“So what are you saying here?” Silvano asked. “That we keep the farmers working while the rest of us live it up?”

“Basically, yeah. It’s just like what I’ve done with the hellhawks, but on a much bigger scale. We have to keep the farmers farming, and we have to be in charge of distributing the food to the urban areas. Convert the Organization into a giant supplier; and the only people who get supplied, are the ones who we say.”

“You’d need a fucking army for that!” Luigi exclaimed.

Kiera gestured magnanimously. “There you are then. That’s what you turn the fleet into. Find a portable weapon that’s effective against the possessed: something like those bastard serjeants use on Mortonridge, manufacture it up here, and equip our supporters with it. Use the same chain of command network that’s already in place, but with a land army to back it up instead of the SD platforms.”

“That might work,” Silvano said. “So if Luigi’s got himself an army, what do I get?”

“Communications are vital, otherwise this whole thing will just collapse. And we’d need to be more subtle with the farmers than forcing them at gunpoint. That’s an enforcer’s job.”

He poured himself another whisky. “Okay. Let’s talk about it.”

Western Europe always took his dogs for a walk himself. Dog ownership was a healthy reminder of responsibility; you either do it properly or not at all. There weren’t many crises which could make him skip a day. Though he suspected one of his staff was going to have to start substituting fairly soon.

The formal lawns extended for over three hundred metres from the back of the house (they were yards back in the days when he bought the estate, but even he had fallen to using that appalling modern French metric system now). A hedge of ancient yews marked the end, ten metres high, laden with their squishy dull-red berries. He pushed through the gap marked by crumbling stone pillars that used to be gateposts, making a mental note to get a gardening construct to prune the twigs. The carpet of dry needles compressed beneath his brogues as the Labradors scampered round him. It was meadowland beyond, the shaggy grass thick with daisies and buttercups. A gentle slope led down to a long still lake eight hundred metres away. He whistled softly, and threw his stick.

“Found them,” North America datavised.

“Who?”

“The possessed Quinn Dexter left behind in New York. Just to make you more insufferable, you were right. He went for the Light Bringer sect.”

“Ah.” The Labradors found the stick, one of them clamped it in his jaw. Western Europe slapped his hands on his thighs, and the dogs started to bound back to him. “How bad is it?”

“Not too bad, I believe. I lost the High Magus, of course. I guess he suicided. But there are several actives left. Two of them called me before the energistic effect glitched their neural nanonics. They’re taking over the covens one at a time. Eight down already, including the arcology headquarters in the Leicester skyscraper.”

“Numbers?”

“That’s the good news. About ten possessed to each coven. The moron acolytes are actually welcoming them, and doing as they’re told. Their new masters are just sitting tight, and holding some pretty gross orgies. They’ve made sure each coven’s electronics are switched off, not that many of their units were ever interfaced with the net anyway.”

“I knew it. They’re moving with a purpose.”

“Definite infiltration tactics. They’ve got their foothold, now they’re waiting.”

“If they’re spreading to each dome, then some of them must be on the move.”

“Yes, I know. And they’ve had it easy in all the confusion. With all those riots resulting from the vac-train shutdown there’s been a lot of vandalism; that makes it tough for the AI to locate glitches.”

“So when are you going to hit the covens?”

“Good question. I wanted your opinion on that. If I hit them now, then whoever’s moving about will be warned and go to ground. That’ll leave New York vulnerable.”

Western Europe took the stick from the Labrador, and paused. “Yes, but if you wait until every coven is taken over, you’ll have a lot of the bastards to deal with. Someone will inevitably get through the police cordons, and you’ll be back in the same leaky boat. How many covens can you monitor in real time?”

“All of them. That’s already being done. Those I have no direct access to are being watched by agents.”

“Then you’ve got it covered. Wait until a group of possessed shows up at a new coven, then take them all out together.”

“And if there’s more than one group moving round?”

“I’m paranoid, but am I paranoid enough. What sort of assault were you planning?”

“GISD tactical team, with shoot to kill orders. Wipe each coven out, I don’t want prisoners to interrogate. Fletcher is still cooperating with Halo’s science teams.”

“Given the stakes, here, I’d suggest using a gamma pulse against them first. You’ll get peripheral casualties, but it’ll be nothing like as bad as an SD strike. Send the tactical teams in to secure and mop up afterwards.”

“All right. I can live with that.”

“We might even get a vote of confidence from our illustrious colleagues.”

“Not even this century’s geneering can make pigs fly yet. I’ll get the assault organized for three hundred hours EST.”

“If you need any help, just whistle.” Western Europe smiled happily, and slung the stick high into the air.

Not even B7 could block news of events inside New York from spilling out across the global net. Speculation had been hot and intense ever since the arcology’s vac-trains had been shut down after the Dome One “incident.” Several riots had been captured by rover reporters; two of whom had been badly injured during the coverage, adding extra spice to the sensevise. Then eleven hours later, the North American Commissioner had appeared before the press once more to announce the investigation had been completed, and confirm the incident was not caused by the possessed. It was in fact a professional assassination carried out in Grand Central Station involving a sophisticated weapons implant and a chameleon suit. Business rivals of the deceased Bud Johnson were currently being sought for questioning.

The vac-trains had been re-opened. The rioters and looters had cleared the streets. The police reinforcements had been stood down. Celebrity news presenters were given extended programmes to cover the paranoia raging across the planet. The arrival of the Mount’s Delta appeared to have acted as the trigger for a multitude of small events that were blamed on the possessed, culminating in the Grand Central Station disturbance. And Capone’s recent switch in tactics to flying infiltration attacks against Confederation planets served to exacerbate people’s fears. The Confederation Navy and local SD networks seemed unable to prevent the Organization’s strike flotillas. After the quarantine appeared to be preventing the spread, worlds were starting to fall again. Everyone, ran the feeling, was vulnerable.

But the lifting of the vac-train restrictions eased the tension a little, right up until 2:50 EST when they were abruptly shut again. Frustrated commuters datavised the information to the news agencies within ten seconds. New York’s rover reporters, who had descended en masse into the arcology’s bars after a hard day’s sensationalising, were hauled back out onto the concrete canyons by their editors. Agencies which datavised information requests to the arcology’s civic authority were met with blank puzzlement. Nobody had told the graveyard shift about the vac-trains. The police precinct houses were equally baffled. Even the urgent requests to in-house sources produced a blank, at least in the ten minutes that counted.

With all of the B7 supervisors on-line and observing, North America gave the order to launch the assault.