'Who are you?' he asked when they got closer.
The man started moving towards them, his lanky strides eating up the ground in between.
'I suggest you stop right there.' Abram drew his pulse-gun.
The man just kept on walking.
'I said stop! Stop, damn it! Oh shit!'
Abram fired, all the time thinking: Oh, you poor bloody idiot. There was a thud and a puff of smoke -embers falling from the man's coat. His stride did not diminish at all. Abram fired twice more, to nil effect on the man's progress. There were flames rising from his coat now. With one sharp movement he slapped them out and continued, trailing smoke.
Jack and Pearson opened up with laser carbines, red flashes cutting through the night - and suddenly the strange man was on them. Abram felt something like a piledriver hit his chest. Next thing he knew, he was on his back on the ground, straining for breath as he looked up. Pearson had his carbine right in the man's face, his finger down on the trigger. Smoke was billowing into the night, and sheets of burning skin fell about the man's shoulders. A long arm snapped out and the carbine spun away in pieces, then Pearson was held up high by his biceps, kicking at air. Jack rushed in from the side wim a flat dropkick that would have dented steel plate. Abram heard Jack's leg snap and saw him caught in the action of kicking, the man's other hand gripping his ankle. Suddenly he was released, but before he could fall back that same hand had snapped up to his diroat. Their attacker brought Jack and Pearson together with sickening force, then discarded them like a couple of food wrappers.
Abram smelt burning plastic, and suddenly knew what they were dealing with. He got breath into his lungs, where it bubbled. Shattered ribs ground together in his chest as he fought to speak into his mike. He looked up as their opponent loomed over him. The hat and all the face covering had been burned away, to expose an underface seemingly made of brass. The hand covering had also been burned away to expose the same metal. Not a man then, only one choice left really. Abram expected this face and hands to be the last he saw, but the face turned away as multiple shots set clothing afire. The attacker moved on.
'Android… fucking run… let it… have him.'
The words cost him, and Abram spat blood as he painfully turned over to face his remaining two officers, and the prone Tenel.
'Run… fuck… run.'
But it was not they who ran - it was the android, with unhuman acceleration. It had Solen first, just picked him up and threw him. Solen smashed straight through one of the wooden pillars supporting the veranda, then into the front of the house. He hung there for a moment amongst splintered boards before peeling out and mud-ding down. Alex sensibly tried to escape. He moved only a pace before a flat brass hand punched through his back and out through his chest. He hung mere pinioned and squirming for a second before he died, then the android lowered its arm and Alex's corpse slid bonelessly to the ground.
Abram tried reaching up to change the frequency on his radio, aiming to call for backup. But the control was at his shoulder and he just could not raise his arm that far. With dimming vision he saw the android now standing over Tenel. The litde man was on his knees as if pleading, but not for long. The tiling grabbed his shoulder, then yanked him up and spun him, all in one movement. It next caught his ankle in one hand, and held him there while it gutted him with the other. Abram wished he could turn off his earplug, because the screams now came through multiplied from four different throat mikes. Abram closed his eyes and kept utterly still as the android dropped what was left of Tenel and moved back in his direction. He listened as the heavy footsteps halted right next to him. An android… what chance did he have? It would hear his heart beating. He slowly opened his eyes and gazed up at its brass face.
'Go… on then,' he managed.
The android squatted beside him with its elbows on its knees, gore dripping from its massive brass hands. In a curiously birdlike way, it tilted its head to one side and studied him, then it reached out one of those hands and plucked his binoculars from his belt. What now? What the hell was it doing, toying with him like this? How the hell had someone made a sadistic android? As Abram watched in puzzlement, it stood up, placed the binoculars in the pocket of its long coat, closed one metal eyelid slowly over one black eye, then walked away. Abram felt sure it had winked at him. But he never told anyone that.
6
In the twenty-first century the 'disposable culture'prevailing on Earth threatened ecological catastrophe. Landfill sites were rapidly filling with disposable nappies and plastic throwaways. The power stations that burnt this plastic waste, as well as the vulcanized rubber tyres of the time, went some way to alleviating the problem. But a solution was not truly found until all the industries concerned were forced to use biodegradable materials. Even then the problem remained, for the power stations were eventually closed down because of their contribution to global warming. Later in that century the problem was again apparently solved by use of a bacterium genetically modified to eat plastic. This solution unfortunately caused its own disaster, when this same bacterium then proceeded to devour other forms of plastic and rubber, and even developed a taste for fossil fuels. The war and the chaos resulting from this crisis is a matter of common record. So, when you have finished drinking this self-heating coffee, please remember that, even though it is made of self-collapsing plastic, this cup still won't look very nice lying on the pavement, so you must dispose of it in a sensible and considerate manner.
From The Coffee Company
This was the area agreed on, but Stanton could see no sign of them on the white sands. The papyrus, then. Here a stand of papyrus, seeded from the beds in the north, protruded like a tongue out into the sea. He slowed and circled the AGC over it. No sign of activity. He had promised himself that at the first sign of the police getting close, he would run. Things were just getting too bloody. He brought the AGC down until it was only a few metres above the sand, then edged it into the papyrus and let it settle there, crushing the thick stalks beneath it. Before getting out he cursed and then grabbed up the parcel he had placed on the passenger seat. Madness, all of it. He stamped through the papyrus to the white sand beyond and surveyed his surroundings.
'Over here.'
Pelter stepped out from the same stand, but further up the beach. He waited until he was sure Stanton saw him, then stepped back in. Stanton followed him along a crushed-down path to a small open area where the plants had been ripped out and neatly stacked to one side. Probably Mr Crane's work - he was good at ripping.
'Well?' said Pelter.
Still clutching the package Stanton glanced at Mr Crane, who was squatting with his back to a wall of papyrus. The android was studying a number of objects lying on the ground in front of him. There was a piece of green crystal that might have been emerald but was more likely beryl, a chainglass blade, an old egg-shaped data unit, a small toy dog made of rubber, and a pair of antique binoculars. Did this monster's insanity have a name, Stanton wondered.
'They're checking every passenger going onto the shuttles, so there's not much chance of getting through with our friend here. Anyway, I'm told the runcible facility is crawling,' he said.
'We knew that would happen,' said Pelter. 'My patience is not endless, John.'
Stanton decided not to point out that Pelter's patience was practically non-existent.