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.We’ve got to work out what LINx wants, how we’ll respond.’‘Anna said it wants us to pay, Wellman.It knows we’ve eradicated it from the Net.It wants to kill us.’‘Its precise words were that we should pay.It might not necessarily mean that we should pay with our lives.’ Wellman braced both arms on the table and leaned forward, staring into space with concentration.‘Are you armed?’Halliday patted his jacket.‘I’ve got my automatic and the freeze.’‘We must remember that we’re not up against LINx as it was,’ Wellman said.‘The small part of it now in the woman’s cranial interface is reduced.It’s a pale shadow of its former self.The vast array of resources it could draw on from the Net, communications, surveillance, whatever information it required.it no longer has these.- In effect, it’s now merely a deranged mind in an innocent’s body.It has no special strengths.’‘It has Kim and Anna,’ Halliday said.‘It doesn’t need any special strengths.If we make one wrong move.’ He tried not to follow that line of thought.‘What I’m saying is that we can overcome it, physically.That’s all we have to do to save Anna and Kim.’Halliday remembered something, the blood in the alley.‘Kia’s injured,’ he said.‘Barney hit her during the chase.’‘I wonder just how badly she’s injured?’ Wellman said.Halliday shook his head.‘What do we do? Go in alone? Will LINx have any way of knowing if we call in back-ups?’‘There’s a possibility that it might link itself to the surveillance system up at Cyber-Tech, once it gets there.’‘I thought the power was down?’‘It was, but it won’t take much to get it working again.’‘So if it is connected to the surveillance cameras, we’d better do as it said and go in alone.’Wellman closed his eyes briefly, considering.‘Can you get a police squad to follow us, meet us before we reach the headquarters? If we find out LINx isn’t connected, then it’ll be nice to know we can go in with reinforcements.’‘I’ll contact Jeff Simmons’ department, explain the situation.’He took the com and spent the next five minutes trying to get the duty officer manning Jeff’s department to put him through to Simmons at home.What seemed like an age later, the officer gave in.Halliday spoke hurriedly to Simmons, explaining the situation.The cop listened, asking the occasional question.‘It’s going to be difficult,’ Halliday told him.‘We won’t know how to play it until we’re there.’‘I can get a team of drones and hostage specialists up there, Hal.We’ll wait a safe distance away until we hear from you, okay?’‘I’ll be in touch.’Halliday pocketed the com and nodded to Wellman.‘All set.’‘Are you sure you’re okay, Hal? You’re up to it?’Halliday smiled.It was the first time Wellman had used his first name.‘I’m dog-tired and sick, Wellman, but I want to get Kim and Anna out of this alive.I want to get rid of the.thething that killed Barney.Like you said, we’re not up against the old LINx, just a part of it.We can do it, Wellman.’Closure, he thought.It’s all about closing the circle, avenging Barney’s death, not so much for anything to do with Barney’s memory, but for myself.‘Are you ready?’ Wellman said.‘There’s a car in the basement garage.’Halliday leaned against the mock-timber panelling as the elevator dropped.He checked his automatic, the canister of freeze.He looked up.‘Tell me something,’ he said, ‘do you have a first name?’Wellman smiled.‘Just call me Wellman, okay?’They left the elevator and stepped into the garage.Wellman drove, steering the car up the ramp from the garage and out into the quiet, snow-covered city.They sped north on Fifth Avenue.Halliday sat back and watched the familiar sights of buildings flick by, impersonal, hiding people whose lives would never intersect with his own, who knew nothing about the plight of Kim and Anna at this moment.He found it almost impossible to believe that New York was not aware of Barney’s death, and he was filled with a sudden despair.It came to him that after death we are only so many memories, carried by people who in turn will pass away, and soon all memory of those who existed, who made the world a better place for those they loved, would be gone too, so that nothing of the actual individual would in time exist.All that matters, he thought, is how we think of those who are gone, and how we relate to the living.All that mattered now was to ensure the survival of three innocent women, however that might be achieved.They left Manhattan on Interstate 87, speeding through the night.At last Halliday broke the silence.‘It can only want our deaths,’ he said.‘Anna said that it wanted us to pay,’ Wellman said.‘We were responsible for eradicating LINx from the Net, after all.’‘Perhaps we could.’ Halliday smiled.Even as he considered the option, it seemed improbable.‘I don’t know, couldn’t we come to some compromise?’Wellman glanced at him.‘What do you mean?’‘Presumably LINx wants to live, like any of us.It’s tasted existence and wants to continue.If we capture Kia alive or if she dies.then what-is left of LINx will die as well.So.we offer it the chance of continued existence.For the release of Kim, Anna and Kia, we’ll allow it to download itself into a computer.’ He sounded as if he was talking about placing some large and carnivorous fish in an aquarium.Wellman was shaking his head.‘Think about it.We could make the offer, we could promise it continued existence with every intention of keeping our side of the bargain.But it knows the ways of humans, Hal.It’s interfaced with humans.It knows how we cheat and lie to get what we want.It knows that the likelihood would be that, once we had it imprisoned and isolated, we would simply switch it off to prevent a recurrence of what has happened.’ Wellman gripped the wheel and smiled to himself.‘And, do you know something, that’s just what we’d do.’Halliday stared out into the dark night.They had left the city behind, were racing now through the ruined and blighted countryside.Beyond the lighted cocoon of the car, the world seemed sealed in cold and death.‘Why Cyber-Tech, Wellman?’ he asked.‘I mean, why has it gone back there?’Wellman stared through the windscreen, his expression unreadable.‘Perhaps I’m ascribing anthropocentric motives to something which is truly alien and which we could never hope to understand, but Cyber-Tech is where LINx first came to life; where it was born, for want of a better expression.Perhaps it knows it will die tonight, and wishes to die where it was born.’‘Like an animal running for familiar cover,’ Halliday said.‘Maybe it is more animal than human.The way it killed to get what it wanted, when it considered itself under threat.’Wellman glanced at him.‘Permit me the observation, Hal, but for a private eye you have a rosy view of humanity.’ He smiled
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