World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) by James Lovegrove
Authors: James Lovegrove
Tags: Science-Fiction
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facilitate a purchase. All that was required was a DNA sample from your sweat to confirm your identity.
Since Dev’s host form wasn’t registered on Alighieri’s ID database, that method wouldn’t work for him. Frowning hard, he tried to activate his banking details the usual way.
The men’s room door opened and closed behind him.
He turned – staggered round, really – and there were the three miners from the next-door booth. They, too, were drunk, but not the kind of spinny-head drunk that Dev was. Mean drunk.
The ringleader cracked his knuckles and, without a word, took a swing at Dev.
What followed was far from elegant.
It wasn’t a fight.
It was even a brawl.
It was a ferocious, clumsy free-for-all, full of shouting and flailing and bodies smashing into inanimate objects and inanimate objects smashing into bodies.
The miners, the ringleader in particular, bellowed names at Dev: faggot, queer, cocksucker.
Dev didn’t dignify that with a retort. Besides, he was too busy concentrating on staying on his feet and getting his shots in.
Three to one. On paper, it was hardly fair.
It became two to one when Dev knocked one of the miners unconscious by ramming his face against a toilet stall door.
Then Dev found his own face being dunked into a toilet bowl and held under by two pairs of callused hands.
He flashed back to his conversation with Trundell about host form adaptations. Breathing water? Maybe he was about to discover what that was like.
But the water and the dread of drowning did do something for him. Not quite a Blitz-Go, but the adrenaline surge restored him part-way to his senses, bringing some clarity.
He elbowed one of his assailants in the side of his knee. He felt the crunchy click of a patella dislocating and heard the satisfying scream of a man in immense, crippling pain.
He came up, heaving for air, and grabbed the hobbled miner by the shoulders.
The miner’s skull met the edge of the toilet bowl with enough force to break them both.
Which left just the ringleader.
If the man was alarmed or surprised to find himself alone, his friends out of commission, he didn’t show it. He was probably too far gone to care. He rushed at Dev like a bloodshot-eyed bull, slamming him spine-first against a basin.
Ceramic shattered, and water sprayed from snapped faucets.
Dev and the miner slugged away at each other like punchdrunk boxers in a clinch, skidding across the wet floor tiles.
At some point, one of them fell; Dev was mildly astonished to find that it wasn’t himself.
The miner groaned through pulped lips, and Dev kicked him in the head until he shut up.
After that, he slumped to his knees. Blood mingled with the puddles of water on the floor. It came from his knuckles, his forehead, his nose, his mouth.
What a fucking mess.
When he next looked up, police were barging through the door. They surrounded him, yelping like a pack of dogs. He couldn’t make out what they were saying over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.
He must have made a movement which one of the police officers interpreted as aggressive. Or he didn’t. Either way, they mosquitoed him.
Then they did it a second time, for good measure.
His body became a stupid, floppy thing, a meat sack. He could do nothing as the police officers trussed him up in restraints and bundled him out of the bar. They were not gentle. Now and then a fist struck him, or a foot, as if by accident.
He felt it, but it was as though someone else was feeling it.
It wasn’t so bad, really. Not when he could remember all too clearly the sensation of being riddled by ferromagnetic rounds entering his body at hypersonic speed from a Polis+ coilgun. Of being battered helplessly by kinetic forces that turned him into a dancing marionette.
Of being flayed alive.
Of dying.
15
“H ARMER, H ARMER, H ARMER ...”
The face of Chief of Police Kahlo hovered above him like a gibbous moon.
“Urrgh,” said Dev.
“That’s all you
Since Dev’s host form wasn’t registered on Alighieri’s ID database, that method wouldn’t work for him. Frowning hard, he tried to activate his banking details the usual way.
The men’s room door opened and closed behind him.
He turned – staggered round, really – and there were the three miners from the next-door booth. They, too, were drunk, but not the kind of spinny-head drunk that Dev was. Mean drunk.
The ringleader cracked his knuckles and, without a word, took a swing at Dev.
What followed was far from elegant.
It wasn’t a fight.
It was even a brawl.
It was a ferocious, clumsy free-for-all, full of shouting and flailing and bodies smashing into inanimate objects and inanimate objects smashing into bodies.
The miners, the ringleader in particular, bellowed names at Dev: faggot, queer, cocksucker.
Dev didn’t dignify that with a retort. Besides, he was too busy concentrating on staying on his feet and getting his shots in.
Three to one. On paper, it was hardly fair.
It became two to one when Dev knocked one of the miners unconscious by ramming his face against a toilet stall door.
Then Dev found his own face being dunked into a toilet bowl and held under by two pairs of callused hands.
He flashed back to his conversation with Trundell about host form adaptations. Breathing water? Maybe he was about to discover what that was like.
But the water and the dread of drowning did do something for him. Not quite a Blitz-Go, but the adrenaline surge restored him part-way to his senses, bringing some clarity.
He elbowed one of his assailants in the side of his knee. He felt the crunchy click of a patella dislocating and heard the satisfying scream of a man in immense, crippling pain.
He came up, heaving for air, and grabbed the hobbled miner by the shoulders.
The miner’s skull met the edge of the toilet bowl with enough force to break them both.
Which left just the ringleader.
If the man was alarmed or surprised to find himself alone, his friends out of commission, he didn’t show it. He was probably too far gone to care. He rushed at Dev like a bloodshot-eyed bull, slamming him spine-first against a basin.
Ceramic shattered, and water sprayed from snapped faucets.
Dev and the miner slugged away at each other like punchdrunk boxers in a clinch, skidding across the wet floor tiles.
At some point, one of them fell; Dev was mildly astonished to find that it wasn’t himself.
The miner groaned through pulped lips, and Dev kicked him in the head until he shut up.
After that, he slumped to his knees. Blood mingled with the puddles of water on the floor. It came from his knuckles, his forehead, his nose, his mouth.
What a fucking mess.
When he next looked up, police were barging through the door. They surrounded him, yelping like a pack of dogs. He couldn’t make out what they were saying over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.
He must have made a movement which one of the police officers interpreted as aggressive. Or he didn’t. Either way, they mosquitoed him.
Then they did it a second time, for good measure.
His body became a stupid, floppy thing, a meat sack. He could do nothing as the police officers trussed him up in restraints and bundled him out of the bar. They were not gentle. Now and then a fist struck him, or a foot, as if by accident.
He felt it, but it was as though someone else was feeling it.
It wasn’t so bad, really. Not when he could remember all too clearly the sensation of being riddled by ferromagnetic rounds entering his body at hypersonic speed from a Polis+ coilgun. Of being battered helplessly by kinetic forces that turned him into a dancing marionette.
Of being flayed alive.
Of dying.
15
“H ARMER, H ARMER, H ARMER ...”
The face of Chief of Police Kahlo hovered above him like a gibbous moon.
“Urrgh,” said Dev.
“That’s all you
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