It Looks Like You're Writing a Letter
Chapter 11

Stilson and Doherty had been driving forsix hours straight. Doherty had been navigating using the car's inbuilt GPSsystem, mirroring his arm piece's view onto the windscreen's heads up display.The vehicle was fast, much faster than Griffen's, so they were able to makegood progress on their plan to cut him off on his journey eastward.

The car's windows had auto-dimmed, but thereadout on the windscreen told them it was sunny and hot out there.

"Five miles," said Doherty,pointing ahead. "At the next junction we'll hit Route 40, he's abouttwenty miles west of there so we should be able to sit and wait for him."

"Easy," intoned Stilson.

The junction appeared as a speck in thedistance. The landscape was barren, almost featureless, like anything ofinterest had been burned away by the sun over decades. Doherty craned his neckto peer west - nothing on the horizon yet. No telltale cloud of thin dustfollowing another car. As they approached the junction, Stilson slowed thevehicle.

"Okay Doherty, let's set a few groundrules for when we meet Mr Griffen."

"Okay?"

"This guy is going to be armed, he'son the run for a double murder, and he definitely knows we'll be waiting forhim. I don't plan on dying today - do you?"

"No sir."

"Alright. At the slightest sign ofaggression, we shoot him. We can't be sure what armour he's going to be wearingor what personal defence systems he'll have in place, so aim for the head, anddon't let him get too close. If he's got a bomb or something similar, we couldget taken out with him."

Doherty nodded. "What about if hegives himself up?"

Stilson shook his head. "He won't dothat. Not in his MO. He would have disappeared entirely if he didn't want to becaught. I believe he wants a firefight, he wants to go down in a blaze of gloryand he wants to take us with him."

Doherty nodded again, mutely. Stilson lookedsideways at him. "You okay?"

Doherty snapped out of it and resumed hisusual attitude. "Sure, yeah! If it's a shootout he's looking for, I'll gofull wild west if that's what the little fucker wants." He unholstered hisweapon from the small of his back, checked it for ammunition, switched it tolethal mode and ran some diagnostics. They scrolled up the windscreen. Theweapon was in full working order.

"Alright, here we are," saidStilson.

They pulled up to the junction and into themiddle of the road. Stilson shut off the engine and the windscreen went blank.

"Ten miles, same speed." SaidDoherty, not taking his eyes off his arm piece.

"Come on," said Stilson,releasing both doors with the press of a button. The doors whispered open andthe Security officers stepped out blinking into the bleaching sun. Stilsonunholstered his own weapon and efficiently ran some simple checks. He waswearing sunglasses now, which were black and completely opaque. Doherty couldn'tmake out his mood, couldn't read any worry or fear in the light lines in hisforehead or around his tight, thin-lipped mouth. Doherty hadn't thought tobring his sunglasses, so he resigned himself to squinting westward, scanningthe horizon.

Both men leant against the hot car. A weak,symbolic roadblock for a crazed homicidal madman.

"Should we call for backup?"asked Doherty without looking at his partner.

"No."

"It would take them hours to get here,wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

They stood in silence for a moment. Abreeze had come from nowhere and it wisped dust swirls around their polishedleather shoes. There was virtually no sound, save for the wind and the cries ofoccasional high flying birds.

The two men stared at the horizon until itceased to have any meaning. Neither spoke. Perhaps the other man was reflectingon his career, or his family, or how their deaths would be reported in the news- and how long it would be before they were relegated to the archives. Probablyhours. A day, maybe, if there were some grisly accompanying photographs.

One of the men decided he would shootfirst, and hoped the other would follow his lead and put some more bullets intoGriffen's body to make doubly sure they would be getting back into the glossyblue car again, and could go back to the office and file a report and wake upand do the same thing again and again. The other decided that this would be hislast job for Security and that he would leave and get a new career and spendmore time with his new wife, and that no matter what he was getting paid itsimply wasn't enough to be a thirty second snippet on the nightly news andanother scratch mark on the handle of a criminal's gun.

"Five miles."

There was nothing to do but wait. Stilsonstopped leaning on the car. He walked around behind it and steadied his gunhand on the scorching roof. Doherty walked round the car and joined him,kneeling behind the hood of the car and looking over it, trying not to beblinded by the high sun reflecting off the car's paintwork. Up close the carsmelled of hot plastic and ozone. He was thirsty, his throat was as dry as thesurrounding stubble fields.

"Two miles."

Sweat ran down Doherty's neck, and insidethe white collar of his shirt. Stilson was as dry as a bone, composed, stoic.He would be a loss to field work.

"One mile."

They both froze, transfixed. Twenty secondswent past. There was no vehicle approaching. Stilson looked up and scanned thesky. The birds continued to circle.

"What the fuck?" Doherty stoodup, stared at his arm piece, then span around and looked down the road behindthem. On his device, Tanner Griffen's avatar was travelling at 90mph away fromthem.

The thick plastic twine bit cruelly intoJeopardy's wrists as she knelt on the filthy rug. The room was still empty savefor the guard by the door. She could smell him rather than see him. She sighed.She still had no idea exactly what this conversion process would entail, howlong it would take or if they would be allowed to live even after it wascompleted. She didn't really care.

She had worked for Kruke long enough toknow that eventually, she'd get involved with a job that was just too risky -that there would be no coming back from. Previous chaperone duties had justinvolved escorting fraudulent bankers out of state and setting them up in newlocations, or smuggling alimony-dodging unfaithful husbands past bailiffs andbondsmen. This job seemed different - a lot different. When Tanner Griffen hadblundered into the church back in Fort Smith, he was chaotic, dangerous, a wildman. Jeopardy hadn't been scared of any living creature for over a decade andshe wasn't about to start now, but a young girl out on her own doesn't stayalive and largely unmolested by the world without recognising danger. She sawTanner Griffen for what he was - the nucleus around which trouble revolved.

Looking back, it was almost quaint the wayGriffen had originally tried to rob Kruke with a pocket knife as soon as he gotaccess to the bunker and saw how much expensive computer gear was installeddown there. Jeopardy had shot him between the legs with a tranquilliser dart,fired directly from her hip before he had chance to realise what was going on.Once he'd let go of Kruke, she had shot across the room and slapped him in atight choke, but it took a lot of struggle to put him down. For a thin,unhealthy kid he was tough, and surprisingly strong.

When Griffen had come around from thetranquilliser, they had had a little chat. Jeopardy had explained to Griffenthat while he might have been a tough guy out on the streets, in this world shewas the queen bee, the black widow, the mother hen. Even despite the fact theywere roughly the same age, the power was palpably on her side, and Griffenagreed to toe the line in order for Kruke to help him.

And help him Kruke did. Seeing her employerand his cadre of almost mute whiz kids in action was always breathtaking. Inlittle over a day they had constructed an entire fictional human. There wereopinions and feelings and preferences, and a back story that included ascintillating mixture of real life connections and digital patsies - each witha plausible alibi to allow them to become data cul-de-sacs. Something primalstirred within her as she watched the process - perhaps her female instinctswere being tricked into a maternal mode by the 'birth' of this new person, thiscreation of life from nothing? An immaculate conception in which Kruke was bothMary and Joseph, and God was in no way present.

Jeopardy missed her arm pieces. Both armsfelt light and insubstantial without the weight of the brushed aluminium andglass devices, like getting a heavy plaster cast removed. She had a prettybasic relationship with the Grid. She wasn't fanatically against it likeFreeman, and she wasn't wholly dependent upon it like Griffen, but it didfacilitate her career and by extension of that, her life. Jeopardy wasn't herreal name, obviously, and she had long ago forgotten what her real name was.Her real name was just something given to her without her permission by a weak,beaten woman and a belligerent drunk of a man. It was no great loss.

The name Jeopardy was granted to her by hersecond family - the first biker gang she infiltrated. The leader of that gangwas a bearded, barrel-shaped man called Curio. He had been kind to her, nevertried to take advantage and was amazed that a waif-like young girl with apretty face had lasted as long as she had out on the run. Hence, he referred toher as 'Jeopardy' as that was her constant state, in his eyes.

What Curio, Kruke and the others couldn'tsee, and couldn't ever hope to know - was how Jeopardy did keep going. If theyhad looked deep into her eyes, past the square pixel of an iris and beyond theimplants into her soul, they would have seen there was nothing there. And thatwas her secret. She had long ago vacated this body. Nothing that happened toit, or her, was of much consequence and staying alive another day was just away to get paid and get to the day after that. The Grid didn't matter, herprivacy didn't matter, and her data wasn't hers anyway as she just piggybackedon other people's profiles. She had no history, was accumulating no memories tospeak of and held no opinions. This was perfectly fine.

She scanned the room for exits. Just thedoor that the stinking youth was barricading with his leathery flesh andhandguns that looked too big for him. Windows on two of the walls were closed,but still fully glazed. Other than a few indistinct paintings hanging lop-sidedon the inner walls, the room was devoid of furniture and decoration.

She turned her attention to Thorner. He waskneeling next to her with his head bowed. Despite this, she didn't sense anydesperation in the older man. His temple was bruised and cut, blood had spreadinto the grey flanks of his hair. He was handsome, she thought, in a used-up,rugged kind of way. She noted with some distant amusement that the soles of hisshoes were held on with duct tape. A faded gentleman, fallen on hard times, arelic of an earlier era that might not have even existed. He had everyindication of a man who lacked, but once had, the love of a good woman. Someonewho ironed his shirts and cooked him hot meals and pecked him on the cheek asshe handed him his briefcase as he left for work. Thorner was a good man, butgood men don't last too long in the company they were presently keeping.

David whispered to her. "What's theplan?"

She looked at him. The Freeman behind herhissed at them. "Boss gonna be here soon, you shut the fuck up and begrateful he's gonna save you."

Jeopardy couldn't turn her head to look atthe guard, so just looked straight ahead and ignored David's question. Thornerturned his head slightly to look at her, as if expecting an answer also.

David suddenly slumped forward and startedconvulsing, rolling to his back and thrashing violently. Jeopardy and Thornerrecoiled from his whipping, scrawny legs. He continued to spin and wail loudly.The guard looked panicked and ran over, hopping from foot to foot.

"What's wrong with him?" theguard looked no older than sixteen years old.

"I don't know, hold him down, he'shaving some kind of fit," said Jeopardy curtly, shrugging her shoulders toindicate to the guard that she couldn't help if she wanted to due to her handsbeing tied.

The guard holstered his revolvers and bentdown to take David by the shoulders. In one swift movement, David's eyesrefocused and became steely, his right hand emerged from behind his back and ithad his pocketknife in it. With his left hand he grabbed the back of the youngboy's head as he plunged the short knife deep into his neck. Blood gobbed outof the gaping wound, and the boy gargled and tried to grab at David's wrists.David's teeth were gritted tightly together and he twisted and dug away at theFreeman's trachea while blood sprayed and rained down onto him. He flipped the guardover and mounted him, the knife still lodged deep in the ragged neck. The boywas dead.

Thorner and Jeopardy had shuffled away assoon as the attack started and were huddled against the wall beneath a window.They stared, wordless and open mouthed as the blood-spattered figure turned tothem with a wry grin on his face.

"Fuck this motherfucker. Fuck themall," said Tanner Griffen.

They were sure the noise would have alertedthe rest of the gang so for the next few seconds they moved quickly. Griffen cutThorner and Jeopardy free, relieved the dead guard of his pistols and gave themone each. A sharp machete hung on the guard's belt so he took that for himself.His crisp white cotton shirt was now saturated with blood and thin chunks offlesh, so he took it off and used the back of it to wipe his torso down.

"We need to move. I need my weapons,"said Jeopardy.

"I need my shitty old arm piece,"said Griffen.

"I need a drink," deadpannedThorner.

They crawled under the windows and peeredcarefully outside. One of the grimy panes looked out over the garden area andDankar Freeman's throne of twisted metal. He was sat in it, proudly holdingservice to his flock, who were sat cross-legged on the ground before him, inrapt attention as he proselytised about the evils of the digital age.

"What a bunch of fucking morons,"spat Griffen.

"We don't have time for this, come on,"hissed Jeopardy, moving swift and low towards the door. Thorner and Griffenfollowed. The door was unlocked, so Jeopardy opened it gingerly and peeredthrough. The coast was clear so she led the other two forward and into thehallway. The front door wasn't an option as they would be spotted, so theydoubled back on themselves and made their way through the filthy kitchen to theback door.

On the other side of a fence, they couldsee the roof of the pickup truck into which their arm pieces had been thrown.The fence was too high to climb and with no other way through, they had nochoice but to track around the side of the house. They stuck to the weatherbeaten walls as they made their way to the corner of the building, duckingunder each window as they went.

Jeopardy reached the end of the wall firstand motioned with her hand for Thorner and Griffen to stop. She turned to them.

"We can get around the fence, butthere's no way of doing it without being seen. We're screwed."

"I've got an idea," said Griffenwith an evil smirk. Thorner felt a chill, he suspected this would involvesomeone getting hurt or killed.

Before Jeopardy had a chance to ask Griffenwhat the plan was, he'd scurried back the way they'd came, and they saw himdisappear into the kitchen. They sat, huddled against the rotting wall for whatseemed like hours, but it could only have been minutes. They could hear DankarFreeman droning and occasionally bellowing in the garden only fifty metersaway. It would only take one of his followers to come around the corner andthey would certainly be recaptured and most likely killed. Sweat beaded onThorner's brow. Jeopardy displayed no fear or tension, just boredom at havingto wait and perhaps some slight frustration at having been supplanted as theleader of the little group.

Presently, Griffen came hurtling out of thekitchen and threw himself down on the ground next to them. His face had amaniacal, unhinged quality to it. "Better get down and cover your ears,assholes!" he giggled. Thorner and Jeopardy instinctively did so.

Four seconds later, there was a hugeexplosion and the back half of the old building was ripped away and thrown throughitself. The ground under them shook with the violence of it, and looking backJeopardy could see a billowing blue-orange fireball blossom from the wreckedwindows and doors at the back of the house. She looked at Griffen.

"Gas bottle in the kitchen! Slow burnfuse! Ha ha!" laughed Griffen.

The clamour from the Freemen wasinstantaneous, like a fast-spreading bushfire of chaos. Peering around the edgeof the building Jeopardy saw some of them dart into the front of the house torescue what meagre possessions they had inside. Others were paralysed in shockand fear and all were distracted. Even Dankar himself had jumped up from histhrone and was barking orders that fell on deaf ears.

"Now!" commanded Jeopardy. Theykept low and ran the few meters between the building and the surrounding fence,then through it at the nearest gap. They doubled back on themselves, stayinglow and tight to the outer edge of the fence until they came to the collectedrabble of vehicles. They darted between them, peering into the cabins andflatbeds until Thorner waved the other two over frantically. He climbed intothe flatbed and handed Jeopardy her arm pieces, and Griffen his.

"Where's my belt?" hissedJeopardy.

"Not here, I don't know," repliedThorner, scanning around him.

"Fuck," said Jeopardy, to herselfas much as anything. There was tens of thousands of credits worth of gear onthat belt. At least she wasn't completely unarmed, clutching as she was thetarnished revolver stolen from the dead guard.

They spotted the Volvo at the edge of theherd of vehicles and made a beeline for it. Thorner was relieved to see thekeys glinting in the ignition and jumped into the driver's seat. Jeopardyresumed her place in the passenger seat and Griffen threw himself bodily intothe back. "Let's fucking go, man!" he urged Thorner. The mayhem inthe house had become a more focussed anger - they'd discovered the body oftheir fallen comrade, and realised that their converts-to-be had fled.

Thorner turned the keys with sweat-soakedfingers and gunned the old engine. He peeled out and pointed the rust red noseof the vehicle in what he thought was the direction of the road they had beenon before their ambush.

"They're going to chase us," saidJeopardy, matter of factly. She checked the revolver in her hand - it was inpoor condition but fully loaded. Griffen started laughing hysterically in theback seat.

"You're welcome, by the way!" hecalled up from the faded upholstery. Jeopardy ignored him.

"You're a piece of work, Griffen,"said Thorner just above the noise of the engine and the tortured suspension asit bounced and ricocheted off the uneven ground. Griffen seemed to take this asa compliment.

Jeopardy strapped her arm pieces on andchecked their status. It looked like there were no biometric flags on theprofile she was logged into when they were taken. Perhaps with the temperaturereading and the static nature of the geolocation, the algorithm had assumed shewas sunbathing for an hour or so.

"Put your arm piece back on," shesaid over her shoulder to Griffen.

He sat up in the back seat and put themachete down beside him. Griffen looked at the clunky, beige device in hishands but did nothing.

"What are you waiting for?"

Griffen looked dejected. "I don'tknow, man. Back there, I was myself again, you know? Like, it felt good. I don'tthink I want to be David fucking Dweeberson again."

"We've been through this,"shouted Jeopardy over the screaming engine, "you gave up that choice whenyou went to Kruke. You're David Wilkinson now."

Griffen sat in silence for a few moments. "DavidWilkinson wouldn't have gotten us out of there."

Jeopardy didn't say anything. She knew itwas true, and hated him for it. "Put it on."

He flopped back in the seat like a stroppyteenager and buckled the leather straps around his left arm. The screen flashedinto life with a sickly blue-green glow.

"We need to get you a new shirt,"said Jeopardy.

"Where's Griffen now? Have we losthim?" said Thorner.

Jeopardy checked her arm piece and brushedher hair out of her eyes. "Got him. Oh shit!"

"What is it?"

"I think I know where he's going."

"Where?"

"He's heading to Fort Smith. He'sgoing to Kruke."

"What the fuck just happened?"asked Doherty, waving his Security-issue pistol demonstratively.

"Well," said Stilson, "my guessis that Griffen doesn't actually exist anymore. I think what we've beentracking is an AI, a computer simulation of Tanner Griffen."

"Who would create a virtual version ofthat little asshole?"

Stilson shrugged. "Probably the sameperson who killed Senator Rigsby. Or the person who ordered him dead."

Doherty slumped against the hot car. "Ahh,what the fuck. Why is nothing ever straightforward these days? Why can't wejust chase a guy, capture him, book him and write it up?"

"Chin up Doherty," said Stilsonwith a wry smile, "it's just getting interesting!"

They got back into the vehicle and Dohertybrought up the windscreen display once again. "So we keep chasing?"

"Yes," said Stilson, "we don'thave anything else to go on - that AI is going somewhere, it's been programmedto do so by someone. If we replace out where it stops, that might be enough tofigure out who sent it and why."

"Alright, we've got some catching upto do then."

Stilson buried the accelerator into thereal wool carpet, and the navy blue car shot off down the road, following theblinking avatar on the windscreen.

They had gone a few miles when Dohertyspotted a dust cloud in the distance, coming from the right towards the road.Stilson noticed it too. "What's that?"

Doherty scrolled right on the map andzoomed in. "We've got a David Wilkinson and a Samantha Enright moving veryquickly off-road, heading this way."

"Anything else?"

"Nope."

"Sure?" Stilson motioned furtherto the right. A much larger dust cloud was following the first, perhaps half amile behind.

"I've got nothing on that at all. Thecouple in the front car are going to meet the road a few miles ahead of us veryshortly, I guess we'll get a proper visual then."

"Okay."

Just as Doherty had predicted, the longflat landscape allowed them to see a red dot in the distance bounce from thedusty earth onto the blacktop, careening to straighten onto the road withoutslowing. There was something much more alarming, however. Now they were closerthey could see what was pursuing the couple in the red car. A snarling, roilingcluster of ancient vehicles, billowing smoke and fumes, like one chaotic mass,spilled onto the road ahead of them like a jar of nails being knocked over. Acouple of the vehicles collided and this caused the whole collection to slowand halt, covering the road like a portable junkyard.

At the speed the Security officers weretravelling, they were braking in front of the twisted metal mess before theyhad chance to think.

"Can we go around?" askedDoherty, still riding the adrenaline of their non-encounter with Griffen onlyminutes ago.

"They'll shoot us in the back,"said Stilson, flatly.

The car stopped a few hundred meters fromthe impromptu roadblock. Nothing moved, there was no sound. The Securityofficers could see some heads framed in front and side windows, but they werejust looking back, impassively. Doherty wondered if they could see through thesmoked front windshield of the Security vehicle. He checked the HUD again.

"Why aren't they showing up?"

"Some kind of off-Grid gang or group.I'm guessing the Freemen, they've been operating in this area recently."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Very bad."

As they watched, they saw a large black manemerge from the brown metal sculpture ahead of them. He stood on the back of aflatbed truck and addressed them through an old analogue loudhailer.

"Agents of Babylon!" he spat, "Youare on our road. You are on the peoples' road! This isn't a digital channel youcan control or monitor, you soulless bastards!"

His voice was muffled by the Securityvehicles excellent soundproofing, so Stilson increased the gain on the ambientexternal microphones and Dankar Freeman's voice came through the hi-fi speakersloud and clear.

"You. You people. Are you even people?How can you live, how can you sleep at night being pawns in the evil empire'sgame? The computer sends you out to do its dirty work, yes? Sends you out onyour little missions to chase people like mice out of a kitchen. You should beashamed! All those years ago we made these machines to serve us! To do ourbidding, and be switched off when they were no longer needed. Now look at us,look at you! The machines teach our children, they have taken the place of Godin our churches and forced Him out to live here, in the wilderness! Show yourselves,cowards! Come out of your little hutch and face us, be men!"

Stilson looked at Doherty. Doherty lookedback at him. They both knew they were sitting ducks if they remained in thecar. Doherty still thought there might be a chance to talk their way out of thesituation. Stilson was more realistic.

"Come on," said Doherty, andopened the car door.

Stilson sighed and followed suit, and theyboth stood behind their respective open doors and blinked in the sunlight onceagain. Doherty accessed the correct pull-down menu on his arm piece's screenand connected its microphone to the crowd-control speakers hidden in the car'sfront grille.

"Sir, please move aside. We are onofficial Security business."

Dankar laughed uproariously. "Youthink I give a shit about Security business? Nah sir, you've reached the end ofthe line. The road goes no further for you."

"We have no quarrel with you or yourpeople, you won't show up in our reports or our travel logs - just let usthrough."

"Security dog, I usually give trespasserson the peoples' land two options - but for you and your dog friend, I'm onlygoing to give you one."

"What were the two options?"interjected Doherty quickly.

Dankar looked around at his men, who hadstarted to emerge behind the stationary vehicles around him. He smiled back atDoherty across the expanse of cracked asphalt. "Come back to God. Or meethim."

Doherty looked across the car roof atStilson. Stilson was already looking at him. They exchanged the kind ofwordless, motionless communication that only long-standing partners could do,and simultaneously drew their side arms.

Almost in slow motion, as they turned totarget their weapons, the blockade in front of them bristled with weapons, likea porcupine rolling into a ball. Shotguns, handguns, rifles, crossbows andprojectiles of all kinds were pointed at them and it was just a case of who wasgoing to fire first. The only person without a weapon in his hand was DankarFreeman, who still stood proudly atop the flatbed with the loud hailer at hiswaist and his other hand on his hip, legs spread like a proud, impenetrablestatue.

It was Stilson who squeezed the triggerfirst, his high-powered energy ballistic handgun making a red rose of theforehead of a freeman who had levelled a rocket launcher at the pair. Thisbegan a chain reaction of percussive explosions as the blockade erupted ingunfire, all of which was directed at them and their vehicle.

Doherty wasted no time, taking out anotherthree with torso-aimed, laser guided energy projectiles that left freemenbifurcated and smoking, hanging out of or over their vehicles.

The Security car was being punctured inevery way by rounds large and small. The Security officers were crouchingbehind the thick doors but the metal panels were rapidly losing integrity asthey were pounded with gunfire. Both front tyres were shot out, and the vehiclesuddenly dropped a few inches, causing them to alter their positions.

Doherty could see Stilson across the opencar, his teeth gritted, his sunglasses preventing Doherty from knowing if hewas as terrified as him. The Freemen were dropping like flies, but there seemedto be no end to them. As each one was killed, another took his place like somecheap AI in a videogame.

Stilson had to reload and changed his positionto access the energy cell on his belt. As he rose slightly to facilitate this,a round penetrated the top of his door and smashed him in the chest. He wasthrown backwards and blood fanned out from him, spattering the car's interior.

"Stilson!" cried Doherty, stillsqueezing off rounds with decreasing accuracy. The Freemen's attack was notletting up in its ferocity. Suddenly, Doherty dove into the passenger footwelland yanked open a compartment under the dashboard. He fumbled with numb fingersand pulled out a thick, snub-nosed handgun with a large warning sticker acrossit. He ripped off the sticker and primed it for use. This had better work, hethought. It has to work.

He slid back out of the car and steadiedhis wrist on the shattered doorframe. Aiming the weapon at the centre of themorass of vehicles, he pulled the trigger. There was no recoil, which surprisedhim. Instead a glowing fireball of high energy screamed across the road,embedded itself in the first truck it hit and in an instant, the entireroadblock was lit up in a blue halo. Seventeen million volts coursed throughevery single conductive element in the group of vehicles, and easily jumped anymaterial that wasn't. All organic matter it encountered was decimated, the verycells of it fused together and repurposed back to its base carbon, inert,fragmented, all motion and movement within that mass ceased utterly.

Doherty relaxed his grip on the weapon andlet it fall to the road. In front of him, the roadblock was black, smoking, sparkingand wholly unrecognisable. If there were human bodies in there, they would beindistinguishable from a car stereo, seat, shotgun, machete, leather. All hadbecome as one and no life was permitted within it. His nostrils burned.

He span around the car and came to Stilson,who was laid on the hot black ground, surrounded by debris. The round, whateverit was, had disintegrated on impact with the door and taken large chunks ofmetal with it on its journey into and through Stilson's chest. What was left wasan obscene, rent open ribcage pulsing and breathing and struggling in the hotsun. Doherty knelt beside the still conscious Stilson.

"You're gonna be OK, I'll call in forthe medics." Even as he said it he knew it was a futile, stupid thing tosay. His eyes tracked against his will down from Stilson's blood streaked faceand neck and down the wound, where his eyes froze and his breath stopped. Hecould see everything, but didn't see what he was expecting. Some of Stilson'sribs were missing from the left hand side of his torso, and where his heartshould have been, there was a slick white plastic unit. It bore a barcode andthe legend 'ORACORP H-625b HEART UNIT DO NOT PLACE IN FIRE'. From it, insteadof arteries led thin steel-coloured pipes that disappeared into the red fleshymass. A lung could briefly be seen, also matt white plastic, moulding seams atthe edge.

Doherty looked at Stilson, tears in hiseyes making his partner suddenly soft-focus and all the more distant for it. Heopened his mouth, closed it again. Bent his head. "I... I didn't know."

Stilson's sunglasses lay on the road a fewfeet away, lost in his fall. His eyes were empty, fading. "It's OK, I didn'tknow either. Alan."

It was the first time Stilson had evercalled him by his first name. He wasn't even sure he'd ever known it. Stilsonsmiled weakly, his hand gripped Doherty's arm. Then he was gone.

David Wilkinson was crouched in the backseat of the Volvo, studying the road behind them. "They're not following!They've just stopped, I think they all crashed and they can't get startedagain."

Thorner felt his shoulders relax - he hadn'tbeen aware they had been tense and wasn't sure how long they'd been that way. "Good."

Jeopardy was studying both her arm pieces. "Griffenis a few miles ahead of us on this road, we've basically done a big U-Turn, wewent to him and he's passed us and is going back the way we came."

Thorner looked sideways at her. "Whatthe hell does that mean?"

"I think it means he's heading to FortSmith, to Kruke."

"What the f... hell?" cried Davidfrom the back seat, "None of this makes sense!"

"Exactly," said Jeopardy, "ifwe'd known he was coming to us we would never have left. Or, he knows we'veleft and he's trying to get to Kruke before we can get back."

"Why would he want to get to Kruke?"asked Thorner.

"I have no idea. Kruke made David, andhe knows everything about Griffen. I suspect this is whoever Griffen is now,tidying up some loose ends."

"This is so screwed up," moanedDavid, "the old me, who isn't me, but who's killed some senator guy, isgoing to kill the guy that made me?"

"Perhaps. Either way, I've alertedKruke as to the situation and we need to get back there as soon as we can,"said Jeopardy.

Thorner motioned to her to suggest that theVolvo simply wouldn't go any faster and she looked annoyed. "Just stay onthis road, it leads us straight back to Kruke."

GriffenTanner1384 - hobbies includehacking, petty crime, serious crime, kidnap, extortion, illegal gambling,darknets, phreaking, piracy, pornography. Political affiliations - none.Favourite music - Shovel Bastard, The Creeps, OutZone, Kill Factory.Connections - 3,563,021. Age - 24. Current location - Route 40 heading towardsFort Smith, at 90mph.

He wasn't really sure exactly why he had toget to the Church of the Divine in Fort Smith, or why he had to proceed to thepulpit and down through a trapdoor, but that was what he was going to do. Therewas really nothing that could stop him from doing so, either - which would havebeen a reassuring feeling, if he had feelings, which of course he didn't.

He hadn't been alive for very long, so itwas all new to him. Nonetheless, there was little for him to learn. He was borninto the world already knowing everything he needed to know, and nothing more.As far as he had memories, they had started in a luxury suite in a four-starhotel in Oklahoma City, and he had instantly known what he had to do and how hehad to do it. Some unknown, unknowable force had his destiny mapped out and hewas merely along for the ride.

He could see, after a fashion, the dry,arid landscape scroll past him. In fact, if he turned his focus left or right,he could see a full 360-degree view of his surroundings. It was quiteinteresting. He had a lot of information to process, as he had been monitoringthe live news feeds to see when the name Tanner Griffen appeared and in whatcontext. He was able to use these local news reports as a crude way of avoidingphysical interaction with people, although the incident with the two Security officerswas regrettably unavoidable.

He wondered what the two OraCorp employeeshad made of it. As he had approached them, he could see them only in anabstract manner, the location and physical mass of them and their biometrics,and he mapped their life signs as he got closer and closer. One of them wasevidently much more stressed to be in that situation than the other, his sweatglands were working overtime and his heart rate was greatly increased. It wasvery interesting. The one called Stilson was almost unmoved, which was alsoquite fascinating. The Stilson user was quite unusual in many respects and hewondered idly why that was. There was insufficient information to draw aconclusion. Checking back along the road later, he noted that the Stilson user'svital signs had stopped completely, why was that? It didn't really matter.

He span his focus forward to look at theroad, which was a light blue incandescent strip of activated pathways, andscrolled forward to get a quick preview of where he was going. The churchbuilding was reporting two floors only, there were no passwords, encryption orother security measures he could see that would affect his entry. Spinningaround the building in a three dimensional wireframe, he noticed there were twoexits from the ground floor, and the basement he knew to exist, was notdocumented here.

There were a few people in the churchcurrently, a young female in the lobby area and a few random idents within thepews, each logged onto something insignificant, doing something on the Gridthat didn't interest him. They probably wouldn't notice him enter, most likelywouldn't lift their heads from the screwed-down screens and this was fine.

He brought his view back to his presentlocation. There were only a few miles left to go. He had no cognisance of whatwas to happen once he had entered the bunker. Information ceased at that point.He had no curiosity about this, just an acknowledgement that this part of theprogram had been completed and he would be ready to take the next set ofinstructions, whatever they might be. There might not be any furtherinstructions, if he had served his usefulness, and this was fine too.

Ninety miles per hour was a good speed. Itwas a realistic speed to travel on this particular road, and he had beeninformed that time was of the essence on this particular task. He wasn'ttravelling so fast as to arouse suspicion, and he certainly couldn't justappear at his destination as this profile was under intense scrutiny - whichwas the whole point, after all. It was important that others could follow.

A few more moments and he was entering thetown of Fort Smith. He travelled down the main street, and there in front ofhim was the hovering address card of the Church of the Divine. He scanned theinformation, everything tallied with his instructions. Slowing to a stop, thenafter a brief pause, a walking pace, he approached the building and entered it.He slid past the young girl in the lobby, who didn't offer him any leaflets andstarted no conversation. He made his way down the centre of the church itself,and as he predicted, the townsfolk in the pews either side of him did notregister his presence at all. Their screens would have clearly shown his avatargliding past them if they had chosen to look at that particular part of theirdisplay. He approached the pulpit and looked down. The resolution wasn't verygood here. The crowdsourced photographs that made up his view of the world werelacking in this private part of the church, but he knew intellectually that thetrap door was there. He was close enough. He stopped, paused, and winked out ofexistence.