Free Regeneration by Stephanie Saulter Page A

compliance coordinator did not want him, of all people, to know.
    As though aware of the thought, Qiyem looked across at him and their eyes met. Gabriel nodded a greeting; Qiyem stared back, unsmiling. For the briefest of moments his expression was a mixture of the usual jealousy and, oddly, contempt. Dropping his gaze to the tablet, he began to tap away ostentatiously.
    Gabriel turned back to the window and sipped his tea. That’s it, he thought. I’m done trying. No one quite knew what Qiyem’s problem was, why he was so remote and unsociable—he labored as hard as any of them for Thames Tidal, though he never looked inspired or sounded passionate about the company. Agwé had once declared he was more go-along than gillung. Gabriel had laughed heartily, although he suspected there was more to his reserve than that. But Qiyem had rebuffed every attempt to get to know him better, anything that tended toward friendliness.
    He wouldn’t rebuff Agwé, though, and Gabriel was quite sure she knew it—but he hadn’t appeared to grasp that his coolness toward the people she liked left her with no reason to like him back.
    Whatever. Gabriel buried the sting of this latest snub in that knowledge, staring out at the rain-washed basin as Qiyem passed behind him. He wondered what would happen in the months to come when it became evident that there were no more submissions to coordinate, no need for an ongoing liaison with Planning; and that, in spite of his talents, no one wanted Qiyem in their team.
    Don’t be spiteful, Gabriel, he scolded himself. Think about something else. Resting a hand against the gently curving biopolymer, cool but not cold against his palm, he squinted at the material. It was latticed through with a silver-white honeycomb of fibers, a unique cellular geometry that gave the walls strength and rigidity, while keeping enormous energies in quantum stasis. He had struggled to grasp the sheer scale of what was stored there, until one of the engineers explained in terms morbid enough for any teenage imagination. Now he found himself contemplating the power beneath his palm: Here in this hand’s-breath, this finger’s-width, the curve of a nail, is enough to take my hand, my arm, my life. Right here against my skin, completely safe. It was like stroking a tame dragon.
    Agwé would like that notion too, though perhaps it wasn’t the best metaphor with which to calm an anxious public. A new alert popped into his consciousness; he sent the feed to his workstation and closed his eyes as he formed another, less familiar command.
    The background hum in his brain dimmed as the content flagged up by the monitor apps became intelligible. He suspected the new app would scare as many users as it enticed. No longer just a command-and-response interface between user and equipment, it turned the cranial band into a kind of translator: a conduit that converted stream chatter into mental conversation. It would be the closest thing to telepathy most people would ever know, if it could be perfected enough to work for someone who was not already a telepath. So far, Gabriel had his doubts.
    He was pleased to see how quickly the input resolved into a coherent dialogue. He was less pleased with the discussion itself. It lacked the emotional resonance of human thought, but the meaning was clear enough.
    \> [City Council rejection of petition to delay TTP pure political gerrymandering. They have failed the people.]
    \> {Expected better? All in the pocket of the New-nited People!}
    \> [Quantum storage could be a catastrophe for Thames Estuary. Should never have been allowed. Next “sabotage” target?!]
    \> (What about fishes crabs plants etc. Power radiation equipment, what will it do to them.)
    \> {What’ll it do to US? Eat quantum-farmed lobster! Grow your own gills!}
    \> (Is that true!?)
    \> {Guess we’ll find out!}
    \> [Police response inappropriate & unacceptable. Should have supported postponement until investigation