Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

DUNNO. THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT EXPANDED MOUNTING! THE BLITZ IS COMPLETELY OUT OF PROPORTION TO THE DAMAGE IT WOULD CAUSE. EVENT HORIZON LOST A LOT OF DATA IN THE RESULTANT DATANET SHUTDOWN, BUT NOTHING CRITICAL. THAT IMPLIES VENGEANCE.

The green letters with their subliminal flicker jolted him. He shook his head at his own slowness. The blitz had exactly the kind of protective layers as the memox-crystal spoiler, each one a cover for the one underneath, and progressively more complex, more subtle, Kendric di Girolamo’s method of operation. A bright sensation of satisfaction rose up; identical patterns, and intuition now both focused on Julia’s nemesis. That coincidence was far too much to ignore. Except…Kendric was smart, he wouldn’t use the same pattern twice. Unless that was what he wanted people to think.

Greg sipped the last of his coffee reflectively; there were limits to paranoia. Go with your intuition, he told himself, at least you know you trust that.

SO WHAT DO YOU RECKON, HOLMES?

“Insufficient data. You want to do me a huge favour?”

FIND OUT WHO WAS IN ON THE BLITZ?

“Got it in one.”

GRIN. SILENCE IS GOLDEN AT THE MOMENT, SO IT’LL MEAN HACKING HOTRODS, ACCESSING THEIR MEMORY CORES TO SEE IF THERE’S ANY REFERENCE TO THE BURN. AND IT’LL HAVE TO BE THE SOLO HOTRODS, THAT COTERIE WEREN’T VIRGINS. OOPS, PARDON MY FRENCH, ELEANOR.

She looked straight at the camera, brushing loose strands of titian hair from her face, and gave him a warm smile.

“If that’s too big a deal for you, I can bring some help in from Event Horizon’s security division,” Greg said solemnly.

HOW SOON DO YOU WANT THE ANSWER, SMARTARSE?

Greg saluted the camera with his empty coffee mug. “Soon as possible, if not before.”

Royan’s mouth parted a slit, revealing bucked teeth yellowed by the pulped vegetable mush Qoi fed him. His version of a smile. THE HUNT IS ON.

A whole load of apprehension lifted from Greg, Nobody hunted better than Royan, nor had more practice. And he took it seriously, deadly serious. Royan had monitor programs stashed in every major public data core in the country, sleepers watching for key words and names, Out of the four hundred and seventy People’s Constables on duty the night of the riot there were less than two hundred left alive. The boy had been hunting them out ever since he plugged his axon splice into a gear terminal; seeking out their home addresses, tracking them through promotions, transfers, redundancies. Greg and the rest of the Trinities were told where to find them, what they looked like now, at what point in their daily routine they were most vulnerable.

Greg had personally taken out sixteen for him.

“Thanks,” Greg said.

SNEAKY PRESENT FOR YOU, GREG. YOU MIGHT HAVE A USE FOR IT GIVE ME YOUR CARD.

One of the waldos stretched out across the work top, claw opening, He fumbled in his Levis pocket and fished out the Event Horizon card. The tarnished silver metal closed about it, and the arm retracted, rotating on its vertical axis, then slid out again, pushing the card into a slot on one of the gear consoles banked up behind the flat-top bench.

HEY, GREG, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH CREDIT THIS BUGGER CAN TRANSFER, QUESTION MARK, TRIPLE EXCLAMATION MARK.

“Yeah, so go careful.”

TRUST TRUST TRUST WHERE’S IT ALL GONE? PUT YOUR RIGHT HAND ON THE BLUE SQUARE.

He leant across the bench as a square lit up on a gear module, and did as he’d been told, pressing with his fingertips. Nothing visible happened.

I’VE BEEN WRITING THIS FOR THE TRINITIES. THOUGHT THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE IT TO GAIN UNLAWFUL ENTRY.

The card popped out of the slot like a slice of toast. Greg snagged it neatly.

THUMBPRINT WILL ACTIVATE CREDIT AND ID CONFIRMATION AS USUAL, LITTLE-FINGER PRINT WILL ACTIVATE DATA-CRASH CANCER. ITS SQUIRT SHOULD BOLLOCKS UP GEAR LOCKS, AND TAKE OUT ENTIRE MEMORY CORES.

Greg looked at the card. Out of the two of them it was rapidly becoming the more useful.

YOU’LL BOTH COME BACK TO VISIT ME, WON’T YOU?

The screens blanked out, then, PLEASE, appeared in bright scarlet letters, fuzzy round the edges.

“Yes,” Eleanor said quickly, and looked at Greg for confirmation.

“Yes,” he echoed.

I’D LIKE THAT, said the letters, reverting to green.

One of the waldos slid out in front of Eleanor and opened its claw with the panache of a conjuror producing the coin that’d just been swallowed. There was a Trinities card resting in the mechanical palm. FOR YOU, MY NEW PRETTY LADY FRIEND. THE TROOPS OUTSIDE WON’T GIVE YOU ANY HASSLE IF YOU SHOW THEM THIS. SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR HIM TO BRING YOU.

“You do know him well, don’t you?” Eleanor said coyly, her eyes danced with amusement.

The camera whined as the lens twisted round, zooming in for a close up on Eleanor’s face. She held her poise without flinching.

WE CAN HAVE A GOSSIP. IT’S BEEN YEARS SINCE I HAD A REALLY GOOD GOSSIP ABOUT SOMEONE BEHIND THEIR BACK. IT’LL BE FUN. THE STORIES I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT HIM.

“You’ve got a date.”

“Hey,” Greg protested.

YEAH. SNEER. YOU GOT A COMPLAINT?

He held his hands up. “I’ll be back, too.”

GOOD. MISS YOU, GREG. BAD.

“Promise,” he mouthed to the camera.

Qoi materialized silently at their side and showed them out.

Julia took the broad stairs of Wilholm Manor two at a time, her burst of speed nearly skidding her feet from under her when she reached the hall’s polished tiles. She pushed up the heavy iron latch on the front. Rachel came out of the old butler’s pantry, looking miffed; it should have been Steven on duty, but he’d called in sick. The disapproving expression fell from her face to be replaced by her usual natural diligence.

Julia enjoyed the momentary lapse. So Rachel was human after all. Wonder who was in there with her?

She pushed the big oak door open and went outside. It was raining lightly, drops falling vertically from a high almost nebulous cloud sheet. The air seemed solid with humidity. She stood under the portico, heart pumping strongly.

You in a hurry, girl?

Julia clamped down on her racing thoughts as the silent voice whispered into her brain, resenting the way her father was interpreting her actions. He’d loaded a personality package, coded OtherEyes, into one of her processor nodes, digesting her body’s senses in real-time, feeding the formatted sensations back to his NN core.

I’d go crazy otherwise, he’d pleaded. Camera images are no substitute, flat and insipid; I’m human, damn it, I need human touch and smell, heat and cold. Not all the time, just the occasional reminder. Keep in touch with the real world.

So she’d acquiesced; and still wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea. She’d carefully reviewed the processor node’s basic management program, making sure its neural-interface flow was strictly one way. Acceptance only. None of her thoughts could seep in for him to examine. Not bloody likely. But despite the precautions, it meant having Grandpa chuntering away inside her mind the whole time OtherEyes was loaded.

There were advantages-his insights could be illuminating-but he did moan so.

From her position she could see a pair of forlorn-looking wheelbarrows that’d been abandoned down at the far end of the garden, piled high with weeds. She didn’t blame the gardeners for taking a break from the heat and damp. She was already perspiring under her white cotton summer dress. Her skin itched.

Too bloody hot it is, Juliet.

Show me your April, she asked, on some fey impulse.

For an instant the trees lost their leaves, their branches becoming thick black crockery cracks superimposed on a band of sombre grey landscape. There were no flowers in the garden, though the shrubs were covered in a crop of glossy scarlet berries. Steam shifted to clammy mist, cold water droplets clinging to branches and grass. Icy air cut through her thin dress. Small bedraggled birds pecked for worms in the slushy gravel. A remote style of beauty, lonely.