Slaughtermatic

by Steve Aylett

On one occasion the oil industry hired him to kill the inventor of a car that was fuelled by depression. The moguls didn’t know how to profit from such a cheap and abundant resource. After ventilating the inventor, Parker went to bomb the depression-fuelled car as per contract, but couldn’t resist trying it out. Due to the boneshattering rage he expressed at the drop of a hat he hadn’t enough depression to fill a bird’s ear - the motor whined but never caught. Parker torched the target’s house but towed the vehicle home and brought in Download to take a look. It was a drophead Spider with a biofeedback net, four-wheel drive and a wetware graft engine. Download retuned the graft net for anger and ignorance in a split-propulsion system. Anger ran the front wheels and ignorance the rear. Strapped in, Parker found himself start-stopping like a learner, the rear and front bidding for control. He was thrown repeatedly against the dash, his anger and confusion fuelling the process in the most vicious of circles. Jones pedaled alongside on a tricycle, braying with laughter and shouting that Parker could stop the car by feeling a sense of calm. Parker was over the state line before seeing that rather than transcend his stupidity and rage, all he need do was synchronize them. It had been the formula for complacent brutality since the year dot. In a moment of rare gratitude, Parker drew off his mirror shades, uncovering the gun-metal grey of his eyes. That was enough to convince Down...