11 New London II

Thankfully, the nearest auto-cab station was only a couple of hundred metres away along the high, wide thoroughfare of Harmond Waye, which meandered below the surface of Dome 3. I just had to hope that no-one would realise it was me who took the auto-cab from near Kerensky's just after the incident - if they did they would have no problem in finding out the cab had taken me here, for a brief interrogation of the central control computer would supply the facts in an instant.

Don't think, I urged myself, feeling the cold numbness spreading through my limbs. Don't plan, don't consider... just move, just walk.

I half dragged, half carried the Rook along the spotless ceramic surface, praying that none of the inhabitants would take a look out of their front windows, until I finally reached number 478. I sat the Rook down beside the doorway, propping him against the smooth, tiled wall, then hunted for the bell-panel, my thoughts a crawl.

A distant memory surfaced, of a doorway like this. My door... my flat. Two years ago, last time I drank, a party... I'd been to a party. Coming home, drunk, couldn't walk properly... like this, but not like this. Warm, not cold. Couldn't get in, lock didn't work. One of the perils of a voice operated lock. Was shouting at it, pleading with it, asking to be let in. But it didn't recognise me, just kept on saying: "Voice is not recognised, please try again."

I shouted at it, pleaded with it, told it...

"It's me..." I wheezed as I found the bell and pressed the panel, hoping to God they were like most lazy households, getting their servants to open the door. At first, there was no response, and I was just about to ring again when I saw the shadowy outline of a figure through the thick, smoked glass of the door. The figure shuffled slowly towards the door, then hesitantly reached out and pressed the inside door-open control. The door slid slowly sideways into its frame - and there she was.

A feeling of warmth and safety spread through my battered and bruised body as I gazed upon her safe, lovely features, her full lips now stretched in a round oh of astonishment. I fought away the false feeling of security and put a finger to my lips, shushing before she recovered her voice.

"Is anyone else in?" I whispered quietly, thinking: please God, let them be out.

She shook her head, then managed to find her voice. "The family - they're at Edinburgh for a few days, visiting relatives."

I let my head fall back, and muttered a quick, silent prayer, not for the first time wondering when this run of luck was going to give out. She gave her head a shake, still unable to believe the course of events, then looked down to the blood-stained cloak.

"You're hurt - you need to go to a hospital!" she cried.

"I can't," I told her, my voice shaking. "I'm in a bit of trouble."

"Trouble?" she asked, her voice hesitant, sounding young and scared.

By now, I was starting to feel distinctly light-headed, and was having to lock my knees to stay upright. I allowed a note of desperation to enter my voice. "Look can I come in? Just for a while - and to use your med-pack."

She hesitated, clearly torn between her duty to not allow anyone into the family home, and her duty to help out a citizen. "Wait here," she told me, disappearing into the building and returning a moment later with a sheet which she quickly folded into a pad about twenty centimetres square. "Put that over the cloak - you mustn't get any blood on the carpet." She knelt down and slid the pad in between the cloak and my hand. "Come in then."

I raised a hand. "I've got someone with me - he's just outside."

A frightened tear finally forced its way out of the corner of her eye. "Is he hurt too?"

"No. Just unconscious."

She held her face in her hands for a moment, then bit her lip and came to a decision. "Go through, up the stairs, and take the first door on the left. I'll get your friend."

I stumbled past her through the doorway, and began to crawl one-handed up the carpeted stairs, trying to keep the bloody folded sheet clear of the carpet. Behind me, I could just make out Tasha dragging the Rook through the doorway and thumbing the door closed.

"You okay?" she asked, her voice flecked with concern as she hauled the Rook up the first couple of steps. She was obviously stronger than her small, slight frame would indicate.

I half nodded, half shook my head.

"It's alright, I'll help," she said soothingly, as she'd been bred to do, gently laying the Rook onto the steps and edging up beside me. A bare arm snaked around my waist, and for the first time I noticed what she was wearing - a flimsy, light pink sleeping robe, that only enhanced her smooth skin.

"Didn't get you out of bed did I?" I asked in an attempted joke, forcing the humour through gritted teeth.

"Not quite," she replied, helping me up another step, "I was just making myself some hot chocolate."

"Sorry."

She glanced across at me, an unwanted smile forcing her lips apart. "It's okay."

I lay wearily back on the plastic bin-bags that covered the bed and looked around the tiny room, the cream coloured walls and simple, but elegant, furniture contrasting with the soft toys and posters of vid stars.

"Your room?" I asked.

She looked up from her inspection of my wound. "Yeah. I thought it was safer to put you here - in case Mr and Ms Harkes come back early. I thought I could put your friend in the utility room in the basement. It's pretty unlikely they'll look in there."

"Where is he now?"

"Still on the stairs for the moment. Is he sleeping?"

"Yeah, kindof."

She placed the pad back onto the wound. "This is really bad."

"You know about that sort of stuff?" I asked genuinely surprised.

Even in the circumstances, her voice had a note of pride in it. "I did a first aid course. Ms Harkes said that it was important that everyone in the house was able to cope with accidents and things. Especially if something happened to little Stephen while they were out."

"Is there a med-pack in the house?"

"Of course!"

"Does it have any pressure pads?"

She thought for a moment, biting her lower lip. "I think so. You really can't go to a hospital?"

I shook my head.

"I'll get the pack then."

She skipped out the doorway, then reappeared after thirty seconds or so, a large, neat medical pack in her arms. She laid it on the bed beside my chest and snapped the plastic lid open. "There are three pressure pads. And some antiseptic fluid - I'll need to clean the wound with that."

"Thanks."

She sat back and looked at me. "If this was a vid programme, I suppose I'd ask: What for? But what I really want to ask is: why should I?"

"Because I'm desperate?" I suggested hopefully.

"You buy me a drink, get involved in a firefight - firing out of your arm? Half the bar gets shot up. Then you just say that it was nice talking to me, and disappear."

"It was a difficult time."

"Looks like it still is. And it wasn't even as if you were actually talking to me - was it? At least the others usually notice me. They don't listen to what I'm saying - but at least they notice me. You hardly even knew I was there. And now you appear here, shot to pieces and ask me to help. It's like one of those Confederate States shows off the vid. Why should I help you?"

"Perhaps because I'm one person who doesn't see you as just another coder girl?"

She considered that for a moment, then delved into the med-pack. "I'd better see to that wound."

"He's in the utility room," she told me, as though reciting a list, "and I locked the door from the outside. Oh and that thing on his arm - the syringe bit's about half full."

I performed a quick mental calculation. "It should last through the night, so he won't wake up until the mid-morning at the earliest."

"He'd better not," she muttered darkly. She knelt down beside the bed and gingerly lifted the pink, patterned duvet, examining the neatly applied pressure pad on my hip. "It looks okay. How does it feel? I could spray on some Numb-Spray."

"It's alright, just a bit stiff."

"It doesn't hurt?"

"No."

"Weird..." she mused, shuffling along the rug to sit cross-legged beside my shoulder, her folded arms laid along the edge of the bed, her chin resting on her forearms. "What's going on?"

"It's a bit tricky to explain."

"You could try!"

I inched my head back into the pillow, so that I could gaze at her more comfortably. Her trusting face gazed back, doing what we she'd been bred to do, designed to do. She had been created as a household servant - a helper for a mum, a nanny to a baby, a friend to a child. A deep caring, maternal instinct ran through her, controlling her every thought, fuelling her every desire. Her looks had been crafted for a purpose, to cause feelings of comfort, rather than desire, to look good, but not too good. As for intelligence, she was not the stereotypical automaton servant. She had been given some ability - enough to cook, or stimulate the learning of a child, or even to do first aid. They had created her so that she wanted to serve, wanted to help. And it was those instincts that I was using now. But whatever her reasons, she deserved some sort of explanation, as much as I could give.

"I can't tell you much. There's a lot of stuff you'll be better off not knowing."

She smiled hopefully. "Well can you tell me your name? Last time you claimed it was Larry."

"Jon. Well, Jonathan."

"Jonathan," she repeated. "Jonathan what?"

"Henderson."

"That sounds familiar," she wondered aloud, "I've heard that somewhere before. Come to think off it - when I first saw you, I thought for a moment that I'd seen you before. That's how come I was able to pluck up the courage to go over to you."

"You don't normally do that sort of thing then?"

"No. I want to, that's why I go there - but... Anyway, we were talking about you! Is it okay to ask what you do? What your work is?"

"I'm an executive at BioMagic," I admitted, deeply unsure as to how she would react. "We produce ----"

"I know what BioMagic do," she interrupted, a wide grin on her face. "I'm a BioMagic model!"

"You are?" I queried uneasily. Was that good?

"Yeah. It was you that made me. That was at the old complex in Dome 6, before we moved to the New Dome."

"And... you don't mind?"

"Why should I? Everyone always says that BioMagic make the best. Don't they?"

"Yeah," I replied, remembering the ad-line - quality, not quantity.

"So that makes me good quality - doesn't it? Something to be proud of. Ms Harkes is always reminding me how much I cost - and saying that it was the best money she ever spent. She's nice like that."

"Right..."

The conversation lapsed for a while, then resumed sharply, Tasha clapping her hands loudly together. "That's where I knew you from. I remember now!"

"Where? When?"

"It was when I was eleven. I was still at the nursery - it was a couple of months before I was sent to the Harkes. BioMagic had just moved to the new complex, in the New Dome."

I nodded.

"Of course, you'd know where it is. Anyway, all the nurseries had moved too, and we were just settling into our new one. I remember all the little ones were upset - the nurse-mothers used to let us big ones help out. I used to enjoy that."

All part of the training, I though guiltily. That and keeping labour costs down.

"Well on the third day, one of the head nurse-mothers came round to see us. She was a citizen you see, not like our nursery's own nurse-mother, so I was always a bit scared of her. That's why I remember. She told us that Mr Henderson - the man who'd made us all - was coming to see how we were settling in to our new home. And that we all had to be very good. That afternoon he came round, and told us that he bought his son to see us - because he just joined BioMagic."

"And that was me."

"Yeah," she cried hopefully, "you remember?"

"I remember being taken around the complex, and I remember visiting some of the nurseries. But I saw a lot of people and places that afternoon. So, to be honest, I don't actually remember you."

"It's okay," she replied, trying to hide the hurt, "I didn't expect you to. I guess that to you, I was just another blond little coder. But for me it was different. It wasn't very often that we had visitors. That day was different somehow."

"Exciting?"

She punched me lightly on the arm. "Don't flatter yourself!" She grinned, playfully for a moment, then realised what she had said, and done. "Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. I'd never normally speak to a citizen like that. But Ms Harkes said that it was ----"

I placed a finger-tip on her lips, stopping abruptly her apology. "It's okay. I don't want you to feel that you can't say anything to me. It's me who should be apologising to you - for putting you out like this."

"But you're a citizen! You mustn't apologise to me. It's not right. It's my duty to serve you."

"No it's not."

"But that's what they taught us at BioMagic. Surely you don't believe that what they taught was wrong?"

"Yes. No. Look it doesn't apply at the moment."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not your owner. I'm you're..." I searched for a description.

"Friend?"

I gently stroked her thick, bouncy hair. "I'd like to be. If you would?"

"Yeah. I'd like that." She sat back, wrinkling her eyebrows as she thought for a moment. "I've never really had a friend before. Only Mr and Ms Harkes, and Stephen."

"Stephen?"

Her face melted into a soppy smile. "Little Stevie - Mr and Ms Harkes' little boy. It's part of my job to look after him."

"And do you like that?"

"It's wonderful, he's really lovely. I just love it when I've got my chores done and I can just sit down and play with him, or watch the vid together. Sometimes Ms Harkes lets me take him out for a walk."

I remembered being shown the proofs of the intended cover of the latest BioMagic brochure. It depicted a cute, smiling coder girl, dressed in a simple, pretty mini-tunic, a gurgling toddler sat upon her lap. "Sounds like you're pretty happy here."

"Yeah," she admitted, a slight tone of regret in her voice, "I am..."

"But?"

"I know I'm not supposed to say this, but you did say you'd be my friend?"

"Go on," I prodded gently.

"I am happy, but I can't help thinking - is this it? Is this all there is? In a few months Stephen starts school, and then I'll be on my own again. I know I'm not supposed to think like that, but I do."

"Why shouldn't you?"

"Because I'm not a real person."

"Why do you say that?"

A stern expression settled upon her face. "Look I'm not stupid. I know everyone thinks I am. They look at me and just see a blond coder girl. But I know what's what. I've watched the worship programs on the vid, and heard people talk. I'm not a real person, and I don't have a soul. I was made, not born - to serve. What I feel, it's not real."

"How do you know it's not real?"

A sad smile appeared on her face, a single tear running down her face. "Well how do I know that it is? Anyway, you're a citizen. You wouldn't understand."

I brushed the tear away from her smooth skin. "I probably understand more than you realise."

"Yeah, maybe." She brightened, pushing her worries away with a shake of her head. "Anyway, why is it me making all the confessions? How about you? You said you worked at BioMagic. What is it that you do exactly?

"I'm chief of security."

"That's why you have that thing in your arm?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't think that sort of thing was legal?"

I picked a spot of fluff from the pink bed sheet.

"Sometimes, if Stevie's done something wrong, or broken something, and I tackle him about it - if he did do it, he doesn't admit it, or deny it. He just goes quiet."

"It's illegal," I admitted.

"But I thought BioMagic was a really classy outfit. I've always felt so proud----"

"It is classy. It's totally above board. Its just... Look every agency cuts a few corners."

"Like Jack Anderson on NewHaven Levels. He's always breaking the rules."

Jack Anderson. The biggest bastard in the soap opera world. A fictional character who ran his agency as though he were fighting a war. I blustered a defence. "Look, we're not that bad. I mean the man had his own sister arrested for blasphemy!"

"So you watch too, do you?" she bubbled, happy to have found something that we apparently had in common.

"Sometimes. If it's on."

"You're just like Mr Harkes. When Ms Harkes is watching NewHaven, he always pretends to be reading a book. But if anyone ever mentions something that's happened on it, or about one of the people on it - he's always knows just what's been happening."

"Alright, so I do watch it!"

She considered that for a moment. "So what else do you do - besides working at BioMagic and watching NewHaven Levels?"

"Not much."

"Well you must do something else?"

I desperately trawled through my memories of the last few months, trying to find something else that I'd done. A few crap parties thrown by acquaintance. I'd generally arrived late, left early and spent the intervening period hovering around the kitchen and hallway, making useless small talk with people I neither cared about or liked. I'd actually been having a pretty shit life, now I came to think about it.

"Bit of fitness training," I suggested, "few visits to museums and stuff."

"Sounds pretty boring," she chirped.

"What do you do, other than work?" I asked, realising as I said it that it was a pretty stupid question to put to a slave. She failed to see the contradiction.

"Well I've got my vid-set." She pointed at the slim, black vid-set hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed. "The Harkes' bought it for my birthday a few years ago. I watch that before I go to bed. And I usually get a night off each week. They're really good like that."

"That's how you were at Kerensky's."

"Yeah," she said sadly, remembering the events of that evening.

"Do you go there often."

"Not very, 'cause it's not often I can pluck up the courage. It's a really horrible place. I hate it."

"So why do you go?"

"Where else is there for me?" she asked quietly. "Where else could I go?"

"The park?" I suggested.

She shook her head. "It's off limits for coders during the evening. You see, they let us in during the day, so that girls like me - who look after children - can take them there. But in the evening, when those children are in bed, they don't want us. Not unless we're with an adult citizen. It's the same with everything - libraries, museums, shops, cafes, hover-disc matches. It's only places like Kerensky's that take us."

"But if you hate it so, why do you go? I mean you're a really nice girl, and Kerensky's - it's not for girls like you. It's full of execs who want to find some desperate coder girl they can screw for the night."

"I think I know that," she cried bitterly. "Why the hell do you think I was there? Why did you think I was talking to you?"

"Is that why you go there? For that?"

"Yes, I mean no. I don't know. If I did - would it be so terrible? If you citizens have sex, you dress it up, call it love, the joy of God, soul-sharing. But with a coder, one of us soulless, it's just sex. Loveless. Dirty. Perverse. Why is that?"

"I don't know, and I didn't mean to criticise. I just wouldn't have thought you'd have wanted to do something like that. It's not you."

"How would you know what I'm like? You're BioMagic security, not production."

I levered myself painfully onto an elbow, gently tipped her head towards me and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "I was talking about you, as a person. About what I can see now, just talking to you. It wasn't a professional evaluation on you as a product."

"So what is your professional evaluation - of me?"

"Pretty good."

"So would you want me?" It was a question that could have many meanings, and I couldn't be sure which ones she was using. I answered casually, treating the question as a light-hearted comment: "Of course - who wouldn't?"

She went sad again, her shoulders slumping as her head tipped forward. "Some don't. I thought at the time that they did, or might. But they didn't want me. It was just like you said - they just wanted a quick screw."

"And what did you want?"

The pain, and the longing showed in her beautiful, wide eyes. "Something more."

"More than that, or more than you've got?"

"Just more." She leaned forward onto the edge of the bed, and looked across my chest at the patterned wall beyond. "I know it's awful of me to complain. After all, there's so many that are worse off than me. I didn't grow up in a growth-tank. I was raised in a nursery, with a nurse-mother to love me."

"And was that good?" I interjected, wanting it to have been, not just for her sake, but for my conscience as well.

She smiled as she ambled through her memories. "Yeah it was good. I loved it there. It was warm, and safe and full of love. When I was little, there were always lots of older girls to look after us. Like big sisters. Then when I was big, I could do the looking after. And that was like having lots of little sisters. It was a really beautiful place - brightly coloured, lots of pictures on the walls. We all had our own cots, and our own bit of room to look after. Sometimes we used to go on trips, like to the supermarket - so that we could learn how the world worked."

I tried not to smile, recalling the time I'd gone along on a similar trip. Remembered trying to guide a line of fifty five-year old children through a busy supermarket, all of them dressed in identical grey tunics, walking in neat pairs, holding hands as they'd been taught. The whole operation had come close to chaos. Not the children, they were well-trained. It was the citizens who caused the problems. They descended on us with comments such as: "Oh look, aren't they cute," or "Couldn't we just give them a couple of sweets," or "And what's your name."

All while I, the agency girl in charge, and a couple of coder nurse-mothers were desperately trying to keep them in order and avoid losing any. At the end of the afternoon I was more shattered than I'd ever been, before or since, whilst working for BioMagic. Never again, I'd sworn. So has the store manager, as he warned us to never again attempt a training exercise in his shop. I shoved the vision aside and looked back at Tasha.

"In my last year, the nurse-mothers made me responsible for five of the little ones. I used to read to them, and teach them things, hug them when they cried. I got to go with them when they went on trips, to look after them, and make sure they didn't get lost. There weren't many girls that were given that job. That's why I cost the Harkes so much money. Because they wanted someone who was good with children. They came round the nursery you see, to have a look. And they saw me playing with some of the little ones, and liked the look of me. So I can't complain about my childhood. BioMagic were really good to me."

"It depends how you look it," I muttered sadly.

"What do you mean? BioMagic are really good. Everyone says so. Ms Harkes is a member of the S.P.C.B. - that's the society for the prevention of cruelty to biohumans!"

"I know," I pointed out. "BioMagic are corporate members."

"Sorry," she smiled. "Anyway that's why she went to BioMagic - because the way they made their coders was ----" She paused, trying to remember the word.

"Ethical?" I suggested.

"Yeah, that was it. She went to them because they weren't cruel to their coders. You hear terrible things about what some agencies do - electric shocks and stuff like that. The SPCB are doing a campaign at the moment to force all agencies producing service coders to do it like BioMagic. What's wrong with that?"

I thought for a while, remembering the self-righteous shock I'd felt upon seeing the production room at the Centre. Was BioMagic that different? I groped for an answer. "It's hard to explain. BioMagic produce coders who've had a good, cruelty-free upbringing. We also create them with a normal life-span, rather than quick-growing them in fluid. People like all that because it makes them feel good about buying a coder. It also means that we're able to use the time to train them. I guess you were taught cookery and household skills and so on?"

She nodded.

"It also meant that you could be taught to speak properly, and have good social skills. But the most important thing is that it made you normal."

"Normal?" she asked confused.

"These agencies that quick-grow coders in fluid, then whip them out for an intensive series of electro-shock treatment. Well the coders that they produce - they're not normal. Their emotions are stunted, not properly developed. All their thinking processes have been short-circuited into place. So when people are with them, it's not as pleasurable or comfortable as one of our products. They will always seem slightly... alien. Inhuman. And because all their instincts, feelings and morality are programmed in, there's always the fear, irrational admittedly, that they'll go..."

"Go what?" she prodded urgently as I dithered.

"...psycho," I admitted.

"So is that how you see me - that I'm comfortable to be with, and that you don't have to worry about me going psycho on you?"

"No, no, I'm not saying that. What I mean is... Do BioMagic produce coders using ethical techniques because they believe that it's the only morally correct way to do it? Or is it simply that those techniques produce a good product, which commands a high price? In other words do BioMagic produce the products in the way that they do, simply because there is a niche for those products?"

"You've lost me."

I tried to think of a simpler way of putting the idea across. "BioMagic use nice methods to produce nice coders. Okay?"

"Right," she replied hesitantly.

"But it costs a lot more money to produce them. Still okay?"

"Yeah."

"And people want nice coders, right?"

"Yeah."

"So although they cost a lot, people will be prepared to pay that much money for them."

"Well, yeah."

"So why do BioMagic use nice techniques to produce nice coders? Because they think it's the right thing to do, or simply because there are people who want to buy nice coders? Is it all just a marketing technique."

"You're saying it might simply be like a furniture manufacturer that chooses to concentrate on good, expensive furniture?"

"Yeah."

"That's really horrible."

"Yeah."

She pondered on that for several seconds. "Well, so which is it?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. A few days ago I'd have been absolutely certain it was because it was ethically correct. Now I don't know."

We fell silent for a while, having run out of conversation. "What were we talking about, anyway?" I asked.

She grinned. "I was saying about how happy my childhood was, and you were telling me that it was probably just a marketing technique."

"Yeah that was it. And we got there because you were saying that there were a lot who were worse off than ----" I stopped abruptly, hearing a series of scratches at the door. Sapphire.

Sapphire: 01:18:36  Activated.

Activate targeting system.

Sapphire: 01:18:39  Targeting system activated. Clearing text.

Tasha jumped up and scampered over to the door. "Hey it's okay! It's just Rainbow!"

She pulled the door open a fraction, allowing a small cat to squeeze through the gap. It was one of the new-style ones, the colour of its fur constantly cycling through the colours of the spectrum.

Rainbow, I deduced.

It regarded me suspiciously, its small, neutral face pointing straight at me.

"What's up?" she crooned to him, plucking him from the floor and suspending him in front of her. He continued to stare straight ahead, preserving his dignity by not attempting to struggle, letting his body hang loosely from her hands. "Are you hungry?"

He didn't answer.

"You've eaten all that food I gave you, haven't you?" She looked back at me. "I'll just nip down and give him some food."

I pulled the duvet aside and carefully dropped a leg onto the floor. "Hang on, I'll come down with you."

She rushed back over and attempted to pat me back onto the bed. "You shouldn't move! You'll open up the wound - or whatever it is they do!"

I pushed her hands aside, and levered myself upright. "I'll be alright. I'll go slowly. Anyway the wound will stiffen up if I stay still." That was probably bullshit, but who cared.

She looked at me in amazement as I shuffled, gingerly over to her. "How can you do that? You ought to be flat on your back!"

I shrugged apologetically. "I get over things quickly."

"Alright then," she announced in a motherly fashion. "But you've got to promise you'll be careful!"

"Promise!"

The cat examined the synth-meat for a few seconds, giving it a disdainful, knowing look, then dived in, its sharp teeth ripping small chunks from the brown, textured mass.

"You like that, don't you?" Tasha gave him a final pat, then straightened out of her crouch and leaned against the work-top. "So, do you want some hot chocolate then?"

"Well it's a bit early for the hard stuff," I joked, "but if you insist!"

She punched me lightly on the arm, and this time she didn't apologise. I looked around the small, well-appointed kitchen, as she filled the kettle with water, and recalled the previous conversation. "You said you wanted something more? I guess it wasn't the kitchen you were talking about?"

She looked around the spotless tiles and work-surfaces. "The kitchen's lovely. But it isn't mine."

"Is that what you want?"

Tears welled up in her eyes and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. But then she doubled up in helpless laughter. Finally she composed herself. "Are you really asking me if my one desire in life is to have my own kitchen?"

"Sorry!" I said, waiting as she poured some milk into a ceramic saucepan, and turned up the heat. "So what is it that you want?"

"What am I supposed to say? The proper answer is to belong to a nice family, who'll love me, and care for me, so that I can look after them. And that's what I've got. I mean, what do you want? Other than to make BioMagic the biggest coder production agency, that is!"

"Look, I'm not Jack bloody Anderson," I protested.

"I thought BioMagic was your entire life?"

"It was."

"So what do you want now? Or in the future?"

I wanted to tell her that I most probably had no future. But that wouldn't have been fair. "I don't know. Marriage, kids, I suppose. Isn't that what everyone's supposed to want?"

Again sadness flooded across her. "It's what you're supposed to want. Not me."

"So, is that what you want?"

She turned to the saucepan and gave the milk a though examination, keeping her face turned away from me. "Maybe. Why not?"

I hobbled over to her, and gently wrapped my arms around her, letting her head fall back against my chest. "It's not wrong to want things."

"But I'm not supposed to. I'm just being selfish and ungrateful."

I gave her an extra squeeze. "No you're not. Look, why don't you just tell me everything you want."

"My own home. My own life. To be able to go places without being told that I'm not allowed in. Someone who'll love me, as a person, not some kind of pet."

"And?" I prodded, sensing that the list was unfinished.

"A baby - of my own. Someone I could love as much as I could."

"You could have that," I reminded her. "Coder girls can get pregnant." That was true enough. Although male coders were created infertile, females were created fully fertile. The official reason was so that it would be possible to quickly increase the birth rate if it ever became necessary, although it had been suggested that it was so that even the ugliest male citizen could find a women to bear him a child.

She considered that, turning the milk down slightly. "Yeah I could. And if I did - my baby would be a real person, wouldn't it?"

"It would be a citizen," I corrected her, "according to both civil and religious law."

"But it would have a soul?" she asked seeking confirmation. "They say that any baby that grows in a natural womb gets a soul, even if the mother hasn't got one. That is true isn't it?"

"Well it's what they say," I answered. She still looked confused, so I added: "If you had a baby, no-one would say that it didn't have a soul."

"And it wouldn't have codes on it's cheeks?"

"No, it wouldn't." Again true. The genes to produce the codes were designed to be recessive, so that if a citizen had a coder for a mother, he or she wouldn't have codes.

"But it will still never happen," she muttered sadly, turning off the milk and pulling two mugs from a cupboard.

"Why not?" I queried soothingly, fighting away the rapidly growing feeling that I was somehow responsible for her predicament.

She grabbed the hot chocolate jar, spun off the lid, and spooned a quantity of powder into each of the mugs, her hand shaking as she did so. Finally, the emotions broke over her, the spoon dropping from her limp fingers and her shoulders heaving as sobs wracked her body. "Because who'd want me?"

"Lots of people."

"Who? There isn't anyone! There's plenty of sickos out there, who think it's fun to pick up a girl like me, then laugh like hell the next morning."

I pulled her round and crushed her against me, waiting until the sobs had subsided. "Look you're pretty, kind, bright. You're good with kids. You'd make a great wife!"

"I couldn't be a wife, remember? If anyone actually wanted me they'd have to buy me - and that's supposing they'd want me." She pulled away from me, lifted the saucepan and poured the hot milk into the mugs.

"Look there's probably plenty of citizens who'd like you."

She handed me one of the steaming mugs, holding the other in her tiny hands. "Would you?"

"You're better off without me. I just arrived here shot, remember?"

That got a slight laugh, at least. "But if things were different. If you didn't have these problems. Then would you want me?"

"I might. I can't promise more than that."

"Fair enough," she shrugged, then looked down at my hip with a start. "We'd better get you off that leg, or you'll collapse." She put on the look that I imagined was usually reserved for little Stevie. "To bed - now!"

When I woke the next morning the dull ache from the wound across my hip had almost completely subsided, only a slight stiffness remaining. I waited a few seconds, letting the sleepiness slowly clear away, then rolled slowly across the soft mattress to look over the edge of the bed.

The sleeping mat on the floor below was empty, it's top cover thrown open to reveal the flower-patterned interior. I lay back, and glanced across the room. On the other wall, sitting on a plastic shelf, a stuffed animal of some kind glared at me, it's frozen stare and fixed grin creating an effect which - at this bleary time of the morning - was almost disconcerting.

The door opened slowly, the catch giving way with a quiet click as Tasha backed into the room holding a small, red plastic tray. "Hi! You awake?" she asked gently, placing the tray onto the low bedside table and flicking the wall mounted holo-window from its night setting to the day setting.

I blinked sleepily at the sudden increase in illumination and struggled to recall her question. "I think so."

"Good! 'Cause I made you some breakfast," she announced, prodding me into a sitting position and depositing the tray onto my lap. "I wasn't sure what you'd want - so I've got some juice, toast and some morning flakes."

"Thanks," I muttered, not having the heart to tell her that I usually skipped breakfast, instead taking the milk jug and pouring a couple of dozen millilitres onto the golden brown flakes. She sat down beside my elbow, and waited until I took a first spoonful.

"Good?"

"Yeah," I spluttered through a mouthful of soggy wheat. "It's great, thanks."

She smiled happily, having fulfilled the requirements of her conditioning. "Oh, and I had a look at your friend."

I quickly gulped down my current mouthful. "So how is he? Is he still under?"

"Yeah. I had a look at the syringe. There's about a tenth left. Is that okay?"

"That's fine," I reassured her, before digging the spoon deep into the floating morning flakes.

"So what are you going to do today?"

I hesitated, and she picked up my tenseness, tipping her head slightly to the side.

"It's to do with you're friend, isn't it?"

Again I hesitated.

"Who is he?"

"I need to ask him some questions?"

"What sort of questions?" she asked, her earlier contentment rapidly slipping away from her.

"It's better that you don't know. It isn't safe."

"It isn't safe you being here," she pointed out. "And anyway, maybe I don't want safe." She waved an arm at the vid set at the foot of the bed. "When I watch that, I see people, citizens that is, doing all sorts of exiting things. But not me. I just get looked after. It's all: Don't do that Tasha, you might get hurt. Or: It's okay Tasha, don't worry about a thing, we'll make sure that you're okay. My whole life is safe. And now you're doing it - and you said you'd act like a friend, not like an owner!"

I put down the spoon, and looked across at her, at her slight, kneeling figure, at the smooth, rounded legs extending from the short, sky-blue mini-tunic, at the blond, bouncy curls resting on her shoulders. She had been designed to engender feelings of protection, and that, not surprisingly, was what I felt. But she was a person, not a pet, whatever the law, or the Knights, might say.

"A little while ago my sister was killed."

"What - murdered?" she interrupted, sensing the hidden meaning behind the line.

"Yeah. They found her in an algae tank with her neck broken. I went there, but there was no evidence, no clues. The police said they'd do their best, but..."

"You didn't think they'd have much luck?"

"No. Anyway, when I got back, I found a picture, an image, in my electronic mail. It was of her, standing beside another man - who I didn't recognise. They were standing in Kerensky's, although I had to search through a load of image databases before I established that."

"So that was why you went to Kerensky's that night?"

"Yeah. There was no cover-note with the image, no clues as to who sent it - or why. It was the only lead I had."

"The man in the image - was he the bloke you followed to the toilet?"

"Yeah."

"He didn't come out after you."

"No." There was a short, uneasy silence, broken only by me munching on a large mouthful of morning flakes. "Anyway, he told me that my sister had come to see him with another man. And that other man's the bloke in your utility room. I need to ask him what he knows about my sister's death."

She nodded slightly. "So who were those men who attacked you?"

I took a deep breath. "When I received the image, I showed it to my father. I'd assumed he'd want to follow it up, use all the resources of BioMagic to pursue it, leave no stone unturned, that sort of thing."

"And he didn't?" she questioned, surprised.

"No. In fact he was adamant that we shouldn't get involved. You see my sister ran away a few years before. He said that she had probably got involved in something she shouldn't have done. We had a terrible row, and I stormed out."

"So you think your father sent them?"

"Other than whoever sent the image, he was the only one who knew about it. So I assumed it was him. But I'm not so sure now."

"Why not?"

"It's best that you don't know."

She paused for a moment, clearly having an internal debate. "When I was making the breakfast... I turned on the vid, and saw a news report."

"And..."

"It said that there had been a gun battle at Kerensky's. The whole program was devoted to it. They said that it was the worst mass killing in New London for thirty years!" She paused, then looked me straight in the eye. "Were you there? Were you anything to do with it?"

"I was there, but I didn't kill any of the customers in the bar. That was the people who attacked me when I first went there."

"Isn't Kerensky going to be a bit angry with you?"

I choked back the insane laughter that threatened to erupt. "Well I don't think Kerensky's going to be angry with anyone, ever again."

"When are you going to question him?"

I mentally worked out my next actions. "Well after breakfast, I'll go down and remove the auto-syringe, tie him up with something - so he should be ready by about twelve."

"Can I be there?" The words tumbled from her mouth in a rush.

"You want to watch? Why?"

"I don't know. I suppose because Ms Harkes trusted me to look after this house. I want to know what you're doing while you're here. And I want to make sure you don't do anything I wouldn't want you to."

I thought for a moment. If she was there it would stop me getting carried away. "Are you sure?"

"Not completely," she replied, hesitantly. "But for once, I don't want to be left alone while things happen around me."

I took another look, staring straight at his dulled face, then glanced back to Tasha who was perched cutely on the washing machine. "He should be conscious in a few minutes."

I looked back at him, glancing over the limp frame tied to a shelving unit with a few short lengths of household twine. He was tough, I knew that already. And if he was one of the Children of God - then he'd be even tougher, both mentally and physically. It would be pointless using violence to break him down. If I tried something like taking the hose off the back of the washing machine and beating him senseless - it would achieve nothing.

His faith would sustain him through any ordeal. It was his strength - but possibly also his weakness. If I could break, or even discredit, his faith, his defences would crumble. And if the amount of liquid he was throwing down his throat at the Pleasure Dome was any indication, then perhaps that faith was already being corroded. I looked back to Tasha.

"When he comes round, don't say anything that could identify you, or me. Better still, don't say anything at all. Okay?"

She nodded, fearfully.

"And one other thing - this might not be pleasant. So just remember one thing. He might have killed my sister, and he's done some pretty terrible things."

She nodded again, then spoke: "What was the pill you gave him?"

"I had a poke around your mistress's bedside cabinet - it's okay, I didn't disturb anything. She had some Emotia - it heightens and exaggerates emotions."

I looked back to my sleeping prisoner, who was starting to grown lightly as his system cleared. Hopefully, whatever it was that Kerensky had been pumping into him, combined with the Emotia, would leave him weakened and disorientated, and without the strength of mind to refuse a dialogue. His eyelids slowly lifted, as awareness returned to him.

"Wha... Where am I?"

I rested a hand on his shoulder. "You're safe. It's Jon. Remember? The Pleasure Dome? The Centre?"

"I remember," he moaned. "This isn't Kerensky's?"

"No it isn't. It's just like I said. You're safe. You don't have to hide anymore."

He focussed on me. "I expect you thought I was dead?"

"I did at first. But then someone told me that you weren't. So I found you, and rescued you."

"Who told you?" he asked laboriously.

"That doesn't matter," I told him, not willing to allow him to dictate the conversation. Keep him on the run, I ordered myself, keep pushing. "I helped you, remember?"

"Yeah," he murmured drowsily.

"And you promised me answers," I reminded in a friendly fashion.

"Yeah."

"So that's all I'm asking. I'm here to help you. Really I am."

"Help?" he asked as he fought to clear his mind.

"Yes help. I need to know about the girl."

"The girl?"

"Shannon."

"How do you know her name?" he slurred.

I ignored his question, and gambled with a probing question of my own. "You loved her, didn't you?"

"Loved her?"

"Of course you did," I reminded him, seeing the pain building in his eyes, "she was your wife. You must have loved her."

"I did love her," he admitted,

"We know you loved her. And she loved you."

"How do you know?"

"Because she told me."

"Why did she tell you?" Confusion grew alongside the pain.

"Because I'm her brother."

"You're family?"

"Yes. Why are you surprised? Everyone has a family, don't they Luke?"

"How do you ----"

I broke in. "Is that what your mother called you?"

"No. Yes." He shook his head, knowing his thoughts were muddled, but unable to clear them.

"Didn't she call you Luke?" I asked, firing in another quick query.

"She... she..."

"She didn't call you Luke, did she?" I allowed my voice to harshen slightly. "She didn't love you, did she?"

He closed his eyes, trying to block me out, disrupt the dialogue.

"How could she love you! She didn't know you!" I paused for a moment, then screamed in another assault. "She gave you away!"

He screwed up his eyes, knowing he must say nothing, but suffering as the drugs amplified his pain and sorrow. Finally his resolve weakened too far. "She gave me to God!"

"She gave you to the Knights!" I screamed.

"I was created by God, within her. She made me for him."

"Is that what they told you?"

"They told me the truth!"

"They told you lies!"

"I am a child of God. Created by him, my soul chosen by him! She gave her body to God, gave her first-born for his glory."

"She was a slag!" I cried cruelly. "A fourteen year old slag. She gave her body to the Knights. Or to one Knight at least. Some dirty old High Druid with a kinky desire for young girls."

"My father was an honourable man. My mother a devoted follower of the eternal circle. They joined their bodies for God."

"Oh, so you know who they were, do you?" I asked casually, gambling that he didn't.

It was clear from his reaction that I'd guessed right. "I know what they would have been."

"You know what they told you. So it's like I said, she was a young slag, he an elderly pervert. That's assuming there was only one of course. She might have slept with the entire High Council for all you know!"

Anger burned across his eyes as he tried to struggle against his bonds, his body refusing to obey. "You dare insult the High Council! You blaspheme!"

I had to keep him angry, let the Emotia take away his control. "So she gave you to them, for them to use. Did they love you?"

"They cared for me!"

"They taught you, used you. They say that you're dead. Did you know that?"

"It was a necessary cover!"

"But think about all the people who would have been upset. Your friends, family - oh I'm sorry, I forgot. They wouldn't care - if they had they wouldn't have given you away."

"The Knights were my family!"

"So did they care? They said you were dead. Why?"

"I had work to do!"

"Work to do, destiny to fulfil - I know the story. And what was that work?"

"It had to be done!"

"You had to lie, deny God, deny everything you'd been taught."

"I did not deny God. What I said, was not what I thought."

"So you lived a lie. And as part of that lie, you married."

"That wasn't a lie, I loved her."

"And you killed people."

"I had to, they deserved to die."

"And the baby, at the Centre. All of them. Did they deserve to die."

"They weren't people. They were abominations." His eyes wondered slightly, and found Tasha for the first time and flared in yet more fury. "Like her! They were the devil's spawn, soulless. They had to burn - like they all should!"

"They should burn should they?" I confirmed, realising that he must be well into the hard-line fringes of the Knights. I stepped aside, and looked over to Tasha who was trembling slightly at the anger of his words. "Do you like her?"

"She is scum. Made by men performing the devil's work."

"But is she pretty?"

"They made her to tempt humans. They made a cold, dark void to drain men's souls dry. The flames of hell burn within her!"

"But do you think she's pretty? Would you like to fuck her?"

He lifted his head from the floor and screamed at me, spitting the words at me in fury. "You dare accuse me of that! Of sleeping with evil like her!"

"But you did!" I accused. "You have slept with a coder girl!"

"How dare..."

"Shannon. Your wife. You slept with her."

"We shared souls," he cried, the horror of what I might be suggesting cracking and distorting his voice.

"You shared souls with a coder - a girl who had no soul!"

"You lie!"

I walked away from him, pacing down the room, then turned with a flourish. "Did you ever think that she seemed to be just a bit stronger, than you would expect? A bit faster? Did you ever marvel at how well she could recover from injury or illness? Or at how well she could see in the dark?"

A look of terror and disgust began to slowly creep across his face. "You lie," he whispered.

"She was a coder."

"But she had no codes?" he protested.

"She had no soul," I spat, "and surely that's what counts."

"But... how?"

"You merged souls with a void. You gave her part of your soul, and received nothing in return. She drained you. Drained your vitality, your life-force, your soul."

"You're lying," he whimpered, "you have no proof."

"You want proof that my sister was a coder?"

"You have none!" he snarled.

I stepped back, and paused for a moment. "No, I have none."

He slumped in relief, the tension draining from his muscles.

"But if she is a coder, and I call her my sister, then perhaps there is something I can prove."

The realisation of what I was saying broke across him. "You! You are claiming that you - are one of them?"

I smiled grimly. "We were a set. Brother and sister. Version one and version two."

"It's a trick. You lie again."

I reached over to him, hooked a single finger under the securing twine around his waist and lifted him effortlessly upward. "How heavy are you? Because I can hold you aloft with a single finger."

He shook his head. "That proves nothing."

"Ok," I admitted easily, and dropped him to the floor, hearing his elbow shatter at the impact with the bare concrete. He screamed for a moment as the agony tore through him, then caught the pain and stifled the cry. I ignored Tasha's short moan of fear and surprise, and continued. "Well that's the strength. But as you pointed out, it's not conclusive. So what else do we have - the pain!"

I fished out the cigarette lighter that I'd found in Mr Harkes's bedside cabinet, and flicked the flame into existence, holding the flickering light a few centimetres from his face. "Can you feel the heat?"

He nodded slightly, not allowing himself to flinch, still holding himself together despite the drugs that coursed through his system. I whipped the lighter away from him, still leaving the flame burning, then hold my left arm up to the light, allowing the loose sleeve of my robes to slide back, revealing a bare forearm. "Did you ever wonder at how she could cope with pain?" I asked him, bringing the small metal object under my arm, allowing the dancing flame to lick and spread across the hairy skin.

"You'll hurt yourself!" Tasha scolded worriedly, hopping off her perch and rushing over to me. I waved her away, still holding the flame to my arm.

"You're mad," said The Rook, the words dripping with contempt.

"Maybe," I admitted, moving my arm - and the cigarette lighter - to within a few inches of him, so that he could see the skin melting and twisting, the hairs curling to ash, could smell the cooking flesh. I stayed silent for a few seconds, smiling broadly at him. Finally, Tasha could stand it no longer, her tiny hands tugging at my arm. I allowed her to succeed, and flicked the lighter off. She pulled me over to the tiny sink and thrust my arm under the running cold tap.

"Keep it under there!" she ordered and disappeared up the narrow stairs, presumably to get the med-pack. I did as she commanded, but turned to lean against the unit, so that I could keep him in view.

"So. We have two possibilities: Yours - that I'm mad. Or mine - that I don't feel pain in the way that a normal person does."

"You could have taken No-Pain drugs!"

"I could have done. No-Pain's heavily illegal - but I could have got hold of it somehow. But then I'd have a totally numb hand." I waved Tasha away as she returned with the med-pack. "So is my hand numb?"

I knelt down in front of him and held my burnt forearm just in front of one of his fingers. Then I closed my eyes.

"Touch it. Just ever so lightly. As soon as I feel your touch, I'll move my arm away."

He could have tried to jab a fingernail into the wound, hurt me. But he needed to know. I felt the merest brush from his finger tip, and jerked the arm away.

"Satisfied. Can you explain another way?"

A pained silence told me that he couldn't.

Tasha grabbed my arm, tutting, and began to liberally spray burn cream onto the wound.

"Kill the lights!" I told her.

"What?" she queried confused.

"The lights. Turn them off."

She tip-toed over to the switch by the stairs and slowly pushed it to off, plunging the room from bright, neon illumination, to near-total, absolute darkness. "Can you see me?" I asked him.

"Of course not," he replied.

"I can see you," I told him, tapping him lightly on the nose with the tip of my finger. "That's was your nose, wasn't it?"

"It's a trick!"

"Tasha - Lights, now!" I commanded. She obeyed instantly. "Do you see any night-sight goggles?" I asked him, holding my hands in the air. "Did you hear me moving whilst she turned the lights on?"

Again, a silence indicated that he had not.

"Tasha, lights off!" The pitch darkness returned. I leaned forward and deftly untied the bonds securing his right arm. "Try and hit me! Go on try it!" Angrily he swung the arm towards me, the palm loosely open. I paused for a instant, then bought my right hand across my body, snapping onto his wrist only inches before his slap would have connected with my cheek.

"I can see you," I said gently, releasing his hand. Again he tried to hit me, his clenched fist corkscrewing in towards my ribs - and again my hand latched cleanly onto his wrist and deflected the attack away. "Do you believe that I can see you?"

"I believe," he whispered at what to him was darkness, doubt starting to creep into his voice.

"But do you believe this is drugs? Do you believe that I've taken some substance that has increased the number of rods in my eyes? Made them more responsive?"

"No," he breathed in horror.

"So do you accept what I am?"

"Yes..."

"And my sister?"

"That proves nothing," he repeated, starting to sound disorientated now, "I loved her."

"Tasha. Lights on." The lights flickered on. I retied his free arm, then leaned in close to him. "Look at my face," I commanded. He slumped into his bonds, and looked at his feet. "Look at it!" I roared, grasping his hair and brutally forcing his head back. He eyes slowly swivelled up to meet mine. "Do you recognise my face? When you look at me - do you see someone else?"

"Wha..."

"We might not have been biological siblings - couldn't have been. We were synthesised in a lab, and grown in synth-wombs. But they formed us from the same base! They mixed us from the same cocktail, spliced us from the same genes. We may not have shared parents, but we did share DNA. That's why I called her my sister. Look at me - do you see her eyes."

He looked at me, his face frozen, his mind recalling previous events - of grace and courage, of endurance and recovery, of alertness and reactions. I could tell from his silence, that he did see her eyes, and that he could remember her unique abilities. Abilities that were perhaps - too unique.

I knelt before him and spoke gently: "You've seen some of my abilities, and you remember some of hers. You can see in my face that she was my sister. Face the truth!"

"No!"

"She was a coder."

"No!"

"She had no soul."

"No!"

"You slept with her, allowed her to take your soul. Do you feel the weakness? Can you feel that your soul does not burn so brightly?"

"No!"

"Can you feel the pollution in your soul? Can feel her evil coursing through it? You loved her, and she destroyed you!"

And then he cracked. His mouth opened wide as a tortured, primal scream escaped from his lungs, echoing and rebounding around the tiny room. For long seconds the scream continued as violent sobs began to ripple across his body. Finally it died when his lungs ran empty. Tiny footsteps pattered across the concrete to his side, Tasha endlessly forgiving, and unable to comprehend hate. She knelt demurely beside him, and gently tipped his head to her breasts, soothingly stoking his hair, cooing gently as she did so.

He lifted his head and gazed blankly at her - but the hate was gone. Everything was gone. I knew from that look, that it had been no accomplishment to break him - he had been waiting to be broken. For three years he had lived a lie. By the time I had met him, he had run out of lies, had run out of deceptions, and had run out of faith. Only the hatred had remained. Now he hung limply before me, the bonds cutting into his flesh. The Knights had made him, had woven their faith deeply into him, had formed him, forged him, and had abandoned him to the world, sent him out, alone. No doubt they'd altered his memory, hiding the truth so that he could pass any truth test. Taken away from him the facts of who he was - facts that would gradually have returned to him, as the programming dissolved. For three long, lonely years, their weapon had flown. Now it was over.

Tasha looked up at me, her blond curls framing cheeks awash with tears. "He hated me."

"He hated what he thinks you are."

"And you?"

"Yes?"

"What you said... What you did..."

I sat down beside her, and wrapped one of her tiny hands in mine. "I'm soulless. It's just like I told him."

More tears formed in her eyes, as more of her dreams crumbled. "But I thought you were a citizen? I thought that perhaps..."

"I am a citizen," I told her, gently brushing a thumb across a wet cheek, across ivory skin marred by the barcode's mark. "I have no codes on my cheeks. No genetic marker across my DNA. I was created fertile, just like a citizen. And I'm registered as a citizen, with all the rights that entails."

"But you have no soul?"

"Maybe, if what they say is true. Does it matter?"

"I don't know," she tearfully whispered. I took her in my arms, and pulled her to me, feeling that perhaps I had destroyed her just as surely as the Rook. I had bullied her, coerced her, giving her hope of better things, then seemingly snatched that hope away. She looked back up at me. "The things you said you could do? The way you burnt yourself..?"

"Yeah?"

"I know I'm not a real person,. But when I'm hurt, I feel pain. With you..?"

"I don't feel physical pain - that doesn't mean I'm any less of a person than you."

"You don't feel pain, do you feel love?"

"As much as you can." I held her for a moment more, then drew slightly away. "I said it might not be pleasant. Now I need you to be patient. I can't give you any explanations now. Can you do that?"

She nodded.

"Good girl." I gently lifted her into the air, and carried her over to the washing machine. "Just sit there."

I stepped over to the Rook. His gaze remained fixed, staring straight through me. "Can you hear me?" I asked him. He said nothing, made no movement. I drew back my hand, and slapped him hard across the cheek, a stinging blow that sharply reddened the smooth skin. For a moment he was still, then his face slowly rotated.

"Can you hear me?"

He nodded, a slow almost imperceptible movement.

"Can you talk?"

"Yes." His voice was chilling, devoid of emotion.

"Who are you?"

"Luke Johnson."

"When were you born?"

"2083."

"You were one of the Children of God?"

"I was."

"You graduated in 2104?"

"Yes."

"Where were you assigned to after that?"

"The New London Adjudicator's office."

"How long were you there?"

"Nine months."

"Why did you leave?"

"I was transferred to the Continental Security Force."

"What was your assignment with the C.S.F.?"

"I was part of the Knights liaison team to the 3rd Air-Cavalry regiment."

The 3rd Air-Cav. One of the Army's best units. I considered that for a moment. "What was the 3rd's mission?"

"To patrol the Flanders zone of operations and wipe out any guerrilla forces still active in the area."

"Did you participate in any fighting?"

"Yes." Again there was no expression as he answered.

"How long were you with the 3rd?"

"Five months."

"And how did it end?"

"My death was faked."

"How?"

"The land-convoy I was riding with was ambushed by guerrillas in the area south of Brussels. The front and rear wagons were disabled by missiles. Then they swept into the remaining wagons. There was a lot of hand-to-hand fighting, confusion, and smoke, and I was able to slip away. I kept going until I was about ten kilometres from the road, and then I activated the homing beacon I'd been given. After a few hours I was picked up by an air-car."

"Who gave you the homing beacon?"

"The Horsemen."

The who?

"Who are the Horsemen?"

Pain flickered across his face, his jaw shuddering uselessly. "They... they..."

Of course, it was the programming, the brain-washing that he would have been given before starting. Although it was now breaking down, and was much weaker, the core elements still lingered on. And whoever the Horsemen were, the central part of their programming would have been designed to protect themselves. I would have to try and skirt around the edge of the defences erected around his memory, by avoiding such direct questions.

"When were you given the homing beacon?"

"Three weeks before."

"Where?"

"Glastonbury."

"Why were you there?"

"I was home on leave, and went on a pilgrimage."

"What was home?" I asked, wondering what a Child of God would call home.

"I kept a room in the Knight's New London hostel."

"Why were you given the beacon?"

"So that after I'd been able to slip away I could call for a pick-up."

"Did they told you that when you slipped away, you should do so during an attack, or some occasion when people could assume you'd been killed or captured?"

"Yes."

"How did you meet the people who gave you the beacon?"

"They approached me, after one of the ceremonies."

"Why you?"

"They had studied my record, my beliefs, and watched me in action."

"And they recruited you into their organisation?"

"Yes."

"Did you have a choice?"

"My beliefs were their beliefs, my destiny their destiny. So I had no choice."

"And they were the Horsemen?" I suggested, hoping that this would slip past the programming.

"Yes."

So the Horsemen, whoever they were, had selected him, recruited him, and given him the means and method to fake his death. Then they had plucked him from the open, marshy wasteland of Flanders, leaving the Knights to mark him as missing, presumed killed in action.

"They recruited you at Glastonbury. So were they Knights themselves?"

"Yes."

"Were they an official part of the Knights?"

"No."

"The leaders of the Horsemen - are they highly placed within the Knights?"

"I think so. They never revealed who they were, but they indicated that they held considerable power, from the High Council downwards."

I took a few moments to consider my next question. Something about the name didn't fit. "The Horsemen, is that their full name?"

"No. We call ourselves the Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

The what? I thought. "Why do you call yourselves that?"

"Because we are servants of the Apocalypse. It is our destiny to serve the destruction, to channel it, to enable it to reach its full completion. To help the Earth in its death."

Words less incredible would have made me angry, instead I was amazed. "You make it sound as though you worship the destruction?"

"We do. The floods, the ultra-violet rays, the greenhouse heat, the plagues - they have, and will, cleanse this world. And it's only when this cleansing has been completed, that the Earth and its peoples can be reborn."

"Are you saying that the cleansing has not been completed yet?"

"It has not." The three short words settled into the silence of the room.

"In the name of God," I breathed as I realised what he meant, "the cities, you want the cities to be destroyed!"

"They have to go. The cities, this society - it all has to go."

It was incredible, and yet not incredible. What he believed was not really very different from the standard Knight's beliefs that were held by nearly every citizen. But the depth to which they were held, the extent to which they would be followed, and the callousness with which they would be applied - all meant that the eventual conclusions would be very different. It was the difference between seeing the cities as havens of tranquillity, for humanity to survive the rebirth, and seeing them as barriers to that rebirth.

"So you joined the Horsemen. Did they train you?"

"Yes. For a short period. I had already been taught most of the survival and combat skills they needed."

"Was it they who changed your face?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because the face is the mirror of the soul."

Of course. I'd heard that hardliners were not in favour of body sculpting parlours.

"Where were you trained?"

"I don't know. They never said, I never asked."

"And where did they send you after you were trained?"

"I joined Internal Security, as an entry level recruit."

"How?"

"The Horsemen had constructed a fake identity for me, complete with records going back to birth, and for fake parents before that. They also had a network of supporters around the country who would claim to have known me, and who had memorised my cover story, in case they were contacted."

"So you just applied to join?"

"Yes."

"And your cover story got past them?"

"Apparently so."

"So what was your job?"

"Basic monitoring of the media: vid, films, newspapers, magazines - both printed and electronic - to pick out anything that might have information of interest to IntSec."

"Not a particularly high powered job?"

"For a Horsemen to get any job in IntSec was a great achievement. If I'd applied at a higher level, my cover story might not have held. The intention was to start low, and then gradually move up through the system."

"But that wasn't what happened, was it?"

"No. After a couple of months, I was recruited into the deep infiltration department."

"Why you? Why not someone more experienced?"

"They needed someone young."

"Was that when your face was changed?"

"Yes."

I thought back to three years ago, trying to remember some of the more obscure news items. As far as I could recall, the various pro-democracy movements had been undergoing one of their periodic revivals at around that time.

"Presumably they wanted you to infiltrate a pro-democracy movement?"

"No. They wanted me to start a pro-democracy movement."

"Why start a new one? Why not infiltrate an existing one?"

"Because if they started their own, then they would control it."

"But I thought the idea was to shut it down, to stop it?"

"No."

I waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing, just hanging motionless from the twine, his slow, shallow breathing almost imperceptible.

"So what was the idea?" I prodded.

"If they had a movement of their own, they could use it as a weapon - to help fulfil their own aims."

Call me naive, but I had always though that IntSec had been established to serve the country. I took a few paces and spoke again: "What were those aims?"

"I was never fully appraised. I was informed on a need to know basis as I performed each operation."

"The Centre..." I said, giving him a second or so to consider, "why did IntSec want you to do that mission?"

"It was entirely run by the Ministry of Biohuman Production. Bio Production is the most powerful Ministry in the government. By attacking it, IntSec was able to embarrass them, and thereby shift the balance of power."

It did all fit, I realised, remembering the news items about the independent inquiry, led by IntSec.

"But when you did the raid, it was supposedly on behalf of the pro-democracy movement. Presumably they were in favour of it? Why?"

"An operation like that sends a powerful message to the government and the people that we will not allow them to treat coders in the manner they do. Additionally, the best way to eliminate the use of coders as slaves is to interrupt their production. By eliminating the numbers we did, that function is performed, as well as preventing them from having to live worthless lives of harsh exploitation."

"You mean they'd be better off dead?"

"That's what the movement believes."

"Well that takes care of the movement, and IntSec. But what about the Horsemen? Presumably you had to get the okay from them for an operation of this magnitude?"

"Yes."

"So why were they in favour?"

"Because it would mean the destruction of eighty-thousand of the soulless."

"That was it - simply to destroy them?"

"No. This society functions on the backs of the coders. They build the cities, construct the roads, dig the tunnels. If you destroy them, you destroy the society."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Three totally different groups, with totally different aims, all agreeing to mount a particular operation, all for completely different reasons.

"So, the democracy movement wanted to liberate the coders, the Horsemen to destroy them, and IntSec to increase their power within the government."

"Yes."

"But why did you want to do it?"

He said nothing for a long while. Then finally he spoke: "I don't know."

"You were born into the Knights. You were then recruited by the Horsemen. They infiltrated you into IntSec, who used you to start up a pro-democracy movement. And finally, you were establishing contacts with the pro-democracy faction within the Knights." I paused for a moment. "Who were your ultimate loyalties to?"

He blinked. "To God... to the eternal circle."

"You still believe?"

"I have to. Otherwise there's nothing left."

"But do you still believe?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

He looked broken, shattered. After all, when the faith, the conditioning, the training, and the programming had gone - what remained? I left him and looked around the room for a few dozen seconds, flashing Tasha a quick, reassuring smile, whilst I considered my next query. "When IntSec sent you out to form a pro-democracy movement - were you alone?"

"Yes."

"So all the other members of the movement were genuine?"

"I can't comment on their reasons for joining - but as far as I know none of them were IntSec agents. Not in my portion of the movement at any rate."

"Was North City the first place you went to?" I asked quickly, hoping to surprise him. If he was, then it didn't show on his unmoving face.

"Yes."

"And that's where you met Shannon?"

"Yes."

"What was your relationship with her."

"We started off as co-members, then we became lovers, and finally we married."

"Where were you based?"

"In Bristol - but we were usually travelling from city to city."

"How often were you in New London?"

"Frequently."

Shit. All that time she'd been visiting her home city. So near, but so far. "Was there any place in New London that you visited regularly?"

"Kerensky's."

"Why?"

"To obtain new supplies, and to receive new orders."

"Who gave you the orders?"

"Kerensky."

That couldn't be true. "But Kerensky was a coder? How could you serve him?"

"No. He was a citizen. The codes on his face were fake."

"So he was actually an IntSec agent?"

"Yes."

"And Kerensky's was an IntSec facility?"

"Yes."

I remembered for an instant the devastation I'd seen, and replayed in slow motion Kerensky being blasted across the counter by the burst I'd fired. An ominous feeling crept through me.

"What were your movements in the period before the raid on the Centre?"

"The first leg of our journey was to Glastonbury."

"By boat from Cheddar?"

Again he failed to register surprise. "Yes."

"Why did you go to Glastonbury?"

"I needed to discuss certain matters with the leaders of the pro-democracy faction."

"What were those matters?"

"For the attack on the Centre I needed certain help from some of their operatives."

"These operatives - did they work at the Centre?"

"Yes."

"Did you do anything else at Glastonbury?"

"We got married."

"Why there?"

"We needed a friendly priest who wouldn't enquire into our pasts, and I wanted to be married at Avalon."

"Where did you go after Glastonbury?"

"To Oxford."

"To see Crazy Horse?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To arrange the final details of the transport to the Centre and to leave the equipment with them."

"Had you visited him many times before?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He was searching through the remains of the Emergency Government archives, as well as the archives of the various government organisations that were based in Oxford during the Chaos."

"What was it you were interested in?"

"Nothing in particular, just anything that I could use."

"Where did you go after Oxford?"

"To the Pleasure Dome."

"Why?"

"It was a convenient starting point for the raid. Also because of its powerful status, and the fact that it guarantees anonymity to its guests, it would provide a safe haven after the operation. It was also... was also..."

His voice was still flat, his face still frozen, but this stuttering halt was the first sign of any emotion since he had cracked.

"What?" I shouted. "What was it?"

"...It was our honeymoon."

The anger was building within me, the flames taking hold as the interrogation edged towards the facts that I needed. I walked away from him, and took a few, long, deep breaths, silently chanting as I did a standard Knights calming routine that I'd been taught long ago at school. I took a glance at Tasha, still perched on the washing machine, her bewildered face pale and tear-stained. I let her image flow over me, and over the anger, cooling and damping the flames. But still the embers of the fury glowed.

"You arrived at the Pleasure Dome with Shannon?"

"Yes."

"But when I arrived, she wasn't there."

"No."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know."

"Did she tell you where she was going?"

"No."

"Did you kill her?" I snarled.

"No," he replied coldly.

"Did you?" I screamed.

"No."

I stepped up and hammered a punch into his tethered body. He shuddered for a moment, and coughed, then spoke: "No."

"Did you know she was going?"

He hesitated, seemingly on the verge of speaking.

"Did you?"

"I thought something might happen."

"Why?"

He hesitated again. "There was some doubt over her loyalty."

"What doubt? She was your wife."

"There was still doubt."

"Why?"

"Someone in the movement had uncovered certain information, that indicated that she'd lied about her background."

"Who?" I demanded.

"I don't know. We operate a cell structure. The fewer members each person knows, the better. It wasn't from Bristol, which was my area. It just found its way to us."

"So after seeing this information, you decided that she was a traitor?"

"...Yes."

"What did you do then? With that information?"

"I passed it onto my handlers."

"Which ones?"

"IntSec. I only have intermittent contact with the Horsemen."

"When was this?"

"Not long after we'd arrived at the Pleasure Dome."

"And what did they do?"

"They sent a communication asking for details of where in the complex we were staying."

"And you gave them those details?"

"Yes."

"What happened then?"

"I was ordered to not be around her at a particular time."

"When was that?"

"Early one morning."

"What did you do?"

"I went swimming, and left her... having a lie-in."

"What happened then?"

"She was terminated in the room by the assault team, and the body taken away. The original plan had been to remove her for questioning, but it was decided that since there was a high probability that she would have protective programming to reduce the quantity of information it would be possible to retrieve, termination was a safer option."

So that was it. She had probably never even known she was being attacked. I had killed to obtain this information, and now it was here, all I felt was numbness. But the pain could come later, for now I would settle for the truth.

"It was the safer option?" I asked unbelieving.

"With such an important operation coming up, she had to be removed immediately. There was no safe way to remove her from the Pleasure Dome without risking discovery. I couldn't take her somewhere else because she knew our schedule - it would have made her suspicious. If we had received the information earlier we could have taken a different action, but the mission on the Centre was just too important to risk. We had to do it."

"How could you do it? You loved her. She loved you."

"She was betraying me."

"But you were betraying her?"

He clamped his eyes shut, as though he had never taken an overall view of his many lives. "Did she love me..?"

"She did."

"Was she betraying me?"

"She loved you - I do know that."

"What do you know about the assault team?"

He hesitated. "I wasn't supposed to know anything. That's why I had to be out of the area."

"But you did know something?"

"I saw them, as they were walking through the complex."

"But how would you know it was them? Unless... you recognised one or more of them?"

"Yes. The leader. I recognised him."

"Who was he?" I urged. "Who?"

"I knew him as Spider Jack," he breathed, gazing straight past me.

I staggered backwards, and found myself slumped against the washing machine, Tasha's concerned fingers stroking across my hair. Spider Jack? The irony of it all was horrific. If only I'd known! If only.

"Are you okay?" asked Tasha, sliding off her perch and hugging me as my mind thrashed in confusion. If only I'd known. Or was I supposed to know? All along, I'd been assuming that the image that I had been sent was only a clue, a pointer. Had it been the answer all along? If only I'd known, so much bloodshed could have been prevented. But there was something else, a question I hadn't asked, an answer I hadn't received.

I eased away from Tasha's warm embrace, and paced over to the bound figure. "The information that showed she was a traitor. What was it?"

"It was a summary of communications between her and another person. It contained information that only she and I knew. Things that I hadn't even told my handlers. No-one else should have known some of the things on that sheet. No-one."

And then it became clear, all of it. The reluctance, the argument, and the chase. Because there were only two people who would've had access to that information. One of them was Jenny.

The other was Dad.

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