Read Online The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William S. Burroughs
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the inside. Your man Henry, who had been tailing the target, summoned police. The officer who went in with your operative is sure that no animal slipped out."
Spec Ops doesn't like it: unknown perpetrator, unknown motive, unknown M.O. Assuming that the motive was retaliation instigated or carried out by a recipient of the special services of Prick and See, then the perp must realize that these operatives were simply paid servants. His next step would be to proceed against their employers. And how are they to protect themselves against an Unknown?
Bradbury, Spec Ops head, has heard rumors of Margaras, an international intelligence organization owing allegiance to no country or any known group. He has discounted the rumors as absurd—where does the money come from? Now he is having second thoughts, and he is not a man who likes to entertain second thoughts.
So why did they alert the masters by starting with the servants? Reluctantly, he recognizes a procedure frequently used by his own department, known as "shaking the tree." They intended to alert the masters, hoping to scare them into precipitate, ill-advised action.
"Get me the file on Prick and See all the way back."
The files go back to 1959, twenty-five years. Quite a few of the targets are now dead. It doesn't take him long to find his man: William Seward Hall, the writer, of course. Hall had opposed the use of Prick and See, and resigned in protest over the Spec Ops project.
"You don't understand this Hall character. He won't quit. He'll just come back harder. I say terminate."
"I think Prick and See will teach him a lesson, with just the right shade of show-you."
They taught him a lesson all right, Bradbury thinks: unrelenting hate and deadly persistence. Idiots! You have an enemy like that, you terminate. You don't leave the job half done.
The door dog is a limited artifact. Our most versatile agent is Margaras, the dreaded White Cat, the Tracker, the Hunter, the Killer, also known as the Stone Weasel. He is a total albino. All his body hair is snow-white, and his eyes are pearly white disks that can luminesce from within, a diffuse silver light, or can concentrate into a laser beam. Having no color, he can take all colors. He has a thousand names and a thousand faces. His skin is white and smooth as alabaster. His hair is dead white, and he can curl it around his head in a casque, he can ruffle it or stick it up in a crest, and he's got complete control of all the hairs on his body. His eyebrows and eyelashes flare out, feeling for the scent. His ass and genital hairs are wired for a stunning shock or a poison deadly as the tentacles of the Sea Wasp.
There are those who say we have violated the Articles by invoking Margaras. He is too dangerous. He can't be stopped once he gets the scent. He has not come justa smella you.
As Margaras closes in, the light waxes brighter and brighter with a musky smell flaring to ozone as the light reeks to a suppurating electric violet. Few can breathe the reeking, seeking light of Margaras. Nothing exists until it is observed, and Margaras is the best observer in the industry.
"Open up, Prick. You got a Venusian in there."
"I'll kill you, you filthy sod!"
LIGHTS—ACTION—CAMERA
The chase comes to a climax. All around him dogs howl and whimper and scream and moan as Margaras moves closer.
"What you want with me?"
"What you asking me for?"
Give him the light now, right in the face, enough to see the worn red upholstery of the first-class seat with a brass number through his transparent fading shell, fading with a stink of impacted mortality, a final reek of hate from shrieking silence, the pustules on his face swell and burst, spattering rotten venom in the breakfast room.
"Mrs. Hardy, help! He's gone bloody mad! Call the police! Call an ambulance!"
Margaras can follow a trail by the signs, the little signs any creature leaves behind by his passage, and he can follow a trail through a maze of computers. All
Spec Ops doesn't like it: unknown perpetrator, unknown motive, unknown M.O. Assuming that the motive was retaliation instigated or carried out by a recipient of the special services of Prick and See, then the perp must realize that these operatives were simply paid servants. His next step would be to proceed against their employers. And how are they to protect themselves against an Unknown?
Bradbury, Spec Ops head, has heard rumors of Margaras, an international intelligence organization owing allegiance to no country or any known group. He has discounted the rumors as absurd—where does the money come from? Now he is having second thoughts, and he is not a man who likes to entertain second thoughts.
So why did they alert the masters by starting with the servants? Reluctantly, he recognizes a procedure frequently used by his own department, known as "shaking the tree." They intended to alert the masters, hoping to scare them into precipitate, ill-advised action.
"Get me the file on Prick and See all the way back."
The files go back to 1959, twenty-five years. Quite a few of the targets are now dead. It doesn't take him long to find his man: William Seward Hall, the writer, of course. Hall had opposed the use of Prick and See, and resigned in protest over the Spec Ops project.
"You don't understand this Hall character. He won't quit. He'll just come back harder. I say terminate."
"I think Prick and See will teach him a lesson, with just the right shade of show-you."
They taught him a lesson all right, Bradbury thinks: unrelenting hate and deadly persistence. Idiots! You have an enemy like that, you terminate. You don't leave the job half done.
The door dog is a limited artifact. Our most versatile agent is Margaras, the dreaded White Cat, the Tracker, the Hunter, the Killer, also known as the Stone Weasel. He is a total albino. All his body hair is snow-white, and his eyes are pearly white disks that can luminesce from within, a diffuse silver light, or can concentrate into a laser beam. Having no color, he can take all colors. He has a thousand names and a thousand faces. His skin is white and smooth as alabaster. His hair is dead white, and he can curl it around his head in a casque, he can ruffle it or stick it up in a crest, and he's got complete control of all the hairs on his body. His eyebrows and eyelashes flare out, feeling for the scent. His ass and genital hairs are wired for a stunning shock or a poison deadly as the tentacles of the Sea Wasp.
There are those who say we have violated the Articles by invoking Margaras. He is too dangerous. He can't be stopped once he gets the scent. He has not come justa smella you.
As Margaras closes in, the light waxes brighter and brighter with a musky smell flaring to ozone as the light reeks to a suppurating electric violet. Few can breathe the reeking, seeking light of Margaras. Nothing exists until it is observed, and Margaras is the best observer in the industry.
"Open up, Prick. You got a Venusian in there."
"I'll kill you, you filthy sod!"
LIGHTS—ACTION—CAMERA
The chase comes to a climax. All around him dogs howl and whimper and scream and moan as Margaras moves closer.
"What you want with me?"
"What you asking me for?"
Give him the light now, right in the face, enough to see the worn red upholstery of the first-class seat with a brass number through his transparent fading shell, fading with a stink of impacted mortality, a final reek of hate from shrieking silence, the pustules on his face swell and burst, spattering rotten venom in the breakfast room.
"Mrs. Hardy, help! He's gone bloody mad! Call the police! Call an ambulance!"
Margaras can follow a trail by the signs, the little signs any creature leaves behind by his passage, and he can follow a trail through a maze of computers. All
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