Communication bandwidth was becoming a serious problem. Western Europe had used GSDI authority to prioritize the AI scanning programs, leaving them unimpeded while civil data traffic suffered unheard of capacity reductions and switching delays.

The visualization of the arcology’s electronic structure was a theatrical gesture, impressing no one. It stood on the table of the sensenviron secure conference chamber like an elaborate glass model of the ten domes. Fans of coloured light rotated through the miniature translucent structures with strobe-like repetition.

South Pacific studied their movement as the other B7 supervisor representations came on line around the oval table. When all sixteen were there, she asked: “So where is he, then?”

“Not in Edmonton,” North America said. “We kicked their asses out of the universe. The whole goddamn nest of them. There’s none of the bastards left.”

“Really?” Asian Pacific said. “So you’ve accounted for the friend of Carter McBride as well, have you?”

“He’s not a threat to the arcology, he only wants Dexter.”

“Crap. You can’t find him, and he’s just an ordinary possessed.” Asian Pacific waved an arm at the simulacrum of London. “All they have to do is steer clear of electronics, and they’re safe.”

“Got to eat sometime,” Southern Africa said. “It’s not like they’ve got friends to take care of them.”

“The Light Bringer sect loves them,” East Asia grumbled.

“The sects are ours,” Western Europe said. “We have no worries in that direction.”

“Okay,” South Pacific said. “So tell us how you’re doing in New York? We all thought the police had got them that time as well.”

“Ah yes,” Military Intelligence said. “What’s the phrase the news anchors keep using? Hydra Syndrome. Shove one possessed into zero-tau, and while you’re doing that five more come forth. Emotive figures, but true.”

“New York got out of hand,” North America said. “I wasn’t prepared for that.”

“Obviously. How many domes have been taken over now?”

“Figures of that magnitude are unnecessarily emotive,” Western Europe said. “Once the possessed base population climbs above two thousand, there’s nothing anyone can do. The exponential curve takes over and the arcology is lost. New York is going to be this planet’s Mortonridge. It’s not our concern.”

“Not our concern!” North Pacific said. “This is bullshit. Of course it’s our concern. If they spread through the arcologies this whole planet will be lost.”

“Large numbers are not our concern. The military will have to deal with New York later.”

“If it’s still here, and if they don’t turn cannibal. The food vats won’t work around possessed, you know, and the weather shields won’t hold, either.”

“They’re reinforcing the domes they’ve captured with their energistic power,” North America said. “The arcology caught the tail end of an armada storm last night. The domes all held.”

“Only until they complete their takeover,” South Pacific said. “The remaining domes can’t barricade themselves in forever.”

“New York’s inevitable fall is regrettable, I’m sure,” Western Europe said. “But not relevant. We have to accept it as a defeat and move forward. B7 is about prevention, not cure. And in order to prevent Earth itself from falling, we have to eliminate Quinn Dexter.”

“So like I asked, where is he?”

“Undetermined at this moment.”

“You lost him, didn’t you? You blew it. He was a sitting duck in Edmonton, but you thought you were smarter. You thought your dandy little psychology game would triumph. Your arrogance could have enslaved us all.”

“Interesting tense, there,” Western Europe snapped. “Could have. You mean, until you saved the day by closing down the vac-trains, after we agreed not to screw each other over.”

“The President had a very strong public mandate for closing them down. After Edmonton’s High Noon firefight, the whole world was clamouring for a shutdown.”

“Led by your news companies,” Southern Africa said.

Western Europe leaned over the table towards a smiling South Pacific, his head centimetres short of the simulacrum. “I got them back, you moronic bitch. Banneth and Louise Kavanagh returned to London safely. Dexter will do everything in his power to follow them there. But he can’t bloody well do that if he’s trapped in Edmonton. Six trains, that’s all that got out before your stupid shut down order. Six! It’s not enough to be certain.”

“If he’s as good as you seem to think, he would have got on one of them.”

“You’d better hope he has, because if he was left behind you can kiss goodbye to Edmonton. We have nothing in place there which could confirm his existence.”

“So we lose two arcologies. The rest are now guaranteed safe.”

“I lose two arcologies,” North America said. “Thanks to you. Do you realize how much territory that is for me?”

“Paris,” South Pacific said. “Bombay, Johannesburg. Everyone’s taking losses today.”

“You’re not. And the possessed are on the run in those arcologies. We have them locked down, thanks to the sects. None of those will escalate into a repetition of New York.”

“We hope,” said India. “I’m managing parity at the moment, that’s all. But panic is going to be a factor in the very near future. And that works to their advantage.”

“You’re quibbling over details,” South Pacific said. “The point is, there are methods of solving this problem other than obsessing over Dexter. My policy is the correct one. Confine them while we engineer a permanent solution. If that had been adopted at the start, we would have lost the Brazilian tower ground station at most.”

“We didn’t know what we were dealing with when Dexter arrived,” South America said. “We were always going to lose one arcology to him.”

“Dear me, I had no idea this was a policy forum,” Western Europe said. “I thought we were conducting a progress review.”

“Well, as you’ve made no progress . . .” South Pacific said sweetly.

“If he’s in London, he won’t be found by conventional means. I thought we’d established that. And for your information, total inactivity isn’t a policy, it’s just the wishful thinking of small minds.”

“I’ve stopped the spread of possession. Remind us what you’ve achieved?”

“You’re fiddling while Rome burns. The cause of the fire is our paramount concern.”

“Eliminating Dexter will not remove the possessed in New York or anywhere else. I vote we devote a higher percentage of our scientific resources to finding a permanent solution.”

“I find it hard to credit that even you are playing politics with this. Percentages aren’t going to make the slightest difference to the beyond at this stage. Anyone who can provide a relevant input to the problem had been doing just that since the very beginning. We don’t need to call in the auditors to verify our compassion credentials, they’re hardly quantifiable in any case.”

“If you don’t want to be a part of the project, fine. Be sure you don’t endanger us any further by your irresponsibility.”

Western Europe cancelled his representation, withdrawing from the conference. The simulacrum of London vanished with him.

The cave was at the lowest level of the endcap caverns, protected on all sides by hundreds of metres of solid polyp. Tolton felt quite secure inside it; first time in a long time.

Originally a servitor veterinary centre, it had been pressed into use as a physics lab. Dr Patan headed up the team which the Valisk personality had charged with making sense of the dark continuum. He’d greeted Dariat’s arrival with the joy of a long-lost son. There had been dozens of experiments, starting with simple measurements: temperature (Dariat’s ersatz body was eight degrees warmer than liquid nitrogen, and almost perfectly heat resistant) electrical resistivity (abandoned quickly when Dariat protested at the pain). Then came energy spectrum and quantum signature analysis. The most interesting part for a layman observer like Tolton was when Dariat gave a sample of himself. Patan’s team quickly decided an in-depth study was impossible when the fluid was being animated by Dariat’s thoughts. Attempts to stick a needle into him and draw some away proved impossible, the tip wouldn’t penetrate his skin. In the end it was down to Dariat himself, holding his hand over a glass dish and pricking himself with a pin which he’d conjured into existence by imagination. Red blood dripped out, changing as it fell away from him. Slightly sticky grey-white fluid splattered into the bowl. It was carried away triumphantly by the physicists. Dariat and Tolton exchanged a bemused look, and went to sit at the back of the lab.