Black Glass by John Shirley Read Free Book Online Page A

childhood—was that a gasoline combustion engine, somewhere near? There were some around—there had been, anyway, four years earlier—but, last he knew, they were rarer by the day.
    Four years. It gave him a twisting feeling. Like he was falling through space, floundering for a hand hold. Lay down on this table. Lie still. This won’t hurt. Close your eyes. Blink. A gray something. A sense of loss. Nothing more. Then ...
    Then four years later.
    But he could have sworn that he’d lain down on that table just this morning ... Just a short time ago, he’d pled guilty, bargained, was sentenced, waited overnight, then ...
    He shuddered. He walked on.

    Behind Candle, Pup opened the door to go back in—and stopped, staring. Stremp was standing there hands on his broad hips, blocking his way.
    Stremp handed Pup a gym bag. “Your stuff,” Stremp said, clearly enjoying this. “You been fired. What was it you said to the out-bo? ‘Get the fuck out of here’? That’d be about right. I’m tired of you showing up all hung over.”
    And he gave Pup a shove that made him step back out the door clutching the bag. Pup snorted. “I’m fired? So fucking what. But listen, hode, I’ve got union time coming. You can’t just–”
    “Oh yes I fucking can. Cleared with the union. The so-called union. Like you’d remember what a real union is. You getting the thirty days severance pay but you don’t have to be here to get it and we don’t want you here. That’s come right on down from Administration. Somebody gonna pick you up ... Seems like some corp partners of OverSight got some other bullshit for you to do. What a surprise! ‘We got some bullshit, over here, what we going to do? I know, let’s get that fuckwad Pup Benson to do it! He’s all about bullshit!’ And since you’re the king of bullshit, you, like, got a fucking MA in bullshit, why you oughta be happy.”
    And Stremp closed the door in Pup’s face.

    An electric bus was pulling up to the stop, its windows still wet, pearled with rainwater. Candle climbed onto its steps—
    “Hey—Candle! Officer Candle, yo!”
    Candle looked around, saw no one, then looked down.
    He thought he recognized the dwarf coming out of the mist, trotting towards him, and then the big guy behind, looming over the little one, almost trampling him ... and since they obviously weren’t cops, they were probably guys he had put away at some point. Just talking to them might be violating probation.
    “Fuck off,” he said, and stepped onto the bus.
    He saw passengers, mostly old folks, but no driver. Steering wheel, space for emergency manual, but it had a self-directive console in place of the driver’s seat. Driverless bus. New thing.
The tech had been around for a long time but there had been a few unions left when they’d put him under and the bus driver’s union had been one. When they’d taken him into UnMinding there’d been talk of privatizing mass transit. Talk of how much better that’d be. Must’ve privatized bus lines. No more unions, no more bus driver.
    Just four years ...
    He swiped the card. “Fare extracted,” the bus said, gently, sounding somehow uncannily maternal; as if it truly cared. “Destination?”
    “Um ...” Last known, last known, was—what? “Terwilliger and Sunset.”
    “I can take you to within five blocks of that location,” said the bus. “As that is an area known to be High Risk, please use caution.”
    Candle half expected the dwarf to follow him onto the bus, but it didn’t happen. When he found his seat, he looked through the window for the little guy and the big guy in the van. No sign of them.
    The steering wheel began its ghostly movement as the bus creaked softly into motion. What’d they need the steering wheel at all? Maybe in an emergency it could still be driven manually. Maybe for psychological comfort.

    Nodder and Shortstack stared after the bus.
    “Oh dear,” Nodder said, “this is so inconvenient.”
    “So, we