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  Claire said very little, her attention following remark to heated remark. One opal fingernail punctuated the corner of her mouth whenever Keith spoke.

  Huang raised a hand. 'Ladies, gentlemen, please. We're here to formulate a plan of action with regard to the escalating defamation of Fulgur and its cognoscens programmes, not to debate human rights issues. In a corporation of our breadth, the whole political spectrum—the legal political spectrum, I hardly need say—is bound to be represented. In fact, this is entirely desirable, hence the Board's latest directives.' He glanced openly at his wrister. 'Now are there any relevant proposals?'

  Pelly squirmed like a schoolboy with the right answer. It was never any different at these meetings—the same few vying for approval; most of the others hoping not to be called on to recite.

  'It won't be too difficult to mount what we in PR like to call a raid—TV spots, net saturation, a decent song or two (I've got just the rapper in mind). Something along the lines of the classic black is beautiful model,' Pelly said. 'And for the more conservative, some well-documented material about how the simus are helping with research into psychotic disorders, intelligence enhancement, that sort of thing.' He grinned, entranced by his own cleverness. 'Maybe even an announcement that Fulgur is near a breakthrough on the neuropsychology of terrorism.'

  'There's no such thing.' Kantor rarely spoke at all, whether in a boardroom, his office, or a lab, though everyone knew his work on metapsychology was crucial to far more than the rehabilitation project. Over lunch, however, he'd been known to say too salty today or Geraldine replaced the light pad in the bathroom last night. 'Only fools would believe there's a clear-cut terrorist psychopathology. Even multidisciplinary research has yielded imperfect understanding of what is a very complex phenomenon.'

  'No problem,' Pelly said. 'I'll need fifteen, twenty minutes of your time, say, to get down the key concepts.'

  Kantor examined the biro in his hand as though it might write his next research paper on its own. Then with a small shrug he looked towards Huang for help.

  'Thank you, Mr Pelly, I have no doubts whatsoever in your ability to draft an effective campaign despite the awkward propensities of the more scientifically inclined members of our client base,' Huang said.

  Pelly beamed, which decided Huang. The man would have to be replaced. Despite his extensive network of media contacts and decided PR skills—he'd handled that last press conference with both boyish charm and finesse—he lacked the necessary subtlety for this particular division. Perhaps a place could be found for him in Business Communications. Even better—Multimedia Entertainment, which would suit his flamboyant talents. Huang would have a word with Maurice. 'A lateral move, with much better opportunities for advancement. Someone like you is wasted in Neurocognition.' It was always bad practice to offend PR people, you never knew where they might turn up a few years down the road. And Fulgur policy had always been clear—employee loyalty paid for itself many times over in increased efficiency, word-of-mouth marketing, fewer security risks.

  'Mr Lopez?' Huang could see the amused lift to a corner of the man's mouth, the almost sleepy crease to his eyelids. Not for the first time, Huang wondered if there were something in Lopez's genetic atlas which didn't appear in his records. Fulgur's clearance procedure was exacting, but there were always ways to hide secrets—or aberrations. Especially for someone in Lopez's position. Perhaps Manu could have another look. He was very meticulous, very discreet. Very loyal.

  'I'm certain Jim will mount an outstanding PR offensive, but it would be prudent to fight the problem on several fronts,' Lopez said.

  'And you have a suggestion?' Huang asked.

  'Oh yes, I've got a suggestion. A rather radical suggestion.'

  'Then perhaps you'll be kind enough to share it with the team.'

  'Naturally. We'll use one of our own simus—this Zach will be the perfect choice—as bait to flush out any radical activists. And not only in our own ranks.'

  'How?' Kathy asked bluntly. 'Some kind of undercover—' A grating American accent. With bleached hair the colour of greasy chips and florid make-up to match, Kathy had one of the most astute minds in the room. And two doctorates, one in mathematics, one in biological engineering. '—undercover operation? Spying, in other words?'

  'Not at all.'

  'Then what?'

  'Mr Huang will confirm that Fulgur is prepared to commit a certain amount of its resources to supporting the fledgling Janus party.'

  'Shrewd move,' Claire said. 'Judicious.'

  'A bunch of simu misfits, plus a few teenage hangers-on!' Keith exclaimed.

  'Hardly that,' Fabio said mildly. 'It's inevitable that simus want a voice; their own representation.'

  'What have the Janus got to do with our problem?' Helena asked.

  'If we agree on this step'—Huang inclined his head a fraction—'I think I may be able to persuade Zach to join. He's exactly what they're lacking—someone to rally round. A leader.'

  'How will that rid us of any terrs?' Pelly asked. 'Besides, from what Keith has said, you've got to admit it sounds like our Zach is one himself.'

  'A risk-taker, yes, maybe even something of a rebel, but no terrorist. I've scrutinised his profile and would stake my professional reputation on his innocence. But he's very articulate, very charismatic, very uncompromising. He'll tread on a lot of toes—the more, the better.' He glanced for a moment at Mfana. 'Using provocation as a political tool has been around for a good long time. And even school children know how to needle someone till they lose it.'

  'I don't like it. He's going to be in a precarious position,' Kathy said. 'A potentially lethal position.'

  'The police and Internal Security will be happy to cooperate with Fulgur if it means apprehending those responsible for the recent spate of bombings. They'll keep an eye on Zach. As I will.'

  Huang's gaze circled the table, resting for a fraction of a second on Slade's drumming fingers before returning to the American. 'Unfortunately, Dr Shriver, we're sometimes called upon to sacrifice the interests of an individual for the good of society as a whole.' There was no mistaking the note of regret in his voice. Nor the faint smile on his lips, the first this morning.

  Slade left off drumming to thrust his head forward. 'Litchfield claims Zach is virtually indispensable to the rehab programme'—a modest chuckle at his own pun—'but I don't buy it. As far my department is concerned, a good simu serves Fulgur in any way necessary. You've got my vote.'

  'And you know what? We'll sell it as community service,' Pelly added.

  *****

  'Stupid fool, do you want to kill yourself?' Laura asked as she heaped all the blankets she could find on top of Zach, who lay in front of the fire.

  'That might be the easiest solution.'

  Despite the hot shower and even hotter drink, he was still shivering uncontrollably. After a moment's reflection, Laura dragged off her clothes and dropped them onto the floor behind them.

  'What are you doing?' he asked.

  'Shut up and make room for me.'

  'I don't think this is a good idea.'

  'If you imagine I'm about to service you, you're sadly mistaken.'

  The seal pendant gleaming between her breasts, she slid beneath the covers. Her skin radiated brazen heat, like a brazier on a windy beach filled with fiercely glowing charcoal, and ignoring his protests, she stretched herself the length of his body and reached under his tracksuit to rub his back, his flanks, his buttocks with both hands. Though it took a while for the trembling to cease, he soon warmed.

  'Well?' she asked with a mischievous smile.

  'A purely physical reaction.'

  'What a shame. I actually thought you might like me a little bit.'

  It was his turn to tell her to shut up.

  Later she brought them bowls of pasta, and they ate the garlicky meal on the floor without talking much. There was even some grated cheese to sprinkle over the sauce, and Laura finished with a few spoonfuls directly
from the tin.

  'It's the country air,' she said. 'Always makes me hungry.'

  The roguish note in her voice went unnoticed. Zach set his plate aside and hugged his knees, staring at his own thoughts. After a short silence he spoke guardedly, 'I've decided to go back tomorrow.'

  Laura rose and carried their dishes to the kitchen. Despite her best efforts, the washing-up took less than a quarter of an hour. She swept the floor. Mugs of tea occupied her for another five minutes. Finally, she found some candles and a packet of biscuits, added them to the tray, and returned to find Zach in the same position, his eyes held by the fire.

  'Please don't be racked,' he said as she set the tray down before him.

  Laura fitted the candles into holders on the couch table and lit them.

  'Look, Laura, what choice do I really have?'

  She moved to the window, where the flames of candle and fire seemed imprisoned in the pane, caught like living butterflies under glass. She admonished herself not to cry—in the wild they would have soon perished, their fragile wings and lush colours reduced to ashen remains. She laid her hand on the glass. It was cold on her skin.

  'The roads are probably still blocked,' she said.

  'It's stopped snowing, just about. The main roads, at least, will be clear.'

  The tea was getting cold. Laura went to the tray and knelt, but picked up her mug without drinking. Zach watched her as she gazed into its depths. The fire hissed and crackled from time to time, the cherrywood still a bit green though very aromatic—almost overpowering.

  'There's no place else you can go?' she asked at last.

  'Another country, you mean?'

  'Yeah, maybe.'

  He shook his head. 'Fulgur has a long reach. And then there's the serum. Without a job, I couldn't afford black market prices for long.'

  'There's vending in it?'

  He laughed without much mirth. 'Worth far more than heroin. With so few of us, the street market's very limited, and Fulgur's got the monopoly on manufacture.'

  'If I spoke to my dad . . .' Her voice trailed off, it was too ridiculous even to contemplate.

  Zach took her hand and turned it over as if he were studying her palm, her lifeline. When he raised it to his lips, she looked away. The expression in his eyes reminded her of an incident she hadn't thought of in ages. One spring when the nights were still cold Max had found three tiny unfledged birds on the ground, next to them a nest which had obviously tumbled from the hawthorn. Max wanted to take the birds inside and care for them overnight, but her dad had insisted on replacing the nest. 'The parents will be searching for them.' Next morning Max had gone out just after dawn and brought her the lifeless, milk-white little things, huddled together in the nest, bones folded under their skin and heads way too big for their bodies. Though he hadn't cried, his eyes had been lost inside his face the way colour is lost inside a drizzle.

  'Max needs me,' Zach said.

  Laura jerked her hand away. 'A lot of good you'll do him if some thugs get you first!'

  'I've been thinking about it. I might move into housing for a while.'

  'Dragonhill?'

  'Yeah.'

  'I thought you don't trust Fulgur.'

  'I don't, but they won't dispense with me just yet.'

  'How can you be so sure?'

  'A successful business looks after its assets. I'm pretty much the best they've got.' There was no arrogance in his voice, rather a weary resignation.

  A long silence before she dared to whisper, 'And what about us?'

  His answer was to fetch his clarinet.

  And when he played for her, Laura couldn't tell if he'd opened a sealed casket of jewels or frail ash-white bones.

  *****

  Next morning Zach rose just after dawn and dressed quickly in the cold.

  'Did you hear the hooting at night?' Laura asked. 'We even get Snowy Owls sometimes when they migrate this far south. Max likes to imitate their calls.' Max, with his first pair of binoculars. Max, searching the net for toxicity reports on birdseed. 'You'd think he was talking to them, asking about their lives in the Arctic.' Maybe the reason he loved animals so much was that he couldn't hear them.

  'Yeah, I heard them.' Zach picked up her jumper from the floor and shook it out. 'Want some tea?' he asked, draping the jumper over a chair near the window. 'I'm going to make a pot, then go for a walk.'

  'Why so early?' He hadn't slept well; several times at night his restlessness had woken her.

  'I need to clear my head.'

  She saw his face and sat up in bed. 'Stop blaming yourself.' When he turned away, she hesitated for a long moment before asking, 'Zach, who's Ben?'

  He appeared not to have heard. The remains of their late-night sandwiches lay on a plate near the bed, mostly the hard crusts she'd left from Stella's dark bread. It gratified Laura to break this, one of her mum's strictest rules—though of course there were plenty of rules, all of them strict, all of them demented. But food on the floor was about as grievous a transgression as unnatural carnal sins. Dropping crumbs was worse than dropping your knickers.

  Zach scooped up the plate, then went to the window and threw it open. After tossing out the crusts, he balanced the plate on the window ledge and stood with his back to the room, as though watching for the morning's first birds. Within a short while he began to shiver, and Laura wrapped the blankets tighter round her shoulders, though the fresh air smelled vibrant with promise; a new day.

  'Zach?'

  He turned round, hugging himself, and Laura understood then that the open window was a stratagem to disguise the reason for his shivering.

  'Don't you want to tell me about Ben?' she asked gently.

  'Which Ben do you mean? There's a couple at school . . .'

  Did he think her a simpleton? 'Sometimes at night you cry out his name.' She heard the note of irritation in her voice and held out a hand. 'Come on, it's freezing. Shut the window and get back under the blankets.'

  As he moved to close the window, his arm caught the plate and it fell to the floor with a clatter but without breaking. Zach picked it up, stared at it for a few seconds, then all at once pitched it outside and slammed the window so hard that Laura feared the pane would shatter.

  'Christ, what a perfect birthday present,' he said.

  'It's your birthday?'

  'Carla's.' A bitter laugh. 'I asked her out to celebrate her twenty-first.'

  'I should have known you'd like older women.'

  'She's dead!' he snapped.

  Her fingernails digging into a forearm under the duvet, she couldn't believe she'd said that. When would she finally learn to think before twatting off?

  'Look,' he said after a moment, 'something tells me they planted the explosive on her—in her bag, maybe.'

  'It was an evening bag—very small.'

  Another girl would have understood the significance of Laura's powers of observation, but to her relief, Zach, in a typically laddish manner, marked only her technical ignorance.

  'That's no problem these days. You can put a powerful bomb into a pen, a tube of lipstick.'

  'Is it possible she—' She stopped, reluctant to spell it out.

  'Carla? A suicider?' The suggestion was so far-fetched that he kept his temper. 'Even I'm a more likely candidate.' He turned back to the window, breathed on the glass, and began tracing patterns with a fingertip in the condensation. Her parents hadn't bothered with the latest glazing for the cottage. 'My escape from hypertech,' her dad had said.

  'Then it's not your fault, is it? If you're right about Carla, she was probably picked at random—any simu would have done.'

  'Yeah, you lot can't tell us apart anyway.' At the sound of her response, part snort and part squawk, he left off doodling and faced her. 'Laura, simus can't keep taking this stuff. I made a mistake by running away, I wasn't thinking straight. It's never a good idea to underestimate your enemy. These people plan their strategy. I'm convinced I was supposed to die in the blast. B
ut now they'll play it for all its worth. The only way to prove I'm not an inhuman monster—we're not—is to go back and fight.'

  'But why you? Because of some solidarity work, Nigel's flash posters? A blog campaign doesn't make you a terr!'

  He shrugged. 'People are beginning to take notice.'

  'Then why not hide the bomb in something of yours?'

  'I'm a lot more careful than Carla would have been.'

  'She was working with you?' Hoping this was true, ashamed of hoping, and hoping even more that nothing in her face would betray her. She was good with a casual tone, but sometimes at the expense of her expression. How did actors manage to concentrate on everything at once?

  'Ironic, isn't it? Carla was about as apolitical as you can get. She was studying to become a dentist, for godsake.' His morose smile leaked around the edges. 'She even liked cleaning teeth.'

  Laura wrapped herself in a blanket and went to him. For a few minutes they stood quietly together, their breath fogging the windowpane. They could have been two children looking into a picture book. Out into a enchanted tableland of snowy linen and silver and crystal, just beginning to be tipped by light.

  'It's so beautiful, like a fairytale,' Laura said.

  'Not the Snow Queen, I hope.'

  *****

  In her dream she was swimming in a sea of light. Slowly she awakened, or half awakened, to the certainty she'd just clambered into a boat, which rocked slightly under her weight. Water ran from her hair, and for a few seconds she closed her eyes again, rocked and floated, rocked, trying to recapture the ripples, the eddy and spume of her dream, the tendrils of glossy black seaweed. Then she realised that the entire room was submerged in dazzling sunlight, pouring through the window, through her pores—transforming her eyelids into panes of skin. Yawning, she sat up and stretched. What time was it? The wooden floorboards gleamed as though freshly burnished, a tender black hair floated in the pool of light warming Zach's pillow, she must have slept for hours.