'Yes, Delia I wrote all that s.h.i.t down.' Lek spoke the words like he had a bad taste in his mouth. It was a stellar performance.

'I'm still not buying it,' said Delia, but his body language said otherwise. He leaned forward in his chair and waited for Lek to continue.

'Now, a book like that would be worth millions, wouldn't it?'

'Maybe. In the right hands, I suppose. Maybe. Where is it anyway?'

'Well, I can't tell you that.'

Delia licked his lips and blinked slowly. He was thinking hard. Eventually he said, 'Yes you can,' and he lightly ran the blade of the clasp-knife across the newspaper without once taking his eyes from Lek's. He licked his thumb and when he touched the page with it, the freshly cut strip of paper came away easily. 'Yes you will.'

'If you kill me, you'll never find it,' said Lek. The fear in his voice was genuine now, even if his words were a lie.

'That's true. But there's always her,' Delia replied nonchalantly, and he stood and walked over to where Crystal crouched in the corner, her beautiful eyes now wild with terror. She screamed Lek's name as Delia bent over and touched her face with the knife. 'It would be such a shame to spoil these looks....'

'Lek!' Crystal screamed again, trying not to move.

'Alright! Alright. Just... leave her alone, for Lennon's sake.'

'Where is the book Lekky?'

'It's in a thumbprinted Smarte Locker in Victoria International. Listen, I'll make you a deal...'

'I'm listening.'

'I'll give you the book, and you let us go.'

Delia sucked his teeth and shook his head. Lek could see that he was slipping off the hook. 'No. You know? Something just isn't right here. I think we'll just go and see Mr P, and I'll take my half a mill, thank you very much.'

'You can have the cash too.'

'The hundred grand?'

'Yes, it's in the locker. C100,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to what you could make with those formulae, but it's yours.'

'OK, so tell me this, Mr smart-a.r.s.e lab-rat Doctor Gorski, what's to stop me killing you now, slicing your thumb off and taking it all for myself - the recipe book and the creds?'

Lek hadn't considered that, but he felt he was on a roll and tried his luck.

'Well, for one, Pechev won't be too impressed if he ever finds out. And he would find out. Personally, I wouldn't want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. John Lennon's ashes, I've only been doing it for a few hours and I'm already wrung out. But think, Delia - you're a smart man - if you're going this make this happen, you're going to need somebody who understands extract conversion, grafting, DNA sequencing, scion-production a I could be your man on the outside. Quid pro quo. You know it makes sense.'

There followed a long drawn-out silence which Delia eventually shattered, 'Stop f.u.c.king crying b.i.t.c.h! I'm trying to think here!' He looked again into Lek's eyes and was finally convinced. He saw a vision of himself playing old-school arcade games in Pechev's office, standing on the balcony at night perhaps, smoking Castros and listening to the symphony of gang violence from the streets. He leaned across the coffee table and picked up a gla.s.s of Juniperus. He nodded warily, 'OK, you're coming with me. You've got a deal. But if you try anything...' and he pointed at the Meister on the table.... 'it's you and her. Do you understand?'

'I understand,' said Lek, picking up the second gla.s.s, 'What should we drink to?'

'Do I look like I give a f.u.c.k?' said Delia.

'To the future then!'

'Whatever, d.i.c.khead - the future,' chorused Delia half-heartedly, before raising the gla.s.s in a parody of salutation and draining it in one mouthful.

Lek watched as a ripple of confusion clouded his expression, saw his jaw slacken and his pupils dilate, and without a word, Delia slumped to the ground and smashed his head against the tile-floor. He was out cold.

There was a few seconds' silence before Lek explained, 'I spiked the drinks while you were crying in the corner. Pure sloth extract. Good for insomnia. He should be dead to the world for a few hours.' He threw an empty gel-cap vial onto the coffee table. 'And I should never have trusted you.'

'I just... wanted to keep you safe.'

'Keep me safe! By handing me over to this guy?!' Lek gave the unconscious Delia a soft kick in the ribs.

'He had a knife to my face, for Ringo's sake! A knife!' Crystal fired back, suddenly furious. 'And let me remind you, Lek Gorski, that I haven't heard from you in months. And this is what you bring back? Why the f.u.c.k should I care what happens to you? Perhaps you might explain why you just vanished off the face of the Earth?'

'Because they told me to!' Lek shouted. He walked across the room and sat down again on the beanbag. 'They had a... quiet word in my ear, a few months back. Told me that I shouldn't be touching any of the company's products, including you. Said I should keep my distance if I didn't want to spend the rest of my life creating chemical c.o.c.ktails one-handed.' He shook his head despondently. 'What a mess.'

Crystal wasn't ready to let up. 'And now you turn up, out of the blue, like some phantom in a tracksuit, saying you've stolen from them, that you're on the run and... and... look at my f.u.c.king door!'

Lek wasn't listening anymore; he was talking to himself instead, 'But how did he find me? How did he find me?' He turned to Crystal. 'This wasn't the same guy who called you, was it?'

'No. The guy on the phone had a thicker accent.'

'I'm guessing that was probably Vidmar. But then how did Delia know I was here?'

Realisation dawned. He pulled out the two bundles of creds from the pockets of his sports suit a the C10,000 he kept back from the stash waiting for him in the Smarte Storage Locker at Victoria Station a and fanned though them. Sure enough, in the second bundle, he found another strip of clear plastic.

'What is that?' asked Crystal.

'It's another bug. A tracking device. That's how he followed me here. They planted two bugs in the money, not one. Smart move. I've already dumped the first.' Lek nodded with grudging new-found respect for Pechev. 'And if this guy found me, then you can guarantee he isn't the only one looking.'

He handed the plastic strip to Crystal, who took a moment to inspect it, before taking a cigarette lighter from her pocket.

'No, don't do that....' Lek stared into middle distance, calculating something in his head. 'Help me move the body out of sight.'

Together they shouldered Delia into the bedroom and left him sleeping like a baby.

'What now?'

'Like I said, we pay Danny Calabas a visit.'

Crystal looked perplexed but Lek continued, 'We'll take your car. I can't keep wandering the streets while they're searching for me. I'm playing right into their hands.'

'My car's in the garage a the biorg died a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't got the money to get it fixed. Where's your car anyway?'

'Parked outside my flat. No way I can just walk back and pick it up. They're bound to be expecting me to turn up there sooner or later... Ok, so we go to the garage first, then Calabas' place.'

'Hang on a minute. It's you they're after, not me. I could just let you walk out the door. Give me one good reason why I should come with you?'

'I'll give you three,' said Lek. 'First, whether you like it or not, you're tied up in this now. I'm sorry about that, you can blame me, but that's just the way it is. If they even suspect you of helping me escape, they'll kill you.'

'Go on...' said Crystal, unmoved.

'Second, do you really want to be here when sleeping beauty wakes up? I don't think so.'

'Fair enough. What's the third?'

'I love you. I'm escaping from this h.e.l.l and I don't want to leave you behind. Ever again.'

Chapter 12.

Cesar Pitres hadn't been able to concentrate when he sat with Janine and worked though the month's payroll. He called the meeting to an early end, complaining of a headache, and retreated to the comfort of his private bathroom. He pulled a fresh hypo out of his gym bag, clipped a scion into the chamber and eased the needle into the thick muscles at the base of his neck. If the drugs had any effect these days, it was only a placebo, but he welcomed the sensation all the same. He closed his eyes, hoping for some release from the morning's events, but in his mind he only saw his old friend's troubled face and heard his pleas for help. It was useless. Perhaps a spell in the gym would ease the tension...

Cesar worked the weights for a full hour, lifting double his bodyweight on the bench-press, before taking out his repressed anger on the heavy bag for thirty minutes. By the time he had finished, the hundred pound bag showed a dent the size of a bin lid, but Cesar had hardly broken a sweat. He stared at his reflection in the full length mirrors covering the wall. On the surface, he looked like an ogre plucked straight from the pages of a book of fairy tales, but beneath it all, Cesar knew he was still a man, still human, still capable of feeling emotion, if not of showing it. And what he felt at that moment was guilt. He shook his ma.s.sive head, spun on his heels and dealt the heavy bag a final crushing blow.

Vidmar cursed as he cruised around the corner of Stormont Street in his Enzyme just in time to see Gorski and the woman walk out of the high-rise. Ten minutes earlier and it would have all been over. He took some solace in the fact that his suspicion had been confirmed. Gorski might be a sad little scientist, wrapped up in his own statistics and calculations but if he was planning on running, even he would have to say his goodbyes first. Human nature again. It was also some consolation that the Doctor was still alive a at least that idiot Delia hadn't found him yet. He slipped into a parking s.p.a.ce, stepped out of the car and watched them disappearing in the direction of Clapham. He straightened his suit jacket. A kid walking by stared open-mouthed at the jagged scar on his face, and Vidmar grimaced back, hoping to give him nightmares that night. He was hungry and it was affecting his judgement. He sloped into Ely's Pie and Mash Shop, sat down at a greasy table, ordered a plate of Thames eels and considered his next move.

Lou Tech's Autoshop was hidden down a side street near Clapham Junction, next to an old sc.r.a.p yard which was slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. Lek checked the streets again, acutely aware that he was still carrying the second iHare transponder in his pocket and could be pinpointed by Pechev's men at any moment.

They stood in the forecourt of the garage for a few moments, trying the catch the attention of the mechanics busying themselves with nothing in particular.

Eventually they found Lou Tech himself. He rolled his eyes as he peered up through the engine of the Lexus Neuro and saw Crystal Purcell looking down at him. 'If I've told you once, treacle-tart, I've told you a hundred times, no car rolls out of those gates until the bill has been paid. And I know, for a fact,' he continued, as he shifted out from under the cha.s.sis, 'that you don't have the creds to get the job done, so unless you and your fella here want to push the piece of sh...'

Lek interrupted him, 'How long will it take to fix?'

Lou wiped his hands on an oil-stained towel hanging from his belt, and squeezed his dirty fingers against the bridge of his nose. He had the look of an old film star from the turn of the Millennium who had fallen on hard times.

'I've got to change the bio-shocks on this one. That one there needs an exhaust, methane-filter, haemic-filter. Then there's a full service on the Rhesus over there. Then there's hers.' He pointed at the beatenaup Proto at the end of the workshop.

'But the job itself, how long will that take?'

'Oh, got you. Well, it's just a dead biorg, so thirty minutes, three quarters of an hour max,'

'And how much will it cost?'

'600 cred.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l Lou, the car only cost me that much when I bought it!' Crystal exclaimed.

'Well it wasn't a biorg then. Listen baby, these are mates' rates. Take it to s.p.a.cagna's Auto down the road, See how much he charges for a biorg upgrade.'

'I'll give you 1000 cred if you can fix it now. Right now.'

'What's your rush son? You on the run?' Lou grinned. 'Fine, a thousand. It'll be purring in an hour. Are you going to wait? Watch a master at work if you like, or there's a coffee machine in the office.'

Lou whistled loudly and had one of his lackeys roll the Proto over to the pit. He popped the bonnet and stared down at the dead biorg. In some ways, he loved the job these days a it was so much easier now than it had been fifteen years ago when he first got into the business, straight out of a seven year stretch as an engineer in the Legion. But in other ways, he missed getting his hands dirty - really dirty a fixing up engines, working around a problem to find a solution, before the advent of the biorg.

To think, the biorg revolution had started as a quirky idea on a children's TV show. The heady techno-days had been and gone; the energy crisis had put paid to any more development in the field of telecommunications and electronics, and if the Hadron Collider disaster of '27 hadn't been enough to put the public off the idea of having a fridge-freezer powered by anti-matter and G.o.d-particles, the thought of having nothing to put in it certainly did. People had merrily returned to nature and embraced the notion of living off the land. Allotments sprang up all over the city. Carefully coiffured j.a.panese gardens had been converted into chicken runs and pig sties, vegetables grew in window-boxes, and fruit hung from hanging baskets. Overnight, funding for fission and fusion was pulled, and any research into their future usage was shelved. Since that time, the developed world had virtually stood still. The only advances of any kind were retroactive, built on technology which had since been surpa.s.sed and now, for the sake of the planet, were being brought back to life. That was the very thinking behind the biorg.

Whizzer had once been the most popular programme for the 8-11 year old market: a chunk of global prime-time children's TV, where kids with nothing better to do were invited to share their ideas and inventions to revolutionise the planet. Amongst the usual rubbish which came in week after week a vacuum hoverboards, snot-powered rollerboots and the like a an eleven year old from Ipswich named Josie Waters put forward the idea of creating some kind of 'super-rust' which could work with metal rather than against it, helping machines to function not as inanimate objects but rather as living organisms. Josie had even supplied a pencil diagram of a car's engine, covered in part by a blob of the so-called 'super-rust'. The picture now hangs in the Europa Inst.i.tute of Science and Technology in Prague, because somebody in Jetstream Technologies was clearly paying attention to Whizzer that night: within a month young Josie's idea had been snapped up, patented and copyrighted for the bargain price of a lifetime's supply of Kinder Eggs.

Jetstream, a Manchester-based company which primarily produced organic fuel additives and lubricants, had been searching for a new future since the energy crisis brought about the collapse of the motor industry. They saw Josie's idea as their last big play. The science which followed was a work of art: genetically modified amphibian stem cells were combined with common ferric oxide to create Josie's 'super-rust' (now 'bio-organic-polymer-ferro-acetate-gel') which believed, for want of a better word, that its job was to plug the holes in decomposing metal, rather than create them, meaning that vehicles and factory machinery could survive long beyond their normal life-expectancy.

What the scientists behind the research hadn't foreseen however, was the cells' ability to adapt to new circ.u.mstances. Evidence began to show that the super-rust could regenerate from the trauma of a road traffic accident or a fire for example, in the same way a living organism might. They went back to the bar and mixed a new c.o.c.ktail. By taking motor-neurone stem cells, adding biological enzymes, immuno-rich white blood cells and huge amounts of the coagulant fibrinogen, the scientists had created the first 'thinking' organic-mechanical hybrid. They called it the biorg.

Biorg technology had come a long way since then, the science itself growing like one of its own precocious offspring. In 2036, researchers at SKAMS, the Skoda Academy of Motoring Science, produced preliminary evidence of a biorg a.s.similating the fuel system of its ailing Mazda, not only improving the car's fuel efficiency in the weeks that followed, but furthermore enabling it to run on waste organic materials a nut husks, coffee grounds, even animal excrement. It was a nothing short of a breakthrough.

Lou Tech caught himself running a rubber-gloved hand over the spa.r.s.e bristly hairs of the dead biorg in Crystal Purcell's Proto. It seemed that biorgs themselves had a lifespan of around two years after inception into an average engine. After that, like any other living tissue, they withered and died. The one Lou was currently caressing looked like a large, grey, deflated balloon with shrivelled tendrils reaching into the workings of the engine.

He picked it up by the body with a pair of steel tongs, careful to pull the whole thing out in one piece, and then dropped it into a bio-hazard bin, which would be picked up by Oryx Waste Disposal at the end of the working day and emptied into the Thames. From the shelf, he took a new can of Host a chemical gel which provided a perfect environment for the biorg to thrive - and sprayed it all over the motor, making sure to cover the battery, carburettor, radiator and all the filters with the blue foam.

In a refrigerated combination safe at the back of the workshop, Lou kept his precious jar of biorgs. There were probably fifty five, maybe sixty left in this batch, and that represented around 20,000 cred after expenses. This jar was Lou's livelihood. He unscrewed the lid, and still wearing his gloves, scooped out a single peaagreen golf-ball sized organism. Holding it carefully in the palm of his hands, he walked back to the Proto and placed it in a puddle of Host which had formed on top of the battery.

In seconds the biorg had begun to grow in size and sprout tendrils, which wrapped around the various parts of the engine and pushed themselves into its pipes and tubes. It swelled and pulsated with life. Lek and Crystal looked on, him with scientific interest, her with growing disgust. She decided she could take no more when she noticed that it had grown its first tooth, and hooked it artfully around the casing of the air-filter.

She nudged Lek, 'Let's get a coffee.'

Lou had known they wouldn't last, and he smiled paternally as he lowered the bonnet down gently on the biorg so that it wouldn't burst.

'So, what are you thinking?' Crystal asked as they sat down on the battered sofa in Lou's office.

'About what?'

'About all this. What are we going to do now? For all we know they could be waiting outside for us.'

'No, they're not. My guess is they're trying to give me enough rope to hang myself.'

'And me in the process?' Crystal raised her eyebrows.

'I'm sorry about that. But if we play this right, if we're smart, we can start a new life. Together.' He paused, then looked into Crystal's eyes. 'How would you feel about that?'

'But where will we go? Pechev's bound to have contacts all over Europa. He'll only have to say the word, put a price on your head....' she left the rest unsaid.

'I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I've thought about going to the police, explaining who I am, what I do, what I've seen. I imagine they must have some kind of witness protection scheme I could sign up for? I don't know really. Cesar a you remember me telling you about him? The Dynagym guy? Yes, well, Cesar thinks that Pechev's entire business goes far beyond just the drugs, so maybe he'll just take the hit and let me walk away. You never know.' Lek tried to sound optimistic.

She closed her hand around his, 'No, Lek, listen to me. You need to accept that you, that we, probably aren't going to get out of this in one piece. You said yourself you know too much. Even if by some miracle, we do manage to escape, they are going to come after us, believe me.'

'Pechev has enemies too. Maybe I could offer myself to one of his compet.i.tors in Slovenia or Slovakia. It's an up and coming market - lots of opportunities for transferable skills like mine. I could hammer out a better deal. You know, something along the lines of, 'I'll make your illegal drugs, and you don't leave severed heads in my fridge and threaten to cut off my hands'.

'Try to be serious, for Harrison's sake.'