Mindstar Rising

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Processor Node One Status: Loading Basic Management Program.

Julia's head jerked up. She hadn't actually been sleeping, just allowing her rattled, abused thoughts some peace.

Processor Node Two Status: Loading Basic Management Program.

"What?" asked Walshaw.

Memory Node One: File Codes Loaded.

The huge black man, Teddy, was giving her that eagle-eyed stare again, as if he was examining her soul. Finding it flawed.

Memory Node Two: File Codes Loaded.

"Lord Jesus," she clapped her hands in excited delight. "He's done it. Royan. He's in the 'ware."

Memory Node Three: File Codes Loaded.

The fabric of the nodes' artificial mentality rose out of nowhere to fortify and enrich her own thoughts. Dictionaries, language and technical lexicons, encyclopaedias, logic matrices, all returned to their warm familiar places.

Neural Augmentation On Line.

Walshaw was leaning over his terminal, hands reaching for the keyboard. The cubes were full of crazed graphics, slowly returning to equilibrium.

Hello, Juliet.

"Grandpa!"

Her view of the study was suddenly riddled with cracks, it fragmented and whirled away. She was looking down on Earth from a great height. But the picture was wrong, there were no half-shades, the colours were all primary; an amorphous jigsaw of emerald, crimson, turquoise, and rose-gold oil patterns. It was overlaid by regular grid lines. False-Colour Thematic Image, supplied the nodes. There was a town at the centre of the image, one which was curiously blurred around its outskirts.

Wisbech, Julia said, intuitively. There was no sound to hear, no tactile sensation present in this flat universe which had captured her, only the image itself. She could sense her grandfather's presence by her side. They weren't alone.

Juliet, I'd like you to meet a very smart young lad. Goes by the name of Royan.

Pleased to meet you, Miss Juliet. I've never met an heiress before.

Thank you for unlocking my grandpa, Royan.

It was a breeze; whoever wrote the virus was dumb.

It didn't seem that way when I was on the receiving end.

I'm not surprised. You know, you ought to load some proper protection into your nodes. They're terrific pieces of gear, wish I had some. But the guardian bytes you're using leave them wide-open.

I used to think I had proper protection.

I could write you some. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you, you're a friend of Greg's. And the PSP hates you. That makes you an A-one person in my book.

I'd take him up on that, Juliet, if I were you. Royan and I have been having a long chat. Boy knows what he's talking about.

Long?she asked.

You're operating in 'ware time now, Miss Juliet. Fast fast fast.

Oh. Thanks for the offer, Royan. But I think we'd better do what we can for Greg first.

Yeah, said Philip. Misjudged him in a big way. Jumping the gun. Never would've done that in the flesh. Really shouldn't have done it now. But we can make amends soon enough.

Julia concentrated on the thematic image. Her grandfather was squirting a solid stream of binary pulses up to a company Earth Resources platform through Wilholm's one remaining uplink, a hum in the background of her consciousness.

Greg's moving, look, he said.

A diamond star had appeared on the thematic image. The magnification leapt up. Wisbech's outskirts disappeared. The town was slashed in two by a broad meandering band of deep turquoise. Like a rain-swollen river, Julia thought, even though she knew the whole place was mud-locked. Her grandfather jumped the magnification again. Then again. The star was gleaming a few hundred metres east of the turquoise band. A small dot of crimson on the edge of the turquoise band was turning a brighter scarlet.

Something is warming up down there, Philip said.

I think I can help, said Royan.

A crude transparent map was superimposed on the thematic image.

Ordnance Survey, Royan explained. The last one before the PSP came to power. Nothing much changed between then and the start of the Warming.

The map rotated slowly clockwise until the two sets of grid lines meshed, then it swam in and out of focus, matching up the street patterns.

Close as we'll get.

Disused mill, Julia read, The dot had become a fluorescent ruby.

Thermal emission rising sharply, said Philip. It's on fire. And Greg's moving away, dead slow. Means the boy's on foot, swimming rather, in that gunk.

Escaping, said Royan.

Could well be. I wonder if Gabriel is with him.

If she's alive, she'll be with him, Royan censured.

Julia sensed the adoration verging on love that Royan had somehow managed to convey into their inanimate medium. His belief was unshakeable. And she knew he was right, Greg didn't desert people to save his own skin.

Grandpa?

I know, Juliet. The strike window ends in ninety seconds—mark. Decision time.

Mr. Philip told me about that, Miss Juliet. It's a grand idea. He said it was your suggestion.

Certainly was, boy. She's an Evans, through and through. And we don't do anything by halves. No sir.

I wonder who's in that tower, Royan asked.

Someone big, Julia said. Someone important, important enough to make Kendric visit him, not the other way round. And if you knew Kendric like I do, you'd know how few people in the world would be granted that concession.

The first instance of sensation invaded their private universe, an electric tingle reminding her of far-off nerves. Julia looked down on the mill, judging it with the dispassion of some Olympian goddess.

Could it really be? Philip asked.

There was never any body, said Royan. Never any real proof. Not even Mindstar knew.

We'd have to hurry. The timing is tight, very tight.

No, Julia said, bold with conviction. The timing is perfect.

Synchronised.

Gabriel? Philip enquired.

I expect so, she said. Whatever the reason, we cannot ignore this opportunity.

I agree, said Royan.

That makes it unanimous, then. Access the Ordnance Survey's memory core and download that mill's co-ords, m'boy, accurate as you can get. We've only got the one satellite uplink left after your friends came a-knocking. I would've preferred to keep watching Wisbech, just in case we need to update. But we'll simply have to make do.

You're lucky you've still got that one. Father is efficient.

Julia's awareness shifted as the thematic image faded. She was plugged directly into Wilholm's myriad gear systems, a bright-glowing three-dimensional cobweb of data channels. New strands were coming on-line at a phenomenal rate as the antithesis poured through it, purging the virus.

A quick status check showed her that there were only three functional servos out of the eight which steered Wilholm's one remaining satellite dish. Accelerated time stretched for what seemed like aeons as the dish swivelled round on its axis to point at the western horizon. Her grandfather had overridden the servos' safety limiters, allowing them to take a double load. Temperature sensors relayed the heat from overloaded motors straight into her medulla, interpreted as scalding hands.

Sorry, Juliet.

Her pain vanished.

The dish's rotation halted, smaller azimuth servos began tracking it across the sky.

Co-ords ready for loading, Mr. Philip. Got them down to half a metre.

Anything within three hundred metres would be enough, Julia said.

Don't brag so, girl, Philip said as he loaded the figures into an OtherEyes personality package. But a sliver of pride escaped from his thoughts.

So, that just leaves the reactivation code. Juliet, your honour.

She allowed herself one moment of supremely self-indulgent satisfaction.

Access AvengingAngel. The long string of binary digits emerged from her nodes to hang between the three of them. Her grandfather integrated it into the OtherEyes personality package. The completed data construct squirted into the dish transmitter, streaming upwards at light-speed.

This time, you bastard, this time I'll get you.