The Mandel Files

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The clouds above the valley were disintegrating, pale beams of moonlight probed down through the tattered gaps. Nicholas looked up from the cube, watching them shiver across the undulating parkland. After the uniform darkness of the storm they seemed preternaturally bright. Trees and bushes imprinted on his retinas, ragged platinum silhouettes which vanished almost as soon as they were revealed.

  A face looked back at him through the glass. It was a Woman, probably not much older than him; her features were slightly indistinct, misted somehow, but she was certainly attractive, with thick red hair combed back from her forehead.

  All he did was gawk for a second, his thoughts shocked into stasis, a gelid fingertip stroking his spine. Then he realized her spectral image must be a reflection. She was standing behind him! He yelped in panic, and jerked round in the chair, a thousand-volt current replacing his normal nervous impulses.

  There was nobody there.

  He twisted back to stare at the window. There was no face.

  Slowly, his shoulders were trembling faintly, he let out a long sigh. Idiot! He must have been dozing, dreaming. The clock on the bedside cabinet read quarter-past one.

  Too late, Nicholas, he told himself wanly. Besides, since when did beautiful women ever come stealing into your bedroom in the middle of the night?

  He cancelled the gamma ray search program. That was when he heard somebody talking on the landing outside, two people, voices murmuring softly. The chilly breath of static washed down his back again; but he was wide awake now. He frowned, concentrating, filtering out the intermittent patter of residual rain on the window. He knew one of them was Isabel, by now he could have plucked her voice out of hell’s bedlam.

  Curiosity warred with dread, he wanted to know what she was doing, he was terrified of making a fool out of himself. But if he didn’t go to the door quickly, the chance to do either would be lost. In the end it was the thought of having to live with not knowing, spending days wondering while his over-active imagination summoned up grotesque scenarios, which propelled him up out of the chair.

  He turned the brass door handle, already trying to think of an excuse. I was just going to fetch something from the library, my toilet’s blocked… Feeble.

  There was only a single biolum globe illuminating the landing, its weak pink-white lambency disfiguring the familiar corridors and twisting the proportions of the stark wooden chairs outside each door. Long serpentine shadows dappled the walls, veiling the vague figures depicted in the dusty hanging tapestries behind a crepuscular fog.

  The two girls had their backs to him, walking with a measured companionable pace towards the stairs. They stopped as soon as the bright fan of light from his room splashed out into the landing, and slowly turned towards him. Rosette was wrapped in a jade-green silk kimono, embellished with fantastical topaz griffins. She was obviously riding some kind of high, he’d seen enough of that at Cambridge to tell; black sun pupils, dawdling movements. Probably Naiad, a sophisticated derivative of street-syntho, guaranteed no bad trips, no cold turkey. The vat in the lab downstairs was elaborate enough to produce it.

  Isabel was still in her jeans, held up by a braided leather belt she’d fastened with a big loop tucked back into her waistband. She had taken off her blouse, leaving just a plain black bra to cup her high, exquisitely shaped breasts.

  Nicholas stared at her with lightheaded dismay, the kind of sensation he got whenever his father butchered spring lambs. The scene and all it implied was too macabre, too lascivious to take in. In the gloom behind the girls he could see the red-headed woman again, all of her this time. She was tall and broad shouldered, wearing some kind of jacket with a long skirt. He blinked, dizziness forcing him to grip the door to stop himself falling. His skin was ice cold, needled with hot beads of sweat. He thought he was about to be sick. The world buckled alarmingly, sight and sound dissolving under a suffocating wave of heat. He was hallucinating, he was sure of it, the only explanation, trapped in a terrifying loop of nightmare. When his vision shimmered back into focus the phantom woman had gone. But Isabel and Rosette were still solidly, undeniably present.

  A corner of Rosette’s mouth lifted in a lazy chaffing smile, as if she was glad he’d interrupted them. “Adults only, Nicky, darling,” she said in a throaty voice. “Sorry.”

  He looked at Isabel, a long, anguished appeal that this wasn’t happening. All she did was give a minute shrug, a gesture of almost total indifference. It was a blow which hit him harder than the first shock of discovery.

  He stared in abject misery as they continued silently down the landing, Rosette’s feet unseen inside the kimono, giving the impression she was gliding above the carpet. Isabel had her shoulders square, lean bands of muscle shifting pliantly below the flawless skin of her tapering back.

  They walked all the way past the stairs, along to the north wing, swallowed up in the gloaming. Then orange shone out of the door Rosette opened. Kitchener’s suite of rooms.

  She didn’t even glance back to see if he was watching before she closed the door behind them.

  Why? He couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t on drugs. She wasn’t suffering from delusions. She was always so levelheaded. Not like him, having fantasy women and the agony of sexual treachery running loose in his brain, twisting his mind up until he could barely think.

  Nicholas clawed at his sheets, petrified the red-headed woman would materialize again, hoping in some perverse way that she would. Nothing made sense any more.

  Why? Was it a price the female students had to pay for admission? But he would have heard, the ones that refused would have run screaming to the tabloid channels.

  The moon had set now, leaving cold starlight to kiss the valley. He could hear lost gusts of wind swirling round the eaves, gurgles of water from the overflowing lakes.

  Why? She didn’t have to do it. Not with Kitchener. Not with Rosette. So she must want to. Why? Why? Why? Nicholas snapped awake, his head rising off the pillow in a reflex jolt. What had woken him? He was still in his T-shirt and jeans, waist button undone. The duvet was a crumpled mess below him.

  It was like every nerve fibre was shooting distilled trepidation into his brain. He knew it was going to be bad, very bad.

  The scream assaulted his ears. Female. Powerful and utterly wretched. Dragging on and on, enough to leave a throat raw and withered.

  He rolled off the bed fast. There was just enough pre-dawn light leaking through the window to see by. The scream stopped as he reached the door, then started up again as he pulled it open.

  He looked about wildly. Orange light was shining down at the far end of the north wing. He could see Rosette kneeling brokenly in the doorway to Kitchener’s suite, clinging desperately to the wooden frame.

  Getting to her was a confused blur. His feet pounding. The other doors opening. Pale anxious faces. That unending, spine-grating scream.

  Tears were streaming down Rosette’s face. She was shaking violently.

  He rushed past her and saw the bedroom for the first time. The curtains were still shut and tinted biolum globes shone from the middle of bulbous paper-moon shades that hung from the ceiling. The furniture was supremely tasteful, a dark antique dresser, matching wardrobe, Chinese carpet, full-length mirror, a porcelain-topped table below the window, brass ornaments on the mantelpiece, monk chest. The centre-piece was a large four-poster bed with an amber canopy.

  Edward Kitchener was lying on the snow-white silk sheets, at the middle of a deep scarlet bloodstain spreading to the edge of the mattress. He felt the intolerable pressure of his own scream building in his chest.

  Kitchener’s head was intact, showing an almost serene peacefulness. But the body… Ripped. Torn. Squashed. The ribcage had been clawed open, pulped organs spread across the bed.

  Nicholas’s scream burst out of his mouth. The roaring in his ears meant he couldn’t even hear it. He was vaguely aware of the other students crowding in behind him.

  His leg muscles pitched him on t
o the floor, and he vomited helplessly on to Kitchener’s superb Chinese carpet.

  CHAPTER 3

  The nineteen-fifties vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow glided along at eighty kilometres an hour, its white-walled tyres soaking up all the punishment the gritty ruts of the decrepit Ml could inflict without a hint of exertion. Julia Evans adored the old car; it was the absolute last word in style and its rugged old-fashioned engineering was easily equal to the strengthened suspension and broad silicone rubber tyres of any modern car. Apart from a closed loop recombiner cell which allowed it to continue burning petrol without leaking fumes into the atmosphere, and the installation of various security systems, it hadn’t needed any modifications to cope with England’s decaying road network.

  Outside the darkened glass she could see the rug of grass, weeds, and lush emerald moss which had swamped the hard shoulder; even the crash barriers along the central reservation had been swallowed up by bindweed, snow-white trumpet-shaped flowers pushing out from between the cloak of broad leaves. The original tarmac surface was still in use, scored by deep tyre-ruts along each carriageway; this afternoon it was solid because of the weekend’s cooling rains, but for nine months of the year the sun reduced the roads to swaths of mushy black treacle.

  The New Conservative government agreed in principle that nationwide road refurbishment should be given priority, coating the millions of kilometres of tarmac with a layer of rough thermo-cured cellulose, but they were hanging back until giga-conductor-powered vehicles became widespread before starting.

  The Rolls approached junction ten, and the lead car in their four-strong police escort switched on its blue strobe ights. There seemed to be a lot of people lining the slip road.

  “Who are they?” Julia asked.

  Rachel Griffith, one of her two permanent bodyguards, was sitting in the jump seat opposite. A twenty-five-year-old security division hard-liner, wearing a smart blue two-piece suit. She turned round, scanning the road ahead. Her lean face flashed Julia a quick reassuring smile. “Just some protesters,” she said. “You and the Prime Minister at the same event is a publicity opportunity they can’t ignore.”

  Julia nodded. Rachel had been with her for five years, tough, smart, and loyal. She liked to think of her as a friend as well. If Rachel wasn’t worried, there was nothing to be worried about.

  “This is as near to the Institute as they can get,” said Morgan Walshaw, Event Horizon’s security chief, from the second jump seat. Even sitting, he couldn’t appear relaxed, spine stiff, shoulders squared, wearing an immaculate charcoal-grey suit. He fitted her conception of a crusty old retired Home Counties general perfectly. Except Morgan was far shrewder than any general. Thank God.

  He was sixty-two years old, silver-grey hair clipped down to a centimetre from his skull, the thick, tanned skin of his face heavily crossed with narrow lines, hard-set light-blue eyes which always made her feel incredibly guilty whenever he stared at her. Everything she did eventually filtered back to him: nights out with her girl friends in Peterborough’s clubs, holiday adventures, party antics, boys. Morgan had been with the company for years, protecting her grandfather, and now her, a job he performed with superb efficiency and complete devotion. His approval was always tremendously important to her, mainly because he would never make a gratuitous compliment. She had to earn it, something that never happened with most of the people in her life. And words of praise had indeed been awarded, albeit grudgingly, with more frequency in recent years. She often caught herself wishing he was her real father. The knowledge that he would be retiring in a few years was something she always tried to bury right at the back of her mind; it was a horrifying thought.

  Access RollSpeech, Julia told her bioware processor node silently. Colourless words flowed from one of the three memory nodes buried at the back of her skull, forming a ghostly script behind her eyes. She reviewed it for what must have been the tenth time since breakfast. Event Horizon’s PR department had written it for her, but she’d made a few alterations. It had sounded terribly stilted before. She couldn’t forget it, of course, not with the nodes reinforcing her memory, but they couldn’t help her out if she stumbled over pronunciation.

  The roll out was going to be the technological event of the year; she couldn’t afford to make a mistake. There were going to be too many people, too many channel cameras. It felt as though a squadron of butterflies were performing dynamic acrobatic routines in her stomach.

  The four-thousand-pound Sabareni suit she had chosen to wear for the ceremony was sheer silk, a bright coral pink. The tailored jacket had a broad collar and large white buttons, its skirt was straight, hem five centimetres above her knees. Sabareni was one of her favourite designers, the suit made her feel wonderfully elegant. She had decided against ostentatious jewellery, settling for her usual gold St Christopher, and a Cartier diamond brooch. Her maid had straightened her chestnut hair so that it fell down her back almost to her hips; it was a lot of trouble to condition, but after growing it for a decade, she was damned if she was going to have it cut now. Besides, a lot of girls were copying the ‘Julia’ hair style. She had a media profile which rock stars and channel celebrities could only fantasize about.

  Exit RollSpeech. If she didn’t know it now she never would. She could hear the faint shouts of the protesters through the thick glass. “They look too well-fed to be dole dependants,” she observed as the Rolls left the motorway, cruising past a big green and gold sign which read:

  Duxford

  Event Horizon Astronautics Institute

  A rank of police, wearing bulky navy-blue riot uniforms, stood along the side of the slip road, arms linked, forming a human barricade to keep the protesters back from the little convoy. The protesters Julia could see seemed to be in their early twenties, dressed in T-shirts and jeans, most of them male. They were clean, healthy. Probably students.

  “Most of them come from colleges at Cambridge,” Morgan said.

  Julia awarded herself a mental point.

  “Rent-a-mob fodder,” he continued. “They were bussed out here this morning by a couple of radical groups, Human Frontier and the Christian Luddites, they actually get paid attendance money. Nobody would come otherwise.”

  Access Company Security File: Christian Luddites, Radical Group. She had never heard of them before, the name conjured up all sorts of amusing images. Their file squirted into her mind, illusive datastacks she could run or hold on a whim, not quite sight, not quite sound. Raw neural information. The Christian Luddites claimed to be a back-to-the-earth movement, rejecting technology in all forms except for medical purposes. Security said there were possible links with ex-apparatchiks, as yet unproven. They had fifteen chapters, spread around the major cities, a couple more in Europe. A detailed membership list had been compiled. She scanned the hierarchy, most of whom were involved in other small intense activist groups. Today’s radicals were a nepotistic incestuous lot, she thought.

  Cancel File.

  “It must cost a lot of money to mount protests if you’re paying attendance fees,” she said. “Where did it all come from originally?”

  “We’re looking in to it,” Morgan said.

  Shouldn’t be allowed,” said Patrick Browning, who was Sittmg next to her. “They’re just gaining publicity at your expense” He gave her his positive smile, the one that said he would champion her against the whole world if need be.

  Patrick was twenty-one, with golden blond hair coming down to his collar, a very handsome angular face, deep hazel eyes that held just a hint of wickedness, and a body which any Greek god would envy. His family were wealthy, a typical European finance dynasty, with interests in shipping, construction, and medium-scale engineering, operating through anonymous Zurich and Austrian offices. So money wasn’t quite so much an issue as it had been with previous boyfriends. He had just earned a business administration degree at Oxford, which gave him a nice air of self-confidence; coming on top of his debonair mannerisms and beautifully realized
sense of fun, it made him virtually irresistible.

  Five weeks ago she had been at a party when she overheard his previous girlfriend, Angela Molloy, boasting that he had the rutting stamina of a bull in springtime. Throughout the following fortnight it seemed as though Patrick couldn’t go to a party or club without bumping into Julia. It was uncanny, one might almost suspect fate was pushing them together. After he realized how many mutual interests they had, asking her for a date was only logical.

  And Angela had been quite right.

  “They have a perfect right to be there,” Julia said neutrally. “This county paid the most appalling price so that individuals had the right to express opinions again, however extreme or unwelcome. Only PSP apparatchiks try to oppress people for saying what they think.” She met Rachel’s eye levelly, reading the meticulously contained amusement in the hardhner’s composed expression.

  Patrick paled slightly at the rebuke, for an instant looking like a five-year-old who had just had his chocolate bar confiscated. “Yes,” he said carefully. “But I don’t like it when it’s you they’re expressing about.”

  Julia nodded fractionally. There were substantial dividends to be collected by keeping boys on their toes, unsure precisely where they stood. That way they always knew exactly who was in charge.

  She leant over Patrick to get a closer look at the placards being waved. It wasn’t strictly necessary, the protesters were on both sides of the slip road, but the angle would give Patrick a good view down her cleavage. She held back on a smile when she caught his eyes straying down to her neckline. Mr Suave was no different to any of the others, Mr Hormones in masquerade. Easy meat.

  She read some of the placards, the usual obscenities and crude caricatures printed in yellow and pink fluorocolours, then started to giggle.

  “What is it?” Morgan asked. He was peering out of the window.