“Destination reached,” said his computer.
“Thank you, Ego.” He opened the door and relished the cool, damp air. It had been a five-hour journey.
“One moment, please. Professor Proctor, you have a phone call.”
“Tell them I’m busy,” he said.
“It is your daughter.”
David paused. He pulled his leg back into the car and closed the door. He steepled his fingers and tried to think. It didn’t work.
“Professor Proctor? Your caller is waiting.”
“Fine. Put her on.”
The computer displayed a little egg-timer and did nothing. “Is there a problem?” he asked.
“The communication appears to be encrypted. I do not know the cipher.”
David smiled. “Find and read the file on Jennifer’s highschool maths project.”
“Understood.”
Immediately, the image of his daughter appeared.
Jennifer. David drew a breath. He had last seen her aged sixteen. She wore thick glasses, no make-up, and she had scraped her hair into a bun. She was pale and stern. She looked like her mother.
“Hello, Jennifer.”
“Hi, dad.”
David laughed. She had an American accent. Jennifer, in contrast, remained calm. His laughter died. “I’m glad you called,” he said.
“Are you?”
“Yes. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Talk, then.”
David watched the rain run down the windscreen. He wasn’t ready for this. Not now. “I – I’m sorry. After you went to New York, I thought maybe you needed some time to yourself.”
“You sent me away. You sent the freak to the freaks then skipped the country.”
“Look, you couldn’t stay in Oxford any more. You would have been shunned because of your – because of the way you were. You wouldn’t have realised your full potential.” David sighed softly, but his heart thumped in his chest. “We’ve been through this.”
Jennifer leaned towards the camera. “I was the one who had to go through it, not you. Do you know what it was like in that school?”
“I got your emails.”
“I didn’t get yours.”
“Jennifer, why did you call?”
“Not to sing happy birthday,” she said. She blinked a few times. “I have a message for you.”
David looked at her. “What is it?”
She paused. “Where are you?”
“Actually I’m at the old research centre, in West Lothian.”
“What are you doing there?”
“I can’t tell you that on the phone.”
“This isn’t a phone, Dad,” she said. She had the trace of a smile.
“I know. It’s a secure server. You’ve encrypted the transmission.”
She nodded. “You remembered it.”
“What’s wrong, Jenny?”
“Just – can you go back? I need you to go back.”
David gazed around him. The hotel looked tearful. “I haven’t passed the point of no-return, I suppose. But why should I go back? Has someone been talking to you?”
Jennifer said softly, “Be careful. Watch your back. Something may happen.”
He was grim. “Something already has happened. And I’m late. Can I call you later?”
Jennifer smiled. It was hollow. But it was an effort. “Sure.”
She cut the connection.
David Proctor removed his personal assistant from the dashboard and put it in his wallet. It would pass for a bank card. He stepped from the car and his jacket flew open. He inhaled the Scottish air. Around him, high firs bowed and produced a sound that, to David, had always been indistinguishable from crashing waves.
He began to walk towards the hotel. He nodded to the doorman. The doorman turned and nodded to someone in the bushes. David glanced at the bushes and saw a suited man with an earpiece nod in yet another direction. Nothing else happened. David went inside.
Ahead of him, across the large foyer, a tall man with steel-grey hair was speaking to an elderly receptionist. It was the inimitable Colonel McWhirter. He turned at the sound of David’s footsteps and smiled. They had met only twice in the past twenty years. “I see they haven’t changed the décor,” David said.
“Hello again, Dr. Proctor,” said McWhirter. They shook hands.
“I’ve had my title changed to ‘professor’,” he replied, deadpan, “so that it doesn’t rhyme.”
McWhirter took one look at him, blinked, and they laughed. The receptionist frowned.
“Professor.”
“David, to you, Colonel.”
“It’s been six years.”
“The robotics conference.”
“Yeah.”
The banter evaporated and McWhirter rubbed his hands. The foyer was cold.
“Can you fill me in?” David asked.
The colonel took his elbow and steered him from the receptionist. “It’s Bruce. He managed to break into the lower levels and get to your old laboratory. Last Wednesday morning, he put New World back on-line.”
David tried to look surprised. “Wow. Where’s he getting the power from?”
“The hotel supply. That’s how we got wind of the whole business,” he added.
“I see. What’s the environmental situation down there?”
“Not good. Near freezing. We’ve got some temporary lighting, nothing else.”
“And Bruce’s physical condition?”
“Well,” the colonel said in a quiet tone, “not good, but stable. I thought maybe you could take a look at him.”
“Medical school was a long time ago. I had long hair then. Christ, I had hair.”
“Ah, you’ll do fine.” McWhirter’s eyes were humourless. “Shall we go?”
“Where?”
“Down below.”
David took a step backward. It was important to play on McWhirter’s expectations. “You want me to go down there?”
“Come on, David. I didn’t invite you here for the fishing. I need an expert to assess the situation.”
The emeritus professor, once a young and irascible scientist, now a cold, meticulous thinker, nodded and said, “You’re right. The old route?”
“The old route.”
They walked through a connecting door to the west wing. A conservatory on their right boasted a view of the hotel’s rear grounds. On their left was a smoking lounge. He imagined old men talking in lowered tones over their broadsheets. But there was nobody. The hotel had been emptied the day before.
They turned left into the cloakroom. It was the size of a snooker table. In the old days, David would stand exactly as he did now, place his thumb on the wall and wait for the computer to recognise his blood. Then the whole
