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Well, life got in the way and I didn't finish this after all, despite the good intentions. I do intend to come back to this, but it'll be a while as I have lots of other projects on my plate.

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Chapter Thirty-One

Jay woke up, opened his eyes. The pictures he had seen had been so vividly coloured and real that he half expected to find himself, once again a child, in his mother’s arms. How was it that he hadn’t dreamed like that in years? Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he had ever had a dream. These thoughts, however, were suddenly wiped away by his startling predicament. He started to remember the events of the night before, and his eyes darted around, looking for possible danger.


The street was in daylight mode, and from where he was lying he could see the odd bubble car pass by. The sound of an automatically triggered advertisement also accompanied this low whirring of the electric vehicle.

He felt stiff all over, probably as a result of the frantic running he did yesterday and he was sore in many places, definitely the result of his beating. Suddenly he remembered what had happened to his chip, and he felt his arm now. The place where the chip had been stung, and a scab had begun to form from the clotted blood. Who had done it? And why? Was it to sell on the black market? Was it to steal his money? His identity? He wondered if at that very moment someone was inside his flat and…and what? Why would they be interested in his flat? They had probably made a transfer of funds and ditched the chip. Or was it all a scam to give an outsider a new identity? He didn’t know enough about the world of crime to answer any of these questions, so he shook them from his mind and concentrated on the problem in hand. What was he going to do to get his life…and his identity back.

Surely, he thought, as a legal citizen of the city, simply by presenting himself at a city guard station and making a claim would be enough? There must be a system for people like him who had been robbed. Yes, that was it. He would locate the nearest city guard station and they would help him. Of course, he would have to approach it right, so they just didn’t think he was an ex-insider. He would have to be convincing, and probably, have a little luck.

He stood up and brushed himself down the best he could. As he hadn’t bathed and had been lying in the dirty tunnel, he realised he smelled bad. The dirt on his skin also made him itch, but he resisted the temptation to scratch. If only he could clean himself up a bit before going to the city guards. Suddenly he had an idea, and realised that he would first head back to his flat block.

He stepped out from the alleyway and attempted to get his bearings. It didn’t take him long to see where he had come from yesterday and he started walking back along the side tunnels, heading for the main one that would lead to his own apartment block.

Ten minutes walk later, and he walked through the subway that had been the site of his predicament. He hadn’t met anyone on his walk, and realised that very few people actually did walk, preferring to take their bubble cars, or taxis everywhere. Those who did walk, he supposed, did it only if where they were going was a very short distance from where they lived.

He emerged from the subway and walked down to his flat block. Of course, the doors would be closed, preventing his access, but all he had to do was wait until someone came out, and then he could slip inside. At least, then, he would be off the street, and one step closer to home. So long as he didn’t attract the attention of the other residents, he figured he would be left alone, and although it was highly unlikely that he would be able to enter his own apartment, he wanted to check it out, to make sure nobody else was there. After he had done that, he would try to get into the gymnasium. He knew that once he was there, he could use a shower. That was the plan, anyway. He didn’t know how many controls there would be on the way, or if there would be a sensor like in the bar last night that would alert the management of the building to the presence of a chip-less visitor. Somehow, and feeling positive, he doubted there would be. Well, whatever there was, he would soon find out.

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Chapter Thirty

To begin with, he could not see her. She was running alongside the wall on the side nearest the strange, arched, brick-red building, and he was on the other side of the tall barrier. How he had got there he didn’t know. But he could hear her voice, calling his name. It was a desperate cry, and it stirred him from watching the machine at work. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was a smooth and shiny silvery-yellow colour, enormous and great fun to watch. Jay felt he had been staring at the big machine for hours, fascinated with its graceful movements, but unaware of the meaning of them, or the results.

Now he could hear his mother's voice again, but he did not answer. What did she want anyway? Why did she always have to spoil his fun? He had moved his head slightly when he first heard her voice, but now it was back to watching the machine's silvery-yellow rotors whirl round and round and round as it moved up and down, and along the open patch of ground. It was as if he was been given a special display, just for him, of a secret, new invention, whose purpose had not yet been revealed.

Jay then turned to see his mother's figure running towards him through the crack in the wall where Jay had come through. That was it, he supposed. Now, he would have to go. And leave the fascinating machine to its private machinations. Sam couldn't wait until he was big so he could do anything he wanted to. Being only seven years old was no fun.

He was slightly worried now. Was she mad at him? Why, what had he done? Was he not supposed to be this side of the wall? Was the machine something he should not have seen? As he watched his mother's red and white dress flapping about in the wind as she raced towards him, her expression changing now from one of worry to anger, he felt himself about to break into tears. It wasn't his fault. What had he done? Nothing wrong. He had only slipped through the wall and sat down to watch something that was already going on. Surely that wasn’t bad, although he did feel a guilty pleasure somewhere inside of him. But was that because of his watching the machine, or escaping from his mother? He could not say, didn’t have time to say, as his mother swooped him up into her arms, and whisked him away from his pleasure, back through the wall and down the track to the car, where his father was waiting for them.

Jay's mother would have burst into tears as she picked the boy up into her arms but her eyes were already streaming. She grabbed him and held him to her as tightly as she could, as if he was all she had left in the world. The boy was obviously confused and had started crying himself. As they got to the car, Jay’s father beaming a smile, they both stood there in tears together. His mother was not angry, or worried now, but simply desperate, knowing that she would not be able to find words to tell him his father was not coming back with them.


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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Jay sped through the subway and up the stairs at the other end. He moved onwards through the first tunnel he saw in front of him, and then started zig-zagging to try and lose his pursuers. After ten minutes, he realised he could run no longer, and so he stopped, slipping into the entrance of an alley which was similar to that he had left. His heart was racing, his breath was trying to catch up, and his head had begun to pound with pain again. His fear had forced him to forget about his previous aches and pains, but he found them coming back to him now. And he waited. Waited for the arrival of his potential attackers.

Fortunately, nobody came. He had lost them, although Jay sat down in his alley, and waited, covering himself with his coat as much as he could, and staying completely still, in case Jimbo and the security guard caught him up. It was as his breath started to come back to him that he realised how tired he was. Despite himself, trying to shake himsefl awake a few times, he found he could resist sleep no longer, and his eyes closed and he relaxed into a fitful exhausted trance.

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Chapter Twenty Eight

Jay walked into the darkness that lay behind the doorway. As he moved into the unlit space, a light came on and he saw what looked like a fire exit at the bottom of the illuminated white corridoor. There were also two doors opposite each other half-way along the corridoor. As Jay stepped forward tentatively, he heard the sound of the door closing behind him.

Obviously, Jay wasn’t the first chip-less person to have tried his luck in the bar. What did that mean? For one, it meant that what Aimee had said to him about the ex-insiders was probably true. There were certainly more of them than he’d thought there could be. Enough had tried their luck in this place to warrant the security guards going around checking anyway. As he stood there, he thought of Aimee, and wondered what she would make of his adventure when he eventually got home. He didn’t have much time to think as the door to his left opened and he heard the noise of voices from within what was probably a warehouse or storeroom.

Jay moved forward quickly, anxious to avoid any confrontation, hoping to slip past whoever had opened the door. The last thing he wanted was to have to explain himself to warehouse staff. Although he moved quickly, he was forced to stop just as quick as the body of a man emerged into the corridoor. Surprisingly, it was the same guard he had seen inside the bar. The man smiled knowingly at Jay. Worryingly, Jay saw he had exchanged the remote control for a black plastic stick. He rapped on the door opposite, calling out to whoever was behind it.

‘Got another one here, Jimbo. Two in one night, can you believe it?’

Without thinking twice about it, or waiting for Jimbo to appear, Jay took advantage of the guard’s momentary distraction and launched himself quickly forward. The speed at which he did this took the security guard by surprise, and as Jay barged past the man, he toppled over onto his side. Jay staggered past the man, who was flailing his arms about, trying both to break his fall, and to grab hold of Jay as he moved dforward towards the fire exit.

As Jay recovered himself, he heard the other door open and the sound of shouting behind. Jay didn’t look round, but nonetheless felt he would be followed as he burst through the fire door into an narrow alleyway. He looked both left and right quickly, and then headed right because left looked like it was a dead end. As he ran past boxes piled up next to the wall of the bar, he felt he was being followed, although he couldn’t tell for sure. The alleyway was dark and smelled of urine and fish beer. Jay kept running, and realised he was heading for a side exit towards the front of the bar. A mental map of the area quickly came to mind, and, knowing there were few places he could hide near his flat, he decided to cross the subway again. That’s it, he thought to himself, he’d head for the restaurant where he had originally been heading. Surely I’ll be able to convince them who I am or get some help there, he told himself.

Just before he came out of the alleyway, he stopped himself as he became aware of something lying in front of his way out. At first, he had no idea what it was, but as he approached, he realised it was the twisted body of a man. He was limply sitting, with his back to the wall, his arms bent forward. The man’s head was twisted and Jay guessed the neck was broken. Clotted blood covered the nose, with more lying in a small pool by the side of the head. Jay started running again, and heard the clutter of boxes falling behind him. Jimbo or the security guard, or both of them, were definitely following him now.

Jay vaulted over the body of the man, and as he emerged into the street, it occured to him to knock at the boxes behind him, causing them to fall over onto the body behind him, and blocking the exit temporarily. Hopefully, this would give Jay enough time to escape.

He darted down the tunnel heading for the subway entrance. A bubble car passed him going in the opposite direction, and he could hear the sound of a siren in the distance, and the sound of artifical waves crashing from an electronic billboard on the other side of the street. Jay grabbed the rail of the stairway to the subway, and heaved himself downwards, his hear tpunding in his chest.

‘Do you often dream of paradise?’ asked the billboard, ‘If not, then you need to change your fleece-bedding now. Avalon Fleece, for that deep sleep you’ve always dreamed of.’

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