“Gosh.”
He showed Louise the room’s processor block, which was built in to the dresser. “Any information you need on the city for your stay should be in here; it has a comprehensive tourist section,” he said. She tipped him a couple of fuseodollars when he left. He’d been holding his own credit disk, casually visible through fingers splayed wide.
Genevieve waited until the door shut. “What’s Buckingham Palace?”
The AI was alert to the glitch within a hundredth of a second. Two ticket dispenser processors and an informational projector. It brought additional analysis programs on line, and ran an immediate verification sweep of every electronic circuit in Grand Central Station.
Half a second. The response to a general acknowledgement datavise from five sets of neural nanonics was incorrect. All of them were within a seven metre zone, which also incorporated the failing ticket dispensers.
Two seconds. Security sensors in Grand Central’s concourse focused on the suspect area. The AI datavised to B7’s North American supervisor the fact it had located a possessed-type glitch in New York. He had just framed his query in reply when the sensors observed Bud Johnson go cartwheeling over someone in a black robe crouched on the floor.
Three and a half seconds. There was a visual discontinuity. None of the sensor short-term memory buffers had registered the black clad figure before. It was as if he’d just materialized out of nowhere. If he had neural nanonics, then they were not responding to the ident request datavise.
Four seconds. The North American supervisor took direct control of the situation in conjunction with the AI. A datavised warning went out to the rest of the supervisors.
Six seconds. The full B7 complement of supervisors was on line, observing. The AI’s visual characteristics program locked on to the shadowed face inside the black robe’s hood. Quinn Dexter rose to his feet.
South Pacific: “Nuke him. Now!”
Western Europe: “Don’t be absurd.”
Halo: “SD platforms armed; do you want groundstrike?”
North America: “No. It’s completely impractical. Grand Central Station’s concourse is a hundred and fifty metres below ground, and that’s spread out below three skyscrapers. There isn’t an X-ray laser built that could reach it.”
South Pacific: “Then use a real nuke. A combat wasp can be down there in two minutes.”
Asian Pacific: “I second that.”
Western Europe: “No! Damn it. Will you morons control yourselves.”
North America: “Thank you. I’m not going to blast Dome One into oblivion. There are twenty million people living in there. Even Laton didn’t kill that many.”
North Europe: “You can’t let him go. We have to exterminate him.”
Western Europe: “How?”
North Europe: “South Pacific’s right. Nuke the shit. I’m sorry about the other inhabitants, but it’s the only way we can resolve the situation.”
Western Europe: “Observe, please.”
Eleven seconds. Bud Johnson’s face had turned purple. He scrabbled feebly at his chest, then pitched over onto the floor. People clustered round him. Quinn Dexter became translucent and quickly faded from view. The AI reported all the processors had come back on line.
Military Intelligence: “Oh shit.”
Western Europe: “Will a nuke kill him now do you think? Wherever he is.”
South Pacific: “One way to find out.”
Western Europe: “I cannot permit that. We exist primarily to protect Earth. Even with our prerogatives, you cannot exterminate twenty million people in the
Halo: “The boy’s right, I’m afraid. I’m standing down the SD platforms.”
South Pacific: “Terrorist demon, more like.”
Western Europe: “I’m not arguing definitions. All this does is confirm I was right the first time. We have got to be extremely careful how we deal with Dexter.”
North Pacific: “Well at least shut down New York’s vac-trains.”
Central America: “Yes. Isolate him in New York. You can creep up on him there.”
Western Europe: “I’m going to have to say no again.”
North Pacific: “In Allah’s name, why? We know where he is, that gives us a tremendous advantage.”
Western Europe: “It’s psychology. He knows we know he’s here. He’s not stupid, he’ll realize we’ll find out about him appearing in Grand Central station. The question is, how long does it take us to find out? If we stop the vac-trains now, it shows him we are right up to speed and deeply worried by him, and also that we’ll go all out to stop him. That’s not good, that puts him on guard.”
Central America: “So, he’s on guard? If he’s trapped in one place, it won’t do him any good. He’ll still be on death row. He knows it’s coming, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”
Western Europe: “First thing he’ll do is mobilise New York to defend himself. And we’ll be back to one option of having to nuke the place. Don’t you see? Our arcologies are even more vulnerable than asteroid settlements. They are utterly dependent on technology, not just to protect us from the weather, but to feed us and condition our air. If you confine three hundred million possessed inside one, every single chunk of machinery will break down. The domes will shatter in the first storm that comes along, and the population will either starve or turn cannibal.”
Central America: “I’m prepared to sacrifice one arcology to save the rest. If that’s what it takes.”
Western Europe: “But we don’t have to sacrifice one. Certainly not yet. You’re being abysmally premature. Right now, Dexter will be skipping round arcologies, establishing small groups of possessed who’ll keep their heads down until he gives the word. While he’s doing that, we’ve got a chance. There will only be small groups in each arcology, which
Asian Pacific: “Put it to the vote.”
Western Europe: “How wonderfully democratic. Very well.”
Six supervisors voted for closing down New York’s vac-trains right away. Ten voted to keep them open.
Western Europe: “Thank you so much for your confidence.”
Southern Africa: “You have the ball for now. But if you haven’t dealt with Dexter in another ten days, I shall be voting to isolate him wherever he is. And then we’ll see if he can hide from a nuke as well as he can from a sensor.”
The conference dissolved. Western Europe asked North America, Military Intelligence, and Halo to remain on line. Natural allies in the eternal warzone of B7’s internal politics, they obliged. His sensevise overlay program positioning and dressing them around his drawing room as though they were weekend guests just come in from a stroll round the grounds.
“It’ll go against you eventually,” Halo warned. “They’re happy for you to take responsibility for the chase as long as Dexter hasn’t caused any noticeable damage. But the minute he gets noisy, they’ll revert.”
“That little crap artist, South Pacific,” North America complained. “Telling me to nuke New York! Who the hell does she think she is?”
“She always favours the blunt approach,” Western Europe said. “We all know that. That’s why I like her so much, makes one feel constantly superior.”
“Inferior or not, she’ll carry the day eventually,” Military Intelligence said.
Western Europe walked over to the tall glass-panelled door, and let his two Labradors in. “I know. That’s why I found today encouraging.”
“Encouraging?” North America asked, astonished. “Are you kidding? I’ve got that Dexter bastard running round loose in New York.”
“Yes, exactly. Something went wrong for him. He was on his knees when he appeared, and he vanished within seconds.
