North had to hope he wasn’t dead. He didn’t want to be dead, because there was nothing like nearly dying to make you realize you weren’t done yet. Voices came and went in time with his breath and the pain. His chest hurt. His head hurt. His ribs hurt. Everything hurt. Pain was good, though. Pain meant he was still alive – that he hadn’t died in a high-speed collision and that he hadn’t drowned in a London dock. He tried to tell whoever was talking that he was awake, but couldn’t persuade his lips to form the words.
‘Is someone trying to kill our man or was he collateral?’ Plug. He thought that had to be Plug. His old friend was worried. ‘We need to look after him better.’
‘Who am I? His reiki therapist?’ He could imagine Fang’s eyes narrowing. Both voices came from somewhere in the room. He thought they were seated.
‘I’ve three boys,’ Plug said. ‘The wife wants to try for a girl. Now I’ve met you – that’s not happening.’
‘You’ve got some big-time drug smuggling side hustle, right?’ North forced open his eyes long enough to snatch a glimpse of Fang, slumped in a chair, surrounded by phones and tablets and laptops. ‘Your disappointment that I don’t know all the words to Frozen is…’ – she slapped her tiny hand twice against her chest – ‘… devastating.’
His heart lifted. He was alive and among friends. But he should have warned Plug about Fang. He fought to keep his eyes open, and saw Plug grimace. A grimace that North knew had prompted more than one hard man to let go of a little urine. Fang appeared oblivious, her glittering boots up on the bed, a blue bubble growing bigger and bigger till it obscured her entire face.
He wasn’t aware of sleeping, but he must have, because when he next managed to open his eyes, Fang was gone, and Plug stared down at him, like he was a problem he had to solve. Struggling to bring the muzzy edges of the room into focus, North blinked then blinked again. It hurt to blink. He decided to keep his eyes wide open and never blink again. ‘How’s Esme?’ His voice sounded gruff and he cleared his throat as he swung his legs around and off the side of the bed. The world spun a little faster on its axis, and he concentrated hard on not vomiting.
Plug grinned, the smile managing to make the slab of a face uglier. ‘North, mate. You are effing hard to kill.’ The relief in his voice was palpable. He turned his head and yelled for Fang. The noise enough to shake the walls. ‘Fang said you wouldn’t want to show up in any records, so Hone helped us get you away. A doctor who owes me for the ash cash I put his way checked you over, said to let you sleep. In case you’re interested, you’ve broken a couple of ribs – three at most – and you’re probably concussed.’
‘Esme?’
‘She came round when we pulled her from the water. They checked her out but, frankly, she was in a better state than you were. Her husband wasn’t best pleased, but whether that’s because she nearly drowned, totalled the Lambo, or because she was joyriding with a toyboy, I don’t know.’
‘How did you get there so fast?’
He thought Plug might have blushed.
‘Fang said we had to follow you because you’re an idiot. The driving was so erratic that even before you rang, she’d warned Hone that something was wrong, or they’d never have had the time to lay down the stinger.’
Fang pushed open the door. ‘Finally,’ she said, and her eyes behind the Joe 90 glasses gleamed. He thought she might ask how he was feeling, but she didn’t.
‘Self-drive cars fuse data from sensors – their cameras, their radar, their lidar…’
‘“Lidar”?’
She rolled her eyes. His ignorance apparently a constant revelation. ‘Light detection and ranging. Well, Teslas don’t have it because Elon Musk isn’t a fan, but the Lambo did.’ Was there anything this kid didn’t know, he wondered. ‘Plus, ultrasonic. That first error Syd reported was because someone hacked your pretty gadabout. They fixed the GPS – the system thought the car was on a wide-open road. Actually, it thought it was driving through the Gobi desert, a fact you’ve got to love. The hack blocked the incoming radar, lidar and ultrasonic signals. It had nothing to go on. No traffic signs or traffic lights. No awareness of other cars or objects. It thought it was going at thirty miles per hour. Luckily for you, Syd realized.’
‘And the speed and handling. The braking failures?’
‘The hackers had a backup if Syd tried to put you to manual. Whoever it was really wanted you both dead.’
He wasn’t dead, but he did have two broken ribs – probably three – and a concussion.
He sniffed the air. Then himself.
‘What is that appalling smell?’ he said.
‘Granny Po’s cure-all special miracle paste.’ Fang grinned. ‘She makes it from goose fat, fermented wine, fish skins, and frankly you don’t want to know what else. You’re honoured. She only brought a small jar with her.’
Taking hold of the side of the bed, North levered himself upright. Esme had said something just before Syd alerted them to the problem, but he couldn’t remember what. It slid from his grasp and he could only hope it would come back. Tobias – that was it – she’d said that Tobias had done something ‘very wrong’.
Was the wrong thing connected to what just happened? Had Hawke rigged the car to kill his wife? North thought back to the way Esme’s dark eyelashes swept over the pale cheeks – his fear that she might die on him when he was supposed to protect her. Surely her husband would want to protect her too? More likely the person who’d hacked Esme’s car was the person involved in the original leak of the medical technology. Or even the Chinese themselves?
‘Can you tell if the hack came from China?’
‘Not yet. They’ve covered their tracks really well.’
North crossed the room to the window, wincing at every step. He couldn’t see what the connections were, but they had to be there. A violent attack on Esme in her own home. The leak of medical tech to the Chinese. A computer system with consciousness – a breakthrough about to revolutionize our relationships with machines. And something that Tobias did that his own wife believed was very wrong. They had to be connected, but he just couldn’t see how.
The hearse with its registration of MORT1 was parked in the yard outside. The back was at least empty. North preferred not to think about lying stupefied in a coffin under Uncle Jim and half a million pounds’ worth of cocaine.
‘I’m having a shower and then drop me at Derkind, Plug. I need to make sure Esme is okay and I want to ask Tobias what the hell he’s done that’s about to get his wife killed.’
Plug looked confused. ‘They won’t be there, mate. It’s nearly seven. You’ve been out of it all afternoon. They’re both of them already at the gala.’
North knew for a fact that he’d never wanted to get involved in whatever this was. Hone boxed him into a corner when he seized Fang’s mother. North had no stake in artificial intelligence, in Derkind, or what an AI breakthrough like Syd might mean for the future of the country. Aside from his loyalty to Fang, he had no dog in this fight. Sitting in the passenger seat, as Plug crossed town, North touched his broken ribs. It felt like knives slashing their way out of his chest cavity. He flexed his hands, before balling them into fists. He wanted to meet whoever had hacked that car. Then he wanted to punch them in the face. Because someone had tried to kill him and the innocent woman alongside him. And call him old-fashioned, but that made him mad. And an angry Michael North was someone who might just kill someone right back.