"We already know."

Jack shrugged, wrapping his scarf more tightly around his neck and pulling it up over his nose to guard against the cold. Beyond the concrete overhang of the apartment block behind them, the rain tapped out a dead drum-roll on the scrubby earth. Drops snaked down the skeleton of an old car; a model from decades ago, and were stained red by the rust that ate away at its steel bones. They dripped into brown-orange pools in the mud.

"Not my problem," he said.

"It is, Mr Bretton. If you want to leave, it is."

Jack didn't look at the other man. He was bored of looking at them. They always looked the same; unremarkable, without anything about their features that would make them distinctive. They must pick them specially for jobs like this. Their clothing was always nondescript, never too expensive. From their appearance, they might have lived in the rat-ridden apartment block Jack now leaned against. And they always sent someone different. He'd given information to men and women, a few years younger than him to at least twice his age. Once, he'd even told a girl who could not have been a day older than thirteen about a vandalism run on some government offices down-town.

He shrugged again, but there was less energy in the movement than before.

"Do you have anything else for us?"

"There's a meeting in half-an-hour. I'll find out more then," he said, with the bare minimum of effort.

"Good. And Mr Bretton, will you be at the event that is planned for today?"

This time Jack did look at the government operative, straight in his passive blue-grey eyes, and did so with obvious incredulity. It had never occurred to him to find a way to avoid the riot that Gloria had organised, he guessed when she'd managed to tear herself away from those fucking ancient vinyl records she worshipped. He hadn't been assigned to her unit for long but her reputation had preceded her. Obviously there would be a government action against the riot; more brutal and more co-ordinated than if they'd only found out about it as and when it happened, but he didn't care. He'd be there. Maybe even a stray bullet would... But no, they'd make sure that he, one of their precious cons, made it out alive.

"Yeah, of course I fucking will be," he said, pulling down his scarf to spit onto the floor.

"I see. We'll be in touch."

And with that, the other man walked out into the rain, picking his way across the debris that was scattered across the wasteland that lay between this apartment block and the next, until he was out of Jack's sight.

Jack stayed where he was for a few minutes, black on grey in the dimness beneath the concrete overhang as he watched the rain come down between the buildings that yawned, like rotten teeth, into the bruised sky. Then, he turned up the collar of his jacket, flexed the fingers of his bionic hand underneath the fabric of his glove then ventured down the side-alley next to the apartment block that led to the street. There, he became anyone, just another person walking the megacity's pavements. One that happened to be heading towards the tall, crumbling block twenty minutes trudge away that, for now, was the make-shift headquarters of the Resistance.



After climbing the precarious stairwells, side-stepping cracks in the concrete that revealed the drop below, Jack irritably gave his password and name and joined the Resistance members upstairs. The top room was large and not separated into what had once been apartments like the floors below. Perhaps it had been intended for storage or electricals. More likely, the developers had run out of money before they could finish the place. Windows gaped glasslessly at the cityscape beyond, silhouetting the gathering figures against the equally gathering clouds. Gloria was already here and looking at her, Jack privately reiterated the long-decided observation that she would be attractive if she ditched the moronic school-girl style outfit. That twitchy little prick Grace was here too; sprawled dramatically across one of the fading sofas like he was acting in a scene from a film.

Wordlessly, Jack went to stand near the back of the room and leant against the wall with his arms crossed. After shooting a mildly flirtatious smile at a woman who had turned to see who had joined them, he settled down to wait for the meeting to begin.