Artemis arranged the carpet over the hole in the floor. ‘Have you located his apartment?’
‘Directly above us. We need to get up there and scan his retina and thumb.’
An expression flashed across Artemis’s face. Just for a second.
‘The scans. Yes. The sooner the better.’
Holly had never seen that look on the human boy’s features before. Was it guilt? Could it be?
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ she demanded.
The expression vanished, to be replaced by the customary lack of emotion.
‘No, Captain Short. Nothing. And do you really think that now is the time for an interrogation?’
Holly wagged a threatening finger. ‘Artemis. If you mess with me now, in the middle of an operation, I won’t forget it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Artemis wryly. ‘I will.’
Spiro’s apartment was two floors directly above Artemis’s cell. It made sense to reinforce the same block. Unfortunately, Jon Spiro did not like the idea of anyone spying on him, so there were no cameras in his section of the building.
‘Typical,’ muttered Foaly. ‘Power-crazed megalomaniacs never like anyone to see their own dirty secrets.’
‘I think someone’s in denial,’ said Holly, focusing a tight beam from her Neutrino at the ceiling.
A section of floating ceiling melted like ice in a kettle, revealing the steel above. Molten beads of metal ate into the carpet as the laser sliced through the flooring. When the hole was of sufficient diameter Holly shut down the beam and popped her helmet camera into the space.
Nothing appeared on the screen.
‘Switching to infrared.’
A rack of suits sprang into focus. They might have been white.
‘The wardrobe. We’re in the wardrobe.’
‘Perfect,’ said Foaly. ‘Put him to sleep.’
‘He is asleep. It’s ten to five in the morning.’
‘Well, make sure he doesn’t wake up then.’
Holly replaced the camera in its groove. She plucked a silver capsule from her belt and inserted it into the hole.
Foaly supplied the commentary for Artemis.
‘The capsule is a Sleeper Deeper, in case you’re wondering.’
‘Gaseous?’
‘No. Brainwaves.’
Artemis was intrigued. ‘Go on.’
‘Basically it scans for brainwave patterns, then replicates them. Anyone in the vicinity stays in the state they’re in until the capsule dissolves.
‘No trace?’
‘None. And no after-effects. Whatever they’re paying me, it isn’t enough.’
Holly counted off a minute on her visor clock.
‘OK. He’s out, providing he wasn’t awake when the Sleeper Deeper went in. Let’s go.’
Spiro’s bedroom was as white as his suits, except for the charred hole in the wardrobe. Holly and Artemis climbed through on to a white shag-pile carpet with whitewood slide wardrobes. They stepped through the doors into a room that glowed in the dark. Futuristic furniture – white, of course. White spotlights and white drapes.
Holly took a moment to study a painting that dominated one wall.
‘Oh, give me a break,’ she said.
The picture was in oils. Completely white. There was a brass plaque beneath. It read ‘Snow Ghost’.
Spiro lay in the centre of a huge futon, lost in the dunes of its silk sheets. Holly pulled back the covers, rolling him over on to his back. Even in sleep the man’s face was malevolent, as though his dreams were every bit as despicable as his waking thoughts.
‘Nice guy,’ said Holly, using her thumb to raise Spiro’s left eyelid. Her helmet camera scanned the eye, storing the information on chip. It would be a simple matter to project the file on to the vault’s scanner and fool the security computer.
The thumb scan would not be so simple. Because the device was a gel scanner, the tiny sensors would be searching for the actual ridges and whorls of Spiro’s thumb. A projection would not do. It had to be 3D. Artemis had come up with the idea of using a memory-latex bandage, standard issue in any LEP first-aid kit – and the same latex used to glue the mike to his throat. All they had to do was wrap Spiro’s thumb in a bandage for a moment and they would have a mould of the digit. Holly spooled a bandage from her belt, tearing off a fifteen-centimetre strip.
‘It won’t work,’ said Artemis.
Holly’s heart sank. This was it. The thing that Artemis hadn’t told her.
‘What won’t work?’
‘The memory latex. It won’t fool the gel scanner.’
Holly climbed off the futon. ‘I don’t have time for this, Artemis. We don’t have time for it. The memory latex will make a perfect copy, right down to the last molecule.’
Artemis’s eyes were downcast. ‘A perfect model, true, but in reverse. Like a photo negative. Ridges where there should be grooves.’
‘D’Arvit!’ swore Holly. The Mud Boy was right. Of course he was. The scanner would read the latex as a completely different thumbprint. Her cheeks glowed red behind the visor.
‘You knew this, Mud Boy. You knew it all along.’
Artemis didn’t bother denying it.
‘I’m amazed no one else spotted it.’