Will leaned back against the dispenser, totally knackered. Sweat ran down his back and pooled in his unders; he never wore the right thing to play in the game rings. Jo was a lot more sensible: she’d ditched her day clothes and slipped into an all-in-one that clung like a second skin. Her hair was plastered to her forehead, a thick red line marking where the headset had sat. But she was smiling.

He ran a hand over his face, then wiped his damp hands on his trousers. ‘How did we do?’

Jo gulped her plastic of fizzy down. ‘Not bad,’ she said, suppressing a belch. ‘Not the highest score ever, but we kicked some serious Martian arse.’

‘Glad you came?’

She rubbed at her forehead. ‘Been years since I had to wear a headset. Forgot how much it throws you off. Full immersion is a hell of a lot easier. Less sweaty too.’ Jo looked at him for a moment. ‘You really don’t have a jack point? On an Assistant Director’s salary?’

‘Yeah…Sorry about that.’

‘Nah, it was fun. Kinda nostalgic.’ She reached up and touched his cheek, then grimaced. ‘Urgh…You’re sopping!’ She backed off towards the female locker rooms. ‘I’m going to shower and change. If you weren’t such a mincehead, Mr “Outside Clothes Will Be Fine”, you could do the same.’

‘Blah, blah, blah. I’ll see you in the cafeteria, OK?’

‘Try not to stink the place out.’ She stepped closer and for a moment Will though she was going to kiss him. Then something happened and she changed the movement into a smile instead, turned, and disappeared through the locker-room door.

They’d been like that all afternoon; as if last night had never happened and they were back to acting like nervous teenagers. It was driving him mad.

Slinging his new jacket over his damp shoulder Will went for a stroll through the gaming hall to cool down a bit. The place was mobbed, as usual: the last shift of gamers milling around, talking over their latest adventure, even though they’d only finished playing it five minutes ago; the next shift plugged in and ready to go. As he walked around he watched them logging on. It was one of the funniest bits for him, over a thousand people, standing in wide, elevated rings eight feet across, doing the hand jive: hitting buttons only they could see. Loading up pre-saved characters and scenarios so they could get on with the violence and the sex.

Slowly the noise level began to rise as the games got underway; the players staggering around the game rings waving invisible swords/rocket launchers/Whompers/dildos. Each ring had a little viewing screen hooked up next to the command ports and Will paused from time to time, looking in to see what was going on. You could tell when people were playing ‘pink disks’ because the screens were blank while the people in the middle of the ring got on with whatever filth took their fancy.

‘You like to watch?’

The fake mid-Atlantic accent made Will freeze. He took a second to plaster a smile on his face, then turned to see Ken Peitai standing behind him, leaning back against a game ring. He was dressed in one of those lounging robes they wore in the deep-immersion suites, where you didn’t need a headset to experience the best in Virtual Reality, you just stuck a wire in the back of your head.

‘Ken, good to see you.’ That was a lie.

How did the sinister little turd know he was…The homing beacons, that’s how-buried under Will’s skin. Out of sight and out of mind.

Ken smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling as if he actually meant it. He swept a hand around, indicating the room full of gamers. ‘One of my few vices: I like to save the world every now and then. What about you?’

‘Just finished: Red Conquest.’

‘Great stuff. How did you do?’ The smile got bigger. Look at me, I’m so friendly and approachable…For a murdering bastard.

‘Not bad. We saved Aberdeen, but Dundee’s a write-off.’

Ken sighed. ‘Too bad, I kinda like all the casinos. All that razzmatazz, yeah?’

There was an awkward silence.

‘You know, Will…I can call you Will can’t I?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, just took Will by the arm and began to walk. ‘Great. I know you were interested in what we were doing at Sherman House-’

‘Excellent project.’ Will laid it on thick. ‘I can’t think of anything more important than preventing another round of Virtual Riots.’

‘Thanks. We’ve gotta keep it all so hush-hush, no one ever gets any good feedback. I’ll tell the team you said that, though.’ He flashed the same smile again. ‘They’re gonna be thrilled. Anyway, Will, I told you all about the project, but you never told us anything about yourself.’

‘No. I was a bit tied up at the time.’

Ken laughed a lot harder than was strictly necessary. ‘“Tied up at the time.” I like it! “Tied up.” Ha!…But seriously, what are you guys in the Network up to these days?’

The greasy little bastard was actually trying to weasel information out of him. ‘Well, you know what it’s like at Network HQ: there’s always so much going on.’

‘Yeah, all those guys and gals, running round, keeping us all safe. What about you, though? You working on anything juicy?’

‘Just having a couple of days off.’

‘Right, right. I heard on the grapevine that you’d caught someone for that hole in the head thing. Good work. Fast. You gotta be proud of your people for getting the guy that quick.’

‘Yes.’ Will was finding it more and more difficult to smile back. Colin Mitchell had been caught less than twenty-four hours ago, and Ken Peitai already knew about it.

‘Can I be frank, Will? Can I? Good.’ Ken stopped. They were by the west exit. Outside the double glass doors the rain hammered against the concrete forecourt, sparkling in the spotlights as it leapt back into the air.

‘You know, Will…’ Ken sounded as if he were picking his words very carefully. ‘The funny thing about national secur ity is how some of the weirdest things turn out to be sensitive information.’ He paused as if waiting to see if Will got it. ‘Sometimes it’s the silliest little things, things that don’t seem at all connected, that can cause real big problems further down the road. But you know that, right? You deal with sensitive stuff all the time.’

He punched Will on the arm and winked: all mates together.

Jumped-up little shite.

‘So what I’m saying is I know, and you know there’s nothing wrong with you pokin’ about in the PsychTech files or searching for a bit of info on me and my boss. Don’t blame you at all: after what happened you’re bound to be interested, right? But there’s a couple of guys upstairs who know a lot more about the big picture than I ever will and they’re worried something’s gonna get out that’ll jeopardize what we’re trying to do over at Sherman House.’ He shrugged. ‘Seems daft to me, but what do I know?’

He obviously knew Will had been going through the PsychTech database. Just like he knew they’d caught Mitchell…Will wondered if he went back to Network HQ right now and played the SOC recording of Mitchell’s flat, would he see little grey blobs of no data in the corners?

‘If you work for the Ministry for Change, Ken, why are you worried about national security?’

Ken’s smile faltered a little, but he rode it out like a pro: ‘Hey, ain’t we all concerned about the security of our nation in these troubled times?’

Will stared at him and said nothing.

‘Look, Will, I know you got your suspicions. Hell, be surprised if you didn’t. But we’re on the same side here. We…’ Ken’s eyes did a quick sweep of the gaming hall. ‘Your mate the pathologist, he found chemical residue in Allan Brown and Kevin McEwan’s brains, right?’

So he’d been right-they were monitoring his phone. No point lying about it then. ‘He thinks they’ve been injected with something that gives them VR syndrome.’

Ken sagged back against the double doors. ‘I know how it looks, but…’ He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Will, what I’m gonna tell you can’t go any further. I mean it, man: this stuff is like code-black, OK?’