World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01)

WORLD OF FIRE

First published 2014 by Solaris

an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

Riverside House, Osney Mead,

Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

www.solarisbooks.com

ISBN: 978-1-84997-766-1

Copyright © James Lovegrove 2014

Cover Art by Jake Murray

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of he copyright owners.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Also by James Lovegrove

N
OVELS

The Hope
•
Days

The Foreigners
•
Untied Kingdom

Worldstorm
•
Provender Gleed

Co-writing with Peter Crowther

Escardy Gap

T
HE
P
ANTHEON
S
ERIES

The Age Of Ra
•
The Age Of Zeus

The Age Of Odin
•
Age Of Aztec

Age of Voodoo
•
Age of Godpunk

Age of Shiva

T
HE
R
EDLAW
S
ERIES

Redlaw
•
Redlaw: Red Eye

N
OVELLAS

How The Other Half Lives
•
Gig

Age Of Anansi
•
Age of Satan
•
Age of Gaia

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES

The Stuff of Nightmares

C
OLLECTIONS OF
S
HORT
F
ICTION

Imagined Slights
•
Diversifications

F
OR
Y
OUNGER
R
EADERS

The Web: Computopia
•
Warsuit 1.0

The Black Phone

F
OR
R
ELUCTANT
R
EADERS

Wings
•
The House of Lazarus

Ant God
•
Cold Keep
•
Dead Brigade

Kill Swap
•
Free Runner

The
5 Lords Of Pain
series

The Lord Of The Mountain
•
The Lord Of The Void

The Lord Of Tears
•
The Lord Of The Typhoon

The Lord Of Fire

W
RITING AS
J
AY
A
MORY

The
Clouded World
series

The Fledging Of Az Gabrielson
•
Pirates Of The Relentless Desert

Darkening For A Fall
•
Empire Of Chaos

In the century after it cast off all religion, humankind flourished and prospered, spreading out beyond Earth, beyond the solar system, to colonise far-flung planets.

This expansion, the Diaspora, continued until it reached the territory of the race of artificial intelligence zealots known as Polis+.

There followed a gruelling, decade-long war that ended eventually in an uneasy truce.

In the years since, along the notional Border Wall between the two empires, a body of men and women – the officers of Interstellar Security Solutions and similar companies – have stood guard against enemy sabotage, sedition and subversion.

One of these agents is Dev Harmer...

1

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111010100101001011010101010101111100110110101001111011010101100011010100101001011110100101010101110000101010111101010101000101001010001111001000100101010101011111110010110010100100000000101010111010100010010110010100100000000101010111011100111010110001000111101011010 exclusion from this school 010000

1111010101010101111100110110101001111011010101100011010100101001011110100101010101110000101010111110100110101011100101011001010010000000010101011101010001001011001010010000000010101011101010101100101001000110101010101010100101001010100101001000101011111101011110101011010101011111111111111111010110101010100110010101 alternatives are a spell of detention at a juvenile correctional facility or 00000100111

100101100101001000000001010101110101000100011101010101001111011101111101010110101010101010101111100101101010011111001010010111010111101001010101011100001010101 eyes front, Private Harmer 1110101000101

111001110010000000101000100010101001111100101001011100000101010001101010101010111110011011010100111101101010110001101010010100101111010010101010111000010110101001111100101001010011101101011110010100000111 Frontier War 001001101010101001111100101001011101010010010101010101011111001101101010011110111010101

111101010101010101010101010111110011011010100111010100111110010100101111101101010110001101010010100101111010010101010111000010 Contact! Contact! Enemy 0100101010101010101010101010010100011101011010101

110100011010101111111111111110101010110101010101010101010101010101111100110111010100101 scrap metal

0101010101010101010101011111001101101010110101101101010101010110100001110111101010001110111110101101010100101010101101001000101011111010100011001011001011111001011101010101010101111100110110101001111011010 sustained act of meritorious service and extreme courage under fire 01111001001100001011010000

010101010101010101010101111100110110101111100110110101001111011010101100011010100101001011110100101010101110000111011100101000101010 Lieutenant, they’re all around us, shit, Lieutenant Harmer 1000111

1101010111010101010010010101010101010101010101111100110110100010010100000101001010010100001010101010010010001111111010101010 shoot the digimentalist bastards in the 1101010101000111101011110101010100011

111101010101011110101011011111110110010100101110 Leather Hill 101010101010101010101010001110101010011

00001010010 aaaaaahhhhhhh!!! 1011001010000001010110101010101010101011111001101011111111101010100111

0001010110101010100101111111110101100111111111101111101000 terminal physiological damage 101010011

11010010011 trauma 0100010001010101000010100111010101010111110011011010100111101101010110001101010010

001011110 regrowth 111001100100 expense 11101000011001011110101110111101101001111110011010111 deal

01111111111001101101010011110110101011 Solutions 100101110001111111001101 skill set 101000101001011101

1001010 consultant 1000001010 contract 0001010100 earn 01101001 phased payment 1010101110 valuable 1000010100 Border Wall 11101010 troubleshoot 110 indenture 10 data ’porting

100101 terms of employment 111010 host forms 00101 Mr Harmer? Mr Harmer?

“Mr Harmer?”

A new voice. Loud. Clear. Not a ghost from his past, not part of his life flashing before him. Real.

“Mr Harmer? You’re fully installed in the host form. Ultraspace download via commplant is one hundred per cent complete. All readings nominal. Feel free to open your eyes.”

Dev opened his eyes.

There was the familiar nausea, like a hangover. A tightness in the head, as though he had been squeezed into something he didn’t fit – a foot crammed into a shoe a size too small. He felt a swirling in his belly, travel sickness of the mind.

“Please speak to me, Mr Harmer, so that I know the insertion was a success.”

“Shit.”

“Thank you. How are you feeling?”

“Shit.”

“Do you know what your situation is? Are you aware?”

“Shit.”