The Nano Flower gm-3

by Peter Hamilton

  Self-delusion is what makes the world go round, she said.

  If other people believe everything's all hunky-dory with you, you might even begin to believe it yourself, said NN core one.

  Something like that, yes, she admitted.

  There's still no sign of him, then? NN core two asked.

  Sensation penetrated the closed universe, a sliver of cold dismay trickling down her back. Royan had been missing for eight months now. Her lover, confidant, partner in crime, joy-bringer, keeper of the key to her heart, dark genius, father of her two children, haunted soul. Deliberately missing, as only he could be. Eight months, and the pain was still bright enough to hurt. And now worry was its twin.

  You would know that, she said. Best of all. Their awareness was spread like a spectral web through the global data networks, alert for facts, whispers, and gossip they could use to Event Horizon's advantage. There were patterns to the flow of information, tenuous and confused, but readable to entities like the three NN cores. Everybody in the world betrayed themselves through the generation of data; you could not move, eat, wash, or make love without it registering in a memory core somewhere. Except for Royan, whose flight left no contrail of binary digits, mocking the most sophisticated tracker programs ever constructed.

  What could someone with Royan's brilliance build in eight months? And why keep it a secret from her?

  Shadow wings of sympathy folded round her, a sisterly embrace by two of the NN cores.

  Don't fret yourself so, Juliet, the third NN core said gruffly. He'll be back. Boy always was one for stunts, little bugger.

  Thank you, Grandpa, she said.

  The thought patterns of Philip Evans reflected a brisk gratification.

  He was a perfect counterbalance to her two NN cores, Julia thought, his cynicism and bluntness tempering her own gentler outlook. Together they made a truly formidable team.

  And one which was unlikely to be repeated. She knew of some kombinates who'd loaded a Turing managerial personality into a bioware number cruncher, hoping to recreate Event Horizon's magic formula that way. They hadn't met with much success. Instinct and toughness, even compassion, weren't concepts you could incorporate into a program. Neural Networks could possess such qualities, because they weren't running programs, they were genuine personalities. But at sixty million Eurofrancs apiece, an NN core wasn't the kind of project to be attempted on a speculative basis. And even if one was built, there was the question of whose sequencing RNA to use as a template, whose memories to download. If the person selected didn't have the right mind-set to run the kombinate, it would be too late to change.

  Philip Evans had done it because he was dying anyway. He had nothing to lose. It worked for him because he had a lifetime's experience of running the company in a dictatorial fashion. And it wasn't until she'd been in the hot seat for seven years that Julia had grown her first core.

  I'm all right now, she said.

  The intangible support withdrew.

  My girl, her grandfather said proudly. At moments like this, he could be absurdly sentimental.

  Let's get this morning's list crunched, Julia said. She opened her mind up to the stack of data packages the three NN cores had prepared over the past forty hours. There was no conscious thought involved, no rigorous assessment; she let the questions filter through her mind, instinct providing the answers.

  They started with subcontracts; company names and products, their quality procedures, industrial relations record, financial viability, bid prices, and finally a recommendation. Julia would say yes or no, and the profile would be snatched away, to be replaced by the next. She couldn't remember them afterwards; she didn't want to remember them. That was the whole point. The system only involved her thought processes, not her memory, leaving her brain cells uncluttered.

  Personnel was the second category. She handled the promotions and disciplining of everyone above grade five management herself. If only divisional managers knew how closely their boss really followed their careers.

  Divisional review came next. Start-up factories' progress, retooling, enlargement programmes, new product designs.

  Cargo fleets, land, air, rail, space, and sea.

  New London biosphere maintenance.

  New London second chamber progress.

  Microgee materials processing modules.

  Finance.

  Energy.

  Security.

  Prior's Fen Atoll civil engineering.

  That's the lot, said NN core one.

  Julia consulted her nodes. Over eight thousand items in six and a half minutes. She couldn't remember one of them, although her imagination lodged an image of hard-copy sheets streaming by on a subliminal fast forward.

  Any queries? she asked.

  Only Two, said her grandfather.

  Says you, NN core two rebuked. How you can think Mousanta is a problem I don't know.

  What are they? Julia asked, forestalling any argument.

  Well, the three of us share a slight concern about Wales, NN core two said. You are going to have to make a decision about who to support some time.

  I know, she said miserably. I just don't see how I can win.

  So choose the option which causes the least harm, said her grandfather.

  Which is?

  For my mind, the Welsh Nationalists have promised Event Horizon a bloody attractive investment package if you go ahead and build the cyber-precincts. I say see the delegation, they are bound to Improve on the offer. It would be a fantastic boost for them to come out and announce they've swung you over. Bloody politicians, never miss a trick.

  In order for their promises to mean anything they have to win the referendum first, NN core two said patiently. They're terrified you won't commit to a site until after the vote, of course. People won't vote for secession unless they're sure it will be beneficial. Which is what the Nationalists have been promising all along. Catch twenty-two, for them anyway. If they win the referendum and can't produce the jobs independence was supposed to bring they'll be lynched.

  Dead politicians, her grandfather chortled. If I had a heart, it would be bleeding.

  Our civil projects development division has been getting daily calls from the New Conservatives' central office, NN core one said. And the Ministry of Industry is pledged to Lord knows how much support funding if you build the precincts around Liverpool.

  What sort of concessions have they been offering Event Horizon if I do site the cyber-precincts in Wales?

  Almost the same support deal, her grandfather said. Officially. But Marchant has been playing his elder statesman go-between role to some effect; he's made it clear that the offer only stands providing the Nationalists lose the referendum, and you announce a cyber-precinct for Wales after that. It'll show the New Conservatives aren't neglecting the area.

  Which is precisely why the Nationalists have been getting so much support in the first place, NN core one said. Because Wales hasn't received much priority from this government.

  What would a Welsh secession do to the New Conservative majority? Julia asked.

  Reduce it to eighteen seats. Which is why they're taking Wales so seriously for once. Chances are, with an independent Wales they'll lose their overall majority at the next general election.

  After seventeen years, Julia mused. That would take some getting used to.

  It wouldn't affect us much, NN core two said. Not now, Event Horizon is too well established, in this country and abroad. And it's not as if any new government is going to introduce radically different policies. The party manifestos are virtually all variants on a theme; the only differences are in Priorities. This new breed of politicians are all spin doctor bred, they don't pursue ideologies any more, only power Itself.

  Whatever you do, Juliet, it wants to be done soon.

  Yes, I suppose so.

  We recommend one cyber-precinct is sited in Wales and one somewhere else, presumably Liverpool, NN core two said. It's a compromise which
makes perfect sense, and deemphasizes your role in the referendum.

  Fine, I'll notify the development division.

  That just leaves the question of timing the announcement.

  She massaged her temple, wishing it would ease the strain deeper inside. Yes, OK, leave it with me, I'll think about it. What was the second query?

  An anomaly I picked up on, Juliet.

  A data package unfolded within her mental perception. Julia studied it for a moment. It was a bid which Event Horizon had put in for a North Italy solid state research facility, the Mousanta labs in Turin. Event Horizon's commercial intelligence office noted that the molecular interaction studies Mousanta was doing would fit in with a couple of the company's own research programmes. The finance division had made a buy-out offer to the owners, only to be outbid by the Globecast corporation.

  Julia saw she'd turned down a request to make a higher bid. So?

  So, why, Juliet, is Globecast, a company which deals purely in trash media broadcasts, making a too high offer for a solid state research lab?

  Oh, come on, Grandpa; Clifford Jepson probably wants it to help with his arms sales. The chairman of Globecast had a profitable second occupation as an arms merchant. She knew that he handled a lot of extended credit underground sales to organizations which the US government didn't wish to be seen showing any open support. In consideration, Globecast's tax returns weren't scrutinized too closely.

  Clifford is a middle-man, Juliet, not a producer.

  You think there could be more to it?

  It doesn't ring true, that's all.

  Yes. OK, Grandpa, get commercial intelligence to take another look at Mousanta, what makes it so valuable. Perhaps they've got a black defence programme going for the North Italy government?

  Could be.

  Sort the details, then.

  OK, girl. There was no mistaking his eagerness.

  Exit SelfCores.

  Julia was back in the office, grinning at her grandfather's behaviour. He did so love the covert side of company operations. One of the reasons he and Royan had got on so well, closeheads.

  She was just refilling her teacup when the door opened and Rachel Griffith came in.

  There weren't many people who could burst in on Julia Evans unannounced. And those that did had to have a bloody good reason, invariably troublesome.

  Julia took one glance at Rachel's thin-lipped anxiety and knew it was bad. Rachel didn't fluster easily.

  "What is it, Rachel?" Julia asked uneasily.

  "God, I'm sorry, Julia. I just didn't pay it a lot of attention when she gave it to me." Rachel Griffith held out a slim white flower-presentation box.

  Julia took it with suddenly trembling fingers. The flower inside was odd, not one she'd seen before. It was a trumpet, fifteen centimetres long, tapering back to what she assumed was a small seed pod; the colour was a delicate purple, and when she looked down the open end it was pure white inside.

  There was a complex array of stamens, with lemon-yellow anther lobes. The outside of the trumpet sprouted short silky hairs.

  She sent an identification request into her memory nodes' floral encyclopaedia section.

  The envelope had already been opened; she drew out the handwritten card.

  Take care, Snowy,

  I love you always,

  Royan

  Julia's eyes watered. It was his handwriting, and nobody else called her Snowy.

  With her eyes still on the card she asked, "Where did it come from?"

  "Some girl handed it to me at the Newfields ball last night." Rachel sounded worried. "I don't know who she was, but she knew me. Never gave her name, just shoved it in my hands and told me to pass it on to you."

  Julia looked up. "What sort of girl? Pretty?"

  "She was a whore."

  "Rachel!"

  "She was, I know the type. Early twenties, utterly gorgeous, impeccably dressed, manners a saint couldn't match, and lost eyes."

  There was no arguing, Julia knew, Rachel was good at that kind of thing, her years as a hardline bodyguard, constantly vigilant, had given her an almost psychic sense about people. Besides, Julia knew the sort of girl she was talking about, courtesans were common enough at events like the Newfields ball.

  Her nodes reported that the flower species wasn't indexed in their files.

  Open Channel to SelfCores. Get me a match up for this, would you? she asked silently. It was important she knew what he had chosen for her.

  She looked back to the card, its bold script with over-large loops. She could remember him perfecting his writing, sitting at a narrow wooden table in her island bungalow, the sea swishing on the beach outside, his brow furrowed in concentration.

  And the flower, the flower was the sealer. Royan adored flowers, and she always associated them with him, ever since the day when they finally met in the flesh.

  Access RoyanRecovery. She had node referenced the memory because she knew it would always be special, wanting to guard the details from entropic decay down the years.

  Six of them had walked into the Mucklands Wood estate that afternoon fifteen years ago, all of them wearing English Army uniforms. Morgan Walshaw, Event Horizon's security chief at the time, who was quietly furious with her. It was the first (and last) time she had ever defied him over her own safety, Greg Mandel, who was as close to Royan as she was, and who'd agreed to lead them as soon as he'd heard she was going in. Rachel, who was her bodyguard back then, and two extra hardliners, John Lees and Martyn Oakly.

  Mucklands Wood was the home of the Trinities, a bleak tower block housing estate which the city council had thrown up in the first couple of years after the Fens flooded. It stood on the high ground to the west of the A1, looking down on Walton where the Blackshirts were based. Two mortal enemies, separated by a single strand of melting tarmac and the luckless residential district of Bretton.

  Rescuing Royan was more than a debt. Two years before, he had saved Philip Evans from a virus that PSP leftovers had squirted into the NN core. One of the best hackers on the circuit, he had written an antithesis which purged the virus. He had never asked for payment. A strange kind of bond had developed between them afterwards. Both of them powers in their respective fields, both feared, both near friendless, both wildly different. The attraction/fascination was inevitable, affection wasn't, but it had come nevertheless. There was nothing sexual about the relationship, given the circumstances there couldn't be. Neither of them ever expected to meet in the flesh. But the association was mutually rewarding. Royan had helped Julia safeguard Event Horizon's confidential commercial data from his peers on the circuit, while Julia supplied the Trinities with weapons to continue their fight against the Blackshirts. She hated the Blackshirts almost as much as Royan did.

  But only now was she seeing the real cost of sponsoring the Trinities. Nothing like the intellectual exercise of arranging Shipments through Clifford Jepson. An action whose only reaction was the occasional item on the evening newscasts. She didn't have distance between her and the Trinities any more. Mucklands Wood wasn't the adventure-excitement she had expected, the little scary thrill of visiting the darkside. This was raw-nerve fear.

  The struggle was all over now. There were no more Trinities, no more Blackshirts. Fires still burnt in both districts, sending up pillars of thick oily smoke to merge with the low bank of smog occluding the sky above the city. Half a squadron of Army tilt-fans orbited the scene slowly, alert for any more trouble.

  Peterborough's usual dynamic sparkle had vanished, shops closed, factories shut. The city's frightened, shocked citizens were barricaded in their homes, waiting for the all-clear to sound. Both sets of protagonists had known this was the last time, the showdown, they hadn't held back.

  Julia walked over hard-packed limestone. The whole estate was a barren wasteland. There were no trees or shrubs, even weeds were scarce; a greasy blue-grey moss slimed the brick walls of abandoned roofless employment workshops. The Trinities symbol was spr
ayed everywhere, raw and challenging, a closed fist gripping a thorn cross, blood dripping.

  Two of the estate's high-rise blocks had been razed in the battle, toppling over after a barrage of anti-tank missiles had blown out the bottom floors. Julia's little group threaded its way past one, a long mound of broken twisted rubble, with metal girders sticking out at low angles. Squaddies picked their way over it gingerly, helping city firemen with their thermal-imaging sensors. Futile gesture really. She could see pieces of smashed furniture crushed between the jagged slabs of concrete, torn strips of brightly coloured cloth flapping limply, splinters of glass everywhere, dust thick in the air. A long row of bodies lay at the foot of the tower, covered in blankets. Some had dark wet stains.

  Morgan Walshaw looked at her as they marched past. But she forced herself into an expression of grim endurance, and never broke stride.

  A two-man patrol halted them. The squaddies in their dark-grey combat leathers and equipment webs didn't even seem human. Sinister cyborg figures cradling stub-barrelled McMillan electromagnetic rifles, bulbous photon-amp lenses giving their helmet visors an insect appearance, there wasn't a square centimetre of skin visible. She couldn't understand half of the gear modules clipped to their webs, and didn't bother consulting her nodes. She didn't want to know. All she'd come for was Royan.

  Greg and Morgan Walshaw exchanged a few words, and the squaddies waved them on. They had been guarding the approach to a field hospital, three inflated hemispheres of olive-green plastic. Land Rovers and ambulances stood outside, orderlies hurrying between the bloody figures lying on stretchers. The empty white plastic wrappers of disposable first aid modules littered the ground; the oddest impression of the day, a dusting of giant snowflakes.

  For the first time, Julia heard the sounds of the aftermath. The moans and screams of the wounded. Guilt sent icy spikes into her belly.

  "Morgan," she said in a small voice.

  He glanced back at her, and she saw the genuine worry in his face. Despite the forty years between them, she had always considered him one of her closest friends.

  "What?" he asked. There was an edge in his voice. He was ex-military himself. She wondered, belatedly, what sort of memories their visit must be raking up.