Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two Read Online Free Page B

Very slick.’
    As a senior officer in the intelligence service, Max had years ago established a fast covert exit route. What else did Fleming expect?
    ‘She short-circuited … Neural induction. Burned out her corpus callosum.’
    ‘Lobotomized herself?’
    ‘Not that. Femtoviral patterning in her … her right cerebral hemisphere. The compulsion … She divided her brain. In two. Fought against … herself.’
    ‘That’s one hell of a story.’
    ‘Truth. She warned me. Get clear.’
    Fleming popped some kind of sweet into his mouth and began to suck.
    ‘I’d like to believe you, Max.’
    Max’s rank was commodore, but there was no point in insisting on etiquette, because in this place Commodore Gould did not exist: there was only a prisoner responding to whatever name Fleming chose to use.
    ‘Just as soon,’ Fleming added, ‘as you tell me the truth.’
    A tsunami of pain burst open.
    NO!
    Max yelled for oblivion to take him.
    They sat behind a table like a panel of examiners, while Roger faced them like a doctoral candidate preparing to defend his dissertation – except that he had Jed beside him. Among the panel of questioners was a familiar face, the man who had introduced himself as Dak Stilwell, a counsellor.
    ‘We can use real names,’ said the thin man in the centre. ‘I’m Pavel Karelin, this’ –indicating ‘Stilwell’ – ‘is Zeke Clayton, and that’s Clara James.’
    The woman looked like a competitive runner, poised for the start.
    ‘Are they really real names?’ asked Jed.
    ‘For all official purposes, yes,’ said the woman. ‘Call me Clara. First names are appropriate, don’t you think?’
    ‘On the basis that Roger has done nothing wrong?’ said Jed. ‘I’ll agree with that.’
    Roger swallowed.
    ‘Ask me anything,’ he said. ‘Er, except …’
    Pavel said, ‘What is it?’
    ‘I don’t understand security clearance or any of those things. Including
your
clearance.’
    ‘We can assume, I think, that they’ve authorization.’ Jed touched a fist against Roger’s shoulder. ‘We’re in the centre of the Admiralty.’
    Clara’s mouth twitched. ‘If there’s anything
you’re
not authorized to hear, Pilot Goran, we’ll let you know.’
    Jed looked about to blush; then he grinned.
    ‘Good point,’ he said.
    ‘My father was an agent-in-place on Fulgor,’ said Roger, ‘for over twenty years.’
    The trio nodded.
    ‘Look,
I
came into this,’ said Jed, ‘because I was at Sanctuary in Lucis City. Carl Blackstone’s ship appeared overhead, and he identified himself as an intelligence officer breaking cover, then warned us about the Anomaly. Not the word he used, of course.’
    ‘What did he say?’ asked Pavel.
    ‘We were already tracking the gestalt-mind’s growth in Skein,’ said Jed. ‘Al Morgan and Angus Cho were with me. What Carl Blackstone told us was the gestalt would be able to absorb everyone, not just Luculenti linked to the virtual environment they called deep Skein.’
    ‘And what else?’
    ‘Then he said he was going to fly here. It was pretty clear what he meant by that.’
    ‘Hellflight?’
    ‘Exactly.’ Jed looked at Roger. ‘I never saw him face to face, but he was a good man.’
    Dad had killed himself to raise the warning, to get an evacuation fleet under way. But that was after Mum had died. Roger had no way of knowing how Dad had felt in the hours before death.
    There was something missing from Jed’s story: the secret legacy from Dad, safe in her Ascension Annexe hangar, growing by the day.
    =It’s all right.=
    Roger tightened his abdomen, then relaxed. In hiding his own reaction, he almost missed it: near-subliminal twitches from both Clara James and Zeke Clayton. Sensing that Labyrinth had spoken?
    Pavel said: ‘Clayton, you have a question?’
    So much for first-name informality.
    ‘For Roger, yes.’ In that roundish, bearish face, the eyes were hard. ‘How did your father know what the Anomaly was capable of? That it