Peter Hamilton: A Quantum Murder

Why? She didn't have to do it. Not with Kitchener. Not with Rosette. So she must want to. Why? Why? Why?

Nicholas snapped awake, his head rising off the pillow in a reflex jolt. What had woken him? He was still in his T-shirt and jeans, waist button undone. The duvet was a crumpled mess below him.

It was like every nerve fibre was shooting distilled trepidation into his brain. He knew it was going to be bad, very bad.

The scream assaulted his ears. Female. Powerful and utterly wretched. Dragging on and on, enough to leave a throat raw and withered.

He rolled off the bed fast. There was just enough pre-dawn light leaking through the window to see by. The scream stopped as he reached the door, then started up again as he pulled it open.

He looked about wildly. Orange light was shining down at the far end of the north wing. He could see Rosette kneeling brokenly in the doorway to Kitchener's suite, clinging desperately to the wooden frame.

Getting to her was a confused blur. His feet pounding. The other doors opening. Pale anxious faces. That unending, spine-grating scream.

Tears were streaming down Rosette's face. She was shaking violently.

He rushed past her and saw the bedroom for the first time. The curtains were still shut and tinted biolum globes shone from the middle of bulbous paper-moon shades that hung from the ceiling. The furniture was supremely tasteful, a dark antique dresser, matching wardrobe, Chinese carpet, full-length mirror, a porcelain-topped table below the window, brass ornaments on the mantelpiece, monk chest. The centre-piece was a large four-poster bed with an amber canopy.

Edward Kitchener was lying on the snow-white silk sheets, at the middle of a deep scarlet bloodstain spreading to the edge of the mattress. He felt the intolerable pressure of his own scream building in his chest.

Kitchener's head was intact, showing an almost serene peacefulness. But the body… Ripped. Torn. Squashed. The ribcage had been clawed open, pulped organs spread across the bed.

Nicholas's scream burst out of his mouth. The roaring in his ears meant he couldn't even hear it. He was vaguely aware of the other students crowding in behind him.

His leg muscles pitched him on to the floor, and he vomited helplessly on to Kitchener's superb Chinese carpet.

The nineteen-fifties vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow glided along at eighty kilometres an hour, its white-walled tyres soaking up all the punishment the gritty ruts of the decrepit Ml could inflict without a hint of exertion. Julia Evans adored the old car; it was the absolute last word in style and its rugged old-fashioned engineering was easily equal to the strengthened suspension and broad silicone rubber tyres of any modern car. Apart from a closed loop recombiner cell which allowed it to continue burning petrol without leaking fumes into the atmosphere, and the installation of various security systems, it hadn't needed any modifications to cope with England's decaying road network.

Outside the darkened glass she could see the rug of grass, weeds, and lush emerald moss which had swamped the hard shoulder; even the crash barriers along the central reservation had been swallowed up by bindweed, snow-white trumpet-shaped flowers pushing out from between the cloak of broad leaves. The original tarmac surface was still in use, scored by deep tyre-ruts along each carriageway; this afternoon it was solid because of the weekend's cooling rains, but for nine months of the year the sun reduced the roads to swaths of mushy black treacle.

The New Conservative government agreed in principle that nationwide road refurbishment should be given priority, coating the millions of kilometres of tarmac with a layer of rough thermo-cured cellulose, but they were hanging back until giga-conductor-powered vehicles became widespread before starting.

The Rolls approached junction ten, and the lead car in their four-strong police escort switched on its blue strobe lights. There seemed to be a lot of people lining the slip road.

"Who are they?" Julia asked.

Rachel Griffith, one of her two permanent bodyguards, was sitting in the jump seat opposite. A twenty-five-year-old security division hard-liner, wearing a smart blue two-piece suit. She turned round, scanning the road ahead. Her lean face flashed Julia a quick reassuring smile. "Just some protesters," she said. "You and the Prime Minister at the same event is a publicity opportunity they can't ignore."

Julia nodded. Rachel had been with her for five years, tough, smart, and loyal. She liked to think of her as a friend as well. If Rachel wasn't worried, there was nothing to be worried about.

"This is as near to the Institute as they can get," said Morgan Walshaw, Event Horizon's security chief, from the second jump seat. Even sitting, he couldn't appear relaxed, spine stiff, shoulders squared, wearing an immaculate charcoal-grey suit. He fitted her conception of a crusty old retired Home Counties general perfectly. Except Morgan was far shrewder than any general. Thank God.

He was sixty-two years old, silver-grey hair clipped down to a centimetre from his skull, the thick, tanned skin of his face heavily crossed with narrow lines, hard-set light-blue eyes which always made her feel incredibly guilty whenever he stared at her. Everything she did eventually filtered back to him: nights out with her girl friends in Peterborough's clubs, holiday adventures, party antics, boys. Morgan had been with the company for years, protecting her grandfather, and now her, a job he performed with superb efficiency and complete devotion. His approval was always tremendously important to her, mainly because he would never make a gratuitous compliment. She had to earn it, something that never happened with most of the people in her life. And words of praise had indeed been awarded, albeit grudgingly, with more frequency in recent years. She often caught herself wishing he was her real father. The knowledge that he would be retiring in a few years was something she always tried to bury right at the back of her mind; it was a horrifying thought.

Access RollSpeech, Julia told her bioware processor node silently. Colourless words flowed from one of the three memory nodes buried at the back of her skull, forming a ghostly script behind her eyes. She reviewed it for what must have been the tenth time since breakfast. Event Horizon's PR department had written it for her, but she'd made a few alterations. It had sounded terribly stilted before. She couldn't forget it, of course, not with the nodes reinforcing her memory, but they couldn't help her out if she stumbled over pronunciation.

The roll out was going to be the technological event of the year; she couldn't afford to make a mistake. There were going to be too many people, too many channel cameras. It felt as though a squadron of butterflies were performing dynamic acrobatic routines in her stomach.

The four-thousand-pound Sabareni suit she had chosen to wear for the ceremony was sheer silk, a bright coral pink. The tailored jacket had a broad collar and large white buttons, its skirt was straight, hem five centimetres above her knees. Sabareni was one of her favourite designers, the suit made her feel wonderfully elegant. She had decided against ostentatious jewellery, settling for her usual gold St Christopher, and a Cartier diamond brooch. Her maid had straightened her chestnut hair so that it fell down her back almost to her hips; it was a lot of trouble to condition, but after growing it for a decade, she was damned if she was going to have it cut now. Besides, a lot of girls were copying the 'Julia' hair style. She had a media profile which rock stars and channel celebrities could only fantasize about.

Exit RollSpeech. If she didn't know it now she never would. She could hear the faint shouts of the protesters through the thick glass. "They look too well-fed to be dole dependants," she observed as the Rolls left the motorway, cruising past a big green and gold sign which read: