‘Do you have confirmation, or was it just that she never came back?’
‘The latter.’
‘So. Very well.’ Kelvin made the control gestures in a fine, exact manner, like sacramental ritual. ‘It’s done.’
No trace of Avril Tarquelle’s existence remained in the official data.
Kelvin added: ‘How are you doing, Max? Are you sleeping all right?’
‘I feel fucking awful.’
Old eyes glittering, Kelvin looked at him for several seconds.
‘That’s exactly how you should feel, old friend.’
Max used fastpath rotation, stepping out into the antechamber of his office. Just as he reached the threshold, more panes of nothingness began to rotate behind him.
Waiting in the open doorway, he watched as a familiar white-haired figure stepped through, her movements lithe despite her years.
‘Admiral Kaltberg. Please come in.’
He went inside, and gestured for drinks. A selection of decanters and crystal glasses rose on a table from the floor. Old-fashioned but stylish: that was the way to conduct this meeting.
But something in the admiral’s manner, as she took a seat and crossed her legs, told him that this was not going to proceed in a predictable manner.
‘Brandy ma’am? Or something different?’
‘I don’t—Sorry, Max. What am I here for?’
‘Admiral?’
‘My retirement, was that it?’
Max moved behind his desk and sat, every sense on full alert.
‘You wanted to check that Dr Sapherson was going to give you very selective amnesia, ma’am. I believe that was your concern.’
‘I—Yes, that must be it. Why I’m . . . here.’
‘Only the most confidential data will disappear from your mind,’ he said. ‘A team of watchmen did a survey of retired operatives just last year. Practically zero memory disappearance beyond the desired data. And they reported a strengthening of cognitive functions, as the majority of memories were repotentiated during the procedure.’
Beneath his desk, his hands formed a control gesture.
Shit.
In the admiral’s old eyes, golden sparks were forming.
‘Admiral, I need to warn you—’
‘M-Max . . .’
He admired her so much. The idea of harming her was awful.
‘What’s going on, ma’am?’
‘G-uh . . .’
‘Ma’am?’
‘G-uh . . .’
There two choices. He looked up at the ceiling.
‘Medical emergency,’ he said. ‘Open up—’
‘Get . . . out . . . Max.’
Her left hand was trembling.
Oh fuck.
The hand that was holding the graser pistol, pointed at him.
‘Stop this.’
It was an antique weapon, which was why it got past scanners - if it was carried by an admiral - but coherent gamma rays could kill as easily as smartmist.
And her eyes were brightening, golden sparks whirling in black orbs.
‘Flee . . . Max. My . . . friend.’
Her left hand was shaking, but the graser would still get him, and it took just a tiny movement to squeeze the firing-stud.
‘I’m not leaving you, Admiral.’
‘Must . . .’
Finger, about to tighten.
Everything dropped from his perception except that knuckle, about to squeeze.
‘Aaah! Fuck!’ she cried out.
A golden explosion took place inside her eyes, yet no energy burst forth. Max had never heard of such a thing. His last new experience before dying?
Still she had not fired.
‘Max.’ Smoke rose from her eyeballs. ‘I’m neurally wired. Get the fuck out of here.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Now. It’s an order. Whether I fire the graser or not’ - her eyes were opaque grey, burned out, but she could still target him - ‘it’s going to explode. You’ve ten seconds at most.’
He made the emergency control gesture.
‘Drop the weapon. We’ll both go.’
Behind him, a whirlpool of yellow nothingness grew: his escape.
‘I can’t control the hand, Max.’
‘No—’
‘Quick. Go!’
She fired as he leapt into the yellow.
He fell through layers of reality.
Someone will pay.
Max accepted the danger of his job. But someone had used Admiral Adrienne Kaltberg as an assassination tool, and that deserved punishment. In a city-world with fractal time, pain could be made to last forever.
She would be dead by now. Clearly part of her mind - part of her brain - understood what had been done to her. It was easy to set a graser for self-destruction, and the explosion would be devastating - would have been devastating, for it had surely occurred.
Bastards.
Whoever they were, he would find them and bring punishment on their heads.
Admiral, you were the best.
Ironically, his office was thoroughly shielded and armoured. It would have served to contain the explosion; but everything and everyone inside would have been annihilated. He wondered how long it would take Internal Security to break in.
And whether they would think that he had perished along with Admiral Kaltberg.
That would be a help.
He came out into a long cavernous space that looked as if it stretched forever - which was geometrically true. Bulbous pillars in all directions, glowing, illuminated the soft, endless, grey-blue floor and ceiling.
There were food stashes all over - he had planned his emergency routes with care, over many years - but no devices existed here to help him. That was part of what kept this entire infinite subspace off the grid, undetectable from the rest of Labyrinth.
And that was why the only way to reach any of his exit points was on foot. None was closer than a three-day walk from here.
The Med Centre. That would be a good one.
By exiting outside Ascension Annexe, he would be into public areas where enemies might hesitate to move; but the Med Centre would have access to emergency systems. He could mobilize people he trusted.
Because the enemy, whoever they were, clearly included people with the highest level of security clearance, able to plan a killing inside the heart of the intelligence service.
So, the Med Centre it was.
‘Here we go,’ he said aloud, to an entire reality inhabited only by him. ‘Might as well start now.’
It would take seven, maybe eight days to reach the exit point he had decided on.
Reading subtle rune-like markings on the pillars - his own secret code - he headed in the chosen direction. Perhaps twenty minutes into the journey, he stopped.
‘My God, Admiral. How did you do it?’
For he had worked out the meaning behind her actions, and could not imagine doing it himself. Such discipline and courage were beyond him.
The neural wiring had been active and adaptive, reinforcing itself as it worked, predominantly inside the right hemisphere of her brain. Thinking back, it was obvious.
Every intelligence officer learned to read minutiae. In everyday conversation, often a person’s left hand will make subtle gestures that either reinforce or give the lie to the words that the person is speaking. It happens all the time, yet so few people notice.
But, though the admiral’s left hemisphere could utter words, it had not been enough to quell the cross-brain compulsion from the implanted neural ‘wiring’ - a femtoviral targetted infection.
Not until she had directed her inductive energy inwards, burning out the corpus callosum in her own brain, severing the bridge that linked her two cerebral hemispheres.
And then she had fought, herself against herself inside her mind, giving him time to escape.
Admiral Kaltberg. She deserved to be remembered with honour; just as her enemies deserved to experience eternal pain.
Now he had two reasons to keep on going.