His head falls back, eyes closed, shuddering, breathing hard. Sweat running down his naked back. With a final thrust everything goes bright and sharp…Oh God…Yes…And then he falls forward, panting, feeling wonderful. Feeling spent. Feeling happy.

Over on the bed-held nice and tight by all those chains and straps-the birthday girl stares at him. She’s still wearing a little badge saying: ‘I AM 18’, even though it’s not really her birthday any more. She stopped sobbing fifteen minutes ago, now she just trembles, whimpering something over and over behind the gag.

He doesn’t say anything, because she wouldn’t understand. No one ever understands.

Sometimes it makes him cry, but not today: today is a day for celebration. That’s why he’s let her watch.

He slips himself free, patting the other woman on the head as he does so. The lucky soul is almost gone-one eye swollen and bloodshot, a string of dribble hanging from her slack mouth. He’s filled her up with as much life as he can, and soon the angels will come and take her to their bosoms. Another soul that he has saved.

He smiles and winks at the birthday girl, tucked up all nice and cosy on the bed. It’ll be her turn soon enough. He’s got more than enough life to go round.

Will groaned. He shifted his weight, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt quite so much, but he could barely move. Cramp lurched up and down his body, pausing every now and then to kick him in the kidneys.

He prised one eye open. Bright light. Pain. It felt as if someone was ramming a red-hot poker into the socket. ‘Fuck…’ It was like the worst hangover he’d ever had. He closed his eye again.

Someone slapped him. Hard enough to fill his mouth with the taste of blood.

Will coughed, retched, spat a mouthful of hot copper down his own front.

Slowly the room lurched into focus. A wall of muscle was standing over him, dressed in a grey-black jumpsuit. The kind with sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves.

‘Aye.’ The bruiser was rubbing his right hand, talking into a throat-mike. ‘That’s ‘em baith conscious now. Ye’d better let Himself know.’

‘So, you’re not dead then.’

Will inched his head around, slow and careful, just in case it fell off. Emily was strapped into an interrogation chair next to him, still dressed in her eclectic-tatters outfit. A fresh bruise covered her left cheek, her lip was swollen, and her expression was murderous.

‘Where are we?’ It came out as a croak.

‘No idea. By the time I woke up we were in here. The restraints weren’t as good as these ones…’ she flexed against the straps, going nowhere. ‘But they learned fast.’

Will swore. Winced. Then looked around the room, trying to figure out what the hell they were going to do now.

It was a dimly lit, circular room, empty except for Will, Emily, the two interrogation chairs, and the man-mountain. The wall was one continuous mirror that wrapped all the way around, their distorted figures reflecting back at them. There would be cameras and scanners on the other side of the glass, recording everything, right down to their blood pressure and pupil dilation.

So it was official-they were fucked.

But at least they weren’t dead yet.

Will spat out another sliver of blood. ‘How far did you get?’

‘About a hundred yards.’ Emily’s scowl turned into a smile. ‘There’s at least three of them won’t be walking home tonight.’

‘Two of them,’ said a cheery, educated, mid-Atlantic voice, ‘may never walk again. Not without some serious surgical intervention anyway.’ The newcomer stood in a doorway that hadn’t been there the last time Will looked. The man was backlit, turning him into a silhouette against the painful glare. ‘Gotta admit: I like a woman who knows how to take care of herself.’

Emily’s eyes narrowed. ‘Blow it out your arse!’

‘Ah, touché.’ The silhouette folded its arms and leaned against the doorframe. ‘Well, now we’ve got the witty repartee out the way, I wanna know who you are and exactly what you’re doing at Sherman House.’

Silence.

‘OK…let’s try again. We know you don’t live here, so what are you: Newsies? Hope-Heads? Malkies? Don’t tell me you’re Flatworlders, that would be too disappointing. No? Neo-Christian Jihad?’

More silence.

The man shrugged. ‘You know, I don’t have to do this. If you like, we can just pump you full of chemical co-operation. Save everyone a load of time: I get what I need to know and you get moderate-to-severe brain damage. No skin off mine, is it?’

Will cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know who you are, but I can promise you we’re not journalists, religious freaks, enforcers, or Terra-rists.’

‘Glad to hear it. Your girlfriend’s too spunky for all that “space is for the Martians” bullshit.’ The silhouette cocked its head. ‘So what are you then?’

Will threw the question back: ‘What are you?’

‘Nope, sorry, that’s not the way it works. You answer my questions, or you end up taking your meals through a tube. So one last, and final, time: Who are you?’

Will shut his eyes. Tell the truth or lie?

Given the setup here, they’d be monitoring everything right down to his pupil dilation and skin temperature. If he tried to lie they’d know about it before he’d finished the sentence. And then the interrogation drugs would come out. Moderate-to-severe brain damage-there was no way he could do that to Emily.

He brought his chin up. ‘William Hunter: Assistant Network Director for Greater Glasgow and Central Section. This is Lieutenant Emily Brand, Rapid Deployment Squad Team Lead.’ He tried to put a bit of steel into his croaky voice. ‘Now exactly who and what are you?’

But the man in the doorway wasn’t playing.

‘If you’re a Network ASD, what you doing poking round Monstrosity Square without armed backup? Mind you, considering the mess your girlfriend made of Davis, McLean and Simpson, maybe you didn’t need it.’ There was a pause. ‘Why Sherman House, Mr Assistant Section Director?’

In for a penny: ‘Last week an SOC team was called out to flat one-twenty-two, forty-seventh floor. Their scene-of-crime scans show the place covered in blood, but when I went back there on Monday it was stripped clean. No bloodstains; just an old, tatty flat with faded wallpaper.’

‘You came all the way down here because someone tidied up?’

‘Two of the bodies we collected from Sherman House this week tested positive for VR syndrome. We need to know if there’s another outbreak brewing.’ It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. The machines wouldn’t get suspicious.

‘I see.’ The figure took a step back and the doorway faded, leaving nothing behind but mirrored glass. That fake American accent echoed around the room, ‘Don’t go anywhere, will you?’

And then Emily hissed at Will, ‘Why the hell did you tell him who we are?’

‘You want your brain fried with chemicals?’

‘You have no idea who he is! Terra-rists, Neo-Christian Jihad, even Gaelic Nation Separatists for fuck’s sake. They didn’t know who we were, and you just handed them a Network ASD for a hostage!’

Will nodded at the mountain of muscle in the dark-grey jumpsuit. ‘Look at him: he’s not a fanatic, he’s military. This whole place stinks of Black Ops.’

She looked at him. ‘That doesn’t exactly make me feel any better.’

Ten minutes later, the dim room blossomed into full light, sparkling back off the mirrored wall. A door popped open somewhere behind them, and that same transatlantic voice said, ‘Angus, please unfasten our guests.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The man-mountain started on Will’s restraints.

A figure wandered into view, hands in the pockets of his sharp, bottle-green suit. Late twenties. His hair was mousy brown and wavy, his eyes unremarkably blue. The kind of face you wouldn’t remember clearly when you were questioned by the police. He walked with a pronounced ‘clip clop’, on a pair of dark brown Cuban heels that added an extra inch-and-a-half to his height, and even then he only just scraped five-foot-eight.