"Great," he said sourly. "At least I know why I'm being shot at."
"I don't care what price Whitehurst puts on Fielder, Greg. But you've got to come back with her. The ident card we gave you is linked directly to the company's main account, so pay him whatever he asks and don't worry about it. Besides, I don't think he really understands what he's gone and got himself involved in. Unless that airship is armed like a destroyer, he's seriously underestimated how eager we all are to get our hands on Charlotte Fielder."
"OK, Julia, it's your money. And please try to find out who we're up against. If we know, we can watch them, find out what their moves are."
"I'll do what I can."
"OK, I'll call you after we get Fielder."
She ordered the phone off.
Access Security File: Reiger, Leol; Tekmerc. She closed her eyes and let the profile open out in her mind. Victor had assembled a surprisingly large amount of information on the tekmerc, including a psychological report. Greg had been right, Leol Reiger's mentality bordered on sociopathic.
That's a mean-looking bugger, Juliet. What're you planning on doing about him?
Leol Reiger's deals seemed to glow like blue neon in the formless grey mist of the node interface; the number of fatalities involved, those confirmed plus estimates. Forty-eight in the last nine years. Rumours of more, when he was just an ordinary hardliner, before he came to Victor's attention as a deal maker.
Exactly what I told Greg. Turn Victor loose on him. But that'll take time, for the moment I want to know who's hired him.
Assemble Personality Package.
She was back in the isolation of the 'ware universe, the blank depthless emptiness. Her processor nodes were integrating the package, following the formula Royan had devised; freezing and copying specific segments of her thought patterns, digitizing them.
In its compressed, dormant, state she could access the composite's multiple data planes, all neatly folded in on each other; sequences of memory, response logic, identity, motivation. They were slices of her mind, the crucial portions; subconscious inhibitions and emotional reticence rooted out, discarded. It was a streamlined edition of her own mentality.
Julia formulated her instructions carefully, loading them into the personality package. She withdrew, leaving herself alone with Leol Reiger's sleazy profile. Her eyes flicked open, reducing the profile to a smoky shadow overlaying the warm browns of the study.
A representation of the personality package was floating in one of the terminal's cubes, a dark green sphere with a multi-segmented surface, reminding her of an insect eye.
She began to type on the terminal, summoning up a finance transfer order, then entered Leol Reiger's Zurich bank account number, reading it direct from his profile.
You're giving Leol Reiger ten thousand Eurofrancs? her grandfather asked.
That's right. She watched the representation of the transfer order form in the cube, a translucent blue starfish. Easiest way I know of accessing the bank's mainframe. The arms of the starfish were closing around the personality package.
Bloody hell, I don't know what the world's coming to.
There was no sign of the intricately nicked green sphere; its surface had been covered by a smooth blue shell. Julia tested the assembled composite with a couple of security probe programs. Its integrity held.
You know a better way? she asked.
No. A mental sigh accompanied the admission.
Right, then. She tapped the download key, and the data composite squirted into Leol Reiger's Zurich bank.
Julia made a brief kissing motion after it. There was a nostalgic thrill in watching it go. She hadn't done any serious hotrodding for years. If only the conspiracy theorists knew. Julia Evans's hobby was criminal data piracy. They'd have a field day with that one.
She could have routed the request through Victor's division, put pressure on the bank to squirt over Leol Reiger's account data. Corporate entities did co-operate to a reasonable degree, especially with regard to tekmercs. But Zurich banks still clung to their independence. It would take a lot of pressure, and time.
A hiss of compressors penetrated the window. She turned to see the Pegasus carrying Victor Tyo and Dr Parnell lifting off the lawn. The scene looked vaguely surreal, like something out of a five-star resort advert; all it lacked was a couple of smiling models posing at a table by the pool, sipping something potent and cool.
Julia ran her hands through her hair, and turned back to the terminal. Time to find out just how widespread the knowledge of atomic structuring was. With at least two other groups chasing after Royan, she was starting to wonder exactly how many routes there were to the alien.
The terminal accessed Event Horizon's main communication network for here and she loaded a cut-off program at the junction. If anyone tried to backtrack her call the best they'd be able to come up with was English Telecom's Peterborough exchange. She entered the Gracious Services number.
There was no phone on the other end; England's hacker circuit had illegal catchment programs loaded into every exchange in the country. It pulled out her call and plugged her straight in.
There was a nervous flicker across her terminal's flatscreen, then it printed:
WELCOME TO GRACIOUS SERVICES.
WE AIM TO PLEASE
DATA FOUND, OR MONEY RETURNED.
NO ACCESS TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL.
JUST REMEMBER OUR CARDINAL RULE:
DO NOT ASK FOR CREDIT!!!
PLEASE ENTER YOUR HANDLE.
Julia thought for a moment; she hadn't actually used the circuit from this side before. Royan had signed her on as a novice hotrod when he was teaching her to write dark programs, saying the experience would do her good. She had run several burns against various companies and government departments, competing against the other hotrods for the client's money. It was a race, the one who pulled the data first cleaned up, minus the umpire's cut. Competition sharpened her mind to a considerable degree.
She grinned furtively and typed: MARIE ANTOINETTE.
GOOD AFTERNOON, MARIE ANTOINETTE YOUR
UMPIRE IS BLUEPRINCE. WHAT SERVICE DO YOU REQUIRE?
BULLETIN BOARD.
ALL RIGHT MARIE ANTOINETTE, THERE ARE ELEVEN
HOTRODS PLUGGED IN, AND EACH OF THEM HAS A
MEMORY CORE LOADED WITH BASEBORN BYTES. WHAT
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?
ONE) HOW MANY COMPANIES ARE PLUGGED INTO ATOMIC STRUCTURING TECHNOLOGY?
TWO) ARE ANY OF THEM IN POSSESSION OF THE THEORY FOR CONSTRUCTING A NUCLEAR FORCE GENERATOR?
THREE) WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF ATOMIC STRUCTURING TECHNOLOGY? I WILL ACCEPT ORIGIN RUMOURS IF HARD FACTS ARE UNAVAILABLE.
Her message stayed on the flatscreen for over a minute before it cleared.
I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT YOU WANT US FOR, MARIE ANTOINETTE, SIX HOTRODS HADN'T EVEN HEARD OF ATOMIC STRUCTURING. AND THOSE THAT DO SAY THEIR BYTES AREN'T GOING TO COME CHEAP. ATOMIC STRUCTURING IS THE BIGGEST ULTRA-HUSH TECHNOLOGY SINCE EVENT HORIZON CRACKED THE GIGACONDUCTOR.
"And don't I know it," she murmured, then typed: I UNDERSTAND BLUEPRINCE. DEAL FOR ME, PLEASE.
OK, THEY DONT HAVE MUCH, SO WHAT THEY'LL DO IS POOL WHAT THEY HAVE GOT. I'LL TABULATE FOR YOU, BUT IT'S A FLAT FEE SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS NEW STERLING EACH, AND YOU TAKE THE RISK THAT THE DATA IS REPLICATED FIVE TIMES. ARE YOU STILL INTERESTED?