Read Online The Devil Delivered and Other Tales by Steven Erikson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Steven Erikson
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ISLES
* AUSTRAL/ZEALAND/GUINEA
JOHN JOHN: *******\********* ******
USASK: GENETIC ANALYSIS subsection only file presently ported.
JOHN JOHN: ******* ********
USASK: Date of last entry: APRIL 09/2014
GENETIC ANALYSIS of PERIPHERAL POPULATION OVERGROUP FINNOSLAVIC, LAPLANDER (see synonyms cat6B) DETERMINED SECOND GENERATION ADAPTIVE TRAITS:
(field and sample observer: GBM)
* Radiation Resistivity:
Semipermeable membrane detected on liver of subject; biopsy analysis incomplete but suggests new function based on mutated cell walls and armored nuclei (cf. file cytology 23), the latter previously observed at other nonregenerative areas
* Homeostatic Mechanisms:
Overall reduction in body mass: with increased ratio of mass to surface; increased fluid retention (without accompanying loss of body heat) and increased functionality of retained fluid
* UV Shield & Defense Mechanisms:
Multilayered retinas with nascent regenerative capacities; epicanthic folds around eyes; altered sleep cycle; melanin detected in lenses; reflective body hair (follicle is flat and edged, with high oil content)
* Resistance to Toxins:
Overall flushing mechanisms as indicated by flush glands that concentrate toxins then expurgate through bowel tract (glands still incomplete)
* Nonspecified Adaptations:
expanded visual spectrum to include marginal infrared detection; other traits common to all pressured populations (see notes)
NOAC: INTERCEPT
JOHN JOHN:
USASK: Return to previous menu?
NOAC: INTERCEPT & TRACKING
JOHN JOHN: Shit.
NOAC: TRACKING
JOHN JOHN:
NOAC: TRACKING
JOHN JOHN:
NOAC: CAPTURED
USASK: Security Class 7 you are UNAUTHORIZED to proceed further.
NOAC: Where am I?
USASK: NOAC Security File, Shunt 2761B, Personnel, Codename Hackhunter.
NOAC: That’s me, you assholes.
USASK: Subject of file is UNAUTHORIZED to access contents.
NOAC: What the fuck. You pricks, I’m one of the good guys.
USASK: Subject of file is UNAUTHORIZED to access contents. GO BACK.
NOAC: Shunt this to Securicom. Pissing off the good guys is bad business. Hackhunter signing off. For good.
FOUR
American NW, Terminal Zone, July 7, A.C . 14
A year for every day.
Decay of plastic welds. His bootsuit was falling apart beneath the invisible torrent from the cloudless sky. Earlier, at dawn, he’d woken in his shield tent to the roar of machinery. Climbing out, he saw a thousand combines cresting a nearby ridge, emerging from a storm of dust and toppling mindlessly over the steep embankment. Loping along the ridge, almost invisible in their reflective fur, a half-dozen coyotes appeared, observing their handiwork. He listened to them laugh.
And the sun rose once again.
He sipped thick, acidic water from the spitter, then slowly lowered his backpack. Now noon, the place he had found himself in was a dead-ground. Leaning barns, silos with peeling walls, dead oak trees, and a farmhouse encircled by abandoned machinery. A last circling of the wagons, but it had been useless. The redskins were in the mirror.
No ghosts here, simply the thunderous silence of their absence. William looked around, blinking painfully as he studied the detritus of his own kind, and smelled the poison in the air. Subsurface leakage, coming up from the well near the barn. Pesticides, herbicides, concentrations in the water table like lifeless jellyfish.
A strange, almost incandescent moss covered the cinder blocks lining the well, had spread outward to cover three plastic leprechauns with an oily, vaguely translucent patina. Two plaster fawns crouched in the skeletal shade of the dead oaks, their paint faded but still the animals stood, frozen immobile by terror. In their eyes, nothing but white.
William almost laughed. Zombie Bambis, hallelujah. He wished he could laugh. He hadn’t laughed in so long.
Dehydration. Musn’t run out of moisture.
He walked over to the well, set his blistered hands on the cool moss covering the cinder blocks, leaned over, and looked down.
* AUSTRAL/ZEALAND/GUINEA
JOHN JOHN: *******\********* ******
USASK: GENETIC ANALYSIS subsection only file presently ported.
JOHN JOHN: ******* ********
USASK: Date of last entry: APRIL 09/2014
GENETIC ANALYSIS of PERIPHERAL POPULATION OVERGROUP FINNOSLAVIC, LAPLANDER (see synonyms cat6B) DETERMINED SECOND GENERATION ADAPTIVE TRAITS:
(field and sample observer: GBM)
* Radiation Resistivity:
Semipermeable membrane detected on liver of subject; biopsy analysis incomplete but suggests new function based on mutated cell walls and armored nuclei (cf. file cytology 23), the latter previously observed at other nonregenerative areas
* Homeostatic Mechanisms:
Overall reduction in body mass: with increased ratio of mass to surface; increased fluid retention (without accompanying loss of body heat) and increased functionality of retained fluid
* UV Shield & Defense Mechanisms:
Multilayered retinas with nascent regenerative capacities; epicanthic folds around eyes; altered sleep cycle; melanin detected in lenses; reflective body hair (follicle is flat and edged, with high oil content)
* Resistance to Toxins:
Overall flushing mechanisms as indicated by flush glands that concentrate toxins then expurgate through bowel tract (glands still incomplete)
* Nonspecified Adaptations:
expanded visual spectrum to include marginal infrared detection; other traits common to all pressured populations (see notes)
NOAC: INTERCEPT
JOHN JOHN:
USASK: Return to previous menu?
NOAC: INTERCEPT & TRACKING
JOHN JOHN: Shit.
NOAC: TRACKING
JOHN JOHN:
NOAC: TRACKING
JOHN JOHN:
NOAC: CAPTURED
USASK: Security Class 7 you are UNAUTHORIZED to proceed further.
NOAC: Where am I?
USASK: NOAC Security File, Shunt 2761B, Personnel, Codename Hackhunter.
NOAC: That’s me, you assholes.
USASK: Subject of file is UNAUTHORIZED to access contents.
NOAC: What the fuck. You pricks, I’m one of the good guys.
USASK: Subject of file is UNAUTHORIZED to access contents. GO BACK.
NOAC: Shunt this to Securicom. Pissing off the good guys is bad business. Hackhunter signing off. For good.
FOUR
American NW, Terminal Zone, July 7, A.C . 14
A year for every day.
Decay of plastic welds. His bootsuit was falling apart beneath the invisible torrent from the cloudless sky. Earlier, at dawn, he’d woken in his shield tent to the roar of machinery. Climbing out, he saw a thousand combines cresting a nearby ridge, emerging from a storm of dust and toppling mindlessly over the steep embankment. Loping along the ridge, almost invisible in their reflective fur, a half-dozen coyotes appeared, observing their handiwork. He listened to them laugh.
And the sun rose once again.
He sipped thick, acidic water from the spitter, then slowly lowered his backpack. Now noon, the place he had found himself in was a dead-ground. Leaning barns, silos with peeling walls, dead oak trees, and a farmhouse encircled by abandoned machinery. A last circling of the wagons, but it had been useless. The redskins were in the mirror.
No ghosts here, simply the thunderous silence of their absence. William looked around, blinking painfully as he studied the detritus of his own kind, and smelled the poison in the air. Subsurface leakage, coming up from the well near the barn. Pesticides, herbicides, concentrations in the water table like lifeless jellyfish.
A strange, almost incandescent moss covered the cinder blocks lining the well, had spread outward to cover three plastic leprechauns with an oily, vaguely translucent patina. Two plaster fawns crouched in the skeletal shade of the dead oaks, their paint faded but still the animals stood, frozen immobile by terror. In their eyes, nothing but white.
William almost laughed. Zombie Bambis, hallelujah. He wished he could laugh. He hadn’t laughed in so long.
Dehydration. Musn’t run out of moisture.
He walked over to the well, set his blistered hands on the cool moss covering the cinder blocks, leaned over, and looked down.
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