Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [66]
Kohn stood, gulped whisky. The figure moved forward, through Molly Biolly, a ghost through ghosts. Some yells of complaint and disgust went up. The fetch glided across the edge of the stage and into the crowd. Irrationally, people made way. Smoke coiled into colours inside it.
The band, which had been TALKIN BOUT MY GENE RATION!!!! fell to mouthing soundlessly, like terrorists on television. The crowd in the pub was silent, too, eyes focused on the moving image.
The fetch pointed a translucent arm at Kohn. Its lips moved out-of-synch as the speakers boomed back to life.
‘MOH KOHN!’ it said. ‘I ACCUSE YOU OF BREAKING THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT! IF YOU DO NOT APOLOGISE IN PERSON AND IN THE FLESH TO MY EMPLOYEE, ACCEPT A RANSOM AND CLEAR HER NAME WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, I WILL SEE YOU IN THE NEAREST GENEVA COURT. IN THE MEANTIME AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE I OFFER A REWARD FOR YOUR ARREST AS A RENEGADE AND A PUBLIC MENACE.’
Donovan’s fetch looked around, as if to make sure everyone had heard that, and vanished.
Kohn was backing off – on the balls of his feet, ready to lash out.
The music came back on. Somebody laughed. Just a terrorist dispute. Attention returned to the band; heads turned away.
A heavily built man sitting on a bar stool casually slid an empty stein along the slick of beer, pushing at the bar with his toe so that the stool spun, carrying him round, the sweep of his arm carrying the glass round to the final flick of a discus throw.
Kohn ducked so fast his feet left the ground. The glass hit the wall behind him and bounced off, almost getting him on the rebound.
Kohn lunged forward, doubled fists driving into the attacker’s midriff. The man gasped but pushed back, up and off the stool. Kohn reeled away and a table caught him across the back of his thighs. He staggered but didn’t fall.
In a moment something changed: his point of view. He looked down at his head from a metre or so above it, two metres, and everything was laid out for him like an architect’s diagram. Some calm undertone soothed the frightened australopithecine that was in his skull but thinking it was out of it. Only a picture, a visual aid, an icon: this is what it would look like if you could look at it like this. He reached – saw his hand reach – behind him and caught a full glass as it slid from the table and dashed the contents in his opponent’s face, then stepped forward and neatly wrecked the man’s knee. He was back behind his eyes in time to see the other’s fill with pain and shock before a sideways topple took them closing to the floor.
Kohn pulled his credID card from his back pocket and held it up as he turned to face one of the pub’s security cameras.
‘I suppose you got all that,’ he told the record. ‘I’ll not press charges but if you want to you can call me as a witness.’ He looked at the people whose table he’d cannoned against. They were still getting out of their seats, wiping at their clothes. He pointed at the slumped figure.
‘A round on him,’ he said.
Everybody was looking at him again.
‘Don’t fucking mess with me,’ he added, and walked towards the door. Jordan had been holding Janis back. He let go of her upper arms and stooped to rub his shins.
‘Spirited little tyke, isn’t she?’ Kohn said.
He smiled at the two indignant and relieved faces.
‘C’mon gang, let’s go. Don’t look back or you’ll turn into a pillar of salt.’
At the Clearing House Donovan turned around in the privacy bubble to face a seething silence. Everyone had been and gone, flitting out and back through the evening to attend to their several businesses, while he had divided his attention between calling off various live actions and haunting a succession of pubs, nightclubs and drug dens. But they’d all been present to see him finally find Kohn. The images from the pub’s cameras were still spread around them like scraps of newsprint, rippling with re-run movement.
‘Donovan,’ Mrs Lawson