The Departure

got up enough speed to outrun the missiles. Three actual Committee delegates had been assassinated, hundreds of lower-echelon execs knifed, shot or blown up. These incidents were just part of a much larger widespread whole that included less lethal sabotage with, for example, a garage of Inspectorate cruisers being disabled, com towers blown up, and viral attacks affecting Govnet. He now related much of this news to Hannah.

‘I’d say they don’t stand a chance, but there’s Malden . . .’

‘Much of what I’m seeing seems likely to have been organized beforehand,’ Saul interrupted, as the aero settled into its slot. ‘I don’t think Malden would be satisfied with just taking out another Inspectorate HQ. He’ll go for something bigger.’

He checked the inventory of equipment aboard their craft, and then, opening a tool chest, took out a couple of large rolls of duct tape before turning and instructing the aero door to open ahead of them. After stepping down to the carbocrete floor, he turned to help Hannah down, but she ignored his hand and moved away to put some space between them. He didn’t react to that rebuff, since he was busy penetrating the cam system in order to cause a temporary fault. Once this sufficiently developed, he decided it was time she ceased to be just a passenger and tossed her one of the rolls.

‘Cover the serial number on the far side,’ he instructed.

She nodded and moved round to the other side of the craft, whilst he covered the number on this side. As Hannah returned, his next mental instruction closed up the machine and locked it, and in considering how to make things even more difficult for anyone who found this machine, he remembered numerous viral programs from that part of his mind that had been Janus. He used just one virus, but including elements of yet another one and a little bespoke tailoring, and it left the machine pondering, so that, about the time they stepped into the park lift, the craft shifted over to auto-defence. He had not set the readerguns to just kill any who got too close to it, but the moment someone started tampering, by either trying to force open the doors or peel that tape off, they would be in for a nasty surprise.

The lift took them down eighteen storeys, to where it opened into a security area with a row of gates operated by combined palm and retinal scanners. Just beyond the lift, Hannah came to a halt, uncertain and obviously frightened, as she turned to look at him for reassurance.

‘No problem,’ he said, beckoning her after him, while trying to ignore the stabbing pain growing between his eyes.

Penetrating the security all around them, he simply shut down the scanners and then opened the gate ahead. Beyond it lay an open area with readerguns mounted on the walls – a kill zone. He instructed the readerguns to ignore them both, but knew that would not be enough. Another push and he was into the Minsk security mainframe, inserting sketchy identities for the spaceport’s recognition programs, which now either opened any barriers ahead or simply overlooked the intruders.

‘You’re terrifying,’ remarked Hannah – but abruptly moved up beside him and looped her arm through his.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ he replied, turning his head away from her to flick a bloody tear from his eye. ‘But there’s something out there looking for us that might be just as capable. It keeps zeroing in on me every time I create enough noise on Govnet.’

‘Malden?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s the “powerful comlife” Janus mentioned.’

‘But they don’t have anything.’ She looked confused.

‘Seems they do.’

She was very thoughtful for a moment. ‘Are you making too much noise now?’

‘I don’t think so. Just local penetration.’

Local penetration wasn’t enough, however. At some point a diagnostic program would detect the alterations he had made, so he just hoped he had given himself and Hannah enough time.

Sliding glass doors drew open ahead of them, and they stepped out on to a pavement beside which were parked automatic ground taxis resembling stretched-out flying saucers. In the distance, between two glassy octagonal-section office blocks, the orange flames of a cluster of rocket motors blasted into the sky a long black shape with triangular rear wings and stubby nose wings. The space plane passed behind the tower block to his left, steadily accelerating upwards at an angle of forty-five degrees. Somewhere high above the Baltic, when it hit Mach five, its scramjet would kick in, taking it up to Mach fifteen, and its wings would fold into its body. By then its trajectory would be vertical, the scramjet finally shutting down through lack of air, and Earth’s gravity bringing the plane’s speed down to below a thousand miles an hour. Then would begin the long slow deceleration and manoeuvring towards Argus, if that happened to be its destination.

‘You realize,’ he said, ‘that without what I can do and have done we’ll end up in custody within minutes – and with that comlife out there there’s still a chance that’ll happen anyway.’ He glanced at her. ‘I can’t turn back now, but if you want I’ll get one of these’ – he nodded to one of the autotaxis – ‘to take you to a ground-level gate. The security system here will simply let you out, but beyond that gate you’ll be on your own.’

‘Is that what you want?’ she asked, pulling away from him a little. ‘I’m sure I’m a liability you can ill afford.’

That wasn’t actually what he wanted, but some nasty part of him was wondering if he only kept her with him because he needed an audience. In an eyeblink he distanced himself both from the machine and from his human anger. No, he wanted her with him because he knew that, even though great dangers lay ahead, she was safer with him than on her own. All those protective instincts of a man with his mate were operating, and the idea of her falling back into the clutches of the Inspectorate horrified him. Did this mean he loved her? He didn’t know. What is love?

‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re with me all the way, Hannah,’ he said. ‘But I won’t stop you now if you want to leave.’

She pulled herself closer again, reached up behind his head and drew him down into a kiss. It was long and passionate, her body pressing against his, and he felt himself responding. Drily analytical, another part of himself noted that he was wasting time. With a flash of irritation, he sent that part off to roam cyberspace – to make preparations and keep watch for that other thing out there. The kiss finished, they now approached one of the taxis, which opened its doors for them, and they climbed in the back.

‘Staff Embarkation,’ he instructed, and the vehicle pulled out on to the road.