"I'm guessing that a person can be a natural nexus point – like a webmovie star or Zak Tyndall, with thousands of people they can call on for a favour – or have nexushood thrust upon them. If that's a word."
"Right person, right place, right time. A potential disease carrier can go through their lives free from infection, but if they happen to catch it, suddenly they're a nexus point."
Petra refilled everyone's cups.
"I'm just a simple copper. So Josh, who's going to win the Challenge? Bloods or Blades?"
"Probably."
"How many teams are in the Challenge?" asked Suzanne.
"Er, two."
Yukiko looked at Suzanne. "At least he can count above one."
[SEVENTEEN]
In the morning, Josh rolled off the couch as he came awake, landing in a crouched stance, checking the springiness in his legs.
"The warrior awakes." Petra was in the kitchen doorway. "Alert and ready for battle."
"And desperate to pee."
"Grab the bathroom while it's free. I'll make coffee."
"Deal."
To get to the bathroom, he had to pass the guest room with Suzanne inside. He paused, then entered the bathroom. Five minutes and a cold shower later, he was back out, wide awake.
In the kitchen, Yukiko, in T-shirt and baggy pyjama trousers, was staring at the coffee dripping into the pot. Her T-shirt's hologram showed a DNA double helix unwinding.
"Morning," said Josh. "How's the world's sharpest intellect?"
"Ugh."
"You want intelligent conversation from my sweetie," said Petra, "you need to wait for an hour. Longer, if we run out of coffee."
Yukiko's eyelids were almost shut. "Uh-huh."
"So this would be a good time to challenge her to chess?"
"Only if you can wait till lunchtime for her to make a move."
Once the coffee was ready, Yukiko stumbled back to the bedroom, mug in both hands like an offering. Petra put a phone on the table, then sat down. Josh sipped his coffee, strong enough to make him blink.
"The covert core monitors," Petra said, "have registers of subscribers. Apart from Special Branch, there's a bunch of subscribing officers in Thames House and Vauxhall Cross." She meant MI5 and MI6. "One particular monitor scans for querybots targeting people of interest. If it notices a suspect querybot, it notifies the listener software on each subscriber's phone."
"And Richard Broomhall's a person of interest."
"Not him. His father."
"Whose biggest corporate enemy is Tyndall Enterprises. Which is why Yukiko showed us that stuff last night."
Not just because the fighters received virapharmbased treatment when injured.
"Right."
"And Zak Tyndall has friends in Whitehall."
"Uh-huh. So the reason for the monitor doesn't matter, not to you." Petra took a slug of coffee. "Mmm. Now, if you want to search beyond the London Transport net, you're going to have to fiddle with the subscriber list, similar to your ShieldIx hack."
"Er… Right."
"You can't stop the monitor detecting your querybot intrusion, but if you hack the monitor in advance, you can empty out its address book of who to notify. Like stuffing paper under an old-fashioned alarm bell, so it vibrates but there's no sound."
"And reinstate the address book afterwards," said Josh.
"Right. The monitor only checks new stuff: processes being spawned, runtime components coming into existence. Once your querybot is up and running, the monitor won't care. Then you can put the list back in place, so no one notices."
"So all I've got to do is find a way of hacking through to the monitor. That's not exactly trivial."
"Maybe it is." Petra slid the phone across the table. "For you, lover. Take a look in Favourite Apps. Everything you need is already loaded."
"I won't ask how you got this."
"And I won't tell you how I accidentally cloned a Special Branch phone while we had spook visitors."
"Good."
"Good."
They clinked their coffee mugs together.
"There's something else, though," said Petra. "Something that worries me, although I don't think we're under surveillance."
"Which is?"
"If there are watchers outside, there's a record of you spending the night with the three hottest babes in town."
"I'll be sure to look exhausted when I leave."
"Perhaps we should carry you out."
The world was grey, and Richard was grey. Even the sunshine was grey. He sat outside the park, upturned veil-cap on the ground, with four coins inside: all he had.
"Spare any… change?"
But the busy feet had already walked past. In his listless state, he could not imagine walking that fast.
Am I going to die?
Perhaps at some point he could just let go of the world.
"There you go. Take it easy."
Coins spilling from a curled palm, a crouched woman straightening and walking on.
"Er, thank… you."
He woke up enough to check for streetcams. This seemed to be a blind spot, so he relaxed back against the brickwork. Other people walked past – workers heading for the station – and a few more coins tinkled into his cap.
Thank you. Had he said the words or merely thought them? I have to eat.
Retrieving the money, he jammed the cap on his head, and pulled himself up. His legs were soft, his knees painful. He made himself walk. Soon he was passing a row of shops, and in one doorway, a young woman kneeling on a grimy blanket. On her neck was a medical dressing, stained with pus. She was sobbing in near-silence.
No one was pausing to look at her.
That's not right.
He pulled out his coins, squinted as he counted, then put one third of the money back in his pocket. The rest, he carried over to her, and held out.
"Oh," she said. "Oh."
"It will get better."
"Thank you."
"Yes."
And then he walked on.
Finally, he passed a burger joint from which amazing smells drifted. He went inside, to where the fries-andburger aroma was so strong, he wanted to cry. He stood at the counter.
"No, mate. Sorry." The woman pulled back the basket of sauce-sachets, which were supposed to be free. "Not in here."
"I wanted to buy-"
"You're disturbing the customers."
Richard bowed his head, and shambled out.
At some point in his wandering he passed MI6 headquarters, familiar from movies: the sharp-lined ochre-and-green building, the laser turrets on the armoured gates. How could it be a Secret Intelligence Service if everyone knew where they worked? Then he stumbled on, passing beneath an old steel railway bridge, and found a stallholder who sold him a bar of Cadbury's and a bag of locust-flavoured crisps. The salt and sugar tasted fantastic; but afterwards, his background headache worsened, filling his skull, dampening his vision.
At some point, as he crossed a dirty park away from the shops, a girl's voice sounded. The effect was like a giant hand swatting him, making him stumble.
Opal?
"-that way," she was saying. "Like this. When your hands hit the wall, your hips are still well back, so there's time to get your knees up to your chest."
It was a big rubber-coated block she was vaulting over, not a wall. Other blocks stood around the grass, along with crash mats. Opal made it look easy, going over with her legs passing between her hands, landing in a quarter-crouch.
"If we had gek-gloves-" someone started to say.
"Freerun first, gekrun later." Opal slapped the rubberised block. "If you can't do a Kong vault freehand, you'll never manage the gloves and skates."
She looked around her small group of trainees. A couple looked about fourteen, her age; some were younger, some older. One lad might have been seventeen, starting to bulk up with muscle; but he stared at Opal with awed concentration.