“Holographic TV is Satan’s jukebox,” Caldwell heard one of the intoxicated men at the bar say to Ram, the bartender. The other men at the bar were still transfixed by the glimmering hologram that gyrated before them to blaring music. Ram, who was busy wiping the table adjacent to where Caldwell was sitting with a gray cloth, stopped mid-wipe and smiled, revealing a row of surgically carved white teeth. They were the imported kind you could get for peanuts in the alleyways of East Ham. Teeth made to order, in any material you want, ivory, pearl, marble, even diamonds if you wanted to put your money where your mouth was. Caldwell had a funny feeling that Ram had been looking intently at his knapsack. Had he been listening to their conversation? Did he know about the console? Publicans were notoriously famous for sticking their noses in gigs that were no concern of theirs.

“Better the devil you know, better the devil you know,” Ram replied somewhat illogically to the drunk, his eyes shifting away, arms continuing to swipe frantically with the cloth.

Glyph was still in the men’s room, probably emptying his bowels through some mean feat of technology or acrobatics, or both. Caldwell wondered how someone with no legs went to the toilet. Not exactly the kind of thing you’d want to talk about if you were in his shoes. You even had to be careful with your puns or turns of phrase as Glyph would probably never ever wear shoes again.

Caldwell resorted to trivia, to avoid facing the truth of his current situation. Glyph could rig the wheelchair with its own sewage system, like they have on those space flights, allowing him to conveniently go and be cleansed, all with one mechanism. A vacuum cleaner suction device that extracted the waste, chemically treated it into something eco-friendly and stored it for recycling. Food for the plants.

There’s was a whole section of the wheelchair, below the seat, that looked like it could process and store organic matter.

“Same thing the astronauts and tourists use in space, It’s on the blink though. Must be the inhibited British side of you my friend.” Glyph had returned while Caldwell was preoccupied with the mechanics of the hacker’s personal hygiene.

Glyph had always possessed an uncanny ability to mind read even via electronic conversations. That’s what had made him such an outstanding hacker and leader of The HUB. It was almost as though he could read the minds of the sysops whose lives he made a misery on a daily basis and whose jobs he placed at risk with his brash system exploits. The wheelchair settled behind the table and lowered itself so that Glyph wasn’t towering above Caldwell, who had turned a funny shade of red.

“I think I may have seen them on the platform at Angel station. The Yakuza I mean. A massive disfigured guy with a face like a car wreck,” Caldwell said.

“They probably just missed you. You could hang out at mine for a while or even safer, disappear until this blows over. I figure it won’t be long before my name comes up on the Yakuza’s To Do list anyway.”

Glyph pulled out a scroll-like touch screen from the wheelchair’s armrest and his big brown hands unfurled it across the table. He started tapping frantically on the screen. Caldwell was thinking about his options. Lying low with Kat in the shadow of Waterloo Bridge was a good idea. They would never find him there in that eclectic jungle of cardboard, Styrofoam and filth. He would fence the console and weigh his options. Besides he hadn’t seen her in a while. Glyph’s tapping at his keyboard had become increasingly frantic.

“Is this the guy you saw?” Glyph asked, pointing a hairy index finger at the screen. Caldwell looked at the grainy monochrome image on the screen. It was a digitally zoomed shot on the man he had seen on the platform as he had rushed through the closing doors of the MagLev.

“The joys of CCTV. My hack into the CCTV grid now covers much of this country and links into systems in other parts of the Union,” Glyph boasted.

“Can you pull up subsequent images, say two minutes after this one.

“Yeah, Sure. Just a matter of running face recognition on all the station CCTVs going East from Angel.” Glyph started tapping away.

“Looks Japanese enough, even though it’s hard to tell with the stuff going on with his face,” Caldwell said.

“Sure. OK, he got on the next train. That face is bound to be the handiwork of a rival Yakuza faction and as you can see here, this looks like the beginning of irizumi, the intricate elaborate Japanese body tattoos favored by the Yakuza,” Glyph said, thinking aloud. He didn’t expect Caldwell to answer. Suddenly, a look of alarm spread over Glyph’s face like water seeping underneath a bathroom door.

“Wait a minute, there are two of them ... and they exited at ... Isle of Dogs station.” Those were the last words Glyph ever uttered.

***

A rush of air, barely perceptible, blasted past Caldwell’s left ear, leaving his eardrums ringing. Almost simultaneously, a blank look came over Glyph’s face and his green eyes misted over. Instinctively, Caldwell turned around, ears stinging, vision blurring but still able to make out the disfigured Japanese and his companion heading towards them. Scores of eyes at the bar trained on the commotion and Caldwell wondering why all he could see clearly was the fear and surprise blanketed across their faces.

He could barely make out a tube-shaped weapon firing projectiles that looked like mini torpedoes in their direction, the gun a gray blob spitting fire. Instinctively, Caldwell ducked, hoping that the raised back of the padded seats would offer some protection from the chaos erupting around him. As he went down, the small round black hole in the middle of Glyph’s forehead was revealed in sharp detail. Whatever caused it had bored a smooth tunnel straight through the hacker’s skull. Caldwell could catch a glint of light at the far end of the gaping hole.

Several dull thuds ejected plugs of synthetic leather and foam from the back of the seat, causing him to sink deeper below the table. The fake oak of the seats splintered in all directions. He was being taken out. His only instinct now was survival. The sound of a bullet, or whatever those things were, striking metal a bit too close to his head. He decided it was now or never. He grabbed the handle of his knapsack and pulled hard. He could the feel the reassuring deadweight of the console. Split-second thinking, synapses screaming like angry seagulls. A plan of action formulating itself in a split second.

If the table was bolted to the ground or was too heavy, he was as good as dead. Mustering every ounce of strength he shoved upwards against the table in the direction of The Puzzle’s floor-to-ceiling windows. There was a small explosion as Glyph’s computer self-destructed. The big man had been dead serious about protecting his data.

Caldwell propelled himself forward, past the blue blur that was the Japanese. He could see the man’s big hands reach out to grab him. Don’t look at his face at all cost, Caldwell told himself. That would just stop him dead in his tracks. It was a face that must be even more grotesque close up. The shooting had stopped, the man feeling that he was close enough to not need the gun. The last thing Caldwell saw was the neat diagonal holes in the wall left by the Japanese’s bullet as he closed his eyes and crashed through the window in a shower of glass and made contact with the pavement.

Open your eyes. Caldwell’s eyes opened wide, a strange kind of focus evident. The window had partially shattered into thousands of small harmless cubes. The man with the grotesque face was stepping through the irregular-shaped hole Caldwell had created in The Puzzle’s facade. Through the broken window he could see that the other Japanese had taken Ram and his early morning clientele hostage. On the street electrics drove past the scene, passengers safe in their reinforced fiberglass cocoons, discounting the melee as just another Union street brawl, one of probably thousands on any given day.

Caldwell willed himself to get on his feet even though he was sure the outcome would be the same regardless. He was being taken out. Who was it that said when death was imminent, you felt this immense weight like the sky had come thundering down upon you? Frowning now because whoever had said that had not said it in English. The sentence was ringing in his head in some other language. Was the trauma of his impending death opening up old memories?

The world moved in slow motion. Everything from the grotesque man grabbing him by the shoulders and reaching for the knapsack, to the pieces of glass glimmering on the pavement had slowed down to a crawl. The hard edge of the Japanese’s weapon was cold against his temple now. A maelstrom of questions and images, interspersed with visions of Glyph dead, flashing intermittently into the cranial chaos. All he could do was hold on to the knapsack, his mind haunted by the blank stare of the hacker caught in the still-captured shutter frame of surprise.

* * *

The question rang through his beleaguered mind like a persistent phone call during an enjoyable afternoon nap that refuses to hang up. Was there life after death? In the January chill, everything had taken on a freeze-frame quality with the seconds jerking by in slow motion. Time was having a hard time manifesting itself. There was no tunnel of light or light at the end of a tunnel but he found himself staring down the barrel of the Japanese’s mysterious weapon and waiting to die.

“Not so fast,” said the Japanese in accented English, brushing off shards of glass from his shoulder.

There was something medieval, yet futuristic, about the weapon and for some strange reason Caldwell found himself admiring its beauty. He was no gun freak, but he knew a beautiful weapon when he saw one. The disfigured Japanese forced himself into his line of vision. Caldwell did everything he could to avoid looking at the man’s face and the Yakuza knew it.

“You killed him, you bastard,” Caldwell managed to blurt out as he prepared to meet his maker. What did he have to lose anyway? Just a few hours earlier, he had been more than willing to kill himself. The Japanese could take the console and do with it as they pleased. Shove it up their backsides if that made them feel better. It made no difference to him if he was dead. But something in him had awakened with the current trauma, an aching need to find out what this console was designed to do. Glyph was probably right. There was some bleeding-edge network out there that the console gave access to. He knew that every cell in his body wanted to jack into it and delve into its very core. He couldn’t die just yet. The shimmering lights of cyberspace still beckoned.

“Your friend was not important and besides he was too greedy. Anyone who rats out a friend has no honor and deserves to die,” said another voice with a thick accent. The other Japanese man was backing out of the door, with a gun to Ram’s head. The younger Japanese signaled for his disfigured companion to take over trying to wring Ram’s neck.

“What do you mean?” Caldwell spluttered.

“Your so called friend was betraying you, Caldwell-san. He told us you’d be meeting him here.”

“Liar! Liar! Why should I believe you?”

“I have no reason to lie to someone who will be dead in a matter of seconds. No hard feelings. Give me the bag.” The Japanese’s finger was twitching on the trigger as though he couldn’t make up his mind whether to shoot now or later.

“If Glyph told you I’d be here, why was your guy at the station at Angel?”

“Because we wanted to make sure that your disabled traitor friend kept his promise. He wanted only twenty thousand Euros in exchange for you. I make it a habit only to pay traitors in the currency they deserve.”

The disfigured Japanese now had everyone in the bar kneeling on the pavement outside. He walked circles around them, one eye checking on the hostages, the other sneering at Caldwell. Caldwell remembered he had once let slip to Glyph in cyberspace that he was holed up in a capsule in the Angel area. So Glyph had told them that he lived in Angel, and had sent the message about meeting at The Puzzle as a ruse to get him out of the capsule and into the Yakuza’s trap. The hacker had no intention of meeting up with him.

“I never trusted Glyph anyway. Do you think I would have been so stupid as to bring the console here?” he asked calmly.

“Nice try old boy. You friend already confirmed you have it. Hand it over before I blow your brains out,” the Japanese threatened.

“I figure you’ll kill me anyway. I’ll take my chances. You kill me and if the console is not in this bag as you say, you’ll never find it,” Caldwell threatened weakly. The Japanese’s finger twitched on the trigger.

“Three seconds. One ...”

“You are going to have to kill me and take the risk that what you are looking for is not in this bag,” Caldwell repeated, mustering some courage. Taking advantage of a momentary lapse as the Japanese considered the situation, he shakily rose to his feet. Caldwell was buying time with zero currency and he had no idea what the delay tactic was going to achieve. Nevertheless, he was damned if he was going to hand over the console to this guy or the disfigured goon. He needed an alternative fast.

“We’ll take our chances,” said the young Japanese menacingly. He had harshly slanted eyes and irises the color of charcoal. His perpetual sneer looked like it wouldn’t go away even if you held a gun to his head. The man’s finger tightened on the trigger. Instinctively, Caldwell took a step backwards only to find himself in the grip of the disfigured Japanese.

“The only thing more certain than the fact that what we are looking for is in that bag is the fact that you are going to …”

Caldwell thought he heard the sound of the man’s gun going off. Something smooth and powerful rushed past him. The young Japanese impostor was stopped in mid-sentence by an invisible object that thumped into his chest so hard, the funny shaped weapon wilted in his hand and fell to the pavement. His disfigured companion spun round, hand reaching into his waistband but he was also stopped in his tracks by another discharge that Caldwell barely heard. The goon’s knees buckled helplessly underneath him. Sound gun? Had to be, there was no visible blood.

During the exchange with the young Japanese, Caldwell hadn’t noticed the huge black electric limo cruising up the road. As he swung round instinctively to make a run for it, both side doors of the vehicle opened with the clunk of some sophisticated locking mechanism. Two pairs of identical combat boots stepped out on to the pavements followed by a double pair of well-built legs, torsos and arms. Before he could instruct himself to bolt, Caldwell was already being bundled into the back of the black limousine by two burly pony-tailed men clad in black suits and matching aviator mirror shades. He noticed that one of the men had the Japanese man’s weapon in his hand. Caldwell could have sworn he hadn’t seen him pick it up.

He turned round to see whether the Japanese men were dead. They weren’t. They were holding on to their ears with blood stained hands. They both seemed to be delirious. Delirious is a whole lot better than dead. The whole exercise lasted only a few seconds. The limousine’s tinted windows slid upwards and the electric engine thrust forward into light traffic.