Peter Hamilton - Manhattan in Reverse

‘On my way in,’ Paula replied.

‘No don’t. I’m going for a car now; I’ll pick you up. Three minutes.’

‘All right, transfer the case files over.’ Paula dismissed the decorator. Perhaps it was because of her carefully controlled mix of Filipino and European genes which had given her such a delightful face he assumed he could bluster and intimidate as he usually did with single female clients. The stare she gave him froze the protest after just a couple of words. He nodded compliance and retreated, counting himself lucky she hadn’t actually said anything.

Paula pulled on a grey suit jacket and picked up her small shoulder bag, moving instinctively as the files from the Directorate slipped into her virtual vision. She read the scant details on the plane crash as she hurried down the worn stone stairs to the courtyard below.

One of the Directorate’s dark sedans pulled up outside the block’s main entrance. The gull-wing door pivoted forward, and Paula got in. Christabel was sitting on the rear bench, a brunette with an Asian ancestry a lot stronger than Paula’s clinic-manufactured heritage. She was Paula’s deputy; they’d known each other since their training academy days.

‘Wow, you look great,’ Christabel enthused. ‘Positively jailbait. I’d forgotten how pretty you are when you’re young. You shouldn’t wait so long between rejuvenations.’

‘I can’t spare the time,’ Paula said automatically. Her hand went up to sweep her raven hair away from her face. With rejuvenation returning her biological age to late-adolescence her hair had grown very thick again. Every time she was tempted to have it trimmed to a shorter style. But this fitted her, along with the simple-cut business suit and plain black shoes she always wore to work, defining what she was. It was as much her identity as her modified genes.

‘Welcome back,’ Christabel said with a knowing smile. ‘How are your inserts settling in?’

Paula held up a hand, flexing the fingers. The OCtattoos were invisible against her skin. It was still a relatively new technology, with development houses finding new applications each year. The ones she’d had before rejuvenation were a lot cruder; they’d been eradicated by her treatment, so the last week had been spent at a Directorate facility augmenting her body with the new generation of insert gadgets.

‘A couple of glitches left. I’m due a final formatting session on Saturday. Things have come on a long way since I had my last installation.’

Christabel held up her own hand. Threads of intense blue light appeared, pulsing along her fingers. ‘You didn’t fancy the latest versions then? Function and fashion combined. Not bad, huh? I paid for the customization myself. I can get you a good deal if you like, I’ve still got contacts in my Dynasty.’

Paula gave the glowing strands a curt look. ‘No thank you.’

Christabel laughed.

‘We don’t seem to have much on the Free Merioneth Forces,’ Paula said as she continued to open case files.

‘No. They’re relatively new. Emerged while you were in rejuvenation. This is their fourth strike in five months. Very effective. We haven’t arrested anyone yet.’

The Directorate sedan drove across Paris to the huge CST station where it boarded a trans-Earth loop train, taking it through a series of wormholes linking the old world’s major cities. From Paris the loop led to Madrid, then London before crossing the Atlantic to New York; four more stops, and twenty minutes later the train pulled in at the massive LA galactic station, where they drove over to the Intersolar terminal and onto a direct train to EdenBurg.

Eighty minutes after Paula got into the sedan, it was driving off a vehicle carriage at the same platform which the Dynasty party had used less than three hours earlier. The car’s array took them round the Ridgeview ring road, and out across the scrub desert to the north. Paula watched in surprise as a group of wild camels sauntered across the hard-packed sands. They’d been gene-modified to digest the local cacti-equivalent vegetation, but even so it was a harsh environment. After five miles, the track vanished, and the suspension rose up to cope with the rocky ground.

‘Hope you brought a hat,’ Christabel said. She was squinting out of the window at the blazing noon sun. Ridgeview was about as far south as the planet’s climate would allow. After another couple of hundred miles the scrub desert gave way to true desolation. Nova Zealand’s entire equatorial zone was bare rock, baked by the intense blue-white star; the heat even repelled clouds, leaving the land in a permanent shadowless summer where the daily air temperature rose far above boiling point.

The crash site perimeter was still being established by the local police. Wreckage had so far been spotted over seven square miles. The Directorate car delivered them to a cluster of police vehicles parked together above a wide sandy gully. Helicopters droned slowly through the clear sky above.

Paula reluctantly dug a wide-brimmed hat from her little bag. The door opened, and she immediately held her breath as oppressively hot air swept in.

‘Hellfire,’ Christabel groaned. ‘Literally.’

They climbed out. Paula put on a pair of sunglasses which opaqued up to their highest level. Then she took her jacket off, feeling sweat prickle her bare arms. The arid desert air was burning its way down her throat, drying her sinuses.

‘Wouldn’t do that if I was you,’ a man told them. He was dressed in a loose Arabic-style robe with a deep white hood. ‘Detective Captain Aidan Winkal,’ he said as he offered his hand.

‘Paula Myo.’

‘I’ve heard of you, Investigator. But seriously, if you haven’t put on screening membrane, five minutes exposure in this sunlight will burn your skin down to the bone.’

‘Okay.’ She put the jacket back on.

‘Come on, I’ve got our mobile situation office set up.’

It was a big old van with the Ridgeview police logo emblazoned on the side. Five tall heat-dump fins sprouted out of the roof, glowing a faint rose-pink. Inside, the air was thankfully cool. A bench table down one side was cluttered with various desktop arrays operated by Winkal’s colleagues. Screens and small holographic portals relayed various images from the helicopters and jeeps covering the site.

‘What procedures are you following?’ Paula asked.

Aidan Winkal had pulled his hood back to reveal a weathered face with silver-fox hair cut short. He appeared hesitant. ‘Look, we’re not exactly used to this kind of thing, you know.’

‘We’re not here to criticize,’ Paula assured him. ‘We both want the same thing, to catch the people responsible. The Directorate will assume responsibility for tracking down the group which did this. But site control and recovery is all yours. Now tell me what you’re doing, and we’ll be happy to provide advice.’

‘Okay, thanks. We’re trying to map the debris area. The larger sections of fuselage are easy enough to find, and so far we’ve picked up thirty-seven personal emergency beacons. My squads are escorting medical teams out to them. The bodies we’ve located so far… they’re not intact, you know.’

‘I understand. However, their memorycells should be able to survive the impact. They’re designed to withstand a lot worse than this.’

‘Sure.’

‘We have a Directorate forensics team en route. Some of their sensor systems will be able to help your search. I’ll assign them as soon as we’ve identified and recovered the missile. Have you located the launch site yet?’

‘No. I’m concentrating on the crash, finding those poor people. We’re still trying to build a full passenger list.’