CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Cold turkey was a bitch. It was convulsive shivering, with hot flushes, cold flushes, dryness burning like vitriol in his gullet. Nothing made sense, light and darkness alternating, noise and silence cartwheeling around each other. Nightmares and nirvana trips entwining, indistinguishable.

It was dark when his fever broke. Greg was sitting uncomfortably on a hard floor, propped up against the wrought-iron railings of the tower's stair. His hands had been pushed through the railings, and cuffed on the other side. He could slide them a metre and a half up or down, his entire range of possible movement. His bladder ached, his mouth tasted as if it'd been rinsed in copper soap. Somewhere along the line his shirt had got lost, that scratchy dinner jacket was tickling his skin.

When he glanced round he saw he was in the tower's first-floor storage room. Biolum light shone up from the basement and down from the lounge. Murmured conversation drifted out of both holes. The smell of cooking was making his stomach growl.

Gabriel was sitting next to him, her arms embracing the railings. She was asleep, her mouth open.

Greg nudged her with his toe. She shook herself awake, blinking at him.

"Christ, Greg. I was worried about you."

"Yeah, Lord knows what was in that infusion Neville Turner gave me, bloody sight more than a relaxant, though. How come we're still alive?"

She grimaced and shifted closer. He leant forwards as much as his tethered arms let him. They got their heads within a foot and talked in whispers.

"They're checking out what you told them," she said. "From what I can gather, Armstrong has some kind of landline stretching over to Downham Market. He told his apparatchiks to launch another hotrod attack against Philip Evans's NN core. He reckoned that without me there to warn Evans they'd have a good chance of success this time."

"Figures. What did I tell them?"

Her lips depressed. "Sorry, Greg. Just about everything. Armstrong was fascinated by how you found Tentimes. Made you give him Royan's life story. That really shook them, the way the Trinities have been killing off ex-People's Constables. They thought the Trinities were an ordinary bunch of street punks. Irritants beneath contempt."

"Shit. That'll start a bloody war, no messing. The Blackshirts will be screaming for revenge."

"If Armstrong tells them. He probably doesn't want to draw public attention to PSP remnants right now. Besides, don't write Teddy off so quickly. The Blackshirts would take a hell of a pounding if they ever went into Mucklands Wood."

Depression welled up. Greg felt useless, and worse, he'd betrayed his friends. A real twenty-four-carat Judas. "Did I mention Eleanor?"

"Once or twice. But not in connection with anything important. They never showed any interest in her. She'll be all right, Greg."

One comfort. Bloody small, though.

"Kendric was right pissed off with Julia," Gabriel said. "The way she manoeuvred him to clear Katerina from the field so she could nab Adrian for herself. Armstrong had a laugh at that, Kendric out-thought by a randy teenager with a crush. That girl isn't stupid."

"I told them that?" Greg was disgusted with himself.

"Yes. They questioned you for over two hours. Don't blame yourself, Greg. Interrogations these days are like punching out a data request in a memory core, the answers pop out quick and clean. There's no way anyone can hold out. You should know that."

"Sure. Thanks." The only hope left now was Morgan Walshaw, and anything Ellis might've left behind. "Did I tell them that Walshaw and the Event Horizon security programmers were sifting through the files in Ellis's Crays?"

Gabriel screwed her face up. "I think so, yes."

"Did it kick anything loose? I mean were they worried about anything he might find?"

"Not especially."

"Bugger." He'd banked everything on Ellis wreaking a silent posthumous vengeance. A folly whose magnitude was now painfully obvious. Even if Ellis had been told exactly who he was working for, he wouldn't have known about this tower hideaway in Wisbech. Need-to-know was an elementary precaution, and Armstrong certainly wouldn't have overlooked anything to do with his personal security. Hindsight must surely be the most useless function of the human brain, torturing yourself over the unalterable past.

Gabriel shifted her knees. "One item which really got them stirred up was the Merlin," she said.

"What about it?"

"Armstrong and Kendric weren't the ones who meddled with it."

"Who did?"

A smile ghosted her lips. "That's what they wanted to know. They asked you three times if you were sure there had been a rogue shutdown instruction squirted up to it."

"I bet I was convincing."

"You were. Armstrong ordered his people to confirm it'd happened; apparently Event Horizon haven't announced the breakdown publicly yet. He said they must make an effort to find out who it was. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, all that crap. Kendric seemed to think it could be one of the rival kombinates."

"Kendric's probably right," Greg said. "So when does Armstrong expect the answers to his enquiries?"

"I guess tomorrow morning, there's nothing going on right now. If there are any queries they'll have another session with you. If not it'll be straight into the mud."

"No doubt with Toby helping me on my way after his own fashion. Where is he now?"

Gabriel inclined her head. "Kendric's mob are camped out in the basement. Lord and Lady Muck themselves are still upstairs. Maybe Armstrong's got a guest suite."

"Yeah. That Kendric, I'd never have figured on him being plugged into Armstrong and the PSP."

"You think someone like him is going to let a little question of ideology stand in his way when he's been offered the kind of profits which giga-conductor licensing is going to rake in?"

"No," Greg said. "But I'm wondering if Armstrong might just have let himself in for more than he's realised."

"In what way?"

"Tell you, this is all down to Kendric trying to snatch the giga-conductor patent from Julia, right? That's apart from his private psychosexual fixation on her, of course. First the memox spoiler, now feeding Armstrong information in return for a partnership when Event Horizon is nationalised. Lucifer's alliance, but which one is Old Nick? My money's on Kendric."

"Meaning?" Gabriel asked.

"Once Kendric's got the patent in his hands as Event Horizon's chairman I wouldn't like to sell Armstrong any life insurance. Even if his apparatchiks do begin running things again—and I think he's underrating the New Conservative inquisitors there—he can never return to public life. As he's already dead in everyone's mind there will be absolutely no comeback if Kendric has him killed for real. Hell, the bugger of it is, Kendric would even be a hero for doing it."

"You have a devious nasty mind, Gregory. And I love you for it."

"If I'm so smart, then why are we here?"

"I didn't say you were perfect."

"That's the truth, and no messing."

Gabriel was silent for a minute, contemplative, then, "I think I've worked out why our glands aren't functioning."

"The twins."

"Oh, you know."

"Process of elimination. I'm quite good at that when it's something paltry. I imagine their glands produce some kind of psi null-zone; I remember something like that being mentioned a couple of times back at the Brigade—never really paid attention. Notice that one stayed with Armstrong while we were snatched. No wonder the other Mindstar vets could never find him after the Second Restoration."

"So they won't find us now?"

"No. Morgan Walshaw might put it together eventually. But not by tomorrow morning. And even then, there's nothing to lead him to Wisbech."