Normal by Warren Ellis

Author:Warren Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

PART FOUR

“Well, would you look at that,” Darnel said.

The fat insect had cracked open. But it hadn’t cracked open in the way a fat insect would. It had split and shattered the way a dropped cell phone might. Its carapace had starred like windshield glass around the split. There was nothing wet inside it. Nothing organic.

Adam was looking at wires. Wires and tiny electronic devices and mechanics. Radio antennae. Shrunken microphones. Something that might be a memory card. A cluster of litter processors. Glassine dust that may once have belonged to a lens. He was looking at a device in the shape of a fat insect.

Lela leaned over Darnel’s shoulder. “Jesus fucking Christ. Where did this come from? Those look like tiny, tiny KERS systems.”

“I dunno what that is,” said Darnel, “but I’m pretty sure this here is a microphone.”

“KERS. Kinetic energy recovery system. We’ve been testing all kinds of versions in cities for generating electricity from people walking on sidewalks. This is just a totally miniaturized version, you can tell by that armature. This thing makes its own energy by walking. I mean, it’d run down in the end, but it could have months before you’d have to plug it into something.”

“I ain’t looking for the USB port on this thing.”

Adam sat back and scoured his recent memory. Insect in the hallway. Insect on the skirting board. Spider in Dr. Murgu’s office. Spider in Dr. Murgu’s office that was not spinning a web in the corner. There was no web anywhere. Just the spider.

Churning mass of insects on Mansfield’s bed. And no Mansfield to be seen.

The tide of adrenaline almost blinded him.

Adam stood up, looked around quickly. A recently opened bottle of Buoylent on an adjacent table, its owner reaching for it. Adam lunged over, snatched it away, and sank it in one pull. Gasping, ignoring the complaints, he lurched to the next table, found an unopened bottle and did the same. If Buoylent really was loaded with mood stabilizers, he was going to need as many in his system as possible.

He clambered up on the table. Eyes came to rest on him from both sides of the patio.

“We,” he said, in as loud and steady a voice as he could muster, “are going to have to find every single insect, bug, and crawly bastard in this place and smash it. If you want to know why, look over there. Lela Charron and Darnel Booth—one from each side of the aisle—are right now looking at an insect I crushed. It’s got microphones in it. I bet you anything you like that it’s also got radio. It’s a listening device. And there could be more. A lot more. Like a couple of hundred pounds more. We need to find them all, right now, before the investigators get here. Whatever you’ve said in the last twenty-four hours is inside these things, people. Total surveillance in a place that is supposed to be free of all surveillance. If we don’t get them,

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