10 New London I

I noticed the start of a news program through the reflections on the techshop's glass front, and walked inside. Once inside I flicked the volume up slightly from its silent setting, hoping that the hovering salesman wouldn't bother me. The channel logo spun briefly across the black screen, then cleared to reveal the presenter.

"Good Morning, and here is the news at eleven. There have been further developments concerning the bombing at the Centre. A spokesman for the Department of Internal Security - who are now handling the inquiry - has stated that the progress of the investigation is satisfactory, and that they are optimistic as to its success." The news reader paused blankly for a second. "I've just been told that we have a statement from the Minister for Internal Security, John Hanrahan."

The scene switched to what appeared to be a slickly prepared press conference, with a smartly robed minister sitting behind an elegant and professional IntSec display. He leaned forward to the needle microphone and began to speak in deep, well-modulated tones. "The people of the Bretenek Republic have nothing to fear from these terrorists. IntSec - and I speak now for every one of its operatives - has vowed that no stone will be left unturned in the hunt for the scum who carried out this act. They will be caught. They will be punished."

He raised a hand to select a questioner as the assembled newsmen began shouting queries. I edged the volume back down to silence and left the shop.

Only days before, this city had been my home. Now it had become an alien place, a hostile environment that might hide a threat behind every corner. Once, I'd known who my enemies were - if I'd even had any. Now they could be anyone, and everyone. I was alone. My apartment in the New Dome, the BioMagic offices, the sports club - all were places of danger. Everything that I looked at now, I had previously looked at many times - only now I saw everything in a way I never had before. But the time to reconcile what I had seen, and learnt, would come later. For now, I had just one subject to think about - how to get The Rook out of Kerensky's. It was, after all, yet another place where my face would not be welcome.

I slipped anonymously into the food market, grabbed some provisions, gave the coder girl at the cash-till the required sum of money, and returned furtively to my hidey-hole. Then, whilst munching on the reassuringly familiar texture of a Nut-o-tastic bar (slogan: "They're nutty, they're fantastic, they're... nut-o-tastic!") I began the task of constructing a plan.

Some hours - and a dozen bars - later, I sat back and gloomily observed the small pile of discarded wrappers that lay beside me. So far, all I had come up with was Plan A, which consisted of: Enter through the front door, shoot the living crap out of the place, grab someone, and demand to know where the Rook was.

Plan Suicide, more like.

I mentally ticked off a list of the assets available to me. I had this place - one of a thousand resting places off the maze of maintenance tunnels under the city. I still possessed the Knight's assault rifle that I'd acquired in Glastonbury, and had managed to smuggle from the air-car to my hidey-hole. I had the element of surprise, since they wouldn't know that I knew they had the Rook; and if they did know, then they'd probably assume no-one would be stupid enough to return to them. Of course, that was supposing that I could trust the old knight. I was beginning to wonder if the Rook wasn't the only one with a short destiny. I would need more, something else - an edge.

The biggest hole in any plan I could construct was my lack of knowledge concerning the interior of Kerensky's. All I knew was what I had seen in my one previous visit - the main bar, with its balcony, the wide entrance, the two doors leading to the toilets, and a set of double doors behind the bar, presumably leading to storerooms and offices. The question was: how could I get that information? Technically, plans of the city and of the areas within it, were all in the public domain. To view them, a citizen could simply go to the planning department in the council offices at New City Hall, and ask to view the plans of any particular area. However, no powerful organisation - whether agency or government department - liked the idea of an unknown person being able to study the layout of their units. Many of them therefore kept up contacts in the planning department, who would warn them if anyone asked to view plans of either their units, or the immediate areas. BioMagic certainly did, and so I had to expect that Kerensky's might also. Even hacking into the city's database to anonymously download the plans was risky. The odds were that any attempt would be detected, and then at the very least they would know someone was interested in their layout. So the City Hall was out.

Kerensky's was situated in the Old Dome, in an area where many of the buildings pre-dated its construction; structures built during a time when New London was just a collection of sturdy, near-windowless concrete bunkers, connected by covered walkways. When the dome was hurriedly thrown up in the early seventies, a light covering of topsoil had been scattered over the buildings as an additional protection against UV, leaving them buried just beneath the surface. Over time, newer complexes had been tunnelled, gradually covering the whole area beneath the dome to a depth of many levels; but the old network of buildings remained in small isolated pockets throughout the seedier areas of the dome. Kerensky's was in one of those areas, and so there was a good chance that the basic layout of the unit had not changed since the late sixties, perhaps not since the city was founded in 2064. The question, was where could I find the original plans of the city. Sapphire.

Sapphire: 11:22:45>Activated.

Where are old, out of date, plans and documents applying to New London kept.

Sapphire: 11:22:56>They are kept in the Public Records Department of the New London Museum, which is situated off Central Waye in New Dome.

Clear.

From what I knew, there was a good chance that the various security agents of the various organisations within the city had overlooked the museum and its public records department. I stuffed down a last chocolate coated chunk of Nut-o-tastic, and set off.

The museum was of relatively recent construction, but had still managed to settled into that ageless state that seemed to permeate all such buildings. The Public Records Department was situated in the block's lowest level, below the displays on the history of the Republic, the destruction of the Chaos, and the decadence of pre-Chaos society.

I sat down behind one of the public-access terminals and dived into the menuing information system, ignoring the bespectacled assistant, who was hovering hopefully nearby. The system, while being slightly restrictive because of its limited interface, was quick and simple to use, and within a couple of minutes I was viewing the various pre-dome plans of New London. They ranged from the original plan of 2065, when the settlement was no more that a cluster of concrete buildings on the north bank of the Thames, to the final pre-dome plan of 2070, when the city already had almost thirty-thousand inhabitants. As I had suspected, all of the later plans were held at the planning department in New City Hall. But that did not matter, for when I zoomed in on what was now the Scatters area of the Old Dome, I could clearly make out the building that over thirty years later would become Kerensky's. Then, as now, it had been a bar, although in those days its clientele had been the hardy citizen pioneers of the early Republic, rather than its present complement of those who rode on the fringes of society.

I continued to ignore the assistant, flashing her a comforting smile while she found some data to catalogue, and dumped the relevant portion of the map to the printer over in the corner. It would have been more efficient to copy the contents to a data-chip, or transfer it straight to Sapphire, but all electronic file transfers were monitored, and I didn't want any records made.

Upon returning to the cramped hidey-hole, I spread the plan of the old city out on the dusty floor, laying it alongside a simple street/corridor plan that I'd purchased from a news-agents earlier in the day, and attempting to built a composite plan in my mind.

In the Scatters area, the match between the old covered walkways and the present day corridors was almost exact - except for one detail. At some time since the construction of the dome, a wide maintenance and access corridor had been driven through the heart of the old town, constructed just below the level of the pedestrian corridors so that there was no direct connection between it and the maze of small, charming alleys that formed the Scatters. This route, poetically termed Access 1A, arced just behind Kerensky's and around the curve of the dome. As with all access routes, it was off-limits to members of the public - although to anyone with any knowledge of the maintenance network, gaining entrance was no problem. It was almost certain that when the corridor was constructed, Kerensky's had been modified to have a rear freight entrance opening onto the route. And although there was certain to be some kind of security system, or perhaps a guard, getting through there was likely to be a far easier task than going in through the public entrance.

The rear entrance then. Thing is though - what will find when I get inside?

I turned to the far more detailed, pre-dome plan. In the part of Kerensky's that I'd seen, very little appeared to have changed. The plan showed a single square-shaped bar, with a balcony around the west, north and east walls, and the bar itself on the south wall. Built against the west wall were the toilets, with the main entrance opposite them, in the east wall.

Behind the bar - to the south of the main block - was a lower building, connected directly to the bar itself. If I was reading the plan correctly, it was of two storey construction. The doorway from the bar opened onto the lower floor, a corridor running from it along the building and opening up into a large, high room that occupied the entire end half of the building, its height meaning that there was no upper floor in this half. The rest of the lower floor consisted of two small rooms, one either side of the passageway, and a small staircase tucked in behind the bar. The upper floor, which only extended for the first half of the building, was apparently designed as personal accommodation. The narrow staircase, turned around upon itself, and then emerged onto a small landing containing four doorways, which lead to a small kitchen, a bathroom, and two other rooms. Sapphire.

Sapphire: 13:34:31>Activated.

I am looking at a plan that is placed upon the floor. Can you isolate the area that is outlined by my fingers.

Sapphire: 13:34:42>Yes. Do you wish me to save the image?

Yes. Save it as kerensky_map.

Sapphire: 13:34:47>Saved.

Clear.

I could only guess at what the rooms were used for now, or even if the layout was still the same. Assuming it was, it was probable that the new rear entrance had been constructed in much the same area as the old one had. The large room was probably used as a storeroom, with the other two rooms on the ground floor directly connected to the running of the bar. The upper floor rooms could well be used by Kerensky himself, assuming he needed such mortal comforts as sleep or rest.

Think! Where will they keep the Rook?

If the Rook was at Kerensky's, they would want him kept out of the way - so it was highly likely that I would find him in one of the upper floor rooms, presumably either the living room or the bedroom. Like the bar's balcony area, the rooms on the upper floor might still have slit windows opening onto the surface beneath the dome. I considered briefly the possibility of scouting out the surface area, but decided against it - the risk of being spotted was too great.

So the plan, such as it was, was formed. Wait until the evening was well underway so that noise from the bar would mask my activities. Penetrate the complex via the rear entrance, move through the storeroom to the main passageway, go up the stairs to the upper level and check out the two main rooms. Then, if I'd located the Rook, capture him and leave, either via the stairs, or through the slit windows. There were still a worrying number of unknown variables, such as what the security would be in the rear entrance, exactly where the Rook was staying, what security he had, and how many people would be in the rear area itself. But I had no choice; and as always, there was no going back.

I would simply have to rely on surprise, speed and violence.

Access 1A was a wide, featureless tunnel of rectangular section, which continued on before me in a perfect arc. The only breaks to the uniform monotony of the bare concrete walls were the recessed doorways of the units the route served. Other than those shallow alcoves there was no cover at all. Periodically, a large electric flat-pad would rumble past, its electric motor humming gently.

I strolled casually along the marked pedestrian area, mentally ticking off each doorway I passed, all the time trying to look like the maintenance worker my stolen overalls indicated me to be. A thick plastic work-bag - obtained in the same manner - dangled from my left hand. Inside, under a scattering of cleaning pads, was the assault rifle and some spare magazines.

I paused briefly in the next alcove to re-check my location, and nearly jumped out of my skin when a man standing in the shadows spoke.

"Evening citizen!"

What the..?

"Good evening to you, citizen," I managed to stutter when my stomach righted itself. I hastily glanced at him. He was in his early middle age, with thinning hair, and was dressed in standard manager's robes. He smiled amiably, and took out a small plastic cylinder from his pocket.

"Just came out for a quick snort," he informed me, holding the object up to the light. "And you..?"

I lifted the bag. "Bit of urgent maintenance work - you know how it is."

"Oh yeah," he muttered as he lifted the cylinder to his nose and snapped the end cap down, breaking the seal between the two chemicals within and allowing them to mix, giving off the aromatic, narcotic fumes that resulted from their combining. "I would offer you some citizen, but perhaps I'd better not - as you're working."

I nodded in agreement. Just a harmless vapour-head.

"After all," he laughed darkly, "wouldn't want to have the showers short-circuit, or the bogs explode!"

"Peace by with you," I bade him, and continued down the long corridor. His gurgled reply followed me.

"And with you!"

Kerensky's back entrance was an innocuous alcove, completely plugged with a garage-style, rolling up-and-over door, a discrete communications-panel set beside it. A small glint of light above the doorway caught my attention.

Concealed camera, I realised.

I lingered out of its viewing arc while I evaluated the situation. The presence of the camera indicated that it would probably be impossible to crack the security system and sneak in undetected. There was no alternative but to bluff my way in.

I took a deep breath, advanced to the doorway and thumbed the touch-button on the communications panel, making sure to resist the temptation to look up at the camera. Sapphire.

Sapphire: 21:52:16>Activated.

Activate targeting system.

Sapphire: 21:52:19>Targeting system activated. Clearing text.

"What?" queried a bored voice after a wait of several seconds.

"Delivery!" I shouted cheerfully at the microphone grating.

"There's nothing on the schedule?"

"Well that's because..." Why? Why isn't it on the fucking schedule? Because... "it's unscheduled!"

There was a pause. Shit! They're not going to buy that!

"You'd better come in," muttered the voice finally. An electric motor hummed and the door slid upward, the segmented metal rolling into the building at the top of the doorway. Inside, a well-lit storeroom was gradually revealed, its true dimensions masked by the banks of shelving that filled its volume. I waited until the bottom edge of the door had reached shoulder height and then ducked inside.

"Come slowly forward," ordered an unseen person with a different voice. I shuffled carefully along the narrow aisle that led between the two blocks of shelving. "Stop!" the voice ordered when I reached the end of the room. "Put the bag down. Don't make any other movements." I obeyed. In front of me was a doorway that had not appeared on the plans. According to those plans, the main corridor lay beyond it.

To my right, out of the corner of an eye, I could just make out the man who'd shouted the orders conversing with another person.

The bloke on the com panel, I realised. I listened further, but couldn't hear any other voices. After a few moments they stopped whispering, the slumping sound that followed possibly indicating that one of them had sat down. As he did so, there was the sound of metal striking on metal. A gun? Probably. The unwelcome thought occurred to me that either of the pair could have been working here on the night I last visited.

"You said you had a delivery?" The voice was harsh and smiling.

"Sort of," I replied, playing for time while I attempted to gauge his position.

"Sort of?"

"It's difficult to explain."

"Try me."

"Can I move?" I asked hopefully.

"No. Explain."

"Look, the thing is..." I explained jovially, ignoring his warning and turning casually round, waving my arm through the air, clenching my fist and sending three rounds towards him. The first round whined past his arm and smashed through the side of a thin plastic box, ricocheting through the dozen bottles inside in a deafening chorus of shattering glass. The second round punched through his thick gray robes and carved a bloody scrape across his biceps. The third tore through his right eye and into his skull, leaving behind it an open socket swimming with blood and mashed flesh. His body was still crumpling silently to the floor when his companion jabbed his hand onto a large red alarm button, slid forward out of his chair, and grabbed frantically for the sub-machine gun that hung from his neck.

And then all hell broke loose.

A shrill, piercing alarm began to sound loudly throughout the building, accompanied almost immediately by the dull, thud of heavy automatic weapons fire from the direction of the main bar.

What the hell?

I fired another snap three-round burst, one round tearing the weapon from his right hand, its strap sending it spinning around his neck, the remaining two rounds ripping through his palm and wrist, leaving his hand a limp, useless, bloody protrusion. A final aimed shot smashed into his forehead, a scream dying in his throat as he fell forward to the ground. I took a quick glance at his sub-machine gun, which had spun across the floor and was lying beneath a shelving unit, and realised that it was identical to the ones the Rook and I had used at the Centre.

I quickly ripped the work-bag open and pulled out the rifle, and the spare magazines, cradling the weapon in my arms and stuffing the magazines into my robe's front pocket. The automatic fire from the bar area, stopped for a moment then resumed.

What the fuck's going on out there? I agonised, whilst taking a final look around the room, noticing that in front of the now empty seat was a small security console, the cover that usually concealed it slid up. I hefted the assault rifle and fired a long, snaking burst along the console's length, producing a violent shower of sparks and metallic shreds. Then I spun round and stepped forward to the blank, steel door that barred further progress from the storeroom, examining it as I did so.

Shit. The thing wouldn't have looked out of place in a bank vault. I searched for a few seconds more, until I spotted the subtly designed handprint panel set beside the door at around shoulder level. Will the panel still work? Or did the bolts throw when the alarm tripped? I retreated quickly to the shattered bodies, grabbed the second of the men I'd shot, and dragged him towards the door, stopping when I realised that he no longer had a right hand. I let the corpse drop to the floor, the elbow shattering loudly on the concrete floor, stepped along his back and reached for the other body. This right hand was still intact.

I took a firm grasp of its belt and lifted the body over his companion, and across to the door. Then, supporting the limp backbone with one arm, I lifted its right hand, and jammed it against the plate. The door slid smoothly open - thank you - the sounds of the automatic gunfire much clearer now, as were the screams of terror and pain.

I waited for a second before ducking round the door-frame, the assault rifle ready to fire along the length of the corridor. Nothing. It took only an instant to realise what the sounds of battle were. At the end of the darkened passageway - beyond the two side-doors and the passageway to the left leading to the stairs - the door to the bar was wide open. A man crouched in the opening, silhouetted by the light of the main room, firing long scything bursts across the wooden top of the bar; bursts which stuttered briefly as he ducked to avoid some answering fire that arced out of the customer area and ripped long shreds of wood from the shield of the counter. The man slammed in a new magazine, made an unidentifiable hand signal to the left and right of him, straightened slightly, and fired another long burst across the bar. More screams erupted as his bullets found their targets.

I aimed the gun at his back and skipped quickly down the corridor, my feet shuffling silently over the dull, worn carpet and the scattered cigarette butts. A rhythmic thumping sounded from the stairs as someone hurtled down, three steps at a time, from the upper level. He jumped out into the corridor, skidding slightly on the slippery floor, opened his mouth to cry a warning as he spotted me, then slammed back into the steps when I pulled the trigger and fired three heavy rounds through his chest. In the same movement I turned, and fired a five-round burst through the spine of the man at the bar. He died without even seeing his killer, slumping across the blood-stained bar, his sub-machine gun falling uselessly by his side. His head turned uselessly to show his glassy face, spittle running over the barcodes on his cheek.

Kerensky... I've shot Kerensky!

I stood stunned for a split-second, then sidestepped quickly onto the stairs, but not before I had caught a glimpse of the bar.

Sweet God, it's a bloodbath. As I moved across I'd caught a glimpse across the gloomy bar of a robed man, presumably one of a group, sheltering behind an upturned table, and firing repeated bursts from an assault rifle in the direction of the counter. Around him, the floor was littered with maimed bodies - both citizens and coders - which had literally been torn apart in the cross-fire. And interspersed with them, the living cowered, some unhurt, some terribly wounded and pitifully screaming, attempting to use their shattered limbs to drag themselves to safety. Fallen lovers lay cradled in each other's arms, their blood mingling, united in death.

In that split second, a women ran across the frozen scene, heading in blind terror for the doorway. From somewhere a short burst sliced through her lovely, bare stomach, the smooth, silky skin transforming into a tangled mess of torn flesh and shredded intestines. Her legs folded beneath her and she tumbled to the tiled floor, skidding to a halt just inside the entrance, an animal cry erupting from her mouth. A dark stain spread across her short dress as her bladder emptied, uncontrollably. I realised as I viewed the carnage, what must have happened. They'd been waiting, under-cover, in the bar. When I set off the alarm, they panicked, and started firing; then the bar-staff grabbed their weapons, and all hell had broken loose.

I left those thoughts behind and stepped lightly up the stairs, spinning - ready to fire - at the bend, and continuing on to the deserted landing. According to the plans, the first doorway led to the biggest of the main rooms. Damn! Although it was of conventional bio-plastic construction, it still had a hand-panel lock; so there was nothing for it but to break in. I switched the rifle to single-fire and put a single round through the main lock, the flimsy, domestic framework shattering under the impact. I threw my heavy work-boot forward and kicked the door open, the knob banging into the wall at the end of the door's arc. The room beyond - a living room by the look of it - was empty. I retreated back to the landing and dispatched the lock on the second door with another round. Again, I kicked the door open, and advanced slowly into the room, the assault rifle held ready.

A figure lay upon the large, double bed, his face hidden by the thin hood that completely enveloped his head. He was tied down, a pair of plastic twines stretched taut between his wrists and the corners of the metal headboard. I checked briefly that there was no-one else in the room, then crossed quickly over and pulled the hood off.

So you are alive.

It was the Rook, his eyes strangely dull and unfocussed. A quick glance beneath the loose sleeve of his robes supplied the answer, a small hypo-unit strapped to his upper arm, its built-in syringe still half-full. He was drugged.

I clawed desperately at the cords around his wrists, finally pulling them free after what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds.

"Can you walk?" I whispered into his ear, but he merely moaned lightly in reply. I ran back over to the doorway, checked the stairs were still clear, then stepped back, slung him over one shoulder, and thundered back to the landing.

I arrived there at the same time as one of the attackers, his crouched figure advancing cautiously up the last couple of steps. It was the man in blue, who I'd last seen at Glastonbury, and who - from the expression that rapidly spread across his face - still remembered me. I grabbed for the assault rife, feeling the strap tug against my neck, and tried to bring it to bear on him, hampered by the unconscious bulk of the Rook across my left shoulder.

Too slow...

The blue-robed Knight fired first, a hasty action that sent five rounds towards me. I pushed frantically to the left when I saw the flame flaring from his muzzle, but was too late. The first three rounds missed, whining only centimetres past me. The remaining two sliced deep into my right side, cutting a bloody gash across my hip. I allowed the fall to continue, rolling onto my knees and finally getting my rifle to bear on him. He was still moving his gun for a second shot when I jammed the trigger back, and sprayed bullets at him from close range, not releasing until his broken body slammed back into the now bloody and pock-marked wall, and then thumped down the stairs out of sight.

There were a few shouted curses from below, then silence, followed by the click of a grenade's pin being removed. A few seconds later the plastic egg-shaped object arced over the banister rail and dropped onto the landing carpet with a quiet thud. I lashed out desperately with my right foot, the open wound on my hip aching painfully, and just connected with the tip of my boot. The grenade spun slowly across the carpet, teetered on the edge between a pair of bannisters - fall you bastard, fall - then tipped off into the air and fell to the step below.

Thump.

Thump...

Crash.

The noise of the detonation was deafening in such an enclosed area, the blast of air funnelling up the stairwell and hurling me into the doorway behind. For a few seconds I was stunned, knocked near to unconsciousness by the fury of the explosion. Then I came to, coughing and spluttering on the thick plaster dust that hung heavily on the air, and becoming aware of a wetness across my right side.

I painfully lifted my head and reached down, brushing my hand across my robes. A warm liquid was slowly spreading through the synthetic fibres.

Blood.

I pushed myself to my feet, and pulled off my light cloak, rolling the thin material into a ball, and jamming it against the throbbing wound. Then I reached down with my other hand for the Rook, grasped him around the belt and flipped his limp body onto my shoulder. The strap of the assault rifle was rubbing painfully on the exposed skin of my neck, the rifle itself having been flung onto my back. I flipped it over my right shoulder, letting it hang freely on my chest, pulled the Rook onto me, then levered myself upright.

The firing seemed to have stopped, the only sounds now being the confused cries of the many wounded. I stepped carefully forward across the landing, the fragments of plaster that littered the carpet crunching under my feet, and peeked over the banister rail to the stairway below. A number of bodies were scattered on the lower portion of the stairs and the corridor beyond. Four or five perhaps - they'd been so torn apart by the grenade that it was hard to tell.

After a moments hesitation I set off down the stairs, testing each step before I put any weight upon it, fearing that the blast might have weakened the structure. I reached the lower floor having suffered only a few minor slips on plaster slivers, and walked slowly out into the corridor, stepping carefully over a dropped sub-machine gun that lay amid the bodies, a severed hand still grasping the pistol grip.

I took a slow look around, taking in the terror and chaos of the bar area, Kerensky and his workers lying dead behind the counter, and the deserted corridor leading to the storeroom. It was all too horrific to absorb. I settled the Rook's weight upon my shoulder, and set off towards the storeroom, stopping when I heard the wail of a siren from its direction.

Of course, I realised, the emergency services would use the wide, clear access routes rather than the narrow, cramped pedestrian ways.

I can't get involved with them, there's too many questions I can't answer.

I spun round, and stumbled back in the direction of the main bar area, dropping the assault rifle onto the pile of bodies, and continuing through the doorway. The paramedics were just crashing through the storeroom when I rolled painfully over the counter and into the frightened flow of survivors, all of whom were fighting hysterically for the main entrance. A shaken citizen wound his arm around my back, and helped me to my feet. With his help, I staggered over the scattered bodies, still carrying the Rook across my shoulder, and into the well lit corridor, the bright emergency lighting dazzling after the gloom of Kerensky's.

"Thank you!" I called to him as he disappeared back into the carnage. I rested for an instant, then set off down the passageway, trying to get out of the area before it was cordoned off. Sapphire.

Sapphire: 21:55:18>Activated.

I've just left Kerensky's and I'm heading north up Old High Street. Where is the nearest auto-cab station.

Sapphire: 21:55:29>The nearest auto-cab station is one hundred metres away. Follow Old High Street until the next intersection, then turn left. The entrance to the lift-shaft is on the right.

I increased pace, my leg throbbing violently now, the wound rapidly stiffening, thankful that the street was full of confused people who had spilled out of the neighbouring bars, restaurant and other units when they had heard the shooting. A few concerned hands grabbed at me, but we were able to make the intersection and take the left turn. About thirty metres ahead was the entrance to the auto-cab station, the yellow letter C suspended above it, glowing in the evening level of illumination.

A few seconds more, and I had drawn level with it, staggering into the shallow alcove and hammering on the call lift button. Come on, I screamed silently to myself, come on! For a moment there was silence, broken only by the continuing screams from the carnage around the corner. Then a low whine from behind the doors indicated that the lift was moving. A second later it clunked into place, taking a moment to settle before the doors slid open. I hopped into the small chamber, my right leg dragging behind me, and screamed at the built-in computer.

"Down!"

The doors hummed shut, and the lift dropped down towards the station, taking just a couple of seconds to complete the journey. There was a sickening lurch as the lift settled into place, and then the doors opened, revealing the small, gently lit auto-cab station. Along the far wall was the main tunnel, the tracks entering the station through an opening in the left wall, and exiting through the opening to the right. Two cabs were parked on the small loop of track that filled the remaining floor-space of the station. I walked awkwardly over to the first cab in line, and thumbed the open panel. The gull-wing doors lifted up, allowing me to dump the limp form of the Rook into the left-hand seat, then collapse onto the seat beside him. I kicked at the close button on the dashboard and the doors lowered themselves into place with a gentle click.

Safe.

"Please state your destination!" instructed the mechanical voice of the auto-cab.

"Anywhere..." I answered.

"Please state specific destination!" it instructed again.

"Liberty Hall," I snapped, giving the first destination that came into my head.

"Destination, Liberty Hall," it confirmed as the vehicle began gliding forward, turning sharply onto the main tracks and heading into the right-hand tunnel. I relaxed slightly as the neon-lights of the tunnel flicked by, and looked down at the cloak that I still held tightly to my hip. The blood was starting to seep through the thin material. I was no medical expert, but I had enough knowledge to know that it was bad. I had to get hold of a med-pack soon, and get something on that wound, or I might easily bleed to death. I needed help - but where. It couldn't be anywhere that my various enemies might be watching. There was the hidey-hole, but that had no med-pack, and anyway, I might need help using it.

Friends?

Well that's a laugh! I thought bitterly.

During my time at BioMagic, the job had been everything to me. I'd had no friends, only acquaintances. So where? I thought desperately, watching the cloak changing in colour from blue to magenta.

An address surfaced from somewhere within my memory - 478 Harmond Waye, The Havens. What the hell was that? I thought further and realised that I'd heard it spoken recently. An image of a citizen wearing blue official robes came into my mind - the cop.

Tasha.

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