Air Traffic took control as they approached this spiralling descent, and the orders he’d falsified on the way here gave them primacy, so Traffic inserted their craft lower down in the queue. As the big machine descended, sometimes only tens of metres away from other aeros, so that the roar of surrounding engines penetrated even the high-tech insulation of their craft, he unstrapped himself and headed to the rear. Hannah came to watch as he dragged Taiken’s body to a large integral chest half-full of squat gas canisters, and then shoved it inside.
‘Getting here was the easy part,’ he said.
‘Masterly understatement.’
Her irony had returned, so her sleep during the ten-hour journey must have restored some of her equilibrium.
He shrugged. ‘But though the next part will be difficult, failure is not an option.’
‘Was part of your installation software an arrogance program?’
Again linking into Govnet and the subsidiary spaceport network, cyberspace became as real all around him as the physical world. It seemed in fact part of the real world – just an extra perception of it somewhere between sight and thought, but with the added factor that he could manipulate it. His mind perpetually groped for suitable analogies for describing to himself what he was doing. To a certain extent it seemed like being inside a control space in virtual reality where information came in apparently physical units, to be moved about by hand and ordered by voice, but even this close relationship between man and machine amounted to no more than a more complex keyboard-and-mouse combination. It seemed he had completely closed the gap between man and machine; being actually in the machine, and part of it.
‘When someone knows his own capabilities and states how he intends to use them, is that arrogance?’ he asked.
‘It’s how it was said,’ Hannah replied.
He nodded, realizing that he really had been arrogant, because already he began detecting increased activity on Govnet, and a sampling of the communications soon explained why. Security had upped a level shortly after the destruction of Inspectorate HQ in the London sprawl, but was now ramping up to condition red. Massive troop movements were in progress, critical facilities being locked down, Committee delegates disappearing into their private fortresses. Chairman Messina was off the radar, and execs from the next echelon down were taking refuge in bunkers. Someone had just poked the Inspectorate wasp nest with a big stick, and it wasn’t Saul. Perhaps this explained why that other presence out there seemed unable to find him.
‘Malden,’ he said, as their craft slid into the side of the aero-park and turned to head for its designated slot.
‘What?’
‘Seems the revolution has started.’
Fourteen separate Inspectorate HQs had been hit, all across the world. Tactical nukes were used against two of them, four had been stormed by well-armed insurgents, most of the staff slaughtered and only a few captives taken. One was destroyed with thermal Hyex missiles whilst the remainder had received a taste of what they dealt, for the revolutionaries had used nerve gas. Eight scramjets had been hit by ground-to-air heatseekers before they got up enough speed to outrun the missiles. Three actual Committee delegates had been assassinated, hundreds of lower-echelon execs knifed, shot or blown up. These incidents were just part of a much larger widespread whole that included less lethal sabotage with, for example, a garage of Inspectorate cruisers being disabled, com towers blown up, and viral attacks affecting Govnet. He now related much of this news to Hannah.
‘I’d say they don’t stand a chance, but there’s Malden . . .’
‘Much of what I’m seeing seems likely to have been organized beforehand,’ Saul interrupted, as the aero settled into its slot. ‘I don’t think Malden would be satisfied with just taking out another Inspectorate HQ. He’ll go for something bigger.’
He checked the inventory of equipment aboard their craft, and then, opening a tool chest, took out a couple of large rolls of duct tape before turning and instructing the aero door to open ahead of them. After stepping down to the carbocrete floor, he turned to help Hannah down, but she ignored his hand and moved away to put some space between them. He didn’t react to that rebuff, since he was busy penetrating the cam system in order to cause a temporary fault. Once this sufficiently developed, he decided it was time she ceased to be just a passenger and tossed her one of the rolls.
‘Cover the serial number on the far side,’ he instructed.
She nodded and moved round to the other side of the craft, whilst he covered the number on this side. As Hannah returned, his next mental instruction closed up the machine and locked it, and in considering how to make things even more difficult for anyone who found this machine, he remembered numerous viral programs from that part of his mind that had been Janus. He used just one virus, but including elements of yet another one and a little bespoke tailoring, and it left the machine pondering, so that, about the time they stepped into the park lift, the craft shifted over to auto-defence. He had not set the readerguns to just kill any who got too close to it, but the moment someone started tampering, by either trying to force open the doors or peel that tape off, they would be in for a nasty surprise.
The lift took them down eighteen storeys, to where it opened into a security area with a row of gates operated by combined palm and retinal scanners. Just beyond the lift, Hannah came to a halt, uncertain and obviously frightened, as she turned to look at him for reassurance.
‘No problem,’ he said, beckoning her after him, while trying to ignore the stabbing pain growing between his eyes.
Penetrating the security all around them, he simply shut down the scanners and then opened the gate ahead. Beyond it lay an open area with readerguns mounted on the walls – a kill zone. He instructed the readerguns to ignore them both, but knew that would not be enough. Another push and he was into the Minsk security mainframe, inserting sketchy identities for the spaceport’s recognition programs, which now either opened any barriers ahead or simply overlooked the intruders.
‘You’re terrifying,’ remarked Hannah – but abruptly moved up beside him and looped her arm through his.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ he replied, turning his head away from her to flick a bloody tear from his eye. ‘But there’s something out there looking for us that might be just as capable. It keeps zeroing in on me every time I create enough noise on Govnet.’
‘Malden?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s the “powerful comlife” Janus mentioned.’
‘But they don’t have anything.’ She looked confused.
‘Seems they do.’
She was very thoughtful for a moment. ‘Are you making too much noise now?’
‘I don’t think so. Just local penetration.’
Local penetration wasn’t enough, however. At some point a diagnostic program would detect the alterations he had made, so he just hoped he had given himself and Hannah enough time.