Free The Adjacent by Christopher Priest Page A

you believe me?’ he said.
    ‘Yes, I do.’ She removed her hand from beneath his leg, lightly tapped the implant behind her ear. ‘I felt them go.’
    ‘Is that thing always on?’
    ‘Twenty-four seven, but I can suppress it when I want to sleep.’ She reached out to take his camera from him. Reluctantly, he let her hold it. She held it up, as if lining up a shot. ‘I don’t understand how it can take photographs without a lens.’
    ‘There’s a lens, but it’s not optical. It’s called a quantum lens. I haven’t used a camera with an optical lens for more than a year.’
    He pointed out where the three tiny shards at the front of the camera were recessed. He touched the release and they rose silently to form a shallow tepee over the microprocessor aperture. He felt in himself the easy pleasure of talking about the one subject he loved. ‘These sensors work at particle or sub-particle level. They digitally radicalize the image when the shutter is opened. An electronic lens is more or less automatic: it focuses, sets the aperture, the shutter speed, all in one operation. I can override the settings, but when it’s set to auto every shot is always in focus, always correctly exposed. They haven’t found a way to stop a Mebsher shaking my camera hand, but that will probably be the next technical upgrade.’
    He was speaking lightly, but when he looked up at her he knew something in her had changed – the relaxed playfulness had disappeared.
    ‘Is it your own camera?’ she said.
    ‘This one is. I’m evaluating the other two for the manufacturers.’
    ‘Don’t you realize it’s illegal to use that kind of camera?’
    ‘I told you I had licences.’
    ‘Licences are irrelevant. If that camera is using adjacency technology, then taking photographs with it was banned last year.’
    ‘I never heard about that.’
    ‘Ignorance of the law is no defence –’
    ‘I was away,’ Tarent said.
    ‘Yes, you were in Turkey – in fact, there’s no law against them there, as it happens. But you can’t use them anywhere else in Europe.’
    ‘Why should they be banned? They’re just cameras.’
    ‘Quantum technology has been declared toxic. There are known to be occasional health risks for the user, and for anyone else in range. Too many side-effects.’
    ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. How can a camera have side-effects? And what kind of illness am I supposed to have suffered? I’ve been using these cameras for more than a year.’
    ‘I don’t remember all the technical arguments. There was an advisory committee, and when the results of the tests were confirmed the Kalifate passed an emergency Act. There is a risk in using them, intermittent but apparently serious.’
    ‘What harm can they do? They’ve had no adverse effect on me.’
    ‘How do you know? Anyway, you should hand them in.’
    ‘These are how I make my living. There must be a way round this law for professional photographers.’
    Flo touched the implant on her neck. ‘Want me to find out for sure? I can do it now.’
    ‘No, because then you’ll pull rank on me and I’ll have to give them up. Let me get this debriefing out of the way, then when I’m back in London I’ll talk to the people I work with. If necessary I’ll change the cameras then.’
    ‘They’ll tell you the same as me.’
    ‘Maybe so. Come on, Flo – you’re not in the office now.’
    Flo reached out to take the camera from him again, but he swung away from her and placed it back in its case. He plugged it into the recharger. He put all three of the cameras into the tiny closet. She watched him, and as he closed the closet door he looked enquiringly at her, wondering if she was going to keep arguing with him. Instead, her mood had changed abruptly again. She was sitting across from him on the bed, leaning back in a relaxed way on her elbows.
    ‘So, we agreed we’d like another fuck?’ she said.
    Her mood change made him incredulous. ‘I thought after that