The HYDRA jet was decked out exactly as Caldwell had imagined. There was more real leather furniture than Caldwell had seen in his lifetime. There were plush leather sofas, recliners, a massage chair, three desks with swivel chairs, a bookcase full of important-looking leather-bound books and a large plasma TV screen. Even the bar stools were covered in real Italian leather. A bank of terminals linked to cyberspace via the aircraft’s onboard satellite system blinked to one side of the main area of the aircraft. A fully immersive VR suit hung limply inside a glass cabinet.

As soon as they stepped aboard, Ms. Levin disappeared into one of two doors leading to the back of the plane. A large red sign above the door read RESTRICTED: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Caldwell thought he was flying Lobotomy Air, courtesy of HYDRA, the pride of the Union. The two agents settled their frames in one of the plush Italian leather sofas and flipped on the plasma. Agent Jones opened a compartment in the sofa’s armrest and pulled out two pairs of VR gloves. They started playing a holographic video game, ducking, weaving, jabbing and punching the air. The two five-inch holographic boxers projected on to the top of a glass coffee table followed their every move in real time. They were macho muscle boys massaging their pathetic egos.

“You two don’t have anything better to do than play video games?” Caldwell asked. He thought it was a reasonable question in the circumstances but they glared at him and then returned to their boxing match. Caldwell sat in one of the swivel chairs and watched Agent Jones’ boxer pin Agent Jackman’s boxer against the holographic ropes to the sound of a bell signaling the end of the first round. He was tired, both mentally and physically, but the thought of the impending procedure kept any notions of sleep at bay. He watched the two HYDRA agents remove their jackets and ties, poised for the second round. Their holographic equivalents sat slumped in their corners sucking water through straws and taking advice from invisible trainers.

Caldwell stood up and opened one of the doors at the front of the aircraft, the only one that didn’t say AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY or CABIN CREW ONLY and found himself in a smaller room with a couple of treadmills and more leather recliners. Was that all HYDRA agents did? Kick back and think of old England? He commandeered one of the recliners near a large window looking out on the runway. The automated fuel trucks were pulling away and the aircraft was preparing to take off. There was a knock on the door and two identical Eurasian twins in red cabin crew garb walked in. Caldwell wasn’t sure whether he was hallucinating. There was something about the stewardesses, a certain telepathic coordination that seemed totally unreal.

“Welcome on board Mr. Caldwell. Mr. Fouler asked us to bring you this suit to change into after your procedure. We also have a suitcase of clothing and other items that will come in handy in Hong Kong.” This said in unison, the sound of their voices coming at him in stereo. One of the girls was carrying a gray suit bag which she placed on a hanger on wall.

“Thanks,” Caldwell said and gawked at the girls. There was something unnatural about the two Eurasians, an intense and vaguely disturbing artificial beauty.

“You are welcome,” they said, again in perfect synchrony.

“I am not going to bother asking your names. I am just going to get confused,” he said.

“That’s a good idea. Just call us Siu Je then there won’t be any confusion.”

“Sounds like a plan. Do you guys always say the exact thing at the same time? And what does Siu Je mean anyway? Doesn’t sound like English.”

“Very funny, Mr. Caldwell. We know you speak Cantonese perfectly well. We’ll come and get you once Ms. Levin is ready for you.” Two pairs of painfully attractive brown oriental eyes bore into him.

“Yeah, her surgery is open all hours, right?”

“Pardon us, Mr. Caldwell?” the girls said in unison.

“Never mind. It’s just a little joke. And call me Cad, please.”

“If you insist, Cad,” they conceded in stereo, retreating backwards through the gaping door.

He’d be damned if HYDRA wasn’t culturing air hostesses in vats. The practice was not unheard of. There were places in Italy were you could get a twenty-one year-old woman custom made in six months. No kidding. Those two looked like something out of Fouler’s fantasies. Only he would think of making them Eurasian, appealing to the most basic stereotypes about beauty. And then it clicked. The two agents, Jackman and Jones. The idea of making identical black and white bodyguards could only be the result of a decision made in a lab. HYDRA was growing its own staff. That would explain their obsession with video games. Like Kat’s obsession with movies. And the way they only spoke when spoken to. The mechanical way they dealt with the two Japanese. Their totally unnatural laugh in the limo. The way they looked at Fouler when he left them at the airport, like Hansel and Gretel abandoned in the woods.

Caldwell let the clone theory regress from his mind and tried to reflect back on everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Glyph, hacker owner of The HUB, dead. Kat was back on the radar and staying in Glyph’s trailer. He had part of his memory back and in a few minutes would have much more. He was slowly rediscovering a self he never knew before, his synapses reconfiguring in unimaginable ways, slowly unlocking a hidden past.

The tempo of his life had definitely gone up a notch. For better or worse was anyone’s guess. Just the other day he had been on the brink of taking his own life. He thought about the Slav’s vial in his knapsack. Now he was on a luxury corporate aircraft bound for Hong Kong, his place of birth. One thing was for sure. The events of the last twenty-four hours were too complex to digest and were best left alone to work themselves out in due course. He was still pissed off about what Fouler had let HYDRA do to him.

He stared outside the window as flight engineers fitted the metal slingshots below the aircraft’s fuselage. Caldwell felt like he had seen this done before although, as far as he could recall, he had never been on an aircraft before. There was a faint rumble as the engines fired up, the sound growing louder. The tempo rose until the fuselage started to shudder. The nose of the jet started moving upwards and he instinctively gripped the armrest of his seat. The sound of winches grinding, then the force of the slingshots snapping and the HYDRA jet shot straight into the sky, bound for Hong Kong.

When the aircraft leveled out, Caldwell walked back into the main room. The two Eurasian Siu Jes were nowhere to be seen. It appeared Ms. Levin was still in the room with restricted access. The two agents were on round ten. Both biological and holographic boxers had slowed down considerably. Then Agent Jones landed an uppercut to Agent Jackman’s virtual jaw and the black agent’s holographic boxer slumped on to the virtual canvass. A referee materialized out of nowhere, realistically dropped to the floor, or rather the coffee table, and began to count Agent Jackman’s boxer avatar down. The heavy looked on, willing the hologram to get up but it was to no avail. Agent Jones’ boy was the champion. They both slumped sweat-soaked in the sofa and stared at him.

Agent Jones eased his bulky frame out of the sofa, leaving a large dent in the leather, and disappeared off behind one of the doors, muscles rippling against sweat-soaked shirt.

Caldwell decided it was going to be a long flight so he might as well appear to be friendly.

“First time to Hong Kong?” he asked, making every effort to sound casual.

“No, but these places all look the same anyway.” Agent Jackman had spoken. It appeared they only stayed silent when they were together.

“How do you know if you’ve never been?” Caldwell pushed.

“Look here mate, this is going to be a three hour trip. We don’t need any shit from you. OK?”

“I am not giving any. Look why can’t we all just get along. Do you have family in the Union,” Caldwell probed.

A blank look came over the man’s face and he didn’t say a word. Agent Jackman stood up suddenly. His fists were clenched. On his face was a tortured look that only served to confirm Caldwell’s initial suspicions. These were vat jobs. What was he doing with an outfit that custom built people to serve its dark purposes? The agent’s eyes went blank and Caldwell thought he was about to take revenge for his boxing defeat and pound him into the fuselage of the aircraft. He was saved by the bell. Ms. Levin popped her head round the restricted door.

“We are ready for you now,” she said cheerily, as though he was making a routine trip to the dentist. We? How many people were there on the aircraft? And how many of them were born the way nature intended?

“I am not in the mood for a lobotomy right now. Can you give me a few more minutes to reconsider?” Caldwell asked. He was only half joking. The look in her eyes told him that now was the time and this was non-negotiable. Caldwell stood up nervously. He was apprehensive about the process that was about to take place and what it would do to him. A mild migraine started to flash somewhere deep within his skull. She opened the door wider to let him through. She was dressed completely in white, having changed her clothes since they had boarded the aircraft. Then it hit him why she had looked vaguely familiar at the airport. She had been a lot younger then. She was the nurse in the white room of his recently acquired memories.