Free Prophet Margin by Simon Spurrier Page B

for the fiftieth time how daft it was for a man routinely in combat to wear such brightly coloured clothes. He dimly suspected some kind of brand sponsorship, but decided not to say anything. Alpha had been unnecessarily snippy since the whole episode with the rental car and the overhanging cliff.
    He sighed again, bored.
    "What are we doing here?" he griped, hand creeping unchecked towards the holster on his waist.
    "Just looking," Alpha said. "You never know what might show up."
    "The police have searched the place already," he grunted. "Didn't find a thing."
    "They didn't have my eyes." Sure enough, an ethereal glow lit the spaces beneath Alpha's brows. He gazed around, scanning.
    Kid Knee crossed his arms and sulked. "Just rubbing it in, now," he muttered, a little too loud.
    Alpha glanced up with a scowl. "Rubbing what in?"
    He sulked even harder. "Nothing. Doesn't matter." His hand hooked inside his waistband, creeping towards its prize.
    Alpha wasn't about to let it go. "No, come on. Something's been bugging you since the Doghouse."
    "Doesn't matter, I just-"
    "It does matter. You got a face like thunder."
    "You're doing it again!" He fought back angry tears, misery bubbling up.
    Alpha looked bewildered. "Kid, what is wrong with you?"
    "My face! You're making fun!"
    "What? No I'm n-"
    "It's him! The scientist! What he said!"
    Alpha looked towards the lectern. "Koszov? What did he say?"
    "You know what! On the video! 'Biologically Non Viable', that's what he called it!"
    "Now hang on a mi-"
    "He said... he said that if you want to judge how successful a mutation is, right, you got to look at how it affects a... 'a specimen's ability to pursue life goals'. Right?"
    "Well, yes..."
    "Yes! See? It's all right for you! You do that thing with the eyes. 'Oooh, look at me, I can see into your sssooouuull. I can plaaaaay with your miiiiiiind' Bastard!"
    "Kid, this isn't the ti-"
    "What good is being able to see out of my snecking leg? What sort of life-snecking-goal would that let me pursue, huh?"
    His fingers dug beneath the leather covering, struggling with the buckle. Alpha's eyes widened as he saw what the Kid was planning.
    "Kid, wait-"
    Too late. The hipflask was emptying its sweet, sweet gigastrength gin down the Kid's shin-throat before he could do a thing about it.
    "Idiot," Alpha grunted, helpless.
    Four gulps was all it took. Kid Knee felt the glorious pink cotton wool of inebriation snuggling itself around him, protecting him from the miseries of his biologically non-viable existence. He slipped off the chair, tumbled sluggishly onto his arse, then toppled sideways like an overbalanced spinning top. The motorcycle helmet parted company with his shoulders, bounced on the floor and rolled across the studio to clank lightly against the shattered aquarium. Johnny bent to pick it up, shaking his head.
    And stopped.
    Near the base of the aquarium, nestled behind the pulleys that lifted it from its recess, something caught his eye. In a conventional sense it was all but invisible: a smear of translucent matter encrusted like glue. But in Johnny's eyes, eyes that smouldered with the reflected activity of the entire electromagnetic gamut, it shimmered like a dying glow-worm.
    "Organic," he muttered to himself, scraping a layer of the substance into an evidence cartridge and slotting it carefully into a belt pocket.
    Kid Knee gargled on his own spit, snoring lightly. Johnny sighed and went to find the dressing rooms.
     
    He stepped beneath the police tape that cordoned-off Koszov's greenroom and glanced around, surprised. His expectations of showbiz tackiness, hybridised in this case by bubbling test tubes and technocrap, made way for a rather boring little room, putting him in mind of a cheap inter-system Votel. There wasn't even a wall-sized portrait of Koszov, or a shelf stacked with gaudy awards.
    "Vanity's not what it used to be," he muttered.
    "You're not wrong there," said a voice. A cold metal click with all the