Part 24 (2/2)
”The warrior awakes.” Petra was in the kitchen doorway. ”Alert and ready for battle.”
”And desperate to pee.”
”Grab the bathroom while it's free. I'll make coffee.”
”Deal.”
To get to the bathroom, he had to pa.s.s the guest room with Suzanne inside. He paused, then entered the bathroom. Five minutes and a cold shower later, he was back out, wide awake.
In the kitchen, Yukiko, in T-s.h.i.+rt and baggy pyjama trousers, was staring at the coffee dripping into the pot. Her T-s.h.i.+rt's hologram showed a DNA double helix unwinding.
”Morning,” said Josh. ”How's the world's sharpest intellect?”
”Ugh.”
”You want intelligent conversation from my sweetie,” said Petra, ”you need to wait for an hour. Longer, if we run out of coffee.”
Yukiko's eyelids were almost shut. ”Uh-huh.””So this would be a good time to challenge her to chess?”
”Only if you can wait till lunchtime for her to make a move.”
Once the coffee was ready, Yukiko stumbled back to the bedroom, mug in both hands like an offering. Petra put a phone on the table, then sat down. Josh sipped his coffee, strong enough to make him blink.
”The covert core monitors,” Petra said, ”have registers of subscribers. Apart from Special Branch, there's a bunch of subscribing officers in Thames House and Vauxhall Cross.” She meant MI5 and MI6. ”One particular monitor scans for querybots targeting people of interest. If it notices a suspect querybot, it notifies the listener software on each subscriber's phone.”
”And Richard Broomhall's a person of interest.”
”Not him. His father.”
”Whose biggest corporate enemy is Tyndall Enterprises. Which is why Yukiko showed us that stuff last night.”
Not just because the fighters received virapharmbased treatment when injured.
”Right.”
”And Zak Tyndall has friends in Whitehall.”
”Uh-huh. So the reason for the monitor doesn't matter, not to you.” Petra took a slug of coffee. ”Mmm. Now, if you want to search beyond the London Transport net, you're going to have to fiddle with the subscriber list, similar to your s.h.i.+eldIx hack.”
”Er... Right.”
”You can't stop the monitor detecting your querybot intrusion, but if you hack the monitor in advance, you can empty out its address book of who to notify. Like stuffing paper under an old-fas.h.i.+oned alarm bell, so it vibrates but there's no sound.”
”And reinstate the address book afterwards,” said Josh.
”Right. The monitor only checks new stuff: processes being sp.a.w.ned, runtime components coming into existence. Once your querybot is up and running, the monitor won't care. Then you can put the list back in place, so no one notices.”
”So all I've got to do is find a way of hacking through to the monitor. That's not exactly trivial.”
”Maybe it is.” Petra slid the phone across the table. ”For you, lover. Take a look in Favourite Apps. Everything you need is already loaded.”
”I won't ask how you got this.”
”And I won't tell you how I accidentally cloned a Special Branch phone while we had spook visitors.”
”Good.”
”Good.”
They clinked their coffee mugs together.
”There's something else, though,” said Petra. ”Something that worries me, although I don't think we're under surveillance.”
”Which is?”
”If there are watchers outside, there's a record of you spending the night with the three hottest babes in town.”
”I'll be sure to look exhausted when I leave.”
”Perhaps we should carry you out.”
The world was grey, and Richard was grey. Even the suns.h.i.+ne was grey. He sat outside the park, upturned veil-cap on the ground, with four coins inside: all he had.
”Spare any... change?”But the busy feet had already walked past. In his listless state, he could not imagine walking that fast.
Am I going to die?
Perhaps at some point he could just let go of the world.
”There you go. Take it easy.”
Coins spilling from a curled palm, a crouched woman straightening and walking on.
”Er, thank... you.”
He woke up enough to check for streetcams. This seemed to be a blind spot, so he relaxed back against the brickwork. Other people walked past workers heading for the station and a few more coins tinkled into his cap.
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