Caldwell woke up to find himself slumped lyph』s makeshift worktop. The terminal had logged him out of his base and he was totally exhausted from his memory trip. Blue light streaming in through the trailer windows told him it was the crack of dawn. He looked at his watd the clo one of Glyph』s soles to firm it. It was 6.10AM on both. That was the kind of accuracy you got when you get the time via radio waves iime from the Atomic Clo Switzerland by which all time was measured.
Kat was still fast asleep breathing with a faint rasping sound. Still curled up like a teus. She had somehow ged position though and her head was now at the bottom of the bed. Weird. Her Sim Film had ended and colored light from the default ssaver flashed itently over her eyelids. Caldwell headed into the modified shower cubicle. There was a shower seat in there with steel grips, which Glyph obviously used to hoist himself out of his wheelchair and on to the shower seat. It looked like a wheelchair but it was made entirely of plastid devoid of wheels.
Caldwell showered and got dressed in his old clothes, every minute heightening the excitement. There was no hot water so he was now well and truly awake. An ice cold shower had a way of doing that to you. He checked his knapsack. The sole was in there ed in its pag material. It』s all I have. It』s all I need. He rolled the knapsack』s bination locks. With the bination, only a slasher could gain access into it and he had no plans to be in the viity of any of those.
Caldwell sat on the bed and plated whether or not to wake Kat or leave her a note. While he was deliberating, as though reading his mind, she turned round and stared at him with sleep-puffed eyes ringed with marks from the goggles.
「Don』t know why you o sleep with them on,」 he said to her as her tired eyes adjusted to the natural light streaming through the windows of the trailer.
「』t sleep without them. You know that. Stayed up all night?」
「Pretty much. I』m off to the airport now.」
「So soon,」 she said, yawning.
「Afraid so. But promise me you』ll stay here till I get back.」
「Already did. Besides, I like it here.」 She smiled, traces of sleep still embedded deep within her pale skin.
「I』ve left some instrus on how to log in on Glyph』s main sole. I alsed it so that the message avatar is figured to prompt you when you have messages. I』ve unplugged the others. The HoloFlik is that gray projector thing on the ceiling.」 He pointed up at the ceiling where a small holographic projector unit was hanging. 「The Sims go in a slot on that box.」
「Thanks, I think I ha,」 she said. Kat was already prepping foodbye. The rest was just semantics.
「OK take care of yourself.」
「I will. You too.」
He hugged her. She held oight like a mother sending her only son off to war. It was like she was afraid he wasn』t ing back. Finally she let go, fighting back tears. After one last look at her, he stood up a Glyph』s trailer. Outside, the police cordons were gohe ever-effit Fouler had seen to it that they had been removed at dawn. This guy seemed too eager to please. Suspi rose in Caldwell like bile in a gall bladder.
***
On the way to Heathrow Union Airport, flanked on all sides by megacorp drones returning to work, a wave of excitement washed through Caldwell for the first time in a long while. The human automatons that made the Union tick were everywhere, scurrying bad forth via the entrances,