"Maybe I'm coming at this from the wrong angle," the fat man said, mistaking Morris's silence for indecision. "Maybe you already know what you want, but you're too embarrassed to say it? You needn't worry, we get all sorts here. Look, you want to get it on with guys, pre-ops, animals? It's no skin off mine. Takes all kinds of freaks to keep the world on bouncing."
In the pocket of his overcoat, Morris carried two small but heavy energy cells in the knotted end of a sock. As he watched the fat man's face and tried to keep his own expression neutral, he felt his hand go to his pocket as though with a mind of its own. He felt it grip the club tightly, as he fought the overwhelming urge to strike.
"There is something," Morris said hoarsely, looking for an opening. "I have always been partial to inanimate objects..."
"Why didn't you say so?" the fat man said. "We've got them all.
School of Hard Rocks, The Glass is Half-Empty, If There Ain't No Wood It Ain't No Good.
Trust me, I think I got something here that's right up your alley."
Turning away, the fat man bent forward to unlock the lowest drawer beneath the counter. As he did, Morris noticed a palm-sized bald spot peering out from amid the thinning hair at the back of the fat man's scalp. He noticed it, and was pleased. It made the perfect target.
He had been right to be careful. Stepping over the fat man's fallen body, Morris noticed the dull metal gleam of a small object sitting half-hidden on a shelf below the counter: a handgun, slim and semi-automatic, kept within easy reach in case of trouble. Morris cupped the gun in his hand for a moment as he wondered whether he should use the fat man's own weapon to finish him off. He decided against it. A bullet would be too quick and easy a death. Better to let him burn with the rest.
Slipping the gun into his trouser pocket, Morris retraced his steps back to the front door and locked and bolted it from the inside. He spared a glance at the dreamers around him. His fears were swiftly allayed. For all the noise he had made subduing the fat man - the crack as the cosh split his skull, the crash as his body fell to floor - none of the dreamers had woken up. Lost in the sleeping worlds of their own private damnations, they might as well have all been blind and deaf. Checking the timer displays on each dream-machine, Morris saw he had at least twenty more minutes before the next dream-session ended. Twenty minutes before the first of the sleepers would awaken.
Twenty minutes would be time enough to do what was needed.
Reaching inside his coat, Morris pulled out one of the litre-sized plasteen bottles he had hidden there earlier. He was carrying twelve bottles in all, held in Velcro loops concealed within the coat's inner lining and filled with a liquid incendiary gel he had created by mixing synthi-oil, paint thinner and household detergent. Finding the right proportions for the mixture had been the tricky part, but courtesy of three weeks of testing, he was confident it would do its work well enough. Three weeks out of the four months he had spent preparing since he had decided to make his stand. Months spent studying, making calculations, experimenting and obtaining ingredients.
He had needed to be cautious, mindful that a single slip or an instant's carelessness could bring the Judges to his door. It was only now, past the point of no return and with his crusade about to begin in earnest, that he realised the time he had spent in preparation for tonight had not been a matter of weeks, months, or even years. Unknowingly or not, it had all begun much longer ago than that. He had been preparing for this moment his entire life.
Taking the last of the bottles from inside his coat, Morris put it with the rest on top of one of the eroto-palace's unoccupied dream-tables. Retrieving a roll of electrical tape from his pocket, he fixed the bottles together in groups of three, arranging them in a tight circle on the table and leaving a small space in the centre. The circle complete, Morris stepped back to admire his handiwork and catch his breath. The firebomb was almost ready; all he had to do was add the explosives.
Inside his coat, the final piece lay waiting: a length of hollow plasteen tubing, capped at each end and packed tightly with a crystalline powder. Learning how to make a pipe bomb had proved to be even more of a challenge than mixing the incendiary - thanks to Mega-City One's strict anti-incitement laws, there had been no "how to" books or bomb manuals for him to rely on. Instead, Morris had been forced to turn to school texts on chemistry, physics and electronics, wading through endless reams of dry scientific theory in search of inspiration. Denied access to the exotic chemicals and more commonplace devices of bomb making, he had made do with creative alternatives. Skid-Away toilet cleaner, Coronary-Lite salt substitute and raw munce had combined to give him his explosive: a nine-volt energy cell, his wristwatch and some wires had given him his timer.
Placing the bomb in the space at the centre of the circle of bottles, Morris shrouded several turns of electrical tape around the outer circumference and pulled the whole thing tight. With a last look at the dreamers, he set the timer at the end of the pipe and pressed the button to activate it: five minutes and counting. More than enough time for him to leave the eroto-palace by the rear fire exit and be far away from the scene before the fire started. He had even brought a padlock and chain to lock the door behind him to prevent any of the sinners from escaping. Making his way back behind the counter, Morris mentally reviewed his preparations and was pleased to note how smoothly it had all gone.
Nothing could go wrong.
Tangents, Jard Kelso thought as he hurried through the crowds along Raymond Pedway on his way to Flynt Plaza. That's what the damned things are called.
It had been on the tip of his tongue all night - the vague memory of a word he had last heard in his school days more than twenty years ago, sitting bored and restless in trigonometry class while the robo-teacher droned on and on about arcs and lines and angles. It was the word for intersecting lines that met only at a single point. Tangents. Back then, the word was as dull and irrelevant as everything else they had tried to drum into his head, but now, thanks to the benefit of twenty years of hindsight, Jard was glad he could remember it. It seemed the only word that could even come close to explaining his good fortune.
Catching a glimpse through the crowds of a juve gang loitering further down the pedway, Jard felt unease and tightened his grip on the strap of the satchel hanging from his shoulder. Careful to gaze straight ahead so as not to meet the juves' eyes, Jard tried to look nonchalant, only to see his fears were unfounded - lost in their own conversations, the juves barely glanced his way. Not for the first time that night, Jard forced himself to stay calm. There was no way anybody could know what he had in the satchel. To all appearances he was just another citizen out for an evening stroll. The fact he was carrying a fortune with him and was on his way to making the biggest score of his life was neither here nor there.
Like almost everything else in Jard's life, it had begun in a bar. Last night to be precise, when he had been sitting in his regular backroom booth at McGinty's Tavern, nursing a synthi-beer as he waited to see what business the night would bring him. Jard was a low-level fence and spent most of his nights there, dealing with the endless procession of has-beens, never-would-bes and wannabe big-timers who would come to McGinty's looking to sell the swag from their latest heists. Tap gangers, bat burglars, B&E men, walk-in artists - Jard had dealt with them all. With each customer he would go through the same song and dance, feigning a show of bored disinterest in whatever they were selling in order to drive down the price. It was the same old story, every night. Until yesterday, when a particularly sad-looking case walked into McGinty's and Jard realised his days of haggling with small-timers were over.
Tangents, he found himself thinking again, finding a strange sense of comfort as he repeated the word in his head. Tangents. That's what makes all the difference between being a rich man or just another hardworking schmuck who never gets a break.
Lincolm. That was what the sad case had called himself. Whether or not he was dumb enough to tell him his real name, Jard had no way of knowing. Not that he'd cared much either way. All he'd wanted to know was what kind of goods were on offer, and when Lincolm opened his bag and showed what was for sale, Jard heard the ringing of cred-registers and knew he was looking at the kind of score most fences only ever saw in their dreams.
Gemstones. Fifteen of them, in different sizes, shapes and colours. Jard was no expert when it came to hot rocks, but he figured straight away he was looking at a couple of million credits' worth, easy. Just as he figured the guy Lincolm was probably even dumber than he looked. Dumb as shit and carrying two million in stolen goods. Yeah, it had been a dream score all right.
"They're paste," Jard had said, making a big show of taking out an eyeglass and inspecting each stone in turn. "Synthetics," he said, holding up a diamond and using it to scratch a groove in the plexiplast surface of the table between them. "See what I mean? Real diamonds aren't hard enough to cut plexiplast. Everybody knows that."
"Oh," Lincolm said, before trying to launch into his entire life story as though he hoped Jard might take pity on him. But Jard was not interested in hearing where the gems came from, or why Lincolm had stolen them. If his experience as a fence had taught him nothing else, it was that it was always better to conclude a deal quickly before a sucker could get wise. Besides, it was not as if he would believe Lincolm's story even if he heard it; thieves always lied - it went with the territory.
"I'll give you two hundred credits," Jard said, cutting Lincolm off in mid-flow. "I know a guy who deals in costume jewellery. He might give me something for them."
Of course, Lincolm had held out for more. Eventually, after a few minutes' hard bargaining, they had settled on a price of five hundred credits. With that, Lincolm walked out of McGinty's - no doubt congratulating himself on what a great haggler he was, and none the wiser he had just given away his only chance to ever make it rich. I was right, Jard thought as he watched the man go. As dumb as shit. I'm surprised the bastard's even smart enough to walk and eat a Gooey Bar at the same time.
With the gemstones in his satchel, Jard was on his way to Flynt Plaza for a meeting with a buyer. An hour more at most and he would have all he had ever dreamed of. Like most people, he found it hard to accept good fortune at face value. Which was why, even as he walked the pedway, the word "tangents" was still echoing through his head. To Jard, it seemed to explain everything. Lincolm, the gemstones, himself - they were all tangents: lines that had intersected for seemingly no better purpose than to make Jard Kelso a wealthy man. As far as Jard was concerned, there could be no better purpose than that in the whole damned world.
Tangents, he thought with satisfaction, little realising that elsewhere in the night other tangents were already in motion and headed his way.
With the timer counting down, Morris knew the last place he should be standing was in the alleyway out back of the eroto-palace, waiting for the explosion. No matter how many times he told his legs to move, or reminded himself of the importance of being far away from the scene by the time the Judges arrived, he could not help it. He had planned for this moment for months and he wanted to see the show.
Everything is fine, he thought, glancing up and down the deserted alleyway. There is no one about, no one to see me. After the bomb goes off, they will all be too busy watching the eroto-palace burn to notice me leave. But try as he might to reassure himself, he knew he was lying. He was taking a dangerous chance and, for the first time, it occurred to him he had planned for everything but his emotions.
He tried to check the time, only to remember as he looked at his bare wrist that he had used his watch as part of the timer. Making a mental note to buy a new one tomorrow, he waited impatiently in the shadows, barely registering the chill of the air around him as he stared at the dark window of the eroto-palace. It can't be much longer, he told himself, aware how eager and excited he had become. The five minutes I set the timer for must nearly be up. Any second now.
When the moment came it was something of a disappointment. He heard the dull
whoomp
of the pipebomb exploding, but nothing else. Where he had expected chaos, flames and a sense of fulfilment, there was only a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. Despite the warning voice he heard in his head telling him he should run down the alley and not look back, Morris found he was moving in entirely the opposite direction. Unable to contain his curiosity, he walked closer to the eroto-palace and looked in through the window.
Inside, he could see the dark eddies of billowing smoke as they were lit by the red glow of the fires burning further within the building. He heard the first screams as the dreaming sinners inside awoke to damnation. Listening to the sound, Morris felt his heart quicken as a dizzying sense of exhilaration flowed through him. This was the moment he had longed for. As always in his life, the ache of pleasure as the exhilaration ended brought with it dark feelings of shame. For once, though, Morris refused to allow that shame to claim him.
There is nothing of sin in this, he told himself. There is nothing wrong here. Nothing to cause me shame. If I feel pleasure, then it is only the justifiable pride of a righteous man who knows he has done the Lord Grud's holy work. This is not the excitement a man feels looking upon the nakedness of women. It is a pure, holy feeling. Tonight, I am no longer Morris Weems. I have transcended the limits of flesh to become a holy instrument. I am the angel Uriel. I am the fire and the flame. I sit in judgement. I bring retribution to those who would put the laws of man before the laws of Grud.
As he stood there, watching the shifting patterns of darkness in the smoke and hearing the screams, he found his confidence in his own righteousness suddenly waning in the face of an inconvenient reality. He noticed the way his excitement at his work had chosen to physically manifest itself, and all the old feelings of shame returned, and with shame, as ever, came doubt. He found himself wondering if he was not really an angel as he had thought. Not unless, against all expectation and contrary to the received wisdoms of religious savants down through the ages, an angel could perhaps get an erection after all.