Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [48]
The stereo eye screens offered glowing grids and menus superimposed on the image as Ace called up the scanning option. Using the switch on the chin strap she quartered the expanse of sea behind the boat, dividing it into a series of search areas. It took so long that Ace began to wonder if the can had gone under. But after three seconds the helmet had located it, still bobbing upright, weighted by the water already in it. Ace zoomed in closer until the Japanese brand name began to fill her field of vision. A smiling baseball player beamed at her above the lager logo, winding up to pitch a fastball. When she could read the tiny lettering of the ingredient list on the can, swaying in her vision with the water turbulence, she lifted the Python and let the system sight it for her.
The accurate‐sighting icon flickered in front of her eyes, a ghostly smiling elf making an ‘OK’ sign with thumb and forefinger curled together. Ace locked on to the target. At this distance the act of pulling the trigger with her finger would disturb the aim of the weapon. The icon of the Vickers elf flickered on and off as she adjusted the aim to allow for the motion of the can, the motion of the boat and the muscle tension in her arm. She used her eyelids to cut the trigger out of the firing circuit, took the software safety catch off, then blinked her eyes to fire.
The bullet tore into the middle of the lettering describing the beer’s specific gravity. Metal twisted under impact, enormous sharp edges sprouting, apparently so close to her eyes that she instinctively blinked and the pistol automatically fired again. The second bullet drove the can under a shallow wave. The can turned over, spun and sank, drifting down to the ocean floor to join ten million others.
Ace was careful to switch the system off before she blinked again. When she took the helmet off the sea breeze was cool on her scalp, sweat heavy in her hair. That was one of the dangers of using the system in the daytime. Ace remembered the photographs of Australian soldiers in Indonesia. They always wore raffish silk scarfs spun into thin cylinders and tucked around the edge of the helmet, to keep the sweat out of their eyes, and out of the vision system’s circuitry. Ace wouldn’t have that problem. She’d be wearing the helmet in the chill of the night. Ace unplugged the cable from the handgrip of the Python. She set the pistol down on the deck between her feet, mechanical safety engaged. The helmet was resting on top of the beer cooler where she’d left it. Ace reached down and picked it up with her left hand. The cold of the chiller box had left a slick of moisture on the smooth plastic of the helmet. It slipped as she lifted it. She lost her grip entirely and the helmet fell towards the deck. Ace grabbed with her right hand and missed.
It shouldn’t have mattered. The helmet itself was virtually unbreakable. Only the glass blindfold of the vision screen was vulnerable. As the helmet fell it spun neatly in midair so the screen was towards the deck. Even then it wouldn’t have mattered if the pistol hadn’t been lying there. But the helmet landed on the Python, the delicate glass of the viewing system connecting with the steel frame of the pistol with a sickening intricate crash.
Ace picked up the helmet. The wide curved bar of glass that formed the optical unit hung loose from the helmet’s rim. A thin band of cable was visible connecting the two.
Ace hit the On switch. The miniature screens of the eyepieces remained dark, but the laser lighting mechanism glowed faintly above them. Then the retina scanning beam flashed out, a hairline of intense hot red. The beam sliced across the interior of the helmet, taking a best‐guess route directly through where the wearer’s right eye should have been. The laser scorched a stinking brown burn in the plastic lining low in