The Tesseract by Alex Garland Read Free Book Online Page B

but basically kind lady who showed you how to load a clip and squeeze on a trigger, and who didn’t laugh when you got it wrong.
    And now too much time had passed for him to joke with his colleagues about his inexperience with weapons, or even to mention it. Although in the back of his mind, he had a feeling that Teroy knew. Teroy had given him the automatic that was now strapped to the side of his chest, and when Jojo had outstretched his palm to accept it, his hand had dropped under the sudden weight and the pistol had nearly fallen to the floor. He hadn’t expected the weight. Stupid, not to expect the weight of a big lump of metal, but there it was.
    Four years ago. Four years since he had changed from being the son of an employee to an employee in his own right, and four years of worrying that one day his inexperience was going to be revealed. The real fear was that it would be at a moment when he needed to defend someone else’s life. That seemed worse than if he were defending his own. A couple of nights he’d been unable to sleep, imagining the way he’d pull on the trigger only to hear a hollow click from a hollow chamber. Teroy collapsing beside him as he fumbled with a safety catch.
    On one of those sleepless nights, his wife had come into their mouseless kitchen to find him sitting at the table, surroundedby bullets. He’d taken them out of the magazine so he could learn how to load and reload but then had been unable to put them back in. His fingers had been trembling, and he was afraid that if he shook the bullets too hard they’d explode. So the two of them had stayed up together, fretting over the stiff spring of the magazine, loading and reloading until they were sure they’d got it right.
    Well, Jojo reflected, now he was about to find out if they’d got it right. He reached for the holster under his jacket, tore away the Velcro, and pulled out the pistol. It was as cold as a can of Coke, chilled by the air-con in the car.
    Things to think about: safety catch, recoil, two-handed grip, aiming, squeeze don’t pull.
    What a
loud
noise. Jojo might not have fired a gun before, but he’d often heard them, and they’d always sounded like popping. No louder than a firework, but oddly neater, more compact. But this—this was unbelievable. Ringing ears, blurred vision, dizziness, shock…
    The cat was still alive.
    Had he missed? It was certainly possible, given that his eyes had been closed for a good second or two before he fired. Should have been on the list of things to remember: Keep your eyes open.
Idiot!
And he couldn’t shoot again, because people in the car would want to know why he couldn’t kill a half-dead cat with a gun that could shoot through walls.
    But maybe he had hit it. Maybe it was mortally wounded—just a question of waiting a few moments more. The problem was, with the red from the Mercedes’ taillights and the alreadymatted fur, it was impossible to tell if there was a mortal wound or not. Jojo squatted down to see better.
    With an epileptic spasm, the cat leapt up off the tarmac and onto his chest, where it clung with its claws and teeth. “Oh,” said Jojo, and lost his balance. He fell backward and sat heavily on the road. The cat remained, clinging. Instinctively, Jojo lifted his arms to make a cradle, holding the animal firmly enough to contain its wriggling. It died in less than a minute.
    Bubot and Don Pepe were engrossed in shop talk when Jojo got back into the car, so they didn’t notice the rips or the blood on his shirt. Teroy did notice, but, being a good
compadre
, he didn’t draw attention to it. “
Paré
, spare shirt in my bag,” he whispered once Jojo had the engine running. “In the trunk. You can change when we go in for the meeting.”
    “Thanks,
paré
,” Jojo whispered back.
    Teroy smiled. Then, at a normal volume, he said, “Let me have your gun. You can’t reload it while you drive.”
    Grateful, embarrassed, Jojo handed it