Peter Hamilton - Manhattan in Reverse

Lislie Road was in the middle of a pleasant residential suburb, with small dome-roofed houses grown out of air coral. Paula turned off the tree-shaded road itself onto the broad pavement, and started pedalling the p-bike. That way she was no longer monitored by the traffic network. She stopped outside number 62, and wheeled the p-bike up to the front door. It accepted the code she put in, and swung open for her.

Nelson Sheldon had paid Terrie Ority, the previous occupant, a handsome sum for his codes; just as he’d paid another Merioneth refugee for a bike licence. The preparations had taken over a month. Paula and Nelson had put the operation together on Augusta, the Sheldon Dynasty’s industrial world. It was the first time in nine decades that Paula had taken a holiday from the Directorate. She’d accrued eight years’ leave. The personnel office were delighted — her director curious.

Inside number 62 the air was musty. Terrie Ority was a fussy man: he’d turned off all the power before he left. He had also left behind most of the furniture. Paula switched the air conditioning back on, and ran the taps to cycle the plumbing system. A couple of ancient maidbots were sitting in their alcoves, fully charged, so she ordered them to start cleaning.

She spent the rest of the day establishing her legend identity in the civil and commercial systems. Her bank account was opened and loaded from a card. She registered with several local stores and had food delivered. Then she sat back and accessed the planetary cybersphere, with her e-butler extracting news summaries to build a picture of Merioneth after the wormhole had closed five months earlier.

It was like losing a short, brutal war. With half the population gone, whole towns had been abandoned. New consumer items were hard to find; not that it mattered. People simply reclaimed and recycled products from deserted homes. Food hadn’t quite been rationed in the winter, but a lot of favourites were no longer commercially available. She was interested to see that medical services, including rejuvenation clinics, had been nationalized on a temporary basis, so they could be reorganized for fair and equal distribution. Whole fleets of bots, especially civic ones, were breaking down; there were too few service and repair companies to keep them functional. Public transport was patchy, with priority given to maintain strategic links. Cars and lorries were also in need of maintenance, but again there was a huge number of abandoned vehicles which could be utilized. But on the plus side, this summer’s crops were going to produce big surpluses — nobody would go hungry. The tidal and hydro power stations were all functioning efficiently. Local currency was stabilizing after months of disastrous inflation. People were starting to adapt to their new life.

She started to research Svein Moalem. He was still Prime Minister, with his Nationalist Party holding two thirds of the remaining seats in Parliament. There were due to be elections in two years, when the new constituency boundaries had been established. The party had spent the months since Isolation revoking a whole host of ‘oppressive Commonwealth restrictions’; the majority of which were regulations covering genetic modifications and cloning. Helpfully, Moalem’s office provided a diary listing events he was due to attend.

The next day Paula started observing his movements within the city. They were typical of any high-ranking politician. Speeches to civic and community leaders, meetings with party officials. Parliamentary debates. Voter-friendly visits to schools, hospitals, and selected business. Trips to provincial towns.

He had bodyguards, of course, good ones. When he was due at an event, crowds were scanned using feature recognition software to check for repeat observers. The traffic network was analysed for any vehicle which kept cropping up in his vicinity. If he took a train or plane, passenger lists were reviewed. All well-established mid-level protocols.

As a consequence she kept her distance, content to follow his routes via some very sophisticated software her e-butler manipulated in the planetary cybersphere.

After a week she’d confirmed he would often abandon his official residence next to the Parliament building in favour of a grand private house in Baransly’s most exclusive Lake Hill district, where the last remaining multi-millionaires resided. It was a perfect place for his nest to operate from.

On the eighth night, with her monitor routines confirming his presence at a late-night Cabinet session, Paula broke in.

The perimeter alarm circuits and sensors were utterly ineffectual against her superior software and the active stealth covering of her light-armour suit. She started walking through the formal grounds, tracking the sentinel dogs prowling round. Spinneys of local trees provided excellent cover. The house was squatting on the summit of a mound which had been sculpted with high terracing. To Paula’s suspicious eye the mound would be perfect cover for an underground complex.

She climbed the dry-stone wall of the last terrace. Ahead of her the house was a three-storey construction of dark-grey stone, crowned with a lantern tower. The lawn between her and the wall was completely devoid of cover, and dotted with sensors. She used her inserts to neutralize several in her path. Her e-butler told her that several motion trackers up on the eaves were locking on as she jogged forwards. Data traffic in and out of the house began to increase.

Paula scurried up to large French doors and used a compact power blade to cut a circle through the glass. She found herself in a big hall which followed the principles of High Renaissance architecture, with square columns and a vaulting ceiling of decorated panels.

The lights came on when she was halfway to the vast curving stairs at the far end. Five security staff with high-rated maser rifles were lined up behind the polished stone banister.

‘Hold it right there.’

More armed security staff scurried in from ground-floor rooms and surrounded her. Their armour suits were a lot heavier than hers. She raised her hands as eleven energy weapons lined up on her, any one of which could probably cut through her protection.

‘Do not move. Deactivate all your systems.’

Paula switched the shimmering stealth layer off, then slowly reached up and removed her helmet. One of the armoured figures up on the stairs stood up, lowering their rifle. Paula’s inserts detected a large emission of encrypted data emerging from him, and suppressed a smile.

‘Investigator Myo,’ he said, taking off his own helmet. There was no resemblance to Svein Moalem in his features and his skin was the pale brown of a North African.

‘Correct,’ she said. ‘And whom am I addressing?’

‘Agent Volkep. I’m in charge of the Prime Minister’s security.’ He walked down the stairs. Paula’s e-butler told her the nodes in the house had closed their links to the cybersphere. More suppression shielding came on, sealing up the hall from any communication.

‘That’s convenient for you,’ Paula said archly as Volkep stood in front of her. His expression gave nothing away.

‘Take her over to the holding centre,’ he told the armed squad. ‘I want a full scan for weapon inserts; and be very thorough, hell knows what her Directorate equipped her with. Then bring her down to secure facility three. I’ll interrogate her there.’

Two electromuscle-enhanced gauntlets gripped Paula’s arms, almost lifting her off the ground. She turned her head to look at Volkep as she was hauled away across the hall’s marble flooring. ‘Nice seeing you again, Svein,’ she called out loudly.

That brought a flicker of annoyance to his face.

The holding centre was a simple concrete room with a cage door and a single medical-style chair in the middle. It was equipped with malmetal restraints.