[LASER FIRE. HIDEOUS SQUEALING AND BLOOD-SPLATTERING BLAST]
TEE-POL: Stop shooting you dozy [PROFANITY EXPUNGED]! You’ll breach the airlo–
[METAL BLASTED. SLOW SOUND OF AIR ESCAPING]
POL-TEE: Look out – it’s going to bl–
TEE-POL: [PROFANITY EXPUNGED]
[GARAGE DOOR EXPLODES, DEBRIS SUCKED OUT ONTO VOID]
TEE-POL/POL-TEE: Oh, fuuuuuuuuuuu–!!!
[RECORDING ENDS]
* Presumably, this is Mercurian years, which would be approximately 70 Earth years.
Typewritten note. Author: Unknown. Date: Unknown, but almost certainly from this iteration of 1952
MY dear professor Quandherh0rn,
just a kind note, to give you ample warning: I’m freee, and Im coming for you. Vengeance will indeed be midne. Not just for me, but for all of us. Put your affairs in order and prepare to die, your Friend,
And in a scrawled, almost illegible hand:
Edmond Dantès
Also by Rob Grant from Gollancz:
Fat
Incompetence
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Gollancz
an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
Copyright © Rob Grant & Andrew Marshall, 2018
The moral right of Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 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 both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (Hardback) 978 1 473 22402 5
ISBN (eBook) 978 1 473 22404 9
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