Caldwell awoke to the smell of hospital disinfectant and a searing headache. His mouth was dry and his head felt like it was about to explode. Every part of his body ached unbearably. There was something in his nostrils making it hard to breath. He reached out and felt his nostrils. Plastic tubes. Drips. He tried to open his eyes but the room was too bright and the light burned into his retina like sunlight through a magnifying glass. His eyes hurt. There was constant throbbing on the front, back and sides of his head, like his skull was about to disintegrate. He tried to lift his head but was hit with pain so intense that he passed out.

He dreamed of Fouler. The HYDRA man had come to visit him with the American girl, the girl called Diane Joplin and she had said something to him, wished that he got better soon. Fouler had congratulated him on a job well done and told him about some assassin that had been shot by Agent Jones at the Keio Plaza Hotel. The assassin had tried to kill Agent Jackman. Fouler had possession of the assassin’s remote module, which had allowed him to connect remotely to the major-general’s network in Beijing. He wanted to tell Fouler that he had seen the assassin, the face that had appeared before him and Li Jin, the ghost in the clouds.

Caldwell had attempted to speak in his dream but he couldn’t. His mouth opened but the words wouldn’t come out. Mei Lin was there too in his dreams. She had a cast on her leg. She sat on the side of the bed and stared at him for a long time. Then she brushed his hair back and kissed him on his forehead. She said something about them never being separated again and Caldwell smiled and everything went black, like somebody had turned the lights out.

Then there were the nightmares, endless hours of gruesome images. The Omnipotence chasing after him, dragon robe alight with fire. Then he had witnessed his parents’ car crash in Xian, the twisted metal of it captured in gruesome black and white images below the screaming newspaper headlines.

And Kat had been there too in his dreams. Standing beside the hospital bed and looking at him with those vacant blue eyes of hers. She’d held his hand and told him that everything would be OK and she was proud of him. And behind her stood Ms. Seven Levin, Agent Jones and Agent Jackman, the latter with his hand in a sling. They had smiled at him and Agent Jackman had said “you’re the man.” But Caldwell hadn’t understood what they meant. They had gone away and Caldwell had dreamed again of Virtual Shanghai and The Bund, the solitary figure of Li Jin receding in the distance. And Li Jin had stood on the pavement on Zhongshan Lu and waved at him and then he had vanished.

Caldwell dreamed another dream. Fouler, Mei Lin and the Joplin girl were standing by his bed. Next to them a hospital trolley with a white and silver cylinder on it. The cylinder looked like an elaborate rice cooker. And Fouler had said that this cylinder was Akio Inoue, the Japanese man who had created the consoles. And Caldwell had watched as a hologram of this Inoue had emerged from the top of the cylinder and started speaking. What he was saying wasn’t making much sense and seemed to be more like jumbled up thoughts in Inoue’s head than real speech. It was just these fragments of thoughts spoken at high speed, the words spilling out in a torrent. Caldwell didn’t understand a word the Japanese man was saying but he kept hearing sumimasen a lot and he figured that probably meant sorry.

In his dreams Caldwell saw his childhood for the first time and it had a distinct timeline. His mother was there with him, those sensitive amber eyes full of affection. And there he was in his father’s den playing with his father’s computers and his father asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he had said he wanted to be a programmer. His father had smiled and told him to go and have his bath as it was almost bedtime. His mother had walked in and gathered him up, smiling with those amber oriental eyes.

He woke up staring at a blank ceiling. Outside the open window was the sound of traffic, the distant hum of a city. Shanghai? A look of panic came over his face. Mei Lin moved quickly towards him and sat on the edge of his hospital bed. His headache was gone and the thing in his nose was no longer there but his body ached and he could feel every bone in his body. He could remember everything that happened right up to the AI trying to kill him.

“I had the weirdest dream,” he said. “You were all in it, that Diane Joplin girl, Kat, everyone.

“That wasn’t a dream Cad. They were all here in Tokyo.”

“Tokyo?”

“Yes, you collapsed in that control room in Shanghai and the whole place was going to blow so we bailed out of there with just seconds to spare. The whole place went up in smoke. You needed treatment but Fouler suggested we just fly straight to Tokyo. You’ve been out for almost three days. It seemed the AI tried to kill you using some kind of infrasound to destroy your internal organs. Luckily we got you out of there in time. You sustained only mild internal hemorrhaging.”

“I remember. It was a horrible experience. You said back at the control room in Shanghai that the major-general was dead. What happened?”

“One of the PLA guards suspected something was amiss and surprised me in the foyer of the mansion. The ensuing fracas attracted the others. I found myself in a bit of trouble and was beginning to think that I wouldn’t make it out alive. Luckily Anthony and Victor arrived just in time and saved me from being outnumbered. I had called them from the Peace Hotel when we dropped off out luggage. There was a huge gunfight in the compound. We made it to the main hospital building but by the time we got there the major-general and the Japanese Yakuza had been shot by one of the PLA men. The man shot himself right in front of our faces, mumbling incoherently. We found a wireless detonator in the major-general’s hand.”

“Yes, I remember you showing me that.”

“Yes.”

“And the AI?”

“We think the AI was destroyed along with everything but there is no way to be sure. When you screamed the words ‘Hello World’ nobody knew what the hell you were talking about. But the AI just screamed and the whole system went down as though it had been hit by a virus. And the subjects, the little dots on the screen? They were real people. They looked like PLA soldiers. We were going to try to save them but when the major-general detonated the device we had to get out of there quick.”

“Real people? Permanently jacked in?”

“Yes, you were right. They were hooked up to some elaborate intravenous feeding system and were jacked in to the network through a biological interface. They had been modified. They all died in the explosion, according to secret PLA reports.”

“They gave their lives for the dream of a madman. We need to make sure the AI didn’t escape into cyberspace. It could cause a lot of havoc there.”

“I know but we have no way of knowing. Let’s leave that for when you are feeling better. The most important thing is that the network is no more. The major-general is no more.”

“Yeah, after all that excitement I don’t quite feel up to another encounter with the Omnipotence,” Caldwell said smiling. There was a dull throb at the back of his head but otherwise he felt fine.

“The Chinese government is on the case. There’s been a huge uproar over this in Beijing. Heads have rolled among the PLA’s top brass. And funding for all PLA-related projects is being closely monitored. The people calling the shots at Tsinghua University were publicly reprimanded on national TV. A top-level investigation is under way. And Fouler, in typical fashion, has secretly offered them his help. They have yet to get back to him.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? He better not come looking for me. I have had enough excitement for a lifetime.”

“I don’t blame you.” Mei Lin said pensively.

“I remember something else. You kissed me. Was that a dream?” Caldwell said, looking deep into Mei Lin’s eyes.

“It could have been,” she said, blushing visibly. Her mesmerizing eyes had taken on the same look they had so many years ago at the bus stop in Hong Kong.

“5200603.”

“What’s that?”

“Your messenger number at the Hong Kong International School.”

“Oh really? I had forgotten. You have your memory back, Cad. Fouler kept his promise. He also admitted that HYDRA had wiped your memories of Hong Kong when you first joined the agency. So you had no way of remembering me.”

“I knew it. So now you know why I never contacted you. Where is he now? And Kat?”

“Fouler took the Joplin girl back to Boston. He seems to have become quite attached to her. He’s never had any family you know. Growing soft in his old age. Kat went shopping in Shibuya with Seven Levin. It appears Fouler has become her benefactor too.”

“I see. I know what he’s trying to do. Trying to make me stop hating him for what he did to me.”

“I am not sure I can forgive him for that. Knowing him, there might be an ulterior motive to all this,” Mei Lin said, studying Caldwell’s face.

“Yeah. Either way, I am still going to kick his ass. So is he going to adopt the Joplin girl?”

“No idea. I guess he is just acting as her guardian. She came into a lot of money on her father’s death and Fouler is convinced that her father’s lawyers might try to pull wool over her eyes.”

“Lawyers. That fine specimen of humanity. Fouler’s actions seem very suspicious.”

“Yeah, I know. Not sure I really trust him anymore, after what he did to you. She’s a tough one that Diane Joplin. Apparently she came all the way to Tokyo to avenge her father’s death.”

“And the consoles?”

“Fouler has them. Inoue, the inventor, passed away in his sleep this morning but not before his uploaded consciousness apologized for creating the consoles in the first place. Not that it was his fault that Yamamoto tried to use them for something criminal. So I guess that’s the end of that. Oh yeah and I asked him or it about the pyramid thing the console turned into.”

“And what did Inoue say?”

“You accidentally triggered the unlocking mechanism in virtual reality. There’s a one in a million chance of the console adopting that shape and when it does, it’s the only time you can open the chassis to see what’s inside.”

“Ah, so we missed our chance,” Caldwell said distractedly, still thinking about Fouler.

“It would appear so.”

“Imagine that, Fouler growing a conscience.”

“Yes, it’s not Fouler’s conscience I am worried about, it’s yours.” May Lin fixed him with an expectant look that brought back vivid memories of Hong Kong and the No. 8 bus. And there were other memories too all waiting to be accessed, to be relived.

“What do you mean?” Caldwell asked with mock concern.

How are you going to make it up to me for all those years of neglect?” Mei Lin was smiling mischievously, a discernable glint in her eyes.

“Well how about we start right here,” Caldwell said as he gathered her into his arms. She came willingly, soft skin melding with his aching flesh. As he held her, he noticed the framed photos of his parents on the bedside table and smiled. Fouler was trying hard but he was not fooled. Not yet. His mother’s oriental eyes smiling back at him.

“Hello world,” Mei Lin murmured against his neck as the tears welled up inside.