Ralph Hiltch accessed various reports as he flew back over the city. The priority search which Diana Tiernan’s department had initiated was producing good results. According to the city’s route and flow road processor network, fifty-three lorries had left Moyce’s that evening. The AIs were now chasing after them.
Within seven minutes of Diana assigning the lorries full priority, twelve had been located, all outside the city. The coordinates were datavised into the Strategic Defence Command up in Guyana, and sensor satellites triangulated the targets for low-orbit weapons platforms. A dozen short-lived violet starbursts blossomed across Xingu’s southern quarter.
By the time Ralph’s hypersonic landed another eight had been added to the total. He’d stripped off his damaged lightweight armour suit in the plane, borrowing a dark blue police fatigue one-piece. It was baggy enough to fit over his medical nanonic package without restriction. But for all the package’s support, he was still limping as he made his way over to Hub One.
“Welcome back,” Landon McCullock said. “You did a good job, Ralph. I’m grateful.”
“We all are,” Warren Aspinal said. “And that’s not just a politician speaking. I have a family in the city, three kids.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ralph sat down next to Diana Tiernan. She managed a quick grin for him. “We’ve been checking up on the night shift at Moyce’s,” she said. “There were forty-five on duty this evening. As of now, the AT Squads have accounted for twenty-nine during the assault, killed and captured.”
“Shit. Sixteen of the bastards loose,” Bernard Gibson said.
“No,” Diana said firmly. “We think we may have got lucky. I’ve hooked the AIs into the fire department’s mechanoids; their sensors are profiled for exploring high temperature environments. So far they’ve located a further five bodies in the building, and there’s still thirty per cent which hasn’t been covered. That accounts for all but eleven of the night shift.”
“Still too many,” Landon said.
“I know. But we’re certain that six of the lorries zapped so far contained a shift member. Their processors and ancillary circuits were suffering random failures. It matched the kind of interference which Adkinson’s plane suffered.”
“And then there were five,” Warren Aspinal said quietly.
“Yes, sir,” Diana said. “I’m pretty sure they’re in the remaining lorries.”
“Well I’m afraid ‘pretty sure’ isn’t good enough when we’re facing a threat which could wipe us out in less than a week, Chief Tiernan,” said Leonard DeVille.
“Sir.” Diana didn’t bother to look at him. “I wasn’t making wild assumptions. Firstly, the AIs have confirmed that there was no other traffic logged as using Moyce’s since Jacob Tremarco’s taxi arrived.”
“So they left on foot.”
“Again, I really don’t think that is the case, sir. That whole area around Moyce’s is fully covered by security sensors, both ours and the private systems owned by the companies in neighbouring buildings. We accessed all the relevant memories. Nobody came out of Moyce’s. Just the lorries.”
“What we’ve seen tonight is a continuing pattern of attempted widespread dispersal,” Landon McCullock said. “The embassy trio have been constant in their attempt to distribute the energy virus as broadly as possible. It’s a very logical move. The wider it is spread, the longer it takes for us to contain it, and the more people can be infected, in turn making it more difficult for us to contain. A nasty spiral.”
“They only have a limited amount of time in the city,” Ralph chipped in. “And the city is where we have the greatest advantage when it comes to finding and eliminating them. So they’ll know it’s a waste of effort trying to spread the contamination here, at least initially. Whereas the countryside tilts the balance in their favour. If they win out there, then Xingu’s main urban areas will eventually become cities under siege. Again a situation which we would probably lose in the long run. That’s what happened on Lalonde. I imagine that Durringham has fallen by now.”
Leonard DeVille nodded curtly.
“The second point,” said Diana, “is that those infected don’t seem able to halt the lorries. Short of them using their white fire weapon to physically destroy the motors or power systems the lorries aren’t stopping before their first scheduled delivery point. And if they do use violence against a lorry the motorway processors will spot it straightaway. From the evidence we’ve accumulated so far it seems as though they can’t use their electronic warfare field to alter a lorry’s destination. It’s powerful, but not sophisticated, not enough to get down into the actual drive control processors and tamper with on line programs.”
“You mean they’re trapped inside the lorries?” Warren Aspinal asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And none of the lorries have reached their destination yet,” Vicky Keogh said, with a smile for the Home Office minister. “As Diana said, it looks like we got lucky.”
“Well thank God they’re not omnipotent,” the Prime Minister said.
“They’re not far short,” Ralph observed. Even listening to Diana outline the current situation hadn’t lifted his spirits. The crisis was too hot, too now. Emotions hadn’t had time to catch up with events; pursuing the embassy trio was like space warfare, everything happening too quick for anything other than simplistic responses, there was no opportunity to take stock and think. “What about Angeline Gallagher?” he inquired. “Have the AIs got any further leads?”
“No. Just the two taxis and the Longhound bus,” Diana said. “The AT Squads are on their way.”
It took another twelve minutes to clear the taxis. Ralph stayed at Hub One while the interception operations were running, receiving datavises from the two Squad commanders.
The first taxi was laid up beside one of the rivers which meandered through Pasto. It had stopped interfacing with the route and flow processors as it drew up next to a boathouse. Road monitor cameras had been trained on the grey vehicle for eleven minutes, seeing no movement from it or the boathouse.
The AT Squad members closed in on it, using standard leapfrog advancement tactics. Its lights were off, doors frozen half-open, no one inside. A technical officer opened a systems access panel and plugged his processor block into it. The police AI probed the vehicle’s circuitry and memory cells.
“All clear,” Diana reported. “A short circuit turned the chassis live, blew most of the processors, and screwed the rest. No wonder it showed up like one of our hostiles.”
The second taxi had been abandoned in an underground garage below a residential mews. The AT Squad arrived just as the taxi company’s service crew turned up to take it away on their breakdown hauler. Everyone at Hub One witnessed the scenes of hysterics and anger as the AT Squad took no chances with the three service crew.
After running an on-the-spot diagnostic, the crew discovered the taxi’s electron matrix was faulty, sending huge power spikes through the on-board circuitry.
“Gallagher has to be on the bus,” Landon McCullock said as he cancelled his datavise to the AT Squad, the service crew’s inventive obscenities fading from his borrowed perception.
“I can confirm that,” Diana said. “The damn thing won’t respond to the halt orders we’re issuing via the motorway route and flow processors.”
“I thought you said they couldn’t alter programs with their electronic warfare technique,” Leonard DeVille said.
“It hasn’t altered its route, it just won’t respond,” she shot back. An almost uninterrupted three-hour stint spent interfacing with, and directing, the AIs, was beginning to fatigue her nerves.
Warren Aspinal gave his political colleague a warning frown.