The Escapist | Page 4

ones or private police forces like COSI. I didn't really want to go to Nexus-7, but it
would be a good excuse to enjoy the Moon's famously debauched nightlife. It would also
give me time away from direct COSI surveillance, just in case someone with a more
lucrative offer wanted to get in contact.
"You're quite a harsh little man, aren't you?" interjected Carmichael with surprising
acidity. "A typical scientist." For a moment I thought she could hear what I was thinking.
I frowned and rejoined, "I beg your pardon?" There was another weighty silence while I
surveyed her and she stared at me with that unreadable impassive face of hers. I
wondered again what she knew about my true background. Then suddenly the
uncomfortable moment was over.
"Of course, every avenue will be laid open to you without question," said Carmichael.
The mood had changed in a very random way as if her previous comment had never
existed. I was unusually perturbed. I could manipulate most people, particularly women,
but working out what was going on in Carmichael's mind was beyond me. I concluded
with resignation that she was probably smarter than I was - not something I was used to.
"Would you be ready to travel tomorrow?" She continued. I nodded, still frowning.

Carmichael rose from her chair and I was slightly diverted by the swing of her hips,
which seemed out of place. Something about her made me think of a severe old matron in
the body of an expensive holographic porn queen, or maybe vice versa. She rested herself
on the edge of the desk in front of me and fixed her eyes on mine with total confidence.
"This Mind Invasion business is beginning to be a bit of a problem to our industrial
friends. Rounding up all the hackers hasn't helped. It's fundamentally important that we
sort the situation out as soon as possible. It's also very much in your personal interest. I
do hope you understand."
_Log 000000000101 - Knowledge is power in the information age. The more you know,
the easier it is to gain control over other people, and whoever has the greatest access to
information wins._
On the shuttle to Nexus-7 I mulled over the report from Industrial Intelligence. Von
Kühnert's area of expertise didn't bear any direct relation to what other Mind Invasion
victims had been concerned with. All of the scientists were in different fields, but all of
them were considered leading experts. I reckoned there had to be a connection between
the cryogenic sabbaticals and each kidnap. But this obvious link had been checked and
rechecked by other COSI operatives to no avail. The cryogenic parlour owners had been
interrogated thoroughly using the latest cranial X-rays, and every single one had
truthfully denied involvement. After some rather fruitless pondering, I wondered how I
would be able to turn this situation to my advantage with Carmichael around. It was
unusual for me to come across somebody so unreadable. She was legendary, but then so
was I, albeit always as an untraceable alias.
Despite my many trips around the Solar System, it still filled me with joy to leave Earth. I
loved the planetary views in transit, and I adored the notion that mankind was no longer
tied to an arbitrary hunk of minerals, and was instead in a position to choose between a
selection of hunks of minerals to live on. But most of all, my excitement arose simply
from travelling itself. I got a childish kick out of being in any kind of vehicle, particularly
one going somewhere fast. Moving from A to B felt like what life itself was all about.
Getting there was always an anticlimax.
The Moon looked eerie in the darkness as we crossed from the shuttle pad. A guy called
Chucky, one of COSI's minor moon operatives, picked me up from the pad in a small but
comfortably pressurised balloon-wheeled vehicle. He was outrageously fat, but he lived
on the Moon most of the time so it didn't matter too much. The journey was fairly short,
which was fortunate as Chucky was annoyingly nerdish. He wouldn't stop making inane
factual comments about our moon transport, despite my complete lack of verbal response
to his monologue. I may have been tempted to torture and kill him had we been stuck for
any extended period of time together. That would not have been the most effective COSI
career move, but it would have had the advantage of being highly satisfying.
Nexus-7 was one of the cleanest places I'd ever seen, considering that dust got
everywhere on the Moon. If you imagined a North African desert with the area of about
two North Americas, then took away the air and the Arabs, you'd get the picture. How