Contra-terrene device (abbr. CTD) is one of those euphemistic labels Earth Security comes up with every now and again, normally to stick on something associated with terms like ‘megadeath’, ‘gigadeath’ and ‘Oh shit!’ A forty-megaton CTD could easily be mistaken for a simple thermos flask, and there are parallels. Only, if you open one, you will not find hot coffee inside; you will find antimatter, briefly.

The antimatter is held in an s-con magnetic coil, which is also powered by a bleed-off from it. Theoretically a CTD will not explode without a complex code being keyed into its detonator. The canisters have reputedly been shock tested to a 10,000-kilometres-per-hour flat collision with case-hardened ceramal, and heat-tested to the melting point of the same. One has to wonder what the meaning of ‘test’ is here, because no one seems to know if the canisters survived said ‘tests’. Other questions that occur are: was there anything in the canisters when they were tested—and where are the people who tested them?

From How It Is by Gordon

In the morning Cormac counted the cost of his single-mindedness: three men dead, one man minus his feet and one man blinded, though new feet and new eyes were no problem, Cento scrapped for the second time, and Thorn now lying on the ground beside Mika’s AGC with the woman removing a lump of shrapnel from his guts. Should he let some other agent take over? He thought not.

Pelter was dead, and Cormac did not know how to feel about that. The man had obviously slipped off the far side of weird some time ago, so perhaps death was an easier place for him. Just as the Separatist had once tried to share his sister’s looks, he now shared her executioner; an apposite ending, but one Cormac found uncomfortable to speculate on. He turned his thoughts away and towards the future. Now he had a mission to complete: a mission to which he was ideally suited. He must not let the death of one madman distract him. It was like being a runner in a marathon: he had just passed the pain barrier and now he must continue. With core of cold hardness, he banished what had already been done from his thoughts, and considered what must be done now.

There were things he had learnt that another agent might have missed. Another agent might not have possessed his basic distrust of Dragon, might have been more credulous, taken the easier options. Pressing his hand to the dressing on his left biceps, he walked over to Aiden.