The Evolutionary Void (29 page)

“Asom?” Laril asked uncertainly. Suddenly this whole meeting seemed like
a bad idea. It got worse. His connection to the unisphere dropped out without
warning, which was theoretically impossible. Laril’s force field snapped up to
its highest rating. He took a couple of shaky paces backward before turning to
run. Files in his storage lacuna were already displaying escape routes to the
emergency taxis he’d mapped out earlier. It was fifteen paces to a service
hatch, which led to a maze of utility tunnels. The skeletal woman-thing would
never be able to track him in there.

Three men appeared in the seating tiers ahead of him; they just shimmered
into existence as their one-piece suits discarded their stealth camouflage
effect.

Laril froze. “Ozziecrapit,” he groaned. His field scan showed that each
of them was enriched with sophisticated weapons. Their force fields were a lot
stronger than his. They advanced toward him.

His exovision displays abruptly spiked with incomprehensible quantum
fluctuations. He didn’t even have time to open his mouth to scream before the
whole universe turned black.

Arranging an entrapment had never been so easy. Valean was almost ashamed
by the simplicity. Even before she landed at Darklake City, Accelerator agents
had secreted subversion software into the Bayview Tower net. Incredibly, Laril
used his own apartment’s node to access the unisphere. She wondered if all his
calls to various old colleagues were some kind of subtle misdirection. Surely
nobody was so inept. But it appeared to be real. He genuinely thought he was
being smart.

So she replied personally to his final call, assuming the Ondra identity.
Again, the suggestion of the coliseum as a meeting point was a shocking failure
of basic procedure. Its thick walls provided a perfect screen from standard
civic and police scrutiny. The Accelerator team members were laughing when they
found his “escape” taxis parked suspiciously close to utility tunnel exits. And
as for the antiquated monitor software he’d loaded into the coliseum’s network
…

Valean waited in the darkness of the performers’ tunnel as he slid down
the glidepath. His field function scan probed around, its rudimentary
capability finally confirming how woefully naive he was. Her own biononics
deflected it easily. As soon as three of her team were in place behind him, she
walked out into the morning sunlight. Laril seemed so shocked, he didn’t even
attempt any hostile activity.
Lucky for him
, she
thought impassively.

The team closed in smoothly. Then Valean’s field scan showed her a sudden
change manifesting in the quantum fields. Her integral force field hardened.
Weapons enrichments powered up.

Laril vanished.

“What the fuck!” Digby exclaimed.

The
Columbia505
was hanging two hundred
kilometers above Darklake City to monitor the whole Jachal Coliseum affair.
Digby’s u-shadow had kept him updated on the software shenanigans in the
Oaktier cybersphere, how Valean had run electronic rings around poor old Laril.
Given the nature of the people he had to watch during his professional career,
Digby normally felt no sympathy for any of them. Laril, however, was in a class
of his own when it came to ineptitude. Sympathy didn’t quite apply, but he was
certainly starting to feel a degree of pity for the fool who’d been dragged
into an event of which he had no true understanding.

Digby watched in growing disbelief as Laril’s taxi landed on the lip of
the coliseum. The man had absolutely no idea what he was walking into. The
Columbia505
’s sensors could see the Accelerator agents
from two hundred kilometers’ altitude. Yet Laril’s own field function scan was
so elementary that he couldn’t spot them from two hundred meters.

Letting out a groan, Digby brought up the starship’s targeting systems.
No doubt about it, he was going to have to intervene. Paula was absolutely
right: Valean could not be allowed to snatch Laril. Precision neutron lasers
locked on to Valean and her team.

He still wasn’t sure if he should take the
Columbia505
down to retrieve Laril afterward or simply remove Valean’s subversive software
from his “escape” taxis and steer them to a rendezvous. He was inclined to pick
Laril up himself; the man was a disaster area and shouldn’t be allowed to
wander around the Commonwealth by himself, not with his connection to Araminta.

Valean emerged from the tunnel and walked toward a startled Laril. Three
of the eight Accelerator agents discarded their stealth. Digby designated the
fire sequence.

Strange symbols shot up into his exovision. It was the last thing he’d
expected. A T-sphere enveloped Darklake City.

Laril teleported out of Jachal Coliseum.

The T-sphere withdrew instantaneously.

Digby reviewed every sensor input he could think of. Valean and her team
appeared equally surprised by Laril’s magic disappearing act, launching a
barrage of questors into the city net. To Digby there was something even more
disturbing than their reaction: The T-sphere hadn’t registered in any Oaktier
security network.

That would take a level of ability that went way beyond a team of faction
agents.

He called Paula. “We have a problem.”

“A T-sphere?” she said once he’d finished explaining. “That’s unusual.
There’s no known project on Oaktier using a T-sphere, so that implies it’s
covert. And given that no official sensor could detect it, I’d say it was also
embedded. Interesting.”

“The
Columbia505
’s sensors gave it a diameter
of twenty-three kilometers.”

“Where’s the exact center?”

“Way ahead of you.” Visual sensor images of Darklake City flashed up in
Digby’s exovision. They focused on the Olika district, one of the original
exclusive areas bordering the lakeshore; its big houses sat in lavish grounds,
a mishmash of styles representing the centuries over which they’d been added to
and modified. In the middle of the district was a long road running parallel to
the shore. The center of the image expanded, zooming in on a lavender-colored
drycoral bungalow wrapped around a small swimming pool. Probably the smallest
house in the whole district.

“Oh, my God,” Paula said.

“That’s the center,” Digby said. “1800 Briggins. Registered to a Paul
Cramley. Actually, he’s lived there for … oh. That can’t be right.”

“It is,” Paula told him.

“Do you think the T-sphere generator is underneath the bungalow? I can
run a deep scan.”

“Don’t bother.”

“But …”

“Laril is perfectly safe. Unfortunately, Araminta won’t be able to call
him for advice now, not without paying the price to Paul’s ally.”

“Then you know this Cramley person? My u-shadow can’t find anything on
file.”

“Of course not. Paul was busy wiping himself from official databases
before Nigel and Ozzie opened their first wormhole to Mars.”

“Really?”

“Just keep watching Valean.”

“Is that it?”

“For the moment. I’ll try and talk to Paul.”

Digby knew better than to ask.

Laril knew the light and air had changed somehow. He wasn’t standing in
the sunlight of the coliseum, and the air he gulped down was perfectly
conditioned. It was also quiet. He risked opening his eyes.

Of all the possible fates, he wasn’t prepared for the perfectly ordinary,
if somewhat old-fashioned, lounge he was in. The lighting globes were off,
making it appear gloomy. Its only illumination came from sunlight leaking
through the translucent gray curtains pulled across tall arching windows. He
could just make out some courtyard with a circular swimming pool on the other
side of the glass. The floor was dark wood planks, their grain almost lost with
age and polish. Walls were raw drycoral, lined with shelves.

There were some chic silver globe chairs floating a few centimeters above
the floorboards. A man was sitting on one of them, its surface molded around
him as if it were particularly elastic mercury. His youthful features gave him
a handsome appearance, especially with thick dark hair cut longer than the
current style. Instinct warned Laril he was old, very old. This wasn’t someone
he could bullshit like his ex-business partners and girlfriends. He didn’t even
risk using his field function scan. No way of telling how the man would react.

“Uh.” He cleared his throat as his heart calmed a little. “Where am I?”

“My home.”

“I don’t … uh, thank you for getting me out of there. Are you Asom?”

“No. There’s no such person. You were being played by the Accelerators.”

“They know about me?”

The man raised an eyebrow contemptuously.

“Sorry,” Laril said. “So who are you?”

“Paul Cramley.”

“And am I in even deeper shit now?”

“Not at all.” Paul grinned. “But you’re not free to go, either. That’s
for your own good, by the way; it’s not a threat.”

“Right. Who else knew about me?”

“Well, I did. And it looks like the stealthed ultradrive starship in
orbit does. So along with Valean and her team, that makes three of us. I
daresay more are on their way.”

“Oh, Ozzie.” Laril’s shoulders sagged from the pressure of dismay. “My
software isn’t as good as I thought, is it?”

“In my experience, I’ve never seen worse. And trust me, that’s a lot of
experience. But then I don’t think you realize exactly what you’re dealing with.”

“Okay, so who are you? What’s your interest?”

“You should be about to find out. I’m guessing that an old acquaintance
is going to call any minute now. And when you’re as old as me, your guesses are
certainties.”

“If you’re old and you’re not in ANA, you’re probably not a faction
agent.”

“Glad to see you have some gray matter, after all. Ah, here we go.”

A portal projected an image of a woman into the lounge. Laril groaned. He
didn’t need any identification program to recognize Paula Myo.

“Paula,” Paul said in a happy voice. “Long time.”

“This crisis seems to be bringing the golden oldies out to play in
droves.”

“Is that resentment I hear?”

“Just an observation. Laril, are you all right?”

He shrugged. “I suppose, yeah.”

“Don’t ever do anything as stupid as that again.”

Laril scowled at the investigator’s image.

“Thanks for exiting him,” Paula said. “My own people would have been
noisy.”

“Not a problem.”

“It won’t take Valean long to determine your location. She’ll visit.”

“She’s not as stupid as Laril, surely.”

“No,” Paula agreed as Laril bridled silently. “But she has a mission, and
Ilanthe won’t give her a choice.”

“Poor her.”

“Quite. Give me its access code, please.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Paul. We don’t have the time.”

Paul gave her projected image a martyred look. “Connecting you directly.”

Paula’s image winked off.

“Who’s she talking to?” Laril asked.

“Next best thing now that ANA’s unavailable,” Paul said, sounding
indifferent.

“So … I’m sorry, I still don’t get who you are.”

“Just a bloke who has been around for a long while. That gives me a
certain perspective on life. I know my own mind, and I don’t like what the
Accelerators are doing. Which is why I helped you out.”

One of the silver globes floated over to Laril, who sat down gingerly.
Once the surface had bowed around him, it was actually rather comfortable. “So
how old are you?”

“Put it this way: When I grew up, no one had traveled farther than the
moon. And half the planet thought that was a hoax. Dickheads.”

“The moon? Earth’s moon?”

“Yeah. There’s only one: the moon.”

“Great Ozzie, that makes you over a thousand.”

“Thousand and a half.”

“So why haven’t you migrated inward?”

“You speak like that’s inevitable. Not everyone accepts that biononics
and downloading into ANA is the path forward. There are still a few of us
independents left. Admittedly, we do tend to be quite old. And stubborn.”

“So what are you trying to achieve?”

“Self-sufficiency. Liberty. Individualism. Neutrality. That kind of
thing.”

“But doesn’t Higher culture give …” Laril trailed off as Paul raised his
eyebrow again.

“And you were acting on which committee’s authority this morning?” Paul
asked mildly.

“Okay. I’m having trouble accepting Higher life. I just don’t see what
else there is.”

“Get your biononics. Work out how to use them properly—I mean that in
your case. Get yourself a stash of EMAs and strike out for whatever you want.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Actually it’s a bitch. And I still haven’t got a clue how I’m going to
finish up. Postphysical, presumably. But when I do, it’ll be on my terms, not
something imposed on me.”

“You know, that’s the way I like to think.”

“I’m flattered. Ah, looks like Valean has found us.”

Laril gave the windows an anxious look. There was the unmistakable
high-pitched whistling of a capsule descending fast outside. When he squinted
through the windows looking out across the long garden, he saw two
chrome-yellow ovoids come to a halt above the freshly mown grass. The skeletal
woman stepped out of the first. Laril’s heart started to speed up at the sight
of her. Those strange carmine streamers swam along behind her as she advanced
on the bungalow. Six weapons-enriched agents followed her, various hardware
units emerging from their skin to poke aggressive nozzles at the bungalow.

“Do we need to, uh, maybe get to safety?” Laril stammered. His biononics
reported that a sophisticated field scan was sweeping through the bungalow. He
brought his integral force field up to full strength.

Paul sat even farther back in his silver chair, putting his hands behind
his head to regard the approaching Accelerator team nonchalantly. “You can’t
get anywhere safer in the Commonwealth.”