He nodded.
'I'm sorry, Kendrick.' She looked confused. 'I had no idea. I…' She trailed off, her features wreathed in blue smoke. He studied the faint, raised lines in her flesh just barely visible where the top buttons of her shirt had been left undone. When she was out in public, habit made her keep the shirt buttoned up. Behind her, he could see the city's rooftops under a moonlit sky.
He could almost read Caroline's thoughts. They were both of them Labrats, and what was happening to him could happen to her too, any time. She was probably scared because there was every chance she would end up the same.
Going to a regular hospital for medical treatment was out of the question, and they both knew it. What they carried within their bodies was, by definition, unpredictable. That was a good enough reason for many of the Labrats to be locked away without trial for the rest of their short lives, as soon as their augs showed signs of turning rogue. If you went to the wrong country and they found out you were a Labrat, they just shot you and burned your corpse.
Caroline appeared to make up her mind about something. She stubbed out the remains of her cigarette and stood. 'You can stay here tonight on the couch,' she said briskly. 'I'll get some stuff for you.' She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a couple of blankets and a pillow.
As she went back into the bedroom, Kendrick stared morosely after her. Then he turned to the window, not wanting to get absorbed in some maudlin reflection about something that was long finished. He stared out over the slate rooftops of the city. Beyond them the vague bulk of the Castle loomed high over everything else. The tarmac far below was grey and shiny in the freezing rain that had begun to slant down.
Tomorrow he would have to go back to Hardenbrooke's Clinic. He had no choice, really, as Hardenbrooke was the only one who might help him.
Kendrick spoke quietly into the air to find if Caroline had changed the voice-access code on her window-screen software. Then he stepped back as the sheet of glass became opaque, the Edinburgh skyline disappearing behind a corporate logo that rushed towards him on a swell of electronic music.
He heard her step back into the room behind him.
'That logo…'
'The TransAfrica Corporation,' she replied. 'I'm sure you remember.'
'So you've been doing all right?'
She arched one eyebrow, reading between the lines: Without you, you mean? ' Better than okay. You know how much time I spent on this stuff.' Kendrick switched his attention back to the screen, where an image of a spinning globe had now replaced the logo.
Caroline had won the design contract for the TransAfrica project only a few months before she had abruptly ended their relationship, without explanation, a few months after his seizures had first manifested. Feeling abruptly uncomfortable, Kendrick sat down on the couch. So she was doing better than okay? He watched the show, glad for the distraction from everything that had happened so far in a single evening.
The animated globe resolved itself into a recognizable image of the Earth as seen from near-orbit space, this viewpoint spinning rapidly downwards, through dense clouds until the continent of Africa became visible below. As this viewpoint now shifted, the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula became visible above the North African coast. Then a thin, glistening line connecting both continents appeared, zooming in yet closer until this line resolved itself into a huge bridge.
The main part of its span consisted of four great pylons, the middle two bedded in the watery depths of the Straits of Gibraltar. The sea around the pylons became suddenly transparent, like blue-tinted glass, and a voice- over began to explain the engineering difficulties of trying to construct something so huge. All that was impossible, of course, without the lessons learned from the construction of the Archimedes Orbital.
He turned to Caroline.
'What do you think?' she asked him.
'I'm impressed. You've done good work. I'm really impressed.' He turned back to the images unfolding on the screen.
The Archimedes Orbital – Max Draeger's great white elephant, his downfall – still up there somewhere, far above the Earth. Kendrick stared at the images, his thoughts far away.
Caroline left Kendrick alone to make up his bed on her couch. He was trying to ignore the misery washing over him now that he was back in a place he'd never thought he'd see again. He hadn't even told her about Peter McCowan, or his meeting with Whitsett.
She had a right to know, but in some way he wasn't ready to talk. He still couldn't quite believe he was in any kind of real danger. Perhaps Whitsett was just some lone crank who had constructed this fable on the spur of the moment, inspired by the events in the Saint an hour or so before.
Kendrick switched off the light, but sleep wouldn't come easily. There was just too much to think about. It wasn't only that he'd spoken to a ghost, but that this ghost, this hallucination, had told him something that he would never have found out otherwise.
That was too much to think about. He spoke quietly into the air again, reactivating the windowscreen, but kept the sound off this time, aware of Caroline sleeping in the next room.
The presentation she had long worked on doubled as an interactive environment so that, once the logo had faded away, he was able to cause the viewpoint to zoom away from Earth and out into space. It didn't take long for him to locate the Archimedes. It had been there all the time, but now, seeing the enormous space station there on the screen, Kendrick remembered something.
As the great cylinder of the Archimedes hove into view, studded with lights that twinkled in a touch that had more to do with artistic flourish than reality, a half-formed idea began tingling in the back of his mind.
He directed the windowscreen to zoom in closer to the computer-generated image, and recalled all the stories, all the speculation. A lot had happened up there.
Although it was only reasonable to assume that Caroline would have spent some time on programming the Archimedes into its environment, Kendrick could not fail to notice the remarkable attention to detail. Perhaps this was purely down to her professionalism, but Kendrick found himself wondering. After all, although undoubtedly Draeger's greatest engineering achievement, it was far better known as a catastrophic failure. And although it clearly contributed to the project Caroline was now peripherally involved in, why would she spend so much time getting the Archimedes so correct in every detail?
Exhaustion began to overcome curiosity, however, and Kendrick felt sleep finally overtaking him. As he lay in the dark, he grew aware that he was frightened to close his eyes; frightened he might wake up to find his body changed in some less-than-subtle manner – thick ropes of half-sentient machinery, with its own unfathomable desires, burrowing under his flesh like eels.
Anything was possible, and Kendrick had long since discovered that there was nothing so terrifying as the unknown, the unpredictable.
10 October 2096 Angkor Wat
The heat seemed even more unforgiving than usual as Marlin Smeby ascended a short flight of ancient stone steps before stepping, with considerable gratitude, into the air-conditioned reception area. He stopped to savour the chill before moving on. After a nod to the security guard sitting at the main desk, he continued onwards to Max Draeger's private elevator.
Less than a minute later he entered Draeger's office, registering the vast stone-built mural that took up most of one wall. His gaze then moved on to the teeming jungle visible through the panoramic windows that formed the wall opposite. Draeger was standing there, hands in his pockets, staring out across the jungle and beyond. With his bleached hair and leathery copper skin, he looked the perfect image of the tanned Californian billionaire.
An air projector displayed an image above the smooth expanse of Draeger's desk, and Marlin recognized it
