“Okay.” She drew in a deep breath. This was the big one. “They had a file as fat as a walrus on Kuranita. Hey, he was a heavy samurai in his day. Before his little accident in Jo’burg he worked for quite a few corps, according to the info we got. Transys, oh so helpfully, attached probabilities for active employers to the list. In some cases, they knew for sure. That's when they hired him themselves. There’s a certain episode from about twenty years ago I think you should see.”
She had highlighted the hard copy. His hands shook as he read the matter-of-fact text. It gave the date, time, place, the fee paid, everything that was simple fact. There were no reasons given. Just a scattering of phrases such as “eliminating counter-research personnel,” the dehumanized language of executives who assassinate by memorandum.
“My parents.” His face was pale. “They hired the fragging bastard to kill my parents.” There wasn’t anything else to say. If that one crucial entry was accurate, it gave him one damned good reason for wanting to hit Transys Neuronet with everything he could muster.
Serrin took a few minutes to compose himself before telling Francesca what he’d learned during his jaunt across the Atlantic. He didn’t bother with the details of Her Ladyship, just dismissed her as weird but reliable.
“I got the names: Global Technologies and Hollywood Simsense. Then I got really lucky. I’ve got a Johnson in New York, a man I stashed one big favor with some years back. He owes me big-time, so I cashed in. He sweated when I asked him, which meant he already knew about it. Took him close to all day to get back to me, but he came through and now we’re quits.
“Global developed a combination of skillsoft and BTL technologies, apparently planning to sell them to the military. Story is that their researchers cooked up a bunch of really sick personalities, complete with their skills and memories, and the Ripper was one of them. He got out onto the streets when the goon implanted with the personality chip was unleashed after some corporate infighting between Global and Hollywood. Anyway, the two companies virtually brought each other down and the Ripper disappeared. Nobody’s quite sure what happened in the end. Odds are the military, somewhere or other, has the technology now. Nice thought, huh?”
Francesca shuddered involuntarily, all of a sudden feeling very cold.
“Just one extra flourish,” Serrin concluded. “When Hollywood Simsense stole the chips, they had a sleeping financial partner. The partner might have woken up and gobbled them alive, according to my source. You’ll never guess who the partner was.”
“Transys Neuronet, perchance?”
“Give the lady a radioactive coconut! They could have had access to those chips for long enough to know all there is to know about them. Transys could have taken the design and been testing it all this time. They’ve had more than two years to do it. This time, they could be making sure they get it right.”
The telecom on the bedside table beeped. They were almost afraid to answer it. and Francesca used the descrambler Geraint had given her from the security firm. The screen showed Geraint in his flat, smiling on the other end of the line. They could also see a very scared-looking Rani almost pinioned between a burly pair of security guards.
“Got here to find our young friend having her collar squeezed by my highly efficient security people. Fortunately, their guns were mostly set with tranq shots. Well, mostly. Anyway, we’re both safe and we’ll be back before lunch.”
“Where are we going to stay?” Francesca was beginning to run out of clean, smart clothes, and it mattered.
“Talk to you about that when we return. Not over the phone,” he said in mildly reproachful tones before disappearing with a smile as wide as the Cheshire cat’s.
It was nearly an hour before Geraint and Rani traipsed into the hotel suite escorted by a pair of hulking security men, They had only one bag apiece, certainly less than Francesca had expected. She had imagined the nobleman would turn up with whole valises stuffed full of the contents of his wall safe, When the security guards retired to a discreet distance, Geraint explained.
“The Savoy wouldn’t like me arriving with certain items, even if they were officially licensed. Think about it; would you allow people to bring serious weapons into a top-class, heavy-security hotel if you were running it?”
She could see the sense in that. “So what’s the plan?”
“Well, Rani needs to be in the Smoke tomorrow night. She’s got contacts to firm up and some advances to dispense. She’s also got a little family trouble. So, we’ll take the limo, pick up the bags I left at my flat, collect whatever you need, and then we take a plane westward.” Serrin and Francesca looked at each other, surprised.
“Time to visit the old ancestral home. I think. As it happens. Transys Neuronet has a facility of sorts just down the road, but if we head for my northern keep we should be as safe as anywhere else in the country. Besides, ever since I told young Rani about it, she’s been really eager to go. You see, she’s never actually seen a field with a cow in it. Can you believe that?”
30
Cwmbran was a pleasant South Wales town, but they didn’t get much opportunity to see it. The Lear-Cessna dumped the group close to the grounds of the forbidding, moated castle keep, and they’d scurried straight in under cover of darkness.
All the way there, Geraint had apologized for the state of the castle; his father brought Japanese and American contacts here, and they liked their authenticity faked. Even with every regulatory system installed, a real castle keep would have been cold, damp, and uncomfortable. This one had been built barely thirty years ago to be as comfortable as possible, right down to the four-poster beds.
Rani didn’t care what the noble was apologizing about; it was all very real to her. She walked along slowly, wide-eyed, reaching out hesitantly to touch the stone walls. It wasn’t simsense, this was the real thing. She felt so good, she just had to hug Geraint.
“This is banging!” she cried out in unabashed joy.
He smiled broadly and put an arm around her, leading her to the dining hall. On the walls of the long room were Welsh heraldic shields, above the fireplace hung a great stuffed hoar’s head, and the almost endless table was set with silver and crystal and had real wooden chairs. To the ork it seemed like a scene from a fairy tale vid.
Serrin, too, was delighted by it all, “Well. Geraint, you’re a class act. It’s no less than I would have expected.”
Even the worldly and cosmopolitan Francesca was plainly impressed. It was a pleasure for Geraint to dim the lights and light the candles.
“Sorry, folks. Not much in the way of wine tonight.” Geraini apologized later just as a livened servant appeared to serve a silver bowl of mulligatawny. Rani slurped at the peppery soup, pleased at its almost-familiar taste. Suddenly self-conscious she looked up guiltily, wondering if ork table manners were out of place here.
Geraint burst out laughing in his seat at the head of the table, but his face was kind and she knew he wasn’t laughing at her. “God, Rani, it’s really good to eat with someone who really enjoys their food and doesn’t put on any fancy airs and graces. I tell you, it’s a bloody relief. There’s more than we can possibly get through in that bowl, so go to it. Keep room for the trout, though. Pierre does fish to perfection.”
Trout. She had eaten them, of course, but she imagined that Geraint’s would be a far cry from those spawned in the huge depolluting sewage farms clustered around the Smoke. Perhaps these fish would even taste of something. A liveried butler was heaping up real wood in the fireplace, then, setting it alight. Good grief, they were burning wood here?