Lie of the Land Read Online Free PDF Page A

settlements and warned that a mobile unit had been despatched and was en route. Carl doubted the mobile unit would turn up within the hour, but if they did there would be more than loud bangs to worry about.
    The bus came and he rode it into town.
    Besides Eric, Caroline was the only other person in the office when Carl arrived, just after nine. She was yawning over supplier invoices. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes.
    â€˜Too many late nights, my girl.’
    â€˜More like far too many jobs,’ Caroline replied. ‘For one person. And this heat’s making me sleepy.’
    â€˜It’s only another week till the volunteer accountant starts,’ said Carl. ‘Then you’ll have more time to spend on important stuff, like making me coffee.’
    â€˜You’d better be careful, or I might get round to installing that new payroll software,’ said Caroline, smiling. ‘A mistakewith someone’s salary could easily happen.’ She returned to her printouts. ‘Don’t you have some pretend work to be getting on with?’
    Carl gave a little bow. ‘But of course, Liebling.’ He straightened. ‘Ajay and Val out and about?’
    Caroline nodded. ‘Yeah. Eric’s in.’
    Of course Eric’s in, Carl felt like saying. Eric hardly ever left his cave.
    An hour later, and Carl had pounced with his story and, amazingly, managed to persuade Eric to phone the Press Liaison Committee. The subject matter made approval unlikely.
    The active denial shield was a crowd control weapon – a tightly focused microwave pain stick wielded from 400 metres that caused intense pain by exciting the water molecules in the epidermis, but did not actually damage the skin. At least, that was the manufacturer’s pledge, picked up and parroted by the Emergency Authority. But it wasn’t true. Carl sat at his desk, trying not to listen to his news editor in convo with the Press Liaison Committee.
    There was a photo of a young Asian girl on Carl’s desk screen. If he put his hand over one side of the twelve-year-old girl’s image, she was pretty, but the look in her eye said something was very wrong. That something was the other side of her face, the bubble-blistered, angry red and black-crusted vitrified side, where the active denial shield had been a touch heavy on the dermal excitation. He had another dozen or so photos from the food riot at the Kelvingrove centre, of young and old, male and female. None of the images would see the light of day if the Press Liaison Committee slapped on a Section 4 interdict. Sentinel protocols would have locked down every mobile device in the neighbourhood while the riot was in progress, so that nothing would leak out. But there was always a leak, somewhere in the pipework, and this kind of damage was hard to hide.
    He had the evidence and the testimony and, a fact he knew full well, zero chance of a publishable article.
    The door of Eric’s office opened and Carl knew straight away there was no deal. Eric would have been dancing if Nigel Fuckface at the PLC had agreed to a page two down-pager, voicing concern but nothing too strong. Hints of errant behaviour by the crowd at Kelvingrove. The manufacturer’s spotless safety record. Immediate inquiry. A caring Emergency Authority in action.
    At least the story would have been a start, something to build on. Carl looked at the photo of the disfigured girl on his computer. Tough luck, love.
    â€˜Mr Nigel Flitch-Pace,’ said Eric, as he had a weary habit of doing, ‘has the manufacturer’s assurances that the aforementioned product’s “calibration issues” have been resolved and that, as an added safeguard, efforts will be made to explore the inclusion of governors, fitted as standard, on the next generation of active denial devices. Mr Nigel Fuckface regrets resorting to Emergency Order Section 4 but ABC, XYZ, goodnight and fuck off.’
    He