The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [34]
So as a demonstration of her warm-hearted good will, Talavera allowed her the house, the dog, the boat and so forth, and when Julia asked for a Human companion the terrorist seemed to consider for a moment before giving her assent.
Now it was the fifth s-day since her arrival at the beach, although objectively only a day had passed. Relaxing on the veranda, she teased coils and lattices of info from the raw data cloud which hung over her like an immense, slowly gyring tornado, its dense grey and slate-blue flows speckled with glittering motes, glints caught in the intertwining braids.
Down on the beach, further along the shore, a female figure ran, laughed and played with the dog, throwing sticks and splashing in the shallows. Joyful barks drifted on the breeze.
The imagery was representational. In drawing down data from the cloudy tornado she was actually configuring it for the computational macros she had already prepared in certain areas of her cortex, those tightly clustered webs of neural pathways that were under her conscious and practised control. But this was her metacosm so it amused her to watch those braids of information snakily float over to the brassy, bell-shaped intake of a small but fabulously archaic-looking machine that sat on the veranda’s low table. It had a sequence of bizarre sections complete with electrical sparks, wheezing bellows, flashing lights, and puffs of steam. Every hour or so a tinny fanfare would sound and a glassy sphere the size of her thumb would roll out at the other end, landing in a padded basket. Julia would transfer it to a triangular tray and over time build a gleaming pyramid which on completion would vanish when her eyes were averted.
Yet she remained perfectly aware that despite the pleasant surroundings and the placid comforts, her body still lay stretched and motionless in one of Talavera’s virtuality tanks. With any luck they wouldn’t have disturbed or forensically examined her since her incarceration.
More barks and the sound of footsteps climbing to the veranda heralded her companion’s return.
‘Och, Julia! – all work and no play is no way to stay sharp, ye know!’
Wearing a pale blue windbreaker and flowery slacks, Catriona Macreadie pulled up a wicker stool and sat down. The golden retriever followed her in and lay down by her feet.
‘It’s an urgent project, Cat,’ she said. ‘And it’s my responsibility so I have to stick with it.’
‘Well, when it’s done, me and Benny’ll take you along to some rock pools we found – you should see the ammonite crabs … ’
Julia smiled and nodded, inwardly puzzled as she’d neither imagined rock pools on the shore nor given the dog a name. But then this wasn’t meant to be that close a copy of the real Catriona, who had an altogether more morose demeanour. Julia was about to ask how far off these rock pools were when the tabletop contraption sounded its little fanfare and another glassy sphere was produced. Catriona chuckled and went over to pick it out of its little basket.
‘Beautiful,’ she said, peering into its foggy, latticed heart.
Then the dog stood up and looked at Julia.
‘Template match compiled,’ it said. ‘Instructions?’
‘Copy yourself and overwrite.’
Catriona froze in the act of dropping the sphere onto the triangular tray. Her form turned opaque as a bright transecting plane passed through her from head to toe. When it was over solidity returned, the sphere clinked onto the tray, and Catriona straightened, features blank, awaiting orders.
Julia smiled. When Talavera and her goons stuck her in the virtuality tank they didn’t know that she had hidden one last polymote in her hair, next to her scalp. Days ago she had reprogrammed a batch of polymotes – nanoscale builders – and deployed them through the Chaurixa vessel, the Sacrament, to assist in their escape attempt. The escape failed and all five Enhanced were confined in solitary. Julia was still able to regain control of the handful of polymotes