George took a mouthful of Irn-Bru, belched. ‘I’ve sent those brain samples off to the labs. Get them back tomorrow. At least then we’ll know what Peitai’s injecting the poor buggers with.’

Will stuffed the rest of his burger in the bin. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. ‘What about you, Brian?’

‘No one’s talkin’. I’ve twisted every arm I can think of; whatever they’re up to, they’re keepin’ it real quiet.’

‘Then all we’ve got is one mysteriously fake-shabby apartment, two corpses, and George’s chemical residue.’ Will scowled out at the rain, watching it hammer into the pavement hard enough to jump back to knee level. ‘There’s something else: Dr Westfield.’

Brian raised an eyebrow, ‘Oh aye?’ George just went on eating.

Turns out Alastair Middleton wasn’t the only one Westfield was grooming. Colin Mitchell and Allan Brown: she was their therapist too. I found case notes detailing how she screwed up their parents, then did the same to them. Twisted them till they went out and started killing.’

‘Shite…’ Brian shivered. ‘If she did three, who’s to say she didn’t do more?’

‘That’s what I was thinking. Bit of a coincidence isn’t it? Westfield was manufacturing killers, and now good old Ken Peitai’s doing the same thing. Only a bit more high-tech and-’

The alarm on Will’s mobile bleeped. He checked his watch: one thirty. Time to go spend the afternoon with Jo.

‘Got to run. Keep me up to date, OK?’ He dashed out into the downpour, heading for the nearest shuttle station.

‘Afraid we’ve had a couple of problems, sir.’

The room was dark, lit only by the screens that lined the central table. Ken’s boss didn’t say anything, just twisted the test tube round and round in his fingers, keeping the liquid inside from settling.

Ken Peitai kept his eyes dead ahead. ‘Mr Moncur and Mr Stevenson had a…lapse of judgement. They’ve been kinda negligent in their monitoring of our brood mother.’

Ken’s boss stopped fiddling with the tube and placed it down on the table with a delicate clink. ‘Go on.’

Ken nodded. ‘I passed on your instructions to get Dr W brain-fried for good, but Stevenson came down with the flu and Moncur’s been up to his eyeballs with other projects. I checked their logs: she’s not been in for over three weeks. That means she’s not had her medication. And that means-’

‘I’m quite aware what that means. Find her. Find her and bring her in now.’

‘That ain’t going to be necessary, sir. She’s in the morgue. Roadhugger she was in went for a flying lesson off the ring road and smacked bang into a bus. Boom!’ He mimed a small explosion. ‘No survivors. Hospital morgue ran a DNA check on Westfield’s remains-idiots got the sample wrong, but Moncur says he gave them a false positive anyway, just in case they decided to dig any further. ID chip matched, so it’s OK: all taken care of.’

The old man pursed his lips. It made his face look even more aerodynamic than usual. ‘Moncur and Stevenson?’

‘This is the first time either of them has screwed up, Mr Kikan. I gave them a first and final warning. One more breach and they’re testin’ the next batch of mixture.’

‘Three weeks.’ Kikan frowned. ‘When I give an order to have someone lobotomized, Ken, I expect it to be carried out immediately. If Dr Westfield had gotten “out of hand” without her medication it would have raised some very awkward questions.’

‘Yes, sir. But she didn’t and now she’s dead.’ He watched his boss pick the test tube up and set it dancing again.

‘And the other thing?’

‘Ah…yeah…the other thing. You remember that Network guy we had in the other day: William Hunter? Assistant Director?’

‘The one you were supposed to be keeping an eye on?’

Ken cleared his throat. ‘Yeah…that’s the one. Publicly he’s been making all the right noises about steering clear of the test zone, but we’re monitoring his home line and he’s been poking around in the PsychTech files.’

‘So?’ There was a hint of boredom in the man’s voice, but Ken knew better than to believe it.

‘He’s also been runnin’ searches on you and me. Hasn’t found anything yet, but the guys in statistics say there’s a six point three percent chance he’s going to find something we’d rather he didn’t.’

‘How did he get my name, Ken?’ The old man’s eyes were like ice.

Ken stuttered. ‘I…I don’t know how-’

‘This is supposed to be a discreet operation, Ken. First the Westfield woman is allowed to outlive her usefulness and now this. I am not pleased. Not pleased at all.’

‘No, sir. I understand, sir.’

‘Then you know what to do, don’t you?’ He slipped the test tube back in his pocket and stood.

‘Actually…’ Ken shifted from foot to foot. ‘You think I should maybe have a friendly chat with him first?’

The old man stopped on his way to the exit, his cloat slung over one shoulder. ‘What is this strange aversion you have to killing the man, Ken?’

‘He’s a hero, sir. I’ve read through his file and William Hunter’s one of the good guys. I’d kinda prefer not to go rubbing him out unless I absolutely have to.’

Kikan shook his head and smiled one of his rare smiles. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble than he already has. The first sign of anything inopportune I want him removed. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’ Ken snapped off a smart salute. ‘Don’t you worry about Mr Hunter, I’m gonna make sure he stays nice and friendly. And if he don’t I’m gonna make sure he stays nice and dead.’

20

Will looked back over his shoulder and watched the city burn. The air was misty with evaporated flesh: soft pink clouds drifting gently to the ground, leaving a faint slick of human cells on anything they touched. He turned his attention away from the funeral pyres and palls of thick, greasy smoke and examined the Whomper in his hands. It was less than half full; whatever Jo was going to do she’d have to do it soon.

The barricade he was hiding behind rocked under another onslaught. Chips of smoking concrete rained down all around him. The noise was deafening. Over in the distance, through the fog of skin and bone, he could just make out Jo’s outline, hiding behind the wreckage of a school bus. The vehicle looked as if it had been put through a mangle, and Jo didn’t look much better. Her jumpsuit was stained and scorched, the middle section slashed almost in half, exposing swollen, burnt flesh.

She looked back at him, their eyes meeting over the barrel of her Crackling Gun. For a moment Will just crouched there, not moving, then the man standing next to him exploded.

The gun in Jo’s hands howled.

They were running out of time.

He vaulted the barricade, and sprinted across the war-torn street, trying not to get his head blown off. The pavement buckled beneath his feet as he ran towards the dark-red troop carrier, chunks of concrete shattering all around as the gunners tried to kill him.

Jo’s Crackling Gun howled again, her siege weapon carving bite-sized chunks of metal out of the carrier’s hull. Will slithered to a halt, skidding on a patch of someone as he drew level with the craft. He snatched up his Whomper and turned the driver’s head into a green-grey stain on the vehicle’s roof.

The passenger snatched up something shiny and pointed, like an electric squid, lights twinkling along its length. Will didn’t wait to see what it did, just turned the Whomper on him and thumbed the trigger, spreading him all over the inside of the cab. He didn’t even have time to scream.

Comlab’s computer-generated fantasies always made Will feel vaguely uncomfortable. Here it was OK to kill anything you liked and, as he jumped about the game ring like a lunatic, he couldn’t escape the feeling that it was all just a little bit too real. As if the boundaries between what was, and what wasn’t, didn’t apply here. But that didn’t stop him playing.