Part 15 (1/2)

That was Anthony now. The beat went on, but Danny managed to career against the wall and slither to a halt in a doorway. It was a shock to realize that the beat wasn't feeding directly into his brain.

A bouncy jingle burst out of the speaker above his head.

Danny eased open the door a crack and peered inside.

' If you can't get your head round life, no ha.s.sle. There's If you can't get your head round life, no ha.s.sle. There's over 300 different courses here at New World. So there's got over 300 different courses here at New World. So there's got to be a right one for you. to be a right one for you. ' '

The room inside hummed: a deep growl like the chanting of Tibetan monks. It was the meditation hour. Row upon row of desks reached to the back of the computer room. Each desk had a terminal and at each terminal sat a Chilly, cap and headphones on, intent on his or her input. All neat rows of neat little automatic people. All with identical graphic patterns swirling on neat little screens.

Danny shuddered. His fingers were stinging where the web had clung on. With one concerted movement, every student in the room turned to stare at the crack in the doorway. Their eyes were ice cold, unseeing.

Danny ducked back and started to run again. He reached a stairway and saw two Chillys making their way up. He dodged back and headed for the fire escape.

Outside, he was away from the heat. He began to clatter down the corkscrew escape route. Halfway down, he heard a shout.

Christopher Rice was standing on one of the overhead walkways that linked the New World buildings, pointing up across the gap at the fire escape. From Danny's vantage point, he could see Chillys converging from all directions. Above him, there was the clatter of descending footsteps.

Alarms started to jangle. Alarms with a cosmic disco heartbeat. Danny reached the foot of the escape and started to belt along the concrete walkways.

Twice he faced them head on, but he knew the system. He could cut corners, jump levels, clamber across roofs, running them in circles until they dropped and he got maximum points.

He careered another junction and skidded to a halt. Gliding out of a side turning came a small silvered globe. It echoed the alarm beat with its high staccato bleeps. It paused and then changed direction, seeming to glide rather than roll towards him.

Danny panicked. He started to backtrack, desperate to reach a stair up to the next walkway before the pursuing Chillys.

This wasn't what he had planned. He was going to be sandwiched. Already there were more of the students gathering behind the gliding sphere, content to follow as its entourage.

Danny tore at a group of bikes parked by the stairwell, scattering them across the walkway, blocking the sphere's path. He started to run up the steps, heading for the ramps that lead to the university generator rooms. Behind him, the globe reached the scattered bikes and began to weave to and fro, momentarily confused by the tangle of metal. The Chillys began to clear a path for the sphere.

There was no one on the next level up and Danny, his legs already giving out, made for the generator service area. He need only go a little higher to reach the feeder ramps and then down away off campus. But G.o.d only knew how he was going to find the Brigadier.

He struggled up to the crest of the walkway on what felt like his last breath and looked down towards freedom. A group of Chillys were heading up towards him. He looked back and saw more emerging from the stairwell. He ran to the edge and looked over. It was high. There was nowhere to run.

Both groups stopped short, one at either side of him. They waited as if afraid to upset the balance of which he was the pivot. The beat had stopped, but he could still hear from somewhere the high repeating pips of the sphere. There was a disturbance on the stairwell side and Christopher came pus.h.i.+ng through the Chillys. He advanced, all cool smarm.

'Come back, Daniel. Nothing to be afraid of.'

Danny nearly laughed, but it choked in his throat.

Christopher was coming closer. Danny climbed up onto the parapet. The ground below him swayed.

'Come on, Daniel. We're here to help you. You were chosen.'

The Chillys' fixed stare unnerved him. It was like invisible hands holding him there on the edge. He braced himself against it. 'It's a sham! The whole thing! It'll get you all!'

Christopher seemed almost nonchalant. 'It already has you you, Daniel.'

Behind him, the Chillys parted and the sphere glided, bleeping hungrily, through the gap.

'Daniel the Devious,' grinned Christopher and stepped back for the sphere to approach. The object began to rock back and forth as if gathering power for a sudden leap at its prey.

Danny looked down in despair. Tears were gathering on the lower rims of his gla.s.ses. He felt a new rage stinging and burning up inside him. He didn't want to finish it here.

'Go on then,' suggested Christopher. 'There's no escape.

Not even that way.'

Danny flung his arms out wide and threw himself into the air.

He felt the world rus.h.i.+ng up and wind hitting him, whistling between his fingers. Everything was whirling past in a maelstrom of concrete and sky and branches. And somewhere he heard a voice, her voice, calling his name.

' Daniel. Daniel. ' '

The air seemed to cradle him and carry him. The rus.h.i.+ng fall became a cus.h.i.+oned swoop. Like the dreams of projection, like surfing, like flying. The ground no longer sprang up to smash him, but slid beneath him as he ploughed down into leaves and brown-smelling earth and darkness.

Game over.

The sphere jumped up onto the parapet, weaving back and forth on the edge. Beside it, Christopher, with Chillys gathering around him, stared down into the depths. There was no sign of the body.

The Marketing Facilitator watched the silver globe. Even in defeat it was impressive, he thought, this mobile manifestation of the New World computer. And now it was having its own little temper tantrum. That's how advanced it was.

Frighteningly advanced. Maybe a little possessive too, but then it had power to protect. It was already rewriting its own systems, outstripping anything humans could do. So he must stay close to the power. He had his contacts outside, that was why it needed him. But he must come closer, closer. No one else must be as close. He must make himself invaluable. Only Victoria stood in the way. And her beloved Chancellor, always so conspicuous by his absence. And this endless search for something the computer needed so desperately. This indefinable Locus Locus, whatever that was, or the elusive Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. But he was happy to deal with that too. It was an expensive task, but Victoria was always ready to sign blank cheques for anything he needed. Her purse was the most important a.s.set they had and it would be suicide to get rid of her just yet.

10.

By the Sea he wind was freshening, whirling little sand devils out of T the dunes and across the wide, wild expanse of the beach.

The tide had dragged the sea far off into the distance. It left a flat exposed area of grey, rippled mud broken only by the occasional pool in which bits of upside-down sky had got trapped.

Somewhere a telephone was trilling. It mingled with the jaunty oompah oompah of a distant military band. If there had once been bathing machines, they had all been dragged away by the tides of time. of a distant military band. If there had once been bathing machines, they had all been dragged away by the tides of time.

From the dunes, the Brigadier, clad in his favourite tweed jacket and cap, surveyed the beach with a look of satisfaction.

In the distance, he could make out a group of blazered schoolboys or were they uniformed squaddies? kicking a ball about. He drained the cup of tea he was carrying and started down onto the beach.