They’d married in less than a year. The amputated chair stood against the wall: a reliable source of amusement, and the anticipated throne for children who would one day use it to haul themselves upright, balancing on unsteady legs before clambering up and plopping their nappied backsides down, cackling in baby glee. It had become a tiny ache in their hearts, that chair, an empty seat waiting to be filled.
Now Sharon sat with her back to it and half listened to Mikal’s droll account of the day’s doings in Council, the earnest proposals for cost-saving schemes that would save at best half what they cost to set up, the hands-off pomposity of career civil servants and personal shenanigans of politicians.
‘You want to watch how you make fun of them, dear. It could be you next.’
‘I’m not worried. My laundry is aired, and carries a warrant tab.’
‘What a lovely image. Thank you.’
‘I try.’ He opened the freezer cabinet, regarded its contents for a moment, then shut it again.
‘You’re just doing that to get cool.’
‘Guilty as charged. Salad?’
‘Sure.’ She was scowling at her tablet. ‘You know, the more of this we manage to unravel the less the whole thing makes sense.’
‘The genestock?’
‘Mm.’
‘I thought you were making headway, now that Rhys is on board.’
‘We are. He’s a genius. Achebe doesn’t know whether to be jealous or worship at his feet.’
‘So it makes no sense in the sense that … ?’
‘Well, we already knew that the hacker and the targets didn’t fit the usual pattern. Generally, supposing you didn’t know where to find what you wanted you’d use hackbots to do a broad-spectrum search, and then follow up with a targeted intrusion. But this was a single hacker trawling a dozen different gemtechs right from the start. And what they were targeting – well, you’d expect it to be new models, really innovative genetypes, that sort of thing.’
She glanced up at her husband, conscious that she was speaking unsentimentally about matters both exceedingly painful and too recent to yet be history. He blinked back at her, the thoughtful half-smile that told her this was all right, and returned his attention to the tomatoes he was chopping. ‘I’d have thought so, yes. But you said they were old?’
‘We inferred they weren’t current because Achebe could tell that the datastreams they were in had already been archived before they were copied over to the EGA. But Rhys has deciphered the filetags, and it turns out most of them were really old. Not just a few years, more like two or three generations. I mean, that would be considered obsolete, right? So then I started to wonder if this was some weird historical voyeurism, maybe they’re looking for dead ends, famous disasters. But none of them were like that. The main area of interest seems to have been a bunch of fairly innocuous genetypes – transitionals, Rhys calls them – that were engineered between twenty and forty years ago.’
Mikal set the knife aside and frowned. ‘That is strange, not to be going after a marketable end product. Mind you, that was when the big shift happened – thirty, forty years ago. Less low-IQ brute-force labourers, more …’ He picked up a lettuce and gestured vaguely at himself with it, while the double thumbs of the other hand popped open a jar balanced on his palm.
‘Charming, intelligent and erudite?’
‘I was going to say highly modified, but okay.’
She blew him a kiss. ‘Okay, so the main focus of this hacker happens to be a really interesting time for gemtech. I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. It produces the first fully functional gillungs, and you, and Aryel, Bal and Aster …’
‘Yeah. Anatomic innovation for prosperity and security.’
She stared up at him in dismay.
‘That’s not one of mine,’ he hurried to assure her. ‘Recombin marketing slogan. We came up with several very rude versions. Anyway.’
‘Anyway …’ She steepled her fingers and rested her chin on her hands, distantly aware that it was a Masoud gesture and annoyed by the fact. ‘But it’s not as if innovation stops. I mean, Gempro goes on to perfect the gillungs, Bel’Natur makes a big push into neurological and sensory abilities, we get people like Gaela and Callan and Herran—’
‘Bel’Natur were all-rounders.’
‘—and the gemtechs keep on pushing the boat out; right up until the government put a stop to it they were— What?’
‘What?’
‘Say that again. Bel’Natur?’
‘Hmm? Oh, I know their publicity was all focused on beautiful, brilliant redheads who norms would be happy to have around – your Gaelas and your Callans, and all the sexual subtext – but the truth is, they were at the forefront of all kinds of enhancements. They even had a hand in the gillungs. Reginald told me they discovered when they were working out the settlement that Bel’Natur had sold Gempro a lot of the early technology. They didn’t want to be bothered with developing it, they had so much else going on.’
Sharon picked up a neatly sliced carrot, tapped it against her teeth and then bit into it thoughtfully. ‘That’s really interesting. Because none of the hacks were aimed at Bel’Natur, and none of the stolen genestock was theirs.’
‘Maybe whoever was doing it already knew all about them.’
‘You mean it originated there? Maybe. But then why would they be looking at what their competitors had done way back when? Wouldn’t you be trying to spy on the latest research from Gempro, Recombin, Modicomm?’ She waved the remains of the carrot. ‘That’s another weird thing. Although the gemtechs were different, Rhys says the genetypes appear to have things in common. He’s going to focus on that, see if he can nail down a pattern. But I think that’s another reason why this can’t be about black-market gemtech. You’d go for variety, surely. The bottom line is, the stock that’s been stolen corresponds to the oldest genetypes that were hacked, and had been in storage for at least – at least – a quarter of a century. Stuff that old might not even be viable, it definitely wouldn’t have any street value. So why would anyone want it? I mean, if you’ve found a way to infiltrate this incredibly secure storage facility and steal whatever you like, why steal that?’
Mikal prodded thoughtfully at the salad. ‘And you still don’t know how they pulled off the theft?’
‘Not how, no. But Rhys has an idea about who it might have been.’
Mikal looked up sharply. ‘What? Who? Why aren’t you out arresting them?’
‘He doesn’t know their identity, although he’s going to take a look at the profiles we ran and see if he can spot anything we missed. No, get this. He thinks the whistleblower might also be the thief.’
Mikal was dumbstruck. He stared openmouthed for a moment, then clasped his hands on top of his head and described a slow turn, as if the pressure might keep his cranium intact and the rotation reorient the world into its proper orbit. When he came back to face her Sharon was grinning at him.
‘Now you know how I feel.’
‘I’m beginning to think that compared with police work, politics is actually sensible. He thinks this why?’
‘He says look, what do we know about the whistleblower? Nothing, except they must have known about both the hacks and the thefts, plus have the ability to mirror the EGA datastream to create a trail for us to follow. What do we know about the thief? Also nothing, except they too must have known about the hacks, plus have the technical expertise to subvert the EGA’s entire security system – which is fully integrated with its datastream. Same knowledge base, same skill set. Same person.’
‘I … right … okay.’ She watched him digest this. ‘Do you buy it?’
‘I think it’s mad, but it fits the facts.’
‘But why? You pull off the perfect heist, get away without a trace, and then you tell the cops?’
‘Like I said, the more we find out the less sense it makes. Maybe he was feeling unappreciated. Wanted to show off.’
‘In that case he shou
ld go work for the city. No, scratch that. We’ve got enough worries without a criminal mastermind with self-esteem problems on the payroll.’
She laughed. ‘Anyway. Whether he’s right or wrong on that score, young Rhys is turning out to be worth his weight. I should message Aryel a thank-you.’ She got up to set the table, and a shadow passed over her face. ‘Have you heard how today went, by the way?’
‘I had a message from Eli to say reasonably well. No hostility, no backing off.’
‘I think,’ she said, her voice suddenly distant, ‘that sounds like very good news. I think maybe we need to talk about what happens if it keeps on going well.’
‘It’s a good start but they’ve barely started. What’s wrong?’
She gave him a weary, eye-rolling, what-do-you-think look, put the glasses and cutlery down on the table with a tinkling thump, and disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Mikal heard a soft, heartfelt curse, followed by the vacuum hiss of the toilet flushing. He finished arranging the table with care, trying to push back a familiar sense of disappointment.
Sharon reappeared several minutes later, leaning against the doorframe. Her gaze slipped over the ridiculously truncated chair against the wall before she looked back at him, shaking her head.
19
Three days in, Eli found himself wondering if he had been too harsh with Zavcka Klist.
He had not seen her since their conversation outside the neural transcription lab, and his slightly juvenile sense of satisfaction had not much waned. But the sea change she had claimed for Bel’Natur was becoming undeniable, and everyone he spoke to credited her for it. Wary of any dissimulation that might be spreading ahead of him he had quickly busied himself beyond the bounds of the infotech programme, finding his way into the airless offices of building services and striking up conversations with engineers and administrators in the canteen. He had yet to discern any overt anti-gem feeling, or much pride in the company’s past. Veterans tended to mutter disavowals pitched somewhere between moderate embarrassment and outright shame; newer staff spoke earnestly of transformation. A purge had taken place; the most staunchly regressive following Felix Carrington out the door, and the remainder reformed. He struggled to reconcile the magnitude of the change with the unabashed bigotry – if not the ruthlessness – of the old Zavcka.
But any guilt he might have felt for the way he had handled her was allayed by the presence of Callan, whose normally unruffled demeanour was tempered by an undercurrent of disquiet unlike any Eli had seen in him before. He could not be certain that it was entirely down to the memories their being here must have triggered, but he didn’t imagine it would help.
Herran by contrast seemed fine. By the second day he was accepting the greetings of the technicians who worked with Sevi, before climbing with equanimity into the testing chair to occupy himself with his tablet while they went through the specifics of the session with Eli and Callan. He would peek up through his lashes as the sensor net was placed carefully over his head, issuing gnomic comments that at first only Callan understood, but that on translation suggested he had been paying attention to the conversation as well as to whatever he was amusing himself with on the streams. Sevi and one or two of the others were quick to pick up on his patterns and quirks of communication, to understand and interact without Callan needing to mediate. So far the whole thing was proving much more collegiate than Eli had anticipated.
Returning from one of his forays into the nether regions of Bel’Natur, he stuck his head in at the door of the lab. Herran was reclining with a tablet stand angled a comfortable distance from his eyes, watching the lines of code that flashed up on it. The lacy skullcap, through which fiery curls poked in every direction, read and routed his synaptic activity to banks of screens before which the neurologists shook their heads in bemusement. Callan sat nearby, monitoring, every now and then getting Herran to say aloud the meaning of what he saw. The scientists scanned that brain activity too, and compared it with the unspoken interpretation, and looked even more baffled.
Eli caught Callan’s eye, raised a quizzical eyebrow and mouthed Okay? Sevi looked across anxiously. Callan nodded, gave him a thumbs-up, and Eli retreated to the seats by the window.
Now that he was fairly certain there was no active campaign of deceit at the staff level, it was time to become a bit more methodical. He pulled up directories on his tablet and started to work through them, checking policies and programmes, working documents and personal communications. He set up a searchbot to look for gaps where offending files might have recently been deleted, and another to check edit logs for hasty revisions. The sheer size of the system was overwhelming. He got lost in side-shoots of African agricultural communes and a tangle of Middle Eastern tax shelters, found his way back through a network of Asian subsidiaries as exotic and mysterious as any Silk Road trail.
Hours passed. He noted with wry appreciation that almost everything prior to the Temple Act affirming gem and norm equality had been archived. So. A line had been drawn under that event, and the records that would have reinforced a mindset now deemed defunct were hidden from casual view. He wondered if anything else had been hidden there as well.
Unsurprisingly, his access did not extend to probing archived files. He called Khan. The assistant’s visual came up on his tablet at once. He listened politely.
‘I understand, Dr Walker, but you can’t expect that old stuff to be representative any more.’
‘I don’t. I’ve seen a lot of it before, remember, when I interrogated the gemtech typology criteria for the Federation.’ He sighed inwardly, hating how pompous he must sound even as he played the expertise card. ‘It’s the transition that I want to examine.’
That was feeble, and he waited for Khan to call him on it. There was a long pause.
‘And you’ll want to confirm what’s on the other side of the firewall,’ said Khan meditatively. ‘Of course. Sorry, that was a bit slow of me.’
‘I …’ Eli was momentarily nonplussed. Then he recovered himself and plunged on, ‘Look, everyone’s been at pains to tell me there’s no double dealing or hidden agendas here, and so far I’ve found nothing to contradict that, but if I’m to confirm it then I need to see everything. I’m not trying to drop you in the middle, Mr Khan. I’ll explain it to Ms Klist if you prefer.’
‘No, don’t do that.’ Khan looked alarmed. ‘There’s no need to – um – disturb her. She’s authorised me to see to it you have everything you need. I’ll have your tablet’s access level upgraded immediately. And, Dr Walker?’
‘Yes?’
‘My name’s Arthur.’ He cleared his throat and glanced away from the screen, as if slightly embarrassed. ‘I – ah – I know Ms Klist is very formal, and if that’s what you prefer, then—’
‘It isn’t. Thank you, Arthur.’ He did not return the invitation, and sensed that the young man would be sharp enough to notice.
*
The access clearance came through within a couple of minutes, and Eli plunged into the archive. If the systems he’d been trying to parse before felt like they contained a planet-worth of information, this was a galaxy. He reminded himself that he was only looking for anomalies, files added too recently or carrying the wrong date stamp, and set up more searchbots. But the archive was so vast that he found it impossible to capture what he needed to know with a few simple commands, and ended up delving again down wormholes, replicating his earlier efforts as he struggled to grasp the shape and size of the thing. Bel’Natur was an old company, one of the first gemtechs to emerge out of the black days of the Syndrome, and it had absorbed many others in close to a century of existence.
It occurred to him, as he got ready to launch yet another searchbot, that the sub-archives of alien and mostly ancient records were a particularly unlikely place for anything of interest to be located. He hesitated, weary of the task. The chance of finding anything was remote. But then, so was the likelihood of there being anything to find anywhere at all. He had s
een enough already to be fairly certain that if a grand deception was being orchestrated, it was offstream and tightly contained. The point was to be thorough, to satisfy himself – and be able to assure Aryel – that he had left no stone unturned; to be able to live with the increasing likelihood that he, Eli Walker, once the gemtechs’ harshest critic, would be the one to certify their redemption.
Bile rose in his throat at the thought. He swallowed it down, grimacing, and swiped the searchbot live.
*
He left the bots running, knowing they could take hours to turn anything up, and checked on Herran and Callan again. The chair had been fully reclined and the little gem was lying flat out on it, sensor net still in place, eyes closed, small hands clutching his own tablet to his chest. Callan looked up as Eli came in and paused at the sight of Herran.
‘Nap?’ he whispered.
‘No,’ Herran and Callan answered together.
‘They’re doing a scan of his brain at rest,’ Callan continued. ‘Although it isn’t.’
‘Thinking with no looking,’ said Herran. Through the customary flatness of his tone, Eli thought he detected a note of annoyance.
‘Try not to do any thinking, Herran.’ Sevi was standing before one of the monitor screens, shaking her head at the patterns that morphed across it. ‘You’re supposed to be having a break. Would it help you relax if we took the net off?’
‘No. Relax with tablet.’
‘Really?’ She looked from him to Callan and Eli. ‘We’ve done a lot today, I thought he could do with some rest … Okay, Herran. Chill out onstream if you prefer.’
Herran promptly sat up, cross-legged on the gurney-like surface, and activated his tablet.
Eli strolled over. ‘Want to turn this back into a chair?’
‘Okay.’
Eli waited a beat to see if he would do it himself, then reached for the controls. ‘You doing okay today? Not tired?’
‘Okay. Not tired. Not night.’
‘You could get tired in the daytime too, Herran.’
He looked up at that and blinked, considering. ‘No.’ He adjusted himself against the chair as the back came up and the leg-rest folded down. ‘Not sick. Not sleepy.’
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