"How are you feeling?" Rachel asked.
"Still a bit dazed. It's fading though. Remembering things isn't so difficult now." Julia slipped a couple of big butterfly clips into her hair. "Let's go."
Her bedroom door was splintered around the lock. All Wilholm's locks had been glitched by the virus. She nearly got the shakes again when she thought about that. If they hadn't been glitched, Steven would have just walked straight in. Luck, or chance. Fate.
Rachel walked beside her, Ben taking up position a couple of paces behind. At least she didn't have to be shown the way to the study, that was too ingrained. But she simply couldn't match a name to the face of one of the manor's anxious-looking domestic staff as they walked past. It was definitely a member of staff, though. That was something.
"Thank you, Rachel," she said, suddenly shy.
"What for? You did all the work. Even after all you'd been through you held it together just perfect. Most of us would've gone completely to pieces. By rights you ought to sack the lot of us. Some bodyguard I turned out to be."
"No. Steven wasn't your fault. How could we have known?"
"It's my job to be suspicious. All that sudden calling in sick every time your psychic friend Mandel turned up. I should have known."
Julia frowned. That couldn't be right. Greg and Steven were both working for Kendric. Weren't they? She requested a logic matrix. "Oh," she sighed in disappointment. The loss of the nodes was going to take some getting used to.
"I don't want you to worry any more," Rachel said. "No greasy little hardline tekmerc is going to get near you. Not with us here."
Julia could see Rachel was bottling up a core of hearty excitement, almost as if she relished the prospect of a tekmerc attack. It sent little roots of doubt into Julia's mood, because it made her seem like nothing more than an excuse for the two sides to let fly at one another, they enjoyed it.
"Isn't that right, Ben?" Rachel called over her shoulder.
"God's honest truth, Miss Evans."
Julia turned at the unexpectedly mellow voice, giving an embarrassed little grin. "That's just Julia, please."
He nodded warmly.
Rachel tipped her a wink as she pushed the study door open. The lock had disappeared, leaving a rough semicircle of charred wood. Morgan had been in a hurry.
She walked in feeling better than she had any right to. Rachel had never spoken to her like that before. Friendly. Who'd have thought it?
There were about ten people in the study, four of them sitting at the paper-littered table. She could name seven, five in security, two manor staff. The buzz of conversation faded out, all heads turning to look at her. She saw concern and relief register in their faces. They cared about her.
Morgan rose from his seat and she went to his side.
"OK now?" he asked tenderly.
"Yah. Thank you." She cleared her throat. "I'd like to thank all of you, actually. I'm really very grateful for your support." She sat quickly, not meeting eyes. The chair was the one next to Morgan's, she'd always sat at the head of the table before, or opposite him. No more. She sensed Rachel take up position behind her. "What happened?"
"Ha, you tell me," Morgan said.
"Grandpa said someone had managed to squirt a Trojan into him." Julia glanced up at the rustle of sounds, smiling faintly at the curious glances thrown at her. Her finger lined up on the NN core, ultra-hush belonged in the past too. These were her people, they had a right to know. "His memories are in there, translocated before he died. Still are from what I can gather. He shut himself down to stop the virus spreading. Once we write an antithesis program we can unlock him." She stopped, pleased with herself, gear terminology had all been node-referenced.
"The NN core's still drawing power," Morgan said. "Small but constant."
"Great. What do we do in the meantime?"
"Stay put, I'm afraid. We don't have a lot of choice."
"What do you mean?"
"Piers will tell you."
Julia knew that name. Piers Ryder, one of the security division staff, technical.
He was sitting on the other side of the table from her, none too happy at being the centre of attention, reflected in a slightly strained voice. "One of the assault methods we anticipated was an attempt to knock out the defence gear around the manor with a virus program as a prelude to hardliner physical penetration. Consequently, the gear is all designed to revert to a fully autonomous mode if such a virus is detected in the security datanet. And that's exactly what has happened. For all its power this virus is easily detectable, in fact you can't fail to notice it. From what I've managed to ascertain it only attacks databus management programs, the 'ware processors themselves are left unscathed. Basically it's a spoiler virus, it can't do any actual damage."
"Really?"
Piers Ryder shifted at the irony in her drawl, dislodging some of the sheets of hard copy he'd covered in thin wavery handwriting. "I mean, not long-term damage."
"So it was aimed at the security gear rather than Grandpa's NN core?" Julia asked.
"That's what I think. There would be no point in directing it at a bioware core; as you've seen, the programs stored inside won't actually suffer any damage. The hotrod who squirted it in must have known that."
"Which implies that we're going to have visitors sometime soon," Morgan Walshaw said.
"Then why are we still here?" she asked. "The finance division offices are just as secure. And they won't know I'm there if we move fast."
Ryder took an awkward breath. "Miss Evans, Wilholm's defences will shoot anything larger than a rabbit which moves inside the grounds, apart from the sentinels."
"Including us?" Julia asked incredulously.
"If anyone were to step outside, then yes."
"We're perfectly safe," Morgan Walshaw said. "Just can't get out, that's all."
"All!"
"And no one can get in. The attack has failed, Julia."
"You hope."
"We're patrolling the manor on the inside. I've got lookouts with photon amps scanning the gardens. If anyone does get past the sentinels and the defence gear they'll be sitting ducks for our hand-lasers."
"Oh." Julia tried to spot a flaw in his reasoning, and couldn't, to her immense relief. "Guess we're going to be all right, then."
"Good girl. We'll just sit it out in here for the rest of the night."
Julia realised that there was something Ryder hadn't said. "How long before your team finishes the antithesis program?" she asked him.
"There's only me here," Piers Ryder replied. "I can't do anything by myself, you need a lightware cruncher to write an antithesis."
"Haven't they even given you an estimate?"
"We can't talk to anyone outside, Julia," Morgan said.
"Why not?"
"The virus has contaminated all the communications consoles. Your grandfather's NN core was plugged into every landline, ours and English Telecom's."
"Well, what about the satellite uplinks?"
"Same problem," said Piers Ryder. "Even the dish servos are glitched."
"So use a cybofax."
Piers Ryder looked crestfallen, he glanced at Morgan Walshaw for support. The security chief responded with an empty wave.
"One of the security systems protecting the manor is an all-spectrum electromagnetic jammer," said Piers Ryder. "We thought a tekmerc penetration squad would have to be equipped with some kind of military-grade communication gear to co-ordinate their assault. A commercial cybofax couldn't possibly break through the jamming blanket. I'm sorry."
Julia felt a pang of sympathy for Ryder. "Don't apologise, I had no idea I was so well protected."
"The security office in Peterborough will know exactly what's happened," Morgan said smoothly. "They'll be working on it now."
"All they need is the antithesis," Ryder said earnestly. "Once they've cracked it, they'll load it into the company datanet and send it into our communications consoles through the optical cables, it'll flush the virus in seconds."