And then, one day without warning, the crystal in his brain would summon him to London and he would go through the computer for the last time. That had been the plan.
Blade now changed the plan. He directed the driver to take him to the Tower of London, the old Watergate side.
The cabby, an ancient character with a Bairnsfather moustache, advised against it.
«Be closed now, mate. Them bloody beefeaters locks up shop at four sharp. Wasting your time, you'd be.»
Blade was surprised at his own reaction. It was most unlike him, yet he heard himself snapping, «Take me to the Tower fast, and keep your bloody advice bloody well to yourself. Understood?!»
«Yessir.» The cabby turned to his wheel with a shrug. You got all kinds. But if this toff was a tourist he was Prince Philip.
Chapter 2
Lord Leighton was not pleased with Blade's decision. He sat hunched sideways in his chair and stared at the younger man with yellow eyes, looking every bit the hunchbacked and evil-tempered little gnome he was. Lord L was very old and very famous and quite properly considered himself the foremost cybernetic genius of his time.
«It is not nearly time,» he complained. «We've only just implanted the crystal. Your hair hasn't even grown in yet.»
«Damn my hair,» said Blade. «I want to get on with it. Otherwise I might not go at all. I might funk it.»
J had been sitting quietly in a corner, sucking on his pipe and listening and watching, rather enjoying himself. Enjoying Lord L's discomfiture. J had noticed that in himself of late-more and more he had come to dislike Lord L, and all scientists, and he had struggled against it and lost.