Peter Hamilton - A Quantum Murder

Greg aimed at the pistol and fired.

MacLennan howled, convulsing, right arm hugged to his chest. His pistol tumbling away. A hot throb of pain lanced into Greg's mind. Behind it came the raw malevolence, the near-frenzied fear, and the abhorrence.

"Hold it," Greg commanded as MacLennan began to look around his feet for the imprinter, the tendrils of desperation uncoiling in his gibbering mind. He walked forward until he came to the edge of the nettles. "Why did you come here, MacLennan? Why did you set them on me?"

"Because it was you!" MacLennan bawled. "You! Mindstar freak. You found the paradigm."

"How did you know that?"

"You were from the Home Office, you burnt into the memory core. You! It was you. Freak fucker."

"Oh shit." The rush of energy which had carried him out of the house and across the grove suddenly bled away. There was no determination left in him. No pride at completing the case, only weariness. He just wanted this over. Finished.

MacLennan started sobbing.

"Shut up!" Greg yelled.

"It hurts me! It hurts. You've burnt my hand in half, you bastard. Get me to a hospital, for Christ's sake."

Every emotion reached rock bottom. Greg felt dangerously calm. "It hurts, does it, MacLennan? How did Clarissa Wynne feel do you think? When you pushed her head under the lake. Did she hurt, MacLennan?"

"Clarissa?" It came out like a whinny.

"You killed her. Didn't you? Eleven years ago, you shot her full of syntho and killed her."

"She was going to claim all the credit!"

"Even now you're lying! It was her work."

"Wasn't!"

Guilt corrupted every thought in MacLennan's head. And there was nothing left to say.

Greg took a laboured breath. "Royan, shoot it over."

The grid snapped off for an instant as the targeting laser stabbed at MacLennan's eyes.

He heard the paradigm as it came surging through the communication link, a near-ultrasonic wheee in his earpiece, a blast of photons encapsulating the essence of Liam Bursken, accompanied by a monomaniac hatred for one man.

Poetic justice, or intuitive inspiration; Greg didn't know which, only that it was right. It fitted.

He pulled the photon amp strip from his face, twin circles of skin around his eyesockets pinching as it came free. The real world rushed back in on him, dark and dank, awash with human failings. The clean simplicity of the laser return virtual graphics was almost preferable. Somewhere behind him flames were soaring up into the night from the wreck of the jeep. Rain pattered down, beating the dusky vegetation towards the muddy ground.

MacLennan's prim face was contorted with pain, hair plastered down into a straggly cap. His jaw was working silently, as though he was choking.

"Do you know who you hate, Liam?" Greg asked quietly. "Do you?"

MacLennan stared back at him with insane eyes, mouth screwing into a joyous smile. "Yes. Me. It's me. Me!"

"That's right." He took the vibration knife from his belt, switched it on, and dropped it at MacLennan's feet.

MacLennan snatched it up with his good hand. "Redemption. He has granted me redemption." He laughed rhapsodically as he shoved the blade into his stomach. Blood foamed out. He sank to his knees, teeth clenched with effort, cheeks bulging, and pulled the blade up towards his sternum. "Yes. Oh, yes. My Lord."

Greg turned and walked away. Back to the farmhouse and Eleanor, where he belonged.

High above the reservoir, the security team's tilt-fan dived out of the clouds, turbines shrieking with urgency.

Julia found her hand straying towards Robin's hair. He was sleeping sprawled out on his belly in the middle of the bed, head fallen between two big fluffy pillows, mouth slightly agape. She stroked his hair softly, smoothing down the ruffled tufts. Seen in the lush morning light which was prising its way round the edges of the curtains he was even more handsome than the first time she had caught sight of him at the pool. And he was so terribly sweet. Tender, anxious, and eager all at once—excellent body too. He lacked Patrick's ruthless dynamism, which had made their sex far more sensual. She still wasn't quite sure if she was his first. But she was certainly near the front of the queue. A thought to treasure.

He stirred below her hand, and she held her breath. She didn't want to wake him up just yet. The poor dear must be tired after last night.

She would have a cup of tea, skim through the breakfast 'casts, nip into the toilet, then it would be time for him to perform again.

NN Core Access Request.

No peace for the wicked. And last night she had been gloriously wicked.

Open Channel To NN Core.

Morning, Juliet.

Morning, Grandpa. We can't be having a crisis this early.

Not a crisis, no.

Thank heavens for that. What then?

I'm curious about something you did yesterday

Spying on me again?

No. I was just reviewing some of your data traffic. Double checking. That's what I'm here for, your safety net.

Yah, go on. She had a pretty good idea where this was leading.

You accessed one of our biochemical research labs yesterday. Using your executive code, no less. Mind telling me what for, girl?

No, I don't mind. She leaned over to the bedside cabinet and poured her tea from the silver service.

Juliet!

Oh, you wanted to know right now?

If I still had a body, I'd put you over my bloody knee, m'girl.

Grandpa, behave. Besides, I'm too big and too strong these days. And I don't fight fair, either.

You learnt that from me, Juliet. Now are you going to tell me?

She picked up her cup and saucer, and settled back into the pillows. Yah, all right. I wiped every record of the retrospective neurohormone from our memory cores, the analysis report, molecular structure, conclusions, everything. Then I sent Rachel over there, and she tipped all the remaining ampoules into the toxic waste disposal furnace. Happy now?

Bloody hell, girl. Why?

The tea was too hot to drink. She blew across the top of her cup as she marshalled her thoughts. Because I don't want something like that let loose in the world, Grandpa. It's bad enough having people like Gabriel being able to see what I might do in the future, or Greg knowing how badly I've been misbehaving just by looking at me. I don't want someone standing in this room ten years from now taking a simple infusion and being able to see what I did last night.

Hardly a simple infusion, girl.

Exactly. The Home Office have slapped a restriction order on what really happened at Greg's farm and Launde Abbey. Admittedly their main concern is the way MacLennan abused his paradigm project; if word got out that the New Conservatives had been allowing a company to research what amounts to a mind-control system there would be hell to pay. Certainly it would cost them the next election. Marchant didn't need much prodding to include the neurohormone. And there are now only fifteen people in the world who know a retrospection neurohormone is even possible. With those numbers we might just be able to keep it that way. Even if the news does eventually leak out, it would take an immense research effort to produce it again, if we ever could. Kitchener was a very clever man, not to mention idiosyncratic.

You can't fight progress, Juliet.

A retrospective neurohormone isn't progress, Grandpa. Quite the opposite. And there is already more than enough freely available technology in this world capable of being misapplied by tekmercs and others. Corporations and kombinates are going to have to start becoming responsible again. After all, we do fund ninety per cent of all the significant scientific research these days.

Lord preserve us, a global citizen with a conscience.