unrewarded,’ he said, inspecting the patch clips, ‘in the universal jaws of experience.’ He found more works under a floor panel near the gyrospheres. ‘Ramone,’ he gasped, addressing the bird behind his shades, ‘we’ve hit the paymother.’ One eye wept and the other sang.
The Kid had seated himself at the keyboard and begun a lightning inquiry. ‘What am I worth?’
‘ Value is based on rarity, demand and ease of replacement.’
‘ It depends who you ask?’
‘ Precisely. A friend would say one thing - a cop, army or business another.’
‘ So what’s the point?’
‘ Running a system is the quickest, shortest and only sure method of discerning emergent structures in it.’
The Kid booted out and closed the cover on the machine.
‘ God’s speed, Kid,’ called Restraint. ‘But more care.’ When the Kid left, Restraint was priming a syringe the size of a clarinet.
Parker’s bigotry-propelled car was a short way from the subway entrance where he’d abandoned it. Numerous strip-heads and speed urchins had tried to boost it and only got a few halting yards before the motor cut out. Soon after, a few cops had given it a try, but none had got the balance right. Blince squeezed inside and the car glided smoothly off, disappearing into the haze of morning bonfires.
Dante Two couldn’t keep his mind on the chase no matter how much he told himself it was important. The details of the day struck him harder than any bullet. Sunlight glinted off a Subaru sign, rust brittled an oil can, kids kicked through the smoke-plume ashes of the dead, Olympus threw a shadow over hordes of muggers addicted to Mace. This was surely the most lurid of worlds and he had never felt so much a part of it. The Dump’s wire fence hove into view and Dante Two recalled a nursery rhyme from his Chicago youth:
"April in the breaker’s yard
Yes, my arms are very hard
Rub them every day with lard
April in the breaker’s yard."
He was bent over laughing when above his head a window splintered outward and the sound of mirth and light machine-gun fire escaped from a second storey. Costello - he’d recognize the Mexican’s calibration anywhere.
Dante Two entered the building and, racing up the stairwell, plunged into a snipers’ party. Everywhere he looked there were frenzied tableaux of impromptu torture and freestyle garroting. The mildest of discourse was punctuated with the chirping flight of daggers. Old and trusty friends improved the shining hour by punching each other into the middle of next week. The bewildering tangle of alliances was decipherable only by the frequency and angle at which wounds were inflicted. The entire crew had staggered from the Tree Museum to Deserters to the Delayed Reaction and were weeping old tears. At one end of the room was a giant cake housing a naked and drugged senator.
On a couch sat Costello, discussing dialist subcontinuism and drinking a Reaction takeout entitled Counterfeit Reality Strain. He called Dante Two over for support. Costello had been given six months for crucifying a Valley girl and everyone was boasting that if they’d been allotted that much time they could have crucified fifty. Now he belied his exopose by discussing the annihilative dangers of attempting to purify a thing which consisted entirely of impurities. ‘I’ve given this town the blood-heavy shirt off my back,’ he said in disgust. ‘And that’s the long con of existence here - police and thieves, eh? If they don’t got the spirit they oughta get outta the quivering meat wheel, Danny. Outta the goddamn loop. The city’s the bad guy. Help yourself to cloakers, my friend.’
On a coffee table was a large bowl of anodyne pills, used to damp down original thought and reduce conspicuity in public. The practical hazards of re-examining one’s mental premises on the wing were well known to the denizens of Beerlight - a guy skyjacking a plane one time had pushed a gun to the pilot’s
The Kid had seated himself at the keyboard and begun a lightning inquiry. ‘What am I worth?’
‘ Value is based on rarity, demand and ease of replacement.’
‘ It depends who you ask?’
‘ Precisely. A friend would say one thing - a cop, army or business another.’
‘ So what’s the point?’
‘ Running a system is the quickest, shortest and only sure method of discerning emergent structures in it.’
The Kid booted out and closed the cover on the machine.
‘ God’s speed, Kid,’ called Restraint. ‘But more care.’ When the Kid left, Restraint was priming a syringe the size of a clarinet.
Parker’s bigotry-propelled car was a short way from the subway entrance where he’d abandoned it. Numerous strip-heads and speed urchins had tried to boost it and only got a few halting yards before the motor cut out. Soon after, a few cops had given it a try, but none had got the balance right. Blince squeezed inside and the car glided smoothly off, disappearing into the haze of morning bonfires.
Dante Two couldn’t keep his mind on the chase no matter how much he told himself it was important. The details of the day struck him harder than any bullet. Sunlight glinted off a Subaru sign, rust brittled an oil can, kids kicked through the smoke-plume ashes of the dead, Olympus threw a shadow over hordes of muggers addicted to Mace. This was surely the most lurid of worlds and he had never felt so much a part of it. The Dump’s wire fence hove into view and Dante Two recalled a nursery rhyme from his Chicago youth:
"April in the breaker’s yard
Yes, my arms are very hard
Rub them every day with lard
April in the breaker’s yard."
He was bent over laughing when above his head a window splintered outward and the sound of mirth and light machine-gun fire escaped from a second storey. Costello - he’d recognize the Mexican’s calibration anywhere.
Dante Two entered the building and, racing up the stairwell, plunged into a snipers’ party. Everywhere he looked there were frenzied tableaux of impromptu torture and freestyle garroting. The mildest of discourse was punctuated with the chirping flight of daggers. Old and trusty friends improved the shining hour by punching each other into the middle of next week. The bewildering tangle of alliances was decipherable only by the frequency and angle at which wounds were inflicted. The entire crew had staggered from the Tree Museum to Deserters to the Delayed Reaction and were weeping old tears. At one end of the room was a giant cake housing a naked and drugged senator.
On a couch sat Costello, discussing dialist subcontinuism and drinking a Reaction takeout entitled Counterfeit Reality Strain. He called Dante Two over for support. Costello had been given six months for crucifying a Valley girl and everyone was boasting that if they’d been allotted that much time they could have crucified fifty. Now he belied his exopose by discussing the annihilative dangers of attempting to purify a thing which consisted entirely of impurities. ‘I’ve given this town the blood-heavy shirt off my back,’ he said in disgust. ‘And that’s the long con of existence here - police and thieves, eh? If they don’t got the spirit they oughta get outta the quivering meat wheel, Danny. Outta the goddamn loop. The city’s the bad guy. Help yourself to cloakers, my friend.’
On a coffee table was a large bowl of anodyne pills, used to damp down original thought and reduce conspicuity in public. The practical hazards of re-examining one’s mental premises on the wing were well known to the denizens of Beerlight - a guy skyjacking a plane one time had pushed a gun to the pilot’s
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