The Beauty of Destruction Read Online Free

reputation.’
    His ‘partner’ turned to look at him.‘You know as well as I do, the job’s all that matters.’
    Crabber nodded. ‘You ever think about what we could do here? Just with what we have in our heads, in our bodies? We could live like kings, like gods. After all, we’ve been sacrificed ; we’re just betas, clones – the real us are living large with the money they were paid for us doing this pre-programmed work. I say fuck ‘em.’ His ‘partner ’ looked down at him. Programmed or not, Crabber could still detect the slightest trace of contempt for him. ‘Couldn’t break free, huh?’ Crabber said quietly.
    ‘What’s that suppos —’
    If anything his ‘partner’ was faster, but Crabber had the drop on him. The shorter, squat, unnaturally broad-shouldered bounty killer with the offset head had his sidearm out of its holster and fired first. He’d changed the magazine in the pistol for the nano-tipped bullets he was supposed to use on the target. He put two in his ‘partner’s’ head while the taller human was still stepping back and bringing his hybrid weapon to bear. The bullets beat hardening skin and armoured bone. Their nanite payload started eating grey matter. His ‘partner’ spasmed, staggered backwards a few more steps and then hit the ground, shaking. Crabber was standing over him and put another two rounds in his head. He reached down and took the taller human ’s magazine of nanite-tipped bullets and his grenade magazines – those would be hard to come by. Then he set the self-destruct code for the neunonics and liquid hardware , dropped an incendiary grenade on the corpse, and walked away .
    Alpha Crabber and Patron had made one mistake. They had let him say goodbye. His reconstructed man-plus body had a second hard-tech neck on it. It contained some very illegal corpse-hacking hard- and nano-ware. If he severed someone’s head and put it on the stump , the ’ware in his neck grew into their neunonics, hacked their liquid hardware and interrogated them. For a laugh, it also provided an artificial larynx and enough electrochemical stimuli to reanimate their head briefly. So they could see what he had done to them. Crabber was in a tough business . He needed a laugh every now and then.
    Normally, however , Little Crabber lived on the secondary, hard-tech neck stump . An automaton, which was just a head designed with a complementary personality. The head was packed with electronic and immersive hard- and liquidware. Basically, Little Crabber handled the hacking for him.
    Beta Crabber had been surprised when Alpha had agreed to let him say goodbye. He guessed the Alpha had assumed that Little Crabber was onboard with the plan to sacrifice the Beta. It seemed that the automaton’s loyalty programming hadn’t been as specific as it should have been. The programming had to allow for dealing with clones because their business was dangerous, but having two clones up and running was highly illegal. Patron didn’t seem to care about that. Little Crabber was just as loyal to the Beta as he was to the Alpha, and he didn’t like seeing him slaved. He had downloaded an attack program to go after the meat-hack.
    Of course that hadn’t helped his ‘partner’. So he had to die.
    As white phosphorus lit up the night behind him , illuminating a forest of broken trees, he drew his knife . He had heard panicked voices after the gunshots. Doubtless they were investigating the lights emanating from the ancient stones. He might not have much time but he was going to enjoy himself.
     

    Now
     
    Beth felt like someone had beaten every inch of her body with hammers. Even as she struggled to deal with the pain it started to recede. The technology inside her flesh was healing her. Instinctively she was aware of just how damaged she was. She was starting to feel very hungry. Like a machine, she needed fuel.
    Du Bois helped her get to her feet. For some reason his leather coat, shirt, and even his