Read Terminal World for Free Online

fused seamlessly.
    He picked up the other pieces in turn, searching for something that would mate in a clear fashion with the component he had already assembled. There was nothing obvious, but during his examination he spotted two other pieces that appeared to fit together. As carefully as he dared he pushed them together, and felt the same tiny click as the parts engaged. He had made something like a pistol grip, but scaled for a small, delicate hand.
    ‘Wild stab in the dark here, Cutter, but I think it might possibly be a gun.’
    ‘I’m not fond of guns.’
    ‘I am,’ said a new voice. ‘Especially when they’re shiny. Guess this is the new package, right?’
    Quillon turned around from the table as the woman entered the nook. She was short enough not to need to duck under the low arch. Her clothes were utilitarian and drab: shapeless trousers, heavy toe-capped boots that might have belonged to a welder, a dark olive coat that was several sizes too big. She had a nondescript, melt-into-the-crowd face and very short hair, mostly dark but flecked with grey at the temples. He guessed her age at somewhere between fifteen and twenty.
    ‘Meroka, meet Doctor Quillon,’ Fray said. ‘He is, as you correctly surmised, the new package. I’ve just been telling him how you’re going to do such an excellent job of getting him out of Spearpoint.’
    ‘Hope you told him it isn’t going to be no joyride.’
    ‘I’m under no illusions,’ Quillon said.
    ‘Looking at three hard days to get you out, if all goes to plan, which mostly it won’t. Three days of dirt and worry and less sleep than you’ve ever had in your life. Then we have to find the people Fray’s lined up to take you to Fortune’s Landing, and hope they haven’t changed their minds.’
    ‘You can throw in danger as well,’ Fray said. ‘Cutter’s ticked off some angels. They’ve got deep-penetration agents in Neon Heights, and they’ll be aiming to stop him leaving town.’
    ‘You didn’t mention angels on the phone, Fray. You said there was local heat. In my book that ain’t the same thing.’
    ‘Must’ve slipped my mind.’ He contorted his face into a mask of fake contrition. ‘Not that a little thing like that would be enough to scare you off, would it?’
    ‘I’ve dealt with angels. They don’t worry me.’
    ‘What I figured. Bonus is, Cutter’s come into a little inheritance. It’s what we’re trying to put together now.’
    Meroka looked at the gore-stained puzzle on the table.
    ‘That’s the weapon you were talking about?’
    ‘It’s angel technology. Supposed to give him an edge, so he can get out with his skin intact.’
    ‘Looks like something a dog sicked-up.’
    ‘You don’t want to know where it came from, trust me.’ Fray brushed fingers through the white thatch of his hair. ‘Well, any new insights, Cutter?’
    Quillon stared at the still-unassembled gun. For a moment the parts seemed impossible to reconcile. Then, with a shudder of intuitive understanding, it all made sense to him. One element fitted under the other and formed an aperture into which the barrel could be slid and locked. The grip assembly slotted into the rear of the whole, entering at a slight angle to the line of the barrel. He pushed it home, anticipating the click that would signify correct assembly. The click arrived, but at the same moment the weapon also came alive in his hand. A tracery of luminous blue lines appeared over it, flickering and branching as if the weapon were validating its own operational integrity. The change was so sudden that he nearly dropped it.
    ‘Guess you got that right,’ Fray said.
    ‘So it would seem.’
    ‘What I said before still stands, though. That’s angel technology. It shouldn’t work down here.’
    ‘If it does, then we’re all—’ Meroka started saying.
    The gun spoke.
    ‘Thank you for reassembling me. Be advised that I am programmed to blood-lock to the individual now holding me.’ Its voice