"I know he's innocent, Greg," she said, hating herself for being such a pragmatist, for puncturing his mood. "We all do. But you have still got the problem of proving it in a court of law."

"The prosecution still has the knife," Gabriel said. "Pretty strong evidence, especially when you'll be dealing with a jury that's going to be lost after the first ten minutes of specialist technical testimonies."

"Then we shall have to produce some counter-evidence," Eleanor said smartly. "Something that Inspector Langley can't ignore, something that'll mean Nicholas never gets into court. The paradigm itself." She looked at Julia. They both smiled. "Royan," they chorused.

Julia followed the burn's progress through her nodes. The others used the time to relax; Teddy trying to chat up Rachel over by the drinks cabinet; Greg, Eleanor, Morgan, and Gabriel all with their heads together, talking in low tones.

Eleanor still hadn't let go of Greg, her hand gripping his, fingers entwined.

Royan in hotrod mode was awesome to watch. She had learned a lot about hacking techniques from him; modesty aside, she was good, she knew that. Good enough to crack Jakki Coleman's bank account—and Lloyds-Tashoko's guardian programs were the best corporate money could buy. But she watched Royan's infiltration of Stocken Hall's 'ware with something approaching envy; the speed of the penetration was incredible, and he didn't have lightware crunchers to back him up.

He didn't even bother trying to crack the authorized user entry codes, he went straight for the management routines. A melt virus got him past the first-level guardian programs, opening up the prison's datanet. The structure unfolded in her mind, an origami molecule, individual terminals and 'ware cores linked together by a spiderweb of databuses. She had access to menus of low-grade security files stored in the terminals, along with the Hall's day to day administration details, and financial datawork. But the cell security and surveillance circuits were blocked, along with a vast series of memories in the cores.

Royan squirted a more complex virus at the second-level guardian programs, the ones governing access to restricted core memories.

Let's see what the medical department has on Bursken, Julia said, studying the menu. At the least his file should tell us whether or not he's got a cortical interface.

Nice one, Snowy. It isn't on the restricted list. Here we go.

He pulled a Home Office identification code from the administration officer's terminal, and used it to request a squirt from the records terminal in the medical division.

"This is Bursken's medical file," she said as the datasheets swarmed down the conference room's flatscreens. "Grandpa, review it for implants, please."

The datasheets flashed past, too fast to read. "Here we go, Juliet." The deluge of bytes halted. She was looking at some kind of official Home Office package. "Hell, girl, they really were wetting themselves over Bursken. This confinement order gives the director, that is MacLennan, permission to employ any method he sees fit to restrain Liam Bursken, including chemical suppression, or even remedial surgery such as a lobotomy."

"And who would ever complain?" Greg mused, not looking up from his flatscreen. "Even the human rights lawyers wouldn't bother arguing in Bursken's favour. He's beyond the lowest of the low. You could do anything you wanted to him, and no one would give a shit."

"I don't know about anything, boy," Philip said. "But a month ago he was wheeled into surgery and given a cortical interface." A new datasheet slid into place. "It was ordered by MacLennan, part of a new mental assessment project. According to this it was supposed to provide data on his psychotic state trigger stimulants. Follow up results are restricted."

"I knew that…" Greg looked puzzled for a moment, then clicked his fingers. "Of course, it was Stephanie Rowe who filled me in on Bursken, MacLennan just sat there and let her recite facts to me. How stupid of me."

"You weren't interrogating them," Eleanor said.

"Thanks," he said.

Julia's nodes showed her the second-level guardian programs falling as the virus penetrated. Huge stacks of data materialized into the nodes' visualization, dense packages of colourless binary digits extending out to her mind's horizon.

A batch of Royan's tracer programs slithered through them. Bursken's surgical records vanished from the flatscreen in front of her. PROBLEM, it printed.

"What's the matter?" Greg asked.

I THINK I'VE FOUND THE PARADIGM FILE IT'S LISTED AS BURSKEN'S CORTICAL INTERFACE FOLLOW-UP RESULTS, AND IT HAS A DIRECTOR-ONLY ACCESS CODE

"So what's the problem?"

THEY WILL KNOW IF I ACCESS IT. A NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE IS HARD WIRED IN TO THE CORES. ALL SQUIRTS ARE LOGGED AUTOMATICALLY

"But the cores think we're the Home Office," Julia said. "Under that premise, we're entitled to access their data. Berkeley operates Stocken under government licence."

IF WE ARE THE HOME OFFICE, HOW COME WE CAN ORDER A SQUIRT FOR A DIRECTOR-ONLY FILE???

MACLENNAN WOULD HAVE TO BE AT THE HOME OFFICE TO AUTHORIZE THE SQUIRT

"OK, let's look at what we want to achieve," Greg said. "What we need is for Inspector Langley to go into Stocken first thing tomorrow morning, armed with a data warrant, and find that paradigm. So we have to be sure it's there before we send him in. Is there any chance this file will crash wipe if you order a squirt?"

NO.

"Then I'd say do it. Morgan?"

"I can't see any objection. Even if you were to interrogate MacLennan, a lawyer might conceivably neutralize your testimony; there are still some legal queries over evidence obtained psychically. As Eleanor said, we need tangible proof. The evidence is piling up against MacLennan, to my mind he's guilty as hell. It has to be the killer paradigm in that file."

"OK, squirt it over, Royan."

It came through the link, a large construct, taking half a second to transfer. In her terminal cube it was nothing, a moire patchwork of randomized data. In her mind—

She opened a secure file in one of her memory nodes and let the construct fill it. Analysis programs sifted through the bytes, trying to identify coherent segments. The patterns they formed were like nothing she had ever seen before; there were analogue visual sequences, interlaced with data pulses that defied decryption. She accessed one at random.

Chiaroscuro images, black and scarlet, bloomed silently around her. She was standing on a rainswept street at night, parallel rows of cheap terrace housing, their walls shimmering as sheets of water sluiced down over the bricks, it was almost as though they were melting. There were no stars above, only empty night. A solitary figure walked down the middle of the road, a man in a sodden greatcoat. Julia felt her heart ignite with exaltation.

She was stalking through woodland, the smooth boles of dead beech trees sliding past, a deep claret in colour. Ribbons of black ivy were clawing their way up the crumbling bark, crisp dry leaves like heart-shaped flakes of ash crunched underfoot. She circled a glade, the procession of boles eclipsing the sight of the two young lovers in its centre. All she caught was fleeting glimpses, their bodies moved in a stop-motion sequence. And they were unmarried, profaning the gift of life with their casual coupling. Their skin was salmon pink, their scattered clothes burgundy and ebony. A knife was heavy in her hand, its blade a glowing coral.

Her mind was alive with whispers, enticing dark promises.

God's voice. His strength flooding through her limbs.

A face coalesced before her. An old man, with bright smiling eyes, and wispy hair. Mocking eyes. Black eyes, light wells. The man stared into hell and laughed in joy at what he saw.