The Mandel Files, Volume 1

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘I bet I was convincing.’

  ‘You were. Armstrong ordered his people to confirm it’d happened; apparently Event Horizon haven’t announced the breakdown publicly yet. He said they must make an effort to find out who it was. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, all that crap. Kendric seemed to think it could be one of the rival kombinates.’

  ‘Kendric’s probably right,’ Greg said. ‘So when does Armstrong expect the answers to his enquiries?’

  ‘I guess tomorrow morning, there’s nothing going on right now. If there are any queries they’ll have another session with you. If not it’ll be straight into the mud.’

  ‘No doubt with Toby helping me on my way after his own fashion. Where is he now?’

  Gabriel inclined her head. ‘Kendric’s mob are camped out in the basement. Lord and Lady Muck themselves are still upstairs. Maybe Armstrong’s got a guest suite.’

  ‘Yeah. That Kendric, I’d never have figured on him being plugged into Armstrong and the PSP.’

  ‘You think someone like him is going to let a little question of ideology stand in his way when he’s been offered the kind of profits which giga-conductor licensing is going to rake in?’

  ‘No,’ Greg said. ‘But I’m wondering if Armstrong might just have let himself in for more than he’s realized.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Tell you, this is all down to Kendric trying to snatch the giga-conductor patent from Julia, right? That’s apart from his private psychosexual fixation on her, of course. First the memox spoiler, now feeding Armstrong information in return for a partnership when Event Horizon is nationalized. Lucifer’s alliance, but which one is Old Nick? My money’s on Kendric.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Once Kendric’s got the patent in his hands as Event Horizon’s chairman I wouldn’t like to sell Armstrong any life insurance. Even if his apparatchiks do begin running things again – and I think he’s underrating the New Conservative inquisitors there – he can never return to public life. As he’s already dead in everyone’s mind there will be absolutely no comeback if Kendric has him killed for real. Hell, the bugger of it is, Kendric would even be a hero for doing it.’

  ‘You have a devious nasty mind, Gregory. And I love you for it.’

  ‘If I’m so smart, then why are we here?’

  ‘I didn’t say you were perfect.’

  ‘That’s the truth, and no messing.’

  Gabriel was silent for a minute, contemplative, then, ‘I think I’ve worked out why our glands aren’t functioning.’

  ‘The twins.’

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  ‘Process of elimination. I’m quite good at that when it’s something paltry. I imagine their glands produce some kind of psi null-zone; I remember something like that being mentioned a couple of times back at the Brigade – never really paid attention. Notice that one stayed with Armstrong while we were snatched. No wonder the other Mindstar vets could never find him after the Second Restoration.’

  ‘So they won’t find us now?’

  ‘No. Morgan Walshaw might put it together eventually. But not by tomorrow morning. And even then, there’s nothing to lead him to Wisbech.’

  Gabriel rested her head on the metal railings, smiling forlornly. ‘Pity. I was getting quite used to having a human brain again. I could’ve lived without the gland. Surprising really. I suppose I associate it with childhood.’

  ‘Armchair psychiatrist,’ he teased.

  ‘Greg.’

  It was going to be bad news, no espersense required. ‘Yeah.’

  She took a breath. ‘Kendric asked you if we had identified his contact in Event Horizon.’

  For a moment he thought the cold-turkey fever had come back to rattle his bruised brain. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he groaned. ‘There was a mole.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said feebly. ‘We didn’t do very good, did we Greg?’

  ‘No. Shit! Who? We checked everybody. Everybody, God damn it!’

  ‘Wish I knew. He must’ve been the one who fingered us for Kendric’s snatch squad. Who knew we were going to the finance office?’

  He felt like banging his head against the railing, it certainly wouldn’t do any damage, there was nothing inside which bloody worked. No messing. ‘Julia, Walshaw, that doctor who sorted Katerina out, Victor Tyo.’

  ‘Victor Tyo? He’s a security programmer, isn’t he? Convenient. And he knew you were going to visit Ellis. Somebody was bloody quick off the mark there.’

  ‘It can’t be Victor.’ He dived down through a clutter of memories, trying to bring back the day he boarded the Alabama Spirit, interviewing a baby-faced man: eager at the opportunity, anxious at the responsibility. ‘Can’t be,’ he muttered.

  ‘Who then? Even you and I aren’t infallible, not the whole time. Take a look around if you don’t believe me,’

  ‘I interviewed Victor one on one. Tell you, I might miss peripheral tension, like he’s forgotten his girl’s birthday card, but that kind of treachery I can spot straight away.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  He shifted his legs, trying to ease the stiff aching muscles. ‘Could we have missed someone?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘The security headquarters staff,’ he said, ticking them off in his mind. ‘Both research teams, the manor staff; Christ, I even asked Julia and Walshaw.’ He felt an icy spike of fright penetrate his heart. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘Walshaw.’

  ‘Walshaw?’ She was openly scornful.

  ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Course not. But Walshaw didn’t know Kendric had seduced Julia. Why not?’

  ‘What do you mean? Why should he know?’

  ‘Because Julia has a bodyguard with her twenty-four hours a day, no matter where she goes outside Wilholm. Remember, there was even one in the corridor outside Walshaw’s office at the finance centre? That hardline woman. God, what was her name? Rachel. She was at Wilholm too. A bodyguard who reports directly to Walshaw, who should have told Walshaw what happened on the Mirriam.’

  Gabriel bowed her head. ‘A bodyguard: top-rank security, close to every executive decision ever made, knew Julia was going to the finance centre. But a bodyguard isn’t part of the security headquarters staff, nor on the manor’s staff. Oh Greg, we are a pair of fuck ups, aren’t we? She was standing next to Julia the whole time, and we never even bloody saw her.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. Then gave a start. ‘Yeah, the whole time. That’s strange.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I’ve only ever seen the one bodyguard: Rachel. Every time I’ve visited Julia, it’s been Rachel on duty. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? There’s got to be more than one.’

  ‘Did you always let them know you were coming in advance?’

  He nodded silently. The death-chill hadn’t left his heart. ‘Whoever he is, he is still with Julia. Tonight. Now. A hardliner taking orders from Kendric. And Armstrong has already ordered an attack on Philip Evans’s NN core.’

  Gabriel stared at him with destitute eyes. ‘Oh, God.’

  He pulled at his cuffs, slowly increasing the strength until his wrists were circles of hot pain. Forearm muscles trembled with the strain. Nothing gave, not the cuff locks, not the iron stair rail. Nothing. ‘Shit.’ He let go, graze marks livid on his skin. The futility hurt as much as the failure.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ Gabriel said quietly. ‘End of the road. Philip Evans wiped, Julia snuffed by her own bodyguard, and you and I into the mud.’

  He couldn’t answer. His own death he could handle, even Gabriel’s. But Julia. Her whole life had been devoid of any normality, ruined by money, by grudges and power struggles that had been going on before she was born. When he closed his eyes he could see a young oval face with the most trusting expression he’d ever known. Soft eyes regarded him with a belief that bordered on devotion.

  He should have fought the drug, should have sacrificed Gabriel’s bones. Anything to give Julia a chance at life.
/>   ‘We had some good times, didn’t we, Greg?’ Gabriel said vacantly. ‘Even in this screwed-up world.’

  ‘Yeah. Good times.’ They hadn’t outweighed the bad, though. Not even close.

  Gabriel’s eyes drooped.

  Greg leant his shoulder on the railings, as near to comfortable as he’d ever get. Muscles were cramping at the back of his neck. He knew he really ought to have been looking for a way out. Gaoler’s keys dangling on a nail, within reach of an improvised hook on the end of his belt. The iron stair railing which was loose. That carelessly discarded loop of monolattice filament in amongst the food crates which he could use to saw through the iron with. Keep dreaming, he told himself.

  He did. Waking dreams. Mostly of Eleanor. Now those were good times. They must’ve been, they hurt.

  37

  Kats was dreaming. Julia watched her eyelids fluttering, shoulders restless below the duvet, the occasional sighs, half-formed words.

  It would probably be Kendric who filled her thoughts. She doubted the amnesia infusion could reach down into the subconscious to root him out. And that was exactly the kind of arcane universe where Kendric would lurk, his home ground.

  To this day his phantom still stole into Julia’s sleep-loosened mind, a dark oneiromancer calling her back to the velvet shadows of Mirriam’s cabin, soft silk sheets, hot hard flesh. That handsome face poised inches above her, smiling as she moaned in erotic delirium. Not even the freshness of Adrian could banish the quondam ecstasy. First loves never die. They just … haunt.

  She gave Kats a dry smile. Maybe she should go through the detoxification with her, get rid of Kendric that way. Concerned professional doctors prising him out of her mind. Nothing else seemed to work.

  OtherEyes Emergency Access Request.

  Open Channel to NN Core. Load OtherEyes Limiter#Five. It was a reflexive acknowledgement, her nerves were stretched taut, ready to jump at figments. She sat bolt upright in the chair, grabbing the Armscor.

  Juliet. Christ, virus virus, they’ve Trojaned a virus into me!

  Wilholm’s banshee klaxon went off outside.

  ‘Grandpa!’ she yelled.

  Losing my capacity. Some kind of interface scrambler. Bugger, security sensor access went down. The NN core’s internal channels are crashing, Juliet. Childhood gone. It’s accelerating. I’ve failed you, girl. My memory patterns are being disconnected. Management routines gone.

  ‘No, Grandpa,’ she sobbed. ‘You couldn’t fail me. Not you.’

  You’re all that’s left, girl Datanet’s cut. Unlock me in a century. Trust Walshaw, Juliet. Trust him. My girl. Love you. Take care, Kendric will come for you. Integrity stasis, beat it at its own game. Shutting down. Limbo.

  And he was gone. But there was something else intruding in her mind, a smooth, grotesque presence oozing in to corrupt her thoughts. Julia jammed her knuckles in her wide, silently screaming mouth. The horror pulled at her memories, prising them out of their neat processor-assigned stacks. She could see them tumbling away from her; stained-glass rosettes, each one a billion-picture mosaic. Her life encapsulated, ruptured, pouring away into some infinite insatiable sink point.

  Data Error.

  She felt herself falling to the floor, howling in psychosomatic agony, Armscor dropping from deadened fingers. Vision lost in the blinding sparkle of vivid memories flashing by, people, buildings, schoolgames, countryside, mathematical formulae, lists of words.

  Memory Node One Index Error.

  Her mind was contracting, conscious thoughts slowing as they passed through the processor nodes. The presence was everywhere, tainting the entire contents of her cerebrum and memory nodes, eviscerating her own personality and replacing it with its own implacable insentient logic.

  She began to claw wildly at her head.

  Memory Node Two Interface Error.

  The virus, it was in her nodes, Trojaned into her through OtherEyes. She should’ve realized instantly. Her intellect was crumbling, the supporting experience-based reasoning mentality denuded of references, blocking her ability to think. Only a vestigial essence of bloody-minded stubbornness remained, that fundamental aspect of human ego which the virus was unable to subsume.

  Memory Node Three Interface Error.

  Fight back, Julia pleaded with herself. Stop it spreading.

  Processor Node Two Format Loss.

  Disengage Memory Node One, she ordered. The command was terribly slow to formulate.

  Her subconscious rose ominously to fill the vacuous gulf left in the virus’s wake. Wounded pictures of a world peopled by caricatures of those who walked through her natural universe. It was the alternate she lived in fear of, nightmares fully expressed. Black idolatry, so hard and bright her remaining rationality nearly disintegrated under its impact.

  Disengage Memory Node Two.

  Floating without weight, seeing herself and Kendric coupling like frenzied rampant beasts. Loving it, hating it. Grandpa watching them, frail, poised ready to die, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Disengage Memory Node Three.

  Primate Marcus offering her benediction inside a suffocating bubble of rock. Herself supplicant, putting Event Horizon on the burnished silver collection platter for him. Dropping it, seeing it shatter into splinters of pure data, profit and loss. All important. Grandpa shook his head in dismay and died.

  Shut Down Processor Nodes One and Two.

  The exorcism. Julia felt the virus withdraw, retreating into the nodes. Then the synaptic interfaces sealed, cutting her free, trapping it in isolation.

  There was no physical pain, only loss, all that wondrous knowledge she’d taken for granted had been snatched beyond reach. Her own thoughts and memories, once so ordered, now a tangled seething wreckage.

  A sound in her gullet. Struggling to place it. Ah yes. Weeping.

  Julia rolled on to her back, drawing breath in shallow gasps. Her dress was cold and damp from sweat.

  Vacant watery eyes set in the centre of a golden cloud of hair blinked at her. ‘Julie?’

  Julia rummaged round for the name. So difficult, surely human brains weren’t this inefficient. ‘Hi, Kats,’ she said weakly.

  ‘I want to go for a pee.’

  Laughter and tears got dreadfully muddled in her throat.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Katerina said in a wounded tone. ‘I’m bursting.’

  ‘Sure thing, Kats. Sorry.’ Julia was rather surprised to find her limbs doing what she told them. She managed to clamber to her feet, using the bed for support. The Armscor was lying on the carpet. The sight of it jolted her slowly coalescing thoughts. The klaxon was silent now. She was sure she’d heard it going off. Tried to consult her event timer without thinking, a null request. But it could only have been seconds ago.

  Somebody had penetrated Wilholm’s defensive cordon. A two-pronged attack, then. Her and Grandpa, and they’d nearly got very lucky.

  The door handle rattled. ‘Julia? Julia, you in there?’

  Kendric. Kendric will come for you.

  ‘Morgan?’ she called.

  ‘It’s Steven; open up, Julia.’ There was a thump followed by a muffled curse.

  ‘Get Morgan,’ she told him. Trust Walshaw, Juliet. Trust him.

  ‘Julia, open up.’ A louder thump, a shoulder hitting the door. She could see it quiver in the frame.

  ‘Morgan, get Morgan here.’

  A third blow. She heard the sound of wood splitting.

  ‘Morgan!’ Julia grabbed hold of Kats and yanked her off the bed in one almighty burst of strength. Kats squealed and floundered about in the duvet.

  ‘Stay down,’ Julia commanded.

  She crouched next to Kats, bringing the Armscor up in a smooth arc, thumb flicking off the safety catch. Immensely glad she’d taken the time to learn the weapon.

  The door crashed open, frame splintering.

  ‘Morgan!’ she screamed.

  Pink-white light from the corridor shone into the dimly lit bedroom. A lone fig
ure was silhouetted in the open doorway, Uzi hand laser held ready, stumbling forwards. Definitely male.

  Kendric.

  The maw of the Uzi swung down towards them, a malignant smile behind it.

  Julia jerked her forefinger back on the trigger, holding it down. Bullet-sized pulses of intense blue lightning streamed out of the Armscor, so close together they were almost a continuous flare. They hit the wall around the door, splashing open with a loud crack. Wallpaper ignited in tight balls of garish orange flame. The bedroom was alive with strobing light, huge distorted shadows leapt up across the walls and ceiling.

  ‘Shit!’ yelled the silhouette. He was diving to one side, not quite making it.

  One of the Armscor’s pulses caught his leg as he was still going down. Beautiful. There was an agonized grunt, swiftly choked off. His whole body convulsed, hit by an invisible fist, buffeting him back into the corridor.

  Got you, you bastard!

  A bright ruby laser beam stabbed out from somewhere down the corridor, striking him on the side of his neck. His body jerked again, keeling over. The laser fired a second time. Blue-white flame flared out of his chest.

  Julia sent another barrage of blazing pulses out through the flame-wreathed door. Her retinas were scarred with long purple after-images.

  ‘Julia, for Christ’s sake!’

  Julia could barely hear the voice above Kats’ soprano wailing, but somewhere in her whirling mind the sound connected, that same voice was lodged in tenuous memories. She let go of the trigger, peering along the barrel, bewildered.

  ‘Rachel?’

  ‘Yes, for Christ’s sake! Now, will you put the fucking gun down. Please!’

  ‘Where’s Morgan!’ she cried.

  ‘He’s coming, Julia. I promise.’

  ‘I …’ Julia stared at the Armscor as her wrists drooped, letting it fall on to the bed. And all she could do after that was watch, because anything else was just too much. Her fate was all down to Rachel now. Could everybody in the world be against her?

  Rachel appeared in the doorway, her face furious as she stood over the prone smouldering body, Uzi hand-laser held in a professional double-handed grip, pointing straight down. She pumped two more slices of red energy into his head.