Without preamble he had announced, ‘We’ve lost Glasgow HQ – it’s been overrun. Only twenty survivors got out.’
‘What?’
‘Seems the ZAs are getting organized.’
‘They had readerguns at Glasgow,’ she said. ‘There were four thousand of them there.’ Then she managed to get herself under control. ‘Our perimeter readerguns?’
‘I did shut down radio access to them five days ago, but now we have direct fibre-optic control from here.’ He paused, grimacing. ‘They won’t be enough, though. Glasgow had no problem with their readerguns; they just ran out of bullets.’
‘Then it’s time,’ she said. ‘It’s time.’
She realized that, despite her apparent self-assurance and despite her hardness of purpose, she had been procrastinating. She had allowed herself to sink into bureaucratic time-wasting; pursuing detail and ignoring the central problem. She had not taken charge, and now it was time to. Glasgow was a wake-up call that brought home to her the necessity of what she must do. The face in the mirror returned to her a slow nod. She turned away, methodically stripped off her wrinkled suit, and went to take a shower. Then, just as methodically, she changed her appearance, and hardened her mind.
Finally, clad in an Inspectorate uniform of light blue slacks, shirt, tie and jacket, her weapon holstered at her hip, Serene again studied herself in her mirror, then carefully applied some make-up. Yes, this was the right choice. For too long now she had been making do, running herself ragged and not really taking control. During a time of emergency she needed to project an air of military efficiency, and of strength. No bureaucratic power suit now, with its associations of Committee fudges and paper shuffling. After a moment she donned the cap, studied it for a moment, then discarded it. No, instead she unpinned her hair and shook it loose, tied it in a ponytail, then clipped a palmtop and a disabler to her belt, finishing the ensemble with a brooch depicting the United Earth logo on her lapel. Yes, just right.
Next she turned from the mirror and walked over to her display cabinet and peered inside. Various examples of the hardware manufactured here were laid out on white velvet. Four generations of ID implants sat in a row. Three chips, the size of hundred-Euro coins, were the minds of respectively a razorbird, a shepherd and a spidergun. A fourth chip of the same size sat at the centre of an array of sub-chips smaller even than ID implants. These depicted the control hub and subsets of a readergun net. Under glass domes sat some of the biochips manufactured here for research organizations all across the Earth, and seven of these were even now being installed in seven somewhat reluctant ‘volunteers’ who would be deployed on Govnet as a counter to Alan Saul.
She suffered a sudden cold sweat at the thought. Govnet was still very vulnerable, but as yet there had been no attack from Saul. Almost certainly that was due to the solar storm and, when it finished, he would once again be able to reach back to Earth from Argus. She needed to secure Govnet before that happened. She needed her seven ‘comlifers’ up and running – and soon. However, there was something more urgent that needed dealing with first.
Many of the chips were too small to study easily with the naked eye, so magnifying screens had been inset in the upper sheet of the display case. She reached out and touched the glass just above one of the chips, starting up the screen so it showed her a clear image of a cube just ten microns across. Five of the faces of this item were studded with gold electrodes, while on the sixth face was a small rectangle – the biological component of the small biochip. Here, at the Complex, they had made the blueprint for this device, also the prototypes, and still made the biological component; fifteen billion of the finished item had since been manufactured in a further three hundred automated factories all across Earth. They were a part of the standard ID implant. Ostensibly – with their biological component facing out into the human body – they were able to read DNA and detect whether the implant had been removed and placed in another body. Apparently they were a failure, because the circuitry was easy to bypass. They were considered a black mark against Serene herself – a failure many of her Committee opponents relished too much to study too closely.
However, here, only two other people other than her knew that, upon receipt of certain computer codes, these chips would activate and carry out their true purpose. What the other two didn’t know, what had been known to a team of four development engineers who were mistakenly arrested and executed by the Inspectorate three years ago, was that these chips were in all ID implants, including those of Committee delegates, and not just in those of the ZA citizens they were supposedly intended for.
Serene turned away, strode to the door.
‘Anything new?’ she asked Anderson, as she stepped back out into Oversight.
He turned towards her, looking even more tired and hassled. ‘The twenty survivors from Glasgow are heading here. Another fifteen of our staff have reported in, and I’ve allowed them to come across from the mainland. Sheila’s gone over there to meet them.’
When she arrived back here ten days ago, Serene had hoped that Sheila Trondheim might be one of the casualties. ‘Your idea?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Good, because right now she didn’t want Sheila around with her large, self-indulgent and thoroughly inappropriate conscience. ‘Anything else?’
He paused, obviously reluctant to tell her the next thing, then said, ‘The total of known surviving delegates on Earth is now up to twenty-four. Delegate Angone of Region SE Africa has just made his presence known.’
Annoying – that now made three delegates in total with authority ranking over hers. ‘He’s been keeping his head down,’ she noted. Probably consolidating gains, making sure of his power base.
Anderson still looked grave. ‘As soon as he announced his presence, he claimed to assume top authority for the “interim of Chairman Messina’s absence”, and is organizing a teleconference for 20.00 GMT tonight. You are instructed to attend.’
Serene grimaced. She’d known it wouldn’t take long for the survivors to crawl out of the woodwork and start competing for the top job, but she had hoped to have known about them all by now.
‘Nevertheless . . .’ she said, pausing to take a slow breath, ‘we now have work to do in Comtrans One.’
His expression became even grimmer. He’d known this was coming, ever since she returned. This knowledge had been implicit between them, but perhaps actually accepting it was difficult for him. Perhaps not as difficult as for Sheila Trondheim, who was the other person here who knew, but still difficult enough. Serene would have to deal with this problem. When she carried through her next plan, three people would know precisely what she had done – and that was two people too many.
He nodded, detached the eye-screen extension to his fone and placed it down on a nearby console, then stood ready and waiting. She surveyed the room, noting that Clay Ruger, Anderson’s lieutenant, was on shift today. Clay was an ambitious and capable man with weaknesses that could be exploited. He was a sociopath but also a coward, like so many in high position, and quite simple to understand and manipulate.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
Outside the door, Anderson signalled for the two guards to follow them.
‘No,’ said Serene, without looking round, ‘they stay here.’
‘We’re still not as secure here as I would like,’ Anderson warned.
‘Nevertheless,’ Serene replied, leading the way from Oversight.
Comtrans One was where they kept all the communications hardware: the signal boosters and other devices connected to the aerials and satellite dishes on the roof, the coders for laser transmissions, and the Govnet sub-servers and modems. Anderson entered first, halting in the middle of the room while he gazed steadily at the main console there.