Chasm City

“Is there anyone in Chasm City she hasn’t deceived?”

“Possibly, somewhere, but only as an extreme theoretical possibility.”

Evolution doesn’t greatly care about what happens to creatures once they’ve passed on their genetic heritage.

“Don’t tell me you aren’t the slightest bit curious, Norquinco.”

“I hope you burn in hell, Sky Haussmann.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

The poor didn’t have them and so the rich flaunted them, the larger and more conspicuous the better.

Who was it who said that a wise man speaks when he has something to say, but a fool speaks because he must?

“But you can be sure there are pockets of wealth and influence, and I’m willing to wager that a few people are wealthier and more influential than they were before.”

“That’s always the way with disasters,” I said.

“What?”

“They’re never bad news for everyone. Something nasty always rises to the top.”

By and large these attempts to rewrite history were not taken seriously, but it was disconcerting to hear that they had gained even a toehold.

“I don’t trust you.”

“Of course you don’t. I know I wouldn’t. And I’m not asking you to. I’m not putting you in a situation in which your trust of me is even remotely relevant. I’m just pointing a gun to your head and giving you orders.”

His parents had abdicated responsibility to an illusion.

“I gather you were all too busy killing each other.”

“That’s a fairly reductive summary of our history, but I don’t suppose it’s too far from the truth.”

“That’s how it went, wasn’t it Zebra?”

“It might,” she said. “If I happened to be colluding in your own delusions.”

“Is there anyone or anything in this city which can’t be bought?” I said, slipping him a note.

“Yeah,” the man said, laughing quietly. “But I’m not it.”

“Besides—we all know guns don’t kill people, do they?”

“No, it’s the small metal projectiles that generally do the killing,” Cahuella said, smiling.

“Don’t you agree with me?”

“On some distant theoretical level, just possibly.”

I learnt the true meaning of what was euphemistically described as close-quarters combat. No line-of-sight particle-beam weapons now; no delayed-detonation nano-munitions. What close-quarters combat meant was something which would have been infinitely more recognisable to a soldier of a thousand years earlier: the screaming fury of human beings packed so close together that the only effective way to kill each other was with sharpened metal weapons: bayonets and daggers, or with hands around each other’s throats; fingers pressed into each other’s eye-sockets. The only way to survive was to disengage all higher brain-functions and regress to an animal state of mind.

So I did. And in doing so, I learned a deeper truth about war. She punished those who flirted with her by making them like herself. Once you opened the door to the animal, there was no shutting it.

“Is he dangerous?

“Anyone who lies for a living is dangerous.”

Just because something had spawned a myth did not automatically mean it had to contain anything of substance.

The one thing I never counted on was having luck on my side.

It was generally simpler that way.

“Tanner, are you insane?”

“Very probably several kinds of insane,” I said. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t change anything. I’m perfectly happy with my current delusional system.”

Am I that fascinating to you, or are you just more bored than I imagined?