Cockroach 1

They call it the Cockroach Initiative — building the ability to survive for a certain amount of time without your head into their armed forces. I was the prototype.
The data that would usually be stored in the brain was redistributed amongst the nanites in the host’s bloodstream. The reasons they just held the data there [...]

Grit 4

The map was good. Who knows, perhaps Gary was worried about Grit coming back for him? This was not going to be one of those situations where you could sit there and work out the best line of approach – this was going to be a case of walk in armed to the teeth and [...]

Grit 3

Hanging someone upside down by their feet and extracting one of their eyeballs with a screwdriver is not a first course of action; it is not a second course of action either – that kind of behaviour occurs to you pretty late in the day as a good idea. When someone has some information and [...]

Reduce 1

The step from minimalism to asceticism was not a large one for him — it seemed a natural evolution. One he had been ready to take for a long time before he finally plunged headlong into the lifestyle.
Time was a slow accretion of layers, associations, chains to different things. He had been breaking the chains, [...]

Grit 2

Grimoire had been expecting him. He knew Grit’s reputation – knew he wouldn’t run from what he had done; that wasn’t his way. Grit was one of the few old school gangsters still out there – one of those that you could rely on. If he had done Slight in then the guy had probably [...]

Savant 1

To work for the people, and by that I mean to resonate with them as an idea, you have to appear dumb as fuck while being as smart as a whip. Marylebone had the maths down to a fine art. He managed to be a spokesperson, a commentator and still remain inestimably cool. How many [...]

Dreamcatcher 1

They called him Dreamcatcher and I tell you I am not sure what they built him out of but I know that he was fucking dangerous. he would sneak into your room, sit on the thin ledge of your headboard, and he would suck the oneiric energy straight out of your sleeping head, and man, [...]

Zero (Extract 1)

We could be heroes, just for one day. See, Bowie was right and he really knew fuck all about heroes. I do because I died for my country. Then I came back. I always come back. Why? Because they built me that way. They didn’t want to have to go out and buy new toys [...]

Disintegrate

A slow disintegration but a wilful one. You have to pick the way that you fall apart and there are many choices. The slow falling away into an ocean of drink as if you were a crumbling cliff-face, the sink and drift of opiates, the building of scars into a suicide. There are not many [...]

Wake 1

‘We’re here to repossess your reality.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You haven’t been keeping up your payments so all this shit is down the tubes, mate — that’s what.’
‘But I don’t get it.’
‘Bingo. That’s right; you don’t get it.’
‘This is an intravenously administered existence and we’re pulling the plug.’
‘But my wife, my children …’
‘Your beautiful house … yeah, we get [...]