A taxi pulled to a halt at the side of Canon Street, its door sliding open. A spectral fog drifted from inside, evaporating amongst the falling snow. Still groggy from whatever Archer had pumped into him, Helix steadied himself on the side of the door as he climbed out, dragging his right foot behind him. The vehicle moved off leaving him reeling in the cold while his smart-fabric clothing regulated his temperature. Pulling up his collar, he fixed his eye on one of the lane’s coffee shops and stumbled forward. Archer had returned his clothes and boots but not his PCM, Gabrielle’s letter or, unsurprisingly, his weapons. Movement was possible without his augmented prosthetics but he needed help to combat the drugs coursing through his veins and scrambling his thoughts. He needed coffee, something to eat and a plan. The realisation that the latter was something that he would have brainstormed with Ethan rattled inside him. Ethan remained in his thoughts but no longer reading them, no longer in his ear, and no longer behind his eye.
Concentrating on his feet, his hands waved an apology as he collided with a passing pedestrian. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. With his eye on his target, he pushed on only to find himself jerked back.
‘Look where you’re going, you twat,’ a hoarse voice said.
He cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me?’ he said. It was a question not a statement.
A blow to his shoulder knocked him off balance. As he regained his footing, a second shove flung him into the path of another thug. The shoves and pushes kept coming as he rebounded between his assailants like a pinball bouncing between flippers and bumpers. Already dizzy from the drugs, he fought to focus.
‘Wanker,’ one voice laughed. ‘Too much sauce last night, dickhead?’
The shoving subsided. Helix swayed to a halt.
‘What are you looking at?’ the hoarse voice grunted. ‘Pisshead.’
Tripping over the low kerb, Helix braced himself for impact with the wet pavement. He didn’t feel the damp, but the explosion in his ribs got his attention. A second kick knocked his arm away. The pavement felt warm against his cheek as he braced himself for the next blow, but it didn’t come.
‘Hey!’ a woman’s voice called. ‘Leave him alone, mamahuevo!’
The shoes and boots turned away, their owners focussing elsewhere. Pressing his hands to the pavement, Helix caught his breath. High heels, pumps and polished brogues tiptoed past, wary of becoming embroiled.
‘Mama what?’ Hoarse Voice said.
‘It’s Spanish for cocksucker.’
About to push up from the pavement, Helix was bundled aside by a falling grey-coated body. The slick sliding of boots across the ground heralded a winded grunt followed by a second upended man. On his hands and knees, Helix assessed the two fallen. They weren’t moving. He flinched at the tap on the shoulder, braced then relaxed. Turning towards the small offered hand, he took it and climbed to his feet.
‘Where’s the other one,’ he said, rubbing his hands together.
‘He legged it.’ The diminutive black-haired woman nodded up the street. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘I had it under control.’
She shook her hair loose and retied it into a ponytail. ‘It looked like it.’ She laughed, following him towards the coffee shop.
The chimes of the 08:45 news, playing in a perpetual loop across the screens in the coffee shops, had the office fodder reaching for their coats, scarves and takeaway cups as they fell into orderly ranks and headed for another busy morning staring into space. Helix swayed against the door as he pushed against the flow.
‘Can’t you wait, you moron?’ a pompous suit demanded. ‘You’ve spilt my wife’s latte all down her.’
‘Sorry,’ Helix mumbled. ‘She looks a bit tense, maybe you should try licking it off her. Might loosen her up a bit.’
He winced at the jab to his kidney as his rescuer elbowed him aside. ‘Leave it,’ she snapped.
The suit backed down, standing aside with his coffee-stained wife. Helix weaved to a table facing the door, back to the wall.
‘You’re welcome. Again.’
‘What for?’ he said, glancing at the menu, which was hovering next to the table. ‘I didn’t need rescuing. Again.’
‘Maybe you don’t.’
His finger froze over the menu as he canted his head towards her. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? The voids at the sides of his chest where his P226s normally hung yawned. What he really wanted was to eat and get his head straight. The suspicion-fuelled adrenaline spike ate away at the fog filling his head. If she was anything to do with Lytkin, he needed to know. Fast. He estimated her height at 5’ 2”, weight insignificant. Her matching trousers and jacket suggested practical versus posing, with a nod towards masculine. It was going to be like swatting a fly.
He feinted to her right. Darted his eyes at the door. She tensed. Took the bait. Looked over her shoulder. Gathering what energy he had, he exploded from the seat and drove his left fist forward with the full 240 pound weight of his body behind it. She dodged the blow, grasping his sleeve with one hand and the back of his jacket with the other. Exploiting his momentum, she stepped in and rotated her hips. By the time, his cloudy brain had processed his mistake, his view was of the coffee shop cart-wheeling before him as she executed a text book Ogoshi. Abandoned cutlery and cups rattled on the tables as he crashed onto the slate effect tiling.
He winced through the pain from the floor, his arm extended upwards, wrist bent back at the joint.
‘Your right arm’s already bust,’ she spat. ‘Want me to break this one too, or maybe the other leg?’
Her accent was Latin American but her attitude and turn of phrase were pure Ethan. He weighed his options. He wasn’t in a position to beat a confession out of her, so he used the same ID challenge he’d
