Slaughtermatic by Steve Aylett

Author:Steve Aylett [Aylett, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scar Garden Press
Published: 2011-12-18T23:00:00+00:00

4

YOU FOUND TIME

‘You found time to shoot Galt the Finger yet?’ shouted Meese into the phone, then realized there was someone standing in his office. ‘I’ll call you back.’ He hung up as a vision in newsurvivalist antishocks stepped into the light. He knew who this was - a shootist he’d wanted on his books for years. The Rose, with her wraparound dark side. Meese hoped his mental adjustments were externally undetectable.

Rosa Control seated herself opposite. Meese’s mouth slithered into a smile. ‘Miss Control. Can I do somethin’ for you, or are you offerin’ your services to me today?’

He waited for the Rose to ask what he had in mind. When she didn’t, he continued for a while, talking shop. ‘. . . And Webley never made a more charming weapon. I’ll have you know as well as I do. Better.’

Rosa studied the growth-inhibited, steel-plated nails of her left hand.

‘So,’ Meese struggled, ‘you goin’ to the convention?’

Rosa raised her right arm and leveled the wetware gun at Meese. ‘Are you beginning to see what I mean?’

Meese’s face turned white.

‘Call off the hit or I sponge the wall with your brain.’

‘Oh, the,’ said Meese, watching the gun breathe. ‘The Cubit hit, yeah? I just, Miss Control, I just wonder if you know how difficult that is, see even normally, but this is Parker’s hit - Brute Parker, understand?’

‘How endlessly interesting.’

‘Hey, now listen,’ shouted Meese, offended and angry. ‘You try stoppin’ him once he’s off - threatenin’ Parker’s like threatenin’ a bomb. And this here’s a double hunt.’

‘Explain.’

‘It pays high ’cause there’s more at stake. Hell, the whole town’ll blow if one of them Cubits don’t get evaporated.’

‘So they’re both still alive. Who staked the hit.’

‘Guy by the name of Tredwell Garnishee.’

‘Don’t play games with me, Mr Meese.’

‘I’m tellin’ you that was the guy’s name. Drop the squidgun, Rose. The hitter’s out, I can’t stop him. This is hard for me too - think this is easy for me?’

‘Your ease is a matter of indifference to me. Pick up the phone.’ Meese picked it up, watching her warily. ‘Contact Parker.’

‘You won’t shoot me, lady.’

‘Prove it.’

Meese dialed a number and Rosa fired, hitting off the crest of his head. He regarded the ceiling in astonishment, the air aswirl with blood pollen.

Rosa took the phone from Meese’s hand and listened to the gunsel on the line - it wasn’t Parker. Parker never took calls while out on a job.

She put up the phone and walked around the desk to swatch Meese’s datafiles - what she found made her question her perceptions. The desk was filled solid with meat, an extension of Meese’s body attached by a bundled ganglia of gristle. The wooden exterior of the desk existed solely to conceal this flaw in his personality.

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