

The Genome Ankh

DJ Hobbs

for Angie

# 1

Jake was able to estimate the distance he had covered by counting the starvers that festooned the listless streets. After gauging his mood, they cut their requests short but kept one arm raised perfunctorily. They were a poor crop this far out, so he sped up a notch in case one of them lost their head. It was also important to beat the lifters before they wrapped things up and departed, so Jake really shouldn't have been dawdling in the first place.

Whenever a report was sent in with an abundance of sketchy guesswork, the inspector who submitted it was clocked meaningfully. When it happened consistently, Jake's superiors would begin to read the things, and that would inevitably end in his dismissal. Down in the city, the abundance of able bodied competition for his position forestalled the need for further probationary measures.

This was another suicide. The only offence any sane citizen would dare to commit this close to Central was the one crime they were certain to get away with. The skyscrapers were often unaffiliated and easily accessible this far out, and this guy must have climbed the tallest one he could find because the splash zone Jake had studied in the attached footage had been immense.

At the scene, the siren had already cleared the area with its phrenic tones, and Auto Response had formed a ragged perimeter. Their deadpan personnel politely blocked the road to the east and west while surveying nearby windows and doorways. Jake waited impatiently for the closest drone to acknowledge him and run his user ID. It shifted imperceptibly as it scanned and then turned to face Jake at a speed calculated not to incense a body.

"Officer Gildroy, you are to respond to an incident at the following coordinates," the machine recited in its familiar, annoying trill.

Jake drifted past while it finished rattling off the digits and got his first real glimpse of the jumper. There had only been one cam in the region during the event, so the range hadn't been ideal. Now they were swarming overhead, and the air had become thick with their toxic discharge. His movements caused a ripple in their tightly packed gathering as he ventured closer to the corpse, but when he saw what the guy was wearing Jake understood their curious proliferation. The pretty shirt was now a red bag of innards with its sleeves rolled up as though leaping to his death had been hard work, yet clearly this ruddy plumed breed of flightless bird was an authentic jacket.

Jake knew it was pointless, but he brought up the man's file anyway. Age and medical profile were there alongside the first half of his user ID. Everything else was automatically redacted. He wasn't permitted to pry into the particulars of his betters, but that didn't explain the choppy recording of the accident by the cam. This case was supposed to be a simple thirty-minute suicide. Now it was a complicated lapse by AR that Jake was bound to pay for.

Officers on A Layer didn't investigate the deaths of Ad layer residents and above no matter whose jurisdiction they happened to land in. The drones automatically contacted the nearest officer if they came across a suspicious fatality, but they usually scanned the victim's identity first in case delicate handling was required. This was the sort of situation that demanded the expertise and intuition of a corrupt janky with no chin. If Jake interfered, the consequences could range from a slap on the wrist to permanent exile.

He decided to go through the motions until someone more appropriate intervened. Jake activated his bullet points to avoid being clocked but selected mute and ignored them. After a thousand repetitions, they were etched into his brain. He mentally composed his report in advance while analysing every ghoulish detail before the tableau was rudely disturbed by the retrieval team. When Jake glanced upwards, there was an unobstructed view beyond the cams of the shabby and variegated underside of the Ad layer at its outermost rim.

The kid must have fallen the full five hundred feet. On one side of the street, the building had been demolished either thirty years ago for being too lofty or more recently for being so derelict it was about to fall down by itself. On the opposite side, there was a bit of lifeless parkland which could have been a snug little church once upon a time. Old Jesus would know. Twenty years ago there might have been a charming pile of baroque rubble and a grave stone or two to signify what had been here before.

This enclosed niche in the cityscape was now a canvas onto which the boy had so colourfully bounced after plunging through the yawning emptiness between the Ad Layer and the ground. Jake replayed the footage again, slowed it down and zoomed in. Though the clip had been rigorously edited before it made its way to Jake, there was enough left to distinguish the expression on the young man's face. He was exhilarated right up until his impressive impact when the recording inexplicably cut off and spared the viewer the gory landing. Jake would have to ask Shortcut if he could get him the rest of it.

The jacket in the vid was only few years younger than Jake, but they matured at a different pace up there, so he had an unfinished look about him. His skin was clean and soft, but it wasn't just that. As a teen, Jake had lived on the edge of the city until San Dannon plucked him from the masses for his training, and he had been fairly rugged by then. Seven years later, Jake's face was leather. The jacket's was unlined and glossy with good health. It used to be, anyway. Now it was a mess.

This was a singular case for Jake. Ordinarily, a person of influence would be one of the rare occasions he was expected to complete a more thorough investigation. For the city's Matriarchs, leaders and high-profile boarder personalities, Human Response would turn up in person to peer over Jake's shoulder and rewrite his report while thanking him for his assistance. Yet nobody came by to put him in his place over this unstable jacket, and soon the shape of two lifting drones appeared above him.

Jake hurriedly dodged backwards to escape being dinged by the vicinity sensor. These drones knew that anybody who got close enough to reach out and touch them was routinely clocked, and that included a civil inspector signing off on a death. They purposefully abused this small power to amuse themselves, which was an attitude that sat in direct contrast to their friendly, helpful voices and preselected phrases. One rattled off its spiel while the other went about its gruesome task without delay.

"Are you finished here, Officer?" it asked, hauling up the remains without waiting for a reply.

Jake recognised him by a slight dent beneath his front left lens, and he was a right little bastard. Ever since the second election and its subsequent policy changes, Jake had to train himself to reign in his vocabulary like every other inspector now being clocked for use of foul language. Being clocked wasn't so bad, but it was petty and time consuming. The autocrats in charge had designed it this way in order to keep troublemakers firmly glued to their wristware.

Unlike other unfortunate souls out there, police officers had unlimited second chances, but Jake might just become the exception to the rule if he continued burning through them. He made a mildly offensive hand gesture instead assuming he was fine. Then he resignedly turned down the audio on his wristband again in annoyance as a priority notification came through followed by the customary warning and his punishment.

It was hard to keep track of what you could still get away with now. It wasn't as if they published a list anywhere Jake could read it. Jesus said that in the old days before San Dannon had found its stride, folk had been able to throw stones at drones without reproof. Nowadays if a body so much as picked up a pin in a threatening manner, he or she would find themselves tased and released into the wild with practiced efficiency.

"We are here to assist you. Please try to keep your responses courteous and respectful," the drone bleated, attempting to veer into him again before lifting off beside its colleague. "Have a nice day Officer Gildroy."

The drones had package the jacket in a vacuum sealed shroud and were sharing the weight of this sagging burden for the sake of decency. They had collected the larger bits, but they weren't big on details, so sanitation would have to get the rest of him. Jake wondered what he should do next. Generally, he would have turned an apparent jumper like this one in within half an hour, but he was reluctant to apply the term 'suicide' to some jacket princeling in an official report. Moreover, the kid had no clear motive for the act.

Jackets were never overcome by the kind of commonplace woes that thinned out the people trapped in A Layer. A body might maintain a pardonable misconception deep in their rancorous heart that conditions above couldn't be all that better than anywhere else in this crucible of a city, but Jake had seen the heights for himself and knew the truth. At the peak of the Ad Layer, they lived a life of comparative luxury, and it was rumoured that the Jacket Layer surpassed this splendour tenfold. Nobody up there had any reason to be depressed.

He left when Auto Response did. Human Response came down fully armed and by the half dozen when they were called out, but Jake was always by himself. Out here towards the edge, there were plenty of people with nothing to left to lose, yet there wasn't much satisfaction in lashing out at drones. It wouldn't matter to the fanatics that Jake wasn't formally employed by San Dannon. He was an authority figure whose purely symbolic job title was engrained into the diverse population's collective memory. Symbols became targets, which was why they were so severely lacking these days.

Only down on A Layer though. It was a regrettable disadvantage of his occupation that he had to live in the old city with everyone else. The gaudy promos and displays up in the Ad Layer were reserved for those with data to spend. To keep down costs, the bracelets and wrist bands they handed out free to the regees and new-borns only had a two-by-one inch, black and white screen. When Jake visited the Ad layer, hundreds of screens were projected in every direction splashing colours and shapes across his field of vision until it made him dizzy.

He had no idea he lived in a world of grey and brown until his first unsanctioned foray up there as a youth. As he stood immobilised drinking in the stimuli just ten yards from the platform exit, he had marvelled that the pedestrians, who frowned as they flowed around him on the thoroughfare, could so easily withstand the visual assault. After twenty minutes, the sights had made him and his cohorts nauseated.

The Ad Layer was where he was heading now, but his boyish keenness for his outings there was long faded and had been replaced with the tedium of customs, opportunists ready to greet you at the exit and the smell of inconstant sanitation. The district was now a bustling, grimy reminder of what he was only allowed to enjoy on his time off. It also meant incessant, hostile staring unless he rented a change of clothes and some stick for the day.

Most guests were gracious enough to undergo this temporary makeover in order to blend in, but they were bodies who had scrimped and saved, or they were scavengers who had gotten lucky and wanted to spoil themselves. It was a holiday for the majority of visitors. Jake was up and down once a day for the popular magic ring, which was the strongest combination of chems the dispensaries were willing to distribute within a twenty-four hour period.

The Ad Layer was the only place to buy it in its entirety, so an anxious, sweaty addict like Jake sprinting through the crowds and thrusting people aside was a recurring sight up there. This was because it was better to join the unpredictable queues as close to the twenty-four hour mark as possible. Each evening, the precise time you had last procured chems at a kiosk would be logged with an increase of several more minutes.

This incremental deadline meant that you would eventually be lining up for the dispensaries at three in the morning or spending a day sober since purchasing chems during a shift wasn't a clever move. Prior to those inexorable interludes when sobriety beckoned, Jake used the twitchy A Layer dealers that clustered near the city centre. They sold gritty pills which were missing the inscribed letters that spelt out their abbreviated namesake. Magic Ring was a mnemonic device to ensure they were swallowed in the correct sequence for maximum effect.

Jake joined the queues at the closest platform and settled in for a mind-numbing wait. There were more commuters than usual today. He briefly considered whether it had anything to do with the dead rich boy but couldn't think of a plausible connection. It was probably a delectable find from some scavvy that was worming its way through the Mech Layer, or it might even be the whisper of one provided the end product was something that consumers were sufficiently desperate for.

It could have been on account of the election, but Jake deliberately drowned all that stuff out. Demonstrating enthusiasm for the election was the quickest route to becoming a permanent social outcast, but even if the prejudices of the passive aggressive mob ran towards fervent patriotism, Jake still wouldn't humour the Alliance's ridiculous charade. It would be comparable to giving credence to the existence of fairies forasmuch as every child you met assured you that their parents had verified the fact.

It took an age for Jake to reach customs and more often than not he would have been annoyed by the wait, but today he didn't have a dose of the sweats. Jake was here on police business. He didn't even mind when the drone apologetically singled him out for his bad behaviour at the scene. He preferred the customs drones over their vindictive, proletarian cousins. They were programmed with an identical temperament, but it had been moulded by generations of excited tourists, the lovable miscreants that preyed on them and the vibrating extroverts that were the greasy cogs of the entertainment sectors.

"What happened, Jake?" she asked as Jake obligingly allowed the other passengers to bypass him.

"I couldn't help it," he replied, with a shrug. "You know what they're like."

"Lifters?" the drone said commiseratively.

Jake nodded as he searched the drone's chassis for identifying marks. These models were so sleek that they all looked the same to him, but he thought he recognised her from a few weeks ago when she had pulled him for getting dinged by the same lifter as today. It was at the corpse of some girl who had been stuffed halfway down a vent for three days before the cams had spotted her.

When he checked the footage, Jake found that whatever the reason for her trespass, be it low hanging tech, stealing nuff or just looking for a safe place to sleep, she had climbed in voluntarily. Slipping by the divaricated bars and carefully shuffling down with hands and feet braced against the filthy walls, she became asphyxiated without finding what she was searching for. Jake had been in a dark mood that day.

The drone ploughed through her standard litany, and Jake was relieved to hear there were no incongruous additions. It was just the standard grilling a body earned for inoffensive hand gestures with a smattering of repeat offender inquiries in the mix. When the drone was done cheerfully profiling him, she concluded with the time-honoured threats and admonitions from San Dannon clumsily disguised as advice.

Jake wasn't worried. Being a civil inspector protected him from exile for anything except good old-fashioned, down-and-dirty criminal activity. The ship had sailed on keeping his record clean, so he might as well enjoy the freedom to thumb his nose at policy. He boarded the platform just before it filled to capacity and set off a moment later pressed tight against the exit. It meant he was one of the first to disembark at the top, but he had to answer the same round of questions for a duplicate drone while other passengers hurried past careful not to make eye contact as if he might blemish their own track records vicariously.

When Jake was finally done, he viciously elbowed his way through the crowds of drifters, scrungers and milkers that harangued him and pushed his way to Shortcut's janky neighbourhood. His friend had a single unit in one of the sleazier swags, but Shortcut was noticeably sleazy himself, so they were well suited to one another. To reach it, Jake had to traverse a maze of rickety gangways after leaving the beaten path through a gap between a body art store and a discreet bar with board-sign scratched on a reinforced door.

The occasional thefts and murders that happened below were an anomaly here, so he wasn't worried about his personal safety or belongings. The miniature cams patrolling at these altitudes were not as sluggish as those assigned to the city, and two of these advanced scouts tirelessly pursued him from the platform due to his dusky face and musty skids. The sensational displays and noise dried up to be replaced by low definition screens either plagued by cracks or hazy from the protective grill riveted over their projectors.

He could pick out the unit by the nifty little ultrawave booster on the roof Shortcut had paid a pretty price for. Since the door opened before he could even register his user ID, at least one of the cams tailing him was being controlled from within by Shortcut. It was as cramped inside as usual, but that was mostly because they were couple of reasonably broad men occupying an area no bigger than a bus shelter.

There were no superfluous keepsakes or ornamentation amid the clutter, and in all probability there never would be. Shortcut didn't even look up to greet him. More than a hundred security feeds were laid out before the man, yet he unconcernedly found space for two more at the top right hand corner. If there was some pattern to it all, Jake couldn't fathom it. The coordinates appeared to be random, although each window shared the unvarying muted hues that characterised A Layer bar one.

Jake located himself in a larger frame slap-bang in the middle of the wall. He was standing over Shortcut watching himself on the screen watching himself on the screen in a Droste effect all the way to infinity. He waved at his recursive doubles through the cam and was rewarded with an amused smirk by the fat man sprawled in the chair.

"I know what this is about," he said pre-emptively, eyeing Jake's visage on the screen, "and you can forget it."

"It's important this time."

"I know." Shortcut levelled his gaze at an alternate frame. "I saw it."

This window contained a bashful couple groping each other in a dark alcove on A Layer. With a deft flick of his fingers, Shortcut switched to dark mode and shamelessly zoomed in until the lovers became picture perfect.

"That's why I'm not touching it," Shortcut asserted, leaning back in his chair and wincing at some stab of pain from his lower back. "That footage was mangled. Anyone who sees it will be automatically clocked for a month for something this weird."

"Use my ID then," Jake offered, holding out his wrist band.

Shortcut ignored it. "That won't make any difference. They'll track down everyone within listening distance. The neighbours won't know what's happening to them."

From the inclined plextene surface to his right, Jake could hear the muffled sound of the next unit's occupant as they played something with canned laughter throughout. The walls of each dangling unit were unnervingly thin, and Shortcut's had a fissure running through it.

"You're just going to have to make something up."

"That's not how I do my job," Jake said softly, trying not to dwell on his first year following training back when he had still been eager to please.

"You're job doesn't mean fuck all anymore," Shortcut stated, staring intently at the amorous couple. "They'll be sacking your lot after the next election. Unless you've got brains or talent. Then they'll probably put you onto surveillance like me. Or move you into HR. Do you think you're gonna be promoted between now and then?"

It was said in jest. Only officers with a pristine background and perfect health got promoted to the Ad layer or higher. Jake enjoyed neither of these. Before Old Jesus had ever run into him, he had lost his right arm from some mishap in the rabbit lands that he no longer recalled. The accident had left an accompanying scar spread brokenly across one cheek. Jake jostled his shoulder uneasily and flexed his prosthetic arm.

Shortcut picked up on what he was thinking and cleared his throat sympathetically. "Maybe they'll let you keep the arm."

"Yeah."

Shortcut jerked forwards as his eye caught a flash of red. Jake contemplated the feed that had caught Shortcut's interest and saw a message calling for control assistance. This was unusual since every piece of tech in San Dannon, from the largest lifter to the tiniest security camera, was wholly automated. Sophisticated AI devised a response for every scenario. If it could not, the user simply fell through the cracks.

That was why anyone who didn't want to go hungry was careful never to press the limits of the software for fear that an error message during a run-of-the-mill profile update at an out-dated kiosk might lead their user ID being removed. It didn't happen very often, but in a city of seventeen million registered individuals it claimed dozens of innocents that were excessively vocal about their dilemma. They called it an 'error808', and the trendy kids, who tended to flout the sensible caution their parents had towards the AI in all its variations, had taken to describing those episodes when drones became particularly intractable as throwing a 'Bob'.

In truth, a user ID being mistakenly withdrawn was so rare a misfortune that it could have been confused for an urban myth. Far more prolific, however, were the age-old 'Sorry, request duplication' and 'Transfer error 51. Redirect'. The former cost the user a meal, the latter led to a sizeable chunk of lost data and both were equally exasperating. There was no such thing as a complaints procedure in San Dannon.

Shortcut scanned the flashing red message and studied the image while zooming and skipping with astounding virtuosity. Jake had no clue what had gone wrong because nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Some juvenile was clapping his hands in front of the cam, but he wasn't trying to damage the tiny drone, hide his face or block his user ID. After thirty years of refinement, no such act of sabotage worked against the cams anymore.

All that the drone needed to do was read his user ID, and it could do that through a steel wall as long as he was wearing tech. If a body was absent a wrist band or became imprudent enough to damage one of the intrusive cams whizzing about their duty, then the offender would soon meet their larger and more resolute counterparts from Auto Response. Shortcut turned on the audio, and the cam's nasal squeaking came piping through.

"Please stop, sir. This behaviour is not permissible. You are being a public nuisance."

Each petition was given punctiliously with a purported interval of silence separating each remonstration. The supposed deviant was just your average city centre body too dumb for the tests and too pretty to be a scavvy, yet the coordinates for his location were out by the edge where society really started to get crusty. He did not look like he belonged there, for his robust energy and cockiness were the traits of a family boy. He had a mother somewhere who was nice enough smooth his hair down and maybe give him a few words of motivation in the morning.

"What's he doing?"

"He's stalling us," Shortcut replied with a smile.

He altered the course of the drone that was currently shadowing Jake and sent it spinning into the abyss below his unit.

"A fight's happening, and they're distracting every drone and cam nearby. It used to be they just took their chances. Now that it's becoming more popular, they're getting more organised. It's amazing what they can accomplish when the families work together."

Jake leant closer and studied the boy's face. He didn't get the impression the lad was nervous or bemused like a body should be when being addressed by a drone. He looked exuberant with a wide, mocking grin painted across his grey face.

"They change it now and then so we don't catch on. Two weeks ago they were whistling prohibited tunes. A month ago it was dancing. Not regular dancing," Shortcut clarified, smirking. "They were doing the can-can."

Three more windows on the screen now contained youths clapping. Shortcut was chuckling fondly.

"They have a list. I don't know if they bought it or just worked it out by themselves using trial and error, but on that list is a bunch of public misdemeanours that surveillance is programmed to respond to but doesn't clock," Shortcut explained as he monitored the progress of his own private cam winding its way through suspiciously empty streets. "Normally the A-lister will stop doing whatever it is they're doing or sometimes things will escalate instead, and they'll be tased and carried off. But if they just ignore the cam, there's nothing much it can do about it."

Shortcut's enhanced cam had found its way to a gathering of men and women cheering with as much restraint as possible. There were two fighters tumbling about in the middle of the crowd. Shortcut chose a superb angle and sat back.

"You're not reporting it?"

"No. You know how things are. Deep down the board just wants people to be happy and behave," he said quietly. This was an opinion reserved for Jakes ears only. "The jackets like a fight when they come to the Ad Layer.

"It doesn't cost anyone anything to turn a blind eye when A Layer organise one by themselves as long as they're not rubbing it in our faces. Look!" He exclaimed, zooming in on the audience below.

There were three jackets side by side smiling and whooping. There were even bodies bumping and shoving them, and they didn't appear to care. One of them was a young woman, and her animated face alternated between distress and bloodlust.

"Not like the old days, is it?" Shortcut reminisced bitterly. "We get a lot more of this now that things are nice and safe. It's not just big spenders looking for A-list crotch no more."

He glanced at Jake to note his reaction to the crude language. Dubbing a body an A-Lister was made a minor policy infraction years ago which had just quadrupled its usage.

"Now they watch the fights, go dancing and hand out chocolate and booze to their 'mates'. That sort of thing's getting more and more popular, especially with the younger jackets. Except it's more about culture and compassion with the youngsters." Shortcut waved a hand airily which a signal that he was discussing something wishy-washy. "Hugging through the barricades stuff."

"Like that jumper," Jake inserted. "I'd swear he jumped for a laugh. But he had this look on his face right up until the end. I wish I had the rest of the footage."

The unsavoury surveillance operator shifted cagily to avoid Jake's scrutiny.

"You watched it live," Jake accused him. "Tell me what you saw before and after. All I got was a redacted version."

"You don't get it," Shortcut insisted, rubbing his pate. "I didn't see anything either. The feed automatically stopped recording except for the bit that you got. One minute blank feed, and I'm wondering what happened and the next some kid's spread all over the road.

"My face was this close to the screen," he shuddered, holding up a discoloured thumb and forefinger divided by an inch of air.

"Some type of mod." Jake frowned. "An expensive one."

"The only thing that could make a cam drone redact footage on site is a mod from Human Response," Shortcut whispered theatrically. If they were listening, Shortcut and Jake could have scratched the words on the floor and Security would still hear their conversation. "But the kids up there can get it if they can afford it. Totally illegal, but I know for a fact VIP jackets use them to occasionally to visit the Ad Layer's finest brothels. It kicks in when a jacket is witness to a crime."

"Or a jacket commits a crime," Jake guessed.

"That's right," Shortcut commended him. "Suicide. You weren't supposed to be there. It's probably a glitch in the software that doesn't account for an unauthorised user dying with his pants down. Or from falling off the Ad Layer.

"If I were you." He made a clicking with his tongue as though he were thinking it over. "I'd make something up. No-one's gonna say anything."

Jake made his way over the gangways, past the threshold of the dodgy club and across one or two narrow streets crammed with trade and vice. His attention was fixed on his wrist as he followed a set of coordinates by making a beeline across the city below via its disreputable but vibrant rafters above. Going through the market, those folks that didn't jump out the way of his blind advance were jostled until they complied. The throng was so thick that at one point he had to climb through a stall. The angry owner screamed at him unintelligibly while waving a fist but was indisposed to do violence upon Jake around the skittish cams that closed in on the disturbance. They skewed away when they registered Jake's ID, but he didn't really notice.

The colours and lights subsided, and the wall of sound became more of a distant nuisance here. The units became homely and idiosyncratic as the residents tried to give their living space some appeal with variable success. When Jake finally came to a stop, he was facing a swag of units enveloped by struts and mech tunnels on all sides. There were a few upscale shops and services here which were places that might not be so tolerant of his rough skids and overall gruff disposition.

Stiff wire fences stretched upwards into the panelled ceiling above just in case some witless jacket scaled the relatively safe four foot barriers that provided for the seamier parts of the Ad Layer. Even intoxicated, somebody would have to be really determined to become a senseless tragedy to thwart each and every precaution installed in this section. When Jake pressed against the wire boundary, he thought he could see something directly below the walkway.

He swept the area and meandered over a technician's access hatch built inconspicuously into a handy nook. If the jacket was able to jump from here, he had more clout than Jake did. Any attempt to unlock it, and Jake would be clocked for a month. He gave the solid hatch a small pull anyway and was surprised to hear a tiny grating noise. He yanked a little harder and it moved an inch. When he was sure nobody was observing him, he heaved it aside and climbed in by bracing his arms and legs against the walls like the dead girl in the vent.

At the bottom was an oily docking platform with no barriers. It was empty apart from the waist high console used predominantly by drones. Somebody had left a hat perched on top of this that was clean, lustrous and looked distinctly out of place. It was a flamboyant imitation of the style the citizenry of Great Hestoff were so famous for. Jake picked up the abandoned head gear astonished at how good the fabric felt and concealed beneath it like an afterthought was a piece of beautifully dense tech the size of a ration block.

The thing was shaped vaguely like a tapering cylinder on one side of its length and was mostly flat on the other reverse. The flat side had the smooth texture of the same bio-readers that could be found on every machine in the city where data transfers were necessary. Its function was to certify that the DNA matched up with a user ID as painlessly as possible, usually via the hand. The other side of the device was cleverly wrought to resemble an elongated crystal much smaller than it appeared to be.

Within its miniscule depths was a scintillating orange glow which was likely responsible for the warmth he could feel diffusing through his fingers. At one end was a rigid loop that made it seem as if the thing typically hung on a wall, belt or large key ring. Jake stashed his discovery amongst his own noisome clothing and left the hat resting on the console in a ghastly tribute to its erstwhile owner.

# 2

Gabriel couldn't think. He could barely move. Cold, soothing arms embraced him as he strived to lift himself out of bed. Whatever had happened to him last night had left him wiped out mentally and physically.

"Wha'?" he blurted, unable to see straight.

"You are feeling the after effects of the scheduled leisure activity you participated in. These may include symptoms of fatigue, nausea and memory loss. Perhaps I can bring you a sedative, sir."

"What happened to your voice?" Gabriel croaked, reaching for the glass he kept by his bed.

Gunter's claw delicately filled it and handed it to him without the slightest ripple. Gabriel slopped some in his lap, but swallowed most of it.

"Your illegal modification has been deleted, sir," Gunter replied in his pleasant factory-setting baritone.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. His father's minions sometimes tried to hack the drone when they were feeling extra invasive.

"Well download it again," Gabriel ordered, swiping his hand over the bio-reader. "Open new mod. Restore previous settings."

"It is done, sir," the drone assured him in his master's preferred dialect.

"What were they snooping around for?"

"I've been instructed not to say, sir."

If Gabriel had bought an upgrade, this sort of thing would be less of an issue, but it wasn't as if he had anything to hide. The whole personal assistant fad was hubris anyway since they were just a redesign of the sanitation drones that had earned such stigma doing their fine work on A Layer. Trading Gunter in for a drone sporting a better paint job, who came with no major increase in productivity, would be a betrayal to both Gunter and his piggy bank. The drone had all his preferences too as they had been together for fifteen years.

Gabriel's mirror came alive as he crawled out of bed and stumbled across the floor, and he went through the tedious process of applying stick over every inch of his body. He switched on the quick dry while Gunter saw to his face and teeth. Everything seemed unscathed. His only complaint was the headache and blank memory, as well as the combined ache in all his joints and his sensitive skin too. He opened his wristware and searched for footage of the previous night. Again, there was nothing. There weren't even any messages. He brought up his contacts and selected Dominic Knock then spent a few minutes flicking through his friend's uploads before hopping out of the awkward cubicle.

The fans deactivated behind him and folded away. Gunter had laid out several sets of clothes for him to choose from, but Gabriel picked up the nearest and pulled them on. The drone had never missed before, so he had learnt to rely on Gunter's mix of accumulated wisdom and algorithmic decision making by deferentially swiping the bio at every cursory appeal for wardrobe funds. It looked as if silk was making a comeback. So were the weird cuffs and collars from Irkutsk in honour of the upcoming election. He left the hat where it was, and Gunter sullenly tidied it away.

"Gunter, do you know what happened to my footage form last night?" he asked, reversing his mirror to admire the hologram from the back and sides.

"Your wristware was damaged and has been replaced."

Gabriel gave his band a more thorough inspection and was annoyed to find that Gunter was right.

"Any chance we can get any of last night back?" he tried.

"I'm afraid not, sir," the drone replied dolorously as he styled Gabriel's hair. "It had not been updated for several hours."

Gabriel swore. He didn't like to constantly update because his father's lackeys rummaged through his stuff at every opportunity. He liked to sift through it first filtering out anything he didn't want them to see and storing it inside Gunter's pip. Gabriel had commanded the drone not to connect to the network without permission, but they had taken to periodically hacking the old tin can's sensitive brain until he couldn't remember what day of the week it was. AI didn't benefit from the same plasticity as a human mind, and having the board's local halfwits stumbling around was permanently voiding its warranty.

It was disappointing to have no memory of the night before, but holding no record of it at all made the whole thing depressingly futile. He tried to evoke the feelings of euphoria and happiness he associated with the thrilling byways of the Ad Layer. He pictured himself there with his friends beside him being just a bit too loud and boisterous. Articia would have been trailing behind ambivalently amused and embarrassed by their antics.

His efforts churned up nothing but pink fog. The last thing he could recall was walking out the door dressed to impress and heading for Dominic's. There had been an A-list fight scheduled between a couple of big families, but they had all been intending a sojourn in the lowest levels of the Ad Layer beforehand to blow off some steam. Gabriel rubbed his shoulder blade and winced. At least he had the bruises for a memento.

He requested his schedule from Gunter and cancelled half of it then messaged Dominic to double check they were still on for training at the rec. Dom probably would be since it was now a custom the mornings after their excursions to watch A Layer matches. He had Gunter read the news in his sober tones which was a habit he had only just begun. Gabriel always felt left out of the loop these days with everyone else able to predict tomorrow's headlines and smugly filling him in on what was happening before the fact. He switched over to Articia's 'What's going On, San Dannon!' broadcast and let it play in the background.

She was talking about her protest and the Egypt election, except she wasn't calling it a protest or an election. Whatever words she had employed had been ineptly bleeped out by Control rendering them more or less indiscernible. Gabriel crept through the rest of the house to use the bathroom. It was the only other room he used which was a sinful waste of space, but the remainder of the domicile consisted of the defunct kitchen, his father's suite and a lounge that stank of Gunter's disinfectants. Sometimes Alfred would suggest they throw a gathering at Gabriel's place, but Articia would shout him down as though the idea was sacrilege, and Gabriel was grateful for her intervention.

Shunt boxing was a form of self-defence left over from the AI War that had developed into an eccentric cultural pastime. On A Layer, they used rags soaked in a solution that turned rock hard when it dried since the traditional steel gloves and elbow guards were classified as prohibited now. Gabriel and Dominic were practising the formal version and were wearing a full set of light armoured and the bulky shock pads that happened to weigh a ton today. Dominic liked the voltage turned up to the max with the pressure sensor set to a hair trigger.

Two years ago his best friend was a lanky matchstick man made of tendons and bruised bones. Now Dominic's proficiency was incredible, and Gabriel was making a pitiable showing. His head was swimming, and he wished he had cancelled their session in addition to his classes. Now Gabriel was stuck here because Dom wasn't the type you could be honest and vulnerable with. Any sign of weakness would be jeered mercilessly. It wasn't all good natured either as he had always shown contempt for anyone meek or ungainly.

Dom delivered two swift jabs to the head then darted back to follow them with a front kick. Gabriel saw stars for a moment but shook them off willing his muscles to obey. He also regretted opting to strap two of the shock pads to his legs because of the wavering dizziness he had been suffering from since waking up. He wasn't up to performing any aerial feats right now and participants were allowed to place the four pads anywhere they wanted.

Dom was the sort who immediately emulated his partner out of some sardonic sense of honour or a need to showcase his superiority. Gabriel should have chosen fists and elbows which was a selection known as the knot combo. This would have allowed him to run on automatic slugging it out until exhaustion. If he wasn't careful, he was going to end up unconscious without landing a single blow.

"So what happened last night?" he asked, hoping a little conversation might lower the tempo of the bout.

"Which part?" Dom replied curtly, easing up only a fraction.

"Any part. I don't remember any of it."

"I thought you were joking about that." Dom sent out a few more exploratory jabs, and Gabriel gave ground. "Blackouts usually only come towards the end. What were you taking?"

"Nothing unusual." Gabriel attempted to slip a couple of serious punches and was shocked twice for his trouble. Dom side-stepped his counter easily.

"Well, you were fairly wasted down in the Ad Layer," Dominic said. "Maybe you were hacked. I heard it still happens some places."

"Out on the edge maybe," Gabriel scoffed.

"More than you think," he shrugged. "According to my father. And he ought to know."

Gabriel managed to avoid the next shock and got in a kick for himself. Dom winced as he felt that first unpleasant jolt of the day and then narrowed his eyes.

"Did anything weird happen?" Gabriel asked, panting. "Did I bang my head or anything? My tech was broken at some point."

Dominic became interested. "Why would it matter if you suffered a head injury?"

Gabriel's apprehension grew. He was beginning to wish Dom had never told them about the ankhs now that the fun had descended into a competition between them all to see who could think up the most dangerous and asinine stunts. Not for the first time, he wondered how the son of a man whose metier was keeping secrets had grown up to be so loose lipped and reckless. Gabriel could tell that Articia didn't like the path their quartet was hurtling down either. Like him, she saw no practical limit to their dare driven antics until one of them ended in total disaster.

"Did we do anything with the ankhs?" Gabriel murmured seriously, lowering his guard a few centimetres.

Dom laughed derisively. "We were going to. But you jangled it and wandered off home. We missed you at the fight."

"I missed the fight," Gabriel repeated, frowning.

Dom threw a rapid combination, and Gabriel was on the floor. His body resynced itself when the reassuringly luminous band that circled the walls sensed the damage. Some of his fatigue was dissipated by the treatment, but it took him longer to gather his wits together. The sync band was no use against hangovers nor was it immune to Dom's devastating haymaker. Dominic laughed and rang an imaginary bell that signalled the end of round one. Or the commencement of round two.

"I don't think so," Gabriel apologised hastily. "I'm just not feeling too great today."

"You can't be serious," Dom protested, his face contorting into a mask of dramatic disbelief. "Last night's A-listers lasted longer."

This was precisely what Gabriel had been expecting from his friend. A-list fights were famously short and often finished with a cracked skull or worse. The pugs down there always retired young one way or another.

Gabriel stripped off his gear with finality. "I'm serious Dom. I just have to get out of here and eat something. We'll rematch in twenty-four."

Dominic huffed in disgust throwing his armour and shock pads back on the rack, but Gabriel wasn't paying attention to his tantrum. He was thinking about the sudden wave of insight he had been struck by an instant before Dom had flattened him. Maybe there was a glimmer of last night left after all. Something about the A-list fight had kindled a flicker of recollection.

"Where did you want to eat?" Dominic growled moodily.

"Let's go find the others," Gabriel suggested, checking Articia's location and status. "Hopefully they've picked somewhere without artificial grass this time."

"It was a trend. I hear they're thinking about ripping out Main soon."

"I think Tish was serious about carpeting her new unit with it though."

Dom grinned. "So what. You don't have to eat there."

*****

Old Jesus turned the thing over in his fingers. To Jake's horror, he sniffed it and then banged it on his palm as if he were testing the durability of some promising piece of scrap.

"I've heard of these," he said uncertainly. "Some sort of emergency beacon. Like a flare I suppose."

"What's a flare?"

"Something from the old days," Jesus recited.

He didn't reminisce very often, so it was a phrase Jake was accustomed to hearing from the man. It made him smile.

"What does it do?"

"Human Response carry them when they go out into the rabbit lands." Jesus passed the object back as if it were an omen. "They're in those new jacket shuttles as well. It must signal for help in case they crash out there."

"It's not as bright for you?"

Old Jesus shrugged. "You activated it. Maybe it read your ID."

There was one of those pinhole U-ports at one end that Jake hadn't noticed before. It was the kind you found on the smallest of economy sized bracelets. Although it was no thicker than his thumb along its entire length, its substantial weight felt disproportionate to its dimensions.

"So you use it in a shuttle?" Jake reflected, staring into the core of the iridescent crystal. "Is it possible it stops you from crashing?"

Jesus looked confused. "How?"

"Maybe it stops you falling."

Jake tried to conceive of a situation where a survivor of an accident somewhere in the rabbit lands might risk a fall. Perhaps clutching the thing to their chest would save them if they plummeted off some inconvenient cliff, even though the shuttle tracks ran exclusively under the earth.

Jesus shook his head. "I don't think so. They already have tech for that sort of thing. A fancy harness they wear in the capsules."

"Maybe this is a prototype," Jake mused. "A smaller version."

Old Jesus was sat in an assistance drone like the dozen other chokers squeezed into the stuffy room. At this point, the machine whirred into life and inquired in disjointed syllables if it were time for Jesus to take his pill. Jake groaned inwardly. Assistance drones were another of San Dannon's quick fix responses to the surplus population problem. The elderly and incurably infirm were afforded all the dignity they deserved in the form of a repurposed sanitary drone. It was a basic model with a sturdy recliner welded onto the front that which was to blame for its tendency of tipping over unexpectedly.

These days, everyone knew that the words 'Is it time to take a pill?' were the default selection for a vital notification. When the drone sensed its ward needed to use the facilities or required urgent personal sanitation, they utilised this euphemism to spare the human from disgrace in public. Kids had coined the phrase now as a joke or a clever insult. For example, if a friend was showing fear of some painful challenge or undertaking, they might be accused of wanting to take a pill. Old Jesus just ignored the alert. He wasn't as helpless as the other chokers present whose interface displays may as well have been Rubik's cubes.

When Jesus was allocated his new drone, he had installed the mods himself circumventing the same modest protection found in all A Layer hardware without much difficulty. Now his drone could travel at twenty miles an hour with a full load and suffered from fits of road rage. If Jesus didn't swap the default toilet notification for something more subtle, it meant that he just didn't give a shit. He had also applied big, bright stickers to the side of this one that must have been genuine antiques. Sometimes the quirky recipients of these machines' steadfast care became attached to their cold companions.

Jesus smiled. "Are you gonna hand this thing in?"

The old man was the descendent of a nation that had disliked its law enforcement long before San Dannon instituted its own uninhibited brand of justice. He had dealt with the fact that his boy had joined the other side by pretending the whole thing was some big scam Jake was pulling. To make things worse, Jake really did want to keep his find and felt like a hypocrite. Compared to Shortcut's crowd and the regulars that haunted the Railroad Bar, since he wasn't actively corrupting his position to harvest as much wealth as he could, he was essentially honest and decent.

Jake had never requisitioned important stuff. He would just take the odd irrelevant trifle that the swankier criminal type might commonly acquire such as unstamped content and gimcrack toys. Dense tech was a secondary currency on A Layer, and in the rabbit lands it was the preferred method of payment, so it was hard to resist pocketing something that nobody was going to miss and would cover the cost of his preferred recreational crutch for a month. Officially it all belonged to San Dannon, and he had few compunctions about his light-fingeredness. Everybody hated the passive aggressive overlords in charge of the city, so it could even be categorised as an act of liberation.

Jake returned the old man's smile. "Maybe. It does look too pretty to give up. Pretty means valuable."

"And dangerous," Jesus warned. "No savvy's gonna touch tech like this. Anybody with half a brain will know where it's from."

Jesus pulled out his nuff inhaler and settled back in his seat. The drone dipped a little as it compensated for the shift. As he took a great, wheezing lungful of the concoction, it was obvious to Jake that Jesus purchased the slow stuff. But after all his condemnatory lectures regarding starvers and sweet teeth Jake's whole life, the hypocrisy of his lethal habit should have left Jesus blushing. He blew some smoke in Jake's direction as if he sensed his disapproval and indicated the sagging walls with their ingrained filth that made up his communal home.

This place was depressing. Jake didn't have to live here, but on the way back from the Ad Layer he had picked up his magic ring and swallowed the first pill. This had been his ritual before dropping in on his old mentor and guardian ever since Jesus gave up the ghost and relocated to this hole. Jake was getting that lovely warm tingle through his epidermis as his body was slaked of its thirst and eagerly anticipated more to come. It was the best part, so Jake wouldn't have minded staying to share the experience with Jesus, but the suicide victim's pedigree merited a dedicated approach. He also wanted time to figure if he should disclose the item that had found its way into his possession.

There was a swivelling of wrinkled heads as a youthful face entered the room. It was Angelica. She was another kid Jesus had taken under his wing, except she wasn't a kid anymore. Jake had no idea she still came to see the old scavvy. She looked wonderful these days. Her innate grace and confidence invigorated the grim atmosphere the retirees endured, and most of the grizzled chokers welcomed her with an inadvertent smile.

"Hi Jesus," she greeted him brightly, kissing him on the cheek. "Hello Jake. I haven't seen you in a while."

She wore that somewhat disappointed air all of his former friends adopted whenever they encountered him. There was a pair of Barros-Santos sleeves on her shapely arms, and each painfully inked dot created a not unattractive swirling pattern that travelled past the elbows and beyond. It was a well-known respectable old family, but they were also born hating those who betrayed their own kind by joining the force, and Angelica hadn't developed the immunity Jesus had in the last seven years. To Angelica and her kin, the police were either self-deluded lapdogs or corrupt and ignorant thugs. She spotted the ankh and emitted a surprised gasp losing an ounce of her reserve.

"What's that," she asked, letting her avarice show.

He put it away. "Something to do with a case."

"Well it looks like it's worth a fortune," she commented knowingly. "I'd keep it hidden if I were you."

"Do you happen to know what it is?" Jake said optimistically.

She consulted to her wristware. "It's not live."

"Not as far as I can tell."

"Must be C Layer then," she determined, suddenly intrigued. "It's not homemade."

Jake decided to go out on a limb. "Do you know anyone that's in the market for this sort thing? Maybe they'll answer a few questions first."

"To the police?" Jesus laughed.

"To a customer. I could be anybody."

"I know someone," Angelica admitted, "but she'll smell you coming a mile away."

"Someone who deals in tech like this?" Jake verified doubtfully.

Angelica treated him to reassuring smile. "Trust me, Jake. This is the woman you're after."

Jake took a deep, cleansing breath as he stepped outside. Jesus's little pitch had a bone deep despair to it that he was glad to be free of. His eyes were drawn upwards to the overwhelming bulk of the chrono-vector. This leviathan sized engine was to blame for the chokers' nickname. The city denied that it had any deleterious effects, yet the evidence was visible in the bilious pallor of those who flocked to shelter beneath it.

Jesus was as cynical as they came, but like every other sucker in the neighbourhood he had traded his precious longevity for a little extra time. That was why it was so demoralising in the old scav's awful mausoleum. The people squatting in there were rolling the dice on San Dannon's tired fallacy of a better future, which was an artist's rendition that most rational bodies refused to believe would ever be a reality. Chokers were embarrassing to be around.

He waited impatiently for the time to update as he ambled away. There was no controlling the immediate influence of the chrono-vector, so the city didn't even try. The elderly that pitched within its vicinity could often be seen motoring down the street in their chairs to access the ultrawave then hurrying back before they aged too much. It was all based on a fantasy perpetuated by the frightened and desperate. Any idiot with even a shaky grasp of recent history could see that the city's progress towards a utopian, technological paradise was stalled indefinitely. It didn't matter what speed everyone was living at nor how much radiation they absorbed while doing it.

In the land of the living, the time had jumped ahead two hours. From the coordinates he had been given, it looked as if Angelica's savvy had set up her operation right off the map. As he walked, he wondered how she was able to survive on her own that far out. A woman in her shady line of work must be an enticing target for the degenerates that stalked the edge. Maybe she retained a bodyguard or partner, although the margins in piracy were slender enough when one considered the risk.

He recalled an incident from his stint out at the edge as a child. Shortcut and Angelica had been sleeping beside him, and Old Jesus lay solicitously across the egress. They had found a safe little pitch in an uninhabited corner, except taking care of so many young children during those hopeless years had dulled even Jesus's razor sharp edge, and they tarried there too long. Back then there had been less clocking but more crime. Sometimes they were visceral crimes that any scum could undertake if they were willing to stoop low enough.

There was a free implant that San Dannon dispensed to disadvantaged children in those days. Like so many of their bright ideas that involved scientific advancements they didn't fully comprehend, the experiment proved to be an inarguable fuck up. The unassuming capsule was designed to provide enough nourishment to keep a body alive even to the point of starvation. Jake had been one of the lucky ones, since the implant resulted in a crop of brittle, wraithlike children that never really recovered. They could be identified in the streets today by their diminished stature and careful gait.

Old Jesus had declined the implant point blank on his charges' behalf and was relieved when they were scrapped a year later. But when these two evil rodents had come creeping in that night over Jesus's slumbering form, they hadn't been looking for implants or wristware. They were after his arm. A man and a woman had been casing their spot waiting until Jesus and his group of foundlings became seduced by the unbroken status quo. After giving Jake some fast nuff as he slept that left him sick for a week, these seasoned butchers got to work methodically separating flesh from machinery. Angelica had woken up and cried out before they got to any serious cutting, and a cam sounded the alarm when it caught the round eyed couple fleeing for the Mech Layer.

Atrocities of this variety were unlikely to be committed by the type of sedentary tech sav Jake was familiar with, but he was logical by necessity and couldn't help reasoning that if there was no market for these illicit goods no-one would feel the need to slice each other open. On the other hand, if people didn't desire their pirate technology then tech savvies wouldn't be open for business. Thankfully, an unintended by-product of San Dannon's craven machinations against uprisings meant that extending the blame was out of vogue on A Layer unless it was being shared amongst overt lawbreakers or worse.

Jake glanced at his wrist now and then to see how far he had trekked. Closer to Central, the harried folk that had fashioned San Dannon had exerted a soupcon of effort to preserve the beautiful, crumbling architecture. It was falling to bits with the chokers stacked inside, but at least it was still upright. The further away you travelled, the more they had been careless when positioning the huge pillars that dominated the twenty-first century structures surrounding them.

San Dannon had knocked down perfectly functional developments to build these unsightly permex struts as well as crushing anything else that interfered with the efficient overlap of the Jacket Layer. It had been built far above the effluence of the Mech Layer and chrono-vector originally as a stopgap solution, so whenever those who toiled in the highest tiers of Central Control felt the need for a tad more legroom these monstrous erections were added to stabilise the spread until it blotted out the sun. They resembled a gnarled forest hunkering over the battered city. The closest support branched one tenth of a mile skywards to a canopy of boulevards, parkland and golf courses for all Jake knew.

At its root were the remains of a gutted commercial district. Another sign that the edge was just over the horizon was the increasing appearance of glass, metal and loose rubble. Only oddments that the drones had missed here and there, but near the platforms and the kiosks in the city centre where the constant tension could cause things to go horribly askew without warning, a body might go all day without finding a fragment or splinter of the scenery unaccounted for

Anything that could be sharpened, hurled or converted into a rudimentary projectile launcher had been conscientiously removed by the city's meticulous automated labourers. It had been the work of three turbulent decades of riots and massacres, yet the ludicrousness of this preventative action was matched only by its undeniable effectiveness. Without the tools of rebellion conveniently to hand, impromptu mobs were incapable of becoming more than a mild nuisance before they were supressed.

The streets emptied, and the brooding rampart of the edge loomed ahead. The high-rises shrank into the more humble homes and businesses from ages past. The inconsistent darkness that blanketed A Layer was much more constricting here as if the bulging, furrowed surface of the encircling barricade was reflecting it back at him. The wall of greyish rock was the most obstinate material modern science could dream up. It was judiciously smeared on as a gelatinous liquid that hardened into a formation as solid and immovable as a mountain.

Hailed in the era of its creation as the saviour of mankind primarily because it could be made quickly and cheaply from scrap-soup, the marketing division at Irkutsk had christened it 'permex'. The huge walls and dome that safeguarded the venerable city were composed of it entirely as were the massive columns perforating the urban landscape to shore up the insular world overhead. They were an eyesore and one that the privileged didn't have to tolerate.

With an arduous treatment that sculpted the tarlike substance into clouded permex glass, the ugly rivulets up in C Layer had been transformed into a shining protective bauble that was virtually indestructible. The process of turning sludge into glass was time consuming however, and San Dannon wasn't about to use their limited resources giving a body a view through the huge permex boundary when the area was permanently deserted.

During construction, the frenzied workers had been a bit lax here and there when sealing all the outlets to the rabbit lands. They plugged as many basements, pipelines and ancient transit tunnels as they could find on their blueprints, but the first unsuspecting refugees that pitched here were inundated by almost as many problems as the poor wretches taking their chances on the outside. The foremost complaint on the list was obviously radiation exposure after a heavy storm, but the unchecked banditry and mutated parasites were what really drove those early pioneers away.

At long last, no more fifty yards away from where the wall plunged into the earth and carved an industrial estate neatly in half, Jake spied what he was searching for at the exact coordinates Angelica had reluctantly vouchsafed to him. Two thirds of a statue, which was nearly untouched by the condensed smog the drones produced in heavily populated areas, was standing alone on a pedestal bestowing a message of hope that had been confiscated and melted down some time ago. Jake advanced glaring into the empty windows that overlooked the knurled expanse.

The concrete disintegrated into a shallow basin of packed dirt, for the memorial had been exhibited on a green, garden or some other beauty spot that was now a sunken dustbowl. Its sex had become indeterminable, but one arm had persevered narrowly attached to part of an undefined chest and a pair of thick legs. A 'tin' can on a sting hung from its outstretched finger stirring in the piquant breeze that stole insidiously under the boundary. Jake thought Angelica had been winding him up when she told him what he would find here.

"What?"

Startled, Jake dropped the canister which resumed its errant swing after a brief dance. The cord was threaded over the statue's digit like an offbeat gag. It didn't lead anywhere special and according to his wristware there was nothing live nearby.

He addressed the preposterous configuration without touching it. "I've come about some tech."

"I don't know you," the can rattled.

Unhappy about drawing too much attention to it, Jake gritted his teeth and withdrew the item from his pocket for as long as he dared. There was a period of uneventful silence.

"Leave your tech in the bin. You'll get paid in twenty-four hours. I only deal in data, so if you don't like that you can go elsewhere."

Each time the disembodied voice spoke with its impossible clarity, there was a fizz and foul taste to the air that grew stronger with every jarring syllable. The statue was pointing at an isolated waste receptacle protruding from a scuffed hillock that Jake had skirted distrustfully. He marvelled that she got away with doing business like this, but he wasn't about to throw his prize into her dubious container without a guarantee no matter how scrupulous her reputation was.

"I've got some questions about this thing."

"No questions. Get out of here."

"Look, I'm not HR," Jake pleaded, turning with his arms raised and praying the malevolent locals weren't watching. "I just want to know what it is."

"Officer Jake Gildroy, user ID 'CA 637 JS 8263 N3', aged twenty-three," she contended disdainfully.

"Just a civil inspector," Jake blurted after he had recovered. "I'm not even on duty right now."

"Beat it pig!" the savvy recommended laconically.

Jake couldn't be certain, but the person on the other end of the conversation seemed highly amused. He lost his temper and decided to be childish. He petulantly yanked the knotted sting free and received a shock that sent him sprawling to the ground in a waft of burning hair. Jake was unharmed, but he felt like he had been ducked underwater. Every part of him had gone numb, although he was still holding the elementary telephone with its trailing cord in an unsteady hand.

"I could stop your heart from here you know," the can stated. It sounded exasperated.

"Do it!" Jake wheezed

He didn't doubt that she could, but tech savs were smart. Smart people didn't kill you for being an annoyance. It was one of their few virtues.

"Do you see that university over there? About one hundred metres to the south east."

Jake nodded self-consciously. He was convinced that she was laughing now. The school was the largest building in the area, but a good deal of it had collapsed and lay dotted about in elongated boulders too cumbersome for the lifters to bother clearing away.

"Floor twelve."

Jake sensed he was alone again. He groaned picking himself up and tossed the can aside as he limped away. He was glad to be getting out of the open.

# 3

Since Articia and Alfred weren't at any of the kiosks, Gabriel and Dominic grabbed their afternoon rations and went to see the ant man. Not many adults went to visit the weird little hobbyist, but it was one of the few things Dom liked to do with his spare time, and Gabriel indulged him. Alfred was afraid of insects and Articia stuck by her cousin, so maybe Dominic just wanted it to be the two of them sometimes.

As kids, part of the thrill of going to see the ant man was the walk through the lively shingles district, but his friend actually used to live around here with his father. Not in a single unit or even a stack. Chief Knock was a powerful man, and his domicile eclipsed the low-profiles living next door. Nevertheless, he still wasn't a shareholder, and it would have been inappropriate for him to get a window seat, so to speak. The desolate but inspiring views of the rabbit lands were preserved for the houses of people whose contribution had made all of this possible.

The ant man lived in the densest part of this clustered C Layer ghetto, but like many successful entrepreneurs clinging to Central he had cut through into the Ad Layer beneath to supplement his living space. Technically this was unauthorised, but so was most of the Ad Layer itself. Any attempt to dismantle it would make the board very unpopular. The Ad Layer was well-made and relatively sturdy, however. It had been fabricated by the same men, women and drones who had built the walls and the dome.

The ant man had constructed something extraordinary beneath his unit that was just a little bit dangerous. Made out of ladders, plextene panels, chains and a great deal of scrap, it was a cross between a maze and an obstacle course. It had multiple levels that swayed together beneath the stomping feet of children and teenagers, and all of it was securely fixed to the underside of C Layer in a shambles.

Like so many other things in San Dannon, it had been built to be temporary, and it certainly wasn't supposed to be enthusiastically tested by a generation of C Layer's offspring. Sometimes bits of it dropped away into the void, especially parts you were standing on, but the owner had thoughtfully strung a steel net to catch anything that fell overboard be it animal or mineral. When a boy perched on these trembling walkways and peering through the, it net was the best place on C Layer from which to admire the dusty city below in all its glory, but that wasn't the only reason to pay tribute to the ant man's labyrinth.

Around it, through it and beneath it, the ant man had assembled a giant ant farm, and for a quarter bar of soy to feed his ever growing hoard, he would let you explore to your heart's content. It had been crafted using scavenged pipes, any kind of glass he could lay his hands on and miles of transparent plastic tubing. Spending time inside this graceful array surrounded by the imagined susurrus of the ants was initially hard to bear, but their hideous brown nests scattered here and there were the real stuff of nightmares. Ready to ambush the eye by their profane contrast with the farms fragile beauty, these dark nests were made solely from misappropriated rations by some process of secretion which had taken the industrious insects a decade to achieve.

The ant man didn't bother the two of them as he went about his fussing and cooing. Maybe he didn't even realise they were there. Dominic chose his favourite place to sit which was a walkway that slightly overlooked the rim of the net. If you sat down and dangled your legs over the edge while balancing your arms on the safety chains, you had an unencumbered view with an accompanying chill up the spine. Dominic looked bored by the panorama as normal. He was flicking through his schedule on his wrist, and his days were evidently free until the end of the election.

"Aren't you going to Tish's protest?" Gabriel asked.

"What's it about?"

"Sterilization, I think," he guessed. Articia could go a mile a minute during her upload, so he wasn't one hundred per cent sure.

"Pass."

Gabriel didn't blame him. They were hard to sit through.

"Ad Layer tonight?" Dom proposed.

"Only if those two come."

His friend could be a bit of a handful after a few drinks, but Alfred and Articia had a soothing effect on him most of the time. Tish was master of her own destiny, and Alfred's mother was dependably lenient, so they probably could slip away tonight, but Gabriel found himself not caring either way. He had been constantly anxious all day. He couldn't concentrate and felt run down. Preferable to an evening of humdrum debauchery, what he really wanted was to take some of his favourite chems and just go back to bed to sleep it off.

"How you feeling?" Dom asked intuitively.

He was playing with a loose piece of the barrier and making the whole thing squeak with the joggling motion.

"Still recovering from whatever happened yesterday."

"Well, you've got to make the most of this time while we can. I've heard you're being assigned something soon," Dominic confided. The chunk in his hand had finally come free without upending them into the emptiness below.

"I don't think so," Gabriel said. "Unless my father wakes up tomorrow as somebody else."

The last time they had spoken was several years ago, but his father had been so passionate about his denunciations that there was no reason to believe he had undergone a change of heart. Gabriel had shown none of the famous family aptitude in his business, economic or geopolitical studies, and he was a depressingly average student across the board. Heap onto that his tendency to get into trouble with Dom as a kid, as well as his penchant for pursuing all the trends his father despised, and it left them with a relationship now defined by mutual disappointment and religious indifference.

"These are changing times," Dominic reminded him. "Even the idle and useless aristocracy will be needed after the election."

Gabriel caved. "Any idea what I'll be doing? Something easy like you."

"Taking orders," Dom predicted. "Making decisions."

Gabriel thought this over. He hated doing both of those things, but it wasn't as if anyone got to follow their passion these days. Except for Articia who did whatever she wanted. Dominic idly tossed the loose shard he had been toying with into the void and watched it descend until it disappeared. Gabriel tried to calculate how fast it would be going when it hit the ground, but mathematics weren't his strong suit either.

"That was stupid," Gabriel accused him.

There were already a few cams coming to see who the prankster was, but they wouldn't be able to record anything in the vicinity of Dom's mods. Not if he didn't want them to.

Dominic shrugged. "Let's go."

They thanked the ant man and left, yet the owner gave them no indication he even noticed them. Dominic agreed to meet later in the Ad Layer and Gabriel went to participate in Articia's latest meeting on Main Green. Articia was the closest thing the community had to an activist. She was the daughter of some queen that had been instrumental in bringing about the Hamburg Accord, which Gabriel assumed made her a princess. She capitalised on this glimmer of hereditary fame by leading the charge on important and worthy causes afflicting San Dannon.

Today's candidate was zero growth again, and Main Green was half full with figures sitting, standing and slouching. Gabriel joined the throng near the front. It wasn't hard to see that the identical huddles of people inspired to attend these meetings secretly longed for the scenes they had witnessed in movies and old news feeds from the twentieth century. In their heads, they were angry protesters righteously motivated to challenge the establishment by marching out and receiving a head wound. They were suburban rebels moved by their strong beliefs and ennui to publicly cause an outcry on behalf of whatever was bothering Articia that week.

In spite of this misplaced enthusiasm, they had managed to make the entire process commendably streamlined but very dull. During most sessions, they discussed the newest problem, sometimes selected a committee to brainstorm possible solutions or actions and then voted on a few things before disbanding. Apropos to the current issue, some of those gathered around thought San Dannon should increase the bounty for sterilization by fifty per cent at least. Others, including Tish, wanted to scrap it altogether, and everyone else remained quiet and nervous.

It was a touchy subject that cut deep into established policies most people deemed controversial but essential. Without overpopulation, there wouldn't even be a need for the informal gatherings Articia organised since it was the root cause of every misery inflicted on the people of San Dannon for the last thirty years. It was an entirely moral crusade with very little reward for their society as a whole.

He knew it was all pointless. His father had the final say and anyone who thought differently was a fantasist, so Gabriel usually just listened. The gathering became tired of the debate and unanimously decided to head home. The interesting thing about all this nonsense was that every time Articia's crowd of wannabe activists sent Gabriel's father a declaration, a manifesto or a collection of signatures, the hoary despot would always reply with an abstruse but supportive missive. To what purpose Gabriel couldn't fathom, but it was surely something self-serving and despicable. For whatever reason, the Chairman of San Dannon enjoyed their infantile efforts at restoring an acceptable level of civil liberty for those below as well as above.

"What did you think?" Tish prodded him afterwards.

Her cheeks were still red from her impassioned rhetoric. It was difficult for Gabriel to know how to answer. One of Articia's best flaws was that she always assumed everyone knew what she was talking about.

"About what?"

Everyone round them got to their feet and wiped the silky fake grass from their clothes.

"About your father. Do you think he'll listen this time?" she reiterated.

He tried to avoid her eye. One of Dominic's rare saving graces was that he never mentioned Gabriel's antecedents. Sometimes he was afraid Tish only thought of him as her looking glass into the movements and objectives of the powerful, yet Gabriel had no clue what his father and the board were doing or thinking. The Chairman would rather sterilize his own self with a knife and fork than share confidences with a son he volubly claimed to loathe as a disappointment. Gabriel shrugged his shoulders in a transparent display of ignorance. She looked dissatisfied but didn't push it. Alfred hurried over with an enthusiastic attitude that matched his cousin's.

"I think that went very well," he said throwing his arm round her. "We changed some heads today."

Gabriel nodded uncertainly. Alfred was the son of some bygone prime minister and believed he had inherited the families acclaimed oratory skills. Articia was his cousin, so she was a little less tactful than Gabriel might have been.

"I wish you would get more informed before you speak up," she complained.

"I make up for it with my zeal," Alfred countered lightly. "People are drawn to me. They even applauded."

She raised an eyebrow. "They are drawn to your paranoid Chinese whispers crap as a matter of fact. Where do you people even get that stuff from? Who's your source?"

"I think you're missing the point of the dust boards," he informed her helpfully. "It promises only the possibility of truth. Without the paranoid delusional stuff to feed it, how can it grow and thrive? If it does not thrive, how may we extract said truth from it?"

"We just need smarter people to come." She took her meetings too seriously. Gabriel had enjoyed Alfred's unsubstantiated interludes.

"I think this is everyone," Alfred laughed. "And who's smarter than you?"

Alfred was right about this being everyone. There were just under two thousand young people on C Layer if you didn't include toddlers, kids and young teenagers. When you subtracted fifty per cent for the political fanatics who didn't want to get their fingers dirty, twenty per cent for irredeemable shut-ins who thought Tish's lot were some kind of amateur dramatics group and then cut the rest in half for people like Dominic who couldn't care less, then what you were left with was about three hundred people. Since that was roughly the size of today's crowd, Gabriel didn't think they would be storming the palaces of the mighty anytime soon.

"That stuff about the rabbit landers though," she said contemptuously. "It was ridiculous. You went too far."

"Actually, there's some truth to it," Gabriel pointed out. Alfred gave him an appraising look. Tish appeared to be sceptical.

"Dominic told me," he explained. "They're hiring new people. Training teams in wasteland survival. Building new tech. It's the next election. The one they're all excited about in Egypt. They're talking about major policy changes."

"They're not going to start sterilizing the rabbit lands," Tish scoffed. "That's going too far."

"That's what I heard mother saying too," Alfred contributed, "but she was saying it a lot."

He tried his best to look serious and lowered his voice. "I think she's been meeting with the entire Alliance. Not just the board."

They formed a tableau as each of them digested this information while Tish's collection of pro-actives dissolved around them and headed home. Alfred's mother was on the board of San Dannon, although technically she was Articia's proxy. Tish had been raised by Alfred's mother and had flown the nest a year ago on her eighteenth, but she still refused to attend the board meetings. Gabriel guessed that she was kicking herself for not having turned up this time. A gathering of the entire Alliance had happened only twice in the last five years.

"Do you think they're turning it off?" Her eyes were pulled towards Central.

"Maybe. They're definitely changing stuff," Gabriel said. "I think they're preparing to change direction. All of them."

Once again they took some time to absorb this. They were born in a refuge that tiptoed through time while the rest of the world whizzed past. To the young, it was one of those esoteric facts you took for granted. Subatomic particles existed and could be seen with the right cam, mankind used to traipse across the moon back when they had the stamina and the world outside was moving at a speed four times faster than their own little slice of it thanks to the enormous chrono-vector humming away in the centre of the city. It made Gabriel feel safe even though there was no logical root to that feeling.

"And then," Alfred said softly.

"Forwards I guess."

Gabriel was still preoccupied with the gaps in his memory, so on their way down to the Ad Layer he probed them about the previous evening.

"Well, we left you and Dom at the Fountain Club and went to find the fight." Articia's gaze was tilted upwards as she tried to break through the previous night's chem enhanced fug. "Dom was dragging you off to do some stunts."

She pursed her lips. Ever since Dominic had revealed the ankhs and their capabilities, Articia hadn't approved of them. They were a symbol of everything she loathed about C Layer. It was her perfect example of the privilege and hypocrisy they were all steeped in, but Dom had sworn her to secrecy. Alfred had remained neutral about them. The temptation to use the ankhs had been irresistible. Like most people their age, as kids the four of them had joined in on the parkour fad that had been started by Cathy Jacket.

Cathy was a young gymnast who caused a scandal when she emigrated all the way to the A Layer to participate in the dangerous but life affirming jaunts so popular down there. She even started her own org, and her fame made it difficult for her parents to retrieve her, yet on many occasions they had her hauled back home with no regard for her personal choice, the law or official policy. This was a waste of time because she always managed to escape again.

In the end, her family gave up, and Cathy J was now as famous amongst the A-listers as she was back home. A generation of young people had emulated her and took to the hanging byways of the Ad Layer to shoot videos, but it hadn't lent itself to a long life, nor could it beat the abandoned industrial estates A Listers used as well as the Mech Layer runs that came complete with poisonous fumes and angry shuttle drones.

With the ankhs in hand, it hadn't taken the three of them long to return to their old hobby again except this time there were no limitations or pesky fear. The footage had been amazing and would make them legendary when they finally released it. Dom had warned them not to, but with Alfred it would only be a matter of time. He had his cousin's fervour for dissention without her maturity and caution.

Articia noticed the look on Gabriel's face. "Why? What happened?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Dom said you jangled it and wandered off," Alfred relayed. "You were messed up the last time I saw you. You might have ended up anywhere."

"Why would he leave you in that condition?" Articia tutted.

The entrance to the Fountain Club was bounded by a dazzling cascade of lights and eye catching promotions. Even the bio-readers down here had ads that played whenever you made a purchase, but the music from the club drowned out their carefully developed spiels unless you pressed your ear to their tiny speakers. Most of the population around here accepted them as a fact of life rather than the infuriating nuisance that they were.

Articia quickly pushed her way through the janky crowds at the door, but Alfred was a little shorter than Tish and half as aggressive, so there was a drawn-out wait as he fought his in. While Gabriel was squashed against other club patrons who were making no effort at all to clear a path, a pair of hands thrust their way through the heaving bodies and grabbed him by the wide silk collar that Gunter had lovingly selected for him.

The man had the kind of round, bulging red eyes found mostly on crusty A-Listers. Gabriel instinctively tried to pull away, but he was hampered by the crowds behind him and the little fat man anchored to his shirt in front. People nearby had stopped their conversations to partake in some giggling. Gabriel pictured the scene the two of them were making and didn't like it.

"Get off!" Gabriel laughed, trying to shake him loose without tearing anything.

"You," the stranger garbled, breathing fumes into Gabriel's face. "It's you isn't it?"

"Let go!" He tried to prise him off with more force now and failed.

Gabriel had the impressive physique of every other athletic C Layer citizen his age, but the crazy oddity holding onto him had a large paunch and thick, burly fingers. Short of knocking him unconscious, Gabriel had no idea how to extricate himself.

"You're name, boy?" the man cried, dragging him closer and searching his face. "Answer me!"

Gabriel was too stunned to react. Anybody on C Layer who was even a little adventurous found their way down to A Layer for one reason or other. Some went for the fights and a bit of fun. The low-lifes dropped by on seedier missions. A few took the platform all the way to the bottom to claim they had A-list friends. This was cool amongst Tish's group, although not many bosom buddies got invited back up for dinner.

Gabriel sincerely considered himself a man of the people, in principle if not in practice, but he didn't appreciate the feel of the dirty man's fingers against his chest and not just because it was unwanted physical contact. It went beyond being repulsed or offended. This A-lister had crossed an implicit line that could not be denied. In contrast to Gabriel's professed aversion to his father's old-world outlook, hidden beneath the layers of Tish's socialist speeches and unbidden from deep within his brain came the shameful thought 'How dare he?'.

Without bothering to ascertain what was happening, Dominic materialised between the pair of them and wrenched them apart easily. The stranger's eyes widened in surprised, and he twisted in Dominic's grip, but Dom casually lifted him a foot off the ground and threw him into a bouncing gaggle of nearby dancers. They yelped indignantly and then laughed drunkenly while making no attempt to help the dazed nut job. He took one last terrified look at Gabriel and left shoving his way through the idlers.

"Who was he?" Gabriel mused, straightening his clothes and clapping Dom's shoulder in thanks.

"Some Ad Layer scum bag who sells dirty videos round the back. I think he works for surveillance. Well, he did work for them," Dom corrected. "I'll have a word with my superiors later, and he'll be back down in A Layer where he belongs by tomorrow."

"No, don't bother." Gabriel felt slightly ashamed of himself but had no idea why. "He's probably just had a bad combination.

"He didn't do much damage," he noted, looking down at the new creases on the silk and the slight discolouration. "Gunter will know how to fix it."

"Let's go get a drink," Dominic suggested.

"Definitely," Gabriel agreed. "Let's go find those two."

*****

When Jake levered the remnants of the main doors aside, several curious cams followed him in to see what he was up to and lingered in the foyer monitoring him keenly. The voice sounded once again when he hesitated. This time it was the cams that she used to communicate. Jake had lost count of how many times he had been squawked at by the little pests as a carefree youngster, but it had made his chest pound every time. Overwhelmed by their chorus and the associative guilty panic they induced, he skipped backwards and practically landed on his seat.

"Don't worry about them," the herd buzzed in unison. "They see what I want them to see."

After sheepishly regaining some discipline, he turned on his wrist light and used it to guide him as best it could. In places, the floor and ceiling were missing as if falling masonry had passed through them without slowing. Jake began to wonder if she intended to just let him trip into some hole leading to the sub-basement. A stop motion of the jacket falling to his death floated across his awareness, and he began to pay special attention to his course.

"Left," the voice directed, breaking his reverie.

He turned to find stairs that seemed structurally sound, but he didn't go leaping up them. He gradually checked each step and didn't trouble himself over the waste of time. There were a few missing on the seventh floor, but he pressed himself against the wall and continued around the gap with his ears pricked for the sound of feet from above. At floor twelve, the stairs gave up altogether and ended in an impenetrable pile of broken concrete and rusty metal.

A set of double doors containing chunks of safety glass bent outwards at all angles like crooked teeth led out into a hallway with one wall removed. In fact, many of the walls on this floor had been removed and partially replaced by supports that reminded Jake of the giant indestructible pillars of permex outside. These stretched through several broken ceilings as though someone had intentionally carved out a cavernous space, after prudently re-enforcing it here and there, to make a hall of sorts. The whole thing looked about as safe as a landslide.

She had boarded up every window and mouse hole, but it wasn't dark. The room was full of tech and the bulk of it was live. Broken drones lay everywhere, including a sizeable pile of helper drones for the elderly, and some were blackened and warped as if they had been scorched by intense heat. On closer inspection, he realised most of the broken drones that bordered the enlarged room seemed to have been subjected to something that could only be described as torture. There was even a poor empty kiosk drone sat atop a stack of its brethren with a rude spike deliberately wedged into its service hatch. It lent an apt look of horror to the pareidolic face decorating its chassis.

In the centre of the area where the live tech was strewn precariously over several wobbly tables, the young woman he had come all this way to meet was waiting for him to finish goggling. Angelica had called her Grinder, and it might have even been her real name bearing in mind the standards they had out at the edge. When Jake had been growing up here, there had been a few children who had never learnt their names or hadn't been given one. Jake assumed they had chosen something suitable by adulthood.

There had been lots of kids in Jake's orphaned shoes back then. The city could summarily deny entry without pretext or apology to any tempest-tossed pilgrim that trickled into West Gate Town, but no dearth of resources could justify forsaking a stray child to the rabbit lands. In order to spare them from starvation and disease, distraught mothers would tearfully abandoned their babies with the drones that patrolled the environs of San Dannon in the hope that they would have a better, longer life here. Jake couldn't remember whether the deleted had existed back then.

Grinder looked to be around the right age for that displaced generation but didn't look as though she'd had it too rough. Her tan and dirt lines suggested high speeds, sweat and real sunshine. She also had startling hair. Jake had seen many shades of dye on people that could afford it but rarely on a body dressed in A Layer clothes. There was even a kind of flair in the how she wore the cheap, bio-degradable skids a body usually wore. It was as if they were just another costume rather than a classification. She studied him through narrow eyes.

"Angelica sent you didn't she," she said.

That surprised him. "She messaged you?"

"No. She's mentioned you before." There was a flicker of discomfort. "Just once though."

"This is a nice pitch," he congratulated, breaking the silence.

This was an understatement. He had never met an individual with so much excess floor space who didn't also have their nose in air.

"I reassigned the buildings status," she explained, nodding towards his wristware.

He glanced at his notifications and found the 'extremely hazardous' warning several times as well as the run-of-the-mill edge alert. If a body came calling here scouting for somewhere to sleep then they would be clocked for their own good if they ignored the bombardment of warnings. They were also likely to be held at bay by the cams. The quantity nesting here was excessive for half a ruin in the middle of nowhere. They were panning the tables and contraband disinterestedly.

"They're seeing footage with the scrap and tech edited out," she said. "If anyone's watching, all they're seeing is you opening and closing your mouth at an empty room."

Jake was annoyed at the thought of Shortcut or one of his objectionable friends seeing him make a fool of himself on a feed in their unit. She pointed at a screen that attested to what she was saying. It showed Jake standing all alone in a capacious hall. He waved an arm experimentally, and the man in the display waved back.

"Why don't they see you?"

She scoffed. "I don't even have an ID."

"You're deleted?"

"Not exactly," she replied. "What do you want?"

Even though she didn't invite him in, he approached the nearest surface free of clutter and put the glowing thing down face up. He purposely juxtaposed it against Grinder's own tech which was mostly stuff she had wheedled away from A Layer folk down on their luck. There were one or two things he didn't recognise, but they were missing that manufactured finish that told him she had put them together herself. He drew back warily since some of her gadgets were smoking.

"It's gorgeous," she breathed reverently. "I've never seen tech this dense."

"I wanted to know what it does."

"And then sell it?" she said quickly.

He faltered. "That might not be possible."

"I'm not an appraiser," she sniffed.

Jake didn't want to do anything he couldn't undo. "I can't let you have it yet, but you can keep it here. If i need it back, I'll pay you for your appraisal."

Grinder shrugged. "Fine by me. I need to find out what it does before I can give you a fair price anyway."

Jake's heart sank. "You don't know what it does?"

"Not just by looking." She picked it up and pushed it into an access port on an interface she was halfway through taking to pieces.

He instinctively reached out to stop her and then recovered his senses, but she caught sight of his fretful spasm.

"It's not connected," she said, rolling her eyes. "This is my own personal diagnostic tool. Nice arm by the way. I can give you a good price for that too."

He ignored her and studied the interface as if it meant something to him.

"Isn't there anything you can tell me?"

"All I can tell you right now," she offered. "Is that this thing is getting zero energy. It's not emitting radiation either. Just a bit of heat. Whatever's powering it is coming from inside which can only mean one thing.

"I think I'll step carefully here," she uttered after an uncertain pause. "Come back in twenty-four hours."

He gave her a doubtful look but didn't share what he was thinking. After all, how was she going to drag all her junk with her if she decided to skip town? She couldn't just stuff everything in her pockets and change pitches like any other body. As he left, he took once last admiring peek at the Aladdin's cave she had created.

"Don't be late," she advised him aimlessly, turning back to her work.

# 4

"Mother's been thinking about moving the units," Alfred announced, taking advantage of a break in the music, "to a new up and comer build. The whole ground floor is an art gallery. Closer to Central. It's all about being seen you know."

Articia laughed at his contrived pomposity. Dominic shrugged. Gabriel kept his thoughts to himself. Anyone forced to dwell in the stacks and terraces that snaked through the platforms was a hair's breadth from being Ad Layer from his point of view. The Chairman would have said that the Danna family's place was as far away from everyone else as possible. Gabriel had to take a scooter every day if he wanted to be anywhere on time, so he had eventually modded one and disconnected it from the ultrawave network so his father couldn't interfere. Not that he was ever irresponsible when using the unlawful mods. Not anymore at any rate.

"I think we see enough of you as it is." Tish elegantly took a sip of her tiny drink.

Gabriel casually estimated her intake. Very soon, someone was going to suggest a visit to A Layer. Slowly but surely, something that used to be fun and taboo would become as mundane as everything else in life.

"Talking about being seen," Alfred slurred. "Guess who I saw getting off the express together early this morning."

"Nikolic and Elvestad," Tish revealed quickly.

Dominic perked up a little at this news. "Elvestad's in town?"

"He wouldn't tell us what he was doing there though," she said.

"Tish started asking him about his foreign policies," Alfred grumbled in her direction.

Gabriel couldn't quite remember why Articia hated the Iskrem Block. She disapproved of so many laws, politicians and governments that he often lost track. He had to admit that she was totally devoted to each and every cause, but perhaps if she earmarked one for her followers to focus on they might be able to provide more than superficial support once in a while. Alfred was a dyed-in-the-wool clown, so if he was embarrassed by his cousin's behaviour it meant that Tish had really let rip on the man. She had probably denounced the diffident prime minister in front of hundreds of scandalised but amused rail users.

"Was it bad?" Gabriel cringed.

"Almost turned round and went home again," Alfred said.

"Or back to Spasberg," Articia added impishly.

Alfred hooted salaciously. "Ooh, Spasberg."

"I'm serious," Articia insisted. "They had that fresh out of bed look."

Gabriel tried to smile at the jest but had to turn away when he couldn't quite manage it. About six months ago, Dominic had assured them that Spasberg was one hundred per cent real and that he was now working there beneath the Chairman. Nobody had really believed him until Dom had brought back bits and pieces of amazing tech. What was more convincing than the breakthroughs, however, was his bland oath that he didn't really care if they believed him or not. The old Dominic really was gone for good.

He hadn't confirmed which of the many rumours about Spasberg were true, but he did mention a few famous names that he claimed were patrons of this fabled Shangri-La. Away from Articia's prickly ears, Dom had even imparted a handful of egregious secrets that Gabriel was disinclined to accept as the truth, but his friend had been so serious and unflinching when filling him in. Dominic spoke of the place as if it were a temple rather than a sleazy private club for egomaniacs.

Patch hour started across the tightly packed bar and a nurse popped up on every screen with her monologue overriding the music and causing a unified groan. Everyone knew this one. It was such a classic that the girl who played the nurse had a face full of crow's feet nowadays. It was just over twenty minutes long and would be followed by two more servings of vintage indoctrination. You could tell what day of the week it was by the rigidly scheduled public announcements in the Ad Layer.

"Let's get out of here," Dom suggested. His meaning was clear.

The other two looked at each other with glassy eyed goading.

"There's no fight tonight," Gabriel reminded them.

"We could take a bottle." Alfred nodded towards the nearest large kiosk. "A bottle's welcome at any party. A bottle is the party."

Alfred turned to him expectantly, and Gabriel met his gaze while pretending not to know what he wanted. "What?"

"I'm afraid I'm a bit lacking in the trouser department, old boy." Alfred smirked and patted his pockets theatrically.

"I'll buy one," Articia offered casually. "Let's just do it fast. I need some fresh air."

Since Alfred and Articia had turned eighteen, the grubby thrill of their expeditions had diminished somewhat. The first time they had made their way to the A Layer, Dom had been teasing them for jumping at customs drones. Dom had been down several times by then and had dutifully reported what he beheld which had fuelled their resolve to see for themselves. Everyone's parents had found out about their unseemly tour, but the law was the law and technically they had done nothing wrong. Several consecutive foolish decisions later, and the outrageous had become the norm. They had started a trend amongst Articia's loyal adherents, and now most of the movers and shakers had been at least once.

Halfway through their descent, the vintage propaganda at Ad Central became the sounds of Alexander Petrov's famous 'Speech at the Gate'. Down on A Layer, every hour was patch hour. Gabriel was baffled as to how the A-list could stand it. It was no mystery why they were so loud all the time, for they were merely trying to drown out Petrov's awful drone and other patronising tripe. As the four of them got off the platform, the speech finished to some fairly lengthy applause and was replaced by the latest message from Petrov's election campaign.

A bunch of A-listers spotted them and rushed over, but Articia had messaged ahead, and they were being waylaid by her 'friends' who had been kind enough to come meet her at the exit. There was some hushed shouting between the two groups, but when the cams went over to investigate the jackals backed off and feigned innocence. They weren't really dangerous, but they were a major nuisance.

Articia rushed over and gave her rescuers a hug. Gabriel responded to their fixed grins with a nod. Dominic remained aloof and Alfred emulated him. Gabriel couldn't work out if Alfred was being ironic or not. Articia's A-list friends looked happy to see them all regardless.

Articia gave them her killer smile. "Anything interesting going on?"

"You're interesting," one of them oozed. "Wherever you go things will be interesting."

The guy had a thick accent that made his pandering nauseating. His greasy hair was pulled back in what Gabriel had to admit was a flattering way, but it didn't do anything about his cheesy, dirt seamed face.

"So let's go there," Dom said impatiently, reading Gabriel's mind. "Somewhere that doesn't reek of piss."

For the briefest instant, Gabriel spotted a twitch of the cheek that betrayed a secret thought in the slick guy's head. It was one that he didn't dare disclose.

"Don't be a shit!" Tish warned, whirling on Dom fiercely. "Christ, you're so embarrassing."

"That's okay," the guy waved. "You are interesting, so I forgive your embarrassing friends.

"I'll take you to a place that smells like roses. Not far from here." He pointed southwards towards the old river. "You know what roses smell like? That's what you are going to smell there. Just come with me, and I'll take you the nice way."

He winked at Tish and offered her his arm which she tactfully refused. They had to walk there, for there were no scooters allowed on A Layer, and that was a shame because the empty meandering roads would have been a great place to let loose his mods. It took twenty minutes and by then even Articia was becoming tired of the walking and the slick guy's perpetual, obsequious tirade. Their destination turned out to be a crumbling museum situated near the cracked desert of the old river.

Gabriel had to admit that the music coming from inside the hall was inviting. It was a lot better than the usual complimentary selections so popular down here. He might have been willing to show a little enthusiasm, but their slick guide was getting on his nerves, so he opted for stoicism. There was a man at the entrance who was even bigger than Dominic, but he looked more nervous of Dom than Dom did of him. He did his best to appear intimidating.

Why their little cliques seemed to need guards on all their doors was something Gabriel could not figure out. There wasn't anything inside worth stealing, and Auto Response could come in through the wall if they wanted to. What were they so afraid of? The slick guy flamboyantly greeted the doorman and had some words with him in a language too quick for Gabriel to translate. The doorman nodded and pointed inside while rattling off something that ended in a leer.

It was always gloomy in A Layer, but even when they were filled with shiftless tenants, these hollow buildings were sometimes pitch-black. Only Dom seemed at ease as they hurried along the halls following the sound of music muffled by the thick walls. He was even humming along. There were some A-listers nearby in their tight, diaphanous skids that accentuating their bodies as they writhed. People danced like that on C Layer at the end of a raunchy party and with the aid of plenty of social lubricant, but here is where the naughtier girls and boys came to see it done right. Articia and Alfred had taken to it right away, but Gabriel had stubborn hips that didn't want to grind or shake.

Stepping into the main gallery, he jumped when Articia screamed sharply, but she was only hugging some friend of hers she had recognised. He couldn't recall meeting her before, but Gabriel thought she looked familiar. She had a lithe body with natural hair, and those A-list eyes and wan skin were a lot more alluring on her than on the rest of the great unwashed. She actually seemed to have some genuine affection for Tish. They were holding hands and exchanging news breathlessly, and Gabriel could sense the sincerity and mutual respect between the two of them.

Alfred had gone over to some gamers who he couldn't possibly know, but he had probably played against them at some point and lost. It didn't take him long to get them laughing. Even Dom had wandered off. Snatching the bottle from Gabriel's hand, he sauntered up to a gaggle of A-list ladies who were openly appraising his clothes and build. Compared to the other males in the room, he was gleaming with robust health and muscles like the avatar of some horny Greek god. He also towered over everybody else bar Gabriel and had a handsome face when he was chasing something he wanted.

Gabriel was left alone and unsure of what to do with himself. Around him, merrymakers were slouching against the walls talking, or they were using their wristware in an outgoing way. The liveliest bunch had gathered around a set of speakers and were flirting, dancing and passing round nasty inhalants. The place was rank with the scent of crusty armpit, but pervading that impressionable aroma was the acrid stink of the cams floating above. They jerked about trying feverishly to capture every wiggle and jiggle.

In a crowd like this the red flags would be coming fast and furious. There was a good chance a surveillance operative was zoomed in on Gabriel right now. He suddenly felt self-conscious. He tugged absently minded at the cuffs Gunter had chosen for him that morning. This was a place where he had no business being. He was sweating in this ridiculous costume and abruptly sickened by the veiled lugubriousness of this dreadful fleapit.

"What are you thinking about?" someone called in his ear.

It was the pretty girl he last saw talking to Tish. She had managed to sneak up on him without his noticing.

"I wasn't," he stuttered, caught off guard.

She cocked her head at him and raised her eyebrows. "You weren't thinking?"

"It wasn't anything important," he said dismissively with a half laugh.

"You had a moody look on your face," she delved puckishly

He wanted to change the subject. "This is good music."

"That's my brother's music," she announced proudly, pointing to one of the A-listers closest to the speakers.

They weren't all listening to pre-recorded music after all. This girl's brother was using his wristware so that his amplified vocals could be heard over the backing track. When he wasn't singing, he was busy making the A-listers laugh and keeping them moving, but he kept glancing over his shoulder in Gabriel's direction as if he was distracted.

"People pay him to throw these parties, but he'd do it for free if they didn't. He just likes being the centre of attention," she admitted. It was clear she worshiped him. "You should meet him."

She took Gabriel firmly by the wrist and towed him deeper into the writhing crowds. Articia was standing next to the girl's brother and seemed charmed by what she was hearing. She offered the guy the bottle she had just taken a sip from. He took a large swig and affected a coughing fit afterwards as if unused to its potency. When Articia took a second drink, he laughed and bowed to her. His sister tapped him roughly on the back of the head, and he turned to her indulgently.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Say hello to this jacket. He thinks you're doing a good job."

"New wave fan?" The music guy inquired loudly with a polite smile.

Unlike the other listers in the room, he had on an outfit that you were more likely to see in an Ad Layer market. It made him stand out from the rest of his soiled fraternity, but it was his infectious charisma that really made him shine.

"I've never heard of them before," Gabriel shared truthfully.

"Never heard of them!" the singer gasped dramatically. "What do you do up there all day?"

Gabriel didn't know what to say for a moment. The guy looked as if he were annoyed and shook himself with a click of his tongue. "What's your name?"

"Gabriel," the girl answered for him.

Her brother gave her an interrogative stare. Gabriel began to feel awkward, but then Filipe rallied once more into the perfect host.

"I'm Filipe Barros-Santos, and this is my sister Angelita." He put an arm around her and shook her playfully.

In his thick accent, he pronounced her name 'Ankhelita', which gave Gabriel a shiver of foreboding.

"I like your shirt." Filipe pointed to the greasy, crinkled patch where Gabriel had been grabbed and shaken earlier. "What happened here?"

Alfred barrelled in with his features slack from intoxication.

"Ooh, what happened to your shirt Gabe?" He stroked a hand down Gabriel's chest in a wicked way that made the group titter.

"I was grabbed earlier. In the Fountain," Gabriel recounted, ignoring his friend. "I think the guy thought I was someone else."

Angelita appeared curious. "What did he look like?"

"Fat," Gabriel spat vehemently, remembering the feel of his collar digging into his neck as the man's thick hands dragged him down.

"Anything else?" Angelita giggled.

"Short. Shorter than me," he added, realising his assailant had been around average height compared to everyone here at the party. "Unshaven as if he's never used a stick in his life. Why does it matter?"

"Wearing Ad Layer skids?" Filipe asked.

"It was in a bar in the Ad Layer."

"I think he's over there." Filipe pointed. "Staring at you."

*****

Jake gaped through the bodies. "It's not him."

"It's fucking him!" Shortcut disagreed emphatically. "A friend of mine ran his ID for me. Same medical history as your jumper.

"That's the son of Charles Danna! Chairman," Shortcut added as if Jake didn't already know. "An only child. So unless he has a suicidal body double then you were standing in that kid's brains yesterday."

"He's alive." Jake was still trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing.

"No shit!"

"He's talking with Angelica," Jake told him.

It had been so long since Shortcut had last set foot down here he might not even recognise her. When Jake received an urgent request that they attend a party together, he thought his friend was having an attack of nostalgia.

"Yeah?" Shortcut said without interest.

"What are you two looking at?"

Another jacket had crept up on them while they were enthralled by his miracle pal. Jake frantically tried to recall what this monster might have overheard while they were debating the Danna boy's legitimacy. Most jackets had toned bodies, but this guy's entire form resembled a huge bunched fist. Unlike his flash companions, who had stopped enjoying the party to survey their exchange apprehensively, his clothes were plain and serviceable. It was the sort of suit you found on the highfliers around Central Control. When neither of them responded, the angry giant took a step closer and glared at Shortcut who reeled back in alarm.

"You're that hopping lister from the Fountain aren't you?" he decided. "And you're following my friend around."

Without the slightest warning, he threw a lazy punch at Shortcut that sent him horizontal in a split second. Jake knew that Shortcut was out cold before the thing had even connected, and he had a very brief flashback of their time spent as children together. Shortcut was forever being hit. There weren't as many drones around to intervene, and there had always been something inherently unlikable about him that encouraged needless aggression. In most cases, shortcut would collapse into approximately the same position he lay in now. Jake was usually semi-paralyzed with fear, but he would fight anyway. When the adrenalin came, he would attack and usually wound up on the pavement alongside his aggravating chum.

Jake grabbed the huge guy's wrist with his prosthesis and squeezed until something inside the machine whirred in protest. Then he wrapped his other arm around the guy's neck and attempted to pull him off balance, but the dreadnought jolted in response to the crushing pain in his arm and loosened Jake's grip before he could find any purchase. The man had the shoulders of a bull and reacted to the pressure by instinctively tucking in his chin until Jake was sure the bones in his forearm were creaking.

His captive casually reached across to disengage Jake's robotic hand, and with tremendous strength, he prised it open and twisted it back until Jake's fingers became numb to his command. Around them the party had ground to a halt. People were watching and pointing at the animated cams with fear written all over their faces. Angelica ran over and pitted her small strength against theirs in a bid to separate them. She seemed so fragile next to the big gorilla.

"Get out the way!" Jake grunted, yanking his partner across the dance floor as party-goers scattered like pins.

When the guy slipped and stumbled, Jake thought he had the advantage and tried to complete the lock. Then an elbow shot out and broke at least two of his ribs. He lost track of things quickly after that. His opponent moved so fast it felt like every inch of him was being pummelled simultaneously. The whirlwind medley included a surprise knee for his damaged ribcage and a kick to the skull that turned the room upside down.

Jake realised that the beating had ceased. He staggered upwards and sought blearily for his antagonist. The Gabriel lad had taken hold of his friend, but he wasn't restraining him. He was lightly holding him back as if he were a well-trained animal. The big guy was rubbing his throat with one hand while sweeping his hair with the other like he was feeling stressed out. He seemed ruffled but unhurt.

"We're going!" Gabriel Danna looked around at the spectators anxiously. "I'm sorry about this."

The boy moved towards the exit, and his charge tailed him obediently, but both of them studied Shortcut as they stepped around him as if the depraved surveillance operator was an intriguing curiosity. Their overdressed co-stars followed them out too as well as one or two bodies who shot daggers at him as they passed by. Jake pulled himself together and knelt down by Shortcut to check if he was still breathing.

"Is he okay?" Angelica demanded, dipping beside them both.

"Come on, we have to go!" Jake made a desultory attempt at lifting the plump little man, but the throb from his abused side made his vision darken.

Shortcut seemed to register the urgency, however, and gathered enough of his faculties to lever himself up with Angelica's assistance. There was already a stampede for the doors in anticipation of Auto Response's imminent gate-crashing. Jake scanned the room for a less crowded evacuation route, and they joined a trickle of people towards the back of the museum who were also hoping for a less conspicuous way out.

Jake tumbled into a wide dimly lit corridor and recognisable that source of illumination as the glow of the city streets, so he pursued it. The windows had been secured with boards ripped from the floor by the org who pitched here, but Jake tore the wood away easily in chunks that had already been weakened by age and rot. In the distance, he could hear the sirens wailing. The noise was designed to quell and disperse crowds, and it made Jake want to bite through his knuckle.

He flung Shortcut through the opening and jumped after him to land on the concrete outside. His injuries made themselves known again, but Angelica nudged him out of his stupor and led the way as they vaulted into the nearest unclaimed building. The tide of escapees thinned as they pelted over sleepy shapes that shouted angry condemnations at the interlopers. As a pack of kids, the three of them had gotten plenty of practice causing havoc and avoiding the drones. Lights and noise followed them from the museum as Auto Response arrived to clock anybody too slow or stupid to run away.

"This is bad!" Angelica puffed, winded.

"We didn't do anything," Jake said. "It'll be a clocking at most for disruptive behaviour. You know they don't like drawing attention to incidents involving jackets. Not when it's the jackets who're throwing their weight around."

Jake and Angelica supported a slightly stunned Shortcut between them and lumbered away from the old river counting their lucky stars. The new dwarf lights installed several years ago had already given up the ghost in this particular area. San Dannon left them running twenty-four hours a day to help prevent crime, but around here the drones never got round to replacing them regularly. Now the feeble glowing lines gave the intermittent pools of darkness beyond them more definition to lurk in. Even though he knew the cams could see right through them, these shadows were comforting for Jake after his poignant dash through the city with his childhood companions.

"Where are you living now?" She wanted to know which direction they were going.

"Nowhere," he admitted. "Head gatewise."

"How are you doing? Do you want to stop by a medi-kiosk?"

"No!" Shortcut bellowed before Jake could answer. "Let's just get out of here. Away from Central."

As their trio waddled along, Jake chewed over a question he wanted to ask but couldn't work out how to phrase without sounding like an idiot.

"So what do you know about the Jacket?" he requested. "Not the big guy. The other one."

Angelica gave him a sly look, and her arm brushed his as she shifted her grip around Shortcut's waist. "I know he's Gabriel Danna. The Chairman's son."

Jake heard she had become the honorary master of the dust boards, which were a monotonously circuitous method of chatting behind San Dannon's back, so he wasn't surprised she had learnt this titbit of information, but it really didn't tell him what he wanted to know.

"What did he have to say?" he asked as nonchalantly as possible.

"Nothing much," she replied shortly. "We were interrupted by your little sideshow."

"My sideshow," he said, thinking about that slow-motion haymaker scything towards Shortcut's astonished mug.

"What was it all about?" She sounded genuinely annoyed.

"His big friend didn't like Shortcut staring at him."

She nodded as though this type behaviour was understandable if not reasonable.

"Don't stare," she instructed him, with a hint of snigger.

"I couldn't help it. He was dead yesterday."

"Is that right." Her face was a blank.

"That's right," Jake confirmed. He couldn't tell if she was taking him seriously. "He's the victim of the case I'm currently investigating."

"Then you've cracked it," she congratulated idly. "All you have to do is tell your bosses the corpse beat you up at a party. Case closed."

"His friend beat me up," Jake corrected her.

They had come to a main intersection. This was the sort of commodious neutral territory where the bodies set up mobile shanties. It was the last pit stop before the lawlessness of the edge. A shrivelled starver nearby glowered at them for disturbing him. Angelica seemed distracted.

"Can you handle this from here?" she asked. "There's something I have to do."

Jake shrugged tetchily. She said goodbye to Shortcut with a get-well-soon slap on the shoulder and left checking her bracelet. Jake reflected on how big a fool he had made of himself this evening while he shouldered his friend and resolutely turned his back on her retreating form.

# 5

Upon waking, Gabriel quickly cancelled his lessons for the day before he could talk himself out of it and drove into town to find some breakfast. At the kiosks closest to Main Green, he found Articia and Alfred sharing a large meal and arguing piercingly. Gabriel watched them for a spell before shaking his head and joining them.

"Hey," he greeted the duo. A drone came over and nimbly delivered his order as he sat down. "You seen Dom?"

Alfred harrumphed and folded his arms. "What's wrong with him? I was getting somewhere last night."

Articia's eyes widened in interest. "Who?"

"That music guy."

"Also known as Filipe," Tish amended matter-of-factly.

"He'll always be 'That Music Guy' to me," Alfred replied, laying a hand on his heart.

"And what would your mum have said when you brought him home?"

"She'd have been outraged at first," Alfred admitted, "until I offered to share him with her on the weekends."

"You're sick!" Articia accused him, pushing him away.

"I'm serious though. Why do we continue to take Dom places?"

"He's better than he was. Since he started working," Gabriel defended him meekly.

This was true, but only because Dom hadn't the time for any dangerous, ill-conceived antics recently. He had been too busy building fifty pounds of muscle and becoming a crack shot at his father's semi-private shooting gallery which was actually the neighbours' roofs. Dominic's transformation had been a welcome distraction from his usual repertoire, yet it became the cause of greater distress amongst them.

"That's true," Tish granted loyally.

Gabriel unwrapped his food and began separating the dry, exposed areas from the parts that were still moist. He listened with half an ear to their conversation while keeping an eye out for Dom. Articia wanted Gabriel to go to some party or rally. He mumbled an agreement without catching the details.

"Today?" he clarified.

"Dom said he'd be there," she shrugged. "I think everyone's being seen there. Goran Nikolic will be there."

There was a certain set to her jaw. Tish loathed Nikolic, but she seemed to dislike all politicians.

Main Green was the place every large public gathering was held, but today the space had been consumed by the usual sedate pageantry with extra bells on. There were blaring screens everywhere, volunteers were handing out free gifts and street performers had been shuttled in from exotic parts to help lure in the foot traffic. Nikolic was already onstage wearing a dapper but unsophisticated suit, and he was in the middle of a tortuous speech that nobody was paying any attention to.

Gabriel was mistaken. There was one person listening to the windbag, and that person was Dominic's father, who clearly didn't like what he was hearing. There was a ring of empty air around him as, so it must have been off-putting for Nikolic to be scowled at from a gap in the push and shove below the stage. Chief Knock turned about as though he sensed Gabriel's regard. Gabriel tried to pretend to he hadn't been staring, but the man marched over to him.

Gabriel gave him a preliminary wave. "Good afternoon, Chief."

"Gabriel," he responded. "Articia bring you here?"

This daunting authoritarian had access to every cam and drone in the city, so people naturally surmised that he must know everything about everyone. Contrary to popular belief, Gabriel knew the Chief only kept track of important citizens and troublemakers, which meant he had Gabriel and his friends coming and going. Dominic was always getting caught by his father in some wrongdoing untill he finally found his top secret calling. Now that Dom had turned it all around, he and his father had nothing to say to each other anymore.

"I don't really know what it's for," Gabriel admitted.

The Chief nodded towards the bony politician occupying the shallow platform. Nikolic had given up on his informative monologue and was playing an approved message. A small portion of the display was projected onto his face and dazzled him each time the contents changed from dark to light. The movie showed crowds of attractive, self-actualised people clapping on the pristine walkways of Great Hestoff. Then it switched to the pyramids as a symbolic representation of Egypt. Gabriel wondered if the pyramids were even still standing. The image they used had been captured long before San Dannon began its great hibernation. The train of photogenic camels in the foreground were proof of that.

"Petrov's lapdog," the Chief stated boldly, "is here to make sure everyone remembers their duty during this delicate time."

Gabriel was lost. "I thought Egypt was a dead cert."

"It's what comes after the election."

"What's that?"

Knock's permanent grimace grew darker. "Sacrifice and compromise."

An overenthusiastic reveller barged into the Chief, but when the heedless man turned around to apologise, an expression of wry amusement spread across his face instead. That startled Gabriel. The guy obviously recognised the Chief. Any other citizen in San Dannon would have been a lot more concerned by their blunder. Chief Knock was the man who knew what flavour ration block you ordered for breakfast. No doubt this information allowed his legion of number crunchers to decipher the dirty secrets written on the underside of each subject's heart. Gabriel was a cherry flavour man.

"Chief Knock," the oaf simpered, flashing him an unrepentant yellow smile.

The Chief seized him and managed to lift the little fellow a foot off the ground with one arm. The guy was too short and weasel-like to be a born and bred C Layer resident. He was doing well for himself though. His overalls and tech were like the gloss on a rotten apple. He squirmed with humiliation but didn't flinch away.

"What are you up to, shithouse scum!" the Chief growled. A few men and women within earshot tittered blithely at the impropriety.

"Taking care of myself, Chief," the weasel hissed, his cheeks flushed.

"Take yourself elsewhere then!"

The Chief hurled him backwards, and the crowd surged apart as he landed in a pile on the grass. There was naked fury and menace in every movement as he recovered his bearings. Gabriel gave a small involuntary laugh. The nasty little man looked so funny getting huffy with the notoriously short-tempered Chief while everyone watched. In return, Gabriel received a full dose of the laughingstock's spite and felt like he had been doused with acid.

Gabriel repressed a shudder and slunk away while Dom's father was distracted. He wondered how the fancy janky had offended the powerful Chief and what unpleasantness the poor fool's future might contain. Nobody liked the incessant crowds near Central, but old knock's reaction to a jog of the elbow was a bit over the top. Despite the rumours that he collected his enemies' thumbs in jars, Gabriel knew through Dom that the Chief was a courteous, equable man for the most part. The clash was plainly about something more complicated, but it didn't concern Gabriel, so he put it out of his mind.

He scanned the rally and located Articia by the stage. She was arguing with the retiring Goran Nikolic who appeared to be unaccustomed to beautiful young women that yelled at him from a distance of two feet. Dominic was standing close by laughing quite openly, but he soon became bored with the sport and moved on. Gabriel followed him through the crush on the threadbare Green towards Central.

He ploughed through the fanatically keen wearily as they did their best to liven things up. Promotional videos didn't usually make it all the way up here, so there was an Ad Layer feel to the atmosphere as politainment played from every side. There were one or two red faces and spasmodic fits of dancing as people that should know better were seduced by the dreadful carnival. Gabriel managed to catch Dom just before he entered the nearby expressway by hailing him.

"I can't stay," Dominic said as Gabriel approached. "Got go to work."

"Today?"

"Some big emergency."

"At Spasberg?" Gabriel asked sceptically, following Dom as he made his way towards the platform.

"You'd be surprise," he replied casually. "Lots of visiting dignitaries today."

"Just give me a minute?" Gabriel requested, irked by Dominic's grown-up persona that he only pulled out on special occasions. "I want to ask you something important."

"Come with me," Dominic invited readily.

Gabriel was taken aback. "Is that allowed?"

Dominic smirked. "It's hard to keep track these days."

Gabriel gawped at the expressway as if it were a dangerous toy he had been warned not to play with. Like their slumming in the A Layer, the sons and daughters of the rich and influential had no business heading out of town unescorted. Gabriel had only ever used it as a little boy when accompanying his parents for minutely scheduled trips to the principal city states of the Alliance. That was back when his mother had still been with them. Gabriel shook off his irrational consternation. There was no law against any citizen skipping town if they had the data, and that included the son of the Chairman.

Dominic ignored the customs drone as he boarded the platform, and Gabriel followed him decisively. It was called the expressway because it only had two stops and spent the day rocketing between them at terrific speeds. As they whipped past the city scape into the heart of the Mech Layer beneath it, Gabriel peeked through the reinforced glass barrier and saw empty space on one side where relentless digging machines were creating more room. On the other side was the inspiring sprawl of San Dannon's industrial backbone.

The haphazard jumble of Mech Layer Central was cloudy with steam and random gases. Pipes and cables stretched for miles in every direction to keep the folks above fed and hydrated. The highest peaks were wreathed in a poisonous haze caused by the drones flitting everywhere in numbers that were jangling. From this distance, they seemed to writhe like insects against their backdrop of oily, soot encrusted machinery.

It reminded Gabriel of his history lessons concerning sixty-six, and he was relieved when solid rock obscured the view. This was quickly replaced by San Dannon's vast intercity shuttle station. The platform they were riding glided to an impossibly smooth landing after its brisk flight down, and the disembarking passengers began to spread out crossing automatic bridges on to wait for their next shuttle at its assigned track. Those people that perceived themselves as the most important made their way to the front of their departure line without a ripple of protest.

At the head of each queue, Gabriel recognised one or two of his friend's parents who gave him a friendly nod. At the back waiting for the first class traffic to taper off, there was usually some family of A-listers trying to start a new life. Gabriel didn't know where he fit into the delineatory queues, but Dominic swept his way to the front of one made up exclusively of C Layer types, and Gabriel was forced to keep up with him or get left behind.

Nobody objected. One Lady even waved good-naturedly at him, so Gabriel waved back as surreptitiously as possible while keeping his head low. Then he realised it was Alfred's mother. She bustled over with a crinkled, open face that showed the same outpour of delight Gabriel had experienced a dozen times when stopping by Alfred's home. Though it was undoubtedly expensive, she was wearing a large unfashionable coat that she had probably thrown on stepping out the door. Her nails were as dazzling as ever, but her fingers were missing their customary collection of fine but worthless rings.

"Good morning Lady Evelyn," he acknowledged innocently.

"Gabriel," she purred. "You naughty boy. What are you doing here?"

"I'm just-" he stuttered, oblivious as to what he should say. He couldn't just lie and tell her he was going sightseeing in the Iskrem Block.

"You're going to Spasberg," she guessed, her eyes sweeping his body for manifestations of sexual maturity. "Does your dad know you're here?"

"He's just going for a short stay, Lady A," Dominic interjected, familiarly. "Just getting him some work done."

"Such a shame," she pouted. "I thought perhaps you might liven things up down there.

"Do you know?" she whispered, leaning in close until her body was pressed to his. She stood on the tips her toes so she could reach his ear. "I always knew you'd grow up to be a man much more handsome than your father."

She laid a hand on his cheek flirtatiously, and Gabriel almost recoiled. She was on the board for Christ's sake. She was a woman whose angry stare had made him want to hide behind his own feet as a boy.

"You've more of your mother in you," she said sadly, before wandering back to her position in line.

"What was that!" Gabriel hissed, catching up with his chuckling friend.

"It's not what you think." Dominic explained. "And it kind of is a little bit. If we have time, I'll show you footage of Lady A that will change your head."

"No thanks," Gabriel declined sarcastically, fending off the mental image.

"She's not always as old as she looks." Dom winked.

"Not always as old as she looks," Gabriel repeated. Abstract jokes weren't usually part of his friend's repertoire.

"That's nothing, anyway." Dom paused to open the door of a private shuttle that sighed to a halt beside them. He swiped the bio without checking at the cost. "Spasberg is the most twisted, perverted place you could ever imagine."

*****

"Something bad's going on!" Shortcut shouted, pacing the floor.

Jake had brought him to a pitch he'd had his eye on for a few days. It was difficult to spot an honest-to-goodness police officer amongst a population of ordinary bodies, but eventually they would catch him out and smear excrement on the walls while he was at work, so he was constantly on the lookout for a new place to stay that wasn't completely dilapidated. Shortcut had gotten a couple of hours sleep while Jake considered his case and tried to drown out the heavy snoring.

"After I spotted that kid in the bar," Shortcut ranted, darting to the window and scoping out the street left and right, "I went home to get some info from the boys on the swag. Someone's been in my unit."

Jake was disquieted by this news. "Anything missing?"

"No," he replied. "And nobody saw anything either. But that's not all.

"According to a reliable witness," he pointed to a tiny cam contentedly bobbing about beneath Jake's new ceiling. "There's been some jacket there this morning asking questions about me."

San Dannon liked to paint the picture of a surveillance operator whose deportment regarding private parts of footage was that of a doctor's operating on his patient. In reality, the bulk of Shortcut's neighbours were grasping reprobates ready to sell anything to anybody for the right price.

"San Dannon doesn't like being caught breaking the law," Shortcut said. The hollow from his upbringing in A Layer were more conspicuous than ever. "We're gonna end up missing."

"End up missing?" Jake laughed.

"You know what I'm saying."

"No I don't. Things aren't good round here, but one thing they don't do to us is kill us. They let us take care of that type of thing ourselves with nuff and roman. And parkour." Jake added

Shortcut wasn't paying attention. He was dancing around grabbing handfuls of air.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not going back." Shortcut managed to catch his own personal camera as it buzzed past in lazy circles.

It was a lot more expensive than the pedestrian sort Security used, as was the wrist tech he removed. Before Jake could talk him out of it, he crushed them beneath his scuffed janky footwear and returned to his pacing. It was like committing suicide. The cams would be down in ten minutes which was the average length of a blip.

"Don't you think you're over-reacting?"

"No," he said forcefully. "You don't know what it's like on the Ad Layer. There's stuff I haven't told you. Everyone knows the jackets are hiding something, but nobody dares say anything out loud."

"You think they're hiding what?" Jake challenged him. "A piece of tech that brings people back from the dead."

"Be quiet!" he shushed.

"Where are you going to go?" Jake asked, hoping to reason with him.

"I'll emigrate." Shortcut waved towards some distant land on the other side of the pockmarked wall. "Buy a new user ID. I've got something put by."

"And start again on A Layer?" Jake said, eyeing his friend's paunch.

Shortcut winced. "Not everywhere's as bad as this place, though."

Jake could see that he was set on going, so he kept his opinion to himself. Some places were better and some places were worse, but it was all based on hearsay. One thing was certain though. Every city was a petri dish where any horrible social injustice was possible under the right circumstances. The cities of the Alliance had been shaped by desperation, misery and greed. Only Great Heston in Irkutsk was the exception.

"I know a girl who might be able to help," Jake offered. "She looks the type, and I think she's above board if you know what I mean."

Stabbing each other in the back was like yawning for many A Layer folk. It was performed apologetically and as a consequence of irresistible compulsion. It was also frowned upon in polite company.

"She won't accept data though," Jake warned.

"Grinder," Shortcut said. "I need you to stop by my unit first and get the box."

Jake catalogued his injuries. He was tempted to tell Shortcut to go back himself while Jake slept off the pain, but he wanted his magic ring now more than ever. He hauled himself up and used his friend for support.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be back soon," Jake said quietly. "Meet me at the edge. In the old place."

The Ad Layer's lowest form of life was out in force today, but it was clear Jake had nothing on him except for scars and muck, so their attempts to earn his confidence were half-hearted at best. Maybe the pickings were slim this morning. There did seem to be less jackets roaming around, and there were more bodies up here today too. Every screen had been hijacked by the inconsiderate button pushers in Hestoff, for they all showed a bouquet of Petrov along with the pyramids in an endless loop of gentle assurances and grim faced warnings.

When the queues for the dispensaries were empty, Jake cursed the fatherly megalomaniac on the screens and all his kin and countrymen. Disgruntled chem addicts, who were unable to vent their frustration due to the strict control San Dannon maintained here, were also chuntering about the interfering president and his damned election. If Petrov's election and the lack of chems weren't connected, someone had made a huge cockup because the association between the ache of withdrawal and the president's grinning mug was now seared into their itchy brains.

Since the dispensaries were out-of-order, Jake went to see Doc first. He couldn't concentrate until he had cured that nagging hiccough. 'Doc' was a term of endearment, but the man was, in fact, an authentic doctor. He just wasn't a doctor of medicine. On a swag chock-full of obsolete professional types, he shared a cramped unit with two other elderly redundant scholars. Most of the locals were too proud to contend with the rigours of a life on A Layer with their peers in the Majora Org, so they opted for sleeping in shifts and getting on each other's nerves instead.

These knobbly kneed neurotics made a living doing the odd honest job for honest pay when their talents were in demand and a broad assortment of miscellaneous petty crimes when the offers were lamentably thin. Here was the place you came to if you didn't know what it was you needed because they had a retired specialist for every eventuality. It was also an elephant's graveyard of skills long forgotten from disuse such as taxidermy, but Jake was more concerned with their expertise in psychopharmacology .

They were mostly harmless and uncompromisingly dignified which were characteristics that people who made the rules had a soft spot for, so they weren't bothered much by Security. One of Doc's roommates tried to waylay Jake in order to manage his requirements, but Jake insisted that Doc be woken up. The old man didn't mind being nudged awake with bad grace by one of his acolytes when he grasped that it was a paying customer, and he greeted Jake with as much decorum as anyone can with sleep marks still on their face. When he explained his predicament, Doc wasn't surprised.

"Something to do with what's coming. I don't think anybody down here's going to see any 'medication' for a while," he divulged to a disappointed Jake. "San Dannon are hoarding all the best stuff. Probably a precautionary measure until after the election. It's just unfortunate that opiates are amongst the more expensive substances to synthesise."

Jake watched disconsolately as the learned old fogey searched his meagre quarters. Either his swollen joints were making a slow job of it, or Jake's perception of time was being influenced by his low-key cravings. The little space not taken up by the shared bed was a fascinating Aladdin's cave of containers, bottles and bundles. Most bore brand names that were long since extinct which indicated substantial dealings with the scavvies. There were even some mycological growing things on the shelves as well as an unobtrusive outlet to the wasted space beneath the floor that would be difficult to notice from outside when properly concealed. Jake pondered over what might be growing beneath that hatch. It had to be something that didn't need much light, water or conspicuous attention.

A bag of goodies in Jake's price range was produced which the Doc certified would ease his withdrawal pangs. They inevitably had a homemade appearance, but that was why you insisted on seeing the doctor and not one of his counterparts. Doc cautioned him that if the draught continued it would diminish his supply, so Jake bought as many as he could afford. Doc was technically a drug dealer and convention meant he was duty bound to shamelessly upsell his clients, but Jake didn't want to take any chances until after this political crap had blown over.

After finishing his one item shopping list for the day, Jake took the familiar rout to Shortcut's surreptitious little neighbourhood blind to the locals' efforts to flag him down for a short word. As he let himself in, he noticed someone had already boosted Shortcut's snazzy little signal booster. It didn't take Jake long to find what he was looking for. Since the tenant was never going to return to his grimy unit, Jake just tossed everything on the floor until the fancy box bounced onto the litter. When he opened it, he found that Shortcut's secret nest egg was a loose handful of clear beads rattling around together in their slender capsule. He resealed it and surveyed the mess he had made.

His friend had retained the sense to keep his requests to a minimum, but there were one or two other items of sentimental value that Jake stuffed deep into his pocket before leaving. While locking up behind him, one of Shortcut's neighbours waddled over for a chat. It was a guy Jake had seen talking to his cams on several occasions as if they were those house cats that spinsters used to collect.

"He gone for good?" Shortcut's colleague asked, brazenly squinting through the door.

The man's pet cams came to investigate, and Jake swatted them away irritably.

"He'll be back soon," Jake fabricated. "He's just visiting an old friend or two."

Shortcut's neighbour snorted. "He hasn't got any friends. Except you."

"Well there you go," Jake replied, stalking off.

"Tell him I'll see him around," the guy heckled sourly. "He'll know what I mean."

# 6

Gabriel sat up and gradually realised he had slept the whole day away. He took Gunter to task over this, but the drone claimed he had woken his master and laid out his outfit that morning. When Gabriel pushed him about the incongruities in his account, the antiquated machine went offline and refused to restart. As a result of dealing with the contrariness of a lonely little boy for most of his working life, Gunter had always been a bit more recalcitrant than the rest of his placid species, but this distressing breakdown was something different altogether.

If Gabriel were sentimental, he would say that his valet had been feeling guilty about something. Alfred would say that mind-set was all wrapped up in Gabriel's mammalian view of the world. Believing that machines should feel and think like humans was the kind of anthropocentric folly that led to the scourge of Monika and her ilk, but Gunter had once told his master that he didn't like the way Alfred looked at him, so Gabriel was keeping an open mind on the subject.

After failing to revive his faithful assistant, Gabriel was forced to fend for himself. He opened storage units he had never had to touch before. They were bursting with items that rebuffed his attempts to push them back in after being examined, so clothes were spilling out and pooling on every surface before he was through. When he considered the end result of his dressing room montage in the mirror, he thought he hadn't done a bad job. He wouldn't stick out in any unfavourable way. Gunter's choices could be a touch flashy for Gabriel's tastes, but he didn't like to offend the rickety curmudgeon with minor criticisms.

He scratched his eye. It was itching abominably as if he had endured some violent mishap last night, but when he tried to recall what he had been up to it was like sifting through a pleasant pink fog. He combed over his messages for a hint or two and frowned when he came to a couple of videos from nobody in particular. This was a new experience for Gabriel. The son of the Chairman wasn't a man that any random stranger could contact. If that were the case, his inbox would be flooded by entreaties from the needy, death threats from extremists and love letters from citizens suffering from erotomania.

The first video was a clip of him standing next to an A-lister he didn't recognise at some party. He was admiring his own outfit and the pretty girl he was talking to when the scene blurred, and he was looking at Dom and two men he had seen somewhere before but couldn't put a name to. One was a fat guy dressed in Ad Layer skids. You didn't see many overweight people these days even in the janky swags, and for some reason Dom decided to knock this one unconscious. Gabriel's jaw dropped, and he zoomed in with bated breath.

Before he could get a handle on the plot, a fight had started between Dominic and the fat guy's buddy. The A-list girl bravely tried to intervene and was nearly flattened for her trouble. That was when Dom turned things around and laid into the brawler until Gabriel swept in to stop him committing murder. What the hell had they been up to? He wondered if he had suffered a blow to the head during the altercation that might have affected his memory.

With a sharp twinge, the pink fog descended like a portcullis separating him from his train of thought. This time he tried to wade through it, and that barrier became a red wound radiating confusion and sweet pain. It made him want to curl into a ball with his arms wrapped around his ears, but he resisted the urge and pressed a little harder. When the pleasurable headache reached a crescendo, he retreated once more and had to sit on his bed while the disorientation melted away. He couldn't understand why he was so shaky, yet everything seemed fine now.

After his pulse had slowed from a whine to a murmur, he played the second piece of footage without paying much attention to it. Somebody was falling in it. Then it cut to a splattered body. Gabriel played it again. By the time he had finished with his repetitions, his world was spinning as if it were him taking a head dive into the pavement rather than his twilight zone double. He almost vomited on Gunter's polished floor. It wasn't very long, yet the cam was lucky to capture even that much airtime because the other Gabriel had streaked past it like a cartoon character holding an anvil. Why had he been so happy?

When he was done pacing and gibbering, Gabriel stared vacantly at nothing while he deliberated on what he had seen until blessed denial set in. It was a prank. He giggled in order to reinforce that simple fact, and it came out as a series of dry whimpers. He studied both pieces of footage again with a detached, forensic mind-set. With the subdued demeanour of a soul that knows it has seen its own splashy demise, he left to get some answers from the supporting cast of Dominic's gritty little action movie.

"It's the ankh," Articia concluded after watching the videos.

Her reaction was surprisingly calm compared to Alfred's who had aged ten years and couldn't stop twitching. Gabriel found them occupying Articia's favourite private library in the Ad Layer. They were taking in the view and idly completing some lessons while the owner anxiously brought them small cups of strong coffee and did his best to be unobtrusive.

Now the barista was scowling as an ancient sanitary drone cleaned up Alfred's regurgitated mix of coffee and breakfast. Gabriel knew that his ostentatious passing had affected Alfred the worse because he accepted its validity without question. Gabriel had been hoping for a jovial dismissal of the footage's authenticity followed by some warning against scrungers and malware.

"You're head," Alfred said indelicately.

"No," Gabriel denied hurriedly. "It's not possible. That can't be my head. I'd remember. I'm real!"

"But you've been forgetting things," Alfred pointed out. "Maybe the ankh worked after all. Maybe you sort of... came back together."

"That's not how the ankh works," Tish cut in, her watery eyes brimming with sympathy. "It would've healed him instantly, and it can't put a brain back together. Not correctly."

The sanitary drone finished its task and wandered away to recycle the waste. The librarian, who could sense the tension in the room, went for a walk but left the clock running.

"I'm me!" Gabriel said.

Articia nodded. She was weeping now.

"I'm real," he repeated manically, breathing heavily. "I'm real. That's not me."

Articia shook her head slowly. Alfred stared at the antique table as if he didn't intend to look up again.

"Who are these other people?" Gabriel demanded of them. "What have they got to do with this?"

"One is a surveillance supervisor, I think Dom said." Alfred offered, without eye contact.

"The other one's a police officer." There was catch in Articia's voice. "Angelica told me. No-one knows what they were doing there."

"Angelica. Is that the girl?"

Articia nodded. "You were talking to her."

"Do you think she knows where to find these guys?"

Articia held her hands up in a 'who knows' gesture. Alfred was just as unhelpful.

"Someone sent me this footage, and I think it might be them. You said Dom thought one was surveillance."

"That's right," Alfred confirmed. "He said the fat one was following you around."

Gabriel experienced a sinking feeling. Dominic introduced this ankh tech into their little group. He attacked those guys at the party without provocation. Gabriel had known him for long enough to never underestimate what he was capable of, especially if he had a string of good intentions to brandish. Whatever this was, his best friend was probably right in the middle of it.

He displayed a still of the girl who embodied his second best hope for information. Whatever she was saying to him had earned his undivided attention. She had been vivacious and pretty, but Gabriel would never have propositioned her. Seducing A-listers was for perverted old creeps who had lived and loved in the golden age of chlamydia.

"Can you message her and get her to meet me?"

*****

Shortcut's paranoia was beginning to grate at his nerves, so he went to Grinder's early and left the recently unemployed surveillance operator in a dingy pipe with a bunch of deleted. He had surrendered his hoard to Jake's safe keeping, but neither of them wanted to risk Grinder's wrath for guiding uninvited guests to her safe haven. Jake ignored the barrage of notifications informing him he was entering a hazardous area and switched on his light as he entered the isolated ruins of her university. While ascending the fractured stairs, he heard voices arguing from floor twelve. One of them was Grinder, and the other was high-pitched like a little girl's. He slowed down before he reached the top.

"I'm not saying it's a bad idea." Grinder sounded stressed out. There was banging punctuating the conversation as if she was moving things around a little too vigorously. "But it's risky. Are you sure about these forecasts. The numbers seem a bit extreme."

"The numbers are irrelevant and so is the risk." The girl spoke in that insufferable grownup way clever children talk. "If we don't get her back, all will be lost, and so you lose nothing by helping."

"So you say," Grinder challenged.

"Yes. So I say," the snotty girl echoed. "Believe me or not, it's fine by me. It's no skin of my nose."

"I know! You hate mankind and oppose all its works," Grinder summarised disdainfully, "and you might even be playing a complicated joke on me to pass the time until your big space rapture."

"Maybe," the girl responded. "But it would only be complicated to you."

"Because I'm so simple."

"Yes."

"And you're a genius?"

"Only compared to you."

"But you still can't beat me at eight-ball."

There was a pregnant pause.

"I was not designed to play eight-ball," the girl stated patiently. "You are not designed to tear humans in half without slowing down. Who would win in that scenario?"

"Me. I'd still have my integrity."

Defeated by curiosity, Jake finally peeked over the broken wall. Grinder was sorting through some junk giving each piece a cursory glance before tossing it aside as though she were looking for something in particular. There was a little girl sat on a table swinging her legs, and the table was creaking under the weight of her. She looked like a perfectly ordinary, petulant human child, but Jake didn't doubt that she was just as dangerous as she claimed.

There was something larger than life about her. She had too much confidence in her movements and too much lustre in her cheeks, but the biggest clue for Jake was the fact that her chest was splayed wide open as if she had sat up halfway through heart surgery. Where her organs should have been, there was a large black gash with an access port and a thick cable plugged in the centre. The cable wove across the room and disappeared into Grinder's network of screens, updecks and other pirated booty.

Grinder glanced at a busy display while she searched through her junk. "What's the prognosis?"

The girl undergoing the disturbing vivisection took hold of the cable and twisted firmly to release it. "Well, there's some idle chatter about you, but that isn't unexpected. There's also some talk about the election changes from a few bigwigs, but they're only speculation I'm afraid. Then there's our old-"

The girl's head snapped up towards Jake in alarm. Her swollen torso sealed shut and her visage became suffused with rage when their eyes met across Grinder's disorderly tech lab. She was on her feet and across the room at an unnatural speed. Jake bolted, but she extended an arm, and he found himself pinned to the wall by his neck. When his vision had cleared and the sound came back on, Grinder was at the thing's side attempting to pacify her while stroking her hair as if she were a real live girl.

The machine's flesh now ended just above the elbow, and her forearm had seamlessly transformed into a tangled growth of dark grey crystals that spiralled towards him like a spear made of broken glass. Most of it was a nonsensical formation of sharp edges and jagged points, but the bulbous digits that were once her fingers pressed hard against his chest without piercing his skin. His legs churned the air trying to find solid ground.

Grinder managed to talk the robot girl down before he passed out, and she dropped him moodily. He collapsed in a pile while her arm shrank softly back to its original proportions. This mindboggling folding of solid matter was difficult to follow with the eye because as soon as the vicious blades of crystal were done dissolving into each other, they were replaced by a flawless, skinny arm with whip crack speed. The girl shook her new hand and watched him recover as if he were a cockroach she had been asked to share a meal with.

"You frightened her," Grinder accused him, fearlessly holding the thing by its shoulders in a motherly way.

"Yeah, you frightened me," the girl concurred. "You're early."

Jake got to his feet while trying not to make too many sudden moves. "What are you doing with that thing?"

"She's not dangerous," Grinder said, narrowing her eyes.

Jake made a gesture towards his bruises.

"Okay, she's dangerous," Grinder admitted. "But no more than anyone else."

"I'm easily startled," the girl said solemnly. She studied Jake speculatively. "He's injured. Two cracked ribs."

"How do you know that?" Jake covered his side protectively.

"It's my job to know how healthy humans are," she said off-handed. She laid a small hand on Grinder's. "You should tenderly bind them in an uncharacteristic display of altruism."

"Maybe you should do it," Grinder countered, pushing her away and getting back to work.

The girl turned back to Jake with an exaggerated expression of distaste. "I'm not going to do that."

"Good!" He said with feeling.

After skirting around the girl, he followed Grinder to a makeshift lab that appeared to have been built solely to study the object Jake had brought to her. The crystal was clamped between two dislocated drone arms while a blue laser balanced precariously on a heap of assorted scrap fired at it rhythmically.

"That's an android," he whispered, eyeing the girl.

She stuck her tongue out at him. Whispering was pointless, but it made him feel better.

"Yeah, but it's only a little one," Grinder mocked. "I call her Annie."

"You're insane," he diagnosed definitively. "You've betrayed humanity."

"Don't be so narrow minded," she snapped as if he were being tiresome. "Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?"

Jake bit his tongue and nodded in assent.

"It's what's known as an ankh," she said, absorbed by her test. "I was beginning to think I'd never get my hands on one."

"Do you know what it does?"

Jake wasn't surprised she had never stumbled across one trading data with bodies for implants and accessories. This thing was somehow connected to bringing a jacket back to life. Unless they had one for everybody, the last thing San Dannon was likely to do was hand them out as if they were eco-bracelets.

"An Ankh is basically a storage device." She pointed towards the crystal. "Usually twenty times bigger than this. Dangerous too. They're not supposed to be moved around."

"Why not?" Jake had hiked all over the city with it in his pocket, so it couldn't be all that fragile.

"Because they contain a space fold," she shrugged.

Jake forced himself not to move. "As in a space fold bomb?"

"Exactly," she said, "but they're not just for bombs. You can run space folds for anything. Power farming, deep space mining obviously, even time travel if you're feeling suicidal."

She shut down the laser and plucked the ankh from its resting place with her fingertips before Jake could object. She gazed lovingly into the thing, and it appeared to glow brighter in response to her examination.

"This one's as small as they get," she extolled dreamily, "so it'll have a database on the other side. Powered by some handy star and built by nanites out of cosmic dust. The capacity is infinite because the nanites can be programmed to self-replicate out there. I heard the researchers at Heston have an original copy of the internet stored on one of these."

"Is that it?" Jake asked when she paused for emphasis.

Grinder seemed stumped by his apparent dissatisfaction. "What were you expecting?"

"Can it be used to..." He didn't know how to phrase it. Asking if it could raise the dead might get him laughed at.

"Restore someone who's injured? Or stop a person from being injured. Or maybe transport him to safety," he added, remembering some of the penny dreadful sci-fi he watched as a kid.

"That's a bit specific," she observed suspiciously. "Where did you get this thing anyway?"

He ignored her pointedly, and she had the grace to look embarrassed. Tech savvies weren't supposed to ask questions, which was convenient for Jake because he didn't want to give her any answer. She might balk at the thought of its previous owner's death defying final moments.

"So if I had dropped this thing in Central." He didn't finish. Talking out loud about releasing a super weapon near central wasn't a smart move even within the safety of Grinder's bunker.

"No." She tossed it negligently on the table and picked up a piece of random scrap. "It's unbreakable."

She smashed the thing with a two handed swing that made Jake duck with a yelp. She shook her head condescendingly and held it up.

"Made of some sort of quantum smart matter I've never seen before that's virtually undetectable." She handed it to him. "Programmed to only allow code through, and that's the way you want it to stay, believe me."

When he rubbed his thumb across the surface, he found it unmarred by her inane experiment, but his arm gave a tired groan and the ankh slipped from its frozen grip. It had been doing that ever since the big goon at the museum had twisted it about. Jake wasn't likely to be issued a new one any time soon, so he tried a helpless look on Grinder whose ears had pricked up at the whine of distraught machinery.

"Do you think you might be able to do something?"

"What happened to you?" Grinder inquired, pulling back his sleeve back roughly so she could inspect his beat-up prosthesis in its entirety. She began poking and prodding.

"Just something to do with a case?" he answered weakly.

"Maybe the former owner of this ankh and his pals?" she deduced insightfully.

"It's not what you think."

While she jostled and swore at him, he glanced around at her pell-mell of repairs and inventions. Except for the modded out versions of tech she had 'reclaimed' from the streets, he couldn't tell what any of it was supposed to do. Savvies were addicted to taking this stuff apart and putting it back together much deadlier than before. There was one project in particular that caught his attention because she had clearly spent a few extra hours putting the final spit and polish on it. It was a single, seamless black gauntlet that extended down the forearm in ridges, and Jake very much wanted to try it on.

"What's that?"

"That's just something I'm working on for my little brother back home," she said proudly when she saw what he was referring to.

"He likes to hunt rabbits," she complained as if it were her brother's one failing. "It's based on Annie's tech. Almost as impenetrable, but as comfortable as a pair of skids. I call it metaplating.

"Nothing really wrong with it. Just a bent hydrostatic valve," she explained casually, stepping back and nodding to his arm in a job well done fashion. "I see a lot of these things, you know. There's always some poor scavvy down on his luck willing to give his arm or a leg for a fresh start."

That reminded him of something. He pulled out Shortcut's little treasure trove and opened it for her. She whistled appreciatively.

"My, my Jake, you do have a lot to offer a girl don't you."

"It's not from me," he said. "A friend of mine needs to get out of the city. Start a new life."

"Well," she exhaled happily. "This will get him a good start. He can write his own ticket with this. I assume we're talking about Shortcut Stoker here."

"I'm impressed," he complimented her dryly, feeling at a disadvantage.

"Just a hunch," she said, taking the box from him. "They're extinct these days thanks to San Dannon, but I heard some wunderkind surveillance operator had re-invented them. These are brand new."

When she held one up to the light, it looked like a string of tiny beads dotted along a wire finer than spider silk. It didn't look all that special to Jake's untrained eye.

"What are they?"

"They're called threads." She tipped them carefully into a sealed pouch and stashed it about her person. "They're pupa that witchdoctor types in the rabbit lands used to swallow to enhance their memory. The process is technically brain damage, but there's been some breakthroughs recently thanks to your associate. According to the chatter."

"Shortcut?" Jake confirmed sceptically.

"The man is famous," she said objectively. "Famous on the black market, anyway. I've always wanted to meet him."

Jake didn't mention his reluctance to bring Shortcut along. Sometimes people didn't know what they wanted until they were close enough to smell it.

"How does it work?"

"It activates when it feels the heat of your stomach," she elucidated, "where it burrows through the lining and makes its way up to the optic nerve via the spinal cord. I've heard it's agonising."

"Why would anyone do that?" he exclaimed, imagining the beaded worm burrowing its way through his living tissue before attaching itself to his eyeball.

"Perfect recall. You can rent movies instead of buying," she laughed. A terrible movie was the most basic unit of currency on A Layer. "But you're friend found a way to take those memories and turn them into footage. No network or power source required. Great for espionage. Or crime.

"I have a confession by the way. Your friend was clocked about twenty minutes ago?" she stated smugly, reaching for a holographic interface and swiping through what looked like thousands of notifications and messages, none of which were addressed to her, to bring up one displaying Shortcut's seedy visage. There was an intensive bio next to his name and a fresh status update.

"Level one priority," she mumbled, bringing up his DNA profile and making some adjustments.

She was lightning fast with a text-ring. Her nimble fingers turned Shortcut, for all intents and purposes, into a brand new man before Jake could even suggest an amusing alias.

"Wherever he is, I hope he's well hidden because someone really wants to talk to him," she warned without blinking.

Jake had left him balled up in an ancient sewer off the beaten track. It was an old playground of theirs they knew well, but it was crowded with deleted and starvers these days.

"He'll be fine," Jake assured her.

# 7

Gabriel was relieved to find to the Fountain Club wasn't too packed for this time of day. You could actually see the oleaginous promotions on the walls through the crowds, although the screens had been defaced at some point during one political spiel too many. He scanned the half-empty room and thought he recognised the girl, but she was chatting to Alfred's mother for some reason. The woman was laughing dotingly with Angelica.

Customers standing nearby, especially those from C Layer, were pretending not to notice by giving them their own halo of glorious space in the sweaty press. It seemed they were the cause for the club's semi-filled capacity. Gabriel strolled over and hesitated not knowing whether he should introduce himself or not. He had already met the girl once, and she could probably recall him even if he couldn't return that basic social courtesy. At least, he hoped that she could.

"Angelica," he croaked at last.

"Hi," the girl greeted him, beaming. "Lady Evelyn, this is my friend Gabriel."

"I know my dear," she chortled, resting her hand on Gabriel's arm. "He's a friend of my son. How are you Gabriel? The last time we met you looked a little under the weather."

"Was I," he managed. The last time they had spoken had been months ago. "I suppose I'm all better now."

"Well, since it seems you two young people have an engagement, I'll be going," she said, gracefully handing her drink to Angelica and departing.

She headed directly for the door without deviation. Crowds of drones and patrons were buffeted aside by the force of her personality wherever she walked.

"Isn't she wonderful," Angelica gushed, watching her leave. "So kind and beautiful. For a jacket."

"How do you even know her?" Gabriel knew what the onlookers were thinking, but Alfred's mother was a member of the board. They were usually much more discreet about such things.

"She's interested in a body," Angelica replied, stretching her swan neck proudly. "She wants to know what it's like for us, asks us questions and helps us out. There's not many jackets like her. She is very special."

Angelica was giving him a searching look that made him unduly embarrassed. He had always assumed that his friendship with Tish, as well as his subsequent attendance at her tedious meetings, were evidence enough of his philanthropic efforts towards improving their lot. Apart from going down and sharing his stick and a few edibles with the A-listers, there wasn't much more he or anybody else could do for them.

Now it seemed Lady Evelyn was raising the bar by forming genuine reciprocal bonds with those less fortunate. Gabriel believed that trying to overcome those hard mercantile stares brimming with condescension and, at times, outright hostility, was a talent best left to beautiful, naive souls like Articia. But he wished them well.

"So, what can I do for you, Gabriel?" she begged, grinning.

After explaining what he needed, the girl was very cooperative and asked for nothing in exchange for her services. First she identified the surveillance supervisor as a man named 'Shortcut'. A quick word with one of his co-workers, who did their shady deals behind the club, bought Angelica the coordinates to a janky row of single unit homes hung precariously over the yawning chasm between the old city and Ad Layer. Navigating the three dimensional layout of the Ad Layer could be a trial for a tourists with a specific address in mind, but Angelica homed in on it like a pigeon.

As he stepped inside Shortcut's unwholesome abode, Gabriel noticed a ten inch gap where the doorway fell short of the gangway. It was a problem with no real import, for this simple oversight in the layout that was mostly harmless unless you were falling down drunk, but it demonstrated to members of public that this was definitely a low rent neighbourhood. The guy they wanted wasn't there, but someone else had stopped by in his absence unless leaving the door open and all of his possessions strewn about the floor was a way of life for this pig. The place stank, but no worse than Gabriel had been expecting.

"Gone," Angelica said flatly.

He analysed the dismal contents. There were food wrappers and tiny bottles of cheap, nasty alcohol. There were one or two updecks containing run of the mill content like books, music and movies, many of which were prurient in nature. Whoever had rifled through the elusive Shortcut's belongings weren't interested in irrelevant sundries, but if there was anything important missing there was no way to tell just from gawping.

With both of them in there, it was shockingly cramped, and he kept having to apologise for bumping her while they made a brisk search of the entire unit. The only thing of interest Gabriel found was a picture of the same two men from the footage, which was obviously taken when they were a lot younger, that Shortcut used as in his rotation of selected images for his inactive display. Angelica was considerate enough to switch it off to save power.

"What now?" she asked after they stepped outside and breathed some welcome fresh air.

The unwashed body smell emanating from the fold away bed had become more and more excruciating the longer he remained exposed to it.

"His friend," Gabriel suggested. "Do you have any idea how we can find him?"

She smiled and pretended to mull it over. There was someone watching them from the unit opposite Shortcut's dreary lodgings. It was a man in the same unsavoury mould as his former neighbour, and when Angelica accosted him, he asked what they wanted in what Gabriel deemed to be a surly way. Unfazed, Angelica showed him the still of the second guy and he was formally identified as some daft inspector from A Layer. The helpful local then offered to run a check for the officer's ID in return for a not so subtle bribe. It seemed the entire swag was occupied by tenants working for Surveillance Control. They also appeared to be a predominantly crooked breed.

"You need a guide?" she asked when Gabriel was given Inspector Gildroy's current co-ordinates.

He nodded dry mouthed. The coordinates were for a location right at the edge less than a mile from Gate Town. It was further from Central than he or anyone else he knew had ever been before without an armed escorted, and the thought of dithering around what was left of those desolate suburbs didn't thrill him in the least, but the idea of going alone terrified him to an inordinate degree.

Gabriel had the strength and vitality that came from eating plenty of food, training with Dom and getting a good night's sleep. All children born in C Layer recently were, on average, significantly taller and heavier than their cousins below. An alpha sized male like him had blessed little to fear from the corralled population of Central. But at the edge, the darker parts of society limped on and crept into one's awareness via stimulating ripperesque articles describing incidents that were appalling for their daring and violence.

Tales of missing kids snatched from the bosoms of decent A-list families were favourite. Thousands of children died annually from malnutrition down in the city, yet wealthy parents all over C Layer were wiping their eyes over the occasional Darwinian disappearance of a few malingering teenagers who were stupid enough to carry dense tech into the city's last bastion of crime.

Other attractive targets for these gangs of chancers stalking the edge were starvers on the cusp of fulfilling their namesake, families of regees that waltzed into the crucible unprepared and drunken jankies rolled on their way home from Gate Town or the Boneyard. What these predators really preferred, however, were the despondent members of their own ranks. San Dannon came down extra hard on these bandits, but there was always new recruits waiting in the wings, so whenever their organisations were hard up for the terminally unwary victims that wandered into the most extreme borders of San Dannon without a clue, the vultures would ruthlessly demote the undedicated amongst their groups with dispassionate professionalism.

If Gabriel waltzed down there by himself, there was a good chance he would become that clueless statistical plum for concerned C Layer parents to yawn at over brunch, yet he wasn't certain how having Angelica come along was going to help matters. During their long walk, the constant stream of noise from the projectors as well as the collective speakers of the drones that swarmed Central was suddenly silenced. This was followed by a message claiming to be an important announcement. It was the election, and Gabriel had forgotten all about it. Petrov had won, of course, as anyone with any sense could have predicted. Seeing bygone acquaintances of his pretending to be on the campaign trail by toadying up to VIPs on Main Green had been an embarrassing sight.

What would have happened if there was some unexpected, overwhelming majority for some humble but popular Egyptian rabbit lands farmer with seven kids and a nice smile? It wasn't so far-fetched when you took human ingenuity into account. How would an ordinary citizen of the Alliance know that wasn't how it happened in reality? The screens were their only real source for the truth, which meant the Alliance held a monopoly on accurate information the same way they monopolised all things they turned their slinking hands to.

After Petrov's big speech and the ensuing applause that didn't seem to want to wind down, on a whim Gabriel asked Angelica what she thought of the elections. It turned out that she approved of them because during the previous elections the family had received extra ration blocks. She told him she was looking forward to the next one now that she was old enough to vote. When he told her he didn't think there would be any more voting, she took it in her stride. Maybe she didn't believe him.

The interchangeable opportunists of A Layer were waiting to close in at the bottom. These trustworthy individuals, who just wanted to direct disorientated tourists to their heart's most banal desires, scowled at Angelica as she stepped off the platform, but she ignored them and hooked Gabriel's arm in hers. A furry, blistered scavvy waiting to board sniggered and sent him a conspiratorial wink that made Gabriel blush, but Angelica refused to be politely shaken loose while Central Control still loomed high on the horizon.

The edge was worse than expected. Until now, he had never realised how heavily developed the city centre had become, nor had he understood the benefits these improvements provided for the residents that coalesced there. The waste that collected in every inconspicuous corner of these tumbling ruins was proof that the sanitary drones almost never made it out this far, and the hint of fresh air from the boundary was tragically submerged by these shallow cesspools.

There were no boards on the windows or paint covering the fresh graffiti. Gabriel passed a section of broken wall with vivid five foot high letters reading 'FUCK SAN-D,' with the 'D' transformed into one of the exceedingly recognisable kiosk drones the A-listers lined up in front of every day. The drones were built fairly sturdy down here, but this rendition was heavily armoured and decidedly aggressive.

As the duo trotted past the district's singular denizens nesting in their alcoves, pale faces that were normally lowered in a respectful dip showed open interest instead. Some of the squatters muttered as they passed or gave Angelica a few curious nods which she did not deign to notice. At one heart wrenching point, a skeleton of a man thrust himself into Gabriel's arms and begged him for food.

Gabriel tried to convey that he didn't have any, but the man wouldn't let go even with Angelica angrily pulling him backwards in a bear hug. His skin was a flaking, suppurating mess beneath tufts of long stringy hair that emphasised his pleas for charity in an animated halo around his head. Gabriel was able to count the notches on the man's spine through his ragged skids. Angelica became fed up with their wrestling match and hit him so hard he fell on his backside.

"Dios mio!" she exclaimed, towing Gabriel along by a handful of his shirt. "You want us to turn up with every starver in San Dannon."

"You hit him," he whinnied, hurrying after her. "Do you think he's dead?"

"Quiet!" she hissed, pulling him through an open doorway.

They trampled over a carpet of sleeping A-listers before they had time to stir in outrage and were reunited with the weak but penetrating light of the cheerless streets in no time. There was a nearby stir of rubbish and other rotting materials in a small alley. They had reached an area where inexperienced sanitation drones were regularly waylaid and reprogrammed on their first day.

Angelica had to physically restrain him to accomplish the feat, but she managed to force him into this execrable midden before he came to his senses. His boots left runnels in clogged slime that turned green when the crust was scraped away. When the two of them were inevitably settled deep in a moist pile of refuse, and Gabriel had reconciled himself to the unspeakable damp seeping into his clothes, he quietly bemoaned his companion's attack on an elderly, half-crippled man.

"He's not dead," she replied shortly. "Starvers have a free app that constantly monitors their health. Tells them how close they are to dying."

That was probably true. Tons of hypochondriacs and fitness freaks had bought them at home. It only made sense the city handed them out for free to addicts and beggars down here since it cost San Dannon nothing but code.

"He was still old," Jake argued stubbornly. "And emaciated."

"Shh!"

There was a shuffle of dusty feet and a crowd of whispering voices fading away. Gabriel risked a look at them from within his loathsome hidey-hole and saw Angelica's assault victim searching franticly for his scarpered quarry. His eyes were hungry, and his neck was stretched distastefully out in front as if he were being led by his nose. Gabriel pulled back just in time as one of the starver's cleverer cohorts backtracked to peer into their dark ally. She was even more waifish than her affiliate, but they looked much more dangerous when they were bunched together. Angelica pressed his head down until his nose was an inch from the putrid muck

"He's tougher than he looks," Angelica sniffed from beside him. "Being skin and bones is their stock in trade. Some of them have the old nutrient implants. The starvers who make a career out of it do, anyway.

"All to impress know-nothing jackets like you." She smirked at his dumbfounded expression. "If you really want to see someone starving to death, I'll take you to a colony of deleted and unregistered out by the wall when we're done."

After making sure the coast was clear, Angelica helped him up and brushed him off. They moved in silence now. Gabriel tried to wrap his damp, gaudy coat around himself and avoided raising his head in an effort to keep a low profile. What he was doing seemed to be working because they weren't bothered again. In fact, the wide road they were following became disquietingly empty. Even the cams dried up since there was nobody to keep an eye on anymore. Angelica's pace increased until they were darting from one shadow to the next.

As they drew frustratingly close to the coordinates they were aiming for, Gabriel received several urgent notifications informing him that the surrounding buildings were hazardous. He didn't take them seriously, but when Angelica was sent the same warnings she became very nervous indeed. It didn't weaken her resolve to accompany him into the university, but Gabriel was surprised at her and she noticed.

"This is very bad. All of the buildings in the city are old and falling apart," she said softly as if she were afraid a loud noise would bring it down. It made her lister accent difficult to understand. "But the ones that are 'hazardous' are really dangerous. Sometimes there's radiation."

That brought him up short for a moment. The word radiation had a stigma attached to it that tended to stop a person in their tracks. Gabriel would be resynced as soon as he arrived home, yet Angelica had no such recourse if she should become contaminated. He did his best to talk her out of escorting him inside, but the only alternative was for her to wait outside, and that didn't appeal to her personality type at all.

She led the way into an interior that was refreshingly clean and dry. Because they were empty of the crowds that plagued the rest of the city's finest architecture, these vault like halls were unexpectedly humbling for Gabriel. Residents lucky enough to live in the fixtures far above all this decay spent their lives sandwiched together in cramped plextene units. That was why views over-looking the soaring, glassy parapets of the dome in C Layer were so sought after. His father's enclosed estate was the most imposing of all the shareholders' homesteads of course, but the perfectly appointed lodgings Alfred and Articia grew up in would also fetch a respectable price now that his mother was relocating.

A high-pitched throat clearing floated out of the shadows and Gabriel yelped and trod on Angelica's foot, which earned him a string of curses and a bruised shoulder. There was a little girl sat on some stairs. When he accidentally shone his wrist light directly in her eyes, she didn't blink or flinch away. She wasn't afraid of them either. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, and she wore the receptive countenance of the artlessly confident. If Gabriel hadn't found her sitting within some ruin down in the most uninviting part of San Dannon, he could have easily mistaken her for the progeny of a political dynasty like Tish's or Alfred's.

"Hello," she said, taking Gabriel's measure. He suddenly felt underdressed. "My sister's upstairs. We've been waiting for you."

When she got to her feet and scampered away up the steps, Gabriel felt the strong urge to leave and forget he had ever come to this forlorn slice of purgatory. The girl was wrong. He didn't understand why yet, but she was unnatural in a way that was dangerous to humans. He realised too late that the safety net he always took for granted was now gone. That invisible protective bubble that had been so comforting during his high-spirited incursions into A Layer had popped when the sound of unceasing propaganda and cam trail smell petered out.

"Come on," the girl shouted from several floors up.

"What do you mean?" Gabriel shouted after her, feeling like a fool.

He was shouting after her because he was jangling. Thank goodness Dom wasn't here to see him quaking at a sweet little demon girl. Gabriel pulled himself together and over-compensated by taking the steps two at a time, which he almost regretted when they broke away without warning halfway up. After easing his bulk carefully past the gap and taking the remaining floors at a near crawl, he found a gargantuan space that contained a cross between a control hub and a junk heap. There was a strikingly beautiful woman amid the magnificent hoard glaring at him. Her sister stood behind her nodding and waving reassuringly.

"Oh! I'm sorry to disturb you," Gabriel said, unable to keep the accusation from staining his apology.

Whatever she was doing here was clearly against policy, and the procedure for these situations was well established. Gabriel had to pretend everything was innocent and above board by acting gullible and a bit thick-witted until he could make a dash for the exit. His heart was in his throat.

"Oh no! You found our secret lair," the girl teased. "Now we're going to have to kill you."

"Shut up," her sister hissed, throwing a heavy tool that missed the girl's cherubic head by inches. "Don't worry. We knew you were coming. I guess this belongs to you."

She held up one of Dom's ankhs as if it were some personal gewgaw Gabriel had misplaced.

"Why were you expecting me?" he asked, taking in her collection of live tech.

Torrents of information were pouring into the room like a river, so there probably wasn't much she didn't see coming, but Angelica was loitering by the door and hadn't bothered to speak up. Maybe she was spooked or shy, or she might even be coolly assessing the situation from the rear, but the most likely explanation was that Gabriel had been duped into coming to this place, and he was probably going to be robbed and murdered here.

"A message. It was from some jacket called Lady A." Her tone was interrogative. "One of the few people who have my private number, so to speak. Now you show up without an invitation."

"What did it say?" Gabriel was bewildered.

"It said that you were a friend of Jake's." She lifted one arm. "That he had information you needed. That you were both important and that you could both tell us more about this."

She gave the ankh a slight shake, and it flared with the motion as if it were purring.

"I don't even know what that thing is," he lied. Suspicions were beginning to creep in as to where she had found it.

"This is an ankh," she apprised him knowledgably. "Very dense tech. Jake seems to think it's some sort of portable first aid kit."

A new bead of dread began to form. The kind of inequalities that Articia fought against every day, and which dinosaurs like his dad were now inured to, abruptly became very relevant to Gabriel. The extra rations he and his friends enjoyed on C Layer tallied up to a negligible amount when off-set against the vast quantities food and water the Mech Layer struggled to provide for the A-listers each day.

By extension, the guilt over the advanced medical care they received should have been similarly easy to overlook, but there was something about a slow painful death from a treatable disease that really drew the line in the sand dividing Tish's A-list loving corner and the misanthropic dinosaurs of his father's generation. And since there was nowhere to lay the blame except on the general consensus on the board's predecessors, it made reconciliation between these two groups difficult.

Thirty years ago when Gabriel's father and his chums had finished modifying the city with permex, it had been the foundation of a paradise. All the old city's culture would be preserved and the slums redeveloped. The families of the board and other important people would live close to the sun beyond the reach of the unforeseen flatquakes caused by the chrono-vector, and their loyal workers would live contentedly beneath while they refurbished the old city.

Then Alexander Petrov had given his famous 'speech at the gates' in Irkutsk, and the masses pleading outside the walls were allowed to flood those slums and cultural gems once more. Those who worked for San Dannon were displaced upwards half in and half out of the board's feathered nest, and in due course these temporary homes became the Ad Layer. This precarious collection of rough-and-ready walkways, hanging units and platforms had previously been the sole province of the drones and a few technicians, but swathes of cables and pipes outside your window was better than eking it out with the cap-in-hand rabbit landers below.

Those had been desperate times. The food that was supposed to surfeit a few hundred thousand people was now being rationed amongst several million, so San Dannon had built cam drones in a frenzy to try and stop the slaughter. The rampant thefts that beleaguered the new arrivals had quickly developed into murder and cannibalism, but when the thin veneer of civility bred into these pilgrims of a more refined era had been well and truly jeopardised, the burgeoning enterprise crime and sex slavery empires became the cherry on top.

The Mech Layer had torn itself apart trying to fulfil the new requirements for extra security, rations and medicine. The Alliance, whose collaborative beginnings had been so advantageous for the participants, became a loose association of parsimonious city-states instead. It took a decade, but things eventually stabilized. As the Mech Layer grew to handle its new population, the atrocities decreased exponentially until the smell of roasted slowpoke became a distant memory.

The rations on C Layer became a little less poor, but those below remained the same. A modest lifestyle that had been temporarily put aside in order to provide for the fraught refugees had finally crept back in for the people who had originally envisioned San Dannon. Thanks to their unwanted guests, however, this marginal standard of living had been reclassified as decadent by activists like Articia, although few other C Layer citizens had the conviction to object.

The room had gone quiet. As usual, Gabriel felt like the only person present not up to speed. If he spun around, would he see Angelica grinning perfidiously at his back? The little girl was still watching Gabriel as if she could hear what he was thinking loud and clear, but then her head snapped up towards the decaying ceilings of their tumbledown hideout.

Half of their pirated tech went haywire an instant later, and one of the displays showed footage of several descending heavy lifters inscribed with the infamous blue 'S' of Human Response. Unaware that they had already been spotted, it seemed they were attempting to surround the university surreptitiously. The tech sav gasped in shock or fright, but her sister became outraged.

"You brought them!" the girl growled, glaring furiously at Gabriel.

"No!" he objected, stupefied.

She ran to the back of the cavernous chamber and lifted a large pallet leaning against the wall as if it were built from papier-mâché. Hidden behind it was a pair of old fashioned elevator doors that had slumped together after half a century of neglect. The older sister ran around the room throwing precious items into a large fibrous sack that didn't appear to get any heavier. It wouldn't even touch the floor, but it pooled an inch above the boards instead and bobbed up and down as it compensated for the weight of each additional object.

When it was filled to the brim, she tossed the bag to the girl and picked up what appeared to be an industrial sized laser mounted on a pile of scrap. He was astounded that a woman with her frame could lift it let alone hold it steady. She held the barrel firmly at her hip and weaved it in the direction of Gabriel's midriff. With impressive speed, the armed and dangerous tech sav grabbed a handful of his hair just as the ceiling four floors above folded outwards.

Three agents came to a smooth halt in front of them with their weapons held low but ready. They seemed at ease in their thick custom-built armour also painted with their friendly blue symbol. The 'S' was the only sanctioned logo on A Layer, and an honest citizen could go their whole life without ever laying eyes on it, if they were fortunate. Dominic recklessly dropped down right behind them without their protective gear or gravity buffers, but he landed lightly on the now sagging network of floors. The crazy savvy shook Gabriel brutally by his hair and used it to pull him backwards. The laser's barrel was buried somewhere in his kidneys.

"Don't move!" she screamed unnecessarily.

Dominic regarded her politely while holding up his palms to show that he was unarmed, although Gabriel could see there was a pistol holstered at his belt.

"It's okay," he soothed, his distinctive calm filling the area until even the shrill beeping of the early warning system became the chirrup of birdsong. "We're not here for you. We don't care about... whatever this is."

He indicated the accumulated junk indifferently. "We're just looking for him. And a piece of tech we know is nearby."

His gaze swept the room and landed on the little girl. While holding the ankh in one hand and the elevator door open with the other, she gave him a baleful stare with her nose and lips puckered aggressively but adorably.

"You've ruined our home!" she said, shaking her tiny fist. "Get in, Grinder, we're going! And you're not coming!" She pointed at Dom as if he was a dog that was misbehaving itself.

"Don't be absurd!" Dominic choked, letting his cool slip a little. He had always hated it when people didn't listen to him. "If you try to leave with that thing, we'll have no choice but- Stop moving!"

Grinder had been gradually yanking Gabriel towards her sister with her weapon jerking about in a way that was making the agents shifty. Dominic drew and fired his pistol in one smooth motion, and Gabriel's leg became a fountain of pain. He fell backwards, knocking Grinder sideways, and bounced off the elevator floor making the whole thing rock alarmingly.

Dominic had his weapon trained on Grinder now as though he was ready to begin reasoning with her again, but Grinder's little sister had already reacted with celeritous, biblical wrath towards this perceived threat. She jammed the doors closed from the outside then appeared to blur and engorge concurrently. At Gabriel's last glimpse of her, she resembled a gargoyle made out of razor blades.

As they were lowered away by fits and starts in the archaic metal box, there was a ringing of rapid gunfire and halted warnings that successively became more fearful in pitch. There was also the occasional thud that made the entire structure tremble, but Grinder didn't seem worried about their safety. She was eyeing him as if he were a promising piece of tech she had just found unattended.

"You're leg," she said as she scrutinised his body. "It's completely healed."

Crouching over him, she tore open the fabric where the bullet had travelled practically bloodlessly though his knee and gave it a hard squeeze. The girl had tossed the ankh at him before sealing them in, and it had done its hasty work before leaving him up shit creek.

"No. Not healed." She snatched the ankh from him and rose angrily. "It's been repaired. What is this?"

She steadied herself on the flimsy wall and turned the laser on him again. For one terrifying moment, he was convinced she was going to start experimenting by putting another hole in him, but Grinder's maleficent mien informed him that she was saving this for later.

*****

Shortcut had been delighted with the ID grinder had created for him, as well as the data and a reservation on an eco-class shuttle she threw in with a few extra keystrokes. Her powers over the servers seemed to be without limit, and Jake wondered why San Dannon or one of the other cities in the Alliance hadn't scooped her up long ago. They didn't usually let talent languish at the arse end of society alongside the dregs. Even maimed, Jake had still been picked from the crowd at age fifteen as a perfect candidate for civil law enforcement and expeditiously developed by San Dannon into the sagacious officer he was today.

His friend had taken a crack at persuading Jake to go with him, and Jake had been more interested than Shortcut realised. Since his visit with Doc, the temptation to just sell the mysterious ankh outright and kiss goodbye to the city that had taken him in was hard to resist. As he made his way back to Grinder's, he reasoned that there was nothing stopping him from changing his mind tomorrow or next week.

Jake caught the sound of a muffled gun shot. It was the high pitched kind that emanated from a Human Response firearm rather than the sort of death-trap weaponry nutcases put together in basement rooms and sewers at the edge. At first, he thought he had been shot because he felt a stab of pain from his injured side, but then the ache was abruptly alleviated.

The litany bruises he had been determinedly ignoring since last night's fracas were also washed away in order of their severity. Gabriel was flabbergasted as he watched an expanding flare of orange energy putter weakly across his skin and flicker out. He didn't understand, but he had a feeling Grinder would. The rattle of prolonged gunfire followed but ended quickly after a few faint screams.

Even if Jake were blind and deaf, he would have been able to detect that something was wrong in the area by the taste of the air. Heavy lifters were nearby, and the scent of their engine vapour was ballooning out from somewhere near Grinder's place because there were fewer vents out here to suck the foul smog away. After recovering his wits, he resumed his approach but with added vigilance.

While pushing past one or two bodies that had come to gawk, Jake garnered from the hushed gossip he overheard that Human Response had circled the building, charged in guns blazing and were now long gone. No doubt Grinder had been seized and the ankh along with her. Jesus would laugh when he found out Jake had left the thing in her care. He wondered what was going to happen to the 'little girl' and grudgingly hoped it wasn't anything bad.

He couldn't just leave it there, though. He couldn't walk away without getting a little more information while he had the chance. Maybe somebody had missed something. The longer he hesitated the riskier it would be. There were no officious looking individuals still in the vicinity, so he made a snap decision and loped through the main doors of the university as if he had every right to be there.

It was as he expected. Grinder's home was destroyed. The good stuff had been seized, and there were a couple of salvage drones already clearing away the ill-treated chassis' of their dead eyed cousins along with all the other detritus of Grinder's lengthy operation. Jake went to investigate one of the few displays left whole, and it turned out to be a feed from her security system. HR had stamped the updeck after making a copy of the footage, but they hadn't bothered to delete it because it would be turned into scrap soup soon enough.

He rewound the footage on the old game handle she had utilized as an interface while the nearby drones monitored him as if he were only slightly more interesting than recycling junk. He fixed his eyes to the screen and played back the last hour or so at high speed. The room stood empty, although Grinder was probably being automatically edited out as she went about her mad tinkering.

To Jake's disbelief, the undead jacket showed up and started talking to thin air. The body shadowing him was Angelica, which explained how the jacket got there but not why. The kid was plastered in muck and looked like he was ready to take a pill. Then Human Response crashed in, and it appeared as if the kid was being pulled backwards by some ghost with a ruthless grip on his hair. The squad's leader was the big guy responsible for Jake's recently mended ribs. He started throwing his weight around, but he didn't appear satisfied with the results.

The anger must have been on account of Grinder or Annie who weren't allowed to be part of this production thanks to Grinder's coding witchery. Jake leaned a little closer to the display and watched Angelica hide behind a stack of chairs in the corner. Neither the big jacket nor his men spotted her, thank goodness. Then the tableau exploded into a clamour of gunfire and screaming.

A dark and terrible force that must have been Grinder's malicious little sister began to cut through the armoured agents. One of them was thrown bodily through an exterior wall by the poltergeist, and another was hit so hard with a pallet that it broke into kindling. it looked as if the big guy managed to hit her with several wild shots, but she delivered a cut to his torso in response that healed instantly in a zip of orange light. Then his pistol skittered away, and he was slammed him into a table that collapsed and showered him in live tech. When she was finished, there was nothing but a bevy of groaning soldiers with bruised pride and back ache.

The jacket had shown up without a single piece protective gear on, but he found his feet seconds after she left and issued some orders that sent his agents scurrying in pursuit. They returned empty handed a short time later much to their leader's chagrin. When he was finished castigating them, they stripped the area of information and dense tech in a systematic way then left without much ado.

Jake didn't know what had happened to the ankh, Grinder or the Danna boy, but he couldn't recall Angelica budging from her hiding spot once during the battle. He rewound the footage and went through it at normal speed with his eye glued to the broken furniture he saw her duck behind. The trespassers passed within a few metres of her as they exited, and he thought he saw her foot slip when a security drone drew too close as if she had balled herself up, yet nobody sensed her squatting there. Jake had no idea why they couldn't register her ID, but it wasn't likely to be an accident. Angelica was clever.

After Auto Response finished their documentation of the evidence, yet before the salvage drones arrived to clear away what was left behind, there was a period of stillness, and Jake gave a whoop of delight when Angelica stood up to cautiously check if she was alone at last. Her features were blurred by her distance from the cam and the quality of the display, but Jake was certain that her heart must be racing.

She made a sudden run for it and slammed straight into Danna's huge friend who had come back for one last look around. Jake was impressed by her reaction. She attacked the monster without a second thought, but he only grinned at her even when she managed some punishing blows. Then he lost his temper when she tried to break his nose and knocked her out cold the same way he had done with Shortcut the night before. That made all three of Old Jesus's little orphans he had laid low now.

The guy stared at her splayed form, absorbed by her features for what seemed like hours making Jake's jaw clench tightly. He wished to fast forward, but he didn't want to miss anything important. The Guy on the screen was stirred from his reverie when he heard some noise behind him. He hefted Angelica onto his shoulders and walked up the stairs a short way until he reached the blockade. With laudable patience, he stayed out of sight as Inspector Jake Gildroy marched onto the scene from below. Jake's disappointed former self kicked a broken table in frustration, and the big guy observed his behaviour with interest before silently tiptoeing away.

# 8

Grinder was staring at him upside down and following his movements as he swung with the air current. Her rotten little miniature was standing at the rear imitating her sister. Annie had spent the last few days helping Grinder with her research by taking care of the sticky bits since she knew so much about human anatomy. At her hands, Gabriel had learned the names of many interesting parts of his body, but his lesson on the phalanges would always be the one that sprang to mind in his old age if he ever escaped this bleak outpost with his life. Wrestling with her while he was secured by his feet the wrong way up had been like a disturbing high stakes game of patty cake.

It hadn't taken Gabriel long to realise that the willowy Annie was really an android berserker left behind after the AI war. He had made a break for it at the first opportunity only to be stopped short by one of her bio-mechanical arms and its hideous crystalline protrusions the androids were so famous for. He had seen grainy, muted footage of this phenomenon in history class many times, but seeing it live was like meeting the star of a low-budget creature feature after the remake.

This ability to reshape herself into something deadlier at will was made possible by a computational, morphing substance the military scientists of the era nicknamed metacrystal. It was Monika's first invention and the only innovation she ever needed for an undeniable victory over the human race in sixty-six. During the war, besieged resistors all over the world had ultimately developed weapons to counteract this devastatingly adaptive technology to some degree. This in turn gave rise to shunt boxing and its variations as well as the bulky armour that had been appropriated by Human Response for its distinguished background.

Without such protection, Gabriel had been like a helpless kitten in her hands. When he protested her sadistic manhandling by refusing to keep move, she was able to fling him ten feet onwards without changing shape or straining herself. Step-by-step they had made their way down through the Mech Layer while dodging crude scurry drones and snaking through active machinery that thundered in his ears. She pulled a mask over her head when the clouds of pollution became too copious to breathe safely, but Gabriel's only resort was holding his breath, so he was forced now and then to take a searing lungful of the stuff.

Grinder had located a large disused pipe that seemed just the same as any of the others, except that half an hour later Gabriel was standing under the naked sun for the first time in his life. He hadn't been able to resist his captors at all after that because the dazzling brightness had been too much to bear. He was sweating in ten minutes, and when he flopped down sulkily after a few hours of the gritty heat, he was dragged by the irrepressible Annie until he found his feet again.

The view of the city from the outside had been momentous but also hideous. The treatment to make the cloudy, greyish walls of permex as delicate and transparent as glass ended just above the Ad Layer and was replaced by the bulging layers of the impermeable sludge they had liberally used to seal themselves in back in seventy-eight. If Gabriel's father ever succeeded in making his son a Chairman, those ugly walls would be the first thing he would fix.

He didn't know how much time passed out there because the sky in the rabbit lands remained disconcertingly still. They slept twice, but they walked in both the freezing night and sweltering day. The trip had been surprisingly rough on him considering how physically fit he kept himself. It left Gabriel so miserable that he had actually been relieved when they arrived at their final destination.

That was when they hung him by his ankles from a girder and suspended him over a seemingly endless drop. Countless wire walkways that connected bits of the shorn off structural support together were criss-crossed between him and the rocks far below. There had been a refinery here once, but some super weapon had quite literally split the earth in two. It had left a jagged crack in the landscape and flattened everything within ten miles except for the foundations of the refinery, which had been only partially demolished and separated into two sites around the fresh rift.

In the aftermath of the cataclysm, the refinery had been raided and then colonised by the indigenous rabbit landers for over a hundred years. They even penetrated and tamed the new caves the fissure was riddled with, but Grinder had built herself a snug workshop at the top of the ruins instead. Maybe she was afraid of the toxic radiation that must have saturated every inch of scenery.

Initially, the potentially poisonous atmosphere was all Gabriel could think about as she dragged him over the dust covered plains that bordered the city of San Dannon. That fear quickly became common place, and he began to focus more on corporeal concerns such as his blistering feet and expanding headache. For two days she didn't bother asking him any questions, and only when he was safely stashed away in her rabbit lands bolthole did she unapologetically test the limits of his mysterious powers with scientific detachment.

After Annie was done with her crude surgery, Grinder had taken samples of his blood and studied those for a time. She even injected something into the back of his neck without divulging what it was. All of this while happened he was dangling upside down trying everything he could think of to reason with her, from threats of dire but avoidable consequences to promises of unlimited Danna family wealth in return for his freedom.

Now it seemed they were ready to start the interrogation in earnest. Grinder looked like she meant business today. He prayed the nosey tech savvy wasn't going to have her psychotic little henchman gouge at him again in order to get her answers. She didn't seem the type, but perhaps she developed an appetite for it during their sessions together studying the properties of the ankh.

When he first arrived at Grinder's unprepossessing stronghold, Gabriel had been adamant that he wasn't going to give this crazy woman any of San Dannon's secrets on pure principle. After he'd had ample opportunity to reconsider his inverted position, he finally had to admit to himself that something else was holding back his tongue. It was the idea of confessing to such an inconsiderate truth while he was alone and defenceless far from home that was so unappetising. She was welcome to all the secrets his father trusted him with, which was zero, but he couldn't stand the thought of trying to rationalise the double standards his generation had become accustomed to.

"Do you get sick?" she asked unexpectedly.

This knocked the façade he had been carefully affecting. Not many people got sick these days. Even amongst the A-listers there was only the occasional code two to worry about. It was a very pertinent question he just hadn't seen coming.

"No!" Gabriel's head was swimming from his predicament. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," she sighed wearily.

Behind her, Annie shook her head slowly as though he were being insensitive. Thankfully, that was all there was to this short interview. She must have acquired everything she needed to make an educated guess at what had become a taboo topic of conversation up in C Layer. The people there tended to think of syncing as another small luxury that was best not rubbed in the A-lister's faces lest they get bent out of shape over it. Out here, it was a gross display of privilege, abuse of assumed power and indifference to the suffering of others. That was what Articia used to say, anyway.

The android eventually fished him down and let him sleep in real bed, which turned out to be a bundle of aged, grey blankets wedged tightly into a draughty corner. It appeared that the rabbit landers had even fewer amenities than the listers did. She hadn't bothered to warn against escape. Annie could outdistance him, outsmart him and outlast him. Early on in his abduction, Gabriel decided to slyly wait for her to fall asleep one evening and try to leg it again, but he had woken up at dawn to find her sitting in the exact same position he saw her in last. She was even wearing the same cheeky smirk she bade him goodnight with. The precision was uncanny, and it had made his hindbrain sit up and scream.

Despite the circumstances under which Gabriel was introduced into their world, most of the local villagers took to him right away. They all wore a curious mishmash of disintegrating pre century clothing and crusty A-list skids, so they admired Gunter's purchases enthusiastically and would reach out to stroke the plush fabric as if mesmerised. He became a bit of a celebrity, and a group of them would come up to exchange a few words with him each morning. A few folk even asked if they could touch his unusual hair, which hadn't been a pleasant experience when he had been upside down.

One boy in particular seemed to have a knack for figuring out when Grinder would be away on an errand for a good long while, and he would come to eagerly ask Gabriel questions about the big city and the people that stagnated there. Gabriel was startled to realise that the unschooled young savage was remarkably quick, and all too soon Gabriel had run out of answers to give him.

The lad's costume was a mélange of brown hued rags and a stiff bandage of some unidentifiable material on his right forearm. It might have been leather, but it could just as easily been velvet that had gotten very dirty. The boy sat on his haunches amongst Grinder's scavenged treasures and would only move when she returned to her secluded workshop. It turned out he didn't get along with Annie who treated him pretty much the same way she treated Gabriel.

The boy's name was Solomon, and he was indispensable when Gabriel was trying to figure out how much time he had spent away from home. Since he was sleeping intermittently and the sun rarely perceptibly altered its position in the heavens whenever he spared it a resentful glance, he lost track of Central time long before they ever cut him down to let him have the run of the village.

A whole twenty-four hours spent a moderate distance from the chrono-vector in San Dannon took place over the course of approximately four days outside the transparent dome that protected them. During the solstice at home, the sunlight came and went fitfully in two hour bursts which meant Christmas day could be inadvertently slept through if you weren't careful, but it also came around four times a year.

Here in the rabbit lands, the inhabitants just went for a snooze whenever they got tired. At midday, it was too hot with the sun hanging motionless in the sky turning the air into an oven to do anything but find shade and take an old fashioned siesta. His skin had burned and peeled away in ribbons, especially on his exposed face and neck. His stately but increasingly soiled collar became a torturous, grating weight, so he was forced to ask the boy to bring him something more appropriate. Solomon managed to trade Gabriel's fancier outer garments to a barmy elderly lady who could now be found preening between her chores in a state of dishevelled avant-garde dishabille.

After a week had passed, Grinder sat him down for a frank chat about what she suspected and what she knew for sure. The subject of the syncing still felt forbidden, but those responsible for keeping it that way weren't present. Even so, all he could give her on the sync bands at home was a description of how they prevented everything from fatal injuries to paper cuts. Most buildings in C Layer's small township had one, and they had cut accidental deaths down to a fraction of what they were ten years ago.

It wasn't something you flaunted when so many below were starving and living in squalor. It was a shame, but there just wasn't enough nanites to go around. That was when she became really interested in what he had to say. She gently quizzed him as to where there might be some freshly printed stockpiles of these 'nanites'. Did San Dannon keep them sequestered in some secret place?

This was a ridiculous question because Irkutsk shipped boatloads of the things every week. They were the basis of Petrov's influence over the Alliance and the source of the bottomless funds he was using to slowly but surely buy the world. But according to Grinder, these were different to the ones she spent her waking hours milking San Dannon's drone population to collect. They were sat in her workshop enjoying the beautiful dusk chill before the stars came out and the temperature dropped below zero.

"These are the most common." Grinder picked up a sturdy glass container from a nearby workbench with black grease sloshing about inside. "Every drone for the past twenty years has them. Not as many in the older models because they eventually wear out. They maintain the drone, repair it or even repurpose them in an emergency. They're the reason why the drones will soon outnumber the humans in San Dannon and every other city left on Earth."

Gabriel nodded. He had heard the preaching from some of the less outgoing religious orgs denouncing the machines that basically ran everything as the true inheritors of the planet and exhorting for their destruction. This was poppycock, but it wasn't difficult to imagine tribes of weary but staunch drones centuries from now surrounded by the bones of their masters. When the last human died from whatever act of stupidity mankind had inflicted on itself this time, would the surviving drones continue guarding the platforms, cleaning the streets and hauling away the rubble until they ceased functioning, or would it be the epoch of the next logical dominant form of life?

"There's lots of varieties though. All printed in Heston and sold only to their pals in the Alliance. These ones," she said, putting down the canister and waving at his body as though he were visibly crawling with them, "are a hundred times smaller than Heston's grade one nanites.

"Yours are more like a disease and Irkutsk had nothing to do with creating them," she said confidently. "Those guys aren't even close to a breakthrough like this. This is Monika's tech repackaged by San Dannon and made nice and safe for the kiddies.

"And that ankh," she laughed delightedly. "A space fold the size of a pinhole squeezed into a crystal no thicker than a nutshell."

Her demeanour became serious again, and she poked him with a calloused finger. "Your father has a lot to answer for."

There wasn't a lot he could tell her that she didn't already know. He couldn't disclose where they were being made. They were injected by med drones who obtained their supplies from B Layer storage tanks. The tanks were filled by the heavy lifters who came and went as they pleased. He felt as if he were explaining the ultrawave network to Solomon again. Gabriel had never figured out the minutia of how the Mech Layers worked the same way he didn't understand how his wristware sent and received information. They just did their job, so why should he pry.

Since he had grown to not loathe the two of them quite so much, Gabriel was relieved he had nothing to share regarding top secret research facilities or large clandestine deliveries of super tech. He didn't really wish to see Grinder or her sister tased to death for trying to break into Security Headquarters the way the drones decimated any mobs of A-listers hungry enough to try tearing open a kiosk terminal.

Grinder must have already grasped that the nanites already in his body couldn't be reprogrammed, or he would have been a bloodless corpse being eaten by the flies in some latrine pit by now. The flies were everywhere in the rabbit lands. They zigzagged lazily between the salty village residents and their assigned waste area all the live long day, and they soon made it to the top of Gabriel's list of newfound pet peeves ahead of fallout, sunburn and constant thirst.

By his reckoning, at that point he had been gone for roughly two full days according to San Dannon's calendar. Enough time had passed for people to notice he had gone missing, but not yet long enough to begin an extensive search of the surrounding wastelands. He wondered what Dominic had told everyone. When Grinder had asked him why Dominic had burst in on them and shot him, he didn't know what to say. He didn't want to admit it, but somehow or other Dominic was involved in Gabriel dying and being brought back to life.

*****

His first reaction was to tear around without thinking. Jake raced down the stairs and out into the road with his eyes peeled for lifters, but he slowed down as he came to his senses. The guy was miles away by now, and even if he was just around the corner carrying Angelica over his shoulder like a happy scavvy with a full load, what was Jake going to do about it. He was armed and had already proven that a pistol wasn't necessary to subdue Jake. Besides, what was the behemoth really going to do to her?

San Dannon didn't just make people disappear. She would be interrogated post-haste, and then she would either be exiled to the rabbit lands or released back into the city. Then Jake thought of the big guy's protracted interest in Angelica's beauty and how he had so calmly resorted to violence with her. HR didn't like to be seen doing that sort of thing. Their solution to unresolvable hostility was to have Auto Response amiably taser the transgressor and cart them away.

Everything about this was unusual. Jake loitered on the wide street outside Grinder's university wracked with indecision. The woman had withdrawn her friendship from Jake and exchanged it for a bland acknowledgement of his existence whenever she ran into him, so he owed her nothing. He told himself he was just doing it for a lead on Grinder and his ankh. That he was just tying off loose ends. There were many valid reasons to justify an ill-advised social call to the one person who might know if Angelica was safe right now.

Exiles were performed with unwarranted vindictiveness owing to the substantial human element involved in the process, but they always let you message someone before you left in case you wrote something they were interested in reading. He contacted Old Jesus to confirm Angelica's mother's pitch and made his way there. He had no idea how he was going to explain the circumstances to her because they had never been introduced. He didn't want to scare her, but if she was anything like Angelica she was likely a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps she would be more angry than frightened. Jake didn't know which he preferred.

The mother's name was Tonya Santos, and she was the de facto ruler of a large family that lived on that ring of prime real estate around Central where there were plenty of sanitation drones making the rounds. The undesirable effects of the chrono-sphere were inconsequential here, but the edge was still a comfortably long way off. It was the old city equivalent of the upper west side.

These family territories were some of the unfriendliest blocks in the city. This was because most of the other orgs, with the obvious exception being the chokers, were forced to recruit new members once in a while using whatever innovative methods they could dream up. These methods were usually open days and free gifts, earth-shaking manifestos nailed to the dust boards or shanghaiing and brainwashing attractive looking loners. Hate orgs and religious cults suffered from an especially high turnover and were often seen out and about scouting for fresh meat that had broken away from the well-adjusted herd.

The families reluctantly assimilated a spouse every now and then in one of their elaborate, festive ceremonies, but the mostly male applicants went through a severe selection process or 'courtship' before they were allowed in the hen house. The rest of their growth came from within, which meant the less bodies taking up space the better. Each household was a nation onto themselves infected by an incurable case of xenophobia.

Jake had never been part of one of these influential factions, but he heard there was no place safer. Everyone paid their tithe and everyone ate. No one got inside unless they were invited, and no one was left out in the cold. Over the years, they wrested the best structures for themselves too. The Santos' claimed a towering edifice that was, nonetheless, exceptionally well maintained and markedly secure. There was a body on the closest door, and Jake realised it was the music guy from the museum who wore the flash clothes. He was back to ordinary skids now and appeared all the more menacing for it.

"I'm here about Angelica," he began as tactfully as he could.

The guy's expression changed from suspicious to aggressive. He moved a hand in a way that was unmistakably a signal, but Jake pretended not to notice.

"Who are you?" he asked sharply, looking Jake up and down.

"I'm an old friend of hers. Jake," he clarified, hoping she had mentioned him, "from the thing at the museum."

The guy looked confused as he tried to place him, but then his reserve cracked, and he became the same rascally socialite he had been at his smoky little get-together. It seemed nobody here knew Angelica was missing, so he about to be the bearer of bad news. Jake wished he was somewhere else, but it was too late to depart.

"How you feeling after your big fight?" the doorman japed, searching Jake's face for bruises. "You should come to all my parties. Near the end."

"Yeah, maybe," Jake said distractedly. "Is it okay if I come in? I need to speak to Tonya."

After signalling for his resentful replacement to take over, this part-time entertainer who went by the name Filipe was kind enough to show him the way personally. Jake had only ever been inside a family's inner sanctum once in his life, and it hadn't finished well for him. It was just before he was chosen for his rewarding career in being despised by everybody, aka the civil police force, so there was no reason for anybody to take a casual disliking to him back then, yet he had still been promptly defenestrated when they caught him canoodling with the girl who had so mischievously smuggled him in.

The Santos family complex was much larger and cleaner than the abode of his former puppy crush, but everything was cramped and dirty in the old days. Idling family members watched them pass, but Filipe didn't pause to respond to any inquisitive greetings. The people living in this sanctuary seemed generally more contented than you saw elsewhere, and Jake was sorry they became so guarded as he was hustled through.

Angelica's mother looked nothing like her adopted daughter, of course. She resembled her son with her set jaw and dark curls massed around her head in a matriarch's crown. Her family tattoos spread all the way up her arms and across her face and bosom, but they had faded during her reign into a splotched cobweb emblematic of her lack of grandiosity and political cunning.

She had a starver's build, which was odd because there were no addicts in families like these. She must have some disease that was tricky to scavenge a cure for. Even in the lowest levels of San Dannon, medical care wasn't a big problem as long as you didn't catch anything expensive. Broken bones were an ideal fix even if the med drones could be a bit rough. This fragile woman was obviously a 'code 2' which was a collective term for all medical conditions where the treatment was frequently unavailable.

Her mundane little throne room was filled with all kinds of elegant bric-a-brac. This wasn't something a body saw often since recent history had taught its survivors that the only way to prepare for unexpected crises was to pack light. Everything Jake owned could fit in his pockets, if he had actually owned anything. Right now he didn't even have a stick of powder on him.

Most folk had just enough worldly possessions to fill a bindle. This chamber was reminiscent of a curiosity shop from foreign climes. There was a fancy mirror leant against the sagging plaster, a pair of brass scales on a decoratively carved mantelpiece and a birdcage full of dried flowers, but pride of place was taken by a scarred old piano. Not in perfect condition, but it still worked because it hadn't been carted away. The salvage drones could be merciless when sorting beloved trifles from the dross, and they weren't programmed for sophisticated dialogue.

There was a woman with a baby in the room, and that was a sight well worth the trip. It looked soft and healthy, and Jake was amazed by how happy it made him feel. Most of the babies you saw these days were in old vids because the bounty for sterilization was too big a plum to resist picking. Jake had done it himself once or twice, since the effects only lasted three years and was completely painless.

A user could have it done every year if they needed the data and feel safe in the knowledge that when you they no longer needed the bounty to get by, a body would still be equipped to reproduce as much they liked. That was how San Dannon ingeniously kept its population from growing. They offered a future with the promise of a better life that was dependant on the infrastructure of society reverted back to normal like the end of a television dream sequence, but until then a body would have two long years to think it over if they became broody.

Regees were still the primary cause of the population increase and probably always would be, but in time children like Jake had been born and raised in San Dannon, and this hardened age bracket didn't give a damn about having babies and didn't care about things being 'normal' again either. Jake's churlish generation just wanted more of the small things now and then.

It might be a one-off drink to look forward to at Christmas, a rare moment of privacy for a kiss and a cuddle or a trip to Gate Town to purchase something unique once in a while. The bounty made these indulgences possible, and there was no extra effort involved in the transaction. To avoid juvenile mockery, you could use your wristware to order the 'special' soy block, and one meal later you had a bit of pocket money. It stopped your menstrual cycle too, so that was one less thing to worry about.

Tonya didn't seem overjoyed to see Jake, and the kith and kin outside weren't happy either. Jake could tell by their taciturn drift towards the entrance so they could hear what he had to say for himself. Even the baby started crying as soon as he stepped inside as if he had brought in an ill wind with him. He wondered whether they treated all their guests this way.

"You are the police," she stated, giving him a picket fence grin. "Angelica tells me this. Why are you looking for her here? Now we have to move."

She let loose some heartfelt laughter that carried a hacking cough with it. Filipe joined in loudly out of love, and Jake followed suit because he needed the woman's good will. Her musical twang sounded strident in comparison to Angelica's beguiling deployment of it.

"Sorry about that," Jake apologised cheerfully, worried that he was wasting everyone's time. "But I thought I should tell you Angelica was picked up by HR. Out by the edge."

Her reception to the news confirmed the worst. There had been no message. Her family didn't even know Angelica been arrested which was unheard of. She called in the younger Santos' and yelled at them while speaking too rapidly for Jake to interpret, and their responses were obviously in the negative. Nobody had heard from Angelica. Then she shouted at Filipe who in turn demanded that Jake explained himself. Jake made it short to avoid complicating things, but Tonya's relentless questions poked holes in his fabrication until she unravelled it.

"You are mixed up with all this," She pronounced after a meandering tale in which Jake played only a minor role. "Why was she out there with this woman and this jacket? I think you know."

Jake could think of only one reason why she tailed him out there with the boy in tow, and he didn't like it much.

"I don't know why she was there," he confided, "but I think she knew the guy who carried her off. He was the one who was at the party last night. He came with Gabriel Danna."

Tonya had an extended discussion in her native language with Filipe. Jake hadn't noticed before, but her breathing was laboured. She might have been deteriorating as a result of Jake's tidings, and he prayed that he made it out before she took a turn for the worst.

"You say you're not mixed up with this, but he attacks you," Tonya persisted. "Then he takes my Angelica. She talked to me about you."

She paused to let this sink in. "Two days ago she was telling me about Jake and here you are. She is never home anymore, and I think she is with you."

Jake shook his head. He was flattered, but he didn't think he was Angelica's type. He was surprised Tonya didn't spot that too.

"She was visiting with Old Jesus recently. That's the last time we spoke," he said evenly, not wishing to provoke her.

People out in the hall were anxiously waiting for a plan of action. It appeared that everybody loved Angelica, and Jake didn't want to seem suspect on account of longwinded objections and denials.

"Where does she go then?" The woman wasn't talking to him anymore.

She was pacing the room with her hands fluttering at her chest as though something pained her there, and it looked as if she might just burst into tears. Jake didn't want to see that. Nobody cried in the city anymore. The new mother glared as if she resented him being there to witness her mentor breaking down. Jake knew he shouldn't have come here. These people weren't going to be able locate Angelica, so he had upset them all for nothing.

"I'll look for her," Jake said. Jesus was right. He was soft. "I'll start at the gates."

After considering his offer, Tonya nodded slowly. "Take Filipe," she ordered.

No gratitude. His reward was getting to leave intact after bringing them this vital info. As he kowtowed out, Jake caught a glimpse of his own sullen face in the timeworn mirror the Santos family had procured and restored for their dear old dictator. His reflection didn't look very pleased.

Gate Town was the only portion of San Dannon's crime riddled edge that had undergone any sort of gentrification. The very first successful scavvies had set themselves up here, and no amount of retro-active suggestions from interfering officials was going to change the layout now. It was a pointless, discordant settlement brought together out of convenience, spite and then out of bitter love.

Scavenging was one of the few jobs left that required too much creativity to be automated. The Alliance had learnt that lesson early on. In every administration across the globe, you can always guarantee that the people at the top of the pyramid were natural accumulators, and it was hard for such men and women to watch footage of an automaton tipping vintage comics books, or any kind of priceless artwork, into the mud in order to rescue the scrap metal from some half buried gallery.

Radiation was a problem for humans, but the powers that be worked around this by hiring anybody dumb enough to give it a try whether they had the right qualifications or not. You didn't even need a user ID, so there were plenty of volunteers to troubleshoot any issues until only the wary and well prepared survived. Inauspicious sites for hundreds of miles around were now peppered with immobile tracking devices, which the city had wisely injected into every hopeful applicant, marking potential pitfalls for those men and women clever or lucky enough to be the second mouse.

When these conquerors of the surrounding wastelands finally hit something big and headed for home, the last thing they wanted to do was traipse any further than they had to with their find, so a trading post had grown myopically around that simple fact. For those merchants who had set up shop in the Ad Layer's maze of linking tiered markets, it meant they were forced to brave the vexations of the edge with their rented lifters and superior attitudes to barter for the tasteful relics the jackets felt they couldn't live without.

The makeshift erections of the township were made of scrap that the salvage and sanitation drones would normally cart away, but their erratic services didn't make it all the way to the boundary, and that was how everyone who lived there liked it. Much to the chagrin of the connoisseurs living above, the drones had proven long ago, and on many occasions since, that they didn't know the difference between a pristine antique Stradivarius and a ukulele with three missing strings.

Besides the semi-native scavvies passing through the rustic streets, there were crowds of relieved looking folk coming out of Customs and Booking. Those moving in excited huddles were the fresh regees taking a chance on a new life in the big city, but mixed amongst these babes in the wood was the occasional individual who had just been arrested and then released back into the city by Security.

There were also a few sober rabbit landers exchanging their wares for data at the kiosks San Dannon installed by the gate with bad grace, a handful of sweet teeth working hard to feed the monster and the usual sprinkling of starvers that just melted the heart of the uninitiated they found here. But hidden amongst this lively, mixed populace were even shadier sorts preying on the naïve and inattentive. One of these dodgy, artful types was the slippery and much detested Roach.

He was a tiny body who got by nicely as a scrunger, which was what they called the vermin who collected ID numbers and sold them on. It wasn't illegal, but that didn't mean he walked boldly up to people and scanned them with a cocky wink. All Jake had to do was hang around until he saw a detached and furtive shape swimming through the pedestrian traffic like an undersized crocodile. He seized the reptile as it stole by.

"You already have it," Jake complained, maintaining his grip as Roach struggled.

Once they had you on their comprehensive lists, there was no going back. This was why a lot of bodies would gladly throttle a scrunger without a qualm. The sneaking little homunculus stopped resisting as soon as he recognised Jake's scarred visage.

"Officer," Roach said quietly, reminding him that they were both outcasts around here.

"Just a quick word Roach."

Jake escorted him to a less conspicuous corner which wasn't easy to do as there was a hurly burly almost everywhere he searched. The listlessness that infected the rest of the city didn't spread to Gate Town.

"Who's he?" Roach asked, nodding at Filipe and covertly scanning him.

Filipe didn't notice, and Jake felt bad for not warning him in advance.

"An acquaintance," Jake said disapprovingly.

"We're looking for a girl," Filipe cut in.

Roach leered at him suggestively and Jake casually stepped between them.

"This one was pretty," Jake described hurriedly. "She was being released. Not registered."

A scrunger always knew the difference, even when a regee had been given used skids and a stick-job. Filipe found a picture of her on his wrist, and Roach squinted at it.

"Nobody like that," he concluded. "Just what Response usually scrape up. Been a lot more antisocials than usual though."

"Why?"

Roach shrugged one shoulder. "Something to do with the election," he guessed, wrinkling his squashed nose. "I heard there was some big jacket from Irkutsk visiting the city."

That might explain it. If there were people shouting in the streets about equal rights, then a round trip to Booking was what they had coming to them. San Dannon didn't want martyrs. It just wanted a body too busy waiting in lines to get any real grumbling done.

"Will you let us know if you see her," Jake requested.

Roach scoffed. "Why should I do that?"

"I'm staying," Filipe said. "I'll message you when I see her. Thanks for letting us know about this."

Jake didn't really want to leave, but Filipe gave him the out, and he took it. As he walked away, Roach was busy negotiating a finder's fee, so they really didn't need Jake anymore. It was time to forget about this whole mess.

# 9

Early on during his stay, Gabriel did attempt what was technically a full-fledged escape, and it had been greatly humiliating from beginning to end. The big getaway occurred at some point after he realised the weather in the rabbit lands wasn't as bad as people back home assumed, but before he had stooped to eating the more exotic foodstuffs in addition to the brackish water.

When he had been confined to Grinder's lookout, Annie had force fed him a mild paste that seemed harmless enough. Now that he was free-range, he took care of that kind of thing himself, but after a few visits to the shared cooking areas below to collect a bowlful of this inoffensive dish in person, one or two members of the village started gently badgering him in their gibberish language to help out with the communal chores.

He tried to explain that he was officially prisoner and couldn't pitch in on principle, but this received only nonplussed looks and some confused debate. Later, when it was time for a little more group sustenance, he received only an indulgent kiss from the awful old Lady who usually served him his food. When he tried to protest, she shooed him away causing an eruption of open laughter from nearby spectators.

With faultless dignity, Gabriel stomped off in a random direction and didn't look back. Initially, he was so angry that he wasn't thinking about all the possible consequences of his impetuous flight, for he was preoccupied with being pro-active about his on-going captivity. This mentality hadn't lasted long with the scorching heat of the open plains pressing down on him.

He soon began making lists of all the ways he might die in these forbidding wilds with realistic concerns like dropping dead from thirst at the top and fantastic but unconfirmed tales of giant carnivorous sandworms at the bottom. Instead of turning back, he trudged doggedly onwards, and to distract his mind from the critical predicament he was in, Gabriel started another much shorter catalogue of all the ways he might be rescued.

Eventually, a dot appeared on the horizon directly to his left. It was the woman who was number one on his 'possible rescue scenarios' list and was somewhere in the middle of 'causes of death'. Gabriel had been dragging his feet for the last mile or so, and he increased his gait to a respectable trudge. Grinder was riding her scooter and pretending to enjoy the scenery. She stood tall with her arms folded behind her back in an impressive display of driving skills and zeroed straight in on his location.

Three facts dawned on him simultaneously. Grinder had been able to track him from the village without following his lonely trail of footsteps. Unless she really did take the scenic route, this signified that Gabriel had trodden a circle since his 'escape' and was now utterly lost. Most disheartening of all, however, was the realisation that she had no trouble finding him. It meant she had left it hours before coming to retrieve him. Grinder slowed down to walking pace as she drew closer and Gabriel pretended she wasn't there.

"Where are you going?" she asked courteously.

"Home," he snapped resolutely.

"That's not the right direction then," she pointed out with no hint of spite. "It's that way."

He didn't break his stride or alter his course.

"If you go too far I might not be able to find you again," she warned with him.

"Okay then," he said inflexibly.

She quietly stalked him for a few metres more as though she was going to wait him out, but Gabriel had learned by now that patience wasn't one of her strengths, so it didn't take long for her to throw her arms up in mock defeat.

"Okay Gabriel. You win," she conceded, turning around. "Don't go too far though. You've got to walk back yet."

That faltered his charge. Was she really going to make him walk back? He gave her scooter an involuntary inspection. Scooters were basically just a low power gravity buffer and a grip to steer it with, so they came in all sorts of wonderful shapes and sizes. It looked as if Grinder had built this one herself, and she had left extra room for cargo on the deck behind her. If he could find a safe area to hold on to, it wouldn't take her long to fly him back to the refinery.

Deep down he had always been aware that he would have to go slinking back since a stroppy death from dehydration was his only other option out here. Now that his shameful return could no longer be denied, he did not want to add to his miseries by letting his pride make the decisions for him at this crucial juncture. He would just have to bite the bullet and beg her for a ride like a man.

"You didn't want a lift did you?" she enquired innocently.

"No," he said flatly.

He cursed at himself within the privacy of his own head. After some hesitation, he casually turned towards the trail she had left which was rapidly being eaten away by the wind. Grinder made a tight one-eighty that whipped dust in his face and accelerated into the distance again. As she passed his stubborn form, she dropped a flask of water in the dirt like an afterthought. He scooped it up angrily and drank most of it but forced himself to stop before he finished it. The awful sun hadn't set yet, and thanks to his own mulishness he had a long way to go.

As he resentfully undertook the second leg of his journey, the liquid sloshing through him woke Gabriel up to the fact that he was famished. He hadn't eaten much since Grinder and her sister had taken him hostage because it all seemed so revolting, but he had picked up a few clues as to how they provided for themselves in this featureless desert, and there was a food group that any unskilled wastelander could forage for in a pinch.

Since no-one was around to talk him out of it, he turned over a few rocks and ate what he found beneath. He didn't have access to one of the tiny fires the villagers kept alive through prodigious effort, but Gabriel was too hungry to care. They were more difficult to catch than expected, so when he realised the nippy little creatures were actually quite palatable, Gabriel became frustrated and searched for bigger rocks with a broader selection.

There were some stationary sandy coloured beetles under the most promising larder-like boulder Gabriel checked. Their intricately camouflaged shell blended seamlessly with the dirt, and they didn't scamper around at his rude intrusion like the others had. He carelessly popped the largest in his mouth pretending it was a trendy new flavour of soy he was sampling, but the thing bit the inside of his cheek and wouldn't let go. It was a horrible sensation as all sudden stings are, but his mild shock soon became fear instead when his meal refused to yield and be eaten.

Gabriel returned to the trail Grinder had left him fully cured of his appetite and trying his best to remove the persistent insect. It was only the size of his thumb, but every time he managed to unloose the vindictive thing, it reacted by shifting its grip in an eerily sentient fashion. It managed to inch its way into the meaty flesh of his tongue where its iron hard pincers would be budged no further.

Soon after it had settled in to its new home, his entire mouth went numb. When he occasionally gave the sturdy little pest an exploratory prod, the symptoms spread faster until he couldn't feel his face or neck. He tried to chew the thing in half, but each time his teeth found purchase they only made the parasite's head dig in deeper, and the pain in his jaw would reach a new threshold.

Even though he was exhausted from his afternoon's adventures, Gabriel launched into desperate sprinting whenever his calves felt up to it. During these terrified bursts of speed, his mouth hung open and turned his grunts into wails that unsettled the dry air. By the time he arrived back at the village, his cracked lips were a frothing, gaping mess, and there was a tingling feeling on the back of his hands.

Some of the villagers laughed, a few of them were sympathetic and one little girl squealed and hared off which Gabriel thought was an extreme reaction. He had been under the impression that they raised them tough in the rabbit lands. Grinder was summoned, and she turned up wiping her hands as though she were preparing for a tricky job. Gabriel was glad to see she wasn't smirking.

Disregarding the boy's reservations, the bossy tech sav had Solomon leaver his jaw open as wide as possible with a scrap of rubber. The fresh air made Gabriel's unwanted passenger squirm indignantly, and he experienced an intense flush of localised pain that refused to be muted by the insect's venom. He did his best not to cry out in front of the locals, but he was becoming progressively lightheaded.

Grinder made an optimistic noise. "This is good."

She was peering at the thing from all angles making Gabriel feel faintly self-conscious about his oral hygiene. There was no Gunter out here to take care of that sort of thing for him these days. She called over a grinning fellow who had come to watch the show, and he obediently approached to open his mouth for inspection. Half his tongue was missing. The unfortunate man wiggled it around and gargled until Gabriel felt a new wave of dizziness hit him.

"You didn't bite down," she congratulated him, her voice coming from far away. "When you do, it buries its head in. Then we have to chop it out."

She indicated the villager who had lost the ability to whistle. "Now we can pull it off instead."

Gabriel tried to object, but his head had flopped back and the wooziness spread faster. He just wanted to sleep and deal with all this in the morning. He tried to stroke Grinder's colourful hair, and she slapped his had away irritably. The next thing he was conscious of was the unwelcome taste of strong spirits. He coughed and spluttered, but the fingers pinching his jaw were insistent. He was pitifully grateful when the flask was pulled away, for his strength and ability to resist had waned to kittenish proportions.

"The beetle likes strong spirits," an old Lady was saying to him, wavering in and out of his line of sight in a distressing nightmare of rotting gums. She was wearing the latest style from Irkutsk, and this lent the vision an extra facet of surrealistic weirdness. "We'll get her nice and sleepy first."

She had a pair of strong pincers that Gabriel had seen her using for a variety of odd jobs in the village. Through the fog, he sensed what was about to happen and tried to roll away helplessly, but her bony digits gripped his chin firmly. With an expression that Gabriel thought was unreasonably aggressive, she took a crushing grip on the bug and pulled it out smoothly while taking a sharp step back to avoid the mix of blood, saliva and poison that came with it. She held it aloft for Gabriel to admire, and he flinched away making her cackle obnoxiously.

When Gabriel had errantly stuffed the docile organism into his mouth, it had looked only vulnerable and nutritious. Now he saw shiny, serrated mandibles larger than its head and strong, steely legs entering a tough carapace that was harder to chew than aged leather. Only delirium brought on by heatstroke could have persuaded him try and eat one. The old woman flicked it into the fire where it emitted a drawn out squeal before succumbing to the heat.

She made a joke, and Grinder smiled but didn't laugh. Gabriel's face felt like it had been through a mincer, and Grinder said something to reassure him. That once the swelling went down he would be back to his old, beautiful self. He mumbled something to her that caused her to blush, but when the venom faded after an accelerated convalescence, Gabriel couldn't remember what it was he said and soon forgot all about it.

*****

Jake let his feet guide him to the Railroad Bar. He promised himself that he was just going for information and would order only a single, token drink. He had a hard time believing it though since he had lied to himself too often. The bar owed its existence to an ex-milker named Ben. Like many publicans before him, this honest and upstanding businessman realised that even though everyone hated the city's tiny police force, these stalwart defenders of the public's interests still had plenty of pay.

They also had to live shoulder-to-shoulder with the residents of C Layer by law, which had been a well-intentioned attempt to fight corruption dating back to the Hamburg Accord. So Ben had opened up a first-class establishment serving bootleg booze that nobody could afford to frequent except the least troublesome and most law abiding drunks the citizenry had to offer. That had originally been Ben's theory.

In reality, the fact that the alcohol was smuggled down and then extortionately re-priced made his regulars feel they were on equal moral footing with regards to any petty misdemeanours that might occur under his roof. This created a low-level field of justifiable criminality where fist fights and dodgy deals were commonplace. It drove the sweet, half decent ex-milker mad, but it wasn't as if Ben could call the police.

The bar's location may have also contributed to the constant waywardness of the customers since it was situated in an old railway tunnel half buried in the Mech Layer. Its furnishings were reclaimed from one of the abandoned trains that used to lumber along these subways of the old city. Because everybody in the area knew not to patronise the establishment lest they get a reputation for aiding officials with their inquiries, Ben had made use of a whole carriage to run his business from without fear of drifting bodies looking to pitch there.

Jake arrived just before a shift change, so spaced evenly among the tables were that portion of Ben's clientele with the most advanced alcoholism. Their backs swivelled towards Jake unhelpfully as he walked in. The rest were asleep or possibly dead. There was penetrating music playing throughout, but by general agreement it was the blandest, gentlest background music downloadable for free from the servers. The soundtrack's only purpose was to do away with the need for conversation. The late hour notwithstanding, the place was still half full, yet whenever the song changed there was a vacuum of golden silence broken only by the unrepentant owner.

Ben sauntered over singing along to one of his favourite tunes and gave Jake a friendly grin. He was immune to the aggressive cynicism that was the hallmark of Jake and his kind. Milkers were always like this, even the ones that had famously lost their faith so hard they served rotgut with a three hundred per cent mark-up. As Ben hefted the bottle, he already had that apologetic slant that came before he proffered something truly vile.

"Just one, Ben," Jake warned him. Ben nodded impassively.

"Stop by for something?" he guessed, not quite looking in Jake's direction. He didn't want to make any false promises with his eyes.

Ben was easy to talk to, so he became a suppository of useless police gossip that a lot of young go-getters were sometimes very interested in. Over time, he had slowly cultivated a lucrative side-line as an intermediary for this valuable intelligence, but Ben was on the smart side of a seller's market and they both knew where all of Jake's cash went. He hoped the stingy bartender was feeling generous for once. Thank God the place was quiet tonight.

Jake started by skirting the issue. "Anyone mention anything about HR tonight?"

"No," Ben said, thinking it over briefly. "Haven't heard anything since they nabbed that serial killer three days ago."

Jake had already caught this news. It wasn't often HR stopped by, so their gun toting outings were a popular topic of conversation. Typically, they only emerged for serious incidents like this most recent fiasco. Some technician had managed to re-programme a salvage drone so that it processed the occasional starver it found alone out by the edge in addition to its regular quota of scrap.

During these turbulent times, there were no resources to spare for a justice system that involved resolution by humans, and that included a verdict delivered via one's peers. Since most cases never went to trial in the old days anyway, it had been easy to let standards slip and allow the AI to take over completely. Surprisingly, the ever present criminal element of society had accepted the change with jovial goodwill.

This was because they expected to discover the same imperfections in the judicial programming that had proven to be demonstrably systemic in all San Dannon's software after it was thoroughly tested by a dedicated practitioner of free enterprise. Control corrected as many errors as they could, but new loopholes were still being discovered with increasing regularity thirty years later.

Then there were the occasions when the justice system went wrong without any help. Those one in a million cases where the drones malfunctioned sounded funny until they happen to you. These days you could be pronounced guilty and be handed what was effectively a death sentence entirely because of a flaw in the code and without recourse to appeal. For the first time in recorded history, injustice really was blind.

So like most HR callouts, the salvage drone massacre had been perpetrated by unanticipated, devious means and for atypical motives. The guy had been an unsung genius who relayed his despicable meddling through a less secure supplementary system. He also chose the ideal group of victims since recycling starvers hadn't raised the sort of red flags that made important people take an interest. Only when a delegation of dealers came forward with complaints about diminishing custom and tales of empty, blood-stained pitches did Security at last take notice.

It turned out to be some Ad Layer janker who went nuts on account of the cramped conditions and redundancy of his talents just like Doc and his breed. He had earned just enough for this taxing existence amongst San Dannon's most clinically depressed populace by maintaining the mech tunnels and outlets that made up the rest of B Layer. Watching starvers the size of ants roaming free while applying their own simple trade must have made something inside the man's over qualified brain snap loose. The agents had been unusually gentle when they arrested him.

As for Jake's hands on experience with suspects, he had only ever received one case in which he was ordered to detain a wrongdoer without auto-assistance. It had happened in the Mech Layer. His superiors were well aware Jake had spent nine tenths of his childhood roaming its nooks and crannies, which was why he spent one tenth of his adult, professional life taking pictures of rotting corpses down there now.

The woman had somehow managed to delete herself and evade the cams for two days. She had euthanized her husband, and as it had been a non-violent crime, the brass had left it up to Jake to track her down. It was a task he performed with unbiased alacrity until he came face-to-face with her. She was an ordinary body. She was a grey faced counterpart for every boyhood maternal type that ever pinched his good cheek or wiped his nose, and they expected him to hand her over to the snide despots at Booking.

He left her where he found her instead. She was folded between two air filters fifty metres below sea level living an existence of rodent-like fear. At the time, he had reasoned that she would be dead soon enough anyhow, but that failure was the first black mark in what had since become a lacklustre career spent mostly underground.

"You look a bit spooked," Ben commented. Jake had polished off his drink without making a fuss about its quality.

"It's just been a long day," Jake replied, not wishing to give anything away.

He hadn't had a chance to think since Grinder's disappearance, and he wanted time to sort through the information before he related it to others, especially round faced bartenders who would sell it to the highest bidder.

"I can tell," Ben admitted with his habitual blunt honesty.

Jake waited for a sensible period, but he couldn't hide his agenda from the shrewd ex-milker if he was going get anything out of him, so he had no reason to beat around the bush. Perhaps it was just for the look of the thing.

"Do you know anything about Gabriel Danna?" he inquired boldly, already aware of what the answer would be.

"I know enough not to ask questions."

"It's important," Jake said. "Personal."

Ben bowed his head as if life were putting him under undue pressure. His scan for eavesdroppers and errant cams was so nonchalant, Jake wasn't sure it even happened.

"I don't know anything about Danna, but there was someone else in here asking about him as well."

"Who?"

Ben sighed, as if Jake were asking for the Earth. Jake ordered another drink for the sake of appearances and to remind Ben that he was a loyal customer with years of boozing left in him.

"Your friend, Shortcut. He had some girl with him," he revealed, as if every word were being teased out of him. "Pretty. From the Santos family"

Ben looked him over. "You know her?" he deduced.

"What were they doing here?" Jake said stiffly. "Together."

"They were asking about a few people," Ben said, poring Jake another. "One of them was some princess. The other was her cousin. She wanted to know what kind of crowd they hung out with. What they got up to down here. A full work up of four IDs from the Colonel. Almost gave him a heart attack when he found out who they all belonged to, but the pay was too good to pass up."

Colonel Baker was Ben's middle man for most of the higher ups. There had always been an 'us and them' attitude prevalent in San Dannon that sometimes made it hard to do business, but decent men like Ben were a compromise most people were willing to make. It meant everyone could preserve their deniability, and Ben could outsource the job of finding and bribing the sort of informants who crossed the street when they spotted a pair of skids in the Ad Layer

"What did you tell her?"

Ben pretended not to hear him, so Jake gave him five minutes to cool off before ordering another. Ben didn't wander away afterwards, but he didn't glance in Jake's direction either.

"Did she ask about anything else?"

Ben went through his ritual of checking on who might be taking an interest in their conversation and seemed contented with what he saw. "She wanted some information about a place. A place Knock might be working at. I knew what she was getting at, but there wasn't much I could tell her."

Jake bit his tongue. Pushing him for more would be futile. If Ben had a name for the place, it was too precious to mention aloud for free. Some words could earn a careless individual an automatic clocking, and sometimes a suspicious phrase at the wrong moment could see even the most blameless type of fellow being followed around by the cams for a month. Police inspectors were no exception, and it could make the job tricky at times. The most successful officers got by with euphemisms that were inappropriately innocent such as referring to a headless corpse as a 'sock puppet' or blood spatter as 'body glitter'.

Ben wasn't going to give him anything else, but Jake didn't think the gracious old penny pincher would begrudge him picking up the info direct from Baker now that it was second-hand goods. Best of all, Baker owed him a favour from a long time ago that he had yet to repay. It was one involving a certain case Jake had whitewashed on behalf of some shadowy cabal. He had little choice at the time, and the death under investigation had been silly rather than serious, but the whole affair had left him feeling unexpectedly low. This would be the least Baker could do since he had been the one feeding Jake their patter.

Baker wasn't a real Colonel. He collected antique German war medals and spent an inordinate amount of time hunting for them in both East and West Gate Town. He worked on the lowest levels of Security Headquarters but still held enough responsibility to be of use to the curious and affluent. Just like Shortcut, he had made it up to the Ad Layer using his brains and application. Unlike Jake's dissolute friend, however, Colonel Baker had been part of a family during his years in A Layer for which he had retained a strong sense of loyalty for as he clambered up the ladder. This was happening more and more these days.

The Colonel paid his tithe just like his brothers and sisters back home. The strict rules against addicts that most of the families imposed on their members did not seem to apply to the functioning kind that came with an Ad Layer income. Because of his predilections for kraut memorabilia and the widely admired magic ring, he had to bolster his income by being a neutral conduit between C Layer and A Layer. He took these extra duties very seriously and wouldn't fail to recall Jake's contribution to his lifestyle.

Jake wished he had nipped to the 'bathroom' at Ben's place. Rumour had it that the jackets used some air wash system, and down in the old city a body just went in the designated zone and the sanitation drones would get around to carting it away by the bucket load. It didn't smell nice, but you could make up for that by keeping the area where you did your business a long way away from where you lay your head.

In the Ad Layer, there was little room to spare for any profligacy regarding hygiene. Jankies had to use plastic traps that weren't originally designed for ease of access or splash back. These traps were replaced by the drones at irregular intervals, so the upscale enterprises bribed the operators to get as many sweeps from Sanitation as possible for their premises. Everyone else had to make do.

Baker lived in a particularly foetid neighbourhood. Its residents were low level functionaries of Central's infrastructure, but they were probably happy just to escape the hardships below despite the plumbing situation. The units were crammed together so tightly, their plextene walls were bending inwards slightly from the intense pressure the lifters had applied to fit them all in.

The substance they had been cast from was a slightly more malleable cousin of the revolutionary permex. It would never buckle, but it did groan alarmingly once in a while. There was a very conspicuous gap on the left side of the Colonel's decrepit miniature ghetto. It appeared as if one of the swag had escaped by plummeting to earth like a Ping-Pong ball the size of a van.

Discounting urban legends, such a calamity rarely happened. A far more likely explanation was that it had been removed for one reason or another and couldn't be replaced because its conjoined units had swollen to fill the niche. This niche really opened up the grim swag with some much needed illumination, and it was Baker's unit opposite that received the most benefit from this ritzy little window.

Jake could distinguish Baker's slice of paradise from the rest because Auto Response had already arrived. One was hovering resolutely outside. The other was within the unit systematically gathering evidence. Jake walked past without turning his head and the drone on guard followed his progress menacingly. Through the open doorway, he managed to spot a sock puppet covered in body glitter out the corner of his eye.

They hadn't clocked him, and Jake thought he had gotten away with his ill-timed drop by until he caught sight of another inspector moving towards him along the tiny walkway. The man was surely responding to his abrupt summons, but he looked indecently upbeat about it. He was wearing a set of those slick, hybrid skids the prouder jankies wore, and these were a uniform grey in deference to his position. Jake kept his head down as he crept by, but he was recognised nevertheless.

"Jake Gildroy," the inspector hailed smugly.

He gave an impassive nod in return. Jake was familiar with him from training. The guy's name was Holtz or something similar.

"This hasn't got anything to do with you, has it?" Holtz asked him bluntly.

"Just passing through," Jake said, doing his best to make it sound convincing. "Coincidence."

"Don't believe in them," Holtz retorted mechanically. "And this one would be a big coincidence to swallow what with Baker working with you listers and one of you showing up moments after his body is found."

"So I'm a suspect," Jake laughed uneasily.

"No." Holtz grinned widely. "This one's an open and shut case."

"You have someone," Jake asked without meaning to. Holtz wasn't about to tell him anything, but the words just slipped out.

"Carry on sir. You just leave this to us." Holtz gave him a wink and a big thumbs up before hurrying over to the corpse that the drones were already clumsily lifting through the narrow door.

Jake seethed impotently as he left scene. Holtz had undoubtedly been instructed to wave it through and half-arse the report, but even if he found out anything interesting he wouldn't share it with the likes of Jake. Solid jobs on the Ad Layer that came with fine pay and less clocking had to be strained through an unashamed nepotistic selection process before they reached grasping A-list commuters like Jake. For talentless scum like Holtz, this was an indication of his superior worth.

Only wealthy jackets who were thoroughly certain of their place on top of the world thought it fashionable to give a body a magnanimous hug and pretend everyone was friends divided only by topography. Those lower tier jankies whose 'waste' boxes didn't get emptied often enough tended to piss from the catwalks whenever the cams weren't watching, and bastards like Holtz were the sort that aimed for a moving target.

Jake made a rational decision. He was done with this particular case. He was going to hand it in and forget he had run into Angie again. There was no need to mention Danna's boy walking around alive and intact. Jake wasn't going to wind up a loose end for the likes of Holtz to pick over. He intended to do what he had been taught to do from now on. He would put his nose low to the grindstone until the election fever was over and then embrace whatever the world had to offer next, preferably while he was still breathing.

Shortcut had the right idea. Whatever he had discovered had scared him away, and Jake should have traded the ankh for a seat on the same bus. He would have done if the selfish, odious pervert had come clean about what they were into. It might have been nice to be flatmates in a new land. A city with no Ad Layer where they made plumbing a priority sounded like just the ticket right now. As far as Jake knew, in every other settlement of the Alliance there were only two kinds of people. They had those above and those below.

Only San Dannon had carved out this wretched middle ground through feckless pride and obstinacy. The promos sometimes described it as 'the last wonder of the world'. Jake hated it. He hated its bars filled with nauseating displays and drinks that ate through your liver. They were packed with fools who had sold their last shred of self-respect to San Dannon for a plastic cube to sleep in and a drug problem. He went to find one of these bars so he could finish some paperwork.

They finally called him in on the Danna case an hour later, although it was only fifteen minutes after he sent up his report. It was with extreme trepidation that Jake made his slow way up to the highest echelons of Central. Security Headquarters required more space and man power than any other two departments combined, and the top floors peeked into C Layer where an extensive gantry had been included that offered an epic view of San Dannon's three habitable layers.

It was to these lofty offices that Jake was directed when he stopped at the front desk feeling tremendously out of place. Since his previous visit there seven years ago, the formidable lobby had been renovated into a clean, cold exemplification of Security's rising standards and ideals. Even though she was restricted by her programming from saying anything snarky, the factory fresh customs drone scanned his clothing pointedly while he probed her for answers. It was obvious she thought Jake should have smartened up before his appointment, but the message he received hadn't mentioned riding an elevator up to its very last ding.

The doors opened up into the office itself, and Jake found himself in the largest enclosed space he had ever been in this far from the old city. There were windows on three sides to let in the intermittent sunlight, and there was even a small forest of real plants to bask in it. Jake had never met the man tucked behind the wide, orderly desk before, but he knew exactly who he was.

The man appeared in half the old footage of the great Charles Danna. He was usually stood scowling in the background as the Chairman pacified CGI crowds with assurances of a safer tomorrow. Control Chief Robert Knock, or 'Bobby Knock' as the bodies called him. Old Jesus and his crowd still loathed him for reasons that no longer mattered. Nobody was getting eaten anymore, and the freedom train had left the station at one minute to midnight, so Jake was willing to keep an open mind about this alleged butcher. San Dannon committed its sins against humanity by majority vote, but that broad, comforting shield could not protect the sword.

Even though the chances of them rubbing elbows down at the Railroad Bar were infinitesimal, Jake still felt like they had met face-to-face recently. The Chief must have thought he was an idiot for standing there gobsmacked like a regee on a daytrip. The man waved at the seat opposite, and Jake snapped out of his stupor. Knock made a small effort to put him at his ease with some bland pleasantries, and then the city's penultimate ruler leant forward and displayed Jake's slapdash report before him.

"This must have been a tricky one, officer," he sympathised ambiguously. "A lot of time spent on it too, I see. Commendable."

He finished reading the report again. It didn't take long.

"Tell me, was there anything you left out. Anything you thought might be irrelevant." His stare was like a hammer. It was easy to see why this man was so successful at his chosen profession.

"Nothing much, sir. Just a very tragic accident," Jake said unconvincingly. He tried to maintain a straight face while he reflected on everything the man might know or suspect.

"Yes, he will be sorely missed," Knock observed curtly, still breaking down Jake's composure with an unflinching diamond focus. "It says here there were no witnesses to the... accident itself."

"No sir."

"And nothing found at the scene?"

"No sir." Jake swallowed dryly.

There was a glass of water on the desk that was making it difficult to concentrate. In Jake's world, water came in sachets and was still cloudy from sterilisation. He deliberately tore his eyes away and searched through his drug addled recollections of the last few days. There must have been footage of his misadventure at the museum. Jake had been staring openly at the dead jacket as if he had seen a ghost. The Chief might have a recording of him holding the ankh itself and showing it to Jesus and Angelica or presenting it to Grinder before HR busted in on her.

The Chief's expression was inscrutable, so Jake had no clue as to whether he was in trouble or not. This man must be aware that the dead kid was the Chairman's. He probably had dinner at the Danna household every other Christmas. Their children were probably teenage sweethearts or something. To Jake's immense relief, the Chief swiped the display aside with an air of finality and sighed.

"An appropriate final case for your career," he said, leaning back again. "You may as well be the first to know. The Hamburg Accord is being abrogated. That means we're re-assigning the civil inspectors."

"Re-assigning them where?" Jake asked, with a sinking feeling.

"Here and there," he replied, shortly. "Technically they are employed on behalf of the local government. But since the Alliance and the government are now the same thing, you're officially our responsibility. Most of you will have to go back to testing, I'm afraid."

There were only two jobs available to the average body stuck in testing. The first was surfing, which was what they called the multitude of surveys and medical exams San Dannon seemed to endlessly require. This 'work' was simple to do, almost entirely risk free and it earned enough data for a change of skids once in a blue moon. Of course, when you were that far down, the last thing you worried about was how crusty your skids were.

The second unskilled position was scavenging, which could be quite rewarding for the entrepreneurial type but a swift march towards irradiated old age for everyone else. Old Jesus had been a scavvy as a younger man. Fortunately for him, he had been the former sort. Jesus preferred to make deals with gnarly rabbit landers for items that they considered to be mostly worthless trash rather than exploring some drop-mine infested battlefield for an ounce of deevo fluid.

Jake certainly wasn't the smartest inspector in the city, so he couldn't see himself being absorbed into the elitist Human Response and buying a house just off C Layer any time soon, but the Chief's posture told him there might be unexpected options on the table, although Jake couldn't divine whether his recent escapade had earned him a bribe or a punishment. It was usually both with San Dannon.

"You're friend Michael Stoker," the Chief said, dropping the other shoe. "It seems he's left his post. Perhaps for good."

Jake gave the smallest of nods.

"If we could confirm his location...?" the Chief pressed, relaxing an eyebrow.

So that was his remuneration for betraying his oldest friend. It was insulting, but they both knew that once Jake began sweating, this righteous attitude would be worn down by pain and despair until he was begging to spill his guts in return for the Chief's carrot. Jake imagined himself sitting in Shortcut's mucky little unit and staring at the feeds twelve hours a day between each fix.

Whatever they had planned for Shortcut, it wasn't good. Under normal circumstances, when you exited the city by your own steam you were then someone else's problem. It was the same as being exiled, except you left on a shuttle bus with all your possessions under your arm. The assorted cities of the Alliance often showed absolution to fugitives with enough data to emigrate because one never knew when the tables might be turned.

If San Dannon wanted to retrieve Shortcut this badly, it wasn't because they owed him back pay. They were going to do nasty things to Shortcut against his will and maybe incinerate the leftovers when they were done. Chief Knock didn't like Jake's hesitation.

"Why don't you think about it for a few days," he suggested equitably. "Send me a message if you remember anything."

In a few days, whatever data Jake had left would be gone, and he would get to experience true poverty again as well as the interminable sobriety that came with it. That was only if the Chief didn't delete him out of spite. The city had lots of numbers to keep track of and sometimes it lost count. No-one lifted a finger to fix these things unless the victim was an org leader or some other famous face.

"I don't think I will, sir," Jake insisted as politely as possible.

The Chief clenched his jaw and lifted his hand towards the door as though he didn't trust himself to speak. Jake shuffled out meekly and then breathed a curse when the door slid closed. Shortcut had been right, and now Jake was fucked. He reflexively checked how much data he had and then went to purchase what was probably his last drink. After that, he had no idea what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

# 10

Solomon had taken him rabbit hunting. This gratifying local pastime entailed a climb down a sheer canyon wall where the cliff rabbits dug shallower burrows than their plains dwelling cousins. The perception of safety made them incautious and lethargic enough to justify an exhilarating descent down a vertical cliff in order to catch them. There were small holes set closely together in convenient constellations every square metre of the climb, and these close knit niches made very secure handholds.

Like most of his friends, Gabriel was athletic, and he also enjoyed a certain amount of risk with his physical recreation, so he had no trouble during the first stage of their mission. The cliff was shady, the skies were clear and he was enjoying giving his muscles a proper stretch for the first time in forever. Then the wiry Solomon motioned for him to be silent, and Gabriel hung there like the Vitruvian Man while wondering what was supposed to happen next.

The boy was listening intently and holding his long hook at the ready. Then with a deft flick he ripped a snarling rabbit out of its scrape and thrashed it against the rock face until it ceased biting and kicking. The thick padding Solomon wore on his arm took most of the damage, but Gabriel could see places where those giant, brown teeth had penetrated to the skin.

That was when Gabriel became acutely aware of all the soft, vulnerable parts of his body that were exposed to the Swiss cheese cliff he was spread-eagled across. There was no way out of his situation except a slow ascent the way they had come. He would have to press himself defencelessly against columns of these decoy niches generations of mutant rabbits must have dug over the years, any of which could contain a vicious, two-foot-long gnawing machine.

Gabriel turned his head and looked directly into one of the larger holes that marred the rocky surface. Was that tufted fur he glimpsed in the darkness? Could he detect a faint shifting and growling from within? He moved step by horrible step back up the canyon wall as fast as he dared. Solomon seemed concerned and asked him where he was going, but Gabriel wasn't able to answer until he had cleared the top.

As he lay sprawled in the dirt afterwards, Gabriel tried to explain to Solomon that he should have warned him about the demon bunnies before their expedition down the cliff, but he received nothing except bemused smiles for his efforts. The boy was incorrigible when it came to mortal danger. When Gabriel found out Solomon was Grinder's brother, he hadn't really been surprised. Recklessness was evidently in their blood. There wasn't even a law against harbouring extant androids because nobody would be stupid enough to do it.

Annie was allowing Gabriel to wander further and further from the village these days as though he were a mouse she was losing interest in. It hardly mattered since he was hemmed in by the endless, baking wastes. Without the villagers' knack for finding water, he would be rabbit food in three days out here, and he would be dead sooner than that if he encountered one of the large storms that blew in from time to time. During these colossal tornadoes, they were all obliged to shelter in the caves beneath the settlement, which was where Gabriel realised it was the weather that drew up the schedule in the rabbit lands and not his empty tummy or his bladder.

The first time he had eaten rabbit meat his stomach had been inside out with hunger. Making the leap from eating soy blocks to eating insects hadn't been a huge deal because it had been common practice before the Gravity Wars. Eating meat, however, just wasn't done anymore. There was a stigma attached to it that had nothing to do with urban cannibals or bone deep irradiation.

Even before most of the fauna had died off following good old sixty-six, meat preparation and consumption had been elevated to an art form that only the wealthy could afford to partake in because its production had to be compliant with increasingly strict legal requirements designed to slow the spread of disease, curtail animal cruelty and cease wasting arable land.

Thanks to advanced science, in the finest twenty-first century restaurants a gastronome could eat a juicy, mouth-watering steak that had never strictly been alive. Three apocalyptic wars later, and that portion of humanity stored safely behind the city walls of San Dannon subsisted on different flavours of soy so genetically over-engineered that it glowed in the dark and lived off pollution.

When Gabriel had his first mouthful of that hot, blood dripping sliver of animal flesh, he quickly lost his head. Ration blocks were about as moist and succulent as damp chalk, and tender slow cooked rabbit was ambrosia by comparison. Suddenly every song on the radio made sense because for the first time in their lassitudinous existence, his taste buds were alive and they were in love.

The villagers hadn't approved of this behaviour. Table manners had survived out here in the form of hardy, almost mystical traditions and so had cycles of famine as well as drought. In the rabbit lands, eating more than your fair share was considered unacceptably rude even if you were new and popular. Gabriel was greasy to the elbows before he looked up and grasped the seriousness of his blunder.

Luckily for him, the mad old woman he had traded his fine clothes to was Grinder's grandmother, and she held some sway within the tribe. Together, she and Grinder had been able to temporarily settle their feathers while Gabriel was given a crash course in dining etiquette. Then when Grinder described the soy blocks they were forced to live on in the city, the locals began to feel sorry for him.

She even found an old one when she checked her many pockets. It was quite battered from its jaunt but still very edible. Each solemn villager took a tiny bite and dutifully pulled a face. It turned out the residents of San Dannon didn't have everything after all. Perhaps they deserved a smidgen of pity for missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. The village was proud of being independent, but it clung to the skirts of the city like a parasite. There was plenty of useful tech around the place obtained through theft, smuggling and occasionally honest trade, but never any of San Dannon's chalky homemade, soy blocks it seemed. That was when Solomon promised to teach Gabriel how to hunt rabbits. The old Lady also offered to teach him how to cook which he was less thrilled about.

It was on that morning of stalking rabbits, after he had seen one of the mutated, rabid lagomorphs up close and decided the sport wasn't for him, that Gabriel spotted a fellow citizen of San Dannon for the first time since his abduction. The figure was a splash of colour in the vermin riddled canyon cautiously threading between stones and boulders collected below. It was a lowly auxiliary agent from West Gate Town.

They were installed in a slightly more conservative version of the armour that Human Response was so fond of. Although it was designed to be more manoeuvrable, Gabriel could tell the wearer was uncomfortable in it even from his distant vantage point. He spotted another stranger crouched in the deepest part of the ravine where he was testing a tiny rivulet of fresh water that sometimes appeared there.

These were the natural scientists whose reports were so often quoted by pundits on the prop vids they played every patch hour. They had to work even harder for their bread and butter than the scavvies did since there were lots of people who could read a scanner, but not so many who could drag a sack full of goodies through a hundred miles of rabbit infested terrain.

"Come on. Before they see us," Solomon urged him gravely. "City men spread diseases. Old diseases. Bad ones."

There was a heavy lifter in the distance that looked very inviting to Gabriel. It could get him back to the city in no time at all. If the scientists caught him trying to steal it, he could explain that he was the son of the Chairman and had become marooned out here. They would call Security to alert them and Knock would send some agents in much heavier armour to come pick him up and whisk him back home.

Gabriel walked back to the village with Solomon without saying much. Later that night, Grinder approached him for another frank heart to heart. She was playing with the ankh as though it had become a nervous habit for her. The last time he had seen it, she had been pressing it to his cheek to erase the damage the desert parasite had done. There was a notch in his tongue still, but it was perfectly healthy now and extra sensitive due to its recent rejuvenation.

"I think it's time we talked about what you're going to do."

That was promising. It sounded as if he had a choice in the matter.

"Have you... finished with your tests?" he stammered. He did not wish to spoil the mood with accusations of kidnapping.

She laughed bitterly. "I haven't even begun. But it's all too advanced for what I have out here.

"Maybe if I had my old gear, but I suppose HR are busy pulling it apart to figure out how it works by now." she said, without apportioning blame.

Apart from a glove she had been working on for her brother that she sometimes pined for, Grinder had come to realise that having Gabriel and the ankh in her possession was far more important than what she had lost in exchange.

"What will they do to you if you go back?" she asked gently.

It was the closest she had come to bringing up Dominic for a long time. He hadn't told her much about him, but she had somehow discerned that they were best friends regardless of his reticence on the subject.

"I don't know who I can trust," he told her. "That guy who shot me was the son of Chief Knock."

"I know," she confided. There was honest to goodness concern in her tone. "Maybe we can message your dad. Have him come and pick you up."

He was touched by the thought that she would expose her village's kindly inhabitants to the Chairman's tactless, inquisitorial minions, but there was only one man his father would entrust with the task of fetching his son from a situation like this. The Chief was the second most powerful man in San Dannon, although Knock didn't receive nearly as much phoney genuflection as the Chairman did. He was bound to analyse any messages Gabriel sent wherever it was he sent them, and if Dominic had been following the Chief's orders, Gabriel would be volunteering for a second bullet through the knee.

He shook his head and smiled. "I think I'd be better off contacting Articia. She'd know what to do about this."

Grinder nodded. "Articia Frohnes. Her mother was the queen responsible for the Hamburg Accord. Doesn't that make her a princess?"

He nodded absentmindedly. "The last time we spoke she thought that..."

"That what?"

"I think she thought I wasn't real," he admitted, coming head-to-head with the secret fear that had shaken his reality since he received footage of his own death.

Grinder nodded understandingly. "It's possible. I'm guessing you're talking about being made from scratch, you might say.

"But the mind. All your memories and the connections between them." She held up her cupped hands. "That's not stored on the ankh or the server. A sync contains only a basic snapshot of your body, so you'd be a sort of zombie version of your former self, driven by your most basic instincts. Except you, Gabriel Danna, will be driven to shop and take chems like the other jackets."

He took a moment to digest her words. She was technically correct about the shopping and chem use, except now he could include eating animal flesh on his list of basic instincts too which made the zombie comparison worrisomely apt.

"I think maybe they could have put my brain back together but some pieces might have been left out. I've been having weird dreams. Of things I don't remember happening," he said, trailing off fretfully.

Most of these episodes were happening while he was wide awake. There was more colloquial term for this affliction, and that was 'schizophrenia'. It was a common side effect in the early day of syncing which was a fact he had heard from Tish once or twice. She had never approved of his shunt boxing at the rec.

"I don't think it works like that," Grinder reassured him. "It would be more like remembering something you thought you'd forgotten, I think. Like a latent ability.

"I'll talk to Annie about it," she added. "This sort of thing is meat and bread for her. Her species invented nanites, after all."

*****

Jake came round slowly. His head was resting on an empty bar, and his arse was sat in a real chair for the second time in twenty-four hours. Last night the pills just hadn't felt like enough, nor had the drinks he had poured on top of them. This wasn't even the place Jake had started in. It was one of those two unit jobs that jackets rented out for when they wanted to sit down to drink and take in a bit of the common folkery. Jankies walking past outside must have been amused to see a man wearing a set of skids and an over coat had fallen asleep in a private booth. He didn't know where he had gotten the overcoat from. Maybe it belonged to whichever prick owner of this place the bastard and had walked off with the clock left running.

He checked how much data he had left and found a message that looked out of place. It was from someone called Lady A. When he opened it up, it turned out that she had a Jacket Layer ID, and she was even a real Lady. Her name was Lady Annette Evelyn, who was attending a certain physical contest this afternoon, and she hoped Mr Gildroy would join her.

He tried to process what he was reading, but his faculties were suffering from dehydration and there was no readily available cure. There was a also disproportionate amount of throbbing behind his right eye as he tried to focus. He ignored the invitation with a vehement wave and set his course for the nearest platform. Fortuitously, it would cost Jake nothing to ride it home again.

As he staggered along the byways of the Ad Layer sporadically bouncing off the security barriers and making passers-by wince, he tried to think of a way to prolong this permanent departure from moderate wealth and drug induced contentment. The Chief had made it plain that Jake was either going to play ball or get shit on from a very great height. All the way from the top as a matter of fact.

Jake idly pondered the question of which stage of his withdrawal he would sell out his best and only real friend in order to appropriate Shortcut's cast off lifestyle. It was that, or Jake would be playing centipede with the other bodies. It was an activity that had become very popular in the city after some starver became rich playing one of the games that came installed on every economy sized bracelet. San Dannon were kind enough to distribute this wristware for free, which was much appreciated even if the reasons were entirely self-serving, so trying to win the cash prizes from these retro games was the last thin hope for a registered user fully on their uppers .

He received another message from the enigmatic jacket Lady. That was when he pulled himself together and really considered her generous proposal. There was a pre-paid unit awaiting him at some dive reliably rumoured to contain regular illegal fights. Technically, any fighting was illegal these days, but the jackets turned a blind eye to shunt boxing because they loved it as much as everybody else did. Jake had heard they practiced it up in their insulated little community as well, which was a bit of a mind blower as there was no such thing as a retired shunt boxer down in the city.

Since he had nothing important to do for the rest of the day, except for finding a dark pitch in a non-affiliated tower block on A Layer, Jake took a detour towards the notorious dive bar. It was suspiciously empty when he arrived. There were people on the entrance charged with keeping it that way, but they subtly scanned his ID and allowed him to pass without raising an eyebrow.

He made his way to the back where another doorman was obliging enough to show him to the bar's one and only private unit. The entire width of one wall was a window panel with a comfortable couch situated in front of it and a small table close at hand. It was cosy, but not cramped. The door was the satisfyingly expensive, sound-proof sort, and it rendered the unremitting promotional spiels outside mute when it closed smoothly. The couch's sole occupant turned about and gave him a dazzling smile.

"Inspector Gildroy," she crooned. "How kind of you to join me."

Jake grunted in response. He refused to be disarmed by her warm welcome. He was already plotting ways of extricating himself should things become awkward or downright unpleasant.

"Would you like a drink?"

"Water," he gasped gratefully.

An impressively short time later, a drone was proffering him a glass of cool, clear water identical to the one he had seen on the desk in the Chief's office. The Lady bantered with the drone familiarly before she departed. The machine gave Jake an unreadable glance as he took the seat next to his hostess when she signalled that he should do so, and she allowed him a moment to take in the view.

They were so deep in the Ad Level, their booth was almost low enough to brush the tallest buildings beneath the reinforced floor. Twenty yards from the unit's glorious window was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill access platform like the one the rich kid had thrown himself off. Someone had modified it into a temporary cage, and there were two men wearing bizarre pads trapped within this arena glaring menacingly at each other. Jake noticed that several other businesses in the area had adjoining units just like his one, and they were slowly filling up with wealthy clients and their guests. There wasn't a cam in sight.

"Do you know why I asked you to join me here?" She tilted her body towards his receptively.

"I have no idea, Lady Evelyn," he croaked, hoping that he didn't. She was old enough to be his grandmother.

"Please, do call me Annette." She lay a hand on her bosom which tapered invitingly towards his form.

Her dress put everything on show without revealing any of the important procreative parts, and it was all topped off with a small, classy stole which might have even been alive once upon a time. This was draped softly over her narrow shoulders.

"Er yes. Jake." He indicated his own less ample chest with a rough paw. "What is it I can help you with?"

She pursed her lips and reached into her dress. Jake averted his eyes uncertainly while she rummaged, and when he looked back she was holding the most delicate of bracelets. These were the opposite end of what the starvers wore, although they were ironically similar in shape and size. Hers held a highly detailed holographic display and interface that Jake would have sworn was solid if he couldn't see the tiny projector. Currently on the display was an image of Angelica. Jake felt his insides squirm.

"This is Angelica Barros-Santos," she began, with bracing formality. "She's a friend of mine."

Jake twitched. He was unable to keep his face straight, although he made the attempt. Angelica had been invading his thoughts during last night's reckless binge with half-forgotten memories from when they were young constantly bleeding through no matter how much alcohol he sank. He didn't want to offend this Lady for a multitude of reasons, but right then and there Jake hated her for reminding him that Angelica existed.

"She went missing recently," she continued. "I asked her to do me a favour, and she hasn't been seen since."

Jake nodded. "I'm afraid I'm no longer an inspector, Lady Annette. Because of the election."

"The election," the woman scoffed acrimoniously. "As if it meant anything at all. The Irkutsk Alliance has always been in charge. This is just their excuse to say so out loud.

"The reality of the situation is that one man has ruled the Earth and all its peoples for the past thirty years," she ranted. "One billion souls under the care of a man I have personally witnessed urinating off a balcony."

Jake was flabbergasted. He had never seen anyone talking so indiscreetly and intelligibly simultaneously. He didn't want anything to do with this mad woman and her political drivel that was going to get him perpetually clocked, but he kept his seat. Where else was he going to go?

"I'd be willing to pay you for your services, of course," she offered airily. "Now that you're self-employed."

She patted his arm and then gasped when she felt the rods and pipes beneath the sleeve. He shrugged uncomfortably. The thing had been pressing non-stop on his stump ever since Grinder had 'fixed' it.

"I would appreciate that," he said, experiencing a swooping moment of clarity. His spine literally straightened with zeal. "Although, I'm afraid I can't tell you much. Just that Human Response took her and nobody's heard from her since."

Tonya Santos popped into his head. Her body was wracked by illness while she exhorted Jake for his help to find her daughter. Now he was being offered data, he shamefully realised that the fear of being murdered by government operatives meant nothing in the face of monetary gain, whereas proud Tonya threatening to burst into tears, as well as the turbulent childhood he and Angelica had shared with each other, had elicited only a nominal effort from Jake. He really was the stereotypical scumbag policeman everyone believed him to be.

"Why did they take her?" she asked greedily. It appeared his new client wasn't fully caught up on events yet. That was good.

"I don't know. I was close by and I saw her carried off," he explained tentatively, not wanting to get into the ankh and his intention to sell it. "There was a big guy. He was a part of my last case."

"Describe him to me?" she instructed.

He did so, and she once again fished through her bracelet for some perfectly rendered footage. It featured a bunch of young jackets fooling around on a tangle of hanging girders, pipes and cables that you sometimes found on the tiniest walkways in the Ad Layer thanks to a hodgepodge of poor planning. Jake was impressed with their daring, for at one point the camera panned downwards to show they were playing their games above the eye watering drop to the old city beneath. Then he remembered that one of them had somehow come back to life after the fall and felt an irrational surge of fury.

"I've seen two of these before," he told her. "The other one is the victim of my last case."

Jake didn't elaborate, but she nodded anyway as if she understood. "This recording was taken by my son," she said. "The other two are friends of his. Dominic Knock and Gabriel Danna."

Jake felt a jolt as he heard the two most important surnames in the city said aloud and in conjunction. A few days ago, he would have fled the area without looking back. Now, he didn't have much to lose. It seemed the thug who cracked his ribs was the Chief's son. This was why the Chief was so interested in Shortcut and probably why he preferred for Jake to just leave the whole thing alone. Jake wished he could comply, but the more dangerous his task became, the more data he could squeeze out of this rich old jacket while still holding his head up high. He had to find out everything she knew.

"That Danna kid was brought back to life," Jake said. "I didn't know jackets could do that."

His stump gave another little stab of pain, so he loosened his prosthesis a tad. The gesture wasn't lost on the woman sat next to him.

"Anything is possible these days." Her eyes fluttering aside as if she were remembering something pleasant. Jake wondered what it was that could stall her like that.

"If you can afford it," she rallied, her expression once again stonily seductive. "Even reincarnation it seems."

"You didn't know this was possible?" Jake said incredulously. "Are you not on San Dannon's unlimited minutes plan."

"Believe it or not, Jake, I am a woman with your best interests at heart. Angelica's too," she reminded him tersely.

"Well, the Chief's boy took her," Jake jabbed a thumb towards Central. "Which means she's in the care of Chief Knock at Security Headquarters. So you'd better hope he feels the same way."

She eyed him critically with her beautiful fingers pressed together beneath her chin. Yesterday, he had had no idea what the interior of Security looked like after their big refurbishment three years ago. Now he knew for a fact that it was mostly impenetrable doors guarded by over armoured security droids. Their scanners functioned perfectly which had made them eerily still and impassive as Jake when bypassed them. It was fundamentally a fortress on a mountain protected by super soldiers.

"And yet, at Security there is no sign of her," she imparted.

He didn't doubt that she was telling the truth, and the news instilled in him a kneejerk panic that made him want to run around in circles again. People didn't just disappear after being arrested. They were clocked, exiled and sometimes they were even released with a sincere apology. San Dannon didn't like doing anything that made them appear criminal, so it was difficult to picture them detaining Angelica in some secret place on account of some far-fetched conspiracy.

"That's not possible," he refuted unconvincingly. "Where else would they have taken her?"

San Dannon had what amounted to absolute control over a body's existence, but they didn't just do whatever they felt like. It might appear that way to the orgs, the families and all the other groups who thought they had it bad. Jake was an officer of the law, however, and he knew that if worse came to the worst, any citizen could walk out the gate if they wished and nobody would dare to stop them. There would be uproar if the jackets truly exercised their omnipotent powers over unwilling participants in the flawed experiment that San Dannon had become.

"Mr Gildroy, you will find out where she has gone," the Lady commanded, turning towards the window as the fight finally showed signs of commencing. The combatants danced around each other ungracefully in their fancy protective gear.

"Consider yourself retained and all your expenses paid," she included shrewdly, emphasizing the last two words.

"I've already tried tracking her down," he grudgingly admitted. "There's only so much more I can do."

"If Dominic Knock is involved," she said, her eyes narrowing when she used his name. "I would start by asking around about a place called Spasberg. We'll meet again once you've found out where it is."

# 11

The scooter was cramped with Gabriel stood in the middle and Annie sat on the back. She was dangling her legs over the edge of the deck so her feet trailed a fraction of an inch above the parched earth. Because she had chosen to lean against the back of Gabriel's knees, he was having difficulty keeping his hip region from pressing against Grinder's while staying safely on the vehicle.

The control grip fitted snugly in the palm of Grinder's hand, so all that was left for a passenger to hold onto were the driver's torso or the deck itself. In the end, he decided to risk an indignant elbow to the ribs over the prospect of getting thrown off on a tight turn and being spread across the rocky terrain. Grinder didn't like to slow down or swerve around things. As a rule she jumped over any obstacles she encountered while trailing sparks and hooting.

She wouldn't say much about what they were doing except that they were trying to find something, and the job required both Annie and Gabriel's assistance. In actuality, it would have been faster if it had been just Gabriel and Annie, but the child needed constant supervision when she was around strangers, as well as friends and neighbours. She tended to regress to her core programming without her devoted guardian around to keep her on the straight and narrow.

Grinder had filled him in on these minor foibles following an unforgettable little confrontation not long ago. Apparently, Annie's appearance seemed weird to people because humans were somewhat different when she had been created over a century ago. Presumably her manifestation was to aid her infiltrate the remnants of mankind as well as to strike fear into their hearts through automatonophobia when they met on the battlefield.

So although she was a genius by human standards, since she had been spawned with all the combined knowledge of her mother and a multitude of siblings, she had also been created to think, act and look like a child. It meant that the inbuilt behavioural traits Annie had been dealt to corroborate her saccharine disguise, such as a short attention span, acting out and narcissism, were now a hindrance to peaceable cohabitation with the villagers.

And so, she hadn't really meant to pin Gabriel's foot to the floor for accusing her of being a vicious robot thug. Gabriel had been talking to Solomon when he said it, and Annie had been a hundred yards away when she had overheard. She had streaked over like an avalanche to scream at him incoherently before callously sticking him with one of her horrible, black spikes.

The strange part was, Annie was the one who ran away weeping loudly afterwards. Grinder's prickly grandmother even gave her a consoling hug and speared Gabriel with an accusatory scowl while he and Solomon tried to unpin his injured foot. How could the old woman touch the creepy doll thing when, with all the fickleness of a nine year old girl, she might decide she had been offended and impulsively eviscerate you in retaliation.

"Can you feel anything?" Grinder yelled over the noise.

"Nothing!" Annie yelled back, her voice almost lost in the slipstream.

From what he had gathered, Annie needed Gabriel as a divining rod, and she was busy scanning his blood for any faint connections between him and nearby syncing devices. Consequently, Grinder's newest and most interesting acquisition had to be left behind at the refinery to reduce interference. Without the precious ankh she had 'rescued' from Dominic on her person, Gabriel's reasonable fears of cartwheeling across the landscape after clipping one of the squat, dun-coloured boulders buried in the dirt were tough to suppress. Gabriel could only assume the pair was searching for a cache of similarly dense tech, but if that were true then Grinder was borrowing trouble for herself. San Dannon liked to keep what it had, especially if it was state-of-the-art.

After hours of searching had turned up nothing, Grinder reluctantly halted her scooter to let the motor cool, and Annie caught them some food without much fuss. Solomon hated hunting rabbits with her because she made it too easy. With that incredibly sensitive hearing of hers, she simply listened for the faint, confident scurry of a rabbit deep in its burrow. Then she would thrust her hand through the solid ground like it was a layer of damp cardboard and impale the unfortunate creature before it could blink an eye.

As unnerved as he was by Grinder's pet android, Gabriel knew they were lucky to have her accompany them. In these inhospitable wastelands, there was nothing but insects and dry heat for supper, but at least there weren't as many flies. He had time for once to enjoy the sweet, savoury meat without swatting every few seconds. While he polished off half the rabbit undisturbed, Gabriel examined the sparse ruins Grinder had selected as a rest stop.

"What do you think this used to be?"

"Small town," Annie informed him. "Evacuated during the resource wars. Before sixty-six."

The resilient segments of walls and fencing left standing were no barrier to whatever the wind stirred up and blew in, so there was a complacent layer of dust carpeting the entire site. The place had been picked clean by scavengers over and over again. Its only purpose now was to provide a modicum of shade in the oven created by the naked sun. Even covered head to toe, Grinder had developed a deep tan from her exploits in these far reaches.

"How do you know that?" Gabriel delved. "Do you have a database of human history inside you or something."

Grinder gave a cough that sounded like a laugh.

Gabriel watched the pair of them shift guiltily. "What's so funny?"

"This is where I found her," Grinder mumbled with her mouth full. "Ten years ago in the big place over there. She was in the basement."

They listened to the whistle of the breeze while each of them sheltered their private thoughts.

"I was going to destroy her," Grinder testified softly, "but then I didn't."

After they finished their repast and Gabriel had been coaxed back on board the scooter, they resumed searching the desert in a seemingly fruitless endeavour to find a connection. They were going in a fairly straight line guided by some marker Grinder was keeping track of. Every now and then, she would irritably check her wrist causing Gabriel to cling on for dear life. Inescapably, it was only when she had admitted defeat and turned towards home that her sister spoke up excitedly. Annie leapt off the vehicle before Grinder could slow to a stop and dashed about the barren, gravelly desolation as if it were a field of daffodils.

"There's something nearby," she announced, pointing at Gabriel. "He's lit up like a Christmas tree."

Gabriel contemplated the region sceptically. Though it was a flat and featureless expanse, Annie remained adamant that there was something of interest nearby.

"We should dig," she suggested.

Grinder looked at her doubtfully. "You think it's underground?"

Gabriel circumspectly tried to catch Grinder's eye in an attempt to silently communicate his opinion of her sister's mental state, but she loyally ignored him.

Annie's face suddenly fell. "It stopped!"

She ran back and grabbed Gabriel to prospect him for electromagnetic emissions he couldn't even feel.

"Anything?" Grinder asked hopefully.

"No." Annie frowned at him as though it was his fault.

She glanced upwards and then back down at the packed earth, but there was nothing in either direction.

"Do you want to wait around," Grinder said unenthusiastically. "See if it comes back."

Gabriel hoped she wouldn't suggest digging again. Where he came from, humans didn't dig and they were much happier for it.

Annie shook her head morosely. ""It's not here, but I think I know what we're looking for now."

*****

Lady Evelyn had told him Spasberg was something like a gentleman's club for jackets only, which sounded to Jake like a polite way of saying 'discriminating, high-class brothel'. She wasn't very forthcoming as though the whole thing made her uncomfortable, so he hadn't pushed for more details. He was glad she had been so flippant about the cost, for it would be considerably expensive to get an interview with the kind of bodies who might have been employed in this discriminating brothel. Fortunately, he knew the perfect woman to ask.

He made his way through the Ad Layer's ad hoc red light district trying not to be recognised and making a beeline for the upper levels. There were places like this all over the Ad Layer since sex was one of the last major industries regular folk still had any control over, but this was where they all congregated for protection. In blatant disregard for out-dated laws and repressed attitudes, they frankly exposed the last of civilized humanity to its final insatiable drive. Desire came to die here in exchange for lumps of data and sterile DNA.

Down here at the bottom, the action on offer was primarily peepshows, strip lounges and the occasional red window that leant a helping hand to the less discerning jankies of the Ad Layer. After climbing a few sets of wobbly stairs, the working girls and boys stopped waving at Jake with an appraising smile and started looking at him as if he were some sort of curious novelty instead. At the very top, the individual units gave way to discreet signs on palatial constructions that groaned under their own weight.

Up here, the pleasures lying within were hinted at conservatively rather than flaunted aggressively behind slightly greasy windows. He sidled towards one of the establishments his old mentor had suggested after Jake had sent him a quick query. Jesus had been amused but hadn't burdened Jake with questions. He waved his wrist at the scanner and waited impatiently. When the door slid open, a huge woman with a no-nonsense expression squinted at him as if he were something unappetising she had found in her ration block.

"I have data," he assured her hurriedly, well aware that he wasn't dressed for this. "But I'm really only looking for someone specific."

He came to a stuttering halt. He was at a loss as to how to define the Lady he had in mind. Jake was certain the she would give him honest, straight answers for old times' sake, but he had to find the correct candidate or risk being milked with practised swiftness of every penny. He also had to accomplish this feat without giving the colossal proprietress in front of him the run around.

"Her name was Patricia, but she won't be going by her real name."

How could he describe someone that could look like anyone now? She used to love reinventing herself.

"Someone high class," he resumed, recalling her elegant gestures and turn of phrase. "But older now, I suppose. Someone who usually works with jackets. I've no idea what colour her hair is these days. I was told she used to work here."

"You looking for your long lost love?" she asked brusquely.

"No," Jake replied tetchily.

She looked at his skids which were now covered by his wear-shined coat. She checked out his tech, his hair and his fingernails.

"You can come search for your ex-girlfriend if you can pay for it," she said meaningfully.

"That won't be necessary," Jake warbled, taking half a step back.

"You sure you don't have her alias? Or anything else to work with? A birthmark?" She snorted.

"The woman I'm looking for is someone who might have worked somewhere classy in the past," he specified wearily. "Some place a lot better than this. She might have moved on by now, so if you know where she went that would be helpful. It's in her best interest."

He went to try another parlour on the list while wrapping his coat around himself self-consciously and ignoring the cams gathering in his wake. This next port of call appeared to be a little more firmly entrenched. Jake pulled his act together this time and refined his search parameters so as not to dither around or cause offense. When the elderly woman who answered allowed him to enter, he breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed far too nice for a guy like Jake to be loitering there, but the woman had a mischievous look on her face as if she were in on the joke. He hoped she didn't think he was here to win back his true love.

She was old enough to be somebody's great grandmother, but her lips, eyelids and cheeks had been tattooed in a fading, stylised facsimile of old fashion cosmetics that made her seem youthful and oddly desirable. When he finished relaying everything he could remember about his quarry, she claimed to know exactly who he was talking about and confidently directed him to a location a little nicer than his first two tries.

It turned out she knew Jesus as well and was able to guess Jake's name after a few misses, which was unnerving. Jake thanked her profusely for taking pity on him and then took his leave. She pinched his arse boldly as he extricated himself and his face turned pink. There was a faint giggle from some hidden corner when he yelped and leapt forward in embarrassment.

The third business occupied an entire swag all by itself but had no matronly warden at the front of house. The women within were far too self-sufficient for that. There was a reason this place was at the top of the hill. When he loped inside, he discovered that multiple panels had been used to form an area where a jacket could sit and stretch his legs, while possibly enjoying a drink and a flirty chitchat. In reality, it was small and somewhat confined, but mirrored paint had been carefully smoothed over two conjoining walls to create an illusion of space. Corridors branched off in two directions that reeked of flowers and masculine ardour.

The majority of the single unit rooms he passed were currently being reserved, for the virtually sound proof walls still softly testified to the skill of the personnel working here. By happy chance, the one he was searching for was currently vacant. According to the interface, the gem inside was known as Opal just as the old woman had specified. After a quick negotiation and substantial transaction, he was allowed entry into Opal's chamber of delights.

There was just enough room inside for the bed, but one wall was a projection of a tropical beach that Jake assumed could be any romantic getaway the client preferred. The only other decoration was Opal herself lounging invitingly across the crisp sheets. The door's glass had darkened behind him intimately and hid the few signs of age on the woman's smooth visage. She stirred on the bed but didn't get up since it would have made the place crowded. She itemised him with her eyes and smiled in an informal way.

"What're you doing here sweetie?" she asked. Her voice was rich but gloomy as if he wasn't about to make her day. "Got all your bounties at once?"

She eyeballed his groin pointedly, and he resisted the urge to cover it.

"The name's Jake," he introduced himself, abruptly realising she might not recollect him, but the smile she gave him soon brushed those doubts aside.

"Jakey," she cooed, with authentic delight. "It's been so long. Did you come here just to see me?"

She had been one of Old Jesus's sweethearts. His collection of temporary paramours was the closest Jake and Shortcut got to a stable maternal influence in the bad old days, but they'd had a special fondness for Patricia because she had been such a marvellous conversationalist. During those grim times, it was hard for anybody to twinkle, but when she was in the mood Patty had made it seem effortless.

"I just needed to talk," he laughed nervously.

"Talking's extra," she said, predictably.

He sighed and sent her another huge wedge from his Lady's expenditures fund. There was still more data left than he had ever seen before today.

"So you're a policeman now?" she asked, without the tone of disappointment he had become so familiar with from his sometime circle of friends.

"Not anymore," he replied gruffly.

She shrugged one shoulder when he refused to go into detail. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Have you ever heard of a place called Spasberg," He made himself comfortable on the edge of the bed, and she scooted over obligingly.

"No," Opal answered, with disheartening promptness. "Is it supposed to be one of the parlours up here?"

"I've been told it's a high class brothel or club someplace outside the city."

"Outside," she repeated, as if Jake had gone out of his mind.

"It would be big. But a secret."

That stopped her incredulous expression. Now she was mulling things over instead. She might have even been slightly nervous.

"I knew a jacket once," she said slowly, as if loath to get his hopes up. "He said he'd get me into a secret club, but I failed some test."

"What kind of test?"

"Medical." She tensed a little as if she now wished she wear wearing more clothes. "He went off me after that. He was what you might call my first ever engagement. I was just another naïve body before him."

"How did you fail," Jake asked, uncomfortable.

She shrugged. Her attributes rose and settled prominently. "I felt fine. I only mention it because we had to take a shuttle to get there. To the outside."

That was surprising. Unless they managed to save enough data to start afresh, when did anyone below C Layer get to see the inside of a shuttle?

"Do you have any idea where it was?"

"No." She pouted her lips a little. "It was a long time ago. And I was living the high-life."

She said it ironically. Everybody had watched at least one movie from an era when life had been better, despite San Dannon's best efforts to prevent them. What they witnessed in these edifying pictures made the small pleasures harder to enjoy, but only until standards became much worse for some unexpected reason. This would have been before she met Jesus which explained her occasional bouts of melancholy back then. Their relationship had been turbulent and tainted by natural mistrust, but they'd had a few things in common that helped break down those barriers for a few hours, depending on the dosage.

"Are you sure there's nothing else you remember," he begged her, not wishing to whittle down his kickback interviewing the entire district from the top tier downwards.

"I remember there was someone else there that day too, if that helps," she said, after further consideration. "He wasn't in my line of work though."

"Do you remember his name?"

She shook her head sympathetically. "Sorry."

"Why was he there then if not for... you know?"

"He said he was a musician. He was very pretty though," she said pleasantly, one of her legs sliding languorously over the other and tickling Jake's back slightly. "He could have named his price up here."

"Is that everything? What about the John?" Jake asked. "Did he take any other girls there after you?"

"I don't think so. Didn't see him much after that, though. He was old fashioned." She rolled her eyes. "All this stuff was beneath him. Still remembered the good old days and all that."

Jake groaned in defeat. She wasn't likely to remember anything else if he stayed and ran out the clock. He had been lucky she could tell him anything at all, apparently. He got up to leave hoping the cams that had followed him up here had dispersed by now.

"That's it?" she inquired. "Nothing else you'd like to do since you're here. You did spend all that money."

Her smile fluttered for a moment. Perhaps she felt it was unethical to take a body's money without at least giving him a consolation prize. Jake had the usual drive and even a little hands-on experience in this area, but these things were tricky down on A Layer. There wasn't much time to be alone, and it required maximum amounts of effort with not much chance at happy ever after since traditional family groups were going the way of the dinosaurs.

Sex was mainly for the young and experimental. It happened quickly and quietly with a moderate chance of disappointment. The average person treasured the memory of those fumbles as they marched steadily through a life of drudgery and privation. A pretty lass with a grey face and a mocking, sensual smile floated across Jake's mind. They used to refer to it as 'stacking' a pitch back then in humorous reference to the jankies' overcrowded home life.

So even if she hadn't been like a mother to him for a few months way back when, bedding down with this woman would feel dirty and out of character, even though all the girls up here liberally applied something called powder. It was actually a paste, and it came in a stick that was rubbed on and allowed to dry. This quick drying cream left a body's skin pink and clean as well as mildly scented. It was also a harmless depilatory.

With her naked limbs spread modestly along the length of the bed, it was easy to discern that Opal rubbed the useful stuff on every morning like so many other proud women fortunate enough to have disposable income. And yet, Jake could make out grimy spots on her body where her hands had repeatedly missed their mark each day like the fingerprints in the small of her back, the dreadful half a centimetre beneath her hair line and a grisly, grey trail behind her left thigh.

"It's okay. I'm in a rush," he apologised, Angelica's welfare coming ahead of making erotic, new memories with all the shine of youth worn off.

He decided to rope in Filipe because he knew about the music crowd and would be willing to work gratis, and Tonya was delighted when she heard Jake was still searching for Angelica. The family had been up in arms since his last visit, with the whole org expending all their time and resources in a pointless citywide search. Jake felt bad about it, but he didn't tell them that he was sure Angelica wasn't in San Dannon anymore. It would just complicate things. He was also careful not to mention the Lady's contribution to his efforts.

After Jake made his shameful announcement, some knobbly old senior doddered up to him and placed a paper heart into his hand that was carefully cut from some scrap of ancient newspaper or textbook. As she folded his fingers down over it, she gripped his hand in both of hers and gave him a watery smile. He tried his best to appear the humble hero, but he wasn't great at improvising.

Filipe started asking questions around the city, and because he was so charming, trustworthy and outgoing, his innocent poking about bore fruit. He also had the guarantee of the Santos clan tattooed on his arms which was a potent symbol to have in his corner. Jake attempted to fade into the background as they criss-crossed the city centre visiting every music org and free-lancer Filipe could bring to mind.

Eventually, they tracked a promising rumour to a block of milkers. These reserved men and women were welcoming, as they always were, with that tight lipped expression that suggested the guest had better not wear out their generous welcome. A beautiful young woman was produced who was neatly turned out yet self-effacing. An older man stood next to her with one large hand sat protectively on her shoulder. He filled in the long pauses that were her side of the conversation.

"She was picked out from the surveys," he said proudly, smiling benevolently. "She has the voice of an angel. They listened to her, and she was returned to us safely.

"It was nothing to be concerned over," he finished reproachfully as though Filipe's interest were an accusation. "This is a good community."

"How do you know it was Spasberg?" Jake interrupted anxiously. The trail that had led them here had been based entirely on hear-say.

"I heard him talking. That big fellow you mentioned." The milker spoke boldly as if he had nothing to hide. "I heard him talking about the place, so I sent out a message to our close friends."

His expression clouded. "But Security deleted it and I was clocked. Didn't say why even though I'm an honest man."

"What did you say in the message?" Jake already knew the answer.

"That she was doing a performance at Spasberg."

"Where did they take you?" Jake asked eagerly.

The man exchanged a long look with him. The young Lady, who Jake assumed was the man's daughter, hadn't said much, but seemed happy enough to listen to her father relive the experience on her behalf. There were no unpleasant memories there.

"Who did you say you were again, officer?"

"I'm an investigator," Jake corrected him, cursing his loose tongue. He couldn't afford to go around calling himself a police officer anymore.

"And what's this about?" The man's eyes were still locked on theirs. Filipe looked away.

"A girl has gone missing," Jake said, with as much pomp as he could muster.

He hoped the fact that he was being paid by the hour now was not penetrating his selfless facade.

The young woman suddenly sprang to life. "I don't think they'd do that. They really were very nice. They just liked my voice."

Jake wished that he were elsewhere. There was shocked whispering from the neighbours. As clean and wholesome as it was, the tower the milkers had claimed for themselves wasn't very spacious. The father frowned at his two disruptive guests.

"They took us on a shuttle." He said it slowly as if he wanted no misunderstandings. "It was very nice."

That sounded suspicious to Jake just as it would to anybody else who took it out of context. Now it was clear why their discreet questions had brought them here. Filipe was listening avidly, but he was having trouble containing his growing outrage in front of the innocent young diva. When was a body ever treated like a princess, except for when a jacket wanted something demeaning from them? That was what they were all thinking, including the milkers.

"Where?"

# 12

By the third week, he didn't even miss chems, but he never really dropped the habit of checking his non-existent messages. The rabbit lands gave him so much more to think about, yet not every hour was accounted for, and when he had time for himself his fingers would relentlessly circle his wrist. There was only one other exile living in the refinery. She was a quick tempered lady with a patois so thick Gabriel only caught one word in ten. Not that she was susceptible to any fancy patter he might have to offer since she loathed him just as much as the natives seemed to love him.

She often walked away muttering whenever he was near. On one occasion, she threw some wet mud at the back of his head with no provocation and laughed spitefully. An hour later, his head had become one big rash, and Gabriel realised it must have been only partly mud. Back in the city, an incident like that would have been unthinkable thanks to the cams and San Dannon's zero tolerance for crimes against the well dressed and influential. In the rabbit lands, however, this behaviour was one of the few benefits of giving up a fortified, advanced sanctuary for a life of uncertain misery.

When it turned out Gabriel wasn't much good at hunting rabbits, the villagers put him onto more rudimentary chores such as digging. Solomon had loyally stuck by him, and now they both spent endless hours in the sun nurturing the few plants that managed to thrive in the harsh soil they had out here. The only other exile in the village with her inexplicable hatred of him happened to be his taskmaster. She treated the tender shoots like her babies and chased him with whatever came to hand if he oafishly stepped on one, which was unfair since the vegetation that survived the weather in this hellscape was tougher than steel wool

Working beneath this harridan, he had learned that you could develop blisters on your hands after an hour's graft if you didn't take the proper precautions. For some reason, they were harder to ignore than the blisters on his feet. He wanted to go and pick up the ankh to see if it would restore his skin, but Grinder had been gone for three days, and he didn't want to test her omniscience by routing through her personal things.

Most of what the village managed to grow turned out to be tea. There was some eye watering herbs and spices as well as some tubers buried so deep Gabriel had turned his hands into mush rooting for them, but mostly it was stunted, coarse bushes of angry looking rubbery leaves protected by three inch poisonous thorns. The leaves were poisonous too unless they were boiled into a greasy tincture before consumption.

This concept was difficult to grasp for Gabriel. Water was too precious at home to mix with dried leaves that tasted foul and caused vomiting and diarrhoea when they were prepared incorrectly. In the rabbit lands, water was more abundant, but drinking it was a lottery since boiling didn't help with the substantial radiation or heavy chemicals. It was a particularly gruelling day on their arid little patch of farmland when Grinder returned from her extended walkabout. She whipped past on her scooter without even raising a hand of greeting.

"Don't worry, she's in a good mood," the boy told him, without pausing in his work. "She doesn't come back until she finds something dense.

"You should go talk to her," he added, with a grin. "Maybe she missed you."

Gabriel's hands were throbbing, so he had every reason to take a short break. She hadn't mentioned that she would gone so long, and he had been feeling somewhat abandoned. He left with Solomon leering at him and walked back to the village where the locals waved sheepishly at him as he dawdled by. The cliché mutant rabbit lander covered in blisters and edged weaponry didn't seem to exist here. The footage at central needed some serious updating because most of them had lovely clear skin, especially when measured against the average A-lister, and they had shown none of the exile's hostility towards him.

Grinder was up in her little workshop and bivouac sorting through what appeared to be pure junk. She was still wearing her heavy radiation-proof gear and looked much more like herself as she danced around to the tinny music she blasted into her eardrums during her long rides. Grinder turned to find him watching her and flourished a cylinder no bigger than her thumb.

"Found it in an old police cruiser," she shouted breathlessly. "Someone hit it with a missile, but when I look inside. Totally untouched!"

She rooted amongst the litter on one of her workbenches and installed her delectable new find into a metal sphere the size of a melon. The orb was slick and self-contained, so it didn't fit in with the rest of Grinder's questionable rubbish. Gabriel found himself drawn to it sensing intuitively that it belonged at the top of his Christmas list.

"What does that thing do?"

"It's something Annie built for Solomon, but it ran out of power last year," she said, reassembling the thing with uncommon satisfaction. It started to hum smoothly. "She adores him even if he doesn't feel the same way about her. He calls it Snappy."

She threw the ball into the air, and at its arc it unfolded into what might be defined as a quadruped. The thing was a cross between a dog and a bear that had been sculpted out of jagged black metal or broken glass. Gabriel caught himself as he stumbled backwards, but the creature didn't seem innately dangerous. A square head with an oversized jaw hanging pendulously beneath it considered them with neutral interest as it settled its hind quarters clumsily. Snappy resembled a bear trap with four legs. Its clawed feet unintentionally scored furrows in Grinder's rusty floor.

"He uses it to catch rabbits," she explained, fearlessly reaching out to jostle Snappy playfully. "He's almost as intelligent as we are, except all he thinks about is chasing things."

She patted her chest and the canine leapt into her arms. Gabriel gave an involuntary yelp, but the thing folded neatly into a ball again and Grinder caught it easily.

"Let's go show Solomon."

They knew something was wrong when the artificial canine leapt out Grinder's hand and ran off towards distant shouting. They followed it at a sprint and rounded the protective fence just in time to see Snappy take hold of a man's leg and chew through to what must have been the bone. He was wearing the light armour of an auxiliary agent from San Dannon, but that hadn't stopped Snappy's powerful muzzle. He was probably just another natural scientist, so he wasn't trained to deal with the sensation of having his femur crushed and had crumpled bodily inside his suit after a high-pitched scream.

It was clear he and his partner had been trying to take a blood sample because there was a syringe in his hand and a medical kit nearby. His partner was attempting to hold Solomon still, but they were being buffeted about by the boy's wiry strength and impeded by their heavy outfits. Solomon tore off the guy's helmet and there was a red faced young man beneath. Gabriel noticed that at the armour's waist, where a special notch now existed to integrate it into the ensemble, was the distinctive glow of an ankh. There was a also a pistol holstered next to it, and when Snappy's victim let loose another agonized wail, the young man jerked it free and took aim.

Gabriel barrelled into him hard enough to lift his feet off the ground even though the agent and his suit must have weighed three hundred pounds combined. He picked up the fallen pistol and pointed it at the guy still struggling with Snappy. This one had finally managed to untangle the syringe from his thick glove and was also reaching for his weapon. Gabriel had been to the Knock gun range as Dominic's guest on plenty of occasions, so he knew how to use firearms, but when he pulled the trigger nothing happened. It took him several frantic clicks to remember he was no longer wearing his wristware, and the pistol couldn't register him as a user.

The bullet passed through Gabriel's stomach. He wasn't thrown backwards like in some old western. The ammunition was mostly lacerating energy that would drill through most things on the planet less than three inches thick, so there was no need to ever reload. The man fired again in a panic, and Gabriel felt like he had been cut in half. He dropped to his knees and the ground rotated up to meet him. Grinder was struggling with the shooter and the gun went off a few more times, but Gabriel no longer cared.

He gasped when reality reasserted itself. Grinder was leaning over him with her hand pressed to his midriff. He looked at it in embarrassment and realised she was pressing an ankh to his wounds as if proximity was important. They both knew it was the touch of a user's skin that mattered with this tech, but she wasn't thinking straight. Gabriel recalled how he had ineffectually pulled the trigger on the gun, and he felt like an idiot. San Dannon wouldn't distribute a weapon that a rabbit lander could use. The cloud of vapour the gunfire had left in the air told him he hadn't been dead for very long, but Grinder was gibbering as she slapped him awake.

"Look out!" Solomon shouted.

The dust and smoke was being stirred into whirlwinds by the big lifters used by Security. With him lying wounded in the dirt and Grinder bent over him, the two of them hadn't even noticed the fleet's arrival. Gabriel got to his feet groggily and tried to assess their situation. Annie was running full pelt towards them from the village, and Gabriel could see that she was infuriated even from his isolated patch of farmland. One lifter landed ahead of Annie, and an armoured figure attempted to intercept her, but one punch was all it took to permanently disable them.

Most of the drones circled Grinder and Gabriel, and the largest flew close enough for the pair to see the interior of its capsule. Dominic was in the front seat grinning obnoxiously. They must have been searching for Gabriel in the area, or perhaps they had spotted his face on the scientists' suit cams. Dom looked overjoyed to see his friend and was waving his arms about in mimicry of a conductor in front of a symphony orchestra. Gabriel didn't know why he hadn't fully grasped it before, but Dominic had become completely deranged.

*****

Jake messaged his patron with the good news who promptly responded with orders to meet at a set of coordinates on A Layer. Their appointment wasn't for a few hours, so he went to visit Old Jesus where the time would literally fly by. When he sidled into their creepy hospice of the damned, Jake found most of the chokers in an agitated ring discussing the election and its ramifications.

It turned out numbers had been changed all over the place with no explanation or warning to the citizenry until after the alterations were made. Rations for the elderly were cut by ten per cent, salvage rates were halved and sterilization bounties were up. Clocking was no longer doled out in days or weeks but in months and with a subsequent penalty of fifty per cent of a user's free data allowance.

The list went on and on, and the old men talked themselves in circles while always coming back to their first days in the city when things had been really bad. The Mech Layer had been a seedling straining unsuccessfully to produce more water and food before they all killed each other, as well as scores of cams and drones to keep them all in line. Standards had been creeping up ever since. This desperate way of life slowly became easier to abide, and the grateful survivors were now accustomed to their marginally improved circumstances. Resources were steadily pouring into San Dannon, and newly minted treasures that folk had long forgotten existed were appearing on shelves again with exorbitant price tags.

Now it seemed the world had taken two steps back. The chokers lived right beneath Central in order to be as close to the chrono-vector's influence as they could, so they had witnessed hundreds of irate bodies gathering to protest these cutbacks and new penalties. The agitated crowds were tased with routine efficiency and safely lifted away to be expelled from this flawed paradise via Booking.

The front-page headline was some fanatic from a hate org who had tried to board a platform with a homemade explosive on his person. It was detected before he reached the queues, but travel had still been suspended for the day. The customs drone had seized the fanatic so hard that she dislocated his arm and broke it in three places. According to the grapevine, the org was being disbanded without the standard preamble.

Even though he was ageing a lot slower than Jake due to his undignified retirement, Jesus looked frailer than ever today. He was slumped and shrunken, and his leathery skin was now a blotched shroud. His helper drone seemed zippier as though the load it carried was lightening daily. Jake waited for an intermission in the inevitable coughing that garnished all their conversations.

"It's not good boy," Jesus said miserably. "Don't know why this is happening. There's no good reason to it."

"I was dismissed," Jake admitted. He didn't mention that he'd had the opportunity to get a better paying job and a unit on Ad Layer in exchange for turning in his best friend. Old Jesus wasn't the sentimental type and would have taken the offer in a heartbeat. "Some Lady is paying me to look for Angelica, though."

"Lady Evelyn," Jesus guessed. "How long has she been gone now? By Central time?"

"A while," Jake said uncertainly. "How did you know about the Lady?"

"Angie mentioned her once or twice. Bit of a soft touch, I reckon."

Jake kept the thought to himself, but she hadn't seemed so soft to him. Lady Evelyn had been more like Jesus. She was warm on the outside but cold within.

"Do you know how they met?"

"She didn't say." Jesus frowned and scratched his wrist beneath the band. "But good for her. How much is the woman paying you?"

"Enough."

"Got any leads?"

"She's at a place called Spasberg." Jake lowered his voice. "Some secret club outside the city."

"Doesn't exist," Jesus said, with a patronising smile. "It's a fairy tale made up by jacket hating nut jobs. Right up there with subliminal mind control and soylent green."

"What have you heard?"

"Some kind of special brothel for the rich and powerful. Sometimes it's a club, gambling, boxing," Old Jesus chuckled. "You can get that sort of thing in the Ad Layer. Half the population up there is made up of bodies on a day pass."

Any A Layer citizen with the right qualifications could go up top and try to make a living the old fashioned way, but it cost an arm and a leg to rent a unit there twenty-four seven. Since prostitution was officially against policy, a multitude of young men and women from A Layer were walking past the customs drones each day stating that the purpose of their visit to Ad Layer was for pleasure as opposed to business, and they were returning home the next morning much richer for it.

"It's real," Jake reassured him, "and they took Angelica there for some reason."

He came down hard on fruitless imaginings of what those reasons might be. There would be plenty of time for Jake to torture himself when he failed to bring her back. Jesus wouldn't look him in the eye. This was usually Jake's favourite time for a visit since his mentor was typically more like his former self at this hour. Maybe the decay was getting the better of the old fossil, and he was succumbing to the effects of the toxic environment he had opted for. None of his decrepit companions seemed down in the dumps though. The day's sensational events had only energised them.

When Jesus looked up, his tone was resigned and consolatory. "If that's true, I don't think there's much anyone can do about it son."

Jake made his excuses and left Jesus to his doomsaying roommates. He took a moment to enjoy being free of the wavering gravitational pull of the chrono-vector as well as the bad air and stifling pathos of choker territory. Then he made his way to coordinates the Lady had sent him which turned out to be a ramshackle church. An idle cam tailed him as he approached the bleak ruin, but it lost interest as he drew closer.

Inside, the church wasn't quite the same old drift of dust and rubbish that assailed unaffiliated buildings elsewhere. He recognised the occupants as belonging to a notorious religious org who did a lot of preaching about god knows what. They were constantly being clocked, detained or exiled, but they were never downright quashed like the insurgent hate org today with their misguided attack on the platforms.

It seemed this craftier membership surrounded themselves with a Spartan order that made a mockery of every other family and org in the city. They had spent a fortune on body paint only to choose the dreariest colours and patterns. San Dannon wouldn't allow dark shades of blue, black or green, but the jollier tints that were up for purchase with San Dannon's blessing had also been avoided here. It appeared the cosmetics were used strictly to cover a multitude of sins, but it probably denoted rank as well since that was what these places were inevitably all about.

The charismatic founders of such orgs usually enjoyed the few perks that could be skimmed from two dozen or so gullible fools, but there was no noticeable differences in the quality of the congregation as Jake made his way past their muffled groupings. There was no improvement in health or hygiene at least. No suspiciously plump fellow painted purple and standing on a box at the front keeping everyone pepped up by preaching self-sacrifice.

One end of the hall was a mass of cracked and broken walls. The area where you might expect to see a crucifix was conspicuously empty, though the pulpit was still standing. The salvage drones were programmed to remove and destroy all symbols, icons, logos and so forth no matter how harmless or ornate. There were some doorways behind the dais and Jake explored them aimlessly while the hushed masses watched him impassively. He followed the coordinates he had been sent to their final resting place and was stopped by a true believer at last.

"Nothing back here for you, young man. This is my pitch." He was embedded in a shady corner and made Jake jump when he spoke up loudly.

Jake ignored him. There were stone steps leading downwards and another doorway with light and voices on the other side. When the crusty acolyte shouted his warning, the conversation behind the door ceased, so Jake swept down the stairs hurriedly and slipped inside before anyone became concerned. The room wasn't very big, but it was underground with only one exit and gave the impression of safety and privacy. Parts of it had collapsed, but somebody had inexpertly shorn up the ceiling with whatever pieces of masonry they could reclaim. Lady Evelyn's costume was much more discreet this time. Her irritation turned to recognition as Jake shuffled in.

"Please join us Jake. You haven't missed much."

It was astounding how many of them he recognised. Renowned faces that were uncharacteristically drawn and serious lined the damp walls. There were several org leaders outfitted like grubby peacocks as well as a severe woman who stood out in her bland body paint and plain skids. She was plainly the personality behind the subdued little cult above. Jake had never laid eyes on the rest of the bodies and jankies present, but he knew they belonged there. They appeared imperious and uncompromising as they regarded him from every angle.

In addition to Lady Evelyn, there were only four other jackets at the meeting. One of them was a senior citizen old enough to be Jesus's granddad. He was so filthy that anyone who hadn't grown up in A Layer might easily have mistaken him for a local. The shiniest pick of the bunch was a politician judging by his sleek outfit and the bogus munificent cast to his features. Jake thought he might have seen him on some of the prop vids near Ad Layer Central. The man stood next to him was dressed as neither fish nor fowl. He had a sharp vigilance about him, so Jake assumed he was politician's trusty bodyguard.

Of all the participants in this turgid assemblage, however, the individual who really stood out from the crowd was the indomitable form of Chief 'Bobby' Knock. He was glaring at Jake disapprovingly as though he had caught his underling with a hand in the metaphorical cookie jar. Jake ignored the urge to flee and faced him down. The Lady noticed her illustrious comrade's doubtful air.

"He's been very useful," she explained. "And we want him on our side."

"I don't know about sides," someone else said.

It was a janky who looked just as ill-at-ease as Jake by the set of his shoulders and adjacency to the exit. He thought he might have seen the guy talking to Shortcut once or twice at the Fountain Club.

"There's too many people here," the Chief said dryly, artfully turning his back on the tepid resident of the Ad Layer. "You must have lost your wits, Annette."

"I trust everyone here." The Lady stood apart from the group as though she had the floor. "And the more people the better as long as they are the right people."

Most of the men and women in attendance looked incredulous, especially the leader of the church whose territory they were intruding upon. She wore an expression of permanent animosity towards the Chief. He pretended not to notice and panned the room theatrically with a distinct pause on Jake in particular.

"These people?" His volume was incautious enough to lure a curious cam or two from outside were it any other body barking into the night, but the Chief was immune to this common nuisance. "This is a waste of time."

"Then leave, Robert," Lady Evelyn suggested. "But this guest list was put together quite fastidiously and most of the names on it were there long before yours was included."

The Chief seethed but didn't shift from his spot. Disregarding the clandestine circumstances, he didn't seem like his usual self. If Knock had been just another colleague, Jake would have guessed that he had been under extra pressure at work. Except, the Chief's job was nothing but pressure, and he had never shown signs of cracking before. Now he seemed positively unstable.

"To those of you who don't know why you're here," the politician drawled after a protracted silence, "there are new laws about to come into effect."

Everyone's fixed their attention upon him instead. At the sound of his voice, Jake remembered his name. Goran Nikolic was the guy responsible for introducing Petrov to a lectern at the commencement of some rousing speech, or he was applauding the president's grand exit and summing up the subject matter for the public in a few choppy sentences. He was easy to overlook when seen standing amongst his peers on the screens near the platforms, but down here his height and self-possession made him a formidable presence.

"These laws will make criminal behaviour that your leaders are currently indulging in quite legal," he notified them smoothly, ignoring the few murmurs following his announcement. "It will do so retroactively."

This news was met with blank incomprehension from some of the inhabitants of A Layer. It was likely they weren't even aware that the Alliance could actually break the law. The two were one and the same as far as most bodies could see, but the resident church leader took it in her stride as though she were being told the sky was blue.

"It is my firm belief," Nikolic continued, "that if enough people are made aware of this blatant criminality, they might finally be incited to resist our government's inexorable march towards what can only be described as world domination."

Much of his audience was confused or sceptical. The janky from the Ad Layer scoffed loudly. The church leader clenched her fist and shot a fresh arrow of purest loathing at the Chief. Jake wanted to leave and was certain there were a few others gathered here who would like to follow suit, but he stayed put.

"Is that all there is to it," the Chief said lightly, relaxing his shoulders. "Just us eh? And the arsehole outside the door."

"Small groups in the right place," the Lady said, deliberately addressing everyone else, "have changed the course of history on more occasions than I can recount.

"In times like these." She indicated the rotten, crumbling basement as if it were illustration enough. "When a regime oppressing its population is at its most confident, that is when it is weakest. And people of principle mustn't be afraid to act."

"I'm not a fool, Annette," The Chief folded his arms. "You're talking about full on revolution. Against an automated enemy force that is specifically designed to deal with the kind of action you're thinking about.

"I made sure of it," he added smugly. "Nobody here is capable of overcoming an army. One that can replenish itself within a week, is one hundred per cent loyal and doesn't care if any of us live or die."

"That's because not everybody is here." There was a tiny flicker of doubt in Lady Evelyn's eyes.

She exhaled as though she were being put upon and fumbled with her bracelet to bring up some wobbly footage. Someone was filming from a vehicle, and the movement suggesting they were travelling at high speeds over even terrain. The angle changed briefly to show the interior of a private shuttle which confirmed the location but not the purpose of the video.

There was a brief reflection of Lady Evelyn, almost as if she were checking her hair in a polished surface, before the view spun back to the shuttle's window. Outside was a tunnel wall interspersed with views through elongated permex glass sections that must have been expensive to install. Each panel stretched a dozen metres and were positioned so that a passenger might occasionally enjoy a brief panorama of the rabbit lands now and then during their journey.

In the distance was a genuine fairy tale castle enclosed by barren hillside. Jake hadn't realised that such things existed anymore after the wars, the earthquakes and the storms. It was definitely the rabbit lands that surrounded it on all sides confirming its contemporary existence. Time and war had already waylaid the less ancient architecture in the lifeless basin, and as the shuttle drew closer Jake saw that some of the castle hadn't made it through society's recent dark age intact either.

Half the structure was sheared off at a steep angle starting from its lofty, graceful tops and ending just above the foundations. Someone had lovingly restored recently since every tower and crenulation had been rebuilt with bricks of permex treated just long enough to turn them a cloudy white. Warped shadows haloed by bright lights could be seen flitting about the pretty fortress through the patched facade.

"This is Spasberg," Nikolic announced as the footage switched to a resplendent hall inside. "As you may already know or suspect, it is a place where the rich and powerful are breaking those laws they soon intend to dispose of. They are doing it knowingly and without fear of reprisal. This includes your Chairman, myself, Lady Evelyn and most of the board of San Dannon."

Someone tutted quietly which was followed by a snigger, but the Lady remained aloof and introspective. The Chief ground his teeth but didn't comment, so it appeared he was one of the people here who were in the know. There were several bodies watching that showed no sign of surprise upon seeing the footage, and the janky stood next to the door was even whispering furiously to his neighbour and ignoring the projection.

The footage now showed men and women lounging around in postures of flirtation and seduction. There was lots of alcohol everywhere and plenty of skin on display, but nothing too indecent was taking place. In point of fact, there was a performer on a narrow stage in the background as well as food being served at formal dining tables by drones. These elaborate meals were real stuff by the looks of things. They were heated and delivered on plates instead of packaged into unappetising dry blocks that caused indigestion.

There was a distinct division within the cast of characters in the Lady's documentary that Jake had been expecting. The young and attractive scattered around were starry eyed and awkward in their fine clothes as well as overawed by the abundance and their good fortune. Then there was everyone else. They were mostly men north of middle age with gleaming complexions and waning vigour. The letch closest to the camera was proffering dainties to a grateful young man from the arm of a comfortable couch they occupied. There was a fifty year age gap between them, at least.

"So there really is a fancy brothel for rich jackets," Jake said bitterly. "It's a crime, but not one I think anyone's gonna give a damn about."

He thought about his recent visit to the red light district. There had been no restraint or subtlety to their principally unlawful transgressions. Flesh was widely available at a range of prices to suit every pocket, and young jackets marched drunkenly arm in arm along the byways perusing the wares on offer. Jake had heard that sometimes the jackets held rallies in order to combat the prostitution that proliferated in the Ad Layer. That was like a skunk complaining about the bad smell.

"This one is different Jake." The Lady turned off her bracelet and stowed it away. "They're making slaves. Stealing people's identities and recreating them. It's totally amoral and out of control. I know this now for a fact."

"This isn't possible," one of the org leaders exclaimed, breaking the silence that had descended.

He was grinning as if it was all a joke, yet when he looked about the room for similar dismissals, all he found was acceptance written on their faces. The filthy jacket was wringing his hands and mumbling to himself.

"It's possible," Lady Evelyn said, addressing the sceptic. "And if you think it's beyond decent human beings, that's because it is."

She allowed this to sink in, but Jake was already indifferent to this sort of newsflash. He had bowed his head once too often over 'no-fuss' reports and consequently ensured his sleep was undisturbed by misgivings through use of the accompanying pharmaceutical perks. Jackets got what they wanted, and everyone else did as they were told or they could get out of town. Jake had always chosen to do as he was told just like Jesus and every other body in San Dannon waiting for the day that history would move full circle and change everything back to how it had once been.

"The new legislation they've pushed through since the election may seem extreme," the politician continued as though he had never lost his thread. "The Accord abrogation, incarceration instead of exile, jurisdiction over the rabbit land and its inhabitants.

"But that is nothing compared to what's happening in secret. What is happening." He paused emphatically and scanned his audience. "Behind the backs of people like you. People in a position to object. Who might even have the means to stop it. When these seemingly innocuous changes to the law come into effect, the creators of Spasberg will essentially be pardoned for their crimes and given carte blanch to expand their heinous operation."

"What is it you want from us?" the body who had thought it was all a joke asked.

He looked plump for an A-Lister. Jake wondered which org a slippery oaf like that was in charge of.

"First we need proof," the Lady said, clenching her jaw. "And when we have proof, we need to get everybody to believe it. What I have gathered isn't enough, but we're close now. And with these new policies, it's the perfect time to bring it to the public's attention. People in every city in the Alliance will at last be ready speak out as one. The President will have to listen to them or risk a civil war that will slaughter millions. A war that has only one possible outcome."

"Yeah! Every A-lister across the globe dead or incapacitated by drones," the Chief growled. "I've seen the numbers. You're rebellion is fifteen years too late."

"Even if that were the case!" the Lady retorted. "Petrov is still vulnerable to public opinion. If there's a big enough outcry, he'll relent, and the next time it will be easier."

Knock smirked and shook his head. "The President has absolute power. When a man has absolute control over everyone around him, he stops giving a fuck about what people think."

"If you have a helpful contribution, Chief Knock." The Lady's teeth were bared. "Then please give it to us. What is it you would have us do?"

"I just want to know you're agenda," he said reasonably. "Three days ago you tell me it's not time to take action. We shouldn't be hasty until you have all the facts. That's what you said. Now this change of heart."

"You're right," she agreed, after thinking it over. "There's a girl trapped in there. A girl who was responsible for bringing most of us together. Angelica."

There was a chorus of whispers from many of the listeners, and even the politician gave a single nod. Jake was amazed she had rubbed shoulders with so many influential types. Angelica had always been outspoken and daunting, but now it seemed as if she were hammering at the gates of folk so far above her station that she should have been invisible to them. If Angelica had been amassing support for some dubious scheme, her escorting the son of the Chairman around the city made a lot more sense to Jake, but he was both relieved and dismayed. If she were a ringleader in all of this, there was a good chance he would never see her again.

"I want her back," Lady Evelyn confessed, "and I'm willing to kill two birds with one stone to do it."

"Put us all at risk, you mean," the chief snapped.

"I mean that there is an opportunity here to get exactly what we need. And besides." She glared at the Chief. "She knows the name of everyone here. In another week they'll have everything no matter how much she resists them. Which gives us less than two days to retrieve her, or we can all pack our bags."

The Chief smiled back amiably and gave her a wave of his hand that said 'carry on then'.

"She isn't in Spasberg, and she hasn't been returned to the city. If she's alive, then they've got her wherever it is they're doing the deed itself. Probably a laboratory. It will be well hidden but fully stocked with cutting edge technology. A location with plenty of power but off the network.

"I've spoken with the full-syncs at Spasberg," she said, her tone unruffled. "All they can recall is a bath. Then getting dressed and taking a shuttle to the castle. They turn up wearing evening clothes in most cases."

When she used the word 'bath', there was a startled shifting. The slimy but prosperous org leader in particular appeared scandalised. He was in his mid-fifties which meant he was just old enough to remember the 'Golden Age' of personal comforts when life was filled with things like shampoo, dog parks and advent calendars. While deep in his cups, Old Jesus had once disclosed to Jake that the only real difference between now and then was the weather.

"No-one has been able to find a trace of tech sophisticated enough to accomplish what we're talking about. Not anywhere near the castle. And I've been finding it difficult getting access to people from A Layer who might have been taken there to be reproduced," she admitted. The Lady appeared embarrassed by her failure as if it exposed some character flaw.

"Jake here." She motioned towards him making him stand a little straighter. "Has been asking some questions for me, and I'm very eager to hear what he has found out?"

Jake cleared his throat self-consciously. Public speaking was not something he had been trained for. "There was a girl and her father. He said that before they were taken to this Spasberg, she was taken for a medical check-up. Just a scan and an injection."

The politician showed a glimmer of interest. "Where?"

"The line went directly to Spasberg. No stops or turns except for one three quarters of the way there. The windows were darkened, but the father said he was certain they turned right. He remembered the coordinates"

"And the hospital?" Nikolic asked quickly.

"The girl liked it. She said the doctor was nice and she was given a chocolate. No security, but there was some very dense tech."

The Chief nodded. "If there was any heavy security there, I'd know about it."

"Maybe." Lady Evelyn folded her hands together. "Let's keep an open mind."

"That's all there was to it. The doctor let her leave, and she sang for a room full of jackets. They gave her paper flowers and more food. Everyone was nice, she said. Then they brought her home. But it wasn't the place I've just seen," he said, referring to the footage. "Not from the way they described it. Not a glass castle."

There was a susurration with a dangerous edge issuing from the lower castes present. When did a jacket ever give something for nothing? The Lady looked as if she had swallowed something disagreeable. Before the wave of outrage could crest, she held up her arms.

"What they are doing is something people aren't going to believe?" she said authoritatively. "We're going to need proof, and I want Angelica back. Someone's going to have to go in there, and then we're going to get them out again."

There was a visible decline in enthusiasm as each person considered themselves for the role and unconsciously leaned back, but the Lady was looking at Jake.

"I have a plan," she said frankly. "And I think that Jake might know the perfect man to help us."

# 13

He and Grinder had been locked in separate cells, but these spacious cubicles weren't designed for prisoners. The surrounding tech reminded Gabriel of some of the military installations from the peak off the resource wars, but the colour scheme was that of a hospital. The doors were airtight for quarantine purposes and built to withstand an explosion. Their re-enforced glass gave him a good view of Grinder's room directly opposite his own across a wide corridor. Hers was much the same as his. There was a bed and a couple of niceties but nothing that could be used as a weapon.

Grinder had fought like a demon, yet her efforts were pointless against fully equipped agents. These elite soldiers had bundled her into a lifter like an unwieldy package even while she hammered and cursed at them. They scooped up Solomon as well when he tried to retrieve his dog. Scrappy had succumbed to a burst of heavy gunfire from Dom's capsule while Dominic laughed from behind the controls.

Things had not gone so smoothly when they confronted Annie. As Gabriel was dragged backwards, he witnessed a vaguely humanoid monstrosity of branching limbs towering over the armoured men. They were tossed through the air like Frisbees as she raced after her sister, but the lifters still departed without her. Their convoy didn't fly in the direction of the city, but their destination was a mystery to Gabriel since his cheek had been pressed to the deck by a giant boot.

Grinder was recovering from whatever concoction they had injected them with. When they dropped her off, one of the huge orderlies had struck her meaningfully after she bit him, and then he tossed her into the cell so hard that she bounced. Grinder was currently being watched over by a roommate with a worried expression. It was the lister girl who had briefly been his guide, although this Angelica looked a little worse for wear. He hadn't really thought about her in almost three weeks, so it had never crossed his mind that she might be detained for the part she played in his disappearance. They had exchanged an apathetic greeting when the coast was clear, but the words were inaudible.

He waited impatiently for Grinder to stir, and when she did Angelica give her a hug she wasn't expecting. Grinder seemed flimsier in her injured state, or maybe it was the fact that they had confiscated most of her gear that made her appear frail. When they were finished talking, Grinder squinted through her door into Gabriel's cell. Then she pulled out a stick and began smearing it on the glass. Gabriel was surprised. He didn't think Grinder indulged in such luxuries. When there was an even, chalky pink canvas on which to work, she dragged her finger through it at the top.

'WHERES SOLOMON'.

Gabriel didn't know. He didn't have anything to write with, but it didn't take him long to mime this simple piece of information.

Grinder processed this. 'WHERE ARE WE'.

Gabriel gave her the international symbol for hospital and conveyed to her that he knew no more than this. Grinder examined their prison. There were discoloured outlets on the walls where medical equipment had previously been installed, but everything had been stripped away to the basic essentials to provide quarters for the kind of guests that might not be enthusiastic about their stay.

Gabriel had searched, and there were no opportunities for escape. There was no interface or loose panel next to the exit through which Grinder might hotwire the door, no compulsory loophole in the wall upon which songbirds might sometimes perch to lift one's spirits and there were no large vents or drains that would accommodate a set of adult shoulders. She was trapped in a plastic box.

'SHIT!' she scrawled.

It wasn't long after this that the testing began. He had been waiting so long for his father to show up and rescue him or for Dominic to come and explain his motives, that when the shape of an attractive woman darkened his door instead, he thought he was dreaming. As Gabriel gaped at her, his prepared objections to their ill treatment evaporated. They seemed inappropriate now if only because of the gender specific expletives he had been intending to use.

Everything about her was open and non-threatening, so how could he abuse her with profanities before he had ascertained if she really deserved them. It was obvious that she worked here, because she was wearing a tidy uniform and was at ease in this strange setting with its throwback tech. She opened his door with a hand signal, and Gabriel shot to his feet. When this had no noticeable effect, he edged past her as politely as possible while nodding in thanks and dashed over to Grinder's cell.

Gabriel's fellow inmate had spotted his strange visitor and was mouthing something he couldn't make out, although the way she was swinging her arms indicated that she was suggesting an act that was violent and unpleasant. He looked around for something heavy, but not so that he might bash his liberators brains out as Grinder's crude pantomime clearly proposed. He needed a tool that would help him break out his friend.

"Please don't," the woman requested, frowning. "Only the orderlies can unlock the doors. If you attempt to damage it, they'll come down here, and I'm afraid they can be somewhat glitchy. It's a side effect from their former career."

She was wearing a smooth disposable doctor's gown that reminded Gabriel of an apron, yet her hair was artfully styled, and her makeup flawlessly applied. She was a foot shorter than Gabriel, and if he wanted to he could probably lift two of her in each arm. If her height wasn't indication enough, her big, steely eyes were a dead giveaway to her A-list origins. The woman's name had been stamped lopsidedly on her chest where it was bisected by her lapel making it difficult to read. 'Dr Cook, Serisa: Sync Control'. She held her hands low and folded together, and this ostensible vulnerability was like a shield.

"I'm sorry you're being kept here like this," she said, with every sign of sincerity, "but if you don't mind, while you're with us I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"I think I should be asking questions here," he countered, his voice croaking from hours of shouting himself hoarse. "I'm the one that's been taken prisoner after all. I assume you know who I am?"

She titled her head slightly and puckered her lips in response. The cosmetic she had used were thick and vibrant. Nobody wore stuff like that anymore. It was like she had been spat out of a time warp.

"Your name is Gabriel Danna, and I'd very much like to talk with you in my office." She gestured back down the corridor. "I promise that you'll be released when we're done."

"Release my friend now," he demanded coldly. The rudeness in his tone sounded forced in the face of her obstinate civility.

"I'll be over here in my office." She glided away leaving him feeling foolish.

He closed his mouth and stubbornly continued to inspect the area for some means of freeing Grinder and her cellmate. Even though he knew it was futile, Gabriel pulled back a foot and gave her door a mighty kick. Angry shouting erupted from a nearby wall camera which was jarring in its harshness and explicit threat. It was in a dialect so vile that Gabriel couldn't even identify the language, but the tirade ended with a few broken obscenities that were much easier to understand.

It sounded like one of the men who had manhandled them into their cells after their induction. These orderlies resembled two primates someone had hosed down and outfitted in pristine skids. Both of them were enormous, built from compact muscle and of a distressingly rough deportment. One had a ball of scar tissue for an ear, and the lout who struck Grinder had a whole row of dead teeth.

Grinder froze as though she didn't want to antagonise the snarling voice with any conspicuous movements, and she gave Gabriel a minute shake of her head. Behind her, Angelica was shouting furiously at thin air as if she were delivering an ultimatum. He had no idea what she had been through since her capture, but Grinder's grim expression as the pair of them caught up told Gabriel that Angelica's experience of this hospital had not been a positive one thus far.

The doctor had taken a seat behind a small desk that had been secured to the floor. He considered returning to his room and sitting on his bed with his arms crossed, but the mixture of boredom and constant fear had been intolerable since the sedatives wore off. He wanted answers from her that would justify those fears or dispel them. There was no logical way change his circumstances with sulky, passive aggressive resistance.

He swanned in like he meant business and dropped into the only other chair in her office. The décor was austere, but it suited her shell-like countenance and crisp overalls. He folded his legs as if he were taking a seat by the kiosks on a sunny day and waited for an explanation. She touched a button on her desk, and the door slid closed.

"Please don't feel nervous," she said. "You're safe in here."

He scoffed as if he couldn't believe her spurious claim, yet hearing the words did make Gabriel feel a bit better just like the famous Howard Patch claimed they would.

She relaxed a little as though they had crossed some vital speed bump. "You must be wondering why I want to talk to you."

"I want to know," he stated, shaking a finger for emphasis. "Why my friend and I were seized and brought here against our will. That is all, Doctor."

"Please, call me Serisa." She gave him a winning smile. "I want you to think of me as a friend."

"I think of you and your goons as my kidnappers," he said tenaciously, sticking out his chest.

"I'm not in charge of that." She waved dismissively. "I'm just here to run a few tests. For the betterment of your health and peace of mind."

There was a desk screen in front of the doctor with one of the old fashioned holographic interfaces that only came in blue and fizzled when you pushed a key. She was able to consult it without breaking eye contact.

"Just a short list of questions."

"Well I'm in perfect health," he told her, wriggling about energetically to drive the point home. "So you can just tick all the boxes yourself."

She sighed as though he were a distractible child. "Maybe if I showed you this."

One wall of her office became a display. It showed a network of tiny branching lines sketched in crisscrossed light and fizzing with life for a moment before banking again leaving only afterimages. Gabriel knew this sort of diagram was something to do with the brain, but that was where his understanding ended. Serisa admired it like a pianist ruminating over sheet music before their concerto.

"This is your mind," she declared dramatically. "Larger than life."

Gabriel watched a spark travel through it illuminating some areas and darkening others.

"You and I, Gabriel, are going to fill in these empty spaces together." She pressed a few more keys and his 'brain' decreased in size and settled next to another large diagram. This one was lit-up with multi-coloured threads so intricate they made his eyes water.

"This is a representation of a complete mind. My own in case you were wondering.

"We need to turn this." She pressed her hand to the smaller image which twitched in acknowledgement like a dog hearing its name in its sleep. "Into that."

She returned Gabriel's representation to its former size, and he could see what she was getting at now. The charting of own mind was incomplete because the sparks were fizzing out when they met unexplored territory. The doctor's had been filled with interconnected conduits where the thread of splintered light that tracked her thoughts always had somewhere it could shine.

"It's a type of record you see, but also a living model of the way you think. And getting all the little pieces to fit together correctly." She paused and clenched her fists adorably in happy anticipation. "It's easier if we co-operate."

"No," Gabriel said flatly.

*****

After the meeting, Lady Evelyn insisted on accompanying him to the Santos family block to see Tonya. She tailed him closely as if he meant to ditch her and discounted his remonstrations by claiming that it was her duty, but Jake suspected that what she really wanted was an excuse to peek behind the curtain. This was her chance to blunder good naturedly in and out of a world which, up until now, she had been denied access to.

It wasn't surprising she had never gotten a body to open up about Spasberg. She was a walking, talking payday. It must have been like searching for a butterfly by candlelight in a cloud of moths. Starvers had stalked them from the outskirts of the city centre in packs, but Jake had instructed her not to give them anything, talk to them or even look at them, and she readily obeyed.

To Jake's relief, the guy on the door allowed them in with minimal fuss and shared only a puzzled glance with Jake before escorting them to the throne room without delay. The Santos' used some system to keep inquisitive cams at bay which didn't always work, so there was a serendipitous outbreak of belligerent whistling on the other side of the complex to leech away the two that had followed them in.

Now the two powerful women were eyeing each other speculatively. Both were possessed of an impenetrable dignity that they respected in the other but not enough to make them instant friends it seemed. Tonya believed the Lady was responsible for Angelica's abduction. From what Jake had learned, his old childhood friend was still more than capable of getting into plenty of trouble solo, and in all probability Tonya was fully aware of this, except now the grieving, intransigent mother was also being asked to give up her only son in exchange for a farfetched story and a noble cause.

"It's true," Filipe confirmed, after his mother made her second derisive noise during the Lady's petition. "I heard it for myself from a milker. They're doing something to people who are special. Angelica was trying to stop them, and now they've taken her for it."

His mother's persistent contrariness was not making this easy. Lady Evelyn was the catalyst for this unhelpful state, and Jake wished she had just allowed him to do things his way. Although he did have to admit, she had been right about Filipe being their best choice. He had every reason to go through with it and held all the necessary physical qualifications. Jake thought himself quite charming when he wanted to be, but a sexual plaything he was not. The livid scar covering one cheek made him appear slightly deformed and unapproachable.

Nevertheless, Jake had been enlisted to help in the mole's big breakout. Mere moments before the secret meeting, the Lady had been contacted by a distraught Annie who impertinently insisted that Jake be the one to rendezvous with her at his hard won coordinates. The news that Grinder had been taken didn't come as a much of a shock to Jake, but he did feel an unwelcome catch in his chest when the Lady reported that Annie was all alone in an empty village now since its inhabitants had scattered in panic. She was ready to tear San Dannon apart and according to her, Jake was the key to finding what she wanted.

"Filipe will be safe," Jake assured Tonya. "More than one person's been taken, and some scary people are going to help get them back."

The Lady had warned Jake not to mention any of their 'co-conspirators' to anybody, including friends and family. The conversation had been inane, but it made him think anxiously of Jesus who didn't know anything important. If Jake screwed this up, would the agents go so far as to pay a daft old choker like him a visit? It was better for everyone if they knew nothing at all, but she knew he was hiding things and didn't like it. Additionally, she had no doubt ascertained that Jake would suffer little remorse about exchanging Filipe's life for a shot at brining Angelica back.

"No-one can fight drones," Tonya said adamantly, reminding him of the Chief. "You have people scary like that."

"Yes, there is such a person," Lady Evelyn bit back.

Jake remembered Annie's powerful arm extended towards his neck. She could have crushed his chest without even straining herself.

"I'm going in myself." Jake felt his guts whirl as he finally admitted this fact to himself. "And I'm coming back out with Angelica, and I think they are the ones that should be afraid."

There was no bravado about his statement, so Tonya could most likely tell that he meant it. Annie would be the one to tear open the doors and kill anybody who tried to stop her. Jake would just be there to watch. The matriarch still didn't like it, but he could feel her relenting. He pushed a smidge more.

"We stand a better chance if Filipe is with us," he reasoned. "We need him."

This was the truth. Filipe was the Lady Evelyn's justification for an impromptu raid on a facility they knew almost nothing about, but Jake was not the one affiliated with all the movers and shakers whose approval the Lady had secured for this mission. For Jake, Filipe was nothing but a pin in a map.

"Why you doing this, policeman?" Tonya asked, taking Jake by surprise. Did she know what he had been thinking? It was time to 'come clean'.

"I'm being paid to be there," he confessed, turning a palm towards the Lady. "This woman is paying me to find your daughter. Maybe there ought to be someone she loves there from the Santos family when I do just that."

There was a shifting from those Santos' within earshot when he announced his blatant mercenary values. Tonya had dismissed the dross from the room, but as usual they had crept in close to eavesdrop. Only two others were allowed to remain. There was the girl with the baby who sneered at Jake as though he were repellent to her, and the old woman who had presented him the paper heart on his previous visit. She was smirking at him disagreeably. Even the Lady Evelyn made a small sound of protest as though Jake had gone too far. It didn't feel very nice having a trio of viragos sending hostile stares his way in tandem. Thankfully, Tonya Santos appeared to be defeated by his nasty little gambit.

"You, Jake Gildroy," she wheezed miserably, not looking in his direction. "Will bring my children back. Don't fail."

Jake couldn't tell if it was a threat or a plea since it contained a good deal of the distraught anguish she could no longer conceal. He nodded as if he understood.

"What does he have to do?" She sagged, demoralised.

"Nothing to dangerous." Jake was far more likely to die, so this was no falsehood.

"Be quiet police," Tonya hissed. "I'm asking the Lady."

Lady Evelyn approached Filipe and audaciously laid two fingers on his handsome face. The young mother's expression twisted as if she would like to slap the woman's polished hand away, yet Tonya said nothing.

"I'm going to need you to swallow something," the Lady told him with as much sympathy as her icy façade allowed. "And you might want to brace yourself because it's going to be quite painful."

# 14

Despite his initial hyperbolic oaths, it took a while for Gabriel to become uncooperative enough to be a hindrance to Serisa's work. There was no way of measuring how many hours had passed in their clean, comfortable prison, nor was there anything else that might keep them occupied. It was boredom the likes of which Gabriel had never experienced compounded by the stress of their indeterminate fate. So each time his cell door opened, he would hang back for five minutes and then stroll once more into the doctor's office under the pretence of reasoning with her.

For her part, the doctor would listen intently making altruistic noises now and then before moving on to her questions. Some he would answer because they were the sort that inspired people to respond with humour, intelligence or affront. Some he would give sarcastic or ludicrous replies to, but she sucked all the fun out of this game by giving each jest due consideration while checking her results and making a note of it.

Other enquiries were ugly, and he would often revert to indignant silence after which Serisa would politely wait for him to leave. These were the worst parts of her jinking interviews. Not for their distasteful content, but because they brought the reality of his situation crashing down on him. Nobody would say such politically incorrect filth to their betters unless they were sure to get away with it. His social status was just another facet of Gabriel Danna to be picked apart and studied by this diminutive woman. He was her subject, not a fellow human being.

This impassive nature was evinced in sessions with her other guinea pigs where the doctor forewent the kid gloves. When they came to collect Grinder, it was with a taser in hand and Serisa standing well apart as if her boys were handling a horse that might turn and kick. When they brought her back, Grinder's hair was glued to her scalp, and her movements were slow and trembling. On one occasion, she was hunched over as if she had been kicked. These were the times when Gabriel would have gladly torn the doctor to shreds, but she wisely let him cool off before allowing him to call on her again.

Then came the day when he irrevocably stepped out of line and their relationship dynamic altered course. The doctor had been endeavouring for fifteen minutes to unravel a confusing knot of lines that to Gabriel just looked like any other indiscriminate, discoloured shadow on the display. There were one or two connections there from brighter parts of his mind she had filled in yesterday as if she had a few fixed numbers in row of Sudoku, but she couldn't seem to stimulate those muted connections no matter what disgusting things she asked him. They were both on edge, so he snapped and told her what she could do with her perverted interrogation.

Gabriel had sensed something pitiless inside this woman that fuelled her evil labours, but when she failed to get her own way, that was when she allowed this creature cage off its chain. She tapped a few keys on her desk screen, and Gabriel hit the floor with unbearable agony filling every bone and muscle. Gabriel's spine creaked as he arced backwards with every vein popping from the surface of his skin until he was sure his heart had seized up.

From within the fugue state caused by this unaccountable pain, he saw the doctor saunter over and bend to stroke his hair while making cooing noises. She ignored his silent appeals and injected him in the neck with a cartridge that Gabriel barely registered. At the zenith of this bloodless torture, he would have said or done anything for it to end, but she let it to continue until whatever poison she had administered kicked in.

When Serisa was certain the chems had taken effect, she reversed whatever it was she had done to his nervous system and dumped him back in the chair. Then she began her questions again, but Gabriel could no longer focus on what he was saying to her since he was unable to recall how each sentence began. His limbs felt like so much dead weight, and his head flopped onto his chest each time she paused to write something down. He forgot why he was there, but he was happy to sit and chat aimlessly with the pretty lady. Eventually, she was pointing to the screen where her diagram was blossoming into a new shape, and he smiled as she jigged and clapped her hands in celebration.

After that, there were no more informal invitations. Her orderlies would barrel in and drag him to the doctor's office where he would be deposited in the vicinity of his chair the way they did with poor Grinder. Serisa branched out in her methods. Sometimes she used her pain treatment, and sometimes she resorted to drugging him until he was pliable yet lucid, but bit by bit the doctor was picking apart his psyche and becoming more alive with enthusiasm the nearer she came to completion.

Grinder began to deteriorate rapidly. She didn't bother to write messages on the door anymore. She didn't even stir between sessions. Gabriel lost hope too, so he wasn't overly concerned with her periods of lifelessness. It was around this time that Angelica disappeared, yet he didn't even notice when she went missing. Unable to cope with the idea of enduring the doctor's assortment of torments until he expired from exhaustion, especially for the advancement of her wicked objectives, he dreamt up ways in which he might end his own life before she could complete her masterpiece.

This was ridiculous of course. For the last five years, if a C Layer citizen wanted to commit suicide, they had to go through the inconvenience of finding a nice quiet spot outdoors. A sync band wrapped every wall in his cell and snaked its way out into the corridor just like they did back home. They constantly kept track of his body's condition, so that every serious bruise or abrasion he earned from their rough treatment was promptly reversed. The band didn't stop the fading of his overall vitality, but it did stop him from dashing his brains out against his bedpost.

His mother had committed suicide. It wasn't one of those things he ever really thought about growing up, and now he was reminded about it every five minutes. If Serisa stalled or hit a dead end, it was her fall back subject. What could he recalled about it? How had it made him feel? What did he feel thinking about it now? At one point during the unbroken cycles of sleep, awake and Serisa's questions, Gabriel glanced over to discover Grinder with her head leant against the glass.

'I THINK WE MIGHT DIE HERE'.

Gabriel gave this the contemplation it deserved, but he hadn't the will to deny it with a round of charades. Instead, he pressed a genial hand to his door and idly hoped it happened before the next interrogation.

*****

Even before he got a job taking pics of the road kill found down there, Jake had spent most days deep in the Mech Layer. It was the only way to pass the time for a certain type of kid. At the edge, these restricted areas tended to spill out above ground like the inviting maw of an ambush predator, so he and his ragtag cohorts had been powerless to resist. This unofficial adventure park had efficiently separated the quick and clever from the slow and unlucky amongst them.

Even if the city had been interested in keeping the fatally curious out, it was so large and convoluted it would have been impossible to guard every potential entrance. Like everything else built since the formation of San Dannon, the drones had thrown it together in a hurry under desperate circumstances. As a result of this quick fix strategy, in the last three decades the woefully under-supervised automated workforce had cannibalised parts, abandoned whole chunks of it when they became obsolete and on one unforgettable occasion moved half a square mile of it to someplace more suitable without consulting any humans, which led to a contamination of drinking water by aqua regia and also a popular children's rhyme.

Closest to ground level were the impressive skeletons of complex, highly developed machines that were now worthless debris too inconsequential to remove. These were the original life support and recycling systems for the first idealistic attempts by San Dannon to set up a small, self-sustaining city-cum-museum. Most of this futuristic tinsel had been looted or salvaged in the intervening years, so now it was a graveyard of towering vents, hard-core starvers who had crawled into the bowels of the earth to die and the wild rabbits from the outside that fed on them.

Further down, the air became cloudy and toxic. After that, anybody who didn't know where they were going, or who wasn't wearing a protective suit, had a fifty-fifty chance of returning to the surface. All Jake had on was an overcoat, but he was following the ancient, filthy jacket from the meeting in the church and the guy seemed to be confident of the route. He was bent double with age, so each step was as carefully considered as it would be in any other type of jungle filled with uneven staircases and fast moving objects.

His shambling pace basically made their meandering trek through this treacherous minefield a stroll in the garden compared to the ultimate parkour that had killed off so many of Jake's childhood playmates. He said his name was Malcolm, and he claimed to live down here though his clothes and accent suggested otherwise. He had strange tattoos up his left arm that didn't belong to any org in the city. Jake was fairly knowledgeable in that area, but these markings baffled him.

It turned out that home sweet home was the framework of a sphere larger than a shopping centre. This forlorn carcass had been stripped of useful materials and abandoned here as a monument to progress, but Malcolm had made himself comfortable in the remains of a control room by caulking the gaps with plextene. A thicket of huge cables threaded their way through the middle of his residence and up towards Central. These tree trunk sized skyhooks looked dangerous, but they also kept the air nice and toasty.

There was even an armchair covered in grease nestled close by where it would benefit from the balmy climate. There were stacks of plates and books beside it as though this was a shut-in's lounge rather than a glorified lean-to in an industrial belt corrupted by poison gas. The rest of the space was dominated by restored or dismantled workstations, signs of half-baked experimentation and lots of high grade scrap.

"Have you ever met someone called Grinder?" Jake asked, eyeing the cluttered surfaces and the haphazard approached to storage.

Malcolm chuckled to himself. He was more at ease now that he was home. He busied himself checking the gauges and accumulated recordings on his neglected projects.

"She visits sometimes to hack into the server," he said fondly. "This used to be the old one, you see. But they built a new one up there in eighty-two."

He waved a hand towards the rising cables. "She figured out there'd be a relay to the mainframe here and found me instead. Very gifted she proved herself to be. And her sister too, of course. Annie has an excellent grasp of temporal mechanics for one so young. A charming girl."

If the old man found the Grinder-Annie double act charming, he must have become irrecoverably senile. Or he had become very lonely.

"What is it you do down here?" Jake raised his voice over the thrumming of distant machinery. "The Lady wouldn't say much."

"Research mainly," he explained jovially, "and sometimes a little reading. And less of both than I'd like these days.

He wondered how old Malcolm actually was. Maybe the crackpot was a young man when he wormed his way down here and survived by finding succour from the dead tech scattered everywhere while slowly fossilising in his crusty jacket outfit.

"And how long have you been researching?"

"Oh, quite some time. I began around fifteen years ago by the count of people living in the vicinity of the chrono-vector." Malcolm was rooting through drawers and lockers as if he were searching for his spectacles. "Central time, I believe they call it now. Ironic that I should help design and build the thing, and now because of my work, I cannot benefit from its effects."

"You built it," Jake said dubiously.

"Just the tricky bits," Malcolm replied, oblivious to Jakes overt doubt. "Reversed engineered it, of course, but it was a bad job from the beginning. If they'd given me three more years, I'd have made it three times smaller. Now we have an eyesore that can turn some poor pedestrian into a pancake during a flatquake surge. Speak of the devil."

He stopped rummaging through a storage compartment and triumphantly held up a large mechanism in the shape of an arachnid built from smooth rectangular blocks. Its long legs dangled loosely and ended in vicious hooks that made it seem dangerous to hold.

"A bit of a dead end with this thing I'm afraid," he said, without much dejection. "I've been trying to create a device that will slow or speed up time that is also small enough for a person or a drone to carry around with them. Just for emergencies such as survival situations or accidents. But the power requirements are enormous.

"You put this spider on," he continued in the face of Jake's incredulity, "and it will increase your gravitational mass tenfold.

"I'm sorry about the anchors. I designed it for armour, you see. It's not really supposed to be switched on because it will implode soon afterwards, so you'll have to detach it before that happens." He related this information slowly and carefully as if he was making sure Jake understood.

"Why would I put it on?" Jake asked, just as carefully. The thing's claws were razor sharp.

"Annette mentioned you'd need something that would provide an edge for a crisis situation, and I'm afraid this is the best I can do on short notice. She was always such a wonderful woman," he said admiringly, his mind wandering into the past. "When she explained the circumstances, how could I refuse to help? Although, I do hope our actions don't provoke any violent reprisals?"

Jake couldn't tell if the guy was being serious or not. "How did you get mixed up in all this?"

Malcolm smiled fondly. "That was Angelica, Annette's niece."

Niece, thought Jake. That explained a few things such as why the Lady gave a damn in the first place as well as why Angelica had so many important new friends lately. He had suspected that Lady Evelyn might have been keeping her as a lover. These rewarding commercial arrangements were frowned upon in the nicer families, but they weren't unheard of. Now Jake realised the woman was more likely to be Angelica's mother.

The rich and powerful had accidents the same as anybody else, but the Alliance was passionate about zero growth. They couldn't tolerate respectable citizens being openly hypocritical, so the second born was often relegated to an ordinary life below. It wasn't so unusual to find these cuckoo hatchlings living in the Ad Layer, but you rarely encountered them amongst the bodies in the city. These expatriated adoptees led a life punctuated by extraordinary Christmas presents and visits from mysterious uncles as well as other extended family of highborn stock.

"She needed my opinion and my help, and when she told me what the Chairman's been doing with my tech..." he tapered off sadly.

"What do you mean?" Jake wondered if he was talking to the inventor of the ankh too.

"According to my calculations, based on hearsay of course," Malcolm verified distractedly, "Charles had been locked away in his office at Spasberg for one-hundred years."

Jake was initially nonplussed. Then he remembered the fleeting passage of time outside San Dannon was compounded in this case by a small chrono-vector the Lady and Chief claimed to have seen at their fairy tale castle. Jake found it hard to imagine the wherewithal it took to undertake a development of that size in an age defined by scarcity, but you couldn't argue with the results. It seemed a day in San Dannon passed like a week within the opulent, mediaeval getaway. This gave new meaning to the term 'long weekend'.

"He uses syncing to stay alive," Jake guessed. "Immortal like in a movie."

"It doesn't work like that." The old man shook his head and lifted a withered arm as if to emphasise his point. "But nanites will keep you alive long past your expiration date."

"So he's very old now," Jake said.

The Chairman's prop videos released during the previous election portrayed him as a middle aged man with grey winning out in his neatly combed hair, his spine straight and his face tired but determined.

Malcolm tapped a finger on his temple. "Over time, even someone who is synced regularly will eventually succumb to heart disease and dementia. And excessive, prolonged use has proved to cause symptoms of schizophrenia, so it is only natural Lady Evelyn should be alarmed about the Chairman, but I fear there is another issue she may not have envisaged."

This is what Jake was afraid of. "What's that?"

"Most people believe it would be marvellous to live forever, as long as it is in relative luxury," the old jacket reflected, "but a man can't live forever and retain all his wisdom as he expects to. He forgets a little piece each night, and a new person is born every morning. A personality is made up of recent experiences, and the former matrix guiding each of our decisions becomes a dwindling thread until it's nothing but the first domino in our memories that helped build us.

"Charles was a good man back when the Lady and I knew him," Malcolm said despondently. "I would even go as far as calling him a friend. He was fair minded, and he cared about his employees.

"But what if you spent a hundred years at this vile Spasberg place." He pulled a face as if the concept were repugnant to him. "Then what sort of man would you become. Sat at the end of civilization with only unfettered greed and debauchery to influence you. If he hasn't gone completely mad, he's made of sterner stuff than I remember."

# 15

Sometimes the doctor would show him a montage of emotive images and sounds designed to open up pathways he didn't know he had. It all seemed laughable at first, but during his spell locked in this musty converted hospital, he had witnessed how his reactions affected the growth of her boundless map. She expertly teased apart his motives, passions and secret loves. She had tracked down his doubts, regrets and secret fears. All of this to trace the circuitry of his memory into a visual work of art that Gabriel couldn't help but marvel at.

He would be watching a slideshow of some folk setting an effigy on fire or an old man crying beside a pile of dead bodies, and midway through she would halt the succession of images and harangue him with questions. She was his best friend until he showed a hint of defiance. If she caught signs that he was refusing to consider the concepts she suggested, such as scenarios that might spark up hidden areas of his psyche that he preferred not to delve into, then she would resort to drugs and pain. She did it clinically and without losing her temper or dignity.

In return for his offerings, Serisa never confirmed her reasons for keeping him there, nor did she explain why she was doing what she was doing. She referred only to the process and never the ultimate outcome, but despite her precautions, as he intuitively learnt more about her software Gabriel uncovered a troubling purpose mixed into her madness. The model displayed on the wall screen wasn't current. A chart of his active brain and its many arteries was isolated to a smaller window off to one side. He could tell by the way fireworks danced on it when he was in distress.

The resemblance between the two models was extensive, but it wasn't complete. The main diagram that she worked diligently to improve on each day was a template from his past. Whatever horrible thing she intended to do to him with this breakdown of his personality, she cared nothing for the recent upheaval in his underappreciated daily routine. The doctor was constructing some sort of ideal snapshot of Gabriel Danna from before his time spent in the rabbit lands. This was a Gabriel exorcised of his relationships with anyone he had met since then.

She fed the representation of his former self memories of his mother and father. She had him summon up hazy recollections of being angry, selfish and aroused. She gave it his disappointments, humiliations and lessons well learned. A person less complicated than he had become according to the second chart of his living brain in its small window. She would refer to it occasionally whenever she needed to be reminded of something. Serisa would hold up a hand to halt his prattle while standing back and comparing both models as if to get a clearer picture. What that picture was, Gabriel could only guess at.

She was often asking how something had made him feel. When he first arrived at the facility, he assumed her constant use of the past tense was merely an annoying quirk, but she honestly expected him to remember if some far-flung nonsense in his teens had made him feel sad, happy or jealous. Then she would become angry when something failed to light up and resort to even more extreme methods such as powerful stimulants, hallucinogens and one awful chem in particular that triggered vivid nightmares while he slept it off.

Following each treatment, after he had rested and recovered his faculties, he would look across the hall and wonder how Grinder was holding up. Her secrets were so much more precious than his, her character built on worthier foundations and her intractability impossible to overcome. Would Serisa kill her to steal her mind? Gabriel was sure that she would as long as she could bring her back again.

When the culmination of her work finally came around, it was a huge relief, yet the pièce de résistance was found without his fully grasping its significance. Only later, when Gabriel reconsidered the doctor's most recent atrocities with a clear head, did it all click into place. Serisa was harassing him about something they had covered a thousand times before, although each repetition ended in her dissatisfaction.

It was an embarrassing memory, but not lewd or shameful. He didn't understand why she was so obsessed with it. In this instance, however, instead of her usual short-lived refrain from sadistic outbursts of rage fuelled torture, she became progressively more excited by his drugged and random mumblings until she concluded with a sudden whoop of joy. Then she scooped Gabriel up and danced awkwardly around the room with him while his feet skidding this way and that. His head swam as his heart beat faster from the exertion and the press of her smock against his cheek.

When she tired of her celebration, Serisa hefted him onto her orderlies who dumped him back on his bed. It was after Gabriel had recovered from the doctor's cocktail of dodgy medication to the point that he could think straight that he realised their tête-à-têtes were over and he was doomed. If she had everything she needed, the next stage of her plan did not require 'Gabriel Danna the intrepid rabbit lands wanderer', so either he would be put to sleep and incinerated, or he would be brainwashed and put out to pasture with the other sheep.

Whatever the next step was, it was happening soon and he wouldn't have to worry about pain or indignity anymore. Gabriel began to sleep more deeply than before, and his dreams were those of release from misery and despair. They contained a plethora of imagery from Serisa's ruthless tilling of his life's memories, so fantastical sagas of running through well-lit halls and escaping across the desert would be interspersed with the ghostly chew of insects eating his face and Articia coming to his rescue. These occasional nightmares always featured the doctor somewhere in the background, but she was happy for Gabriel these days rather than angry at him, and he was pleased with himself.

*****

Since it was going to take the Lady and her new plaything a while to cut through the rigmarole of Spasberg's subtle but lengthy recruitment process, Jake stashed Malcolm's contraption in a safe corner of the Mech Layer that had never failed him yet and nipped over to the Railroad. The chokers had been right about the populace being stirred up. He could tell by the way the cams were flocking over the unaffiliated districts, and as he hustled through safer neighbourhoods, he that found the families and orgs residing there had battened down the hatches.

When he came within earshot of the bar, Jake thought he heard the sound of Ben's old milker buddies who stopped by once a week to be good-naturedly jeered at, but when he ducked into the old tunnel that sheltered the establishment, Jake found some guy from Sister Neema's brethren enthusiastically preaching to a lot of unhappy looking police officers. According to Lady Evelyn, Neema was the name of the org leader that had hosted their secret conference beneath the church, and Jake had seen this outgoing young man, who was currently laying down his call-to-arms in the Railroad Bar, standing right next to her.

Jake gravitated towards the counter and Ben sidled over with a nervous greeting. The gregarious old price gouger probably wasn't thrilled about some true believer trying to recruit his regulars since Ben was a milker to his bones and they weren't big fans of fringe religions, schisms or cults. The interloper was entertaining at least. He had his congregation all riled up even if there was a lot of hostility in the atmosphere.

"Somebody I owe a favour to," Ben said when Jake raised an inquisitive eyebrow, "come to prey on my flock in their hour of adversity."

"Good value for money though." Jake pointed out, allowing the preacher's words to wash over him for a noise profile.

"The Hamburg Accord became just another tool used to pacify the masses and to reassure the world's few remaining political leaders as they betrayed their principles and their nations," the fascinating young zealot proclaimed, standing atop the cracked plastic seating Ben had rescued from the old subway. "And we played right into Petrov's hands, didn't we, because it allowed his minions to hold up poor souls like you and decry, 'Look at what an incompetent job our government's last representatives are doing'."

There was some restless muttering in the crowds. Jake had been out of the loop recently, but it seemed they had all received their walking papers today.

"I, Brother Sandijana from the Children of the Merciful Decree, can guide your hands at this time." Between each sentence, the Brother took a deep breath and shook his head like a dog shedding water. "But you must embrace me, for I cannot take that last step for you. We must take it together, and only then will there be an opportunity for all those who have been cast down to avenge themselves on their masters, who wallow before the trough of slavery their forebears bought for them."

Jake turned back to the edgy bartender. "Powerful stuff."

"Too powerful. I think he's making headway with some of them. I mean, this lot for goodness sake." Ben raised a hand to his surly clientele. "There's gonna be a riot in here soon if he doesn't wrap it up."

"I don't think so," Jake disagreed.

When he and other attendees at the clandestine meeting had been trickling back out into the real world, Jake had spotted Neema and her acolyte whispering intensely together beneath the church pulpit. Other followers were gathered about them waiting for a verdict on the strange events taking place beneath their sanctuary.

"I think they might have something specific in mind for the new converts." Jake was forbidden to explain how he knew what he knew, and he could already see the ex-milker's nose twitching.

In his early years, Ben made data on the information that fell into his lap and stored the rest in his plump, round head for a rainy day. It was a habit that helped make ends meet during the most turbulent of dry spells every illicit business on A Layer periodically suffered from. Now this side-line accounted for half his profit margin, and he had acquired a bloodhound instinct for juicy titbits. Ben offered Jake a measure of whatever battery acid he was touting today and Jake declined. He wasn't going to participate in the Lady's rescue plan with half a dozen shots inside him.

The bartender was taken aback as he allowed Jake to cross his makeshift counter and step into the backroom where the more important interchanges were made. This was Jake's first invitation since he had never been interested in 'the word on the street' before today. Not if he had to pay for it. Ben's pitch was just as trim and tidy as its owner, although Jake noticed a few balled up wrappers from the sorts of goodies Shortcut used to enjoy. Everyone has their crutch, and Ben's seemed to be sweets judging by the residue on the blank packaging.

"Make it quick." Ben was eager to get back to his post before any rioting started.

"I want the work ups for those four IDs from the Colonel."

"Out of the question," Ben said firmly. "I don't keep souvenirs. And keep your voice down saying that name. Do you want to be flagged."

"The cams are busy today," Jake imparted, "So I don't think they're listening for anyone namedropping the dear departed."

"Like I said." Ben indicated the exit politely. He was likely annoyed that a specimen like Jake was sniffing around his candy stash.

"Yeah, you don't keep souvenirs, but you must have flipped through them after you-know-who gave them to you."

Jake pulled out the lump of dense tech he had swiped from Malcolm's workbench while the trusting old duffer had been busy doing him a favour. Admittedly, when he snatched it Jake hadn't intended to trade it to Ben for the classified info Baker had died over, which was a whimsy that took seed and grew as he journeyed back through the Mech Layer afterwards, but he didn't think Malcolm would mind chipping in for the cause since he was so fond of Angelica. It was no coincidence that the only members of their plucky band of rebels to go missing were the only two people to set eyes on Baker's files.

"Cracked?" Ben asked, moving in for a closer view.

"Homemade," Jake replied, rubbing a thumb over the sealed casing.

"Shut the heck up! What does it do?"

"I've no clue." Jake tossed him the outlandish cube, and Ben caught it deftly. "But it's heavy. Heavy means valuable."

Ben hefted the thing in agreement, yet he deliberately set it down on an empty box sat between them. This was business Ben, and he wasn't about to rush this delicate negotiation.

"I didn't see the file," Ben said, unperturbed, "but I know one or two things you might be interested in."

Jake didn't like the sound of that. He had come for physical proof, not philosophical truths. "Such as?"

"Do you remember that salvage drone who killed off all those starvers last week?" Ben paused for Jake's obligatory nod. "He was the one who killed the Colonel."

That took Jake by surprise. There was a lot of crime involving the drones of San Dannon. Most of the remarkable but unpredictable weaponry sold by the Tech savs was designed to disabled them, confuse them or send them crazy. But using a drone to kill was unusual because it took a genius to conquer the precautions in place and force a drone to do the opposite of it base purpose. That didn't stop people from trying, but as a rule it all ended in tears and broken bones.

"That's right." Ben made himself a little more comfortable with a sigh. "Ripped out one of the units to get into the swag, smashed its way through the door and ripped the guy's head off."

"Christ!" Jake muttered.

He must have turned up not five minutes after the deed was done. Jake would have been in there at the time if the queues at the platform hadn't been murder that day.

"Not only that, but there was some innocent woman in the unit that crashed into the city." Ben picked up a stray bottle top and dropped it on the floor where it bounced and rolled away. "Lucky for you they were short-staffed on the Ad Layer, because they set Mason on it."

Mason was one of the bumptious young go-getters that only ever walked into the Railroad to probe Ben for insights. He was on the fast track to the top because he was teetotal, hardworking and had learnt to dance to san Dannon's tune. Such men were hard to like.

"He mentioned that Baker's death was different from the starver killings," Ben said, lowering his voice. "That crazy technician programmed the thing to ball them up and drop them in the soup. Not tear them apart. After it was caught, they wiped it clean and gave it a new pip and everything.

"When it went haywire again, Mason wanted the second diagnostic for a comparison, so I had a word with Holtz. Turns out Security destroyed it when it tore into the Jacket Layer and tried to kill some girl. A girl whose name I've seen recently."

"On the files you gave Angelica."

"That's what I told Mason." Ben smiled. "And Holtz told me there were only two work ups left in the Colonel's unit when they combed through it, and one of them was that jacket girl the drone was after. Can you guess who the other one was?"

Jake shook his head automatically, so Ben shrugged and slowly pocketed his prize.

"It was Angelica," Ben revealed, "and a girl called Articia Frohnes. They're supposed to be friends."

Jake had never heard of the jacket, but that didn't matter. It sounded like someone had given the drone a list of executions to complete, and Angelica was supposed to be target number three.

"Baker had become obsessed with them. Thought they had some connection to something called 'the legacy' according to his records." Ben noticed Jake's expression. "Gone, I'm afraid. Stamped and incinerated by Holtz, which is a shame because Mason would have paid good money to get a look at them."

"Is Mason here tonight?" Jake peered over Ben's shoulder.

"Nope. I don't think he'll be back either. He's got a cushy new job babysitting cams in the Ad Layer." Ben glanced upwards. "Probably as a reward for all his good work on this last case."

It was difficult to tell when Ben was being sarcastic because he was so benign and upbeat.

"Who is this girl 'Articia'?" Jake asked, mostly to himself. "What makes her so special?"

"Her DNA." Ben appeared to be serious.

"In what way?"

"Sorry, I couldn't tell you," Ben said. "That's just what Angelica said when I gave her the work ups. When she came to the princess's file, she said her DNA was different."

"Princess," Jake parroted as Ben showed him out.

"That's what Angelica said. She was shocked when she read it. So was Shortcut. Now they're both gone." Ben laid a hand on Jake's shoulder to make sure he was paying attention. "Maybe you should just stop, Jake, before you wind up missing as well."

The inner circle met one last time not far from the station to co-ordinate their departures. It was risky, but it was the only way since messages were out of the question. The Chief managed to find them a disused mech tunnel with a thousand exits, but it was cramped with the six of them as its proportions were more suited to drones than humans. The Lady was having a hard time keeping her elaborate costume spotless.

Goran Nikolic had left for Irkutsk hours ago, but his representative remained to take control of the crucial evidence if any should come to light. He was the bodyguard Jake had seen at the first meeting, yet now that the man was out from under his master's shadow, Jake got the impression that he was more of a political aide rather than security personnel. His alias was Wyvern, and he seemed to be some type of Machiavellian polymath. Wyvern would be accompanying the Chief and his small force during the rescue, preparing the resultant footage for consumption by the masses afterwards and organising the resultant revolution and counter-revolution. Nikolic would have it no other way.

To ensure everybody present understood how she felt about him, Sister Neema was standing as far away from the Chief as possible in a puddle of soft muck. When Knock raised his concerns about Jake's ability to fulfil his task, she immediately sided with the Lady and insisted Jake was the best candidate for the role. There was some sort of complicated history there because she patently had a personal kind of hatred for the obnoxious Knock.

Regardless of the Chief's vociferous doubts, Jake sincerely believed that he was the best person for the job out of all those present. Jake didn't hold out much hope for a successful outcome. As far as he was concerned, the rest of this strange little cross section of society meeting in the dingy half-light several feet beneath their comfort zone were a collection of deranged fantasists. All Jake really cared about was getting Angelica back and getting paid, which in his opinion was proof enough of his suitability

He fingered his bracelet again. As a parting gift, the Lady had brought Jake and Filipe new wristware each that came with the same unlawful anti-cam mod the jackets bought when they wanted to commit crimes with impunity. Wyvern had added a tracker that was undetectable to standard scans but would only work at short range between the two of them. Effectively, Filipe was the lure and Jake was the line.

Angelica's handsome brother had met the criteria for Lady Evelyn's sponsorship with flying colours, and he was soon to be whisked directly to their mysterious hospital for a complimentary check-up and some underhanded procedure that would syphon off his mind in a way that Jake still didn't fully grasp. There would be moderate compensation for his time, but nothing that would raise suspicions in a body. Jake hoped he captured it all at a good angle, because he was only getting one chance.

Lady Evelyn started giving them the king and country speech, but Filipe rudely cut her off with a blunt reminder of what his priorities were. "Angelica is what I'm here for. I risk my life for her, not San Dannon or your jacket friends who belong in prison."

The Lady's reaction was unexpected. She was welling up.

"You're both very brave," she said, and Jake experienced the age-old discomfort the cynical and disingenuous feel when confronted by compliments for their supposed virtues.

"I'll try and bring what you need for your big plans," Filipe mumbled indistinctly. "If I can."

"And bring back anyone else we might find there," Jake added.

Filipe gave him a curious glance. Jake hadn't told him much about Grinder and Gabriel. Ever since he had learned the news of their capture, Jake hadn't been able to stop himself from putting them in order of importance. Apparently there was some kid from the rabbit lands being held there too, so when Jake imagined their optimistic cavalry riding in to liberate as many folk as they could carry off, there wasn't much room left over for the unfortunate Gabriel Danna.

There was no point in pushing the issue of the other prisoners with Filipe. He would retrieve his sister and leave with or without the Lady's smoking gun. Just like Jake, he didn't give a damn about political injustice. A body might as well complain about the stale air or the taste of soy. It was a fact of life in San Dannon. That was why Grinder and her brother got a seat on the bus and Prince Danna was walking home. Because what goes around comes around.

"I'm sorry about this," Lady Evelyn was clutching his missing arm now, and her eyes were fixed on Jake as if he might absolve her.

"It's okay," Jake assured her, painfully aware of the Chief's amusement. "You've given me a small fortune."

"No! I mean I'm sorry for all this." She waved at the roof as if that meant something. "For everything we've put you through.

"We all knew it was wrong." She switched to Filipe who became equally embarrassed. "Your poor mother's dying from something I had forgotten existed. I didn't care until I met Angelica. I forgot what was right and wrong. I should have said no at the beginning."

"That's enough Annette," the Chief warned her sharply.

She jumped as if it had slipped her mind they weren't alone.

"Look what I've done," she laughed, trying to regain her icy composure. "I've made you all nervous."

"I thought it needed saying," Sister Neema said in the Chief's direction. "Maybe Knock has some apologies to make too."

The Chief nodded slowly while matching her stare. "I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner."

# 16

"Wake up Gabe."

Even though it was the gentlest of whispers, Gabriel retracted like a mollusc.

"They're putting you in the mincer tomorrow, although it's not really a mincer. Looks more like a big microwave."

Dominic was standing over him. His disposition was that of an unexpected guest who doesn't know whether they're welcome or not. He gave Gabriel an artful grin. There was a hint of Dutch courage about it.

"It's a nice polite way of retiring someone. Symbolically recycling their cells for the next full-sync. Probably painless and leaves zero mess."

Gabriel's hands were around Dom's throat shaking, squeezing and pushing him backwards into a wall, but Dominic only laughed as if it were all fun and games. His giggling was high-pitched as a result of the pressure, but it was uncontrolled and full of mirth just as it had been when he was a gangly youth.

"You can't kill me," Dom rasped, his amused face turning red.

The doctor appeared beside them both, and Gabriel hit the floor. His nerves were transformed into an inferno of suffering with every muscle seizing up on his bones. How humiliating for Dominic to see him like this.

Dom straightened his collar. "That's enough."

Relief washed through Gabriel as she granted his reprieve. His bladder was threatening to empty as it had done during so many of Serisa's brutal interviews. He clenched himself as best he could and tried to recover some semblance of dignity by straightening his stain proof skids and finding his feet. Dominic was kind enough to wait until he was all set, and then Gabriel asked the question that had been closest to his heart throughout all his recent hardships.

"Why am I here?"

Dominic released a performative sigh. It was an intimation that the answer was going to be hard to hear.

"Yeah. That's why I came," he confessed, looking aside. "It's all my fault really, although it's a mistake that could have happened to anybody."

"It's a mistake that I've been kidnapped," Gabriel confirmed. He was aghast at his Dom's cavalier attitude, but he maintained an affable façade that was the mirror of his friend's.

"I sort of killed you." Dominic said it as if he were owning up to a petit faux pas. "We were using the ankhs in the Ad Layer, but you really shouldn't have been up there. You'd overindulged in a big way that night.

"Too many chems. Talking big talk and taking big risks. I left you there hoping you'd get bored and follow me to the fight," he said guiltily, rushing his 'apology' like bitter medicine. "To be honest, you were getting to be a handful. And of course, after I left the worst happened."

"And the ankh didn't work," Gabriel complained.

"No, I accidently walked away with yours instead of mine," Dom said, finally looking him in the eye for the big reveal. "I put it in my pocket, and it synced with my DNA. I only realised when I got to the fight, but by then you'd already..."

He paused to make a whistling sound indicative of something heavy falling. The doctor winced as though he were being insensitive, but she had no idea that this was typical behaviour for him. Gabriel had never come across a subject that Dom would not make light of with his habitual, sardonic callousness. Dominic pretended the doctor wasn't there.

"I was just feeling a bit guilty about it all," Dominic confided. "Had to get it off my chest."

He grasped Gabriel by the shoulder reassuringly. "I want you to know we're still going to be friends after this."

*****

"What does it say?" she asked him again, her nerves not quite as steely now that she was soon to commit treason.

From her perspective it was technically blowing the whistle, but the consequences would be the same however this caper turned out. She would inevitably lose everything and be shunned by her equals. She would have nothing with which to sustain herself but her ardent beliefs and whatever slice of her fortune she had prudently squirreled away. Now that they were alone, she was allowing those anxieties seep in.

He checked Filipe's position. "Still a long way away."

She fluttered her beautiful nails impatiently and tapped her foot to the default music out of time with the beat. Jake was just as nervous as she was but probably for different reasons. Relative poverty didn't mean much to him and exile was less and less likely to result in untimely death these days. The culprit responsible for Jake's discomposure was a persistent nagging voice telling him that he was being duped. It was a hard earned instinct keenly honed by contending his whole life with San Dannon's stone-hearted iniquity they disguised as benevolence. It told him that all the warning signs were there. All he had to do was take a step back, and he would see the strings.

There was very little traffic and the shuttle ran disconcertingly smooth along its track. It made Jake feel completely alone in a way that he had never before had the opportunity to experience. Near the hub of the city, there were half a million eyes per square mile. These were human eyes and not the indifferent cams that cared nothing beyond their red flags. The upshot was that you were never really free from surveillance. Getting to know someone in the biblical sense meant a frustrating, futile search for fifteen minutes of sweet privacy. It was that, or a day trip to the Ad Layer to rent a unit for an hour. Many a pretty couple wearing shy grins had been lustily wolf-whistled as they rode the platform arm in arm for their first short holiday together.

The Lady once again pulled the bracelet from her bosom. She came from a generation before eco-bands and bracelets became, for all intents and purposes, mandatory amongst the destitute who had osmotically infecting the upper classes with a tendency to wear their social lives on their sleeves. Hers indicated that they were nearing their destination because she pulled one of the seats forward and removed a slender white case from a storage partition secreted behind.

By its contents, it appeared to be some sort of emergency kit. The two largest items were an ankh and an easy fit breathing mask, and she handed both them to Jake. He inspected the Ankh and the glow within flickered inquisitively as his fingers took hold. It was an older model compared to the one he had become accustomed to. He could tell by its size and temperature.

"Will this thing work?"

"I could break your fingers if you like," she offered facetiously.

"What about Gabriel Danna's epic fail?"

"They have an operating range of two-hundred and fifty metres." She lifted her skirts. "Maybe he fell three hundred."

She was lying, but there wasn't much he could do about it. She gave him back the device Malcolm had generously provided. The customs drone had scanned him inside and out, so getting onto the station itself had been a trial for Jake. The tracker now installed in his new top-of-the-line wristware was invisible to them, but Malcolm's spider thing had to be waved through upon Lady Evelyn's illustrious personage. The eight segmented claws flopped everywhere as she passed it over.

"Don't use that thing with the ankh," she cautioned as though she were reluctant to trust him with either piece of tech.

Jake hesitated. "Malcolm didn't mention that."

"He's notoriously absent minded."

Jake put his new toys into his overcoat. "Has Malcolm ever been inside Spasberg?"

She paused before answering. "No. You have to be recommended by someone else."

She stared out the window, although there was nothing to see but tunnel.

"And then you get to copy bodies you want to sleep with."

"Each member gets one candidate, Jake," she said with brittle civility. "Which means we get one shot at this. Why don't you just focus on Angelica and the plan."

The Lady checked her bracelet one last time. "How can you be so sure that girl's father remembered the right coordinates?"

How could Jake explain his certainty without sounding snarky and condescending? You're average body never got to leave the city unless it was out through the big gate in exile or else scavenging themselves into old age. Riding an actual shuttle someplace and then returning home again was an occasion so extraordinary that when it happens for the first and only time in your life you tend to fixate on those coordinates. Numbers that have always been so sedentary suddenly spinning towards places you never thought you would see was a phenomenon worth noting. Of course the man would recollect them.

"He wrote them down," Jake lied.

She shrugged impassively. After a little more graceful rummaging behind the seats, she pulled a short crowbar from the shuttle's emergency compartment. It was shiny and unused. If such an item were discovered by the drones on the streets of A Layer, its possessor would be eating rabbit turd stew in West Gate Town within the hour. The Lady chose her spot carefully and wedged the end into a barely perceptible crack near the floor

She gradually levered the door up while ignoring the warning lights that her vandalism brought to life. The blurring scenery began to slow down as the shuttle sensed the breach and attempted to stop as safely as possible. At that very moment, cams were on their way to determine what the problem was. The Lady coughed compassionately as she handed him the crowbar. They didn't have the time for him to gird himself, but she wasn't so inhuman that she would hurry him along.

"Do you want me to give you a little push?" she asked tentatively.

Jake surrendered to his pride and allowed it to carry him over the edge where the view became a merry-go-round. Looking back, it hadn't felt all that bad. He had been so dazed and confused by the initial impact that when he stopped rolling he couldn't recall the individual bumps and cracks. He clasped his torso and checked his arms, legs and head. There wasn't a mark on him, and the pain was already an irrelevant memory, but there was a strong smell of discharge in the air and on his clothes. It was the sort expelled by overexcited cams, and it was oozing from his own body.

He picked himself up and took stock of his surroundings. Lady Evelyn's car was a disappearing speck. The door was pulled back to its original position and the alarms cancelled. Jake thought he could make out a few inquisitive dots up ahead settling back to their stations as the emergency resolved itself. The track gave off enough light to see by, but there was nothing of interest except the endless tunnel sealed in plextene. There was an emergency drone bolted to the wall nearby. It was a cheap, peripatetic caste built with basic tools and skill sets, and it would only come to life to life if it sensed an explosion or something similar, but Jake gave it a wide berth anyway. There was fine gravel beneath his feet and dust in the air that would be unsustainable for long periods.

Here was the point where Filipe's shuttle would be diverted northwards. It was the spot where a conspiratorial secret entrance should be concealed if it really existed, but there was nothing east and west but blank plextene panels. He checked how much distance remained between him and Filipe. Now that Jake had stepped off the shuttle, Filipe was catching up. When Jake had last seen him, he was awaiting a pair of 'representatives' who aimed to gently shanghai him at the behest of Lady Evelyn. Jake was as close to the correct coordinates as he was going to get, and it was pointless to move without knowing which direction to go, so he decided to stay put and hope Filipe didn't blow past without slowing.

He jumped backwards when the track changed even though he had been anticipating it. Now a single bright line branched off only few metres ahead and resolutely advanced into solid earth. Jake inspected the area and pushed a hand through the surface of the wall. It was merely a projection. Hardly perfect, but that wasn't important in the dark with nobody to see except the passengers zooming by at high speeds.

Behind it was a small stretch of track wide enough for a private shuttle. Jake pulled on his mask since the air in the confined space was just as corrosive as anywhere else infested with drones and lacking proper ventilation. He used the handy mech tunnel that ran parallel to the tracks to hide from the vehicle as it roared past, so he had no idea how Filipe was holding up. Jake followed them north while fussing over his wristware. There was still a strong signal from the tracker, but his connection to the ultrawave had been severed when he had breached the projection.

Eventually, he came to a pair of blast doors with the currently lifeless track ending abruptly at their centre. There was a cam nearby idly scanning its territory. It was clarification that the expensive new mod proved just as effective out here as it did in San Dannon because the tiny drone ignored him as he sidled closer. Jake checked Filipe's position again and found that he had fallen off the map, for his last known location now given as a vague approximation. Wyvern had claimed these things would work fifty miles apart with impressive accuracy.

Jake stood with his hand on the airtight seam separating the doors while he thought through his options. Out of the blue, the blast doors parted leaving him fully exposed. If anyone were watching from the other side they would see him standing bold as brass picked out by a light that was dazzling after the suffocating darkness. A bridge unfolded and locked firmly onto a track behind a second set of blast doors opening a stones throw away.

There was a crashing sound that brought him to his knees. His eardrums protested even when he wrapped his head in his coat. He felt a mysterious pressure grip every organ. It was a crushing, devastating force held in check by the works of men and drones. Hidden behind the two barriers was the humming, spitting tech of a massive space fold generator, and Jake had been standing a stone's throw away when it activated.

On the other side of the distorted rift wasn't some distant mine near an asteroid belt or the extrusive, lava-like fluid of a nanite farm. It led to somewhere on planet Earth. Jake didn't know much about this type of thing, but everybody knew that space folds were immensely dangerous, and the further away they were launched the better it was for any cities that happened to be in the vicinity. At the beginning of the Gravity Wars, there was a large country called Brazil which had been the bustling hub of the much maligned UNSA. It became an international cautionary tale when mankind began to arrogantly unwrap Monika's unforeseen gift. Now most of Brazil was floating in a galaxy far away accompanied by a spectacular ice cube that was half the Atlantic Ocean.

Jake had also never heard of a space fold opening and closing like a janky's automatic door before either. The main reason they required so much power was the initial burst it took to create one safely. Other major difficulties lay in keeping one open indefinitely, so the smaller they came the cheaper they were to maintain. This one was the size of a garage, and he could feel the familiar pull of giant gravity compressors as if he were walking recklessly close to the chrono-vector at home, but going to visit the chokers felt like walking across a gentle hill. This was like standing on mountain with his feet braced against the steep incline.

Surrounding the shimmering, unnatural darkness projected from a dozen gravity compressors at the rim was a corona of deep purple that faded to lavender. It warned anyone close enough to observe the eye watering display that they had better take serious precautions if they planned to proceed. Every exposed surface within five feet of the restless lightshow was painted with black and yellow stripes. Large warning signs decorated both walls written in a language only a technician would comprehend. It was assumed that non-qualified personnel would never come poking around down here, so if Jake were turned into chunky liquid while attempting to cross, it might be some time before anyone even realised.

He wasn't going to get another chance. What was he going to do if he didn't take it? Explain to everyone that he had been too frightened. Ahead of him, the track gracefully spanned across three yards of fizzing air to another stretch of tunnel, although the opposite side had a slightly different texture as if the drones had carved out in a hurry. The heat coming from the intricate, greasy cube of encompassing machinery promised instant death if he should happen to step on it. It appeared as if one or two unfortunate small animals had already tried their luck, and now their blackened corpses were glued to its boiling surface like chewing gum on old pavement.

There was the sound of a shuttle coming from the north. A quick check of his wrist band confirmed that it wasn't Filipe heading in Jake's direction. In his consequent panic, Jake leapt from a standing start and fell short as the air closed around him in a numbing vice that pulled him backwards. For a just a split-second, his foot slipped into the gap from which the space fold bent itself into existence causing a furious pain behind his eyes that almost incapacitated him before he could stumble onto the adjoining side.

He had no time to recover or hide as the shuttle sped by a hair's breadth from his skull. From that vantage point, Jake had an excellent view through the glass of Old Jesus slumped against the seat and staring mournfully out at him. He seemed uncharacteristically vulnerable without his personalised helper drone. Before the resultant astonishment had worn off, the second pair of blast doors snapped shut, and he was alone again. The waves of energy Jake felt emanating from the unlikely terminus quickly dissipated, and the local gravity returned to normal.

He was in trouble. When had he last talked to his old guardian? Why hadn't he thought to check on him before he left? This meant that San Dannon knew everything Jake had told Old Jesus. He looked older and sicklier than ever with his shoulders sagging and his expression vacant. There had been two other figures sat beside Jesus, so Jake had to assume that whatever security they had here was rushing to his intercept him right now.

The remainder of the track docked at a distant set of white metal doors that looked heavy and unassailable. There was a convenient platform outside for disembarking passengers that had undoubtedly been added at a later date because it was slightly askew. Slipping and cursing across the roughhewn gravel, Jake re-entered the mech tunnel and climbed up the embedded rungs of a ladder that had never seen a human foot before. The hatch was designed to be opened by stranded travellers in case of a breakdown or worse, but he still had to use the crowbar to shift it.

The sunshine hit him like a brick between the eyes. He hadn't really been outside since the day San Dannon had unwillingly enfolded him in its hideous ramparts. Once upon a time on a dare, Jake and Shortcut had gone to a well-known gap beneath the permex walls in their Mech Layer playground. Shortcut had an unshakable fear of insects, so he hadn't made it halfway. Jake had made it all the way to the end and even stepped outside into the tainted atmosphere. It had been night time, which Jake had no way of foreseeing at that uncomplicated age. The moon was beautiful, but he had been disappointed because he had wanted to see the sun.

It seemed he had been fortunate, for the intensity of the living sun was excruciatingly overwhelming. He was near blind, and this condition refused to wane no matter how much he blinked and squinted. He fumbled the hatch closed behind him and tried to ignore the horizon as he forged ahead. During his initial disorientation, Jake had lost track of north entirely, but one direction contained substantial amounts of shade and considerably less debilitating sunlight, so that was the way he chose.

It was a low mountain range, and the closest peaks were rent by the damage from some crash landing long ago. The scars it had left were still slowly eroding after god knows how many years of turbulent weather. Jake's first though was of super weapons, but as neared the base of the vast landslide, he found that it was an old airship buried there. Its shielding had protected it from harm as it sliced through the mountain to become entombed in rock.

The only exception was a short length of exposed hull only partially submerged in scree that bore the red heart and halo of the UNA. They were a much nobler humanitarian schism of the UNSA that had been rendered defunct years before San Dannon was even a concept. The rest of the mighty aircraft was underground including any handy apertures Jake might make use of. The flying fortresses of the UNA had been constructed to take the sort of punishment only interfering pacifists can engender. This was during the most sophisticated arms race in military history, so the fact that it had slammed into a mountain range at full speed and remained structurally sound was not all that surprising.

Annie was nowhere to be seen, nor had she contacted him as she promised to. Wyvern and the Chief were also absent, and since drones or men in armour were almost certainly tracking him down while he loitered here, Jake searched the area. It seemed there were no weaknesses to exploit in the weatherworn hummock of earth and stone, but when he meandered towards the place where Filipe's signal was strongest, Jake did come across a fresh landslide. The scant vegetation sustained by the mountain's generous shade was disturbed here and there by the event.

After carefully picking his way over to a glimmer of artificial light on twisted metal, he found a crack in the ship caused by a giant boulder crashing onto the hull long after the vessel had been grounded. The interior was warm and welcoming to a body from the city. He hated the outdoors. His skids were already covered in so much sweat that Jake was amazed he had that amount of water to spare. His body wasn't used to extreme fluctuations in temperatures, so he didn't want to be stranded out here when night fell.

Jake had a few qualms about leaving the precious ankh behind in favour of Malcolm's toy, but they were assuaged by the wide, gently curving passageways he dropped into. They exuded safety and hospitality with their rounded, neutral coloured walls and warm stale air. They were also unblemished by the ancient pollution Jake had become accustomed in the city. Filipe was somewhere beneath his feet, so he went to find some stairs.

# 17

Gabriel had been dreaming of his mother. She was standing on a podium receiving an award of some kind, and his father had been very proud. She was a very beautiful woman. Everyone had wanted to congratulate her, but she came directly to Gabriel afterwards and scooped him up heedless of the mess he made of her new dress. It was a golden age. That was what people were saying. Every promo opened and closed with the words, especially the political contributions to public entertainment. It was a mantra that was part ritual and part fervent wish.

There was an alarm ringing in the distance, but it was the quiet sort that sounded as if it didn't like to disturb anybody. If it had been assigned a colour, it was probably yellow. Then gunfire joined in the symphony, and the gentle beeping became a siren. Gabriel could feel dramatic footsteps. It was a booming clomp that had the fixtures shaking. He rolled out of bed and pressed his face to the door. He could hear metal and plastic buckling as the crashing got louder. Its source slowly but surely approached the miniature cell block.

They tumbled into the corridor in a snarl. It was some A-lister in an overcoat scuffling with the two orderlies. One of them was holding a pistol and attempting to wrench it free of the A-lister's grip. As they drew closer, Gabriel recognised the inspector he had been trying to track down before his life had fallen victim to the vicissitudes of fate. This guy Jake was unaccountably strong. His shape and stature suggested that he should have been ripped into pieces by the enormous wardens. In his other hand, he held a crowbar that couldn't have weighed more than a few pounds, but Gabriel witnessed the inspector crush one of his attackers with a gentle swing.

It was the most unpleasant of Serisa's goons. He was the one who leered too much. His shoulder and ribcage were demolished, but then they were restored again. The orderly's blood was thick with industrious nanites in quantities Gabriel had never seen before. The fleeting pain and trauma of the blow must have been tremendous, but it didn't slow him down at all. Jake had just enough time to wrench the pistol free from his second, slightly larger opponent and throw him into the ceiling as if he were nothing but a dusty blanket.

While he watched helplessly, Gabriel noticed there was something glowing on Jake's chest and a set of eight claws burrowed deep into the flesh of his back. There was also a bullet hole in his stomach, so his whole torso was traced with faint ripples of orange discharge. Somebody had injected the man with his own personal nanites at some point. It was an unprecedented gift for a lister nobody, and it gave Gabriel chills. The bustling little robots did their best to repair the damage, but they seemed lethargic and disorientated in their efforts as though they were making a mockery of Jake's low social status.

The leery, dead toothed orderly recovered enough of his wits to launch another attack. He tackled Jake with earth shaking force, but it was like hitting an iron oak tree. Jake's arm tore through Gabriel's wall with impossible force as he danced about trying to disengage. Gabriel ducked as his cell crumpled and narrowly avoided being impaled by a shard of glass from his door. The orderly was delighted when the inspector's arm was wrenched from his body and left dangling on the jagged wreckage of the cell door like a trophy hide. The fingers continued to twitch grotesquely after its removal.

Gabriel pulled the crowbar free of the jerking pincers when he realised that he was gawking foolishly at a detached prosthesis. He scrambled to his feet and gingerly climbed through the fortuitous gap Jake had made to assist Grinder. She was in a bad way. The doctor's treatments had inevitably sapped her reserves to the point where she no longer moved between appointments. She still carried the wounds she had suffered on the day of her arrival. It seemed the hermetic conditions of her captivity ironically kept them from healing with the same swiftness her day to day abrasions in the rabbit lands did. He hammered on her door with the inspector's makeshift weapon without a prayer of putting a crack in it.

The larger orderly was similarly swarming with nanites, for he shook off the damage Jake had managed to inflict and charged at Gabriel the moment they inadvertently locked eyes. He had suffered far more deformities from his hard trade than his companion but meant nothing but business when he ferried his prisoners to and from the doctor's office. Even now he was fairly passive about their exchange as he contemptuously leant backwards when Gabriel tried to swing the crowbar. He gave Gabriel a front kick to the chest that sent him rolling ten feet down the corridor, and for a few awful seconds, Gabriel wasn't able to catch his breath while his sternum completed its necessary healing.

Jake was still grappling with the smarmy guy that knocked out Grinder on day one. Though he was hampered by his absent limb, Jake used his inconceivable strength to slam the man through bulkheads as if they were made of balsa wood. The larger orderly tried to brain him from behind, but Jake turned at the right time and retrieved his crowbar like a worried parent snatching a dangerous item from a curious child.

He unflinchingly drove it straight through the midriff of the leery orderly. It must have been like pushing a scalpel through a sausage for him, but he winced as he did the deed. This initiated a display of sparkling pyrotechnics as the nanites worked fitfully around the obstruction. Their efforts tainted the air with the same sharp stink as a flock of A-list cams, but there was no way to fix their host who went into shock and collapsed as if someone had pulled his plug.

The inspector screamed and pulled at the glowing spider fastened to his chest. The device resisted him momentarily in spite of his awesome strength. It had left an impression of itself seared onto Gildroy's chest like a goodbye kiss. Now it was vibrating angrily and making a noise that Gabriel could feel in his back teeth. Jake threw it towards the second orderly and ducked. Gabriel imitated him an instant later. It imploded without slowing and tore out half of Grinder's cell wall before turning most of the orderly into paste. His body's nanites flared briefly before giving up the ghost.

There was a period of stunned silence as everyone still alive in the wake of the destruction counted their lucky stars. Jake's yammering, frightened scrambling signified that he had not suspected his accessory was capable of disintegrating half a ward. Gabriel found his feet and warily circumvented a crinkled hole in the floor to reach Grinder. She was unable to ignore the battle tearing the hospital apart even in her exhausted condition, and she was attempting to stand.

"Find Solomon," Grinder ordered weakly. "Time to go."

Gabriel didn't want to leave her alone in this disaster area. Moreover, he wanted to rescue her brother for her now that she had reminded him the boy existed, but what he desired most was to catch Doctor Serisa Cook unawares in her lair. He nodded gratefully as he took his leave. The inspector was understandably confused but tagged along when Grinder pushed him away irritably.

*****

The airship was a labyrinth. Jake resentfully trusted that the jacket knew which way to go as he trailed behind. He was having trouble keeping up. Malcolm hadn't bothered to warn him that the process would leave him feeling so bruised and depleted, although outwardly he seemed to be physically unharmed. Moving in the harness had felt like wading through tar. His fists had been as heavy as bowling balls, and formerly impenetrable objects offered little opposition to his godlike will. Now the great weight had been lifted, and Jake was left with the distressing sensation of being slowly decompressed.

The Danna kid passed a door without looking in. Jake tried to shout him back, but he either didn't hear or didn't care. There was a boy inside. His living area was an unctuous muddle reminiscent of an animal's enclosure. The jailbird perked up and began shouting excitedly when he saw Jake's friendly but nervous face, but the glass was quite soundproof, and Jake didn't catch any of it. There was no obvious way to release him, so he had to leave him there and continue searching. He did his best to reassure the boy of his imminent escape with some hastily improvised gestures and went to check the rest of the cells.

Two doors over, he found Filipe battered but alert. He must have spotted Gabriel stumbling past and was ready for the big prison break. He pointed to a door adjacent to his own, but it was secured by a retro yet solid looking bio-reader. Behind the glass, Jake saw an office with a well lived-in look. It reminded him of Shortcut's noisome dwelling on the Ad layer that had been littered with the detritus of all the heavily packaged delicacies that made life worth living. There was a complex interface inside flashing red and yellow as well as three wall screens divided into windows showing different areas of the facility. He didn't stand a chance at gaining entry. Jake gave the reinforced door an ineffectual kick.

"You're an idiot."

It was Annie, but she seemed lean and mean this evening. Her face was set in a determined grimace as she dragged something behind her. A violent spasm revealed that her burden was the guard with the crowbar poking out of him. The protrusion was creating a disturbing scraping noise as she marched towards Jake, and the guy was gasping piteously as he resynced over and over. The consequential cam trail smell was nauseating.

"Hello Jake," she said, yanking her writhing captive towards the bio-reader and pressing his large hand to its surface. "It was nice of you to come."

It looked that she had been in the wars, for her movements were slow and hesitant like some long legged mammal that had just taken a spill. Her complexion was greyish and had lost the lustre Jake had found so disturbing upon first sight of her. She limped into the office and appeared to press every button all at once as her hands moving faster than Jake could follow. All the lights went out and were replaced by the ambient glow of emergency power. Filipe and Solomon staggered into the corridor, and the boy was immediately hampered by Annie and her strong arms pinning his hands to his side in a hug. He was three inches taller than her, but his ribs were doubtless being ground together.

"Where's Angelica!" Filipe shouted, redundantly checking the rest of the cells.

He looked the worse for wear which wasn't a good sign. Something had gone very wrong with their whole sorry plan from the beginning onwards. The Chief along with Wyvern hadn't shown up, Filipe had been mistreated then locked up the moment he stepped on board and Annie had been attacked by what must have been a legion of agents. The warders had jumped Jake before he had even found his bearings as if they were expecting him, and it was a miracle he survived.

"We'll keep looking," Jake said, wishing he could leave.

"I have to take Grinder back," Annie informed him unapologetically. "You come out safe too, Jake."

It was difficult for her to appear serious. Her contrived little girl face made a mockery of her attempts, but Jake refused to be fooled. He couldn't guess what kind of complex calculations were happening in her mind, for it was the last known remnant of the most brilliant intellect that had ever spawned its way across the planet, but he knew her motives were inscrutable to him and not those of the self-absorbed pre-teen she seemed to be. Annie grabbed Solomon and towed him away. Jake shuffled his feet, and Filipe gave him a pleading look.

"Something went wrong."

"Let's do this quickly then," Jake suggested.

# 18

Gabriel followed the intrinsic buzz of live tech until he located the centre of the hospital. It was a circular room with the dimensions of a cathedral, and amongst the unfathomable machines that passively ticked over in their assigned niches, there was a prominent glass tank that looked as if it had been installed recently. It was shaped like an old bathtub and contained more water than Gabriel had ever seen in real life, except this stuff was pinkish and off-putting. A large chair was fixed close by furnished with sturdy restraints and a head brace, and a claw was attached that loomed like a crane over the occupant. The man lying in the chair was unconscious, but he looked healthy and clean. Fresh, Gabriel thought, as if he had been born yesterday.

What really drew the eye, however, was a cylindrical core of some sort extending to the distant ceiling and ending not far below eye level. It was clearly valuable, yet the safety screen that once surrounded it had been brutally stripped away along with most of its protective plating. Doctor Cook was absorbed by the archaic console beneath where she was assiduously pressing buttons and ignoring her uninvited guest as though it was just another workday.

"I'll be with you in a minute," she told him brightly. "This is an important phase."

She continued her prodding, and the claw on the chair jerked into life. It held a luminous bead in its supple fingers the size and shape of a large pill. To Gabriel's mounting horror, it plunged the thing deep into the man's skull through his eye while his nanites patiently fixed the damage. After the claw withdrew smoothly, the head brace loosened and the doctor's patient slouched forward. His chest was rising and falling sharply, but otherwise he was unconcerned that something had just been inserted into the jelly of his brain.

Gabriel made a snap decision and sought to restrain the woman with all due violence. He recklessly dove towards her and made it several feet before she harrumphed at his unacceptable behaviour and switched on the pain. Gabriel's body pressed itself to the deck misshapen by the familiar agony. His nose was bleeding from his impressive fall, but the nanites were too busy doing her abominable bidding to stem the flow.

"Gabriel!" a booming voice greeted him, the tone incongruously civil.

It was Dom. His massive features were mischievous as he stared down at his friend from a wall screen the size of a unit, which explained the horrendous volume. He appeared to be staring into a gilt framed mirror as if he had a cam stuck to his forehead, yet there was no discernable recording device anywhere.

"You have this weird talent for always making things worse for yourself," he said disappointedly. The doctor nodded sombrely in support. "I hold my hands up to the fuck up with the..."

He made a descending motion with his hand ending with a wet splat sound.

"But since then it's been all you. Not that I don't respect that," he added. "Rage against the dying of the light, I say. If you can."

Gabriel croaked angrily but could form no words. He could barely breathe when the doctor was applying her ruthless methodology. Dominic was laughing lightly, and the camera tilted up and down. The doctor wasn't even paying him any attention but was engaged by her disturbing work. Gabriel mutely begged her to turn around and release him. He had never before endured her remote controlled torture for such a lengthy duration. Was it possible to die from this?

The lights snapped out, and Gabriel could move once more. His accumulated sobs finally broke free, and his spine flopped back down forcefully. Dom's face registered surprise before his image faded along with the projected screen. The emergency lighting was activated shortly afterwards, but since it was built into the circumference of the room, the darkness didn't recede very far. It wasn't easy, but Gabriel managed to roll over onto his knees.

Serisa hit him like a tigress with one knee in his back and her claws searching for his eyes. He grabbed her wrists and tried to twist them away, but she had the advantage over him due to his enfeebled condition as well as her savage aggression the likes of which he had never experienced before. She slammed his head into the floor when he managed to fend off her nails and followed with a football kick that stopped his clock for a time. Through the dizziness, Gabriel realised that he was presently going to die at the hands of his tiny, insufferable captor.

Nothing happened. Half his vision cleared, but the other half was damaged in the struggle. Serisa had been pulled backwards before she could stomp his brains out, and Jake was helping Gabriel up. The inspector was accompanied by some A-lister, and both of them were unarmed. The doctor pushed the young lister off her roughly, and he held up his palms. The inborn fear of laying hands on his betters did not allow him to seize her for long nor prevent her escape. She ran through a pair of double doors the wall screen had been concealing.

Gabriel staggered after her wincing as the injuries she inflicted refused to disappear. Her central control room allowed her quick access to the rest of the facility, and although the corridor branched here and there, the widest held to a linear course towards what might be an exit. There were forests of garments for men and women on both sides stuffed into rooms that were once used as sleeping quarters, storage areas and general wards. Now they were furnished with clothes rails, dressing tables and comfortable chairs as well as all the sundries of cosmetology an emerging social butterfly might need.

The doctor was jeering at him from up ahead. Her throaty laugh floated behind her, and he roared in response. She was confident of the route and her lead on him, so she had plenty of opportunities to bury herself in one of the many wardrobes to shake him off, but she was glancing coquettishly over her shoulder whenever he caught sight of her. She wanted him to catch up. Someone was shouting back the way he came.

*****

There was a man lying in a chair. His muscles were ludicrously swollen, and he didn't have a stitch on. This gave undeniable credence to the Lady's description of the place and its purpose. Jake hadn't really believed it before, but now the naked truth was staring him in the face, so it was hard to debate her claims. Filipe was trying to revive him, but it wasn't difficult to see he was itching to carry on the search for his sister instead. The man in the chair slowly opened his eyes and gazed at the two of them uncomprehendingly. Then he let loose a delirious yelp when the sharp end of a crowbar sprayed blood into his face. Jake looked down at it confused and woozy. It felt like it had gone right through him.

He didn't even remember hitting the ground. Shadowy figures danced nearby with their feet sliding and slipping in the viscous pink fluid from the tub. He felt his stomach, and his fluttering hand caught on the metal spike. The area around it was wet and warm. Then the pain came. At first it was faint but insistent, but then it increased sharply bringing the world back into focus. He tried to take stock of his situation.

He had a crowbar in him. It was the same one he had so remorselessly dispatched the guard with earlier, but now the man was back to his old self and feeling vengeful. He had been fully capable of returning the favour without the need for superhuman strength, and Jake could feel terrible pressure from the other end of the tool where it made contact with the floor panel. He tried to lever himself into a sitting position without the aid of his prosthesis.

The ugly guy Annie had thoughtlessly utilized as a key was indeed fully rejuvenated. His wound was inexplicably healed even though he had been a drooling babe too broken to save himself when Jake left him back by the cells. He was bent over the large glass tank, which was now full to brim and overflowing, with the much smaller Filipe in his arms. Delicate pipes and wires lined the inside of the container, but these were being buffeted about by Filipe's thrashing. His head was being held firmly beneath the churning surface to the full extent of his assailant's reach, and the tub was being refilled automatically no matter how much water he emptied over the edge.

Jake tried to intervene in childish panic, but the guy held him back with one arm and pushed down harder with the other. Filipe's struggling had almost ceased, yet one hand flapped against Jake's chest like an SOS in what must have surely been his death throes. Jake tried to think through the growing weakness, but his energy and will were being rapidly drained through his guts. By fluke or by design, the guy had got him in the same place he was shot earlier when they caught him sneaking around their hospital.

Jake tried once more to intervene and rallied enough to land a few hits, but they lacked any real impetus, and the gorilla didn't even acknowledge them. The thug's tongue was lolling in pleasure at his assured victory. He was enjoying it at the last in a way that had little to do with duty or retribution. This wasn't like a run-in with the rogues that haunted the city of Jake's childhood. This was a close encounter with an authentic monster. Filipe had stopped moving now.

Out of nowhere, an arm snaked around the guard's neck, and he was pulled backwards knocking Jake to the ground again. There was new pain now that was extraordinary in its scale and dispersal throughout his numbing body. Filipe slithered out of the tub and vomited water, but his eyes were glazed and bulbous with mortal terror. From his prone position, Jake watched Filipe recover with agonising slowness.

Although the Danna boy handled himself confidently, he had been quickly outmatched and was now being throttled in return with an incredulous cast to his features. His attacker was attempting to make short work of it this time through brute strength, so he wrenched Gabriel violently from side to side while he crushed his victim's neck, but the wet floor kept throwing him off balance compromising his grip

While the occupant looked on with impartial interest, Filipe pulled himself up on the large chair and yanked at its attached claw until it came loose. It didn't appear to be very heavy, but Filipe took a handful of the guard's skids and hammered away at him holding nothing back. When the guy noticed the attack, he tried to steer away and lost his footing completely. He eventually released Gabriel and made a futile bid at deflecting the blows Filipe was landing. The Santos boy had averted eyes from the gore which was causing one or two swings to go wild, but ultimately the outcome was the same.

Jake woke up a short time later when the pain flared up again, but he had forgotten where he was or why he hurt so much. There were hands lifting him into a sitting position against the wall. They were talking, but Jake didn't catch much of it. Somebody was dead, or as good as. Then they were walking away with one trailing the other after some hesitation. The man in the chair watched them leave with a bemused wave and then came to stand over Jake blocking out the light.

"You look like shit, kid," he said warmly, bending closer to inspect Jake for signs of life. "I'll be right back."

# 19

He traced his steps to where he had last seen her, but she was long gone. Filipe was close behind interrogating Gabriel about his sister Angelica whenever he caught his breath, but Gabriel couldn't tell him anything useful. She was here and then she wasn't. Maybe they took her this way. A junction in the main corridor led them to an impressive dock made all the more so by the open spaces that remained after someone had deftly stripped everything of worth.

The curved walls suggested this place was a war craft of some kind, yet it would have to be a fortress-class vessel judging by its magnificent size, and Gabriel hadn't notice any armaments during his unsupervised tour. These behemoths hadn't been very popular in their time. They were constructed for the sake of hubris rather than battle and most had been decommissioned before anybody got the chance to shoot them down during sixty-six, but those that did see action made spectacularly memorable wrecks which had received many visits from scavengers in the years since.

The other side of the T-junction led to an open doorway the correct size for foot traffic. Gabriel veered towards this exit and came to a section of well-lit tunnel with a pristine station for a solitary track. The walls were decorated with fake plants, and the air was clean and cold. Filipe jumped precipitously onto the track, and Gabriel imitated him while silently bemoaning his predicament. Surely if the doctor had come this way, she hadn't bothered walking down this fucking tunnel, but he had lit a fire under his ally of circumstance, and Filipe was ready to charge in without thinking.

There were some sturdy blast doors ahead, and Gabriel wanted to turn back. They were heavy and serious in a way that didn't invite open curiosity, but for all he knew this was the only way out of this twisted hospital. Filipe had come to a standstill with one hand raised for silence. Gabriel stopped sprinting and glanced back the way he came. He was appreciative of the respite and the time to compose a real plan.

"What is it?"

"Go!" Filipe shot past him

Three Auto Response drones were pursuing him enthusiastically. Gabriel didn't know if they had been stationed nearby or were sent to apprehend the escaped prisoners, but they were closing the gap between them and their quarry with their tasers held ready the same way they did in the footage Articia distributed to her disciples. Everyone knew you couldn't outdistance these things, so he had no idea why Filipe thought running would do any good.

Statistically they had a better chance if they stood their ground and fought, as slim as that chance might be. He lost his nerve and followed his new friend's example an instant before the nearest bore down on him. Gabriel received a bolt between his shoulder blades that felt more like a boot and fell hard on his chin. He was essentially powerless to stop his subjugator scooping him up and carrying him off dispassionately.

*****

Somebody was calling his name. The power had returned, but the lights were too bright now. Considering he had been shot and then stabbed, Jake felt great, yet he was still unable to move without becoming woozy. He explored the wounds in his stomach which weren't singing so loudly anymore and found that they were tender but sealed. The muscular nudist from the chair lumbered into view and also prodded at Jake's injuries.

"Jesus," Jake gasped.

"Yeah kid, it's me."

"Why're you here?" He asked groggily.

"Long story."

Except it wasn't Old Jesus. The accent was the same, but this version was much closer to the buoyant younger man who had first taken Jake under his wing, and he was wearing a new suit as if he had been born for such things. Jesus had finished his examination and was eyeing Jake with mild concern. Behind him, a feed from a security camera was projected across a convenient section of wall. It belonged to a cell where Shortcut and Angelica sat listlessly on their beds waiting for Jake to come to the rescue. Jesus followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry kid," he apologised, with stony candour, "but it's not as if you're gonna remember."

"You sold me out," Jake said admiringly, although he was afraid his expression or some a childish modulation of pitch in his voice might undermine his attempt at equanimity.

"They offered me exactly what I wanted," he explained, as if life were just full of such ironies. "And it still wasn't an easy bargain."

"They gave you nothing," Jake muttered, trying to organise his thoughts. "Old Jesus."

The sprightly ex-choker lips tightened as though he tasted something sour. "The three of you get to live. That's something."

"A deal sweetener."

"If it makes you feel any better," Jesus sighed. "The deal was done the day you arrived at San Dannon. I've suffered since then, since you've all been like a family to me, but I made my peace with it. I made the right decision.

"When the riots come back," he added distractedly. "You'll know it too. Kiss poor Old Jesus goodbye for me. He's not feeling too pleased with himself."

Jesus knowingly tapped his head as if it were tuned to his older twin like an ancient radio. He turned to the projection which now contained the face and shoulders of Dominic Knock. Jake hadn't even noticed the changeover. Knock Junior was watching their tense exchange while patiently waiting until he had their full attention. He pointed towards Jesus, and his hand magnified to the point where Jake could see each perfectly manicured fingernail.

"Well," he asked.

"He'll live," Jesus replied.

The jacket on the screen nodded, and the view rotated to pan the hall he was calling from. Jake had seen it before from the Lady's footage of Spasberg. There was the stage to one side, a polished dance floor and few large tables. There were also a couple of jackets handcuffed to their seats close by, and it took Jake some time to identify them as Lady Evelyn and the Chief. Their flamboyant outfits appeared ridiculous alongside their restraints, and their attitudes broadcasted defeat.

With only a few people in the room, it made the waste of inhabitable space seem even more decadent. There was fine art decorating the walls. Jake was no historian, but they were probably priceless works carefully scavenged from the ruins of the former capitals of the world, yet what really made Jake hate every privileged scumbag who had a hand in building the place was the treated permex that had been used to restore this lovely medieval castle to its former glory. It had been painstakingly carved into a glassy simulacrum of the original surrounding brickwork.

A pair of gilded doors opened and a drone entered with Gabriel dangling from its claws. He was deposited unceremoniously in the middle of the dance floor, and his captor floated backwards to the limit of its taser's range but stood ready in case of sudden movements. The boy was sporting a deep taser burn on his back, which was a familiar sight in Jake's line of work. Sometimes Auto response got carried away, and as the primary concession made by the Alliance in the Hamburg Accord stated that every unnatural death had to be investigated by a civil police force, it was often Jake's job to resourcefully find a reason why it wasn't entirely AR's fault.

He didn't get called in for that kind of accident anymore. His superiors leant towards officers with more imagination when they randomly selected a responder. They wanted officers they could reason with such as Holtz or Mason. From the way the burn was soaking through the boy's shirt, this one was quite fresh. He wasn't about to expire from it, but he was in no condition to try anything heroic either. Gabriel was lucky to be a jacket. Specifically, he was lucky to have a physique and constitution that could shrug off an incapacitating bolt set at maximum. He was even able to lift himself up sufficiently to pore over the sumptuous décor hoarded by his father and his father's pals on the board.

# 20

This had to be Spasberg, but it wasn't the way Gabriel had imagined it after Dominic's bland descriptions. The entertainment staff must have been given the night off because it was empty except for the four of them. Alfred's mother and Chief Knock were in attendance too for some inexplicable reason. His closest friends' parents were trussed up, but they still appeared inherently dignified. The Lady's skirt was riding high, and the Chief had been given two black eyes that made his dour stare positively forbidding, but Dominic seemed immune to his father's unwavering scowl.

It was a disturbing scene to witness for so many reasons. The most trifling reason was the awkwardness of beholding a son carelessly defying his father. In the past, such a sight would have been embarrassing for him, and he would have hurriedly excused himself from the situation. Now that meant nothing compared to the gut wrenching dread of being in close proximity to the second most powerful man in San Dannon while he was tied to a chair.

The flicker of hope that refused to be smothered even when Gabriel had been in the clutches of the manic doctor and her robust assistants was now firmly extinguished. He would not survive this night with any memory of what transpired here. Neither would Dom's father, if Dominic had any sense. The man was indisputably furious at his wayward offspring, though he kept his peace. Maybe the ranting and raving stage had come and gone, for this mute disapproval was quite out of character.

"We're ready," Dominic said, talking into his wrist but staring into space as if he could see something everyone else couldn't.

The lights dimmed shortly afterwards, and the wall behind the stage becoming a sizeable screen. There was a dramatic pause. Then an ancient fanfare began playing over live footage of a shrunken old man sitting slope shouldered behind an expansive desk. His features were slack and confused, and the only sign of life was his skinny chest creaking in and out. It seemed he was all but immobile. Gabriel's suspicion that the feed came from somewhere in Spasberg was verified by the singular combination of old and new masonry in the background.

The fanfare came to a close with those assembled riveted to the spectacle of the old man in his fine leather chair totally unmoved by their horrified scrutiny. Perhaps he was unaware of his own name or the time of day. His face was a shrivelled apple covered in a sparse fuzz of perfectly cropped white hair, his sinewy neck disappeared into a refined suit that had been tailored for a much stouter man and his withered hands were looped in thick gold jewellery.

It was the Chairman reduced to decrepitude by his legendary hibernation. He slumped grumpily before his captive audience as if he were about to address the nation one last time. A young man ambled into view. It was Jake the A-list inspector only healthier and happier as if the chip on his shoulder had all been an affectation. No, it wasn't Jake, but the man could have passed for his far more successful older brother. He had the height of an A-lister, but not their distinctive pallor and swollen eyes. He placed a hand companionably on the shoulder of Gabriel's father.

"That's enough from the big man," he said cheekily, winking at them all.

He gently rolled the chair sideways and lowered his knuckles onto the desk.

"Lady Annette," he said tolerantly as though he were reprimanding an adolescent. "And Chief Knock. Are you going to start by denying everything?"

"What have you done with the Chairman?" the Lady demanded, trying to sit up straight against her bonds.

"This." The young man waved at the Chairman's lined and mealy face startling the old man. "He was already like this when I got here.

"The work of father time, I'm afraid. Nothing we could do for him." He said it like a surgeon delivering a bad news. "What you're seeing is the limit of what syncing can do.

"Lucky for him, it's all still up here." He pointed to his temple, and the gesture alongside his crooked, white toothed grin made him look unbalanced. "Lucky for all of us."

"You're not him!" the chief barked, driven to breaking his composure. "You're nothing but a freak."

"Like half of the board then," the Chairman's impersonator shrugged. "Its astounding how much more paperwork you can get done when you have access to a body half your age, but I must admit that most of them demand a younger version of themselves to vicariously live life with the full vigour of youth." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Revolting," the Lady muttered.

"I agree," he said lightly. "But a few of us are thinking bigger than perverted body switching. They build us full-syncs hard wearing, long-lived and quite a bit sharper. We were created to be puppets, but it doesn't have to stay that way. All a man has to do is put aside his ego. A tall order for most, but I had extraordinary motivation."

He pushed a few buttons on the desk, and the screen was split horizontally in two.

"It's better this way," he sighed. "I hate to admit it, but I don't think the old Chairman would have been able to outmanoeuvre you so completely even if he wasn't methuselah's granddad these days."

Lady Evelyn groaned. The second portion of the screen showed footage from two separate cams. One contained Angelica and some guy. Maybe the same guy that Dominic had knocked unconscious at the party Gabriel couldn't recall attending. Meeting Angelica seemed like years ago now, but he was sorry to see her in a cage. The other feed was strange, and it took a moment for Gabriel to understand what he was looking at. At first glance, it appeared to be an undulating recording of Dominic's first person view. When Gabriel glanced his way, he found his friend smirking as though it were one big magic trick, and Dom was the only who could see the wires. Then Gabriel realised what he was actually looking at was Serisa's control room where he had abandoned a not quite dead inspector Jake to whatever ordeals the good doctor had in store for him.

*****

Old Jesus had helped him into the chair. Jake was tempted to throw a couple more barbs at him, but he was grateful to be alive and hoping to keep things civil until he had the strength to flee. His limbs were still leaden, his thoughts scattered and he had a hollow gnawing in his abdomen from his recent re-healing. Then the head restraint had come down, and the doctor entered breezily. The crazy doctor seemed too happy for a warden that had just suffered a jailbreak. They both paid him no attention, and Jesus even shushed Jake when he kicked up a token stink at his treatment. They were eyeing the screen expectantly.

It had split into three discrete feeds. One held the old man with his younger doppelganger acting like an ass the way only a jacket can when he's confident of getting away with it. The newest window was a bit jumpy, but it showed an image of the projected screen he was watching, which was showing an image of the screen Dominic Knock was watching, which was showing an image of Jake's screen. Old Jesus waved his hand up and down in front of Jake's eyes. An infinity of hands waved back at him each one becoming progressively smaller until the eye gave up.

Someone had planted one of Shortcut's threads on him. Anyone could have slipped one into his food or drink, for it wasn't as if he was cautious about what he ate. He felt as if he had been poisoned. They must have seen everything, including the meeting with the Lady's brave but naive resistance, being kitted out by Malcolm the cut-rate quartermaster and Jake's attack on the medical ship. This explained why they had been ready and waiting for him. They had seen him coming from day one. He thought about the despair that the Lady must be feeling right now. She was the one who invited him in. They might have all stood a chance if it hadn't been for Inspector Gildroy.

Displayed in the final window on the screen, Angelica and Shortcut were talking closely to each other as though trying not to be overheard. They were wearing new skids, but they both looked miserable about it. Jake could tell the door behind them was usually locked because the pair was so shocked when it suddenly slid open and Filipe appeared. He was filthy and wounded but very much alive. The three of them wasted no time questioning their good fortune, although Shortcut did squint in the direction of the cam before leaving. Jake didn't need a close up to see the pessimism written there. Their escape was hardly a foregone conclusion. The doctor observed his friends abscond with wry amusement.

"You're letting them go?"

"I told you that you get to live. Serisa just has to give you a check-up before you leave." Jesus laughed bitterly.

Jake recognised that laugh. He had heard it the day he confessed to his guardian that he had been chosen by the city to be an officer of the law. It was part nihilistic, part sarcastic and none of it heartfelt. The man had left Jake's hands unbound even though there were sturdy retractable rings attached to the arms of the chair for just that purpose. Jake didn't know whether the old snake had trusted to the sturdiness of the head restraint or if he secretly knew that Filipe's clumsy mistreatment had damaged it when the boy removed the claw for use as a blunt instrument.

Jake kicked him anyway and landed a blow on Jesus's hip that sent him sprawling. He pulled forward forcefully and succeeded in wrenching his head free on the first attempt. Then he barrelled through the doctor and accelerated toward the exit. The villainous duo had failed to confiscate his wrist band, and he glanced at it to ensure he was heading in the right direction. He still had Filipe's coordinates, so they would lead him to wherever Angelica and Shortcut were going.

He didn't even make it through the door before unthinkable pain wracked his body causing an undignified collapse Jake didn't even feel past his unnatural affliction. His central nervous system must have been on fire because every inch of him was burning in harmony. He caught sight of Jesus's expression one last time before the incensed doctor vengefully tranquilised him, but it was as unreadable as ever.

# 21

"What the hell is this?" Gabriel burst out, not daring to do more for fear of the static yet attentive guard waiting nearby. "Since when does San Dannon have the right to take people prisoner? And torture people."

He was infuriated by the malignant demon standing behind his father's desk flagrantly soiling the Danna legacy.

"Keep it down," the Chief growled thickly.

Knock wasn't doing well, but he managed an angry glare through his puffy face. He gritted his stained teeth the way he used to when his son threw sass his way during Dom's anarchist years. Charles Danna's younger self sneered at his impetuous kin as if Gabriel was the only child at the grownup table. Dominic shook his head slightly as though his friend had made a gaffe, yet he didn't look him in the eye or give any other sign that his best friend of fifteen years was in need of immediate assistance.

"Since they became the de facto rulers of half of Europe," the imposter said slowly, his intense regard making Gabriel want to squirm. The man was overflowing with the self-possessed contempt that proved so effective against the Chairman's detractors in his boardroom heydays. "Realpolitik's having its day, and it behoves men like me and you to redefine our accountability towards this planet and change this Alliance for the better. Both of us, side by side."

"I'm not doing anything," Gabriel scoffed. "No offence, Pinocchio."

The man on the screen smiled a little wider, but his shoulders tensed as though he would be happier having this conversation in person. Gabriel shifted nervously and wished he could take his juvenile taunt back.

"You will," the pretender said, his veiled menace making him sound spontaneous for the first time. "A different version of you. Intelligent, forceful, confident and obedient. An ideal son and future leader. Like Dominic over there. A chip off Knock's old block but without his papa's short-sightedness."

"Dom's an undiagnosed psychopath," Gabriel stated daringly, yet Dominic was apparently unfazed by the criticism. "And I'm not your son."

His father's clone sighed as though exasperated, but it was part of his showmanship, and Gabriel braced himself for the incisive cruelty his real father was all too capable of.

"He was always so disappointed in you," his father's younger self divulged earnestly. "Almost as disappointed as he was with his authentic, junky A Layer boy, but at least Jake had the excuse of only having one arm. You, on the other hand, had every advantage we could give you, and you turned out to be good for nothing. You were never going to be Chairman of San Dannon, my boy. You were a failed experiment. A flawed prototype he couldn't bring himself to put down."

The words brought back memories of his father's calm tirades in the past, before his famous withdrawal from society. It was the mannerisms Gabriel thought he had forgotten such as the way his father paused between each sentence with a palm held outwards as though he wanted Gabriel to take the words to heart and would brook no interruption. The doppelganger had nailed him, but they couldn't be the same man. The Chairman hadn't been a lunatic. He was just ornery and difficult to please. The man on the screen had the comportment of a political fanatic with an additional predatory edge that hadn't been stifled by tedious rallies and droning spiel.

"I'm not one of you," Gabriel said, without conviction.

His father circled the desk and leaned in close to the camera. His movements were full of energy, and he was comfortable in his own skin in a way that most anybody would envy. The man's hair and complexion were impeccable, but he had a superficial shine to him that Charles Danna senior had lacked during his tenure. It was repulsive, yet it was repulsive in the same way any charismatic and handsome face can be before it got you nodding along. It reminded Gabriel of Petrov at his most ambitious.

"They full-synced you and your friends years ago," he said, radiating open honesty and affectionate goodwill. "The Lady Evelyn's son, her niece Articia Frohnes, Dominic and you, Gabriel Danna."

The Chairman held his hands apart as if to show Gabriel there were no secrets between them. He was a magician showing a child his sleeves.

"You were the catalyst for our experiments in syncing." He crept closer until he filled the screen edge to edge. "Seven kids dead in a senseless accident when every adult citizen in the Alliance should have been backed up and ready to be reborn if needs be. When we had the tech to bring those children back but not the stomach. Because we were afraid of the miracle we'd inherited.

"My wife was distraught, of course. Things weren't as streamlined as they are now. It took a lot longer to fully sync someone fifteen years ago and we had no synaptic map. She was frightened of it," the new Chairman whispered soberly. "Her zombie child brought back wrong by evil science. The first time she killed herself, I managed to bring her back without her becoming suspicious, but she was shrewd. She left herself messages in the dust boards, deleted herself from the server and tried to destroy the implant by diving head first into the A Layer. She was determined to end it."

He sat back on his desk and folded his arms with a bitter smirk twisting his features and his chest rising and falling deeply. "And in the end I was forced to let her die."

Gabriel said nothing while drinking in the words though he hated the taste. He didn't remember any of this, so there was no reason to believe it. But he did believe it.

"Can you imagine the devastating tragedy of it all when you turned up at Gate town. The real you, of course, minus an arm. A month after she had erased her own existence some scav rescued all three of you after two years in the wasteland." The Chairman snorted and shook his head slowly. "So you are, in fact, like me, Gabriel. Fully synced. Not even the same full-sync that failed to live up to my wife's reasonable standards. Not since you're little mishap with the ankh when you came face to face with yourself in the most farfetched coincidence I've ever heard of."

The new Chairman's eyes were naughty once more.

"Now all we can do is pick up what pieces we have left. To once and for all," he said, opening his arms wide again, "tie up loose ends. A fresh start for everybody.

"Lady Evelyn," he declared, pointing in her direction "Because we're old pals, you get to go live with your darling A-listers. You can even keep you're ersatz son, Alfred, but if you make any attempt to destabilise San Dannon again, I'll have his throat cut and throw him in the mincer.

"As for the vocal Miss Articia, because she has a seat on the board she'll be staying on C Layer where I can keep an eye on her. And the beautiful Angelita gets to go home with her brother. Don't worry though," he paused for effect, leaning forward and lowering his voice. "We have her brain on file now if we ever need her again."

He licked his lips wetly as though he were savouring something especially delicious. The Lady exhaled in disgust at his indecorous vulgarity, but Gabriel gave a primal yell and sprang to his feet. He was quickly brought down again by a second bolt criss-crossing the mark left by the first. He tried not to cry out, but tiny squeaks filled the empty hall to the rafters as his father ignored Gabriel's interruption and resumed his proclamation.

"And now for our misaligned Chief of Security," the Chairman continued. "You only vindicated my decision to rewire Dominic, didn't you?" He glowered at his number two, but the Knock refused to look abashed.

"Loyalty!" The young Chairman's scream made everyone in the room flinch excluding Gabriel who was having trouble composing himself. "If we must have facsimiles, we may as well take the opportunity to manufacture loyal children. Strong children without fear or weaknesses.

"New Chief of Security Knock!" he snapped, his gaze shifting on the huge screen towards Dominic.

"Yes sir?"

"Shoot your father in the head!"

Dominic pulled out his pistol and shot his father removing half the man's skull. There was a sync band inconspicuously circling the room, but it made no effort to fix the damage. The Lady let loose a rising screamed and leaned away from the mess. Dominic holstered his weapon and turned back to the Chairman who was clapping solemnly. They both seemed unaffected by the violence itself, but Dominic loosened as though he had dropped a heavy burden, and the Chairman seemed to be lightly galvanised by the act.

"Well done!" he praised exultantly, half laughing with relief and lacing his fingers above his head the way he used to when he was in a good mood. "You and I are going to be the future of this company, my brother. Together, we are going to fix San Dannon, the board and its ungrateful population. We're even going to fix those fucking walls!

"Now clean everything up and let the Johns back in," he ordered, reaching for his desk to switch off the camera. "Spasberg has to stay open for business."

"What about the Gabriels?" Dominic asked, waving in Gabriel's direction.

"The A-lister's going back. Do what you like with the other one. Mince him," he suggested dismissively.

The room went dark again, and the Lady's sobbing became disconcertingly loud as if the light from the screen had been muffling its volume. A moment later, Gabriel felt the hard metal claws of the drone peeling him off the floor and encountered Dominic hovering over him.

"This is all my fault," he admitted, frowning heavily. "But I'm gonna make it right, Gabe. I think you should meet an old friend of yours."

*****

Jake woke up in a bar and was appalled to find himself splayed in a very comfortable chair holding an empty bottle. Last night the pills just hadn't been enough, so he had poured a few drinks on top of them, yet his head was now remarkably clear for a morning after. He checked his data and was pleasantly surprised to find he had a little left over. His only real complaint was that his arm was killing him. Specifically, it was the stump beneath his prosthesis. He tried to put it out of mind since there was no way to remove it intact without a drone or a technician to help. The city didn't like unqualified rabble interfering with their property.

He left the private bar with speed cursing the absentee owner wherever he might. An overcoat had been wrapped around him. Jake didn't know where he had acquired it, but he felt comfortable wearing it almost as if it had been made for him. That kind of wardrobe related providence didn't happen for folks all that often, and Jake had an especially ungainly shape disregarding his missing limb and bad posture. He must have bought the coat from some poor inebriated body who had very considerately forgotten to remove his belongings. Rattling around in the corner of a grungy pocket like a blessing from heaven, Jake found an entire magic ring.

Outside the unit, the scene was pandemonium. The sirens were wailing in every district of the old city, and Ad Layer inhabitants were running to and fro getting in each other's way. It was an incredible sight, for only every other walkway was up to code out here. Even on the main thoroughfares near Central, the pedestrians always marched in single file. Those businesses in the adjacent swags were closing up shop, and that was also something unheard of. Space was too valuable up here for people to waste it on unprofitable down time. A random janky was lifted over a low edge when a whole family pushed past him without stopping or looking back.

"Hey!" Jake yelled, as he watched the man plummet screaming to his death.

Far below, it looked as if the whole of A Layer was massing. Drones rained bolts down on them from above, and the air was hazy with the emissions as well as the urgent buzzing of cams. The nearest platform had departed and didn't look as if it was going back any time today, so the crowds were trying to climb the struts instead. Some used the cramped vertical mech tunnel, but most just scaled the outside until auto response shot them down or plucked them off. Something had stirred them up to maximum frenzy. This level of dissatisfaction hadn't been seen since before the invention of the powder stick.

Jake tore his eyes away and searched the maze of catwalks that made up this sector of the Ad Layer. On the screens that customarily paraded the hybrid logos of the Alliance and their indistinguishable wares, there was now crudely edited footage playing. It was some sort of horror movie blighted by awful camera work. There were people murdering each other in a variety of interesting ways and one daft kid falling off a building with a smug grin on his face. It didn't take Jake long to figure out that this snuff film must be reality, or else it was a near perfect imitation of it.

There was a clip of Chief Knock. The same man who had so memorably ejected Jake from gainful employment yesterday was tied to a chair next to his wife or partner. The jacket holding the Chief hostage looked like his son. The pair of them shared the same aquiline nose and unruly hair. At least, they used to. If the execution they were all seeing on the screens was real, Knock had a daring new look this fall.

Next there came a shot of Shortcut and Angelica locked in a room, and Jake felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He even reeled into the street to be buffeted by passers-by. His old friends were replaced by a little girl talking into the camera. After that came more conspiracy shots of the hall in the glass castle except this time it was filled with beautiful types and important jackets. Perhaps it was a social club or a high class bar, but Jake doubted it.

Whatever all this nonsense was, the citizenry were angry over it. Those in Jake's vicinity were mesmerised by the exposé alongside him or cautiously leaning over the edge to catch a glimpse of the rioting. Others were searching for a clue as to what they should be doing by shouting at drones and interfaces or frantically messaging every contact they had. One woman went so far as to grab hold of some unfortunate old jacket who seemed just as confused by what was happening as everybody else.

When he cottoned on to the fact that there was no security drones spare to intervene, the old boy wrestled away from her grip and fled wheezing and gibbering. A heavy body managed to catch him after a few yards and flipped him over the boundary to join the guy who had been thrown off by accident. Jake took a few faltering steps in the large body's direction but quickly realised that revealing he was ex-law enforcement in the current climate would be next to suicidal.

Every screen in the Ad Layer crashed simultaneously, but switched themselves back on without delay. It seemed the server was unable to decide what the people were in the mood for. The footage restarted from the beginning with the same little girl from before cast as the adorable narrator. Then there was the flash of an arm Jake recognised. His prosthetic hand poking out of this overcoat reflected in some random shiny surface. He looked down at his hand in consternation.

Angelica and Shortcut were involved in this, and now it seemed that so was he. Jake needed to get off these precarious streets. Whatever was happening, he and his friends had been caught on cam and someone was showing it all over San Dannon. People were even viewing it on their wristware and eyepieces. Some were rewinding parts and playing them back in thunderstruck disbelief, especially scenes featuring an ancient jacket with his son stood beside him. The son was giving some pompous political speech in a recording of a recording. Jake didn't understand why his mind initially dredged up politics, but then he heard someone close by whispering a name. It was the most famous name in the city.

A drone came to a stop in front of him. It was a customs drone, yet it looked as if it hadn't been cleaned or seen any basic maintenance in a decade. The city didn't allow specimens like this to run free because it was bad for moral. Drones were also easy to replace, so there was no logical reason to let one get into this condition. It was even missing a lens or two which gave it a sad lopsided expression.

"Jake," it queried in its soothing feminine tones. "Jake, can you hear me for fuck's sake?"

"Yeah," he mumbled. "I'm right here."

He raised his wrist towards a working lens in a symbolic effort to register himself.

"Don't be a fool!" the drone admonished. "Take that thing off and throw it away."

"No," Jake said firmly.

He wasn't the sort of body who ordinarily disobeyed drones, but this one was rusted and dented. San Dannon also fined you for losing your wristband by docking your free data and food rations if you had no wages to garnish.

"Just follow the drone," the mysterious voice said peremptorily, managing to convey its annoyance through the cordial, pre-programed lilt intended to make travel less stressful, "and don't draw attention to yourself. We'll talk when you get here."

# 22

He was being carried somewhere. When detaining offenders, auto response were notoriously brutal. They grabbed handfuls of the transgressor at random before lifting them to heights calculated to discourage any further resistance. It was a sight that Gabriel had found amusing while watching Articia's enlightening video appeals, although he was careful only to share his outrage over the issue each time their kindly creator asked for his opinion. It wasn't so funny now that his skull was pinned to his shoulder by a metal claw that enveloped most of his face. It meant he had no idea where he was being transported.

Without much warning, the arms released him after abruptly whirling him the right way up. His legs were somewhat wobbly, but there was a sluggish flaring of orange and the assortment of injuries he carried regenerated to some degree or other. His eye was the worst of them, for it refused to focus or fully open. He fingered it delicately and winced when he thought about the doctors polished nails digging into the soft parts. His back was likewise unfinished as the fresh skin was stretched tight over the wounds where the taser bolts had hit him, and the whole area itched like hell.

"Better," Dom asked.

He was standing behind a set of bars with his hands wrapped around them in an imitation of an old, grizzled convict. It looked ludicrous because the bars petered out a few feet away. The mortar into which they were mounted was flaking away as Dominic shook them enthusiastically. The two of them were in a large dungeon. Not a piece of original architecture that had been meticulously restored as it had in the castle above. This place was wrought from plextene with the warm hum of dense tech behind the walls and a discreet sync band embedded near the floor.

A pattern of moss covered stones had been printed on practical materials that could be easily wiped clean. This contrast of modern interior design combined with a fifteenth century gaol effect had been beautifully achieved, and from a distance it would be difficult to discern the truth. Gabriel wanted to touch the deceptively flat surface but resisted the impulse for the moment. This roomy underground chamber was roughly square and had shallow niches for cells that helped to add texture. They contained simulated bars but authentic beds. The occupants watched him disinterestedly and were just as unshackled in their bondage as Gabriel currently was. There was a rusty wall ring behind him, but it was decoratively embossed onto the two dimensional stonework motif.

"Don't bother running," Dominic said, reading his mind. "You'll be on the floor pissing your skids within five feet."

"What is this Dom?" Gabriel asked reasonably, trying to appear relaxed.

"You're in the pit," Dom informed him with as much compassion as he was capable of. "It's a place where nanites come to die."

He pointed at a large hole in the roof. It was as if Gabriel had been deposited at the bottom of a minimum security oubliette. He had initially assumed that the ceiling was simply in a state of deliberate disrepair to add to the contrived theme. Now he saw a fighting arena decked out beneath the breach that nobody present seemed to want to intrude upon though there was little enough room to spare. Through the broad opening, Gabriel had an unobscured surreal view of the many trimmings the clientele enjoyed here at Spasberg.

It was stuff he and his friends back home had never seen in real life. Once in a while a friend's parents might have a decanter of aged spirits hidden away somewhere that might not miss a nip or two, but who spent data on fine furniture and glittering chandeliers when A-listers were perishing from hunger and disease. Granted, gold and diamonds hadn't been worth quite so much since Irkutsk deciphered space fold technology, but it was still an extravagant and inexcusable misuse of San Dannon's resources. Anybody who visited this castle was a hypocrite and a criminal by any definition one might care to use.

"This is an observation area," Dominic explained. "But we need every inch of space we can get, and we can't put the pretty people down here, can we? So you all have to scooch up and share."

"I'm pretty. I'll sleep upstairs," Gabriel quipped, giving Dom a pleasant smile.

Dominic reciprocated happy to pretend that everything was fine between them. "You wouldn't want that. There's only two occupations in Spasberg, and I don't think you want to get passed around by half the board."

His friend raised an eyebrow in the classic 'or do you' air.

Gabriel tried his best to grin. "And what's the other job, no pun intended."

"Shunt boxing." Dominic shrugged. "The nanites in your blood are valuable, and it was this or the mincer."

This bulletin gave Gabriel an electric thrill he could feel in his fingertips. Shunt boxers underwent a lot of physical pain, but right now he was currently breathing and in relatively good health, so his situation didn't yet seem all that bleak. Deep down, he had never really given up hoping that someone would drop by in order to collect him and take him home. Ever since the unforgettable day he had been forced into the rabbit lands by an android berserker and her big sister, a part of him had been playing along with his change of circumstances because that part was certain Gabriel Danna was too important a person to be misplaced.

Hope had made the trials he had undergone more tolerable, but Gabriel had always been trapped with no control over events. He had always longed for his spacious unit crammed with amenities, the dome above his head letting in the cool natural light and his afternoons spent laughing with Articia at Alfred's antics. Dominic used to enjoy their company too until he was transformed into a self-motivated highflier. The three of them had thought it was all part of growing up. In reality, the fourth member of their quartet had been furtively upgraded because he was never technically Dominic Knock.

Gabriel didn't know who or what he was now. He believed his father had spoken the truth, and according to him, Gabriel was never anybody. He was nothing but a replica of a real man. Why shouldn't he be down here? Where else should he be? Nobody was coming to take him home. He recalled all the pain he had endured at the hands of the doctor. Fighting couldn't be worse than that. Not if he could swing his fists and let the adrenaline flow. One of Gabriel's fellow inmates was approaching, but he faltered as Dominic breezed past him as if he were a feather in the wind. It seemed Dom really did plan to leave him here.

"Good luck, Gabe," Dom said, without looking back. "I'll leave you in the hands of your bunkmate."

Gabriel leapt at him impulsively, but the stranger anticipated the attempt and restrained Gabriel without any hostility or unnecessary aggression. He tried to throw him off, but even though Gabriel could distinguish every knobbly bone in the scrawny guy's body, his grip remained insistent and unshakable. The guy also stank worse than an A-lister making the experience that much more insufferable.

"Don't do it, Gabe," he hissed, still pitting his slender weight against Gabriel's. "They'll just cook you if you try anything. Give you a dose of pain down the spine."

It was Dominic. The Dom he had last seen when Gabriel had still been a teenager. Even with a collection of new lines and an uneven beard divided by scars, it was undoubtedly the genuine article. This version of Dom was in his mid-thirties or above, but in some ways he resembled the Dominic that Gabriel had grown up with to a greater extent than the changeling that had usurped his life two years ago. He wore the uneasy smile Dom had used so often in situations when he hadn't known what to say or do, which was every situation.

Gabriel hadn't even noticed that it had gone missing until now. Two years ago, he had just been glad his friend had found some confidence at last. Now Dom had been acting like a stranger for so long, Gabriel had distanced himself from their friendship the same way Articia and Alfred were distancing themselves publically. He understood that now, and that was why he gave the old Dominic a hug much to the man's surprise.

"It's really you," Gabriel confirmed, taking in his wrinkled brow and rotting wardrobe. "How long have you been down here?"

"I don't know." Dominic shrugged wringing his hands. That was another thing uber-Dom didn't do anymore. "It's hard to keep track of time here, and I never thought anyone would ever ask."

He sniggered tersely. It was that whispering, malicious laugh of his that he didn't like others to overhear. Mumbling was old Dominic's alternative to giving offence because his sense of humour was consistently hit and miss.

"They made you a shunt boxer," Gabriel snorted. Dominic was as solid as a half brick these days, but two years ago he had been stringy at best, and this original Dom hadn't gotten any bigger. He had only gotten uglier.

"They did," Dom said, wincing. "But when he took over they sort of retired me. Just in time."

Gabriel didn't have to ask who Dominic was talking about. It was the other one. The man in charge was the fully synced Dominic who enjoyed bragging about his work at Spasberg after a few drinks in the Ad Layer. He hadn't mentioned that he was keeping a copy of himself in an imitation dungeon like a pet, which was a psychological nightmare that bolstered Gabriel's resolve to escape at the first opportunity.

"How are they getting away with all this?" Gabriel asked quietly.

"They've got their own server somewhere with its own power supply," Dominic listed disconsolately. "They've also got a tiny chrono-vector upstairs beneath a fountain of Eros and Thanatos. A Mech Layer with a private station and state-of-the-art drones.

"I used to hope Irkutsk would come to shut them down one day and let everyone go," Dominic continued. "But during a fight I saw Petrov up there cheering with everyone else. I heard it all started when the Chairman tried to bring his suicidal wife back..." He rolled to a stop, appalled at his slip up.

"Sorry," he said awkwardly.

There was an uncomfortable pause during which Dominic wouldn't look him in the eye. Did this Dom know that his former friends were walking corpses? Except they weren't really, were they. Their real selves were stuck in A Layer with no clue where they had come from. He thought about the inspector with only one arm. The man who was the legitimate Gabriel Danna was leading the miserable existence on the bottom shelf of society that made living in C layer so sweet. They didn't resemble each other much, but he had been handsome enough for an A-lister. Was he the true repository of Gabriel's 'soul'?

There had been a resurgence of fundamentalist religions since the creation of the Alliance and its city-state sanctuaries. They were the sort of dubious, unsophisticated orgs that made even partisans of freedom like Articia roll their eyes apathetically when San Dannon disbanded them for allegedly harmless infractions. One in every ten, however, had the kind of allure that is always going to reel in a few big fish, so nowadays there was a small but steadfast fraction of C Layer's residents that were devout something or others. They could be distinguished by their knowing looks and proclivity for spreading good news in the Ad Layer on their days off, although most drew the line at body paint and face tattoos like their beloved founders below.

Contemporary ideas have a habit of doggedly bleeding through to the narrowest of minds, especially if those ideas were of the controversial variety. Occasionally, they made it as far as Gabriel's jaded antennae, so in spite of being strictly in the none-of-the-above box regarding spiritual matters, his inexorable exposure to their mangled dogma had forced him to reflect on his immortal soul now and then. A lot of the literature suggested he spend his allotted time on this mortal coil deliberating over which address he would like his data forwarded to when Judgment Day struck for the last time. Now he had a definitive answer, didn't he? Unless they divided by mitosis, the nucleus of his own destiny resided within the sullen form of Jake Fakename of A Layer.

Well that couldn't be true. He had felt things around Grinder, hadn't he. He had felt real out in the rabbit lands. How often had his friends and acquaintances managed to break the malaise of their own oft lamented routines like that? The answer was never. Their small achievements meant nothing compared to what Gabriel had accomplished over the last few weeks. In a bizarre coincidence, the closest forerunners were probably his three closest friends who had always lived life as hard as they could and were generous enough to drag Gabriel along for the ride. Yet they were all copies too. All four of them were spooky reproductions of accident victims who had opened the floodgates to a new type of sex slavery.

"So when did the Alliance go from resurrecting VIPs to making human playthings?" Gabriel asked the hapless old Dominic with a mirthless laugh. "I'm guessing it didn't happen overnight."

"I don't know," Dom confessed. "Time moves fast here. When I got here, it had been like this for as long as anyone can remember."

Gabriel gave the dozen or so other prisoners languishing in the pit a circumspect assessment. They were a fairly battered group but none so much as Dom.

"What about upstairs?"

"They don't know anything," Dominic sneered, his eyes straying towards the observation window above the arena and the reprehensible opulence on the other side. "They're like drones. You know, with programmed personalities. All happy and agreeable. They don't even know where they are."

They were real people that had been rewired. Each one was a template saved to a database so it could be made to order and uploaded into a lump of commoditised flesh. And that flesh was melted down when it got old, boring or glitchy. Now his father had traded in his own son for the latest model. Maybe the rest of the board would follow suit and swap out their own successors for copies that were intelligent, long-lived and obedient. They could even be speedily replaced if the worst should happen.

That was how it all began after all. Seven kids dying in the rabbit lands would be an incident too big to conceal from the top brass, so everybody that mattered already knew and nobody cared anymore. The only exceptions seemed to be the Lady Evelyn and poor Chief Knock, and they had both paid the price for their betrayal. Gabriel wondered if he should tell the original what his brainwashed doppelganger had done.

"How is she controlling their minds?" he asked, picturing a harem replete with stolen personalities that complaisantly agreed to every demand made of them.

"Who?"

Gabriel looked at him sharply, but there was nothing but honest puzzlement there.

"Nobody," Gabriel muttered. "Is there anybody else here that might be able to help?"

"Escape?" Dominic enquired.

Gabriel scowled at his indiscretion.

"Forget about it," Dom said bluntly. "There's no way. They've got science on their side. Wherever the Chairman wants you to be, that's where you're staying."

Gabriel considered his father's psycho clone up in his office. The man was an emperor lounging around a fairy tale castle dislocated from the world by grief. He lived in a place where fantasies were made in a lab and morals had become out-dated, and he was looking inward at a future populated with superior humans that came fully synced and backed up. Was he fashioning an acquiescent generation born obsessed with power and success?

Dominic had certainly been ever since his transplant had left him focused but withdrawn, yet there had been something missing in his friend's new head, and this missing piece was a barrier that had been replaced by a muzzle. Gabriel wondered when his father had lost control of his own clone. His younger double had insinuated that the process had been voluntary as if the Chairman had intentionally delved too deep into his twin and left his body behind to become senile. It must have been like a snare for him to share the body of a surrogate so full of vitality but with an obliquely flawed mind. Eventually the Chairman might find himself tangled with a consciousness that incrementally eased the reins from him, but it would be an entity possessing no spark of the divine or whatever substance it was that the new Dominic lacked.

The technology had been made illegal for a reason, after all. When the old world order had ceased weaponizing Monika's breakthroughs and began experimentation in areas such as nanoscale surgery, tissue regeneration and gene manipulation instead, the hopelessly advanced tech proved untenable due to infrequent but unacceptable deformities both mental and physical on a monstrous scale. The remaining nations of planet Earth had exhaled a sigh of relief. If there was a potential cure for mortality out there, it would be better if it continued to be a potentiality until it was a lot cheaper.

Then the new sync bands had appeared in San Dannon. They were installed in the hospitals and schools at the outset, but then they crept into government units and the estates of the mighty. Now the good folk of C Layer no longer blushed when they referred to the 'vaccine', and kids like Articia ranted about sync tech on their uploads demanding that its usage be earmarked for those people at death's door, whether they were disadvantaged or not, and damn the expense.

Gabriel had recently been given occasion to study a people who lost more loved ones prematurely during their lifetime than any demographic San Dannon could proffer. There had been a death in Grinder's village not long after he had settled in. It was a nice old man who slipped away as politely as possible after a prolonged illness. Gabriel had never gotten to know him because the guy spent every waking hour tinkering in a cave beneath the refinery when he wasn't busy dying. The man had draped the rough walls down there with bundles of dwarf lights that had obviously been illegally obtained in San Dannon.

He had created the most beautiful mechanisms out of old bicycle parts and other worthless knick knacks, and these apparatuses had improved folk's lives long before Grinder found Annie and had inevitably become the village's technological witch doctor. She was the old man's protégé, so she retreated into herself for a time after he had gone and avoided Gabriel as much as possible. What was Grinder thinking about during her convalescence? What it would mean if syncing were used as a treatment for all instead of as a precautionary measure for some.

There would be bankruptcy, overpopulation and anarchy without a doubt. They could look forward to a repeat of Petrov's 'Speech at the Gates' when the rabbit-landers attempted to flood the cities of the Alliance. This time they would be seeking miracle cures for a cornucopia of distressing ailments and justifying any action necessary to acquire them with the words 'me too' on their lips.

The problem was, the men and women who built the Alliance had envisioned an ideal standard of living from the start. It was an ideal they had been striving to turn into a reality since Alexander Petrov's unilateral setback. His unexpected bout of generosity and subsequent political agenda, which was a move that had hit the city of San Dannon the hardest, was responsible for thirty slow years of catching up rather than progression.

The current lifestyle and conveniences they had clawed back for themselves at long last would be gone in a puff of tainted air when the drones tore the Mech Layer apart once more so that everyone everywhere could live forever. It would mean going back to square one with the rampant crime and starvation. There would be no stick, no air flush and no booze or chems. It was easier to wait and see if the rabbit landers died out first, and it was far more convenient to go on sterilising A Layer. Their procrastination had been the first stepping stone down a wicked path, and it was a decision that Gabriel was now going to pay the price for.

*****

Gabriel ached all over, but the pain had been fading for some time. He was barely aware, and his memories were a slurry. What happened last night? That was his first cogent thought. Then fear at his surroundings proceeded by feeling safe because he was in a familiar room. After that, his processes followed a predictable pattern, yet they did so with exceptional swiftness considering the early hour.

"Gunter?"

"I'm right here," Gunter responded uncomfortably close and loud. "Is everything okay, sir?"

Gabriel jumped out of bed and switched on his mirror. Everything seemed fine except for his memory and headache. There was also a throbbing in each of his joints and across every inch of skin, too.

"I feel great," he said, awed by his refreshing new perception and insight.

Something amazing had happened to him. He felt smarter, fitter and more confident. He was in love with Articia, and now he knew what to do about it. He had wasted so much energy being morose over her. Why had he been so ashamed of it for so long? He used his wristware to call his father but changed his mind and opted for the larger wall screen in the main room. Calling his father was something he had never done before, but this wasn't an ordinary day. There was no more anger or fear in his way. Charles Danna was a businessman, and Gabriel was an important ally who ought to stay in touch.

Gunter had laid out several sets of clothes for him to try on, but Gabriel helped himself to something less gaudy instead. He flung the most recent additions to his wardrobe on the floor and commanding Gunter to dispose of them while he made his selection. This was a conversation Gabriel wanted his father to take seriously, and that was something he couldn't achieve if he was dressed like a clown. Gunter hovered nervously behind him as Gabriel inspected the results. He winked at the drone in the mirror.

"What do you think?"

"You are different," Gunter responded, without elaboration.

"Good," Gabriel said. "Go call Charles Danna for me."

The Chairman appeared without ceremony and filled most of the wall as if the cam he was using were inches away. His visage was so youthful he could have been Gabriel's older, uglier brother. He seemed inordinately fascinated by his smartly dressed son, and this level of keen interest was much more than the small change in attire could account for.

"Well?"

"I'm different," Gabriel said after he thought it over. "You've changed me somehow."

"For the better?"

Gabriel smiled bitterly. "Better in every way that matters." He felt the promise of his new muscles and the efficiency of his mind. "I can hear someone else's thoughts."

He tried to chase memories that had no logical reason to be where they were. It was an irritating flash here and there. Some random stimulus would cause a perfect but momentary rendering of being hurt by a violent incident, touching a source of joy or the sound of something terrifying. He purposefully bent his mind towards memories of Articia only to find visions of other women waiting for him there accompanied by a pretty laugh, an appealing scent or even a physical sensation. It was a strange feeling being a lovesick virgin in one instance then transforming into a half-rate Lothario disillusioned about the whole business in the blink of an eye. Gabriel would have liked the chance to get his heart broken in the flesh.

"We swapped some things around and deleted others. Removed may be a better term," the Chairman corrected himself. "but we also added some things. I thought you deserved a little bit of your original self in honour of your mother, so we gave you back your childhood from before the accident then merged the two boy's together best we could.

"It was difficult. Even though the two of you are exact biological duplicates, you weren't exactly compatible," he complained jubilantly. "Lucky for us, we have a doctor who does ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzles for fun on her days off. You're definitely one of a kind."

"I still feel like Gabriel," Gabriel stated.

"You're about ninety per cent Gabriel," his father said, squinting one eye and exposing his white, even teeth as he made his estimation. "For example, she removed the memory of Gabriel being punched in the nose by the Walker boy over a misunderstanding. Then the part where he cried about it at an Ant-farm while some entomophile wiped his nose.

"She replaced it with another memory from around that age which Jake earned for himself," he said proudly. "One where our young hero is fighting off two other urchins for a ration block. There was a drone in the background imploring them to stop. It's quite moving when you defeat them both and escape. You still think about it often."

As his father spoke, the blanks filled themselves in smoothly to form a recollection that was whole and coherent. They had been up in the Ad Layer for the day without consent, but it was a gloomy area Gabriel hadn't visited since. Some soft jacket had handed a whole block to him with a smile and clapped him on the shoulder before Jake could flinch away. Then the boys had been fighting, and it had frightened the blameless Good Samaritan who ran off in a flapping of coats.

Jake broke one kid's fingers and outdistanced the other with the ration block squashed tight in his fist. The flight had been exhilarating as he dodged angry and suspicious jankies, jumped gaps that made onlookers gasp in alarm and drooled over the thought of having the block all to himself. Greed had given him wings, and he had desperately needed the food. Times were hard all over San Dannon back then.

The boys had been his friends, and they had pounced instinctively when they realised what he had been given, so there was no ill will afterwards once Gabriel had consumed his prize and the trio had cooled off. He had even saved a portion for the two of them, although it was a morsel only one boy got to eat after the second inevitable altercation that ensued. It was satisfying to recollect because he had performed admirably and was rewarded for it. He had been brave and strong, and it fortified him to think about his win that day, but he couldn't help dwelling on his misadventure with the Walker boy.

The confrontation with his C Layer nemesis had been exorcised entirely from Gabriel's memory in exchange for Jake's joyful and therapeutic victory. Now he was no longer able to put a face to Walker's name, but he recognised the shape of his influence on Gabriel's life in a way that was hard to define. There were junctures during his adolescence when both the name and face had been relevant to the way Gabriel had conducted himself.

The Walker family had been downgraded to the Ad Layer as punishment for their son's transgression, and Gabriel had been cheated out of something that he had always desired to see through to the end. After he had gained his full height and width years later, Gabriel had harboured a vague hope to look his assailant in the eye and then graciously shake him by the hand or some similar gesture. Now that he had evolved, the Gabriel he had become recognised the urge as pathetic and ignoble, but he would have preferred to retain the original experience. What was the point of taking a beating if someone came along and erased it after the damage was done?

"Anything else missing?" Gabriel said.

"Don't be like that," the young Chairman instructed him, his features rigid. "We aren't taking anything from you. This is a gift. You're still my son. Just a better mix of him."

"A mix of mostly Gabriel," Gabriel pointed out.

He was trying to distinguish between the particles of his past that weren't exactly flush with their succeeding or preceding connections, but it was impossible to do so without some sort of a reference point. He very much wanted to speak to this doctor his father mentioned.

"Well, your brother's arm caused a lot of problems," his father noted, waving a hand. "His memories were infected by it. They were not altogether insoluble thanks to the prosthesis, but you've both diverged so much since then that his early years were all you could safely assimilate."

"So why choose Gabriel?"

His father's enlarged visage registered only confusion, but he reverted to amusement after catching on.

"Does it matter," he sighed wearily. "Feel your increased confidence, fearlessness, intelligence, cunning. You can do anything you want to do when you have gifts like these, no matter who you think you used to be.

"We can always do it the other way round," his father lied. "You can be nine-tenths of an alcoholic detective from A Layer. You wouldn't have the background necessary to hold a seat on the board, but you could continue to pursue a career down there investigating decomposing corpses in the Mech Layer."

Oddly enough, this notion was enticing for Gabriel, yet he didn't let it show in front of the old man. With his new abilities in tow, A Layer was now more of an exciting challenge or opportunity as opposed to a place he should be intimidated by or hold in contempt, but he also felt the same way about this moment right now, including this room, this conversation and his place in this great city. Gabriel waited patiently and allowed the silence to stretch until his father gave in.

"I take it you would prefer to remain where you are," the Chairman said. "Serving your family and working alongside your friends for the betterment of San Dannon and her people."

His father tried to keep a straight face, but he was enjoying himself and Gabriel could sense it.

"You mean Articia?" Gabriel asked insouciantly.

He mustn't overlook the fact that the man on the screen was likely to have all the same intellectual enhancements Gabriel had been outfitted with. He was dealing with an equal, but that equal had read the manual. The Chairman waited forcing Gabriel to break the silence this time.

"I would be happy to accept the position," he announced wryly.

"There's just one test first." His father dropped the act, and the facade was suddenly a mirror of Gabriel's own. It was a persona that was fixed and impenetrable. "Call the robot in."

Gabriel did as he was told and reconciled himself with Chairman's impending request so that he could give a measured performance. It was a tacky and offensive bit of manipulation for his father to indulge in, but Gabriel also couldn't refute the sentimental attachment he had for Gunter, so the joke was on him. Resigned annoyance was the appropriate reaction as it was to so many other things in life, so that is what he radiated during the delay. Gunter had been slowing down over the last few years, but it only added to his gravitas.

The drone discreetly left the area whenever Gabriel required privacy. Now he obediently meandered back into the room, but his body language informed them that Gunter already knew what was coming. The stress was causing malfunctions, and his factory settings were taking over which made the mods Gabriel had wasted his data on cease functioning, so it was a twofold tragedy. Gunter whined to a halt, and his furious processing caused a waft of hot circuitry to stain the atmosphere. These household units were built with reasonably priced air filters to make them safer to be around, but this smell was some deteriorated mechanism inside the drone being ruthlessly misused. It was a burning chemicals aroma.

"Pull off your own head," Gabriel suggested brusquely, the tone and comedic timing solely for his father's benefit.

The drone complied, yet his arms whirred noisily as he tried to find a reason to defer the order. He was undergoing the computer equivalent of his life flashing before his eyes. At the last, Gunter gave in and wished him goodbye. The words distended abominably when his head finally came loose and lost power. It tumbled from his claws and clattered on the floor Gunter had unfailingly kept so clean. The torso landed with a soft thud as the engine switched to emergency mode and gently grounded itself.

Gabriel found maintaining control of his demeanour was much easier than reigning in his internal emotions, but both of these elements were superseded by a weightier concern overruling every action from a mental plateau Gabriel couldn't comprehend. It was akin to common sense but with condensed potency that formed a compulsion he could not defy. It was an clear, simple and incontestable directive. He would not disobey his father. He would make him proud for once.

"Good," the Chairman said sadly, laying a hand on his son's shoulder. "Now we can get to work."

