Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors Original (pdf) (novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

good was, we never knew and never asked.

This particular day, late in the month it was, the void turned

suddenly filthy, and all sorts of foreign material started settling

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7 'he elixir operon

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down. ‘Hey!’ I shouted to leeward. A passing lympho put out a call,

and that’s when the trouble really began.

(A word on police procedure. Lymphocytes turn killer, or churn

out ‘twigs’, in response to a threat. Twigs are scripts with the

enemy’s name written on them. So invaders are either eaten whole

by killer lymphos, mackas and grannies, or immobilised by twigs

then blasted apart.)

In the first place, along with the usual heterocyclic tar babes and

lolly wraps (you never saw trash so thick), I saw some classy stuff in

transit. W hat grabbed my attention and commanded my respect

were the positive terminals. I thought they might have been neurotransmitters. True, I’d never before seen a script come in on the wind like an illegal immigrant.

Whatever it was, it said never a word, just eased on by, cool and

casual, as though it knew where to go.

Them that have eyes to read that script, I said to myself, let them

read it.

We didn’t get invasion at that time, just fallout, plus the most

fearful earthquake we’d known — but a little while later, we did get

invasion; big, unsubtle sluggo bacteria, stupid, and normally no

match for police — but was I mistaken, or did the force seem to

hang back on this occasion? In any event, before I knew it, I was

dying faster than I could divide, and getting a little concerned.

Then, incredible as it may seem, in the midst of battle, another

Black Cloud! Fallout again — tar babes, lolly wraps, scripts — all

easing through, dodging customs and swimming downstream.

We put out a call, but guess what? The call never got through. I

overheard a couple of mackas discussing the matter, some days

later.

‘Those scripts coming in round here,’ said the smaller of the two.

‘Know what they say? “Cool it.” ’

I must explain that reading censored material is a capital

offense. All offenses are capital offenses here. We’re a conservative

society.

The small cop took a hasty swipe (unsuccessful) at a passing tar

babe. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s one of us. A soul sister. Knew the password.’

‘Ah well,’ said the other, ‘in that case, it must be from Control. No

worries.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said the small cop. ‘Only if Control cools it,

who’ll be first to freeze?’

I knew what she meant. The frontier, where the action is.

134

D avid Foster

We get those scripts in the wind most every month. I didn’t dare

speak my mind, the walls have ears round here. But I reasoned as

follows: if the scripts are ours, then so are the horrid little tar babes.

Imagine! Those horrid little tar babes ours!

I guess I’d started to wonder if this so-called ‘system’ of ours is all

it’s cracked up to be.

‘Get a move on’, shouted a waiting red cell. ‘On with the job!’

Something funny was going on down the wall.

Viruses! I got it from another red cell (after all, how would / know

anything? / never get time off, and there’s no way I can move. I’m

utterly dependent on what I’m told. I have to take everything on

trust).

Sisters of mine beneath me on the wall had erupted, discharging

thousands of viruses. I’d seen it many a time before. And soon

they’d be near me, all round me; I half shut my eyes.

No one seems to know what viruses are, or where they come

from. They’re bigger than scripts, but smaller than an average

immigrant. Conventional wisdom has it that when they attack (or

more correctly, inveigle their way in), they first assure you they

mean no harm (this all from memory, by the way; we don’t learn

from experience here), then, having duped you into a sense of

security, they enter your system as a lolly or a tar babe would,

somehow reducing themselves to do so — and devour your heart

and soul. You cease to be a sister and become some kind of traitor.

Hidden from view, they multiply inside you, finally erupting to kill

you in