The Rhesus Chart Read Online Free PDF Page A

pocket snapper is a hacked 3D digital camera, with firmware that turns it into a not-terribly-accurate basilisk gun. “Yes, but I wouldn’t recommend using it at this range . . .”
    Basilisk guns are a nasty little spin-off of research into medusae, and our happy fun way of dealing with other universes. It’s an observer-mediated quantum effect that applies a rather odd probability field to whatever it focusses on. About one carbon-12 or carbon-13 nucleus in a hundred, in the target, is spontaneously swapped for a silicon-28 or silicon-29 nucleus. (Yes, this violates the law of conservation of mass/energy: we reckon it works via a tunneling process from another universe.) The effect is rather dramatic. Lots of bonds break, lots of energy comes spewing out. Protein molecules go
twang
, nucleotide chains snap, everything gets rather hot. To a naive bystander, the target turns to stone—or rather, to red-hot, carbon-riddled cinderblock.
    On the one hand, it’s a lethally powerful hand weapon. On the other hand, you really don’t want to use one at close range—say, at something on the other side of a door. The smallest area of effect it has is a bit like a sawn-off shotgun; at worst, it’s an air strike in a pocket-sized package. Right now I was standing close enough that if I pointed it at Andy’s door the blast effect would probably kill me.
    “I have an idea. Wait here, boy, I need to fetch something from my office. If the ward on the door fails, snap away by all means: you’ll be dead either way.” And with that reassuring message, Angleton turned and scampered helter-skelter back towards his den.
     • • • 
    ANGLETON WAS ONLY GONE FOR A MINUTE, BUT IT FELT LIKE AN eternity as I stood watching the vapor-smoking door in the pentacle. The zombie with the handle was slowly slumping towards the floor, leaning against the side of the door frame; I could hear him in the back of my head, growing sluggish and faint as if the feeder that animated his body was slowly being drained.
    I hefted my camera, checked the battery status, and pointed it at the portal, knowing that if the wards didn’t hold it was probably futile; anything that could break in from another universe under its own motive power was out of my league. Possibly out of Angleton’s, too. The night watch shuffled anxiously in the corner between the reception desk and the dying potted rubber plant; I could feel their unease gnawing at the back of my head. As a rule, Residual Human Resources don’t
do
unease: they’re placid as long as they’ve got some flesh to embody them and the occasional hunk of brains to munch on. (Any old slaughterhouse brains will do: they eat them for the fatty acids. At a pinch, you can substitute a McDonald’s milk shake.) But these RHRs were definitely unhappy about something on the other side of the portal, and that was enough for me.
    Man up, Bob,
I told myself. I checked the camera again, double-checked that I had the basilisk firmware loaded rather than the charming novelty 3D snapshot firmware that had come with it, shifted from foot to foot. That’s when the moment of blinding insight went off inside my head like a flashbulb. I peered at the display back and frantically scrolled through the settings menu. Pinky and Brains, our departmental Mad Scientist unit, had somehow gotten hold of the original source code and hacked the basilisk functionality into it, hadn’t they? It had to operate as a stereo camera, or the medusa effect wouldn’t work, but normally I just left it on auto-focus. But had they left the original features—the
other
features, like aperture, exposure, focus, special photographic effects—intact? Because if so . . .
    Angleton cleared his throat right behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
    “Well, boy?” he asked as I spun round. He was holding a small black binder, open at a page of peel-off stickers. Three of the five circular symbols had been removed, leaving shiny grease