"I don't know the specifics," Greg said, his voice raised, strained.

Royan was jittering about in his dentist's chair, shoulders jerking in an erratic pumping rhythm. Royan was having one of his bad days, and when Greg considered just how shitty even Royan's good days must be…

CONNNNECTED?

"There is no such thing as coincidence."

WAS I HE%%%%LPING YOU WITH l OTIIIIMES>>?

The catheter bag which dangled below the chair on a chrome coathook was filling with an oily bilious liquid.

"Big help. He was a blackmail victim, not a proper hotrod. Someone has been feeding him sophisticated viruses to use on burns."

THINK HE WAS ODDDDDD. TOOOO QUICK TO GOOOO SOLO. NOT ENOUGH SHITTTT END END END. NOT ENOUGH CIRCIT SKORES TO HISSS HANDEL.

HURTSSS GREEG. REALLLY HURTS MEEEEE.

And how could he answer that? He smiled broadly, feeling a prize turd. "Hey, you made a friend in Eleanor. She's planning on coming back."

BEAUTY ANDDDD BEAAST. HORRRIBLENASTY FILTH!!! MEMEMEMEME. YOU SCREW BABIESBABIES MAKKK MAKE BABIES TOOOOGETHER… IIIIIIIII WANNT WANT SHITFILLTH.

GOOOOOOO AWWWAY GGREG.

Greg couldn't move. Revolted and horrified. He wanted to get out, out and never come back. Break free. The Trinities, the Constables, Blackshirts, this tower, this room, Royan; they were all facets of his ingrained guilt, soul-devouring.

DON'TTTTTT CRY.

He rubbed knuckles into his eyes, vision blurring.

QUUIK WHYCOME???

Qoi appeared in the kitchen door, concern marring her fragile, sensitive features. She flashed Greg a look he couldn't begin to interpret.

WHY

"I needed you to run a finance backtrack for me. I think it's the missing link, the one that'll tie Kendric to the hotrods."

The screens exploded into an incoherent image-mash; channel shows, himself seen through Royan's eye camera, sticky tears smearing his cheeks, mad computer graphics. starchy-neat data tables dissolving into tight vortices of green and blue alphanumerics. One of the little trash robots trundled across the floor, gears grinding harshly, and bumped into a plant trough. It backed off, and hit the trough again, and again. Bewitched with a mindless insect sentience.

Qoi was at Royan's side, pinching his nose with one hand, trying to push a feed bottle's nipple into his mouth. He flung his head from side to side, a desperate thrumming sound raised in his throat.

DATA DATA DAT-----------LEAVE IT IT IT

A multitude of red and green LEDs lit up on one of Royan's cranky gear consoles. Greg retrieved the memory O'Donal had given him from his cybofax, and showed it to the console. Squirting.

The screens were showing a giant still picture of Trafalgar Square. Greg recognised it instantly. A euphoric classic. The day the PSP fell; beamed out live by every channel in the world. The crowd singing God Save the King, orange flames rising from a hundred PSP banners, ten thousand Union Jacks waving in joyful celebration, a residue of smoke from Downing Street boiling through the air. The scene was swelling, individual pixels becoming golf-ball-sized, a nonsense mosaic.

Royan sounded as though he was choking. Qoi had got the nipple into his mouth, he was sucking frantically; treacly globs of mashed apple running down his chin, dribbling on to an already badly stained T-shirt.

Behind Greg the robot suddenly stopped its mad battering. There must've been something in the apple. Royan was visibly wilting.

"You go now, please," Qoi said, bowing from the waist.

The lunatic kaleidoscope shrank as the screens began to wink out one by one.

Qoi's small expressive eyes were filled with a sorrow that had no right inhabiting someone her age. "Nothing more you can do."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A flock of black storks were flapping lazily overhead as Greg walked up the Mirriam's gangplank. The bodyguard teleported out of nowhere to block his path, a hand holding both railings. He was wearing a red-and-green-striped rugby shirt and coffee-coloured shorts. "You looking far something?" he asked in strongly accented English.

"Yes, Mr. di Girolamo."

"He's not expecting you."

Greg couldn't see the bodyguard's eyes, they were hidden behind wrapround Ferranti sunglasses. His neck was thickly muscled, displaying a vast network of protruding veins. Whatever steroids he was taking, they were playing hell with his blood pressure.

"Just tell him Greg Mandel is here to see him." He held up the Event Horizon card.

The bodyguard thought it over then called over his shoulder. Another bodyguard appeared at the top of the gangplank; a black bear of a man, over two metres tall, shoulders in proportion, sweat glinting on his broad forehead. The two of them exchanged a brief murmur, then the first stabbed a meaty forefinger at Greg. "You. Don't move." He disappeared below deck, leaving his replacement to fold his arms and look Greg up and down contemptuously.

Greg ignored the attempted intimidation. If Kendric was relying on people like this to protect him from a professional snatch posse then he was in deep trouble. They looked tough, and probably knew their combat routine, but put them up against a tekmerc hardliner team and they wouldn't last the opening second.

Muddy water lapped quietly against the yacht's hull.

Greg had deliberately waited until midday to give Kendric a chance to recover from his partying at the Blue Ball.

"You've cracked," Suzi had barked when he told her he was going on board.

"Tell you, I have to get near Kendric," he said.

"Why, for Christ's sake?"

"Ask him questions, see how he reacts."

"Crazy." She crossed herself, eyes rolling. But she helped organise the back-up, positioning the Trinities around the marina. Greg couldn't find any fault in her method, Suzi had been one who listened.

Knowing the squad was providing covering fire gave him a degree of confidence walking into the lion's den. The orders Suzi had were simple enough: on no account was he to be taken into the yacht itself.

"OK, you can come up," the first bodyguard had returned. The set of his jaw radiated severe disapproval.

Mirriam was sixty-five metres of sheer beauty. Whatever his other faults, Kendric certainly knew the difference between refined style and pretentious glitz. Mirriam was conceived as a shrine to the former. Her polished wooden decks gleamed with a rosy sheen under the desert-bright sun. Every immaculate brass fixture was mirror-bright. The low-friction white paint was painful on the eyes.

Greg was led round to the afterdeck. It had integral couches with puffy leather upholstery forming an island in the centre, several recliners dotted about. There was a clutch of chrome gym equipment on the starboard side, just outside the lounge-cabin doors.

Katerina was lying prone on the bench press, using its leg lift, a big LCD counter notching up each pull. She was dressed in tight black neoprene sprinter shorts, green stretch-leggings, and the top of a loose mauve T-shirt that'd been slashed in half, its ragged hem barely covering her large breasts. Her mane of blonde hair was held back with a broad white elastic towelling band. She was perspiring heavily, drawing breath through her nostrils, an expression of grim concentration on her perfect chiselled features.

"I do know you," she said through clenched teeth. The weight she was lifting was almost as much as he used in his own regimen. "You were at Julie's house."

"That's me," Greg said. "Nice party, wasn't it?"

"You can go now, Mark. Kendric will be out in a minute."

The bodyguard looked like he wanted to protest, but didn't quite know how. Greg flashed him a sunny smile, receiving a dark scowl for his trouble.

Despite the Ferranti glasses, Greg could tell the man's eyes were on Katerina as he shuffled off forward. It was understandable, given the circumstances. His own gaze kept switching between her fantastic legs and her abdomen, hypnotised by the hard cords of muscle flexing below her smooth tanned skin. Ever hopeful her little scrap of T-shirt would ride up just that fraction higher.