A Quantum Murder

by Peter F. Hamilton

  GREG, HAVE YOU GOT A LASER WITH YOU?

  "Yeah, a Heckler and Koch hunting rifle."

  TOO POWERFUL. HAS IT GOT A TARGETING IMAGER?

  "Yeah."

  GOOD GOOD GOOD. PLUG THE IMAGER INTO YOUR SUIT 'WARE.

  "Right."

  "The crash team has left," Philip said. "Be with you in eight minutes."

  It was going to be too long, that much was obvious. Greg tugged the rifle's targeting imager monocle out of its recess, and detached it from the fibre optic cable. The interface was standard—thank Christ. He plugged the cable into a socket on the guido 'ware module. Blue target circles hardened in front of him, angling down towards the carpet, the same line as the rifle barrel was pointing.

  "Come out, Mandel," Ronnie Kay shouted up from the ball, "or we will burn you out. Fire is always the great purifier. Your wife will die with you then. Come out."

  "Don't you dare," Eleanor said.

  "Royan?"

  I'VE DECRYPTED IT STRANGE. NOT LIKE SOFTWARE. NO SUBROUTINES. EVERYTHING STRUNG TOGETHER, SIMILAR TO PIXEL CODES, MUCH HIGHER BIT RATE THOUGH.

  "Have you found the magic photons sequence?"

  WORKING ON IT

  Greg went over to the window, standing beside it with his back to the wall, expanding his espersense outwards. There were three minds below. He edged the rifle out past the curtains and activated the imager. The photon amp's picture of the bedroom faded away, replaced by a view of the garden below. Three men were standing on the lawn, waiting patiently. One of them held what looked like a shotgun, the other two were carrying clubs of some kind.

  "Come out, Mandel."

  Eleanor fired another barrage of stunshot pulses down the landing.

  "We'll burn your flesh to ashes. Your last minutes will be the torment of Hell. Repent."

  THINK I'VE GOT IT

  "Thank Christ for that."

  THERE ARE TWO SEPARATE SEQUENCES, BOTH BECOME ACTIVE AFTER A MEASURED INTERVAL FOLLOWING IMPRINT TIMED BY HEARTBEATS. CLEVER THAT THE FIRST SEQUENCE CONTAINS THE PARADIGM ITSELF AND THE INSTRUCTION TO KILL KITCHENER, ALONG WITH ADDITIONAL ORDERS TO DESTROY HIS RETROSPECTIVE NEUROHORMONE WORK. IT ACTIVATED ITSELF AFTER APPROXIMATELY NINE HOURS. THE SECOND SEQUENCE IS THE MAGIC PHOTONS, WHICH ACTIVATES TWO HOURS LATER.

  Even now, Greg couldn't quite shake off his fascination with the case. Nicholas must have been hit before the storm, before the rising waters of the Chater closed the ramshackle bridge.

  "Can you trigger the magic photons sequence?"

  YES. I'VE ISOLATED ITS ACTIVATION CODE FROM THE PARADIGM'S TIMER SECTION.

  "OK, there are three people we can try it on."

  The target circles vanished as Royan took command of the rifle's 'ware. Greg watched the imager's laser sending a fan of ruby light sweeping across the lawn. The grid emerged in its wake, splitting into three sections, folding around the waiting men.

  HERE GOES.

  The contoured lines around the central figure began to flash.

  NOW.

  Greg saw a single strobe-like flicker of pink douse the man's face. His espersense showed him the man's thought currents start to seethe furiously. A loud destitute wailing penetrated the glass.

  "What's happening?" Eleanor demanded.

  "I'm not sure." Even as he spoke he sensed the new tide of personality usurping Bursken's resolute thought currents. His empathy was caught by the backlash of petrified bewilderment raging inside the abused brain, feedback sending a quake of dismay shuddering along his own synapses. Then the man was dropping to his knees, curling into a foetal position, mind rushing headlong into welcome oblivion.

  "OK, we got him. Zap the other two, Royan."

  Their grid outlines began to flash. The targeting laser fired twice.

  "Flames, Mandel," Ronnie Kay shouted. "They will consume you. There will be no redemption."

  Wait," Greg shouted back. "I'm coming out."

  "Greg!" Eleanor pleaded.

  "Those crazies will torch the place if I don't. We have to clear them out."

  "Let the crash team do it."

  "That bastard MacLennan is still out there. He can load Bursken's mind into them as soon as they land. Then where will we be? They are armed and armoured, Eleanor. At least the lynch mob only have shotguns."

  "Come then, Mandel. Come to us."

  She drew a sharp breath through her teeth. "God, you be careful, Gregory—"

  He knew exactly how much that cost her to say. "No messing."

  * * * *

  They waited in the hall at the foot of the stairs. Five of them, a tight arrowhead, with Ronnie Kay at the front. Two shotguns followed him with mechanical precision. Their mouths were curved up in the same slight, vapid smile.

  His espersense flowed round them, along the hall, through the empty rooms. They were the only ones inside. Right at the back of his head was the faint thrumming of pressure, the neurohormones stressing his synapses to their limit.

  He held the rifle casually at his hip as he descended.

  "Take the ones with the shotguns first," he whispered.

  RIGHT

  The grid appeared again, peeling into five segments like cybernetic butterfly wings. Closing fluidly around their ignorant prey.

  Ronnie Kay blinked, glancing distrustfully at the rifle. "Put it down, Mandel."

  READY

  "Now."

  The laser lashed out, spiking each of them in turn. Elapsed time seven-tenths of a second.

  They wilted in unison, filling the air with a grotesque catlike puling. Arms and legs were infected with a life of their own, waving and flexing at random.

  "Shitfire," Greg murmured.

  DID WE GET THEM?

  "Oh yeah. We got 'em."

  Eleanor was running along the landing, stunshot held ready, looking as if she was about to start a war.

  "The crash team will be there in five minutes," Philip said.

  Eleanor barged into his side, hugging him tightly. She let out a gulping sob. "I'm sorry." She wiped her eyes.

  His arm went round her, holding her roughly. He kissed the top of her forehead, damp hair rasping across his lips.

  They went down the last few stairs, slowly, every step a great effort.

  The front door had been forced open, the lock jimmied off. A draught of clammy air swirled in.

  Greg used the rifle barrel to push the lounge door open. Shards of glass were heaped on the floor below the broken window. The curtains flapped feebly.

  "It's clear," Greg said. "I'll go out here, through the window. MacLennan can see the front door." Eleanor's fingers clutched at him through the combat leathers. "I've got to finish this." And this time there would be no hesitation, no reluctance. MacLennan had come hunting him, broaching the sanctity of his own home. Well, now it would be settled on those terms. One on one, zero rules.

  "I know," Eleanor said.

  He crouched down, and scuttled over to the window. "Royan, kill the imager's camera feed. I don't want to be on the receiving end of that paradigm – " He stopped, intuition acting like a dose of wine, stealing warmly into his brain.

  The gloomy image faded out, leaving him alone with the time display and guido co-ordinates. He shoved the rifle through the shattered window.

  "Give me the laser return."

  The picture which built up was similar to the virtual simulation he had used to fly into Walton, photonic topology, except it was all red. The rickety fence was ten metres in front of him, saplings standing in long rows behind it, grass resolved as a fuzzy mauve mat.

  "OK, Royan, there's one last piece of reprogramming I need."

  * * * *

  He poked the rifle round the corner of the house. The laser painted in the EMC Ranger, the barn, and the wall around the farmyard. Mark Sutton was lying where he'd fallen. Frankie Owen was crawling towards the driveway. It was like watching a time-lapse puppet in motion, the picture refreshing itself every second as the laser swept back and forth.

  A grid ta
ilored itself into a perfect fit around Frankie Owen.

  "I'm here," Greg called out clearly.

  Frankie twisted round. When he was looking straight at Greg, the laser fired the magic photon's activation code at him. There was a muffled gurgling, then he lay still. Greg sensed Bursken's thoughts routed by Frankie's usual dull anger and general life-resentment just before consciousness dwindled.

  Not much of an improvement, really.

  He pointed the rifle at the tangerine grove, where he thought MacLennan had fired the paradigm laser from.

  "Focus shift, one hundred and fifty metres."

  The grove filled his vision field. It lacked the sharp-edged clarity of anything close by, degraded by rain, almost like static interference. These saplings had been planted over a year ago, two and a half metres high, starting to spread out at the top. They were covered with leaves and blossom, which showed up like a layer of coarse ice crystals around the core of twigs and branches.

  There was a vehicle parked in the middle of the grove, almost hidden by the saplings. A jeep of some kind.

  Perfect for the terrain in the Chater valley, he thought.

  LASER ACQUISITION, the photon amp display printed.

  "Royan?"

  THAT'S YOUR ECM DETECTOR WARNING. MACLENNAN IS FIRING THE PARADIGM IMPRINTER AT YOU. ONE MOMENT.

  The image fluttered then reappeared. A bright red dot was flashing ten metres to the left of the jeep.

  THAT'S THE EMISSION POINT

  "Right. Give me targeting mode."

  The blue circles sprang up. Greg shifted the rifle until they were centred on the jeep. He pulled the trigger. Five shots into the bonnet, three into the front tyre, another five into the bodywork.

  MacLennan stopped firing the paradigm laser.

  Greg pumped another ten shots into the rear of the jeep. He heard the unmistakable dull thud of an explosion. The back of the jeep rippled, opening up like a flower, jagged metal petals lunging jerkily for the blank sky.

  "Cancel targeting mode." He started to jog towards the jeep. No way could he run: as it was, he had to try and remember what was immediately ahead at each footfall. The wall between him and the grove seemed to lurch towards him in two-metre increments.

  A nimbus had engulfed the jeep, altering in size each time the picture updated, never the same shape twice. Flames, he guessed.

  He reached the wall and clambered over, moss squelching below his gloves, ignoring the erratic images as the rifle shifted about, working by touch.

  LASER ACQUISITION.

  He landed on the spongy grass in the grove, and automatically rolled to one side. Paratroop training. Furious flames from the jeep were making a loud crackling.

  "MacLennan?" he bellowed. "It doesn't work on me, you shit!" He stood up, pointing the rifle ahead.

  LASER ACQUISITION.

  The red dot was flashing from behind some saplings away to his left, dancing about like a firefly caught in a hurricane. MacLennan was moving away from the jeep. Greg started to jog towards the dot, ducking under the low branches, swerving round the trunks.

  "Greg?" It was Philip. "The crash team will be with you in two minutes."

  "Keep them in the air until I give the all clear."

  "All right, boy, it's your show."

  The laser picked out MacLennan running down a row of saplings, about eighty metres ahead. A clockwork humanoid, legs and arms pumping in a fractured rhythm. Slender grid lines chased after him coiling round his limbs and torso.

  DO YOU WANT TARGET MODE???

  "Not yet. I have to be sure."

  SURE SURE SURE? WHAT KIND OF BLOODY SURE? HE TRIED TO KILL YOU.

  Greg ran out into a tractor lane, four metres wide, the branches arching overhead, not quite meeting. It made the going a lot easier; he risked increasing his pace. "Sure about Clarissa Wynne."

  MacLennan vaulted over the fence at the bottom of the grove, and sprinted over the field towards Hambleton Wood.

  Gotcha, Greg thought. He arrived at the fence, scaling it quickly.

  MacLennan reached the boundary of the wood, and charged through the waist-high fringe of undergrowth. He suddenly fell forwards, disappearing from sight below the nettles. Greg heard a distant curse.

  The grass underfoot was awkward, shifty and slippery with rain. He had to slow down again, especially as he was cutting down the slope. There was that distinctive sound of brittle wood snapping up ahead as MacLennan thrashed about in the dead hawthorn bushes.

  Christ, I hope it is MacLennan after all this! But his intuition was giving him a powerful high, as if he was just going through the motions. The outcome was already decided.

  MacLennan's upper torso reappeared amid the bushes. He was flinging himself desperately at the knotted tangle of vines strung between the old trees. It wouldn't do him any good, you needed either a tank or a bulldozer to break into the wood. He jerked round, right arm coming up. Red dot.

  LASER ACQUISITION.

  Greg slowed to a halt thirty metres from the wood, raising the rifle to his shoulder. "Give me targeting mode, and expand the magnification." He ordered his cortical node to increase the neurohormone secretion level.

  ABOUT BLOODY TIME.

  Blue circles clicked into place. The targeting laser sweep contracted around MacLennan. It was as though he was standing two metres in front of Greg, the warped network of red lines bright enough to give off a faint coronal hue. An oversized pistol was gripped in his right hand, nozzle blazing. His espersense encountered the mind inside the reticulated head. It was MacLennan.

  Greg aimed at the pistol and fired.

  MacLennan howled, convulsing, right arm hugged to his chest. His pistol tumbling away. A hot throb of pain lanced into Greg's mind. Behind it came the raw malevolence, the near-frenzied fear, and the abhorrence.

  "Hold it," Greg commanded as MacLennan began to look around his feet for the imprinter, the tendrils of desperation uncoiling in his gibbering mind. He walked forward until he came to the edge of the nettles. "Why did you come here, MacLennan? Why did you set them on me?"

  "Because it was you!" MacLennan bawled. "You! Mindstar freak. You found the paradigm."

  "How did you know that?"

  "You were from the Home Office, you burnt into the memory core. You! It was you. Freak fucker."

  "Oh shit." The rush of energy which had carried him out of the house and across the grove suddenly bled away. There was no determination left in him. No pride at completing the case, only weariness. He just wanted this over. Finished.

  MacLennan started sobbing.

  "Shut up!" Greg yelled.

  "It hurts me! It hurts. You've burnt my hand in half, you bastard. Get me to a hospital, for Christ's sake."

  Every emotion reached rock bottom. Greg felt dangerously calm. "It hurts, does it, MacLennan? How did Clarissa Wynne feel do you think? When you pushed her head under the lake. Did she hurt, MacLennan?"

  "Clarissa?" It came out like a whinny.

  "You killed her. Didn't you? Eleven years ago, you shot her full of syntho and killed her."

  "She was going to claim all the credit!"

  "Even now you're lying! It was her work."

  "Wasn't!"

  Guilt corrupted every thought in MacLennan's head. And there was nothing left to say.

  Greg took a laboured breath. "Royan, shoot it over."

  The grid snapped off for an instant as the targeting laser stabbed at MacLennan's eyes.

  He heard the paradigm as it came surging through the communication link, a near-ultrasonic wheee in his earpiece, a blast of photons encapsulating the essence of Liam Bursken, accompanied by a monomaniac hatred for one man.

  Poetic justice, or intuitive inspiration; Greg didn't know which, only that it was right. It fitted.

  He pulled the photon amp strip from his face, twin circles of skin around his eyesockets pinching as it came free. The real world rushed back in on him, dark and dank, awash with human failings. The clean simplicity of th
e laser return virtual graphics was almost preferable. Somewhere behind him flames were soaring up into the night from the wreck of the jeep. Rain pattered down, beating the dusky vegetation towards the muddy ground.

  MacLennan's prim face was contorted with pain, hair plastered down into a straggly cap. His jaw was working silently, as though he was choking.

  "Do you know who you hate, Liam?" Greg asked quietly. "Do you?"

  MacLennan stared back at him with insane eyes, mouth screwing into a joyous smile. "Yes. Me. It's me. Me!"

  "That's right." He took the vibration knife from his belt, switched it on, and dropped it at MacLennan's feet.

  MacLennan snatched it up with his good hand. "Redemption. He has granted me redemption." He laughed rhapsodically as he shoved the blade into his stomach. Blood foamed out. He sank to his knees, teeth clenched with effort, cheeks bulging, and pulled the blade up towards his sternum. "Yes. Oh, yes. My Lord."

  Greg turned and walked away. Back to the farmhouse and Eleanor, where he belonged.

  High above the reservoir, the security team's tilt-fan dived out of the clouds, turbines shrieking with urgency.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Julia found her hand straying towards Robin's hair. He was sleeping sprawled out on his belly in the middle of the bed, head fallen between two big fluffy pillows, mouth slightly agape. She stroked his hair softly, smoothing down the ruffled tufts. Seen in the lush morning light which was prising its way round the edges of the curtains he was even more handsome than the first time she had caught sight of him at the pool. And he was so terribly sweet. Tender, anxious, and eager all at once—excellent body too. He lacked Patrick's ruthless dynamism, which had made their sex far more sensual. She still wasn't quite sure if she was his first. But she was certainly near the front of the queue. A thought to treasure.

  He stirred below her hand, and she held her breath. She didn't want to wake him up just yet. The poor dear must be tired after last night.

  She would have a cup of tea, skim through the breakfast 'casts, nip into the toilet, then it would be time for him to perform again.

  NN Core Access Request.