Gabriel rested her head on the metal railings, smiling forlornly. "Pity. I was getting quite used to having a human brain again. I could've lived without the gland. Surprising really. I suppose I associate it with childhood."

"Armchair psychiatrist," he teased.

"Greg."

It was going to be bad news, no espersense required. "Yeah."

She took a breath. "Kendric asked you if we had identified his contact in Event Horizon."

For a moment he thought the cold-turkey fever had come back to rattle his bruised brain, "Oh Jesus," he groaned. "There was a mole."

"Yes," she said feebly. "We didn't do very good, did we Greg?"

"No. Shit! Who? We checked everybody. Everybody, God damn it!"

"Wish I knew. He must've been the one who fingered us for Kendric's snatch squad. Who knew we were going to the finance office?"

He felt like banging his head against the railing, it certainly wouldn't do any damage, there was nothing inside which bloody worked. No messing. "Julia, Walshaw, that doctor who sorted Katerina out, Victor Tyo."

"Victor Tyo? He's a security programmer, isn't he? Convenient. And he knew you were going to visit Ellis. Somebody was bloody quick off the mark there."

"It can't be Victor." He dived down through a clutter of memories, trying to bring back the day he boarded the Alabama Spirit, interviewing a baby-faced man: eager at the opportunity, anxious at the responsibility. "Can't be," he muttered.

"Who then? Even you and I aren't infallible, not the whole time. Take a look around if you don't believe me."

"I interviewed Victor one on one. Tell you, I might miss peripheral tension, like he's forgotten his girl's birthday card, but that kind of treachery I can spot straight away."

"Whatever you say."

He shifted his legs, trying to ease the stiff aching muscles. "Could we have missed someone?"

"Unlikely."

"The security headquarters staff," he said, ticking them off in his mind. "Both research teams, the manor staff; Christ, I even asked Julia and Walshaw." He felt an icy spike of fright penetrate his heart. "Oh Jesus," he whispered. "Walshaw."

"Walshaw?" She was openly scornful.

"No," he snapped. "Course not. But Walshaw didn't know Kendric had seduced Julia. Why not?"

"What do you mean? Why should he know?"

"Because Julia has a bodyguard with her twenty-four hours a day, no matter where she goes outside Wilholm. Remember, there was even one in the corridor outside Walshaw's office at the finance centre? That hardline woman. God, what was her name? Rachel. She was at Wilholm too. A bodyguard who reports directly to Walshaw, who should have told Walshaw what happened on the Mirriam."

Gabriel bowed her head. "A bodyguard: top-rank security, close to every executive decision ever made, knew Julia was going to the finance centre. But a bodyguard isn't part of the security headquarters staff, nor on the manor's staff. Oh Greg, we are a pair of fuck ups, aren't we? She was standing next to Julia the whole time, and we never even bloody saw her."

"Yeah," he said. Then gave a start. "Yeah, the whole time. That's strange."

"What is?"

"I've only ever seen the one bodyguard: Rachel. Every time I've visited Julia, it's been Rachel on duty. Doesn't that strike you as odd? There's got to be more than one."

"Did you always let them know you were coming in advance?"

He nodded silently. The death-chill hadn't left his heart. "Whoever he is, he is still with Julia. Tonight. Now. A hardliner taking orders from Kendric. And Armstrong has already ordered an attack on Philip Evans's NN core."

Gabriel stared at him with destitute eyes. "Oh, God."

He pulled at his cuffs, slowly increasing the strength until his wrists were circles of hot pain. Forearm muscles trembled with the strain. Nothing gave, not the cuff locks, not the iron stair rail. Nothing. "Shit." He let go, graze marks livid on his skin. The futility hurt as much as the failure.

"That's it, isn't it?" Gabriel said quietly. "End of the road. Philip Evans wiped, Julia snuffed by her own bodyguard, and you and I into the mud."

He couldn't answer. His own death he could handle, even Gabriel's. But Julia. Her whole life had been devoid of any normality, ruined by money, by grudges and power struggles that had been going on before she was born. When he closed his eyes he could see a young oval face with the most trusting expression he'd ever known. Soft eyes regarded him with a belief that bordered on devotion.

He should have fought the drug, should have sacrificed Gabriel's bones. Anything to give Julia a chance at life.

"We had some good times, didn't we, Greg?" Gabriel said vacantly. "Even in this screwed-up world."

"Yeah. Good times." They hadn't outweighed the bad, though. Not even close.

Gabriel's eyes drooped.

Greg leant his shoulder on the railings, as near to comfortable as he'd ever get. Muscles were cramping at the back of his neck. He knew he really ought to have been looking for a way out. Gaoler's keys dangling on a nail, within reach of an improvised hook on the end of his belt. The iron stair railing which was loose. That carelessly discarded loop of monolattice filament in amongst the food crates which he could use to saw through the iron with. Keep dreaming, he told himself.

He did. Waking dreams. Mostly of Eleanor. Now those were good times. They must've been, they hurt.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Kats was dreaming. Julia watched her eyelids fluttering, shoulders restless below the duvet, the occasional sighs, half-formed words.

It would probably be Kendric who filled her thoughts. She doubted the amnesia infusion could reach down into the subconscious to root him out. And that was exactly the kind of arcane universe where Kendric would lurk, his home ground.

To this day his phantom still stole into Julia's sleep-loosened mind, a dark oneiromancer calling her back to the velvet shadows of Mirriam's cabin, soft silk sheets, hot hard flesh. That handsome face poised inches above her, smiling as she moaned in erotic delirium. Not even the freshness of Adrian could banish the quondam ecstasy. First loves never die. They just… haunt.

She gave Kats a dry smile. Maybe she should go through the detoxification with her, get rid of Kendric that way. Concerned professional doctors prising him out of her mind. Nothing else seemed to work.

OtherEyes Emergency Access Request.

Open Channel to NN Core. Load OtherEyes Limiter#Five. It was a reflexive acknowledgement, her nerves were stretched taut, ready to jump at figments. She sat bolt upright in the chair, grabbing the Armscor.

Juliet. Christ, virus virus, they've Trojaned a virus into me!

Wilholm's banshee klaxon went off outside.

"Grandpa!" she yelled.

Losing my capacity. Some kind of interface scrambler. Bugger, security sensor access went down. The NN core's internal channels are crashing, Juliet. Childhood gone. It's accelerating. I've failed you, girl. My memory patterns are being disconnected. Management routines gone.

"No, Grandpa," she sobbed. "You couldn't fail me. Not you."

You're all that's left, girl. Datanet's cut. Unlock me in a century. Trust Walshaw, Juliet. Trust him. My girl. Love you. Take care, Kendric will come for you. Integrity stasis, beat it at its own game. Shutting down. Limbo.

And he was gone. But there was something else intruding in her mind, a smooth, grotesque presence oozing in to corrupt her thoughts. Julia jammed her knuckles in her wide, silently screaming mouth. The horror pulled at her memories, prising them out of their neat processor-assigned stacks. She could see them tumbling away from her; stained-glass rosettes, each one a billion-picture mosaic. Her life encapsulated, ruptured, pouring away into some infinite insatiable sink point.