Chapter seven

 Which tie? Hmmm. He held up one, then the other in front of the ornate gold gilt edge mirror. The deep red tie with the faint grey lines went best with his charcoal suit, and so he set about fastening it about his neck. Folding the collar back down, he looked himself over in the mirror. Dark brown hair cut short, a tinge of silver at the temples, but not enough to worry about; coupled with the lines on his forehead and around his eyes he felt that it gave a hint of authority. His light blue eyes looked a little bloodshot, but that was to be expected after the recent late nights. The deep square jaw was closely shaved at the barbers yesterday, just a little stubble was showing now which he ran a hand over. Not too bad, but he'd have to get the barber back round before the soiree he had planned for tonight.

He was still missing something. Pulling out a small draw from the wardrobe he surveyed the collection of tie clips neatly arranged in two rows. The silver clip with the three small diamonds matched his cuff-links and so he selected it and attached it to his shirt and tie. Back to the mirror, very nice. He closed the wardrobe doors and strode back across the dressing room and back into his bedroom. The mechanism of the carriage clock on his bedside table continued its lazy whirl of cogs and gears. It was coming up to five o'clock. Having been up most of the night, he'd finally get to bed around seven am this morning. Waking a little after two pm he'd spent much of the mid afternoon attempting to relax, after all, there was little more for him to do until the evening. But it had been difficult to let go. He'd paced around his living quarters, irritably snapping at any of the members of staff unfortunate enough to come across him. The bath he'd taken had helped a little, but he only really felt like himself again now that he was back in one of his expensively tailored suits and ready to get back to work. To finally enjoy the fruits of his labour.

A short passage from the living quarters led back into his office via a concealed door in a large oak bookcase. The door closed behind him with a small click and he was alone in his favourite room of the house. One whole side of it was taken up by the floor to ceiling bookcases. His literature collection was his pride and joy, some particularly rare collections. He didn't read fiction - after all he thought of himself as a practical man - no, these books were written by some of the greatest thinkers of the last 500 years. From agriculture to architecture, cooking to clockwork, woodwork to weaponry.

The rest of the room was panelled in a dark oak, on which hung some choice pieces from his extensive art collection. Some of these were portraits of his ancestors, but most were of the British countryside, including an original Constable. At the rear of the office, standing in the light streaming in from the big bay window was his desk. A deep mahogany topped with a dark green leather, itself edged in gold leaf. Before sitting down he stood at the window looking to the sky. It was a clear day, a gentle breeze unsettling the foliage of the large oak tree at the bottom of south side of his grounds. High ahead a movement caught his eye. It was a scramjet, in a tight turn, before sharply pulling up, as if to attempt a loop. But it was a passenger jet, not designed for aerobatics. The stresses placed by the sharp turns proved to much, a wing cracking, then sheering off.

The jet fell from the sky.

The man smiled, turned and sat at his desk.

In front of him was a small silver tray, a delicate filigree at the edges. A bone china pot stood on it, along with a matching cup and saucer. On pouring the pot his nostrils involuntary flared at the aroma released by the hand ground coffee. He smiled again as he added a dash of milk, silver spoon lightly clinking on the edges of the cup while he stirred. The first sip was a delight, warmth flowing through him along with a new found alertness that only the first coffee of the day can really bring.

Moving the coffee service to one side he turned his attention to the wooden tray that contained the incoming telegrams that he'd missed while asleep earlier. Thankfully nothing too troublesome; he jotted down a couple of replies in his fountain pen before moving them to another tray that his secretary would later collect. At the bottom of the first tray was the newspaper he had had custom printed a few days ago. He licked a finger then started to flick back through it, trying to remember where he had got to. Oh, yes, that was it. The profile of Ho Cheng ahead of the shuttle return. In many ways he had a lot in common with Ho Cheng. Both were successful and both had excelled in bringing together disparate disciplines to serve a common goal. Except Ho Cheng was a dreamer, chasing the stars when he should have been concentrating on problems closer to home. The man smiled to himself for a third time. He had seen those problems and he had done something about them.

After all, he was a practical man.

A knock at the door interrupted his musing, "Enter". On the side of the office facing his desk two double doors opened and his man-servant entered, in his black suit and crisp white shirt. A big white moustache threatened to overwhelm his mouth, while a small pair of (tech-free) silver spectacles sat on top of a large broad nose.

"Young man here to see you, sir"

"Thank you Hislop, let him wait for 10 minutes then show him in"

"Certainly, sir"

While Hislop hadn't been specific in his clarification of the young man, the man knew who was being referred to. After all, he didn't have too much need, or desire, to mix with the youth of today, flawed as they were in the current society. But one or two of them had their uses, skills that he was in need of. And so he had drawn them in to his wider plans, used them as the tools he needed.

He returned to his newspaper, pouring another cup of coffee. Ten minutes later there was another knock at the door. He folded the newspaper, returning it to the wooden tray. Folding his hands in front of him on the desk, he lent forward slightly, face setting into a slight frown.

"Come"

The doors entered again, Hislop entered then stood to the side to let in the young man who had been following him into the office.

"The young man, sir"

"Thank you Hislop. Please take the tray with you on your way out" he nodded at the coffee pot and empty cup

"Certainly sir" the man-servant strode past the younger man, nervously stood in the centre of the office, picked up the silver tray and turned on his heal to head out of the room.

"C-could I get a coffee, maybe?" the aroma must have caught the young man's attention

"I won't keep you that long. Shut the doors on your way out please Hislop" the frown deepened at the presumptuousness of the young man, who had now slumped, uninvited, in the chair across the desk from him

"Uh, ok" the younger man was fidgeting, squirming in his chair, frequently running a hand through greasy dirty blonde hair that lankly hung around dark rimmed eyes. A small diamond shaped tattoo glinted at the corner of his right eye.

"Did everything go to plan?"

More fidgeting, "Mostly"

"Mostly?" his tone signalling displeasure

"We couldn't get the Yank military, kill switch kicked in. But he civilian architecture is under our control. Roads are gridlocked and ARDs causing mayhem" he sniggered "it's a good laugh"

The man rubbed again at his light stubble. Not getting the American's hardware wasn't the end of the world, there'd be enough of a distraction elsewhere. He had hoped to cause the military men at least a bit of a headache though. "What about the Chinese?"

"Yeah, we got their embassy defence in Europe. Missiles also launched on their home turf. Gonna be quite the fireworks display" another snigger

"Very good"

"But, there is, er, something else"

"What?" he snapped, everything sounded within permitted plan boundaries at the moment, what could have gone wrong?

"The civilian tech we've over run..." more fidgeting

"Yes" more annoyance at the fidgeting

"It included the transport networks..."

"As, planned, yes"

"Some guys have got hold of the trains, others scram-jets. They don't know how to manually control those sort of things"

"That was envisioned. Part of the process"

"But, well, er, aren't their, you know, real people on those things?"

"You were aware of the collateral damage necessary to meet our goals"

"I, er guess. Just didn't feel so real before. More virtual"

The man grunted, the disconnect between the real and the virtual was one of the things that horrified himself most in today's world. The thing that needed remedying. Permanently. But this depressing specimen in front of him was never going to understand what was best for him and his peers.

"Is that all?"

"Well, er, my ultranet connection went down earlier. That, er, part of the process too?"

"That is _the point_ of the process"

"Really? Wow. It coming back soon?"

He shook his head. The boy was never going to get it. But maybe one day his child or grandchild would, and then his work would be done.

Sometimes it is necessary to be a monster today, to be a hero tomorrow. 

Chapter six

The ARD dropped from where it had been hovering near the ceiling, crashing down onto some of the discarded beer cans that sat on the e-table before shooting forward at Claus. It's aim wasn't quite dead on, striking him a glancing blow on the shoulder, but the impact coupled with the sheer surprise sent Claus sprawling from his chair with a yelp. The ARD paused by the window, turning one way then the other as if getting its bearings. Its remote claw opened and closed, the arm it was on extending slowly, before the whole unit once again plunged towards the panicked looking German on the floor. Claus frantically attempted to crawl under the e-table, but not before the remote claw had grabbed a chunk of his suit jacket, cheap fabric giving way without much protest as he scuttled away.

Mike was up on his feet before Ling, the shock of the shuttle crash dampening her normally sharp reactions. The big American grabbed the chair he had been sat on and swung it over the e-table with a cry of anger. The rickety wood of the chair splinted over the ARD, but the force was enough to dislodge one of its external cameras, which now hung off the rim at a drunken angle by a single cable. The machine paused from its efforts to claw at Clause to attempt to turn a functioning camera towards its attacker. With no other obvious weapon to hand, Mike beat a tactical retreat, grabbing the slowly standing Ling by the shoulder and dragging her into the side office, slamming the door shut behind them. The ARD, with targets freshly acquired, shot after them, hitting the now closed door with a force enough to shake it inside the frame, dust and plaster falling from the ceiling.

Mike scrabbled around the office, throwing and kicking various detritus out of the way as he searched for something he had a vague recollection of being in there. Somewhere.

"What are you looking for" Ling turned her head from the door she was attempting to keep braced from another ARD ram.

"They're here somewhere. FUCK. I remember. SHIT. That dick the Germans sent to nanny be before Claus made me fill in the health and safety release for each SODDING one of them" on his knees Mike pulled aside an fusty beer crate, "A-HA, knew I'd find you bastards"

Ling strained to see what he'd come across, but his fat arse was in the way "WHAT?"

"SHITTING FUCKSTICKS" Mike tried to stand up quickly, but only succeed in smacking his head on the desk he'd had to climb under amid his hurried search, crying out in pain, but shuffling away to one side so that Ling finally got a view of what had annoyed him so much.

A weapons crate

A locked weapons crate.

"No key?" she enquired, just as the door rattled heavily again.

"It's coded to a permission on my IR specs" he was rubbing his head

"And the network's screwed" a statement rather than a question

"Yup"

"Lucky I came prepared then" putting her shoulder against the door to free an arm, Ling produced one of the largest handguns Mike had ever seen from the folds of her jacket. Mike was transfixed, not least because Ling had a slight figure and he could work out where she kept the weapon. "No need to thank me" Ling smiled at him and threw open the door. The gun thrust out in a double handed grip, legs braced apart, trigger pulled one, twice three times.

Nothing happened

"What the...?" Ling brought the gun close to her face to try and see what was wrong, forcing Mike to bodily shove her out the way as he again slammed the door shut in the face of the onrushing ARD.

Mike slumped down with his back to the door "shit", but the expletive was more half hearted this time

"I don't get it, I used this on the firing range at the embassy just this morning" Ling stood above him, still starring bemused at the gun

"The kill switch"

"What? That was for your military machines"

"Nah, it's an area of affect command. The Germans would have neutered every foreign owned weapon in the building as a precaution. I should have thought before, would have at least saved me the sore head" which he was again rubbing tentatively. While the kill switches could be manually reset on the MOP's by a trained on-site American operator, it was more complicated with the old fashioned hand weaponry. In order to prevent the user simply manually resetting the switch themselves, bypassing any benefit to the concerned host government, the gun had to be reset by the German authorities at one of their own weapon depots.

"Then my gun is screwed too"

"Uh-huh" Mike turned to look up at Ling, just as a new smile started to form on her face "Why are you so happy?"

"Because, Michael, the proud Chinese nation, how do you say? Ah yes, _don't take any shit_" she started fiddling with the gun, accessing a small keypad on the side of the grip, quickly tapping at the buttons. Mike frowned, but had no time to ask any more questions before Ling was shooing him out of the way and again opening the door.

This time the gun erupted into life, shot thudding against the body of the ARD, which, in the latest break from the action, had gone back to harassing Claus under the e-table. The first ricochet smashed the outside window, the second tore a large hole in the opposite wall, but the ARD remained airborne.

Once again Mike shoved Ling out of the way and slammed the increasingly distressed door closed. An even more distressed German whimpered from under the table.

"That ain't gonna work" Mike faced a perturbed looking Ling

"Well feel free to tackle it with bad breath and a surely attitude, but I shall stick with my gun"

"Give the gun to me" Mike held out a hand and looked her in the eye

"You're crazy, why am I going to give you my gun? Who is the trained agent here and who is the fat janitor? Now get out of the way and let me finish this. I've more important things to be doing than babysit your incompetent ass" she chose her words to wound; Mike was starting to irritate her.

Mike ignored the gibe "I operate that thing every day, I know how to take it down"

"Then tell me"

"Too hard to describe. Besides, I need you running decoy"

Ling frowned in thought, but still holding Mike's gaze. Handing over Chinese tech to the Americans was one of the biggest breach of protocol in her line of service. But it was Mike. She'd known him for close on 10 years now, since she first came to Berlin. He was the guy that had effectively cost her any hope of career progression. But he was also the guy that had probably saved her life.

Her very first mission on arriving in Berlin had been to infiltrate the American base of operations in the city; having just taken delivery of the latest MOPs the Chinese were keen to get the technical specifications. Electronic infiltration had proved too difficult to manage undetected so Ling had decided to go after what she and her superiors saw as the weak link, the disillusioned ex-serviceman given the bum job of supervising the MOP transfer. Mike. Getting in to the warehouse was easy enough, Mike seemed almost desperate for English speaking company as Jack could hardly be classed as intellectually stimulating (the Americans didn't even trust him with access to the specifications). Getting Mike drunk was even easier; China produced more - and in Ling's opinion better - whisky than Scotland these days.

But getting him to talk was almost impossible.

She tried persuasion, she tried bribery, she hinted at threats. She even tried flirting, but that was before she'd commissioned the deeper search into his background. Even having done that, her attempts to use his homosexuality against him just felt clumsy; to Mike it wasn't an issue he or the people close to him cared about. This was all taking time, her superiors were starting to get frustrated with the lack of progress of the agent they had been told had enormous potential. Ling's star began to wane, her frustration increase. Eventually she had asked to be taken off the mission, to try and claw back her reputation somewhere else in the Berlin intelligence circles. But the damage had been done. The opportunities for career progression began to close in front of her. She was stuck in Berlin as her more successful peers were invited back to senior position back on the Chinese mainland.

The thing was, Mike had been ordered to pass on the tech specs.

Ling found this out some years later over one of their now regular card and whisky sessions. Almost as soon as Ling had first started the mission, Mike had been called for a briefing with his own superiors. He was to allow the Chinese to get hold of the specs, but without it looking like he was giving them away freely. This wasn't out of some sort of international benevolence, no, this was because of a nifty little programme they had planted within the (incomplete) tech specs. A programme that would quietly embed itself in the Chinese electronic systems and feed back any tasty information which it unearthed.

But that wasn't Mike's style.

He was a more of a head on sort of guy. The sort of guy that hadn't adjusted to the virtual age very well. Part of his actions came out of petty rebellion, a minor display of power in the face if his military career being subsumed by the latest generation of MOP. The men and women earning the medals these days were sat behind a control system 3,000 miles away rather than actually on the battlefield. Another part came out of a childish attempt to get back at his ex-husband, the politician, who he often drunkenly blamed for his being sent to Berlin. But most of all Mike justified his actions on the basis that this sort of thing just wasn't playing fair.

And that stubbornness had saved Ling's life

The programme the American's had wanted to smuggle into the Chinese systems wasn't as clever as they thought. It was eventually passed over to the Chinese via another agent once Mike's intransigence had become apparent. It lasted three days before Chinese technicians had discovered it. It was then traced back to source. While the Chinese couldn't outright confront the American's over it - after all, both sides had been doing this sort of thing for decades - they could probe the Chinese agent that had been tricked into passing the infiltration programme on.

That agent disappeared.

Ling could never be sure if some other dirt had come to light on the agent in question, perhaps they were guilty of some other crime. But she could never shake the feeling that the agent had been removed (permanently) in order for her superiors to save face. She'd seen it before; the Chinese intelligence service was a harsh and unforgiving environment. Mike didn't know any of this of course, and so it wasn't as if he had heroically saved her. But she had come to admire his stubborn streak, his determination to play it straight (in his career rather than personal life, that was). That was the sort of stability that she had never felt within her job, came with the territory she figured. And so the two of them had formed an odd sort of friendship.

Ling passed over the gun.

"Ok, this is how it's going to work. You open the door, catch its attention and get it in here" Mike was bending down to sit on the floor next to the door as he was describing the plan

"While you have a nice lie down?" Ling cast a suspicious gaze on the now sat form of Mike, with his back to her at the door.

"That's about it, yup. You ready?"

She shook her head, but agreed to the affirmative "yeah".

Ling threw the door open once again, Claus' yelps again filtering into the side office as he attempted to ward off the ARD's claw arm with a broken chair leg from under the table.

"HEY! OVER HERE" Ling yelled, waving her arms. The ARD turned, front camera focussing on the door way. With a slight wobble, it shot towards the doorway. Ling, realising just how little confidence she had in Mike's plan hurriedly backed off in the office, bumping against the desk. The ARD came into the doorway just as Mike lay down underneath it, gun pointed into the air above him.

The thing with the ARDs was that they were built to be robust. As the mainstay of many civilian authorities monitoring and enforcement divisions, as well as widely used by the military, they had to be tough. Outer rim re-enforced cryo-steel, inner blades and control surfaces designed to fly whatever the weather.

However, this one was slightly different, thanks to Jack. A couple of weeks previously the bored American technician had been attempting to impress some visiting German school children in the firing range by using an MOP gun system to shoot an apple off the top of the ARD. Why the hell he'd tried to do this using armour piecing rounds rather than something slightly less destructive, Mike wasn't sure. Anyway, Jack had - oh so predictably - missed, ripping out some of the airblade housing. Rather than have to send back the ARD to the central repair depot in Colorado, along with an awkward damage explanation report, Mike had attempted to fix the ARD himself. Neither his skill or equipment were as sophisticated as those available back in the US, but an hour's welding later and the ARD was at least airborne again.

The welding had, however, left a weak point on the underside of the ARD, one Mike was now lining up along the sites of Ling's gun. The weapon barked its response as he pulled the trigger, once, twice. The second shot found its mark, and with a harsh metallic crunch, the ARD veered to the left, slammed into the wall and fell to the floor behind the desk. A slim trail of smoke lazily drifted into the room above it. Mike regained his feet, brushing the dust and other dirt from his clothes as Ling was peering over the desk at the wreckage.

"Not bad. My gun, please" she held a hand towards him, in which Mike placed the gun

"Could say the same about your gun. It's a beast"

"Finest Chinese tech, crafted rather than manufactured like your tat" she was still looking at the ARD

"Mmm-hmm. Claus, you ok?" Mike wandered back into the control room.

"Is it gone?" Claus wasn't in a hurry to get back out from under the e-table

"Yup" Mike turned back upright one of the chairs he hadn't smashed over the ARD and sat down with a tired sigh.

"So what the hell is going on?" Ling stood at the doorway, rubbing her eyes "My IR is still down"

"Mine too, I can't reach central command" Claus tentatively pulled himself out from under the table, eyes darting around the room as if searching for the next object that was going to attack him.

"Ok" Mike was rubbing his head again "We're under some kind of attack, but we don't know by who" although with this he cast a glance of slight suspicion at Ling. "But we're unable to use the MOPs to defend ourselves" this with a glance at Claus

"Likewise the MOPs can't be used to attack us" it wasn't often Ling defended Claus, but after the ARD attack she was glad they weren't also having to deal with an errant MOP or two.

"So with no communication and basically no means of defence, what do we do?" Claus asked nervously

"I need to get back to my embassy" Ling walked over to the broken window, but a crash from inside the warehouse caused her to swing around. Claus froze, as if torn between heading back under the table, or jumping out of the window. But Mike was back on his feet, heading to the door linking the room to the stairs down into the main warehouse.

"JACK? YOU OK BOY?" another crash. Mike attempted to peer into the dimly lit warehouse, but couldn't see where the noises were coming from.

Ling had come up behind him, once again with her gun out "Need me to get your back, again?"

"If it's an MOP it wouldn't matter who has my back as we'd all be screwed. JACK?!"

A running shape shot under one of the lights and back into shadow accompanied by a dull clanking noise

"What was THAT?" Claus had now joined them, although making sure to keep Mike and Ling between him and the stairs into the warehouse.

"Rogue MOP. SHIT" Mike crept forward, right foot poised over the top step

"Hang on, I've seen you guys operating those things, we're not going to be able to do anything about it, so why not just stay here? Or leave down the fire escape?" Claus sounded desperate

"I've got to see what happened to Jack. You guys go if you want" Mike started down the stairs.

Ling gave a shrug, and followed. Claus gave a shiver, and followed.

Chapter five

The apartment exploded into a cacophony of noise and action. Rose's mother was still stood up, sobbing hard as her dad attempted to sooth her. The other adults were animatedly yelling at one another, variously trying to make sense of the shuttle crash or work out why their links to the ultranet had gone down. It was too much for Rose; with most of the adults stood up she was mainly left looking at people's knees, a forest of legs surrounding her. She battled across to where her grandpa was still sat down, eyes focused on the screen in his lap, despite it being dead.

"Grandpa, what's wrong, why is mummy crying?"

"....those stupid idiots.....don't know what they're doing......why must we gamble with people's lives so freely?"

Rose didn't understand what he was talking about. It was like he didn't know she was there, mumbling quickly to himself. Rose turned back into the room, realising she didn't have her robin with her. She made her way to the spot she'd been sat down, the small purple cushion marking the spot. But where was the robin? Something glinted in the sunlight from the window, something metal. A wing. Rose hurried over to it, gently picking it up before another metallic glint caught her eye; a bent cog, this next two one of the red stones that had been the robin's eye. Other parts were spread around the floor, trodden on unknowingly in the melee that had followed the shuttle crash, bent and crushed beyond repair. Her own tears now, tracing lines down her cheeks.

She ran, jumping up to reach the door handle to the apartment and into the hallway. Lifts with an out of order message scrolling across the display above the doors, so she ran into the stairwell and started climbing upwards. Up one floor, then two, she was getting out of breath, but pushed on. Four floors up she ran out of stairs to climb. A fire exit led out onto the roof of the building. Here the residents association had grouped together to build a small patio and garden; numerous plant boxes and trellises sprouted a variety of boldly colour flowers. Rose squeezed down the side of a greenhouse and worked her way to the edge of the building. Here, among bags of compost and boxes of plant pots she sat down. It was here favourite spot for when she wanted to get out of the apartment, to be able to talk to her international friends without adult interruption, or to hide when she played hide and seek with her apartment friends. She climbed up and sat on the small wall which lined the roof, legs dangling down either side of a guard rail. She looked out over the Newcastle skyline.

Back in the apartment and Rose's uncle had noticed her absence. He had felt an uncomfortable lump poking through the sole of his right shoe. Looking down he discovered it to be the beak and head of the mechanical robin that he had brought Rose back from China. Glancing around the room and he couldn't see his niece. Nor was she in her bedroom or bathroom, then he saw that the door out to the hallway had been left ajar. He caught the eye of his wife, who was across the room with his sister and brother-in-law and nodded to the door and mouthed "going to get some air". She nodded in response and he slipped out.

The hallway was quiet, lights flickering slightly. He approached the lift, but it was out of action. Into the stairwell and he paused. "ROSE?" he shouted downwards, but was greeted instead by a dull banging noise above him. He set off up stairs. Four flights up he came to the source of the noise; the fire escape to the roof garden had been left open and was banging in the wind that blew strongly between the apartment blocks. A gust of wind caught some soil from a plant box and threw it into his face. He rubbed his eyes, the irritation drawing his attention back to the cornea IR, the red 'offline' light still blinking in the bottom corner of his vision. He ruefully shook his head and headed outside. "ROSE? YOU OUT HERE?"

Movement

A shadow near the greenhouse, was it the wind? He leant against the wind and started to move closer. It was a tight squeeze down the side of the greenhouse, but once at the back of it he was rewarded with the sight of his niece looking up at him with big teary eyes. He lent down and put an arm around her, "Hey little one, what are you doing up here?"

She sniffed and spoke quietly into his ear "My robin" she opened a hand to reveal the broken wing

"I know, but we can fix it, no need to run off like that, you scared me"

"Sorry" another sniff "Do you really think we can fix it Uncle Rob?

"We can try. Why don't we head back down an take a look?" this was greeted with a nod, Rose lifting her arms in the air as a signal that she was not adverse to being picked up. Rob obliged, hugging his niece close. He was about to turn back towards the fire exit when another movement caught his eye. Looking out over the edge of the apartment block there was a railway which snaked its way between the buildings in this part of town. The line turned close to his sister's apartment block; she often moaned about the noise if she had a window open, but its proximity kept the rent down. Further up the line something glinted in the sunlight, much like the robin on the floor of the apartment. It was a train, but seemed different to the commuter service which usually trundled past the building. Its nose was more aerodynamically shaped, the glass it was constructed of twinkling under the sun. It was one of the new hyper-trains. It was approaching the apartment.

It was approaching fast.

Rob ran, back past the greenhouse and onto the main part of the roof, heading for the fire escape. But the crash from below knocked him from his feet, Rose cried out, but he managed to turn to land on his shoulder rather than her. His arm rang out in pain and he rolled onto his back, Rose gripped tightly around his neck. She was sobbing again. The building creaking and rumbled. Rob wasn't sure if he'd bumped his head, or if the apartment block really was swaying. He unsteadily clambered back to his feet, stumbling uncertainly towards the fire exit once again.

The force of the fireball sent him back to the ground. The explosion channelled up through the stairwell and vented out at the top with a powerful boom. Rose gripped his neck even tighter as once again he tried to regain his feet. The heat made it impossible to get any closer to the fire exit, so Rob turned back towards the edge of the building. No escape made itself immediately obvious, so he started to edge his way round. Another shudder and the building released an alarming groan. Onto the northern side and Rob spotted some cables leading over the side. Looking over the edge and a little way down was one of the automatic window cleaners. He turned his attention back to the machinery on the roof, looking for a control panel.

Rose was still attached to him like a limpet, muffled sobs emanating from her head which was buried in the folds of his jacket. He attempted to shift her round a little, but that just resulted in Rose tightening her grip. "Rose, darling" he attempted to sooth her "I just need to take a look at this machine, I'm not going anywhere, I just need you to let go for a little while" no response "Rose?"

"The control panel is on the other side" she looked up at him

"What"?

"On the other side, I can show you" tears still fell from her cheeks, but Rose let go, sliding off him before grabbing a hand and leading round the machine. Sure enough, there was a small panel. Another red light blinked, much like the one from his IR. But it was an old machine. While the citynet controlled it, this command function was retroactively fitted. Prior to the central command it would have been a janitor's job to set the window cleaning machine off and working. Flipping up the control panel revealed a jumble of cables, but one looked newer than the rest and led to a small circuit board which had been plugged into the main motherboard. Small writing on the circuit board read 'citynet control ver:2.013b". With a little wiggle of the board, and a grunt of exertion from Rob, it came free. He threw it aside and put the control panel back down. The light flashing had turned green.

"Now we're talking" Rob muttered to himself, although any smugness was quickly snuffed out by another groan and shudder from the building "Rose, can you go round to the other side and call out what the window cleaner does when I ask" Rose nodded and disappeared back round the machine. Rob waited a second then pressed a button on the control panel, "ANYTHING HAPPENING"

"NO" came the reply from his niece, so another button was pressed "IT'S GOING DOWN" Rob sighed and tried another button "NOW ITS GOING TO THE LEFT" another button "IT'S COMING UP NOW UNCLE ROB!" More like it.

"TELL ME WHEN IT GETS TO THE TOP". After what felt like an eternity amid the rumbling, explosions and groans, Rose let him know that their way out had arrived. Back on the other side Rob surveyed their chariot. Unlike the more modern window crawlers used on the upmarket tall buildings, this older design actually had a small foot-plate to allow for manual operation. Rob tentatively clambered in, before reaching back across a small gap back to the building to pick Rose up and lift her on board. There was another control panel in front of him, the same as the one on the main roof unit. Using his new found window cleaner operating skills, he pressed the 'down' button and they began the descent.

Two floors down and Rob made Rose turn towards him so that she couldn't see the devastation caused by the train's impact. Four floors down, the floor containing his sister's apartment, and Rob himself had to turn away. All was left was a blackened shell, fires still sporadically burning. Before he turned away Rob had been able to see from one side of the building all the way through to the other. He wasn't sure what exactly was holding up the top floors of the apartment block. It was if the building was having the same dilemma, another load groan - this time accompanied by a cracking noise - implying that the upper floors weren't going to remain the upper floors for that much longer. Rob looked at the control panel, trying to figure if any of the other buttons would make it descend any quicker.

The building swayed, the window cleaner swinging out then banging back in to the building, causing Rose, and Rob, to yelp in alarm. Rob was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they weren't going to get down to ground level before the upper floors collapsed. Looking down and away from the building he saw a possible solution. His sister's block was one of the tallest in the area, but it was surrounded by its slightly shorter cousins. About 10 floors down from where they were currently loomed the roof of one of the other blocks. It would be quite a leap, but it looked doable, certainly worth the risk if the intensifying cracking noise of their own building was anything to go by.

When they got to about one floor above the height of the next door building, Rob stopped the window cleaner. He bent down to look Rose in the eye, "Now my darling, I need you to be a really brave girl, do you think you can be brave?". She nodded, but tentatively. "We need to jump onto that roof behind us" she peered out behind him and her eyes widened in nervous surprise. "I'm going to pick you up and we're going to swing round, like I did when you were a toddler. Remember? You used to love that" Rose frowned "Except this time I'm going to have to let go" he was starting to talk more quickly, as rubble had started to fall from above, coating them in dust. "Shall we give it a go?" Rose shook her head, but Rob picked her up regardless. She shrieked as he began to swing her.

Then he let go

Rose cried out, her stomach lurching as she briefly flew between the two buildings.

She landed hard on her backside, giving a yelp as she skidded across the hard surface, scratching her back and legs. Tears stung her eyes once again, but she was quickly back onto her feet, running to the edge of the building to see where uncle Rob was. He had clambered over the side of the window cleaner, perched precariously as it swung sickeningly in the space between the buildings.

With a crunch and a sickening lurch the top of Rose's apartment block began to collapse in on itself. The cables on the window cleaner went slack.

Rose screamed

Rob jumped.

Chapter four

Max ran up his second crossing violation of the morning, causing an autocab to screech to a halt as he bolted out from the pavement and across the road in front of it. One more violation and an ARD would be dispatched to intercept him, issuing another fine that he had little hope of paying. Unless he made it to London. He'd only got the message this morning having scraped together a little cash from his last couple of Edinburgh gigs to pay the overdue ultranet access fee - the first gigs he'd got in three months. The message was the one he'd been waiting his whole life for, well ever since he'd given up his data processing job two years ago to play music full time. His brother had said he was crazy. No one listens to electro any more, that stuff went out decades ago, he had said. But for Max it was a passion, bordering on obsession, and he was certain electro was making a comeback and he could be at the forefront of it. If only he could get a brake.

Then he got the message

Some of his tunes were picking up a bit of momentum on the ultranet. Fairly niche corners of the music community at present, but enough to catch the attention of one of the music dredging programmes used by the big record corporations. As a result of this he'd been invited to London to meet some of the execs, play a track or two live, see if his face fit as well as his sound. But he needed to be in London by this afternoon, so he'd launched a transport query while he rushed around stuffing some equipment into a canvas hold-all. Scramjet was out of the picture on cost grounds, but the hyper-rail train was feasible. Thanks to dynamic pricing he could get a ticket cheap if he travelled when the Mars shuttle was due to land and practically no-one would be using the trains. But that left him with just 20 minutes to get from one side of Edinburgh to the other, with no money for an autocab.

Some hastily packed gadget or other was digging painfully into his side, hammered further into his ribcage with each stride. But he was nearly there, thankfully with no more roads between him an the station entrance, so no risk of crossing them at an unspecified location and racking up another violation under the ever-watching eye of the citynet. That still meant other pedestrians to negotiate though, many with intelli-luggage trailing in their wakes like little rectangular dogs, perfectly poised at shin height to trip the hasty or unwary. Max hurdled one, dodged round another, narrowing missing an old lady before skidding through the automatic doors to the station. His IR glasses were prominently displaying platform 7, with an arrow pointing off to his left. Next to the arrow was a small number, flashing red, -0:00:08. He was late, but hopefully not catastrophically late. The hyper-trains actively tracked their ticket holders; any not on the train at departure time were monitored and if close enough the AI of the train had a small window to wait for them, provided that their programming decided that the late comers were close enough / approaching at a fast enough speed. There was only ever a few seconds of lee-way, but the full automation of the transport network allowed for constant fine tuning of schedules.

Max tumbled onto the train, breathing so hard he thought he was going to pass out. But he'd made it. The doors swished close and with a small rumble the train began to move. He unsteadily got up, trying to smooth down his hair and clothes. As expected, there were few other passengers, but enough of those were giving him a disapproving look to make him feel uncomfortable. He may have only held up the train by 27 seconds, but that seemed to be enough to upset these grumpy sods. Max sighed and started to move up the carriage. Into the next carriage where he could pretend that he had nothing to do with the delay, although the sweat on his brow and still heavy breathing were slight give-aways. He was actually close to the front of the train now, and his luck must be changing as there was a seat free right at the nose with uninterrupted views of the track ahead. It was always quite a surreal feeling sitting at the head of these computer controlled trains, like you were strapped to the front of a rocket, scenery passing by in a blur as it approached 300mph.

Even better than the view outside, though, was the girl sat in the seat across the isle from the one Max slumped down in. Long dark hair fell across neck and shoulders, but kept out of her face by a small red clip. She had removed her shoes so as to pull her feet up on to the seat, knees pulled close to her chest. She had pushed her IR specs up onto her head, as if to better take in the rush of the view ahead.

"Quite a buzz, isn't it?" Max attempted to adopt a pose of detached nonchalance, but wasn't quite sure he was carrying it off

"Excuse me?" she didn't turn to look at him, her eyes continued to stare ahead

"The view at the front of one of these things"

"Oh, yes, it's amazing" her inflection on the last word hinted at an accent, but smoothed by a period abroad

"American?" Max was intrigued

She turned to look at her questioner "Yeah, well, not since I was a kid though"

"Cool place"

"You been?"

"I, well, er, no, but I want to" Max mentally kicked himself for sounding like a simpering idiot. He'd get an assistant to handle the ladies when he made it big. For now he'd have to settle with an attempt to change the subject, "So what brings you to Scotland?"

"Oh, I'm studying here"

Mike frowned, it was unusual to actually travel to a different country to study given that it was much easier to enrol remotely these days. Save the travelling for the fun stuff. However, one or two academic pursuits required students local to their lecturers. "So that would mean you were studying...?"

"Medicine"

"Ah, of course, nice, er, subject" he was on shaky ground again. Thankfully she changed the subject for him.

"So are you not staying with family for the shuttle landing?" this was said with a roll of the eyes, as if she wasn't quite buying into the #standtogether euphoria.

"Nah, I got an important appointment in London"

"Cool"

"Yeah, meeting some music execs, they want to sign me up" slight exaggeration, but close enough to the truth "Of course I wanted to stay independent with my sound, but you just need the backing of the big guys to get people listening to you these days, separate the wheat from the chaff, you know how it is"

"Wow, what sort of music?"

"Well, er, electro, but you know, with a fresh vibe"

"Electro? Think my dad's in to that" she pulled her glasses back down, he was losing her

"Sounds like a cool guy" he tried a tentative laugh, but she didn't join him "But this is new stuff, a lot of people are talking about it"

"Mmm-hmmm" she'd turned back towards the front window

"So, er, you headed to London? You could, er" time to gamble "come to one of my gigs if you wanted? I could ping you a backstage pass" ok, so no gigs were booked, but he could worry about that later

"Oh, I can't, sorry"

"That's ok"

She must have seen his face drop "No, it's just that I'm not going to London. I'm going to visit my dad in Berlin. Maybe you could link me to some of your stuff though and I could show him?"

"Yeah, sure" maybe he could score a date with her old man. Max slumped further down in his seat.

Scenery flew by

"I'm Katie, by the way" Max, turn back towards her, was she interested, or just feeling bad for shooting him down?

"Max" mind you, he wasn't above using pity to exploit an opportunity with a hot girl "So Berlin, that's quite a journey by train, even at this speed" he nodded to the window, "You don't like flying?"

"Ha! Try and afford a scramjet ticket on a student allowance"

"No help from dad then?" he liked an independent woman

"It's a surprise, he's always moaning that he doesn't see me enough face to face, you know what the olds are like?"

Max sniggered, his mum was exactly the same "So what does the old man do in Berlin?"

"Oh, something to do with the army, I'm not sure what" her tone implied further questions in this area wouldn't be a good idea

"Not long till touchdown then, excited?"

"Hmmm, not really, just seems like there are better things for that kinda cash to be spent on" Feisty, Max liked it, "Will probably still watch it though, although my feed is a bit hazy - it playing up for you?" Max hadn't really been concentrating on his feeds of the shuttle, but now she mentioned it, the picture quality wasn't great. Some of the cameras seemed to have dropped out altogether.

"It isn't great. Maybe the train systems are interfering?" Max didn't really understand these sort of things

"Maybe" she didn't sound convinced and the two of them lapsed back into silence.

The shuttle approached the landing field as the train approached its first stop in Newcastle. The scenery outside was becoming more industrial in appearance, old factories and smoke stacks sticking out, relics of the past compared to the vision of the future that the automated train represented. The track began to curve around the buildings as the scenery became more built up, the factories giving way to the, light industrial zones, which gave way to the apartment blocks. With the station approaching and the track curving more the train AI sent a message for the engines to slow down.

Except the message didn't get there.

Primary control systems glitched, then secondary. An urgent message was sent to the central control depot, except their systems had also gone offline.

The train picked up speed. Ahead, a set of points switched. The train gave a small judder as it was sent down one of the local lines into central Newcastle. This line wasn't built for the hyper-trains, it was meant for the local commuter services that travelled at a fifth of the speed. The line turned sharply to the left to negotiate round a large apartment block.

The momentum of the hyper-train carried it straight on

The front carriage smashed through the guard rail, metal screeching and glass shattering. The jolt as it left the track throwing its passengers up off their seats. As it arched towards the apartment building Max had a brief sensation of weightlessness.

"I wonder if this is what it feels like to be one of the Mars astronauts" he thought

The train slammed into the building in a flash of brilliant white

Chapter three

Ho Cheng paced restlessly in front of the large picture windows of his office that looked out onto the landing field. Periodically he would stop to look down on the frenzy of activity in preparation for the shuttle's landing. He'd spent much of his time since arriving from Beijing one floor down in the command centre, itself a hive of activity, but now wanted some time alone to collect his thoughts. He'd even put his IR cornea into standby, the constant stream of communication with the multitude of well-wishers, officials and press having been delegated to his assistants.

This was it, the culmination of 27 years work. And that wasn't including the 20 years of effort prior to that in which he had amassed his fortune. He smiled at the thought of himself back at the start of it all, scurrying around his father's fishing boat, often carrying a bucket of some foul smelling bait or other. But the oceans were almost depleted, the family business almost ruined. Ho had seen another way, a way of harnessing a cross section of technological development for a better future. A theme that had run throughout his life, culminating today. Back at the start of it all he would spend nights haunched over the family computer, communicating with environmentalists, biochemists, geographers, economists; him, the small town fisherman, but with a thirst for knowledge. His family had scrimped and saved to support him through his studies at the prestigious University of Science and Technology of China.

The key was communication and diversification. Making the biologist understanding the businessman. The engineer talking to the economist. Too often fields of specialisation are inward looking. Harnessing the march of information technology Ho was able to bring all of these people together, to develop unique solutions to age old problems. By the time he was 30 years old, Ho was one of the richest men in China. By 40, one of the richest in the world. He'd never set out to make his fortune, he was too much of an idealist for that. But his rise intellectually had coincided with the rise of capitalism in China. Despite its faults, if there is one good thing that capitalism is capable of, it is richly rewarding those with the ideas and drive to make things happen.

What to do with the fortune had always presented Ho with much more of a problem than creating it in the first place. Politics was an option, an option many of those close to him had tried to push him towards. But it wasn't for him, it all seemed too, well, petty. The desire of the Chinese authorities to catch and surpass the Americans was all encompassing. This competition had driven the two close to hostile confrontation on more than one occasion; the second cold war was how the e-media had termed it. To Ho this was ridiculous. He couldn't understand how two nations that now had so much in common could be so fractious. Indeed, the American and Chinese societies had learnt much from each other. The march of capitalism in China was often interpreted as an effort to copy the Americans - a 'Chinese dream' much like the American version. But in return the reach, scope and power of the state in the US had increased to perhaps even surpass the authoritarianism that had shaped Chinese political development for centuries.

The Sino-American model of political and economic development was ascendant around the world. The Europeans perhaps with a slightly more relaxed version, but given that most were now heavily dependant on the two super powers for trade and financing they were certainly the minor partners of the world's power-brokers. Not all were happy with the situation of course, capitalism would always leave some disenfranchised, while others baulked at the limits to their personal freedoms brought about by the all encompassing state machinery. Ho had paused at one end of his office, looking out through the window there to the ragged group near the entrance to the complex.

Protesters

It amused him a little at the effort that these people must have had to make to travel unofficially to deep in the Gobi desert. In a day and age that society could quickly and easily voice its discontent via the ultranet (monitored by the state as they did so, mind) the fact that 20 or 30 had decided to come in person instead of grouping with 20 or 30 thousand online seemed silly. As if their voices would be heard more, surrounded by the company security drones and carefully recorded by the aerial reconnaissance bots flitting around above. Each to their own though, he figured. Most likely Regressionists, those harking back to an earlier time, some illusive point in history where it was all fun and games. Ho had never come across such a period in history class himself, if anything the here an now was as good as it got. Machines to do almost all of the manual labour, stringent environment legislation, average global life expectancy of over 70 (and 82 in China). But still many weren't happy. The Regressionists angry at the invasiveness of modern technology, the neo-communists believing that now was the time to rise up, the techno-anarchists pushing for an ultranet free of governance.

Ho sighed.

He had hoped that his Mars endeavour would bring people together. The fateful day of his 42nd birthday when he released onto the ultranet his statement of intention. His desire to form a global space agency, to employ the best and the brightest from around the planet, for mankind to work together to achieve what had been thought to be impossible.

To set foot on Mars

This would be his legacy and this would be where his fortune was spent. Many had laughed at him, others thought he was mentally ill. Two of his children had cut them selves off from him for what they viewed as a reckless frittering away of money that could be better spent elsewhere (including on them, no doubt). In America he had been written off as a hopeless dreamer by the government, once they had convinced themselves this wasn't part of some new weapons programme that was. Their own space programme had been abandoned decades ago given the lack of a compelling economic justification to maintain it. However, on this issue the American people were different to the American government. The Mars mission had caught their attention. One or two came forward to join Ho's new team, experts in their fields. As the years went by, the message got back to the government that not only was Ho serious, he was also capable of pulling this off. More began to take notice, more joined the team. Nine years into the programme and Ho formally opened the United Earth Space Agency. Located in Kampala, Uganda, it was diplomatically placed almost equidistant between Beijing and Washington DC, with easy access to Europe, Russia and Brazil.

Ho liked to flatter himself that the UESA went a long way to calming international frictions. It wasn't a magic pill - he could still remember some of the committee meetings almost coming to blows amid continued distrust - but everyone working to a common goal provided a united focus that the second cold war had lacked. Away from the political progress, the technological development was perhaps even more astounding. The military applications of the new tech was handled at the committee level, distributed to all so no one had an unfair advantage with it. What they did with the tech was up to them; an Indian company's inventive use of some of the propulsion technology catapulted their CEO into the big time, Ho now counted him as a close friend. The civilian technological applications, meanwhile, were largely kept within Ho's conglomerate - he was still a business man at the end of the day, and he was still funding the project. Despite the world's interest, no one was falling over themselves to contribute.

A knock at the door pulled Ho away from his contemplation, "Hello?"

Paul, one of his assistant's came through the ornate double doors into the office "Sir, your IR was on standby, your daughter was worried"

"How long till touchdown?"

"Three minutes, 34 seconds" Paul, like pretty much everyone in the building had the countdown timer running

"That soon?" Ho smiled, the reminiscences of an old man had obviously taken longer than he thought. A flick of his hand brought the IR out of standby

"Dad?" the communication from his daughter was instant, she must have been monitoring his IR presence on the ultranet, "Wei said you promised to be here when the shuttle lands"

"Yes dear, I'm coming" his grandson had insisted on coming out to the control centre for the landing, resolute that a feed wasn't good enough. Maybe his daughter was raising a young Regressionist. Ho chuckled as he walked over to join Paul at the door before heading downstairs to the command centre.

The buzz of activity in the command centre had intensified even further since Ho had retreated from it half an hour previously. Tactical displays were projected over large e-tables. Too much information for a single pair of IR glasses to convey, the e-tables were used by the department heads to co-ordinate their numerous sub-teams. Ranks of technicians sat on neat rows of chairs, hands a blur of activity as they performed their various duties via their IR glasses and corneas. They were all tapped in to a short range ultranet sub-stream, a more secure way of guarding against infiltration as well as allowing for even faster rates of data transfer.

Ho held Wei's hand as they surveyed the action from a small balcony at the rear of the room. His daughter was down on the floor looking at an e-table with her husband who was one of the department heads. Nerves were building in the pit of Ho's stomach once again, so he tried to distract himself by cycling through the camera streams. The ground crews were now largely in their designated positions around the landing zone. Most would be in the low lying building to the north where the emergency response team controlled their various drones from; Ho saw one of the larger fire-fighting machines cycle through the water cannon position as its controller checked for malfunctions.

Switching to another feed Ho looked out on the front of the building. The security and aerial drones were still there, but the crowd of protesters had largely disappeared. Ho presumed that they were making an early start on getting back to civilisation, non-fussed about joining in the celebrations. He still thought that they would have at least stayed around for touchdown, though.

Less than a minute to go and the control centre had quietened down again. Most was in the hands of the crew inside the shuttle now. Ho tried to imagine what Kathrin Kuester and her co-pilots would be feeling right now, so close to the end of their journey to Mars and back in control of a trillion yuan vehicle. Ho gripped Wei's hand a little tighter, pinging him a picture of the UESA flag which still stood in the Martian desert.

The lights went out, as did Ho's cornea display. He looked about uncertainly as the emergency lighting kicked in, a dull red illuminated the control room as the volume of activity was ratcheted back up. Beside him Paul was looking equally confused.

Wei pulled at his jacket sleeve "What's happening Grandaddy?"

"Probably just a power glitch" he replied, but found it hard to make himself sound convinced. There were three separate power supplies to the control centre in addition to the backup; a blackout was practically impossible.

His daughter was fighting her way across the floor of the control centre to get to them. Ho bent down in the balcony so as to be able to hear her as she started talking quickly up at him, "....lost contact....shuttle unresponsive....systems down" she didn't pause for breath. Ho straightened up to look out of the window - with no camera feeds or technical data coming through to the IR it was the only way of trying to understand what was happening.

The shuttle banked toward the control centre.

Chapter two

An American, a German and a Chinese lady were having a beer.

It sounded like a prelude to a borderline racist joke, but it was real life for Mick. He was slumped back in a musty old leather chair, feet propped up on the e-table that sometimes served as the tactical operations hub, but more often as a beer can and poker chip receptacle. Across the table Ling was having an animated argument with Claus, about what, Mick wasn't paying attention to. Instead he was nodding his head to the dull beats of the classic electro that his daughter had always made fun of him for liking. The steady beat coupled the countdown timer for the Mars shuttle, four minutes to touchdown.

Mick paused the track and sent a ping to Jack who was somewhere on the warehouse floor; "You coming back up?" read the message "Bring more beer" it finished. He switched back to the feed from the aerial reconnaissance drone (or "ARD" in the American military jargon/bullshit that had always irritated Ling), just to make sure the fridge in the office next door was definitely empty. Was that something lurking in the back corner? He took over control of one of the drone's manipulator claws, his arm and hand mimicking the action he wished the drone to perform. The feed showed the claw pulling back out of the fridge, the drone's spot light illuminating the magic words "cold filtered, 5.0%". Mike sniggered to himself, and commanded the drone to return.

Ling paused from making whatever point she was hammering home to the increasingly browbeaten Claus to look up at the drone as it re-entered the control centre. The ARD bared more than a passing resemblance to the sort of alloy wheel hub that adorned the modified cars of Mike's youth. However instead of spokes in the centre, it had counter rotating air blades to generate lift, which in turn surrounded two flaps which dictated its direction. Around the edge of the hub, itself a dull metallic grey, ran rails to which a range of attachments could be connected to. The choice of attachments was up to the operator and depended on what the ARD was being used for. Multiple cameras and other sensors were par for the course, but everything else varied depending on whatever it had been tasked to do. This could be something as mundane as monitoring parking violations right up to covert surveillance in a hostage situation. For the serving of beer, Mike had settled for a couple of cameras and the manipulator claw. His efforts to improvise a tray to carry multiple drinks and snacks had so for proved unsuccessful.

"Thought you said that we'd run out" Ling drawled in the smooth English accent she'd picked up after years in the diplomatic service. She arched an eyebrow as the drone dropped the can into Mike's outstretched hand

"I said _you'd_ run out. Jack should be back up with some more soon though" he accompanied this with another ping, this time copying in Ling

"Well he better hurry, it's touchdown soon, my nation's finest hour" this with a provocative smirk

"_Our_ nations' finest hour" Mike replied tersely, Claus shrinking back down in his seat; Mick began to suspect what the two of them had been so animatedly discussing before.

"If you could just hurry up with _your_ nation's finest beer, I'd be a happy lady" this also broadcast to Jack

"I'm coming, jeee-zuz!" Jack shot back "Got a funny reading or two down here, mind"

"What sort of reading?" Mike straightened in his chair

"Some of the em-oh-pees trying to come out of standby"

Ling rolled her eyes at yet more of the jargon. The MOP's or mobile operating platforms, were the mainstay of the Americans' armed forces. Ling had always been amused at how silly they looked in their basic form, essentially just a pair of mechanical legs connected to a powerful gyroscope and powerpack. However, she had a begrudging respect for what they were capable of. The legs were able to run at a speed twice as fast as any sprinter for three times as long as any marathoner. However, modelled on the human leg as they were, they could be used in any situation that a human could operate in; fight in the same tight spaces, climb the same stairs. This set them apart from the more traditional type of unmanned drones that they counted as their ancestors, but with all the same advantages; Americans (and the allies they sold them to or those who made their own versions of) were no longer dying in conflict. The MOP's operators needn't even be on the same continent. Of course this brought with it some minor human rights complaints from the usual hippies - that conflicts today were entered in to too lightly, or that the operators were too unaccountable for their actions on the battlefield in their anonymous MOPs - but Ling treated these concerns with the same contempt the American's appeared to do.

The legs were only half the story, powerful as they were. No, it was what was attached to the legs that really excited Ling. Weapon and monitoring systems could be individually customised to practically any battlefield on Earth. Ling had often ran a finger enviously over the racks of Gatling guns, pulse rifles and vector cannons that this anonymous Berlin warehouse contained. However, all the pleading in the world would not persuade Mike to hand over an access code, even for a minute or two on the firing range.

Mike stood up and walked over the the window which looked down in to the warehouse. Racks of MOPs and their associated equipment stood in neat rows. Most had not been brought out of storage, maintenance aside, for years. The US had had a military presence in Germany since the second world war, but its military operations these days were supplied from depots closer to the action in Africa and south Asia. Mike had joined the military in the days that they were actually taught to fight; these pipsqueaks today were nothing more than joystick jockeys in his eyes. However, such convictions were not "on message" as a colonel had once informed him, and so here he was now, not much more than a janitor. Still, at least this posting kept an ocean between him and his bitch of an ex-husband. Coupled with this was the fact that his daughter was studying in the UK, a close enough time-zone to make arranging contact easy enough (and a half hour scramjet shuttle away if ever he could persuade her that face to face contact was a good thing every now and then). All in all, it wasn't such a bad deal he figured.

"Out of standby? Where's the unit order come from?" Mike scratched his head, before calling up a scrolling list of planned unit-ops by the guys back at the Pentagon - nothing coming up for today's date

"Search me, origin location is blank, take a look" Jack pinged up the script-run from one of the MOPs. There was an order for the start up programme to run, but no point of origin.

"I don't like this" Mike muttered to himself, but Ling had come to stand at his shoulder

"Good old US tech?" she couldn't help the cynical smile that had emerged on her face.

"Wouldn't surprise me if this was your lot playing stupid buggers, _again_" Mike looked at her with a little disdain "I thought we were through with that, Ling?"

Mike and Ling had a long and not that glorious shared history. Ling had actually grown up in New York, her father an attaché to the Chinese UN representative. Mike's upbringing was geographically similar - he was a Brooklyn boy - but a world away from the expensive international school and circling in the upper echelons of the world's power brokers that was Ling's path through the earlier part of her life. Not that she had it easy, it takes a shrewd mover to negotiate their way through the Chinese political and diplomatic spheres. The Berlin post in the Chinese embassy as chief intelligence officer was a worthy reward for these efforts and should have been a steady platform on which to push even higher. But then she crossed paths with Mike.

"You know this isn't my style, not any more" she held Mike's gaze, her eyes unhindered by IR glasses, just that familiar diamond below her right eye that signalled cornea upgrade. Mike could only grunt in response.

"Any hope of a trace protocol on that Jack?" he turned away from Ling

"Already on it big guy"

Mike was running his own searches at the same time. He didn't really want to have to go to the seniors back home if he could avoid it, but if the MOP start up ran its course they'd be getting an automated message soon enough. He might not have the technical wizardry that Jack professed to possess, but this old dog knew a few tricks. Running a hand over his face, absent mindedly scratching at the stubble that seem to permanently adorn his fleshy jowls, Mike ran an intrusion search on the incoming traffic of the last half hour. Nothing jumped out, aside from a couple of high security pings to Ling from her embassy, but she'd sent nothing out in return, either back to the embassy or into the warehouse systems.

With a burst of static his display blinked out

"What the hell?" Ling was rubbing her eyes "My system's gone down"

"Kill switch" grunted Mike, he was already striding over to the door. Opening it he yelled down into the warehouse "Jack, who sent the kill order?"

"Give me a sec, man, my system's rebooting just the same as yours"

"Fuck" Mike said more to himself than anyone else. Whoever sent the kill order, he was in trouble. Under international law any armed system present in a signatory country had to have a kill switch installed. This allowed both the country where the unit was present, and the country that housed the unit's controllers, to quickly shut down any malfunctioning system. It was basically the only way countries like Germany were going to allow the US to remotely operate high advanced weapon systems capable of mass destruction. The kill command was sent via a totally different, and constantly changing, frequency to the ultranet on a super secure channel. It was impossible to fake or override. Either Mike's boss's in the US had learnt of the MOP intrusion, or he'd caused (another) diplomatic incident with his German hosts. It also meant his upcoming leave was screwed up - each and every MOP would have to have it kill switch physically reset, a job that would take days.

Mike slumped back down in his chair, first looking up to the ceiling as if for inspiration. The ARD continued to hover above; with no weapon system it was not fitted with a kill switch. No solutions there, he looked around the room. Ling's hand and fingers were dancing in front of her chest, presumably her fancy system rebooted quicker than his. His focus shifted to Claus

Who was looking distinctly sheepish

"Claus, please tell me this is nothing to do with you" Mike was on his feet and quickly standing over the now flustered looking German.

"Mike, er, please, I had no choice" he held his hands out in front of him palms up, as if paused mid shrug.

"Hey Mike, it was the damn Germans" Jack squawked in his ear

"We know" Mike replied, still staring at Claus.

"Mike, I had no choice" Claus repeated "If I didn't, my boss, they would be, how did you say?"

"_Pissed_?" Ling's attempt at Mike's accent was terrible, but it had amused her enough to provoke a smile

"No, the phrase he said to me last week, when I won at cards" Claus cleared his throat, Ling's impressionist skills were about to get a run for their money; "They would _rip off my head and shit down my throat_"

Mike's frown softened slightly. The slight German cowered in front of him presented a miserable sight. Claus was every inch the German bureaucrat, slightly soft round the middle (although Mike couldn't really talk there) with a suit that was just ill fitting enough to be distracting. A sort of grey pallor to his face, which tended to generally house a look of slight alarm. Wondering what trouble the pesky American was going to get him into this time. no doubt. However, Mike couldn't help but like him. He'd worked with a few German government envoys during his time here. They tended to range between the mind numbingly officious to the out right hostile. The ambitious ones were the worst, always at his shoulder, making sure he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be, quick to address even minor grievances to their seniors as if they were school kids desperate for teacher's attention.

Claus was different, it was like he couldn't quite believe he'd made it to where he was and didn't want to draw attention to himself (and by association, Mike) in case the mistake was realised and he was sent back to the obscure regional council he had started out at. He liked a beer, knew a few amusing stories and didn't make fun of Mike's taste in music. Mind you, as much as Mike had grown to like Claus, he could happily strangle the little shit when he invariably won their occasional poker nights.

"Well, now we've established once and for all that US tech is unreliable, and Claus is a massive, what is it you say? _Pussy_, maybe we can get back to watching the touchdown. Less than a minute to go" Ling had stolen Mike's leather chair, but he couldn't bring himself to start another argument and sat down opposite with a huff, his IR specs logging back into the feeds from China.

"Talk about unreliable tech, can't you guys provide a decent camera feed?" Mike flicked between the dead aerial camera drones tracking the shuttle, finally settling on the ground based camera.

Above thier heads the lights on the ARD blinked on and off, the machine gave a slight wobble before regaining stability.

Below, Ling leaned forward, the normally ice cool intelligence chief was abuzz with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Although she made light of the event in front of Mike, it was actually something of immense pride to her. It could have been the cornea IR reboot, but Mike was sure he could see tears in her eyes.

"What the..." her mouth dropped open

The shuttle impacted.

The ARD attacked Claus.

Chapter one

It was a simple device, a folly in brass and silver. A collection of tiny cogs and gears; a small lever used to wind the spring and drive the movement. The delicate metalwork that surrounded the clockwork was in the shape of a bird. A robin. When wound up the robin would slowly flap its wings and turn its head. Tiny glass beads in place of eyes glinted red as the late afternoon sun flooded in to the apartment, reflecting the light onto the legs of the adults sitting across the room as the head repeated its gradual sideways turn and the clockwork emitted a gentle click click click.

Rose was fascinated. She sat cross legged on the cushion she'd dropped onto the wooden floor, the robin carefully placed in front of her. The adults had commandeered the comfy seats, her mum shooing her off as the others arrived. Since then she had largely been ignored, her aunt pausing to ruffle her hair and complement her robin before joining the others sinking into that familiar trance state those accessing the ultranet tended to exhibit. But Rose had her robin, so that was ok.

Click click click

Just two hours ago the robin hadn't been a robin at all. Rose sat at the dining table staring at a small pile of metal pieces. She had loved the robin as soon her uncle had given it to her, a present after a work trip to China. But she also had a questioning desire to understand how it worked. Her stomach had tightened, part nervousness about what Mum would say if she couldn't put the robin back together, but equal part excited about the challenge she faced. Wiping a loose strand of hair from her face, Rose had picked up the micro-driver and started to join together the tiny pieces. She had thought about downloading a technical diagram of the robin to overlay the workspace and guide her construction, but it was like the diagram was already in her head, her hands moving automatically as she lost herself in the smell of the grease and metal. So clear was the process of her construction, her Intensified Reality glasses had felt like more of a distraction than a help. Notifications of homework due for uploading, or friends requesting contact blinked at the edges of her vision. She'd taken the glasses off in the end, discarding them at the side of the table.

Click click click

The robin was finished, Rose sat proudly at the table, once again enraptured by the turning of the head and flapping of the wings. Her Mum had bustled into the room at that point, bottles of drink clinking in the box she carried. Rose was just about to make her exit with the now complete robin, but it was too late. With that eye for trouble that seems to become second nature in a parent, her Mum saw the mucky hand print on the table, and smear of grease on Rose's cheek. Uttering curses about her idiotic brother (Why couldn't he have bought back a practical present? One of those new accelerated learning courses the Chinese software houses were churning out maybe?) Rose was hurried to the bathroom and urged to clean up before the guests arrived. This wasn't the first time Rose's mechanical curiosity had got the better of her, in fact it was this curiosity that had made her Uncle think of his niece when he saw the robin while browsing a market in Shenzhen. Previous exploits - the rubbish compactor or the culinary unit sprang to mind - had driven her Mum to despair. It wasn't the fact that Rose was less successful putting those items back together, more her Mum worried that Rose lacked anywhere near the practical application to her virtual studies, the studies that were needed to progress in the real world. The networked world.

Click click

The spring was almost unwound, the robin's movement slowing. Rose thought about giving the lever another turn, whether the adults would notice that she still didn't have her IR glasses on. They all still sat quietly around the room, their range of movement limited in a way that reminded Rose of the robin. Some raised their hands from time to time, fingers moving up and down as if conducting an invisible orchestra. While this looked unnatural to the outside observer, behind their own IR glasses fingers manipulated icons, selected video feeds or typed messages. Others were murmuring gently, the mic in their glasses picking up instructions or transmitting conversations. There really was no need for them all to be in the room together, they would have been connected where ever they had resided. Normally they wouldn't be; Rose couldn't remember the last time her family had gathered in such a way, probably when she was a baby, maybe when Uncle Robert and Aunty Sara celebrated their union.

Click click

But today wasn't a normal day. It was a day of celebration. 'A day for the world to stand together', the electronic media had called it. A little under six months ago the United Earth Space Agency hyper-shuttle xī wàng III (literal translation: hope) had touched down on Mars. The manned mission was the first of its kind. With so much automated these days, the event had been a sensation; the ultranet nearly ground to a halt under the access requests for the delayed feed of the landing. As good as the machines were, as good as the ultranet is at linking people, humans relate to humans. This theme exploded onto the global information networks, and soon the #standtogether call on the ultranet had reached fever pitch. To welcome the returning astronauts the idea was that families would come together, communities would stand united; not the virtual ones that dictated much of life today, but real ones. It was heralded as a new dawn.

Click click

To Rose, however, it was more of an irritation. She didn't see why it was so important for everyone to be in the same room together. She hadn't ever met many of her school friends, centrally taught as most children were these days. Sure, it was fun to play with the other children on the apartment block, but it was just as fun, maybe more, to play with children hundreds or even thousands of miles away. She'd sat through her Grampa's soliloquies on the disconnect of "children today", his curses about the invasiveness of the ultranet and belief that "maybe those Regressionists had a point", although that comment drew a swift rebuke from Mum. Even now he refused to wear a set of IR glasses, preferring an ancient touch screen computer, something he could actually touch rather than "fiddle with nothingness", a term that had made Rose giggle. Her Uncle Robert also rejected IR glasses, but for the opposite reason. On returning from China he looked much the same, aside from a small shimmering holographic tattoo just below his right eye. The simple diamond shape announced him as one of the few on the bleeding edge of innovation to have had his own corneas augmented. The glasses sported by the remaining occupants of the room differed in shape and colour, manufacturers competing on the basis of this style as well as the grand claims over what the technology they housed was capable of. Rose's own glasses were white, with pink detailing on the hinges and bridge. She would need a new pair soon, growing as she was. However, they would do for now as she picked them up as her mother finally noticed that she had not linked in to the family's data feeds.

Click

The shuttle was entering the upper atmosphere, camera drones dotted in the sky tracking its flight. Rose called up a countdown timer; still seven minutes and 20 seconds before touch down. A map overlay traced a dotted line from the shuttle's current location to the Jiuquan Shuttle Centre, deep in the Gobi Desert. Rose swapped this for a live feed from the shuttle's interior. The crew of eight were tightly strapped in, each only identifiable by the flag on their shoulders; three Chinese, two Americans, an Indian, Nigerian and German. Five men and three women, although under the bulk of the flight suits it was impossible to tell which was which. The picture started the break up - probably creaking under demand - so Rose switched back outside to the closest camera drone, with a current speed overlay; still a hypersonic Mach 5.2.

Click

Just one minute 12 seconds to touchdown now, and against all expectation, Rose was starting to get excited. Her Uncle had sent over some video files of the landing on Mars. Super high definition pictures from the remote rover, positioned to record the two men exiting the shuttle together; Peter Lansdown and Yang Junlong. Rose didn't fully understand the symbolism of the two men from the two superpowers touching down on the planet together, but the clarity of the picture made her feel almost like she was there herself. Back to the live pictures and the shuttle could now be seen from the ground cameras. This was good as Rose had lost a lot of the feeds from the airborne drones. The shuttle was leaving a long vapour trail, wing-tips and air-brakes glowing red as the camera zoomed in. Just the simple text line "look at you Mum" popped up from her Uncle. Rose looked up and her Mum was actually crying. She'd worked on a piece of the software for some of the shuttle's lower level life support systems - this was the culmination from a lot of hard work.

Click

The ground cameras had now also began to break up, while the airborne ones were still reading as offline. Rose began to complain, but was hushed by more than one of the adults. The shuttle was approaching the runway. Fast. Rose's Uncle shifted in his seat, while she could see her Grampa so close to his screen that his nose was almost pressed up against it. "They're going to overshoot" said her mum out loud - the voice to voice network hissing with interference preventing networked chat. The shuttle then violently swung, first pitching upwards, then nose tipping back down. Rose shared a gasp with the adults as now the shuttle banked sharply to the right. "Must be abandoning the approach" but her Mum didn't sound convinced. The shuttle was now heading away from the camera position. But towards the local command and control tower. "Pull around, PULL AROUND", Rose's Mum was near frantic, stood up now, glass of wine falling to the floor, forgotten.

The shuttle hit the command centre in a flash of brilliant white.

The feeds cut out.

The robin stopped moving.

Mini nano

Ok, time to get back on the saddle.

Last November was fun, and the next one can't come quickly enough, so I'm going to have a mini-nano in April/May. It won't be quite as rigid as the last, but I am going to try and write at least a few hundred words per day.

It's going to be a totally new story in a totally new genre for me. It may well, therefore, be totally crap!