Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

The barrier pole swung up.

"Someone tried to steal some bullion out of the vault this afternoon," the man said. "He got away."

"God, I hope they don't use one of the collateral necklaces."

"For that? I doubt it."

The man drove him into Durrell as promised. Josep thanked him as he was dropped off at a commercial center in one of the outlying districts. Fortunately, Davis Fenaroli-Reece carried just enough cash to pay for a bus ticket into the city center. It was a ten-minute walk from there to the university campus. When he reached Michelle's residence building, he paused in the lobby while his face finally reverted to his own features.

"Ah, I wondered what he actually looked like. Let's see if we have any records of that face."

Josep tapped the code into her door lock and walked in. The room was a mess as always. Barely large enough for one student, it had turned into a flea market of clothes, fast-food wrappers, hard copy and unwashed crockery since he moved in with her. Michelle was sitting on the small bed, watching the pane on the desktop pearl that was resting on the pillow. Her head came up, shock registering on her face. The gash in Josep's foot left by the glass shard suddenly jabbed a hot pain up his leg. He winced.

Michelle looked up in surprise as the door opened. It had to be Josep. She'd been so worried that he'd been caught doing something for the resistance cell. Relief turned to shock as she saw the thing coming through the door. It was a parody of a Skin suit, thin and spindly, with a simple metallic sphere as its head. The twin black lenses that were its eyes stared at her. She screamed as it walked into the middle of the room.

Two genuine Skins hurried in behind it. Michelle kept on screaming as one of them lunged at her. Thick fingers clamped around her arm. She grabbed at the headboard, but the Skin was immensely strong. She was dragged off the bed, her shoulder blade thudding down painfully on the floor.

"Help me!" she wailed. "Somebody, help."

"Shut the fuck up, bitch." The Skin picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Michelle tried kicking, but the viciously tight grip on her legs prevented the slightest movement. Her head was hanging halfway down the Skin's back. She tilted her neck back to see the slender humanoid thing moving slowly around the room, its fingers stroking objects. Then she was out on the landing, where several more Skins were waiting. Students stood in their doorways, watching her being carried past, too scared to move or say anything.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was all over. Z-B had discovered their little resistance cell. They'd interrogate her and kill her. She whimpered pitifully as the Skin walked into the elevator with her. Three men were crammed inside waiting for them. They began to attach instruments and medical-style modules to her skin.

Michelle started screaming again as the doors slid shut.

For a moment the room was out of focus.

"Are you all right?" Michelle asked. She'd got up to stand beside the bed, looking concerned.

Josep lifted his foot, taking the pressure off the wound. The pain eased immediately. "I'm fine."

She gave him a tentative smile. Josep waited. But for once she didn't rush over and embrace him. He wondered what was wrong with her. Did she think he was seeing another girl? Please, not that, not now, he prayed.

He gave her a quick kiss. There wasn't much of a response. "There's a problem," he told her. "I have to talk to Ray. Get the stuff, will you? I'm going to move it out of here."

"Why? What's happened?"

"Nothing to worry about." He sat down on the bed and pulled the desktop pearl toward him. There was still nothing from his d-written neurons, just that faint background buzz. That made him pause. What the hell could knock them out of kilter for so long? Every other enhancement d-written into his body seemed to be working fine.

"What is it?" Michelle insisted.

"Okay, look, the controller called me. Z-B has been sending askpings into the university network, checking up on student files. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, but we have to be careful. I'm going to move out for a few days."

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I. I'm sorry, but we have to be safe. You'll be fine. Now just get the stuff, please." He requested his Prime from the desktop pearl's memory blocks. The pane flashed up an invalid request icon.

The remote spoke the command with its associated code, but the desktop pearl didn't respond. An invalid request icon appeared in the pane.

Josep stared at it, not understanding. "Damn it!" Where had the Prime gone? If he could just interface directly ... He wondered if he should call Raymond without using Prime protection. Michelle was still standing behind him, watching.

"Are you going to get the stuff or not?" he asked.

"I don't want you to go."

"Damn it." He told the desktop to call Raymond.

* * *

Simon's DNI was giving him a comprehensive display of the Durrell datapool architecture, the graphics generator riding on the AS's monitor program. He saw the placement ping flash across the entire datapool. Josep's call was to a personal portable address. Wherever the individual was, the nearest datapool node would route the call straight to them. A node in the Silchester District started to establish the link. The entire Silchester datapool crashed.

"What happened?" Simon asked.

The AS reported that its monitor program had been discovered and identified by an unknown program. The Silchester District had crashed immediately.

Simon was impressed. All the gadgets they'd taken from Josep had self-destructed as soon as Z-B's technicians had started to examine them, vaporizing evenly from the surface inward. An analysis of the gas residue had revealed some extremely unusual and complex molecules. It would seem their software was equally sophisticated.

The desktop flashed up a receiver-not-found icon. Josep regarded it with growing concern. Even if the datapool couldn't make the link, Ray's Prime would have intercepted the call placement ping and responded.

"That shouldn't happen."

"Perhaps he's switched off his bracelet," Michelle said.

"Maybe." Josep looked round the room, deeply uneasy. Something was wrong. Why couldn't he get any kind of interface with a Prime?

"Did Ray call?"

"No."

That wasn't right, either. Ray would have known within an hour at most that the break-in had gone wrong. One of the first things he'd do was call Michelle.

He stood up and faced her. She returned his gaze levelly.

Michelle would never do that. She'd either blush or grin happily, lovingly.

"You still haven't got the stuff," he said lightly.

"I told you, I don't want you to go."

"Oh hell," Adul said. "He's suspicious."

"It was always going to happen," Simon said. "Just a question of when." He looked over at Josep. They'd suspended him in a total reality immersion suit, not too dissimilar to Skin: a tactile emitter layer surrounded by artificial muscle to stimulate all levels of physical contact from the water splashed on his hair to the feel of the shirt fabric. It hung from the center of a gimbaled circular frame, allowing them to orientate him to match his personal inclination within the world created by the AS—though the jump had taken it right up to the limit of its replicant ability. Fiber-optics had been inserted through his corneas and pupils to shine directly on the retinas. The projection had zero-zero resolution: perfect.

The big pane on the wall in front of Simon showed the simulation that the AS had fabricated. So far the illusion had been flawless. Josep had believed completely in the spaceport administration block and the journey through Durrell. Even Michelle's room was exact, thanks to the data from the hominoid remote; not just the colors and proportions, but the texture and temperature of the bed and desktop pearl as well. Duplication of inanimates was always easy.