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.