CHAPTER ONE | NEO BRITANNIA

  42 hours until Contact, 27 days until Convergence

  ‘It had been thirty years since our scientists had sulphured the sky, thirty years since the collapse of the biosphere and the world along with it. Humanity clung to life in small pockets of civilisation, determined to endure. Neo Britannia was one such city. The place where all of it began. The place where all of it ended.’

  – from ‘Humanity Before Convergence’ by Laithan Shah

  Unlike her cellmate, Sophie hadn’t been awoken by the six o’clock klaxon. Neither had it been the glare of the overhead lights nor the stench and scratch of her wall-mounted bed. She rubbed a hand to her chest.

  It had been pain. Unimaginable pain.

  Thwomp.

  ‘Get up, Sutton. I know you’s awake.’

  Sophie gritted her teeth, her paper-thin mattress proving, yet again, an abominable shield. ‘How many?’ her cellmate asked, retracting her fist from between overhead bunk springs as Sophie dropped down from above.

  Tucked beneath linens, half of which had been swiped from Sophie’s bunk, Yolande Lavigne was the image of comfort. Hands clenched, Sophie found herself considering it, but bereft of compassion and utterly institutionalised, cellmates like Lavigne were rat traps: totally not worth the cheese.

  ‘You gormin’, Sutton? I said, “How many”?’

  Sophie crossed their cell to the hygiene unit, stuffed in the corner. ‘Five,’ she said, pulling out the stack of coin-like tokens that had been vacc-tubed to the dispenser overnight. ‘Damn. Hot ones, too.’

  Lavigne had never moved so fast. ‘The fuck did you do?’

  ‘Must’ve been the apple orchard,’ Sophie said, willing her hand to remain open as the tokens were snatched away. ‘There was some kind’ve fungal rust, so I—’

  But Lavigne was no longer listening, sprinting—naked—to the unit’s accompanying showerhead. ‘Five minutes,’ she cackled, hurrying to input the coins. ‘Five whole minutes!’

  The effort to appear indifferent was gargantuan. ‘Could probably cop some more today,’ Sophie said. ‘Pretty sure the neighbourin’ orchard was ‘fected too.’

  ‘So?’ Lavigne tossed over her shoulder.

  Sophie shrugged. ‘So, maybe I’ll save Ag-Sec a second time.’ She glanced toward the tokens. ‘Or maybe I won’t.’

  Only one of them was thrown back, but when it was Sophie’s turn to step beneath the showerhead, she didn’t let the particulars sully her mood. Resting against the cubicle wall—hot water running over her neck and back—she let out a rare groan of delight, a short sliver of bliss that even sleep had not afforded her.

  Her dreams had been troubled again: blue-glow waves over a black-sanded beach, a riven tree, split and unfurled from canopy to root, and a snake, an eternal circle of silver-melt mercury, forever doomed to feast on its own tail. More than once, she had tried to reach out: tried to save it. But each time, the waves would only rise to push her back. ‘It is my reclamation,’ they had whispered, in voices both ancient and new. ‘My twelve-chambered soul. Who dares think themselves so worthy?’

  ‘You’re bats, Sutton,’ Lavigne said as they dressed into fresh sets of overalls, grey as the walls of their cell. ‘All that’—she grimaced—'mutterin’ in your sleep. If you weren’t such a snag—’

  Sophie smiled as their door buzzed open for roll call. ‘Love you too, Lavigne.’

  She didn’t stay to hear her cellmate’s response, stepping onto the grated mezzanine outside as attending guards paced up and down the cellblock. To her left and right, fellow insolvents emerged with slow reluctance, readying themselves for yet another twelve-hour shift slaving for the Insolvency Bureau. Five doors down, the newest arrival to the lady’s wing was already crying from the horror of it.

  ‘All right, welchers!’ a guard shrieked. ‘Move it!’

  So began the corpse-like shuffle, automated announcements droning within the connecting foyer as insolvents were funnelled through the various manifest booths.

  ‘Winters, Cadence, outstanding debt: nine thousand and ninety pounds. Patel, Billie, outstanding debt: three hundred and eight thousand, five hundred and five pounds. Lavigne, Yolande, outstanding debt: twenty thousand and twenty-four pounds.’

  Sophie held her breath as she passed beneath the scanner.

  ‘Sutton, Sophia, outstanding debt: one million, four hundred and ninety-eight thousand, six hundred and eight pounds.’

  ‘Keep it up, Sutton,’ a guard chuckled, studying the automated repayment plan calculated by the chatbot. ‘Says here you’ll be square in two hundred years.’

  Sophie hovered her arm against the booth’s interfacer, compiling the data into an ID chip—recently grafted beneath the skin. ‘Watch me, mutt.’

  Breakfast was the usual: an over-moist protein blend with a brick-dry carb bar and assorted supplement jellies, all of it to be washed down with a merciful slurp of soy. ‘My, my, Sutton,’ Lavigne said, not even hesitating to swipe the carton from Sophie’s tray. ‘How kind.’

  Once again, Sophie kept her frustration muzzled as they made for the tables. A five-grand penalty for instigating violence was a mere drop compared to the million-plus debt held against her name, tempting enough if she ignored the fact that Javier had explicitly told her not to cause trouble. ‘Keep your head down and do as you’re told, amiga’—his final words as Bureau agents worked to shoehorn her into the back of their carrier. ‘I’ll buzz you when I find somethin’.’

  Javier had never blamed her, of course. In fact, since that fateful night four weeks ago, he had always maintained that her failure on the track had been due to the backhanded sabotage of her sponsor’s rig rather than her rookie skills as a pilot. But Sophie knew he had only spun this to save face. Her own arrogance had dumped them into this mess. Quite frankly, it was a miracle he was still willing to stick his neck out for her.

  Idiot, she thought, stabbing a spork into the small mound of protein paste piled before her, the glares of others who had reason to blame her for their insolvency digging into her back. As if you were ready for the Palace!

  ‘Yo! Did you hear?’

  The insolvents sharing Sophie’s table, Lavigne’s posse, looked weariedly toward the inmate who had slipped in to join them. ‘It’s six in the mornin’, fart pipe.’

  ‘Shut up and listen! Hines got smoked!’

  ‘Holy shit... When?’

  ‘Last night at some hoity-toit opera. Media’s pointin’ fingers at—’

  Lavigne snapped her spork. ‘Lemme guess. Shahadis.’

  The inmate gave a grim nod. ‘D’ya think it’ll still go through?’

  No one dared justify the question with an answer. Deputy Minister Sioned Hines was dead, and with her, all hope of an “Insolvency Rights Bill” ever making it to Parliament. With her jaw rigged to crack, Lavigne’s attention slid back to Sophie.

  ‘Sutton.’

  ‘What?’

  She launched for the girl’s supplement jellies. After the carton of soy, they were the breakfast tray’s next most prized commodity.

  Sophie moved without thinking. ‘Take those; it’ll be the last thing you take.’

  Lavigne looked up from the hand gripped around her wrist. ‘Do you have a death wish, Sutton?’

  Sophie hesitated as rational thought caught up with the action. Silence had fallen over the table, the clatter of nourishment replaced by rapturous anticipation. Reasoning that the consequences would be worse if she didn’t follow through, Sophie held on tight, reaching down with her free hand to pick up the jellies. She flipped Lavigne’s palm, dangled them over it, waiting... waiting for that sickening smirk.

  ‘See?’ Lavigne sneered to their audience. ‘Such a good li’l fish.’

  Laughter erupted when Sophie scoffed the jellies, chewing theatrically while treating her cellmate to a lackadaisical grin. Subverted, unable to do little more than boil over, Lavigne launched to her feet.

  ‘You fuckin’—!’

  ‘Problem, Lavigne?’

  All eyes snapped guiltily toward the guard.

  ‘No, sir.’

  He spied the extra soy carton on her tray. ‘Well, looks to me like you’re kleppin’ food again.’ He pulled back his sleeve, revealing the thick band of metal clipped around his wrist—an access cuff, the latest must-have interfacer amongst the consumerist elite. He poked at the materialising cloud of teal-tinted holograms. ‘Guess we’ll just add a couple hundred to your debt.’

  Lavigne slammed her fists into the table.

  ‘Want me to fettle your R’n’R too?’

  Lavigne sank. Satisfied, the guard looked back to Sophie.

  ‘Sutton. You gotta viz.’

  Still full of jelly, Sophie almost choked. ‘Who?’

  ‘The fuckin’ King of England for all I care. Come on. Move it.’

  Excitement simmered as she followed him to Visitation. It had been exactly a month since her arrival at the Bureau, four weeks of cynics telling her that with a debt like hers, there was no doubt she would live out her days as a slave to the city. To their confusion, she had not allowed their scepticism to dampen her spirits.

  Javier had promised, after all.

  Excitement vanished the moment she entered the visitation booth.

  ‘Sophia... My god!’

  ‘Don’t,’ Sophie warned.

  But Sister Campion had already turned on the guard. ‘What kind of establishment do you think you’re running here?’ she snapped, ballooning behind the plexiglass as Sophie’s near-emaciated form was mag-cuffed to a bolted-down stool.

  The guard shrugged. ‘Not our fault she’s ‘cided to play doormat.’

  His answer made Sister Campion’s eyes dance. ‘Sophia. What’s he talking about?’

  ‘Leave it,’ Sophie said. ‘And stop callin’ me that.’

  The wimpled priestess studied the late adolescent, a sweet, fawn-freckled youth, looking so tense and hollow-cheeked beneath a mop of raven hair. ‘But—'

  ‘I said leave it.’

  She did as the girl bade. At least her fire had remained strong. So much like her mother. But of the father...

  ‘Why are you here, Campion?’

  The priestess attempted a smile. ‘I need a reason to—?’

  ‘You’re not my mother, and last I checked, I don’t deserve your concern.’

  ‘Child, please understand. Emotions were high, and Laurits... he...’

  Sophie watched as moisture pooled upon the priestess’s waterlines, grim translucence fattening beneath the orbs. ‘We don’t know what possessed him to...’ She stopped as if the words were too heinous—too tainted—to bring into being. ‘But he loved you, child. Of that, I am certain.’

  ‘The doctors said he has time,’ Sophie said. ‘Javier’ll find somethin’; he... he just needs to hold—'

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  ‘He’s gone, Sophie. I’m sorry. I wanted you to hear it from me before... before...’

  Her voice trailed for a third time—a third time too many. Like a kick to the gut, Sophie felt heavy, sinking through water... to darkest depths.

  ‘What happened, Campion? What the fuck did he do?’

  * * *

  Tired, nauseous, and very likely still drunk, Laithan decided to ignore the voices whispering at his shoulder.

  ‘Stone... Spire... Spire... Spire...’

  He fished for his medicine jar, chasing down a tablet with a quick mouthful of coffee.

  ‘Stone... Spire... Spire... Stone...’

  On a nearby holoscreen, a reporter was delivering the six o’clock news. Studying her reflection scintillating on the chain-chow’s metal-mirror walls, Laithan did his best to focus on her voice instead.

  ‘... the Royal Albert Hall with assault rifles and suicide vests. Deputy Minister Sioned Hines has been confirmed to be among the victims of the attack. Investigators believe the incident is linked to the terrorist group Al-Qabda, led by the political extremist—’

  Laithan snapped his eyes back to his coffee. In recent years, the media had made it a habit of theirs to roll out her picture every time something terrible happened. He could only commend them for their efficiency; like drip-fed cattle, the surrounding public was already muttering. Nearby, a cluster of white-collared desk jockeys, hunkered over their plates of bacon and eggs, began voicing their concerns a little louder than most.

  ‘Christ. Another attack?’

  ‘The Interior too. Whole city’s gone mad.’

  ‘Fuckin’ Shahadis,’ a third man growled. ‘If they don’t like it, why don’t they just fuck off back to the Wilds?’

  ‘Yeah, but why would they smoke Hines? She’s always lobbied for Fringe-folk—even married one of ‘em!’

  The third man shrugged. ‘Can’t raise an army when everything’s croosey, can you?’

  Laithan scoffed. Made sense that they were middlers, corporate keeners with a touch of Fringee twang. Too bootlicky to be Interior. Too privileged to be Fringe.

  Three pairs of eyes moved his way.

  ‘You’d think he’d have the decency to go somewhere else,’ the third man continued.

  Laithan drained what little coffee remained in his cup. Despite his best efforts to ingratiate himself as a contributing citizen of Neo Britannia, his foreign heritage would always be a bone of contention with an increasingly distrustful populace. He gestured calmly for a refill. Filing defence against assault upon a civilian was not how he planned to spend the rest of his day.

  The first man gave his colleague a nudge. ‘You wanna maybe shud up?’

  ‘Why should I? It’s his people that are stirrin’ up trouble.’

  Laithan’s nostrils flared as he reached for his hip flask, adding a splash of vodka whilst the server nervously refreshed his cup. It was not the words that had angered him; after two decades within Neo Britannia’s walls, it was nothing he hadn’t heard before. No. More the narrow-mindedness. The utter fucking hypocrisy.

  ‘Hey, fugee!’ the man continued, seemingly happy for his misgivings to be aired on a larger stage. ‘Fuck off back to the Fringe, yeah? We don’t want your type here!’

  By now, the situation had drawn the attention of surrounding customers, none of whom were willing to step in on Laithan’s behalf; even the server, having tended to him for months, was unbearably quiet, conveniently distracted by an incoming drink order.

  Laithan didn’t blame them. Couldn’t blame them. Selflessness had died along with the world, and sticking your head above the parapet only invited bullets.

  The man stepped away from his table. ‘Hey! You listenin’, fugee?’

  ‘Piss off,’ Laithan growled.

  But the man continued his advance. ‘You piss off! We don’t need no fugee scum here!’

  The legs of Laithan’s stool scraped sharply as he rose to his feet.

  ‘Oh, wanna go there, do ya?’ The man lifted his fists.

  Despite the headache drilling at his temples, Laithan was reasonably sure-footed as he turned to reveal the badge hidden within his plain-clothes jacket.

  Suddenly, the man was attempting to “turtle” through his own collarbones. ‘Officer. I... I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Beat it,’ Laithan grunted. ‘All of you.’

  The civs didn’t need anything more than that. Hissing profanities at their loud-mouthed colleague, they were gone within seconds, leaving half-eaten meals behind them. Taking a moment to steady himself, Laithan looked down at the lingering spread. After months of cheap noodle cups and jelly packs, the sight of real food was enough to send his stomach aflutter.

  ‘You might as well, Detective,’ the server called over, the surrounding customers quickly returning to meal and conversation. ‘It’s already been paid for.’

  Laithan settled down to eat with a hunger that was almost animalistic. Late into his forties, he had lived through many of the changes that had shaped London into the monstrous megalopolis two hundred million people now called home. Before the sundering of the world’s ecosystems, it was just one of many cities. These days, except for the various resource extractors dotted around the globe, all intelligence suggested that Neo Britannia was the only one left, the last civilised shelter of a world in ruin.

  The transition from country to city-state had been like the floods succeeding the storms. Insular politics, widespread climate catastrophe and thinning global resources had resulted in an increasingly cutthroat parliament, economically compelled towards the preservation of self and shareholder interest in the face of a degrading world. As a result, communities to the north and west were often left wanting. So, after the fracturing of the British Union and the subsequent scramble for resources, the sovereign state of England simply ceased to exist. Hounded by roving gangs of disenfranchised militia and the festering of previously bountiful farmland, the desperate soon found themselves drawn to the security of the capital.

  The strain on housing became less than unsustainable, and when the last piece of green space was lost to hastily constructed hovels, prices soared, and riots ensued. Stacking homes on top of each other in massive tower blocks became the only solution to an ever-growing problem. Thus, the once fair city of London rose higher and higher, layer upon layer, fattening itself into a gargantuan of urbanised obesity.

  But it was never enough. Despite all that had been done to settle the unsettled, the escalating influx of refugees had reached critical mass and showed no signs of easing.

  Following the biospherical collapse that had claimed the planet in the mid-twenty-first century, nations worldwide were swift to crumble. In London, at least, there was some semblance of the old order, fragile though it was. For the desperate and afraid, that proved temptation enough; some even prepared to swim the width of the Channel to access it. Within months of the United Nations’ official declaration of a planet-wide ecological emergency, even the residential stacks of the greater boroughs were buckling under the weight of an ever-growing population.

  Using the chaos to his advantage, it was under these conditions that the technological “whizz kid”, Wilfred Koenig, soon rose to prominence. His solution to the immigration crisis was a veritably simple one: a hundred-metre-tall barrier to seal off London from the outside world.

  Laithan could still remember the callous look on his face as he outlined the plan for the whole city to hear—the sacrifices that would have to be made to ensure survival. Parliament tried to resist for a time, fearful of committing themselves to such an obvious play for oligarchy, resistant to surrender what they had long cropped for themselves. But as social order tipped further into outright disarray, it didn’t take long to change their minds.

  Thus, in the year of 2055, London watched as its leaders knelt before Koenig, begging him to save them.

  ‘He’ll be after us next,’ Laithan’s sister had warned during the “celebration” of the Wall’s completion, merely half a decade later, the once global might of the British Empire reduced to nothing more than a fortressed city-state. ‘He’ll send his mutts to sniff us out until there are none of us left.’

  ‘Peace, daughter,’ said Laithan’s father. ‘We came here legally. Long before all this.’

  To that, Laithan’s sister had only scoffed. ‘We’re all fugees in their eyes.’

  As much as Laithan hated to admit it, it only took a few months for her warning to be proven right.

  Despite the shrinkage of a whole nation into an area of approximately one thousand and two hundred square miles, this “new” London—this “Neo Britannia”—commanded international respect and envy. When he had constructed his wall, Koenig had also expanded the city’s military capabilities and the technology that supported it, and as the wealthy of the world began moving their assets into the city, Parliament—what remained of it—began to comprehend the long-term potential of Koenig’s project. They doubled down on funding his schemes, and soon, citizenship was not so much a question of rights but how much you were willing to pay for it.

  Fortunately for the Shahs, Laithan had managed to obtain a position within the newly overhauled Metropolitan Police Service, and though they were forced to downsize to the peripheral boroughs, his salary, combined with his father’s academic earnings, was enough to maintain a position of moderate comfort.

  Not all within Neo Britannia had been so lucky.

  Laithan still remembered the looks on their faces as he had read them their eviction notices, the fear in their eyes as he had led them—their children—onto convoys bound for the desolation beyond the Wall. He had done his best to keep things calm before the end, but when he had returned to the flat that night, the sound of gunfire and screaming still ringing in his ears, his sister was waiting.

  ‘Traitor! Murderer! Koenig mutt!’

  His father had tried to reason with her. ‘He had no choice, Kiranpreet.’

  But no words—no logic—could atone for Laithan’s shame. Kiranpreet ran away that very night, slipping into the city’s “Underbelly”—disappearing forever.

  Heartbroken, Laithan and his father attempted to find solace where they could. Like a true scholastic, Mujahid turned to his books, intellectualism becoming obsession as his research descended into increasingly wayward conclusions. Ridden with guilt, Laithan pushed through his own mental cracks to become a detective, anything to get him off the deportation sweeps. And as life settled into a soulless rhythm, the social constructs of the city became ever more defined. Soon, the two hundred square miles surrounding Westminster—the territory of the silver-spooned elite—became known as the Interior. Everything else between that central region and Koenig’s encircling wall became coldly referred to as the Fringe.

  Tensions between the two had always been rife, coerced by revolutionaries who, despite everything, had not lost their desire for justice. They did everything they could to rouse the public into action, led by a woman whose passion for societal revolution was equalled only by her hunger for revenge.

  Laithan flinched when her face appeared on the news for a second time, mourning the girl—the sister—that once was.

  ‘Traitor... Murderer... Koenig mutt...’

  ‘Detective?’

  Laithan made no motion to greet the figure who had approached his table. Willowed, androgynous, uncannily fair, they looked like an old photographic negative, the tonal opposite of a shadow at high noon.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Laithan Shah?’

  ‘Fuck me,’ Laithan growled, rummaging again for his medicine jar.

  ‘No need for that.’ The figure claimed the seat opposite. ‘Call me Bodes.’

  ‘Bodes?’ Laithan repeated, ignoring the spindled hand that had been extended in greeting—an Old Saxon name: lord, commander...

  Messenger.

  ‘Yes,’ Bodes said, pulling something from their double-breasted trench coat. Ashen-blond and with eyes so pale connecting blood vessels gave them an almost “mauvish” hue, they looked delicately sinister, like a snowpack one flake away from avalanche. ‘Senior Intelligence Officer Gabriel Bodes.’

  Laithan glanced down at the ID card: a laminated “fuck you” straight from MI5. ‘What does counterterrorism want with me?’

  ‘Aside from the obvious?’

  Laithan scowled as the agent regarded the newscast, still scintillating its Interior-biased bullshit overhead. ‘Obviously.’

  Bodes slipped away their credentials. ‘Does the name “Tiidrik Laurits” mean anything to you?’

  ‘Should it?’

  ‘Not necessarily. He was found dead a few hours ago. Suicide.’

  ‘And you’re tellin’ me because...?’

  ‘Because that explanation is a little too “tidy” for me—especially when one considers the events leading up to his... untimely demise.’

  ‘Meanin’?’

  ‘Father Laurits was the last person to speak with Deputy Minister Sioned Hines before her assassination. And now—like her—he’s dead.’

  Laithan attempted to swallow. ‘He... He was a priest?’

  ‘Neo-Gnostic. Hence’—the agent cracked a smile—‘my newfound interest in you.’

  Shit.

  ‘I’m no happy clapper,’ Laithan reminded.

  ‘But you are the son of Mujahid Shah. That qualifies you more than most.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For taking on the case; for finding out exactly what links Tiidrik Laurits to Sioned Hines.’

  Double fucking shit.

  ‘You’re the counterterrorist here; you do it.’

  ‘Wake up, Shah. Even if your sister is what they say, do you really think she would smoke the one person doing the most to support her cause?’

  ‘I don’t make a habit of contemplatin’ the mind of a terrorist,’ Laithan growled.

  Impatience stiffened the agent’s features—a definite crack in the ice. 'Don't make me pull rank on you.'

  Finally, it was Laithan’s turn to smile. ‘Why? Who was she to you?’

  The air inside the chain-chow seemed to crackle; cutlery, glass, and utensils jingling against dark-warping walls. Instinctively, Laithan reached for his medicine jar.

  ‘Traitor... Murderer... Koenig mutt...’

  Gabriel Bodes rose to his feet. ‘Take the case, Shah. That’s an order.’

  ‘And if I find somethin’?’ Laithan asked, gripping, clawing... dragging himself through. ‘How am I s’posed to contact you?’

  The agent looked over his shoulder, his expression intangible, sphinx-like. ‘Let’s not sweat the minutia. I’ll contact you.’

  * * *

  Olek Barnes didn’t spend long contemplating why the deputy minister needed to die last night—ignorance equated to longevity in this line of work—but luckily for Koenig Corp, the Royal Albert Hall’s chief executive seemed equally eager for the incident to be erased from public memory. ‘Is she nearly finished?’ she pestered, lingering like an unwaftable smell. ‘It’s just... we have a gala tomorrow night, and I still need to ascertain the damage to—’

  Olek stepped across the curtained archway leading to the Royal Box. ‘Just a little longer. Koenig Corp thanks you for your patience.’

  Leant against the opposing wall, Nicholas “Nicks” Bixby chuckled as the executive stiletto-clopped away. ‘She thinks she’s stressed. The longer we stay, the longer we risk undoing everythin’ our sleepers—’

  ‘Enough,’ Olek said, glancing over his shoulder. Beyond the archway, their assignment was still doing... whatever it was that needed doing, knelt in a half-conscious state, fingers splayed into blood-stained, bullet-ridden carpets as if attempting to feel the very rotation of the Earth. ‘Do a perimeter check if you’re bored.’

  A pair of cybernetic eyes glimmered behind dark-tinted glasses. ‘Again? Do you know how far that is?’

  Olek did the math. ‘Two hundred and fifty meters.’ He paused to consider his partner’s somewhat elfin form. ‘Give or take.’

  Nicks scoffed. ‘They warned me you were a ballache.’

  ‘Perimeter. Now.’

  The rookie was muttering a long string of curses as he started down the encircling corridor. Finally alone, Olek slipped into the theatre box.

  ‘Miss? Management’s getting antsy. Will this...? Will this take much longer? Miss?’

  Lost in a trance, the woman did not answer. She was young—in her early twenties at most. Long hair fell loose about her waist, a pale blonde that was almost white. Combined with porcelain skin, plush lips and a rounded jaw, Olek had long decided she was the most captivating creature he had ever beheld.

  Not that it surprised him. He had heard the rumours surrounding Wilfred Koenig’s inner circle, his genetic menagerie of high-octane superhumans. Being the head of a multi-trillion conglomerate had a sure-fire way of drawing in the city’s best, but—until recently—Olek had only heard whispers of such a woman existing within the corporation’s employ.

  ‘She doesn’t leave your sight, Barnes. Understand?’

  Olek remembered the feeling of ice frosting his veins when he became the target of Koenig’s scrutiny, unchanged from the one that had found him—paralysed and dying—all those years ago. ‘Yes, Mr Koenig.’

  He stepped around the woman, his spinal shunt doing most of the heavy lifting as he crouched to assess her vitals. ‘Miss? Can you hear me?’

  Again... nothing.

  He brushed a thumb across her cheek. ‘Lena?’

  ‘Easy now, Romeo.’

  Olek snapped to his feet with a guilty start. Leaning within the archway, Nicks Bixby was watching, his sunglasses barely concealing the glow of his electromechanical corneas. Infrared, ultraviolet, magnification, X-ray; he didn’t “see” like regular humans, but—judging from the smirk—he had seen enough. ‘Perimeter’s clear,’ he said, ‘but I can go again if you’—he shimmied his eyebrows—'need a little longer.’

  Olek pushed past. ‘When are you going to start taking this seriously?’

  ‘Whenever you agree to pull the stick out your ass,’ the rookie chuckled, settling back into position on the opposite side of the corridor. ‘Don’t worry.’ The sun-spectacled glare of his left implant vanished for a fraction of a second—the ghost of a wink. ‘I’m sure the “Bossman” will give you his blessin’.’

  Olek clenched his fists as Nicks switched to infrared, relishing the heat flushing his superior’s face.

  But Olek needn’t have worried, for below—far down below—Helena Koenig was too distant to be listening, silently screaming across a shimmer-black void.

  ‘Help me! Help me, please!’

  Return, a voice whispered back. Complete Convergence.

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