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The Suspect Genome

Hamilton Peter F. (EN)

THE SUSPECT GENOME

Peter F. Hamilton

One — The Dodgy Deal

It was only quarter past nine on that particular Monday morning, but the September sun was already hot enough to soften the tarmac of Oakham's roads. The broad deep-tread tires of Richard Townsend's Mercedes were unaffected by the mildly adhesive quality of the surface, producing a sly purring sound as they crossed the spongy black surface.

Radio Rutland played as he drove. The station was still excited by the news about Byrne Tyler—the celebrity's death was the biggest thing to happen in the area all month. A newscaster was interviewing some detective about the lack of an arrest. The body had been found on Friday, and the police still had nothing.

Richard turned onto the High Street, and the road surface improved noticeably. The heart of the town was thriving again. Local shops were competing with the national brand-name stores that were muscling in on the central real estate, multiplying in the wake of the economic good times that had come to the town. Richard always regretted not having any interests in the new consumerism rush, but he'd been just too late to leap on that gravy train. Real money had been very short in the immediate aftermath of the PSP years, which was when the retail sector began its revival.

He drove into the Pillings Industrial Precinct, an area of small factories and warehouses at the outskirts of the town. Trim allotments down the right hand side of the road were planted with thick banana trees, their clumps of green fruit waving gently in the muggy breeze. The sturdy trunks came to a halt beside a sagging weed-webbed fence that sketched out a jumble of derelict land. All that remained of the factory that once stood there was a litter of shattered bricks and broken concrete footings half glimpsed among the tangle of nettles and rampant vines. A new sign had been pounded into the iron-hard ocher clay, proclaiming it to be Zone 7, and Ready For Renewal, a Rutland Council/Townsend Properties partnership.

Zone 7 was an embarrassment. It was the first site anyone saw when they entered the Pillings Precinct: a ramshackle remnant of the bad old days. The irony being Pillings was actually becoming quite a success story. Most of the original units, twentieth-century factories and builders' merchants, had been refurbished to house viable new businesses, while the contemporary zones, expanding out into the verdant cacao plantations that encircled the town, were sprouting the uniform blank sugar-cube structures of twenty-first-century construction. Seamless weather-resistant composite walls studded with mushroom-like air-conditioning vents, and jet-black solar-cell roofs. Whatever industry was conducted inside, it was securely masked by the standardized multipurpose facades. Even Richard wasn't sure what some of the companies did.

He parked the Merc outside his own offices, a small brick building recently renovated. Colm, his assistant, was already inside, going through the datapackages that had accumulated overnight on his desktop terminal.

“The architect for Zone 31 wants you to visit,” he said as Richard walked in. “There's some problem with the floor reinforcements. And a Mr. Alan O'Hagen would like to see you. He suggested 10:30 this morning.”

Richard paused. “Do I know him?”

Colm consulted his terminal. “We don't have any file on record. He said he may be interested in a zone.”

“Ah.” Richard smiled. “Fine, 10:30.”

It was a typical morning spent juggling data. Builders, suppliers, clients, accountants, local pla

The man who walked in at 10:30 prompt wasn't quite what Richard had expected. He was in his late fifties, nothing like any of those eager young business types who normally came sniffing around the precinct. Alan O'Hagen wore a gray business suit with a pale purple tie. He had a sense of authority which made Richard automatically straighten up in his chair and reach to adjust his own tie. Even the man's handshake was carefully controlled, an impression of strength held in reserve.

“What can I do for you?” Richard asked as his visitor settled into the leather chair before the desk.

“My company.” Alan O'Hagen held up a silver palmtop cybofax. Its key blinked with a tiny pink light as it squirted a data package into the desktop terminal. Richard sca

“Firedrake Marketing? I'm afraid I've never heard of it.”

O'Hagen smiled. “No reason you should. It's a small virtual company I own. I trade on-circuit, specializing in albums and multimedia drama games. I have some German software houses signed up, and a couple of African jazz bands who aren't well distributed in Europe. Naturally, I'd like to rectify that.”

“Uh huh.” Richard made an immediate guess about what kind of German software—the end of the PSP hadn't seen a total reversal of censorship in England. “So how does the Pillings Precinct fit in with all this?”

“I want Firedrake to become more than a virtual company. At the moment it consists of a circuit site with a few trial samples you can access, and an order form. I subcontract distribution and delivery to a mail-order company in Peterborough. After their fees, I'm not left with much in the way of profit. What I want to do is build up a distribution arm myself.”

“I see.” Richard made sure he wasn't gri

“It's a possibility.”

“A very advantageous one for you. Event Horizon's memox plant would be next door, so there'd be no shortage of crystals, and we do have an excellent rail service to both Peterborough and Leicester. Not to mention a generous start-up tax allowance.”

“Every industrial precinct does, these days,” O'Hagen said. “Corby is offering a flat-rate construction loan for anyone starting on either of their new precincts.”

Richard blanked his irritation at the mention of Corby. He'd lost three clients to their precinct developers in the last six weeks. “You'll find us a competitive match for any other precinct, I assure you.”

“What about construction times?”

“That depends on the size of the operation you're looking for, of course.”