The man in question was sitting on one of the slabs, drinking a mug of something that sent sweet-lemony-menthol steam into the cold, circular room. His lunch was spread out on the stainless steel beside him, and as they crossed the floor he popped a slice of CheatMeat in his mouth and made blocked up chewing noises.

‘Supposed to be teriyaki swan,’ he said, voice echoing off the metal walls, ‘but it tastes more like old socks.’ He polished off another slice. ‘Who’s this you’ve brought with you?’

‘George: Detective Sergeant Jo Cameron. She’s going to be with us for a while, helping coordinate Network-Bluecoat investigations and resources.’

‘A veritable vision in green…’ A smile pulled at George’s podgy face, making his cheeks swell and his eyes disappear into little wrinkly slits. Like a short-arsed Buddha on an off day. He reached out and took the hand Jo had stuck out for shaking, turning it at the last minute to kiss the back. ‘What’s a lovely creature like you doing hanging around with Mr Misery Guts here?’ He beamed up at her, apparently having no intention of giving her hand back.

Indecision flitted across DS Cameron’s face and Will got the nasty feeling she was about to punch the pathologist’s teeth down his throat. But she didn’t. Instead she performed a graceful little curtsey and batted her eyelashes.

‘Well now…’ she treated George to the full strength of her smile. ‘How else would I get to meet a man as handsome as yourself?’

George just giggled and blushed.

‘If you two have quite finished.’ Will marched over to the centre console and brought up the file on the mangled remains they’d retrieved from Sherman House that morning. The lights dimmed and an old holo projector flickered into life: 3D shots of the victim’s remains crackling in the air as the carousel started to turn-its long mechanical arms selecting the appropriate bodypod from the pigeon-holes lining the walls.

An examination slab creaked up out of the floor and the carousel clicked the metallic canister into it, retreating back to the roof as George waddled over and unclipped the tabs. With a faint poom of trapped air, the tube fell open, revealing a collection of pale-yellow body parts, all neatly labelled and categorized.

George had forgotten to put the top of the skull on, exposing a nasty interior view of their victim’s head. ‘Oops.’ He popped the hairy lid back in place and secured it with a squirt of skinglue. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr Allan Brown.’

‘You got an ID?’ Will was impressed. ‘How the hell did you manage that?’

‘Ah.’ George tapped the side of his nose, scrunched up his face, and sneezed explosively. Then snorked into a scabrous hanky. ‘Mr Brown was part of the PsychTech programme. They kept full records: dental, retina, DNA…you name it they kept it.’

PsychTech. Jesus, even the word was enough to make Will’s stomach churn. He swallowed hard, wondering why it suddenly felt hot in here.

The little pathologist waved a hand at the holo image. Nothing happened, so he did it twice more, cursed, then stomped back to the console, kicked it, and stabbed a couple of buttons. A naked child appeared next to the cutting slab, fizzling in and out of existence. A little blue tag, floating next to his head, said ‘ALLAN BROWN-5 YEARS OLD’. The image lurched as the child grew, the counter increasing with every holographic scan. The last one in the series showed Brown at eighteen, six years before someone decorated a stinking toilet cubicle with his innards. An unremarkable young man with nothing but pain and death in his future.

George hauled a transparent plastic bag from the canister. There was a large, unmistakeable, gelatinous-grey lump sitting in a puddle of yellowy liquid.

‘You’re not going to like what I got out of his brain.’

Will forced a smile. ‘Can’t be any worse than the stomach contents.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ He waved at the display again, and this time it worked: a large schematic of the victim’s brain appeared, bright green, yellow and red bands glowing in the dim mortuary light. ‘See it?’

Will frowned, trying to work out what the different colours meant in terms of neural chemistry. He’d only ever learned to recognize two patterns: one was the distinctive mark of the confirmed serial killer, the other was far more dangerous. Right now he was looking at a combination of the two.

‘You’re right. I don’t like it.’

‘There’s more.’ The little man pulled a datapad from his pocket and typed in a rapid stream of numbers. Another naked figure flickered into life beside Allan Brown, only this one looked like a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces were missing. ‘Mr Kevin McEwan, he came in day before yesterday. They found bits of his family all over the apartment. Wife and two children.’

A second brain appeared, turning slowly in cross section. Large chunks of it were missing-most of the back where the brainstem should have been was gone-the edges all torn and frayed.

‘Doesn’t have the same level of prefrontal lobe activity, but everything else is the same.’

DS Cameron stared up at the floating brains. ‘I don’t get it…What are we looking at?’

Will pointed at the one on the right. ‘This is the guy we scraped off the toilet floor at Sherman House this morning. You see the yellow banding? That’s caused by a lack of serotonin and glucose; it means a loss of activity in the prefrontal lobes. When that happens, you get someone who has a great deal of difficulty controlling their base urges. More often than not they don’t even try. It’s a classic indicator of a disorganized serial killer.’

She nodded. ‘So this could be a revenge thing: our victim-’

‘It’s also indicative of something else.’

‘What?’

The pathologist pulled out his hanky again. ‘Remember the VRs?’

‘You’re kidding!’

George blew his nose, then sighed. ‘I wish. The brain patterns are almost identical. I started looking for a connection as soon as I got an ID on the stiff you brought in. They’re both from Sherman House. Lived two apartments away from each other.’

Oh shit…This was not good. This was not good at all.

Will stared at the ceiling for a moment. Took a deep breath. Swore. ‘We’re going to have to go back there, aren’t we?’

DS Cameron turned on him. ‘What do you mean, “we”? This is my investigation, you were only there for SOC backup. All that bollocks you spouted about cooperation, and first chance you get you steal my case!’

‘I don’t have any choice, OK?’ Will ran a hand across his eyes. ‘If this really is an outbreak of VR syndrome it’s a Network matter. Fuck…’ He kicked the nearest chunk of machinery. Didn’t make him feel any better: his stomach was still full of snakes. ‘Better grab your coat DS Cameron: we’re going on a little field trip.’

High above the streets lazy, golden clouds drifted slowly westward. A pair of Scrubbers floated in the stale air: huge rusty metal shapes, dripping condensation from their swimming-pool-sized filtration units onto the buildings below, where it evaporated as soon as it hit the hot concrete. The advertising hoardings bolted to the Scrubbers’ sides juddered, the pictures out of sync; misaligned and fuzzy. What was the point of fixing them? No one looked up any more.

If anyone had, they’d have seen a Network Dragonfly jinking past the out-of-focus displays, heading for the south side of the city. Half a mile out it dropped to street level and banked right, roaring between the huge connurb blocks.

And there was Monstrosity Square: dead ahead.

Will watched it growing on his monitor. Calm. Stay calm. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Nothing to worry about. Everything was going to be fine. They were OK this morning, weren’t they? In through the nose, out through the mouth.