Free Death & the City Book Two by Lisa Scullard Page B

someone's making these?" I ask. "Is it just the next step up in banger racing or something sinister?"
    "We've had it before," he sighs. "You get these little Apocalypse-based cults who think the world's about to go horseradish-shaped, and start building themselves nuclear bunkers, stockpiling dry food, and occasionally arming themselves to defend what they believe will be their sustenance. This is typical Mad Max syndrome, guys who watch too much robot-war, pimp-my-scrap-yard TV. But there's a different sort of escapism emerging from the current recession. Not to mention what Charlie and Sparky used to refer to in their old days as a hippy cull. Cutting out dead wood and freeloaders. Kind of like the local Councils sending in the building inspectors, and closing as many old people's homes as they can to save money, without being accused of shifting them out into the open to die."
    "Attack being the best form of defending one's shares in supply?" I query. "That's very cynical, as viewpoints go."
    "I think they justify it more as a kindness," Warren says. "Old, sick, weak, diseased, or even tramps, as you may have observed. Haven't you noticed on the News , about cancer patients having their medication axed as well? Everywhere they can, little life support systems are being reduced or cut to save money, in the hope that the problems will go away once people die from their complaints instead of live with them. People aren't just afraid to grow old any more, or be out of work. They're afraid to get sick. Which means there's a small contingent out there looking for alternatives to getting old and sick, and another contingent who don't want to see that happen either. Think it goes against nature. But then, it's still all about money and what people can and can't afford, of what's currently available. That's the reality. The rest, is down to each individual's interpretation of reality."
    "Well, that's a relief," I say at last. "I thought you were going to say these cars were being re-designed to arm supposedly indestructible contract killers. Who have apparently no concept of Engineering Chemistry, or Thermodynamics."
    "Yeah, that too," he grins. "For a very specific kind of contract, though. That's what we're interested in analysing at the moment. People with more time and money on their hands than sanity."
    "Where are they getting the hardware from?" I want to know, knocking on the boot of my car, and immediately hoping War In A Box doesn't know how to play Who's There .
    "Gulf surplus," he says shortly.
    That paints enough of a picture for me. I have a pretty good idea what sort of contingent in society are involved from that short response too. I watch Warren's back in his short-sleeved camouflage shirt, as he types an SMS to head office.
    I guess now he didn't shop for all his khaki gear at the Gap .
    Send a thief to catch a thief, as the saying goes. And a doorman to catch a doorman, and a soldier to catch a soldier. Takes one to know one.
    I wonder if Bob and Jay started out topping drug-dealing hit-men, and how many former veteran colleagues Warren knocked off before ending up in Logistics.
    I wonder what Yuri was, before he was this Yuri.
    I'd rather not think about how Connor started out culling wild animals, and what that says about him.
    "Did you have to go through the psychological reviews?" I ask him, as he puts his phone away.
    "Yeah, once they persuaded me to put down the chainsaw," he nods, turning back to the computer. "Textbook partial dissociative fugue. That's selective amnesia, to the layman."
    "How did you deal with it?" I ask. "Losing a personality?"
    "I got a new face," he replies mildly. "And a new personality."
    "Do you remember much now?"
    "Yeah," he nods. "Luckily, I don't see him in the mirror any more, though."

    W.P.C. Drury is pleased to see me. She looks like she's drawn the short straw at the wildlife rescue charity station, and would rather be somewhere else.
    "It's their scared faces, and the