Free Novahead by Steve Aylett

believe? ’
    ‘ I suppose everyone grieves in a different way. ’
    ‘ That sort of fixed-blade logic ’ ll tear up your pants. Bad luck is the shadow of a thing too cowardly to show itself from head to tail. Isn ’ t it interesting that government will operate in the same way? Its crime is concealed from end to end by the “ common good ” . Now, let ’ s see what we have here. Stars: blindness to what is before you. Distraction will force you to make a series of mistakes. Anchor: you have put down your anchor in the wrong place, a mistake difficult to correct. Book: a secret disclosed to you will become public knowledge. This should not concern you if you have conducted your affairs honestly. Fire: fire will envelop your heart. ” It looks bad for you, Mr Atom. ’
    I suppose I disliked it. ‘ Seems kinda nebulous. Everything needs a context, after all. ’
    ‘“ Everything ” is the one thing that doesn ’ t. ’
    I stared at her.
    She seemed amused. ‘ Well, it ’ s after all no business of mine. ’
    ‘ I guess I better fill my pockets with excuses and jump in the river, ’ I said, standing to go. I remembered to take the book.
    ‘ Atom, ’ she called out. I turned at the door. She was standing by one of the ammo dispensers. ‘ I know you ’ ve got tiny dynamind. For a shamus you seem particularly clueless. Don ’ t throw out the baby to spite your own face. ’
    It was daylight when I emerged from that strange meeting. I capped it feeling I even liked her a little. It surprised me. I ’ d heard she was just a fat bitch.
    I felt drunk, seeing symbols in the sky, plus a few clouds that were apparently no longer in use. And I knew someone was following me - pointlessly, as it turned out.
     
     

2 HAMMER INTO ANVIL
     
    ‘ Engage windshield display. ’
    Heading back to the Reaction, I checked the gap and dredge. There was no mention of Heber Partenheimer. Or Edna Valis. In Beerlight innocence is a worthless commodity. Since meeting the kid I ’ d been assuming he was a decoy and that it was all about the old man, but there was nothing. I took a look at Parker and his gun god, and a closer look at Pivot. He was ultrajincho, and longterm in the law racket. While mayors were propelled upward by a hybrid of chance and stupefying pliancy, DAs ascended by an insular revelling in expedience and personal enrichment and there was a legal ritual where it had to appear that a really first-rate thing had been allowed. Generally neither lasted longer than a radish, but Pivot had been up for months. I did not understand what had happened to make the difference. My little reverse engine was scrambling over unlabelled groupings and incoherent hierarchies. I scratched around for Betty ’ s lead. Professor Traven turned out to be the scientist author of a psychological study Beyond Indignation and was living in a Terminal suburb called Longreen. We ’ d be fine if we avoided the madmaxers.
    When I got to the Delayed Reaction I entered the building by the back door and descended to the basement to find the kid and the old man playing cards amid strange cargo. The kid looked up in honest and open wonder, his face pale as an aspirin and his blonde hair curly like an ice cream. He had a Jade needle hanging from the middle of his forehead and Old Man Valis had five crowded round his nose like a starnose badger. ‘ This basement isn ’ t for the faint-hearted, Mr Atom, ’ said the oldster, and pointed to Murphy. ‘ That one ’ s been on some mad crusade to get us talking. Boy, she hit me upside the head eleven times before I even guessed what she wanted. ’
    Murphy stubbed her cigarette on the wall with a fierce gesture. Her hair was jagged. She was burnt around the edges. ‘ You left me here like a prisoner, Atom. With that Toto creature as a guard. I could spit. ’
    ‘ Don ’ t - you can ’ t afford to lose any weight. ’
    ‘ She ’ s a live one alright, ’ chuckled the old man. ‘ Plaguing me with