Free Atom by Steve Aylett Page A

to be Fall Street? Now there’s just a squirly dark, sorta makes you dizzy to go near? Atom discharged a gun there, gun to conjure with called a Glory Hand.’
    ‘Some kinda smart flaw?’
    ‘Suck gun. I hear it really wails.’
    ‘An etheric?’
    ‘Ethigraph gridpulse and all, what I heard, samples the victim’s deal and flips it, like them martial arts that dodge your thrust and carry you down with your own weight, you know? Enough venom in a scorpion to kill a scorpion.’
    ‘So he uses the enemy.’
    ‘This is Beerlight, Neck - situationism’s just a front.’
    Neck had sucked the gasper to a stub. ‘First shock o’ the day’s the most intense.’ He flicked it away.
    ‘Hello blabber,’ called the Caere Twins brightly, sticking their heads round the door. They came in different as twilight and twilight and beamed at Nada Neck. ‘Hello straight-up.’
    ‘I was just leaving.’ Neck swayed to the door. ‘Swat you later, Roach.’
    When Neck was gone, the Twins sat on either edge of Flea’s bed. Their silence made him apprehensive. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’
    ‘We don’t know how to tell you, Flea.’
    ‘What you drivin’ at?’
    ‘When beaker let rip with that M61 Persuader,’ said a Twin gently, ‘it forced an etheric sample of his intent to kill you, into the charm filter’s etheric bromide shield.’
    ‘We thought,’ the other Twin continued, ‘that the overlap of the two may have synthesised something new.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘A residue from the neutralised intent. Created between you at the raw level. It wasn’t a mere deflection because it affected base particles of Nada’s etheric.’
    ‘So break it to me, what’s the charge?’
    ‘Oh, poor Flea. It could have been “the infringement of another’s will at the soul source”. This would go beyond the known taxonomy of offence.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘Only the etheric fired at you was negated. Nada retained plenty within him.’
    ‘So? I went with intent to commit.’
    ‘No, Flea. You didn’t really know what the bib was - your manoeuvre was inadvertent. I’m so sorry.’
    ‘This can’t be right. I ... I drew the gunfire by being the target - metaphysical provocation, right? Inciting violence.’
    ‘Take care of yourself, Mr Lonza,’ said the Twins, standing.
    ‘Wait there’s laws on incitement, nuthin’ on this soul bullshit.’ Flea was frantic. ‘Don’t legislation qualify somethin’ for a crime?’
    ‘Oh no, Mr Lonza,’ they said. ‘Everyone knows what’s a real crime.’
    ‘I even commit an offence on paper?’
    The Twins stopped at the door, looking back at Flea with profoundest pity. ‘Goodbye, flyboy.’
    Alone, Flea gibbered. ‘I didn’t do anythin’ wrong?’
    Walking down the corridor, the Twins stopped short, turning to one another big-eyed.
    ‘The infringement of another’s will at the soul source,’ whispered one.
    ‘Legislation,’ gasped the other.
    With the advent of polymer flesh lacing a few years later the Twins would start souping up geneware to develop perplex, simple organic matter which could be programmed directly from whichever personality profile the cops favoured for a particular offence. Nearly a thousand red herringbone diversion puppets were set loose across the eastern seaboard to attract arrest. Only nineteen perps fulfilled their destiny, going to the chair without a thought in their fungal heads - the rest sat moulding in rented rooms or became tenured professors.
     

11 THE GAT MAN
     
    The Fort was pure Hatland but Neck needed more than patter and dumbguns to be a good right arm. He opened his walk-in arsenal and took a swatch. The chamber glinted black like a nest of spiders. It had the parliamentary vibe of dead energy. Armbone’s connected to the handbone, handbone’s connected to the triage Starflare Street Sweeper semi-auto 12-round with 18-inch barrel and 3 second void. Guns for all occasions - mood guns, metabolics, vogues, voyeurs, fuzzies, carnatics,