Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

Clay inserted the closed tester into the top pocket of his ship suit. Now the only way his implant could kill him was if someone discovered his second capital offence, in having removed it.

The next device he held in his palm and contemplated pensively. It was just a small cylinder, no larger than a marker pen, with a button on one end and a torch switch to the side. He reached up and touched his strangulation collar. The thing about these collars was that they had fibre diamond imbedded and were ostensibly impossible to remove without specialist equipment that was now on proscribed lists. Even using diamond shears was a very risky option. If you could manage to insert one blade up between neck and collar, you had to then cut through the collar instantly in one go, for, the moment just one imbedded filament was severed, the collar would activate at its fastest setting – so miss just one strand of the diamond, and your head was on the floor. All this, Clay thought, gave the misleading impression that the device could not be disabled.

The device began whining as soon as he clicked on the torch button, building up a massive charge. The weakness in these collars was both the battery and the microscopic motors it drove. Clay took hold of the motor, to locate it precisely, then placed the end of the charging device directly over it. He found himself sweating again, contemplating the calculated ten per cent failure rate of this method, and the five per cent chance of it actually activating the collar instead. Then, when the device reached full charge, he didn’t give himself a chance for further thought and pressed the button. The device made a crack, blue arclight flaring under his chin and the collar warming up under the EM radiation pulse. For a moment it felt tighter but, as he lowered the small DEMP emitter, he realized that was just his imagination, caused by fear. And, really, that fear would never go away because, though he knew there was a ninety per cent chance that he had rendered the collar inactive, he would never know for sure unless Serene sent the signal to tighten it.

Clay put away his tools, considered finding some way of disposing of them but then decided the risk of them being found was minimal out here, and he might yet have use for them. He reconnected the cam but left the inducer detached – just a fault no one had yet picked up. Next, feeling as if he was being watched, he unpacked and stowed the rest of his belongings, before collapsing and putting away the crate. As he did all this, he wished his previous actions had not been necessary, but knew they were. He had finally come to understood that loyal service led to his knowing too much, and that made it all the more likely that Galahad would eventually kill him. Those close to her were in nearly as much danger as those who might rebel against her.

Earth

Messina had ensured that his house – being the residence of Earth’s dictator for a lifetime he had intended never to end – contained everything he might need, hence the underground suite of sound-insulated torture and interrogation cells lying just off the wine cellars, which could easily be reached via the private elevator in his office.

‘I’m an old-fashioned sort of guy,’ said Nelson. ‘I know that an inducer can deliver the same sort of agony as any torture ever imagined and that now, with cerebral implants, it’s possible to convince the victim that he really is being physically tortured, but that’s not the same.’ He shook his head in disappointment. ‘There’s no artistry in it.’

There was something wrong with Nelson. That he was a state-employed psychopath was a given, in fact there was no end to such people available, but he was also something beyond that. She knew from the reports on him that the wiring in his head was linked up in all sort of odd ways, that he possessed a form of synaesthesia so that smells had colour and his sense of touch was audible, that his pain and pleasure circuitry was all tangled and he used an inducer on himself for personal gratification – but he was also thoroughly, unconventionally brilliant. His deep studies of how a body could be ruined – transformed, as he would put it – and his endless exploration of pain and horror had perversely contributed a great deal to the advancement of medical science. In fact his research, statistically, had saved more lives than it had taken. Of course, that had never been his aim. He had only ever wanted to keep his victims alive in their agony for as long as possible.

‘So, what can you do?’ asked Serene, as she studied the white-tiled walls, the surgical table, and next to it the complicated metal framework for full-body restraint, alongside the heart monitors and other equipment usually the preserve of delegates’ private hospitals.

As Nelson began to explain the sheer extent of his craft, Serene quickly realized that, if she actually went through with this, she would be taking a step beyond her purported aims. Everything she had done thus far, no matter how grim, or how cruel, had been justified for the future of Earth. The extermination of billions had been an act that had to be carried out before the pressure on Earth’s ecology passed beyond the point of no return. Her concealment of the fact that she herself had committed this act had been necessary because, without that concealment, the degree of hatred that would have been aroused against her would make it impossible for her to govern. Her wiping-out of the remainder of the Committee had been necessary, too – things needed to be done quickly, so it was foolish to waste time in debate about who should be in power, and foolish to waste resources on infighting. That she had ruthlessly seized power was in itself proof of her fitness to rule. Subsequent exterminations had been necessary too, for Earth’s population was still far too high, and therefore targeted exterminations, where they would do the most good, were the best option. She felt perfectly justified in all that she had done, and every person she had killed had been eliminated out of necessity. What she intended now, however, was altogether unnecessary.

‘I’m bringing him down now,’ said the voice over her fone.

‘Very good,’ she replied, turning away from Nelson’s monologue. ‘I take it he is still unharmed?’

‘Just a few bruises.’

Serene swung back to face Nelson, who was watching her with almost childlike curiosity, his head tilted to one side.

‘Go get ready,’ she said, and watched him head over to a nearby sink to wash his hands, then don his aseptic overalls and pull on surgical gloves. Then she turned to watch the lights ranged on the wall just above the elevator. She suddenly felt hot and cold flushes that were a combination of both shame and excitement. From her childhood she recognized this sensation as the thrill of deliberately doing something she knew to be wrong.

The elevator arrived and the doors slid open. Sack stepped out, lizard-skinned and the colour of graphite, in a cream business suit, like some CGI fantasy figure. His hand lay gently on the shoulder of Donald Galahad, her father, as he guided him into the room. By contrast, her father’s clothing was filthy and torn, with piss stains on the front of his corduroy trousers, his head dipped and his hands bound behind his back. He looked up and his eyes widened when he saw her, but he could say nothing around the big plastic plug jammed into his mouth.

‘Keroskin,’ exclaimed Nelson delightedly. The man was gazing at Sack. This new hard skin had not been approved for general use yet, but was known about in medical circles. ‘How does it feel?’ Nelson asked.

Sack gazed at him doubtfully with ophidian eyes, then glanced questioningly at Serene.

‘Answer the man,’ she said.

‘Feels like a big thick scab all over,’ Sack replied.