Novahead by Steve Aylett Read Free Book Online Page B

Chief. I ’ m legally allowed not to understand what you ’ re talking about, and you ’ re legally required to support my position. Your own position within the law has clearly freed you from the necessities of common decency, and you are riding it bareback. This statement notwithstanding, I intend tonight to unspool the law ’ s comic masterpiece, “ disorder ” . In fact discord is not understood here as there is no condition with which to contrast it. But procedure must be fulfilled. ’
    The idea seemed to have no structure, only position and duration. Not that any crime-related arrest would occur here anyway: no money or barter had changed hands. Ammo darted away from the citizenry like rabbits released and again the cops reacted as if this mutuality was unforeseen.
    Sheets of smoke rushed by wind revealed glimpses of cops locked in shame, craters smeared with matter and tagged with blossoms of fire, and dodging cage cars driven by jubilant kids. Flames balled skyward. Shots spanged off the fire drum, a recurring problem.
    I ’ d got Strobe to signal the jalopy on the way over and now it was bumping over the fire-spotted moonscape toward me. Multiple onlookers made the car ’ s cloaking muddled and flickery but most of them still managed to ignore it even after they ’ d bounced off the hood. When it pulled up I hauled the kid and the old man over and crammed them inside, being careful not to touch the scale gear.
    Before I could climb in after them I saw another vehicle approaching. It was an old boilerplate truck once used to haul cannery water, and in the cab was the galoot who ’ d fronted off in my office. He seemed intent on flattening Junco. As the truck bore down on him El Mozote had ditched his shoulder cannon in my direction and was priming something that resembled a saw handle - I realised it was a Failsafe borderbar.
    Before the breakup of states Johnny Failsafe had crossed numerous state borders to see if he could detect the subtle sensations of laws changing around his body - after all, laws were either real or they weren ’ t. He had in fact found a microscopic transition point where no laws existed and extracted core-sheets for use as wall projections in clubs. But subsequent research had also revealed a small halting effect as one set of laws ceased and another set came into power. The momentary braking required to re-orient oneself had the same quality at every border, and by overlaying dozens of examples of this modality, technicians created an archetypal suprastate they termed ‘ whipped ’ - a condition in which the victim ’ s progress is completely blocked by external decree. Now as the truck was about to smack him Junco stood with the borderbar in his left hand, took hold of it with his right and whipped it open like a chest expander. The truckfront crumpled like a beer can as it pounded to a stop, the rear lifting behind it as if the whole thing would flip ass-over-head.
    Junco ducked out on the far side as the truck poised a while on its face like it was showing off a tricky headstand. In the cab the ape was fumbling to fire the same Birch gun he ’ d shown me in the office, but the Failsafe state backfired it. I couldn ’ t tell if the galoot himself stopped because of the Failsafe or because he was painted over the cab windows. The motor howling in frictionless outrage, the ancient machine finally went over, slamming to the ground and blocking the Gate closed. Junco seemed to have an epic skill set.
    I salvaged his discarded stack cannon - what had seemed like a salvage title Saab actually looked to have been built around a barebook basic and massively elaborated with silver gridpulse hoops, ribbed ceramic cowling, a white shoulderbone grip that housed the gun ’ s limbic system and bull bars like heavy sideburns. The pulse array tipped me that this was a firearm so powerful they advised you not to fire it without a helmet - a Permutation gun, which in an instant runs the