The following morning, Sol picked Beth up from home as they had arranged, and the two of them drove to Jupiter. Along the way, they chatted about unimportant things, as they had been doing the previous evening, and it wasn't until they where at the office that they even mentioned the reason they were there.

Sol used his key to open the front door, and his card to get them into the office proper. As it was Saturday, the place was deserted. It seemed a lot bigger than it did when it was full of people.

"Hang on," said Beth, looking around, "What happened to constant vigilance? I thought we had to keep things running 24/7."

"It's Bill's shift today, I think." replied Sol, who was already sat at his desk starting up the interface to the WorldPulse test system. "He can monitor everything from home. It's all handled remotely anyway - this place could be hit by a bomb, and Jupiter would be able to set up a fully functional office somewhere else within a couple of hours."

"Really? You've thought about this?"

"Somebody has. Haven't you read the disaster plan?"

"Disaster plan? I think that one passed me by."

"It was in that big pile of papers everyone get's given on the first day." He was still tapping away at the keyboard.

"Oh. In that case, I've probably got a copy somewhere. I've just not read it."

"It's not all that vital; you get emailed the important stuff at the time, so as long as you can check your mail from home you'll be O.K."

There was a pause. Beth shuffled he feet.

"Do you want me to come round and set it up?"

"You do know what I do for a living, don't you? I'm perfectly capable of setting up a bloody e-mail account. I've just never seen the need to before. I've got my personal one at home, and I'd rather keep the work stuff firmly within work hours."

"Might be a good idea to set it up, just in case."

"I suppose so."

Beth moved up behind Sol, and leant over his shoulder with one hand on the desk, and the other on the back of his chair.

"Is it ready, yet?"

"Just about." He tapped out a few more commands, and after a brief pause the window began to fill with a slow stream of cryptic stanzas. "There we go."

Beth studied the text for a few seconds. "I have no idea what any of that means."

"It's not important - I don't understand half of it myself. Ted's your man if you're interested in that. The useful bit is this." He brought up the analysis window. "I can enter the details of a search here, and I can also enter my opinions or interpretation of the results."

Beth looked at him. "So, it's not just the computer, then? You're still a part of it?"

He turned to face her. "Yes. In the regular setup, I'm still doing most of the actual analysis; the system just provides me with material. In this version, the computer does a lot more, but I still need to guide it."

"So, what are you going to show me?"

"Well, what do you want to know? Horse races?"

"Been done. How about," she looked at her watch; it was just before half past eleven. "How about the top three items on the lunch time news? That gives you half an hour."

"Top three?" Sol smiled. "I'll give you all of them."

Beth sat staring in disbelief at the tiny window on the screen. Sol had been as good as his word, and had predicted every single item on the news. As people are wont to do in such a situation, she started looking for a trick.

"It's a recording." she said, without much confidence.

"Nope; it's the live stream - look." Sol showed her where the stream was coming from.

"Well, it's..." she trailed off as Sol watched her.

"You know someone at the BBC?" she lamely concluded.

Minerva Consulting had been formed two weeks ago, and had moved into it's premises in the centre of London a few days latter. As such, the building had a half-finished quality to it. Some of the light fittings were still dangling from the ceilings, wires all over the place (the electricians assured them they weren't live). An area at the back of the main office space was partitioned off behind a huge white expanse of translucent white plastic sheeting, and thick bundles of cables snaked there way across the floor. It was obvious to anyone that the building that a large team of technicians were still transforming into a modern, antiseptic office had until recently been the remains of something much more blue collar - in actual fact, a small printing works. However, there was heating, and light, phones and networking, and enough desks for everyone, so there was no reason not to start moving in.

Professor Maxwell, a grey-haired and slightly tweedy man of about sixty, had arrived early that morning with a cardboard box full of various photographs, souvenirs and gadgets, and had spent a little time making his desk his own. One by one, his new staff drifted in, until by ten o'clock they were all there. Maxwell called them to the large open space in the middle of the old factory floor, and began to speak.

"To begin with, I'd like to welcome you all on your first day at work for Miranda Consulting. As you can see," he gestured at the plastic sheeting, "our surroundings are less than luxurious at the moment, but I am assured that that will change in the near very future."

There were a few smiles, but no laughs; nobody was confident enough that he had meant it as a joke.

"You all know me, and you've all met Mr. Johnson, our operations director." As he said this, large man in a dark suit nodded and half raised his hand. "Many of you also know each other. Practitioners of our particular field are few and far between, and in such a small community people are bound to get to know each other. However," he paused, and looked around the assembled group, "I must ask that, from now on, you do not discuss your work here with anyone outside this room. The first project that we have been hired to undertake is of a particularly sensitive nature, and I have assured the client that their privacy is certain. I am confident that I can trust everyone here to maintain the required level of professional discretion."

His audience shuffled uncomfortably. This wasn't the standard welcoming speech; he'd actually said something important. While it wasn't something that any of them were particularly bothered by, it wasn't what they were expecting.

"Before we begin the work proper, we have the usual raft of administrative trivia to go through. On the desk by the door you will each find an envelope with your name on; this contains the usual litter about health insurance, your employee handbook, details of your network accounts, and so on. Get that, find a desk (it doesn't matter which - I'm sure you're mature enough to sort it out amongst yourselves), and get yourselves settled in. I've booked tables at a restaurant for one; that should give us a chance to get better acquainted."

He clapped his hands together and got up from the desk on which he'd been leaning. The group broke up and made a bee-line for the front desk to pick up their envelopes. As it happened, Maxwell estimate of their maturity was slightly high; even though the youngest was in their late twenties, the squabbling for desks would not have been out of place in a primary school. They eventually settled down and got on with the boring necessities of starting a new job.

After Sol had dropped her off on Saturday, Beth had spent the rest of the weekend reeling around in a daze. She would sit in front of the television, not watching it, and drinking a bottomless up of tea, and then get up and wander aimlessly around her flat, then go back to watching TV. By the time she drifted to bed on Sunday evening, she still hadn't quite assimilated everything.

Monday morning was busy, as all Mondays mornings tended to be, so she hadn't had a chance to talk to Sol. He was in a meeting when they would usually have their coffee break, so she made her own coffee and drank it alone at her desk. At noon, she went to Generic Sandwich Shop as usual, and then repaired to the now-vacant meeting room. She hoped that Sol would turn up there with his lunch.

She was reading the paper, trying to pay more attention to the details than she usually did, when a familiar voice suddenly interrupted. Isabelle had sat down opposite her.

"How's it going?"

Beth looked up, but didn't say anything. Realization dawned on Isabelle's face.

"Oh; he told you, didn't he? Pretty weird, isn't it?"

Beth stared at Isabelle for a long time before speaking, and when she did her words were tinged with the slightest hint of vitriol.

"Weird? Is that all?"

Isabelle ploughed on, seemingly oblivious to the frosty reception that her previous comment had received.

"Yeah, don't you think? I mean, it's not the sort of thing that happens every day."

"No. You're right. It doesn't happen every day." Beth folded the newspaper, cooly and deliberately, and pushed it to one side. Then she started bellowing at Isabelle at the top of her lungs.

"Weird? Weird! Sol discovers a way to predict the future, the actual future, and all you can describe it as is weird? Don't you have any fucking idea how much the world has changed since he showed me that bloody machine?"

Isabelle shrank back in her chair and looked around her for reinforcements. There weren't any; they were alone in the room. Beth leaned forwards, and dropped the volume of her voice, although she was still speaking with the same baleful force.

"Don't you have any conception of what this means?" She didn't wait for an answer. "No, of course you don't. Nobody does yet. But you've not even thought about it, have you? The consequences haven't even begun to trouble your tiny little mind, have they? Jesus, you make me sick."

Isabelle was a hair's breadth away from tears, but she was still looking Beth in the eye. Beth threw her chair back and tried to make her way to the door. She literally ran into Sol, who had been standing behind her.

"What's wrong?" he said quietly.

She looked at him, then turned and walked away, towards the other end of the room, ranting as she went. Sol glance at Isabelle, and then followed her.

"Not you as well! The entire world had been turned upside down, and nobody seems to realise it! I've been trying to understand what this all means, and I've no idea where to start. It's just too big."

Sol put his hand on Beth's shoulder and gently turned her around.

"Imagine. One minute, I'm sat there, happily working away, and the next minute I realise that I'm part of a machine that predicts the future. How do you think I feel?"