never seen anything like it. It looked like a gun built by Aztecs. The body was zoom-flake pineapple gold upholstered in burgundy leather round the stock and fore-end.
‘You want me to...’
‘You’re ready to do more than that.’
I’d dismissed it as a coffee table gun but under all the translucent tortoiseshell it looked to be a rail cannon, its barrel the width of a toilet-paper tube. I test-fired a single shot that left the flared bellmouth with no more sound than a snapping icicle. Such experiments always aroused opposition or the pretence of it in the hope of profit, and I could see the cops perking up. Through the telescopic sight I watched them dart this way and that amid their roadblock, under a sky ulcerated with clouds. I knew at last where we were - I could see behind them the bruise-blue silhouette of Olympus Dump. I pressed the firing stud on repeat-fire, the volley sounding like the flurring of a tight deck of cards. Later I learned the gun was smartened, the rails charged with contrary accelerant powered by the victim’s preference to live. That so many of the shots smacked the dirt well short of the blockade was due more to the cops’ despair than my rusty aim. But enough hit home, stitching armour and popping cherry lights. Glass exploded into a surf of jumping pearls. Three cops went down, two by ricochet, I think. Many evinced surprise, though they would have been baffled if their gunfire were not reciprocated.
Recoil is like hearing your own accent. I hadn’t fired a gun in seven years and it felt like someone had punched me in the shoulder. I’d forgotten, it was a real workout.
Guns started snapping off all over, unexacting but lively. Jose came out of nowhere, trotting to a crouching halt behind the crinkled snout of the flipped cab. He wasn’t our ally but of course he was versus the cops so he was happy to hunker nearby on our right but at a slight angle. The ARG kids were on our left behind a fallen gun shop billboard, also at a slight angle that satisfied their independence. Ideally a complete circle would allow for everyone. Without the cops, our three emplacements could close to a triangle. The crappiest arrangement would be a square. Why? I pictured a conflict fractal, the same patterns repeated at every scale.
The girl Murphy had switched to a Kratos triage rifle, blasting monochrome judex ammo that hit quite low in the overall composition. A grenade went off and the debris sprayed forward. The little pop-spanner lost its head and stood still, motivations forgotten. A kid skidded forty feet before rolling loosely to rest, and the cops had a field day emptying bullets into the already lifeless and boring body.
These shots and explosions inevitably seemed mere frivolities to those not involved in our dispute, and several passers-by stopped to corrugate their foreheads in our direction. One in particular also held up a dog, its frowning face next to his own doubling the sentiment of puzzled disapproval. It was a great bit of work and I started laughing. But when I shouted at the Fed girl to look at the dog I found I was pointing at empty air, the passers-by having satisfied their curiosity and moved on. My voice petered out even as I vouched for the dog’s dependability. I couldn’t blame Murphy for her look of disbelief.
‘Give yourselves up,’ bellowed Blince through the loudhailer, ‘if you dare.’ I could tell he was barely paying attention. Rather than moving upward in his career he was swelling without any special direction. ‘I conquered my fear of betrayal, so can you. Surrender at the nearest and dearest opportunity and we’ll extend you every courtesy, up to and including arbitrary blame and exquisite violence.’
‘Hardly a novel danger,’ I shouted. I was getting into the swing of things. Someone else asked what securities they were offering by way of guarantee. This was met with the traditional silence from the brotherhood and the ballistic exchange continued.
Everyone was up and at it, running around and enjoying themselves. The triage fire was barely dividing, heading straight for the roadblock. The cops hurled curses at us for finding fault with them, yet they were the first to suggest that we throw down our own weapons. They complained that we had offered them no payment and we countered that they should therefore not be here. It was the old argument backed by the grand old wall of fire. Nothing was too rich or precise for it. Did it feel forced? Maybe I was projecting.
Jose didn’t help. He had switched to single-shot and was firing in a contrary style that was only heightened by his obvious self-satisfaction. For a while he scuttled several feet backward with every shot, as if mirroring the bullet’s trajectory. Then he would shout a word inaudibly at the same instant he fired, so that even the finest marksmen felt they were missing something. Finally his encouraging cry of ‘Go!’ just after shooting, supplanted by his peering through an opera glass to spectate the bullet’s progress, created in everyone a sense of dismal failure and boredom.
A burning squadcar peeled off, snapping over the headless free gun and fishtailing from side to side. Then it slowed to a stop, the driver emerging to roll around and beat at the flames, or perhaps he was energetically waving his arms and legs to communicate something he’d realised amid this extremity. Several kids shot at him, not with the wholehearted delight one would expect but with a grim maturity, as though it was a duty. I jerked my head around at a sharp explosion. Jose was replaced where he stood by a cloud of blood. Blince was firing a Hardballer while stuffing his face with a submarine sandwich.
My rail gun flurred on empty. Murphy tapped me on the arm and I saw she was priming some sort of goop unit. She pitched it and we ran. The muscle grenade expanded, ramming the street with meat. The undifferentiated tissue began dissolving almost immediately, but it was enough to clog everyone in position for several moments. We quickly left the messy series of reprimands and counter-reprimands behind us.
We found the Mantarosa and I opened a pint screen in the dash. Madison Drowner frowned out. ‘Why don’t you come through?’
‘Got company - coker.’
‘Fed?’
‘And the Hand’s missing from the recharging well. I need your help on launch windows for a timebomb.’
‘Pipe or sphere?’
‘Sphere.’
‘Transparent kinda like a powerball?’
‘More metallic colours like a Christmas decoration, but faceted.’
‘It’s probably a Vanzetti LPR - localised progress reset device. There are three default settings: ten minutes, ten hours, 24 hours. You look like hell.’
I peered in a wing-mirror - my face was bruised purple black across the middle, like there was a vulture flying out of my eyeline. My hair was spiky with dried blood. ‘Colour me damaged, babe. Back soon.’
‘See that you are.’
I popped the beak of the car to free the swan unit. Folded down to the size of a toy harp, it was like an obstetric sculpture in white plastic. ‘Wake up,’ I whispered, and the swan unfolded itself wing
