Read Online Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) by Niall Teasdale - Free Book Online Page A

juice, and then she followed Jackson out into the solarium, which acted as both a nice place to sit and a link into the more private areas of the house. The place continued to impress her: Jackson was a technologist, but he had the money to buy physical decoration and was old enough to prefer the real over the virtual. His home was beautiful, elegant, and with little in the way of virtual enhancement which was not there for function.
    ‘Teresa is over in Oslo until Monday,’ he said as she sat down on a lounger beside the one he was stretched out on. Beside them, an entire wall of glass gave them a view of the park which took up the central section of the spire’s top. Above them was sky, shading toward a darker blue in the thinning atmosphere.
    ‘Well, I came to see you. Because you said I should.’
    ‘True. How was the Moon?’
    ‘Grey.’
    ‘Yes, well it generally is. I heard about the little incident with New Moon, however.’
    ‘I’d imagine it made news. A mercenary pretending to be UA. A corrupt cop caught by the newest of LCSS’s units and a NAPA consultant. Gunfire and explosions.’
    ‘All very exciting, yes. I have a far less exciting Technologies research facility out there which Sanderson Hunt had no reason to go near, but he seemed interested in the place. It’s in the Jenner crater. You need to try to get there and he did. Recently. He’s on my list of people I think subcontract their loyalties to other agencies.’
    ‘His background stinks of NIX. I’m glad it’s not just me that thinks so, but what have you got out there that they’d be interested in?’
    ‘Ah, well… That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you personally. I restarted the Dallas nanotechnology research, and I was hoping to keep it away from United Anarchy by putting it up there, but NIX were always quite keen to get their hands on that work ahead of time too.’
    Fox forced her fists to unclench and then remained silent as a service robot rolled in with her food, placing the tray down beside her and then retreating on silent, motorised wheels. ‘I thought you’d decided that research was too dangerous.’
    ‘I discussed it with Teresa. Actually, she discussed it with me. She’s quite determined that it should go on, I think because of what happened to her in Dallas. This technology has so much promise, Fox. It could literally revolutionise our production systems. You have no idea. I’m putting the prototype into the new tower. Production at twenty times the rate we have in current fabrication facilities, creating new materials at the molecular level. In your lifetime, we could see unheard of materials, nanoscale robotic devices capable of repairing damage at a cellular level. Miracle science, Fox. That’s what we’re talking about.’
    She peered at the man in the baggy jeans and the surfer singlet. To her knowledge, he had never ever been a surfer, but the image suited him. That said, as far as she knew anyway, he had never tried weed and she felt that was a surfer-dude requirement. ‘You don’t have to sell me on the tech, Jackson. I just got the impression you viewed that line of research as… sensitive. And I don’t mean commercially or socially.’
    ‘Huh, well, it could be the latter. Disruptive technology. I hate the term, but this is. I was… loath to continue after what happened in Dallas, but…’
    ‘But you can’t resist a technical challenge. After meeting you I kind of understood what happened to Oppenheimer. Okay, so you think Hunt got his hands on some of the research, and someone killed him for it?’
    ‘That’s where it gets strange… Why kill him on the flight back to Earth? If they got the data on the Moon, why not kill him there? If they don’t have it yet…’
    ‘They’d have waited. I guess that’s my job. I know what to look for at least. There was a data stick in his cabin terminal when I got there.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s all getting run. We’ll see what comes out.’