‘In the spirit-world perhaps. You could come back as a ghost and haunt me.’ The hologram flickered. ‘Look around, Major. You’ve lost. Your position is untenable. I have what I want. What I need.’
Was the pixilation how irritation manifested itself in the software? ‘Almost everything you need,’ he said. ‘I baited the hooks and you took a bite. The problem is that one little fishy got away.’ He turned his palms upwards. ‘You still don’t have Wheeler.’
The hologram shook its hair loose and retied it. ‘All in good time. He will come to me when he’s needed.’ She turned, sauntered towards the door and scattered into a murmuration of a billion pixels.
Helix shrugged as he exchanged glances with Sofi. Archer’s fingers darted over an unseen keyboard the reflection from his monitors casting colourful tattoos across his bald pate. The red light on the panel by the door switched to green accompanied by the solid click of a lock releasing. The door hushed aside. Helix’s nostrils flared as the silhouette in the door frame took form. Julia Ormandy stepped from the shadows into the light.
Archer entered from the control room with a stool. Placing it next to Sofi and a polished metal trolley holding surgical instruments, organised in neat rows on a pale blue cloth, he waited, hands clasped behind his back.
Ormandy dismissed him with a flick of her hand as she unbuttoned the jacket of her black tailored business suit. The scrape from the stool’s feet echoed around the room as she pulled it close and perched next to Sofi. ‘Hello, Gabrielle.’
Sofi’s eyes darted from her face to Helix’s and back. She swallowed. ‘Hello… Should I call you Julia or—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Lytkin smiled, a hint of resignation on her face.
‘Hallelujah,’ Helix proclaimed. ‘Finally. Julia Ormandy and Ulyana Lytkin in the same room.’ He folded his arms.
‘I’m impressed,’ Lytkin said, extending the fingers of her left hand. ‘No, genuinely. It’s a shame. I could use someone like you.’
‘I’m a dying breed. Like the rest of humanity. We’re not all dead yet, but with the likes of you around, it’s only a matter of time.’
‘I can see where your brother gets his cynicism from.’ Lytkin ran her fingers through the loops of pearls at her neck, . ‘This is only the beginning. There is so much more to do.’
‘Is that before or after you have your revenge by murdering us, God knows who else and starting a war?’ He shrugged. ‘What? Something amusing?’
‘Revenge. Maybe. It’s not a priority. There’s—’
‘Not a priority? What about Yawlander and Blackburn?’
‘Their deaths served a purpose. It brought you to me. I knew what you would do.’
‘And what about wreaking your brother’s revenge?’
‘Valerian had a high sensitivity to negative emotion, neurotic.’ She nipped at her bottom lip. ‘He got it from our mother. I was the son our father should have had.’
‘So why didn’t he have Valerian kidnapped instead of you?’
‘Because he was an arrogant, narcissistic misogynist.’
‘But apart from that he was OK.’
‘In the years of confusion following the pandemic, I travelled with my daughter to the UK. I thought—’
‘Now it’s my turn to be impressed,’ Helix said. ‘Our borders, like everyone else’s, were closed for years.’
‘Our uncle may have been a predatory paedophile but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what was going on in Ukraine well before the pandemic. He’d amassed a substantial fortune in gold and foreign currency.’ She smiled. ‘Dmitri and I used to sneak into the vaults at night to make love on the sacks of money and stacks of gold.’ She slipped from the stool.
‘Kinky,’ Helix said. ‘That’s one for the bucket list.’
‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘I made it to the UK via Belarus and Latvia and then by ship to Hull.’
Helix raised his eyebrows. ‘With all that gold and foreign currency?’
‘No. I took as much gold as I could carry and all of the sterling. It was difficult with a small child to look after. Later, I sent for Archer. He brought the rest.’
‘And then the reunion, back in the bosom of the family, into the open arms of Daddy and little brother.’
‘No. I didn’t need them. I wanted to prove them wrong, particularly my father.’ She sighed. ‘But I was robbed of that opportunity. He died before I had the chance. But Valerian was impressed. Particularly when we became reacquainted at our father’s funeral. Valerian welcomed us. He adored Christina, doted on her, said she was the child he never had.’ She turned to Sofi. ‘Remember, Gabrielle? The child you denied him.’ Turning away, she added, ‘Then, a few years later, I met an ambitious young politician named Justin Wheeler.’
Sofi shook her head. ‘Was that before or after we were married?’
Helix interrupted before she could reply. ‘And how come Wheeler didn’t work out the link between you and your brother?’
‘I took the name Julia Ormandy as soon as I landed in Hull. Post-pandemic, a new identity wasn’t difficult to obtain. Records were poor or non-existent. How many nameless corpses did you bury, Major?’
‘Enough. But there’s room for more.’
‘I have a lot to thank Justin for. He launched my political career. He was an excellent mentor, but greedy and impatient.’
‘Ha! I’m sure he was,’ Sofi laughed. ‘When was it he discovered who you really were?’
‘That was Valerian’s fault,’ Lytkin said. ‘He was never satisfied with what he had. The empire he’d inherited from our father had more contracts than they could handle. The UK Government, like most others, was struggling to contain the half-baked AI it had unleashed during pandemic-induced panic. Valerian was obsessed with AI. In return for wrestling the utility and banking systems back under control he wanted Government backing to develop an overarching intelligence to—’
‘Gaia,’ Helix shouted. ‘Get to the bloody point.’
Lytkin wandered over to his cell. She tilted her head, studying him like a zoo exhibit. ‘They used me. Both of them. Valerian told Justin that if he didn’t get the contract for
