Novahead by Steve Aylett Page A

had one of those long white beards they call a wizard ’ s tail, which he had roped around and around his neck like a scarf.
    ‘ When Strobe gets here for cover, we ’ re leaving, ’ I told them all, and sure enough the security swan swooped in over the battleground, cutting through towers of smoke and releasing a gold polyhedron before peeling away. The holographic claymore unpacked as it fell, each of a hundred fragments expanding into a hundred identical fragments that contained a hundred more unto infinity. Below a certain scale these particles were harmless but even without compression the device created a ricocheting chaos of metal pellets that had everyone pinned down. Everything was coated in dust, dirt and ash the same grey as my Faraday shades as I drove away over breakables and jettisoned ordnance.
    I was disappointed to have encountered something as violent and conventional as tonight ’ s exchange. It didn ’ t have the charm of the frenzies of legend, but the resentment that comes from having to pit one ’ s wits against well-armed stupidity persisted. That these short and occasional moments of match and mayhem were a sort of communication - the only form to fully convey certain aspects of the denizens ’ resentment - I had no doubt. But to deny them their resentment was never seriously considered. In truth the polarising effect of death never helped at all in sorting out a dispute with any finality.
    So went my diagnosis at the time. But I wondered then, and wonder now, if part of my lack of enthusiasm was due simply to knowing that this was work already done. Was the uproar acted out every night?
     
    I parked up outside the Reaction and took them inside. ‘ Toto ’ s an old friend. He ’ s got a sort of hen, out back. It ’ s what he uses for a conscience. It ’ s probably not much good. ’
    ‘ Well at least they don ’ t bother anyone, ’ said Murphy.
    The bar was empty, only Toto at his post behind the loss counter. He had an all-or-nothing Pound rifle stripped to its threefold form and was reading the obscure scripture on the side of the ammo box. The Pound worked on a principle of motive momentum, taking intention at face value and inducing the physical locality to join in. He looked up, happy.
    ‘ There he is, ’ I hailed. ‘ What are you so cheerful about, Toto? ’
    ‘ Oh I just found a raisin, take a look. ’
    ‘ That ’ s a spider. And this is Toto, everyone. We can only guess at what hatred and revenge smoulders in his heart. Comes of peering at the world from the wrong side of an intake fan. ’
    ‘ You ’ ll be bloated and venting methane before you know it, Atom. ’
    I asked for the use of his basement and he led us back to a rear door covered in decals with relic irony from a decade ago. Down some steps was a chamber containing a table made of a giant cable spool. The chairs were car seats on bricks. The black walls looked acrylic, the floor plastered in obsolete wolf tickets and cain dollars. The only decoration was a small framed painting of a starling with a tiny machine gun. What I at first took for a pile of coal was actually a heap of huge meaty flies. It wasn ’ t too different from the bar. Murphy looked around the room as if it was beyond help. ‘ There ’ s antifreeze, ’ I told them, ‘ shockers, a bathful of monitor lizards, a flying insect with legs like whiskers, Jade works if you need them. Even a little Gamete, like the best hotels. ’
    ‘ If these walls could scream, ’ Toto chuckled. ‘ This is the very basement where they tied Brute Parker to a chair thinking he was John Stoop impersonating Brute Parker. Those were the town ’ s salad days eh Taff? And locks you could pick with cotton wool. ’
    We got into some headcrime nostalgia. Whatever happened to Rosa Control? To Findley Taz, born predefeated and honest about it? Gone surely as all those scenes and conversations lost through web decay. It had been a time in which crime and legislative