was hiding out. He was never seen again.
Carter has a newspaper clipping with a picture of the poet in his wallet but he doesn't take it out because he could never show it to this man, not to Sergeant Seamus Finnan of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, not to the only other man certain to recognize the face. The same dark eyes with those long lashes. A round face just too old to be a cherub but still impish. It's a face that Carter remembers seeing in a trench where he huddled up to his waist in water, shells rocking the ground around him as he gasped for breath, that face blue-white and bloatedand smeared as it stared out of the wall of mud at him, where the sandbags had collapsed. And it's a face that Carter remembers seeing laughing with Finnan and the other Irish lads on their way into the mess hall, back in the supply trenches before they were all sent forward and …
Maybe the resemblance
isn't
that strong, he thinks. Maybe it's just his memory playing tricks with him. But, even so, when he saw that photograph in the
Times
, for all that the man looked older, heavier, darker, it was close enough. When he came to Spain he wasn't just seeking to expiate his sins; truly, he wasn't. It was just…
He thinks of Federico Garcia Lorca and he thinks of Private Thomas Messenger of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
“One death is every death,” says Carter.
two
THE PALACES OF PANTALOONS
FIVE MINUTES TO SELF-DESTRUCT
skim the skybike low over the chimney stacks of the Circus, slaloming between the chi-blasts from the thopters overhead. The cross-fire of the gun emplacements pounds the sky all around me as I dive right down through it into the inner circle of the terrace, with its tarmac road and little grassy park where SS analysts are tucking into their packed lunches. The SS info-monkeys scatter, dive for cover as, chi-lance held out at right angles, I strafe each Georgian town house in passing, shattering windows, splintering doors, scarring sandstone with the blue-green beam of jizz-juice. I rip through the terrace, round and round again. It's neat. The thopters’ blasts cause almost as much damage as I do, melting tarmac, torching trees and bushes with each near-hit. Some of them spear parked aircars, the shrill alarm of one going off like an air-raid shelter suffering an anxiety attack. Woop! Woop! Woop! Five minutes to self-destruct, I think. But isn't there always?
With the blackshirts pouring from the doors of offices all round the terrace now, firing from windows, roofs, I reckon that it's getting a little hot for comfort. Time to call it quits while I'm ahead. I lock the chi-lance into its holder and hit the brakes to spin the skybike up and round, like some latter-day black knight's steed rearing in evil fury. Orgone vapor spumes from the lateral vents like steam from flaring nostrils as I turn her on a button, riding one-handed so I can quick-draw my Curzon-Youngblood, carve a lightning flash above the doorway marked as Central Office, and holster it with a twirl in one swift motion. I kick the brakes off and lean forward as the bike rockets up in a sixty-degree climb aimed straight at the lead ornithopter.
——
Man, I could count the beads of sweat on the thopter pilot's forehead, I swear, as he bucks his vehicle out of the way and I zip past him, close enough to shower sparks where my ray tank clips his wing. I roll with the bump, let it add a little extra chaos to my naturally erratic flight path. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee? Fuck that, I'm a dragonfly on speedballs, a psychotic midge kneecapping every fucking daddy longlegs dumb enough to be in my way. I break right, roll and come up headed straight for the white tower of the old church that holds the easternmost gun emplacement of the Circus complex. Brilliant blues and greens whiz past my head, pretty fireworks for this winter's night. I love these fuckers. Really, honestly. They make a pyromaniac feel so welcome.
All the little hellhounds well and
Carter has a newspaper clipping with a picture of the poet in his wallet but he doesn't take it out because he could never show it to this man, not to Sergeant Seamus Finnan of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, not to the only other man certain to recognize the face. The same dark eyes with those long lashes. A round face just too old to be a cherub but still impish. It's a face that Carter remembers seeing in a trench where he huddled up to his waist in water, shells rocking the ground around him as he gasped for breath, that face blue-white and bloatedand smeared as it stared out of the wall of mud at him, where the sandbags had collapsed. And it's a face that Carter remembers seeing laughing with Finnan and the other Irish lads on their way into the mess hall, back in the supply trenches before they were all sent forward and …
Maybe the resemblance
isn't
that strong, he thinks. Maybe it's just his memory playing tricks with him. But, even so, when he saw that photograph in the
Times
, for all that the man looked older, heavier, darker, it was close enough. When he came to Spain he wasn't just seeking to expiate his sins; truly, he wasn't. It was just…
He thinks of Federico Garcia Lorca and he thinks of Private Thomas Messenger of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
“One death is every death,” says Carter.
two
THE PALACES OF PANTALOONS
FIVE MINUTES TO SELF-DESTRUCT
skim the skybike low over the chimney stacks of the Circus, slaloming between the chi-blasts from the thopters overhead. The cross-fire of the gun emplacements pounds the sky all around me as I dive right down through it into the inner circle of the terrace, with its tarmac road and little grassy park where SS analysts are tucking into their packed lunches. The SS info-monkeys scatter, dive for cover as, chi-lance held out at right angles, I strafe each Georgian town house in passing, shattering windows, splintering doors, scarring sandstone with the blue-green beam of jizz-juice. I rip through the terrace, round and round again. It's neat. The thopters’ blasts cause almost as much damage as I do, melting tarmac, torching trees and bushes with each near-hit. Some of them spear parked aircars, the shrill alarm of one going off like an air-raid shelter suffering an anxiety attack. Woop! Woop! Woop! Five minutes to self-destruct, I think. But isn't there always?
With the blackshirts pouring from the doors of offices all round the terrace now, firing from windows, roofs, I reckon that it's getting a little hot for comfort. Time to call it quits while I'm ahead. I lock the chi-lance into its holder and hit the brakes to spin the skybike up and round, like some latter-day black knight's steed rearing in evil fury. Orgone vapor spumes from the lateral vents like steam from flaring nostrils as I turn her on a button, riding one-handed so I can quick-draw my Curzon-Youngblood, carve a lightning flash above the doorway marked as Central Office, and holster it with a twirl in one swift motion. I kick the brakes off and lean forward as the bike rockets up in a sixty-degree climb aimed straight at the lead ornithopter.
——
Man, I could count the beads of sweat on the thopter pilot's forehead, I swear, as he bucks his vehicle out of the way and I zip past him, close enough to shower sparks where my ray tank clips his wing. I roll with the bump, let it add a little extra chaos to my naturally erratic flight path. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee? Fuck that, I'm a dragonfly on speedballs, a psychotic midge kneecapping every fucking daddy longlegs dumb enough to be in my way. I break right, roll and come up headed straight for the white tower of the old church that holds the easternmost gun emplacement of the Circus complex. Brilliant blues and greens whiz past my head, pretty fireworks for this winter's night. I love these fuckers. Really, honestly. They make a pyromaniac feel so welcome.
All the little hellhounds well and
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