atmospheric constituent for respiratory purposes; about on that level. Big changes; Axxter rolled them over in his mind. And big money. A great big wad of it, no longer handed over by the Mass straight to DeathPix’s accounts. It loomed in Axxter’s imagination, a great big, spinning golden sphere, shedding a warm radiance over the whole building’s uplifted faces, like some new, unsetting sun. When something that big came loose from the hands that had grasped it so tight, all sorts of little pieces came shooting off, to be snatched up by smaller, faster ones. That’s what big changes meant.
Still. You had to be careful. Nobody lets go that easy. “Why would the Havoc Mass want to dump DeathPix?” The logical question; DP had graffex resources unmatched by anyone else – designers, techs, terrorist shrinks up the butt. And all those years of accumulated expertise; hard to get that same level of service elsewhere. There were reasons why DeathPix charged so much.
Brevis shrugged. “You want my guess?”
“No, I don’t want your fucking guess. I want what you know .”
“Okay, Ny; but if you spill any of this, neither one of us will be worrying about our nuts, or anything else. Got me?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shifted position in the sling. All this mysterioso talk had eaten up enough time to have given him cramps in his legs. “Just lay it on me.”
All the pitch machinery faded from Brevis’s voice. “This is the deal, Ny. The Havoc Mass is making its move . Finally. They’ve been building up to it for a long time, and now they’re finally gonna do it. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week or next month. Not this year, and probably not next year, either. But the gears are in motion, Ny. The process has been started; they think the time has come for them to go straight for the top. They’ve got the numbers; they’ve got the alliances – man, they’ve got secret alliances that nobody’s gonna be- lieve , until they see it all come down. Maybe they’re gonna be able to knock the Grievous Amalgam off the toplevel, or maybe they’ll go bust trying for it. But the time’s come. Simple as that.”
The time has come. That goddamned Guyer. Axxter had to shake his head in admiration. She knew . Something in the air that she could taste with all of her finely honed senses. She could just stick out her tongue and lick the insurrectionary molecules off the wind coursing down the building’s surface. Plus all the little rumors and whispers, the intimacies to which a person in her trade is privy. One way or another, she’d known something was up, and had told him so. Still –
“Well . . . that’s all fine. More power to ’em, I guess.” Axxter studied the other’s image for any further clues. “But what’s all this got to do with me?”
“Coming to that, man. This is the deal: the Mass wants to do two things in getting ready for the big push. They want to completely revamp their visuals – rank insignia, trophy decs, psych-outs, ikons – the whole schmazzola. Head-to-toe redesign. And they want to plug any possible leak of their plans to the Grievous Amalgam. When they roll, they want all their military imagery to take the Amalgam and any of its allies by surprise. Get the picture?”
Axxter scratched his face. “I don’t know . . . I don’t see why the Mass would want to dump DeathPix. I mean, if that’s what they want. DeathPix can do a complete redesign for them; Christ, they’ve done it three or four times already.” When he’d been working and saving up to go freelance, boning up on notable graffex achievements had been part of his preparation. You had to know what had gone down before, in order to come up with your own originals; plus it’d been cheap research, with nothing to pay but the Wire Syndicate access time to the toplevel copyright office. Some of the DeathPix redesigns for the Havoc Mass were considered classics, big
Still. You had to be careful. Nobody lets go that easy. “Why would the Havoc Mass want to dump DeathPix?” The logical question; DP had graffex resources unmatched by anyone else – designers, techs, terrorist shrinks up the butt. And all those years of accumulated expertise; hard to get that same level of service elsewhere. There were reasons why DeathPix charged so much.
Brevis shrugged. “You want my guess?”
“No, I don’t want your fucking guess. I want what you know .”
“Okay, Ny; but if you spill any of this, neither one of us will be worrying about our nuts, or anything else. Got me?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shifted position in the sling. All this mysterioso talk had eaten up enough time to have given him cramps in his legs. “Just lay it on me.”
All the pitch machinery faded from Brevis’s voice. “This is the deal, Ny. The Havoc Mass is making its move . Finally. They’ve been building up to it for a long time, and now they’re finally gonna do it. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week or next month. Not this year, and probably not next year, either. But the gears are in motion, Ny. The process has been started; they think the time has come for them to go straight for the top. They’ve got the numbers; they’ve got the alliances – man, they’ve got secret alliances that nobody’s gonna be- lieve , until they see it all come down. Maybe they’re gonna be able to knock the Grievous Amalgam off the toplevel, or maybe they’ll go bust trying for it. But the time’s come. Simple as that.”
The time has come. That goddamned Guyer. Axxter had to shake his head in admiration. She knew . Something in the air that she could taste with all of her finely honed senses. She could just stick out her tongue and lick the insurrectionary molecules off the wind coursing down the building’s surface. Plus all the little rumors and whispers, the intimacies to which a person in her trade is privy. One way or another, she’d known something was up, and had told him so. Still –
“Well . . . that’s all fine. More power to ’em, I guess.” Axxter studied the other’s image for any further clues. “But what’s all this got to do with me?”
“Coming to that, man. This is the deal: the Mass wants to do two things in getting ready for the big push. They want to completely revamp their visuals – rank insignia, trophy decs, psych-outs, ikons – the whole schmazzola. Head-to-toe redesign. And they want to plug any possible leak of their plans to the Grievous Amalgam. When they roll, they want all their military imagery to take the Amalgam and any of its allies by surprise. Get the picture?”
Axxter scratched his face. “I don’t know . . . I don’t see why the Mass would want to dump DeathPix. I mean, if that’s what they want. DeathPix can do a complete redesign for them; Christ, they’ve done it three or four times already.” When he’d been working and saving up to go freelance, boning up on notable graffex achievements had been part of his preparation. You had to know what had gone down before, in order to come up with your own originals; plus it’d been cheap research, with nothing to pay but the Wire Syndicate access time to the toplevel copyright office. Some of the DeathPix redesigns for the Havoc Mass were considered classics, big
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