Angelmaker

by Nick Harkaway

Having thus inaugurated Victory Over The Cat Day, it is in the nature of his world that he should immediately be overtaken on the ladder of mammalian supremacy by a dog.

Before he can even reach for that future, or one like it, he has to climb up on top of the rubble of the past and see what the world actually looks like.

carrying more than his fair share of other people’s history—a description which Joshua Joseph Spork has always considered applied to himself, and which it now appears applies to almost everyone.

But when your back was to the wall and someone else had the knife, there was, in the end, a simple decision: They are not the monster. I am. You can’t care about consequences. Every second becomes an end in itself. That’s how it’s done.

He wonders whether they should call ahead, then thinks of all those movies where the fugitive briefly activates a cellphone and is immediately traced. He realises Mercer has been without his this entire time. It’s practically like seeing him nude.

Canada’s great for disappearing. It’s very big and there’s nothing in it.