

STREET: EMPATHY

By Ryan A. Span

Gryphonwood Press

545 Rosewood Trail, Grayson, GA 30017-1261

STREET: EMPATHY. Copyright 2008 by Ryan A. Span

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American copyright.

Published by Gryphonwood Press

www.gryphonwoodpress.com

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously, and are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Jan Pospíšil

ISBN 10: 0-9795738-3-1

ISBN 13: 978-0-9795738-3-5

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: March, 2008

Part 1

Gina was an early bird. She was class. She got out of bed well before the competition, rested and ready, and she always showered before going out to work no matter how many hundreds of dollars it took to satisfy the Clean-O-Mat across the road. The rented coffins at Easy Hotel didn't come with showers, but Gina didn't mind. The Clean-O-Mat was cheaper.

The synthleather purse under her arm contained all her essentials. Lip gloss, make-up, stockings. Next to the make-up case was her trusty old anti-creep device, the Mk5 military taser, bought years ago at an army surplus auction. She never regretted the purchase. It had saved her life more than once out on the Street.

She always wore a cheap business suit to work, a form-fitting little number with a skirt so short it could only be studied under a microscope. It made her look like a slutty news anchor. The customers always liked that, the perfect mix of good girl and bad girl.

The only thing to break Gina's illusion of respectability were her leather combat boots. People of her occupation couldn't afford fancy shoes, at least not ones that fit. She'd seen other girls walking the Street in hooker heels and pink rubber skirts, Frankenstein's monsters of plastic surgery, like drowned corpses under the neon light. But not Gina.

No, Gina was all natural, all class. She smiled a lot, a pretty smile with nice teeth. The customers liked that too. And they liked boots better than heels. They added a little spice to her image, caught the eye of more potential customers. Men, of course. It was the look that drew them and Gina looked the best. Women were a little different, passed her by as often as not, depending on what did it for them. They could always find men in the same line of work as Gina, or girls who affected a more innocent image as their 'hook', some even pretending to be first-timers -- but Gina was more respectable than that. Than any of them.

She shook out her long red hair and lit up a cigarette, the only person on the Street before sundown. She could sense the double bottom of her purse, the hard nubs of her pills underneath. The dealers called it 'Mind Rocket', a ride that took your consciousness to new heights. The whitecoats, the hats and the suits all called it 'Spice', some kind of obscure science-fiction reference, Gina had been told. The users just called it 'third eye'. It made you see in ways people weren't meant to see. And out here, it made you enough money to get by one more day.

More people started showing up as the sun disappeared behind a steel horizon, mountains of glass and metal, rectangular giants competing for height. They stood at attention in endless rank and file down the road. No light showed through their dark-tinted windows, just many-coloured reflections as the sunlight was replaced by the colourful glow of neon. The signs and logos rose high above the surface, a random number of letters smudged, damaged or flickering.

Gina picked a spot under a streetlight, the best place to strut your stuff, the safest place. The monsters stayed out of the light. The killings and muggings all happened in the shadows, where the respectable customers never ventured. The competitors who envied her spot knew Gina, knew the taser in her purse, knew to stay the fuck out of her way. And they knew about her contract with the Yakuza, who charged you protection money and would actually deliver if anyone roughed you up. Her spot was her spot.

She kicked at the discarded fast-food wrappers and cigarette butts. Eventually a clearing formed around her, a small island of light on the stained paving stones. She got a lot of envy for muscling into this spot, but she knew how to handle that. She smiled at a handful of late arrivals edging around her spot, lanky people who lived in the shadows of the Street, shifty and smelly and nervous as a banker in the back part of town. Those types usually snorted or shot up their recreational substance of choice the second they arrived. They still got hired, though, by the kind of people who didn't want respectability. Big-shot drug dealers. Russian mafia. The fuckin' Yakuza. Guys who wanted silence, guys who wanted the long-gone no-hopers that wouldn't even consider approaching the law.

They called it the Street of Eyes. Wherever you went, someone was always looking, checking you out. You couldn't scratch your ass without a half-dozen people taking note. You couldn't even think about doing it. You just had to clear your head and wait for a customer to single you out.

The first customers to arrive were always the shady ones who passed her by without a word, headed for the back alleys where the darker deals were made. Soon the others followed, people in suits who looked at Gina with a critical eye. She leaned against the streetlight and arched her back to give them a little incentive. Gina was a kind of saleswoman, after all, and she knew how to make a nice display.

"You free?" asked a voice from behind her, and she turned around lazily to give the speaker full advantage of her curvy side-on perspective.

"If you got the cash, baby, I can do anything you want."

She turned to look at him, her eyes searching for the suit... and stopped. Not a suit. The guy wore faded jeans, a yellow-blue bomber jacket and a matching baseball cap, and he kept both hands firmly in his pockets. That set off Gina's creep detector something fierce. She hated the weird ones, you could never predict what kind of shit they'd do. Her hand went to her purse, to the Mk5 -- but stopped halfway there. She really needed the cash. No sense scaring him off just yet.

The guy smiled at her intense scrutiny. He was looking straight into her eyes, rather than staring mesmerised at her breasts, and that was unusual. If only she could open her third eye now to see through this guy's game. If only. It cost too much to keep it going all the time, 'cause the pills didn't last forever and she needed them to make any money. Worse, eating Spice in front of a potential customer was a sure way to drive him off. It showed you didn't trust him. The Yakuza and Organizatsiya frontmen took that very personally, and Gina did not need a bunch of mobsters after her. Her contract wouldn't mean a damn thing if she offended someone big.

"Honeybabe, I could keep you busy all night long," the guy said. He knew the Street lingo. Translated into English, he'd just made her a formal offer for an entire night of work, as formal as it got on the Street. Something not to be ignored.

"All night long, huh? You got the pockets for it?"

"Not my pockets, babe. I got a sugar daddy who's run 'em deep, deep. You look like a gal who knows what daddy wants. 'Cause daddy wants your eyes."

Gina's eyes narrowed as her interest piqued. 'Sugar daddy' meant the guy worked for some kind of big corp, an agent, a recruiter. They always paid well.

She stepped closer until her lips were almost touching his ear. "I'll do anything daddy likes, if daddy's big enough."

"He's got five hundred big ones waitin' for ya, sugar," he replied, holding up a credit slip. Its tiny LEDs glowed in the shape of the number 500,000. A spinning hologram at the top right of the card caught Gina's attention, the AmeriBank mark of authenticity. "Fifty up front. You want in?"

Fuck it. For a week's worth of cash up front, she'd risk any number of serial killers.

"You got me, baby," she whispered in her sultriest voice. "You got me all night long."

The Street buzzed around them like a pack of hungry vultures. In less than an hour it had filled up to the level of a Japanese subway, islands of people packed shoulder to shoulder with tight paths in between. The business of the Street slowly got into full swing. Drug dealers, greasy food stands, rip-off merchants of every make and model.

Gina and her buyer strolled arm in arm past an old gypsy woman selling beads for six times their worth, his yellow nylon jacket rubbing against Gina's sleeve. Her eyes searched and found the dull understanding and resentment in the faces of those who took notice of her. She kept one hand in her purse at all times, ready for anything, and she flashed the warning hand signal to anyone who got too close. She had a buyer. The ones who didn't had better not get any ideas.

They took a roundabout course to the nearest exit whilst pretending to make empty conversation, never too bold or hasty, never attracting attention. Gina had to admit the man was good. He handled the Street like a natural, like he'd been born to it. The two of them followed the natural ebb and flow of the crowd, made a show of looking at stands here and there while they let themselves drift closer and closer to an outbound intersection. Then, smoothly, without disturbing the flow, they poured into a side street and blinked off the radar.

It was like stepping into another world. The noise and the neon faded behind them, replaced by flickering streetlights and the faceless office fronts of Downtown. Gina looked back once. She always did, and she shivered at the sight. A mass of faces with no names, fishing a poison river.

Her hand tightened on the soft polymer grip of the Mk5. This is it, she thought, her heart beating faster with anticipation and a touch of fear. Make your move, mister. Are you an axe murderer or aren't you?

He smiled the same unworried smile and let go of her arm. "Got some wheels parked around the corner if you don't feel like walkin'."

"Mommy always told me not to get into cars with strange men," she whispered in her teasing way. "Guess I don't listen very well."

Gina's heavy boots thumped against the paving stones as they walked. The alley was abandoned. No one came to the Street from this side, there was nothing here but an old road straight into the heart of the corporate slums. Certainly nothing for Street people except maybe burglary. Corp recruiters certainly knew better than to enter the Street from this direction. It'd be known all over in a matter of seconds, and they would be known, an immediate target for Street people with backers -- be it corps or gangs -- to make their pitch.

That was how most things worked in the City. Covering pretty much the whole of mainland China, it was a mess of towns, villages and cities grown together without any sort of plan or guiding directive. It contained buildings of every imaginable kind within its many districts-- tumbledown slums of wood and bricks in one district, blocks of skyscrapers and modern construction in another. Buddhist temples next to shopping streets next to endless apartment blocks.

It had started out as a big construction program to accommodate the massive population boom in the 2030s after the repeal of China's anti-birth laws. However, the construction never stopped, and soon the expanding towns and urbanised districts grew together into a contiguous region of city all over the country. The City.

Gina thought about stuff like that sometimes, how her world had come to be, how history had shaped things from little seeds into big changes. It intrigued her. Only sometimes, though. Doing it too often was just depressing.

The buyer kept pace beside her, sunk his hands into his pockets and said, "Don't worry, babe. It's just a job, nothin' to it."

She nodded as if she understood. "You got a name, mystery man, or should I just call you 'Bomber'?"

"Bomber?" he asked, momentarily puzzled. "Oh, the jacket, right. I like that. Sure, call me Bomber."

Crap, Gina thought and kicked herself on the inside. "Okay. So where are we going, Bomber?"

"The car." He chuckled at his own joke. "Naw, you'll see. You don't have any plans for tomorrow, right?"

"Would that be a problem?"

"Job might run a little late, is all. Not my place to brief you." Turning around the corner, he produced a small remote control and aimed it ahead of him. Two sets of headlights blinked on, one on top of the other, and the engine started itself with a V8 roar. Sleek black lines gleamed against the night. A tiny Lamborghini logo glowed in neon on the hood. Gina could only smile -- he had to be the real thing to drive a beast like this.

He opened the door for her and, just as she got in, he asked, "Hey, if we're givin' each other pet names, what should I call you?"

"How about 'Beauty'?" she said.

"Perfect." A big grin spread across his face. "Beauty and the Bomber."

She wrinkled her forehead at him. "What?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Strap in."

When she made no move towards her seatbelt, he climbed into the driver's seat, slammed his door, and put his foot down.

Gina screamed.

Bomber opened the car door for her, and she stepped out half-blinded by brightness. The street around them glittered with electric light, almost too much for her eyes to bear, white titanium and glass next to antiqued steel and fake plasterwork, every inch of it clean and shiny and glamorous. Hotel lobbies made of marble and mirrors; squares of too-neat grass and too-perfect trees; club entrances blasting mad flashing colours into the street; clear glass facades showing huge, colourfully-lit fountains all spewing in harmony. It was like an old vid, some sappy flick about romantic entanglements, where the two leads always ended up together on top of a fat pile of cash.

The only thing Gina cared about was the fat pile of cash. Bomber was just another middleman and this, she reminded herself, was not a vid. The glitter was hollow, the smiles feigned. She'd seen the dark underbelly of the rich sections before, little shiny islands in the black soup of the City. They played host to just as many back alleys and shady deals as the Street itself. The only difference was the number of suits.

"Welcome to the Hilton, babe," he said, the first words they'd exchanged since they got into the car. The thunder of the V8 had overpowered any attempt at speech. For that reason the Lamborghini came with wireless radio headsets, but Gina had left hers in its cradle. Talking couldn't have been further from her mind. Every time she went out on a job, the queasy sense of danger hovered in the pit of her stomach. If she wasn't careful, if she let her attention slip just for a moment... anything could happen.

"It's nice," she said as they strolled into the lobby, trying to sound unimpressed by the lavish appointments. Bomber sniffed but made no comment. The stuff in the Hilton's lounge didn't need a dissertation, it spoke for itself. Lush carpets, nice plants filled with surveillance bugs, hand-crafted wooden tables and seats. Very expensive. However, they paled before the main attraction.

Colours sparkled off the massive disco ball suspended from the ceiling at the centre of the hall. Now there was a forgotten relic, Gina thought. Many upscale hotels did things like that now, buying cheap century-old crap and mounting it as display pieces. This one had a plaque and everything, proclaiming the ball to be of some vague historical significance. Gina shrugged at it as they moved forward.

The massed crowd accepted them like drops flowing into a multicoloured ocean. Gaijin of every nationality mixed freely throughout the crowd, quietly resented by everyone else based on their colour and country of origin. The Chinese and Koreans held down opposite sides of the room with a buffer of no man's land in between, pretending not to loathe each other. Clumps of too-clean Japanese sararimen nursed their non-alcoholic drinks at the bar, roughing it down on the mainland, holographic zaibatsu logos tattooed on the backs of their necks.

Gina listened to the hum of the maglev elevator and let her eyes absorb everything on the way up. After a while in the business, you learned to read hotels like books. The Hilton tried to curry favour with its clientele by being unobtrusive in everything, particularly the observation of said clientele. The appointments were lavish but understated, careful not to draw attention to themselves -- soft red carpet, real potted plants at every corner, the maglev elevator with its mirror walls. Gina couldn't see the bugs but caught the subtle implication that they were there, hidden just beyond sight.

A glimpse of silvery film on the mirror in front of her seemed to bear out her suspicion. Millions of nanocams spread out over a huge area, their tiny eyes -- all but blind individually -- combining to form a perfect picture. And up in the ceiling, little pits in the imitation wood panels where audio bugs might be hiding.

There would certainly be more cleverly-hidden systems watching the elevator, though, and Gina didn't want to be too obvious about looking for them. The real stuff would be invisible anyway. Generally, anything you could find with mere human senses would be there only as a friendly reminder from the management. She could mention she needed a drink and there'd be a room service cart waiting at her chosen floor.

A soft-spoken voice announced their arrival at floor 12, first in Mandarin, then English, Conglom, Spanish and Japanese. Mostly gibberish. Gina had been born here, but she had no talent for languages. The only ones she really understood were English and Conglom -- the new monster tongue, swallowing up any and all linguistic diversity between Europe's Recommunist states and the Australian continent. Her lack of education occasionally created problems, but not enough to compel her to start studying again.

The elevator doors whirred open, and Gina swallowed a gasp.

The walls of the 12th floor were covered top to bottom in intricate waterpaints, so beautiful they took her breath away. It seemed like every corner had a new scene to offer. Flowers in full bloom, puffy white clouds against blue ocean skies, tropical beaches at sunset, coral reefs full of life. Gina wandered through it dazzled by the liveliness of it all.

"Nice place, huh?" Bomber said, then shrugged. "Beats the hell out of my flat in Shanghai."

"You actually have a room here?" she asked.

"We do tonight."

His keycard clicked into the slot, the door popped open, and Bomber motioned for her to go inside. Gina's hand once again slipped into her purse, to the Mk5, her unfailing insurance policy. She summoned up her courage and went inside.

The room carried a distinct art style, all sharp angles and primary colours. The walls were no more than coloured cubes on a white gridwork. The retro furniture looked designed for robots, not people -- Gina certainly didn't want to try sitting on any of it. A huge glass coffee table dominated the centre of the room, with gleaming plastic stools arranged around it like big square mushrooms.

A woman rose from her seat at the table. She was dressed in a smooth grey business suit with trousers instead of a skirt, her feet clad in black Italian leather instead of heels. Tall, dark, skin like desert sand and posture straight as an arrow. Although she didn't fill a suit as well as Gina, there was no mistaking her shape.

The woman took one long look at Gina, then said, "This is the best you could do?"

"No less," Bomber replied. He didn't seem at all put off by the reaction. "You're lookin' at the primest rib in the Street right here, make no mistake."

No, there was no mistaking who wore the penis in this operation, Gina decided -- but Bomber obviously believed in his decision.

"She got a name?" the woman asked, still looking at Gina.

"Beauty," Bomber answered for her.

The woman's eyes flicked to him for a moment, staring disapproval. Then she circled around the coffee table and stopped in front of Gina, so close that Gina could smell her breath, as clean and perfect as the rest of her. "A real name."

"Gina," she confessed reluctantly, "just Gina." This was one of the weirdest situations of her entire life. She felt like a little girl caught in front of her schoolteacher, compelled to answer the woman's questions. And 'Gina' was pretty much her name now, even to herself.

"Did you bring any Spice, Gina?"

"A little, ma'am, but I didn't take any..."

The woman paused, nodded her head. Gentle fingers cupped Gina's chin, turning her head left and right. Finally, she said, "How long have you been in the business, Gina?"

"About three years, ma'am."

"Then I have to agree, you do look good. I've seen people lose it after their first dose." She clacked her tongue. "Are you out there every night?"

"No, ma'am, only when I need the money." Then, somewhere inside her, a spark of courage flared up. "Why are you asking me all this? I don't know anything, I'm just here for a job. He promised me a thousand K."

"Five hundred," he corrected her, smiling. "Don't wanna price yourself out of the market, darlin'."

She put on a haughty air and sniffed, "I can leave if you don't want me."

The woman, too, started to smile. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary. You're everything we need. Good-looking, experienced, and tough. Good find, Simon."

"I do what I do," said Bomber.

"So this is about a job?" Gina snapped in frustration.

The woman gave an affirmative hum, still studying every feature of Gina's body. "We need your eyes, girl, and we're willing to pay."

The clock crept closer and closer to showtime as Gina smoothed her borrowed suit, a size too small in every place that counted. She'd worn a miniskirt so long that the lower, classic style felt unnatural and constricting like a thick layer of clingfilm wrapped around her thighs. The jacket was so tight she could hardly breathe. Still, appraising her reflection in a mirrored window, the ensemble looked a little bit more dignified than anything she'd put on in the past decade.

Well, everything except the combat boots, for which they hadn't been able to find an alternative. None of the woman's shoes fit Gina and they hadn't had time to go shopping. Just as well. Gina never did develop an appreciation for heels.

"The mark's name is Lowell," the woman's voice echoed from memory -- her name never quite seemed to stick in Gina's mind no matter how many times she heard it. "First name unknown, alias 'Gabriel'. Over the past two months, we've spent about three billion dollars gathering intel about Lowell and what he does. What we've learned in that time fills about one page of print, if you leave the bottom half blank." She waggled her eyebrows for emphasis, reminding Gina just how deep she was in it. "That's why we decided to recruit someone of your... talents."

Whatever, she thought at the time. The buyers could be as condescending as they liked as long as they coughed up the dollar. With a fifty-K credit chip in her hand, Gina could sit through any kind of lecture. It was a lot of incentive money. Enough to make the night worthwhile on its own, so Gina approached the rest of the job with a blasé attitude. The Street was full of this sort of thing; she couldn't count the number of business deals she'd been paid to 'observe'. 'Facilitate'. They used such lovely words for it.

"He's big in nanotech," the woman continued. "Ties to a lot of corporate R&D institutions, but no one knows exactly how or what. He divvies up most of his time between his activities in the City and an unknown location somewhere in Geneva. The underground says, if you want anything nano-related, you talk to Gabriel." She sighed. "Now you know as much as we do. This is far from an ideal situation. We want to know this man inside and out, by whatever means necessary. Do you understand?"

Gina nodded. Then she said, "Who exactly do you work for?"

The woman smiled and continued her briefing.

Why did I take this job again? she asked herself. The money, sure, but that couldn't be all of it. Business wasn't slow by any means, the buyers loved Gina, she could've attracted any number of other jobs. But she went with this one. The one where the weirdness of the people involved, the tone of the briefing, and her gut instinct all warned her away. A vague scent of danger clung to the whole proceedings.

Strange to think. For some reason she couldn't quite understand or didn't want to admit to herself, she wanted all of that.

They left the Hilton somewhere around ten o'clock, stepped into the artificial brightness of the City. Bomber had disappeared shortly after delivering Gina to the hotel and hadn't come back. Neither had the Lamborghini. The woman simply expressed her need for a car on their way down to the lobby and found a taxi waiting for them by the time they reached the curb.

Afloat in an ocean of memory, she swam back to the present to notice her body entering the nightclub, arm in arm with the woman. She needed the physical support with her third eye open. Waves of thought and emotion rushed into her, a million hot needles pricking her skin, her every nerve tingling with sensation. She could feel bodies grinding together on the dance floor, the mad flicker of colour from high-powered strobes and disco lights, the pounding throb of the music heard through a hundred ears at once.

It was a maze of flesh and steel, pitch dark except for the strobes and flickering spotlights. Rows of half-naked women danced in cages suspended from the ceiling, dressed in all varieties of fetish gear from nurse uniforms to dog collars. A series of little tables lurked at the back of the room where men of taste liked to meet, in full view of the cage dancers while shielded from most of the noise. The woman nudged Gina towards that direction, where a group of men sat waiting at a table.

She recognised him straight away, piecing together features from the grainy photo in his file. Black-and-white laminate resolved into flesh and blood before her eyes. The high forehead, the strong cheeks flowing into an elegant, almost delicate jaw line. Hair like polished copper gleamed under the soft light, and she caught a glimpse of eyes the colour of wildfire.

Hard bronze faces looked up to study the new arrivals, their eyes lingering on Gina's body. They always lingered. Six pairs of them stared openly as she sat down, but she felt his eyes most of all. Smiling eyes, looking straight through her.

The music seemed even louder back here, its hypnotic rhythm coursing through the room like a massive heartbeat. The pumping life of the crowd. She was glad for the bench as she found a seat, legs trembling, barely able to support her own weight. The woman sat down across from her, setting a leather briefcase on the table.

She glanced at Gina with a simple message in her eyes. This is it. Don't fuck up.

"Gabriel," she greeted him, her voice pleasant and inviting.

"Jezebel," he replied. "Who's your friend?"

"An advisor," she replied, glancing at Gina. "I trust her implicitly."

He inclined his head in acceptance and reached out to Gina. She hesitated before taking his hand. When she did, he immediately pulled her arm in close to kiss the back of her wrist. His lips felt strange, soft but dry against her skin. Still holding her hand he asked, "Does she have a name?"

"Beauty," said Gina. She somehow managed to keep the stammer out of her voice. The surreal pulse of the club made her head swim, kept her confused and disoriented. It was so hard to concentrate...

"Glad to meet you, Beauty." He smiled his charming smile, then flicked a pair of logo-printed Camels out of a hidden pocket in the cuff of his jacket. She begged off when he offered one, lying that she didn't smoke. Unperturbed, he vanished the cigarette back to whence it came and lit the remaining one for himself.

After a long drag, he exhaled and finally turned back to the woman. "All right. Let's talk. What do you need with me?"

"I want something," she answered.

"Don't we all?"

"I've been told you can get it for me. If I was misinformed, I'm sure I can find someone who can."

He laughed softly. "She plays it hard, this one. Okay. Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you what it'll take."

The woman smiled and launched into a very technical monologue of which Gina could follow five, maybe six words. She didn't care. She was waiting for a sign from the woman, the tug of an earlobe, letting her know it was time. She half-dreaded it. But, she reminded herself, this was what she did, and she was good at it. A sense of power burned in her bloodstream.

"And that's what we need," the woman murmured at the end of her speech. "What's your offer?" She pulled on her earlobe almost as punctuation. Gina caught it, let out a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate. Slowly, by an effort of will, she submerged herself into the semi-trance of her third eye, cutting through each layer of interference like stepping through a spider web.

Things snapped into focus, sharp and clear as crystal. She could feel the individual members of the crowd, single them out and see them for what they were. She touched the drug-absent thoughts of the cage dancers, gyrating mindlessly to the beat. She sensed greed and suspicion mixing in the minds of the Japanese suits around her, yet she knew that none of them were truly important. Expendable Zaibatsu middle-managers and mob frontmen. None of them made any decisions. They were there just to observe, watching 'Gabriel' in action.

She reached out to touch him.

Cheap horror stories had kept Gina company since she was a little girl. She'd imagined all those feelings a thousand times. Heart-stopping fear, the breath squeezed from your throat, skin crawling like a hundred spiders writhing across your body. But she never experienced it until now.

The third eye trance could do some real fucked-up things to you if you did something stupid, like reaching out to someone on LSD or other psycho drugs. Gina had made that mistake once, by accident, when she was just learning the trade. She still saw pieces of it in her nightmares.

It tasted like that when she entered Gabriel's mind, like breaking into someone else's fever dream, shapes and shadows beyond her understanding. Chaos. Landscapes that changed completely from one moment to the next, a twisted mockery of cities, half-melted skyscrapers sagging forward like old steel skeletons, their windows all blown out, sharp glass shards replacing the grass beside scorched puddles of asphalt. Black hills framed the horizon, where the sky wept acid and the trees begged to die.

Then she realised it was the same city, seen from a hundred different angles, where ash statues of people flaked away in the wind, arms thrown up to shield themselves with eternal futility, lifelike faces carved in horror. Children crumbled to dust in their mothers' arms. The wind itself was no wind, only their screams howling through the streets.

She fought to regain her balance in the emotional whirlwind. Real tears streamed down her cheeks, and real hands tried to hide them, brush them away before they were seen.

Suddenly, the city scattered like bits of torn paper. White silence filled her mind, a blank state of being where nothing could exist, not even vacuum. There was only Gina, observing it without being part of it as she strained to grasp the situation with which she was confronted.

Then a quiet voice in her head said, "You shouldn't do that." And simultaneously through her eyes -- her real eyes -- she could see him sit there smiling at her from across the table. Smiling. As if he knew.

Gina started, her trance ripped away by a shock of cold terror, but her limbs wouldn't respond. When she tried to swim back to her own body, it only seemed to drift further away from her. The city closed in around her, exploding over and over and over again, and she felt her skin blister and burn with the agony that filled the dead statues. She wanted to cry out, but she had no mouth.

She bit down hard, and the sudden taste of blood filled her mouth, real pain linking her back to her own body. She welcomed it. It was a sharp, wonderful ache, and she clung to it as if it were a lifesaver. Inch by terrible inch, the waking nightmare receded, and Gina hung on against it until she saw only the inside of her eyelids. The sounds were harder to shake -- crackle of blackening skin, eyes hissing as they melted and streamed down her cheeks.

When she was inside herself again, more than a little shaken, her terrified strength and determination fled her body. Her head drooped, heavy as lead, sapped by the effort of survival. She licked her lips with a tongue like sandpaper and lifted her wine to her mouth, gulping it down with no regard for taste.

"What's the matter?" the woman asked, interrupting her monologue at Gabriel. "You don't look so good."

"I don't--" Gina began. Suddenly, her stomach heaved, the emotions of her experience flooding into her all at once. She put a hand over her mouth and fled the table. Her unsteady feet took her into the back of the club, desperately in search of a bathroom.

She ran into the ladies' room and dove for the nearest place to be sick into, somewhere between the chipped blue porcelain and the old mirrors made opaque by years of smudged graffiti. The City had few health regulations, and it showed. She doubled over the dirty sink as another wave of nausea hit her, ejecting her Hilton dinner into the rusty drain. Her head was pounding. Afterimages of the wasteland flashed on her closed eyelids, silhouettes on a red sky, as if the whole world were on fire. Gina wanted to scream at them to stop.

Struggling fingers turned on the tap, which spewed out a stream of brown water to wash things down. Too distressed to focus and control it, she endured the chaos of her third eye lashing out at random, like a dog straining at its leash. The drugs still buzzed wild through her system. She felt a young couple hiding in one of the stalls, riding against each other very, very quietly to avoid attracting attention. Their sex-charged emotions hit Gina like a sledgehammer, triggered a blast of arousal hormones straight into her bloodstream, which only served to upset her more.

She was still in a haze when she stumbled out of the bathroom. Wild and half-panicked. What was she going to do? The mere thought of going back to the table frightened her. She never wanted to see those things again. And Gabriel, he'd felt her. He knew she was trying to read him. That frightened her most of all.

"Can help, miss?" someone asked from behind her. She jumped and turned to face the unexpected voice. Before she even knew what was happening, a muscular hand clamped over her mouth and she was dragged out of the club through the back door without so much as a by-your-leave.

Cold steel prickled against her throat. A knife. Hot breath in her ear, a whisper, thick Russian accent, "Don't move. You come with me."

A body muscling her forward, thoughts that stank of lust struggling with some sick sense of duty, trying to decide whether to 'just follow orders' or maybe spend a little time with her in the back seat before turning her over. The thug was twice her size. Even confused and disoriented, she knew she didn't stand a chance. She wriggled, but not so much as to arouse suspicion, while he wrestled her towards an old car made up of squares and rectangles, its make long-forgotten and lost to history. Sadistic pleasure echoed from his mind to hers.

He reached past her to open the door -- and crumpled like a wet rag when Gina pulled the trigger on her Mk5.

"Fuck you too," she spat. She felt dirty from head to toe. Breathing hard with fresh adrenaline, still gripping the Mk5 tightly, warm plastic humming in her hand as it recharged.

"Gina!" someone hissed, again surprising her, and she whirled around to zap him, but a hand caught her arm before she could take aim. "Girl, wake up, it's me!"

She recognised the voice. "Bomber...?"

"Yeah," he said. He didn't look anything like Bomber without the yellow-blue jacket and cap. Instead he wore a pair of jeans and a black blazer that bulged unnaturally at his left armpit. Gina instantly knew it to be a shoulder holster. "Listen, we gotta' get out of here. We got made. When Gabriel finds out you took out the guy he sent to grab you, there's gonna' be serious heat coming our way. Come on, get in the car."

She reached for the door, obeyed without even thinking about it. Then she stopped to think about what she was doing. "You're gonna' steal his wheels?" she asked incredulously.

"Yep," he said, pulling a bunch of keys out of the Russian's pocket. The heap of flesh and bone still twitched every few seconds, eyes still open and moving although he was out cold.

"What about that woman? Is she still inside?"

"Jez'll have to look out for herself. I don't get paid enough to die."

"God," she whispered, her knees weak with panic and confusion. The sight of more Russians running out of the club spurred her into action; she let out a high-pitched squeal and dove inside. "What the hell is going on?!"

"Don't know," he said, leaping into the driver's seat. The rear window shattered into a million pieces as a burst of bullets came tumbling through. Bomber glanced into the driver's rear mirror and said, "Seatbelts."

Gina was appalled at how he could think about seatbelts at a time like this. She soon learned that Bomber drove every car like it were a Lamborghini.

Part 2

The elevator didn't work.

Gina struggled up the stairs in Bomber's wake, picking her way through a maze of ancient beer bottles, discarded syringes and chunks of fallen plaster. Frayed electrical cables and cracked pipes created a constant hazard to unwary foreheads. Dirty white paint peeled off the walls in patches as big as a man. Flakes of it floated everywhere, stinging her eyes and prickling the back of her throat.

Gina was on a first-name basis with poverty, but this was something else.

She sneezed into the sleeve of her borrowed suit and wiped her nose. Worries still plagued her mind. She tugged on Bomber's leg and said, "Won't they come looking for us here?"

Slowing down for a moment, Bomber let her catch up as he scanned the way ahead. "Yaks don't come to Shanghai," he said absently. "Triads shifted them out of here a long ways back. Lot of killing, lot of bad blood still around. They still fight over it sometimes."

"And the Russians?"

"Don't have any resources anywhere close. It'll take them a few days to track us down, more than we need." He glanced over his shoulder down the dark stairwell. Even here, he still had that annoying sense of calm about him, something Gina envied immensely. He remarked, "Y'know, for a Street girl, you're not very turf-wise."

Gina looked away to hide a flush of embarrassment. "I don't get out much, okay?" she said sharply. Then she sighed and muttered an apology under her breath. "Are we there yet?"

He didn't respond, just led the way onto a small landing between stairs, and started to climb outside through an open window. Though on second glance, Gina wouldn't call it so much 'open' as 'gone'. The glass, the frame, even the hinges were either stolen or rotted away.

Gina followed him without batting an eyelash. Craziness seemed to be the order of the day; she just thanked God that the residual Spice in her system was finally wearing off. It was a nasty trip to feel other people's innermost thoughts when you couldn't even keep your own emotions straight.

Across a rusted pile of metal that may once been an emergency staircase, she slipped through another open window into the next building, an old pile of red bricks with a flashing neon sign on the side. This was apparently written in the 'giant pink' style of Cantonese, its meaning forever lost on Gina, but the blinking lights reminded her of her own coffin at Easy Hotel. 'Coffin' was certainly the right word, and she amazed herself with a twinge of homesickness for the place. A book, a pile of warm covers and a familiar roof over her head. If only.

The flat was dark, dank and as big as a palace to anyone used to living in coffins. Bomber hit the light switch, shrugged out of his blazer and threw it over the sofa, revealing the black leather holster under his armpit. Gina caught a glimpse of a sleek stealth pistol with silencer attached. She'd seen enough hits on people -- as a hired eye or just a random witness -- to know a bit about weapons, enough to be very aware what they could do to someone, and guns gave her the creeps worse than spiders.

"Help yourself to whatever's around," he said. "We're safe enough here for the night, but tomorrow we gotta' move."

She hated him for sounding so unafraid, for telling her what to do, for being the only one with a clue, but she was too hungry to blow up at anyone right now.

The kitchen could barely be seen underneath the piles of dirty dishes and half-eaten fast food. The faucet kept up a constant drip-drip, drip-drip, and she decided that Bomber's refrigerator could very well be the oldest piece of functioning technology on the planet. The monotone growl of its cooling unit gave jet engines a run for their money. Inside, it contained a stunning variety of plastic-wrapped microwave meals, dehydrated noodles that could survive doomsday, and a lonely six-pack of Chinese beer.

She grabbed one of the cans, took a sip, and found a pan to boil some water in.

"Do you want anything?" she called.

"No, thanks," he said. "Just here to pick up some stuff."

Thank you for the information, Mr. Talkative, she grumbled in the privacy of her own mind. Glad I'm being kept in the loop around here.

She sighed, went over to the sink and splashed some water on her face. The endless distress and mental exhaustion were taking their toll on her. Yawning, she washed away her make-up and turned off the stove. A look in the mirror satisfied her that she was ready to pass out with dignity. Damned fine mess you've gotten yourself into, girl. What are we going to do now?

The flashback hit her like a bolt of lightning, as sudden as it was overpowering. The twisted city loomed all around her. It was a giant strobe light blasting straight through her eyelids, flashing back and forth between the ash streets and Gabriel's smile, faster and faster until the two merged into one image -- an evil grinning face stretched from horizon to horizon, lording over the dead and wasted landscape. She cried out.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor, and Bomber was holding her. "Gina?" he asked, worried. "What's wrong?"

"I..." she struggled, mouth dry as bone. Her head spun like a blender, up and down and left and right changing by the microsecond until she hung on to her sanity for dear life. Even blinking her eyes sent stabs of white-hot pain into her frontal lobe. She clutched her head and whined into Bomber's shoulder, "I don't know."

Gina nursed her headache in bed while Bomber made up a place for himself on the sofa. She sipped rehydrated tea and vainly tried to make sense of it all. The entire night was starting to blur together in her mind, a sketchbook of colours all running into a dark mess. The only thing she could remember clearly was the burnt city and its poisoned sky.

The bedroom had no door, missing along with its hinges, leaving only a dark patch on the once-red carpet. It was long worn to pink by the tread of many feet, and Gina wondered how long Bomber had lived here. He was a quiet boy, she noticed. He walked in on her reverie without knocking or saying a word, examining the label on a small bottle of pills. He glanced up, meeting Gina's eyes with an unassuming look, and set the bottle down on the rickety plastic nightstand.

"These might help you sleep," he said. "Haven't got much else here. I move around a lot."

"If I had a place as big as this, I'd never leave," Gina replied with a slightly forced smile. She didn't feel much up to chit-chat, but a small part of her insisted it was required after all he'd done for her. Like drag her into this mess, another part of her noted. She really appreciated that.

"Yeah, well, a place you're never at is great for throwin' people off your trail." He shrugged and echoed her smile. "How you feelin', girl?"

"Never better," she said sarcastically. "Could kill for a smoke, though." He laughed like he meant it. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she was here on business instead of living out some kind of bizarre dream. And speaking of business... "Am I still getting paid?"

"Good question. One I ask myself all the time."

A sour smile crossed her lips. "I see. So the Lamborghini..."

"It's mine, just don't show it to the cops," he muttered. "Hey, listen, I know you're pretty humped right now, but I think we need to start askin' ourselves some serious questions. Like what the hell happened back there?"

"I'd tell you if I knew."

"You gotta' know, girl! You're the telepath, right now you're the only one with any answers at all. I watched the whole op on camera and it doesn't make any goddamn sense to me. I just knew somethin' was up when Gabriel started talkin' into his collar, right after you left the table."

She sighed. "Look, you know how, if you're smart enough, you can hide your thoughts from a weak third eye? You just make yourself think about other stuff and lead them down these little mental dead-ends, diversions, while you finish whatever you're doing. Make them lose the signal between the noise."

"I've heard," he said. "Never took the stuff myself."

"Well, you're lucky." She reached for the nightstand and sipped a glass of tepid water. "We all lose it eventually. Just go crazy. Fast or slow, old hands or greenies, it happens to everyone. That's why they pay us. I've been on the Street three years and I've never seen the same crowd survive from one week to the next. Anyway." Gina didn't much want to ride that train of thought right now. She was depressed enough already. "Yeah, it was a little like that, and a little like trying to read someone on heroin or LSD. Bad acid trip."

"Was he on third eye?" Bomber asked, and she noticed his urgent tone. He was a perceptive one all right.

Gina furrowed her brow, forcing herself to think back. "I--" she hesitated, "I don't know. Usually you can feel it, y'know? When someone else has got theirs open, it's like feedback on an old microphone, the same mind-stuff echoing back and forth. You know what I mean?"

"No." He added a sympathetic smile as if to say it wasn't her fault. "So you weren't getting any feedback from him?"

"No," she said. She closed her eyes and screwed up her face as she strained to remember. "It was like... like being pushed under water. Drowning inside him. I saw some stuff, some pretty messed-up stuff..."

Drawing the covers up to her chin, she told the story as best she could remember it. The room seemed to grow cold around her. She started to shiver when she recounted the sudden white blankness, and Bomber got her another blanket.

She finished, "... And then this voice said, inside my head, 'You shouldn't do that.'"

He nodded without expression. "Never heard of anything like that before." Before Gina could respond, he glanced at his watch and abruptly stood up. "Better get some sleep while you can. We got to move early in the morning. We'll sort all this out then. Deal?"

"Deal," she said, and curled up under the covers while he switched off the lights.

She awoke with a strange hand clamped over her mouth. The lights were out, turning the whole flat pitch-black. Not a shred of moonlight, no echo of neon nor even a single LED penetrated the thick black shutters over the windows. There was nothing she might use to see the man breathing into her face, smelling of sweat and cheap aftershave. A rush of panic blasted into her system. She wanted to reach for her Mk5 but it was in the nightstand drawer, out of her reach. She let out a muffled cry and started to struggle.

"Quiet," came Bomber's voice, a whisper in the darkness. "There's three guys at the door and they ain't friendly. We gotta' go. I'm gonna' take my hand away now, but you have to be quiet as the grave. D'you understand?"

Her heart thumped in her throat as she listened, and finally she gave a small nod. Bomber let go of her and she sensed him moving away without sound. When he spoke again it seemed to come from the doorway.

"They'll try jimmyin' the lock first. That'll take 'em a while. Get dressed and get your stuff, fast, but don't make a sound."

Gina obeyed as best she could, tiptoed across the bare carpet, the fabric strange and unfamiliar beneath her feet. Distant sounds of metal scratching against metal. Lockpicks. She slipped into her borrowed suit, collected her purse and the Mk5, then whispered, "Ready!"

A hand came out of nowhere and took hers, leading her through the darkness and out the same way they'd come in. She dreaded going back into the mouldy stairwell, but the only alternative was to stay behind and get killed.

The shutters rustled as they climbed out into the night. The first light to hit her face was the reassuring pink glow of the Cantonese sign, whatever the hell it meant. It took the threatening, alien edge off the situation, pulled all the strange events around her back into the real world-- the world she knew.

To her surprise, instead of going into the stairwell, Bomber led her down a series of rusty metal steps, each one a tiny deathtrap, to an even rustier landing on the second floor. "Can't go out the front," he explained, "they might have spotters. We're takin' the emergency exit."

He shone a small flashlight around the landing until he found what he was looking for. Someone had tied a length of dirty steel cable to the landing and let it dangle all the way to the ground. Bomber didn't hesitate, he simply threw himself over the side and shimmied down the cable as if he were born to it.

Not to be outdone, Gina went right after him, clambering down to the ground with tomboy ease. Bomber stopped a moment to admire her, then pulled her through the alley at a breakneck pace, dodging potholes and the occasional rat on their way to the back street. At the corner he signalled for her to wait while he checked things out, moving to peek round into the street. This was their only way out of the dead-end alley, so they had to be careful.

"One on the street, one in the car," Bomber said as he pulled back into the alley. "Fuck." He worked his mouth as if to spit. "No way to get past 'em without bein' noticed."

"So what do we do?" she asked.

"Diversion. How d'you feel about bein' a streetwalker for the next, say, two minutes?"

Gina scowled at him. "Finally, a chance to use my degree."

"Hey, a girl with your looks could make a fortune." He grinned. "Walk soft. Don't give 'em a good look at your face, they'll have pictures from the club."

"Yes sir," she growled, then walked into the open whilst pretending to straighten her bra. The two Russians at the corner took immediate notice. Gina plucked at her hair, rummaged around in her purse as if putting away some money, seized the opportunity to put on her faded old sunglasses. Now all I need is some bubblegum to chew, she thought venomously.

Putting on a vapid smile, she exaggerated her hips as she walked down to the corner. The man on the street flicked away his cigarette, slipped his hands into the pockets of his long grey coat. His eyes followed Gina every step of the way. His skin was like rough-hewn granite, lined and pallid grey. Gold teeth sparkled in a nasty grin half-hidden below his thick brown moustache.

"Evening, boys," she called, winking over her glasses at the one in the car. "What're you doing out this late? Looking for a good time?"

"No thank you," the street man said. "We are on business."

Gina pursed her lips and pouted, undoing the top button of her jacket. Then she put her arms together in front of her, leaned forward until the too-tight fabric around her chest was ready to burst. "You sure? I can show you around, I know alllll the best spots."

"Sorry. Other time." He was about to turn away when he stopped himself, squinting at her as he studied her face more intently. "Please to be taking off sunglasses."

"Why? Don't you like 'em?" she asked nonchalantly. Under the surface, her heart jumped into her throat, pounding like a drum. "I'll take 'em off for you in private if you want, sugar."

His arms tensed underneath his coat. If he had a weapon in there, he wasn't hiding it well. He stepped towards her making himself tall and menacing. "No. Now."

She snapped, "Hey, step off, buddy! Don't make me--"

Things happened so quickly that she had no time to comprehend it all. The Russian's arm shot out to grab her wrist, his other hand appearing from his pocket filled with a cheap silver revolver. She cringed as his fingers locked around her bare wrist, cold and clammy. She heard his voice muttering commands at her to be quiet. She felt his blood spatter across her face as his forehead exploded.

She cried out and staggered backwards, watching him fall. A rush of air whistled past her ears. Sound of glass breaking. By the time she could begin to run away, the Russians were no longer moving. Each man had one bullet in the head and one in the heart.

"Oh, God," she moaned. She caught herself against the wall, sick to her stomach, while Bomber appeared out of the shadows by the corner, unscrewing a silencer from the pistol in his hand. His movements were quick and precise, his footsteps calm and assured like a predator. His face could've been carved out of stone for all the expression it showed.

"They'll come investigate when these two don't report in," he said tersely. He offered her no sympathy. Nor did he show any remorse for the two men he executed, just two inert lumps of meat spilling their blood across the cracked asphalt. "There's a place we can hide a few blocks from here, if we hurry."

"Who the hell are you?" she near-screamed, putting all her fear and horror into the words.

Bomber responded only with a grim smile and pulled her along.

The warehouse where Bomber stopped was closed off with a heavy door of reinforced steel, recessed deep into the concrete. To a casual observer the blank structure would seem abandoned, but Bomber went straight for the dirty fusebox next to the door. There was a small intercom grille inside, and he pushed the little red button underneath.

A crackle of static. Then a distorted voice buzzed, "State your business."

"Hey, Jock, it's Simon. Open up." He was met with stony silence. Finally, Bomber sighed and said, "I need a favour."

Seconds ticked away without a response. Gina wanted to get out of here, exposed and out of place. Anyone who stood talking to a blank warehouse door for long would attract unwanted attention. Finally, the latch unlocked with a heavy click, and Bomber led Gina into a cramped entry room with another similar door, like an airlock. The outer door closed automatically behind them. It was hot, stuffy, and so tight that Gina felt like she was choking.

The voice echoed all around them now; it seemed to come from all directions at once, electronic and alien. "You know the rules, Simon. No exceptions. Leave the armoury at the door."

Bomber snorted, then took his pistol out and deposited it in an open locker recessed into the wall. The silencer followed it, as did a small pocket knife he kept in his boot. He looked up at the camera and smiled innocently.

"Who's the girl?"

"A guest. Listen, Jock, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to explain all this in person."

"Alright, come on down," the voice said. The inner door unlocked and swung open. Bomber pushed through and glanced over his shoulder to see if Gina was following.

"Jock can get a little nervous," he whispered to her by way of explanation. "Doesn't trust me."

The voice barked a laugh, buzzing with distortion. "I don't trust anyone, Simon, you know that."

Gina could believe it. It was all she could do not to gape. The inside of the warehouse was carefully arranged to seem abandoned, with lots of empty cardboard boxes and long-decaying crates, but Gina recognised the silvery nanofilm spread across strategic surfaces, as well as the glint of lenses hidden in every corner. There was a whole network of laser tripwires, crowded in so tight that a mouse couldn't sneak through undetected.

The place was wrapped up tighter than a nuclear missile silo.

A Chinese man in jeans and a red button-up shirt stood at the door leading below. Black hair tumbled down to his waist, and a large shotgun rested securely in his arms. Bomber smiled and slapped him on the back as if the two were old friends.

"How ya doin', Stoney?" Bomber asked, half-joking. "Still watchin' the door, huh? Did you miss me?"

"Always, Mr. Simon," the man replied without moving a single muscle in his face. "I will call ahead and tell the Emperor you are coming."

Bomber nodded, patted the man's shoulder, and led Gina down the stairs into the bowels of the warehouse. Stoney shut the door behind them and followed, muttering Cantonese into his collar.

The Emperor. The words still echoed in Gina's ears. Everyone in the City knew about the Emperor, the most powerful Triad lord north of Hong Kong, supposedly a descendant of ancient royalty. The Street was a largely Yakuza-owned territory, so Gina had heard all about the Emperor. He was seven feet tall and breathed fire, he was a humpbacked cripple in a wheelchair, he wore the eyeballs of his enemies as a trophy around his neck, he wore women's clothing, he was toothless and had his men chew his meals for him, and he had a taste for sinking his razor fangs into babies right off the spit. It was a favourite topic in Japanese-friendly bars. The only clear fact was that the Yakuza were afraid of him.

"Leave the talkin' to me, okay?" whispered Bomber. "Don't say a word unless someone asks you a direct question. Best way to keep breathin'. I'm here on credit, and these folks don't play nice. So we gotta' play their game."

A final door at the bottom, just as heavy and armoured as the others, swung open. They passed through it into a dark room gleaming with metallic reflections.

Now Gina did gape. The dimly-lit room throbbed and pulsed with activity like a military headquarters, more Chinamen whispering into their headsets and throwing elaborate hand signals at each other in between hammering on their keyboards. A giant holographic cube flickered in the middle of the room, showing something Gina didn't recognise or comprehend. Several men stood watching it, but it was the one at the controls that drew her attention -- a bald Chinese man with a long, stereotypical Fu Manchu moustache, dressed entirely in black. Gina read people pretty well even without her third eye, and this man emitted an unmistakable aura of command.

He stroked his moustache as he read the hologram. Paid no mind to her or Bomber until they were standing at his elbow. Then she noticed one of the men at the Emperor's side, certainly the odd one out of this crowd -- the lone black man in a room full of Chinese people. He was thin and had skin like milk chocolate, blue eyes framed by thick glasses and a slicked-back blonde mop on his head, literally drowned in hair gel. Putting voice and appearance together, Gina decided this had to be Jock.

It was the Chinaman who spoke. "Simon," he said simply, as if tasting the name. "How interesting to see you."

"Emperor," Bomber replied with a slight bow of his head.

The Emperor nodded and turned his attention back to the holo-display. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about these Russians who are currently blowing holes in my city, would you, Simon?" He smiled thinly without deigning to look at Bomber. "I somehow suspect you would. And I think you'd care to explain."

Gina followed the Emperor's gaze into the cube. She saw blood on a distinctly Russian face, tongue lolling out of his mouth in death, a metal garotting wire wrapped around his neck. Her stomach heaved before the camera swung away, showing other bodies, some Chinese. Faint sound of gunshots.

"They were after us," said Bomber. "Me and the girl. We were not the aggressors. How did you get involved?"

"I know everything that goes on in my city. When men enter my territory in force, I send some of mine to ask their purpose. These responded with violence."

"I'm sorry." Silence stretched out further and further. Gina could see the Emperor starting to get angry, cheek muscles working beneath the olive skin. Then Bomber added, "They're with the Yakuza."

The Emperor whipped around, fire in his eyes, and his arm snapped out like a striking snake seizing Bomber by the throat. His other hand whipped a pistol out of some hidden holster, drove the barrel hard into Bomber's nose. The trigger was halfway down before the Emperor got himself back under control. With some effort, his face resumed its passive expression and returned to studying the hologram, muttering threats and curses in Cantonese. The gun never wavered from Bomber's face. "Speak very quickly, Simon. You have run afoul of these... men? You led them here?"

"I have." And Bomber laid the whole story out for him, beginning to end, while Gina remained silent and afraid.

The Emperor was no longer angry by the time Bomber had finished, only sat at the table with a thoughtful expression. These must be his personal quarters, Gina concluded. The artificial creek filled with expensive fish and waterplants was a dead giveaway. The table looked like a solid block of polished silver, and the silverware seemed genuinely ancient. No expense was wasted to try and impress the Emperor's guests.

"Quite an amusing tale, Simon," he said. "You are either a master storyteller or an accomplished liar. And I already know you're an accomplished liar." This last was accompanied by a frosty smile.

"Every word of it is true, my lord." Bomber returned the Emperor's implacable stare. "I have no proof other than the girl, and the people who are now after me."

The Emperor threw him a hard look. "And you came to me for... what?"

"I need a favour," Bomber ground out, as if the words themselves were a weight around his neck.

"So you would owe me, yes?" The Emperor tapped his chin, the question entirely rhetorical. "How very interesting. What is it you had in mind?"

"Food. Shelter. Transportation. Assistance in finding my employer and learning more about Gabriel. And a loan."

Hard fingernails drummed on the tabletop. Cold, calculating eyes swung back and forth between Bomber and Gina. To Gina he asked, "What he says is true?"

"Yes, sir," she squeaked. She silently berated herself for sounding like a frightened little girl. That was exactly how she felt at the moment, but even so. Alone, far from home, hunted, surrounded without a chance in hell of escape if things went south, she really ought to be braver.

"Then so be it." The Emperor snapped his fingers and muttered a few words to his personal aide. The servant retreated quickly, and Gina glanced at Bomber, whipcord tension in his shoulders. He was ready for anything.

The Emperor continued, "You will be my guests here. An expense account is being arranged for you as we speak. I've assigned Jock to assist you in whatever you plan to do, but no one else, and you will under no circumstances attract the attention of the Federals. Make no mistake, guests though you are, I do not wish to see either of you in the command room or anywhere else. Everything except your own room and Jock's quarters is off-limits. You will not leave your room without an escort, nor will you be allowed off the premises without my permission. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly, my lord," said Bomber, and he relaxed his guard for the first time tonight.

Gina understood little of the quick conversation in Mandarin that followed. At the end of it Bomber prompted Gina through their farewells, then followed their newly-assigned escort out of the room.

They were given seats in a small cafeteria, waiting for Jock to prepare his part of the agreement. The place was appointed like a Chinese tea house, filled with deep reds and greens and golds, with a holographic blue sky covering the ceiling and birdsong tweeting from speakers hidden in the walls. A pretty expensive affectation in all. The only nod to practicality over atmosphere that Gina could see was the red vinyl flooring, stained by many a spilled cup.

"That went well," Bomber said after a long silence. They never ordered tea, but a waiter delivered two cups to their table regardless. Bomber thanked him and breathed the bitter steam with relish.

"Looks that way," she affirmed.

"It's not much, but it's a safe place. You'll be able to get some sleep at least."

Gina doubted the possibility of shutting her eyes at all after everything that had happened to her, but didn't say it out loud. She appreciated the effort he was making to put her more at ease. She said, "Can I leave if I want to?"

"Sure. You might not be able to get back in again, but the Emperor won't stop you." He looked into her eyes and could see that that wasn't the answer she was looking for. "I'd rather you didn't, though. I prefer you alive, and I think I'm gonna' need your help."

Gina worked up a smile at that. What a mess, she thought meanwhile. Who the hell do I trust? Why am I even still here? Wouldn't it be better to walk back out there and just get it over with?

When she tried to say anything out loud, however, the words caught in her throat. She realised she did have a choice. Both options carried danger, but how much worse would it be to face Gabriel and that horrible city again, compared to running with this cold-blooded killer and his freaky menagerie of friends?

Worse, she decided, the nightmare flashing back onto her closed eyelids. When she looked at Bomber again, he was still sat waiting patiently for her response.

"Alright, I'll stay," she said. Bomber smiled slightly and drank his tea.

Part 3

The first thing we gotta do," said Bomber as they crowded together in Jock's machinery-packed room, "is figure out how they tracked us. Every bit of ID I got is fake, even the Feds would need at least a day to match my picture to a real address. No crime org could have that capability."

Gina had been right about her identification of Jock. She couldn't guess his age; his chocolate skin was free of wrinkles, but his eyes had a vicious squint to them that would suit any bitter old man. Now he sniffed, indignant, and said, "I could do it."

"We ain't counting you, Jock," Bomber growled.

"Fine, fine." Muttering under his breath, Jock reached for a pair of black goggles studded with electrodes and slipped them over his head. A small black wire ran from the headset into the huge bank of processors along the wall. Gina marvelled at it. This was the first time she'd seen a modern VR crown for real instead of on a TV screen, and it fascinated her. The last time she'd used VR equipment was as a little girl, ten or twelve years old, in—

No, she told herself. She didn't want to think about that, she was done with all of it, all the old things dead and buried.

Furtive fingers passed her a crown of her own, and Bomber helped her put it on. "Jock hates spectators," he explained. Jock only grunted.

"What was all that about owing the Emperor a favour?" she asked, only an hour late. Bomber looked at her silently through the semi-transparent goggles. Then Jock threw a switch, and they exploded into another universe.

Everyone in the modern world knew about this place. It had been described to her a thousand times in exquisite detail, but now it proved that mere words couldn't do it justice. The splash of riotous colour before Gina's eyes almost blinded her. They called it 'the Forum', the central communications hub of the entire GlobeNet network. Rumour had it that the Forum had been around since the late 20th century as a primitive, communal bulletin board for written text. Hard to believe for someone like Gina who had grown up with the bright three-dimensional graphics of what people fondly called 'cyberspace'. But even she had only ever experienced the Forum on a screen, like the majority of people who couldn't afford VR. Now she was standing in the middle of it, shocked and awed.

Everything was glitzy, glossy, shiny like plastic. When she looked up, the sky flashed advertisements at her in three different languages. Bright colours and white smiles beamed down at her from the little gods of TV. The actors were asian, arabian, black and white, yet so relentlessly bland that Gina couldn't tell them apart. The only thing they said was "Buy."

Skyscrapers of every shape and colour towered against the neon sky, unburdened by gravity or other mundane restrictions. Orange spirals rose miles high next to straight-laced black office buildings and Roman temples more fantastic than anything the ancients could've imagined. Further down the street, things only got crazier. Glowing blue pyramids stacked on top of each other which constantly rearranged themselves, a medieval stone tower so tall and thin that a mild breeze would've knocked it over, a giant eyeball supported by columns of gooey green flesh. Geometric spheres and cubes hovered around the cityscape like blimps, shouting out their corporate logos and offering access by the illusion of long rope bridges hanging down to the surface. The only limit to their imagination was bandwidth, and bandwidth was cheap.

"Wow," she said, full of childish wonder at the spectacle before her. She turned to Bomber, but where she ought to find his face there were the generically handsome features of a well-known actor, all dressed up in a black tuxedo and bow-tie. Then she looked down and found herself covered by layer upon layer of thick Victorian frock. A reflection in a nearby glass panel told her that she, too, wore the carefully-sculpted and utterly generic face of a film star.

"Here's the rules," said Jock. She heard both his real voice and the words vibrated into her skull by the VR crown. It sounded like an echo without background noise, the same words only separated by a slight time delay. "Don't say your name, don't try to touch anyone, and don't try to change your avatar. We're completely anonymised through fifteen nodes, so don't fuck that up."

"What's this skin I'm wearing?" Gina asked, watching the reflection as she touched her face. The flesh seemed to respond like her own.

"Your avatar," he replied. "'Julia'. Half the goddamn 'Net uses that goddamn avatar. We'll look pretty nondescript while wearing these, a custom avatar's a dead giveaway and a perfect lead if you want the Feds to track you down. And I am not in the mood for that."

Gina made an 'ah' with her mouth and went back to studying her reflection. She could certainly understand wanting to avoid attention from the Feds, also known as the Federal Police or, more colloquially, the government's jackbooted enforcers, stormtroopers and secret police all rolled into one.

She didn't much want to think about them, though, and her attention was quickly drawn back to the incredible simulation. Even her fingertips believed the illusion as she ran her fingers along the mirrored glass -- she could feel everything, the crown sent a convincing sensation of force-feedback into her brain. Now she understood how people got VR addiction. Tearing herself away from the face she wore, she feasted her senses on the places around her, trying to take in and comprehend as much as she could.

The entrance area resembled a garden gazebo encased in glass, and the path leading out of it looked like real gravel, disappearing into the perpendicular black line of the central avenue. She immediately knew it for what it was, recognised it from a thousand bad TV dramas. Main Street.

Even from a distance, Main Street was perhaps more shocking than the skyline. Literally hundreds of avatars criscrossed it in every direction, a river of human and inhuman shapes flowing both ways. Gina wondered how they kept it from getting congested, then saw it explained as a large walking tree turned down one of the side streets. It waded through other avatars as if they were ghosts. Whenever avatars touched they simply passed through each other and turned transparent to allow their users to disentangle themselves.

Gina had to hurry to catch up when the others started down the path. There was something unnatural about their gait, subtle cues that broke the illusion of reality. Every step they took was the same and their identical avatars moved at exactly the same speed. There was no variation, no hint of individuality at all.

"You two'll need names to get onto Main Street," Jock said. "They're important. Pick one."

Bomber's avatar shrugged. "I'll stick with 'Bomber'."

"Beauty," Gina murmured. She twirled and watched the frock spin around her in a way that was almost realistic. A moment later she noticed Bomber's nickname floating over his head. The letters popped into existence whenever she looked at him, and disappeared again when she turned away. That'd be a handy feature in real life!

Jock rubbed his hands together and snapped his fingers. "Done. Follow me."

"Where are we headed?" asked Bomber.

"Everywhere," Jock said with a thin smile.

Main Street faded into a distant echo as Jock led them off the central avenue and into a side alley. Despite its utterly clean appointments and plentiful sunlight, there was something shady about that alley. It reminded Gina of places leading off the Street of Eyes. The kind where the old-timers told the greenhorns gross-out stories about whose toes and fingers you could find if you looked in the storm drains.

She was so busy looking at the tall, dark office-type structures around her -- they were so drab and lifeless they had to be Fed buildings -- that she almost missed Jock pulling a small credit card out of his pocket. He slotted it straight into the wall and said something she couldn't make out, a password of some kind. A hole appeared just large enough for them to step through and Jock beckoned them inside.

The building was apparently empty. The three of them stood in a space as large as a football field, two stories high, which contained nothing except a single computer terminal in the middle of the room. Gina snorted at the irony, a computer terminal inside VR. They approached it while the wall closed itself behind them, sealing them in.

"Don't ever tell anyone we were here," Jock said curtly. He took his place at the terminal like a master pianist getting ready to punch out a symphony.

"Where is here exactly?" asked Gina.

"Fed database, logs of everything that's ever happened on the 'Net. I hacked in that entrance when I was thirteen. It's crude but it works."

Gina allowed herself to look impressed. "So you could, like, take people's passwords from here? Or see their credit card numbers, or how much money they're stealing from the boss, or find out the name of the prime minister's mistress?"

"Yep," Jock replied. "They let the Feds monitor pretty much anything nowadays. Some of the stuff in this database is so hot, maybe five people in the world have full access to it. Officially." He smiled. "And now we're going to find the source of your little problem. We can talk freely here, the room is clear."

A wave of his hand summoned three floating displays into the air, flickering blue screens like holograms, all requesting a password. Jock slotted his card into the console and the password request disappeared, replaced by a gateway into the deepest guts of the system. The interface was grey, basic and functional, typical Fed design, and it gave its user the power to do anything. After this Jock's hands moved too fast for Gina to follow.

"Let's see where you've been, buddy." He sifted through the data with quick motions of his wrists and fingers, absorbing it all with near-superhuman speed. "Got some camera footage from the Hilton. Looks like your friends already raided your room, made a real mess. Hope you didn't leave anything there."

"Nothing that can't be replaced," Bomber replied.

Jock nodded. "What else have we got here... Oh! My oh my, you've been a naughty boy, Simon! That was definitely you, it's got all your hallmarks. Why Seoul?"

"Seoul?" asked Gina. "What were you doing in Seoul?"

A warning growl rumbled out of Bomber's throat, and Gina was instantly reminded of his stone-carved face half-hidden in the dim lanternlight, moments after he'd executed two people in cold blood. A cold shudder crept up her spine. Bomber said dangerously, "None of your damned business. Either of you."

"Fine, fine." Jock continued the search, unworried. He had a powerful crime lord backing him and no cause to feel intimidated. More data flashed on the screens, scraps of video footage and grainy photos. Gina couldn't imagine anyone's brain working fast enough to follow all of it. It was as chaotic and disturbing as poking around inside someone else's head.

"Ahhh, here we go!" Jock zoomed in on several highlighted lines of figures, access records and 'Net identifiers. "Someone has been casting for you in the past two days. Damn, he's a quick one, too... He had you down to your birth records in ninety-seven minutes."

"All fake," Bomber reminded him.

"Doesn't matter. There's maybe three people I know who can track someone this fast, and I'm one of them." The tuxedoed avatar rubbed its manly stubble, then pointed to a single isolated bit of shaky video. "This is where he nailed you. Amateur vid, a couple of backpackers sent their travel log to someone on the 'Net, and there's the pair of you going into this building here. Once he got the street name..."

The scowl on Bomber's face could've curdled fresh milk. "Fucking tourists."

"Don't feel too bad," Jock half-teased. "It took some serious talent to pin you down so quick. What do you say we pay him a little visit, maybe trash his system?"

"That sounds lovely," said Bomber with revenge in his heart.

Jock pulled his card out of the console and let his arms drop, killing the screens. The next moment they were somewhere else.

There was nothing visually affronting about the blank hallway where Gina found herself. At first glance it could've passed for a corridor in any number of ordinary tourist-class hotels, all drab colours and uninspiring fittings. However, the similarity broke when you looked further, noticed how the corridor stretched on and on into infinity in both directions. Gina and the others seemed to be standing in the middle of it, with endless numbered doors on either side.

"Would it be bad if I were going to be sick right now?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yes," said Bomber. "Very bad." He blinked into the distance a few times and shook his head as if to clear it. "Where the hell are we?"

Jock stepped past Bomber and counted down the room numbers. He explained while he walked. "Visual representation. We're inside my system, these doors are all just ports, possible connections from my machine to the one your guy's using. Right now I'm listening very quietly to see which ports he's got open to the 'Net and what kind of data he's pulling in. There's a lot of ways to hack a system, but it's easiest to masquerade as legit data."

As soon as Jock finished his sentence, a loud pinging sound rang down the hallway, and one of the doors glowed red. It seemed a mile away to Gina, much too far to walk in any kind of useful timeframe, but suddenly, with a sickening visual effect like a TV camera zooming in, the door was right in front of them. Or they were right in front of it. Gina's brain simply wouldn't accept this kind of motion. She caught herself on the wall, her head spinning, trying to fight the crawling sensation between her ears.

"Come on, no time to lose," Jock said as if there was nothing wrong. He opened the door and stepped through. Bomber took Gina by the arm and followed.

Into blackness. Gina could still see herself and the others with perfect clarity, but she was walking on ink-black air in some no-place between computers. She felt her own footsteps distantly, as if through a haze of sedatives, all simulated by the VR crown. It carried the same subtle undercurrent of unreality. Nothing in this world existed, not the identical avatars of Jock and Bomber, not the doorway fading away behind, not even the near-perfect sensation of touch being fed into her brain.

As they went in deeper and deeper, the dark seemed to fill with horrifying sounds and images from her experience in Gabriel's head. The words "you shouldn't do that" rang impossibly loud through her head, and she clamped her virtual hands over her virtual ears to try and shut them out.

Maybe I finally pushed it too far, she wondered. One too many pills, one too many eyes. Am I going insane?

Then it stopped. The black fell away and Gina blinked in shock as she felt sunlight on her face. Smell of fresh grass and flowers, the green glow of perfectly-rendered vegetation, all the sights and sounds of a jungle pulsing with life. All these forests were gone from the world, Gina knew, chopped down or burnt or bombed to ash. This was just a fantasy, a place that couldn't exist in real life. But, she had to admit, it was certainly impressive as fantasies went. She reached out and held a leaf in her hand, tracing her finger along the dark, asymmetrical veins. Its intricate detail took her breath away, far more intense than anything she'd seen in VR. Her gaze travelled up along the back of her hand -- her avatar's hand, pink and perfectly-manicured -- and realised she could now see every pore in the skin.

Somewhere in the background, she heard the growing whine of Jock's computer cooling system, struggling to cope.

"God," Jock said, breathless. "Who the hell coded this? It's..." He gave up trying to describe it. No word in his vocabulary would do.

"Jock? Is this supposed to happen?" Bomber asked. Even he sounded impressed.

Jock shrugged. "This is the lobby, I think. I've never seen architecture like this." He glanced around, then parted the foliage in the direction of what looked like a path. "We better move quick, tying up this much power for long won't go unnoticed."

They walked, and Gina realised she could even feel the breeze on her face. Distant, but sweet all the same. Her avatar walked with supreme grace, never in danger of tripping or falling on the uneven path. It wasn't programmed for accidents. She dragged her fingertips across the wet leaves and rubbed the dewdrops between her fingers just because she could.

The path turned into an overgrown road of yellowed marble tiles, then into a gently curving stairway carved into the rising promontory in front of them. Gina had to stifle a gasp when they reached the top. The promontory looked out over an ocean, but not one that ever existed on Earth. The cliff they stood on was impossibly high, the drop completely vertical, the ocean such a perfect blue that it shone like a great sapphire. The distant sky burned gold with the setting sun.

Ruined columns of the same yellowed marble lay strewn about the promontory. The centerpiece still stood, however, a small tumbledown temple right at the edge of the cliff. Once it would have been impressive, but little was left of it now, just a circle of crumbling statues arranged around an altar stone. Grass and shrubs grew out of the cracks, and colourful insects made their home in the pits and holes of the marble. It filled Gina with a powerful sense of loss, sadness, something beautiful now gone from the world.

Again, the detail got to her. She could see every whirl of colour in the marble, every elegantly-chiselled flourish. And even more beautiful than the columns and statues was the serene marble face protruding up from the altartop, gazing sightlessly at the sky.

"Welcome, weary travellers," it said in an androgynous voice as smooth as silk, stone lips moving fluidly. "The Angel recognises you. Please present your offering."

"Our offering?" Bomber and Gina echoed in near-perfect chorus.

"Password," Jock said dismissively, drawing the little credit card out of his pocket. He placed it on the altartop, tapped it smartly with a finger and stepped back. Gina frowned at it. The way Jock used it, there had to be more to that card than met the eye.

The stone face puffed out a happy sigh. "The Angel accepts your offering. Pass, and be blessed." The card hovered off the altartop and deposited itself back into Jock's pocket.

A shimmering doorway of light appeared between the two farthest columns right at the cliff's edge, a portal into another world. Gina caught a glimpse of bright colour on the other side. In the real world, anyone trying to step into that illusion would plummet screaming to their death on the rocks below, but in VR the illusion was reality.

They moved through one by one, Jock leading the way. Gina blinked at the sudden and complete change.

The blue sky gave way to pure black, starless, the colour of a dead monitor. The ground was the same except for a grid of silver lines drawn across it to give it perspective, like some ancient video game. The only piece of scenery was a giant blue cube hovering in the distance, larger than most mountains. It was connected to the ground only by a small silver line.

The vastly different environment bewildered Gina, a bit lost from the new images thrown at her in rapid succession. There were no limiting factors in design or construction in VR. Anything could be built here, and anything was built here. It took another moment to adjust her senses into accepting what she saw.

Squinting, she realised there was movement, so far away that it became hard to make out. Parts of the cube were shifting and moving around inside the main body, rearranging at lightning speed, never using the same shape twice. And, mounted on a tall pyramid on top of the cube, a lidless electronic eye surveyed the landscape from a god's eye point of view. It turned around its axis several times while Gina watched.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jock's ashen expression, wondering what might upset him so much. When she followed his gaze back to the cube, a surge of alarm jolted into her system. A moment later the eye abruptly stopped spinning. A deep voice boomed out of nowhere, and the eye whipped around to regard the group with terrible judgment.

"I am the Angel's Sword," it said. The words choked all breath from Gina's throat. The voice was Gabriel's. "In His name, I recognise you. What do you require of me?"

"Jesus Christ!" Jock shouted. He got the card out of his pocket again and yelled into it, "Run program Black Watch, condition red, execute!"

Everything spun and whirled in front of Gina's eyes. Agony and sickness threatened to overwhelm her as the virtual world seemed to fall away from her, tumbling into nothing. She saw Gabriel's smile waiting for her, his skeleton city littered with ash under its dead sky. Gina cried out and violently tore off her crown. It skittered into a corner and hung limply by its wire while she curled up on the floor and wrapped her arms around her head. Fumes of burning plastic filled the room. Another fan went on somewhere, slowly sucking the smell away. The molten remains of Jock's networking hardware congealed into a clear glass bubble by the door.

The sound of shouts and argument intruded into her private pain. Jock's voice was near to panic. Bomber sounded pale and rusty. She didn't want to listen, but her ears would not obey.

"That's an AI!" Jock bleated like a distressed sheep. "What the hell are you messing with, Simon?! What have you done?"

"I don't know!" growled Bomber. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"It's bigger than you, Simon. It's bigger than you, it's bigger than me, and I don't want anything to do with it!"

"Come on, Jock, you've got to help me figure this thing out, we made an agreement."

"No." Teeth chattering, Jock paced around in a circle and rubbed his hands together. "No, no, you've got to go. I need to get to a terminal, a public terminal to wipe out the logs. If I'm fast enough I can intercept it before it can trace anything to my connection. And then..." He turned on Bomber again, furious. "Out! Get out, leave me alone! And don't come back."

Brow curled into a deep frown, Bomber picked Gina up in his arms and left the room, leaving Jock to grab his coat and gibber to himself in pure terror.

Later, alone in the room prepared for them, Gina sipped a cup of tea and stared at the wall. It was hung with interesting tapestries, but Gina never saw them. She was much too preoccupied with her own woes. Bomber sprawled on the bottom bunk looking as deflated as Gina felt.

A sour smile crossed her lips. "So I'll be going home tomorrow, huh?"

He glanced at her with his simple, guileless brown eyes. "Sure, if you wanna be hacked into a million pieces with a machete. No problem."

"Well, we're not going to find out anything sitting here," she pointed out. Her head still throbbed from the virtual nightmare. She couldn't close her eyes anymore without seeing ash statues in the streets, smoking and crumbling in the acid rain. Small wonder she couldn't sleep. Just lay awake shivering and sweating on her sheets.

"Nope," he agreed. Of course he said nothing else. Gina thought about it with black humour, and quickly lost count of the silent seconds slipping away. Finally he stirred again. "You saw somethin' back there, didn't you? Again?"

Gina swallowed, putting her cup down. "Yeah."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

A flash of irritation crept up her spine. She'd been putting up with this bullshit for some twenty-four hours now, and one Bomber was just about annoying the fuck out of her. She was tired of it, all of it, pushing to her feet with wrath on her face.

She started off at a shout, saying, "Why the fuck do you even ask if you're not going to press for the answer?! Do you even care?! God!" It only got louder from there. "You got me into this, it's your fault, I've never done any wrong to anyone! I don't believe this! I, I just," her voice cracked, "I want to go home and... And..." A dry sob forced its way up her throat. The rush of emotions was too much to contain. Moisture filled her eyes, and she covered her face with her hands, sniffling.

"Hey now, no need for that," he said, standing up to put an arm around her shoulders. "Listen, we're gonna' get through this. We are. First thing, though, we gotta' get you some help." He put a finger under her chin and made her look up at him. "I think maybe you picked up somethin' while you were inside his head. I don't know. Somethin' like that. D'you know if there's anyone on the Street we could go to that knows about this stuff? That maybe can find out what happened to you?"

Scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands, she rallied herself, getting her feelings back under control. She took a deep, sniffling breath, and let it all out. It relaxed her a little.

"Not on the Street," she said, turned away from him to dig a paper towel out of her purse. "Someone, though. Retired. Used to show me the ropes when I was new there."

Bomber raised an eyebrow. "Retired? Ain't many telepaths that make it to retirement that I know of." "I know. I wasn't planning to, myself." She bit her lip, wondering why she'd said that. "Anyway. She might know something, if we can get to her place without running into any machetes."

"They'll keep their heads down for a while. They know we're dangerous now. No, they won't make their move until they're good and ready." He seemed to reach a decision. "We'll head on over there in the mornin', first thing. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, unsure of how to show gratitude. It wasn't something she had cause to do very often, not on the Street.

In a rush she kissed him on the cheek and whispered, "Thanks," then dove headlong back into her bunk without waiting for a reply, too afraid of what it might be.

Part 4

The morning smog smelled sweet and fresh. It was so unlike the sweltering afternoon smog that choked the life out of plants and people alike, or the tired evening smog that tasted of smoke and oil. Dewdrops glittered in the haze like crystals, cool wet fingers where they touched Gina's skin. Looking up, she could almost see the sky.

She walked hand in hand with Bomber down the beachfront. Poisoned silver sand crunched under her boots and filled up her socks, but she didn't mind. It made her feel like a little girl again, six years old and playing by the sea.

"Do you think we're being watched here?" she asked.

Bomber glanced around, squinting as if against the wind. Of course, there was no wind here, not a breath. The air never moved.

"Possible," he said neutrally. "Can't see any cameras, but that don't mean they ain't there. At least they ain't built the satellite that can see through this crap. Not yet, anyway." He snorted and gave the sky a flippant salute.

"You're really not from around here, are you?"

"Mississippi. Before the bombs, anyway."

She nodded sympathy and fell silent. Nuclear annihilation was the last thing she wanted to think about, not with the twisted city and its ash people hovering on the edge of her awareness, waiting for a moment of weakness.

A brightly-painted beach house rose tall and blue out of the mist. It was a high and narrow building roofed with dark ceramic tiles, probably larger than it looked from the outside. Gina smiled to herself, remembering. One time, two years ago, she'd stayed here a few days getting away from the Street. Later, saying goodbye again, a voice told her she'd always be welcome here, but she never came back. Funny thing. She couldn't say why.

Someone stood waiting for them outside in the gallery, dressed in a thick red jacket and long brown skirt. The gallery around them, however, was the colour of the sky, the way Gina remembered it from when she was a girl. There had been birds in it back then, real birds, and it had been safe to walk in the sun without blocking cream.

She was too distracted by the house to notice the figure rushing towards her. Suddenly she found herself engulfed in a pair of strong, wiry arms. The woman embracing her was a full head shorter than Gina but had no problem holding on, her skin tanned like a ripe olive, gleaming black hair hanging down to her ankles. Gina put her arms around the woman and bit back a sniffle.

"It's good to see you too," she said. She glanced up at Bomber, who stood awkwardly to one side, and smiled to let him know everything was all right.

"Never thought I'd set my eyes on you again," the woman sighed. She stepped back but still held Gina's hands, beaming. "Look at you! Two years and you haven't aged a day. It's shameful, you make the rest of us feel old."

Gina shook her head. "I could never make you look old, mei-mei. Where's Onounu?"

"Inside. You know how she hates the cold." The woman grinned and gestured them towards the front door. Her prominent Chinese cheeks and the crow's feet around her eyes made her look like a merry little goblin. "Come on, come on! We've got a fire going and some soup, fill you right up, I know how bad you eat, and don't pretend it's not true. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

Rolling her eyes with exasperation, Gina went ahead and surrendered in advance. She knew there was nothing on this Earth that could dissuade Mashei -- the determined, some would say relentless mother-hen of the house -- from being who she was.

"Mashei, this is Bomber," she said patiently. "He's the one that's been getting me into trouble."

"Oh, I'll be having some stern words with him later." Mashei smiled warmly as she closed the front door behind them, sealing out the wet and cold. She unwrapped herself and threw her heavy jacket on the coatrack. "Please take off your shoes. They'll be safe here, don't worry."

Bomber and Gina followed her example. The air inside tasted of smoke from a stove in the corner of the living room, merrily burning driftwood. It filled the house with cozy warmth. Gina shuddered with pleasure and hugged herself, hands gripping the rust-stained elbows of her borrowed suit. Here was a place that felt like home no matter where you were from, its walls panelled with rough, honest wood and bearing hundreds of old photographs of the people who gave the place its life.

Before they even had a chance to protest, the two of them were pushed down onto a tired old sofa and handed ceramic bowls full of steaming hot broth and dumplings. "I'll go get Onu," Mashei said and disappeared upstairs.

While Bomber sat blinking at what had just happened to him, Gina stared into her bowl and made a face at it. She smiled wryly when he gave her a questioning look. "Won ton soup, she's been trying to feed me this ever since we met. I hate won ton."

"I'll take it if you don't want it," he said, digging into his bowl with relish. She put hers on the table in front of him.

"Knock yourself out," she announced.

The broth was gone in seconds, and he let the remaining dumplings fall into his mouth like doughy ping-pong balls. He mumbled through a full mouth, "Never give up a free home-cooked meal." Then he swallowed and let out a contented sigh. "Best food I've had in months."

"Thank you," Mashei whispered humbly from the doorway. She stepped back into the room, arm-in-arm with a much taller but similarly Chinese woman, two polar extremes of oriental physiology. Where Mashei was short and sturdy, Onounu was thin and delicate, with a heart-shaped face and eyes that seemed to go straight through you. Gina still felt a stir of unease whenever she gazed into those deep brown pools. Eyes that had looked a little too far.

"It's good to see you, Gina," said Onounu, "we've missed you." Her voice was soft and musical, and her eyes pierced Gina like she was transparent, made of nothing more than smoke. "I'm glad you came. There may not be much time." She gestured at a side door without any change of expression. "Come, let's begin."

The thick smell of incense stung Gina's nostrils. She knelt on the red carpet of the chamber and waited. The borrowed robe swished across her shoulders like silk. Mashei had insisted on washing Gina's suit, if not burning it, and Gina was happy to wear something else for a while. Bomber looked vaguely uneasy from his seat in the corner, and he coughed into his hand, finding the pungent smoke hard to breathe. A thin film of sweat covered his skin. Gina could see it glisten against the candlelight. The room was stifling humid and getting hotter by the second.

"This ain't really necessary, is it?" he whispered to Gina as Onounu lit the last stick of incense.

"No," Gina replied with a lopsided smile, "but I think it makes her more comfortable. Now shut up, would you? I'm supposed to be clearing my head."

Mashei stood watching the whole preparation from the doorway. She wore a serious expression that seemed out of place on her smile-worn features. At last, when everything was ready, she hugged Onounu and the two shared a long kiss. Then Mashei retreated from the room, leaving the others to get on with things.

So is anything wrong with her?" Bomber asked despite Gina motioning for him to shut the hell up.

A gentle smile creased Onounu's face. "That's what we're here to find out." The grey streaks in her thin brown hair seemed to writhe in strange patterns as she moved about the room. Once the curtains and candles and everything was in place, she knelt in front of Gina, placed a tablet of Spice on her own tongue, and swallowed it dry. Again she smiled. "Just like old times."

They waited in silence for the drug to take effect. Onounu breathed in a deep, regular rhythm. Then she opened her eyes again, and this time they were empty of expression, nobody home inside. She was somewhere else.

"I will talk you through this," she said in a flat, detached voice. "Gina, bring me to the nightclub."

Gina nodded and called the scene up from her memory. She concentrated on each sensation until it was a part of the larger vision that maintained itself without requiring her attention. First the beat of the music, the pulse of the crowd. Smell of sweat mingled with alcohol. Light flickering in rainbow colours. Bodies rubbing together. Lust, raw and animal. Gina's pulse quickened as that surged through her, but she bit her tongue and kept control of the vision.

It was all there now, the club, down to the finest detail. She found herself walking to the tables in the back, but this time they were all empty save for him. Gabriel sat there with his mocking smile and lit a cigarette. Shadows pooled around him under the flickering light of the match. A lump of cold terror shot into her throat, she turned to run, and—

"Don't," Onounu said. Gina froze. "That's not what happened. Don't break the framework, relive it as it was."

Swallowing, Gina forced herself to turn back. The other men were there now, talking amongst themselves in her vision, and the woman, Gina couldn't quite remember her name. Gina sat down at their table, her head swimming with drugs, and touched Gabriel's mind.

The twisted city flashed into her mind as sharp as the first time she touched him, crystal-clear in its horror. This time she was prepared for it. She retreated into an emotionless grey state, so she felt nothing at the frozen people and their children slowly flaking in the breeze. She hurried through that memory, and slowed down again when she came to the white place. A cold dagger of fear pushed through her detachment, and that terrible voice rang, "You shouldn't do that."

A strange sensation gonged through her head, like a burst of mental static, and everything went dark. Onounu cried out.

Gina snapped out of the memory and opened her eyes, finding Onounu limp in Bomber's arms, pale and breathing hard. Gina rushed forward -- to do what, she wasn't exactly sure -- and anxiety trembled in her hands as they fluttered over her stricken friend.

"No," Onounu panted. "No, I'm alright. Just give me a moment." She closed her eyes, then gave Gina a weak smile. "Same old Gina, always getting yourself into trouble."

"What was it?" she asked desperately.

Onounu lost her smile, and her expression darkened. "You definitely picked up an artifact, a bad one. It almost got me too. No wonder, a shock that hard..." She shut her eyes tight as if fighting off a terrible headache. When she reopened them, she fixed Gina with a deadly serious look. "You're playing a dangerous game, girl. That man has some bad things locked up inside his head. Plans, memories or fantasies, I don't know -- but I don't think he likes people looking at them." She hesitated, licking her suddenly dry lips. "He was inside you as you were inside him. He's strong. God, he's strong, maybe stronger than me. You..." She hesitated again. Then her face softened and she touched Gina's hand. "Please, be careful."

Before she could say anything more, the curtains flew, and Mashei whirled into the room like an angry mother bear whose cubs were under threat. Things seemed to materialise into her hands, first aid kit in one and a pillow in the other. She quickly banished Gina and Bomber back to the living room and bent over her wife, determined to be worried despite Onounu's reasssurances.

For the moment, Gina and Bomber were left to their thoughts and to hot bowls of soup.

"So he is a telepath," Bomber said, scowling in deep thought. "But that don't make any sense. He's got his own fuckin' AI, but he takes Spice? Why not just hire someone else and let them burn out their brains?" Hissing in frustration, he turned around and resumed pacing the other way. A few more laps and he'd start putting holes in the carpet, thought Gina.

Gina shrugged. She lay on the sofa while Bomber padded across the room, pausing occasionally to warm himself by the little stove. "Maybe he doesn't trust anyone else."

"No," he said flatly. "No, this whole thing stinks. There's somethin' here I'm not seeing. I mean, he's got gangs waiting on him like busboys. Anyone with that much power leaves a trail."

"So we go back to Jock?"

Bomber stopped in front of the stove and snorted, sending up a flurry of dust and ash. "That yellow son of a bitch? Geek's probably holed up in some bar pissing himself. He acts tough, but he's really just terrified all the time. That's how the Emperor controls a guy like him. He's more afraid of the Emperor than anything else."

Gina rose to join him by the fire, suddenly cold herself. She mumbled, "Probably with good reason."

"No doubt. But as these guys go, the Emperor's pretty okay as long as you stay on his good side."

"How do you live like that, Bomber? Hanging out with gang lords and killers, fake names, always on the run. Never able to show anyone the real you. I don't understand."

He said nothing for a few seconds. Then, "My name's not Simon."

A sad smile twisted her lips, and she gently took his hand, side by side in front of the warm stove. "Never thought it was."

"Listen," he said, turning to face her, "I need to do a little investigatin' on my own. You'll be safe at the Emperor's base. You can lay low there until I check out a few sources, maybe find somethin' we can use to get clear of this. Can you do that?"

Anger flared in her as his words started to sink in. She abruptly let go of his hand and backed away, scowling up at him. "What? What the hell do you expect me to do in the meantime, sit around and wait for hubby to come back?"

He blinked in complete astonishment. "That's not what I'm sayin'!" he protested. "I just need to do this alone. I'm serious, I don't think you'd be safe."

"Well maybe I don't need you to tell me what I can and can't handle!" she snapped, jabbing a finger at his chest. "I've survived on the fucking Street for three years without you to look after me, I can damn well take care of myself!"

Bomber just stared at her, uncomprehending. The emotions rushed out of her as suddenly as they'd come, and her shoulders sagged as she turned away, twining her fingers into her hair. She said, "God, this whole thing is driving me buggo."

"Guess how I feel," he replied.

"Yeah, well, you're the only one who seems to know the first thing about what's going on here," she snapped. A thought struck her then. "What did you do in Seoul? It's got something to do with this, doesn't it?"

The scowl returned. "That was personal."

"There's something you're not telling me," she said flatly.

"There's a lot of things I'm not tellin' anyone, a lot of things you're better off not hearin' about. Believe that. But on this job, you know as much as I do. Maybe more."

"More?"

He looked at her as if she was dense. "Christ, girl! You were inside his head. Unless it was all just some weird mind-fuck, whatever you saw in there has to have a meaning."

A cold wind blew through Gina as she recalled the memories. She shuddered, crawling back on the couch and pulling her knees up to her chin. "What it means is he's insane," she said.

"Maybe," Bomber admitted, "but there's gotta be a trail. Jez wouldn't let me find out anything my way, afraid of makin' waves." He smiled darkly then. "Me, I'm plannin' on makin' some goddamn waves."

Footsteps came clumping down the stairs, and Mashei returned to the living room, her usual smile only slightly dimmed. "Onu's resting now," she said. "She'll be fine, but you won't be able to see her again today. I'll make some cots for you to sleep on tonight."

Bomber reluctantly left his spot at the stove to talk to Mashei face-to-face. "What about the thing in Gina's head?"

"There's nothing you can do about an artifact, Bomber," Gina sighed. "You either survive it and it goes away or you go buggo."

"Right," he said, and the subject was closed. He obviously didn't like dwelling on things beyond his power. "Probably best if we don't stay here, don't want to put you in danger. I need to go back for my stuff anyway." To Gina he added, "You'll be safer at the base."

She sighed and got up, started putting her shoes back on. "Alright. Alright, I'll go."

They went despite Mashei's protests, but not before Gina would accept a bag of old clothes in and around her size. There was sniffling and a number of hugs before they finally made it out the door.

The Emperor's warehouse was burning merrily by the time they got back.

"Shit," Bomber muttered under his breath. He glanced around, cataloguing possible escape routes as more onlookers crowded in behind them. Disasters always attracted their own suite of spectators. The fire roared high, belching thick black clouds of smoke, and threw flickering shadows across the walls like the dancing darkness of the burnt city. Gina could feel its heat on her face even from across the street.

He continued, "We gotta get out of here. They'll have people circling. Cameras. Fuck, we gotta get out of here." He had one hand deep in the pocket of his grey-and-black anorak, and his eyes darted around like a caged animal's.

Gina felt the need for action rising in her blood. Without warning she took his arm and dove into the mass of people, slipping through it with learned ease from her years on the Street. Bomber reacted with a start but allowed himself to be led. Gina knew how to go unnoticed in a crowd, and hoped Bomber would trust in that competence when he could see it right in front of his face.

Sure enough, people seemed to drift naturally out of their way and then refilled the gap behind them without losing a beat. Nobody even noticed the pair swimming upstream like salmon. At last they flowed out into a side street and kept on walking, same pace, same rhythm, arm in arm and never looking back. They might as well have been part of the scenery.

Somewhere along their unbroken stroll, Bomber squeezed her arm to get her attention. She forced calm into her muscles and casually turned her head to look at him. He pitched his voice low for her ears only, saying, "Don't look back. Shop window, five fronts up, see the reflection. Across the street on your seven o'clock."

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the upcoming mirrored window. The moment came; she caught a glimpse of a shadow just where Bomber said, keeping pace with them from across the street. Brown overcoat and a low, broad-brimmed hat.

"I see him," she whispered, swallowing the stab of fear. "What do we do?"

"Turn the next corner. Hide when I give the signal."

"Hide? Hide where?"

"Wherever. Just get out of sight until I'm done."

Gina's senses were on overdrive when they turned the corner. She imagined she could see every glint reflected by the dirty mirrored windows, every poorly-lit cobblestone, every grain in the cracked asphalt. Sound of cars in the distance, faint sirens, the oohs and ahhs of spectators at the warehouse. Hints of kerosene and ammonia prickled Gina's nostrils, part of the City's own unique smell, dark and acrid like oily smoke -- tonight only with real smoke.

One thing was clear as she analysed the street around her. Bomber knew the neighbourhood. He'd picked the perfect getaway destination, empty of all life except the rats, no one to witness or tell. Only old flat blocks still lined this road, abandoned by everyone but squatters and other suicide-seekers. The entrance alcoves were lined with yellow warning tape, the doors boarded up with great red signs pronouncing each building to be condemned. Hundreds died in these glass-and-concrete crates every year, by accident or by design. One more death wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

When Bomber flashed the subtle hand signal, Gina bolted for the nearest concrete pillar and ducked behind it for safety. It was big enough to protect her while peeking around the corner, so she glanced past it and saw Bomber already across the street, pistol in hand, wrestling a brown overcoat into the shadows. The soft puff of a silenced gunshot echoed across the silent street. A piglike squeal rang out from underneath the coat, and Gina gasped at the sound, crying out, "Stop!"

Bomber froze, looking down at the fistful of overcoat, and furrowed his brow.

"Jock?" he said, his mind refusing to accept what was happening. The overcoat collapsed sobbing to the pavement. The stones underneath were staining dark red.

"Help me," it sputtered.

Part 5

The blood was on her hands. It felt wet and sticky and it covered the upholstery of their stolen car, no matter how hard she pressed down on Jock's limp body. Bomber swore under his breath at the wheel, pulling into a back lot at an abandoned corner shop. The car squealed to a halt and Bomber was out onto the pavement before the wheels even stopped turning.

The blood was still on her hands. She still applied pressure to the seeping bullet wound, still felt the ragged, meaty hole under her fingers. Forceful hands detached her and hauled the body away inside. She sat there, unthinking and unmoving, until someone shook her and made her stand up in the cold night air.

"Gina, I need you," a voice said. She raised her tear-stained eyes and saw Bomber through the haze. "Listen, I need your help. I can't fix Jock on my own. I gotta have a nurse, and you're her. Come on."

Time passed. How much time or what happened during it, she couldn't say. She remembered a dirty operating table. Surgical steel. Cracked, flaking plaster and a single bulb casting light into the ragged hole in Jock's gut. Screaming. Too much screaming.

She could feel the blood even through her plastic surgical gloves. It was warm, and she hated it. She hated the soft resistance of the flesh as she pulled it apart with the barbeque tongs. She hated the humid smell of blood. She hated the click of the bullet as Bomber let it fall into the plastic tray. She hated Jock as he cried and strained against the handcuffs holding him down. He babbled feverishly, hopped up on painkillers and stimulants that would keep him from drifting off.

Later, she looked up to find herself sitting in a corridor, tired in body and soul. Cold on the inside. She couldn't remember if she'd slept any, but her eyes felt like lead and there was a hint of greyness outside the corridor's high, lonely window. She wiped at the dried blood on her face, but the surgical gloves were still on, and fresh slashes of red streaked across her forehead. She heaved a dry sob. Then she got up to find a washroom.

After she'd scrubbed herself, she left the gloves in the rusted, leaking metal sink and went in search of Bomber. Her boots clacked emptily against the dirty grey tiles. Plasterboard walls no longer gave any hint as to what colour they'd once been.

"He'll live, I think," said Bomber, throwing his own gloves into a corner. He too was covered in blood, but he didn't seem to mind. "Be a while before he gets unfucked though."

"That's good," she replied. Exhaustion leeched all emotion from her voice.

"Get some sleep. You look awful."

"So do you."

"I always look awful. Seriously, get some sleep. No telling when we'll get the chance again."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. We'll have to see."

She nodded. "I guess so."

He smiled at that, and whispered, "Goodnight, Gina." He kissed her forehead and went back to check on Jock.

She nodded again. Then she found an unoccupied gurney, slithered onto it and passed out. When she woke up, Bomber was gone.

Gina carefully checked the manual for each step in the long process of changing Jock's bandages. Bomber had left her a sheet of instructions, and Jock was eager to give her further suggestions along the way.

Don't do it like that!" he squealed. "Fuck, that hurts."

"Do you want to do it yourself?" she shot back and held up the bloodstained gauze for emphasis. Jock swallowed and fell back on his pillows, nearly fainting. Gina continued, "That's right, so shut up. I'm not exactly enjoying myself." She deposited the repulsive bit of gauze into a plastic bag, then quickly wiped her fingers on a piece of cloth. The sight of the swollen red bandages made her sick. To the touch they were even worse.

The job went by agonisingly slowly, and Gina felt like hitting Jock every time he made a noise. He could not stop talking or complaining or asking her pointless questions. One thing she liked about Bomber, at least he knew when to shut up. And he didn't whinge.

"Where do you think he's gone?" Jock asked her when she was giving him some water.

Gina sighed and said, "I don't know. Doing what he does, I guess."

"Can't believe he left us here alone."

"I'm going to kill him. As for the money..." She eyed the wad of cash lying limp on the dirty steel table. "I guess we're supposed to buy food with it and stuff."

Jock smiled at the mention of food. "That sounds like a great idea. Why don't you go?" he said sweetly, then flinched as she turned to glare at him. After a long, healthy buildup of anger, she snapped up the cash and headed outside, pulling her jacket back on. Of course she slammed the door behind her.

The blazing grey sky made Shanghai feel like the inside of a pressure cooker. Her sunglasses kept the burning sky at bay, but nothing could protect her from the smell. Even the Street couldn't rival the sewer-stench billowing in from the seaside.

Despite the weather there were hundreds of people out on the streets doing people things. Running food stalls, drinking down the pubs, pissing in alleys. She was offered the finest fried dog in all of Shanghai, the finest beads, the finest imitation silk and crocodile skin, the finest cloned organs and cybersofts. If she wanted anything implanted, she need only show her wad of cash.

Her shoulders relaxed once she'd inserted herself into the crowd. Here she was invisible. Not even an AI could pick her face out of the mass of moving flesh, just one of many caucasian faces mixed in with the asians and the blacks and those with a little bit of everything.

She was in China, so she bought a couple of hamburgers and a tub of deep-fried chicken from the nearest fast-food shop. She wolfed down her share at one of the plastic tables, then gathered her bags and rejoined the throng of people. If she timed her shopping right, the food would be good and cold by the time it got back to Jock.

For the first time in days, she didn't feel hunted or watched. Hundreds of eyes glanced over her face and never saw it. It'd be a miracle for anyone to remember what she looked like, a random passerby on a crowded street. She could probably disappear into it and never be found again, not by Bomber or Jock or Gabriel or any two-bit gang.

The bubbling sensation of freedom almost swept Gina up, but then her sense of realism reared its ugly head, and she hunched her shoulders as if against the rain. She'd just end up on the Street again sooner or later, whoring out her body or her mind, or both. If you combined the two, some people would offer frightening amounts of dollar for a Spice fuck, but... Gina shuddered at the thought. Even though the image she affected on the Street practically promised it, she'd never quite sunk to offering sex for money. Life as a freelance telepath was enough to get by, although a self-destructive spiral into inevitable madness, but less frightening than the idea of giving up her body for nothing more than a credit chip.

Besides, it might be the only job in the world where Gina would be appreciated for her brain.

She resisted the temptation of cheap watches, overpriced perfume and glass jewellery. Scanning the chaotic displays, the place was obviously a tourist trap of immense proportions. The thought amused Gina. Tourists, coming to the City. What would they think of next?

The only item that caught her attention was a small, elegant silver flick-knife laid out on a stall countertop, surrounded on all sides by tacky jewellery. Something compelled her to pick it up and tested the blade. Against all expectations, it was well-constructed and razor sharp, and she found herself considering it. Despite the reassuring weight of the Mk5 in her purse, the last few days weighed heavily on her. She needed something more than just the taser.

The cash left her hand without thinking and the knife was there moments later, silver and steel against her fingertips, ready to be concealed anywhere. Gina gave a lopsided smile and tucked it into her bra.

She headed back to the abandoned shop feeling satisfied, treasuring the small nugget of new confidence resting coolly against her chest.

The hole in Jock's gut was red and ragged, but it was slowly starting to close. Watching it with morbid fascination was Gina's only weapon against the mind-numbing boredom of the abandoned shop. When the sun went down, the only thing they could do was hide and watch the shop's aging, derelict TV set as it flickered and warbled the news in six different languages all night long. It could only receive the one channel, and Jock seemed to find it fascinating. So fascinating that he took the opportunity to annoy her with it as much as possible.

Faded wood panelling covered the massive thing all along the sides, dating it at about a century old. She tried unplugging it, but the plugs were firmly rusted into their ports. She tried throwing it out the window, but she couldn't even lift it off the floor. Trying to cut the wires just got her a nasty shock for her trouble. No doubt the evil thing survived out of spite, just to get at her.

She glared at it from her rickety chair next to Jock's gurney. She could've sworn it glared back.

"...space station should finish construction within the next three months," said the newsman with the obvious toupee, smiling his bland, TV smile. He was almost lost behind a wall of blurred subtitles. "Back to you, Louanne."

Down to her last nerve, Gina made a vicious lunge for the remote, but Jock won the battle by lying on top of it and presenting his wounded side. Gina couldn't do much without causing him surgical complications. Of course, when she thought about it, the idea of causing Jock some complications wasn't so bad, but she hadn't dared to try it. Yet.

She turned away from him and hissed, "Would you turn that crap off? We've been watching the same goddamned show for three days."

"No," said Jock. "It's all I've got to do in this fucking dump. I got shot, remember?"

"Oh, I remember. Prick." A thought struck her then. "Speaking of which, isn't it about time you told me what happened that night?"

The temperature in the room dropped abruptly. His eyes were like orbs of ice as he looked at her. "The only one I talk to around here is Simon."

"Well, he's not fucking here, is he? So tell me!" Gina snapped. She was standing over him, voice raised, but Jock didn't seem afraid of her. He was afraid of everything else, but not her.

"No."

He reached for the remote control again, but anger was making Gina quicker and nastier. She caught his hand, tore the remote out of his fingers, and threw it skittering across the room in a mass of shattered plastic. The old TV popped, then turned itself back on, tuned to a dead channel.

"Let's get something straight here," Jock said slowly. "You think you're in charge around here? Well, you're not. I'm here because I'm too valuable to lose. That's the way it is. The only reason you're still around is because apparently Simon thinks you must have some kind of use, an opinion which I don't share, except maybe for a good blowjob. I'm sure he's already taken good advantage of that. So, why don't you take your dolls and go die in a corner somewhere and stop pretending you matter?"

Absolute silence followed his words. Gina's joints were made out of stone, his voice still ringing in her ears, and it took an effort of will to move her frozen limbs. She hit him. Her hand made a dull, meaty slap as it connected with his face. She took her jacket and her purse and ran out the door, disappearing into the night.

She pushed herself away from the bar, her drink untouched. She didn't want it. She was sick of it all, sick of Bomber, sick of Jock, sick of her situation, sick of life. A thick miasma of anger, fear and hopelessness hung over her and she wallowed in it.

But then, as she gingerly made her way to the door on trembling legs, sobering thoughts started to creep into her mind. She had nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and the whole world had it in for her. Where was she going to go?

There was no way she'd be going back to the shop. She decided that early on, and she intended to stick with it. Keeping that in mind, her first order of business would be to find a place to stay. Bomber's money should be plenty to rent a cheap coffin somewhere in Shanghai. That was the number one priority.

She felt a little bit better for having cleared that up. Knowing what to do next. She smiled, patted herself on the back, and walked back into the bar.

The place seemed to have transformed since she stepped out just a second ago. Where there had been a seedy-looking pub with a lecherous bartender who kept stealing glances at her chest, the grease-stain was now busily sweeping the floor with an obsequious grin on his face, chattering nervously at two asian men nursing drinks at the bar. All the other patrons seemed to have cleared out in a hurry, leaving glasses half-drunk on their tables and cigarette butts smouldering on the floor. The two men never spared the barkeep a glance. They just sat there, smooth-shaven and immaculate, as if the dust and dirt of the Earth never touched them. Graven images of human perfection with their grey uniforms and gleaming silver buttons.

Feds.

Gina's heart skipped a beat. Cold fear wormed down her spine as she watched them. Out on the Street, you counted yourself lucky if you ever saw a Fed without getting thrown into a cell and disappeared. Even the local police trod very very softly if there was a Fed in the neighbourhood. A hundred horror stories spun in Gina's mind, but some of them got so wild, you never knew how much to believe...

"Are you coming in, miss?" asked the Fed nearest to her, his glass paused exactly halfway to his mouth. "Either way, please close the door."

She panicked all over again. She couldn't stay here! Not with them! But leaving would make her look suspicious, and if she looked suspicious they might ask her questions, and she was too afraid to lie.

She was trapped.

"I am, actually," she murmured with feigned confidence and shut the door behind her. Her heels clacked ear-shatteringly against the floor on her way to the bar. She put on an inviting smile and sat down at a respectful distance. "I was just looking for someone to buy me a drink. Maybe one of you gentlemen would be kind enough to help me out?"

The two looked at each other with unmoving faces. Then they looked back at Gina, and the one who'd spoken gave her the slightest hint of a smile. He raised his glass to her and said, "We're friends of the owner. Please consider your drinks 'on the house.'"

"That's mighty generous of you," she replied. "I'll have a gin and tonic, thanks. With lemon."

The greasy bartender muttered something and got to work at the bottle rack. The other Fed reached over the counter and pumped himself another beer without consulting anyone else, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Gina's drink was in front of her within seconds, and she raised her glass.

"To friendship." The Feds echoed her toast and set to work on their pints. She drained her glass in one go. It didn't really help; she was still dead sober.

She licked her lips and leaned forward on her elbows, swaying slightly towards the Fed. "So, my gallant saviour, d'you mind if I ask your name?"

"Not at all," he said politely. His voice was cultured and soft-spoken. "Matthias. My comrade here is Jeffrey. And you?"

"Beauty." The lie came to her without prompting, smooth and easy. "I know, I know, please don't ask. My parents were from a commune, see."

"Mmm. And what brings you out to such a neighbourhood on a night like this?"

"Just..." She shrugged, buying more time to find an appropriate lie. "Just feeling locked up, I guess. It gets so humid around here. I feel like I can't breathe sometimes." That seemed to satisfy the Fed. "What about you?"

"Trying to unwind a little," said Matthias. The way he said it, that simple sentence was loaded with hundreds of possible meanings. "It's been a long day for us. Lot of bad things going on." He fixed her with a look of casual interest that, under the surface, was anything but casual. "Did you hear about that warehouse fire the other day?"

She looked away to hide her initial shock, then turned back with a vapid expression on her face. "No. Sorry."

The tiniest hint of surprise or suspicion crossed his face, but he banished it with a shake of his head. "Never mind. It's not important."

"Sorry, I wish I could help. I'm not from around here, really, just up visiting friends. We don't really watch the news."

Matthias cocked an eyebrow. "American?" he inquired, not because he cared about the answer but because etiquette demanded it.

"Just my parents. I grew up in Hong Kong district, on the south side, y'know? We used to--"

Boooooom, went the explosion outside, cutting her off before she even had the chance to make up an anecdote. The bulletproof windows cracked and squealed from the force of the shockwave. The Feds were on their feet and at the door in an instant, as if they'd been expecting it. They headed outside with trancelike calm, grey helmets covering their faces, long wicked-looking batons and plastic riot shields in their hands. The equipment had come out of nowhere. There didn't seem to be enough room inside their uniforms to stash so much.

Gina picked herself up off the floor just in time to watch them leave, and ducked again as a burst of machine gun fire ripped through the bar. Splinters flew like shrapnel. Glass shattered. The bartender hopped out from behind the counter, emitting a banshee wail as he clutched his thigh. Red liquid spurted through his fingers like wine. Then another bullet bored into his chest and he went quiet.

"Stay," Matthias said to Gina, dark eyes staring into hers. His voice had the command of a king. She shrank back and covered her head as the Feds turned and stepped out into the chaos. Outside, the noise suddenly stopped, as if some giant heart had paused in its beating.

"This is the Federal Police," boomed an amplified voice, speaking in Conglom. "Put down your weapons and surrender or we will be forced to use stern measures."

She could see everything through the bar window. The two Feds stood in the middle of the street, flanked on both sides by buildings crawling with confused and apprehensive gang troops. She recognised their colours. Yakuza on the left, Triads on the right. The Feds had interrupted a skirmish.

"Yaks don't come to Shanghai," Bomber had told her once. "Lot of killing, lot of bad blood still around." And now the Emperor was dead.

But they hated and feared the Feds even more than they hated and feared each other.

Another explosion ripped through the ground, even larger than the first, blowing out windows all along the street. Someone roared a war cry, and then gunfire consumed the street outside. All of it aimed at Matthias and Jeffrey.

The Feds split up and casually walked into either camp. Bullets seemed to bounce off them without even slowing them down. Then they were in amongst the gangs, and the sound of shots turned to screams, cries of such pure agony that they rang in Gina's ears like breaking crystal.

She felt their pain. She felt it without Spice, without VR. She tried to block it out but couldn't. It was primal and terrible, a cold shock down to her animal hindbrain, filling her with adrenaline and the need to act. Every muscle trembled with terror as she crawled behind the counter, climbed over the dead body of the bartender with tears in her eyes, and quietly slipped out the back door.

Black helicopters thundered into the sky behind her and cut loose with machine guns. Spotlights bathed the scene in halogen light. Gina didn't even notice, lost in her own panic. It barely registered when a missile split one of the helicopters in two, lighting up the sky like a fireworks display.

The screams echoed behind her as she ran.

The sound of guns and shouting followed at her heels. It was as if the whole of Shanghai was in flames. Gina remembered gang wars around the Street, small scuffles where both sides exchanged a few expendable foot soldiers and did some posturing, then returned to the status quo with a few bits of territory changing hands. They seemed like playground scraps now compared to what was going on around her. This was a blood feud.

An RPG hissed into the air from the rooftop to her left. Gina paused to look up, then darted away in panic as a Fed gunship turned its autocannons on the offending roof. The night sky became suddenly bright again as flaming rubble shot into the air, then rained down into the street. White-eyed and wild with fear, Gina dove into a lean-to for shelter and huddled against the wall, shivering.

Two men came staggering out of the building barely two yards away from her. Their arms were locked together at shoulder height in a struggle for life and death, constantly trying to land the killing blow. One wore Yakuza colours, the other those of the Triads. The larger Triad man held his knife in a death grip, slowly forcing it down into his enemy's neck, while the Yakuza man fought to bring his pistol down.

They staggered backwards into the road, where the Yakuza man lost his footing and stumbled. The Triad man let go instantly and disembowelled him. He grinned in triumph as the Yakuza man inched back, looking down in horror at his life leaving his body. Then, trembling, the Yakuza man raised his pistol and blew the Triad man's brains out.

The two lay next to each other like toppled statues, and Gina choked when she saw their clothes and skin start to flake away, revealing the charred ash underneath. Horror squeezed her throat until she couldn't breathe. The sky was red above her.

Another man in a Fed uniform came walking down the road to investigate and took a machine gun burst to the back. He stumbled from the hits, going down to his knees, but then he stood back up without showing any sign of injury. He just turned around, hefted his baton and trudged grimly towards the source of the shots.

All the while the screams went on, roaring through her head like a waterfall. There was only madness in those streets.

There seemed to be no passage of time at all between huddling under the lean-to and stumbling into the abandoned shop. Water streamed off her, dripping from her chin and her nose and her fingers and every stringy strand of her drenched hair. Her shirt clung to her body like a vice. Torrential rain pounded the pavement behind her, but she didn't know when it had started or how she'd failed to notice it before now. The fires seemed far behind her, beaten down by the rain, each explosion no more than a muffled thump to Gina's ears.

She dragged her feet into the corridor, found the cracked plastic chair bolted to the wall, and sagged into it. Dry sobs shook her body. She gasped out with each one, but her eyes were dry.

"Gina?" Jock's voice echoed from the doorway. There was a statue there, leaning heavily against the plastic doorframe and holding its belly with one hand. It was made of black, flaking ash, and embers fell from its mouth as it spoke.

"Stay away!" she shrieked at him. She hid her face in her hands, didn't want to see.

"Look, you need to come in here," the statue said. Its tone was urgent, and it emitted a grunt of pain as it tried to move towards her. "Hurry! We're in trouble!"

She let out a wordless scream, then curled up into a ball and covered her head, blocking out the world until a rush of tranquilisers filled her bloodstream.

Jock pulled out the syringe and moved back. It took him a second to work up the nerve to speak again. "These should work instantly. How do you feel?"

Gina opened her eyes, looked up, unsure of what had happened. Tried to remember how to speak. Her voice was cracked and hoarse as she said, "Like... Like waking up from a nightmare." Then she glanced around. "Only it's still going on."

"Well, clear your head and get over here right away. You need to see this."

He took her hand, and she followed him into the bedroom, too confused to protest. Unsteady legs carried them into the room with the ancient TV, which seemed to have restored itself to operation despite the shattered remote control.

The sputtering device didn't catch her attention until Jock set her down in front of it and pointed. The news anchor burbled through the haze of static, something about Hong Kong police arresting a major criminal. It soon cut to a video clip of a man being thrown into a paddy wagon by the local police. They ripped his hood off moments before the doors slammed shut, and Gina gasped as she saw his face.

"It's Bomber," she blurted.

Jock stared at the screen, the light reflecting off his face in the dark, expressionless. His voice was dead level. "Get me to a VR terminal."

All arguments were forgotten for the moment. With a walking cane made out of an old chair leg, they hobbled out through the rain-soaked night and into the nearest public GlobeNet booth. Flatscreen only, no VR, but it would have to do.

She asked him, "What are we looking for?"

"Help," he replied. "Lots of it."

Part 6

Gina blew smoke into the night outside the shop, waiting for a dark van of some type. The description was vague, Jock had just said it would be dark, with red flame decals down the side. She wasn't quite sure why she was doing anything Jock told her to do, but at the moment she didn't have any better ideas. The cigarette calmed her nerves as well. Still, she felt a little bit cagey about being back outside, out in the open. Exposed. Sometimes she swore she could still hear the machine guns firing far away, the helicopters and the sounds of the dying.

A sudden rustle from the bushes nearly gave her a heart attack. An asthmatic squirrel hopped out and dragged itself across the road, with Gina swearing after it. Then the dark van she'd been waiting for came gunning around the corner, and Gina had to jump back as it screeched to a halt in front of the abandoned shop.

"Who the fuck do you--" Gina began, her nervousness and vulnerability making her angry, but gave up in mid-sentence. The team of thin, weedy, questionably-dressed men emerging from the van ignored her completely, too busy with their own problems. They huffed and puffed under the weight of several large, unlabelled black boxes that could've contained absolutely anything.

"Don't mind us," said the last one out the van, a tall, gaunt man wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night. There was an ill-advised scraggle of hair on his chin, something which he must've thought looked 'hip'. He continued, "Just installing some hardware, nothing to worry about. We're friends of Jock's."

She glanced up at him for a beat. "Jock has friends?"

The man laughed heartily, then took off his sunglasses to look her in the eye. His eyes were like green slits, and Gina could see dozens of tiny surgical scars all around them. "Hard to believe, yeah. You must be the girl. Sorry, he didn't mention you by name."

Slight hesitation before she said, "Gina."

"Pleased to meet you. Sorry we can't stay, but y'know. Bullets make us uncomfortable."

"Can't say I blame you." She flicked away the leftover half of her cigarette. It didn't interest her anymore. "What is all this stuff?"

"VR rig, good one. Jock says you're going to be pulling something hot."

"Really?" Gina said pleasantly. "That includes me, does it?"

The guy immediately cottoned on to her change of tone and cracked a nervous grin. "You'd have to ask him. I'm just here to help set things up, right? No need to shoot the messenger." Then, remembering something, he dug around inside his trouser pocket. "Jock said to give you this."

He pressed something into Gina's hand, then ducked back into the van as the rest of his gang came hustling out of the shop. They moved a lot faster without the big black boxes. Gina could barely believe the speed with which they all piled back into the car, which they'd left running. The door hadn't even shut before the van took off like a bullet, to get out of the warzone as fast as possible.

Gina stared after it for a long time, but eventually she snapped out of her bewilderment and looked down at the small scrap of plastic in her hand, scanned the rows of Chinese and Conglom characters scrolling across the top. It was an airline ticket. The destination blinked at her invitingly from the top right corner, spelled out in block print just above the small video clip advertising the local culture, food and friendliness. Hong Kong.

"You going to stand there all day?" asked an unfamiliar voice. Gina looked blankly at the short, weedy adolescent in front of her. She couldn't even see his face under the thick hooded sweatshirt, just two black lenses glaring sullenly at her, waiting for an answer.

"Depends," Gina crossed her arms, "are you going to stop staring at my tits anytime soon?"

"Might do, might do," the teenager drawled with a badly-faked American accent. "I'm here to help, yeah? Name's Rat. Just call me the cavalry."

Gina nodded. "Oh, good," she said with a roll of her eyes, turned around and went back inside.

She found Jock in a newly-cleaned corner of the shop, staring unfocused at the ceiling. His eyes were glassy and repulsive like the eyes of a dead thing, his body strapped into a padded metal frame, and wearing a VR crown with its black plastic tentacles and electrodes stuck to his head. In the background the old TV still droned on, some reporter blathering about execution-style murders in Hong Kong, something about ganglords and gang wars and gang tattoos. Gina didn't really spare it any thought.

"Alex?" Jock asked to the empty space above him.

The teenager stepped forward and announced, "Here."

Gina caught him by the shoulder as he passed her. "I thought you said your name was Rat."

"Easy! No need for hands-on," he said indignantly, shrugging out of her grip. "Alex is my name, Rat's my handle, yeah? Cowboy's gotta have a handle. Chrome Rat, that's me."

"And you're a friend of our Jock here?"

"Acquaintance," said Jock, his voice absent like his eyes. "A thief and a wannabe cyber-cowboy."

Rat scowled. "Wannabe my ass, you black-fuck piece of shit. You just can't stand me getting into places you can't."

Jock's eyes focused for a second and his lips cracked a smile. "Hey, there's no Breaking and Entering on my criminal record. How about yours?" To Gina, he added, "Rat picks locks, mechanical or electronic. Not too bad at it. Not good, either, but not bad."

Rat glared at him in silence.

A soft tick sounded from the VR rig, accompanied by the high-pitched grind of a cooling fan speeding up. Its barely audible whirr turned into a howl of moving air. Jock had to be pushing the machine hard.

"So what's to do now?" asked Gina.

Licking his dry lips, Jock answered, "We're going to need a few more things. See, the Emperor has a lot of bank accounts. Most of them have already been plundered by the other Triads, but there's a few that the Emperor thinks only he knows about. Which is true, apart from me."

"You talk about him like he's still alive," Gina said, almost touched.

"But he is." Jock mouthed a shutdown command. The VR rig obeyed just a heartbeat after it disabled every telephone line in a hundred metre radius, all meant to throw off any active traces. That done, Jock lifted the VR crown off his head and placed it back in its cradle.

He said meanwhile, "The Emperor's private accounts -- his very private accounts -- have been accessed three times since your friend torched the fortress. From the location of the withdrawals, it looks like he's making his way down the coast through Zhejiang district. Probably headed for one of the cities to try and catch a boat or airship."

"And?"

"And you two are going to go pick him up. You switch over in Hangzhou on your way to Hong Kong, he'll be around there." He kicked a large black bag towards her, smiling his unbelievably smug smile. "You'll need this. Now hurry up, girls, you don't want to miss your flight."

"Knew they couldn't a' killed him," Rat blabbed excitedly at her all the way through the airport's crowded arrivals bay. "The Emperor. Man, that's cool. This is gonna be cool."

"Will you shut up?!"

Three hours on a plane with Rat and Gina was already sick of him. Between his endless chatter and the gaggle of overweight women in front of them with screaming children in tow, she didn't feel like some super-spy or undercover operative or whatever the hell they called it. She just felt alone, vulnerable, in a place where she didn't know the exits. And her only backup if anything went wrong was... Rat.

Why me? she asked herself with a quick glance heavenwards. The flickering neon tube on the ceiling didn't have an answer for her. Nor did the mysterious brown stains on the walls, or the pile of rags at the bottom of the staircase which smelled like a week-dead corpse that no one had bothered to clean up and probably was exactly that. She caught a glimpse of a black-stained hand, clutching an empty strip of Spice.

"Hey, you alright?" Rat asked in a tone halfway between apathy and curiosity. Like he wanted to know if something was wrong, but didn't particularly care if there was.

"I'm fine," she snapped. "Get a move on, we've got a cab waiting."

Even without seeing his eyes, she could feel Rat's teenage scowl on her. He manhandled his bag onto his shoulders, muttering, "Alright, Jesus." Then one of the wheels fell off his bag, the moment he took his first step up the stairs. Of course he stopped immediately in order to drop his bag and swear at it in a loud, high-pitched voice, until Gina stepped in and smacked him upside the head.

He squealed indignantly, "What'd you do that for?"

"Because we're trying to lay low, you little--" She bit her tongue in mid-sentence, and the taste of blood filled her mouth. It was hard to keep throttling down her temper with someone so infuriating. Finally she managed to gain control of her anger, then grabbed grabbed Rat by his collar and pulled him around to face her. She moved in closer to him, so close that their lips almost touched, so close that she knew she had his full and undivided attention.

"We are trying to avoid standing out," she explained calmly, quietly, and with the utmost patience. "You are being loud, obnoxious, and making us the centre of attention for at least three armed guards and a whole bunch of security cameras. Do you understand?" He nodded silently. "Alright, now understand this. I've been pushed just about as far as I can be pushed today. I'm tired, I'm angry, and I'm more than a little crazy, and you do not want to be on the other end of that." She licked her lips slowly for the dramatic pause. Then, "Pick up your bag and carry it outside. Now. Before I'm forced to claw your face off."

Rat swallowed and nodded without protest. He almost ran the rest of the way. Gina allowed herself a thin smile of satisfaction. Threatening teenage boys was a skill you never quite grew out of, like riding a bike, you did it once and it all came back to you.

A pink morning fog hung over Hangzhou, speckled with the brightly-coloured blotches of airships both near and far. You could never tell how distant they were, whether the one you spotted was small and close-by or big and very far away. Behind her, just visible over her shoulder, an airship twice the size of the terminal building drifted majestically into its mooring brackets. Hydraulic clamps thumped. The airship lowered a covered drawbridge towards the transparent plastic bubble of the disembarking area, and the terminal similarly extended a docking tube to connect to the other side of the bubble.

Gina had always loved airships. They used to play to her imagination, reading about them as a girl, part of an abandoned and nearly-forgotten time until they were revived by new technology that made them far cheaper to operate than aeroplanes. Still, the mysticism wore off a bit when you saw them every day with giant video screens on the side advertising the latest brand of washing powder.

The vehicle outside turned out to be a bicycle rikshaw with a wiry young boy at the helm. The rikshaw seemed to consist of chicken wire and baling twine, held together by some mysterious force in defiance of all the laws of physics. Gina shook her head as she saw it, but couldn't be bothered arguing anymore. She chucked her bag into a luggage rack which looked it had once, in better days, been a shopping trolley.

"You know how long I wait here?" the boy snapped in sharp Chinese-accented patter. "Hours! I could be in town making money, not here waiting for you! You pay me for waiting!"

Pretty well-acted, Gina decided, but not well enough. She looked him up and down, then said, "Drop the accent. You speak English, you've been here no longer than ten minutes, you're already being overpaid, and we're not tourists. Dong ma?"

"Ta ma de biao zi," he muttered. Gina ignored him; she'd been called far worse out on the Street. Rat had to run to catch up as the boy started pedalling. Gina pulled Rat up by his shirt, then eased herself into the dubious wire seat and let the City wash over her.

You couldn't really tell the districts from their architecture anymore. The City looked the same all over, an endless parade of blank office blocks, apartment towers dotted with halogen light, hundreds of identical shops belonging to the same megacorp chains. The only thing to break the monotony was an occasional traditional pagoda or shrine that the property developers hadn't managed to buy up yet.

The slow passage of neon-lit buildings and the hypnotic lurching of the rikshaw lulled Gina into a doze. Images fluttered across her half-closed eyelids. White sand, dancing fires, stars twinkling overhead. For a moment she thought she heard the chop of helicopter blades, but it faded away too quickly to be anything real.

Fires turned into candles as she slipped deeper into sleep. Sand crunched under her bare feet and tickled between her toes. The stars were little fireflies buzzing in the night, giving her tingles wherever they touched her skin.

There was a white table, plates of china and pure crystal glasses, a decanter of wine so red that it shone with inner light. The waves rustled in their gentle rhythm. She saw him then, sitting calm as a rock at the far side of the table, and she was not afraid.

"Gabriel," she whispered.

He smiled and stood up, leaned over the table, caught her in his eyes. Eyes the colour of burning coal. "Beauty," he said, making the word a warm invitation. "I'm glad you came."

The wooden chair gave a satisfying creak as she slipped into it. The atmosphere was perfect to every detail. Her eyes drank in the wonder of it all. "How did we get here?"

"Oh, I've been wanting to talk to you ever since we met. You're a hard person to get a hold on." The crystal stopper popped out of the decanter of its own accord, as if to announce the time to drink had arrived. Gabriel poured for both of them. A testing sip brought tears to Gina's eyes and she nearly retched it back up. It was too much, like liquid heaven on her tongue.

By the second sip her senses had adjusted, and the taste became merely orgasmic.

"I haven't meant to avoid you," she blurted before realising what the words meant. "Well... Um, it's just that you're trying to kill us."

"No. Never you." His sad smile cut straight to Gina's heart. She just wanted to hold him and kiss him until it went away. "I told them to bring you to me alive. Their methods can be a bit rough, I'm sorry if they startled you."

"You startled me. In that club when we met, you..." The words caught in her throat as she remembered. A tiny tingle of fear hovered at the back of her mind before the magic of the scene dispelled it.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. You surprised me, that's all, trying to get into my head without permission. I didn't know who you were." Gabriel reached out to take her hand, his fingers like velvet where they touched her skin. "Please, forgive me."

She responded immediately without even thinking about it. "All forgotten," she said, and blushed deep red. She could barely keep from shaking as he stroked her palm. The wine glowed in her stomach, sending up more butterflies of excitement.

"Thank you. You don't know how happy that makes me," he said with a gentle smile. "It's strange. I never met anyone quite like you. You're tough to have survived what I did to you, I admire that."

A question flared briefly in her mind, but even an instant later she could barely remember it. "How did you do it?" she asked in a struggling voice, trying hard to hold the words in her mind, but as soon as it came out she knew it was the wrong thing to say.

Gabriel's mouth curled into a faint smile. "I wish I could tell you. Maybe someday, in person." Then, in the same smooth voice, "I'm sorry if this question seems strange, but... Who are you?"

She told him. Everything, her whole life, it all seemed to flow from her lips without a pause. It seemed like she talked for hours, and Gabriel sat enraptured by her voice the whole time, a soft smile on his lips.

When it was all done she blushed and laughed, taken by a sudden wave of shyness. It took her a minute more to work up the courage to ask, "And who are you?"

The image of Gabriel pulsed, suddenly becoming more real in Gina's mind. More solid, more there than Gina herself. Her flicker of fear returned like a distant scream, but Gabriel's aura of power overrode it. Every sense and thought told her he wouldn't hurt her. Not now.

The space between them, even the table, seemed to shrink without ever actually changing size. In that instant he was close to her, so close that she could feel his warmth radiate across her skin. Somehow she was on her feet, and when she looked up into his eyes he glowed like a little piece of God.

He leaned in to kiss her, and her heart stopped.

The world was black. The sky was red. People made of ash walked and talked and laughed as if they were alive. They turned to look at Gina, smiled and welcomed her.

She gasped for life. It rushed into her all at once, an explosion of light onto her retinas.

"Fuck," said Rat, his disembodied head hovering over her. Still covered by a hood and sunglasses. "Fuck me, she's breathin'!"

She sucked in breath after breath, lungfuls of polluted and smoky and wonderful air, and soared back into the world of the living.  
"What are you talking about?" she asked, still floating on a cloud of endorphins. Gabriel's kiss lingered on her lips and staved off the rush of adrenaline crashing into her system. "What happened?"

Rat collapsed backwards and threw back his hood. It revealed a mess of short black curls over a thin, androgynous face. "You were dead, girl. I saw it. Two minutes, no breathing, nothing. You died."

A strange smile came to her lips without thinking. "That, or I got brought back to life."

"What? What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Gina giggled to herself and gestured dismissively. "Never mind. You wouldn't understand." Sitting up, she steadied her spinning head and looked around. "Where are we?"

The place looked like a dark, abandoned City alley and certainly smelled like one. The stink of stale piss and other human waste assaulted her nostrils. Buildings crowded in on both sides, creaky old things of brick and wood, most of them either abandoned or claimed by squatters. No doubt there was a corpse or two lying further up the alley, adding to the local aroma. Gangs loved these sorts of places.

"Scratch that last," she said next. "I know where we are. What are we doing here?"

"Waiting for--" a mobile phone started jingling in his pocket, "--Jock to call." He sighed and dug out the tiny cylinder, no bigger than Gina's pinky finger, and slid out the mouthpiece. "Rat," he said into the phone. "Okay. Yeah, I'll set it up."

He rummaged around in his pockets and brought out a small mobile computer, slotting the phone into it. After some more rummaging, he threw Gina a tiny piece of flesh-coloured plastic. "Put that in your ear. It's a radio, like in the movies. Picks up everything you say and everything you hear. Touch to turn it on, touch again to turn it off. Got it?"

The piece wasn't hard like she expected, but soft and pliable. It slithered into her ear and wriggled around, discovering the curves of her ear. Once it had established the area in its databanks, it hardened and settled in with the most disgusting sensation Gina had ever experienced, like greasy ants crawling into her ear canal. She barely managed to restrain herself from clawing it out and hurling it away from her.

"Let's get to business," Jock's voice buzzed in her ear. "I'll guide you to his general location, watch your back, tell you what to say. Remember, there could be Yakuza out there, or other baddies with Gina's picture. Watch everything."

A wave of fresh excitement pumped in Gina's bloodstream. She stood up, straightened her skirt, checked the Mk5 in her pocket, and brushed her fingers over her blouse to feel the warm piece of steel against her chest. "Roger," she said, just like in the movies.

"Got it," Rat grunted.

"I've got access to all the local cameras, so I can tell you if anyone suspicious is armed, but I can't run face checks on the whole crowd quick enough sift anyone out. That means the tricky bit is up to you two. You'll have to locate him, identify him, and make peaceful contact."

Gina frowned, her excitement screeching to a sudden halt. "What do you mean, 'peaceful contact'?"

Over the radio, Jock chuckled and said nothing.

They split up and went out into the street with a purpose. Gina vanished into the throng, like a river of people flowing down a long winding valley of neon and concrete storefronts. The horizon glowed grey with the encroaching dawn, but even at an hour like this the people's lust for shopping didn't seem a bit diminished.

She reached into her purse and tore a section off the plastic strip of pills. Just one, she thought, glancing around her. Not two, not here. Too many people. She nodded to herself, popped a dose of Spice out of the plastic, swallowed it dry.

Acid churned in her empty stomach as the pill hit her. It would take a while for her third eye to open. She stared blankly into shop windows, felt pickpockets search her for a wallet that wasn't there. Some of them settled for a quick grope in lieu of payoff. After all, she was a woman -- a gaijin woman, no less -- so what else was she good for?

The touchy types were quickly introduced to the way of the steel-toed boot. Still, they put Gina into a black mood that just got darker as the minutes wore on. The chatter of the crowd hammered in on her like waves beating against the shore. Thoughts and feelings streaming through the cobbled streets with battering-ram force. It was the Spice working on her, and she wondered if taking a pill had been such a good idea.

A peal of thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain came down all at once, a torrential downpour, and Gina didn't have the luxury of sitting in a warm shop until it went away. She had to march into a dangerous, unpredictable, pretty fucked-up situation in order to bust someone out of prison. What a life.

She just wanted to kill someone.

"Let's go then, you bastards," she snarled at the shop window and turned away. Strands of wet red hair dangled down her shoulders. If anyone had looked at her just then they would have flinched back from the mad look in her eyes. She gave in completely to the trance, bit her lip in concentration, and reached out to the crowd with her mind.

"This is Rat," mumbled a voice in her ear, "ain't found anything yet. There's a building, though, corner next to the strip club, looks abandoned. I wanna check it out."

"Go," said Jock. "Careful, though. Infrared cams say there's definitely people in there. Gina, give Rat some backup." A beat ticked away. "Gina? Gina! She's not responding. Something wrong with the radio?"

Gina stretched out her arms. The rain, the sky, the earth, she could feel them all. She touched all living things, felt their warm blood coursing, felt the drum of their heartbeats. She looked out, and it was as if she could see Gabriel in the distance, smiling. She smiled back.

She submerged herself in the voice of the world and the whispers of thoughts all around her. She glided through rivers of people, through porches and doorways, her nerves thrumming to the rhythm of the world. Her feet never seemed to touch the ground as they carried her nearer to the object of her search.

Suddenly, her trance shattered like crystal as a cold gun pressed against her temple. A jolt of ice shot down her spine at the click of the hammer being cocked.

"No sound," a voice hissed in her ear in tones of sharpened steel. Gina couldn't see him but she felt his thoughts rattling in her head. They were iron plans and steel secrets, full of rage and full of blood.

Gina swallowed the lump of terror in her throat and husked, "Don't kill me. Please."

Rough hands turned her around and flung her against the wall. Corrugated steel boomed where she landed. Pain flashed up and down her back. She saw blue eyes blazing in the half-light of reflected neon, a hand like a carpenter's vice gripping her throat, the gun pressed up against her chin. His face slowly swam into focus as he came closer.

"Gina!" her earpiece buzzed. Jock, frantic and angry. "I heard you! Where the fuck are you?!"

"I know you," he said. "The girl. Come to finish the job, have you? Simon's pulled a good trick on me, but I'm not dead yet. Where is he?"

"Listen--" she started, shivering like a reed in his grasp, but the cold metal of the gun hit her hard across the cheek. The world spun for a moment. A savage jerk of her neck brought her back to her senses, to the feeling of warm blood rolling down her jaw, to the taste of it on her tongue like copper and iron.

The Emperor treated her to a cold smile as her eyes focused again. "Where is he?"

"I know that voice." Jock sounded ashen. "Fuck. Fuck me. Don't say a thing."

The grip around her throat tightened to make her gasp. Her breath wheezed out of her, unable to get back into her lungs. "Where is he?" the Emperor repeated with the same quiet edge.

Gina squeaked, "He's... He's not here!" She coughed violently, but couldn't breathe in again. "Hhh... Hhh..."

Just when she thought her lungs would burst, the door on the other side of the room slammed open. Rat's thin, high voice called out from the shadowy doorframe, "Emperor! Let her go!"

Gunshots thundered through the darkness. Gina heard Rat squeal as he jumped away into cover, her eyes aching from the muzzle flash, barely able to see the Emperor in front of her as he scanned the room for his target. Without thinking she dipped her hand into her purse, pulled out her trusty old Mk5, and squeezed.

The Emperor flew away from her. His body landed convulsing on the floor, but within moments he stretched out again with terrible endurance, grasping for his gun. Gina, still fighting for breath, hurled herself on top of him and shoved the Mk5 in his face. It hummed menacingly while it recharged.

"The next one will kill you," she rasped, "so no more games. We're here with Jock."

"You lie," the Emperor mumbled, but his voice was unsure. He continued more forcefully, "Jock is dead. They are all dead. Do not mock me, woman." He clenched his fingers to work the electric-shock numbness from them.

The bug in her ear hummed, "Quick, tell him--" it switched to Mandarin in mid-sentence, "--'dawn over Chang Jiang'."

The Emperor's eyes widened as she repeated the phrase. "All right?" she asked the strong, harrowed face underneath her. Recovered as he was, she had no doubts that he could throw her off at any second. Her muscles were weak and starved of oxygen and her brain was on fire with Spice. But she had the Mk5.

He nodded. "Alright. You are with Jock. But I don't understand." From the corner of her eye, Gina could see Rat cautiously creeping back into the room, ready to bolt again if anyone even pointed a gun in his general direction.

"Neither do I," she said and moved to roll off of him. Jock said something in her ear, but she couldn't make it out as the Emperor threw her off the moment she shifted her weight. The gun materialised in his hand in the same way Bomber's had done in the alley. Surprised and off-balance, it happened too fast for her to react. Three shots rang out like the wrath of God.

A dark shape toppled to the floor out of the doorway, accompanied by the clunk of metal as something dropped from its hands. The Emperor rushed to the body's side and ripped open the dark overcoat. He spat a savage curse when he saw the gang colours.

"Fuck," breathed Rat. "Holy fuck. Who's he, Yakuza?"

"No," the Emperor said hatefully. "Triads."

The earpiece burbled, "Gina, are you listening? I told you, I've got about five armed people converging on that building! You need to get the hell out of there!"

The Emperor sneered as she told him the news, then stood up and jacked the slide of his pistol. "Follow me."

He slipped out the doorway into a deep stairwell, and Gina followed him on trembling legs, pulling Rat along behind her. They rattled down the rickety steps as fast as they could. The sound of other people's footfalls hammered off the walls, and somewhere at the bottom of the stairwell, the noise of a boot meeting an ancient rotting door boomed up the shaft. Wood cracked. Shouts in Chinese echoed everywhere.

The Emperor turned onto the first floor landing and muttered, "A parting gift," as he pulled a grenade out from under his longcoat. He sent it tumbling down the gap between the stairs to land hard on the ground below. Meanwhile the door at the bottom let out a final creaking moan as it gave way. Several men piled into the stairwell, shouting and stomping, and a moment later vanished in a ball of fire. Huge clouds of black smoke billowed up the stairway like an avalanche in reverse.

With a single powerful heave, the Emperor threw open the fire door and leapt into the empty space where the fire escape should have been, undeterred by the drop to ground level. He landed lightly on his feet, all the while aiming his gun down the street in case anyone decided to pop their head round the corner. Behind him, ancient fire alarms roused from their slumber and started to blare out their electronic warnings.

"This feels familiar," Gina muttered as she climbed down. Her heavy soles made a loud clump as she hit the pavement. The shock travelled all the way up her legs and into to her Spice-muddled mind, sent it spinning so hard she had to catch herself against the wall, retching all over the brickwork.

Meanwhile Rat waffled in the doorway, frightened to take the three-metre jump, but the sound of more Triad men thundering into the building persuaded him to take his chances with gravity. He squealed as he plummeted to the ground, but soon found himself on the ground unharmed.

"Move," the Emperor hissed, "they won't be far behind. If we're fast we can melt before they see us."

Gina agreed immediately and followed close on his heels. Rat didn't get a vote. In Gina's opinion, it was a capital plan.

After all, it put as much distance as possible between herself and the chaos of smoke, fire and armed men behind her.

Part 7

"That's it," said Jock, his voice buzzing from the speakers of Rat's mobile phone. "Looks like you're clear of them. No one armed in the area, I'd call it safe."

Gina closed her eyes in relief and leaned her back against the wall, panting. The Spice still whirled in her head.

One pill. One pill had kicked her ass like nothing she'd ever felt before. It overwhelmed her. She couldn't shut out the thoughts of the people around her, ocean waves hammering against her mind.

What's happening to me? she cried out inside.

Sinking to the floor, she gave up. Couldn't fight it anymore. The only thing she could do was let it come, feel it and try to make sense of it. The Emperor's confusion, his curiosity, his boiling hot anger. It contrasted with the deeper emotions under his surface, loss and hate twisting cold in his heart along with an evil little spark of hope. Then came Rat's pumping terror -- a pure, almost childlike fear -- and his relief. His horror, even despair at what he'd gotten himself into. But even Rat had a core of resolve, a fierce desire to prove himself that kept him thinking and kept him sane.

And from both of them, on top of everything else, she felt secrets within secrets within secrets. She knew she could never trust them. Like she could never trust anyone in her life. Like she could never trust Bomber.

"Are you alright?" the Emperor asked her matter-of-factly. It wasn't a question about anything that might be bothering her, he simply inquired if she was physically fit enough to keep up or if she needed to be left behind.

She clamped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes tight. "Fuck off."

"Hey, we should find someplace to hole up for tonight," Rat interjected. "We should be safe if Jock can wipe the camera logs, right?" He looked around for confirmation of his brilliant idea, proud of having thought of it all by himself.

"Change of plans," said Jock. "The Feds have taken over Simon's case. He's just been moved onto the justice fast track. If we want to spring him, we'd better do it now before he's in a Fed interrogation cell." Gina wondered at the slight tone of worry in his voice, as if Jock actually cared about the continued existence of another human being.

The Emperor frowned as he inserted his own earbug. "Jock. Why is it you never bring me good news?"

A stiff chuckle echoed across the radio. "Glad to see you're still with us, sir."

"We will have to get him out before he talks to the Feds. That much is certain. Have you arranged transport?"

"There's an extra ticket to Hong Kong waiting at the airport," Jock reported. "Passport, biometrics, holomask, everything."

"Excellent. The only problem will be getting to the airport unnoticed. They obviously know I'm in the area, so they are sure to be watching it." He pulled another handgun out of his boot and turned to Gina. "Here, you may need this," he said, and tucked it into her hand. Its grip was warm against her palm, but the warmth was different from that of her old Mk5. It was as if she could sense its killing purpose.

"Wait," she croaked. It was difficult to talk with the drugs running wild in her head, unable to let herself sink into trance, but she forced her lips to shape the words carefully and distinctly. "The people chasing you. You said they were Triads. You're Triads."

The wave of hatred and resentment that rippled from the Emperor's mind hit Gina like a blow. It was a hate as vast as mountains, as deep as oceans, and as black as deep space. His face contorted as he said, "The men hunting us are the trusted men of my 'friends', the other Triad Lords. With my fortress and most of my men in ashes, they imagine they can take my territory and divide it up amongst themselves. Criminals with the minds of criminals." Then his iron will asserted itself. "There will be a reckoning for their mistake. But later."

"When you're quite done," Jock crabbed, "I'm ready to drop the Hangzhou power grid, everything but the airport. That should cover your way. How you get there is up to you."

"Rat." Gina looked up at him. "You pick locks, right?"

"One of my many talents," he replied.

"Good." She smiled, and the Emperor let out a chuckle as he caught on to her train of thought. "Can you hotwire a car?"

Their stolen BMW purred through the pitch-black streets of Hangzhou. Gina lay stretched out in the back, cradling her pounding head, while Rat sat to attention in the passenger seat and stared at the Emperor with adoring eyes. The town's confusion gonged through her head like a church bell, painfully loud and impossible to soften. She could feel it coursing through the shadows and the candlelit rooms, down the rows of questing headlights and past the nameless hundreds lost in the dark.

Gina felt a strange kinship with those lost, wandering souls. For them, it was as if civilisation had come to an end. Power blackouts were the kind of thing you heard about in your grandparents' bullshitting sessions, not something to be experienced first-hand.

Gina was pretty lost herself, adrift on a sea of possibilities, all bad. Door number one, insanity. Door number two, death. She wondered whether to add a third possibility: meeting Gabriel face-to-face.

Even now she sensed him, a distant presence, like someone reading over her shoulder. It comforted her in a way she couldn't quite explain. Every time she reached for that feeling, it was there, always in the same place. Her own little north star.

A soft tingling touched her lips whenever she thought of their kiss. It curled them into an involuntary smile, and she hid a blush. The images of their meeting had faded from her mind like old photographs, but the emotions lingered, filling her with warmth. Still, it was too private a memory to properly treasure in a moving vehicle with two other people. She put it away in a secret place inside her head and chastised herself for letting her mood swing back and forth like this. Hope or despair, she ought to pick one and stay with it like everyone else did.

They finally emerged into the low-wattage yellow glow of the airport car park. Refugees from the town had crowded to the lights, and now sat on nearly every square metre of ground. The Emperor pounded the car horn again and again, but they wouldn't move.

"Inconvenient," he muttered. "We'll have to abandon the vehicle. Get ready."

Gina snatched up her purse and got out, trying to keep a firm grip on herself and her brain. She reeled under the combined thoughts and emotions of the thronging crowd. It was a struggle to keep control, but she felt stronger now, despite an insistant yearning to take another pill. To feel the way she felt in the shopping street. Like an angel. She wondered if that was how it felt to be Gabriel.

People surrounded them from all sides, asking questions in every possible language about conditions in town and relatives they might have come across. The Emperor barked at them to stand aside, but again they didn't move. The Emperor got angrier and angrier. Gina watched in horror as his hand went into his coat, to some inside pocket, and she launched herself into the crowd to try and stop him. The wall of bodies refused to part. There were too many of them, and she was too late.

The Emperor pulled something small and silver out of his pocket, shouted while pointing at the car, and then hurled it out into the crowd. Gina's heart tightened, expecting it to explode any second, but instead the Emperor seized her by the arm and dragged her towards the terminal. People rushed in from all sides to try and grab the thing for themselves.

"What was that?" she asked in confusion.

"My motel key," he chuckled, cutting through the press like a knife. He wasn't a particularly big man but he knew how to use shoulders and elbows to amazing effect.

The inside of the terminal building was even worse. People packed together shoulder to shoulder, huddling like disaster victims. The massive video cube in the middle of the hall showed every flight to be delayed or part of a three-hour landing queue. The Emperor scowled at the throng as a wolf might survey a flock of sheep.

Meanwhile, Jock's voice hummed, "I've given your flight landing priority. It's already on the pad and leaving in half an hour. Your passport and equipment is waiting at the main information desk, I suggest you get moving."

"This brings back memories." The Emperor stroked his moustache, then nodded. "We will find the desk. You must subvert security on our gate in the meantime, the new detectors can pick out a holomask in--"

"Where's Rat?" Gina interrupted suddenly. People of all sizes and descriptions pressed in around them, but the usual slouching, badly-dressed teenager was absent.

The Emperor stopped in mid-sentence, closed his mouth with a click of teeth, and muttered a curse. "He was behind us when I looked. He should know better than to fall behind." Then, "Jock, we have lost contact with Rat. Location?"

"The tracker says he's still outside, but I'm not getting anything on radio. He may have turned it off."

"We have to go back," said Gina, but a hard, practical look from the Emperor gave her pause.

"Out of the question. There is too much at stake, we have to continue."

"Too much at stake for you," she shot back. "I don't like him either, but we're not leaving anyone behind."

"You're a fool. I am getting out of here, with or without you. I am going to get Simon, and I am going to get my answers for all of this. If you prefer to play shepherd to children who cannot keep up, then go and don't bother coming back. Now make your choice," the Emperor growled.

The air between them buzzed with electricty as they tried to stare each other down. The Emperor's will was an irresistible force, but it had never encountered the immovable object of Gina's stubbornness. Finally she made her decision.

She turned her back on him and walked through the sliding doors, searching for an annoying brat who would almost certainly not appreciate the effort.

Men. You're all the same, she thought venomously. The tiny flicker of Gabriel in her head radiated a sense of amused reproach, but she ignored it.

Only when she took in the massive, milling crowd in front of her did she realise the enormity of her task. Her heart sank into her boots as she saw the hundreds, thousands, idling in the car park and in the street. Some were even duelling with the airport's emergency fire engines for control of the runways, but the firemen's high-pressure water cannons gave them the upper hand. Finding Rat in this mess would be like... like finding a needle in a three-tier terraced hay farm.

"It's impossible." She heaved a deep sigh, defeated and deflated. But then she felt the hard double bottom of her purse, the nubs of hidden pills pressing into her side, and she knew how it could be done.

"Shit," she added for good measure. She hadn't even come down from her first pill yet. On the other hand, if Rat was in trouble, she couldn't afford any delays. Even swallowing the dose now, it took a little while for her third eye to open.

The pill was dry and nasty going down her throat. She looked around for a quiet corner to let it take effect, but every crevice was already occupied. For lack of a better option, she just sat with her back to the wall and prepared herself.

The trance came over her slowly. It was as if a gossamer veil had been pulled over her head, tearing away when she struggled to her feet. She emerged on the other side of it with her mind thrumming like crystal. Thoughts and emotions reverberated off each other. They were auras rippling out from thousands of unique sources, creating eddies, currents, whirlpools and dead zones in the larger ocean. Gina could see it from the corners of her eyes, where the air shimmered and rippled in unnatural patterns, radiating out from the people around her.

It nearly overwhelmed her in her still-fragile trance, but then three years of experience made itself heard, and she brought order where there was chaos. The patterns were there, they could be predicted if you knew how. And Gina did. She adjusted to the ebb and flow of the trance, taught herself how to skim along the surface without going in too deep, until it was almost natural. Even so, she remained on guard, afraid of what happened last time. She couldn't afford to let it spin out of control again.

She was a shadow flitting through the mass of bodies. Unfelt, unseen. She reached out and skimmed her fingers across the minds of hundreds, only the lightest of touches, trying to find one she recognised. Her mind worked tirelessly to sort the mass of input into individual sensations and filter out the one she wanted.

For a moment she felt something familiar -- but no, only a gaijin suit-and-tie she'd touched on a job two years ago. She discarded it and kept looking. New clusters of emotion drifted in and out of her range, and suddenly she tasted fear. A small knot of it hidden away in a distant corner of the airport. She homed in on it, found it buzzing alone in the middle of some dark thoughts and lusts that made her skin crawl.

A small electricity substation rose out of the darkness as she neared the spot. It was apparently part of the town's main power grid; the lights outside were blacked out, and the uneven rim of light peering through from behind the door suggested some makeshift arrangement inside. Before she could make out anything else, a dark silhouette stepped forward and challenged her in Conglom.

"Go away! You have no business here!" it shouted at her. She reached out to touch him, felt the guilty, furtive protectiveness of a gang flunky guarding some illicit proceeding.

She smiled and pressed in close with a few soothing words, pretending to be drunk whilst at the same time showing off her chest. He didn't know what to think of her until all his muscles suddenly stopped working, paralysed by thousands of volts of tasered electricity. He didn't even have time to call out, just dropped, twitching quietly. Gina kissed her loyal Mk5 -- taking care not to burn her lips -- and moved to peek through the heavy steel door.

Several well-dressed people stood in a small semicircle. Gina counted one caucasian and two Japanese, all in typical black business suits -- and a smiling blonde woman with Russian features. She wore an understated blue suit with a bow tie. Gina couldn't make out what they were saying until she laid her ear against the door, fighting to hear and see at the same time.

"\--surely an inconvenience," the woman said in Conglom, "but we are professionals. Once we spotted a target matching your needs, we decided to turn a difficult situation into an opportunity. The number of people actually made it easier to cover our tracks. We do hope it wasn't too short notice." She added an ingratiating smile at the end.

"Not at all, Ridley-san," reassured one of the Japanese. "We are most pleased and impressed at your resourcefulness. But are you certain this is the merchandise we asked for? It looks... "

"Have no fear, sir." The woman smiled again. At the snap of her fingers, a large, tattooed thug stepped into view manhandling something small and ferocious-looking. The package hurled an impressive variety of muffled curses at the assorted businesspeople. Gina couldn't see what was going on behind the row of bodies but she recognised the voice well enough despite the commotion, stifling a gasp. She'd definitely found Rat.

At a second gesture from the woman, there was a sound of ripping cotton, and Rat squealed in horror in the thug's grip. The people hummed and nodded with approval, moving just enough for Gina to catch a glimpse of exposed, teenage breasts.

"I told you it was a girl," chuckled the caucasian man, tapping the side of his head. Gina felt a stab of horror and panic of her own, then stepped back in alarm as she felt the subtle touches of Spice in the man's mind. He'd been preoccupied trying to read the other men in the room, but now he sensed Gina, and turned towards the door with a worried expression.

"Someone's watching us," he said.

The woman's expression turned to stone. She snapped her fingers again, and Gina started to back away from the door just in time. It flew open, revealing a swarthy, strongly-built man in designer casuals. His dark skin had gone almost completely pink from the sheer number of knife scars forming a twisted network across his face.

She reached out to him and knew his thoughts. Surprise. He blinked, unsure whether or not to try and grab her. She had a momentary chance to act, but the Mk5 was still recharging in her hand. She felt the temptation to run away and forget about everything. She seriously considered it. What else could she do?

Then she heard the soft sound of Rat sobbing through some kind of gag, and her body acted without consulting her. The Emperor's gun jumped out of her purse to train on the scarred man, her white-knuckled fingers gripping the cold steel as tight as they could.

"That's far enough," Gina said, panting. Chemicals and hormones raged through her system, conflicting and confusing, until all she wanted to do was throw up. Her hands shook from the effort of maintaining control.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked.

"None of your damned business," she said automatically. "Now step back and bring my friend over." When the man didn't move, she dropped her forced calm and snarled, "Step back!"

He did, hands raised carefully in the air. Gina inched into the doorway, felt the cold metal machinery all around them. The Japanese pair backed away from the gun as far as they could. The caucasian man stood aside and looked at her with the detached cynicism of the hired telepath. The tattooed thug still held Rat in a tight grip, but he too backed away. Only the woman stood her ground.

"I'd be careful if I were you," the telepath pointed out to the woman, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall in apathy. He wasn't about to put his life in danger, and he knew that Gina knew it. "She's high up on third eye, not exactly in a stable frame of mind."

"This is a joke," the woman snorted at Gina. "Look at you, you're so wired you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Put it down before we're forced to hurt you."

Gina held on to the fierce protective instinct burning at her core. She forced steadiness into her voice as she said, "I've got fifteen bullets. There's six of you. Come and try me."

That caused the telepath a good, hearty laugh. One of the Japanese cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Perhaps the deal--"

"The deal goes as planned," the woman grated. She made some kind of hand signal behind her back, and the tattooed thug acted with chem-boosted speed. He threw Rat into a corner like a rag doll and charged.

The waves of bloodlust pouring from his mind told his story as well as anything. Gina felt the all-consuming fire of berserker drugs driving him, filling him with addictive rage. His mind was so far gone that he felt little else, unable to do more than eat, sleep, fuck and obey simple commands. There was no fear, no leftover spark of humanity.

Gina pulled the trigger. Red blossomed from the thug's shirt, yet it barely slowed him down. She squeezed again, and again, and again, could see the dark little holes it tore in his flesh, but he refused to fall. He was almost on top of her when she fired one last time. His head exploded backwards in a shower of gore. His body took two more steps before it slumped to the ground, twitching in a pool of its own blood.

The scarred man gaped at the red and grey stains splattered across his expensive jacket. The Japanese cowered in a corner, and the telepath was hunched up against the wall, vomiting quietly. Rat lay limp on the floor in his-- her ripped clothes, unconscious.

Gina dropped her arm, and the gun slipped out of her slack fingers. It clattered loudly to the floor. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn't even feel them.

The woman spotted an opportunity and dove for the gun, but a powerful backhand slap stopped her. The scarred man stood over her with a face like a tombstone. Without another word, he ushered the Japanese out the door, threw the telepath out with a bit more force, then picked up Rat in two huge arms and placed her into Gina's arms, covered by his ruined jacket.

"That man was my brother," he rumbled at Gina. "Used to be, a long time ago. She," he glanced at the woman in the same way he might regard an insect, "killed him. You just pulled the trigger." Then he shoved her backwards out of the doorway. "Go. I'm going to do some things you don't want to watch."

The door slammed in her face.

Nobody troubled her as she carried Rat back to the terminal, the girl's slender body wrapped in the scarred man's jacket. Gina couldn't say how much time had passed between leaving the Emperor and stumbling into the airport washroom. Nothing from the outside registered, not until she shut the door behind her and dipped her hands in cold water to get the blood off.

She reached up to scrub her face but paused at the feel of fresh tears trickling down her fingers. The sheer enormity of taking someone's life weighed in on her. Slaver or not, she'd made him die. She never wanted that. Never wanted any of it, not the Street, not Bomber, not Spice and certainly not the 'privilege' of getting to go into people's sick, twisted minds.

The only reason she'd resigned herself to the Street was because she wanted to die and was too chicken-hearted to do the job herself. Always thought the pills would do it for her. Now she'd felt someone really die. Felt that thug, that man, while the light of his mind switched off. Nothing left but darkness and cold. It made Gina want to live more than ever.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Rat's voice from the corner, half accusatory and half simply confused.

"Nothing," Gina lied. Her brain and body were only just starting to calm down, slowly coming back to normal, or even a more regular kind of upset. The abject horror of the man's death lingered at the back of her head. For a moment she remembered his face as dark-haired and Russian, with a thick moustache and a silver revolver in his hand, but she knew that was wrong. She quickly shook her head and banished the image from her mind.

Rat looked around with unfocused eyes, then scoffed, "Don't look like nothing." After a moment he-- she added, "Fuck, my head. What happened?"

Gina turned around to look at her, a small shape in a bloodstained white jacket, propped up against a wall of yellowed tiles. Confused, Rat glanced down at her torn top, and Gina saw her face change as the memories returned to her. The girl gasped in horror and pulled the jacket tight around her to hide any sign of skin, fixing Gina with a hostile stare for daring to have seen.

Gina sighed, "You've got nothing I haven't seen before. I have a pair myself if you hadn't noticed." She leaned back against the sink, still unsteady on her feet.

Finally, Rat forced calm into her voice and said, "Don't tell anyone."

"I won't." Gina reached into her purse for a cigarette, found one, but paused before putting it in her mouth. Her mood had changed, and she threw the thing away in disgust. To Rat she asked, "Why?"

"None of your business."

"Fuck if it isn't," she snapped. "I think you owe me an explanation after what happened."

Anger flashed in Rat's eyes as she picked herself up from the floor. She was shaking on her feet, but her muscles were fuelled by a hundred churning emotions, echoing back to Gina through the Spice in her bloodstream. Rat hissed, "I don't owe you shit. I'm a cowboy, a hacker, yeah? I could've got myself out of there just as easy. That's what cowboys do, we get ourselves out of trouble, we don't need anybody else."

"Just as easy." Gina smiled without warmth. "Are you really that stupid? You're, what, fifteen years old? Do you know what could've happened to you, what nearly did happen to you?"

"I'm seventeen," Rat said. "And you can quit lecturing me now. I know what I'm doing." She turned her back and started to work the torn rags off her body. Bruises and scabs marked her skin from the treatment she'd received.

Gina barked a humourless laugh. "Really? 'Cause it seems to me like you haven't got the slightest idea--"

"You try being a girl in that crowd!" The scream came out of nowhere, carrying all the soul and fury of a wounded lioness. Rat wheeled around and locked on Gina with tears in her eyes. "Look at you! You should know what it's like, what boys are like. Being looked down on, never trusted with anything except lying back and spreading your legs for 'em." Rat clenched her teeth together and choked her emotions down. "You try being a girl with people like Jock and his cowboys. You're either a piece of meat to be slobbered over or not good enough to be one of them, not ever, even if you're better than they are. I had to pretend. I've always had to pretend."

She turned away again and leaned her head against the wall, sobbing quietly to herself.

A wave of sympathy poured into Gina as the words hit home. Somewhere in that pit of anger and frustration, Gina had started to understand Rat. The bluster, the pretense and posturing, they were her shield against the terrors of the outside world. As long as she believed in her hacker-dom, clung to the sense of power that came with it, nothing could hurt her. But girls couldn't be hackers, and hackers couldn't be girls.

Every trace of anger and hostility left her as Gina stepped forward and put her arms around the crying girl. Rat struggled for half a moment, then accepted the unconditional comfort of her embrace.

A damaged speaker crackled Chinese from the corner. It repeated the same message in six different languages, each of which tugged at Gina's mind as she tried to concentrate on comforting Rat.

"Asia Pacific Air Flight 4121 for Hong Kong has finished refuelling. Final boarding will begin at Gate 7. We apologise for the delay, and Hangzhou officials assure us that power will be restored in a few hours. Please view the flights board for updated departure times. Thank you."

Without thinking, Gina took her ticket out of her pocket and glanced absently at the flight number. Then her eyes widened.

"The power outage," she said, stunned. Rat didn't seem to hear her, so Gina gently shook the girl by the shoulders. "That's our flight! Listen, we can still make it!"

"To Hong Kong?" Rat sniffled dumbly, and Gina nodded.

"Bomber still needs us. Come on." Taking Rat's hand, Gina quickly buttoned up the stained white jacket around the girl's shoulders, then pulled her along at a run towards the gates.

"It fits," Gina said with a critical eye. To be completely honest, the top she'd snatched from the duty-free shop was more than a bit baggy on Rat's thin, wiry frame, but apparently that was the way Rat liked it. The toilet cabins on the airship offered them just enough privacy to sort themselves out, as well as a good-sized wastebin in which to stuff the bloodstained jacket. That had raised a few eyebrows on their way through the airship, but they'd been in too much of a hurry getting to the gate to stop for a change of clothes.

"Thanks." Rat glanced in the mirror and decided herself to be adequately covered. She sweeped the room for bugs one more time, just in case, but found nothing. It was against the law to bug public toilets, but that didn't stop some companies or individuals from doing it anyway. She rubbed the dust off her hands and continued, "Where's my bag?"

Gina shrugged. "Last I saw, the Emperor had all our stuff. We'll deal with that after we land."

"Okay," said Rat, crossing her arms. "No point doing anything before then, if he's wearing a holomask. No way to recognise him."

"So we just lay low until we get to Hong Kong?"

"That's what I'm gonna do. I've had enough..." She started to shake, then clenched her fists and forced it down. "Enough excitement for one day," she ground out between her teeth.

Gently resting a hand on Rat's shoulder, Gina said, "Take it easy, okay? You've been through a lot." It sounded lame to her own ears, but it was the only thing Gina could think to say. Rat nodded silently and took a deep breath.

"I think I'm gonna go plunder the dining compartment," she said with a weak smile and a glint of mischief in her eye. "You okay being on your own for a bit?"

"Yeah. I'm going to make a phone call, check up on some friends."

"Not on a public phone you're not," Rat countered firmly. "Use a VR rig, they've got virtual phone utilities built in. No in-betweens, much harder to trace."

"Right. Thanks, cowboy." Gina smiled, and so did Rat before she threw up her hood and put on a fresh pair of sunglasses.

They went their separate ways at the junction outside. The airship's deck swayed gently under Gina's feet, and she quietly thanked the airline for their complimentary seasickness pills. Grey clouds drifted past the ship's great windows, and the distant lights of other airships were visible in the night sky. The windows themselves were massive round sheets of lexan set into the plastic and steel of the hull, decorated with riveted bands of bronze to make them look like portholes. Of course it didn't matter that no seagoing ship had ever had portholes that large, or comfotable shag carpeting on the floors. It was the atmosphere that counted.

She casually made her way through narrow but tastefully decorated corridors, drifting in the general direction of the public VR cubicles -- one of the many perks of riding a first-class airship. The air tasted rich and fresh and every corner of the ship contained at least one variety of potted plant. The ceiling stretched high, curving steeply to one side to accommodate the massive helium balloon above it.

Gina pulled the cubicle door shut behind her, and it slid into its socket with the vague sucking noise of an air seal. Between her and the outside world was a layer of vacuum covered with soundproof padding. Nothing she said could be captured as recognisable speech from the outside.

The interior of the VR cubicle was made of soft, velvety rubber that moulded itself to the contours of her body. A complimentary bug scanner rested in its socket by the door along with another, smaller bug scanner for scanning the scanner. Very thoughtful. Anyone conducting business in such a cubicle could be moderately confident that no one was eavesdropping.

She lifted the crown from its cradle and gently put it on, then straightened some of the electrodes which had bent double against her head. The terminal slowly came alive and projected a helpful welcoming hologram of a cartoon girl in a pink dress. When it opened its mouth there sounded a voice so sugary that Gina just wanted to strangle it.

"Welcome to the Yumito Virtual Fun Experience," the hologram said chipperly. Sunshine, stars and rainbows played through its hair while it hovered in Gina's face. "Is this your first time using a virtual reality entertainment station?"

"No," growled Gina.

"Would you like to go through the basic controls with me?"

"No," she repeated more forcefully.

"Do you not wish to receive the tutorial before proceeding?" it said, almost hurt that anyone would try to avoid the prepared advertisement monologue.

"No..."

"Are you sure you want to proceed without the tutorial?" it hammered on in the same saccharine voice.

"Yes!" Gina shouted, thumping the machine with the heel of her hand.

"Thank you for using the Yumito Virtual Fun Experience! We are connecting you now. Please enjoy and be happy!" The hologram smiled, clapped its hands and faded away in a shower of coloured sparks.

Unlike her experience on Jock's rig, this time the virtual world slowly eased into her perception, like a photograph superimposed on her eyes becoming more opaque until the real world faded out completely. She took a moment to refresh her recollection of the controls. As long as she was in VR, she might as well have a little fun.

A full-length mirror with a set of avatar controls followed her around the entrance, asking her if she wanted to change her default avatar. If she wanted, it told her in cartoony red letters, the cubicle could even reconstruct her own body as an avatar. Gina glanced down at the familiar victorian frock, sighed, and sent the mirror away. A frumpy default avatar might not be fashionable, but it avoided drawing attention.

"Virtual phone," she said, and an exaggerated red telephone popped into existence in front of her, complete with antique-style rotary dial and wired horn. She picked up the horn and dialled the number from memory.

At the beach house of Onounu and Mashei, a phone rang. It went off again and again, but nobody answered except the wind. A line of police tape covered the shattered door. Broken glass blanketed the warm, colourful carpets, and two bodies lay together in a pool of blood. Outside, Shanghai police leaned against their cars and smoked cigarettes to ease the wait for the special investigation team.

Finally the phone made an incongruous beep like that of an old answering machine. Back aboard the airship, Gina stiffened momentarily, then went limp in her cubicle.

Part 8

Gina's body rested on a pile of soft leaves. Golden sunlight played through the lush, green forest canopy above her. There was no wind, however, not a leaf moving out of place. Gina noticed the strange silence, completely barren of animal life. The air itself had a familiar dreamlike quality to it.

Gina eyed her surroundings for a minute, then sat up and said, "Again?"

This time there was no one there. No Gabriel, no one else, just her. Her feet made no sound when she came upright, looking around the fuzzy forest glade. The ground seemed solid enough to walk on, but the dirt and leaves never sunk or crumpled, just motionlessly supported her weight in stark opposition to the laws of physics. It was more like a photograph of a place, not a real location at all.

As she reached the edge of the glade, faint sounds piqued her interest. Water. Soft, rolling murmur of ocean waves. She made her way down the incline towards the sound, and when she reached the bottom, the forest fell away on both sides.

Gina was on a beach. Again, the sand refused to take footprints, but at least here was something moving. The ocean was blue, alive and beautiful.

A woman stood ankle-deep in the water. The surf lapped calmly at her feet, and she stood staring out across the sea, her arms at her sides and her hands balled into fists. Great red wounds were torn into her body, but there were no bones or organs inside. The only thing that came out was blood, slowly trickling down her legs to mingle with the waves.

The woman was stark naked, Gina realised, and so was she. She felt a sudden burning moment of self-consciousness, but then it was torn away as recognition hit Gina like a sledgehammer.

"I've always loved this place," the woman said in a husky, knowing voice that Gina knew all too well.

Gina opened and closed her mouth a few times, stammered, "Onu?"

"Gina." Onounu waved goodbye to the ocean, then turned to Gina with a warm smile and hugged her fiercely. The wounds on her body were gone, disappeared, without so much as a stain remaining. "I was hoping you'd call."

"But you can't be here," Gina argued weakly, lost in the surreality. "You're in Shanghai..."

Onounu shook her head. "No need to worry about that now. I'm here to help you, that's all that matters."

"What's going on? What is this place?"

"Difficult to explain. It's a recording I made, just in case. I wanted to make sure I could reach you if I... couldn't talk to you in person."

"Couldn't what? What do you mean?" Disentangling herself from Onounu's arms, Gina stepped back and looked at the woman in front of her, and a terrible sense of dread squeezed tight around her heart. "You... You..."

"I know. I'm dead. That's the bad news."

Tears fogged Gina's eyes from the horrible sense of loss that nearly overwhelmed her. She sank back into Onounu's embrace, clinging to the image of her friend for comfort. "Oh my God..."

Onounu stroked Gina's hair and said, "Hush, girl. You'll have plenty of time to grieve for me later. Listen to me, I can't keep you here for long and we need to talk." She took Gina's hands and squeezed them gently. "Hang in there, just for a while, okay?"

Gina looked up at her, saw the pleading in Onounu's otherworldly brown eyes, and knew that she couldn't afford fall apart now. It took strength she didn't know she had, but somehow she willed herself back together.

"Okay," she said at last, forcing herself to pay attention. "I'm listening."

Taking Gina's hand, Onounu led her across the beach to a high, narrow wooden house, its bright blue paint flaking slowly in the wind. Gina's eyes stung at the sight of it, but she kept walking. The doorway was open. Its shattered door lay outside on the gallery. Gina followed Onu inside, looked at her bare feet walking across the broken glass without discomfort. She spotted an old brick of a phone in the corner of the main hallway, and it seemed to be playing back a tape without sound.

"This is where we died," Onu said tranquilly.

"How?"

"Bullets, mostly." She smiled at her own gallows humour. "He was there."

Gina knew instantly who she meant by 'he'. The well of dark emotions inside her stirred, and she choked, "It's my fault. I got you into this." The words just made her want to cry. "I'm so sorry."

A sharp squeeze of her shoulder brought Gina back to attention, and she found herself staring in confusion into Onounu's businesslike expression. "Let's face facts, Gina. You may not have known what you were bringing, but I had my suspicions. We were doomed the second I let you cross my doorstep. Don't have any illusions about that. You're my friend, you needed help, and I'd do it all again. Guilt profits no one. Right now, I need you to know what happened."

Onounu closed her eyes, and suddenly her forehead split open to reveal a third eye, white and blind and wise beyond comprehension. Motion sickness overcame Gina, and she bent over retching, until a hand dragged her back upright and she found herself staring into Gabriel's face.

She sat on her knees in front of him, holding her bruised ribs. Gabriel radiated sympathy as he squatted down to face her up close. His gentle fingers stroked the hair from her eyes and the blood from her lips.

"I'm sorry my men treated you so badly," he said. "They were under the impression that you'd know where I can find someone. A girl by the name of Gina. She's travelling with a man, brown hair, average height, average build. Goes by the alias 'Simon'."

"No," said Onounu's voice, struggling to speak through her swollen lips. Everything hurt.

Gabriel stared into her. She resisted it with every ounce of her strength, and his eyes widened in surprise as he found himself stopped unexpectedly for a moment. Then -- gently, with respect -- he pushed down her will to strip her bare. And found his answers. He couldn't look away from her, utterly crestfallen. The disappointment in his eyes seemed to lash at her very core, hurting her far more than any beating could've done. He looked down, saying, "You really don't know, do you?"

She shook her head. In that moment, her heart nearly burst with pity and love for this man, and she would have done anything for him. Anything. She knew she'd lost, and she didn't care.

Sound of glass shattering. One of the men in Onounu's vision went down in a spray of blood, machine gun bullets tearing through the air in a hurricane of death. Gabriel let out an unmanly sound of surprise and dove for cover, cursing under his breath, pulling Onounu with him. He seemed chagrined by the whole situation, that someone managed to get the drop on him.

"Shit," he said. "Didn't feel them coming. Time to get the hell out of here, gentlemen. Bring the women along, I don't want anything happening to them."

Another rip of gunfire. The bullets simply blew through the walls as if they weren't there, and the upturned table in front of Onounu exploded in a shower of deadly splinters. Time seemed to slow down as they pierced into her, her body thrown backwards by the force of their impact. The next thing she knew, Gabriel knelt over her with pity in his eyes, half-obscured by a red smear of blood over her eyes.

A cold voice boomed from outside, "This is the Federal Police. Surrender now. We won't ask again."

"You never asked in the first fuckin' place," Gabriel growled under his breath while he waved his remaining men out the back door. To Onu, he sighed, "Things never go according to plan, do they?" With her last remaining strength, she managed to touch his knee, and he nodded. "I'll give her your love."

Gina became herself again as the vision went black, found herself back in the house alone with Onounu. The terrible emotions left her breathing hard and ready to break down crying.

"He broke me, just like that," Onounu whispered. Shame and horror carved dark lines in her face. "Not with torture. Not with hate or malice. Gently."

There was nothing Gina could say. Nothing she could do to make it better. So she stayed quiet and bit back her tears. At length Onounu collected herself and resumed her determined look. She continued, "I needed to warn you, so I made this before I died. You're going to come up against him, Gina. I wasn't strong enough. You're going to have to be stronger."

Sudden despair filled Gina at the thought. "You're joking. How could I be? You were stronger than me, you always were."

"I've been working on something to help you. After you showed me that artifact in your head, I thought you might need it. Come on outside, listen."

They went out onto the beach together, and Gina felt the soft rustle of the waves wash over her. But that was all she could hear. She started to look around, wondering what Onu meant, and then she really heard the ocean for the first time.

A soft melody played in the rush of the water, each wave a different instrument. Together they played something Gina knew she'd heard before, like shreds of a song that she'd once listened to but couldn't quite remember. It refused to take a solid form in her mind.

"Remember the tune," Onu said. "It'll help you."

"What does it do?"

She giggled, "That'd be telling." But when Gina threw her a look, her twinkling eyes gave in, and she amended, "You'll know when you need it. Trust me. I don't have time to explain." She glanced over her shoulder at a point far down the beach, stared at it for a while. Then, "I've got to go now. Mashei's waiting for me."

"No!" Gina reacted violently. "Stay. I need you with me."

"I wish I could, girl, but it's not up to me."

"Please," Gina whined, her voice cracking, and clung tight to Onu's hands. "I don't want you to be gone."

The smile on Onounu's face was the most heartbreaking thing Gina had ever seen. She said, "We'll be fine, Gina. Let me go."

The long, slender hand fell from Gina's grasp, and Onounu expelled a heavy sigh before she set off down the beach. Gina stayed behind.

"Onu?" Gina said softly after only a few steps.

Onounu turned. "Yes, Gina?"

"One last thing..." She hugged her elbows and studied Onounu's face as she asked, "Why am I naked?"

"Oh. Um." Onu flashed a mischievous and slightly guilty smile. "I always wanted to see. You know, just once before I kicked off." She shrugged, blushing. "Sorry."

Gina couldn't resist a smile. That was Onounu, all right.

"See you around," she said.

"I'd be worried if you do," murmured Onounu. "Goodbye."  
Drowsiness overcame her as she watched Onounu's tall, stately figure recede into the distance.

She woke up encased in a bubble of soft rubber and a throbbing headache. The first thing she saw was a line of text dancing in front of her eyes, saying, "User timeout exceeded. Connection closed."

She lifted the VR crown off her head and put it back on its cradle. The 'Please return equipment to cradle' light on the door blinked off, and the button marked 'Open door' blinked on. The door made a soft hiss when she touched the button, then popped open.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said a soft, female voice over the intercom system, "we are now arriving at our destination, Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. Please return to your seats so that we may begin landing procedures."

Alarmed, Gina checked the time readout inside the cubicle, only to find that all fourteen hours of the flight had passed her by. Muttering curses under her breath, she picked up her belongings and scrambled out of the cubicle to get back to her seat.

Rat was waiting for her in the window seat by the time she got back. "Where have you been?" the girl asked. "Haven't seen you since we split. I tried buzzing the cubicles but nobody squelched back."

"Sorry, I was pretty out of it," said Gina. "Spent the whole trip off my tits in that cubicle."

"Yeah. VR's like that." She produced some painkillers from a jeans pocket and handed them to Gina, who swallowed them gratefully.

"Down we go," Gina sighed, making herself comfortable in the soft, roomy chair. Money was a great thing, but in lieu of that, having a hacker on her side would do.

The airship swayed gently in the wind. It eased down towards the ground in a slow spiral, lowered its landing hooks, caught them on the moorings, and pulled itself the rest of the way in. Within minutes people were on their feet and collecting their luggage.

They passed uneventfully through the security gates. The guards there looked worried and annoyed, as if their equipment wasn't performing quite right and they were just keeping up the pretense in the hopes of giving a good impression to anyone travelling first-class.

"Welcome to Hong Kong," said a woman on the other side of the gate, repeating it mechanically over and over while handing out fliers. "Enjoy your stay. Welcome to Hong Kong. Enjoy your stay."

Gina remembered wading through the clean and well-lit terminal, out the revolving doors, into the parking lot. Rat tried her phone again once they were outside, but couldn't manage to get through to Jock. Cursing, she put it away again and flagged down a sky-blue taxi on her own initiative. Gina didn't mind. She was happy to delegate responsibility for a little while.

"Mandarin hotel," Rat said to the driver after they settled into the slightly sticky back seat. "Fast's better than slow."

Gina daydreamed the trip away, thinking of the past, the relative peacefulness of her life just a week ago. A wave of crushing sadness overcame her whenever her thoughts turned to Onu and Mashei. She swallowed a sniffle and wiped away the oncoming tears, but nothing could take away the burning guilt deep inside. And then there was Gabriel. Her confused feelings for him didn't help any.

"Did you say something?" asked Rat, and Gina shook her head. "Okay. Just thought I heard you talk, is all. Yo, greaseface, is that the hotel?" she asked the cabby.

"Yep. That'll be six hundred and twenty dollars. Cash or card, I don't care, just make up your mind."

Rat paid him. They'd barely climbed out of the taxi when her mobile beeped, and she answered it with a flippant, "Fashionably late, huh?" She beckoned for Gina to lean in closer.

Jock's voice buzzed, "Yeah, been talking to the Emperor. He'll join back up with you later. Are you at the hotel yet?" He didn't wait for a response. "Ah, good. I've booked you a reservation under my handle, just give the desk clerk your aliases when you check in. Everything secure. Don't abuse the service too much, though, we don't want to be bad guests."

"Are you sure it's safe to stay here?" Gina asked uncertainly. "I mean, what if Gabriel traces us again?"

Jock snorted his disbelief with a generous helping of condescension. "Are you kidding? Haven't you ever heard of the Mandarin? Their client registry is kept only on paper and gets locked into a tungsten-reinforced vault every night, where it's guarded by a small army. The people who stay here are so rich that nobody can afford to bribe the staff. These hotels are the safest places to stay in the world. Not even the Feds have managed to get their hands on a Mandarin registry." He smiled so hugely that Gina could sense his smugness over the phone. "Forget advertising, forget tourism, forget IT. Anonymity services are the industry of this century."

"And you wanna know the best thing?" Rat chimed in, excitement in her voice, causing Jock to let out a chuckle. "Hackers stay for free. We've got an understanding with them, y'see." Grinning, she started towards the door and said, "Catch you later, Jock. We got five stars waiting for us." Then she hung up.

The building before them looked like the unholy union of a Greek temple and a sports car. Everything shone in that mass of polished granite and marble, but it was all done up in austere tones and marked by a touch of restrained elegance. It was aerodynamic. The architect had to be a genius, Gina reckoned, because despite everything it somehow managed to look attractive.

The same style could be seen across the lobby. Rich but not excessive carpeting, comfortable but not indulgent chairs, lush but not ostentatious plants, and an opulent but not cluttered bar-restaurant. Syrupy golden light splashed everywhere from globes that dangled on invisible wires from the ceiling.

They cut through the main lobby to the massive semi-circular hotel desk, a solid barrier of exquisitely carved and polished wood, behind which stood a gaunt moustachioed man watching them with wary eyes.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a painfully neutral voice. He was trying hard not to offend anyone just in case Rat and Gina were not the deadbeats they appeared to be.

Rat beamed him a huge, uncharacteristic smile. "Hello, we're checking in on behalf of Mr. Jock Reynolds. I believe he made reservations for us. My name's Rat, and this is Beauty."

Wordlessly the clerk turned to check the name in his book, and absorbed the information without so much as a twitch. "Very good, sir. Please give Mr. Reynolds our compliments." He scribbled some notes and pressed a few buttons embedded in his desk. "Room 207, down the hall on your right as you leave the elevator. The door is unlocked, you'll find your keys waiting for you inside. Do you require help with your luggage?"

"We can manage, thank you very much," Rat said, enjoying the exchange perhaps a bit too much. "Does it come with room service?"

"All our rooms come with room service, sir."

"That's great, that's really great." Rat turned away with a casual wave of her hand and said, "Thanks again!" as she started towards the elevators. Gina kept pace beside her.

Glancing over her shoulder, Gina muttered, "Could you try not to piss off all the hotel staff?"

"Relax, it's not like they're gonna kick us out." She gave Gina a friendly punch on the shoulder. "Come on, it's a free ride, baby! Live a little!"

"Okay, fine. I'll live," she said reluctantly, unconvinced.

Inching into their hotel room, Gina knew that there'd been some mistake. The Hilton paled in comparison. The floors were a soft shade of red, the ceilings white and towering, and the walls sloped out on both sides to give the customer an open feeling. A massive set of glass sliding doors led out onto the almost overgrown verandah, bathed in silver moonlight. Other rooms had their own terraced gardens sprawling out above and below, a great man-made slope of marble and concrete down to an open swimming pool at the very heart of the structure.

Viewed from this side, the Mandarin stopped being a hotel and became more like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

It was a relentless assault on her lower-class social status. Elegantly comfortable furnishings, all the electronics her heart could desire, a bed the size of a small country. Off to one side stretched the palatial bathroom, with a hot tub big enough to drown a whale.

Gina now had her very own tightly-uniformed 20-year-old valet. And a maid.

And despite all that, there wasn't a single bug to be seen. The hospital handed out bug scanners, listed phone numbers of independent security retailers, and offered to relocate anyone to a room they might feel more comfortable in, just to prove that this hotel could be trusted.

"Fucking hell," she said at length.

"Yeah," Rat agreed. "Yeah."

"You stayed here before?"

"No."

"I'm not sure I want to go in. I might get lost," Gina whispered.

"I'm not sure I'd mind," said Rat. "Come on."

By the time they'd finished exploring the room, the servants were gone and a tray of cold drinks had materialised on the table. Several perfect cubes of ice bobbed around in the multicoloured liquids. Gina had no doubt that, if the drinks went untouched for a while, they'd disappear as surreptitiously as they'd arrived.

Flopping down on the high-tech foam bed, she asked, "So what's the deal with this place? Why do hackers stay for free?"

Rat talked in between mouthfuls of snacks. "It's part of an agreement they made with the Hacker Nations. The Mandarin gives free rooms and a place to hide to us Citizens, and the Nations take care of the Mandarin's security and makes all the Citizens swear not to try and hack one of the hotels. According to Country law, anyone who tried would get his Citizenship revoked, his accounts seized, and he'd get stricken from the hacker ranking. That's pretty much full-on banishment from the Nations."

"Christ. Has anyone ever managed it?"

"Heh, you don't get it, do you?" Rat smiled. "That's the official penalty. If someone ever actually managed to hack the Mandarin, d'you really think word would get out? That they'd ever let it go to trial? None of 'em would get another client in this lifetime." Lowering her hood and taking off her sunglasses, Rat's smile turned into a grin. "No. What they do is take 'em behind the chemical sheds and..." She folded her hand into a pistol shape and mock-fired it. "I hear there's a few bodies."

Gina decided she didn't want to think about that right now. Gracefully changing the topic, she said, "So when are we going after Bomber?"

"Don't know yet. Soon. If the Feds have got him, we can't wait too long. Feds don't piss about."

A sudden snort of amusement burst out of Gina's nose. "Speaking like you've done this before."

Looking sheepish for a moment, Rat said, "Well, I bust myself out of minimum-security once." Even she seemed to think it was painfully inadequate. "No Feds, though..."

"We'll just have to do the best we can. I've seen Feds, I know what they're capable of." Gina shuddered at the memory. "God, I'm tired."

Rat looked around suddenly, snapped her fingers in annoyance. "Then I guess we're gonna have to bunk together. This is the only room we got on the reservation."

"Jock," Gina growled.

"Yeah. Must've had a good laugh over putting a boy and a woman in the same room. Idiot." She shrugged and started to take her clothes off, moving just a touch woodenly, as if the thought of baring flesh in front of someone was uncomfortable. "Oh well. You already know. No point being shy, huh?"

Then she stopped to think about something, and asked over her shoulder to Gina, "You don't snore, do you?"

"Me?" yawned Gina. "Never! I'm a proper lady, you know. Me, snore, the very thought..."

She yawned again, mumbled some more unintelligible things, and drifted off -- still in her clothes -- with sounds like a revving chainsaw.

Part 8

The night passed by, dark and dreamless, Gina didn't stir until the first rays of morning sunlight touched her face. It poured through the glass sliding doors like a river of honey and turned the room to gold.

Blinking against the brightness, Gina turned over and went back to sleep. She didn't get long before the alarm clock on the nightstand started buzzing.

After a few random thwacks failed to turn the thing off, she was forced to wake up in order to search for the 'off' button. Sleepy fingers fumbled with the infernal contraption \-- which had apparently been bolted to the nightstand -- but failed to find the proper button. Finally she found the electrical cord and yanked it out of its socket. The alarm died in a satisfying warble of electronic noise.

Just when Gina had crawled back under the red silk sheets, a voice said, "Begging your pardon, miss, but there's a call waiting for you. He requested to speak to you as soon as you were up."

"Jesus, fine," she muttered and sat up in her island of sinfully sweet comfort. "Put him through."

"Rise and shine, girls," Jock said chipperly from the video screen on Gina's nightstand. "I hope you had a good night's sleep."

"We did, actually. What do you want?"

Jock's mocking tone didn't change, but she knew that he was serious when he continued. "I'm here to give you the good news. It's on. Today." He let that sink in to her sleep-muddled brain for a moment, then said, "We're going in before seven o'clock tonight. Probably closer to six. That means that, as of this call, you got maybe six hours to get ready before you need to start getting to the Fed building. I suggest you get on with it."

Rubbing her eyes, Gina tried to think, and felt Rat creep up to listen over her shoulder. She asked, "What? Why before seven?"

"'Cause that's when they're coming in to move him. I got hold of their schedule and a bunch of other stuff to cover up the real objective, and they're not too happy with me right now." He chuckled. "Speaking of which, I'm gonna be moving shop as soon as you're all out and safe. Off east to Laputa, hide out and make sure they can't find me or anything that might lead to me."

"Just make sure you don't end up the same way," Rat interjected. "I ain't coming for your black ass if you get jacked."

Gina leaned forward, said, "Can you get in touch with the Emperor? He's still got all our stuff."

"I can't reach him right now, he's temporarily out of contact. All according to plan. But I know he's dumped your bags in a spot near the Fed building, I know where it is, so everything will go smooth as long as you keep to the schedule."

"I guess that'll do. Anything else?"

"Nope, just remember, six hours is all the free time you got. Better spend it preparing, whatever the hell you 'paths do. We're up against the fucking Feds here. I want as wide a margin of error as we can get."

"Right. Bye." Gina hung up with the touch of a button, biting down hard on her tongue. She didn't want to take Spice again. She didn't like what it was doing to her anymore. But that was all she was good for, and Bomber needed her help.

Rat scratched her head and said, "So this is it, huh? The big day?"

"Looks like it," Gina agreed. "Better get dressed."

The Federal Law and Police Hong Kong Building, formerly the Hong Kong State Security Building, formerly the Chinese People's Liberation Army Forces Hong Kong Building, formerly the Prince of Wales Building, loomed over them like a giant upside-down wine bottle hammered into a block of concrete. It was a monstrosity of 1970s architecture, and neither time nor its owners had been kind to it in its hundred-year lifespan.

From the outside, the building was an unbroken slab of concrete, although you could still make out the shapes of old bricked-up windows on every floor. An electric fence lined with concertina razorwire kept the grounds free of virtually any living thing. At one time there had been greenery on those grounds, even swimming pools, but all of that had been cut down or filled in. Now there was only tarmac and grey concrete barracks.

Originally it housed the headquarters of the British garrison in Hong Kong, until they handed it over to the Chinese in 1997. The Chinese held it until Hong Kong won its independence in 2049, just a few years before Gina was born. Hong Kong StateSec turned it from an office building into a fortress. It quickly gained a grim reputation, people being brutalised and tortured in underground cells, and worse. After the big coup, however, the Feds did little to improve the building's image.

The square where Gina stood was flanked by long posts, topped with suspicious-looking grey-brown orbs that you could hear moving whenever you turned your eyes away. They each contained about half a dozen cameras, capable of every mode of vision known to man.

The scariest thing about them was knowing there was nobody on the other side. Every bit of security here was wired directly into the Feds' own AI, housed somewhere in that gravity-defying atrocity sitting darkly at the heart of Hong Kong Central.

The sky above it was the deep, dark blue of a coming storm.

"Do you believe in hate at first sight?" asked Rat, "'Cause I'm convinced."

"I believe it," Gina said emphatically. She searched around in her head for the little essence of Gabriel. It was weaker now, without the Spice reverberating in her blood, but she could just sense its presence. He didn't like the building either. She got a strong impression that he didn't want her to go in there.

She'd hated this place ever since the Feds took over. Hong Kong State Security hadn't exactly been full of nice people -- in fact, most of them were Feds now -- but at least you knew where you stood with the secret police of an oppressive dictatorial regime. You had a general idea what they were up to because every now and again the government would release a grand statement or manifesto, or somebody would have the courage to speak up about torture and the occasional death squad.

With the Feds, though, nobody talked. Nobody ever talked.

Six hours had gone by in their full-featured hotel room while Gina did absolutely nothing. She just sat staring out a window, digging up old memories, and then burying them again in a hurry. The sights, sounds and smells of her old home district stirred up some uncomfortable memories. The past touched her more strongly here than anywhere else.

She was fourteen years old the day the Federation took over Hong Kong. 'Federation Day' was apparently the best name anyone could think of, so they took that and ran with it. There were banners on every corner and military cargo jets thundering overhead covering the streets with bright leaflets and artificial rose petals. The world was united -- but not before the east-coast of the old United States had been nuked to glass with stolen Russian weapons, and several world leaders had mysteriously vanished or died in tragic accidents.

The old Hong Kong government capitulated pretty quickly after the president suffered some unnamed mishap in his bathtub. The rich and well-connected of Hong Kong certainly weren't happy to see the Federation move in, spelling the end for their little golden age of prominence and decadence.

Hi, Mom, Dad, she thought to herself as she remembered their horrified faces on F-Day. But the Federation did pretty well by you in the end, didn't it? Isn't it Mr. and Mrs. Director now? Administrator? Fuck, I forget.

"Found the bags," Rat announced over the radio, pulling two amorphous black shapes out of the bushes behind the old City Hall. Gina heard the subdued noise of a zipper. "Looks like everything's here. What do you wanna do now?"

"What I want to do is run and don't look back."

"Yeah." She tapped her earpiece. "Yo, Jock, got the bags and all set."

"Good. Find the back gate of the building grounds. Follow Connaught Road Central to the edge of the fence, turn left and follow the fence, keep it on your right. You'll know the gate when you see it, it's a vehicle entrance, there'll be a couple of unmanned rollers and tanks in the parking lot. There's someone guarding the gate, but don't worry. Talk to him."

"Got it," said Gina, shouldering her bag. They started walking.

She made a quick mental catalogue of all the things inside that bag. It contained pretty much an entire super-spy arsenal, and the interior was lined with an X-ray image \-- a sheet of lead-backed film that, when scanned by an X-ray machine, would show nothing but the contents of an ordinary travel bag. Toothpaste and pyjamas. Just the thing a couple of misdirected tourists would carry.

The fence seemed to go on for miles. Rat was starting to struggle with her heavy bag and trying hard not to let Gina know. Gina worried that Jock might have been wrong about the gate, but then she spotted it and let out a sigh of relief.

The Fed at the guardhouse didn't seem to be so pleased to see them. He was a young caucasian with blonde hair and dark, cautious eyes. He fit his uniform like a Greek statue, and his face had the vaguely square look that the Feds seemed to favour in their constables. Gina waved to him with a smile, which seemed to make him uncomfortable.

"This is a restricted area," he said sternly, though trying not to sound belligerent. "I'm sorry, miss, but there's no loitering allowed. You and your friend will have to keep moving."

Okay, thought Gina, talk to him. Christ. Talk about what?

She put on a slight pout and looked wounded as she stepped closer to him. "Aw, c'mon. You look like you know the place, can't you at least give us some directions? We've been walking for ages and I don't know where we are."

Some of the air seemed to go out of him like she'd just dispelled any possible excitement, and he scratched the back of his head as he said, "How do you get lost in Hong Kong Central? Haven't you got a GPS?"

"I'd have one if I could afford it," she said smoothly, pushing out her chest for the full charm effect. The light of the afternoon sun shone perfectly down her top. "We're travelling on a budget, like on TV, yeah? Across the world on a thousand dollars a day? We've been on target since India, just got here yesterday, but now we just want a place to stay for tonight."

The Fed swallowed and pulled his eyes from her chest back to her face. He started to sweat when he caught her wicked smile and let her touch his arm without protest. She murmured, "Maybe you've got a place, huh? I could make it worth your while." And on the inside, Come on, Jock...

"I can't do that, miss," he struggled, fighting to keep his discipline. "Not that I don't want to, but I'm on the job, you see. Besides, I'm just a recruit. I live in the barracks here. What am I gonna do, hide you two in a closet for the night?" He shook his head. "Can't help you, miss. Sorry. Please move along."

"Come on," she said, getting desperate, resisting as he pushed her away. "Um, just five minutes in the tool shed?"

He brought up his rifle to keep her at arm's length and said firmly, "It's time for you to go, miss. If you don't move away, I'm authorised to use lethal force."

Gina stepped back and dug her hands into her sides. This was not going as well as she'd hoped, and now she was out of ideas. "Jock..." she growled under her breath, and almost as if summoned, things began to happen.

A dark shadow appeared in the space behind the Fed. Before anyone could react, a long arm reached around him and locked an iron grip on his rifle. Fed-trained reflexes tried to twist out of the lock, and almost managed it, but the arms were too strong. An elbow curled around his throat and, with a sharp jerk backwards, snapped his neck.

The Emperor stepped out of the shadows, slowly lowered the Fed's body to the ground, and started going through the dead man's pockets.

Rat was the first to speak, gawking wide-eyed at the body. "That was awesome," she whispered.

"Thank you," the Emperor grunted. He checked the rifle's chamber to make sure it was empty, then pulled a holomask over the Fed's face and started stripping him out of his uniform. "I am not sure this one is entirely my size, but it will do."

Coming out of her shock, Gina stammered, "What the fuck did you just do? There's cameras all over the place! There's patrols every ten minutes!"

"Jock disabled the camera circuit and looped it to a recording. Patrols have been temporarily suspended. There is nothing to worry about."

"You killed a fucking Fed! Of course there's something to worry about!" She was nearing hysterics now. "God, you were gonna kill him anyway. Why? You made me talk to him like that, when you knew you were gonna kill him..."

The Emperor didn't concern himself with answering her. He buttoned up his new uniform jacket, pulled the holomask off the body, checked the inside for stains, then put it on. Finally he buckled something black and tight around his throat below the uniform collar. Gina couldn't see him with his back turned, but when he finished and got up again, she saw the dead Fed standing there in his place. And also lying on the ground in his skivvies. The two were identical to the naked eye.

"Are you ready?" the Emperor asked with the voice of the dead man.

"Yeah." She swallowed. "Um, yeah."

"Oh, sweet! I've heard about those," jabbered Rat, unfazed by the still-warm corpse lying on the ground next to her. "Voice synthesizer, samples someone else's voice, then straps to your larynx and makes you talk exactly like 'em. Undetectable by the human ear, you need a full voice analyser." She was grinning ear to ear. "Fuckin' beautiful. Do I get one?"

"A bit short to be a Fed, are you not?" the Emperor chuckled. "Just do your part. We're going inside."

Knowing the truth behind the holomask didn't lessen its psychological impact on Gina. She kept her distance from the Emperor, disguised as he was. The whole thing was too weird to believe, and right now she was afraid to think of what might happen to her sanity if she started believing in it.

There was no guard at the door. Any remaining life seemed to have left the area with the death of the Fed, and nothing could seem to fill the void that Gina felt around her. A terrible absence of something. The grey landscape fell away behind them, steel-banded concrete giving way to white linoleum and plasterboard. The whole place was antiseptically clean, even the empty reception desk.

A door marked 'Staff Washrooms' opened on their right. A woman Fed in a junior constable's uniform walked out of it, glowered as she caught sight of them. She obviously resented anyone who dared to show up during her toilet break, making it look like she'd abandoned her post.

"What do you want, pleb?" she demanded of the Emperor.

"Look afraid," he snarled under his breath at Rat and Gina. Louder, he continued, "I caught these two sneaking around outside the gate. They looked suspicious. I checked them, didn't find anything, but I figured I should bring them in just to be safe."

The constable frowned, then sighed, "Yeah, alright. I'll buzz you in." The console bleeped when her fingers touched it, and the large armoured door behind her swung open. "Interrogation block's clear, on you go."

"Be careful," Jock's voiced echoed in their ears as they marched into the belly of the beast. "Every door here is wired with holodisruptors, metal detectors, everything. Each time I disable security on one they'll be more likely to notice something's up. As soon as that AI starts tracking me, we're on a time limit. Countdown reaches zero before you're out, I'll have to disconnect and you'll be on your own."

The Emperor accepted the information without even blinking. "Understood. I will call the door numbers out to you."

"Okay. I've got some old building plans from the public record, way out of date, but they may be--"

"That won't be necessary," the Emperor decreed. "I've been here before."

Jock said nothing after that. Gina suppressed a cold shudder and glanced along the featureless white walls, broken only by the occasional bump, gap or shadow. The Emperor stared hard at these whenever one came into view, and didn't relax until it was safely behind them. Disturbed, Gina reached out to touch the walls, just for the feel something solid \-- and drew her hand back with a half-swallowed shriek. The wall felt superbly wrong to the touch. It was smooth where it should be rough, it was warm where it should be cold, and slick. It left some kind of residue on her fingertips when she drew away.

The next thing she knew, the Emperor's hand was locked around her throat and the eyes that were not his glared balefully into her. He growled, "Be silent or I'll cut your throat myself. I will not allow you to gamble with my life. Now, I want you to nod that you understand. Don't speak. Nod." Gina nodded, and the powerful grip vanished. The Emperor turned away from her and continued to their first obstacle.

It was a simple steel-framed blue door with a keycard box mounted to one side and a camera globe above it. The globe was identical to those on posts outside, moving slowly to keep track of the approaching party. The words 'Security Door' were written in large red print on the wall next to it, along with a number. A small backlit sign on the wall pointed its arrow at the door, stating that this was indeed the way to the interrogation block.

"Door 106, blue," muttered the Emperor, then ran his stolen keycard through the box. The camera globe froze with a click and the door swung open. It made no protest when the Emperor stepped through. "Nice work, Jock. This may succeed after all."

Jock snorted at the insult to his professional pride. "Did you forget my ranking, sir?"

"Never."

Again, they met no resistance in the corridor beyond. They passed rows of numbered doors on both sides, all thoroughly soundproofed, but one or two of them bumped and trembled at irregular intervals. Once Gina could swear she heard screams, as if someone had pressed his mouth against the inside of the door and howled with all his might.

"Holding cells," the Emperor said to no one in particular. "We're looking for the black level, three floors down. That is where they will be holding him." He glanced at Gina and Rat to make sure they understood. "Speed is required. I have not managed to gain access to the prisoner records so we will have to search every cell. Simon will have held out so far, but I'll be surprised if he lasts until his transport arrives."

Gina frowned at him. He seemed to have relaxed a bit, enough for her to dare a question. She asked, "How do you know that?"

"Simon has training, military anti-questioning indoctrination. Implants, boosted metabolism, everything. It is the only thing that has given us enough time to stage a breakout. Without it, I would be as far away from Hong Kong as possible right now."

"Bomber was in the military?" she blurted out.

"That is my conclusion. I've seen the implants. They are not of a kind that is available to civilians, not even to me."

"And you didn't steal them?" chirped Rat, giving him a conspiratorial smile.

"I may someday. At the time, he was more valuable to me alive." He held up a hand and pointed to one of the doors leading off the corridor. It was marked with a small moving pictogram of a white silhouetted figure walking up some steps. "That stairwell will take us down to the level above the black level. There's only one entrance to the black level, and we'll need to pass a major security checkpoint. Not something we can simply shut down. And there will be guards."

"So what do we do? Crawl through an air vent?"

"Not exactly," he said softly. He gave Jock the door number for the stairwell and opened it with a swipe of the keycard. No security appeared as they went inside and wound down the galvanised steel steps, hard-soled boots clanging against bare metal.

The white plasterboard decor went on unchanged, even deep underground in a disused stairwell, and that was slightly disturbing in itself. Regardless of the obvious Feds, the place seemed too clean for human habitation. A Fed garrison-cum-prison building wouldn't exactly feel welcoming under the best of circumstances, but the level of sheer eeriness went further than that. Only a machine could be comfortable here.

The third door opened as easily as the others. The sense of wrongness only increased when they emerged out in the pastel white corridor. Dozens of featureless cubicles stretched out on either side, blocked up with heavy steel doors and watched by unblinking electronic security. The Feds used these to interrogate some of their more dangerous prisoners, and Gina had to wonder at the people who worked here every day. In the simplest terms, she was standing in a maximum-security dungeon twelve metres under Hong Kong. Not even a proper medieval-type dungeon, either -- one of those new-fangled ones where torture was trim and tidy.

"This way," the Emperor declared and led on. "Jock, any danger?"

"Doesn't look like they've found us out yet. You may need Rat to open some locks, though."

Rat had her tools in hand before Jock finished his sentence. There was a small bag holding a selection of ordinary mechanical picks, stuck to the back of a little palmtop computer. The computer was wired on one side to a blank slip of plastic the size of a credit card, and to an alligator clip on the other, which could splice directly into any wired connection. A tiny wireless antenna stuck out the top to complete its arsenal.

They halted at the first off-colour landmark Gina had seen, a large blast door that was painted completely black. Another simple keycard slot was mounted on the side, and two Feds watched them from a small control room opposite the door. The red mark on their uniforms declared them to be constables on disciplinary review, stuck with the worst of the drudge jobs, possibly pending dishonourable discharge. And it took effort to get sacked from the Feds.

"What are you doing down here, pleb?" one of the Feds asked in a savage voice, half with suspicion, half with boredom. "You know you don't have clearance for Level 3."

The Emperor shrugged nonchalantly. "My sergeant told me to report here. Got some high-risk prisoners, they need to go into black."

"Then why didn't your sergeant send someone with clearance? We're not fucking stupid, you know." He got up and stared hard at the Emperor, but carefully kept Gina and Rat in his field of vision at all times. "We know what you fucking plebs do with the women you get down there. Or maybe you were after the boy?" He glanced at Rat, and there was a flicker of something like pity in his eyes.

Switching tactics, the Emperor sighed, "Alright, you've caught me. It was just the woman, I promise. Come on. It's not like I can use just any cell, can I?"

"He's got a point there, Paul," said the woman next to him, scratching her head with a pen. "Remember when Wong and Declan tried that? Courts got hold of the camera records, administration dropped both of 'em like a shit-covered brick. Just for doing some little dissident bitch, like it was against the law." She shrugged and threw a sympathetic glance at the Emperor, the man she thought was a young Fed recruit. With effort she managed to avoid looking at the prisoners the entire time, which -- being prisoners -- would be beneath her notice. It kept them from becoming human beings, subject to empathy and consideration.

"Yeah, well..." Paul made a face. "Alright, you can use one of the empty cells. But no marks on her, and I want you out before the next patrol, got it? I never saw you, and you weren't here." He glanced at Rat again, like he felt he needed to do something, then fixed the Emperor with a hard look. "And you leave the boy alone. No hands-on to minors, that's where we draw the line."

The Emperor gave him a huge smile and thanked him profusely as the door locks disengaged. Half a metre of tungsten-reinforced steel swung open very slowly, moving as if in a dream.

Gina had watched the conversation with a detached feeling, like watching a horror film from the comfort and safety of your own home, something that couldn't really be happening in the really real world. Something too horrible to contemplate. She walked along in a haze, through the black door into some kind of airlock, and waited to be led out again.

"Okay," sighed Jock, "I took out Level 3 security, but I think I may have tipped off the AI that something's up. I'll try to keep it suppressed as long as I can. Hurry, you haven't got a lot of time."

"Roger," the Emperor growled, taking Gina by the hand and dragging her out of the airlock. His free hand tore the holomask off his head and threw it into a corner, then stripped off his voice synthesizer. To Gina's shock, his skin was dry, like he hadn't shed so much as a drop of nervous sweat. "Follow me. If you come across any Feds, there's stun grenades in your bags. And real weapons should you decide you have the stomach for them. Still, if anyone proves too much trouble, you may call me."

He took the Fed sword from his holster and flicked its blade out of the grip like a half-metre switchblade, barely thicker than a steel wire and sharper than any razor. There was a killing smile on his face as he added, "Stealth is no longer an issue."

Gina peered through the small lexan window recessed into the door in front of her. It looked out onto a little holding cell, one of many along this corridor, consisting of four padded white walls and a lot of empty space. The cell lacked even basic sanitation. The only notable feature was the single white lamp set into the ceiling, bright and terrible like a tiny sun.

"It's empty," she said to nobody in particular. The cells, like the corridor, were as clean and desolate as the rest of the building.

"The cells are only for keeping people between sessions," explained the Emperor, jogging down to the nearest branch of the hallway to get his bearings. Finally he motioned for the others to follow him and headed down the branching corridor. "Our best bet is the interrogation room. I know the direction, but I'm not sure how to get there from here. Keep your eyes open, you will know it when you see it."

Rat glanced around with a hunted expression, the disturbing sterility of the building started to work on her. "Where the hell is everyone? I thought we'd be up to our eyeballs in Feds and prisoners down here."

"You've seen too many action movies," Jock reproached. "They go through prisoners pretty fast. As for patrols, Lazarus -- the AI -- already does that far more reliably than they possibly could. Any Feds you see are gonna be interrogators or prison escorts. Food, water, security, that's all handled by robots under Lazarus."

The Emperor interjected, "Another reason to keep your eyes open. They may start sending robots that aren't part of the Level 3 security grid, and I would rather not have a group of armed security bots snapping at my heels."

As if on cue, the click of metal feet on linoleum sounded faintly up ahead. The Emperor stopped dead in his tracks and caught Gina with an outstretched arm before she cannoned into him. "Damn," he breathed. "Quick, hide!"

Gina whispered a baffled, "Where?" Then Rat caught her hand and dragged Gina into a cell she'd just picked open. As soon as they were sure nothing would see them, they both popped their heads round the door to watch.

The Emperor moved like flowing silk, slipping soundlessly into a corner. The footsteps clicked closer. They were soft but clear, high-pitched, like they belonged to something small. Something small with a machine gun, most likely. Just when Gina was sure it had to be just around the corner, ready to jump into view and start shooting, the footsteps stopped.

A few seconds went by in silence. Gina's heart thumped like an overworked bass drum. Time seemed frozen, nobody daring to move, and Gina almost jumped out of her skin when she heard another click, and another -- slightly smaller, slightly softer, slightly farther away. Receding into the distance.

"It's patrolling the main artery," the Emperor grumped. "We should be able to avoid it if we move quickly and quietl--"

Something pulled Gina's attention to the door opposite the Emperor's corner. For a moment it was as if she were looking at that door from the other side, a hand reaching for the handle. Then it swung open.

A Fed walked out of it, looking over his shoulder, continuing a fragment of conversation with the person inside. ". . . think you'll change your mind pretty soon, Allie. I really do. Just you... wait..." His head swivelled round too late to react to the big black shadow moving towards him. The door fell into its lock behind him, cutting off his only possible direction of movement.

Gina saw the moment of shock when he made eye contact with the Emperor. She saw the blade come down in a flash, so quickly that the Fed had no time to scream. She saw the blood arcing away as the body hit the floor.

"Jesus," whispered Rat, paling.

The Emperor stood over his victim, blood and bodily fluids dripping off his sword. He knelt down to check the Fed's pulse, then -- satisfied that there was none -- moved on to checking the Fed's pockets.

"Is he..." Rat swallowed, unable to finish the question. It was obviously the first time she'd seen real blood dripping out of a real dead body. Life slowly slipping away. Gina, however, couldn't feel that horror anymore, not after the bodies she'd seen in the street gutters, in the dark alleys, in the remote power substations. To her it was different, something cold and guilty burning deep inside, bringing back unpleasant things she'd seen and done. She did her best to ignore it.

She squeezed Rat's shoulder. The momentary nudge of comfort seemed to brighten Rat back up, and the girl's smile returned.

Gina picked her way out into the corridor, willfully avoided looking at the mess, and waited there until the Emperor found what he was looking for. He lifted a small pocket computer to his face for a closer look, then jumped to his feet with a triumphant flash of teeth.

"Ha! I've got it!" he said. "Prisoner records, cell listings, everything I was missing. It's all here."

Again, excitement spasmed in Gina's belly. "Then you know where Bomber is?"

The Emperor nodded to himself, dragging his finger down the screen in search of something, then bared his teeth in triumph. "Cell 304. Simon Caine. It is over there." He pointed to one of the cells they'd already checked. "For the bad news, that cell is empty."

"So where's Bomber?"

"I'm checking the interrogation schedules," he said. "It looks like... Ai." Even the Emperor seemed shocked at what he read. "They must be close to breaking him. Nine hours in the interrogation room is almost unheard-of."

"Bomber's tough," Gina said stubbornly.

"He will not be tough for much longer. Map!" he growled at the palm computer, and it obeyed with a beep. "Security overlay, and plot a route to the interrogation room."

"This is Jock," a voice said in Gina's ear. "I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I think--"

His voice disappeared in a burst of static. The next instant, an alarm started howling through the corridors, and Gina had to cover her ears against the noise.

"TRESPASSERS," said a very different voice, booming through the radio so loud it hurt. Rat screamed and clawed at her earbug, fighting to get it out. "YOU WILL SURRENDER."

Not "I demand your surrender", thought Gina, or "surrender or die." You will surrender.

She tore the earbug out and crushed it to pieces under her bootheel. There was no doubt in her mind about who -- or what -- had just spoken to her. It used a human voice and spoke human words, but there was nothing human on the other side of that transmission. Her heart pounded and her stomach heaved, sick with churning emotions.

The Emperor gritted his teeth, filling his free hand with a gun he'd kept hidden underneath his clothing. "Quickly. We have no time to waste."

He whirled round the corner and had his gun on target before the security bot could finish its step. Its spider legs jabbed down to brace against the floor, the machine gun on its back started to swivel towards him, but it could only move so fast. Three gunshots roared through the air, and the robot fell to the ground with three smoking holes through its centre of mass.

Old fires raced through his blood. It had been years since he had need to fire a gun himself, since he'd had to kill out of necessity. So many years, so much time spent on building an empire, on diplomacy and exchanging favours. Wasted. All of it, wasted.

His only thought now was of revenge. Revenge on the Feds, revenge on his traitorous fellow Triad Lords, and revenge on those who cost him his fortress. Not necessarily in that order.

He ran dead ahead down the new corridor, surprising a Fed who was responding to the disturbance. Hardly a challenge. The Fed dropped with a bullet through her brain before her helmet had a chance to deploy.

They didn't know what they were up against. Fed nerve-boosting and combat implants were good, but restricted. Held down by laws and regulations. The Emperor got his boosts in the back alleys of Hong Kong and Singapore, where the supposed limits of the human body had no meaning. He was limited only by the speed of thought.

They were all going to pay.

Gina clutched her head and bit back a scream as her consciousness ripped back into her own body. Head spinning like a whirlwind, she dropped to her knees and doubled over, burying her head in her arms. This couldn't happen, she told herself. It was impossible. She hadn't taken any Spice, she shouldn't be hearing anybody's thoughts, much less have the Emperor's elemental rage slammed into her brain like a hot iron. The experience was overwhelming, the images still flashed on her closed eyelids. For a moment she felt the little piece of Gabriel inside her, trying to warn her of something, but she couldn't make it out. The only thing she knew was that the Emperor hadn't stopped to wait, and now Rat dragged her bodily to her feet and pulled her along.

"Come on, girl," panted Rat, hauling at Gina's hand and trying to keep up with the Emperor at the same time. "Now's not the time to have a meltdown! You gotta keep going!"

"I..." A massive wave of nausea crashed into her, robbing her of the ability to speak. She stumbled blindly after Rat, lost to the world. By sheer willpower she managed to swallow her gorge, but any semblance of strength went out of her again the moment the Emperor called a halt.

Her vision narrowed to tunnels framed with red and black, like looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars that was also on fire. Ash people danced in front of her eyes and the skin of her fingers seemed to flake away in a scorching wind. A terrible sensation blazed behind her eyes, the tearing-cobwebs feeling of the Spice trance but not quite -- as if something had jammed a wedge into her third eye and was forcing it slightly ajar.

"The interrogation room is on the left here," the Emperor said, peeking around the corner. "End of the corridor. There may be guards. We have no time for games, so pull yourself together." He snorted contemptuously. "There's--"

Nobody had heard the Fed approach, not even the Emperor. Only Gina felt an itching sensation behind her eyes, almost forcibly pulling her head around until she looked behind her \-- directly into the barrel of a Fed assault rifle. Ice shot up her spine, and her gaze skipped upwards to a pair of dark, goggle-shielded eyes, narrowed in judgment. He looked into her as she looked into him.

He settled the rifle's stock comfortably into his shoulder, let out a long breath, and pulled the trigger. The bullet cracked through the air towards her, crossing the half-metre of distance in an instant.

And missed.

Suddenly the Emperor's sword was sticking out of the Fed's head, and they were running again, Rat pulling Gina along like an ambulatory sack of grain. "Move!" Rat shouted at her. "There's more of 'em right behind us and I'm not gonna carry you!"

Gunshots rattled from behind them as they plunged headlong towards the interrogation room. The door swung open, and a large security bot came tromping out in the middle of loading its weapons, shaped like an oversized ostrich with machine guns for wings. Then it vanished in a cloud of grenade smoke, steaming pieces of metal littering the blackened floor.

A bullet panged off the steel door the same instant that Gina disappeared behind it, and the Emperor slammed it shut after her, chest heaving from exertion and excitement. Inhumanly-quick hands drew a pocket knife from somewhere and jammed it into the lock to keep it from opening again.

"How long's that gonna hold 'em?" asked Rat, a big grin on her face, still having the time of her life.

"Long enough," the Emperor panted. He took a quick look around the room and kept his gun ready. Once he was satisfied that nothing was actively trying to kill him, he checked Gina for bullet holes, finding none.

"You should be dead," he growled accusingly, and the haunted expression on Rat's face implied agreement. Their eyes were on her like a group of medieval villagers might survey a suspected witch.

"Why're you looking at me like that?" she gasped, teeth chattering with residual terror.

The Emperor's lip curled in disgust. He stepped back from her unsure whether or not to kill her on the spot. "I saw it happen. Nobody could miss from that range. It was unnatural."

"Can't we just be happy that I'm still alive?" she said. That reasoning didn't seem to impress the Emperor, but he looked away and lowered his gun, concentrating instead on their surroundings.

The moment Gina actually looked at the place, her skin started to crawl. Even the pure white walls couldn't disguise the purpose of this room. They could not disguise the tables and chairs with strong plastic straps. Not the concrete floor scarred with the marks of high-pressure hoses, attempting to clear away the curious stains around the drains in the floor. Not the generator in one corner with its bare electrodes, not the large tub of red-clouded water. Not the display racks full of sharp things, all clean and shiny, but with just enough visible wear on them to show that they'd been used. Pain and horror were embedded into the very air.

An older Fed, a woman with greying hair, came out of an unseen part of the T-shaped room wearing an exasperated expression. She saw the Emperor's uniform and started, "Well! What the hell is all this commotion--"

The Emperor's gun was at her throat before she could finish her sentence. "Be silent," he commanded, and was obeyed. "We are looking for a friend of ours who is being kept here. He goes by the name 'Simon Caine'. You will take us to him, won't you?"

Swallowing the lump of fear in her throat, the Fed bobbed a slow, careful nod. She obviously didn't want to set off the homicidal maniac. Instead she put up her hands and turned around, leading the way to the far end of the room. An open door waited on the right, and through it another small, cube-shaped room.

That room was more horrible than anything she'd seen. It was empty. Completely blank except for something resembling a dentist's chair, sprouting robotic arms that ended in needles and tubes of liquid, heavy straps holding a body in place. Gina could feel the charge of static electricity in the air as she followed the Emperor inside. The residual power of a massive hologram generator. When she came closer, she saw that the body was a man in an orange jumpsuit whose eyelids had been pulled back by tiny robotic hooks, forcing him to watch. Intelligent eyedroppers watched his eyes and watered them as needed. Everything had to be kept in top condition, after all.

She saw the man's face, and her heart broke when she recognised Bomber, his body taut as a wire and twitching like a madman. The only sound were his moans and gasping breaths.

For the longest time she couldn't tear her eyes away from him. But then she noticed the Emperor, looking around the room and not liking what he saw. His face twisted slowly into an expression of such ice-cold rage that Gina backed away, pulling Rat with her.

It was a good thing she did. In a single smooth instant, he shoved the Fed against the wall and blew her brains out.

Part 10

"What do we do now?" asked Rat. She stood over Bomber with her hands hovering a few inches above him, feeling like she should do something but too afraid to touch. The creeping horror of the building had finally wiped the grin off her face.

"Cut him loose," the Emperor ordered, tossing her a sheathed Fed sword from the corpse. Rat took a moment to figure out how to deploy it, then started sawing through the tough fabric. To Gina he said, "Talk to him. He knows your voice, remind him who he is and where he is."

Gina nodded in response. She stepped up and took Bomber's hand in hers, felt the whipcord tension in them. She opened her mouth to talk to him, and she realised she didn't have a clue about who he was. Much less what to tell him.

"I don't know what to say," she said in a small, humiliated voice. How insane it all was -- how insane she had to be! She nearly died for someone she didn't even know.

Bomber let out a deep breath, and all the tension seemed to flow out of his body until he hung limply in the chair. Rat stepped back in surprise and alarm, accidentally nicking him on the hand with the sword. He didn't move or cry out as blood welled up out of the wound. Gina rushed to check for a pulse.

"Still breathing," she sighed with relief. "Don't do that to me, you bastard. We've come all this way. You can't croak on me now."

She reached out to take his hand. His fingers wrapped loosely around her thumb, empty of strength but not of will. Her free hand found the button to release the hooks on his eyelids. They swung away, and Bomber shut his eyes as tight as he could, like he wasn't sure this rescue wasn't another of the room's terrible illusions.

Rat moved around to the other side of the chair, cut the straps, and pressed a patch against Bomber's neck. "Antidote," she said by way of explanation. "He's doped up on muscle relaxants and psycho shit. This'll help."

"What kind of psycho shit?"

Rat didn't look happy about hearing that question. After a while, she answered, "The kind that'll make you believe any fuckin' thing you see. Fucks with your mind bad, real bad."

"Enough to get past his training?" asked Gina, one eye on the Emperor guarding the door.

"A good knife could do it if wielded with care and patience," he said with the voice of experience, a faint smile on his face. The smile quickly disappeared when he added, "Feds, however, are not the careful or patient sort."

"Right." She gently clasped Bomber's hand to her chest, beaming a fragile smile down at him. "Hey, Bomber. Or Simon. Whatever the hell your name is."

Glassy eyes swivelled to make eye contact with her, though they didn't quite seem to understand what they saw. She reached out to touch his forehead. It was slick with the cold sweat of panic and helpless effort.

"It's okay to come out now," she continued. "You're safe. At least for a while, I think. We still need to get out of here, but that's for later. First things first. Um." She glanced around. "I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you're about twenty metres underground in the Fed building in Hong Kong. They've been... doing stuff to you."

Bomber blinked a couple of times, focusing on a spot several inches above her head, and said, "I know."

She almost cried out when she heard his voice, and blurted, "You're back!"

"I think so," he said, his voice weak and hoarse from screaming. "What took you so long?" The corners of his mouth curled up into the ghost of a smile.

"You were counting on us to rescue you?" blurted Rat, astonished.

"Of course. Why else would I turn myself in?" He lifted a hand to his forehead to rub his eyes. "God, I feel like shit."

"Hold on, hold on," Gina said. "You turned yourself in?"

"Gina," he looked up at her like a man confronted with the sight of the sun after a long time underground, "I found out some things. About Gabriel, I mean. Until he got wind of it. Wasn't very happy about people snooping into his past. His guys tried to grab me, boxed me in. I couldn't get out. So I bust into the police station and confessed some things. Then they turned me over to the Feds." A shadow passed over him for a second, but he quickly shook it off. "Listen, I know where we gotta go."

Her stomach did backflips at seeing him again. Emotions churned in her belly -- excitement and fear, fondness and dread, lust and pity, and a whole mess of others. She hesitated and stammered as she spoke. "T-Tell me about it later. Later. We need to get you out of here, right now."

For once he didn't argue with her. Instead he gripped the sides of the chair and swung his legs down to the floor, slowly putting weight on them. After a few cautious seconds, he satisfied himself that he could indeed stand upright. "I think I'm okay to walk. You guys got a plan?"

All conversation stopped short when his eyes met the Emperor's. The two men stood facing each other, and the Emperor's face showed no sign of emotion at their reunion.

"Simon. Did you perform that favour I asked of you?" the Emperor asked in a silky soft tone of voice.

"I did," he said.

The Emperor nodded in acceptance of this fact. "Good." The next instant his gun was aimed unerringly at Bomber's head. "Then we are done. Any last words?"

"What the hell is this?" demanded Gina, looking back and forth between the two of them. The gun hung in the air at the end of the Emperor's arm, waiting to be fired in an act of summary execution. The serene smile on his face made her angrier than anything she could remember.

Bomber answered, "He's decided I'm no longer of any use to him. I've paid my debts. I'm not an asset to him anymore, just a liability."

"How delicately you phrase that," the Emperor chuckled. He kept both eyes on Bomber as he told Gina, "Drop your bag, please. And your purse. I am not about to make that mistake again." Her hand had already moved halfway to her Mk5, she really didn't want to put the purse down, but she grudgingly did as told.

Bomber kept his arms at his sides, rigid as a statue while he looked the Emperor in the eye. "What about the girl, then? And the boy? More liabilities to be eliminated?"

"You yourself should know about leaving loose ends."

"Hey, I ain't no fuckin' liability to anyone," Rat snarled, ready to defend her reputation tooth and nail even in the face of a maniac with a gun. The Emperor remained unimpressed. His eyes were glued to Bomber just in case anyone got any ideas.

It was obvious, Gina realised. He considered Bomber to be the only threat in the room. She clutched her hand to her bosom slowly, so as not to get shot for her trouble. Her eyes met Bomber's.

"Yes," Bomber said, "I know all about loose ends." And his arm twitched, just enough to get the Emperor's attention but not enough to provoke an immediate gunshot. The Emperor's eyes flickered to track the movement just for an instant. Enough for Gina. She lunged and drove her knife hilt-deep into his arm.

It was a testament to the Emperor's nerve and self-discipline that he didn't let go of his gun. Threatened from two fronts with only a single weapon, he knew what to do, and his split-second reflexes pulled the trigger down to the metal. A string of automatic fire cracked through the air towards Bomber, and the Emperor backed away from Gina as his gun -- slowed but not stopped by the wound -- turned towards her.

The knife was stuck in the raw red wound and twisted out of her grasp as the Emperor moved. Disarmed and out of ideas, she had one endless moment to stare into the Emperor's murderous eyes, just waiting to die.

Then the barrel lurched sideways and the Emperor dropped like a stone. He didn't even twitch when he hit the floor, already dead. Bomber stood over him, panting and clutching his chest, blood oozing between his fingers.

"Nice work," he wheezed in a nasty, wet voice that didn't seem to come entirely from his throat. "Had me worried for a second there. I figured he'd wait 'till we were out." Inspecting his wound by eye and feel, he added, "Think he punctured a lung."

Gina's eyes moved with horrified slowness from the red stain on his jumpsuit to his pale, drawn face. "God, we've gotta get you to a hospital!"

"Be fine as long as I can stay somewhere safe for a while. Just get me out of here." He looked at Rat for a second, who was climbing out from behind cover with a dead look in her eyes, staring at the corpse. The Emperor, one of her greatest role models, lay in front of her in a bleeding heap of humanity -- and her image of him as an invincible colossus of self-made power came tumbling down. "Friend of yours?" he asked Gina from the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah, I'm everybody's fuckin' friend!" Rat screamed, suddenly livid, launching into Bomber with a fury even more intense than anything Gina had seen from Rat. "I just love people I don't even know who fuck up the plan to rescue them from the biggest hive of Feds on the continent! Well hey, buddy, you just killed our only ticket out of the dungeon! Now what the fuck are we gonna do?!"

A bloody smile crossed Bomber's face, baring red-stained teeth. "Leave that to me. Bring the bags." He started for the door, but his wobbly legs had lost their adrenaline strength, and he went down to one knee without even realising it had happened.

Snatching up her purse, Gina pulled his arm over her shoulders and supported his swaying body as they stumbled out of the room.

Gina slotted the needle back into the first aid kit. She started to look for something more permanent than the simple slap-on patch on Bomber's chest, but he stopped her with a resolute look on his face.

"No time," he said, "this'll do. Help your friend."

Gina nodded and went over to the door, throwing her weight against the heavy cabinet that Rat was trying to turn into a barricade. Together they managed to slide it into place by fits and starts. Bomber, meanwhile, struggled to his feet and stumbled into the supply cabinet without a word.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Arranging our way out," he said with a mad smile on his lips.

"Don't joke around, Bomber. I can't take that right now."

"I'm not. See," Bomber explained in tones alternately harsh with pain and giddy from the chemical haze, "I knew when I went in that -- worst-case scenario -- I'd probably end up here. Had a chance to jack into VR, study the building a bit. Found some floor plans from when Hong Kong StateSec took over and refurbished the place." He grinned his horrible bloody teeth at Gina. "Pretty much rebuilt the whole interior from the ground up, complete with a brand new air system."

"Whoa, stop there," said Gina. "Air system?"

"A whole network of ventilation ducts between the floors and some of the walls. Big enough for a man, with manual controls for the machinery, in case of emergency or counter-insurgency procedures. Or if the high-ups needed to get out the building. Thank God for institutional paranoia."

"But the Feds know about them?"

"Yeah, but the ducts ain't wired into Lazarus. Feds kept 'em free of automated electronics. They're even on a separate electrical grid. A little bolt-hole in case Lazarus ever turned on 'em. Ah!" He staggered back from the cabinet with a grunt, holding a large fire extinguisher, then wedged it firmly against the side wall.

"You're actually serious?" asked Rat. "What do you think this is, a bad action flick? You expect us to go through the vents?"

"Yep." As he stepped back he drew his gun and said, "Duck."

"The extinguisher -- and the wall next to it -- exploded in a shower of super-cooled gas and concrete shards. Bomber shielded his eyes with his arm and turned away, careful to keep his skin covered from the gas until the ventilation system had sucked it all up, and Gina followed his example. Once the dust settled she peeked out again. Where the extinguisher had been was now a hole in the floor, lined with a jagged edge of sharp rubble and sheet steel, leading into a simple rectangular duct. A primitive lightstrip was recessed into the duct ceiling, and its floor was covered in a sticky brown soup of rotting blood and human waste.

"Huh," he said. "One of the drains must've burst. I guess if Lazarus can't fix it, it doesn't get done." He looked at the others and shrugged. "Well, it beats standing here getting killed. We don't have a lot of options at this juncture."

One whiff of the atmosphere down there almost convinced Gina to take her chances with the Feds. She could barely stand to be within sight of the hole. Still, she knew they couldn't stay here, and a series of soft scrapes and screwing noises from the door confirmed it. Those sounds were every inch as disturbing as the smell, telling her that somebody was planting charges to blow the heavy mechanical lock from the outside.

Bomber glanced up at the sound, obviously something he'd been expecting but would've liked to have happened a bit later. "Getting ready to bust in. We should be out of here when they do."

"You said there were guards," Rat said. She stared down the hole, lips drawn back in disgust, but her brain was still working on the problem at hand. "They could be waiting for us wherever we come out. How're we gonna get past them?"

"We can avoid 'em, 'cause we got something they don't." He reached up to playfully ruff Gina's hair. "Our very own telepath."

No! Gina wanted to scream, but looking into Bomber's bruised and puffy face, she couldn't find it in her to tell him no. It was like the whole universe conspired to get her to take just one more pill, and one more, and one more.

"Alright," she said, trying to hide the miserable fear and resentment from her voice. "Alright. But I'm going to be seriously fucked up when it kicks in. I can't help carry you."

"I can handle that." Rat met their surprised glances, looking back and forth between the two of them, adjusting the heavy bag slung over her shoulder. "Well, what are we waiting for? An invitation?"

Clambering down the hole with a physical ease that surprised Gina, Rat dropped herself the last few inches and landed badly off-balance. The weight of the bag knocked her sideways into the tube wall, where she came to rest for a few seconds muttering breathless obscenities.

"Not as easy as it looks," she called grumpily once she'd recovered from the impact. "I'm okay, come on down."

Gina helped to lower Bomber down the hole, then glanced over her shoulder into the holographic room. Somehow, for some reason she couldn't quite explain, a twinge of guilt tugged at her heart.

"Are you sure we should leave the body?" she asked.

"Let the Feds have him," hissed Bomber. For a moment he turned into the stone-hearted thing that sent icicles of fear down her spine, the thing that killed people as easily and thoughtlessly as it might snuff out a candle, but he quickly regained control of himself. "They're not gonna get much out of a corpse."

The only sound left in the room was the subtle stretching of plastic explosive pushing deeper into the lock. Minute electronic beep of a detonator reporting readiness. Every noise outside rang clear as day through the big keyholes. Not much time left, Gina knew, and she bit down on her tongue, staring at the strip of pills in her hand. She didn't want to. She shouldn't have to. It wasn't fair. She'd never had the courage to end it quickly, and now that she'd finally found her will to live, it seemed like there was no way off the path to self-destruction.

Finally she decided her self-pity had reached critical mass and put it away in disgust, swallowed one of the little capsules, and climbed down. Moments later the lock blew into pieces, and great battle robots crashed through the door with guns ready to tear apart their targets, and found none.

Many of the light fixtures had burnt out, leaving great islands of darkness in the light. Thumps and clanging noises echoed all around them, their origins unclear. It could've been someone banging on the walls or a whole Fed squad tromping just around the corner to try and head them off, there was no way to tell. They passed the busted drain, sharp metal intruding into the duct, and the sludge all around them thickened to the consistency of custard.

Bomber and Gina could just manage a low crawl through the ducts, up to their elbows in sludge, while Rat dragged the bag along on all fours. Bomber kept a decent pace despite the bullet through his lung, although his laboured breathing got louder and shallower as the effort took its toll.

Gina's head floated on her shoulders, felt like it were wrapped in cotton wool. The exercise fired her metabolism, and the Spice was starting to hit her bloodstream, bringing with it the muddled lucidity of the third eye trance. It was early, too early, and it came on fast.

'Never again' would be too early for Gina's liking. She could take a step back and see her mind starting to unravel, bits of the outside creeping in, hallucinations, other people living in her head... Mental note, she told herself, check in to looney bin when this shit is over.

"You don't look so good," Rat puffed through her teeth, grimly hauling the heavy bag from knee to knee.

"Spice. It's starting." Gina pinched the bridge of her nose. Her thoughts were individual raindrops falling into a pond, forming little eddies of understanding where the ripples flowed into each other. The pond was dark and murky and seemed to move in slow-motion. There were fish in there as well, and God only knew what they were for.

Bomber rasped, "Can you feel anything?"

"Not yet," she told him, which wasn't entirely true. Little whispers of thought and emotion ran through the building and into her body like an electric current, faint, without words or coherent images. Gina couldn't make heads or tails of them. There was only one emotion she could make out, a pronounced undercurrent in everything and everywhere around her.

Rage.

Shivering and lost in her oncoming trance, Gina bumped head-first into a wall. She sat down hard on the bare metal of the tunnel, looking around in confusion. The tunnel had opened up suddenly and now ended in a vertical steel shaft several floors high, sharply square and covered with long streaks of rust. A single unsteady-looking ladder disappeared into the dimness above, covered in sharp burrs and peeling slivers of rust to make the whole thing a little bit more dangerous. Its builders obviously hadn't thought much of health and safety.

Bomber was the first to start up the rungs. He grunted with every step, and started dripping blood halfway through, but he made it up all the same, propping himself up against the wall in a half-sitting position. Gina followed him up, concentrating hard on each rung to keep herself from drifting, and Rat brought up the rear. Gina finally made it to the top, and went down on her knees to give Rat a hand. She popped her head over the rim just in time to see the bag hit the bottom of the shaft with a terrible crunch. Echoes rattled off the walls for what seemed like an eternity before they finally died down.

Everywhere, heads turned and searched for the source of the noise. Gina could feel them homing in like hounds on a hunt. She glanced down at Rat, but Rat never even looked at the bag as it fell. She just clung to the rungs in silence. Cold sweat stood out on her forehead, and her shoulders were shaking.

"My arms won't work," she said to the wall.

Gina frowned. "What are you talking about? Of course your arms work."

"No, you don't understand. I can't let go." She looked up at Gina with terror-wide eyes. "It's too high."

"You're afraid of heights?" Gina asked incredulously, and Rat nodded.

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"How?! What was I supposed to come out with? 'Hey, little note, I know we're bein' chased by a small army of people who want to kill us all slowly, but I've got this slight problem with high places...'" She relaxed her grip slightly in her fit of anger, but as soon as she realised what had happened she cried out and yanked herself tight to the rungs again.

The hard-edged feelings and killing thoughts of Feds on the warpath closed in all around them, a frenzy of sharks with blood in the water. Gina said frantically, "Come on, Rat, you've got to keep going! They're gonna find us any second!"

"I'm telling you," Rat said through gritted teeth, "I. Can't. Move."

In desperation Gina swung herself back over the edge and climbed back down to where Rat was stuck, about two-thirds of the way up the ladder. Her heart pounded with adrenaline and her head throbbed from the Spice, a whirlpool of emotions, only a few of which were her own. She reached out to Rat and called, "Take my hand, I'll guide you up!"

"I'd be happy to, but I can't. I..." She bit down on her tongue, moisture in her eyes as she looked up. "I'm sorry." When Gina didn't seem to understand, Rat's voice turned into a hoarse scream of, "Go! Go on without me!"

The hopelessness in Rat's heart scythed into Gina. It was sharp and bitter, every inch as strong as if it were her own. She wanted to turn and run away, leave Rat to her fate, but she found that she couldn't do that any more than Rat could let go of the rusty steel in her hands.

Gina's hand and mind reached out in a single motion. She didn't know how she did it, it was something out of instinct. For a few seconds she saw out of Rat's eyes, saw the fingers locked around the bars, pried them loose one by one. Astonishment and abject panic fought for control of Rat's mind, but Gina was already there, quieting them. Her fingers locked around Rat's wrist and pulled.

All of Gina's muscles screamed in pain. Her mind felt like it was being twisted by massive hands. Rat fought her body and mind every step of the way, but she refused to let go. Another step, another, and another, and then they were over the edge. Safe. She crumbled, all the energy gone out of her limbs, flat on her back on the tunnel floor.

After a few tortured breaths, she called Bomber's name. He didn't respond. With a fading burst of energy she kicked him in the shins, and he started awake.

"Christ," he said thickly, looking down at the trickle of blood oozing from his chest and through his fingers. "I was starting to drift. Thanks."

"We can't stop here," Gina panted, her fingers crusted with blood and rust. "They'll be coming up this way in a few seconds."

He nodded grimly and pulled her to her feet in the larger tunnel, high enough to walk upright. She tried to do the same for Rat, but Rat jerked away from her touch and scurried to her feet a short distance away. The fear and awe and loathing in her eyes said everything that needed to be said. Gina had done something bad, something that made her unnatural and wrong, and she might never be normal again.

And out there, somewhere in the great wide world, Gabriel smiled.

They wandered on in silence. Gina stayed in the front, occasionally changing direction at Bomber's say-so. Rat stayed in the back to be alone and as far from Gina as possible. There were Feds all around, their footsteps and muttered voices echoing through the tunnels from all sides. Gina wondered if she could reach out that far and make them take a wrong turn or something like that. And if that were possible, should she?

Something had gone wrong somewhere along the way. That much was obvious. Spice was a receiver, not a transmitter. It couldn't... shouldn't be able to make her do the things she'd done. Onounu had managed some pretty weird things in her day, as did the other old veterans of the Street, but they couldn't possibly exceed the effects of the drug. Nobody could. Nobody except Gabriel.

You did this, she thought at him, but got no response.

They came to a heavy metal door recessed in a block of grey concrete, and Bomber came forward to have a look, beckoning Rat over. Gina was almost heartened by the sight of a wall made of something other than sheet steel or plasterboard. As they crowded in, she noticed the door lock, like something out of ancient times. It was a ten-digit mechanical number pad, the numbers long gone to use and rust. Exposed alarm wires ran from the lock into the door.

Once Rat had identified the lock, she said, "Tell me we're not supposed to open that."

"Can't pick it?" asked Bomber, still short of breath.

"It's an antique, man. I'd either set off the alarm, cause the door to lock down, or both. No way to get around one of these without the code."

"I was afraid of that." He placed his hand against the bare concrete at the doorframe and ran his fingers lightly down, searching for something. "Don't know if this code still works. Worth a try." He seemed to find what he was looking for and, running his fingers over some notches in the concrete, called out a short number sequence.

Rat gaped at Bomber in shock and awe. "How the hell did you know that was there?"

"The Emperor told me about it once. This is nearly the same way he escaped from StateSec, long before you were born. And they never found out how." Bomber stepped back and punched his numbers into the lock. It popped with a loud metal clack, and Bomber allowed himself a smile as he pulled the door open. "The man was a legend, all right."

A bullet grazed his cheek and tore a hole through Gina's loose-fitting top, missing her by millimetres. She dropped to the floor while Bomber slammed the door shut again, muttering, "Shit, shit, shit!"

"And this is why, in the real world, you don't go through the fucking air vents!" snarled Rat. "What the hell are we gonna do now?"

"Gina!" Bomber grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her to get her attention, his own body braced against the door in case anyone tried to break in. "How many are there?"

"I..." She stopped herself short of telling him she couldn't do that. This was an emergency, and just because it wasn't easy didn't mean it couldn't be done. She pushed her mind beyond the door, casting herself out like a net, and tried to cover the whole room without scattering her mind into little pieces. The strands of the net kept together by willpower alone. It echoed against other minds in the room and tried to feel their individuality. She counted one, two, three...

"Three Feds," she said firmly. "Don't know about bots. They've got backup on the way as well."

"Then they're gonna have to make some room," Bomber answered, pulling a pair of concealed handguns out of his jumpsuit waistband. Gina recognised them as coming from their equipment bag, but she had no idea when or how he'd gotten his hands on them. "Make no mistake, this job's been easy so far. That's over now." He glanced over his shoulder as if he could see through the door, then continued in a monotone, almost robotic voice. "From here on in there's gonna be Feds and 'bots crawlin' all over the place, and we can't hesitate." His eyes focused on Gina. "Quick answer. Can you kill?"

That, Gina knew immediately, was not the best question to ask someone with a load of Spice raging in her bloodstream. A dark torrent of smells, sounds and images poured through her. She could cope with the old, faded memories of corpses she'd seen on the Street. It was the fresh ones that gave her trouble. There were too many. The Russians in the alley, the duelling gangers, the Triad man hunting for the Emperor, Onounu and Mashei. Each death replayed itself before her eyes and she couldn't seem to stop.

But all of them were just a build-up to the most vivid scene, the most horrible memory in her head. Her stomach heaved at the feeling of her finger squeezing the trigger. The gun kicking back into the heel of her hand. Blood spattering across her clothes, dripping from her hands. A curl of smoke pouring out the barrel. The dead thug lying on the cold concrete floor front of her, blood and brains seeping out of him.

Acid burned at the back of her throat and her eyes filled with moisture as she stammered, "I-- I--"

"Can you kill?"

"No!" she cried out. Tears stung her eyes and she turned away, sobbing silently, wet droplets slowly washing away the flashbacks. Even with her back to him she could feel Bomber's eyes on her. They didn't judge or disapprove, but they were... disappointed.

"I can," Rat said into the silence. She took one of the guns from Bomber, a small pistol with a bright red fire/safe switch on the side. She looked Bomber squarely in the eye, doing her best to ignore Gina shuddering beside her.

"Good," Bomber answered, checking Rat's gun for her. Then he turned back to Gina and rested a sympathetic hand on her arm. "Don't worry. Keep that taser of yours handy, it might save the day, and nobody's gotta die. Yeah?"

Gina nodded and scrubbed angrily at her eyes. She was more upset with herself for breaking down than for her inability to kill another human being. But she had her Mk5, and its warmth in her hand was like a ten-thousand-volt security blanket.

"On three," said Bomber, and she watched as he counted down on his fingers.

The next few minutes were a confused blur of activity, and Gina couldn't figure out what was happening and what they'd already done.

The door swung open. Bomber moved as if he felt no pain. Gunshots. A mad dash across a room crowded with storage pallets and forklift trucks. That gave them some good cover against the automatic fire pouring from the Feds. At one point Gina remembered zapping the machine gun emplacement with her Mk5, welding the gunner's hands to his weapon.

She didn't know how they made it into the other room. Her next clear memory was of helping Bomber slam the big metal locking bar across the warehouse door. Little dents appeared in the wall where bullets rammed into the corrugated steel. They scrambled away from it in case the steel gave way, but it never did, and the hail of bullets soon stopped.

Panting, Gina gradually came down from the rush of their flight, and got her head back under control. Her heartbeat slowed as she glanced around.

The ceiling disappeared so far up into the darkness that Gina couldn't make it out. The only light came from large spots erected along the walls, pointed at each of the vehicles in the warehouse, all arranged in separate parking lots. There were town cars, jeeps, lorries, armoured cars, tanks. This had to be the motor pool.

Rat immediately went over to one of the tanks to check it out, but Bomber trudged on ahead to a bunch of storage bays at the far end, all covered by a big blue tarpaulin.

"Help me get this off," he rasped. A trail of blood drops followed at his heels and pooled wherever he stopped. His face was white and drawn, his eyes unfocused. He spat blood-stained phlegm onto the flat concrete floor.

Gina had no time or desire to argue. Bit by bit the tarpaulin came off, and revealed a slender black helicopter the likes of which she'd never seen. It was low and wide in the middle, and tapered to a sharp point at the front around the large cockpit. A bunch of exposed electrical wires hung under the cockpit to mark what had once been a weapon mount. At the back the copter had an aeroplane tail instead of a tail rotor. The canopy stood open, and inside were two big bucket seats waiting for a pilot and a gunner.

"Wow," said Rat, having lost all interest in the tanks. "Now that is slick."

"Get in. I need to start up the reactor." A harsh, rasping cough rocked through him. He seemed somehow smaller when he straightened himself out again, only to find the others still staring at him dumbly. "Move! Anyone still out here without a radsuit in ten seconds is gonna have a real bad day!"

That spurred Gina and Rat into action quickly enough. They scrambled up the pilot steps as fast as they could and squeezed the both of them into the gunner's seat, leaving the walled-off pilot's chair free for Bomber. Olive drab bulkheads surrounded Gina, all covered with black computer screens and manual safety switches. Instead of a set of main controls, however, the only thing in front of Gina was a small niche containing a primitive VR crown resting calmly in its cradle.

There sounded a clear, metallic click, and the world started to rumble. Backlights behind the safety switches sprang on. The screens came to life, ticking off diagnostic information. Lists of text and little green bars scrolled down them, although occasionally a yellow bar would stick at the top of the screen while the checks continued. The violent pumping of coolant liquid bubbled everywhere around Gina.

Suddenly she saw Bomber, toppling over the edge of the cockpit into the pilot's chair. She tried to get up to see if he was all right, but the canopy swung closed before she could do anything.

"Bomber?" she asked nervously, squirming under the weight of a seventeen-year-old girl squeezed into her lap.

"I can hear you," he breathed, and she instantly knew he was dying. Intense pain radiated through the walls and into her third eye. She heard him swallowing something, and he headed her off before she could ask her next question. "Anti-rads, just in case I make it. This thing was meant to have a full crew with hazard suits. It's got a nasty output."

All her questions seemed inappropriate just then. Instead she simply said, "You've done this before."

"I was a test pilot in the old US Army Aviation Branch. Top secret stuff. Last project before the Federation took over, we were workin' on nuclear copters with integrated energy weapons, VR controls, nano-maintenance, really advanced stuff." His breathing seemed to steady out a bit as he talked. "Mini-reactors, lightweight and low-output, but with plenty of power for the main gun. Good for at least fifty years without refuelling. We had five prototypes, one for each stage of development, all working. And then we woke up one morning and there wasn't any United States anymore."

Meanwhile he put the copter through its pre-flight procedures. Gina saw the yellow-marked systems flashing with the words, 'Self-repair initiated', and they turned green one by one, while the warehouse doors buckled under the Feds' brute-force assault.

"When the Feds came to take over our base, a couple of the pilots in my squadron decided they didn't really like the idea of them bein' in power. They made a break for it with four of the birds and blew the base behind 'em. One and Two used their birds to start a pretty short-lived guerilla war against the Federation. Three was never heard from again. Number Four, though, he had the bright idea of takin' his all the way to Hong Kong, maybe hire himself out as a merc to StateSec. Only the Feds got there before he did. Caught him, threw him in a cell to rot, ripped all the best tech out of his bird, and then forgot about it in storage." He flipped a loud mechanical switch. "Still workin', though."

The last yellow marks disappeared, and the rotors came on like the beating of mighty wings. They started to turn lethargically, as if they were all rusted up, and something nasty rattled in the mechanism. But in a matter of moments the rattling died away and the rotors really cut loose.

The copter lurched off the ground, turning around inside the tall warehouse, looking for a way out. There was none. They'd forgotten to unbolt one of the vehicle doors, and Gina felt her heart sink.

"There may be a slight bump," Bomber said, and plunged the copter directly into the wall.

It tore through the half-inch of corrugated steel like a brick through a car windscreen. Bomber grunted at the controls, fighting for altitude with most of his rotor blades torn to pieces, and turned the motor to its maximum output. He was starting to pull away from the Fed building when a missile slammed into the side of the copter. The impact sent it lurching sideways, G-forces slamming Gina into her seatbelt straps. The last vestiges of rotor shattered themselves against the ground as the copter ploughed end over end through the car park. Great chunks of asphalt whirled through the air in a frenzy of devastation. Gina would've thrown up, but the Gs weighing in on her sucked the gorge right back into her stomach.

When they finally came to rest, Gina struggled to undo the belt, wrapped tight around her and Rat. The button wouldn't depress at first, but with some pushing and pulling it finally popped loose. She scrambled to open the cockpit canopy and get the hell out while they still had time.

She looked up into the glare of streetlights, their escape route only a stone's throw away, partly blocked the inexpressive face of a Fed battle helmet. It echoed with a deep commanding voice, "I suggest you stay still and offer no resistance."

Gina went numb inside. Metal hands tore her out of the copter and bundled her into a tough plastic sack. She screamed and clawed uselessly at the inside of the bag, needing to know what was happening, but she couldn't even make out the words from the shouting voices outside. The only emotions left to her were frustration and terror.

Part 11

Gina sat in her cell, staring at the door. She wondered how she could ever have thought this plan would work. How stupid the whole thing seemed now! Break into the most heavily-defended building in Hong Kong, bust someone out of a Fed prison, and then escape scot free. Yeah, right.

Then the Spice trance came on again, and her growing despair became remote, out of touch. Unpleasant memories forced themselves upon her, demanding that she sort them out in chronological order. She remembered being led here, blindfolded, rough hands pushing and shoving. New bruises from being thrown around and from the initial questioning. The interrogator had been full of cold anger and judgment, and took special pleasure in his job when faced with people who'd murdered four heroic Federal Police Officers in cold blood. The left side of her face was puffy and caked with blood.

Even worse, the Feds had split them up. Bomber's body had gone to the infirmary on a stretcher. Rat had gone down a different corridor on Level 3, and since then Gina hadn't seen hide nor hair of her... Out of idle curiosity, she reached out with her third eye and was surprised to feel Rat's identity radiating from a cell not far away. Her mood was as black as Gina's.

Gina smiled despite her state. Misery loves company. On a sudden whim, and without even thinking about it, she placed herself behind Rat's eyes. Only days ago she would've had no idea how to do that, would have considered it impossible if she'd considered it at all.

A nasty smell hung in Rat's cubicle. It seemed to come from a suspicious collection of stains in the corner. They looked recent, and nobody had bothered to give the cell a good cleaning yet.

Bruises ached on her arms and legs from being pushed around. She sat on the concrete floor, slow tears rolling down her nose and falling in drops. Sniffling, she wiped her wet hands on her brand-new orange jumpsuit, scrubbed at her face. The crushing despair inside Rat was too much for Gina to take, and she nearly pulled herself back, but Rat moved suddenly, went down on her knees facing the corner almost touching her forehead to the floor. She had no idea which direction Mecca might be in, but that didn't seem to matter much just then.

In the other cell, Gina gasped when she realised what Rat was doing.

"Merciful Father," Rat whispered into the empty room, "I know I don't talk to you very often, and I'm really sorry. I can't remember any of the prayers. Now I wish I could. It's just that... Well, I'll get to the point. I, um, got myself into some trouble. Bad trouble. And I'd really, really like to get out of it again. So, um... Please? I'll be good. Well, I'll be better. I'll start praying and stuff, I promise. I know you probably get a lot of these, and nobody really follows through, but... Please?" She bit down hard on her lip as she finished, embarrassed and ashamed, and decided that this farce was over. She got off her knees and examined the cell again, trying to think of what she could do to make things a bit easier on God.

She started by taking stock of the things she had. None of her usual toys, of course, but she'd been careful. The Chrome Rat wasn't so stupid as to walk into the lion's den without some capture precautions. All the usual locations had been searched, and the memory of that burned hot inside her mind, full of anger and shame. That's why she hid things where they only used a scanner, and only her most expensive stuff, masked to resemble organic material. She dug her pinky finger into her ear -- Gina cringed at the awful sensation -- and pried out a thin ceramic rod glued to the inside of her ear canal. That one little piece had cost her every bit of coin she'd made for three months. It might just turn out to be the best money she'd ever spent.

Next she tugged at the lashes of her right eye until the lid pulled free from her sclera, and shook out four plastic spheres no larger than the head of a pin. They drifted almost weightlessly into her upheld hand, and she loaded them into the rod one at a time. A tiny light at the base of the rod blinked for a moment, indicating a full charge, and went out.

Right, thought the Chrome Rat, to business.

Kneeling in front of the door, she slid the rod into the lock and switched it on. The little infrared laser was invisible to the naked eye, but after only a second Rat could feel the heat pouring out of the keyhole, accompanied by little wisps of smoke. She rotated the base of the rod slightly to turn down the laser. Setting off a smoke alarm was the last thing she wanted right now.

First she burned out the linkage to the local area computer network. That would throw up a minor maintenance flag on Lazarus, but it bought her some time. Working quickly, she cut through the casing protecting the main electronics, and surgically lanced out the power control chip. The lock, unable to get a computer response telling it what to do, interpreted the situation as a power failure and used its emergency battery to open the deadbolt. There was a sharp whirr of electric motors, and Rat slipped out of the way as the door swung open towards her.

For a moment she considered putting her white prison shoes back on, but decided she'd be better off barefoot, and ducked into the hallway. She closed the door behind her and manually worked the deadbolt back into place. If she was really lucky, any robot sent by Lazarus would be fooled into thinking the door hadn't even been opened.

The place looked almost familiar to her now. White corridors, bright lights, distant footsteps and the whirr of robotic motors. The small coloured signs at the intersections started to make sense, and she believed she could work them into her mental map of the area. She took a second to get her bearings, made sure she had the way back to the surface committed to memory. Then she dashed off, quiet as a mouse, on her way to the guardroom.

It was weird to feel air brushing against her skin and playing through her hair. Usually everything above her chin was covered by her preferred hood and sunglasses. Now she wore nothing but the orange jumpsuit, straight black hair tickling her shoulders, bare feet touching the cold floor. She harrumphed when she caught her own reflection in a pane of glass, and stopped a moment to look. Blue. Yes, her eyes were blue.

A sudden noise snapped her back to reality. The guardroom was just down the hall, and she heard faint sounds echoing inside. A male voice talking in Conglom. There was no response, and the droning monotone suggested that the man might be recording something. The Chrome Rat creeped closer and popped her head round the doorframe.

One brief glance told her a lot. Fed uniform, sitting with his back to the door. He was busy sorting items from a plastic rucksack and logging them into the computer. None of the stuff looked familiar to Rat, but as long as it kept him busy, all was well.

As she crept inside, she tried to dredge up the endless physical education exercises and lectures from her school days. Martial arts were a mandatory part of the curriculum for any child in North Korea. Rat had never done very well in any of them, but if she could just remember how to kick...

Her leg snapped out like a steel bar, her heel hit the back of his head with a hard crack. He grunted and slumped forward onto the table. Rat, meanwhile, massaged her pulled groin and hopped around the chair to check his pockets.

The Fed didn't carry much of anything useful. There was a wireless earbug in his breast pocket, and his holster contained one of the Feds' nasty riot batons. Rat gingerly took hold of the grip. The shaft telescoped out at the touch of a button, and the whole thing started to vibrate with the lethal voltages coursing through it. It was like trying to hold on to half a metre of solid evil. Rat turned it off and put it back, not prepared to try and use that.

She tried on the earbug and heard the sporadic coded chatter of a Fed base on a stressful day. It was set to their standard frequency. Now that would come in handy, Rat decided with a grin, and secured it in her ear.

Next she looked around for her own stuff, and found her clothes hanging from a storage peg. She looked longingly at them but there was no time to stop and change. Rummaging around, she found her bag of toys -- empty -- and a few other useless bits and bobs. The only weapon, stuffed away in an open locker, was Gina's little taser, stone cold to the touch when Rat picked it up. They'd drained the battery. She switched it on, and it slowly started to charge itself. Lastly Rat spotted her precious mobile phone and pounced on it, but despite several attempts she couldn't find any signal down here. Unsurprised, she clipped it onto her waistband for later.

Only a few minutes left before somebody found her missing from her cell. She needed a plan to get everybody out of here, and fast. Pretty tall order with few options and no equipment. How could one person create enough chaos to fool both an AI and an army of Feds for long enough to make good their escape?

Rat eyed the bottle of cleaning alcohol on top of the weapons locker and got an idea. She reached for it, and stopped when she felt a rifle barrel pressed into the small of her back.

"Put your hands on your head," said a cold voice by her ear, "and turn around, slowly. No sudden moves." Quick hands tore the taser from her grasp and threw it into the corner.

Rat's heart sunk into the ground as she obeyed the voice. Caught this early in the game? How could she have let that happen? Blazing anger and despair roared up inside her, at herself and everyone and everything that got her involved in this mess. She looked up into the Fed's dark, unhelmeted face, close to tears, and asked, "How did you rumble me?"

"Cameras, puppet." He watched Rat's horrified expression and flashed a cocksure smile. "You forgot about 'em, eh? They're in your cell, in the hallways, everywhere. Lazarus knew what you were doing the second you started. It just took us a minute to catch up with ya, is all." His mouth widened into a leer. "'Course, I turned 'em off before I went in here. I could kill ya right now and all I'd have to do is fill out a sheet of paper. You wanna be a good girl and stay alive?" Rat nodded slowly, which seemed to please him. After all there were so many things a girl, now alone and unarmed, could do for him. Dread choked her throat as he continued, "Then be nice to me, little puppet. Real nice."

"Okay," the Chrome Rat murmured and pressed the button on her hastily-constructed emergency plan. The hidden laser in her palm lanced across the Fed's face, burning out both his eyes. He let out a terrible scream and clawed at them with one hand, firing wildly with the other. Rat ducked behind him and kicked him in the groin over and over until he crumpled into a ball and stopped moving.

"Was it good for you?" she spat, picking up the rifle and pressing it to his head. Her finger brushed the trigger, twitchy with anger and revulsion, but she couldn't quite bring herself to fire. Finally she just chucked it away and scooped up the Mk5 from the corner, then grabbed the Fed's little PDA, tucking both into her waistband. She glared one last time at the two unconscious Feds and growled, "Bunch of sleazy bastards."

The only other thing she took from the guardroom was her lockpicking kit. It looked somewhat battered but still serviceable, and all the bits seemed to be there, so she couldn't waste any more time here. She paused in the doorway and kissed her little laser, thanking it silently, and slipped it back into her pocket. Lastly she took out the PDA and told it to give her a map. It did so, in exquisite detail and with a little flashing light indicating her current location. Little number codes hovered over each door for which the Fed had a high-enough security clearance. Rat really loved technology sometimes.

First order of business, she thought to herself, need some backup. Or at least a diversion.

"Prisoner search," she whispered to the PDA. "First name Gina, any last name. Display list." The PDA quickly sorted through its database and spat out only one entry. Rat tapped it. The name flashed up onto the screen, but the rest was blank save for the words 'Locked File, Security Flagged' blinking away in red. She frowned. "Okay. Locate prisoner, Gina Hart or alias of same. Plot route from current location and display." She didn't know the right terminology for its voice parser so she improvised whatever sounded like it might work. Sure enough, the simple computer interpreted her instructions perfectly, giving her a glowing blue routemap to Gina's cell.

She followed the route only in the roughest sense, dodging Feds and robots by taking detours and hiding behind corner. The place had been designed to defeat a stealthy approach, but they hadn't anticipated someone who could open one of their precious cells in seconds. Determined, Rat forged on until she stood in front of Gina's cell, and wondered if she really wanted to open it at all.

"What a horrible thought," she told herself. "She's my friend. I think."

And a liability, said another, darker part of her that didn't usually speak up. Remember what the Emperor said back there? Loose strings, they're just gonna tie you up. Dead weight's just gonna slow you down. He was right, and they killed him for it. None of 'em are worth getting caught again. You gotta get out while you can.

"I don't have time for this. They know I'm out, they'll be after me soon."

All the more reason to turn around and walk away.

"No! Christ, I can't do that."

You know you can, or you wouldn't be arguing so hard. It ain't difficult. Just make a right face and put one foot in front of the other. You've done it before.

"I don't want to!"

That's a lie.

The need to act pressed more and more heavily on her as the seconds ticked away. She remembered when she was stuck on that ladder. The terrible presence in her head pushed her down and held her prisoner in her own mind, like she was being drowned or suffocated, even violated sexually. She watched her hands moving horribly against her will. Powerless.

Looking back at it now, Gina had saved her life, but there was still an unnatural, evil feeling that clung irrevocably to the whole experience. It shouldn't affect her decision, but she couldn't help it.

"Snap decision," she told herself, unable to stand still for another second, and she opened the door.

Gina slipped back into her own head and tried to look surprised.

"So what's our plan now?" asked Gina after Rat had filled her in on everything she already knew. "If they know we're loose, we're just as doomed as we were last time. Oh." Light-headed from the Spice, she stumbled and caught herself on the wall. She shouldn't have spent so long in somebody else's mind, everything so clear and real. None of her muscles seemed to work quite right anymore, like they were in a different place than they used to be. It got a little bit better as she kept moving.

"I tried the stealth angle," Rat said. "It didn't work. What we need to do now is change the rules of the game." She smiled, muttering some commands into her PDA. She'd obviously been thinking about this a while. "Follow me."

Gina sensed the small team of Feds coming to intercept them long before they came close. Even Rat with her earbug hadn't heard them coming; they were maintaining tight radio silence. Rat quickly replotted their route and gave the Feds a wide berth, as well as avoiding the security robot routes clearly detailed on the little screen. Gina had to marvel at the little device. The Feds probably never considered it a possibility that one might fall into the hands of a prisoner, being carried by the rough, tough and only slightly corrupt.

"What about Bomber?" Gina blurted suddenly. The question had been building inside her for hours now. She'd tried to stop herself from asking, afraid of what the answer might be, but she couldn't keep it in any longer.

"Don't know if he's alive or what. We'll try and get to him if we get a chance. Here we are!" Rat slowed slightly to point up ahead to a door marked with yellow and black warning stripes. The simple, unadorned sign next to it read, 'Utility Cupboard 301', but the door's massive construction put the lie to that description. It looked like solid steel deadbolted with a host of electronic and mechanical locks, keeping it shut from anyone and anything that might have the same idea as Rat. She snorted quietly as she walked towards it, digging a pack out of her waistband. "Good thing I brought my picks."

Watching Rat move towards the door, Gina was suddenly overcome by a surge of all-overriding terror. Something felt terribly wrong. Warning bells rang in her ears, and she moved to grab Rat just as the girl passed a branching corridor to her right. The robotic guns took only an instant to lock on and fire.

Gina launched herself into a tackle that would've done any rugby player proud. Bullets whizzed past her ears as she caught Rat squarely in the small of the back, and they went down in a tumble, rolling behind the corner into relative safety.

Blood coated Gina's hands as she stood back up. The sight of it was too horrible to take. She sank to her knees and threw up on the floor, though only acid came out of her empty stomach. Soon there was nothing left to expel. She dry-heaved a few more times before the sickness subsided.

Rat squirmed about on the floor and clutched her thigh, but she waved away Gina's attention with a mutter of, "It's just a flesh wound." Red stains soaked the leg of her jumpsuit when she dragged herself back to her feet. She stumbled, dizzy for a moment, but shook it off in iron determination. Metal legs were already clicking against the floor. She shouted, "Hold them off! We can't lose now!"

"With what?" screamed Gina. She got no answer. Desperation drove her hand to her Mk5 and she fired wildly down the corridor. Lightning cracked through the air, well short of the lone security bot, but the bot's legs froze to an abrupt stop. It braced itself to provide return fire, and Gina ducked back behind the corner an eyeblink before the lead started flying.

Sweat dribbled in rivulets down Rat's face. She stood by the door working the locks with blood-slick hands. "Just keep it going for a minute, just a minute." She glanced down at the small canisters of knockout gas bouncing around her feet, trailing wisps of green smoke. "Ah, shit." She pulled her jumpsuit up to cover her nose and mouth and worked at the locks with redoubled effort.

Gina followed Rat's example and covered her face. At the same time she begged the Mk5 to finish recharging. The security bot could just run in and kill them both at any time, but she hoped Lazarus didn't know that. It would, of course. It saw everything and it knew exactly what her weapon could do. Maybe it was simply content to wait for the knockout gas to take effect and reinforcements to arrive.

Maybe it changed its mind when it realised just how fast Rat was going through the locks. With an electronic spoofer and a full-powered locksmith's laser at her disposal, she tore them down two at a time. More metal feet were racing towards the scene, but Rat was already throwing open the door. On the other side Gina saw exposed electrical wiring of all varieties, metal boxes and piles of insulation, all manner of counters and gauges. All the circuit breakers and fuse boxes for the below-ground complex.

With her last ounce of strength, Rat threw the breakers and collapsed. The lights flickered but stayed on. The security robot slid to a halt not a metre away from Gina, stopped, then seemed to recover from its momentary confusion, its gun tracking once more on a dazed and coughing Gina.

"SURRENDER," demanded Lazarus's booming voice, blasting from the bot's loudspeaker. "THE GRID HAS MANY BACKUPS AND OVERRIDES. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN--"

Gina fired her Mk5 straight into Utility Cupboard 301. The world went white for one endless second, then blacked out.

Blurry eyes fluttered open. At first she saw only the city, black scorched buildings under a red sky. Even the sun was red. Then she realised there was no sun, no sky, and the red suns were emergency lights casting their sullen red glow over the corridor.

Gina coughed. The knockout gas sent drums pounding through her head, but the explosion had dispersed most of it. Only a vague swimming-pool smell remained, mixing in the air with the reek of burnt plastic. Black scorch marks surrounded the door. The only thing she could see inside the cupboard was a mass of molten plastic and soot-stained metal. A stab of worry went through her when she noticed Rat's body, or lack thereof. Rat had been lying in front of the cupboard when it blew. Not anymore.

Gina looked around in near-panic and found her slumped against the wall, face and hands blackened and cracked and oozing blood. More blood poured from the gaping rent in her thigh. The bullet had made a raw, pulpy hole all the way through. Rat's desperate lungs worked hard to suck in each shallow breath of life, but they wouldn't last forever.

She tore the leg off Rat's jumpsuit and bandaged the hole as tightly as she could. 'Still breathing' was good enough. They were headed for the high-security infirmary anyway. She picked up the PDA and ordered it to show her the way.

Some people might abandon their friends in time of need, but not Gina.

Panting and puffing, she dragged Rat's body along through the corridors, past unmoving robots and around Fed patrols. Gina could sense them clearly now. Clumps of leaderless confusion without Lazarus to direct them. Frustration, inability to coordinate an effective trap. Gina simply went around or waited for them to move on. One time she had a scare when there were two patrols on either side of her, blocking off her only alternate route, but then one of the Feds imagined he spotted something and sent his team running off in the wrong direction. Gina wasn't sure if it was luck or something she'd done subconsciously.

Finally she reached her destination, a pair of automated doors with the words 'Medical Centre' printed on them, conveniently located just down the hall from the interrogation room. Gina gave a shudder, but took control of herself right away and gently lowered Rat's body onto the ground. Then she brought up her Mk5 and dashed into the room. A sense of purpose burned in her eyes.

She felt the Fed before she stepped through the doors. His back was to the door, standing next to a white-coated man in animated conversation. Upset and worried about the power outage. They stood in front of a one-way mirror looking at a patient, and only turned when they heard the doors come open. Gina pulled the trigger an instant after that, very nearly too late.

The Fed moved like greased lightning. His pistol was in his hand and halfway up to a shooting stance by the time Gina fired. The bolt of lightning took a heartbeat longer to cross the room. She saw his fingers twitch against the trigger guard. Sweat beaded on his face, teeth clenched together. He focused everything into forcing his paralysed muscles to move just an inch further, support his weight just a second longer. Then his over-amplified nervous system blew out and his legs went out from under him.

"Freeze," she told the man in the white coat, "unless you want the same thing happening to you." The air around the Mk5 shimmered with heat, and it hummed menacingly. He put up his arms in surrender. She smiled at the age-old gesture and took a careful step closer.

"I don't want any violence here," he said. "This is a hospital."

"It's a butcher's shop. But I'm going to give you one chance." She jerked her head towards the door. "You're a doctor. There's a patient lying outside for you. Get her in here. If she dies, you die."

Horrified understanding dawned behind his eyes. He stammered, "I'm not-- We have orderlies--"

"No orderlies. You."

"But I'm not a surgeon," he insisted. The look she gave him convinced him otherwise, at least for the moment.

He brought Rat inside under Gina's watchful eye and laid her gently on a gurney. He turned to Gina in all seriousness and said, "Listen, I'm a radiologist, I'm not trained to program this model of autosurgeon. I haven't used one since I was an intern! These injuries are far beyond anything I ever studied for! With Lazarus offline, there's nothing I can do!"

"Is there anyone else here who could?""

We have a trauma surgeon, but she went home an hour ago. I'd have to put a call through to her house." He let out a short, manic laugh and ran a hand through his gel-choked black hair. "I wasn't even supposed to be here! I only got called in a few hours ago because someone came in with acute radiation poisoning. Just my luck, eh?"

"Yeah," she replied, legs shaking. She couldn't think about Bomber right now. He was dead, and there was a raw hole in her heart where his face used to be. "Yeah, I guess you're having a pretty good day, 'cause I'm a real impatient woman with a gun to your head and not a lot of time. My friend is over there on that table, hurt. Now get to work." She shoved him towards the control board and tried her best to look dangerous.

Left with no alternative, the doctor did as he was told.

The operation seemed to last forever. Seconds turned into minutes, each ticking by with endless finality. Gina heard the soft but insistent alarm stating that the patient was crashing. The doctor worked frantically, sweat dripping down from under his VR crown, fingers twitching whenever he needed to direct the spider-like robot behind the bulletproof screen.

First it carved the bullet fragments out of Rat's leg with halting, unsure movements, and finally managed to stop the bleeding. A fast IV drip attempted to alleviate the massive blood loss from the ham-handed cutting. Once that was done, guided by a long tubular appendage with an endoscope on the end, the autosurgeon went after patches of interior bleeding. It sucked and stitched and kept Rat's failing heart going with little electrical pulses. It sliced off burnt skin from the face and arms and applied brand-new grafts from the sterile meat farm recessed into the wall. The autosurgeon moved more easily wherever its automated functions could take over, but lacking true intelligence of its own, it still needed a human to direct the procedure.

At last, the heartbeat started to steady out and a bit of colour returned to Rat's pale cheeks. Blood poured into her from the IV drip, but nobody could say if it were quick enough to stop her body breaking down.

"That's it," he sighed in abject relief. The VR crown slid off his head, and he put it down carefully into its cradle. "That's all I can do. The rest is up to God, and time."

"Not quite," said Gina. "We need to be out of here right now. Stim her."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I can't do that. She's in no shape to take stimulants, much less move! Do you want her dead after all this?"

Gina flashed him a grim smile. "No, but she needs to be awake for my plan to work. Stim her." She prodded him in the back with her Mk5, and smiled when he obeyed. "Good. Now, do you have any nurse uniforms lying around?"

The infirmary's old supply cupboard yielded a stack of uniforms, old-fashioned blue button-up jackets with matching zippered skirts, none of them quite her size. In the end she erred on the baggy side, just for a change. The Mk5 strapped to the inside of her thigh with surgical tape. She couldn't bear to touch the Fed's pistol, but she searched in vain for something to replace her lost knife, wherever it was now. That knife had saved her bacon when it mattered, and she missed the feeling of its hard steel against her chest. Oh well, she sighed. Lastly she put on the blue nurse's hat with an old caduceus emblem on it, two snakes coiled round a winged staff.

"Great Buddha," was the first thing the doctor said when he saw her. "It covers you from neck to knee, and still you make that outfit look scandalous."

"It's a disguise," she told him. A few touches of make-up, stolen from some nurse's emergency kit, hid the cuts and bruises well enough.

"Not much of one," mumbled a voice from the corner. Rat worked up a smile and twitched her arm. "Why can't I move?" Then, "Oh, I don't feel so good."

Gina rushed to the bedside and helped Rat to sit up. "The two are related. We gave you a muscle relaxant so you wouldn't hurt yourself. It'll wear off in a minute."

"So who're you all dressed up for?"

"All part of my plan."

"Christ. Better be a good one." She yawned. "Want to let me in on it?"

"We'll put you on a stretcher and wheel you out through the front door. If anyone stops us, you're a medical emergency that can't be treated here 'cause of the power failure. Just keep screaming, things'll be fine." Just at that moment, a chair flew through the one-way mirror and smashed an instrument table over on its side. Sharp glass and surgical steel went over the floor. A wild-eyed man in a hospital gown leaped through the gap and seized the doctor by the throat, Fed pistol in his other hand, and glanced around like a trapped animal.

"I have had a gun pointed at me entirely too many times today," said Gina wearily, too tired to be shocked. "Put it down, Bomber."

"Oh, you're here," he said. "That's... um, good." He looked down, confused. "I can't drop my arm."

As he turned his head, Gina gasped in horror. The side of his head had been shaven and a raw red scar ran across his temple for the entire length of his ear. It looked medieval in its brutality. "What did they do to you?" she whispered.

The doctor coughed, "I think I can answer that question." He at least had the decency to look ashamed. "Dr. Ashigaru -- that trauma surgeon I mentioned -- they called her in for other reasons as well as patching him up. I was there, and... Well, after we managed to get him stable, the higher-ups were afraid of another rescue attempt, and the mindrip process was taking too long thanks to his implant. So they ordered her to try and cut it out of his brain."

Bomber blinked at him. "It can't be cut out. If you tried, anything could happen."

"Anything did happen. The implant threatened to fry your whole cerebral cortex when it detected our stealth scalpel, so Dr. Ashigaru had to abort. Your EEG was practically flat for an hour after the operation." Rubbing his stubbled chin, he added, "The implant may still be active and using you to protect itself from further tampering. Do you know its capabilities?"

"If I ever did, they wiped that out a long time ago." A faint sheen of sweat covered his skin. "I'm tryin' not to pull the trigger..."

The doctor smiled in utter fascination. "Amazing, you must have some top-level hardware in there. I saw your X-rays but I never guessed..." He stopped himself and coughed self-consciously. "I'm sorry, got a bit carried away. Cybernetics are sort of a hobby."

"So is there anything you can do to get that implant to sit back down and shut up?" asked Gina.

"Not a thing, I'm afraid. We don't have a cyberneticist assigned, they're in short supply all over." When that explanation failed to please his audience, the doctor suggested, "Maybe a muscle relaxant? He can't hurt anyone if he can't move."

"I don't think anyone should be comin' any closer right now," said Bomber, voice trembling. His arm, too, started to shake.

"What choice do we have?" asked Gina. Just as she finished her sentence, the door to the main ward slid open.

The orderly didn't even get the chance to see who killed him. The bullet was already bouncing around his brain before the door came fully open, the pill tray in his arms crashing to the floor, and Bomber was already spinning around to deal with his next target. The doctor flew backwards in a spray of blood. Two holes, one in his head, one in his heart. Then the gun swung towards Gina, only a few feet away, who -- terrified eyes locked on the weapon, unable to do anything except watch her own death -- never saw Rat fumbling the Mk5 from the back of her waistband.

There were two sharp cracks, one after the other. Bomber twitched and sat down hard on the floor. Silence.

"No," said Bomber, his hands travelling across Gina's body, searching for a wound. The touch brought her back to consciousness, and she realised she must've fainted.

"No," Bomber continued. "I shot you. I saw it."

Gina gently disengaged herself and climbed up to her knees, glanced down at herself. "I feel fine. I'm fine." That didn't appease him, and he moved past her to search the wall by eye and touch.

"No bullethole. This doesn't make sense," he rumbled, and checked the Fed pistol. A glimmer of emotion crossed his face then, just a moment of full-on astonishment. "I pulled the trigger six times. Magazine's down only four rounds. How?"

"Can we talk about this later, maybe?" interjected Rat. The sound of her voice seemed to bring the others back to their senses. Next she spoke to Bomber. "Are you feelin' okay now? Any less fucking crazy?" He nodded slowly. "Then we still need to get out of here. Original plan's still in effect, right?"

Clearing her throat, Gina said, "Yeah. Yeah, it is." She looked at Bomber in his blue hospital gown and frowned. "It'll look suspicious if it's just a nurse taking two patients out. You need to look like a doctor." She gestured her chin at the expired Fed doctor without actually looking at him. If she didn't look at him, he wasn't there, wasn't dead.

Not wasting any more words, Bomber stripped the body, quickly putting on whatever remained free of bloodstains. After that he salvaged a wig from the cupboard and cut it into shape with a pair of shears. Gina meanwhile got her feet back under her and checked on Rat.

"Thanks," she said under her breath, picking up the Mk5 from the floor where Rat's trembling fingers had dropped it. "You ready?"

"No," Rat answered. She radiated drugged energy and the tunnel-vision focus of stimulants working in her brain. Even barely conscious with a bulletwound in her leg, she took a kind of manic pleasure from the whole thing. "Let's do it."

They wheeled Rat down the hall to the security elevator, which had reverted to manual control for the emergency. It still had power. A single yellow bulb burned in the ceiling, and green glowing neon surrounded the control panel. Gina hit the button for the ground floor and prayed for the doors to close.

Which they did, but not before a battle-armoured Fed officer squeezed in, mouthing apologies for delaying them.

"Official business, I'm afraid," he said in Conglom. The voice had a metallic echo to it from inside the helmet. Smooth grey and black metal covered his entire body, augmenting his strength and speed far beyond human limits. If the need arose, that suit could kill all three of the escapees with its pinky. "There's been a prisoner breakout. You haven't seen anything, have you?"

"No, sorry," Gina replied. Rat punctuated the sentence with a bloodcurdling scream, and Gina whispered some soothing words. "Easy. We'll get you to a hospital soon."

"What's wrong with your patient?"

Gina lied smoothly. It was a line she'd practiced over and over in her head. "He needs a special machine to survive, but ours went down with the power failure. We'll lose him if we don't get him to a hospital within the hour."

"Ah." The Fed rocked back on his heels, trying to get the elevator to speed up by sheer force of will. "Do you need an escort? I can arrange a car to clear the way for you."

A brilliant and utterly false smile lit up Gina's face. "Very kind of you, but we only need an ambulance."

"As you wish. At least allow me to escort you to the motor pool." He suddenly cocked his head as if listening to a distant sound. "Forgive me, it seems even that privilege is denied me. I have been told to report upstairs. Important people are unhappy." The carriage doors opened and he stood aside for the medical team. "Take good care of your patient, miss. And wish me luck."

"Good luck," she told him sincerely and helped lift the gurney out of the carriage. She breathed a long sigh of relief when the doors closed again, taking him out of sight and out of reach.

Gina stayed in front of the gurney for the rest of the way, down the immaculate white halls and into the same lobby where they'd first entered. She mumbled the words medical emergency to the woman at the desk, the very same one that had let them in, who didn't even bother to look up as she overrode lockdown procedures and opened the outer door.

Cool night air caressed her face. Her nose filled with the sweet smell of wet concrete and a hint of smoke from the wrecked helicopter, resting some ways down the car park under a thick sheet of plastic. It was being tended to by a very careful hazard team and a lead-lined nuclear disposal van. Bomber explained that a simple crash landing couldn't possibly breach the armoured reactor, but getting rid of it was a challenge.

They ditched the gurney in a corner and crossed the grounds under Bomber's tactical guidance. Rat's legs still couldn't support her whole weight, so the others half-carried her. There were Fed eyes everywhere -- almost everywhere -- to try and compensate for Lazarus's absence. It didn't work. Nobody saw three shadows sneaking across the grounds, or at least nobody thought long enough to stop them.

They slipped out the gate behind a Fed patrol car and crossed the street. Solid tarmac under their feet, then kerbstones and pavement. Gina's heart pounded harder with each step. Sounds of chaos fading behind her, still unable to believe she was out again.

A surge of pure elation overwhelmed her. Tears sprung into her eyes as she grabbed Bomber and Rat both and hugged them tight to her. She could tell they felt the same.

Bomber flagged down the first taxi they laid eyes on, and they piled into it at a run. At last they sprawled out onto the fake leather interior in glorious freedom, heading for nowhere in particular. Any direction would do, as long as it was away.

Part 12

"We did it," Rat said when they got back to their hotel room. It was like a finishing point to this adventure, a precious lull in the storm. The three just sank onto the bed, no longer able to stand. All the strength had gone out of them, leaving only exhaustion. Colours pulsed and danced above them -- somebody had tuned the giant TV in the ceiling to a 24-7 news network. The same Hong Kong reporter she'd seen the other day was still going on about gang murders, and how the only suspect had escaped from a local police cell. That factoid tugged at Gina's brain for some reason, but she was too tired to think properly.

Rat blurted again, "I can't believe we actually did it."

"All thanks to you," Gina pointed out, giving her an encouraging nudge. Bomber nodded agreement.

"Takin' out the AI was a good idea," he said. "Better than good. I had no idea how dependent they were on that thing until you shut it down. Like a load of arms with the head cut off. Nice job, kid."

Despite everything Rat couldn't seem to smile anymore. She spoke out loud, but she was talking to herself as much as to the others. "I didn't think it would ever work. Practically shit myself when flipping the breakers didn't do it. Hadn't really thought ahead past that..."

"Don't matter. We're here now, and we want to be as far away as possible by the time they get Lazarus online again."

Gina turned onto her side to frown at him. "Can we at least get a night's sleep before we start running again?"

"No time," he said, looking at her with those simple brown eyes, free of trickery or dishonesty. "They'll have it back up in three hours, tops. We need to be above the Pacific by then."

Gina was about to ask when Rat interrupted, checking the messages on their room phone. "There's one here from Jock, says he made it to Laputa and he's getting a new rig set up. It'll take a few more hours but he'll be able to cover our tracks once it's up and running."

"Good, we don't want anyone following us." He sent Gina a strange smile. "Remember why I went off in the first place? Well, I dug up some things. Enough to put me on Gabriel's track. Don't know what we'll find there, but I found the place where Mr. Lowell first appeared on this old Earth." He paused as if waiting to deliver a really funny punchline. "We're goin' to America," he said.

"I'm not." Rat was shaking her head, feeling the silence grow around her. The excitement had gone, there were no more thrills, only the hole in her leg and the burning pain all over her skin grafts. A body that wasn't quite her own anymore. Not if somebody else could just reach in and take over against her will. She looked up at the others, resolute in her decision. "Since Jock called me in I've been beaten, shot at, blown up, and..." She stopped herself before she started to list the really bad stuff. "And I've had enough. You don't need me, you can sort it out on your own. I'm going back to Laputa and staying with Jock."

"But--" began Gina, but Rat silenced her with a gesture.

"Don't," Rat ground out, "don't make this any more difficult than it already is. I'm not coming with you. Here." She reached into her pocket and handed Gina her prized mobile phone, a finger-sized tube of white plastic. "We'll keep in touch. But I'm not coming with you."

No more words. Gina's heart clenched like she had just lost a friend. It wasn't nearly so dramatic or final, she knew that, but in the few days she'd hung out with Rat the girl had become one of the fixtures of Gina's new and crazy life. A little bit of sanity and normality -- to some degree, anyway -- in something that was spiralling way out of control.

She continued, "I'll stay here for a few days, y'know, rest up a bit, and then catch a ferry to Laputa. I know people I can call if I need anything. Don't worry about me."

"We'll miss you," Gina said through the lump in her throat. She would've liked a hug at that point, some form of physical contact, but it didn't really seem appropriate.

"Thanks." Forcing a smile, Rat tried not to let her conflicting feelings show. She was getting harder to read as the Spice in Gina's blood started to wear off, Gina's awareness of Rat's feelings becoming distant and peripheral. One thing that Rat couldn't hide, though, was her drive to feel useful despite everything. Disregarding her own light-headedness, she said, "There's a terminal in the desk, I'll book your flights for you."

She pushed herself up onto shaking legs, and Bomber hopped over to help her. He said, "We'll need new IDs as well. Wigs, make-up, the works."

"Not a problem," Rat panted through the haze where painkillers and pure agony met. "If you got the dollar."

"Dollars I got. Contacts, not so much, not in Hong Kong."

Fatigue hammered in on Gina. She left the others to their work and snuck into the bathroom, turned on the shower and kicked off her borrowed uniform. That would have to be disposed of. Unpleasant memories clung to it, and the thought of wearing it again brought the phrase 'bad idea' to mind. Fortunately the bathroom came with an incinerator chute, in itself slightly disturbing. The chute closed with a slam, and Gina turned her attention elsewhere. She dug into her bag of spare clothes, throwing together something to wear later.

Finally she stepped into the hot stream of relaxation. Water and steam ran deliciously over her skin. Expensive complimentary lotions were sniffed and tested all over her body until everything gleamed healthy and smooth under the golden lanternlight. She probably could get used to being rich; the Clean-O-Mat had nothing on this!

She came out glowing. Shrugging into a robe printed with the hotel logo, she wrapped her hair up in a towel and studied herself in the mirror. There were no bulletholes in that perfect body. Just a few bruises on her face and arms, nothing that couldn't be hidden with a little effort. But something felt strange about it as she leaned in for a closer look. She didn't quite recognise the woman in front of her. Something had changed about the eyes. There was more pain in them, but that wasn't quite the thing. Gina grew uneasy as she struggled to put her finger on it. They just looked vaguely wrong, as if those eyes had looked a little bit too far.

She gasped when that thought rocked through her. Sudden burning tears rolled down her cheeks, and she couldn't stop them.

Gina turned away and cried.

Bomber stowed the scissors back into his new make-up kit and surveyed his handiwork. Gina, too, stared curiously into the mirror. She'd worn her hair long ever since she was a girl. Now it just tickled the bottoms of her earlobes, and her neck felt weird. Exposed and too light, as if it missed the extra weight.

"That's interesting," she said. She gave her head a testing shake and then patted it, but her halo of ginger fire stayed rigidly in place. For a moment she was tempted to ask Rat's opinion, but Rat was curled up under the covers, sleeping off another injection of painkillers.

"First rule about shakin' people off your trail," he told her into the mirror, "cut your hair. Dye is optional, but you gotta cut it or get it lengthened. Lengthening ain't somethin' you do at home with a pair of scissors, though."

"And rule two?"

"Second rule is, change your dress style to go with your new look. If you wore suits, start wearing shorts. If you like black, it's Hawaiian shirts. You get the idea."

She turned in her chair to look up at him. "How the hell do you know all this?"

"Military stuff," he said by way of explanation.

"What, they had an opening for copter pilot-slash-hairdresser?"

A smile cracked his stony face, and he seemed to relax a little bit. She could see his time in the interrogation room had affected him more than he'd like to let on. But here he was, making an attempt to open up to her. He cleared his throat and said, "It was just in case I went down in hostile territory. They didn't want me getting caught and spilling all of my job's lovely secrets. So I had to learn how to be invisible." Leaning in a bit closer, he added, "By the way, remember the thing I did with the copter?"

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I do."

"That was really, really stupid. Don't let me do it again."

She couldn't help but giggle. "How long was it since you flew one of those?"

"Christ," he shrugged, "about twelve, thirteen years... It all runs together a little bit. I'm impressed I remembered how to start the thing."

Remembering, Gina asked with sudden worry, "What about all that radiation? Will you be okay?"

"Yeah, I think they gave me some purge meds, otherwise I wouldn't be here." He rolled up his sleeves, showing some artfully-camouflaged radiation burns made to look like bruises. "I... lied to you back in the copter. The reactor's not dangerous, it's meant to start without hurting a fly. That's not why I got irradiated. There, um, there was a crack in the rad shielding at the back. We were out of time and I didn't want to panic you."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah. We lie about a lot of things."

"Hey, it wasn't the kind of crack that would level Hong Kong Central. Just one that would rough me up pretty bad. And you, if you hadn't been inside."

"So what about those Hawaiian shirts?" Bomber blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, unsure how to respond. Gina stood up and whirled away from him. She'd had quite enough of that topic of conversation right now and she felt like trying on some new clothes. A big shopping bag lay across the bed, stuffed to the brim with the cheapest of cheap crap. Gina couldn't wait to plumb its depths.

She picked at random and pulled out a black mesh tank-top whose neckline plunged straight down towards her bellybutton and didn't stop until it hit the local indecency laws. She squinted to try and identify the wire-thin straps holding it up, made of a material that was completely invisible to the human eye except at a particular angle. It was possibly the sleaziest garment ever to offend her eyes, including everything she'd seen in three years on the Street. Of course she couldn't resist trying it on. She disappeared into the bathroom before Bomber could even open his mouth.

When Gina next looked into the mirror, she saw a curvaceous would-be teenager a few years behind the fashion curve; her abdomen exposed to the midriff, the exact shape and colour of her nipples visible through the mesh. It screamed 'sex object', and that was kind-of fun in itself, but eventually her better judgment prevailed. She didn't need to attract anyone's attention, she wanted the exact opposite. In the end she settled on a baggy t-shirt which promised nothing and delivered exactly that.  
"Gina," called Bomber, knocking on the door, "it's time to go."

"Coming," she said.

Rat had woken up to wish them goodbye, and she exchanged an awkward hug with Gina. Bomber clenched a pair of printed tickets in his hand and carried their baggage. The hotel room looked a bit lived-in by now, with the three of them rampaging through it, and Gina had gotten to like it there. It let her forget, at least for a little while, that there were people hunting for her. Some with suspicious intentions, and now others with certain death on their minds.

They left without really speaking. They just went, grabbed a taxi, walked into the airport, boarded the ship. Nervous sweat ran down Gina's face all the way to her seat, but luckily the sweltering hot evening gave her a good excuse. A few persuasive words convinced Bomber to give her the window seat. There she stretched out to relax, and never noticed when her exhausted body fell asleep.

"Don't worry," said Gabriel, "it's only me."

"And you're telling me not to worry?" Gina replied with a smile, staring up at a fairy-blue sky laced with wisps of cloud. She bobbed up and down on the waves of a crystal-clear ocean. The sun glittered off it like a mirror, and a strong breeze played over the water, but none of the waves ever threatened to wash over her. "You come up with some lovely places."

"Thank you. I like to make our meetings... pleasant." He drifted into view sitting on a ribbed square of inflated plastic. He wore black suit trousers and a long-sleeved buttoned shirt, rolled up to his knees and elbows respectively, and his feet dangled in the water. His fire-coloured eyes twinkled at her.

She laughed and rolled over, swimming towards him. The water offered little resistance. "I remember," she murmured as she reached his little inflatable island. Then she grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him down to kiss him. The meeting of their lips tingled like electricity all the way down to her toes, but this time it didn't manage to knock her out.

He smiled down at Gina as she finally disengaged, her hand gripping his collar even tighter, and he didn't seem to realise anything was wrong until his face hit the water. She wished she could've taken a picture of the complete shock in his eyes. He came up laughing and put his arms around her waist, treading water.

"You're a genuine sneaky one," he said to her. "Nice escape, by the way. I was fairly impressed. I don't think anybody's ever managed to shut down that AI before."

Gina stifled a gasp. "How do you know about that?"

"I watch, and I listen. There's a lot of knowledge out there just lying around waiting to be picked up by someone who's paying attention."

"I think," she said playfully, a finger on his lips, "that you watch and listen in places you're not supposed to."

"Like where?" he asked with a smile.

"Like my head." It was so hard to remember things from the real world in this place, but she remembered the flicker, the little gestalt that made itself felt almost at random. The words came in halts and stutters, but she carried the whole sentence through. "Ever since we spoke, it's like I've been carrying around a bit of you inside my mind. It doesn't talk, but sometimes it... it feels at me, about things."

"Oh. That." He couldn't help but grin. "I thought you wouldn't like it, but I needed to forge a link with you, to keep in contact. It was hard enough to find you without it that first time. The link's the only reason I can talk to you now. I can tell you're far away, and moving farther. Where are you going?"

The subtle tones of that question nearly escaped Gina, but this time around she was more confident in the dreamworld, more stable in herself. She sensed the undercurrents of command rather than request. He was genuinely curious, but perhaps not for benign reasons.

But even recognising the threat didn't give her the power to avoid it. Her mouth opened before she even thought, and she had to fight down her own voice by force of will. The effort left her drained, but she just managed to stop herself from betraying everything.

"That's my business," she said firmly. She tried to read his eyes for any sign of expression, but they just held her in their steady gaze. The intense sunlight didn't seem to bother them. And -- Gina suddenly realised -- neither did it bother her. She could look straight at the sun without discomfort.

Below her, the ocean had vanished, and they were floating in a column of white light. No more need to tread water -- she hovered in Gabriel's arms, nothing above her and nothing below. A sudden attack of vertigo whirled into her head. She pushed her legs down, and her feet touched some kind of invisible floor. That seemed like the easiest orientation to cope with. It felt alright as long as she didn't look down.

The silence went on for what seemed like forever until, finally, Gabriel nodded. "Alright," he said. No grudge, no resentment, only love and acceptance in his voice. "No harm in playing your cards close. How's your friend, what's his name, Simon? He wasn't in good shape when you slipped out. I hope everything's alright."

"He's fine," Gina replied truthfully, wondering where that question came from. Gabriel beamed her a warm, pleased smile.

"I'm glad. Nice guy, isn't he? I can see why you like him." His twinkling eyes waited for Gina to protest, but she just lowered her eyes and blushed. He'd know it if she lied. "Tough, too, to be up and walking about not five hours after being dragged from a burning copter wreck. And I'm not counting the chest wound." Gabriel nodded to himself. "I wonder where a guy gets that tough."

"He used to be in the army," she admitted before even thinking about it. She'd all but forgotten why she was supposed to keep her guard up. The image of Gabriel standing in front of her, glowing softly with inner light, could convince whole armies to lay down their weapons. "He was a test pilot on top-secret helicopters."

Gabriel laughed. "No. No, he wasn't." The certainty in his voice almost convinced her on the spot.

"How do you know?"

"I've already answered that question, Gina. I can find out anything I want to know about anyone. Except for your boy Simon, apparently, where a couple million dollars haven't gotten me so much as a real name. Just a list of alias after alias after alias. Someone has been very, very good at destroying his identity." He shook his head. "If he told you he's just a chopper pilot, he's lying. Watch out for him." Taking her hands, he moved in closer until their lips almost touched. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

She rocked back on her heels, shaking her head. Too much to accept at once. She pushed Gabriel away from her and turned as if to run. She fell straight through the floor. Screaming, falling, air rushing past her ears, she woke up.

She walked off the airship in a daze. Bright sunlight drilled into her eyes, poking through holes in the cloud cover, and Gina had to blink away spots even through her sunglasses. The City never saw blue sky or sunlight that wasn't filtered through thick layers of cloud. Its pale children weren't used to this. Even Bomber took a little while to adjust.

"Ain't that a sight," he said, squinting at the sky.

"Yeah," agreed Gina. Too bad about the UVs, though. From the transparent boarding tube she could see the airship's ground crew, tying down mooring lines and bringing in fuel hoses. They wore clear plastic suits that covered them head to toe, with gill-like white air filters at the mouth. Underneath they wore their simple blue uniforms as if nothing was wrong. The suits kept them safe from the nasty ultraviolet radiation you picked up in direct sunlight. The East Coast nuke event had knocked a big gap in the already weak ozone layer, a gap which now stretched from New York all the way down the Appalachian mountains. There it fed into the region now known as 'Radiation Alley', a massive no-entry zone extending from Bermuda to the Texan border.

The catwalk trembled under the footfalls of some three hundred people. They filed into the terminal and held open their bags for the search. Dozens of black-uniformed men and women stood at the examination counters, plastic gloves over their hands, a fresh pair for each bag. Every last item was taken out, inspected, scanned and -- if judged to be harmless -- put back. Gina saw one or two people being taken aside and felt a little bit sorry for them. The news occasionally carried stories about what happened with airport security around here, and it wasn't pretty.

"All clear, ma'am," the security man told her, placing the box with the hidden taser on top of her pile. "Please proceed to the next line." If discovered, that little thing spelled a charge of trafficking and ownership of illegal weaponry, but Bomber knew how to get stuff past customs unnoticed.

Gina yawned, shouldered her bag and scratched her shoulders. They felt bare and exposed without her hair tumbling over them. Bomber still waited in line to get his bag checked. The gentleman in front of him had a seemingly endless supply of stuff packed into his suitcase. The pile of random junk on the counter already looked to be several times larger than the case, but it only kept growing.

She yawned again. Although she'd spent nearly the whole flight out cold, it hadn't been restful. It seemed like every time she closed her eyes someone would start knocking on her door. It'd be nice to have some actual sleep again.

"Thank you, sir," the inspector told Bomber. "Please proceed to to the next line." Bomber, ever the good citizen, bagged all his things up again and did as he was told.

"Like I said," he whispered to Gina with a grin, "keep 'em chatting, bow and scrape enough to make 'em feel big, and they'll barely look at your stuff. Like putty in your hands."

They breezed through the next desk with their fine fake IDs, and then all of North America was open to them.

"You ever been here before?" Bomber asked her as they strolled along the long line of duty-free shops.

"Never. Hong Kong born and bred." She shrugged. "My parents used to tell me stories, but that was before everything. Before the Federation."

"There were a lot of things before the Federation. People just don't care about them anymore."

"You're older than me. Has it really changed that much?"

He thought about that for a moment. Then, "Not that much. They try not to make waves, work with the local powers whenever they need to get anything done. Which keeps them in charge. Most of the crap they pull now, the old States government used to pull just as often and they got away with it just as quietly. Never mind Hong Kong StateSec. Somebody up there's read The Prince."

"What?" asked Gina.

"Machiavelli. A book. Think of it as the complete guide to dictatorship for dummies."

"Christ," she said, "how do you know all that stuff?"

"Some training. Some just readin'. Used to love books, had a little collection going. Before." Before the bombs, Gina added mentally as he fell quiet. Here she recognised a pivotal moment for Bomber and everything he meant to her. Maybe if she was subtle enough, she could get him to open up a little.

Neon storefronts scrolled past them in pairs. Shreds of old, worn-out music drifted out of them, mournful reminders of a more dignified past. America had had its fight knocked out of it when New York and three other cities simply vanished off the map.

Gina and Bomber drifted through the main lobby and down the steps to the tube station, passing under a massive sunny billboard proclaiming, 'Welcome to Austin, Texas.'

The tube was the main way of getting around town now. Personal vehicles were banned in all the ozone-deficient areas. A few taxi companies still operated, driving into the special underground docking bays and providing protection suits to customers along with the service. Pricey, though. Only the rich had money like that to waste on convenience.

Nobody else stood at their platform. A few lonely souls milled about on the other side of the tracks in the great underground cavern, but nobody who could overhear. No sound except the wind and the occasional echo of train wheels thumping along their rails.

"You know, I've been thinking," she murmured. "That story you told me about when you were a test pilot. Which one are you?" He gave her a blank look, and she seized on the opportunity. She had his full attention now -- that would be enough. "You said a couple of guys in your squadron ran off with their choppers 'cause of the Fed takeover. One, Two, Three and Four. Which one are you?"

"Heh. I thought you'd forgotten. Hoped, maybe. You're pretty sharp, lady." He almost smiled. "Number Two."

She stopped suddenly, blinking in surprise. The next moment Bomber was tearing tickets from a ticket machine, pressed one into her hand. "Two? But... I thought you were the one who flew to Hong Kong."

"No. If I was, I'd be dead now. They are." He grimaced and looked down. She could feel old pain twisting in his heart. "Sorry, that's why I don't talk about it."

"Someone close to you?"

"Yeah." He straightened himself and made a dismissive gesture. A hot, muggy breeze blew out of the tunnels and stuck his hair to his forehead. "It's a real sob story, I don't wanna bore you with it."

"I wouldn't ask if I wasn't interested."

"I guess I owe you, comin' back for me after I landed us all in the dungeon." He hung his head and let out a deep breath.

"I was a Wing Captain in my squadron. Second in command. Still young, still had a fight left in me. Off the books, I was... fraternising with the squadron commander. She looked a bit like you, a little shorter and a little darker. We were gonna muster out in a few years, buy a cabin on Lake Erie, settle down. I loved her.

"There was another pilot in our squadron, Jamie, her brother. She got him his commission. Wasn't a bad stick, though. He and I got along, and the two of them were pretty close. Then we heard the Federation was movin' in. We all got pretty drunk that night, along with another guy from our squadron, and we hatched that scheme of stealin' our copters and blowin' the base behind us."

The train arrived just then. They stepped into the airlock and held on to the railings as a whirlwind of air whipped around them. By the time the door opened to allow them inside, thousands of invisible nanobots were swarming over their skin, disinfecting and clearing away irradiated tissue.

They found seats, and after a long silence, Bomber continued. He said, "Cold feet didn't hit me 'til the morning. The more sober I got, the more I wanted to just walk away. Forget about all this rebellion and damnfool heroism. Just grab Sarah, head north and find us that cabin. She... wasn't impressed with that idea. Told me we'd be turnin' our backs on our country. Sarah was a patriot, and I was a good soldier, so when she gave the order I got in that copter and followed my Major all the way out to the Congo.

"We shot down three Federation MiGs and a flight of attack helicopters before we made it to international waters. The Feds hadn't moved into Africa yet, the place was still in anarchy, so we figured we could use it as a base of operations without fear of anyone stopping us. Every week we launched a few raids on Fed territory. We didn't need fuel or power or anything. Just food, ammo and a couple of mechanics to keep the copters serviced.

"We paid for that by hirin' ourselves out as mercs to African warlords. Jamie didn't like that one bit, but he went along with it 'cause I told him it was the only way. Then, one day, he refused to fire on a supposed medical compound that -- we were told -- was bein' used as a torture camp for POWs. Sarah wasn't with us that day, so I had to give him the order to fire. He did, and he didn't stop until we saw women and children runnin' out of the tents, burning.

"The argument was bad, back at our little base. Sarah backed me up. Said that it wasn't our fault if we got faulty intel, and whatever happened on these merc missions wasn't on our heads. Jamie didn't want to hear it. Too sick to his stomach to listen. Next morning he got into his copter and flew away without a word.

"Of course, the stupid bastard didn't have much choice about where to go. The Federation covered about half the planet at this point and they wanted him hanged. The Recommunista would welcome him with a smile, and the next morning he'd wake up in a Siberian gulag without his bird. He'd had enough of Africa as well, so where could he go?"

Gina answered, "Hong Kong." Bomber nodded.

"Negotiated a deal with their foreign minister. Contract all signed and dated. Then he flew over there. The foreign minister was there to greet him as he landed at the StateSec building. And so were a platoon of Feds, waitin' for him as he walked in the door."

He bit his lip, remembering. "When they were done with the questioning they planned to ship him to a max-security place in Australia. Sarah and I planned and plotted for weeks, but when we attacked the convoy, they were ready for us. They knew we were coming and wanted to take us out of the picture forever. Don't know how we stayed alive for as long as we did. Shot down six of the bastards, but then Sarah took a missile to her rotor assembly and went down over a small island chain. My bird was already damaged, without her I didn't stand a chance. I had no choice but to run."

"So what happened?" asked Gina, enraptured and torn with heartache. Bomber never spoke to anyone this much. At least not for as long as she'd known him.

"Don't know for sure what happened next, but it ain't hard to guess. I turned away and piled on the power, but then there was a bright light behind me, all my instruments goin' crazy, and this shockwave slapped me right out of the sky. Nuke. Had to be Sarah's bird losin' containment. Next thing I know, I wake up on a Chinese beach in what's left of my copter. Nothing but a skeleton. Later on I hear the news that Jamie's prison transport crashed just after the explosion, all passengers dead." He shrugged. "They kept lookin' for me after that, but not very hard. Never sure if I was alive or dead. I kept 'em guessing. Made some connections, destroyed some records, removed some people. Anytime one of my aliases comes up in a Fed database, I get the file and all related info trashed. Gotta pay people through the nose to do it, though."

Gina couldn't think of anything to say into the silence. He might be lying through his teeth, just playing on her emotions, but she believed every word of the story.

"It's alright, though," he said at last. "Everything passes. She understood that. She used to say to me, 'I think life's like a street, y'know? It's one-way only, and you can't stop running for long enough to appreciate anything properly before you've passed it by.'" He almost smiled. "She was smart, my Sarah."

"Do you..." Gina started, but couldn't quite say it. More than anything she wanted to ask for his name, but the moment was gone. She knew he wouldn't give it to her. Not yet. Instead she put an arm round his shoulder and sat silently until the train pulled up at their station.

Each part of the city had its own subway terminal, and from there a network of tunnels snaked up to the surface to link individual structures together. Mostly old apartment buildings with a coat of mirror paint slapped on. You could see them through the transparent tunnel walls, glittering like alien spacecraft in the midday sun.

They marched onwards and upwards, only to stop at the ancient wooden door with some hesitation. The Vernon building was quite old indeed, built long before the bombs, updated only with a slap-dash paint job and now slowly crumbling to dust. The concrete grounds around it were bleached white by UV radiation. On the inside, the lights browned out every few seconds and the anti-UV paint peeled right off the walls wherever you touched them. Gina had to wonder if anyone could live here for long without dropping dead of something.

"This is the place?" she said.

"Yeah." He coughed up some dust and looked around without expression. The stairwell was all but blocked with fallen plaster, wood and chunks of concrete. Only a tiny path through the devastation suggested that the building was still inhabited, faint tracks in the plaster dust. "Nice neighbourhood. Reminds me of where I grew up. Let's piss on somethin', we'll fit right in." He placed his ear to the door to listen for a long minute. Finally he pulled away. "Well, I can't hear anyone. And I'm sure the upstandin' locals here wouldn't hesitate a moment in running to the cops if anyone happened to break in..."

She chuckled, "They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Besides, shouldn't we knock first? There might still be someone living there."

"Fuck 'em," he replied and kicked in the door. He had a gun at the ready, and Gina wrapped her hand around the Mk5, just in case.

The inside was much like the outside. Heaps of rubbish thrown about at random, furniture broken down into its component pieces. Sound of dripping water. An old kitchen sink still clung to the wall in bitter defiance of its situation. A worn-out mattress lay in one corner, surrounded by scattered beer bottles and food wrappers, but even that looked like it hadn't been touched in some time.

"Squatters," said Bomber, kneeling by the remains. "Looks like they cleared out a while ago. Couple months, maybe more."

"So if Gabriel really was here, then there's not likely to be anything left, huh?" Gina sighed. She felt a little bit deflated. Whatever she'd expected out of the place, this wasn't it.

Bomber shrugged. "People leave behind a surprisin' amount of junk in their old hideouts. You never know." He looked up a moment in thought, checking his mental references. "Most of the conclusions right now are guesswork, but it's good guesswork. We have a male aged between 25 and 40. My source says he was here until about ten years ago, and this is the earliest record I could find of him. Hidden away in an obscure civilian database. Weird shipments logged to this address under the name of Mr. Turner, one of his old aliases."

"What kind of shipments?" asked Gina.

"I don't know. I mean, I know what he ordered, but I don't know what it is. Nanostuff. That's what convinced me it was Gabriel. Some pretty far-out materials at the time, really skirtin' the law." He stood up again to examine another corner, then the sink. "Anyway, my point is, that's only ten years accounted for. There's at least fifteen that I can't find any record of." At length he paused his search to add, "See anything?"

"Lots," she answered, "but nothing I'd care to remember."

Bomber kicked over a pile of rubbish and made a face. An old refrigerator festered at the bottom of the pile, its front door and power cord long gone. Flies and maggots crawled around in what must have once been food. He put on a plastic glove and pulled a syringe out of the refuse, sniffed it. "Just drugs," he said as he threw it away.

Between them they tore the place apart down to the floorboards, and found nothing. No trace of Gabriel ever having been there. Gina sat down heavily, tired and nauseous from the smell. Bomber picked a spot next to her. Sweat dripped down his face.

"Maybe..." He shrugged. "Maybe my source was wrong. If he was here, he should've left some trace, and I'm not seein' any."

"Maybe, maybe not," she countered. "Could be we're just being too simple about it. You said this place had squatters in it, and we don't know how many people before that. They'd have found anything obvious and sold it."

"Yeah, but can you imagine tryin' to search this place for a hidden button? I didn't exactly bring high-tech scanning gear."

"We might not have to." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If she had a link to Gabriel in her head, and he could use it to spy on her, there wasn't any reason why she couldn't use it on him. She pretended the Spice trance was on her, and reached inside where the little flicker of him would be.

The burnt city flashed in front of her eyes, ash people dancing in the wind, but she shook it off and swallowed her distress. Pushing further. The link gave way as if it were only a rusty door. The last bit of resistance disappeared. She stumbled inside, felt him looking up in surprise from a book of numbers. Sent him a little mental wave. Quickly, she thought and dove into his memory.

Years of sounds and images passed by her, too fast and jumbled to make out. She only slowed down when she recognised the little flat in Austin, if only by the painted-over windows. It was clean now. Chemically clean, with electronic equipment strewn about the place, and a small chemical set on a table in the corner. She delved further with lightning speed. Gabriel was overcoming his surprise, resisting her probe. Not much time left.

She watched him pop loose one of the floorboards, watched him hide a small plastic bag underneath making sure nobody else saw him. Then he quietly nailed the board back into place. Slight edge of nervousness in his jerky movements. Gina seized on the image, committed it to memory -- and the next moment found herself ungraciously booted back to the real world with a splitting headache pounding between her ears.

Still, the headache didn't diminish her sense of victory. She'd done it. Not quite sure what she'd done or how, but whatever it was, it had been done. The only thing she could make out from Gabriel now was a reproachful feeling of, Don't try that again.

Getting up, she found the rotted floorboard, pulled it loose of its nails and grabbed the still-decaying bag. "Let's go," she told Bomber hurriedly. "He knows where we are now."

"What? What the hell just happened?" he asked, following behind.

She smiled over her shoulder, hitting the stairs at a run, and gasped, "When I find out, I'll let you know!"

Part 13

Gina folded open the bag with exaggerated care. It had decayed badly over the years, made of old-style bio-degradable plastic, and Gina didn't want to risk breaking the contents. Truth to tell, she was amazed it had survived this long. These days shopping bags just turned to dust overnight.

"So you're tellin' me," said Bomber, "you telepathed into his head through this 'link', and you poked around inside his memory?" She nodded. "Without a hit of Spice?" She nodded again. "But it doesn't work that way," he finished flatly.

"No, it doesn't. But Gabriel's different. He's... weird." She peeled away the last layer of bag. "Can't really explain it, you know?"

He rubbed his chin, obviously out of his depth, and stared at the small metal cube on the table of their hotel room. It was about five centimetres on a side, smooth but for the deep grooves running down the middle of each plane, and it still had a lustre about it even under a thick coat of dust. A faint blue reflection played across it from the fake ocean vista slapped on the painted-over windows. "Well, explain that."

"What is it?" she asked. Her hands hovered over the item, curious but too wary to touch it.

"Not sure. Some kind of nanobot container. Smells like illegal goods." He leaned in for a closer look. "It belonged to him, so that's reason enough to be careful."

"Is there anyplace we can have it examined? Y'know, see if it's safe."

"I got a contact or two living around here," Bomber thought aloud.

"Not sure if they're equipped for this, though..."

Gina gave a shrug. "It's worth a try."

Bomber could only agree.

They left the dingy seaside hotel and rode the subway into town. Bright light would pour over them whenever they rode through a station, or came through a stretch of tunnel that ran above the surface, and Gina couldn't tear her eyes away from that sky whenever it showed itself. It was so blue. The clouds had nearly gone, leaving only the endless heavens to swallow her up. Had she ever seen a sky like this?

Downtown Austin surprised her. They rolled into the above-ground stat ion in the usual bath of sunlight, filtered through UV-repelling glass, but instead of a transparent tube closing in around her Gina found herself in a massive vaulted hall, a geodesic dome of glass panes set into the steel latticework of the dome. Flashy shop windows and holographic advertisements assaulted her senses from the first step, all lusting for the money in her purse. Most of them seemed geared towards tourism into the shallow end of Radiation Alley. If the mass of happy shoppers milling around the street was any indication, they had no shortage of customers.

"Would you like to ride an armoured 4x4 into dangerous territory?" the speakers asked her. "Do you want to visit places that no one has seen for decades? Then we've got the trip for you! THUNDER Tours -- Feel the adventure! Ask for our brochure today!"

"Did you say your friend lived around here?" she asked Bomber, dodging a holographic jetski headed straight for her at eye level. It carried two people, impossibly-tanned and proportioned like a bad cartoon, all in skimpy swimwear. They laughed and waved behind them as they roared smack into the wall and disappeared.

"Got a shop off the main street. Follow me." They ducked into the first alley they could find, cleaner and brighter than any alley had a right to be, leaving the noise and bustle of the main street behind. Gina breathed a sigh of relief. Crowds didn't frighten her, but she still felt a little bit out of her element in this town of filtered sunlight and white steel.

A few more turns took them through less shiny but still impressive streets. Many of the domes and tunnels had simply gone right on top of the old streets, right after knocking down the buildings and recycling the rubble for the new build. Rows of little coloured bushes and ferns flanked every road, heavily favouring engineered varieties that absorbed radiation out of the ground and air. It looked almost natural. Almost. The lack of trees gave it away; only a few short, scraggly things had been planted to replace the great contaminated husks that had stood tall and dead after the bombs.

Bomber led them into a small, windowless shop identified only by the sign, 'East Electronics". The place hit Gina's senses like an atom bomb.

An overwhelming smell of burnt plastic hung in the stagnant air. The shelves and every other exposed surface were littered with old circuit boards, wires and puddles of congealed solder. Most of the stuff looked older than Gina, and only a handful of newer systems poked out of the piles. To her surprise, she actually spotted a few customers here and there on their way through the wasteland.

"We're closed," said the man behind the counter as Bomber and Gina marched up. He was bent low over an old book, real paper and ink, and rubbed his three massive chins. The shiny dome of his head showed no remaining traces of hair, if there had ever been any.

Bomber scratched his nose, blinking behind his sunglasses. "Door's open as far as I can see."

"Not to your kind, mate." The man looked up to better affect an elitist sneer, regarded them with his beady bespectacled eyes, and smiled without warmth. "On your way, 'fore I have you done up for trespassing."

A derisive snort escaped Bomber. "Now is that any way to treat an old friend?" he asked, then took off his sunglasses. The man behind the counter sat back with eyes round as dinnerplates.

"Jesus," he whispered.

"Hey, East." Bomber smiled. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"In the back," said East. "Now." He kicked open the little gate in the side of the counter and bustled them through the back door just as quickly as he could waddle.

"So how you been, East?" Bomber said with a grin, straddling a rickety wooden chair in front of a rickety wooden table. "Takin' good care of yourself?"

"Same as you, Jacob." East heaved his obese body into the only other chair, leaving Gina to stand. Rude bastard, she thought at him venomously, and hoped it hurt.

"Oh, East," chuckled Bomber. "You have no idea. But that's not why I'm here." He let the pause draw out longer and longer to watch East squirm. The fat man squinted suspiciously at Bomber, uncomfited by the silence, and scratched the black stubble around his throat. Finally Bomber resumed, "You owe me a favour."

"Owe you? Says who?" grunted East.

"Says me," Bomber replied. Before the other could reply, he slammed the nanocontainer on the table and withdrew his hand. East immediately stopped talking and pulled out a magnifying glass while Bomber continued, "I need to know what this is and what's inside it. Might be trapped."

After a careful look-over, East picked up the box and turned it over in his hands. The sharp edges left white scratch marks on his calloused hands. "Interesting." He speared Bomber with a look. "I could look at it. What's in it for me?"

"The knowledge that you'll never see my face again," Bomber said sweetly. East squinted his beady eyes, then grunted, pushed himself up and disappeared through a narrow doorway. Gina had to wonder how he fit through it without getting stuck. Bomber followed behind, and motioned for Gina to come along.

They went up a tired set of stairs where every step elicited an ominous groan, and the wood gave way slightly as Gina put her weight on it, giving the impression of constantly falling forward. Gina clung to the handrail all the way up to the top, and was glad to have something solid under her feet again.

By the time she arrived, the boys were huddled together in a small, badly-lit room full of computers and other electronic machinery. Much of it looked like it belonged in a hospital and might well have been stolen from one. East popped the box into what to Gina looked exactly like a microwave oven. A few keystrokes on East's notebook computer, and the device sprang to life with a weird light show.

"Nothing hidden that I can see," he muttered. "No springs, no wires, just a radio receiver for a wireless codelock."

"Can you crack the lock?" asked Gina, affecting a confident stance against the big central table. East looked up as if to call her an idiot, but seemed to lose his train of thought when he looked at her. His eyes lingered on her body for slightly too long before he closed his mouth and nodded.

"The hardware on this is all between ten and twenty years old, the lock can't be much newer," he muttered to himself. "That narrows down the search." He tapped in a few more variables and the light show intensified. "Okay, it's a simple Heilmann lock, 2064. Cheap but not bad. Unbreakable encryption, back in the 2060s. Not so much now. Especially since they all came with sequential default codes that a lot of people never bothered to change." He punched in a few numbers and grinned. "There you go, open."

Bomber glanced at Gina, smiling from the corner of his mouth. "Looks like he does screw up every now and again."

"So what's inside it?" asked Gina.

"Nanobots," said East. "Ask the obvious. Not responding to wireless, I'll just scan them." The view on East's screen changed to a wireframe close-up of a nanobot. "Interesting. They're fairly old, but advanced. No maker's mark. Looks like builder bots of some type, or something construction-related. The weird thing is," he frowned and scratched his head, "I can't get them to respond at all. It's like they're..." He fell silent.

Bomber took him by the shoulder and squeezed. "What? What's wrong?"

"They're dead," he said, confused.

"What do you mean, dead?"

"I mean dead. Slagged, powered-down, unrepairable." He pointed at the screen where a full resolution scan finished displaying. "There's nothing there except carbon and metal paste."

Bomber swore under his breath and said, "Did something go wrong with the container?"

"Must have done. Who keeps dead bots?" East shrugged. "I'll have to scan the shell for fractures and tampering. It'll take a while. Come back later." He waved Bomber and Gina away and ignored any attempt at protest. "In fact, don't come back later. I'll call you. Out, and leave the box."  
Outside in the fresh filtered air, they found a bench in front of some greenery. Gina sat down frowning and clenched her fists in her lap. The faint noise of the main street echoed in the background, but between the two of them there was only silence. At the moment she was too busy resenting everything to speak.

What's the point? she asked herself. All of it. Any of it. A sudden wave of homesickness struck her. The sun here was too bright, the people too loud, the air too crisp. And she was alone. So many strange things happening to her, stuff she couldn't explain, didn't want to look at too closely for fear of what she might be turning into. She'd actually started missing the City, the smoky flavour of every breath like there was a permanent kerosene-fired barbeque going on somewhere. She missed the feeling of comfortable anonymity. Over there, nobody would ever know or care who or what she was. She could be anyone she liked, she could live on the Street and waste away and nobody would care. No one to talk down to her or tell her about things she couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't. That was what she left home for.

And worst of all, sitting right next to her was someone who was coming dangerously close to knowing her. Someone who would never ask her tough questions, never push her about anything she wasn't happy to reveal, but could read her like an open book. And he didn't care. He didn't care about anything she'd done or used to be. Only what she was now. But—

He wrapped his fingers around her hand and tilted her head up to look him in the eye. "You okay?" he asked in a voice without expectations.

Gina took a deep breath and said shakily, "On the train, you told me that bloody life story... You told me something you didn't really want to drag up again just 'cause I asked you." He nodded slowly, not quite sure where she was headed. At length she took another breath and forced out, "I think I owe you the same, if you wanna hear it."

"Yeah, I do," he answered. "But first we deserve a break." Smiling, he squeezed her hand and pulled her gently to her feet. "Come on, I know a place. It ain't far."

The next moment they were off, and if Gina put up any protest, it was staunchly ignored.

"Stop twitchin'," he told her from across the table, smiling gently. "Nothing's gonna catch us, and there ain't much we can do until East finishes with that cube."

She sighed, "Sorry." She'd had trouble relaxing ever since their escape. Correction -- ever since she set eyes on that damned building and the horrors inside it. Not even the warmth of this little bistro could put her at ease. "I know you're right, and I don't mean to spoil it. Food's good." She held up a long string of spaghetti carbonara, which the menu boasted to be made of real dough and meat instead of cheap moulded protein, and put it in her mouth. Honestly she preferred the moulded protein. This stuff was just too rich for her palate, and the fat strands of spaghetti looked like dead maggots in the candlelight. Still, she ate as much as she could. She couldn't bear to be impolite to Bomber over something so expensive.

"Haven't been here in years, but I still know the spots," he said. Meanwhile he busily devoured a plate of Italian meatballs and sausages, relishing every bite. He certainly ought to at 50,000 per serving.

"So, um, what's the deal with you and East? If you don't mind my asking." She daubed at her lips with the complimentary napkin. "I can tell you aren't exactly the best of friends."

Nodding slowly, Bomber looked up and pushed away his food. The memory seemed to spoil his appetite. "I don't wanna bore you with another anecdote. Suffice it to say, we were Army buddies, but we lost contact when the Feds took over. When the Feds came askin', East sold me out without so much as a blink, gave 'em my name and everything. So I sold him out to the leftover Army guys about all the equipment he stole while he was in the service. Fair play."

Stunned, Gina blurted out, "So your name is Jacob?" She hadn't expected to find out like this.

Bomber laughed, but without mockery. He just patted her hand and said, "No. I joined up under a fake name."

She sat back and crossed her arms, a sour smile on her face. "Should have known. Will I ever find out your real name?"

"Maybe. I wouldn't rule it out." He started to lean across the table, but then the mobile phone in his pocket played its loud musical ringtone, and the moment was gone. He unfolded it and beckoned Gina closer so that she could hear. "Yeah?"

"It's East," said the voice on the other end of the line. "I'm finished, thought you might like to hear about it. You bring in some weird crap. Anyway, I've had a good long look at those dead bots, and there's something funky about them. Can't put my finger on it. Teased a couple bits of info out of them, though."

"Go on," said Bomber.

"First thing is, I've never seen a design quite like it. I'm not so sure it is actually a constructor, I'm starting to think it's actually some weird kind of medical bot, but I've never seen medicals with so many manipulators. Expensive, very expensive to produce. Only the Federation or some really loaded independents could have these things made."

Bomber hummed in satisfaction. "That helps narrow it down. Keep goin'."

"Well, this is going to sound weird, but I ran some checks on the bots' time of death... I can't pinpoint it, but I can tell you that they were dead before they went in the container."

A single grunt of surprise and confusion rumbled up Bomber's throat. "Huh. Anything else?"

"Just one piece of info, the most curious one of all." Gina could hear East's laboured breathing from the phone. He was panting from excitement. "As near as I can tell, these bots died of radiation damage. They've all been in contact with bad amounts of radioactive elements. I think they were..." He stopped suddenly. Sound of a door being thrown open, wood crashing and splintering. "Hey, who the fuck are y--" Gina winced at the sound of automatic gunfire. There was a crash as the phone hit the table, and the call cut off.

Bomber's upper lip curled unpleasantly. "Gabriel." He looked at Gina for a long moment. Then, "Can't go back for the cube. We need to get the hell out of here." He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, and they were out into the street at a run. A waiter ran out after them saying that they forgot dessert, but Bomber just threw him a credit slip without looking back.

"What are you doing?" she yelled at him. "Where are we going?!"

"Adventuring," he growled back.

"Hi, welcome to Thunder Tours!" the smiling salesman had said when they walked in the door. "How can I help you today?"

The next thing Gina knew, she was on a train for Jericho, Louisiana, the furthest living settlement inside Radiation Alley. By all accounts it was a pretty desolate place. Blasted radioactive wasteland, forests of dead trees, the whole shebang. Gina spent the trip looking out her window at the big plastic tunnel they rode through. At one point the tunnel would have been transparent, but years of acid rain and dust storms had scored and pitted the plastic outside until no human eye could see through it.

Bomber seemed happy just as long as they were out of Austin. He didn't talk much, and after a few attempts she stopped trying to engage him. Too busy constructing battle plans and considering escape routes or whatever the fuck he did.

The neon glow of travel company logos washed over them as they neared the station. There were dozens of different ones, if not hundreds, all advertising their exciting trips into Radiation Alley. Definitely a booming industry around here, Gina noted with a spark of black humour.

Jericho was like a shining beacon in the starlit desert. It was new, white, full of light and glittery things. Everything inside it smelled of lemons. The train station was no exception, blinding Gina as she stepped onto the platform, even brighter and more sterile than Austin main street. Other passengers from all walks of life swarmed past her, rushing to the exit on their way to excitement.

A small automatic buggy waited for Gina and Bomber at the doors. It sat in one of the station's charging bays and welcomed them as they came closer. Bomber started it up via the touchscreen, fed their boarding passes into the slot, then took a seat. Once their seatbelts were in place, it drove them at a relaxed pace through the covered streets of Jericho.

"You ever been here before?" she asked Bomber.

"Nope," he replied. That was all she could get out of him for the entire trip. Out of boredom she watched the various ad holograms, which exhibited a distinct tendency towards comically large 4x4s, the splattering of mud and the leaping of ditches. A few of them added mutant monsters or zombies to the mix in an attempt to spice things up. Gina had to wonder who would shell out the cash for that when you could play these scenarios in a VR arcade for a fraction of the price.

She had to admit she was impressed when they rolled up to the TruFuture pyramid on the far side of town. Easily the biggest single building in Jericho, it sprawled under its own dome surrounded by elegant sculpted gardens and a fountain. Large hologram generators poked out of the corners to create colourful banners and logos, as well as more subtle touches, wisps of cloud and the silhouettes of nonexistent birds near the top of the pyramid.

Thunder Tours rented only a tiny part of the whole pyramid. Likewise, TruFuture -- the megacorp that owned it -- only occupied the top few floors. Gina wouldn't have minded a look inside. The buggy had other ideas, though, and dropped them off at one of the outbuildings, a small company showroom and customer information centre.

The man who greeted them as they dismounted wanted to give them a tour of the premises and their display vehicle, after which they'd scheduled an information session for today's customers before their trip. Bomber tried to explain that they just wanted a fuelled-up 4x4 and a set of keys. The salesman would have none of it. Unfortunately for him, Bomber had the determination of a pitbull. They argued until one of the managers showed up to see what was keeping them.

"I see," said the manager after Bomber explained the situation, scratching her head. "But what you booked is an ordinary trip, sir. To be completely honest with you, our company does travel and entertainment, not vehicle rentals. We usually put about six people to a rover, you see, to maximise--"

Bomber interrupted her. "How much would it cost to get just a car with no questions asked?"

She studied his face for a long moment. Then she smiled, wide and bright. "Why, I'm sure we can arrange something, sir," she answered. "We have to insist on a company driver, though, for insurance reasons, if that's all right?"

"It'll do," he said, pulling a credit slip out of his pocket. "Take what you think is fair, and show us to the garage."

"Right away, sir!" The manager quickly summoned someone to guide them, then ran off with the credit slip and a gleeful expression on her face. Gina had once thought only children at christmas looked like that.

"Again, would you mind telling me exactly what the hell it is you're doing?" she whispered to Bomber.

"Improvising," he said. "Trust me."

Oh yeah, thought Gina. No problem.

Their massive 4x4 rolled past the Memorial on the way out of Jericho. The massive sculpture was built dead in front of the vehicle garage, a position where anyone leaving the town was forced to pay attention. It consisted of twisted metal and rubble recovered from the smoking hole that used to be New Orleans, steel girders jutting into the ground all around it to keep the drooping mess upright. Large parts of the sculpture were marked with the names of the dead, scratched deep into the steel by the survivors. About thirty metres up the nightmarish body, two gnarled arms thrust out of it in opposite directions, completing the form of a gigantic crucifix.

It loomed higher as they approached, a darker blotch against the grey morning sky. Dew sparkled wherever a ray of sunlight filtered through the clouds. The fat droplets looked like tears rolling down the burnt, radioactive hulk.

Bomber sat transfixed. His eyes were glued to the sculpture, and even though his expression never changed Gina could feel the power of his emotions. Tentatively she placed a hand on his arm. He didn't object.

"It must be weird for you to be back here," she whispered. He only swallowed, so she squeezed his arm to bring him out of his trance. "Wake up."

"Wh--" he started hoarsely, then cleared his throat. "What?"

"You were going all funny."

"Oh. Sorry." He shrugged. "Just payin' my respects, I guess. I knew people..."

She nodded, sensing his need for privacy, then turned her attention to the computer terminal embedded in the seat in front. It had games, books, magazines, even a lasered TV uplink as long as they stayed within line of sight of Jericho. After a little browsing she decided that it offered nothing she cared to waste time on. Instead she turned her seat around and lowered the back rest, turning it into a not-wholly-uncomfortable bed substitute. A stain-proof plastic blanket rolled partway out the side of the chair but Gina left it there. She just wanted to rest her eyes for a few hours. The past few days of near-constant travelling hadn't done her body any good, and they'd be driving for a while.

It wasn't long before she drifted off. Every now and again she started awake at the jarring of the car on the cracked and potholed roads. She looked around at the overcast swampland around them. Tumbledown buildings stood abandoned in the wake of the bombs, now half-sunk into the marshy ground. Husks of dead trees crumbling in the wind. It all seemed more and more eerily familiar. Sometimes she was convinced she could hear voices, shreds of conversation. She started to shiver. Soon her teeth chattered so loudly that she couldn't go back to sleep.

The sound of her teeth clicking dragged Bomber back from whatever personal tragedy had swallowed him up. He sat down next to her with a worried expression on his face. "Hey, hey," he whispered. "You okay? What's wrong, girl?"

"It's this p-place," she stammered back. "D-d-dead. All dead. It's like... Like..."

"Your vision?" he asked, and she nodded. His brow furrowed in deep thought. "Maybe you're seein' here what's gonna happen somewhere else. Christ, if he's got nuk--" He stopped himself and pounded his fist against the bulletproof plastic screen between them and the driver. "Hey, a little privacy?"

"Yeah, sure," he muttered and flicked a switch. The back of the 4x4 went quiet. Even the roaring engine was deadened by a set of anti-noise generators. A complimentary bugscanner rested in a holster at the front, but Bomber didn't bother. Anything left active would be too well-hidden for a scanner to find anyway.

Gina's shaking calmed a little. Bomber wrapped his warm hands around hers, which felt like numb clumps of ice. She said haltingly, "I'm getting worse, aren't I?"

"You'll be fine, Gina. You're tough." He smiled. "'Sides, you're not gettin' away from me that easy. Still owe me a story."

"I'll tell it to you sometime. Promise." She took a deep breath and, with some difficulty, pushed herself up on her elbows just high enough to look out the window. Jericho was out of sight by now, and the 4x4 made steady progress over the cracked and ancient asphalt. "We going anywhere specific or was this just to get us out of Austin?"

"Little bit of both," he sighed, sinking into the chair next to her. "You've probably guessed by now what I guessed at the end of that phone call. They shot East just as he was about to tell us those bots came from inside Radiation Alley."

"So, like... Gabriel came here to steal some kind of special robot from the no-entry zone after the blast? That kind of thing?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Security was pretty heavy around here until a few years ago, could be why he was so squirrely."

"And you want to try and track down where those bots came from," she stated flatly.

"Basically, yeah."

"Where do we start, though?" she asked, turning onto her back to look him in the eye. "We don't even know what they're for, much less who made them. I mean, what the hell are we supposed to look for?"

"I ain't got the answers, Gina," said Bomber. "But they're out there somewhere."

She bobbed a nod and sat back, then asked almost casually, "So where are we headed?"

"New Orleans," he answered. "I did some checkin' before we left, seems like the logical choice. Only lab in the area that had the equipment to make nanobots before the bombs. There's just two other possible sites inside Radiation Alley, and they're way the hell over in Fredericksburg and New York."

"So we just go through each one until we find something."

"That's the plan," Bomber said, sitting back in his chair. "It's a long shot, but it's the only one we've got at the moment. Unless you pull another magic trick out your hat."

She worked up a smile and fluffed up her complimentary pillow. "Wake me up when we get there, okay?" she murmured and nodded right off.

"Sure thing, little lady," he whispered. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, then left her to rest.

Part 14

The leaning towers of New Orleans climbed steadily on the horizon until they were spears of concrete and steel stuck deep in the bleeding sky. Shards of glass jutted out from shattered window frames. Rubble and ash choked the downtown streets so tight that the 4x4 only squeezed through by scraping its mirrors. However, even these vast piles of debris didn't stop the bitter cold breeze moaning through the streets, and Gina shuddered in her hazard suit.

The holographic Thunder Tours logo on her chest spun its monster-truck tires. It sent up a spray of brown mud and scraggly vegetation behind it, but that was wrong. The city around her didn't look like that. The ground wasn't brown from exposed earth, or even yellow with dead grass. It was grey. Grey asphalt covered by pallid bayou sludge. Bare steel stripped of all marking or colour. A sky that smothered and starved the light. Everything was made vague and unreal through a haze of swirling dust, thrown up by the directionless gusts of wind.

Evidently some people still visited the dead city, going by the narrow but well-worn track through the devastation, but nobody seemed to be around at the moment.

"Lotta radiation out there today, chief," said the driver. "Wind's stirring up all the fallout. You sure you wanna go?"

"We gotta," Bomber replied with characteristic steadfastness.

"Alright, you're the customer." He shrugged as if to wash his hands of the whole thing. Then, rummaging around in his car door, he pulled out a handheld games console in anticipation of a couple hours' free time. "I'll warm up the Dekes for when you get back."

Bomber failed to find the remark amusing. The 4x4 came with a sophisticated suite of decontamination bots, but it took them a while to get all the radioactive crap off. Neither Bomber nor Gina felt much like spending all night deking in their suits.

The rear doors swung open and Bomber climbed down into a large transparent parachute, loose plastic flapping like mad in the wind. It kept an airtight seal around the 4x4 while they disembarked. Didn't make it any less of a pain in the ass, though. Gina held the rampaging plastic back with her hands and hopped down to join Bomber on the ground of Radiation Alley. The doors immediately closed behind her. Having finished its job, the parachute ripped free of the 4x4 and flew off into the sky, never to be seen again.

She got her first close-up and personal look of New Orleans in that moment. Dry, brittle, dead. Nothing green, nothing alive or moving with a purpose. The sheer desolation of it struck her harder than watching out a window ever could. She'd never realised how much she missed the extrasensory white noise of a couple thousand minds around her, even just animals.

Skeletal skyscrapers towered over her, one even swaying visibly in the wind. Many had whole chunks taken out of them by the explosion, their spires and top few floors lying in ruin some distance away. She swallowed a wave of vertigo and nausea at the sight. It was all too reminiscent of the images from Gabriel's head.

Very little had survived in between the dead landmarks. Just a blasted urban landscape of piled bricks, broken glass and other refuse, where even the ground had gone black. Only stone and metal still stood in recognisable shapes. The thermal pulse of the nuke had turned every timber building in New Orleans to ash in an instant.

Nothing could be weirder than the constant force of the wind trying to knock her down, but not being able to feel the air flowing over her skin. There was no air flow inside her man-shaped shell of plastic and metal, 'cause this was a proper heavy-duty hazard suit, a far cry from the piddly UV-sleeves worn by people in Austin. Gina appreciated the protection, but still longed for a taste of air that hadn't been filtered a thousand times over.

"We're pretty close to the address, just a short walk," said Bomber. "Keep an eye on your geiger counter."

"Yeah, thanks." Gina checked the counter on her arm. It was definitely twitching, with leftover fallout in the air and ground zero only a mile or two away. She took Bomber's gloved hand and they walked side by side into the ruins.

Despite the dismal surroundings, their morale climbed steadily with a growing sense of adventure and anticipation. Even Bomber let himself get dragged into some idle banter. When Gina looked back the 4x4 was lost in the haze, but she could just make out the flashing of the massive strobe light mounted on its roof. Still there.

"Kind of romantic, don't you think?" Bomber asked her, the corner of his mouth curling up into a half-smile. "Ain't no place in the world more private than this. No people, no bugs, no radio. I could get used to it."

"In a morbid sort of way," she chuckled. "I feel like a fuckin' Martian in this spacesuit."

He grinned. "If only you had your explosive space modulator with you."

"What?"

"Never mind. Take a left here." He squeezed her hand more tightly, leading her through a half-collapsed alleyway. They had to climb over the piles of broken glass and wood. Everything was charred around the edges, but sometimes you could still recognise an item -- a desk, a kettle, an old office printer. Bomber paused at the top of the pile and glanced upwards at the dust-shrouded edges of the square tower up ahead. "Now, if my sources are any good, the lab should be in the sub-basement of this big one up ahead. It was a converted fallout bunker, so it should still be standing."

Without another word they climbed into the twisted steel skeleton of a building, searching for the elevator going down. It didn't take them long to find it.

"This brings back memories," Gina said wryly as they clambered down the enclosed elevator shaft. It was a lot like creeping and crawling through the Fed building, although somewhat less intimidating without the Feds and the gunfire. The rusted-over elevator carriage sat on its emergency brakes about halfway up the tunnel, immovable, its cable snapped long ago. Fortunately the designers had left a vacancy for the emergency ladder and average-sized climber, just big enough for Gina and Bomber to squeeze through.

"You should've watched the news before we left," he answered. "Not a whisper about us. Any of us. The Feds are keepin' it real quiet."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Could go either way. It does mean we haven't got a pack of full constables with hunter-killers up our asses just yet, though, and I consider that pretty encouraging."

He jumped down onto the shaft floor, surprisingly clear of debris, and sized up the service entrance as he took the hydraulic prybar from his toolbelt. It proved more than a match for the rusted steel door. With a snap and a moan of tearing metal it broke free of its hinges and crashed to the floor.

"After you, madam," invited Bomber. Gina mimed a curtsey and went on inside, head held high.

She slowed her pace to admire the pitch-black vastness on the other side. Her footsteps echoed against the concrete floor like drops of water falling into an underground lake. Bit by bit she pieced together the scenery by the light of her suit torch. It was an underground warehouse, cavernous in its proportions, and equipped with every imaginable piece of kit. Pallets of mysterious goods, forklift walkers, magnetic sleds for heavy equipment. The cracked roof seemed to be held up solely by rows of heavy-duty racking. An avalanche of rubble had spewed out from the main stairwell, firmly blocking off that direction. At the far end of the room a massive military freight elevator sat ready to collect more cargo from the surface.

"Jesus Christ," she whispered. "I thought this place was a fallout shelter?"

"Well, there's fallout shelters and there's fallout shelters," said Bomber. "This hasn't been one for a while. Plus, New Orleans took a big hit. Walk a couple hundred yards towards ground zero and all you'll see is crater."

"Okay, so how the hell do we get up there?" She pointed at the ruined ceiling to indicate the futility of their situation. It had all but separated into individual chunks of concrete, leaving cracks big enough to drive a truck through.

"You just answered your own question." Bomber placed one foot on the racking to test it for stability, then started to haul himself up one shelf at a time. He grinned down at her. "Obviously you were never in the Army."

"Wiseass," she growled and followed after.

Sweat poured from Gina's forehead by the time she made it over the top. It ran into her eyes and stung like a bitch, but she couldn't wipe it away. She muttered curses and imprecations at everything while Bomber helped her up.

The lab could've passed for a set from any old science-fiction film. Beakers, burners, computers and other electronics littered everywhere. Fallen file cabinets created impromptu bridges across the gaps in the floor, and a few upturned office chairs brightened the whole scene up a bit. Gina turned to take in the rest of the room, and found herself face to face with a grinning human skull. She shrieked and jumped back into Bomber's arms. The skull didn't move. Underneath it, she realised, was a skeleton dressed in a tattered white coat, slumped deep in its plush office chair. A large hole in the side of its head explained a lot about what had killed it.

"That," she panted through gritted teeth, blood pumping cold through her veins, "is going to give me nightmares for the rest of my fucking life."

Bomber put his hands on her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. He said, "Come on, easy does it. We knew we were gonna see this."

"You knew, maybe," she snapped. Then, with an effort of will, she forced herself to calm down and took a deep breath. Adrenaline still thundered through her veins, but now she could control it. "Sorry," she muttered. "I've just never seen a skeleton before."

"It's not somethin' I'd recommend." He gently turned the chair around until it was facing away from them. "We don't disturb him, he doesn't disturb us, yeah?" Gina nodded, and they got back to business.

Bomber carefully waved around a gadget from his toolbelt, like an old mobile phone, then stared at the flashing screen. After several endless seconds of silence, he deigned to inform Gina. "I'm pickin' up trace bots in the air, but they don't look like the ones we're after. Let's check the other rooms."

Picking their way through the devastation, they found remnants of computers and shredded sheets of hardcopy, but nothing that would explain the lab's projects or operations. In the corner they came across another skeleton half-buried under a fallen chunk of conrete, and Gina hurried to get away from it, almost falling over herself to get into the next room.

She stopped dead in her tracks at the doorway. After several speechless seconds, she said, "Bomber, come look at this."

Bomber arrived at her shoulder a second later and scanned the room beyond. It hadn't exactly been repaired, but somebody had obviously cleaned up a bit after the blast. Much of the debris had been cleared, and the cracks covered with salvaged boards and wire mesh stapled into the floor. A pile of lab coats had been arranged in one corner to create a makeshift cot, then surrounded with a curtain of rad-resistant plastic. A single ratty office chair sat decaying in the centre of the room, in front of a dust-covered counter with an old laptop computer on top of it.

"Was it him?" he asked her.

"Let's find out," she whispered back and folded open the laptop lid.

The screen flickered to life with an accompanying orchestra of whirring and grinding noises. Tiny lasers cut through the thick layers of dust, accessing data that had lain dormant for ten years. A small unmarked optical disc ejected out the side of the machine, scratched and battered but possibly still viable. The screen flashed a message that the laptop's optical drive was not responding, and that Gina and Bomber should contact the manufacturer as soon as possible with their warranty information.

Bomber pocketed the disc and eased himself into the rickety chair to better reach the keyboard. "With any luck..." he said, crossing his fingers and waiting for the laptop's operating system to start up.

"Looks like it still works," Gina said expectantly.

"It's a model like what landscape surveyors used to use, out in the real boonies. Antarctica and all that. Tough machinery."

Little motes of dust played through the air in front of the screen. Breath heavy with anticipation, Gina felt the cold suit weighing on her chest. Finally the laptop's software lurched over its final hurdle and became responsive to the controls. Bomber made a noise and immediately went for the only icon Gina didn't recognise.

The screen popped up a thorough cross-section of a complex nanobot, exactly the same as the ones from Gabriel's container. That's when she knew it had to have been him. He'd been here, ten years ago, tapping away in secret in the heart of Radiation Alley. Nothing, no one else knowing he was there.

"He was analysin' these bots," Bomber whispered to himself. "Tryin' to learn more about them. Why? Where are they from?"

Gina had another question on her mind, scratching the back of her helmet. "How the hell did he survive here?"

Bomber didn't respond. He was totally engrossed, absorbing every available piece of data from the screen, until a momentary vibration came up through the floor. He sat bolt upright in his chair, silent as if trying to decide whether or not what he'd felt was real.

A second tremor broke his indecision. A cloud of plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling to clog up their visors, and he leapt to his feet.

"We'd better get out of here," he said. He took Gina's arm and started to drag her with him back the way they'd come in.

"What about the computer?" she protested.

"No time! This whole goddamn building could come down on our heads!" And indeed, the moment he finished his sentence, a third tremor rocked through the building, shaking piles of debris that hadn't moved since the nuke. Whole islands of matter shifted clattering and banging down the cracks in the floor, and landed with a series of unholy crashes louder than a machine gun. Gina and Bomber scrambled up a lab counter to escape the avalanche and hurried across the devastation to their climbing slope.

They clambered down as fast as they could, small bits and pieces continually falling on their heads and threatening to knock loose their precarious hold on the metal racking. Ominous creaks and groans reverberated through the whole building. At one point Gina heard a shifting sound, deeper and larger than anything she'd ever experienced, and saw the remains of the concrete ceiling cracking bit by bit while she watched.

Hitting the floor at a run, they sped towards the elevator shaft through which they'd come in. They'd nearly reached it when a pile of stone and metal came crashing to the bottom of the shaft with enough force to throw Gina and Bomber onto their backs like upended turtles. Bomber seemed momentarily stunned, but Gina was already moving again, fuelled by survival instincts kicking into overdrive. She rolled onto her side, pushed herself back upright, and bolted for the freight elevator.

"Hey, wait up!" Bomber called after her. She never heard him. Her hands were on the control box, pressing frantically, but the elevator refused to rise. Barely thinking she followed the wires from the control box to the wall. There she found a pair of large switches, one marked 'mains power', the other 'generator'. She flipped the 'generator' switch and staggered back, blinded by a sudden blaze of light. Every surviving lamp in the warehouse came on at once. The freight elevator, too, started to go -- she ran for it and scrambled on just in time.

Bomber, however, was too late. He limped towards her waving and calling her name, but she couldn't figure out how to stop the elevator. She went flat on her belly and extended her arm over the edge, shouting, "Hurry, jump!"

He hurried, and he jumped, reaching for her hand. Missed by inches. Dropped to the floor with a heavy thump. Disappeared out of sight as the elevator rose up through the shaft, open sky above it.

Her fists pounded uselessly against the cold metal floor. It only echoed each hit back to her, added to the rumbling and shaking of the elevator and the whole building itself. "Gina to Bomber!" she shouted into the radio. Her heart thumped close to panic. Her breath came in frustrated gasps, steaming up her helmet visor. "Bomber! Answer me, damnit!" Still no response. She screamed in wordless fury, then flipped open the radio controls on her wrist and tried to remember the brief bit of training she'd had about using it.

"Gina to base, Gina to base, come in base," she repeated. "Emergency! Come in, base!"

Nothing but static on the other side.

Another tremor rumbled through the foundations. Gina could feel it shake the elevator platform like a toy despite the massive suspension blocks underneath. She grabbed hold of a railing and held on for dear life, praying for the elevator to keep going, to make it to the surface. Not until she saw daylight on her closed eyelids did she release her death grip, and she scrambled off the elevator platform just before it reached its apex.

She found herself in a long-abandoned warehouse, utterly ravaged by time and nuclear fire. Only the walls were left standing; Gina had to clamber over the remains of the ceiling to get anywhere. It was a long, difficult trek to the nearest exit, and with a rising sense of hopelessness she realised that she couldn't tell where they'd left the 4x4.

Dispirited, she set her overworked body down on a piece of concrete and drank from her suit's water pouch. It was flat and tasteless but refreshing nonetheless. She was just putting the drinking tube away when she felt another tremor, this one much closer and more powerful than before. A faint flash of yellow light penetrated the fog. It confirmed her dreadful suspicion that this was no mere earthquake.

Somewhere behind her, the building above the lab lurched and started to topple. It crashed into the ground like a hammerblow, the very earth shaking under Gina's feet, and sent up a huge plume of dust and sand to choke any remaining visibility out of the air. The walls snapped like playing cards bent in half. A hail of concrete shards rained down around Gina, but she never bothered to take cover. To her overloaded senses everything seemed to move in slow motion, detached from her reality. She watched transfixed while the nightmare unfolded.

Their 4x4 shot out of the mist and raced past her at full speed, jumping metres into the air wherever it met an obstacle, only to land heavily on its tires and continue accelerating. It got less than a hundred yards before a missile streaked out of the haze and hit dead-on. She could feel the heat of the explosion washing over her through all the thick layers of insulation. A large black helicopter roared into view overhead, appearing out of nowhere like a vengeful ghost, and turned around its axis above the wreckage.

The smouldering 4x4 was now only one of hundreds of dead hulks littering the once-busy street. Powerful spotlights searched it for any remaining sign of life, and when they didn't find anything they started a careful sweep of the surrounding area in case anyone still survived.

The whole thing seemed too surreal to be true as she stood there. In a few seconds she'd be seen, said a voice in the back of her head, but that didn't seem to matter very much now. What mattered was that she was truly, utterly alone.

Then something tackled her from behind and dragged her out of sight behind a tumbledown concrete wall.

"Stay down!" cried Bomber's voice, very faint as if coming from a great distance. "Whatever you do, don't move!" The weight on top of her was almost unbearable, but she kept still even when she felt a hand fumbling around on her back, followed by a ripping sensation as the radio was torn out of her suit. Moments later, she watched two lashed-together radio units sailing through the air, crashing against the rubble on the other side of the street.

The helicopter's side doors whipped open. Several men absailed through the whirlwind of dust and sand, wearing active camouflage suits and carrying automatic rifles. The active camouflage was the same colour as the desert around it, constantly shifting to adapt to the wind and surroundings. As soon as they hit the ground they were practically invisible. Then, to Gina's amazement, they rushed straight towards the pair of smashed-up radios on the far end of the road.

Gentle hands rolled Gina over onto her back, and Bomber's face appeared above her. She immediately grabbed him and tried to kiss him, but only succeeded at slamming her helmet into his. He laughed without sound, then touched his helmet to hers.

"Radios are about to get blowed up, so we have to touch helmets to talk," he explained in a breathless voice. "Stay close. We need to get some distance between us and them."

"Who the fuck are they?" she asked, the most pressing question out of the hundreds spinning around in her head.

"Most likely our friend Gabriel sussed out what we were up to." Bomber glanced over his shoulder at the men, mere shadows flitting through the dust storm. "They're bad news. I could take down three, maybe four, but they'd get me in the end. And now we've got no wheels."

Gina's throat tightened. The matter-of-fact way in which Bomber talked of his own death was chilling. She husked, "What do we do?"

"When I find out, I'll let you know," he said and pulled Gina along in a tiger crawl through the wreckage of the city. They moved from cover to cover at a knee-breaking pace, and quickly lost sight of the soldiers hunting them.

Once they reached a slightly safer hiding place, something with four walls and a blackened piece of corrugated aluminium for a roof. As soon as they were covered, they touched helmets and Gina immediately blurted out a stream of questions without pausing for breath.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, "one at a time, please!"

She insisted, "How? How are you alive?"

"I nearly wasn't. Had to climb." He smiled at her expression, as if he'd just claimed he grew broccoli from his armpits. "Never mind. Look, we need to focus on getting out of here, yeah? The getting out's not a big problem, but staying alive long enough to make it back to Jericho, that's a challenge."

Gina eventually snapped out of her shock and remarked, "It's the challenges that make life interesting, right?"

"You got it," he said, and led her to the next building.

They flitted through the city like ghosts, only ever half-seen in the mist, fast and elusive. They crossed paths with the camouflaged men only once, when they had to backtrack around a dead end. Bomber managed to spot them before they saw him and left a misleading trail for them to follow.

Once they were sure they'd left their new friends behind, they started plundering the long-abandoned car parks of New Orleans for a set of wheels that could see them through to Jericho. They didn't have much luck. The only four wheel drives they found were all smashed up by falling debris, slagged by the thermal pulse, or just fried from EMP to the point of refusing to start.

"All choked up, too much dust," said Bomber, closing the bonnet on another specimen that had looked okay on the outside. "We need an older model, they don't get clogged so bad." Then he shrugged his shoulders and headed for the next one. He always kept going, even in the face of impossible odds, without surrendering to despair even for a moment. Gina watched him start work on another engine and decided she admired that about him. Things like that took a special kind of courage, above and beyond just keeping your head when you're in trouble. 'Intestinal fortitude', her father used to call it.

Gina was acting as a sort of lookout while he fiddled about with the cars, trying to home in on the distant flickers of thought that reached her on the wind, and trying not to reflect on the fact that she could do that without Spice now. Still, she couldn't help but wonder what her life would've been like if she'd never met Gabriel. He'd changed something inside her. Something weird and scary and darkly wonderful. Was it an accident, just some freak of nature, or a gift?

Lost in thought, she didn't notice Bomber jumping about behind her until she glanced over her shoulder to check he was still there. Gina watched flabbergasted, wondering what could make Bomber leap and frolic and flail his arms about like a madman. Then she noticed the black smoke pouring out the exhaust of the old Suzuki SUV in front of him, the dust stirring up around its trembling wheels. "You didn't!" she exclaimed. He couldn't hear her, of course, so she ran down the slope onto the dust-covered tarmac of the car park and grabbed him.

"You didn't," she repeated. Her stomach was going giddy with elation.

"She's running!" Bomber laughed. "She's got gas, and she's running!"

Gina squealed and clapped her hands. With childlike eagerness she pulled open the driver-side door and tumbled inside, waving at Bomber to hurry up and join her. He leaped into the passenger seat and fastened his seatbelt just in time. Gina slammed her foot down and rocketed off.

"Do you know how to drive a car?" Bomber asked her, struggling to keep their helmets together.

"No!" she said and drove straight through the rusty wrought-iron gate guarding the car park. The gate went flying and Gina swerved freely through the broken streets of New Orleans.

They soon pulled over, just short of crashing into a lamp post, and switched drivers. Gina grinned sheepishly at Bomber as he got the SUV moving again. "I'd never actually driven before. Never needed to. Wanted to give it a try, y'know, in case I wouldn't get another chance."

"You'll give a guy a heart attack," muttered Bomber. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. "There ain't a lot of things in this world can scare me, but your drivin'..."

"What, worse than the people with the chopper and the guns?"

"Worse than them."

Gina thought for a second. "Worse than Gabriel?"

He didn't respond. His eyes were blank, focusing only on the road. Then, "About as much as getting left behind in a collapsing building." The silence after that was deafening. Even the ancient, sputtering engine didn't seem to make any noise. Bomber took a deep breath and continued, "There's some things you don't know about me, Gina. Stuff you're probably better off not knowin'. How I got out of that place..." He hesitated. "Look, I don't blame you for panickin' back there. I might've done the same in your shoes. I just need you to understand. You probably already guessed some ways back that I'm boosted up to the gills. That ain't the whole truth, though. It doesn't go far enough."

She let him speak, and after a long pause he picked up again. "I got more implants in me than most people have shirts. Some show up on scanners, others... don't. A couple only kick in when I'm driving or flying something. I couldn't tell you what they all do, I don't know." He took in another lungful of air. "You saw the Emperor in action. Even he was afraid of what I can do. Like surviving a punctured lung without medical attention, or climbing twenty metres up a smooth elevator shaft with my bare hands. If you looked, you'd find finger-holes in the wall. Solid concrete. Broke every bone in my hands, but I never felt a thing. They've already set themselves."

"Jesus," breathed Gina, staring at him in shock. Even she had never suspected Bomber's mods went so far.

"Not quite," he said, chuckling darkly. "But see, when I say that Gabriel frightens the living shit out of me, I want you to understand my full meaning."

"Why?"

"Because of what you've told me. Because what he does ain't subject to the same laws as us. It's got no nice clear boundary lines like physics, E equals MC square. I don't know where his power begins or where it stops, and I don't know what he could do to me if he ever got the chance."

The jeep seemed to swerve without Bomber touching the wheel. Gina sat straight up and blurted, "What was that?" Then she looked out the passenger window and saw the black helicopter half-hidden in a whirlwind of dust, circling around to get the car into its sights.

Her head smashed into the headrest as the car lurched forward, knocking the sense out of her, acceleration pinning her to her chair. She could only watch the copter fall into place behind them, swerving from left to right but never far behind. Sound like peas rattling around in a tin can. The already-cracked rear window shattered into a million pieces when a hail of bullets tore through it.

She tried to speak but failed to make any coherent sound. Then everything went black.

She remembered falling. Weightlessness, her body pulled in more than one direction. Impact. Arms dragging her through the dirt. Terrible winds buffeting them about, the helicopter only metres behind them.

Clarity returned slowly while she lay on the radioactive soil. Things had happened so quickly. Bomber had said something to her, then aimed the car at the dead husk of a nearby tree and piled on the acceleration. Pulled her out of the jeep moments before it crashed. All throughout, bullets rained down randomly around them, their bodies invisible in the whirling vortex of fallout dust. The helicopter's own downdraft had blinded all its trillion-dollar cameras and electronics.

The gunmen in camouflage wasted no time. They didn't even bother with rappels, they simply jumped the four metres from copter to ground, and landed with impeccable grace. The leader flashed some half-concealed hand signals. Four of the gunmen broke off to investigate the car wreck, the others set up a secure perimeter.

Gina stirred with fear, watching them, but Bomber held her down and made soothing noises. "Easy, girl. Just lie still and be quiet. Got a surprise for 'em, I'll be right back."

He disappeared into the blasted ground, covered with rocks and rubble and the remnants of abandoned cars that had tried to flee the nukes and failed. The gunmen moved like lightning, dust clouds rising wherever their feet touched ground, the only real trace of their movements. The four by the car approached cautiously, checking for survivors. They obviously didn't expect what came next.

A fireball mushroomed high into the sky where the car had been. The helicopter swerved wildly out of its path, and the group sweeping the area all turned to look, gobsmacked. That's when Bomber appeared from hiding and grabbed the nearest one.

The man's head turned an impossible angle with a short sharp twist of Bomber's wrists. His rifle was in Bomber's hands before he even hit the floor, and before the others could turn around to see about the noise. Two more flew backwards, their bodies torn to pieces by automatic fire. Only the leader remained standing, and now he had Bomber in his sights.

In the span it took to pull the trigger, Bomber had already started moving again. Bullets ripped up the ground in his wake as he jumped and vanished back into the broken land. The leader wasted a few moments trying to reaquire his target, then turned back to check on his men caught in the explosion.

Gina couldn't see where Bomber had gone. She just watched the rest of the proceedings in horrified fascination.

One of the remaining gunmen was dead, one wounded, but the other two joined their leader in the hunt for Bomber. Their bodies almost shook from their pumped-up metabolisms. They fired at every hint of movement, one taking the shot and the others watching the rest of the area for an ambush. Gina could tell they were heavily boosted by the way they moved, the more-than-human fluidity and grace in their steps, gliding across the battlefield. Then Gina spotted Bomber again, half-hidden behind a rock only a few metres away from the gunmen. They were headed straight for him.

Too late for her to do anything now. The gunmen circled round and closed the trap, Bomber caught in the middle of a perfect triangle. He could do nothing except stay absolutely still and hope they didn't notice him. A futile hope. They already had, and were closing in on him.

Then suddenly another Bomber appeared from behind the leader, stark naked, and cut the man's throat with his own combat knife. His weapon shot a long string of bullets uselessly into the sky as his dying body slumped to the ground. The other gunmen fell a heartbeat later, one bullet in the head, one in the heart.

Bomber's eyes met Gina's for a brief moment, and she saw nothing good there, no sense of victory or achievement. Carefully, almost sadly, he put his suit back on piece by piece. The helicopter meanwhile beat a hasty retreat without so much as an attempt to salvage the bodies.

At last Gina felt strong enough to stand, and she climbed unsteadily to her feet, staggering over to Bomber's position in a daze. She sank to the ground next to him and touched her helmet to his.

"That was..." she began, but couldn't find the words to express it.

"Necessary," he finished for her. "One of 'em is still alive. What do you say we go and interrogate him?"

Gina nodded. Bomber helped her to her feet, and the two of them walked towards the wounded man, twitching and bleeding on the ground. He had a large chunk of car lodged in his stomach, quite fatal without immediate medical attention. Bomber went down on his knee and pulled him up in a crushing choke hold, keeping both the man's arms pinned under his knees, then touched helmets to speak with him. Gina leaned in so she could hear as well. She was greeted by the sick, breathless moaning of the wounded gunman.

"Time to talk, boy," Bomber spat at him. "Who're you workin' for?"

The man wheezed, and Gina couldn't help but look when one of his arms spasmed. The hand at the end of it held a small grenade hidden from Bomber's view, fingers working weakly at the pin. She jerked backwards and shouted a warning at Bomber -- then realised he couldn't hear her. The struggling fingers finally found a purchase on the pin and started to pull, and there was nothing she could do in time to affect the outcome.

Suddenly the man's chest erupted in blood. A jagged line of bulletholes punched into his body in quick succession, shaking him like a rag doll.

Bomber leaped away from the already-dead body in a panic. The power of his emotions exploded into Gina without warning. She didn't know why, but she could feel his heart pounding in his throat, could see through his eyes and hear through his ears, his liberated gun searching for targets.

Short, single tap of a rifle muzzle pressed against his helmet. Out of nowhere a voice said, "Hands up, soldier. No sudden movements."

Bomber obviously considered disregarding that suggestion, but changed his mind when he saw other armed ghosts in camouflage appearing out of the air. Instead he calmly raised his arms to the sky. They didn't look like the same people to Gina; their equipment was different from the gunmen, shinier and more advanced, like Fed technology.

"Don't move a muscle unless I tell you," said the voice, definitely a woman, soft-spoken but with an iron sense of command. "Put your weapons down on the ground one by one."

"Look, lady, you don't know what you're dealin' with--"

"We know exactly who you are, Grendel. Do what you're told before I have to end you right here."

The name 'Grendel' was like an electric shock to Bomber's body. He twitched, every muscle clenched at once, and froze in place. Then he pulled out the pistol from his suit pocket and placed it on the ground next to his liberated assault rifle.

"Is that it?" the woman asked.

"Yeah," said Bomber.

"Just two? Hard to believe," she moved around a bit to study his face, "but I think you're actually telling me the truth." She gestured at two of her men, who moved forward to grab Bomber's arms. They twisted his hands behind his back and slapped a heavy pair of cuffs on his wrists. Pulled him to his feet. Another one helped Gina up, and the woman motioned for them to start walking.

Part 15

It felt like weeks went by while they waited in the improvised decontamination chamber. It had only been a few days, Gina knew on an intellectual level, but she couldn't say how many. The dreary monotony of their plastic prison knocked her time sense completely on its ass.

She hadn't been allowed to see much on the way here. The only thing to catch her attention was the black helicopter that had pulled ahead of them, escorted by a pair of old, heavily-armed military aircraft. They all seemed to be heading to the same destination as Bomber and Gina.

Gina remembered the humiliating showers and scrubbings on their arrival to the chamber. Most of their clothes and items were gone, incinerated in the 4x4, so they just spent their time sitting, wandering, doing occasional bits of exercise for lack of anything else to occupy their minds. Once again Bomber had shut down inside himself and blocked any attempt at conversation. He responded to her only once when she lashed out at him in frustration.

"Talk to me, you son of a bitch!" she'd snarled. "You know something! Who are these people?"

"Sshhh." He held a finger against his lips, pointing at the ceiling. "Microphones. We'll talk later."

Gina tried one more time to find sleep on one of the hard plastic benches. She managed to close her eyes for a few precious seconds before another tray of rations arrived through the miniature airlock in the wall. Her stomach jumped at the smell of food, and she rubbed the bleariness from her eyes as Bomber went to collect the trays. The orange-brown slop with yellow bits -- Gina guessed it to be some kind of pasta dish -- couldn't have looked less appetising, but she didn't care. Her tastebuds had already been destroyed by years of processed protein burgers. So they shovelled the stuff into their mouths one spoonful at a time, trying to taste as little of it as possible.

"Ah, MREs," Bomber said after finishing his tray. "How did I ever manage without 'em?"

"Probably a lot better than you ever did eating them." Gina looked up at the voice, which came from the little speaker above the main airlock. A man's face appeared in the window, smiling, wrinkles half-hidden under a prodigious brown moustache. "How you doing, Jacob?"

"No way," breathed Bomber. "Colonel Obrin?"

"Mister Obrin nowadays, m'boy. Nice to see you finally made it back to the old US of A." The man's deep, rolling voice reverberated through the floor. "Come on out, it's past time we talked." He wheeled open the airlock seal and, with a push, opened the door. Bomber was on his feet in an instant and almost ran the way to shake the colonel's hand. Gina followed behind him.

They emerged into what looked like a large country house, a hundred years old at the very least, richly appointed with carpets and paintings and tall windows frosted with condensation. The last rays of the afternoon filtered through as sparkling reds and golds. Another thing she noticed was the unobtrusive team of armed guards trailing a few metres behind them.

"I don't understand, Colonel," Bomber said softly. "I knew something was up when your people used my old callsign, but this..."

"That's how we arranged it, Jacob. I'll explain everything when we're secure."

The colonel led them into a large study, where several chairs sat arranged in a semicircle around a roaring fireplace. Twin coffee tables on either side of the fire offered wine, biscuits and cigarettes. Two men swept the room with bugtrackers, then gave the all-clear and bowed out the door. The colonel waved at the appointments set for them. "Please, sit down, help yourselves. We've got a lot to discuss. You too, young lady," he added to Gina.

Gina sat down mutely. She didn't know for sure what kind of trouble she was in, but this situation made her nervous. So far Bomber's acquaintances had been a very mixed bag.

"I assume you've got a few questions for me first," the colonel said to Bomber.

"Don't know where to start, sir..." Bomber scratched his head. He seemed uncharacteristically out of his depth. "First things first, I guess. How did you find us?"

The colonel smiled and sipped a glass of wine where he stood. "We've had people tracking you since the moment you set foot in this country, Jacob. You're on our 'subjects of interest' list. We always knew you were alive somewhere in the world, although you're not easy to keep an eye on. When our team saw what kind of trouble you'd gotten yourself into, they decided to intervene."

"That brings me to my second question," Bomber fixed the colonel with a penetrating stare, "who's we?"

"Ghosts from the past, Jacob," Obrin answered. "Made up of mostly us vets and wellwishers. Tightly-knit. Possibly the best-kept secret in the country. Waiting for the day when the Federation is at its weakest." He grinned at Bomber's astonished reaction. "That's right, Jacob. The US Army ain't dead. It's just biding its time. Don't tell me you believed we'd really disbanded at the Feds' say-so."

Bomber sank back in his chair. "Not at first, sir. I heard some rumblings out of my old contacts, but then they started droppin' off one by one, dead or disappeared by the Feds. I thought that was it for us."

"Almost. They hurt us bad in the days after the takeover, bad enough to think we were gone, but all we did was go deeper into hiding." The colonel smiled fiercely. When he did, Gina thought he looked exactly like a moustachioed shark about to feed. "Now I've got a question for you two. We captured those mercenaries chasing you. Stupid bastards didn't even know who they were working for, but I have a feeling that it wasn't the Feds. Would I be right in presuming they're a present from a man named Gabriel?"

"How do you know about Gabriel?"

Obrin gestured expansively with his wine glass. "Another of our 'subjects of interest'. In fact, he's the reason why I'm talking to you right now." When Bomber didn't seem to understand, the colonel tapped one of his cufflinks. A door opened at the back of the room and a woman in a khaki military uniform took a few paces into the room, smiling at Bomber and at Gina.

"Reporting as ordered, Colonel. Good to see you two again," she told Bomber and Gina.

"Jezebel," Bomber blurted, staring at her. It was the woman, Gina realised in shock, the one who'd hired her to spy on Gabriel an eternity ago. Bomber laughed and pounded his fist against the armrest of his chair. "I knew it. I goddamn knew it!"

"The Captain here has been working with us for years on the Gabriel subject," said Obrin. "She was in deep cover, we couldn't risk revealing her affiliations to anyone. Not even you, Jacob. And we weren't sure whether or not you'd take the job if you knew."

This time it was Gina's turn to speak up. "Why?" she asked. "Why are you after Gabriel?"

"That's... complicated," said the colonel, "and something I'm hesitant to reveal in front of the daughter of Director Vaughan of the Hong Kong Federal Police."

The colonel clearly didn't realise how ill-chosen his words were. They cut into Gina like knife blades twisting in her belly, turning nervousness into anger until her blood boiled in her veins. She jerked upright, trembling in fury, and started to shout through the red haze before her eyes. "Who the hell do you think you are, bringing my parents into this?!" she screamed. "I have been kicked around, hunted, tortured, shot at, and dragged halfway across the fucking planet because of this telepathic psycho and his gangs, something for which you are apparently responsible, and now you've got the stones to stand there and tell me I can't be trusted?!"

When she finished, she found herself standing over the colonel only inches from his face, her hands in the air in some wildly impressive pose. The object of her rage had shrank back from her, looking a couple of feet shorter than he did before. Jezebel stood faithfully behind the colonel and covered her mouth to hide her quiet laughter.

"I think the lady's just said it all," Bomber told the colonel. Then, his eyes on Gina, "I like 'Vaughan' better than 'Hart' anyway."

Obrin grinned nervously. "Right! Well, in that case, you two had better come along. I've got something to show you."

He gestured at the door through which Jezebel had entered. Bomber and Gina followed the colonel out. Jezebel fell in beside them, and their guards followed not far behind.

"So how the hell did you get out of that club?" Bomber asked Jezebel. "I didn't see where you went, couldn't find any sign o' you after the whole op went south. Figured that if you made it out alive, you'd probably find us."

"And I did," she said. "Not that it was easy. We couldn't be seen contacting you, the Feds would know about it straight away. So we had to wait 'till there weren't so many eyes around looking for you." She smiled. "I must say, you've kept ahead of them pretty well, if not by much. We heard what happened to East."

"Yeah. Was it the same gang of goons that attacked us in New Orleans?"

"That holds with our information, yes." She shrugged. "We can't be sure, though. The ones we captured were all implanted with crude forget-me-nots. Everything they may have known about their past operations would've been deleted immediately after completion."

"Shit," said Bomber. "Nice work evadin' my question, by the way."

A rueful smile cracked the disciplined facade of her face. "Thank you. Truth is, I... don't like talking about it. I'd rather fight the whole Sudan counterinsurgency all over again." Cold shivers went up and down her body. "I knew something was wrong when Gina left the table in a hurry. I stood up under the pretense of shaking Gabriel's hand, then punched the nearest face in and made a run for it. The rest of that night is a blur. Come morning it was just a cat and mouse game for days on end. I was trying to get into contact with base here, but they kept intercepting my messages, and when I tried to book any kind of passage they always found out which plane I was on. I had to fight my way clear of airports twice. I tried to contact you a couple times at our emergency addresses, but I never got a response on any of them. I was worried they'd caught you."

Bomber gave her an odd look. "I checked those addresses every day, every hour when I could. There was nothing in them."

Her jaw dropped and she froze in mid-step. Pure shock was plain on her face. "Jesus. I thought I was so careful. How did he get to them?"

"Well, he's got an AI. That might explain a few things." Bomber shrugged his shoulders. "Not that it matters now."

"Obviously we underestimated him. An AI, though..." She exchanged a meaningful look with colonel Obrin. "That's a multi-trillion dollar project, and nobody's breathed a word about it to the Feds. I'd like to know how he managed that."

"That's one question we may actually know the answer to," the colonel interjected. He waved a keycard at the large steel door at the end of the passage, and it opened for him. They proceeded into a working laboratory, men and women working in white coats and safety masks, where everything was shiny and sterile and -- if possible -- stored in air-tight containers of bulletproof glass. Gina recognised it instantly from half-remembered documentaries and news articles and a more recent experience in New Orleans. A fully-appointed nanotech lab.

The colonel continued, "The first thing that drew our attention to Gabriel was a clumsy hack on an old government database, around ten years ago, searching for information about a 'Project Hephaestus'. Before you ask what Project Hephaestus is, we don't know. We've been trying to find out ever since. Most of the knowledge seems to have been destroyed by the nukes or locked up in some Fed file cabinet. The best data we've gotten in over ten years has come off that disc you brought in, Jacob."

He marched the group to a large hologram of a single nanobot, magnified by many orders of magnitude, of a design that Gina and Bomber recognised almost immediately. "This robot, recovered from one of our encounters with Gabriel, was part of Project Hephaestus. That's virtually all the information we've got on it. We don't know its intended function or where Gabriel got it from. It's definitely some kind of construction bot, but without being able to look at the programming we can't tell what it was supposed to be constructing. However, given how expensive these bots would be to manufacture just two decades ago, we can take a few educated guesses."

"You think they built Gabriel's AI for him," said Bomber, not slow to arrive at the obvious conclusion.

"One of several possibilities," the colonel replied. "The most likely and logical one. And, if correct, something that could help us out a great deal provided we can get our hands on some live Hephaestus bots."

It wasn't difficult to see the possibilities. "That could wipe away the Feds' tech advantages in an instant," observed Gina.

"And set humanity back on course for a free world," Obrin finished for her. "Shortly after we traced the hack to Gabriel, he caught wind of our plans to capture him. Fled the country the same day. Didn't even bother to pack, he just went. Unfortunately none of the stuff he left behind in his flat was very enlightening, so we gave up after a couple searches. In the end we couldn't risk attracting any more attention from the Feds. They were thick on the ground back then." A grimace twisted his face, his moustache bristling. "Little did we know he was doing his work inside Radiation Alley. If we'd only guessed, maybe we could've figured it all out by now."

"Do you know what he was working on in New Orleans?" she asked.

"Trying to reconstruct the bots' software. He'd have no choice if he wanted to recreate them from dead examples. What's left in their memory banks is hopelessly corrupted, but get enough samples together and spend enough time on it, and it might be possible to reconstruct part of their programming. We, unfortunately, don't have a large enough sample base to work with." He turned his fierce smile back on Bomber and Gina. "I need live ones, and I mean to get them by any means necessary."

Lastly, he cocked a conspiratorial eyebrow and added, "I could use a hand."

"...and this is where you can sleep if you need to," Jezebel finished, showing Gina and Bomber to an unoccupied bedroom off one of the country manor's vast halls. "Nobody else will be using it so make yourselves at home. Still, I don't know how long the Colonel is intending you to stay, but I wouldn't suggest getting too comfortable."

"Thanks," muttered Gina. The only thing she wanted at this point was a hot bath, and she'd just spotted the en-suite bathroom leading off to the right. That meant Jezebel now needed to disappear as soon as humanly possible.

"Oh, before I forget." Jezebel threw Gina the mobile phone she'd thought she'd lost, a present from Rat in ages past. "We've checked it, calls are secure and untraceable. It's been ringing off the hook for days, you'll probably want to get back to whoever it is. Just don't tell anyone where you are."

A pissed-off smirk came to Gina's lips as she said, "I don't actually know where I am."

"Even better!" Jezebel smiled, patted her on the arm and walked away.

"Goodnight," she whispered, closing the door behind her.

Gina sank into a chair with a long sigh, staring at the phone in her hands. "You used to put up with this for a living?" she asked Bomber.

"Every day," he said. "You sort-of get used to it. You gonna call 'em back or what?"

"Do you think they might be in trouble?"

Bomber snorted at the apparent ridiculousness of that question. "In Laputa? They don't even let you on the island unless your name's on the hacker ranking. D'you want me to dial?"

"No, I'll do it." She held the phone up to her lips and said, "Return last call." A few seconds later it was ringing. Someone picked up on the third ring.

"Yes?" came a suspicious voice, familiar enough to bring a smile to Gina's face.

"Hi, Rat," she said. "It's us." Slightly lame opening, she thought after the words had left her mouth, but it would do.

Rat almost squeaked into the telephone. "Holy fuck! Are you all right? We've been trying to reach you for days!"

"Yeah, I know. We haven't had a chance to use the phone. Don't worry, though, we're all right. Bomber says hello." She sent Bomber a smile, and he made a little wave of his hand. "How the hell are you guys? Did you meet up with Jock okay?"

"Sure, piece of cake! There were some Fed goons at the airport when I left, but I slipped by 'em. I've been off painkillers since yesterday, clean bill o' health and everything. Jock's taking a little longer to heal up, though, the old fart." Jock muttered curses in the background, and Rat laughed. "So have you been shot yet? You realise you're the only one of us left without a bullethole for a souvenir."

Gina couldn't resist a grin. "No, not yet, though not for lack of trying. But we're safe now. Everybody's off our trail for the moment."

"Good! Hey, we've been looking into Gabriel for ya from this end. Lately he's been throwing money like it was nothing, just pissing away millions of dollars, and fuck knows it all goes. I think he's getting more and more desperate to find you. I don't see the why, myself, you're not that pretty."

"Thanks," said Gina. In a whisper she added, "Personally, I liked you better as a boy."

"You just want me for my body." For a moment Jock talked in the background. "Oh, Jock says that if you manage to get into VR anywhere, you should go up to the nearest street guide and tell it what you said to the Emperor in Hangzhou. Then we'll be able to find you. Don't repeat it out loud until then, you never know who might be listening."

"But the phone's supposed to be secure, isn't it?" she asked.

"Secure from who?" countered Rat. "Stay on your toes. You don't know who's after you and who's not, so don't trust anybody except Jock and me and maybe that guy of yours."

She nodded and murmured, "I will. Right now, though, we need some sleep. And a bath. Maybe both at the same time."

"Alright. You can tell us what the hell you've been up to next time, maybe. Keep out of trouble, and remember what I said."

Gina just managed to mouth a quick, "Goodnight," before nodding off in the chair where she sat.

Strange days ticked away in the country estate, under the watchful eye of the United States military. It seemed that Jezebel had been assigned to them on a permanent basis. She kept a constant guard outside the room, and escorted them whenever they went out the door. A little bit creepy but also oddly comforting.

She talked freely with them and asked sharp questions, her favourite subject being Gabriel and what they'd learned about him. Gina answered as best she could, but natural suspicion still nagged at her hindbrain. So she held back, left out certain details that they really didn't need to know about. Bomber followed her lead in that -- for those secrets she'd shared with him. Even he didn't know about the dreams.

Strangely, he seemed more animated now whenever Gina looked at him, more alive somehow, like something long-dormant inside him had been shocked awake. Or like fading echoes of the man he used to be. Bomber no longer walked anywhere; he marched, and even started snapping salutes when they met with the colonel.

"Damn, we're sure glad you made it here alive," the colonel said after a long interrogation session. "Don't know what we would've done without your help."

"It's nothing, sir," said Bomber. However, this time he didn't beg leave, but stepped forward and lowered his voice. "If I may ask, sir, I know it may be OpSec, but... Do you have plans to eliminate Gabriel?"

The colonel looked up, narrow eyes poking out from over the mess of moustache. He sighed, "Son, if it were up to me, I'd let you in on our whole battle plan. But I got superiors still. They don't know you the way I do, they're still not sure they can trust you." He glanced around as if to make sure the room was free of bugs. Then, in a whisper, "I got a plan, son. There'll be a knock on your door tonight. Get all your stuff together, follow Jez, and we'll brief you about what needs to be done."

They followed Jezebel back to their room in complete silence. Somewhere along the way they'd gotten used to being listened in on, used to postponing the overwhelming desire to talk. Neither Gina nor Bomber knew why the colonel had acted so cautious, but caution seemed like a good plan in general.

The sun set slowly as they wasted the hours 'till nightfall. The old television kept their room nice and noisy, so nobody would get suspicious about the lack of conversation. When the call for lights out came, they tidied their things into their bags and went to bed as normal.

Gina was wide awake when she heard the knock on the door. She hadn't shut her eyes for a second. She'd been sure Bomber was asleep, but now he jumped to his feet and started throwing on clothes.

The door opened without a sound, and Jezebel's voice hissed out of the shadows, "Come on. Keep your head down and keep quiet."

They crept out the door and into the stark, moonlit hallway. The carpeted wooden floors creaked under their feet, and it seemed like even a deaf man should've heard them, but nobody noticed them as they snuck down the stairs and through an empty kitchen into the motor pool. A single bulb dangled from the ceiling, casting inadequate light on the single row of vehicles in the back of the warehouse. From where she stood Gina could make out two SUVs, some civilian cars, a lone eighteen-wheel truck and an ancient burnt-out tank in the middle of being salvaged for parts.

Half-seen in the dimness, Gina could just make out someone throwing a bag in the back of one of the cars, then slamming the door. She caught a glimpse of a massive moustache when he turned and jogged towards them. Jezebel motioned to keep their voices down.  
"We've swept the entire motor pool, but you can never be too sure,"

she whispered.

Bomber stepped forward and asked, "What's this all about?"

The colonel held up a PDA showing a detailed analysis of a single nanobot, a new one to Gina, all cameras and microphones and wireless antennae. It had to be very advanced to pack so many things into one tiny bot.

"Spies?" Bomber asked into the silence.

"We first found them in the compound yesterday," Obrin explained with a nod. "Another present from our friend Gabriel. They must've come in on the wind, we haven't spotted any vehicle within miles of here that wasn't ours."

"Blanket nanodusting just to find us?" said Bomber, more a statement than a question. "Expensive."

Jezebel sat down on the hood of a nearby jeep and hugged her elbows. "From the area measurements we've taken, a spread this large would cost at least twelve billion dollars." She was quiet for a moment. "This is how far he'll go to find you two. A bank account measured in trillions and no restraint in how it's spent, as long as he reaches his goal. This was one of our most secure safehouses. I don't know what the hell you did to get his attention this badly, but right now you two are our most valuable assets, and our most dangerous liabilities."

Her meaning was obvious. "You can't afford to keep hiding us," Gina concluded.

"Right now there are six Federal Police helicopters inbound to this location, each with a squad of full constables on board," Obrin ground out, spitting the words as if he resented having to twist his mouth around them. "We've been slipping out key personnel and equipment since the morning. Now we have to make sure the rest of the organisation isn't compromised. After the attack starts it's every man for himself, but we at least have to make a show of it to keep them off our backs and off your trail." He held Bomber's gaze for a moment, then lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. "It's orders, Jacob. You'll be given further instructions once you're away, Jez will go with you to make sure everything goes as planned. That's all I can say. Maybe I'll see you in Geneva."

"Yes, sir," he said in a voice as hard as stone. He saluted the colonel and took Gina by the arm. Jezebel led them along to the car prepared for them, despite Gina's protests and demands for an explanation. Even a sharp kick to the shins didn't faze Bomber. He bundled her into the car, locked her door, and then jumped into the passenger seat.

Minutes later they were bouncing down a rough country road, watching the first missiles streaking into the compound like rays of red fire.

They hid the car under a crumbling overpass and went out into the cool night air, without suits or protection beyond simple radiation badges. Gina breathed deep. It was good to feel wind on her face again, the claustrophobia of the suits a distant memory. The moon burned bright in the clear indigo sky, joined by the individual pinpricks of faraway stars. The valley stretched out before them, a visual reminder of both loss and hope \-- the carcasses of dead trees still arranged where they fell years ago, but now covered in fresh moss and half-hidden by new growth.

Less pleasant was the hint of smoke on the air, carried from the burning fires where the old country house had once stood. Occasional spurts of gunfire echoed across the distance. Every now and again a bright tracer round would arc uselessly into the sky. Jezebel's face was drawn and pale while she watched, especially when her eyes wandered to the bare handful of vehicles scattering away from the base, engaged in a running battle with the chasing helicopters.

"There were sixty-three troops stationed in that base," she said. "The colonel. Major Brand. People I've worked with for years. How many of them are dead now? I don't know."

"None of the enlisted know, do they?" Bomber interjected. "About the organisation. Cells kept so blind they don't even know there is a resistance. That's why you're sacrificing so much, so the Feds don't guess your real capabilities. They can't know you've known since this morning."

"I don't understand," Gina stated flatly.

A dry laugh shuddered through Jezebel. "Don't try. The second it starts making sense, you lose something inside. One of the pieces that make you human."

"What about Colonel Obrin? The officers who know?" pressed Bomber.

"They got their orders too. If they can't make it out during the attack, then all they get is a pistol and some privacy, and maybe the knowledge that their troops took out a Fed or two."

The words seemed to hit Bomber at his core. His expression never changed, but he looked down, as if there was too much weight on his shoulders to keep his head up. After a second's hesitation, Gina put her arms around him, and he didn't protest. His grief was old, bottled up for years and years, now given a fresh focus. Faces flashed from his mind to hers, first the colonel, then his old squadron commander and her brother and more, friends and lovers all in uniform and all gone before their time.

Somewhere out in the valley, a rocket came screaming out of the ruins, bored straight into one of the Fed helicopters. The copter seemed suspended in time for a moment, a glowing hole inside it, and then fell out of the sky in a slow arc. A massive white fireball erupted where it hit the ground. Too bright. Gina had to look away.

"The colonel gave me a disc with our orders," said Jezebel. "I'm to play it for you when we reach the state line, and not before." She turned and headed back for the car, but Bomber stopped her as she opened the door, a hand on her shoulder.

He said, "Here's what I wanna know -- why would Gabriel give our location to the Feds? Does he want us dead?"

"Enemy of my enemy, Simon," she answered. "Divide and conquer. He knew we'd evacuate you when we found his bots. Use the Feds to flush you out, then catch you in whatever net he's got waiting for us." She broke eye contact and climbed behind the wheel, turned the key, revved the engine for takeoff.

Bomber took the passenger seat, and once again Gina was left in the rear. She muttered, "So we're heading into a trap."

"That's one way of looking at it. Keep an eye out."

The car lurched out of its hiding place and raced down the bumpy dirt trail, throwing up plumes of dust behind it. Gina bounced around in the back with the bags without so much as a seatbelt. She had to wonder how anyone could drive like this. No lights, nothing to see by but the green night-vision display projected in front of the windows. Half the wheels would leave the ground whenever they swerved around one of the trail's tight corners. The onboard computer complained, but was quickly overridden and settled in to sulk.

When they reached a straight stretch of road, Jezebel shoved a small disc into the car's player. A small hologram of the colonel's head appeared just above the dashboard with a fierce smile. The moustache looked even worse than Gina remembered, covering nearly half his face.

"I'll try and keep this brief, Jacob, Gina," he said. "First off, don't worry about me. I've been waiting for this moment eight years now. It'll be enough just to see you two safely away." He paused, cleared his throat. "We won't forget about you, either. The Army will send you another contact, he'll get in touch with you when the time comes. For now I'm counting on you three to make sure our sacrifice isn't in vain. To say it simply, we need a Hephaestus of our own. If we're ever to have a chance at liberating anyone, we have to have an AI on our side. I want you to go and get it for me."

"What?" exclaimed Jezebel.

"Fuck," Bomber added for good measure.

"Head north to Missouri. There's overseas tickets waiting for you at Paine Airport, out to Geneva," the colonel continued.

"Fuck!" Bomber slammed his fist into the dash. "No!"

Gina groaned inwardly as the colonel's words hit home. "Not again..."

"Hell of a last request. I know it's a lot to ask of you after what you've been through. If there were anyone else I could trust to pull it off, I'd never have turned to you, but there isn't. The Army doesn't want to stick its neck out too far." Obrin sighed. "What I can offer you is the support of our team in Geneva to help plan and execute the mission. They'll contact you when you arrive, brief you on Gabriel's compound, give you a place to kip. They should also be able to procure anything you might need for the op."

Turning to look at Jezebel, Bomber shook his head violently. "Jez, we already marched into the lion's mouth once, we're not doin' it again."

"You will," she grated, her voice hoarse and her cheeks wet, "because it's the last thing the colonel will ever ask of you. And you're going to do it, or so help me I will hunt you down and put a bullet in your head myself."

The colonel's voice went on, "I'm sorry I can't be there myself, I really wish I could, but I got to do my part. So... Well, I've run out of things to say. Good luck and good hunting, soldiers. Out."

Chapter 16

"So where's the trap?" asked Bomber, peering out at the lightening horizon. The hours wore away but never seemed to bother him. He didn't grow bags under his eyes, didn't lose an ounce of his alert tension, didn't rest his eyes just for a moment. Every time Gina awoke from her fitful doze she found him sitting there, never moving, like a gargoyle watching for evil spirits.

"I don't know, Simo-- I mean, Jacob. Sorry." A tight smile crossed Jezebel's face. "I've gotten so used to calling you 'Simon' it's hard to think of you as anything else."

He shrugged and said, "Call me Simon if you like. One name's as good as another." A long pause. "I sure would like to have some clue where the bullets are gonna be comin' from, though."

Jezebel, too, gained a measure of Gina's respect for her endless patience and level-headedness. "You'll be the first to know, Simon," she said.

"He's just nervous," teased Gina. Bomber obviously didn't think very much of that. He craned his neck around to give her a dirty look, then resumed his watch. She patted him on the shoulder.

In the front, Jezebel cleared her throat as if preparing to ask a difficult question. "You know, Simon, there's something the colonel never told me," she began. "How do you know him?"

Bomber hesitated. He didn't make a noise until Gina squeezed his shoulder, at which point he slowly started to speak. "He used to be CO of the airbase where my copter squadron was stationed. We never spoke much before he left for a new command, until we were both roped into attendin' some Virginia senator's dinner, him as CO of his new base and me as stand-in for my squadron commander. We got to talkin'. Things went from there."

"That's interesting," Jezebel murmured.

"Why?"

"'Cause I know the colonel's only ever had one command, and it wasn't an airbase." She glanced at him. "When I met him, he was CO of the Marine base at Quantico. Combat Development Command and R&D, the whole shenanigans." When Bomber didn't respond, she asked, "Which branch of the service were you in again?"

He looked at her, eyes like gleaming daggers. "I suggest you be very careful about the next thing you say. You're either callin' me a liar or the colonel. I won't have anyone, not even you, disrespectin' the memories of good people."

"You're not the only one who remembers the colonel a bit funny, Simon. Let me tell you a story, before you do anything stupid." She locked eyes with him and slowly stared him down. Gina didn't know what to do, particularly with a driver taking her eyes off the road, but she decided that butting in now would do more harm than good. "I used to know a woman," Jezebel continued, "someone a lot like you, boosted to the gills and cocky as hell. Friend of mine. She remembered being in an experimental Navy SEALs unit, specialising in infiltration and security hacking. Described the trials she did, the people she met, the training areas, everything in absolute detail.

"I didn't know exactly what it was about the things she said that sounded funny, but one day I decided to go to the base where she was stationed, just to have a look. It was all there. The unit existed, the people and places checked out just like she said, and her name was on the roster. But I couldn't find any transfer documents. Not at the base, not in the main system, there wasn't a single shred of information about the time between the day she joined up and the day she was posted to that base.

"When I got back, I questioned her about her previous posts, and she told me this experimental unit was her first. Straight out of boot camp into an experimental SEALs unit. 'Yeah, right,' says I, even if there were mountains of paperwork to confirm it. So I checked the age on my friend's file against her latest physical. Turned out she was at least two years older biologically than on paper. Of course, she was a loner, no friends or family from before the service who could tell us her actual birthdate. That's where my investigation ended.

"I asked the colonel about it once. He told me it was classified, and ordered me never to investigate it again. It didn't seem too important, so I let it rest." She smiled at Bomber. "Ever since I met you, I've been hoping for the chance to ask you the same things. I'm betting something similar happened to you. Am I right?"

Bomber's eyes had gone wide, his face pale and ashen. He breathed, "Jesus... It's just like you said. First thing out of boot, I was dumped on this airbase, bein' trained up as a pilot. They said I qualified for some kind of fast-track scheme. After that it was straight into the cockpit flyin' test missions, goin' to the docs every week for a new implant."

A long sigh hissed out of Jezebel's chest, as if years of tension were expelling themselves in relief. "I think the Army did something to you, Simon," she said, her attention back on the road. "The same thing they did to my friend. If I'm right, two years of memories have gone missing inside that head of yours, and you've been conditioned to never realise they were even gone."

"I don't think I wanna hear any more of this," said Bomber, his voice strained. Veins stood out in his face. Gina couldn't tell if what came out of Bomber's mouth was what he wanted to say or if something was making him say it. "Right now I think we should concentrate on getting to the airport alive."

Jezebel nodded. "I actually agree. That's why I'm warning you. By now Gabriel may know more about you than you do, and there's no way we can get inside your head and pull out the info." Then she glanced slyly over her shoulder, straight at Gina. "Unless there is."

Gina shuddered and kept quiet. No one spoke as the outlying suburbs of Jefferson City started to rise up around them. Every village and town to the south had been abandoned, but here they saw people crossing the street without suits or anything, with only a faint glossy sheen to the houses to indicate radiation-proofing. It took a minute for Gina to realise that the tags everyone outside wore weren't part of some weird fashion statement, but were actually radiation tags, just like the one pinned to her jacket. Somehow that seemed worse than the glittering domes and subways of Austin.

The tension built while they approached the airport. Soon Gina could see the airships coming in and taking off, people milling around inside the terminals. She counted the seconds until the anticipated attack.

They reached the airport car park without incident, which put everyone that little bit more on edge. One by one they emerged cautiously from the jeep like rabbits on a shooting range and headed for the terminal. They were all watching for the enemy, planning escape routes in case of emergency, trying to think tactically. Gina was starting to wish the ambush would just come so they could get it over with.

"We should be safe if we can make it to the airship," whispered Jezebel. "Once we're a couple thousand feet up, there isn't a whole lot they can do."

Gina smirked and said, "I'm looking forward to it."

Meanwhile Bomber adjusted his belt, his trousers heavy with a hidden stealth gun and a ceramic vibroknife. Gina, too, had been offered her share of weaponry, but she'd begged off. The very idea of holding a gun was repulsive to her now. Her Mk5 was all she needed. Even if it got discovered, it wouldn't mean too much trouble for Gina, as every commercial airship crew wore low-profile armour that no taser could get through.

The terminal doors slid open without complaint. They stepped through into the riot of duty-free shops and past the massive flight lists displayed on a cubical hologram as big as a house, and headed for the pass machines. An uneasy feeling built up in Gina's stomach, a cold lump sitting in her belly, above and beyond her normal anxiety. She couldn't find any reason for it, so she resolved to ignore it.

"This automated boarding pass service is brought to you by Yumito Virtualities," said the familiar cartoon girl floating in front of the booth, pink dress waving in the holographic winds, stars and rainbows playing all around it. "Please show your credit card up to the scanner." Jezebel flashed a small red card at the machine. The hologram assumed a thoughtful expression for a moment, then laughed and clapped its hands. "Success! Thank you, Mrs. Eleanor Kowalski, your boarding passes have been uploaded to your card. Thank you for using the Yumito Virtual Fun Experience, please enjoy and be happy!"

"Mrs. Eleanor Kowalski?" sniggered Bomber. Even he had to have a sense of humour.

"Fuck off," Jezebel replied firmly.

At the main junction of gates was a long queue, directed by a group of holographic traffic wardens and instruction signs. There didn't seem to be any actual human beings at work that Gina could see except the pair of hard-faced guards at the security gate, glaring down everyone in their line of sight.

One by one they held up their passports to the scanner and approached the gate, which happily buzzed everyone through.

The rest of their route was a long, escalator-assisted walk to the boarding gate. The walls were made almost entirely of bulletproof plexiglass so that travellers could see all across the airfield while still protected from most things. Outside, the tarmac blazed with the reflected light of the morning, the sun peeking just above the horizon. The low rumble of airship engines and chartered aeroplanes buzzed through the floor. Emergency exits lined the long hall on both sides, each receiving suspicious glances from Bomber and Jezebel, as if any of them might be harbouring the enemy.

Gina's stomach only grew more restless along the way. It was a feeling she couldn't quite place, a nameless dread that refused to completely materialise in her mind. She shivered. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and a throbbing ache crept into her brain. The next thing she knew, she was walking ahead of the others and still speeding up, for no reason that she could have explained.

"Gina, hold up!" Bomber called, but she barely heard him. The pounding in her head only grew more intense, cold sweat poured down her shivering face. The drumming between her ears sped up more and more until it seemed there was someone running at her shoulder, laughing like hell.

Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and turned her about. Her eyes cleared to see, and for a moment she saw eyes like burning embers, hair that shone gold with inner light, and the face of an angel. Her heart froze into a solid lump of ice. The image faded, but the terror did not.

"Come on, wake up!" Bomber yelled in her face. "What's wrong?"

"He's here," she whispered. She saw Bomber's face go pale, and he went for his gun. He quickly wrestled it out of its hidden pocket and shouted for Jezebel to move, then grabbed Gina by the collar and hauled her along at a run.

Jezebel growled, "Move, move! Get to the ship, it's our only chance!"

They dashed through the crowd at a reckless pace. Bomber used his shoulders and elbows to carve out a path, keeping the stealth pistol concealed in the crook of his arm. Jezebel covered the rear with her own half-concealed gun. For once, the lack of airport staff worked in their favour, and they made a run for the airship gate.

"Remember the panic button," Jezebel said to Bomber as they charged down the empty straight. Gina could feel the rush of thought that accompanied the words. We can't get caught with guns, Jezebel repeated to herself. She seemed to be repeating a phrase someone else had told her. If we're cornered, just hit the button and the piece will melt to mud. That's why they call it the panic button. If there's reason to panic, hit the button.

Their desperate flight slowed down as they reached the gate. An airline attendant stood behind the small desk in a ridiculously short skirt and smiled at them, saying, "Good evening, sir, ladies. It's a good thing you got here, you're the last people to board today, we almost left without you." She shrugged by way of apology. "May I see your boarding passes please?"

Jezebel held out the small red card, and the attendant passed a scanner over it. Then she smiled with renewed force. "Thank you, madam, everything seems to be in order. Please proceed up the boarding ramp and into the ship."

The woman barely had time to finish before Bomber dragged Gina into the boarding tube and up the ramp, sheet metal clanking to their footsteps. The airship door was open and they stepped through it with barely-composed restraint.

Bomber and Jezebel breathed sighs of relief as the ship doors closed behind them. They'd escaped the trap. Another airline attendant greeted them as they came on board, and introduced them to a holographic talking bluebird which would lead them to their seats. Bomber and Jezebel exchanged glances, then shrugged and followed along.

Row after row of empty seats were passed by. The entire first class compartment was bare, but their tickets were business class, so they had no choice but to follow the bluebird into the next compartment. The pounding in Gina's head reached fever pitch, as if someone had a battering ram at the gates of her mind and a serious determination to get in. She wanted to scream, but had no energy left with which to do it.  
When they brushed through the cloth screen separating the compartments, Bomber stopped dead and clamped his hand back on his gun. Business class, too, was completely empty. Jezebel stared dumbfounded for a second until the horrific realisation came over her.

A hand brushed aside the screen to the economy class compartment, and Gabriel took a few lazy steps towards them with his casual body language and engaging smile.

"Welcome to Lowell Airlines," he said. "I hope you have a pleasant flight."

"It's so nice to finally meet you," Gabriel said. With only a split second to act Bomber raised his gun and fired. The shot rang out like thunder, but Gabriel's smile never darkened. He just nodded at one of the airline attendants, who stepped in and politely took the gun from Bomber's hand. There was no casing on the floor, and the magazine indicator still read the same number.

"So nice," he continued, "now that we can dispense with the hostilities and get to know each other." He walked past them into the first class compartment and draped himself across a chair. "Come on! Sit down, order the wine, leave your seatbelt off for all I care. It's my ship, nobody's going to complain." As if to punctuate his words, the ship shuddered as it cast loose its moorings, and the large windows showed the airport dropping away below.

Bomber looked over to Jezebel. She stood like a statue, arms clamped to her side and her pistol pointed at the floor, held in white-knuckled fingers. He growled at her, "Jez, snap out of it! Shoot him!"

"I can't," she said. Her voice had a strange edge to it, like breaking glass. It didn't take a telepath to know there was something deeply wrong.

"What the hell are you saying?"

"I can't." After a long pause, she lifted the gun in front of her, barrel pointed down. Then, with her free hand, she pressed the panic button. The weapon melted to brown ooze in her hands and blotted the airship carpet. "I can't," she finished.

Again, Gabriel smiled at them. "There's no need to be shocked. She's just remembering, it's part of her instructions." To Jezebel he added, "Ellen? Are you alright?"

Gina watched in horror as Jezebel jerked a nod and walked forward, took up a position at Gabriel's side. She felt the rush of knowledge in Jezebel's mind, words and images flooding back through a crack in the wall that had held them out. Days in a dark room, tied to a chair, naked and alone and frightened. Gabriel's radiance every time he came into the room. Speaking with her about everything and nothing. By the time she walked out the door at his side, she loved him, a burning flame in her heart of hearts; white and pure and bright as the sun.

Supporting herself on a chair arm, Jezebel took a deep breath and shook the thoughts out of her head. He offered her a glass of water, but she waved it away. She was still pale but a little colour was returning to her cheeks. She said, "The remembering's... a lot to take in."

"I know," he said. He spared her a quick pat on the arm, then returned his attention to Gina, knowing what she'd just seen. He stared at her with wonder plain on his face. When he opened his mouth, though, he was still speaking to Jezebel. "Wait outside, please. Take Simon with you. Gina and I have a lot to talk about, in private."

She started to move towards Bomber, but he immediately fell into a fighting stance, ready to kill with his bare hands if necessary. He rasped, "Come near me and I'll break your neck. Any of you. Same for Gina, you're not touchin' her."

"Be quiet." Gabriel looked at him with those blazing eyes, and Bomber fell silent. "You seem to be under some very mistaken impressions, Simon, like the one about you having a choice in what happens here. Nobody's going to die on this boat, understand? Nobody. Unless you want to take the shortest route from here to the ground without a parachute."

Through an effort of will, Gina swallowed her fear, uncrossed her arms and laid a shivering hand on Bomber's shoulder. "It's okay. I'll be alright," she said softly.

He seemed outraged by the suggestion that he'd abandon her. "But..."

"It won't do anyone any good if you get killed on my account," she pointed out. The reality finally dawned on him, and he hung his head. Gina worked up a brave smile and tried desperately to think of what to do now. The only thing she could think of came on a whim -- she suddenly threw her arms around him and planted her lips on his. They were warm where hers were cold. She crushed him to her, held on with all her strength, and a little bit of life seeped back into her through him.

It lasted as long as it could. Finally they broke away, and Bomber allowed himself to be led of the room.

"Alone at last," Gabriel murmured when Bomber had gone. "So much to talk about. I hardly know where to start."

"Maybe you should strip me and tie me to a chair first," she replied, teeth bared and venom in her voice. "Or have some goons beat me. Or call in the fucking Feds!"

Gabriel's eyes held a slight twinge of guilt. He glanced out the window and said, "You wouldn't understand."

"Don't patronise me."

"Sorry." He sighed, then met her eyes once more. "When you're in my position, morality becomes a luxury you can't afford to indulge very much. I've had to do some pretty questionable things in the past because there was no other way to get what I needed. If it makes you feel any better, I left the men who beat your friend to the Feds. Onounu, that was her name. I liked her." His lips twisted into a sad little half-smile.

"Oddly enough it doesn't," she said. Then, firmly, "You can't do to me what you did to them."

He almost jumped out of his chair and exclaimed, "It's not like that!" Crossing over to her, he took her hands in his and stared down into her, his eyes like pools of molten steel. It was hard to resist feeling sympathy for him then, but Gina held on to the bitter strength inside her. He continued, "I didn't force them. Whatever Ellen feels for me, it's something she built up herself. Onounu was the same. They just care."

She let out a long breath. "You manipulate them. Everyone you meet. You don't think you do, but that's what it is. You twist people to your own ends." She paused, bit her lip. "Even me."

Surprisingly he let go of her hands, and instead she felt a soothing hand reaching into her mind, as if caressing it. Every hair on her body stood upright, every cell shivered with joy down to her very core. "You know better," he whispered.

"Is this what you did to her?" Gina asked, her voice hoarse, and jerked her head towards the doorway where Jezebel and Bomber had gone. "Do you fuck her as well?"

"No," he murmured, almost shyly. "I wouldn't... I've never..."

She sank into his arms.

"Open your eyes," his voice echoed. When she did, her senses reacted with confusion and nausea -- a moment ago she had been standing on an airship carpet breathing dry, filtered air. Now she felt fresh sand curling between her toes, sea wind on her face, dark waves lapping against a shore somewhere in the night. Overwhelming dizziness brought her to her knees, about to be violently ill, but then she felt a soft touch in her mind soothing everything away.

"You'll get used to it eventually," Gabriel said, helped her gently to her feet. "Your mind's still too attached to your body. When you stop thinking physically, it starts coming easier."

"I'll take your word for it," Gina coughed back. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and took stock of her surroundings. At first everything seemed unfamiliar, but then she recognised the wooden chairs and table, candles burning in the darkness and stars dancing across the sky like fireflies. This was where she met him alone for the first time, in her dreams.

"So it wasn't just my imagination," she breathed. "You were really there."

He nodded. "I've always found it easier to speak here. It's so much richer, it has more meaning." A slight grin brightened his face. "And there's the fact that I couldn't find you at the time. It would've been easier if we'd been together. From so far away, I could only get in touch with you once or twice, it's a bit draining."

A hundred questions boiled in Gina's mind, all trying to come out at once. "How do you do it?" she blurted. "What is this place, and how do you change it the way you do?"

"I've studied it for years, but I'm still not sure I have all the answers. It's like a shared dream. Anything you can dream, it can happen here." He demonstrated by waving his arm, and a trail of coloured sparks appeared following his hand. "See? You just go into the part of you that dreams and... connect. Pick up the phone and dial," he chuckled. "It's not that simple, of course, but there's no other way to explain it."

A spark of excitement burned in Gina's mind, mixed with wonder and disbelief. She breathed the air, felt the stars tickling against her skin, and knew that she wanted this. On a whim she grabbed his hands and pulled him along, running through the sand, and she giggled, "Can I do what you do?"

"Of course! Just think about what you want to do and do it!" he called at her.

"Well, I want to fly!"

No sooner had she said the words and concentrated on her desire to fly than her feet left the ground, running higher and higher onto thin air. She let out a squeal of childlike joy and soared. Gabriel let go of her and flew up in front, offering his hand to her for a dance. Instead of taking it, she laughed and launched herself into him, kissing him passionately as they tumbled toward the ground. He hardly protested. At the bottom of their arc, they ploughed into the ground with a spray of sand but no pain, and she rolled on top of him.

"How do you ever leave this place?" she gasped, breathing hard with excitement. "Why would you want to?"

When he looked into her eyes she knew she'd touched on a nerve, but it didn't diminish her curiosity. Finally he breathed deep and said, "It's hard sometimes, but in the end it's meaningless if there's no one there to share it."

"I bet you have, though." She poked a finger at his chest. "You can't tell me there hasn't been a girl you've done this with. Probably done a lot more, as well."

He didn't answer. Instead his brow furrowed and his eyes started to glow, and Gina sat back to watch, and she opened her mouth to ask what he was up to—

She screamed aloud as a bolt of pure sexual pleasure shot into her body. It was too much, a complete overload to her senses, and the pleasure quickly turned into white-hot agony lancing up and down her body. Her vision went red, her ears rang, and every breath of wind across her skin was like a raw and painful orgasm. She collapsed on top of him, panting and paralysed.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Even the vibrations of his voice sent her into spasms, and she would've begged him to stop if any noise had come out of her throat. After a moment he realised what was going on. "Oh, you're being physical again. Here." Again the soothing touch was there, smoothing away her hypersensitivity until she simply drifted on an ocean of pleasant sensations.

She was still panting when she finally recovered. "Jesus fucking Christ," she rasped. "Ever heard of being gentle?"

"I was holding back," he said deadpan. "That was nothing."

Unimpressed with his attitude and her body raging with hormones, she grabbed him by his collar, pushed him down onto the sand and focused everything she had on him. Every ounce of her willpower focused into a single spot. He gasped from the explosion of ecstacy, shuddering all over -- she could feel echoes of his emotions bouncing back through her, like a warm body pressed against her skin, but only coming through in waves.

"How was that?" she asked him.

He tried to hide his shivers behind a smile. "Not bad. We can work with that."

Lowering her mouth down to his ear, she murmured, "I think I prefer the real thing."

Gina disentangled herself and started putting her clothes back on. The airship was warm and cozy, but she felt strangely vulnerable in the nude. Fabric rustled as Gabriel sat up behind her. A hand cupped her breast and lips teased her neck, but she shrugged him off, then ran a playful hand through his hair to keep from giving the wrong impression. Sex while flying high on Spice was pretty intense, but what she'd just experienced made everything else pale in comparison.

"Not ever?" she said.

"First time." He seemed uncomfortable to admit it, but strangely unembarrassed. "It's never seemed right before. The dreams were always enough. Less... physical."

"It's just a body. Nothing to be ashamed of."

He looked at her for a long moment, then broke into a smile. "Do you know how long I've wished for you?" he murmured. "Someone who can do even half of what I do. Someone who understands."

She stopped dressing with her shirt halfway down her torso and smiled back at him. It was kind-of sweet, in a way. "I wish I did. There's so much I don't know about you, I'm not even sure who you really are."

"Sometimes I don't really know myself."

"Now you're evading the point," she countered in a teasing tone.

"Sharp as a razor, that's another thing I like about you," he laughed. "So many questions rolling around in that head of yours. Which one would you like me to answer first?"

Leaning in, she stroked his ear and basked in the reverberated pleasure she felt in him. "You went to so much trouble to get us here. For what?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" he said. "For this. For you. You don't realise how amazing you really are, Gina." For a moment he hesitated, as if he was afraid of how she might respond to what he had to say. Finally he plunged on, "Remember the first time we met? You just sat down and opened the door. I didn't sense it at first, and that was surprising enough, but when I found you in my head... I tried to kill you. I put everything I had into crushing that little mind until it broke, but you wouldn't break. You survived it. Managed to get up and walk, even. No one else has ever done that. As a result I became... fascinated with you."

She snorted, "Some stalker."

"Glad I made a good impression." He put on a disgusted sneer, but couldn't keep a straight face for long. "Do I really put you off that much?"

She sighed, "Listen, I like you. Despite everything, I like you disturbingly much, and I'm not sure what that says about me or you. But how could I ever trust you?" He started to protest, but she placed a finger against his lips and kissed him to shut him up. Then, "Let's take stock here. You admit you've tried to kill me at least once. You keep appearing in my dreams and confusing me until I don't know who I can trust. You're not on good terms with any of my friends, barring the ones you've brutalised or gotten killed." She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. "Do I need to go on?"

"That does put me in sort of a bad light, doesn't it?" he muttered, rubbing his chin, and she nodded.

"So let's just leave things where they are for now, and we'll see how it goes, okay?" After a moment of pregnant silence, eyes locked together in mutual understanding, Gina just burst into laughter. "God, I sound like I'm dumping you."

He couldn't help but laugh with her, blurting out, "And you aren't?"

"Ask yourself," she replied and pulled her shirt back off before lunging at him again.

The hours flew like seconds. When they separated again, every inch of Gina's skin dripped with sweat. Her body still shivered with residual endorphins, past the point of exhaustion yet walking on clouds at the same time. She blinked at the last rays of the afternoon touching her face through the giant bay windows. Only then did she realise how long they'd been on the airship, and she scrambled for her clothes.

"I need to talk to Bomber," she said urgently. "He doesn't do well in a trap, and right now he wants nothing more than to kill you. You'll have to drop us off somewhere."

He started to laugh, but his mirth died as he caught her expression. "You're not joking."

"No."

"Then be serious, Gina. Your friend has a grudge against me, he's got contacts, and he knows entirely too much. What you know about me is yours, I give it to you freely, but I can't have him running around with information that could potentially ruin my entire operation."

Anger churned in her stomach at the implication in his voice. She jumped to her feet and glared down at him with steel in her eyes, made only slightly less intimidating by the fact she was dressed only in a button-up shirt and a pair of panties. She said, "Kill him and you'll never get what you want."

Gabriel rose calmly and spoke in a level, matter-of-fact tone. "Do you have any idea how much damage you two have done already? Any at all?" he asked. "Eight of my men are dead. I've had to torch half a dozen places just to keep anyone else from retracing your steps, and I don't know how many dozens of lives that cost. Do you know how that eats at me?" Instead of waiting for a response, he closed his eyes and channeled the emotion into her, a wrenching in her gut like knives of guilt and remorse dancing in her belly. She staggered back in horror, clutching her stomach, but the next moment Gabriel's arms were around her and the feeling melted away. "Listen," he sighed, softening somewhat, "I don't want to kill anyone. I really don't. What can I do, though? Keep him locked up forever?"

A thought occurred to her then, a glimmer of hope, questionable as it was. "Can you take the memories out of his head, like you did with Jez?" she asked. "Lock it away so it never comes back?"

"I... maybe." He seemed to consider the idea for a moment. "It wouldn't be perfect. There's a lot of strong emotion under his surface, there'd always be a risk of him accidentally breaking through."

"Please?" she whispered, pressing herself in a little bit closer. Although she'd never openly admit to it, she knew a few things about manipulation herself.

"I'll need your help," he said, and after a moment's hesitation, she nodded. For Bomber's sake.

Part 17

Bomber sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, alone, his back to the door. Not a single muscle in his body moved when she came in, but she could sense an immediate jump in his alertness, ready to strike in an instant should the opportunity arise. Neither did he acknowledge the fact that anyone else had entered the room. He didn't even seem to realise it was her until she said hi.

"Gina," he breathed and leaped to his feet. He moved as if to throw his arms around her, but checked himself halfway and stepped back. His eyes studied her for several endless seconds, travelling from her face down to her toes and back up again. "Something's wrong."

"You could say that," she replied. How much of the truth could she tell him? He might not be a telepath, but in his own way he was sharp as a razor.

"That bad, huh?" He gave a dry chuckle, and she nodded.

"Gabriel wants you killed," she explained. "I think I can stop that from happening, but you're going to have to trust me."

His eyes hardened, and his upper lip curled slightly to show teeth. "That's it? No 'hello, hi, how are you, I'm fine, he didn't brainwash me after all'? You've been away for hours with that sociopath, and you walk in here tellin' me I'm just going to have to trust you?"

"Look, I haven't got time to explain, I need you to--"

"So how good a fuck is he?" he interrupted, his tone and thoughts as sharp as knives, flaying the skin off her bones. "Good enough to turn on us, huh? Good enough to make you a lapdog licking at his heels like Jez?" She tore her eyes away and staggered back from the mental violence in him, but he just stepped in closer and ramped it up. Every scornful word slashed into her, tearing through her mind. "Where is our good friend Jez, anyway? Old Gabe snapped his fingers a few hours ago and she came runnin'. Must've been fun, did she join in or just watch?"

Her arm acted on its own, lashed out out of pure self-defence. There was a heart-stopping crack as her open hand connected with his cheek. She knew he could've stopped her but had chosen not to. All the possible reasons frightened her. Horrified at everything and halfway to panic, she started to turn for the door, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back around. A rough kiss forced past her lips, black stubble scratching against her skin.

"What are you doing, Gina?" he asked softly as he let go of her. "Did any of it mean anything at all?"

She hesitated, heart pounding in her throat. Then, "Maybe you're asking the wrong person."

A long silence fell. Bomber looked down, and somehow he seemed smaller, deflated. It was as if one of the things that combined to make him Bomber -- a hundred facets assembled into a once-unbreakable whole -- had just abandoned him. Without looking up he said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Just sleep. We'll do the rest." She reached out uncertainly, stroked her fingers through his hair. She heaved a dry sob. "God, I wish there were some other way..."

"I'm sure you did what you could," he said. "Let's just get it over with."

Gina swallowed hard, nodded, reached into her pocket. "They gave me a syringe. It's okay, I checked it, it'll only knock you out."

Bomber sat down and offered his arm without further comment. Gina went down on her knees next to him and pushed the needle into his elbow. The knockout effect took only seconds; he looked into her eyes one last time, and then lay down to sleep. He never saw the tears rolling down her face.

The next thing she felt was Gabriel's hand falling on her shoulder, a comforting presence in her mind, his voice in her head, "It's time."

Gina slowly rose to her feet. Her mind was made up, and she'd see it through.

Entering the dreamworld felt too much like falling through the floor, leaving everything solid and reliable behind. She held on tight to Gabriel. He was her only anchor in this world, her guide and protector, sensing her worries and calming them. It chafed at her to be so reliant on him, but for the moment she had no choice.

They landed on a flat stretch of valley sandwiched between two hills, one thickly forested, the other almost clear. A thin stretch of paved road snaked through the valley alongside a fast bubbling creek, both leading towards an old timber house built on the riverside. Everywhere the smells of grass and flowers and fresh water greeted them. As they watched, the front door of the house swung open and out walked Bomber wearing a crisp Army dress uniform, kitbag over his shoulder.

"This is the house where I grew up," he said. He pointed to the water.

"I used to swim in that creek, and some days my dad and I would go pick blueberries in the forest."

Then he looked down at himself, at his uniform, and frowned. "This must be the day I left to join the Army."

As if on cue a black town car pulled up by the front door in a cloud of dust. Two uniformed officers, one in blue and one in green, got out and saluted Bomber. "Private Jacob Dusther?" one of them asked.

"No," he replied. "That's not me."

The army man furrowed his brow. "Then who are you?"

"I..." Bomber swallowed, fear and confusion choking him, and suddenly he dropped the kitbag and drew his pistol. He fired before the men could reach their weapons. Both fell dead on the ground, then vanished into smoke along with their car. In moments there was nothing to suggest they'd ever been there. Then he turned the pistol on Gabriel.

"This is some kind of trick," Bomber spat. "You're just after my real name. You're not having it!"

"It looks like he's brought us in too early," Gabriel said to Gina, unworried. "Strong memories are annoying like that, they tend to work like magnets. Let's skip forward."

With a wave of Gabriel's hand, the gun disappeared, and the world vanished into a fog as thick as bricks. At first Gina couldn't see her hands in front of her face. Then, slowly, new environments started to take shape around them, colour bleeding into the white. Gina had a vague sense of half-remembered years passing by her in both directions, caught a fleeting impression of the car with the two army men arriving at the house a second time, now taking Bomber away with them. But then, before the world could fully resolve, everything distorted and tumbled into chaos.

Random shapes and colours flashed across Gina's vision. Noise bashed into her ears like an old optical disc grinding to pieces in its player. Even the smell of the place was wrong; she caught a whiff of sea smell without any water in sight, then a hint of freshly cut grass, then a powerful reek of formaldehyde. Waves of crippling nausea overpowered her, and she doubled over retching, gagging up imaginary vomit.

"What's happening?!" she wailed in between coughs.

"You didn't tell me he had a memory block!" rasped Gabriel. She could barely make out his voice through the cacophony of sensory input. A single sound rose slowly over the din, however, and she soon recognised it. It was Bomber's voice, screaming.

"It's killing him!" Gabriel told her, pulling her up to her feet. "Quickly, focus on me, everything you've got!"

She nodded and started to concentrate on him, pouring her will into him like she'd done before, but this time he was a channel for her power rather than the target.

His teeth were set and straining. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and she wondered how he could contain this much mental violence. Instinctively she knew he was holding together Bomber's mind by sheer force of will, and she could feel him start to shake from the effort. Blinding pain echoed from his mind to hers, turning her vision red, but she held on by her fingernails and kept her focus, knowing what was at stake. Faint strains of music played in her ears, the distorted images flashed faster and faster, the chaos around her reached a fever pitch.

"Now," said Gabriel, and the world exploded.

Brightness. Gina tumbled half-alive in the mental shockwave, farther and farther until she couldn't sense Gabriel or Bomber anymore, couldn't feel anything anymore. All she could see was endless white with no edges or corners. Her senses returned enough to start calling for help, screaming at the top of her lungs, but nobody answered. She floated adrift in the fog.

It seemed like hours passed while she was lost in the white nothingness. No matter where Gina flew, no matter how hard she waved her arms, no matter how loud she shouted, nothing happened and nobody came to her rescue. No Bomber, no Gabriel, no mysterious stranger. Just Gina, herself and her screaming panic.

It wasn't until she calmed down that she started to sense things. Fragments of thought flashing by her. Half-heard phrases, stray images on the wind. She seized onto them searching for anything familiar, but wherever she was, she couldn't feel a single landmark or clear direction. Trying to reach out and touch the people proved equally useless. No one could hear her.

She let out a long, tired sigh. "You sure know how to find trouble, girl." Then she took another look at the white between-place, muttering, "And apparently you're now one with the fucking cosmos or something. I'd like to get off this train now."

"So why don't you put on the brakes and take control?" asked a familiar voice, and Gina stopped dead in her tracks as a tall, slender Chinese woman in white robes walked out of the mist. Every part of her seemed to glow with light except the eyes, which were shaped like almonds, brown as coffee, and pierced Gina like a pair of needles.

"Fuck me," she whispered. Then she took a hold of herself and added, "If you're dead, Onu, why do I keep seeing you?"

The vision of Onounu snorted at that, tried to hold in her amusement, and failed completely. Instead she held a graceful hand in front of her mouth as she burst into a long, rich laugh. When she finally finished, she smiled and answered, "You tell me."

"Are you real?" asked Gina. "Is this, like... the afterlife?"

Onounu snorted at the ridiculousness of the question. "Of course I'm not real, Gina. I'm dead. What you see is just the personification of your memories of Onounu, constructed by your mind into a form that you can talk to."

Gina stared at the face of her late friend, utterly perplexed. "Huh," she said. "I can do that?"

"Oh yeah." Onu smiled. "Your brain can be smarter than you are sometimes. It's decided you need a friend to hold your hand and kick your ass, so here I am."

"Man, I wish all my hallucinations were this lucid." Gina ran a hand through her dishevelled hair and rubbed the wildness out of her eyes. When she finished, she felt a little bit less like a frightened animal lost in the woods and a little more like a civilised human being. "So," she continued, "what am I supposed to talk to you about?"

"That's up to you. I'm just a part of you, Gina, I don't know anything you don't."

"That ain't entirely helpful, you know," said Gina.

Onu clucked with disapproval. "Since when do we use the word 'ain't'?"

"Bite me," said Gina, and she turned her back. It was easier to speak to this thing when she couldn't see the face of her dead friend. "Look, the thing is, I'm lost. I want to get back to familiar territory, but I can't find any."

Humming, Onu assumed a thinking pose, tapping two fingertips against her cheek. "Maybe you shouldn't be looking for familiar ground, but familiar people."

"I did! It didn't work!"

"Then maybe you haven't been trying hard enough," Onu said reproachfully.

"Seriously, bite me. I don't have time to be abused by figments of my own imagination."

Onu took a few steps towards Gina, walking on thin air, until they were standing face to face. Then Onu slapped her right across the cheek. Gina shrank away, hiding her stinging face, and looked at her friend in complete horror. "You!" she gasped. "You!"

"Grow up and get your head on straight, girl," Onu snapped. "This self-pity bullshit is what got you here in the first place. I'm not sure what the hell you're playing at out there, but it doesn't make sense half the time and it's fucking scary the other half."

Gina's head was still spinning. The real Onounu would never have spoken to her like that. She was gentle, she was kind. "You mean Gabriel...?" she blurted.

"What the fuck did you think I meant?! Yes, I mean Gabriel!"

Gina bristled and countered, "I don't care what you think! He's nice to me--" She saw the slap coming this time, ducked under it and moved with anger-fuelled quickness. She pushed Onu backwards to land on her rump and stood over her, looking down. Before the phantom could say anything, Gina spoke with ice in her voice. "Whatever the fuck you are, part of me or not, I make my own choices and my own decisions. I don't need any lectures and I sure as hell don't need you."

She spun on her heel and started to walk away. There was no response. When she looked back the phantom was gone, and where it had been she could now make out a patch of grey on the horizon, the only thing out of the ordinary she'd seen so far.

At first there seemed to be nothing there. Then faint voices came to her, a man and a woman, raised in argument. She moved in closer and swam into reality.

A dark room rushed out at her, lit only by a few dimmed lights. Glancing outside, she could tell it was near the top of a truly impressive skyscraper, high above the yellow streetlights outside. Covered walkways linked the individual buildings with each other as well as with massive permanent airships or semi-permanent mooring stations for private ships. A hundred colourful holograms played through the sky, but only one caught her attention -- it flashed the letters, 'Welcome to Laputa.'

"Just shut up and find them!" Rat shouted at the man suspended in an impressive VR rig. Jock. Gina squealed and moved closer, trying to get their attention, but they didn't seem to hear her.

Jock growled, "For the last time, I've been trying for the last forty hours, and there's no sign of them. Not a blip. It's like they just dropped off the fucking planet."

"I thought you were supposed to be a fuckin' cowboy. Maybe you're getting old, is that it? You're, what, thirty? Forty?"

"I'm twenty-eight," spat Jock.

"Sounds over the hill to me." Rat crossed her arms and sat down to glower at him.

"If you think you could do a better job then you're welcome up here." Jock swivelled around in his rig to face her. "You want to be a cowboy so bad, you come strap in and prove you got what it takes, or sit down and shut the fuck up." He didn't get a response; Rat only glared at him some more. He turned back to his original facing and muttered, "Why in hell would you want to be a cowboy, anyway?"

Rat snorted. "What are you on, man? You got it all. People fall over themselves just to give you stuff. You got power, you just jack in and you can do anything."

A bitter laugh escaped Jock's lips, and he blurted, "Tell me that's not what you really think."

"Hey, I know it's tough gettin' up the rankings, but once you--"

"Once you get some points you're just as much of a tool as you ever were," Jock said, his tone deadly serious. "You just don't get it, do you? You have no clue what it's all about." Rat emitted a questioning grunt, and he sighed. "How do you get on the ranking, Alex? You do it by pulling a job. Most wannabes don't even get that far, they're caught on their first ride, but it's the same if you've pulled one job or a hundred. You're still looking to do other people's dirty work."

"Doesn't bother me," argued Rat.

Jock suddenly exploded. "Fuck me! Are you fucking retarded?! Do you really have that much pig shit over your eyes that you can't see what's right in front of you?" He didn't wait for a response. "I keep trying to explain this to you. Hackers don't have power, Alex. We don't become kings, or creators, or legends. We just follow orders. That's all hackers ever do, they serve others."

"That's not true! The Hacker Nations are owned by hackers, they got presidents and everything. Or I could make it own my own. You used to be a freelancer."

"That was years ago, Alex. It can't be done anymore, you can't get a job now without signing up to the Nations. The net's tame, there's Feds and Nations watchdogs everywhere, no places left to hide. Why do you think I signed up with the Emperor in the first place?" He paused to think about how to go on. "And what do the Nations do, boy? They take contracts from countries to crack other countries. And what do they do when one of us leaves too much evidence on a job? They catch him, they disavow him, and they extradite him. Doesn't matter how high up you are. If you get indiscrete, you're gone, no questions asked. Because there's always another talented young idiot to step into the vacancy. If your victims can't collect enough evidence on you, then someone below you in the rankings will be happy to lend them a hand!"

Jock was panting now, almost leaning out of the rig, but then all the air suddenly went out of him and he sank back. His voice continued, but smaller, subdued. "That stupid fucking hierarchy is all we've got. The feigned respect, the phoney glamour. Free stuff and all the girls you can cope with until you get caught."

Rat studied the floor with hooded eyes. "It's what I want."

"It's not enough. It's never enough," Jock said softly, looking away.

She crossed over to where he hung strapped into the rig. Olive-coloured fingers turned his face up and pink lips planted themselves on his. He was too shocked to resist, spluttering only when Rat let him go.

"You--" he stammered, "I'm not--" He stopped short when she pulled her shirt off and lifted the VR crown from his head. He stared at her body with eyes wide as dinner plates and mouthed, "Oh."

Gina turned away to give them some privacy. Who'd have thought, those two together... But if she couldn't communicate with them then she didn't need to be here, especially as a peeping tom.

She slipped back into the white.

"Okay," Gina told herself as she searched the blank place for other doorways. "If there's one, there's got to be others. One of 'em must lead somewhere. Just get a hold of yourself. Think."

However, her thoughts always turned to the scene she'd just witnessed, and the more she thought about it the more it disturbed her. Not so much the idea of Rat hooking up with Jock -- although that was creepy enough -- but the facts were obvious. Rat and Jock were a zillion miles away. She couldn't possibly have seen them just now, but it was undeniably more than an illusion. She'd done something or tapped into some power that had opened a window to the other side of the world.

Nor could she ignore what the phantom had told her earlier. Put on the brakes and take control. Did it really imply that she could control this place if she wanted it badly enough, or at least control her place in it?

"You were thinking of familiar people," she said. "Maybe that's it. If you just think hard enough..."

She carefully selected a point a few feet in front of her. Then she closed her eyes and imagined a passage at that spot, leading to someplace dark but familiar, with her mental image of Bomber superimposed over everything. Wherever the passage went, it had to lead to him. Once she had a clear picture of what she wanted, she stepped forward without opening her eyes, and was assaulted by a blast of freezing cold.

Shivering, she opened her eyes and looked around, but still couldn't see anything. It was as cold as death. She drew her shirt tight about her and rubbed her arms to stave off the frost, but stopped when she heard footsteps echoing loud and close. Her teeth started to chatter as she listened.

"Who's this guy?" asked a voice, echoing strangely, as if it came from the bottom of a deep well. Gina felt his presence in the dark, a warm body in the cold, breath steaming in the air.

"Nobody," snorted another, deep and male. That answer didn't seem to satisfy the first voice, and the second sighed. "Another one of those speed jockeys from R&D. They broke him, so we got to fix him."

The first voice sounded shocked. "Jesus Christ, he's going back to combat after this?"

"Don't know. Last one got 'transferred' out in the dead of night, locked in some big fuckin' cage screaming and tearing at the bars. She was mental. Clawed the eyes out of two lab techs before they put her down." The man shrugged. "Who cares? Not our job."

"Fuckin' creepy, man. Do you think he's listening?"

"Listening? Marlow, he's dead. I know you're new, but we don't use this cryo shit for nothing. Put your hand on the glass and you'll freeze your skin off."

"So when do we decant him?"

"Couple hours and he'll be ready for reanimation. Better let the whitecoats know. C'mon, this place makes me hungry, I need a burger."

"Yeah, yeah." There was a loud mechanical thunk as if a set of lights had been switched off. It slowly started to get less cold, and when she heard a dull booming thump, she instantly knew it for what it was. A single heartbeat. Then, an eternity later, another. And another. It was happening every twenty minutes and speeding up.

The next thing she knew, the world around her was tumbling, and she felt the impact as her body hit some kind of hard metal slab. Icy water splashed all around her, but the slab was hot, almost hot enough to burn skin, and big clouds of steam rose up around her. Hurried hands wrapped her naked body in a toasty electric blanket. The heat soothed her convulsing muscles. It slowly seeped into her bones until she was warm, and she could make out people talking.

"Jacob," said a male voice, and the face attached to it swam into view. Gina gasped when she recognised it as colonel Obrin. "Jacob? Sergeant Dusther? Can you hear me?" Her mouth moved in response, but no sounds came out. Obrin's hand squeezed her shoulder. "It's okay, soldier, just relax. It's over."

When she finally got her voice back, she automatically husked, "SitRep, Sir?"

"You're back at the base. We recovered your body from the field after your mission, it's a little beat up, but you'll be fine. Lie back, we need to check your regen implant." The hand on her shoulder held her down gently while strange white devices of every description were passed over her and pressed against her skin. A man in a white coat gave the colonel a thumbs-down. Obrin nodded at him and turned back to Gina. He sighed, "Listen, Sergeant. I've got some bad news. There was a reporter at the scene, she caught some pretty bad footage of your mission, and has subsequently uncovered more about the project than we'd like anyone to know. SOCOM's ordered us to shut it down as part of the hush job."

"Don't understand," Gina replied.

"It's alright, son," said the colonel. "It's gonna be alright. The... the doctors are gonna be operatin' on you soon, you just do whatever they say. We'll... We'll meet up again someday."

"You goin' somewhere?" Gina stared dumbly at the syringe piercing her arm, and her vision quickly narrowed into dark tunnels. Everything seemed to grow farther and farther away.

Obrin smiled under his terrific moustache. "No, Jacob. You are."

Blackness overwhelmed her.

Gina took off her flight helmet, climbed out of the simulator, and saluted the instructor. The instructor -- a middle-aged woman with the gold oak leaf of an Air Force major on her sleeve -- didn't look up from her notepad, busy marking tick boxes on her grading sheet.

"You came in too hard on the landing," she muttered almost absently, but the depth of scorn in her voice was withering. "During the computer-unassisted trials, you failed to properly compensate for wind drift and coriolis force twice, causing you to miss the cradle entirely. On the third go you cut power to the rotors too early and hit it like a brick. If that were a real cradle and you were just an inch off, you could very well have smashed the cradle and your copter with it."

"I didn't, though," said Gina. No protest, no recrimination, just a simple statement of fact. The instructor looked up at her over the rims of her glasses.

"And that's the only reason why I'm passing you, pilot," she growled and put the pen away in her breast pocket. "You will have your full flight certificate by the end of next week." She threw Gina a dirty look before Gina could start to smile. "Don't think you have anything to be proud of yet. Now get back in that cockpit and practice without the computer until you get it right every damn time."

Gina grinned. She put her helmet back on with a heartfelt, "Yes, Ma'am!"

The instructor, unamused, gathered her paperwork and left the simulator bay, slamming the door behind her. Gina saluted her after she'd gone and tried in vain to wipe the smile off her face. It was hopeless. The culmination of all that training built into a huge sense of elation, and Gina's feet floated on clouds as she put them on the rungs back up to the simulator cockpit. Then, suddenly, a pair of hands clapped in the darkness, and Gina jumped with such surprise that she landed right back on the ground looking for the source of the noise.

"Not too bad, rookie," a woman's voice called from across the hall, echoing through the empty space. The owner appeared from behind one of the other cockpits and approached Gina, walking with a cocksure confidence that immediately set Gina's libido to raging. A mass of thick auburn hair danced around the shoulders of her uniform, an Army captain's bars gleaming on the epaulettes, and Gina didn't fail to notice how the fabric clung to her well-muscled body in all the wrong places.

"Who're you?" Gina asked. "Ma'am, I mean."

"Captain Sarah Caine, F Squadron, second in command," she replied with a smile. "Just here to check out the fresh meat they're putting on my team."

"Lieutenant Jacob Dusther," said Gina. "They didn't tell me I was bein' added to a squadron yet. Hell, I just got my wings!"

She chuckled to herself and shook her head. "We've been watching your progress since you get here, Jacob. This unit doesn't usually get trainees, but we were told you're a natural." She looked up at the simulator and ran her fingers along its smooth metal nose. "From what I can see, they weren't wrong."

"Thank you, Ma'am, but if you've been watching me for that long, why introduce yourself now? Why the theatrics?"

"'Cause we're likely to be seeing a lot more of each other in the near future," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I want you to know exactly who's in charge here, and that would be me. The Major doesn't like to deal with rookie screwups, he trusts me to make sure they don't happen."

"Yes, Ma'am," said Gina. "You're the boss."

"Good. Now that we have an understanding, you can come with me. I'll show you to your bunk in the morning."

Blinking at that comment, Gina blurted, "Ma'am?"

The captain just grabbed Gina's collar and pulled her along to a small private trailer in the officers' camp, only a short walk from the simulator, and shut the door behind them. The next thing Gina knew she was on the bed with most of her uniform missing.

They awoke when the sun started to peek in through the slits in the windowblinds. The captain rolled onto her side to look at Gina and said, "Just so you know, this isn't a relationship. As far as I'm concerned we're just using each other for sex. Right?"

"Yes, Ma'am," said Gina. "You're the boss."

"And before you ask, no, I don't do this with all the rookies. Just the ones I like."

"Good to know." Gina grinned up at the ceiling and thought, This'll be interesting. She was about to reach for the captain again when something pulled at her, like a cord attached to the base of her spine, and the isolated little world of the military base fell away from her at a million miles per second.

She came to with Gabriel's arms wrapped around her, saw the gentle smile on his face, sensed the floor and the air flowing across her skin, felt the reality of things around her to a level of detail that no memory, dream or simulation could achieve. "That's enough of that, girl," he whispered. "I nearly lost you out there."

"Sorry," she croaked. She tried rubbing her eyes, but her arms responded clumsily or not at all, as if they weren't her own arms anymore. "What's wrong?"

"You spent too long inside his head. You've gotten used to using his body, but your muscles aren't in the same place. It'll wear off." Without another word he lifted her off the floor, carrying her as if she were light as a feather, and deposited her in the seat of a simple wheelchair. "This'll help you until you're ready to start walking again."

"What about Bomber?"

"Still alive, but in a coma. The experience was pretty hard on his mind. I'll bring him out of it when the time's right, and ungh." There was a sharp crunch and he dropped straight down, a large pulpy dent in the back of his head. Gina gasped and twisted around in her chair to see Bomber standing there, holding a jagged length of pipe whose ends looked like they had been torn away by brute strength.

He looked at Gina with a perturbed expression and said, "What just happened, and why am I holding a pipe?"

She glanced up and down in horror, and Bomber went, "Oh." He bent down to check Gabriel's pulse and seemed to find none. "Well, this looks like a perfect time to get the hell out of here."

There were so many things Gina wanted to scream at him that she couldn't make up her mind. Bomber simply grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and started running, ignoring everything she said.

"Three ways to get off an airship," he recited to himself. "Boarding tubes, emergency parachutes, lifeboats. Parachutes are kept in a safety locker near every hatch. Lifeboats can be accessed through hatches in the floor. We're not on the ground so we can't use the tubes," he glanced out of one of the giant bay windows as they ran, "and parachutin' into the ocean ain't a brilliant idea. Lifeboat it is." He stopped at the next junction and pulled away one of the rich carpet tiles to reveal a hatch with a recessed metal handle. He grabbed the handle and twisted it, then pushed, opening the way into a tight staircase downwards.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" Gina roared at him. "You just bashed his brains in!"

Bomber lifted her out of the wheelchair and placed an experimental foot on the steps. "If you want an apology, don't waste your breath. I've just solved most of our problems."

"Not quite," said Gabriel from behind them. Bomber wheeled around, banging Gina's head against the wall, but not hard enough to do more than hurt. Gabriel continued, "You got the drop on me, Simon, and I respect that. So I'll make you a deal. You can leave, but she stays."

"Don't call me Simon," spat Bomber. "Whatever you think you know about me, you don't know shit."

"Don't be silly. I know exactly who you are." Gabriel smiled. "At first you fooled even me, but now it's clear. You're the chameleon. The man without a name. Simon Caine, Benjamin Marlow, Jeremy the Wanderer, Jacob Dusther, Aaron Thomason, these are all skins you've taken from others and worn to hide yourself. But what's your name, chameleon? Do you actually remember it?"

Teeth bared, Bomber took a step forward as if to attack, then remembered Gina cradled in his arms. He shook his head and said, "I'm not fallin' for it, you bastard. Your voodoo mind shit ain't gonna work on me. We're leaving whether you like it or not."

"Hey, listen, it's okay," interjected Gina. "I'll be okay. Just get the hell out of here, save yourself."

"No." Bomber met her eyes, full of rage and frustration, betrayal and fierce protectiveness. "I'm not letting him do to you what he did to Jez. We're going together, even if I've got to blast this ship to bits around us."

A sharp laugh burst from Gabriel's lips, and he looked at Bomber like a man with a gun might look at some slope-browed creature wearing animal skins and waving a club. "You'd tear me limb from limb if you had the chance, wouldn't you? So much bottled-up anger, all coming out in one rush." He glanced over his shoulder at Jezebel arriving from down the hallway. "Last chance, Simon. Take the offer. You won't get another."

Slowly, resentfully, Bomber put Gina back down in her chair and stood snarling at Gabriel, who nodded approval. Gina squeezed Bomber's arm to let him know it was all right.

"Excellent," said Gabriel. "Goodbye." He closed his eyes, and Gina could sense the whirlwind of mental force lashing out from across the room, straight towards Bomber. Horror gripped her heart when she realised Gabriel was going to kill him. He'd simply been waiting until Gina was out of the firing line.

She reacted, but her muscles moved so slowly, so clumsily, as she staggered to her feet and jumped in between them. Bomber seemed to understand the situation and disappeared through the emergency hatch, but that would offer no protection from Gabriel. In desperation she reached out, grabbed on to Gabriel's mind like a limpet and dragged it forcibly into the dreamworld.

Part 18

Gina clenched her jaw as she tumbled wildly down a bottomless black pit. Lightning flashed and boomed somewhere in the distance, some kind of discharge, a dreamworld representation of their battle of wills. Her arms were locked around Gabriel's legs. He tried to kick her off, claw his way up out of the dream, but she held on. How much longer she could keep it up, she didn't know. Every time he battered at the walls of their temporary prison it was like taking a baseball bat to her head, and there was no escape.

"Let go," Gabriel called back. "He's dangerous to you and to me, it's got to be done!"

"I won't let you kill him!" she roared with her mind as much as her mouth, and Gabriel faltered for a moment against the power of her resolve. He looked down at her face, his eyes wide. She screamed, "Do you understand?! I won't let you, ever!"

Gabriel bared his teeth and stopped in mid-air. Gina suddenly felt a hard floor under her feet and rolled away from him, while Gabriel touched down on the invisible plane with cold precision. He towered over her, his expression both angry and confused.

"I don't understand you, Gina," he said. Gina felt frustration in him, urgency, annoyance at her for her stubbornness. There was no evil in his decision to kill Bomber, no more than a vague touch of jealousy -- to Gabriel it was a purely practical choice.

He continued, "You were ready to help erase his every memory of you, and now here you are, trying so hard to stop me from simply removing him. It doesn't make any sense."

She climbed to her feet and returned his stare, her vision blurring in time with the pounding in her head. "You'd understand if you were a human fucking being," she forced through her hoarse throat. "I don't care if it's convenient, or if you think it's justified. You're not killing him."

"What difference would it make to you?"

"Do you even remember what you said, Gabriel?" she asked him. "Nobody was supposed to die on this ship. Nobody, not even Bomber."

"Plans change, Gina. You have no idea how much bad news this guy really is."

"That's not the point!" she went on angrily. "He's not just a body, none of them are! I've killed people, really killed them, blood and guts and..." She quickly shook off the nightmares building behind her eyes. Her knees started to buckle, but she made herself stand and whispered, "They're people. They're more than objects, more than just flesh and bone, you're fucking living proof of that! And when you forget that, when you forget what makes them unique and irreplaceable, all you see is another bleeding body on the floor in front of you."

"So it's not him you care about, huh?" he replied in a clinical tone. "You just don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Stop it. It's not gonna work, you can't manipulate me, not this time."

"I haven't tried," he pointed out.

"No. No, you haven't." She took a deep breath to steady herself and rally her thoughts. "So did you think there was something special between us? That I care about you just 'cause of a lay?"

"That's not why I think it, I'd know if you were just trying to use me. Please, Gina, stop this now and we can still--"

"You're not killing him," she repeated thickly, her eyes focused on the spot where she thought he was standing. She could no longer see through the red haze. "You'll have to go through me first."

"Are you that hell-bent on committing suicide?" he asked. "I am trying to save your life! If you don't end up killing yourself here, then he'll do the job for you! I don't care what you think, you're important to me. Just stop this and we can forget the whole thing ever happened."

She shifted her weight to keep from falling over, head spinning. There was music playing somewhere, the same annoying tune over and over and getting louder and louder every second, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't seem to make it go away. She choked out, "Make a decision, Gabriel."

"I-- I can't--" He hesitated, bit his tongue. Gina felt the emotions boiling inside him. He was conflicted and unsure, more vulnerable she had ever seen him, yet at the same time she could feel the immense grip of his mental power starting to squeeze her from all sides. He still wanted her to surrender, didn't know how far he'd go if she forced him...

"Just fucking do it," she spat. The pressure around her built up, slowly crushing her insides together, making it difficult to breathe. It was like being caught in a hydraulic press. Something had to give way soon.

"Stop it!" he shouted, his heart racing close to panic. "I don't want to do this!"

Gina bared her teeth into a tortured smile. Breathlessly she kept on pushing him, goading him. "Come on. Show me that cold-hearted killer that's in there. Show me how you do it."

The intense pressure on her chest increased, forcing a grunt of pain out of her lungs with the last of her air. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see, could barely feel her bones starting to crack. But she could sense his eyes staring at her, wide and full of madness, like a cornered animal. For an endless moment she knew with absolute certainty that he was going to kill her. Her consciousness slowly went black.

All of a sudden the weight dropped away from her. She collapsed to the ground gasping for air, and Gabriel fell to his knees beside her, wanting to touch -- to see if she was alright -- but unable to lift an arm towards her.

"I knew it," she said between gasps. "Knew you couldn't."

He hung his head. "I didn't." After a long pause, he tried to look up but couldn't meet her eyes. He simply said, "Take your friend and go. Do whatever you need to do. Just come back."

Haltingly, she pushed her arm across the floor to take his hand. "Okay."

The dreamworld faded away in front of her eyes.

"Step away from him!" yelled a woman's voice, at first unfamiliar, then slowly matched to memories sparking in Gina's disoriented brain. The woman. Jezebel. She stood at the end of the hallway in a shooting stance, pistol held in front with both hands, aimed at Bomber -- who stood over Gabriel's prone body with finger on the trigger. For a moment Gina wondered where he'd gotten hold of a new gun, but it didn't come as much of a surprise. It was an essential part of him. Wherever he went he would either already be carrying a firearm, or he would liberate one at the first opportunity.

"Put it down, Jez," he replied coldly. "You shoot me, he'll be dead before you're finished pullin' the trigger."

Jezebel took a careful step forward, never lowering her eyes or her weapon. "It wasn't a request, Simon. I got boosts a lot like yours, so don't push your luck. Step away."

"Don't try to bluff me."

A slow grin spread across her face at that. "I was a Marine field lieutenant, Simon. You really wanna find out what my implants are like?"

"Stop," croaked Gina. Her mouth was dry as bone, and she worked to get some saliva into it. "Don't."

"Gina?" Bomber asked without turning his head. It was a hundred questions and meanings compressed into two syllables.

"I'm okay," she coughed, "just put your guns down. It's all right."

He ignored her, white-knuckled fingers squeezing cold steel. "All right?" he barked. "'All right' ain't the term I'd use."

Gina never knew someone could feel so betrayed. It was a tight ball of darkness in his heart, layers of twisted emotion curled around a gallery of distorted faces, many of which she recognised. There was Colonel Obrin and captain Caine, the old copter-pilot girlfriend. Jock and the Emperor. East, and an unfamiliar man in a Fed uniform. Gabriel and Jezebel featured prominently, with a whole furnace of rage dedicated solely to them. But even that paled before the coldness at his core, the resentment he felt for Gina.

She could feel his emotions as if they were her own. Jezebel's as well, her thoughts as clear and determined as her expression, a stark contrast to Bomber's calculating fury.

"I'm not putting anything down until he steps away," Jezebel said icily.

Gabriel swallowed hard and shook his head, pushing himself an inch up off the floor, then grumbled over his shoulder, "Jez, do it." Flame-coloured eyes turned to look at Gina, and he added, "We've... reached an agreement."

"You-- What did you do to her?" hissed Bomber. He grabbed Gabriel by his hair and shoved the gun up under his chin. He roared, "What did you do?!" When he got no answer, he pulled back the hammer of his pistol with a menacing little click. Jezebel's fingers twitched in shock, and she just barely managed to stop herself from pulling the trigger. Bomber, however, was past caring about her, all his attention focused on Gabriel. "I'm done playin' around with you, madboy. You're gonna give me some answers. And don't you even think of tryin' anything on me. Bashing you with a pipe might not take, but I'm pretty sure this will."

Struggling to her knees, Gina cried, "He didn't do anything! They're letting us go!"

"We are?" blurted Jezebel. The very idea seemed offensive to her. As little as she or anyone knew for sure about Bomber, the thought of letting him run free sent all kinds of alarm bells ringing in her head.

Bomber glanced from Gabriel to Jezebel and back, not sure what to think. His blood thrummed with adrenaline. Every heartbeat sent a hypercharged burst of pain through his head. He snarled, "Bullshit. I'm not fallin' for any more mind control crap! Now get back!" He kneed Gabriel in the stomach, knocking all the air out of his body. In the same instant his weapon arm flashed up to train on Jezebel.

For Jezebel there was only one possible reaction. She squeezed. A rip of automatic gunfire burst out from her pistol, bullets whizzing through the air where Bomber had been. He had planned for her move and was already out of the way, only mildly distracted by a single bullet grazing his arm. Before Jezebel even realised her error, Bomber had calmly put one round through her heart and another through her head. Calculated down to the millisecond and executed with absolute ruthlessness, like a chess match to the death.

Silence descended like a shroud. The moment hung in the air, shock too real for the human mind to accept. They might not all have known Jezebel very well, but she had been real. She was a person, something more than the sum of her physical parts. All the things that made her what she was poured out of her with the torrent of blood...

...and then reality flooded back in. Gina caught sight of Gabriel slowly rising to his feet. The expression on his face turned her blood to ice in her veins. She closed her eyes and willed Bomber to stop, to turn and run like hell. He hesitated only a heartbeat before moving, almost leaping the distance towards Gina.

Gabriel didn't move to stop them, only looked. Watched Bomber grab her and drag her down into the hatch. His voice, however, reverberated in their heads like bouncing pebbles, undiminished by distance. "You were right, Simon," he said in the tones of Death itself. "We are done playing."

"This isn't how it was supposed to happen," said Gina, helping to rip open the lifeboat door. Gabriel landed heavily on the metal grating behind them, but Bomber slammed the door in a hurry and locked it shut. Gina strapped herself into one of the six empty seats, still in shock, not sure whether she was doing the right thing. "It's wrong, it's all wrong!"

"Too late for that now," Bomber replied. He reached for the lifeboat release switch, and froze as he saw Gabriel's face right outside the porthole. To his horror, the door lock -- only operable from the inside -- started to undo itself without being touched.

"I let your friend talk me out of killing you," Gabriel murmured. "That was my mistake. It won't happen again."

Gina leaned forward, pleading, "Please!" She wasn't quite sure what she was begging for, but it was the only thing she could think to say. Gabriel's eyes flicked to her for an instant. That's when Bomber saw his chance.

"Hold on!" he barked as the door flung open, and flipped the switch that sent the lifeboat tumbling into freefall, thousands of metres above the ocean. Before Gabriel could react, Bomber leaped out of the falling pod and tackled him. That was the last glimpse Gina caught of Bomber, strapped in and hurtling away from the airship at terrifying speed, the lifeboat door left flapping and banging on its hinges.

All the breath was ripped out of her lungs by the thin atmosphere at this height, but she screamed anyway, a soundless cry of pure anguish, fear, frustration and helplessness. The lifeboat tumbled wildly, bone-crushing G forces pressing down on Gina's chest. Her lungs felt like they were going to burst. Then, somewhere in the deep recesses of the capsule, an oxygen sensor realised that there was nothing to breathe inside and automatically slapped an oxygen mask over Gina's face.

She passed out just as the first molecules of breathable air enter her nostrils.

The shock of the lifeboat hitting the water jolted her halfway into consciousness. Freezing cold water running around her ankles did the rest. She squealed and gasped in surprise, trying to get her feet out of the murky Atlantic sludge while her clumsy hands fumbled with the seatbelt. She was already shivering from the cold. No lifejacket on, no waterproof clothes, nothing. And the lifeboat was sinking fast.

Finally she managed to get the seatbelt undone and sloshed through the mounting water to reach the main control panel. She found a large button labelled 'INFLATE' and bashed it with the heel of her hand. A large orange airbag deployed out the side near the hatch and inflated itself. Another, symmetrical airbag spluttered out the other side but refused to inflate. Gina cursed her luck.

Her boots filling with water, she tore at the equipment locker until it came open, then grabbed whatever looked handy. Flotation jacket, flare gun, water filter, a bag of protein bars and a battery-powered heat strap that would keep her torso from going hypothermic. She tried the emergency mobile phone but the provider had long gone out of business, leaving it without a signal. She chucked it over her shoulder and started up the ladder, leaving the first aid kit as too big and clumsy to carry up with her.

Every part of her dripped as she sat down. Her jeans were drenched through, as was her jacket, but she had no other clothes to wear. She looked around at the lightening sky and felt a sudden stab of homesickness. She was terrified and alone, and there was no one to help her. The world was empty.

The feeling rattled her to her core. Never in her life had she been more than a few metres away from another human being, probably more than willing to help if she needed anything, just based on her looks. Even in New Orleans she'd had Bomber, the driver, even the gunmen. Now she could look from horizon to horizon without seeing a solitary sign of life. Even the airship had disappeared, either long gone or rendered invisible against the clouds.

"Shit," she said, looking at what her world had shrunk to. A half-sunken lifeboat, bobbing up and down in the ocean, still taking on water. The icy Atlantic wind whipped past her on all sides, and she started to shiver. Numb fingers undid her jacket, jeans, shirt and bra, all of them cold and limp with seawater. She drew the line at panties, though -- soaked as they might be, she wasn't about to sit completely naked on a liferaft at sea for any amount of time.

Her teeth started to chatter while she fumbled with the heat strap. The old velcro fastenings didn't want to stick together very well anymore. Once secured she hit the button, and warm relief poured into her muscles, instant heat like an electric blanket all around her. But that wouldn't protect her from the wind or the sea. Reading the instructions on the strap, she put her wet shirt back on over it, and watched it slowly start to dry with dull curiosity.

She didn't know how long she sat there, dressed in nothing but a shirt and a pair of panties. The hours dragged on and on. She still had the mobile phone Rat had given her, tucked into a pocket of her jeans, but whenever she tried to make a call it informed her that her number had been blocked. Probably Gabriel's doing.

Once she searched for the little spark of him inside her head, but she couldn't find it anymore.

Night fell all too quickly. The sickly grey sky turned yellow, then indigo, then black. There were no stars. No light except a stubborn little LED inside the lifeboat that refused to die, sending its faint glow up through the murky waters to hold back the darkness. For her. In this tiny ocean world, it was her only friend.

She tried to rub the sitting cramps from her legs, but didn't dare move too much for fear of sinking. The waves remained calm and flaccid, but she didn't know what she'd do if the wind really picked up. She never considered drowning an option, but it was starting to look inevitable.

At some point she fell asleep. When or how she didn't know, but it could only have been out of pure exhaustion. She awoke at sunup, just as tired as before, and watched the lighter shadow move up along the thick grey clouds. Sunrises and sets had always fascinated her. What wonders lay hidden behind the sky's blanket. She'd never known what it really looked like until Bomber took her to Austin.

There were a lot of things she'd never have known if it weren't for Bomber. What it felt like to kill someone. Or betray someone, even for their own good. Why girls would pretend to be boys, what happened to you in a Fed prison, what it was like to have someone force their way into your mind and take out everything they wanted to know. And being made to enjoy it.

She understood why Jezebel did what she did. Jez knew she was being manipulated, recognised it for what it was, and didn't care. It didn't matter to her, didn't change the way she felt.

Gina had come to love Gabriel in her own way, despite knowing, feeling. Despite the way he frightened her. She could talk to him, though, maybe even bring him around to a less fucked-up way of thinking. He wasn't beyond help. Maybe she was all he needed. That annoying spark of hope left her unable to dismiss her feelings for him.

And maybe he was just using her like he used everyone else, and it all fitted into his grand plan somehow. She still had no idea what any of it meant. The burnt city still flashed across her eyelids from time to time, although the artifact was receding. His little workplace in Radiation Alley, the nanobots, the AI doing his bidding. So many questions she never got to ask.

Another night crept up on her. The sea had been rowdy during the day, but it became far more agitated as the inky blackness swallowed up the world. Gina threw up the bits of protein she'd managed to choke down, and held on for dear life against the pitching and rolling of her little raft. Her arms and legs started to ache from the effort. Her jeans and jacket, which she'd used as a makeshift blanket, washed away as a wall of water rolled over her. She spat out salt water, praying for the raft to hold together, and it didn't break apart just yet.

Brushing the drenched hair out of her eyes, something in the distance caught her eye. A light. Somewhere out there, a light was burning, and that meant a ship or some type of land. She held on as best she could and dug her flare gun out of the large pouch at the front of the heat strap. Holding it up at the sky, she pulled the trigger and quietly promised lots of things to any deity who cared to get involved.

A single red flare arced into the sky. It burned brightly for a few seconds, then fizzled out again on its way back down. Gina pulled the trigger again just to be safe. A second flare shot out. If they missed the first one, then this one at least should get through.

She clung to her raft and wished the tiny little lights to get closer as another wave broke over her.

The ship had to have seen her. The lights grew slowly in the distance, only a few miles away now, often hidden from sight for terrifying seconds by the rising and falling of the waves. Another wave battered against Gina's body, trying to knock loose the cramped, frozen fingers which clung so desperately to the plastic airbag. Just a few minutes more, she told them. Just a few minutes and she'd be saved.

Then the skies opened up. A torrential downpour of freezing rain hid the lights from her eyes, and she scrambled desperately to get another flare up into the sky. It launched, but sputtered and fizzled out before it even reached the top of its arc. Gina shook the gun and tried to fire again. It did nothing.

She banged it against the metal shell of the lifeboat, trying to get it to do something, but in her desperation she took her eye off the sea. Suddenly she gasped and looked up. Out of nowhere there was the biggest wave she had ever seen in her life. It loomed over her, an even deeper darkness against the night sky, and swallowed her up with all its force. Her fingers slipped. She was floating, knocked out of her senses by the wave, and tried to call out for help.

The lights were so close now, she could almost reach out and touch them. Her hoarse throat soon stopped making any noise at all, and she couldn't even lift her arm to wave as the lights passed her. What a shame to fail when her salvation was so close at hand... Something dragged her under, and she didn't resist. She had no fight left in her.

Suddenly the water dropped away. It sloshed off her in drips and streams, and she landed on something hard, rough ropes and wood grating against her skin. Careful hands cut off the remains of her wet clothes and wrapped her up in a blanket. She knew what the worried eyes behind the hands were thinking. Had they arrived too late?

Somebody put a cup to her lips and poured hot coffee down her throat. Nothing had ever tasted so good. Her arms spasmed in pain as circulation returned, and everything went black.

It was light again when she opened her puffy eyes. She hung in a hammock aboard some kind of ship, wrapped up in a wet but warm blanket, and she saw her clothes hung over a small electric heater in the corner. A shirt and a pair of panties. This was all she owned in the entire world.

She struggled out of the hammock and landed heavily on the real wooden floor. She looked at it with a certain degree of suspicion. Nobody had used wood to build boats for decades. Passing on the still-dripping clothes, she staggered out of the room wearing only her blanket. She didn't know why that seemed like a good idea.

The opposite door on the corridor was open, leading to some kind of galley. A woman wearing a red headcloth stood behind the kitchen counter, apparently cooking something. Gina stared at her. She was wide as a rugby player and her belly jiggled as she walked, but she seemed to be having fun. She sang a tune in some unfamiliar language.

She caught sight of Gina when she turned back to put something on the counter. She cried out in shock and dropped her wooden spoon, rushing over to try and push her back into bed, but Gina had no time for that. She wanted to know where she was. So she dodged the large woman and headed back up the corridor, up the stairs to the light.

A bright yellow sun greeted her, caressed her face and started to dry her still-wet hair. A cool breeze played aimlessly in every direction, and the waves were calm. Further on deck, three men in thick brown coats were hauling in a net of ultra-fine nanomesh by way of frayed hemp rope and a squeaky set of pulleys. The net was filled with evil-looking brown sludge, which they deposited in a tank at the front of the ship.

"The fuck is this?" Gina wondered aloud.

"Ah, you're up," said a deep voice from behind her. She turned to look, and her eyes found a brown-skinned man larger than the galley cook, as broad as he was tall, his massive belly restrained by a thick leather belt. He wore a waterproof blue anorak, a pair of brown jeans and a baseball cap, as well as a luxurious black beard of a size and softness that other men could only envy.

He continued, "We picked you up alone in the water last night. Hypothermic, going into shock, very bad. Maryam was worried you might not live to see the morning, she tended to you all night. And here you are!"

She nodded. Was that how it had gone? She thought so, but her memory seemed fuzzy, like looking at it through the wrong pair of spectacles. Her head ached as if a rock band had just moved in and were testing out the drums. She pulled the blanket tighter around her against the wind. "Who are you? Is this your ship?"

"This is indeed my boat. My name is Mahmoud, but you may call me Captain if you like. You have already met my wife Maryam." He gestured down the steps at the large woman in her nightgown and red headcloth, who gave him the evil eye before trudging off to mind the pots. "Forgive her, she worries."

Gina asked, "So where are we, Mahmoud? And what are you doing here?"

"Why, we are fishermen, miss," he proclaimed enthusiastically, "and this around you is what we call the sea."

She snorted with humour at Mahmoud's delivery. "Fishermen. What the hell's there left to fish out here?"

"The Red Tide," he murmured. "You would call it 'harmful algal blooms'. The Federation pays us to dredge the algae when it gets thick, keep it from poisoning the water too badly. Wouldn't want one of the rich children to get sick swimming. Some days we even get some fish caught in the filter. Good eating!"

A cold shiver crept up Gina's spine. Within moments the woman, Maryam, returned with big bowls of stew piled in her arms, one for every member of the crew -- and a particularly full bowl for their unexpected guest. Strangely enough it didn't smell of moulded protein, and a quick taste confirmed that fact. Real beef. She nearly threw up from the sheer richness of it, but she choked down bite after bite anyway, too good and far too expensive to waste.

"Thank you," she told Maryam as the woman returned to her husband. Gina wasn't sure Maryam understood until she broke into a big smile and started belting out words in a thick English accent.

"Thass aight, hen!" she blathered at a volume that seemed to embarrass Mahmoud. "Jus' glad we got you all safe and dry and owt!" After a moment's thought she added, "D'you know when you'll be wantin' off? We only put into port when we go 'ome, really, but we c'n make an esseption!"

"No, that's okay, thank you. I got nowhere else to go at the moment and I don't want to hold you up any more than I already have." Still shivering in the wet blanket. "I'm lost," she said.

The big woman smiled again. "Don't worry, dear. Life will always find you."

Gina didn't know if she wanted that to be true or not.

### TO BE CONTINUED . . .

What follows is a preview chapter of the next volume of STREET, which will be continued in serial format on the STREET website (www.streetofeyes.com). The website also features discussion forums for the story, related art and downloads, and much more!

YEAR TWO: CLAIRVOYANCE

Gina Hart had been known by many names in her lifetime. She went through three identities before even settling on 'Gina', let alone a permanent last name. It took her more than a year to find that last name, trying out new ones and then discarding the empty husks behind her, but she knew perfection the moment she heard it. It just sounded so right together. 'Gina Hart'. Like a film star.

She wondered what her parents would think of it. Director and Mrs. Vaughan would probably be aghast, their darling girl going around by an appellation fit only for some manner of prostitute. But there was nothing left of their naive little daughter inside the woman she had become.

Her hammock rolled again, and she remembered that she was on a ship. She'd been drowning, but some people dragged her out of the water and gave her food and a place to sleep. She really ought to get up and thank them. She tried to do it, but found her muscles wouldn't respond. The next moment there was a big woman by her hammock murmuring soothing words that Gina couldn't understand, piling cold cloths on Gina's forehead. A dark-skinned man with a huge beard stood beside her looking worried. Gina couldn't understand him either. Their voices sounded so distant, like her head was wrapped tight with clingfilm.

Who were they? What was happening? How did she get here? Nothing made sense. She couldn't think, couldn't concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds at a time.

They're the people who rescued you, said a voice inside her, the voice that remembered things. She didn't hear it much anymore. It continued, You have a fever. You were in the cold water a long time.

The memories came back to her in waves, imperfect and full of holes. So many things had happened to her. Too many, too intense, too weird. She could no longer tell what had really happened and what was just a fever dream.

She remembered her life before everything. She'd been a freelance telepath, selling her mind for money, taking drugs that let her feel other people's thoughts and emotions. Then a man came to her and promised her a job she should never have taken. They rode together in a car, or it might have been a plane. They met more people, but foremost among them was another man, a dangerous man. She looked inside his head and at first found only horror.

The terrible images repeated themselves in front of her eyes, made more powerful than ever by the fever burning in her body. Half-melted steel skeletons of buildings leaning and sagging in every direction. Rows of trees stripped of their leaves and branches, dead or dying in the poisoned ground. Ash statues that had once been people, now frozen in time at the moment of their death. A red sky that only bled more evil down onto the world. The streets echoed to the soft keening of the wind, like the sound of a hundred voices screaming in the distance. A dead city mourning itself.

Her confused thoughts went back to the time before she became a telepath, before she took to the Street of Eyes, and found only fuzzy shreds of memory. Those days had gone by so fast. She had a boyfriend then who helped her run away from home. For a while they lived together in a couple of condemned flats with a group of his squatter friends, pretty happy, not needing much. Then he got addicted to blue dust and spent more and more time away with the faeries. She wasn't into that, but she stuck by him for as long as she could stand it. In the end she left him to go out on her own, and a while later heard from a mutual friend that he had died of dehydration in a blissful happy haze.

That, at least, was real. She clung to those memories with desperate strength. They were all she had left of her innocence, after everything she'd seen and done.

She saw the dangerous man again, glowing with inner light, something more than human. Gabriel, she remembered. The name was something clear and powerful in the muddy morass of her mind. She feared him, hated him, pitied him and loved him all at the same time. And he loved her. At least, she thought he did. Some things had happened, and she wasn't sure anymore...

Slipping back into the darkness, she rested for a while, but the unfocused dreams spinning through her head weren't any more coherent than her waking delirium. Occasionally she tasted food or water passing her lips but couldn't be sure if it was real or imagined. Even things so simple and physical were now as surreal as the rest of her life.

Then, one morning, she awoke with a sliver of clarity returning to her senses. She saw the little cabin around her, smelled honest salt and wood, felt fresh air pouring over her face from the open door -- this time without seeing dancing kidney beans and purple elephants. The only downside was the splitting headache that appeared the moment she moved her head. She moaned, and within moments the big woman appeared to layer more damp cloths on Gina's forehead. She wore a faded apron caked with a lifetime's worth of flour, gravy stains and coffee.

"Some painkillers would be better," Gina suggested through her dry throat, and the woman nearly jumped back in surprise. Then she broke into a fit of delighted giggles and ran off cackling about lords and the praising thereof. Gina grunted and tried not to move. Everything hurt.

The woman marched back into the room with the bearded man from before. Gina tried to remember his name, flogging her fuzzy brain until it uncovered the right one like a shining jewel. He was called Mahmoud, and the woman was his wife, Maryam. Far too many Ms in there for Gina's liking.

"It's good to see you awake," said Mahmoud, smiling under the black mass of hair that covered most of his face. "You had Maryam worried sick, you know. She kept saying, 'She will die of fever, she will die, poor girl,' and I told her over and over, 'No, she is young and strong, she will survive.' But you took your time in proving me right!"

"I'll try and do better next time." Gina forced a smile, then barked a dry cough. "How long was I out of it?"

Mahmoud signalled his wife to get some food and drink, and she shot off like a bullet. Once she was gone, he pulled up a chair and sat down next to Gina's hammock. "It's been about a week since we picked you up. You remember? You were adrift in a lifeboat, we found you and fished you out the water. You came down with fever the next day."

She nodded, then immediately regretted it. "I remember," she grunted. "Not my best day ever."

"No," said Mahmoud, "though you were lucky, very lucky. You could easily have died in the water, and again here in bed."

"I know. I'm grateful."

He broke into a grin. "Be grateful to God, my girl. We had little to do with it, we merely followed the paths set out for us."

"Okay," Gina murmured politely. Her head wasn't in any shape to deal with gods at the moment. "A week... Christ, that doesn't sound right. How could I be delirious for a week? Didn't you give me any antibiotics?"

"How would we give you what we do not have?" he asked, his voice sounding slightly hurt. "This is not a pleasure yacht, though I'm sure it's an easy mistake to make. For all our riches we are humble people with humble means."

The idea of not having antibiotics threw Gina for a moment. She couldn't imagine anyone being so poor as to not have access to basic medicine, especially people who ate real meat instead of moulded protein. It didn't seem to make sense. Regardless, she didn't want to offend Mahmoud's feelings, so she worked up an apologetic smile and met his gaze. "Sorry, I didn't mean to come off like that."

He nodded in acceptance and stood up again, shoving the chair back into its corner. Then he said, "Try to rest. We'll be coming into port in a few hours, home with our catch. Then you can leave if you wish and make your own way to wherever you are going."

"Thank you." A moment of silence passed between them. Gina's gratitude was plain to see, requiring no further explanation. "You never even asked my name."

"I'm sure you will share it when you are ready." He dipped his head in a brief bow, then headed for the door. She called out to him just before he made his exit.

"There was a man travelling with me," she said softly. "A friend. Not on the lifeboat, before that, before we even launched the thing. Have you seen any sign of him?"

"None," he admitted with some regret, "but I will keep my good eye out. Really, try to rest. I must go pilot this thing into port, but Maryam will be back soon, she'll get you anything you need."

Gina thanked him again and leaned back into her pillows. Food and rest sounded pretty good right around now, so she settled in to wait, feeling truly safe for the first time in years.

Gina struggled up the stairs despite her body's protests. Her muscles were stiff and weak from days of lying in bed, but she needed to get out, needed to see the sea and the sky again. They always reminded her that she was still alive.

The ever-present smell of salt became even stronger as she poked her head up through the hatch. Sea spray spattered across her face, and she pulled her borrowed jacket tight around her against the cold wind. She climbed the rest of the way, undaunted by the pitch and yaw of the waves, and walked out onto the wooden deck with a blissful feeling. Her hands kept a firm hold of the railing in case the boat did anything unexpected, although the mooring cables on the other end kept everything pretty steady, and she looked out over the bobbing green waters like a queen surveying her newly acquired lands.

The sky was grey, but not confining like the smog blanket above the City, in China, where she'd lived most of her life. Dark, rocky shore stretched out on either side of her, far away along the waters of the bay. The two lines of land met just behind her at a massive concrete pier, an ancient relic from the previous century, discoloured with hundreds of repaired patches where the original concrete had crumbled away under the beating of the waves. Wooden jetties sprouted haphazardly from the pier. The boat was tied up at one of these, bobbing next to the rusted hulk of a small freighter that obviously hadn't moved in years. Up on the pier, oily yardsmen fought with nets and dredging equipment, unloading the ships as they came in.

And above the pier she could see a massive stairway leading up the hills to the city above, the longest and tallest set of steps she'd ever seen. To the right of it stood the remnants of a small monorail line, long fallen into disrepair, and to the left was a container elevator going up the hill to a large complex of warehouses. Beyond that she could see nothing but roofs going off into the distance. The stairs comprised the only significant space in view that wasn't covered by buildings.

Gina had to step back and think, otherwise the amazing sights would just absorb her completely. This town might not rival the continent-spanning vastness of the City in size, but it looked big, and it gave a feeling of... oldness. Proper old, in a way that neon lights and mirrored glass could never really hope to achieve, no matter how many years they lasted.

"Where the hell are we?" she asked herself.

"Home," Mahmoud said from behind, startling Gina, but she quickly regained her composure when he joined her at the railing. He positively beamed with happiness. "My sea, my town. I have missed them. And it has been a good catch! The Federation has paid our haul, we have money to spend and time to enjoy the land!" He thumped his fist against the wood of the railing, grinning. Then he turned to look at Gina and added, "You will join us for the celebration tonight?" It was more a statement of fact than a question.

Gina shrugged. "Sure, not like I've got anything else planned just now." To be honest there were a couple of things she ought to do, like get back into contact with the friends and allies she'd made during her time on the run, but she was quite happy putting it off for the foreseeable future. Instead she closed her eyes and listened to the rustling of the waves. The city was too far to hear, and there were no birds or animals to break the mood. It relaxed her so thoroughly that she nearly fell asleep on her feet. At last she opened her eyes again and said, "What is this place? It's not like any city I've ever seen."

She had been building up to that question for so long, and she still didn't really want to hear the answer. It meant looking at her place in the world again, trying to figure out where to go and what to do next. She was lost, adrift, without anyone trying to kill her or protect her. It made a nice change. Anything was better than—

"Odessa," answered Mahmoud suddenly, "in the True Marxist State of Ukraine." He didn't seem to notice Gina stiffen where she stood, her blood going cold in her veins. Instead he continued, "It is the place of my birth, and the birth of my father, and of his father, all the way back to the Cossacks of ancient times."

She asked haltingly, "I'm... in the Recommunista?"

Mahmoud blanched. "People here aren't fond of that term. It's hardly fair to equate us to--"

"The last thing I need right now is a political lecture!" she burst out. Suddenly it all made sense. The lack of antibiotics, the primitive living conditions, the food -- it was a nightmare. "Mahmoud, I'm a Federation citizen! Do you have any idea what they do to people like me here? And the gangs..."

His dark eyes looked at her with such gravity that much of her anger and panic melted away. He said in a dead serious voice, "Things have become less drastic over the years. We have lived at peace with the Federation for some time now. Enough for them to make contracts with local fishermen like us, at least."

"That's..." She sighed. "Okay, Mahmoud. Thanks. "

Faint signs of a smile around the corners of his mouth. "You do not trust me."

"It's-- it's complicated." She was at a loss about how to explain the threat of getting 'disappeared' into some Russian slave pit, getting tapped by the mafia, or -- even worse -- being extradited to the Federal Police. She was wanted for any number of felonies, depending on how much the Feds disliked her after helping to raid their Hong Kong base to free her friend, and being a foreigner here certainly wouldn't get her any favours from the local law.

Just about the only thing that could be said for the Federation was that it was slightly less of a stinking, corrupt hellhole than the glorious Marxist States.

Mahmoud turned around to look up at his city, its buildings ancient and majestic under the endless grey sky. "Your Federation is a safer place," he admitted. "But my State is a free place, where men can still live without the bootprint of police and government all over them. You cannot have both."

Gina nodded dubiously. She wasn't sure she believed Mahmoud or agreed with him, but if a man like him was happy here then she supposed it couldn't be all bad. Mahmoud gestured to the rickety jetty leading toward the shore and proffered his hand, an invitation to come along and explore.

"Alright," she said, working up a smile despite herself, and took his arm. "Show me the good bits."

Their tour of Odessa lasted only a few hours before dusk fell. Gina and Mahmoud rode a rundown blue tram through the tight streets of the city centre, viewing as many pubs as palaces, both of which were abundant throughout Odessa. They all looked equally ancient and intriguing. The Vorontsov Palace in particular -- though in itself just a solid mass of neoclassical architecture, seemingly made up of nothing but columns and facades \-- offered a truly breathtaking view of the harbour far below, leading out to the great green plain of the Black Sea.

She enjoyed the pubs just as much, though, and had already downed three pints of beer by the time they made it back to the dockside. Her head was warm and buzzy but not quite drunk yet.

Mahmoud guided her towards a large bonfire burning on a stretch of pebbly beach in the lee of the pier. People moved all around it, except a few who stood to one side playing instruments, fiddles and guitars and even an accordeon. They accompanied an untalented but enthusiastic singer, who worked the crowd in-between his singing with shouts in Russian, and always got a massive cheer in return.

Gina's stomach rumbled when she spotted the island of collapsable tables shoved up against the concrete, piled high with platters of food. The revelers didn't seem to bother with the usual garden-party affair of paper plates and disposable cutlery -- there were no such things to be seen anywhere. Instead they just grabbed what they wanted and ate as they liked.

A large figure came running out of the crowd \-- it was Maryam, Mahmoud's wife, Gina remembered -- and stormed up to Mahmoud for a kiss. Then she turned and crushed Gina to her chest. "There's m'girl!" she said with her thick English accent. "Glad y're 'ere, it'll be fun an' dancin' all even'n!"

Gina just smiled and nodded. They supposedly spoke the same language, but she hadn't a clue what the woman had just said to her. Maryam's strong hands dragged them along to the food, where Gina politely nibbled at a handful of things she didn't recognise. She wasn't really hungry.

"You look uncomfortable," Mahmoud observed from beside her.

"I've never been to..." She was lost for words to describe the scene around her, so she spread her arms to try and encompass it all in a gesture. "Anything like this."

He smiled as if he believed she was having him on, willing to indulge her little story. "Surely you have seen parties before, even in the Federation."

"Nothing like this," she repeated. "Stiff parties with white tablecloths and immaculate buffets. Some night clubs when I was younger. I've even been to church once, but..." She shook her head.

"You must have been wealthy," he said.

"My parents were. I was their little princess until I hit puberty, and they bought me anything I wanted. Sometimes I--" She suddenly realised what she was saying, how much she'd opened up to somebody she didn't even know, and clamped a hand over her mouth. It had to be the beer loosening up her tongue. And, she had to admit, Mahmoud was a terrific listener, which made him all the more dangerous to her.

Worst of all, he seemed to guess her exact thoughts and put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "I have said before, anything you wish to share, you may do so of your own will. As much or as little as you like. I ask no questions."

"Thanks," she said huskily, then cleared her throat and sent him a playful smile. "What about you, though, great fisherman and rescuer of strange women? What's your story?"

He gave a slight snort. "Are you sure you have that long? I wouldn't want to ruin your evening." He stepped closer to the fire as if to warm himself, but then took off his thick jacket and threw it on the pile of discarded clothing where people had left what they didn't need for the moment. Gina followed his example and put down her borrowed jacket, exposing her borrowed t-shirt and borrowed jeans. She wanted to go shopping so badly, just to get into some clothes of her own again.

"I'd like to hear it, if you want to share it. As much or as little as you like."

She couldn't suppress a grin at his sour expression. Using his own psychology to draw him out was clearly an impropriety of the highest order, and this kind of cleverness and audacity ought to be nipped right in the bud. Finally he gave up and sighed.

"As you wish, my girl," he said. "It's a good night for a story. But not a story about me, exactly." He clapped his hands three times loud, and the musicians stopped their playing. He spoke to the crowd in Conglom. "I should like for you all to sit around the fire and listen to a tale of my ancestors, who are of the blood of the ancient Cossacks, and you will enjoy it because I am the man who pays your wages and therefore you will listen politely." He scanned the crowd for any signs of dissent, and found only a few glum -- but silent -- faces. Then he added with appropriate magnanimity, "But I would not be a Captain if I were without mercy. You may still drink."

The crowd cheered and applauded at that, and they all settled on the sand around the fire to listen. Someone shoved a bottle of vodka into Gina's hand as she made herself comfortable, and she figured a sip wouldn't do any harm. She could barely taste anything as she swallowed the oily liquid, but it burned sweetly all the way down her throat.

Mahmoud's deep, rolling voice picked up over the fading murmur of the crowd, and Gina allowed herself to be swept up in his words as the story began.

"When I was just a boy," Mahmoud boomed, "my father used to tell me tales of the great men in my family line. He told me of their heroism, their patriotism, their sense of duty or honour. They were flawed men, as all men have flaws, but my father taught me to appreciate their memory for the good they did, not the bad. As we should appreciate all men for the good they do.

"My father told me a lot of crap like that while I was growing up," he continued, and grinned as a little laugh rippled through the crowd. "It was not his fault, truly. The stories were important to him, told to him by his own father, who heard them from his father, and so on. Like family heirlooms passed down the generations. They gave him a link to the past, to a simpler life where our people were free as birds and did as they pleased wherever they pleased. He once asked me if I wished him to write his stories down, but I said no. It was the telling that made them special. So now I give you a story of my own father, Djalil Omar Kerensky.

"You will not find this name in any history book or epic poem. My father was one of those men whose lives are never written down, but who make you know how much less the world would be if they had not existed, and he too had his brushes with heroism in the days when the Recommunist revolution came to Ukraine. But let me begin at the beginning."

"Djalil was born in the middle of a thunderstorm on the Black Sea, aboard a fishing boat called Son of the Wind. His father was the ship's steersman, my grandfather. My grandmother, though big with child, had insisted on joining her husband for the journey so that they might be together when the child was born. The ship's doctor could not dissuade her. So Djalil Omar entered the world amidst crashing lightning and ten-metre waves, a healthy baby boy named in the tradition of my grandmother's Muslim family.

"He grew up aboard Son of the Wind, learning the ways of the sea from all the people aboard. When Djalil was fifteen years old, the ship's captain died of pneumonia. Leaving no sons of his own, the captain passed his ship to my grandfather. That was when things began to change.

"Word of the underground Recommunist movement reached Odessa when my father was eighteen. At first he heard stories of non-violent protest marches against the Russian government, against their inability to lift the terrible poverty gripping the country, even though their politicians lived fat and easy off the proletariat's taxes. At the time, however, the revolution was far away and my father could do little but wish them well.

"The marches slowly spread throughout Russia, ever larger and more numerous. Even people in the Ukraine started to grumble about their own lot. The Russian government attempted to stop the marches by deploying armed police, which would finally give Djalil the impulse he needed, when those same police gunned down a column of unarmed protesters in Saint Petersburg. To my father, who grew up with stories of ancestors who lived during the October revolution, it was as if the Tsarists had returned. He would not stand for it. He called up the fishermen of Odessa and started to march, as did many others elsewhere, rising up in the hundreds of thousands all across Russia and Ukraine and Belarus.

"He was soon recruited into one of the Russian Recommunist groups, spreading pamphlets about the government's crimes on both sides of the border. He was arrested several times during marches and pamphlet drops, and spent weeks in a cell in Kiev, but in the end he was always released without charge. He always told me that it was because the police did not want their stations under siege.

"Djalil often took to the streets with a megaphone, calling for people to vote for the political opposition. It worked. Opposition parties everywhere were set to take both countries by storm. Then the joint governments of Russia and Ukraine suspended elections. Again my father was in the thick of it, speaking for the revolution and the Recommunista, until even the army began to turn against the government. The Recommunista simply looked like a better option, promising leadership and prosperity through cooperation and joint work. The government tried harder and harder to suppress it, but more and more soldiers declared their support for the revolution as things grew more violent. In the end, Djalil knew they could wait no longer, and urged his group to act.

"With his help they made a plan to infiltrate the Kremlin, aided by the army, planning to depose the government without firing a shot."

Mahmoud observed the crowd again, which was getting noisy and restless, and he sensed that their patience wouldn't last much longer unless he got to the point. He nodded to himself.

"Djalil Omar was part of the group that went into the Kremlin. Army guards turned a blind eye to him, some even helped to surround and block all the entrances and exits of the palace buildings. When Djalil gave the signal, they marched in on the government in session. The Prime Minister, President, everyone of importance was there and could not escape.

"Due to his gift for speech, Djalil made the Recommunista's statement to the assembled officials, and himself placed the Deputy Prime Minister under citizen's arrest. Then it fell to him and his compatriots to pick up the rule of two great nations. They set out to implement their reforms as they had promised, and my father was part of the initial debates, always pushing for the rights of the poor.

"However, homesickness took its toll, and he soon became frustrated with politics and his own lack of education compared to the other Recommunistas. After only a few days my father left Moscow again to return here. To his ship and his family, to honest work and honest people, to the sea and the bounty it brings us. To a simpler, better life."

"A toast!" someone shouted from the crowd. "To a simpler, better life!" The crowd boomed their approval and drank, then gave Mahmoud a roar of applause.

Gina found herself clapping as well, without even realising it. The story had drawn her in so deeply that she had lost all track of herself. It seemed like Mahmoud had inherited his family's speaking skills -- or maybe it was just because of all the vodka boiling in her stomach. Her head started to spin, and she steadied herself against the sand.

When the quiet returned, Mahmoud said, "My father never spoke of his involvement with the revolution. Not even to me. The story was told to me by one of my uncles, and I have read enough to satisfy myself that it is true. That is why Djalil Omar Kerensky is worthy of a place among my honoured ancestors, and why he is my father."

Mahmoud finished in a solemn tone and lowered his head. A respectful silence fell, until Mahmoud looked up again and raised his glass. They all drank in complete quiet, with Gina following their example, and then sprang up again to continue the party. The musicians resumed their playing and Mahmoud headed over to the tables to get something to eat. She raised her bottle to him when he glanced over to where she sat, and he responded with a smile.

The mother of all headaches pounded in Gina's skull, like a giant hammering on some great drum inside her brain. She moaned, but even the act of moaning hurt. So did moving, breathing, thinking, and pretty much everything else under the sun. She tried to keep as much blanket as possible between her eyes and the painful sunlight peeking through the porthole, the very thing that had woken her up in the first place. It was white and bright and horrible and she wanted it to go away.

What on Earth was I drinking last night? she asked herself despite the pain, but the whole evening had become a blur in her memory. 'Something pretty strong' seemed like the obvious answer. She'd drunk herself silly plenty of times in the past, but never in her life had she experienced a morning as bad as this.

For a moment she thought she heard someone speak, and grunted at them to shut up. She was in a foul mood and didn't want to do anything except lie around in perfect peace and quiet until the hangover went away. This demanded absolute silence from everyone else on board.

On board? she thought, then remembered she was on a ship. How had her situation changed so much in just a few days? It seemed like an eternity since she'd taken the job that landed her in all this trouble, and ever since she'd been running for her life, with Bomber -- an ex-army soldier for hire with a pretty twisted past -- as her constant companion and only friend. She wondered where he could be, what he might be doing, if he were still alive...

Jock and Rat might be able to answer that question if she could only get back in touch with them. They were some of Bomber's acquaintances that Gina had met and come to like along the way. Well, she liked Rat, anyway. Jock was still a royal asshole and she still owed him a punch in the mouth.

God, sighed Gina, it'd be good to see their faces again. A sense of cold loneliness overcame her. Unfortunately the 'Net seemed pretty far away from where she was now. Some VR linkups had to exist in Odessa, but they might as well be a million miles away. At the moment she couldn't even afford a minute in a public booth.

More voices, louder now. Again she called out for them to shut up. Her brain throbbed as if trying to violently burst out of her head, and the talking just made it worse. Being hung over was a lot like taking a hit of the telepathy drug, 'Spice' or 'third eye', in that your thoughts turned to mush and you were often overcome with the futile desire to stop all your senses from working.

"What's the point?" someone asked. The voice was clearly in the same room, but muffled, tinny as if distorted by a bad recording. Gina opened her eyes to look, but found no one.

"Who's there?" she asked. No response. She became aware of her increasing light-headedness, as if floating further and further away from her body. Sighing, she replaced her face on the pillow and tried once more to block everything out. Great, more hallucinations, just what I needed. As if I wasn't loopy enough already.

Even with her hands covering her ears, she could hear the voice speaking again, warbling at the edge of her hearing. "You're wasting your time," it said. Gina couldn't place the voice, someone she didn't know, only one voice amidst the growing susurrus in her head.

"Are you talking to me?" she asked, but got only silence in return. It seemed the answer to that was a firm and unequivocal 'no'. For a long time she heard no sound at all, and she couldn't help worrying about what was going on with her. Hallucinations might actually be the more benign explanation, when the truth could be so much worse.

Somewhere in this mad adventure, being in contact with Gabriel and his impossible telepathic abilities, Gina had started to develop some weird talents of her own. They came and went, but at times she could read people's minds without taking any Spice at all. Feel their thoughts, see through their eyes, even make them do things against their wills. It was scary and wrong and shouldn't be possible but it was undeniably happening. A tiny part of her had held out hope that the fever might've killed it off. More realistically, however, she doubted she'd ever be so lucky.

She recalled the short time she'd spent on Gabriel's airship. Sleeping with Gabriel probably hadn't been her best idea ever, but at the time it seemed inevitable. But she'd also kissed Bomber, and she'd be lying if she said there hadn't been any feeling behind it. Boy, was that ever a bad love triangle to be in. Bomber, whom she had last glimpsed through the door of a falling lifeboat, lunging at Gabriel in a misguided attempt to protect her. Knowing full well that Gabriel could kill him with a thought.

It might not have been all self-sacrifice, knowing the immense, bottled-up rage in Bomber's heart, but it was still a pretty shocking gesture. Gina sighed. She missed him. She missed him more than anything, and she hated the spark of hope she couldn't push down which kept saying that, against all odds, he could've survived. Somewhere, somehow. Maybe.

Futile, she thought, kicking herself. She should stop thinking about Bomber and everything to do with him. But it wasn't fair. She didn't deserve to be alone again...

"She's gone, accept it," the voice echoed. "You're hardly in any shape to--"

Suddenly another voice gonged through her head, deeper than the first, and her heart leapt into her throat when she recognised the rolling southern American accent. Her eyes saw two different rooms at the same time, a simple ship's cabin superimposed over a small square hotel room, pink floral-script logos stamped on every piece of decoration, a blurry but familiar face staring at itself through a mirror, a thick coat of stubble growing on its chin.

It snapped, "Enough! I'm sick and tired of hearin' you moan. I don't give a damn how much time it takes, how much money it's gonna cost, any of that bullshit. I'm gonna find her."

The voices continued, but Gina couldn't make anything out after that. Her trembling hands were covering her face, wet with tears, and her whole body shook against the pillows.

He was alive! The thought screamed joyfully through her veins. But it was followed by a bitter aftertaste, one that made her eyes sting fresh and painful.

If Bomber still lived, then the whole mess wasn't finished. As long as they were both breathing, neither would stop -- not Gabriel and certainly not Bomber -- until the other was dead. Never mind the mysteries of the burnt city and Gabriel's strange 'Hephaestus' nanobots, both of which still plagued Gina.

The same old storm seemed about to swallow her up again, and the relative peace she'd found here in Odessa would be nothing more than the eye of the hurricane.

She bit back the rest of her tears and swung her legs out of the hammock. It was past time she took control of her situation. Forcing some clarity into her muddled brain, she pulled on some clothes and went off in search of Mahmoud.

