Metal Fatigue - Sean Williams

Metal Fatigue - Sean Williams, ebook

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HarperCollinsPublishersFirst published in Australia in 1996 by HarperCollinsPublishers Pty Limited ACN 009 913 517 A member of the HarperCollinsPublishers (Australia) Pry Limited GroupCopyright (D Sean Williams 1996This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.HarperCoffinsPublishers25 Ryde Road, Pymble, Sydney NSW 2073, Australia31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 SIB, United Kingdom Hazelton Lanes, 55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900, Toronto, Ontario M5R 3L2 and 1995 Markham Road, Scarborough, Ontario M I B 5M8, Canada10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10032, USANational Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data:Williams, Sean, 1967Metal fatigue. ISBN 0 7322 5633 X.1. Title. A823.3Cover illustration by Greg Bridges Cover design by Darian CausbyPrinted in Australia by Griffin Paperbacks, Adelaide765432199989796"Each culture casts its own shadow, a shadow which isa perfect description of its own form and nature. The shadow which our technological civilisation casts is that of Lilith, 'the maid of desolation' who dances in the ruins of cities. Now that we have made a single polluted city of the entire world, she is preparing to dance in the ruins of our planetary megalopolis."William Irwin Thompson The Time Falling Bodies Take To LightIn memoriam Harold Alwin Schiller1903-1983 David John Williams1942-1995The author would like to thank the following people for their help during the preparation of this novel: Bill Congreve, Shane Dix, Bill Gee, Jeff Harris, Phillip & Jo Knowles, Kelly Manison, Peter McNamara, Sputnik, Nick Stathopoulos, Jonathan Strahan, Louise Thurtell, Damien Warman and Juliette Woods.Some sections of this novel are loosely based on the short story "Robbery, Assault and Battery", published in Nemesis'#17 (March, 1992).PART ONE: THOU SHALT NOT STEALPRELUDEFriday, 14 September, 2 096, 11:1 S P.m."I am Lucifer," said the voice.He woke with a start, and opened his eyes. The room was lit by second-hand streetlight, anindistinct, yellow haze which spilled through the curtains and lapped at the damp-stained walls. The curfew had not yet fallen, which placed the time at before twelve o'clock; still, the faint electric light wasnot quite enough to fully dispel the night. Shadows crowded about the bed, whispering black secrets in the distant voice of the city.He sat up, letting the sheet slip from his shoulders to his lap. The humid air, stirred by the sudden movement, brushed the rigid bulges of his muscles with the electric caress of an approaching thunderstorm. The womanbeside him snuffled to herself and rolled over. There was a subtle tension in the air, an expectant pause, a moment waiting to be filled.He listened ... People stirred in the buildings around him: someonescreamed, another laughed, a third raised her voice in anger. A nearby couple made love with abandon, oblivious to his prying, sensitive ears. Far away, the languid tongue of the river licked its lips and tasted the rotten teeth of Patriot Bridge.When the voice spoke again, it did so without sound ,,'or, expression. It whispered directly into his mind asecond time, "I am Lucifer," then fell silent again, "Waiting.He closed his eyes, concentrated, and visualised aljrgply, parcelling the soundless words into a bundle of electric thought and hurling it outward into the night. I The response was instantaneous: "Remember your duty." , He slid from beneath the sheet and stood upright. In profile and near-darkness, his naked body was sexless and smooth-skinned. His chest and shoulders weremassive, and his limbs gifted with both power and grace. His poise balanced, trembling, on the brink of blinding motion.He remained that way for some time - frozen, indecisive, reluctant to commit himself to any course of action - until movement through a part in the curtains caught his pinprick eye. Leaning closer to the window, he peered out and down at the empty street below. As he watched, a shadow moved, stepped onto the littered roadway and into a wash of streetlight.The man stood 'a full foot shorter than he, with wide shoulders and a wrestler's build not yet soft with age. Receding mouse-brown hair exposed a high, proud forehead and generous ears. A thick moustache bristled beneath the snub nose, lending the man an air of familiarity that defied the best efforts of his memory. He might have seen this man somewhere before, although he wasn't sure where.It didn't matter. The man, whoever he was, wasirrelevant. Curiosity had been carefully bred out of him, replaced with an inescapable compulsion to obey orders.There was something about the man's silent watchfulness, though, that made him nervous. Somethingindefinably wrong. The man was so still, he hardly seemed to breathe ...The woman stirred again, not quite awake. Her voicewas muffled by sleep. "Cati?"He turned away from the window. The blackness of her hair formed a puddle on the pillow, a pool of darkness deeper than the shadows. Reaching down with one massive hand, he touched her reassuringly on the shoulder. The trembling of his fingertips eased as he gently caressed her soft skin, even when the voice called a third time. She was Sanctuary in a world he could not begin to understand, queen of a haven called Peace; he would protect his Sanctuary every way he could, even if it was his own nature that threatened her.Slowly, her breathing deepened, became more regulaT, until she finally returned to sleep.He went to the bathroom, where he would not disturb her further, and opened his mind to the insistent touch of the one who called himself Lucifer.When curfew fell at midnight, he was leaping from rooftop to rooftop high above the streets, hunting. And the silent man who had stood on the street under his window had long since disappeared.(HAPTER ONESaturday, 15 September, 1:25 a.m.From the outside, it looked like an empty warehouse: its doors had rusted shut; its windows were broken and -boarded up; its roof was slowly caving in. @- Kennedy Polis had many such buildings. Once, six decades past, swift, solar-powered ferries had shunted back and forth along the river, bringing with them trade goods from nearby towns. The warehouses had been full, then, and business brisk. Kennedy had shone like ajewel in the North American Model City Project's crown. Completely free of petrochemical fuels, selfsufficient except for a few basic raw materials and equipped with the latest reclamation technologies, it had symbolised the new, cleaner lifestyle promised by politicians for decades - a harbinger of the NAMCPs utopian dream.The War, however, had killed the dream, and the Dissolut;on that had followed had killed most of the dreamers. Now the warehouses stood empty, rotting slowly in the moist air drifting off the river. Some had become temporary homes for refugees, others were taken over by the Mayoralty; the remainder simply awaited the reopening of the city's self-imposed walls, if such ever happened.The years rested heavily upon Kennedy, and upon its warehouses in particular. But it had not died.Not yet. This warehouse was located on a deserted cul-de-sac not far from the slosh and tumble of the river. A white, electric vehicle slid to a halt by a rusted phone booth at the end of the street. The letters "RSD" were painted in bold black down each side of the car and on its trunk.The younger of the two people inside the car, awoman in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length blonde hair and strong laughter-lines, peered sceptically through the rain-spattered windscreen. "You're sure this is the right place, Phil?"The man beside her nodded. With a slightly receding hairline, a thick moustache and a body that was past its peak without being infirm, he looked to be only a few years older than his companion; perhaps in his midforties. He was in fact much older. It showed sometimes in his voice. "This is it, Barney. Trust me." He smiled, teasing. "You wanted to come, remember?" "Only because you promised to buy me a drink." She pouted mournfully, and he knew she was ribbing him in return. Barney Daniels and Phil Roads had been close friends for most of her life, especially since her father's death, and knew each other's games well. "Best bar in Kennedy, you said," she continued, nodding disdainfully through the window at the derelict warehouse, no different from the scores of others within spitting distance. "Doesn't look like much to me." "Nevertheless." He locked the dash with his thumbprint and keyed the car's security system. Thirty seconds. "Coming?" "Do I have a choice?"They stepped out of the car and into the street, pulling coats closer to protect their bodies. The rain was heavy and thick, failing in a warm sheet from the darklky, a solid mass only slightly less dense than the nearby river. Their clothing consisted of the standard casual _gniforms of the city's Regional Security Department: grey synthetic fabric, recycled aluminium buttons and thick greatcoats. Roads' genuine leather boots were ararity in Kennedy, and allowed him to walk through puddles with greater comfort than Barney. "This way." He led her down a narrow flight of stairs ,between two buildings. Paint peelings from the crum-bling brick walls littered the asphalt path. A left turntook them to a steel door, which slid aside on smoothoiled runners as they approached. The passageway onItthe other side was gloomily lit, but at least relatively clean and dry. . As they passed ... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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