A woman against a wall, her face exploding in a shower of bone and gore, gunsmoke drifting into view. The blond man, the man with different coloured eyes, sitting alone with a map. With a book. A history of the future.
People stand back, pushing each other. Another cart comes towards them, larger, seemingly empty. Then Michael sees the man standing inside, propped up against a beam for the crowd to see. A middle-aged man, perhaps in his fifties. Bald-headed on top, scraggly grey locks sliding down his collar, face hanging downwards, ashen and broken, there's blood on his clothes and dirt on his hands.
Five minutes later, they arrive at a bin on the side of a street. Gabriel and Victoria look at each other, pause and then look at Michael. He smiles and plunges his hand in to the bin, rummaging. 'In here somwehere' he says with a wince. The other two stare incredulously. After a few moments he emerges from the burger wrappers, soggy fag ends and beer cans holding something which makes Victoria jump backwards.
'Because although we have no idea how most threads and links got created, we do know that some have the ability to use the threads to trap another. They can create a game, a series of bastard hard challenges, designed to either kill or trap the adventurer. What Victoria is trying to say...'
'Trying?'
'Ya ha. What Victoria is trying to say is that it looks like this is what's happening here. Someone is messing with us. But there is a way out. We simply have to figure out what the rules are - what the pattern is and then play our way out'
'Play our way out?'
"Where political rhetoric had trained people to see only a world of differences between our cultures, religions and national desires, the world suddenly saw the emergence of an attempted cyber-revolution; led not by a political elite or any form of recognised party, but rather by a massive, global army of geeks, democrats, hackers, comedians, bored housewives and Iranian kids armed only with cell phones and laptops, which was playing a dangerous real-time game of cat and mouse with a totalitarian regime in the only way it could - by trying to win the war for the control of information in and out of the country And it was, at least in the long-term, if not immediately, winning. "
A body on the ground, pieces, the sound of an infant inside a building. A severed leg. A china cup. Blood. Piss and shit. A crack of timber. Fear. The screeching of sirens, howling of fire engines, the ceaseless barking of dogs, the monotonous drone in the sky, the coughing 'ack ack' of anti-aircraft fire, thudding above the skyline, the clouds themselves lighting up from inside, rubble and glass raining to the ground. A moment's silence giving way to an explosion she felt before she heard it, the very ground shaking beneath their feet, shuddering buildings, a rain of glass shattering down into the empty street to their left...
'Listen' Michael said, 'I have no idea where this is going to put us, but I'm convinced now that this is not arbitrary'
'What do you mean?' Victoria asked.
'Just that I know it seems random - where we keep ending up, but its not'
'This is because of what Claudia told you. In a dream...'
'Not just that' Michael said, 'if you look at where we keep emerging, there is a slight pattern to it'
'Which is?' Gabriel asked.
'London. Since we got lost, all of the location have been in London. I mean, I know they're random as hell, but they are all in London'
You've forgotten what I told you, haven't you? What did you tell me, he asks. When did you tell me? When we first met, she says, bringing her face next to his, her mouth close to his. He can smell her breath. Do you remember what I told you? No, he says, his throat going dry. She smiles, her mouth opening slowly. It's all a game. Just a game.
'I mean it man, you should see her. I mean seriously like. She's...' Michael trailed off, his eyes swimming in his head, his hand making small circles in the air.
Thomas stared at him blankly, his mouth pursing up like a frog. 'She's what?' he said through a small burp.
'She's fucking gorgeous' Michael slurred, his hand reaching for the bottle. 'She's got dark hair. Nice skin, pale like. Red mouth. Big lips...'
'Ya ha, ya ha'
'And her eyes, oh my God you should see her eyes. Blue. But not blue. Not blue really. Like a colour so far into blue that it's out the other side of blue and into something else? You know what I mean?'
'I do. I do.'
'And her legs. Sweet Jesus. The legs on her. She could kill a man with those legs'
'Oh yeah?'
'Oh yeah.'
Noiselessly they moved, creeping through the shadows, keeping close to the wall. Gabriel stopped, slowly extending his arms around them both and drawing them deeper into the shadows. They waited, silencing their breathing. Something was getting closer. Michael closed his eyes, reaching out, breathing through the space, sensing the streets around them. He could see the cops, see the streets, see a child sitting in a doorway, a working girl nervously peering through a cracked bottle-green window, a gentelman's club, the air thick with smoke and the laughter of the gin-plastered, a silent cat watching the streets below, a lone man stumbling in a drunken stupour his legs moving like automated pistons following a homing beacon. But there was something else. Something darker than the sky above. Something so sickening he struggled to keep the bile down. A sound, coming closer...
