World of Water

PRAISE FOR WORLD OF FIRE

“The story zooms along at a rip-roaring pace, told in an irreverent tone that perfectly matches the character of our hero. Planet Alighieri is rendered in such believable detail that I almost got a sweat on when Harmer got into trouble on the surface. Lovegrove has got things off to a brilliant start here.”

–
SF Crow’s Nest

“I read this on holiday and it was perfect for kicking back, a throwback to the likes of Dumarest and James Bond. ****”

–
Theaker’s Quarterly

“Lovegrove nails the tone: the technology, the atmosphere, all of it was vivid and real.”

–
Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing

“Sarcastic and funny, Dev Harmer’s the kind of guy who can keep you reading about his antics.”

–
Fresh Fiction

“A combination of
Quantum Leap
and James Bond starring Bruce Campbell; a great concept, very well executed right out of the gate. If you like your heroes smarmy, your villains inscrutable, and your action crunchy, the new Dev Harmer Missions are for you.”

–
Strange Currencies

First published 2016 by Solaris

an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

Riverside House, Osney Mead,

Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

www.solarisbooks.com

ISBN: 978-1-84997-913-9

Copyright © James Lovegrove 2016

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

T
HE
D
EV
H
ARMER
M
ISSIONS

World of Fire

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

Gods of War
•
The Thinking Engine

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

111101010100010101011010100101000101010110101010001111110101000110101010101011111001101
troublemaker like you won’t amount to anything in this world, Harmer
1010101010100101010101010010101010000101 101010101011010101010100101010110110010101011111010100110011011110001010101111011010101100011111110001

01
make yourself available for military service
01001010010111101001011010101000001101011110
Ninth Extrasolar Engineers
1010111000010101010111111011110001010110111101011111010111101100111111
Leather Hill veteran
110010101010001010101001001010010010011010110000101010000000010
extreme courage under fire
10110100101011111101010001010
Interstellar Security Solutions
0100101010100111100001111101010101
the war against the digimentalists is not over
11100001001011111000011111101111001010
data ’porting into genetically modified host forms
101101101110001101111110010101000110101011111001011
Alighieri
0110111111110100101001001010001100
take the bait
11101110100010100000111000111101010101110000000000111

010001010
Trundle? Where’s that – ?
101010010111110010100101101010101010111110011011
a little closer to your thousand
1111001011110100101101010101000101001111111110100011110000110000001100
good things
01011001
good things
01101
good things
01

Dev awoke to patterns of rippling, multifaceted light. Sunshine bouncing off water, broken into a million pieces.

His first thoughts were of a slightly awkward but tender farewell with Astrid Kahlo at the ISS outpost before he clamped the transcription matrix over his head and set it for automatic upload.

The dazzle of the reflected light made him wince, but suggested he no longer had enhanced Aligherian night vision.

He sat up on the mediplinth, feeling awful as usual after a data ’port. No, he decided. More than usually awful. It wasn’t so much like a hangover this time, more like a persistent migraine.

Facing him was a slim, prim-looking man with an oddly distended neck. His epidermis had a slickness to it, as though he was encased in resin. Webbing stretched between his fingers.

Dev’s own fingers, too.

The man blinked, white nictitating membranes shuttering across his eyes.

“Mr Harmer?” he said. “Welcome to Robinson D in the Ophiuchus constellation, also known as Triton. I’m your liaison, Xavier Handler. Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“Good news first,” croaked Dev. “Always start with good news.”

“The good news is the installation has been entirely successful,” said Handler. “No transcription errors occurred during download. Brain imprint and host form are fully integrated.”

“So what’s the bad news?”

A flap flared on either side of Handler’s neck, exposing an underside of raw red flesh.

Gills.

It was an embarrassed gesture. Like a sharp intake of breath.

“The bad news is: the host form itself has been compromised.”

“I’m sorry, what? Compromised?”

“Yes.” Webbed fingers fluttered. “A problem with the growth vat. Something went wrong during the assembly process. Something small but crucial. I’m afraid it means your host form has sustainability issues.”

“Cut the crap. Sustainability issues? What is that jargon-speak for?”

Xavier Handler shifted his feet. “Your host form is breaking down at a cellular level. It’s already begun. At best guess, you have seventy-two hours. Seventy-two hours before your body becomes irredeemably damaged and no longer functional.”