Re: Kingdom Of The Blind
Hal Cline (winfield@gate.net)
Wed, 27 Sep 1995 17:48:54 -0400
What is kingdom of the blind????
At 09:29 PM 9/25/95 +1000, you wrote:
>>
>>
>> > I wrote a short story on (partly) the subject, entitled
>> > "The Kingdom Of the Blind", if you want to read it.
>> >
>> > Can I and others FTP it from somewhere?
>>
>> No. Its not that long, only about 30 pages or so.
>> I can email anybody a copy who wants one.
>>
>> Sure! Send one to "vanevery@rbdc.rbdc.com"
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Brandon
>>
>
>Here you go. Actually its more about how helpless humans are in
>the grip of Vision, part of the human condition.
>
>Many apologies for the bad metre, it needs to go through about
>six more re-writes I think. The tabs are a conversion artifact,
>you may want to load it into a text editor to make it more readable.
>
>Enjoy!
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>[This version contains suggested background music notes from a
>possible video project. Several options are given. Format
>is: "Song", Band (Album).
>Grammar has not been cleaned up yet.
>Note not all italics have been _sidelined_ yet]
>
>
>
>
>In The Kingdom Of The Blind
>
>
> (Jonathan Swords-Holdsworth)
>
>
>
> I remember that as a child, we had an invisible man in our
>neighbourhood. Sometimes, usually in late day sun, I could
>actually see him. A liquid silhouette of thicker air.
> He was always running. Only once did I ever see him stop
>and stand still - that's how I was able to tell he was a He -
>before he ran on. I had seen that he was very tall, an
>impossibly broad-shouldered Marvel Comics figure, and I could
>see through him, just right through him. In all I must have
>seen him five times or more.
> Years later I heard my friends talk, more and more, about
>"cloaking devices". General speculation about, dollar wise,
>just how much the military was moving into Stealth.
> But it wasn't until my late teens, that with a jolt I woke
>up one night and remembered the invisible man.
> Of course, no one believed me.
>
>
>["A Forest", The Cure (Seventeen Seconds album version)]
>
>
> Gath loved his jacket. Its base was black fashion leather,
>which of course could do no wrong, but much had been worked on
>top of that. Threads and thongs, laced in knotwork patterns
>all across the arms and back, and rows of stylish black-mirror
>which were bordered like long broaches to incorporate them.
> It had been partly a gift, but still it had cost Gath three
>months of hard dealing, _and_ other work on top of that, to pay
>off. It was the love-labour of three people: a fashion
>designer, a jeweller, and an electronic engineer.
> The jacket was alive. The mirrors were its holographic
>eyes.
> Gath could see three other jackets, just from where he sat
>looking around Blood And Honey's "dark dingy and smoke filled"
>basement.
> Blood And Honey was a nightclub being destroyed. Its
>atmosphere had remained unsullied, for a glorious two years,
>before the owners had succumbed to Renovation Disease. Now the
>straights were slowly invading, diluting, wrecking. But truth
>to tell, Gath liked this. It mixed some money into his
>clientele.
> Jocasta slunk into view and sat down close to one of the
>young jacket wearers. He jumped visibly, his space suddenly
>invaded by her black leather and lace, by her sharp hair and
>dramatically painted face. He was thin and "dweeby" looking,
>but for some reason she genuinely liked them like that. Gath
>was mystified. They weren't to his taste at all, oh no.
> Gath watched, fascinated, as a short vignette took place:
>Jocasta attempting to warm up a conversation; Jocasta
>attempting to drag her dweeb onto the dance floor; Jocasta
>sitting boredly, watching his departing back.
> Scared off another one, thought Gath.
> She walked over to his corner and sat down.
> "He got you, by the way," Gath told her.
> She looked annoyed.
> "Yeah, yeah, I know. And may he stain his sheets with the
>joy of me."
> She looked straight at Gath.
> "Fucking idiot could have had the real thing. So why
>_bother_?"
> They were both sure they knew what the boy would do when he
>got his jacket home, and they both wondered just how much of
>her he had taken with him. Gath was a few months behind on the
>current state of the art of holo-to-virtual. He guessed it all
>depended on how rich the kid had been. What kind of Jocasta
>would he enjoy tonight? Would he be fascinated? Dissatisfied
>enough to come back for more? And how easy would he be to ...
> Someone was standing in front of Gath. Gath looked up over
>his spectacles at a smiling dickhead. Thin, pale and trembling
>(and definitely a dickhead), this guy was one Gath knew as a
>regular. So did Gath's jacket, it remembered the
>characteristic shake only too well. The symbols flashing
>before Gath's eyes almost screamed _Customer_.
> Gath offered him a chair, that alone meaning "I am currently
>open for trade". They chatted and gesticulated animatedly and
>normally, then the guy left with a heavier breast pocket made
>that way by a practiced gesture. Nearly half a gram, quite a
>purchase.
> "What about that crowd?" Jocasta pointed.
> Gath adjusted his glasses, concentrating on a small group.
> "Need to get a little closer," he murmured.
> He stood and made his way through the noise and lights,
>stopping to check out a well constructed male body here and
>there. He was suddenly glad he had allowed himself the
>diversion, for the two males ahead of him were cops.
> They were _very_ well disguised. They both had
>lawyer/stockbroker haircuts, and they had astonishingly
>accurate clothes. But they were betrayed, as always.
> Gath looked into infinity, watching red and white crosshairs
>dancing over the people ahead: now joining eyes, now lancing
>from hip to shoulder, now framing body parts in clusters of
>gliding rectangles.
> He watched them for a whole two minutes, just to be
>_absolutely_ sure, but every five seconds the same word and
>same high probability was written across the scene.
> Jocasta queried him when he sat down.
> "Pigs?"
> He glanced at her nervously.
> "Brilliantly done up. But _brilliantly_. No doubts,
>though."
> As the night progressed, they amused themselves watching
>the two cops slowly circuit the basement. They saw some of the
>more experienced clubbers catch on and avoid them, but they
>didn't have Gath's jacket and it took them longer.
> By the time the cops had left, the jacket had found him six
>more customers, marking them by their walks. They were happy
>now and so was he - four grand in one night was hard to beat.
> He watched his clients leave, with his jacket following the
>slight but peculiar quivering that identified them as addicts.
>Gath watched through his glasses as the jacket tracked them
>well into the crowd, then it gave up and began searching for
>easier targets.
> Gath hoped this could all just go on for another year. Just
>one more year, please. Never busted, never losing ground.
> Gath really _loved_ his jacket.
>
>
> The problems happened much too fast.
> The fence alarm buzzed once then stopped. That was _not_
>was it was supposed to do. Then the dogs inside barked loudly
>for a few seconds, then they went silent too.
> A guard came running toward the courtyard.
> He had the sense to stop before he ran headlong into it, and
>started pressing all the emergency buttons on his mobile
>instead. He noticed that he was trembling, and starting to
>sweat coldly.
> The perimeter fence was high tech: "God" tech his masters
>called it, like everything they payed him to guard here. The
>dogs were in separate armoured enclosures, so they weren't all
>killable at once, not at long range. Ergo - a _very_
>sophisticated, fast attack was in progress, and the intruders
>(or intruder) were well inside the compound by now.
> The guard flattened himself against the wall and waited. He
>should be hearing the chopper any minute, he thought, with its
>load of heavy weapons and swarm of trained army types. They'd-
> Metal was ripping and screaming. The sound was so loud and
>discordant it hurt his ears. He couldn't stop himself anymore.
>He sprang across to the corner and peered along the courtyard.
>The sound stopped.
> The wall was open already, with a great dark wound and the
>steel folded back. A mechanistic lump of a silhouette that
>could have been an angle-grinder lay on the concrete.
> He turned up the intensification on his goggles, dialling in
>infra red false-colour as well, and waited some more.
> The edge of the great wound was colour-coded a deep orange,
>and beyond...
> _Shit_. There he was!
> A figure was backing awkwardly into the courtyard, dragging
>a long object. It suddenly noticed him, spinning around and
>grabbing for something at its belt.
> He didn't hesitate, his training and fear prevented that.
>His sidearm spat a blue tongue of fire and the intruder
>crumpled. He rushed to the opening and stopped to one side so
>that any others couldn't get a clear shot from inside. He
>waited, again.
> Then with a jolt he realised - it was now over two minutes
>since he had sounded the alarm. So where in hell was the
>chopper, or even ground support?
> The lights all came on. Just like that. Through the hole
>the guard now had an unnaturally bright view inside the
>warehouse. He could see that on the ground inside was a long
>military carrying box, and it was open.
> Acting on a pulse of adrenalin that he didn't stop to
>question, he charged through the gap. He looked in every
>direction, then slowed down and began to creep around the first
>stack of containers. He peered past the edge and down the long
>aisle.
> He got just a long glimpse before it all began.
> A suit of armour stood at the far end of the aisle,
>glittering in the mysterious, ugly beauty of extremely high
>technology. The opaque face plate was shut but the body was
>still not fully closed, and the intruder stood there with his
>hands on the last fastening. There was no doubt that he could
>see the guard. It was almost comical, like catching a man
>urinating in public.
> The suit of armour vanished.
> The guard fired once, knowing he had missed even before the
>echoes had stopped. When they did stop it took him a little
>while to realise that he wasn't dead - he was now merely alone.
>
>
> Anna squinted out over the roof. The day was still too
>bright, but they had to do it now. She looked down at the
>violence in her palm. The speaker below the tiny display
>screamed a terrified woman's scream.
> "OK its now," she said, and the three of them sprinted out
>into the light. Helen slapped down the boxes and almost threw
>the projector into Anna's hands. Rory backed off ten feet,
>trailing a coiled black optical pipe, and dropped his backpack.
>The backpack had to be exiled that distance because it was
>expendable. He darted away to do his part, pulling his mobile
>from his pocket as he ran.
> The roof was perimetered by a three foot high wall, and the
>ventilator hut they had just vacated was the only protrusion.
>They had an uninterrupted view of three skyscrapers. They
>chose the biggest and whitest.
> Anna shouldered the projector, while Helen plugged the
>equipment together and threw the aerial cable sprawling. She
>grabbed her PDA which doubled as the remote control for the
>whole system.
> "You're on, Peter, don't lose it!" she said into the device,
>then she grabbed the other side of the projector, helping to
>steady it.
> Rory's voice was vibrating in Helen's ears.
> "All clear, go for it! Do it!"
> The projector came alive, activated by a trigger squeeze
>forty kilometres away.
> The whole of the skyscraper's side lit up with a scene from
>Hell. In the middle of the shot, a soldier ten storeys high
>was bringing his rifle butt down on a woman's neck. It was in
>silence, but that was taken care of by a separate broadcast.
>The public, and their scanners, already knew all the right
>channels.
> The protesters were being crushed. This time the militia
>was without mercy. The scenes were too urgent, too real to fit
>into Australia. But there they were, in moving pictures the
>size of buildings, layed out for all Melbourne to see.
> "Eric's a bit worried," said Rory in their ears. Eric was
>on another roof nearby. He could see a long way, so that most
>probably meant choppers on the horizon.
> The camera kept getting disturbingly close to the action,
>then pulling back. It came to Anna that Peter was not
>telefotoing this footage - he was right there in the middle of
>it.
> Without warning a guard was bearing down on the camera, his
>block-wide face red and full of mayhem. Suddenly he stopped,
>cupping his hand to his ear. Then he broke into a broad,
>genial smile and started to walk away.
> Anna was dropping the projector even before Helen yelled
>"_Let's_get_out've_here!_" As the beam of the projector fell,
>for an instant something caught it and refracted it wildly
>around the roof. It was gone so fast only Anna saw it. She
>had no time right then to think about it.
> Then the Reflex cut in. A honed, practiced ordeal that was
>second nature to the three of them, by now it was as easy and
>as fluid as a gesture. Assigned tasks were completed faster
>than they could have been tracked: the projector's caps closed;
>the backpack and aerial ripped loose and dumped; the box
>strapped to a shoulder.
> Run.
>
> A voice crackled in their ears, Eric's this time.
> "_Forget_the_stairs,_I_can_see_cars!_ _Go_over_the_side!_
>_NOW!_"
> Being afraid wasn't an assigned task and it wasn't
>encouraged in PANOPTICON's members at this stage of the game.
>It took too much valuable time to shiver and worry. Besides,
>it made others around you nervous.
> The three knew that what the cops would mete out far
>exceeded any slight inconvenience presented by their height
>above the ground.
> Anna and Helen reached where Rory stood as a human marker,
>then all three of them jumped over the wall together and fell.
>Rory's net stopped them two stories over the carpark, then he
>cut them loose and rappelled them down onto the roofs of parked
>BMW's and delivery van's. A few alarms went off.
> The ran in three opposite directions, cycling their clothes
>as they went. Rory had the easiest job of escape, he was
>carrying nothing unusual to discard - his mastery of nets and
>ropes gave him that privileged status within the PANOPTICON
>crowd.
> Anna threw the projector into bushes near the museum.
>Something went crunch, but it would just be fixed later.
> Helen met Eric near the station and bestowed him with her
>backpack. Then she ran onto the nearest train.
> Eric looked up and grinned as he heard the choppers close in
>two blocks away.
> "So long as we keep fit," he thought, and he grinned, "You
>arseholes just _cannot_ do us."
> His left tear duct dripped slightly. He rubbed the eye,
>irritated at the blurring. Then he froze, startled, as the
>blur darted round a corner.
> The day was dying.
>
>
> As if Melbourne did not yet have enough Hell within its
>confines, as if it had not yet lost all the worth it had once
>owned, something yet more wicked entered into it. It was
>something worse than any civil strife, worse than oppression.
> It was insane, it was competent, and it was - for the moment
>anyway - human.
> Only one redeeming feature did it have: In its hunger and
>its greed, it cared not who it claimed.
> Its atrocities were fairly cast, favouring and sparing none.
>
>
> Jocasta left Gath at Blood And Honey.
> She passed the bouncers, stopping at the end of the alley
>and keeping them in view as she lit her cigarette. The were
>old acquaintances, and would look out for her. No one would
>follow her unchallenged around the corner, she decided, and
>went seeking peace in the culdesac.
> She leaned against the wall and wished she were drugged. It
>would have kept modern life in Melbourne farther from her
>thoughts. Nearly all the people she had liked had long since
>left Victoria, many of them had left Australia altogether.
>They admired her, it took strength to stay behind.
> A section of wall detached itself and wrapped arms of
>swimming brick around her. In an instant she was a struggling
>prisoner in the embrace of a glass statue. It was huge and
>grotesque. Something gagged her mouth, but she didn't stop
>trying to scream.
> It seemed to take forever, (minutes perhaps?), and then as
>suddenly as it began it was over. She lay bruised on the alley
>floor among dirty paper, alone, dazed and violated.
> Finally the bouncers heard her cries and came running. One
>looked down and saw Jocasta's raped figure crumpled on the
>tarmac, the other looked up and saw the rapist. For his
>trouble his head was split open by something that hissed down
>from above. The body was still falling as the other bouncer
>looked up and saw a faint outline scuttle over the roof and
>disappear, then he started screaming too.
>
>
> The police talked to Gath for far too long. Even beside
>Jocasta's hospital bed they still snarled at him and heaped
>their suspicion upon him. And the militia guys. Gath and the
>Matron together had finally persuaded the cops that Jocasta
>didn't _need_ their "protection" _here_, what she really needed
>was not to see dickheads walking around with big _guns_.
> The militia left, and finally the cops did too. They had
>told Gath absolutely _nothing_ he didn't already know.
> Jo's bravery had shocked him. She had quite calmly talked
>of the feel of cold steel, a faint whine of hydraulics, and
>then the thing's groin had become visible in the streetlight,
>revealing a very human, erect penis covered in transparent
>plastic. She had described the impossible, unrestrainable
>strength that the attacker had. And she described how, when it
>was done and had thrown her down, how it had sort of "run" up
>the wall and out of her view.
> The forensics had crawled all over her, and two militia guys
>had practically dragged Frank, the other bouncer, away. No one
>knew where he was now.
> "I saw it..." Jocasta was saying.
> Gath was taken aback.
> "_Him?_" he asked.
> She shook her head. "No. The thing that killed Pierre."
> Gath straightened. She hadn't told the cops this. Not when
>he was with her anyway.
> "It was about this long," her fingers were about twenty
>centimetres apart, "Moving quite slowly really, brass colour.
>Thick too, like a walking stick almost."
> A bolt. A crossbow bolt.
>
>
> Rush. Pure rush.
> This was like uniform all over again. The feeling of purity
>and untouchability. This time he was not symbolic, this time
>he _was_ power. Incarnate power.
> God, but the suit felt good.
> Its designers were truly geniuses. Their child would live
>on long into new generations of war, in just the way the
>Blackbird aircraft had been a good twenty three years ahead of
>its time.
> It breathed, like it was pleased to hold him. It told him
>everything, things about the world he had never realised.
>Sight chosen from the entire spectrum, even heat and ultra-
>violet, sound gathered in from kilometres around. Hands that
>could grip smooth walls, and magic ropes to help where they
>failed.
> It kept him clean and warm, and it opened for him when he
>wanted it to. There had been many _special_ reasons to open it
>over the last weeks. The suit had a shell that _gave_ when it
>was hit, yet would not let a sharp blade or close bullet
>through. It had magic weapons, ones that he could recover if
>he was quick enough. And _strength_, unimaginable strength,
>powered derived from new mysteries of battlefield electronics.
> But best of all, it hid him. He was not an engineer,
>something to do with liquid crystals and "Wavefront Control"
>and fibres that exhibited "Voltage Spectrum Absorbency", they
>were only catch phrases to him. All he knew and cared about
>was that it could turn him to glass, then to air.
> The suit gave him Life. Ah Life, more now than he knew what
>to do with. He sat looking down into a river of city light,
>randomly painting crosshairs on people below.
>
>
> Anna heard the rumours spread around PANOPTICON. Some of
>the crowd were getting scared of rooftops. For all the science
>of escape, that on which they and the other groups like ROOF
>all prided themselves, this _just_might_ be outside their
>capabilities.
> Against the rules many of them, particularly the women, were
>acquiring and carrying handguns now. What the cops would do
>didn't matter. This thing was too simple for all that: It
>raped women and killed men, and it was very good at it.
> But Anna was beginning to feel something deeper, more
>galvanising than fear. She was feeling a deep, primordial
>rage. A rage from the genes.
>A _vast_ rage.
>
>
> Gath saw it one night and decided right then that he was
>dead. The media still hadn't admitted anything, still! And
>here he was, he had nearly walked into it, in fact he had
>touched it!
> He had stepped onto the roof to look at the building next
>door, to try and figure out if there really was a bust
>happening in there, and it had brushed him as flew past.
> Now he stood frozen, watching it stop and turn. The outline
>was clear to his jacket, the ripples in the air could not
>escape the device's notice. Even without the red rectangles
>painted by his jacket, he could faintly see it against the rosy
>night clouds. It was a giant Captain America, without the
>cape, made entirely of glass.
> Gath was sure that the creature was just targeting him more
>accurately, that it could see him as plain as if it were
>daylight. He ran like a lion's breath was on his neck. He
>charged headlong down the fire escape, hearing rapid clangs
>behind him. Something hissed, followed by a hammer blow on the
>rail near Gath's head.
> He cleared open ground, and corpse faces looked out at him
>from the shadows. The Wailing Wall, Melbourne's premier piece
>of junkie art. He went sprinting through the shadow below the
>wall but remembered the out-jut too late. He slammed into it
>at full speed and slumped against the wall.
> He watched the creature leave the base of the fire escape,
>and move towards him. Huge, it was huge. He could make out
>black bands on the arms and legs where the scenery was blotted
>out. Not completely invisible then, Gath thought defeatedly.
> It swayed back and forth. It turned around, then around
>again.
> Then it simply ran away.
> Gath waited whole minutes before he stood up. He was
>baffled. He turned and looked at the Wailing Wall. Suddenly
>it became clear to him. He was almost an exact match with the
>figures that cowered and crouched in the painting's lower half,
>and he was dwarfed by the standing ones. He too had been
>hidden in the background.
> There was a flash above him. He looked up to see the
>building illuminated with an image of police choking a man. It
>was drastically foreshortened from down here, but he got the
>drift. ROOF, or maybe PANOPTICON. One of the groups with
>big projectors.
> "Shit," Gath thought, "They must have been coming up the
>other side when I was on this side."
> Gath decided to get out of there, and nearly ran into the
>half dozen police cars pulling up and silently disgorging
>militia onto the footpath.
> There was no time for introductions, he had to warn the
>projectionists. He retraced his flight, back up the escape,
>and ran onto the roof seeing the wide cone of the beam ahead of
>him.
> He ran straight toward its apex and found himself looking
>down Helen's gun.
> "How the fuck did you get past our people?" she snarled.
> "I'll put it bluntly," he gasped between breaths, "That
>invisible fucker just nearly killed me on this roof, and this
>basement is swarming with cops and arseholes."
>
>
>["Hit", The Jesus And Mary Chain (Barbed Wire Kisses)]
>
>
> Helen's thoughts moved rapidly behind her face. She didn't
>say anything. Anna shut the projector off.
> "Run!" Anna yelled, and she and Helen moved suddenly, the
>Reflex spiriting them back into the darkness.
> The roof lit up. An amplified voice boomed, echoing around
>the concrete faces of the buildings.
> "FREEZE. YOU WILL BE SHOT IF YOU MOVE. I REPEAT. YOU WILL
>BE SHOT IF YOU MOVE. YOU WITH THE GUN, DROP IT NOW."
> Helen disarmed herself.
> Anna was crouching by the projector, eyes on the figures
>pouring out of the exits.
> Something hissed over her head, and the light went out with
>a deafening crack and in a waterfall of sparks.
> A man gave out a high pitched scream and something metallic
>was sent clattering across the roof. Anna fell to the
>concrete, making herself as flat as she possibly could. Gath
>and Helen instantly did the same.
> Firing opened up across the roof. Gath peered up over the
>ventilator next to him, making out militia soldiers by the
>light of muzzle flashes. A blur muddied the scene above him,
>and he glanced up.
> It was with them, crouching beside him.
> It stopped moving altogether for an instant, and after a
>brief moment Gath realised he simply couldn't see it anymore.
>His glasses were at the wrong angle for him to use his jacket.
>They probably wouldn't work on this angle anyway, he mused, and
>he wasn't about to lean up to adjust them. It was obvious to
>him now how this thing managed to remain so dangerously
>_unpresent_.
> A bullet _splashed_ against its shoulder, orange sparks
>dripping into the air. The creature whipped around,
>whirlpooling out of the background, and then there were two
>quiet clicks that trailed off into overlapping hisses. A
>scream and a choked off gasp told Gath that the bolts had found
>their marks.
> The cops and the militia were suddenly losing fast. The
>bursts of fire were becoming more sporadic, and taking on a
>panic-stricken randomness. Between automatic fire, Gath could
>hear faint hisses. Every time someone screamed, the gunfire
>became quieter.
> In maybe two minutes, it was over.
> Gath's ears were ringing, but he was reasonably sure he
>could hear distant voices down the nearest stairwell.
> For all he knew, he was now the only thing left alive on the
>roof. Apart from one other occupant, that was.
>
>
> Anna had her arm under the projector. It never seemed so
>heavy when you were using it. She could just make out Helen,
>laying near the guy that had run in on them. Probably pretty
>safe to conclude he wasn't a cop or anything, she thought.
>They all might be friends, except they were all about to die
>right here. Was Rory dead already?
> As she wondered whether to move, a silhouette straddled
>Helen. It appeared to Anna as a space-opera outline, the vast
>black shadow of an absurd robot.
> Anna screamed and it disappeared. She heard heavy steps
>coming rapidly towards her. Helen and Gath heard her scream
>and they both sat bolt upright and looked around. They caught
>a glimpse of Anna flickering behind muddy glass, staring up at
>a face she couldn't see.
> Anna switched the projector on.
> The beam caught the creature and threw bizarre effects over
>the whole world, great psychedelic swirls washed across the
>faces of the buildings. They could see the guy now. It was
>like someone standing in front of the screen at an old style
>cinema. Colours were wrapped around him like a blanket,
>revealing the suit's bulging mechanical shape. He was
>thrashing around, arms windmilling in the air. They heard a
>popping noise, then he turned and ran from them.
> Helen fired.
> In her sixteen year old hands she held one of the militia's
>rifles. She triggered two short bursts, four shots each, into
>its face. The force of the blast rocked her back on her heels
>and she stumbled.
> The creature reeled back clutching its face. It fell to its
>knees, then pitched forward at Helen's feet and lay still.
> Slowly, the three of them gathered around it and Anna
>clicked her torch on. As they watched, to their fascination,
>the glittering suit began climbing off the driver's body.
>Seals clicked and clunked, and again they heard the popping
>noise. Servos and hydraulics whined dully beneath the layers
>that covered them. The suit split open and lay like a cicada's
>shell over the body of its former occupant.
> They bent down and looked more closely at it. It was
>covered in panels, just like Gath's jacket. A bulky backpack
>was strapped to its shoulders, and there were many tool bags
>adorning a belt around its middle. The backpack and toolbags
>were also covered in the mirror panels.
> Tentatively they reached out and began to try and pull the
>suit free of the body. Beneath the panels they could feel
>cords of machinery, giving them an impression of industrial
>strength. The suit was startlingly lightweight.
> Next to its hand lay the weapon that they realised must have
>killed the militia people; and Pierre, thought Gath. Gath
>gingerly picked it up. It was a heavy pod, a single football
>shaped and sized plastic ovoid with a trigger grip underneath.
>It had a fat mouth, which obviously played little part in
>directing the missiles the gun fired.
> "Don't just stand there, help flip it over!" Helen barked at
>Gath. He put down the gun and the three of them dragged the
>suit over onto its back, at the same time uncovering the
>driver.
> The man was naked, and there was a lot of blood. His
>identity would remain a mystery for the moment, for Helen's
>shots had destroyed his head. For an unknown reason, the face
>plate had been open when she fired. That popping sound,
>thought Gath.
> They dragged their eyes off the body and began exploring the
>suit properly. A face plate that swung down and sealed. Seams
>along the limbs and down the front, sealed with some kind of
>smooth zip lock. The interior was some kind of incredibly soft
>mesh material, like thermal underwear or space suit
>undergarment. They could make out coloured glows from inside
>the helmet that must have been still-operating readouts.
> The suit didn't appear damaged at all.
> "Who the fuck was..." began Gath, but Anna was ignoring him
>and already bent over, straightening the suit for carrying. In
>the background they could definitely hear voices now,
>officially toned and interspersed with shouted orders.
> They left the equipment and dragged the suit along the path
>Rory (presumed dead) had laid before the firefight. They were
>long gone when the militia dared onto the roof and the choppers
>came.
> All the police got was the projector. On its side was
>stencilled "Property of the Human Race".
>
>
> It breathed, like it was pleased to contain her.
> It told her everything. It told her things about the world,
>things she had never realised. Sight chosen from the entire
>spectrum, sound gathered in from kilometres around.
> Anna looked down into a busy riot scene, randomly painting
>crosshairs on police and militia.
> Life, ah Life. More now than she knew what to do with.
>
>
>["Self Esteem", The Offspring (album ?)]
>
>
>THE END
>
>