Great North Road (96 page)

He’d tried to snatch a tox sac from the bedside cabinet and stuff it down the back of the headboard. The constables grabbed him mid-act and pulled him onto the floor. He was on his knees, hands behind his head with a Taser pressed against his chest.

“Officer, really!” he blustered. “There’s no need for any force to be used. You have the wrong man.”

“Really?” Mitchell asked in amusement. Boris moved a hand in an attempt to pull the thong off. A constable slapped it back. “So you are Mr. Song Lee Hoc?”

Boris grimaced at the mention of his secondary account name. “That’s not who I am. I can explain.”

“I hope so. We’ve been monitoring the Pink Apricot account.” Mitchell gave the girl a pointed glance. “They’re under investigation for human trafficking. Mr. Song Lee Hoc made a large payment from his North Korean account to them this evening, and now here you are with a club employee.”

“What? No no. This is all a mistake. Look, Officer, please. Can we perhaps discuss this off-log?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hoc, I don’t understand.”

“I’m not Song Lee Hoc,” Boris said, his face growing very flushed. “This is ridiculous. You damn well know what’s going on.” He made an effort to stand. A constable whacked the back of his knees with a telescoping nightstick. Boris screamed and collapsed. “Fuck you fuckers! My lawyer will crucify you fascist bastards.”

“Resisting arrest, and threatening a police officer,” Mitchell said. “I think you’d better come down to the station.”

“Oh Christ, don’t do this. No. Please. Come on. Don’t.”

“Tell you what, Mr. Hoc. Seeing as how I’m in a generous mood, I’ll let you put your pants on before we take you down through the lobby to the squad car.” Mitchell pointed at the thong. “Are these yours?”

An hour later Tallulah Packer was woken by a call from the London Metropolitan police. Her e-i confirmed the authenticity of the call.

“I’m very sorry to disturb you at this hour, ma’am,” Detective Rouche said. “But we’ve taken a man into custody following an incident at the Thames Europina hotel. His bloodspec revealed that he’s bumped a lot of peptox, and there’s some confusion about his identity. The profile we’ve harvested from his e-i indicated you were an acquaintance. I was wondering if you could provide a positive visual identification for us.”

It took a sleepy, bewildered Tallulah a moment to reply. “I … yes.”

The image that was sent to her grid showed her fiancé on his knees beside a hotel bed with a naked hooker cowering behind him; he had a red thong on his head.

“Can you tell me if this is Mr. Boris Attenson?” Detective Rouche asked.

“Yes. It is.”

“Thank you ma’am. Sorry, again, to disturb you.” The call ended.

T
HURSDAY,
A
PRIL 4, 2143

It was field 12-GH-B2 that made the call. Driving out of Highcastle on the northwest road toward the top of Lake Alnwick, Adrian 2North realized it could have been any of sectors Northumberland Interstellar was cropping that called him in. Snow had finally reached the center of Ambrose after a not inconsiderable journey of three and a half thousand kilometers from the massive continent’s southern coastline. A week of winter winds and deluges of icy rains had preceded the gentle flakes, so when they did arrive no one was surprised.

Adrian was in the middle of his management duty week, which had been extended by the gateway restrictions. In the office tower at the center of the city he’d spent a lot of time accessing the reports from Abellia, watching in dismay as the blizzards struck Brinkelle’s fiefdom, bringing a meter of snow in less than three days. Nothing was flying out of Abellia airport anymore, and the entire remote district was coming to terms with having to survive by itself until the sunspot outbreak lifted. There’s been some talk of flying supplies over from Eastshields using aircraft with skis, but that was mainly wishful thinking from unlicensed sites and worried Abellia workers. As Adrian had full access to Northumberland Interstellar’s level-one network he knew nobody was even looking at leasing such aircraft, let alone preparing to ship one through the gateway.

So there he’d been, sitting on the seventh floor in the control center with the aircon switched to its unfamiliar heating function, overseeing the staff who ran the vast pipework network, when the call came in. It had been snowing for seven hours by then, with the ground cooling enough to allow it to settle sporadically. He looked down on the outlandish mantle building up on the city’s roofs and called down to the garage, reserving a big Range Rover E’lite after making sure its service history was up to date. He sent the supervisor to get a box full of self-heating food and a two-liter thermos of coffee. One of the few downtown clothing stores that remained open was doing a great trade in winter coats. Adrian had one printed out in his size and climbed into the Range Rover.

With the exception of Motorway A, most of the roads beyond the city boundary soon ran out of tarmac, giving way to compacted dirt tracks. The northwest route was no different, which meant the snowfall completely wiped it from view. He couldn’t tell what was road and what was the sandy scrubland on either side. The forward radar and mesh sensors just managed to penetrate the icy cloak, displaying the twin ruts in his grid. Combined with the Range Rover’s inertial navigation system, he could steer along the track with reasonable confidence, providing he didn’t go over fifty kph. He was used to tearing down the tracks though the algaepaddies at over 150.

Nothing else was moving out among the algaepaddies. Northumberland Interstellar staff had proved exceptionally loyal, sticking to their jobs while the majority of the city bundled their valuables into cars and vans, and took off for the gateway. Presumably they believed Augustine North would make sure they were allowed back if the situation got really bad—after all, most of them were registered GE citizens working on St. Libra for tax-free salaries and a decent bonus. That was another issue noticeably absent from the level-one network.

The windshield wipers were on, pushing the fluffy flakes to the side of the heated glass. Headlights on full beam cut through the fall. And the Range Rover net remained linked to Highcastle’s transnet cells. But the feeling of isolation grew with every kilometer. It wasn’t the outrageously unfamiliar snow that was the problem, but the light. Adrian simply couldn’t get used to the meager coral glimmer illuminating the landscape.

Two hours after leaving the office, he reached field 12-GH-B2, a cluster of twelve algaepaddies, whose crop was genetically tweaked to provide biodiesel. Gwen Besset, the district manager, was waiting for him at the end of the track, sitting in her Jeep with the heater on. She was heavily pregnant, wrapped in a thick poncho.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “Regional kept saying they couldn’t spare anyone.”

“That’s okay. I think someone at my level needs to know firsthand exactly what the effect is.” Adrian had worked with Gwen for more than seven years now and trusted her judgment. If she said there was a problem, it was likely to be a big one.

They walked up the embankment slope of the first algaepaddy to stand on the rim. Adrian stared out across the kilometer-wide circle of sludge smothering the water. Even with the bad red light he could see the mottling. Dark patches had emerged on the rumpled surface, seemingly at random. They ranged from a couple of meters across to one that was over fifty. The majority were just behind the giant boom arm that swept around and around, almost as if it were responsible for spreading them.

“The dead areas started appearing this morning,” Gwen said. “Hardly surprising. The algae was never designed to live in this kind of temperature. Its growth rate has been slowing all week. Output is well down.”

“Yes,” Adrian said. “To twelve percent, as of last night. Augustine himself noticed that figure. But this … not good.”

They walked along the rim to the boom arm with the snow swirling around them. For once the sweet-sulfur smell of the algae was reduced, diluted by the cold air. He watched the flakes landing on the algae where they slowly dissolved.

“You will get us out, won’t you?” Gwen asked. “If it gets really bad here? I mean, the farms have lost their entire crop now. They say the citrus groves can’t survive more than a couple of weeks of this weather, assuming it doesn’t get worse. Everything will have to be replanted when the sunspots end. But the supply chain doesn’t have a lot of reserve built in.”

Adrian stopped at the bulky end of the boom, which was crawling along its concrete rail, thick roller wheels barely turning. The motors inside the drive casing were making a loud grinding noise he’d never heard before, as if their axle bearings were filled with sand. He looked at Gwen, whose hands had come to rest on her bump. “If it ever gets to that stage, we’ll make sure our employees get out.”

“Thanks, Adrian, appreciate hearing that.”

He pointed at the drive casing. “So what’s happening here?”

“Resistance,” Gwen said simply. “The algae is starting to frost up. That’s preventing the boom intakes from ingesting, which turns them into bulldozer blades. The system can’t cope with that kind of inertia; the stresses we’re seeing are way outside spec-tolerance.”

“Crap on it,” Adrian muttered. They went up the short metal steps to the walkway, which ran the whole five hundred meters along the top of the boom. Looking down on the algae he could see the usually mushy bloom starting to frost up, becoming stiffer and sluggish, reluctant to enter the inlet nozzles. Long puckered mounds were starting to accrete across the intake meshes. That was what the boom was pushing against. “And they’re all the same?” he asked.

“Every one in the field, I inspected them all. Which means it’s the same for every algaepaddy on the Jarrow Plain. They’re dying and breaking down at the same time. Adrian, you’ve got to do something. The algae we can reseed when the sunspots finish. But replacing every boom arm NI owns? That’s going to cost more money than my e-i can count. Is the company even insured for that kind of disaster?”

Adrian scowled grimly down at the dying algaepaddy. However he tried to spin it in his mind, he couldn’t deny Gwen was right. He told his e-i to call Augustine using the most secure encryption he’d got. It wasn’t a call he’d ever imagined he’d be making, and it took a lot of resolution to stick with it and go past all the security buffers. Even a 2North wasn’t entitled to instant direct access to Augustine. But eventually the call was permitted by Augustine’s e-i.

“Adrian,” Augustine acknowledged. “I see you’re out in the fields. What can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry, Father, but we need to shut down bioil production. All of it.”

*

At seven minutes to six the monitor program receiving the feed from meshes along Bensham Road alerted Ian that Tallulah Packer had walked out of her office. It was raining that evening, so she popped up her umbrella, called out her good-byes to colleagues, and scurried off to the Gateshead metro station.

She was going straight home to the St. James singletown, he knew; interception routines in the transnet had given him full access to all the calls she’d made that day. The majority had been work-related, and as hectic as expected on the day NI and the other St. Libra Great Eight bioil producers announced that they were shutting down their algaepaddies. However, several had been from girlfriends urging her to come out with them that night. She’d turned them down with thanks, saying she just wasn’t ready for that kind of recovery program yet. It was far too soon after what “he” had done. Even her mother had called, full of awkward concern that the engagement was over.

Ian’s monitors were also tight on Boris Attenson. He’d made police bail first thing that morning, and taken the express back up to Newcastle. Calls Ian had intercepted revealed how displeased his bosses at the bank were, but given the turmoil in the financial market all day his indiscretion was sliding in far below the board’s radar. Boris even put in a few hours in the office that afternoon.

Now the monitors showed Boris entering the St. James singletown on the Barrack Road entrance, and finding a table in the Travorl bar, ordering a coffee. The bar’s mesh sensor was a good one, allowing Ian to zoom in and see the light film of perspiration on Boris’s brow. A nervous, desperate man working up his courage. Sure enough, with the coffee only half drunk, Boris called the waitress over and ordered a scotch.

That was all Ian needed. It couldn’t be better if he’d asked Boris to please go and made a complete prat of himself, that way you can completely screw up the relationship.

Ian opened his desk’s top drawer and took out the big evidence envelope he’d collected from the Market Street vault that morning. As soon as he left the station he headed straight to Monument station and took the Metro one stop up to St. James station.

The St. James singletown didn’t have many internal meshes in the residential zones, but because of the murder in apartment 576B Sid had ordered smartdust to be smeared on the corridor outside, linked directly to the police network. The chance that the murderer would return to the scene was practically non-existent, but with the case having so much authority and resources, one mesh had been an easy gamble.

Ian arrived at the St. James seven minutes after Tallulah got home. He loitered in the main lobby, watching Boris in his grid. Finally the banker got up and walked through the singletown’s commercial arcade to a bank of restricted lifts. He’d clearly kept his code, because the doors opened for him. Ian moved for the lifts in the lobby, using his police access code.

The corridor mesh showed Boris hesitating outside apartment 576B. He couldn’t call Tallulah directly anymore; after this morning’s eight excruciating calls she’d finally told her e-i to revoke his access to her address code. So Boris had to meekly press the buzzer, then, when he got no reply, start knocking on the door like a relic from the nineteenth century. But it worked; the door opened framing a weary-looking Tallulah, whose expression fluctuated between anger and dismay. Boris immediately started pleading, practically pushing his way in. Tallulah shut the door.