The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees Read Free Book Online Page B

walked. He even called her Ella. She didn’t object: the Captain was good-looking if a little on the small side, but then compared to her near six foot most men came up a little short. ‘You’re going to be meeting two disturbing people, Ella,’ he said as they strode through the building, ‘but don’t let either of them distract you too much. Everybody is a little upset by their first meeting with the Professor, and as for Heydrich …’
    They walked for about five minutes and then descended – Ella had no idea how many floors – in a high-security elevator.When the elevator’s steel doors finally opened they were met by a man who was excessively lanky and thin, his emaciated body clad in an exquisitely cut – if a tad old-fashioned – suit made from worsted wool of an uncompromising black. He looked like an undertaker, though his long, Roman nose, his dark button eyes that snarled out at Ella from behind shaded glasses and his oiled black hair made him an extremely aggressive-looking undertaker.
    Weird.
    Captain Sanderson effected the introductions. ‘This is Professor Septimus Bole, who developed the Demi-Monde. Professor, this is Miss Ella Thomas, our first-choice candidate for Operation Offbeat.’
    Operation Offbeat?
    Ella held out her hand. The Professor looked at it warily, then with what appeared to be extreme reluctance shook it. The man’s fingers were cold and clammy and her feeling of revulsion was heightened when he squirmed them hurriedly out of her grasp. It was as though he was disgusted by her touch.
    ‘I am delighted to meet you, Miss Thomas. I hope what you see today will persuade you to help us.’ This little announcement was made, unexpectedly, in an English accent, which had a strange mechanical cadence to it. The Professor noted Ella’s surprise. ‘Yes, Miss Thomas, I am a Brit, though I trust you won’t hold that against me. I, for my sins, am head of ParaDigm CyberResearch’s Demi-Monde Project Team, ParaDigm being the company behind the Demi-Monde. I am here on secondment from ParaDigm to help the US Army sort out its problems.’
    Problems?
    Introductions made, Captain Sanderson slotted his ID tag into a scanner set on the wall by the side of the elevator and placed his palm on the reader next to it. Immediately a doorin the steel wall sighed open and Sanderson nodded Ella and the Professor through to the conference room beyond. The door slid shut behind them.
    The room they entered was small, cold and impersonal, and, rather disconcertingly, reminded Ella of a hospital waiting room. The only furnishings were a line of five very uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs set in front of a low stage which had a lectern standing at its centre. At a sign from the Captain, Ella took the middle chair. Professor Bole sat next to her, and after taking an age to coil his long body into the seat and ensure that the immaculate creases in his trousers weren’t being compromised he turned to Ella.
    ‘As I think the General will have explained to you already, Miss Thomas, the Demi-Monde was designed to replicate the chaos and anarchy associated with an Asymmetric War Environment. The demonstration you are about to see will, I hope, inform you of two things. The first and most obvious will be to convince you of the realism of the Dupes populating the Demi-Monde, a realism so profound that they are as close to real life as makes no difference.’
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    Ella kept her face bland: she would believe this when she saw it. There was no way she was ever going to believe that a computer-concocted Dupe was a real person.
    ‘The second point,’ the Professor continued, ‘which to my mind makes the Demi-Monde such a triumph, is that it accurately conjures up the type of people who rise to leadership positions in Asymmetric Warfare Environments. For the leaders in the Demi-Monde we have selected individuals from history famous for their brutality and their barbarism, and have mimicked their