Part 14 (2/2)

”Hey, Petra,” he dictated, his phone turning speech into text, ”if you could load this inside the interface s.h.i.+eld, we might save a missing kid.”

He sent the message, his stealthbot attached inside an anonymous archive file, along with a manifest that made it look like an ordinary in-house complex written by the Transport Police.

For a few minutes he waited, on the off-chance that Petra was awake at this hour, then he shut everything down. What he needed was to keep fit and maintain his reflexes, so he pulled a pillow from the bed and a cheap soccer ball from his bag. It would not look like a fight gym to most people; but it was enough.

A cat-stretch press-up, slow at first, then fluid and fast: two hundred and fifty Hindu push-ups in fifteen minutes. It was deep knee-bends for the next quarter hour, five hundred Hindu squats. Then, putting the pillow on the floor, he arched backward, weight on his feet and the top of his head at first, before stretching to press forehead and nose into the pillow. He held position for four minutes, following it with a forward bridge and ab crunches to finish.

Then he was ready to fight.

When a struggle goes to the ground and you're on top, the guy underneath is squirming which was what the football reproduced. Josh worked rolls and flips and reversals, grappling manoeuvres on the floor with the ball twisting beneath him. On his feet, he practiced rapid-fire hand drills, adding elbows, knees and powerful kicks. Finally, he drew his knife, and worked the combos with blade in hand, over and over on imaginary enemies; and at last he was done, taking huge breaths to slow down, his body encased in warm, slick sweat. Then he spun, a half-second before a thump rocked the door.

He checked through the spyhole, then opened up in silence.

”It's 6.30 in the morning.” The guy in the corridor was round and soft-bodied. ”You could have someconsider”

Then his eyes triangulated on Josh's blade.”I like to keep sharp.” Josh smiled. ”Stay a cut above the rest.”

”Er... Look...” A swallow. ”I... Um.”

”My apologies.”

Josh closed the door, shutting the guy out. There was a long pause, then stumbling footsteps receded.

Before going to bed, he had filled two canteens with water from the bathroom tap, and mixed in purifying powder, because you could never trust a hotel to have clean filters. Now he drank, half a litre at first, then another half with powdered peas and milk mixed in, before checking his messages. Petra had responded, but not in the way he wanted.

”Sorry, Josh. You've obviously worked hard on this one. But there's been a couple of, well, questionable uses of privileges recently. Internal Investigations are looking motivated. Sorry again.”

And that was it. No help from Petra.

”b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.”

Then he felt chill. It might have been the sudden cooling-off, his body still inside its layer of sweat; or perhaps it was something else.

She changed her mind overnight.

Not only that, but the message was way too polite for her. Had someone warned her off?

Sluicing off in the shower was a simple pleasure, always enhanced by a workout beforehand; but now that his plans were derailed, he could have scheduled exercise for later and got something else going instead. However wonderfully his querybot was crafted, if he couldn't insert it inside the official surveillance systems, its functionality was useless.

There was another way in, but he did not want to try it yet, not without knowing why Petra had backed off from helping him. What he wanted as though he needed an excuse was to talk to Suzanne d.u.c.h.esne again. And he had promised to call her; but she probably thought that meant at a civilised hour.

So hurry up and wait.

He cranked up text-only and read from the autobiography of Lyoto Machida, a j.a.panese-Brazilian fighter from the civilised days of MMA cage fights. The samurai mindset was admirable, except for the daily drink-yourown-urine ritual, allegedly traditional. Josh glanced at the dregs of his pea-and-milk shake, and shook his head.

Then, hoping that Suzanne was an early riser, he placed the call.

”Hey. How are you this morning?”

”A little surprised that you're calling.”

”You mean, at this hour. I don't have any news.”

”All right.”

”You must be busy. Can I buy you lunch later on?”

”I'll be at Elliptical House working with clients. Is two pm too late?”

”Perfect.”

”Then I'll see you.”

”See you. Cheers.”

Outside the window a silver summer rain began to fall, rippling with sunlight, like magic. Probably it was there all the time, the wonder, but people were too busy to see it.

Two o'clock. Lunch.

”Oh, yeah.”

Good news. He could almost forget Sophie lying comatose, the beeping life support, or the wreckage of his marriage to Maria, testament to a decade or more of bad decisions.

Like h.e.l.l he could forget.

The Tube carriage rocked, half full, as Josh checked the hidden and not-so-hidden cameras. They were potential routes into the surveillance net most transmitted realtime to relays and servers outside but too restricted for what he needed. At the far end of the carriage, two men b.u.mped into each other, hands going for hilts, then stopping as they rethought their situation. An abbreviated apology, a delayed nod, and they moved away from each other, eye contact broken.

Josh's phone gave a characteristic vibration.

Who's sending this?

There were people looking relaxed or bored or hacked off by their jobs; none looked away suddenly at his gaze. Someone professional then, who had redfanged a short-range message while his attention was on the two guys. There was no easy way of telling who it was; and besides the train was slowing. This was his intended stop.

”Victoria Station. Mind the gap.”

He could have played tag games, trying to flush out the message sender, but instead he got out as planned, keeping in the midst of other pa.s.sengers as he ascended to the mainline station. Far outside rush hour, the concourse was still busy. Hunching his shoulders, he pulled out his phone, tilting it so no surveillance cams could see the screen.

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