Twenty minutes was an eternity to an AI. EuPol Central did this because he did not like being called Hughie, which Richards unfailingly did. He did it because he did not like Richards' attitude, which arose mostly because Richards insisted on calling him Hughie; but most of all he did it because he liked to make people wait. "Richards," said Hughie, testy as usual. "Hey, Hughie, how're you doing?" said Richards. "Don't call me Hughie," Hughie said, more testily. The air in the hall grew colder. "What do you want?" Richards looked round Hughie's hall with a wry smile. Hughie believed he was Very Important, and wanted everyone to know how Very Important he was. As a case in point, Richards wasn't really in Hughie's hall. The actual hall was deep under Geneva. Richards was online, in his usual attire of trenchcoat, hat and rumpled face. There was nothing so twee about Hughie, no costumes delineating his character, no snug virtualities of antique drawing rooms or wild ocean shores for a visitor to relax in, just an exact rendition of the vast, utilitarian space he dwelled in within reality, surrounded by hundreds of lesser AIs, connected to each other and to Hughie by snaking bundles of fibre optics encased in ultramatt black carbons.
