‘I would either connect the device to something only an ECS agent might try to access—secure storage or something locked like a safe—or I would use a cam system, probably activated by movement, and routed through the same net feed.’

‘Jack, through your telefactors can you scan for a cam inside the hotel?’

‘I have already done so,’ the AI replied. ‘There are two holocameras located in the suspect’s room, linked by optic cables into the room’s netlink.’

‘Presumably there are other optic cables in the room too?’

‘No, our suspect has been much smarter than that: planar explosives packed into a standard lamp—the lamp itself to be activated by an infrared signal from the netlink rather than an optic cable. The lamp has been deliberately raised to head height, the intention being to not only kill, but to destroy any cerebral hardware designed to save anything of the victim’s mind—a subtle touch.’

Thorn reached into his pocket and took out the memstore. ‘Would this HK be able to track the cam signals?’

‘Why not ask it?’ Jack suggested.

Thorn then remembered Fethan saying the hunter-killer program did not talk much. So it could talk, then.

‘Can you hear me?’

The device vibrated in his hand.

‘I hear,’ replied a flat inflection-free voice. Scar peered at the memstore for a moment, then sniffed dismissively.

‘Then you heard what we were discussing. Can you track cam signals through a netlink?’

‘I can.’

Thorn detached his palm-com from the dash and rested it in his lap. He tapped an icon to open its netlink, and with a brief local search closed the connection to the Parliament Hotel. He then pulled out the strip along the lower edge of the touch-console to reveal multiple sockets: optic, nano-tube optic, s-con whiskered, crystal interface, and even a socket that could adapt itself to primitive electrical connections. As he picked it up, the memstore, like a clam sliding out its foot, immediately extruded an optic plug from one of its end ports. Thorn inserted this into the requisite socket.

‘Of course, we need a way to activate the cameras,’ Thorn commented, while watching the hotel’s web display flickering, then breaking up into squares, before blanking out totally.

‘Copy loaded,’ said the box.

‘Are you volunteering?’ Jack enquired of Thorn.

‘Not likely,’ said Thorn. ‘The cam signal might not be enough, but the program should certainly be able to follow the detonation signal.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Erm . . . HK, have you wrecked this palm-com?’

The com screen came back on, displaying the city map Thorn had used before landing.

‘Can you display where you track the source to?’

‘I can,’ HK replied.

‘Jack,’ said Thorn, ‘send in a telefactor. The watcher will know he’s been blown and won’t be able to get a human target with his bomb, but he won’t be able to resist taking out such a costly piece of Polity hardware instead.’