Doomware by Nathan Kuzack Read Free Book Online Page B

Lorna Doone , The Call of the Wild , Northanger Abbey , Far From the Madding Crowd , Nineteen Eighty-Four . This last one he dithered over, wondering whether he felt like reading Orwell’s dystopian vision. It was hardly worse than reality, he thought. Give me the Ministry of Love and the Thought Police over cannibalistic cybernetic zombies any day of the week.
    A smaller bookcase held neat racks of music disks. Some contained music by classical composers, but most were by artists he’d never heard of. There were racks of video disks too. Again, they contained films he didn’t recognise, and there was a large range of feature-length documentaries which sounded, from their descriptions, as if the makers had gone to the greatest pains to choose the most esoteric subject matters imaginable. He put a load of the disks into his holdall, only to remove half of them again. He had more than enough to be going on with, and he’d have to come back here anyway.
    In a cabinet he found a case of huge old vinyl disks – “records” he believed they’d been called. He hadn’t a hope of playing these. Or did he? He looked around the room. Then he realised that the top of the cabinet lifted up, and beneath it was a turntable. He grabbed the first record – the date on the cover said 1974 and the artist was somebody called Ella Fitzgerald; he thought he’d heard the name before but he couldn’t be sure – and carefully slipped the disk out of its sleeve. It took him a while to figure out how the turntable worked, but as soon as he did the room was filled with jazz-style band music. After a while Ella joined in, and he was immediately taken by the velvety beauty of her voice. He listened, entranced. 1974, he thought. An interwar period. If only they’d known back then. If only they’d known about the disaster that awaited mankind, the great technological holocaust that grew nearer with every passing year and every new advance. Would they still have played instruments and sung beautifully if they had known what lay ahead? He supposed you couldn’t really worry about the future when you were busy making music as gorgeous as this. It struck him that the music was the sound of a dead world playing in a world of the living dead, where there was no one to appreciate it but him, and for a moment it was almost unbearable. He made a move to turn the turntable off, but couldn’t bring himself to.
    The music faded softly into the background as he went up to the next level. In the first room, a smallish bedroom, he went through a chest of drawers. It contained clothes mostly, which he rummaged through so perfunctorily he almost missed it: in the bottom drawer, covered by vests and jumpers, was a grey plastic case a little larger than the average hardback book. It had a metal locking mechanism, but it wasn’t locked, and when he flipped it open he nearly whooped with excitement at what was inside; instead, he said, “Yes!”
    It was a small handgun, the old – and now illegal – type. He lifted it out of its case. It was made of dark, almost black, polymer, and was accompanied by a cleaning brush and two magazines that slotted into the gun’s handle. Each magazine held 17 rounds. In his hand the gun felt suitably death-dealing. Of course, his targets would be dead already, but he was certain headshots from this baby would stop them in their tracks nonetheless. He’d never fired a gun in his life, but he thought it couldn’t be that difficult. Besides, there was an owner’s manual. It gave the manufacturer’s name as being GLOCK . He searched for more ammunition, but there was none. He had 34 rounds. The chances of finding any more were virtually nil since the gun was such an antique. Old as it was, it was his only option: modern weapons interacted with brainware, only firing when in the hands of their registered owners, but this thing anyone could use. He prayed it still worked, and decided he’d use up to four rounds as test