‘That would tip his neural systems through phase transitions, wouldn’t it?’
‘If you mean the new mind would no longer think like a human being, you’re right. Yet it would still be a coherent entity, provided the plexcore array functioned correctly. But you can’t scale them up.’
‘Surely you can. The topology is—’
‘Lightspeed delays across synaptic interfaces. The farther apart the processors are, the more—’
‘Understood. I hadn’t realized. He was spreading his mind across physically distant plexcores.’
‘In the end, yes. We have the whole collection in our museum here, the old plexcores. Or nearly the whole collection, at the moment.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘One’s on loan to the multiversity for study. It’s a long-term thing.’
For an entire second, Sunadomari withdrew from Skein, sucked in a breath, glanced at the two peacekeepers in his flyer’s cabin with him, then immersed himself in Skein once more.
‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You lent it to a Dr Greg Ranulph.’
‘No, it’s a team effort, but he’s not on the list.’
‘Then Dr Petra Helsen.’
‘She’s on the team. But . . . tell me you don’t think there’s another de la Vega.’
‘There is.’
‘Helsen’s an ordinary human, my friend.’
‘I wonder about that, but she’s no Luculenta. I do know someone who fits the description well, however.’
‘So are you hunting for this person?’
‘SatScan and full surveillance on the ground, but it’s not helping. On the other hand, I don’t think it matters where she is physically.’
‘She’s attacking through Skein?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Then that’s how we’ll find her.’
‘See you in reality, soon.’
The flyer cabin came back into awareness. His conversation with Hsiu Li-Cheng had lasted less than two seconds. Neither of the peacekeepers showed any awareness that there had even been a discussion taking place. It was the kind of thing one grew used to as a Luculentus, the ability to move things along at the speed of thought.
But Rafaella Stargonier was just as fast.
FORTY-THREE
FULGOR, 2603 AD
A steel eagle circled overhead, while Roger stood on the quickstone forecourt, stared at the student house he theoretically still lived in, and used his tu-ring to open up a small holospace. Thanks to the eagle, this enquiry would appear to originate from the Spalding home, where it clanked along inside the hypozone. But not everything depended on Xavier - the turing had spyware functions he had never used before, his last gift from Dad.
‘Got it.’ It was quicker to use control gestures and abbreviated subvocalizations. ‘And show.’
He now had access to the logs from Alisha’s room. Her nipples were so pink on soft white breasts, as she climbed from the bed where she had slept naked—
‘Shit.’
Face burning, he fast-forwarded through to where she made a call, then zoomed in. She had not spoken in clear, but her lips moved as she subvocalized. A second holospace opened above the tu-ring, showing the ware’s analysis of her words.
‘Roger,’ she was saying. ‘I have to be at Aleph Tower at nine. I’m meeting Rafaella Stargonier. She owns the building, I think.
‘If you get this before I leave, you could come along. If you like, I mean. It would be good to . . . Never mind.
‘See you later.’
He shut the display down.
‘Shit. Shit.’
If he had only dared to log on to Skein. She had left a message for him. For him. No need to spy inside her room’s memory. All he had needed to do was check his own bastard messages. How many hours he had wasted from cowardice?
He looked up at the steel eagle, wondering what Xavier made of this.
‘Maybe I should—’
‘Hey, Roger!’ From an upper balcony, Stef was leaning over. ‘How did you guys get on last night?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You know what I’m . . . Oh, a gentleman never tells, huh?’
‘We didn’t—’
‘See you in class. You can tell me then.’ She blew him a kiss. ‘Later.’
Then she went inside.
Crap.
He re-opened the hololog at the same point, scanned forward until Alisha appeared to be making another call. He zoomed in once more. This time she was calling for an aircab to take her to Aleph Tower. Speeding the log forward, she did nothing significant until leaving the room two minutes before the aircab was due.
Not caring now whether he was tracked, he called down an aircab of his own, and told it to take him to Aleph Tower. The steel eagle flew overhead - the call would still appear to have originated from the Spalding home - but surveillance might realize that a physical human being had boarded from the multiversity campus, and wonder who it was.
Once at the tower, he requested that the aircab remain hovering while he alighted.
‘Roger.’ The shaven head of Xavier appeared in holo. ‘Open up a query to the building system. I’ll piggyback from here.’
‘But the people inside—’
‘We can scan a system a lot faster than we can persuade a person.’
‘All right.’
He pointed his tu-ring at the quickglass wall, and waited. In ten seconds - a long time in computation - a shaky moving holo appeared next to his hand. Alisha, staggering from Aleph Tower, almost falling into an aircab.
‘One moment, Roger. Shit.’
‘What is it?’
‘The aircab was commanded to take her to Killian’s Dive in Quarter Moon. But it wasn’t one of mine, damn it.’
‘Sir?’
‘I mean the aircab. I own—Ah, you are using one of mine. Good. Get back in, and you’re off the grid.’
‘But I don’t know what—’
‘Roger, there are two peacekeeper flyers over my roof. I’m going to try to contact Superintendent Sunadomari before they get inside, but I have to shut this down now.’
The holo was gone.
Overhead, the steel eagle was flying away. All Roger could do was climb into the aircab and tell it where to go.
‘Killian’s Dive. Quarter Moon District.’
The aircab soared upward.
Perhaps there were shabbier districts in Lucis City; perhaps there were more dangerous; but none could match old Quarter Moon for sleaze. Roger walked away from the ascending aircab, feeling dirty already. From a doorway, a small man beckoned.
‘Hey, you like girls?’
‘No. I mean yes, but—Sorry.’
Dark buildings, bright holos. Perhaps night could add a veneer of glamour; in daylight, the streaks on walls that ought to self-clean were evident, while beneath the warm scents of cooking that floated from cheap eateries, pungent undertones were lurking.
The entrance to Killian’s Dive was a vertical oval, ringed with long-fibred matting. The fibres curled, and it took him a moment to understand the pubic symbolism. He wanted to puke.
Inside, he took in the silver bar set diagonally across the half-lit space, the customers that sat or stood, tired or morose or stunned-looking, drinking whatever morning drinkers took. None of the customers was Alisha.
Behind the bar was a large man with motile purple tattoos crawling across his scalp. His thick-muscled arms were bare, except for steel rings set around wrists and biceps that appeared to be set into the flesh.
Usually, a human bartender added a touch of class, since any quickglass room could provide service. Here, the big man provided visual intimidation - and probably backed it up with violence as needed.
How am I supposed to question him?