The limousine was state-of-the-art, a power ride paid for by one of the Union’s countless megacorps or government bureaucracies. Plush leather seats ran for about half of its considerable length. There were other seats adjacent and to the rear of the vehicle. The lighting was blue halogen from an ornate flat chandelier in the car’s roof, punctuated by the glow of a dozen computer and television screens and filtered daylight from outside. Below the screens a row of consoles of various shapes and sizes. Caldwell was familiar with none of them. They looked like custom Japanese and Chinese decks.

What the hell did these people want with him? Through the huge tinted windows of the electric he saw the gray Docklands streets gliding by silently. Caldwell felt his fingers clutch the knapsack, holding the console tightly to his tense body. Since it had arrived in the post, his whole life had been turned upside down. First, there was Kenzo Yamamoto’s avatar that had vanished into thin air, then the message from Glyph, who was now very much dead. Next there was the appearance of the two Japanese and now these two Union heavies in their expensive Paris cuts and the decked out limo full of fancy computer equipment. All this within the space of hours.

The two men who had saved his life, if you could put it like that, sat at right angles to him. Their broad heavily muscled backs were inclined against the driver’s compartment. They didn’t look like the talking kind so idle banter was out of the question. Their eyes were focused on the dark unlit part at the far back of the limo as though they expected something to come leaping out of there at any moment. Caldwell could not make out a driver in the front of the limo.

One of the muscle-bound men was Caucasian with flaming red hair and a blonde beard. The other looked like his twin, except he was black. They both looked like they spent a disproportionate amount of their time pumping computerized iron. There was something subliminally absurd about the way they seemed like they were about to burst out of their black macropore suits. The two men looked like private sector bodyguards for hire but there was an air about them that suggested something altogether more sinister. They sat there inscrutable, hiding behind their wraparound mirror shades.

“So Mr. Caldwell, aren’t you going to thank me for saving your life?”

A voice like its owner had had iron filings for breakfast came floating through from the back of the limo. Caldwell was sure that it was enhanced by some kind of vocal implant. There was a decidedly non-human edge to it. It was a voice that sent shivers down his spine. Instantly, a maelstrom of images flashed before his eyes. Fiery dragons, paper money burning on a pyre, sleek pale girls with dark sloe eyes like avatars in an ancient massively multiplayer online game. The speeded up cranial slideshow subsided just as quickly as it had appeared. In it’s wake a splitting headache. Caldwell ground his teeth and attempted to ignore the pain.

The voice sounded like it came from a man who could single-handedly make or break lifetime careers with a snap of his fingers. Yet, it held a strange familiarity. Caldwell peered in the direction of the voice but could see nothing. He could imagine how this kind of theatrics could rattle someone in his position. And Caldwell was a little rattled. Rattled that whoever this was knew his name.

A click, as a sidelight was switched on, revealing a thin highly strung man in a black pinstriped city suit and a tan fedora. Caldwell figured he was highly strung because pale green veins protruded from his hands and wrists and pulsated like miniature fire hoses. In the subdued lighting of the limousine, a long clean-shaven sloping jaw line and opaque gray reptilian eyes stared at him. The man looked vaguely familiar, the human flesh representation of some cyberspace image. Whoever he was, it seemed that time or technology had been kind to him. Or was it the kindness of medicine? He could have been fifty or eighty years old but the man looked like he would fight the effects of ageing all the way to grave. He had that drawn look of someone who had undergone one cosmetic surgery operation too many. He looked fake.

“Thank you. Can I get off now?” The two identikit heavies stared at him like he’d just suggested a dim-witted alternative to Einstein’s theory of relativity. They looked like they wanted to get intimate. Caldwell’s mind was as empty as a blank sheet of paper. Things didn’t make sense. Everything seemed to be spiraling out of control. Back in the capsule, lying down on the futon, ready to imbibe the contents of the Slav’s mysterious vial of nano poison, he had felt totally in control of his own destiny. Now, this car, these people, the Japanese, Glyph’s death, meant that he was totally out of control, a pawn in a dangerous game whose rules he did not know and had no way of knowing. Yet, somehow he felt that the occupant of this big car, this surgically reconstructed suit, looked like he held the key to some of the questions, issues that went back further than the day’s events.

Questions of identity. Who am I? This suit, who referred to him by the surname on his ID chip, a name he had never used anywhere in the system, not even in cyberspace. Unless of course, the guy was reading the chip in his pocket with some portable scanner. Caldwell had a feeling he wouldn’t be sitting in this car unless this man needed him. And when powerful men needed you, you tended to stay alive, at least for a while.

The dry laugh again that reminded Caldwell of a program he’d seen on old archives of the now defunct National Geographic. It was the sound of a cobra moving through dried leaves. The cobra, that particularly gregarious species of poisonous snake, he had learnt had since gone the way of the popular nature channel. Extinct.

“I find it very hard to believe that you are not in the least bit interested in how I know your name. Cad Caldwell.” His name pronounced like it was a lesson in elocution.

“Why don’t you tell me and just drop me off somewhere? We’ll call it quits.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, Cad. My name is Bruce Fouler. I am the man who invented your career. I am the key to your future, if you care about it at all. I am here to give you another lease on life. You burned out way too early. Your star burned bright for too short a while. You lacked longevity.” All this coming out in rapid-fire staccato, occasional inflections of cockney peeking out from the monotonous hum of the privileged accent. Caldwell’s instincts had been right. The suit knew more about him than he himself did. Much more. Unless, of course he was bluffing but something told him someone like Fouler didn’t bluff. He didn’t have to.

“Longevity is relative Mr. Fouler. As long as I am still breathing, I figure I’ve got a shot at it.”

“Still the smart ass, eh?” Fouler asked with feigned bemusement.

Caldwell said nothing. He was thinking about whether this man really knew anything about his past. This was the first person who had ever mentioned it out of the blue like this. And call it psychology or partial recall but he was beginning to find this Fouler character’s face vaguely familiar. And there was the mounting feeling that he was not going to like what this man had to tell him.

“Why don’t you tell me why those men were trying to kill you?” Fouler continued.

“You seem to have all the answers. Shouldn’t you be telling me? What do you want with me?”

“OK, let’s cut to the chase. You, Mr. Caldwell, used to be one of us. Never mind who we are for the moment. We’ll get to that in a jiffy. But the crux of the matter is that somewhere within the system, we’ve decided that we need to avail ourselves of your skills once again. On a strictly freelance basis of course. Be warned though that once we want someone back, we get them back no questions asked. In your case, I’ll make an exception and in return for your services we’ll give you something back that you’ve been searching for a very long time. Think of yourself as the prodigal son coming back to the fold.”

The two agents kept their mirrored eyes trained on Caldwell and produced the deep heavy sounds that served them as laughter.

****

The limousine cut through light London traffic. Heavy rain pummeled the roof like it was trying to rewrite the entire works of Shakespeare in Morse Code in a matter of minutes. Caldwell had come to the conclusion that the limousine was in fact driverless. There was a certain precision to the driving that suggested the absence of a human hand in the process. He could see the rain droplets making splash patterns on the skylight above. There was something mathematical about the way the droplets dispersed themselves over the transparent surface. Caldwell had long lost track of where they were. Nondescript buildings and derelict industrial facilities whizzed by silently. Flashes of lightning strobed through the interior of the limo intermittently, making garish snapshots of the two heavies who were now playing some kind of video game on one of the limo’s consoles.

Fouler, the mystery man with the sloping jaw, was sitting in the back rapt in thought, as though he was making up his mind whether to tell Caldwell something, or not. Caldwell was still reeling and trying not to let it show. He had been one of them, whoever they were, and they were the kind of outfit that could afford driverless limousines and could use government approved sound guns. From the look of the bank of consoles blinking sporadically in the dark interior, this was an outfit that had at its disposal an incredible amount of computing power. If they could have this huge array of expensive equipment in Fouler’s limo, imagine what they had at wherever they kept offices, if they had offices at all. Big union concerns always had offices. It was their way of stamping authority on an increasingly fluid market with a huge and rapidly exploding population of freelancers kept in check only with the advances of identification and location technologies.

Caldwell had always suspected that he’d previously had a life that he currently remembered nothing about. With this hunch confirmed, his heart quickened in anticipation of what Fouler was about to tell him. This stuff was too important to interrupt so he sat patiently getting acquainted with the innards of the car, waiting for Fouler to spill the beans. The last thing he wanted was for Fouler to change his mind.

The bank of consoles blinked randomly, lines of computer code scrolling down indifferent monitors and disappearing into the ether. Caldwell’s fingers itched to get acquainted with their operating systems. Vast plains of data expanded before his eyes and he felt the adrenalin rush of jacking into some new territory in cyberspace. Fouler coughed, more to get Caldwell’s attention than for any biological reason. The two heavies stopped stabbing at the consoles and stared at their master for a moment. Then they continued playing again.

Fouler seemed to have made up his mind about something. He pulled a stack of cards from his inside jacket pocket and shuffled through them like a croupier at a third rate casino. Caldwell wondered what the hell was going on. The two goons put down their controls and edged forward in anticipation. Caldwell tapped listlessly on the pseudo leather skin of his knapsack.

“I want you to take a look at this,” Fouler said at length.

“Do I have to?” Caldwell retorted with just the right amount of sarcasm to get on the man’s nerves. He wanted to find out about the past not indulge the guy in some occult fetish. The man who called himself Fouler narrowed his eyes into dangerous slits and scrunched up his smooth plastic face.

“You don’t have any idea do you, what I am offering you?” he hissed between clenched teeth.

“All right then,” Caldwell said and grabbed one of the cards from his thin well-manicured fingers. Fouler blanched with rage but said nothing.

Caldwell looked at the card. It was a photograph of a couple in their forties. The man looked like he was of Middle Eastern or probably even Italian origin. Yet there was something distinctly Caucasian about his features. Hazel eyes looked out from rimmed glasses on a square face. He was good-looking in that dark-skinned Latin way. The woman though, a brunette, had feisty oriental eyes that burned with passion. There was something wild smoldering behind those eyes, something disturbing but at the same time familiar. Caldwell had never seen this couple in his life but something in the woman’s eyes stirred something within him. There was obviously a reason why Fouler was showing him this photo but he hadn’t the foggiest idea why. Or did he?

Caldwell flipped the photograph over. There was no inscription on the back. He handed the photo back to Fouler who deftly placed it at the bottom of his pile of cards.

“Am I supposed to know them?” he asked, deliberately trying to sound offhand. An idea was beginning to form in his mind and he didn’t think that he could deal with its implications at that precise moment.

“I don’t expect you to,” Fouler said with a sly smile.

“Here take a look at this one.” Fouler pulled another photo face down from the pile and handed it to Caldwell.

“Look Fouler, or whatever your name is, this is getting tedious. Either tell me what you know about my past, drop me off or kill me,” Caldwell screamed. He was beginning to lose it with the guy. The last option was beginning to sound as promising as it had been in the morning. This was getting outrageous. Fouler was taken aback by his outburst.

“Just look at the fucking photo. Your future depends on it,” he seethed.

“Okay, okay, don’t get your Y-fronts in a twist,” Caldwell said. Fouler’s skinny hands balled into fists. The engorged veins throbbed even more violently. His jugular looked like it was about to pop. He simmered as Caldwell did a rotate horizontal on the photo and stared at it. His heart skipped several beats.

It was a photo of an infant with a mischievous grin. He had the same smoldering brown eyes as the brunette in the cheongsam, the same Oriental tilt to the eyes. Caldwell felt himself break into a cold sweat. It started as a faint dewy patina and then started gushing out of his pores. There was no mistaking the eyes. They were his eyes. He had just spent the morning staring into them. A shade of brown so light that it was almost amber. They were almost identical to the woman’s eyes. That made her his ... mother? And the academic-looking man was... his father?

A migraine came out of nowhere and started pounding Caldwell’s confused brain. He pulled his last canister of painkiller from his breast pocket and jabbed it into his arm. Relief came in slow but deliberate waves.

“Those things will kill you,” Fouler suggested.

“Are those my parents? You know them?” Caldwell gasped. He was still breathing heavily from the sudden migraine episode. Still sweating like a dog on heat. All pretence had gone out of the window. This was too big, too far-reaching to play games.

“Yes. I know more than you can possibly imagine.”

“Try me,” Caldwell said fighting off a wave of nausea and still reeling.

“I hold the key to you getting your memory back,” Fouler said, observing his manicured fingernails like he was just getting acquainted with them. His eyes had narrowed to rivets. Caldwell stared at him with his mouth wide open in surprise. A bead of sweat dribbled down his forehead. He was composed but only outwardly. His mind was being bombarded with all kinds of thoughts. A steely resolve kicked in as he realized the implications of what Fouler was saying. The man was implying that Caldwell’s mind had in fact been erased. That would explain his total lack of long term memories. If Fouler had anything to do with his memory loss he swore he would get his own back. But he wasn’t going to let the guy know that. He had to play it cool.

“My memory? Prove it,” Caldwell said casually. This was insane. If Fouler wasn’t bullshitting, he wanted it all back. But he knew Fouler was going to use it as some kind of bargaining chip, which meant he’d have to do whatever Fouler asked him to do.

“You asked for it. Ask and ye shall receive,” Fouler said prophetically. The man’s skeletal hands returned the photos to his breast pocket. Caldwell made a mental note that those belonged to him and that he’d take them back one way or another. Fouler still had a deck of cards in his right hand. He flipped one of them over. It was a white card with what looked like a red Chinese character on it. It meant nothing to Caldwell. He was going to let Fouler know that he didn’t read Chinese when it happened.

***

An accelerated slideshow of his past flashed before his eyes. A thousand deja vus rolled into one tight package and strobed through an ancient cinema projector complete with film scratches and cackling sound. Interspersed with the images were snippets of conversations, discordant voices and music racing through Caldwell’s mind.

A roasted suckling pig on a banquet table festooned with red and gold. The background noise is a cacophony of Mahjong tiles and the clang of oriental wedding music. Skateboarding down a steep road into some of the tallest skyscrapers he has ever seen. He can almost touch them as he races past. Gleaming corporate buildings that change color in the sunlight as the sun catches glass and steel from a different angle. A thousand corporate logos light up the night sky turning it into an artificial day.

A wailing woman burns a paper Rolls Royce outside a Chinese temple. Kung fu movies, sped up and blurred, rush past the blank fabric of his mind. A million lanterns bob in a polluted Styrofoam-infested harbor. Kids run and scream in delight, hurling red melting wax at trees. A brunette with smoldering Asian eyes swoops down from above. The eyes zoom in on him and break into a smile. A girl in a library with a soul so translucent it hurts to look at her. A Chinese junk catches the fading light of a blood-red sunset. Pink dolphins jump and squeak in a dank black sea.

Old men move their arms as though trying to grab objects out of thin air. A night market, crowds of girls chattering in a square that is at once strange and vaguely familiar. A heavily made-up androgynous face, sharply angled, moves violently to garish music. A girl bends backwards and picks up a sword with her teeth. Another does a perfect dive into a pool of blood. A Chinese character in an unusual shade of red materializes on a white piece of paper.