Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds Page A

his pocket. He twisted around and leaned cautiously out of the left-hand window. The other cab was gaining on them slowly, headlamps flickering as it hit the power breaks in the slot, blue sparks lighting under it as the current jumped the gap. With the unsteady motion of their own cab, it was difficult to keep the gun aimed at the slot. Holding his nerve, he squeezed gently on the trigger, flinching in expectation of the crimson beam. Nothing happened. He squeezed again and this time the beam lanced out, but with what seemed to Quillon to be less brilliance than before. It missed the slot and blew a manhole-sized crater in the asphalt. He re-centred his aim and tried another shot. Again the weapon was unresponsive. He pumped the trigger a couple of times. This time the beam sputtered out almost as soon as it had appeared. He twisted back into the cab. He thought he had hit the slot, but as the pursuing car reached the damaged spot it continued moving, flywheel and its own momentum carrying it over the dead stretch.
    ‘Something’s not right,’ he said, shaking the gun as if that might make a difference. ‘It’s dying on me, but there should still be several hours of good function left.’
    ‘Ask it,’ Meroka said, winding down the window on her own side. She fired a burst from the machine-pistol, not appearing to care whether she hit the slot or the cab. She exhausted the magazine in a single burst then slumped down low to slip in a replacement. A shot rang against the small aperture of the cab’s rear window, punching a neat little hole surrounded by white fracture lines.
    ‘This isn’t my problem!’ the cabman called. ‘I let you out now, you don’t have to pay! You even get your ten back!’
    ‘If you stop,’ Meroka said, ‘I’ll shoot you.’ She twisted around and resumed firing, only the fact that she was holding the weapon outside of the cab preventing Quillon from being deafened.
    ‘You’re not working properly,’ he told the gun. ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Earlier estimates based on stable zone conditions,’ the gun responded, its voice slower and more machinelike than before. ‘Transition to lower-state zone detected. Operational effectiveness in energy-discharge mode is now ... twenty-two per cent and ... falling. I will become inoperable in ... thirty-five ... minutes. Functionality will be ... severely compromised within ... eight. In order to preserve optimum functionality ... I am now sacrificing ... all ... nonessential ... all nonessential functions ... all nonessential funk funk funk ...’
    The gun fell silent.
    Two more shots rang against the cab. Meroka delivered another burst of bullets. Quillon leaned out of his own side and squeezed the trigger repeatedly until the gun emitted a single pulse of the crimson beam. This time even Quillon didn’t care whether he hit the road or the cab. Someone in the cab was trying to kill him. That eclipsed all other considerations.
    Suddenly the cab swerved hard to the left. Meroka yanked herself back in, swapping out the machine-pistol magazine again.
    ‘Did I tell you to turn?’
    ‘Slot was about to end,’ the cabman said.
    ‘Turn right again.’ She leaned out and resumed firing.
    The cabman spun his wheel to the right, the pick-up shoe disengaging from the slot, the cab surging forwards on the stored energy of its flywheel. Shots clanged against the right-side door, and then they had the shelter of another dark side street. At first, the flywheel gave them an edge, but the wheel’s slowly dying scream attested to the fact that it was losing speed all the time. Quillon risked looking back, unsurprised when the other cab came off-slot at the same point, headlamps dimming as it lost current. He leaned out and tried firing the angel gun; nothing happened until the sixth or seventh squeeze of the trigger, and then all he got was a flash of crimson, the beam appearing to exhaust itself of energy long before it washed against the pursuing car.