The vac-trains were an excellent solution to Earth’s transport problem in the age of the arcologies. There were no aircraft any more. The armada storms had finished off air travel in the same way they made people abandon their cars. One of the late Twenty-first Century’s most enduring newscable images was of a farmer’s pick-up truck rammed through the nineteenth-floor window of the Sears Tower in the wake of a storm. As the planet’s population flowed into cities and began strengthening them against the weather, so they turned to trains as the only practical method of transport between urban conglomerations. Heavy and stolid, tornadoes couldn’t fling them about so easily. Of course, they still took a battering from the wind if they were caught out in the open. So the next logical stage was to protect the tracks in the same way the domes were going up to shield the city centres. The first real example was the channel tunnel, which was extended to cover the whole journey between London and Paris. Once that proved viable, the global rail network was rapidly expanded. As with any macro-infrastructure project awash with government money, the technology advanced swiftly.
By the time Louise and Genevieve arrived on Earth, the vac-trains were a highly mature system, travelling at considerable speed between stations. Common wisdom had the tunnels drilled kilometres deep in the safety of the bedrock. Not so; a lot of the time they didn’t even qualify as tunnels. Giant tubes were laid over the abandoned land, and buried just below the surface. It was much easier to maintain the vacuum inside that kind of factory-manufactured subway than in a rock tunnel. Tectonics played havoc with rigid lava walls that had been melted by a flame of fusion plasma; experience showed they fractured easily, and on a couple of occasions actually sheered. So tunnels were only used to thread the tubes through mountains and plunge deep under arcologies. Even trans-oceanic routes were laid in trenches and anchored in place.
With no air to create friction, the trains were free to accelerate hard; on the longer trans-Pacific runs they touched Mach fifteen. Powered by linear motors, they were quick, smooth, silent, and efficient. The trip from Mount Kenya station to London’s Kings Cross took Louise and Genevieve forty-five minutes, with one stop at Gibraltar. Airlocks at both ends of their carriage matched up with platform hatches, and popped open.
“All passengers for London please disembark,” the sparkling AV pillars on the carriage ceiling announced. “This train will depart for Oslo in four minutes.”
The girls collected their big shoulder bags and hurried out onto the platform. They emerged into a long rectangular chamber, its ornately sculpted walls harking back to long-distant imperial grandeur. The line of twenty hatches connecting to the train appeared to be made of black wrought iron, Victorian-era space technology. On the opposite side, three large archways led to broad wave escalators that spiralled upwards with impressive curves.
Genevieve stayed close behind her big sister as she negotiated their way across the platform. At least this time they managed to avoid barging in to people. Excitement was powering a smile that would not fade.
An Earth arcology. London! Where we all came from originally. Home—sort of. How utterly utterly stupendous. It was the complete opposite of the nightmare that had been Norfolk by the time they left. This world had massive defences, and its people could do whatever they wanted with lots of fabulous machines to help them. She held Louise’s hand tightly as they stepped onto the wave elevator. “Where next?”
“Don’t know,” Louise said. For some reason she was completely calm. “Let’s see what’s up there, shall we?”
The wave escalator brought them onto the floor of a huge hemispherical cavern. It was like the arrivals hall of Mount Kenya station, only larger. The base of the wall was pierced by tunnel entrances radiating out to lift shafts and platforms for the local train network, while the floor was broken by concentric rows of wave elevators to the vac-trains. Bright informational spheres formed tightly packed streamers five metres above the heads of the thronging passengers, weaving around each other with serpentine grace. Right in the centre was a single flared spire of rock that rose up to eventually merge into the roof’s apex.
“It’s just another station,” Genevieve said in mild disappointment. “We’re still underground.”
“Looks like it.” Louise squinted up. Black flecks were zipping through the strata of informationals, as if they were suffering from static. She smiled, pointing. “Birds, look.”
Genevieve twirled round, following their erratic flight. There were all sorts, from pert brown sparrows to emerald and turquoise parrots.
“We’d better find a hotel, I suppose,” Louise said. She pulled her shoulder bag round to take the processor block out.
Genevieve tugged at her arm. “Oh please, Louise. Can’t we go up to the surface first? I just want to look. I’ll be good, I promise. Please?”
Louise tucked the shoulder bag back. “I wouldn’t mind a peek myself.” She studied the informationals, catching sight of one that seemed promising. “Come on.” She caught Gen’s hand. “This way.”
They took a lift up to the surface. It brought them out in a mock-Hellenic temple at the middle of a wide plaza full of statues and fenced in by huge oaks. A small commemorative plaque on a worn pillar marked the passing of the station’s old surface structures and iron rail tracks. Louise walked out from the shade of the temple, wandering aimlessly for a few yards until she simply stopped. It was as if the arcology was appearing in segments before her. Slowly. As soon as her mind acknowledged one part, another would flip up behind that, demanding recognition.
Though she didn’t know it, Kings Cross was the geographical heart of the tremendous Westminster Dome, which at thirty kilometres in diameter enclosed most of the original city, from Ealing in the west to Woolwich in the east. Ever since the first small protective domes went up over London (a meagre four km wide to start with—the best Twenty-first Century materials technology could manage), preservation orders had been slapped on every building of historical or architectural significance, which the conservationists basically defined as anything not built from concrete. By the time the Westminster Dome was constructed over that initial cluster of ageing weather shields, the outlying districts had undergone significant changes, but any Londoner from the mid Nineteenth Century onwards would have been able to find their way around the central portion without too much trouble. It was essentially one of the largest lived-in museums on the planet.
The nine smaller domes circling round outside the Westminster, however, were a different matter. London didn’t have the megatowers of New York, but the arcology still housed a quarter of a billion people beneath its geodesic crystal roofs. The outer domes were purpose built, four hundred square kilometres apiece of thoroughly modern arcology, with only tiny little zones of original buildings left as curios amid the gleaming condos, skyscrapers, and malls.
Louise wasn’t aware of them at all. She could see on the other side of the oaks that the plaza was encircled by a wide road jammed with sleek vehicles, all driving so close together you couldn’t walk between them. The vehicles merged in and out of the giant roundabout from wide streets that radiated away between the beautiful ancient grey-stone buildings surrounding the plaza. When she raised her gaze above the blue-slate roofs and their elaborate chimney stacks, she could see even grander and taller buildings behind them. Then beyond those . . . It was as though she was standing at the bottom of a mighty crater whose walls were made entirely from buildings. Around the plaza they were elegant and unique, with each one somehow merging cleanly into its neighbours to form compact refined streets; but they grew from that to plainer, larger skyscrapers, spaced further apart. The towers’ artistry came from the overall shape rather than detailed embellishments, moulded to suggest Gothic, Roman, Art Deco, and Alpine Bavarian influences among others.
And gathering all those disparate architectural siblings within its sheltering embrace was the external wall. A single redoubtable cliff of windows, a mosaic of panes so dense it blended into a seamless band of glass, blazing gold under the noonday sun. Out of that, rose the dome itself, an artificial sky of crystal.
Louise sat down heavily on the plaza’s stone slabs, and let out a whoosh of breath. Gen sat beside her, arms folded protectively round her shoulder bag. London’s pedestrians flowed round them, eyes consummately averted.
“It’s very big, isn’t it?” Gen said quietly.
“Certainly is.” All those buildings, so many people. Despite feeling light headed, a weight of worry was threatening to sink her again. How in heaven’s name am I going to find a single person amid this multitude? Especially when they probably don’t want to be found.
“Fletcher would really love this.”
Louise looked at her sister. “Yes. I think he would.”
“Do you suppose he’d recognize any of it?”
“There may be bits left over from his time. Some of these buildings look quite old. We’ll have to look it up in the local library memory.” She broke off and smiled. That’s it, everything you ever need to know is in the processor memories. Banneth will be listed somewhere, I just have to program in the right search. “Come on. Hotel first. Then we’ll get something to eat. How does that sound?”
“Jolly nice. What hotel are we going to?”
“Give me a moment.” She took her processor block out, and started querying the arcology’s general information centre. Category visitors, subsection residential. Central, and civilized. They’d wind up paying more for a classy hotel, but at least they’d be safe. Louise knew there were parts of Earth’s arcologies that were terribly crime-ridden. And besides, “Kavanaghs never stay anywhere that doesn’t have a four-star rating,” Daddy had said once.
Information slid down the screen. They didn’t seem to have star ratings here, so she just went by price. Central London hotels, apparently, cost as much to run as starships. At least the beds will be a lot more comfortable.
“The Ritz,” she said finally.
That just left getting there. With Genevieve getting progressively more impatient, as evidenced by overloud sighs and shuffling feet, Louise requested surface transport options from Kings Cross to the Ritz. After ten minutes struggling with horribly complicated maps and London Metro timetables that kept flashing up she realized she wasn’t quite as adept at operating the block as she thought she was. However, the screen did tell her there were taxis available.
“We’ll take a cab.”
Under Gen’s ungenerously sceptical look, she picked her shoulder bag up, and started off towards the oaks at the rim of the plaza. Flocks of parakeets and budgerigars pecking at the stone slabs stampeded out of her way. Most of the subway entrances had the name of the streets they led to, but a few had the London Transport symbol on top: blue circle cut by a red line, with a crown in the middle. Louise went down one to find herself in a short passage that opened out into a narrow parking bay. Five identical silver-blue taxi cars were waiting silently, streamlined bubbles with very fat tyres.
“Now what?” Genevieve said.
Louise consulted the block. She walked up to the first taxi, and keyed the Commence Journey icon on the block’s screen. The door hissed out five centimetres, then slid back along the body. “We get in,” she told her sister smugly.
“Oh very clever. What happens if you don’t have a block to do that for you?”
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t see a handle anywhere. “I suppose everyone on this world is taught how to use things like this. Most of them have neural nanonics, after all.”
There wasn’t much room inside, enough for four seats with deep curving backs. Louise shoved her bag in the storage bin underneath, and studied the screen again. The block was interfacing with the taxi’s control processor, which made life a lot simpler for her. The whole activation procedure was presented to her as a simple, easy-to-understand-menu. She fed in their destination, and the door slid shut. The taxi told the block what their fee was (as much as the vac-train fare from Mount Kenya), and explained how to use the seat straps.
“Ready?” she asked Gen, when they’d fastened themselves in.
“Yes.” The little girl couldn’t hide her enthusiasm.
Louise held her Jovian Bank disk up to the small panel on the taxi’s central column, and transferred the money over. They started to roll forward. The taxi took them up a steep ramp, accelerating fast enough to press the sisters back into their seat cushioning. The reason was simple enough, they emerged right in the middle of the traffic racing round the Kings Cross plaza, slotting in without the slightest fuss.
Genevieve laughed excitedly as they zipped across several lanes, then slowed slightly to turn off down one of the broad streets. “Golly, this is better than the aeroambulance.” The little girl grinned.
Louise rolled her eyes. Though once she accepted the fact that the control processor did know how to drive, she began to breathe normally again. The buildings rushing past were old and sombre, which gave them a dignity all of their own. On the other side of the pavement barrier, pedestrians jostled their way along in a permanent scrum.
“I never knew there were so many people,” Gen said. “London must have more than live on the whole of Norfolk.”
“Probably,” Louise agreed.
The taxi took them a third of the way round the expressway, then turned off, heading back down to ground level. There were parks on both sides of the road when they started their descent, then buildings rose up to their left, and they were back on one of the ancient streets again. The pavements here didn’t seem so crowded. They slowed drastically, pulling over to the right alongside a large cube of white-grey stone with tall windows lined by iron railings and a steep state roof. An open arcade ran along the front, supported by wide arches. The taxi stopped level with a gate in the roadside barrier, which a doorman opened smartly. He was dressed in a dark blue coat and top hat, a double row of brass buttons gleamed down his chest. At last, Louise felt at home. This was something she could deal with.
If the doorman was surprised at who climbed out of the taxi he never showed it. “Are you staying here, miss?” he asked.
“I hope so, yes.”
He nodded politely, and ushered them under the arcade towards the main entrance.
Genevieve eyed the front of the stolid building sceptically. “It looks dreadfully gloomy.”
The lobby inside was white and gold, with chandeliers resembling frost-encrusted branches that had dazzling stars at the tip of each twig. Arches along the long central aisle opened into big rooms that were full of prim white tables where people were sitting having tea. Waiters in long black tailcoats bustled about, carrying trays with silver teapots and very tempting cakes.
Louise marched confidently over to the gleaming oak reception desk. “A twin room, please.”
The young woman standing behind smiled professionally. “Yes, madam. How long for?”
“Um. A week to start with.”
“Of course. I’ll need your ident flek, please, to register. And there is a deposit.”
“Oh, we haven’t got an ident flek.”
“We’re from Norfolk,” Gen said eagerly.
The receptionist’s composure flickered. “Really?” She cleared her throat. “If you’re from offworld, your passports will be satisfactory.”
Louise handed the passports over, thinking briefly of Endron again, and wondering how much trouble the Martian was in right now. The receptionist scanned the passports in a block and took the deposit from Louise. A bellboy came forward and relieved the sisters of their bags before showing them into a lift.
Their room was on the fourth floor, with a large window overlooking the park. The decor was so reminiscent of the kind Norfolk landowners worshiped it gave Louise a sense of dйjа vu; regal-purple wallpaper and furniture so old the wood was virtually black beneath the polish. Her feet sank into a carpet well over an inch thick.
“Where are we?” Gen asked the bellboy. She was pressed up against the window, staring out. “I mean, what’s that park called?”
“That’s Green Park, miss.”
“So are we near anywhere famous?”
“Buckingham Palace is on the other side of the park.”
“Gosh.”
He showed Louise the room’s processor block, which was built in to the dresser. “Any information you need on the city for your stay should be in here; it has a comprehensive tourist section,” he said. She tipped him a couple of fuseodollars when he left. He’d been holding his own credit disk, casually visible through fingers splayed wide.
Genevieve waited until the door shut. “What’s Buckingham Palace?”
The AI was alert to the glitch within a hundredth of a second. Two ticket dispenser processors and an informational projector. It brought additional analysis programs on line, and ran an immediate verification sweep of every electronic circuit in Grand Central Station.
Half a second. The response to a general acknowledgement datavise from five sets of neural nanonics was incorrect. All of them were within a seven metre zone, which also incorporated the failing ticket dispensers.
Two seconds. Security sensors in Grand Central’s concourse focused on the suspect area. The AI datavised to B7’s North American supervisor the fact it had located a possessed-type glitch in New York. He had just framed his query in reply when the sensors observed Bud Johnson go cartwheeling over someone in a black robe crouched on the floor.
Three and a half seconds. There was a visual discontinuity. None of the sensor short-term memory buffers had registered the black clad figure before. It was as if he’d just materialized out of nowhere. If he had neural nanonics, then they were not responding to the ident request datavise.
Four seconds. The North American supervisor took direct control of the situation in conjunction with the AI. A datavised warning went out to the rest of the supervisors.
Six seconds. The full B7 complement of supervisors was on line, observing. The AI’s visual characteristics program locked on to the shadowed face inside the black robe’s hood. Quinn Dexter rose to his feet.
South Pacific: “Nuke him. Now!”
Western Europe: “Don’t be absurd.”
Halo: “SD platforms armed; do you want groundstrike?”
North America: “No. It’s completely impractical. Grand Central Station’s concourse is a hundred and fifty metres below ground, and that’s spread out below three skyscrapers. There isn’t an X-ray laser built that could reach it.”
South Pacific: “Then use a real nuke. A combat wasp can be down there in two minutes.”
Asian Pacific: “I second that.”
Western Europe: “No! Damn it. Will you morons control yourselves.”
North America: “Thank you. I’m not going to blast Dome One into oblivion. There are twenty million people living in there. Even Laton didn’t kill that many.”
North Europe: “You can’t let him go. We have to exterminate him.”
Western Europe: “How?”
North Europe: “South Pacific’s right. Nuke the shit. I’m sorry about the other inhabitants, but it’s the only way we can resolve the situation.”
Western Europe: “Observe, please.”
Eleven seconds. Bud Johnson’s face had turned purple. He scrabbled feebly at his chest, then pitched over onto the floor. People clustered round him. Quinn Dexter became translucent and quickly faded from view. The AI reported all the processors had come back on line.
Military Intelligence: “Oh shit.”
Western Europe: “Will a nuke kill him now do you think? Wherever he is.”
South Pacific: “One way to find out.”
Western Europe: “I cannot permit that. We exist primarily to protect Earth. Even with our prerogatives, you cannot exterminate twenty million people in the hope that you kill one terrorist.”
Halo: “The boy’s right, I’m afraid. I’m standing down the SD platforms.”
South Pacific: “Terrorist demon, more like.”
Western Europe: “I’m not arguing definitions. All this does is confirm I was right the first time. We have got to be extremely careful how we deal with Dexter.”
North Pacific: “Well at least shut down New York’s vac-trains.”
Central America: “Yes. Isolate him in New York. You can creep up on him there.”
Western Europe: “I’m going to have to say no again.”
North Pacific: “In Allah’s name, why? We know where he is, that gives us a tremendous advantage.”
Western Europe: “It’s psychology. He knows we know he’s here. He’s not stupid, he’ll realize we’ll find out about him appearing in Grand Central station. The question is, how long does it take us to find out? If we stop the vac-trains now, it shows him we are right up to speed and deeply worried by him, and also that we’ll go all out to stop him. That’s not good, that puts him on guard.”
Central America: “So, he’s on guard? If he’s trapped in one place, it won’t do him any good. He’ll still be on death row. He knows it’s coming, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”
Western Europe: “First thing he’ll do is mobilise New York to defend himself. And we’ll be back to one option of having to nuke the place. Don’t you see? Our arcologies are even more vulnerable than asteroid settlements. They are utterly dependent on technology, not just to protect us from the weather, but to feed us and condition our air. If you confine three hundred million possessed inside one, every single chunk of machinery will break down. The domes will shatter in the first storm that comes along, and the population will either starve or turn cannibal.”
Central America: “I’m prepared to sacrifice one arcology to save the rest. If that’s what it takes.”
Western Europe: “But we don’t have to sacrifice one. Certainly not yet. You’re being abysmally premature. Right now, Dexter will be skipping round arcologies, establishing small groups of possessed who’ll keep their heads down until he gives the word. While he’s doing that, we’ve got a chance. There will only be small groups in each arcology, which we really ought to be able to find. If other worlds can track them, so can we. Dexter is our problem, not the ordinary possessed.”
Asian Pacific: “Put it to the vote.”
Western Europe: “How wonderfully democratic. Very well.”
Six supervisors voted for closing down New York’s vac-trains right away. Ten voted to keep them open.
Western Europe: “Thank you so much for your confidence.”
Southern Africa: “You have the ball for now. But if you haven’t dealt with Dexter in another ten days, I shall be voting to isolate him wherever he is. And then we’ll see if he can hide from a nuke as well as he can from a sensor.”
The conference dissolved. Western Europe asked North America, Military Intelligence, and Halo to remain on line. Natural allies in the eternal warzone of B7’s internal politics, they obliged. His sensevise overlay program positioning and dressing them around his drawing room as though they were weekend guests just come in from a stroll round the grounds.
“It’ll go against you eventually,” Halo warned. “They’re happy for you to take responsibility for the chase as long as Dexter hasn’t caused any noticeable damage. But the minute he gets noisy, they’ll revert.”
“That little crap artist, South Pacific,” North America complained. “Telling me to nuke New York! Who the hell does she think she is?”
“She always favours the blunt approach,” Western Europe said. “We all know that. That’s why I like her so much, makes one feel constantly superior.”
“Inferior or not, she’ll carry the day eventually,” Military Intelligence said.
Western Europe walked over to the tall glass-panelled door, and let his two Labradors in. “I know. That’s why I found today encouraging.”
“Encouraging?” North America asked, astonished. “Are you kidding? I’ve got that Dexter bastard running round loose in New York.”
“Yes, exactly. Something went wrong for him. He was on his knees when he appeared, and he vanished within seconds. He was glitched. Another factor in our favour.”
“Maybe,” Halo said. He sounded very dubious.
“All right,” North America said. “So what now?”
“You need to do two things. In forty minutes, I want you to close down all New York’s vac-trains.”
“Forty minutes? He’ll be long gone.”
“Yes. As I said, he knows we know he’s here. We have to play along with that, but make him think we’re lumbering along five steps behind him. So close the vac-trains. He won’t be in New York, so it doesn’t matter.”
“You hope.”
“I know. Once he’d been exposed there he had no option but to leave. New York is closed to him now, out of the equation. To do whatever he wants to do, he has to maintain his mobility. He probably took the shortest ride out there is, figuring the police would close down the vac-trains pretty fast; but that’s beside the point.”
“Okay. How long do you want them shut down for?”
“That’s the second thing. We have to work on the assumption he was leaving. Therefore, he’s more than likely left a group of possessed behind him. You have to find them, and eliminate them. Keep the arcology sealed up until you do. In fact, keeping the individual domes isolated might be a good idea if you can manage it.”
“You really think that’s what he’s doing?”
“Yes. He wants to inflict maximum devastation on this planet. He’ll seed as many arcologies as possible with his followers. And when he gives the word, they’ll hit the streets, and we’ll be faced with the exponential curve again.”
“The AI is monitoring the arcology’s electronics anyway.”
“Yes. I’m sure that’s effective on Kulu and other modern worlds; but you and I know it can never access everything, not here, not in the old areas. There’s over five hundred years’ worth of electronic junk plugged together out there; we’re dealing with millions of old systems, quirky one-offs, and non-standard patch ups. The AI is a good sentry, but don’t make the mistake of becoming dependent. The best source we’ll have is probably the sects.”
“The sects?”
“Certainly. The one set of idiots who’ll support the possessed without having to be forced. Dexter knows that, they’re the ones he’ll go to.”
“All right, I’ll get on to it.”
“So what are you going to be doing?” Halo asked Western Europe.
“Same as before. Engineer an encounter. We have to get our people close to him while he’s visible, and therefore vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable to what?”
“If he’s out in the open, an SD strike. Or if our contact is through an agent, we can try for electrocution or a memory scramble.”
“Memory scramble?”
“Yes,” said Military Intelligence. “The CNIS believes they can kill souls by firing some kind of mentallic virus at the possessed. It’s the opposite of a didactic imprint. They’re researching it now.”
Western Europe started making a fuss of one of the dogs, scratching its belly as it rolled around on the carpet. “Do try and stay up to date,” he chided Halo.
“It won’t be available before the end of the week,” Military Intelligence warned.
“I know. I doubt I’ll manage to arrange an interception by then anyway.”
“How’s that angle coming along?” Halo asked.
“The Banneth connection is just about covered. I’m not sure about the Kavanagh girls; they’re a long shot, and a pretty random one at that. But I’m working on it.”
Louise spent an hour using the room’s desktop processor block and got nowhere. The directory provided her with enough entries under Banneth (173,364—once she’d removed the deceased), but no matter how she tried to cross reference that with Quinn Dexter the result was always negative. She racked her brains to remember everything Dexter had said back in the hangar at Bennett Field. Banneth was female, she remembered that for certain. And Dexter said she’d hurt him. That was about it, really.
Somewhere, somehow, those facts should link up. She was sure they did. But finding the connection was beyond her woeful programming ability. The idea that had begun back when they got in the taxi was becoming more and more attractive. If she dared.
Why not? she thought. There’s nothing dangerous about neural nanonics, not physically, the rest of the Confederation uses them. Joshua has a set. It’s only Norfolk which doesn’t allow them. She raised her arm, and looked at the discreet medical nanonic package bracelet. Also banned on Norfolk, yet it was helping her pregnancy. That settled it. She grinned, emboldened by her decision. I have to take responsibility for myself now. If I need neural nanonics to help me on Earth, then I will get myself a set.
They hadn’t left the room since arriving at the hotel. Lunch had been a snack delivered by room service. Genevieve had flopped on her bed in weary disgust at the inactivity, and activated her own block. She was smothered by a laser-haze of grid lines and feisty fantasy beasts which leapt about enthusiastically at every excitable shouted command.
“Gen?”
The projection shrank. Genevieve blinked up at her, trying to focus. Louise was sure that being immersed in the projection so much was bad for her little sister’s eyesight.
“What?”
“We’re going out. I can’t get the hang of the desktop block, so I’m going to buy some neural nanonics instead.” There, she’d said it out loud. There’d be no backing down now.
Genevieve stared at her in astonishment. “Oh Louise, don’t tease so. We’re not allowed.”
“We weren’t allowed. We’re on Earth, now, remember. You can do anything you want here as long as you’ve got money.”
Genevieve cocked her head to one side. Then the most charming smile graced her face. It didn’t fool Louise for a second. “Please, Louise. Can I have one, too? You know I’ll never be allowed once we get home.”
“I’m sorry. You’re not old enough.”
“I am!”
“Gen, you’re not. And you know you’re not.”
She stamped her foot, little fists clenched in outrage. “That’s not fair! It’s not. It’s not. You always pick on me coz I’m the youngest. You’re a bully.”
“I’m not picking on you. You just can’t have one, your brain is still growing. They can’t connect it. I checked. It’s not legal, and it’ll do a lot of damage to your brain cells. I only just scrape in if you measure my age in Earth years.”
“I hate being small.”
Louise put her arms round the girl, reflecting on how much she’d done so since leaving home. They never used to hug much before. “You’ll be bigger one day,” she whispered into her sister’s fluffed up hair. “And things are going to be different when we get home.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yes.”
The receptionist seemed rather amused at being asked, in a lofty sort of way. But she was helpful enough, telling Louise that Oxford Street and New Bond Street were probably their best bet for clothes, while Tottenham Court Road was where they would find any conceivable kind of electronics. The sisters were also assured these areas were safe for girls to walk through by themselves. “And the hotel runs a courtesy collection service for any items that you purchase.” She handed over an authorization disk, keyed to Louise’s biolectric pattern.
Louise loaded a comprehensive street map into her block, taken from the hotel’s memory; and combined it with the guidance program. “Ready?” she asked Gen. “Let’s go spend the family fortune.”
Aubry Earle had spoken the truth on the lift capsule when he told them arcology dwellers would always respect their privacy. Out on the street, Louise couldn’t quite work out how people always slid to one side at the last second. She was constantly scanning bodies all round to try and find a way through the gaps, while locals moved as smoothly as the automated traffic without ever once glancing in her direction. Some of the pedestrians quite literally glided past. People their own age wearing calf-high boots with soles that seemed to flow over the pavement slabs without any resistance. Genevieve watched their effortless progress with admiration and longing. “I want some boots like that,” she said.
A subwalk got them under Piccadilly and into New Bond Street. It turned out to be a dainty little pedestrian lane, lined with enchanting boutiques whose marble frontage was embossed with brass lettering saying when they’d been established. None of them were under three centuries old, while some claimed to be over seven. The labels on show meant nothing to either of them, but judging by the prices they must have been admiring the most exclusive designer garments on the planet.
“It’s gorgeous,” Louise sighed longingly at a shimmering scarlet and turquoise evening gown, sort of like an all-over mermaid’s tail—except it wasn’t all-over, nowhere near. It was the kind of thing she would love to wear at a summer ball on Norfolk. The planet had never seen its like before.
“Then buy it.”
“No. We’ve got to be sensible. Just everyday clothes that we need to get about in the arcology. Remember, one day I’ll have to explain the entire bill to Daddy.”
The evening gown was just the start of New Bond Street’s provocative temptations. They trailed past window displays she could have bought en masse.
“We’ll have to have supper in the hotel dining room,” Genevieve suggested artfully. “I bet they won’t let us in unless we dress up.”
It was an insidious suggestion. “Okay. One dress. That’s all.”
They dashed across the threshold of the boutique in front of them. Privacy didn’t apply inside the shop; three assistants swooped eagerly. Louise explained what they wanted, and then spent the next forty-five minutes ricocheting in and out of a changing room. She and Gen would look at each other, comment, and go back for the next trial.
She learned a lot in the process. The assistants were very complimentary about the sisters’ hair. Except . . . on Earth, it was fashionable to have actives woven among the strands. Their one-piece suits with big pockets, were current, but not that а la mode. Yes, Oxford Street stores were perfect for buying streetfashion clothes, and we recommend these. Louise could have sworn she heard the block’s memory creaking under the load of names they entered. She used her Jovian Bank credit disk with only a momentary twinge of guilt.
Out on the street again, they laughed at each other. Gen had wound up with a scarlet dress and deep-purple jacket. While Louise had bought herself a full length gown of deepest blue, that was made from a material crossed between velvet and suede. There was also a short ginger-coloured waistcoat to go with it, which complemented its square cut neck.
“It’s true,” Louise said happily. “Retail therapy actually works.”
They didn’t get directly to Oxford Street. There was a stop at a salon at the top of New Bond Street first. The beauticians made an incredible fuss over them, delighted with so much raw material to work on. The owner himself came over to direct the operation (once their credit rating had been verified).
After two hours, several cups of tea, and enthralling the staff with an edited version of their travels, Louise had the wrap taken off. She stared in the mirror, not believing she’d spent her life tolerating unmanaged hair. Norfolk’s simplistic regime of washing, conditioners, and sturdy brushing was barbaric ineptitude. Under the salon’s professional auspices her hair had become lustrous, individual strands conducting a little starlight shimmer of light along their length. And it flowed. Every day of her life she’d held that thick mane in place with clips and ribbons, sometimes getting the maid to braid fanciful bands. Flexitives made all that irrelevant. Of its own accord, her hair fell back over her shoulders, always keeping itself tidy and together in one large tress. It also rippled subtly, as if she was engulfed in her own permanent private breeze.
“You look beautiful, Louise,” Genevieve said, suddenly shy.
“Thank you.” Gen’s hair had been straightened, darkened, and glossed, its hem curling inwards slightly. Again, it held its shape no matter what.
Stalls were lined up against the road barriers, filled with brassy, cheaper items than those in the shops. Genevieve saw one with pairs of the magical boots hanging from the awning. Slipstream boots, the cheerful owner told her as he found some her size. Popular with the under fifteens because you didn’t need neural nanonics to switch the directed frictionless soles on or off.
Louise bought them on the condition Gen waited until they got back to the hotel before she tried them out. She also got a duster bracelet. When Gen clamped the trinket round her wrist and waved it round, it sprayed out a fine powder which emitted a fiery sparkle as it fell to earth. Holding her arm up and pirouetting, a spiral of twinkling starlight spun around her.
Quinn sat on one of the benches along the banks of the Seine, opening his mind to the demented screeching rever-berating through the beyond. It had taken him two and a half hours to reach the Paris arcology since being struck by that inexplicable wave of emotional torment that had swept through the beyond.
The first thing—obviously!—was to get the fuck out of New York. It wouldn’t take the cops long to review the memories of sensors covering the concourse and identify him. He’d gone straight down to a platform and taken a vac-train to Washington. A short ride, not quite fifteen minutes. He’d kept within the ghost realm for the whole trip, apprehensive that the vac-train would be halted and returned to New York. But it arrived at Washington on time, and he switched to the first inter-continental ride available: Paris.
Even then, he’d remained invisible as it streaked along the bottom of the North Atlantic. Still anxious that another of those waves would surge up and expose him. If it had done during the journey under the ocean, he knew he’d be finished. He couldn’t believe God’s Brother would allow that to happen. But the first time was causing all sorts of doubts.
It wasn’t until he was out of the Paris terminus and walking through one of the old city’s parks that he had allowed himself to fully emerge. He clothed himself in an ordinary shirt and trousers, hating the way his white skin tingled in the bright sun shining through the colossal crystal dome. But it meant he was safe, there were no processors in the middle of the park to glitch at his appearance, nobody near enough to see that he’d appeared from nowhere rather than walked round the ancient tree. He stood there for a minute, scanning the nearby minds for any sign of alarm. Only then did he relax and make his way down to the river.
Parisians strolled along behind him as they had for centuries—lovers, artists, business executives, bureaucrats; none of them paying attention to the solitary downcast youth. Nor did any of them avail themselves to the space left on his bench. Some subliminal warning steered them along past, frowning slightly at the unaccountable chill.
Slowly, Quinn started to gather the strands together, faint images and hoarse wailing voices filling in the story. He saw clouds which surprised even him, an arcology-born. Rain cascaded down on huddled bodies, so thick it was almost solid. Terrifying blasts of lightning ripping through the darkness. The encircling forces, radiating their stern nonhuman determination, closing in.
Mortonridge was not a place where a possessed should be caught outside today; and two million of them had been. Something had struck at them, tearing away their protective covering of cloud. Some technological devilry. The signal for the Liberation to commence. A one-off; a unique act in response to a unique situation. Not some miracle wrought by the Light Bringer’s great rival.
Quinn lifted his head, and smiled a contemptuous smile. Such a shock was extremely unlikely to occur again. There was no unknown threat. He was perfectly safe. Night could still dawn.
He stood up, and turned slowly, examining his surroundings properly for the first time. The celebrated Napoleonic heart of the city was encompassed by a range of splendid white, silver, and gold towers. Their burnished surfaces hurt his eyes, as their grandeur hurt his sensibility. But somewhere among all this cleanliness and vitality, the waster kids would be grubbing through dank refuse, hurting each other and unwary civilians for no reason they understood. Finding them would be as easy here as it had been in New York. Just walk in the direction everyone else was coming from. His heartland, where his words would bring its denizens purpose.
He completed his turn. Right ahead of him the Eiffel Tower stood guard at the end of a broad immaculate park, with sightseers wandering round its base. Even in Edmonton, Quinn had heard of this structure. A proud symbol of Gallic forbearance through all the centuries of Govcentral’s pallid uniformity. Its very endurance reflecting the strengths and determination of the people who regarded it as their own. Precious to the world. And now, so terribly fragile with age.
Quinn started to chuckle greedily.
Andy Behoo fell in love. It was instantaneous. She walked in through the door of Jude’s Eworld, kicking off a cascade of datavised alarms, and he was utterly smitten.
Terminal babe. Taller than him by a good ten centimetres, with the most gorgeous cloak of hair. A face with soft features so delicate as to be way beyond anything cosmetic adapter packages could achieve—a natural beauty. She wore a white sleeveless T-shirt that showed off a hot figure without revealing anything, and a scarlet skirt that didn’t reach her knees. But it was the way she carried herself that clinched it for him. Perfectly composed, yet she still looked round the shop with child-like curiosity.
The rest of the staff were all giving her clandestine glances as the doorway scanners datavised their findings. Then the smaller girl entered behind her, and the scanners gave out an almost duplicate alert. How weird. They couldn’t possibly be a cop grab operation, too obvious. Besides, the manager was pretty regular when it came to slipping the shop’s bung to the district station.
Andy told the customer he was dealing with, “Look it over, and have a think about it, you won’t find a better deal in London,” then left them to scoot over to the girl before any of his so-called colleagues could reach her. If the floor manager had seen, he’d probably lose his job. Abandoning a customer before the sale is sealed—capital crime.
“Hi, I’m Andy. I’m your sellrat. Anything you want, it’s my job to push the more expensive model on you.” He grinned broadly.
“You’re my what?” Louise asked. Her expression was half puzzlement, half smile.
Her accent did strange things along Andy’s spine, making him shiver. The ultimate in class, and foreign-exotic, too. He scanned his enhanced retinas across her face, desperate to capture her image. Even if she walked out of his life now, she would never be entirely lost. Andy had certain male-orientated software packages that could superimpose her into sensenviron recordings. He felt shabby even as he recorded her.
“Sellrat. That’s what the public calls Customer Interactivity Officers round these parts.”
“Oh,” the smaller girl sighed dismissively. “He’s just a shopboy, Louise.”
Andy’s neural nanonics had to reinforce his smile. Why do they always come in pairs? And why always one obnoxious one? He clicked his fingers and pointed both index fingers at the smaller girl. “That’s me. Try not to be too disappointed, I really am here to help.”
“I’d like to buy some neural nanonics,” Louise said. “Is it very difficult?”
The request startled Andy. Her clothes alone must have cost more than twice his weekly pay, why didn’t she have a set already? Beautiful and enigmatic. He smiled up at her. “Not at all. What were you looking for?”
She sucked her lower lip. “I’m really not very sure. The best I can afford, I suppose.”
“We don’t have them on Norfolk,” Genevieve said. “That’s where we’re from.”
Louise tried not to frown. “Gen, we don’t have to give our history to everyone we meet.”
Rich foreigners. Andy’s conscience struggled against temptation. Conscience won out, backed up by infatuation. I can’t sell her a pirate set. Not her. “Okay, your lucky day. We’ve got some top-of-the-range sets in stock. I can fix a reasonable deal for them, too, so there’s no need to get sweaty about the money. This way.”
He led them over to his section of the counter, managing to get her name on the way. His neural nanonics faithfully recorded the way she walked, her body movements, even her speech pattern. Like most nineteen-year-olds who’d grown up in London’s manky Islington district with its history of low-income employment, Andy Behoo fancied himself as a prospective net don. It combined the goal of fringe-legal work (also his heritage), with very little actual effort. He’d taken didactic memory courses on electronics, nanonics, and software every month since he’d passed his fourteenth birthday. His two-room flat was stocked to the ceiling with ancient processor blocks and every redundant peripheral he’d managed to scrounge or steal. Everyone in his tenement knew Andy was the guy to visit when you had a technical problem.
As to why such an embryonic datasmart prince of darkness was working as a sellrat in Jude’s Eworld, he had to get the money to finance his revolutionary schemes from somewhere—or maybe even go to college. And the shop always employed technerd teenagers as their outfront salesforce, they were the only ones who kept up to date on upgrades and new marques that would work on minimum-wage weeks.
The wall behind the counter was made up entirely from boxes of consumer electronics. All of them had colourful logos and names. Louise read a few of the contents labels, not understanding a word. Genevieve was already bored; looking round at other parts of the slightly shabby shop—one of seemingly hundreds of near-identical outlets along Tottenham Court Road. The inside was a maze formed by counters and walls of boxes, with old company posters and holomorph stickers stuck up on every available surface. Holographic screens flashed out enticing pictures of products in action. The section opposite Andy Behoo had a big GAMES sign above it. And Louise had promised.
Andy began pulling boxes down and lining them up on the counter. They were rectangular, the size of his hand, wrapped in translucent foil, with the manufacturer’s guarantee seal on the front. “Okay,” Andy said with familiar confidence. “What we have here, the Presson050, is a basic neural nanonics set. Everything you need to survive daily arcology life: datavises, mid-rez neuroiconic display, enhanced memory retrieval, axon block. It’s preformatted to NAS2600 standard, which means it can handle just about every software package on the market. There’s a company-supplied didactic operations imprint that comes with it, but we do sell alternative operations courses.”
“That sounds very . . . comprehensive,” Louise said. “How much?”
“How are you paying?”
“Fuseodollars.” She showed him her Jovian Bank disk.
“Okay. Good move. I can give you a favourable rate on that. So, we’re looking at about three and a half thousand, for which we’ll throw in five free Quantumsoft supplement packages from their BCD30 range. Your choice of functions. I can arrange finance for you if you want, better percentage than any Sol-system bank.”
“I see.”
“Then we’ve got—” His hand moved on to the next box.
“Andy. What’s the top of the range, please?”
“Okay, good question.” He disappeared behind the counter for a moment, returning with a fresh box and a suitably awed tone. “Kulu Corporation ANI5000. The King himself uses this model. We’ve only got three left because of the starflight quarantine. These are most wanted items all over town right now. But I can still give you level retail.”
“And that’s better than the first one?”
“Yes indeedie. Runs NAS2600, of course, with parallel upgrade potential for when the 2615 comes out.”
“Um. What’s this NAS number you keep saying?”
“Neural Augmentation Software. It’s the operating system for the whole filament network, and the number is the version. 2600 was introduced turn of the century, and boy was it a bugfeist when it came out. But it’s a smooth proved system now. And the supplement packages are just about unlimited, every software house in the Confederation publishes compatible products. If you’re going serious professional you can add physiological monitors, encyclopaedia galactica, employment waldoing, SII suit control, weapons integration, linguistic translation, news informant, starship astrogration, net search—the full monty. Then there’s games applications as well, I can’t even list them you have so many.” He patted the box with reverence. “No fooling, Louise, this set gives you the full interface range: nerve overrides to control your body, sense amplification, sight-equivalent neuroiconic generation, complete reality sensenviron, implant command, total indexed memory recall.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Got to warn you: not cheap. Seventeen thousand fuseodollars.” He held up his hands in placation. “Sorry.”
Daddy will kill me, Louise thought, but it has to be done. I promised Fletcher, and that horrid Brent Roi never really believed me. “All right.”
Andy smiled in admiration. “Talk about power choosing. That’s impressive, Louise. But, hey, I can lighten the burden. For a 5000 set, we’ll throw in twenty-five software supplements, and give you twenty per cent discount on the next twenty-five you buy from us.”
“That sounds like a jolly good deal,” she said inanely, swept along by his enthusiasm. “How long does it take to get a set?”
“For one this complex, ninety minutes. I can give you the operating didactic at the same time.”
“What’s one of those?”
Andy’s breezy ebullience faltered in the face of such an astonishing question. He started to access his encyclopaedia’s file on Norfolk, and put a news search in primary mode for good measure. “You don’t have them on your planet?”
“No. Our constitution is pastoral, we don’t have much technology. Or weapons.” Defending Norfolk, yet again.
“No weapons; hey, good policy. Didactic imprints are sort of like the instruction manual, but it gets written directly inside your brain, and you never forget it.”
“Well if I’m going to spend this much money, I certainly need to know how to work it, don’t I?”
Andy laughed heartily, then stopped quickly when he caught sight of Genevieve’s expression. How come nobody ever produced a suavity program he could load? Talking to and impressing girls would be so much easier. The floor supervisor was datavising questions about his oddball customer and the door sensor alert, which he answered briefly. Then the Norfolk information started to emerge.
“We have a preparation room,” Andy gestured to the back of the shop.
“Louise, I want to look round,” Genevieve said winningly. “There might be something for me.”
“All right. But if you see something just ask, don’t touch anything. That’s all right, isn’t it?” she asked Andy.
“Sure thing.” Andy winked at Genevieve and gave her a thumbs up. Her sneer could have withered an oak tree.
Louise followed Andy into the small preparation room, a cube-space whose walls were fashioned from dark panelling, with various electronic units poking out. It was furnished with just a glass cubicle, like a shower but without any visible nozzle; and a low padded bench similar to a doctor’s examination table.
The attention Andy showed her was somewhat amusing. She thought possibly it wasn’t entirely due to her high-spending customer status. Most of the young gentlemen (and others—slightly older) on Norfolk had shown a similar, if less blatant, interest over the last couple of years. Now, of course, she was wearing what amounted to little more than an exhibitionist’s costume. Though by Earth’s standards it was tame. But the top and skirt had made her look so damn good in the department store’s mirror. She could hold her own against London girls in this. For the first time in her life she was sassy. And free to enjoy it. And loving it.
The glass door slid shut with a definitive click behind her. She shot Andy a suspicious glance.
“Bugger,” Western Europe muttered as his linkages with Louise were cut. He switched to Genevieve, which was about as useless; the little girl was investigating a Gothic fantasy, standing in a castle courtyard as a column of priestess warriors rode off to battle on their unicorns.
Western Europe had wanted Louise to discover the bugs at some stage. He just hadn’t planned on it being quite so early in the operation. But then, buying neural nanonics wasn’t what he expected of a girl from Norfolk, either. She was quite a remarkable little thing, really.
Andy Behoo scratched at his arm awkwardly. “You do know you’ve been stung, don’t you?” he asked.
“Stung?” Louise took a guess. “You’re not talking about insects, are you?”
“No. The door sensors spotted it as soon as you and your sister came in. There are nanonic bugs in your skin; like miniature radios I guess you’d call them. They transmit all sorts of information about where you are, and what’s going on around you. There are four on you, Genevieve has three. That we can detect, anyway.”
She drew in a shocked breath. How stupid! Of course Brent Roi wouldn’t let her walk round freely. Not someone who’d tried to sneak a possessed down to Earth. He was bound to want to see what she did next. “Oh sweet Jesus.”
“I reckon Govcentral must be nervous about foreigners right now, especially as you come from Norfolk,” Andy said. “What with the possessed, and all. Don’t worry, this room is screened, they can’t hear us now.”
His sellrat swagger had diminished as he tried to reassure her. In fact, he’d become almost sheepish, which made him actually quite pleasant, she thought. “Thank you for telling me, Andy. Do you scan all your customers?”
“Oh yes. Mainly for dodgy implants. There’s quite a few gangs try to siphon our software fleks. Then we do sell bugs ourselves, see, so sometimes we get cops coming in and trying to find who those customers are. Jude’s Eworld has a strong neutrality policy, which we enforce. We have to, or we’d never sell anything.”
“Can you get them off me?”
“All part of our customer service. I can give you a more detailed scan, too, see if there are any others.”
She followed his instructions, standing in the cubicle, which gave her a comprehensive bodyscan down to a subcellular level. So now someone else knows I’m pregnant, she acknowledged in resignation. No wonder Earth’s population value their privacy so, they don’t get very much of it. The bodyscan located another two bugs. Andy applied a small rectangular patch similar to a medical package (same technology, he said) to her arms and leg; then she pulled up her T-shirt up so he could press it against her back.
“Is there any way of knowing if the police sting me again?” she asked.
“An electronic warfare block should tell you. We had a shipment of front-line equipment in from Valisk a couple of months back. I think there’s still some left. Good stuff.”
“I think you’d better put one of those removal patches on the list as well.” Louise called Genevieve into the room, and explained what’d happened. Thankfully her sister was more curious than outraged. She peered at her skin after Andy took the nanonic package away, fascinated by the removal process. “It doesn’t look any different,” she complained.
“They’re too small to see,” Andy said. “Which makes them too small to feel. They shouldn’t call it getting stung, really. More like being feathered.”
When Genevieve scooted back into the shop to continue her appraisal of consumer goodies, Andy handed over the box of Kulu Corporation neural nanonics to Louise. “You need to check the seal,” he said. “Make sure it hasn’t been broken, and see that the wrapping hasn’t been tampered with as well. You can tell that by the colour. If someone tries to cut or tear it, the stress turns it red.”
She turned it over obediently. “Why do I have to do this?”
“Neural nanonics connect directly into your brain, Louise. If someone changes the filaments or subverts the NAS codes they could get into your memories or manipulate your body like a puppet. This guarantees the set hasn’t been tampered with since it left the factory; and you have the Kulu Corporation’s assurance that their design wouldn’t sequestrate you.”
Louise gave the box a closer examination. The foil seemed intact and clear.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said quickly. “It’s a standard speech; we implant fifty of these a day. I mean, think what would happen to the shop or the manufacturer if anything like that did ever happen. We’d be lynched. It’s in our interest to make sure everything’s kosher for you. Another reason we have sensors at the door.”
“Okay, I suppose.” She handed the box back. Andy broke the seal in front of her, and took out a small black capsule a couple of centimetres long. He slotted that into the back of a specialist medical implant package. The only other item in the box was a flek.
“This is the operating didactic, which is standard, but it also contains the first time access code specific to this set,” he told her. “Basically, it allows you to activate the neural nanonics. After that, you change the code by just thinking of a new one. So even if someone got hold of your flek afterwards it wouldn’t do them any good. Don’t worry, it’s all explained in the didactic.”
She lay face down on the cushioned bench, with a pair of collar wings holding her neck steady. Andy pushed her hair to one side, ready to apply the medical package to the nape of her neck. There was already a tiny nearly-healed scar on her skin. He knew exactly what it was, he’d seen it a thousand times before, every time the implant package was taken off.
“Is everything all right?” Louise asked.
“Yes. No problem. It just takes a minute to line this up right.” He datavised the bodyscan cubicle’s processor. Its memory file of her scan confirmed there was absolutely no foreign matter in her brain.
Andy took the coward’s way out and said nothing. Mainly because he didn’t want to alarm her. But something here was desperately wrong. Either she was lying to him, which he couldn’t believe. Or . . . he couldn’t quite decide what the other options were. He was trespassing deep in Govcentral territory. All that did was enhance her mystery up to the level of pure enchantment. A babe in distress right out of the sensevise dramas. In his shop!
“Here we go,” he said lightly, and put the package over her existing scar. Now there would never be any proof.
Louise tensed slightly. “It’s gone numb.”
“That’s okay. It’s supposed to.”
All the medical package did was open a passage through to the base of the skull, and ease the capsule containing the densely pleated neural nanonics into place. Then the filaments began to unwind from each other and porrect forward, their probing tips slowly winding their way round cells as they sought out synapses. There were millions of them, active molecular strings obeying their AI formatted protocol; instructions determined by their own structure of spiralling atoms. They formed a wondrously intricate filigree around the medulla oblongata, branching to connect with the nerve strands inside while the main filaments seeped further into the brain to complete their interface.
With the implant package in place, Andy fetched the didactic imprinter. Louise thought it looked like a pair of burnished stainless steel ski glasses. He put the flek in a small slot at the side, and placed it carefully on her face. “This works in pulses,” he said. “You’ll get a warning flash of green, then you’ll see a violet light for about fifteen seconds. Try not to blink. It should happen eight times.”
“That’s it?” The edges of the imprinter had stuck to her skin, leaving her in total blackness.
“Yep, not so bad, is it?”
“And this is the way everyone on Earth learns things?”
“Yes. The information is encoded within the light, and your optic nerve passes it straight into your brain. Simple explanation, but that’s the principle.”
Louise saw a flicker of green, and held her breath. The violet light came on, an otherwise uniform sheen broken by that unique monotone sparkle which a laser leaves on the retina. She managed not to blink until it went off. “Your children don’t go to school?” she asked.
“No. Kids go to day clubs, keeps them busy and you make friends there. That’s all.”
She was silent for some time, considering the implications. The hours—years!—of my life I have sat in classrooms listening to teachers and reading books. And all the time, this way of learning, of discovery, existed. One of the demonic technologies that will ruin our way of life. Banned without question. That’s nothing to do with keeping Norfolk pastoral, that’s denying people opportunity, stunting their lives. It’s worse than cousin Gideon’s arm. She clenched her teeth together, suddenly very, very angry.
“Hey, are you all right?” Andy asked timidly.
The violet light came on again. “Yes,” she snapped primly. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Andy didn’t say anything else until the didactic imprinter finished. Too scared he’d say the wrong thing again and annoy her further. He hadn’t got a clue why her mood had swung so fast. When the imprinter did come off, it revealed a very pensive expression.
“Could you do me a favour?” Louise said. A knowing smile licked along her lips. “Keep an eye on Genevieve for me. I promised I’d buy her something from here, so if you could steer her to some kind of gadget that’s relatively harmless I’d be grateful.”
“Sure, my pleasure. Consider her guarded from any possible digital grief.” Andy had to use a nerve override impulse to prevent her from seeing how crushing that request was. He’d been counting on using the time it took to implant the neural nanonics to talk to her. Yet again, Andy blows out, he raged silently. Just once, I’d like to score with a major babe. Once!
The games section wasn’t nearly as exciting as Genevieve had expected. Jude’s Eworld was actively promoting a thousand games through its display screen catalogues, with direct access to ten times that many over encrypted links to publishers; covering the whole genre from interactive roles to strategy general’s command. But as she flipped through them she could see they were all variants of each other. Everybody promised newer, hotter graphics, unrivalled worldbuilding, tac-stim activants, ingenious puzzles, more terrifying adversaries, slicker music. Always greater than before, never different. She sampled four or five, standing inside a projection cone beamed out from a high-wattage AV lens on the ceiling. Bore-ing. In truth, she’d begun to tire of them back on the Jamrana ; like spending a whole day eating chocolate cake, really.
There didn’t seem to be much else in Jude’s Eworld that was interesting. Their main market was neural nanonics and associated software, or else no-fun processor blocks with strange peripherals.
“Hi. How’s it going, there? Are you hyping cool yet?”
Genevieve turned to see the gruesomely oiky little shopboy Andy smiling ingratiatingly at her. One of his front teeth was crooked. She’d never seen that on someone his age before. “I’m having a lovely time, thank you so much for caring.” It was the tone that would earn her a sharp slap from her mother or Mrs Charlsworth.
“Uh huh.” Andy grunted, fully flustered. “Er, I thought perhaps I could show you what we’ve got to offer for kids your . . . I mean, the kind of blocks and software you might enjoy.”
“Oh whoopee do.”
His arms re-arranged themselves chaotically, indicating the section of the shop he wanted her to move towards. “Please?” he asked desperately.
With an overlong sigh and slouched shoulders, Genevieve shuffled along despondently. Why does Louise always attract the wrong type? she wondered. Which sparked an idea. “She’s got a fiancй, you know.”
“Huh?”
A modest smile at his horror. “Louise. She’s engaged to be married. They announced the banns at our estate’s chapel.”
“Married?” Andy yelped. He flinched, looking round the shop to see if any of his colleagues were paying attention.
This was fun. “Yes. To a starship captain. That’s why we’re on Earth, we’re waiting for him to arrive.”
“When’s he due, do you know?”
“A couple of weeks, I think. He’s very rich, he owns his starship.” She glanced round in suspicion, then leaned in towards the boy. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I think the only reason Daddy gave his permission was because of the money. Our estate is very big, and it takes a lot to keep it running.”
“She’s marrying for money?”
“Has to be. I mean he’s so old. Louise said he’s thirty years older than she is. I think she was fibbing so it didn’t sound so bad. If you ask me, it’s more like forty-five.”
“Oh my God. That’s disgusting.”
“It looks so awful when he kisses her, I mean he’s virtually bald, and hideously fat. She says she hates him to touch her, but what can she do about it? He’s her future husband.”
Andy stared down at her, his face stricken. “Why does your father allow this?”
“All marriages are arranged on Norfolk, it’s just our way. If it makes you feel any better, I think he really likes Louise.” She’d have to stop now. Crying shame, but it was getting really difficult to keep a straight face. “He keeps on saying he wants to have a big family with her. He says he expects her to bear him at least seven children.” Jackpot! Andy had started trembling with indignation—or worse.
Her day made, Genevieve gently took his hand in hers, and smiled up trustfully. “Can we see the hyper cool electronics now, please?”
Understanding arrived within Louise’s mind like a solstice sunrise. Quietly irresistible, bringing with it a fresh perspective on the world. A new season of life begun.
She knew precisely how to utilise the augmented mentality opening up within her brain as the filaments connected with her neurones, controlling the expanded potential with an instinct that could have been a genetic heritage it was so deep seated. Audio discrimination, analysing the murmur of sounds resonating through the door from the shop. Visual memory indexing, saving and storing what she saw. Pattern analysis. A test datavise, requesting an update from the medical package on her wrist. And the neuroiconic display, sight without eyes, moulding raw data into colour. It left her giddy and sweating from excitement. The sense of achievement was extraordinary.
I’m equal to everybody else now. Or I will be when I’ve learned how to use all the applications properly.
She datavised the implant package on her neck for a status check. A procedural menu sprang up inside her skull, and she ran a comparison. It confirmed the implantation process was complete. She instructed the package to disengage, withdrawing the empty capsule from which the filaments had sprouted, and knitting the cells together behind it.
“Steady on,” Andy said. “That’s supposed to be my job.”
Louise grinned at him as she climbed off the bench, and stretched extravagantly, flexing the stiffness out of limbs held still for too long. “Oh, come on,” she teased. “All your clients must do that. It’s the first taste of freedom we get. Having neural nanonics must be like being allowed to vote, you’ve become a full member of society. Aren’t they wonderful gadgets?”
“Um. Yeah.” He got her to lean forwards, and peeled the implant package from her neck. “You can actually become a full citizen, you know.” The strangely hopeful tone earned him an inquisitive look.
“What do you mean?”
“You could apply for residential citizenship. If you wanted. I checked the Govcentral legal memory core. It’s no problem; you just need a Govcentral citizen to sponsor you, and a hundred fuseodollars fee. You can datavise them for an application. I’ve got the eddress.”
“That’s um . . . very kind, Andy. But I don’t really plan on staying here for long.” She smiled, trying to let him down gently. “I have a fiancй, you see. He’s going to come and take me away.”
“But Norfolk laws wouldn’t apply to you,” Andy blurted desperately. “Not here. Not if you’re an Earth citizen. You’d be safe.”
“I’m sure I am anyway. Thank you.” She smiled again, slightly more firm this time; and slipped past him out into the shop.
“Louise! I want this,” Genevieve shrieked. The little girl was standing in the middle of the shop, arms held rigid at her side as she turned round and round. There was a small block clipped onto her belt with DEMONSTRATOR printed in blue on its top. Louise hadn’t seen her smile like that in a long time.
“What have you got, Gen?”
“I gave her a pair of realview lenses to try,” Andy said quietly. “Like contact lenses, but they receive a datavise from the block which overlays a fantasyscape on what you’re seeing.” He datavised a code to her. “That’ll let you view direct from the block.”
Louise datavised the code, marvelling at how smoothly she did it, and closed her eyes. The world started to spin around her. A very strange world. It had the same dimensions as the inside of Jude’s Eworld, but this was a cave of onyx, where every surface corresponded to walls and counters, fat stalagmites had replaced the flek sale bins. People had become hulking black and chrome cyborgs, whose limbs were clusters of yellow pistons.
“Isn’t it fabulous?” Gen whooped. “It changes whatever you look at.”
“Yes, Gen, it’s good.” She saw the mouth on one of the cyborgs clank apart to speak her own words, and smiled. The cyborg’s mouth froze open. Louise cancelled her reception from the realview block.
“You can get about fifty different imagery programs for it,” Andy said. “This one’s Metalpunk Wasteland. Quite popular. There’s an audioplug peripheral to change the voices.”
“Please, Louise! This one.”
“All right, all right.”
Andy datavised an off code to the demonstrator block. Genevieve pouted as the cave melted back into the shop. Andy started piling boxes and small flek cases up on the counter. “What supplements do you want?” he asked.
Louise consulted the market menu already included in the NAS2600. “News hound, global eddress directory search, people tracker . . . um the pregnancy supplement for my physiological monitor, universal message script. I think that’s it.”
“You’re entitled to another twenty.”
“I know. Do I have to collect them all today? I’m not really sure what else I’ll need.”
“Take as much time as you need to choose, and drop in whenever you want. But I’d recommend netA, that’ll give you your own eddress, you’ve got to pay an annual fee to the link company, but nobody will be able to contact you without one. Oh, and streetnav, too, if you’re going to stay in London—shows you the short cuts and how to use public transport.”
“Okay, fine, put them on.” More flek cases began to appear on the counter. “And that electronic warfare block we talked about.”
“Sure thing.”
When he slapped it down, it didn’t look much different to her ordinary processor block, same anonymous oblong of dark grey plastic.
“Who buys bugs and things like that from you?” she asked.
“Could be anyone. Girl wanting to find out if her boyfriend’s cheating on her. Manager who needs to know which of his staff are ripping him off. Voyeur perverts. Mostly, though, it’s private detectives. Regular spooks convention at times, this place.”
Louise didn’t approve of that notion that just anybody could come along and spy on their friends and enemies. There ought to be some restrictions on who could buy such items. But then regulation was one thing Earth didn’t seem to have much of.
Andy handed over the shop’s accounts block with an apologetic smile. Louise tried not to shiver as she transferred the money over from her Jovian Bank disk. She gave the realview block and a packet of disposable lenses to Genevieve, who promptly tore the wrapping off with a gleeful, “Yesss.”
“I’ll see you when you come back for the rest of your software?” Andy asked. “And if you change your mind about . . . the other thing, I’ll be happy to sponsor your application. I’m entitled to do that. I’m an adult citizen.”
“Right,” she said gingerly. There was something very odd about the way he’d latched onto the idea. She was debating whether to quiz him further when she caught the glint of devilment in Gen’s eye. The little girl spun round quickly. “You’ve been very kind, Andy,” Louise said. “Please don’t worry about me.” She leant over the counter and gave him a light kiss. “Thanks.”
Genevieve was already making for the door, giggling wildly. Louise snatched up the carrier bag full of fleks, and chased after her.
Louise lay back on her bed as the brilliant sun finally sank away below Green Park. Genevieve was sleeping on the bed next to her, exhausted by the very long day.
Terrible child, Louise thought fondly. I must make sure she gets a set of neural nanonics when she turns sixteen. She closed her own eyes and put the news hound program into primary mode. The room’s net processor acknowledged her datavise, and she began asking for general items on the possessed. That was when she had her crash course on using news hound’s filter program accessories and designating more refined search parameters. It took an hour, but she was eventually able to slot the myriad events reported by Earth’s news agencies into an overall picture. The arrival of the Mount’s Delta was a weird one. The way its crewman had been shredded hinted strongly at Quinn Dexter to her mind.
New York’s abrupt isolation was the principal current topic for the agencies, in fact it was just about their only topic. Govcentral’s North American Commissioner appeared before the reporters to assure everyone that it was just a precaution, and they were investigating a “possessed-type” incident in Dome One as a matter of procedure. No schedule was given for opening the vac-trains. Police squads, reinforced with riot-control mechanoids, were out in force on the streets as the arcology residents became highly restless.
Then there was the event which caused Louise to jerk upright on the bed, opening her eyes wide in surprise and delight. Tranquillity’s arrival at Jupiter. Joshua was here ! In this star system.
She sank back onto the pillows, shaking with excitement. The universal message script was hurriedly brought into primary mode. She composed a file for him which she really hoped didn’t sound too desperate and pathetic, and datavised it triumphantly into the communication net. Her neural nanonics told her that Jupiter was five hundred and fifty million miles away, so the signal would take about forty minutes to reach it. She might have a reply within two hours!
Western Europe, who was monitoring her net connection, instructed the AI to block the message. The last thing he needed right now was some dunderhead boyfriend charging to the rescue, especially one as famous as Lagrange Calvert.