17. URBAN BAND, THE
18. WASTE MANAGEMENT AND THE SEWERAGE SYSTEM
Ella looked at the screen dumbfounded. There was no mention of the Boundary Layer. She felt panic well up inside her. What if she couldn’t do what she had said she could? What if all these brave WFA fighters were dying for nothing?
Think, Ella, think.
What was the Boundary Layer?
It was the means by which ParaDigm’s programmers had confined the population of the Demi-Monde. Therefore it was a ‘constraint’. She typed in ‘5’. Immediately the tiles that made up the screen began to clack around.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS
PARAMETERS THAT MAY BE AMENDED INCLUDE:
1. BOUNDARY LAYER
2. DEPTH OF SOIL LAYER
3. DISTRIBUTION AND VORACITY OF NANOBITES
4. THE MANTLE
Thank the Spirits!
She typed ‘1’.
BOUNDARY LAYER
PARAMETERS THAT MAY BE AMENDED INCLUDE:
1. DISTANCE FROM CENTRE OF THE DEMI-MONDE®
2. HEIGHT
3. PENETRABILITY
4. TACTILITY
5. TRANSPARENCY
Desperately trying to keep her hands from shaking, she typed in ‘3’.
BOUNDARY LAYER YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO AMEND: PENETRABILITY IS THIS TO BE A LOCAL AMENDMENT? Y/N
Yes, for the love of God, yes!
PLEASE USE THE MUTOSCOPE VIEWER
Ella did as she was asked and saw a map of the Demi-Monde displayed there. At the outer circumference of each District the Boundary was designated with a code, the code for the Warsaw District’s Boundary being WBL-1. Ella typed in the reference code.
DO YOU WISH THE BOUNDARY LAYER WBL-1 TO BE MADE PENETRABLE? Y/N
Yes, yes, yes…
IN WHAT TIME-FRAME (DEMI-MONDIAN REFERENCE) DO YOU WISH THIS AMENDMENT TO BE EXECUTED?
Frantically Ella typed ‘IMMEDIATE’.
CONGRATULATIONS ELLA THOMAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH PROTOCOL 57 YOU HAVE MADE AN EMERGENCY ONE-HOUR AMENDMENT TO THE PENETRABILITY OF THE BOUNDARY LAYER AT WBL-1. THIS AMENDMENT IS SUBJECT TO RATIFICATION BY THE DEMI-MONDE® STEERING COMMITTEE. IF SUCH RATIFICATION IS NOT RECEIVED THE AMENDMENT TO THE CYBER-MILIEU WILL BE ANNULLED IMMEDIATELY THE ONE-HOUR EMERGENCY PERIOD HAS ELAPSED. DO YOU REQUIRE ANY OTHER SERVICES? Y/N
Ella typed ‘Y’. This was her chance to find out where the SS were going to take Norma Williams after Wewelsburg Castle, to find out where Crowley would conduct his Rite of Transference.
THE DEMI-MONDE® IM MANUAL
OPTIONS:
1. LOCATE DUPE
2. ADD DUPE
3. DELETE DUPE
4. AMEND DUPE CHARACTERISTICS
5. AMEND DUPE PERCEPTIONS
6. AMEND CYBER-MILIEU CHARACTERISTICS
She pressed ‘1’ and immediately she was asked:
NAME OF DUPE TO BE LOCATED?
It was then that she remembered that because she was a renegade Dupe, ABBA wasn’t able to track Norma Williams.
Think…
She had a stroke of inspiration.
‘AALIZ HEYDRICH’, she typed.
The Transfer Screen whirled.
DUPE AALIZ HEYDRICH IS LOCATED AT EXTERSTEINE. DEMIMONDIAN COORDINATES SECTOR 1/N5°W/6.5MILES
Ella quizzed PINC regarding ExterSteine but again it let her down: it had no knowledge of the place.
But even as she desperately tried to memorise the coordinates of ExterSteine there was another tremendous explosion from the front of the Bank, and Trixie, followed by her bedraggled fighters, staggered into the Banking Hall. She looked across to Ella. ‘Have you done it?’ she shouted.
‘Yes,’ replied Ella. ‘Just one more minute.’
Trixie shook her head. ‘There are no more minutes. There’s nowhere to go and the SS are advancing. We’re trapped here. This is where we die.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Ella turned back to the Transfusion Booth.
‘It appears the rebels have ceased firing, Comrade Colonel.’
Archie Clement frowned. That wasn’t like the Rebs. As he’d seen over the past few weeks, these bastards fought like madmen, digging into every ruin, every cellar, every pothole and then fighting to the last man. Even his SS had been taken aback by their fanaticism and by how readily they were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their ridiculous cause. And it was all the fault of that bitch Trixie Dashwood.
But who could have thought it would have been a seventeen-year-old girl who would stiffen Dabrowski’s spine? Even Beria hadn’t seen that one coming. Without her the Poles would have folded in a fortnight, just as they had planned they would. That bitch had a lot to answer for.
‘How long?’ he asked.
‘They haven’t fired a shot for ten minutes.’
‘We got the steamers here yet?’
‘Just one, Comrade Colonel, the other was ambushed on Leshno. A couple of kids with firebombs…’
Clement nodded grim acknowledgement and spat out a wad of tobacco. These Rebs were fucked more ways that a ten-bob whore but still the diehards fought on. Fucking suicide bombers: it was impossible to defend against Rebs who were prepared to sacrifice their lives to blow up steamers. And the attrition rate had been fearful: more than half the steamers employed in the Ghetto had been lost to booby-traps and to incendiaries. The cost was ferocious and Horatio Bottomley was already sending letters of complaint to Crowley. Bottomley would just love it when he heard that the Rebs had retaken the Bank.
Clement lifted his cap and ran a hand through his blond hair. Why the Rebs had attacked the Bank was beyond him: they must know that he would never allow them to leave with any blood, they must know it was all pointless. All they had succeeded in doing was making him look foolish.
He kicked at a shell case, sending it skittering over the cobbles: that bastard Bottomley should get his fat arse down here to the Ghetto and help fight these lunatics, then he’d stop moaning about what the war was doing to his budget.
He just hoped Beria’s ruse worked.
‘Get a squad together to advance under cover of the steamer.’
‘Shall I make sure they’ve got a flamer with them, Comrade Colonel? Might be best to burn the buggers out.
