Free Modem Times 2.0 by Michael Moorcock

Lemonick,
Time
magazine, August 6, 2007
    “T HEY’VE BEEN IN Trinity churchyard digging up the famous. I can’t tell you how much they got for Audubon.” Jerry sipped his chicory and coffee. The Café du Monde wasn’t what it had been but they’d taken the worst of the rust off the chairs, and the joss sticks helped. From somewhere down by the river came the broken sound of a riverboat bell. Then he began to smile at his friend across the table. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
    Max Pardon shrugged. “We were downsized. What can I say? We have to make a living as best we can. The bottom dropped out of real estate. I’m a bone broker, these days, Mr. Cornelius. It’s an honest job. Some of us still have an interest in our heritage. Monsieur Audubon was a very great man. He made his living, you could say, as a resurrectionist. Mostly. He killed that poor, mad, golden eagle. Do I do anything worse?”
    Jerry took a deep breath and regretted it.
    The oil had not proved the blessing some had predicted.
5. THE FLOODS THAT REALLY MATTER ARE COMPOSED OF MIGRANT LABOUR
    Intimate talk about loving your age, finding true joy. and the three words that can change your life.
    —Good Housekeeping
, June 2005
    I N ISLAMABAD, JERRY traded his Banning for an antique Lee-Enfield 303 with a telescopic sight. He had come all the way by aerial cruiser, the guest of Major Nye, with the intention of seeing, if he could do it secretly, his natural son Hussein, who was almost ten. Slipping the beautifully embellished rifle into his cricket bag, he made for an address on Kabul Street, ridding himself of two sets of “shadows.” The most recent Islamic government was highly suspicious of all Europeans, even though Jerry’s Turkish passport gave his religion as Moslem. He wore a beautifully cut coat in two shades of light blue silk, with a set of silver buttons and a turban in darker blue. To the casual eye he resembled a prosperous young stockbroker, perhaps from Singapore.
    Arriving at Number Eight, Jerry made his way through a beautiful courtyard to a shaded staircase, which he climbed rapidly after a glance behind him to see if he was followed. On the third floor about halfway down the landing he stopped and knocked. Almost immediately the recently painted door was opened and Bunny Burroughs let him in, his thin lips twisting as he recognized the cricket bag.
    “Your fifth attempt, I understand, Jerry. Did you have a safe trip? And will you be playing your usual game this Sunday?”
    “If I can find some whites.” Jerry set the bag down and removed his rifle. With his silk handkerchief he dabbed at his sleeve. “Oil. Virgin. Is the boy over there?”
    “With his nanny. The mother, as I told you, is visiting her uncle.”
    Jerry peered through the slats of a blind. Across the courtyard, at a tall window, a young woman in a sari was mixing a glass of diluted lemon juice and sugar. Behind her the blue screen of a TV was showing an old Humphrey Bogart movie.
    “
Casablanca
,” murmured Bunny.
    “
The Big Sleep
.” Jerry lifted the rifle to his shoulder and put his eye close to the sight.
    He would never know another sound like that which followed his pulling of the trigger and the bang the gun made.
    He had done the best he could. That at least he understood.
    Was that a mosquito? He slapped his face.
6. THE PHANTOM OF THE TOWERS
    International trade in great white sharks now will be regulated, which is especially important for fish who range far beyond the shelter of regional protection. The humphead or Napoleon wrasse—worth tens of thousands of dollars on the market—also received protections, in turn saving coral reefs from the cyanide used to capture them.
    —Animal Update
, Winter 2005
    H UBERT LANE AND Violet Elizabeth Bott were waiting on the corner for Jerry as soon as he reached the outskirts of the village. He had driven over from Hadley to see old Mr. Brown. Hubert smirked when he saw Jerry’s Phantom IV. “You’ve