Gabriel picked up her torch and thrust it against some of the cases he'd doused. Flames bloomed wherever it touched. She carried it round in a triumphal circuit.

The room was becoming dazzlingly bright to Greg's gloaming-acclimatised eyes; but he waited until the fire began to crackle noisily before heaving at the cases. The stack toppled with a crash which seemed deafeningly loud in the small room. Cases burst open, scattering tins of meat with Brazilian labels across the oak floorboards.

Greg jumped on to the two remaining cases below the window, kicking out the glass. It shattered into wicked ice daggers, scything off into the galactic-deep night outside.

"Out," he yelled, and used his good hand to haul Gabriel up on to the cases. She balanced on the narrow dirt-ingrained window ledge, crouching down for the jump. There were shouts coming from the basement. The fire had really taken hold now. Greg could feel its heat on his face and his right hand.

Gabriel had already gone. And someone was pounding up the stairs. Greg flexed his knees and leapt into the cool damp air.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Processor Node One Status: Loading Basic Management Program.

Julia's head jerked up. She hadn't actually been sleeping, just allowing her rattled, abused thoughts some peace.

Processor Node Two Status: Loading Basic Management Program.

"What?" asked Walshaw.

Memory Node One: File Codes Loaded.

The huge black man, Teddy, was giving her that eagle-eyed stare again, as if he was examining her soul. Finding it flawed.

Memory Node Two: File Codes Loaded.

"Lord Jesus," she clapped her hands in excited delight. "He's done it. Royan. He's in the 'ware."

Memory Node Three: File Codes Loaded.

The fabric of the nodes' artificial mentality rose out of nowhere to fortify and enrich her own thoughts. Dictionaries, language and technical lexicons, encyclopaedias, logic matrices, all returned to their warm familiar places.

Neural Augmentation On Line.

Walshaw was leaning over his terminal, hands reaching for the keyboard. The cubes were full of crazed graphics, slowly returning to equilibrium.

Hello, Juliet.

"Grandpa!"

Her view of the study was suddenly riddled with cracks, it fragmented and whirled away. She was looking down on Earth from a great height. But the picture was wrong, there were no half-shades, the colours were all primary; an amorphous jigsaw of emerald, crimson, turquoise, and rose-gold oil patterns. It was overlaid by regular grid lines. False-Colour Thematic Image, supplied the nodes. There was a town at the centre of the image, one which was curiously blurred around its outskirts.

Wisbech, Julia said, intuitively. There was no sound to hear, no tactile sensation present in this flat universe which had captured her, only the image itself. She could sense her grandfather's presence by her side. They weren't alone.

Juliet, I'd like you to meet a very smart young lad. Goes by the name of Royan.

Pleased to meet you, Miss Juliet. I've never met an heiress before.

Thank you for unlocking my grandpa, Royan.